Have you ever tried drawing your avatar (Stickster), but not in a stick style? I was kinda curious what it'd look like in cartoonish style? (But that won't be Stickster, hmm.)
Yup, I used to draw myself in a more realistic style relatively frequently! And it took forever, because I am slow when it comes to drawing! I used to be faster in high school and university when I did it more often, but even then it still took me quite awhile to finish a picture. That’s just how it works when you’re drawing things by hand and colouring them in with gel pens like an absolute lunatic. (shrugs)
Stickster is actually the result of a multi-year, multi-try attempt to create an avatar that I could draw quickly and easily, so I could do little comics and one-offs like I currently do with Stickster... and it took awhile. First try was a chibi version of my original avatar, which, while simpler, still took too long to draw. Then, drawing on my experience with the webcomic Order of the Stick, I tried a stickfigure version of my avatar. The end result was still way too complicated, but closer! Then, sometime in 2014/5, having wound up on this (checks notes on hand) fulby funshional website, I gave Stickster another go, stripping my avatar down to its barest essentials, XKCD style! Anything that gave me even the slightest bit of trouble? AWAY WITH IT! And...
It was too simple, go back and add some features, just the ears and hat on a standard stick figure looked too weird!!!
And that’s when I stumbled across the trick that makes drawing Stickster so simple and effective for me... and it’s not actually my giant t-shirt! In fact, it’s what’s under the shirt:
Two extra lines - one for shoulders, one for hips. These lines are actually the most important part of my stickster art style, because it makes it really easy to figure out how to position limbs in relation to themselves and the torso to make easily recognizable poses for Stickster to be in! Add my shirt, hat, ears, and a big smile, and, voila! A Green Stickster appears!
And then gets refined a bit as I get used to drawing in this new style!
I still do the occasional piece in my fancier art style, I’ve got some AHiT stuff floating around if you want to take a look at that, but honestly? I really like drawing in Stickster!style! It’s fun, it’s easy, it’s relatively fast, and I think it’s really cute! ^U^
Thanks for the ask (even if I totally distracted myself and went on a huge tangent with it)!