Art Attack #226: TacoCat Bit Stonks 💸
Hey Hive!
We're back again with another Art Attack! If you're new to the series, this is where I share my drawings and the process behind them. A behind-the-scenes look at my artwork, if you will. This is not to say that I'm very good at art, or that I'm a professional in any way. In fact this is the opposite, and serves as a reminder to how I first started, and lets me track my progress too!
I've shared about my streaming journey on Twitch and the art I've done for my Twitch channel and this time, it's bit tier emotes! Viewers can show their support to streamers by giving them bits, aka cheering, and one bit is one cent. So once you reach a certain amount of bits contributed to a channel you unlock bit tier emotes in that channel.
Here are some older bit emotes I did that were really rough, and in dire need of an upgrade.
I wanted a common theme across the bit tier emotes and since you had to give money to get them, I thought making them all money-themed would be perfect. I did initially have the idea for one based on the Stonks meme but wanted to do it properly this time.
I actually just found out that stonks became popular because of the Gamestop saga from 2021! I didn't think about it at the time and now it's become such a common term on the internet.
Anyway, I was struggling to find a way to draw the meme but make it emote-friendly in 500x500px canvas. I knew I'd have to simplify the background somehow, but I wasn't sure until I found this really good reference by Criptaart:
Source: etsy
I basically wanted something just like that emote but with my TacoCat head of course. So I traced the suit and drew an arrow.
For the head I knew I couldn't do my usual TacoCat face so I referenced this emote that one of my artist viewers did for me that's so adorable!
I thought of drawing my TacoCat bigger compared to the reference since I wanted it to be the main focus and emotes will be really small in chat. Eventually I settled with this sketch:
Next it was onto outline and colours! I initially drew the suit like this with the head poking out since my TacoCat doesn't really have a neck. But now that I look at it, it looks a bit weird and I like the sketch version better.
So I decided to change it, and I think this looks a lot better.
For the background I was going to go with something similar to the reference. Initially when I drew the very first batch of emotes I was against having backgrounds in emotes since I didn't want them to look so square in chat. But with this one I felt like I needed the background since it's part of the meme.
I did test to see if just the arrow would work and it just wasn't the same.
I thought it would be quite complicated to draw the lines with the perspective but actually since my TacoCat was going to be covering most of it, it didn't really make much of a difference.
Eventually we get this! I think the head shape could've been done a bit better, but it also looks like my TacoCat is looking at the board which I guess is accurate to the meme.
I did try redrawing the head and face but I don't know if it's an improvement or not.
But honestly, since it's this small in chat it's not really noticeable anyway.
Regardless, I thought this Stonks emote was so much better than the first version I did. From the pose to the background, and even the suit; it's miles above what I did the first time. I'm pretty happy with it despite the little hiccups, and I'm glad my chat loves it too!
Here's the whole bit emote showcase:
Thanks for reading and stay tuned for the next one!
To find out more about me, check out my intro post here!
