Baywatch Ike Evolution Under an Art Block (Patreon)

So I have an art block. Art blocks are a weird thing to describe because they sound like a made-up illness. It's a lot more complex than "I just can't draw right" but it tends to evoke the idea of a 19th century painter in the middle of a Sexy French Depression sighing in a very boheme way.

I've tried to explain it as being a dancer who suddenly can't remember their steps, or makes a lot more missteps than usual-- something that explains the physical difficulty of it. And that's just one kind of art block. There's many. There's lack of inspiration, there's difficulty in approaching the idea, there's just a sudden loss of spatial awareness so your proportions are very Learn to Draw Manga styled, and so on and so forth. And this is, shockingly, normal: no human being is ever capable of maintaining a 100%-constant outpour of productivity in any field. Such perfection would be great to have, but it just doesn't happen.

Art blocks are to be beaten. Can be beaten. Are beaten. The thing is, they take time.

The current Ike picture (BTW NSFW VERSION WILL BE ON THE PATREON PACK) is an example. This was supposed to be a 25 minute warmup and took me easily 6 hours of work.

From left to right, an initial concept, which I found had very poor flow. It was messy, poorly focused. Then, a second concept in the middle - scratched the original idea and started again, leading towards the final result, which took well over 8x times the time I hoped it would take.

Fight on.