In honor of getting my first tablet-laptop 6 years ago, I thought I'd add on to my improvement comparison. I am still using the same tablet-laptop today (albeit a newer version I got in 2011 I believe). It's reaching the end of it's life and I'm not sure how much longer I'll be drawing on this great tablet, but I'm sure going to make it last as long as I can.

I got my very first tablet-laptop the summer of 2010, right before I started high school. It was a school-owned laptop, a Lenovo x200t, that I would use for my freshman year. My sophomore year of high school, they gave me a brand new computer, the x220t, which I kept until graduation in 2014. Unfortunately, after 2013 Lenovo discontinued the tablet version of this laptop, so I was unable to purchase a new version of it. Being as involved in the tech department as I was, they gave me the chance to purchase my tablet from them, and so I did. This same tablet has lasted me through two years of college so far and it's going into it's third year of college, sixth total year of school. I'm amazed that this thing has lasted through 5 years of heavy use and is only now beginning to die, as it was designed for roughly 4-5 years of light-moderate use. I did have the battery die on me once (to my luck, it had been recalled anyways and I got a free replacement) but I should be able to make him live when other things start to fail. I know this computer inside and out thanks to having a job with my high school fixing them for two summers, so I can replace ANY piece in this thing if it breaks, assuming I can get my hands on the part. Unfortunately many parts are becoming hard to find since this thing is now 5 years old. The updated parts for the version released the year after mine don't all fit. (Some do, some don't.)

As for my art, I've been in a slump for over a year now. It started around the end of 2014. I had a short revival in mid-2015 but soon went back to the slump. I think I'm finally pulling out of it now, after doing more traditional art in August and coming back to digital in September. I felt like my style was really generic and boring, as well as just not looking very good, and I had a lot of insecurities about the things I did produce. Nothing was up to the standard I had in my head, nothing was good enough for me. I'm finally happy once again with most of the art I produce and I've done several larger pieces already in the past week that I'm excited about. Art school was hard on me and I got burnt out really easily during foundations classes, but now that I've been focusing on animation, I'm growing my love for illustration again. I'm glad that my career focus is animation, because my art needs to stay for me. Commissions occasionally are fun but I am happy to not focus on them 24/7.