Insert Clever Title Here

this is technically a WIP (there's stuff I just straight up forgot to draw in the lineart lmao) but goddamn I think I'm happy with how it is so far

So my character in Archaic is like, freshly out as a trans man and then after talking with my friends we realized he's actually the token straight guy in the group. Characters really sneak up and just kinda decide things different from what you were intending :') But that's okay.

I haven't drawn furries for, no joke, eighteen (18) years. This image completely possessed me though and wouldn't leave until I made it happen HAHA

The poses are referenced from this infamous promo pic from The Twelfth Night, with some liberties taken just so I didn't completely go bonkers:

what the hell am I doing here?

nostalgia was just what I needed to revitalize my drawing urge. Yesterday I drove up to where I used to live to walk around thrift stores and grab some lunch. I stopped at the Taco Bell that's directly across the street from where I started high school, and while I was there "Breakaway" by Kelly Clarkson started playing. That song was on the radio daily when I'd take the school bus. It felt like I was having lunch with my 15 year old self.

the way I create is different and I'm still trying to accept it. Drawing is how I've always made sense of myself and the world but my illustration output is not at all what it used to be. I've been instead having short bursts doing other things like jewelry, and a couple months ago worked on a painting for a show I didn't get into. The first picture here was experimental with a whole different art program.

Top row: Beiye, my 2e pathfinder rogue, and Atala (upcoming character for a ttrpg a friend is designing)

taking a break from one drawing to... slap some colors onto a different drawing.. it makes perfect sense. hastag artist problems

ANYWAY

now that I've finally unearthed my tablet from a box that it's been sitting in for uh like nine months I wanted to just quickly put a bit of value and color onto a sketch I did of Luis a couple weeks ago and I'm having one of those moments where an OC is actually coming to life for me. It took me a while to kind of get into the right headspace for roleplaying him because he's in a whole different TTRPG system than what I was used to and it was on the tail end of the DnD campaign abruptly ending. I've been doing picrews to get his face kind of more solidly formed and doing some tipsy sketching nights but being able to actually put him to full color is breathing a lot more life into him in my head now.

>doesn't draw consistently for months at a time

about a year after it was published in print, this is now my full 6 page submission from the Sequential Arts Workshop anthology Rhythms. I wanted to post the whole thing sooner but then just kept forgetting, and then now that enough time has passed it makes me sad to look at this. I'm amazed that I got it done in time to turn it in but what this comic represents is why I was struggling so much in the first place to finish it at all. The burnout hit me hard and there was a time when I thought I seriously was never going to draw again.

I remember one night early on into being a fiduciary I was crying in bed to Alice about how I felt like a stranger to myself. I never got used to the commute, the schedule, trying to fit school in. people say you make time for your hobbies but there was no time and I was not sleeping. The only reason I finally got an idea for the final at all is because I had a dream about a shadowy ghost in my room, and then over time morphed it into a shadow work project.

Uh so when I started this I was not realizing I’d also be doing an entire background to go with it but I lost control of my limbs and my sanity. Literally I think the secret this whole time I’ve been stuck in art block is that I need to let go of perfection. I let it go, and this is the first thing I drew after that epiphany.

I’m not quite sure why it took me so long to realize that part of why it’s been hard for me to draw is because... an extended period of time not drawing meant that it felt like my skills were lacking. I’d attempt to draw something but I hated it because it did not look as good as I know I can do it and it’d feed right back into the fear that somehow I will never draw again. It’s been like this basically since probably 2020-2021? The other day finally I was like “fuck it, even if it sucks at least I drew something” and then somehow that was the thing that just kind of finally got the engine going.

DnD is still inspiring me a lot. I think when I really can get my slightly atrophied drawing skills back up I want to do illustrations of the player characters and NPCs as major arcana cards. Sasha (pictured here in the WIP) is The Fool hands down.

Earlier today I drew a couple quick comparison portraits of them with their sister Isari.