Gestures - And the Liability of Perception Thereto

I've done a LOT of GESTURES. To be honest, and here's what I think.

I've drawn a lot of ink gesture drawings in my sketchbooks. So many as a matter of fact to the point of an alarmingly large amount of people thinking that's all I'm capable of.

To be honest, I don't know if I'm cool with that, with people thinking I'm a worse artist than I am....

All I know is Eastern, or Asian, artists seem terrified of publishing gesture drawings, because they all want to be seen as some kind of perfect, idealized thing.

You draw gestures to mold the form in your mind. Not to mold the form on the page. That's what polish is for.

I remember my initial goals upon being asked, do I wanted to be "The Next Todd McFarlane" (complex, hyperdetailed art) or do I want to be "The Next Jeff Smith" (cartoonishly simple and graphic), in a flash insight, my instinctive answer is BOTH.

That's kind of what French art and Bande Dessinee is and always has been, From Moebius and Otomo to the present day Bande Dessinee scene. A mixture, integration, synthesis, and combination of the Simple design elements or primal and iconic, and the hyperdetailed, dense, and complex layering.

The fact that so many people just assume you can't and never will achieve both is quite discouraging. But if I'm going by my own standard, I am exactly the kind of artist I want to be, wedding simple and iconic, to complex and dense with small textural fillings and details.

The Finished Product of that style, MY STYLE, is  being defined currently, hourly, on a daily basis. Some detail fans don't like simple, and some simple fans don't like detail. To me this rivalry is unneeded, and unnecessary. At one point in the past, I lost touch with this voice upon encountering critics of my style, continually telling me I had to do it "one way OR the other". I don't HAVE TO DO anything.

There's the "Tyranny of the Or" again!

Simple "or" detailed in competing artists and fans eyes. Not simple AND detailed.

The War of Art

Simplicity vs. Complexity

I don't like how the art world has been divided into two rival war camps: Simple and Hyperdetail.

It's all a bit of bullshit. Complex artists can do simple art, and simple artists can do complex art.

I do both. I always have, but I've never understood the animosity and rivalry between the two "parties": until just recently. Especially in the eyes of the anime community and young manga artists and Asian artists in general. That arrogant attitude that proclaims "If it's simple, it's shit". Not true. And now that I've got this figured, I can manipulate its power. Analyze it and exploit it to enhance my stylistic diversity and range. In my sketchbook, the two opposites are evenly matched, but in my comic book pages, it's all overtly and unintentionally simple most of the time. I've got to find a way to even the odds.

The truth is, EVERY piece or sketch is a step forward in my career, regardless of how good or  bad it looks in the beginning. Drawings can be redrawn. And polished, and inked, and revised.

The truth is, I used to draw quite simple, until around middle and high school when I noticed occasional hyperdetailing occur. And suddenly, when people realized  I COULD "do detail", they refused to accept any less from me. While I could understand their motivation and desire for wanting such a thing, I wasn't sure if that was such a good idea. The whole throwing out the baby (or simple art) with the bathwater (revisions and art editing). You can't just pick and choose your style or the quality of art. Art is mystical. Your art chooses you. It's closer to an magic Ouija board than an actual precise technological machine. You never entirely know what the finished product will be until you see it, unlike manufacturing in a factory, where you can know exactly what you'll end up with. My point is, an artist like myself who can do complex AND simple art magic can't and shouldn't abandon simplicity and simple work just because he like complex  best.