My top 10 favorite works of art that I've made from the year of 2022! The order these works are listed in has no bearing on their technical quality, or by any other metric for that matter. Rather, they are listed here for the personal impact they had on me, or how much I enjoyed making them and seeing them finished.

1) Elfen Sponge

Elfen Lied is one of those shows that will have you completely invested in it for the first 7 minutes you watch it. You think you're going to be watching a melancholic sci-fi horror when it turns out you're going to be watching an ecchi harem that can't decide whether or not it also wants to be a melancholic sci-fi horror.

With that said, there's something I can't deny: I really like Lucy. The pink-haired, horned monster girl with psychic hands that can shred people in half and block bullets, and she's not afraid to just really kill someone in the most horrible way. Everything about her concept is so cool, but is continuously marred by the story's desire to keep her hidden behind the curtain for so much of it's duration. Sad!

2) Tennis Buddies

This is, hands down, some of the sharpest lineart I've ever made. To be honest, I think most of my art'd be like this if it wasn't for the fact that I feel the need to render my work in full color to meet some sort of market expectation. Maybe this coming year, I'll let myself relax a bit and make more simplistic pieces like this.

3) Graveyard Swimwear

One of the most well rendered and sexy bodies I've made so far (imo). Plus, the bikini itself is something I really like, with the straps being these dried, spindly arm and hands grasping what one could only assume to be some kind of rotted, leathery flesh. The ghastly green lighting contrasts nicely with her lifeless purple skin, that is contrasted yet again against the backdrop of her ghost-white hair. Lastly, the long seams slit into her skin imply some kind of horrid dissection, but also aid to illustrate the curvature and dimension of her body!

4) Sarah DuBois

Not one of the 2D ladies you see too often, yeah? Well, Twitter seemed to think so too, because this is definitely my most popular post on there, with about 21.5k likes the last time I checked. This drawing was prompted by my rewatching of some Boondocks episodes posted on YouTube. I thought Sarah was cute (her season 2 onward design specifically), and the Boondocks itself is a show that has aged pretty gracefully. None of it feels dated, despite it featuring so much satire of the decade it came out of. It's just funny.

5) Julie Fawthe's Halloween Hoe-Down

My USA gijinka (personified thing/idea)! Julie is always fun to draw. Her stars and stripes allow me to add so much depth and texture to her skin. I really liked how her dress and weird, veiny hat came out, but her eyes glowing behind her long, sinister bangs is what really sells the picture for me. The only thing I don't like about this piece is how the wrinkles around her waist came out. I'm not sure why, but I think I just made too many of them? They feel...crowded, but still a good pic nonetheless!

6) Snowfall

"She must cold," you're probably thinking! Don't worry, this is just a photoshoot. There's a big heater just outside the camera's view and assistant's are standing by with a big furry coat and hot coffee. All that aside, this drawing features a new technique I've only started doing in this past month or so: painting the hair instead of drawing the lines for it and then filling it in. I like my hair to look as organic, flowy, and a little bit messy as possible, but that's hard to always pull off when you use lines to make the hair. The painting tech takes a little longer and I have to add a couple extra layers, but the result is rather nice!

7) Septiembre Diaziseis

My newest gijinka joins my OC canon! Septiembre was created for the Mexico's independence day and her inclusion completes my North America gijinka trifecta! Her heterochromia (seperately colored eyes) is actually what inspired me to later give Julie Fawthe her own heterochromia later on.

The hardest part of making Septiembre was her name. My USA gijinka (Julie Fawthe) and Canada gijinka (Julie Faust), both have names that sound similar to the Independence Day dates of their respective countries (July first and fourth). Mexico's independence day is September 16, and I couldn't find any names that sounded similar to that, so pretty early on I just decided to have her first name be Septiembre (simply "September" in Spanish), but I still had a hard time getting a surname. I considered "de Los Santos" because it was the closest thing I could get to "dieciseis" (Spanish for 16). Then it hit me! The surname "Diaz" plus "seis" equals "Diaziseis." It was a cute pun, it sounds super close to "dieciseis," and it's math so you know it just make sense on its own.

8) Black Rock Ryuko

I like doing media crossovers a lot so I wanted to try doing it with Black Rock Shooter and Kill la Kill. The connection? I've watched them both. That's all. Thank you for coming.

9) Julie Faust- Happy Canada Day!

The debut of Julie Faust and her Quebecois parrot. The main challenge for Faust was deciding where to place her maple leaf. I thought about placing it on her stomach or chest, but decided against, because it meant that I'd have to put her in a low cut outfit or have her always showing midriff. While I'm sure many people would enjoy that, I wanted Faust to come off as more reserved and prudish than her other North American partners. So, I decided to give her a little leaf on each cheek. That way you can always tell she's Canadian despite what she's wearing! Faust also seems to be a fan favorite. I've had a few of my peers point out their own preference towards Faust more than once now.

10) Sheri (OC by Lawless)

With this piece, I wanted to make Sheri look like she was putting a lot of force into her attack, and sought to give her a lot of forward momentum. One leg steping forward, chest puffed out, head tilted down, and shoulders arched back- these things together helped to sell this pose! Additionally, the horizontal spaces of white I left in the background act as speed lines, further selling her momentum. The dramatic lighting illuminating from her lightning is a nice punctuation.😁

And that's it! If you're new to my profile and you've liked what you see here, then feel free to give me a follow! Thanks for reading, and I'll see you guys in the New Year.

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