Hello! This is my first news post so hopefully I'm using this right lol

At last, we've reached the end of OCtober, and I'm happy to say that I successfully completed the challenge without missing a day! This was the first Newgrounds event I've ever taken part in and I must say, it was a ton of fun! I had just heard about it on the first day of October, not long after I had remembered I owned a drawing tablet and decided to get into digital art for the first time. The challenge has been a nice excuse for me to draw and learn, and looking back it makes for a nice timeline of my progress. Having completed all 30 prompts, I thought it might be fun to look back at my art in this post. Maybe compare and critique my own work, as it were. So then, let's take a look!

Day 1: Draw an OC

The first drawing of my OC! This was one of the first finished pieces I made, and it looks like dookie lmao. As I was just learning the basics, I hadn't yet experimented with different brushes or layers, so the whole thing is essentially a one-layer sketch with color added and a crappy background. That said, it set the design for my goofy little selfsona, so it isn't without merit I suppose. Things get much better later on, I promise.

Day 2: Hyped

This one is more or less the same deal as the first one, although I added the semblance of a background, as well as a second object in frame. I like the idea of this one, but again, the execution leaves much to be desired. I might come back later and redo these earlier ones with the skills I've learned, but we'll see how I feel later.

Day 3: Alternate Universe

While still pretty crude, this one is a comparable step up, with an actual background and an early attempt at shading. I also finally started using layers, which helped a bit keeping the objects separated and colored, but the way in which I did it still overcomplicated the coloring process.

Day 4: Different Outfit

I think this might be my favorite from my hasn't-learned-G-pen-yet era. Designing and drawing the outfit was pretty fun, and I enjoyed making the little background details. Still undercooked, but fun to do nonetheless.

Day 5: At Work

I like the energy of this one, but the execution is just kinda gross to me. Like, I'm not the best at proportions or style now, but this is straight up children's drawing level right here. This is one I would very much like to redo at some point, as it's a cute scene that just looks... well, like that.

Day 6: Bad Day

I had the idea of this one a few days before Oct 6. I had just rewatched Smiling Friends season 2 and I wanted an excuse to reference the pose that Pim ends up in after getting absolutely zoinked in space. This one was fun, and an early attempt at intense lighting. The execution is once again kinda crusty, but this was the last of my sketch pen era.

Day 7: Different Time Period

She finally did it! She found the g-pen! Holy cats! Ok but yeah, this was a major step up from my first six drawings. I had been watching digital art tutorials for a few weeks at this point, but wasn't really integrating what I was learning until now, and it shows. Who knew that at least trying to render a piece made it much more visually appealling? Crazy, right? I'm still really proud of this one, even if it still has a lot of room for improvement. This is one I'd love to redo in a year or so's time to compare my progress.

Day 8: Movie Theater

The second in my g-pen era, and a lot more ambitious as well (by my standards). There's a lot going on here, and it took a while to get all the assets done. I admittedly cheated a bit, as the chairs are all duplicates, just with minor adjustments to lighting or skew, but eh, it's fine. Also SPAMTON SPOTTED!!111!! (I'm not obsessed I swear)

Day 9: Their Parents

This is where I started to play with proportions a bit more. I liked having a cartoony style, but I had been doing a bunch of studies of more realistic humans and wanted an excuse to play with that knowledge. The theme was also fun too, as this is totally something that I do to this day. (And apparently my mom before me did the same when she was younger, so it runs in the family I suppose)

Day 10: Favorite Snack

Ok but like, I LOVE pretzel M&M's. They are my lifeblood. They are my soul. They are my all. I'm not religious, but even I could see a loving god blessing this earth with a boon such as this. I would die for pretzel M&M's. I would give up firstborn son for pretzel M&M's. You don't want to know the lengths of which my yearning for these chocolatey spheres of heavenly glory would take me. So yeah, they're alright I guess lmao

Oh shoot, I didn't realize you could only include 10 pictures in a news post lol, guess I gotta split this up into thirds!

Part 2: https://electronat.newgrounds.com/news/post/1485180