- She/They
💠 Hobbyist mixed media artist, writer and graphic designer from Finland
💠 I love to babble about OCs and worldbuilding 💠 Email: skuddeouo@gmail
(icon by Kahvinporo)
I will simply add MORE nonsense to the ref sheets, so then I can justify having the other nonsense there as well!
(don't mind me, just thinking out loud because cracking this dilemma is a top priority today for some reason)
I always find it odd when artists apologize for drawing the same characters a lot.
Yes, this was prompted by a mutual's journal entry, but this phenomenon is far bigger than any single person and I've wanted to talk about this for a while.
Having lived through the past couple of years of adoptable apocalypse on deviantart, I can wholeheartedly say it doesn't matter how cool or interesting your character designs are, if I see a brand new face every week I will never get to familiarize myself with any of them. A good character design or ref can really make you interested in a character, but what matters more is that you see them doing other things too. You WANT to see characters in multiple drawings.
If you draw the same 1-3 characters all the time, your audience really, REALLY gets to know who they are as people and they start to care and get invested in those characters' lives. Isn't that what you'd want as a creator? For people to see the same cool things that you see in your characters?
I'm a creator with a relatively slow output and I unfortunately don't have an obsession character. My OCs are split into two sets of 30 or so guys and I have all kinds of things I'd like to say about all of them, art I'd like to draw for all of them. So I'm always fighting with the dilemma of "should I draw more art of this one that I like a lot so people get to know them and understand why I like them so much" versus "should I finish the designs and draw more art of these other characters cause they have even less work presenting them than these other guys, but that means taking my time away from those same guys who also could use more work presenting them".
I'm always fighting my focus. I WISH I had an obsession character cause then I would be drawing nothing but them and my audience would learn all of their quirks and things, and I would feel less like I'm sitting here alone looking at something I love so much yet other people can only see through little needle-sized holes.
If I had an obsession character I wouldn't be overwhelming myself wondering if I should finish character refs, finish the size chart, finish this outfit design, finish that redesign, finish this or that map project, expand on this lore or finish the illustration for that lore, start writing about this or finish writing on that, make this comic or plan that comic... Because as a result I do none of those things. I sit here rolling my thumbs because there is too much I could, should, do and motivation for all of them is relatively equal.
Enjoy your obsession characters. Never apologize for drawing the same guy every day. It's a blessing to both you and your audience.
[A screenshot of a tumblr post by user ask-alan-one that says:
"Whatever you're working on right now -- writing, code, art, whatever:
don't try to make it perfect, or even good, on the first pass. Just make it
exist first."]
A poorly drawn bad concept is still better art than the art you never made or threw away. Even a bad version of your vision is useful in guiding you towards a better one. Just get it out there and worry about the rest later. 🌟
Art programs you have but don't use?
Clip Studio. I've tried it every now and then, and switch to it very VERY occasionally to use some of the brushes it has, but I absolutely loathe the program. Not that I think there's something inherently wrong with it, it just feels bad to me. We are not friends.
What ideas come from your childhood?
My headworld is from my childhood, the oldest characters and concepts are turning 25 this year. I pretty much haven't changed that much as an artists when it comes to ideas and motivations - I still love birds, dinosaurs, pokemon and informative illustrations of headworld concepts floating around in my head.
Fav character/subject that's a bitch to draw?
Alex is my baby boy but he is such a pain to draw for some reason. I always struggle to get his hair and face right, which sucks because I'd like to draw him much more than I do.
Another pain is hands. I kinda love drawing them but it's a struggle. I'm sure yall know what I mean.
Estimate of how much of your art you post online vs. the art you keep for yourself?
I post pretty much 99% of what I finish. Doesn't mean I don't withhold from uploading old things or delete them from time to time, but if I complete a new artwork I almost always publish it. I'm just kinda like that.
Anything that might inspire you subconsciously (e.g. this horse wasn't supposed to look like the Last Unicorn but I see it)?
A ton of things I bet. I used to mimic a lot of artists as a teenager and I'm certain a lot of the quirks I learned have stuck without me realizing it.
A medium of art you don't work in but appreciate?
Oil painting, chalk drawing and any other traditional medium that I either have no access to, cannot stand to work with (scraping paper with something dry like a charcoal is the worst) or simply don't have the patience for, I really respect.
What's an old project idea that you've lost interest in?
I used to have this little dragon story project that I occasionally remember than then forget again. Haven't touched it in maybe 13 years and never will again.
Favorite piece of clothing to draw?
I saw someone else mention loose/poofy sleeves with tight cuffs and... Yeah. That. I like drawing oversized of poofy clothing in general.
Do you listen to anything while drawing? If so, what?
I usually have a video essay running in the back, but if I'm working on a comic or something that requires mood, my winamp playlist will take care of that.
Easiest part of body to draw?
Arms. Idk I love em. All shapes and sizes.
A creator who you admire but whose work isn't your thing?
HMM. James Gurney probably. He is an absolute master and his artist guidebook is super helpful to even a hobbyist like myself, but I'm honestly not huge on his dinosaur art and I can't even say why. It looks great, but I'm just not a massive fan.
Any favorite motifs?
Rim lighting. I'm such a basic bitch.
Where do you draw (don't drop your ip address this just means do you doodle at a park or smth)?
At home on my pc or at the studio. Though nowadays I mostly use the studio for digital as well lol. I've never been good at working on art in different locations. Too many distractions.
Something you are good at but don't really have fun doing?
Lineart. I used to love lineart, and still do on traditional medium, but digitally I've grown tired of it. At the same time I don't like to render so I'm just coloring clean sketches nowadays.
Do you eat/drink when drawing? if so, what?
Pepsi Max is the fuel that keeps this machine going.
Favorite inanimate objects to draw (food, nature, etc.)?
Melee weapons and tree trunks+branches probably.
Something everyone else finds hard to draw but you enjoy?
Funnily enough, lineart. Cause I do still enjoy it, I just don't have the patience. I've never had the "turn off sketch layer -> lineart suddenly looks like shit" syndrome either. I think too many people blindly follow the sketch when lining instead of using it as a tool to create something better.
Art styles nothing like your own but you like anyways?
Really eyestraining, brightly colored work is always interesting and I love really stylized humanoid characters. Dan Saiyan for example has this amazing cartoon style that I absolutely adore.
What physical exercises do you do before drawing, if any?
Haha none. I should stretch my wrists more though.
Do you use different layer modes?
All the time. My shading is often a mix of multiply and overlay, and for textures and color adjustments there's all kinds of modes I might land on.
Do your references include stock images?
Yup, I use stock images a lot for hand poses and expressions when I need a direct reference and simply looking at inspirational work from other artists doesn't cut it.
Something your art has been compared to that you were NOT inspired by?
In high school people would ask if a thing I'm drawing is from X anime I've never watched (usually Bleach), but other than that I can't think of any examples.
What's a piece that got a wildly different interpretation from what you intended?
That hasn't really happened after early teens, but my Heart In An Egg artwork got a lot more positive feedback than I anticipated. I didn't expect anyone to care, but it spoke to people, which was really meaningful to me because it often isn't the art that I personally care about that matters to others the same way.
Do you warm up before getting to the good stuff? If so, what is it you draw to warm up with?
The only times I warm up is when I do lineart, and that's when I do some other drawing activity first. Sketches or coloring/shading on an existing piece. Can't go willy nilly swinging that marker around.
Any art events you have participated in the past (like zines)?
Our local art group hosts Secret Friend gift art events and I like participating in those, but otherwise none really.
Media you love, but doesn't inspire you artistically?
Idk what wouldn't inspire me artistically. I do visual art, writing and graphic design, so it's hard to see anything good that doesn't inspire me on some level.
What piece of yours do you think is underrated?
My abstract traditional work has never really sunk into my audience. I'm sorry if you're not here to look at circles and spirals, but that's what I'm sometimes all about.
I'm kinda dreading it in a way.
Galpas is a teeny planet in my headworld, one of the few that is relevant but only very lightly connected to the rest of the interstellar community. Galpas is kinda its own pocket world, my sociopolitical playground. Two human-beast shapeshifter species and humans just doing their thing. A lot of the stories relating to this place are much more coherent and require less explaining than the rest of my headworld thanks to being so insular and down to earth. Not much of the stories is publishable, but the characters mostly are.
The thing just is that there's a lot of characters on Galpas. 12 soari (gryphon-like og species shifters) characters, 10 subette (horse-bear og species shifters) characters (with names, I know at least 3 more that need to be fleshed out) and 3 human characters (so far).
Yall wanna see 28+ character refs in a row?? Statistically at least one of you would unfollow before it's over, let's be real. Some of the refs are incomplete anyway, since the shifters need two designs and most only have one fully finished. Work work work.
I do want to share Galpas stuff at some point. Maybe I'll trickle feed them to you like I've done with my mains and put some other stuff in between. We got time, don't we? :>
But anyway. This was my Galpas ramble for the day. I'm excited about these characters and whenever I scroll through my backlog to pick the next thing to upload here I see those characters there and I whisper "shhh they're not ready for you yet" and then I have to pick something else to share.
I WILL get to them eventually.