Make It / Break It / Fill It Up
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Exploring a Creative Life
'...I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.'
- Invictus by William Ernest Henley
My first attempt at a master study.
The original Image is Frank Frazetta's Silver Warrior.
For each study, I broke it down into individual components.
Gesture + Perspective
Design + Composition
Value Study
Reverse Construction
And then a personal attempt based on the major elements of the original. Some kind of undead rider of beasts on a moonlit night.
I must confess that I have no bloody idea what I'm doing yet. Studying master artists is one of the pillars of mastery however.
More to come.
All Hands! All hands to sail and line!
Thunderous might against our cabin roars
Swift rage yearns to unravel all we've wrought
No sooner than we saw the shores of home
Hold steadfast your ground against the beast
Let it break our backs but not our hearts
When the storm has ceased its empty threat
New winds will come to bid us journey on
This morning a painting that I had been working on was damaged during a save. I had invested significant hours and effort into it at this point.
Naturally - I was a bit heated.
Being the neurotic person that I am, little things have a tendency to go FULL TILT into the shit zone. So for the next 12 hours I proceeded to tear apart the internet looking for a fix. This proved fruitless and lead to what we like to call a 'Mini Brain Melt', in which existential questions are raised and thoughts of the end are entertained.
Calm has thankfully arrived, and I recall a story that Bobby Chiu talks about in his book The Perfect Bait. When just starting out in the business he lost not just one painting, but all of his portfolio to a hard drive crash.
Then what did he do?
HE MADE ANOTHER ONE
What. A. Boss. If he can do that, then I can get over one damn painting. This time it'll be even better.
Come to think, it's probably a good thing to get this little stumbling block out of the way. Not much was lost and it taught me a great lesson: ALWAYS BACK UP YOUR FILES! Double, triple, quadruple save them if you have to! Put them on CD's, then put those CD's on VHS Tapes! Back up your shit!
But more importantly:
Things are going to come out of left field no matter what. It's up to you to take a step back and realize that it isn't the end of the world. You can recover, get up, and do it again. Don't let one little bump bring your whole world down. You're made of tougher stuff than that.