ramonn90
The Anatomy of Art - How to Spot What is "OFF" While Creating
Published: May 26th 2023, 6:00:03 pm
Hey guys!
I've noticed many of you on Discord are struggling with different phases of the creation process, and often this is related to a lack of understanding, leading to improper assignment of levels and functions to each phase.
Why is this so important? It's better to have a clear idea of the "anatomy" of your process. Imagine you feel sick but you don't know the name of the part of your body that hurts. How would you describe it? In the real world, you can just point to the part that's in pain, but in art, sometimes you don't even know what's wrong. Because this area is constantly changing, it's crucial to have everything well described.
Let's define some terms. I'll use my creation process as a guide, but keep in mind that everyone is different. You might find yourself developing art in a different way, and that's totally fine. The goal here is to be as efficient as possible for us to create what we want.
1. Exploration Phase
In this phase, I explore the concept I want to create. Why do I do what I do? This does not mean I'm aiming to connect with a higher moral, political, or existential purpose. Sometimes, I just want to draw or paint a pancake, with no meaning whatsoever. But I often try to add some extra layers on top of that "pancake" to create a unique approach. For example, a pancake that has a job and is about to miss the subway. After that, I can just keep adding a few more layers.
How do you come up with these ideas? Just list the things you like, relate them, and keep them in mind every time you want to create something. The subject can be super simple, like an object, but you can adapt elements from your list to your initial simple idea.
You can see an example in the concepts I'm creating lately. They're a combination of a bird or animal and another point not strictly related to the bird, sharing some correlation in some way.
Once you've written down the topics you want to address in this process, you can move forward with the references and save a couple you can use for the next phase. Pinterest is perfect for that. Aside from the references board I've already shared with you, I've recently created a new board for "fashion" references. I'll be sending you the board by the end of the month via DMs for those in the tier Canvas Conqueror and above!.
2. Drawing Phase
In this phase, I go straight to the gesture and expression because I consider that to be the "feeling" or "intention" of the character I'm creating. It's also the thing audiences can relate to, so it's very important. After that, I use the references to push the outfit shape outside of the character's anatomy. The thinking behind the costume is important, but often we already have some guidance described in the exploration phase of what the outfit for our character will be. In the exploration phase, I spend about 50% of the time, and in this phase, the other 40%. Colors, values, and details are interesting, but for me, that's about 10% of the idea. In this phase, I need to be sure I will spend extra time on the rest of the process. If I don't feel comfortable, I go back to the concept to see what is missing.
It's in this phase where I cover any feeling, any "life", any composition information, anything. Before adding values or colors, I already thought about what will have what value and color in this phase, where the visually interesting info would be positioned. That's why it's so important. In this phase, I execute the concept.
3. Color Phase
In this phase, I create harmony and contrast through a simple palette, often using colors with light values, not dark tones. Although dark colors can look more saturated and vibrant, I like to keep it bright to avoid distractions. In my case, I get distracted with saturated colors and it tends to get difficult to spot what color is off. So I prefer to saturate them at the end, and use variations of the same color and one small touch of a complementary color in some parts. Colors reinforce the main idea you've already developed in the drawing.
The point here, in my opinion, is not to have 1000 different colors but one that is the main protagonist and use others to highlight its protagonism. In that way, it's easy to read and memorize. This might be subjective, but I put as an example scenes from Guillermo del Toro movies, in which I can perfectly remember and enjoy environments that have one predominant tone, like blue or yellow. It sets the mood so nicely and quickly for me, and I think this applies to characters too.
4. Value Phase
This is an extra layer of information for suggesting volume and also using lighting helps to enhance the mood of the piece. Lighting and colors intrinsically create a sense of momentum, making the structure of the light connect in a deeper way with the audience, so they see the information you built in your drawing and the colors and values act as a "slap" or "caress" (depending on the intention) while "reading" the composition. I like to keep my pieces 70% bright and some darkness, but I've been playing with values for years depending on what my goal with the piece is.
5. Refining Phase
Drawing is so far the part I have about 90% completed before moving towards color or values, but colors and values often are super sketchy because I'm more interested in having a clear idea of the direction before cleaning up details in the shape of the silhouette or maybe some color corrections. This means that often the color and value phase are worked at some distance, like full-body frames (you will see this in the process videos) because I want to see a glance of the final look. If you zoom in during those phases, you will find a total mess, so after I like the rough sketch, I go into refining both values and some colors.
6. Details Phase
This is more about extra info like patterns, textures, maybe like a logo or text that just make props more credible. This is important because it makes the concept feel more real, but make no mistake, by this time the piece of work should be good even without details. So don't jump here until you already feel comfortable with early phases.
Two questions you should ask:
- How do I know when I should move into next phases? You should feel comfortable. What does comfortable mean? It's different for each one, but in my case, I feel I can share the phase without moving forward. For example, if I consider the information in the line art is interesting enough, then I will feel comfortable to move towards the next step.
- How do I know if it's interesting enough? You basically cover the goals you wrote in the "exploration" phase. If you will have 5 points of interest in your piece or character, how do you plan to cover them? I often have at least 3 (face expression, momentum/action, and cloth). I will talk more about this in our next post, which will be about portrait composition. You can rely on feelings like "I feel it's good enough", but aside from that, make a short list of things you want in your piece and why. Therefore, once that is accomplished, even if you feel something is missing, you can go back and see why by not just trusting, but verifying.
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I know I've been discussing this for a while and some of you advanced artists already have developed this. But even I keep refining the structure of my creative process because I struggle sometimes to find that missing part, and I guess it's because I get excited while creating and often forget to follow the guides. Which is also important to think outside of the box sometimes, but as a consequence, I end up lost.
I'm not sure if there is like an "ultimate formula" or structure for creating in a more efficient way but at least being aware of this is a start, and I see many of you in that spot.
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