STYLISHLY LATE

Okay, so I do a poor job of posting frequently. So sue me. I'm busy. But don't confuse "busy" with "rolling in spinach". I still fit the 'starving artist' description. Well, maybe not the starving part, but you get the idea. So, I'm working on a small project at the moment, the accompanying image being a clip of what I'm doing. It's not exactly my style, but then, I've never really had my own style, which raises another issue that plagues me. 

Many, if not most, successful artists seem to have a "style", something that, as soon as your orbs are planted on it, immediately makes you say, 'Ah, that's so-and-so'. I suppose it's a sort of typecasting. But unlike the negative effect it may have on actors, typecasting seems to work to an artist's advantage. You see, a good actor is supposed to be able to do anything well, but when a client is looking for an artist they want someone whose work can dependably exude the style for which they are known, which is why the client hired said artist in the first place. For an artist, that means they should have a style that says, 'Look, it's me! I'm not a one-trick pony, but I keep cranking out the same thing because folks keep paying me to do it'. 

The only artist that seemed to escape the need for sameness (at least the only one that presently comes to mind) is Gustaf Tenggren, whose work on Snow White, Pinocchio, and Bland Tomtar och Troll was done, in my humble opinion, during the season wherein he produced his best work. I suppose the very fact that some artists have "periods" (e.g., Picasso's "Blue Period", etc.) means their styles change, but that might be less due to artistic seasons and more due to the fact that they haven't yet hit on the look that'll cause the manna to drop from heaven. And then there are artists for whom "periods" are really due to growth as they improve their skills. 

For myself, I just enjoy doing different things. I get bored doing just one thing. But for some reason I keep thinking there should be some underlying similarity in everything I do that would make people think of my work . . . . were I not an entirely obscure and unknown nobody. My biggest fear would be that the underlying quality that runs through my work would be best described as, well, crap-ola. Then again, even those artists for whom "crap-ola" runs consistently through their work like you-know-what through the proverbial goose often find great success with their own particular crap-ola style. I find that highly annoying, but I'm just jealous. 

Oh, here's the link to where you can view the eight-page comic I did for Z2H, the partial view of the cover which is shown here.