Thoughts about my art, Patreon and the future

Hey peeps! 🌺

It's me again with some personal thoughts to share with you. It felt really good the last time I shared them with you, so I hope it will again this time.
A small heads up: I don't put too many thoughts about whether everything I write here is grammatically correct, it's the content that counts. 

I think it's really common to constantly worry and think about your own art style and where you want to end up. On the one hand, trying out different styles and study artists helps loosen up your own art and style, but in the end, you need to constantly push yourself into your "own" style in order to get better. 

I'm at a point where I feel forced to settle a direction. Each style has its pro's and con's. And I'm totally aware that it's myself who forces me into a decision. 

I draw digitally since 2 years now, I tried various styles and always tended to dig into semi realistic rendering. I want to take this opportunity and talk about some different styles I did in the past before I move on:

Heavily Stylized Works

I mostly drew like this at the beginning of my digital art career. I loved trying different effects (fire, magic, ...), mostly to cover my technical flaws. But I'm not here to talk about technique. I think this one is my least favourite style, I don't draw a lot of effects anymore, because... well you don't see a lot of magic in pinup art, right?

Heavily stylized artworks are pretty fast to finish, but you need a LOT of skill to make them look amazing (rossdraws and samdoesarts are great examples). 

Realistic Works

The difference couldn't be bigger, eh? I dedicated almost a year into practicing anatomy - and I loved it. I had great references. I struggled a lot combining multiple images to make a unique artwork. It was a great experience and I loved the simplicity of working in black/white during 95% of the process. 

Semi-Realistic Works

Ah, the bright colours. I struggled a lot until I managed to pull them off. I think I couldn't get them right in my realistic style tho, so I love them even more here. I only work in black/white 5% of the process - as you can see in my newest Speedpaint: https://www.patreon.com/posts/bathing-80286101 Oh and I also feel like trying some really simple backgrounds in this style, like the waterlilies.
Great examples for soft rendered semi-realistic works are Aleriia_V (Lerapi) and Personal Ami. 

Okay, enough about my past styles. You see how all styles are completely different and come with their own special vibe. I personally don't like super soft "digital-feeling" artworks, I still want to see some brush strokes. I don't zoom in anymore during drawing. 

My head tells me to finally decide which path to take and get better and better. I want to get recognized for my style. Each piece should feel like "oh, yes, Skaav did that one". 

That's the struggle for me right now. I love doing dark scenes, but I also love doing bright pinups. Both have a completely different process behind them. I don't want to limit myself, but I also want to develop and push my own brand. I know it's good for the industry to be able to pull off different styles, but I don't do commercial work. I want to be an artist people start doing studies of or creating my own little project (which kind of requires a consistent style). 

Maybe I need to work harder to find a way to combine both like Mamba does? I should do more master studies to find out. 

I could talk about this for hours and hours but it's already a lot to read. Thank you so much for reading and for being a Patron and a friend. 

xx
Julia / Skaav