"The Inner Machinations of my Mind are an Enigma"

In which there was much celebration in the Guthrie Household. XP Pen Tablet has been added to Ari's Inventory! *little jaunty midi of victory* Simultaneously, Arielle struggles with her own art demons, but received much needed advice and input from others. In the coming days, Arielle may need help from her cohorts...

First and foremost, thank you to all the mentors and fellow students for any input given these past two weeks. Even something as small as an emote on a shared image, lets me know so much, and seeing a slight uptick in views on my artwork gives me a much-needed dopamine boost. I know there is still much work to do within myself, by myself, but the outside validation, even when in the form of a critic, is certainly part of the healing process, and I'm eternally grateful.

The troll under the bridge is Bowie! This is where he is whenever I'm at the computer...unless he's barking at the door -_-;

So yes! The tablet came in! With a bit of finagling, it was quickly available to use. As with all new tech, however, first usage felt very strange. So, for the past two weeks I've been doing a couple of little things to help me get used to the tablet, get used to using Krita, and start the artist block and wound healing. As mentioned before, I went through a rather traumatizing work experience which left me with a surgery for my wrist and ex-boss-fueled mental steroids for my crippling self-doubt and self-talk (who...really didn't need the extra/outside help). I proceeded to snap fold inward and become a putrid festering mess of an isolated hermit...and gave up pen and paper, animation, and creature creation, with the sudden death of my passion, or what I thought was the death of it, and rotted for nearly a decade...possibly more. It had been a new All Time Low. Ever since joining Game Gen, I've been working very hard to reverse the damage caused by others and, most importantly, myself unto myself.

Thank you for allowing me the space to speak about this and thank you for being the Wojtek in my mental war with my demons.

Unpleasantries aside, what have I been working on for the past two weeks?

I first attempted to draw as I would have once done, and so started with a little doodle of a dragon, liberating itself from shackles and rope...but the demons were far too quick, and immidiately killed my modivation to finish it, still, other than the demons being right and it looks far too much like a dog...LMAO...I don't think it's entirely a bad first drawing for a new tablet and real attempt at drawing well after so long without a pen, pencil, or stylus in my hand (I should likely mention the surgery was on my drawing hand's wrist).

meh.

I decided that maybe learning more about Krita and what I could do within it, including what all the brushes and various other tools did, would be a better place to start. Using some basic prompts, something gradeschool kids were expected to be able to complete, I could also start slowly warming back up that part of brain.

left square is prompt, right square is my attempt. I really tried to keep the look.

this one was really fun actually...might try it again with patterns you guys give me! Ive always enjoyed doing art with input from others like that.

I considered doing more of these prompts, but my mind was anxious to move on to something else other than basic exercises. So, I started working on coloring something...I went to several different websites I knew had random coloring pages available, mostly because I wanted to practice painting specifically, not wasting time drawing something up to color myself...too many steps and chances for my mind to ruin the groove. I ended up with a remnant image from the time of pandemic, one which I found on the Crayola website...which I think may have freaked some students out...yikes forever...sorry about that....

Its been taking longer to finish than my inner talk likes...but after a talk with my mentor, I knew that it was my inner talk which was creating this need to abandon it similar to my first drawing. it's still not finished...but I think it looks pretty good regardless....I want to add a lot more glowing and highlights and maybe even some fireflies or something.

Gunna try to finish it later today and move on to the next thing! But what should I do next? In the next few weeks, I'd like to do more exercises, though this time, focusing on what I used to do every waking moment before the hermitting years...CREATURE CREATION! I kind of want to ask you guys to help me generate some prompts...but I may just do that all myself. Let me know if you are interested in helping give me a prompt! I can share my idea for how that's going to go down :3!

Did this last night.... a final doodle for you to enjoy!