Nerd Content Warning: 2016 Art Summary

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I wrote an art summary blog post last year so I thought I should write one this year too. I think I drew more in 2016 even if it felt like there were long periods of drought, so I should have lots of material to work with this time!


The chart template I used is from yorunaka on DeviantArt. It's actually meant for 2012, but I liked the layout so I just edited the year. I also tried to vary the subject of the artworks I picked for the chart, otherwise they'd just all be K Project fanart... and I suppose that sets the tone for the rest of this entry.


2016 began with a very strong obsession with K Project, which is a series that's difficult to recommend. I believe it's best experienced if you're willing to dive into the light novels as well. The anime is definitely not for everyone, as it has the tendency to be boring and confusing, most of the meat of the story being in the novels. With that said, I was super into it for the most part of the year, so a lot of the things I produced in the first half of 2016 was K Project fanwork. January saw the birth of my mermaid AU and it's also when I realized I really like redrawing photobook photos but with characters instead of actors. Though I've drawn at least one that isn't K Project, I think I'm proudest of the one I drew of Yata Misaki from a photo out of Ueda Keisuke's photobook.

My Twitter quickly became K-centric, although I've drawn other things too, like Hiiragi Shinya (Owari no Seraph) and Ninomiya Rui (Gatchaman Crowds). In February I drew little Valentine doodles for a variety of fandoms, including Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle, Kamen Rider Gaim, and Noragami. I also did a few Kamen Rider Ghost doodles at some point, but I never really got into the show, eventually dropping it completely.

This year also happened to be a leap year, which means Fuji Shusuke (Prince of Tennis) got to celebrate his birthday on the 29th! The fandom exploded with fanart on Twitter and, of course, I made my own contribution.


In March I discovered that my friends are also doing traditional art again so I thought we should try going on art dates! Well, the art date was also partly because of the rotational power interruption in our city which I mentioned in a blog post back in March. It was a little difficult, trying to find a place where we can hang around to draw a bit. Our first art date landed us at an awkwardly placed cafe sort of thing but we eventually found a "home" at J.co and the food court. We would keep coming back there until the rotational power interruption finally ended and everyone got too busy to meet up.

Anyway, I think March was when I started trying out washi art. My obsession with K Project continued so I drew more of my mermaid AU and doodled more silly redraws. I'm very fond of alternate universes so I'm sure I've drawn a few more of those throughout the year. And!!! While my traditional art journey began in May 2015, I decided to try and do one of those redraw-your-old-artwork things in March.


It may have been in April when we had our first art date as three people. We also started doing the Switcharound Meme, where we each had to draw a sketch, switch so we'd be inking someone else's sketch, and then switch again so we'd be coloring someone else's. In the end we'll have three artworks that reflect each other's art style! At this point I've been drawing K Project almost exclusively, although I try not to draw for any specific fandom when we do the Switcharound Meme.

In last year's art summary I mentioned that I wanted to record art process videos. I've started doing it this year! Unfortunately I do not have a good editing program on my laptop, so I can't use my DSLR to record. I'm only using my phone, giving me very limited recording time, which means I can't record the whole process. The upside is that I don't have to be too fancy with my editing. It's not like anyone would be interested in watching if I uploaded on Youtube, right?


April was still full of mermaid AU doodles and such. However it is also the month when my grandfather passed away. I tried to distract myself and still enjoy the rest of the month so I went on an art date with friends on my birthday, but I think I can never truly like April. I have irrationally disliked it for a very long time, for very ugly and selfish reasons. The events of this year might have given me even more reasons and cemented that dislike. It's okay to not like April now, right?

I really didn't stop drawing K Project, though. This Pokemon crossover was particularly popular, at least by the standards of my Twitter account. As you can see, I don't really get hundreds of retweets or likes or anything like that. I am a humble nobody and this entire blog post is just me pretending that I am in any way important as an artist!


In May I was still drawing K Project. What a surprise. I swear I eventually start drawing something else, just that at this point of the year I was still Really. Into. This. Stupid. Show. I drew a few other things, like Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle, Ghaida (former JKT48 member) and Itohara Minami, but I really just drew a whole lot of K Project. So much K Project. This is also apparently when I came up with another alternate universe for K, although I never really did much with it. I posted a few more process videos, though they were very bad quality and I still haven't figured out how to edit them better! Back then I didn't have my clamp thing yet so I had to prop up my phone on my water bottle to record. It was not the best set up.

At some point I had the not-so-brilliant idea of using one of my toys to hold my phone. The resulting video was pretty terrible but I think the artwork didn't turn out too bad. Yes, it was still K Project. No, I have not yet gotten over it in June. I think I just switched my focus to another pair of characters and tried to draw more of Awashima Seri. I've drawn her a few times before, but I really did enjoy drawing her in a traditional baro't saya.


June saw another one of my redraws. Usually when I redraw a photo from a photobook, the character I draw is one that the actor has played on stage or on television before. This time I redrew Yata Yusuke's photo as Yata Misaki, but while they share the same last name (not the same kanji!), Yusuke has never been anywhere near a K Project production. I'm rather proud of that particular redraw.

There's still more of my mermaids and Seri this month, and another art date, before my family went off to Palawan for a vacation. I've posted about that, so go check out my entries! No points for guessing what I drew on the soft, fine sand of Papaya Island, though.

(It's worth noting that while Itohara Minami has acknowledged my fanarts of her a few times since, I still get the dokis every time she does.)


We went to a board game cafe for the first time in July. I got to work on my drawing while playing and I really super like their sturdy tables. Rehearsals for the stage adaptation of the K Project light novel Lost Small World began this month so it's not a surprise that I did this redraw and drew this to celebrate the opening day. I celebrated Tanabata and there's more Seri. But! Perhaps an actual surprise: I drew flamingoes and they are in no way related to K. I also drew something from A Midsummer Night's Dream, where Konishi Seiya and Yamamoto Ikkei played really pretty ladies.

Another art date happened around this time and I posted a few more process videos. Somehow even if I was still drawing the usual characters, my focus shifted to another pair, which I really didn't see coming. I mean I have drawn them a few times before. I just didn't think I'd draw them much after that.


It must have been sometime in July that I started watching Nirvana in Fire. I have mentioned the show on a previous post although I have not talked about it in great length. I don't see a point to writing a blog entry about it now, since others must have written better write-ups about it than I will ever be able to. The thing is I got really, really into this show. Scrolling through the Media tab on my Twitter would give the impression that I drew a lot all the time, but it must be around this time or a little earlier that my "periods of drought" have become longer and more frequent. There's still K, yet there wasn't as much of it as I used to produce. Partly out of frustration in my own abilities (or inabilities) and partly because the honeymoon stage is over.

I'm not sure what to feel about it. On one hand I think it's good that I'm starting to draw something else. It's time to move on and try out new things and styles, right? On another hand, I think constantly drawing the same characters over and over again sort of helped me find my footing. I'm still unstable and cannot walk very well, but without the practice that drawing K allowed me to have, the passion and the motivation for it that fueled my drive to keep drawing, I wouldn't still be drawing right now.


Anyway it is in August that my budding obsession for Nirvana in Fire began to manifest itself in the form of artworks. I haven't stopped drawing K Project, though. In fact, my most popular tweet to date is a silly K doodle from that month. I also posted a process video of me using crayola markers as watercolor and this other video where I use watercolor as watercolor, both of which are K fanart. Even more than halfway through the year I'm still drawing mermen and these two, so I don't know what that says about me.

In September, my Nirvana in Fire obsession intensified as I also got into what I consider its "brother" The Disguiser. They're both period dramas starring almost the same main cast, albeit different periods, and the latter is a lot less fantastical than its lowkey fantasy sibling. I started drawing more of those and even printed my own NiF stickers. Now if only I could sell them, haha!


I attempted to draw digitally again, trying out FireAlpaca and Medibang. My new laptop's resolution is really big, which proves very challenging especially when it comes to image editing software and the like, because nothing seems to be built for this resolution. Medibang is the only one that isn't blurry or doesn't have tiny menus. This is a very first world problem in a third world country, I know, but it really makes it a pain to try to edit the photos for this blog much less get back to digital art. I'm enjoying traditional art, so I guess this is the trade off.

This process video of the Ghaida fanart I made became relatively popular after Ghaida herself liked it. That was before she graduated from JKT48 and deactivated her account. A few days before her graduation I still got random notifications of people liking and retweeting it. I'm actually rather happy with that artwork, so I'm not too embarrassed by the attention.

Think I'm done with K Project yet? Nah, bruh.


October was Inktober. While I didn't completely plan ahead, I had some sort of plan. I even prepared a sketchbook specifically for my ink drawings because I didn't want to use my watercolour paper for that. I'd like to think I was doing pretty okay with this cute Ghaida, cool Higashi Keisuke, spicy Wada Takuma, and sweet Shison Jun. They're not amazing art, not even close to perfect, but I was getting things done in a medium that I am not used to working with. That should be some sort of achievement, right?

I dropped the ball on this one, though. Things happened and I got too overwhelmed so I decided I needed a break from Twitter and deactivated for a while. Am I in a better place now? I can't say for sure, but I'm working on it.


It was also in October that I got into Yuri!!! on Ice, which will explain all the figure skating AU art I've drawn all the way to November. There's some actual YoI fanart sprinkled in there, too. If you're wondering, yes, I'm still drawing K Project, but as you can guess from a previous post, another Chinese drama has taken over my Twitter.

The Blu-ray and the DVD for the Lost Small World stage play was released this month, so I sketched some scenes while watching. It was not easy. I should really work on my on-the-spot sketching.

Of course, November was also when the article about When A Snail Falls in Love went live on The Global Times and Weibo. I'm still quite embarrassed but aside from that, I feel like I didn't really draw much in this month and most of the stuff I did were Snail fanart, my feelings for which are complicated. In general I think I have very complicated feelings regarding my art (especially the style I mainly draw Snail in), so I suppose that's not too surprising a statement to make in my case.


December began with me taking on a mini project: drawing all of Wang Kai's character's outfits in Snail from the first episode to the last. Part of me regrets it because his wardrobe is too black and white, it's driving me insane! But part of me refuses to give up because I have a point to make. Also, I'm a "once you pop, you can't stop" kind of person. I started this and so I will finish it! Anyway, at the time of writing there's only three episodes left for me to draw. I might as well go all the way, right?

There's not much to say yet because it's only the beginning of December, but I think so far the highlight of this month is the opening of Morning Light's Quirino branch. I wonder if 2016 still has more surprises for us before it ends...

For how long will I keep drawing Snail fanart? Will I still draw K Project way into the new year or will I find something else to obsess over again? Only time will tell. 2017 hasn't even begun yet and I'm already looking forward to seeing what my art summary will look like at the end!

April M.

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