Merry Christmas! Thank you for this year everyone~ <3

I wanted to post an extra vlog for this month too, but this piece sucked the life out of me, along with taking care of my baby nephew ohoho. My internet speed here can't also handle video uploads so I'll have to put it off until I get back to Metro Manila in a few days

Now about this art, I've actually thought of the idea as early as Christmas last year in 2016, but I didn't have time to make it then and I only have my phone to draw stuff. It's very limiting and the app I'm using isn't powerful enough for a big piece. Nonetheless, I still used it for sketching out the characters while I'm having my breaks at work or uni. 

Although it's just a simple sketch, the size of the file was big, causing my app to crash and my saved data to be lost, so I actually had to do the sketch all over again. I also had to separate the characters in different images in the rough draft, and only pasted them together after resizing them when I transferred everything on Paint SAI.

This is the first time I made something big - I usually just focus on drawing one character but this time I'm up for the challenge. I started slapping the rough draft I made on my phone together on Dec 20 right after my last day at work for this year. Took a break on the 21st since it's my travel day back to Bicol, and I think I hung out with my family and rested for a bit the next day when I arrived home (travel time took almost 12 hours again, my butt hurt a lot with the hard bus seat lol). 

Then I worked my ass off (rip again) for the next few days until the morning of December 25. I remember Discord recording my game time with SAI for like more than a day because it somehow continues recording even when I'm asleep. 

Doing the lineart is still the hardest part for me, and it was harder when I was making Tinker's and Timbersaw's suits. I'm not used to making mechanical contraptions but this was a good exercise for me. At some point it was actually therapeutic to follow the tiny details. I did enjoy adding the hidden items in the Keen's room, and I feel really smart when I incorporate the lore in my drawings. (Special thanks to Volcano for looking up the Wikipedia page for me, I actually wasn't aware of Kunkka being BFFs with the Keens until we read that <3). 

The coloring was tedious too, of course, and it's technically the hardest part. I like to separate pieces on different layers so it's easier for me to shade them using a clipped layer, so this time I separated all the blues, reds, greens, etc in different layers. I tried to be as systematic as possible, but at some point I got tired of it and colored all the presents in the reds layer hehe. With the signature included, I finished with 52 layers. 

Another major problem I had was checking for the accuracy of the colors. My laptop's screen is shit, making the colors all diluted. I have a ready made palette in SAI, and I have an image of it in my phone to check which colors I need to use. I also had to google the actual pictures of the heroes both on my laptop and on my phone to be as accurate as possible, but also make sure the colors go well together in my drawing. 

When I'm having trouble how to draw or color something, I usually save it for later. If I try to force myself to do something I can't figure out, it makes me put off work because of stress and confusion, so instead I focus first on other parts of the drawing and work my way to the difficult areas. 

These areas would be the window and the fireplace. Man it was so hard to do it, especially the latter, but I think I did a good job with them. I was surprised on how the window turned out - I'm not good with textures too but it worked this time and it gave me this sense of hope that I can get better on doing it for my future drawings.  

Anyway I think I talked too much about this. I'm proud of this piece; it's kinda like a breakthrough for me because I tried a lot of new stuff and did well on them here. My art is simple and cute, and I'm not sure I can make elaborate paintings, but this gives me hope that I can actually surpass what I am today if I work hard. 

Thank you so much for appreciating my art, it means a lot to me - it keeps me going. The criticisms are good too because I know where to improve. And most especially, thank you so much Volcano, Galaga, Blue, Darkman, YDF, Meeps, susu, and Tim for giving me money Kappa. It's good to know that my art is worth something. Thank you for your support <3 

Much love,

Lili ♥