Sup, I'm Arky, this is my artblog where I will mostly post Cuphead, Bendy, other fanarts, and OCs sometimes. you Will be able to tell what my Fixation Of The Week is
My inbox is open for asks, doodle requests and whatever, please be kind and respectful if you decide to send something, and know that I'm really bad at Interacting with people as of right now
My current posting schedule is Friday or Saturday every week, and if I queue everything up for the whole month I'll just post whenever and whatever I'm doing at the time
I have nothing for this week because I've only been drawing for artfight for the last month so I pulled out a few messy sketches I've done on the side, mostly for my cuphead au that I may or may not elaborate on further at a later point in time :p
(AND BEFORE YOU SAY ANYTHING I got the damn book when I was like ten and I use it for drawing my au stuff because I don't like wasting perfectly usable supplies. I haven't gotten around to desecrating the iconography yet)
Busy month, I ran out of stuff from my queue, didn't even realize til like 10 minutes ago so this will have to do, even if it makes zero sense to anyone but me. Yay
I schedule at least one art post every week, this time I wanted to do something a little more in the holiday spirit and focus on my experience with artfight and stuff or whatever
I created my artfight account on the first of July, 2024, and let the website choose my team. I ended up with seafoam, though I was hoping for stardust, and spent the entire night scrapping together pictures of my OCs, barely managing to navigate the site on my phone. When I woke up, I checked artfight again, and found a notification waiting for me. Someone had drawn fanart of my character! And it was great! Far better than what I could accomplish at the time, my only experience with digital art being on my phone. I didn't understand how the whole thing worked yet and immediately drew a "revenge" attack, without actually checking the revenge box. I missed out on a lot of points my first year because I didn't understand revenge was more than just a word, and drew characters multiple times without properly saying that in the grading section. Despite the hours I spent triple checking the attack submission screen, I missed a lot my first time.
Getting attacked my first day may have set my expectations a little high, but it gave me the motivation to attack as much as I could. Even if I didn't receive as much art as I initially thought, I had an opportunity to make people happy, and I got joy even from just the replies on the attacks
I got a drawing tablet that September and my art improved significantly. I could much more easily color, render, and sketch digitally, now without the pain of zooming in and out on the small screen of my phone. It's nice not having to draw with my finger anymore. I updated the reference images on my artfight profile, and impatiently waited for July once again.
I rushed to set things up in June, and my motivation dwindled day after day once the event actually began. I felt slow and inefficient, like I was falling behind. My ability the had improved, but I spent so long agonizing over backgrounds and small mistakes that I lost confidence in myself. I wasn't performing to the perceived best of my ability and my pace wavered. A lot of other things were happening at the time, depression and burnout were hitting hard, and I stopped drawing. I didn't submit much art, I received even less, and I let that get the best of me.
I guess I felt like I was putting in more effort than was was being reflected, and when drawing became such a hassle, even the thanks I got from grateful recipients did little to ease my thoughts. I was too focused on my lack of defences. I ended that month rushing to get just a few more attacks out, next year would surely be better.
I was quick to start working on my new ref sheets, even all the way back in February. I knew that if I saved it all for last minute prep, I'd be too burnt out to make any attacks. With a new art style and renewed motivation, I planned out my war strategy.
The first thing I did was make a list of the characters that needed updates by priority, and chipped away at it across the months, making sure not to overwork myself. I edited my profile constantly, archived and unhid characters, experimenting with the new text formatting options along the way. I searched for and bookmarked characters, making sure to have a full list of options come July. Just days before it started, I made myself a simple background I could use for each attack. No extra points since it was the same every time, but I wouldn't have to worry about wasting time on unimportant details. I could just focus on the characters, like I wanted.
Now I'm on year 3, #team mystery, and things are going much better than last year. I'm in a much better mindset this month, with a plan of attack I can consistently keep up with this time. Every reply I get boosts my mood even more, and as much as I love getting attacked, I'm happy to be here at all. I have friends to battle with, and I have set expectations for myself reasonably this time I think. I know it's only been a year but this is my redemption arc!
I want to give other artists the same feeling I got the first time I was gifted a piece of art. I want to spread joy and mirth to others, make a positive impact on the world, however small. That's my goal this year, more than just an exchange in art. More than petty desires for fanart. A more quantifiable goal is simply to get my battle ratio as high as I can, because I can't be all hopecore awesomepilled all the time, and number go up make brain go :0
This is way different than my usual stuff but I was feeling inspired. Mostly because I was listening to time gear on repeat while writing this haha. I look forward to artfight every second of the year, I'm constantly trying to think of ways to improve my bio, and I edit descriptions and photos all the time. It's nice being a part of a greater whole, it reminds me of band in a few ways. Maybe last year wasn't great but I know what I'm doing now, I know where I'm going. I think everything's gonna be alright
I've been trying to get back into the groove of things but it's not working very well lmao, my style has changed about nine times in the past month and I have to rework my entire process cuz idk what I'm doing
Been practicing with Layton though, he's been helping a lot. I suppose he IS a professor
I mean I have some shitty doodles and some traditional stuff buuut I don't like posting that stuff cuz it usually doesn't make sense and taking photos of my sketchbook sucks lmao
