Illustration Process (Part 1 - Concept) (Patreon)

Hey ya'll, still working on the Illustration for March, will hopefully be done soon, but in the interim I wanted to start putting up some posts about my painting process since I get asked about it a lot on the Art Help stream.

I'm gonna break it down into 9 parts, some of the parts could be combined but I think it'll be more clear if we keep them separate.

The first part, if you couldn't guess from the title is the concept. This part is honestly one of the hardest for me and I think a lot of people. It's the blank page, the infinite possibilities, it's everything and nothing. I think it causes a lot of people to try to rely on sudden inspiration rather than trying to find a solution. The solution is different for different folks, but what has always worked best for me is rather than waiting for inspiration I seek it out, I look at all of my favorite images, read interviews with some of my favorite artists, think about recent movies or books I've watched or read and so on. I also sometimes work within a theme, in the case of these illustrations I've been trying to narrow a theme down and have come across one I like that I now use for my commission work as well.

Themes seem restrictive from the outside, but that restriction helps to narrow your focus, it's like not having to start with a blank page. If you're a perfectionist with your work (like I can be with my paintings), you can get tied up for ages on the concept and a theme really helps to cut down on that time which is crucial if you'd like to make money from your work.

Another thing that can get me going is to just start sketching, no reference, no idea, just doodling on a page. Typically nothing amazing will come out of it but it can get you thinking, art is a very therapeutic act when separated from the need to make money or the need to make something that would be considered 'good' by a wider audience. So break out a sketch book and pencil or pen, and just get sketching.

My final one, and the one I think people, but artists especially have a hard time with, is trying something completely different. Learning a new skill can be greatly beneficial in general, but every skill you learn helps every other skill, sometimes only tangentially and sometimes very directly. Learning programming and to think in the way a computer scientist does really helped me in ways I didn't foresee, and learning how to write stories helped me to better understand how to tell them visually through illustration. Spending just an hour a day on something that is far outside your comfort zone can really improve your life and thus your work, because a happy artist is a good artist.

This turned out a bit rambly, as my words often do, but I hope this is beneficial to ya'll in some way. I'll do the next one (reference) soon!