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I can be stubborn.
Sometimes when you're really “in the zone”, your images seem to almost make themselves. You’re kind of working away, oblivious to everything. And then you wake up and realize it’s finished. Even a tiny bit more would be too much. Other times it seems like opening a vein and bleeding all over your work still wouldn’t be enough to give it any life.
Last time this happened to me, it didn’t seem a worthless piece which I could simply abandon. But it did steadfastly refuse to go where it seemed to need to go. Well, instead of opening a vein, I hosed it with my stubborn streak. Said to myself, “You are going to work on this thing until it gets up on its hind legs and walks and talks.” “Version numbers be dammned!” “If you're still working on it a year from now, so be it!”
I’d never tried this pushy type workflow before. When I didn’t see that little spark of soul in a new image starting to grow, I gave up and started something else. In a way this new masochistic method, this perverse project was novel, fun and exciting.
I made many, many versions. Sometimes they got worse and I backtracked to the previous one. As I remember, I made over 22 versions (a luxury digital artists have). When I couldn’t see any more ways to improve it, I put it up on the “Critique” forum over at Renderosity.com. Some of the commentors there had good ideas. I made more versions.
At last, I truly ran out of ideas and declared it finished. Was it a success?
As a piece of art - not great, not terrible. As a learning experience - top notch.
That was more than a year ago. Now I see more things I could do. Who knows - maybe I’ll have another go.
~ End ~
Wishing you a creative future!
