#may increase the contrast of the shading of hands bc you cannot see

[five-thousand-loaves-of-bread]

i have the “don’t zoom in and everything will be fine” syndrome

[id: screenshot of procreate. an incomplete anime style feminine presenting person, with light blue hair, navy flowy cape, and fair skin. end id]

[hunny-pp]

How are you even alive?! I mean you post art like idk a fucking jet or something. Srsly how.....HOW? Like....u post them so fast.....BUT WHY DO THEY LOOK SO PERFECT. I need to know your secret. (P.S: if you go to school or (hehehe weston) College or something else with annoying people that tell you what to do in your future .....I swear to God....you're not a human....YOU'RE AN ALIEN)

Ahaha I felt like I was going to get a question like this sooner or later!! My secret is that I’m already dead nyeheheh

Nah but I feel like going in depth with this, so I’ll split my ‘secrets’ into two halves - how I draw and how I manage my academic workload. I do not have much tips, and all the things I’m trying to increase my productivity are still going on trial - I’m still seeing if it works for me. 

And that’s the key phrase: it works for me.

Now as for how I draw so quickly and so often. I cannot explain much but a lot of people from what I’ve gathered say I draw fast. I can’t really explain how or why but it may come from practice or from watching a lot of speedpaints and having jittery hands - I dunno! ( Also if you wanna practise drawing fast, try drawing fast with pen - I use ballpoint pens bc it’s what I use for school, puts you on a ‘no going back’ position ).

For drawing digitally, I’m still new to my colouring style and I’m in an experimenting phase with it. I have a process gif that basically explains how I colour. 

Sketch ==> Backgrounds ==> Base colours/Blocking ==> Large details and light shading ==> Final details/embellishments

The longest bit is either base colouring or sketching, sketching takes long bc I use thumbnails, figure out anatomy, clean up the sketch because this is technically my guide for colouring. 

Blocking takes long because I have to be neat with different sections of the piece (skin, clothes 1, clothes 2, hair) but I also have to review if the colours works together and contrast from the background - I remember my modern P4/S4 took a while in figuring out a good colour palette. 

As for my workload management, in past years I’ve followed a tip(?) my dad told me and has been allowing me to achieve high in school. It’s basically,

“Do all your work as soon as you can so you have all the free time you want.”

It’s a bit of a no-brainer but it really helps me. However this year, I know I have to do more than just that!

I’m a student in a private school (it calls itself a college ;) ), and I’m in yr10, in that year, I have my first set of semester exams. I study two languages (French & Indonesian), so vocab revision is crucial (’wow Pastel not art????’ I love French and I like Indonesian and languages take up both semesters lmao). I also have to revise for fencing!! Because I am taking a coaching course that will have theory tests.

So I have to fit in all this with drawing out all the ideas that flood my head, requests and a weekly to fortnightly webcomic! Holy shit, I’m busier than we all initially thought!!

My first trial technique is using a weekly planner/pseudo-bullet journal. 

I’ve always used to-do lists, I find that they help me more than using schedules because I pay attention to progress, not time. But I’m using a weekly planner in order to prioritise which subjects need to be studied on certain days, I put my to-do list on the bottom in order to remember what I have to do in particular. It also pushes me to allocate times to draw rather than grabbing the tablet at any time I please.

It’s only the first week into using one and I’m still getting used to maintaining it. 

The second trial technique is having a rewards system.

It benefits me especially because I work by progress, so it is basically where I can reward myself by drawing one of my ideas or something self indulgent, (or video games or dicking around on tumblr). I reward myself after doing smaller tasks at once or doing one big tasks. 

And it’s not just for academics, I use it for requests and my comic too.

Tl;Dr: I draw fast, my friends hate me bc I’m productive(tm) and I’m an alien.