ArtFight Retrospective 2 - 8/14/24
(No one tell him)
A bit late on this journal 'cuz I...did not have much fun with AF this year, and struggled a bit on how to word this journal entry. Did not want it to be toxically positive; but also did not want it to be, y'know *making arm waving motions*
I have a stubborn insistence on drawing revenges for 100% of people who draw for me, but it's gotten to the point where the only way that's sustainable is if I leave my characters hidden for over half the month and do not draw any bookmarked characters (and even then, the workload is stressful). It's my own fault for insisting on doing this, but it's been an increasing issue the last few years. My art is more desirable now. I...guess that is a good thing. This year I tried hiding my characters during the opening weekend of the event (the time I usually get hit hardest), but then the day I unhid them I just got like, 5 attacks in an afternoon and had to immediately rehide them for a week. B(
ArtFight kind of feels like a weird double-edged sword, where I get a reminder that people technically like my work as long as I'm drawing what they want from me and not what I want to give them (which is like...duh). I get momentary feelings of relief when people genuinely enjoy something I made, but I've increasingly had trouble shaking off lingering feelings of resentment. Definitely not sustainable the way I've done it up 'til now, and my attempt at tweaking my own experience was too weak this year.
I think next year I'd like to try hiding my characters for the first two weeks of the event, BUT spend that time drawing bookmarked characters that I legit wanna draw. Instead of hiding characters to play catch up, I'd be hiding characters to have more fun!!! It's different! It would probably be a good idea to not even say what day I'd be unhiding them, so that I wouldn't have people camping/waiting for that day. Idk. I got a year to think about it.
Here are a few of my favorite drawings I received this year. You gotta appreciate them before my art, it's The Rules.
I wanted to make a joke about Mimi actually jumping that high but then realized goats probably CAN actually jump that high and ummm, so tempted to make that canon. Maybe not when she's quite that little though.
Fülli always gives me such good stuff......... :')
This artist has drawn En & Aldis for me twice now and both times they drew En about half a head too tall and I love it. Did he low-key beg you to draw these
Idk what possessed this person to draw James as Ponyo but I laugh every time I look at it, so THANKS (Cue that 'Ponyo loves Revolution' meme)
(Me nodding along and pretending I've played Omori while also still genuinely enjoying this)
Can't think of anything concrete to say but I just love the weird funky look of this one
Millie's protective anger; I feel so >:DDDD every time I look at her. Jack reminds me of Kingdom Hearts character so much here...like they're two minutes away from getting sea salt ice cream or something.
Okay now here's my stuff:
This was the One Single Bookmark I managed to draw this year. My obligatory "week 1 drawing that I went all-in on (but probably shouldn't have)."
I'm not allowed to post this one on social media and I'm trying not to ache about that; but for how fast I drew it, I really like how it turned out!!!!!!! I wanna try drawing more skies.
I just really wanted to take a stab at drawing that tail. Hope someone gets a kick out of the rare watermark on this. It feels like the sort of thing that'd get stolen & reposted to pinterest or something.
I just love how this one turned out. :') Good gentle face expression. I hope you can practically hear the "Mooooooom" in this.
One dramatic lighting pic was apparently not enough for me this year.
Here's a little extra I drew 'cuz they reminded me of each other (Anxious Ahoge Girl Support Group)
I just like this one. Hot pink is fun to work with.
I love whenever I get an opportunity to actually draw narrative stuff during ArtFight. Good practice for drawing comics fast, but I feel a little regret over how similar the first & third panels are.
If I'd thought about it a little harder, I either could have framed them differently from each other so they were more visually interesting, OR I could have set this up like a 4 koma and intentionally made those panels basically the same drawing with just the differences editted in. (And then the time I saved doing that could have been used to polish the overall drawing). As it is, I basically just drew the same thing twice. X_X STUFF TO THINK ABOUT.