What's up? I'm finally back! I feel like I haven't posted on my blog forever, and that's because this week I'm much later on my posting than usual. I decided to write this entry only after finishing the project of marijuana pin-ups, a project that I mentioned several times in my previous writings. Well, the time is now, and here I am, writing on the early hours of April 21, just a couple of hours after this year's 4/20 is over (the date where I promised I would finish posting the first half of the project.. and I did!)

So, for this entry, I'll write a bit about my post-experience working on this line of girls and weed. If you would like to read how this project came to be, please visit my previous post about it, by clicking here.

Well, how did it go? Was this project worth it? Was it fun? Yes, and hell yes. As I mentioned before, I've had the idea of painting images featuring girls and weed for a while now, so getting in touch with Sunnie, my partner for this project, was indeed awesome. I learned not only about concepts and details of the cannabis culture, but also about rendering techniques on my own. If you know me as an artist, you know that I'm always trying to push myself a bit with every drawing, trying to get better and better with each piece. That doesn't mean that it always works, but I do try. :) This project was no exception, and rendering these images back to back allowed me to address issues from a certain drawing, and work on a solution or variation on the next one. For example, whatever technique issue I found on the second pin-up, I would try to work it out on the third pin-up, by trying something new; same wise, whatever idea I didn't get into the third pin-up, I would try to incorporate it into the fourth pin-up, and so on. That's the advantage of working on a line with images back to back: there's a wider room for error.

I must mention that this is not the first line that I render. It is indeed the first line of weed pin-ups, but certainly not the first line in general. It's not something I do often, though, so when I end up working on one, I truly enjoy it. Not surprisingly, as with any other project, working on a line has its upsides and downsides. My biggest issue would be  trying not to fall into monotony. I try to keep it varied, which in turn can be a little hard too. It is hard because I try to work my images in a way where each one has their own "personality", instead of being a cookie cut version of each other. On top of that, I must be careful to keep images somewhat consistent, because it is a line after all. This is exacerbated by the fact that I tend to switch to different styles from one pin-up to another, which results on images that don't look so much like each other. That is actually the main reason why I never really got into drawing comics... but that's another story. So, yep, working on a line can be a little harder than working on single images, at least for me. Another downside is that, obviously, working on a line of image take up longer than working on a single image. After all, a line is just a group of single images put together.

Now, let me tell you something: the upsides of working on a line make it totally worth it. As I mentioned before, I get to work on issues right after another. Did I have an unsolved issue with an image? Did I have an idea while working on an image but it's too late to include it on it? Well, in both cases, I get to tackle that in the next image. Bam! Done. That's a neat thing of working on images back-to-back, keeping the ball rolling. Another great thing is, well, how a line looks, aesthetically. A group of images sharing a theme or concept, can be a powerful visual statement. This is true even when the images are not part of a back-to-back project, as I've noticed with my pin-ups for Mexican Independence Day. I've worked on these pin-ups year by year, one by one; now, after several years, they are indeed a line, because I have several of them. The impact those images have together, are far more powerful than any of them on their own... even though I didn't work all of them at the same time. So, going back to the current line of weed pin-ups, it is definitely worth it to see this group of images together, especially when it didn't take years to do so (compared again, to the line of Mexican Independence Day images).

Last but not least, and leaving technical aspects aside: working on an line like this one allowed me to learn a lot regarding the cannabis culture, which I've always embraced. It is interesting to learn about terms, props, items, ideas, etc. It's a brave new world out there... and it looks green! :) I want to extend a big thank you to Sunnie for being such a great partner on this project, I did learn a lot indeed, and look forward to create the second half of the project.

That's all for now, but I'll be back tomorrow, not writing, but posting the weekly sketch. I'm so behind that the writing entry will go back-to-back to the sketch post. Gee, it seems like everything is back-to-back lately! As always, thank you so much for reading this, I like to share how my projects are going, and it's always nice to know that there's somebody on the other side of the line, reading my ramblings. Please leave your comments, they always make me feel even better... I'm serious, they do! :) See you next time!
~Pops.