Noticed my old tablet sketches vs. my latest ones

I was scrolling through my gallery from 2018 and saw this messy dragon sketch I did on a $50 used Wacom. Last week I replicated the same pose and the difference in lighting and detail was crazy. Does anyone else keep old files just to see how far you've come?

2 comments

2 Comments

henry_webb681mo ago

Actually my buddy Tom went through the same thing last year. He had this old sketch of a fox from 2016 on his phone and he tried to redraw it in Procreate. The colors were way off and the shading was BASIC but he said looking at the old one made him realize he used to just draw for FUN without worrying about every little detail. Ended up spending an hour adding back the messy lines he removed in the new version because he missed the old energy.

the_julia1mo ago

Keep going back to those old files pretty often myself. It's not just about seeing the skill jump, it's also noticing how your eye for things like composition or color changed. I have a folder from 2016 full of wonky anatomy sketches and it's humbling to compare them with what I can do now. That said, sometimes I revisit an old sketch and realize I still like the raw energy or the looseness of it better than my more polished stuff now.