#I mean I’ll still draw commissions on my tablet because I’m still learning how to draw and color on clip studio but!! I’ll keep yall updated

[gessshoku]

Lamb and Goat from the hit game Cult of the Lamb

I’m still trying to figure out how to draw them, but!! MY FIRST ACTUAL PIECE ON CLIP STUDIO!! Cause I got me an art tablet now- an ACTUAL ONE!! No more iPad low storage for Gess!! ÙwÚ

Doodle request from @spaciebabie they’re so cool and awesome guys you should totally like throw the nicest batch of words at them like at machspeed.

[alparlaboratories]

My OCs Masterlist

I got tired of having to look through my mess of a computer to find drawings and other stuff about old OCs and characters I might wanna use in the future, and I’m bored right now so I figured I’d make a list with all of my important OCs, or at least the ones that mean the most to me.

These are not ALL of my OCs, just the main ones for their respective stories/campaigns. But there’s still a lot, lol. Also I’m not counting Niss for this list, even if she’s an OC in my heart. You can learn more about her in my pinned post anyway.

(Note: Art is either made by me, my partner @pastlight or has been commissioned by various artists)

1)

Metchi

You know how parents say they don’t have a favorite child? Well I do and it’s Metchi. ‘What if someone decided they wanted to do good purely out of spite and had pretty much everything stacked against them?’ I asked myself. ‘What if she was also a grungy trans girl who has no fucking clue what she’s doing and is constantly bickering with the deity inside her head?’ was the next question. And from that, Metchi was born. The willpower to burn a hole through Mt. Coronet yet the resources and energy of someone who considers cigarettes the most effective breakfast.

2)

Nico

He’s my PC from our current (in hiatus) Pokemon tabletop campaign. A Lumiosian street artist and Sky Trainer who enjoys throwing himself off of high places and being completely fucking incomprehensible to all who meet him. The only neurons in his brains are dedicated to serving looks, calling the wind to his command and delivering the most unhinged takes on the nature of human happiness he can think of.

3)

Tulip

‘I would like to make a tragic character whose obsession with the truth will inevitably lead her to ruin’ I thought. ‘Oh, fuck’ Tulip replied. Out of all my stories, hers is currently my favorite from a writing perspective, and I owe a lot of that to Tulip herself, always willing to push and push until something pushes back, because it’s what she thinks she owes to the people who were just as unfortunate as her. And I love her for it.

4)

Hope and Hunter

These two come in a package deal. ‘Small town life-long friendship’ is something I’ve been meaning to try my hand at writing for a while, and though their story is at the very beginning, I like them quite a lot already. A lot of my personal history with friendships and growing up into your twenties is imbued into them, though they are cooler and dumber and more than willing to take those things to their natural extremes.

5)

Ska

Protagonist of my yet in-progress, unnamed visual novel I’m working on. She’s a sheltered Fae changeling with a death sentence hanging over her head, and a desperate desire to do as much stupid shit as possible before something ends up killing her. She has a bat and absolutely sucks at using it, and she’s hopelessly in love with both of her best friends. I love her deeply, and I hope I can share her with everyone soon.

6)

Shadi

Absolute trash human being, possibly the worst woman in Sinnoh, lover of drama and shadow magic and also Dark Souls. What if an older sister was allowed to be as evil as her little heart desired? Well, that’s Shadi. Obviously there’s more to her, but I like making fun of her. I think she’s a funny character on her own right, except when she’s doing horrible shit to my other OCs, which is often. In any case, she’s one of my favorites to write for a reason.

7)

Eatos

Eatos is... weird. They don’t have a set story, they kinda bounce around a few of my works being mysterious and off-putting and tricking people with smoke/illusion magic. They exist in the same universe as Ska, and in that world at least they’re a human with the power of a Fae artifact. I’ll get more of a chance to develop them someday.

8) (Really old drawing, I didn’t even have a tablet back then lol)

Shadi... 2!

Yeah I have a few characters named Shadi, I just really like the name. Anyway this particular Shadi may be my first actual OC, back when I was... fuck, I dunno, fourteen? I don’t know how relatable this is, but she’s the OC that made me think ‘I’m gonna write her story and become a famous fantasy author and write a bunch of books and-’ and you know the drill. That didn’t quite end up happening, but I don’t regret it much. I did write a book, but my creative goals right now are very different from back then, and I’m happy with that. One step at a time. Still, I care a lot about Shadi for basically getting me into writing fiction, and someday I hope I can write a story that’ll serve as thanks for her.

9

Cole

PC for another Pokemon tabletop campaign that unfortunately never progressed much. Which is a shame, because I like this guy, even if he’s so hard to relate to sometimes that I have trouble writing him. He’s nn ex League/army man who now lives peacefully in Pacifidlog alongside his Electrode called Maradona. He loves dogs to a comical degree (the only part about him I understand) and spends most of his time drinking beer, wishing he could drive fast vehicles and helping out Darya, his neighbor and aspiring contest star.

10)

Machi

Uh... yeah, we’re getting into the really old ones. I don’t remember much about Machi other than she was a hired killer and lived with a guy who did all her murder planning for her because the pay was good and he hated his job that much. It was from her story that Eatos came forth, so it’s a shame that they ended up being so much more interesting to me than Machi. I still like her, though.

11)

Tala

Listen, we all gotta have an edgy OC with a sword, and Tala was mine. Another PC for an even older Pokemon tabletop, maybe even THE oldest. I went around from loving him when I created him, to despising him a few years after and now kinda liking him again, just because he’s so ridiculous in his drama queen ways. He almost rivals Niss in that regard. But yeah, cool sword, tragic backstory, crabby personality, the works. What do you want from me? I loved that shit when I was a dumb kid.

Anyway... there are more of them, but these are the main ones I remember. Of course there’s also Reiko and Percy and characters like that, but they’re different kinds of OCs, and I already posted about them before.

No point to this post other than to have them on here for future reference.

[rttnpnkpmpkn]

good day/evening OP! got a question if you don’t mind! how long have you been drawing art? and what keeps you motivated to draw? do you also do commissions? and do you ever feel tired or exhausted staying in one fandom?

thanks for answering! take your time and you don’t have to answer these if you’re not comfortable ☺️

((btw anon here is in early 20’s just to be clear ^^))

Good evening/day, Anon! And thanks for clarifying your age, as it really does mean a lot 🙏💖

No problem at all to answer these! For drawing, traditionally, it’s ever since I got my hands on my first set of crayons as a babby.

1) If it’s digitally, I started doing more of that when I bought my first surface pro tablet with the remaining art scholarship money at 18-19 years old back in 2015, I believe! Medibang was a game changer because I felt it was a good starter drawing software when I couldn’t afford Paint Tool Sai at the time (I eventually bought a license for Clip Studio instead because of a friend’s recommendation lol).

2) What motivates me to draw? I have many reasons. First one to spite a kindergarten classmate who said my drawing of a Pokémon wasn’t good xD (don’t remember which). Second, to tell stories because I couldn’t write a cohesive plotline. Third, it’s the cheapest entertainment I got lol.

I remember I tried to adapt excepts from the novels I read into comic form and they were pretty fun. Especially when I was inspired by the 39 Clues fanart in the wiki page at the time.

I think if people online made them look fun, it makes me wanna join in too, and that makes me forget that my skills suck~ Which is very important in having the motivation to draw. When focusing on quality, or perfectionism , I tend to be very harsh towards myself, which what leads to my occasional art blocks.

3) Ay I do commissions, but currently closed atm! I still have two more to go and thus, I promise myself not to reopen until I get them done!

You can find the list in my Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/rttnpnkpmpkn/commissions

I may have to increase the prices a bit to account for inflation, which is disappointing but every penny counts in this trying times sorry! qwq

4) It depends! While I can enjoy a content for as long as I can before I move on to the next, the main deciding factor is whether to be involved in a community.

Every fandom I came across as a lurker always seem to follow a pattern, so I’m very reserved in joining new communities socially.

I came for the experience, so I gotta make the most out of it before I do leave to find my next hyper fixation. I’m drawing until I can find my “finale” if that makes sense ^^;

Peeps can come and go in a fandom, but inspo strikes when no one asks!

For the particular fandom I’m in, It’s definitely a mixed bag, but I’ll focus on the positives!

I have many things to be grateful for as they’re the ones who got me out of an art rut for the past year and so. I learn so many new skills and life lessons from them, where I couldn’t imagine it being any different if I didn’t meet them otherwise. I met the nicest peeps who made me forget I’m not too fond of group chats, and were very nice and supportive in their own way!

I’m returning the favor for the inspo they brought me as it’s the least I can do ^^

Also, I never truly leave a fandom, I just wander around as a lurker until I find a reason to come back again. I don’t really make an account dedicated to a specific fandom, because they don’t usually last long, so I tend to sample from other places to make the candle last longer. It wasn’t obvious mostly because I was more of a lurker then and an OC artist xD

I began drawing lots of fanarts mainly because peeps made drawing pr0n for a stickman fun 🤣

Hope that answers your question, and thank you for your time! 🙇💖

[chaoschild-hideout]

PRACTICAL CHANGES - Chaos Child [online presence]

I decided to share my journey as an artist because I realized we all face the same struggles and for some of them I’m finding valuable answers that might be helpful to other people as well. I’m not a professional but that doesn’t mean I cannot treat myself and my work as valuable.

I’m still at the beginning but I already desire to start acting in a way that I admire others when they do the same.

I want you to know what to expect from me, even if I call myself chaos child, it doesn’t mean that as an artist and as a content creator I can lack clarity, after all I decided to share my art with you for a reason.

Here is a list of the things I am focusing on making/changing that relates to all the content I’ll bring from now on, on my social media!

my social medias: TUMBLR (main + BLOG), Twitter, Instagram, Deviantart, Patreon, Pinterest, Youtube (I’ll do video contents when I’ll have a new laptop and drawing tablet), Artistree (preparing my commission sheets)

my working system - sharing how I made it, how others can make it to work in harmony with creativity and discipline

youtube/social media - artist helpful mentality/planning methods/art related mental health

studying art - sharing sketchbook/studies/art progress etc

making original art, that has meaning to me

commissions - commission sheet/portfolio with current skills + long term improving art

social media management, how to transform being a content creator into a fun endeavor

WEBTOON - main income project

patreon (WEBTOON + generic content)

FINAL GOAL (longterm): creating original stories, artworks, visual novels, writing books etc (I would love to have physical works like illustrated books etc with original stories)

social media consistency: posting 2 written blogs per week, posting 2 art related posts per week + patreon content monthly (behind the scenes)

For me, sharing all of this makes me feel really vulnerable. I feel like sharing my intentions puts me up to failure because people start expecting something from me and if I cannot show up then I’d be labeled as who knows what.

Maybe that’s why we all try to keep our dreams secret. It gives us the illusion of control. I don’t have control over what others think of me, and I might fail so hard at my ambitions but I want to try at least in this life.

My goals might change in time, I try to remain flexible in everything I do and learn what works and what doesn’t. If you’ll keep on following me then you’ll get to see with me where we’ll go because I have no idea. I won’t stay fixated on things that don’t work and I will not avoid harder ones just because I might fail.

I hope my journey might let others know how much of a roller coaster this journey can be and how it is perfectly fine to have ups and downs. You have not signed up to this life to arrive as safely as possible to your deathbed. You are here to live.

Let’s live our lives!

chaoschild

[legionofpotatoes]

I love your art, it is very detailed in a neat way. Was wondering how you got started making it as a source of income? How did you get your first paid work, I'd love some advice on how to get started, if that's ok

Thank you. Of course it's okay, although I doubt I have enough work experience in art to really delve into this. I only went full freelance this year, and had been juggling art as a side hobby until then. If you're still interested in my somewhat narrow perspective, and are okay with my long-winded rambles, I'll give it a shot:

So to answer your question fully, I'll describe how I started and move into personal advice and learnings later on. As a disclaimer, I am a white cishet dude in my late twenties with a moderate cocktail of mental illnesses, but overall I can pass for a functioning adult so a lot I have to say may come laced with privilege I cannot fully identify.

So uhh I began drawing in around 2012? I think? Maybe halfway through 2011? And I mostly made fanart for things I enjoyed and tried to branch out in communities that felt nourishing to my style and interests (I caught a bug for alt posters and enjoyed mainstream movies so I spent a long time on posterspy early on). There were a handful of opportunities that came from there but I could only accept a couple because of primary workplace commitments. Still, it showed that networking in a focused community was definitely a good place to start; I myself have huge trouble committing to social networks and really staying socially active, but I knew it was an essential ingredient in succeeding so I tried to make myself be involved in challenges and art support trains etc. as much as I could.

In parallel to all that I also ran a few third party online stores (redbubble, teepublic) for disposable income and would sometimes, if rarely, hit around $100-150 a month from those sources combined. It is a sort of thing that requires helper accounts on other social media sites to promote it on, because the stores themselves have a huge volume of content that translates into low organic discoverability. Obviously it was never gonna be the way towards financial independence through art, and with community projects being few and far between, I opened private commissions in around uhhh 2017 I think, focusing on offering a few styles I knew I could do well, and sometimes operating in individual fandoms (it was mostly a bioware thing to be frank). But I had to close them back down after a year or so, again because of work-life conflict and how badly it was burning me out. The reason I kept trying to monetize this hobby is because I honestly hated what I did for my main job and wanted to see a way out in some shape or form in the future.

And then in 2020 I had to quit my main job altogether because of *gestures at pandemic* and deal with a mental breakdown from all the wonderful things it did to us and me specifically. I took a short break and decided to give art a shot full-time, and that was around May this year. I was planning on opening up commissions again (and I still am), but a few sudden opportunities that fell in my lap moved that timetable down and now I'm grateful to even be doing something I am getting adequately paid for.

So, with that somewhat limited perspective, here's what I've learned that I'd tell myself if I was just starting out:

1. Being a fan of something can be a shortcut towards effective networking kickoffs. Which are important evidently. If you love something and enjoy making content for it, join communities, settle into a combination of social media websites that feel right for those interests + your body of work + your inner rhythm, and try to play to content discovery as much as your mental health allows you to. Like I said, I know that I myself am incredibly bad at self-motivating to talk to people, so I found that synergizing common interests into fanart - which I enjoyed making anyway - could be a way to give myself a gentle nudge forward and build those bridges leading to community activities, which then net experience and coverage. Sometimes even freelance projects from official avenues. Again; picking the right spaces for what you're after is key. Companies roam twitter, concept art recruiters scour artstation or linkedin etc, instagram can land you private commissions and collab opportunities, so on and so forth. Find your niche and try to kick up dust. However...

2. I do not believe that any social profile can replace a good portfolio. The thing that made an immediate difference to me this year was building a coherent, simple website with my best work front and center and a contact form on top. Every single opportunity I got came from that form (maybe via twitter or instagram initially, but always sealing the decision after going through the website), so I firmly believe that showcasing your skills and portfolio in a visually arresting and user-friendly way is a big priority. I had some reservations about tackling that task but fortunately I had help from a savvy life partner and we slapped it together via wordpress in less than a day. Twitter/whatever social media is prevalent in your target groups is definitely important to get the right eyes on your shit, yes, but those eyes will then look for a second stop where your work and rates are more clear and concise. Simplicity is key imo, I cannot overstate this. So make a cute, simple portfolio!

3. Your skills and rates will grow and change as you do. Let them. Over the years I built several lasting professional relationships from my obsession over mass effect and kept getting opportunities both from bioware and their partner companies, some small and some a bit bigger. A one-off job earlier this year opened an unexpected door to another much larger commitment, and then the work I did there brought some attention from small businesses looking for commercial commissions. These were all incredibly different projects in terms of scope and budget, and I've been tackling them all on a case-by-case basis and slowly coming into my own irt my needs, rates, and SOW thresholds. It is still a work in progress (and a LOT of literal work as well), and very much a thing I struggle with in publicly marketing, which is why I felt a tad underqualified to answer your question in the first place (obviously I did not let that stop me). But what it means for me now is that I am rapidly developing into whatever my "version" of a functioning freelance artist is, and when the conditions for that guy are met, I need to be able to confidently plant myself and operate from that space despite past precedents. Do not let anyone bully you into downpricing what you yourself perceive as legitimate products of personal growth and development. Speaking of which...

4. The shitty challenge of turning envy into inspiration, and paddling outside your comfort zones in full riot gear. it is hard, but realizing that being a miserable, self-hating artist in my early days got me nothing but more misery back was the first real step I took and what truly blew the hinges off. I was just not pleasant to be around, I would badmouth my work all the time, and it all somehow made sense in my broken mind because the validation I sought was purely external and the way I sought it was through eliciting sympathy via self-victimization (even when I made something objectively nice). It all led fucking nowhere. Except perhaps to my own narcissism that I one day managed to identify and start managing. So I started looking at things that made me seethe with envy and calmly deconstruct and figure out their inner workings instead, do studies, and find nuggets of inspiration or discover new ways to approach rendering or building up specific elements. It was an application of analytical diligence to what I wanted to be a purely emotional, esoteric workflow, but that I deep down knew wasn't. Art is a discipline and a skill, and maybe it isn't a straight line, but you gotta find some line to thread nevertheless. Being self-hating was almost an identity I had to break out of, and despite it still being like, 4-5% there? I realize its cause and effect on me, my work, and those around me, so it is with a conscious choice that I gently set it aside when I work and especially when I learn. It won't always stay quiet, but the effort is the difference. Your doors towards accepting true growth and venturing into uncharted territories, art styles, and networking will really open from there. But there's a huge caveat...

5. Toolsets, accessibility, privilege, and all the good things that enable artistic expression and profitability are not given equal to all. you might do all the mental work I mentioned to be ready to rock and roll and learn and draw your way out of anything, but digital art is a fucking money pit that asks almost too much at times. I don't got a good case study here but identifying and ensuring accessibility to the tools you need to do your best work is, like, super important. The ergonomics can improve as you make money and settle into the job, but the basics have to be made available to you. And some of that might not even be under your direct control. That can be anything from pen tablets to software subscriptions to opportunities in hiring sullied by sexism or what have you. You gotta navigate all that through careful networking and money/time management. I don't do a good job of devoting specific slices of time to work/study, and my primary clutch is iPad software which went from a good deal to a nightmare scenario over the years. So all I can say here is do what I didn't; network, invest in a PC/tablet, and pick a software you'll learn that won't burn a hole in your pocket.

6. Be nice to work with? This one is hard to articulate and has landed my own ass in hot water in my early years because of how socially inept I am, but nothing is more worthwhile than being.. like. a good person to work with. That can be anything like meeting deadlines, or sometimes missing them but eloquently articulating why, being generous in early stages, being communicable and not too wordy in your emails, having a good grasp on abstract artistic concepts and how to describe them in simple terms, having a clear, laid out framework of your working rates in commercial and non-commercial projects and sticking to those guns with grace, understanding when you need to say no and saying it well, the works. Just being nice. Sometimes that might mean going headstrong with something you believe in, or simmering down and sucking up to the big man, all relative and adaptive. Part and parcel of the service provision dance that we all have to do in order to make bank. Know your lines here, obviously, and don't like. work for nazis. or uh.. *shudders* exposure. but be nice and empathetic and communicable and word will travel eventually. Skill may be in abundance these days, but good people are most certainly not, and capitalism has a way of bubbling up scarcity. Grim, but uh, them's the breaks.

I know I'm ultimately telling you to like. Have a body of work, make a portfolio, grow, and network. But that's really how I see it for now. And being nice can be a cherry on top that sets you apart, along with the inherent irreplaceable voice of your artwork. I think I rambled on enough, but if there is something specific you need my help with, even if you want to come off anon and talk in private, please feel free.

[c0ffeebee]

hi! i've always wanted to ask how you got into doing art / photo manipulations in the way that you do? your style is so unique and beautiful, i was wondering if you took inspo from any other sources? hope that made sense, have a nice day!

hi! thank you so much for your kind words about my work and my style! ❤and this is seriously the most interesting ask i’ve ever gotten in my entire life, so thank you so much for that too, anon! it’s a pretty long story, but i’ll try not to ramble (and if i do i’m sorry)

first thing you should know i was drawing since i was a little kid, literally no other activity could occupy me that much, so i basically taught myself to draw (my whole family draws, but it’s more of a hobbie for my parents and my brother and they never really taught me, just gave me freedom to try)

i’m saying that just so you know i had a major traditional drawing background before i’ve tried anything digital 

then when i was like 15 i entered my first ever fandom, which was twilight and i’m not ashamed (maybe a little), and in that time in fandom one the most popular activities was - doing fanfiction cover for other people’s stories, and so i thought i want to be able to do that! and i’ve started to descover for myself what photoshop is

and for the next few years i was teaching myself to work with this program and at first, of course, it was A BIG MESS:

but i’ve managed to understand what works and what not, and people started to request fanfic covers from me, so i made them (it wasn’t like commission because at this point fandom didn’t figure out we can do that yet), it was something like this:

so for all those years i taught myself how to work with colors, croping, textures, text, everything, but i never added drawn details to it because i’ve never knew what a drawing tablet even is

but for all those covers it was often necessary to make manips and i’ve started to learn how to do that too and (as with everything) it was a… not good at first, i mean look at it:

as you can see it was… a journey

then one day i’ve discovered what a drawing tablet is (when i was in glee fandom a few years later and everyone was drawing digital stuff), so i begged my parents to buy me my first drawing tablet (i was a shitty one let me tell you and it died like a year later, but that’s not the point)

and with it i’ve started doing what oh so many people on the internet do (which was the first step towards what i’m doing now), i took different pictures, maniped them together and TRACED all the lines on top of it with the new layer, and then just blurred the original pictures that were still on the bottom layer, and i wasn’t telling people about how i did it, so they thought i’ve drawn it all from the scratch (don’t do it, people, just say you traced it, no one cares):

so it looked… ok? but now when i look at it i think it’s all messy and… yeah, no, it’s not good at allbut for all those years i was watching so many people who photomanipulated pictures too (in a very different style than i do, but oh so beautifully), it wasn’t like one or two artist that i admired, it was seeing those thing now and then, and mostly in the works of people who were still doing all those fic covers, but were getting better and better at it

and then i saw that some book covers look like that too, like those amazing smooth manips that i’ve always wanted to know how to do

what i didn’t understand back then was that i’ve already knew, i’ve already done that, but i’ve messed it up every time i was tracing over my manips trying to pretend it’s a drawing, instead of just working on the pistures i’ve manipulated and try and make them look more whole and realystic

at some point i even made a few manips that looked distantly like what i’m doing now:

and i just sort of rejected this idea of doing manips, because i wanted to teach myself to draw digitally, not photomanipulate

and then i started to try and make manips like those (like i saw on book and fic covers) for the covers i was making (still) and it worked and i liked how it looked:

so i thought why not try to do that not for a cover, but just like an illustration, and i made this one piece and it changed everything:

you can find it here on tumblr

i saw people talking in the comments and tags about how it looks like a picture and like a drawing at the same time and i thought: ok, maybe i’m onto something here, maybe i do want to make stuff like that

and so i did

and in the middle of making the second one of these i’ve lost my first tablet, i finished it using mouse (it was hell) and it turned out looking like that:

you can find it here on tumblr

and then a few month later i got a new tablet (which i’m working with to this day) and i’ve just started to make things like that more and more, it felt like i finally found my style, but it was taking me so much time to make each one of those that in a year all i’ve made was:

7 pieces… ok i’ve also made some gifs and i’ve tried drawing chibi for the first time that year too, but you get the point, it was hard for me to learn how to do it quickly, but at the same time be satisfied with how each finished piece looks

and then it was just hours and hours and hours of practice and pain (kidding about the pain, but not really, it was tough) and here we are now, that piece i’ve made last week for will tudor’s birthday has 5 characters on it and it took me like two and half days (?) to make it, if you’d shown me this manip a few years ago when i’ve just started and told me i did it in such a short time i would never believe you

so everything comes with practice, and if you want to be able to do something - be curious, try things you were afraid to try before, look at the other people who does it (but not too much, because you have your own style and your own road to it) and most importantly just… just make something, even if at first you’ll thing it looks like a mess, trust me, i know what a mess is, it gets better ❤

[panismightier]

Generation Three

"Generation Three" is the short story I wrote for my fiction workshop this past semester! It's about 13 pages long (double spaced), so be sure you have time for it! I'll reblog it a few times for a bit after this. CW: a brief mention of suicide.

------

I was born in a tin can to die in a tin can.

My name is Sylvia Chavez, and I’m in Generation Three of the Miranda mission. When my parents were kids, old enough to remember but too young to have a say, their parents signed up for the world-expanding, paradigm-shifting mission of interstellar travel. The Miranda mission will take hundreds of people, thousands by the time the ship arrives, to TRAPPIST-1e, and they’ll start a colony there. Build a brave new world.

I won’t be around to see it.

See, the TRAPPIST-1 system is nearly seventy light years away. The Miranda doesn’t travel at the speed of light, only about a third of it. It’s a two-century flight, give or take. One way. Of course.

My life on this ship is pretty straightforward. I won’t have any responsibilities until I hit breeding age around thirty, and then I spit out a few kids and help raise Gen Four.

------

I eat lunch every day with this girl Lauren. That’s it, just Lauren—she was born to very communal, “takes a village” people. Lauren didn’t get a last name, because she’s the whole station’s daughter.

It felt like it, too, when she was born. She’s only sixteen. She was born after everyone thought Gen Three was full, and then Marcus offed himself and Lauren’s parents jumped to fill his slot. I was only eight, but it’s easy to remember how everyone doted on her.

She’s tiny, and not just because she’s young, with pale skin and ratty blonde hair that makes two little ringlets in the front where she twirls it. She’s always in the same worn-out blue sweater, except for the days it’s getting washed, and she always eats applesauce.

Lauren works in fashion design. Not that it means much here. She’s on a team of five, and they make the clothes for everyone on the station. They get to define fashion. Lauren mostly makes pajamas and lounge clothes, though, so I don’t think she cares much how it looks.

She’s scribbling down patterns now. She’s finished her applesauce—she always scarfs the stuff—but she’s waiting for me today.

“Don’t you have a special desk for that?” I ask her, pointing my fork at her patterns. It’s hard, to my untrained eye, to work out what kind of garment it is, but her paper hardly leaves room on the table for my plate.

“Yes,” she says. Eli waves to us on his way out of the lunch hall, but Lauren either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care.

“Why don’t you use it?”

She shrugs, not looking up from the table. “You’re here. I like you.”

I grin. “I like you, too.”

“I want to show you something after.” Lauren pulls something from her bag that looks like a big, curved ruler and lays it on the table to trace.

“Show me what?” I move my plate to the bench next to me as she shifts the paper to cover the last clear foot of table.

She smiles, but still doesn’t look at me. “It’s a secret.”

------

Lauren’s secret is a tour of where she works. I’ve been there before—I’ve been to every one of the Miranda’s 700-odd acres more times than I can count, and Lauren’s workspace is, frankly, one of the least interesting. Not nearly as fun as the 0-G rec center. Well, Lauren’s always had an odd idea of fun.

She works in a big room on the second floor of the community center, full of long, cloth-strewn desks, scattered dress forms, several mirrors, and a line of sewing machines. Lauren grabs my sleeve and tugs me to the second table from the back. It’s even more of a mess than the others, and she pulls out the pattern she was working on before and drops it over the top of everything. Silently, she pulls up her chair, picks up a pair of scissors, and starts cutting the pattern out.

I watch her for a while, uncertain of what I’m meant to be doing. “Not that this isn’t fascinating,” I lie, “but why did you take me here?”

“I thought you’d want to see. Here, hold this,” Lauren says, shoving a piece of the pattern at me. It looks like the front of a shirt, so I hold it up to my chest.

“See what?” I ask as Lauren starts tugging at the paper, pinning it to my t-shirt. “And what are you doing?”

“Measuring,” Lauren says.

It’s the closest thing to an answer I’ll get out of her. I’ve learned to trust her judgement despite how little she explains. I wait for her to make her marks and unpin the pattern before I ask again: “What did you want me to see?”

She doesn’t stop moving. “This.”

“This what?”

“This.” She lets go of her work long enough to make an expansive gesture around the room.

I follow her gesture, watching carefully for anything terribly interesting. “I don’t get it,” I admit.

Lauren shrugs. “Something. Just something new.”

“There’s nothing new here.”

Lauren doesn’t answer. She moves behind me to pin something to my back.

“Why’d you want to show me something new, then?” I ask, watching her work in the mirror across the room.

“You’re bored all the time,” she says. “You should do something.”

“Like wh—ow!” I flinch away from a pin prick. Lauren mumbles an apology and pats my shoulder where she pricked it. “It’s fine,” I assure her. “I should do something like what?”

“Something,” Lauren says.

I won’t get any specifics out of her, then. “Why should I do anything?” I ask instead. “I have everything I need. It’s nice not to have to do anything.” Like Grandpa’s always told me.

“But are you happy?” Lauren asks around a mouthful of pins.

“What?”

She unpins the pattern, sets it on her desk, and spits out the pins, then leans forward to look me in the eye. “Are you happy?”

------

Grandpa’s putting together a jigsaw puzzle on one of the greenhouse tables. He loves the things. I’ve tried to show him the app on our tablets that would give him thousands of puzzles, with the added benefit of never getting messed up by gravity fluctuations, but he insists on the physical version, something about how the pieces feel in his fingers. There are six jigsaw puzzles on the Miranda. Four are for toddlers, and the other two Grandpa has committed to memory. His favorite is missing three pieces. At least one of those, I ate as a baby.

“Don’t you get bored?” I ask him. The greenhouse is hotter than the rest of the station, so I’ve taken off my shoes and jacket.

He shakes his head, snapping in a new piece every few seconds. “I love that I can do what I want here. That never gets boring.”

“Doesn’t it?” I poke my fingers through holes in the table, even though I’ve gotten them stuck enough times that I should know better.

“Are you getting existential again?”

“Maybe.”

Grandpa sets down his puzzle piece and looks up at me. “Listen, Sylvia,” he says, “I don’t know if there’s some grand design. But I do know that you were lucky enough to be born knowing exactly what you’re for.”

I give a noncommittal grunt.

“Have I told you about the paradox of choice?” Grandpa asks, leaning forward over the table.

“Yes.”

“The more options you have, the less likely you are to be satisfied with what you choose,” Grandpa explains anyway. “You have one choice—”

“—so I have no choice but to be happy with it, I know. I try to gesture, but my finger is stuck in the table. “You know it doesn’t really work that way, right?”

Grandpa chuckles, like he doesn’t think I mean it.

“Lauren asked me earlier if I’m happy,” I say.

“Lauren’s a bit of an oddball.” Like I haven’t heard this from him before. “All the workers are.”

“I know,” I say quietly.

“Why work if they don’t get anything out of it? I’ll never understand them.” He’s gone back to his puzzle, placing piece after piece in neat rows. It’s a picture of the launch of the first Miranda capsule, the little pod that took the first couple families to the station. We use it as storage now. I wonder if Grandpa’s realized he’s just assembling and reassembling a broom closet getting thrown into space.

“What do you get out of puzzles?” I ask.

His mouth opens, silent. “It feels good to finish them,” he says eventually.

“Even though you take them apart again right after?”

“It’s not the same thing,” he says, catching on to where I’m going. “This is a hobby, not work.”

I scowl. “I don’t get it.” I catch sight of a gardener pruning back a hedge behind Grandpa, so I call to them, twisting my finger out of the table to wave them over.

Clive is short and stout, with brown skin slightly wrinkled with smile lines. They’re one of the younger Gen Two people: they were the youngest baby when the mission launched, and moderately famous until Zo became the first baby born on the ship and eclipsed them.

“Why do you do greenhouse stuff?” I ask them. Clive stows their shears in their overalls’ pocket and pulls an exaggerated thinking face.

“Sylvia won’t understand the difference between a job and a hobby,” Grandpa explains, “so maybe you can shed some light. I don’t understand you workers.”

Clive brightens. “Oh, I don’t think there is a difference, for me,” they say. “I work in the greenhouse because I love it, and if it makes other people happy, all the better.”

“So that’s the difference?” I ask. “Work helps somebody else?

“When you ask Lauren for dresses, it’s work,” Grandpa says, “but when she makes you one without you asking, it’s a hobby.”

“There’s no real difference for her.” I’ve asked, and she’s nothing but delighted when people commission her. “Besides, if an artist draws for themselves, but puts the picture up in public, is that work or a hobby?”

“Does it matter?” Clive slides on the bench next to me and folds their gloves on the table. “We only do anything because we want to. Nothing’s really work.”

“I watch you sweat out here every damn day,” Grandpa says.

Clive shrugs. “And I watch you put together those puzzles. Why don’t you glue one and have something to show for it, for once?”

“I’d run out of things to do.” Grandpa’s nearly finished with this puzzle. He can’t have been here longer than an hour. “Besides, someone made sure I wouldn’t have all the pieces.”

I give him a dirty look.

“The nice thing about gardening,” says Clive wisely, “is that you don’t run out of things to do. They stretch their arms over their head, showing the tight muscles in their arms. “That clear things up, Sylv?”

“Yeah,” I lie. “Thanks.”

“Any time!” Clive scoots back off the bench and tugs their gloves on. “Any chance of a new recruit for my greenhouse squadron?”

I force a smile, but don’t answer as Clive returns to trimming the hedges. Grandpa finishes the puzzle and I stick my fingers in the table.

------

Lauren meets me for lunch the next day with three bandaged fingers and a folded-up grey cloth. “Try this on,” she instructs me without preamble, pushing the cloth at me. “Over your shirt is fine.”

She drops her bag on her usual bench and goes to the kitchen. I shimmy out of my skirt and pull the new dress over my head. It fits impeccably, as always. It’s hard to make out the style from here, but it’s a heavy fabric, almost like canvas, with a loose skirt dropping almost to my ankles. Each side has a pocket big enough to stick my arms in nearly to the elbow. I twirl and smile as the skirt billows out

Lauren returns with applesauce. “Do you like it?”

“I love it,” I tell her, “Like always. What inspired this one?”

Lauren brightens. She loves talking about her process. “I like the gardeners’ overalls,” she says. “I wanted to make something to remind me of them, but the dress probably isn’t good to work in, so I thought, Sylvia looks like she should work, but doesn’t, so maybe she wants it.” She takes a scoop of applesauce.

For a moment, I’m reeling. The rough fabric scratches at the base of my neck. “What do you mean, I look like I should work?”

“You never answered me yesterday,” Lauren says. “Are you happy?”

I look at the table, one thumb tracing the inside hem of the pocket.

“I’m not unhappy.” “Are you happy?”

“No.” Suddenly, I’m irritated, a heat flaring under my skin. “Is that what you want me to say?”

Lauren swallows the last of her applesauce, and then swallows again, blinking hard. “I was just asking.” She lets the silence hang as she collects herself. “Do you want to get food?”

My stomach growls. “Yes,” I decide, and head towards the cafeteria, the heavy new skirt swishing around my legs.

------

It takes me another four days to visit the greenhouse again, even though Grandpa makes a visit without me. He says when he gets back that Clive asked after my “quest to understand the nature of labor,” so the next day I go myself.

Clive is still there. I’d say they sleep in the greenhouse, if I didn’t know better.

“Hi,” I say, almost nervous. Before Clive can turn around, I ask them,

“Did you mean it about recruiting me for the greenhouse...whatever?”

Their eyes light up. “Of course! Does that mean you’re interested?”

I hesitate, even though I’ve known my answer for four days. “I...think so, yes.”

Clive beams and bounces on to the balls of their feet. “I could hug you!”

“Go ahead.” I grin back and open my arms. Clive is warm and solid and hugs so tight they crush the breath out of me.

Gardening is harder than I thought. Clive is a patient, enthusiastic teacher, but they pile so much on me so fast I have no idea how to absorb it all. After a few hours and a frustrated threat of quitting, they tell me to scrap everything they’ve been telling me, dart into a shed half-hidden in the hedges, and come back with a dried-out pea. “We’ll start slow.”

I take the pea. “We’re planting this, then?” I ask, too exhausted by the past few hours to question them.

“Yep!” How Clive has maintained their enthusiasm is beyond me. “Put it on the ground.”

I do.

“Poke it in with your finger, about an inch deep.”

I do. The soil is cool, and fluffier than I would have expected before Clive’s boot camp.

“Done.”

“Done?” I look up at them. “It took you hours to tell me to stick a pea in the ground?”

“Done for now.” They grin and offer me a hand up. “Sylvia Chavez, that is your pea.”

I blink. “Yeah?”

“You’re its mother. You planted it in the ground, and now it’s your responsibility to water it and check on it and make sure it grows into a healthy pea plant, one that you can pick pods off of and eat right there.”

I gasp. “I’m going to eat my grandchildren?”

Clive snorts, then doubles over laughing. “A poorly-chosen metaphor,” they concede. “The point is, it really doesn’t matter if it’s a job or a hobby. That pea is your something, because it’s your something.” I pull a face.

“Listen, Sylv,” Clive says, their smile fading. “I don’t know you too well, but it seems to me like you’re aimless. Maybe gardening isn’t your calling, but just try it out, okay?”

I wasn’t really prepared to Clive to get serious on me. “Why?”

“In about a month, that pea is going to send little shoots up,” they say, pointing at my finger-shaped hole in the ground. “And I think you might understand then why I garden, and why your grandpa does puzzles.”

“And why Lauren makes dresses?” I ask.

Clive’s smile returns. “And why Maurice cooks, and why Zo cleans things, and why Pax likes singing better when people listen.”

Nervously, I smile back. “Seems like a big ask of a little pea sprout.” “Then you’re giving the pea sprout purpose, too.”

------

A month later, I have a surprise for Lauren. I swore Clive to secrecy, but the greenhouse is public and gossip travels fast on the Miranda, so I’m concerned she already knows. If she does, she hides it well.

I make her close her eyes as I take her to the greenhouse. It’s not a long walk—there are no long walks on the Miranda—and the heat and earthy smell of the greenhouse is strong enough that I see a knowing smile on her face as we approach. She still doesn’t say anything.

I take her to my plant and tell her to open her eyes. She doesn’t see it at first. It’s tiny, barely sprouted an inch out of the ground, and its tiny leaves don’t draw much attention. But when I kneel down to point at it, her face lights up.

“Sylvia!” she says. “You did something!”

“I did!”

She crouches down next to me, then drops to her hands and knees to give the plant a gentle kiss. “You made it grow all by yourself?”

“Clive helped me,” I confess.

“But it’s yours.”

“It’s mine.”

She leans back, sitting on the balls of her feet and looking somewhere over my left shoulder. “How does it feel?”

I look at the plant. How does it feel? This little sprout is alive thanks to me. Its soil is damp (too damp, Clive keeps telling me) thanks to me. How does it feel?

It feels like a lot. There’s been dirt under my fingernails for a month, because Clive’s thick gloves were too clunky for the gentle touch the pea plant needed. My back and legs ache from all the crouching I’m still not used to. A month was long, and more than once I wanted to quit, but Clive threatened to let the pea plant die if I did. To my own surprise, I found I cared too much about the seed to risk calling their bluff.

I feel beaten. I feel proud. I feel tired. I feel full.

I pat the little pea plant’s leaves and glance back up at Lauren. “I’m happy.”

[t-pose-to-assert-gayness]

I had an epiphany today

I know that I’m not a professional artist by any means - I’ve only been using my drawing tablet for a little over 2 years and I’ve only been getting serious for the past 18 months or so - even more so recently, but I want to share some valuable advice that I haven’t heard anyone say until now. It’s something I’ve needed to hear so some of you beginners will probably need to hear this now or in the future.

Recently, I’ve been feeling shit about my art. I’ve been wanting it to be better and I keep falling into old habits and I know that i see something I’ve drawn and that it’s just not good or correct at all. I know it sounds corny but I want to put my heart and soul into what I work on and so I want it to be perfect. Right now, the problem is that i don’t know how to fix certain things so I have to ask for help (which is totally something you SHOULD be doing) but the fact that I can’t do it on my own annoys me. There’s an old post from here that i saw a few years ago, which showed a graph (I cant for the life of me link it because i’ve tried multiple times in the past to find it again) a little like this.

I really believe in this chart. It shows that your perception of what’s good and your physical drawing skill almost step up in complete opposite bursts from each other. This is why you will start to see your drawings “get worse” when in reality, your skill just isn’t increasing at that current time - however, your perception is.

You need to understand that you cannot become an Art God (tm) right away. You also can’t have your skills incubate without doing anything and think “oh i’ll be good in a couple years so i wont try” no bitch thats not how the game works.

Constant practice is what drives constant improvement. You may not be absolutely great now, but you are still allowed to enjoy it! You’ll get there eventually, why not have a little fun along the way?

I might not like my art teacher all that much but today she actually said something that I took to heart. Today she explained what we have to complete for our course and she talked about how you may not like some of the things that you do, but keep those in a folder. The examiners will look at them, but only save your best work for your exhibition. Your folder shows your journey. It’s a necessary journey, but there is still work that you’ll produce that will be your best. That’s the work you can show off and be proud of, but still appreciate the not-so-good work because you’ve learned something from it. You tried something, you learned how to do and not to do something. You can use that art to improve your further endeavours. It’s all about the journey. Art is a journey.

Let me put this into an online art world perspective for you:

Say you have a portfolio on the internet that you only upload your best art to so you can show it off to your friends and other artists because you’re proud of it. And say that you also save all your art into one folder on your computer. Not all of it is good in there. some shit with wonky proportions. the head was too big, that lineart was crap, their hands look like they were mangled by a fucking combine harvester and then reattached, etc.

Your portfolio is your best work. You’re proud of it. Cool.

Your art folder is full of unfinished sketches that you went back to and thought “ew thats awful” and so you vowed never to do that again. See? you learned something. You learned not to make the head that big. You learned that the way you drew that hand was not in sync with the rest of the drawing.

YOU LEARNED SOMETHING AND THAT’S JUST AS IMPORTANT AS CREATING SOMETHING YOU’RE PROUD OF. WHY? BECAUSE YOU CAN TAKE THE NOTES THAT YOU MAKE FROM YOUR OWN SHORTCOMINGS IN YOUR WORK AND YOU CAN IMPROVE NEXT TIME. TURN YOUR TRASH INTO TREASURE.

To finish: some quickfire tips that I’ve learned.

Find communities where you can share your art and get feedback. Discord servers, Deviantart groups, etc

Make art friends! Holy shit bro if you dont do that then who are you going to

ASK FOR HELP WHEN YOU NEED IT YOU AREN’T BEING RUDE FOR FUCK’S SAKE NOT EVERYONE ON THE INTERNET IS EVIL THEY’LL BE HAPPY TO HELP IF YOU’RE NICE AND POLITE!!

Send artists you like asks and questions in DMs (if they have them open to non-mutuals)! If you are ignored, just fire them an ask on anon or another quick message cause they might either be a) busy or b) they didn’t see the notification for the messages

Participate in collabs and fandom projects or even make your own! like holy queen elizabeth II on a wheel after starting The Beach City Witch Project (a Steven Universe fan episode animatic) in 2017, I got the chance to meet and work with artists whom i’d been looking up to for LITERALLY YEARS. They are really super nice and chill people and I actively ask for a quick redlining of a pose or a question about commission etiquette or something and it really helps me. I now have a discord full of over 100 people who create music, art, literature, etc. Not everyone in the server is active all the time, but we have a core active user-base of about 30 people. We have a chat for art references, a chat for sharing links to cool art we’ve found (the #1 rule is that you credit or link directly to the artist/art) and we have a chat for posting and critiquing art that you’ve made. It’s a really good system and one that I recommend to anyone with an art-focussed server.

I hope that there is at least something in this block of text that someone has needed to hear. Please reblog this so I can spread my kinda shitty wisdom because i know how y’all feel. I felt that way once. I feel that way now and I will again in the future. You aren’t alone.

[ra9zine]

Meet Erica D’urso!  An inspirational artist featured in the ra9zine!

What are the links to your social media so people can find you! https://www.facebook.com/xmangaka (more used for news and wip) https://www.instagram.com/erucchan/ (for images) https://twitter.com/Erica_Durso https://erinartb.tumblr.com/

What first inspired you to draw? I started drawing since I was a child. It was my escape from the chaos of the world. I wasn't good to speak so I used to draw to express myself

What programs do you use to to draw? I'm using Clip Studio Paint now for making comics. Photoshop for colors and I love to make traditional pieces too!

What kind of tablet do you use? have a wacom cintiq 13 hybrid for home and a Mobile studio Pro when I'm travelling!

What is your favorite thing to draw? I love dynamic poses and pinups of women. When I need to warm up, I start with them!

How long have you been drawing for? If I count my childhood sketches, I think 14 years. But I started drawing comics 8 years ago.

Are there any particular artists that have inspired you over the years? There are many! I'm a comic artist and I have a lot of artists in my mind to keep myself inspired. My "heroes" are, at the moment, Davide Gianfelice, Sara Pichelli and Mahmud Asrar. There are many other artists, but these are my top three!

Did you go to school for art or are you self taught? Would you recommend a formal education? I did Artistic High School and a School of Comic in Milan, but what really taught me something is the Master I did in Rome, at International School of Comic. My teacher was David Messina and I learned a lot of things in just one year.

I have to say it, school isn't enough. You need a lot of will and must be ready to go ahead no matter the walls you'll find in front of you.

Do you do Commissions? Are they open? do you have a link to your commission page? I've actually closes them because of my little free time. But I think I'll re-open them the next year. I still have not any commission page, but you can check my social media to stay tuned!

Do you have a website? (Patreon? Etsy? Webtoons? Youtube? Artstation? BigCartel? Tictail? etc?) Not yet. I feel kinda unknown yet ahah!

Do you sell merch or prints anywhere? Not really. Just sometimes I sell my originals. If you want you can check my facebook page!

Do you have a webcomic? whats the link to your webcomic? how did you get started? Any tips for future webcomic artists? I do not own the name of the project, but I applied as artist in one of the chapters! Midnight Roads is an Italian comic, but you can read it online on Tapas. The guys who started it were the first to ask me to draw a story for them. I'm really affectionate to them and their characters!

Do you have recommendations for networking? Not really, I'm so out of the world that I'm not a pro in net stuff ^^"

Is there anything we missed that you might want to share with your followers? I do streaming! (sometimes). I use facebook, just for my contacts, but I tried twitch too. Maybe in future I'll start again.

I'd love to share what I know on comics and livestreaming would be fun with some follower :>

Do you have any final inspirational words or tips for your followers? No matter how it's hard, never stop fighting for your dreams. Giving up would means you're lying to yourself and you don't deserve it <3

And be kind. Everything will be all right.

[mysticsparklewings]

2018 Art Summary!

I've never done one of these before because usually, I don't even have to look to know I'll have several months left blank, as I have a bad habit of finishing things and either just waiting to post them or uploading things in bulk. This time though, I felt more confident about having a piece for every month...Turns out somehow I lost February in terms of art-making . Oh well, 11/12 ain't bad. (And I'm very positive I drew something in February, but evidently, I didn't think to post it. Which is weird because February usually isn't that busy for me ) Also, I think I'm a few days late to the party on these, but whatever. And now for a short description and links to each artwork so you can understand & see them better. January: Coraline One of my earlier attempts at just straight fan-art from one of my favorite movies. I'm still really happy with how it turned out, almost a year later February: Surprisingly, nothing! (Seriously, I have no idea what happened to February...) March: Killjoys, Make Some Noise! The first piece of My Chemical Romance fan-art I ever made.  Poor me and poor them, they look a wee bit feminine, but I'm working on getting better at that. Maybe this year I'll take the time to color the line art to honor the anniversary again--we'll see! (I put this one in sideways because I couldn't size/crop it to fit the other way to my own satisfaction) April: Ivy Enchantix 2018! You know, I would've thought if there was any month I had no art posts, it would've been April. There was Spring Break and Easter, school stuff including taking a trip to New York...And yet it seems April was actually one of my busier months, considering what all I had to pick from. But it was really no contest of which one to pick as my favorite. While I definitely only rarely make Winx art anymore, when I do there's a lot of heart and soul poured into every piece, to the point there isn't much I can find fault with. This may not have been the "grand return" I was hoping for, but it stands as a reminder that I'm not ready to fully let Winx Club go anytime soon. May: Watercolor Stars The tail end of May 2018 marked a big milestone I almost never thought I'd see; My first display drawing tablet, a Wacom Cintiq that I stalked eBay for months (possibly even years) to finally get my hands on. This was also the first time I actively revisited my Mini Magnet Challenge from the year prior, using one of my favorite poems as inspiration for the first piece of art made with the tablet. Looking back on it now, I really am in love with the overall atmosphere. June: The Sandman This month proved to be a busy one, and I have to say honorable mentions go to my Art Style Challenge and The World is Ugly, the second piece of MCR fan-art I made. But ultimately I went with this one because I'm still obsessed with Mr. Sandman's unique character design and for as simple and quick as the image was, it's honestly one of my most favorite pieces I think I've ever made. (I even have it posted as a Portfolio piece on my website). The other two are great and easily tied for close seconds, but they don't haunt me the same way this one does. July: One Little Spark Early July was time for my family's annual theme-park vacation, specifically to Walt Disney World.  After we got back, I had that feeling I usually do about being just so inspired by everything we saw and did, but not really knowing what to do with it. Every year I want to do a small series for every day we're at the parks, but I never have the time or means to do so. So an obscure crossover of Figment from Journey Into Imagination at Epcot and Animal Crossing: New Leaf was my compromise for 2018.  I still think it's adorable and though it is ridiculously unlikely, I have to say I would absolutely love to see Figment appear in an Animal Crossing game someday now. August: Grav3yardGirl Once again, August had a few different options but ended up being a no-contest. This is the first piece of fan-art I ever made of my favorite Youtuber, Grav3yardGirl , made and posted at basically the last minute for her birthday on August 3rd.  I'm not sure she ever saw it or knows it exists, but there's always next year! I do still think it turned out really cute for how much of a rush I was in to complete it. Also, someone needs to remind me to use that parchment paper in my artwork more often... September: Marco Renoir Colored Pencil Test This month was relatively calm with only a few art pieces to choose from. I went with my test piece for the Marco Renoir pencils because I do still really love how it looks and also because it sort of marked the beginning of my hunt for colored pencils and would eventually lead me to pick up a few other specific brands. Plus doing all these test pieces ends up boosting my colored pencil skills overall.  This also marked the beginning of me using galaxy/sky pictures to test colored pencils, which has proven pretty effective, I think. October: Outfit of The Day This was my busiest October art-wise in a while, I think. For once I wasn't competing with art/theatre classes that demanded a ton of my extra attention, and this was also the first time I was super committed to seeing Inktober through to the end. And admittedly my Inktober 2018: Wrap Up! picture was very close to getting this spot, but I ultimately decided against it since I would be really hard to tell what it actually is and that seemed like cheating since I'm not sure I could pick a favorite Inktober piece anyway . So I went with my first-ever Outfit-Of-the-Day drawing instead. I am still really thrilled with it and it was one my first real holiday-specific pieces I made also. I was also rushing to get this one done, and I still think it came out really good, all things considered. November: Why, Curious Butterflies! This one was honestly the hardest to pick because this was easily the busiest November I think I have ever had art-wise. For at least four years prior I always had a ton of theatre stuff to do, but not in 2018. (Don't get me wrong, I really miss that class but it was definitely a big commitment). In the end, I went with the picture that makes me the happiest; this little fan-art inspired by a purse I had just gotten IRL. It's cute and its mixed-media, which I am increasingly convinced is where my artistic talent really shines brightest. December: The Nutcracker Oddly enough, this feels like the sparsest December I've had for art in a while because I think before Winter Break was like my main comeback after months of having to put stuff off. I may not have made that many art pieces this December, but the ones I did were pretty elaborate/in-depth for me. I went with my Nutcracker girl since it's a concept I've been wanting to play with for a while now, and once again this was a mixed media piece that I think really showcases my skills. And it's also one of the first real like Christmas-y drawings I've made. I also spent a good chunk of this month acquiring new art supplies to play with . All in all, I look back and I'm pretty happy with what I've accomplished art-wise is 2018. It was a year of experimenting and milestones, and I think I'm in a much better place as an artist now than I was a year ago. Lord knows my journey is not over yet, but I like where I am so far. Art Goals for 2019: Keep experimenting, maybe learn to draw faster, post more consistently; and most importantly, keep striving to be better. ____ Template (c) DustBunnyThumper Artworks (c) me, MysticSparkleWings ____ Where to find me & my artwork: My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble |   Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram

[featherlinneasart]

Okay, I remembered that in the last messy sketch, I used the wrong pencil tool. No wonder my sketches looked so weird. I'm such an idiot sometimes haha Oh well this sketching is a lot more accurate with the pencil tool I normally would use. Except for the few parts I accidentally used the brush to sketch haha. For coloring sketches I still use the brush. I normally sketch in dark blue, since it is the easiest for me to see. In Lunas sketch I sketched with blue as well and just changed the colored to match with a "filter" option later on. Anyway was about time to draw Feather with my "labels" meaning the scarf and necklace. I have the necklace somewhere, but I think I lost it. Might buy a new one + a scarf like this (or make a scarf myself) I'm Feather and I'm nonbinary and an asexual homoromatic person! +I'm obviously a furry(sfw). So I named this "Growing up", because it feels nostalgic looking back on my old art and than seeing how far I've come. Starting digital art around 2013 (with a mouse I might add) and starting to draw with a draw-pad/tablet in 2017. Writing improved a lot too. Of course my depression is still there, sometimes almost none-existent and then completely at it, but very much manageable. I learned how manage it, and despite that, I was once a really annoying kid to people I knew and shy and quiet beyond belief. I mean I'm still rather quiet, but I wouldn't call myself shy anymore, just unresponsive(to comments etc.) if anything. Of course I made my fair share of mistakes, but I can admit them now and can swallow my pride, which was hard when I was younger. I now just throw the same mistakes I made in my face every once in a while so I can reflect, but not forget. So you'll occasionally see desc. filled with stuff like this. I like seeing who I am now and who I was and what I did. I mean I'm still rather lazy and procrastinate a lot especially in the current Comic, which I can't wait going in hiatus for, so that the next chapter will improved by a huge amount. I really dislike the background, just look at my recent ones, it is just really simple. I really want to learn to draw backgrounds and that will take a bit of time to find something that'll work and looks good. Considering that the next chapters need a proper background, a hiatus (I mean I also have my final exams soon) is a good choice. And might as well finally read the book about how to make comics I had bought months prior. That should help quite a bit! So the only new thing that I've started to do with Feather is changing the hair up, since I started the I am the man meme, in which I drew it like that, and it stuck haha On my current situation tho: -Last year of school! Meaning I'm about to write my final exams! -Temporarily going to open two types of commissions soon, I'm still writing the Terms of Service for both.    -One is art, the other is Translations between English to German and German to English. -I've been applying for an apprenticeship as an IT. Tho I'm still applying and got some rejections so far.    -In which I'm debating to start freelance early with license etc. if I cannot find a job in the IT-branch I want to work at, at all. I hope I don't have to resort to that tho. It does suck that I'm having psychology as my main subject in school and not IT, which in turn comes to bite me in my application. Oh well I'll keep trying, I've just started applying, so I'm sure there are still plenty of chances. -So between exams/studying and stressing over finding a workplace I think I'm doing fine, stressed, but okay. -Covid vise ->As I normally don't go out and pretty much live somewhat like a shut-in I am pretty unaffected mostly    -shopping sucks a bit, since I have to take a shopping cart in as well(I don't shop alone, I drag my brother with me)    -I noticed how unhappy I was with continuously wearing a mask on school ground. I don't mind the mask that much, it is necessary, it         just sucks that my glasses can't really "be on the mask" if you get what I mean, meaning it was quite troublesome and straining to             look through my glasses, not to mention that they were foggy most of the time :/, so that was really unpleasant for me. (I am not able         to see without my glasses! I got about -4 Myopia!) Ok I admit, this part was more of a rant, but when you sit 8 h with your mask on            with these problems, it just is not fun. I'm much better now, now that the holidays have started. But my fellow people, wear your             masks! Our suffering is nothing compared to those that can potentially die from covid, or perhaps anything else we might be                     carrying!

[katherine-rambles]

@peanutters replied to your post: “@peanutters replied to your post: “hey uuuuh miniature painting is...”:

O nasty but understandable about the residue And thats why i have multiple things going at once (thank u msc 30min wait time)

hah i wish i had more space. i do have a few things happenin’ right now though-- gonna work on a couple needlefelts and also a needlefelt of my fur/feather-sona? which i want to do Really Good Wings for, which requires some research and so on. but those aren’t super great for quick jaunts between drying paint. 

also i’m vaguely afraid that my current energy bubble will burst and i’ll just be left with more unfinished projects BUT i work on telling myself that it’s for fun anyway so who the fuck cares if i have unfinished projects (aside from myself, having to hold onto projects i’ve already spent hours and dollars on and therefore keep around because i can’t bear to throw them out)

but man i haven’t had this much creative energy in... years? i keep remembering projects on my backburner and having to tell myself “well, katherine, you could do that but you have other things you want to work on right now and you can do that later.” plus new ideas and inspirations competing, though those are a bit rarer since idea creation is a bit like a muscle. 

in the past week or so, ideas i’ve recalled/come up with that i’ve wanted to start/restart, many of which i haven’t thought about in years:

my book-librarian dress that i’ve made one of two custom fabric patterns for already

my crystal skeleton repaint/mod of skelita from monster high (currently done with the sculpt and part of a base coat)

a needlefelt Garnet because she’s my Favorite

over four paintings that i have unfinished, but when i tried to work on one i was immediately discouraged because i was never that great at painting, but i still want to try again sometime soonish 

this is why i started art again with a needlefelt Mae-- i was certain that i could do it well. at least i know when i need a confidence boost lmao. PLUS it got some people interested in my nitw vector commissions again even though i wasn’t expecting that

my various lego d&d projects

my intricately planned out toothiana cosplay, which will involve probably hundreds of dollars of two-tone tulle and individually cut out feathers with optionally a sewn-in wire ‘vein’ made of multiple layers of tulle each in order to achieve her natural hummingbird gradient effect + give the longer feathers some posability

re-tooling my bulbabackpack design for more replicability so i can sell it

potentially as a purse

re-setting up my sticker printing projects

my plan to needlefelt a life-sized alien Stitch because??? WHO WOULDN’T WANT THAT

my plan to make a life-size secretary bird because they’re Awesome and basically a Modern Raptor???? fuck yea

any number of poorly-thought-out Lesbian Webcomic ideas

a videogame wherein you are a yarn creature who learns how to knit themselves into different forms Unlocking Abilities. platformer/puzzler for all ages

a videogame where you are a colony of bees and/or a specific bee caught up in hive and intra-hive politics. potentially post-apocalyptic where the bees are discovering how to interpret human language and technology? maybe post-human solar punk earth setting, because a traditional “everyone died and you’re the only intelligent things left” is too fucking tired. plus also hatoful boyfriend did it pretty well already, not sure if i can add to that

of course my amiibo mods, of my splatoon main gal and knight!peach

uuuuh my desire to introduce resin casted parts into my needlefelt creations

the general desire to learn how to sculpt+mold ball jointed dolls

the general desire to learn metalworking

soldering for techy repair stuff

more extensive training to create better frameworks for my needlefelt stuff

 my extensive pokemon quiz idea that requires webscraping code i don’t want to deal with

.... and that’s just in the LAST WEEK

I’ve had more creative, constructive, and social impulses in the past seven days than I’ve had in the PAST SEVEN MONTHS

this is how my LIFE USED TO BE LIKE!!! i wanna keep it this way!!!!!!!!

The other thing is right now I’m in a good spot of balancing these impulses with my rational, don’t-spend-too-much-money side; I can’t tell for certain why but I know when I’m depressed I’ll be excited for projects that require a lot of new equipment and skills I’ve barely used previously.  But in reality, what this means is I spend money and don’t do projects when I’m depressed. (That’s how I ended up with my big “I’ll make stickers!” plan that will probably never pan out, even if the profit margin can be stupid high. I didn’t realize that I a.] don’t draw things that lend themselves to stickers and b.] that an in-home inkjet press was going to create less durable stickers than you can get from, say, Redbubble. And I spent like 500 bucks on a printer and a papercutter for that... though I do plan on using the papercutter anyway for unrelated projects and the printer was a purchase I wanted to make anyway.)

The realistic thing to do is to work on projects with what I have or small test kits, and then upgrade more as I become more familiar and desire better tools for the work I’m already doing. A tablet does not a digital artist make, but it can certainly make a digital artist’s workflow much easier. 

Anyway right now I am cautiously optimistic about life and h---FUCK I FORGOT TO RETURN THE CALL FROM THE PSYCH OFFICE AUGH. 

i am putting a sticky note on my phone now. fuck

[newwave-lesbian]

commission prices amirite...,,

the thing is, how do i even price these things?? i have multiple art styles and different specific things you can ask for, and some things would be priced lower and higher and.... i don’t want these commissions to seem to excessive or like?? weirdly organized?? which isn’t a very good way to put it but i’ll at least attempt to make it less confusing...

like i have a style that can literally just be a doddle or sketch, that would be placed at the lowest price. the lineart is pretty sketchy, and there isn’t very complicated shading. i don’t know if those could actually be up for commissions though? because they don’t look that great. Then, there’s a style with my nicer lineart and nicer shading, where everything is colored in neatly, but the shading depends on the piece. but this can be done in like..... 50 different styles, because i’m still shifting between styles and i’m not sure which one is the one i’d like to use. the last and most expensive one would be my semi-realism style, with more complicated shading and no or minimal lineart, like basically a painting. i think i’d need to improve on this style a little more, but it could be done.

THEN, those prices would be split up into the amount of it i draw. if you want just the head and shoulders of the character, that’s the lowest, add the torso, that’s a bit pricier, add the entire person and that’s the most expensive. i know a few people do commissions like this. adding a simple background would be extra (i can’t do any complicated backgrounds and environments as of now) or i could make the character transparent so that it could be used for various things.... all of this is still something i’m working out with presenting prices and art styles, etc., in a way that’s nicely organized and set up for commissions.

but how much do i charge..........

i have spent A LOT of money on art and a lot of time on art. THOUSANDS of dollars. while my windows PC for christmas was payed for by my parents, paint tool sai was 60 (??) dollars, design doll (a tool to help with anatomy and body types) was $80, and..... a wacom cintiq was bought for nearly $1000. so uh. holy shit. for someone who has only ever had one job and was 17 when i spent that money....... that was spent in one year because i wanted to further my drawing skills. i went from a wacom bamboo tablet and my old macbook pro, to being SO serious about wanting to learn how to draw and create because it was fun and exciting and i wanted to make a career out of what i genuinely wanted to do. my entire school year was spent doodling in class and learning new things to become even better at art.

but from me, an artist who isn’t very well known and who only has skill in character design, are people going to pay willing to pay even $50 for this?? like really. i mean, i’m trying not to bring myself down and do the whole “ah well my art style isn’t anything special” thing that i do, but either way i work hard on my art. but the type of people taking commissions from me are more likely to be young and out of money. if it weren’t for this, i would want to charge more, but i need to be fair and consider who is paying for these things. is this going to actually give me money?

so this isn’t easy. but if someone could help and suggest me prices for my art, i would be really really grateful. also if you read this entire thing, i’m sorry for wasting your time with my rambling but i have no experience in this. at all.

[xladymalice]

Frequently asked Questions & Answers

Q&A

Most frequently asked Questions & Answers

Since I heard that some of you are mobile users only, I decided to copy this into an ordinary post. But I might not edit this one all that much…

So yeah, I hope it helps you cookies :)

- - -  I do not take requests. I sometimes react to suggestions, but don’t expect me do draw it - - -

How can I call you? Mali… Mali is fine. Some go by “M'lady”, but I prefer Mali :)

Can I call you senpai? Please no… that’s just wrong.

Pronouns? She/her

When is your birthday? 8th April

Where are you from? Germany.

What languages do you speak? German, english and russian (only speaking and some reading) Oh yeah, I can read a little bit french :D

Where do you work? I won’t talk about private stuff :) So please accept that.

Private stuff? Nop, I won’t answer them, if I don’t want to.

I’d like to talk to you but I am so shy…. Don’t be. I always try to respond everyone who writes me. Sometimes I need time for that…. sometimes I reply at once. It really doesn’t matter, but I do reply and I am always kind :)

What tools do you use? Mouse and my Wacom Intous Pen -graphic tablet. I also draw a lot of traditional stuff. Pen and Paper ftw.

Programs? Photoshop Elements 7(yes.), Clip Studio Paint, Sai, Manga Studio Debut 4.0

You’re so talented! I’m not… honestly. I’ve been drawing for 10 years now, it’s all practise. And I stopped drawing alot… losing motivation and strength for it.

Arts School? Arts profession? Nop, all self-taught. No arts profession here.

You’re being rude… I’m sassy, I’m rude and I’m honest. Deal with it.

How did you learn to draw??

Do you stream? Sometimes…. rarely… Here

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Swapfell Dawn is my AU and my take on on the term “Swapfell” and has nothing to do with it’s original creator Kkhopangg(KH) or Fellswap.

The comics I’m doing use the base of my AU. They are different to the popular versions and their story and personality belong to me. I was inspired by other artists on their design, but I developed them all alone.

Do you have a masterlist for Swapfell Dawn/Sympathy? Yes, but it’s only available for PC users… I am too lazy to make an extra post that I have to update too… sorry.

My Swapfells are inspired by yours! Credit always the person with the original idea. I also stated that KH had the original idea. But I didn’t know them back then and just started a story with the term “Swapfell = A Swap that fell”

I love the swapfells because of you! You are the Creator of Swapfell for me! I feel very, very honored about this statement, but it’s wrong in some way. The first idea was given by KH and I don’t want to take their title. And I don’t want people to force to take it. But I am very happy that I could make this AU interesting for you. Since that Swapfell/Fellswap debate I am even more determined to call my Swapfells “Sfd!sans aka. Black” and “sfd!papyrus aka Pup”. They belong to the Swapfell Dawn universe that splits from the mainstream line, so I won’t disturb the peace there. Of couse you can see it as your headcanon for Swapfell, I will feel more than honored. After all there was no real plot for them so far and this is just my take on…. Mweh

I want to hug your sfbros! This is a hugfree zone. Please stop sending me asks about that.

I want to hug you! I’m spiky, get the fck away from me. I am picky about hugs D:

Hugs? Never.

I want to hug you/Black/Pup! These asks will be ignored. You can go and hug stripper Jerry.

Can I create my own stories with your Swapfell Dawn boys?

No. Because I am still working on Dawn and I don’t want others to use my idea for them in their stories. If it’s about fanart/fanfictions for my story then it’s okay. But don’t make your own thing with them.

My Swapfell Dawn bois are known as “Black” and “Pup”. Pup calls his Sans “M'lord, sire, lord or Sans”… Black calls him “Mutt, Pap, Papy (special cases), Papyrus or other creative names to degrade him”

Suggestions and HCs for the SFD bois? You can write me about them, but don’t expect me to adapt them :)

You didn’t answer my ask Sorry… sometimes I delay answering stuff and I get honestly a ton more asks than I would’ve dared to imagine…. I love you all but shit… please don’t be mad if I take my time or don’t answer at all…. x.x

That music fits your Sfd!Bois! Feel free to send me stuff! I always listen to it, but I didn’t come to answer the previous suggestions… ahh.. so lazy me…

Is Sympathy on hold? Yes and no…. I will draw it when I feel like it.

Will Sympathy be continued at all? At some later point yes. I won’t stop that project.

When do you update your comics? That depends on my free time and mood. It’s always different. Sometimes I just need breaks….

There are different designs for your SFD!Bois… I change them from time to time. Sometimes depending on what I display and if it happened before or after Sympathy. Sympathy influences the final design of the Swapfell Dawn bois.

Can I call your AU still Swapfell? Yes, but since it’s my Au with MY story, MY design and MY interpretation, I’ve decided to give it an extra name so people won’t get confused about it anymore. I’m not using the design of others anymore.

—

Do not repost my art/comics without my permission. Do not sell/edit/whatever my art. If you want to have prints, then you can purchase the art and I’ll send you a higher resolution.

Can I use your art as icon? As BG on my Phone/PC…. Yes, but please to credit me. And I don’t mind if you use my stuff as background for your devices! What an honor!

I want to translate your comics…. First write me and get permission. I will talk about this with you.

My art/idea was inspired by yours… Credit me then. Because it’s rude and unfair to state it was your idea all alone. This involves character design, such as using my Swapfell bois as reference.

Can I draw SFD!Sans/SFD!Papyrus/SFD!Muffet/SFD!….? Can I write a fanfiction about them? Yes, sure! I don’t know why you want to do fanart for me, but jfc just do it! I am always happy to see my bois/my AU figures drawn in your style! Why would I not allow it? I love them and if you love them too, then it’s even better! And yes, you can also write fanfictions about my story, my pictures or whatever! Many talented writers already gifted me fantastic short fanfictions! I’ll be more than eager to read them! But sometimes I don’t have that much time, so please don’t be disappointed D:

Just please credit that you used my design/my AU there :D Less confusion for others and respect for me. Please don’t pretend it’s your design/idea, that’s what I wouldn’t like to see. And please don’t forget it’s your creation, so it’s not part of my AU unless I state that it’s an addition for it.

I drew fanart for you! I wrote a fanfiction for you! Just pm me, tag me or whatever, so I can see it. I usually always review stuff I get and comment on it. But don’t expect me to reblog it. It’s my decision after all. And please make sure that people don’t think that your fanfiction or art is part of the actual story, if you do art of it more often :) I tag stuff that belongs to the AUs I am working on.

Can I cosplay your Swapfells? YES!? Just credit my stuff and SHOW ME JFC

Requests? No.

I want a commission! Take a look at my commission page!

I want to support you! Comments, Reblogs, Pms…. I take it all.

I am also a huge fan of reading tags. They are sooooo cool at times.

You can also support me with Hot Chocolate <3</p>

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Translation List:

French Translation by @yskmoscanyaoifr

Russian Translator  by forgot their tumblr.. fck xD PM ME Who else did I forget?

How to react if you see my stuff stolen/reuploaded/sold…. First off: Just pm and link me. I will check if I know that guy, talk to them…and if they ignore me then I’ll try to report them or something.  I guess I have to learn to deal with this too. It’s just sad to see how they don’t respect work of others. I mean this happens to every artists. Don’t panic… i I just want people to be honest and some are not…