#I'm still halfway through book 3 but I've been wanting to make fanart for a while

[jccatstudios]

⚔️ A.J. Lockwood and Co., for all your ghost hunting needs ⚔️

[md3artjournal]

Please ignore my 2am venting.

I'm a little frustrated because despite all my art classes, I've been taught how to draw anything in front of me, but I want to draw imaginary characters with no real life models, and I have not been taught facial landmarks, relationships between landmarks, their positions and proportions. I can't even remember all the anatomy I learned in school. But I don't think it matters, because even back then, I remember it not helping me draw better. I remember wasting to much time drawing skeletons and underlying anatomy for figures in my personal, non-class drawings, and it STILL not looking as good as when I drew figures with fanart shortcuts. So I guess I shouldn't have been surprised, when I went through 3 books tonight before I found that the "More How to Draw Manga" book---of all things---was the only one that gave any sufficient useful instruction.

I bought all these articulated figures as drawing models (and because I'm a completionist figure collector), and yet, my scale drawings still hardly looked good. Maybe my Ace Week goddesses were nice, but I wanted to draw fanart! I couldn't even use these figures as models for my OTPs hugging, without the resulting drawings looking stiff and weird. I'm terrible at posing. Even in displaying my articulated figures, my poses are uninspired at best. So you better believe my 2D drawings of humans have stiff, unnatural, and uninteresting poses.

I feel like I spent 4 years on this art degree and never learned how to draw. Sure, I can draw any photograph, live model, or still life in front of me. But what good does that do, when it's my imagination wanting to manifest, that was my original reason to learn to draw?

And comparing to the internet doesn't help. I think recently getting into the Fire Emblem fandom really pushed me to snap. I went from drawing Persona 5 character fanart daily, to too afraid to draw any of the FE3H characters I love. All that Fire Emblem fanart is such high quality. And on top of that, the canonical costume designs are so intricate, and there's magic to add beautiful embellishments, fantasy elements, like detailed weapons, beautiful armor, dragons...Fire Emblem fanart is just next level. I can't help but feel so worthless in comparison. And the worst thing is that FE3H is my current obsession, so I want to only draw nothing but it. I wish that FE3H would inspire me to draw completed vignettes every single day, that I could feel proud of, the way that Persona 5 did. Persona 5 inspired me to draw so intensely, that I drew every day, and I feel like I actually became a better illustrator, compared to my old self. But I can barely get myself to draw for FE3H because I know how terrible that even my personal best drawings are, compared to the rest of the fandom. And you can see how little care anyone gives for your bad art, while other art in the tags gets hundreds of notifications, even for art that is equally simplistically stylized. (Please make no mistake: This is no derision. My favorite art style is simplified stylization.) Sometimes, my depression/paranoia tells me that I must have done something to offend the fandom. Maybe a badly worded comment to a fanfic, or some dumb fangirling spaz on my blog,..."Maybe they're shunning you on purpose!", my paranoia says. (This paranoia actually happened with my last fandom too. And when I think about it, I've done this in real life too. Dang, I really should get some psychological help.) I hate feeling that I love these characters so much, that I want to draw them everyday, but I don't, because I'm afraid of how far down my quality is, compared to most Fire Emblem fanartists. o_o;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

Even when I don't post it, I can still see how bad my art is. Earlier tonight, I tried to draw a scale version of Hilda. I only got halfway through, before I was so disgusted with how ugly it already was, that I just lost all motivation to even finish the sketch.

So I switched to a quick chibi doodle of Hilda instead. The other day, I also did a quick chibi doodle of Claude, just to boost my self esteem. I could no longer stand my current stretch of days, where I haven't completed any drawing. I really miss having a finished drawing each day. Not just a completed sketch, but also completed with color too. And when it's chibi, it also looks cute, and that intrinsically elicits a genuine emotion from me when I look at it. Cute chibi, even my style of chibi, have a cuteness that I can genuinely appreciate, in and of itself, even before posting online. Whether completed or cute, I miss these doodles that made me feel I had made something I could feel proud of, accomplished, and worthwhile. I like these quick chibi doodles.

None of this "still trying to learn digital drawing" madness, while simultaneously trying to complete project ideas! Earlier tonight, I wasted an hour, trying to draw 1 circle in Krita, and I still didn't have any acceptable results before Krita crashed twice. If I had been drawing by hand, I could have been done in 30 seconds. I could be cranking out a drawing per day again. But my scanner is broken...because my printer is broken. The scanner is actually fine. But all-in-one printers are such scams, that if the printer detects a problem with the ink cartridges, for a printer that I no longer have need to print with, then it won't let me scan. So now I HAVE to trace digital versions of all my sketches to make them complete drawings. As of now, my only completed drawings, that could contribute to my accumulated artist alley/online shop stock, can be digital. And the learning curve is just taking TOO LONG. x_x; Maybe if I remember that I always have this tendency to get super frustrated with learning videogames, and perhaps with learning anything, I could get through this. But every day, projects pile up, time passes, and finally opening that online shop this year gets pushed further away---and I have to do it this year because I already told government agencies that I would make sales again, after 2 years of pandemic killing off my in-person sales venues. I hate that digital drawing takes so long to learn, so long to complete anything. I hate all these work in progress sketches piling up. I'm not used to having half-finished drawings! All my past pencil sketches I've not finished within one day, are still unfinished, years later! I have to finish drawings in one day! On top of that, I get overwhelmed easily. Having several unfinished drawings, yet to complete, feels the same as having multiple to-do list tasks, worries piling up, anxiety just compounding. It's just overwhelming, feeling all this stuff I have to do, growing and building with even more things that need completing. I hate it. It makes me want to give up and never get out of bed.

Sometimes, I browse online and I see all this beautiful art that isn't character art nor containing any humans. And I think, "Maybe that's what I should do." I'm not suited to drawing humans. I can barely even look at them, let alone, maintain an instinctual understanding of how to draw faces. (It's stuff like this that makes me think my dad may have been onto something when he suggested I get tested for autism spectrum. ~_~ ) There's so much good art I love, that has nothing to do with depicting humans. Highly stylized, "cute/kawaii" art styles, doodles of food and everyday objects, etc. And I think, "Maybe I can do that." I know I can easily make good sketches of animals and flowers. And I used to doodle objects all the time. And now collections of doodled objects, just like that, are becoming successful stickers for bujo planners and greeting card DIYers. Maybe even my dumb doodles that (if I'm being honest and private) make me (though only me) happy, could be worth something. Maybe I CAN make a living off of this (because I certainly will fail if I return to "normal jobs", just like last time). The problem is that I want to manifest all these images of my human/humanoid OTPs. It's all I obsess over and want to see visualized in reality. I need to draw character fanart...But I'm so bad at anything human. ;____; And so easily frustrated at trying to study drawing fundamentals. x_____x

[grlfriends]

The Raven Boys thoughts

ch 1: boi I thought gansey was the bald one 😔 anyway the bald bitch and the nerd who looks like a twink in every fanart are gay

ch 15: wow guys nothing has happened so far... nothing..... we're almost 200 pages in and nothing that interesting has happened, I know the plot is setting in and the pace is starting to speed up a little but wow so far this already isnt my fav book of the series I think

ch 24: ok the pace is starting to pick up and I'm really enjoying it rn, I still see gansey as this polo wearing and golf player fucker but he's getting better I guess, Ronan can fuck off sometimes he's so edgy it irks me a little

on this and on the previous chapter they saw/hallucinated some stuff at that hollow tree and then at the end gansey was like "ohh blue was the missing person/thing I feel so connected to her something something" and tbh I did not enjoy that very much it was a bit 😬😐 for me bc I just dont like when this type of connection between characters bc it feels like the author is trying to force/speed up a relationship they just dont have yet?? and we the readers must accept they feel the connection in their souls and it just feels so right for them to be around each other when in reality it feels a bit lazy to me..... I'm still halfway through the book so it's not like I can complain for real but still ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

ch 42 maybe?? : okay just something's I wanna tall about: can we pay respect to Maggie stiefvater and how organic she made Adam deciding to wake the ley line?? bc it was GREAT and I deeply loved it, i know i said that the book felt boring and very slow and how it needed to pick up the pace but i think this trilogy falls into the lotr/hobbit category where it's one big movie (in the specific case, book) divided into 3 so it would be easier to digest and I think this makes total sense, everything I've read so far (from chap 33 to here) feels so perfectly paced and planed but still it feels natural, when Adam was coming back home and he had a confrontation (well, not really) with his dad it just felt like was supposed to happen at that time with those exact words describing everything and mwah I'm loving it so much

also!! boi do Adam and blue sound so cute together, when he said he wanted to kiss her I was like

bc holy shit do they make a cute couple EVEN THOUGH I do know she ends up with gansey and their energy is also really good but goddamn do they look cute together and to think he would have been her first kiss too I'm going insane rn brub oh my god

also maybe it's the 21 year old in me talking but god did I wish they were one or two years older, it just kinda makes me a bit :// reading to 16 year olds being this traumatized about life in general and I feel like it honestly would change much if all this happened in the meantime they're about to turn 18 bc it would still be a ya book but it would be just?? more comprehensive I guess, adam dialogue about making up enough money to leave his house and getting into a good college so he can live a good life and have a home finally baby that's a 17 year old talking and feeling the pressure of the so called adulthood and being so close to being independent but also still being so young and !!!! I just feel like it would make more sense to me personally

re: about gansey's glasses: did I miss something or have the part where he gets glasses already went by?? bc he shower up at blue's home wearing white ones and there was no tall about it?? nothing else and it makes me feel like I missed something and I'm not sure yet

ch 48 and ending thoughts: ok. I'm not really sure what to feel about it bc even I had a rocky beginning with it I did end up really liking the ending but it left such a big taste of wanting more than I got that it just kinda makes me feel like it was, in a way, a prologue for the second book, where I imagine things will be more intense and already be in motion plot-wise. I have many question but my biggest one is that wow apparently that was the big explanation for gansey wearing glasses?? bc it honestly looks like I missed something or a chapter where something happens and he got glasses, his fight with whelck did break his thumb but it somehow got him glasses too?? or what the hospital like "yeah you're blind so fuck here's some glasses bitch"?? and Adam mentioned something on his face from their fight and??? was the discussion their fight and how did it hurt gansey's face?????? HOW???

not only that but also Adam sacrificed himself and how exactly does that affects him?? or was the whole "oh I've sacrificed myself my whole life" dialogue supposed to explain something?? bc yeah it kinda did but I was left with the thought that he would be kinda like a puppet I guess? bc he said he would sacrifice himself so in a way he wouldnt be himself anymore and there would be something else controlling him and maybe that was just my imagination wanting to guess what was going to happen now

I did think there would be the classic sacrifice scene and that whelck would try to shot gansey and that Adam would step in front of him or idk bc the scenario wasn't really solid in my mind and I did have trouble trying to figure out who was in what place but it was fine I guess

how on earth did Noah pull out chainsaw from his dreams?? man what the heck I need to read the second book