It’s that time again. Another year is over and another art summary has been filled in an effort to discern whether or not I’ve improved at all over the course of the last 12 months.
Since Deviant Art has decided it’s no longer any of my business to know which of my pictures is the most popular, I will just give credit to the group picture I did for FNAF: Security Breach, which is my most popular picture drawn in 2021, with 127 favorites and 10 thousand views! I drew it months before the game’s release, and now that the game is finally available to the public, it’s been getting a lot more attention! Huzzah!
I keep making it my goal to draw more advanced pictures, with more characters, more complex backgrounds, and more interesting poses. Looking back, I only slightly succeeded in that goal, in that I drew a couple pictures with multiple characters, and I attempted a fancier background once back in April. Then pretty much never again. I really don’t like backgrounds, and as the months go by, I probably put less and less effort into them. Why put a lot of time and work into something that’s not going to look good anyway? Speaking of unnecessary work, I also stopped coloring the lines and just decided to leave them black for the last few drawings because the extra effort didn’t seem to be paying off there, either.
One improvement I can point out is the fact that my colors seem a bit less saturated than they used to be. Also, beginning in August, I started adding highlights to the edges, which seems to make characters and objects…pop a bit more, if that makes sense. Oh, and I’ve devised a much quicker, and better looking, method for coloring hair. So that’s good. I still need to work on coloring eyes better, though. The last time I colored a good looking eyeball was back in January of 2020 when working on Sir Daniel from MediEvil. And I still don’t know how to replicate that. Impart to me your wisdom, me from two years ago!
I ended the year off with an obsession with Psychonauts, which I played for the first time in October (followed by the second game). If you’ve seen my gallery on DA lately, you’ll quickly discover which two characters are my favorites. And if you haven’t, it’s Crispin and Dr. Loboto, as seen in November and December, respectively. Well, I’m starting 2022 with a continued desire to draw these two, and I’ve been experimenting with more expressive facial…um, expressions and a simplified cartoony style which I hope will make poses a bit easier. Torsos have been reduced to rectangles now. What the heck was I even doing before?
Speaking of facial expressions, seriously, look back over my art summaries for the last few years, and you might notice that nearly everyone has the same derpy look on their face. Do I not draw any expression other than dorky smiles! Why is everyone grinning! You’re not posing for a school photo!
Anyway, there’s nothing like having a few characters one really likes to motivate one to improve one’s drawing skills. (That was an awkward sentence.) Every year, I remind myself that I need to draw more than one picture a month if I want to get better, and then I don’t feel like it. Well, for once, I’ve been in a good mood for doodling. So we’ll see what 2022 brings in terms of artistic growth!
Past Art Summaries
The Duck of Indeed 
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