4 Things I Learned From Monster A Day

As you might already know - last week I started of with a personal challenge - Monster A Day. And that resulted in the following seven artworks.

• Goblin
• Lava Golem
• Sea Monster
• Tree Monster
• Bride Of Necro
• Flaming Skull
• Pumkin Man

The experience of pushing myself to create one new artwork every day was tiring and time consuming. But at the end of it, I am glad I did it. Another disclosure I would like to make is about CGPainting.com. This challenge was a result of some brainstorming and discussions there.

When you challenge yourself to create artworks everyday for a duration - a lot of things change and you realize a lot of things. Here is what I learned.

1. Inspiration - Having a deadline looming on your head, sometimes is all you need to get ideas. You get creative ideas to get ideas and that is a good thing. I did talk about getting inspiration before, but for this challenge - I used to ask my friends on what they wanted to see me draw. I would not actually draw what they wanted, but it would usually be a concpet based on what they said with lots of twists applied to it.
2. Techniques - Techniques is something you are forced to learn when you are pushed beyond the envelope. I learned quite a handful of them during this seven days, and some of the techniques I learned to apply better even though I used them before. I would be sharing those as and when I come around completely understanding them.
3. Practice - I cannot say it enough, but practice is the way you can get better at art. If nothing else, this challenge has given me good practice. I am now more versed than before with the software (GIMP) and in general - composition, value and color.
4. Using resources - I learned that art is about using resources. It might be information or material. I used textures for the last piece - Pumkin Man. I used information from Hart’s book regarding anatomy for Goblin, Bride Of Necro and Pumkin Man. I used information regarding composition over discussions I have had with other people in art forums. Getting yourself into such an activity, forces you to use things around you - and that is a good thing.

Expect normal posting frequency now that Monster A Day has ended. I would urge you to visit and join CGPainting.com. It is now a small group of enthusiasts who share and help each other in learning digital art. I mention about it here, because the community made it easy for me to keep pushing myself. An official announcement about the website would be made soon.