Art 8 Year Evolution Of A Profile Picture, And Its Story

We've all gone through our old image folders at some point, and found some highly meaningful nostalgia packed pictures. Today, I decided to share the story and history of a few of my own, focusing on how I became the person I am today.



My history in digital drawing dates back to my early childhood, somewhere around 2004-2006. My family had a desktop PC running Windows 98, equipped with a mechanical mouse and a monitor that's thicker than it's own width. It wasn't too strong of a system, and it was highly outdated for it's time, but it did run microsoft paint which is all that matters. This is when I got to try drawing on a computer for the first time. At the time, I obviously couldn't draw digitally, nor even with pens onto a paper, but I did enjoy doodling quite a lot regardless.

Somewhere between 2006 and 2008 we upgraded into a slightly stronger PC with Windows XP, and I encountered the internet for the first time. It's computing power still wasn't much at the time, and websites took closer to 5 minutes to load, hence why my younger self didn't bother spending much time online.

Sometime within 2009 and 2011 I got my older sister's used 2nd generation ipod touch, and I experienced youtube at it's finest. This also led me into fully discovering minecraft, which is where the profile pictures start from. Of course, I tried to install and run minecraft on the poor desktop from over half a decade ago, but I was lucky to reach over 2 fps.

After being introduced to minecraft, I had obviously made a custom skin for it and everything. I had just got my hands on my brother's old broken down (but still functioning) laptop, which I used to make profile pictures for various platforms I had made accounts for at the time. Since I didn't know what else to make a picture out of, I booted up good old ms paint and chose to draw my MC skin in an isometric way.

Spoiler: 1. Sometime in 2010-2011?

Time passed, and I got more tired of the picture, so I decided to make something of my own by actually drawing instead of recreating something directly. The end result was a posed version of the previous image, obviously made in paint. I really liked portal at the time, which is why blue and orange are the dominant colors.

Spoiler: 2. Mid 2011 iirc

I didn't want to permanently want to look like a minecraft character, since as expected, minecraft profile pictures seemed childish. This resulted in a somewhat humanoid character being born with the same simplistic paint style. During this time I had also created a colorful boxy theme, which is apparent on the clothing in this case. I had also started wearing a scarf, which influenced the profile picture aswell.

Spoiler: 3. 2011-2012 winter

At around this point, I had gotten tired of characters, and wanted to experiment with abstract shapes, colors, renders and various other themes. This went on for a couple of years, and not many character drawings were produced during it.


Eventually during the spring of 2015, I wanted to draw a wallpaper for a new laptop I had bought. I had more experience in drawing than before thanks to the quantities of fanart I made, so it wasn't an issue at all. I'm not going to post the whole image here, but it did include my old character as a central point, and it ended up becoming my profile picture for quite a while. In case you're interested in the origin image, it shouldn't be too difficult to find by stalking my outdated social medias.

Spoiler: 4. Early 2015

10LE to the one who spots what this style is partially a reference to

As with profile pictures before, I eventually got tired of it and wanted some change. During these times I had also downloaded a drawing program other than default paint known as paint.NET, and had a tad bit of experience with it. At this point the difference wasn't too stark yet thanks to my poor knowledge of it's features, and I only ended up using the following picture for a short while. I'd classify it as one of my former profile pictures regardless, even though it does look quite strange and bad.

Spoiler: 5. Late 2015? Early 2016? Gavel hype?

At this point we're already entering the times when I first became CT, so I thought it'd be quite fitting to have an Uncle Grolan styled picture. If asked, I'd say this is the first profile picture I've made that looks acceptable style and execution wise. Also, after this long of a time, the scarf finally makes a comeback.

Spoiler: 6. Mid 2016

After getting tired of the generic Grian style, I didn't really know what to do next. However, one day I was randomly doodling on my phone, and ended up drawing the framework for one of my best drawings at the time. I moved it onto my PC and colored it with the skills I had acquired over time while using PDN. I also ended up making a halloween version of it.

Spoiler: 7. Late summer 2016 - October 2016

During these times I laxed out on my own pfps, and my business of selling Grian-styled pictures began after getting motivated by making such pictures for Giames and Snipah. This also included me, making one for myself with the updated style during the times of Corkus hype

Spoiler: 8. Spring of 2017

I wouldn't consider this particular one to be among my proper profile pictures, but I did use it for quite a while when the Jamieverse club was a thing.

Spoiler: 9. yeet

At this point in time, I didn't feel any motivation to draw, and even what I drew was absolute garbage. I ended up asking Kazumeep and Oniyan for some lit profile pictures for the longest time, and it was a chill era. As an example of the nightmares I created, take a look at this.

Spoiler: 10. I used this for like 2 hours total

Some time later, I was casually messing around the line tool, and accidentally ended up creating this beauty.

Spoiler: 11. December 2017

My hair was really long, and it didn't plan on stopping growing, so I updated my profile picture to match my real life looks.

Spoiler: 12. Early 2018

And again...

Spoiler: 13. Late spring of 2018?

I even ended up making a pixelated animated gif out of it.

Spoiler: 14. Fuck I don't know when

During this, I also tried to draw things based on sketches I had made long times ago. One of them being this, which looks more edgy than good, and ended up being a disappointment.

Spoiler: 15. A few months ago

Same story goes for this one as the above one, I didn't really know what I was doing and things fell apart.

Spoiler: 16. About the same time

However, finally, after picking up sketching again, I created some cute character styles which brought my motivation up again.

Spoiler: 17. ufiaheikjscnkfueah

And even though I've discovered new artstyles, the designs can still go wrong from time to time.

Spoiler: 18. aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

But after all I've been through, I still manage to make something decent. Something to feel proud of.

Spoiler: 19. Hi

And in the end, I'll always have the hopes to find out something new, that looks spectacular.

Spoiler: 20. Present day

Well, this has certainly been one hell of a journey. Looking back at your own work of the past does have a tendency to bring some hidden feelings up again. Observing all of this at once quite accurately represents my everchanging artstyle and how it's improved over time.

To end this off, I'd like to offer some random sketches and unfinished ones that I never ended up liking, that I've accidentally saved:

Spoiler: Over here

 

ur hair is long

hippopotamus

 

yo thts a really cool thing
the fact that your improving at your Art

keep the good work; im sure you can take it really far someday

also lowkey mad @People not knowing i was the one who came up w/ grians profile picture style >:(
like, Avux Aikiebo EpicMelon and JPresent and some others also had avatars in the same style by me lul

BUT THIS IS NOT ABOUT ME ITS ABOUT YOU AND IM GLAD YOUR MAKING PROGRESS WITH UR PROFILE PICS
<3

 

So far I've been under the assumption that the style was made by TheLostCat, based on an old tweet of Gri's. Unless there's a connection to LuxioCat, I'm terribly sorry for forwarding false information. Also thanks for the kind words ε>

 

Edgier and edgier... Maybe one that you could reach the edgy singularity. (Not including 17)

 

big think

edit: wait i just saw "style" lol then in that case probably not

 

Good guess, but no

 

Lets not talk.... about TheLostCat.

Those days of me being confused and me confusing people are over

 

even back then you were still the edgy aarontti we know and love.
also:
= ?

 

Bingo

 

oh yey. i see you too are a man of culture.

 

This is actually really nice. I want to draw like this but I'm lazy :(

 

I love your newest pfp! Its so cool to see how your art has changed and how your profile has reflected your development. You really should open up another shop! I know that I for one would definitely be a customer (I still have one from the old shop xD)

 

Love seeing your progress o/
Still a big thanks for your grian-styled pics, they're amazing!

 

i still remember you saying how much our profile pictures look alike
but unlike you i just messed around with the ms paint circle tool

you should use these as ur pfp tbh

 

yes
and quite the cringefest too

________________________________

h o t

________________________________

edgy

________________________________

cute

 

quite emo

good job

 

A trip down memory lane

 

Where is-