Did I say I'm going to blog about music? Never mind!
So last year, I was making some pixel art sprites for fun. I had recently read the excellent Floraverse webcomic, and the community there actively encourages fan art and own contributions. So I made some GBC style sprites for fun and was working on more. A friend saw me work on them, and as an aspiring gamedev who'd like to learn do do pixel art, proposed that we draw pixel art together every day.
At the beginning, we decided to work on the same topic each day, so we could compare and criticize each other. We did things like teapots, apples, and penguins. This worked fine for a short while, but got frustrating fast, as we were picking last minute topics late in the night. It probably bothered both of us, but it was me who proposed to break that and move on to our own topics... While for one, I wanted to keep my own schedule and go to bed sooner, I also wanted to draw some personal topics instead of ones that were a compromise. This was after about 25 days. So we agreed to continue on our own, perhaps returning to shared topics later.
In a few days after that change, things took a sharp turn. My friend promptly forgot about the whole challenge and gave up, while I begun spiralling into a backsprite hell.
What I mean to say is, this format didn't really end up working well for me. Almost every single day, I left the daily pixel art until the very last minute, when I absolutely needed to get it done before going to sleep. This resulted in poor topics and rushed works. That's not to say there aren't exceptions - when I gave myself enough time, I could create some pretty neat stuff - but when I was buried under schoolwork (which is also my fault, because I am incapable of working on anything in advance), I often just went 'screw it' and went for my go-to simple topic: backsprites.
You see, I have this Pokémon randomizer in the works, which can put all 721 Pokémon into Pokémon Red. One of the goals is however, is to make everything in the spirit of the original games. New sprites have to look natural next to the originals. Which means no devamps and no rough MS Paint drawings either. We actually have most frontsprites of Pokémon done by now, but there's a lot of backsprites that are simply missing, and people aren't very willing to do them because they're boring. So... I did like 30 of them total, opting for them whenever I felt I don't have time to do anything more elaborate.
Overall, the format may have done more harm and good, making me focus on single rushed pieces over more complex and detailed ones.
That's not to say the whole thing has been a waste, though. I mean, I produced 100 separate pieces of art alone. I learned how to do pixel art efficiently in Gimp. I made a small amount of gift art. I studied the details of original Pokémon pixel art, like the anatomies, proportions, color usage, shading, dithering, anti-aliasing... I also learned to imitate Bob Ross, which turned out pretty popular. And I made a lot of usable art for the game me and Behold3r are working on, Pesík.
All at the expense of my sleep.
Yet I want to do it again. But with a small change of rules. I'll have to post something every day, but I can keep a buffer. Which means that, if I have some free time, I can work on multiple days worth of posts in advance, and then burn through them when I'm busy and wouldn't do a good job. This will also allow me to work on more elaborate works, because I can split them over time. Win-win!
I'm also going to move on from pixel art. I'd like to learn to draw in general, so I might just allow all kinds of art. Or I could even do music. I'm not sure yet!
Oh, and at some point I inspired my buddy Behold3r to also start drawing every day. He's drawing Pokémon over at @littlepokemen. Give him a follow!
But anyway, let me share some final stats of my 100 days of pixel art challenge!
Days: 100
Missed days: 0
Backsprite days: 15
Twitter: @sankydraws
Twitter followers: 52
Twitter favorites: 351
Twitter retweets: 92
Gold fan favorite: 
Silver fan favorite: 
Bronze fan favorite: 
Some other Pokémon sprites I did: 
Fifty days: 
Pesík: 
Pesík screenshot: 
An ostrich sticking its head in the sand: 
Laziest piece: (it was like 5 am and everybody AROUND me wanted to sleep, ok)
Mega beans: 
Some Pesík characters: 
I don't know where I was going with this.
Everything available at: https://sanqui.rustedlogic.net/etc/daily/
Thanks for your interest!