Evolve, devolve, draw some animu
Huge post is a vast heaping monster of hugeness.
Comedian icon because this post is bound to be full of embarrassing lulz.
So, once upon a time I was 13, and Cartoon Network decided to start importing Sailor Moon to our magical land of television. Being a girl who loved unicorns and dress-up and fairies, there was absolutely NOTHING BETTER than a show about middle school princesses from the moon getting together and fighting evil after a slew of sparkling radioactive transformation sequences. Nothing. Better. Not to mention, I was fascinated to learn that this show was from another country. At the retarded age of 13, I became aware of Japan, and all it's glorious choppy animation.
My brain having been infected, I gave up what might have been a very promising potential in ACTUAL art, and started mimicking animu. Oh, animu. You destroy every child's talent.
Anyway, this post is going to be an art dump of sorts. But I'll not be posting anything new. Nope. You, my lucky, tiny friends list, will be witnessing history. From 1999 when I crippled my artistic ability, to 2010 when I fully realized my weeabo nature, I will post the art that depicts my slow crawl through the varying stages of Hormonal Mary-Sueing Teenager, and the eventual evolution into Oh God What Have I Done.
I'll tell little stories as I go, but I'm not going to point out my artistic flaws and/or improvements. I think they'll be obvious enough on their own.
So painfully obvious.
Let's start at the beginning, shall we?
1999-2000: Moon Princesses and Shoddy Fantasy Novels
I started drawing in "the same style as sailor moon", which, as most real artists know, is probably the worst thing a person could do to themselves if they ever hoped to have a full range of artistic capabilities. Being 13, I didn't know any better or care, because Sailor Moon was The Best Show Ever OMFGBBQ.
Around the same time, I was also reading junk like The Wishsong Of Shanarra, (My mother SHOULD have slapped me and handed me some Tolkien.) so I was big on MAGIC and also ELVES and crap involving PEOPLE WHO TURNED INTO DRAGONS.
The first picture is obviously Sailor Moon. Please note my powerful mastery of foreshortening (broken leg), and her flowing, floor-length head ropes.
The second picture is "Brin". My very first Mary-Sue ever. She's a redhead, OMG SO AM I. She's also an elf with giant ears, she's super awesome in probably every way ever, her name is STOLEN from The Wishsong of Shanarra, and she was in EVERY RP I joined during my first couple of years on the internet. (Also, her 'intro' always involved dramatically bursting into a tavern, stuttering that she was being chased by a monster, and then collapsing into the arms of the nearest male. How great is that?)
2001: EVERYONE HAS CAT EARS GODDAMNIT
Oh, anime. ANIME, ANIME. I wanted to WATCH IT ALL. Around this time, I was sill slobbering all over Sailor Moon. But now New Things were on TV, such as Pokemon, Dragon Ball Z, and so forth. I also started renting Revolutionary Girl Utena, which kickstarted a whole new brand of fangirl in me. Thus began the pictures in which everyone wore weird (haha alliteration) Utena ripoff uniforms, and my drawing style morphed into some freakish Sailor Utena lovechild.
Also, the internet happened, and I discovered CAT GIRLS. HOLY SHIT, GIRLS WITH CAT EARS BEST THING EVER. Suddenly, everything I drew involved kemonomimi.
2002: The Leap
Gundam Wing. Gundam. Wing.
Actually, it was in 2001 that my very own Gundam Wing Sue was born, but it was in 2002 that she broke away and got her "very own Gundam series", which a friend and I invented. We were Very Clever And Cool. My character's name was Silver Aljan Emania, which was totally original and great, and GUESS WHAT SHE'S ANOTHER REDHEAD OMGOMG, and all that other neat stuff.
Later that year was also the start of the great Tolkien Dynasty, which was, for whatever reason, when I started pushing myself to draw as flipping awesome as humanly possible. So I started doing BACKGROUNDS and DETAIL and also SHADING DESU.
During this time I was learning to invent actually original characters (yeah right), and may or may not have begun to grasp the concept of human anatomy.
Also, I tried to do some digital coloring.
Chick on motorcycle is Silver, and my Totally Not a Gary Stu elf-hobbit is the digitally colored one. And guess what? It's another goddamn redhead. HAHAHA who'd have thought?
2003: The Sues and Stus Are Dead, Long Live the Sues and Stus
So yeah. That thing I said about creating original characters? That was... probably true. I mean, I DID create an awful LOT of characters. I still do. But back then, the only ones I really spent any time drawing were the ones that were BASED ON ME. Like my boy, Ammory. At the time, I had cut my hair short, I had dyed it this really nice maroon color, I was wearing flip-flops, torn jeans, a zorro hat... So, you can imagine what Ammory looked like, can't you?
Yep. He looked JUST. LIKE. ME.
How about we pause here for a facepalm?
More digital coloring happened, and also Tolkien had entirely taken over my brain. Which was pretty okay, since the sheer epicness of Lord of the Rings was still making me try my damndest to draw as epic as possible. 2003 was a pretty good year for my art, because while I still had a lot of room to improve, I was putting a shit-ton of effort into details and backgrounds.
Don't get excited, it didn't last much longer.
Here is where I take a break from humiliating myself, because I have to go get ready for work. after work I will come back and finish this post~ After all, we still have seven more years worth of lulz to get through. Ohohohohoh.
Comedian icon because this post is bound to be full of embarrassing lulz.
So, once upon a time I was 13, and Cartoon Network decided to start importing Sailor Moon to our magical land of television. Being a girl who loved unicorns and dress-up and fairies, there was absolutely NOTHING BETTER than a show about middle school princesses from the moon getting together and fighting evil after a slew of sparkling radioactive transformation sequences. Nothing. Better. Not to mention, I was fascinated to learn that this show was from another country. At the retarded age of 13, I became aware of Japan, and all it's glorious choppy animation.
My brain having been infected, I gave up what might have been a very promising potential in ACTUAL art, and started mimicking animu. Oh, animu. You destroy every child's talent.
Anyway, this post is going to be an art dump of sorts. But I'll not be posting anything new. Nope. You, my lucky, tiny friends list, will be witnessing history. From 1999 when I crippled my artistic ability, to 2010 when I fully realized my weeabo nature, I will post the art that depicts my slow crawl through the varying stages of Hormonal Mary-Sueing Teenager, and the eventual evolution into Oh God What Have I Done.
I'll tell little stories as I go, but I'm not going to point out my artistic flaws and/or improvements. I think they'll be obvious enough on their own.
So painfully obvious.
Let's start at the beginning, shall we?
1999-2000: Moon Princesses and Shoddy Fantasy Novels
I started drawing in "the same style as sailor moon", which, as most real artists know, is probably the worst thing a person could do to themselves if they ever hoped to have a full range of artistic capabilities. Being 13, I didn't know any better or care, because Sailor Moon was The Best Show Ever OMFGBBQ.
Around the same time, I was also reading junk like The Wishsong Of Shanarra, (My mother SHOULD have slapped me and handed me some Tolkien.) so I was big on MAGIC and also ELVES and crap involving PEOPLE WHO TURNED INTO DRAGONS.
The first picture is obviously Sailor Moon. Please note my powerful mastery of foreshortening (broken leg), and her flowing, floor-length head ropes.
The second picture is "Brin". My very first Mary-Sue ever. She's a redhead, OMG SO AM I. She's also an elf with giant ears, she's super awesome in probably every way ever, her name is STOLEN from The Wishsong of Shanarra, and she was in EVERY RP I joined during my first couple of years on the internet. (Also, her 'intro' always involved dramatically bursting into a tavern, stuttering that she was being chased by a monster, and then collapsing into the arms of the nearest male. How great is that?)
2001: EVERYONE HAS CAT EARS GODDAMNIT
Oh, anime. ANIME, ANIME. I wanted to WATCH IT ALL. Around this time, I was sill slobbering all over Sailor Moon. But now New Things were on TV, such as Pokemon, Dragon Ball Z, and so forth. I also started renting Revolutionary Girl Utena, which kickstarted a whole new brand of fangirl in me. Thus began the pictures in which everyone wore weird (haha alliteration) Utena ripoff uniforms, and my drawing style morphed into some freakish Sailor Utena lovechild.
Also, the internet happened, and I discovered CAT GIRLS. HOLY SHIT, GIRLS WITH CAT EARS BEST THING EVER. Suddenly, everything I drew involved kemonomimi.
2002: The Leap
Gundam Wing. Gundam. Wing.
Actually, it was in 2001 that my very own Gundam Wing Sue was born, but it was in 2002 that she broke away and got her "very own Gundam series", which a friend and I invented. We were Very Clever And Cool. My character's name was Silver Aljan Emania, which was totally original and great, and GUESS WHAT SHE'S ANOTHER REDHEAD OMGOMG, and all that other neat stuff.
Later that year was also the start of the great Tolkien Dynasty, which was, for whatever reason, when I started pushing myself to draw as flipping awesome as humanly possible. So I started doing BACKGROUNDS and DETAIL and also SHADING DESU.
During this time I was learning to invent actually original characters (yeah right), and may or may not have begun to grasp the concept of human anatomy.
Also, I tried to do some digital coloring.
Chick on motorcycle is Silver, and my Totally Not a Gary Stu elf-hobbit is the digitally colored one. And guess what? It's another goddamn redhead. HAHAHA who'd have thought?
2003: The Sues and Stus Are Dead, Long Live the Sues and Stus
So yeah. That thing I said about creating original characters? That was... probably true. I mean, I DID create an awful LOT of characters. I still do. But back then, the only ones I really spent any time drawing were the ones that were BASED ON ME. Like my boy, Ammory. At the time, I had cut my hair short, I had dyed it this really nice maroon color, I was wearing flip-flops, torn jeans, a zorro hat... So, you can imagine what Ammory looked like, can't you?
Yep. He looked JUST. LIKE. ME.
How about we pause here for a facepalm?
More digital coloring happened, and also Tolkien had entirely taken over my brain. Which was pretty okay, since the sheer epicness of Lord of the Rings was still making me try my damndest to draw as epic as possible. 2003 was a pretty good year for my art, because while I still had a lot of room to improve, I was putting a shit-ton of effort into details and backgrounds.
Don't get excited, it didn't last much longer.
Here is where I take a break from humiliating myself, because I have to go get ready for work. after work I will come back and finish this post~ After all, we still have seven more years worth of lulz to get through. Ohohohohoh.