![original drawn by yajirushi_(chanoma)](https://cdn.donmai.us/sample/17/1b/sample-171b2020100f5c003c1ae4a6fe5b9058.jpg)
Artist's commentary
To become an adult
Little by little, you lose parts of yourself.
Individuality or dreams, I don't know what.
https://chanomach.fanbox.cc/posts/1854000
From blog post:
I just wanted to do an image of playing musical chairs with just yourself. That's really all there is to the drawing.
At first I pictured assigning all kinds of elements like "Dreams" and "Reality" to each one, with the "Dreams" being the only one left not sitting on a chair, but in terms of where I was going with it, I wondered "Is that really okay?" So I just decided on just the composition for a start and began working at drawing it, and wondered how I was going to express "Okay, this self is the 'Dreams', this self is the 'Reality'" and so on.
• Nametags (Employee IDs) → It would be natural given the outfit, but they'd be too small to read what they said, plus you wouldn't be able to see it if they were facing away.
• Competition number tags → The writing would be large and easy to read even when facing away, but putting number tags with a suit would just look kind of comical (And that doesn't mean I should just make everyone wear tracksuits instead either)
• Writing above their heads → The easiest to understand and it would also communicate that this isn't a real environment (inside the brain).
So, I went "All right, writing above their heads, I guess..." but when I pictured how it would look with these girls having "Dreams" or "Reality" floating above their heads, I asked myself "No, wait, is this really okay?" It felt like trading something else important for ease of understanding.
Growing up brings with it your life becoming more monotonous, choices you can't avoid having to make, a lot of doubts vanishing, parts of you that you were unsure about becoming solidified, and generally you just losing a lot of things. "This self that didn't get to sit on a chair can just be whatever the person seeing it can decide it is, so I don't need any name tags or writing!" I thought.
Having gotten to this point, I really felt like something inside of me really clicked. My brush was moving really slowly until then, but from a point onwards it started being considerably smoother. It seems like drawing while being unsure of yourself really does slow you down. I don't think this is limited to me, but applies to all creators. If any of you artists are feeling that your brush is slow and inefficient, try taking a moment to iron out the concept or the composition until you understand it, and you might end up making better progress.