A year with ArtPark and digital arts!

Hello hello! I’m back and in light of the recent ArtPark activity on noise.cash, I kind of just wanted to expand on the idea. So it has been one year since I went fully digital with my arts. Although I still do traditional here and there, I do think I gave digital arts so much of my focus since I got my drawing tablet. 

I started out as a traditional artist and I used to write about my art progression here on read.cash. It was fun since I could get something out of my hobbies. My hobbies weren’t just hobbies anymore. They were slowly becoming a daily activity and I could see my passion for it returning. I also noticed my old drawing style coming back. If not, it was improving little by little. I was also getting my old drawing speed back. From 3 hours of drawing time, it was back to 2 hours at most then my sketching and drafting time went from 30 minutes to 15 then 10 minutes. I still can’t do 5 minutes of sketching. I never did reach that level but I’m happy with my 10 minute sketching time since I know not everyone can do that. 

Anyways, Based on my gallery, I joined ArtPark in March of 2021. I think I found them in February? But I didn’t join right away because I wasn’t all that confident in DTIS (Do this In Your Style) because they mostly used anime characters (I honestly cannot draw anime characters for some reason) and characters I don’t know XD

I mean, I tried, but since I wasn’t really that adept at drawing characters, I kind of kept skipping days XD Some @ArtPark weeks I skipped were mostly because I was extremely busy ;;-;;

Also, I was trying a few things on my own. Primarily, I was trying to adapt to the digital brushes and put my traditional art style in a digital setting. Like my friends recognize my drawing style and it kind of amuses me, but when I went digital, I remember they would make fun of it for a while because “Maybe digital ain’t for you” because it felt like my art skills kind of downgraded. I blame that on having the wrong brush settings at that time and my lack of knowledge of the software I was using. 

Luckily I’ve pretty much mastered my software now and I’m kind of expanding the software I use since paint tool SAI 2 is good for beginners, line arts and for the base of your drawing, but eventually I do want to try out effects that only certain software has. I was trying out medibang a while back but it’s still kind of hard for me to adjust to. I love the symmetry features it has though since it offers a vanishing point and guidelines too. But right now, I think I’ll be practicing perspectives on SAI first before going on more object study for that. 

Anyways… I think these are the only art park entries I have that were drawn traditionally? 

Then the rest was digital XD 

You can definitely see the improvement, but for my art goal this 2022, I want to polish up my style more and maybe expand to different kinds of styles… or at least, what my art style will allow? Because I tried cartooning and cell blocking (anime style shading) and I really struggled with that. I also kind of struggle with line art because it comes out so rough despite the fact that you can edit it on SAI. Maybe I’ll try art with line art too for my personal satisfaction. 

Also more art challenges in the future! Right now I’m on a 60 day watercolor practice challenge and I’m on day 16. After this, I was planning to do the 100 heads challenge too where you have to draw 100 heads. I’m still not sure what medium I’ll use for that but I’ll find out when I get there.