#the lineart was done on paper so it's messy but I'm tired of trying to do clean art

[smoosie]

A different tomorrow

[diminuel]

Hello! Your recent Dean art (which I love!) has me wondering this about your art process... Do you have a similar process when you are drawing digital vs traditional media? How similar or different does it feel for you to make art in one medium or another? I wonder this a lot about digital art, as I've never tried it before. And your style is so recognizable in both! I love it a lot! Also, please don't feel pressure to answer this if you are busy or tired, I know you have many things going on right now. Thanks for being a lovely presence on my dash, either way! :)

Hello hello!

Thank you! :D

It has always felt significantly different in a way. Back in the day - when I first made this blog - I still drew all my "elaborate" art by hand and then lined and/ or coloured the artwork digitally. Part of that was that I simply didn't feel all that confident in my digital art skills. I think until about 2010 or 2011 I drew almost exclusively in pencil on printer paper.

Now it has shifted in a way that I think of traditional drawing as "special", probably also because some years back my parents gifted watercolour paints and paper, which aren’t cheap at all. I used to draw enough that they could gift me new paper every birthday, though I have stopped doing it eventually - mostly because I drew watercolour stuff for the advent calendar and it added another layer of pressure - not just to draw well so as not to waste expensive things but also to draw fast, bundled with the frustration of not being able to take good pictures because it was usually dark once I was done and everything looked bad as a consequence X3

I'm trying to think of it as "for fun" now again, though I still do it rarely. Why I don’t draw with pencil on paper anymore (the inexpensive way of drawing!) I’m not sure. I never went to bed without a folder and some printer paper on my knees from teenage years to about my mid twenties. Odd how things change. (The art wasn’t good, but it didn’t have to be, because I wasn’t going to show it to anyone. I feel I put pressure on myself to produce art that could be shown online. If I am concerned with drawing something that is good that means I can’t just doodle bad things for the fun and practice.)

As to the process - it tends to start the same: look for references (though I don't always draw with references. If I'm doing a portrait though I like to have one). The thing with me is that while art can turn out looking good, I'm not particularly skilled at accuracy. I can correct and edit more easily digitally. You can overlay your reference on your art and see exactly where you were off and then fix it. That I don't have a simple undo tool for pencil drawing can at time be frustrating, because you have to erase the whole eye just because you drew it too high up etc.

And then comes lineart... I think there's a lot more tool user error in traditional art than in digital art for me. You can see how messy my art is. I often slip with the liner probably because it can sense my fear. X3 I also get impatient with the watercolour and don’t wait for things to dry, so everything blends together and Dean ends up with green make up around his eyes >w<;;

But it’s still fun and I love being able to survey my creations like a dragon with her hoard of little doodles!