The Day Art Made Me Catch A Cold

This is also known as: The Day Kitteh Met A Deadline!

Happy New Year everyone! As you could probably guess from the title I'm already starting off the new year on the wrong foot; I am sick. Well, borderline sick anyways. My throat is scratchy and I am coughing a lot, but I don't have a fever yet and I can still function fairly normally. So you're probably wondering how art has anything to do with me catching a cold. This, my dear readers, is a story about success and mostly me just being dumb in the process.

As an artist, I try my best to find inspiration and source material to fuel my creativity. As a teen I frequented an online community forum site called "GaiaOnline", and with it's cute paper-doll like dress up system where each user could personalize their own avatar, it provided a plethora of drawing material. Many users seek artists to render their avatars into artwork, and likewise many artists use the platform, not only to get ideas, but to also advertise their artwork and expand their network. Since my first venture onto the site I have been off and on, having times where I waste hours and hours talking to strangers and obsessively play the provided minigames, and other times where I completely drop the site for months at a time.

Within the past several months I have gotten back into visiting the site regularly. In fact, a lot of my recent artwork has been avatar art of various users on the site.

Fox Bakudan Sketch
https://kittehfaye.deviantart.com/art/Fox-Bakudan-Freebie-Sketch-721478653

But I digress. The main reason I brought up the website was to provide you all with a bit of background for the story of my borderline cold. You see, because it's the holiday season, GaiaOnline normally does a variety of site based events, including opening up special seasonal forums. In one of these forums, specifically one geared towards celebrating the site's moderators in an event they have dubbed "Modmas", several moderators decided to host different contests, two of these contests being art contests. Now, GaiaOnline itself has also created various art-based contests in the past, and while normally I do take interest in these contests, I never get around to actually entering many, if any at all. In fact, my very firsts blog post on Steemit was all about how I can never get around to finishing art for contests and challenges.

However, this time I was determined! Both the mod-hosted contests were avatar art based, and considering how much avatar art I had been doing throughout the past few months, I was confident in my ability to actually finish a piece for one, if not both, contests. So, in my fairly normal fashion, I sat on my ideas until the very last moment.

Water Avi Contest WIP
https://kittehfaye.deviantart.com/art/Water-Avi-Contest-WIP-723011417

In this case, however, I waited until nearly the last second. I had read through the rules of both contests, but due to my lack of organization, I accidentally thought both contests ended on the same day. You see, in my head, the contests both ended January 1st or 2nd (I couldn't remember which). However, yesterday when I checked the rules again, I learned that I was dead wrong. One contest ends January 3rd, and the other contest ended December 31st; aka yesterday. Needless to say, I scrambled.

I stopped everything I was doing and immediately started sketching out something to submit for this contest. I knew beforehand what avatar I was drawing, but I had no pose or composition in mind whatsoever. I browsed my normal pose reference go-to providers, and found a pose I felt fit the avatar's overall appearance. It is here that i want to make a note that my breakfast of yesterday was only 4 frozen blueberry waffles, and due to my panic of getting the art done, I started drawing instead of making more food. I got my pencil sketch done (the piece above) and then ended up going to Walmart for a few small things we needed in the house.

Here is where I made my biggest mistake; when I returned home, I went right back to making art. I was determined to finish the piece on time, and scanned in the sketch to begin the process of cleaning the lineart and coloring it digitally.

Watervior Lineart
https://kittehfaye.deviantart.com/art/Watervior-Lineart-723222025

My second mistake came when I decided to stream my digital art process on my Picarto channel. A few friends from GaiaOnline were watching, so not only was I drawing but also chatting and generally having a good time. Due to this reason, I didn't want to get up from my artwork, and ignored my water bottle when it was empty.

3 hours passed. Yes, it took me 3 hours to get a clean line work done based on a sketch I had made in about 20-30 minutes. The biggest reason for this is that I'm not that great with digital art yet, but I'm sure the fact that I was starving at this point was not helping my mental processes in the least. Of course, it was only after my husband dragged me away from my computer that I realized I was hungry at all, since I was completely focused on my work and didn't feel my hungry, borderline dehydration, or scratchy throat until I stepped away from said work. Since I was belting out to the music I had been listening to while drawing (as entertaining as that sounds, I keep my mic muted during my streams for that reason) and I wasn't drinking water almost the entire time, my throat being scratchy wasn't all too surprising.

I ate while watching some One Piece with my husband, and after a good meal, a large amount of water, and a couple hours of rest, I realized my 'scratchy throat' was not going away. In fact, it had gotten a little worse, and by this time I was coughing a bit. My lack of food and water probably lowered my immune system a good bit, and considering I had gone to Walmart earlier that day, there was a good chance I picked up some germs along the way. I was so concerned with getting my art done that I completely neglected my own needs. By this time, it was 9pm, and I had about 5 hours left before the deadline (I'm on EST whereas the deadline was 11:59pm PST).

Watervior Contest Entry Final
https://kittehfaye.deviantart.com/art/Watervior-Contest-Entry-Final-723097487

I popped open Paint Tool Sai once more and began coloring and finalizing the finished piece. I didn't stream or record the process, and by the time 11:30pm rolled around I was finally done.

Is it the best piece of art? No, not really. The shading is simple and almost invisible, the lineart is a bit sloppy, and there are some details missing in the art that are on the avatar. But, I did it. I had a finished piece of art done in time and submitted to the contest. It took all day, made me neglect both myself and my husband on one of his days off, however I accomplished something I normally fail to do.

I met a deadline.

If you're interested in my art, check out my Deviantart where I post all my work https://kittehfaye.deviantart.com

I will also be regularly streaming art on my new Picarto Channel https://picarto.tv/KittehDoesArt

I'll post on Twitter when I am streaming https://twitter.com/KittehFaye

And my streamed content will be turned into speedpaints for my Youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCy7bBA_VcjFeVYi-I92snAQ