Drac_art - Tumblr Posts
KLBR-S2302 (a bioresonant) sensing something is amiss.
she's been busy today
"I made this!"
So I have a bit of an unhealthy relationship with art.
I would never call myself an artist, but I would never disparage someone for doing the exact same thing I do and then call themselves an artist. An artist, to me, is someone who makes art. Simple as. Sure, you could more minutely define it as someone who makes a living from art, but you could also argue that the specificity of that would fall under whether or not someone calls themselves a professional artist. Meaning that they do it as their profession. (IE: a paid occupation, usually involving prolonged training and/or formal qualification.)
So, by that rule, I'm an artist because I make art (sometimes), but not a professional artist, because I don't make a living from it.
I suppose I could call myself a writer, too, but let's not get too into the weeds on etymology and labels. I'm some rando that makes art (sometimes) and writes (sometimes, and I even post sometimes too! [keyword: sometimes])
I'm pretty apprehensive about posting things I've made because of weird vulnerability I feel around it. Cuz like, I tried my best (or maybe its just a quick n dirty something or other for a laugh) and now that thing is going to be out for anyone to see? Spooky.
Well, I'm going to try to change my mindset and post things that I made cuz I made them, and if other people see them, great. If not, then it's for me to look back on anyway. It's not about likes or reception or anything. Just for me to look back on. It's just a scrapbook that I just so happen to put somewhere for others to look at if they want.
I recently went through my PC and located everything I've ever made and put it one spot. It's organized by year, and it was kind of wild to see how far I'd come in some regards.
There's some pictures I took of my sketchbook from when I was following Mark Crilley's art tutorials. Some attempts at pixel art (some of which aren't half bad, tbh) and some sketches I made in that old Sketchbook app for android. I actually had to hop on my old deviantart for some of it (oof) since I couldn't find the original files. They're probably on an old laptop somewhere, but I couldn't be bothered to pull the hard drive and dig for it.
I can really pinpoint my artistic motivations and pursuits in each year.
2013: Pixel art (just the worst pixel doubling and uniform outlining, yikes!)
2014: Traditional art and youtube tutorials, along with some pixel art here and there)
2015: I could only find one drawing from 2015 (had to grab that one from facebook...YIKES) and its a not-too-shabby drawing I did from reference.
2016: Following along with a Bob Ross episode in Mario Paint. This one actually looks really good. Maybe I'll post it one of these days, cuz it's kinda neat.
2017: Bought a drawing tablet with the money I made from working. Downloaded Sai and tried drawing from figure references. Some of it is really bad, but some of it shows an understanding of figure, which is kind of impressive in hindsight.
2018: Some more Bob Ross pixel art. I followed along with the same video as in 2016, but in Aseprite (the demo, so I only have a screenshot of the finished product because you can't save in the demo) and damn, it's still one of my favorite things I've ever made in Aseprite. Especially for only being 4 colors (GB green palette)
2019: Some more Sai stuff. Probably all done in the same session, but it's not the worst I suppose. I'm pretty inconsistent when it comes to focusing on art. I tend to get pretty distracted when I'm not immediately good at something. (And now I know why, although hindsight is 20/20)
2020: Uh? Couldn't find anything from 2020. Given what occurred that year, that's not all that surprising TBH.
2021: Some music I made and a doom level I made. This was sort of my intro to making levels for games. We had to make a game pitch for a school project and I went all out on making a demo. I think I clocked my hours and it was well over 40 hours put into the level alone. Made a custom weapon sprite any everything. It's pretty cool.
2022: My intro to working in 3D and making youtube videos. I started in Gmod, making simple animations, before eventually swapping to SFM for stills. Then a friend asked why I didn't just learn Blender instead, so that's what I did. If you know me from twitter, then you've probably seen these. They're NSFW, so maybe don't go digging if that isn't what you're into. That was sort of where my unhealthy relationship with social media and art began, because I started focusing a lot on views and likes and reception for things instead of just making things I wanted to make. (Mostly because I was surrounded by and learning from actual professionals, who do it as like, a job.) Sure there were things I made because I wanted to make them, but for the most part, I was going for the popular thing and wanting to "get big" at the time. Cringe, I know. Such is life. You live and you learn. Some of the best I made during this time was cuz I wanted to make it, and those are the ones I'm most proud of to this day.
2023: Burnout city! Unemployment will do that to you. Sure I worked on some stuff here and there, but I really burnt the hell out. Ended up working on some Doom levels and some little things here and there. Making a titlecard for a friend's youtube video, a cover art for a HM2 level, finishing my second reload animation, and a couple blender things. 2022 felt so productive in comparison, where did it all go wrong? (Oh yeah, the weird obsession with views. Right.) Then I got into writing that summer and I've sort of kept up with it. AO3 says I wrote 93k words that year, so that's not nothing. (I promise I'm working on another big project. It's just...hitting some creative snags. Again. Such is life.)
2024: The current year. I'm...trying to get back into making things for me. Writing things because I would read it. Drawing things that I would look at, or that I find interesting. Once again, I'm sort of trying to game my attention problems by not focusing TOO hard on one thing at a time. Otherwise I'd never finish anything, and while I'm not concerned about having things to post to social media, it does feel good to look back and see things you've actually finished. It's better to finish something and have it be like 50% of what it could have been than never reach 100% and then it just lives on as a reminder of your inability to finish things. I'd rather call something done and move on than obsess for ages over "what could have been." Or maybe I'm just waffling because I'm still trying to shake my weirdness. Bah. Some stuff I make might never see the light of day, but that's kind of a shame. I like making things and sharing them with other people. It's fun.
That's really the operative word of this whole ramble.
Fun
I do things because it's fun. I should want to do things because they're fun. Of course that's easier said than done when you have my specific brand of brain problems, but ya gotta catch the wind in your sail when it blows, right? (If that even makes sense.)
So yeah, here's hoping that this weird ramble convinces me to post things. Not because I want to get clicks or likes or engagement. But because I want to remind myself of how fun it was to do.
Like that Kolibri doodle I posted yesterday was something I did for fun. I though it'd be fun to do, so I did it. Simple as.
So here's to fun. Let's do stuff for that, and forget about clicks. I'm doing it for me. If you happen to like it, then more power to you. But I wanna have fun for me.
Yeah.
(Watch me then never post anything because my interests have waned and I hyperfixate on something else and then have to look at this post in a few months and cringe at the thought.)
But hey, nobody else is reading this anyway.
Right?
Good ol' Sketchbook for Android. Where would I be without you? (It's free and it works, okay?)
Drew the Elster two days ago and the Ariane yesterday. Decided to put them in the same canvas cuz I just think they're neat :)
Also I draw at a really low resolution so I don't have to worry about weird lines. I can just scribble and my eye kinda figures out what I was going for anyway. Although then I end up with really hairy looking lines, but eh. Whatever. I could probably go back and redraw Elster like I did with Ari after my initial sketch, but that's all these are. They're just sketches. For funzies.
Elster Pixel Art
Spoiler-y alt under the cut! (I'm really proud of it so if you've completed Signalis then check it out :))
Queen Pixel Art
"I'm going to defeat you with the power of [FIST OF JUSTICE] and this gun I [MATERIALIZED OUT OF MY IDEALIZED PERCEPTION OF A REBEL]!"
Falke seeing security staff members posting to social media during work hours.
There are ARARs in your walls at this very moment
i dunno sometimes i just get this vibe from them
and heres the non-meme version for the sake of completion
i dunno sometimes i just get this vibe from them
They're besties, your honor.
Kinda sorta based on something I'm still working on. I just think that if Shiho and Akira both lived in Inaba, they would be pals. I dunno.
Also I reference kx0e's Akira because holy shit his hair is hard to draw. Same with ponytails. Yikes.
So I've been playing Vice City lately.
Now, you may or may not be wondering: "Did you really make a custom render of Tommy Vercetti doing the pose from that one Robert Downey Jr picture?"
And the answer to that is: "Obviously!" No half measures over here. When I commit to the bit, I fucking COMMIT. Besides, it only took like 2 hours. Time well spent.
Good thing there was a rigged model of Tommy out there cuz there's no amount of committing to the bit that will force me to rig a model. No thank you.
I was originally gonna make this more of a generic meme with something like "when the game everyone tells you is good turns out to be good" cuz I've only gotten around to playing Vice City now, but I decided that sticking to the original format and giving it a GTA spin was the funnier move.
You would not believe how hard it was to find sprites of the Vice City hud, and I still didn't. These are yoinked from an image with the magic wand tool, cuz I didn't feel like downloading the software to pull textures from RenderWare games. Too lazy.
Oh yeah, here's the full render.
So I've been playing Vice City lately.
Now, you may or may not be wondering: "Did you really make a custom render of Tommy Vercetti doing the pose from that one Robert Downey Jr picture?"
And the answer to that is: "Obviously!" No half measures over here. When I commit to the bit, I fucking COMMIT. Besides, it only took like 2 hours. Time well spent.
Good thing there was a rigged model of Tommy out there cuz there's no amount of committing to the bit that will force me to rig a model. No thank you.
I was originally gonna make this more of a generic meme with something like "when the game everyone tells you is good turns out to be good" cuz I've only gotten around to playing Vice City now, but I decided that sticking to the original format and giving it a GTA spin was the funnier move.
You would not believe how hard it was to find sprites of the Vice City hud, and I still didn't. These are yoinked from an image with the magic wand tool, cuz I didn't feel like downloading the software to pull textures from RenderWare games. Too lazy.
i drew these in june and forgot to upload them whoops
some more akira and shiho hangin out fo today (if today was june 6th/7th or something)
both drawn from reference, the first one is from a photo i took and the second is from a picture i found on google images that i could probably find again but am too lazy to look for again
Woah hey did these today. First is in an ancient version of sai, where i remembered that i like drawing in low res/really tiny because details are hard. And the speed Elster (SpElster) was to test out Krita upon a friend's suggestion. Pretty nice, I like it.
Yeah basically just some quick doodles for funzies.
Hair is hard but i think i kiiiinda get it now. The shared short-ish bob hair style was a coincidence. Also because its fairly easy to draw and recognize as hair instead of just some scribbles.
ye
I had this idea in the shower last night. I was tempted to rough it out then, but it was pretty late and I didn't wanna stay up too late. Glad I saved it for today because it took like 3 hours to do.
First time I've ever done anything more than a doodle. It's super rough, but I had fun. I may or may not redo this in blender, but I still wanted to take a stab at it to get down the framing and stuff. Good opportunity to try out Krita and I gotta say, I really like it. Really nice.
I lazily slapped on the dialogue in paint.net so it could at least be read through.
(Also I used a reference for Ann's hand in panel 8 cuz i tried for like 5 minutes to get it right and I just couldn't. I used reference for Kiryu's hand as well.)
Other two pages under the cut to save your timeline.
I decided to go over the third frame from this rough comic I did yesterday. I was feeling a little bold so I even colored it.
Ok yeah, I'm digging this. Having fun.
I may or may not do the whole comic at this point, but that's a hard maybe. This took me about two hours. And also Makoto's hair isn't nearly as complex as Ann's. Long hair is just...uggghh. Big pain. Trial by fire it may be, but fire still hurts.