♥️ Step-by-step process of my Vday fanart
#10 My detailed drawing process for fanarts
Dear little demon,
Welcome to the edition #10 of the Art Missive! We are now 1 935 😈 in this newsletter: thank you sm for reading ❤.
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In this Art Missive
1. INTRO : Use special events to boost your art (and your social media growth)
2. Valentine’s day 2023 : my step by step process
3. TIPS to introduce more “events” in your artworks
INTRO : Use special events to boost your art (and your social media growth)
Valentine’s day is coming tomorrow but you already know that right ?
It’s everywhere on Instagram : drawings of cute couples everywhere!
You find it cheezy ? Cliché ? You don’t like these commercial events ?
Well I think you’re making a mistake.
Considering social events like Valentine’s Day (I’ll call it Vday for this Missive), Xmas, Halloween…. and including these in your artwork can help you improve your art.
And for my demons who want to grey their own art community, these events can even help you grow on social media!
1. Improve your art including events in your artwork.
One of the most important roles of an artist is to showcase a representation of their society. Creating themed artwork like a Vday drawing can be a great way to illustrate how people from today experience this event : how do we represent love and lovers nowadays ?
In a very selfish perspective, including social events in your art can also be very beneficial to your art journey.
Why?
Because choosing a socially codified event as a theme for your artwork includes to
And constraint is very enriching for the creative process.
Constraints force you to be even more creative.
Constraints help you become good at finding solutions.
From a personal perspective, I’ve learned so many things by joining themed challenges like Vday, Xmas or even Mermaid.
I gained some kind of experience that I would have never gained if I stayed in my confort zone without any constraints to follow.
2. Use events to grow your art account.
No doubt : using themed works can drastically improve your social growth :
1️⃣ Social events are often trends on social media so it helps you reach a new audience that you would never have access to without joining the trend.
2️⃣ Social events help people relate or identify with your artwork. Using references they love helps you pass on a more impactful message. People will be more likely to engage and appreciate your content.
3. What do you mean by social events?
I think you got what I mean, but to be clear, what I call “events” is all kind of occasion that bring people together :
- Social events like Xmas, Valentine’s Day, Halloween, easter…
- A very successful release like for example Wendesday, Arcanes, Avatar… Series or Movies that had a huge resounding when released.
- Special art events like Mermaid, Inktober…
That is why -even if I personally really don’t give a damn F of Vday- every year I force myself to make a themed drawing on this event!
And in this edition 10 of the Art Missive, I’m going to show how I include an event in my artwork and give you some tips if you want to do the same for coming events!
Let’s go !
Valentine’s day 2023 : my step by step process
The goal of going through this process is to help you implement events in your art routine more easily.
This is not the perfect routine, but it works for me. I hope this will inspire you to adapt your own process!
Remember : events are sometimes annoying to include but they are so beneficial for you that you should at least try!
STEP 1 : inspiration
First, I need to get inspired !
And it takes several actions :
👉 Action 1 : How does the chosen event currently look like ? If it’s an event like Vday, I take some time to go on social media or/and on Pinterest to have a general feeling of the atmosphere and the current trends.
Vday example : this year, I really tried to ask myself “How is love for a 23 yo women of my age?”
👉 Action 2 : choose my guidelines. Before even starting I decide on what do I want to draw and what do I wanna say ?
Vday example : I wanted to draw two persons in love, but with a touch of “powerfulness” if I may say so. Something still badass and sassy. I also decided that I wanted to do a fanart, because I wanted more challenge and constraints.
👉 Action 3 : ask my audience. I released a poll on Instagram for people to share with me who was their fav couple. I got almost 100 responses, so I had a lot of ideas.
👉 Action 4 : compare and choose. I compared the most frequent responses with my own preferences and I decided to draw one Vi and Cupcake from LOL! It’s important to feel excited by the project !
Something that helped me decide was also my own values and preferences : I wanted to represent a LGBTQI+ couple, and powerful women. So CaitVi was perfect.
STEP 2 : conceptualisation
My conceptualisation process can be divided in two parts :
👉 Getting inspired : gathering pictures of the initial characters, finding ref pics for the pose, finding Arcanes and Vday aesthetics etc…
The reference I chose for the position because it perfectly matched my guidelines :
👉 Taking decisions : at this stage, I choose what story I wanna tell, what things I wanna show, material I’m gonna use etc..
For example, at this stage, I decided that I did not want this to be a huge complexe artwork but more a funny cozy drawing. Something very minimalist and quick to draw.
STEP 3 : execution !
Now I’m ready to put all of this into the final artwork.
If you follow me on Instagram, you know that I have a pretty similar process for all of my drawings which is :
Rough sketch > linework > hatching > last touches.
I also make sure that I record the drawing process from start to finish!
STEP 4 : (optional) publication
Now that I did the actual artwork, I want to make sure to share it properly on social media.
👉 Action 1 : content strategy. I decide how I wanna recycle this content. How many Reels ? How many posts ? Should I make a story about it ? Should I post all the content in the coming days or should I keep some to use in several weeks? My goal is to make the most valuable content out of this one drawing.
👉 Action 2 : edit. Then I edit my Reels and posts.
👉 Action 3 : save. I also make sure to keep all of this work on a hard-drive to re-use it in several weeks or months. Our art is not meant to last for 3 seconds. Make sure to save it and reuse it, ok?
TIPS
I hope you’ve now motivated to include more events in your artworks!
Here are some tips before you get started :
👉 TIP 1 : be yourself. You hate Vday or Xmas or Halloween? Why don’t you make an artwork about it? Using events in your artworks does not mean you have to follow the mainstream social codes. Make it yours ! Next year, Maybe I’ll draw a proud single, aromantic and asexual lady on Vday!
👉 TIP 2 : choose your battles. Especially if you make fanarts. In order to make your art unique, don’t forget to think about what you really wanna say. When drawing from events, it’s really easy to end up doing something kind of mainstream and meaningless. To avoid that and be able to speak your truth I suggest you really take some time at the conceptualization phase and think about what message you wanna share. It is going to help you do better work.
👉 TIP 1 : plan the events. take a calendar and select the events you want to join. Otherwise, you’ll simply forget (like I always do). For me, the coming events I’m gonna join are : obviously Vday, but also Mermaid !
🎁 Some additional resources to help you in your process :