#every piece of art you make or write or draw is limited edition

[i-lavabean]

We’re fighting imposter syndrome by misquoting Wreck-it Ralph today

I’m not my favorite artists, but that’s good

I’ll never be my favorite artists, and that’s not bad

There’s no one I’d rather be than me

[kellysue]

Members of the cast of #FMLComix tell you how to pre-order #FMLComix.

FML #1 arrives in November 2024 with main cover art by David López and variant covers featuring artwork by Alvaro Martinez Bueno, David LaFuente, Nicola Scott (1:10 incentive variant), and Pepe Larraz (1:25 incentive variant). One additional variant cover will be revealed at a later date. Each issue will feature bonus material such as essays on music, true crime, interviews, and more that will be exclusive only to the single issues.

“David and I have been talking about doing something creator-owned together since Captain Marvel, but it took years for the stars and our schedules to properly align,” said DeConnick. “Now that we’re here though, it almost feels planned — like we needed exactly as long as it took us to grow and change, both as artists and as people, so that we could come back together for this big swing.

“FML is a challenging book — stylistically and in tone — and I’m not sure we could have pulled it off five years ago, honestly. But here we are—and I’m so proud of and impressed by the work put in by everyone involved. David is drawing like he’s got something to prove, Cris is pulling disparate styles together seamlessly, tying them together with her palette and Clayton of course, our ace and secret weapon, works his subtle magic on lettering to make sure you hear everything in your head exactly the way it was intended. McCubbin developed this terrific logo that evolves with each issue, and I don’t even know where to start with how supportive and inspiring Daniel Chabon’s editorial team has been. They’ve given us exactly what we needed at every step along the way.

“For my part, FML feels of a piece with Pretty Deadly and Bitch Planet; it’s as personal as the former and as satirical and of-the-moment as the latter.”

"This is without a doubt one of the best and most important books I have had the honor to edit in my fifteen years in the comic book industry,” added Senior Editor Daniel Chabon. “I have been a tremendous fan of this creative team for a long, long time; and I cannot wait for everyone to pick up this series and to see what an amazing achievement it is."

Riley is a 16-year-old heavy metal kid who draws down his anxiety with a ballpoint pen. His mother is an aging punk cartoonist slam dancing with a true crime obsession. Bound by threads of magical realism, they navigate the absurdities and horrors of our modern lives.

Issue one introduces Riley’s daily life: terrorism diaries, school shooter drills, and social pressures under the constant shadow of encroaching wildfires that rain ash like a morbid snow. His refuge? The Forest Park Witch’s House, where tales of chaos magic and trickster gods promise some semblance of sense in a senseless world.

Echoing the comedy of “Bottoms,” the nostalgic pull of “Stranger Things,” and the coming-of-age journey in “Stand By Me,” DeConnick’s first return to creator-owned comics since Bitch Planet is an apocalyptic odyssey that speaks to the resilience of the misfit and the power of art.

FML #1 (of 8) arrives in comic shops on November 6, 2024. It is now available to pre-order at your your local comic shop for $4.99.

Be sure to follow DarkHorseComics on social media and check our website, www.darkhorse.com for more news, announcements, and updates.

Praise Kelly Sue DeConnick and David López: “DeConnick has always combed top-notch lyrical text with a knack for bringing out the best in the artists she works with.”—Polygon

“Kelly Sue DeConnick either writes with a King Midas pen, is one of the few remaining wizards in the world, or, most likely, is just that damn good because Bitch Planet is yet another amazing series with her name on the cover.”—Word on the Nerd

“Pretty Deadly pushes at the limits of medium, challenging our ideas of what comics can be.”—IGN

“Kelly Sue DeConnick’s Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons may just be the best thing to come out of the Black Label line to date.”—IGN

“Kelly Sue DeConnick is a force in comics.”—Book Riot

“Kelly Sue DeConnick—a powerhouse in the comics world.”—Salon

“A primal scream in exquisitely worked gold.”—Polygon on Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons

“López’s pencils are like a breath of fresh air. His style evokes a classic superhero aesthetic while still bringing subtle emotional vulnerability to these characters through strong storytelling and page design.”—Nerds Unchained on Captain Marvel (2014)

[thequeenskeep]

A Bit About Me 💘

💋My name is Zionna :3 Online I go by “Queenie” short for The Queen of Hearts. I adore heart motifs, jewelry, really just anything with hearts makes mine soar.

💋I have a passion for fashion. I love couture, vintage clothing, and thrifting. All of my favorite pieces were thrifted. I enjoy designing and styling pieces. (edit: am becoming increasingly intrigued in costume design) Modeling & content creation are a pleasant past time.

💋I revel in my writing. I want to aid women in self empowerment through self mastery. My goal with this blog is to guide women to their divinity with my words and inspire them to live in their purpose and pursue personal development. Also, I think a lot and see this as my brain dump lol.

(p.s. I cut off all my hair lol)

💋I am a student of life. I am always actively seeking knowledge to cultivate my mind. My creative hobbies include (but are not limited to): reading, writing, drawing, painting, and self glamorization.

💋Cooking is my love language. Growing up I watched every cooking show I could find. I’ve always been fascinated by the ability to transform food into art. It engages all 5 senses from the kitchen, to the table... to the toilet.

💋I hope that you find whatever it is you need on my page. Once I get a steady following and posting schedule I’ll open up paid requests and questions. As always I pray that you have a beautifully fantastical life; all I ask is that you live it <3

[gatsby-system-folks]

Hi besties

I didn't feel like deleting this commission post. Thankfully, the friend who I opened commissions to help has stable housing now. I'm not saying commissions closed, I'm just busy lol.

Illustration:

Some examples of my work

I'll also do relatively short comics. This is a snippet from my webcomic. A sketch is $10, colored sketch is $15, lineart is $10, colored lineart is $15. Shading or lighting on anything will add $10. I'm not separating character art and landscape art, both have the same rate, but something with more than 5 characters or something set in a city (or otherwise densely populated/elaborate area) will be a little more ($5 for every character above 5, and an extra $10 for an elaborate scene). Comics are the same, each page (not each panel) will be treated as a piece.

Writing:

I'll write for ocs, and from:

Homestar Runner

Rise of the tmnt

The Usagi Chronicles

Gorillaz

Good Omens

Undertale/Deltarune

Homestuck (and its affiliates, such as pesterquest or friendsim)

Venom

Moon Knight

Treasure Planet

Hellboy

Doctor Who

Our Flag Means Death

The Chronicles of Narnia

The Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit

The original 6 Star Wars movies

The Spiderverse series, itsv and atsv

The Davina skit from Rab C Nesbitt. (I see yall shipping Davina with Mrs. Robinson and I love yall)

If something's not on this list, you can still ask, and if I've seen whatever the media is I'll probably write it. On the other hand, if i haven't seen all of the content for the medias listed above, I'll have to do some research so it might not be the best work (ie the only reason I'm limiting this to the first 6 star wars movies is because I haven't seen any more than that)

I'll do ships between canon characters or between ocs, I'm not comfortable doing x reader content at this point. Also.. they don't have to be ships lol I also do just. Fics.

Some examples of my work:

I'm gonna keep it simple and do $20 per thousand words, but there's not a minimum word count. That's $0.02 per word lol. When you describe the fic ill give you an estimate of how many words I can do it in, and we can adjust. If the fic goes more than 150 words over the final estimate then it's flat-rate (as in the price doesn't continue to climb)

Poetry

Any subject really. I'll add examples of my work when the website I post on is fixed. Poetry is twice the price of fic

Editing:

Keep it under 5,000 words for now. $8 per hour. I'll edit fic, essays, etc.

Worldbuilding:

If you need help figuring out a magic system, how pipes connect your city, weird biological facts about your aliens, or even just where to put the castle parking lot, I can help. Same rules of fic writing and editing: if we chat worldbuilding for an hour, it'll be $8. If you want a 500 word summary of your new worlbuilding, that'll be $10. The text of the chat of course is free, you can pause your time of course, and whatever time I spend writing the summary isn't double charged. So an hour of chatting+ a 500 word summary would be $18

What I won't work with, in any format

Heavy nsfw- light is ok

Incest, pedophilia, noncon etc

Hate, bigotry, overly political work, bullying

Torture

Glorification of not good things. Depiction does not equal glorification

Case by case: real, living people. Context below.

What I won't draw, specifically:

Gore

abuse (such as beating, verbal, emotional)

Self harm

Everything is case-by-case, if something makes me uncomfortable I'm not going to do it. You may not put my work into an ai scraper of any kind. Also I'll say it again, depiction does not equal glorification.

Context on real people: I mean if you want me to just draw a picture of Margot Robbie that's most likely fine, or write about the wacky secret society that Laura Ingals and St. Patrick were running that's probably fine, or if a real living person appears in the background that's probably fine (I see you good omens fans having Crowley and Hozier hang out at a bar), but I won't write shipping for real, currently living people, nor will i make them the mc of a story. I'd prefer not for dead people either, but that's not a hard rule. Once again, case by case.

[smol-ish-rose]

Feature artist Friday

Hey, this is my second Feature artist Friday, a little series I’m currently doing as an art student to spread the work of some indie/contemporary minority artists (like myself) and to make art and engaging with work of minority artists more accessible to the general public. I am white British and obviously not a member of every minority that I will be covering so if I get things wrong, especially in regards to ethnicity, please feel free to correct me and edits will be made to the post. 

Todays artist isssss…

CHAAYA PRABHAT

This Friday we’re looking at a Freelance graphic designer from India, Chaaya Prabhat (She/her). She is an illustrator (someone who draws pictures to go along with writing, like the people who draw pictures in books) and lettering artist (Someone who does designs with letters, like making fonts, making the words in logos, and including words/letters in their drawings). 

Originally from Chennai (in India), Chaaya now lives in and works from Goa (also in India), She’s illustrated book covers for publishers including Penguin Random House, Harper Collins, Hachette, Macmillan, and Disney Hyperion (These are some big names in publishing!!) She’s also worked with Snapchat, Facebook and Google on digital illustration projects which is insane! The majority of her work is digital, but there are some sketchbook style works on her website which I think are amazing!

I mean just look at this graphic pen and marker drawing of housing areas! They’re absolutely stunning with the drawings themselves being achromatic (no colour), which makes the whole thing simple and easy to understand, but includes a small amount of colour by highlighting the negative space (area that isn’t the stuff, eg the background) in red, which adds to the readability of the shapes. 

Chaaya herself, in an interview, has said that her use of colours and shapes is inspired by the colourful areas where she grew up, in Chennai.  She says that “There is so much colour in India—I see these colourful places around me and I draw the world that way.” You can see this inspiration in the picture above, with its focus on bright primary (red, yellow, blue) colours and architecture. 

These are two of the book covers she has designed, both for books written by Geroge Orwell. Animal Farm is one of my personal favourite books, and 1984 is a book I am currently studying for an english course, so these illustrations particularly interest me. The Animal Farm book cover uses a limited, analogous (colours that are next to each other in the rainbow) colour palette of reds, oranges and creamy-yellows and browns. This use of colour means that the entire cover looks cohesive, and the red may be symbolic of the bloodshed in the book. With the 1984 cover, she uses similar reds and oranges, but also includes dark blues, which form a complimentary (colours that are opposite each other on the colour wheel) colour scheme, which means that the orange shape in the centre, and the surveillance cameras around the outside, stand out more from the blue. There is a lot of eye symbolism in the cover, with not only the obvious eyes, but with the central window shape making the shape of an eye, with the sun as its pupil, suggesting that the whole world is watching, which is the key theme of the book. 

One of my favourite pieces of her work is her illustrations for the poem Ozymandias, which was written all the way back in 1818 by Percy Bysshe Shelly (Mary Shelly’s husband). The image I’ve attached is one from the end of the poem but it is, however, my favourite, due to the sideways tilted landscape, that makes it feel like the viewer is lying on their side to meet the statue face-to-face. This one also uses complementary colours, with the greens and blues of the mask being opposite to the oranges and yellows of the landscape.

You can check out Chaaya’s website here, her Instagram here, and some of the books she’s illustrated here, here and here

Find out more about Indian architecture here (wikipedia page here)

[taznovembercelebration]

TAZ November Celebration: This time it's BINGO

Here we go again! (fully not to take away from Halloween, just giving you time to think about it. party on!)

Things are getting a little dark and cold, so let’s keep partying! Here is a list of prompts for the entire month of November. Share some art, writing, cosplay, edits, playlists, etc, and we’ll reblog it here! Any little bit of joy is good--don’t worry about doing daily hyper-finished pieces. Just do the ones that spark joy, and we’ll help you share that joy with the rest of the fandom!

Every day has two prompts. Pick one, both, or even neither, make something, and tag it with TAZNC or taz november celebration or @ us so we can see it!

You are also welcome to do more than one a day, or even count more than one prompt in a piece. I'm not your dad. Just be fair.

Here is the blank bingo card for the month, with the free space "share and enjoy"! if you make anything or appreciate and acknowledge anything another person makes, you get to count it!! And if you get a BINGO (up to five entries) you will get a chance to win a free ficlet or art piece from @ceilingfan5 (that's me. shhh) of your choice (within limitations)! Drawing will take place on December 1st or as soon as I have a chance after that and winner will be messaged privately and given 24 hours to respond.

Here are all the prompts depicted on the bingo card above:

joking or serious

sweet or spicy

red or black

chilly or cozy 

soup or dessert

tall or short

remember or forget 

100 or 3 

embrace or refusal 

cat or baby 

cloak or reveal

star or darkness 

holding hands or pushing away 

knife or spoon 

ocean or dirt 

crying or laughing 

new start or repeat

wood or gold 

ice or steam

jewelry or blanket 

wonder or despise 

plant or metal 

dome or cabin 

paint or erase 

purring or silence 

truth or fiction 

balance or adventure 

monster or friend 

crunch or savor 

share or enjoy (free space)

Feel free to message with questions, and thank you for spreading this and fostering a little joy in a dark month!

[whumptober]

Whumptober 2020 - Updated

Welcome to Whumptober 2020! We’re doing things a little differently this year so please make sure to read the Event Info carefully. We are also excited to announce the addition of an AO3 Collection, which can be found here.

We hope you’re as excited as us to watch the Whump Community come together once again for a month of bone-crunching creativity and collaboration!

(All 31 Themes + Prompts, Event Information, and FAQs are posted below the cut!)

No 1. LET'S HANG OUT SOMETIME Waking Up Restrained | Shackled | Hanging

No 2. IN THE HANDS OF THE ENEMY  "Pick Who Dies" | Collars | Kidnapped

No 3. MY WAY OR THE HIGHWAY Manhandled | Forced to their Knees | Held at Gunpoint

No 4. RUNNING OUT OF TIME Caged | Buried Alive | Collapsed Building

No 5. WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU'RE GOING? On the Run | Failed Escape | Rescue

No 6. PLEASE.... "Get it Out" | No More | "Stop, please"

No 7. I'VE GOT YOU Support | Carrying | Enemy to Caretaker

No 8. WHERE DID EVERYBODY GO? "Don't Say Goodbye" | Abandoned | Isolation

No 9. FOR THE GREATER GOOD "Take Me Instead" | "Run!” | Ritual Sacrifice

No 10. THEY LOOK SO PRETTY WHEN THEY BLEED Blood Loss | Internal Bleeding | Trail of Blood

No 11. PSYCH 101 Defiance | Struggling | Crying

No 12. I THINK I'VE BROKEN SOMETHING Broken Down | Broken Bones | Broken Trust

No 13. BREATHE IN BREATHE OUT Delayed Drowning | Chemical Pneumonia | Oxygen Mask

No 14. IS SOMETHING BURNING? Branding | Heat Exhaustion | Fire

No 15. INTO THE UNKNOWN Possession | Magical Healing | Science Gone Wrong

No 16. A TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE, NO GOOD, VERY BAD DAY Forced to Beg | Hallucinations | Shoot the Hostage

No 17. I DID NOT SEE THAT COMING Blackmail | Dirty Secret | Wrongfully Accused

No 18. PANIC! AT THE DISCO Panic Attacks | Phobias | Paranoia

No 19. BROKEN HEARTS Grief | Mourning Loved One | Survivor's Guilt

No 20. TOTO, I HAVE A FEELING WE'RE NOT IN KANSAS ANYMORE Lost | Field Medicine | Medieval

No 21. I DON'T FEEL SO WELL Chronic Pain | Hypothermia | Infection

No 22. DO THESE TACOS TASTE FUNNY TO YOU? Poisoned | Drugged | Withdrawal

No 23. WHAT’S A WHUMPEE GOTTA DO TO GET SOME SLEEP AROUND HERE? Exhaustion | Narcolepsy | Sleep Deprivation

No 24. YOU’RE NOT MAKING ANY SENSE Forced Mutism | Blindfolded | Sensory Deprivation

No 25. I THINK I’LL JUST COLLAPSE RIGHT HERE, THANKS Disorientation | Blurred Vision | Ringing Ears

No 26. IF YOU THOUGHT THE HEAD TRAUMA WAS BAD... Migraine | Concussion | Blindness

No 27. OK, WHO HAD NATURAL DISASTERS ON THEIR 2020 BINGO CARD? Earthquake | Extreme Weather | Power Outage

No 28. SUCH WOW. MANY NORMAL. VERY OOPS. Accidents | Hunting Season | Mugged

No 29. I THINK I NEED A DOCTOR Intubation | Emergency Room | Reluctant Bedrest

No 30. NOW WHERE DID THAT COME FROM? Wound Reveal | Ignoring an Injury | Internal Organ Injury

No 31. TODAY’S SPECIAL: TORTURE Experiment | Whipped | Left for Dead

Alternate Prompt List

Alt 1. Punctured

Alt 2. Falling

Alt 3. Comfort

Alt 4. Stitches

Alt 5. Stoic Whumpees

Alt 6. Altered States

Alt 7. Found Family

Alt 8. Adverse Reactions

Alt 9. Memory Loss

Alt 10. Nightmares

Alt 11. Presumed Dead

Alt. 12. Water

Alt. 13 Accidents

Alt. 14 Shot

Alt. 15 Carry/Support

Event Info

WHUMPTOBER is a month-long, prompt-based creation challenge (think: Inktober, but whumpier). There are 31 Official themes this year - one for each day of the month - which can be used, skipped, or combined in any way you’d like. They are meant to serve as inspiration without being taken literally (e.g. you don't have to include the exact wording into your work). Additionally, there are 3 prompts for each theme.  These are optional suggestions and can be used in conjunction with the theme, or as options/alternatives.  We want to give everyone as much creative freedom as possible, as well as increase event accessibility for folks with triggers and squicks.

Creators can PRODUCE work in any media they choose, including but not limited to: writing, visual artwork, and photo/video/audio edits. Creators can PARTICIPATE as much or as little as they want (i.e. you don’t have to do ALL the prompts if you don’t want to) and prompts can be used in any order. They are also free to use even after the event ends.

When uploading Whumptober content to your blog, be sure to tag the with:

#whumptober2020 …..(the event tag)

#no.1, #no.2, #no.3, …..(theme number)

#bruised, #stabbed,  …..(the theme or specific prompt you chose)

#fandom or #OC

#medium …..(gifs, fic, podcast, art, etc.)

#teeth, #etc …..(trigger warnings & any additional tags. Keep in mind not to add “tw” in front but only use the word/trigger itself, because tumblr sucks)

#nsfw, #nsfwhump …..(only for nsfw content)

PLEASE BE DILIGENT WITH YOUR TAGGING. Only properly tagged posts are considered for archiving on the official @whumptober2020​ blog. They must be tagged in the order above.

Unfortunately, due to the sheer number of participants in recent years, we cannot guarantee your work will be archived. A random selection of properly tagged posts from all genres will be reblogged each day.

Whumpers who produce content for 31 total theme days are considered event completionists and will be tagged in a masterpost at the end of the month.

Questions not addressed below can be directed to this blog as well.

Thanks for reading, and happy whumping!

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. What kind of content can I make? Can it be NSFW?

This is a MIXED MEDIA event! You can write fic, post meta, doodle or paint, create a gif set or photo edit, link a song, or get crafty with video - anything goes. As for NSFW, make what you like, we just hope that you’ll tag your work accordingly so that others participating in the event can stay safe :)

Q. Do I have to do all 31 Days? Can I post early/late?

Participate as much or little as you like, and post whenever! Just be sure to tag your posts properly (ex. #no.11, #psych101). Combining prompts into one piece of work is okay, and posting late is as well so as long as it’s in October.

Q. What if I don’t understand a theme?

Send us an ask! We’re happy to help clarify. That said, the themes are entirely up for interpretation :)

Q. Can I combine Whumptober with other creation challenges?

Absolutely! That’s like shooting two whumpees with one bullet :)

Q. Can I upload/repost my whumptober content to other social media platforms?

Of course! We’ve created an AO3 Collection to archive any fics posted there. The archive can be accessed here. The blog is the official archive, so please respect the boundaries of any closeted whumpers in your social circle :)

Q. Can I use prompts to write a new chapter for an existing fic?

Yes

Q. An existing fic I am currently writing contains many of the Whumptober prompts, can I use it?

If you are actively writing this fic at the moment with the whumptober prompts in mind, yes. If it just conveniently checks the boxes, then please don’t. You can, however, add new chapters answering one or more of the prompts.

Q. What kind of characters can I write for?

Fandom characters, OC characters, human, furry, alien, cyborg, whoever you like.

Q. Can I use a prompt multiple times?

Yes,  but it only counts once

Q. If I’m not comfortable with one day's prompts can I use a prompt of a different day as a substitute and still be a completionist?

Yes, but please do not use a specific prompt twice. We have also created an alternate prompts list that you can draw from [here].

Q. Where can I post my work?

Post where and how you want. You don’t even have to (cross)post it to Tumblr. Just keep in mind if it’s not on Tumblr we will not be able to add it to the blog archive.

Q. Can I start posting early?

You can, but this is an October event and wouldn’t it be more fun with everyone doing it at the same time? That being said, you can post early, but we won’t be reblogging any work predating October 1st.

Q. Do I have to finish a fic I started/can I post WIP’s.?

Yes you can post WIPs. And you’re not obligated to finish it in October for it to count towards being a completionist.  

Q. Is co-writing allowed?

Yes, absolutely, and it would count towards being a completionist for both/all of you :)

Q. Do I have to create 31 standalone pieces to be considered a completionist or can I write one continuous story?

One continuous story is fine.  The challenge is to write something for 31 prompts. If that’s spread over 31 fics or just one, you are still considered a completionist. (The same goes for every other media you choose.)

Q. Is there a min/max limit on word count?

There is no limit

Q. Can I combine prompts? Is there a limit on how many?

No limit and combine as many as you’d like.

Q. Is a hc/angst focus ok?

Of course!

Q. What’s considered nsfw?

See this post

Q. What's whump?

See this post

Q. My interpretation of the prompt isn't whumpy at all, does that count?

No, sorry, but keep in mind that whump [see definition] is something very nuanced and different for everyone and emotional whump/angst is just as much part of it, as is physical whump and torture. So before you dismiss your idea, think about this.

Q. Can I start working on the prompts before October?

Absolutely! That’s why we posted the prompts a month in advance. We recognise how difficult it can be creating for 31 days in “real time”.

Q. How do I tag triggers?

tw at the end of the word, ex. emeto tw

Q. Do I have to use your tags?

Yes, if you want your work archived on the blog. If not, feel free to use whatever tags you want.  

Q. Does combining prompts count towards completion?

Yes

Q. Can we @ you?

Yes but we mostly rely on the whumptober2020 tag

Q. Is there anything we are absolutely not allowed to write?

There are no rules, just be sure to properly tag your trigger warnings. And keep in mind Tumblr’s policies if you are posting it here (or the policies of whatever site you use).

Q. Where can I go for brainstorming help?

Here on Discord

Q. My characters are minors, is that ok?

Yes, but as with everything else, tags are your best friend.

Q. Can I cross post on other blogs?

Yes, multiple platforms and blogs are perfectly acceptable. You can also post different works to different accounts under different names, without posting them everywhere at once.

Note: This is a creation challenge, please don’t repost your old work under our tags (unless it’s been changed or edited for the event).

[felassan]

Dragon Age development insights and highlights from Bioware: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development

Some really tasty factoids here.

Cut for length.

Dragon Age: Origins

The continent of Thedas was at one point going to be named Pelledia, a name initially floated by James Ohlen

“Qunari” was a temporary name that ended up unintentionally sticking, much like “Thedas”

Mary Kirby wrote the Landsmeet. To this day, nobody understands how it works, except possibly her. If she’s “really really drunk” she can explain how it works. There’s as many words in it as Sten’s entire conversations put together

Concept art for Thedosian art - as in in-world art - draws heavily on Renaissance-era portraiture, the Art Nouveau movement, religious styles and media like stained glass, and favorite pieces from the golden age of illustrations in the early 20th century

Andrastianism in-world (art-wise) is depicted in wildly different methods depending on who in-world made the art in question. “One religion, 3 different lenses”. There’s the Chantry take, the Orlesian take and the Fereldan take; each with its own different interpretations, different mediums and different stories

The stained glass images were drawn by Nick Thornborrow for DAI, to decorate religious spaces in that game “and beyond”

irl Viking art influenced Ferelden

Greek and Italian art influenced Orlais

The book also had other insights into and anecdotes from the development of DAO, but I’ve transcribed them recently as they’re essentially the stories DG has recently been relating on the awesome Summerfall Studios DAO playthrough Twitch streams. (On those streams he provides dev commentary while Liam Esler plays through DA. The ones with DG are currently once every two weeks. Check them out! Here’s a calendar where you can check when the next one is) Instead of repeating myself I’ll just provide the link to the first transcript. From there you can navigate to the subsequent parts. Note these streams are ongoing. At this point I will also point you to a related post which is cliff notes of the Dragon Age chapter in Jason Schreier’s book Blood Sweat and Pixels.

Dragon Age II

DAO had the longest development period in BioWare history. In contrast DA2 had the shortest

Initially DA2 was going to be an expansion to DAO. A few months in EA said “Yeah, expansions like these don’t sell very well, so let’s make it a sequel.” So it suddenly became DA2 and they had to make it even bigger, although they still only had 1.5 years of time in which to do this

Production of DA2 officially lasted only 9 months, and at the time the team was still supporting live content for DAO! They finished development that January after the design team crunched all the way through the holiday period that year. Then it went to cert 9 times

The limited time they had is why the story takes place mostly in and around 1 city, and over 7 years (so it was temporal, rather than over physical distance, because a more expansive world would have taken more irl time to make)

They had no time to review even the main plot. Mike Laidlaw pitched the idea of 3 stories taking place at different points in the PC’s life, tied together by Varric’s recollections of events. DG rolled with this and made 1 presentation on the idea. This presentation was then approved and off they went

As they were writing DG realized that there was going to be no oversight and that everything was going to be a ‘first draft’. “Because nobody had time.” He sat down with the writers and said “Look, here’s the conditions we’re working under. A lot of what we’re putting out is gonna be raw. We’re not going to get the editing we need. We’re not going to get the kind of iteration we need. So I’m going to trust you all to do your best work.”

Looking back, DG has mixed feelings on DA2. “A lot of corners were cut. The public perception was that it was smaller than DAO. That’s a sin on its own.”

Despite this he thinks DA2 has some of the best writing in the series, especially character-wise. The DA2 chars are his favorite

The pace with which production progressed may in some ways have helped. “When we do a lot of revision, we often file away [as in buff off] some of the good writing as well. Somehow DA2′s whirlwind process resulted in some really good writing”

The pace meant chars landed on the writers in various stages of completion. For example Isabela was fairly defined due to appearing in DAO. In contrast Varric at the start was just that single piece of widely-shown concept art

Varric was conceived as a storyteller not a fighter. His skills are talking and bullshitting. Hence the question became, so what does this guy do in combat? The direction was to make him as different as possible to Oghren, so not a warrior. He couldn’t be a dual-wielding rogue in order to differentiate him from Bela. But you can’t really picture this guy with a bow. “For a dwarf, it would probably be a crossbow. We didn’t have crossbows, or we only had crossbows for the darkspawn. And they were part of the models. We didn’t have a separate crossbow that was equip-able by the chars. They had to like, crop one off a darkspawn and remodel it. And that became Bianca” (quote: Mary Kirby)

“Dwarven mages are exceedingly rare.” [???]

If DAO was a classic fantasy painting, DA2 was a screenshot from a Kurosawa film or a northern Renaissance painting. (Here Matt Rhodes was commenting on art style)

John Epler: “In any one of our games, there’s a 95% chance that if you turn the camera away from what it’s looking at, you’ll see all kinds of janky stuff. The moment we know the camera is no longer facing someone, we no longer care what happens to them. We will teleport people around. We will jump people around. We will literally have someone walk off screen and then we will shift them 1000 meters down, because we’re fixing some bug.” John also talked about this camera stuff in a recent charity Twitch stream for Gamers For Groceries. There’s a writeup of that stream here

Designing Kirkwall pushed concept artists to the limits of visual storytelling, because it has a long history that they wanted to be present. It was once the hub of Tevinter’s slave empire, so it needed to look brutal and harsh, but it also then needed to feel reclaimed, evolved, and with elements of contemporary Free Marches culture

The initial plan was for DA titles to be distinguished by subtitles not numbers, so that each experience could stand on its own rather than feel like a sequel or continuation. (My note: New PCs in each entry make sense then when you consider this and other factoids we know like how DA is the story of the world not of any one PC). Later, DA2′s name was made DA2 in a bid to more clearly connect the game to its predecessor. For DAI they returned to the original naming convention. (My note: so I’d reckon they’d be continuing the subtitle naming convention for DA4)

DA2 was initially code-named “Nug Storm”, strictly internally

The Cancelled DA2 Expansion - Exalted March

This was a precursor to DAI

It was meant to bridge the gap between DA2 and DAI

It focused on the fallout from Kirkwall’s explosion, with Cory serving as the villain

Meredith’s red lyrium statue was basically going to infest Kirkwall and it would end up [with what would end up] the red templars taking over Kirkwall and essentially being Cory’s army

To stop him Hawke would have recruited various factions, including Bela’s Felicisima Armada and the Qunari at Estwatch, forcing Hawke to split loyalties and risk relationships in the process

It was meant to bring DA2′s story to an end and end in Varric’s death. DG was very happy with this because all of DA2 is Varric’s tale. The expansion was supposed to start at the moment Cassandra’s interrogation of him ended in the present. “And we finished off the story with Varric having this heroic death.” It tied things up and would have broken many fan hearts, something BioWare writers notoriously enjoy. But between a transition to the new Frostbite engine and the scope of DAI, the decision was made to cancel EM, work any hard-to-lose concepts into DAI, and in the process save Varric’s life. DG has talked about the Varric dying thing before

Concept art for EM explored new areas previously not depicted in the DA universe, with costumes that reflected next steps for familiar chars. Varric was going to war, what would he have worn? With Anders, if he survived DA2, the plan was to present a redeemed Warden

A char that vaguely resembled Sera in DAI was first concepted for EM. This fact was mentioned near this concept art (see the female elf) and this concept art of Bethany with the blond bob

The writers sketched out plans to end it with Hawke having the option to marry their LI. This included alternate ceremonies for party members like Bethany and Sebastian if the player opted not to wed. There was even a wedding dress made for Hawke. This asset made it into DAI (Sera and Cullen’s weddings in Trespasser). The dress can also be seen in DAI during an ambient NPC wedding after completing a chain of war table missions

The destruction of a Chantry was explored in concept art as it might have happened in EM. This idea ended up carrying over to the beginning of DAI. (My note: Lol, the idea that DA2 could have had 2 Chantries being destroyed in it 😆)

World of Thedas

Sheryl Chee and Mary Kirby started with “a disgusting little dish called fluffy mackerel pudding”. In the middle of DAO’s busy dev period one of them (they can’t remember who) found a recipe online for this, scanned in from a 70s cookbook. “I don’t understand why it was fluffy. Why would you want fluffy mackerel pudding?” MK says. “We loved it so much we included it in a DAO codex.”

This led them to create more food for Thedas, full recipes included, like a Fereldan turnip and barley stew from MK and SC’s Starkhaven fish and egg pie. The fish pie became Sebastian’s favorite. “To me it made sense for it to be fish pie because a lot of the Free Marches are on the coast”, SC says, “It was something that was popular in medieval times, so I thought, let’s make a fish pie! I looked at medieval recipes and I concocted a fish pie which I fed to my partner, and he was like ‘This is not terrible’”

For WoT the whole studio was asked to contribute family recipes which might have a place in Thedas. SC adapted these to fit in one Thedosian culture or another, including a beloved banana bread that localization producer Melanie Fleming would regularly bake to keep the DA team motivated. “Melanie’s banana bread got us through Inquisition”

DAI

It says part of DAI takes place in or near the border with Nevarra [???]

This game was aimed to be bigger than DA2 and even DAO in every conceivable way

The first hour had to do a lot of heavy lifting, tying together the events of DAO and DA2 while introducing a new PC, new followers etc in the aftermath of the big attack. DG rewrote it 7 times then Lukas Kristjanson did 2 more passes

DG: “Our problem is always that our endings are so important, but we leave them to last, when we have no time. I kept pushing on DAI: ‘Can we work on the ending now? Can we work on the ending now? Can we do it early on?’ Because I knew exactly what it was going to be. But despite the fact that it kept getting scheduled, whenever the schedule started falling behind, it kept getting pushed back... so, of course, it got left til last again.”

“The reveal of the story’s real antagonist, Solas, a follower until the end, when he betrayed the player”. “Solas’ story remains a main thread in Inquisition’s long-awaited follow-up” [these aren’t DG quotes, just bits of general text]

Over the course of development they had 8 full-time writers and 4 editors working on it. Other writers joined later to help wrangle what ended up being close to 1 million words of dialogue and unspoken text. While many teams moved to a more open concept style of work for DAI, the writers remained tucked away in their own room, a choice DG says was necessary, given how much they talked. All the talking had a purpose ofc as if someone hit a bump or wall in their writing they would open the problem up to the room

As writing on a project like DAI progresses, the writers grow punchier and weirder things make it into the game. This is especially the case towards the end of a project (they get tired, burned out)

Banter and codexes require less ‘buy-in’ (DG has talked about this concept a few times on the Twitch streams) from other designers. DG liked to leave banter for last as a reward because it was fun. Banter begins as lists of topics for 2 followers to discuss. These may progress over time or be one off exchanges. One banter script can balloon to well over 10k words. “The banter was always huge because we were always like, laughing, and really at that point, our fields of fucks were rather barren, so we would just do whatever”

The bog unicorn happened pretty much by accident. It was designed by Matt Rhodes and was one of his fav things to design. They needed horse variations and he had already designed an undead variant which was a bog mummy [bog body]. irl these are preserved in a much different way to traditional mummies. When someone dies in a bog their skin turns black and raisin-like. The examples we know of tend to have bright red hair for whatever reason. It’s a very striking look and MR wanted to do a horse version of this as he thought it’d be neat. 5 mins before the review meeting for it he had a big ‘Aha!’ moment, quickly looked up a rusty old Viking sword, and photoshopped it through its skull like that was how it died. “And I was like, ‘I just made a unicorn. Alright, in it goes!’” It got approved. “So we built the thing. It fit. It told a little story”

With the irl Inquisition longsword, one of the objects they tested its cleaving ability on was a plush version of Leliana’s nug Schmooples

The concept art team explored a wide variety of visuals for the Inquisitor’s signature mark. It needed to look powerful and raw but couldn’t look like a horrific wound. In some cases, as cool as the idea looked on paper, they just weren’t technically feasible, especially as they had to be able to fit on any number of different bodies

Bug report: “Endlessly spawning mounts! At one point during development, Inquisitors could summon a new horse every time they whistled, allowing them to amass a near infinite number of eager steeds that faithfully followed them across Thedas. “You could go charging across levels and they’d all gallop behind you,” Jen Cheverie says, “It was beautiful.” Trotting into town became an epic horse siege as a tidal wave of mounts enveloped the streets. Jen called it her Army of Ponies”

The giants came from DA Week, an internal period when devs can pursue different individual creative projects that in some way benefit DA. They also had a board game from one of these that they were going to put in but they didn’t have time. It’s referenced though. It was dwarven chess

Josie’s outfit is made of gold silk and patterned velvet, with leather at her waist. She carries “an ornate ledger” and she has “an ornamented collar sitting around her neck, finished by a brilliant red ruby, like a drop of Antivan wine in a sunbeam”

Iron Bull’s armor is leather. His loose pantaloons and leather boots give him agility to charge

On DAI in particular, concept artists took special care to make sure costumes would be realistic, at least in a practical ‘this obeys the laws of physics and textiles’ sense. “While on Inquisition, we thought about cosplay from a concept art perspective. Given how incredible a lot of [cosplays] are, I now am not worried about them. In fact in some cases in the future I want to throw them curveballs like, ‘All right, you clever bastards. Let’s see if you can do this!’”

2 geese that nested on the office building and had chicks were named Ganders and Arishonk (it wasn’t known who was the mom or the dad). Other possible names were Carver Honke, Bethany Honke, Urdnot Pecks, Quackwall, Cassandra Pentagoose, the Iron Bill, Shepbird, Garroose, Admiral Quackett, Scout Honking, HChick-47 and Darth Malgoose

Bug report: “The surprising adventures of Ser Noodles!” DAI was the first time the series had a mount feature, meaning this had a lot of bugs. A lot of the teams’ favorite bugs were to do with the mounts. There was a period of time where the Inquisitor’s horse seemed to lose all bone and muscle in its legs. They had a week or so where all quadruped legs were broken. It was a bit noticeable in things like nugs and other small beasties but the horse was insanely obvious. “The first time we summoned the horse [for this] and started running around, the entire QA exploration room just exploded with laughter.” Its legs flapped around like cooked fettucine, leading testers to lovingly nickname it Ser Noodles. At galloping speeds the legs almost looked like helicopter blades, especially when footage was set to classic pieces such as Wagner’s Flight of the Valkyries

For DAI the artists were asked questions like “What would Morrigan wear to a formal ball? Can Cassandra pull off a jaunty hat?”

On DAI storyboarding became the norm. John Epler: “Cinematic design for the longest time was the Wild West. It was ‘here’s a bunch of content, now do it however you want’, which resulted in some successes and some failures.” Storyboarding gave designers a consistent visual blueprint based on ideas from designers, writers and concept artists

Quote from a storyboard by Nick Thornborrow (the Inquisitor going into the party at the end of basegame sequence): “Until Corypheus revealed himself they could not see the single hand behind the chaos. A magister and a darkspawn combined. The ultimate evil. So evil. Eviler than puppy-killers and egg farts combined.”

A general note on concept art:

In the early stages of any project, before the concept artists are aware of any writing, they like to just draw what they think cool story moments could be. It’s not unusual for the team to then be inspired by these and fold them into the game as the project progresses

– From Bioware: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development

[samrriegel]

As creators, it’s important that we strive to create a positive relationship between our content and community while still retaining our rights. With this in mind, we’d like to share our new content policy covering how you can use our IP.

(you can click the link embedded above or click the readmore. there is a lot of text!)

Everyone at Critical Role is extremely honored and humbled by the interest our incredible community has shown in the stories that we tell, the shows that we produce, and our company in general. We think it’s pretty amazing that our fans want to create artwork, websites, and other works (“Projects”) based on our intellectual property (“IP”). Our IP includes any unique material our team creates — things like the names of our campaigns (for example, Vox Machina and Mighty Nein), our characters (for example, Grog Strongjaw or Beauregard Lionett), story locations (like Whitestone or Nicodranas), company slogans (such as How Do You Want to Do This?), as well as written content and all related artwork, music, etc. We are generally cool with Projects that follow the rules outlined below, but we reserve the right to remove Projects that, in our view, misrepresent these rules or use our IP inappropriately. We want our fans to continue celebrating our world and sharing their talents with the community, but for Critical Role (“CR”) to exist as a company, our legal advisors have suggested we establish some ground rules for how our IP can be used!

1. What can I develop with Critical Role’s intellectual property (“IP”)?

Free stuff for the community to view, with some exceptions. Critical Role allows you to use, display and create derivative works based upon Critical Role’s IP, strictly for noncommercial (except as specifically provided below) community use. CR reserves the right to use our sole discretion to deny anyone the use of our IP at any time, for any reason or no reason. If we deny you the right to use our IP, you must stop developing, publishing, or distributing your Project immediately.

In all cases, the use of our IP with your Projects must be appropriate for our Critter Community. Projects cannot be defamatory, offensive (including but not limited to anything transphobic, sexist, homophobic, racist, ableist, ageist), or harmful to others (as determined solely by CR).

2. Can I create a project that is commercial in nature?

You may not create commercial Projects, including any Project that (without a written license agreement from us):

i) crowdsources any portion of its funding; ii) involves a business or legal entity; iii) gates the content with a paywall (e.g., Patreon, YouTube Premium, etc.), unless it is also legitimately available elsewhere for free; or iv) involves the sale of merchandise utilizing CR IP

We prohibit the use of our IP in interactive games, apps, and downloads. Please do not take any part of our IP (e.g., character appearance, character abilities, maps, icons, items, etc.) and use it in a game or app for other than your own private, noncommercial use. We do not allow any Projects utilizing our IP to appear in any app stores, including the Apple Store or Google Play, unless they have a written license agreement from us.

No monetized novels, theatricals or the like. You are not permitted to write, produce or create any novels, theatrical productions or other adaptations that include CR’s intellectual property without our express written permission.

Fan fiction is generally permitted (and enjoyed!) by CR, as long as the content is not monetized and otherwise follows the guidelines of this policy.

You are not permitted to manufacture, promote, or distribute (for free or otherwise) any merchandise (such as apparel, game pieces, accessories, etc.) that bear any CR IP without a separate, express written agreement between you and Critical Role.

Critical Role, on occasion, collaborates with and licenses third parties for the creation and distribution of Official CR Merchandise. These agreements are separate from this CR Fan Content Policy.

3. What about passive ad revenue?

This is one of those exceptions we mentioned earlier. We permit fans to promote their Projects on websites, streams, or videos and passively generate revenue through appropriate advertisements, including pre-roll ads, ad breaks, and sponsor ad overlays. No inappropriate direct ads or sponsorships—we alone decide what qualifies as inappropriate, but if you won’t see it on Critical Role, it is probably not appropriate.

We permit individual fans to solicit personal donations or offer subscription-based content while livestreaming, so long as non-subscribers can still watch the live stream concurrently. In other words, you may have your Project behind a paywall, so long as the Project is legitimately also available for free in some other way.

Your use of CR Content must be transformative in nature. You cannot simply re-upload our content. Examples of potential transformative works include:

Animatics

Compilation videos

Remix edits

Added commentary

Music/ music videos

Cosplay content

Art / draw alongs

GIFs / memes

React videos

For longform CR content: Originally 2 hours or more in length (e.g., Critical Role, Exandria Unlimited, and One-Shots)

CR allows your passive monetization of under 10 minutes of content usage per episode

CR may claim monetization or execute an automatic takedown for over 10 minutes of content usage per episode

For medium-length CR content: Originally between 1-2 hours in length (e.g., Between the Sheets, Narrative Telephone)

CR allows your passive monetization for under 5 minutes of content usage per episode

CR may claim monetization or execute an automatic takedown for over 5 minutes of content usage per episode

For short CR content: Under 60 minutes (e.g., Handbooker Helper, All Work No Play)

CR may claim monetization or execute an automatic takedown, which includes any “clips” or “memes”

4. Can my Project make reference to Critical Role?

We’d love that! Just make sure that your Project follows the other guidelines in this policy and clearly let people know it is a fan Project and not an official CR Project. That is, you are not permitted to state or imply that your Projects are affiliated with, sponsored, or approved by Critical Role. You may not create a Project in a manner that could cause other Critters to believe that it is an official CR work. If you share your Project with others, please conspicuously include the following disclaimer (e.g., on your Project’s website):

Portions of the materials used may contain trademarks and/or copyrighted works of Critical Role. This material is not official, is provided for free, noncommercial entertainment purposes only, and is not endorsed by Critical Role.

5. Can I create CR-related video content before the content is available on Critical Role’s YouTube channel?

No. Please be considerate. So it’s clear, any posting or other unauthorized disclosure of CR-created content prior to its official release on YouTube (or an authorized media-sharing platform) is strictly prohibited. In regards to spoilers, even after an episode’s release, spoilers can ruin a fan’s experience and we always aim to avoid them. Please be respectful of others and do not deliberately push plot reveals on people who are actively avoiding learning about them. If you are releasing fan content after its official release on the CR YouTube channels, we ask that you please offer spoiler disclaimers (or appropriate hashtags) as a courtesy.

6. What about CR fan art that’s shared publicly during or after a livestreamed RPG broadcast and before the VOD is available on YouTube?

Boy, we love ourselves some amazing Critter fan art. We also want to ensure that artists are taking every precaution not to spoil an episode before its official release on the CR YouTube channel. Please ensure that your artwork is not audiovisual in nature and follows the guidelines set forth in this policy. Again as a general courtesy, please include spoiler disclaimers (or appropriate hashtags) whenever possible.

7. Is all content in a Critical Role video available for use?

No. Certain CR videos contain music or other content that Critical Role doesn’t own. Critical Role, at times, enters into licenses with 3rd party content providers to enhance CR videos for viewing. Since CR cannot grant you a license to use someone else’s content, you’ll need to get permission from the copyright owner(s) before using their content. If you include non-Critical Role music or other content in your video, do so at your own risk. Your video could be subject to filtering or takedown notices by the owner of the copyright in the original work.

8. Can I use Critical Role’s Logos or Trademarks?

Generally, no, and only in limited instances. Use of Critical Role’s brands, logos, character names, actor names, actor and character likenesses and other IP are only to be used in connection with the discussion of Critical Role works, Official Products and non-commercial Projects in compliance with this Policy. Critical Role expressly prohibits uses of its Trademarks to promote your business or merchandise. You may not register domain names, social media accounts, or similar stuff that uses any of our trademarks, trade names, character names, etc. without expressed written consent.

You definitely may not use any CR trademarks as keywords, titles, or search tags for products that are infringing or counterfeit.

9. Can Critical Role use my Project?

Yes. We want fans to create and share cool things with each other, and we want to remove barriers to sharing. Because you are using Critical Role IP, if we celebrate or spotlight a fan Project, or make something that somehow resembles a fan Project, by posting it publicly you give Critical Role permission to spotlight or share your Project with the world. By using Critical Role IP in the creation of your Project you give CR authorization to share your Project in any way at our sole discretion. Critical Role will always attempt to contact artists in these instances and/or provide proper artist credit whenever possible.

10. What if my Project is not covered here?

If your creative efforts are not covered by this Policy, you’ll need our prior, written approval before you put it out in the world. If you have any questions or creative content you want to make that isn’t covered by this Policy, contact us by sending us an email to info@critrole.com. Written approval is required for Projects that are outside of the scope of this policy.

If you don’t hear from us, it does not mean we approve of your requested use of our IP.

11. Anything else?

Yes. Critical Role reserves the right to change this Policy at any time with no notice whatsoever, but we’ll do our best to communicate any changes widely as soon as we can in the interest of remaining transparent with you.

Please note that we are constantly developing new content and creating new IP that will fall under these guidelines.

Thank you so much for your attention to this policy. Our main goal is to ensure that the Critical Role community remains creative and vibrant as it’s always been. Our content policy will protect what we own today for the long haul so that we can continue to create magic for all of you for many years to come. If you have any questions at all, please reach out to us at info@critrole.com or via critrole.com/contact.

[nim-lock]

Art Career Tips, 2021 Edition

Here’s an edited version of my 2019 answered ask, because... this feels relevant. 

It is a problem of capitalism that folks equate their income as a judgement of their value as people; and let me preface. You are worth so much. You have inherent value in this world. Your income is not a judgement on who you are (plenty of billionaires are actively making the world worse). LARPing self-confidence will go a long way to helping you get paid more for your work, because clients will believe that you know what you are doing, and are a professional. 

& real quick—my own background is that I’ve been living off my art since 2018. I went to art school (Pratt Institute). I work in a publishing/educational materials sphere, and a quarter of my income is my shop. Not all of this information may apply to you, so it is up to you to look through everything with a critical eye, and spot pick what is relevant. 

So there are multiple ways of getting income as an artist; 

Working freelance or full-time on projects

Selling your stuff on a shop

Licensing (charging other companies to use your designs)

This post primarily covers the freelance part; if you’re interested in the other bits there is absolutely info out there on the internet. 

IF you are just starting (skip to next section if not applicable) dream big, draw often (practice helps you get better/more efficient), do your best to take "a bad piece” lightly. You’re gonna RNG this shit. At some point your rate of “good” works will get higher. Watch tutorial videos & read books. A base understanding of “the rules”; anatomy, perspective, composition, color helps you know what the rules are to break them. This adds sophistication to your work. One way you can learn this stuff is by doing “studies”—you’re picking apart things from life, or things other people have done, to see what works, and how it works. 

Trying to turn your interests into a viable career means that you are now a SMALL BUSINESS; it really helps to learn some basic marketing, graphic design, figure out how to write polite customer service emails; etc. You can learn some of this by looking it up, or taking skillshare (not sponsored) classes by qualified folks. Eventually some people may get agents to take care of this for them—however, I do recommend y’all get a basic understanding of what it takes to do it on your own, just so you can know if your agent is doing a good job. 

Making sure your portfolio fits the work you want to get

Here is a beginner portfolio post. 

Research the field you’d like to get into. The amount people work, the time commitment, the process of making the thing, the companies & people who work for them. 

Create work that could fit in to the industry you’re breaking into. For example, if you want to do book cover illustration, you draw a bunch of mockup book covers, that can either be stuff you make up, or redesigns of existing books. If you’re not 100% sure what sort of work is needed for the industry, loop back into the portfolios of artists in a similar line of work as whatever you’re interested in, and analyze the things they have in common. If something looks to be a common project (like a sequence of action images for storyboard artists), then it’s probably something useful for the job. 

CLIENTS HIRE BASED ON HOW WELL THEY THINK YOUR WORK FITS WHAT THEY WANT. If they’re hiring for picture books, they’re gonna want to see picture book art in your portfolio, otherwise they may not want to risk hiring you. Doesn’t have to be 100% the project, but stuff similar enough. If you aren’t hired, it doesn’t mean your work is bad, it just wasn’t the right fit for that specific client. 

If you have many interests, make a different section of your portfolio for each!

Making sure you’re relevant 

Have a social media that’s a little more public-facing, and follow people in the career field you’re interested in. Fellow artists, art directors, editors, social media managers; whoever. Post on your own schedule. 

Interact with their posts every so often, in a non-creepy way. 

If you’ve made any contacts, great! Email these artists, art directors, editors, former professors, etc occasional updates on your work to stay in touch AND make sure that they think about you every so often.

Show up to general art events every once in a while! If you keep showing up to ones in your area (when... not dying from a sneeze is a thing), folks will eventually start to remember you. 

Industry events & conferences can be pricey, so attend/save up for what makes sense for you. Industry meetups are important for networking in person! In addition to meeting people with hiring power, you also connect with your peers in the community. Always bring a portfolio & hand out business cards like candy. 

Active job hunting

Apply to job postings online.

If interested in working with specific people at specific companies, you could send an email “I’d love to work with you, here’s my portfolio/relevant experience”, even if they aren’t actively looking for new hires. Be concise, and include a link to your work AND attached images so the person reading the email can get a quick preview before clicking for more. 

Twitter job postings can be pretty underpaid! Get a copy of the Graphic Artists’ Guild Handbook Pricing & Ethical Guidelines to know your rate. I once had a twitter post job listing email me back saying that other illustrators were charging less, and I quote, “primarily because they’re less experienced and looking for their first commission”. This was not okay! For reference, this was a 64-illustration book. The industry rate of a children’s book (~36 pages) is $10k+, and this company’s budget was apparently $1k. For all of it. 

Congrats you got a job! Now what?

Ask for like, 10% more than they initially offer and see if they say yes. If they do, great! If not, and the price is still OK, great! Often company budgets are slightly higher than they first tell you, and if you get this extra secret money, all the better for you. 

Make sure you sign a contract and the terms aren’t terrible (re: GO GET THE  Graphic Artists’ Guild Handbook Pricing & Ethical Guidelines) 

Be pleasant and easy to work with (Think ‘do no harm but take no shit’)

Communicate with them as much as needed! If something’s going to be late, tell them as soon as you know so they aren’t left wondering or worse, reaching out to ask what’s up. 

And if all goes well, they’ll contact you about more jobs down the line, or refer you to other folks who may need an artist, etc. 

Quick note about online shops/licensing and why they’re so good

It’s work that you do once, that you continuously make money off of. Different products do well in different situations (conventions vs. online, and then further, based on how you market/the specific groups you are marketing to), so products that may not do well initially may get a surge later on. 

Start with things that have low minimum order quantity and are relatively cheap to produce, like prints and stickers. 

If you are not breaking even, go back to some of the earlier portions of this and think about how you could tweak things as a small business. Ease of access is also very important with this; for example, if you only take orders through direct messages, that immediately shuts off all customers who don’t like talking to strangers. 

Quick resource that you could look through; it’s the spreadsheet of project organizing that I made a while back 

Licensing is when people pay you for the right to use your work on stuff they need to make, like textbooks or greeting cards. This is generally work you’ve already made that they are paying the right to use for a specified time or limited run of products. This is great because you’ve already done the work. I am not the expert on this. Go find someone else’s info.

“I am not physically capable of working much”/ “I need to pay the bills”

Guess who got a hand injury Sept 2020 that messed me up that entire month! I had a couple jobs going at the time that I was terrified of losing, but they were quite understanding when I told them I needed to heal. So:  Express your needs as early as you know you need them. Also do lots of stretches and rest your hands whenever you feel anything off; this will save your health later. Like, the potential of a couple months of no income was preferable over losing use of my hands for the rest of my life.

This continues to apply if you have any other life situation. Ask for extra time. Ask for clarification. If you tell people ahead of time, folks are often quite understanding. Know how much you are capable of working and do your best not to overdo it. (I am.. bad at this)

Do what MAKES SENSE for your situation. If doing art currently earns you less money than organizing spreadsheets, then do that for now, and whenever you have the energy, break down some of the tips above into actionable tiny chunks, and slowly work at em. 

The original ask I got in 2019 mentioned ‘knowing you’re not good enough yet’. Most artists experience imposter syndrome & self-doubt—the important thing is to do your best, and if anything, attempt to channel the confidence of a mediocre white man. If he can apply to this job/charge hella money for Not Much, then so can you! 

Check out this Art Director tumblr for more advice!

Danichuatico’s Literary Agent guide

Kikidoodle’s Shop Shipping Tutorial

Best of luck!

–

Once again disclaimer this post is just the ramblings of a man procrastinating on other things that need to be done. I’ve Long Posted my own post so that it turns into mush in my brain if I try to read it, but I wrote this so I should know this content. If you got down here, congrats. Here’s a shrimp drawing.

Yee Ha. 

My reference post tag My tip jar

[dragynkeep]

Hey, so I'm writing this ask assuming that you two haven't read "Berserk". So if you have, please feel free to clown on me in your answer. Anyways, throughout time the word "Masterpiece" has been attributed to many pieces of literature. From Homer's "Iliad" and "Odyssey". To works like "Journey to the West". Even in modern times there are works like, "Dune" and of course, "The Lord of the Rings". And I firmly believe that "Berserk" deserves to be placed in the same category as these pieces of literature. First off the art style. Kentaro Miura, the mangaka of "Berserk", truly pushed the medium to the limit with nearly every panel. He managed to get every thing from the softer scenes between two friends, down to the truly Lovecraftian horror scenes with his artwork. Now I could rant for days about the many anecdotes about Miura and his art, from stories of him editing the drawings, pixel by pixel. To him being declared a master of the craft by titans in the industry at a young age. But there are many others whom have talked about that at length. So next, I will talk about the story. Without going into spoilers, I will say that the content of the story is truly a work of art. You get to see a person that the world has cast out as garbage, slowly claw their way out. Only to lose it all. Then rebuild it again. This is another thing, whilst the fight/action scenes are amazing. I think that is mostly due to the art style previously mentioned. I think where the story truly shines is in the moments after the storm has passed. You get these fragile, quiet moments where characters are left to asses the damage and try to pick up the pieces. It is truly a humbling sight. And lastly we have the characters. The characters, specifically the women characters, are all deep and layered in such unique ways. From Casca, the warrior, to Farnese the religious zealot. We get to see how the world affects these characters. Most of all is Guts, the main character, someone who truly is a monster in his own right, hellbent on revenge. Only to slowly start to let go of that anger and grief and slowly move on. Now I must say after talking up "Berserk" so much, I do need to make one small addendum to my previous statement about "Berserk" being a masterpiece. It is a masterpiece, but will be a masterpiece with an asterisks attached to it's name. for one glaring reason. "Berserk" will never have an ending. Due to the tragic passing of Kentaro Miura in 2021 we will never get to see the end of this journey. Now on a final note I'm going to talk about one last thing. The fact that a lot of "Berserk" was written before trigger warnings were a thing. And I don't mean this in a cringy anti-SJW way. I mean it in the way that "Berserk" deals with a lot of very heavy topics with no warning. So be aware that there might be scenes that are a little much. anyways I hope you give it a read. Don't watch any of the anime, just find the manga and read it. Trust me.

oh god that’s a big paragraph wheeze.

it’s sad to hear that the creator passed, & that the manga will remain unfinished. i don’t know whether it would be best to leave it as is or maybe have someone finish it, whether it’s worth that or not; i wouldn’t be able to say as i was never part of the fandom. that would probably be a differing opinion based on the fan you ask wheeze. however i had heard of the material berserk handles & maybe when i’m in a better place i’ll give it a shot but as is, it holds a lot of triggers for me.

however just because it’s not for me at this moment doesn’t mean it’s not for someone else & i’m glad that you felt such a connection & pull with a piece of media.

[wolfstar-in-color]

What Are Image Descriptions and Why Are They Necessary?

Hello, colorful cuties! In the ongoing spirit of Disability Pride Month, we want to take some time this week to talk about image descriptions! Maybe you’ve noticed, we add these to every image we share, and we’d love to see a bit more attention to these in the wider, wonderful world of the wolfstar fandom. 

So, first things first: what is an image description?

For the most part, it’s exactly what it sounds like: a textual description that details, in words, what is depicted in an image, graphic, or gifset.  

Why are they necessary?

Two reasons. First, to make your visual content accessible to blind and low-vision folks, or folks who - for a variety of reasons - cannot look at the image (some examples would be people experiencing severe headaches or migraines exasperated by images or bright colors, people with severe color-sensitive epilepsy, autistic people with low tolerance for imagery, etc.). Many blind, low-vision, or otherwise visually sensitive people use text readers or Braille converters, which read aloud or convert to Braille the words on the screen - but most of them don’t know what to do with images, and thus skip them all together (the technology required to automatically describe images is coming! Exciting!) Second, to make your visual accessible to people without access to technology robust enough to support the image, for example, rural folks without access to broadband internet strong enough to load digital images. 

Sure, but that can’t be that many people, right?

It’s more than you might think. 253 million people worldwide are blind or low-vision [source]. That’s more than 3% of everyone (and yes, I had to google that equation). In addition, 6% of the population of the United States does not have access to consistent broadband internet [source]. In Australia, that number is more than double [source]. Basically, what we’re saying is, that’s a lot of people who can’t engage with your wonderful visual work.

What kind of things need an image description?

Visual art (such as the amazing fanart so prolific in our fandom) is an obvious example, but gifsets, tiktoks, and videos of any kind also need image descriptions, as well as banners and headers.

Image descriptions are awkward, and I don’t know how to write them.

That’s okay, you’re not alone! If you’ve never written or encountered an image description, it can seem daunting and uncomfortable. We invite you to try it anyway! Throughout the rest of this week, we’ll be highlighting some useful resources and tip sheets on how to do this better. 

I want to start writing Image Descriptions for some of the older art I love, but I’m worried I’ll describe something in a way that is offensive or incorrect.

We also worry about that, we’re still in the learning process too. We’ve learned that it’s important to include such things as skin color and race, body shapes, landscapes, etc., even when it feels awkward. Luckily, people much more qualified than us have some thoughts on doing this better. Stay tuned for our Resources Wednesday!

I’ve made some new visual content that I really want to share, but I’m not great with words - what can I do to make sure my work is still accessible?

You know your work best, and as such, you’re the best person to describe it. But if you just can’t find the words - or the task is prohibitively overwhelming to you, or maybe comes up against your own disabilities or limitations - that’s okay! We’d recommend asking a friend (maybe a fandom friend!) to help you out, or if you can afford it, paying a service or person to do it for you. Similarly, if you are someone who is good with words and descriptions, maybe offer to do them for your fandom friends!

Can I put it off and add it later?

Ask yourself this: would you upload an image/gifset/video that was incomplete? Well, maybe some of you would. But for the most part, you probably have a process. Maybe you outline a drawing, add shading, add color, and then upload (can you tell I’m not an artist?). Maybe you edit your gifs or videos a certain way. A piece of visual art without an image description is incomplete - it cannot be “seen” by a significant chunk of the population, and both you and we want your work to be seen! So we’d recommend just tacking adding an image description onto the end of your process. 

Okay, you’ve convinced me that image descriptions are necessary. What’s a good way to get started?

Stay tuned the remainder of this week for guides, tips, and an account from one of your mods about their own experience of becoming more comfortable with image descriptions. Or, just jump right on in! We hope to see more of these in our glorious fandom soon. 

[knochengeier]

Drawfee Classpects???

I set a while ago to spitefully Classpect the Drawfee crew because they rightfully made fun of homestuck.

PREFACE:

I should state clearly that this is not meant as an attack on any members of Drawfee, and that I will be leaving out the majority of the negative aspects of the analysis. It should also be mentioned that this is more of an analysis of their online personas rather than who they actually are.

I did mention that I would leave out most negative things, but some things are core to a persons persona something they consciously and willingly put out into the world; again, this is not what I actually think these individuals are like, and is not a reflection of how I feel about them as a person. Things like "Julia doesn't know media" and "Jacob is the bad boy of Drawfee" that are explicitly stated as part of the persona is free game.

So, without further ado

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Caldwell, Prospitian Muse of Breath:

A Muse is the embodiment of and the inspiration to others through their aspect. The Muse class is one in a pair of incredibly powerful and rare classes known as the “master classes.”

Breath is the aspect of individuality, drive, optimism, and most importantly freedom.

As the Muse of Breath Caldwell inspires others to be themselves and be free, motivating creativity and driving others to pursue their dreams. Caldwells unbound optimism and resolve is a force to be reckoned with, in fact he so embodies freedom and enthusiastic ambition that he left Drawfee to pursue his own creative endeavors on the west coast.

Caldwell commands not only the forces of Skaia, but Skaia itself; his inspiring aura would be strong enough to end the war between Prospit and Derse in an instant, and even those that opposed him would find it hard to stay committed to their cause for long.

Caldwell would have the power to: a. control the wind, weather, and possibly even lightning by freeing the electrons from their atoms (though that might be an active ability) b. bypass any restraints, physical or otherwise, by any means necessary which c. Also means that he can most likely teleport at will and d. Probably turn incorporeal.

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Nathan, Prospitian Sylph of Hope:

A Sylph is a person who passively invites the healing and generation with their aspect.

Hope is the aspect of possibility, inspiration, and positivity.

As the Sylph of Hope Nathan is the light that helps others with his positivity and inspiration, not only does he help people but he inspires them to create their own hope. A Sylph of Hope would be able to see the potential for positivity in everything, and seek to be as amiable as possible, in turn helping others do the same.

Drawfee is as much a show about success as it is failure, it’s something that people can watch and say “These people make mistakes just like me” and they inspire hope for those down on their art.

One of the longest held of these humanizing aspects of the show is the apology at the end of every episode, which only became a thing after Nathan disliked a drawing so much that he was compelled to apologize, and it stuck. As much as that drawing might have sucked it inspired others who weren’t happy with their art to keep at it, and we are reminded of that after every episode.

Nathan is one of the first members of the crew to assure somebody that even if the piece didn’t come out the way they wanted, that it still looks good and is impressive nonetheless.

Nathan is the glue that holds this session together; with the presence of a prince, a bard, and a lord this session should have been doomed since the start, but Nathan’s pure awe inspiring hope promoted the best in everybody.

Nathan’s powers would include: a. A buff akin to bardic inspiration that could affect people to fight harder b. Healing abilities c. Probably an energy beam d. Manifestations of other’s hopes and dreams in the form of glowy specters like a JoJo stand.

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Julia, Dersite Lord of Void:

A Lord is the embodiment and commander of their aspect, not through inspiration but rather assimilation and domination.

Void is the aspect of confusion, secrets, and doubt.

As the Lord of Void Julia is the sovereign of secrets; unpredictable, unknowable, and the proprietor of unknown knowledge Julia uses her runes and studied knowledge to summon hideous abominations creatures from the void.

Void players have an inextricable link to the furthest ring; the furthest ring is the incomprehensible and unnavigable space that exists outside of the universe. The furthest ring acts as an impassable border between universes inhabited by massive eldritch gods called the “Horrorterrors.”

Julia would not only have the ability to traverse the furthest ring and visit other universes, but she would also have the ability to bend the horrorterrors to her will. She would be able to switch in and out of grimdark mode at will, and most likely would not be adversely effected.

Julias powers would most likely include: a. The creation and manipulation of black holes and the general desperation of physical matter b. The ability to turn invisible and probably teleport c. The ability to erase peoples memories and mute their senses, and d. The ability to speak, read, and write the language of the horrorterrors.

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Jacob, Prospitian Prince of Rage:

A Prince is a destroyer of and with their aspect.

Rage is the aspect of fate, defiance, and rejection.

As the Prince of Rage Jacob is the destroyer of and through failure, negativity, and rejection. Jacob forged his own path, he destroyed his fate as a writer and destroyed the limits and expectations for what an artist could be, and he got a job at college humor despite the odds.

Jacob is also, or was, a punk; a subculture that is predicated on the destruction of barriers through rebellion.

Even though he can use Rage for good he often doesn’t; he is well known for stirring discourse, his particular brand of Rage elicits anger and hatred thanks to his flaming hot takes.

He is also known for his infinite petty anger at dumb things ex. “see animals shouldn’t live under ground,” “lizards shouldn’t have to lick their eyes,” “muppet is short for man-puppet,” “mayo is food lube,” and “if god’s ever been mad at anything I’ve said, he hasn’t done shit about it.”

Jacob’s abilities would be: a. Becoming physically stronger the angrier he gets, or somebody gets at him b. The ability to create and control lightning c. The ability to pacify or remove the anger from somebody d. The ability to make people fear him or e. turn against their own allies.

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Karina, Dersite Knight of Heart:

A Knight is a person who precisely uses and exploits their aspect as a weapon or a tool.

Heart is the aspect of emotion, passion, and identity.

As a Knight of Heart Karina uses feelings as a weapon. Not only does Karina use her powers to literally use the emotions of her characters (see Schmidt and Nando) as a tool to effect others, but she also has deep passions like Neopets, Digimon, and Yugioh that she uses as a weapon to torment the Drawfee crew.

Karina is passionate about her identity, never missing a chance to mention any of her favorite things like Beelzemon, Seto Kaiba, catboys, or her Texan roots (Bucky’s).

Karina would have honed impulses, knowing when and where to act and how to do (or draw) something challenging. She also has the ability to hype up her friends, strengthening their resolve.

Karina’s abilities would be: a. She can create a powerful glowing weapon by materializing her soul b. She could find out the weaknesses, emotions, and insecurities of enemies c. She could split into multiple versions of herself to create a veritable army of clones, and d. Enter a soul form where she is basically impervious to most attacks.

——————————————————————————————————

David, Dersite Maid of Time:

A Maid is a person who heals and regenerates their aspect or with their aspect.

Time is the aspect of machines, music, and endings.

As a Maid of Time David heals time; more often then not time is not an abstract thing, and the responsibility of time players is to keep the timelines in order and fix paradoxes.

David, as the chief editor for Drawfee is responsible for taking whatever dumb shit the crew gives them and edit it to make the video palatable.

David is also interested in theater (see “Artists Draw Posters for Musicals (They've Never Seen)” one of the only episodes in which they appear) which is related to time through music.

An interesting thing to note about Time is that it is often equated with heat, fire, and lava, something David has experience with, revealed in the episode “Drawing What We're Thankful For In 2019” in which Nathan depicts David with an overheating external drive (something that is also mechanical).

David could: a. Essentially freeze time, making moments last for hours b. Heal paradoxes in the time line c. Fix events so they go favorably, or d. Speed up time to heal a wound

——————————————————————————————————

Tristan, Prospitian Mage of Light:

A Mage is a person who understands their aspect by experiencing it.

Light is the aspect of fortune, luck, relevance, and knowledge.

As a Mage of Light Tristan has an innate and personal understanding of lore; Tristan, through his interactions with pop culture, knows a lot about said things.

Mages often experience their aspect in a negative way, seen in the frequent possession of Tristan by the Lore Librarian, and his burden of knowledge about absurd and obscure facts about nerd media.

Tristan is one of the only people on the crew who understands how the game works and what the final boss’s deal is, but you know he’s going to be cryptic and vague about it because it’s funny. Tristan would have the uncanny ability to know what something is without having seen it before.

Tristans abilities are: a. Foresight, he can tell exactly when and where something will happen and manipulate them in his favor b. He can give people luck or take it away c. He can manipulate light and probably use it as a projectile, and d. Know exactly what has to be done at any moment.

——————————————————————————————————

Willie, Dersite Bard of Blood:

A Bard is a person who invites the destruction of or with their aspect

Blood is the aspect of bonds, stability, and unity.

As the Bard of Blood Willie actuates the severing of bonds and the dissolving of stability.

Willie is a change maker, he breaks down the stable and familiar structure of the established group dynamics in Drawfee often in an antagonistic way; Willie is well known for his hatred for Jacob, and his very presence elicits the rage in both of them.

Videos in which Willie appears are marked by hostility, but through him new and interesting things get made.

Being a bard isn’t all bad, Bards of blood are not one sided; A bard of blood has the ability to destroy using the bonds they have, uniting a group of people under a cause to destroy something, like rallying the crew against Jacob.

Willie, like a lot of the crew, has a lot of buffing abilities; utilizing his bonds he can make others more powerful and fight harder than they could otherwise.

Willie’s abilities are: a. Control of literal blood b. Group sync, he acts as a conduit through which the coordination and damage output increases, and c. Dismantle, he can break the bonds of atoms and make physical matter crumble away.

[chemicalpink]

Power and Control ♡ Jung Hoseok

Pairing: Jung Hoseok x reader

Genre: smut, angsty

Word Count: 3.4k

Warnings: Sugar baby themes, power dynamics outside the bedroom, unprotected sex 

Summary: Women and men we are the same but love will always be a game and I’m gonna make you fall.

A/N: Well this was a stubborn one. Like seriously took me a whole month to try and write Hoseok as a villan-y character and at the end... i kinda failed BUT I really liked this one. Thanks for waiting. I hope you are doing great with life aside from all that is going one. Take care. I hope you like this one! 

Hoseok wouldn’t dare to try and label what you and he had as conventional, hell, he wouldn’t even dare to try and label himself as conventional, quite the contrary, because really, what’s a broke college-graduate-to-be got to do when a beautiful, empowered woman like yourself is seeking out a sugar baby deal? Say no? He would have to be stupid, plus, it’s not like you two are 10 or so years apart, you’re just 2 years older than him; plus, the deal was simple enough, apart from a disclosure contract and a few sessions of experimenting what you two liked with each other, it had been easy enough to fall into a routine.

Said routine meaning two to three sessions a week, some weekends together and playing as arm candy in most of your business parties, to which he would then find his semester’s tuition fee paid off, the latest limited-edition Supreme collection on his college dorm and one time, an all-included vacation to Europe for Christmas.

As time went on, nearly a year into it, it had become harder and harder to keep coming up with excuses as to how exactly he was being able to afford such a luxurious way of living without it being apparent that he had worked for it, especially when his closed group of friends were clearly struggling with it all (he might have asked you once to pay for Namjoon’s tuition fee after he got injured and couldn’t work for the month, the guy so in the clouds hadn’t even noticed the debt gone), and you know, Jung Hoseok isn’t a man with fragile masculinity, he knows exactly who he is, so even if for him being a sugar baby was really no big deal, the constant assumption of sugar babies having daddy/mommy issues sure was in the back of his mind every time he so much as the thought of sharing his lifestyle with his friends crossed his mind (cause he did not have daddy/mommy issues, thank you very much).

“Hobi, this just got here for you, I thought we had talked about your shopping addiction?”  Namjoon said as he passed him by on his way out the kitchen, coffee mug in hand, small package on the other, placing it on the kitchen counter before turning to look at him. Hoseok so much as fake laughed his worst laugh trying (and most probably failing) to not make his roommate any more suspicious. 

See, the greatest excuse for the time being all those months ago, when you had started gifting him stuff and sending it to his dorm, was saying that he ‘might have developed an addiction to online shopping’. He had talked it out with you, and you agreed to start delivering the gifts on your sessions. Hoseok hummed while taking the package from the counter “I just- I had this coupon and I had to use it” Namjoon wasn’t even paying attention to him anymore, he could clearly not have said a thing.

“Hey, hyungs would you mind if I-OH MY FUCKING GOD IS THAT BOX FROM THE NEWEST CHANEL COLLECTION???” Taehyung was… quite a melodramatic man when it came down to his expertise: fashion; which was one of the reasons Hoseok could kind of breathe around his own home. Namjoon didn’t know shit about fashion. But Taehyung would a hundred percent not fall into his ‘I got a coupon’ facade for a split second. His throat ached to instinctevely deny the younger’s claim but he knew it would do no good. Hoseok had once committed the deadly mistake of wearing one of the perfumes you had gifted him for his birthday to one of their nights out and that man right there, Kim Taehyung, had known from a sniff that he was wearing a thousand dollars Paco Rabanne Luxe Edition 1 million 18 carats. How exactly? He wouldn’t dare to ask. Taehyung knew his fashion. But the night didn’t seem to come to an end soon enough with his friend’s questioning. “Hoseok-hyung, how did you get access to one of the most exclusive collection previews of the world? I mean, I’m all for Gucci, but go off I guess”

So they are talking about it. May the gods have mercy on his unable to lie for his life soul.

“It was a gift from uh- my distant rich- auntie?” both Taehyung and Namjoon turned to look at him in the most sceptical way possible, but soon went back to their conversation.

He was going to have the talk with you later, for the second time. As if on cue, his phone dinged with a text from you, very out of character, if he may add, you two kept it on the line of the contract that bound the two of you, no texting, no calls, no nothing. He was busy with school most of the time and you were probably busier with your business stuff anyways.

From: Y/N [12:38]

You got my gift?

To: Y/N [12:38]

Yeah. Now apparently I have a rich distant auntie that is sending me expensive af gifts.

To: Y/N [12:39]

But then again, who am I to complain, right?

From: Y/N [12:43]

Great. Wear it tonight. 10 pm sharp. Long day.

Over the course of the months with you, he had learnt quite a few things about himself, first, he had an expensive taste, he just couldn’t afford it. Second, you knew his love language was being gifted things, and lord, did you take advantage of that to keep him wrapped around your finger. Third, he always felt as if you had come to know him inside and out so clearly, you had come to read him like an open book but he couldn’t say the same. You were a reserved woman, he knew that. With your position and all, it made sense. But he was just as cold to people he wasn’t close with, so he had to have some upper hand at it. Even after spending days on researching you he always came empty-handed. Sure, you two fucked, kissed, hanged out, but there was just this sense of chemistry lacking as if you two melted together when naked but once the fog cleared, it became a constant battle to gain control over the other. You had gifts to win him over. He had his charm and amazing bedroom skills to keep you grounded. You made it work. Kind of.

He arrived at your place a few minutes before 10, making himself a drink at the sky bar in the middle of your living room as he stared outside the floor-length window to watch Seoul’s night sky and lighted ground of the busy city, your heels clicking on the floor when you entered the space.

“Oh you got here early?” he turned around to watch you dispose of your jewellery in the entrance table, stealing glances at him every few seconds “I didn’t think you would actually listen to me and wear it, do you like it?

Hoseok lifted the glass to his lips to sip the alcohol. The poorly lit room brought a new light to you that deep down he had known for a while but he wasn’t willing to accept, the tiredness behind your eyes luring him in, making him imagine for a second that the setting was much more domestic than what it really was “Got off classes early and yeah, it does the job, thanks”

You made your way to the bar to fix yourself a drink, all the while he couldn’t stop staring at you, the imposing aura you always exuded sending shivers down his spine, his mind racing. He could already picture you bent over the couch for him as you took a seat and waved him over.

He couldn’t even begin to comprehend how much time went by when your lips found his, your dress riding up your thighs when you moved to straddle him, hands finding your ass, tongues fired up with evident desire as you ground down on his hard length “You texted me first today” you broke away from the kiss to look at him funnily, for the first time in the almost a year knowing you, he could see the slightest of vulnerability in your eyes, fondness, for him. So after all, you were wrapped around his finger “Are you falling in love with me, miss Y/N?” 

Your answer was very much in character, sucking his jawline while your hands worked their way down his pants to free his cock, stroking him a few time to bring it to a full length, his head throwing back into the couch in pleasure as you retorted teasingly “Think you’re going to break my heart, Hobi?” 

He knew then that your favourite game had begun. A constant game of tug and pull to lead the sex that had become a routine for both of you.

He had somehow worked his way under your dress at the same time as he pushed his pants to his ankles and removed them, giving your clothed core just the right amount of friction you were seeking and providing him with the perfect moment to flip you both over on the small space, a smirk taking over his factions “You might be good looking baby, but you’re not a piece of art”

“God I need you so much right now” you whispered at him, before tracing the expanse of his back under his newly bought sweater, distracting him enough for you to take his place on top, aching core approaching his face as his smile didn’t seem to get any bigger “Dinner’s served”

“My favourite,” he said before beginning to suck on the inside of your thighs, working his way to where you needed him the most, hot tongue wetting your already drenching panties for a few seconds before he pushed the cloth aside and gripped you even closer to his face, teeth nibbling at your folds teasingly, drawing a loud moan out of you, walls instinctively clenching as his tongue traced you whole, lewd noises filling up the room, subtly grinding up to him as he traced circles on your clit before eating you out once again, up until your thighs started trembling against his head, yours thrown back in ecstasy at the pleasure. His face glistening with your juices once you let him take control over the situation.

Hoseok’s deft fingers rid you of both of your remaining pieces of clothings as you tried to catch your breath, fully aware of what was about to go on after you had your fun with him. Your exposed skin hits the coldness of the floor as Hoseok rolled both of you down the couch, making you shiver as a smile is plastered in the younger’s face; you close your eyes for a split second, not needing to know that for the time being, Hoseok was pumping his hard cock to ready himself for you, small fluttering kisses adorning the space just below your neck as he approaches your ear silently “I was thinking… a Tesla would be a great combo with my brand new Chanel collection, you know?”

A small laugh leaves your lips before you open your eyes to see him hovering above you, eyes  travelling your face, a few strands of hair covering his “You are not sweet talking me into buying you a Tesla, Hoseok”

“I was thinking more of fucking it out of you” it is then that he enters you in a swift thrust, letting you adjust for a few seconds before moving experimentally at the new angle for both of you that was your living room floor, his hand coming up to place your right leg over his shoulder, gaining him better access to have you whimpering below him, just the way he liked. Long, skilled fingers caress your clit as he keeps a steady rhythm inside of you, feeling the warmth enveloping him and your walls clench around him as he speeds up his pace on your nerve bundle.

“Oh g-Hoseok I’m gonna cum” your voice is strained and he feels it as the opportunity to wreck you harder, the movement of his hips hitting all the right spots within you, he can feel your leg cramping on his shoulder as a wave of pleasure hits you and he has half a mind to pull out and release himself on your stomach, both of you breathing heavily as the need starts to fade and it all comes to an end. 

You see, if you asked any of Hoseok’s close friends, they would describe him as pure sunshine, and he was, kinda, at least for the most part of his life, but he was also a man determined to get what he wanted in life, which was why, he was currently pondering his next move. After your little session at your living room floor/couch, he had felt a shift in the air, a longing between the two of you, and that only went on for the next few weeks as you would drop your cold facade and text him small things, as he kept on receiving packages at his dorm (without Tae or Joon knowing, thank fuck) and he had found himself thinking about you non-stop. It was pretty obvious, and if someone had known about your existence, they might have pointed it out, cause it was so obvious even for himself, that the tug and pull game of yours, had made you both fall for the other somehow. Which really, wouldn’t be a problem if it wasn’t for that shitty paragraph on your contract that seems to keep replaying itself inside his mind. If you started becoming too familiar with each other, you would revoke the contract. He had agreed and signed it, thinking that it is just too weird for someone to grow acostumed to another if they just fuck and leave afterwards, but apparently somewhere he went wrong. And he clearly needed the money. You had yet to come to realise your newly found dynamics so he was living on borrowed time. And he had to act quickly.

Hoseok wasn’t really a strategic man, but luck always seemed to be on his side, so it took a mere week to come up with something. He had been visiting the hospital where his sister worked (per his mother’s request) just hanging out, which probably wasn’t even allowed to, but Jiwoo had insisted to wait for her lunch break as it was a slow day anyway. So he did.

“You’ve never told me how you paid off your tuition without dad’s help, Hobi” his sister commented as she went through some papers on her desk. His mind crashed. Error 404. Flee the country. It is one thing lying to his friends about his way of living, a completely different story when family starts asking.

“Oh I’m a- personal assistant of some CEO” he answered, turning to look the other way towards the entrance, almost nonchalantly, but life liked to have fun with him, so of course just as he is trying his best to keep you out of his mind, you had to be walking right through the door, not as outstanding as he is used to see you, but the aura you exude that is so uniquely yours is unable to miss out. You two didn’t talk on personal life, but he had researched you over the months, trying (and failing) to gain some type of useless power over you. It seemed like whatever wasn’t business, wasn’t you. So he had to play dumb.

“Who 's that?” he asked his sister, just as you were rounding the corner, Jiwoo turning to look at your disappearing figure

“Oh, that’s Y/N”

“Y/N like Y/N Y/L/N? the CEO?” the idea of maybe getting into acting and winning an Oscar crossed his mind, his sister hummed in thought

“I guess, Y/N is quite an unusual name right?” she resumed whatever she was doing before adding “But this girl couldn’t be her, she comes to visit her sister religiously every Friday”

“Is she sick?” so your cold uncaring demeanor was really just a front you put up for people.

“You’re starting to sound like a pervert, Hoseok”

He really wishes he could say he dropped the whole sick sister thing after that day, but the longer he thought about that, the cleared it was for him that if he was looking for an upper hand for you not to drop him out of the whole money deal once you realised you had both infringed the contract that brought you two together, this was it. He had immense self-confidence, if he said so himself. But there was something about going against you that wasn’t exactly easy to warm up to. He tried several times to come up with a plan but came empty-handed so he guessed he would just have to go with the flow. 

“You’re so wet already” he grunted as you felt his member teasing your entrance, his hand gripping your hair to bring you to face the mirror beside your bed. Hoseok had decided to drop by after he knew you were done with work, taking you by surprise at the unscheduled session, but then again, who were you to complain about the man, who in less than five minutes and some lazy kissing on your bed had both of you riled up and on all fours at his complete mercy “We’ve got some things to talk about, Y/N” 

You tried to turn your face to look at him directly instead of the mirror but he just tightened his grip as he thrusted forward forcefully, making you grip your sheets tighter attempting not to tumble over, a pleasurable sting on your scalp “I’m listening”

“Friday. Lunchtime, what exactly were you doing at the hospital?” he asked and could already feel your though exterior crumble, he just had to hope that whatever big secret it was having a sick little sister was enough for him to keep the upper hand in the situation.

Just as fast as that surprised look had appeared on your face, it was replaced with determination in your eyes as you pressed yourself back onto him, purposely clenching around him in the way you knew drove him crazy “Maybe I’ll talk. If you fuck me hard enough”

So he did.

“So what do you want in exchange for keeping my Friday’s whereabouts a secret?” you asked as his clothes were thrown at him

This was it. “I want my full tuition paid off before you call it quits on us”

You turned to look at him, laughing a little “Hoseok, a human vulnerability doesn’t mean that I am weak” you made your way to the bathroom “You’ll have to work harder for it”

Each day that went by was filled with dread of having his whole lifestyle crumbling down in a second, it had been so long since he had even so much as heard about you. Until he wouldn’t stop hearing about you (kind of) He remembers waking up to a 5am text from you telling him that he couldn’t have peace without a war, but if he was being completely honest, he was kind of asleep at the time so he couldn’t comprehend half of it. But it all became clearer when his phone started blowing up with texts, from Taehyung and Namjoon, to his sister and his parents. Apparently, you had a very expensive shopping spree in his name, delivered especially with lots of love to every person that could, and most certainly would question how exactly he had the kind of money to afford the luxurious gifts that they were all receiving. 

From:Y/N [9:02]

You start at 10. 

To: Y/N [9:02]

Y/N What’s going on?

From: Y/N [9:05]

Welcome to the team, board member Jung Hoseok.

So perhaps you would always have the upper hand when it came to power and control of whatever it was you two were playing. You had no doubt and no obstacle to ruin his whole life. But he guesses that his upper hand is shown in the fact that he could keep you from doing just that.

[bookcoversalt]

Have you noticed the latest edition of Charlie Bowater can only draw one (1) face? She did The Princess Will Save You and Cast In Firelight both YA Fantasy set to be released this year. And they are how you say... the same fucking cover

Ah yes so you saw the same tweet I did

I know I literally just posted that we cannot outlaw book covers from looking like each other, but ! Oof!

The only thing that softens the blow here is that Charlie has improved at representing nonwhite features such that characters look like POC rather than tan white people, although,, that bar was low. Anybody remember the ACOTAR coloring book.

(Would you have guessed that 2/3 of these people are nonwhite? Or even that they’re supposed to be three different men? I guess all the men in Prythian have the same haircut?)

But that minor victory is mostly lost in the quagmires of the fact that Charlie’s style is to give everyone instagram face:

I wouldn’t even call this “Sameface” necessarily: that implies limitation, that an artist is only capable of drawing a single facial structure competently. Bowater is incredibly technically talented, she just chooses to give everyone catlike fae eyes and the cheekbones of a starving nymph. (My previous post on this here.)

But I don’t really blame her for that, or for these hilariously identical, nearly devoid of personality covers. Artists are allowed to do whatever they want. Artists who make art for covers are being art directed by designers and marketing teams who bear responsibility for how the finished pieces turn out.

No, this is our fault, as a community and an industry and..... society, kind of, for valuing character portraits that are “pretty” (“pretty” being an extremely loaded, culturally subjective concept) over art that actually Says Something About The Story. Bowater’s style happens to dovetail perfectly with what we currently collectively find pretty, and so we’ve put her art on a pedestal at the cost of everything else art can or should do for our stories.

And this is understandable: in contemporary western culture, pretty is a value unto itself. Seeing our characters portrayed as pretty denotes them as special, as smart, as powerful. It’s almost impossible to de-program ourselves from that reaction. There are approximately five kajillion studies on how beautiful people are at personal and professional advantages; how they’re perceived to be happier, healthier, more successful, and how those perceptions can translate into realities. (Nevermind how thinness and whiteness enter that equation, see above note about “pretty”.) I would love to see more “average” or weird- looking characters abound (and be accurately visually represented) in the YA/ Genre lit sphere, but for now... everyone is pretty.

Which sometimes means everyone is pretty boring.

But that’s just the specific, "What’s the deal with Bowater’s success in book circles and her style and all the sameiness” part of this equation. What if we backed up and asked: why character art at all? Beyond a question of “pretty”-ness (and general obvious Artistic Quality), why do we gravitate towards it, what's the purpose of it, how does it fall flat in a general sense, and how can it be utilized more effectively?

This is something I think about all the time. I follow writers on social media (because..... I am a writer on social media, regrettably), and we have an enormous collective boner for character art. “Getting fanart [of the characters]” is one of the achievement pinnacles constantly cited when people get or want to get published. Commissioning character art is something we reward ourselves with, or save up for (WHICH IS GOOD AND CORRECT. FREE ART IS GREAT BUT DO NOT SOLICIT IT. PAY YOUR ARTISTS). And like???? Same????? We love our stories because we’re invested in our characters. Most humans, even prose writers, are visual creatures to some extent, and no matter how happy we are with our text-based art, it’s exciting to see our creations exist in that form. So we turn that art into promo material and we advocate for it on our covers-- because it’s so meaningful to us! It goes with the story perfectly!! Look at my dumb beautiful children!!!!!

But on an emotional level, it’s hard to grasp that it only means something to us. Particularly when you take into account the aforementioned vast landscape of beautiful visual blandness of many characters (in the YA/ genre lit sphere, that’s pretty much all I’m ever talking about), character art can be like baby photos. If you know the baby, if that baby is your new niece or your friend’s kid, if you’ve held them and their parent texts you updates when they do cute shit, you’re probably excited to see that baby photo. But unless it’s exceptionally cute, a random stranger’s baby photo isn’t likely to invoke an emotional reaction other than “this is why I don’t get on facebook.”

Seeing art of characters they don’t know might intrigue a reader, but especially if the characters or art are unremarkable-looking, it’s doing a hell of a lot more for the people who already have an emotional attachment to that character than anybody else. And that’s fine. Art for a small, invested audience is incredibly rewarding. But like the parent who cannot see why you don’t think their baby is THE MOST BEAUTIFUL BABY IN THE WORLD???? I think we have trouble divesting our emotional reaction to character art from its actual marketing value, which.... is often pretty minimal. This is my hill to die on #143:

Character portraits, even beautiful ones, are meaningless as a marketing tool without additional context or imagery. 

I love character art! I’m not saying it should not exist or that it’s worthless! Even art that appeals to only the one single person who made it has value and the right to exist. And part of this conversation is how important for POC to see themselves on covers, whether illustrations or stock imagery, particularly in YA/kidlit. I’m not saying character portrait covers are “bad”. 

I am saying that I have seen dozens and dozens of sets of character art for characters who look interchangeable, and it has never driven me to preorder a book. (Also one character portrait for a high-profile 2019 debut that was clearly just a painting of Amanda Seyfriend. You know the one. There’s nothing wrong with faceclaims but lmfao, girl,,,,)

I’m sure that’s not true for everyone! I am incredibly picky about art. It’s my job. There’s nothing wrong with your card deck of cell-shaded boys of ambiguous age and ethnicity who all have the same button nose and smirk if it Sparks Joy for you.

But if your goal is not only to delight yourself, but to sell books, it’s in your best interest to remember that art, like writing, is a form of communication. The publishing industry runs on pitches: querys, blurbs, proposals, self-promo tweets. What if we applied that logic to our visuals? How can we utilize our character design and art to communicate as much about our stories as possible, in the most enticing way?

Social media has already driven the embrace of this concept in a very general sense. Authors are now supposed to have ~ aesthetics. “Picspams” or graphics, modular collages that function as mini moodboards, are commonplace. But the labor intensity and relative scarcity of character art visible in bookish circles, even on covers, means that application of marketing sensibility to it is less intuitive than throwing together a pinterest board.

Since we were talking about it earlier, WICKED SAINTS, as a case study of a recent “successful” fantasy YA debut, arguably owed a lot of its early social media momentum to fanart.

(Early fanart by @warickaart)

The most frequently drawn character, Malachiasz, has long hair, claws, and distinctive face tattoos. WS has a strong aesthetic in general, but those features clearly marked his fanart as him in a way even someone unfamiliar with the book could clearly track across different styles. Different interpretations of his tattoos from different artists even became a point of interest.

(Art by Jaria Rambaran, also super early days of WS Being A Thing)

Aside from distinctiveness, it's a clear visual representation of his history as a cult member, his monstrous powers, and the story’s dark, medieval tone. The above image is also a great example of character interaction, something missing from straightforward portraits, that communicates a dynamic. Character dynamics draw people into stories: enemies-to-lovers, friends-to-lovers, childhood rivals, platonic life partners, love triangles, devoted siblings, exes who still carry the flame-- there’s a reason we codify these into tropes, and integrate that language and shared knowledge into our marketing. For another example in that vein, I really love this art by @MabyMin, commissioned by Gina Chen:

The wrist grip! The fancy outfits! These are two nobles who hate each other and want to bone and I am sold. 

In terms of true portraits, the best recent example I can think of is the set @NicoleDeal did for Roshani Chokshi’s GILDED WOLVES (I believe as a preorder incentive of some kind?): 

They showcase settings, props, and poses that all communicate the characters’ interests, skills, and personality, as well as the glamorous, elaborate aesthetic of the overall story. Even elements in the gold borders change, alluding to other plot points and symbology.

For painterly accuracy in character portraits on covers, I love SPIN THE DAWN. The heroine looks like a beautiful badass, yes, but the thoughtful, detailed rendering of every element, soft textures, and dynamic, fluid composition form a really cohesive, stunning illustration that presents an intriguing collection of story elements.

The devil isn’t always in the details, though: stark, moody, highly stylized or graphic art with an emphasis on textural contrast and bold color and shape rather than representational accuracy can communicate a lot (emotionally and tonally) while pretty much foregoing realism.

The new Lunar Chronicles covers are actually the best examples I found of this (Trying to stay within the realm of existing bookish art rather than branch into All Art Of Human Figures Forever):

Taking cues from styles more typical of the comics and video game industries.  (Games and comics, as visual mediums, are sources of incredible character art and I highly recommend following artists in those industries if you want to See More Cool Art On Your Timeline.)

TL;DR: Character art and design, as a marketing tool (even an incidental one) should be as unique to your story and your characters as possible, and tell us about the story in ways that make us want to read it. I tried to give examples because there are so many ways to do this, and so many different kinds of art, and I could give many more! But I’m bored now. So to circle all the way back:

These are not just bad because they look like each other, although that is embarrassing and illuminating. These are bad covers (although,,,,, PRINCESS is the far worse offender, at least FIRELIGHT suggests a thoughtful cultural analogue) because a desire for Pretty Character Art overrode the basic cover function to tell us about the story. We get no sense of who these people are, what their relationships are, what these books are about beyond the most general genre, or why we might care. The expressions are vague, the characters generic-looking, the compositions uninteresting and the colors failing to be indicative of anything in particular. 

They’re somebody else’s baby pictures.

(And yes, that’s the CRUEL PRINCE font on PRINCESS. I better not have to do a roundup post but it’s on thin fucking ice.)