heyho again kiddos!!

and here we are again... the fourth week of october, 7 new (hopefully) pretty boys, and only three days left until the challenge is completed.

so let's dive right into it, shall we?

the week started off with "magical" and since i had caught up with all the prompts from the last week, i felt really chill and put quite a bit of thought and effort into this one. sadly, it didn't quite turn out as i planned, but the result is still real cool, in my humble opinion >w<

anyways, the first thing that came to mind were rituals... i wasn't too sure what to do with that, but magical tattoos were instantly in my mind and there was no stopping me from there.
i then browsed around a bit on pinterest, got a bit of inspiration, and everything else came from there! ngl this went a lot smoother than i expected.

well...

then day 23 came along with "surreal"

and i was sitting there, the entire day, thinking about some way, to make an aesthetic character design in my style, that is also somehow surreal... idk... my brain just instantly thought "surrealism" and i had literally no idea what to do, so i decided to just skip that day >w<""

the next day, i sat down, looked at the prompt, and instantly had a ton of ideas. my first vision for "blossom" was to draw a sakura inspired elf, a lot of pastel pinks and whites.

but then... then pinterest showed me some awesome concept art for flower-themed knights, and... well.... i couldn't just draw a pretty flower-boy, when i could draw a full on flower-warrior. i mean, i could've, but i just wanted to go with something different than the more obvious things one could do, you know?

so i went ahead and did my lineart. and the more i did, the more i added, and then out of my initial idea of a full on blossom-warrior, i kinda created a forest-protector/king in spring? dunno really, but i love love love the result.

ngl, every time i use a pink-brown colour scheme my heart is just happy... it's just like using red and black or turqoise and gold/white and stuff... it just looks pretty =w=

next day was "tears" ... i wasn't too sure what i was going to create for that prompt. i kinda had some ideas, but they were all full-fledged scenes, and not really pretty-boy character designs, you know?

i then came up with several concepts... all of which sounded cool, but didn't really motivate me that day, you know? one of them was making some sort of statue or nobleman, who has fancy clothing and drop-shaped crystals everywhere. symbolizing the tears of the innocent or whatever.
then i had an idea of drawing a wounded lad or the ghost of a warrior, reaching upwards to receive the glowing tears of someone or something above.
after that i was thinking about some crystal/water type of being, that somehow was the personification of tears?

dunno..

at that point i kinda gave up on ideas that were rather outside of the box, and decided to just draw some random boyface crying. and to be honest, the result is a lot better than i thought! i mean... this dude will probably turn into an oc.

... okay, he is an oc now.

so. day 26 followed the next day with "hula hoop" ... was i a bit clueless? yes. was i thinking about skipping that day, like i skipped "desperate" and "surreal"? yes. yes i was.

but then i  remembered something. yes, hula hoops are that sport thingy, BUTT they are also a brand of crisps that i used to love, until i saw some sort of article or documentary about their factory conditions... yeah that shit is disgusting....

(btw, here's a picture of them, in case you never saw them >w<)

either way, i now had a fixed colour scheme, i had a vibe, and a shape or object as the main reference, and i could easily create a character based on those things!

so me being me, i muted all the colours and decided to draw a cool, energetic lad, dressed with some sort of red on the outside, but grey/silver on the inside (to mimic the bag, get it?) and with lots and lots of jewellery that could somehow resemble hula hoops made of gold, you know?

then... well then i felt crap again and spent the entire day, sitting at my desk, feeling like shit and playing genshin impact, which set me back a day again...

so on the 28. i continued with the 27. prompt: "passion"

...

folks.

you have no idea, just how close i was to drawing straight up porn.
... and we both will laugh at that idea, once i explain what i actually ended up drawing xD

so, i wanted to draw porn, right? meaning, i, as your average horny boy next doors, instantly went to twitter and checked the nsfw stuff i look at regularily... i still wasn't sure, if i wanted to draw literal porn, or sensual yet sexy stuff, you know?

so i scrolled for quite a long time, ending up just looking through the entire profile of miseraba / gewska (guys check them out, everything they do is amazing QwQ) and just staring at the source of my gender envy: tangtangmonster

argh.... def check those people out. miseraba is the smut account of gewska, but everything is just really beautiful, sensual and i really really appreciate artists that can make nsfw art, that just looks warm, loving and artistic... and tangtang is a cosplayer who has the BODY OF A GOD and does some simp-worthy, spicy stuff...  (also he has two parrots and they are adorable)

anyways..... were was i....

oh yeah! so i was an idiot and went to twitter for inspiration. after 2 hours i realized, that that was a terrible idea... and instead went to instagram. i was about to get distracted again, when i realised that my feed was jam-packed with uplifting messages, pride-flags, educational posts and reminders. yes folks. it's asexual-awareness-week.

so after seeing all that, i was thinking to myself, that maybe drawing porn wasn't that good of an idea, and that instead i should show that passion can be more than passion between two people.

and who is my favourite aro/ace character?

right.... ruindir.... bet ya didn't see that coming, eh?

so here we are, i guess! starting with porn and the urge to draw some nice cock, and ending up with my little fire-baby doing his magical engineering stuff ^-^"

the next day was "tattoos" ... and i mean.... i drew ruindir the day before, so the obvious conclusion was, to draw cevrond next! and since he has a ton of tattoos at some point, it even fits the prompt perfectly >w<

oh! also tried something new with the scars here and... tbh i love how they just gained a lot more dimension, in comparison to my usual way of drawing them... what do you guys think? is this an up- or downgrade (???), cuz i can be hella lost, when it comes to stylistic decisions like this QwQ

so yeah! that was week 4 for ya!

i definetely had a ton of fun working on the drawings this week. to be honest, there isn't a single drawing i don't like in here, except that drawing of ruindir maybe, since i set the eyes a bit too high for his proportions and pulled the face a bit longer than it should be... like.. i like the drawing, but those little details that make him look not quite himself bother me >w<

... btw... small little thingy i wanted to say, before i finish the chapter...
as you probably know by now, my mental health is shit at the moment. i haven't been to school in nearly a month, because i'm too unstable to even put toast in a toaster without stressing out and crying, and if everything goes well, i probably will land in a clinic and maybe i'll need to drop out of school, if i continue the way i am now.
but throughout all of that, i just wanted to thank you all so, so much for reading these chapters and commenting all those nice anecdotes, reactions and compliments QwQ
ngl, those things really cheer me up and i am so so insanely sorry for being to anxious to reply to all your sweet little messages...  just know that i read them all, and that you guys probably are one of the few reasons i am still alive. really man, i love you all.

>>cuddles, pats, wraps in blanket and gives cookies with warm milk<<

so yeah! i hope you're all looking forward to the last three drawings and my concluding thoughts in the next chapter, and remember to take care of yourselves, okay? remember to rest and take breaks, because if you overwork yourself, your body will make sure that you take a break... and it really isn't nice >w<"