hi hi tell me about your art process!!! what is your favorite medium and tools and what do you like about them? what how do you generally start artworks? do you collect/take reference photos? do you make thumbnails first? walk me through your process as you work on your piece. what are the steps you take and how do you feel as you go about them? feel free to be as pretentious sounding as possible - give me your passion (and photos and videos if possible 🥺)
First of all, thank you so much for that ask!! I was so happy to see it! I hope I can answer these questions to your satisfaction 😅🩷
What is your favorite medium and tools and what do you like about them?
Well, the first medium, that really comes to my mind that I like the most is probably the simple pencil and paper. When I started to really lock in to this hobby 5 or 6 years ago, I simply started with a checkered notebook and a random pencil and went for it 😅 I really enjoy the feeling of the paper underneath my hands, and after while I started to use charcoal in my drawings as well. It was the first step that I took into the art world. For the longest time I only concentrated on pencil portraits, which allowed me to really improve after a while, but I did decide that I wanted to get better with digital arts as well.
Here is the very first sketch I did and one of the portraits that I mentioned:
How do you generally start artworks? Do you collect/take reference photos? Do you create thumbnails?
Honestly, for me to even be able start with any kind of piece - I need to be in the mood to actually want to create something. If I’m not in the mood to create something, nothing good comes from it. What I always do (and what a lot of other artists probably relate to as well) is that I peruse Pinterest for the longest time until I find a good reference picture 😂
I always use reference photos. I had to learn that it is ok for artists to use different reference photos and it helped me improve immensely by either collecting or merging different reference pictures together (or even taking them myself).
Do I use thumbnails? I haven’t really used or created any thumbnails for the longest time until very recently when I started to pay more attention to backgrounds and the environment that my characters are in. Here are some recent examples:
(Fun fact: Obi-Wan‘s hand holding the glass is actually mine 😅)
What are the steps I take and how do I feel as I go about them?
After I‘ve found a good idea and a reference I just… go at it. I either start to go right in with the face or I sketch out the whole body first. It all really depends on my mood and what I want to bring across the page. I‘m sorry if that‘s not the perfect answer but I believe it‘s different for every single artist anyways!
Here‘s a little timelapse that might show the chaos into creating my favorite hyperfixation atm!
As to what I feel about the steps I take while creating art? I feel like I go through the five stages of grief every time 😂
There‘s this scene in The Crown (S1: E9, 06:05) where Churchill paints the pond at his house and his wife asks him: „Are you winning?“
He replies: „No. There was one, brief, tantalizing moment when I thought I had it. I moved in for the kill. But then one wrong brushstroke and it got away once again.“
I never thought I‘d relate so much to a line in a series before.
I also recently heard this line:
The death of perfection is the birth of your momentum.
To bring this whole block of text to an end; Please just enjoy the process, enjoy your own progress and do not compare your art to anyone else‘s. Take inspiration from your favorite artists but don‘t put yourself down.
Thanks again for the interest 🩷
