Understanding the Challenge
Keeping thoughts, actions, plans, and life organized is an ongoing challenge. I’ve never considered myself an organized person, but life is a continuous learning experience. Organization, like most things in life, is a learned skill. When we spawn into the world, we all have varying levels of aptitude when it comes to certain skills. I’ve found that creative people, myself included, struggle to live structured lives. It seems we have all sorts of imaginative ideas pulling us every which way. When an idea pulls strong enough, I tend to follow it, the muses’ allure lifting me from the worries of life. Getting deep into a creative project is an escape from the heavy pressures of reality, although I’ve found that reality eventually settles in.
Autism and Structure
Being creative is difficult enough, but when I learned I was on the autism spectrum, the equation was made even more difficult. It might sound contrary to common knowledge that autistic people struggle with structure. Actually, I’ve found that I quite enjoy structure. Looking back at my youth I performed quite well in institutions that embrace rigid patterns. The traditional education system, math, sports, and even Sea Cadets all reward people who follow their rules.
Sadly, I’ve found out that the real world is far removed from any sort of formal road, path, or guidelines. I find it increasingly difficult to find the “correct way of living life”. It’s also much harder to create your own path, values, and rules than to follow that of my parents, school, or one laid out by our governmental institutions. Like most things in life, I’ve had to learn the hard way that you have to build and follow your own pathway. As I’ve addressed in my last post, writing is a an attempt at organizing my life. Learning in public is an idea I’ve fallen in love with so I plan to do that here.
Finishing a Drawing Project
As a creative thinker, I’m always balancing several projects. These projects range from personal projects to commissioned work and can either be short or long-term. Sometimes I find it hard to focus on anything other than a project that seems to be beckoning me from the back of my mind. I can be wanting to do a number of things, but until that project is “done” it seems I have trouble moving on with my life.
Zenless Zone Zero
At risk of going on a side tangent I was scrolling through social media when this new Gacha Game caught my attention. I consider myself a hardcore gamer so gacha games hardly keep my attention long enough. An opinion that would probably get me into hotfire is that Gacha games are for casual gamers, people who want to flex their bank accounts, or people who love crunching numbers. I find that there isn’t enough skill expression to keep me coming back for more. I play Genshin impact casually, but it’s something I never took seriously.
One thing I do love about Gacha Games however are the character designs. Fate, Blue Archive, Arknights, and Genshin impact have some of my favorite character designs. When I saw the teaser material for Mihoyo’s Zenless Zone Zero it caught my eye immediately. The stylish visuals, retro aesthetics, and of course the character designs intrigued me. Ellen Joe, who is their new 5-star character had a design so interesting I couldn’t help but want to draw her.
Reference Material
I’ve probably stated this before but I want to improve at art, but also feel stuck on a plateau. To help change my approach, I buy art books from anime art exhibitions. These books are valuable insights into how anime is made and it helps to see what separates hobbyists like me from the professionals in the field. As I was doom-scrolling on the train I found a post that draws characters in different styles of animation. When I looked up to see everyone else on the train scrolling, I thought back to Tim’s article.
I opened my backpack to find an art book I had recently purchased. I’ve found that making good art starts with asking fun creative questions. While not as fun as the question, “What if humans were made of fungi?” the question I started with was what if I drew Ellen Joe in Oshi no Ko Style? I found the page of my favorite character from that series, Memcho, and I got to work.
These books can be helpful to see what a professional’s illustrations and linework look like.
Starting the Sketch Lost Without a Roadmap
I did my best to incorporate elements of Ellen’s design into the style and pose. What was tricky was sticking with Oshi no Ko’s styling as there are distinct differences when it comes to my style and natural inclination to exaggerate proportions. The style of Oshi no Ko is closer to natural proportions when it comes to natural shoulder width and ribcage width. I tend to exaggerate and elongate the form.
I think the sketch looks really good, but I struggled to color and render the project. The lackluster rendering skills have been a pattern in my work. After nearly a decade of doing illustrations, I still struggle to understand, lighting, texture, and form. Part of that has to do with my chosen medium, anime, simplifying a lot of artistic fundamentals.
I need to get organized with my art process. Breaking down and understanding what skills to work on, improve, and isolate. Even my file and archival system need to be reworked, but I digress. If two people were to travel and one has a roadmap, who would reach the destination first? Why would it be any different in an art journey?
With That Off My Mind
Now that I have finished my art project my mind was free to think about the rest of my life. When I zoom out to the rest of my life, I find that I also lack a road map. I have a general idea of what the end goal is, but no idea how to arrive. Watching an interview with Marques Brown, one of YouTube’s biggest creators, made me realize I was making it more complicated than I needed it to be. As big as he is, he still uses Google Calendar to schedule everything. Perhaps it was time to start putting my life into boxes?
I Am Capable
When it comes to work, I’m quite capable of tracking expenses, time management, and planning. It’s funny that when it comes to work I’m more than capable of scheduling things and making reservations, why is it different when it comes to personal life? Perhaps it’s due to the lack of immediate consequences? If you mess up in the workplace, the consequences come quite swiftly, but when you mess up and live an unorganized life, it often takes years to feel the consequences of your bad actions. The question is where do I want to be in 10 years and where I’ll end up.
I’m hoping that shaping up my organization skills will help me to get closer to the endgoal.
Much Love 💖🩵🩷🦥
LaidbackMarco
