I want to be creative too

Almost Everyone

Above is my face when I hear that.

What most people don’t realize is

Creativity Is a Curse.

You must be thinking my what a cynical and twisted author to write such a statement. This thought isn’t actually my own, it’s pulled from a section of one of Jordan B Peterson’s video lectures. As an aspiring creative myself, I don’t think he could have said it any better. In this video he explains how creativity is as much of a burden as it is a “gift”.

If you don’t have five to six minutes to watch that video TLDR it’s hard to actually make a living doing creative work, but without doing it you feel like there is something eating you from the inside out. It’s something that you love so much and can’t live without but it torments you at the same time.

There are moments

during the creative process where you touch upon the divine and the pencil just seems to glide from a hand that’s not your own, but for every one of those moments are a hundred of the times where you’re stuck with negative thoughts in a loop of erasing and illustrating again. It’s a weird paradox of enjoyment of doing an action in coexistence with frustration and hating what you create. I once asked another artist how she became so skilled.

It’s a lot of self-loathing

Cleana Broman

It’s almost bipolar the way the pendulum swings from orgasmic ecstasy to utter despair.Like the fear that rests in the back of your heart when you fall in love. . . now that I’m this invested if you ever draw your sword it will cut and leave a scar just as deep. Is art a reflection of the creator’s soul or an image of the creator themselves? If so do other people only seem to see the blemishes and imperfections? What do my creations look like through other eyes. . . what do I look like through other eyes?

I Started To Take Art Seriously

over six years ago now. People see where I’m at now(which is still trash tier) and they don’t know all the crawling and clawing I did just to be this bad. They weren’t there when I’d shown up to my first art class with people who had been making creative works seriously for years and when it came time to show your work there was nothing nice to be said. . . the more painful thing was when someone forced themselves to say something nice. Like participation trophies in sports sympathy comments only make the recipient feel worse about themselves.

No one knows the loud voices and arguing I had to do just to even pursue “a useless art minor” as my parents said(although so far they’re right). Procrastinating projects because everytime you try to start you end up just staring at a blank piece of paper. The next year was filled with drugs to numb the pain of going somewhere you were the worst at, the only non art major in the art class. Almost dropping out because you were tired of being at the bottom. All the free late night drawing classes on wednesday that took away from your time doing other things. . . and where you awkwardly drew and saw a naked girl for the first time. All the shitty pieces of digital art you drew all the damn sketchbooks, all the pieces in the recycling bin. Almost getting fired for drawing anime, having your impromptu art gallery taken down at your other part time job, and sacrificing sleep and lunch time to practice drawing. Or failing classes because you practiced sketching instead of paying attention. . . all that to still be shit tier stings

No one sees when you get so frustrated that like a child you punch desks, trees, kick guard rails, throw sketchbooks, or hurl pens across the room. . . usually I keep that to myself.

Don’t Compare Yourself to others

is some B.S. statement unsuccessful people say to validate their mediocrity. While I do believe that for certain situations like personal bests in fitness, in fact I told my girlfriend to do that with her 2K time. Side tangent aside, what do you think the market does? They look at what you put out and then they take a peek at what someone else can do to see where yours sits. So I say compare yourself to the best, compare your own work to the people that inspire you and see what they do and you don’t and how you can try to get onto, or better yet ascend where they are. Taking an honest look on where you are might sting, but it will help you improve at a faster rate.

I’m going to sound shallow and super vain right now, but money is literally how we calculate worth and value in our society. If you can’t make any money(I haven’t made any so I feel you if you can’t). Than what you’re doing is not working nor is it valuable enough. Frequently I look at the artists I like and ask what makes their work so special. I go to https://www.sakugabooru.com/post?tags=production_materials to see the industry standard of the field I’m trying to get into and experiment in pursuit of a similar end product.

That Statement Above Sounds Insecure

It does, but if I were able to make money from my art, but money allows the freedom to continue to do art at hopefully a more frequent and rapid pace to improve more. It gives you the flexibility to take classes courses attend universities to attain more skills. People with money likely know this, it allows for the ability to work harder on yourself than on your job.

I’m So Insecure

That not even the loving compliments of many grade schoolers is enough to make me feel good about the art I produce. . . I mean these are the same kids that are impressed by me touching the short ceiling, and the ability to lift a chair and desk at the same time. . . they’re still at the age when even us normal mortals can be seen as “heros”. . . my advice to them is their taste in art sucks and they need to find some better heroes. There will be the day when they realize how unimportant I am and when they even forget about my existence in their lives.

I’m So Insecure

That I get jealous of the skills of some fifth and sixth graders. . . so young and at a skill level comparable(or better) to mine. It then makes me think of the junior high schoolers, the high schoolers, and then the college kids here. I came here with the dream to be an animator, I’ve drawn almost every day this year to try to make that a reality, but if the sixth graders are already where I am perhaps it’s just a pipe dream after all.

Now That You Know A Little About The Honest but Piece of Shit Asshole Author/Artist Lets Get Started

Sidenote Inktober sounds like such a fun and innocent thing. . .but fuck intober I’m happy to be done with it albeit two months late.

Day 1: Poisonous

Made me think of poisonous gas . . . I used my pinterest, which is a lot of cute girls in school outfits posing(kinda embarrassing but I like drawing cute girls I should diversify it though >///<). Finding a pose I liked I drew it but also because I think respirators are kinda punky cool and bad ass, perhaps it’s a gas mask or a panting mask I drew that as well. The five-seven is my favorite handgun due to not only it being Sam Fisher’s gun of choice, but the unique round it fires. The hand is a little small and the neck might be a tad to long here.

Day 2: Tranquil

One of the things I do where I only focus on that one thing is drinking my tea in the morning. Just to be able to not give a shit about anything but taking sips of hot liquid is nice before I start doing daily planning.

Day 3: Roasted

The thing that always comes after roasted for me is marshmallows . . . damn I haven’t had one in so long. Character designs are from yuru camp, but the pose and the composition are totally original.

Day 4: Spell

The one spell she knows is explosion. . . this is a terrible piece I don’t even want to talk about it, I was frustrated during this.

Day 5 Chicken

The girl looks bad, but I think I did an okay job on making the chickens fit into the world of cute anime. . . like even that chickens ass is cute.

Day 6 Drooling

A collection of images from me wouldn’t be complete without a cat girl. A mention of seeing someone sleep is a weird intimate experience. . . sleeping is when people are at their most vulnerable after all.

Day 7 Exhausted

It feels nice to get into the bathtub after a long days work. . .but who has time for taking baths anymore. . . not me

Day 8 Star

Pose again was taken from my pinterest board, but here’s star guardian Ahri. While some people get to make a living playing games all they do for you is make you more broke and hate yourself more

Day 9 Precious

One of the most precious things in my life was this stupid red car. . . I actually had an AE86 but my dad sold it. . now I’m working my ass off to get a real sprinter trueno, but as with most things in life all my work leads to is me being tired

Day 10 Flowing

One of the few pieces I actually like, it’s of little girl deep sea miku looking at a Koi fish underwater. . . but I forgot to ink it before I gave it away to a student. . . that’s about the only thing I’m capable of doing with my drawings giving them away to kids and watching them smile.

Day 11: Cruel

not taking credit for this pose and composition. Cowboy Bebop’s characters live in a cruel world where nothing works out for them either, but spike is always able to smile and light his largely mangled cigarette.

Day 12 Whale

sometime ago a cute little humboldt penguin called Grape was able to steal the hearts of internet weeaboos, nerds, and geeks for his love of the 2-D Cutout of Hululu. From Kemono friends, Hululu is a anime girl equivalent of a humboldt penguin. I don’t imagine penguins would be happy to see orca whales or sea lions.

Day 13 Guarded

I’ve Actually Always Liked Fighting Games, it was one of the first genres I played with my dad. The truth is I’ve always been trash tier at them despite how hard I tried to improve. Common in most modern fighting games the low guard can only be opened by a grab, crossup, or overhead.

Day 14 Clock

When I was a kid my mom used to wake me up, either that or my sister’s blaringly loud Taylor Swift music. My least favorite part of the day was waking up and heading to school. . . school wasn’t a good experience for me.

Day 15 Weak

I remember watching the entirety of Dragonball Z in a week. One of my favorite “transformations” is the Kaioken. Sadly to current dragonball standards this form is kind of weak.

Day 16 Angular

This car is really aggressive and angular, so i even tried to represent the tail lights in a more sharp way. I actually own one of these cars and it’s a blast to drive.

Day 17 Swollen

Haruhi Suzumiya is a tale about a girl that is actually the god of the world without realizing it. How swollen is your ego if you want to be God?

Day 18 Bottle

I drew this because I wanted a girlfriend to do stuff like this to and have her not hate me after I did it. I want to buy a drink for a girl on a hot day and surprise her by placing it on the back of her neck or her face while she’s not looking.

Day 19 Scorched

One of my favorite dragonball characters is Vegeta, and boy does he scorch the earth when he does a big bang attack or final flash.

Day 20 Breakable

I tried to remake the style of the KDA akali video of a champion I like and used to main before I realized I was trash at league of legends.

Day 21 Drain

When you’re feeling drained you can always drain a cup of tea or coffee in attempt to recharge and relax

Day 22 Expensive

This is my dream car that I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to afford due to how expensive they are becoming. Although this peppy little 1.6 liter is still far cheaper than a GTR. . . I’d want to have enough disposable income to buy one, but things aren’t looking too hot.

Day 23 Muddy

One of my favorite movies is this one called A Garden of Words by Makoto Shinkai. It’s unique use of angles makes me think of Kyoto animation. Shinkai’s movies also have amazing atmosphere from their shots of rain to the amazing colors and VFX they make use of.

Day 24 Chop

Mighty car mods has this thing called chopped where they hold up two fingers if they beat someone in a race. To me it’s kinda like the peace sign or dueces, so I drew myself with my car from the perspective of someone who had been passed.

Day 25 Prickly

I actually dropped that mug and broke it. . R.I.P. was my favorite mug, but Kirito has Prickly hair and he’s one of my favorite anime protags. . . Even with all the hate Sword Art Online gets. I mean he’s a young dude that finds success by being the best at VR games. Of course he’s a character designed to live a power fantasy. The show would be nothing without it’s stellar animation and soundtrack though.

Day 26 Stretch

Next inktober prompt was stretch. The interesting thing is if you look at a lot of still frames of animation during their animation even anime has stretching and squeezing. Not to the extent of western cartoons but during extreme action or drug induced trips like in Samurai Champloo animators are free to express themselves.

Day 27 Thunder

Trueno actually means thunder in spanish. Any excuse I have to draw this car I’ll find it, because damn you know by now I want one.

Day 28 Gift

This year I bought a gift and tried to make someone else’s christmas more important than mine. The odd thing was giving someone else the majority of my time and attention ended up making me feel happier than I had in a long time

Day 29 Double

The Toyota Supra is a car made iconic by the Fast and the Furious movies and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like it because of those movies. But I actually didn’t like those movies until I had played the equally cheesy titled Need for Speed games. I had played numerous titles but my favorite two ended up being Need for Speed: Most Wanted and Need for speed Carbon both of which had the Toyota supra. With a name that’s sure to capture the heart of every ten year old boy I fell in love with both the Supra and The BMW M3 GTR.

Day 30 Jolt

Any excuse to draw these cars and I’ll take it. Levin means lightning in spanish sure to give someone a real jolt right? I decided to draw a coupe this time because I always draw the hatchback.

Day 31 Slice

The last drawing of inktober and I was relieved to get this shit done!! A little late but finished indeed. Hopefully you can tell that this is a drawing of a girl. I actually borrowed her haircut from someone special. I made some mistakes inking that I tried to cover with whiteout but it’s whatever.

The Takeaway From Inktober

compared to last years inktober I’d say the drawings have definitely improved, but if you’re not an artist who gets paid to make art keeping up with this challenge is a nightmare. Life gets in the way sometimes, but I persisted to the end.