Drawing a Patron's Pet as a Lil Victorian Schoolboy

I think we all need our pets drawn as lil Victorian-era schoolboys, to match their lil "Please, I've never eaten before in my life" attitude!

Full Fry Up tier study for Martyn!

I have been spending a lot of time lately really investigating the gaps in my art style and execution. I have been... dissatisfied with my output.

It's not that I don't like my art, or that I think I'm a bad artist or anything — far from it. I'm very proud of my art, and I think I'm really cool, and I love what I've produced! I will be the first to tell you that I'm a very skilled individual, that I've put in the work, and that I can make very beautiful, emotionally compelling work.

But there are places in my art that don't live up to what I want them to, which is quite normal. There are some fundamentals in value (darks and lights), light (how lig ht sources bounce around affect surfaces), and anatomy (structure of a body and pose) that I am skilled in but not an expert. I've been chipping away at learning those skills.

However, what really bothers me, more than anything, is I have not been putting enough emphasis on shapes. Long story short, in my drive to learn, I have overemphasized completely correct anatomical structure over the feel and flow of a character. There's nothing wrong with this. But it's a crutch I lean on that I want to get rid of.

It's kind of like if I were making a horror game, and there was a scary monster coming after the player. The player sees the monster on the camera a couple hallways over, but then I'm like, well, the monster can't just APPEAR at their door and scare the player! It has to walk all the way over there!

Does that make sense? Maybe? I don't know.

Basically I'm paying too much attention to physical reality and not enough to the atmosphere and experience of what I'm trying to invoke.

SO! Long story short: I'm trying to work on that.

I'm also looking into the kind of unique art I can make that touches on my favorite interests. Beatrix Potter has been an inspiration to me for my entire life, so the idea of making more critter-focused illustration — animals standing on their hindlegs rather than being more anthropomorphized — makes me REALLY happy.

Finally, one more thing: I've realized I tend to over-render faces, so I'm working on pulling back on that.

So that's what today's study was all about: making shapes, experimenting with less rendering, and playing with more critter-inspired designs!

There's another one I was working on for NightCat:

But alas, I had a doctor's appointment to get to and ran out of time.

This experiment isn't over, but we'll see how the winds of inspiration and art study take me! I love getting to explore art and learn more ways to make my art even better.

I hope you enjoyed this little deep dive into this week's study!

 — Caytlin