Kauhana

I feel like my drawing hasn't been improving very much lately so I decided to make a list of things that I have a hard time doing so I can have a list of things to look at and think about when I'm trying to improve.

1. Scaling a figure to a page BEFORE I've already drawn it and the person's feet are cut off
2. Objects interacting with each other, from one person holding an object or leaning on an object, to two or more people touching or touching the same object.
3. Coloring, watercolors, pencils, smooth coloring.
4. Facial expressions that rely 0% on stock Anime expressions (Y'know, ^_^, XD, vein, O_O, etc); the sub goal is figuring out how wrinkles over the nose, around the mouth, by the eyes, and on the forehead change an emotion since before I've mostly just worked with eyebrows and mouth and MAYBE eyes.
5. Eyes. In relationship to eyelids, each other, working on showing where a person's looking...
6. Textures. I can do a few textures, but only a few. And part of my problem with textures comes from...
7. Shading. Shading more than I do. Shading better than what I do. In more styles.

I also want to start using my quill and inks to draw.

So these are my goals. I'd say for 2014 but I'm really focusing on completing a finished, polished draft of my book for 2014 and I don't need the distraction of drawing. But maybe if I get it done in the first half, it can be my goal for the second half of the year. Or maybe they'll just stay goals until I feel good about my skills in that area.

Some of you mightta seen this on FB, but I figured this was probably a better place to put it, where it's all artsy people

Anyways for people who haven't seen it before - this is a poem I wrote for a very dear friend of mine. I am allowed to share it so long as their name isn't attached to the work. I know the meter and whatnot gets a little off in a few places but I've done my best and I'm open to criticism and suggestion...
...
but mostly I'm proud of my ability to display the pain and stress and desperation an addict feels. Or, at least I hope I managed that ^_^; The only person who has said so is kinda biased and may or may not be my mom XD In any case, the goal of the poem is to express how much it sucks to be in the thick of an addiction and how freaking hard it is to even try to recover. Remember - not all addictions are drugs.

Alright, the poem:


I’ve met others like myself who crave things abysmal and bleak
So terrible and dark they become secrets of which to never speak
Too familiar is their sorry tale of bowing to the beck and call
Of the hand that satisfies our thirst and overthrows us all

I know too well what they feel and why their tears they cry;
The itch that must be scratched or else one feels they are to die
More unbearable than scorching heat, or a numbing, blizzard cold
The chains that grow and grow and grow, around since times of old

Their anguish I have felt and feel sometimes when I am weak,
The painful abuse dealt by the hand who owns all that we seek
Yet though it is a cruel master, we seek out this curséd hand
Who holds the chains and pulls them taut when one tries to disband

And chained we are, and chained we’ll stay, or so it ever seems
The only evident relief, eating what in the hand gleams
And always, always that ‘relief’ is a new link to our chain strong
Which at first feels so right, but slowly proves itself quite wrong

Now some will tug and pull on their chain never to succeed
Some are forced to try and break loose by a family-friend made creed
Those who will be doomed forever to this hand for their needs
But as for me, I’ll tell you this: I bite the hand that feeds.

SO how is it that I uploaded a few pieces that were either okay but not my very best, simple, or (in the case of my comic) really really crappy because I don't care about the art so much as getting my point across (besides, my comics are usually funnier because the art is so bad, when everyone knows I CAN draw but didn't put effort into it. Plus I kinda suck at drawing the same person twice unless they're a crappy chibi or stick figure...hence my characters are crappy chibis or stick figures.)
...

I think I got too off topic, lemmie try again.

So how is it that I uploaded pieces that weren't my best work, to put it simply, and they were favorited by peeps...but some of my more epic work wasn't? I mean, I don't really care about favorites. They're nice, flattering even, but I don't feel bad when people don't favorite my stuff. I mean, I have a long ways to go to be really, really good. I get that.
But this, this just doesn't make sense to me.

...well I guess the comic makes sense. I mean, it's not meant to be good work, it's meant to be funny.
But, other stuff? Seriously? That's weird.