WIP of a commission for Sunny, who by now has probably bought my soul and I will be her art slave forever. I don’t think I mind :3

I would have been a lot further along with this, but this afternoon I decided to scrap the lineart I had finished up ‘till then and start over. Most of it was done after receiving some bad news and sometimes you just got to admit to yourself that what you’ve done is crap and needs a do-over XD

I was still feeling pretty bummed but then I came across something that really sparked my motivation. There’s a good reason why I tend to not post personal stuff online anymore (aah, livejournal, my old friend) so this will be tl;dr, click through for a beautiful, inspirational story ramblings.

I don’t think the things I draw are very good. I’m not fishing for compliments and I know I’m not the worst ever, it’s just something I feel about the stuff that rolls out of my pen. That’s ok because it’s my hobby and not my work, but I feel like if I took it more seriously and worked harder when I was young(er) I could have been better by now.

I remember about 12 years ago when I first started really getting into drawing (I was about 14 when I got my first tablet and a super legal version of Photoshop 5) and looking up to artists like barachan, kabuki and sasha. Their stuff was so much better than what I was doing, but I told myself “they are older than me, of course they’re better” and I lazily kept doing the same things I had been doing.

For years I’ve puttered on, drawing stuff on and off, but it wasn’t until I started drawing ThemaoR that I could really see any progress at all. And then I promptly went on hiatus of course. And now you have these insanely talented ‘young people’ (17 year olds and such) whose work makes me feel like I’ve been utterly wasting my time, browsing the web and goofing off when I could have been working hard on improving. I know it’s a hobby, but when it’s a hobby that’s about creating something, you want to make stuff you’re proud of and you want to be the very best, right?

Today I read in a journal post that one of the artists I really admire isn’t happy with her style at all. It’s funny because what she’s doing is something I wish I could. A few years ago I think I would have dismissed such a journal for attention whoring, but this resonated with me and I understood completely where she was coming from.

Maybe it’s just something that comes with the craft. Maybe those artists I used to admire such a long time ago didn’t feel content with their drawings either.

Starting today, I’m going to try to draw something every day. Even if it’s crap that will never see the face of the internet, at least I know that I’ll be working on improving. They say that if you do something for 10000 hours, you’ll become an expert. I still have a little ways to go :)

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