Reflection off art streams
- systemglitch
- Jul 28
- 5 min read
So I did two art streams not too long ago (at the time of writing this), and while I like how that little piece came out, it was not what I was trying to make, and yet I still like how it turned out. I want to share my process for the stream and maybe something I have thought of and read about since doing the first. I also want to share some of the problems I had. Some are more from a lack of skills, and others are from biting off more than I could chew.
*Disclaimer: I’m only sharing information I learned; I’m not claiming to be the source of the knowledge. Some blog posts and other things I found helpful are linked in the sites and credits at the bottom of this post. Also, some art I found is on Pinterest, and I cannot confirm if it’s the original artist or not, so I’m sharing the version I found. I know there are others who have reposted the art as well, but I don’t want to discredit something that wasn’t mine because someone else posted it elsewhere. My goal is to share my progress and help other people, not hurt anyone.*
So, one of the things I read and hear from various sources is about some mistakes I made that you should try to avoid. I had a small number of reference images, and I do mean very small, like one per section, and that does cause a problem depending on what you're doing or your experience. Yeah, it's a big problem. For example, if you are trying to draw a bird, you may need a few pictures of the same bird or similar types, not just one. It can help, and if you know what you're doing, then one is fine, go for it. I recommend having a few images that are related to the idea. So, if you want a cool house with fall leaves, then get a few that are similar to your idea. I failed this step multiple times and can explain.
I failed that one from the beginning, also because I changed the plan of what I was making to what ended up not planned at all. However, in the end, by the bare minimum of what I count as good for me, it is still art. So, I did not fail the end product, just the process.
( i could not find it again but i think i showed it in Stream Appoloies)
Yeah, not at all what I ended up making, but I had a few saved that are kind of like this one.
The difference in what I planned and made is clear, but also not entirely far off, still is a bunch of buildings, the vibe of the images is different too. Even tho I failed something, I'm not counting it as a failure. And you should also not count the small mistakes as failures. Stopping something and giving up is failure.
I may count these as flops because it's not what I wanted, but I want to go back a improve on them because I haven't given up, it's not a failure
other things in the making process I very much missed, but it's part of planning, and you don't need it, but it sure does help was sketching. I did not sketch anything, there was no planning on anything, so the things could look better if I had sketched something, yeah. ( I am currently working on practicing this link to Amazon copy down below if you want it ) There are ways to practice and learn about planning things and getting better at it because later in the same first art stream, I kind of did do some sketch planning kind of thing, I'll be the first to admit it's not great, but it's better than none. You should plan if the project is a little more complex than your comfort with and just give things a rough shape just to get it out of your mind and on to your project. I have had a few things where I'm thinking of something in one way and need to change it to fit better, not just art, but plenty of things. ( I've rewritten this like 4 times because of this and rewrote entire game stories too many times, even at these early steps of stuff)
One thing I did not mess up or remake too many times was my use of layers and being a little clever with some of the things.
With the use of layers, I don't have to worry as much about some things and can be a little clever about how I go about things. I didn't think anything about it and didn't like it at all when I was streaming and all that, but after the fact, I see how helpful it really is. It's stupidly simple, and I completely overlooked it and also used it without realizing I was using it almost correctly for things like this.
So, using a layer to have a sketch and then color over it was something I've just seen, and I didn't even think about how I'm doing things, but more about whether I can with this tool. Well, that was the way. (I'm explaining my madness in that image now.)
One layer was simply to sketch an idea, which I usually do in red to indicate it's not crucial. However, this color might not be suitable in every situation, so choose any color that works for you. Start with red and adjust as needed (if you're using red, then try blue or another color).
After getting an idea out of your head and where you can see it finally, start with the outline of the things you want. So if you have a cute animal, then outline that (I'm not sure how to describe that better, sorry if it's not more helpful here). I like to set that as the highest layer for now. Also, when you are coloring, you can make a duplicate and use that, just in case it starts acting goofy with the paint bucket tool. If you have to touch up after, then it's not as stressful about staying in the lines and all.
In my image, I had the lights on top of the building, but in yours, you can have something like eyes on top of it and hair on top of that. Hopefully, I'm making sense here and you can see how it's helpful.
I can probably go on about this even though it's really not hard, but I can see where some people skip over it. It's simple enough that it should be intuitive, especially after a while of using programs that I even skipped over it. There's more to some layers things, but I feel it should be its own blog post because looking into it, it's more complex than it first seems to be.
citations
I did do a lot of online reading of others' blogs but I did not think to save them. The next art post will have some helpful links
the streams and the channel
You can see me live from time to time ill try to be fun and all that usual stream stuff.
This is the stream in question
