Path of Exile Fan Art Competition

Heres the benefits I see to an overworking mindset. When you first put pen to paper you are already resigned to the idea that nothing you are putting down is final, it will all be lost under the final piece. So right away that frees you, tension disappears, expression and imagination can take over unchained from the pressure of having to do something "right". This in turn makes you work faster, you leave mistakes in, what you put down probably looks worse than your first marks before but thats fine, you almost dont want to be too good on the first run. This also gives you an idea of the piece really fast and early, and lets you make large corrections to scale, composition, perspectives etc early while its easy to fix and you dont destroy any work, cause the work comes later and will sit on top.

As you work over and over on top and refine, define, further realise the shapes hopefully a lot of that groundwork will still slightly show through what youre doing on top. This adds back in that chaos and complexity that you get from traditional media but is lost in the flat exactness of digital. A lotn of its bonus is simply giving you the confidence to make marks, to work quickly, to enjoy what youre doing because its never the final thing. Forget the undo button, use the saves in case something crashes, but try and correct mistakes by adding more on top of them, maybe a hint of them escapes through and stays, thats fine, its adding the randomness of life to it.

When you come to actually make some final marks, youll find its 80% done already, in theory all the composition and tonal areas etc are already there. Maybe this is where the idea of dont overdo it then comes back in, maybe you dont need to add too much to finalise it and a lot of this rough underwork can carry through to the final image. But make that choice after I feel, while ur doing it keep that freedom of thinking none of this is part of the final thing cause thats whats taking away that anxiety that can shut you down and allowing you to let your hands go.




^^ I dont always work this way, but its worth heavily exploring it and having those tools in your box, getting that experience. Theres a thing artists get into of treating every piece like its the defining work of their life, you get it from ppl making music too, it can rly hold creative ppl back. a feeling like they dont want to waste their time trying something different, trying another method cause theyre completely focused on chasing that perfect piece. Again it can be quite restricting and shut down development. Its a similar situation to the trying to make the final thing right away, going from blank canvas to finished in 1 hit, it forces judgement and evaluation, 2nd guessing yourself at an early stage where its often wiser to just let the muse flow unchecked.


Its art, theres no right and wrongs, im just throwing some ideas out. When I was at college teachers and students would throw out ideas and even if I didnt necessarily agree with them simply triggering thought and trying stuff out would lead to places. I feel like the worst thing is stagnation, getting stuck in a rut, getting trapped in a prison of sticking rather than twisting if that makes sense? thats why I brought all this up when I saw ur post, its an art thread, I feel like a lot of people get in these ruts, I know I do.