(Beware of artistic nudity, I guess? I didn't draw any nipples, even, I think, but there will be buttcracks.)
I completely forgot to upload this on the 1st of March.
Might not look like I did much in February, but I decided to draw 3 sessions digitally, then three sessions traditionally. Don't have a scanner, though, and my phone's camera is really bad, so I decided against making a collage of my traditional gesture drawings.
As for environment studies, I only did one of them last month. I did do a portrait study as well, of a lovely picture I found here on tumblr, but I didn't ask for permission to use it as a reference. The picture was from sometime in the early 1900s, but I should've still asked for permission from the person who shared it, I feel like. But I'm terrified of social interaction, so instead I'll just refrain from sharing the study.
Anyway, environment study. It's a bridge. From 脕smundarstakkur on the Faroe Islands. (Jancich, 2023)
References:
Gesture studies
Environment study
Janchich, V. (2023)
Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.
Trying Marc Brunet's "Learn to draw in 30 days" challenge. (Link leads to his youtube video.)
(Some of these are re-uploads, because I realized that on their own, they make for really boring posts. I'll mark the repeats with *. Making weekly uploads rather than daily ones is less annoying to everyone, I think.)
Day 0: Draw a human skull at you current skill level. (To have something to compare to at the end of the month)*
Day 1: Draw a symmetrical circle within a square*
Day 2: Draw 3 shapes and give them thickness
Day 3: Draw 3 cylinders, one behind the other, split in half
Day 4: Draw 3 cylinders of varying proportions cut in half vertically, with shading.
Day 5: Draw 3 flat, and 3 foreshortened boxes.
Day 6: Draw 9 boxes in different perspective
Day 7: Draw single-stroke circles (I did double-strokes most of the time, oops. Lingering habit from a similar drawabox exercise.)
The next 7 days:
馃挰 0聽聽馃攣 0聽聽鉂わ笍 0聽路聽30 days drawing challenge, Days 8-14聽路聽Marc Brunet's 30 days drawing challenge. (Link leads to his youtube video)
Day 8: D
Here it is. The final page of my "short" comic that I've been working on for over a year now. Kind of a tame ending, perhaps.
I started this project because I wanted to get back into drawing comics, and didn't want to get stuck overthinking what it should be about and all that right off the bat. I liked how they suggest you can do death saves in the D&D avdenture, Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus. Admittedly, I didn't quite remember what the Death Save text said, and as I'm reading it now, it turns out I sorta just did my own thing loosely based off that paragraph (I even misremembered Bargain-Basement as Bargain Bin, how'd that happen?) Oh, well, that's the spirit of D&D, isn't it.
Characters in this page (left to right): Galdrus Greatmantle the Dwarf, Elaven Forestbreeze the Firbolg, Michaela and Philliam the Tiefling siblings. (+The two imps from the very first page (one of whom has appeared in a few more pages too).
You might think I forgot to draw Phil's cape-thing, and you'd be right. I completely forgot, and didn't realize until I started coloring. So let's say he didn't want to wear it covered in guts and confetti from the events from the previous page and left it in the car.
Rough layout
Sketch
There's a lot of Infernal text in this page (most of it barely even visible). But here it all is. All copy-pasted from the source book (Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus).
Previous page, Page 24:
馃挰 0聽聽馃攣 1聽聽鉂わ笍 1聽路聽Death Save Bargain Bin, Page 24聽路聽Second to last page, let's go! Galdrus has delivered the goods to the recipient, and the
I guess next is to make the front cover. Because I never drew a front cover.
I didn't do many studies this month. I've been continuously burned out. Not sure if I'll do any gestures next month. We'll see. Maybe I'll just take a break from it for a while. None of them are my favorites this month - I think they all look like garbage.
Second to last page, let's go! Galdrus has delivered the goods to the recipient, and the contract is complete.
The page is kinda text heavy, because I didn't want to split the page, and wasn't really sure what I could cut.
Cast in this page (left to right): Galdrus Greatmantle the Dwarf, Elaven Forestbreeze the Firbolg, Michaela and Philliam the Tiefling siblings. +Briefly Lewis Hobart the Infernal Contract (not depicted in doll form below).
As the previous page, I stuck to the original layout I drew last year.
Sketch
I've mentioned before - or perhaps I haven't - that I've been wanting to learn how to model things in Blender to help with making backgrounds. Well, I still haven't learned how to Blend in Blender, or do anything except slightly altering boxes and other meshes. So I made a dummy-background made of slightly altered boxes and other meshes to have something to work off of. (If you know how to do Blender, please avert your eyes. I did my best.)
The background isn't really visible behind all the text, and it looks kinda wonky at times, but here it is.
As for the Infernal writing that's barely visible in a couple of the panels, I found the Infernal alphabet in the source book (Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus), and just copy pasted all the letters I needed. It'd take way too long to write them all. I also followed the source book's example (referring to The Infernal Rapture's menu) and just wrote the English words with Infernal letters. I saw there is at least one Infernal fan translator website, but I didn't like the site's attitude towards language. I could rant about fantasy languages, but I won't. I'm sure they worked really hard on the Infernal translator. Anyway, here's the text you can't really see in the page.
Previous page, Page 23:
馃挰 0聽聽馃攣 1聽聽鉂わ笍 2聽路聽Death Save Bargain Bin, Page 23聽路聽Very half-assed background, but here's page 23. I was considering redoing it, but decided
Next page, Page 25 (Final page):
馃挰 0聽聽馃攣 0聽聽鉂わ笍 0聽路聽Death Save Bargain Bin, Page 25 (Final)聽路聽Here it is. The final page of my "short" comic that I've been working on for over
Very half-assed background, but here's page 23. I was considering redoing it, but decided against it because I haven't uploaded a single page in ages. Better to move on and try to do better in the future. Maybe by then, I'll have learned to do perspective and all that better. Hope the doorknocker isn't so explicit it warrants censoring.
Characters in this page (left to right): Galdrus Greatmantle the Dwarf, Elaven Forestbreeze the Firbolg (am I changing his name slightly every time?), Michaela and Philliam the Tieflings, Unnamed succubus called Succ as a placeholder, and Trish(ul) the Imp (Mentioned only. Appeared last in Page 11).
For the first time in (I don't know how many) pages, I've used the original rough layout.
And here's the sketch. Was going to have the Infernal Contract, Lewis Hobart, in this page too, but he got cropped out.
Previous page, Page 22:
馃挰 1聽聽馃攣 1聽聽鉂わ笍 1聽路聽Death Save Bargain Bin, Page 22聽路聽Oh no, this turned out disastrous. The traveling montage page. I wanted to try to diverge
Next page, Page 24:
馃挰 0聽聽馃攣 1聽聽鉂わ笍 1聽路聽Death Save Bargain Bin, Page 24聽路聽Second to last page, let's go! Galdrus has delivered the goods to the recipient, and the
Question for the people taking estrogens regularly to reach a stable level:
What levels of estrogen are you on?
20-80 pg/mL
60-200 pg/mL
200-500 pg/mL
More than 500pg/mL
See results
Voting ended onSep 25, 2025
Why I am asking:
So, when I go to the lab to get my level tested, it says that the "normal results" are somewhere between 100 and 400pg/mL. Which is true, but only if you take into account the full menstrual cycle's range!
That range goes from the high levels of mid-cycle, right before ovulation, with the levels going between 200 and 500 pg/mL (with a high individual variation), which most often feels pretty good. It comes with a higher sex drive, more energy, and some even report a less oily skin and hair.
To the low levels of the luteal (60-200pg/mL) and follicular (20-80pg/mL) phases, respectively the Pre-Menstrual and Period phases. Quite famously NOT a good time. here again a high individual variation, but the effect range from "less energy" to "suicide ideation", with a whole array of pain, migraine, sensitive skin, depression and overall Bad Mood.
The problem is: Doctors are often taught to use the "Minimum Effective Amount" in any treatment. That's a valid option in most conditions, it helps in avoiding side-effects. But in the case of feminizing hormonal therapy, the minimum effective amount is around a 100pg/mL! At that dose, you do start growing tits and hips, it does work. But it's smack in the middle of the PMS zone, which means that your doctor might be maintaining you in a very bad place mentally speaking. It might be OK, because of the high individual variation, but it might also be a cause of irritability, depression, low energy, etc...
So I'm making this poll both to know if, as I fear, there's a lot of under-dosing in the community, and to encourage you to ask your doctor for a higher dose if you're under the 200pg/mL cap!
Last week I sorta impulse-bought a flexible phone holder, thinking I could use it to record when I draw things traditionally. Not that I've ever really recorded me drawing on paper before, or ever really planned to. But I guess I have to now.
So here's my first attempt (don't worry, there's no sound).
As I said, I haven't really recorded myself drawing on paper before, meaning I've also never really had a phone rig to worry about when moving my arm. I ended up using my wrist a lot instead of my shoulder, which in turn made a few of the lines turn out really bad. Also, I got nervous, as I always do when in the presence of a camera, even when I'm not really in frame. I didn't shake (I think), but my brain was in fight or flight mode the entire time. Maybe I'll get used to it if I keep recording my drawings.
Next time, I'll try to not rotate the paper as much as I did this time. And I'll keep a lamp on. I didn't expect a sudden thundercloud to show up today. Dunno if it's all that clear Hope it's not too noticeable I didn't turn on the lights for a long time.
The playback speed may vary a little, because I recorded three separate videos (in case my phone decided to make the files corrupted or something). Another new experience for me today was editing video clips in Blender, so I don't really know how to do things yet. All the three videos are different lengths, but I edited them all down to 20 seconds each. There's probably a really simple way to have made all the clips the same speed, while simultaneously keeping the entire video at 1 minute in length, but I don't know how yet. It was simpler this way for now.
And my true name is revealed. My name is not really Ciri. It is, in fact, Siri. I'm such a lying liar. I guess I can be summoned against my will now. I'll keep going by Ciri online though. I just thought it'd be weird to sign a traditional drawing with my online name.
Here's the sketch (some of the top left corner got stuck to the tape I used to hold the two pieces of paper in place. It's on the back, but apparently it's visible through).
I've put the final drawing up on the wall behind my computer, and just as I put it up I realized one of the eyes is way higher up than the other. I'll have to draw something else to replace it soon, because it's gonna be bothering me every time I look up.
Previously known as "Month Year Gesture drawings".
It's that time of the month again (that being the 1st) where I recap all my studies from the previous month.
A few years ago, back when I was working as a full time electrician, I had money to spare, and bought Marc Brunet's Art School program. But I never had the time to do it consistently when I was working, and once I quit my job and went back to school, I had even less time to study art.
Anyways, long story short: I don't go to school or work full time now, so I got time to do the art program finally. (At least between my very frequent bouts of "I gotta apply for more jobs. No one wants to hire me. Applying for jobs I don't want is more productive than working on the two children's books I've been asked to illustrate." and so on.)
I kind of skipped the first term of the Art Program because I've been stuck on it since I bought it years ago. Went straight to Term 2 because I don't remember what I've done of Term 1 (I'll go back and redo T1 later). The focus on T2 is faces, so I mostly drew faces last month, and probably will this month too.
Out of the 235 faces I drew, these two were my favorites. 143 was a 5 minutes gesture, and 127 was 10 minutes.
I also did a lot of traditional studies. Some for the Art School program, and some for the Drawabox program. All drawn in markers, because I don't own any HB pencils apparently. (Don't mind the cat food. One of my cats likes always having a tower of food available, but doesn't eat much or often. While my other cat is a ravenous hunger demon who would gladly eat himself to death if given the opportunity, so I have to guard Zariel's tower of food.)
And finally, speaking of ravenous hunger demon - it's (approximately) his birthday today (September 1st). Happy 9th b-day, Mew. Sorry I don't remember exactly when your birthday is. You shall be given wet food and bellyrubs.
Oh no, this turned out disastrous. The traveling montage page. I wanted to try to diverge from the standard traveling montage, and decided to base it on a traveling website instead. The result being this - a page with too much, too small text, and teeny tiny panels. Though I think the artwork in the panels themselves look pretty good, all the details are lost to their small size. Aah, sorry. Next time I'll try not to get married to an idea that doesn't really work that well in practice.
Also, I don't know how to work the text tool in Krita good enough to make text look good, so I temporarily wrote down everything the way I wanted it to in a word document beforehand. It was supposed to be just a placeholder, but when I got to the point where I was going to make it look alright, I realized I don't really know how. So the placeholder text became the final product. Gross. It looks bad. But I want to move on to the next page. If I find the time for it later, once the entire comic is done, I might redraw some of it with corrections based on the feedback I've gotten. (Thanks for the feedback btw, it's been really helpful <3).
Characters in this page (left to right): Galdrus Greatmantle the dwarf, Elaven Forestbreeze (I think) the firbolg, Michaela and Philliam the tieflings. As well as Lewis Hobart the infernal contract (the naked ball), and the imp they ran over in page 1.
Rough layout ( I should've know this page wouldn't work at this point, but I did a dumb because I thought the idea of a traveling montage in the shape of a traveling website itself was really funny.)
Sketch (I enjoyed drawing the various locations though. It's not my strong suit, but I think they turned out pretty good even though I didn't take the time to do perspective and whatnot right.)
And finally, some of the lineart that was lost in this page:
Maybe someday I'll learn that when all my instinct say "Don't do it! It's gonna look so bad! You know this breaks the first rule of drawing!" I should listen to it.
Oh, and the map of Avernus slightly visible at the bottom is taken from the sourcebook on Dndbeyond. The text underneath the tiny panels are also taken from there, except for the last one, which is taken from the section on "The Blood War" in the Dungeon Master's guide. The globe at the top I don't know where is from, but I fetched it from the gallery section of "Toril" on the forgottenrealms wiki.
Previous page, Page 21:
馃挰 1聽聽馃攣 1聽聽鉂わ笍 1聽路聽Death Save Bargain Bin, Page 21聽路聽It might be hard to believe, but I'm actually writing this on a Monday. I finished the pa
Next page, Page 23:
馃挰 0聽聽馃攣 1聽聽鉂わ笍 2聽路聽Death Save Bargain Bin, Page 23聽路聽Very half-assed background, but here's page 23. I was considering redoing it, but decided
It might be hard to believe, but I'm actually writing this on a Monday. I finished the page! Whooh!
I like this one, maybe just because I drew an angle I don't usually do (and one I'm not at all proficient in, mind). The perspective is off, but I'm still pleased with it. Sucking at something is the first step to being sorta good at something, and all that jazz.
Oh, and I hadn't figured out Lewis Hobart's harness in the last couple of pages. It was very much just a "wing it"-situation. But once I had to draw it from slightly different angles, I had to draw one that made more sense than just a regular dog collar fastened vertically around him.
This page's cast (left to right): Galdrus Greatmantle the dwarf, and Philliam and Michaela the tieflings. Plus Lewis Hobart the infernal contract (not depicted). I think I forgot to mention him last time. Oh well.
Rough layout
Sketch
When I start my next project, I'll try to learn how to record my screen and all that. I have the program ready, but every time I draw I think "Nah, I'll figure that out tomorrow. Today, I just wanna draw."
Previous page, Page 20:
馃挰 0聽聽馃攣 1聽聽鉂わ笍 1聽路聽Death Save Bargain Bin, Page 20聽路聽A little late, perhaps. It's tradition at this point.
I'm not particularly happy with ho
Next page, Page 22:
馃挰 0聽聽馃攣 0聽聽鉂わ笍 0聽路聽Death Save Bargain Bin, Page 22聽路聽Oh no, this turned out disastrous. The traveling montage page. I wanted to try to diverge
A little late, perhaps. It's tradition at this point.
I'm not particularly happy with how this one turned out, but I finished the lineart for the next page a couple of days ago, and like that one much better. (I only have the coloring left, so if I don't get that one done on time, I guess I died or something.)
There are only a few pages left to do before it's done, 5 after this one, to be exact. Then I'll have to draw the front cover, of course. (Might've done this in the wrong order.) I didn't really think I'd spend over a year on this short comic, but that's how it went. I have another project in mind once I'm done with this one.
Characters in this page (left to right): Galdrus Greatmantle the Dwarf, Michaela and Philliam the tieflings.
Rough layout
Sketch
Previous page, Page 19:
馃挰 0聽聽馃攣 1聽聽鉂わ笍 2聽路聽Death Save Bargain Bin, Page 19聽路聽It is done. I have sorted out the last of the script, and found out that the total page c
Next page, Page 21:
馃挰 0聽聽馃攣 1聽聽鉂わ笍 1聽路聽Death Save Bargain Bin, Page 21聽路聽It might be hard to believe, but I'm actually writing this on a Monday. I finished the pa
