LEARNING FROM MISTAKES - My first post in the new format!

Rule 34 

of

Gunnerkrigg Court

Lesson in:

LEARNING FROM MISTAKES

Features the brand new jackalope-turned-human character getting a blowjob from Annie, with Smitty and snake-guy in the background.

First off, a short word about composition:

I think I did a pretty good job here with the composition.

This is why:

The most important elements in this picture follow the path of the golden spiral.

I rarely use this composition.

I usually work with diagonals, using the triangle or diagonal composition, because I can use them to direct the attention of the eye to multiple very specific targets.

The golden spiral does more than just create a few points of interest in the picture. It gives you a path to work with. Several important parts of the image can lie on that path.

This is where the spiral has a function that other methods of composition do not have:

It has a DIRECTION.

In this picture the highest amount of detail is in the lower left corner. This is the first stop on our journey. It establishes the content and the most important part of the picture:

Annie is cock-hungry.

We then follow the spiral on to our next important stop. Smitty is sighing and apologizing for Annie's behavior. This implies that Annie seems to do this sort of thing rather often.

Annie is cock-hungry, as always.

After that we see Snake guy with his trouser snake standing to full attention.

Annie is cock-hungry, as always, in front of an audience.

Then we get to our destination: Bunni's face.

He seems to be enjoying himself!

Annie is cock-hungry, as always, in front of an audience, sucking off Bunni.

After we discovered the content of the picture our eye is allowed to wander.

It will once again find it's way to the point of most detail.

This is a great example for how a focus point of a composition does not have to be the point of highest detail. Instead, using the spiral to create a focal point outside the true focal point of the picture can help you make the eyes linger and explore the picture more deeply.

Now let's talk about the process of creating a picture:

I wanted to draw the character since before he was revealed, since it's a female bunny turned human boy. That's the perfect setup for a cute trap character!

However, I didn't take into account that I had pretty much zero experience in drawing cute male characters.

Bunni (as I am going to call him for now) was extremely hard for me to draw because of that.

He still looks terrible!

Notice how his body doesn't fit the rest of the image.

I was too fed up with this image to try and fix the body as well.

The head was more than enough trouble for me!

Let me show you what I mean:

These are the different attempts at trying to fix the head.

It turned out later that the first sketch I did (not included) was in fact the best one I had. I didn't like it, however, so I tried fixing it, progressively making it worse and worse the more I tried until I reached the epitome of ugliness with the head in the lower right corner.

After I made that attempt I decided that the picture was beyond rescue and went to sleep.

Today I wanted to try to finish the picture, though, so I opened it back up and started from scratch with the head.

And it worked out!

This is something I notice A LOT with my artwork.

Sometimes you just have to start over if you know that you're not improving the image the more you work on it.

Of course the difficulty with that is that it goes against intuition.

You don't want to have WASTED all that time and energy!

But that's the thing:

You didn't waste it!

The best way to learn is to learn from your mistakes!

If you always repeat only the things that you already know, then you're not going to get anywhere!

If you make a mistake, try to fix it.

Try again and again until you succeed.

That is the only way to learning how to not make that mistake.

There's this one picture I've been working on for over a year now. Every week or so I would try to sit down and finish it, only to get no work done on it.

It isn't even complex or anything.

 It's just a simple picture of two girls talking.

But I can't get it finished.

That is because I am not learning from my mistakes in that image.

I've been avoiding my mistakes, instead of trying to fix them, so every time I try to make progress on it, I don't want to redo parts of the picture that I spent so much time on.

I can't bring myself to start over and fix those mistakes that I made, so I just keep pushing it forward and forward, never finishing it!

That is how important it is to not avoid or ignore mistakes.

You WILL make mistakes.

EVERY. TIME.

Do NOT ignore them!

Take them head on and work them out!

Even if it means to start over completely.

Do NOT avoid making them in the first place!

Leave your comfort zone as much as possible!

Don't just draw the things you know you can draw already.

That's all for today.
I'll make another post tomorrow.
See ya!

---

And now for something completely different!

HOW TO DRAW THINGS

with

CYNICAL ZACHARY

THE NOSE

STEP ONE

Draw everything but the nose.

The nose is overrated as a facial landmark.

So are thirds.

Try to avoid drawing noses until you are sure the rest of you image looks super dandy!

STEP TWO

I guess the nose is important after all, because it's kind of right there in the middle of the face, isn't it?

Draw the nose.

It's basically just some stupid thing with holes on the bottom.

STEP THREE

Here's a secret to shading the nose like a pro:

Reduce the nose down to two triangular forms resting on top each other and a triangular pillar thing sticking out of the top.

Got that part?

No?

Doesn't matter, here's the important part:

Use a nose-shaped shading to shade the nose and use a nose-shadow-shape to project the shadow onto the rest of the face parts.

Done.

You have now learned how to draw the nose in its most primitive tumblr form.

This knowledge will do you no good at all and you will never understand how noses actually work unless you forget it all this instant.

I hope you learned something from all this.

Have a good day!