Lack of Energy - Lack of Muse
This week's blog is going to be a short one because, frankly, I didn't get a lot done. I was so excited at the beginning of the month too...
Sometimes the motivation isn't there for me, unfortunately. The past two weeks were not completely unproductive. I do have a few things to report!
First off February 10th was my second to last event at the flea market! I had more mixed results than my event in January, but I still consider it successful! I really need to work out a more open configuration since people weren't too inclined to step into my booth. A two foot gap can be a bit intimidating.
An old picture of my display. It's undergone a few changes since this pic, but the setup is basically the same.
Since I do intend to participate in more art shows requiring a 10 x 10 x 10 foot layout, I need to figure out something more inviting. What did help was for me to quit hiding behind my little table and drawing. I had my little informal animation demo reel going on the table. Since that attracted people in the past, I was probably relying on it too much to do the same. When I stood up closer to the front of my booth and engaging with people more, that's when I made my sales and invited more people into my booth!
I've also noticed people actually look down, so I can utilize the front of my tables more! I learned in university that you want most of your art to be eye level, so I attempted to keep that rule in mind. I wanted a viewer to have their eyes move about my art. From the past few shows, I've realized that stickers are the attention seekers! As long as those remain up front, and I add my art preview binder thing somewhere, I feel like I can switch that 6' table with my 4' table and shift the 6' table back. People could then walk inside without worry of bumping anything, and it'll hopefully be ADA friendly. I could either setup my drawing station up front or I just stand and greet people to invite more people inside. Engagement gets you sales!! Moral of the lesson at this event!
A couple drawings I completed while I waited for customers:
Next week from February 22 - 23, I will be at a wizarding convention. I'm hoping my fantasy prints will be more popular there, and there will be loads of children who'd hopefully like to go home with a sticker. My enby Supoya Starrain will be on full display. They were complimented so many times.
Someone photographed this picture and my dolphin picture. That made me so happy that someone wanted to photograph my art!!
I wonder how many will take home this pair. We'll see!
It's going to be a long day! I have an 8 foot table I need to plan out before Thursday, so that would be a time and a half. Wish me luck!!
Onto what I've managed to do this past couple weeks!
I have made a little progress for backgrounds on Chicks and Ann. I didn't quite pump out 14 pages as I hoped I would. They still need to be done; they just won't be completed this week.
I am taking the approach where I'm using limited values and blocking in shapes at the moment. By mid-march, they should be fully rendered.
The following two pages are before and after takes. They're similar concepts. The second one opens up the space a bit more and gives me opportunity to draw the main characters in full. The first one would only allow me to draw very tiny children or children from the waist down. Everything also seemed to be on a hill in the first one.
Page two I created back with the first image, and I didn't need much changing in my opinion. It could use some finessing like the bench is very short for a normal person, and the background is a little off, but that could be easily fixed. If I zoom out, the bench wouldn't disappear completely into the fold either. Again, minor changes that would be fixed mix-march.
The last image that is still very much a work in progress is a different take of my initial sketch. In my earlier drawings, the twins were practically going down a hill while looking like they were walking flat. (It was bad and I don't have a scan to show.) I am still working on perspective in this, but once I have it figured out, the space will be filled with foliage!
Unfortunately, that's how far I have gotten. However, after reviewing the rough illustrations of the children's book, I can actually divvy up the next three panels, if you will, into one spread since they are different beats in the same scene. That'll still leave me with approximately nine more pages to draw. I'd like to get them done as soon as possible!!
I wanted to have my biweekly animated presentation to be based on the YouTube project I mentioned at the beginning of the month. I'm not doing that YouTube project anytime soon.
I did end up animating a doodle. Feel free to look at it on my twitter account: https://twitter.com/OperationUGAWTS/status/1096239816344100864
Otherwise, that's pretty much all I've accomplished this past couple weeks. It's not much, and it makes me a little sad,but sometimes things happen. Here's to a better two weeks. Hopefully~!
Ja ne~!
