Drawing diary: December

It's time for the first Drawing Diary entry of 2017! I know it's the new year and all, but for this one we will briefly travel back in time to the final weeks of 2016. Drawing in December revolved all about that one thing I had to make: the new year's card (dun dun dun). After all, I promised you guys I would send you one if you signed up for my card swap! Unfortunately, that horrible thing happened that typically occurs when you ' have to' do something rather than just do it for fun without pressure: I suffered from a creative block - I had no idea what I wanted to put on my card. Eventually, I forced myself to sit down and draw all the nerdy creatures that I encountered in 2016.

Find them all: the demiguise, flareon, K2-SO,  thunderbird, bowtruckle, oddish and niffler (4x; can you tell I like nifflers?!).

However, these were just lose sketches, so I tried to make combine them into a card design.

First thought: very cute! Second thought: maybe a bit too cute? Third thought: this would've been perfect for Christmas, but it wouldn't arrive in time. Final thought: there's too much white around the "2017" in the middle. It could do with a better text.

But what text would fit on a nerdy new year's card?

I made some scribbles and ended up liking the Star Wars themed one most. The only problem was that it worked better as a rectangle rather than square, and the "2017" text was a bit bland. But I liked it, so I decided to throw all previous ideas out of the window and go for a purely text based card. I just wanted to give it a bit more jazz by incorporating a drawing into the "2017".

These are the final card designs. Yes, I made two different ones! The friends and family I asked for feedback all preferred the deathstar - Conrad even came up with a whole theory of how the deathstar stands for "to nullify", making it perfect for the zero - but I was in love with K-2SO. If you don't know why: go watch Rogue One. K-2SO is amazing! The poor thing can't help it's Imperial design and looks terrifying. /comfort

I ended up only sending K-2SO to people I was positive about they had seen Rogue One: I didn't want anyone ending up with a heart attack because of my card.

While I did not end up using anything from the first two sketches for my card, I created a header for my post Rav's review of the year 2016 with them, so the time wasn't entirely wasted.

Finally, I want to thank everyone that participated in my card swap. I received so many cards that I almost feel guilty and selfish for setting this thing up! I received cards from readers that I didn't even know read my blog and some even sent really cool artistic creations. Just wow! I bought some ribbon and miniature clothespins and now they proudly hang on my wall (see below).

Some of the awesome cards I received - thank you!! (click to enlarge)

I was actually feeling down in December, thinking gloomy things about the nature of people. But then all these cards came in from (semi) random people on the internet, and it was so awesome! So thank you, cool people that read my blog, for proving me wrong. And of course: may the force be with you in 2017, always.