I just had a great idea: I should try to draw something every day for 4 weeks! 28 days, because that's a nice number. It's not too dissimilar from when I wrote an album for the February Album Writing Month, and though that album turned out awful, I was happy to have produced an album of sorts at all.
Why start now, instead of at the start of the month? Because I just came up with the idea. Why not wait for the start of next week or even next month? Because why delay, that's why. Except I will delay by starting tomorrow, not today, as it is night time and I'm about to head off to bed.
I'm posting this to hold myself accountable and to actually pull through instead of discarding the idea tomorrow – let's hope it works! I will update this page with my drawings.
## Day 01
<SubtitledImage
image="01.webp"
altText="Drawing of day 1. A girl looking to the left. Her shoulder-long hair is flowing free. She is wearing a cropped t-shirt and a pair of jeans. Her left hand is on her hip."
It's the first day of the challenge and I already thought about quietly deleting this post and pretending there never was a challenge to begin with. By around 3 PM I did manage to start though, and I drew something I'm pretty happy with.
I started with the head shape, which I later corrected to be a bit taller, since that was something I criticised in my own earlier drawings. I'm actually quite happy about her head and her face – I think that something I, *relatively speaking!*, excel at. On the other hand, it feels like hair is something I struggle with the most. I wanted to avoid drawing yet another girl in quick succession with the same hair style, so I tried going for free-flowing hair, and it *kind of* worked out, but it also *kind of* looks odd. Definitely something I should go look at references for.
Similarly, I wanted to avoid drawing another girl with a sleeveless tank top, so I went for a slightly baggy cropped tee, and jeans just to have some extra detailing. I was quite happy about small details like the tee's sleeves wrapping around her arms, it made the drawing look just a *little* bit less flat.
Arms are troubling too, not because they're insanely difficult to draw, but because I never know where to place them <span class="small-supertext">just like mine irl</span>. I eventually settled on putting her left arm on her hip, which ended up quite cool.
I was too afraid to colour the drawing, worried I'd ruin it, but if I had done so, I'd have given her purple eyes. Don't know why, but that's the one colour detail about this drawing that I was sure of.
Not sure what to draw next, but I think I'll either go for another person but from a different perspective, or an object.
## Day 02: Struggle
<SubtitledImage
image="02.webp"
altText="Drawings of day 2. The drawings include a black silhouette of a girl taken from the Bad Apple music video, a smiling water tower, a tuna fish, a tuna fish can, a character with shoulder-length hair looking to the right, and one without hair looking somewhat straight."
Well... I persevered. That's probably the most positive thing I can say for today. Urge to delete the post and quit the challenge was strong.
I didn't really know what to draw, so I started copying a frame from the beginning of Bad Apple, which I first wanted to detail but then decided to fill black because the details looked bad.
Out of ideas, I looked up above my monitor and stared at the vinyl record sleeve for underscores' Fishmonger album, so I drew the water tower on the cover. Fittingly, I tried copying a tuna fish I found online, and then drew the can with no reference (can you tell?).
I was then *slightly* motivated after watching [this video on drawing](https://youtu.be/XeIR7P82aPU) by pikat and drew first the head in the bottom left, then the one bottom centre. I kinda like the head shape of the bottom left one.
I think something that's definitely hindering me is a lack of direction, and possibly motivation too, just like with my other projects. I don't really know what to draw, how to draw, what to improve. I'll try watching some more videos, but I'm a bit afraid of falling into the tutorial trap and not being able to draw things without 1:1 reference. I do actually have a handful of ideas I'd like to draw, but I feel I'm not skilled enough to successfully draw them, so I'm kind of holding off on trying them.
Honestly: this felt super stressful to do today! I felt like I had to perform, but I kept postponing all day, just to feel the need to churn out something in the final hours of the day. Being done for the day feels like a relief, but tomorrow's attempt is already looming on the horizon.
## Day 03
<SubtitledImage
image="03.webp"
altText="A copy of Asuka from Neon Genesis Evangelion."
Last night, I remembered some screencaps I took of Neon Genesis Evangelion as reference material for 3D modelling and decided I could try to use it as reference for drawing as well. So I did! I tried to draw Asuka.
I started with the head shape and definitely immediately screwed up, as I made her chin way too long. The eyes didn't turn out too bad; definitely a little better than yesterday's attempt at perspective.
Tried to do shadows/shading as well, and it turned out kind of neat, though obviously without much thought as it's clearly just a carbon copy.
I'm wondering whether I should try to trace some art, just to get a feel for dimensions? Again though, I don't want to depend on tracing, so I'm a bit wary of trying it.
Listening to some good music. Signing my work contract so I'll be out of unemployment from tomorrow (don't worry it was planned). I'm in a good fucking mood, here we go.
I didn't draw yesterday unfortunately, but I didn't do this to quit the challenge! I was just really busy – I was out and about from 9 in the morning to 9 in the evening, and considering how bad I felt after day 3 of drawing, I didn't exactly feel like picking up the pencil this late in the day either. I bought an IKEA [Tertial](https://www.ikea.com/de/de/p/tertial-arbeitsleuchte-dunkelgrau-50355395/) lamp which gives way better lighting for drawing than my room lights do. Yay to setup improvements!
altText="An array of anime faces, all looking to the left. A few eyes are also in the corner. The references used for the faces are displayed as well, bearing some but not too much resemblance."
subtitle="A few cute faces, drawn using references but not relying on them 100%!"
alignment="right" />
I drew a couple of faces again. It looks like this is the direction I'm heading in. Before I started drawing anything, I watched one of PewDiePie's videos on how he learned to draw – I don't usually watch his videos, but I remembered that he challenged himself to learn to draw as well, and that he was quite successful. It managed to spark some motivation in me, so the first thing I did was try to copy one of the girls he drew (she's on one of his thumbnails as well). I changed some small things like placing the ear a little higher. I don't like this type of style quite *as* much (see the note about the nose next to the drawing) but it still turned out quite cool and I like her.
I then experimented with some eyes, from open to closed. The big closed eye at the bottom was actually copied from a screenshot of [Laura with her eyes closed](/projects/projectn5/devlog/2025/1022/#blinking)! I then used this very screenshot as a reference to draw Laura as well!
It was pretty cool to draw my own character, I gotta say. I drew her head noticeably shorter than on the screenshot, which resulted in a more chibi-style look. It's cute, I think.
The third girl, in the bottom left, was half-freely drawn. I drew her eyes and then her head shape while trying to draw a smiling/happy girl. I then had no idea for the hair, so I used a reference I got from [a pikat video](https://youtu.be/XeIR7P82aPU?t=91) for that. I specifically wanted to draw a girl with a different style of nose than the PewDiePie reference, and it worked out!
I found that I tend to draw some things too big. Noses turn out too long, eyebrows turn out too wide or too high. It might also be because I keep drawing with dull pencils. I like that they're easily erasable, but the lines are never as sharply defined as I'd like them to be, so I keep redrawing lines which just makes them thicker. That's a problem I didn't have with [my first drawing](/blog/2026/0129/); maybe I should try to draw with different pens as well? I was even thinking of trying digital, I even installed Krita on my Surface tablet, but I haven't dabbled much with that yet.
All the girls I drew are also looking towards the left. I'm assuming this is because I'm right-handed and it's easier to draw the lines I need for a left-facing face than for a right-facing one. Nevertheless, I should definitely try to draw some right-facing characters as well. I think it'll help with symmetry (something I also struggle with).
I didn't have any kind of clear goal for today, but I did enjoy the sketching. After watching [Eddy Burback's video](https://youtu.be/nnsyGSTKlw0) on how he locked away his phone and lived a largely more enjoyable life because of it, I chose to not listen to music or watch any video while drawing. It was quite a serene experience.
<SubtitledImage
image="06.webp"
altText="An assortment of hands, legs, bodies and heads sketched on a piece of paper using a pencil."
subtitle="today was a rubberless% kinda run"
alignment="left" />
For the most part, I was just testing thing without sticking to just faces. Most importantly perhaps: no perfectionism! I didn't use my eraser *once!* The focus was on trying more rather than perfecting one single drawing. It did work to my benefit, in a way; I drew bodies, heads, even hands.
I talked to a friend of mine earlier today about drawing. Thing is, she's a pro at it. She's been donig it for ages, she's studying art too, and she does insanely cool paintings. She did give me quite a few tips when we talked, but I did notice that a bit of it was way above my level. At one point, she started sketching a realistic eye, telling me about minute details like the positioning of eyelashes, and while I didn't see a direct connection between her advice and my drawings, I listened and watched in awe as she drew a really good-looking eye from what I assume is just experience and possibly my eyes as a partial reference.
We also talked about perfectionism and how it can be beneficial to draw without erasing constantly – like how I drew [my drawing from two weeks ago](/blog/2026/0129/) using a ballpoint pen instead of a pencil. No going back using that. I did intend to use a gel pen today, but I kind of shied away from it for now. Thinking about it now, a ballpoint pen may be better actually, because it draws finer and less bold lines.
She also encouraged me to take a sketchbook with me wherever I go. I mostly already do that, but today for example I didn't as I didn't bring my backpack with me. I should have a small notebook lying around somewhere – one that I intended to use for drawing years ago but never used – so I'll try and find that.
She also encouraged me to try figure drawing; using nude(ish) human bodies as drawing references to learn anatomy and things like body flow. I may try that soon, because I definitely find myself struggling to draw characters in poses.
To comment a bit on the drawings: the heads look weird, I think I'll practice them a little more tomorrow, maybe. The body went in a decent direction but the hips look like they're pointed in the opposite way than I intended. For the big hand, I used my own left hand as a reference, but with the details it started to look kind of witch-like. The smaller hand I drew right after looks a little cuter. The legs up top, which actually were the first thing I drew today, look okay. I like the curvature in the right foot.
