A project I took on for a while, during my time on tumblr, was something I dubbed "The Birthday Project". I was really into the Hetalia fandom at the time (I still love the series and characters but haven't read/watched it or been active in the fandom for a long time), and kept a tracker of all the character's birthdays. Every month or so I would pick someone random, and would then do a birthday drawing for them!

Now, bear in mind I can't remember the order I drew these in.

America

America as Captain America. I actually like the background now, but at the time I wasn't sure about it, so I made two versions.

I think it's easy to see that my biggest artistic flaw at this stage (and now, really) is my fear of contrast. Everything is too airbrushed and subtle, making the image look relatively flat and smudgy and without texture.

France

I like the general colors and composition of this one, but his face still bothers me so much that I actually have a sketch of a new version from when I was on my redrawing kick. Note that for these drawings I always imitate Himaruya's method of shading hair with airbrushing and lighter-colored dots.
I used a photo of a cosplayer for reference.

Liechtenstein

I'm satisfied with the clothes and background here, but wish her hair and face were more detailed. I used an anime base as a reference for her pose and flower.

Poland

After I finished this one, I found out there's a bit of confusion around when Poland's actual birthday is. I apparently had the wrong date!
This was an attempt at a new shading style, and I still have some fondness for this picture. I like drawing traditional clothes. Also, I was amused by the fact that Polish looks like gibberish. That message at the bottom there really does say "happy birthday".

Switzerland

While I actually like how this one turned out, this picture is a prime example of my artistic indecisiveness. I have two versions of it, and you wanna know what the only difference is?

The amount of hearts.

Belarus

This one was the first of the birthday drawings to break the theme of including the happy birthday message, and with both this one and the other one lacking said message, I had originally intended to add it later but got lazy and then got used to the way the picture looked without it.
I feel her face is lacking detail or contrast somehow, but I do love the way her hair turned out.

Germany and Prussia

This piece was quite popular, and introduced me to a blog that dedicated itself to collecting pictures of Germany smiling. No birthday message, but I feel it doesn't need one. Because the German birthday date celebrates the day the Berlin Wall came down, I wanted a victorious picture of the brothers!
The faces bug me a bit, but I love the colors and composition. As an artist, I tend to get hung up on random details, so my favorite part of the picture is actually Germany's sleeve and the section of flag under it.
...But as much as I like it, this is an example of my picture ending up too similar to my reference. I referenced another fanart of the brothers for the pose, one where they're singing together, and the pose looks nearly traced in some sections.

Oh, and one last Hetalia art just to close us off...

Ecuador! His creation was really special to me, as it's a very under-appreciated country that just so happens to be where my mother is from.

I want to try more fandom projects in the future!