and why I will be gone a while, regarding Art School and how it killed my artistic drive.
So... I graduated from AI in 2015. And I have been busy since then, and am still busy. We know this. Now... I am realizing I need to Unlearn Art School.
First off.... Unless you are training for a very specialized career, I really would not reccomend art schools, or at least AI, for any general art
And this relates to my ongoing absence...
I went back and looked at my old things. High school me was drawing scenes, new characters. Living life with colored pencils and photoshop and pencils. Full of ideas. Imagination gone wild.
I started wondering when that stopped... And I think I found my answers.
See... When I took classes for art, there was a frustrating divide. A LOT of art classes you find in colleges, even community colleges, are Fine Art, and the majority of those are "learn how to draw what you see, realistically" and you are marked down for exagerations that might come from style, or creating your own work. So when you finally learn to draw an anatomically and proportionally correct human? Well you have only drawn them in That One Standing Pose, or in the pose the model that came in was in. I was never taught how to figure out those studies I was graded on, and how to apply them to new work. and as I took more classes... I lost a lot.
I learned new, bad mentalities that hamstrung my creativity.
I lost my ability to create new ideas without an assignment. I could no longer come up with many new ideas, new poses, new challenges.
I learned a bad mentality that says anything that isnt a practice sketch or rough draft, should be a fully finished peice that you put all your effort into, and expect to be graded. I lost my ability to make rough looking art, or to not spend hours polishing. I am no longer able to start something in digital withut the feeling that I have to make it my Best Work. I cant simplify things, and was stuck for a full year or so trying to make each face more realistic than th next, even if I meant for them to be cartoonish or a quick art. I am hindered in making a quick doodle with simplified features
So.. right now?
Im stuick in a place where my mindset from AI is telling me I cant publish art unless it is Really Good, that simplifying is Bad. that making a Not Completely Polished art is Bad. That anything I make should be studies or geared up for a big finished peice. A mental place where I cant think of ideas, unless they are generic standing pose for character idea. And if I try a more complicated peice I have to make it Perfect or never show it to anyone
So.. I ask your patience while I Unstick my mind.. it still might be a while tho.
If you want to poke me, my tumblr is karatails