As I kept looking at the original progress on my work on this piece, I keep hearing the critiques on previous works and realize that I need to show some progress toward improvement. The mountains, trees and grass all look too simple and basically digital. Everything has to much color saturation and is just too bright.
Recently, I’ve been doing some studies of the different elements that are in this work. Working on technique and doing something that has been missing from my work for some time now. Here comes a couple of epiphanies that just came to the surface. First I’m not making the mental and emotional connection to my work. The second one is a big one. I’m racing to finish. I’ll tell you why this is so big in a moment.
What I mean by “Mental and emotional connection to my work” is feeling the parts that I’m developing. I used to imagine, visualize or even sense the things that I’m working on. I could see it as if it were in 3D and fully materialized. Then I would render it from that experience.
“Racing to finish” is so big because I’ve been too caught up in getting the work done. I know what the end result is to be and I am rushing through to get to what I see as the finished piece. I feel this is due to many learned bad habits. Multitasking to the point that nothing ever really gets finished. A lack of proper time to work on these things due to ensuring that I’m taking care of my responsibilities. The biggest realization is that I’m putting unrealistic deadlines on self commissioned work.
While working with tight deadlines keeps the work moving and helps improve turn times on clients’ deadlines, sometimes the work needs the time to let it develop and mature, in a sense. It’s been a long time since I just worked on something just to give it life. I plan to bring that back starting with this piece.
The mountains have been re-blocked in with more emphasis on the levels and terrain giving them a more actual feel. I still have to add snow but I’m feeling it’s off to a better start.
