super-enthused

What the title says. Art journey has led me into the weeds a few times; but I've come to some important realizations:

• No matter who you are, you have to sort of find the path to improvement yourself
  
• There's an effective way to practice
  
• The role that analysis plays in practice
  
• Finding and keeping motivation
  

All of this stuff plays off each other and there are answers. If you're an artist and are interested, stay in touch. I'm working on some videos explaining things.
New art coming before the end of the year.

So Hi... Hello! Good to see everyone again after a long time away.

Recently trying to get inspired again by some art. Trying to find the one or two styles that when I look at them make me want to pick up a pencil and draw again. Aside from the usual suspects (Disney and others) I haven't found too much out there that excites me... and it's becoming harder to find inspiring things. (With the exception of the work of Carlos Gomes Cabral, which looks spectacular.

Do you understand the concept of Google pollution or "search pollution?" Basically it means that certain types of things become virtually impossible to find via Google because the keywords used have results "polluted" with unrelated things. 

Trying to search for "inspiring cartoons" leads to stupid memes with inspiring quotes. Or searching for "great cartoon designs" comes up with thousands and thousands of images from mostly amateur artists doing "draw 1 character in 100 styles" challenges or something like that. 

I'm trying to find really inspirationally good designs and cartoon styles from all eras. And what I ended up finding tonight made me physically ill. 

It seems 80% of that stuff was filled with what I will "kindly" call the "Tumblr Style." It's something between Steven Universe, Gravity Falls, and a pile of manure. 

You get your basic eyeballs drawn like someone partially filling out an oval on a standardized test form (Steven Universe eyes?) Then the sausage mouth (Gravity Falls) and God knows what those legs are... like some flat pieces of bacon that come to a sharp point at the end. And absolutely none of the characters are fettered by that bothersome hell called "gravity" or even "perspective," which means that every character floats way up in the air as if dancing on those sharp, pointed toes of theirs.



I began to feel ill looking at this; not just because it was one or two images... but MANY, MANY people (with otherwise decent color/value skills) doing drawings in similar styles. Then I went to check out the characterdesignreferences.com site, which had some of those types of images in their "challengers" pages. I almost hurled. Then found sanity when I saw that not many of the "winners" in those character design challenges were actually in that style... most of the winners seemed to possess at least the decency to put their characters on the ground plane and not make their characters noses look like big orange triangles.

So I'm ending this (sigh) rant (I guess it's a rant) by asking for your opinions: Can you direct me to some truly inspiring art? Not necessarily new stuff; but stuff that seems better than average? Stuff that isn't currently flooding Tumblr, for instance? Check out Carlos Cabral's work--you'll see what I mean. THAT stuff is great to look at. It's relaxing. It builds excitement. It doesn't cause vomit to materialize in my gut like the stuff I've been sifting through tonight.

(Hints: I really like Chuck Jones, R. Crumb, classic Disney (before Pixar/John Lassiter). Even John K. has his moments. Thanks!)

Thanks and be well! Maybe I'll post something in the next few weeks if I can dig out of this art-hating hole.


S