Artistic Redemption

Have you ever created something and have it bother you because you KNEW you could've made it better?

Well, that's exactly the situation we have here.

Apparently vertical stripes were fashionable that season. 

See, years ago meteorologist/entertainment reporter Megan Glaros (@MeganGlaros) interviewed me for a story at Young At Art Museum when she worked in Florida. Being appreciative of her taking the time to do a story on me & our museum, I wanted to do a drawing she'd enjoy as a 'thank you'. However, I was very busy that week with deadlines on a project so I didn't have time to sketch Meg the way I would've liked.

The thing that bugged me the most was that I didn't run the sketch through my drawing pipeline, which led to the following result:

"Gimmie a 'P'! Gimmie an 'O'! Gimmie an 'M'! Double it! 'Pom poms! Pom Poms! YEAH!"

A generic superhero girl who's supposed to be generating hurricanes with her hands (which laughably look like pom poms.) In hindsight, I thought it sucked by my standards (my wife even thought it didn't look very much like her), although Meg was incredibly gracious in accepting it.

I was trained by all my drawing instructors to "respect the pipeline". Well, I didn't that time, and absolutely hated the end result.

Over the years, we kept in touch and she even wrote me a long dissertation on weather-related phenomenons that helped me partly develop my animated character "Monica". Overall, Meg's proven herself to be a beacon of awesomeness...which made me feel that I should rectify the error of that horrible sketch someday.

Well, that day has come. Meg tweeted the other day a picture of her and a SuperGirl t-shirt, which inspired the idea of Meg as SuperGirl.

See what happens when you go to CrossFit. 

On Memorial Day Weekend, I had a little time to devote towards this artistic redemption and do this properly through the drawing pipeline.







For months, some new Twitter followers (@RobCabrera if you're not among them) have asked me what my process is for creating the art I tweet. Here's the pipeline- (i.e. the process that let's one create successfully) --

Using Procreate iPad drawing app- seriously the BEST drawing app out there right now, in my opinion. 

The end result is a much better rendition of Meg that won't bother me years later. Check out the Before/After on Generic Pom Pom Megan vs. SuperGirl Megan and judge for yourself...

  

    

Moral to the story: Putting forth your best effort the first time minimizes the need for redemption.


Respect the pipeline, Good People.

Now go do some good out there,

Rob