2023 New Year resolutions! 🥳

First blog post for the year and it's almost February already oop-!

Art struggles rant incoming:

I undertook an art mentorship mid last year after finishing my studies, with the goal to refresh my creative juices and get some direction after a long period of just kind of scraping by on really low energy/time for creative projects. It was a good experience but not necessarily positive... It turns out trying to turn in a 6 page comic storyboard every week for a month doesn’t really help with burn out.

Mostly it made me question: What are my goals?

Is it to create polished art pieces that will push me to grow as an artist? It is to receive instant validation online? If my goal is simply to have fun in the creative orgy  that is fandom, then there's no need to be too self-conscious about quality, much better to be shared and enjoyed than languish away in an ever growing WIP pile.

But then again, you only get better at what you practice, so am I doing myself a disservice to not applying myself fully to each and every piece? You’ve probably heard the phrase finished is better than perfect, but what exactly counts as “finished”?

Comics are hard and they take so much time... 

That being said, this year, I would like to settle down, learn to ink traditionally with nib dip pens and improve my comics and erotic drawing skills all around. Here's some tips and tricks I have gathered so far:

• Plan out panels and text bubbles first (It's also a lot easier to go from print page format to long web comic format than it is to go the other way!)
• Clean lines are overrated
• Contrast and texture, and more texture!
• Improve workflows with CSP, work smarter not harder!
• Always start with the preconception that you will one day require a print-ready format (This one has bit me in the ass so many times..)