Irregularlies #132

Aaand I am back! Damn this was an unproductive couple of days. I am so behind with everything. Good thing that I took a break from the blog because I coulr not update it anyway. 

Time for some sketches! Warning, the file is huge even after lowering the jpg quality:

I wanted to try a new approach to sketching. If you are interested more details after the break.

That sounded very official, didn't it? Anyway, I have some shit to write about. 

In the past couple of days three things happened that made me question the way I approach sketching.

1. I had two commisions where errors at the rough sketch phase cost me many hours of extra work later.

2. After I finished the comic I realised that I can't sketch anything new. Another fucking art block.

3.I saw this guy's(?) works: http://www.pixiv.net/member.php?id=59317

First two made me realise that there is something seriously wrong with the way I sketch, mostly how I start my drawings. It's something that I kinda knew was going on, but I ignored it for some reason. The problem is that I don't think while drawing. Not as much as I should, anyway. I rush into most sketches, not really thinking about what I am doing. I think that's the reason why I don't like most of my drawings. Because I can see the errors caused by lack of thought, and I see how much better and expressive the poses and composition would be if I only put some more efforts into designing them. 

The problem isn't that great when I am working on commisions, or when I was drawing the comic, because these, as opposed to sketching for myself, are not that easy to rush. I have to put some thought into a page layout, and rough sketches for the client. Still not as much as I could, but enough to come up with some good stuff. And after last two months, of working on the comic and commisions almost exclusively I sat down to draw some simple pinup for myself and I realised that I just can't do it. Something is missing. I don't have any outside structure forcing me to think about what I am drawing. I don't have a client waiting for a sketch, and I don't have a comic script (however rought it was in my head, it still was there) to guide me.

I started thinking about how to fix that problem. I started drawing slower, and drawing a lot more rough sketches when I am starting a drawing, but I felt that was not good enough. Just then I stumbled into this guy's pixiv gallery: http://www.pixiv.net/member.php?id=59317 Here's one of his uploads:

I have no Idea what's this picture, or any other he uploaded, all about. Is this a tutourial? A gesture study? A trace? What? Could somebody who can read japanese help me out here? Anyway, looking at these drawings made me wonder, are they finished inks? Is the sketch layer erased? Or is this the sketch layer? I don't see any unncecary lines, so this can't be a sketch. Or can it be? Maybe this guy just never draws a line he does not need... Why don't I approach my sketches this way? I thought about it for a while, and I did not have any good answer for that. 

So I tried it. I turned off density in my SAI pen, turned up the miminum diameter for the nub to 50% and tried taking it really slow yesterday evening. I tried making every line count. I failed miserably, and still rushed half of the time, but I feel that I've got something with this different way of sketching. Today's haul may not be an awesome step forward in quality of my art, but I feel that I've found a way to get better.

Art rant over! Sorry if it doesn't make sense.