Hi!

This is a tradition I do every year to see my art progress. I have been doing this for 6 years now.

I usually keep my art seperated from myself, so I don't write much stuff down here. I prefer it that way.

However, I feel like it's important for me to write my dumb stupid feelings down, at least here on newgrounds. Feel free to ignore all of the following text.

If you've been following me since my deviantart days, you've may have noticed how I've done most of these in the month of april. You may also have noticed we are way past that date.

I could blame my deteriorating mental health, college was really giving me a hard time this year and i'm embarrassed to say that i've had multiple breakdowns over that time, however blaming that would be ignoring the root of the issue.

I am terrified. Every year I have to show progress to myself. To draw something worse than the preceding year would be to not only show that I am not improving on art, but to visualize my regression over a wall of shame.

I know this sounds super dumb, since I draw dumb anime girls online but i genuienly get scared to do this every year. I pressured into making something objectively better than the last.

As the years go on, I make less and less progress and I think this year has been the hardest on me. Sure I get slightly better, but I clearly don't show as much progress as I did in the past. Which is scary because I'm not even that good of an artist, my anatomy work is mediocre at best and most of my character designs are interchangeable because of how similar they are. Looking at this year and the last, I don't really see all that much progress anymore. You could even argue that last year's drawing was better.

I kinda hate doing this every year. I feel locked in a box that gets smaller and smaller every year. I don't have that margin of error anymore. This year I outright said that I wasn't going to do it. I only decided to give it a shot after recently watching the LazyMuffin birthday series. It's crazy how dedicated he's remained over all these years.

I don't know if i'll do this again next year. I apologize for the rant.