#(also for artfight I only drew one thing last minute)

[dgdraws]

My art year in review!

I learned so much this year and made a ton of cool stuff! These are my favorites from each month, but it was so hard to choose. A lot of stuff didn't even get posted--I'll be sure to at least post the ones that made it to this list!

It's amazing to see how much I've changed and learned over this year, and to see the things that are emerging as part of "my style."

Here's to another year of delight, creation, connection and fun!

Some monthly reflections beneath the cut, but here's the highlights:

I participated in 3 art challenges, Artfight, OC-tober and Huevember.

I made fanart for the first time!

I created a piece I conceived of before I started drawing

Made some big breakthroughs in techniques and skills in April, July and November

January: My first branch into full character design, Rodd is the culmination of training on Hero Forge renders to make dnd portraits! I was doing this cool thing with neon rim lighting, I should bring that back!

February: I saw a piece on here with this amazing glowing effect, so I color picked it and experimented to figure out what relationship between the colors was making it do that! The answer was saturation. This rose is meant to be glowing from within, and I think I did a good job for my knowledge level at the time! As Chuck Tingle would tell us, it's beautiful because only I could have made it in that moment on the timeline.

March: I spent a million years on every detail of this one, it has at least 5 clipping overlay/saturation layers for lighting, multiple line work groups and I want to rework that background but! I never felt more accomplished than I did when I finished this one. I learned a lot, especially about things I could skip or simplify. And the symbolism really pops off ngl

April: I read Gideon the Ninth for the first time this month and I immediately needed to draw Jeannemary Chatur, Cavalier of the Fourth House, the worst teen to do it. She's the first fanart I ever made and posted! I also discovered a new pen tool with this one, which CHANGED THE GAME.

May: This one is an idea I had written down before I ever picked up the tablet and stylus. I thought I might commission someone to make it, the image of it came to me so clearly during our VTM session I just had to make it real somehow. Well I did it! This is one I will come back to redraw in like 5 years bc I love the concept so much. Also rife with symbolism and inside nods to the Low Kings.

June: I made a bunch of ref sheets in the run-up to Artfight in July. Caleb hadn't even been in my plans to upload, but I had time and inspiration! I will be uploading this and a few more of him <3

July: This is one of my faves from Artfight! This character is Blueberry, by way of OrchidEatsBread on artfight. I have still never played... rainworld? But I love me a slug cat. In July I drew a TON of people, it really drilled anatomy basics into me and how to get clothes looking like actual clothes a bit more. Also solidified some things I would consider "my style" at the moment, like no irises, and my approach to noses and mouths and fingers!

August: Another fanart for the Locked Tomb series, I never posted this!!! Will be rectifying that soon.

September: I got really into javascript and css this month, and I made this to be a landing page image on my neocities website XD I'll get back around to that eventually...

October: At the last minute, I discovered OC-tober and the prompts from @/bweirdart, a worthy follow up to the rush of Artfight two months previous. I developed so much stuff for the Low Kings, including this drawing/character, Amayah/Girl-Z, who has been a figment of my pintrest board for 2+ years.

Huevember: Chasing that OC-tober high, I found Huevember! I did not expect to actually do every day, but it proved to be an amazing exercise! I learned so, so much about color, discovered amazing new brushes and techniques and found I really enjoy working in those one day capsules! I loved a lot of the stuff that came out of this month, including my highest note post ever!!!, but this one is still my phone background and I'm maybe developing an OC world around it. We'll see what happens in 2024.

December: I got hit HARD with the writing bug this month, so this was my only choice for this month but I WOULDA CHOSEN IT ANYWAY. I unlocked something here that I'm really excited to visit again, in fact I'm working on a companion piece rn! This is also fanart btw, prepare for me to get even weirder about this guy in the coming months.

If you've read this far, thank you so much! I have so much fun writing these little reflections and making my posts on here.

xoxo, wren

[frankhightower]

2023 year in review

I was feeling a little burnt out, so I decided to do one of those "my artistic journey this year" things—if there ever was a year to do this with, it's this one! I couldn't figure out what template everyone was using to make them, though, so I decided to make my own! January We start the year off with Aggretsuko Chess, an idea that completely hijacked my brain out of nowhere. Though I was strongly tempted to put here things I'd been working on during the new year like the Lapras commission, Aggretsuko Chess was almost entirely contained in January (granted, it would be April before I drew Gori as the rook, but five out of six ain't bad!) February The daily pokémon sketch for Wrenchthower acts here as a stand-in for the daily pokémon sketch in general. I find the fact that we crossed into the Gen II pokédex numbers quite significant! March Hello and welcome to the first annual size drive! (represented here by page 2). This wasn't, of course, the only thing going on in march, but I'd never done an art drive of any sort before! April Moushley! I really wanted to put The Chipmunk Challenge here but nothing comes close to the virality of Moushley, and maybe nothing ever will. May May marks the first time I publicly opened for commissions with a proper price sheet, both a general opening and one specific to pokémon only. The Pokéball Mouse went on to not only be the symbol of this opening, it also became my profile picture everywhere! June Although my focus in June was on the Pride Month YCH, it was also when I first made a proper refsheet! July Artfight! I chose this "return of fire" for TyloTheOwl for considering it most in the spirit of Artfight. August In August, my focus was on the TF drive (here represented by the promotional coloring of page 10, to the point I vowed not to draw my mouse again until it was done. The breakage of my tablet made it very interesting but we got through it! September More commissions! represented here by Jespe's. October While October was the month I faced the scammer, it's not what I want to remember that month by. The Pokémon Adopts on the other hand (represented here by Soraxel's Raichu), being the first time I did adopts? Now that's something worth remembering it by! November I tried a lot of new things in November, none of which really worked, but the community came though in the last minute, and for that, I'm Thankful December And now we're in the Pokémon TF drive (represented here by page 2), another first!

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