A lightbulb. It has gone off.

I had a personal revelation of sorts today in regards to my creative process, and why and when I'm actually being creative instead of just copying history in appropriate ways and places. 

Since starting the programme here, I feel like I've been flailing around a bit trying to figure out what I'm doing and why I'm doing it.  (in regards to my actual work, not career path)  It's sooo easy just to stay in the historically-accurate-clothing comfort zone, but I didn't come all this way just to do what I already know.  Of course, leaving the comfort zone is much easier said than done, and for the last month or so I feel like I've been just spinning my wheels and not really getting anywhere.

Then today I began really thinking about projects and drawings I've done in the past where I feel like I was actually achieving a level of originality, and I realised that in all of those cases I was pretending the characters were all for a video game.  This seems rather strange considering how much of a gamer I am not... in fact the only video game I've ever played all the way through was Fable.  The first one.  When it first came out years ago. 

Here's a little compare and contrast...

This sketch is one I did a weeks or two ago of ideas for the main character's wedding scene.  Pretty much straight up historical.

Then this evening I decided to approach the same character's costume in the same scene with the 'Video Game as influenced by History' approach, and ended up with this:

Without color (and in a not-very-well-lit phone pic) it's hard to properly tell what it is I see in my head, but I think this is definitely an approach I should try out.  Whether it works well in the long run or not I have no idea, but for now it seems to be worth exploring.