While looking at books in my extensive art library, cruising web sites such as www.cgtalk.com, www.deviantart.com , www.epilogue.net , reviewing my collection of scale models, collectibles, relics, fossils, trinkets and scraps of natural history, there is as much, if not more, inspiration to be had out in the real world. Of course, going to a coffee shop and meeting with other creative people, visiting an art supply store, book store, or other man-made setting can offer inspiration, for me the world of nature is still the greatest muse.
Like anybody else in any profession, whenever I feel drained, pent up, burnet out, and isolated, the quality of my work goes down the pipe. My battery runs down and I am unable to challenge myself with new techniques, perspectives, poses or view points in the work. I simply lock up and can’t create until I’ve stepped out of the studio.
Taking a few hours or even a weekend away from illustration improves the quality of the art as well as the productivity of the hours spent in the studio. Furthermore, when I am not working, I am out there enjoying the speculative genre as much as possible, looking at other artist’s work, reading excellent books, throwing some dice during a tabletop role-playing game with friends, watching movies, flipping through comics, and listening to my kids tell wild, imaginative stories while they draw. Spending time in the real world is also among the best things I can do for my art, and thus for my clients. Of all the replenishing things I do, is my almost daily exposure to the wild areas which still exist around our home here in
Sometimes, while walking our dog, I go with the kids, and they see things and ask questions that come across as somehow wondrous, magical and remarkably creative. The natural world around us is incredibly beautiful, as well as ghastly and horrific at times; my kids will find a dead animal, watch a huge spider sucking the juices out of a bug, kick up sun bleached bones, observe a long trail of ferocious red ants on the march or discover a spent shotgun shell from decades gone by. Such things spark the imagination, rekindle forgotten visions and themes, fill your creative juice jar, and remind you of your own childhood, and the wonder that comes with youth.
Getting out in the real world is essential to being imaginative and productive in the studio for any sort of creative person, but I arrogantly claim that it is especially important for a fantasy illustrator or writer, because there are aspects to life that need to be encountered first hand in order to convey it to the drawing, painting or book.
One personal and nerve rattling example of this is from a night the autumn before last when I ran into the biggest black bear I have ever seen. When it stood up and shook its head, the animal being only eight feet or so away, I thought for certain I was dead. There was a sharp jolt of adrenalin in my gut and my mind raced over the possibilities, and odds of getting out of this one with my entrails and brain intact. The nearest car or fence was much further away than the bear was to me, and besides, I watched bears in my back yard climb up over such fences with effortless ease, and scale a steep bank with two bounds while it took me great effort to get up the same rise. So, knowing that running was a guaranteed end game scenario, I just kept walking, leading my Husky–Shepard cross along as if I hadn’t seen the bear. My dog, interestingly enough, hadn’t detected the bear as the wind was going with us (although twenty feet later she got a whiff of the beast and went nuts).
As I walked away, acting all casual, realizing I had a lockblade folding knife at my hip, wondering if I had any chance of even opening it while being tackled by a 400 pound omnivore, part of my mind considered what it must be like to live in a world of real monsters and mutants, such as in the settings I illustrate. In Dungeons and Dragons, for example, in any edition of that RPG, there is a creature called a bugbear, which is about three times as robust as a man and tremendously blood thirsty… anyhow, here now, in reality, I had a taste of terror, of an encounter, and the anticipation of the ‘crunch’ I would get any second from the bear behind me.
I recalled that there was a bicycle rider who was mauled by a bear less than a mile away, a year before. The victim managed to survive, although I heard he lost part of his arm and leg, he said the bear that attacked him was the biggest he’d ever seen, as well. Attempts were made to kill the bear, but after trapping and shooting one the next day,
A few feet on, I dared a look back. The bear had dropped down onto its all fours, turned from my direction and went back to where the half completed fence on a new, incomplete house, provided a gap. Walking on, I watched as the bear passed behind me under a street light, about twenty feet back now on the open road, and passed between two parked cars. The back of this bear was higher than the front hoods of the sedans parked there, confirming that, yeah; it was a big friggin’ black bear. I lost sight of it at that point and moved off at a good pace.
The story above serves to illustrate that life experience is as useful to an artist as it is to a writer. When I work, I call upon my own experiences to place myself in the scene, as if I am one of the characters or just off camera witnessing it. There have been more experiences than I can mention here, but a few include hunting (before I became a vegetarian 10 years ago), ridiculous scuffles and scraps in bar rooms, streets or high school halls, misadventures with motorcycles and other vehicles, travels to strange places and far off countries, getting chased by a bull across a farm field as a kid, being pursued by an unseen predator in the snow at dusk (seeing tracks of a cougar criss-crossing my own as I doubled back to collect something I dropped, while the rest of the camping group went on without me; something big thumping in the snow to my right), car accidents, storms at sea in an open boat, riding a horse without knowing how to make it stop, getting swarmed by wasps while simultaneously falling down a rocky ravine, being questioned by an Egyptian customs agent while young soldiers with AK47s coolly starred at me and my family members, the muzzles of their assault rifles aimed in the general direction of my stomach and groin as they share a smoke, and the list goes on.
Getting out of the studio may not help your hand eye coordination as much as hours of drawing, but it sure gives you inspiration, ideas and a wealth of visual reference. If you have some interesting stories or advice in this subject, I’d sure like to hear it.
WM
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