hello all! happy new year ^w^ i can hardly believe it's 2019, but i better get used to it haha. any new year's resolutions? i want to read the bible every day- and, of course, continue to improve my art! with that segway, may i introduce: ~my 2018 in art~. this is my look back at the year. i've included one piece of art from each month of 2018 (but they're almost all digital because i am not about to search through my sketchbooks and decipher when i drew what) that i feel represents some aspect of my art growth ^u^ being an artist means constant improvement- and there is no limit of that to reach. thus, it's important to stop the steep climb every once in awhile in order to look down and see how far you've come. without further ado, let's see what this year has yielded! hit that flag and use space or the arrow keys. january - i actually still like this picture >w< i can see some flaws now, but i was learning how to do a more paint-y style digitally and i was having fun with it, which is important! i was mostly sticking inside my comfort zone by just drawing a headshot with a simple flowery background, but i drew a posed hand, something i really needed to practice more of (and still do). february - i can actually see a lot more flaws with this one than january's; the neck is suuuper long and way too straight and the bridge of the nose is very wide, but i still like this! plus, i was using gimp, a program that doesn't have all of the color mixing capabilities that krita's brushes provide, so that did supply a challenge for me. yet, i was still in the comfort zone of headshots. march - i was soo happy with this when i drew it, and i still am! however, using the brush i did for the scales was a bit of a cop-out (i still do that if i'm being honest) but i think the important thing here is that i drew a whole scene with a pretty good color scheme. i didn't put a lot of effort into the background, but i did at least have a background that the characters were situated in, so that's progress. april - again with the gigantic nose bridge, agh! yet, i do like this one ^w^ another thing i could've improved on is the detail/contrast on the dragon in her hair (you may not even be able to tell it's a dragon) and, again, the background. yet, i moved a little bit past the headshot to include her shoulders and, again, a hand that turned out pretty well! woohoo! may - oh, how i love mermay. this is the princess from my webtoon, facing dragons, as a mermaid. here, i had to be creative with combining her armor with her non-fighting dress, and i really like how that turned out. i feel that i did fairly well with the perspective of her body, even if i wasn't entirely sure what i was doing. also, this is the single piece of traditional art in this project because it was mermay so i knew i drew it in may >w< june - either june was a month of art block or i had gotten more interested in traditional art, because i didn't have any finished digital pieces for june. however, i did make this sketch of myself in a new dress that i really loved- and i even experimented with lighting, which is an area i need to work on! yet, i again didn't create a background other than a gradient and some flowers; always room for improvement. july - by now, i recall definitely being out of art block, partly because i drew this and really like it. i again experimented with color schemes, which i think paid off, and i was excited about the concept as well. however, despite the vignette, i actually didn't shade this with any specific lighting in mind, and the background is vague yet again. and you wouldn't be able to tell, but i drew this so that the mask could be taken out and it would still be finished; yet, the nose is drawn completely wrong for the perspective. august - at the time, i said this was the pinnacle of my artistic journey >w< i still really like it! i was enjoying myself and enjoying the outcomes of my art a lot around this time; a turnaround from the art block of june! only one thing really bugs me about this piece, though: the mouth is slightly off centered from the nose, and i //saw// this when i drew it, but didn't fix it because by then i had already almost finished. also, limited background again (sensing a theme?), though i think in this case it suits the piece. september - this is a photo study, credit to quickposes.com for the original image! (you can find some of my original art from this month here: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/249241999/) i really love how this turned out. some of the positioning is a bit off, and while i did put more effort into the background (after all, i had one provided for me in the original image) i still skimped out on it overall. yet, this was a good learning experience! photo studies are fun and very helpful. october - this is another photo study, and this image isn't in here necessarily because it demonstrates an improvement of art so much as because it's somewhat of a life landmark >w<
start in instructions ^^ [october, continued] this is a picture of my now-boyfriend's lizard. i drew it the day before he asked me out, lol. it's been two lovely months since we became official and he's really amazing. it hasn't been that long, but i think i may end up marrying him someday; we're both committed to making things work, and we're definitely compatible. plus he respects my boundaries, which is v important! anyway enough gushing about him, this is about art lol. i don't draw animals often so this was a stretch out of my comfort zone in that way ^u^ november - we're back to original art >w< however, here i did apply what i learned from my photo studies: one side of the face tends to be darker than the other, but it can still look like it's all the same color because of the way that the colors surrounding a color change how the eye perceives that color. i'm not sure if i applied this perfectly, but i do like how it turned out! plus, despite the customary lack of background, i did in fact experiment with lighting. december - and here we ///finally/// have a background of sorts!! it's not a very finished drawing, but i do like it. i finally realized how much i lack in the background skills department so now i'm working on that >w< plus i got to do a bit of lettering! also an animal wow! overall, it's been a lovely year, despite the many stresses. i definitely ended the year far happier than i actually was for the majority of it, so perhaps that colors my view, but i think i've learned a lot and grown a lot over 2018. plus, i've grown in my art journey, and that's always good! stay lovely, darlings, and happy new year ♥ note - you can find some of these drawings in other projects, if you're interested in hearing more about them. i babbled on here mostly for my own sake though haha, this is kind of a project for posterity ^w^ original image of the photo study i used for the thumbnail - https://www.flickr.com/photos/tnachtrab/5328133527/in/photolist-97Q5ta-6PsMA-cr9bFo-9Cngx-3gsQLT-aemg5d-9JNxVX-qCEKr6-6D7vo2-9vdpss-91CaNa-bRyWJp-cdRULA-8o8UX9-azi1Y-RwT2Q-FY8LuR-6hvyz5-7VrMsp-Xf4x8-bWx4ce-qStEoS-mk2RiP-61Ut7v-XtRcZL-29i414A-7SBXcP-8bzkeg-bCEbSq-6HaUdv-bksAma-Dd6UH8-A8VW3d-8bzntH-52SEEE-2R6dPc-6rUmQh-6gcxbf-3vVfEg-oTkdm2-BKKqdV-8f9oFh-JJ5DjR-rrEj5A-gsd6kn-RtNDuS-7ktsNF-94TJEN-wiYKV5-91Egra (sorry i would use a link shortener but scratch doesn't like that apparently)
