Inktober - 1
Added 2018-10-04 19:17:41 +0000 UTCI'm sure most of you are familiar with inktober, the trend to create ink illustrations throughout October. I figured it's a good chance to share some traditional art without freaking people out.
Outside of thumbnails and rough doodles I do very little traditional illustration these days, and that's a little sad. I find the tactile feedback and high demand of focus gives me a spiritual rise. However, it can be very frustrating to feel your physical coordination can't keep up with your imagination. On the other hand, pixel art has a constructive quality that empowers me to create anything I can imagine with relative efficiency. This is deeply satisfying but the actual experience of creating pixel art rarely gives me the transcendental feeling derived from direct mark making with a traditional tool. Don't get me wrong, I'm still completely in love with pixel art, but I think it's good for my soul to do some old fashioned arts now and then.
It's important to remember very few pixel artists started with pixels. I studied many traditional and digital mediums before pixel art found me, and this helped lay the foundation for what I'm able to do with pixels. Traditional illustration skills will surely accelerate your development of pixel art skills, but not so much in terms of technique. Most important is learning the fundamentals of design, such as color, balance, movement, perspective, and so on. Anyway, I think it can be very insightful to see a pixel artist's creative works outside of pixels. If you don't mind, I hope to share more of my own from time to time.
