#I was getting frustrated with trying to do painterly anime styles around this time and still have them look okay

[citrusducky]

portrait Hinata jumpscare (+ various non-fanart studies under the cut)

[kozachenko]

Ok the WIP I posted a little while ago is no loner a WIP yipeeeeeee I am so tired of looking at this drawing.

Artist's Notes:

THIS DRAWING IS FINALLY DONE YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!

Ok so this drawing was a WIP that I had had sitting around for a while, and so because I wanted to do a test run with the new face style I'm trying out, I decided to pick it back up again. Now you may notice that compared to the other version of the WIP, the shading is different, and that's because I had to change all of it to match the light source of the moon, which was.... not exactly fun (especially cuz I stayed up late at night to finish this which was tiring), but it was worth it because I am a lot happier with the shading now. Also, when I initially redid the shading on the white trim of her outfit, I ended up making them look like indiscreet white blobs that just looked... bad, so I had to fix that and I think it looks a lot better.

My favourite parts of this drawing have to be the face and the hair, though I'm not surprised about how much I like the hair since hair is my favourite thing to draw. Also the wolf, I really like how the wolf turned out, since I also love drawing animals from time to time. I also like how the background turned out.

Also, Enoko's design was a hit hard to get right, and I decided to add the white trim separating her shirt and skirt mainly because I didn't like how abruptly it changed in the original design. Also, for some reason her dress makes me think of 1800s-y southern/western clothes, which has given me the headcanon that Saki gave her these clothes when they first met. Makes me wanna draw the two of them together in very western styled clothes, I think it would be cute. I also changed up some of the colours on her original design to fit in more with the palette that I was going for with this piece. Also, I like how her tails turned out, mainly because when I was working on some of the sketch for this I tried to make them smaller, but they didn't look right so I just went "fuck it" and made them big and poofy. Also drawing her wolf ears was fun, I like drawing simplified wolf ears like that. Overall, I'd say I did a good job incorporating elements (like the bear trap hands, the tails, the gem) in a way that didn't feel like they were out of place in the piece (something I was concerned about with Enoko's design).

All in all, I wouldn't call this my best work, but I do like a lot of aspects of it. I've also noticed that I'm kinda getting a bit frustrated with certain parts of my style like the lighting (mainly the lighting), so I think I wanna try and branch back into that more painterly style that I started out with when I first started posting here while still mixing in some elements of my lineless style. Also, I need to get better with my colour values, mainly just for clarity since I kinda think that's where this drawing falls flat a little.

[galacticglass]

Ok sorry for the late response and it's a long one Response to #1 - I got you! As soon as I saw it I immediately went to the sources I had to try to attach some names to the artwork. The fandom wiki you linked does have official concept art in it, especially the shipyard drawings and the last two pencil drawings of Amelia are most definitely official. Funny enough when I clicked on one of the Amelia pencil drawings it took me to This Website which is filled with official art. I don't expect a lot of folks to know the difference between official concept art and fan art/fan edit when it matches the style well, but between the two you can see the official art never really looks exactly like the final film. (Gonna infodump for a sec, I used to be an animation tutor so I love talking about the process, so if this is stuff you already know feel free to skip) concept art is what artists use to plan the look of the film. Visual development artists usually take a sketchier or more painterly approach to establishing a look, whereas once a look is more achieved, there are more technical drawings established, such as character model sheets, layout drawings for sets, and even more technical drawings since this film uses a 2D hand drawn/3D CG hybrid approach. Big budget films won't really aim for that final screenshot look in their development stage.

As for identifying an artist for that made the fan art/edits, I couldn't track them down. I looked through the OP who included them in the wiki, which I doubt they were the original artist based on digging through their history on the Wiki and their social media, additionally it seems that user tended to run into issues with other users on the Wiki of what I gathered from my brief digging was posting inaccuracies and then getting into arguments with mods/admins. So unfortunately I couldn't find a name attached to the art :/

Response to #2 - YES!! That's the scene! It's the scene where Jim is rude to Amelia and insults her before giving her the map. In addition the Ken Duncan artwork you posted screencaps of IS FROM THAT SCENE! I tried searching it on the Internet Archive today but with no luck. I have no clue where it went, but am hopeful somebody would've saved it. Ugh it's so frustrating bc I remember this scene so clearly in my head, I watched it multiple times when I was a teenager, but for some reason it's nowhere near as easy to find in our year of 2024.

Response to #3 - Same! They've been floating around online since at least the mid 2010s. I'm thinking of booting up the DVD to see if I can find it there since they have a Behind the Scenes portion with concept art.

RE: Your Tags

Is the scene from the dvd the one where at the start Jim is helping out Billy Bones and returns to Sarah and Delbert? I do recall there being a few other pencil tests similar but that link I did find and I think it was on the DVD iirc?

Treasure Planet concept art

Source: Disney Fandom Wiki

Concept artist(s) unknown, I tried google reverse image search but only ended up back at the fandom wiki.

[sparrowvolk]

(the image is just so you can all see that i do in fact have a reblog button in my inbox. anyway.)

@hollyfire asked:

Any good pet sim recommendations? I play wolvden and I was looking for some good secondaries to play while my wolves finish hunting :)

Honestly the answer to this depends a lot on what you like about Wolvden, whether you've tried other sites, etc, but I'll treat this as a sort of general rec post. I've attempted to use indents to make it less of a wall of text, but it still definitely is. Sorry about that!

To anyone kind of new to petsites, or who was out of the game for a while, the big three right now are Flight Rising, Dappervolk, and Wolvden (/Lioden). Each of these have very different approaches, so if you like one you may not necessarily like the others.

Flight Rising is a dragon breeding game. It is very polished and has a lot of interesting mechanics and depth without being too overcomplicated. It would probably be the one I'd recommend to anyone shocked to discover that Neopets spawned a whole genre while they weren't looking. It is a great sampler of a lot of the things petsites tend to do these days, and also it has dragons.

Dappervolk is an avatar site with pet collecting and heavy rpg elements. I phrase it in that way because while the pets exist and are fun to collect, the focus is very much on your character and their interactions. It is widely reknowned for having an adorable painterly artstyle and widely panned for not having enough content/having bugs at launch according mostly to people who have never played a petsite at launch. I think it's very good at what it does, but that may not be for everyone.

Wolvden is a wolf sim, the thing that the Lioden team made after running their lion sim for several years. I really think the distinction between simulation-heavy pet sites and collection-heavy pet sites is one worth making, and these are all the way on the sim end, to the point that the collection part can be kind of frustrating. The focus is on breeding, but also on successfully managing your pack/pride. I personally find the breeding system of WD/LD overcomplicated but it does make very pretty animals, and the realistic art style is unmatched. Both games are 16+.

Here's a few other sites that I have played and think are worth trying:

Tattered World is a pet and avatar site that is also more rpg focused. It's got crafting, cooking, and pets evolving like Pokemon. It also successfully made shopping mechanically interesting without being annoying. The biggest feature and biggest downside is that there's an overarching plot to the site - of the sort that progresses over time, not for each player, and I will never bother to actually read it all.

Goatlings is an avatar site that also lets you collect goats. It's all the way on the collector side of the spectrum, in that it's all about collecting items and goats and there's very little to actually do. You can customize your avatar, but only collect the different goat designs. It is very cute, but you may guess by how much I love mechanics that it's not really the site for me!

Warrenz is a rabbit sim, inspired by Watership Down. If that appeals to you, you'll probably like it! It's very in-progress and rough around the edges, but it has some unique mechanics that make it absolutely worth checking out if you like games on the sim end of the spectrum.

Furry Paws is that genre of pet site where you're actually a human person with perfectly normal animals as your pets, which I've never been into, but it did help me learn dog genetics and also apparently it is old enough to vote. If you want to breed and train perfectly normal and realistic animals, I don't really get you but Furry Paws definitely does that well.

Mweor is a fantasy cat breeding game and also a kind of wonderful time capsule of late aughts pet site vibes. I played it a bit several years ago, and will be making a new account for research purposes. I don't remember a lot of specifics, so I'll be sure to report back!

[oliviawhen]

Artist Interviews (2011) - Sarah Mensinga

Recently I got a request to repost the student email interviews I did with some established artists back on my blogspot in 2011. They really did help me, and I’m even more amazed now, than I was then that they took the time to reply. So here’s part 1/3, starting with concept artist and writer Sarah Mensinga, whose thoughts on style are always at the top of my mind on the topic even now. :

[Sarah Mensinga] is an illustrator, animator, and comic artist who is currently taking time to work on her own graphic novel called The Wellington Division. I first read her work The Changeling in Flight, and I think her comics are lovely and endearing!

Interview 1) What sort of medium or programs to you use for your work? I usually start with paper and color-erase pencils. I scan that and paint it digitally, usually with Photoshop, sometime with both Painter and Photoshop. I love the look of Illustrator, but I've never had the chance to sit down and really figure it out. 2) What are some of your favorite websites/magazines/books/publications for inspiration? I add nearly every cool art blog I find to my google reader, which I try to check everyday. Most of the blogs I follow are conceptual artists in animation-related feilds. My newest discovery is ha.com, which is an online auction site. If you get a free membership, you can browse their lots and study high-resolution images of some fantastic illustrators. As far as books go, I have a huge collection of visual reference books. I love books on architecture and costume, most of all. 3) What was your favorite professional assignment that you've ever done? I once got to design some Wizard of Oz dolls for some product pitch. I don't think the project ever materialized, but it was a lot of fun. 4) You have a really distinctive, painterly style has it always been that way? How did you get there? Ha, it's a bit of a relief that you say that. I still feel that my painting is a bit unpredictable and that I'm not entirely happy with my process. I went to an arts high school and for my final year I focused on oil-painting and illustration. I think that gave me a pretty good foundation for learning how to digitally paint, but it wasn't until I started professionally character designing that I had to knuckle down and really learn how to digitally paint well. I realized that if I wanted my designs to catch the eyes of producers and directors who weren't necessarily accustomed to looking at line drawings, I'd better figure out how to make my designs look more like they would on screen. To learn, I asked friends who painted well a lot of questions, I did a lot of terrible paintings, I searched for tutorials and I studied the work of other artists I admired. I still do all those things. :) 5) What sort of process do you have? Do you work on many pieces at once or one at a time? My process now is a bit up in the air, but that's just because I'm not doing working full-time. (My kids are very little and I'm home with them.) In general though, I do a fairly tight line-drawing and scan it. I usually look for some photo (often completely unrelated) to create a color palette, and often tweak it even further in photoshop. I do a rough painted pass, keeping as many things on layers as I can and then I save and tighten and polish. The polishing part always takes forever. :) I do often have several projects on the go, both story-related and art-related. I try to focus on them one at a time, though. 6) What do you do when you can't come up with ideas? How do you manage stress? If I'm working on a professional project, usually I have enough direction from a client that it's not difficult to build on their ideas. But sometimes if I'm working on my own art and there is no deadline, I feel a bit lost. Often, I start pulling reference books down from my shelves and open them to random pages, looking for inspiration. Other times, I think about something I could draw that would make my daughter or husband smile. As for stress, I push through it! I'm definitely the sort of person that just gets more determined when confronted with something that is stressing me out. The more I work on it, the faster it will be done and the faster is will stop stressing me out. :) 7) How do you advertise yourself/get work? What works for you? At the moment, I'm sort of anti-advertising. :) Since I'm home full-time with my kids, and trying to focus on writing, I don't really want to be inundated with freelance projects. When my kids are older, I'll probably try to go back to a studio because I like how social it is. Or at the very least, I'll look into getting an art rep. I'm terrible at negotiating contracts.When I do want to advertise though, I find attending comic-conventions with my portfolio and lots of nice business cards pointing to my website works very well. Being active on my blog, helps too. 8) Is your personal work particularly different from your professional work? Yes. When working professionally, I often work on designs or draw subjects I might not otherwise. I think it's a good thing, it pushes me out of my comfort zone. My personal work usually revolves around stories I have on the go. 9) What's the best advice you would give a student aspiring to work as an illustrator?  Don't go looking for your style. The best kind of style is something that naturally comes into your work and you can't get rid of it even if you wanted to. That way, it's really, genuinely you, it will set you apart and it will be unique.Never put limitations on yourself. Never tell yourself "this is as good as I will ever get" and feel frustrated. Sometimes it feels that way, but as long as you try to stay positive and keep trying to learn, you will always be improving throughout your career and new doors will open, which is exciting! :)

She's so nice! I felt more comfortable asking her random questions. She wrote such long, helpful replies. You can find Sarah over here on Twitter and Instagram!

[builtbysnowman]

Snowman’s Favourite Games of 2017

It seems like we find ourselves saying it every December, but it really is true: this year was a spectacular one for games. 

From inventive new entries in blockbuster series to deeply resonant games crafted by independent creators, and everything in between, we were constantly inspired by this industry’s talented creators.

As we reflect on all the great titles we had a chance to experience, some in particular continue to linger in our hearts and minds. Whether they made us laugh with delight, cry out in frustration, or in some cases just cry, these games were our favourite of 2017 (in no particular order). 

What Remains of Edith Finch

In our Snowman Review of the game, we said, of Giant Sparrow’s masterpiece:

The deeper I dove, the more I was surprised by how resonant the whole experience was on a personal level. How despite getting lost inside it, the magical Finch house never lost its grip on me. How, underneath all of the Rube Golbergian mystery of it, What Remains of Edith Finch was ultimately a tale of loss, and of how we deal with it. Of finding perfection in our own fallibility, and the fallibility of the people we love. And maybe most of all, of forming the shape of our future out of more than the contours of our past.

Even as the year comes to a close, we constantly find ourselves bringing up Finch. Full of haunting, sometimes heart-wrenching vignettes, this is a game which is best experienced completely unspoiled. If you’ve yet to visit the Finch house, do yourself a favour and take a trip there as soon as possible. 

TumbleSeed

On the surface TumbleSeed is a game about rolling a small seed up a big mountain. But in reality, TumbleSeed is so much more than that. It’s a game about learning to delight in intrinsic rewards. A game where the high score isn’t a point value, but the realization that you’ve become a more patient person — a person who deals better with small setbacks, who breathes deeper for a little longer before becoming agitated. TumbleSeed is a shining example of a game created with singular conviction. It’s an experience some players will bounce off of. But for those who stay, it’s that wonderful type of game which gets under your skin, and into your bones — always calling you back for one more try. 

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

The term “open-world” gets bandied around a lot for games with large maps, lots of quests, and long checklists of things to do. Breath of the Wild, however, is something altogether more brilliant. A game that presents the player with a massive playground full systemic interactions, and sets them loose to craft their own adventure. Climb to the top of a snow-capped mountain, use your shield to snowboard down, jump into the air above a camp full of enemies, and electrify them all by shooting a lightning-powered arrow into their tin cooking pot. Then go do a hundred other things you haven’t yet planned on your way to another mysterious peak in the distance. Breath of the Wild is a return to and revitalization of the sense of wonder that’s so central to the Zelda series. It’s a shining example of why Nintendo are such masters of their craft.

Gorogoa

There’s no other way to say it: Gorogoa is perfect in every conceivable way. It is a profound experience so clever that it’s actively hard to believe it exists as it’s happening. As a puzzle game, it’s a master class in how to teach people what to do as they do it, all while ensuring that nothing ever feels unfair or too far out of reach. But our advice when playing this - and you must immediately go play this if you have a couple hours to spare - is not to get too hung up on what type of game it is. Instead, enjoy getting lost in every resplendent, hand-drawn frame, as the game’s concept and story unfold before you one layer at a time. 

Stagehand: A Reverse Platformer

Sometimes you stumble on a game whose concept is so elegant and intuitive that you wonder how it hasn’t been done before. Stagehand is one such gem. Part platformer, part runner, the game has you moving the landscape to guide intrepid hero Frank to safety amid a gaggle of classic obstacles like spikes and lava. Moment to moment, Stagehand is a constant delight with clever design, pixel-perfect art and nostalgia-inducing sound design. Developer Big Bucket Software continues to impress as a creator of modern classics for phones and tablets. 

Cuphead

Much has been made of Studio MDHR’s seven-year journey to bring Cuphead to life, and playing it, you can instantly see why. The game is a Silly Symphony in your hands: a playable Fleischer-era cartoon that leaps off the screen and into your heart. It’s almost impossible not to root for the adorable Cuphead and Mugman as they run and gun their way through inventive boss battles to earn their soul back from the devil. We say almost, because the game’s brutal retro difficulty might just have you throwing your controller. Good luck!

Old Man’s Journey

In our review of the game earlier this year, Snowman founder Ryan Cash sums up why this game is such a treasure:

So much of the [game’s] emotional journey is wrapped up in the beautiful art style — the pastel colours flowing around the screen in wisps. Subtle animations pepper the painterly flashbacks of the main character, stirring up wistfulness and nostalgia. A children’s storybook with an adult heart, brought to life...Truly, the title of the game says it all. Life can pass us by so quickly, and this game was a beautiful reminder of that. A chance to pause, and do something we often forget to do — reflect.

Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy

In the trailer for Getting Over It, the game’s creator Bennett Foddy says that he created it “for a certain type of person...to hurt them.” This game, about ascending a massive mountain as a man stuck inside a pot using an axe, more than lives up to Foddy’s aspirations. There are no checkpoints, the landscape is deliberately designed to rebuff attempts to find clear patterns in movement, and nearly any misstep can result in tumbling all the way to the very bottom. Why then, does it make our list? Because there’s something intoxicating about the oft-unexplored feeling of friction and frustration that Getting Over It captures. Of all the games on this list, it’s perhaps the most fun to play with a group of friends, delighting in one another’s misery, and - somewhat inexplicably - your own.

Monument Valley 2

We’d be remiss not to include ustwo Games’ followup to the gorgeous Monument Valley. This second kaleidoscopic journey into the world of sacred geometry continues the series trend of taking your breath away in every shot. This is the the type of game that makes the devices you play it on feel more beautiful — any isolated shot could be a painting hung on your wall. This time around, take particular note of the transcendent, transportive sound and music from artist Todd Baker.

Super Mario Odyssey

It may seem biased because we have our own Odyssey title on the horizon, but we promise: this game is spectacular. In a series known for its tight controls and balletic movement, Super Mario Odyssey is a crowning achievement. A game where every hop, skip, and jump is so responsive it will put a smile on your face, and where the rewards for mastering the controls feel nearly endless. Speaking of endless: this is the kind of game you hibernate with. Every nook and cranny of its bright, ebullient world is filled with secrets and treasures to find, so make sure to keep playing even after Bowser’s been defeated.

Perhaps the greatest shame of all is that for every game mentioned on this list, there are probably three that we’ve forgotten or which we didn’t even get a chance to play. Then again, that will just make discovering them later all the more joyful. 

Here’s to a 2018 that’s even half as filled with amazing experiences as this year was – a few them even from yours truly. 

[randobrandoblog-blog]

Désirée

Indifference was in many ways Brando’s defining quality, even from the start. In his initial roles, gently smudging dialogue and fixing lines on the fly, it was an indifference to the confines of the material, and to any of the silver-screen conventions his swift ascendance into the Hollywood firmament obligated him to respect. This naturally entailed an indifference to the reflex resistance of the numerous conservative guardians of those conventions, which evolved into an indifference to their subsequent expectation from him his distinct inaugural style (as with old, reliable types like Clark Gable or Humphrey Bogart, whom Brando compared to breakfast cereals – the various but artistically stationary consumer options of yesteryear’s megahits). Opting to do Viva Zapata! and Julius Caesar, Brando semi-wittingly preempted accusations of repeating himself when The Wild One and On the Waterfront drew a line from the boorish, decorum-bucking heartthrob he got famous playing. Still, you can follow a familiar passion through all of his first six roles. With Désirée, he disposes of this continuity. The indifference he brought to his seventh picture isn’t the kind which later compelled him into amusing caricature or delighted subversion. Though there’s a trace impishness the opulent Cinemascope context divulges, Désirée marks the genesis of the worst iteration of Brando’s indifference – wherein he simply cares so little, so clearly, for the film he’s in, he doesn’t even try. He’s at perfect liberty, particularly being as young and trim (though there are bourgeoning hints of his famous fluctuations) as he is here, to harness that incomparable energy with which he animates his best roles’ epiphanies, and transform it into spry fun. But Brando seems to have imprisoned himself in eccentric fashion here. Having begun with physical choices clearly concocted as a joke on his own role, he seems unable to do much with them, for fear of violating his one hard rule: breaking character. So he mostly glowers, while the massive-budget trifle around him waltzes along, and his costar sifts out a perfect exculpatory liveliness. As well as marking the beginning of his albatross boredom, Désirée was the first of Brando’s roles he didn’t specifically choose. Ever the iconoclast, he’d become one of the first actors to regularly dodge the studio system’s preference for multiple-picture indenturing. An admitted skimmer of fine print, in 1953 Brando suddenly found himself obligated to a part in The Egyptian from his work on the Fox-produced Viva Zapata!. He discovered his lack of interest in this instantaneously. Typically unconcerned with the ramifications of simply walking away, he ran into a lawsuit, and came out of it obliged to portray Napoleon. Why a part like that – humility hardly being Brando’s defining quality, and Napoleon being notorious for a certain contra-courtly loutishness – shouldn’t strike Brando as a heaven-match is a mystery. But the likelihood is that an insecure star (who’d claim expertise as a director manipulator later, but must not’ve known how here) deduced he was chained to a turkey, and checked out. Even if straight-faced, elephantine period extravaganzas weren’t especially anomalous at the time, audiences of brows both high and low had few pretenses about Désirée Brando lacked. Sourced from a bestselling novel equipped with torrid romance and a rags-to-riches hook, the film did unexceptional business and only drew Oscar nods for costume design and art direction, and in its utterly unrestrained way you can figure it deserved them. Though Désirée is patently unremarkable, no culprit is at exclusive fault for its failure. The script, by From Here to Eternity’s Daniel Taradash, is sparsely littered with amusing lines, but lacks profundity or an inspired sense of structure. The director, Henry Koster, was an apparent master at manufacturing mediocrity – his previous film, and the very first to use Cinemascope at all, was the noted bloated nothing The Robe, and his few other popular works (The Bishop’s Wife, Harvey) are thin and uninventive. Désirée’s supporting cast is for the most part banal and lackluster as well, with Michael Rennie the foremost vacant lot amid the grandeur. So you’re grateful for how deftly and immediately Jean Simmons’ work cuts through the lavishness and bombast. As the title character, you can conceive of her deciding that just a little more depended on her success than her legend-in-his-own-time costar’s. From her first cheeky moments, she conjures an addictive, irrepressible sparkle. Brando’s lost chance to match this resonates through their every exchange – as a tale about a déclassé debutante who nearly weds Napoleon and ascends by happenstance to the role of Queen of Sweden, a good deal of the script directly explores how foolish it is to value propriety at all. Indeed, Désirée and Napoleon speak of this constantly, and of the fatal restraint which ruins their own abortive courtship. Yet somehow Brando either couldn’t or wasn’t interested in locating the relevance to his own situation. And though Pauline Kael claimed to detect “a conspiratorial charm” between the stars, only Simmons seems to be doing any work to bring this plot to fruition. Most remarkable about Simmons’ portrayal, though, is how she brings it all off without seeming incongruous – except against some of the weaker support, like the awful John Hoyt (who does nothing at all to conceal his coarse American accent among the transatlantic “cahn’t stahnd him” stuff, except when he takes Désirée’s accents aigu seriously, as in “Dayzaray”). That she weaves this energy so seamlessly into the proceedings without ruffling its heavy garments exposes the sorry copout of Brando’s palpably genuine impudence. Gesturing wispily toward pseudo-British dialect, adopting a proto-Don Corleone rasp for no obvious reason, and never lifting the brow he glowers and glowers under, Brando comes off like a low-prospect theatre major. The movie really isn’t as leaden as you’d fear; you’ll titter more than once, and due to the throwaway briskness of its exposition and transitions, its two hours almost attain a kind of momentum. But Brando is just burdensome, and he drags it back down – is there anything less exciting than a sulking prankster? You do see our man begin to rise to the occasion when he detects resistance in his scene partners – not genuine resistance, of course, though one suspects Michael Rennie was among his rotating early purveyors of older-guard impatience. Sparring with Rennie (next to Klaatu, he really does look like Napoleon) finds Brando a good deal more awake, even interested – but Rennie gives him little to deploy a substantive response to. You observe the same shades of vitality when his scenes with Désirée grow fractious. Only then do we detect his sensuality manifesting itself. Yet by that time, he’s frustrated us, because she’s consistently offered flesh-and-blood playfulness and cleverness, finding vivacity in her own dialogue any way she can, while the mastermind before her is ruminating at some remote point between sleepwalking and goofing off. Vexing as you’d assume this disparity to be, the two actors had no lost love from the experience, reuniting with undeniably better results on his very next movie. The pair shared an independent spirit in an oppressively formal era. It is perhaps the film’s own oppressive formality which kept Brando’s easily wounded pride insulated from provocations into greater self-respect. He does look ridiculous in that cape and all his giant hats, though I can’t imagine he was forced into constantly adopting that painterly, leg-out pose (“why do they keep standing like that?”, asked my partner, reading my mind). Only in those few moments he has a direct opportunity to mischief is his vigor evidently restored, like when he gets to put out candles with his fingertips, or wrap his fop accent around the word “chuckleheads”. He just seems tired otherwise, the most lugubrious thing in a picture that somehow narrowly escapes the condition. He would be much savvier burlesquing dandies later on, while here he’s merrily and easily bested by Alan Napier in his silver coat and yellow pants. Unable to shake off his reasons to pout, we witness Brando’s sorriest incarnation here: he isn’t interesting. And though his aesthetic anarchism was only mounting, it would later take a lot more for Brando to completely throw a performance away. film: C+ // Brando: C

[rachel-alderson]

The constant battle that is motivation.

As I mentioned in last weeks post about tackling anxiety, I also wanted to write about motivation and keeping yourself focused. I wrote a similar blog post a while back talking about how I tackled keeping myself focused at the time such as the usual 'listen to music', 'go for a walk' etc. A lot of articles on blogs that talk about motivation often feature these same sort of points, so I wanted to try and tackle it from a different perspective in this post.

I wanted to focus less on taking time away from your work and riding out the creative block, and focus more on tackling it head on, speeding up the journey to the other side and learning plenty in the process.

Invest in yourself.

This is something I have done myself recently when I bought myself an iPad Pro, and I'm not at all suggesting everyone should now go out and purchase an iPad, but I just want to get the point across that it's so important to make sure you invest in tools to speed up or improve your workflow. It was extremely hard for me to justify spending so much money on something but after a few talks with close friends and family they convinced me that it was a business investment which made it much easier to spend the money on it, and I can safely say it definitely has improved my workflow. One of the problems I was having is that I was always wanting to draw, but hated drawing straight onto the cintiq because it meant sitting at my desk and it's a fairly bulky piece of equipment with a chunky wire sticking out, but I was fed up of having to scan my drawings in all of the time, so the iPad has really been a perfect meet in the middle piece of kit.

This isn't all just about spending money either, time is the most valuable commodity we have in life, and if you want to live a happy and fulfilled life it's important to spend that time on things that make you happy and things that make you a better person. A good idea is to take some time out, maybe an hour every day or two to learn something new either through a tutorial for example on a website like skillshare or even just taking some time out to read up on some magazines and books relating to your industry. Doing all of these things is an investment into your own practise, skills and mentality as a creative.

Don't know what to draw?

This is something I struggled with for about a year not long after I finished uni. I knew that I wanted to improve my drawing skills and that I needed to draw more often but whenever I sat down to sketch something, I was just blank, I would literally just sit there in front of a piece of paper, stare at it, draw a few circles and then give up 15 minutes later and get on with my day. Then I purchased a really nice sketchbook (what a great idea, buy a really nice sketchbook which I feel like I'm going to ruin if I do a bad drawing in it!) and I basically decided this was MY sketchbook and not even those closest to me would see inside it. One of the biggest things holding me back when drawing is that I was so critical of everything I drew, so having this 'secret' sketchbook meant that I would just force myself to draw whatever came to mind first, even if it was stupid and I could laugh at it and laugh at how bad it was, and it was all just for fun. Doing that one thing seriously helped me just have fun with my work again, and take it from me, you don't have to post EVERYTHING online, and you can certainly take a break from social media, it'll still be there when you get back!

Also, draw from reference if you're stuck! I used to hate doing this, but now I often think of a weird animal I want to draw and draw it straight from photos, no stylistic stuff, no trying to make it my own, just drawing it how it is to really try and understand how it works. This is especially good for those days when you're imagination is a little stale, it helps you to learn more in depth about the topics you draw and improve your skills at the same time. These then are a great help in the future for developing your own versions of each topic from.

Feeling stuck and frustrated?

I've been feeling like this a lot lately, 8 years after I started on a creative path and I finally feel like I've got a solid process and a personal style that I am really happy with. However, I hate being comfortable, when I'm not comfortable it's all I want but when I get there it's boring. It's the same with goals, it's not about reaching the goal, it's about the process. Once you reach the goal, that's it, what next? It's boring. The best thing I've found for myself, although it will be different for everyone, is to change up either my materials or technique. To try something that I'm not so confident in but something that I know I would like to be able to include in my work, so something that is a challenge but also something that I'm passionate about so that I have the drive to see it through.

For example in the past I've gone from using a standard HB pencil to a mechanical pencil with blue lead, which worked absolute wonders. I then got a little fed up with that, and although I still use a mechanical pencil daily, introducing a standard coloured pencil (either blue or red) into my work flow has also worked miracles, especially when it comes to roughing out an idea because I can make it a lot less refined and controlled, especially if I don't sharpen the pencil often. I've gone from line working my illustrations in Photoshop to Sketchbook Pro and now Manga Studio. I've also gone from having a very refined process for the colouring stages to the point now where I still carry out that process, but then also try and introduce more painterly elements. For example I might paint in a background or texture with no linework or shading, completely the opposite to how I normally work. Sometimes these ideas don't work at all and I end up scrapping them, but I usually learnt something from it and had fun in the process.

No direction?

It is extremely easy to feel completely lost in life. Anyone can feel it at any time, no matter what you do and for any amount of time, but it is especially common in people who work for themselves or have dreams in life to achieve big things. When you're starting out on a new path towards your dream life, you won't get anywhere unless you know exactly where you're going, and give yourself some direction. That's where goals come in, how can you possibly work towards something if you don't know what you want? The same applies to a college brief for example, you are usually told why you're doing the project (this might be to meet a specific requirement of your course) your deadline (what sort of time frame you have) and the outcome (the end goal). The same applies to anything in life, you have to know what you want, when you want to achieve it by, why it is important (if it is not important to you personally or if it doesn't add anything to your life then remove it) and what the end goal is. 

The best way to set goals  (I do have my own goal sheet I work from which I will share sometime in the next month or so), is to set long term, mid term and short term goals (10 years, 5 years and 1-2 years). Once you have set these goals (make sure they're big and life changing, don't limit yourself on what you 'think' you 'might' be able to achieve, dream big or go home!), work backwards from those end goals. Think about all the smaller steps you'll need to achieve those goals and start working them into your current lifestyle. 

Start a personal project.

I think that this will be more relatable to current professional creatives over those still studying and that is purely because while studying a lot of students don't realise how much time they actually have and how beneficial it would be to work on multiple personal projects, developing skills and projects so that they're ahead of their competition. When you're working a creative career though, especially if you're self employed it is extremely difficult to find the time to work on your own ideas alongside all of the client work, networking, taxes, finances, travelling, meetings, admin, marketing, phone calls etc. So taking the time out to do a personal project can be difficult to squeeze in, but it's so rewarding. If done properly, it can be time well spent de-stressing and having fun whilst still producing amazing work and learning on the job.

I hope that you guys are enjoying these more informative posts! I'm going to try and include more posts like this in between posts about projects I've been working on. Although I do have some more Escape from Fusion Earth characters to introduce to you so it might be back to that next week! If this post benefited you in any way, please share it around to any friends or followers you think may find it in handy too!

Thanks for reading!