Another year down and time for another review!

Compared to previous years... I feel like this past year could be called more iterative than revolutionary. Though there's nothing wrong with that sort of year!
Taking everything I've learned over the past few years and learning how to apply it more effectively and efficiently. Also experimenting with my current approaches to see if there's ways I can tweak what I do to work better for me and if there's new things I can do with what I know. One particular area was messing with level balance when I've finsihed up the shading and lighting to help clean up said shading. Smoothing out areas that are darker than they should be and the like.
Speaking of lighting, I've also lately been experimenting with shaking things up with some more extreme changes to the lighting and shading. September's Morvala picture I really tried to put effort into lighting and shading and it's easily one of the pictures I'm most proud of for this past year. And November's picture too I tried something new with giving it a more sunset/sunrise feel and I really like how that turned out too!

I also spent a goodly amount of time working on improving environmental details whether the enviornment is a room, a city, striding over mountains, or looming over planets and galaxies~
Specifically... I've continued to experiment with nebulae to make them feel more flowy and natural, land and water I've been making use of some new brushes and actual Earth color palletes to make the land look less "off", cities I've tried to add more details like road signs and street lamps and sometimes even vehicles all along with making the buildings more than just boxes, and finally with rooms while I don't do them too often I've been trying to add more random little details (again the one of Morvala really shines) to make them feel more lived in.

Still plenty to learn and experiment with, but all in all I'm quite happy with the imrpovements I've managed to make over the year!

I've also been trying to add more variety in terms of posing and perspective along with putting multiple characters together more often so I can work on character interactions, especially in sketches. Definitely takes work and practice, but I feel like I've been improving on that front too!

Onto numbers...
I didn't have quite as many fully completed pictures posted this year as I did last year, but I also did several privately as extra experimentation along with some of lining/coloring/shading/glowifying some sketch commissions I've picked up over the years as just something fun to do ^^;

2020 was a heck of a year of sketching and I'll admit with the past couple months where there's been a-lot getting in the way of my usual sketching schedule I actually thought I was way behind last year's number, but in the end still managed to break 150. Puts me now at 385 traditional sketches since I started back at the end of 2019... Which honestly still surprises me I've done so many XD
However, I will certainly say that these traditional sketches have really helped me in many ways. Particularly with more rapid experimenting with poses and expressions and ideas and is just fun to do too ^^

A total of 13 new characters spread across three universes and 2 old characters rescued from oblivion... I was good about not creating new characters until the past couple months and then those 8 for that 3rd universe happened XD
Creating new characters and reimagining old ones is lots of fun, but can lead to a-lot of characters if you're not careful.

So to break it down :
- Main Universe
-- Claudia the Espeon (new) who's the mother of Rowanne. She's been in the back of my head for nearly two years and now she finally exists and I'm very happy with how she came out!
-- Morvala the Alolan Marowak (new) who's Kthaarae's old magic teacher and has connections to her, Skögul, and even Jut. Really happy with her design, though I do want to put together an outfit she wears under that cloak (which she keeps for sentimental reasons like Skögul has for her hat) ^^;
-- Lut the Buizel/Lugia (reimagined) who just sort-of fell to the wayside but I finally got around to saving from oblivion! I had always been rather 'meh' on her design, so she went through a serious overhaul and now I love her look <3
-- Argenvira the Lugia/Buizel (reimagined) who's design remained largely the same but received some outfit updates and a new name so as not to get her confused with a friend's character's name ^^;
--- Lut and Argenvira also had their backgrounds updated such that now they are sisters and descendants of Jut and Lahr (stil a WiP character) rather than two minds in one body.

- Kriggleverse (Universe made by Foxfencer with a heck of a-lot of interesting lore and characters in it)
-- V'Saarae the Kriggle (Main Branch)
-- Vivari the Kriggle (Sunwalker Branch)
-- Zatso the Vertifen (think shortstack fennecs with a taste for booms)

- Trainerverse (Pokemon setting made by jsk244 with some really fun and absurd lore and many interesting characters between us all involved in it. Lots of hybrids and characters of all sorts of sizes even to absurd degrees and a multi-size society)
-- Anya the Absol/Sneasel (really just Ynaa in disguise)
-- Gauleen the Goodra
-- Rodinya the Thievul/Zoroark
-- Olivaria the Delphox/Serperior
-- Brie the Brie the Alolana Rattata (taur)
-- Helena the Ninetales/Helioptile
-- Proteanne the Vaporeon/Wishiwashi
-- Jessabelle the Grovyle/Braixen
Not sure how often I'll get and do art of this last group there as they're generally more concept, story, and writing, but I've drawn up refs for each as it was really fun trying to figure out how to put some of those species together ^^;
Have also been considering possibly letting one or two of them sneak their way into my main cast by way of Ynaa being there too (Brie and Proteanne being prime possibilities currently)~

Brings me up to a grand total of... 35 characters o.O

2021 was an interesting year. Lots of experimenting and iterating on things I've been doing rather than striking out with some brand new carazy things added to my repetroire of skills, but looking at where I started and where I am now I feel like it was a good year of arting for sure!
Here's to 2022 being another great year for arting and a better year in general than 2021 was!

And lastly just for ease of finding these pictures...
- January : https://www.furaffinity.net/view/40143465/ - https://www.furaffinity.net/view/40253670/
- Februrary : https://www.furaffinity.net/view/40479735/
- March : https://www.furaffinity.net/view/41207803/
- April : https://www.furaffinity.net/view/41398567/ - https://www.furaffinity.net/view/41574322/
- May : https://www.furaffinity.net/view/42083326/
- June : https://www.furaffinity.net/view/42497296/
- July : https://www.furaffinity.net/view/42601943/ - https://www.furaffinity.net/view/43021045/
- August : https://www.furaffinity.net/view/43459478/
- September : https://www.furaffinity.net/view/43652739/ - https://www.furaffinity.net/view/43755045/
- October : https://www.furaffinity.net/view/44067423/
- November : https://www.furaffinity.net/view/44592848/
- December : https://www.furaffinity.net/view/44895526/

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As always, questions, comments, thoughts, suggestions, and critiques are welcome!

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