My last two posts...what were those all about?!
I recently have been looking at tons of artwork ever since coming across HUGE Phoenix Wright pictures in very high quality. I thought, if I can find these can't I find art from other artists in such high quality. So I spent most of this week doing just that, though, mainly looking at concept art (because that stuff blows my mind, all that white space and still so much form!)
Then I started noticing how they did what they did in each picture. How was I able to figure such a wild thing out? Well, experience from the programs that I know that they are using (ch'ya I can tell if you used SAI or Photoshop just from the look of your brush strokes), and something else. None of the pictures I looked at were 100% perfect. That is to say, they have really small mistakes that I would have counted as major faults in the artwork, except that if I saw the picture in slightly lower quality it would look like a masterpiece to me.
I've realized that I'm probably not the only one who freaks out about tiny mistakes. These little mistakes from professional artists have reassured me that the tiny mistakes are meaningless.
Is there one white pixel among a coloured space? Did you not colour one small colour? Is the colouring really flat and too striking close up? Does the lineart not match the soft shading of the rest of the drawing? Is the lineart the wrong colour? Are the eyes asymmetrical?
All these questions I've constantly asked myself as I was doing a picture, or looking back at the picture. I become so critical of myself I miss the big picture.
That's what every artist should focus on, the big picture!
You could criticize any form of art. Dancing, music, etc. Nothing is perfect, there is always a small detail. If you spend all your time trying to cover up all the most miniscule of holes, cover up every pixel in colour, you are wasting your time and energy and not looking at the picture as a whole.
As a whole where are the mistakes?
This is why when you look at a picture you should look at it from a distance.
Although that IS the point that I am getting to, looking at the small thumbnail of a picture, even if it looks really cool, is not what your actual picture looks like. I am also guilty of that large mistake. Fix it and shape it enough to where you could look at it at about 25-35% and think it looks good.
That is my big advice to all artists, but especially beginners. I've noticed a lot of beginners focus on so many small things that just get them stuck. The best thing to do it free your brush, your pen. Let it go all over the page. If you make a mistake use that mistake to form something new.
The painter is just a magician that makes a bunch of dots and squiggles look like a reflection of humanity.
Okie-dokie~! That's all I wanted ta say~! ;D
