It's that time of the year again! I don't think I improved much this year either, although I did try a few things that have always intimidated me. So I guess it wasn't a total loss?

This template was by dustbunnythumper on deviantArt. I think I used the same one two years ago. There are fancier templates out there but I think it's best for me to go with something simple this year.

I did a redraw of a piece from last year that I was very proud of. I'm not sure if I did much better. I do think there were very minor improvements! I suppose I'm already at that stage where my skills are plateauing. Doing redraws really help me see where I've gotten better. But I also need to learn to think out of the box and not just literally redraw a piece as it is. I've seen people do redraws where they interpret their old art in a way that matches their current skill level without diverging too far from the original. I want to do something like that!

Something that has always intimidated me so I avoided drawing them were plants. Though I still don't know how to draw them, this year I've made an effort to try to learn drawing flowers! I think they weren't too bad for a first try. I'm really interested in flower language, so I like incorporating it in my writing. To be able to incorporate it into my art would be nice. I hope to keep practicing and eventually get better!

This is the year I got sucked back into Super Hero Time. I think it's more obvious going through my Twitter than looking at my art summary: I quickly moved on from K Project and Nirvana in Fire back to Sunday morning superheroes. In my defense, both of those shows left big holes in my heart. What else was I to do but to try to fill the void with something else that will eventually also leave me hollow inside? It is a vicious cycle, this fandom thing.

After getting tired of the constant fighting about Kamen Rider on my Twitter feed, I decided it wasn't really worth my time staying where I'm not having fun. So I skipped Ghost and went on to enjoy K and dip my toes in C-drama. Then I started hearing good things about Ex-Aid. While I'm not entirely sure what exactly caught my interest at first, I'm pretty sure I started watching it because I knew I had to keep consuming different media to continue producing new art.

I fell so hard. Ex-Aid was a wild ride. Part of me regrets not watching it when it first came out. Part of me is glad that because I didn't do that, I was able to binge watch the first half of the show. I think my livetweeting was entertaining for my followers anyway. It must have been fun to watch me quickly fall into despair.

For a brief period of time I was into Persona 5. I'm still interested, just not as invested in it as I am into other things, I suppose. I only watched Let's Plays of it on Youtube because I don't own the game (nor the console) but I think it's a pretty good one. You can't convince me that Goro and Futaba aren't into SHT. Those two are obvious nerds.

I finished Inktober this year! I didn't post all of my drawings, though. Some of them were really bad and I wasn't able to truly find a satisfactory way to work with sumi ink, which was one of my goals this time. Of course, a month may not be enough for such an experiment so maybe I shouldn't be too hard on myself over this.

Oh, right! I also watched Boku no Hero Academia! It's also one of those things I started watching in an attempt to consume ~fresh~ content. I tend to not watch very popular shows because the hype usually leaves me disappointed, but BnHA was a good decision. I was warned that I'll end up adopting an entire class of new children and I was very skeptical because I didn't like Bakugou at first. In the end there's literally only one child I really dislike and it isn't even Bakugou.

So, what's in store for my creative future? I'd like to draw more flowers and acquire more washi tape so I can make more washi art. Maybe I'll consume more new content, experience more new things, and experiment with more new techniques and styles. I want to keep improving, hopefully in a way that's more immediately apparent...

I might still be making self-indulgent content for Ex-Aid in the beginning of 2018. Although Kyuranger is fun and I'm enjoying Build so far, they haven't been able to match the spark that Ex-Aid lit in me. Who knows? Maybe my next obsessive interest will be Ultraman Orb just because I'm super late to the Juggulus party.

Let's work hard again next year!