#give it up for the artist

[hairupintheair]

This... this is... this is so beautiful!? I've never seen anything like this. It's gorgeous. I'm honestly crying right now. 😭

[batbabydamian]

*you opening the love letter* what does your damijon look like, pls pls pls pls pls pls pls, i know it would be so cute, i just know it 🙏🙏🙏

here you go! thank you for the ask, this was a lot of fun to do! they're working on a case together ^^

[ideotape]

eddie studies +bonus hen

[inkskinned]

the thing about art is that it was always supposed to be about us, about the human-ness of us, the impossible and beautiful reality that we (for centuries) have stood still, transfixed by music. that we can close our eyes and cry about the same book passage; the events of which aren't real and never happened. theatre in shakespeare's time was as real as it is now; we all laugh at the same cue (pursued by bear), separated hundreds of years apart.

three years ago my housemates were jamming outdoors, just messing around with their instruments, mostly just making noise. our neighbors - shy, cautious, a little sheepish - sat down and started playing. i don't really know how it happened; i was somehow in charge of dancing, barefoot and laughing - but i looked up, and our yard was full of people. kids stacked on the shoulders of parents. old couples holding hands. someone had brought sidewalk chalk; our front walk became a riot of color. someone ran in with a flute and played the most astounding solo i've ever heard in my life, upright and wiggling, skipping as she did so. she only paused because the violin player was kicking his heels up and she was laughing too hard to continue.

two weeks ago my friend and i met in the basement of her apartment complex so she could work out a piece of choreography. we have a language barrier - i'm not as good at ASL as i'd like to be (i'm still learning!) so we communicate mostly through the notes app and this strange secret language of dancers - we have the same movement vocabulary. the two of us cracking jokes at each other, giggling. there were kids in the basement too, who had been playing soccer until we took up the far corner of the room. one by one they made their slow way over like feral cats - they laid down, belly-flat against the floor, just watching. my friend and i were not in tutus - we were in slouchy shirts and leggings and socks. nothing fancy. but when i asked the kids would you like to dance too? they were immediately on their feet and spinning. i love when people dance with abandon, the wild and leggy fervor of childhood. i think it is gorgeous.

their adults showed up eventually, and a few of them said hey, let's not bother the nice ladies. but they weren't bothering us, they were just having fun - so. a few of the adults started dancing awkwardly along, and then most of the adults. someone brought down a better sound system. someone opened a watermelon and started handing out slices. it was 8 PM on a tuesday and nothing about that day was particularly special; we might as well party.

one time i hosted a free "paint along party" and about 20 adults worked quietly while i taught them how to paint nessie. one time i taught community dance classes and so many people showed up we had to move the whole thing outside. we used chairs and coatracks to balance. one time i showed up to a random band playing in a random location, and the whole thing got packed so quickly we had to open every door and window in the place.

i don't think i can tell you how much people want to be making art and engaging with art. they want to, desperately. so many people would be stunning artists, but they are lied to and told from a very young age that art only matters if it is planned, purposeful, beautiful. that if you have an idea, you need to be able to express it perfectly. this is not true. you don't get only 1 chance to communicate. you can spend a lifetime trying to display exactly 1 thing you can never quite language. you can just express the "!!??!!!"-ing-ness of being alive; that is something none of us really have a full grasp on creating. and even when we can't make what we want - god, it feels fucking good to try. and even just enjoying other artists - art inherently rewards the act of participating.

i wasn't raised wealthy. whenever i make a post about art, someone inevitably says something along the lines of well some of us aren't that lucky. i am not lucky; i am dedicated. i have a chronic condition, my hands are constantly in pain. i am not neurotypical, nor was i raised safe. i worked 5-7 jobs while some of these memories happened. i chose art because it mattered to me more than anything on this fucking planet - i would work 80 hours a week just so i could afford to write in 3 of them.

and i am still telling you - if you are called to make art, you are called to the part of you that is human. you do not have to be good at it. you do not have to have enormous amounts of privilege. you can just... give yourself permission. you can just say i'm going to make something now and then - go out and make it. raquel it won't be good though that is okay, i don't make good things every time either. besides. who decides what good even is?

you weren't called to make something because you wanted it to be good, you were called to make something because it is a basic instinct. you were taught to judge its worth and over-value perfection. you are doing something impossible. a god's ability: from nothing springs creation.

a few months ago i found a piece of sidewalk chalk and started drawing. within an hour i had somehow collected a small classroom of young children. their adults often brought their own chalk. i looked up and about fifteen families had joined me from around the block. we drew scrangly unicorns and messed up flowers and one girl asked me to draw charizard. i am not good at drawing. i basically drew an orb with wings. you would have thought i drew her the mona lisa. she dragged her mother over and pointed and said look! look what she drew for me and, in the moment, i admit i flinched (sorry, i don't -). but the mother just grinned at me. he's beautiful. and then she sat down and started drawing.

someone took a picture of it. it was in the local newspaper. the summary underneath said joyful and spontaneous artwork from local artists springs up in public gallery. in the picture, a little girl covered in chalk dust has her head thrown back, delighted. laughing.

[irishyuri]

these were such fun warmups lmao COWBOY AU (briefly) BACK ONLINE ‼️‼️

[themouthwashes]

¨Dies Irae¨ Let her rage

[paintedcrows]

Introducing RoyalAuthor! ...I cannot stop thinking about these old man scientists...

[real-skel]

I flung out of bed to make this shit

[trypo-p]

If you drew Pootis and Medimedes dressed for the First Day Of School, I think that would be REALLY fucking cute

How am I going to stop some real bad stress from tearing me a structurally superfluous new be-hind? The answer; Draw a Pootis. And if that don’t work; Draw more Pootis.

[potato-lord-but-not]

what do you pray to?

or alternatively: Oscar sees John for the person he is and John gets to be forgiven

[guardianspirits13]

Rest in Peace to the Dead Boy Detectives 💙❤️

(Still images below the cut)

also @netflix your kneecaps are MINE unless you bring back my boys >:(

[fabcreature]

you know what, since we've been talking about how annoying it is when people react like "what drugs were they on when they wrote this 🤪" when someone is creative, i just wanna say

everyone who says "HOW IS THIS A KIDS' MOVIE 😱😱", when a kids' movie is a little bit out of the box and features dark or deep imagery and meanings, owes me one thousand euros

[xitsensunmoon]

My first ever comic con! And first cosplay too. Of course it's gonna be my boy :] Ramblings about the process are under the cut(Let me know if?? You would want me to elaborate with process images for any of the steps?)

The costume took me forever to make, as I've never done any machine sewing, sculpting, fabric dying or spray painting before but learning all of these was so fucking fun!! I never realised just how many different skills go into making a cosplay but it was so worth it!!!

Almost all of the clothes(except the hat) were purchased first as bases, but all of the detailing was added by me. All of the fabric used was originally just scraps that I was given for free so I needed to learn how to dye and dye all of the stars, they were originally white.

The sewing machine was its own beast that brought me tons of frustration from the lack of skill and knowledge (it was devastating to find out that 95% of fuck ups were my fault and not the machine's lmao). But as a result, a hat sewn from scratch, all of the fur trims, embroidery on the corset, stars and the collar(which is very hard to see on the pictures unfortunately) was all added manually. The stars and the stripes(on the back of the cape) were attached using heat-and-bond adhesive (I WISH I knew about such thing just when I started working on this. It would save me so much time and nerves.)

Then I found out about polymorph(mouldable plastic) and it has become the next thing I wanted to learn, to sculpt the claws and the fangs(yes, they're handmade jfksjs). The claws I then primed and painted in trillion coats because I wasn't satisfied with the colour of the spray paint. The fangs I moulded to my own teeth and then stained with tea to match the colour of my teeth :)c

As for makeup, I used Mehron Paradise water activated paints. At first I wanted to try to save money and bought myself Snazaroo instead, which unfortunately turned out to be a waste. Snazaroo didn't hold on my face for longer than 2 hours, cracking and peeling awfully. Mehron on the other hand survived 11 hours of me smiling, talking, emoting and such and didn't even crease at the smile lines(I'm actually shocked about that). It obviously works like any other makeup which means your skin texture and wrinkles won't go anywhere but Mehron's elasticity pleasantly surprised me. It did obviously smear from sweat and saliva(if you're eating and licking your lips) but if you don't touch the skin it just dries again, self setting. But if it's dry it's fully smear-proof. Highly recommend!

And last but not least, I've decided against painting my hands as it was very risky that I will stain everything I touch at the smallest hint of sweat. So instead I got myself gloves-tights(? Not sure how they're called but it's made from the same fabric as tights) and painted them with normal acrylic paint(did you know you could dye fabric with acrylic paint? I personally didn't), then heat set with an iron and voilà, they're reusable, my hands are not stained after an exhausting day and I don't stain everything I touch. It worked wonderfully which honestly was a surprise as I was really sceptical that acrylic paint will somehow stay in place.

I think this whole thing took me minimum of 6 months with big-big breaks for my school and life in general. But I'm really proud! This project taught me so many new skills and I couldn't have been happier about learning new knowledge, even if it sucked to fail in the meantime.

Everyone at the con was really nice and gave me a large confidence boost even tho it was my first time and I had no idea what I was doing. Taking photos with other people was really awkward/new for me as I hate cameras so I really had no idea how to pose/behave in front of one. But that's okay I think. This whole experience definitely made me want to do this again, so I think that will come with experience. Thank you for reading this far, hope you enjoyed this little summary :)

[nhyhu]

@hot-scarian-summer-2024 - Day 4

The Countless Stars in Heaven's Field - Wishing on a Shooting Star - In Orbit

a kiss in the sky

[aquacomet]

The 2024 DCA Reveal-versary magma collab has been wrapped up and here are the final results! ☀️🎉🎂🌙

A super big thank you to all the amazing artists that attended the collab to celebrate! We've broken way over 2023's record of attendees with a overall number of 59+ artists! It really is a lively celestial party in there, they're probably going to need more cake!

An additional thank you to all who stopped by, shared the event, expressed their interest and to the Daycare Friend Pick Up mods for also allowing this in their discord server!

(Due to being over the tumblr tag limit for the full credit list, a reblog will be added onto this with the second section of credits!)

⭐Here's the list of all the artists that participated!⭐

@aquacomet - @crystalmagpie447 - @pure-plum

@thatmooncake - @flinxypie - @eggcromancer

@nexerist - @crabsnpersimmons - @zamjd

@darlingdeer21 - @agent-darkfest - @piowasthere

@nighternex - @gyxtar0luvs - @sulfadimethoxine

@pluck-heartstrings - @starshinenoa - @enduu115

@tvboxi - @tinkpumpkin - @marshmallowcat666

@luckyyyduckyyy - @m-mints - @sunshinehare

@ping-ski - @lil-artist-blog-fandoms-ocs - @sipnoot

@synthrobeat - @galaxysugarr - @alynwrench

(I took care to note down everyone who participated and added their credits, but if I missed someone let me know what you made and I'll add you to the list!)

[merlions]

I hope all new fiber artists know that the "slightly misshapen" object they made that they're stressed about not looking good:

1. Happens to every fiber artist always, you're too zoomed in to its every detail because you're the one who made it and most people would think it looks normal, or at least much less misshapen than you do, stand 20ft away from it and look at it and then see how you feel (true about all art tbh)

2. Gets better and more uniform each time you do anything

and the *very most important*:

3. Can be made Significantly Less Misshapen by just grabbing the fabric and stretching it in a few directions

I keep helping new fiber artists who are like "but my thing looks so bad :(((" by like, taking their object and stretching it sideways and horizontal, and handing it back, and they're like "????? Magic?????" bc it looks perfect.

Trust the process. Trust the stretchy process