REDRAW AFTER 2 YEARS!!!: notes and reflection

There are multiple ways to build your art skills. However, I think the most important thing to keep in mind is that your growth is independent from others. It's very easy to fall down a rabbit hole of comparison, and it can really hinder the motivation to draw and improve!

It seems like cheesy advice, but it's something that's easily forgotten due to how accessible art and studying art has now become. I think it's amazing how quickly artists can improve with the tools and resources they have now, and sometimes I feel like I'm falling behind lol!

I've always wanted to come back to this old artwork, but I always just felt... Inadequate in redrawing it. Like my style wasn't notable enough quite yet, so a redraw wasn't necessary. However, I think also just opening the file and directly drawing over it was also a huge hindrance as well! It really made me realize that it's better to just either redraw it side by side or have it opened as a reference (crazy how it took this long!)

Anyways. Here's a side-by-side comparison. The left is my previous work, and the right is my current!

Honestly, I think there's a pretty big significance in the two. Forgive any detail changes! I primarily just did this as a "quick" study. The new vers took about a little more than an hour and a half, which is much faster than when I first drew this!

My reflections on this piece:

I definitely know what I was going for in the older piece. It was mainly a study to be like other artists I looked up to, but I didn't fully understand why things were done the way they were. Do I like the experimental shading? Of course! But I also think that doing it without fully understanding why it works makes it feel like everything and nothing at once.

I'm pretty happy with the color selection with the redraw. I didn't use a true white, and it somehow makes the piece feel brighter in my opinion? Also, I added some warmer shades to places like the nose and the ear since those have more cartilage, but I really like how it looks.

Overall I'm glad to see some differences and general improvement! If there's any questions about the process/program/brushes, feel free to ask.