Ey yo, not to get cheesy on my blog, but in the spirit of the Baftas, I wanted to genuinely thank a few of the blogs I follow here for keeping me wrapped in the GO and DT fandom, and subsequently, having my art improve a TON because of it.
(this is gonna be a long one, so strap in, or scroll if you don't wanna read my ramblings, lol)
Tw: mentions of depression, art block, and unmotivation
For a bit of background, up until October of 2024, I was in a nearly seven month long (honestly, probably more like 1 year) stretch of unending art block. I was feeling really bad about my art style, and I started doubting my future as an artist. I was barely putting any effort into any of my college projects, and I stayed up late crying and panicking because I just didn't enjoy making art anymore, and I was afraid I'd end up with a job I hated because I don't have any other skills. The only source of comfort I had at the time was David Tennant media. I was teased a lot about my special interest by my family (it was all good natured, don't worry), but I was the only one that I knew personally who liked David as much as I did. Which brings us to the first person I wanna mention: @davidtennantgenderenvy
I can't pinpoint when or how I discovered their Youtube channel, but when I did, I honestly felt more seen than I ever had about my insane special interest with this actor. And she was a musical theater nerd who maladaptive daydreamed all his characters to different musical songs??!? It was genuinely like finding my twin, and made me feel just a bit more normal about my love for David's projects. I then clicked on her Tumblr link and began looking around the website (without an account, mind you, I was just browsing), but when I did, I eventually stumbled across the art blog @hg-aneh, and fell in love with his style and how he drew Aziraphale and Crowley.
His art was so cute and simple and it just made me sadder that I was stuck in this never ending artist's block. However, one day, I was looking at one of his works (I can't remember which one it was, im sorry), and I was like, "You know what? Just to humor myself, I'll make a quick sketch in his style. Cuz its cute! And it won't be too detailed. So I did. Sure, I quickly erased the sketch, but that was the first time in MONTHS that I had made my own art outside of school work. It must have kicked something off, because I started sketching on my iPad again, slowly but surely making more and more little pieces. Which again, isn't much, but it was such a huge step for me. Yeah, I started focusing more time on my personal art than my school work, and my grades suffered because of it, but I was SO happy that I was finding some joy in making art again.
I finally got Tumblr around the middle of October, thanks to some persuading by davidtennantgenderenvy when I told them I wanted to show them some Macbeth fan art I made, but I didn't have any social media. I asked them if Tumblr would be worth getting, and they assured me it was, so I made an account and almost immediately started getting likes. It honestly made me want to cry because I always thought my art was boring and uninteresting. It doesn't help that around this time, I was barely getting any feedback from my peers during class critiques, so I just assumed my art wasn't anything anyone wanted to look at. But then the first Macbeth piece I posted on here got so many notes, that I was like "eh, I'll post my Good Omens fan art too. What could go wrong?" Nothing went wrong, and I continued getting notes on the pieces that I posted, and I was almost confused by it? I can't really explain it but I was like "wait, so is my art good, or are these people just taking pity on me?" (I have a huge complex about pity, but we don't need to get into that LOL)
Anyways, I started making art primarily just to post on Tumblr, but I guess the practice was beginning to pay off, because when I would barely get any feedback on my classwork pieces, people in class started speaking up a bit about my work. Giving compliments and critiques, which helped so much. Wanted to cry when it happened again lol.
Can't really write out a good segue between these two points, but another person I wanted to thank was @depraveddame . If you don't know who she is, she is an insanely talented writer who, I think I discovered back when I was just browsing Tumblr without an account. I started reading her ao3 story Vine Slips of a Strange God, which is a human AU Good Omens fanfic, for those who have not read her work yet. First off, I am NOT a reader. Like, you could not pay me to read a book in my spare time, so idk what drew me to this fanfic (it was probably the mention of 'hurt/comfort' in the tags, ngl.) But I ATE THAT SHIT UP OH MY GOD IT WAS SO GOOD. It took me a bit to click with the story, but when I DID?!?! It genuinely took over my life in the best way. There was also BEAUTIFUL art in the chapters, made by the very talented @zivilzz .The way they colored and shaded their pieces made me want to practice on my coloring and shading, and it has improved so much because of it. I ended up reading all of her works in the span of like, a week or two. I also made a small sketch of her gardener Crowley around the time I started slowly getting back into making my own art. I ended up loving Vine Slips so much, that I'm currently planning on making a comic of one of my favorite scenes in the story. Also, while depraveddame is an amazing writer, she also informed me a TON about the BDSM community. (btw, if you don't support the bdsm community, and you think its morally wrong, or that it should be illegal, unfollow me rn.) But anyways, I used to be a bit judgy about the idea of bdsm. I knew of it, and I never thought it should be illegal, but I would just ask myself "why? why would you do that to another person, or why would you just let that happen to you?" Luckily, I don't think that way anymore, and it is very much thanks to her insane writing.
Also one more person I want to thank, that doesn't really have anything to do with my art improvement was @aq2003 for prayer circling for me to be able to watch Macbeth at my nearest cinema *cough* 50 minutes away during a snow storm *cough*. Genuinely, thank you, dude, that recording changed my life
OOH!! and also, thank you, @davidtennan-t for chubby Fourteen 🥹
Damn, this was a long post, sorry y'all, but basically, the point of this post is, while I have many things to thank for my latest improvement of art, I really dont think it would have been able to happen as quickly as it did without these blogs, so thank you guys so much, you'll never know how much it meant to me.
yes, I cried while typing this, shhhhhhhh
