What is this about? Well, a bit more than a year ago I made an observation: My artwork had gotten better from a few years ago even though I hadn't really practised drawing at all. This lead to a train of thought which resulted in the conclusion that I don't need to practise to get a good artist! But somehow there seemed to be something wrong with my fabulous deduction, so I thought that I could actually put some effort to drawing and draw a little something every day.

So what to draw then? As you can see, I ended up drawing the same character (Seth Nightroad from Trinity Blood) over and over. Ummm it really isn't sane to draw the same character 300+ times? Uh sure it's not, but it had a few advantages. 1), Well I like her (duh). 2), she had enough outfits (60+) and three different character desings (novel, manga, anime) so that it didn't become boring instantly. 3), It's easier to observe the possible art evolution if the subject remains same and 4), if I didn't have a defined subject I would have ended up with "ummm what should I draw today...? I dunno, I have no ideas. I'll just skip today since I can't decide...".

Of course it got repetitive at some point, and right now, not so surprisingly... to put it nicely I'd rather not draw her right away any more. But I managed to kick myself to draw her every day (minus the two days when I just forgot), and in the end I more or less managed to stick to the plan.

There are some serious flaws in the project. For starters; obviously I wasn't very motivated on many of the days, which shows as dozens of easy standing poses. But it would have been far too unrealistic to think that I'd actually manage to draw a detailed and educative pose every day, so the bad drawings were more or less expected. (Also, it makes the pics not comparable with each other; at the beginning of the project I was quite enthusiastic about the project so I even bothered to use photos of myself as reference while towards the end I just sketched a random body from my head. That's why many of the newer drawings look way worse than the old ones.)

Then the main problem: I'm very unwilling to step out of my comfort zone and practise drawing something I can't draw. Like... Males. Poses more than just standing. Folds. Two or more characters. Perspective. Backgrounds. And I really couldn't bother with Photoshop and just tried to get over and done with the colouring as fast as possible. At some point I felt like I had learned something about anatomy or how Seth's manga design works, but by now I've apparently forgotten about it because I don't feel I could draw them any better than a year ago...

So ultimately the only thing I learned was "don't draw the same character 300+ times"? Well, I'll remember that in my drawing project 2011-2012. Which started on Nov 14th! Onto the new year of practising all the difficult stuff listed previously drawing more unadventurous standing poses!

November 13 - November 30

The beginning of the project. I decided to start with her manga empress outfit, because it's probably the one I like the most and the one I consider to be the most iconic for her. The idea of starting and finishing with the same outfit (which was my favourite) was something I already had right from the start.

The poses that look even remotely ok are drawn with a photo reference. The start was quite strong, I had bothered to take a photo reference for most of these so she's actually doing something more than just standing and I actually put some effort to the details and colouring as well. Effort like this, however, would soon come to an end and turn to super fast lazy sketches...

I remember that I was really scared to shade day 22 with red because I don't think I had much (or any) experience on shading with anything else than a darker shade of the colour.

30th's train doesn't work at all, but at least the folds look nice (I remember taking a photo of my towel for that one).

Is it kind of sad that already day 2 is one of my favourites? Shouldn't the best pics be at the end of this drawing-development project...?

December 1 - December 15       ||       December 16 - December 31

December 6th is the independence day of Finland, and that's when we have an annual party at the presidential palace, where the elite gathers to eat and dance. Commonfolk follows this on TV, and every year the program showing the guests to arrive in a queue and shake hands with the president on their turn for hours (there are about 2000 guests) is one of the most popular programs of the year, getting about one third of the entire population to follow it. 6th's outfit was inspired by this.

Colours for 14th are delicous, but that's just because I eyedropped them from a One Piece fanart by some much more skilled artist.

Hints of growing laziness are clearly visible.

January 1 - January 15       ||       January 16 - January 31

The month where I run out of outfit references as I had finally drawn almost all of them. I turned to random sailor school uniforms for some days because I really couldn't be bothered to think what to make her wear...

I remember thinking I was a super genious with the shading for 13th and 14th, but now later it doesn't seem that great an idea... The pose for 15th is copied from a gift art picture I drew for KawaiiPandah. 16th was "Pokemon outfit for Seth", and I'm quite happy with the outcome. The outfit doesn't look Pokemonish at all, but at least the body turned out nice. The Empire logo was easy to turn into a pokeball. 26th was random thought play "what would she look like with Mirka hair?"

Back then I really liked 17th, enough to post it as an individual Deviation. I guess the outcome is quite nice even if it has next to nothing to do with Seth, I just drew myself in my pyjama and changed the face and hair.

February 1 - February 14       ||       February 15 - February 28

I think this was the month where I truly began to realise how easy the tea seller outfit, the Unasf coats and the anime ninja outfit were to draw, as in this was the month where the ultimate regression began.

1st was an attempt at Panty&Stocking with Garterbelt style. 23rd was drawn a day after I saw Tangled in a movie theather.

Overall quite a nondescript month, but at least 24th was nice.

Favourite of the month: 24th

March 1 - March 15       ||       March 16 - March 31

The month with surprisingly many pics I like. This was also the month where I fist gave her cosplay outfits.

8th was drawn because I had reread my Tokyo Mew Mew volumes. That was a grave mistake that's too late to correct now.

The shading in 1st really pleases me, overall I like that pic a lot. Other candidates for month's favourite were 3rd and 10th.

Lace brushes for 30th by CourtHouse.

April 1 - April 15       ||       April 16 - April 30

Again surprisingly many good pics, picking the favourite was though. This might possibly be the best month of the year.

6th is the first time I snuck another character in, that's supposed to be Abel. Despite the drawbacks in the picture I really like it, but that's just because I'm a hopeless Abel fantard. I made a conscious choice not to draw his eyes (this is a Seth project and Abel shouldn't be here in the first place), and that trend continued in the other pictures where I included her brothers as well.

8th is expectionally good if you consider that I had no reference for the body (only for the hand), and it's one of the few pics where I tried to use perspective. Even the colouring didn't turn out horribly.

9th is one of my favourites too, it's supposed to be what I first thought what colour her manga outfit would be before I managed to put two and two together and realise that maybe the picture of a green dress on the cover might have something to do with the quite similar outfit she wears inside the covers. The pic turned out very nice as well, but that's just because I practically copied a lot of stuff from the manga.

10th is one of the few pics where I broke my "no lineart is allowed to be drawn after the day has passed", I had forgotten to draw the leaf parts of the stockings so they looked very stupid. Because the pic was pretty nice otherwise I gave in and drew some lines in photoshop.

11th took a lot of work and it doesn't look nearly as good as it should with that much effort, but it still somehow manages to be one of the most impressive pics of this project (or does it?). I had never drawn water before which kinda shows...

I have no idea why I had to ruin the nice sketch of 30th with the horrible shading. 29th's pink shading on the other hand turned out less catastrophic than I expected.

It's quite surprising I didn't post 20th as its own Deviation considering I've uploaded a lot of worse stuff... I really like how that one turned out. 28th is quite nice as well.

Twirl brushes for 28th by redheadstock.

May 1 - May 15       ||       May 16 - May 31

This was the month when something snapped in my head and I suddenly felt that I had learned something about drawing thighs. Later I noticed that this realisation was only temporary and I occassionally regressed, but some of the legs look quite nice. This fabulous englightenment lead to tiny miniskirts, because I really didn't want to cover the ~fabulous~ thighs I had managed to draw... This was also the month where I started coming up with clothing ideas for her empire outfits myself after seeing a lot of fanmade Seth outfits on the internet.

1st was the first installment of the awesome-thighs-must-draw-a-super-miniskirt frenzy. It looked better in my head than what it turned out to look after colouring it, there's something wrong with her head. But the colours are nice, even if there's too much pink for my liking. I also fell in love with soft poofy skirts like in this one and drew more many times later, like in 8th of this month.

6th managed to please me enough to get its own Deviation. It's not even that special, but having something to call a background instead of blank white must have worked for it. 9th was one of the most time-consuming individual pics. Also there's nothing special in 12th or 29th (just standing), but I like how they manage to look... soft. The pose for 26th was copied from a pic I drew for an art trade with KawaiiPandah.

I had grand plans of making a "Seth in different styles" collague like I did of Luffyko, but I got tired after drawing TB manga (22nd), TB anime (23rd) and Arina Tanemura (27th). I can't stand Tanemura's style (I don't like shoujo style and in Tanemura's art all the different individual things I don't like about it gather to the most shoujoish art I've ever seen), but I have to admit she's good at what she's doing. I like how the face turned out in this, but trying to imitate her insane clothing drawing skills was too much for me.

Rose brushes for 1st by someone whose name is saved on my other computer and whom I'll credit as soon as I get the name.

June 1 - June 15       ||       June 16 - June 30

The grand month of ultimate despair and failure. Curse you 27th! I had an unbreakable record of over 100 drawings in a row, and then I forget! This catastrophe lead to a long period of super uninspired art.

6th was the first time ever I tried to seriously draw a bush. Abel managed to sneak in again (19th), and again even with the picture having many anatomical mistakes I still like it a lot.

No idea what happened with 26th. It's just... meh. That's what happens when you try to make a pose without reference when you suck at poses in general.

Something about 30th pleases me, even though it's pretty much a quickie.

July 1 - July 15       ||       July 16 - July 31

This month was pretty bad as well. I used the "boo hoo I was so depressed over missing June 27th that I just couldn't draw properly ;_;" excuse when I just couldn't be bothered to draw anything good. Towards the end I got a bit more active, and this month turned out to have a whooping five pictures with what you could call a background (six if you count 17th).

All the five pictures with a background could have been better if I had bothered to put more effort in trying to find a reference to help me. I have next to no experience on colouring the sea for example, so I just threw in whatever I could manage at the fastes possible speed.

Cain got in for 16th. Unfortunately that pic didn't turn out well at all, he looks just stupid without eyes and his head is far too large.

The pose for 18th is from a young relative who was visiting us and watching TV on the sofa when I remembered I should draw that day's drawing. Unfortunately the model didn't stay still for too long...

20th and 21st got their inspiration from Hancock and Nefertari Vivi (One Piece) fanarts found on Pixiv (in this order). The idea for 17th came from a Sesshoumaru (Inuyasha) fanart.

28th got the idea from a piece of art by a lot better artist than me, but in the end I had no idea how to colour it so it kinda suffered.

29th was drawn after watching unnecessarily many Disney princess movies.

31st shows a surprising effort put to perspective. Which of course wasn't planned at all, I doubt I even bothered to use a ruler when drawing the lines...

After compiling the images I'm staring to have second thoughts about "this month was pretty bad"; I mean, there was a lot of rubbish but the pics with backgrounds quite stand out! This month sure picked the pace after the halfway mark.

August 1 - August 15       ||       August 16 - August 31

I had grand plans for 1st, but unfortunately it didn't quite live up to my expectations even when I spent far too much time colouring it. But even if it didn't turn as well as I had hoped I still like it a lot for its atmosphere. The dress was supposed to have more visible blue pattern but it turned out so bad that I almost left the dress blank white. But it's ok when I put the opacity low?

I like 7th surprisingly much for such a fast picture. It's the purple shading... I planned to give this some kind of pink/purplish background with a simple pattern, but in the end I was too lazy. And I had slacked with the colouring of the Seht project so much that I had like 90 pictures I had to colour in just a few weeks, so I didn't want to waste time on a background of such a simple pic.

I have no idea what is going on with the shading of the skirt but other than that I kind of like 12th.

Despite the stupid face I kind of like 14th too. Probably the same reason as with 7th (the shading colour). And it even has shaded hair, it's pretty rare for me to bother to colour the hair in any other colour than blank black.

21st probably had some deep and awesome idea behind it when I drew the sketch, but by the time I got to colouring it it had long been fogotten.

I like both sailor collars and cabbie hats so I tried to include them both in a same picture in 22nd, but it didn't turn out well. I'll try again some time later...

24th had a cute sketch, but the bland colouring kinda ruins it.

September 1 - September 15       ||       September 16 - September 31

This was such a bad and boring month, practically none of the pictures is good and there's not much to say about them either. Annnd I missed another day this year in this month as well (25th), but this time it didn't feel as bad as the first miss because I didn't have a clean and spotless record of daily drawings any more. I'd say that overall this was the worst month of the year.

No idea why I drew Alice in Wonderland on 11th.

I have a dream of drawing a similar picture as in 19th properly one day. As in soft and light and poofy. It'd require lighter lineart though.

22nd is one of the few pics this month I bothered to do anything to. It might be a nice pic if it were not for the bad face and the stupid hair twirl.

Messing with Photoshop's effects in 28th (mainly because the lineart was so bad that I had to hide it somehow...)

October 1 - October 15       ||       October 16 - October 31

A better month than the previous one but it's not like it required much to top that...

1st and 5th continue in the line of decently drawn and coloured manga empire dresses. Or the 1st isn't really the empire dress, but close enough. It bothers me in 5th how the other sleeve goes behind her while the other one is in front of her; I should have picked one option and used it on both hands but noooo. Oh, apparently I forgot to shade the dark red inner part of the sleeves/train for both 1st and 5th...

11th turned out surprisingly nice for such a simple outfit/pose. Except the shading of the face.

18th had something nice going, but it didn't quite get there. I still think I should have drawn tree trunks in the background... It was inspired by a Seth fanart on Pixiv where she was wearing the same dress in a similar winter setting.

The pose for the upper body (mainly hands) was copied from an official Anaru (AnoHana) pic. I really wanted to try that one "sketchy lines" feature from Photoshop, but I really wish I had used it on some worse piece...

I had great expectations on 22nd but in the end it didn't turn out that well. Originally it had been my principle not to draw any other characters than Seth, but I had already broken it a few times with Cain and Abel, so including Mirka wasn't that much of a crime. But until this day I hadn't drawn the other character's eyes. This time it would have looked very stupid not to draw Mirka's face properly, so I tried to draw it... and now I'm thinking that no matter how stupid it woul've looked without the eyes it would still most likely be better than the face I drew for her... Seth's face isn't that good either, and the colours didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped. But it was quite an achievement from me to draw two characters in the same picture doing something together (as opposed to just standing in line), so I guess it's still ok?

Taking how simple the sketches were into consideration, I really like 24th, 27th and 30th.

November 1 - November 13

The last month of the project. Now that I think of it I should have ended this on 12th instead of 13th, but whatever. What's done is done...

The hairstyle in 1st was inspired by Kaede Kaburagi from Tiger&Bunny.

Apparently I didn't learn my lesson from June 26th and tried the same pose again, with similarly bad results. No wonder I didn't bother colouring this properly...

12th got such a cute head that it's a shame I didn't draw a better outfit, but it was pretty late in the evening so I couldn't bother anything more. It really bugs me how the other side of her... collar? is higher than the other.

13th concludes the project with the idea I had right from the beginning (redrawing the first picture of the project). I really wish I would have bothered to draw the hands for it, but it's not like I could do anything about it now. I still think that the 2011 drawing's face could be better, but at least it wins the comparison for me. But I'm not sure how comparable they are, because I can't remember how much effort I put to the 2010 picture. And that's an important factor, because many of the older pictures from 2010 where I bothered to use a reference beat whatever rubbish sketches I drew in the autumn of 2011...

If you looked through all the pictures you might have noticed that I tended to draw some easy outfits a lot. There's this thing that if I'm forcing myself to draw something every day you can't really expect good results. Or maybe you could but that's beside the point. On many days I didn't get to drawing until it was close to my bed time, and it's not like I bothered to draw much at that point, so I drew an easy pose and one of the easiest possible outfits I knew (But I still tried not to draw the same outfit two times in a row). Since it'd be possible for you to go through all the drawing and check how often I drew the same outfits anyway I can save you from the trouble and compile them here so you can laugh at me. For the tea seller outfit and the UNASF coats it was a bit annoying at first, and then it turned ridiculous. And then it turned just sad... looking at the last pictures in the tea seller compilation makes me very ashamed.

Not bothering to add the dates to these but it's not like they matter. They go from oldest to newest, obviously.

The tea-seller outfit

The first one I consciously noticed to be an easy way to clear the drawing of the day. I had no idea how many times I would draw this one when I first drew it on November 17, 2010... The anime coloured it red so that's what I used for most of these, but I have a vague picture in my head that the novels said it was grey. As said previously, towards the end using this as a cheap way to escape from drawing anything proper got quite ridiculous.

Total = 56. If you excuse me, I'm going to cry in some corner.

The different incarnations of the Unasf outfits

The coat she wore as a child in the anime flashback was the easiest outfit out of all to draw; It had very few lines and it was easy to alter the length of the hem or sleeves to hide her hands/thighs, so there was even less to draw. The other versions were very easy to draw as well, but I tried to avoid the manga one because it was boring to colour.

As someone who is obsessed with Seth's clothes there is a grave mistake that makes me embarrassed how it took me so long to notice it: The sleeves of the anime version (child) aren't supposed to look like that. I noticed it at some point, but I just kept drawing the incorrect sleeves because they were easier...

Total = 55. I thought there were less of them, but the reality is harsh.

The anime ninja outfit

The easiness of this one took a while to realise. The long sleeves were very handy when I didn't feel like drawing hands... I thought there were more of these, but the amount of these kind of decreased towards the end when they were replaced by other easy-to-draw outfits.

Total = 12. Only!

The pyjama outfit

It's not actually a pyjama but it looks like one when I draw it. This one is slightly more interesting than the other three fast outfit groups as I could choose the colours more freely.

Total = 15.

The school uniform

A completely random and easy way to slip off from drawing anything proper. Only the outfit with suspenders is "canon" (or from a manga omake), the rest are just sad sketches from me. I didn't even try to design anything; it was either a sailor uniform or a collared shirt+vest and a miniskirt.

Total = 21.

The lazy dress

Probably the laziest outfit of all I used. It could be a bit excused if I actually used it to practise drawing how such an outfit folds, but I didn't; they're all drawn without reference. At least one of them got a nice background... Towards the end the amount of these increased rapidly while the quality kind of dropped. In the end I didn't even bother colouring most of them properly.

Total = 18.

The manga sailor uniform

I thought that there'd be a lot more of these, but in the end I was proven wrong when I started compiling them. Or there were quite a many of them, but they were in surprisingly good quality. And only one doesn't have the socks; I thought that I'd had omitted them more often as they were a bit annoying to colour.

Total = 12.

The novel casual outfit

I expected more of these as well as the outfit was really easy. I guess I just didn't notice it fast enough... I didn't like the hat so it's missing from many pictures.

Total = 7. Only!

The manga empress outfit

My favourite of her outfits. It took me a while to realise that this outfit always got better-than-average art and most effortful colouring. But after that I made sure to put some effor to colouring every time I had bothered to draw it.

It appears that at some point I moved away from the bright yellowish green to a colder colour.

Total = 15. Or actually only 12, the three other weren't exactly the empress dress but they were so similar that I included them anyway.