#honestly these designs and the other ones on your artfight are really cool

[hellothepixel]

I drew @rukafais Olvir and Khimaire for artfight! A bit of friendly fire never hurt anyone.

[artfightdramaconfessions]

honestly this is probably the best start to artfight I've had! I've felt super creatively productive and motivated, and the most attacks I've ever received this early into the fight (yes most of 'em are revenges, but they're still all so lovely!!)

i revenged this one kid who is participating for her first time, and turns out i was the first attack she's ever gotten! she was so excited, she and her partner left multiple super excited all-caps comments on it and it just warms my heart to know i made someone's day like that

also on one revenge i got, the person was leaving some really nice comments about the design they attacked, and how lovely they thought the attack i drew for 'em was, and was the first time someone's shown interest in doing a revenge chain with me cause "hey this other oc design of yours is rlly cool too so imma draw 'em whether you chain or not >:3"

i was worried about artfight starting to go downhill for me 'cause i have less free time for it then i used to, but this is already shaping up to be my best one to date and i am having a great time

.

[ollyou]

The people on artfight are so nice it honestly confuses me sometimes (but like, in a good way?)

(Warning that some of this might be a little sad/pitiful/negative! But the main idea of it is positive!)

AF users will be like “I love your designs so much!!!!!” or “Your art style is so cool!” and it’s like… oh my god… thank you so much…?!?!? I haven’t been familiar with being complimented ever since I had switched to Instagram/Twitter from Scratch (yes, the programming site) and it’s something I’ve always wanted so it’s INCREDIBLY euphoria-inducing when people even bother to compliment anything about me in the first place.

Not to mention when I first made my tumblr account, I was almost instantly hit with strange anons stalking me and insulting me for no good reason. It didn’t get me down, but it got me really pushing myself to improve, not just because of the anons, but because I agreed with some of the things they said (the main thing being that my designs are basic/plain— I have always thought this and expressed this for years). Seeing someone else say what I was thinking motivated me to improve.

But being on Artfight again, uploading my same designs as always after fearing I wouldn’t have enough time to come up with a proper unique design, I was instead hit with all those compliments I mentioned at the start. People told me they loved my design: mainly talking about my Olly humanization here! I’ve gotten so many people who adore him and my other designs and actually… want to draw him?! I’ve seen some super talented artists I followed on there straight up tell me they’ve bookmarked one or more of my characters, and it’s been completely insane to me. I’ve spent so much time constantly humbling myself if not straight up putting myself down, that I never thought people on or above my level in art could ACTUALLY enjoy my character designs without any prodding for them to do so.

And it feels really, really great to be appreciated like that.

So I’m super grateful Artfight exists. It’s not just about “free” art, but bringing others up, being kind, and being free to express yourself in a wholesome and friendly environment. I hope I’ll enjoy the event itself as much as I’ve enjoyed the month leading up to it. <3

[reallypheelingit]

hey pheel!! if you could choose 3 of your ocs to be your all time faves, which ones would they be? :>

hi!! omggg..hardest ask of my life dsfasdf spent way too long figuring this out and changing my mind a few times but i think i got three i can go with! might not be picks people would expect either haha,, I went for characters that I've taken through multiple universes which eliminated almost my whole flight rising lair for example sadfds

this will get long so i'm gonna put this under a cut!

so let's start with... number 1! the one who honestly the easiest choice by far, even if she was appeared on this blog woefully few times. but before 2016, she was without a doubt my most longlasting and important oc so here is.........

Amanda! Of course it'd be an Arcanine OC hahah. She was definitely a top contender immediately because not only is she one of my oldest OCs (I made her around when I was 10), she's endured throughout my life and holds the honor of probably being in the most different AUs of any of my ocs - I didn't draw all her versions here but there are at least 3 others haha.

In her original form, she's a human girl who secretly is also an Arcanine, and she has three sisters who are other Pokemon. She tends to be kind of a moody know-it-all, a bit bitter and angry, but deep down is passionate and caring. And also she is a big dork who loves The Sims and 80s music hahaha <3 she's not a self-insert but I definitely have projected some of my biggest interests onto her, while also making her pretentious as hell about them. And I love her for it.

I sadly didn't feel like trying to color any of the drawings for this, but it's important to note in all three forms here, she has a lime green 80s hair scrunchie. The scrunchie first appeared when I made her Hunger Games AU Growlithe form and I retroactively gave it to her human version - before that she just had a mullet which I think is also worth mentioning omg. Her Arcanine/Growlithe forms have buzz cuts, big ears, and a snaggletooth! And W's on her front legs because her last name was originally Walkup, but is different depending on the AU (ex. In a homestuck AU, her name is Sara Duran because 80s music safsd)

i really need to make some better refs for her. she deserves to be on my artfight i think hahah..

and now for number 2! I decided to go with...

Anattawam! One of my original 2015 dragons, and while I love all 6 of them, Anattawam is definitely my favorite design-wise, and she's fun personality-wise too I think. She's the unofficial leader of the bunch, stoic, good at planning, and able to keep a cool head. But she's also secretly a soft dork who loves soft things like her fuzzy turtleneck sweater C:

In terms of design, I think she is a quite distinct looking, with her serpentine bipedal form, and she's also really fun to draw! She took light inspiration from Quetzalcoatl (which also reflected in her human design being Nahuatl and her gryphon design being a quetzal/jaguar hybrid!). She also bore a slight resembled to the flight rising breed Coatls (which..given what I said makes sense haha) so I took on a long breeding project to bring her into my flight rising lair where she's a diplomat! Her design also is of note because she's very reminiscent of some bipedal dragons OCs I made when I was in middle school which was a fun throwback for me. so technically she has a longer history than my other dragons!

She only exists in two AUs (her gryphon/human forms are the same universe as her original dragon form) which is small compared to the other choices and other contenders (especially since she isn't even prominent in the flight rising one), but considering my original dragons are what got my to start my art blog, I think it's more than fair to let her slip through. one of my dragons deserved to be here at least ahaha. and I do adore her so much! in fact i'm literally commissioning a plushie version of her right now safsd (and she would secretly love it because her aforementioned affinity for soft things <3)

and ok lastly, for number 3, which i struggled the most picking and still am thinking of so many others i could have picked but dsfasd I ended up going with...

Avastly! While I made Amanda an Arcanine because Arcanine was one of my favorite Pokemon, Gliscor became one of my favorite Pokemon because of Avastly haha. I think that's something worth noting

Avastly's a fun Gliscor who started as the main Pokemon of my flying-type elite 4 member Avery! (before Pokemon took the name Avery from me. and didn't even use it for a flying trainer :/ ) She's very strong and knows it, and has a highly competitive spirit, thinking of pretty much everyone as a potential rival. Mostly she just comes across as an overly judgmental bully and she struggles with solid friendships as a result, but she thrives when she finds others who are also competitive and fun and willing to put up with her haha.

She played a villain (starring with antihero Amanda!) for my Hunger Games verse in her Gligar form, which helped give me more appreciation to that Pokemon too since I largely overlooked it in favor of Gliscor for awhile haha. i also doodled her gijinka version since i used to do high school gijinka aus back when I was in high school myself dsfdsf i always liked her design with her silly cape/mini skirt combo and she has big bright orange hipster glasses to match her gliscor eyes. said glasses also appear in her punky fae form! i haven't done much with her in flight rising but i like having her there c:

so that's my top 3! all their names starting with A was a funny coincidence dsfadsf

for fun here are some runner ups! using some old card things i made awhile ago because i dont feel like making any more new art tonight dsffg

First we have Eloise! She was an incredible solid contender and honestly part of me still really wants to go with her but..I eliminated her for being too similar to Amanda and Attawam in demeanor sdfsda i guess i have a type,, notably Eloise's main goal has always been to meet kyurem so of course she's an important character haha. she's shown up in a few different aus and has occupied my head a lot in general c:

then there's Jessamine! a fun poison type gym leader! she was my initial backup after I eliminated Eloise since's she similarly important and stands out for actually being a bubbly protagonist (unlike the three i did pick fdsf) but she failed my multiple-AU criteria and thus felt wrong. she's only ever been in my primary pokemon universe, too pure to throw into my high school career spanning hunger games au fdsfg and thus never gaining a pokemon form i could use in subsequent pokemon-only aus haha,, her biggest downfall... she did end up in my flight rising lair though! ....i've done nothing with her there.

and of course i have to mention Kronch..definitely a super strong contender! they have multiple AUs which is impressive for an oc of mine who only was made in 2017 but they still just feel slightly too new compared to my other options and thus just didn't make the cut :( plus they're just so known and iconic in my tumblr-blogging era that i thought lesser known picks would be fun to show off asfsd

thank you for the ask!! i hope you enjoyed this absurdly long asnwer i spent hours writing up sdfsdfsdggh

[year2000electronics]

heyoo im doing artfight for the first time this year, have any advice lol

honestly wasnt quite sure what it even was until earlier this month

-🧃

sure! this is only my second year but i got a general low down of how it works

- first things first, HAVE FUN! artfight shouldn’t be a chore and if you find it is you gotta take a step back. no part of participation is mandatory so even if someone’s demanding you revenge them you literally... do not have to. like, the aim of the game is just to attack people and revenge isn’t guaranteed so if you don’t wanna revenge someone then just do not!

- i personally recommend seeing if any friends are participating bc drawing their characters and getting over that initial heebie jeebies of giving people art is good practice

- how i generally found people to attack last year was just going on the browse character page until i saw a design i loved! or even a cool art style id explore and then i’d find some other cool characters on their profile! overall just going for it even though you might not know a person personally lets you draw all sorts of new characters you might have never had before

- don’t WORRY about art ability. i got art from what i was pretty sure was like a 12 year old with ms paint jpeg fill lines and i loved it so much. one of my favourite defenses from that year. the point is free art IS free art no matter the ability and even if you think someone might be out of your league i’m sure they’ll love the attack anyways

- don’t burn out! art fight lasts for the entire month so judge your own stamina- i think i knocked out like 40 attacks before i got busy and had to stop (this was just before july 10) which worked good enough for me but i found that if you feel like, say, you’d like to only do 40 attacks that year, you might be good by waiting bc a lot of artists will just stumble on your page randomly as the month goes on and it’ll go from you seeking out attacks to attacks seeking out you

- don’t get discouraged if nobody attacks you the first few days! it doesn’t mean nobody is interested, sometimes it just takes a while

- this is just a personal tip but i really like attacking people who are beginners bc like, that might make their whole WEEK yk? i know if i had fanart drawn for me 10 years ago i’d totally flip... it’s just a nice thing to do imo

[daaziscoolbesties]

i yearn for one(1) thing only, and that is to have a nice, simplistic, cartoonish artstyle. an artstyle that doesnt rely on anatomy, but the "movement" of the drawing, if you get what i mean.

i dont want realistic proportions and traditional colors and basic poses and gradient shading, i want funky lil dudes in funky poses with funky styles littering my sketchbook :( but alas i havent figured out how to develop that kind of style yet, my brain wants anatomy to look nice but also i dont want to draw eyes. i dont want to take time out of my day to learn how to draw lips i want to draw a line that extends past the characters face. i dont want all my characters to have pointy chins with curved cheeks i want their heads to be round and friend-like or full of sharp edges depending on their personalities and styles. i want to give them all not-quite human ears, blob feet, simple faces, but at the same time i want enough detail to convey the story or emotion im trying to tell.

ive spent so much time recently agonizing over how to use 3d model websites, using real-life references and tracing over them for practice, color-picking from real images to try and do realism and failing miserably, but you know whats easier than that? funky little dudes. little dudes who do not care if their legs are too long or their hair is too bouncy. i dont want my characters to look human.

ive spent enough time on the artfight website to realize that most people who classify their characters as "human" have the most basic ass designs (no offense to people who like basic human designs its just not my thing) or its like dnd-medieval style outfits which i cant draw for the life of me (ive tried). again no offense to people who actively enjoy and draw characters like that. i just need my dudes to have that certain,,, off-ness to them. tails are cool. wings are swag (especially if they arent even like,, fully attached,, ), elf ears are so wonderful to me no matter how much theyre overused, horns are so much fun to draw, and colors!! i have no knowledge in the color theory department so this works great for me!! the only thing i really know is dont shade with black, other than that i just colorpick from references usually but i dont want to do that!! i want the colors to hurt people's eyes but in a satisfying way. like the character's design is so nice to look at that you dont mind your eyes hurting a bit. like how im enjoying writing this post even though its 2 am and the brightness on my computer wont go any lower.

and then another thing ive noticed from being on the artfight website is that a lot of people classify their characters that are anthro/have anthro features under humanoids/monsters. like i made a google form to find some people to attack and someone sent me in a character with some sort of animal (wolf? idk) arms and legs. like dude!! peak character design i love her. but me personally? i cant draw that shit, its so hard for me. i tried a while back and its just Not my thing. nothing against furries i just. cant. and i dont want to either.

and i got another submission that i accidentally deleted that was like full anthro/wolf-like like my comrade,,, i cannot draw animals what makes you think i can draw an animal who acts like a human lmao. i can do like. very basic tails, and also animal ears but i cant do the arms and legs and such i just dont know the anatomy, and i know i was talking about how i dont want to care about anatomy but i feel like for anthros you really do need to know at least basic animal anatomy so you know how the limbs look and shit and i dont have that knowledge and dont feel like gaining it.

and then there were some submissions that i absolutely adored. there was one that like, was vaguely human shaped but definitely was not a human. they had a dark-ish lavender colored skin and horns and tusks and like goat ears and a sorta fluffy tail with spikes on it and they had wings and such and they were such a pleasure to draw i love them. and they had a fairly simple outfit too, nothing too complicated. and then i also enjoy object head characters, theyre so neato to me. i got one of those and i really wish i had the motivation to work on it cause it looks so fun.

i want to make funky characters but id have nothing to do with them because the only book i ever tried writing (key word tried - never got past planning it out) had strictly human characters in it, and most of the books i read are humans/humans with powers in situations specific to them so id have no idea what lore to make with the dudes. assuming i have the motivation to make lore and backstory because honestly i just really enjoy character designing its super duper fun.

(side note a song about trucks doing the deed came on just now and its interrupted my flow, apologies).

i only have three actual characters right now. one is an original roleplay oc whos design is literally athletic shorts, an oversized long sleeved grey sweatshirt, long purple hair, and demon horns. the second one is my persona whos design some sorta medival knight outfit kinda thing? but not ugly it looks really cool (idk one of my friends designed it bc i won some contest from him but the drawing was on a super small scale so idrk the details,,,) with a plague doctor mask and crown, and shoulder length wavy brown hair, dyed bright pink at the end. and then my last one im not too comfortable using other places because theyre a character my friend is using in the story hes writing, and thats really the only place theyve been used. but theyre easily my favorite and im already writing a ton so ill talk about them too.

they're a sorta elf species thing from another planet, with pale green skin and pointed ears. they also have a tail, its like,, super thin, but with a feathery bit at the end. probably not the texture of a feather but i dont know how else to describe it. they have short, curly, almost-draco-malfoy-blonde hair that when it gets too long they can put in a man bun. their eyesight is kinda shitty so when they got to earth, they were exploring some supply closets around the airship. drop off area. thing. like airport but for rocketships and also fancier. yeah. they were exploring that area and found a nice big pair of round glasses with grey frames. and they also found a cowboy-style hat and a sharpie so they wrote their name on the underside of the brim of the hat and stole the hat and glasses (but left the sharpie in the supply closet).

yeah theyre my favorite, my absolute beloved, my child, so cool. i want more characters like them but with maybe a bit more snazzier designs. theyre super cool and all but they could have more pizzazz if they werent in a story where its too late to give them more pizzazz. i just want to be able to give my characters thigh-high boots with a bunch of buckles and fluffy hair with tons of accessories crammed in and abnormally large and long ears that can harbor many piercings and horns that can hold rings on them and special little details on their outfits like who knows what but i dont have any characters to do that too, so i have to make them from scratch, which is always hard especially when you have artblock.

and i also have like 17 characters i need to fully draw, line, and maybe color for artfight before august 1st. so i dont know. i have many things to do and plenty of time to do it but instead i spend my time halfway watching repetitive youtube videos that get boring or sleeping all damn day because i stay up too late doing things like this or i just do nothing at all and its tiring and frustrating but i also feel nothing about it like theres no consequence if i dont do it besides you know. not doing it, not gaining that experience, not making something i enjoy.

so i should do it but i dont for whatever reason, i think its called executive dysfunction but im not sure. this post started out very differently than it ended and i said somewhere up there that i was writing this at 2 am but now its almost 3. this is so many words why couldnt i have put this energy into something productive