It seems to be every post I do this, but once more can't hurt: I'm sorry that posts are so thin on the ground. This summer, for me, is very busy: I have a part-time job in an office to help raise money for next year at uni, I have uni work to do (again, for next year), and among all that I'm trying to have time to relax, haha! A very good thing is that my student finance for year two is all set, and I'm keeping an eye on my e-mail inbox for a notice from my accommodation.
However, as I know people are just here for the art and not Polyrhythm's Summer Life Story:
(I hope you know who it is - part of my university project involves caricature study, and if the viewer has no idea who it is then the whole point is missed!)
I feel I'm finally getting a grip on what my style is. A style isn't just doing the same thing over and over - it's doing diverse pieces of work that has that recognisable attitude about it, that one thing that marks it 'yours' that you can't always put a finger on. Sometimes, people have more than one different style, and that's fine too. A style represents what the person enjoys doing, the media they like to use. I enjoy both realistic and cartooning work, and like to dabble in digital, but I'll always remain at heart a traditional artist. Pens, pencils, collaging, glue and paints eff-tee-double-yew.
I'm getting more comfortable in my skin about my work and the kind of things I do. It's taken me a while to do so, but now I have I'm pretty happy. This doesn't mean I'm going to sit back and leave it at this, though - a style evolves, just like everything else, and I'm going to continue to work at it. But the feeling of comfort, and some sort of pride in my work, is a nice feeling.
Above my wardrobe is some things in a folder - older things from AS level, the end of which is when I started Polyrillustration Lishieomancy as it was known back then. When I went back to fetch my things from sixth form, which was a year ago now, I was amazed at some of the (for lack of a better word) absolute crap I turned out back then. I looked at it and thought "I once found this amazing ... I can't believe it". There are some few pieces from both AS and A2 level that I still love, and those pieces I brought back with me, but even then there's a colossal jump in style. I'll have to photograph some of it and compare it to the work I do now.
That brings me onto another thing. Back in AS level, I absolutely adored anime and manga-styled art. I had done for a while then (starting from the age of 11 where I was copying Pokemon art out of old annuals) and it showed in every single piece of work I did that featured a human face. Once it's in your drawing style, manga is very, very hard to get out - and only recently have I noticed that slowly it has less and less of a presence in my work as I work to distance myself from it. For me, this is brilliant. Manga doesn't suit my style, it's never been a strong point of mine and I feel it's best if I leave it behind to move onto other things - but, like I said, it's not always that simple. There's a very good reason why so many artists recommend you learn and continue to study proper anatomy before messing about with it - so you know the basics, and you can play around with it knowing what you're doing and what looks good. I was a numbskull and hadn't a clue what normal anatomy was like when I was in my pre/early-teens, and I ended up "paying the price" years down the line trying to work 'manga anatomy' out of my system.
Anyway. Enough of this wall of text when I have work to do!
Here is my new Tumblr. Follow to your heart's content!
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