#also commissions and Patreon art take up a lot of what I do lately and those aren't usually IZ themed

[reynaruina]

Instead of rebloging old stuff constantly can you post something new?

I reblog old stuff so people who are new to my blog get to see stuff I've posted that others have enjoyed, every time I do it those old pics get a boost in shares and usually someone new finds an AU of mine that they like and go digging thru my art because of it (I see it by the spam likes LMAO). If you rather not see the old stuff reposted you can simply block the "reblogging for the new ppl" tag and you won't see those coming from me anymore.

[junktastic]

Hi everynyan,

Some of you will remember that I was taking names/addresses to send out free stickers in September. I am almost done sending them out now, so here's a quick update on that.

The Good!

I like this a lot! It's fun to do. For reference, I'm printing, laminating, and cutting these myself at home, so I'm learning a lot about my machine. I like being in charge of the quality control, I like doing the logistic work. Idk. It's fulfilling to me.

It's also really delightful to see names on the list who I've known of for a long time. Old and new faces, people all over the world, I love seeing people adopt a catgirl. :3 And for free! I'm by no means making a lot, but being able to provide something fun and physical to the people who enjoy my art for free is just! Wow!

The Bad!

Everything that could have gone wrong during this process did, which is why they're going out so late. The at-home manufacturing process was relatively simple but the materials kept being funky, or I'd do something wrong, so I'd have to toss something that I'd completely fucked up, OR I'd just miscount how much stuff material I had left. It's been a pain in the butt, so I'm glad it's done and that I've learned so much from it. I ALMOST FORGOT, I DESTROYED ONE CUTTING MAT MAKING THAT ROGER STANDEE FOR MY WEDDING LOL SO I HAD TO SPEND TIME CONDITIONING THE NEW CUTTING MAT! UGH!

There's also: the money. I know it's gauche to talk about it, but doing this was pretty expensive. I live in Canada now, and most of the letters were going out of Canada, so that postage added up. Materials cost, time, it's a pretty good chunk of change, but I didn't go broke so I want to do it again.

The Other?

I definitely want (and plan) to do this again very soon. I'm talking within this month. I'm making Christmas cards! I've already set money aside for this so it's all good, and it involves less at-home manufacturing since I can just reach out to a local print shop.

I know some people were wary of the google form, but I can't really find a better alternative at this time. MailChimp has had at least one major information leak in 2024 alone, so I am not sure where else to turn for collecting addresses at this time. I had a few people who did not give me towns/zip codes, and the street address would have three or four towns in that state alone with that address. Since I didn't collect e-mail addresses, I didn't have any way to reach out to entrants about this. If you don't see your sticker in the next few weeks, this might be why! I also plan on adding a checkbox just to confirm that the person requesting the sticker is over 18, NOT because I plan on sending anything saucy, but I know what it's like to be a teen with parents who open you mail, an I don't want to cause problems for anyone because Mom and Dad think fairies are satanic or something.

Most people I've talked to about all of this have really emphasized that I need to reopen my Patreon. I'm not saying anybody is wrong on this, but it just makes me feel so uncomfortable. I think anyone who's followed me for a while has seen me try and fail to do art full time or, hell, even have a schedule for something, and I've failed every time. I'm so scared of failing people again. How can I ensure that I'm producing things on time, to a standard I am happy with, that anyone willing to support me (in this economy?) would also be happy with? It will probably happen, but I'm just so... Plus, with all honesty, I have a commission backlog that I need to finish first! I'm bad at the business part of this whole thing, I think. I'm a blue-collar labourer in my heart.

That's my update! I wish you all well, please stay safe and take care of yourself and those around you. I'll post again when I'm collecting addresses for the Christmas cards.

[abandonambition]

Who drew these Capricorns? It's me! I did it. S...Sorry.

HI TUMBLAR. I'm Dana. I draw animals and mythical creatures (mostly capricorns and dragons). I like to reflect on lesser-known or dark aspects of nature, feelings of distress and despair, or creating designs that just look cool for the sake of looking cool. I have a sort of positive nihilist outlook on life, in that I'm rather upset with the general state of things but I still feel compelled to find or create beauty and interest anyway, even if my darker feelings sometimes come out through my work.

"Abandon Ambition" is both grimly serious and darkly humorous. I was raised in both a household and country that emphasized setting lofty goals of acquiring high earnings and impressive assets, but the timing of my pursuit of these things has laughably aligned with global financial crises, global pandemics and lockdowns, and now global heatwaves and global conflicts. Abandon ambition, and instead embrace what you want to say and do and create and build now; Tomorrow is not yours, and your goals may not be waiting for you there.

Be responsible, and be kind. But hope and wait for nothing.

So uh, yeah, I draw a lot of stuff and explore a lot of things that I think I've been holding back on for years for one reason or another. I want to draw dark goats, glowing bats, tempest capricorns, skinny dragons, snarling wolves. So here they are.

Check out what I made!

A lot of my designs find themselves on fun and/or practical merch! I like to create things that are high quality and have a long shelf life: I don't want to make something thinking it'll go in a landfill in a year, I want you wearing and enjoying my work for a very long time.

Here's a hat that glows in the dark!

Wow! Here's another hat that doesn't glow in the dark, but still looks really nice.

Pretty! If keeping your skull cozy isn't your thing, I've printed my art on fabric, too. I like this idea because if you move house a lot and/or can't afford custom frames, art printed on fabric can be displayed anywhere, and folds up nicely when packing up for your next move, without any breaking glass or anything.

A big part of my thinking when I'm designing products is also what do I myself use in my day-to-day life, and lately I've been desperately trying to cut my phone addiction by going back to pen-and-paper planners and books and things instead of using screens. And to keep track of where I am in my planners and books, I've made bookmarks!

I had so much fun designing these. You have something enjoyable to look at on both sides of the page it's clipped on. How fun is that?

Okay lastly, I make a TON of stickers. A lot of my designs translate really well into small, self-contained things like stickers, and I only ever print vinyl stickers, so they live a long time on your laptop or phone case or wherever you wanna put them.

So that's a small collection of the things I've done and made. Do you like them? I hope you like them. I liked designing them.

A COOOUPON JUST FOR YOUUUU

If you'd like one o' these things for yourself, you're in luck!

You, lucky Tumblar user, can visit my shop and take 20% off with code TUMBLR20. This coupon expires 1st April 2024 (or does it...? That's April Fools' Day after all... Okay yeah it does actually expire then. Sorry).

Oh, commissions?

Hey! Sometimes people like my art style and want a custom commission. That's great, and I'm so glad you're interested!

If you'd like a custom ink mailed to you on a postcard that also features my art on the back (so it's like... you get two pieces of art on one postcard), these are exclusive to my Patreon right here. I have limited slots per every month, so check back often in case I'm sold out.

I also offer what I call "instant order" commissions via my Ko-Fi. You pick out one of the offerings I have, send me your ref sheet, pay, and I just...get it done. It's as close to instant as commissions can get.

Besides those, I also do more bespoke work, so you can send me a message to discuss your idea and we'll work something out. :corporatethumbsupemoji:

Honestly? Thanks!

The internet has become a pretty weird and honestly rather hostile place. I'm a solo act that's as indie as they get. So, it really does mean a lot to me when your eyeballs land on my stuff and you click that little heart or reblog icon, or even better when you add it to your cart and click check out. Your eyeballs land on thousands of stuff every day, so the fact that my stuff brought you joy or interest or something deep that you resonated with means a lot to me. I think in a sense it makes me feel like my brush strokes are going somewhere far beyond whatever canvas I've otherwise confined them to.

This is a pinned post to share who I am and help me get some coins to fund my life and art projects, but yeah you can reblog it and share it around planet earth, I don't mind. It's nice.

So yeah, that's me! Feel free to comment if you have questions or want to know whatever else, I'll uh... reply and like answer them and stuff.

[labetenwar]

The least we can say is that the first half of 2024 has been really rough. I'm still suffering the loss of my baby bunny Pépin because he made a huge difference in my life. I strongly believe that I wouldn't be the same today if I never knew him. I owe so big to such a little bunny.

At the beginning of 2024 I had to drown myself in so much work to survive that my computer litterally burnt. At least I'm to this day still really proud of all the hard work I did for the Fauntastic convention. For the record, some of the decor I did are still decorating my appartement, but my bunny Harley find the print really tasty so they have suffered a lot of degradations !

After this big project it has become really difficult to draw, my comic, which I planned to have chapter 4 ready for february has been on hold since then. At the time I could only doodle a little and work slowly on commissions and Patreons rewards. And yet, there is some concepts I have created then, I would like to explore more today.

Fauntastic itself was a huge breaking point for me this year. My sales used to be okish there. But after the convention I could no longer ignore that my work as an artist was not bringing enough money to the table for my survival anymore. To be honest, the situation is still really bad today But I assume I have learned to live with it. Sometimes I have regrets that I didn't embrace a more lucrativ career and in the meantime nothing is giving me more joy than creating cute art and standing for my value. I guess I would have been a different person with different values, or just being totally miserable after years of engagements into a job I hate. Who knows !

In summer I have started preparing for my biggest convention of the year, Eurofurence. I have created a lot of new merch for the convention more than I ever had, so I guess we can say I have been really productiv this summer. I have also started to work some underpaid gigs to try to make some money and experimenting something different than working from home. It has been hard but I think I have prooved myself than I'm capable to do a lot to protect my independance. But, I have not heard for the job agency in a little while, so I'm afraid this position has not been estimated compatible with my job as an illustrator which implied some times of complete undisponibilyty for this second job. I assume I have to find a new back up job now.

But back to my new merch collection. As I said, I have created so much this year. I was not used to produce this much but us artists had to level up our games so much in hope to survive lately. Our profession is facing a lot of threats ; inflatation did a lot of damages. AI is already a big threat to the labors in the art and animation industry. I'm not sure how it is impacting small business like mine for the moment, exept some people who are trying to create small business based on AI art.

Conventions themselves can try to take advantages of us. This is not new, since some conventions staff already threatened to black list me years ago, but now, there is more and more scams conventions, fees are skyrocketting and we lack rooms to express any concerns we could have. But don't get me wrong, I know that there are still conventions and staff who are passionate about what they are doing and still sees us as humans rather than profit. I'm really gratefull that you guys exist, your work is really valuable to the art community and we won't be anywhere without you.

But look at me ! Tunneling about conventions again !

Anyway, I think my last big 2024 experience was my job training as a storyboard artist. I'm really happy I choosed to sign up for this training. Not only it was a good experience for my drawing skills, which I feel was a bit refreshed by the experience. But again it was a good training to get used to have a routine outside my home and meeting non toxic animation indivudals is so important to me. I feel dumb I have been so strongly affected by my bad experiences that it is still following me to this days and it has sadly marginalised me a lot.

And I think that's about it for my 2024. I hope in 2025 I could keep moving forward, having more positiv experiences and maybe finally get rid of burdens and traumas that prevent my ascension.

To conclude, have a look at the final panel of the image which is a teaser of my bigger incoming 2025 project, any idea what it will be ?

[hollownoire]

Current W.I.P's and Future Plans! Exciting Shit!

A lot of ya'll may have noticed I've been kind of quiet or otherwise preoccupied lately, and that's because there's a ton of really exciting stuff I'm currently working on! :3

There's a lot I wanna share, so for those of you who are interested this post is gonna go over all of the stuff I've been doing lately, a glimpse at what things might look like for me down the line.

TL:DR : Taking art more seriously, tons of art studies and practice, just finished moving, drawing projects and W.I.P's, working on making a YouTube channel and picking up filmmaking?!?!?!?!

So, a bit ago I set off to do this 30 day "learn to draw" practice/routine/program thing by Marc Brunet on YouTube.

I picked it up because I've felt like I lacked a lot of knowledge regarding space and perspective that you'd typically learn practicing the fundamentals of art. I understood that I needed to make things look three dimensional, and had the smallest grasp on how to do that, but the core understanding and experience was something I lacked.

For anyone trying to learn how to draw, I highly recommend checking out this video and giving it a go! I'm not going to go over every single day's exercise I did, partly because I didn't actually finish the whole program... (There's so much to do lately hnngn)

But, I made this thing! Tada!

I'm also delving into making my first drawing timelapses in clip studio with these next couple of projects I'm currently working on...

One of them being a commission for a friend's DnD character, a sort of gambler themed vigilante called "Vermillion" that was made for my DnD setting, Benediction. Here's the progress I have so far on our resident card-thrower:

...Neat, right? This drawing was one of the most recent ones where I'm really trying to challenge myself with perspective, foreshortening, and composition work. I've fallen in love with painting and you'll most likely see it as a permanent addition to my art style.

A lot of that is thanks to Bluebiscuits, who's art style has been a massive inspiration to mine for a very long time. Their art guides have been invaluable to my creative growth, and they deserve all of the support they could possibly get.

They have a patreon, so maybe check that out if you're interested in their work. :>

The other big project I'm working on is actually design work for a very important character I'm making. This is tied into the potentiality of YouTube and all that would entail, so bare with me for this next part.

It's a kind of...mascot, of sorts. An evolution of my avatar(s) that I've been fucking with on and off for years at this point. It's kind of important to get that nailed down, because...well, it's the first thing people are gonna see when they check out my stuff, so, I needed to make a "face" for my art.

Especially if I want to do YouTube. Which...I do! I've wanted to have a creative outlet like that for a while. I have tons of things to say and share, and a lot of it would probably be best off in video format.

Plus, then I get to have an excuse to design an eldritch girl-thing to be on screen and talk for me. Yeah, the second project is a RantSona. I mean...it's more than just a rantsona, but this design has been workshopped to be used for that...while also doing other important things! Like being a hot eldritch horror-lady generally. A suitable vessel for my creative endeavors >:3

Meet "Hollow", or, I guess the early blueprints of Hollow. Hollow-to-be if you will:

Presto! What will most likely end up being my..."Mascot"? My avatar...thing. Me. Me but way cooler.

On the side there you can see some early attempts at making a good "talking mouth", all of which....didn't...look great. Mouths are hard it turns out! Even harder when you're making a puppet for entertainment purposes.

One day, one day there will be a marketable Hollow plush. One day.

I still have tons of work to do, I mean, look at this shit:

I have a lot to do. That drawing up there is the result of like...over a couple of weeks of design-work, reference gathering, and notetaking.

Which you cant get a little looksie at down here:

This was the early framework for giving myself direction. Haven't really ever done something like this for an art project, so it's been really damn cool seeing where it's led me. I'm definitely going to be using this kind of "set up" going forward for my creative endeavors.

In a way it feels like all of my progress so far was put to the test. I buckled the fuck up and really started trying to chisel at something...big. I made myself a work schedule, a posting schedule, and am (trying) to wake up at 9:00 every day to squeeze in as much time as possible.

I'm getting side-tracked, but, yeah! Framework! Moodboards! Milanote:

Milanote is actually fucking GOATED, I'd be absolutely crippled trying to make this project work without it's help. Those two little design sheets I made by hand in clip studio took honest to god days to make, when I could have used Milanote to just make a mood board...reference....thing...instead.

I ended up doing that regardless, cause I needed to make a vibe board to refer to during the building of Hollow's outfit/body design, which is also the stage I'm currently on in the whole process.

Literally all of it is just drag-and-drop. I didn't even need to download all of these images, cause Milanote just lets you drag an image off of a website and shove it in that bitch all easy-like. It's incredible.

You can add text, links, images, yadda yadda yadda, this sounds like a sponsorship but I am in fact just sharing the gospel of this unit of a website. It's good, it might help you, check it out? Do whatever you want.

Anyway, after making a good enough pool of references I started working on Hollow's body/outfit. I'm extra, so I wanted something eye-catching that won't...hopefully...be too distracting in a video. I mean...well, if its distracting in a bad way. I do like having eyes on me, after all. ;]

I've been rambling, so I'm going to try to be more concise from this point onward.

In order to really nail the character design I need to communicate the important bits effectively. That means a strong silhouette, shape language, design, and conveying the character properly. I mean, I'm trying to make an eldritch horror girl, here, if you can't tell that on first glance I did something wrong.

In summary, I gave myself six dummies to practice on. Using my candy pile on milanote I pick and choose various elements from designs I like and incorporate them into my own while keeping in mind the important elements I listed in my outline from earlier.

Ideally, by the time the sixth is finished, I'll have a good idea of what I like and don't like about each one, and can compile all of that into a "Pre-final draft" where I put it alllll together :3

The main thing is I'm trying to make her clothing look like it's a part of her. Kind of organic. Able to be changed at her will, her skin, basically. So there's lots of carapaces and warframe-like skin material there.

I'm very pleased with how it's going so far. Even just the second iteration looks fuckin' fantastic imo. Very Arrancar/Vasto Lorde (From Bleach). Good shit.

That's basically it. I probably skimmed over a lot of stuff, but at this point the caffeine and vyvanse is wearing off, and I'm crashinnnggg.

Before I go, the film I'm making. Yeah, so I needed practice learning a video editing software, especially if I was going to fuck around with a rantsona, so I've been editing a ton of Lethal Company footage I've saved over...quite a long damn time.

I wanted to do something a little bit more on-theme with me, my aesthetic, and the shit I want to do in the future, rather than just mash a bunch of "hehe funnies" together and call it a day. There will still be some of that, it is lethal company after all, but I wanted to be a little bit more dramatic than that...

The result is a meta-ey surreal analog horror style experience with some elements of an ARG. The primary premise is an artist's descent into madness, the game being "haunted", the power of belief, and artistic depictions of very real struggles I and many others have. Depression, isolation, loneliness, feelings of disconnection, and other things of that nature.

I find the contrast very fascinating. I've even reached out to several...oh god what's the word...? Music artist. Not musician. People who make digital music, like game OST's. Those.

I reached out to some people including a close friend of mine and "CAMA", one of the folks who contributed to making the sound overhaul mod "Lethal Resonance" for lethal company, for permission to use music, or in my friend's case make original music for the film. (My sentence structure is falling apart, I'm so sorry I'm almost done).

Cama has a soundcloud, check it out and give them some support, their music makes my ears happy.

Okay. That's it. I don't currently have a set title for this short film yet, but I do have a placeholder (That may just end up being the actual title. I don't fucking know dude, dinner is still cooking.) that I'll leave you with,

"I am not me."

If anybody actually read all of that, congrats! You're now one of my favorite people. Take care of yourself <3

[fanterfane]

The State of FanterFane, Now in ADHD!~

HEY YA'LL!

That's something I do now I guess, I say "YA'LL"! Either way, It's time for the first status update since the BIG ONE earlier this year. If you don't remember it or you're new, firstly, welcome, secondly, you can read it here: https://www.deviantart.com/fanterfane/journal/The-State-of-FanterFane-950469980. A lot of what I said here I'm still struggling with, and probably always will be, so it's still relevant. I've been told that several people have been recommended that post by Patreon because of it's high engagement, so I feel especial need to give the algorithm something better to serve. Also, this post is mainly about my struggles with ADHD, but it has other things and status updates sprinkled throughout. If you or someone you know has ADHD, I hope this helps!

For the sake of brevity though, I'll do a TL:DR right here. I developed carpal tunnel two months ago, and I've been working on treating it. It's been going pretty good lately, especially now that I finally have gotten my hands on ADHD medication after my long time lack thereof. As such, I've become much more productive and much, much happier! Things are looking up for me, and I'm hopeful for the future! Social acceptance for who I am now is still sometimes rough, but going better. SFW commissions have done wonders for my mental health, and I have plans for new art projects, commission queues, and more to try and do. I hope that you'll all continue to be the thing I get up for in the morning as I work to accomplish them! I'll be going on vacation next week, and I hope you all have a great summer!

Now for the super long part I don't fault anyone for NOT reading, here we go!

Earlier this year, it felt like I was spiraling down an unrecoverable path. Things I tried to do just wouldn't materialize. I would identify a problem like "My car is dirty" or "My room is messy" or even just "I should read and respond to this DM" and instead of working to solve it my anxiety would start up and make it so that I put it off. What if I messed it up? I was always so tired too, I just felt emotionless whenever I didn't feel sad. What if I just didn't deserve it anyway? What if all of this is a mistake? Those sorts of questions would plague me no matter what, preventing me from solving the very things giving me anxiety spiraling into even more anxiety. It was dumb, but mental health quite often is. It was getting so bad, that writing dialog and even just reading things started feeling like an anxiety induced dyslexic impossibility. For the longest time I assumed it was just depression, and that it would get better with time, but it hasn't over the years. Instead, it's only gotten worse year over year.

Now, I always get a little bit depressed every winter. Seasonal depression gets me down every year without fail, but this year was quite a bit more intense. The struggle between the two lives I live was really getting to me. I'd been doing ever more and more introspection, and discovering all the ways the way I was raised screwed me up definitely didn't help. Repressed memories often have a reason for being repressed. It doesn't help when the people you want to love you the most are the least supportive in your life, and might have even been partly the cause of some of your more unhealthy tendencies. Regardless of their intentions.

A big part of this issue though, I think at least, is that I've been unmedicated for my ADHD since High School. I stopped taking it as a Sophomore because I felt like I was smart enough to pass school without it, and that it wasn't helping me. The stigma against stimulants and medication in general was a big part of that decision. I was not self-aware enough at the time to realize that almost immediately my attention started suffering. It started slowly, too slowly for me to realize it at the moment, but gradually it became harder and harder to pay attention to class work over the years. It got so bad that in order for me to NOT fall asleep during class, I'd doodle on my classwork cause it kept me stimulated enough to stay awake. I'd always made good grades though, so I coasted through highschool on information osmosis and went on to community college, where it really started to catch up with me. Although again, I didn't realize it.

In community college, I had a couple of bad classes that really jarred me. Physics and Calculus. Physics was hard because the teacher was bad at teaching it, and 75% of that class failed the final, so I don't feel very bad about it. But the calculus class though, was the first time I'd ever felt like I'd failed myself in a class. No matter how hard I tried I couldn't understand the derivatives they tried to teach me. I passed, barely, but that was one of the times where I think my ADHD caught up to me, even if I didn't realize it. It wasn't much, but it was definitely a sign of things to come.

Once I got out of community college, I took a gap year between it and a longer stay at a university. During that time, I started trying to work on art more and more as a hobby. I started drawing possession, corruption, femboys, all that sorta  wonderful stuff. Then Covid hit. My gap year turned to two, and suddenly that was long enough for me to have started an actual *career* doing this. Which was beyond crazy to me. It motivated me to no end, I wanted nothing more than to create and have fun creating for all my followers.

In the end though, my ADHD caught up to me. Like it always does. Once the initial honeymoon phase was over, and I settled into the hum and drum of being an online digital artist, it reared its head again.

You see, ADHD is not something that goes away. You may not think about it, but it's always there. ADHD, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, potentially being renamed soon to the ASD spectrum, is a mental disorder affecting the brain's dopamine pathway. People with ADHD struggle because they have less dopamine for everything than most other people do. This either leads to hyperactivity, because you need to do MORE to feel the normal amount of reward chemical (how I was when I was younger). Or it leads to Inattention, because nothing you do feels rewarded or worthwhile (how I am now). There's just physically not enough dopamine being released in my brain for it to function properly most of the time. That's why ADHD is treated with stimulants like Adderall or Vyvanse, because they stimulate the release of more dopamine in the pathways. Making everything feel *right*. My symptoms may have changed over the years through things like masking and other stuff, but I realized recently that it never went away.

At the end of last year, I started watching ADHD Youtube videos that were recommended to me by my friends who also have ADHD. Lo and behold, a lot of what I was struggling with was the poster child of adulthood with ADHD. Anxiety, inability to do basic tasks, procrastination, lack of motivation, etc etc. I was especially hit hard by the concept of "Executive Dysfunction". Executive dysfunction, common with ADHD, impairs planning, task prioritization, memory, execution, and emotional regulation. All things I've been struggling with for years to various extents. Also things that got worse whenever I was depressed.

Naturally, the first thing someone might do to solve this, is get treated/medicated. So that's what I tried. I enrolled in a private health care plan (self-employment doesn't get healthcare through their employer, GO USA) just to find out that it was in the middle of a ADHD medication shortage. I was eligible to get approved for VyVanse, the meds I took when I was a kid, because they were 500$ a bottle. My insurance was 250$ a month. So they denied it, citing that I "Haven't tried the other medications." The ones that I tried getting, Adderall and a couple other ones, were never in stock. Even my friends who already had medication started being unable to get any at all. It was around that time that I made The State of FanterFane post, because this really hit me hard. I'd done everything I was supposed to, but the world still shot me down for it.

Then, on top of everything else, I developed Carpal Tunnel. Which screwed me up even more mentally and physically. Suddenly, even when I WAS motivated (which was getting rarer and rarer) I couldn't even draw then because my wrist was constantly in pain. It really started feeling like things really were unsalvageable. I truly felt without hope for the first time since college, and before that high school. Like everything I had done up to that point was pointless, and only resulted in me sacrificing my health for something that would've never worked out.

...Until the first week of this month, June 2023. When one of my friends was able to get their hands on Adderall again, signaling the end of the shortage. I immediately took my prescription to my local pharmacy, and got my first ever bottle of Adderall XR. I had high hopes for what it would do for me, but the thing I didn't expect was for me to regain hope.

The next day, I took my first dose and proceeded to start deep cleaning and rearranging my entire room. I did laundry, folded clothes, wiped away dust EVERYWHERE, organized my belongings and important files for the first time EVER, unpacked moving boxes that hadn't moved in 2 years and much, much more! Essentially, I turned my entire room upside down over the course of a week. I can't really put into words just how liberating it felt, how finally being able to just see a problem, and then solve it immediately without any anxiety or self-doubt changed *everything*. Even better, every task completed was less anxiety to affect me whenever I felt down or depressed. I can't hate myself for having a messy room when it's so clean, it's literally *rearranged* after all!

To put it simply, it felt like my brain was *working again*. For the first time in literal YEARS. Once I was done cleaning, I moved onto working on art, posting, responding to messages and sorting personal files. These past three weeks have been three of the most productive weeks I've had in a very long time. I feel like I've not been this productive since the initial honeymoon phase of Dullahan Dilemma and the Attenborough collection (callback!). All the while, I got better at treating my carpal tunnel, to the point where it's not constantly pins and needling me anymore, and it even feels just generally better all the time! I've been getting better and better at doing various tasks, and I believe I'm truly on the road to recovery now.

Things from here are looking up! Genuinely! I wouldn't be here either if it wasn't for all of you kind people supporting me, even through the toughest times. I'm beyond grateful for that. I'd worship the ground you all walk on if I could. Without ya'll, I would not be here today. Forgive me for taking on a somewhat political tone, but I have no idea who I'd even be at this point without all of you, and all of my wonderful friends that I’ve met while doing this. Perhaps I'd have fallen deeper into the alt-right pipeline as a disenfranchised southern white guy. Becoming more homophobic and repressing my inner self even more than I already had been my entire life due to my upbringing. That was the only place I felt like I could fit into the conservative worldview my folks raised me in, after all. Maybe I would've gone back to school for a degree I couldn't use and in debt, landing in a terrible corporate job that didn't care for me. At least I would've got health insurance then, but also maybe all of my health problems would've gotten worse and worse and never got better, since I never would've had the motivation to fix them by working out, losing weight, and watching my diet. I honestly don't know, and thinking too deeply about the "what-ifs'' of it is pointless.

But now, what I can say is that when all the anxiety clears and the depression abates, I'm truly happy. For the first time in my life, I feel like I actually have an identity. Like my emotions actually do matter and that I'm not just some soulless machine whose only goal in life is to make money. I'm a human being. Although I may not be created in God's image, I have thoughts, feelings, and most importantly, flaws. I'm gay/bisexual, I'm not very masculine nor do I desire to be so, I like having long hair, and I like doing more effeminate things that most guys in the crowd I was falling into would balk at and blame on chemicals in the water. In other words, I feel healthier than ever. Mentally AND physically. I thank all of you, each and every single one, for staying with me throughout all of this. If any of you ever feel like you wanna reach out, especially if I can help you in some comparatively small way, please do. My DMs are always open, it's the LEAST I can do.

Some other things I should touch on- I've gotten a lot of surprising support for my transition from my extended family and friends. The closest is still the most difficult, I can't get my nails painted for instance, I was told not to when I asked, much to my chagrin. I've got a pride bracelet I've been wearing around, and no one has said anything about it, so that's good I suppose. Fox news still blares on the television in the living room, even after all the stuff that's gone down with *that* channel in recent times. I've given up on trying to convince them otherwise. I’ve been discredited anyway because I draw "X-rated shit", that doesn't make enough money. Even though as far as most people my generation are faring financially, I'm doing pretty good!

The SFW commissions have been going fantastic! Especially on the mental health side of things. It's helped me realize that I do in fact, have options. I'm not trapped doing one thing forever, which is honestly the thing that was scaring me the most. Just like the threat of a soul-draining corporate job till the day I die. I don't have to worry about what I'll be doing in 10 years, because I think I've built enough support and especially self-taught skill that no matter what I do, I'll be okay. It's only up from here, and I've even been feeling the flame of passion returning for TF and other lewdness! So you can for sure expect to see much more of that over the next few years, no matter what!

Speaking of money though, I have more plans for the future now too. I'm gonna make more money by doing more commissions and creating more sources of revenue. Just so that I can afford to move out, and get away from this toxic environment I find myself in. The cheapest apartments where I live run for about 750$ a month, so I'm hoping to save up over the next year and move the hell out. I think I'll be able to afford it, provided there are no extraneous events that hurt me financially. I'll be trying things like more YCH's, sketch commission streams like the patreon request streams, art packs, and maybe even merch! Ya'll be the first to be notified about any of this. The first YCH auction will hopefully be this weekend! It will be based on Nyan Cat possession, and the MC will be trying to run away from the cringey 2000's era meme culture that haunts them to this day. Thing is, the past has a funny way of coming back to haunt you!~

Finally, I'm going on vacation next week to see some friends in LA! If you're someone I know/trust around the LA area, and you wanna meet up, let me know in DMs and we'll see if we can arrange it! I may take a further vacation the week after for rest, but after that we'll be back to regularly scheduled LEWDNESS work!

Thank you all from the bottom of my heart for coming with me and supporting me on this journey. Happy pride month, and I hope everyone has a great Summer! I love all of you! Here's to several more years of FanterFane!

XOXO,

FanterFane

[lulu2992]

Do you accept art commissions?

I don’t because I’ve never done this before, but to be honest, I’ve been thinking about it lately. The problem is, there are several things to consider and I still have many questions.

The first is: how much should I charge for my drawings? Most people say you shouldn’t ask for less than minimum wage, and while I totally agree, I also tend to take my time and don’t draw very fast. For example, for this piece, because I recorded the process (here and here), I know it took about 17 hours to color. As for the sketch itself, I’d say I drew it in at least 5 hours. In my country (France), the hourly minimum wage is currently €11.88, which means that, for this drawing that took at least 22 hours, I should charge no less than €260. That would be considered fair compensation, but I think that also sounds very expensive and I don’t know if people could or would want to pay that much.

Then, how do I get paid? If I want to do things right and legally (which I do), I could be self-employed and declare the money earned thanks to art commissions as my income. From what I know, this process is strictly regulated by French law: I would first have to provide a quotation that the client would sign, and I could then send my invoice. The problem is that my full name and address have to appear on the documents, and anyone who’d like to commission a drawing would be required to disclose their personal information as well. To receive the money, I’d also have to send my bank account details. As I’m sure you understand, I’m really not a fan of sharing all of that on the Internet and asking other people to do the same...

I’ve read that most artists use PayPal, that it’s easy, and that, with a business account, you don’t even need to use your real name, so that could be a solution. Others sell commissions via Patreon or Ko-fi, and from what I’ve seen, there are ways to easily declare the money you earn on these platforms so you don’t end up accidentally committing tax fraud :’) Also, a lot of artists recommend asking to be paid upfront, and while it’s possible with those online services, I don’t know if you can do that when you’re self-employed in France; I believe the “product” (so the drawing) has to be finished and sent first, which can be risky for me.

The other problem is that fan art, in theory, can’t legally be sold. I know this rule is rarely enforced, that most companies don’t seem to really care, and that many, many artists sell drawings of characters they don’t own the rights to every day, but it still scares me.

So yeah, I guess I could start accepting art commissions if people are actually interested, but I need to figure out how to properly price my drawings, how to get paid... and how not to get in legal trouble.

[ashsomethingart]

Good evening my loves!

I hit a bürnøut wall pretty hard a couple days ago, and it’s been a rough one. I’m gonna have to power through recovering and get back to work soon, because rent is coming up fast, but I wanted to take a moment to talk about this issue.

As all of you may know, I’m a 100% independent artist. I don’t work for a company, instead I work for all of you who order commissions from me.

That being the case, it comes with a lot of work that people don’t ever see. This month has brought some absolutely phenomenal changes to me in the form of tech/setup which will make some parts of the process a lot faster and easier, but the reality of what I do is that 95% of my job is not art, and all of that side and back-end work can be soul crushing.

I’ve talked about it in the past, but to upkeep what I do I have to do constant commission hunting, create marketing materials and maintain a constant social media presence, continuously update my portfolio, constantly learn new techniques and art programs, as well as keep up with doing the art, planning and completing my personal projects, keep my merch and print shops up to date, and so forth.

My biggest roadblock as an independent artist is having no base income; meaning a consistent amount of money I get at regular intervals. Every dollar I make is either from commissions or tips, and currently I can work upwards of 100 hours in a week without earning a single dollar, because none of that 100 hours ends up being art that has been paid for, but work to help me BRING IN new paid work.

It’s incredibly rough on me and I’m always on the lookout for ways to make it easier; I tend to go through this ebb and flow of doing 1-2 months of work with a crazy amount of output that ends in 2-3 weeks of intense burnout where I’m totally nonfunctional, then come back to the grind.

I do not have a social life. I wake you to work and I tend to work until I crash for the day, then rinse and repeat.

Not having a base income means I can’t plan for savings. I can’t set aside money for upgrades to my business; I have no emergency funds. If any single thing goes wrong I can be set back by months.

It also means that every month, when the 1st rolls around I have to make a mad dash to the finish line to meet rent and I never know if I’m going to have it all in time or not.

The last two months I was on time, but for around 6 months prior to that I was over a week late.

When I explain all of this, most people fall back on that argument of “Well why don’t you get a real job” and I’m not going to explain my reasoning here but suffice to say; I can’t. It’s this or nothing for me.

All of that said, I have a business plan for myself that hinges on all of you; the start of that plan is (and has been) to build myself up a base income that I can rely on every month, and once I have that, start expanding what I do.

It’s no secret that I have big plans that don’t seem to go anywhere, and the reason they don’t is because I’m CONSTANTLY grinding trying to upkeep my bills and rent, and I have no energy to put into those plans.

I want to move forward with my tarot decks.

I want to start a new endeavor that I’m calling Something Strange. I want to start actually publishing my webcomics.

But I’m not fortunate like some artists who somehow manage to land the startup funds I would need to be able to focus on just those things. I currently HAVE to rely on commissions while slowly building my base income up.

Which is where I come to my point.

I was on Patreon for ages, and I did fairly well there; however it was really only pocket change I managed to get from that platform and I got hit with a warning every few months because they didn’t agree with my content.

Eventually, I left Patreon and founded my VIP Funpass membership, which I host right through my website.

I need to build this membership up to the point where I’m making at least $800 a month on it, and I’m asking you all to support me in that endeavor. Please.

On the VIP Funpass you choose how much you pledge each month: I have four tiers; $5, $10, $25 and $50.

In the past I’ve gone on about what YOU get if you join up, but you can find all the info about it on my website.

If I can build my VIP Funpass memberships up to the point where I am making $800 a month through my site, and only my site, that covers my site ent ($675), my phone bill ($50) and my Internet bill ($25) plus the fee my seller platform takes.

It will remove around 80% of my daily stress and help me stop needing to grind myself to burnout.

This will mean I can put more focus on finishing commissions, cut my turnaround time in half, and allow me to divert energy into my passion projects.

So, I’m asking everyone who follows me to consider subscribing to my VIP Funpass Membership; the way I see it is, for the same cost as a single fast food meal every month you can help me change my life for the better; support an independent artist and help fight back against AI image generators all in one go.

So, do with all of that info what you will; if you want to learn more about the VIP Funpass Membership you can check it out here.

[hekkoto]

Im aliveeeeee

Hi guys!

Welp, where to start it…. I had some unexpected absence in last times and Im super sorry for this. Im super sorry for no info or update; I wanna be honest – I had extremaly hard time, I suffered from extreme anxiety related to creating or being online, I was also on edge of mental breakdown. My physical health had some major decrease too, it was hell. I had a lot of dark thought in last months, especially lately. So I also wanna thank a lot my husband and my friends Jacek and Charles – you guys saved my life! Im super grateful for all the love and support everyone gives me online, Im sorry I was unable to be there and talk or smth. I really appreciate all of you, Im also super happy to have family and friends who support me or at least try to haha

Im aware I owe some arts and such to some people and I promise to try catch up with this asap. Im also very sorry for not letting anyone know I struggle and stuff will be delayed. I hope to have most of it done/posted before end of a year. My focus in upcoming days will be catching up on Patreon rewards and commission.

I know Im in not the best state right now; I let my mental illness take too much control over me lately. I was struggling a lot with being reckless, drinking, don’t caring too much of myself. I let past traumas devour me. I let myself detach from reality more far and far. Tho do I even know what reality is haha? But I try to take control back, with help of my husband. I will stop drinking for some time. I hate it, during holidays there is a lot of yummy alcohol but probably years of drinking while being heavily medicated take toll on my health haha

I have some comeback of those awful pains of my muscles and joints, I also was constantly sick in last weeks. Honestly idk what is wrong. Probably both my physical and mental illnesses play part here. But I hope to start feeling better soon. Being in pain for so so long is killing my mind. I just wanna escape pain. UPDATE: It got better, I have less muscles pains. Its also possible I suffer from endometriosis which might be huge reason for a lot of stuff – Im starting getting diagnosed in January

Thankfully because of support I had I was able to stay alive and keep fighting. I wanna be back. I don’t want to dive deeper into darkness of my mind. I know I need to create to stay sane, putting my darkness into arts is only way to free my mind from it. I missed you guys really really much

I hope now I was able to overcome my fears and anxiety enough to create again. I think focusing on art and creating is only way to go

I wanna have better time next year, really ;-; and I hope now Im back for real. Keep in mind cause of Holidays I wont be home all the time cause I go to see a lot of my family and friends, I hope I will be feeling ok after this >XD but I hope next year will be my big comeback, I miss creating and posting soooooo much aaaaaa

[eyebeastposts]

March 2023 Update

Feeling lucky? Well, do ya?

Regardless, here's what's going on this month.

Upcoming Stories

I'm currently hard at work on the winner of last month's poll, Voluptuous Valentine. It is a tale of a woman getting what she wants and more through a never ending amount of lovers and food. Previews of this story as well as early access to it and other stories I put out will be available to $3 and up Patrons.

Patreon: https://t.co/36C0cE3ibU

Prompt Requests

I recently closed up submissions for the Lochana's Literature prompt requests. This session was admittedly much smaller than usual in terms of scope due to some unforeseen circumstances. However, I think the fewer prompts led to some interesting stories. I'll maybe do a few more before putting up the compilation. I already have plans for the future prompt request session coming sometime in late April. Regular readers can probably PICTURE what I have in mind.

Outside of those sessions, $5 and up Patrons can make weekly prompt requests. You can find the latest version of Patreon Prompt requests post here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/march-2023-79126916

If you would prefer just a one time donation to get a prompt done, I also accept Ko-fis of $3 or more. You can find more info about those here: https://ko-fi.com/post/Ko-Fi-Prompt-Request-Guidelines-S6S2HGJCV

March 2023 Story Poll Suggestions

Suggestions are now open to $10 and up Patrons for this months' story poll. The last few months have been pretty close races made up of some interesting story ideas. If  you would like to submit your idea for the upcoming poll, make sure you get them in before the due date, March 15th: https://www.patreon.com/posts/march-2023-story-79126965

Discord

I'm going to go ahead and shill my Discord again. If you want constant updates from me (as well as random postings of art and stories I find attractive,funny, and or weird) or just general chatting with like minded individuals, it's free to join for anyone that wants to: https://discord.gg/Jv7xfzRa

Closing Thoughts/Miscellaneous Stuff

That will be all for now. As a heads up, I'll be taking a vacation towards the end of the month so I'll be trying to work hard to get a lot of stories out before then, including maybe a few discount commission slots for extra funds. I ran a poll a while back to determine the order on my Twitter, but will reveal the specific topics of said slots when they appear.

[mikk1n]

Okay y'all, real talk: my health has been absolute shit lately.

I don't talk a lot about this on my blog, but right now I'm struggling with what I suspect may be ME/CFS. I don't have a diagnosis, and as much as I'd like to get one, without insurance I can't afford the medical care I need. I picked up a job some months ago in the hopes of being put on their insurance, but that's still a ways away and I don't know if I'll make it that long, honestly. My mental health (which I won't delve into here) has also completely plummeted as a result.

Initially my plan was to try to save up my money from my in-person job and try to brush up my portfolio and really hustle on my art so I can build enough of a following for Patreon to be worthwhile, or to be picked up by a company that will allow me to freelance from home. But I've quickly discovered that I can work an in-person job or I can do art as my job, but not both. If we're being completely honest, I need to quit, because this job is extremely taxing to the point where 12 hour work weeks leave me completely useless for days. But I also need the income. And right now art is nowhere near lucrative enough for me to rely on it.

So I'm going to take a semi-hiatus. I'll still post here, but it'll be dramatically less, and right now I'm going to focus on clearing out my commission queue (and filling the requests rotting in my inbox) as best as I can. I don't have an estimate on how long that'll take. It depends on when I can quit this job and support myself working from home.

I was hoping I wouldn't have to make a post like this, but...it's bad y'all. I can't keep up anymore.

To anyone who may be disappointed, I'm really, truly sorry. I love making art, I love posting here, I love my followers and my mutuals and I love making connections in the fandoms I adore. I hope I can create as much art as I did in the past, in the near future.

[definitelynotaminion]

FAQs:

Who are you? I’m Tim, she/they. I’m Sprx77 on ao3 and my writing website (where you can find excerpts, stories, and art/banners associated with my fics) is timothywren.com.

You have ways I can support your writing? Like what? + Do you take commissions?

You can buy me a coffee here, if you want to.

Now with a writing patreon for bonus content, early access/looks at unpublished WIPs, and a limited amount of prompt/drabble request slots.

How do you sort your writing on tumblr?

Here is a list of my current fics that are only available as WIPs on tumblr.

Prompts/challenges can be found on the HMU tag here (”hit me up”) and any prompts submitted are very much “let’s see if this knocks something fun loose in Tim’s brain”; never an actual guarantee that I’ll fill the prompt.

I tag all my writing with the tag "my stuff."

What do you write?

I write for anime fandoms, books, and most recently c-novels/dramas. The specifics can be found on ao3 or my site.

Feel free to check out the site, I’m really proud of it! It tends to have fics sooner than ao3 does, solely because I love the way it looks to post there and I feel a lot less pressure in my own space. Eventually everything I post will be posted on ao3 as well-- I will never leave the platform.

Should I tell you what you should do differently/"better (in my opinion)"?

Comments are welcome, concrit is not! I cannot emphasize enough how I’m not putting up with unsolicited beta/spellcheck/feedback on how you think my fic should go. I will delete your comment. Otherwise, if you just want to say something nice, feel free!

Please do not ask for updates on any of my fics. It's not abandoned unless it's tagged unfinished and discontinued, even the ones written 15-20 years ago.

You have a discord server?

I have a multi-fandom discord server that is incredibly chaotic but fun, and we have lots of animal/cat pics. Links are on my sidebar and on the aforementioned, very sexy and shiny, website.

What have you been writing lately?

My latest fics on ao3: [Recent Works]

My latest fics on my site, with pretty banners: [Latest Posts]

You do bookbinding?

Lately, I’ve been making sketchbooks and bookbinding, and you can find more info about that on my sideblog, Flower Mountain Press. It also has an associated Patreon if you’d like to support (with various benefits such as getting mailed gifts, discounts on purchases, etc)!

[felitomkinson]

not sure what's going on with you right now, but we are here for you if you need it. you can get through this—whatever it is—because you're capable of greatness. you're going to be alright in the grand scheme of things.

ahhh, thank you for the kindness 😢 that is very sweet of you, and everyone who’s been reading. it’s mostly a lot of mental health stuff like usual but there is one more immediate thing that is eating at me. the following might sound extremely silly for some of you, but my brain works a little different and as of right now it’s making me stress a whole lot because of wasted potential and falling behind on bills due to stagnation.

but i guess to start, i am just very overwhelmed at the moment, my country is undergoing an extreme crisis/we’re being put back under lockdown. i moved out last year and the pressure of bills every month keeps becoming a lot because i’m sort of... paralyzed? and trying to find treatment for my mental health this past year has been hell. however, my art has been receiving some really cool recognition lately from the music side of things and i’ve been able to live off it pretty ok! i started doing these pokémon pieces for artists which i really enjoy doing! here are some of them

so it turned out people are really into these! which is awesome! but also to the point where i am paralyzed because i don’t know how to handle the demand for custom made ones, which normally would mean an amazing thing for my survival obviously except that the indecisiveness about what to price them is preventing me from even doing anything at all 😩 i end up not being able to answer work messages/commission inquiries. each card can take over a month (pixels are...,,, a lot) and because of my bipolar I feel bad sometimes taking a long time to finish a commission :( so my solution is.... to not take them at all and miss out on what appears to be very stable income? but the demand being what it is, the prices would need to be really high, and I could probably not take more than two a month, and that makes me feel bad for some weird reason. I’ve always charged closer to industry rates for most of my work, and this takes a considerate more amount of time and dedication that my previous work, so WHAT would a good/fair price be for something like this? It’s like the answer makes me feel guilty even though I know it shouldn’t, regardless of whether I’ve spent whole months pixeling away on a single piece or not. should i just auction slots? or maybe just make a patreon?

i also thought about trying out hicetnunc, which is basically the eco-friendly and artist-driven version of the digital collectibles trend, but i don’t even know if any of you are into that and it’s all still confusing as shit to me so i’m not sure i’ll be going that route either. i just wish i wasn’t paralyzed by indecisiveness :( how do you sort out prices when the demand is more than you can chew without feeling like a jerk even though this is my job oh god why do i feel guilty aaaRghhh

i’m not sure how to proceed and each passing day is a day where i have not taken work at a time when i need to the most, so any and every single piece of advice is helpful, even it consists of “you are a dumb ass baby”, because you would be right

[meruz]

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

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

1. When did you get into art?

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

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

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

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

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

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

4. What defines your artistic style?

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

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

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

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

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

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

6. What levels of artistic education have you had?

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

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

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

assorted valentines prep doodles

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

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

10. What do you like most about your art?

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

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

14. What do you like drawing the most?

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

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

15. What do you like drawing the least?

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

18. What is your purpose for drawing?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

25. Draw a picture!

Man I’m so tired now but here.

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

OK MEME DONE. onto the rest.

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

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

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

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

from top > bottom

- kuretake no.55 doublesided brush pen

- tombow fudenosuke

- muji 0.38 ballpoint

- medium size poscas

- grey tombow double brush pens

- good ol bic mechanical pencil

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

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

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

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

I assume these asks are related? LOL

1) Yeah totally true. I love David.

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

<33333333333333333333333333

[bellybiologist]

November 2021 Patreon Announcements

I hope you guys had a good halloween/october! Another month has gone by as time continues to be cruel and unyielding to us all~

This month, there are some notable announcements, since as i noted in previous posts, i've been a mess the past couple months and have been falling behind in work to a pretty bad degree.

Firstly, there will only be 3 single stage fills this month (for the top 3 winners) for this month's poll. I'm cutting my workload since I need some time to recuperate, however, i still want to work and reward those who are still supporting me. I'll ALSO be being less fancy with these fills and may decide to keep them as cleaned up color sketches Like how i do a lot of my personal art. The Poll will be up shortly, and will run like it always will!

Patrons of 2$ will continue to be able to view September's pieces this month. This way you still get some bang for your buck despite the fill-list being shorter for November.

Given I'm late with October's fills, my offer to send the fills to patrons who unpledged before November's charge came in (after I confirm, of course) is always in effect. I neglected to mention it last month, but just hit me up if you unpledged before Nov 1st and didnt get to see October's fills yet!

I'm about halfway done with one of the winning October fills right now, so HOPEFULLY I will have them both done by the end of this week so i can knock some commission work that I owe out of the way and finally recuperate from my rough summer.

As for December, I'm still unsure of how I will go about it. My gut tells me to do similarly and only have 3 fills, but depending on how I feel, I may take the whole month off from patreon work to enjoy the holiday. (My lovely boyfriend's family is helping me go visit for christmas/new year's, and i'm excited since i havent seen him in 2 years since Covid 😭) I'll keep you guys updated for what I ultimately decide to do! Thanks again everyone for your support, and hopefully, i can get everything back on track when 2022 rolls around.

[katzirra]

Some life updates and what Kat has been up to, under the cut~

Been working on getting myself to a good place amongst my friends, feeling comfortable again. I should be instigating more but I’m trying to stop being scared of people I literally love... lmao. I’m such an awkward friend to have in contact frequently tbh.

Been working on Patreon scanning, hunting some stuff to upgrade my scanner to an A3 size, but having to do some WILD research on that for image quality and values versus just pure document scanners. UGH.

I haven’t been drawing as much lately, but been doing a lot of editing on PS for all my sketchbook stuff which means I’ve been looking at like 200++ images every few days to piece them together, PHEW.

Trying to fix settings on Clip Studio, and get my email cleaned out, and just sort of house keeping for my mental health.

I’m also starting to really think about what I want from my art, what makes me happy, and figuring out what I want to do in terms of merchandise vs studying on art lately. I have a to do list of study focuses and things I think I’m going to start doing weekly to keep my anatomy fine tuned, and learn more. I have a lot I’m wanting to focus on for myself, as well as for getting my production back up.

I use to literally make 300-900 drawings a year, and I want to get back up to that threshold of LIKING the creative process. I want to finish some of my sketchbooks in LESS than the 4 years I average, by just MAKING MESSES and doing ROUGH and polished sketch studies.

So. I’m kind of in a weird place with my life and my art, but I’m trying to figure it out, yaknow? Trying to find joy amongst the stuff that makes me wanna die honestly. WOOF. It’s a lot but, I’m getting there.

I need to fucking get my hands to understand my new monitor though so I can finish my commissions.... I love my new monitor because my head and light sensitivity is LESSENED SO MUCH, but my tablet registering the size is uh... it’s taking a learning curve honestly to adjust unu....