This is related to my blog post titled "Untilted Struggles To, But Will Continue in 2026" that was written and published on February 2, 2026.
I think my new semi-aversion towards photorealism is due to how everything gets evaluated heavily on technical skill and nothing more, similar to that of photography. Like there's very little engagement with what the artist (in this case, myself) is actually doing creatively.
With stylized work like cartooning and manga-adjacent styles, there's less emphasis on technical skill and more room for experimentation and creativity.
Besides cartooning I also do a bit of collage-style digital manipulation (with images of my own). Basically just overlaying a bunch of photos and applying random filters to see what works.
I thought that was what abstract photography was sort of like (minus the fancy photo gear in my case). But a lot of works under that label seem to depict minimally modified photos of blurry lights, things in motion, etc.? I do much more than that. Apparently what I do is basically just visual art.
Another reason I stopped doing photorealistic portraiture - people kept asking me to draw photos of them or their family and friends. They only cared about how well I seemingly drew people. It doesn't seem to occur to anyone that I'm simply just better at replicating what I observe, and that doesn't automatically make me better at drawing people or animals or whatever real-world subjects are present. I still struggle with things like proportions. The requests got annoying so I stopped.
Hence why I rarely draw photorealistic portraits and photorealism in general anymore. I feel like a lot of it just demands too much of me. I like drawing cartoons and manga-adjacent styles better. I never drew caricatures like the ones artists would draw and sell in the streets of Manhattan though. I don't really want to do that. I don't really like drawing other people anymore.
It's also why I've been taking so long to figure out what kinds of art I even want to do (but I think I know now?)
The art series of girls in various colorful clothing I've been putting out is fictional. I'm not referencing any real-life people. I'm depicting what I want. I think that's the freedom that doesn't really come with drawing other people (or other people's fictional characters) or even caricature versions of them.
Originally written on April 3, 2026. This written work is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/