ROUNDUP: February Week 1 (Patreon)

Only the first 3 are new art -- the rest have been compilations of old art that's related in some way. I decided to take a week off from both social media and drawing, and it's been really nice! I've been doing scheduled posts of the old art on Twitter so that there's still interesting stuff happening in my feed. I thought it might be interesting to give commentary on that old artwork, so I'm posting it here, too!

I really fell flat in my ambition to draw something new every day this year, haha. I had a lot of faith in myself that I could do it, but it's harder than it seems. Maybe when I'm older and wiser and stronger I'll manage it. But still, I'm going to make cool stuff. I promise you that!

Now for the commentary. :)

1. Ningguang (Genshin Impact): I'm still deep in Genshin Impact, lol. I farmed all the materials I need so that, as soon as I get her from the free character event, I can immediately level Ningguang to 70 and all her talents to 6. The first drawing didn't quite turn out how I wanted, but the sumi ink brushes I found made for some interesting textural stuff. The second pair of drawings was a pretty dumb joke about how she has an "S" shaped ornament in her hair -- S for Sadist, of course.

2. Tharja x4 (Fire Emblem Awakening): Now the old art! There are things about each of these that I would change, given the chance, but there are still things I appreciate about them. The super stylized Tharja design is one of my favorite versions of her -- it started as an experiment to draw her entirely in monochrome, but afterwards I slapped some color on and I liked the result enough to make it a whole series. The "realistic" Tharja is partially based on the facial features of Morgan Stern.

3. Lusamine, Misty, Nessa, Sabrina (Pokemon): I have to confess, I never finished Pokemon Moon...but I liked Lusamine's design enough that I still wanted to draw her. Misty makes me nostalgic for the old Pokemon anime I watched early in the morning before school as a kid. Nessa is easily my favorite Pokemon character design of the past 10 years or so, and Sabrina was the first anime character I ever had a crush on, lol. Her necklace is the Marsh Badge, and Alakazam's shades are based on the sprite for the Black Glasses.

4. Samus Aran x4 (Metroid): I played Super Metroid on an emulator, but the first Metroid game I bought and played on a real system was Prime, and it's still probably my favorite. I think Super's a better game overall, but Prime has such raw nostalgia for me -- I loved reading the lore entries and exploring and the world felt super real to me. I also played all the GBA games and Prime 2/3. I never get tired of drawing Samus, she's such a cool character.

5. Self Portraits x4: It's interesting to me how my depictions of myself change depending on my mental state. The first one, where my head's a balloon, was drawn when I was feeling REALLY terrible and detached. The other three were all drawn when I was feeling pretty decent. But the one I drew when I felt like shit is one of my favorites -- not that it's particularly complex or anything, but it really captured that feeling.

6. Brenna, Hjarn, Kelda, Dynja (Elementals): The elementals in their environments -- adding backgrounds to my work is a challenge, but I almost always like the results when I make the effort. Brenna's isn't quite the same as the others, of course. Hers is more like the result of entering an environment that isn't really hers, or maybe of mankind intruding in her environment. I don't portray it enough, but she's sort of a tragic character; destined to destroy whatever she touches. She covers it up by acting flippant and mischievous, especially around her sisters, but they're immortal and probably the only beings she could interact with safely.

As always, thank you for your support! Sorry that I didn't produce as much new work this week as I did last month. I don't want to make a habit of this, but yeah, I really needed a break. Hope that it's not too disappointing. But no matter what, I appreciate you and I hope you're doing well!