Existential Crisis (Patreon)

My art is facing an existential crisis; it came to my attention today.

Lately my inability to sleep has become increasingly worse: to the point where I’m constantly dropping stuff and making typos I never normally would.

It’s been driving me nuts but I‘ve done my best to ignore it. Finally I had to spend a day to just sleep. I took yesterday to do that... but couldn’t. So, I sketched some concepts. I needed them for my Portfolio to get a German Visa anyway... so why not?

It was a pretty relaxing experience. Where I drew these things that I normally wouldn’t find the time for... the way I normally would if I didn’t “try”.

My wife was surprised. She said the style was more obviously “delicate”. Even though the lines were a complete mess.

If you’ve followed my art before now than you’ve seen me use this style before. In old pictures, commissions and the first issue of BOUND BY DUTY. It’s my art’s natural state. It’s natural flow. Before I dumb it down or make it into something it’s not.

And therein lies my artistic crisis: I’ve spent so many years focusing on how I THINK art should look instead of just letting my soul spill out on paper.

I never just let it happen. And I thought that anyone who thought art was an expression of the soul was just being silly. “We draw what we want to express exactly as you see it. When an artist draws a spoon it’s because he wanted to draw a spoon. People can take anything from that.”, “If you draw a man that is homeless on the street: you are looking at the picture of a homeless person.” <—- These are the types of things I would think or say. Honestly, I probably still will (just to be a smartass.).

I’m starting to realize that the expression of the soul can come in how an artist portrays these things. But in my case, I feel I’ve been crippling my own artistic spirit. By caging it in certain ideas such as “the eyes need to be precisely this round compared to the mouth.”, “the arms and legs shouldn’t curve unnaturally because bones are solid structures that work on hinges.”, “This may look nicer, but it is anatomically incorrect.”

It’s these kinds of thoughts that I’m realizing make my art appear stiff at times. Without spirit. Whereas, you take the Sailor Moon piece I did for my wife and you can see the love in it. The soul. Because I had to get it just right! But I went about it more naturally. Although still stiff in places.

You can look at this concept and see that it doesn’t have that stiffness. It has spirit. My spirit!

TL;DR: I think too hard about what my art needs to be, so I’m drawing a lot worse than I seem to be able to. Will fix.

(May post the other concepts later.)

THOUGHTS???