.

Date; 5th of December 2020

Lots of issues. For one, the colors are poorly thought-out and balanced. The brightest thing in the piece is the scrunchie, the background is pure white and the hair is almost black. The skin also lacks some liveliness. The lineart is all one thickness and is painfully uninteresting. I also shaded poorly, with a black airbrush (NOOOO).

Date; 9th of December 2020

Again, issues with coloring. I’m finding that with black/dark hair, I’m liking using purples or blues instead of dark brown or black, and then detailing with white to outline strands. Here, you can kinda see how I used a thin bristle brush to make individual strands, instead of clumps. Also, the skin tone and background don’t mesh well. I should have used a grey.

Secondly, the anatomy is J A N K. Her face is lopsided, her nose is too high up and lacks some definition and structure, the neck is too long, the lips are badly colored and look too big, her eyes are off-kilter and over stylized and too high, her collarbones are fucked. The hair is also badly structured, as I didnt define the skull before doing the hair. Look at that ponytail - where’s the life? 

Again, shaded with black and pure white like a dolt. If I had to redo this again, I would just take my time and set up some guidelines, make sure it was all symmetrical.

Date; 13th of Decemeber 2020

Some hair practice sketches. I actually still like how these turned out? The top right one looks really good imo. I still suck at hair tho.

Date; 27 of December, 2020

Jesus Christ, Garlic. 

I still like the idea, but I was nowhere near good enough to execute it. Maybe I’ll try to remake this? Idk. I don’t like the brightness of the sky compared to the very dark foreground, it really hurts my eyes.The use of texture on the planets were also unecessary. The mountains look like shit. I do like the pop of color with the green eyes, but this was just...too much to except of myself at the level i was at.

Date; 30th of December 2020

Did some hand practice sketches. I don’t actually find hands all that hard, Im just lazy and dont want to put the time into them, so I end up just doing a kinda blocky fist thing. I’ve been meaning to practice more lately, just have been busy.

Date; 7th of January, 2021

Again with the BLACK SHADING GARLIC WHY

but tbh for not useing a goddamned ref, I think this is okay. I really should have gotten some references tho. This is just so meh.

Date; 8th of Jan 2021

The colors are too muted and the values are FUCKED, but I remember having fun with this. I could probably redo this one, too. I like the dirt in the pot.

Date; 9th of Jan 2021

Part of a practice sketch bunch. My issue with anatomy is, you give me a reference, I can mostly copy it line for line. I just can’t visualize anything on my own, which means no freeballing/intuiting or stylizing anything. I still can’t figure out basic anatomy on my own, so all of my art feels kind of stiff as I’m pulling from a reference without really picking up on how the body is ‘moving’ in that ref. It’s a liveliness thing.

Date; 11th of Jan 2021

Christ, Garlic.

The burn scars suck major shit, but I didn’t want to look at refs because Im super squeamish. Anyway, you can see the stiffness I was talking about before, and the blocky hands. The shading also sucks, super uninspired or sensical. THe beard also...ugh. There’s better ways to do that, girl. I also didn’t work enough on the shirt. I kinda like the hair though? I could have simplified way more. 

Date; 21st of Jan 2021

I like the nose and the lineart and the ear. The tattoo’s still cool imo. But that’s the extent of what I’m good with on this peice. What’s with the shadows? What’s this expression? Where’s the definition on the hair or skin? It’s lifeless.

Date; 27th of Jan 2021

FUCKED VALUES.

I’d like to remake this, because I remember it being a blast. I have a lot of fun with coloring and rendering, but I hate construction. The sketching, guidelines, figuring things out, lineart, etc...that shit sucks. My favorite part is coloring and this is one of those pieces i got to go ham with. I think i like making illustrations more than character pieces. 

Anyway, the colors are too close in value, the person is ew, the shading is ew, this would be better if i just left out the person and car. And EW THAT CIG.

Date; 28 of Feb 2021

Reaper hand study I didn’t finish and probably won’t.  I think this was just too much work for me. I want a style that’s semi-realistic, but stylized and unique to me. This was too realistic for me to really have fun with, so I abandoned it. I admire people who can make art with not a lot of effort, very flowy and sketchy styles. But i also admire people who’s style is, like, very intrinsic to who they are as a person? Like when a happy, bubbly person has bright and fun art, and a grungier, drier person has a rough, scratchy style. I guess this just has to come as I develop and I can’t force it, but I don’t like the way I do things right now.

Date; 7th of March 2021

A skyrim fanpiece of alchemy ingrediants that I didn’t finish. The piece would have been an abandoned journal of a mysterious alchemist.

I liked doing this, it was quick and pretty soothing. I wanted to make it look like traditional japanese work, very watercolory and thick/strong lines.

Date; 11 of March 2021

I’ve had a few traditional pieces that I’m not sharing here, as I focus mainly on digital and those peices were traditional only because my art class required it, but here’s one. People on discord really liked it, but I think this was what made me decide that yea no, i wanna do full digital. I don’t have much to say about it? Just dont like it.

Date; 14th of March 2021

This is what I mean when I say I like doing illustrations. You can tell that I had fun with this and enjoyed it. I’d probably redo the coloring of the background and do the stars differently, but I’d still put this as my phone background. I did this for...I think a negative space project? Idk.

Date; 25 of March 2021

Contrary, i DIDNT like this. Not doing it, not the final product. 

I should have put more effort into the rocks and general landscape, it all feels very rushed. And it was, I was on a deadline. I fucking hate trees, yo. But this is when I downloaded the radian 1 brush pack for krita off deviantart, and you can see me playing around with the textured mixer. 

Date; 1st of April

Hated this, too. This would have been so much easier on digital, but the actual contents are bad. The tiered silhoutte is a fine idea but nothing here makes sense? Grass, bunch of eyes, a cityscape, lemons and limes, and then fish? Wtf. 

Date; 4th of April

A fakemon.

The issues with this was lineart, ultimately. I think put too much thought into design when I should have been thinking about how I would actually construct it. The wing shouldn’t have been lined, or lined in a way that demonstrates the wing fading into a non-physical substance, as it’s supposed to be energy. The colors also suck shit.

Date; 12th of April 2021

First major piece and I think first major illustration. This was a fanart for @/border-spam’s character for their BL3 Au story, Leech Lord. 

I was super proud at the time, but now that I’ve developed, I can safely say this is still not great.

The blush is all over the place. The shading is all over the place. The clothes are flat and uninteresting. The hair looks...not right, like it isn’t coming from her head, but sitting on top of it. I also don’t like the fore or background, they’re both not defined enough and too busy.

HOWEVER I’m still in love with the jewelry and eyes. I still do metal this way, but my issue with eyes isn’t the style, its giving them some personality. I cant do eyes with expressiveness, and it’s flat.

Date; 29th of May

A redraw of the first piece on this list.

I wanted to play around with sharp, clean lines, and do something more gestury? So, you have an attempt of an expression. 

It’s still very flat. This is so boring I cant even describe what’s wrong with it. Just...ugh. 

Date; 2nd of June

I still like this piece! I think this was the first thing I made that i was like “yeah this is cool!”

This was my first attempt at colorbalancing, but because I didn’t know about the ACTUAL color balancing tool on Krita, I just put a yellow overlay on top. I was into the Shera artstyle, so I tried that with the eyes and the blush. But for general style, I wanted to do that FoNV fanart style with the muted colors and little line detailing. 

Biggest achievement here, though? The boots.

Date; 7th of June 2021

A screenshot redraw of a dead falmer in Skyrim.

Uhhh. I would like to see some harder edges, this feels kind of blurry. The light’s not...great...and I don’t like the floor. I could have also fixed the face/head and hand to be more coherent.

Date; 11th of June

Siren! Ava for my BL3 Au.

I hated doing Ava, but I had fun doing the background. Again, I like illustration and coloring. I mostly just reffed from a screenshot I took, didn’t even need lineart for the background. The FOREground, however, was reffed, and took a fuckton of time.

I don’t like Ava here at all. The clothes are flat and uninteresting, her expression is off, there’s no life to her form. Also, fuck jackets.

Date; 17th of June

A sketch dump of that purple dude above. 

Remember what I said about admiring loose, sketchy styles and hating how flat my art is? Here’s an example of me trying that and failing. There’s just...no character. I’m not convinced about anything I tried to communicate. Ik they’re just sketches, but I should be able to have some life in even just little sketches.

Date; 22nd of June

Another skyrim character.

God fuck Garlic why are you like this. This shading sucks major ass. The clothes suck major ass (the boots are good). the fucking FACE RENDERING WHAT IS THAT. This is just...such a downgrade from my previous human pieces.

The only good thing out of this, is me finding a fun way to do clouds.

Date: 29th of June

Another negative space thing. Done on IBIS paint. Pretty okay.

Date; 12th of July

Art for an oc, Lenora Basurto, a cowgirl vampire hunter, and her vampire horse, Murciel.

This was my first foray into character design. I gave her tassels because vampire folklore has them be obsessed with counting stuff, so the idea was, when fighting vampires, they’d be disoriented and unfocused because of the tassels. I want to redesign her, but not right now. I still love her and her creepy horse, though. Otherwise, this is very flat.

Date; sometime in July 2021

Unfinished Cat Witch’s Guild fanart. Done on Medibang on a shitty kindle. Boring. I tried to color, but...the kindle sucks...

Date; 4th of September

In my defense, this was after shots.

Date; 7th of Septemeber

Garlic what were you doing

Date; 30th of September

Fucked values, made on Medibang.

You might have noticed that I was in a bad art slump. I went through almost all of July, all of August, and most of September with nothing.

Date; Also the thirtieth of sept

First fursona attempt. 

Date; 5th of Octo

Genuinely despise this.  im covering the screen with my hand as i type.

this is from some inspo of an ig artist who I now realize had a style I dont like. very sketchy, big-booba guy style that just looked...off? And this looks even worse. But don’t worry,

because I legit made it worse oh my god its so UGLY I LITTERALY VANT LOOK AT IT STRAIGHT ON 

Date; 11th of October

Lazy self-portrait. Garlic why are your eyes like that?

Date; 23rd of Octo

I don’t like this anymore. Lifeless as always, the shoes suck, the background was a bad choice.

Date; 31st of Octo

hate hate hate malice

this was a lazy piece but HATE

Date; 2nd of Nov 2021

Fursona redo. 

Found a brush I liked for inking, used a lot of refs, used a planned-ahead color palette. 

Date; 10th of Nov 2021

See what I mean about my reffing skills? Pretty good at remaking, bad at making it look good and lively. Flat, stiff.

Date; 14th of November 2021

Again, flat and stiff. There’s no life to it. 

I spent an assload of time on the tattoos though, and I think they look pretty good. Shading is fucked.

Date; 18th of Nov

This was a vent piece, almost in the style of that red thing up above.

I dont know what to say about it other than ok ig

Date; 22nd of November

Second favorite piece to date. Had so much fun with this. I finally figured out how to color balance at this point, and found a way of doing hair I like. I dont think this style works for more casual, non-illustration pieces, so it isn’t strong in the longevity department, but i adored doing this and I still like how it looks. 

Date; 25th of November

Some self-indulgent ship art. 

Remeber what I said about using purple and blue instead of dark brown and black? Yep, that’s here. 

Anyway, I like the pillows and the shirts. I freeballed the wrinkles and shadowing and I think they came out pretty good! The pillow to the right, the blue one, I used a soft charcoal pencil I think, and it inspired me to use that brush for my next piece, which is the best thing I’ve ever made.

Date; 26th of November (took only a few hours!)

This is what I’m talking about when I say I want my art to be lively.

Warm and cool colors, lots of soft, dreamy vibes. A sweet, casual, almost innocent expression and body language. You can tell what this scene is. 

My favorite part has to be either the lanturn or the shading/lighting. I freeballed all of it, just using a flashlight to figure out the face shading. I’m also happy with the skin texture, I used a big dirty texture brush. The sweater took forever but I’m also in love with it. really happy how the wrinkled and the details came out.

The only thing I dont like is the socks (too straight, should have rounded them out on the ankle) and I forgot the character’s undercut. 

So, yeah.

It’s been a year.