Colored Pencils
As I'm packing, I found an old sketchbook from high school (13 years ago, for this book in specific) and it's like... Huh, I really did love to draw and make art. Inside is a page with just various anime eyes. Another page has artwork of an OC I don't even remember the name of, done in colored pencils. More life studies, done for art class. Art of an OC for a friend's birthday. All of it is mediocre, but I can clearly recall just doing it just to do it. Just to have fun with it.
This comes directly after last night, where I watched a video on a guy who does various 2 hour studies in order to improve his speed and technique. He based it on a different artist doing 2 hour requests, where she had streamed these two hours. Then he did studies of other styles in the two hours, and eventually one piece took 7 hours (but this was good for him as it usually took him a week or so).
But the entire video he was easy on himself and the mistakes he made. He admitted the original 2 hour ones were very difficult and not at all fun, but just by the end of the video you could clearly see marked improvement.
Maybe I'll start drawing again... Start from the basics and be easy on myself and it'll be fun again. I hope.
The page with all the eyes on them, that was in the sketchbook, was what prompted me to think more about it, though I've been off and on thinking about it with no real commitment to it yet. I was super influenced by Atlus's style back then, and it's clear from these eyes alone. One game in particular that I remember copying off of was Trauma Team (the story influenced me too a lot, I remember).
I think if I start drawing again, rather than being wishy-washy over what my style is, I might do studies based on the art style of Trauma Team (and the other Trauma Center games) (and maybe some other older Altus games). A lot of my problem is that it never looked right, no matter what I drew or how long I took, and I suspect it's because I'm so out of practice I've lost my "style" (not that I really ever had one to begin with). Like the guy in the video, I also just... took way too longer, which gave more of a timeframe to criticize myself more.
This post is so haphazardly written. I should be packing. I'm going now, again, I promise. But after I'm done for the day, I think I'll draw.
With love, Byleth