missed the date but i still did my silan portrait this year!! ...sort of!
i wasn't feeling a painting or a full illustration this time so i sorta followed last year's lead and asked myself "what am i into Right Now?" and the answer was. rotating characters LOL
so here he is, for 2024 i put my boy in the microwave. happy pride! 🏳️🌈
so i’ve been doing this whole “draw a portrait of my oc silan” thing for a few years now, and having finally obliterated my streak of unfinished pieces this year, i thought now would be the perfect time to take a look at my overall improvement!
click thru for little tidbits about each piece, and keep reading for some mushy reflective thoughts about my journey thru this v personal project of mine ❤
a lot has changed since i started this tradition back in 2014; originally, the point was to complete a digital painting start to finish in a single day, on may 16th each year. but the repetitive strain injury i’ve developed since then has made that, frankly, impossible. with my stubborn sense of sentimentality and need to follow my own rules as they were initially established, it was hard to convince myself that i needed to adapt and give myself the time i actually needed to finish.
of course the result was a string of unfinished pieces and a lot of personal dissatisfaction. i tried giving myself a week instead of a day to finish. i tried making it a new year’s resolution to finish the dang portrait. all without success.
this year, i decided to cut the bullshit, buckle down, and really commit to finishing the project, no matter what. a lot tried to stop me: dips in motivation, having to take days off to rest my hand, feeling like i was gonna die trying to paint daffodils, etc. but more than feeling defeated by those complications, i wanted to see this project through, and i’m so so so glad and proud to say that i’ve finally succeeded!
it’s not perfect, but i’m definitely happy with how the 2019 portrait came out! i really tried to experiment with color this time and i’m particularly pleased with the softness of the colors in his face, hair, and in the daffodil leaves. i feel like i learned a lot from working on this and though i’m definitely ready for a rest, i’m excited to carry this momentum forward and make even better things in the future!
anyway! that was rly cheesy! thank you for following & enjoying my work! see u next year for the 2020 portrait!! 💖💖💖
my yearly tradition continues with the 2022 silan portrait/illustration! needed an extra day to finish it off but He's Here
couple of fun things this time: technically this has been a thing since last year but because of the angle you couldn't see it, but both of his eyes are brown! normally silan's left eye is blue, and i haven't done away with the heterochromia entirely, but for ~story related reasons~ they are brown by default now hehe
i also gave him a new hobby, which is flower pressing! since i've always associated flowers with silan (to the point that it became one of the main themes of these illustrations), this felt like a very natural progression to take with his character. so i've given him a bookmark he made containing a pressed pansy, the flower i associate with him the most.
flower pressing also plays into the developing themes of silan's character and story; there's a lot of focus on memories and nostalgia and the influence of time. in my mind, the flowers are like precious memories he's trying to preserve, pausing time and holding onto them in their most beautiful state.
last year i went with a quiet, contemplative mood, which i carried forward into this year; i think this one has more of a bittersweet vibe, like the lamp turning on as the sun goes down is signaling that this moment will have to come to an end, but at least before that happens, we can appreciate its beauty. i find it a very fitting encapsulation of all the themes & ideas i've been playing around with lately ❤️
so that's a wrap on this year's portrait! as always, looking forward to what next year will bring; who knows, maybe i will even let silan be happy again! Only Time Will Tell
happy silan day! i draw my oc silan with flowers every year on may 16th because i love him dearly & it’s a date i’ve always associated with him 🌼♥️
thoughts & feelings under the cut!
i tend to struggle with actually finishing them though (like last year’s, which i never ended up posting,) so This Year i made the executive decision to treat the 16th as a deadline rather than a starting point And Wouldn’t You Know It it worked!!
idk how much of that can be chalked up to the deadline switch or if it was a combination of other factors (drawing a lot more finished pieces lately, building a comfortable routine/process, the significant drop in the amount of flowers i have to painstakingly render one by one) but the fact is i got this whole thing done in a little under a week and that is a Big Win
so, a lot of things have changed!! first in 2020 the series took a hard turn from simple portraits into full illustration! the piece has a lot of energy and freedom to it imo; when i started this series i had made up all these Rules i had to adhere to, like has to be a digital painting, has to be a portrait, has to have his eyes closed, has to have him wearing a flower crown, and Has to be started and finished all in one day, on the 16th
they created a lot of unnecessary pressure that i think really contributed to my struggle to finish them. as the years have gone on i’ve steadily been chipping away at these “rules,” taking off the flower crown, opening his eyes, giving myself more time to work on it- and finally, doing away with the portrait rule altogether. 2020′s energy feels like that final push to break free of that nonsense and just have fun with the project and i’m loving it tbh. i may not have finished it in the end, but it was definitely a step in the right direction!
and then we have this year’s, 2021! definitely a more moody piece... the reason for which being all the changes i’ve been making to silan & his story lately hoho !! he is Older now, he’s 24!! before, i was jumping around with his age a lot trying to settle on anything between 14 and like 18, but as i work out the details of his whole deal more things start coming into focus, and right now 24 feels right! so i gave him a little facial hair both to make him look older and also bc i think it makes him look like a dweeb and that’s CUTE,
this year’s illustration definitely reflects the kind of work i’ve been doing lately, with all the lil adjustments n effects i like to add to my pieces- which also shows how much more comfortable i’ve gotten with my process. the 2020 one was done around the time i was still getting used to procreate, whereas now i’m Pretty Dang Comfortable
so we’re leaning a lot more heavily into the illustration aspect, and then Also this is the first year i haven’t used ANY of the three flowers i usually associate with silan (pansies, daffodils, and forget-me-nots), which!! felt really weird!! but i did take the purple flowers from last year (lavender maybe?) and incorporate them into this year’s so at least there’s Some continuity there, right?
overall to me the piece says contemplation, a bit of nostalgia, thinking about the past. there are definitely story elements related to this that i can’t really get into atm but i think these may be flowers silan remembers from his childhood? still figuring things out but that’s what i like to think
anyway yeah! i’m really happy i was able to finish this year’s portrait i mean illustration! hoping to keep this improvement train rolling so that next year maybe i can take this series even further off the rails- looking forward to it!! 💖
