a really long work process.

Recently, I finally finished an illustration (of my beloved boyband haha) that I've been working on for an incredibly long time. 

I've always sketched and drawn lineart directly onto my watercolour paper, so it obviously meant all the changes, errors and subsequent erasing affected the quality of my paper when I finally started painting. So it was really about time that I improved my work process, and sketched and finalized the lineart before transferring it. Since I changed up my work process a bit and made full use of my lightbox this time, I thought I'd take some photos along the way. 

Here are some scans of the picture across its four separate stages: rough layout, rough sketch (blue pencil) with lineart, final lineart and final colour.

I could really feel the difference in my final lineart, like it was much cleaner and more deliberate, but adding an extra step really prolongs the work process and the extra time took quite a toll on my patience. However, I did enjoy that I can sketch and make changes with a lot more freedom when I draft and create the lineart on plain paper first. That being said, even with a lightbox, it's not particularly easy to trace the lineart onto the final paper because my watercolour paper is quite thick and the original lineart's become more messy (in exchange for freedom). So in conclusion, it seems that creating lineart will still remain the most cumbersome and painful part of the painting process for me.

The final product as well, is far from what I imagined and I struggled a lot with the scanning and colour correction at the end. I feel like although I'm never at a loss for ideas and images that I want to bring to life, I'm often faced with the frustrating reality of not having the ability to truly create what I want. That's always really frustrating, but I've been improving at being quick to accept that this is the best I can do at the moment, and I will get better next time. So rather than dwelling on my own criticism and inabilities, I want to believe that this was another learning opportunity and that I can improve from it.

This year, since I only have a few classes before I graduate, I'm really hoping that I can dedicate a lot of time to drawing and improving my art. I'll also hopefully be tabling at two cons this year, and that's always really exciting and motivating for me. Since I'm planning to go into postgrad in the future, I think that the free time I have this year will be the best and maybe the last opportunity for me to put so much time and effort into my art. So for the rest of 2017, I'll keep doing my best for as long as I can!!