One Year of Monsters

Hey folks, earlier this month was the one-year anniversary of "Many, Many Monsters," and I thought it might be appropriate to talk a little bit about this blog and how it's changed over time.

The very original reason for the site was to teach me how to use Adobe Photoshop. I had just received the program earlier in 2011 and I wanted to get up to speed, fast, and I figured I needed something that would force me to constantly produce material. This collided with an earlier idea I had to make a website that hosted monster drawings. From there came the origins of "Many, Many Monsters."

I decided when producing the artwork that I wanted to work as fast as possible: no pre-planning, just  drawing. I like to think that by working this fast the drawings come straight from my subconscious, which makes them weirder and more entertaining. Even the drawings I'm not wild about I include because sometimes the flaws make them more interesting than the mild successes.

The early days of the blog were pretty interesting as I worried I wouldn't be able to continually produce material three times a week, but as time went by I really fell in love with the process. There's something fascinating and interesting about running out of ideas and then breaking through to find even more.

Here's the first week of monsters:

Trok

Strictor

Eckt

A few months ago I started getting tired of how flat the colors were. I'm always in constant fear of stagnation, so I started experimenting with digital painting techniques. I did some painting in college so I wasn't a complete neophyte, but it's been an interesting learning experience.

Dooley

Gepp

The Tropical Worm

The Forest Beast

You can see a lot of experimentation with line-weight, gradients and digital paint. How successful any of this is is of course up to the viewer, but I think I'm on a good path. At the very least, I'm having fun, and that's the most important part.

Here's to another year of monsters.

Best wishes,
Ryan