[ Various ] GI+HSR doodles & sketches (Patreon)

Some recent doodles! I have been having a lot of ideas lately and I wanted to put some of them down, even in a quick way, because I'm not always so inspired to turn them into rendered illustrations but I thought it would be a pity to discard them and one day I can always come back and polish them~

In order:

• Wrio explorations - i still have to decide on some facial feature for him but I know for sure he's gonna be buff and hairy 🙏
• Merman/Hydro Dragon (as you will) Neuvi in his habitat
• "Evil" Vidyadhara Blade
• Jing Yuan warm-up sketch
• chibi Leon Kaveh + Snow Leopard Alhaitham, a doodle to get used at drawing on mum's iPad haha

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(Below: me rambling about art)

During these few days I've been having immense difficulties sliding into my creative headspace, doing art feels like squeezing a dry lemon. 

First of all, my hometown reaches 37°C and I have no AC installed at home. My hand would glue to the tablet if I didn't have a portable AC for my room... which gave me sinusitis which caused me a terrible headache which prevents me from sleeping 😩

Secondly, the interesting artistic explanations... the cycles of art creation:

(Credit for the above graph)

The graph shows how the art we make is perceived as good or bad based on our ability to see its flaws. Getting better means on first being able to see where we need to improve; though, seeing mistakes without being able to fix them leads to dissatisfaction ("Perceived lack of skill" in red)... until you identify the issues, study and learn how to fix them. At this point it follows a time in which the art seems very good ("Perceived skill" in green)! ...until further observation leads to more mistakes identification and the cycle restarts.
This is the reason why art is both painful and rewarding! ✨

Unfortunately for the Present Me but luckily for the Future Me, I'm currently at the "Perceived lack of skill" stage which doesn't allow Present Me to fully appreciate my art and get much satisfaction from it - to be honest, I don't like anything I'm doing dfghjkl

BUT!! While until yesterday I was lost in my sad feelings and demotivated, today I'm conscious of where I am and excited to start another journey of improvement and step up my art!!
First thing I had done today has been experimenting with a new technique which I tested on the 1st Wrio illustration of this post and on the HaiKaveh WIP I posted yesterday! I played with texture brushed, effects, filters, it's been fun and looks promising - I'm intrigued to see how it'll develop 👀
I'm also going to re-introduce daily warm-up sessions which I had lazily neglected for the past month in hope to improve facial structure and proportions, hand gestures and overall anatomy (I want to learn better those juicy details like muscle definition, veins, tendons contractions...) 

Also (and this is a pure and simple rant) I have unbelievable productivity spikes around the 2nd week of the month which climax at the 3rd, only to leave me completely drained at the 4th (here we are now)... during the 2nd and 3rd weeks I usually feel inspired for the long comics - it was the case for the Wrio/Neu comic which was born from a horny frenzy at week 3. I sketched 9 pages in a day, then loved working on each until week 4 clocked in making it so tough to finish!! I hate it how Week Four takes away from me the joy of drawing aaaaarghh!!
The studies I mentioned before are also a tactic to hopefully defeat the Week Four Demon 😤😤😤

I want to thank you all for the overwhelming support which allows me to indulge in these art rants and art studies. The immense joy I get from drawing for you pushes me further and further into art making in order to represent better and more immersive stories - thank you so much!! 🙇‍♂️💕💕❣