Last Mermay Art for 2024
Experimenting is all part of the creative process.
I meant to post a final Mermay art—um, another book “teaser” before May ended, but due to an unforeseen tragedy, I wasn’t up for posting anything on social media. I even deleted Threads because it now felt useless to me. I think grief makes you take a step back, see things from a new perspective, and reflect on what really matters.
Everything becomes meaningless when you’re in mourning, so it’s important to find at least ONE thing that holds meaning to help you through the sadness. Since I’ve always loved writing, I decided to try out this blog newsletter. It’s funny, because before I even did social media, I shared my arts and comics through blogs. That was 12 years ago… It’s interesting how things come full circle.
I call this piece a knight in shining scales… feat. a blue-ringed octopus
Anyway, the drawing above was one of many drafts waiting to be inked. I decided to work on it to distract myself from the sorrow, and finally finished the piece between May 31 and June 1. It took two days because I was experimenting with different pencil grades. I found the 3B pencil to be a nice middle-ground.
The HB is also good, like this sketch example below. But the strokes comes out too light on my sketchbook (the paper has a yellowish tone), so I had a difficult time drawing with it. Some of my IG followers said the lines look softer.
For my next graphic novel project, I'm considering doing traditional drawing with digital coloring to speed up the process. There are still a lot of research and tests I’m planning to do, which I hope to share my results here. But ultimately, through these experiments, I hope to bring back my traditional roots both artistically and culturally.