How I Tried Art Again After 5 Years — Invisible Progress & The Change That Can Happen In Hours

Everything’s felt futile recently. My goals feel forever out of reach. But small achievements like setting up a website and trying drawing again have reminded me of the contrary. 

Nothingness

Failure is the word I’d use to describe these past years. Stuck in place, making zero progress. I’ve often wanted to yell at how frustrating everything is.

I started my game development endeavors 7 years ago. Even after that time, I can’t say I’ve achieved anything. My first attempt was kinda embarrassing in hindsight. 

I’ve given up on my second one after a ton of investment. I was utterly stuck, and now my life circumstances are terrible. So it’s not the best focus anyway. 

I began a mobile app in February but got stuck at the “20 testers” requirement for Google Play. If I got over my hesitation just 3 months earlier or even just made the account then I wouldn’t need to deal with this. 

I’ve got no idea how I’ll find that many people. There’s a lot to think about. 

I want to integrate the creative aspects I’ve cultivated into this more technical project, but I can only remember the months I spent for nothing. 

I felt completely stalled. No matter what I did, my compositions were torturously bad in music production. Every day I forced myself to read my document but failed to conjure a single sentence in the story. 

Even outside hobbyist endeavors, my main career prospects remain as impossible as ever, despite having worked on so much since. Seems like nothing I do is ever enough. 

It feels awful to have strived for years with little to show. It’s like I haven’t even reached the starting line yet. 

Out Of Reach

16-year-old me wanted to do everything. It’d be a lie to say I didn’t make any progress. I dove into new topics. I managed to create a single background digital art asset, by looking up concepts of two-point perspective and shading.

And as much as I cringe at my weird past notions, I wrote my first full story, and dove into the workings of a full project. 3D modeling, collaboration and commissioning, graphic design. 

Most attempts didn’t result in anything, but I got to explore concepts I was interested in. 

I had to start somewhere, and I guess that somewhere was here. 

Character art was another endeavor I wanted to do myself. The human body was much more complex than drawing a cubic room though. There were so many curves and variables — it was impossible to know where to begin. 

Unlike with vector art, I hadn’t even completed 1 piece. The few strokes I drew looked like an abomination, and I knew my desired output wasn’t happening. 

I stopped looking into the workings of art after I began collaborating with artists in 2020. I was certain that path was closed off — I’d never draw anything myself again.

I’ve recently set up my domain and website to host my work. I wanted to do this for ages, but where could I start? Owning a domain was something only businesses did, surely. I was surely too inept to do it. 

One day, I read an article emphasizing how putting one’s work on social platforms relinquishes control. The site could go down and everything would be lost. 

This was my catalyst to look into the problem again. 

I searched for domain providers. I almost fell into paying a jacked-up price of $140, but after more research, I discovered the shadiness of the larger brokers. So I settled on a smaller provider, Porkbun — for $12 a year. 

Then there was the actual site. I know enough to develop a website, but making a pristine, fluid one would take ages. As an alternative to WordPress, I discovered Ghost. 

The theme’s aesthetics are nearly identical to Medium’s, which I like. And there’s loads of customization with code injection. 

I struggled for days working on the SSL certificate and deployment on GCP. Then I switched to Digital Ocean… but that wouldn’t work either. Finally, my struggles brought me to PikaPods.

My site was up and running in 2 minutes — for less than $3 a month. 

This goal which was impossible for years became a reality in a week. It's surreal to think I actually have my own website now, when days prior it wasn’t a thought in my mind. 

It happened in the blink of an eye.

It’s so cool how I can do anything I want. 

After I set up my site, I did further research into visibility. 

Now, I’ve past said I no longer desire to equate metrics to my self-worth and go full-on marketing to the point of ruining the expression of my ideas. 

I write mainly to explore and express my thoughts, but it’s a lie to say I don’t wish my words were read and connect with people a little. As long as it’s at healthy levels, I suppose no harm or inconvenience is done. 

I heard Pinterest was a helpful visual search engine. I figured I’d check it out, make a few pins, and do the quote-unquote “putting yourself out there” thing. 

I had no idea how much I’d enjoy the site. I heard of it but didn’t know what it was about. The recommendations algorithm works well, I don’t feel any dread, and overt negativity is easily avoidable. 

Now that I’ve tried it, it’s the most carefree social media I’ve used.
Like I’m back in the internet I experienced 12 years ago. 

I thought the same about Medium when I joined. I’ve enjoyed reading raw, personal stories. Unfortunately, the rose-tinted glasses have come off after a year. 

I’ve witnessed the drama-centric side, the emotion-manipulating marketing ploys. Finding those works I resonated with is increasingly difficult, and bots have overrun most interactions. Combined with a terrible down period in my life, I seriously considered quitting last week. 

But as evidenced by these words, I decided not to just yet. 

This whole tangent aside, the point is I joined Pinterest. I was scrolling mindlessly when a Pin appeared about shading line art of a character’s eyes. 

Seeing this reinvigorated the idea of trying art again. I booted my laptop, went straight to my favorite online Photoshop alternative, and attempted to draw a headshot of a character I envisioned with just my mouse. 

The result after an hour or so was… eh…

I drew a… resemblance to a human. But there’s a huge dissonance from the character & style I imagined. I can’t quite remember, but I think my sole attempt in 2016–17 was just a bit worse than this.

So I gave it another shot. I read a guide on shaping the eyes properly. Funnily enough, I’m pretty sure it’s the same guide I read when I tried 7 years ago. The information was the same as before.

Yet my subsequent attempt in the next hour was much better. 
Surprisingly so. 

I already felt the difference as I set the linework. It felt more aligned with what I imagined, and nothing felt wildly off on a subconscious level. It was done within two hours. 

That being said, it still wasn’t what I envisioned. I was going more for an early 20s and less small-looking character. But I was genuinely blown away when I realized this was what I was capable of.

It was at this moment I decided I would try art again. 
Well, technically I already had.

I impulse-bought a cheap $50 drawing tablet from Amazon. I actually got it for free using passively earned gift cards — so that was nice. It came after a few days.

I haven’t held a pen since before the pandemic. All my work has been typed or with a mouse since then. It’s been ages since I’ve seen the imperfections and pressure points of my actual writing. 

I did one more quick sketch to test this tablet more. I didn’t pay much attention to linework because I’m lazy. I just tried to get something finished as fast as possible.

My result still didn’t have that mature look I wanted. I did a quick Google search to investigate why my characters looked shrimpy and discovered a few key insights.

Younger-looking characters tend to have larger heads proportional to their body. Their eyes are usually bigger, their facial features are higher, and they’re more scrunched together.

I shifted layers, resized elements, and confirmed this was the case. With that, I got one step closer to the look I wanted. 

Three drawings in just over 3 hours, after 5 years without touching a pen. It feels like I’ve made so much progress in so little time, and I feel pretty good about it. 

I question why this became possible when I was so out of practice. But perhaps my progress through art didn’t stop when I quit years ago. 

Maybe this isn’t a magic second wind, but a realization.

Downstream

Through reflection, I’ve discovered how intuition and changes I don’t see are still important. Just because I’m not actively thinking or analyzing, doesn’t mean I’ve stagnated and nothing’s happening. 

I utilize concepts I once couldn’t wrap my head around automatically. It feels like my work is trivial, and doesn’t require enough effort to constitute something impressive. 

But occasionally, I can look back and see the progress I’ve made.

Writing my thoughts, I’ve also realized how unrelated influences can lead one down an unimaginable path, or an unforeseeable outcome. 

One influence I surmise is how I took notes in college. I jotted down tons of my lectures’ key points in real-time — including the figures and charts. 

This amounted to hundreds of pages. As for how useful they were… who knows? It kept me focused, and being able to CTRL-F the info I needed for homework sped things up. 

I resized shapes, used text, and occasionally had to draw lines myself to mimic the charts exactly. But Google Docs had limitations, and 3D graphics weren’t a feature (obviously).

However, through experimentation, I discovered I could transform 2D shapes in specific ways to create a 3D one. For example, I could squish a circle, and then add two lines to make a cone. 

I was learning important concepts in art while taking notes for my courses, without realizing it myself. In particular, I further explored the workings of perspective and the fundamental shapes of complex figures. 

I also gained insight into artists’ processes when I worked with them after I gave up. I saw the layers in the source files and could play around, furthering my understanding of how individual components composed the whole. 

I never thought I was gaining insight — but I suppose I was. 

Or even character creators in video games. I messed with sliders, changing the eye distance or nose size. I observed how they changed the character’s appearance — what looked right and what didn’t. 

This was a major contribution to my understanding of facial features. But I never thought it was meaningful then — it’s only apparent in hindsight. 

Part of why I have more motivation is because there’s a way forward. I knew nothing in my first short-lived attempts and had no idea how to draw something from nothing. 

Now I know how “everything is shapes.” I thought I had to do everything perfectly all at once, but I’ve become aware of the incremental steps. 

I thought my techniques were cheating or “not real” before. I’m now confident using any methods I have. I’ve realized nothing’s perfect either — and the results from my “haphazardly” placed strokes can be pretty good.

This rejuvenation of interest in art came from seeing a Pin. A post I saw because I created my website. A website I created because I saw an article. An article I saw because I joined Medium a year before to write — because of the life conditions I found myself in. 

This string of unrelated events has brought me back here after 7 years, even if just for a few hours. Seeing everything come together feels cathartic —  reassuring that I haven’t reached a dead end. 

I’ve seen, discovered, and experienced — which may be worth more than I thought.

Perhaps I just needed to wait for the right time.

So yeah, I’m trying character art again. I have the tools to do so properly now. I don’t expect to make anything decent in time for my next project, but hey, it’s a fresh start.

I may falter, give up again, and cast this tablet aside as I did with drawing years ago. But for now, there’s a path to move forward with this endeavor — and perhaps it was inevitable. 

I haven’t been able to do anything in April — the allergies and brain fog have killed me amidst everything else I need to do. But even if I only try drawing once a month, that’s still moving forward. 

So I’ll see how far I can go this time, and realize the subconscious ground I’ve gained. 

To see what paths have opened from the invisible progress of years past.