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i'm qrt just so i don't bombard OP w/notifs LMAO BUT,
My technique for this was kind of backwards - I started fitting pieces into my attention span, as opposed to expanding my attention span to fit pieces! I'll elaborate lmao https://twitter.com/ChloeCarterArts/status/1349812915243687939
My technique for this was kind of backwards - I started fitting pieces into my attention span, as opposed to expanding my attention span to fit pieces! I'll elaborate lmao https://twitter.com/ChloeCarterArts/status/1349812915243687939
I'm a gremlin, I've got bonkers ADHD, and I before I started doing freelance, I was able to get away with just discarding for-fun sketches when I was no longer able to focus on them (and I'd always ALWAYS forget to pick them back up later)
Because of this, I never really finished anything, and never really built up my portfolio, and that behavior haunted me for YEARS, so at some point I just decided to see what I could finish in my 'time limit' for lack of better term LOL
So I spent a while drawing until i got bored, and thinking about how far I got, and what parts looked "finished" and what didn't. Then I started comparing it to art I thought looked finished, and I'd expand what I could get done bit by bit to hit "finished"
After that, I actually ended up taking a class by artist Lake Hurwitz, and he talked about process and heuristics in a way I never thought about before, and I realized a lot of reason why my enthusiasm dropped off was bc I didn't have a clear path ahead of what to do
So on top of trying to fit different things in my "finished" window (eg a full character, a bust, a scene, etc. etc.) and I really started thinking about the steps I was doin (e.g. what kind of sketch did I work with, did I do line art, when did I transition to painting, etc.)
And I did this for about a year - I would think about each step I was doing, where I lost enthusiasm, and, a very hard but very worthwhile step, when it was important to start over from the beginning with a piece to improv the flow of the process
I would study things I missed, and try little changes in my process, and after a year, I was able to narrow down my thoughts and clear my path, and in return, I wouldn't get frustrated or bogged down, so I'd nearly almost forget? to get bored with it, if that makes sense LOL
The clearer my path ahead was for what I wanted to get done, the easier it was for me to walk along it. I finished my first illustration that year actually! Was it perfect? No, but did I get most of what i wanted done in my 'time limit'? I could actually say yeah, i did for once!
I was lucky enough to do this during Lake's class, so I was able to get really good critique afterwards on it - while there's some obvs anatomy/lighting/ environment detail missing, the piece was able to communicate pretty much everything I wanted, so that was a huge win to me 
some quick tips it came down to was -
Brush stroke economy and improve some basics like antomy, light, etc.
BUT the most important thing I found was just.... faking confidence? I'll explain lmao
Brush stroke economy and improve some basics like antomy, light, etc.
BUT the most important thing I found was just.... faking confidence? I'll explain lmao
I'd just, tell myself that "yeah this goes there" or "yeah, this is what this looks like" (even if it didn't - I could always paint over later), and I'd use the BIGGEST brush i could for the section, and the most opaque brush setting I could. It got shit done REAL fast lmao
As long as I got the whole area I needed completely covered in either color or greys or whatever the design called for, I was already over half way there. I just started getting those chunks out faster and faster bc I got more and more comfortable doing it over and over again
This ended up being an incredibly long thread but the TL;DR of it is -
- A bit messy but finished is always better than perfect and unfinished
- Confidence is key even if its fake as hell
- Brush stroke economy is ur greatest tool for this specific problem LOL
- A bit messy but finished is always better than perfect and unfinished
- Confidence is key even if its fake as hell
- Brush stroke economy is ur greatest tool for this specific problem LOL
It aint always about focusing longer, sometimes its just about taking the time u have and makin it a bit more effective, bit by bit at a time. U ain't gotta work directly against urself just bc u happen to work differently than what was taught
