Artist Vibes
If you've been following my gallery, you may have noticed a few things about my art recently; I'm trying to give my characters more personality, I'm spending more time on backgrounds, and I'm trying to make everyone more expressive. I've made steady improvements as an artist, but I've noticed that although my abilities with drawing characters have improved, my abilities in other creative fields have stagnated. The biggest reason for this was that I spent years avoiding backgrounds in favor of drawing characters, trying to specialize in what I was good at rather than refining the areas that needed improvement. This is because part of being a character artist is being able to illustrate the characters I'm working with in different environments not only to showcase their reactions, but their personalities. This meant if I kept avoiding my weaknesses, it would cause my strengths to falter and develop slower. Hence, for pieces such as this one, Chillin' Vibes, and last year's Packing have had more details in their backgrounds. Though they've taken more time as a result, I've been immensely satisfied with how they turned out once they were finished.
Wow, that was a long opener. Onto the piece itself, I started sketching this piece in late July, not long after I finished Electra's Character Sheet. I planned on redesigning him for a while and I was happy I finally accomplished that goal, but partway through sketching this piece, I reevaluated my gallery and realized that I had neglected Chlora since 2021 whereas I've drawn all of her friends at least once since last year. I felt bad about how much I shelved her, and to atone for that, I decided to shelve this piece until Chlora's character sheet was done. Two and a half weeks later, I finished Chlora's character sheet, posted it on social media, and wrote her entry for the gallery. I was proud that I did her justice, but my mind was running on empty. After taking a day to recharge, I checked my idea lists and the WIPs on my iPad before realizing "oh wait, this exists" and picking it up again.
I don't know if I mentioned this in the entry for "Chillin' Vibes", but I've been wanting to retool the artwork for my gallery since earlier this year. The previous images for my front page, my about page, my FAQ page, and my Terms of Service were all drawn in 2021, back when my website was in its infancy and when Twitter was my platform of choice. While my skills as an artist and web designer improved, Twitter became increasingly unstable; the algorithms became increasingly erratic and worked against artists, users determined to undermine artists became increasingly common, and many artists I knew were jaded, burnt out by how hostile the platform was towards them. I was scared to leave it behind and start over, but that changed once I found bluer skies and more positive platforms for artists like myself to call home. Those platforms gave me the confidence to move forward, to create a new digital footprint in a healthier place. I associated the page images on my website from that era, especially my former front page image, with my time there, and I wanted to remake them so they would represent not only my growth as a person, but as an artist. This piece will serve as the new image for my about page, and I'll work on the images for my FAQ and Terms of Service at a later date.
One thing I noticed about a lot of my old art, specifically from late 2020 until early 2022, I went through an era of background design I'll call "the gradient era." Now there's nothing wrong with using gradients, especially for visual effects, but during that era, I used gradients in every other piece I'd drawn, and I used it exclusively for backgrounds. I never added texture, never added drop shadows, just glow and sparkle effects, maybe some clouds or background objects if I was feeling creative, and called it a day. It was my excuse for me to avoid drawing and studying backgrounds, and every piece I used for the pages on my website came from that era. If the gradients from my old pages symbolize uniformity, then my teal wallpaper pieces symbolize my desire for improvement.
Back to the piece itself, I stuck with the teal background from "Chillin' Vibes" because I wanted to carry the theme into my new images and because it meshed so well with everyone's color palettes. Replicating the wallpaper effect wasn't too difficult, especially since I learned how to use Clip Studio's "lock transparent pixels" and "clip to layer below" tools while working on the piece. Those tools made coloring and layering a LOT easier, as I used each character's base color to show what parts of them I wanted to show and which parts would be covered when lines overlapped. One of my biggest criticisms of my previous front page image was how I did a poor job layering the characters, especially Aqua, as the areas that should and shouldn't overlap for her were very poorly defined back then. Because of how that piece turned out, I monitored my layering as much as possible, making several backups of my line art as I was working so I always had something to go back to if made any mistakes during the layering process. By the time I finished, everyone had two sets of backup lines for me to use in the event that I screwed up. Yes, I was that concerned about the layering.
Before I wrap up this entry, I want to discuss some details that are worth noting: Everyone in this piece was so much fun to draw. The person in the middle isn't one of my OCs; rather, it's Me, and it's the first time I've drawn myself in about six years. The dissonance between how calm I am in the piece and everyone's chaotic behavior is intentional- I wanted the main four and their interactions with each other to reflect my chaotic and cluttered headspace when drawing, and I was going to draw myself wearing headphones to block out their shenanigans, but I scrapped that idea after the design of the headphones clashed with my hairline. I took some inspiration from life when drawing my desk setup here, as it's similar, albeit slightly messier, than what I've drawn here; I use my iPad to draw and my dual monitor setup consists of a laptop connected to a second monitor, which isn't much, but it's something. I don't have custom stickers for myself like I do in this piece, but I thought it would be cool to pay homage to my website's wallpaper. The sticker of an A with an arrow through it should be self-explanatory, but the sticker on my laptop with a book full of stars? That's a story for another time.
If I thought that "Chillin' Vibes" was my longest entry, then I think this one may have beat it out. Not all my entries will be this long, I promise, but it shows how much I value these pieces, how proud I am of my effort, and how closely these pieces resonate with me. This piece is another leap forward for me in terms of shifting my branding towards the present and future rather than dwelling on the past, which I'm happy about, and though I don't know when I'll finish the next piece in the collection, I'm glad I was able to compile my thoughts here for you all to read. My next piece will be smaller by comparison, but it will be nice to take a break between projects. Thank you so much for reading, and I can't wait to share my next piece... once it's finished, that is. Once I get the ball rolling, it shouldn't take long.