2024

First art of 2024!

Middle school drawings (Unedited and Original resolution)

Original drawings with no digital interference.

Middle school drawings (with lineart)

Old drawings I made in middle school (around 2009-2011) with added lineart

Mona the Vampire fanart

'Black nun-bird/harpy-like creature on a brown background' or just 'Black on the brown background'

New art. Enjoy!

Art Remake (2023 vs 2022)

Fresh new artwork, a remake of a thing I made last year.

Enjoy!

1st Art of 2023, 100 First Artworks and a Look Back (Post)

Original resolution (890 x 1080). Higher resolution (1319 x 1600) below.

Because of the character limit on Instagram (there's the short version, so I recommend reading that first), I'm going to use Tumblr for this one. I'll start from questions what I've been doing and why it took so long. Hope this adds some extra information.

I've been making this since January 1st, with the sole intention to be the first upload of 2023. First, but also one of the best, really best, I wanted this artwork to be the grand opening to this year and something that I'd be absolutely, completely pleased with and proud of, but I was downright overwhelmed by the scale, as I have never made an illustration of this magnitude. In my infinite assurance and naivety, I thought this would take me 1-2 months, maybe 3 tops, 4 for polishing everything and that's final, but it wasn't final, it was a great mistake to say the least and one of the most painful art experiences I've been through. It was eyeopening and made me question my decisions whether should I keep making illustrations. However, I still approached this piece with a distance, like it's just a digital drawing only bigger than the usual, let's have fun and see what I can do, it's gonna be interesting. But this light attitude sort of petered out along the way, and with every passing day, week and month, it became an inconvenience. Stress and anxiety really did delay this piece.

I didn't want to rush this thing, this piece was supposed to be the polar opposite of the previous artwork, whereas Mona fight was pressured to come out at the end of 2022, had majority of the work put together in one day haphazardly, lacked many features, and turned out rather disappointing to me, this one should have all the time in the world, a lot of care put into it, and every line, little detail or pixel must be thought through. It was time-consuming to the ungodly extreme, I trapped myself, but it was a conscious decision. It's not like I was slaving over this day and night every day every month, absolutely not, I didn't want to be a drudgery. Well, it might have been a drudgery for the people waiting for my next upload, but I don't have that much of a following in the first place. But I like my gallery, and I'm still excited about new ideas.

About the piece, it's pretty self-explanatory, but also personal to me and quite symbolic. It shows my creations getting revenge on me (maybe not, rather an art depiction of me, something close to the persona, but it's not me, it's an avatar, my representation, why am I delving into this so much). The reason was the poor quality of my last upload and that was their intervention. But as the time went on, It looked more like message concerning my long absence and inability to motivate and create, so it speaks volumes to me. Hope you like it too. I don't know what else to add, this follow-up is all over the place, I feel tired writing all of this (also the following posts), but it's finally done. Hope to get better in time, I have artwork ideas for the future, so until next time on my Instagram.

(instagram.com/gleviachain/)

For this special occasion, I'm offering you a complete look back on the first one hundred artworks that I had made over the years. You might call this a retrospective, and I'm cutting this into parts, because there's too much material. This commentary took over two weeks to write, this post is the last bit. Since there are elements from all 100 uploads in this, I will show them to you, comment on them, and give you the comparison between the old and the new. Yes, all one hundred illustrations, from the characters to the landscapes. Some of you may find them curious, poor, really good, average, fine or extremely terrible. Either way, I hope this will be a quite interesting experience. Let's give it then in the following posts!

1st Art of 2023, 100 First Artworks and a Look Back (Number 1)

Witch Boss from Enchanted Portals

The first Instagram upload, incredibly basic design and way subpar execution. It's not especially great. About the history: I found out about Enchanted Portals by Xixo Games Studio, the game that was collectively hailed as a Cuphead ripoff/bootleg by the Internet. While watching its Kickstarter Trailer, I was mesmerized by the witch boss (appearing about 0:29, trailer below), thought the character was cool and decided to draw it.

I've been making digital stuff for over a month (horrible of course), wanted to put it somewhere, and knowing there's going to be some following for this witch online for sure, I made this piece and my account. This upload did nothing, but I started tinkering more with drawing software and kept uploading more artworks.

I really like this version, think it's a good remake, the difference is night and day. Like the hair and details on the hat. And gotta keep the grin, it's the first upload after all.

1st Art of 2023, 100 First Artworks and a Look Back (Number 2)

2. Mona the Vampire

I made an Instagram account in October 2019, a month usually dedicated to posting dark and scary characters (usually from cartoons) and everything vampire/skeleton/Halloween-related, and of course I wanted to jump on that bandwagon. And since I had been making that kind of stuff (mostly cartoon things, I was just starting), it was a good time to share some. I have a folder full of absolutely bad artworks, so bad I only picked a few good enough to post, and Mona is one of those. To prove my point that they were so poor, they're better off hidden, here's Creepy Susie from The Oblongs that looks like straight out of Microsoft Paint.

But Mona looks kinda alright I guess, doesn't bug me like the witch, although it's not perfect or good, my amateurishness shines in the form of white outlines/pixels, the hands are off, and naturally there's no background.

Here's the battle Mona. Inspired by my previous Instagram upload (from December 2022, how fast the time flies), in which she was in an action scene. There wasn't a better way to portray her as angry, yearning for revenge against me for making her last art incredibly rushed and not detailed enough, as just to make it in time to put it at the end of 2022. Rightfully so.

1st Art of 2023, 100 First Artworks and a Look Back (Number 3)

3. Tiff Crust from My Life as a Teenage Robot

Woah, background! I'm learning. Thing that sticks out to me like a sore thumb is the gray detail on the gloves. Like, what was that supposed to be? Shading? Lighting? Every time I'm coming back to this piece, my eyes are drawn to those gloves, and that weird four-fingered hand. Like the use of color a bit, and the hair is decent. As for the character, I never watched My Life as a Teenage Robot, just seen the general opinion that it's really good, so I have no attachment to it, but it has a goth girl fitting for Halloween uploads.

Filling the space in a same pose.

1st Art of 2023, 100 First Artworks and a Look Back (Number 4)

4. Shego

That head is huge, details, and by that I mean suit folds, they are horrible, green hair outline is ugly, and I don't like this one. Yeah, it has color, and it represents the character, but this piece bugs me. Liked it back then, now not so much. But! There's a redeeming quality! This was my first art, which was liked! As a starting uploader, I was ecstatic. God, how I hate those suit folds!

But this rendition is great, really like that, maybe I went overboard with the green (hair), however, the whole execution is solid.

1st Art of 2023, 100 First Artworks and a Look Back (Number 5)

5. Gaz (Invader Zim)

Like with My Life as a Teenage Robot, I have no memories of Invader Zim, didn't watch it, but I'm aware both cartoons are extremely popular, well-liked and have memorable characters respectively. And this my take, and it's my guilty pleasure. Like how amateurish and bad it is (that blush), but there's something with this weird background, and the idea of making Gaz look like a grown-up/teenager is kinda fresh. Maybe I wanted to draw this character differently and not trace the it one to one. These qualities and choices mix together and make something original. Of course, it doesn't look great, not even good, and I wince every time I see it, but my early works from that year and on (2019 - some point in late 2020) have that kind of special, experimental energy full of trying different things. And Gaz might be one of the earliest examples of it.

Now there's Gaz more faithful to the cartoon - mostly eyes.

1st Art of 2023, 100 First Artworks and a Look Back (Number 6)

6. Arachne

Like the black and white here. One of the better pieces from October (the competition isn't completely stellar). Continuing posting dark/goth girls. Also didn't watch Fullmetal Alchemist. An alright upload, but nothing special.

I think it's great, stuck with black and white and refined it by adding extra details on hair.

1st Art of 2023, 100 First Artworks and a Look Back (Number 7)

7. Lydia Deetz from Beetlejuice Animated Series

The last Halloween-themed character for October 2019, and not a good artwork to end on. This might be one of the weirdest background I had ever drawn. Lydia looks bad, but it's the background that gets me riled up while looking at this piece. Or maybe it's that 'experimental energy' all over it. Either way, I don't like this. Only for hardcore Beetlejuice fans.

There she is, a little better. At least with a better background.

1st Art of 2023, 100 First Artworks and a Look Back (Number 8)

8. Black and White Landscape

Because drawing black and white Arachne was so fun, and the effect turned out great, wanted another art like this. Breaking up with cliche Halloween-centric characters, here's my first landscape piece, therefore important. More like scribbles of a landscape, the one you'd see on the back of student's notebook, drawing because he's bored. But you gotta start with something and I had worse pieces, like the previous one. My favorite part is the shack in the middle.

And there it is again. Doing a good job of filling the space.

1st Art of 2023, 100 First Artworks and a Look Back (Number 9)

9. I Can't Draw Perspective

Oh, god, that perspective! There's so much wrong stuff in here, I can't even start. Definitely one of the worst artworks, it hurts to look at it. But there were some design attempts judging from that character's look.

I wanted to hide this character as much as possible, so I won't be reminded of that horrible piece.

1st Art of 2023, 100 First Artworks and a Look Back (Number 10)

10. 'R' Card Girl

Profile of a girl with an unnaturally big head wearing glasses, with luscious, detailed hair, doing motions with her hands. All this on a yellow background, poorly imitating card design. I think it's safe to say that hair is the only part where most of the work went into. However, it's not an only glasses girl with a yellow background. Bottom line: highly average, borderline subpar. Not great, but not terribly bad either.

To make it stand out I had to keep the hand sticking out a finger.