added entry to drawing challenge

src/routes/blog/2026/0205.md

@@ -416,4 +416,28 @@ I do want to be able to do the types of expressions at the top as well – in ad
 
 I'm stating the obvious. My brain is fried. I'll go to bed now. I have a medium-sized project planned for next week (unrelated to drawing) that I'd love to get started on tomorrow!
 
-Also: I want to try a bit more with colour soon. I know I'm not exactly perfect on the basics so far, but I think adding colour can add a lot to the drawings, and my motivation too – as seen in yesterday's drawings.
+Also: I want to try a bit more with colour soon. I know I'm not exactly perfect on the basics so far, but I think adding colour can add a lot to the drawings, and my motivation too – as seen in yesterday's drawings.
+
+## Day 17
+
+<span class="date-marker">2026-02-23, 22:22</span>
+
+I'm (almost) back to my regular energy! I got a lot better since yesterday and I was able to do things like go shopping, clean my flat, and even start another project which I may reveal soon if things go well... and of course, I drew again. And I'm really happy about today's attempt!!
+
+I had a specific pose in mind for a character I wanted to draw today, and I ended up making her the sole focus of today. In fact, I spent close to two hours drawing her, but that also includes small (thinking) breaks and 'research'. I started with a sketch (top right) to preview my vision, and that did indeed help when drawing. In fact, I could even have referred back to it more than I ended up doing.
+
+<SubtitledImage
+    image="18.webp"
+    altText="A pencil sketch of a girl holding up a V sign with her left arm. She is wearing a long-sleeve shirt, jeans, and her hair is tied up in a ponytail. She is winking, the other eye is coloured green. Her body is tilted towards the right side of the paper. In the top right corner is a lightly-drawn sketch of the girl's pose. The drawing is dated 2026-02-23."
+    subtitle="she's so cool! and i drew her all by myself!! how cool is that??"
+    alignment="right" />
+
+For this drawing, I referred to the manga drawing book a lot, though not because I copied a character from it (there's no character like this in the book). Rather, I tried to find references for positioning and stylistic inspiration (in other words, the outfit). It sort of helped. Although, I did mirror an approach to hair I saw in the book, and I gotta say: I *really* like how her hair turned out! Looking back on it, maybe some more thicker, outline-defining lines would have helped sell the vision of layers, but hey, it's all a learning experience.
+
+She didn't turn out exactly the way I had first envisioned; I first wanted to draw her wearing a skirt, for instance, but I hadn't practiced that before, so I went with jeans instead. I wasn't entirely sure about the top either. Not wanting to copy the drawing from [a few days ago verbatim](#day-13--a-new-hope), I went with a long-sleeve shirt instead of a tee. Creative, I know! But it did allow me to try my hand at cloth folds. I had the idea that, on her left arm, the sleeve should fall down because her arm was lifted up. I quite like the way the folds look. Though writing this now, I realise why the right arm looks so odd. It looks like the right arm is nude, but that might be because the folds on the left arm don't look like a long sleeve (there's not enough excess material), so my mind expects a shorter sleeve on the right arm too, which I didn't draw in, thinking it would go all the way up to the right hand because it's supposed to be a long sleeve. Oh well, something to keep in mind for next time.
+
+The winking was actually not intended at all, either. It's just that while erasing and re-drawing, I noticed that the upper eyelid looked nice on its own – like a winking eye, in fact. So I made it a feature.
+
+Also: while I do have other coloured pencils, I only have the one fancy green colour pencil, so that's the only colour I'm currently using. I would like to use more colour to spice up these drawings. However, I do like the side effect of all my characters having bright green eyes. Kinda neat.
+
+Can I just say... it's *so cool* that, two and a half weeks into this challenge, I can already draw characters like this. Never in my life did I expect I would be able to draw like this. I never really was able to go beyond stick figures and unshapely humanoid-ish characters, although I guess I didn't try very hard. Seeing what I am able to produce now is *insane*.