Good evening, this is Christine! So tonight Dennis and I went to Barnes and Noble to find things that could inspire and amuse us. We found two books one on self publishing comics and the other on creating manga. Going through the books and seeing how people have done things is inspiring. They all seemed to know what they wanted, how to go there, and had been doing it for a long time and then wrote a book on it. I came home, and thought about the myriad of things that would go into the character development and how I wanted my characters to look. Do I want them to look “realistic”? Do I want them to be more on the cutesy side? Do I want them in between? Do I want a bunch of small chibi’s running around with a storyline that wouldn’t necessarily fit chibi characters? Well, I don’t’ know… I know it probably will not be all chibi’s nor do I want them all cutesy or all “realistic”, I don’t think. I know I want them to be mine. I could easily look through my various Pinterest pages and see what other people do, but that would get me stuck with feeling like I was somehow going to copy what others have done. I have done a lot of art in my life where I have used images and re-created them with changing a few elements, but they weren’t MINE completely 100%, but then there’s the idea that many artists pull inspiration from other places and is there anything truly 100% original? I think there’s original artwork out there, and I want to create my own. I am one who has collected comics but they were mostly X-Men and the side comics of the certain characters and different branches stemmed off of X-Men, but I have not been one to collect manga or other comics, nor have I read many webcomics. I know everyone starts somewhere. I know that not everyone has perfect drawings from the beginning and that the characters grow as they grow as artists. I want to be that artist that has her characters grow with them, but I know I have to start somewhere. I know this is rambling, but it also shows where my thoughts are in regards to creating something that I feel is my own artwork.
So I sat down at my art desk and tried to figure things out. I started drawing what has always been something I have drawn even when just doodling… eyes. I started judging my eyes that I was drawing “thats not mine” or “thats not good enough” and “ugh, I just don’t get this” and I was judging them rather harshly. I am still posting an image (below) of what I drew. I know that I can draw. I know that when I am inspired and have more positive thoughts about my art that I can do pretty darn well, but these eyes and sharing my thoughts shows you, the reader that I have doubts, that I have insecurities, and that I am human and not trying to copy everything that has come before and calling it mine. I know my ideas will flow better as I keep drawing. So this is the start of my study of my fae characters. I guess these “eyes” have it, or maybe not. My advice to other artists, keep creating. Not everything will flow at first, not everything will be what you consider to be perfect, but you’ll grow, they’ll grow, and the art will get better as you do it more. Good night friends, and fans, I am now off to take my own advice and not judge myself so harshly. Thank you for your reading, and I would love to know your thoughts!
