Call of Corruption (Hi-res + Thoughts)

This is the hi-res (~4K) version! Thank you for your support. <3

A (slightly late) birthday gift for Sombreve of FA! Sombreve always gives more than asked when unlocking hidden desires... But I'm first in line. No cutting!

This took me longer than I might happily admit due to this burnout feeling I've had for the past two months-ish. However, I've been looking at a lot of Rembrandt and Sargent, and some of their brushwork has inspired me to paint again. I want to add chunkiness and more soft edges to my stuff, so bear with me if things may feel a bit off than the usual as I sort of keep them on my second monitor to look over as I paint, aha.

Thanks for being a good dude, Sombreve. And thanks to ya'll for being patient with me during this stretch of slow work.

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Hey woah spicy take here but did ya'll know that burnout sucks? Not even the game, but the mental fatigue of [almost anything goes here]. It's been a heck omf a past two months, where some quick sketches and plinking at some paint has been all I can emotionally engage with or find the energy to do. I'm slowly weaving my way out of it, but it's taking me some time. More time than I expected at the end of February.

Like mentioned above, a lot of what I've been doing--aside from playing too many video games and being inspired from the likes of the Yakuza series down to Monster Hunter--is looking at artists. Modern ones, traditional ones, old masters, pop artists, etcetc.. Just a lot of gallery hopping and museum browsing, so to speak. In college, I love love loved Rembrandt and Sargent, two artists I feel have an incredible mastery of light and form in their traditional oil paintings. And it sort of dawned on me that my works are always so hard edged and defined, even in shadow, that maybe part of my burnout, part of my frustration, is in that overworking of everything. 

So you can kind of see me playing with that here. I'm trying to make edges a little less easy to read in shadow, while trying to make areas in light pop out with brighter colors and harder edges. I don't know exactly how successful its been, but this is sort of my first go at it, so apologies if it's a bit... "blurry"? But it was fun to not feel like I needed to stress everything little thing. I think if I can figure out more how Corel Painter's texture and thick paint settings work, I can start to add some chunkiness into the mix, too.

Finally, I know that my anatomy isn't exactly "on point" here in parts. That's another thing, too, that I want to work on: Just being okay with things as they are, even if it's a bit wonky, because it can be covered up in effects, lighting, or some clever brushwork. I tend to be incredibly perfectionist about how I like my bodies to look, of any build, and I think that's also been wearing me down. It's something I can improve on, sure, but I've been really starting to destroy myself trying to make things look right that even sketches struggle to get off the ground without frustration.

So yeah. I guess outside of games, I'm trying to restructure how I'm approaching all of this. It's not easy, that's for sure. Old habits die hard, and man does my habit want me to zoom in real close, to detail out specks and little things, when it really shouldn't matter as the viewer doesn't need that crazy level. Too much drooling over photo-realism art, perhaps. 

Thank you guys so, so much for being so patient with me. Again, next month's collection is still paused due to me being a bit slow the past while, but I really, really appreciate you all sticking with me despite that. And even a hello hello to the newer patrons, including Sombreve himself. Thank you all so so much for sticking with me despite being slower or less prolific than some other artists might be. It means the absolute world to me. I don't want to let any of you down. I hope that, in my quiet period, this finds you well and you enjoy it. <3 Much love, ya'll.