Juli-of-the-Mists

the future is ours for the taking

  • she / they

big ol' sporadic nerd.
ffxiv, celeste, pokémon, mtg etc.
elf enjoyer

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in reply to @Juli-of-the-Mists's post:

Is it the... dangit I don't have the graph on hand. Is it the graph though? The graph about how we all cycle between "can see what's wrong with the art but can't fix it yet" and "nope everything looks good. awesome" phases even as our improvements follow a more linear and not-so-oscillating path? (Remembering the graph is the only thing that keeps me sane some days: it's not that my art sucks, it's that my noticing/critiquing capabilities had another growth spurt that my hands haven't caught up to yet.)

I think it's been like...

  • two days ago, I tried to do a bigger shot. I spent three hours fiddling with it before hitting some severe technical issues - to the point where it was unrecoverable.
  • last night, I got some inspiration for a pose because my character did the dancer idle pose while looking at an object to the side, and I thought it was cute. I spent a couple hours on it before giving up because I couldn't get the lighting / highlight-midtone-shadows balance right no matter how hard I tried.
  • tonight, I tried the dancer pose again and, after several hours, managed to figure out lighting things and get a decent shot from it. I close out of gpose. I look at it five minutes later. I forgot the tail gfdhjkgfkjs. I start noticing a bunch of other issues - the expression's a little flatter than I thought at first and the sky in the background is this really odd pink-yellow color that I don't like.

...in short, yes. I think so. Just having a bunch of frustrating experiences pouring large amounts of time trying to make something that I can be happy with.

It's the graph! Which is frustrating as shit to live through (GOD IS IT) and I extend sympathetic cheeping. I'm probably heading into another one of those myself soon (nooooooo).

The good news is your pictures are very enjoyable to look at anyways, for everyone else! We didn't have the growth spurt, so if it was good before it's almost certainly still good. Not that I will object to you leveling up further to achieve new planes of ass-kicking. :eggbug-wink:

*hugs* Thank you Wobbles, I wish you much luck and few angers for your rgrghgh art cycle. Honestly, I feel like I hit a growth spurt with the lighting tones shortly after that one "same DRK hat" photo but i'm still trying to figure it out in different lighting contexts. ><

I fully get this feeling and it definitely comes and goes but I think it's important to say that you do a lot of creative work that is great and beloved, and immediately recognizable

thank you tuck. also appreciate you checkin' in on me in DMs ;w;

honestly i've been kinda thinking about trying to break out of a style box recently because all of my shots tend towards like... "camera angled upwards + zoomed in as close as possible + 5-20 degree dutch angle" and i feel like i can do more than that? but it just ends up feeling more comfortable to stick to the box every time

I'm always striving towards not being in one style box statically for too long, but I'm absolutely guilty of it.

One thing I want to suggest for you to break out of that is to try to take shots where the focus is placing the character within an environment. Zoom out a little both metaphorically and literally, I think.

You're creative works are amazing, and while the negative thoughts suck, if it helps all amazing creative people like you get them.
When you spend so long focusing on creating it's easy to see the small things that feel like mistakes or wrong. When everybody is focusing on the awesome whole

fwiw i feel like in particular with ffxiv gposing we tend to let our feelings about what we create mix in with the feelings of frustration with the tool(s) which is... less than ideal on all fronts :/
i've been taking pics in Cyberpunk 2077 lately and even though it's all third party tools like in XIV, the one massive difference i find between the two is how much less frustrating getting lighting right is. i don't close the photo mode after an hour of fiddling with it and not being satisfied, i can tell in seconds if it's right or not and fix it (or not) accordingly and i've noticed i feel a lot less bad about failed attempts as a result