MEANBOSS
patreon
[PROCESS+BEHIND THE SCENES] The trials and tribulations of Astarion's head.
🕑 Added 2025-04-03 16:39:25 +0000 UTCBad news! Art never stops being in a pain in the ass.
This was supposed to be a very simple drawing, but every once in a while you make the mistake of trying to work through pain-killer haze (I had a little cable-management induced back injury, I'm all better now) and sleep deprivation and frustrate yourself into oblivion. I figured this was a teaching moment, LOL.
NOT ILLUSTRATED - how I actually tried rendering both of those scrapped sketches for at least a few hours before realizing I didn't like them 😐
I almost called it quits on this one, to be honest, but after my back got better and I had a good night's sleep, I fixed it very easily first thing in the morning 🤦♂️
![[PROCESS+BEHIND THE SCENES] The trials and tribulations of Astarion's head.](https://img5.unionfaps.com/storage/11/yh/rt/ba8889-019e8cc1-c918-72f4-948f-c49ef711dc77.gif)
![[PROCESS+BEHIND THE SCENES] The trials and tribulations of Astarion's head.](https://img5.unionfaps.com/storage/10/kt/fe/ba8889-019e8cc1-c925-7c87-8bbb-15be82247a8b.png)
![[PROCESS+BEHIND THE SCENES] The trials and tribulations of Astarion's head.](https://img5.unionfaps.com/storage/12/yn/oa/ba8889-019e8cc1-c92b-7322-8ff0-1c6bbdced893.png)
![[PROCESS+BEHIND THE SCENES] The trials and tribulations of Astarion's head.](https://img5.unionfaps.com/storage/11/nj/pe/ba8889-019e8cc1-c94f-7c3b-b119-4c7dcb9b6291.png)
![[PROCESS+BEHIND THE SCENES] The trials and tribulations of Astarion's head.](https://img5.unionfaps.com/storage/1/qf/ff/ba8889-019e8cc1-c951-750a-ae9a-d21c185aada1.png)
![[PROCESS+BEHIND THE SCENES] The trials and tribulations of Astarion's head.](https://img10.unionfaps.com/storage/7/ca/td/ba8889-019e8cc1-c960-7417-9f2f-a3a159f96190.png)
Comments
MEANBOSS
It's difficult to explain! Usually when something feels "flat" to me, the problem that I pinpoint is that I was trying to fit too much into the image unnecessarily - in this case, that being Astarion's whole face and smile when burying some of it into DU Drow's hair turned out being more visually effective.
jackiedrawsart
Just curious, what do you mean by a pose feeling flat? Like, unnatural or stiff? What are the giveaways? (This might be a language thing for me). I'm curious because I genuinely don't see what you're seeing on "sleep deprived" sketch. Do you have advice on what makes poses less 'flat'? Sorry for such a nuianced comment, I've just signed up for your patreon to see your process/study what your art can teach me. No pressure to reply!!
Surya Asura
Seeing this progress really illustrates (ha!) on how important it is to come back to a drawing after staring at it for hours. Even just the slightest adjustment to a head placement greatly improves the overall emotion and theme for a piece. This certainly is a nice reminder that it's something I gotta do myself lol.
