#this drawing program is so hard to use for me like ive been using gimp for literal years | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

espytalks · 5 years ago

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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.

#espy talks

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zaptap · 5 years ago

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2011 vs 2019

thats close enough for a “beginning of the decade vs the end of the decade” post right? one year some people consider the first of it, and one year others consider the last

the rest of this post got long so im putting it under a cut but it boils down to “from making bionicle sprite comics to... starting to make comics again?!”

i first learned how to do vector art in 2010 so it’s been about a decade of that now, wow! back then i was using powerpoint, oddly enough

that was back when i was doing bionicle sprite comics, and only a handful of you on here have known me since then. tbh those were probably the best years of my life so far (minus the part where my friends and i got in trouble for making jokes on our private forum about a 12 year old bulgarian kid who made nazi comics but HEY thats too big of a story to get into here)

i loved making all the stuff for my comics (and making bionicle sprites) and i made a lot of friends throughout that time too. the main reason i stopped in 2012 is i wanted to focus on more original content instead of having the stuff i made all be derived from bionicle... but i didnt really know what that was so without any clear sense of purpose i just ended up doing nothing for a while. probably my biggest mistake of the decade tbh

anyway i hope my life ends up that good again someday! and ive decided that in 2020 i will start making comics again! theres some ideas i came up with a few years ago for an original story and i recently started thinking about it again and it really feels like it’s coming together!

theres going to be an extra challenge of having to actually draw stuff all the time instead of copying and pasting sprites (or vectors, since i just drew each part i needed once and stuck the parts together the same way i did with sprites) but whats art without challenge? some of my best work has come from times when i was like “that sounds like it’s gonna be hard to make... ok now i have to do it”

the more i draw the easier itll get and ive known this for years and ive been trying to make it a habit to draw regularly for years but it just hasnt happened!

and i think it’s because i havent had a purpose to drive me toward that habit. i was thinking about my bionicle comics all the time. i kept learning new skills in gimp and other programs and pretty much learning to draw as a whole just in the process of working on this thing i was doing

and at last, after almost 8 more years, i think ive got another thing to fill that void in my life. im being intentionally vague about the exact contents of it because this post is primarily a look backward, not forward, but hopefully it wont be long before i start making the actual comics. ive been spending a lot of time planning but im a huge overthinker and sometimes you just need to jump into something. itll work out in the end. maybe the first few comics will look bad, but as i get more experience theyll be better

i guess the big problem with my artistic ability has been like... im too much of a perfectionist? i can draw and end up with things that i like but only after putting a LOT of time and energy into it. theres definitely ways i can focus on improving this, like doing sketches where i have time limits or something like that.

that can also help me get into the habit of drawing more regularly because so far ive been in the mindset of “well if i dont have like 5 hours of completely uninterrupted time to spend drawing then im just not going to draw i guess”

and one last note: that octoling drawing is technically still unfinished because i prioritized the parts that would be visible when i made it into an icon, so thats why the pants and shoes are kind of flat and sloppy looking compared to the rest of it. was also going to have some ink splatters and a shadow and maybe even a background but whatever this drawing isnt getting finished ive moved on to a new octoling (which hopefully wont take too much longer to do)

#art attack

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