The Ugly Phase
Every project goes through the ugly phase.
It's what comes after the initial idea. The loose sketch. The roughly shaped block of clay.
The loose sketch carries so much potential. Nothing is too defined. You can see the perfect version of what it could become.
The ugly phase comes when you leave that stage of infinite potential and start doing the work to bring it into reality. Each action takes away a little bit of potential. Brings it a little further from that image in your head.
This comes from my time as a sculptor. Every single piece went through this phase.
I'd start off with a rough lump of clay. Forming the rough shapes of the face went fast. Being quick and loose, the face always looked so full of life at this point. There was movement. You could see the character coming out of this wet chunk of clay.
But, inevitably, when it came time to refine the shapes and start to make it more detailed, it would plummet into the ugly phase. Every added bit of clay took it further from that initial image I had in my mind. It would go from looking loose, but dynamic, to looking dead. Devoid of life. Ugly.
From experience, I knew I had to keep going. There have been more than a few faces that were punched back to a lump of clay out of frustration at this point. Noses smashed back into the skull. Faces scraped completely off the boards. Over time I learned that this was just a part of the process and every piece would go through it. So I kept going. Slowly making progress and bringing the character to life. Eventually it’d reach a point where I could start to see life in it again. It never got quite to the level of dynamic life that it had in the rough sketch phase - never reached that same level of potential - but it was finally out of the ugly phase. It looked like something coming to life.
Everything I've ever attempted has gone through the ugly phase. It never matches the perfect image in my head. But the trick is pushing through the ugly phase so you can get to the place where it starts to become a character of its own.
The final result might not match that initial perfect image in your mind, but it's real. It's not just an idea anymore. It made it through the ugly phase and now it's alive.
