#with like less of a perfectionist mindset or whatever lmao

[olympiansally]

Me craving human connection and ppl who actually engage with fan works: hmmmm I wonder if there’s anyone still alive and around the death note fandom

[riisinaakka-draws]

part 2/6

2nd part of my old Black Sails scraps and doodles from 2016–2021. Not in any particular order.

This time the drawings are short comics that were abandoned for a reason or another, mostly because I lost the interest or felt like there was too much to redraw compared to the satisfaction of finishing something else more interesting. There’s also some talk about rigid mindset and how overthinking can lead to stagnation.

Contains early silverflint moments, specks of dust, rackham's glasses are found, jealous-Billy spying, desk-Flint gets caught, "squint-squint", a quiet moment and its bird dilemma etc.

And please do not steal and repost elsewhere. But if you do get inspired, feel free to make your own interpretations!

Long-ish post under the cut!

“What are you thinking about?”

“Specks of dust.”

“Liar.”

The idea was to show how much they and their relationship had changed. This was around 2016 when the season 3 began and I was still re-learning to draw with a tablet. Another art from the same time period (and idea) is this art: The Dynamic Duet. 

And for some reason I was really stuck up thinking that I’d have to first do the sketch, then the clean line art, then planes underneath, then shadows etc. and I have always struggled with that kind of approach! Mainly because I hate doing clean line work, lol. And I was a fool for trying to start with a white canvas! It’s so much harder to find values and plan things, or at least in my opinion..

“Rackham’s glasses are found”

To celebrate their new pirate alliance, they share the four lenses of Rackham’s sunglasses as they were also found at the time (because I wanted it to resurface and they could be made into jewellery you know...). This was right after the episode where Anne fights and hurts her hands (here wearing protecting mittens from Max even though she’s not trusted at the moment). Uh, this doesn’t spark joy interest me much and it’s quite stiff and would recuire a lot of redrawing faces, so - discarded!  

I somewhat like the idea still (them having something to share, although it’s on Jack’s detriment). I tried to find a stylished comical easier doodlier? way to draw them and draw clean lines etc, but it just wasn’t for me. Also here too, the background is blank and too bright. Later I started to think things as scenes and draw everything at the same time instead of adding the bg later or trying to show everything (and everyone) at the same time.

Here’s also Billy in the same story:

He’s spying on them and since it’s so bright he’s wearing his diy “sunglasses” and being envious to the others. *cough* uhhh...Idk? Also people were shipping Ben Gunn (and cheese) with Billy, so that bled into this too... Charles’ spirit is riding the “big white bird” that was mentioned in Teach’ story and in this case it’s a pelican.

As you can see, I also wasn’t using the brushes that I use nowadays. A hard (or soft) round brushes with no change in opacity just aren’t for me. For example, in traditional art, I struggle with markers and copics, but really enjoy charcoals and watercolours. I prefer ragged edges, layering and thus blending things into each other (and leaving the viewer to fill in the gaps) instead of having stark or definite things. I also struggle with vector drawings, although I have decided to finally start learning to use them...somedayyyy.

Also, I wasn’t paying attention to anatomy, like, at all LMAO. I was just so happy to be able to put something on the canvas.

This is one of my first ink drawings, but I cannot find the original anymore. Again, I like the idea, but not how things look art-wise. And I was so adamant, that I have to get everything right in the traditional drawing and not fix anything later on on photoshop because then it would be cheating. And thus, I was never able to move on or finish this properly the way I liked it (idiot).

BUT! It was a good practise to just draw and test things on paper and gain confidense on drawing things in overall (as I was still getting back into art). To get over the fear of blank paper you know, and try to find my style whatever it would start to form into.

Oh, yeah, Desk Flint.

Desk Flint was a thing for a while (still is, lol). Another drawing from that time is this Slingshot Pirate (2016). And Desk Flint keeps repeating in many later works too. The point is mainly “Flint sitting behind his desk and people interrupt him and I don’t have to draw him fully”

Well, anyway... moving on.

Here’s a plan that has been stuck for years. It’s name is “Squint-squint.” Left is the sketch (with another sketch underneath because the expressions were clearer in the old one). On the right is the continued piece with colour scheme but I cropped the eyes panel and faces out (it was so ugly for some reason) but if I ever continue/finish this, it will be redrawn there in the middle.)

Left. “On that moment their eyes were literally open(ed).”

Right. “After squinting on the shore for days, they had actually forgotten how pretty the other idiot’s eyes were.”

I still like it, quite a lot, but my perfectionist ass only sees too much “boring” things to draw and get right, so it hasn’t been a priority for a long time and other works have kept me occupied and more interested in them.

--------------------

“Quiet Moment.” 2018 (a wordless comic happening after the events of Charles Town)

I’m going to explain after these pictures, but see how big the difference is when you start to look at references and plan things together (the space, “camera” movement, background etc). I also started to colour with coarser brushes:

I drew this around early 2018. A lot of improvement! Still quite a lot of negative space (empty white backgrounds), but it fits this work. A few things tell where we are (the ship’s cabin and the balcony). Changing distances and how things are cropped/framed make things more moving and focused (and less to draw, lol). Colours and brush strokes are softer, more layered and so on.

But guess why it’s still a wip!

I couldn’t decide what bird is flying over there.

Yeap! At first it was an albatross (doesn’t go to Bahamas?). Then a seagull (but which seagull? there’s so many subspecies! Is the ship at sea or at the harbour? what birds are there on the open water/ close to the shore?? oh noo...) So, yeah, wayyyy too much over-thinking.

At some point I ended up with white-tailed-tropic-bird which was a plus! because it sounds like the bosun’s whistle, but at that point I was so tangled and frustrated and still had so much to finish with this that I left it be. Also Flint’s face looks different in every frame so I would’ve had to change some parts, lol. And then I forgot it for a couple of years! And then I had learned to draw a bit differently and again saw too much things to do, so it’s quite hard to take on this again, especially when there are so many other interesting wips waiting...

But I still really like the feeling of it! And the colour scheme. So I might just limit the things I’m allowed to fix and then post it as it own someday. I mean, it’s 90% finished, but the last reach just feels like miles.

And that’s what usually happens with my wips. They reach a certain point and it suddenly becomes really hard to finish or get back into.

But every time I learn things and then use the information in another work! :D

Final note for this post (altough this has been said hundreds of times): use references and look how things go and try to see the structure and form beneath things. And think where it is happening and how the light and surroundings affects the characters and/or spaces. And maybe think what you’re trying to convey with the art, what idea? what emotions? what purpose? or like, what are you trying to learn with the piece? and so on...

Thanks for checking this out, I hope you had fun <3

[gonnabewell]

when i think about the roots of my perfectionism... part of it is paying intense attention to detail as a way of avoiding the mistakes that come with inattention (this is most obvious in the way i take tests, or do math problems, basically the areas i used to make frequent “lazy” mistakes as a kid. i’d go over every math problem 3x before turning a test in, checking for not dropping signs, writing out every step fully to make it clear and easy to check and re-check, etc.) this is how i see it most often explained as to why adhd leads to perfectionism. other parts of my perfectionism, when it comes to things like music and art... i’d say are the usual amounts of perfectionism you’d see in an artist, nothing to pathologize.

but the most debilitating way my perfectionism manifests is when i pour way too much into assignments and projects that should be easy/that everyone tells me to “bullshit.” usually things in the humanities, like writing assignments, film assignments, outlining/other facilitated reading assignments, worksheets with short answer questions, presentations or projects with art components that are meant to be easy and boost your grade/look good... and i realized that the motivation behind it isn’t necessarily achieving perfection, but achieving a level of depth that makes the assignment/project actually worth doing to me—essentially, triggering hyperfocus by making it something genuinely intellectually engaging. for example, in gov last year, i couldn’t make myself do the short daily assignments where you’d simply read an article and write a surface level, short, informal response. i just couldn’t make myself. it was intended to be busy/easy work, and in class i just...wouldn’t do it. it was only when i went home, and took a good hour to actually engage with the article and write an in-depth response that i could even make myself begin the task. otherwise, it was impossible. (and then of course id fall behind and it would pile up, etc.)

and this was how i approached nearly every assignment. i physically could not do it if it didn’t interest me, so i had to go to extremes on my own to shift the goal posts and make it into a task that would spark that genuine interest, and then i would have fewer problems sustaining the effort unless it was just, unavoidably repetitive or something like that. in fact, i’d often get super super into it, to the point of totall overkill. and it worked for a while!

in middle school, when i had literally no homework, i could spend hours outlining my entire science textbook in-depth and following whatever tangents of interest would arise until i’d learned the material to the point of overkill (which id then be bullied for lmao). but in high school, the more work that piled up the less sustainable this approach became. and as i started missing more and more deadlines and giving up on timeliness entirely, eventually deadlines couldn’t trigger hyperfocus either. it’s really interesting to me when i analyze these behaviors through a lens of what i now believe to be adhd, because it explains so much why my efforts in school were always so inconsistent. why i could dedicate sooo much time to things that genuinely interested me to the point of being labeled an overachiever (even though that didn’t feel accurate to my motivations), but i never was able to just sit down and memorize my times tables. (like, literally, i memorized my multiplication tables by accident eventually. i didnt know my 7 times tables until like sophomore year.)

and the reason why my struggles with attention were never obvious at all? because for the longest time (until high school broke me entirely lol), i was just genuinely interested in most things, and most (not all) teachers would let me draw or read to stay focused because i was a good student. god i just think about how different pre-calculus and physics were in junior year. i loved physics and it was intellectually rigorous and my teacher loved me, and didn’t mind my zoning out or doodling (or even straight up sleeping) in class because i was smart and got good grades. but my precalc teacher hated me, because everything in that class was rote memorization and repetition, and i just couldn’t do it. not for lack of trying! i told her: “point me to the proofs, and i’ll go home and be able to learn it! i just can’t memorize it, i can’t stay focused”...but then it turned out we were learning things that, although super easy and boring to execute, the proofs for were incredibly complex and would often require calculus to comrehend. and here i was, frustrated, because WHY THE FUCK THEN ARE WE LEARNING ALL THIS BEFORE TAKING CALCULUS IF YOU NEED CALCULUS TO ACTUALLY FUCKIN UNDERSTAND IT?? anyways, that was the first class i ever got a b in because i just couldn’t. and my teacher ended up thinking my inattention was contempt when really i just could barely keep it together. i’d never before had a class, believe it or not, where i couldn’t use my normal “perfectionistic” coping mechanisms to trigger hyperfocus. ever. at all. the class wasn’t demanding and it was an “easy a” and i felt so stupid for not being able to just do what everyone else was doing! and, to make matters worse, almost every day for months she’d call me out for drawing or not having homework in front of the whole class (rsd hell), until eventually she gave up on me.

i could probably go on and on about how these behaviors made school impossible for me by my senior year. but what matters is that now i understand it differently through an adhd lense... and i think it makes much more sense? the way i would explain it concisely would be: in school i relied on raising my personal standards to make boring assignments more intellectually rigorous and trigger hyperfocus. of course this method eventually failed and then i was left paralyzed unable to do anything, yet still with the same perfectionistic mindset. my standards are all or nothing at all, because my attention is all or nothing. at least, that’s my current theory lmao. this might all sound like deranged ramblings to anyone else... originally this post was not supposed to be long but it’s mostly just a way for me to document myself so? yeahh lol