art project: goals & … goals … :)

In a recent chat with my husband about what I wanted from this art project, I said, “let’s face it, in terms of influence I’m—”

Ted: starts laughing

Me: What?

Ted: I’m waiting for you to say ‘landing somewhere between Wendy Pini & Jim Lee’

and…well… I mean… o.o

Me, vaguely indignant: well i was GOING to say Elfquest and X-Men, not Jim Lee specifically, but…yes…….

I mean, I’m never going to be as good as either of them, but still, it was both funny and spot-on.

But so anyway, then a few days ago this:

came up on my feed somewhere, and I went: Ah. Yes. This is the goal.

Not exactly, obviously: although I think it’s terrific, stylistically it’s not where I land. But it does highlight most of the elements I’m going for: very confident and clean line work, simplified but extant shading, significant personal style. I intend to work in B&W/greyscale rather than color because color is a WHOLE ‘NOTHER THING of its own and I would like to finish things rather than learn how to do literally everything decently, but in essence, I want to be able to do that, which…

…look, that’s professional-grade work, there. That’s a really high bar to set for myself. Especially because what I’m really interested in is doing sequentials, which this particular artist (whose online usename is Poluslus) doesn’t seem to do. If I could get even halfway there with my sequentials I’d be incredibly proud of myself and frankly flabbergasted. It’s a long way away, and some of getting there is learning how to meaningfully use my tablet to make art.

And last week a pose reference model on Bluesky posted an image of herself that she loved but that isn’t, apparently, the sort of thing that sells/is used. I, however, LOVED it and after a couple of days of telling myself I was supposed to be doing my art project, not random drawings, I went ahead and did it:

I’ve never previously used a brush of any kind in digital drawing & am painfully aware I basically skipped all the shadows, but that’s why I need to learn how to use my tablet properly. But I’m still really very happy with this: I did a REALLY GOOD job on the proportions and placements of the hands, better than I would have done before embarking on this ‘back to the basics’ program. The hair has a nice flow, and, wonderfully, the model herself was delighted with it.

Now, what I wish I had the ability to do was carve this whole image out of the black instead of adding a black background to it afterward, but…the point is really kind of, this is where I am, and up there ^^^^^^^^^ is where I want to be.

I don’t think it’s an insurmountable distance between those two places, but it’s not a walk in the park, either. So…

…well, I mean, the first step in getting there is finishing the 100 hours I’m currently doing. I’ve also gotten a handful of other Udemy courses because they were on sale and the critical thing they provide is structure/thinning out the impossible amount of information available – like, I KNOW I could learn all this for free, but finding good courses out of the HUGE AMOUNTS OF INFORMATION out there is just too much, I can’t and won’t do that.

So I’ve gotten a basic “how to use clip studio pro” course, an anime/manga character design course, a broader character design course, and a superhero anatomy course. It’s about another…60 hours of coursework after the 100 hours, although I expect to finish the 100 hours in something like 85-90 hours, really, so I think I’m looking at a, like, 150ish hour investment in re-developing or learning new basic proficiencies. I may also want to do some more intensely focused anatomy stuff, but I need to get through what the current courses have for those so I can get a feel for where I need to go with that, and if/how much time I want to invest in bringing those skills up to the mark. (There’s also a ‘draw anything’ thing by the guy who does the superhero anatomy one that I’m eyeing.)

I realize, of course, that this is all insane. At some point, years ago, I’d read about the 10K hours to become an expert in anything, with the additional thing that the first 2k hours are foundational. I reckoned then that I’d probably spent 1200-1500 hours in my life drawing, and that, yeah, probably another 500-800 hours would make a massive difference in my foundational skill level. I’m probably not going to do 500 hours of intense lessons like this (if for no other reason than at the rate I’m going it’d take another two years and I’d like to maybe be actually doing my web comic in that time instead of trying to reach a mythical level of Good Enough To Do It), but I think it’s been a good project for me, and also that it’s an absolutely fucking mental way to prep to do something that I was, by any normal standards, perfectly capable of doing in the first place.