i been anticipating a follow-up to my first FOP log for months and in that timespan there's been a reboot confirmed and then leaked, i'm scared that the show gained sentience

Every time I see your art its like I can feel just how much you enjoy making it.

It has a lightness to it, like you're having fun and it's kinda infectious, so I get really happy too when I see it.

Oh I should probably throw a question in here: I love when you post a bunch of sketches all at once, do you plan your doodles ahead of time or do they just come naturally to you as you draw?

AAAH thank you so much! You wouldn't be the first person to describe my art as having a sort of "infectious" joy and it makes me really happy that it's what people think of when they see my art. I really do have fun making it which is why I think I've been able to avoid major art block for the most part or dwelling too much on the fact that I have a hard time getting finished pieces out sometimes

As for your question, I'll try my best to see if I can explain it lol. I guess the "planning" mostly consists of me getting inspired by something (usually a song) and it instilling a certain emotion or vibe in me that i then start to itch to capture in a visual art form.

Sometimes I'll be given a really vague blurry image in my head and go with that and decide to sketch it out with my hands to help me see that vision in my head clearly and I'll make a lot of changes etc etc ("that arm position didn't work" "let me try a different expression" "maybe the angle should be more dramatic"). Or sometimes if I want a clearer picture before I start drawing I'll listen to the song on repeat (and/or walk around in circles) until that Picture becomes less and less blurry and almost...tangible? Perfect 20/20 clarity happens very rarely tho and everytime it does I'm convinced something possessed me (and even then I still make changes on the fly) Sorry I'm explaining this so badly ToT i wish i could just show u my brain

If my mind was a library you would see stacks upon stacks of ideas I've held onto for years...some since 2016...but yeah I also tend to be spontaneous with it and draw a bunch of sketches at once before even "finishing" one --but at least it's out of my head and somewhere in the world!! And one day I'll probably go back and color it or whatever or remember I should post a collection of relevant doodles somewhere

Also one last thing maybe worth mentioning is that over the years my imagination was able to become clearer and my ability to draw what I see in my head also improved! As if the gap between worlds got smaller in a way--and this only happened because of how long I've been drawing that I've been able to build an arsenal of poses and expressions rules and have an easier time drawing. Which helped me be more spontaneous

One thing I do hope for is that I can at least sit through a few hours of learning to do bigger and neater composed pieces with backgrounds...so I can start doodling them more too lol

So these are long overdue lmao

I didn’t quite realise how 2021 was The Year of Crowley (2020 was The Year of Aziraphale) and 2022 was The Year of Izzy until I put these summaries together

I didn’t manage to account for every month these past two years, and 2022 is looking particularly sketchy (quite literally). This is because Shit Went Down :) I’m going to summarise it below for my own benefit▼

Personal/philosophical ramble under cut

In 2021 I had a lot going on, which I think explains the lack of art in June and August (memory’s fuzzy), and why I never posted some of the art in the summary here on tumblr (miiight post Nov and Dec soon-ish). In 2022 things initially screeched to a halt and I had the worst art crisis (and personal crisis tbh) I’ve ever had. Basically I had a really hard time drawing anything without it feeling completely soulless and of worse quality than my actual skill level, which heavily impacted my motivation to draw (sometimes my ofmd obsession came out on top lmao, but that fanart still felt like it was lacking something essential 99% of the time). I drew less, and felt worse for drawing less, which made me draw even less, repeat ad infinitum. It wasn’t until solidly into Autumn that I realised the root of the problem: I had tied the label “artist” so closely to my identity that it had effectively become my identity. And since it was my identity, I felt I had to become a professional artist or be miserable, and in order to become a professional artist I felt I had to constantly focus on honing my skills and get better, nitpick everything in every drawing and strive for impossible perfection, and “draw every day” as all the professional artists advice you to do (I have never managed to draw every day, and my failure to do so made me feel like I was lagging behind). Drawing had slowly but steadily become some insane rat race to me and eventually it ruined my art because I couldn’t appreciate where I was at. Actually finishing a piece of art felt like an incredibly arduous task with little reward (which is why I only really “finished” two pieces last year). I had drained myself of the inherent joy of creating. But realising this didn’t solve the problem, not on its own, because if the fact was “artist is my whole identity” the question then became “If I don’t create art, am I anything at all?”, and the answer for some time was “No.”

I have since found joy and genuine excitement in other types of creating (not that I hadn’t before, but never above a hobbyist level) with potential career opportunities that won’t make my daily life “miserable” (fun fact about me: my biggest fears are the unknown and having my soul ground down by the tireless gears of capitalism). This has helped me stress less about “becoming a professional artist” (something I’m still certain I’d enjoy, despite it all) and find some identity outside of art, but that perfectionist/improvement mindset in relation to my art didn’t start to leave me until a few days before New Year’s. That’s when I was suddenly inspired to make the Ed/Izzy sketch representing Dec ‘22 in the summary above. I had effectively given up on my art at that point, but my mental image was so strong I had to commit it to (digital) paper, no matter if it turned out like shit or not (which, in retrospect, is probably the most visceral motivation an artist can have for practicing their craft). Having no expectations on myself, and with the single-minded drive to capture the ~vibes~ and nothing more, I found the act of drawing fun and near effortless for the first time in fucking years. That’s when it clicked. You don’t have to try and make every aspect of a drawing perfect, and not every drawing needs to be properly rendered; just focus on the one or few most important things you need to be able to convey what it is you want to convey (in this case it was the overall poses and facial expressions). The rest may not be perfect, but it wouldn’t have been even if you tried to make it so, because perfection is fucking unattainable (as much as my chronically perfectionist ass wishes it wasn’t). Trying to attain it is a fool’s errand that’ll slowly eat you up, and your audience will most probably not even notice or care about the difference.

Audiences, especially online audiences, are arguably their own potential source of artist brainrot (and not the fun kind), and I’m of the firm opinion that art can definitely be made for no one’s eyes other than the artist’s own (in opposition to the mindset that the purpose of all art is for it to be shared with external parties) - my own art from years ago being an example of this. But I have found sharing my art with others to be such an inherent joy to me that I don’t think I’ll ever fully stop doing it, and will continue to try my best not to fall into the mental pitfalls that can come with it.

I don’t think my relationship to my own art is fully mended (and I’ve likely failed to see some of the cracks), but it’s definitely better now than it has been in a long, long while.

in short, thanks to edizzy’s dysfunctional marriage for helping me not give up on art I guess

once again i am answering asks in a big compilation post. included is... gotham, patrick stump, tips about drawing backgrounds, tips about drawing in general, links to my faq, and infinity train

like.... the tv series? No... I’ve drawn dc comics fanart before, though. But it’s been years since I’ve been really into it. I like jumped ship like 10 years ago when the New 52 happened LOL.

AFJHDSLKGH I’m sorry I (probably) won’t do it again??

Actually full disclosure I have a truly cringe amount of p stump drawings/photo studies in my sketchbook right now LOL. He’s just fun to draw... hats, glasses, guitar, a good shape... but I don’t think I’ll rly post those until I can hide them in another big sketchbook pdf.. probably Jan 2022. Stay tuned........ (ominous) 

(ominous preview)

These are all sort of related to backgrounds/painting so I grouped them together even though they’re pretty much entirely separate questions.... ANYWAYS

a) How is it working as a BG artist? Is it hard? What show are you drawing for?

I think you’re the first person to ever ask me about my job! Being a background artist is great. It’s definitely labor intensive but I think that could describe pretty much any art job (If something were rote or easy to automate, you wouldn’t hire an artist to do it) and I hesitate to say whether its harder or easier than any other role in the animation pipeline. Plus, so much of what truly makes a job difficult varies from one production to the next, schedule, working environment, co-workers etc. But I will say that I think while BGs are generally a lot of work on the upfront, I think they’re subject to less scrutiny/revisions than something like character/props/effects design and you don’t have to pitch them to a room like boards. So I guess it’s good if you don’t like to talk to people? LOL

A lot of my previous projects + the show I’ve worked on the longest aren’t public yet so I can’t talk about em (but I assure you if/when the news does break I won’t shut up about it). But I’m currently working on Archer Season 12 LOL. I’m like 90% sure I’m allowed to say that.

b) ~~~THANK YOU!! ~~~

c) What exactly do you like to draw most [in a background]?

@kaitomiury​ Lots of stuff! I really like to draw clutter! Because it’s a great opportunity for environmental storytelling and also you can be kind of messy with it because the sheer mass will supersede any details LOL. 

I like to draw clouds... I like to draw grass but not trees lol,,, I like to draw anything that sells perspective really easily like tiled floors and ceilings, shelves, lamp posts on a street etc.

d) Do you have any tips on how to paint (observational)?

god there’s so much to say. painting is really a whole ass discipline like someone can paint their whole life and still discover new things about it. I guess if you’re really just starting out my best advice is that habit is more important than product. especially with traditional plein air painting, I find that the procedure of going outside and setting up your paints is almost harder than the actual painting. There’s a lot of artists who say “I want to do plein air sometime!!” and then never actually get around to doing it. A lot of people just end up working from google streetview or photos on their computer.

But going outside to paint is a really good challenge because it forces you to make and commit to lighting and composition decisions really quickly. And to work through your mistakes instead of against them via undo button.

My last tip is to check out James Gurney’s youtube channel because hes probably the best and most consistent resource on observational painting out there rn. There’s lots other artists doing the same thing (off the top of my head I know a lot of the Warrior Painters group has people regularly posting plein air stuff and lightbox expo had a Jesse Schmidt lecture abt it last year) but Gurney’s probably the most prolific poster and one of the best at explaining the more technical stuff - his books are great too.

e) Do you have tips for drawing cleanly on heavypaint?

@marigoldfool​ UMM LOL I LIKE ONLY USE THE FILL TOOL so maybe use the fill tool? Fill and rectangle are good for edge control as opposed to the rest of the heavy paint tools which can get sort of muddles. And also I use a stylus so maybe if you’re using your finger, find a stylus that works with your device instead. That’s all I’ve got, frankly I don’t think my drawings are particularly clean lol.

f) Tips on improving backgrounds/scenes making them more dynamic practicing etc?

Ive given some tips about backgrounds/scenes before so I’m not gonna re-tread those but here’s another thing that might be helpful...

I think a good way to approach backgrounds is to think of the specific story or even mood you want to convey with the background first. Thinking “I just need to put something behind this character” is going to lead you to drawing like... a green screen tourist photo backdrop. But if you think “I need this bg to make the characters feel small” or “I need this bg to make the world feel colorful” then it gives you requirements and cues to work off of.

If I know a character needs to feel overwhelmed and small, then I know I need to create environment elements that will cage them in and corner them. If a character needs to feel triumphant/on top of the world then I know I need to let the environment open up around them. etc. If I know my focal point/ where I want to draw attention, I can build the background around that.

Also, backgrounds like figure compositions will have focal points of their own and you can draw attention to it/ the relationship the characters have with the bg element via scale or directionality or color, any number of cues. I think of it almost as a second/third character in a scene.

Not every composition is gonna have something so obvious like this but it helps me to think about these because then the characters feel connected and integrated with the environment.

Some more general art questions

a) Do you have any process/tips to start drawing character/bodies/heads?

I tried to kind of draw something to answer this but honestly this is difficult for me to answer because I don’t think I’m that great at drawing characters LOL. Ok, I think I have two tips.

1) flip your canvas often. A lot about what makes human bodies look correct and believable is symmetry and balance. Even if someone has asymmetrical features, the body will often pull and push in a way to counterbalance it. we often have inherent biases to one side or another like dominant hands dominant eyes etc. you know how right-handed artists will often favor drawing characters facing 45 degrees facing (the artist’s) left? that’s part of it. so viewing your drawing flipped even just to evaluate it helps compensate for that bias and makes you more aware of balance.

2) draw the whole figure often. I feel like a lot of beginner artists (myself included for a long time) defer to just drawing headshots or busts because it’s easier, you dont have to think about posing limbs etc. But drawing a full body allows you to better gauge proportion, perspective, body language, everything that makes a character look believable and grounded.

Like if you (me) have that issue where you draw the head too big and then have to resize it to fit the proportions of the rest of the body, it’s probably because you (I) drew the head first and are treating the body as an afterthought/attachment. Sketching out the whole figure first or even just quick drawing guides for it will help you think of it more holistically. I learned this figure drawing in charcoal at art school LOL.

oh. third mini tip - try to draw people from life often! its the best study. if you can get into a figure drawing/nude drawing class EVEN BETTER and if you have a local college/art space/museum that hosts those for free TREASURE IT AND TAKE ADVANTAGE OF IT, that’s a huge boon that a lot of artists (me again) wish they had. though if youre not so lucky and youre sitting in a park trying to creeper draw people and they keep moving.. don’t let that stop you! that’s good practice because it’s forcing you to work fast to get the important stuff down LOL. its a challenge!

b) I’ve been pretty out of energy and have had no inspiration to draw but I have the desire to. Any advice?

Dude, take a walk or something.... Or a nap? Low energy is going to effect everything else so you gotta hit that problem at its source.

If you’re looking for inspiration though, I’d recommend stuff like watching a movie, reading a book, playing video games etc. Fill up your idea bank with content and then give yourself time/space to gestate it into new concepts. Sometimes looking at other art works but sometimes it can work against you because it’s too close. 

Also something that helps me is remembering that art doesn’t always have to be groundbreaking... like it’s okay to make something shitty and stupid that you don’t post online and only show to your friend. That’s all part of the process imo. If you want to hit a home run you gotta warm up first, right? Sports.

I should probably compile everytime i give tips on stuff like this but that’s getting dangerously close to being a social media artist who makes stupid boiled down art tutorials for clout which is the last thing i want to be... the thing I want to stress is that art is a whole visual language and there are widely agreed upon rules and customs but they exist in large part to be broken. Like there's an infinite number of ways to reach an infinite number of solutions and that’s actually what makes it really cool and personal for both the artist and the viewer. So when you make work you like or you find someone else’s work you like, take a step back and ask yourself what about it speaks for you, what about it works for you, what makes it effective, how to recreate that effect and how to break that effect completely, etc. And have a good time with it or else what’s the point.

for the first 2, I direct you to my FAQ

For the last one, I don’t actually believe I’ve ever addressed artwork as insp for stories/rp but I’ll say here and now yeah go ahead! As long as you’re not making profit or taking credit for my work then I’m normally ok with it. Especially anything thats private and purely recreational, that’s generally 100% green light go. I only ask that if you post it anywhere public that you please credit me.

(and I reserve the right to ask you to take it down if I see it and don’t approve of it’s use but I think that case is pretty rare.)

a) @lemuelzero101 Thank you!!! I haven’t played Life is Strange but actually  that series’ vis dev artist Edouard Caplain is one of my bigger art inspirations lately so that’s a really high compliment lol. And yeah I hope we get 5-8 too...!

b) Thank you for sticking around! I’ve been thinking about Digimon and Infinity Train in tandem lately, actually. They’re a little similar? Enter a dangerous alternate world and have wacky adventures with monsters/inanimate objects that have weird powers... there’s like weird engineers and mechanisms behind the scenes... also frontier literally starts with them getting on a train. Anyways if anyone else followed me for digimon... maybe you’d like Infinity Train? LOL

c) @king-wens-king I’M GLAD MY ART JUST HAS PINOY VIBES LOL I hope you are having a good day too :^)

a, b, c, d) yessss my Watch Infinity Train agenda is working....

e) aw thank you!! i think you should watch infinity train :)

hihi! wanted to drop by to say that i really admire your enthusiasm (reading your notes is always a highlight ofmy day!!), and it's been very cool seeing your art continue to improve <3 and some numbers for the artist asks: 1, 5, 6, 18

Thank you so much!! I know I can get really energetic in the tags of a reblog, so I’m glad you like them so much! And thank you again for the compliment, it’s amazing to hear that from a wonderful artist like yourself!

1: Do you prefer traditional drawing, or digital?

If you asked me this back in 2019, I would have said traditional in a heartbeat, but now, I find myself enjoying digital more. I love doing fun sketches of people and practice basic skills traditionally, which I still have a soft spot for since I spent so many years drawing on paper. I have grown to love digital more in the last two years, though!

5: What’s your favorite thing to draw?

People! Fictional or real life, realistic or cartoonish, I love drawing all of them! I don’t like drawing most things that aren’t human, except birds because of my family’s history with them and where I live. I should practice more with non-human creatures and things since I’m rusty with them, but I usually get bored and move on to drawing humans.

If you want to be more specific, I would say faces, hair, and outfits (in that order). I love drawing eyes and getting creative with the hair and outfit of a person! Also, despite not that great with them, I love fun poses, even if they’re not that realistic.

6: What’s your least favorite thing to draw?

Like for the question “What is the most difficult thing for you to draw?”, it’s feet and shoes. I don’t enjoy drawing feet since I’m inexperienced. It also makes shoes harder since I can’t do a good sketch of a foot for a shoe. It’s also because I tend to use my own body as a reference (I look at my hand/arm a lot when drawing), and trying to do that with your own foot is hard 😅

18: What are you currently trying to improve on?

Gosh, this is a hard question! With every drawing I do, I always try to improve one thing with my art. You can show me any of my drawings and I can remember the one thing I focused on when drawing thar piece. Honestly, I think it’s the main reason my art has improved so much.

It started back at the end of 2020, where I was on a FaceTime call with a bunch of friends, and I sent them a few of my recent drawings and asked them seriously to give me every single thing wrong with my art, and boy they didn’t hold back! I created a list of the criticism I received that day, and from them on I tried using the critiques into every drawing. I’ve been doing it ever since that day, and it’s helped a lot!!

One thing I worked to improve on in my last drawing was the facial structure of the characters, because I wasn’t happy with the noses of a recent fanart I did. I tested and experimented with the nose and how it rests on a face, and I think I’ve gotten better at understanding the anatomy of a face through that drawing!

Thank you so much for the ask, and I hope you have a great day/afternoon/night!!

Yet again ranking the 5 animes I’ve watched most recently

After losing the will to just sit down and watch it for quite a while, I’ve finally gotten through 5 anime series yet again, and, as is tradition for me by now, I’ve decided to just type out my thoughts and rankings of them, with my first two posts of this nature being here and here. As usual, this is just my personal thoughts, and the only other thing worth noting before I start is that, unlike last time, I do think everything listed here is at least decent on its own. With that, I’ll just get to it. 5. Robotics;Notes

Number of episodes: 22. Language options: dub and subs available. Streaming availability: Funimation. Robotics;Notes is an adaptation of a visual novel, which I actually just wrote a review on, which can be found here. Long story short, it’s the third entry in the Science Adventure series, the same series Steins;Gate is part of, unknown to most people, with Robotics;Notes technically being the sequel to it. Originally aired in 2012, the same year as the visual novel was released, and made by Production I.G, Robotics;Notes is in an interesting middle ground between the acclaimed and popular Steins;Gate animes and the downright awful and obscure Chaos;Head and Chaos;Child animes, and until 2020 was the only option those who didn’t speak Japanese had to experience it at all. Since I went into so much detail in said visual novel review, I’m mostly going to focus on how the anime holds up both by itself and as an adaptation. Ever since its creation nearly ten years ago, the dream of the Chuo Tanegashima High Robotics Research Club has been to finish Gunbuild-1, a lifesize recreation of Gunvarrel, the titular mecha of an insanely popular anime that’s credited with starting a “robot boom” within Japan, and the club’s current president, Akiho Senomiya, the little sister of the club’s founder, Misaki Senomiya, is extremely determined to see this dream achieved. Unfortunately for her, the club has fallen on hard times, with its funding being cut, its advisor being completely unreliable, and the few other members it has, namely Kaito Yashio, Subaru Hidaka, Junna Daitoku, and Kona Furugoori, aka Frau Koujiro, being quite difficult in their own ways, and often more than Akiho can handle. While Akiho puts her all into finally bringing the club to greatness, the otherwise apathetic Kaito finds himself involved with a mysterious AI called Airi, who exists within the augmented reality app IRUO. Airi’s creator, the deceased Kou Kimijima, turns out to have also created several AR annotations scattered throughout Tanegashima, titled the Kimijima Reports, which warn of a grand conspiracy that will utterly devastate humanity if unopposed. I’m not the most unbiased viewer, since I had played, and enjoyed, the visual novel months before watching this anime, but generally, it’s actually an enjoyable time. Some of Robotics;Notes’ biggest strengths were always its cast of characters and lighter tone, and for the most part, the anime preserves both well, keeping it mostly silly, but endearing early on. The artstyle actually matches up fairly well with the VN’s CGs, and the dub, which I watched just to spice things up, since I already knew the Japanese voice cast was quite good, is overall solid, with Clifford Chapin as Kaito, Lindsay Seidel as Akiho, and Monica Rial as Junna especially sticking out to me. As an adaptation, on the other hand, it falls short in quite a few places, namely when it comes to characterization. While obviously, no adaptation could feasibly fit in every detail from its source material, the Steins;Gate anime managed to preserve almost all of its cast’s characterization, whereas in Robotics;Notes, several characters lose prominent details to their backstories or personal conflicts, or act differently in scenes unrelated to that, making quite a few of them come off different. While instances of the latter case, such as Junna coming off as less shy and hesitant, don’t necessarily worsen anything for the most part, the former definitely does, as it makes the affected characters much less developed and interesting. Nobody suffers from this worse than Kaito himself, who loses most of his backstory, motivations, and arc, to the point of one of his best moments being changed from something intentional to completely accidental, with the end result making him come off as a completely different character, and an inferior one, at that. Additionally, around episode 16, the anime starts diverging pretty significantly from the VN, and not in ways that are improvements, to the point it even leaves a few otherwise preserved scenes in earlier episodes without context. Overall, I can imagine the Robotics;Notes anime still being a decent, if unremarkable watch on its own, and was certainly an interesting and fun way to reexperience the story, and definitely fares better than many visual novel adaptations, but I can’t quite say I’d recommend it. If Robotics;Notes interests you, the visual novel is very much preferred. 4. Nichijou

Number of episodes: 26. Language options: dub and subs available. Streaming options: Funimation. Here we have one of the most acclaimed anime comedies out there, an adaptation of Keiichi Arawi’s surreal sketch comedy manga series, produced by Kyoto Animation, a name that’ll be showing up here again later. Nichijou mainly focuses on two different trios of characters. There’s the ordinary high school girls Yuuko Aioi, a rather dim and reckless girl with terrible luck, Mio Naganohara, the most relatively normal one of the cast, whenever she’s not having explosive freak outs that involve beating people up, and Mai Minakami, a stoic girl who enjoys messing with people just for their reactions. On the other hand, there’s the far less ordinary Shinonome Laboratories trio of Professor Shinonome, an 8 year old girl who happens to be capable of building incredibly advanced machines, Nano Shinonome, a robot built by the Professor who desperately desires a normal girl more than anything, and Sakamoto, their pet cat who, thanks to a special scarf also made by the Professor, is capable of talking. The series focuses on their would-be ordinary lives, were it not for the seemingly daily chaos they get involved in, from witnessing the school principal wrestle a wild deer, to being trapped in an elevator for hours, to the school science teacher attempting to capture Nano for study. It also follows the antics of several other side characters, such Koujiro Sasahara, the seemingly upper class student who is actually just the son of a family of farmers, to Misato Tachibana, a very typical tsundere towards Sasahara, whose tsun side manifests as assaulting him with military-grade weapons, to little effect, to the equally quirky teachers of their school. Needless to say, it’s a very silly and chaotic series, and that’s exactly what makes it so memorable. The humor is pretty hit and miss in the first half of the series, but from episode 14 onwards, they thoroughly master it, with every episode having at least a few scenes that got me laughing. Beyond the silliness, though, the series actually has a lot of heart to it. There’s a few moments that change up the status quo, or even develop the characters just a bit, and some scenes are surprisingly sweet, if still played for laughs more often than not. There’s also a lot of continuity, which in later episodes often provide the punchlines to some of the best gags, which definitely encourages watching the whole series. The Japanese voice acting is fittingly crazy for each character, and the animation fits perfectly, as while the character designs are quite simple, there’s many would be mundane moments that have contrasting overly impressive and exaggerated animation that makes them very memorable. All in all, Nichijou is a very enjoyable series once it finds its groove, and about the only reason its not higher on my rankings is just because pure comedies aren’t really one of my favorite genres. Still, if you ever want a good laugh, you can’t go wrong with this. 3. Soul Eater

Number of episodes: 51. Language options: dub and subs available. Streaming availability: Netflix, Funimation. Soul Eater is yet another adaptation, this time of a manga by Atsushi Ōkubo, produced by Studio Bones, who also did the Fullmetal Alchemist animes, and is quite similar to the original FMA series in that it outpaced the manga and, rather than simply overloading itself with filler, decided to go in an entirely different direction by the end. The Death Weapon Meister Academy is a school founded by Death himself, dedicated to the training of Meisters, who wield Weapons, humans with the ability to shapeshift into weapons, for the purpose of destroying Kishin Eggs, evil beings who have consumed the souls of others, and pose the risk of transforming into extremely dangerous demons. Any Meister who can collect the souls of these corrupted beings, as well as the soul of a Witch, can transform their Weapon into a Death Scythe, the personal arms of Death. Among the students of the DWMA are seven Meisters and Weapons who stand out in particular: the teams of Maka Albarn, a kind hearted and responsible, though temperamental, girl, her Weapon, Soul “Eater” Evans, a laidback and snarky wannabe “cool” guy, Black Star, a prideful and loudmouthed ninja who’s seemingly always out to make a spectacle of himself, regardless of how it hampers him, his Weapon, Tsubaki, a humble and levelheaded woman, Death the Kid, the son of Death and one of the top students in the cool, held back only by a crippling obsession with symmetry, and his Weapons, Liz and Patty Thompson. While these seven gradually come together as a team, a Witch named Medusa begins to put an ambitious and destructive plan into motion, one involving her “child”, Crona, and the strange, insanity inducing black blood that courses through their veins. Soul Eater has a lot going for it. A likeable and crazy cast of characters, even the side ones, like the maniacal Doctor Stein, or the surprisingly goofy and casual Death, or the tragic Crona, or the hilariously egotistical Excalibur, to a lot of fun action scenes, to its great animation and overall unique visual design, including the sun and moon having giant, creepy laughing faces. It has a lighthearted, comedic tone that doesn’t detract from the serious moments, and the main characters get some pretty good development as the series goes on. The dub is also great, with Laura Bailey as Maka, Micah Solusod as Soul, Brittney Karbowski as Black Star, and Todd Haberkorn as Death the Kid especially sticking out to me. In general, I don’t have a lot of significant criticisms, besides how the story is handled once the villainous organization Arachnophobia is introduced, which is also about where it begins to deviate from the manga. Most of the villains part of it never really feel like a threat, and the story becomes much more simple and typical compared to how the manga went, and when the ending arrives, it just kinda, happens, with several notable subplots just kinda left unfinished. It definitely feels like an underwhelming ending, and is a big reason why I place this lower on the list, but Soul Eater is still a pretty entertaining watch that’s worth a try if you want a decently lengthy, but not horribly long shonen. 2. The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

Number of episodes: 28. Language options: dub and subs available. Streaming availability: Funimation. Here we have the big one, an extremely memetic and famous series by Kyoto Animation, based on a series of light novels by Nagaru Tanigawa, a series that was finally completed back in November 2020 after its start in 2003. Kyon is a lazy and down to earth high school student who wishes for little more for himself than an uneventful, normal high school life- a hope that’s abruptly shattered when, on a whim, he becomes involved with Haruhi Suzumiya, an eccentric, hyperactive, and thoroughly self centered girl, who claims to have no interest in ordinary humans, and instead wishes to discover things thoroughly unusual, such as aliens, time travelers, or espers, and forces Kyon to form a club, the SOS Brigade, with her to achieve this. Haruhi quickly pulls three other students into the brigade, those being Yuki Nagato, a stoic and quiet bookworm, Mikuru Asahina, a shy and passive girl often subjected to humiliation and abuse by Haruhi, and Itsuki Koizumi, a calm transfer student who acts extremely subservient to Haruhi. While Kyon initially writes off the club as an unreasonable use of his time, his fellow members reveal an unexpected truth to him: the subjects of Haruhi’s fascinations actually do exist. Yuki is an alien, of a sort, created and controlled by an entity known as the Data Overmind, Mikuru is a time traveler from some point in the future, and Itsuki is an esper, and member of an organization of similar people. All three of them have been sent to observe the oblivious Haruhi, who appears to have the unconscious ability to change reality itself according to her desires, and is at threat of remaking the entire world if not placated. With Haruhi apparently having taken a unique interest in Kyon, he finds himself taken along for all sorts of supernatural adventures spawned from Haruhi’s whims. There’s a lot I could go on about regarding Haruhi, but in the interest of not turning this into a full on rant, I’ll keep shortish. It’s more or less an insane mishmash of several different genres, from slice of life, to science fiction, to fantasy, just depending on what each individual story feels like being. The episodes are mostly adapted from the early light novels, mostly the multiple stories from the third and fifth novels, The Boredom and The Rampage of Haruhi Suzumiya, respectively. It’s not often you’ll have any idea just what to expect from each individual episode, which makes the series very chaotic, but interesting. The characters are likeable and memorable, including the side characters, and the sheer ridiculousness of what goes on makes for many amusing moments. At the same time, the series is surprisingly complex, with many possible interpretations of its characters and the events they go through, furthered by the antics Kyoto Animation pulled when it was originally airing, such as airing the episodes out of chronological order, meaning the plot would often jump from the middle of an arc to something else. The end result is a very unique and enjoyable product, helped by the fantastic dub, with the actors capturing each character perfectly, from Crispin Freeman as the grounded and snarky Kyon, to Wendee Lee as the aggressively energetic Haruhi, to Stephanie Sheh as the gentle, yet secretive Mikuru. That said, there is one pretty disappointing part of it all, and that’s the second season, mostly thanks to the infamous Endless Eight arc, an eight part arc that’s more or less the same things happening over and over, with only the first and last episodes having anything noticeably different. Regardless of its own uniqueness, more than half the season is taken over by this, and something that may have worked if cut down to three or four episodes instead singlehandedly killed off the series’ goodwill. About the only redeeming factor of the second season is the five part adaptation of The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya, which has some of the funniest moments in the whole series. Overall, Haruhi is still a very fun series, and I’m really gonna have to watch its movie, The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya, one of these days. 1. Trigun

Number of episodes: 26. Language options: dub and subs available. Streaming availability: Funimation, Hulu. Finishing off this list is an adaptation of a manga series by Yasuhiro Nightow, produced by Madhouse and another adaptation that overtook its source material. Compared to how Soul Eater handled it, however, Trigun went down much, much better, to the point Nightow himself had nothing but praise for how the anime turned out, and the series is generally considered one of the best animes of the late 90′s. On the harsh desert planet of Gunsmoke lives a wandering gunslinger known as Vash the Stampede, the “Humanoid Typhoon” with a large handgun known to leave tremendous destruction in his wake, who amassed a bounty of $$60,000,000,000 after destroying the city of July, leading to an endless trail of bounty hunters out to collect the price on his head. In the middle of all this, Meryl Stryfe and Milly Thompson, two representatives of an insurance society which is often forced to pay for damages caused by Vash, track him down for the purposes of minimizing the chaos he causes. Upon catching up with him, however, the duo discovers that, contrary to his reputation, Vash is a kindhearted goof, and self proclaimed hunter of love and peace, who absolutely refuses to ever take another person’s life, even at great personal risk to himself. Vash continues his travels carefree, helping out whoever he can, with the occasional assistance of Meryl and Milly, as well as a traveling priest known as Nicholas D. Wolfwood, only to one day have an encounter with a mysterious and cruel man known as Legato Bluesummers. Vash soon learns that Legato has hired a group of assassins known as the Gung-Ho Guns to kill Vash, and leave a trail of bodies wherever they go, seemingly for the sole purpose of tormenting Vash. As Vash hunts down Legato, he is gradually forced to face his past, and consider whether he can truly stay committed to his pacifist ideals. In general, Trigun is just a very, very well made series. It has a likeable and developed cast of characters, with special mention going to Vash, who is a very compelling and sympathetic character, and Wolfwood, who makes a great foil to Vash with very interesting development of his own, with characters outside of the main cast being memorable as well, from Legato himself, to even some of the more minor villains, such as the varied members of the Gung-Ho Guns, or Brilliant Dynamites Neon, who makes an inexplicably strong impression for a one off villain not even important to the overall plot. The space western setting is quite good, and the designs are great, with many villains having distinctive looks that further help them make an impression. The action is great, and the animation is also quite good, and has that 90′s anime charm. The dub, while a bit rough around the edges, is generally solid too. From Lia Sargent as the ditzy but kind Milly, to Dorothy Elias Fahn as the hotheaded Meryl, to Jeff Nimoy as the weary Wolfwood, to Richard Cansino as the calculating and disturbing Legato, with special mention needing to go to Johnny Yong Bosch as Vash. Despite it actually being his first voice acting role ever, he does a great job in portraying the many sides to Vash, and absolutely sells many of the biggest moments in the story. Speaking of which, the series started quite lighthearted and wacky, with the first four episodes actually being filler, but gets gradually darker as it goes on. The earlier episodes are still quite enjoyable on their own, though, and manage to slowly reveal new aspects to Vash in each one, before finally setting his nature in stone in episode 5. What really sells the series and makes it so memorable, however, are the themes it explores, of the practicality of unwavering pacifism, and whether taking a life, whether for heinous crimes committed without remorse, or with the purpose of protecting others, is ever justifiable. While quite a few series have touched dilemmas like this before, what makes Trigun stand out with it is the emphasis placed upon it throughout the whole series, with many episodes touching upon it in some regard. It genuinely fairly looks at the different sides of it all, and the consequences of each, with many emotional moments coming from it as a result. While the manga did ultimately take a very different turn from the anime, the anime actually preserves several of the most important plot moments, and manages to come to a satisfactory conclusion of its own regarding the themes. Ultimately, Trigun makes for a very fun and interesting watch that I highly recommend. And with that, my ranking is complete. With the exception of Robotics;Notes, I can pretty confidently recommend every show on this list. Got some more shows I plan to get through soon, so another ranking like this may be soon in the making. Either way, till next time. -Scout

hey there Dream!! hope you don’t mind me asking, but do you have any advice for beginner artists? I’m hoping to improve on my skills!! thank you!! :)

Sure! I can give some advice according to my experience, and most are not much different from what you’ll find in other art blogs, but hopefully, you’ll find something useful.

Use References! I can’t stress this enough. You want to draw someone in a specific pose? look for a reference pic or make one yourself. Clothing? look for a reference. Objects, animals plants? look for a reference. There’s nothing wrong with using references, it will make your work look better and helps learn how to draw too!

Do not avoid drawing the things you are not good at yet. If you struggle with hands, draw the hands even if they look weird and broken. The only way you have to improve at something is by doing it over and over (aside from using references). 

Art while rested will look different from art when tired. I don’t know how big of a universal experience is this, but I’ve noticed that how good the results with my art is, is very tied up with both my physical and emotional state.

If something looks bad but you can’t pinpoint what, let it rest, do something else and go back to the drawing later, usually with a rested head you’ll be able to spot the problem faster. Fliping your canvas also helps a lot, I’d recommend doing it in early states like the sketch, since it’s easier to change stuff then.

Not everything has to be a masterpiece or clean shaded art. Sketches can be as good as clean line art, one is not superior to the other, it’s good to know how to shade and do a clean line, but if you enjoy leaving you'd art with a messy line then go for it, that’s just as good.

It’s ok to take inspiration from how other artists draw certain things. If you struggle to do the face, look for different artists and how they do it, try different approaches until you find something that feels right. As long as you don't trace over the other artist's drawing or try to copy it to the last detail, it’s ok to take inspiration from other people/content.

Don’t obsess over developing “your own art style”, it will eventually happen, and very likely will change over the years. No one has a 100% original style, we are always taking conscious or unconscious inspiration from the content we consume. My advice would be to try different things and don’t obsess over trying to make it exactly like [insert specific artstyle here]. 

There is no one “Right way/ Wrong way” to draw things, yes there’s proportions and other rules that can help your drawing look better, but there is no “the right way to draw faces is starting with a  circle, if you start with the eyes then you are doing it wrong”. 

Draw things that are not meant to be finished pieces. You having trouble drawing arms? draw a lot of different arms attached to no bodies.

Do not delete your sketches!!! You don’t like how it looks? Hide the layer and open a new one, but keep all those drawings. On a similar note, a good exercise is drawing by hand with an ink pen, so you can’t erase what you draw. 

Everyone has a different learning curve, some go super fast in a week and then might have a year of no progress. Others get baby steps and can’t see a big improvement until months after. So sometimes you’ll feel stuck, and feel you are not moving forward, or that this or that person is going faster than you, but the only thing you can do is keep practicing and moving forward at your own speed, and that’s ok!

I can’t think of much else right now, but I hope this helps you out in some way! Good luck!

my relationship with digital art and how BNHA salvaged it

I just wanted to let out my thoughts but I can only do it here :>

This might be a downer for some people but I’d like to share it with people here. BNHA means the world to me and this is why.

I first started drawing when I was 7 years old in 2006

I think it’s ugly now, but 7 year old me remembered being so proud of this because this is a drawing of my stepfather. This is the only drawing I have that was from my childhood. I think the aim here is to draw in anime style BUT I didn’t even watch anime back then. I had a classmate who loves anime and she taught me to draw in school. Drawing became a favorite hobby immediately after that.

Then it was 2013 and I was 14 years old. Drawing is still my favorite thing to do besides being on the computer. I love anime at this point too. My parents bought an iPad for the whole family, but I was almost always the one using it. I discovered an app called ArtStudio and thought “Wow, I can draw without making a mess and with only my fingers” because I was always too lazy to take out my drawing materials and clean up afterwards.

These were my first digital drawings. The pirate one was the very first. I got obsessed real fast. I can color so easily, undo any mistake, layers are a blessing too. There was just so much more freedom. I always sucked at coloring in traditional art and I didn’t like the mess (idk my hands get so messy traditionally)

The next year, it was 2014, I was 15. My birthday is in a couple of months and I knew my parents were planning to buy me something pricey (I think it was a laptop) so I approached them and asked if they could just buy the Wacom Bamboo as a present which was cheaper anyway and I even explained how it works to them and how it would allow me to draw on the computer instead of the iPad. I tried really hard to be convincing. I would have prepared a powerpoint presentation if I had to.

They did give me the wacom as a present. They even gave it to me months before my birthday so I could use it already. I thought I was the luckiest teen in the world with my parents.

These are a collection of my favorite works from 2014 to 2016. The middle one was my second drawing using wacom and Paint Tool SAI. I was a part of a lot of fandoms in those years lol

It gets downhill from there :/

April 2016, my mom and I moved to Japan, while my stepfather and siblings stay in my country. It was tough. For someone who is obsessed with anime, you’d think I’d be thrilled to live in Japan.

I was. Though only at the first few months. It’s not the same as it’s portrayed in anime (I should’ve known but I used to be blinded by anime). It was just lonely. The language barrier sucked and then lots of financial and family issues until my parents split. I got my first boyfriend too and I thought I was blessed by the nicest boy, but the relationship became extremely toxic but I didn’t have it in me to walk away.

All the shit that happened affected me mentally and emotionally. My biggest outlet which was digital drawing, was also out of the question because I did not have a computer/laptop when we moved to Japan. We left it in our home for my stepfather and siblings, even the iPad. I have my wacom with me, but no computer/laptop to use it with. I couldn’t draw.

I tried though. I used my phone to draw, but it wasn’t the same. Then the life problems got piled up, things got worse, and I just lost motivation in anything. Literally anything. From 2016 to 2019, I stopped watching anime, I dropped out of all the fandoms I’m in, I stopped watching my favorite TV series or movies, and I stopped drawing. I even got a bit disconnected with my friends who lived in my country (we talk regularly online). My family was broken so I gave all my attention to my toxic relationship as well which made everything worse too lol

I didn’t draw besides from a few scribbles and the drawings above. I did try digital art on my phone a couple of times again and even posted them on my IG, but they weren’t any good. Eventually, I got mentally and emotionally drained and dropped out of senior high school. I just stayed home for almost a year, leeching off of my mom. I felt even more worthless and my life had no direction at this point. Nothing mattered anymore.

April 2019 or so I think, my (ex)bf bought me a laptop. He says it’s a gift, but I think the real reason was to make up for something horrible that he did (which is stupid because money /gifts won’t resolve anything). I have a laptop. I can draw again, but I didn’t. I didn’t care, I wasn’t interested in drawing anymore anyway.

Welp. June 2019, I went back to my country. My (ex) bf stayed in Japan. The distance helped me end the relationship and my friends were there (they always were) to help put me back together along with two trips to therapy. I went back to finish my senior high school in my own country this time. That said, I have to stay in my country for school (but I was happy because I didn’t wanna go back to Japan yet when the breakup was still fresh and with going back to school, my life has a direction again.)

It was weird. I remember just being sorta lost and confused because I used to put my time, effort and everything into my previous toxic relationship, which was now gone. I was free and I had so much free time that I didn’t know what to do with it. I got so used to doing nothing and being nothing.

This is where BNHA enters.

Dunno when it started, but I started seeing Bakugou frequently online. It’s usually just Bakugou. I knew who he was because my friend suggested BNHA to me back in late 2018 I think but I didn’t watch it since I’ve lost interest in everything at that point in my life.

But ye I thought he hot af but I still didn’t watch BNHA.

But then for some reason he REALLY kept appearing in my social medias and it was really frequent. The last straw was when I saw a pic of him in UA’s gym uniform and thought “damn boi aight imma watch bnha for u” (y’all gotta admit he looks good in those colors with his combat boots XD )

I watched BNHA. Fell in love with Iida along the way. Then I switched to Tokoyami (but Shoji was hot too so aaaaa), but then angry emotionally-constipated sea urchin head caught my heart again. But oof. BakuDeku moments really made me feel some type of way I haven’t felt since I moved to Japan. It felt new but nostalgic. I fell hard in that ship.

I started obsessing. From memes to posts to fanfictions to buying merch to filling my room with BNHA posters. I realized I was reverting to my old self from the time I was still happy and it was thanks to BNHA (and the good people who helped me through the worst too)

Shit I wanted to draw BNHA, I thought.

I mean, I have a laptop, I still have my wacom and drawing softwares. I could totally draw digitally again if I wanted to.

But guess what

I can’t :c

My hand physically cannot draw. My drawings don’t look the way I want them too. 3 years of not drawing really destroyed any skill I had. I was back to square one.

September (yeah they’re ugly, I laughed at it). If you’re wondering why I drew on paper, it’s because, for some reason, I really CANNOT draw digitally. I mean it. I can barely sketch digitally at this point. The lines and shapes just doesn’t come to life. They’re just scribbles. But somehow, I can kinda draw on paper with a ballpoint pen. But yeah, that was the best I could do at this point in my life

After that, I still tried to draw, to regain my old art style, but it didn’t happen... It just doesn’t look or feel the same. Drawing used to be fun. But during this phase, it felt like my ugly drawings were just mocking me (probably was just too emo that time lol)

Weirdly, around a week or two I think, after my half-assed attempts at drawing, I managed to draw digitally somehow o.o

I did a Midoriya and Todoroki drawing like this too. It was my first post here on Tumblr I think. The annoying part here is that I cannot draw digitally unless I draw on paper first, take a pic, and then trace the lineart. I couldn’t draw directly on the computer. Granted, drawing on paper and drawing on digital is very different for me in the first place anyway. But it was still a pain. And it still looked like shit. I can only draw stiff poses :/ it seems like my brain decided to delete all data about anatomy and posture and backgrounds. My lineart here is even messy af. It still really not the same as my old style.

By 2020, I think I got my old art style back. On March, I made this. This took me 27 total of hrs to make.

Right now, I think it’s not bad, but back in March, I was disappointed with the result. This is when I finally broke down crying because it didn’t look good enough and I hated that it took me 27 hrs to draw “bullshit.” I was angry at myself for losing interest in drawing for 3 years when I could’ve used that time to improve. I had to start all over again and it still didn’t look good. (Current me thinks that the drawing above is alright. I was just a lot harsher to myself back then. Used to have a lot of issues but I’m doing great now)

I cried myself to sleep that night. Woke up wanting to cry again. I wallowed in sadness for a couple of days. Eventually told my friends what’s up. Got some pep talk. Even talked to my sister (she’s great, she always hypes me up with my stuff and sometimes I think she’s my biggest fan with how she appreciates my drawings and I’m really grateful for that).

My world turned a 180 and I was weirdly positive after all that crying because brain chemicals and shit. I had a revelation. If I hate how my art style looked so much, then I should have been putting effort in changing my art style, not trying to regain my old art style (that I don’t like anymore)

I researched a lot. I analyzed different art styles and anatomy again. I did everything I could think of to find a style that works for me. I might have even neglected school for a bit to focus on digital art lmao

After all that work, I posted a fanart of middle school BakuDeku in their classroom. I love that fanart so much even if I probably have better ones by now because that was the first fanart I made that I felt like I could be proud of and it was the first one I made in my new art style. It was a milestone for me.

March 2020, I moved back to Japan and without the toxic relationship, I’m a lot positive now. Happy. I’m myself again after the previous bad years. I’m still continuously learning though, trying to improve, but at least, now, I found my own art style :) I really suck at interacting with people online, but I’m always grateful for the support everyone has been giving my fanarts. I’m happy when my content makes people happy.

This is why BNHA is important to me. The series is great alone, but it’s not just that to me. BNHA is so much more. It’s what made me find the passion to create again, only this time, it’s focused on drawing (I used to write, but now I just draw, but maybe I’ll write again for BNHA).

My family is supportive with my love for BNHA, but I think they don’t know the deeper reason why I love it. Sure, I was fine living on with nothing much going on in my life. I’ll finish school, get a job, work until I die or something. It was okay. It was the way of life. But BNHA gave my life color again. I wasn’t just blindly going through life anymore. I have something to look forward to everyday now. BNHA even became a bridge to other things. Ever since then, I’m a lot more open to people, to try new things, to explore and not just live through life and waste away. I got better at leaving my comfort zone. I’ve never been happier in my life :D

Thank you for supporting my fanarts. Thank you so much for giving me a chance to express myself through BNHA. I hope to make more content in the future and improve even more :)

**Not** A Tutorial

HELLO. I don’t know how helpful or informative this is going to be but I get a lot of questions about how I draw Shane and Ryan so I’m about to spill all my secrets here lmao*

*I’m a graphic designer, I didn’t study fine art or illustration so take my “advice” with a pinch of salt. This is just my process and how I’ve taught myself to draw them.

[Ryan voice] That being said, let’s get into it.

1) References are the best

I used to think drawing from reference was a shameful thing that TRUE artists didn’t use, because they just KNEW what the human body looked like. This just isn’t true for most artists. Including myself! I don’t have a fuckin’ clue, my friends. Pose references are incredibly helpful when drawing bodies and, as obvious as it sounds, face references are incredibly helpful when drawing faces!

So let’s look at Shane and Ryan. Here’s a screencap from the show that I’ll be using as a ref for this post:

If you’re looking to draw something where the main subjects are extremely recognisable by their faces (i.e. some kind of fanart), face shape is important to take into account (again, I feel like this is super obvious but I’m saying it anyway). For example, Shane has a very angular face. His brow, nose, and jaw are all fairly straight lines. His hairline is squared. Ryan has more curves to his face (brow, nose, jaw, and hairline are all curves). 

These features are pretty important when it comes to making the boys look like themselves? (particularly the noses, in my opinion, which are quite distinct.)

The point of finding these important lines and/or curves is that it helps you build the face shape. It’s like a basic blueprint for where all the rest of the stuff is going to go.

2) Analyse the features

I’m not going to go into detail about how to draw a basic face, there are thousands of tutorials online and this post will be rambly enough as it is.

So I already talked about their features a little bit in the first part but I’m gonna talk about them here too. Once you figure out the important lines and curves, you gotta work on some features.

For Shane, I like to take into account the following: 1) he has very expressive and angular eyebrows. They’re excellent. 2) he has downturned eyes (heavy lids/deepset eyes). 3) his mouth is quite catlike, it curves upwards at the corners when resting and dips in the middle. W-shaped. 

With Ryan, I take into account 1) though his brow is quite defined, his eyebrows are not — they’re actually somewhat sparse I guess (or untamed?). 2) his eyes are big and round, but like Shane they’re deep set and he has a lot of lid. Both of them are Tired! Boys! and have bags under their eyes, it cute. 3) Ryan’s mouth curves downward. EVEN WHEN HE SMILES. It’s M-shaped, the inverse of Shane’s. His smile is heart-shaped.

I try to always keep these details in mind even when I’m referencing directly from a photo, because it makes their facial shapes appear clearer to me.

3) Just straight up practice lmao

I’ve been drawing these guys for over a year now and I like to think I have VASTLY improved since this time last year. At this point, remembering most of what I mentioned above is like second nature when I draw their faces. 

I’ll use my under-sketch (above) to create more natural lines and add detail to features like eyes, mouths, hair, and brows. Also, smaller distinguishing features like moles or wrinkles or creases.

(Shane’s moles on his cheek and beneath his eye are extremely extremely cute).

4. Clean it up?? Maybe? Color?

This is optional. Sometimes stuff looks better as a sketch because the looser the lines are, the more room your brain has to interpret the whole image and pick the /correct/ line, does that make sense? Probably not.

At this stage I generally paint in facial hair too. Sometimes they don’t look like the boys to me until I’ve given them a little scruff (and honestly I like to go a little heavy on facial hair because I like it so much!!!)

This is where I can’t really give a lot of advice (if you can call any of this advice lmfao) because I do something differently every time I paint. I’m fickle.

THAT’S IT, I think?? I dunno if any of this is helpful or actually teaches anyone anything, I guess it’s just an insight into my drawing process and the way I work? If there is anything specific anyone wants me to talk about, just shoot me a message and I’ll see what I can do.

Anyway, I hope the 3 entire people who asked me to do this enjoy this very useless post :’)

2019 Art Summary

Once again, it is time for the annual art summary! I can’t believe this is the fifth year in a row I’ve done this, so I’m very proud about continuing to make art throughout the years and getting better at it every day. Anyways, let’s get into the good stuff!

I kicked off the year with a big inspiration from The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys comic series and made up my own original Killjoy just before the new year began. Their name is Violet Crime, and I had created an entire backstory with them being involved with the Ultra V’s, and even proposed running a roleplay blog with them and introducing story events such as meeting a pornodroid, but that never came to pass. Maybe next year I can try getting their story off the ground.

This month, I had suddenly gotten the idea for a TOME (2011) AU where the Forbidden Power slowly corrupted and altered Alpha’s model and mind, and I did a bunch of art of the different stages of corruption and drafted certain scenes that would play out if it happened in the show. I continued exploring this  a little more throughout the year, and I hope to flesh it out even more later on.

This batch has an interesting background - I was taking a Religions class in the winter quarter, and for my final project we had the option of creating our own religion based on principles from those we learned about. So, since I had already made up a religion in Legends: Children of the Dragons, I jumped on that opportunity and started expanding upon it! Because of that, I started thinking about Legends a lot, and got inspired to write and draw a bunch! I worked a lot on figuring out the story’s structure and plot, since for the longest time it’s been very disorganized, so that inspiration boost was really helpful.

I didn’t draw too much this month, but I did want to showcase two more detailed drawings in particular. The first is a climactic scene from my friend Mana’s story Empire Tale: Starlight Speedway, where Argento (the character shown) finds out his friend was in alliance with the heir of his empire’s rival nation. The second was drawn for Adam Tilford, creator of the book and webseries Shattered Heaven, as part of an opportunity to feature fan art of a certain character in part of the show. I did my best to emulate Adam’s art style in both lineart and coloring, but it still definitely looks like mine, which is totally cool. Still super honored to have contributed it!

The TOME fandom is still a huge part of my life, and this month in particular was chock full of RPG content to draw. First was my own idea based on the official fanart contest, where members of my TOME Discord server paired TOMERPG OCs and drew a picture with them interacting, and my OC Circutree was randomly matched with @scribblehooves​ and her OC Valentina! There was also a trend (I forget who started it) where we designed our own versions of the White Hat Hacker, and since my choice was the Animalistic one, I gave it some details that more resembled my personal TOME OC / overall persona. Lastly, I just... really love Phaxal from TVTOME Adventures, and I felt an overwhelming need to make him into a TOMERPG character. He’s obviously a lot different from his aughts’ counterpart, but he’s still got that dark snark goin’ on.

June was actually rather slow in terms of art, with me being more preoccupied with binging TV shows and video games, as well as going on adventures in the outside world. However, I did make a cute piece for Mana with Lux and her girlfriend/wife Nexus from ETSS as part of an art trade. In the middle of the month, I had had a dream with a super cool character in it, and immediately I went to go and draw him, and that’s who the other character is; he doesn’t have a name, but he’s supposed to be a secret agent type of guy. Definitely inspired by Azure Striker Gunvolt, which I got super obsessed with again during that time.

I worked more on developing Legends stuff, so I wrote and drew out some more scene ideas along with various sketches. My big pieces for this month, though, were very summery and all about the TOME RPG and me and my friends’ OCs having a fun time. Not much to say other than it was really weird drawing everyone in swimsuits instead of their normal designs.

My favorite piece this month, by far, is my entry into Adam Tilford’s Shattered Heaven fanart contest. I got to draw a mecha, for goodness sake - I NEVER draw stuff like that because it’s so complicated. I’m really proud of the lighting on the piece, too. In addition to that, me and @mew-cake​ did an art trade of our personas! And it was super cool and fun! Friendship! :D

So, the Steven Universe movie came out this month. And that made fall super hard back into the fandom. And now I can actually draw the characters decently, which I think is super cool. Also TOME stuff continues to be a thing, and I continue to try new perspectives and poses and lighting and everything because I need to GROW and LEARN.

I participated in the actual #Inktober prompt challenge this year, and did so for a lot longer than I thought I’d be able to. I made a lot of pieces I’m actually quite proud of, and even though I didn’t complete it, I’m happy I did it as long as I did.

November was a pretty experimental month in terms of art. I tasked myself with drawing in the Pokemon and Hazbin Hotel styles, and I randomly got inspired by a color palette to do a very minimalist digital painting. In addition to all of these personal drawings, I got to work really hard as a member of my university’s fledgling Queer Art Collective (QuAC for short), and our first big project was to decorate a canvas for Trans Day of Remembrance and Resilience, and I contributed five pieces to that: the trans flag with a human silhouette, the NB flag with a heart, the pastel genderfluid butterfly, the construction paper PROUD 2 B TRANS, and the lyrics to “Masquerade” by Tokio Hotel.

As the year closed, it’s been slow, with finals and holiday break and stuff. I can tell that I’m improving in my art, but there are still a lot of things I don’t know and things that I need to continue to improve upon. Hoping I can keep up the work in my last months of college and my transition into full-on adulthood.

See you all in the new year.

I’m trying to be familiarized with Photoshop and well, I wanted to try this way of painting (a bit far from my comfort zone). It’s kinda like (semi) realistic...ish? I don’t know, but I’m trying to learn more about anatomy 

I played with the curve tool in photoshop, I have never used that tool before since Paint tool sai doesn’t have it... ahh~ I wish Sai will mix with Photoshop and create the ultimate program, I just love the blending in Sai, no any program has been so easy to me in that aspect, but Photoshop has so many interesting tools!

Anyway, I decided to begin with male’s back. I don’t know how to draw any male body, I literally can’t so that’s why I wanted to push me even father from my comfort zone picking a male body. Although I cheated a little bit picking the easiest body part to paint, the back hehe I’ll do female’s back next. Then another part of the male, same to part but with the woman and so on. Face will be the last one because I know it will be the hardest part and I don’t wanna start crying from the beggining :’)

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I also wanted to use this post to tell a bit about the post I make in december 2019 saying “I’ll draw the oldest drawing I can find from mine to see how much I have improve in this decade (although I started in digital around 2015 and I don’t have traditional drawings=ehem i suck at them)”

Well, yes, I know, I never keep a promise when it comes to my drawings, but this time is different! I actually did pick the oldest drawing I could find (actually the second or third oldest due the other ones didn’t inspire me) and then, surprisingly, I drew it! like, yeah! I did it, I even surprised myself....BUT: I couldn’t do the face, I tried diferents days, but I still couldn’t. It kept reminding me to a girl I know and that I don’t truly like so it was a bit awkard?? The face wasn’t that bad but the image of her keep going to my mind

So I guess I’ll just show you what I did

The only thing that has changed all this 5 years, is that now I procrastinate a lot and spent more time than the usual doing sketches

Here is the 27‎th august ‎2015

Damn, cringy. I remember I did it for a friend that reached 10k in tumblr

And here is my attemp from 21st december 2019 (still cringy but not that much):

Another problem I faced that was harder than the face, was the colors. Like, look at the original drawing and that purple that almost kills your eyes. I couldn’t use it! and purple is not a color I have used that much in the actual piece, I only used at the end of eveything to make my drawing a bit more even (I overlay the light and dark purple with low oppacity it’s not showed in any of these pics). Appart from that, I don’t really use it, specially that neon blue-purple color

So I didn’t know what to do, if I changed drastically the colors, it wouldn’t be the same drawing, so I guess I wanted to be some colors like this ones.. I tried a lot of combinations tho (yes, I know, I’m really bad at picking colors even when I dress myself that’s why I love to have a lot of black clothes, any color goes well with black)

I wanted to change eveything a little bit but still being the same drawing (that’s why I was pissed off by the colors). I wanted a more dinamic pose, actually, I wanted to draw a pose I have never drawn, from the back! I don’t know, I was ready to experiment. I also changed the dress, better shape, more movement and the back detail instead of that horrorific tablecloth pattern

Either way, I won’t continue it, I’m happy with no seeing those colors again

It has been 5 rough years trying to learn alone all I know now, and it will be 5 and 10 and more rough years of learning even more!

I wanted so bad to do a 10 years difference challenge, but at that time I was only 10 years old and I only drew what schools told me to drew! I only began to start drawing (like, really drawing, wanting to draw) in 2014/2015. My father gave me a graphic tablet a friend of him gifted him in 1996 (wacom model ET-0405A-U). In january 2017 (I think..) my parents gave me the gift of my new tablet  (left one is the new (2017) tablet, the right one is the old tablet (2015 that it’s actually from 94-96′s)

my deskopt is a mess, I tried not to show it that much lol

Many people I know names their tablets, but I have never done that?? I think I’ll call the left one Armin, I watched in three days shingeki no kyojin and I fell in love with the character

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lol this is a mess of a post but this is what happens when I don’t say anything for days in this blog

Look the bright side, if I keep up with the practicing, I will be able to draw my precious child chat noir more often!!

ive been drawing for quite a while. and looking through my old art, i found ive been drawing online for a whole flippin decade. wow.

so here’s 10 drawings ive done over the last 10 years, with commentary. it’s a long one, though, so be careful.

2010:

I had to dig through my deviantart for these first two. This pikachu is the first thing i ever posted online! i remember drawing this in ms paint with a mouse. i remember being very proud of this, and in a way, i still think it’s cute. it has a “drawing my kid done that i hung on a fridge’ vibe. 

i didn’t do much around this time. i barely knew how the internet worked, and i mainly read instead of drawing. i did some pokemon sprite edits though, for some reason. i remember really liking doing that.

2011:

i’m pretty sure i drew this mew in gimp. also with a mouse, because i had no idea tablets existed. ive always been super into pokemon, and around this time i think i was watching a lot of mickey mouse cartoons? it’d explain the weird style. 

i’m impressed with the shading, though. i did the best with what i knew, and what i could figure out on my own. not pictured is the hundreds of mickey sketches i did around this time, or the self insert oc i made lol.

2012: oh no it’s pony time. i spent about 5 years drawing primarily these things. kinda wish i hadn’t in hindsight, but ah well.

i had this program on my ds that i could draw and post my art on, and i was using it a lot around this time. a lot of my art has this sketchy look to it, because of that. i remember i had quite a few followers on it, or at least i think i did. i dunno if that website still exists, or if anyone even uses it anymore.

but anyways, this drawing is super cute. ya can’t go wrong with a sleeping pone. i forgot the cutie mark, tho. i always forget minor important details like that. either that or i drew her as a filly. can’t remember.

2013: yeah, i think this as vent art? can’t remember, but i drew it on that same program. i put a lot of effort into the perspective. this was based on my room at the time, btw.

2014: i believe this was for a new artist’s training grounds on eqd. i must’ve had a tablet by now, cause i can see tapering in the lineart. it was a big deal for me, and it sucks that i can’t remember what the first ting i drew with it was. i think it was some sketches.

but you can definitely see some improvement by now. i was really getting used to drawing this one thing. but a lot of people following me seemed to like my art back then. it was called cute, and expressive and cartoony. 

i think this was around the time i was at my best, as far as notes and interaction goes. 

2015: *megalovania intensifies*

i was super into undertale at the time. and 2014-15 was when i started to try and draw other things aside from ponies. you cal tell my poses and anatomy is mega awkward and kinda bad here, but this was a major improvement for me. 

2016: i was a fan of steven universe since it first aired, but i very rarely drew fanart for it. but as i was getting more comfortable with drawing peole, i got more ambitious with the characters i tried to draw.

i also from around this point on tried to get better at traditional art. and i think this was the first inktober i tried, but i don’t think it was the first i finished.

i really liked this drawing. and i may or may not have a wip redraw of this going on right now. wish me luck!

2017: KNOOOOOXXXXX I LOVE YOU, YOU PRECIOUS BOI

this is my favorite drawing. i peaked here and i will never be as good and pure as this single icon i did. it’s purple, he’s happy, it’s PASTEL AND SPARKES!!!!

i also got super into bendy and the ink machine this year, which sparked a renewed interest in trying to improve in drawing, and also led me to create my favorite oc ever.

i think i improved a lot around this time. my shapes and anatomy became cleaner and more consistent. on a technical level, i think this is where i started getting really good as an artist.

2018: i don’t think i improved a lot this year. i honestly feel like ive stagnated since then, and depression hasn’t helped. 

it’s a tough choice between this and the hollow knight drawing for best drawing of the year, but this is my personal favorite. sorry, mm, but mickey will always win out in my opinion. i know ya liked the other one though, and it’s also really good. 

i like how this turned out, and i’m so glad it’s got the most notes of anything else ive drawn. it’s pretty, and i love the style. this is how i wish i drew all the time.

2019: and finally we have this.

i don’t care how poorly this did. i was proud of myself for doing this. it’s cute and pretty and i like it. I created a vague story where she’s a little astronomer who’s like, caged for some reason, but now she’s free.

in hindsight, i think i coulda done a lot better, but i still like it. it’s one of my favorites that ive done this year. i wish i drew more this year, but the last few months ive been super depressed. it’s been hard to want to draw anything, and i feel so uncreative and mediocre. 

i’m hoping next year i’ll be better, and i’ll have stuff in my personal life more sorted out, and i won’t feel as bad.

this was nice, though. i’m glad i looked through my old art. maybe i’ll figure out what i’m missing, and get back on track. and maybe i’ll finish these wips i have going on lol. we’ll see.

happy new year, everyone. and may this next decade be even better for us all as creators, and as people.

Are there any specific resources you used while you were learning how to draw? I see your art and I get super inspired, but then I remember how far behind I am when it comes to progress, and I get discouraged. I've been drawing for a year and I still can't do proper anatomy and lineart, yet you've been drawing since August and you're wonderful at it. I really want to improve. Help a fellow artist out?

Hey there!!I’m really glad I can inspire you!! Please don’t give up!! If it’s any consolation, I get discouraged, too. I see the incredible art of this fandom (or just in general!) and it makes me feel like why even bother. It happens to everyone, and not just with drawing, but with everything in life! But I work through those feelings! I have faith in you and I believe in you!

I’m sorry, I don’t really have any resources I can point you towards! I never really watch tutorials or things like that, I don’t have one of those pose-able models or anything. I don’t know of any like. reference databases or anything. I also dont use any external brush packs and I’ve got a baseline non-display tablet. I think the biggest advice I can give is to use references and to do studies! Studies can teach you so, so much. When I first started I absolutely hated doing fabric. I felt like I wasn’t good at it. So instead of just giving up or avoiding it I sat down and did fabric studies until I felt comfortable with it. Most of my paintings are honestly just me practicing on something I feel like I’m not good enough at yet, whether its dual lighting sources, anatomy, fabric folds, hair... Don’t avoid the things that make you afraid, practice them until you’re comfortable with it!

In regards to lineart, some things I’ve learned- foremost, canvas size is really important. find which one works for you. Most artists I know work on somewhere around 3500 x 3500px . personally, my canvasses for portraits are usually in the 500 x 500px range, and sketch dumps are 1650 x 1650 px. Too small of a canvas, and you won’t be able to fit the detail you want - sometimes I post something with a wonky face and its because the canvas was really small so i couldnt properly draw! If the canvas is too big, it may be difficult to fill the space. Another thing - some programmes (I think SAI for sure) have a line stabilizer and a curve editor. my photoshop doesnt have this, so i cant really say much aside from that, but it can really help you get smooth lines without the wonky bumps. One last thing I learned recently - vary your line sizes. I usually work between 3px and 8px, with 4px as my standard. It provides contrast and makes the focus points more clear.For anatomy - reference reference reference!! Do studies!! And remember that your own body is your best reference!! I have a folder that’s just got different pictures of my own hand under different lighting sources that I’ve used in paintings. Don’t try to do something from memory if you don’t actually know what it looks like! I know a lot of artists use that “block” method. There’s real logic behind it; i think a common mistake is thinking “oh i just draw circles or blocks as a placeholder for body parts!” But the blocks actually mimic muscles and joints. Look at an anatomical model, break it into pieces. Then use those pieces to compose a body. not just random circles at random distances!A final note - I’m not sure how old you are, anon, but for the teens out there. please don’t compare yourself to adults as the end-all-be-all. Its fine to compare to others to see what things you could improve on or how to draw something differently, but don’t let it consume you. you still have so much time to learn and to grow. Even if there isn’t practical experience, someone older will have more life experience and a different perception, and it really does make a difference. Someone older has seen and experienced more, unconsciously learned more about the way bodies move and lights play out on things, what colours they like and dont like paired. And they may even have other life experiences that affect things. For example, I’m an engineer. I literally have a degree that trained me to be detail oriented and be able to understand proportions, perspectives, and breaking things down into basic shapes. it definitely helps with drawing, to have that sense. I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help, but I hope at least something in here is valuable to you! I believe in you, anon!!

Inside Taylor Swift's Personal Diary Entries: Read All of the Biggest Revelations

By Tomás Mier August 24, 2019

Photo: DIA DIPASUPIL/GETTY

Lover of Diaries

Fans got an inside look at some of Taylor Swift’s most personal thoughts when they bought the deluxe version of her new album, Lover.

Along with some behind-the-scenes recordings, each album featured a 30-page booklet with excerpts from her personal diaries — some even from she was just 13!

“I’ve written about pretty much everything that’s happened to me. I’ve written my original lyrics in those diaries, just feelings,” she said on an Instagram Live announcing the booklets. “It’s everything from pictures drawn, photos of that time in my life, I used to like tape stuff in my diaries.”

Here are the top 10 takeaways from her personal diary entries.

Photo: CHRISTOPHER POLK/GETTY 

Swift the Lyricist

If the diary entries are filled with anything, it’s a deep dive into her song lyrics.

“Red” was born on a long flight — and everyone she played it for loved it.

“Its [sic] so different than anything we’ve done,” she wrote in 2011. “I can’t even tell you how alive and worthwhile I feel when I’m writing a new song and I finish it and people like it. It’s the most fulfilling feeling, like getting an A+ on your report card.”

The diaries also share early versions of “All Too Well” and songs like “Long Live,” “White Horse,” “Holy Ground” and “This Love.”

In a 2014 entry, she writes about the creation of her ultra-hit “Shake It Off.”

“The best way I know how to describe it is that the chorus just fell out of the sky,” she wrote in 2014.

“We all went home and I wrote the first and second verses and brought them in the next day. We wrote this chanty cheer leader bridge that I absolutely LOVE,” she continued.

As for the album cover that would accompany “Shake It Off,” she wrote that she “saw it within 10 seconds.”

“The craziest moment came when something caught my eye. The cover photo is photo 13. I kid you not,” she wrote about the polaroid cover to 1989, which she accompanied with a sketch.

Photo:  HENRY LAMB/BEI/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK

A Glamorous Gala

In a diary entry, Swift writes about being invited to “this event called ‘The Met Gala.’”

To an 18-year-old Swift, that day was “THE party of the year.”

“The paps started SCREAMING for me. It was crazy,” she wrote in May 2008. “We made our way up the red carpet, posing for everyone. All of the women looked so glamorous in their gowns.”

Along with meeting Anna Wintour, George Clooney, Julia Roberts and Giorgio Armani at the event, she wrote that “models stood as decorations, standing still and wearing gorgeous gowns.”

Once inside, she lists “every celebrity ever created” at the event, including Scarlett Johansson, Tom Brady, Beyoncé, Victoria Beckham, Tom Cruise and Jon Bon Jovi “who called me over to talk to him.”

Photo: LARRY BUSACCA/GETTY 

Borchetta's Beginnings

Weeks before the release of Lover, a public feud involving Swift and her old label Big Machine made headlines when the label’s founder Scott Borchetta sold the label (and ownership of her masters) to Scooter Braun.

But years before, Swift had nothing but kind things to say about the label founder who signed her.

After meeting with Capitol Records and not being offered “the deal I would want,” she met with Borchetta — and left with feelings of excitement.

“I really loved all the stuff he said in the meeting, and he stayed for the whole Bluebird show,” she wrote in November 2014. “And he’s SO passionate about this project. I think that’s the way we’re gonna go, I want to surround myself with passionate people.”

A meeting with Borchetta also made “Sparks Fly” as she came up with the name of her second album.

“We were talking about the record and I had this epiphany,” she wrote in April 2010. “I didn’t talk in interviews about how I felt about much of what has happened in the last two years. I’ve been silent about so much that I’m saying on this album. It’s time to Speak Now.”

“Scott freaked out. He loved it,” she wrote in April 2010. “We have a title, ladies and gentlemen!”

Photo: SPLASH 

"The Hunters Will Always Outnumber Me"

Swift also opens up about the lack of privacy that comes with being a celebrity — and how she’ll never get used to seeing “a group of people staring, amassed outside my house, pointing, camera phones up…”

“They could never imagine how much that feels like being hunted,” she wrote.

Swift compares her “mostly perfect life” to “being a tiger in a wildlife enclosure.”

“It’s pretty in there, but you can’t get out,” she described in the August 2013 note.

“No matter how big my house is or how many albums I sell, I’m still going to be the rabbit,” she added. “Because the hunters will always outnumber me. The spectators will stand by, shaking their heads, going ‘that poor girl.’ But the point is, they’re still watching. Everyone loves a good hunt.”

But her feelings about being “hunted” also translated into worrying about her generation’s obsession with taking photos “so that they can spend all day checking the comments underneath.”

“They will never truly experience a moment without attempting to capture it and own it,” she wrote, comparing pulling a flower from the ground to take photos. “Nevermind that picking a flower kills it, the same way taking a picture of a moment can ruin it altogether.”

Swift has notably kept comments off of her post to improve her mental health.

“I’m training my brain to not need the validation of someone telling me that I look 🔥🔥🔥,” she wrote in Elle. “I’m also blocking out anyone who might feel the need to tell me to ‘go die in a hole ho’ while I’m having my coffee at nine in the morning.”

Photo: AL MESSERSCHMIDT/GETTY

From Fearful to "Fearless"

Though Swift is now known for her jaw-dropping stage presence, as a young singer she wrote that she would “get stage fright every time I walk onto a stage.”

“I wish it wasn’t so, but I can’t blame my mind for freaking out about performances,” she wrote in 2010, days before releasing Speak Now. “Criticism of my performances has been the biggest source of pain in my life.”

“I sometimes feel like my college degree is in acting like I’m ok when I’m not,” wrote a 20-year-old Swift.

But even as a burgeoning singer at just 13, she would get hate while on stage. During one performance, her guitar pick broke in half and fell while she was playing.

“There was this huge silence! It was awful! I had to bend over and pick it up in front of everyone!” she wrote next to the broken pick. “And while I was singing, this guy was shouting stuff like, ‘Go on, b*#@! Sing that country bulls#*%! Go on motherf—!.’ It was awful.”

Photo: SCOTT GRIES/GETTY IMAGES

Done with Dieting

In her diaries, she also candidly writes about sticking to a diet as a teen.

Soon after Thanksgiving 2006, she returned to Nashville to her “own comfy bed” and planned to go out to eat with her best friend Abigail Anderson during a day off.  

“Oh and I’m dieting again,” she wrote right after.

“Over the holidays I didn’t watch what I ate and man its [sic] so weird how fast I can gain or lose weight… It’s crazy,” she ended the note. “So I’m going to lose some now.”

Earlier this year, she wrote about finally being okay with gaining weight.

“I learned to stop hating every ounce of fat on my body,” she wrote in Elle. “I worked hard to retrain my brain that a little extra weight means curves, shinier hair, and more energy.”

The “Daylight” singer also said that she’s constantly working on her body image.

“I think a lot of us push the boundaries of dieting, but taking it too far can be really dangerous. There is no quick fix,” she said. “I work on accepting my body every day.”

Photo: CHRISTOPHER POLK/GETTY IMAGES

"I'ma Let You Finish, But..."

“Ahh… the things that can change in a week…” wrote Swift in a Sept. 18, 2009 journal entry.

Five days had passed since Kanye West crashed Swift’s Video of the Year acceptance speech at the MTV Video Music Awards, but the whole ordeal was all she — and everyone else — could think about.

“If you had told me that one of the biggest stars in music was going to jump up onstage and announce that he thought I shouldn’t have won on live television, I would’ve said ‘That stuff doesn’t really happen in real life,’” she wrote.

“Well… apparently…. It does,” she ended the note.

Little did 19-year-old Swift know that West would cause more tumult in her life seven years later. In an August 2016 note, she simply wrote, “This summer is the apocalypse.”

The “apocalyptic” summer came when West referred to the singer as “that bitch”in his track “Famous” and featured a nude version of the “Shake It Off” singer in its accompanying video.

Then, Swift said she never approved of the lyric after his wife Kim Kardashianleaked a phone call conversation between the two singers.

“Being falsely painted as a liar when I was never given the full story or played any part of the song is character assassination,” she wrote then. That “Cruel Summer” ordeal would go on to inspire her sixth album, reputation.

Photo:  SPLASH NEWS

A Joe Alwyn “Love Story”

Like in Lover’s lyrics, Swift doesn’t hold back about her deep feelings for boyfriend Joe Alwyn in her personal diary.

Clearly writing about Alwyn, the singer confessed about wanting to keep their relationship under wraps as much as possible.

“I’m essentially based in London, hiding out trying to protect us from the nasty world that just wants to ruin things,” she wrote in a January 2017 note. “We have been together and no one has found out for 3 months now. I want it to stay that way because I don’t want anything about this to change or become too complicated or intruded upon.”

“But it’s senseless to worry about someday not being happy when I am happy now,” she concluded. “OK. Breathe.”

But Swift wasn’t always so sure about love being real — especially when it came to Valentine’s Day.

“I somehow feel like it’s my destiny to roll my eyes at happy couples and resent Valentine’s Day. I also feel like I’m the girl before ‘the one.’ I’m not ‘the one,’” she wrote at 19. “I’m the girl you think is the one for you, and when it doesn’t work out with me, you meet the next girl and realize she IS the one.”

And as a mere 13 year old, she imagined the first time she’d have her first kiss — and about being “such a romantic.”

“I just dream about looking into someone’s eyes and feeling something I’ve never felt before, you know?” she wrote. “I just never was able to put a face to my fantacy [sic]. But something tells me that my first kiss is really far away from happening!”

Photo:  LARRY BUSACCA/WIREIMAGE

The Night Before...

Before the 2014 Grammy Awards, Swift was confident her album Red would take home the biggest award of the night.

“It’s the middle of the night and I was at the Clive Davis party tonight which means… the Grammys are tomorrow,” she wrote. “Never have I felt so good about our chances. Never have I wanted something so badly as I want to hear them say ‘Red’ is the Album of the Year.”

Though she was up for four awards that year, Swift would head home empty handed.

Though she had won that award two years prior with Fearless, it wouldn’t be until her 2014 album 1989 that she’d take home the coveted prize again. In her 13-year career, Swift has won 10 Grammys from 32 nominations.

Photo:  MICHAEL LOCCISANO/FILMMAGIC

“This Might Be Worth Money Someday”

Though her diary entries are filled with some insight into the more complicated times in her life, the entries also feature some cute memories of her youth — including her middle school class schedule, some song lyrics and memories about listening to Sugarland for the first time.

Accompanied by drawings and the number 13, in her first journal entry, she signs her name and writes “(That could be worth money someday!! Just kidding hehe).”

Under “Journal #1,” a 13-year-old Swift writes a poem: “The world is as big as you make it / Never be shameful to fly / When a chance comes you should take it / May you never be scared of goodbye…”

After performing at a school talent show, Swift wrote: “I ❤ SCHOOL!”

Reminiscing on the grand day, Swift wrote, “I got a standing ovation and everything.”

People

I… I finished it… here she is… my princess…

For some context : as I was looking through my stuff while cleaning, I found an ooooold design of a ninja girl, unamed, no clues about her personality or past or abilities or NOTHING, and… My heart went kaboom??? I remembered how I love Classic Naruto, how ridiculously invested in the series I was, how disappointing Shippuden and especially the ending and The Last Movie were in comparison… and a ridiculous design of a preteen ninja with no context got my gears turning like woah. So I took that feeling in my soul and vaguely based myself on those crappy sketches to actually create an OC. In 2019. This is my life now.

I tried my best to copy the anime style (you can recognise the poses from Sarada’s reference sheet because damn, I really struggled without a model, so my apologies, it’s not original on that part, I consider myself with a more cartoonish style than anime) and make it clean and “professional”, and honestly, I feel satisfied with the results.

Allow me to add a few of her characteristics ! (WARNING : This is a shonen character so tragic backstory to justify mindsets is a must lol)

Family background : Her mother fell very ill when Eika was 7, which led to her heartbroken father to leave the village because he wasn’t strong enough to watch his love agonize, and after a few years of fighting it she passed away, when the girl was 11. Her grandparents had taken care of her since her father’s departure. They are loving, yet old-school in their beliefs and manners.

Likes music more than ninja stuff, walks around with her headphones on unless conversation is engaged (she may or may not be actually listening to music, be careful what you say when you think she’s not listening), if Queen exists in the Narutoverse this is 100 persent her jam, wished to be a composer but her Grandpa said no, she’s only lowkey upset by it, “dances around in her PJs in the morning” type of girl, writes song lyrics on her free time

Kenjustsu user (her wakizashi sword is built for one hand fighting style), she’s as good at swinging a sword around as playing guitar, she kind of loves Taijutsu as well but could use a training buddy to actually improve, paid attention in school and had pretty good marks until her mother passed and she stopped caring

Her mother taught her to always smile and think positive because “no one likes gloomy people”, so she tries to keep the smile up no matter what she feels, which makes her creepy when she’s really really mad (on rare occurences), and once in a blue mood you’ll catch her off guard with her cheeky facade dropped

Hates her father, the fact that he is still out there after his betrayal is basically the biggest reason she struggles to accept her mother’s gone, has trust issues because of him

Jokes and witty remarks, she’s good company, really chill, basically everyone’s acquaintance that makes people laugh, she lives to bring a smile on people’s face and she is proud of her ability to do so, just so playful

Constant bags under her eyes, has bad insomnia problems, will claim otherwise when confronted, hopes people don’t see through her game because she really doesn’t want to have to explain her crippling anxiety, tends to keep people at arm lenght when they pry too much, doesn’t have a lot of people she calls friend as a result

Patient, good listener, never really talks about personal shit (especially her family situation) but gets you to spill the beans

Reads people like open books, not the best at coming up with strategies but definetly capable to defuse yours no matter how many steps ahead you planned, enjoys being intellectually challenged, loves learning about everything and anything because the feeling of your brain filling up with knowledge is the best distraction from her own thoughts

I’ll keep drawing her. I know pretty dang well who her bestie from the main cast might be in term of personality-matching, but what would your guess be ?

So uhhhh I drew a lot of RWBY this year... only two of these are non RWBY and tbh I could have just as easily put something RWBY for June Template

Retrospective under the cut bc it’s LONG 

RETROSPECTIVE January: First piece of the year! I still like this piece and I think it shows how much I improved from the original version of it. Also I just like looking at it bc it's soft content of my rare pair. I do think I made the rose look photorealistic which looks... bad esp with all the other more stylized flowers, and I got lazy with the bleeding hearts by just drawing one set and flipping them. Emerald's hair also could look better. February:  I made this around GNG week, which was a fun, good time, long before the server imploded on itself. I got really lazy with the backgrounds, obviously, but I do like the poses in this one, tho it helped that I based it off of screenshots from Young Justice. I also just really like how Merc looks in this one. March: March wasn't a very prolific month for art, I don't think I produced much besides this and one comic piece for GNG week. I'm not sure why exactly, I can't find any specific reason why I would be unproductive that month. I'm gonna just assume I was drained from work all the time and didn't have the energy to put out good art, and also I was getting into a slump bc all my art was starting to look same-y. This piece isn't very good, but I chose it because I did it without a reference, and at this point that was going out of my comfort zone. It's obviously not super dynamic, but at the very least you can tell I intended there to be motion to it. April: This also wasn't a very prolific month for art, not as bad as March, but for the same reasons. I was also really starting to feel burnout from the RWBY fandom, specifically wasps and conflict within the GNG server. This was also when the Art vs the Artist meme was popular, and I realized I didn't want to do that meme because my art was too similar and boring, which also brought me down a peg. Though I put out a few good chibis in April, I chose my Mercury redesign bc I was really proud of it. I could never get the Emerald redesign to mesh quite right, but I can say I'm really proud of how Mercury's came out. May: May had me bounce out of my art slump and in full force trying to expand my skills! Specifically exploring painting. Although May was about as prolific as April, what I did create I put a lot into. It was difficult to pick between this and my app of Edison, because I'm really proud of both, but in the end I went with this commission of Mercury because I pushed myself to try and use an interesting perspective for the piece instead of my usual stand still and face the camera pose. Because I pushed myself out of my comfort zone, this was one of the best things I made all year, and may be my favorite piece of the year. June: TIME TO STRESS OUT ABOUT CONNECTICON! So if you follow me on twitter, you might have noticed I made a lot of posts at the beginning of the year low key throwing shade at myself for drawing my oc's instead of more "important" art. Well, that important art that I was procrastinating was con merch, and con was the second week of July, so I really had to get my ass in gear to finish merch on time (spoiler, I didn't finish a lot of it on time). This piece and July's piece are both posters I made for Connecticon, and while I like July's much better, that doesn't mean I find this piece bad. I really should have known that no one at con would realize it was a goonies reference tho -_-; I also lost a lot of love for this piece after season 6 of Voltron, which I watched while I was about 60% of the way through this piece, so I had to force myself to finish it. July: I love this piece!!!! Don't get me wrong, I know it has flaws, but look at it! The lines are so crisp, the colors look good, Roman and Merc's expressions are mwuah chefs kiss, and I just love all of them!!! ... except for Neo. I really didn't do her justice in this piece, her hair is too fluffy, her head is way to oversized to the point that she looks like a bobblehead, and her eyes are too close together. Really if you take out Neo's head that whole problem goes away. I also love all the tiny details I put in this one, from emerald's chaps to roman's rose to Neo's lace parasol. You can tell I was way more passionate about this piece than I was about the Voltron piece.  August:  pretty sure this is when I quit my job cashiering, and thank god bc customers suck. If I was going off of sheer popularity, Chibi Pyrrha would have taken this slot no contest, and while I love chibi Pyrrha, I don't think it was the best of the month. I chose this little princess and the pauper au doodle because I tried a year ago to draw these two dancing, and it looked like dog shit. It was flat and ugly. But this has motion to it, and even looking at it now makes me feel warm and happy inside. It's just a good cute drawing of my otp. September: My piece for the RWBY tarot project! I have a lot of mixed emotions about this one. on the one hand, I love how mercury looks, his expression, the lighting, the visceral gore from his legs (ESPECIALLY THE VISCERAL GORE ON HIS LEGS) and the hands of the undead, all look stunning and I don't think I could be more happy with how they turned out. And then we get to the background. The caduceus isn't the worst thing ever, but it's severely lacking in quality compared to the rendering on mercury in front of it, and a lot of it is clearly pixellated from me trying to stretch and squash it just right. And the fire is a hot (no pun intended) mess. It's flat, incoherent, and doesn't lead the eye anywhere. It's a shame too because I wanted to do more with it, but I a) didn't have enough time or patience to figure out what I needed to do to fix it and b) didn't want to go outside of my comfort level, so I gave up and decided to be satisfied with what I had. October: October was another good month for art, I made a turnaround sheet for Moss, painted a full body (and slightly lewd) Rudy, and made a decent attempt at inktober. Ok, so I got like 2 days in, but I improved a lot on inking from last year! Fun fact! this piece was originally going to be fan art of Lindsay Jones, but after I did some thumbnails to figure out a pose, I thought it would suit White Diamond better, and I could also sell it as merch. I love this piece. I think I captured the sinister mood well, and conveyed the story I wanted to without any dialogue (at least the notes on Tumblr make me assume I did a decent job, lotta people really wigged out lol) I really worked hard to get the lighting right on this one, and I think it shows. My absolutely favorite thing about this piece funnily enough, is Amethyst. I think I just did a great job drawing her and I'm proud of myself ok. Stevens bubble and my trouble figuring out how to get WD's leg just right are the only things that I dislike about this piece, but I might go back and fix those. November: IM SO PROUD OF THIS COMMISSION!!!!!! I worked so god damn hard on this chef's kiss poifect,  and it really shows. I started using a new brush at this point, the Ojing series on Clip Studio Paint, which I recommend and have been using a lot since. I've also been using this shading technique since drawing this. I love how it sort of fades out but it's still really crisp. I also love all the little details that give this piece character, like her shoes and the stripes on her jacket. This piece really takes a lot of the stuff I learned over the year and combines it into one piece, and I could not be prouder of it. I have absolutely no problems with this one, though I do find the weapon a bit plain, but it's what the client described. December: AND NOW IT'S CHRISTMAS!!!!! I had been working on this piece since August, going back to it every now and then and getting frustrated. I'm really glad I came back to it and finally finished it, since I love this pair and I put a lot of effort into it back in August. However, I'm also really glad I completely overhauled a lot of it, specifically the flowers. Though I'm not 100% happy with the mums in this one, they look a thousand times better than the mums I had originally sketched back in August, and were part of the reason I had such a hard time finishing this for months. I also thought it would be nice to end the year on the same note it started; with a flower couple. I've definitely learned a lot since January, and I hope to continue growing in 2019! 2019 GOALS!

Work on backgrounds for the love of god

Draw more stuff that isn't RWBY

Perspective

Make more speed paints and post more to youtube in general