an art experiment

So I've decided to try a little art experiment. I thought I would do a self portrait concept that's been floating around in my head lately. I have a problem completing my images though, so this little experiment is an attempt to remedy that.

Here's the plan of attack:

1. the image will be done entirely in OC ver. 1.1x so that people can watch the WPE animation after the fact if they would like. If you don't know what WPEs are, let me know either here, or email me.
2. I will spend NO MORE than 15 minutes on the raw sketch work. This is just the raw conceptual level.
3. I will spend no more than 1/2 hour on 'inking' the image
4. I will spend no more than 45 minutes on the color work.

This will (theoretically) leave me with a finished self portrait in 1.5 hours.

I have a countdown timer downloaded and installed for the purpose of keeping me from getting ADD and keeping me honest.

Here goes nuthin'!

self portrait experiment: first stage

Click here if you would like to go to the first post re: this experiment.

Okay, I've finished the raw sketchwork stage. Found it extremely difficult to keep myself to the 15 minute limit. Found myself thinking "but I don't have enough fleshed out for the inking stage" in reference to a wide range of parts to the image. This is all about time however, so I'm sticking to it. This is the result of the first stage. I will post a link to the WPE once the project is completed.

self portrait experiment: second stage

Click here if you would like to go to the first post in this series.

Stage Two: Inking - Wow. I have to say that I really loved this stage. I found the image pulling together and becoming more 'tight' as if by magic. I found myself forced to make a single line to edge a form where I would normally be very 'sketchy'. I didn't have the time to be sketchy and refine it later. In fact, I had pretty much completely finished the image of me and had only 3/4 completed the head of the dragon when I realized that my time was over half gone. Also of note I love that I started to have the ability to 'hint at' a spot (like the dragon's toes) and have it flesh out very fast.

On to Stage Three!

self portrait experiment: third stage

Click here to jump to the original post for this experiment.

Stage Three: Colors - Dayam. I really wanted to complete the image in the allotted time, but more important than that was the idea of sticking with the time constraints. Thus, I give you this report of the progress I made. I'm going to see how much longer it's going to take me to actually finish the image, but clearly I needed more than the 45 minutes I had originally allocated. I guess I kinda knew that before I started this stage, but I figured I could just push myself more. I did push myself pretty good, and I think that I accomplished a lot given the speed with which I normally do my color work, so I think that it's fair to say that the experiment has been a pretty solid success. I've come to understand that there are times that I really just need to stop 'nit-picking' and get my butt in gear. Stop worrying about the details so early on - that's the main lesson learned. Now to just apply it more often...

...and to finish this image!

self portrait experiment: fourth stage - finished

Click here to jump to the original post for this experiment.
Stage Four: Touch Up/Clean Up - Yeah. I guess you could call it that, though it seems a bit deceptive. I spent another hour and a quarter on this bad boy, and I could easily spend a whole lot more on it. I'm not, but I could. Stick a fork in it, I'm calling it done (for now). I did have a lot of fun with it and I even got a little more daring at the end since Quito came in and gave me a few words of encouragement/advice. Overall, I would say (again) that the experiment was a success and I learned what I need to do to speed things up substantially. Why speed things up? Many reasons which I won't go into here, but suffice to say that if I want to make any kind of money through art, speed becomes a significant factor.

Now for my thoughts on the image itself (a critique, I guess - as though I was looking at someone else's image):

• I like the boldness of the revised inking - I really love a solid bold 'outline' to help bring objects into alignment visually. I like how significantly that helps to make things 'pop'.
• Overall I like the colors, but I think that the greens need some pretty significant help
• It needs a background, but I knew that wasn't happening since I was constricting myself time-wise
• I like that I look like me (sorta - just more beefy)
• I like that both our heads are more or less aligned - not sure what that says symbolically or whatever, but I like it
• The horns could use a LOT more detail, and I would like to rework the dragon's head a bit more (it's supposed to be based on the 'center skull' from my navigation menu)

I plan on doing some more of these in the future, though I find it strange that this project technically should have only taken me a little under 3 hours, and it feels like my whole day (except for my yummy meal out with xtingu and the boys) was dedicated to it.