#But I do still have my portfolio itself and all the art pieces

[solradguy]

Being an otherkin bastard's fun actually until someone asks you a sorta deep question about it and then you're confronted with The Horrors of Introspection

[teaboot]

Do you have any advice for someone who wants to get a tattoo but is *astronomically* indecisive?

When I was about to get my first tattoo, I was really worried about getting something I'd grow out of and learn to hate.

I think if that's your concern with a first tattoo, maybe get something that represents a good memory, or someone who's passed away, or a place you've been. Something you have positive associations with that aren't likely to change, so even if you eventually hate the art itself someday, the memories attached remain pleasant

Alternatively, just get something you think looks cool. Ideally not a trendy tattoo you've seen a lot of- my personal rule of thumb when I want to get something that's really popular is to wait a year. If I still want that peacock feather, or infinity symbol, or tribal pice a year from now, we'll come back to it.

Third, just browse artists in your area or in places you may end up and go through all their portfolios. Good way to do that is to search parlors in the area, make a list, then visit each one's website one by one. If you like a particular artist's style, check out their insta. Thay's how I got set up with my favourite tattoo! Sometimes you don't know what you want until you see it.

I have a couple tattoos that I'm kinda meh about, but they're more sentimental pieces than show pieces. I don't hate them or wish they were gone. They're part of me, right? Like a scar or a mole.

Essentially the best advice I can give is to just wait till you find something that speaks to you. Or just rip the figurative band-aid off and get something small and simple and meaningless that you think is cute! (After researching to make sure it isn't a hate symbol or something, of course. That shit is insidious.)

Also, look into getting a henna kit, or temporary tattoo pens, or even just a sharpie marker and doodling on yourself to see how you feel about it short-term.

Hope I could help?

[indig0trolls]

You guys as excited about halloween as I am?

55$ USD ea. via Ko-fi! Witching Hour // Freak on a Leash

Each includes 2 sprite files (PSD and CLIP Formats) with interchangeable expression layers (5 Eyebrows, 6 Eyes, 7 Mouths, and 3 blush layers.)

THESE DESIGNS COME WITH A .PSD/CLIP FILE WITH ALTERNATE EXPRESSION PIECES TO BE USED FOR TALKSPRITES. They do NOT include FULL mix-n-match sprite pieces akin to my sprite commissions (hair, outfit, etc), you will only be able to swap out the expression pieces!

As a courtesy to your fellow community members, please try to limit yourself to only one of these, and then if the other is still unsold a week from now and you still want it, have at it! Additionally, if you bought one from the previous talksprite set (link here), please wait 2 days before buying one from this batch, to give everyone a fair shot!

TOS under cut!

TOS

By purchasing you will be agreeing to follow these terms as follows. PLEASE make sure you read them in full to understand them.

You MAY change the design/species of any design i’ve made after youve bought it, but you must leave credit with INDIG0TEA for the design, and the design itself must be recognizable.

Gender/sex/etc is ultimately up to the buyer.

You may NOT resell the design for more than you paid for it, unless it comes with extra art either made by you (listed for your current or historical  commission rates), or commissioned by you. Gift art/free art does not count towards the value of any design I make, ever. Additionally: You may not ever ask for, recieve, or offer full resale plus non-currency add ons (such as, but not limited to: art, characters, merchandise, games, game currency, etc.). Yes, even if the offer as couched as “free art/commission/character”. Partial resale may be negotiated only for designs whose original buying price was 30 or more dollars USD, and split dollar amount may be for no less than 2/3 of the list price to prevent people trying to workaround this TOS to encourage other people to accept their offers. (For example: Partial resale on a 30$ design may be a maximum of 20$ partial + non-currency add on.) This is to prevent overoffering/artificially inflating resale value. I am willing to make exceptions to this clause, but you will have to speak to me directly to ensure my TOS is being respected.

If the design is gifted/traded at any point, all financial value up to that point is lost and it may not be resold until further art is made/commissioned for it.

You may not include my designs in resale bundles. Period.

You may not EVER feed ANY of my art into an AI interface of ANY kind.​​​​​​​​

If you resell, trade, or gift this design, please inform me that it has been traded/resold/gifted so that I may update the TOS to reflect that and so future buyers cannot be scammed.

You may not resell, gift, or trade this design (or any of my designs) to anyone on my blacklist, which is linked below for your convenience. Doing so will result in immediate  blacklisting/blocking of your accounts.

You may not ever edit the original artwork(s).

You may not repost the original artwork to deviantart, instagram, or other social media/portfolio sites.

You may not use this design for the creation of license-able media such as (but is not limited to): books, animated shorts/shows, Vtuber/twitch streamer  sonas,  comics/webcomics, and video games (free or otherwise). If you  would like to use this design in anything like this, we can negotiate a one time licensing fee which covers use in all of the above. This can be anywhere form an additional 150-500$ depending on your intended use.

You MAY use your design for any other purpose, so long as you are not profiting financially off of my work nor passing it off as your own.

You are allowed to store it in your deviantart sta.sh, post it to tumblr profiles, or upload it to websites like toyhou.se with proper credit.

However, you may not reupload to toyhou.se, to keep the ownership log intact, and to keep the original tos consistent.

For my personal comfort, you may not delete original listings from toyhou.se and resell it separately. This is again to keep the ownership log intact, and to keep the original tos consistent. If the person you wish to resell it to does not have a toyhou.se, I have plenty of invite codes I can give out as necessary.

Please credit to INDIG0TEA the first time you post art of them to websites other than toyhou.se 

Violation  of many of these terms will result in permanent blacklisting/banning  from buying or owning designs by me in the future.

BLACKLIST

[princeoferror]

Zelda's Steed

I'm so excited the horses look so cute in this game, what kind of horse would you wanna get?

Commission info | Buy a Print! | portfolio | Twitter | insta | Discord server

Progress pics below!

Princess zelda is a confirmed horse girl! I'm already late to the hype train so let's immediately get into it!

Sketch:

I wanted a dynamic shot which focuses mainly on the horse itself. I've shrank zelda a bit to make her look younger but I think its made the horse's head look slightly too big- proportion is my biggest enemy in art its so hard to get accurate sometimes.

Line art:

Basic lineart process. Thick lines and contrast for the focal points and thin lines for the less important details.

Flats:

The colours are the standard ones from the official art since I'm just planning to do bright sunlight.

Finished render:

I painted the background first so I have a better idea of what colors need going on the main subject. I went a lot more painterly with this, just kinda happened I didn't plan for it. Tho I think because of that the painting has become ever so slightly disjointed from the lineart. For the way I draw I need a lot more hard edge shadows or pure cel shading compared to this softer render I did.

Well it's all a learning experience on an endless art journey- that was poetic.

The drawing part is still very fun, I like the action shot and Zelda's determined expression.

More echoes of wisdom pieces to count down to release day are on the way so be sure to follow.

Prints and commissions are available, linked above

Thanks for reading! Oki bye!

[sakarrie-creates]

It’s that time of year! Here’s my 2023 art summary! After two years of having to include non-colored pieces, I finally did enough ‘full’ pieces to fill my art summary template! I did have to get a bit creative with the months since I was able to draw a LOT more during the summer, but I’ll take it! Sorry it's a bit blurry. I'm not sure if that's just for the preview or not, but it was a smaller file than normal and since these reflections are 99% for my own interest, I decided it wasn't worth trying to change.

As usual, I got rambly so reflection questions are answered under the cut. The template I used is available here in case anyone else wants to make their own! My fic summary will be coming in a week or so, so stay tuned for the stats and round-up there. :)

What events did you participate in (with art)? Player Appreciation Week, Fandom Trumps Hate, Dear Fellow Traveler (Animatic), Weird People (Editing), SPN Comfortably Queer Zine (dropped), and lots of zine applications for page artist, merch artist, comic artist, and spot artist roles!

What was your biggest challenge this year? While time, like last year, was still a challenge, I think my biggest challenge was a mix of low motivation and an intense perfectionistic mindset. At the start of the year, I got super into TOH and was super hyped about all the zines with apps opening. I really REALLY wanted to get into them and figured I should apply for art too just cause it would increase my overall chances of getting in. After the finale, I did a screenshot redraw that ended up being absolutely fantastic for where my skill level is. I went deeper into rendering than ever before, and somehow it worked for me. 

That probably was the start of my unreasonably high expectations, and I got it into my head that maybe if I could make a whole portfolio of artwork at that quality level, I actually stood a chance at getting into a zine as an artist. From then on, I was hardcore crash-coursing perspective, rendering techniques, and generally trying to improve without allowing room for mistakes. While I do think it helped me grow a lot, it burnt me out so I struggled to work on stuff past summary (when all the zine apps were) and even dropped from the SPN Comfortably Queer Zine cause my imposter syndrome was so strong. (Though that was also partially because it was a ‘sign-up and you’re in’ zine, so they never saw my art during the application process and had no way of knowing if I was good enough.

What was something you were surprised by? I’m pretty sure I discovered the perspective tool is CSP this year! CSP has so many tools I’m not aware of (despite watching tons of tutorials and guides), so it wasn’t super surprising but it was nice. I have to say, they’re a serious hassle to work with and require a higher understanding of vanishing points and such than I currently have, but I could see it being very useful for future scene art pieces.

Did you try anything new this year?

Yes! This year I kicked down the door to the merch world and have been collecting and designing throughout the year. Though the designs have mostly just been for zine app portfolio’s, everything has worked out really well for me and I hope to produce charms for my collection as I improve my skills. Where do you think you most improved? Definitely my confidence in rendering! And probably my rendering itself too. I did a ton more pieces with it this year and it’s definitely a favorite part of the art process for me. I think I’ll have a lot more fun with it this year too, since I’m trying to keep it lower pressure, so I can experiment more to find out what brushes and styles I like most. What are you most proud of? I think I’m most proud of how ambitious I was with my zine apps. Though I didn’t get into any for art and it burned me out a fair bit, I did a lot of hard work and made pieces I can be mostly happy with. As for specific pieces, I’m very proud of my animatic clip for the Dear Fellow Traveler MAP (which is what the Belos art from the summary is from). My portion was about 5 seconds with 24 fully colored and shaded frames. A few of those were moving frames too, so the end result is the closest thing to actual animation I’ve done. I also really like the rendering on the Huntlow Epilogue art and generally how the Steve&Matt hug turned out.

How’d this year compare to your 2023 goals? I honestly couldn’t remember what my goals were, but all things considered, I didn’t do too bad! Thankfully past-Sakarrie was wise and made it a bullet list so I can just check things off. Met: -Player Appreciation Week -Add to zine portfolio -Apply to at least one zine as an artist (fine if don’t get accepted) -Keep experimenting with backgrounds and shading -Pull out some old WIPs -Build more consistency of style

The checked off ones I definitely met, so good for me! This was a very zine-focused year, so I way exceeded those goals. The last two I did do, but they’re a bit subjective. Specifically, I think the ‘WIPs’ I was referring to were old sketches, but most of the old WIPs I revisited were already colored and I was either adding rendered or cleaning them up for zine usage. As for style, I’m REALLY bad at telling haha. That said, my characters seem reasonably similar when I draw them, so I’m going to tentatively count it. Kinda: -One fully colored piece per month

I’m gonna give myself a half check on this one. I didn’t have a fully colored piece every month, but I did have over 12 fully rendered pieces in the end, several of which had backgrounds. So while I didn’t meet the letter of the goal, I feel like I met the spirit of it.

Did Not Meet: -Finish Huntlow comic -30 minutes animatic digitalize rough draft -Maybe make some fanart of my favorite fics

These don’t shock me. They’re all personal projects and this was a very external-goal-driven year for me. The Huntlow comic is a big love of mine but it’s definitely ambitious for where my skill is. I’ve got the whole thing messy-sketched and most of it has been clean sketched, but the jump from that to lineart is gonna be hard, and I have no idea what I’d be doing with color since the panels don’t have a background. That said, I do feel like it’s some solid work and I adore the angst vibe of it, so maybe I’ll get it done one day. I could also see myself posting it as a messy lineart comic so that others could enjoy the concept being executed in case it never gets finished.

As for the 30 Minutes animatic, I still 100% intend to complete it eventually. I love the way it fits to the music and I’m so proud of the thumbnails. Even if it never becomes a full animatic, I want to digitize the frames and line it up with music so I can share the concept I see in my mind with others. My brain was somewhat overtaken suddenly by TOH this year, so now that that’s settled and I’m hoping to follow my muse more this year, maybe this will be something I can get excited about again.

The fanart for favorite fics is no surprise since it’s kinda the tack on. With low motivation and projects with deadlines that needed my focus, personal art like this was buried way below other priorities. It’s a nice though for sure though.

Alrighty then, now it’s time for 2024 goals!! Oh goodness, I really don’t know what to expect of myself. I definitely am going to try to allow for more personal projects with lower pressure, but I do still have some goals. Hopefully most can be accomplished without applying big pressure though.

2024 Goals:

-Number One Priority: Create for my and don’t put myself in a place to get crazy burnt out and still have requirements. If I meet this goal, then it’s okay if I don’t meet any of the others. (It would be sad.... But I would still count it as meeting overall goals.) -Participate in Summergen and PAW Week (Art or Fic) -Design Handplates charm as anniversary gift (November) -Design CS Charm -Have a fully usable Zine Portfolio (Currently need more merch samples and rendered pieces with backgrounds) -Apply to new TOH Zines or other loved fandom zines. If I end up getting into any, I can pull back, but since that doesn’t seem likely, I want to get into the habit of always being ready to apply with what I have. -Make an ongoing project list to pin to my tumblr. This applies mostly for fics, but that way people coming to my page can see what fandoms I’m actively creating for and what they can look forward to (as well as have an opening to ask questions if they’re interested). -Post more (at least 10 times throughout the year) and add my best pieces to instagram (8+ pieces by end of year). -Do ONE of the following:     1. 30 minutes digitized so it can be shared with music      2. Open Up Your Eyes fully thumbnail      3. Fanworks for other people’s fics      4. Participate in an extra bang or exchange with art      5. Design and manufacture a pin -Play with different brushes and rendering styles -Draw something from scratch every month, no matter how small -Not exactly art, but I want to have a finalized long-term merch display plan for all my items Overall, how’d the year go? I think I did well! I didn’t meet all my goals and I pushed myself too far, but I learned and improved a LOT this year. All things considered, I made pieces that last year me would be blown away by, so I think that’s an automatic win. I’m pretty uncertain on how this next year will go (even more so than last year, which is surprising since I was changing schools last year), but I’m hoping to enjoy what I do and create art semi-regularly. Here’s to 2024!

[singsongraptor]

So this is my little kalanchoe plant. This is the only indoor subject I've had to photograph in at least 2 years. The flowers are the size of pennies.

Meanwhile, here are a couple of the shots I made with my camera and which you'll get to see on my side blog @lunarrisephotography when the queue spits them out. You can also see many of the pieces I've made with outdoor subjects, which make up the bulk of my portfolio

I'm posting this just to say, photography is an art, a conglomerate of skills, both technical and artistic, and I work hard at them. Just as anyone can pick up a pencil and doodle or write, so can anyone pick up a camera, but that doesn't necessarily make them an artist/writer/photographer. That isn't wrong or ableist to say.

Yes, I'm still upset that people have insulted me and my craft by saying that AI art is "just like" photography and that photography is merely allowing the technology to create an image via button press, simply recording information, nevermind that cameras aren't stealing thousands of pieces of other people's creations and compiling them.

I didn't spend two hours with this plant friend and my tripod and camera in front of a window to be treated with such contempt, or 3 hours editing after the fact. I don't spend hours outside, with my disabilities no less, taking photos of the tiniest flowers and plants, growing from lawns and sidewalk cracks, holding my breath and fighting the wind for clear shots, to have my work reduced to a button press that I'm barely responsible for.

This photo was taken with a phone camera, but compare it to my morning glories, or my other cellphone photos on my page, all taken with the same phone as this photo of my kalanchoe. The difference is my effort and my eye, my skill and artistry with my tools, and whether or not I used them vs recording information, not *only* the technology in my hands.

My Olympus, my fancy camera, means nothing without the skills I cultivated and am still cultivating. You can see where I've learned something new just in the last year with my Olympus, just by comparing my macros last year to the kalanchoe! The improvement wasn't just getting a new lens, I learned a new shooting and editing technique too!

Even if you only compared macro shots from 2022, you can see where I learned new editing techniques. I am almost entirely self-taught, as many artists are, and like most, if not all, artists, I constantly seek to improve. AI art steals from the hardwork, dedication and love for art. It does not improve, it only steals someone else's improvement and claims it as its own.

I shouldn't be surprised since the technology was created by entitled tech bros and the colonizing impetus among that group is strong, nevermind that they are often rather lazy, but my point is this: support actual artists and stop insulting those of us that do digital art.

Also consider, AI stealing photographers' intellectual property and art is also being used to create propaganda and is destroying the ability to utilize photography for *actual information recording*. Comparing photography work to their theft is going to end up destroying the ability to use photographs as evidence and in journalism. It's already casting doubt on genuine historical photography as the artifacts from digitization, decay of film and photos, and the limitations of historical photographic technology have similar looks to the mistakes that AI makes when it fakes a photograph, and that will lend itself to revisionism and propaganda as well.

[hardwiredweird]

What you don't see.

I've been doing a lot of fundamental practice lately. You know, the boring, annoying kind that really helps you, but is just ... tedious and not 'pretty'.

And doing that, I've been thinking about how much of an artist's progress people don't see in a time where we all so carefully curate our online presence.

You guys see stuff like this:

from me and even if I might not be 100% happy with some of these, they are still finished pieces, pieces done for 'practice' in some cases, sure, but still. Finished. 'Polished' in a way.

But some of my practice also looks like this:

Quick gesture practice to capture motion and silhouette and perspective practice.

I think a lot of people, especially those who still hold onto (even if only a little bit) the idea of inherent 'talent' completely underestimate the amount of practice some of us put in. Deliberate, careful practice.

And I want to use this as an opportunity to reiterate a few things:

1. Art is a skill that needs to be honed. It is as much a mental as well as a physical skill and both of those aspects need training. It's a long and tedious process, but you CAN learn it with patience and effort.

2. What you see in an artists online portfolio is usually the best of their best. It's carefully curated and not a 'true' representation of everything they make. I will eventually find a few of my 'failures' to post, too, because they still happen, even after five and a half years of intense practice and they will continue to happen. Failures are good actually. If you know how to analyse them and use them for progress (and that's a skill itself).

3. Going back to point 1 a little: Art! Takes! Time! and not everyone has the same amount of time they can dedicate to practice and study. Don't compare someone else's progress to yours. They might have more time to put into their practice.

4. Jumping off point 3: everyone learns differently and nobody will have the same process. For example, one of the most popular methods for constructing heads, the Loomis Method, just ... does not work well for me. I find it leads to overthinking which leads to stilted, crooked heads. Once I realised that that was not the be-all-end-all method of drawing people and moved to a sight-sizing approach, things became a lot easier for me. I learned by observation first and then added construction and anatomy into it later. It gave me the best results and kept me going with early successes. Someone else might really appreciate the structure of the Loomis or Riley methods. Finding what works for you, trying different approaches can be tedious but worth it!

Don't be discouraged by all the 'cool art' you see on the internet if you're not there yet. You're not 'lacking talent' if you're not improving as fast as someone else. We all learn differently, at different speeds. And that's okay!

If you have trouble improving, you might want to look at where you are, how you have been practicing and you might find that you have been staying in your comfort zone too much. You can take that step outside of it that will bring progress, I promise!

[terraliensvent]

https://www.tumblr.com/terraliensvent/749097590215376897/why-do-i-need-permission-to-void-a-terra-i

I’m actually in disagreement with this sentiment. I wouldn’t feel very comfortable if someone voided a design I made specifically for a species without permission. If it’s a character that YOU designed, then sure. But if we’re talking about adopts, then that’s a different story. It’s honestly about respecting the original artist’s wishes and comfort level. The sirfluff situation with chams seemed more like heavy entitlement on their end, and they kept pestering several different mods until someone said ‘yes’ because they didn’t want any trouble (but it happened anyway when fluff made a huge stink about it).

Anyway if you can’t void a Terra, just simply make a one-off version of it. I’ve done that with designs I can’t void with no issue. I just don’t use the official /CS design itself.

post related

ehh, i still dont really vibe with this side of the argument

like, with adopts and things it really is more of a product transaction than a piece in an art gallery. if someone owns the character by paying for it, it should be fully theirs.

going back to the mug analogy since its a more tangible and easy to comprehend form of art, if i made a beautiful ceramic mug that was part of a larger “series” of similar mugs that all share the same theme, and sold one of them to someone, that person now can do whatever they want with it. they could smash it in front of me and i cant do anything about it because its not mine anymore. yeah, it might break my heart to see this thing i worked hard on be removed from the collection of other mugs, but thats the price you have to pay when you sell art in this way.

i think that you as the creator should still be able to use the “unvoided” design to showcase your design examples (unless you and the new owner have an agreement to keep it private but thats neither here nor there), but as for the actual design they can do what they want. again, with the mug thing, you should be able to have like a picture of the mug you created to use in your portfolio of beautiful handcrafted mugs, but the buyer still owns the mug they bought.

i feel like if you cant completely disconnect yourself from what a new buyer may use your design for, then you shouldnt be making adopts, which is ok, but a lot of people dont want to have that realization within themself that even though their art can be personal and they can be attached to it, when you sell a design as a product to someone else you have to accept that you have no say over it anymore.

[demonfuck]

thinking about making art that is patient

being the way that i am, this maybe kind of comes naturally to me

as a teen i found it interesting to make art with no audience in mind. as in, NO audience. it will sit on a server somewhere gathering dust

and it doesn't try to make you feel guilty for its isolation. it was never your responsibility to find it and interact with it and understand it. it's patient. it makes peace with itself

i'm happy with that process making it kind of timeless. there were never any references or details that demanded that it be read this week, or this year, or within this lifetime. i've always been fascinated by outsider art, including stuff that doesn't get found until after the artist has passed away

it makes MAKING art feel less urgent to me. to be able to make something, "put it out there", and then continue making it. i feel the URGE to get wrapped up in expectation and disappointment. to say, why did i make this if no one saw it? should i continue making it? if i continue making it, will resentment seep in to the text? what good are my good ideas if no one is looking at them?

i think there's a part of me that deliberately tries to avoid the pain of disappointment and unpopularity by expecting to be discovered long after my death. to say, well, wouldn't it be exciting if someone discovered my weird art blog or my unfinished book sometime in the future? i know of lots of comics and anime that have meant the world to me, that i didn't get to participate with in real time

still. it's all too possible to go too far with this sort of thing. i appreciate when this way of thinking let me work on art one piece after the next without stopping myself and forcing myself to try something different because this wasn't Doing Numbers. but doing it like this forever would cut me off from lots of wonderful experiences within my lifetime. to be able to learn what works and what doesn't. what's too difficult to parse, what's boring, what's annoying. unintentionally anyway. i don't mind making something difficult, boring, and annoying, but i rarely want to make something impossible to parse that puts you to sleep

when i was making art for myself, for my own needs, i'm glad i made it in a way that was criticism agnostic. and while i'd like to allow myself to maybe, advertise myself more, consider an audience more, i really want to retain the lessons i've learned in making patient art

idk. i want to push myself more this year ! because there's a major keystone of motivation in the back and forth conversation between audience and creator. i work faster when i know, specifically, that someone will see and respond to my work. and criticism plays a major role in becoming more effective at achieving whatever your art was meant to achieve. comforting someone, discomforting them, sharing a lesson, imparting a warning, or just helping them lose track of time safely in a world full of demands and danger

and then there's the money game. the "make something that will fund your next something" type game. make a portfolio of things that communicates what you're about, what your capable of now, that makes people imagine what you would make in the future if you're allowed to continue creating without starving to death. this basically runs in the opposite direction of my entire spiel about patient art, but i don't think it contradicts it. potentially, anyway

generally i think i've turned myself into that portfolio. when i talk to people, i'm showing them my Self as the thing i'm capable of. my problem solving, my comfort, my patience, my passion. i practice being valuable as a person and i hope sometimes that maybe that will be the avenue which sees my life get funded. "if you like talking to me today," i imply, "you should buy me dinner so that i am around to keep talking tomorrow!" is this normal? is this moral? join my patreon

[thoughtportal]

I should not know who David Zaslav is. I didn’t know who any of the big media CEOs were back when I was a happy little child, and I shouldn’t have to know who any of them are now. I should be able to fire up HBO Max, see that it’s still called HBO Max, treat myself to two horrible, horrible hours of a “Batgirl” movie, and then read a satisfyingly catty review of it in GQ.

Alas, I’m not that lucky. Because Zaslav is the man in charge of frankencorp Warner Bros. Discovery and, in an impressively short period of time, has managed to f—k up nearly everything within its considerable portfolio. Freelance writer Jason Bailey attempted to note all of those f—k-ups for posterity just this week, when he wrote an article for GQ excoriating Zaslav for his pathetic stewardship of WBD. It noted all of Zaslav’s lowlights, which I will repeat here for reasons that will soon become evident. 

Zaslav wrote off that “Batgirl” movie rather than formally release it. He did NOT write off and bury “The Flash,” even though its titular star was an allegedly choke-happy asshole and the movie itself was something that even McG wouldn’t have put his name on (it tanked). He hired a clearly in-over-his-head Chris Licht to oversee CNN, only for Licht to destroy morale within that company even faster than Zaslav could have on his own (Licht has since been fired). And it’s not like CNN was my favorite news source in the universe prior to this. You have to really try to make CNN more inane than it already was. Zaslav did.

FILE: Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav visits “Mornings With Maria” at Fox Business Network studios on April 10, 2019, in New York City. Roy Rochlin/Getty Images

All of these changes were not only unwelcome but also NOTICEABLE. Same as if Dan Snyder owned your favorite NFL team. That’s why Zaslav got booed by students at Boston University while trying to give a commencement speech. It’s why striking Writers Guild of America writers, myself included, have made him the face of studio bosses who want to reduce TV and film writing jobs to gig work. It’s why Zaslav’s crimes against both art and basic consumer preferences need to be put on the record. It’s why Bailey wrote what he wrote, and why he was right to do so: posterity, so that we all know who’s to blame for this f—kery and why they deserve to be remanded to a space prison.

This was a damning blog post but also still just a blog post. All damning stuff but all easily ignored if you’re a captain of industry. Lord knows such men have capably ignored similar attempts to own them online.

FILE: David Zaslav attends the 2022 Time 100 Gala on June 8, 2022, in New York City.Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for TIME

Knowing this, GQ could have, should have, stood by its reporter, especially given that he was a freelancer just trying to earn a living. Maybe if former Editor-in-Chief Jim Nelson was still in charge of the place, it would have. That GQ was both thorough and undaunted. But Variety just reported that current Editor-in-Chief Will Welch is attached as a producer on an upcoming Warner Brothers film that’s based on a GQ story and that he was one of the editors Zaslav’s stooges complained to. So it’s not hard to connect the dots as to why his GQ would abandon its journalistic principles just to please Zaslav. (Multiple sources within GQ told SFGATE they weren't even aware of the controversy until it became public; Bailey politely declined to talk to me for this piece.)

As someone who adored working at GQ, I cannot begin to tell you how much all of this disappoints me. I worked for Nelson. I also worked for the people who annihilated Deadspin and just published their first post written by a bot instead of an actual person. I know the difference between these two leadership styles, and it is stark. You can see it right in the product, and you can see it everywhere in Zaslav’s leadership. Not only is this man a terrible CEO, but he’s also an imperious coward who’s more than willing to swat down anyone who dares question his authority. Our worst kind of rich person.

Maybe Zaslav was able to get Welch to back down from public criticism, but my bosses here at SFGATE won’t be similarly cowed. So, for the permanent record, let me state all of this again flatly: David Zaslav is an eel who sucks at his job. He’s destroying HBO. He’s destroyed what bare credibility the DC Universe had left with moviegoers. He’s forced GQ to willingly debase itself. He’s destroyed TCM. And while he couldn’t get Licht to destroy CNN, he’ll find some other pair of docksiders to finish the job. 

It’s a fact that, in an age of mass consolidation, no one person could possibly run all of a billion-dollar entertainment conglomerate effectively. But David Zaslav has distinguished himself not only by being unable to run ANY part of one but also by being such a brazen coward about that fact. I shouldn’t know who this man is. But here he is, and now he should deal, in full, with what he’s wrought. He’s a parasite: a terrible CEO, an enemy to artists, and a lousy, horrible graduation speaker to boot. I hope he’s strapped to a chair and forced to watch “The Flash” on repeat for the rest of his pathetic little existence. And no, I’m not deleting this.

[rudojudo]

Next Episode Trailer

So I figured instead of looking back at the last year, I’d get more out of thinking about my plans for the next one. So here’s everything in the works from me/Rudo Judo Games in 2023! I hate being so transparent about it, but I’d love it if this got shared around a bit for the people who’d be interested.

Giant of Light

This is the big one! My love letter to the modern incarnation of the Ultraman series. This is an adventure game about being someone who either turns into a giant superhero or has access to a portfolio of kaiju. You investigate trouble and when the time comes, the action shifts to a grid-based battle system for the super-sized action. It’s probably 90% written and I want to get some more art for the interior, then it’s out there.

The Hard Way

This one’s less an adoring homage and more a shitpost that came to life. The core concept is playing through an entry in the SAW series, with the intended vibe of the table being friends watching a trashy horror movie with snacks. I thought this one was done, but then I ran a session and realized that it needed refinement, so now I’m refining! Still coming soon, though.

Santa Carla at 4AM

Another joke that possessed me suddenly (shout out to Lil), this is a short, possibly even one-page RPG about being one of the Lost Boys before/outside the narrative of the movie itself. You play as a beautiful, immortal dirtbag looking to amuse themself and help eternity pass faster. Pull big stunts, feed on tourists, get in fights, and most importantly of all, have profound homoerotic tension.

Further Down the Pike

Not projects I’m going to probably get finished this year, but here are the ideas I’m most interested in working on when those three are done:

Free Lunch for Magic Users: in a magical post-apocalypse, players are con-men and odd-jobs using their extremely limited magical powers to make a living. Think Fallout, Cowboy Bebop, and Adventure Time, but starring people on the level of Arataka Reigen or Peter Venkman.

V/H/Essence: play as a movie monster in a world that hates you for existing. Less X-Men, more a thesis statement about being Queer in America. Comes from the fact that almost all the people I know who really, passionately love horror are gay and/or Trans.

Demon Castle Dracula: a team-based game inspired by the Castlevania series. Work together to map the castle, slay the coterie of monsters from world mythology living there, then take on the dark lord and break his curse on the land.

Sentai Squad (working title): each player gets their own team of brightly-colored heroes who work together to defeat monsters, but you’re also making sure that your team is the most beloved, the most famous, and the top seller of merchandise. Maybe being a hero can get a little cutthroat.

Journey to the Quest: an adventure game inspired by Shonen Jump comics like Dragon Ball (not Z) and early One Piece. Play as a heroic child on a quest for greatness, making the world better as you pass through it.

Things That Aren't Games

As though that wasn't plenty. But I do want to try to do more, since hanging all my hopes and dreams on a single hobby/subculture is asking for trouble. But I have three other big goals, things that will probably get priority over a fourth game.

A novel: I have an idea that I've been nurturing for a while and I think it's really coming together. I think I can manage a first draft of a short novel in one year, even working around the games and day job.

A short story submission: this one's a bit fuzzier, but I'd like to have some published fiction I can point to if I'm going to be shopping a novel around for publication, so it makes sense to have more work in print.

Podcasting: I want my games played. I want people to hear how they work and I would love to connect with the massive talents out there in the Actual Play space. So I want me and/or my games to make two appearances on shows this year.

SO! High bar. I know. I didn't get a quarter this much done in 2022. I know I won't do it all unless I really put myself into it, but if I can even come close, this will be my best creative year yet. I hope you can join me.

[watercolor-hearts]

List 5 things that make you happy, then put this in the askbox for the last 10 people who reblogged something from you. Spread the positivity!

(Sorry, it's a bit long.)

Reading fanfics (I read anything in F1 and FE if it's interesting, but my comfort ships are Riccussell, Simi, Dando, Maxiel, Jeandre, Jeantonio(?) and Vandevries.)

Drawing fanarts (drawing my non-binary Seb fanart (which is my profile pic now) was the first thing that made me really happy in that time I started drawing it. I wanna draw more but the final exams are coming and I don't really have time to draw when I don't even have all the pieces done I want to put in my portfolio – sadly I can't put fanarts there, so...)

Finding tumblrs that don't hate on any of the drivers (or at least if they hate some, they don't post anything about them. I don't like seeing hate, even though I know this (or any) fandom is not the best place for searcing for comfort.)

Writing fanfics (and I used to love writing my original story too but that became too much for me so I've been taking a break from it since last year (and with that I stopped writing in Hungarian) and I don't know when I will continue writing it.) And since I'm in the F1 (and FE) fandom(s) I started writing in English, which is a really big thing for me because I wanted to try it for so long but I didn't know which fandom to write for (before F1 became a thing for me). It's still a bit scary and I'm struggling with it sometimes, that's why I'm so fucking slow, but I have a lot of one shot ideas AND a multi-chapter story idea too (which is only a few days old but I already made collages to it and planned a lot of things for it), which I'm in love with, so I hope I will be able to put some nice things together and write a few 'better than my previous ones' stories. I wanna be confident about this but I can't because I know my vocabulary is far from being good enough for the level I would like to reach (they don't really teach creative writing at schools like mine). But I'm working on it, because even though I might not be good at writing in English, I still love doing it because it makes me happy. And that's what matters, my friends. Make yourselves happy and try not to stress much about it.

Making head sculptures (let me elaborate on this a bit because this is my newest happy thing: so as I mentioned a few times I'm planning to go to an art university (to become a graphic designer), and for that I have to do an aptitude test, which varies by universities, but by some of them requires the people who applied to make a head sculpture. And I have never made any in my art high school years, so last week it was time to try and make one, so I started making it and there isn't many thing that makes me as happy as sculpting. I was alone, nobody bothered me, the teacher only came once or twice to see if I need help, and guys, I love portraits, I've been drawing since I can hold pencils, portrait drawings makes me happy, but GUYS feeling the head you're making, feeling the muscles on the neck as you make the shape of the jawline (or the neck itself), seeing how the ball of clay becomes a face, is just incredible. I love feeling all the shapes on the head, the nose, the eyes, the lips, the shape of the face, everything. But for some reason, I don't know why, the jaw and the neck are my favorites. I just fell in love with them. It's a whole new feeling, because when art becomes a job, or a thing you learn in a specialized school, it sometimes feels forced and you feel like you just don't want to do it anymore, because if you have to do it at a predetermined time and not when you feel like, that's not so fun anymore. And I've been there after my first year in art high school and it wasn't good. The thing that brought me out of this is the fact that my art teacher supports the idea of me going to an art university (my father doesn't support it) and since year 11 I've been working on my portfolio and the fact that I have a goal gave my art-related motivation back, which is a really big thing. And this head sculpture-related happiness is just a big, unexpected bonus. So yeah.)

[indig0trolls]

I hope you like these two!!! I had a lot of fun making these guys :)

55$ USD ea. via Ko-fi! PUNKin Patches // Stargazer

Each includes 2 sprite files (PSD and CLIP Formats) with interchangeable expression layers (5 Eyebrows, 6 Eyes, 7 Mouths, and 3 blush layers.)

THESE DESIGNS COME WITH A .PSD/CLIP FILE WITH ALTERNATE EXPRESSION PIECES TO BE USED FOR TALKSPRITES. They do NOT include FULL mix-n-match sprite pieces akin to my sprite commissions (hair, outfit, etc), you will only be able to swap out the expression pieces!

As a courtesy to your fellow community members, please try to limit yourself to only one of these, and then if the other is still unsold a week from now and you still want it, have at it!

TOS under cut!

TOS

By purchasing you will be agreeing to follow these terms as follows. PLEASE make sure you read them in full to understand them.

You MAY change the design/species of any design i’ve made after youve bought it, but you must leave credit with INDIG0TEA for the design, and the design itself must be recognizable.

Gender/sex/etc is ultimately up to the buyer.

You may NOT resell the design for more than you paid for it, unless it comes with extra art either made by you (listed for your current or historical  commission rates), or commissioned by you. Gift art/free art does not count towards the value of any design I make, ever. Additionally: You may not ever ask for, recieve, or offer full resale plus non-currency add ons (such as, but not limited to: art, characters, merchandise, games, game currency, etc.). Yes, even if the offer as couched as “free art/commission/character”. Partial resale may be negotiated only for designs whose original buying price was 30 or more dollars USD, and split dollar amount may be for no less than 2/3 of the list price to prevent people trying to workaround this TOS to encourage other people to accept their offers. (For example: Partial resale on a 30$ design may be a maximum of 20$ partial + non-currency add on.) This is to prevent overoffering/artificially inflating resale value. I am willing to make exceptions to this clause, but you will have to speak to me directly to ensure my TOS is being respected.

If the design is gifted/traded at any point, all financial value up to that point is lost and it may not be resold until further art is made/commissioned for it.

You may not include my designs in resale bundles. Period.

You may not EVER feed ANY of my art into an AI interface of ANY kind.​​​​​​​​

If you resell, trade, or gift this design, please inform me that it has been traded/resold/gifted so that I may update the TOS to reflect that and so future buyers cannot be scammed.

You may not resell, gift, or trade this design (or any of my designs) to anyone on my blacklist, which is linked below for your convenience. Doing so will result in immediate  blacklisting/blocking of your accounts.

You may not ever edit the original artwork(s).

You may not repost the original artwork to deviantart, instagram, or other social media/portfolio sites.

You may not use this design for the creation of license-able media such as (but is not limited to): books, animated shorts/shows, Vtuber/twitch streamer  sonas,  comics/webcomics, and video games (free or otherwise). If you  would like to use this design in anything like this, we can negotiate a one time licensing fee which covers use in all of the above. This can be anywhere form an additional 150-500$ depending on your intended use.

You MAY use your design for any other purpose, so long as you are not profiting financially off of my work nor passing it off as your own.

You are allowed to store it in your deviantart sta.sh, post it to tumblr profiles, or upload it to websites like toyhou.se with proper credit.

However, you may not reupload to toyhou.se, to keep the ownership log intact, and to keep the original tos consistent.

For my personal comfort, you may not delete original listings from toyhou.se and resell it separately. This is again to keep the ownership log intact, and to keep the original tos consistent. If the person you wish to resell it to does not have a toyhou.se, I have plenty of invite codes I can give out as necessary.

Please credit to INDIG0TEA the first time you post art of them to websites other than toyhou.se 

Violation  of many of these terms will result in permanent blacklisting/banning  from buying or owning designs by me in the future.

BLACKLIST

[em2dplatformer]

Pixel Art: The Basics

By playing pixel art games, I can get a better idea of what type of styles can be achieved and what styles I want to use for my game.

Castlevania: Vampire's Kiss

3-D WorldRunner

A Boy and His Blob

We can also get a better idea of how to make pixel sprites by researching other pixel artists.

Army Of Trolls:

Army Of Trolls is the site of Gary J Lucken's portfolio where his designs for games, YouTube and festival banners and commissions. His work features very bright and bold colours and focuses on 2D settings such as his London Games Fest art and his GDC 2018 brochure art. Specifically, his settings our done in the isometric pixel art style.

Octavi Navarro:

Octavi Navarro Art & Games is a studio based in Barcelona. Octavi Navarro himself is a pixel artist and game developer who creates narrative driven games. A lot of his colour palettes are more muted and he uses a lot of clean angles in the settings of his art pieces. His art also has a strong use of dynamic lighting with the use of spotlights and smaller light sources that blend nicely in the environment. These unique light sources also create strong shadows across some of his pieces.

Derek Yu:

Derek Yu is the creator of many popular games such as Spelunky, and Aquaria. He has a site called 'Make Games With Derek' where he has tutorials on how to do pixel art as well as examples of his own and other's work.

Both Spelunky and Aquaria have pixel artstyles, making them good examples to look at.

Spelunky is mostly underground and so has a limited colour palette. This, however, does not stop the game from being colourful. From gold ore scattered about to brightly coloured enemies and characters, Spelunky is made visually engaging by its use of colour.

Aquaria is a lot less pixel-based. It takes place underwater, meaning its much more visually cluttered than Spelunky. The colours are still bright, but a more dynamic use of lighting makes the colours have more depth.

Johan Vinet:

Johan Vinet is a pixel artist who recently released a mini-game called Castaway. Castaway is a pixel game with bright graphics, smooth animation and a fun mixture of puzzles and action.

After testing out some pixel art games and doing my own research on other pixel artists, I moved onto making my own character in pixel art form.

64x64:

I personally really like the level of detail that 64x64 allows me to put into the sprite. This, however, comes at the cost of time which means 64x64 will likely be unsustainable for this project (1 1/2 roughly).

32x32:

I first did not like 32x32 but as I kept at drawing my character I began to prefer this to the 64x64 version. The 32x32 both is detailed enough to keep my character distinguishable but also can be done a lot quicker than the 64x64 version (15 minutes).

16x16:

16x16 is too small for my character. Because of her limited colour palette and her requiring an outline to be distinguishable, this option is not viable. The time save was also not worth it (5 minutes).

8x8:

Definitely not using 8x8. My character is requires some form of gradient as well as enough room for an outline to be distinguishable. Animating this would also be a very difficult task. (45 seconds max).

4x4:

4x4 becomes a colour palette rather than a sprite. 4x4 is mostly used just to find the main key colours of a character. This doesn't effect my character particularly as, due to her limited colour palette, all of her colours (even the gradient and outlines) fit cohesively on the 4x4 canvas. (15 seconds).

After choosing the type of resolution for my character, I decided to upgrade the sprite itself. I wanted to give my sprite a more dynamic pose that felt more alive than the previous one. I also wanted to add some darker colours to the parts of the character that were further back for more depth.

[project-skyglow]

An update

So... my mental health's in a considerably better state than it was near the beginning of the year. I've actually started doing some art again, so that's good. Right?

I'm still not enthused about the whole AI art situation with online spaces in general, but at least this time I can make sure I'm already opted out of it through site settings before I post my art here. It was really the rug-pull itself that upset me all those months ago(particularly after what happened with deviantART...).

I have in the meantime been trying to learn how to make a custom website on the side with Neocities to create a portfolio for my art. I don't have all of my old art there at the moment - just a handful of pieces from 2023 and 2024 - but it's something.

The site is currently functional, but not ideal. So I might upload some of the pieces I've made this year here again soonish, or at least re-upload some of the older ones from last year to match what is also on that linked portfolio website.

[rozinaaa]

I Got My Instagram Account Back

I know this seems like a rash and hasty decision, but I decided to reactivate my Instagram account (and save it from being deleted, which would have happened in just 3 days from now), mainly because I would fear that I'd end up losing everything that I put onto that platform.

On top of that, I've also realised that artists and designers need to be on Instagram, as much of an annoying rat race and battle against the algorithm that it currently is, just so that other people can actually see the work in a casual way (which seems a lot better than sticking it in a museum, since I always find museums and galleries to be an awkward experience because you're expected to quickly move along and be mindful of other visitors, so you can't really stand in front of a piece of art for half an hour and analyse it in depth, and is also better than having your work live exclusively on your site (and nowhere else), because although it's recommended, people need a gateway to your site, and social media seems to solve this problem, because no one is really going to go out of their way to casually view one person's site, as they would with their Instagram profile), since it's most likely going to be easier to discover new people on a platform that most of the population uses, especially one that's designed to be social.

Additionally, Instagram is a bit of an archive for me, since I get to see my work over the years, although not all of the work is posted in a linear way, mainly because I tend to mix it up by showing some new work (I haven't really done any pure art/illustration work since I handed in my uni work, so I'd love to just dive into it again whenever I get the chance), as well as showing some work that I created 5 years ago, but ones that still look decent to me.

I know that the r/nosurf and digital minimalism echo chambers that exist online basically tell you to ditch everything, don a flip phone (seriously, I haven't actually seen anyone use a dumb phone, apart from a few old people that are most likely past the retirement age, but even then, most people around that age tend to have a normal smartphone), live like it's still the 90's and make your life harder just to avoid a few distractions (little do they know that my mind itself is a distraction, especially when I've axed all of the other distractions and there's nothing left for me to do), because there were probably addictions and distractions before the age of social media that were just as bad, if not, worse.

You know what? Screw those pointless and ironic echo chambers, where people talk about leaving the internet… on the internet itself.

I am a visual person and I need a way to show my work (especially since most jobs ask for a portfolio, so I guess my Instagram account can also act as a portfolio), as well as being able to see what others are doing, essentially being able to stay in touch with the industry and on top of trends, mainly so that I don't run the risk of looking outdated.

I could have just waited a few more days until my account would get tossed into the void, but then I'd end up losing a bit of myself in the process, since that would have been all of my work gone, along with the revolving door of followers that I have.

It's easier said than done, but going forward, I'm going to focus less on the metrics and more on just posting consistently.

On top of that, I'm also going to unfollow everyone, and only follow people/accounts that genuinely bring me joy (as in, I get genuinely excited when I see a new post from them, and I enjoy the things that they post), because there's no point in following an account if it feels like a drag.

For this, I'm definitely going to avoid people who are way too metaphysical about the platform itself (especially those ones that either complain about the algorithm left, right, and centre (honestly, just cry about it), the so-called "entrepreneurs" peddling some generic course about hustle culture (aka burning yourself out) and whatnot, or the ones that provide "informative" posts about anything), since that gets boring really quick, and also because I'm going to be on there to avoid the risk of being out of touch with reality.

That's the first step, but later on, I'd like to perhaps create an account for the curation front (basically just consume and create content at the exact same time, essentially turning my common bad habit of scrolling through content into something that's more productive), as well as creating a new finsta account so that I can show up as myself without having to fuss about having a personal brand and all that, with the finsta basically being a slightly updated version of the ones (I had a LOT of throwaway accounts) that I used to have in high school and college.

Overall, it's good to be back I guess.