notsophism-draws
Notts' Personal Page
This is where I post art and voice random thoughts.He/They, Autistic, Type 1 Diabetic. Birthday: June 1st. Currently 25.Links Page for Mobile users: https://notsophism.carrd.co/
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2023 was not an easy year for me. Unlike 2022, a lot of the hardships were spread out throughout the year, rather than being concentrated at the end. I can’t really recreate the emotional catharsis I experienced with the Tiger piece. But the unfinished nature of this piece at least fits my mental state at the time it was made.
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(CW: blood & gore.)
I couldn’t finish the piece in time for the new year, but I’ll take the fact I managed a WIP.
Today, I slay a monster.
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It is time for me to heal in defiance of everything going on in my life. I’m not gonna be perfect, but I can at least have confidence in my tools.
And I have learned something very valuable from, of all things, a *TF2* fan animation: The Scratched Universe Episode 6 (Part 2).
“You can learn, you can train, you can make the effort until you drop. However, know this. Someone who works hard can never beat someone who enjoys himself. THIS... is what I live for!"
#notts’ texts#notts’ art#digital art#trees#autumn#autumn trees#autumn colors#krita#kritaart#drawn with krita#krita drawing
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I'm sorry. With my father's conditioning worsening, I've been feeling a lot of complicated emotions. I only have so much mental and physical bandwidth to devote to art, and a lot of it has been spent developing tools that I like, rather than actual pieces.
Someday I'll get back into the hobby in full. But this year just isn't the time. It's unfortunate, too; I wanted to challenge myself by getting one piece done a month, and while that has been the case, only two of them are ones I would consider fully rendered.
At least I found this sketch of a tree nice. I'm going to focus on myself for a bit.
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I'm sorry. With my father's conditioning worsening, I've been feeling a lot of complicated emotions. I only have so much mental and physical bandwidth to devote to art, and a lot of it has been spent developing tools that I like, rather than actual pieces.
Someday I'll get back into the hobby in full. But this year just isn't the time. It's unfortunate, too; I wanted to challenge myself by getting one piece done a month, and while that has been the case, only two of them are ones I would consider fully rendered.
At least I found this sketch of a tree nice. I'm going to focus on myself for a bit.
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I’ve been long battling my diet for the sake of my diabetes, ever since early 2022. I’ve stopped having conventional snack items and meat in favor of a vegetarian diet, with strict focus on whole foods. Overall, I feel a lot better than I used to, as I’m sticking with foods that don’t throw off my blood sugar.
… Though, until now, I cut back on too much. I had stopped having snack foods and simply didn’t replace them with anything effectively. I tried simply having larger breakfasts, lunches, and dinners, but they just made me feel tired and imbalanced. I tried including Greek yogurt and eggs during those times as well, and they simply amplified those feelings.
… That was until I realized thanks to a nutritionist that I could simply have those latter foods as snacks to supplement what I’d already been eating. Now, after an hour has past after a major meal, I prepare a serving of greek yogurt and an egg, with at least one serving containing the yolk. I feel a lot more balanced and capable with handling life.
Sometimes, all one really needs is for someone else to point them in the right direction.
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My bandwidth for art is inconsistent at best due to life’s stressors. I’ve been stuck once more doing background fundamentals practice. But I managed to doodle out this tree at work.
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Crap, I haven’t posted here in a while. I should.
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Here are some drawings of me. The first one was from March 2022 and the second from September of the same year. As you can see, I was shying away from drawing realistic noses for some time. And lips. I like rendering lips now, even though I didn't before.
For the second one, I was going for the vibe of someone trying too hard to be cool, with a snazzy outfit undercut by a doofy hat and glasses... And it also looks like I really have to use the bathroom. Choice.
Of course, that second piece being from September 2022 means it was made right before October of 2022, which, to anyone who has perused this blog, was an extremely emotional and formative time of my life. Ever since coming to terms with my grief, I've felt like my persona and I have become separate entities.
The Notsophism in the sketch is awkward and reclusive, especially in the face of conflict or difficult circumstances. He feels tied down by his limitations and doesn't think he's capable of much. The Notsophism in real life is... well, he's still awkward. But he's harder and more willing to challenge difficult situations when need be. For better or worse, he's more willing to assert himself, no longer feeling restrained by diabetes, anxiety, what have you.
Well, I aspire to be like that, anyways. Given how much I've changed in such a short time, it's about time I redraw my persona again. I don't think too much will change beyond refining what's already there and changing the body language, though.
This is a repost. I accidentally posted this on my reblog page a few weeks ago, and I'm feeling a bit miffed that I haven't addressed it yet, so here we are.
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Here are some slipshod doodles and handwriting I made during work.
The drawings are mostly meant to be foundational practice to keep my skills sharp. I don’t have the confidence to make a fully realized piece with traditional tools, so I decided to brush up on how I sketch; starting with an object’s silhouette. I’m far from a master, but it is a big help in drawing just about anything.
The writing came about when I realized I enjoy writing in small caps; my handwriting is cleaner and more legible. I think I’ll create a font like this.
This is a reupload; I felt I could make the presentation of these slightly better than the last one.
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Before returning to Firealpaca, I briefly made my switch to Clip Studio Paint for a few months before its company started making questionable business decisions. During that time, the first finished piece I did was this goofy doodle of Homer Simpson--or, as I like to call it, "Homar Seempseen."
The shading is somewhat off, and there are a few rendering tricks I'd do different now that I've gotten better, but I'm still happy with this piece. It's quietly one of the most important in my artistic career, as it defined my tastes in textured lines and gradient shading over flat lines and cel-shading, along with subtly more nuanced coloring. I should really make more doodles like this whenever I feel like being silly.
#notts’ texts#notts’ art#homer simpson#the simpsons#the simpsons fanart#notts' fanart#digital art#notts' art: 2022#fanart
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I’d love being in a romantic relationship. Being able to offer mutual support, affection (cuddling especially), and laughs for someone just sounds extremely welcoming. My issue, of course, is my lack of initiative in actively trying to start one. Perhaps I’d prefer someone else popping the question first, but I don’t fully know why. I don’t know if it’s a lack of confidence or simply because I’m more used to people confessing their feelings to me, rather than the other way around. It’s a weird, frankly dumb conundrum.
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I applied some Gaussian Blur to my coloring. I tried applying it to my lines as well, but I found it slightly disorienting to look at. The pen I use already has a soft edge as is, and that, combined with the fact I color my lines, means adding any additional blurring to them is a tad overkill.
Reuploading pieces like this isn't something I ordinarily do nowadays, but I thought the added effect looked nice. B-)
I've been adjusting to Firealpaca okay, but I still need to find time to make a full piece.
For now, have a doodle of Alma's face and a... coconut. Yeah.
(Apologies for the reupload; I thought I had some of my layer settings turned off.)
#notts’ texts#notts’ art#digital art#original character#oc art#coconut#firealpaca#creepy#notts' art: 2023
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Here's a collection of environment pieces I've done throughout 2020 to 2022. They still have some of the roughness inherent to my earlier art, but I still like what I accomplished with them.
The first two were colored sketches, and both were products of me experimenting a bit with Firealpaca's tools. The first one I don't have too much to say about, aside from it being wonky and the clouds looking more like smoke. The second one has this almost dreamlike quality that I wish to recapture with my newfound knowledge someday.
The character in the third image is Floyd Maddox, another OC like Matrona who came from that old, scrapped story project. Unlike Matrona, I had the foresight to scrap Maddox earlier when I realized he wasn't going to work out.
While not one-to-one, the bridge and mountain pieces borrowed their palettes from PS1 Spyro levels--Spooky Swamp and Skelos Badlands, respectively. The latter piece holds up the best in my opinion, as it showcases a better understanding of atmospheric perspective, and I intend to reuse the method I used to set it up again in future pieces.
I'm not sure what direction I was going for with the alleyway piece; maybe I was going for that aforementioned dreamlike vibe in the second image. But the last image, depicting a supertanker at sunset, is probably the best of the bunch. Even though I wasn't trying too hard, I like how I accomplished this by making some brush strokes, duplicating the layers they were on, and playing around with the transparency of each copy. I tried this method again with the cloud piece--my last background like this for some time. I wonder how something these would look now that I've gotten over my fear of anti-aliasing.
We're starting to approach some of my most recent work now, and for that, I'll eventually start uploading pieces individually, as I have significantly more to say about my single pieces during late 2022 than I do about most that came before.
#notts' texts#art#supertanker#alleyway#mountains#old art#notts' art#clouds#oc art#spooky#woods#dead tree#cityscape#oil rig#night#sunset
#notts’ art#art#supertanker#alleyway#mountains#notts' art#clouds#oc art#spooky#woods#dead tree#cityscape#oil rig#night#sunset
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There is an accompanying story made for this piece, which I'll include after the break:
October was rough.
In short order, I was forced to leave my job, my father’s health began to sharply decline, and perhaps worst of all, we made the decision to put one of my dogs to sleep. So many negative experiences led to intense emotions stirring within me, and while I can’t say it was proving to be too much, it was definitely holding me back from doing what I love. I thus devoted all my energy to other important matters, namely gaining support for my disabilities that will help me land a new job and attending therapy sessions.
Unfortunately, the former required a lot of waiting. The department I contacted is understaffed and was dealing with system outages that impeded progress on their assessment of me. Nevertheless, I was ultimately approved, and I shall be receiving support starting next year. It’s quite a victory; objectively speaking, I feel I’ve made more progress seeking their support than just toughing out the job market on my own…
But it still felt like a hollow victory. Sure, I was ultimately able to accomplish these important tasks, but it felt like it was at the expense of my hobbies. I had been abstaining from them, simultaneously wanting to commit to them but acknowledging them as distractions that I shouldn’t commit to, lest I end up leading an unsuccessful life. Even though I continued drawing, I kept all of my art after a certain point private, as most were simple exercises to test my rendering. I did not want to publicize a lot of it, and I feared I was losing touch with my hobby. But because I still felt passionate about it, I felt broken and unaccomplished, incapable of following my dreams despite shooting for the stars.
Eventually, December arrived, and I still hadn’t improved. In fact, in some ways, it felt like I had gotten worse. By the time Christmas Eve came around, family had dropped by to catch up and exchange gifts. I kept mostly quiet, knowing that I couldn’t hide how depressed I was but trying to make myself feel better with my family’s presence… But it didn’t work. I couldn’t even bring myself to be happy during what many people call the most wonderful time of the year. That night, I sat alone with my thoughts for a long few hours, trying to pinpoint why this family meetup didn’t help me. I played the year’s events back and forth within my head… And I realized that a lot of them seemed to be building up to what happened in October. Or, rather, every year of my life had built up to this moment.
It finally hit me: through the days I had been so focused on obtaining vocational rehabilitation support, I hadn’t properly grieved for my dog. After a few weeks, I assumed I had already healed from the emotional wounds, but I had simply started to ignore them as other matters came up. I still have time to challenge those emotions, work through them, and fully embrace them. From there, I began reevaluating how I had been spending my free time up to this point. Despite me never publishing some of those practice sketches I did, that did not discount their value. It was thanks to them that I had my style and rules for illustration down to a science. It was also thanks to my dedication to seeking help for employment that I had potentially secured myself a more stable future.
I wasn’t broken. I was restrained. And even with these limitations, I still found ways to work around them. With a clearer mind and a repaired resolve, I realized it was now time to completely break free. Thinking back to a coping strategy I heard about in passing, I pulled up a piece of vent art I made in the month everything went down, staring at the monster that embodied everything weighing me down. I imagined it restricting my mind and body, taunting me every second of the way as it suckled on my dog’s spirit… And with a primal, paternal fury I never felt before, I screamed. I declared that this thing was not only going to experience sheer terror for the first time in its life, but it was going die by my hands the second I made peace with my dog’s death.
The nights in which I worked on this illustration became some of the most emotionally intense experiences I ever had. I wanted this piece to be the best it possibly could be within my current skill set, and I was not going to let my negative emotions get in the way of that. I made speeches, I yelled some more, I released battle cries, and basically did anything I could to get my emotions going, to guarantee that I’d be putting my all into this project. I was going to be damn sure that this project would reach completion by the end of the year, and that I could end 2022 on the highest note possible.
This wasn’t just the final piece of the year. This was a battle. A battle to cement my worth as an artist and a person, and to definitively challenge my grief, my anger, my depression, and all of my other burdensome feelings. It may not be a perfect illustration—the line weight is all over the place, the brindle fur isn’t the best, perhaps the colors could be a little better, and I’m fairly certain the collar is screwed up—but it was meaningful. And for that reason, it’s safe to say that I emerged victorious.
Sleep well, Tiger. It may be too anthropomorphic a description to say as much, but I hope this piece makes you proud. I hope that I continue to make you proud as I continue fighting the good fight and doing what I love.
Goodbye. I shall continue loving you forever.
I’ll start off this page with my last piece from 2022. It is a commemorative piece in honor of my dog, Tiger, who sadly passed away on October 5th of that year.
It’s not perfect; had I done it now, there are a few things I’d do differently. But it was extremely formative to my development as a person, and I admire it for capturing such a critical moment in time.
#notts’ art#notts’ texts#my dog#dogblr#rest in peace#art#clip studio paint#commemorative#notts' art: 2022
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Here is that one character I alluded to in my last post, and boy, do I have quite a history with her. I’ll be upfront before the break: I do not look back on her fondly, but there might be some useful lessons to derive from my ramblings, so read on if you’re interested.
Matrona is someone I conceived in my adolescence around 2014 or so. She was the lead protagonist of that old story concept I had, and the other characters you see with her were also a part of it. However, she completely lacked direction on a fundamental level; I had come to this conclusion about her story in general and even scrapped it alongside the other characters you see alongside her. Not wanting to get rid of everything, however, I persistently tried reinventing Matrona and tweaking her design bit by bit, which culminated in an unhealthy obsession with her in 2021.
Around the time I decided to keep working on Matrona, I also adopted a new semi-lineless art style, akin to Samurai Jack. At first, I found it pretty fun to do, and Matrona translated into it pretty well... However, what I didn't account for was how I was deriving the wrong lessons from the style. It is inherently simple and relies heavily on shape language to keep itself interesting, but my iteration of the style focused strictly on simplicity without any flavor to back it up.
But when it came to Matrona's art pieces, I developed a serious issue: perfectionism. If I was even a mere pixel was off, I would force myself to go back and fix my error. I accepted no semblance of imperfection with this design--to the point where I made upwards of one hundred iterations of the same godforsaken model sheet throughout the year. Mind you, this is just what I remember offhand. Each time, I would spend an unhealthy amount of time at night chipping away at the design until it developed into something I thought I would enjoy...
When I said my art became oversimplified for a time, this is what I was referring to. Matrona is the culmination of my greatest sins as an artist, especially as her pieces became nearly my entire output during 2021. This isn't even all of the artwork; I'm keeping one private as it is a fan art piece for someone I no longer associate with. Regardless, there is more than enough here to illustrate my main point: all of these issues led to a design so diluted that it didn't even match up with the characterization I settled on. In fact, there was so very little to gravitate to visually; all one could say about her was that she was blue, dressed in pink, and was a happy artist.
January of 2022 rolled around, and after completing the final iteration of Matrona's model sheet, I had to sit down. I realized I refused to let her go and let myself grow as an artist--and, dare I say, as a person. I needed to get rid of her, and that's exactly what I did.
Shortly after, I developed Alma Valentine, the first original character I am proud of making. She started as a Wario-like exaggeration of Matrona and gradually evolved into her own person--and I couldn't be happier. She is someone who I find has a lot of potential for art and stories to come.
I think distancing myself from Matrona for a time was necessary, but I needed to confront the idea one final time to make peace with the fact I don't need her anymore. She was a toxic friend masquerading as a precious cinnamon roll, and it is unbelievably cathartic to give her the dressing-down she's deserved for so long. But I don't want to dwell on the negatives of my past for too long, so my next post shall contain some of the old art I'm actually proud of making. I shall see you all soon.
#notts’ texts#notts’ art#original character#art#digital art#firealpaca#oc art#scrapped oc#old art#notts' art: 2018#notts' art: 2019#notts' art: 2020#notts' art: 2021#notts' art: 2022
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Here's a collection of artwork from 2019 (except the self-portrait, which was a 2018 piece). I am uploading these here for archival purposes. I'll be going into more detail about this after the break.
Simply put, I had no idea what I was doing. I won't mince my words: it's rather uncomfortable looking back on all this. I was a different person back then, and these sketches remind me of when times were different--for better or worse. But mostly, I'm just ashamed of my lackluster understanding of the fundamentals at the time. I know every artist starts at this point, but I developed some nasty habits in these early years that lasted for far too long.
The biggest sin of all was my weird aversion to anti-aliasing, which only worsened until early 2022. Some people can make aliased artwork look good, but in my case, it was a product of my inexperience that eventually encouraged oversimplification in my artwork. I'll be going into more detail about this in a future post, as it was in my 2021 output that it became especially bad.
Meanwhile, aside from the self-portrait and the pose study in the final image, every character (and strange emblem) you see here was designed for this ambitious project that ultimately went nowhere. It was an excuse for them to go on adventures and fight each other for one reason or another. I don't recall any larger points being made past that; if there were, I paid lip service to them in my head. Maybe someday I'll reattempt such a project now that I'm older and wiser; I'd want to hone my storytelling and art skills elsewhere beforehand.
But if I were to do that, it would have to be a fresh cast of characters. All who you see here were scrapped--and none were more deserving of such a fate than the middle character in the first image. My relationship with her and how she developed is so involved that she deserves another post dedicated to herself. Of course, she's only technically scrapped when it comes to my content; she's presently under someone else's care after I passed her off to them. I will cite exactly who that person is in that subsequent post.
#notts’ texts#notts’ art#notts' art: 2018#notts' art: 2019#old art#sketches#sketch#doodle#original character#self portrait#oc art
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