The problem with getting better
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Creating sprites for the game, all the graphics-students spend a lot of time drawing, visualising concepts and making errors. If you lack certain skills in parts of your artistic repertoire, but are better in other aspects, it becomes increasingly apparent that the things you produced last week looks much worse than things you produce the next. This is a big problem for me, personally. I never consider myself particularly proficient at anything art-wise, but if there is something that I can say that I do well, it is learning. I learn most from doing, in fact – and there is a lot of ‘doing’ in this course. I sit many hours a day drawing sprites, and trying to make them look as good as I can, whilst still not spending more time than I’m given for a specific task. Sometimes, the time isn’t enough, and I’m left with a product I’m not satisfied with out of the gate. Sometimes, however, I am decently satisfied with a drawing, sprite or animation, but a week down the line, I look at it again and think ”This looks terrible, I could do much better now, having learned from the mistakes I made making this.” One of my biggest flaws as an (although I dislike this pretentious word) artist, is that I am not particularly good at colouring. I know, in theory, how to make it look good – and I know what I think looks good – but I lack the technical skills to put it all together and to render it in a way that is, to me, satisfactory. This makes me re-draw things over and over, ad infinitum, in a pursuit for a kind of perfection that I am unable to achieve yet, even given copious amounts of time. This is apparent, especially, when I look at the sprite for the cannon of our Behemoth sprite, when I first drew it, and when I re-drew it the following week. Here is the first sprite that I made for the cannon.
Now, the vast majority of artists and draftsmen that I come across has the problem of never being happy with the work that they do. I am no different, and whatever thing I produce, I am never satisfied with it. This however, does make it easier to critique my own work, and there are so many things wrong with this sprite that I’m not even sure where I am to begin. It’s flat, the colours are drab, the lineart is uneven, the gun doesn’t look like it makes sense, it’s boring to look at and the rendering is flat out ugly. I wasn’t happy with it when I made it, and it irked me so much that, even though my teammates urged me to use my time to start with more pressing matters, I took time out of my ”spare” time to change it completely. Aaaand this is the newer cannon. I’m definitely not going to say that it’s perfect, or even that it’s at all good but I think anyone who sees it would agree that it’s galaxies, leagues and strides better than the old one. It looks much less comicy, (the artstyle we’re going for is not comicy in the slightest), the colours, although still quite drab, are drab in a way that is somewhat believable. It has much more detail, it looks like it could function somewhat as a gun, and it’s more interesting to look at. The rendering is much better as well, the colours blend better, even though I didn’t try to make it look wholly 3D, and I’m much happier with it in general. I’m happy that I spent time out of my own leisure-time to make it better and I think it will have a big impact on the game in general, once it’s implemented, animated and functional. I am not happy with the rendering of the Behemoth mech as a whole, and it is increasingly likely that I take a couple of hours out of my weekend to change it down the line. Lesson learned. I get better, sometimes quicker than I might think, and I just have to deal with it in whatever way I can. I’m happy that I’m getting better at such a rapid pace, and the feeling of making something really shows my progress only motivates me to work harder at something I never considered myself talented at. Thanks for reading!  |
