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Influences and Goals

So… today was a slow day.
Also this post is pretty rambly.

I played with my site for a bit((twitter cards are fun!)), laid some flats on one piece I’ve been working on the past couple of days and slapped some colors on that idolish7 sketch((I actually wanted to finish it properly, but… I wanted to do other things and it would have taken me forever. For some reason that scared me and I just left it as a sketch.)). Then I got cold, dragged myself to bed to code some, but started coughing non stop and feeling like crap, so I got nothing else done.

So, there’s this #artvshero tag going around in social media. Unlike the art vs artist that had your face surrounded by your art, this has your art surrounded by your influences.
I’ve been talking about how I am so picky with fanart that I *have* to imitate the original style and that ultimately ends up influencing my art, but when I thought about my current influences((The featured image of this post is my ‘influence map’ from 2010.)) besides Tales of Zestiria’s anime art (because fanarting non stop)… I drew blanks.  Continue reading “Influences and Goals”

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Self indulgent Saturday

Today I took the day off.
Fiance got home after 4 am, and we talked for a bit, so I ended up waking up at 11-ish in the morning, and since we finished watching Critical Role right after I woke up, the morning was gone anyway.

Today’s activities were just watch some anime and doodle. I didn’t really get to work on anything I had planned to, but I had a big urge to draw something for both Critical Role’s 19th episode((Yasha’s Necrotic Shroud was just too cool, I HAD to draw it.)) and IDOLiSH7’s finale ((I started i7 on a whim only because a mutual on twitter kept gushing over it… suddenly everybody around me was into it when I started watching! The boys are all precious and I ended up being stupidly fond of all of them. I would install the game, but my phone is really old and sucks. )).

Drawing fanart is something I always think of doing but rarely actually do((Before you call ‘LIES!’, I do want to draw fanart of a lot of things, but I only end up drawing things I’m literally obsessed with at the time. You know the ones >>; )), or at least rarely finish a fanart piece nowadays because work and projects are priority (and also resting from drawing by… not drawing). I also feel incredibly guilty about it, because there are so many things I need to do that ‘wasting’ drawing time on something else feels wrong.
However, drawing for fun is an important part of art, so when an urge that’s not fueled by complete procrastination strikes, now I try to indulge it: chances are I won’t draw whatever it is I have in mind if I leave it for another time, because other things will always take priority, so the sooner I get it out of my system, the better! ((If I don’t draw ideas right away, they fall to the end of the priority queue in a couple of days and eventually get forgotten.))

Now I am rather excited to try finishing the i7 fanart just because drawing the 7 boys was a lot of fun and I rarely ever draw group images! It’s not a particularly interesting composition, but I’m actually proud for not using composition references this time around.((When I sat down to draw Yasha, I refused to look at art for ideas like I do all the time. I also refused to look at group art for ideas for the i7 piece too, just to force my brain to work on its own. I plan to keep doing this for personal pieces now and see if I can get inner inspiration back instead of having ‘I want to imitate this!’ inspiration.)) I also looked at official art for guidance for each character, but didn’t try to imitate the style closely, instead I tried keeping my current style while minding the general eye shapes and making sure the hairstyles looked right without copying them exactly. I tried stepping out from my regular mindset, in light of yesterday’s musings :)((I told fiance when he got home at 4 am about my rigidity with fanart and he told me he actually shares the sentiment. We’re made for each other, we’re both awful. ))

So yeah, even though I sort of had a day off yesterday, it wasn’t a proper day off like today((Unexpected day off because weird mood, aka PMS. I should pay more attention to my cycle app…)) and I’m glad I took it :)

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Blogging again?

Hi there!
It’s been… 4 years since I last used this blog.((But you wouldn’t know that if this is the first time you visit this place, because I just made all my posts from 2008 to 2014 private. I’ve become pretty reserved this past year.))

I used to journal a lot. Since I was a kid, my mom always bought me big, bulky planners that I would use like diaries.
Later on, I used a big notebook with colored pages where I would write almost daily (I had a special pen for it too!) and would ask friends to write there as well from time to time((I burned this notebook in my early 20s, in a fit of emo-ness over my highschool boyfriend. My mom said I’d miss it later down the road, but… I don’t think I do, I have enough memories of it.)).
As I started spending more time in font of a computer, I started writing on a word document (lost to OS re-installs along the way) and later on I got my first blog on… Xanga, iirc? No, wait, I had an older one… Blogger possibly? Blogspot?
Eventually I got a Livejournal,  though I ended up just writing directly on deviantArt once I got people following me there.
Later on, I made this very thing here, 10 years ago, after I fled deviantART for some reason for some time, and used it to both journal and to post my art.
Social Media happened and I slowly left this place in favor of Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter, which is where I spend most of my days at nowadays.((I only keep Facebook now to keep in touch with local friends and some family, and to use messenger to talk with my fiance daily. Tumblr and Twitter I mostly use to post art, and I have a private twitter account that I spam daily with thoughts and works in progress.)) Continue reading “Blogging again?”