Heating rooms everywhere

S-sorry, man! I don’t want any trouble!

Here! Just take my wallet! Here!

YEAH. Still drawing all my characters!

Karen and her husband, BRIAN.

Karen… is easily one of my weakest characters ever. This is embarrassing to admit but I made her after the thought, “I don’t have any female characters… I need one.” Haha.

Which is why it was surprising that people liked her. Not that I mind!

Her personality is still vague to me, as if she’s still keeping something from me and the characters. I think I just need to draw some more scenes out with her, the main thing though is that she has chemistry with everyone else. I think my favorite relationship with her might be her and Richard ‘cause when making her I was making a lazy mother character.

She’s not a bad mother, she’s just not very good at it, so she ends up depending on her family a lot and Richard ended up being a nearly over-bearing, well put together mother. Karen’s actually kind’ve the opposite of the female characters I usually make who end up being incredibly independent, involuntarily, always living alone doing their own thing.

The main thing though is I like her and I hope she ends up figuring out what she wants considering her family was her main concern and she doesn’t have them anymore.

I should probably go draw some comics now… but I’m so behind. Should I update some this week or just draw pages for next week? Guhhhhh.

Summer.

Did you know the phrase “boobs as melons” somehow leads to my blogspot?

What does that even mean.

Yep. I’m totally not gonna get this done in time, even if stay up the next two nights.

I might… I might fail and have to take a summer course.

Well, whatever. That’s the way it goes.

Apparently, when I’m stressed, I like drawing stupid shit.

Part of my photobooth series to make stupid poses with really bubblegum color palettes I would never normally use.

It does help with the stress!

This is Megan, our idol character.

This is something I’ve been wanting to talk about for a while now. I’m sure you’ve all heard of the phrase, “Nothing is original.”

This has been stated in many situations, from those who are cynical about art, to those who are passionate about art. The general consensus tends to be that the meaning of the phrase is, “Everything that has been done has been done, you can’t be original.”

Dude. That is BULLshit.

What, you think this is the apex of art? That progress couldn’t be made? That’s the end of art? Dude, fuck you. If that were true, everyone would be painting like Thomas Kinkade and there’s no way we could differentiate artists from each other.

So what the fuck does that mean?

Original can mean the origin, the beginning, or just innovative or acting in an independent manner.

So if every artist is unique to the point that you can tell them apart, how does that make them unoriginal?

Or, if that’s too broad for you, you can say art is constantly derivative, that’s how we manage to categorize art like how western art has four fingers and anime art has the same face/big eyes.

I’m not saying it’s impossible to break out of the confines of a genre, it’s just… what the fuck do you think art is then? Do you think you can make art independent of any influence?

That’s your life, your life is a conglomerate of everything you’ve experienced, art’s the same. No matter what you look at, it’s the end result of all the art that’s come before it. That’s life and that’s art.

Do you plan on making art independent of any and all factor, did you want your art to be the first form of art ever? You can’t, dude. Originality comes from understanding your predecessors and building on it, originality comes from looking at your contemporaries and finding your own voice.

Art is about understanding all these things and finding something unique to you. That’s originality, it’s your own interpretation of all the people that’ve come before you and all the ones you share this moment with.

Original just means your voice.

That’s why life is so fantastic, that’s why looking back is so important. It’s amazing that we have all this art that came before us, all the influences, all the voices to help us find our own path.

The belief that ideas don’t constantly contradict and, as a result, build upon itself is a fallacy, you can’t look at everything as derivative. We will always be building upon ideas the same way we are always influenced by ideas, and that’s what makes it all kind’ve amazing is this idea that we’re all connected, that these abstract concepts are passed around and more than one of us like to look at it, examine it, and analyze it.

We’ll always all be connected, even if you became a hermit. The influence we all have is massive.

This is how I relieve stress from working on finals nonstop.

I title this “Anthony at a photo booth”.

Stay classy, Anthony.

This is the other style I draw in at times. It’s more realistic and gives me a chance to play with different types more.

But y’know what? I just don’t like it. I post art in this style on occasion, it gives me a chance to be more varied and… I just get so fucking bored with it.

I can’t say why. I just don’t like it.

Discussing stylistic choice is a little weird, for one no one’s really wrong in their opinion, ‘cause it’s just an opinion. And it doesn’t matter how many technical points you make, it still ends up being an opinion.

So basically everything I say now is just based on my own opinion.

I kinda never felt the need to vary much, I never told character types through body structure very much.

This is something my friends and I discuss on occasion as we’re guilty of just everything looking the same. And it’s weird to say but at times it feels like a stylistic decision.

Sometimes it just means we have to tell the character more through their words and actions and that’s fun in its own way.

This probably all just sounds like an excuse to keep the style that I have.

And it kinda is.

I had a friend I tried to work on a comic project with once and he was upset I didn’t keep with my more realistic style. I guess you can say there’s more freedom in variation but for me it ended up being restrictive in a sense.

I just like drawing the way I do.

When planning out A Well Lit Path, I did put in more different facial structure and such for Alex to work off of but most of the time in my work I just don’t find it necessary.

I dunno, man. I don’t really have an excuse for the way I draw. Just, sorry.

I’ll probably just keep drawing and improving on my style, even if it means any variation is contained in my style.

Even so, I admire artists that are varied.

This might not be the appropriate place for it, but I feel like I should talk about myself as an artist.

I kinda hate drawing illustrations, haha. I never really liked it and I never once considered communication arts as a major.

Yet I draw all the time.

Which kinda lends itself to the fact I have a difficult time calling myself an artist.

I feel very comfortable calling myself an artist in terms of video, I really like editing and experimenting with filming but drawing I always thought of as more of a hobby and compulsion than anything else.

I also strongly identify myself as a story teller, I really like to write for visual mediums, and comics was always one of my favorites.

So I never really liked the pure act of drawing, I really liked drawing in terms of comics.

I liked getting better at drawing to tell better comics but that was oddly about it. Other than that I don’t end up striving for self-improvement a lot in art.

I know that would upset a lot of artists but again, I mean it in terms of pure art. I was never interested in self-improvement in drawing, but I was interested in self improvement in drawing in terms of comics.

I liked that getting better at anatomy or something meant I had better comics, not that I made better drawings.

I guess the reason I bring it up is because it makes me wonder about myself as an artist. I know a lot of artists get peeved at other artists who never try to improve, and rightfully so. I get peeved at writers who write whatever niche they’re known for.

Could I call myself an artist? Am what I’m doing insulting to other artists as a result?

I don’t really know. I just know whatever I am, it’s not an illustrator or an artist.

I always want to keep getting better, of course, but my reasons end up being different.

In life drawing class, I kinda sit stupidly when people ask me about my work. I just end up not thinking about it a lot, I just do it. But I think a lot about story telling, which kinda makes me believe that I don’t really like drawing, I just think I do.

Is that weird? That’s probably weird.

Jesus, it’s hell-a late. I’m going to bed to think about it some more. Really shouldn’t’ve taken that nap in the afternoon.

I dunno. What do you guys have to say on the matter?