Hunger

 

I have a very love-hate relationship with this piece. On one hand, I'm still pretty proud of it. The rendering has aged a bit, but the composition and subject I think our dead on and it was a big step forward for me. 

On the other hand, a lot of people loved it, which would be great except I think they also expected this kind of art from me consistently, even though it's the kind of art I don't care to make anymore. I'd rather do cell-shading, sketches, and (hopefully, eventually) comics. Highly detailed art takes too much time and I just don't have the attention span to commit, and I'd rather take that time to experiment. But even after switching styles, this has still been my top eyeball piece for a number of years now, only recently being dethroned by the derpy ichthyosaur comic (thank god). 

I don't hate this piece for that, but it's the centerpiece to my problem with "artist branding". People expect you to make a certain type of art and if you switch it up, it throws them off. I get why it would and viewers aren't obligated to follow an artist that doesn't interest them anymore. But it still puts a lot of creative stress on artists, especially those whose art is their income. Thankfully mine isn't so I can afford to be flexible, but burnout from lack of creative freedom is a real problem. Add in if an artist has an unhealthy relationship with validation, you have a nuclear meltdown in the waiting.

Anyway, I've been thinking of putting this guy in a story idea, set in prehistory. The concepts are still vague tho. Also a lot of people said this reminds them of Homestuck, a thing I know nothing about except that half of all cons were full of gray trolls like a decade ago.