#(I guess you can print out digital art too actually)

[stilltoolazy]

This show has made me not only want to, but actually seriously sit down and just draw, for the first time in… years. I don’t think I’ve drawn something just for the sake of drawing it since, like. 2016. I’ve drawn stuff since, but that’s just been, you know. Doodles and scribbles when bored in class. Or sketches for embroidery or something. Not. Just a drawing. I even broke out one of the several boxes of graphic pencils I have lying around because my grandma got me at least one every year for a while there. And yes, the side of my hand is completely black now. I’d almost forgotten that was a thing.

Turned out pretty good, I’d say! Especially the armour!

[mayorofcattown]

Some fun news, I got a printer! Like an actual decent printer for printing art stuff, so now I can make prints (and hopefully bookmarks?) at home instead of having to use print shops every time, so I'll be able to add new prints to my shop more easily, and do smaller runs of them

I'll probably still get stickers manufactured else where cause I like the quality of those fine, and also you need those cutting machines to cut them out and those sound like actual nightmares to use from everyone I've known who has one lol

Anyway I did a bunch of tests with different paper, and I've put them under the read more if that's interesting to anyone

I did some lil a6 test prints on some photo paper I got (top is satin, bottom is matte) and they turned out Very Nice. Colours turned out super good especially, and surprisingly close to digital even without converting to CMYK, which is good cause the main issue I was having with local printers was the colours (especially darks) being super off (which is probably my own fault, but still)

(ignore the bad cropping on the top right zelda I fucked up the cutting of it lol)

You can see above the difference in sheen better. My photos don't really do them justice (my room gets like no sunlight and my phone is extremely average) but difference between them is otherwise pretty marginal. The satin does seem a little truer to the original colours and slightly better definition I think? But you can only really tell if you stare at them both for ages. Dust does seem to stick to it more tho which is a bit annoying.

I do like the look and feel of the matte tho... The matte is supposed to be a thinner gsm than the satin but weirdly it feels sturdier? idk how paper works man. but either way the matte is also way cheaper so I'll probably stick with that.

Now I just have to figure out how to do bookmarks. I'm thinking I'll probably get like a cold laminate film for those (I think that's what people use to make stickers harder wearing?), these photo papers are a bit too thin on their own otherwise (the bookmarks I get printed are 350 gsm, while the matte is 230 gsm) and its probably easier to get the laminate than photo paper that high gsm.

and then I also have to figure out double sided printing... I guess I could stick two sides together but that seems like it'd be a) a pain and b) fall apart to easily. That's a problem for future me tho.

[jessicanjpa]

Twilight Advent Calendar 2023 Event

🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲

Dec. 21 - Pick any five characters. What's something they always carry with them?

Jasper: Zippo lighter

You never know when you might need to dismember and incinerate an enemy. Or, you know, burn out an entire classroom because you accidentally killed the teacher and you have no choice but to murder the whole class to cover your tracks. Safety first.

Carlisle: doctor bag including a fantasy-level knockout syringe

I don't even know what's in that syringe. Propofol? Ketamine? Methohexital? Even if he were to inject a bolus directly into the jugular vein after making an educated guess about his victim's body weight, I don't think anything can work that fast. Cardiac arrest is more likely, but he's the doctor.

Anyway, that syringe canonically sees more action than Jasper's lighter and I think that's hilarious.

Esme: tin pencil box, 1921

Carlisle had an exasperating habit of purchasing any and every item that newborn Esme mentioned even the smallest interest in. When the words "I used to draw when I was a girl" crossed her lips, he practically ran out the door to shop for art supplies. This tin pencil box came home in his pocket. Esme still carries it in her purse to this day, stocked with whichever medium is her favorite at the time. A small, battered sketch pad is ready and waiting, too—you never know when you might stumble across something beautiful.

Rosalie: decorative makeup compact and emergency toolkit

It's important to Rosalie that everyone—humans and vampires alike—see her as both beautiful and competent. I don't think the books ever mentioned whether Rosalie and/or Alice wear makeup to school, but if they do, it has to be reapplied often because of the nature of vampire skin. And while she's perfectly capable of using people's glasses as a mirror (canon), I think she'd rather do it in style.

And she feels most comfortable when she's prepared for mortifying scenarios like her car breaking down in a school parking lot someday. She also likes being the one to say "Well actually you just need a 3/16 hex wrench—here" when someone is scratching their head over a broken chair/desk/bicycle/anything.

Charlotte: digital camera -> smartphone

Nomads have to be very particular about what they keep with them; no self-respecting vampire wants to dash around the globe wearing a backpack. But Charlotte had to, back when she had no choice but to carry around a bulky camera, extra rolls of film, and prints. She very happily made the switch to digital once the resolution became good enough. And now she's made the switch to smartphone photography (a little more grudgingly). Peter got her an iPhone-compatible macro lens last year and that finally won her over.

🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲

You can find all of the #twilightadvent23 prompts here!

[mysticsparklewings]

Obscutober 2024 Day 15: Peregrinate 🥾

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Peregrinate (v.)

to travel or journey, especially to walk on foot

to walk or travel over; traverse

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You might say this one took me on a bit of a “journey!” 🗺️

I went in very unsure of what to do, but once I got brainstorming I kinda had *too many* ideas & I’m not sure I managed to do them all justice…But I am SUPER happy with the results! 😄 

Click the "Keep Reading" and we'll talk a little more about my thoughts/process. ✨

⭐️ Like My Art and Want to see more of it? Here's All My Links! ⭐️

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I'm going to begin today's description with a moment to pause and hope there is no description- or uploading-related catastrophe today like there was yesterday. [And if you Sparklers are reading this paragraph, that should mean there wasn't one...but we'll see...]

As for actually talking about the art: You might guess by my posting time that I yet again got a late start working today's piece. That is true, however that's not the only factor to blame. Originally, this word made the consideration list while I was pulling together the prompts solely because it makes me think ofMiss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (which long-time Sparklers may remember I am a fan of even though it doesn't come up often). Yet the definition for the word doesn't really relate back to that book series; You could argue that it does tie in nicely in some ways, but that's about all I can say about that without getting spoilers all over the place.

But I bring that up because I really had no clue what I was going to make for this word other than "maybe someone map-inspired," and even when I first sat down and started trying to brainstorm I felt very uneasy about what I'd be able to come up with.

And yet! Once I got the brainstorm going, I think I opened a bit of a floodgate, actually. 😅 As it turns out, there was a lot more "map-inspired" stuff I could think of that could be converted into simple mandala motifs than I expected!

A lot of these really kinda hit me all at once and I am a little short on time, so I'm just going to bullet point the things that made it in, and give minor elaboration where it seems necessary:

Compass! Perfect for a base shape and some larger filler motifs. I did try to be mindful that the compass elements didn't come out too similar to Day 3, though.

Okay, literally a map, but more specifically: A paper map you'd fold up and take with you. This idea was in my brain but it wasn't until I did some Googling and saw another mandala design that used a folded map in a ring like this that I had any grasp on how best to fit it in. My map is a bit wide because I'd gotten most of the central compass elements in already and didn't want to change them, so putting it as the outer ring made the most sense of what options I had left. But it still works!

Related: While more challenging than I expected to do in a way I was happy with, I had probably more fun than I should have putting the little blobs and dotted lines on the map. And the "X-marks-the-spot" idea for that was the one thing I had in mind before I even got started on the rest of the mandala, so I'm glad I was able to squeeze that in somewhere.

Googling also brought the little "you are here" teardrop shape to my attention. Ironically even though I've probably spent more of my life using digital maps to travel than traditional and am therefore super familiar with that image, it didn't naturally occur to me as a "travel symbol" at all. But it fits really well—It was both a nice way to get an extra pop of color in here (red seemed like the obvious choice), and it was a great bit of filler between the compass points.

After going over the definition again to get started, I felt like it was important to get either boots/shoes or footprints in the design somewhere for the "especially to walk on foot," part. I was half-tempted to do more like barefoot prints because I thought boots would be a little too much detail...And then my Googling reminded me this style of shoe prints exists, and that seemed like the much-better way to go. Less detailed, still gets the point across, and I think most people would rather "peregrinate" with shoes on than they would barefoot! 🤭

After all that, I had just a little bit of space left. I didn't have any immediate ideas to fill it, but after some looking around and consideration, a couple "this way/that way" kind of signs seemed like they'd do the trick about as well as anything else. And I am glad I went with those because in order to fill the space "enough" without getting too cramped, I alternated an upside-down one in there, which speaks to the Alice in Wonderland obsessed part of my brain.

And the very last thing i wanted to do, mostly for "flavor," was the little pointer arrow. I think it came out more like a weapon-arrow than a compass-arrow, but that's what felt right so I stand by it. Although it was originally pointing South-East instead of North-West; I genuinely thought I'd like South-East better when I did that, but it felt wrong—I think maybe because of the shading on the internal compass points?—So I flipped it, and this feels much better.

The color scheme was also one of the simpler ones—Just whatever colors I associate with maps; Tan and Green for paper and different kinds of terrain. Blue for water, and also certain types of maps seem to incorporate a light blue fairly often for other things like roads. I already mentioned red for the "you are here," but it also works as a little red and green for "Stop" and "Go," which even if you're not traveling by car are still pretty travel-adjacent in my book. Then just a little gold to "polish" off the compass imagery specifically. ...Oh! I almost forgot—Both to mention it and to actually do it, you can see I did end up putting a little N and S up there for North and South, similar to the Roman numerals on Day 3. Originally, I had thought to put them...Somewhere else with more room so I could do the proper N/E/S/W around, but I go carried away with my other ideas and took up all the other possible spaces without even realizing what I'd done. 😅

Of course, I couldn't bring myself to un-do any of that, so I made do with what (little) space I had left. And besides, I was feeling like the very center around the words was a little plain anyhow. Really, I should've made the innermost circle a bit tighter and then maybe things would've worked out so I had more space to work with and get the letters in better, but oh well! 🤷‍♀️

I really was not expecting much from this one, but here I am thinking the final product is right up there with Day 2 and Day 13 as a top contender for my favorite. Granted, I think this one appeals to me as a favorite in pretty different ways from the others, but still.

That's probably a good note to leave on. The only thing I can say I'm really not happy with today is the posting time, and I feel like I can't complain about that too much because making the choice to try not to worry so much about the time ticking by and letting myself actually think about what I was doing is probably one of the main reasons I'm so pleased with the results.

In any case Sparklers, I think I've told you all there is to tell for now, and I hope you enjoy this one as much as I do. 🤗

Now let's see if cross-posting will be as non-frustrating as making the mandala was...(I doubt it!) And hope the latter half of the month is full of a lot more days with outcomes at least as satisfying as this one was. 🤞

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See the Prompt List

Artwork © me, MysticSparklewings

Obscutober Concept Inspired by nikolas_tower

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⭐️ Like My Art and Want to see more of it? Here's All My Links! ⭐️

[allhandsondeck1]

ATTENTION ALL NON KPOP LISTENERS THAT HAVE A KPOP STAN IN YOUR LIFE!!!!! (This is a ramble)

Do you have a friend, partner, sibling, etc. that loves kpop? Is their birthday soon? Do you want to give them a bouquet, but don't know what flower to give them? I HAVE THE PERFECT THING FOR YOU! A BIAS BOUQUET!!!

Okay so along with my sister's birthday being.. literally rn (it's 1 am for me at the time of posting this), it's also right before valentines day! She's my best friend, and my sister, and she deserves a bouquet. She is obsessed with kpop. Like, can hear the first few seconds of a song and name the group, song, album, and who is singing at each moment(she scares me). She has like, a million favorite groups, so I had made a list and broooo.. I didn't even use half of the list, and the list was at least 20 or more members.. AND IT WASNT EVEN ALL OF THEM

So you can tell what my motive for this was, yeah? It's actually hella easy! I didn't take progress shots, because I got school later and didn't have the time to stop and take pictures, but here's what you need!

An editing or art app

Paper/Cardstock

lamination sheets

Wooden skewers

A foam cone

Tape

Tissue paper

Pipe cleaners (optional)

Sticky notes (optional)

Soo to start I went to pinterest and downloaded a few photos of my sister's favorite idols. You don't have to do all of them, you can do one group or just a bunch of photos of their favorite person! Whatever you want. I used the app IBISPAINTX to put them all together in different sizes, so it was easier to print and cut out and they can vary in sizes. Use whatever app or website you think works!

I basically just put them in collages like this.

I emailed them to myself and then printed them out on cardstock paper, just so they were stiffer and would last longer, but if you don't want to/don't have that, regular printer paper will work!

Jm using a digital version, just to show it(also in courtesy of the girl bc its my sister's favorite and I forgot to print her out 😭) but after they are printed, cut your idols out, just the perimeter around it!

Then, this is also optional, but I used lamination sheets over the pictures! Try and fit as many of your idols on the sheets just to save, but be careful, because you want to make sure when you cut them out, they have a small gap on the lamination, just so the lamination doesn't peel off. The lamination will just make the pictures last longer, so your person can keep them after! *the gray represents the lamination!*

Now, I bought a foam cone fromWalmart, but yoh can probably grt it at micheals or any craft store! Mine was a little small, I don't have exact dimensions cause I just guessed, but I think eying it and guessing too will do just fine! I also got some skewers, which can be found anywhere, I just found them in a drawer lol. Next thing is tape!

Youre going to take your idols and your skewers, just tape the back onto the skewer before you stick it into the foam. Now, this part is optional too, but I used some purple pipe cleaners to wrap around the skewers! I just measured the part that was stuck into the foam, then I taped the idol on after I pulled it out,and then I wrapped the pipe cleaners above the line and to the bottom of the picture, and stuck it back in

Another optional thing is to make paper hearts! I found a tutorial on YouTube to make inflatable ones! I used the skewers to poke through the top and then layer purple and pink ones. I made seven so it could start on one color and end in the same color! I made three of these pattern heart things, but you can make as many as you want! (This works well if it's for a romantic partner or for valentines day!)

Finally I just used purple and pink tissue paper to hide the cone, and taped it together to keep it in place! Here's the final product in horrible lighting

I can only name like, 5 people on this bouquet, and then the girl on my demonstration but idk how to spell her name lol

Anyways! There's a good, decently cheap present for your local kpop lover!

[otakween]

Digimon Adventure (Manga) - Vol. 1

This is the manga (or manhua) adaptation of the original Digimon Adventure anime. I got my copy from the library and you can borrow it for free on Archive.org!

Manga adaptations of anime are typically cheap money grabs that just copy-paste from the anime, removing some of the soul of the original along the way. As such, I'm not expecting much from this.

Notes:

Ch. 1

-You can almost always tell when a manga isn't drawn by a Japanese artist, it's just a certain vibe (I know this is technically a manhua). That being said, the art is competent enough. Yuen Wong seems to struggle most when it comes to faces. A lot of the faces look really janky and off model for both the digimon and the digi-destined. The only other thing that's kind of off is that the text boxes are very heavily lined and take up a lot more space than I'm used to.

-When Sora is drawn in chibi-mode she has the straps of her hat up like a rabbit. At first the silhouette was so unfamiliar that I had no idea who it was lol.

-So they covered two episodes in one chapter (up until the Shellmon battle). Let's see if the pace stays that way...

Ch. 2

-This definitely has a similar vibe to most manga adapted from anime that I've read. I wonder if it will diverge from the original material at any point, too soon to judge.

-Tai says to Agumon "I'll do anything but a teeth buffing" and I have nooo idea what that means? (Is he saying "don't eat me?") Also in chapter one Izzy said "baby blue, how emasculating!" when talking about the digivice. I don't think Koushiro would ever say that tbh. I feel like spotting these weird dialogue choices is going to be the most entertaining part about reading this.

Ch. 3

-I guess we're now going at a pace of one episode per chapter, which is fine. Somehow the content still seems a little condensed with a lot of the emotional beats cut out. I feel like the setting changes every two seconds which is giving me whiplash.

-Some weird quirks: the digi-destined call their digimon by their rookie names, even when they're in champion form. Also, the artist really really likes drawing smiley faces as stand-ins for the actual characters. That's like a step below chibification lol

-I think manga like this is perfect for if you wanted to watch Digimon Adventure 02, but you didn't want to catch up on a 50+ episode anime. It's a lot faster to read than to watch. (Although probably not as satisfying overall).

Ch. 4

-More cheesy dialogue. Izzy says "don't mess with an elite hacker" to Tai lol. Koushiro is way more likeable in the original Japanese because localizations loved to make nerds insufferable in the 90s.

-It's funny, I've never thought of Tentomon as robot-like, but in this chapter he said his parts were "short circuiting" and I was like "oh yeahhh...I guess he does have metallic features"

-Did we really need that close-up crotch shot of Andromon?

-You would think that the plot point of there being editable code laying around in random areas of the digital world would have come up again, but I can't remember another time it was really used to the kids' advantage.

Ch. 5

-This panel made me laugh:

(something about this phrasing and the expressionless chibis is so funny).

-And then Izzy never manually triggered a digivolution again...for some reason? (I feel like this was definitely explained in the anime, but I can't remember what they said).

-They didn't censor the poop this time! As usual, you can get away with more in print than you can on the screen B)

-They confirm that you can repel Numemon with sunlight...and then immediately the kids get attacked by more Numemon in broad daylight. Quickest continuity error ever!

-Another chuckle worthy moment:

Ch. 6

-Okay, but this one had me die laughing. Just a really good dad joke:

-Going from Adventure 02 back to the early Adventure days the stakes really do feel lower. No existential conundrums or human/humanoid villains to contend with. Just rampaging digis that can be easily cured.

Ch. 7

-Maybe it's just a translation thing, but sometimes the digimon act like there's one of each digimon species. Like Gomamon says "Unimon's a nice guy!" as if there's one Unimon in the world. Pretty confusing for kids. I wish mon series would just use names (they do sometimes, but it's not the status quo).

Yep, that was pretty generic. I wish they had thrown some more personality in there to make this a unique experience. I would have loved to read some final thoughts from the mangaka or to have gotten an omake of some sort. Ohhh welll...

[dawnthefluffyduck]

Just got out of class where we had our group critique; can finally post something I've had done for a couple days now 🎉🎉 project details/commentary/funny(?) story under cut because I don't know how to keep things brief

tl;dr: Made some stickers that show things that interest me in Japan for class :) might try to print them later on, if I do then I'll post that too

This was for Digital Art, it's another "draw concepts of a specific location," but I didn't like, draw where I live this time, so I can actually post this one online haha.

The actual instructions were: "Create six 3"x3" stickers that represent parts of a city, country, landmark, or attraction you would like to visit/have visited." I, a typical art student, chose to do Japan, but I didn't really wanna lean into the whole anime thing a lot, partly because I just don't watch it as often as I used to. I wanted to stick with architecture and major landmarks, but buildings are hard to draw repeatedly in a shorter time limit so I ended up drawing some food too. Also, I'm a percussionist, so I wanted to include a taiko drum just cause they're really cool

The lineart itself took the longest since I reeeaaaally wanted to emphasize a hand drawn feeling to the stickers. I felt this was the best way to make all of the stickers match stylistically, aside from general color matching. I couldnt entirely rely on colors to make them match because things like the ramen bowl had wayyy more colors than the buildings/mountains, and the onigiri was mostly one color. Matching the stickers was part of the grading criteria, so after a lot of brainstorming, I ended up deciding to put more attention to detail into the linework than to the color scheme (though I did try to weasel in that orangey red into as much as I could)

Illustrator did not like line style I used, 'cause apparently all those textured pens take a lot more to load than the normal ones (never had that problem in the program I normally use to draw, so it caught me off guard). Halfway into the project my laptop's fan would sound like a jet engine every time I opened the file; needless to say, progress was slowed a bit as the program started to get extremely laggy haha.

I wasn't able to start on the coloring until a few days before the project was due but I was still good on time . Ultimately ended up having to pull a near all nighter though, because Illustrator crashed in the middle of the coloring process (guessing bc of the lineart), which got rid of hours worth of work :D so cool, love that

Got it done, walked into class on Monday w/ three hours of sleep ready for critique, but five or so other people didn't finish theirs on time so prof ended up extending the due date anyway :D :D so cool very awesome

Can't really be mad though. I would've been happy if that courtesy was extended to me if I were in that spot, so I just went home and used the extra time to knock out some homework lol.

The extra time was worth it too cause everyone's turned out so cool :D wish I could share those too cause I loved looking at all of them during critique today

I said I just got out of class when I wrote this but I took so long to finish the post that two hours have passed since then,,

[livewireprojects]

Rambling about old art program

I'm mostly doing this cause I want to ramble & I don't want it being most of the text on an old image I'm posting.(Cause lots of rambling)

When I was younger I had a program called Manga Studio Pro 4.0, I didn't know how to use it much but I eventually was able to use it good enough.(Although at points I couldn't figure how to remove the text on some things if I was making a comic instead of just an image) This was an old program, while some of my stuff was digital installs I don't know how I got or were already there(MSPaint) this was the old way involving a CD that came in a box with a code.

At some point either from either from losing the box(this was a program I had a CD & code for in the past), using it too many times(I transferred computers a few times) or who knows what like not knowing how to use the code or losing the code for it I eventually lost the ability to install/use it. I think I tossed everything I had left for it after I lost the ability to use it & I don't remember when I tried to reinstall it. It worked I was able to reinstall it I just couldn't figure out if I had the code or not anymore cause some stuff confused me.

I don't remember much but I know that when you saved new projects you'd have a folder with the file to open the picture in the program(with layers there if they were there) & an image that was a jpeg full sized(depending on how big you made it) image with all visible layers merged.(I mean it's an image so of course) I have many unfinished projects I found in some backups I made of past computers, they'll never be finished & I'll never be able to open them up in the program again. It's not like I could finish them without starting over anyway thanks to how much shit has changed.

Looking around what I was able to it seems the most recent pics I made in manga studio were from 2012 which was my second year of high school.

My art programs back then were MSPaint & a copy of Paint Tool Sai I found somewhere(I bought a license for the program a few years back so use an actual legal ver now)

When I was younger I use to use Photoshop CS & MSPaint(every once in a while I used Manga Studio Pro 4.0)

Today/in recent years I use Clip Studio Paint EX, sometimes Paint Tool Sai, MSPaint occasionally(mostly use it for quickly pasting screenshots or stuff to copy to paste elsewhere) & very recently Procreate.

Up until a certain point after high school I drew with a mouse, I sometimes draw with a mouse but I mostly use a wacom tablet I've had for a few years. Also use an ipad for procreate.

It's kind of funny, I didn't use manga studio that much but I use clip studio paint a lot now. I bring this up cause manga studio is still going, it's called clip studio now.

Here's so images I was able to find from when I still used the program just so you can see what I worked on. If you've seen my art stuff you'll know how much things have changed too.

This pic was from 2011, it's an old image of my fursona's quad form

To the right is a more up-to-date version from 2016, not much has changed but the paw print is gone(the tail has a little more detail like it has fins now)

Here's a pic from 2021 were my fursona is dressed for pride month that shows better details. Funny enough first pic is manga studio, second pic is sai & third is clip studio paint so I guess it comes full circle.

Pic 1

This is the most recent pic(2012) I made in manga studio, according to the description I sketched it in manga studio then colored it in sai, the text is done in MSPaint. This was for an Alice in Wonderland based project I didn't get far in except for a few ideas.

Pic 2:

I have no idea when I made this, DA says I posted it there in 2012 but going off the art style looks older than I recall. After trying to search around I think this & pic 3 are maybe from 2010 & I got a little better in 2012 when I made pic 1.

This is for someone I use to know that I don't exactly have good memories of. I use to be in an AMV group with her & at some point she requested art from me & would repeatedly ask if it was done. I don't remember how often but I know she was asking about it to the point it was considered rude especially after I asked her to stop.

This was for one of her projects that as far as I know never got very far. I don't even remember what the plot was. I think it was two high schoolers falling in love while caring for a kid that was either their future daughter or the guy's little sister.

I think I was experimenting with the background on this & pic 3 cause I think the backgrounds had to do with finding random brushes & using them as much as I could were I thought it fit.

Pic 3:

From the same person that the less said that I remember the better cause I'm just going to end up ranting about how she kept making child me pissed from repeatedly asking if an art request was done when I kept asking her to stop & it wasn't done yet.

Anyway I think this was suppose to be for a slice of life fanime she was working on. I don't remember much past the blond(Midori) being the I think main character & something involving her having 3 ex-boyfriends with the magenta/pink hair one being dead. I think I drew this before pic 2 but I put it at the end cause there's more stuff.

Three of the images(the image in the thought bubble, the photo to the left & all three chibis if you count them as one image) were all imported into manga studio to be part of it.(Or the photo on the very left & the chibis were imported cause I think the pic in the thought bubble was edited in using Photoshop CS & the text was shaded in Photoshop as well)

Here's the three images in pic 3

Pic 1 was made with MSPaint & Photoshop CS(background is one I made in photoshop at some point), the writing was suppose to look crayon like cause this was before I had Sai which had a crayon brush

Pic 2 was made traditionally on paper & with sharpy before editing it in Photoshop CS. Don't know where I found the floor, the text in the corner is the only thing helping me guess this is from 2010. That cat charm is an old character of mine, was kind of a joke on Hello Kitty for some reason.

Pic 3 was made in MSPaint

I got one more pic I made in manga studio but it's getting it's own post.(Link to said post)

It's kind of crazy just how much was done & how much has changed from then & now.(I dunno how to end this)

[wedoartblog]

Tin Brain

Solo show by photographer and AI artist Matus Toth

July - August 2023 at Kaffeemitte / Berlin

In July 2023, we are showing TinBrain - an image series generated with Artificial Intelligence. Nine free works by Prague-based photographer and artist Matus Toth.

The debate about machine intelligence affects large parts of society. For labour and for science, there is talk of a quantum leap. The Chat GPT text generator is compared to the invention of printing. And the development is still very dynamic!

AI also affects art and the idea of creativity quite fundamentally. Questions of basic principle arise when, for example, the incomplete 10th and last symphony of Beethoven is finished by a software.

For image creation, Midjourney, DALL-E and the AI applications by Adobe and others are what Chat GPT is for text creation. 

Based on the nine works in the exhibition, we ask Matus Toth about his approach to AI. Which programs does he use and what were the prompts for each art work? How does the “new tool” AI affects his style as a fashion photographer? Is there a renaissance of surrealism? 

The exhibition is extended by a conversation between Matus Toth and a computer specialist. A nerd from the field of "neural networks" helps Matus Toth - and us - to better understand the tools and production processes. A dialogue about technical, aesthetic and social issues.

We are happy if you visit our exhibition at Kaffeemitte, if you like the artworks by Matus Toth and if you are interested in the theoretical discussion.

Interview:

Matus Toth: I have been a photographer for 20 years, I studied in Prague, and I mainly do fashion photography. I make a living from commercial work like fashion editorials and advertising, but I have always done independent work as well. I'm interested also in documentary photography and digital art. For about a year now, I have been creating images with various AI applications. Making images with AI feels very playful. I guess the image generators have built-in adjusting screws for coincidence. It turns out that with the same prompts, the same image never appears. There are not two times the same picture. This element of surprise is fun, great fun. And working with AI can be inspiring. When thinking about a concept for a shot, my thoughts take completely different paths because I think less about technical limits. Consequently, I've been more and more combining AI elements with photos from my camera, which are commissioned for fashion editorials. 

Gregor Hutz: Do you feel that you understand how AI works, how the machine works?

MT: Too little. To understand everything about, say, Midjourney, requires a very different level of know-how. And even people who deal with the programming are surprised themselves and admit that they don't fully understand how machine intelligence "thinks". Often the results make me curious, I would like to know: how are these crazy images created? What processes happen when a stunning atmosphere appears or how can the AI come up with such unpredicted interpretations? But it's not necessarily important for my actual work. AI is more a part of the production process - between idea and final retouching.

GH: Do you talk to computer experts, nerds and software engineers?

MT: Yes, I try to understand what's happening technically. Because the better I understand how A.I. works, the more fun it is. So I keep up with it, even if the next new thing is announced every few weeks and it's a highly complex system. 

GH: Are there specific things you would like to understand technically? 

MT: For me, a crucial question is: how does AI understand what I want to tell it? Especially when I write complete sentences, I can no longer follow what the AI understands - what do my words mean to the program? How can I explain myself? As humans, we spend our whole lives learning to understand what the other person is trying to say. But the computer understands us in a completely different way. Why does it understand me so well sometimes and sometimes not at all? 

GH: Can you give an example of that?

MT: I wanted to portray a woman in the water and I wanted to put some shoes on her head. The AI then portrayed the woman in the water perfectly, but couldn't put the shoes on her head. I tried for hours, but it didn't work. So in the end I had to put the shoes on her head in post-production. Fortunately, Photoshop's AI is also pretty smart now. The program is not as creative as Midjourney, but for fixing things, it's a power tool. In the past, when we wanted to publish an image in different formats, it was always a problem. On set, you might have to move the camera further away and bear in mind that all formats can be cut out of the same shot. But that changes the focus effect etc... With Photoshop AI, I can simply adjust the format by letting the software fill in empty areas. Nevertheless, I still use classic tools such as brush or stamp. That requires some know-how and experience. But if the technical development continues like this, soon we will only write: "Draw skin softer" or "Make pullover fuzz-free" - and the software will implement it.

GH: Please describe your production process.

MT: Most of the pictures I make start with a concept. An idea for a little story, for which I then think of an image. Like a still from a movie. I do research and look for old photographs or images that might fit. In the past, I used a pen, a camera and models. Today I also use prompts to describe my idea to MidJourney. This happens via the Discord software. The prompting is extended when I use the /blend command. I then load existing pictures into the AI and combine them with prompts. I have the impression that the AI then produces somewhat less at random and I get a result more quickly. But the result is not always the most important! Sometimes AI comes up with something completely different from what I wanted. That inspires me and I forget the old concept and come up with a new story. This wow-effect is great fun. Nevertheless, the finished picture is not "just" what AI suggests, but the result of working with various software. Research, prompts, my own photos and detailed post-production - that's more or less the way. 

GH: Has working with AI changed your style as a commercial photographer? 

MT: In the last 20 years I have seen a lot of technical developments in my field, and each time the style has changed. Not only mine, but the look that defined a certain time is also a consequence of the tools.

GH: The surreal element, the surrealistic tone from AI can be seen in your work and some of your colleagues in advertising and fashion photography. Could it be that there is a renaissance of surrealism? 

Salvador Dali: It's about time.

GH: What will be the consequences for you as a photographer and for your industry? For models, make-up artists or set designers? I know a man who just finished his training as a speaker. That is now obsolete. There are zero jobs for him anymore. 

MT: In fashion photography, there will hopefully still be productions with humans in the near future. The models are often famous and people want to see the real person. Simple stock photography has a harder time - Midjourney can already replace that quite well. For example, a happy family in the sunset. The client doesn't have to pay buyouts and the picture is practically just as good. At the beginning of this year, there was a lot of hype, and amazing pictures popped up everywhere. But it also shows that the creators are not all equally good. The constant work with the medium and the constant production of images is still a demanding process.

GH: The author Yuval Noah Harari has warned of a tsunami that awaits us. There have already been many layoffs, and the worries go further: all the way to the extinction of humankind as we know it. If artificial intelligence will soon be much more intelligent than humans, will humans extinct? 

MT: For me, AI is first of all a tool, just like my camera. Of course, any tool can be misused. And it's already being misused - for example, with emotionalized spam. Or calls are made where the person no longer recognizes that he is talking to an AI. Deep fake is dangerous. And the speed at which technology is advancing is impressive. Every few weeks, the next incredible development...

GH: What do you think about the EU's AI Act, which calls for regulations on the use of AI? 

MT: I like technology, but I think there should be rules for AI. The question, of course, is whether the politicians who should be taking care of it are doing the right thing - and doing it fast enough. I'm afraid the legal regulations are not coming behind, it's like with the other digital technologies. Politics can't keep up.

GH: What are your hopes? What are you looking forward to when you think about the future of machine intelligence?

MT: Maybe when we are old, there will be robots that wash our hair and cook our food. But there is still some time to go. And I think it's good when no one has to do monotonous, senseless work anymore. Like following a truck for hundreds of kilometers, or writing boring marketing prose that no one reads. Also for medicine it has great potential. It's ambivalent. Imagine if an AI could answer your questions better than I could do myself. And maybe an AI could also interview me better than you can? In that case, it would be reasonable if the two AI's would just write this interview directly with each other. But what do we do then?

FAZIT: 

Machine intelligence is a transformative technology and will have far-reaching implications for all areas of life. What these implications are is not yet decided. 

We must address policy and decision-makers. For example, on the question of "post copyright" rules. If the AIs are trained with our images and data, then we should participate financially. Who is allowed to make money with images and texts if the machines have not respected copyright when learning?

Or should the machines themselves be recognised as creators? 

In any case, there have to be democratically legitimised rules for dealing with big data sets. Companies like Spawning (https://spawning.ai), help with a disclaimer that prohibits the crawlers from using the content for deep learning. This opt-out option is certainly only an in-between solution, but it asks the right question. 

It is much more a social than a technical issue.

Artists approach their topics playfully and do not think with efficiency in mind. This view is important and perhaps art can decisively complement one of the greatest developments of our time. As in the Renaissance, when science and art were closely linked and this union triggered significant changes - right up to the Enlightenment of the 18th century. That is why Matus Toth's exhibition is meant to be an incentive for further image series and interviews.

[aerinis]

Doing my belated 2023 art review. Putting it below a read more because a lot of stuff happened this year and some of it is kind of heavy.

2023 was a pretty good year for me, both personally and artistically. I had a couple of annoying minor medical issues that I'm still dealing with, but I'd say I was able to maintain my goal of drawing at least one little doodle a day for most of the year. I will say though that the vast majority of what I drew this year - probably like 95% - was personal art. Hopefully someday I'll be satisfied enough with it to post it. I'd also like to spend 2024 focusing more on painting and practicing landscapes. I spent the first three months of the year working on a piece for a local art gallery competition, which actually ended up getting accepted and subsequently spent the rest of the year touring around the state in several different exhibitions. That introduced me to the wonderful world of trying to figure out how the hell digital prints and shipping work, but everything turned out fine in the end. It remains the largest piece I've ever made at 18"x24", and hopefully once I get it shipped back to me I'll be sending it off to my parents. I also found out that I HATE writing artist's statements, like fuck off you don't need to know my background, just interpret the piece however. I'd like to post here, but I want to make sure first that it hasn't been uploaded to the internet by any of the galleries since I'd like to keep my personal info off this blog lmao What's funny is that I feel like I've come so far as an artist ever since I submitted that piece, that every time I look at the B-grade prints I have lying around I'm like "oh my god this looks terrible, I can't believe this got accepted". I guess that's just what being an artist is like Following that, I took the next month off from art, which was a nice little break. I did a bunch of art parties in FFXIV, which are always great for improving, because as counter-intuitive as it seems the best way to get good at art is to be forced to draw a whole bunch of different things under strict time limits. I feel like I can definitely see my lineart improving as the months go on. I also started working more with color, my eternal nemesis, and I'm hoping next year I can really start to nail down a style. I did Art Fight for the first time ever in July and it ROCKED, definitely going to do it again this year and I'm still pretty proud of the drawings I did. I love an event where it's socially acceptable for me to draw people's OCs. I think I'll probably focus on doing more WoW OCs this year. Unfortunately July is the busiest month for me at work, where I'm waking up at 5AM for basically the entire month straight and working in 100+ degree weather, so we'll see if I can maintain the energy for it.

And now the heavy stuff. Some of you might know that I'm pretty involved in the secret finding community in WoW, and back during BFA when we spent 11.5 months trying to find Jenafur, I did paint-overs of a bunch of cat memes to try and keep spirits up during the hunt. Unfortunately, the Make-A-Wish kid who created the pet ended up passing away in April. You can read about her life here in this article that will make you want to guillotine a chemical executive, and this older interview from 2020 about the secret. But what really got to me was this one line from the PCGames interview:

And like, I don't want to be presumptuous but like. I think she was talking about my art. Every time I posted on she'd comment on it, and she even DMed me about them. This line fucking destroyed me. I'm not even going to exaggerate. For several days after we found out about her death I was a wreck. The thought that my silly little drawings actually had an impact on someone and made their life a little brighter just ruined me. The bill she was fighting for ended up passing, and I hope that someday the idea of 'forever chemicals' will cease to exist.

Downer ending but I'm kind of too bummed out to write more

[technomancer-01]

What a year, its had its ups and downs (yay roaring 20s). I am surprised and flattered at how much my Saturday Mornin Soulsborne/Sketching/Scribbles/Scrawling you all seem to enjoy so much, particularly when I don’t have many artsy people in my immediate circles and colleagues.

I suppose we can all agree to really enjoy how vivid the Elden Ring and Bloodborne worlds are (although my personal #1 is actually Sekiro haha). I'm not too sure who the people are that "follow" me, and it always feels a little weird fixating on that kind of stuff although the analytical part of me certainly does that. I appreciate y'all tossing me the likes 'n views my way; I've always drawn or at least doodled in the margins of my notes, but I feel like for the first time since I actually rally started drawing "pro", people have really started take my art-side more seriously. 

I have some plans, I already have a few pieces that I've printed out in digital form. I'm making a font that I can properly customize since I feel like this was part of the charm of a lot of these pieces. I guess I technically have a lot of these on Redbubble, but huzzah! I've taken a leap and started an Etsy and Ko-Fi!

Insta: @technomancer_01

[ghostowlattic]

Heyo mate,

I really love your art, happy to find you at tumblr. I'm just wondering, are those digital or real creations? Your art looks so real but also seems like digitally created. You haven't used any tags for this information. Btw your art is amazing and really magical, thanks for existing ^^

Have a wonderful day and sun & moon keeps bring you good luck! Farewell :3

-Lona

Thank you much! I wrote some replies to this, all which ended up rather long winded, so instead as short as possible reply for you and others.

I really just love making music. I'm mostly a musician, songwriter, composer. Piano/keys but I play a lot of musical instruments or use things for soundmaking. I do have many sorts of visual arts posted but I'm 99.9999% certain you mean the recent deluge of AI assisted images I've been sharing which, are a blend of AI, diffusion/Midjourney, personal images, photos, but those are not real objects as far as all those terrariums etc go.

I try to actually tag anything I use for the most or just add 'generative'. Anything that doesn't pick up crypto peeps really. Anyhow, it's all more of a dreaming visual diary for myself and others. Or a bit of visual reflection of my musical brainscapes. I often use a mix of my own photographs images, fed into an ai model or two. But I don't promote myself as an artist really. I don't even mind selling prints of mine for the sake of health care and rations but, otherwise it's for just ideation, inspiration, dreams. People can enjoy it any way they want.

There's a lot I could say about it all and the good and terrible of ai or tech in general but would take up too much space here, I'm really not much of a tech bro person either, but I don't hate machines. We are an entire universe of jiggly energy so, whatever. At very least I like the notion of infecting such things with as much love and beauty and good ole weirdness especially if some is unstoppable for better and worse. This is all for the sake of it. Really, a ton of those images are already made so, vs just leaving them in a folder I figure I may as well share some for others to see.

Anyhow, thank you kindly Lona - and anyone else, if you like the images/blog feel free to check out my bandcamp or soundcloud or my music/video posts here. I think its rather visual and odd beautiful in its own ways also. Sorry for the longish reply but it's also for others who wonder or who send me inquiries lately.

I do like this Glenn Gould quote on art, 'The purpose of art is not the release of a momentary ejection of adrenaline but is, rather, the gradual, lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity.' – Glenn Gould

I love 'art' being for personal expression or communication of things which go beyond language and reference, for music at least. Yet I also love the romantic notion reflecting things which leave us in a state of wonder that seem larger, Nature, etc. VS just self expression and human stuffs. I guess to me I don't see much point of personal expression if it doesn't include a bit of awareness of not being the center of the universes.

Most of all I'm a biopheliac and sound lover. Very open always for collabs of artistic natures as well. Music, arts, film, games, public expressive dance terrorism, whatever.

[sleepy-belphie]

Hello! I don’t know if you’re doing headcannon requests but if you don’t mind could you do something along the lines of “the brothers find out mc likes to draw and drew the brothers”

Hi! I am doing hc requests so thank you for sending this in! It was actually really fun to write, I really hope you enjoy it <3 Got a little carried away with this one too lol

Tags: @kawaiiblack

~~~~~

Lucifer:

He’s doing room checks as usual

And you left your sketchpad/drawing tablet out on your desk

You catch sight of it a bit too late and can only watch as Lucifer moves from your dresser to your desk

He pauses as his eyes spot the sketchpad/tablet

He picks it up and looks at it before glancing at you

“May I?”

You nod and nervously watch him go through your work

His face is unreadable as he goes through drawing after drawing of him and his brothers

It feels like an eternity before he finishes

“Do you do commissions?”

It takes a moment for you to register what he’s said

“...what?”

“I’d like to commission you.”

If you do traditional art he asks for a 30x40 of him and his brothers

If you do digital art he asks for a colored, full-body piece of him and his brothers

He lets you decide how much you want to be paid

But he thinks it’s not enough so he pays you 55,000 Grimm

The 30x40 piece hangs in his study

The colored, full-body piece is printed, framed, and sitting on his desk

Mammon:

He bursts into your room one night when you’re finishing up a drawing of Satan and Asmo

You’re not fast enough to hide it from him

“Is that Satan and Asmo? Oi! Where’s my drawing!?”

Before you can show him anything else he’s speaking again

“N-not that I care! It’s hard to capture this perfection! I can see why you haven’t drawn me!”

He tries to act unbothered, but you can see past his tsundere ways

Once he’s done declaring how unbothered he is, you show him some pieces with him in it

He grabs the pad/tablet excitedly and snatches it from you to marvel over your work

“This is actually really good, ya know? I bet we could make some good Grimm off your little talent.”

You can practically see the dollar signs in his eyes

But you tell him that is not happening and take your pad/tablet back

He’s a bit mopey about it for a little but eventually lets it go when he sees you aren’t budging

When he does have a little bit of Grimm he does commission you for a small piece

The brothers’ eyes almost bulge out of their head when they hear that Mammon actually paid you for work

“What!? The Great Mammon can be nice sometimes! It doesn’t mean anything!”

It means a lot actually

But you’re a pro at reading between the lines with Mammon

Leviathan:

He’s on social media when he sees a drawing on his explore page that he’s absolutely in love with

The art style? Immaculate. He wanted to see so many of his favorite game and anime characters in this style

He imagines Ruri-chan in your art style and his brain just *internet dial-up noises* for about five minutes

He goes to the artist’s profile and starts scrolling through all their posted work

He pauses when he comes across a drawing that looked suspiciously like him in his demon form

The face was blacked out but the serpentine tail, the horns, the diamonds on the neck, the side zipped hoodie

It had to be him

In shock, he scrolls back to the top of the profile and checks out the bio and name of the artist

He is greeted by a very familiar face and name

He is in your room less than 2 minutes later

“You! Y-You did this!?”

You almost drop your pad/tablet thanks to his outburst and abrupt entrance

You look at the DDD that was shoved in your face and slowly nod

You thought he was gonna blow up at you for posting a drawing of him, even though his face wasn’t in it

You are very wrong

Levi becomes your #1 source of income

The moment you finish a piece, he is commissioning you again

You worry that he’s draining his bank account because he tips you very well

But he isn’t bothered at all by it

All of your pieces are on display in his room

He also posts all of your art on his social media and tags you

Your page explodes in popularity and the commissions are rolling in from his online friends

You had no idea otakus pay so well

Mammon is very jealous of the amount of Grimm you have piling up

Satan:

One day he asks you about your hobbies and you tell him you draw

“What do you draw?”

Cue internal conflict on if it’s weird to tell someone you’ve been drawing them and their brothers since you’re always around each other

He senses your hesitation and like the smart ass he is, he’s able to guess exactly why 

“Would your hesitance be because of the subject of your art?”

He knows too much for his own good

You decide it’s best for him to see it instead of telling him

Being a fan of literary art, you were worried he may be overly critical of your fine art

He was not the type to sugarcoat anything

However, he simply smiles and hands your pad/tablet back

“You’re incredibly talented, MC.”

A few days later he asks you to tag along with him while he handles something

That ‘something’ is going to feed some stray cats he’s come across

“MC, I’d like to commission you. I’ve found homes for these cats but I want something to remember them by. Will you help me?”

How can you say no to a man holding four cats in his arms?

You take some photos for reference and make four different pieces for him

When you give them to Satan, you swear you’ve never seen a bigger smile on his face

He framed them all and keeps them on top of his bookshelves

Asmodeus:

He found out through Levi’s social media

He commissioned you for a piece of him and the protagonist of a game he recently started playing

This piques Asmo’s interest and he wonders if you’ve ever drawn him before

He approaches you when you’re in the kitchen grabbing a drink

“Hi, darling. I saw the piece you did for Levi and naturally if you’ve done one of him you’ve probably drawn my beauty as well, right?”

You decide to show him since he brought it up

He’s gushing over all of your art

No, seriously, he is praising you so much even the tip of your ears start burning from your blush

He commissions you to draw him in many different ways 

Him in his bedroom, him in the bath, him as a mermaid, him as an exotic dancer

He comes to you with so many different ideas

He tests your limits but you actually like that

Beelzebub:

Beel is rather stoic, but he doesn’t mean to be

It was his resting face and smiling was usually reserved for eating yummy food

But you wanted to practice drawing him with different expressions

Beel’s welcoming manner gave you the courage to approach him and ask if you can take some pictures of him to use for a reference

He’s shocked you wanna draw him but agrees with the condition that he gets to see some of your other work

You show him different pieces of him and his brothers and he’s smiling the entire time

“These are all so good. I didn’t know you could draw.”

He commissions a piece of him and Belphegor and one of all seven brothers

But he also asks if he can watch you draw them

You both spend quite a few nights together

You drawing and him munching on snacks and feeding you some every once in a while

His presence is actually pretty calming so you ask him if he minds staying around while you work even after you finish his commission

Beel being Beel, agrees to keep you company

The night usually ends with him carrying you to bed

Sometimes, he takes you to his bed to cuddle

Belphegor:

Belphie was actually the first brother you drew

You came across him asleep in the attic once and he looked so perfect

Your fingers were itching to draw him, so you did

It became a routine for you to head to the attic and draw him while he slept

You always crept out before he woke up

You thought he had no idea of your little practice sessions

But one day you looked down to fix a mistake you made on his nose

When you looked back up you saw Belphie staring right at you

“You know, if you’re gonna draw me the least you can do is show me.”

You try to stammer out an apology as he sits up

“Oh, I don’t care. You don’t make noise or anything, I’m just very hyperaware of my surroundings. So I know when someone is in the same room as me when I sleep.”

He moves over to you and looks at your pad/tablet

“Hm, not bad MC. Show me your other work some time.”

Then he goes back to his sleeping spot, curls up, and falls back asleep

You sit there with your pencil/stylus in your hand, trying to wrap your head around what just happened

But he didn’t seem disturbed so you continue drawing

When he wakes up you show him more of your work featuring his brothers

He asks if he can have a quick sketch you did of him and Beel 

You jokingly say he has to pay for it

He actually pays you for it

He puts it up in his room

It’s nice to see when you visit him and Beel

[blindbeta]

How do you think infrastructure would be different in a culture where everyone is blind?

Hi anon! I like this question. I think it would obviously depend on the culture and time period, but I have a few ideas. I’ll just try to write ideas for a general Western culture, because I am aware of more of that, but obviously the culture itself would influence what changes occurred or did not occur.

Education.

Look to blind schools! I’m thinking about training for Braille as very small children, which mostly includes strengthening finger sensitivity. Braille would also be taught the way reading regular print is, either in schools or at home. Regular print would probably also be available and large print would be normalized, especially to minimize eye strain. Computer literacy would include screen-readers and Braille displays. Websites would be designed for accessibility for everyone and this would include large for those who like to read some print.

In classes, people would use a slate and stylus, Braille notetakers, etc, depending on time and what was easier to carry. Braillers would also be more high tech in general, even if it might be considered old school, or the high tech stuff would have come sooner for each device.

Braille, O&M, and life skills classes would be normal for everyone. O&M would probably be done mostly by people with some sight, although this might change if everyone is blind anyway.

Lifestyle.

Things like telescopes (monoculars, minifiers) would be normal for low vision people, maybe even something cool like ‘oh I got the latest telescope model for my birthday!” It would be something shared with friends for fun. Something like SunuBand would be like, I don’t know, a car of something. People would show status through how cool their cane was, if they had a Sonar cane, like WeWalk, etc.

In schools, and in life, I think people with some sight, like me, would not face any pressure to use it. In real life, people with residual sight are expected to use what sight they can, even if it is inconvenient or painful.

More emphasis would be places on other sense, such as touch, smell, and soatial awareness.

Safety.

The world would probably be safer, structurally. There would be high contrast stairs everywhere, if there are stairs at all. There would be more in place that makes it safer to walk around outside, such as, idk, less of a risk of hurt yourself by stepping off a curb? I’m not even sure if roads would be designed the way they are now. Would people drive if they have some vision? Would everyone have cars that don’t need vision? Anyway, more safety with blind people in mind.

Transportation.

Transportation would be better. Maybe public transportation would be more accessible, easier to navigate, and more readily available in rural areas. Maybe trains would be more popular in every country, because they run on a schedule and you can carry more people for longer periods of time. Trains can also allow people to travel long distances, which can be harder for blind people (who almost always can’t drive, as far as I know) who can’t drive cars and may not have money for flights, or want to avoid them for environmental reasons.

Accessibility.

Braille would be everywhere. Buttons would be tactile, especially on kitchen appliances. I imagine a lot of the tools blind people use in the kitchen, such as bump dots for microwave buttons, would already be standard. Talking or otherwise accessible things would be cheaper, more common, and considered staples for everyone. Because they would be made for the wider population of blind people, accessibility would not be a niche or extra thing. It would not be associated with kindness, but a standard fare.

Clothing would be different. Designs would be tactile and/or high contrast, where they are often flat. I think colors would still be important, for everyone, but the tags would probably have labels. Some brand designed for blind people have actual Braille fabric on the clothes, which is cool. While color scanners do exist and would probably be used, I think other methods would be utilized if clothing is designed with blind people in mind from the start. Wearing glasses would be cool, you guys.

In terms of entertainment, I think most of it would audio-based or interactive. The radio and live theatre would be more popular than they are now. If visual mediums still existed, they would all come with audio descriptions and they would be better than they sometimes are now. TV would be written with audio descriptions in mind, if they didn’t talk about more of what they were doing.

Art would be tactile, period. Maybe we would have something by now that allows you to feel digital art. There are already amazing forms of tactil art out there, so think more of that from all cultures. Rather than adapted or described with the blind in mind, art would be naturally tactile even if the artist could see what they were creating well enough.

Online.

Obviously image descriptions would be everywhere, although I feel people would naturally include less screen-shots and less pictures. Again, accessibility would be a more mainstream thing than it is now. I’m thinking there would be more self-care posts, such as about dealing with eye strain headaches. Although I think some of the issues we have would be lessened when the entirety of humanity was on the blind spectrum. I’m also thinking about fun quizzes like, Describe Your Dream Home and I’ll Guess What Type Blindness You Have. Debates about disability in general would happen in regular spaces. YouTube would have contained audio descriptions from the start, and perhaps highly visual content would be less common or naturally described in the video, such as person describing what they are holding before talking about it.

Work/Career.

Productivity would be measure differently. Accessibility would just be a thing. Like, at a meeting, “What tools do you like to use the most?” Working from home would be an option. Work would be open to and even designed for blind people. Blind people wouldn’t have the low employments rates they do now, or else no one would work. A lot of tools we use to make things accessible wouldn’t be necessary if things were designed for blind people in the first place. Subminimum wage would not be a thing.

There would probably be jobs and career opportunities that don’t exist now.

Blind people wouldn’t be more likely or even expected to live in poverty.

Money.

Money would be tactile, labeled, large print, and high contrast. If we still used cash at all.

Inovation.

I think we would have a lot of cool stuff. Countries might even compete to be the first to create things for the blind population which, again, would be everyone in this scenario.

Food/menus.

Restaurants would be easy for blind people to navigate. Menus would be offered in Braille and large print. Maybe plates would be made sectioned so people could know where their food was. I’m thinking about blind accessibility videos and restaurants run by totally blind people. Hmm. Glasses would not be as common at all, because they can be hard for people to see. I have broken too many glasses myself.

If people were to buy food, such as local produce, bags would probably come with homemade Braille or large print signs. Canned food and boxes for cooking would have Braille on them initially. Giving food to others, such as bringing food or snacks for the home when you visit, would come with either an explanation about what it was or a label.

I could go on. I don’t want this too be too long. Basically, what I want to get across is that a lot more than accessibility would changes if everyone is blind. I didn’t want to get into too many heavy topics because this is more of a fun question. However. feel free to add whatever you like. I believe history itself would be altered in many, many ways that have influence on life today, so I could have gone on about that. I could write books on the lifestyle and safety and work sections. And all cultures have their own ways of viewing, supporting, and limiting blind people, so this could change a little or a lot depending on what your culture or the culture you are writing about is like.

-BlindBeta

[awesomefroggy]

Buckle up, I'm idea processing!

tl;dr I'm in an art show in April and I can't decide how I want to bring D&D into an art gallery. If you don't care about context and just want to read about art ideas, skip the first two paragraphs.

So. Go with me on a journey for a second. It is March of the year of our lord 2020. You are me, and only thing that brings you a modicum of joy or any emotion at all is Dungeons and Dragons. You play it three times a week at this point. And so, you do what any art major does in this situation: you make D&D the subject of your senior portfolio for your painting degree. Three characters, nine oil paintings, a million sketches, drawings, character sheets, hand painted self printed Hero Forge minis, business cards for character playlists, the whole nine yards were planned out. But two things got in the way. 1) This is wildly too ambitious a project for someone as fucking depressed as I was at that point. 2) We had a little thing called a global pandemic. So it never got finished. And I never got to have a senior show. And it all kinda died. No one really understood what I was going on about either. Which like... fair I guess, a whatever-flavor-of-neuro-divergent-person-I-am person just disjointedly infodumping about their hyperfixation can make it hard to "get it" but it really didn't help my motivation to try and finish it in spite of the pandemic.

But I always really loved the idea of bringing D&D character art into a gallery space. After I graduated, I let the idea of doing any sort of gallery art fall to the wayside. It wasn't feasible in the pandemic, and really I have no idea how to market D&D art to a gallery. But I got an email a few weeks ago, I was invited to be in an alumni show for those of us who didn't get senior shows because of the pandemic. Which means I get the chance to do it again, and it's so very very exciting.

I have two ideas for this, and I have zero idea what direction to go with.

1) A very very involved project of four or five character shadowboxes. Each box would have a (painted?) character portrait, and would then be surrounded by artifacts from their adventures: a pirate map or a magic necklace or tickets from the colosseum or a cool dagger or a dried druidcrafted flower or coins or ect. ect. Each one would have a little bio under it telling you about their backstory and their lives, and maybe links to character playlists?

Pros: Dope as hell. Unified concepts. Easy to explain. Cons: THAT'S A LOT OF WORK. Expensive. And I live in a very smol apartment with no ongoing studio space, which is kind of needed for something of that scale.

2) Just a smattering of character art. Prints of digital work. Maybe put the Wizards drawing in there that I love so much. Talk to friends and make sketch sheets and portraits and action drawings of their characters. All of it framed, or with sketch sheets in a portfolio or something. Just doing what I've always done, and putting it on display like a wall of family portraits.

Pros: I get to just go nuts with what I already do. I get to feature work that is representative of what I actually create on the regular. Works in the space and materials I already have. Cons: Doesn't feel as unified? Back to being hard to explain.

Usually by the end of a processing post, I have a better idea of which sounds better, but I'm still completely stumped. Thoughts?

[meruz]

Aforementioned long ask post please excuse me while i try to figure out tumblr's new text editor. I’ll get into the art meme questions first and then the rest at the end.

Ok first of all thank you all for sending in questions! Giving me an excuse to talk hehe. I’ll address these in number order. Here’s a link to the ask meme for reference but also I’ll restate the question for ease of reading.

1. When did you get into art?

Super cliche answer but I don’t remember a time where I WASN’T the weird art kid! I started keeping a dedicated sketchbook when I was about 12? But here’s a page from my kindergarten journal about what I want to be when I grow up.

2. What art-related sites have you ever signed up for? 

LOL this is a weird question. Not sure why so many people want to know. Anyways I definitely had a dA. more than one dA account. I used to browse oekakis when I was a kid but I think I was only signed up to some small ones that internet friends owned. What else...? Mangabullet,Tegakie, Paintberri, iscribble back when that was a thing, instagram if that COUNTs, I used to post art on livejournal and dreamwidth too. Patreon, I guess. Gumroad, inprnt, bigcartel, storenvy all for selling stuff.

In terms of resources.. I have a schoolism account that I’m sharing with friends. Used to take classes on coursera for free. I signed up to textures.com for work recently haha. I can’t remember if I ever had an account on posemaniacs. Did they have accounts...? I definitely used to visit all the time.

3. Show us your oldest piece of art you have on hand.

Alright here’s me actually logging into my old deviantart account. These are from September 2008 So I was 13 years old. I don’t have a deviantart account from before then because 13 was the required age for having an account and I didn’t want to lie about my age because I wanted people to be impressed by how young yet clearly incredible at art I was LOL.

4. What defines your artistic style?

You guys are probably more equipped to answer this than me but uh... I wanna say... Focus on colors. And... a slightly heavy hand? Like confident... not always well-considered mark making HAH...

Also I think I have a pretty healthy mix of american comics/manga influences. I feel like people who are into american comics always think my art is too manga and people who are into anime/manga always think my art is too american. And I’m taking that as a good sign.

5. Do you practice other styles/have you tried other styles in the past?

I like to think I switch it up a bunch! I mean, these are pretty different, right?

I think I’ve mentioned this before but one thing I really took away from art school is that, for an illustrator at least, art style shouldn’t be consistent. Your greatest weapon is changing the aspects of your style based on the task, the emotions and message you want to illustrate etc. So depending on the project I’m working on, the fandom I’m drawing for, whether I want something to be funny or serious or dramatic, I’ll change things about my style all the time.

One thing I don’t rly post on here is really tight polished work and that’s because I do that for my day job haha. If you’re not paying me... I’m probably not gonna color in the lines.

6. What levels of artistic education have you had?

I have a whole ass diploma LOL. Bachelor of Fine Arts in Illustration. from the Rhode Island School of Design. And I had a great college experience tbh. Besides the student loans. If any of you guys are thinking about art school feel free to e-mail or message me questions or concerns, I’ll be happy to help. Be as honest as I can be.

7. Show us at least one picture you drew or sketched recently that you did not put on a public site.

heres the wandavision kids. Uhh what else do I have...I feel like I’m rummaging for loose change here...

assorted valentines prep doodles

8. What is your favourite piece that you have done?

Well, obviously this is gonna change all the time and generally it’s gonna be my most recent piece LOL. So yeah, why the hell not. I’ll say it’s this one. I have a pretty short memory which I count as a blessing for an artist. I don’t dwell that long on older work and it keeps me moving forward.

10. What do you like most about your art?

I like that it’s something that only I would make! I had this thought fairly recently and I wrote it down in my sketchbook, it’s pretty cheesy and rambling but it felt revolutionary at the time:

So yeah. I like my art best when it’s the most me and for me. And I like it least when it feels like I’m just making something for social media or for other people’s expectations or whatever.

14. What do you like drawing the most?

Kids in baggy clothing are like my go-to LOL idk if that’s obvious. but also I like being challenged so lately I’ve really loved drawing multi-character compositions, environments, weird angles, etc.

oh i LOVE drawing the underside of shoes lol. And bandages. People that are kinda beat up.. I think it comes from getting a bunch of cuts all the time. I’m always patching myself up and I want to patch characters up too.

15. What do you like drawing the least?

mmm I try to find something to like in every drawing but lets see... I don’t like doing commissions of people’s dogs. Just because it’s normally like... a family friend and my mom volunteered me without my consent and I don’t even really know what they’re expecting me to draw and I don’t even get to meet the dog. Also I’m not that great at dog anatomy. Trying to learn though.

18. What is your purpose for drawing?

This could have a million answers! Uhhh to GIT GOOD??? But also to express myself... and also to make money... I mean it depends on what the drawing IS. I draw fanart mostly to connect to people in the fandom so if you ever see me drawing fanart please take it as like an open invitation to talk to me about the character haha. 

20. How would you rank your art? (poor, mediocre, good, etc.)

Good!!! I have a lot of self-confidence primarily born out of ignorance and a short attention span. If I don’t think too hard about how many other artists are mindblowingly unfathombly good... its easy to think I’m good too! LOL

In all seriousness though, I think the opinion a person has of their art is like a crazy balancing act, right? Like you have to think you suck enough to want to get better but also you have to think you’re good enough to not want to give up. I think we’re all walking that line, I know I am! But also I’m a glass half-full type of person so. Most of the time I feel good about it.

22. List at least one of your “artspirations.”

This is a good question because I’ve been trying and failing to put together one of those “influence map” memes for like a full month now. What’s giving me a hard time is I feel like none of these are actually really obvious “““influences”““ in my art? Like it’s hard to see a lot of them in the work I make...? But idk maybe you guys’ll see what I can’t.

And these are just a couple! God there’s so many more. I could talk about other artists for ages, from all different genres of art. Daumier, Rockwell like every illustrator out there, Dana Gibson, Alex Toth, Hiroshi Yoshida, a lot of the Brandywine School. Lots of current working artists too, Karl Kerschl, frikkin Masashi Kishimoto lol, Jake Wyatt, Richie Pope, Edouard Caplain, Matt Cook, Sachin Teng, - lots of big internet artists, Sophie Li, Freddy Carrasco, Milliofish, Angela Sung... like all my friends from art school too. I could just keep going but I’ll stop for now lol.

24. Do you have a shameful art past? (recolour sprite comics, tracing art, etc.)

I mean if that’s how we’re defining shameful?? sure LOL. It’s not sprite comics but I used to do pokemon sprite recolors all the time. And I used to trace manga panels and color them... Granted this was all when I was like under 12 yrs old so it’s not even embarrassing. Can you really call it shameful when a 7 year old wets the bed or whatever? Not really. In fact some of these are cool as fuck. Look

25. Draw a picture!

Man I’m so tired now but here.

I used to get a lot of compliments for drawing people smiling lol but I don’t think I’ve drawn a lot of smiling lately.. here’s proof I’ve still got it.

OK MEME DONE. onto the rest.

I read this ask first thing when i opened my computer in the morning and it made me really emotional.. I’m so glad my sketches could help you!!

I think a lot of artists on social media talk about the struggle of making art but imo not enough people talk about the joy! Like I know it’s corny but. I really meant what I said at the beginning of that sketchbook about re-contextualizing art around process and progress > product and perfection. I think its super important..! The strength of messy, unfinished, and energetic art! For the feeling of it, for the love it!

That's crazy!!! I hope you like 'em. The whole line of x-books is really good rn imo.

Hi! I totally have the answer for digital stuff on my faq lol. But in terms of drawing on paper.. it varies! I tend to use sketchbooking and any on-paper doodling I do as a way to loosen up/warm-up or experiment. But right now my go-to aresenal is:

from top > bottom

- kuretake no.55 doublesided brush pen

- tombow fudenosuke

- muji 0.38 ballpoint

- medium size poscas

- grey tombow double brush pens

- good ol bic mechanical pencil

not EXACTly sure which inking you referring to from my sketchbook but if I had to take a guess it'd probably be the kuretake no55. That's been my main inker, lately. Great for sketching with the thin end too.

You can print out and eat my art if you like. Just please don't mass produce or re-sell. <3

Thanks! I've come to accept that my art is always gonna be sort of gestural and painty naturally. It's getting it to tighten up enough to be legible that's hard lol...

uh yeah lol I agree actually. I think yolei is great.

I assume these asks are related? LOL

1) Yeah totally true. I love David.

2) I don’t take requests, sorry! But if you want to commission me to draw Legion i would be MORE than happy to. Just e-mail me at isellhotdogs@gmail.com.

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