Yearly Redraw

Every year without fail I would redraw this character I created in the 7th grade. I don’t really like the design of the character but it was the best out of the pool of art I had back then. I usually do this so I can see just how much I have improved since the year previous.

Funnily enough, even after five years, I have still never named her. I literally refer her to “that one character I would redraw on March 21st”. March 21st is not a significant date to me at all, so I do find this really funny.

Looking back on my old art I can really tell what I tried to focus on every year. The original drawing was made in 2018, I think I just wanted to draw a character with blue hair at that time. In middle school, I was really into anime and crazy hair colors. I never really liked drawing characters with blue hair since I had a habit of oversaturating it and so it looked really off compared to the rest of the characters. It isn’t a bad design overall but the colors were definitely a bit questionable. There was a lot to improve, mainly the line art and the coloring.

The next year was my first time redrawing this piece. I did not get off to a good start as I genuinely liked the original piece compared to this one. The proportions were a bit better and the line art was cleaner, but there was just so much left to desire. Her legs were weirdly placed and her face looked really stretched. The colors of the character were just made lighter and more pastel which really didn’t help the fact that the eyes were dark purple. She looked like an alien but at least I tried. This year, I was thinking that I really needed to work on my proportions.

First year of high school and my second redraw of this character, I loved this art style. It was simple and pretty. Eventually, I did grow out of it because I have a habit of just continuously experimenting with my art. I changed her pose this year because the old one looked a bit too stiff and I really liked the way the character was shaded. I think the part that I disliked the most would probably be the way her eyes looked. Her face was a bit unbalanced but overall it wasn’t too bad. I did think that she was still a bit stiff and would be more fun if her skirt was flowier or her face had more expression. So that’s what I did.

Grade 10, also known as last year, was the most recent redraw I have done. Her character was much more dynamic and fun. I tried to change the background so there was something other than a solid color. I like the way her legs were moving in this one, her knees are a bit too sharp though. I definitely liked the line weight in the last drawing compared to this one but overall it wasn’t too bad. I tried to work with lighting but it didn’t really work out too well because I never studied light and it was really just more of putting airbrush all over the outline of the character. This year, her clothing seems more believable than in previous years and she had more realistic proportions.

Now, this year will be very interesting. I don’t know how this character will turn out as I have switched to a different art program over the last year and slightly shifted from the original anime style. I definitely tried to work with fewer layers and a much more painterly style over the past year and have improved on balancing colors. I am quite curious about how this year’s piece will turn out.

Stay tuned and turn on notifications for March 21st!!