Clean Slate

So I finished my draft, and normally this would be the stage where I'd take the draft forward and just refine it  until I was happy. However, I've been watching a few experienced concept artists paint, and the the most common advice given is to fix a mistake when you notice it, and if you're not happy with your work and the problem is unfixable; start again. Now the thought of scrapping a piece of work I'd spent hours across multiple days on, has always left me feeling less than enthusiastic to continue, but I recently showed someone my draft, and I kinda felt embarrassed at how poor the work was (Even for a rough draft), and so I had a bit of time to think and assess where it all went wrong. Of course it all came down to the lack of effort I applied to the foundation of my drawing, and for the first time ever, I decided to scrap the original attempt; and man was I happy I did!

Ok I realise I've created quite the wall of text for a design blog, and people will start thinking "Where all da pictures at?!" so I'm going to break it up with this small interval and relay some words of wisdom, and point out the moral of this story "If you know your work sucks, start again!"

So now I will show you why I'm glad I started again...

This is the rough draft I produced over a couple of days during the holiday (The work was on and off of course with all the Easter distractions!)

And this is what I produced in a single day after analysing what went wrong the first time, using reference, and most importantly of all, using my friends as personal critics at key stages during my painting. I think the last factor helped a lot as they were really honest and supportive, and positive feedback only fueled the fire to work harder and faster.

Originally I thought it would have been impossible to create a fully painted character design in around 3-4 hours at my current Photoshop power level (Over 9000!!!!!!). I'm aware that industry demands something of this quality in 15-30 minutes, but 3 hours is far better than any previous 'couple of days on and off' (without any painting), and I can only get faster.