Chasing Perfection: When Is Your Artwork Really Finished? - 3 Key Tips/Solutions

Hey everyone,

Last week I was talking about When is Less Truly More?. Briefly, the article was about encapsulating complex ideas into a minimum number of points in the composition. In today's article, I want to delve more into this idea of information in the composition as many times I don't know when the composition is "good enough" to stop. I'll explain.

Have you ever felt insecure before finishing a piece? Like something is missing or it's not good enough? Therefore, not being able to finalize? I often think the reasons are many, but today let's focus on three I consider essential.

Poor Goal Definition

Defining the goal is one of the first things I often do, but because of my impatient nature, I move forward into execution without even defining what this goal will look like. If you are like me, I'd recommend describing it by choosing its fundamental visual characteristics. 

Let's assume our goal is to make a piece about a "sad giraffe", it's a silly example, but the simpler, the better. So let's define the visual characteristics of the two aspects:

• Giraffe: Long neck, yellow fur, dots, etc.
• Sad: Curved mouth, droopy eyes, tears, fallen shoulders, etc.

I could focus on the long neck and curved mouth only, but adding a few more will make the idea even clearer. These characteristics will not serve only as a starting point but also as a point of reference when you don't know what is missing. Sometimes the problem is not having enough knowledge of the subject in order to make an accurate visual description.

I can't feel a piece is complete if I have no idea what it's supposed to look like. It's like running a race and not knowing when we reach the finish line. This is a contradiction for us artists because we are creating something "new" and we don't know what the end will look like. However, we don't need to describe this end in detail; we just need to clarify what key components this end must address. Aside from that, we are free to choose the path. This way, we will have a guideline or a frame of reference to determine whether we have met our goal, in other words, to know if 'it's good enough'.

Odd Execution 

By odd execution, I mean the lack of proper execution using the art fundamentals. This can be through shapes (anatomy, gesture, composition, perspective), colors (saturation, hue, balance), and values (contrast, lighting, textures). Thus, leading to judge the piece as not good enough. To make these points clear, let's use the same "sad giraffe" goal.

After describing what "Giraffe" and "Sad" looks like, odd execution will mean being inefficient in addressing those characteristics, making the sad giraffe look like a happy horse. These mistakes I often refer to as 'accidents' because they might stem from a lack of skill development. 

In response to this issue, I often recommend having a real-world picture as a sort of reference. Drawing things from imagination can be a pain in the ass as there is no reference, but with a reference, you can compare what is missing and what is not, make corrections, and get closer to that ideal end. We have all experienced this issue, and it's not on purpose. But what if you choose to make those odd executions on purpose? Then pay attention to the next point.

Unnecesary information

To understand this point, we need to first make clear what necessary and unnecessary information means for me in this context. Necessary is everything we previously addressed as a goal and its characteristics, unnecessary is all the extra information that is not needed in order to convey the goal.

For instance, I can make an illustration of a sad giraffe, addressing just the necessary for me and you to understand it is a giraffe and it's sad, but this will be a boring outcome in my opinion, so my solution is to add unnecessary information and then connect this unnecessary information to the goal, turn it in a way necessary, like justifying its existence in the composition. This process for me often happens organically during the execution.

Here is a more clear example. The main goal was making a sad giraffe, but I decided to put some shoes on her, these shoes although unnecessary I thought looked cool, and down the line, I decided to not draw one of the shoes, which in a way expands the story by implying this giraffe is sad because it lost one of the shoes.

This is an example of unnecessary turned necessary, but this is not always the case, sometimes I added a bunch of unnecessary information, hoping to connect at some point with the main goal, and I end up lost in details, feeling something is wrong and not truly knowing what it is, and it's often because of too much of nothing.

Becoming more critical of what is necessary and what is not will help you notice when you arrive at your goal and when you have not.

Conclusion

Making a clear and detailed description of how the process will unfold and what the end result will be is not the goal of this article, as it would leave little room for spontaneous decisions and exploration, thereby making the process boring and predictable. The objective is to provide you with some cues to double check that 'not good enough' feeling and gain more confidence when completing a piece. Everyone has their own boundaries or 'good enough' metrics, but I wanted to share mine with you in case you're still struggling with this. Perhaps this will help you discover yours.

Tomorrow, I'll be sharing the process video of this piece along with the files and insights. They will be available for Mastering Maestro tier and above. Feel free to upgrade if you want more insights about my work.

Welcome to all new patrons! Feel free to drop any questions here in the comments, via DMs on Patreon, or in our Discord group. I'll be more than happy to answer and track your progress.

If you found this article useful, please drop a like or a comment! I appreciate the feedback and criticism as well, as I strive to improve and provide you with the best content.

For more information, check out our Patreon FAQ: https://ramonn90.myportfolio.com/faq and Patreon Catalogue: https://ramonn90.myportfolio.com/work

Your support makes this content possible! Thank you.