I used design doll in hopes to help me sort out my devastatingly obvious shortcomings concerning anatomy. I did the original sketch by myself first, then created the pose in design doll to really see what am I missing all the time, and so far I find it to be incredibly useful as a self-help tool. Highly recommended to fellow artists who are also learning basic anatomy.

I think you doing the first sketch first, and then use design doll as a fact check sort of thing not only results in an anatomically somewhat more accurate illustration but it also helps highlighting where do you lack and need improvement. I think this is very important, because when you just look at references or watch other people speedpaint, you tend to think "oh yeah, I think I can sorta at least do that", but when you get down to it you might get lost in the details and end up botching it - at least I often find myself stumbling on relatively easy things myself because of plain oversight like that.  

The flow of my original sketch was absolutely wrong - Harry's spine bended in a way that, while it's absolutely possible to do so, it looked awkward and uncomfortable. His head was positioned alright, but in on itself, it was too big for his body, even for a 10 year old.

His left hand, holding the ice cream was raised way too close to his face, and on second sight, I felt like I made it look like his left arm is somehow touching his torso from elbow all the way up. His right arm looked very stiff, and of course, both hands looked pretty bad (and also stiff) but that was a mistake I was aware of - I spent a good amount of time trying to fix them, but to little success. This is what I've got right now after some self-checking:

(this is supposed to be an illustration for The Vanishing Glass, Harry is in the zoo looking at reptiles):

Let's just say this is not turning out too well either! lmao

As the title suggests, my uphill battle shall march on. Yesterday evening I took a peek at this site on my phone and realized that my monitor was set to be pretty dark as it hurt my eyes when reading entire novels on it back in, like, 2017? So I started to ponder is it possible that my "art" (ugly drawings in sai) might loook... uh... peculiar, now.

They do! 

So, now I started fixing this one. Won't backtrack to the rest, rest in peace my drawings...

I might have made the shelves too dark now, I don't know, but as I said earlier, it is my goal not to take too much time with each artwork, so it might just be left alone. 

I am such a failure, you guys. 

So, as I started painting the picture I previously posted, I started to become really regretful about leaving this one unfinished. As of late I am not using anything I've learned from my Inktober challange (mainly to just finish things without the anxiety of relative perfection). So I dived in head first and started to just... wing everything. The results are expectedly even worse than my usual, but at least I can see myself finishing this one in a relatively short time. 

Too many distinct colours, I tried to unify them but so far, nope...

Apropo, I recently watched some youtube videos of artists who struggled to create in a reasonable time frame just like yours truly, and it was a mind blowing, eye-opening experience. While I was aware that I missed out on years, if I project that forward into the future, I can say that I have about ~ 100 art pieces in me before I keel over, which is underwhelmingly little if you factor in most of my works are of low general quality and tiny in terms of overall size.

They shouldn't even take a single day to churn them out, one after the other.

Also, ~100 artworks means very, very little room for genuine, overall improvement, so even those few artworks I might have in me will be of a much lesser quality than I would ever be satisfied with. Or, as in one of these videos the uploader said: you need to fail faster. (I'll try to find these videos, but right now I'm in a hurry).

On the brighter side I started re-reading the Harry Potter series! This is my, what, 8th time? At the end I will be like Edgar Cyce, who re-read the Bible every year... I'll end up being like that with Harry Potter if I keep this up! 

However, this will be the very first time I read the entire series in its native English - so far I've only had the first book in English only, the rest are all Hungarian. By the way, the Hungarian translations are amazing! We had a truly talented translator I am very thankful for: our lovely Hungarian translator, Tóth Tamás Boldizsár, who could give JKR a run for her money in terms of creativity and pure wit.

So, right now I got myself the English e-books (the Bloomsbury ones, so Britishisms remained intact), and I'll get to experience Snape in all of his snarky, native glory this wonderful story the way the writer originally dreamed it up, and perfected her craft. I am very, very excited about it, guys! 

How I draw figures vs how I draw buildings

Now, not to say I am good at drawing - or painting -  people (or just drawing at all), but the difference is uh... shocking, even by my standards. I mean look at this optical tragedy:

(click for full size if you are brave enough)

I shouldn't even mention that I still struggle with the entire concept of a lineart too, right? Why do I even exist.