#galleries don't want it

[not-poignant]

If you don't mind me asking why did you stop working as a professional artist? Your work is amazing! I could totally see your animal artwork being in kids picture books or even on wrapping paper

Hi anon!

I'm so so glad you enjoy the art! That makes me happy. Feel free to check out my DeviantArt because there's a lot more there than elsewhere. :D (Eventually I'll probably be using ArtStation or something like that too dsalkfjsa).

I stopped working as a professional artist because of money. I make more money as a writer than I ever could as an artist, despite giving art my all. Not to mention that art gave me repetitive strain injuries in my wrists (that I still have to this day) as well as eye-strain and a few other physical ailments that I still have to be careful of.

While writing is hard on the body, it could never be as hard or challenging as my particular art style was. And after a while it just got hard to justify working that hard, in that much pain, for like 0.50c an hour. And while I don't make that much more these days, I definitely make more for less suffering!

But yeah it was purely a financial/economical decision. I still actually do make art! But I no longer do commissions, and I pretty much only do it when I feel like it. But some of the things I've done this year alone include:

I think professional traditional art is also in some ways less disability friendly than writing. Or at least the kind of writing I do. I'm a traditional artist, and the easiest ways to make money as a traditional artist are to go the gallery circuit, which requires visiting galleries, pitching to them, and being seen at gallery shows (all things I could not do), or to go the mass production circuit via selling prints and so on. But I also can't go to print shops. And I can't drive. And I can't get to the post office (Glen posts all my art for me). As a result, I have to use a lot of POD services (and I do have a Redbubble storefront!), and anyway, it just didn't work out.

I still sort of think of ways to monetise the art on occasion. Which is usually trying to go beyond the lifespan of just selling an original piece of art. I tried prints, that didn't didn't work out. I tried colouring pages, that didn't work out. Children's picture books are the least profitable form of writing and art-making out there, unfortunately (people don't know this, but it's the most competitive writing market out of all of them, with the least longevity, because kids grow out of picture books, so while a few authors make a mint, most authors and artists make a pittance). I released an oracle deck and that made me about $900 this year which... is both good and not great or sustainable.

So yeah, that's why. Because while I'm not making a liveable income still, it's more liveable for less labour. My decision to quit art was purely down to income, which is why I know if things get dire with writing, I will do the same with writing, because I have given away a creative career that I loved before.

That being said, I have the particular satisfaction of knowing that my artwork is owned / has been commissioned by a cameraman / cinematographer that worked with David Attenborough across many of his series, and filmed birds of paradise on location more than once (he purchased almost all of my birds of paradise illustrations). By a head zookeeper at London Zoo who got so many pieces we became friends and are mutuals across social media, and I got to meet her in 2019 and she took us 'behind the scenes' to spend a lot of personal time with penguins and we chatted for ages.

Because I've done so much creative natural history illustration I've made connections and friends with biologists and zoologists all over the world, and it's been a humbling privilege to have been able to draw the favourite animals of some people, especially when those animals rarely get artwork in general. And I still love animals, so I do still draw them.

But it likely won't ever be my main job again sdalfkdjs

[sykloni]

Dannymay 2023

15. Full Hazmat AU & 23. Rogue Gallery

[hawberries]

I have added: yet more ships to the MXTX bookmark catalogue :)

[channnel]

And then Claude would drink a cup of water in front of him.

[dseval]

@qin-qin16 (i hope you don't mind the tag) I did it.

God these two are so cute

Cross Sans by Jakei

Color Sans by Superyoumna

Color's bandana and Cross's fangs inspired by @/toffeebrews

[clingyduofan]

lots of old doodles

[14dayswithyou]

Happy Birthday Ren & Happy Valentines Angel !!

Alone this valentines day? Why not spend it with Ren via the public Day 2 (beta) update on Discord!!

[stiwfssr]

[manasurge]

Guild Wars 2 OC stuff: So I finally figured out the full body design for Vallotash (Mordremoth's Scion a.k.a. who Mourynn actually is) They're more or less the same person, but it's complicated, but leans more to Vall believing she's Mourynn and kind of is since she inhabits her body and memories, but is technically an imposter and is very depressed and in denial about it. Inspiration from Jahai Bluffs: "Are you a dragon dreaming that it's a hero? If you were, how would you know?" (also it's my tumblr banner lol) I'm still sketching out the origin story to explain how this happens, but for now here is this sketch bc I am happy with how this turned out and wanted to post it early. It's basically self preservation turned to parasitism to accidental death of host to unintentional identity theft out of guilt/tribute + memory absorption to make her think she's the sapling + amnesia about the whole event taking place over the span of a year stuck in the dream (to super condense her origin lore). I'll finish these sketches once I'm done her origin story pages, or if I get possessed to do it earlier bc I'm still happy with how this turned out and might want to keep working on it sooner, hehe.

Here is more sketches of Mourynn/Vallotash under the cut:

She has some simpler looks for when she's flattened down. She looks SO SILLY but I love it. Beware the Scion of Mordremoth: This freaking wiggly silly noodle thing. A terrifying menace!! Beloathed parasite daughter vine of the mighty Jungle Elder Dragon!! /does a snake blep (Also the first two head sketches I did of her from last year when she still didn't have a body designed yet lmao. I still have to figure out how large she actually is, as well as her colouration. She'll have to match Mourynn's, so she's gonna be a funny mix of the colours in the cool spectrum, which doesn't look very plant-like, but sylvari can be all different colours, and she has the whole poisonous/hallucinogenic thing going on, as well as some Soo-won influence bc she's based off a leafy sea dragon and is very attuned to water, so it kinda works yeah????) I also have no idea what her large chin whisker things are supposed to be. I just kind of made them up on the spot and fell in love with them, so they're STAYING, even if they make no sense. I mostly just love that they'd look so cool underwater and while glowing in the dark, and they are vaguely alien and jellyfish-like.

[horsemeatluvr23]

the juppet !! i just realised he is jerma posing i swear that was unintentional...... i spent so long digging thru muppet concept art and looking at old puppet designs just to end up doing a rly simple drawing but. i love joehills!! i have only been watching them for like 4 years but their videos r so special to me :3

[i-crave-the-forbidden]

Band au! Bassist! Sev! coming from someone who traced the first bass guitar pic that popped up on pinterest ┐⁠(⁠´⁠ー⁠｀⁠)⁠┌

[lightningidle]

Fig's line "I don't think I'm an artist, I think I'm just a good friend" has not left my head at all. Just...

You're Fig Faeth and your horns came in over the summer and you pick up the bard class as a form of adolescent rock 'n' roll rebellion, and it works! It's exactly the outlet you need! You give a guy you just met drumsticks and you start a band and it's good enough that within a year and a half you're touring. You are, in every sense, good at being a bard.

And then, finally, your junior year, you start to take it seriously. Your art goes from an outlet and a form of rebellion to a practice. A discipline. (Can rebellion exist within a discipline?) Your classmates know what they want to do with their work. They all have a thesis statement. And yeah, there's cohesion in the music you make, but you've never had to think about why you make it. You've never sat down and dissected what it is about bass that speaks to you. You've never poured over your lyrics to pick at any deeper meaning. Why should you? You don't play music for a grand design, you do it to... huh, why do you do it?

(Your art is the one form of self-expression that feels as safe as Disguise Self does, because even if you're pouring your heart onto the page and then screaming it in front of thousands of people, it's not like you're really making yourself known. You can sing I'm lonely, I'm scared, I'm furious, and your fans will sing it right back, and there will still be the distance between performer and audience to keep your heart safe.)

Now you're being asked to look inward to explain the artistic choices you're making, and you can't help but recoil at that, because you'd rather do anything than look inward. Meanwhile, your classmates have no problem with it, so you start to wonder if you're a real artist at all. Can your art be authentic if it only exists to bolster a thesis statement? Has your art been unauthentic this whole time because you've never really thought about a thesis statement before? Is that what makes it art, and not just the next track on somebody's teen angst playlist?

You can't think about yourself— acknowledging your own existence makes you want to puke. So if your music is an extension of yourself, (and it is, even if it's just because the spotlight reveals only what you want it to,) you can't think about your music. You can't. You have to. Your grade depends on it.

You're Fig Faeth, and you keep multiclassing because you'd rather be a good friend than a great artist. If introspection is what great art demands, then fuck it. You must not be a bard at all.

[post-it-notes7]

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[a-witch-in-a-dumpster]

Random sketch of my cyborg OC I will never finish cause I m a loser :]

[widowshill]

— And do you or do you not have difficulty remembering such simple instructions? — Only during thunderstorms, sir.

THE SOUND OF MUSIC (1965) / DARK SHADOWS (1966)

[cleverreports]

We report: there are brambles growing on the pavement. They have been escaping a garden for years now, and they hang over the road - full of flowers and unripe fruits at this point in the year. The sky is heavy and dark, but not in a stormy way. It will keep carrying the weight.