2024 art summary

Had some moments of intense inspiration and went through some spectacularly blocky art blocks, but I made a lot of things I'm proud of, in the end. And a lot of sharp claws and teeth even with there being significantly fewer raptors.

I first started using a graphics tablet almost ten years ago now (summer of 2015), and up until then had used mostly traditional media, drawing things outside the computer even when I'd colour them digitally after scanning. After getting a tablet I let traditional media fade to the background as I focused on gitting gud at the new ways of digital arting unlocked by the new tool, but despite the bit of awkwardness of coming back to an old skill after a pause, I really like what I can do with both kinds of media now. It's been interesting to combine those skillsets, and discover that over the years I have indeed learned things relevant to one even while focusing on the other.

I also feel like I've made more original art this year than I have in a while, and that's pretty cool.

Blank template for the graphic is by yorunaka at deviantart

2023 art summary

Suddenly, mostly Metroid! Which is to say, still mostly birbs, because both Samus and Ridley qualify.

New interests tend to bring new inspiration, and for most of this year I've found myself happy to create both numerous and increasingly elaborate drawings on the subject, wanting to draw Everything I like about it. Also some things I've noticed enjoying more again are traditional/mixed media and dramatic shading, which had kind of fallen out of focus for me with my dinosaur drawings that have a different aesthetic to them. Perhaps a bit too set aesthetic - high time to experiment more?

I finished the raptor figure sculpting I was working on at the end of last year. It took me a lot longer than I'd anticipated, but I'm really happy with the results, and it's the most elaborate sculpting project I've worked on so far, Skye especially being pretty much made of detail. I never expected to be capable of something like it when I decided to try sculpting things with slightly altering juvie Tumult's figure four years ago, and now look at me making whole new figures with articulation! :)

Blank template for the graphic is by yorunaka at deviantart

2022 art summary

Another year full of gay raptors.

I decided not to use a template separated into months for the image, as I didn't make new things at a very regular pace this year.

Raptor AU has gotten to a pretty comfortable point in said raptors' lives. The two packs are happily merged into one inextricably, and my precious baby Skye, who pretty much started the whole AU, is a fully grown raptor lady with a beautiful wife and two babies of their own.

A big portion of my more scientifically accurate raptors, too, have been JP/W-related, as I've had a lot of fun playing JWE, for which I don't currently know how to make all the mods I'd like to use. But I can dream of a park full of toothy groundhawks, and draw it. (I know how to mod TS2, though, and the more anthropomorphized versions of raptor AU raptors have also been fun to put together and play house with.)

One bigger project is still in progress, and will be until sometime next year. It involves dinofiguresculptings, but more on that later. :)

2021 art summary

A very raptor-full year. I don't think I even drew any non-raptor dinosaurs, though a few humans and other non-dinosaurs did still manage to sneak in.

I took on a couple of a bit bigger projects, after finishing the a bit bigger comic project continued from last year. Meeting is a shorter comic than Collision, but it's the second-longest dino comic I've made so far, and in full colour. The figure repaints were not as plentiful in numbers, but they did take enough work that I pretty much spent the entirety of August on them with little time for other art things, and I'm really happy with how they turned out, especially considering they include my first tries at articulated joints. I also made another dino figure from scratch; a very small one, but miniature things are a challenge of its own kind. I'm pleased with the amount of feathered raptors I got to draw this year, too, and I think I've gotten better at those. I also finally finished a text-only story again.

Blank template for the graphic is by yorunaka at deviantart

2020 art summary

A lot of dinosaurs this year, only a few humans, but I'm having fun with the dinos and learning more and more about how to draw them. Mostly raptors, JP/W and not, but other kinds of dinos, too, occasionally. Still not a single straight one. 👍

Several 3D dinosaurs, too, in the form of figure repaints, and even one dino figure made completely from scratch! Really proud of how that turned out, especially considering how little sculpting I'd done before making Skye. There are some things I'd do differently now, but that's valuable lessons learned, too.

Quite a few comics, some pretty elaborate at that. Collision is going to continue into next year, but I've gotten a good chunk of it done already. Didn't publish a single text-only story this year, though I have a couple I might finish eventually, maybe next year.

Most of my original art this year has been dinosaurs, too, though I did get to cast my old human OCs as main characters in a dino comic, so that's fun.

Blank template for the graphic is by yorunaka at deviantart

2019 art summary

Lots of raptors, cuddling and otherwise. Also ladies in love with ladies, and lady raptors in love and cuddling with lady raptors. A few cats. Sounds about right.

I didn't write nearly as much this year as the last one, apart from comics, but I'm still really happy with the one fanfic I did write. About raptors, of course. It went from a blog post wondering about what might have happened after Jurassic Park to writing a dramatization of said wonderings, to liking the characters enough I've drawn them a bunch of times and by the end of the year made custom toy figures of them.

I'm also really happy about how much I've learned this year about actual raptors outside Jurassic Park/World, from real life science on deinonychosaurs to how to draw them feathered and otherwise more accurate, and also learning more about present-day birds in general and avian raptors in particular. While the number of my scaly raptor OCs has increased quite a bit over the year, my first one has also gone from vaguely scaly-looking to fully feathered.

Blank template for the graphic is by yorunaka at deviantart

Years' 2017 and 2018 art, summarized

In 2018 I also managed to write!

• 10 chapters and almost 45K words of Fenris and Anders talking to each other in various places
• a related short story about a cat doing cat things
• most of the Kirkwall Crew holding hands
• a weirdly formatted NaruGaa fic that should probably be titled “I’m going to sue Konoha for reckless child endangerment because someone fucking should”
• people making questionable decisions because they have feelings about raptors, and I’m not judging, because, yeah, same. also families and interspecies communication and especially combinations thereof are hard
• not write entirely, but edit and polish, a fic I wrote about how Hawke definitely doesn’t die and leave Fenris all alone, in response to a prompt asking for a fic where Hawke dies and leaves Fenris all alone, and also one where Sakura and Karin go curtain shopping even though they’re not even together yet, and also the first three chapters of a fic I don’t know if I’ll finish even though it’s something I’ve literally tried to finish in different forms, most recently fanfic, for years, because by now it’s a fandom I’m not really active in, but, well, I’m pretty happy with what I got done anyway
• apparently, fic about two different characters played by Katie McGrath

Blank template for the graphics is by yorunaka at deviantart.