#kinda art blocked lately but at least dragons are easy enough to draw

[raveartts]

turt

[howaboutalittlehelpneos]

YGO! Questionnaire

Tagged by @cipher-wise

Pleasantly surprised to be in one of these, so let’s go

Favorite series: *Gestures to icon* Is it any surprise I’ll be picking GX? I love GX with all my heart and soul. The story’s pacing is very good and never feels like it’s dragging its feet to get to where it’s going, most duels are over in less than a full episode with the longest one being three, there are so many good characters to get invested in, and this boy right here is your protagonist.

Look at him blow kisses to the audience after beating Crowler, how could anyone not love Jaden Yuki? I care him so much. Even the filler episodes in GX are pretty fun to watch most of the time, and it’s the good kind of filler that may not advance the plot much or at all, but it’ll give you plenty of good memories to take with you. Who could possibly forget the eggwich thief? Not to mention the soundtrack fucking slaps.

Favorite protagonist: I mean...

Yeah it’s Jaden. GX hooked me immediately when I started watching it because of how much I loved this boy. He’s that perfect mix of cocky and sweet when it comes to dueling because he’s confident in his own abilities, but he never stops having fun and being amazed at what his opponent can do, he cares about all of his friends and does his best to help them with their problems, he’s kind to strangers, and he has exactly half a brain cell. 

I feel the gif speaks for itself, but Jaden’s dialogue when he turns around here is “I’m such a sucker for things like this! I’ll help you, ma’am!” Dorothy says “No, you’ll be late... Don’t you have a test today?” And Jaden replies with “Who cares if I’m late? I couldn’t leave a lady in trouble!” Jaden Yuki is my absolute favorite protagonist.

Favorite rival: Oh man is that a tough one. Am I allowed to pick two? It’s a hard call to make between this dumb edgy bitch-

And this dumb gay bitch

Honestly they’re tied for favorite rival in my book. I absolutely loved Chazz when I watched GX, and I thought his arc about breaking through his inferiority/superiority complex and learning to accept loss as a part of life without letting it define him was wonderfully written, and seeing him grow as a person throughout the show just made me feel happy for him. Shark... I really thought I wasn’t going to end up liking Shark at first, but god he just gets so much better as Zexal goes on, starting out as this mean spirited middle school bully in episode one, and slowly ending up as Yuma’s boyfriend closest friend. It’s incredible to look back at how Shark acts when he’s first introduced and compare it to... season 3, I think it was, where just hearing the words “Yuma’s in danger” is enough to send him running to his rival’s side. Chazz and Shark. They are my favorites.

Favorite BFF: Him

Crow Hogan is an absolute treasure and he was my favorite part about watching 5Ds. This little bird man first gets introduced by stealing cards for his kids and clowning on Sector Security, and he’s a source of so much good throughout the show. Excellent best friend (technically brother but I’m counting him), wonderful father, 10/10 person all around. Plus the fact that the only thing stopping him from berating his bitchass brother even more was Yusei having to literally pick him up and pull him away is definitely extra points in my book. What a powerful little bird. His only weakness is people that are taller than him, which is unfortunately most people.

Favorite GFF:

Yuzu. Have I actually watched Arc V yet? No, but I’m still picking Yuzu for my number one here. Tea and Tori are just awful characters, I’m neutral towards Alexis, and Akiza... Did have potential to be something interesting on her own, despite how uncomfortable she made me in seasons 1-2 of 5Ds, but her relevance is alllll downhill from there. I’ve seen one clip of Yuzu yelling at a man eating pie and calling him a 100th rate duelist, and that was all I needed to know she would be my favorite. (Clip here) 

Favorite villain: Oh boy

The fuckin carrot is my favorite villain, and I say this as someone who fully believes he didn’t deserve to be in the last episode. Vector did some fucked up shit in his day, and he only continued to do fucked up shit in Yuma’s day, but I have to say he was pretty effective when it came down to his goals. He got things done and went right for what he wanted by taking direct action to seize Don Thousand’s power, and he manipulated Yuma perfectly by preying on his kind nature and love for Astral to use him to further his goals. 

...Plus I mean just look at his subbed dialogue God he’s such a slut. Evil slutty alien.

Tl;dr Vector was a horrible horrible person, but he was a good villain, and he was so entertaining whenever he was on screen that it was impossible not to like him. Still kinda wish he got what he deserved though, and what he deserved definitely wasn’t another chance.

Speaking of Don Thousand though, can we talk about how unfairly pretty he is? If I had to pick a runner up villain in terms of looks alone, it would definitely be him.

God it was not fair how pretty the big bad of Zexal was. He’s fucking gorgeous, and in my opinion, the best looking villain at the very least.

Favorite card: *Sweats in Duel Links* Favorite? There’s so many cards out there to pick from, but since I’ve already broken the rules with my two favorite rivals, I’ll be picking two of each card type: Spells, traps, and monsters. One for the aesthetic, and one for how often I make use of it.

First up, the Aesthetics group

What can I say, Vampiric Koala is such a cutie, Dwimmered Path has some really pretty card art, and Rainbow Life is an eternal flex on any heteros I may encounter while playing Duel Links. Nothing better than a gay trap card.

Now for usability

Dragon Knight of Creation is suuuper helpful in any dragon themed deck and has a permanent slot in my decks for Mokuba and Kaiba, PoG is always a fun way to boost up weak monsters to ridiculous heights, and Dark Bribe just lets you block your opponent like “Okay I know you wanna hurt me but I will let you draw another card if you do not do that thing”, and they can’t refuse you.

Favorite episode: I’ll be copying cipher’s format here and picking one for each series, but this will still only total out to five for me since I’ve yet to watch past Zexal ^^; Soon I’ll get to Arc V! One day...

Season 0: Episode 16:  Turnabout by a Hair's Breadth - The White-Robed Crisis I’m a sucker for my son Joey, and this was a good Joey episode about him and his sister, plus it was nice seeing that doctor get what he deserved :) Duel Monsters: Season 5, episode 12-14:  The Deciding Match for Duel King - Yugi vs. Leon/Golden Castle of Stromberg/KC Grand Prix Ends  Probably a weird batch of episodes to pick, I know, but a lot of DM was kinda forgettable to me, and these are some of the few episodes I do recall. I just... really felt for Leon’s situation, and I wanted good things for that boy. I care him. GX: Season 3, episode 34: Dark Fusion! Inferno Wing!! Jim. Jim Jim Jimmmmm. This was the episode that finally made me understand why saviorshipping was a thing because it hits you with all these memories Jim has of Jaden and shows how they bonded before all this Dark World shit happened, and the whole thing was very emotional. 5Ds: Season 4, episode 2-3:  Recollections, Entrusted with a Friend's Dying Wish God Crow, my precious bird son. I really liked the backstory they gave him, despite how much it hurt. It was probably the best character development he got in the whole of 5Ds, and let you see a side to him you probably wouldn’t expect. I loved watching him get his justice. Zexal II: Season 2, episode 5-6:  Alito the Silent Fighter - Reunion of the Passionate Duelists!/ Be Revived! The Duelist Soul That Transcends Life!! I picked these episodes for Nistro and Nistro alone. He was one of my absolute favorites in Zexal, and seeing how well he and Dextra were doing was good for the soul. Just look at this good lion man right here.

Look at him!!!

Favorite decks to use: Elemental Heroes, Aromages, Red Eyes, Six Samurai, and Crystal Beasts.

Fusion, Ritual, Synchro, Xyz, Pendulum, or Link: I’m a simple girl, I love fusion/tributes for how easy they are, but synchro can be pretty fun, too

Years in fandom: ??? Even I don’t know the answer to this one, friends. I used to be in the fandom when I was in middle school, wrote/read a few fanfics here and there, but then I fell out of it for... Well I’m 22 now and only got back into things 6 months ago? I started rewatching the abridged series of Duel Monsters in March, and from there I just wanted to consume actual Yugioh content and never went back.

Who am I tagging: @finding-fallen-petals @dizziedaikonn​ @chazzaroo​ Go wild y’all

[davidplusworld]

I finished Inktober 2019!

When I started it this year, I really wasn’t sure if I could finish it. This past month or so was one of the busiest in recent memory. However, I did it. Not sure how I succeeded, but I think that putting all my other blogs on hold was pretty much the only way I could.

Just like last year, I’m going to write some sort of debriefing with some final thoughts about each drawing. You’ll see that time often was a deciding factor for quite a few drawings.

All the drawings can be seen on the same page there:

https://www.davidplusworld.com/portfolio/inktober-2019/

Otherwise, links to each specific post are below, along with

a few thoughts about each drawing

1 – Ring – It was the first drawing, so I didn’t want to draw something difficult, fail and then lose the little confidence I had gained right at the beginning (I’m really at that stage where I have gained some confidence about drawing, but not enough to actually be “confident” about the whole thing). I also didn’t want to draw a ring (the kind you put on a finger), so I chose this simple design of an alarm. In retrospect, the design was maybe a bit too simple, but that’s probably what I needed at that moment. I remember being very afraid to struggle and fail from the beginning.

2 – Mindless – One of my first attempts at doing a caricature of someone alive and famous (well, I did another one in 2018). When I finished it, I was happy that I managed to do it. Now, a little bit than a month later, I think it could have been much better. Does it mean that I improved and gained confidence during this month? Maybe.

3 – Bait – I was still finding my footing I guess. I found this simple – but not too simple – design (really two drawings I merged into one). I wanted to keep things easy because I knew some challenges were coming.

4 – Freeze – First real challenge. I used a video tutorial for most of the drawing. I’m glad that I managed to do it, but I find the final result a bit stiff and lacking life. However, it is fitting due to the topic, so not a huge problem.

5 – Build – Who would have thought that my first big trouble would come with a few geometrical forms? I feel that I’ve drawn blocks many times in the past, but that probably was in high school, about 30 years ago! Or maybe that’s because the paper was not lined paper? I don’t know, but they gave me one hell of a time, and the final result is a much more simplified version than what I originally had in mind. The result is “cute” though.

6 – Husky – The first drawing of this year’s Inktober that I’m actually proud of. Sure, it doesn’t exactly look like the real thing, and there are some parts I wish I had done differently, but overall, I consider it a success.

7 – Enchanted – The previous drawing took quite some time to draw, so I decided for a much quicker design for this one. It actually turned out much better than planned. So, great, I guess.

8 – Frail – What took me a long time was to find what to draw. I’m not even sure this drawing fits the prompt well. When I finished it I was pretty happy with it (but it’s probably because I managed to draw something), but now, I think that it’s a bit too simple, not sure.

9 – Swing – Last year, I drew a smurf quite successfully (with a video tutorial). Could I draw another famous cartoon character? Without a tutorial this time? Well, I guess I can (even if some scaling is a bit messy).

10 – Pattern – When I say that I almost didn’t draw in the past 20 years before last year, it’s not completely true. From time to time I like to doodle some abstract designs. This was the occasion to include one of them to Inktober. Also, I “know” how to draw these and they don’t take too long. I knew I would be needing a lot of time for the next one.

11 – Snow – I just can’t draw people in a realistic fashion. This is probably the drawing I like the least this year, and it’s a shame because I spent a lot of time on it, and I thought the sketch I drew before inking it was kind of OK. Oh well. Still, I need to learn how to draw people, but I will probably need a certain number of tutorials.

12 – Dragon – Two difficult drawings back to back but I’m actually impressed how well I managed to draw this one. It’s probably the drawing I’m the proudest of this year. I never thought it would be a success, especially right after the disappointing previous one.

13 – Ash – Back to a simpler design from lack of time and ideas. It’s actually not bad at all, don’t you think?

14 – Overgrown – I had no time at all for this drawing, so it’s a simplified version of what I had in mind, which was basically a landscape made of rocks and/or concrete with one single flower surviving and growing no matter what. The idea is there, but I feel that this drawing could have had a stronger impact if I could have spent more time on it.

15 – Legend – Not really a drawing at all, just an idea. I had no time and no idea for a drawing that I could actually do, hence this replacement “map.” You can call it a cop-out, I won’t disagree.

16 – Wild – This is one of the drawings I’m the proudest of this year (except for the tail). I find the technique used by Maurice Sendak very interesting and I tried to reproduce it. And I think we can call it a success. I especially like it, because despite not being the original intent, I found myself using hashing quite often when doing various shadings and this is all the wild things are about in terms of the way they’re drawn.

17 – Ornament – I find this one quite interesting and, in retrospect, much better than my original feeling about it. I just talked about using hashing for shading, but for this one, I wanted to try another technique. I started with a youtube tutorial for drawing a sphere. The tutorial was only using pencils. I tried to figure out how to do something similar but with inks. The result may be a little too dark for a Christmas ornament (or maybe it’s for a gothic Christmas), but the result is actually not bad at all. Ironically, I’m usually not a big fan of drawings with a painting feel like this one.

18 – Misfit – I did have a few ideas for this drawing but no time at all, so I just did this in a few minutes. It’s neither bad no good. Of course, it’d be better if I had spent more time on it. Also, today, I regret not doing the opposite. A “weirdo” among many normal “boring” faces is almost a cliché. One normal boring face surrounded by weirdos would have been more interesting when thinking about it.

19 – Sling – For this one, my time constraint kinda played in my favor. As I didn’t want to spend time looking for an original or interesting idea, I just drew a literal sling. And the result is quite good actually.

20 – Tread – This is pretty much the only idea that came to mind. The drawing could be better, but as there was no model to follow, I had to “design” it myself. In any case, I’ve always felt iffy about this “don’t tread on me” thing even before it was taken over by fascists and white supremacists. Now? Yes, we need to do all we can to tread on them, indeed.

21 – Treasure – Another map. This one was one of my two original ideas for this prompt. I meant to detail it much more (as far as treasure maps go), but I totally failed my first attempt (it was OK until I started adding colors) and – as often – I didn’t have the time for another complex attempt (especially as it could have been a failure too). One small disappointment, no one “got it.” Yes, this map is some sort of easter egg (albeit a quite obscure one, I admit) and no one noticed on social media. 😦 Oh well… (I’m not going to tell what it is, just in case someone finds out one day).

22 – Ghost – After drawing Jon Snow earlier, of course, I had to draw “his” Ghost (he’s not a pet, I know). I used a tutorial to draw a wolf. I’m glad I managed to do it, but it does look stiff and lacks life, like the baby from “freeze”. Oh well. Something to keep in mind with these tutorials.

23 – Ancient – I’m glad I got to draw this. Take it as my homage to some of the most amazing drawings ever. I’ve always been fascinated by Lascaux and other prehistorical caves, and not only because I grew up nearby. Those are some of the first artworks ever, and of course, we’ll never know who did them. If we could meet them, we’d be unable to communicate with them. And yet, their art speaks to us, tens of thousands of years later. Nothing symbolizes the power of art more than this. If I had been a better artist I would have drawn the actual wall and all, but I like the idea of only reproducing the painting itself.

24 – Dizzy – First I had no idea what to draw. Then, the idea of drawing Lucille 2 from Arrested Development came to mind, and I knew she was the right thing to draw. Now, I’m totally incapable to draw Liza Minnelli in a satisfying fashion. I found a caricature of her younger self and tried to age her a little bit. One friend recognized her, so I guess it’s not so bad.

25 – Tasty – Around this time, I knew that if I wanted to not fall behind and still do all the other things I needed to do, I’d have to go the fast and easy route. I could have chosen to just be very late at finishing Inktober, but actually trying to make acceptable drawings fast was an interesting challenge in itself. A useful one too, one reason I didn’t draw as much as I wanted to during this past year was that I rarely had the time to spend a couple of hours or more on a drawing.

26 – Dark – I struggled to find ideas for this one when I remember that my kids are always scared of walking through this corridor at night without turning the lights on because it’s dark, even when the rooms are lit. So, that’s what I draw. I didn’t try to be totally accurate and had fun with the hashing, and it worked out quite well in the end.

27 – Coat – Another difficult prompt. I didn’t want to draw a coat, that’s for sure, so I thought about the other meanings of the word and ended up drawing my hometown’s coat of arms. It looks strange in black and white. I’m not exactly satisfied, but it was the last stretch, I had little time and I wasn’t too interested in this prompt. I should revisit later the idea of drawing coats of arms, though.

28 – Ride – Probably my most “ambitious” drawing this year. Well, I had to drastically simplify it compared to the original, but in the end, I didn’t mess it up, so that’s a win.

29 – Injured – One of these drawings where for a while I simply have no idea what to draw, but when I suddenly found it, it became the only choice. I had to draw the scene from another drawing, not from the actual picture; for some reason, it seems almost impossible to find a good quality picture of that scene on the internet. I think I did alright. Oh, a weird anecdote; on Instagram, a preteen commented “OK boomer” on that drawing? To what I can only answer: “dafuck?”

30 – Catch – Another uninspiring prompt. I drew it in a few minutes, just trying to get it over with. At least I didn’t mess it up with colors this time. I thought that was the end of it when a little surprise awaited me shortly after posting it on Reddit. You’ll see in a few paragraphs.

31 – Ripe – I’m actually very pleased with this drawing. Some friends told me that I have improved a lot since last year. Looking at last year’s drawings, I think they’re right, and this final one is the perfect example. Sure, I still need a model – there is no way I can draw this from scratch – but it is a decent drawing indeed. And even more important, for many drawings, I just try something and hope it works. For this one, I feel like I knew what I was doing the whole time, so yeah! A great ending indeed.

We’re “almost” finished. I told you what drawings I liked or disliked. I’m also curious about what you think. Do not hesitate to tell me in the comments.

Also, as they were posted on various social media, they have been ranked by people.

Let’s check those rankings.

Reddit

I’m not sure “upvotes” on Reddit are an accurate way to rank drawings for a bunch of reasons. Upvotes will depend on many random factors (what time the drawing is posted, what is posted at the same time, and so on). Also, you may have noticed that a lot of my drawings this year are inspired by pop culture. I didn’t plan it this way, it just happened. However, it’s true that it makes it easier to find ideas, as well as visualize them, not mentioning finding decent models. Of course, Reddit being what it is, some drawings will get more upvotes, not because they’re better or more interesting, but because they’ll depict things that are popular on Reddit.

  #1 – 213 upvotes!

I’m very surprised by the success of this drawing, but I really think it comes from the popularity of Pokémon Go on Reddit and not anything else.

#2 – 56 upvotes

#3 – 30 upvotes

#4 – 12 upvotes

#3 – 30

I also think that Ride has been overrated because of its subject. The other ones probably deserve their stop in the top five.

  Instagram

Let’s see what my followers on Instagram think. It may give more “accurate” scores, as people liking the drawings are a mix of my followers (note that my Instagram account is Japan-heavy in terms of content) and people who have found my drawings through hashtags.

#1 – 47 likes

It’s not a surprise at all that Dragon was the winner on Instagram. First, it probably is my best drawing this year, but also – as mentioned a few lines above – most of my followers follow me for my pictures about Japan.

#4

#3 – 30 likes

#3 – 30

#5 – 28

And if my followers follow me mostly for pictures in Japan, they especially follow me for the Setouchi Triennale, so it’s totally normal that Husky arrives in the second position. I am surprised to find Catch again near the top, I guess people really like this drawing after all.

I posted my drawings on Facebook and Twitter too, but they didn’t garner many likes, shares or retweets. One reason can be that I didn’t actually post the drawings but links to the posts here. So what we could check is the traffic for the posts. There is a major caveat. The number of views doesn’t reflect in any way whether people liked the drawing or not. More often than not, it reflects how well ranked in search engines the post is. So, with this in mind, let’s check what my Google Analytics tell me.

And indeed the results are very different from anywhere else:

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

Indeed, I don’t think that it’s a coincidence that the top five is composed of the first three entries as well as two prompts for which one can easily imagine people googling for ideas. One interesting thing is that my old (and out-of-date for some) “Ask a Frenchman” posts usually hog the top ten for most viewed pages on my site, but in October, all of those five drawings were in the top 10 (with Frail placing number two). Interestingly, some of those posts do rank on Google’s page one when you search “Inktober frail” and so on.

I guess that’s all for this year’s Inktober “debriefing”. The blog is going to be quieter in the coming weeks, I do have a lot of catch up to do with Setouchi Explorer. However, sooner or later expect activity here in the form of drawings, pictures or something else.

Cheers.

      Inktober 2019 – The End I finished Inktober 2019! When I started it this year, I really wasn't sure if I could finish it.