Welp... 7 this morning, I got the phone call from my mom about her being hospitalized.
Maybe I should start drinking at this point.
On the contrary, this is exactly the time to NOT start drinking. Because if you do, you might never stop. My uncle was a chronic smoker who's still struggling not to go back to tobacco. Take it from me, it's not worth it.
A few years after college my mother was diagnosed with colon cancer. She was given 6 months to live. I moved home to help care for her. 10 years later, I was still there, and I was still caring for her. She helped me with the baby sitting and I took care of her and the house. Her life was never really what it was prior to all of the chemo, radiation, and surgery, but her spirit was irrepressible.
Her fight finally ended this morning at 2 am. I can't properly describe the waves of devastation that are washing over me. I mean, I got 9 1/2+ more years than I was supposed to, but I feel like I've got a knife in my chest and that it's never going to come out. I've never felt pain this profound. I realize people have muscle spasms when they die, but she had a pronounced smile on her face, and while I am an atheist, I hope in her final moments she found the bliss and freedom that had eluded her these past years.
Don't want to get into the (many) reasons, but wow, life just hasn't been enjoyable at all in quite a while now. Just a whole lot of stress, pain, exhaustion, worry and sadness without much pause all year. I'm just sick of it (the bad stuff that is - not life).
So fun fact, my blood pressure in my left arm is 169 but in my right arm is 188... That damn machine literally caused my entire damn arm to fucking sting and go numb.
And I'm getting lectures on how I need to keep taking my blood pressure medicine
Gotta be smarter than that. Shoulda left the knife in the car! Seriously, you know how that looks these days...
I don't have a car, my brother gave me some money to get a Lyft.
Spoiler alert; the trains stop at 1:15, I thought they stopped at 3, it's currently 2:15 and guess who has no way home and no money for a lyft or Uber and currently shivering uncontrollably.
Edit:
Welp, time for a new night of trying to sleep, I sat in the hospital waiting area from 2 am to 5:30 constantly dozing off and waking back up. I don't even know if it was on purpose. Part of me wanted to sleep put I kept waking up to the staff talking and laughing. When I got back it was around 8am so idk what tonight is going to be like.
Besides the migraines I've had today, today's just felt more mundane and pointless than usual.
Some people don't get why I get so depressed while I'm drawing...
To put it simply 1 of these pages is me.
3 of these pages is Tomás Giorello art !!!
1 page is David finch.
I see what I want, I've worked for years trying to get there and I'm no closer than where I started.
Except now I have a massive debt and a useless paper from a 4 year trap that I stayed in way longer than I should have.
Also no, I've heard it a thousand time..."don't compare yourself bla bla" yea, but I'm going to get compared no matter what. In my life of trying to be a professional artist I've been compared to everything such as one of inspirations Luis Royo which was surprising to German expressionist... Which just depressed the ish out of me.
So sometimes... Alot really... Almost every other day I just get tired, depressed and just feel like I've thrown my life away chasing a reality that was never mine to have in the first place.
I absolutely hate New Year's Eve. I would hide in a cave if I could. Or put wax into my ears and go to sleep in the cellar ar 10 PM, but that would upset the children.
The fireworks, especially the ones that everyone in the neighborhood uses, are too loud, some people here put up loud music in the garden and the basses hammer through the walls 3 houses away, and I doubt it will be different from last year, where they still had the music so loud at 3 am that I couldn't sleep three houses away. It's a small town and I've told them that I have to work 24 hours tomorrow, so I begged them to turn down the volume after 1 am this time (I'm not unreasonable, of course they want to party until after midnight, but there has to be a limit).
I hope they're going to listen, or I might put rabbit droppings into their mailbox tomorrow.
Anyway, a happy new year to all considerate people
I tolerate people letting off fireworks late at night on July 4th here in the states. But they never leave it at that. That start doing it on July 2nd and don't stop til July 6th. Maddening.
I just got a text from my brother that my mom got admitted to the ER late last night. She was in a lot of pain and had trouble breathing. This morning I hear that she was diagnosed with a pulmonary embolism in the lower half of one of her lungs. They are supposed to be doing an ultrasound sometime today to see if there are anymore blood clots, as they tend to travel up through the legs alot of the time. Hopefully her heart checks out OK as well.
At 77 years old I tend to worry about any change or health issue she might have. I hope the ultrasound checks out OK. At least she got to the hospital.
UPDATE: No other clots found in legs and heart was OK. Whewww. That was a bit of a scare. Another day of observation and she gets to go home I think tomorrow. She'll be on blood thinners for a while I think but it could have been worse.
Me:
Ok, I'm going onto try to be more positive this year, I'm going to try and move forward, maybe look for a internship or try to find some freelance design work while taking my 3d and animation and publication layout design this year.
Life:
N-word you trying to be positive? How about this, more money issues causing your school account to be locked so you can't pay for class this semester and end up being dropped and putting you behind on everything.
Oh remember that power bill your behind on, where you got an extension to the tenth? Let's just turn your power off on the 9th.
Yea, thw hopeful future you thought you might have had, hahaha yeah right.
What's the point of positivity when the anytime I try life tells me to go eff myself.
I agree more and more with Vinnie lately.
"My head don't work, the meds don't work
But I don't want to be dead, dead don't work
Sleep's the cousin of death, the bed don't work
Maybe I'd rather be dead; dead don't hurt"
@DragonKing This more related to your work self -image rather than finance woes (I feel you there, if I ever figure out a way to fix my own problems, I'll be sure to share the secret.), but I noticed in your comparison, it seems like you used humans as an example. What about your creature designs though? Based on the work I've seen from you, those seem to be your strong point (to my non-artist eyes, granted). Every artist has weak points, but I think finding your strong point and focusing on that for awhile might help the self esteem.
@ThacoBell
I don't draw creatures much, they are harder to do than humans because they require a whole new level of study that I rarely do. Especially the closer they get to real world animals.
@ThacoBell
I don't draw creatures much, they are harder to do than humans because they require a whole new level of study that I rarely do. Especially the closer they get to real world animals.
Then you must have some natural skill there. The monsters I've seen you do look really good.
One of the advantages of drawing the imaginary critters is that there are fewer rules about what they're supposed to look like. In art, a zebra that looks different from other zebras seems fake, but a dragon that looks different from other dragons seems unique!
@semiticgod
You still need a basic understanding of construction and rendering to make imaginary critters look good.
And to make them look believable, or to use a term coined by a master of drawing what doesn't exist, James Gurney, "Imaginary realism" You need a extensive study of what does exist. The most believable dragons look believable because those artist took the time to study real animals, horses, dogs, lizards etc... There is no escaping it.
Same thing with fantasy structures, a study of similar if not exact same buildings were down to draw and render them believably.
Then i think about how into the figure alone I've put and continue to put over decades of study and seem to got nothing out of it in return but more depression really and a constant questioning of why am i even alive. Oh, and a debt, a constantly increasing growing hungrier debt.
@semiticgod
You still need a basic understanding of construction and rendering to make imaginary critters look good.
And to make them look believable, or to use a term coined by a master of drawing what doesn't exist, James Gurney, "Imaginary realism" You need a extensive study of what does exist. The most believable dragons look believable because those artist took the time to study real animals, horses, dogs, lizards etc... There is no escaping it.
Same thing with fantasy structures, a study of similar if not exact same buildings were down to draw and render them believably.
Then i think about how into the figure alone I've put and continue to put over decades of study and seem to got nothing out of it in return but more depression really and a constant questioning of why am i even alive. Oh, and a debt, a constantly increasing growing hungrier debt.
@semiticgod
You still need a basic understanding of construction and rendering to make imaginary critters look good.
And to make them look believable, or to use a term coined by a master of drawing what doesn't exist, James Gurney, "Imaginary realism" You need a extensive study of what does exist. The most believable dragons look believable because those artist took the time to study real animals, horses, dogs, lizards etc... There is no escaping it.
Same thing with fantasy structures, a study of similar if not exact same buildings were down to draw and render them believably.
Then i think about how into the figure alone I've put and continue to put over decades of study and seem to got nothing out of it in return but more depression really and a constant questioning of why am i even alive. Oh, and a debt, a constantly increasing growing hungrier debt.
I'm not trying to be mean here, but have you ever considered pursuing other talents for your living and just playing with art as a hobby? Your current course is clearly not bringing you any peace of mind. There must be some other skill(s) you've noticed you have an aptitude for that could be polished into a career...
@Balrog99
Nothing brings me peace of mind, drawing was just the only thing that seem to bring me the least amount of frustration or did at one point.
I've already changed course anyways, that's what becoming a graphic designer was suppose to do. If you are talking about something outside of design and art then no. There isn't, I've walked one track my entire... I have no talents, drawing wasn't even a talent... You know what hang on...
That was from over a decade ago, in highschool. I didn't choose a career based on talent, but based on what will most likely hold my interest long enough that I could do something with it, and not hate my myself or ready to end myself by the time I was 30.
I didn't think that was to much to ask out of life. I expected it to take time and dedication to build the skills needed I mean heck Francis tsi was self taught and he became epic. Both Frank Miller and Rob Liefeld are things. So it was the single thing I dedicated myself to fully.
I expected it to take time and dedication to build the skills needed I mean heck Francis tsi was self taught and he became epic. Both Frank Miller and Rob Liefeld are things. So it was the single thing I dedicated myself to fully.
I think the question is whether you want to draw comics, or whether you want to draw like the artists that you have posted examples of. Because you will get two different answers to these questions. What you love in the style of others, might be not be what works for you. Instead of trying to copying them, look for the strenghts of your own style; try to find the uniqueness of it. Comics and illustrations are a an incredibly varied medium. And that's for a reason: realism doesn't fit all subjects and not everyone likes realism.
Tbh, I would not buy a comic by the artists you've posted, because I dislike that sort of stylisation. Too many details that are drawn in a similar fashion (the bricks & wall scene is an example) looks just messy. I prefer artists that know how to work with and incorporate blank spaces. My favourite fantasy illustrator? John Jude Palencar.
I agree with @chimaera. Be yourself and develop your own style. My favorite comic book artist is John Byrne and his art style isn't remotely the same as Frank Miller's. Frank Miller has a gritty quality to his art that works for some things (Daredevil, say) but not for others (I didn't care for his version of Wolverine for example). One of my all-time favorite comic books is Groo by Sergio Aragones and he uses a comic-strip style of art that works like a charm for the humor genre.
@Balrog99
Style comes after you build a foundation, not before... A saying that I've heard repeated from everyone from comic artist to disney artist, and illustrators. You need to learn how to draw the world around you before you can break it. A lot of new artist focus too much on style and ignore the fundamentals.
@chimaera
I just want everything given to pay off. I don't have a style, and I've notice more and more people like to use "style" as a crutch for not trying to improve their fundamentals. A trap i tried nonstop not to fall in, its far too easy to just say, "Oh thats my style" or "im good at this, so I should just focus on this and ignore what I'm bad at." I call that a failure! I got to sit with a man for three years who with his right hand could draw a photo realistic drawing while with his left had at the same to draw a stylistic cartoon drawing. Yet I'm suppose to depend on a crutch? Then what was the point of drawing to my figures wrist and shoulders hurt? What was the point of drawing to 3 in the morning if all I get is a crutch? Straining and stressing myself believing it will all be worth it in the end.
@DragonKing " I don't have a style, and I've notice more and more people like to use "style" as a crutch for not trying to improve their fundamentals. A trap i tried nonstop not to fall in, its far too easy to just say, "Oh thats my style" or "im good at this, so I should just focus on this and ignore what I'm bad at." I call that a failure! I got to sit with a man for three years who with his right hand could draw a photo realistic drawing while with his left had at the same to draw a stylistic cartoon drawing. Yet I'm suppose to depend on a crutch?"
There's a big difference between using syle as an excuse, and actually developing a style of your own to compliment your work and talents. There's a reason that every proffessional artist mentioned here includes talk about "style". Their works don't look like each other, and that difference isn't some kind of quantifiable skill, its their own way of drawing.
@ThacoBell
Except many, especially more classically trained animators can draw like each other, in fact it's a skill required if you wish to work in a in house studio that has its own style that it works with, such as DC or Disney. Ontop of that one of the ways we train and are taught is by actually trying to recreate master paintings. Not drawing it in "your style" but recreating it as you see it. Style is the last thing focused on, the fundamentals are. It's the reason why artist like Bruce Timm, can draw beautifully stylized figures because he knows those very fundamentals and of he chooses he can he can turn around and do a realistic piece.
But you're right some artist that do know the fundamentals can choose to do whatever style they want just like some of us don't want shoehorned onto some "style."
@chimaera
As far as the gallery thing goes, that was a few years ago I haven't even spoken to them since the fire happened and they had to relocate somewhere but either way that answer is no. Let alone not anyone who does the type of art o do, despite popular belief, galleries rarely care for illustrative art. In fact there is a massive divide in the fine art world when it comes to illustration. In fact being someone who cared more about illustration I'm a conceptual fine art school at times was... "Fun"... Especially when some kept trying to push me to be more... Post modernistic with my art -_-.
So no, even the professors at the school I graduated from told me they can't help me do to the levels of seperation of what type of art I do from there's.
I don't have a style I've always focused on fundementala, proportion, a anatomy, and value. Even with the few times I purposely did stylized nothing came before the fundementals.
The person closest to me died on August 10th, 2019. I can't recover from this. It is a barrier I never expected, wanted, or had any plan to overcome.
I've dealt with some amount of death in my time. In fact, at this point, everyone I knew and stayed friends with from high school and before is dead. One I watched die three feet away from me, and until 2019, that was probably the nadir of my life.
This, however, is entirely different.
I'm not suicidal and I don't need advice on that, although I appreciate the thought behind it (in any case, I saw a grief counsellor at the time). I am in a position in life where it would negatively affect too many people if I killed myself, notably including my disabled wife and my child who I only a few years ago reconnected with. I've been suicidal before and I will seek appropriate assistance if I feel that way again. But just because I won't kill myself doesn't mean I want to live. And just because I am alive doesn't mean there's any joy in it, or any prospect of joy in the future.
There just isn't. And that won't change, I don't think - I'm already past the initial emotional grieving, after all. Any dream or desire I had in my life is pointless now, because even if I achieved it, so what? Why would that make me happy? Going to Istanbul isn't a goal or ambition or fond dream some day - if it happened, it would just be a distraction. A way to pass some time as I wait through the interminable remaining days of my life. If I got rich now... so what? What's money going to buy that changes anything? Publish a book now... who cares? The person I knew I was going to publish a book with, since shortly after we met twenty-five years ago, is gone. There was no question of us doing it separately. We were so certain of that, as fifteen year olds, that we even had our autobiographies planned out as a dual volume, his cover and story as one side of the book and mine on the other.
My book was going to be titled "All the Idiots I've Met", and his was going to be "...". Well, as I said, we were fifteen at the time.
I never even got to say goodbye. I knew nothing until it was too late, and stuck in this wretched fucking country on the other side of the globe, I couldn't even fly back in time before he passed away. WIthout ever seeing a body or grave or any other closure, an air unreality hangs over the whole thing, and every day I am repeatedly jolted by the realisation "that happened, that's it, it's over, he's really gone". Part of me still expects to see an email every time I open the inbox, apologising for being gone for awhile, inviting to catch him one the weekend in the Google Hangouts chat we'd been using since AIM shuttered.
I know it's irrational, but I deeply resent that for other people, time didn't stop on August 10, 2019 (or more accurately, a day and a half before, when I was given the news he would not come out of a coma). I posted things about his death in a few places - not here, because he had no connection to here - and there is a jolt of resentment to see those threads, after many posts and RIPs and testimonials, went silent and fallow. How dare people stop talking about him. How dare they move on.
I also deeply resent that people treat me as if it's unclear that every single day is August 10th for me, an agonising burden that I am only continuing to bear for the benefit of other people. How dare you ask me how I am. Isn't it obvious?
I have had something ripped out of me that cannot be replaced or lived without. I am walking wounded. I cannot even remember day to day life before he was part of it, and expecting me to live for forty, fifty or more years without him being part of it is profoundly unfair.
Nothing is more facile and irritating than the "he would've wanted you to live on" sentiment, well-meaning though it may be. I mean, for one, he doesn't want anything now because he's dead and neither of us had religious beliefs. Also, I kind of wanted him to NOT FUCKING DIE, so when he gets back to me on that I'll strongly take under advisement any requests from him to not suffer for the rest of my life. Quid pro quo.
I am told by the grief counsellor that all of this is normal and not unusual in terms of reactions. Well, that's a shame. I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy, political or personal. It'd be nice if it was a unique, unprecedented, pure form of grief.
But I still won't get past it. I know this, because I do not want to get past it. Getting past it, ever being normal again, ever being happy again... that would cheapen the relationship I had with him. The thought of going on with my life and it returning to being anything other than an onerous, interminable burden is obscene and grotesque. And nobody else understood or was privy to the bond I had with him, so nobody else has any standing to tell me those last two sentences are wrong.
There was a US president who lost their only son before being inaugurated into office. They had been an energetic, active politician, but after the life went out of them, and they became a do-nothing executive, hastening the slide towards civil war (IIRC the timeline here). I identify with that, to the extent that I can identify with anyone about this. There are losses you can bear, and there are losses you can't - and shouldn't. At a certain point you should be able to call the game, and people will murmur "Well, he did his best. Couldn't ask for more, given the circumstances."
I am utterly and profoundly alone, and I always will be.
I'm not sure why I posted this, given I haven't posted here for something like two years. Probably a combination of remembering this thread, a certain amount of theraputicness in voicing these kind of thoughts I otherwise keep mostly in my head, and the likelyhood that nobody that actually knows me or him will ever read this (on that note, on the off-chance somebody knows who I'm talking about, please don't mention his name in this thread so nobody will ever find this post by googling his name - that is why I didn't mention it).
If you read all of this, thanks. I actually do appreciate it.
You've seen a grief councellor, so I assume you've gotten the soft version of well wishes. But since you say you "want" to be miserable your whole life, I think a need a kick more than a nudge.
Is going out of your way to be miserable your entire life a fitting tribute to your life-long friendship? Is that the feeling and memory of him that you want to always remember be one of bitterness and anger? Could he really have been so cherished if his memory can't even spark any joy? Honestly, that sounds like a huge disservice to his life and memory to me.
You've seen a grief councellor, so I assume you've gotten the soft version of well wishes. But since you say you "want" to be miserable your whole life, I think a need a kick more than a nudge.
Is going out of your way to be miserable your entire life a fitting tribute to your life-long friendship? Is that the feeling and memory of him that you want to always remember be one of bitterness and anger? Could he really have been so cherished if his memory can't even spark any joy? Honestly, that sounds like a huge disservice to his life and memory to me.
You misunderstand. What I "want" is my life to be over. I can't do that, however. What I do not want is to let go and move on, because this was not merely a friend but someone closer to me than anyone else in this world ever was or ever will be. There is no "me" without him, no identity I claim that does not include his presence in my life. The possibility of "me without him", as some sort of whole person, is what is grotesque and obscene. That wouldn't be me. Why would I want that?
It is the inevitable consequence of the above that leads to being miserable for the rest of my life, not any actual desire to be. I'm not actually as bitter or angry as you think (in fact, I'm a lot less bitter and angry than I expected, given there are things I hold directly responsible for his death). I'm just broken. I've had enough. I'm done. I want it to be over, and it can't be.
I also don't feel particularly responsible to live my life as a tribute to anything. I'm living for people who depend on me, and asking more of me than that is more than I am able to give. You can judge me for it, but you don't know me, haven't lived my life, and I hope in all sincerity that you are in never in a position to demonstrate how you'd do better in similar circumstances.
Comments
Maybe I should start drinking at this point.
On the contrary, this is exactly the time to NOT start drinking. Because if you do, you might never stop. My uncle was a chronic smoker who's still struggling not to go back to tobacco. Take it from me, it's not worth it.
Her fight finally ended this morning at 2 am. I can't properly describe the waves of devastation that are washing over me. I mean, I got 9 1/2+ more years than I was supposed to, but I feel like I've got a knife in my chest and that it's never going to come out. I've never felt pain this profound. I realize people have muscle spasms when they die, but she had a pronounced smile on her face, and while I am an atheist, I hope in her final moments she found the bliss and freedom that had eluded her these past years.
So fun fact, my blood pressure in my left arm is 169 but in my right arm is 188... That damn machine literally caused my entire damn arm to fucking sting and go numb.
And I'm getting lectures on how I need to keep taking my blood pressure medicine
Oh and they took my pocket knife. -_-
Gotta be smarter than that. Shoulda left the knife in the car! Seriously, you know how that looks these days...
I don't have a car, my brother gave me some money to get a Lyft.
Spoiler alert; the trains stop at 1:15, I thought they stopped at 3, it's currently 2:15 and guess who has no way home and no money for a lyft or Uber and currently shivering uncontrollably.
Edit:
Welp, time for a new night of trying to sleep, I sat in the hospital waiting area from 2 am to 5:30 constantly dozing off and waking back up. I don't even know if it was on purpose. Part of me wanted to sleep put I kept waking up to the staff talking and laughing. When I got back it was around 8am so idk what tonight is going to be like.
Besides the migraines I've had today, today's just felt more mundane and pointless than usual.
To put it simply 1 of these pages is me.
3 of these pages is Tomás Giorello art !!!
1 page is David finch.
I see what I want, I've worked for years trying to get there and I'm no closer than where I started.
Except now I have a massive debt and a useless paper from a 4 year trap that I stayed in way longer than I should have.
Also no, I've heard it a thousand time..."don't compare yourself bla bla" yea, but I'm going to get compared no matter what. In my life of trying to be a professional artist I've been compared to everything such as one of inspirations Luis Royo which was surprising to German expressionist... Which just depressed the ish out of me.
So sometimes... Alot really... Almost every other day I just get tired, depressed and just feel like I've thrown my life away chasing a reality that was never mine to have in the first place.
I tolerate people letting off fireworks late at night on July 4th here in the states. But they never leave it at that. That start doing it on July 2nd and don't stop til July 6th. Maddening.
At 77 years old I tend to worry about any change or health issue she might have. I hope the ultrasound checks out OK. At least she got to the hospital.
UPDATE: No other clots found in legs and heart was OK. Whewww. That was a bit of a scare. Another day of observation and she gets to go home I think tomorrow. She'll be on blood thinners for a while I think but it could have been worse.
Ok, I'm going onto try to be more positive this year, I'm going to try and move forward, maybe look for a internship or try to find some freelance design work while taking my 3d and animation and publication layout design this year.
Life:
N-word you trying to be positive? How about this, more money issues causing your school account to be locked so you can't pay for class this semester and end up being dropped and putting you behind on everything.
Oh remember that power bill your behind on, where you got an extension to the tenth? Let's just turn your power off on the 9th.
Yea, thw hopeful future you thought you might have had, hahaha yeah right.
What's the point of positivity when the anytime I try life tells me to go eff myself.
I agree more and more with Vinnie lately.
"My head don't work, the meds don't work
But I don't want to be dead, dead don't work
Sleep's the cousin of death, the bed don't work
Maybe I'd rather be dead; dead don't hurt"
Seriously though, I love your monster designs.
I don't draw creatures much, they are harder to do than humans because they require a whole new level of study that I rarely do. Especially the closer they get to real world animals.
Then you must have some natural skill there. The monsters I've seen you do look really good.
You still need a basic understanding of construction and rendering to make imaginary critters look good.
And to make them look believable, or to use a term coined by a master of drawing what doesn't exist, James Gurney, "Imaginary realism" You need a extensive study of what does exist. The most believable dragons look believable because those artist took the time to study real animals, horses, dogs, lizards etc... There is no escaping it.
Same thing with fantasy structures, a study of similar if not exact same buildings were down to draw and render them believably.
Then i think about how into the figure alone I've put and continue to put over decades of study and seem to got nothing out of it in return but more depression really and a constant questioning of why am i even alive. Oh, and a debt, a constantly increasing growing hungrier debt.
I'm not trying to be mean here, but have you ever considered pursuing other talents for your living and just playing with art as a hobby? Your current course is clearly not bringing you any peace of mind. There must be some other skill(s) you've noticed you have an aptitude for that could be polished into a career...
Nothing brings me peace of mind, drawing was just the only thing that seem to bring me the least amount of frustration or did at one point.
I've already changed course anyways, that's what becoming a graphic designer was suppose to do. If you are talking about something outside of design and art then no. There isn't, I've walked one track my entire... I have no talents, drawing wasn't even a talent... You know what hang on...
That was from over a decade ago, in highschool. I didn't choose a career based on talent, but based on what will most likely hold my interest long enough that I could do something with it, and not hate my myself or ready to end myself by the time I was 30.
I didn't think that was to much to ask out of life. I expected it to take time and dedication to build the skills needed I mean heck Francis tsi was self taught and he became epic. Both Frank Miller and Rob Liefeld are things. So it was the single thing I dedicated myself to fully.
I agree with @chimaera. Be yourself and develop your own style. My favorite comic book artist is John Byrne and his art style isn't remotely the same as Frank Miller's. Frank Miller has a gritty quality to his art that works for some things (Daredevil, say) but not for others (I didn't care for his version of Wolverine for example). One of my all-time favorite comic books is Groo by Sergio Aragones and he uses a comic-strip style of art that works like a charm for the humor genre.
Style comes after you build a foundation, not before... A saying that I've heard repeated from everyone from comic artist to disney artist, and illustrators. You need to learn how to draw the world around you before you can break it. A lot of new artist focus too much on style and ignore the fundamentals.
@chimaera
I just want everything given to pay off. I don't have a style, and I've notice more and more people like to use "style" as a crutch for not trying to improve their fundamentals. A trap i tried nonstop not to fall in, its far too easy to just say, "Oh thats my style" or "im good at this, so I should just focus on this and ignore what I'm bad at." I call that a failure! I got to sit with a man for three years who with his right hand could draw a photo realistic drawing while with his left had at the same to draw a stylistic cartoon drawing. Yet I'm suppose to depend on a crutch? Then what was the point of drawing to my figures wrist and shoulders hurt? What was the point of drawing to 3 in the morning if all I get is a crutch? Straining and stressing myself believing it will all be worth it in the end.
There's a big difference between using syle as an excuse, and actually developing a style of your own to compliment your work and talents. There's a reason that every proffessional artist mentioned here includes talk about "style". Their works don't look like each other, and that difference isn't some kind of quantifiable skill, its their own way of drawing.
Except many, especially more classically trained animators can draw like each other, in fact it's a skill required if you wish to work in a in house studio that has its own style that it works with, such as DC or Disney. Ontop of that one of the ways we train and are taught is by actually trying to recreate master paintings. Not drawing it in "your style" but recreating it as you see it. Style is the last thing focused on, the fundamentals are. It's the reason why artist like Bruce Timm, can draw beautifully stylized figures because he knows those very fundamentals and of he chooses he can he can turn around and do a realistic piece.
But you're right some artist that do know the fundamentals can choose to do whatever style they want just like some of us don't want shoehorned onto some "style."
@chimaera
As far as the gallery thing goes, that was a few years ago I haven't even spoken to them since the fire happened and they had to relocate somewhere but either way that answer is no. Let alone not anyone who does the type of art o do, despite popular belief, galleries rarely care for illustrative art. In fact there is a massive divide in the fine art world when it comes to illustration. In fact being someone who cared more about illustration I'm a conceptual fine art school at times was... "Fun"... Especially when some kept trying to push me to be more... Post modernistic with my art -_-.
So no, even the professors at the school I graduated from told me they can't help me do to the levels of seperation of what type of art I do from there's.
I don't have a style I've always focused on fundementala, proportion, a anatomy, and value. Even with the few times I purposely did stylized nothing came before the fundementals.
I've dealt with some amount of death in my time. In fact, at this point, everyone I knew and stayed friends with from high school and before is dead. One I watched die three feet away from me, and until 2019, that was probably the nadir of my life.
This, however, is entirely different.
I'm not suicidal and I don't need advice on that, although I appreciate the thought behind it (in any case, I saw a grief counsellor at the time). I am in a position in life where it would negatively affect too many people if I killed myself, notably including my disabled wife and my child who I only a few years ago reconnected with. I've been suicidal before and I will seek appropriate assistance if I feel that way again. But just because I won't kill myself doesn't mean I want to live. And just because I am alive doesn't mean there's any joy in it, or any prospect of joy in the future.
There just isn't. And that won't change, I don't think - I'm already past the initial emotional grieving, after all. Any dream or desire I had in my life is pointless now, because even if I achieved it, so what? Why would that make me happy? Going to Istanbul isn't a goal or ambition or fond dream some day - if it happened, it would just be a distraction. A way to pass some time as I wait through the interminable remaining days of my life. If I got rich now... so what? What's money going to buy that changes anything? Publish a book now... who cares? The person I knew I was going to publish a book with, since shortly after we met twenty-five years ago, is gone. There was no question of us doing it separately. We were so certain of that, as fifteen year olds, that we even had our autobiographies planned out as a dual volume, his cover and story as one side of the book and mine on the other.
My book was going to be titled "All the Idiots I've Met", and his was going to be "...". Well, as I said, we were fifteen at the time.
I never even got to say goodbye. I knew nothing until it was too late, and stuck in this wretched fucking country on the other side of the globe, I couldn't even fly back in time before he passed away. WIthout ever seeing a body or grave or any other closure, an air unreality hangs over the whole thing, and every day I am repeatedly jolted by the realisation "that happened, that's it, it's over, he's really gone". Part of me still expects to see an email every time I open the inbox, apologising for being gone for awhile, inviting to catch him one the weekend in the Google Hangouts chat we'd been using since AIM shuttered.
I know it's irrational, but I deeply resent that for other people, time didn't stop on August 10, 2019 (or more accurately, a day and a half before, when I was given the news he would not come out of a coma). I posted things about his death in a few places - not here, because he had no connection to here - and there is a jolt of resentment to see those threads, after many posts and RIPs and testimonials, went silent and fallow. How dare people stop talking about him. How dare they move on.
I also deeply resent that people treat me as if it's unclear that every single day is August 10th for me, an agonising burden that I am only continuing to bear for the benefit of other people. How dare you ask me how I am. Isn't it obvious?
I have had something ripped out of me that cannot be replaced or lived without. I am walking wounded. I cannot even remember day to day life before he was part of it, and expecting me to live for forty, fifty or more years without him being part of it is profoundly unfair.
Nothing is more facile and irritating than the "he would've wanted you to live on" sentiment, well-meaning though it may be. I mean, for one, he doesn't want anything now because he's dead and neither of us had religious beliefs. Also, I kind of wanted him to NOT FUCKING DIE, so when he gets back to me on that I'll strongly take under advisement any requests from him to not suffer for the rest of my life. Quid pro quo.
I am told by the grief counsellor that all of this is normal and not unusual in terms of reactions. Well, that's a shame. I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy, political or personal. It'd be nice if it was a unique, unprecedented, pure form of grief.
But I still won't get past it. I know this, because I do not want to get past it. Getting past it, ever being normal again, ever being happy again... that would cheapen the relationship I had with him. The thought of going on with my life and it returning to being anything other than an onerous, interminable burden is obscene and grotesque. And nobody else understood or was privy to the bond I had with him, so nobody else has any standing to tell me those last two sentences are wrong.
There was a US president who lost their only son before being inaugurated into office. They had been an energetic, active politician, but after the life went out of them, and they became a do-nothing executive, hastening the slide towards civil war (IIRC the timeline here). I identify with that, to the extent that I can identify with anyone about this. There are losses you can bear, and there are losses you can't - and shouldn't. At a certain point you should be able to call the game, and people will murmur "Well, he did his best. Couldn't ask for more, given the circumstances."
I am utterly and profoundly alone, and I always will be.
I'm not sure why I posted this, given I haven't posted here for something like two years. Probably a combination of remembering this thread, a certain amount of theraputicness in voicing these kind of thoughts I otherwise keep mostly in my head, and the likelyhood that nobody that actually knows me or him will ever read this (on that note, on the off-chance somebody knows who I'm talking about, please don't mention his name in this thread so nobody will ever find this post by googling his name - that is why I didn't mention it).
If you read all of this, thanks. I actually do appreciate it.
Is going out of your way to be miserable your entire life a fitting tribute to your life-long friendship? Is that the feeling and memory of him that you want to always remember be one of bitterness and anger? Could he really have been so cherished if his memory can't even spark any joy? Honestly, that sounds like a huge disservice to his life and memory to me.
Thank you. I wish that I'd said more about him, but again, I've done that elsewhere and in this case I was taking the title of the thread at its word.
You misunderstand. What I "want" is my life to be over. I can't do that, however. What I do not want is to let go and move on, because this was not merely a friend but someone closer to me than anyone else in this world ever was or ever will be. There is no "me" without him, no identity I claim that does not include his presence in my life. The possibility of "me without him", as some sort of whole person, is what is grotesque and obscene. That wouldn't be me. Why would I want that?
It is the inevitable consequence of the above that leads to being miserable for the rest of my life, not any actual desire to be. I'm not actually as bitter or angry as you think (in fact, I'm a lot less bitter and angry than I expected, given there are things I hold directly responsible for his death). I'm just broken. I've had enough. I'm done. I want it to be over, and it can't be.
I also don't feel particularly responsible to live my life as a tribute to anything. I'm living for people who depend on me, and asking more of me than that is more than I am able to give. You can judge me for it, but you don't know me, haven't lived my life, and I hope in all sincerity that you are in never in a position to demonstrate how you'd do better in similar circumstances.