I'm cheating at art.

I don't usually talk about my art attempts on this blog. I usually save that for my DA account. However, I have decided to spread the love around a bit and talk about some art stuff here. I might get rambly at the end. You have been warned :P


One of the things that I wanted to do was draw characters in some really cool clothes. Whether it is an awesome set of armor, a really pretty dress, a punkish outfit, whatever it may be. I just wanted it to be awesome. The problem...I don't draw bodies that well. This weekend I slated three sketches for myself. Two are "cheats" and the third is not.


I talked to my sister about how I wanted to draw more clothing, but drawing the actual body was a problem. Being a fashion design graduate, she introduced me to tracing croquois. It is basically just a body online and then I can draw clothes on top of it. So I went online and downloaded a number of poses that I liked (both male and female) and stuffed them in my sketch book. Friday night I pulled a few out and used them (while watching Lartist At Work, of course).


I feel like I'm not really drawing when I do this. Like I am passing off someone else's art as my own. Not sure why I feel so guilty about using croquois. All the rest of the art is mine. The clothes, the coloring, everything else. Oh well. I just soothe my guilt by telling myself that this is only until I can do body poses better. But back to clothes...


Now I am trying to figure out interesting looks and things like that. This has lead to me buying fashion mags. Can you believe it? Me with fashion mags? I can't really believe it either. But it gives me ideas on what style of clothes I like and how clothes fit on the body. And see how people pair things together. Not just articles of clothing, but accessories and color palates as well. I feel like my brain is very slow when it comes to things of that nature. Probably the reason why I wear a lot of t-shirts and jeans.


I'll get their one day. I'm going to fret at this point. I'm getting better, so I keep plugging away at it.