And here's the finished version of that one from yesterday.

One more day until Avatar. Can I make it?!

I'm giving another go at an old piece of fanart of Ty Lee from Avatar. I've learned things since....what was this, February? Wow.

I put her in her Season 3 gear, or at least the best I could make out of it from the blurry concept art that's been making the rounds.

Season 3 starts back Friday. I'm bursting with excitement. I'm thinking of doing another piece in time for the premiere to make into my new avatar for messageboards and whatnot. I'm thinking Sokka.

I think the hardest part of learning art isn't the learning of techniques, it's the unlearning of habits. Especially since a lot of them were taught to help in learning the craft.

Terry Pratchett presented the concept in Science of Discworld of "Lies to Children." That is to say, lies that aren't told to mislead, but to help someone who isn't ready for the full truth to understand part of it. Things like "Gravity is when weighty things pull other things to them" instead of that "truth" malarky about mass causing spacetime to warp. Lies to Children are good, because they help children to get closer to understanding something even though they're not really true.

Anyway, here I'm talking about Lies to Children as they apply to art. The biggest problem with these sorts of Lies to Children is that they seem harder to unlearn, at least for me. The one I'm currently trying to unlearn is about telling the truth with lines.

I'm more and more under the impression that the trick to making really memorable, really good looking illustrations is learning how to lie impressively with your pencil. And I don't mean getting it wrong, because that's clearly still a bad thing. I mean learning to take what you've got right, and intentionally change it for effect. The result being exagerrated bodies and faces that stand out in people's memories....but these lies go against all the stuff I've learned about capturing certain situations.

Of course I realize that I still need to get better at capturing the truth, too. That's what Life Drawing classes are for, though. In my illustrations (i.e. the stuff that shows up here) I think I'm going to try to lie more.

Today's picture is of Ty Lee from Avatar, who you've seen me draw before if you've been following my work. I like her, but the more I draw her the less I like her outfit. I hope Season 3 sees her in something different. I've heard a rumor that Season 3 might start in March....I'm not getting my hopes up yet because I'd expect to see commercials on Nick by now if that were true, but a boy can dream!

I was looking at some of Bleedman's work, and trying to figure out what it is about his work that makes it pop. His clean, sure hand is a big part of it, but I think the majority of it comes from the way he constructs the poses with lots of implied motion and long, uninterrupted lines. When I sketched this, I was trying to capture some of that....the finished version didn't show as much of that as I had hoped it would.

Well the first of the crop of fanart I was talking about--Ty Lee from Avatar, staring off into space, looking for those floatin' critters, like Osaka might.