“What? Your skill is evolving!” or: How I learned to draw better

In the month of November, 2013, I was struck with the idea of creating my own videogame. To be completely honest, I have no idea as to why I thought that I should create my own game. I do remember that I realized I could do it because of what I saw with the fan-made game Pokémon Fusion Generation.

                I got a demo of the program RPGMaker XP and then promptly realized that I had a lot to learn. A whole lot to learn. The programming was in a large part taken care of already, but there were still things that I had to learn and I didn’t have any background to draw from. Luckily I stumbled upon the Pokémon Essentials Pack, which took care of even MORE of the programming.

                However, I only had a month with the demo, and so I decided that I would instead work on the drawings or pictures until I could get the actual program. Not having the money to get Photoshop, I instead got GIMP 2.0, which was an open-source photo editing program. Again I realized that there was a learning curve ahead, as I had only used the Paint program that every Windows computer comes with.

                Here is the first picture that I did:

                It is just a basic recoloring of the original sprite. All I did was just take the Pencil tool, switch it to the Color option, and then just move it over the picture until it was all colored differently, and then I tried to make the fire on the tail look like an ice cube. In fact, the ice cube tail came along later, so the original picture was just the recolored image. The actual skill involved in creating the picture was at about the easiest level possible. I did need to have an interesting idea, but I didn’t need to have a lot of technical skill. 

                For the next few weeks, I stayed at merely recoloring. I experimented somewhat with changing up the colors, but I only used the recoloring tool to do so.

                Eventually, though, I made my first “Fusion” sprite. A fusion sprite is where you take parts from existing sprites and then combine them into something else. I like to envision it like Legos. People have created some really crazy and cool stuff from Legos, but they didn’t actually make the Lego bricks themselves.

                Here is the first fusion sprite, or Fuzemon, that I created:

                This sprite was rather simple, looking back, as I only combined the parts from three different sprites. However, this was one of the turning points where I realized that there was a whole lot more open to me. I can distinctly remember thinking about how cool it was that I could take the parts and pieces to make something new.

                As time went on, I experimented somewhat with the fusing of sprites as well as recoloring. I grew to be somewhat more skilled and then realized that I could show off what I was doing on the site DeviantART. Yes, my initial reason for joining a huge network and community for artists was to show off some of the work that I had done. However, looking at myself today, I guess that I still show off what I’m doing. I hope, though, that it’s not being too annoying to those who are watching or following what I’m doing.

                The first pictures that I uploaded were the most complex I had done at that time. 

                Luckily, there were people on DeviantART who liked them, and I was shown the much larger and much, much more talented groups of people who did art like I did. Being in groups like these caused another revolution of sorts, one where I actually started to create newer and smoother pictures.

                And I definitely had some results that I really, really, really liked. And they were popular. Because of the experience I’ve gotten from creating these sprites, I’m able to appreciate it when they look good and I’m able to pick out the things that work.

                However, I have also had some results that weren’t really that great, and I could see what the problems were. Unfortunately, I still lack the patience and ability to be able to go back and correct the mistakes.

                It became really evident when I decided to go back and redo some of my earliest drawings with the skills I have now. Here are the comparisons, with the older version on the left and the updated version on the right:

                I really hope it doesn’t sound like I’m trumpeting my own horn, or bragging about my own abilities. The nice thing about being on DeviantART is that I’m constantly exposed to those who have so much talent and skill that it makes me look at my works and realize that I have a long way to go. But I’m willing to make the steps needed to get to the top of my mountain. One should never look at another’s art and criticize themselves to the point where they fail to progress further. You should never look at something and say “Look at that! I’ll never be able to do that.” Also, DeviantART is a rather unique place (in my experience) in that almost everyone there is incredibly positive. I have very rarely received negative comments, and most people leave criticism in a positive manner.

                You cannot compare the works of Van Gogh to Picasso and say that Picasso never reached the same level of skill and talent as Van Gogh. You cannot look at the works of Beethoven and say that they are superior to the writings of Edgar Allen Poe. If there is one thing that I have learned from this entire experience, it is that there is beauty in most everything as long as you are willing to see it the right way. 

                Sometimes I'm just really lucky with what I've done, while at other points it just falls flat on its face. As a last example, here are two pictures that I worked on at the same during and finished them around the same time. Even though I was working on them at the same time and with the same skill, they didn't turn out the same quality: