Summary of art: 2014 - 2018 (a 5 year review)

I recently started to think about where I was going with my progress in art, and realized that I haven't posted that much of art in here from the period of me picking up drawing again back in 2014...

.. so, I would like to take the time to dive through the older pieces, hopefully to see them again with a more objective view:

2014 was the year where I picked up drawing again, having only done the occasional doodle in the years prior. There was a period in 2010 when I started to keep a sketchbook and try to draw as much as I could, but the practice stopped at the end of the year... And you can really see how upon picking it up again, I was more concerned with just drawing, not really caring about doing things the proper way (heck, Patche is holding Austin Kleon's Show Your Work, that's a damning evidence on where my mindset was during this year). Somewhere near the end of the year I tried to do something different with my work, and I can feel that at that point I was trying to go figure out how to draw 'properly'...

In 2015, I finally brought a digital tablet for the purpose of digital colouring (I had up to that point used the computer's mouse for that purpose, whoa). I was, however, pretty stubborn to insist on at least having traditional work in the proces, preferring to do the lineart traditionally and colouring it digitally. I also tried to do traditional colouring (poster colour, watercolour, colour pencil), but had not much confidence with them. I took the chance to experiment a bit here and there, in terms of art style, but I didn't really stray that far from what I was used to doing.

2016 marked the year where there were significant progress in my experimentation of style. During this year I tried my hand in a few different projects (I was involved in doujin comic book collab, a few illustration projects, and a Touhou christmas gift exchange event), and had went on to work on a few thematic challenge to force me to draw more regularly (see below). As far as style goes, you can really see that I was heading more towards realistic style (but not too realistic! there's just a bit of cartoony quality to them) - and this is very evident from the characters' eyes, they do seem to be much smaller than how I usually draw them. Also, I would have to note that this is the year where I begun to pay more attention to digital colouring, after feeling very unsatisfied with where I was going - and it is a process that I'm still working on up to this day.

Of note is these two monthly challenge I set to myself: one is to work on the theme of bondage (something that I occasionally allude to in some earlier works, but never actually explicitly draw... until now!), while the other is to push me to go full digital. I've got to say that I'm pretty proud with the work output for this year, I was pretty ambitious during this time. Probably my most productive year, both in term of work output and experimentation.

And if 2016 was my most productive year, 2017 felt like my least productive one. At this point I had started working, and in the period of where I had less time to draw, I begun to feel that I could not reach to the height in arts that I would like. If the first two year had me being in a devil-may-care attitude and the last year had me burning with ambition, this year was filled with uncertainty and more moments of self loathing (a friend commented candidly that one of the work that I was working on was 'kinda ugly', and I had to agree). I was very much into the whole realistic style, but it wasn't quite there yet - just an ugly duckling that wasn't sure if it was actually even a swan as it originally thought itself to be. I had however begun to discover the work of Alphonse Mucha sometime later in the year, and it had really given me a direction to strive forward too - although as observed by my input in the last four months, maybe I was going in that direction too strongly... 

And this all bring us to this year, where... for whatever reason, I was very much uninspired during the early part of the year. I had at this point try to seriously pay more attention to the basic of art, and it is pretty embarrassing to report that I don't have the patience and drive to commit to them (I understand the whole concept of the basic of art, and I know their importance, but I'm pretty lazy...). In the middle of the year, I had been struck with the urge to work on some themes that I always had some interest in, but never actually gotten to working on them in earnest: the occult, and - here it is again! - bondage. I have two illustration books that came out as a result of me pursuing those themes, and they were done in a more realistic style, which... the only good thing I can say about them is that they have potential to be better. Sometime in September-October I had set myself to work on a full solo comic (the last attempt was in 2016, and a short one in 2017), and - not only because of the pressure of not feeling like I'm good enough, but it definitely made things worse - I suffered a period of anxiety attacks which left me quite ill. It took me a while to pull through those dark period, and during that period I had came to a sobering realization that I have quite forgotten about the simple joy of drawing. I had - and maybe still have it, now - some anxiety that my drawing are quite bad... but thankfully, returning to these more clean and cute art style helped me to relax a bit, and with my moods significantly improved I feel that I could pick up again where I had left off.

I did manage to draw Patche for the whole months this year tho - take that, 2015 me!!

I am unsure if life will get in the way, and my work will unravel and crash in the future... but I have spend some time thinking on how I want to plan my journey moving forward:

I would have to consciously spend more time tackling the subject of the human figure if I hoped to go for a more realistic art style - or, heck, if I hoped to draw a more convincing human figure in general! I feel that as long as I'm not competent in this aspect, I can never hope that my drawings would be as good as I'd like them to;

At the same time, looking at how I had neglected this particular brand of art style that I'm comfortable with in the early years, now seemed like a good time to embrace that and use them more consciously in future works. Not only because I felt they are arguably better executed compared to my attempt at more realistic style, but drawing in these style is pretty pleasing for myself;

I have a terrible ego problem where I felt like I have to keep on working on projects to stay visible, that any time spent practicing is better spent on working on projects. Honestly I want to believe that I'm getting better - and dammit, other people better notice it too! - but I can't do much about how other perceive my work. What I could change, though, is my own satisfaction of my own work, one that is rooted in a more more objective, rather than a narcissistic, point of view of my work;

In vein of the last point, I have to own up of my enviousness to other artists - mostly to those who were progressing much faster than I was, those whose works were better received by others, and those who were going places (I mean that both figuratively and literally) with their works. I would have to come to term that these are all combination of hard work, ambition, and luck, and that I have to really stop feeling bad for myself!;

I have to come and accept that I simply do not have enough time as I would like, and I have not yet put in enough time as I should to be good. Sometime not too long ago I have told myself that I might have to give myself more time before I can actually see REAL progress. Realistically speaking I can never hope to pursue this as a full time work, so I have to re-orient myself as a student learning the craft. It WILL take a long time, and I can feel that I've only just started;

I started to notice that I'm really all into being 'in the zone', 'being in my own head' - that I'm starting to confuse being self centered and withdrawn with the pursue of artistic goals. I don't know how else to word it but to say that I have to step back and get my shit sorted out before I could hope to do good at art, that the idea of using art as an escapism have done me more harm than good (I would have to ascribe at least some of the dark periods my mind went to as being related to myself being too engrossed in my work). I have to disassociate my self worth with my progress in art, I suppose. Lastly;

I want to imagine myself going into a more child-like mindset when drawing, where I'm open and curious to seeing the world, more concerned with the process of drawing and not caring on the 'bigger picture'. I do feel myself losing this spirit of late, and while I'm not sure if I could return to a more naive/innocent mindset after being so cynical and jaded, I should always put things into perspective, and ask myself why is it that I'm doing all this?

And hopefully to come back to 'because I love doing it'.

I have some doubts if 'progress' is as straightforward as I would hope it to be (just look at the ups and downs over the last few years, as shown above...). But I am quite optimistic with where I'm going, and with a renewed sense of direction, I'm rather hopeful - excited, even - on working on some ideas that I have. There's a lot to be done, and I think I'm done doing all this talking.

Onwards!