These past two months have been a wild ride, tbh. I got completely sucked into developing a new web service, and hit a massive wall with my illustration workflow. Lots of realizations, you know?
Getting Sucked Into a Dev Side Quest 🕳️
So, remember that drawing monitor tool I was working on? I got the basic features running around April, so I put it on hold to actually use it and see how it feels.
I really should have just been a good boy and used it to draw, right? But nope. I lowkey started building a completely different web service from scratch instead.
Why am I like this lol.
I’m not ready to spill the tea on the details just yet—I want to dogfood it for a bit first. But if all goes well, it might actually help out people who struggle with coming up with drawing ideas, just like me.
It’s definitely a niche need, but there’s gotta be some demand for it, right…?
At the very least, it’s super useful for me.
I even went out of my way to set up a dedicated subdomain for it. And since it’s a web service, I’ve been grinding hard to squash every single security vulnerability I could find. It’s gotten to the point where it’s way too over-engineered for a personal project.
I’ve poured an ungodly amount of hours into this thing.
But tbh, I’m having a blast ✨.
You guys are probably thinking, “Hey, stop slacking on your art!” But don’t worry, I actually did some drawing too!
Here’s the log for April and May.
April & May Art Log 🎨
Drawing the Cutest Kasane Teto (April) 🥖
In April, I drew my absolute favorite, Kasane Teto.
This is probably the cutest Teto I’ve ever drawn in my entire life, no cap.
I’m actually super happy with how the vibes around her face and the upper body lighting turned out.
Looking at it now, I can definitely spot some things that bug me, but even with those flaws, I still love it.
I just want to keep leveling up and drawing even cuter Tetos.
I want to draw a cool Teto, a chibi Teto…
I just wanna draw all the Kasane Tetos, you know?
Kagamiya Chiruha’s Anniversary (May) 🎉
May marked the anniversary for VTuber Kagamiya Chiruha (@kagachiru).
I try to draw and send her an anniversary piece whenever I can. I always struggle a bit to capture her likeness perfectly—it’s a yearly frustration for me ngl.
But, I think I managed to capture that vibe of her gaming until she physically couldn’t anymore, so I’m gonna pat myself on the back for that one.
I was aiming for a “fell asleep, rolled off the sofa, and just woke up” look, but I feel like I didn’t quite nail that groggy morning feeling. Definitely a point to improve on.
This was a pose and composition I’ve literally never attempted before. While drawing it, I caught myself muttering, “Who the hell picked this pose?!” and “The composition… it’s killing me…” so many times 💀.
But hey, I pushed through, finished it, and managed to deliver it to her, so that’s a win in my book.
Hitting an Art Wall & Realizing Things 🧱
Both the April and May illustrations took me a *lot* longer than my previous pieces.
Even though I keep saying I want to draw faster, the exact opposite is happening. But honestly, this made me realize a few things I need to work on.
Messy Workflow & Endless Backtracking 🔄
Looking back at these past two months, my drawing process is just all over the place.
Usually, when people draw, they follow a pretty standard flow, right? Like: Rough Sketch -> (Base Colors) -> Lineart -> Coloring -> Final Tweaks.
I *try* to do that, but I end up bouncing back and forth between base colors and lineart, or I’ll start coloring and then jump back to fix the lineart. Sometimes I realize halfway through that I didn’t split my layers properly, so I have to go back and redo the layer separation before I can even color. It’s a complete mess.
I just can’t confidently say “Alright, this step is done!” and move on. All this backtracking is totally inflating my drawing time.
The Root Cause: Sketchy Fundamentals 📉
What makes it even worse is that when I work on a piece over several days, I’ll look at a step I thought I finished, spot something weird, and have to redo it from scratch. This happens *way* too often.
Especially with faces and hands. The struggle is real.
And when you fix one part, it usually throws off the proportions of everything else, forcing you to adjust the entire sketch balance.
Basically, my self-analysis is that my anatomy and proportions are already wonky during the rough sketch and lineart phases.
The Solution: Grinding + My New Web App 🚀
I really wanna sit and stress over how to fix this, but like so many pro illustrators say…
At the end of the day, grinding and drawing *a ton* is the fastest way to git gud.
So, I’ve decided to stop wasting time worrying and just focus on putting in the reps.
This is exactly where my new web service comes in! I’m so hyped to start using it and racking up some drawing mileage.
Tbh, I haven’t drawn a single thing since that Chiruha piece though lol.
This weekend is do or die, man.
Besides drawing, I lowkey want to up my blog post frequency too.
Anyway, this post was a bit all over the place, but that’s my May wrap-up!
See you guys next month! (RIP to my update schedule)
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