2014 Year Review

So, it's a new year again, and so it's time to look back at all we've done in the past year. 2014 was twelve months packed with... under 25 drawings? Yeah, looking back on it, I was a lazy bastard this past year. This is the smallest amount of drawings I have done in a year since I can remember. Now, that's not necessarily a bad thing, also keeping in mind all the drawings I started but never finished (that's not making me feel better, come to think of it), I still drew a decent amount... I guess. Well it's quality over quantity, right? Well, to be honest, the quality could have been greater, though there were certainly pictures I was quite fond of. I also managed to do all those pictures with only three of them being Nintendo fan art, which is something of a unique feet for my predictable gallery (but not a single original work in the whole 12 months! I'm sure my creativity is threatening to those who just witnessed over a year of nothing but fan art...). Well, hey, at least I've got something to show for it. Well, let me go ahead and evaluate my gallery and 2014 DA experience, summing up my thoughts of a year where I wrote more movie reviews than I drew pictures:

MY FAVORITE ARTISTS:
Sure, I've known of most of these artists well before 2014, but here's just a list of some of my very top favorite other artists on Deviantart. I love the work of loads of other artists in this community, but these are just a select handful of the ones whose work really blows me away and I admire a lot:


MY LEAST FAVORITE DRAWINGS OF 2014:


This also happens to be my most recent picture (haven't posted anything since November... oops) and while I don't hate it, it certainly could have been a lot better. The linework seems sort of scattered and undesirable, and the coloring is clearly rushed and bland. Both of these are understandable when knowing that I was rushing this piece together as quickly as I could after seeing the movie (knowing the earlier I got it done, the more people would look for it), but still not excusable. A great deal of the perspective and anatomy within the characters is crap, too, ultimately leading to a some what unpleasing appearance in the end. This movie deserved a better picture, but oh well, this is it. I'm still a bit convinced I owe over half the favorites this picture has solely to Gogo's ass...


Now, this one I freaking like, but it is on this list just for the core reason that the coloring job is a little shitty. A few things about the pictures could have been better drawn, most notably to me in Mike and Leo's pictures, but all in all I'm pleased with these. The one scruple is the semi-lame coloring job. Due to my lack of an art tablet, I often get lazy when coloring with a mouse, so I try to rush it together as quickly as possible, and cut as many corners cheaply as I can. With this picture, it's obvious    I used far too many auto-shade tools in Photoshop, and on quite an amateur level also. Some of the shading doesn't even make sense given the direction of the light source, and the auto-fade effects on Don are hideous. Well, other than that, I like these pictures a good deal, and I will continue to add to this series. I was almost done with Shredder before my hard drive went kaput. 

When I went to write this, for some reason I had the impression that almost everything I drew this year was crap, but when I opened my gallery to see which pictures should make this list, I realized I liked pretty much all my stuff from this past year. The Big Hero 6 one is definitely the weakest, and the coloring in every picture continually makes them look worse than they are. I'm going to have to do something with my coloring (get a tablet) because it did my pictures a lot of bad this past year.

MY FAVORITE DRAWINGS OF 2014:
Here are my top five favorite drawings I did in 2014, listed from least to greatest.


This Sasami picture, along with the Krillin one I did, were probably the most fun I had drawing in the past year, and I really love how freely I expressed them (sorry if I'm patting my own back). I still have more zany anime character renditions coming soon. Hope they come out as good as this little gal did.


It's simple and all, but I'm damn pleased with this one, and I like the simplicity of it. Had a lot of fun redesigning these tykes.


I thought this one would be a #2 spot hands down, but I feel it should fall around #3, since there are a few inexcusable, major screw ups going on in the background. Nevertheless, I love this one, and it came out very close to what I was imagining. Many commenters seemed to imply they thought the caricaturesque rodent looked old, though I was going more for "rugged" and "action star" styled, much like Arnold Schwarzenegger and other 80s macho men, as he through explosives, rocked shades, and had a sort of German/Austrian accent in the Super Mario Bros. Super Show.


Boy did this one take my by surprise. I had no prior plans to draw this picture. It was a spur of the moment piece one night that I did in under an hour and it turned out to be one of my favorite drawings. It has, probably, the best coloring job of the year, and everything just looks fun, appealing, and perfectly exaggerated.


And my favorite drawing of the year is "Let's Go, Ghost Busters!", my ode to the much despised yet wonderfully entertaining Filmation Ghost Busters cartoon of the 1980s. I don't know if I'd say it's the best drawing of the past year as a fact, but I certainly like it the most, whether it be the subject matter or not. It's packed with eye-catching and pleasant art and encompasses most of what I love about the show. It took long enough to draw, anyways...

And last but not least...
THE MOST EMBARRASSING, AMATEUR LEVEL MISTAKES IN DRAWINGS FROM 2014:
The ridiculous fact that Wasabi's plasma blades aren't symmetrical in the Big Hero 6 picture (the one in the background is coming out of the wrong side of his arm) and I didn't even notice until it was already done and up online, and the fact that the background wall to the right in the Mouser picture is completely lopsided and looks like its freaking melting. Congratulations on making mistakes you wouldn't have even made in 4th grade, Brendan!

Anyway, all joking aside, thanks to all watchers, new and old, who follow and support my art, and I'm very grateful for your support, as well as for any of the people who have told me that my stuff has inspired them over the years. It means a lot. I'll have my computer back shortly (though no promises on that Shredder any time soon) and I will be able to get right back to posting artwork for you all to enjoy, and kick off my 2015 gallery. Commissions will also be starting soon, but before then, come check me out at Apex 2015 in Secaucus, NJ on January 30th-February 1st.