I don't know why Batman doesn't like me. I LIKE HIM! I've told him many times that he has neat ears!
Maybe this fucking project would be going better if my friendship with Batman were going better. He could swoop in on his fancy Bat-Rope and detective the shit out of everything and locate some way for me to not be so terrible at figure drawing!
I seem to remember enjoying drawing super heroes when I was younger and after I left high school there was a brief period that I considered going into drawing comics for a living. Maybe (and most likely) I was delusional at that time, but I remember doing a fairly decent job of drawing these characters. I make no claims about being able to tell a story in sequential art, but I thought I had some abilities when it came to drawing people in tight costumes just standing around in heroic poses. It seems now that I'm so awful at this type of thing that I shouldn't even be allowed to read comic books let alone think about drawing them.
I specifically remember enjoying my sketchbook drawings of the scantily clad female characters such as Magma from The New Mutants.
I guess I just thought I would be better at this than I am. Some of my favorite graphic novels are so deceptively simple looking that I sometimes think I should get a portfolio together and take the Marvel Universe by storm! This is (much more obviously these days) one of those situations where my ignorance and my ego are giving each other a handy in the public restroom stall that is my brain. I have a feeling that I've never given these people enough credit for all the time and effort they put in over the years to make it look easy.
When Keith Richards plays his guitar it looks like he's not even paying attention to what he's doing. To my eyes he's paying more attention to not falling over than he is to his guitar playing. This may be a bad example because his playing style isn't particularly complicated and he does fall over a lot so his fear is probably justified. My point is that he is so skilled at what he does that anyone who's seen Mr.Richards play thinks it's so easy that they could certainly do that as well as him, if not better. These people are probably incorrect in this assumption.
All the greats make it look easy when they handle their business.
Van Gogh is another one of these people that make it look too easy. I couldn't begin to count the number of times, while working at the frame shop, that I've heard some person tell me that they went to the MOMA and saw some Van Gogh painting and they didn't understand what the big deal was because their kid (who's somehow magically always two years old!) could paint better than that guy. NO THEY CAN'T! They just cannot! There is absolutely no possible way.
People think Van Gogh's style of painting is easy, but that's because Van Gogh is so talented that he makes it look easy.
On a brief side note, speaking of Van Gogh and counting things...
There is a possibility that it might mean something to the person that is paying to have it framed, but all I see is that same crappy poster that seemingly everyone in America has purchased and I just can't care any less than I do. I deeply want to care about people's artwork, especially since I choose to work at a frame store, but it's physically impossible for me in this case.
I know it's supposed to be a masterpiece and everything, but how many times do I have to frame a poster of Van Gogh's Cafe Terrace at Night before I just end up cutting the head off every person within reach including myself?
7000 maybe?
I think I'm at about 6587 so you've only got a couple of weeks to bring that masterpiece in before things start getting dicey for everyone.
Anyway, like the jackass that I am, I thought I would be able to draw some super heroes like Darwyn Cooke or Bruce Timm because their work looks so simple at first glance. I would just take my concepts and graft it on to some semblance of their style. Easy! As it turns out, just because my regular paintings are complicated and difficult for me, doesn't mean that working in a clean simple style is going to be any easier. It just means that I am not very skilled at what I do.
I had some sort of ridiculous idea that less detail and less realism would mean less work for me, but I've discovered that it might actually be MORE goddamn work! Making things not-complicated is apparently really fucking complicated.
And that isn't the only problem. Super hero drawings, given their subject matter, should be powerful, dynamic and filled with the amazing feats of strong men in tights. Most of my work, on the other hand, is very posed and static and filled with pale delicate girls doing nothing. It's like everything that I've learned about drawing and painting for the work I usually do is completely useless for this project. Completely starting over and having to re-learn almost everything is (overly dramatic pause!... and sigh) totally not frustrating at all.
Hey! Here's an idea... Maybe I should try just drawing something in my own style!
Idiot.