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some monochrome margret studies I drew today while watching M*A*S*H

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hey sexy. I can tell by the frequency of your blog updates that you are once again avoiding it all

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Go touch some grass. Not hating, grass is just fun to roll around in. I'm right.

I'm allergic to grass. What God does that to his own invention?

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writing badly and cringily is actually an essential part of the writing process, both in terms of individual projects and in gaining voice and confidence as a writer in the long term. there is no way around the cringe. there's no way around the work.

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your honor, in my defense: who cares like omfggggggggg who cares???????????? like. come On

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to be loved is to be changed

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my favorite thing about elves vs hobbits is their names. elves will be named things like “maiden with the moonlight woven in her hair” and then hobbits are straight up like oh yeah my names domble bingus rumbubo

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hot artists don't gatekeep

I've been resource gathering for YEARS so now I am going to share my dragons hoard

Floorplanner. Design and furnish a house for you to use for having a consistent background in your comic or anything! Free, you need an account, easy to use, and you can save multiple houses.

Comparing Heights. Input the heights of characters to see what the different is between them. Great for keeping consistency. Free.

Magma. Draw online with friends in real time. Great for practice or hanging out. Free, paid plan available, account preferred.

Smithsonian Open Access. Loads of free images. Free.

SketchDaily. Lots of pose references, massive library, is set on a timer so you can practice quick figure drawing. Free.

SculptGL. A sculpting tool which I am yet to master, but you should be able to make whatever 3d object you like with it. free.

Pexels. Free stock images. And the search engine is actually pretty good at pulling up what you want.

Figurosity. Great pose references, diverse body types, lots of "how to draw" videos directly on the site, the models are 3d and you can rotate the angle, but you can't make custom poses or edit body proportions. Free, account option, paid plans available.

Line of Action. More drawing references, this one also has a focus on expressions, hands/feet, animals, landscapes. Free.

Animal Photo. You pose a 3d skull model and select an animal species, and they give you a bunch of photo references for that animal at that angle. Super handy. Free.

Height Weight Chart. You ever see an OC listed as having a certain weight but then they look Wildly different than the number suggests? Well here's a site to avoid that! It shows real people at different weights and heights to give you a better idea of what these abstract numbers all look like. Free to use.

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the way that the three hunters staying side by side the WHOLE journey, from rivendell through moria then from amon hen to rohan and more, to then face the black gates together at the end of it all, just has my heart in such a tight fucking grip

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the smiths / prsephonies-deactivated20200815 / the national / emily zhou

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mustve been a fucking trip when we switched from exorcism arrows to little books with crosses to fuckign laser beams

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"War is war and hell is hell."

This scene changed my brain chemistry.

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the goal for this year and for every year is to be kind and also to stop being scared of literally everything

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Behold, my magnum opus!!!

Every song played, sung, mentioned, and referenced in M*A*S*H! I worked very hard on this and there were unfortunately 3 or 4 songs that had no options through spotify.

Thankfully, using podcasts I was able to include some of my favorite of the unavailable though! I hope all my fellow mashposters enjoy!

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Communication

As far as I know, Korean churches only started implementing these red neon crosses in the 1960s, so they wouldn’t have existed during the Korean War, but what’s historical accuracy to a visually bold idea? The crosses are supposed to act as a beacon so people can see the church for miles and know that they’re welcome, but a lot of people find them to be a nuisance, and they contribute a lot to light pollution. I had that idea in my head while drawing this. I could say a lot about this drawing but I shan’t because I want everyone to have their own idea about it <3 Please tell me what you think !!

Drawing this ambulance nearly killed me and you can barely see the details anymore 😭 You can tell in the closeups that the quality is a little low, that’s because I had to compress it a lot so nightshade wouldn’t explode my computer. All in all it’s not that bad. A textured brush hides a multitude of sins.

This is available from my inprnt for anyone who wants it!

Matching icons, anyone? If that’s the image you want to project. . .

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you know, you know. no gods, no masters, no kings on pedestals. everyone is fallible. death of the author. you know! you are balanced about your intake of media - you allow the wiggle room, the grace, the gratitude, the skepticism. nobody above criticism.

but still. a weird gut-punch feeling, something akin to betrayal. you read the article. surprise! an author you love is actually: a serial fucking predator.

well, shit. what now. no, you knew he was a person (all people are), but now you're wondering - what have i overlooked by accident? what messages have i internalized that are strange and cruel? and also, like, what the fuck?

his actions lay a thick glaze on top of everything. like each place is now ruined, opaque in a new way. but okay, fine, you've done this before. you knew better, right? you've been betrayed by many a cherished childhood author.

still, this stickiness. fuck. can you pick up that book again. will you read it to your children. you've recommended it to others - will you ever do that again? and of course, of course, no parasocial relationships. you've done all the right work here. you were above this kind of sentiment. but the artist informs the art, right.

so it's not something as clear-cut as feeling he owed you, specifically (a stranger) better behavior - just that you kind of, in a distant and odd way... sort of trusted him to do better. it's not like a real trust or something speakable, just the faint hope that the product (good books) was a thin representation of the soul. now it feels like the product (good? books?) was a mask. in some small or insignificant way, your previous support of this person lent them power. your money and your time and your laughter.

and the thing is - you have this terrible, echoing sensation. how many times will this happen? over and over. you find out that the singer you love is actually a predator. you learn over drinks that your favorite high school english teacher is in jail for what he did to her. you listen to the news idly and suddenly discover that a woman you used to idolize has been abusing her kids for an actual eon.

what can you touch without the static melting off. you can't even really complain about it too much (you were supposed to know better, and besides, you don't want the same re-split "it's not your fault, love what you love" basic advice), but now it's here. somehow, it feels like - you let him into your life.

it's not that things need to be pure or an artist has to be like, endlessly perfect, mindful. demure. it's more just this terrible truth that has been replayed through your veins so often it feels criminally vain. power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. did you want any one person to be worth that power?

it's just that he wrote books where he seemed to understand that. he seemed to know about hierarchies and unfair systems and bigotry and privilege. you thought they were books about what it means to struggle. you thought they were about having power and still using it for good rather than for control.

maybe that's why they were fantasies, after all.