Progression Pictures: Week 2

Hello there, or, hello again, if you’re coming from my previous post. Welcome back, if that’s the case! I’ve got some good news and some not-so-good news this week, so I’ll get right into it.

August 2013 (left) vs. February 2018 (right)

This past week, I have been mainly focused on the first of two redraws I intend to add to the final display. The name is fairly self-explanatory, and you can probably guess what it is from the above example, but I’ll clarify it anyway — a redraw in this context is taking an old drawing of yours and recreating it with your current skill set. The older, the better! I do a lot of these in my own time to test how my technical and artistic skills have grown over the years.

These little experiments also provide opportunities to make small changes that may have made the original just a bit better. For instance, the inclusion of a singular color, outfit changes, simple background, and stylized text in my Ringmaster redraw transforms a simple, comic-toned half-body drawing into something that looks almost like an old poster. As embarrassing as old pieces can be for some of us to put in front of an audience, they offer some great perspective for both you and the people interested in your work — like a tiny peek through a window connecting past and future.

Now for the not-so-good news. In my last update, I included a few concept sketches for a loveable-looking beast named Henri, whom I intended to model in Autodesk MAYA and eventually 3D print. While I am technically still on track to do this, as I intended to do the bulk of Henri’s modeling next week, starting out with Maya has been a bit rough; program crashes and a loss of progress are difficult to work through.

Like I mentioned before, this week has been devoted mostly to finishing the first redraw and getting its progression shots ready for video — which, speaking of, is next on the list along with finishing Henri’s model. So by next week, expect to see the first draft of Henri’s model as well as a short video as I test out my options for displaying the Progression Pictures.