A failed ‘challenge’ and a rant…

I saw an artist I follow on twitter do this challenge for his characters and thought it looked fun, but once I got started I realized how poorly planned out the template itself was and gave up.

Absolutely no shade meant to Nancy Lorenz, it takes time and effort to make and put out something like this and a lot of younger artist seem to like it, I can see how it feels like an official artist training exercise… but this thing could have used an editor, 10 or 12 “essential” expressions that are actually unique would have been more useful than 22 with the slightest variations.

A lot of the expressions feel very samey, a lot of them are ill defined (WTF?! can be a form of anger, disgust, or fear. Surprised can be a form of happy, so it’s weird it’s lumped with Shocked which is a form of fear), I would also argue ‘drunk’ and ‘silly’ aren’t expressions they’re states of being (most people draw ‘drunk’ as flirty, tired, or ill with cartoon bubbles around their head, silly is ‘make a face’ or grab a prop) and I’m sure the case can be made “well being able to show the subtle differences between ‘angry’ and ‘rage’ is how you grow as an artist’ or ‘of course they use their hands body language conveys expressions as much as face’ and even ‘you use anime effects to heighten expressions all the time! It’s a perfectly cromulent technique!” and sure, I’ll buy that (I don’t agree given how many of these are someone drawing a My Little Pony so this isn’t a learning exercise it’s a checklist, but I’ll agree), but then there’s “bereft”….

So I think this ‘challenge’ might not have originated in English (the slightly off text explaining the challenge kinda backs this up.) and “bereft” is a mistranslation. I thought it meant “bereaved” at first and started drawing a sobbing Gwen, my wife said “bereft” means “without”, looking up bereft the emotion ONLY BRINGS UP THIS CHALLENGE which really brings into question how “essential” an emotion it really is. Okay so “bereft” means “without emotions”, on the next line is “blank/hollow” and on the same line is “despondent” (paired with pouty for some reason) it really just feels like filler to make a 22 square grid rather than emotion you need to know how to draw.

Bereft literally broke me… So I quit, I’m showing what I did so I didn’t waste my time!

I think I’ll stick to more structured challenges going forward, like “draw your characters in this outfit” (like the Gwen in the sweater dress I need to finish) if you made it this far and got a good one of those plop it in the comments with which character(s) you want to see it.