Happy New Year, Newgrounds!

By the time you see this, I'll have just posted my last drawing of 2022.

In April, I signed up for Newgrounds and felt right at home almost immediately. My boyfriend introduced me to Pico's School near the end of 2021, and I can't say I liked it at the time. In fact, I found it really disturbing and horrifying. But I don't know, some things have a way of growing on us in ways we'd never expect. I found myself becoming surprisingly fond of the game. I was borrowing my boyfriend's computer to play Pico (and several other old flash games) enough times for him to suggest I just make my own Newgrounds account.

When I did, I realized I could upload my own art here, which was crazy. It opened up a whole world of ogling at all the amazing illustrations, games, audio, and movies made by other creators. This pushed me out of my comfort zone as an artist, and I improved my skills quicker than ever before. This site gave me the inspiration and motivation I desperately needed. I'd been artistically blocked for a long time, to the point of stagnation, and I had developed a serious lack of passion about my work. Newgrounds resuscitated my creative drive.

In 2022, I got used to drawing full scenes instead of my default boring shoulders-up shots of characters smiling. In April, when I joined, I made my first art post, a drawing of Pico. I continued posting drawings for the next couple months. In June, I participated in my first Pico Day! I still like the art I made for the contest, even though I can see ways I've gotten better since then.

That was the same month I developed Kelly, the first original character of mine that I've genuinely cared deeply about on a deeper level than, "She's cute. I like her design and personality." I completed the rough draft of a 50k word story about her in November (National Novel Writing Month), thus reaching my goal of writing a novel in one month. I was 15 the last time I cared enough to stick to one novel idea long enough to finish it.

I played a lot of games, watched a lot of animations, made a lot of art, talked to some cool people, and most importantly had a really good time here since I joined.

So, here it is, my last art piece of 2022:

Kelly is in the middle, standing next to Pico and Cassandra.

She has on the same scarf worn by my very first original character, who's also the last character I made that I was really passionate about. That's a story for another day, but that character may as well be passing the scarf onto her.

This drawing is a tribute to Newgrounds and a reminder that sometimes the kick in the ass you need to start loving art again can come from unlikely places.