Year 1: Quarter 2

Greetings, all!

In the previous quarter, I say we've accomplished quite a bit and actually reached some goals that I didn't think we would've reached. Let us review, shall we?

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Goals of the Previous Quarter

Become adept at drawing human bodies and faces with great accuracy.

There's a very clear improvement in my ability to draw people. Compare it to some of the work I posted (and subsequently deleted) earlier in the quarter and now.

vs.

Now they're at least somewhat human-looking and I'm quite proud of that. I'm even more amazed by how quickly my skill improved. There are a few things that I need to work on and try to keep consistent, but generally, I'm far more confident in my ability to draw humans.

Understand how to use color in an effective and dynamic way.

I was piecing this together very slowly. I can't say that I figured it out considering the limited color palette of the An'lythians. But I'm confident I'll have more success in the coming months, considering what I'm planning to do.

Get faster at producing artwork.

Speed is an important factor. One has to post things, good things to be exact, rather frequently. Inktober made me realize that that sort of thing can go too far. I like spending time with my work and switching between different ones every single day can quickly tire me out.

There is no doubt in my mind that I've gotten better at this. There was a point where finishing project took weeks and that was mostly up to how I employed the use of my drawing techniques--they were very inefficient. The time put into my work has been halved and it still doesn't look bad. At least, not to me. If I want something to look absolutely sublime, I'd still spend plenty of time to get it to that point, but right now, there's no real reason to do so, as I want just get the idea of what I want out there. World building and all that. Then I'll look at perfecting the imagery.

Reach 2,000 page views.

Hey, we all like numbers. I'm not going to say that I don't. This was one that I thought I would've missed, because I didn't know how to draw attention to my page. However, I figured it out in the middle of September. As of typing this, I'm at 2,685 which is pretty substantial. To me, at least. And when I actually decided to start being active, I was sitting at around 600-700 views after over a year on this site, which means I got 2,000 while actually trying to garner attention, in 3 months, no less. Weird sensation, but generally, it feels pretty nice.

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Since the next race of people are going to be extremely colorful and rather strange/abstract, here's what I'm thinking my goals should be:

Goals of the New Quarter

• Understand how to use color in an effective and dynamic way.

• Find a way to systematically create abstract backgrounds and overlays.

• Improve understanding of value in order to create texture.

• Reach 100 Watchers.

Why am I not aiming for obnoxiously high goals, I hear none of you ask? Well, I'm not extremely concerned with how much attention I get, but I do use the numerical goals as a guideline for how appealing my stuff is. Which probably isn't healthy or rational...

But I don't care.

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I believe that's everything! Perhaps in the future these trimonthly updates will have more content. Perhaps some Q&A? I like the idea of that. Maybe they could pertain to the world setting, or even just personal questions! Probably going to need a larger fan base for that sort of thing, though.

Until the next update,

January 15th!