Blog Post 3: I miss Art Fight :/ 

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Hello hello! I've been doing a lot of updates today, though nothing too major yet! I actually have something different to talk about today. Also, I don't want to promise daily blog updates, BUT this is acting kind of like a nice little journal for me, so I can see myself coming here to yap whenever there's something specific I want to talk about. With that in mind, the subject at hand: I miss Art Fight.

I got into drawing just before Art Fight 2024, and when I found out Art Fight was a thing, I was SO excited. I started a TikTok account SPECIFICALLY for art (@st0rmscribbles), and posted pretty frequently throughout the month. I got a lot of joy out of drawing other people's OCs, and I was super excited when people drew mine as well. I ended up drawing 35 attacks in total, as well as a couple OCs that I cooked up mid-fight. It was the most I'd ever drawn in such a short time, and I've barely done anything in the time since. I drew some OCs that other people designed for me, and I designed one more. I made a little skit with my simple-shaped OCs. Aside from that, though? Nothing at all. 

When I stopped drawing, I kind of figured that it was my typical way of losing interest. I didn't have a strong enough desire to get better, so I stagnated. I moved on to other things, though not without complaining about how I missed drawing. I did actually try to sit down to draw a few times, but it wasn't flowing like it had during Art Fight, and I figured it was a skill issue. On one hand, it probably was, to an extent - I have a tendancy to get frustrated and walk away. Still, literally today, I found out that the root of the problem is something else entirely.

One of my mutuals wanted art in their strawpage, so I sent in a quick doodle of a couple characters we both like. When I saw that they liked it, I sent in another drawing, this time drawing one of their OCs. I'd been struggling to draw for ages, and suddenly, when drawing for someone else and getting to see their feedback, it's easy? Insane. I know full well I don't have the skills, neither art nor social, to do commissions or anything crazy like that, but drawing people's OCs just to see them be happy about it? It makes me happy too, and I miss doing it. I miss Art Fight, because as much as I stressed over trying to revenge everyone (and how irritated I was when I failed to), I got to draw other people's characters, and see what they thought of it. Nobody was mean to me or anything, which I know wasn't the case for everyone, but for me, that made the experience quite positive. I miss doing random and free art of people's OCs just to see if they like it.

I know I can still do that. I have a toyhouse account, I can always just look around the forums and see if anyone's open to free art. But that doesn't feel quite the same. I enjoyed those little drawing for my mutual, but once I was done, I was done, y'know? During Art Fight, there was constantly someone new with something new to draw, and it kept me locked in. Maybe it says something about the fact that I work better with pressure/deadlines, but I miss it a lot. Hopefully I'll be able to participate in Art Fight next year, and hopefully I make some cool things in the meantime! Thanks for reading! <3

- Bailey Lockheart (12/02/2024)