#apotropaism

cw: mental health themes, mention of suicide

I dropped my artschool in February. ♥

I’d started going to this new, expensive school in September 2019. The first few lessons were extremely useful, and taught me better ways to approach drawing, but it quickly went downhill. My health was at its worst, I couldn’t stand it anymore-- I didn’t even realize that I was starting to have suicidal thoughts again, when they’d had completely stopped since I’d started seeing my therapist. I was struggling, and the school’s administration was no help. If anything, they only made matters worse. I kept forcing myself though, as myself and my family had paid a lot of money for me to go to this school... But I simultaneously started to realize the teachers were straight-up bad. They were all artists, but almost none of them were actual teachers. They treated their adult students like kids while simultaneously yelling at them for not being more mature, and most of their lessons had no actual value other than to make us practice in a rush.

Not too long after I stopped going, and when I was done going through the immense guilt of having wasted everyone’s money, I realized I didn’t necessarily want to die. So that was my introduction to this year.

I participated in two Danganronpa-styled RPs around February/March that weren’t all that, but inspired me to create a season 2 for my own RP. Despite my difficulties with the french Danganronpa RP community, I managed to find and build a group of understanding, and interested people who participated in my RP and were, a large majority of them at least, very kind to me. Thanks to that, I was able to create a space to explore my main story (WIP! I would like to publish it eventually!) and some OCs, old and new. This inspired me to draw them... more and more... oh, and Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan: The Run came out, making me realize that muscular bodies cool look great AND were extremely fun to draw.

As my OCs were a team of highly-trained secret agents, this was the perfect opportunity, and I was inspired to draw more and more. From that point on, I realized I was having fun drawing, and most importantly, that I was satisfied with what I drew, and I continued to draw both my OCs, and any and all fanart I was inspired to create.

I felt a little bit of an artblock by the middle of the year, but in retrospect, it made a lot of sense. I’d suddenly drawn so much the few months before, of course I would eventually burn out. It still felt important to me to continue going forward with my art though, so... I focused on what I needed, explored different methods, and still drew a few good pieces. 2020 is the first year ever in which my Summary of art isn’t missing a month.

Around October, I started to take my new work rythm seriously. One day I’ll write for my current main project, @murderfabrication, and the next I will either draw or rest. Because of that, I found myself drawing almost every two days. Between October and December, I was even able to draw Danganronpa sprites and a Danganronpa-styled illustration for pleasure (and Murder Fabrication ofc) again, when that had become a chore in 2019.

This year is the year I enjoyed drawing. Something always felt off before, because I had no idea what I was doing, but that’s over. I’m still not great, but... some of my art is good. It just is. Hell, I even drew a few profiles this year-- that’s how confident I am. I started drawing in a sketched style because I realized that was what I enjoyed the most and, oddly, that allowed me to get better at sketching to the point that when I do lineart now I actually... don’t... need to do lineart. My sketches are now so confident and solid now that I barely ever need to edit them for the final result... when I’d been known for my terribly messy sketches for years.

Yeah...

I don’t expect anything out of 2021. I always hope for the worst, so I’ll either turn out to be right, or pleasantly surprised. But I’ll continue to work the way I’ve been working these last few months (this very week doesn’t count - I’m on break!), and I hope to be able to draw more things I like.