2014 Summary of Art

Like last year, this is annoyingly huge and self-indulgent, with 48 thumbnails instead of the usual 12! It's because I don't really do many 'finished pieces', but I do try to experiment with various approaches to art each month, so this format better shows off the different things I've tried rather than just a handful of finished images. I suppose I'm still at the stage where I'm trying to discover what I want to get out of art; the path I want to stick with, a style of my own, things like that... I'm not there yet! But seeing a year's worth of work like this allows me to notice trends; what worked and what didn't, what I'd like to try again, etc.

With a huge and self-indulgent image comes an even longer and more self-indulgent commentary!! I reread my written-out thoughts about last year's half a dozen times over the course of this year, so I'll probably do the same with this... which is the main reason I'm bothering!

January
I was at university at this point, doing the first year of a Video Games Arts course. The course itself was fine... though my many crippling eccentricities prevented me from connecting with my classmates on a personal level, and I dropped out eventually. Much of the art from the first few months was for this course, with subjects that I'd probably never choose myself!
The first image is for a personal project, though. Clarence RPG; a sequel to my game Clarence's Big Chance. I planned it in much detail and did concept art of the cast, though it never came to fruition, sadly! I do like the way the characters turned out, though, and it was an interesting exercise in using lots of indirect references in a way I hadn't done before... I should do that again, actually.
The other things are university work. I like the style of that dwarf; I wish I'd done more stuff like that! The anatomy and figure studies were useful, though I feel like I've forgotten much of that stuff now! Psht!

February
These are all university things! If nothing else, the course encouraged me to do finished pieces more often... That first thing - a 'lava creature' - shows, I think, what most of my art could be if only I put the time and effort in. ALAS. I can't manage to find either, usually!

March
This seems to have been a rather dry month? I don't know why. Maybe I was just lonely and depressed, or distracted by things.
The first thing's for university again, and the other two are from sketchbook pages that had several drawings like those. Studies and such. Dull!

April
This was the end of the university course, I think. The first thing was a creature that incorporated the texture of wood, as per an assignment. Interesting studying a specific texture like that; not something I normally bother to try.
The next thing was produced by a program that I wrote which generates random people from a bunch of numbers, then draws them using proportion rules I understand from my anatomy studies. People can be 'bred' to produce children that resemble their parents, with some genetic mutations. It was rather nifty, I think! Though the people had weird goblin-like proportions at this point.
Next was my first proper human 3D model: a cutesy, stylised character called Erin. I haven't done much - any?! - 3D modelling since then, which is a shame; it can be quite fun and useful. Maybe I should give it a try again. It really helps you to better understand forms, so then you can draw them with more understanding in future.
 The fourth thing is a stylised photo study. I was uncomfortable about this after having done it, and have avoided looking at it all year as a result... but now that I see it again, I really rather like it! I think it's way more interesting than photographic realism, though maybe the whole 'face only a mother could love' thing is in effect, and people other than me find it grotesque? But isn't art all about subjectivity at the end of the day?!1 The actual painting was a full-body nude, but I've avoided including nudity in this because I'd have to mark it as Mature. Grumble.

May
I did a whole lot this month! It was hard to choose what to use. I was mostly experimenting with painting styles, continuing on with stylising what I saw in references. I really regret not carrying on with this, because I enjoyed it and found the results appealing! I did a whole bunch of sketchbook pages full of these things, though most were nude so I didn't upload them to my dA gallery because I can imagine what people would think of me if my gallery were full of naked women. o_O

June
I suppose the month of studies paid off, and at this point I finally did some full-body character drawings from imagination that I was pleased with! Character designs for my game called Miasmon... which also sadly hasn't yet come to fruition! MAYBE ONE DAY. Anyway, I really like these, and I wanted to carry on doing one once a day forever... but managed to go only four days before I broke my chain and probably spent the rest of the month not drawing at all. How disappointing!!

July
I rediscovered the random person generator/breeder program I'd made in April, and worked at it in a frenzy, refining the body-drawing code and adding fancy wavy hair and such. I really like how they turned out, considering that they're made up of a bunch of lines of code like 'draw a line from point a,b to point x,y'; no drawing was involved at all, but they actually look like they were drawn, I think. Well, sort of.
I suppose I didn't do much else all month, though? Studies of my character Cerise, who was drawn much better the month before. A lot of exploration of face anatomy, many sketchbook pages' worth, but nothing particularly good. I don't think any of it stuck, sadly; I've forgotten most of it now.

August
This was by far the worst month of the year, art-wise... and perhaps one of the worst of my life?! I was without hope and considering suicide, considering my overwhelming loneliness and anxiety and unpleasantness on my websites due to sadistic trolls and such. Such fun...
I overcame it in time, but I suppose this was definitely the nadir of the year.
I worked more on the person-generating program, and turned it into a sim game, which I called Yden. That game's actually finished now, and I like it a lot (I can play it for hours and hours quite without getting tired), but I've yet to release it for various reasons. MAYBE ONE DAY!!!1

September
Perhaps the days spent drowning in blue moods ignited inspiration in my mind - I can't remember - but September was oddly productive.
I decided to reboot my MARDEK RPG series - which were quite popular, back in the day, but which I've been uninterested in working on since the release of the third chapter - and I did a whole bunch of concept art for that. The first and fourth things here are characters from it! Emela and Sslen'ck. Yes.
The second thing is a naked woman with her nipples covered by small black stars, because apparently that's probably fine and dandy, whereas if those tiny stars weren't there, peoples' eyes would melt or whatever. Grumble. Social taboos! I painted a lot of these - again, stylised interpretations of references - but I didn't add any to my gallery for reasons I've already mentioned! (That is, I don't want people to think I'm a pervert!!1)
The third thing is a drawing of a male face - again stylised from a reference - which was part of a sketchbook page full of such faces. I think they turned out quite nice, though I've been unable to reproduce the style my mind preferred to draw in that day, to my despair!!1

October
More MARDEK stuff! Concept art! Mardek! Meraeadyth! Mardek and Emela in battle-model proportions! A dragon!! There were dozens of pages in my digital sketchbook of this stuff. I find it interesting how many of my drawings are crude but practical; I don't care so much for making them look pretty, but instead I plan out how graphics might look in my games, or how I *might* approach things if I were to put more time and effort in (but then I never do).

November
Lots of finished pieces again this month! I wish I could do finished things EVERY month instead of having these bursts a couple of times a year... but oh well.
I feel like I have no distinct style... or at least the boundaries of what constitutes 'my style' are unusually large? It's not a good thing! It's annoying doing drawings one month that I really like, but then 'losing' that style and drawing worse things later on!
Anyway, the first thing is a MARDEK character. The eponymous character, in fact, in HERO form, which is silly and deliberately smug.
Second are some perhaps odd-looking women based on people I bred in aforementioned game, Yden. I was rather satisfied with my ability to draw full-bodied people with decent (if not great) anatomy without any references, since I doubted that I had it in me, but whenever I see these now I just imagine visitors to my gallery raising their eyebrows about the strange drawings of people wearing loincloths or leaves or whatever and assuming things about me! In case you can't tell, I'm paranoid about how others feel about me. One of my many faults, I suppose!!11
The third thing is another MARDEK character, Elwyen, who's deliberately sexified in a way I'm normally opposed to (odd how many of my MARDEK characters embody things that I dislike for whatever reason...). I want to use her to explore the idea of sexualised females in games, you see.
And then there's a dragon that was meant to represent me, but I probably need to redo it!

December
And here we are at the end! AT LAST.
The first thing shows two (really awfully scaled) 'pixel model' characters from a game concept called Wavelengths... Erin and Gemma! Interestingly, Erin is the same character who just months before was boldly brandishing a blade and holding a pot; here she's afflicted with social anxiety. Poor her! And Gemma - who the portrait to the right is also of - has a big nose, which I bet makes her less desirable to look at for most people because EVERYONE IS SO SHALLOW!!!!11 I mean, uh, I find her face really interesting because it doesn't look like a Typical Sexy Person. I'm so sick of those!
Those pixel models are animated, and I did a bunch of them for MARDEK this month too... though I suppose I won't bother to include those here.
The third thing is also for MARDEK; a monster concept. Phantomare, it's called!
And the fourth thing is also a MARDEK-related sketch (Deugan!) that I'd never bothered to upload anywhere, because I couldn't find anything else to stick in that slot. This month has actually been really productive - perhaps the most productive in a long, long time! - but most of that productive energy has been directed towards my game development work instead of drawing. Which is better in the long run, but not so great as far as this thumbnail summary is concerned.

ANYWAY. I'm done now. You can breathe a sigh of relief if some madness compelled you to actually attempt to read this drivel! It's over now. You should give yourself a pat on the back and such.

Overall, I'd been feeling that this year was mostly worthless and unproductive... but compiling this summary has really helped to make it seem more worthwhile. I might not have moved as far forward as I'd have liked, or have found a style to stick with, but I didn't go BACKWARDS, for the most part, and that's a good thing! I suppose!

I did barely any finished pieces, but I did 223 pages in my digital sketchbook... compared to 299 last year. That could be better. Hopefully I'll draw more next year, and do more finished things!!