So last year was a whirlwind of art for me. The year started out pretty quietly with a simple photoshoot with some friends on New Years Day. It was bitterly cold, and despite my best efforts, I was barely able to operate the camera; let alone take good pictures. But even still I did manage to get one halfway decent shot, and that got things rolling.



The year then proceeded to advance at a breakneck pace, my monthly cosplay shoots churning out hundreds of pictures, and every once in a while, a fairly decent one. Though which ones were the decent ones seems to be a matter of opinion; there are those at the shoots who though all of them were the decent ones. Personally I think it's only because they have had such heavy exposure to bad photographs that anything that is at least halfway in focus and doesn't have a composition reminiscent of someone who was trying to take a picture of their pocket and accidentally got a bit of the person in the frame is a masterpiece. But that's just my take on the matter; your mileage may vary.



And then in late June there was suddenly ponies! Not so much pony art, but around this time I got around to finally listening to my friend who told me that the new Friendship is Magic 4th gen series was actually good. I'd go visit Anime Expo around that time with some friends who were already Bronies and like that, BAM! Bronification. However, it'd be my dark secret for a while; my amusement at pastel colored marshmallow ponies was not something (is not something) that our culture really encourages. As such I simply plugged along like there was nothing happening, with cosplay pictures being the art de joir



But it was not to last forever. Ponies grew from simply being a simple decent cartoon show into something more. As I started getting interested in places like Equestria Daily and started getting involved in the #MLP-ATG-Alumni the pony thing started to take off and my hand-drawn art started to take center stage again.



It was about this time I first got my hands on the trial version of PaintTool SAI. This amazing little piece of software opened up whole new worlds to me and greatly improved the available tools at my disposal. Beyond simply having a very nice drawing palette and a wide variety of tools (and costing $70, not $700 like Photoshop,) it also added the linework layer and allowed me to do linework based drawings using very simple bezier curves that could be tempered and tailored both in thickness and smoothing. This made doing line based drawings much easier and helped me compensate for my poor motor control by drawing the lines I wanted, not the lines that my hands could actually put on paper.



But after a lot of playing around in that feel I decided that I wanted to try some other things. This lead to one quick, late night, fooling around with freehand coloring. Pretty much just scribbling in the general shape of a pony. The result was crude, misshapen, hollow, but for all of these things it was generally pony. This random experiment, which turned out to be a process called "digital painting" as I came to understand, turned out to be an interesting new avenue. First of all, it was strictly a manual dexterity thing. Second of all it almost actively worked against the idea of erasing; changes were always additive, even if that change was a removal. This lead to several variations and has been my new go-to style for my ATG submissions simply because of how different it was.



In the meantime I didn't stop my photography mind you. I've been just as active as ever at doing it. The only difference is that with #MLP-ATG-Alumni's weekly themes I've had motivation to post, regardless of content or quality, every week. Most of these pictures were not posted, much as had been the running trend prior to the ATG and their weekly ponies. Nevertheless, a few photoshoots produced good shots and every once in a while I'd get some of them up onto Deviant Art.



In December I decided I'd take my first formal photography class, and for reasons that are a bit archaic, I chose to do film based photography. My experiements with it have been mixed, and if nothing else I've come to understand that my Canon 5D Mark II will utterly wallop anything ANY 35 mm film camera could ever hope to do. But some of the quirks of film actually give it a bit of an appeal. My film based works lack the pure crispness of my digital stuff, but in exchange they tend to have a softer, warmer feel. It makes them seem more personal if that makes some kind of sense.



But now it's a new year. With it's new beginnings come new challenges. Standing here looking out at December it seems like I have an eternity to try out new things, but framing it differently, a photoshoot a month would mean only 12 shoots. A drawing a week is only 52 drawings. Improvement will require more than that. MUCH more. So as an artist I need to resolve to do more, do it with more direction, and do it with more gusto.

So below are the art related resolutions I have for the year coming.

• Continue the Corner Cactai photoshoots on a monthy basis. (More often would be nice, but impractical.)
• Draw a something a day. It doesn't have to be a pony. But a pony a day, even just a quick sketch, counts. Drawing two things on one day doesn't count for two days either. It's not about quantity; it's about consistency.
• Participate in the ATG's weekly prompts. If I'm meeting the drawing a day goal I won't fret over skipping a theme (some themes are just no fun,) but I should be doing > 90% of them.
• Take a picture a day. Could be on the 5D, could be on film, could be on my cell phone camera, doesn't matter how. But like with drawing I need to do it consistently.
• Write monthly. At least 1500 words a month of properly edited text; ideally 10K. Again, consistency, not quantity is the big point.
• Practice an instrument at least 2 days a week. I'm not trying to be a veteran master, but I do need to consistently put my hands on the gear.
• Post one each of a picture and a drawing each week. Posting more is okay, but again, be consistent.
• Network with other artists and give critiques. I know how badly I need good critique to improve, but I can't critique myself. However everyone else needs critique too. So if I do at least one good critique every week, it should eventually come around that I receive one good critique every week.

All in all it's a big job. But I believe that it should be quite achievable, even in the context of work, school, and my other objectives (which include dating more and more regular visits to the gym.) Sometimes because of these other goals, (such as school since my class is photography,) and some times in spite of them (work is kind of an active attack against my art time.) But regardless it's looking to be an exciting year.