VanillaGhosties
5 Years
Surprise, I’m still alive!
Well it actually hasn’t been that long since my last upload, but it has been quite some time since my last full painting. I’ll talk about that more below. But first, it’s been 5 years since uploading my first drawing to DeviantArt, and 5 years since I got my start as an artist! I’ll try not to make this too drawn out, but I would like to do a bit of reflecting on the past year, and the past 5 years as a whole, as well as my plan going forward. Feel free to stop reading here if you’re not interested in any of that.
So, I made it to half a decade. Can’t say I’m not surprised about how all this pony business turned out- I never expected to last this long when I first joined the fandom back in 2014. At that point, I would’ve been happy if I even made it to the release of the movie. But even today, 2 years after the movie’s release, my enjoyment of ponies is still as high as it’s ever been. It was supposed to wear off by now. Please help me, I’m afraid I might be here forever.
But in all seriousness, I’m super happy to still be invested in little horses after all this time. As of this point, I haven’t felt any signs of my pony enthusiasm slowing down, and I’m perfectly okay with that.
As for art, I’m probably even more surprised with how that’s turned out over the past years. The style I work with now isn’t anything I intended on shooting for when I started out. I wasn’t any good at drawing when I got my start, so my original goal was just to make comics so that I could make people laugh. I figured that it wouldn’t matter if my drawings were super janky, because I could still get people to like my comics if the jokes were witty enough. Which they were not. But I’m still happy that I made them and that some people seemed to enjoy them, even if looking back on most of them now makes me uncomfortable.
Transitioning from my comics phase, my next main goal was pretty much to make appealing lined pony art. I would go to the pages of artists that inspired me the most and try to incorporate elements from their art into my own style. If you took my two biggest inspirations at the time, NCMares and Bobdude0, fused them together into one person, and then subsequently took away their ability to be good at drawing, you'd get my artwork. What I’m trying to get at is that the influences of a few artists were too apparent in my own art, and I had a fraction of the skill to be as good as any of them. So I branched out and started learning from more artists, and started experimenting more stylistically. And eventually that led me into lineless artwork and slowly transitioned into the kind of artwork I make now. Pretty strange how things ended up the way they have, especially thinking back on the whacked out comics I used to make. It hasn’t even been that long since then, which is the weirdest part.
As for the past year, this is probably the lowest art output I’ve ever had. I’m approaching 4 months since I’ve uploaded a fully finished painting. So what gives? You’re not asking yourself that question because you probably already know the answer. School. As always. I haven’t lost my artistic passion or motivation, it’s just been difficult to finish any large projects while trying to balance art with schoolwork. Which brings me to the second reason I haven’t been uploading. That reason being that My Little Pony ended. And you know what that means: tribute picture. If you haven’t noticed, it already takes me forever to sketch and paint one character. And now I've unfortunately volunteered to do seven. That being said, I’m approaching the home stretch on that picture, so hopefully you’ll see it within the coming days. And then ideally I’ll be able to get back to making at least semi-regular uploads. But we’ll see about that.
I was planning to write more, but this journal seems to be dragging on and I’m already getting burnt out from writing. Believe it or not, I might write slower than I paint. So I’ll just skip to the thank yous. My most sincerest thank yous to everyone who’s stuck by and favorited/commented on my artwork over all this time. I’m super grateful for all the continued support I’ve received, even before I had a morsel of artistic ability. I love this community and hope to continue being a part of it for years to come. Love you all <3
Also, reading back on this journal, it sounds like a bit of a downer. But I don't mean any of this in a negative way- I'm very pleased with my experiences as an artist and the growth I've had since my artistic infancy. And even with less time to make artwork now, I'm still optimistic about my art going into the future, and I have every intention of trying to develop into the best artist I can possibly be.
As for my plans going into the future: I'll try to make my uploads more frequent, or at least not have another 4 month gap between uploads. I'm trying to balance personal artistic practice with making shareable pony art, so that'll continue being the plan going forward. Thanks again for everything, and I wish you all the best.
Until next time I suppose 
show is over, more ponies
As for me, I'm not going anywhere either- still got plenty of S̶u̶n̶s̶e̶t̶s ponies to draw. I've been quite busy as of late, so the art output has been pretty minimal, but I'll make more pony artwork when I get the chance. And once I learn to draw humans, I'm gonna draw Sunset Shimmer killing things with a baseball bat. It'll be a good time.
Keep the ponies coming. And remember: we all made the blood oath, and you know what happens if you try to leave. Take care you all!
Twitter Time
If you're not interested in following me and would like to listen to the Frozen soundtrack, you may do so here: www.youtube.com/playlist?list=…
If you're not interested in either of these things, you may click away now.
And for the record, I still consider DA to be my main website, but I'll just be putting finished images and maybe some sketches onto Twitter as well
The Annual Vanilla Journal + Q/A
Okay, so this marks the end of year number 3 of my artistic adventures and it's time to evaluate it. I can confidently say that it's been the best year in terms of progress, motivation, and clear direction for my art. Going from lined art to lineless was a huge step in the right direction, despite me basically fighting myself every step of the way. Every time I wanted to test out a new lineless piece, I would try to convince myself to just do lines and make it look good. Essentially like "Hey, this sketch looks pretty good. It would be a shame if you were to ruin it by attempting lineless, just draw lines you fool." But eventually, I broke past that point and now I'm quite comfortable with it.
I invested a lot more time into my art this year too. I split most of my freetime between art and video games previously, but art started taking up the majority of that past the summer (though games have been slowly creeping back into my life a bit more recently). That time has been extremely valuable for improvement- I just got really motivated to get better and kept going with that. I think a lot of it had to do with finding the direction I wanted to take my artwork. When I started out in year 1 I was never concerned with being an exceptional artist, I just wanted to do it for fun and maybe make some people laugh through comics. Year 2 was somewhere in between that, wanting to make good art but mixing that content in with some comics and humor. This year I was almost entirely focused on just being the best artist I could be, and I'll be continuing in that direction from now on-- though I'm sure there'll be some little pieces of humor here and there~
So overall verdict on this year artistically? Best one yet, by far. Though there's only like 3 options to choose from, so it's not really that hard of a decision.
As for my current situation, I've been stupid busy with school, just like everyone else I'm sure. I haven't had the time to work on my art as much as I'd like to, but that's just the way it goes. I wish I could say I started a new piece past the last Pinkie one, but I haven't-- my computer hasn't been working as of last week, and the laptop I'm using right now keeps having issues with my tablet. So I've just been honing my traditional and sketching a whole lot-- I could probably use the practice since the drawing part of my art cause is actually probably what I'm least comfortable with in the process. Also, I apologize if I've been slow getting to replies and everything-- I've just been focusing on school, and letting the rest of my time go into art or relaxing a bit.
But it's not all so bad; I'm almost past the difficult part of the school year, and I think that I'll have way more time to draw soon (well more than I've had at the very least). Also I just got the "Art of My Little Pony the Movie" book, which I'm loving already. It's fun to just flip to any page and draw from it, and the art itself is just all-around fantastic stuff. And I'm not one for collecting a lot of pony merch, but I bought a cheap little seapony Pinkie plush along with the book. So now my Rainbow Dash plush has a best pony to keep her company 8)
And now it's time to give out some thanks. A huge thank you to everyone who has supported me throughout my time on DA. All of the encouragement sent my way motivates me to keep improving myself as an artist and putting out the best work I can. The amount of comments, feedback, and support has been overwhelming, and it really means the world to me. I sincerely appreciate all of you <3
I'd also like to show some special appreciation to some fellow artists who have been dear friends to me through this time as well. Being specific with names has always been a bit iffy for me since I'd hate to miss anybody or end up offending someone not mentioned. Just know that you're each amazing individuals and I'm real grateful for all of you being around. You know who you are.
Alright, so I'm taking a page out of m'boy Nova's book and answering some questions in the comments of this journal if anyone has anything they're curious about me, my art, or anything really. Feel free to ask as many questions as you'd like, I love answering them. And if not, I'm totally okay with that too.
That about wraps up this one! Thanks so much for reading this whole thing if you did, and if you didn't, it's just me writing about me so you're not missing out on much. Going into the future, I'm gonna keep doing work on my art and hopefully I'll be getting some more stuff coming out soon. I know I've improved miles past where I started from, but I still have a lot of work to do to better myself as an artist. So just drawing ponies and such. nothing's changed. good stuff.
Until next time I suppose