When I Was Still In School, I Struggled A Lot With Tiredness. So Much So That I Had A Hard Time Staying

When I was still in school, I struggled a lot with Tiredness. So much so that I had a hard time staying awake during class. I tried multiple methods of drinking strong coffee in the morning. Listening to the heaviest metal songs I had while being on my way too school. Poking my legs with a pen during class. But I couldn't help myself and usually fell asleep. It got better as I grew older but I still wonder where this tiredness came from.

However. This random memory inspired me to draw this image. A guy taking a nap in class. I wonder what he is dreaming about...

Nostalgia An Image about Nostalgia. In a way, this was a remake of an Illustration from 2021. I did not only try to see how much I improved over time but also how many easter eggs I was able to hide within a picture!

A little bit of Brainvomit, just to get it out of my system:

The last few days I struggled a bit to work on my projects. It's not that the projects itself are hard but I struggle to maintain focus. Whenever I start an Illustration or a new project, my mind is filled with following thoughts "Is this really good enough for the Portfolio?" "You really want to draw that Fanart? Do you really want to neglect your portfolio like that?" "The project you work on right now is actually kinda stupid, are you really sure people want to hire you for that?" and all those negative thoughts that kind of hinder me of making art at my full potential. It's a on/off struggle that I have for a year now and which is a little hard to overcome on my own. Which is why a lot of my projects are very slow...I make little babysteps into reworking my Portfolio but usually end up having an "Analysis paralysis" about projects. And for some reason I have a huge fear of following my heart... I think in the end it's just a little bit of fear for the future. A little bit of uncertainty and maybe it's time to take a short break where I allow myself to draw for fun and figure out what I actually want. If Visdev truely is the field I want to work in , or if BG paint is more my thing. Or maybe even Illustration? Or maybe Everything all at once? We'll see. Maybe it's just a summer rot. Anyways. Here are some rough doodles from this week!

Tried to draw SoRiku in my style. I've been thinking about them a lot lately~

(left is the sketch from my Sketchbook, Right was my digital attempt)

(I'm finally done with this image after a month...god bless my patience...)

Words cannot really describe what I feel for this band. Nor can a drawing express those feelings. Everything I might going to say sound super cheesy but if their music and all the interviews thought me one thing, than it is that it's okay to be myself. I mean…they do it too, right…and sometimes we are cheesy. Sometimes we are touched by media and sometimes we might not find the right words. I want to try it anyway.

Let me start with a quote from Adventure Time actually, because this quote pretty much describes my love for music in General. "Music is powerful, man. It speaks to a primal pit in our brains. It makes anyone go up and get their knees going" When I first listened to Blur consciously , something truely magically happened. I saw Damon, as he slowly sink into their music, paired with Grahams ability to paint with sound. Alex who infused his Groovy cool bass sounds into the song and Dave who brings in memoriable rhythms. All of this rounded up makes Blur of who they were and who they currently are. Their timeless. It's inspirational…it's just purely Magic.

It's that exact feeling that I tried to translate into my illustraton. The whole drawing process made me a little emotional too. I never felt this way for an illustration really but I went through all sorts of emotions…Maybe that's what I get from their music. I was a bit conflicted. Because while listening to their music, I was able to feel their love to one another and it felt like something…intimate. Something I maybe shouldn't put in an image. Or should I? Am I capable to translate that love without projecting mine onto them? It is a quite vulnerable process after all. In the end however, I decided to just go for it. My pen will lead the way. If I learned one thing from Graham's interviews it's "If you're scared, do it scared!" (especially since I'm a fellow person who deals with a lot of anxiety) and if there is something I learned from listening to countless of Damons Interviews it's "Follow your heart. Be vulnerable. It's fine. Use this emotion and begin to dream. Your heart will know what is right!" And as cheesy as my love for Blur is (no pun intended), I always think back of how they talk about their musical heroes too. Recently I was listening to an Interview between Elton John and Damon and how he wrote that song about Elton John when he was younger. Or Graham how he described sitting in the room, learning all those Songs he is into (and both of them got a fantastic taste in music. I currently gonna do a deepdive into both of their influences , to get a better understanding of them as musicians…while having no musical knowledge myself lmao)

And so I decided "If they gush about their favorite musicians, I can do it too. Maybe not in a musical way (because I would suck at it) but in my artsy kind of way. In my own way. It might be embarassing for me and I'm quite shy about my feelings, but that's what art is sometimes."

It was also by far one of the longest things I worked on. I really kneed a month into this image and tried to capture every essence to the best of my ability. I think the most difficult part was to styilize the guys in a way that it still has this typical "Nabs" touch to it, but that it still look like them. …Okay, enough talking from my side, I hope you enjoy the image lol!

"Show me what you've got, Kinomiya!"

Recently I finished rewatching Beyblade and was remembered on how influential the show was on me. Not only personally but also artistically. I vividly remember how I ran home from school in order to watch Beyblade at 3'o Clock, not to miss a single episode. There was something about this show that just hooked me. The battles, the music. The characters. After G-Revolution I drew my own comics with the characters. Of their own battles, their own interpersonal struggles and it was my very first AU. (lets say I wasn't too happy with Dranzers Faith in G-Revolution and I wanted to draw a happier ending). It also brought me and the neighbourkids together , as they were obsessed with Beyblade as well and we replayed the episodes on the playground while we argued who will be Kai in the end. (we did the same with Digimon, especially with Digimon Frontier, but that's a story for another day.) In Winter I tried to wear my scarf like Kai and I looked ridiculous but personally I related to him the most as a kid. I still do as an adult. I burn for art in a similar way as Kai and Tyson burn for Beyblade. But like Kai, I'm also a person who does not speak much and is rather on the introverted and calmer side. I rather like my work to speak for myself rather than the words that come out of my mouth. (but if you speak about art around me, make sure I won't shut up about it )

Anyway. In order to show my love, I decided to draw this Fanart. I chose that very iconic place from episode one, where Kai and Tyson meet for the very first time. However, except of drawing all the other Kids, I decided to draw the Bladebreakerz. I tried to capture the anticipation before the battle, the tension, the excitment. Almost a similar feeling I have whenever I start a new artwork.

What was your favorite show while growing up? And if it's also Beyblade, who is your favorite character :)?