Welcome to my little art blog!!! Over the past three days of winter break into the new year (Happy New Year!!), I’ve been working on a few pieces that I’m excited to share. These four works are all part of my current focus on drawing using references, experimenting with poses, expressions, and character-specific details while trying to improve my skills.
In this post, I’ll walk through each piece, share a bit about my process, and ramble about some of the decisions I made as well. I tried to include as many of the artists I used for reference’s twitter handles as I could. Sorry I couldn’t find some, or if I got any wrong. I tried my best!!
Deku! Timeskip
1-1-2026
I started out wanting to do a character study of Izuku Midoriya from My Hero Academia, but I ended up exploring a bunch of different ideas. I was mostly focusing on his 8-year timeskip design, where he (spoilers!) becomes a teacher at UA after losing his quirk.
The first piece I worked on was a running pose. I think Midoriya is such a clumsy, easily flustered guy, and even after the Final War arc, that still comes through, even with all the growth he’s had. He’s also super selfless and tends to overwork himself, so I wanted to show that in the pose. I used a reference by @Gangsta_G33 and tried to make him look like he’s in a rush.
Next, I drew him sitting on a chair with his hand taking a telephone. I think teacher Midoriya is kind of sexy! so I wanted to show that contrast by roughing up his clothes a bit, giving him a heavier expression, and emphasizing the casual, kind of tired pose. I struggled with his arms though. You can see all the eraser marks where I gave up a little lmao. I rely a lot on references, and the original pose didn’t have the arm reaching out. I did try to recreate the pose with my own body but errr, it didn’t quite work. His right arm… well, just pretend it’s there! I used a Pinterest reference, but I couldn’t find the original artist.
Then I tried a portrait shot. I’ve been practicing heads and expressions a lot, so this one was mostly about that, just adding hair on it.
After that, I drew Todoroki. This one’s a little embarrassing to admit on a public page but I feel like it makes sense if I say it, so. The Japanese under his name reads デクのだんな, which means “Deku’s husband.” (Ignore my messy kanji… I’ve put my six years of Japanese to other uses, okayyyy.) I’ve shipped them together since I first watched the show as a kid, which hasn’t changed. I imagine they’d have a really gentle, loving relationship. I found artwork by @middfoxx that captured this and tried to copy it, with Midoriya cupping his face and Todoroki’s hands over his.
Finally, I added a tiny Uraraka in the bottom right corner, sipping from a cup in an outfit similar to the one she wore in Horikoshi’s 2026 New Year’s post. Since I’d already included a ship reference, I thought I’d add a little one for her too. I like her with either Midoriya or Bakugō (though for some reason everyone hates the second pairing???), so I added little thought bubbles with stick-figure versions of them. Hopefully it’s clear who’s who from their hair and expressions.
DDLC girls
1-1-2026
I really like this one! Well, I like all of these, but, I digress. It’s a spread of the characters from Doki Doki Literature Club. For Sayori (top left) and Monika (bottom right), I used references by @yuna_4568. For Yuri (middle left), I referenced @smallbcarly ((tumblr handle btw, not twitter)), and for Natsuki (bottom left), I referenced @bananabedside. I can’t find the reference I used for the middle image, but it’s somewhere on Pinterest.
I started with the portraits of Yuri and Sayori, which I like because heads and eyes in this angle are what I’m most comfortable with, and I’ve been practicing a lot. Sayori’s collar was really annoying to draw, though. After that, I worked on a duo pose with Sayori and Yuri, who I kind of like together too, in terms of romance, even though most of the fandom pairs Sayori with Monika and Yuri with Natsuki. My reference had two girls listening to music together, so I adapted the pose, changing their clothing, faces, and hairstyles.
I like the pose because I think it’s a cute representation of their relationship. Sayori is canonically struggling with depression, but she’s still outwardly bubbly, cares about her friends, and tries to stay interested in things. She looks up to Yuri and her writing. Yuri, because of her own mental health struggles, empathizes with Sayori and enjoys spending time with her. Even though Sayori’s energy can be a little overwhelming, Yuri finds it endearing and wishes she could be a bit more like her.
For their hair, I referenced a mix of @bananabedside’s art and official art, since it’s a bit complicated. For clothing, I referenced the original pose and official art to see how turtlenecks fold on the body. I know I drew it a little inaccurately, but it works for me.
I was only planning to draw Sayori and Yuri at first, since they’re my favorites, but then I moved on to Monika. I used to dislike Monika and Natsuki, but I’ve grown to like them more over the years. For anyone who hasn’t played the game, the “Just Monika” behind her comes up several times, and the only option is to press “OK.”
Then I drew Natsuki. I really did use to hate her, but now I like her, and I like how she came out. For their expressions, I imagined Sayori with a cheerful smile, maybe distracted and humming, Monika with her signature sweet smile, Yuri with an indifferent look avoiding eye contact, and Natsuki with a scowl, sticking her tongue out since she’s a tsundere. I also gave each of them little emotion symbols: Sayori has a heart, Yuri has a sweat drop, Monika has a sparkle, and Natsuki has an anger mark.
When I finished, I realized there was a lot of empty space, so I added elements that represent the characters. A pencil for Monika, since all of them write poetry in the club, a knife for Yuri, a bandaid for Natsuki as a reference to her home life, and a bow in the upper right shaped kind of like a noose for Sayori. Sorry, it’s a little dark, aha… maybe a little sudden if you haven’t played the game. For the title, I used bubble letters with cute patterns to balance everything out.
Dekutodochako
1-2-2026
Reference: middfoxx
This piece wassssssss really hardddddddd ughhhhh. This pose ended up being way more challenging than I expected, but I am really proud of how it is turning out… even if it will probably stay a work in progress forever.
Earlier, I talked about my ships in My Hero Academia, even though no one asked. My top contenders for Midoriya are still Todoroki and Uraraka, though, this drawing is supposed to be in a more platonic sense. I found a beautiful piece by @middfoxx of the two of them resting on Midoriya while he is writing. I originally wanted this to be an art study of their line work, but uhhhh you know how it is lol. I love how relaxed and peaceful the scene feels. It could totally be canon with the three of them snoozing while Midoriya stays focused. For my own touches, I left Todoroki’s eyelashes unfilled because I headcanon him with white lashes, added a few bandages here and there from their hero work, and gave Uraraka a cute hair clip (I think she’d wear a lot of hairclips and bracelets!!). By the way, Midoriya is NOT smoking!!! It is supposed to be a lollipop. I failed at making it look like one, lmao.
I tried adding Tsuyu and Iida in the upper right corner since they are part of the fanon-made Dekusquad. They are basically going, “uhhh, what about us?? Why aren’t we cuddling too???” but I ran out of energy, so that part is not finished yet. The hardest part for me was Uraraka’s pose and figuring out where Todoroki’s hair would naturally fall on Midoriya’s shoulder. I used what I have learned in my Drawing I class at school and tried to work with line weight, though I also got a little lazy there. You know how it is…
Overall, I am really happy with how the composition, expressions, and details turned out. There is a lot going on in this piece, and I hope the effort shows.
Also. Can you spot the 67?
JUNKO
1-3-2026
This one isn’t actually finished yet either, as I still need to fix her tie and figure out what the heck is going on with her collar, but I’ll get to that later. This is Junko Enoshima from Danganronpa, which I’m getting back into since the announcement of the new game.
This was an interesting pose study and way harder than I expected. I can’t find the original artist, but a reverse Google search suggested it might be by a user named ‘bong.’
I knew this was going to be tricky when I started struggling with the head, which is always the first thing I work on. Even through the confusing angles for her chest, arms, and hands, I tried my best and persevered!!! >:D
I always enjoy drawing curly hair because it’s basically just a bunch of curvy lines you can sketch freely. Straight hair has always been harder for me since it needs more definition (and I’m speaking as a curly-haired girl, so don’t come at me). I drew her skirt way too short in comparison to her proportions, but I decided not to fix it. I feel like Junko is the kind of girl who just doesn’t care about those sorts of things. I promise there were no weird intentions, just laziness on my part haha… Her hands were a nightmare though, omg.
In the bottom right, I drew a smaller Junko, referenced from one of her official character sprites, in a mock crying pose. Her eyes were supposed to be closed, but while coloring the eyelashes I liked them open at that angle, so I kept it. Drawing her in this pose was inspired by Ironmouse and CDawg’s song “Cry For Me,” which is trending on Tiktok right now. That sparked a new animation meme, which we all hopefully know that Danganronpa is the queen of (ex. Junko posing), and I could imagine Junko being in one. I would like to do it myself, but, just like Invincible says, animation takes a loooong time… I seriously applaud people who have the motivation and skill to do it.
Finally, in the upper right corner, I put a sexy Monokuma. Not much to say about that one. It felt right.
Overall, I had a lot of fun working on these pieces over winter break, even when they were frustrating or way harder than I expected. Focusing on drawing with references really pushed me to try new poses and angles I’d never attempted before, and I feel like I learned something new from each piece, even the ones that are still unfinished. Hopefully one day I can become less reliant on the references as time goes on. I also want to work more on properly breaking down shapes and structure instead of just freestyling everything, since that’s something I haven’t been doing as much as I should.
I definitely still have things I want to improve, especially anatomy, clothing folds, hair, and overall consistency, but I’m happy with where I’m at right now and proud of the progress I’m making. It’s always pretty rewarding when you start to see a piece you’re creating actually getting somewhere, you know?
Hopefully I can do this more often in the future. I only shared four out of the maybe twelve pages of stuff I did, so clearly I had a huge surge of motivation, haha. Thanks so much for checking out my art and listening to me ramble!!
