Ever since last year, when I "finished" the Inktober challenge (Pinktober) around the end of
or the beginning of November, I wanted to improve a lot.
And during that time, I realized I felt kind of a pull away
from doing fan art, because it's some of the stigmas still affect me.
I still feel like it it's not as beneficial as basically anything else.
I feel like you're always giving something up to do it.
And it's always like a strategy for something else,
like building your audience, for example, when you're beginner and all that.
But lately, I've found that it's really, really important.
And I want to make sure that people know the really great benefits
to doing a lot of Fanart,
because as you can see now, I'm painting narne from Lilo and Stitch.
And I did this after realizing that, wow,
this guy, Chris Sanders, is an amazing artist
and somebody that I really look up to and somebody that I really enjoy his work.
So the first thing is really that fan art allows you to find yourself as an artist.
It's an incredibly great, effective tool to find yourself as an artist.
It's it lets you find out what genre you like, what mood
you're interested in with subject matter you like to draw or paint
and the stories that you want to tell.
And it's something that is really hard to find out when you don't
at least give yourself the permission to explore how other people have done it.
Sometimes you just got to go by your gut and realize, allow yourself to feel like,
wow, I love this, I enjoy this, and just kind of follow in that creator's
footsteps, whether it's one person or a team of people, just try to like
imagine you're there with them and explore the different components
of what they have made in order to bring together the show
or the video game that you're referencing and finding yourself as an artist.
I don't think it's this woo woo thing that's not tangible.
I think it's very, very real, because if you don't find these things
as you progress in your journey,
I think you're going to give up a lot easier, a lot a lot easier,
because you need some sort of drive, something that you're interested in doing
or showing that will get you through those tough nights where you feel like
it's you just got to give up.
Like there's no way you're ever going to get to a great level
with your artwork or you feel like you're never going to be able to enjoy yourself.
Those nights will come. They're always going to be there.
And I want to raise awareness
as well to the fact that that's a normal thing to feel.
And you just got to not give up.
It's kind of wait it out almost because they still happen to me.
And I'm sure many of you have seen the progress I've made.
And even now, when I look back in a more
healthier mindset, I still kind of think it's silly to think that.
But of course, that day will obviously come again sometimes here or there.
But yeah, knowing the thing that you want to do, having
that passion always helps to keep you excited to draw.
It's also a lot harder to connect with people when you don't really know
who you are as an artist and what kind of things you're interested in.
Because the more you know that kind of thing,
the more it shows in your artwork without you having to even try.
And you're heard the people that are interested in what you're doing
and the people that are doing what you're doing
are going to start to follow you and find out
more about you and be more interested and invest more in you.
And that affects all kinds of areas.
As an artist, the support you have, the connections that you can make,
all this great stuff happens really when you start to know who you are
and you start to demonstrate that and explore that freely.
It's a really amazing thing that I feel like I stunted for myself a little bit,
but now I'm finally letting myself explore that more freely.
A really big part to why fan art is so important
as well is is that it's just simply part of studying.
I've always suggested in promoting, you know, studying, breaking, studying
into two parts where you focus on the actual training.
So if you want to learn anatomy, you're just studying the anatomy, right.
The the bones and the muscles and everything.
But you're also going to be looking at projects
and you're going to be focusing on bigger things where you let yourself go
to the final skill level, that you pretend
basically that you had that final skill level that you've always wanted to have
and you just create something as if you're already there.
And Fan art lets you do that,
because even if it's just a character that you're painting or drawing,
it's almost like a character design that you're working on. Right.
If you're doing a whole illustration for something that you're interested in,
you're almost like at that final level, of course, you're not.
You know, you might not really be there, but you're acting in that way.
And I think fan-art is a fantastic way
to start getting into that kind of project based learning feel
without having the stress of creating your own universe.
I also think fan art is really important because it helps your style.
Now, that might sound similar to the first thing I mentioned, but
I think style is really just the technique of how you do certain things.
It can also be a lot of your subject matter that you paint, but
one person can paint the same character
with the same clothing and have a completely different.
Result then, a hundred other artists, right?
And I think that's where a style comes in and it it lets you explore that
because you start to slowly find out the things that you like, don't like,
even within a subject or a character or an IP that you're interested in .
You like this. Let's say you love Avatar.
But even within a fan art,
you're going to discover there are things you like about the art.
There's things that you don't like. There's things that you want to add.
And I think that also really, really helps and contributes to finding your style.
And I actually want to take that back. I don't like the word finding.
I think the word developing is the correct word here, because it's something
that develops and it keeps developing and there's no real final stage.
And it isn't a sudden surprise that you find in the treasure chest.
So think about style in that way, using the word develop.
And let's be honest here, right.
Fenner is fun when a new trend comes out.
It's fun when the draw this and your styles start ramping up
usually around the beginning of the year. It's fun, right?
It's just fun to get into those.
And it's takes a huge weight off of drawing and creating for a little bit
and allows you to have fun.
And it's just such an important part to creating artwork.
If you're not enjoying it, then why would you?
It's I always think, like anyone who does art
but doesn't really have fun with it, it's just like a masochist,
because it is an incredibly tough thing to keep trying to succeed
in this super biased and subjective world where a lot of times
your self-worth or your self-esteem can be caught up into it, too.
It's like, why not just do something where you're guaranteed a reward or something
that's actually, quote unquote, guaranteed going to give people value,
then just draw pictures for people and hope that they like it.
If you don't like it yourself, then it's like and they don't like it,
then it's like, well, then you feel no worth and no value.
And some of the most important things I think about with art
is he's just a great way to show diversity in the world.
With fan-art, it's similar to the style thing.
When so many people do draw this in your style,
it shows all the different variances that are out there
for one specific character or painting.
So many people can interpret it in a different way.
I'm sure you've seen there's animations where there's an animation
where several artists were hired to redo some of the first animations for Zelda.
I don't know which game it was,
but the animation from Zelda were pretty, pretty bad.
I think even for their time.
And so there was a project where people I think there are hundreds
of artists works on different components of it.
And it was incredible to see all the different styles.
And I think diversity is.
Is really important when it's shown like it needs to be shared.
It's like this hidden gem in the world that
it can be easily lost and forgotten if it isn't shown.
And fan-artis one of the greatest ways to be able to share
that within the art community,
because you have something that exists and it's kind of like original form.
And then everyone else shows their take on it.
And it's very clear what that take is.
It's a lot harder to see diversity,
I think, when you just look at all the different artwork out there.
So those are just really easy to see and appreciate the beauty
of diversity when everyone's doing the same thing.
And I think the most one of them
and I keep saying all of these are the most important reason.
But what really, really
the last point here that really was special to me was that it kind of brings
awareness to a genre or medium that people might not be aware of.
So for me, recently, I've been hearing and kind of seeing hints about this show
by Gennady Tartakovsky, I think his name is pronounced,
but he's like the author of all of our childhoods with all these amazing
shows that he's created or or animated.
It's this this show called Primal.
There was somebody I don't remember who it was,
but they did a fan or of a character that doesn't appear until the end of the show.
And I was like, all right, I'm going to go look this up.
I remember that was I remember that character's face
being the last thing I did before I looked up where to watch Primal.
And that was an amazing show that I really, really was surprised
that I hadn't seen when it came out, because it was it was so great.
I really enjoyed it.
It was like getting to watch Samurai Jack again.
And if it wasn't for that person who did the fan art,
I wouldn't have known about it.
And I think that happens for a lot a lot of people right now.
Squid Game is super popular in just everywhere.
It's like no, it's been number one on Netflix for so long.
And I love how so many artists are doing.
Fan art of squid game.
And I can guarantee you there's people who are like, who's this character?
Who are these people in these pink outfits?
And then they go look into the show and then maybe they
discover Korean shows and they get into caie dramas.
Maybe some people discover kapok through that, who knows?
And that could influence their entire art career or just give them,
you know, more value to their life
where they find a new form of entertainment that they can enjoy.
And I think that's really great.
And I think fan can be a really powerful tool in that way to just bring awareness
to different genres and share content with people that might not already see it.
So I hope you enjoy the series of sketches that I did of Narne from
Lilo and Stitch.
She's one of my favorite characters from that film.
Really, really enjoyed the animation as well.
And if you're wondering what I'm using here, I'm drawing with my iPad pro.
There is a Paper-like Screen Protector on it.
I really love how that feels.
And it is all sitting inside of the sketch board pro.
I'll try to link all of those in the description,
because I know this is definitely not a conventional setup
that you see here on YouTube.
And also, I'm using my apple pencil, of course.
But before we leave,
let me know in the comments why you were interested in fan art.
And let me know if you've actually felt
any lingering avoidance of fan art lately and why you might have felt that.
I'm really interested to see.
But with that being said, thank you all so much for watching.
And I will see you all in the next one.
Keep drawing and stay positive.