The Crab is Done

It's hours spent on studying painting in grayscale, values and lighting. I think I've earn some leaps of EXP points following this through despite having several moments of saying fuck it, I'll just make a new draft.

Finally~

Reflection on the Hobby Below~

Production Time: More or less 3 hours but divided in a span of 3 days

Why can't I just finish it in one sitting? Cause I want to do it while I'm inspired and it's also a problem solving hobby than leisure sometimes.

I think when people don't engage in the same hobbies they tend to underestimate or overestimate the amount of work that gets put into the task while trying to get good at it. It also depends on the personal goals the person is working with. An artists that doesn't want to exert too much would probably yield different results per practice and learn at a different pace than someone more committed to the hobby. This is how you see some artists spending most of their time producing content that has the same level of quality for months to years. Either it's a style by choice or there's just little drive to improve but that's their thing.

What people don't get when creating art now is how AI generated images made it difficult to do self promotion. Not only do artists have to struggle learning how to do self-marketing to get an edge to the algorithms, they also need to keep being competitive to AI accounts while trying to maintain the creative spirit in an environment that keeps breaking them. If you are an artist, your work is your message to the viewer and it has to be made with the intention that it speaks for itself otherwise you lose that window of opportunity before the person scroll pasts your work. If your work looks like dog water on initial impression because you're a beginner or the crowd that happens to chance upon your work doesn't appreciate it, that's both luck and probably your skill set ain't there yet.

Now I keep my head down when it comes to my own works. If you tell me my stuff is dog water, I'll agree with you and help you roast my works too. It's just not their yet, or at least the level I want my stuff to in. Reading about AI generated drama online isn't helping but it's a good reality check on what really goes on in the world and how most people who never lifted a pencil or brush to create something values art. It's mostly eye candy and whatever kicks the dopamine on visual triggers. Just like most content creators on Youtube will never earn something from ad revenue, so do a lot of digital artists that aspire from converting their hobby into something they can make a living out of. How many people that even blog here on Hive have what it takes to be a freelance writer out there?

You know what? My motivations are intrinsic in nature so as much as I also love to be my devil's advocate and down myself, I can flip the same switch in my head space and be like fuck it, let's just keep going. There are plenty of reasons to get demotivated to do digital art if the end game is to make a living out of it but I kind of lost my reasons to bother with the hobby but still do it for no strong reasons just cause I can? like my shitposting motivations on Hive being tied to having something to do while I take a break from watching skill building and informative webinars or anime.

Previous WIP post

https://x.com/AAdamada/status/1810206355443401044

My other social media pages: DeviantArt, Instagram, X