Cleaned up studies from Magic Knight Rayearth. The visual story telling in the manga is beautiful. I had a lot of fun drawing these. I haven’t felt excited from a single piece of manga artwork in a long time. The concepts and designs were really doing something for me.
Around June, I started drawing consistently again. It's something I haven’t done in years. I want to claim university took away my drawing life, but that’s not entirely true. I’ve been in an art rut for a few years now even before I decided to go back to school.
I could write, in detail, the chronological timeline of my drawing journey from Summer until now, but I’m not interested in that.
I’m interested in how a pencil feels like my best friend whose been with me since grade school. I’m interested in learning that the 6B pencil is my favorite type. I keep purchasing from the brand Faber Castell because that’s the one I picked up in college when I was forced to take the course “DRAWING I-INTRO INTO DRAWING,” and I’m too scared I’ll be disappointed if I were to try another brand.
I’m interested in knowing that my line work is clean. It’s a habit, a skill that I choose to perfect over the other elements of art because I wanted to be like my idols, and it’s okay to be like my idols. It’s okay that the only reason I took drawing seriously was because a childhood friend told me I was good and I wanted to draw hair better like in the show Sailor Moon. To this day, hair remains one of my single, most favorite part about drawing.
I’m interested in how an unusual anime series got me drawing like a mad woman. It began over the Summer, in June. I picked up my favorite 6B Faber Castell pencil and jot down a simple comic. The simple comic turned into a longer comic which turned into me Googling “how to comic speech bubble” because honestly, I didn’t read enough comics/manga to know what speech bubbles looked like, let alone know how to use them. I found myself learning a new art form. It solidified the idea that I can never learn enough.
I’ve always been that weirdo that just can’t “leave something alone.” I think about things critically. I think about things a lot. I feel too much. I used to be ashamed about it, about all of it. I’ve drawn fan art, made playlist for my favorite characters, video games, and series. There’s no way a normal person would fixate on something this much, I thought.
I started drawing again in June.
This time, I let myself explore my interest. I let myself remember the comforting experience of holding a pencil in my hand. I’ve accepted that I’m not the best painter, yet my line art can communicate and execute everything that I need it to. Yeah, I might be hyper fixated on that one anime, Golden Kamuy, but it’s gotten me to draw again, and for that reason alone, I feel like I owe it a few fan comics.
I've stated it before on this blog, and I'll say it again. I've thought about deleting this space multiple times over the past decade. The stuff I have made, I left it on internet thinking it’ll eventually die through entropy. Against my best knowledge, I'm glad this Tumblr's still here. It's one of the few spaces on the internet where I feel comfortable sharing my drawings publically (and writing I guess).
I mainly post this stuff for my own self-reflection, yet if you've read this far then thanks. It has been tough. Art's tough. Drawing isn't easy. If you used to create, but stopped, I hope you find your way back to it.
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