I wish I could return my mind to a childlike state and unlearn all my preconceptions of what the world's features look like. That way when drawing anything the only point of reference is what it looks like, right in front of me and not all my prior knowledge of it before. This is an easy thing to explain I feel like I'm overcomplicating it.. basically I just want to go back to drawing things as they are instead of drawing things as I imagine they are. like when you draw a face for example, you're not really supposed to draw your idea of a nose outright but moreso the blobs and shapes that make up the nose, even better maybe you don't even know where the nose ends and where it begins and you're only drawing what you see, then as time goes on you keep drawing these things without knowing what they are, but you're used to seeing them so you simplify them till they get reduced to their most essential lines. This is basically what naive art is but in order to achieve that you have to be... naive.. and be completely unaware of what every other interpretation of your subject looks like
like earlier I was drawing a bunch of cartoon cats as per usual, but when you picture a stylised cat you'll always picture the triangle ears and slit eyes and triangle nose and whiskers, but how did that initial stylisation come to be? or a sun, drawn as a circle with lines coming out of it? surely someone did that first and we didn't just start drawing it like that right?its hard to gauge where those kinds of things originate from, pure stylisation to me is something that comes from you and your own experiences with the subject rather than some other stylized thing you've seen first
I find it a bit silly to write so extensively and give so much thought about how I represent myself online. Some care a lot and some don’t give it much thought at all. I don’t even know why I care so much but okay
You will come to terms with seeing a little guy plastered around this site: that’s me! Or the small baby version of me called ittybelle that I use as an outlet when doodling my moods and goofy jokes on paper. Haha it’s like a pun of my name but she is small ! So I figured she’s also the perfect size to be a resident of this site and project my personality onto it through the graphics I make.
For a very long time I didn’t outwardly have a persona, more like an oc that I drew very often and used as a profile picture everywhere… which is basically what a persona boils down to if you think about it? But anyway that was Nyx, celestial lynx cat on two legs who doesn’t really have a story of her own.. for the times I actually try to make characters I never really go past the visual designs because worldbuilding is a hard to fathom concept for me hehe. I think I came up with something a while back when I was obsessed with lucid dreaming, that she was only visible in people’s dreams, and could manipulate those glowy blobs that you see in the hypnagogic state right before you fall asleep. This was kind of an afterthought and I never really elaborated on it lol
Anyway, she’s always been the avatar I used online because she looks cool and embodies a lot of visual elements I enjoy. Her personality was what I wanted to be online; a mysterious yet comforting presence, all-knowing, capable of pulling many magic tricks..
But as I started becoming more extroverted..open..dare I say.. SILLIER… over the years, putting less restraint on how I act, I didn’t really match the quiet persona I once made, so my “avatar” and “myself” slowly split into two until one was used exclusively online and the other irl, as a way to express my full range of emotions.
Ittybelle to be as I started returning to my lps lover roots….. everyone who loved lps and youtube had their token lps they’d use as their own persona online when making videos, but I think everyone just had a favorite lps in general. I tended to really like the bonbon kitty mould, and my favorite lps was #1364. So one day I was like what would an lps kitty look like if it looked kinda like me and I really liked that idea and kept drawing it until it started taking on my personality sooo tadaa I guess that’s how people make poke-sonas or veggietalesonas or any other kind of sona.. I always would draw myself as a cat when I was younger so, this would just be a revival of two worlds (except I did have this inbetween phase where my fursona was a lamb for some reason) (and nowadays it's kinda turning into more of a rodent !! so)
Many people still see me as nyx, and that’s cool, I like that there are different versions of me that people know and remember online, just like real life. I suppose the intent of this website was to open up, embody my visual tastes and present the more accurate reflection of me, so I guess that’s the answer as to why I’ve started using my fursona more in some places instead of my avatar.
Not completely related but another big topic that came to mind when writing this: I will always love seeing the different ways that every person on the internet chooses to represent themselves with just a profile picture. It’s just like wearing a style of clothing – they don’t have to say anything yet it says so much about them. I was pleased to see that a certain soft spoken leadhead talked about this as well.