I make the worst concept art in the world, it’s so scribbly, some for Zed’s posthumous NMM/Chrys flash. I also made a few sketches for Tiara’s milkmare thing to illustrate what I was talking about but they didn’t make it in point for point.

I really have something I want to say, something I’ve had trouble putting my finger on for a while—sometimes there’s an atmosphere of elitism or entitlement or hostility that is the opposite of promoting the creation of something.

And I’m just as guillty of doing that as anyone else of doing that. And I don’t like it about myself at all.

And it gets hidden under other labels, so let’s touch on them briefly.

Things that actively do not improve art (including writing, music and videos)

• Listing 20 things wrong with something and they are all minor things that don’t impact the entire sum of the work is not improving art.
• Showing other bad works in response to something, in order to make one look superior to the other, is not improving art.
• Showing better works, with the assumption to shame the other attempts instead of inspiring, is not improving art.
• Planning on making something but never doing it is not improving art.

Going out and trying something new is improving art.

Here’s some concept art again, like, 3 hours just to figure out how legs would lock properly for tribadism with pony anatomy… I’m almost close to cheating it for 2D and have it look correct. It’s that last one there, the uncolored one.

I think there’s this idea too that “good artists” with ‘talent’ are not allowed to show where we make mistakes, where we start from to get where we end up. I think it’s important that process is transparent. People will say “Did X’s art suddenly get worse?’ and every single image starts out as a scribble.

Not every picture needs to be finished out and sometimes there’s a lot of false starts to do that. I see a lot of people just coloring or inking other people’s pictures or vectoring the show with no idea what they’re doing and it winds up worse than the source… you don’t learn much that way either.

Sex is surprisingly challenging to draw because it involves this process of rotation, placement, composition, feeling and other little details… you sure know when someone does it wrong, but there are so few who can do it right.

It’s like everyone can tell you it’s not how it’s supposed to look, but the only way to fix it is to put your money where your mouth is and draw the correction instead of just spouting off a list of preferences and making a lot of noise and, generally, getting nowhere.

So if you do one thing for me today, try something new. Break out an old instrument, try a new program, or an old hobby you miss. And encourage someone else today.

Mass scan update of my art journal progress.