// BOOT SEQUENCE INITIATED
// CURRENT DATE: 03-10-2025
// SYSTEM LOG: 365 days elapsed
// ACTIVITY REPORT: 500+ canvases generated
// SKILL MODULES: gesture.exe, anatomy.dll, expression.pak … upgraded
// SUBJECTS: wolves.exe (excessive), protogen_core (stable)
// STATUS: Progress Achieved ✅
// CELEBRATION PROTOCOL: ACTIVE 🎉
// WARNING: human_anatomy.JSON contains an unexpected payload; please refer to logging output: verr/art_stuff/errors/practice_more.txt
// END OF YEAR ONE
// PRESS ANY KEY TO CONTINUE
What’s inside/TL;DR: Early sketches → ARTSchool begins → Protogen era → 2025 tumble → Side-by-sides → Reflection & next year goals
A year! One whole gone-too-fast-but-weirdly-slow year. I remember the day exactly when I sat down and decided I was entirely unsatisfied with booting up Steam to just spend another day playing a game I didn’t particularly enjoy, and I had just started re-watching Arcane in my excitement for the upcoming second season, God if only I’d known what a disappointment that would end up being. A year since I finally decided you know what? I want to really learn how to create art.
Man, where do I even begin? I’m so excited to share my progress with whoever cares to see - you, hopefully, if you’ve bothered reading this far and you aren’t me. I’m glad I finally got the courage to post on these forums a few months ago and can have this sort of thing logged in my own little thread for however long Cubebrush remains online… I can come back and reflect when I need to and remind myself that I can do this. That I’m not useless or incapable and that however long it takes, if I keep at it, I can probably do it. I can’t believe I’ve managed to draw every day for an entire year. It feels like I actually achieved something worthwhile.
Doodle of me right now:
I’ve got hundreds of scribbles, doodles, half-finished drawings, gestures, studies, and paintings… but I don’t want to just dump a massive pile of unsorted chaos here. Still, there’s a lot I want to show - so I’ll start with a sort-of-chronological dump of some pieces, then some direct side-by-side comparisons of then and now.
And look, some (most) of it is bad. Like, really bad. Like ‘draw this in your nightmares’ bad. But it’s all part of the journey, and I’m ready to proudly show where I was just a short while ago. So please feel free to have a laugh. I sure will!
(One thing of note is that for the longest time all my stuff is pretty much bright white canvas + black lines and no colour, so apologies to anyone being blinded by how bright everything is gonna be)
I think perhaps I’ll start with a lot of what I did in October last year and sort of go on from there. Kind of a mix of ‘sketches’, doodles, and ‘full pieces’. You can tell where I spent more time on things than others. At this point though, loooooots of sketchy, chicken-scratch lines, sharp angles, poor pen control, mad anatomy… yeah.
Oct - Nov 2024; So it begins
Possibly the first torso studies I ever did, haha. No notes, no nothing. Probably just copied an anatomy guide from Pinterest or something, I don’t remember.
The first head piece I did for my fiancé’s fursona.
(A halloween piece I drew for a friend group - was too scared to colour! I want to make another halloween piece this year too, hopefully much improved!)
Below are among some of the very first gestures I ever did.
I know I can get frustrated with gestures a lot, but, I think it’s clear that I’ve definitely gotten better over the past year!
Nov - Dec 2024
It was around this time (coming into November/December 2024) when I started ARTSchool and Draw-a-box.
And some gesture improvements during this time, too!
Protoheaven
And then, this - oh this is when I started getting really into drawing Protogens.
My first ever protogen drawing:
You can almost taste the flatness.
Some more from around this time:
(Guess when I did this one, haha!)
Jan - June: 2025 begins - fall with me?
Alright, around this time now we’re entering 2025. A lot of these I couldn’t be bothered to go into the canvas information to figure out exactly when i did them, but this will be from Jan - May/June-ish
I think around this time, things are starting to get a bit more steady, a bit more confidence and structure to things.
This must’ve been an attempt to make an actual clean drawing - bit like most stuff, it got abandoned for whatever reason and left in this state. I wonder why I did that.
The below are some studies and bits from the first term of ARTSchool
And now back to your regularly scheduled programming:
And a piece! An actual piece I spent time on! (That background though…) - this was in May, if I remember rightly.
Now this silly little piece if I recall was the result of an absolutely awful night where I had been struggling to draw and doubted absolutely everything about my ability; I was in a really bad place, couldn’t see a way forward and was really close to quitting then and there because I couldn’t stop telling myself I was shit, awful, not improving, never getting anywhere… Well I think I ended up getting told by someone just to take a breath and do something real simple just to have a win before bed; just draw some shapes and some light, with some stickmen interacting with them. Just something goofy, low-pressure and silly.
Just a silly animation I did. :3
July - now; the modern era. Starting to get active in art circles and make some art friends
And then from here roundabouts is July - when I created and started adding to this very topic!
I’m not going to go re-posting everything, but some personal highlights from the last couple of months:
(Still probably remains the single best drawing I’ve ever made)
What a journey it’s been. As mentioned, the order of these images I’ve posted here isn’t entirely chronological, nor is it even close to a fraction of what I’ve put down, but I think it shows a clear improvement and how my understanding of my art fundamentals has improved over the course of a year.
Still a long, long way to go, but I am genuinely proud of where I am currently and I have no intentions of stopping.
Now some side-by-sides for easy consumption:
Gesture
Earliest gestures
Most recent gestures
Studies/Anatomy
Old
New
Expressions
Old
New
actual finished pieces
Old
New
Lessons form year 1:
- Drawing consistently. Every day. Perhaps I should have been a little healthier with how I went about it, but it’s now a habit, something I very much enjoy and much, much prefer over my old habits of mostly sitting around playing games.
- Gesture first, construction second, details last. (Work in progress!)
- References are NOT cheating.
- Ugly is okay. Bad might feel bad in the moment, but now I have something to look back on and know that bad is just a temporary state. I’m glad I didn’t delete the stuff I hated.
- Breaks and sleep are important. Spending 16 hours a day drawing is probably not a good thing.
For the next year going forward there are a few things I want to improve on specifically:
- Consistency in drawing quality (I am incredibly impatient, a lot of this comes down to just being lazy, honestly. It’s pretty obvious when I’ve rushed something or taken my time with it)
- Anatomy
- Humans in particular
- Backgrounds w/ perspective and good lighting
By October 2026 I would like to be able to draw a full-bodied human in any pose, in a fully rendered piece of art, with perspective. I don’t know how realistically that goal can be achieved, but it’s something to aim for.
I don’t think I really have much to add - I’m currently away from my computer and typing this all up on an iPad, which is a bloody nightmare frankly for such a large post. But it’s a special day for me, and I really didn’t want to miss getting this out there.
If you made it this far: Cheers! I really appreciate it. I hope you enjoyed seeing the absolute state of the contents of my Procreate. Any older drawings catch your eye? A then vs now that shows particular promise for the future? Or anything you want to add at all…? I’m all ears for anything really.
And of course a massive thanks to everyone who’s been so kind, helpful and supportive. Brohawx on Cubebrush in particular for being such a source of knowledge and inspiration, and Wilseif & Pigeon on the Discord for giving a damn. Legends.
And Jupes - because I know you’ll read this eventually: Love you.
// YEAR TWO OBJECTIVES: consistency, anatomy (humans), backgrounds+perspective, lighting
// WOLF_DENSITY: intentionally high
// STATUS: CONTINUE? Y/N → Y
// USER VERR SIGNING OFF
