#hint: it's not TECHNICALLY 'proper' mermay but it IS mermay-adjacent... and it's mh related because of course it is.

[solstrix]

Lately on my art journey

My spring uni semester has begun, and with it, I fear the momentum that carried me during the break is starting to fade. I have much to do in very little time (spring classes are like that), so I might be less active artwise, and especially on here...

But I refuse to be inactive. Here's what's been going on:

During my break between semesters, I got back into working on my comic. I am very fond of that story and of its characters, but I had found myself in a several-months-long block of working on it. There were a couple reasons for this. The first and most legitimate was that between work and study, I didn't have much time or energy to dedicate to comic-making. But the second and less legitimate reason, was perfectionism. Because the comic had now become a labour of a couple of years, and I want it to be the best I can possibly make it, which meant I feared even the slightest imperfection on my part. And the longer I went without drawing, the more I felt I was rusty and incapable of doing that project justice.

Here's the thing I think people don't tend to emphasize enough about perfectionism, and something I've recently had to learn the hard way: perfectionism is not a strength. Perfectionism is a poison that undermines and delegitimizes your skill and the work you put into something. Things are worth making and putting out there even if they are flawed.

Being suddenly without a job, and out of classes, gave me the boost I needed to get back to work on comics, which made me discover my next weakness; perspective. Turns out that figuring out a scene's perspective is something my brain really truly struggles with. I tried and tried, using rulers and perspective tools and rules to turn my rough sketches into proper perspective, but it never seemed to work the way it should. the angles just did not gel. At this point I remembered I had built the comic's setting, a victorian manor, in the sims 4 for this exact reason. Still, this felt like cheating, but I've come to terms with it. Tracing the angles of a screenshot in perspective allows me to get the panel to a satisfactorily finished state, and in time, will train my eye to find these perspective lines by itself. Using these screenshots is not a crutch, it's a tool, it's training wheels. There's nothing wrong with it.

The comic is still a long ways away, but I cannot wait to have a project up for the world to see, something I can point to as proof of my ability both to tell a story, and to bring a project to reality.

I have other things I want to say, but this post is long enough already. More to come soon!

Sincerely,

Solilakoi