Hey guys, it's been a wild ride. Glad we all made it through the year. There's been a lot of downs, but hopefully you've still had some fun in spite of all this craziness with the world! As with last year's summary, I'm going to chat somewhat briefly (sort of) on my favorite works.

~~~

The first drawing I put out was for Violet Evergarden. The work was not originally supposed to be of Violet. It was supposed to just be a doodle/sketch for practicing perspective and angles. As I was working on it, I had heard about the new movie coming out and was pretty excited. I always thought VE was such a gorgeous series and wanted to make more art for it since I wasn't really happy with how the previous VE fan art looked. I tried really hard on the background/foreground. Originally, I wanted to make it more pastel, but the more I fiddled with the coloring and lighting the lest pastel it got. In the end, I was super happy with how it turned out. I didn't draw the parasol correctly (it should have more depth), but that's okay, I tried my best.

~~~

"Safe and Sound" was made just after the Overhaul arc ended in the fourth season of BnHA. I had already read those chapters in the manga, but it was still really cool to see it all in action. I love Eri so much, I'm glad she's been in a recent chapter.

I drew this in honor of that episode where Midoriya saved her. I struggle da bit with the angle on Midoriya, but I think I fixed most of it. The only part I'm still unsure about is the angle of Midoriya's face, but it's not so off it's distracting to anyone but me... since I'm the artist. I was really happy with how the coloring turned out. Everything is very soft and warm. The only thing I would change is the hue of Midoriya's hair. It's a bit too lime colored. This was also one of the first time's I fully rendered out his hair. I've started to fully render hair more often. It takes a lot of time, but I think it looks good.

~~~

This drawing is of my Kimetsu no Yaiba / Demon Slayer fan character. I was really impressed with KnY was a series. The animation is just *chefs kiss.* I can see why it's so popular. I've yet to see the new movie, but I hope I can watch it sometime. When I first saw the series, I was really taken with how interesting all the character designs were. I especially liked the haori they wear and came up with her coat design on the spot. It isn't exactly patterned like the others, but I still thought it was super cool. Fun fact, I got all the way through the line art stage then almost didn't finish it. For some reason, I got really burned out on drawing it and didn't touch it for 8 months. Once it was done though, I thought, "damn, this actually looks kind of cool" Looking back, it's one of my favorite because of the posing and composition. I didn't draw the demon she's fighting, but man, are they about to get wrecked.

!!!Spoilers for KnY/Demon Slayer!!!

A few months after finishing the anime, I sped read through the manga in like, a week. I was there just in time to see that climactic scene with everyone defeating Muzan and suddenly Tanjiro is Muzan's heir. I was shocked but I though it was an interesting development. I was a bit sad that Nezuko couldn't save him the way he saved her and that Kanao somehow magically had one vial of antidote on her. Still, I thought it was an amazing moment when he looked up with the eyes of a demon. This is a re-draw of a panel in chapter 201 of the manga. I was really happy with how it turned out. I didn't notice this while drawing it, but his forehead is so big... I struggle with hair styles that don't have bangs.

~~~

So, this drawing is based on clothes from a dress up game called "Love Nikki." I started playing this maybe two years ago casually, but never thought anything of it. Then I got sucked in because I've always liked dress up games and now I'm more serious of a player than I probably should be... Yes, I'm over the age of 10 and no, I'm not embarrassed to like them. "Alyssa" is not the name of any character in the game or of my own, but the drawing needed a title and I thought the name fit her. She turned out a lot more... sultry (?) then I intended, but that's okay! I really like how she looks overall. I made a mistake with the art and how her jacket clips over the corner of her ribs which makes her look like she has the same waistline as Jessica Rabbit. That was not the intention... Underneath the jacket edge, she has a more normal waistline... but it's too late to fix it. I'm working on another LN based artwork. Hopefully it'll be done soon.

~~~

I don't participate in art challenges too often, but I wanted to try my hand at the "Mermay" challenge that goes around every May. I've always liked the idea of Shark Kirishima and maybe beach boy Bakugo. I have a very short story/comic in mind that I might work on for Mermay 2021. We'll see how that goes. (It won't more likely than not since I'm not huge on comic illustration because of how slowly I draw.) In the mean time, I had no freaking idea what I was doing in this drawing. I'm not used to drawing a lot of backgrounds and did the background AFTER I drew the characters which made figuring out how to set him on top of the dock somewhat aggravating. The wood isn't floating btw. I should've drawn more support beams, but wasn't thinking about that. I think I rendered out the water surprisingly well. I actually had a bit of a rough time figuring out how to overlay the water as a foreground over Kirishima and still fade it in competently with the water in the background. I'm really glad everyone seemed to like it. I was also quite happy when it was done.

~~~

"Blue Eyes" is a re-draw of an old digital illustration from 2016 of the same name. I wanted to something to benchmark the progression of my art style from one of the first pieces of digital art I made to what I do now. While the original story I wrote for the work is pretty bad, I thought the drawing had a lot of potential. Though it wasn't any kind of popular, I still think it's one of the coolest things I've drawn this year.

~~~

Hereeeeees Dabi! So, as with so many of my works, this one got put on the backburner and almost didn't get finished. I wanted to see if I could do a speed art recording of it which made me put it off since recording stresses me, but it does actually make me work in a more focused manner lol! Unfortunately, my laptop just isn't powerful enough to record a good video. That said, the final product turned out well! The fire was quite interesting to draw. I don't do a lot of effects like that, so I was figuring it out as I went. Fun fact, I made a mistake on his coat. One side is much longer than the other, but I didn't realize until I had shaded everything and couldn't fix it lol.

~~~

This was for Deviant Art's 20 B-day! It was a "draw this in your style" challenge with the original made by Loish. I went a bit ham with this drawing and gave her a bit too much in the way of abs... I think she was supposed to be pretty soft now that I look back at the reference work... but I was working on drawing muscle and that's just how it turned out lol! I think the hair gradient is still really cool. Nothing I did in this work could match Loish's beautiful work, but I'm nonetheless quite proud of how it turned out. This was a bit of a rush job, but I did end up getting it fully rendered out. I didn't know what to call the drawing since "Happy 20th Birthday DA!" sounded a bit boring. I thought the original work touched on the idea of creating art and imagining what you'll draw which is why I named it as such, "Imagine."

~~~

The last time I drew Miku was in 2017, but I always disliked that old drawing since the proportions are so majorly off, so I wanted to remake it in my current style. Couldn't get her nose right, but everything else turned out really nice!

While I was working on this drawing, I found out that Crypton Future Media, the people who own Miku, Kaito, Meiko, Luka, and the Kagamine's moved them to a different engine, Piapro. Technically, Miku and the crew are no longer even vocaloids. They're now, Piapro-loids?

Even though Vocaloid isn't as popular as it used to be, I'm still happy that songs are being made using them. I personally love the stuff made by KIRA, Circus-P and Crusher-P. Maybe I'll draw them more in the new year.

~~~

November didn't have a really good drawing because I was focused on finals and feeling a lot of burnout from Inktober.

Instead, here's the last drawing from October, "Test Subject 1-A", my Halloween drawing for 2020. The past two years I've drawn "Villain Deku" but somewhere in the corners of my mind I wondered what other kind of villainous version of Deku I could come up with. And so, a dark idea popped into my mind. What would happen if Midoriya was caught by the league? I ran through a couple ideas, but settled on this one which is probably one of the darker ideas I could've used. But the darker the better on all hallows eve. Ergo, Midoriya was captured and horribly experimented on. I do in fact, have a full webtoon styled comic chapter illustrated and I'm working on a long term story... I will post this sometime in the new year. Keep your eyes peeled for "Subject 1-A."

This drawing itself was quite the feat considering I did it during Inktober. I seriously tried to do a background, which I think enhanced the feeling of the work a lot. It really sets the scene and feel I was going for. I think there is still room for improvement when it comes to backgrounds, but I am quite pleased with how it turned out.

~~~

I was actually working on other art right up to Christmas time and I was like, "oh frick, I don't have a Christmas, and or New Years drawing." So here's my combo Christmas-New Years illustration posed on the weekend in between yaaay. I basically speed drew this in four days... I did almost all the shading the day I posed this... Holy crap that was hard and my wrist hurt like heck, but I got it done and somehow, this drawing has become my most favorited work ever. I'm so glad everyone really liked it. It's kind of the best way to cap off the year ya know? I've wanted to draw the boys sitting around a kotatsu for a while but because it was off season, I forgot about it. I thought it would be funny if Bakugo fell asleep trying to stay up for New Years since he canonically goes to sleep quite early. He'd be like, "yeah yeah, I stay up with you dolts (mostly meaning Kirishima.)" then ends up the first one to fall asleep.

Anyway, if you made it all the way to the end of this, thanks for reading and thanks for all the support you have given me. I hope to start posting my art on twitter in 2021 too. I might post more random stuff there too.

I hope you have a great 2021, bye for now!

Kita

Guess what? Once again my laptop is completely fecked. AGAIN! I got the blue screen of death yesterday... Right around the busiest time of year for my drawing and schoolwork. It seems to be a booting error, which I might be able to fix by factory resetting it. I'm not sure how to do that, but I hope I can get it to work again. I'm a poor ass college student who can't afford a new laptop right now. If I can't get it to work, I guess I'll have to buy a new one since fixing this one seems like a mute point. It's broken twice on me already so I'm left to wonder if there's something fundamentally wrong with it's make or components. Note, I did not download anything sketchy or update it this time. I had booted it up normally that morning, left for school, came back, turned it on, and bam. Blue screen of death!

As a reminder to all my artist friends and watchers. BACK UP YOUR FILES! BACK UP YOUR ART PROGRAM SETTINGS! If you use Sai, copy the files with your brush settings, textures, etc. If you use clip studio, make sure you update your cloud save at least once a month or so.

Also make sure to keep copies of files on an external medium. You can save some files to google drive, or on a flash drive, or anywhere that isn't on your hard drive. Fortunately, I have all my art on an external drive, so it's not a big deal. I know you can usually reset a computer with the option of keeping your files, but there is always the chance it won't work correctly. Better safe than sorry! Also back up any work or school files you need while you're at it.

Anyway, this probably means I won't get a fancy Halloween illustration done by the 31st. (or at least not the one I had in mind.) I'll try to upload Inktober drawings from my phone until I get a new laptop or this laptop fixed.

Good luck to all, and have a spooky October.

~ Kita

I know a lot of people are unhappy with DA retiring the old site, and I get that. I too really liked the design of the old sight, it was easy, and was far more user friendly than the new site. Old DA also has a more "personal (?)" feeling to it. Rather than a portfolio, it felt like a place to share whatever you wanted, no matter if it was a masterpiece or not. However, everything must change and we must either go with it, or move on to something else.

I have been on DA for 7 years. Even if I didn't ever really use DA up until a few years ago, I still have a connection to this site. I've found so many great artists who have inspired me to work hard, and I don't think I would be where I am without them. If I hadn't found them on DA, who knows what my art would've looked like. For that reason, I think I'm staying.

Personally, I love DA enough to stick with it, even if I'm not 100% on Eclipse. While it is entirely possible someday I'll move on to other platforms, I really want to try and get used to Eclipse for old times sake. I can't say I'm really ready to move on, or even really want to. I may be somewhat inactive at times, but I'll try to continue to post here.

I do have a Twitter and Instagram which are linked on my page, so if you want you can follow them. I plan to start posting to Twitter soon, that is if I can figure out how to get around the image compression issues. But I hope to still see you guys around whether it's here or somewhere else.

Whether you're leaving DA or not, thanks for watching me!

Spitestar / Kita

TLDR; I'm staying, but my activity may vary :/