#i'm sad I didn't get to any of the suptober prompts

[aerialworms-art]

October wrap-up

So! October is at an end! And I have not finished Spocktober/Trektober. Let's see how I did!

My goals for the month were:

To have fun :3

To get used to finishing drawings

To get used to posting them, too!

To have fun :3

To improve my sketching and lineart skills

To end up with a bunch of finished drawings (of Spock!!!) :3

To let go of a bit of my perfectionism

TO HAVE FUN :3

So how do I think I did?

Having fun:

I had a lot of fun with it this year! In previous years, I've pretty much immediately devolved into an anxious mess because there were too many options and I bit off more than I could chew. This time around, thanks to my guidelines (only inking, not spending too much time on each day, sketching and thumbnailing in advance), it was a lot easier to let loose and have fun thinking up ideas and enjoying the process. Plus, I let my friends know I was doing it this time around and got encouragement and support, which was lovely.

Getting used to finishing drawings:

I did better at this than I thought I would! There are several drawings I've finished this month that I would have given up on if not for this goal. Do I think they were all my best work? No. Did I learn from the process? Yes! And some of the ones that have gotten the most notes were ones I thought no-one would like and struggled to finish. So! I also figured out new ways of motivating myself to finish things, which is also very helpful.

Getting used to posting things:

Also went better than I thought! Although I didn't manage to maintain a cushion of queued posts like I wanted to, the response I've gotten from actually posting my art has been amazing! I've gained several new followers (hello!!) and gotten so many nice comments, and went from being afraid of posting anything to tentatively looking forward to people's reactions, which is a huge improvement for me. Getting that accountability of posting publicly also helped keep me going when I felt like giving up - seeing my friends laugh when I showed them my silly comics or getting nice comments really made me feel like sharing my art is worthwhile. So thank you to everyone who reblogged my art, commented, liked, etc. I'm glad you did!

Improving sketching and lineart:

I definitely think I improved my art skills. Getting into the habit of thumbnailing really helped take the pressure off the sketching phase, and trying so many different ideas pushed me out of my comfort zone and forced me to try drawing things I wasn't so confident on - look how many hands I drew!!!! As for the lineart, I think I've gained a bit more experience in using pens, although I did buy a whole new set of them halfway through the month which put me on a new learning curve. Lineart's never been a huge favourite of mine, and I do miss using my tablet to do lineless art, but the nature of the challenge did help me to loosen up and experiment to keep my mind engaged the whole time.

To end up with a bunch of finished drawings of Spock:

Check! I have 14 finished drawings, with another four sketched and needing inking, plus a whole load of thumbnails to work from in future. I may go back and add colour to some of the days for funsies, but there's several that I can just put on my wall as-is and be proud :)

To let go of a bit of my perfectionism:

I definitely did! Like I said, there's a few of the ones I've posted that I'm not too proud of and know I could do better on, but I've spent all month purposely smacking my hand away from perfectionism, and I know I've tried my best given my limitations. I'm still proud of myself for getting this far, and for posting when I was anxious, and for improving my skills, and now I get to stick up my art on my wall and be proud of it! I'm not magically cured by any means, but I do have a bit more evidence that perfection is not a good goal to pursue, so I'm going to keep this experience in mind for the future.

So what now?

I do have thumbnails for almost all of the rest of the prompts. I am doing NaNoWriMo this month, and I have a digital piece that I want to finish for the 5th (holy shit. three years.) So I think I'll take a little pause on these prompts, but I don't want to stop. I'll keep coming back to them, and keep posting them, until I run out of prompts or motivation, whichever comes first. I've really enjoyed seeing people's reactions to my Star Trek art, especially the comics! I also have a backlog of SPN fanart I want to post, so I'll probably queue some of that to come out soon.

TL;DR: Watch this space!

And if you've been following along/commenting on/reblogging my art this month (or anytime), thank you so much! It's folks like you that make sharing art worthwhile!