Kimodameshi 2025, final week
I am a winner! I (and 812 others) have succeeded at the Kimodameshi 2025 challenge! For a challenge with such simple sounding parameters, I both enjoyed it more and learned more than I ever expected. The only requirement was to post some piece of art every day representing a humanoid, in part or in whole, that took at least five minutes to do.
Five minutes isn’t the upper bound, of course. And meeting the daily requirement isn’t the only kind of challenge the event threw at us. But even 5 minutes a day wasn’t a bar I was meeting before it began. I had accepted depression as an excuse to skip as many as three days a week. Kimodameshi has revitalized my interest in learning.
- Commuting to the office during the event encouraged me to push through my resistance both to ink drawing and timed gesture drawing
- Trying to figure out how to make timed gestures not complete garbage led me to a Marko Bucci livestream on the topic and it really helped
- Changing up the kinds of work I was doing throughout the week helped keep things lively and fun
- The challenges pushed me in directions I never would have gone, such as crossing the physical/digital divide
At the end, I feel like I’m much improved in my physical drawing skills, figure drawing, proportions, and hatching. I have a newfound confidence I can tackle more complex topics. My gesture drawing is… well, it’s getting there. Still need lots of work there. I loved it! Kimo7 kicked my butt and got me back in the art world! I’m excited to carry this energy into the future.
The drawing at the top was for a daily quest: to draw a scene with dramatic lighting. My mind went to the classic movie Night of the Hunter, with Robert Mitchum’s Harry Powell seeming to melt in from the shadows. The painting looks a little messy. I haven’t quite tamed Artstudio Pro’s brush engine, so things can get away from me a bit, but I like the picture overall.
Quest: It’s cold! Update your profile picture with warm weather gear and a cold-themed pun (Mar 30, digital)
3 figure sketches of Aftyn Rose (Mar 30, digital)
Quest: Draw your favorite subject (Mar 31, digital)
(I cover this in more depth here)
Medium: Digital
App: Artstudio Pro
Tools: Pencil, paint