the year is coming to a close so here are my top 5 favorite art pieces of this year! (i plan to start moving these retrospectives to my website once the redesign is done, but for now, it all goes here!)

most of these feature my fursona since i draw him a lot, i want to draw more of my other characters soon, but 2024 was definitely the Year Of Viscera. i had a lot of ups and downs with my art this year and my style is the most inconsistent its been in a long time. but i see that as a positive - i'm experimenting, having fun with my art, and focusing more on emotion than aesthetic appeal. my art this year has been a little bit of my mental health struggles, a little bit of silly horror-themed fun, and a whole lot of throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks. i think that's what makes art so beautiful and human. AI is scary to us artists, but we can take solace in knowing that an AI will never be able to replicate that. without further ado, lets get onto the list!

at number 5 is "19th birthday brain bash" (July 25th)

i drew this one on my 19th birthday (wow, shocker!) and have been using it as my PFP in several places ever since. its one of the pieces that started getting me heavily into mixed media and just experimenting with my materials, and i think the color palette is super cute. if i redid this, there are a few things i'd probably change, mainly the eyes and how i drew the body, but overall i love this piece a lot and i always love to look back at my birthday art and see how my style has grown over the years. i don't have much to say about this one - it's simple, but cute, creepy, and a fun celebration of my life and my art. here's to many more birthdays!

number 4 is "Feasts For Beasts!" (December 8th)

this one is recent and i'm putting it here for two reasons: 1. it looks fucking dope, and 2. it helped me get myself out of a horrible bout of art block and depression. when shit just isn't going your way and you need an outlet to express how you feel, turning to art is a great way to cope. or, you could be like me, and draw yourself as a cannibal eating a platter of flesh, bones, and apples bc theyre your favorite fruit. i thought up the coolest sounding thing i could think of to draw and i drew it and it worked and it looks awesome. i love the gloomy color palette i went with, and i especially love the coloring on Viscera's face here. blame this piece for my recent obsession with watercolor pencil backgrounds. its only this low because i have a few older pieces that i think are more personal or just look a little bit better. (and also some parts are blurry. fuck me for not taping down my paper when i use watercolor)

number 3 is "evanescence - fallen (redraw)" (March 26th)

the oldest piece on the list, the only one that doesn't feature Viscera, and my first ever art piece to get frontpaged! i was deep into an obsession with Evanescence when i painted this and despite being older, i think it really holds up as a genuinely good work of art. i challenged myself with the extremely limited color palette of the original album cover and really pushed my style here, especially in the eyes, which makes this art feel like a perfect blend of my emo kid nostalgia and my genuine passion for music. sometimes i feel like i'll never be able to replicate how good this looks, but i dont want to be a copy machine, i want to grow and make whatever art speaks to me at the time - and thats what the next two will showcase in full force.

number 2 is "filth" (August 17th)

i went full-force on the gross imagery with this one. no guts, no brains, no bones. just bodily fluids and bugs. frankly, i think some of my best work is the stuff that i can insert horror into without relying on gore. i wanted to hammer in the disgust and shock value because this piece is meant to represent what i feel when i'm trapped in a depressive episode. and in terms of purposeful symbolism, i think i hit the nail right on the head. the cool colors i used for Viscera contrast the warm colors of the rest of the scene, everything feels boxed in and uncomfortable, and i honestly just love everything i did here. theres little i would change if i redrew this, and im glad to know that this piece resonated with others that suffer from bipolar disorder and depression.

before i get to number 1, here's some honorable mentions, in no particular order. these are ones that i think really hold up but just weren't personal or appealing enough to make my top picks. i won't go as in-depth into these ones since i don't have much to say; regardless, these are still some really solid pieces, in my opinion.

a piece i did for Art Fight this year, im really into how i did the watercolors here, and also how i did the eyes, but this list is already about 80% comprised of front-facing subjects.

very experimental, very personal, very nice looking. just not something i would consider part of my all-time best work. if you're also a victim of parental abuse, you might resonate with this one.

my most recently finished piece so i didn't want to put it in because of recency bias, still a very personal piece with great color choices and a fun composition.

drawn to practice alcohol markers, i love the coloring and composition, but i would probably change the background color. was proud of it at the time, but can't deal with that bright yellow next to Chrysalis's gloomy greens and blues.

and with that out of the way, here's my top favorite piece of the year...

number 1 is "FREEK" (September 11th)!!!

i think this piece showcases literally everything i love about my art. it's personal in that i wanted to express my own self-confidence and weirdness, it's got a fun up-close composition that focuses heavily on the eyes and mouth, the colors are fun and vibrant, and it's a piece that i think looks amazing despite not having the cleanest coloring ever. its the perfect example of what i mean when i say that i want my art to be more about the process and the emotion than just being for show. and even without being the most clean, it still looks very appealing in my opinion. i want to do more of this type of stuff in the future and i hope that 2025 can mark the year i'm able to do that.

thanks for reading and happy new year, everyone! <3