This is a early version of Kiki’s Teachwear costume design. There were a few other attempts until it reached the final version.
This picture was also the first time I created from start to finish using my left hand. It was more or less a random art practice, but I kept it in the gallery to tell the story about me relearning how to draw with my left hand.
I was a left-hander when I was a kid, but my family forced me into using my right hand to write and draw. But even so, I still mainly use my left hand in other tasks. In 2019, I was desperate to get out from my low period as an artist. After watching a few videos about the psychology behind it, I thought changing back to using my left hand to draw could help my situation, and so I did.
At first, I wasn’t even able to draw a long line properly — I had no control of my left hand. But after a week of intense practice by tracing line arts, I began to regain the ability to draw — although it still needed significant effort. The art foundation I accumulated so far still functioned, and I paid close attention to how I was adapting to the new arrangement, how my brain controls my hand (the right hand was too familiar to the workflow, it worked too fast to be noticed).
I found that the biggest challenge actually wasn’t the lack of control of my left hand, but rather my eyes didn’t know where to look at when I was drawing a stroke. The eyes must follow the pen tip and always look at where the stroke is going. It was an observation problem, at the end of the day. Once I retrain myself to look with my left hand in mind, it became much easier for me to draw.
And so I kept using only my left hand to draw between 2019 and 2022. All the way to the Freedom Planet 2 box art. I switched back to my right hand when drawing the second version of Sachi the Spirit Fox.
There were a few reasons for me to go back to my right hand. It wasn’t because of the left hand being bad at drawing — my arts had been steadily improving during the whole left hand period. The main reason was that my left hand’s 4th and 5th fingers had developed trigger finger. The two fingers would stick in place from time to time, and they would snap if I force them to move. It wasn’t very painful, but it was distracting and unpleasant. On top of that, most apps were designed with right-handers in mind, using my left hand was inconvenient. So I decided to switch back to my right hand.
Although I gave up using my left hand at the end, the experience was not a waste of time. I now have a better understanding of how to art, and my observation ability has improved significantly. I also trained myself to draw long and stable strokes. These improvements still benefit when I use my right hand. So I deemed it as a valuable endeavor. It proved to me that I could still learn and adapt to new things at this age.
But at the end of the day, the left hand stunt was a desperate attempt to find a solution of my problems. It helped in some way, but it wasn’t the key. Art blocks can only be solved by doing art. Mental blocks can only be solved by reflection.
Krita is a free and open source digital painting application. Kiki the Cyber Squirrel (the character in this picture) is the mascot I designed for Krita. I also provided, and has been maintaining, most of Krita’s simplified Chinese translations for the application, the documentation, websites, and everything.
Krita website: https://krita.org/
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