Anything Worth Doing Never Comes Easy

I did these sketches a few weeks ago, when I first decided to get serious about my drawing practice. Again, these sketches are mainly referenced from the work of comic artist David Finch. I think what attracts me most to his style is his use of shadow and rendering, and the sheer amount of detail he manages to fit into his work without it ever looking over done. I guess I have always been attracted to that grungier, darker comic art style and it is defiantly a style I am looking to incorporate into my own work. 

These sets of sketches are the newest ones I’ve been working on. Nothing special, just more practice, getting up that experience. It can be hard doing these every day and night, as the motivation slowly drains and procrastination sets in. But I have to be tough and learn to get past it because the matter of the fact is there is no better way to develop my skills then to practice, practice, practice.

  

And here is some of my own work, straight from my head. The first image is of a character called Reptile from the Mortal Kombat game series. I did him a few weeks ago now, he was kinda my first guinea pig in regards to testing out some of the stuff I’d learnt from drawing the work of David Finch and Marc Silvestri. The only thing I referenced in the reptile picture was his clothing. I have been playing a fair bit of Mortal Kombat lately and I really like all the unique characters available to play as. Reptile and Noob Saibot are the two fighters I like the most though, probably because of their creepiness.

The cone head zombie guy is more recent and is actually a creature I had lurking around in my dreams the other night. He seemed to have the ability to raise the dead, and I was there defending myself against the zombies with nothing more than a small hand gun. It was a frightening dream but very cool at the same time. I like nightmares for the reason they can often provide one with quite unique and profound ideas for a new art work or even a story. As you can see with the cone head drawing though, it stands as much cleaner and confident when compared to the reptile one, so I do think all this practice is rubbing off on me. 

 It is hard for me to upload my own work, because I feel at this point it is very inferior compared to where I want the quality of it to be. I wouldn't say I'm embarrassed of it exactly, but I do feel like I'm putting myself out there on the line. 

This is still something which I think is necessary though. I want people to see how I progress. I want other artists to watch me as I take on this journey, and how I will get to where I eventually want to be. This is a big part of why I created this blog. I think some people just think an artist is born with their skills already there; the reality is talent can only get you so far and you have to work hard to grow as an artist. I wanted to show people who make these assumptions that we all start out on the same level. And I want other young artists who are at the beginning of this long and treacherous path that they will get out what they are willing to put in. The more you practice, the more you sacrifice, and the more pain you are willing to go through in order to get what you want the more you will be rewarded. Anything worth doing never comes easy; it's as simple as that.

I have often wondered what talent is really, and the way I see it is it is that drive to better ones self. And it just doesn't apply to art; it applies to anything someone can have a passion for. It's the thing inside you that tells you not to give up.