#forcing myself to post more sketches wips etc

[thanaticas]

still need to draw my actual main bg3 character i just beat the game with oops but here's a custom/headcanon sort of design sketch for the great old one+pact of the blade warlock + rogue multiclass i made named nihil :-)

[signanothername]

it might be an awkward question but-

HOW DO YOU MANAGE TO DRAW SO MUCH?? how do you get so many beautiful ideas? how do you keep yourself motivated? tell me your secret I will sell you my soul

🩵 🫴 take it.

Why thank you 🫳🩵

Ah the question ever

Truthful and simple answer is that there’s no secret

This might seem contradictory considering how much I post, but I genuinely am not as motivated or as inspired as I seem to be

I struggle a lot with ideas and motivation and that is a problem I have on a daily basis that’s been happening for years (I have SO many wips that I never shared)

It’s not about the struggle, it’s about how I curated my art to that struggle

I’m at a constant threat to experience burnout (certified chronic pain and chronic fatigue haver), so to combat that, I take measures to make sure I don’t burn myself out and actually reserve the very little energy I have to continue doing artworks/comics

To give you a specific example, if you notice with my comics, they’re always sketchy and are never colored, that’s not because I don’t want to make colored comics, but because of knowledge from previous experiences that if I actually forced myself to make colored comics, I’d immediately plunge to burnout and would probably not be able to draw for a few weeks after because of it (in fact the last time I made a colored comic was here, which is a rare occasion even then btw, and that comic caused me to experience a near burnout)

Which was extremely frustrating to me at some point might I add, because before 2021, I had no problem making so many colored comics and artworks at a short span of time, I actually had motivation before (something that is lost to me now), so you can imagine how genuinely frustrating it is, it even made me feel like I’m not a “real” artist

(The concept of what is considered a “real artist” is bullshit btw, someone who draws stickmen everyday is as much of a real artist as someone who makes diverse fully colored artworks with backgrounds and everything, as long as you use your creativity and turn it to something meaningful, you’re already a real artist, regardless of skill or the extent of which you are able to conceive with your art)

That being said, it’s all about finding your own footing and workflow, what works best for you? What doesn’t?

Some things that you’d love for them to work (in my case making colored comics) might not work in reality, life is disappointing like that, so it’s also about acceptance

Acceptance of yourself as you are, maybe it’s not what you truly strive for, maybe you wish you could do more, but sometimes taking a step back and looking into yourself to see if you can actually achieve what you want with the resources you have could be life saving

So when it comes to motivation? Find your workflow, what are the things that you know could make you lose your motivation? On the other hand, what are the things that preserve your motivation?

Not only that, but time management is also a contributing factor

Of course, my own way to preserve my motivation/energy is as follows:

1- never force myself to finish artworks/comics if I feel like I can’t (even if I really really want to), I save them up for later when my motivation for them kicks back in

2-let perfectionism go, if I keep fretting over whether every line in an artwork looks good I’ll never accomplish anything but destroy my mental health (certified perfectionist speaking btw)

3-comics stay as sketches, as much as I want to make beautifully colored comics, I know this will only contribute to my burnout, so keeping it real with myself and what I can accomplish with my own resources (energy, time, health, etc) is important

4-making multiple sketches in a day then choosing what fancies my brain that day, or getting back to older sketches I already made before (sometimes months before) to see if my brain has the itch to work on any of them, by doing that, then I’m giving myself actual diversity in choices to choose from, which helps me feel like I don’t have to be forced to work on anything new, or something that I don’t wanna work on

For clarification, I’m talking actual sketches, not cleaned up ones, if you make clean sketches you won’t be able to make multiple ones in the same day

Here’s an example of what I mean by sketches

5-stop beating myself up over things I can’t control, if I keep being harsh on myself over the fact I couldn’t finish an artwork or the fact I’m not satisfied with it, it’ll only contribute to make me feel bad about myself and that would only contribute to me losing even more motivation which contributes to beating myself up and so the self torture cycle goes on, myself deserves to be pat on the back gently and be told “it’s ok, you’ll get there in time”

6-teach myself that it’s ok to lose motivation, there are times in which I do not open my art app for weeks, instead of hating myself for it, I tell myself “you need time, you’re tired and you need the break”, and it’s true, if you lost motivation, it’s most likely due to something else contributing to it

So i just ask myself what’s up, sometimes, I’m overworked in other life aspects, other times I’m in too much pain, so instead of forcing myself through my demotivation, I take care of these factors demotivating me so I’d feel comfortable enough to be able to work on artworks again

If I couldn’t identify a factor contributing to my loss of motivation, then I take it as my own brain telling me that it needs the break, it needs the dopamine if doing something different and I do that, whether by watching my favorite shows, playing my favorite games, trying a different hobby like writing or reading, etc

7- work on my own time, sometimes I do finish artworks quickly, and I do have the capacity to do so, but I’ve noticed that my loss of motivation became less of an issue when I gave myself the actual time to work on artworks, sometimes, a simple artwork that I could finish in 20 minutes takes me weeks to finish, not because I can’t finish it earlier, but because I intentionally worked slowly on it as I’m working on other artworks just as slow, that way, I don’t overwhelm myself and I’m making progress on multiple artworks/comics at the same time, and seeing such progress gives me even more motivation

Cough, anyway, got lost in talking about motivation ghcchch

As for your other question about how I get my ideas, it’s usually something I saw that inspired me, whether an artwork, something irl, etc

Or even sometimes, my own artworks inspire ideas for comics, so I’d draw something, then ask myself (asking yourself questions is such a great helper when it comes to coming up with ideas) why is the character doing this? How did they get there? Etc

That helps me come up with answers which are then answered via comics or multiple different artworks

For example, this comic, what inspired it was me asking myself one simple question, “what would happen if Murder actually asked Nightmare for a visit home for once, instead of running away like he always does?”, and that immediately got me to work on the comic

Of course, it doesn’t mean I always am on the ready for an idea, in fact, a lot of the time my mind is blank, nothing up there to help me, which is why I turn to mindlessly sketching sometimes

I just open a canvas and start sketching, what? I don’t know, I’m just gonna sketch something, could be a character, environment, scribbles, meaningless lines etc, it’s my iwn version of a warm up, and it helps a lot with making my brain get into the zone

That’s all I can think of off the top of my head

Enjoy a look into my brain chhcchch

[annawayne]

Hello Anna <3 I hope you are doing well 🌻

Can you answer questions for the artist game 2, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 16, 29 :)

I like your art and I want to you talk more about your art. 🥐🥐🥐

Oh, hello-hello!

Thank you so much for these kind words and for your interest! And, haha, I see that you've read the previous post, too 🥐🥐🥐

2 most popular piece?

It's ironic how one of the most popular pieces is the one I don't like :D But this is it!

Another popular one, is this one, but in this case, I still love this art (sometimes I wonder if I'll be able to create something like this ever again...)

7 easiest thing for you to draw?

It's a very interesting question! Let's say, on the stage of the rendering, it's, how ironically it wouldn't sound, but backgrounds! I know that usually it's considered like the least thing you would name as "easiest", but somehow, it works for me...

9 whats something you always come back to when drawing?

Hm, very good question. I think, it's this simple thought that everything, in reality, doesn't have an end: drawing, no matter how good you are, is about constant studying, and this is also the beauty in it. I always try to keep it in mind, but when I start drawing, every single time I recall this idea, and, at some point, to be honest, it's also reassuring.

10 how do you deal with artblock?

You know, I must tell you that I have never had an art block. Demotivation and discouragement? Yes, and not because I can't draw what I imagined, but primarily because of the reach since I wish my arts would be seen more, but other than that - even if I had some small moments when I felt like something wasn't going the way I would like to - I felt upset and sometimes disappointed, but never to the point of artblock. So, in my case, the answer will be a bit different: when I have such moments, I just step away from it and let these feelings not interfere into my art process. Drawing or writing with such low emotions which whisper to you how "you're failing to match your imagination" (which, in fact, are nothing but lies) is a huge emotional turmoil and also, some kind of torture, so instead of forcing myself into it, I just let these emotions live and die as quickly as they appear. During this time while I'm away from drawing/writing, I try to distract myself with something usual like reading, for example. So, yes, that's it!

11 do you listen to anything while drawing?

Yes! I usually listen to lectures/discussions, this kind of content, or to the music - when it comes to it, I try to find the matching pieces of songs to the vibe of the drawing, so it also helps me to set the mood :3

For example, for this art, I was listening on repeat Eric Satie, and I hope it gave the mood to this art the one I hoped to achieve

12 describe your process while drawing

Thank you for this question! It all starts with the idea itself, usually it just pops up out of nowhere, or some official art happens, and the image of what to draw strikes me very clearly. Sometimes, I can have some ideas, and they float around, until the moment I realize how I want the art to look like. After that, I gather some pose references, and start sketching. How much the sketching stage takes, it depends on the art itself: sometimes, I can sketch it for 20 minutes, sometimes - for hours. When the sketch is ready, I do the flat colours: just basic shades to understand the palette, and after that - the general colorization of the art (the group with different layers such as Brightness/Contrast, Gradients, Solid Colours, Hue/Saturation etc), which changes through the process. And then, rendering! Now, I have the scheme: firstly, skin rendering + hair, in between - background, step by step; clothes; additional details; the general work with lightning; shades/volumes; final touches, and here we are!

13 talk about a wip you like!

Currently, I'm working on JeanPiku and AruAni double date, and while I think it's quite good piece, there are two WIPs I'll be working on after that, and I must tell you that this solo question made me *wheezing* because I'm both excited and a bit scared to work on them :D One of this WIPs is related to Ancient Greece mythology (sorry for not sharing details, since I want to keep it as a small surprise), and another one based on this official Annie art from brave order with pipa, and, off course, Armin too :3 I really hope I'll do justice to these ideas, and you'll like them!

16 how do you motivate yourself to draw?

AruAni (and JeanPiku) motivate me to draw! :D

But on more serious note (my first answer is still serious), it's as simple as it is - I can't simply not to draw. The drawing itself motivates me because it allows to tell the stories, to live through so many emotions and many scenarios. And, honestly, for me, it's more than enough.

29 do you use a lot of references while drawing?

I use reference for the poses - that's yes, my must have, since I try to make it quite "humanly fluid", and even if I study anatomy, I prefer to have references to always double check. As for composition and colour palette- no, it's always my free flight of imagination :D So, basically, I use references for characters and for some specific details, like furniture or flowers, for example.

Thank you a lot for all these questions! It was really interesting to answer, and it helped me to distract myself from everything, thank you so much, and have a good one :3

[etirabys]

Contents of current writing strategy doc. I come up with something like this about every other year (although I think this is one of the best instances so far) and put <25% chance this goes anywhere, but we must imagine Sisyphus enjoying nanowrimo

Exercises I can do at any time

(30m) Plot one novel badly. Use a random name generator, get 10 characters, and describe their relationships and twistiness across like 100K words' worth of conflict

(30m) Improve a previous plot.

(2h) Go through a novel you rated 5/5 and write what's happening in scene increments. Focus on diffs – treat a scene as a git commit. What's pre and post?

(10m) Look at some "banter/diction that is outside of my range" (from bookmarks, etc) and regurgitate it.

(30m) Do a settings or material dive for 20m and use that to write several hundred words of description of a setting, food table, costume, or something.

(20m) Create future prompts for a settings dive, or collect banter/diction from bookmarks.

Principles I'm relatively sure of

A. Your WIP has to be the most interesting possible WIP you can think of. Otherwise you, a flighty and impulsive person, will be (too) drawn to other things. It's not just "is the overall idea interesting" but "will the scenes that comprise this interest me".

B. You have to notice and tag useful material.

You do need to dump little thoughts (if they are good) consistently into a fragments file that is *well organized*.

When there's a scene you really admire in others, you have to notice and analyze how it was set up.

C. In general you need a more organized directory of "pointers to other people's scenes that I thought were great", reference material, worldbuilding ideas, philosophical issues I want to drive the material conflicts, microsnippets, random observations on writing

D. You need a tight feedback loop. Unfortunately you crave approval, so the writing exercises you do have to be in shareable form.

E. I think you should not start out with high level character sketches. You're bad at translating them into specifics. Instead, start with specifics, let them organically grow, and then reconstruct who they are.

F. You have to continually reenchant your current work. This is the hardest challenge, probably, and I think some ideas are

Zoom way into the current scene that you're stuck on. Can it EVER work? If not, delete it entirely. If yes, what does it need? Put it in. Don't worry about how it affects the plot – the plot can be rearranged. Your enthusiasm is the bottleneck.

More speculative principles

Use Beeminder, it's the best tool you know of to remember your goals and keep on track

...but also, don't force yourself to write, it's toxic to motivation. I'm not sure how to reconcile this and the above. I think the most toxic thing is "forcing myself to work on my WIP" (this kills the WIP – I think?) but it's pretty harmless to work on writing exercises that aren't connect to my WIP

Have to be lazier about plot holes and inconsistencies. Fixing them is expensive and decreases momentum. It is best to buy back goodwill from the reader by being good at what they came here for, which is sad murderous catgirls

[sothasil]

Hi! You're one of my favorite artists ever, and I would love to do some studies of your art! What are some of your favorite pieces that you've done, and how do you pick your colors? There's a lot more questions that I could ask, but figured you wouldn't appreciate an entire list of questions XD

Hello and thank you, I am honored! Feel free to send me all and any questions! I'll answer these two, starting by:

How do you pick your colors?

As I change art style with pretty much every illustration project of significance, this varies a lot. Here are, from most to least common, ways I pick my colors.

Eyeballing it. Unfortunately my most common... What I will do a lot digitally is lay down a color background, and flats of a few colors, then manually adjust each until they look good together by selecting by color and using adjustements. I then paint over it all.

Using a limited palette, eyeballed. Same as before, but this time I force myself to only use a few colors. It helps me, as constraints do.

Using a reference, eyeballed. This happens a lot when I mimick an art style. My medieval drawings for example, are often done by looking at images of actual medieval art to get an idea of what colors to use to look medieval.

Using an existing image, pipetted. Rarely, often as a challenge or if I'm super stuck, I'll just take a pic with colors I like and pipet from it. This website automates this if you want a good easy starting point!

These can be combined around. I'll post examples now, explaining how they use each.

This is a sketch for a drawing I ended up doing way different. This is the first method - I used a flat layer for the characteres and three colors for the sky to test out atmosphere. This is how I plan out most full paintings, just trying to nail down a mood I have in my head. I fiddle around until I like it or, like in this case, fully give up and iterate further. Here, the composition was to be redone too as I did not like the body language. I was going for "bright hot sunny day under a weather that feels wrong".

For this comic, I combined a very limited palette and a photo ref to pipet from. I was looking for the stark cold/warm contrast of a mid-season bright night by a fireside. I took a google image photo of a campfire at night that was already edited. The photo itself looks unnatural but conveyed what I wanted. It's still on the file itself! From it, I pipetted a few colors I found "summed up" the palette and did all with them.

While my own habits make me prefer painting as you would in traditional methods, with directly picking the right colors, I will often digitally alter with overlays and layer blending modes some colors and gradients, etc, to alter a drawing to fix it's color palette. The following is a quite egregious example, because I first drew the character in flats before putting him in a full scene. Here is a before/after summed up.

The shadow is a layer, the bright yellow light zones also, and the orange "transitions" of light zones on the skin a third. There's also an overlay over the full character to blend him in. I do this by...making a full flat color of a layer, fucking around until a blending mode does what I want, and adjusting hue/brightness/saturation and opacity until it looks good.

Another WIP where I was struggling with the overall palette. I was going for late 60s psychedelic. You can see in the top right the original color. I thought it looked too...new, so I added a yellow layer on top, and fiddled with it. Final choice was the following setting. I then put it with my sketch and color blockout in a folder and painted over it.

For this sort of adjustement, the "Color Balance" modifier in CSP, Photoshop, and others is also a godsend - but one I often use for fine tuning a finished piece.

This being said, there's some rough rules to coloring which are...born from studying color theory and doing studies. I am guilty of doing very little studies...so I'll just sum up the basics of the color theory rules I use.

For "default" shading, I use a color that is darker, more saturated and with a slight hue diff. This is my "don't shade with black".

Using a shadow that's cooler will make the light look warm.

Vice versa.

There's a bunch of stuff to remember in how colors relate to each other and pipetting images who's atmosphere you think is interesting really is the best way to learn... It's learning how to black-blue/gold-yellow dress in your own art for the lack of a better word...But the basics will be:

Don't trust numerical values, but look at your colors in context. A same hue, brightness, saturation can look so much different. This is how Rakkan's beard looks whiteish here despite being a light very grey brown.

All this but...colour is such a wide topic, I can't really say a lot but can also type for hours... if you have precise questions about a piece in particular I can explain :') I hope this wasn't too vague and was instructive!

Speaking of particular pieces, answering your question last under the cut:

What are some of your favorite pieces that you've done?

In no particular order, illustration only.

Including this in another poast bc staff's new post editor limits the amounts of pics I can put in response to asks. Insert colorful language here...

Frankly twas hard to pick I am rarely fond of what I draw

[thedarkmistress16]

please gush about your passions and pastimes!!! I would love to hear about them

ack- im happy you want to hear about them!

Passions:

obvs as y'all know recently and just in gen., i guess, writing- i love crafting worlds and stories where anything can happen and just creating scenes above all else, like getting lost in the details of everything. I love getting lost in my own world and making myself happy as most self-indulgent writers do (and showing off my legitimate skill in a proper form of writing after doing shitpost-y things for so long is pretty rejuvenating, XD). And upon going back to some of my older, posted works and wips, I still laugh at the dumb shit I thought was the best stuff ever and now find myself giving those ideas a refresher like my last writing update, because it's still a legitimately enjoyable read.

i love sketching for similar reasons, but more so to visualize a fuzzy, almost-there idea, usually about fashion. Like recently I re-drafted some outfits for a fic idea I had, in order to make the world and designs make sense in my head. And I redesigned an existing outfit, running with certain themes and embellishments in design. I'm so happy I can churn out simple sketches like that when i really put my mind to it and feel content with the finished product nowadays. I feel accomplished as a hobby artist now and it's all thanks to heavy online research, a few how-to books, and putting effort into one art class. It's the second hobby of mine that I want to be good at, almost as much as my writing. Speaking of, I sometimes draw what I write or dream about because it's that prominent in my head.

Wow i love music guys- ha, but you already knew that *lenny face*

Past times:

I really like playing the simpler games in life- not as much in the vein of it being less difficult or busy, but more so with fewer controls, interesting mechanics, and a captivating style that I can easily fuck around in or beat some levels for a few hours. Bring on the (spider) solitare (only 4 suit sucks ass why do i do this to myself), jewel quest (FUCK YOU CROWS), barbie's fashion show (SINGLE DREAM-), zoo tycoon (fuck guest happiness), and sonic adventure or x-men of course.

MMD vids are v neat, like I know a handful of choreos that are fun as past midnight exercises to get my blood pumping and i get to discover new songs and learn more about other languages at the same time! Also the aph as mmd crack vids are the best whether its them making 'i hate this' or 'yeah im hot shit' faces or being completely into it as they're forced to dance or simply copying a vine. Like, they give me brainrot and serotonin at the same time its so fun. I love seeing all the different outfits for mmd vids in general, too, on top of new covers i never would've known about.

I really love analyzing things in general, actually. It's how I learn most of the things I do and know now, even though it technically causes me to lose large chunks of time because all i'm doing is staring at the damn thing, XD. Sometimes (all the time) I'll look at a gif or vid of a character changing their facial expression as they do/say something and I'll be completely enthralled by it. Something similar happens when I stare at REALLY GOOD artwork. I think it's the technical part of my brain trying to figure out the individual elements which make up whatever that thing is, like what facial muscles are being used to convey that emotion or mix of them, what the character is feeling, how the lighting or shading of the environment or extra details in editing affects said expression, etc. And for art, I'm thinking of the lines, posture, composition, object placement, color palette, negative space, tone, and all that jazz you learn from studying art.

Scrapbooking is a fun pastime for me that's extended from celebratory cards to actual gifts to my personal sketchbooks. It's part of the "creating something out of nothing/seeing what you can create with some basic templates and decorations" kind of mindset. And it makes me happy because I get to be creative and my family members and friends (even my employer) love them as part of their gifts every time and come to expect it from me each holiday, so I'm constantly encouraged to do it in the best way. I've recently kinda gone overboard on using ribbons and charms for the spiral and stickers and washi tape for the actual book itself on my sketchbooks, but I find myself wanting to draw in it more because I did that, lol.

I love rewatching the things I love. I usually have the same commentary about it, but its nonetheless enjoyable. And I never know what new thing I'll discover about it next, even if i've seen it over 50 times and only have it on as background noise and don't actually watch it. And yes, I will easily let something play on repeat at least that many times in my lifespan as well (like, a full day of it, at least).

wow i love staring at characters im attracted to for hours on end can i get a HUYEA-

[carpisuns]

thank u for the tag @anna-scribbles i wob u

Rules: It’s time to love yourselves! Choose your 8 (ish) favorite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought into the world in 2020. Tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome work!

uh i will do half fic half art i suppose :) these are not necessarily in a particular order

1. lucky (we’re in love in every way)

this is probably the most self-indulgent thing I’ve ever created and it’s for precisely that reason that it’s also my favorite djdjdkdk. I set out to feed myself exactly the way I wanted to be fed and that’s exactly what I did. just 8k of Marinette and Adrien being spiraling disaster children in love with a very sappy reveal and heaps of secondhand embarrassment lmao

2. tell me something I don’t know

I feel kind of bad for putting this on the list bc it’s just a wip but the fact that I have written 10 chapters and haven’t given up yet is a miracle !! so I am proud of myself! In the beginning I even had a semi-consistent posting schedule 😭 wow. wish that were me now lol

And the fact that there are a few people consistently reading/commenting on every chapter as I post sends me over the moon omgsh 😭 I am used to posting only oneshots so I’m like “you’re still here?? aaa bless u 😭💜💜” lol

And surprise surprise this one is also super self-indulgent so;; :) and i am proud of how some of the scenes/chapters turned out

3.  Dirt-y Little Secret

listen this one is SO DUMB but it’s one of my fav things I’ve written bc I am pretty picky about how the marichat dynamic is portrayed and I feel like I got it right in this and also I wrote a fic about marichat literally eating dirt and more than one person read it and said they liked it so :’) wow lmao

4. holding hands (and stuff)

i just wrote this one for secret santa and it’s not much but im proud bc writing kisses is the WORST it’s SO HARD and i usually use this Method where i go off to metaphor land and simple Do Not Mention what their lips are actually doing lmao but i committed on this one and i forced myself to like be there and write the kisses askldjffj also i made them really dumb as always and it’s really not hard at all to make them incredible dumb and awkward but that’s how i like em so it is always pleasing to me lol

5. dabdrien ft. caprisun

can u tell that all of my content is of the Clown variety :’) I am still managing to be proud of this one after 6 months bc it was one of the few times I forced myself to draw people with like legs and arms and such in a dynamic pose and that’s something I really struggle with even now lol but I feel like I did ok here and it was like :’) wow I can do something if I try really hard at it BDMSMS

6.  Sokka sketch dump

Again I drew some Human Bodies :) also I drew something other than adrien agreste and it was like WOW!! I can do that?? yes I can 😌i love sokka so much and this was like my Ode To Sokka <33 i put a lot into it and im still happy with how the poses and expressions turned out

7. ladybug simps

tbh i dont even know why i like this one so much like there is really nothing impressive about the art i just like the vibes i guess lol im just like YEAH. they cool kids and they simpin 😎👉👉 and what is the point of art if not to convey vibes lol

8. dtiys

this one was really fun to do and i like it cause chat hair is possibly even harder than adrien hair lol and i like how it turned out here. also i like the coloring/lighting on this :) and how baby i managed to make him because that is important 2 me

also maybe i just wanted 2/4 of my selected pieces to be adrien with a caprisun. and what about it

P.S. the dtiys is ongoing if anyone wants to join 👀 there’s no deadline so feel free to jump in any time! it brings me unspeakable joy to see people other than me drawing adrien with caprisun aslkfjadjsklf

tagging @botherkupo @gabriel-agreste-has-no-rights @bugaboo-n-bananoir @landturtlealyce @amiraculousplatypus @leviaana @jarl-deathwolf @bugabisous​ @janaikam​ @snacc-noir​ @adrienscroissantx​ and anyone else who would like to! consider yourself tagged :D

[indig0tea]

Final 2020 Update: 2021 Goals!!

Cross posting from my devART

Also links to all my alts and shit will be at the end of the post if you need them!

So some of these may be unrealistic due to my struggles with ADHD/Depression Combo but. I wanted to get these down somewhere so you guys can see them and be aware..

Please note, my executive functioning abilities are absolutely Butchered on the regular by my ADHD alone, and the various stressors of 2020 have absolutely taken anything else I might have had in that department and tossed it out the window.

Something something something, financial stressors outside of my control sends me into shut down mode and I can't do anything productive or even fun until it's handled, but because I'm not doing anything productive, I'm not making any money, and the stressors gets worse and worse and it just ends up in a horrible cycle where I constantly want to die because I'm not able to create anything to relieve the stress! Which is why you've all seen... pretty much a standstill on my productivity save one or two pieces a month if I'm lucky

That said, I'm going to start trying (hopefully with some outside help/accountability to keep me on track while I'm unmedicated) to put a system in place that doesn't make me constantly want to die while like. maybe actually getting stuff done! So I'm making some optimistic goals for 2021 regarding both my art and ability to make money, so here goes!

I'm breaking this down into 3 parts:

Changes to expect regarding my social media, commissions in general, posting, etc;

Overall Goals for 2021;

and Goals for January specifically.

Changes to expect going forward from here:

I'm going to be making some changes regarding my social media accounts, including this one, mostly concerning when, where, and how I'm posting.

I am also going to be making some changes to my commission policies, prices, and payments in the coming year, namely:

Lastly, I will be making some changes to my art discord server!

Moving forward, I am going to be MOST active on my twitter and tumblr accounts. They're just easier for me to maintain in general, and although I hate twitter's formatting, it's just easier and faster, and frankly after deviantART and Instagram fucked with their websites/algorithms, it just makes the most sense for me as an artist.

I'm also going to be making an effort to make scheduled cross-posts on all my accounts. In the past, I've been really irregular about when and where I post things (most things got posted to my old tumblr account but never here, i rarely remember to post to instagram, etc).

This is going to include commission slots, finished piece dumps, etc.

I will also be making an effort to semi-regularly post sketch dumps, both digitial and traditional. I am also considering at this time offering a monthly digital download of my sketch collections, though I am undecided as I'm not really sure how many people would be interested.

Increasing commissions prices to reflect time spent working on specific commission types, as well as my personal cost of living.

Planning and announcing commission slots in advance.

Taking and finishing regular commissions to cover living expenses on a monthly basis

Payments will be exclusively through paypal invoice, and will be broken up in halves: first half will be taken up front after I have started and given proof of start (base sketch), the second half will be paid after completion, with WIPS given between first and second payment. Fully completed art will be given after receipt of second half. This is both for my personal protection as an artist, as well as for the comfort of the commissioner as my completion time can sometimes be long due to my ADHD/executive dysfunction.

Moving forward into 2020, my discord will be SFW, but 18+ only. This is a personal comfort thing. I'm 25 years old now, and just really don't want to spend time hanging out with teenagers.

I'm also going to start trying to schedule art streams again! Since this is the only place I can live stream due to my art computer's limitations, it just makes sense to like. Schedule them so more people are able to attend. I haven't decided exactly how that's going to look, but once I have I'm going to make an announcement and formatting guide somewhere for people to see so they can make an informed decision about joining the server.

I will also be regularly posting in the server again. This may or may not be cross posts from twitter and such, we'll see, but I DO plan on being more active there since it's been kind of dead.

I may also reformat the whole server again. We'll see!

Goals for 2021

Regular Adopt Sets -- 2-3 per month. Size, price, and number in set will be decided on case by case basis.

I'll be doing a monthly prompt for myself as well. This is just to get me back in the habit of creating things I like for myself to just feel... less bad about my art in general, and about making art. Also it'll be good for my artistic development i think?

Keeping a monthly sketchbook for warm-ups and in-between pieces. May be offered as a paid download at the end of the month, we'll see.

Might start a patreon? This is EXTREMELY dependent on what my userbase looks like. Tiers and rewards to be decided at a later date

Regular traditional sketches + scan and upload of said sketches. May also be offered in the monthly sketchbook.

Draw more self portraits & self-expression pieces! I don't know if any of yall realize how repressed I've been in the last year without therapy, and I did't either until I forced myself to pursue a vent piece earlier this month, and then felt immensely better afterward so. Going to start doing that! Maybe I'll feel better weee

Regular posting to social media! (see changes above)

Drawing less fantrolls bc I'm just bleh about them lately, drawing more original content!

Drawing fancontent that ISN'T homestuck? We'll see but I'd like to. I don't usually draw fan art bc like. Idk in my mind I don't feel like my interpretation of things is important or cool and I think thats a confidence thing and I'd like to change that so! I'm gonna start making more fan content.

Draw more full illustrations & backgrounds in general because I actually enjoy doing them it turns out?

Practice painting more !! Both traditionally and digitally....

Goals for January 2021

Finish at LEAST 1/4 of my art queue. I'm shooting for half, really, because fully completing it might actually kill me but! We'll see! Maybe I'll surprise myself. But I'm setting the goal low to keep my mental health problems in mind.

Finish and release the base set i've been working on, on and off. It's an homage to  the old pixel doll days of 2009-2012, and the full sheet will be free to use (with stipulations, as I have some people blocked that I don't want using it). BUT! There will also be a mix and match .psd that will be pay to use (it'll be pay to use a, bc it'll be huge, and b, bc the edits to make it mix and match results in like 6 seperate bases in general so.... yeah. pay to use)

Finish the pay-to-use base pack i started in june (i may scrap and restart though, we'll see)

Possibly release all old p2u bases of mine in one pack on gumroad? price tbd but it will include old iterations as well as unreleased remakes.

Making some dainty-specific bases! One will be f2u, one will be p2u.

I have a whole dainty YCH set for january! I just have to finish the example... (:

Perhaps I'll be announcing a collaborative project later in the month! It depends on where each of us are at, at the time! We'll see! (: You should be excited though! It'll be a ton of fun!

EXTERNAL LINKS

Instagram

Twitter

Tumblr

deviantART

Discord server

[aeruthien]

5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 30!

Thank you <3

5. Would you rather write a happy ending that soothes the soul or a tragic ending that hurts the heart? Ooh this is a difficult one, but I think I'm going with happy ending that soothes the soul. Usually when I write fanfic it is to soothe some pain which has been caused by canon, so I won't put myself through that pain again. With original fiction, it might be a bit of both. The plot/story should have consequences, and part of that can be tragic since there might be casualties or betrayal along the way, but there should always be some notion that in the end, the journey was worth it.

7. Favorite description in your wip? (If asked more than once, respond with a new piece each time) I'm not sure when it counts as 'description' and when it counts as 'dialogue' but have some pain: "Klaus will kill you," Elijah rasps, trying suppress the panic rising in his throat.

An irrational part of him screams at him to flee, take Klaus and Hayley and run as far away as they can.

A smaller part, ingrained in him since he was a child, whisper at him to cower down and just wait for it to be over. That part remembers the inevitable consequence of defying the man before him.

Mikael grabs the metal rod and twists.

Elijah gasps, bright pain shooting through his body. Dark spots dance across his vision as he struggles instinctively to get away. His hands pull on the vervain laced ropes, and the burn flares up his arms.

Breathing in sharply, he forces himself to stop moving. He will not show weakness to this monster.

"You have faith in him still," Mikael says, tone almost friendly. He releases the rod. "Even though - and correct me if I'm wrong- you did try to kill him yourself."

Anger and hatred push the fear and pain away, just for the moment, and Elijah latches on to it with all his might.

"That," he growls, voice laced with contempt, "had nothing to do with you."

8. Favorite dialogue in your wip? (If asked more than once, respond with a new piece each time) I'm going with a small Haylijah piece I'm close to finishing [set after the marriage in s2]: Hayley leans against the doorframe of the study turned armory. For a moment, she allows herself to just take Elijah in. She has no doubt that he has noticed her arrival, but it takes a while before he looks up.

"Good morning," he says, a small smile on his face.

"One of the wolves told me there is a vampire roaming the compound," Hayley says gravely. She takes a bite from her apple and steps closer.

Elijah tilts his head. "Sounds positively dangerous."  

Hayley nods and swallows. "You should be careful."

She realises she has moved too close, and turns towards the table, grabbing the nearest axe. It has a small head and hilt, and is very plain looking.

"I don't know, maybe you could use one of these."

She twirls it in her hand.

Elijah hums in agreement. "Yes, there seem to be plenty of those lying around."

They share a look at the large collection of axes in the room.

9.What scene was the hardest to write for you and why? There aren't any particular scenes which are hard for me to write, but I do get stuck sometimes.

I usually have a very clear image of the scenes I want to write before I write them because I have basically thought them all out in my head (yay for daydreaming!) so when I 'run out' of those, I get stuck.

I have to step away from that one story and either stop or switch to another WIP until I can go for a walk/sit in the train/do anything which allows me to continue the story in my head.

10.What scene was the most fun to write for you and why? I always love writing fight scenes, just because it is fun to think of a compelling choreography. I have done some martial arts myself so I at least try to make the moves realistic, although sometimes you just have to take shortcuts.

30. What is some of the best writing advice you've read or received? Why does it work for you? This isn't actually advice which I learned from somebody else, but which I figured out by myself. I think I mentioned it before in another post, so sorry if I keep repeating myself lol

I try to compare my writing to sketching. When sketching, the goal is not to make a perfect looking picture; it is to train skills or try out new compositions/material/etc.. Of course the sketch contributes to the final piece, but not everything you sketch ends up in it, and that is fine. It helps to take of the pressure that every word has to be perfect.

So stop worrying about the details/the plot/the overarching tension/etc. and just practice making sentences.

[haeroniel-doliet]

a bonus thought post for the night!!

on that nostalgia raising feelings train but it derails so it got long so its under a readmore :*

scrolling my old art made me a bit sad and nostalgic (who doesnt get those feelings though doing the same) specifically i really have my heart going out to kid me who got basically no notes on anything. (im not saying i shouldve, art was definitely kid art and questionably tagged etc!) but some i put effort into and it made me so happy to get those 10 likes or whatever. it made me post post and post even what i was working on and unfinished bits (Sure, being me? many of those never got finished bc posting gave the hit of reward chemicals, no response meant no motivation to finish to get more yknow?)

its weird thinking ive now as an adult got a handful of posts with -hundreds- of notes. one over a thousand!! (sure, the really good and popular artists may have thousands but hey they deserve it!!) its weird that i sort of maybe now know what to do to get a reaction out of my prefered niche of the internet. that if i tried w some more consistently, who knows?

im proud of everything in my current art tag. (mostly. no. i am proud shut up brain) i feel slightly like posting more wips. bc i have a ton. surprisingly? ive been drawing way more in the past year than ive been posting (new for me). of course, there is no obligation to post it. why post stuff im not happy with? only to get anxious abt it? sure posting that one teaser when i was actively working on making it better was kinda fun. sure maybe posting some wips would make me go back and finish them bc some of them are good ideas?? but also some are just. theyd make sense to nobody but myself. and why should i share every crevice of my creativity like i used to as an attention craving kid?

my blog is my blog its me, its not a nice art blog its got all my vents and whatever i like to reblog on a given day on it all together. i could make a new tag that feels less like a portfolio to post wips i abandoned or doodles that never went further. it might be nice having them out here. but somehow i feel like id be too embarassed to post them, for my few followers to actually see them. what if i actually tagged them and ppl in tags saw my nonsense doodles? is it worth it? right now my art tag feels like its: dinluke and finished at that ONLY. things that people who come on my blog would like to see perhaps...

hahahhahahha i just crashed my Krita trying to with brash abandon look at all the unposted wips i have at once

turns out i have like. a handful of original works that never got past a rough doodle stage which is fair yknow they were just ideas that could be fleshed out but dont need to. some of them are very personal vent art

ive got a few sketch to tiny doodle to questionable attempt at painting etc bits of the star wars ladies. reminds me that i should branch out in my star wars posting and that drawing women is just way easier and more natural to me why dont i do it more?

ive got a good few fic inspired sketches that never got legs and tbf? theyre olddd now.

ive got like 12 frames of the inktober challenge from last year... in the style of posting 5 at a time, theyve all been sketched out and like half are i think finished. obviously october went long and at some point it just felt weird to post them even if i finished them. i sort of decided if i finish them up early autumn i could get away w posting them for beginning of october while i had a try at the new inktober? idk why i like a challenge to force me to draw more than i do in a year. and then it takes me a year lol. i have a set of 5 that are all inspired by fic, and like. i still like the idea of them. unfortunately? some of the references were old..  A YEAR AGO. sure theres like, the appreciation for vintage and telling ppl we like their work ages on. but i worry the authors no longer are in the fandom or want to be reminded of their work? etc etc. some of them are meh, some i like.

ngl i am especailly happy w my oct 31 post, which i really wish id finished on time for last year. heres to seeing if i post it this year? maybe i’ll finish what i want to finish of them (theres like. 2 im just really not inspired for and never was) and then have a wee collage of them to post, w the oct 31 prompt seperate, as a sort of. hey wip clear out! these are the stragglers from last year :))

maybe ill post original art one day when i get drawn enough to finish one.

ok ok hi welcome indepth to my thought process, bonus thoughts for every thought included. this doesnt need to be on the internet SURE but its a small time capsule for myself ok?

i dont think right now making a doodle tag to post wips is gonna bring me anything but anxiety and feelings of inadequacy i know too well from posting art as a teen. maybe at some point itll help break the barrier and ill just. post shit but it doesnt have to be on my ““portfolio tag”“

i could pick up an wip to finish now, ive got a good few candidates. but i think i should best just, shake off the cobwebs on smth new so i dont feel like im ruining it. it might be a rey or a leia or other star wars heroine portrait. it might be grogu bc hes an already ugly gremlin. it might be something else. i might be talking a high load of shit bc its 3 am again and i should go sleep rather than push myself in delirium. odds are tomorrow im exhausted again, feel like i should do things that actually benefit me in my life and address responsibilites, and shut down under the weight of the thought of it and not do anything until i go crazy at night again? time will tell but rn im stuck in that loop.

perhaps i should never have posted this bc its very long and personal but also? i kinda doubt anyone will read it and thats ok :)) if you are here, hi sorry that you know me better now! uhhh thoughts on the above?

[technicolorfamiliar]

Art + social media = ???

Note: If this post finds anyone else on Tumblr struggling with creative branding and sharing artwork on social media or any of the issues I bring up, I would love to talk about it! I’m slowly starting to reach out to friends about this stuff, but I also am open to starting a dialogue with others as well. 

I want to be a better artist. And I want to be a better artist on social media. The artists I admire on Tumblr and Instagram are insanely prolific and post new content all the time and have hundreds and thousands of likes on their posts. I want to be better about sharing, I want to document my process better than I have in the past. But when I sit down at my desk to draw, I usually don’t think about taking photos while I work. In fact, I often keep my phone in another room so I’m not tempted to stop drawing to check social media (the irony).

So I’ve been reading articles and blog posts about How To Be A Successful Artist On Social Media, and most if not all of them say that one of the things people should do is check out which posts get the most attention and try to figure out why. Is it the content, is it the hashtags, etc. I actually looked at the highest counts on my Instagram and on my art Tumblr, and I’ve got some opinions about what posts the masses are paying attention to.

In the past year and a half, on Instagram, my post with the most amount of likes was a work in progress sketch of Twin Peaks fan art. The same image on Tumblr isn’t as popular, but the finished version is one of my more recent posts that’s getting activity multiple times a day. But the finished version of the drawing on Instagram has fewer likes than the WIP. Interesting? Maybe. Maybe it was the day of the week or time of day I posted it, maybe more people happened to be on IG when I posted the sketch than they were when I posted the final. 

After the Twin Peaks sketch, the Instagram post I have with the most likes is a series of mixed media drawings of David Bowie I did this spring. The final, which features six finished images, has only gotten slightly more love than the handful of work in progress images I posted while I was figuring out what exactly I wanted it to be. That David Bowie series on Tumblr is far surpassed in notes by several other pieces of fan art I’ve posted since starting my art blog. 

People on Tumblr LOVE fan art, which makes sense. A lot of Tumblr is fandom based, so I get it. People like fan art on Instagram too, but not to the same extent, at least not in my case.

9 times out of 10, people pay way more attention to the drawings I post that are one-offs, the things I draw for fun or for practice. Most of the time, I’ll get only a small handful of likes on any original artwork I post. Which is fine, I understand that I’ve unintentionally created a niche for myself. I don’t expect the people who follow me because I posted a piece of fan art on a whim to take any special interest when I post drawings of trees or animal bones or seed pods. I know my audience(s) and I truly, wholeheartedly appreciate when people like and share and comment on my work. But I also like to experiment with media and subject matter, especially in the past year and a half as I’ve been struggling with major creative block.

As an artist, I love using physical media. In the past, I’ve used digital as a quick fix. I use digital to color sketches and drawings I do in my sketchbook. The vast majority of my posts with the most notes on Tumblr are of drawings colored digitally. Personally, when I work this way, it feels like a cop out. Which is why lately I’ve been forcing myself to use more traditional, physical media. This is not me saying traditional media > digital media, it’s just a current personal preference. I would love to be able to get to a place technically where I can approximately recreate the same style I was doing in Photoshop with gouache or watercolor, etc. 

However, on Instagram, people don’t seem as concerned about what media I’m using. In fact, if anything they seem to gravitate toward process work over finished work, and drawings that are less cartoon-illustration maybe slightly more realistic-illustration. And on Instagram, it’s just as likely people will like my original art as any fan art I post.

There is another major difference in my audiences on both platforms. On Instagram, 90% of my followers are friends, family, acquaintances. Between that and my hesitant, beginner’s use of hashtags, my likes coast around the same-ish numbers on popular posts. I also don’t have a separate art account on IG, and that’s something I want to make happen in the near future. On Tumblr, all the notifications come from total strangers who find my artwork through fandom hashtags, or used to, since now that I’m posting fan art created with traditional media, the attention I once got on digital pieces is missing.

This is not a post where I’m trying to get sympathy for a downward trend in activity on my recent artwork. I’m just interested in learning how to have a better presence on these two social media platforms, and maybe learn something about my audience. I think I have to definitely create a separate art IG, as well as be better about documenting my process work since that’s what seems the most successful there. For Tumblr, I’m up in the air about keeping the art account, honestly. If anything I might make a new one, since it’s mostly very old work that’s getting attention these days. 

Photo: Artwork by me, 2017 - 2018

[messedupessy]

ESSY'S TO DO LIST

So felt like making a list once again, as it has been awhile and I need to get like a visual on the things I need to do and finish etc so here goes (͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Ask blog intro comic: finished 3 out of 6, started on 4, it's going slow but hopefully will get finished soon so I can finally begin, have been working on these for almost a year now

SSLL fanart: got 1 in the works, just need to finish colouring it

Sketch and fully coloured pic for a friend who has drawn me lots of stuff as a thanks: haven't started on it so srs need to start on it

kinktober on my sin blog: yes I do have a naughty blog where I am still in the midst of trying to finish my kinktober even though it is January now, is on day 24 and has almost finished sketching it

old sketches sketchdump: have yet to scan more old sketches in so it's kind of on hold atm

500 followers headcanons imagines thingies: have finished 3 out of 15, almost finished like 2 more but it's going slow as I am unable to force myself to write and can only write if inspiration truly strikes

Random comics, current amount is like 10 something, almost finished with 1 and have started sketching on another

Colour sketches of my take on US UF and SF Grillbies and Undyne's,whcih have been in my folders for quiet some time and which I jut need to colour them a bit and write some stuff about them

Other sketches of note that needs finishing: Stretch in some nice clothes that is one of the wips I posted yesterday, colouring of one of those old sansby sketches I made quiet some time ago as I felt a need to colour it, almost done kinda, also a bunch of other sketches which I am too lazy to mention by name

Writing mini fic for Tyranttortoise with my Traversetale boys meeting the Landlady based on her fic Skeleton squatters and the land lady, also write a bunch of other stuff

and that's all I can recall and stuff for now so yay

won't be working like at all today tho as I am trying to rest my hand, as it has been like swollen and shit lately which sucks arse so damn much, so a break is in order even though I don't want to rest as I srs want to draw but what can I do when my hand isn't co operating with me? xD though I have srs no idea what to do if I am not drawing or writing like what the hell what even is this pffft

[maiji]

Process and wip images for A House That Holds Long Limbs (Part 4)

Previous process and wip documentation: Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3

Read the pages for part 4 here (full complete version will be linked from YYH North Bound master post)

This is a rare glimpse into how I tackle action scenes!! It’s rare because I rarely do it. Action is honestly one of the hardest things for me to draw, and as I’m sure I’ve said here many times before, I have the utmost respect for shounen manga artists whose works are steeped in them. It’s a really impressive skill to be able to do it well - to create a cinematic, dynamic sense of motion that doesn’t dissolve into visual confusion and incomprehensibleness.

This was as interesting for me to document my thought process as it hopefully is for you to read and discover what the heck was going on in my head (a big honking mess, that’s what). There was much screaming and crying while working on this hahaha.

Aside from Hokushin’s beautiful face (lmao), Part 4 is packed with things I don’t usually draw. Specifically: action, things taking place in the dark, and corpses. For things taking place in the dark, I heavily referenced the dark room rounds from the tournament for Genkai’s successor in volume 4, because it involves action and Togashi used practically zero screentones in it and I didn’t want to either. For the dead rokurokubi, I looked up photos of skulls and drew on my memory of various horror comics I’ve read, like Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service. (At one point I also googled photos of rotting skulls, but TBH I didn’t really want to spend a lot of time looking at detailed photographic references of corpse and decomposing bodies for obvious reasons, especially as I usually work on these comics late at night before I go to bed. The last thing I need is for images to get stuck in my brain when I’m sleeping.)

The rest of this post focuses mainly on action and redrawing things.

Script

The original script for this section actually ran a little further in the story than what’s shown here, but in order to convey the sequence effectively, I ended up stretching a number of key moments out and have booted the later ones to be completed for Part 5.

Thumbnails

In the thumbnails above, you’ll notice quite a few are redraws of the same page as I struggle - pages 31-33 repeat immediately in the rows after, page 37 was attempted three times, etc.

Page count growth

A script of 8 pages turned into 10 pages at the thumbnail stage, and then ultimately netted out at 12 pages in the final version that was posted. As you can see, effective action sequences generally take me more pages than I think they will. With an exception (documented below).

Thumbnailing/storyboarding things out should theoretically minimize the page count creep! But because I tend to treat my thumbnails as such a loose stage (to avoid later disappointment when I can’t recreate it as nicely in the final page), I rush through them. Unfortunately, action sequences require me to think a lot more carefully through the scene as a director - staging the shot and the experience of the motion and coordinating people’s limbs and all the items in the scene more carefully and whatnot than, say, just a couple of heads talking. So inevitably, when I rush to get ahead to the finished pages, that’s when I realize it doesn’t flow as well as I was imagining (or not really imagining it).

As a result, the actual “live” pages turn into constant mental checks and runthroughs of the panels, realizing it’s not flowing as well as I’d like, and restarting. By restarting I mean mentally reenvisioning the sequence, sometimes quickly doodling alternate thumbnails (I didn’t bother in this case, so I have no alternate examples from after I started redrawing), and erasing and redrawing and adding pages. I guess I could probably avoid this if I just stop and put more time into thinking through the thumbnails… but it seems like I end up revising no matter what. So, constant juggling forever.

The evolution of the key action sequence

In my head, the main sequence was:

Hokushin lands.

He gets up and feels something in the dark.

He discovers the rokurokubi corpse.

He turns around to discover a swarm of hands in the dark!

Ahhh hands!! Ahhhh!!

Then he gets sealed and stringed up. End action sequence, back to people standing - or hanging out, I guess - and talking.

I roughed out my panels and pencils for all the pages following my thumbnails instead of doing one page at a time, because I’m impatient and also tend to think of all the pages as a wholistic narrative and then drilling down to the details on each page (big to small perspective).

As I went back over each page and detailing the base pencil art more, I began noticing more issues with the flow of the action and the pagination. Things started really shifting and changing at point 4. Here’s essentially how my thinking played out as I drew:

He turns around to discover a swarm of hands in the dark! - WAIT he just sees the corpse and then turns around? I should have him sense something is behind him first to get you more into his head and experience. OK, insert another panel of him sensing and whatever. THEN he can turn around. This is also good because I can erase the panel where he’s turning around and give the first panel a bit more room so I can draw more of his body in the first one and make his startled falling back motion a bit clearer.

HANDS!! AHHH HANDS!! - Wait, I have hands coming from BEHIND him and don’t effectively show that before they just appear to grab his hair. Which I suppose they do, but when I review panel flow it seems jarring, like a poorly directed cut and something was missing. Let’s try adding some hands behind him in the panel where he looks shocked. Never mind, this looks dumb and he looks dumb and basically seems even more like an afterthought. Ooh, better idea: let’s have him dodge the first wave of hands. That’ll be kinda cool and more interesting. And then he can land and be like OH SHIT MORE HANDS FROM EVERY DIRECTION

Ahhh hands!! Ahhhh!! - Hmm, maybe I should add a page here to better capture his dodge sequence. So the panels will be hands, dodge, and then the next page is he lands, then he realizes there are more hands behind him. How crouched down should he be? I guess in the later pages I basically drew him in a practically fully upright position… eh.. Working this out...

*starts drawing extra page* … Mmm, thinking about this again, no. It stretches things out too much. Now it feels like he lands, the new page adds an extra pause that could be interpreted unconsciously as he thinks he’s ok, then he gets attacked by hands from behind. But that’s ridiculous because he’s a rokurokubi, he KNOWS the hands can come back around or whatever, and he’s a good and cautious fighter, the extra pause doesn’t seem to fit. Thinking this through, basically I need it to feel faster - he lands (typed “he hands” there first time around haha), and he doesn’t have a chance to react again before it turns out hands are coming from all directions. So, I’ll keep it to the one original page and draw the reaction to the sound of the hands coming from everywhere. Done. (one of the few instances where I reduce page count in an action sequence)

Oh yeah, I forgot about his arms and legs getting sealed. Er, add another page. OK done.

For comparison, below are photos of the pencils for pages 35 and 36 before the above process:

... and after:

Redraws

I generally try to avoid redrawing an entire image/page from scratch if I don’t have to.  Even if I don’t like the overall drawing, I’m still terrified of effing up the parts that turned out OK the first time around. However, sometimes you gotta know when to cut your losses and start anew and save yourself time and grief (I’m definitely still learning how to know lol). I do have a few strategies to ease my mind - I often take photos of something before I proceed to the next step or change direction (which is where many of these wip photos come from). This helps calm me down because at least now I have a reference for what it was before I took the leap of faith to move forward. Another option is to just leave it and draw on a completely new blank page.

Page 37, where Hokushin is getting his head pulled back by the hands, was an incredibly rare instance of the pencils for a page turning out almost exactly how I wanted on the first try, so I was loathe to redraw or adjust it. This means I basically forced myself to shuffle things before and after to accommodate not having to change it.

On the flipside, page 40, where the shot backs away so you can see Hokushin tied up with the hands, is one I full-on redrew from scratch. I was having a hard time with his pose and how all the hands were wrapped around him and how everything was actually working. I wasn’t happy with the drawing the first time around, but inked it anyways to see if I would like it better the next morning (sometimes this works, to wait and look at it with a distanced frame of mind). Spoiler, I didn’t lol. However, the process of inking the entire thing helped me better hone in on what parts I liked and didn’t like, so when I sketched it out again I was better able to adjust.

This photo shows the original (with the words REDRAW :/ at the bottom), a sketch I did trying to figure out his posture and where all the hands were/how the wrapping actually worked, and then the pencils of the redraw.

Final miscellaneous things

The end page of Part 4 is once again a last minute addition that resulted because I was facing a blank page (again!) after adding the page where Hokushin gets his arms and legs sealed. I changed the spoken line multiple times. First it was a line that’s been pushed to the upcoming part 5, then it was the “You certainly found my “treasure room” quickly” (that’s on the previous page). In the end, I just wrote a completely new line for it. It seemed to work better with the panel and closing off this part at a good point.

Last but not least, I somehow broke my pen inking this part lmao. Fortunately it’s a Muji pen so I only broke the tip off the cartridge somehow, probably in my intense scribbling/shading at some point. It’s not super clear in the photo but if you look closely at the point you’ll see this thin line coming out of the tip of the pen - it was this metal filament that basically scratched the paper without any ink coming out. I had to make an emergency run to two Mujis, neither of which had the black refills, so I ended up just buying two pens with similar thicknesses. Worst case scenario, I would have just inked with my blue cartridge, since the scanning would turn everything black and white anyways... the original pages would have just looked weird.

Phew! Hopefully it worked out and isn’t a totally incoherent mess!

[phoenixyfriend]

Young Avengers Holiday Gift Exchange 2017

The application form is located here. Applications end at midnight EST on September 30th, so apply before then, and reblog to spread the word, please.

The rules are below the cut. Read these first.

I expect this to be a relatively small exchange, so we hopefully shouldn’t have too much trouble.

Event Timeline (All dates are in Eastern Standard Time)

September 19-30: Applications. October 1-2: Assignments go out. November 1st: First check-in December 1st: Second check-in December 12-January 7: Time to post/submit your gifts! (Dec. 12th is the first day of Hanukkah. Jan. 7th is Christmas according to the Julian calendar, celebrated by many Orthodox Christians. All other winter holidays that I could find fall between the two.)

How This Works

This is basically a Secret Santa, so:

You fill out the application with what you are and aren’t willing to write/draw, what you’d like to get as a gift, and how I contact you. The application has a lot of questions, but they’re mostly multiple choice or optional, so it shouldn’t take more than five or ten minutes to complete. The application is now closed.

I will post a list of who’s participating to confirm that all the applications made it through successfully.

I match a prompt to a creator. I will find a prompt that fits what you’re willing to write or draw for, and give the prompt to you. I also find a creator that is willing to create content for your prompt, and they get your prompt. Prompts have been sent out.

You have your assignment! Now it’s time to work on it.

I will check in, either via tumblr or email, to see how you’re doing on your assignment, at the beginning of November, and the beginning of December. You don’t need to be done or even started at this time (though the latter would be a good idea), but it’s a good way to keep you on track.

You will then post the gift and either tag or message the recipient and myself about the gift. I will reblog all of them myself as well at @phoenixyfriend, tagged as #YoungAvengersHE2k17.

Include the tag #YoungAvengersHE2k17 in the first five tags of the post so that it shows up in the tag.

If I don’t reblog it within 24 hours, I haven’t seen it.

I’m asking about what days people would prefer to get gifts on, and while you aren’t obligated to post on that day specifically, it would be nice if you did.

That’s it!

General Rules

Respect squicks, triggers, and OTPs/NoTPs. If a person says they aren’t comfortable with receiving something in their gift, do not include that element.

No NSFW/R-18/NC-17/Explicit/whatever you want to call it. I know there are minors in the fandom, so for safety’s sake (including mine as moderator), let’s keep everything rated PG-13.

No bashing. If you hate a character, ship, or volume, please keep it out of the gifts. You can include it in your prompts/squicks, but no bashing or hate.

Also no narrative-supported bigotry. If you want a character dealing with, say, homophobia because you or your giftee are gay and want that kind of story, then sure! But the narrative or art cannot support any kind of bigotry (racism, anti-semitism, anti-rroma, islamaphobia, queerphobia, homophobia, transphobia, etc.).

You need to have both a tumblr and an email address.

If you change your tumblr URL, inform me, and I will tell your gifter.

If you have questions for either your giftee or your gifter, ask me, and I’ll relay them.

In general, just don’t tell your giftee who you are. The secrecy is half the fun, after all.

You have the option of providing up to three prompts for your gifter. You only need to fill out one, but if you like the element of surprise, or would like to give your gifter a few options to play with, you can fill in all three. If you fill all three, you may also indicate which prompt is your favorite.

You aren’t required to fill the prompt exactly, but your giftee will probably enjoy the gift more if you do.

Please be sure you can fulfill the gift by the deadline before you sign up. I’ll be asking about pinch-hitters, but I’d prefer to avoid that option if possible.

If you do need to drop out, please tell me as soon as possible so I can alert the pinch-hitters.

Don’t post WIPs or hints anywhere before you give your gift.

Writer Rules

The gift must be at least 1500 words long. Longer fics are appreciated, but not necessary.

The gift must be posted to either tumblr or AO3. AO3 is preferred, but not necessary. You may post to both sites.

If posting to AO3, I will be requesting to add your piece to an AO3 collection for this event. You also need to make a tumblr post with a link to the fic.

The fic must be complete when posted.

If the fic is more than one chapter, then all chapters must be up before the last day of the event.

Artist Rules

The fic needs to be more than a rough sketch. Consider lineart your minimum. Colors, shading, backgrounds, etc. aren’t necessary, but are appreciated.

The gift must be posted to tumblr. You may post to other sites, but not before you present the gift.

If your fanart is traditional, a high-quality scan must be uploaded.

No moodboards or edits.

Minimum size for digital: 504x360 size with 72dpi

Minimum size for traditional: 7x5 in (or 17.8x12.7 cm)

What’s a pinch-hitter? Pinch-hitters are people who offer to make a second gift if someone has to back out of the event for some reason, taking on the responsibility of making two gifts so that nobody goes without getting a present just because their gifter couldn’t complete theirs.

Something about this prompt rubs me the wrong way/hits a squick or trigger that I didn’t think I needed to warn about. Can I switch? If you have a genuine complaint about the prompt you received for some reason, contact me. If I can find someone to switch, I will try to arrange something. I have faith that most of you will be able to work with your prompts, though.

The prompt I got breaks one of the rules in some way. What do I do? Tell me, and I’ll contact the prompter to see if we can figure something out. If they refuse to change their prompt to stop breaking the rules, then I’ll be forced to boot them from the event, and you’ll be given their giftee instead.

What happens if I break a rule? I’ll contact you with a warning and a request to stop breaking whichever rule you broke. If you continue breaking the rules, I’ll remove you from the event and rearrange some assignments to cover the hole.

Contact me if you have any more questions!

I will be tagging any announcement posts about the event with #YoungAvengersHE2k17, if you feel like tracking the tag.

[feza-creations]

Time for change

This account's really become full of unfinished/lazy sketches and WIPs lately instead of good art that actually take time and have color in them. Ive gotta change that >3<

From this moment forward, ill only be posting colored sketches with a good amount of detail to them, WIPs of animations ONLY ( but not as frequently as before ), commissions and stuff where the characters are fully colored, rendered and etc.

This has been bugging me for a while and I've really gotta force myself to take more time with my art instead of constantly posting half-made sketches or WIPs of things that dont matter all that much compared to the final product XP That'll mean I post here less often but its for the best.

#MakeFezaGreatAgain

[smokesontheroof]

OOooh Okay  So I was tagged by @andrewminyarrr ! Thanks for tagging, Idk if you realized what you were gonna be in for.  Prepare. This is actually going to be good because I can see visually where all my projects are instead of having a billion different lists ok. This could get long. Ahhh I’m not going to tag anyone because this kinda got away from me lol please consider yourself tagged if you want to do it! Do This: List all the things you’re currently working on in as much or little detail as you’d like, then tag some friends to see what they’re working on. This can be writing, art, vids, gifsets, whatever. 1) A piece! (Actually probably 4- one “big” one and 3-4 little ones) for the Dishonored Big Bang!!!  I’ve been putting this off because I had been working so long on my Give Your Back to Me Zine comic but now I’m fighting a deadline and it’s A LIL stressful but I like what I’ve got so far I just hope it’s ok??? I’ve never done a Big Bang before so I hope I’m on the right track haaahaaha. 

2) A piece for the AFTG Big Bang! Which I still need to get started on so I don’t actually have a physical WiP but I’ve got WiPs on my mind so it counts ok haha.

3) A Check,Please! Related commission (Jackparse (aka Jack Zimmermann/Kent Parson)) which I am SO eager to work on I have to force myself to work on these other things first. Self denial man. I am....not very good at it. Regardless, I’m super excited about it. I have Plans. (Commission info here)

4) Another OmgCP commish (of Ransom <33) Still in thumbnail stage.

5) A non-fandom commish for a long time commissioner for an opening/closing title page for his podcast....this is one of the things I have been putting off to work on number 3 >.> 

6) Another non-fandom commission to fill a sketchbook. I’m working with the commissioner’s rpg characters and the world in which it’s set which is SUPER cool, but also there’s SO MUCH freedom It’s kind of intimidating and it makes me freeze up whenever I think about working on it so THAT S NOT VERY FUN. but I got some good progress done on a page yesterday so there’s hope for this weekend.

Wip images Here and Here

ok ok now we’re on to purely personal projects with no deadlines/obligations (but also things I haven’t worked on in months and might not work on for more months) So I’m gonna put this under a cut cuz this could get long and irrelevant

7)  I sketched out a couple things based on this post >.> by @fabbittle So I kinda hope to finish that this weekend but I mean look at the rest of what I’ve got going on haaaahaha so who knows. 8) Uhhhhhh I’ve got a sketchpage (2 actually??) of some characters that Idk I felt ‘em for a while but now I’m not entirely sure if I liked the trajectory i had so I might want to revisit. but it was like. a Catholic-raised, trans, werewolf photographer (read: complete self insert), a park ranger, and a medical examiner and like they’re good sketches, I like where the character designs were headed but idk shit about story. 9) A LONG TIME AGO I was planning on doing some mock magazine illustrations and layouts about my fam’s (fam = myself, gf, & our partners) homestead kinda thing...like the ideas are still good, I still like them, so once this summer calms down (got the above listed projects, top surgery, a trip out west, etc. lots of things going on) I would like to revisit those. 10) A LONG LONG time ago (idk like a year and half maybe 2 lol) I was working on a tarot deck. I have more sketches than these two but: The Fool The Magician And then there’s the list of things that I kind of count as works in progress because I think about them a lot. This is my “To Draw” list. I already have a pretty extensive one for AFTG typed out -I really want to draw some of the *places* from TRC like Adam’s parents’ trailer, 300 Fox Way,Cabeswater, etc. -I want to do a couple tarot inspired drawings of the Raven Boys (and others) My Check Please To-Draw list - I want to try my hand at doing portraits of Actual Hockey Players in the same vein as these pieces:  Jack Kent Georgia -storyboard of Jack & Kents feelings regarding eachother post-OD inspired by and directly correlating to (in the form of music video storyboards/comic) the song “Hate Me” by Blue October -MORE NHL!BITTY -something with Bad Bob, Uncle Wayne and Uncle Mario -Kent Parson + crop top + desert -MORE PUNK AU -Bitty in the penalty box (based on that gif of Conor Sheary) “PLAY PROUD” magazine covers/spreads (aka my fake gay sports magazine that I have too much fun thinking about) I already have THIS ONE and then I’ve got this one as a thumbnail but I’d like to revisit that, and I’d like to DO MORE using it as a platform for illustration&text about aftg and omgcp. <3 With that in mind I forgot I also want to draw literally all these fictional athletes at the olympics.