My Other Ultimate Goal

I said earlier that my ultimate goal is to draw incredibly life-like images.  This is still true.  I adore graphite realism, and if I ever get some good quality pencil crayons then I'll adore whatever you call coloured realism too.  I can think of no greater goal for an artist to strive towards.

'But then why have you spent this last month drawing comic-book characters and cartoons?'

An excellent question, dear reader.  If I have to be perfectly honest, photographic realism isn't my only goal.  I'm not ashamed to say I love cartoons.  Love, not loved.  I can still relax to this day watching Thundercats, Silverhawks, Transformers or the classic Batman: Animated Series, not to mention classic Disney movies.  I'd love to draw in that cartoon style.  More specifically, I'd love to create a whole cartoon universe.

Art is a creative endeavour.  Drawing hyper-realistically isn't really creative.  Not really.  Drawing very realistically, generally from reference, takes incredible skill, patience and problem solving abilities, but not much creativity.  If you start stylizing your image, then it's not realism anymore, is it?  Realism is my ultimate goal because if I can draw something people at first think is a photograph, I can likely draw anything.

And at that point, I'd want to create my own world.  This would be a cartoon, or maybe a graphic novel.  Whatever you want to call it.  I'd want to create my own settings from imaginations, fill them with my own characters and fuel them with action and energy.  I've written dozens of stories, and so many times I pause and wonder, 'How can I write this particular scene?'  Now I'll be able to draw it instead.  At least, that's the goal.

I have no vain illusions of creating the next great graphic novel.  I just want to create my own characters and visual record what I see inside my head.  To do that, I need to learn how to draw comics and cartoons.  But before I can do that, I need to learn draw.  Period.

So that's my goal: to draw cartoons.  Likely very realistic cartoons, but cartoons nonetheless.  From this point forward, you now know what to expect from my pencil.  And really, who doesn't like cartoons?