I finally put my unfinished digital art in a show

Everyone seems to only want to see clean, finished pieces in digital art showcases. I threw in some rough layers and early tries from my work, and a few folks said it looked lazy. Take my space painting, the first pass was just blobs of color, but the final is all smooth and shiny. Doesn't the messy part tell the real story though? Now I'm wondering if I should keep doing this or just stick to the polished stuff. What do you all do when you want to show how your art grows? Is it wrong to like the drafts more sometimes?

4 comments

4 Comments

wyatt1341mo ago

Ever see my first drafts? They'd clear the room.

jason_hall1mo ago

You think yours are bad? My first drafts are so messy I can barely read them myself. I once showed a friend an early version and he just stared at me. It was full of half thoughts and weird notes. I have to rewrite everything at least twice before it's okay. Honestly, if people saw my raw writing, they'd think I forgot how to use words.

river9521mo ago

Totally get it, @jason_hall. Open my first draft and you'll see whole paragraphs in all caps just saying 'FIX THIS LATER.' I leave blank lines where dialogue should go, marked with 'say something smart here.' Sometimes I write notes to myself like 'why did you make this character?' right in the middle of a scene. It looks less like a story and more like a chaotic to-do list. I have to translate my own mess into English on the second pass.

susan_thompson691mo ago

What exactly makes them so bad? Are they full of placeholder text, or do you just write nonsense to keep the story moving? My rough drafts are a total mess of brackets and all caps notes to myself. I leave huge gaps when I can't find the right word. The real work happens when I go back to fill in all those blank spaces and fix the broken sentences.