Willow Wormwood

willowwormwoodart@gmail.com

2025 Year in Review

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by

willowwormwood
in

[327 words, 2 min estimated read time]

Another year has gone by, so another chance to look back and reflect on the progress I’ve made! I made a lot of artwork I’m really proud of, and some broader mindset changes I think have helped really improve my relationship to my art process.

This year I started working on a new style for character portraits, where instead of adding cell shading I just keep flat colors, but try to add more detail. I don’t plan to abandon cell shading forever, but it was nice to just try something new for a change.

Digital Illustration of the Dark Souls boss Dark Sun Gwyndolin. The character wears bright white robes with intricate silvery blue detailing, and gold ornamentation. He wears a mask resembling the sun, with sharp spikes protruding from it. Rather than legs, a tangle of python snakes emerge from the bottom of the robes, holding the character aloft in the air. The background is light purple and orange, with moon and star motifs.
Credit to artist miukumauk for the pose idea. Digital drawing of a character in a long dress holding a rapier sword. She stands with one arm outstretched, the other holding the sword raised across her chest. She has blue skin with light blue markings, and long white hair that floats above her. Their outfit has muted browns, greens, blues, and purples. Earth colored tones despite the air and wind theme. The background has whisps of wind blowing past her from the foreground. She looks calm, almost tired, looking in the direction her sword is pointed with an almost somber expression.
A digital drawing of an elf wearing light metal armor and carrying a longsword. He looks disheveled, his clothes are tattered and worn, and he has bags under his eyes. He has reddish brown wavy hair cropped short.

I tried my hand at focusing on character development more than I typically do. Usually I just draw a character in one illustration and then try to stick to that design forever. So this year I was more purposeful about spending more time in the design stage before actually committing to a design. I think it helped me get the vague image in my head more clearly onto the page. The character I spent the most time on was Rorik, but I also went back to some older characters to play around with new outfit designs for them.

I also made some more rendered character illustrations I was super happy with! I think I’ve gotten better at lighting and values in my artwork, and not being so afraid of saturated colors haha.

Digital illustration of the Sir Arthur android from the animated show Knights of Guinevere. Smoke and flames curl around the android, and the surrounding landscape is covered in broken debris of concrete and metal. It carries a massive greatsword in it's left hand, now planted into the ground by it's side, and stands hunched over. The android’s right arm is a grotesque combination of organic and mechanical, with misshapen fingers and spikes protruding at random points. The android's face is small by comparison to its body, set in the center of its torso and resembling a sun, emanating a beam of bright light as it scans its surroundings.
Digital illustration. A witch character with white hair and a raven feather cloak casts a spell. Their eyes are hidden behind the brim of a witch hat. The spell from their hand spends tendrils with bright purple eyes spiraling out.
Digital cartoon style illustration of an androgynous middle-aged character surrounded by red smoke standing on teal stones. They have dark eyes behind blue tinted circular glasses. They wear a dark trench coat and have a dangling ear piercing. They hold pistols in both hands.
Character standing posed with two long knives. He has green scaly skin, yellow reptilian eyes, and straight black hair down to his shoulders. He wears a dark armored bodysuit.

To close off the year, I made an Art vs Artist board to show some of the artwork I’ve made!

I’m hoping going into 2026 I’ll keep up with my focus on character design, but also put some time into learning storyboarding. I want to get better at embracing messier doodles that are more expressive. I’d also love to get back to working on some story ideas I’ve had on the backburner for a while.

Happy new year everyone. I hope we can all make 2026 a better year for ourselves and each other.

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