In 2025 I took on a "New Year's Resolution" to generally get things done more. To this end I took on a little "forum game" on a site frequently. The goal I set for myself was to do at least one drawing a week. I would check in every month, and the punishment for failing would be a six day mute. My goals were to practice more and find some motivation to draw. I also wanted to get over the anxiety I have about posting things I do because they're not "good enough."
Some notable events throughout the year were a fun Drawpile I took part in in April and managing to get a commission in August. Drawpile is always fun and I'm glad to make progress on commissions. Other than those, I did do a range of Various Things which is nice. Oekaki-style drawing, lower resolution pixel art, and the occasional Blockbench model. Looking back I would have liked to have used Blender and Godot more. I've been meaning to practice those...
It's nice to push yourself and it's nice to surpass your limits but I can't really justify pushing myself that hard again any time soon. Maybe if I suddenly gain a ton of free time I can try doing weekly drawings again. But for now I'm just taking a break and focusing on more important things (which is why this blog post took so long...).
It was nice to experiment with different techniques too. I didn't change art style drastically or anything but doing at least one drawing a week allowed me to do some relatively rapid iteration on some things I was thinking of trying. I'd like to think my linework and shading improved...
Towards the end of the year I decided I don't need to put every drawing on social media which in retrospect was maybe working against the goal of getting comfortable with posting bad drawings. But I don't think posting on social media is good for my sanity in the first place so it's probably fine.
All in all I'm glad I did it but I don't see myself doing it again any time soon. I think I learned a lot from it though. I hope the series was interesting to keep up with for those who did.