#how people knock out art in the first few days of artfight will never not impress me

[piranhartist]

The poses and expressions on them both here is just delightfullll aueghHHhh ;A; Thank you so much for drawing them! <3

Artfight attack - Ragna and Kito

For @piranhartist

I've been wanting to draw Ragna for a while. It seemed like the perfect time to finally do it. I decided to add Kito and draw a cute little interaction picture.

[dgdraws]

Artfight Postmortem

as you may know, i am prone to reflection on my art and process and progress. herein, i'm gonna navel gaze a bit about artfight 2024.

top line: really enjoyed myself, did a bunch of new things and this was "The Year of Artist Friends" which is spectacular.

i completed 20 attacks this year, including my first ever mass attacks! altogether I drew 28 different characters (incl 4 of my own).

for the first time, I had *users* i wanted to attack, rather than just characters i'd gathered via search or discord. honestly, three years ago when i picked up the stylus i was just excited at the prospect of drawing for other people, period. artfight was a cool way to be in community without prerequisites. i didn't quite dare to dream i might make some real connections and make proper friends. and yet :) here we are! i went in with three 'art friends' and i'm leaving with at least three more

in addition to being the year of artist friends, this could be "the year of clip studio paint was on megasale a week before artfight" because i knocked out like 2 practice pieces before July 1st so i wouldn't be starting with completely unfamiliar tools, but i used/learned csp for the vast majority of my attacks. one i finished in krita (lonnie), and my final attack i only used krita.

definitely trial-by-fired myself! but it motivated me to explore csp, and most important, gave me a reason to practice practice practice. last year i drew almost exclusively humans, lots of full bodys, because i wanted to get a better grip on anatomy and drawing a variety of faces. it worked then, and, well, i think i learned more of csp in one month of artfight than i would have if i was just plodding through my personal projects for 33 days :) *looks at my wip folder with months old files* pretty sure.

ok i'm gonna look at a few faves/standouts now:

came in hot with 0tt0 here! the main brush for this one (froggy pencil) was a mainstay for the whole month. so versatile!!! and lovely texture. this isn't quiiite brat green but this was what made me go, hmm, what if i... did a few pieces inspired by this album i can't stop listening to?

and then i took a huge turn and just used a soft round brush for Desa and Iryna for my dear friend @bobomcfoe bc i really wanted to turn these out in something approaching my "usual style" of late and i feared getting too deep into the temptations of csp if i put them off. and, um, yeah i love them. i got sooo close to matching that angle but ahh i can see the tilt now! nonetheless, love these two, not least bc brookie has some of the most pleasing color palettes to work w :)

then on to Rosé and baby's first vector lines! you can RESIZE lines in csp. did you know that? i didn't know that. i did forget to use it as much as i could have in later ones though, so i still only kinda know it ig. and halftone shading! bc why not? another thing i really only did this once, but want to experiment with more

Rook here, for my new friend @gender-premium-tm, was me realizing how to use filters/filter layers in csp. now THAT is something i used a lot this month! also something i use often in krita. i must say, though the csp options are slightly more limited (afaik), they have oomph!

okay these two are my "explicitly brat pieces"! artfight keeps you moving, which i find really valuable, bc i could have dithered foreverrr over Lonnie's gif here. like, do i add his arm? maybe he should be wearing a shirt? or, what if i just draw him twice, instead of splitting the expressi--see it just never ends. and as i am always going on about, art is so precious bc it is a reflection of us when we make it. maybe for some future artfight i'll redraw this (as Lonnie's artist @wenmistry did for me with Ebon this year), but for july 2024, i'm amazed at how well i executed this for just 2.5 days of work! (i did forget his glasses, which realization gave me a different take on the composition, so this is high on my list of potential redraws)

and then Aagatha. this is in my top 3 for this year. the pink just works so well with the green and her artist added the song to her character playlist AND added the necklace to her actual dnd inventory. like. omg. the impact your art can have!!! how freaking cool is that???

two mass attacks! i was in a silly goofy mood. i feel like i really got a handle on vectors w the anthro mass attack, i adjusted every single point on that one by hand. weird what hyperfocus makes you do sometimes, but i learned a lot from that. mainly that i will probably never user vectors as my main linework tool. there are circumstances it is perfect for, and outside of that i'm good w my raster lines lol

which is exactly what i used for this other mass attack, featuring mostly my ocs. hey, sometimes you need to shake things up! i can see here the style starting to hew back to my "usual style", though i'm thinking that might have a lot to do with drawing 5 people very quickly. falling back on practiced techniques. and by this time i apparently knew csp well enough to reproduce them pretty closely! ooh, one thing this made me miss was the transform tool in krita. that floor was ROUGH to wrestle into place in csp.

purple and green turned up a lot this year!

Echo is my crowning achievement with the froggy pencil, most of the shading here is just layers w that. and one last nod to brat green :)

i've worked in the paper cut style before (both my pfp's use it) but i really exploited csp's clipping layers to make Scraps here. they did make me briefly forget how they work in krita when i switched back, so well done w that

i played with gradient maps a little earlier in the month but for Okanar i actually made my own gradient! really a useful tool for ref'ing real human skin tones to make non-human ones, without muddying them up too much.

finally, Chaos. this actually might be my favorite! ironically this is the one that i made in krita. it was like, ahh, yes my old friend. wait where is the scroll bar. ah, okay, yes my old friend... the line layer is set to burn which just makes the whole thing so warm (and the cause of the red outlines on the earrings). used my old sable brush, a pattern fill set to overlay... my old stomping grounds! but plus a rendering technique i picked up this month and some other random habits i picked up in csp (like copying a detail to a new layer, moving it where i want a copy, and drawing/tracing it back onto the original layer in the new position. nothing i couldn't have been doing in krita all along, but made easier by the tool layout in csp, and therefore now discovered by me. amazing how one integrates new knowledge. it's like magic sometimes!!!)

that was a good roundup! if you actually read this to the end, wow! and thank you! i hope it was interesting... and inspiring! bc i want to read about your process and reflections too! yes you! and plz tag me, i'm always down to gush about art XD

[kittemfang]

whats this?? its time for THE 2022 YEARLY ART SUMMARY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! we’ve got a lot to cover here folks!! this year was interesting, as i basically had a large amount of artblock for around half the year. it wasnt until the late months of the year that i really feel like i started picking up! lets go!

JANUARY:  this drawing is a bit sloppy, but i honestly love it just for how fun it is to draw characters based on littlest pet shop molds. it was tough choosing this one, especially as if you know me you may recall i was deep into hyperfixating on The Hex and drew it a lot, but overall i feel like this drawing was the start of Something... i drew in a ‘painter’ style way more often this year, and this may have been the starting point.

FEBRUARY: febby was a rough month in terms of drawing, almost all of my drawings this month were doodles rather than finished drawings, a trend that is going to be popping up a lot during these early months. this drawing was mainly an experiment, especially with more goopy and meaty drawings, its alright.

MARCH:  i actually made this in the brawling depths of both artblock and psychonauts hyperfixation. for how much i struggled to draw it, it turned out really good, i still enjoy it. i dont draw backgrounds/elaborate setpieces in drawings very often, so it was fun to plan out the composition and stuff.

APRIL: this month of extreme artblock also paved the way for a new drawing style that i adore doing and still do. that is, using my favorite lineart brush to just do somewhat of their own shading. of course, since this was the first time i did that, its not as much as other pieces doing the same style would do. this month had ONLY this drawing as something i would consider more finished, as my artblock was strong and i mostly drew loosely and without care to be perfect, something very good to do for the soul

MAY:  theres not much to say about this drawing, its simply something that i did. ive become more and more comfortable with a painting style. however, it is funny that i just couldnt get her face right, so i doodled it on. there isnt much to say about this month either, i doodled a lot, and drew ocs mostly.

JUNE: this drawing was actually in honor of me getting a dress, its actually the first dress i wore. its an ant dress :) one time i was on the bus wearing it and this lady was like man your dress is totally punk its so cool. i like the way i color tv sheeps wool as usual

JULY: ah yes, artfight season. but i drew this because i was also playing cuphead a bunch, and moonshine mob is one of my favorite bosses. i love the way the colors turned out on this, in general i love the look of it, i like how i did the colors of the fur into eachother.

AUGUST: nothign special to it, i just like this drawing :) i think its funny how the main subject is flat colors, i NEVER do flat colors. and its still good. its just well...its pleasant its a nice drawing.

SEPTEMBER: i was wondering what drawing to put for this, after all this month i started going in an upwards direction with drawing. it was still doodle-like, but the way i colored characters was starting to become more focused and enjoyable, and i still do it this way. however i choose this one because its just..its nice. and i still love knock knock. and i love dark shading with light.

OCTOBER: things are starting to get real this month. doodled a lot, drew nice finished pieces, got more ambitious with things like my full dhmis piece. drew and was thinking about a lot of my ocs this month. i choose this drawing because I ADORE IT??hello??? honestly went off with this drawing. the dark and desaturated dreary colors with the bright, kind of offputting highlights, got damn !

NOVEMBER:  i became real this month. i was taken out for a few days after surgery, but i was on an IV drip named touhou project and she gave me STRENGTH. i have to draw people now. PEOPLE. and i became stronger. STRONGER. i started drawing with full rendered shading a lot more often. i choose this drawing though because while it isnt highly detailed shading, i think the simplicity, the colors, and the lining make it ‘pop’ and its just real good.

DECEMBER:  BECOMING STRONGER, BECOMING MORE REAL. i am drawing a lot now. i love my drawings. im finding different ways to draw and am going between them. a lot is happening. her name is touhou and this is her project. i choose this drawing of eika, because she is my baby, i also think its a really cute drawing. i love how i did the shading, mes was like “teehee you used posterization” nope i just shaded it like this myself... its too much!!

also, for my eika design: the two red bits tailing off of her are not part of her dress, if it was obvious by the different way i shades them. they are umbilical cords that sorta act like tails..kind of nasty, put those things away! also i draw her hands and feet more simple because its sorta like, the idea of her being half formed and boneless

OVERALL: A LOT OF GOOD THINGS HAPPEN AT THE END OF THE YEAR FOR DRAWING. the beginning of this eyar was troubled by a lot of fits of artblock and unwillingness to draw, but now im strong. i fully blame my new interest in touhou project for my good mood and happiness with my art, however it also helps that during november i got on medication and now i really am just a happier person.

here are summaries from the previous years. take a looky at what i have become!

if you want to see my commentary for 2021, here it is

[year2000electronics]

heyoo im doing artfight for the first time this year, have any advice lol

honestly wasnt quite sure what it even was until earlier this month

-🧃

sure! this is only my second year but i got a general low down of how it works

- first things first, HAVE FUN! artfight shouldn’t be a chore and if you find it is you gotta take a step back. no part of participation is mandatory so even if someone’s demanding you revenge them you literally... do not have to. like, the aim of the game is just to attack people and revenge isn’t guaranteed so if you don’t wanna revenge someone then just do not!

- i personally recommend seeing if any friends are participating bc drawing their characters and getting over that initial heebie jeebies of giving people art is good practice

- how i generally found people to attack last year was just going on the browse character page until i saw a design i loved! or even a cool art style id explore and then i’d find some other cool characters on their profile! overall just going for it even though you might not know a person personally lets you draw all sorts of new characters you might have never had before

- don’t WORRY about art ability. i got art from what i was pretty sure was like a 12 year old with ms paint jpeg fill lines and i loved it so much. one of my favourite defenses from that year. the point is free art IS free art no matter the ability and even if you think someone might be out of your league i’m sure they’ll love the attack anyways

- don’t burn out! art fight lasts for the entire month so judge your own stamina- i think i knocked out like 40 attacks before i got busy and had to stop (this was just before july 10) which worked good enough for me but i found that if you feel like, say, you’d like to only do 40 attacks that year, you might be good by waiting bc a lot of artists will just stumble on your page randomly as the month goes on and it’ll go from you seeking out attacks to attacks seeking out you

- don’t get discouraged if nobody attacks you the first few days! it doesn’t mean nobody is interested, sometimes it just takes a while

- this is just a personal tip but i really like attacking people who are beginners bc like, that might make their whole WEEK yk? i know if i had fanart drawn for me 10 years ago i’d totally flip... it’s just a nice thing to do imo