Going over old ground

With each project we complete; with every new technique gleaned in the process, it can be difficult to resist the temptation to exercise our new muscles and tamper with old works. There are things we notice—oftentimes glaringly obvious with hindsight guiding our vision—which subsequently drive us mad, haunting us every time we look back over our shoulder at them. But we’re told we should leave them alone and allow a narrative to form. A series of snapshots from which we may later read, reference and analyse. A sort of creative timeline, if you will.

When it came to illustrating Danny Brown, I could justify a re-work, assuring myself that I never technically completed the first incarnation. And we should always finish what we start, right? With the expediency of digital tools also willing me down the forbidden path, I succumbed. I did, after all, feel as though there was a myriad of missed opportunity (and equal measure of regret) with the former attempt…

Still happy with the overall structure, much of the groundwork was already laid down, paving the way for the fairly pedestrian task of tracing my own lines. At least that’s what I thought in theory. In practice, more or less every line was adjusted, readapted or replaced with a cornucopia of contour lines added for good measure. Having the foundations in place, I was then ready to dive in the deep end and play jazz with two years’ of additional insight to assist me.

No longer were two or three skin tones enough to assuage my hunger for progression. I wanted more. Much more. But it wasn’t just the number of colours making their debut here; it was also how they transitioned and blended in to one another without relying on gradients. And so away I went, drooling above the monotonous glow of my screen, drunk with inspiration as the new information forced its way into my psyche.

When I emerged from my frenzied state, what I found had materialised in front of me suddenly looked different. Having inadvertently departed the familiar landscape of a simpler cartoon aesthetic somewhere along my quest for completion, I appeared to have stumbled, completely unbeknownst to me at the time, into more complex territory.

So what did I gain from this exercise in self-indulgence? Other than the obvious satisfaction of having escaped the nagging regret of incompletion, I learned that by retracing our steps, we can extract valuable new knowledge and maybe even accelerate our learning curve in the process.