Its that time of the year again. 2011 is almost over and we use the last few days to take a look back on what happened over the course of the year. And this is me doing it, art wise.
Now, last year I did a very detailed recap of every picture that was in the compilation and the reasons for choosing it. ( You can find last years submission HERE ) But this year I dont feel like doing that, since there were a lot of hard choice on which pictures to pick for this. So I'm just gonna ramble.
Looking back, I was surprised to see how motivated I started out with drawing and how many submissions I posted over the first few months. Sadly, I again broke my promise to take more commissions, but we'll get to the reasons for that later. What I think is most visible here if you look through these pictures, is that my style didnt really evolve that much over the months. And to be honest: I dont really mind that.
I think I have improved myself over the last year in the regard, that the characters now seem to have more depth to them. They dont look like cardboard cutouts in front of wallpapers anymore. I did occasionally achieve that in 2010 already, but it was most of the times just me being lucky to spot that in those cases.
What I still havent touched again is the fur itself. My characters often look really smooth, because I dont use any fur effects or draw a lot of fur on them. Mainly thats just me being lazy. I just dont want to spend hours on drawing every single hair over a body, because it is not as easy as it may sound. You have to pay attention to how the fur would lay on top of the skin and in what direction it flows and stuff. And I really admire artists who can pull of that real fuzzy look. But I prefer to take the shortcut on that one. Maybe that will change in 2012.
Aside from that, I drew most of my pictures this year either for me, or close friends. Only towards the end I did warm up to some commissions, but basically all of them I kept under the radar and they just happened to come at a right time. I will change that in 2012 and I will do commissions again, more frequently. Its just that it has been bugging the hell out of me, that I often times produce a massive backlog with people waiting weeks and months for a picture from me and I want to avoid that in the future. So I will figure something out.
For 2012 I do have some things planned, but I dont know if I will be able to make them happen yet. There are a few things I would really love to do and I hope I will be able to, but we'll see to that once we get there.
So yeah, thats pretty much it from me. Now I will be posting one more picture before the year is over and I already have some things in the works for 2012. So stay tuned!
Oh and, enjoy this little compilation. And I hope you have a great new years eve!
