After about half a month of on and off work, I've finally finished what was supposed to be a drawing to wrap-up this hectic year-long challenge (AKA: Day 366). Wished I had planned it a little better, but better late than never. I almost wanted to redo most of the drawing because of the shading I did on Ryjer, but I also didn't want the drawing to be delayed any longer.
What started as nothing more than something to pass the time while giving myself a challenge that was inspired by Telepurte's animation challenge, became a little hobby of mine that allows me to express how I feel and learn new things at a quicker pace compared to when I'd tinker with computer all day.
I started this challenge barely being able to draw something human-like and I only had one character (I'll call him Bob), but within this one year, I got better at drawing both the male and female anatomy, nature, drawing cartoon characters, and even dabbling into different styles. Would I call my art good? Not quite. The humanoid characters especially, those need to go back to the drawing board. However, with the simpler characters (the ones on the right side and Bob) I feel like I'm not too far off from something great.
This whole challenge wasn't even supposed to be public to begin with, but once I realized how good I was getting by Day 20, I made the decision to make it all public on Twitter starting on Day 25, and later once I realized how little traction I was getting on Twitter over 200 days later I was left with two options: post on DeviantArt, or post on Newgrounds.
One was a very nostalgic website with a cool mascot, and the other had Tom Fulp.
As you can see I chose Newgrounds because unlike DeviantArt, I felt like I actually knew the person running the site (it also felt cleaner too...in more ways than one), and with a dump truck full of art I submitted every piece one-by-one...let's just say I'm never doing that ever again.
I was hoping the challenge would be a bigger success and inspire a couple people dabbling into becoming an artist, but in the end what matters the most is that I've learned a new skill and I actually felt like I've accomplished something for once, (and I went to college), and I thank everyone for coming along for the ride.
I'm also going to immortalize all the art from my challenge here, and even keeping playlists of the entire thing in order in case anyone is curious how it all started. Who knows, maybe people might get inspired looking at it.
~So, what's to expect from me in the future?~
Lot's of drawing, dabbling into animations, making comics, fan-art, participating in events, and whatever I feel like doing. I did have a schedule in mind beforehand, but I quickly realized that doing so sucks all the fun out of it...at least for me. The best I could come up with is to work on a project (big or small) every weekday, and do whatever on the weekends. I could draw, tinker with my computer setup, or just sit back and play a game.
I've got this Ko-Fi account set-up if you'd like to donate anything:
I've got nothing special there yet, but if you've got some ideas let me know.
I'd like to also do commissions, but I don't feel ready yet. Mostly because I don't feel like I've got my style completely nailed-down yet, but it should be soon. With the pace I'm going I expect at most I'll be ready by next year.
I want to dabble with streaming someday, but I don't think a ThinkPad T420 (nice) is powerful enough to record in 1080p while playing a game on an emulator let alone even draw, and I don't think it's possible to pass part of the process to another weaker computer I have laying around. Though, don't worry I've saved-up some money for a better laptop in order to do some of these things, while also having a better time drawing.
And one last thing, If you've got any computer problems or want to get into Linux, feel free to ask! I've got 20 years of self taught experience fixing my own PCs or ones I find in the dump, and I've been using Linux for over 3 years now. Hit me up if you need any help on that.
See you real soon!