Weekly Recap #3

Another week scarce of illustrations. I don't know exactly why my schedule got screwed so much. I must take a look at the journal.

So, another illustration that should be published tomorrow, for the MOTU Monday, but let's give you the preview. A reinterpretation of the concept of the last week but with much more time and effort spent on it. And a bit of experimentation with the colored lineart.

Talking about experimentation, well I started a manual about creativity and marketing, called Real Artists don't Starve, and it's a great reading.

It opens with the historic discovery about the actual wealth of the Florentine sculptor Michelangelo. He was a millionaire for XVI century standards, and he gained that sum of money through his commissions, not from his family's possession.

A truth very incoherent with the modern stereotype of the "starving artist", the one that became very popular with the song Le Vie Boheme, the inspiration for La Bohemienne, celebrating the artist like someone destined to poverty and unpopularity in life.

A stereotype often used to morally exonerate people underpaying artists or discourage creative kids to pick art schools.

A stereotype that bends our mindset and makes creative people believe that a life of poverty is intrinsic in their nature, not a product of their choices, thus negating our personal responsibilities as adults.

The book is very clearly divided into three parts of four chapters each, discussing the stereotypical approach of the "starving artist" against the specular ones of the "thriving artist."

And I'm totally uneasy with this. In the good sense.

I mean, I'm totally underperforming as a comic book artist on Patreon.

And I recognize some parts missing from my current behavior, and very hard to fix.

I talk about the points:

3. Practicing under a master.

6. Going where the magic happens.

7. Collaborating.

Okay, the question is tragically straightforward.

Where the fuck I'm supposed to go 'till I draw about gay sex?

Which "master" or "place where the magic happens" should I find 'till I create in a niche so narrow that it's almost impossible to distinguish between eroticism and pornography?

Which master? Patrick Fillion? David Cantero?

Guys, sorry if I look arrogant, they draw very well and they deserve their notoriety.

But I have nothing to learn from them. At least not on the technical side.

Out there is plenty of artists that draw way better than me, but, let's face it.

They don't work on gay pornography. Even if they're non-straight. They make it occasionally.

So, let's admit it, I'm in a deep existential crisis, questioning myself if I totally get it wrong in drawing beefcakes from the very start instead of focusing on more various subjects.

So, I guess I'm going back to basics again, focusing and anatomy, female anatomy too, and start copying the other artists that made it, producing homoerotic art in the spare time and getting the broad notoriety with non-sexual, at least vaguely sexy, illustrations.

Like Nesskain. God, I envy him so much.

I have a drawing course on Udemy that I bought eight months ago and never finished. I can start with that.

I just hope that the useless lessons about are-you-kidding-me-one-point-perspective will end soon.

I'm in the midpoint between amateurs and professional, too good for the firsts and too unskilled for the others. I must move.

Uh, yes, the publications for patrons will go on at the same rhythm for now.

That's not starting with a giant leap.