Jackary Archives Day 124: Summer Mercedes (2019) (Patreon)

Today's Archives post is a throwback edition, this time featuring a very old artwork of Mercedes from Fire Emblem: Three Houses! In this one, she's wearing a fairly simple, but cute swimsuit.

ARTIST'S NOTES

2020 is really where my style came to take shape, and I consider all of my artwork before that to be "retro" jackary artworks that I don't necessarily think are very good, but fun to look at like museum exhibits in my journey from amateur to experienced artist.

I consider 2019 to be my worst year. My 2019 artwork was technically more skilled than the years before, but less soulful. I was at least taking big swings in 2016-2018 and experimenting with a bunch of styles, but 2019 was the purgatory period where I was transitioning from my old style[s] to the one I eventually grew comfortable in. Because of this, the art inherits most of the cons from both eras without the pros.

This Mercedes is an interesting example. I don't hate it, but I don't love it. This was an era where I was really trying to make anime faces work, and I hadn't quite figured it out. She has the softness of my signature work, but I hadn't yet learned the more sophisticated shading and rendering to really make it pop. I also had no idea what I was doing with backgrounds.

In any case, that's all part of the fun of being an artist -- looking back and seeing your growth! I hope some of you can find more love for this piece than I have, LOL