I've been thinking a lot about something I've noticed in my my art in respect to trends I've been seeing in digital caricature art, as well as digital art in general, the choices that are made on how much detail is really necessary in the rendering.
It all comes from the fact that i feel i can never put the finishing touch on my artwork, it always feels a little rough around the edges. I always get to a certain point and can never seem to get it to the finished quality i really want. I end up stuck in the limbo between impressionistic rendering and realistic that leaves my work feeling a little blah. I even start to worry that it is this missing polish on my art that is holding me back from being great.
Of cours,e all the while i see other artists going to the extreme in rendering their work and i end up wondering why. Do we really need to see every pore in the subject's skin? do we need to see every hair on the person's head? My answer is no yet i perhaps secretly want to render the same way, i just don't let myself get carried away lest i get too caught up in the details and lose perspective.
i suppose all the problems i have with my art and the art i see from others could stem from the fact that it's all digital art. i'm sure that part of the fact that i struggle to find a stopping point is that i have unlimited choices in photoshop, the same goes for the artists who in my opinion over-render their art, can zoom in a thousand times and use a brush smaller than anything in the real world.
it's a real dilemma for me because i really don't know what i need to do to take my art to the next level. I am hopeful that when i take my first college painting class this summer that i will be able to discover a level of finish on my art that I'm comfortable with and that i can bring to my digital work.
what has always been an option is trying to develop the styles that i've used before that don't involve photoshop painting. i have had some successful experiments with more abstract caricatures, and the use of simple flat colors. I don't know, i suppose that this is just the current problem i face and will have to get through it to keep growing as an artist.
well, sorry for the rambling...
