Persistent

Sketch by sketch, painting by painting, someday I will call myself an artist.

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Please follow me at my @Lirotation fanart tumblr.

This is my little corner of the internet to celebrate the ups and downs of pursuing art as a beginner. We all have to start somewhere on our creative journeys - with a spark of inspiration, a desire to express ourselves, and plenty of room to grow.

I made this blog to document my path as I try to turn passion into practice. Here I can reflect on both art and the process - the finished pieces as well as the learning experiences along the way. My promise to myself is to create consistently, even just small daily sketches, to nurture my budding talents. Art takes patience and persistence. But challenges make the satisfaction of progress so rewarding.

On this blog, I want to capture my incremental improvements, creative experiments, lessons learned, and glimpses of a style emerging. There will be peaks and valleys on the road ahead. Through it all, I will remind myself why I started, and where I'm headed - towards a future where art brings me joy every single day.

Most of my stuff is fanart of video games, but hopefully I will create some original piece as my skills improve. eventually.

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I have been busy with real life =(

Just a random illustration to cheer myself up.

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Tried very hard on color again. I love too many styles and am torn between 8 million different directions. I think my biggest hurdle right now, (besides figure drawing/perspective/composition) is accurately pinning down the core shadow. I finally feel like I know what to do with the shadow once it’s there, but finding that exact line where the form turns away from the light is a struggle. Did I achieve the look I wanted? not really, but I think this is an improvement from my last attempt:

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Flat color is done. This has to be the longest time I spent on a single illustration.

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The past couple of months have been spent researching, phone calls, scheduling appointments, and taking my mom everywhere for checkups. Now that things are finally settled and her surgery is scheduled, I feel like I can breathe a little again. For the first time in months, I actually have some mental energy left to draw.

At a certain age, you start realizing how much of life becomes maintenance, bad news, waiting rooms, and trying to hold things together. That realization hit me harder than I expected. It crushed a lot of my motivation and hope.

But I'm here.

A messy line art. A half-baked sketch. That's all it's ever took to quiet the fear and uncertainty for a little while.

At least, they are happy.

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A one shot comic of My human Tav Amaara X Astarion.

An exploration of the old mortality theme through different style narration. Based on real memorial plaques found on public park benches.

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Small exercise. took me 8 hours LOL.

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portrait study

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finished another sketch book! Yay. Small wins =)

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I got lazy so as soon as she said she likes it I stopped LOL. Someday when I am old and wise I will have more patience...hopefully.

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WIP

My 11-year-old Pony asked me to do a “draw in your own style” version of her OC. She drew the original on Procreate using her fingers:

Leasa the dragonborn. lol

I showed my wip along with her og drawing to my mom.

My mom said, “Oh, Pony did such a good job! But why are you drawing it like that?”

I explained that this was the whole point. Pony wanted to see her character interpreted in my style. That’s the fun of it.

My mom just said, “I don’t understand.”

And there it was. Generation gap.

To her, drawing means to copy something accurately. To my daughter, and to me, it’s collaboration. Remix culture. Creative dialogue.

I’m just grateful I still get my kid. I understand why she wants this. I understand the game.

Small win for me. 😂

(And also my daughter has a better sense of color than me, by far! Also I do not know how to draw tech armor...need more reference.)

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I didn't have time to do a more finished one but here is a sketch for the occasion. Happy V-day everyone!!!!

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And 2 days later I look at this again and realized I did this in a hurry LOL.

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She’s barely in this room, so I drew the background only once for this opening panel. For a short scene, that’s fine. For a longer comic? Absolutely not sustainable.

If I’m serious about telling bigger stories, I need to start building spaces in 3D and treating them like sets. One thing I’ve learned from the class I took is that 3D models, photo textures, movable figures, none of that is cheating. They’re tools. The real challenge is how to use them efficiently.

Lately I’ve been in the mood of hating everything I draw. I guess a lot of people go through it. It never used to bother me bc I didn’t consider myself an artist. If you’re not a pro, anything you make feels… forgivable.

But I kinda want that to change. I wanna improve. Preferably w/o putting in the effort, ofc. Which is not how this works. 😅

This story has been simmering for over a year. I started some panels in 2024, but the script never felt right. It nagged at me enough that I put the whole thing down.

Recently I opened the file again. I decided to rewrite everything.

I’m giving myself 2 years to finish the first chapter. no pressure, no DDL. Just a promise to myself that, at the end of it, there will be something finished.

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color study.

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Chilling.

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Finished as promised....But I still don't like it. The color is very amateurish and I don't know how to improve. Sigh...

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I will finish this one I promise T.T

I think I am giving up the one below, I colored it and hated it, so I will not post it =(

And a color study just cuz Pony loves blue. It looks so simple but it took me 1.5 hours

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figure study sketch WIP

Also a color study, demonstration to my daughter how to draw a helium balloon =D

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Quick figure study

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just a quick color and call it done lol

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photo study =D WIP