Author: undergroundsophisticate

Gotta catch’em all!

Image Title: Dark Psyide
TL;DR: I hadn’t drawn in a while. I’m happy; this is the image responsible. 10 out of 10, will draw again.

Its been far too long since I’ve uploaded any art.
The desire to create, and actually finish, a piece of art has been with me for some time now. Out of fear and unrealistic expectations borne from within myself, I’ve restrained my own creativity. Nothing was good enough. If I were to create something it had to be worthy of my lofty standards; it had to qualify as an ambassador for all I was and ever would be. My absolute best work and nothing less.

After all this time, I’d nothing to show for myself. I wanted to change, to earn some extra income, and create something I could be proud of again.

So I set out to chase these desires one by one. First, I accepted an offer to design a logo for a relatives’ company. Next, I returned to sketching and writing, with a little more frequency, in a book and pad that I took wherever I went. That was a good start, I was flexing my creativity once again, but still, I desired to earn a few bucks. Couldn’t market myself to a nonexistent audience. How would I acquire an audience? Create more art in more places, and here’s the kicker, consistently. I’d already had a presence on DA and FA but, I could also post art to Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. I also thought it would be worthwhile to try streaming again after talking with an old friend who’d started streaming for fun. Streaming, eh? I hadn’t attempted a stream since the Justin.tv days, but it was worth a shot. So I was gonna stream, but what would I draw? I looked to some of the creative streamers I’d been following. Comics? Nah, too difficult to start a new venture with. Pin-ups? Nah, to saturated and not something I wanted to build a brand with. Eventually, I’d decided to just go back to basics and paint a portrait. I started my first stream at 8pm on a Sunday night and worked until about 12am. It was horrible. I wasn’t enjoying what I was drawing, most importantly, and later found out after reviewing the footage that the frame-rate was unwatchable. The endeavor wasn’t a complete loss, however. I learned how to better manage my audio and frame-rate, found that sketching a thumbnail before streaming “streamlined” the process, and discovered that about 4 hours was a comfortable stream length for me.

New day, new stream, same time slot. A couple of hours before the stream I had locked down a theme and a thumbnail in my sketchbook. The theme of choice was my main deck for the Pokemon TCG Online, DarkPsyide. Pokemon has always held a special place in my heart; having played nearly every game since red in the late 90s, collecting the cards, and the fact that I’ve invested countless hours in the anime. Armed with the necessary preparations, I streamed. The hours flew by. I decided I would stream again, and again. I even found myself working on the project off stream while listening to lectures and music. I was looking forward to opening Photoshop and passing the hours honing my craft. Over the course of about a week and a half, I had streamed nearly every other day. Then I was finished. The final product was exported as I reclined at my desk and reveled in the moment. I had finished something worthy of pride but, it wasn’t long before the desire to re-experience it crept up my spine again.

I wanted to make a few extra dollars and feel the pride of finishing something for myself. So there I sat. Certainly no richer, but immensely pleased that I’d picked up the pen again, and looked forward to what project I’d undertake next.
Any Ideas?

I streamed most of the process live, check out the VODs, on: https://www.twitch.tv/underground_sophisticate

Ernest Stephens – The Underground Sophisticate

This be a block quote. — Ernest Stephens