added entry to drawing challenge

src/routes/blog/2026/0205.md

@@ -171,3 +171,35 @@ I then tried copying another one of PewDiePie's sketches (I still had the tab op
 Minor looking through my Pinterest pins got me to try and draw a guy wearing a Mario hat and looking up at the sky, which went poorly, and then I also kind of messed up drawing the type of head I thought I could do kind of okay.
 
 Not the best day, and I am once again questioning why I am doing this challenge, but I guess I gotta see this through to the end.
+
+## Day 09: Gaining Perspective
+
+<span class="date-marker">2026-02-14, 21:36</span>
+
+<SubtitledImage
+    image="09-small.webp"
+    altText="An anime face, an outline of a face, and a scribbled-out head shape drawn with a blue ballpoint pen, and a head shape drawn with a pencil. Only the last one has construction lines creating a depth effect."
+    subtitle="freely drawing. no guidance. no goal. kind of demotivating."
+    alignment="right" />
+
+Today, I had some ideas for things I could try to copy (still abstaining from tracing!). Among those things were a picture of Anna (Anna_Chess) and Kevin (Call Me Kevin) as well as a random anime-style girl I probably screenshotted a few days ago for this specific purpose. The first one didn't work out AT ALL because of how little I knew about perspective, and the second one turned out... okay.
+
+I then decided to look up tutorials, which was a *very* good idea.
+
+I found someone recommending mikeymegamega's videos, so I checked out his channel. I found a lot of videos, most of them too advanced for me and also quite... horny... but nonetheless very interesting. I ended up watching [this video](https://youtu.be/_05or04sGAo) on mapping characters' heads and faces. I think this video assumed knowledge of prior videos, which I obviously haven't watched yet, but it was still pretty simple to follow along.
+
+<SubtitledImage
+    image="09-big.webp"
+    altText="Anime-style heads drawn using a pencil. All of them have construction lines and are looking in different directions, which are distinctly recognisable."
+    subtitle="following mikeymegamega's tutorial. i'm actually able to learn perspective and proper drawing techniques through this..?!"
+    alignment="left" />
+
+You can notice the point at which I started following along with the tutorial because I switched back to my pencil and started using construction lines (see I'm learning terminology!!). I also switched to my A5 notebook because the pocket-sized one was too small; in fact, in retrospect I wish I had drawn much bigger, like almost page-filling, because these small drawings + using a somewhat dull pencil starkly inhibited my ability to draw details.
+
+It was actually quite fun to follow along and see drawings come 'alive' through my own doing. 'Alive' is relative here as watching the whole tutorial reveals the skill level mikeymegamega's at, and the final results are insane. It's crazy what someone can do with just a pencil and some paper.
+
+He talked about perspective, head shape, face proportions, and it stuck just a bit better since I was able to follow along at the exact spots where these things were relevant. My drawings are nowhere as good as his, but I'm still quite happy about how these went, and they kind of motivate me to keep going!
+
+I'm not the type to watch tutorials very often, but this proved to me once again that it can be really helpful to do that sometimes; especially when you're struggling with motivation!
+
+Oh and also, very important: this tutorial of his quite literally started with drawing a simple circle for the head, which I struggled with so much I almost got frustrated. While practicing it though, I discovered that it's way easier to draw a shape like a circle when I'm using my arm to draw instead of my wrist! Drawing big shapes with your wrists is difficult because they need to bend weirdly to stretch to the dimensions needed, whereas the arm allows for a much smoother motion with these sizeable shapes.