Art Summary 2022
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The yearly tradition returns: 2022's Summary of Art!
And hey, I did something a little more design-y than my past ones! Will admit it was a bit tricky to fit each month's pics into the frames this time but I'm glad I tried a different look than usual
January - Iri Intro!
From a somewhat short-lived thing I wanted to try out: Doing sketches of OCs just to serve as an introduction reguardless of quality. The good thing is, because quality's not a factor I can do these whenever in whatever format or polish. I just prefered doing larger pics this year
Febuary - A 'Cereal' Debate (comic short)
Ok, but she's got a point when you think about it.
From a comics class I took spring this year. The only prompt was "conversation"... well, heated debate in this case.
March - The School Mystery (comic short)
Another one from that Comics class and goddamn I think the panel featured here alone is one of the hardest things I drew that semester. That's pen and ink with minimal digital edits and damn hoping one day I could somehow make a longer comic with a similar style bc it was really fun to ink honestly.
April - The Fish Project
JADE WITH THE FRESH SALMON???? REAL!
Ok but for the real context, this was an April fools project I had in the works since 2021. I turned all my active art accounts at the time into an OC Fishing irony page and sent Jade, Iri, Risa, Jpeg, and both Prisma's on a fishing trip. Not sure how I'll top that in the future... I'm not revealing until April >:)
May - MOONROT
May was when I redesigned & revealed Io to the public! They got a bunch of art this month, but the CN challenge art is my favorite of all of them.
Huh. Suprised I didn't immediately burn out because that semester was extreme in terms of work. I guess wanting to draw Io was that strong.
June - Life, After Wither
A pre-Artfight 2022 pic: I was Team Wither! I like doing splash pics for my own page for Artfight and this stayed my main banner for just about most of the year.
The mini-story I made up for this is these three teamed up across dimentions or something to visit this forest.
July - In the Studio, fr
I don't normally do post-Artfight related pics, but Moog ended up getting the most attacks this year and I wanted to give her an extra pic based on it.
Seems she kept a souviner from the forest in the last pic.
August - B-Hold! The Portal King!
(On Newgrounds)For Clockday on Newgrounds, Strawberry clock the portal King himself!
Kept getting swept up with other things to jump on Newgrounds events, I wasn't gonna miss one of the bigger ones!
September - // DIRECTION //
(outside of being gay for the robot-) I just wanted to draw Alia tbh. With a similar energy she had in her older art too.
October - HELLSPAWN
ABSOLUTELY NEFARIOUS HALLOWEEN PIC!!!
Featuring Io's true/original form + their 'powered-up' state
November - The Fowl Pest (Mock-Cover)
The last two are for my Digital Illustration class. This one is a mock-book cover based on a worldbuilding project of mine (still need to organize it before sharing).
Though tbh if I do want to do more art for said project I might go tra-digital or use a grittier style. During crit I was told this looked "middle-grade"... when the world is "older-YA/Adult"... still like the pic, but damn.
December - Lan Party!
*Sigh* Always wanted to go to one of these! But alas, me and my irls are all busy these days. This is based off a different project I'm working on.
I ended up debuting some different designs for my OCs for said project (notably; Iri, Risa, and Human!Midi) but separate pics for them will have to come next year. In terms of digital lineart, this was the most intense I did this year (traditional lineart comes easier to me than digital).
So... 2022. Jesus Christ
This year was rough for me on things personal, and things non-personal. I mean jesus christ every other week something came out that was hostile to artists one way or another on top of some rough patches in my life. I don't want to jinx 2023 or leave things on this note though...
I think my biggest takeaway from this year is I need to rethink a lot of things. How I want to do art, where I want to go, or even my 'digital wellbeing'. This year, I realized keeping art a Hobby or staying "part-time" (as in small gigs & private comms only) might be healthier for me in the long run. I've already had my doubts with a lot of "professional" practices when I was shooting for it (a tl:dr it felt like "no fun allowed" half the time). But realizing how horribly i've treated myself and my art with this chase? That was another thing.
I think i've done a lot of strong pics compared to past years. Especially in terms of backgrounds and not being afraid to draw them (though I could always use more practice, lol). But I've also come to terms with I've been affected by social media without realizing it and how it hurt how I do art. Basically, for the past two years I've been working under the fear of being boxed into doing one thing. Be it fanart, genres, etc. To the point I stopped doing things to force a "brand". Specifically, I stopped doing fanart unless it's oc-centric. I hid straight-up fanart, and started getting irrationally upset over the metrics fanart gets over my original works.
And I hate it. I hate how I let myself judge the value of my work over "numbers and engagement". I hate how I boxed myself in trying to avoid being boxed, because of chasing this corporate measurement of worth. And most importantly, I hate that I nearly forgot that I enjoyed making fanart, because of some dumb culture caused by social media numbers and algorithms. I'm exhausted. So for 2023, I think I want my main resolution to do better with my online life & how I treat myself and my art. I want to pull away from social media a bit more, spend more time on the slower web & offline if possible, and break that cycle of letting numbers judge my self-worth. And maybe help others do the same. It's much easier said than done, but I don't want to do nothing about this toxic hellscape that is how art is treated online, I want to do something even if the only person I directly help is myself.
And for what it's worth, focusing on my site so far has been cathartic. It's somewhere I can set up my art, projects, weird shit, etc. on my own terms, how I like it. It's quieter around here. And I'm glad I kept working on it beyond just a "portfolio site".
But I guess I have all of 2023 (and what's left of 2022) to process that. For now, I could use some extra time to pretty-up this site some more and take a few more naps before the year ends.