prettydragoon

In an artistic sense, my 2023 began in October. Previous to that I had created art in 2021, although I did commission some in 2022 (which you can find somewhere around here). So using a meme template would look rather silly, with three quarters of it blank.

In October I created 21 works, all of which were done to Drawtober prompts. They are summarised already in Drawtober 2023 and me. The most popular of them was Drawtober 28: Owl.

In November I created 5 works, most of which were coloured versions of my Drawtober drawings, and all of which were based on my world Rireinu. The most popular of them was Professor Kaniraya Explains It All At You. I also commissioned one work from 00gojiramon, which you should go fave on their own site.

In December I created 6 works, all of them basically from scratch, although some of them are variations of each other. The most popular of them was Ice Cream Break, which is based on characters by Shipping-Gentleman. My second work in the same universe, Christmas with the Allens, did almost as well.

It will be interesting to see how I will do this year. You never know, I might even succeed in my cunning plan and actually post something every month.

Drawtober 2023 is over, so how did it go for me? Honestly, I am quite pleased with myself. Of the 31 daily prompts, I managed to produce 21 drawings. This is more art in one month than I have drawn in most years. Also, some of the drawings are not entirely terrible, even if I do say so myself. Obviously I still desperately need to practise, but this was a well-needed kick in the butt for me.

There's some humour in the drawings. Some of it is metatextual, like drawing an apple when prompted for 'Orange', or a raven singing "No never, no more".

There is even some worldbuilding for Rireinu cleverly concealed among the drawings. Some of course is simply Earth tropes as performed by Rireinukave, like the vampire is "What if Bram Stoker had written her book on Rireinu?"

But the scarecrow is all Rireinu. Obviously a scarecrow can't be dressed in old clothes because farmers don't wear any clothes. So you build up a person-shaped figure with bundles of straw, and add noise and movement with shiny dangly bits and pieces.

The demon is also definitely Rireinu. A demon's milk is green, and if you drink it, you become her slave.

And for costume, the unspeakably uncomfortable kiniehausu is what the Rireinukave wear in order to cosplay as galactics. Actually it is quite loose fitting and, if you are used to wearing clothes, quite comfortable indeed. You might want to wear panties with it though. Or keep your knees together at all times when sitting.

In the final picture, that for 'Halloween', we can see the everyday form of Rireinu academic dress. Kaniraya-herenari is wearing her upi belt like everybody else, including the two seated students we can see from behind, and in addition she has her nanameko or military dog tag in a fine chain around her neck. The University of Haru is a state institution, so it is proper for her to wear it. It is customary for a civilian to wear her nanameko after serving her conscript term, only if she is affiliated with the government, whether local, provincial, or federal. Another thing we can see is Kaniraya-herenari's fondness for going barefoot. The two students are wearing footwear. Also it occurs to me that to the best of my recollection, this is the first time I have actually drawn Kaniraya-herenari with my own hands. Not the first picture of her, because I have used some avatar makers to create her picture (which is the picture I use as my avatar practically everywhere else but dA).