In other words, I think it's obvious that both are still "hand-drawn", but I think the pressure sensitivity makes that a little more obvious. The only tricky thing is that because drawing on a phone is not quite the same as drawing on paper, you can sometimes make inadvertent line weight errors, such as has happened with the left side of my beard in the right image above.

However, I am sort of thinking that the added "natural" look of things outweighs the possible need to actually have some technique discipline, because just tiny little things like the little "flicks" on the end of letters just… well, it just looks more like I've drawn it.

I dunno. I might experiment a bit over the next few days. I'm not going to get super ambitious or anything and I may just end up going back to the old style anyway — it's served me well for many years, after all — but I sometimes think it might be nice to actually try and develop my style somewhat. Maybe even improve it?! Who knows.

I was spurred on to thinking this by, of all things, a recent Game Grumps playthrough of Waterpark Simulator, during which Dan admitted that he had been trying his hand at drawing in private, but didn't think he'd particularly improved. Arin, meanwhile, was keen to help him out and offer him some friendly advice — though of course they both know that revealing your art to someone else is, in many ways, a means of making yourself extremely vulnerable, and thus Dan was hesitant, and Arin didn't want to push him too hard.

Some of the things Arin talked about got me thinking, though, particularly about the idea of how many of us never move beyond the idea of drawing symbols rather than actual things. The example he gives is an obvious one: when prompted to draw a house, what would you do? If the answer was to draw a square with a triangle roof, a door in the middle and windows in the corners, that's you drawing a symbol of a house, because a lot of houses don't actually look like that. However, we grew up understanding that this shape represents a house, and thus if you never build on your skills to observe and recreate your observations on paper (or virtual equivalent) then you never move beyond drawing those symbols.

That's not to say you have to, mind. One of the reasons I've always enjoyed drawing stickmen is that although they, themselves, are also symbols, it's also possible to personalise them very easily. Add a hairstyle, facial expressions, little details, and you take them from being a simple symbol into something with a bit more individuality and personality. It's obviously nothing like being able to actually draw a person, but it kind of is a step beyond just the simple symbols. I think, anyway.

So yeah. I might turn on pressure sensitivity for a bit and see how I like the results. I'm sure you're all super-thrilled to learn that. But hey. My blog, my useless ramblings. You're the one who clicked over here.

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The post #oneaday Day 860: No pressure appeared first on I'm Not Doctor Who.