#i did it in my inktober drawing too a while back !!

[ickmick]

was watching Grians week 4 runs when Tango made this excellent quip !! so i of course had to immediately pause the video and doodle him... its only natural !!

i liked doing the hair :3

also its just a silly little think i did in a little over 40 minutes so dont take it too seriously... i think ive forgotten a lot of details LOL

(we'll pretend I didn't forget to save the alt version)

[bad268]

Tackle (Justin Herbert X Parent! Reader)

Fandom: RPF/NFL

Requested: Day 20 of Writing Inktober prompts instead of drawing!

Warnings: none, inspired by this video

POV: Second Person (You/your)

W.C. 467

As always, my requests are OPEN

MASTERLIST // HITLIST

Writing Inktober 2024 Materlist

~~(^Pinterest)

There was a little tradition you started back when you first started dating Justin. At the end of every season, he would let you tackle him. It was always a lighthearted game that you guys did, and as time went on, it’s only grown in importance. What started as a fun game between two teenagers became a full event for the now-married couple and their kids.

You sat on the mat after you finished setting it up outside and grabbing some extra padding, so you could wrap Justin’s arm. The team would kill you if you made his already almost healed injury worse. It's not like it ever got too bad. The kids were 2, 6, and 8, and you never took it too seriously. 

You heard the back door open as Justin chased your boys outside while carrying your youngest daughter in his arms. Your boys ran toward the mat, straight into your open arms and pushing you to lay back and take them with you.

“I see you’ve been riling them up,” You joked as you side-eyed Justin, who set your daughter next to you. “There’s extra padding over there for your hand.”

“Wow so thoughtful before you all attack me,” Justin teased as he started wrapping his hand carefully.

“Can I try something, daddy?” Your 8 year old son asked, climbing off of you and over to Justin. He nodded at the child for him to continue, “Can I do WWE?”

“Aren’t you a little short for that, lil man?” Justin chuckled, looking over at you to see your wide eyes. You did not want your baby doing something like that, but you also knew Justin would never let any of your kids get hurt. “How would you do it?”

“Use a chair,” Your 8 year old replied in a duh tone. “I’m not that short. I just need a little help sometimes. You’re just tall.”

That made you and Justin laugh because that was almost verbatim what you used to say to him in high school. Even back then, he was still tall as heck, and it was like a little trip down memory lane.

“I think just for that, he should be allowed to,” You said as you wiped the tears from your eyes and went to get one of your lawn chairs. You set it in front of the mat and grabbed your other two children out of the way. “You ready to start us off?”

Your son just smirked and climbed on the chair and didn’t waste a second after Justin walked up to the mat to wrap his arms around Justin’s neck and jump off.

“Smackdown!” You and your second son shouted as Justin fell back in an overexaggerated manner. Your daughter looked around, confused, before echoing the statement.

~~~~~

© BAD268 2024. DO NOT REPOST WITHOUT PERMISSION.

[palenutbasement]

(all scenes are depicted as platonic)

So every Inktober I try to do something more challenging, and this year I thought I would make a short comic/fanfic. I think I got the idea for this one a year ago but I was already wrapped up with another Inktober. Eventually I solidified the idea by making my own prompt list some time ago.

This comic is split into three parts with 10 days focusing on each of them, 30 in total, everything is compiled here. I wanted to post them after October in case I wanted to change anything.

This first part takes place in the summit.

The comic is basically all improvised, that means no planning for the composition, plot, or sketching any drawings. The most planning I did was write a few scripts ahead of time within the month to save me some time but most of them would be changed last minute anyways.

As for the plot, I won't go too deep into it because I don't want to talk too much, so you'll just find commentary on the making of the comic and stuff.

This first part is a little gimmick-y compared to the next two, with new elements appearing almost every day. It’s because I relied a lot on the prompts (dog, milk, etc.) to keep things happening, eventually I move further away from them.

What is surprising to me is how much the art changes as the days go by especially within the span of one month. I did refine a few things to keep it more consistent but this is nearly indistinguishable from the original drawings.

I should also mention that my favourite aspect of this project was adding references to the game and subtle details (if you can find it all, awesome!!) This may have been done quickly but I like to have those things and put at least a bit of effort into the dialogue.

Part 2

Eventually I figured that drawing the same setting for 30 days straight would drive me insane, hence why this comic is split like it is. I’m glad I did because it makes the story a little more interesting, seeing the characters have different attitudes in different places and whatnot.

This one takes place in the cave directly after pt 1. Admittedly I do better drawing outdoor settings, it's what I'm used to, but the cave wasn't so bad to figure out.

I remember these two days I was streaming drawing the comic to my friends, so I kinda zoned out while we were talking lol

One of the prompts was about napping, so I made Dwarf sleep. I believe I was tired that day too and it was therapeutic to draw and include that. Also they look cute, I think.

18 & 19 have some of my favourite drawings in the comic. The campfire lighting is what we'd get if I had a bit more energy each day, and I like the perspective in the first panel of 19.

I find this last section interesting, because of all the 30 days, it’s the only one in Dwarf’s POV. I felt like it was fitting to do something like that at the time.

Part 3

Since we were approaching Halloween, I wanted to have a special part for it. It’s related to the other two parts but it takes place some time after. I’m really sorry it’s out of season, if it were up to me I would have had this post out earlier (thank my midterms for the delay)

Out of all the other parts this one is my favourite. Maybe because it’s more recent I’m inclined to think that way but it has some of my fave moments that I've written here.

Other than that I don't have much commentary for this part. More thoughts at the end!

I was caught up everyday atp, but I didn’t have much spare time to prepare for the ending (I wrote it the morning of that day). I think this is a decent conclusion though.

I intend on coming back to this story, maybe next year to make a continuation but we'll see what happens. There are definitely things that I want to come back to someday.

Thank you for making it this far btw. It's been an eventful month for me beyond this (Untitled) comic, but there wasn't a single aspect of this that I didn't enjoy doing. It's a silly project and I care about it.

Also, I'm not going to neglect the 31st of October! That day will get an illustration, where I will pick my favourite panel and redraw it. I want to take my time with this one so it's not out yet, but hopefully I can finish by Christmas.

[chrispy-chimkin]

It's a bit sudden and I'm probably starting pretty late with no prep, but I decided I really wanted to try inktober this year. I couldn't find a Ninjago related one, so I made my own!!

The last time I did inktober was when I did LINKTOBER back in 2020. I attempted in 2021 and only got maybe one or two drawings made for that, for whatever reasons at the time thay I didn't commit. I had done it for four years prior starting in 2017, and while my traditional art is nowhere near the level of practice as my digital art, I enjoyed it. So I'm gonna try again!

If you would like to get started now, or use a few of these prompts, feel free! I would love to see the work and you're welcome to DM me too! Happy October everyone! 🎃

[theleatherdragon]

Sorry for the ramblin

Welp, I guess it's time for another dumb journal from me. I've been really dealing with a lot of things and changes these last couple years and I think I'm finally starting to realize my life is shifting.

It's hard to like, I dunno, but when you've been online for 20 years it's kind of wild. For me, I guess it felt like I had to keep doing the same things and the same ideas and be the same person, but that's impossible.

My brain cannot words right now lmao

Anyhoot, I guess what I'm trying to say is that I really need to just change and not be scared to change. The things I did 10 years ago, I don't have to keep forcing myself to do them just to appease others. I've let my art suffer so much trying to do what I think people want me to do between raffles and fanart and all sorts of things, challenges, etc.

This past month has been the worst month of my entire life, I literally thought I was gonna die a couple times because of how my body reacted to medicines and stuff. Still don't know what's wrong with me, thyroid stuff, but I think it really kick started my mind into looking back at things.

Like, why did I miss out on so many things because I tried to do projects I had no time for? Then, when I didn't do them in the time I wanted, I guilt tripped myself over and over and put on even more new projects in hopes that I'd do those instead.

I am rambling lmao I don't even care though. I guess I just want to get it all out there, to whoever, why you're reading this who knows. Life is funny that way, ain't it?

But yeah, I just need to start actually letting go of things and move on to new things. I'm tired of trying to pretend I'm into the Skylanders fandom this much. Like, I love the charaters and I love the memories, but this current state of the fandom is so toxic and it really shows. I don't want to be so involved anymore. I'm tired of running my AskSkylandersCynder blog, if you can even call it running anymore. I made that thing 10 years ago and the last 4 years I just don't have any interest, even though I force myself to. It really was the best thing I did at that time but I just need to let it be.

All those challenges and Inktobers and other things, I tried to force myself to do those for other people, not for myself. I just need to stop doing this man, I miss just drawing just because. I guess from the constant moving around in life and being around terrible people irl made me want to hold on to the ideas that I'm helping others online with my art when it probably didn't even do anything.

I'm just tired. And I'm done being tired, I dunno what this second wind is that I got this month but I'm not gonna lose it this time.

I'm still into all my fandoms and stuff of course, and I'm still going to make art for other people. Don't even get my started on Art Fight lmao you better believe I'm aiming for 100 pictures this year. But I'm done forcing myself to feel like I HAVE to do these things. No more to do lists, no more holding onto old projects, no more trying to keep up with things that should have just ended by now.

I just wanna live my life man, I just wanna draw. I never cared about the numbers, hell I've had pageviews and stats adblocked for years now, I really don't care about those. What I care about is making people happy by drawing their characters and drawing their favorite characters. I don't want to be famous, I don't wanna be tied down, I just wanna draw. And I wanna see your art too. I love all the characters and concepts and just ugh I love it, I don't know why.

I wanna be what I wanna be.

I'm definitely done rambling now. Usually I feel bad about it but I just don't care anymore. I'm gonna go work on art now lmao I hope you guys are all doing awesome, and maybe you can figure out life too. Edit: I had some more thinking after posting this while cleaning the house. I also realized that this mindset I put on myself is what made me get so distant from people too. I got too overwhelmed at trying to keep up with so many things that it made me essentially start time travelling where I didn't even consider things existed until they were in front of my face. I've lost touch with so many people out of shame between not remembering and going "tomorrow, for sure." I want to change that too. I shouldn't have let a few bad people ruin everything for me. I got scared of commenting on art because of a few people that didn't deserve my time, lashing out at me for not saying what they wanted to hear. I also got scared of just not fitting in. I have so many compliments and things I wanted to tell people for years but I was just too scared to and I hate that. I'm going to start being more social again with that. I feel like that made me look stuck up or something, I dunno. I'm just so afraid of hurting people about anything when in reality I bet it doesn't even bother them at all. Like how messed up did I have to become that me giving someone a compliment terrifies me into thinking I might ruin their day lmao help

[electromignion]

Bridgewater “inktober” 4: Cards 🃏

Here’s our favourite trio aka Jeremy, Vipin and Olivia playing a game of Uno together 🫶 It was very different from my very first idea for the prompt but when I was unable to do it (real skill issues for my first idea) I thought why not them playing some games?? And I thought Uno was the best thing because it’s fun, and also I let you imagine who the person Olivia gives a +4 is, it could be yourself or Anne or someone else who knows!

But it goes well with Jeremy, Vip and Liv doing game nights in my headcanons or Jeremy’s game evenings at uni which he does for his students (and he wouldn’t see any reason to not invite Liv).

And also new hc unlocked while drawing; I’m now convinced that it was Anne who did the little bracelets for everybody 🥹💜

This took me way too long to do omg about 10hours overall in 3 days, I did Vipin’s shirt pattern myself and that took me 30min on its own and same for the Uno cards 😭

And for Olivia I got inspired by the design I drew for her a while back!! And I thought it would be really cool to put it in colours!

And for Vipin it’s a copy of a shirt I had found a while back as I was looking for some Jeremy outfit stuff and when I saw it I just thought I HAVE TO DO VIPIN IN IT. And here you go my full brainrot as always jdjdjdjd

And just so you know, I will be very late on the other days for my prompts because I was on uni holidays for a week, and I have to go back to reality in two days and I will have less time for all this 💔 (and my creativity usually goes away but I will try my best to keep on going as I can! Because I want to draw them and I love them A LOT, I know it’s surprising/j)

And once again thanks to @rockinglibra for the prompt list 🫶💜

[cerise-grenadine]

Hi everyone,

i’ve finally found my way back to tumblr. for those of you i talked to every now and then, i’m so sorry i left for so long. i didn’t mean to — it’s an awful awful habit of mine and then after a while of being away i just felt so bad for having left messages unanswered and not knowing how to apologise about that and there comes a point where it’s just easier to avoid the website entirely. and a couple weeks pass, then three, four, and there’s real life stuff happening too and then it’s been six months (stuff that was posted was just on queue all this time).

there’s an art supply thing that i’ve wanted for a long time but i’m fully aware it’s a caprice and a luxury because i don’t nearly draw often enough to justify buying this. so i told myself Ok if i commit to an entire Inktober this year, i’ll ask for it as a Christmas gift. and i thought it’d be the perfect time to come back to tumblr too, because the official list wasn’t very interesting, but the snapetober list sounded fun. and i just missed the whole snapedom, and tumblr as a whole, the cosy pictures and everything.

and i did it! for the 1st time, even if it was just an ugly sketch, i drew every day. and every day i told myself Ok i’ll post on tumblr tomorrow i swear, and then a week passed and i was anxious about coming back, and another week, and now it’s the 30th and i feel half like i’m really the worst, and half like Ok that’s it i’m finally doing it.

anyway that’s a long post to say i’m sorry i was unexpectedly gone for so long and i left messages unanswered with no explanation, especially for those of you who struggle with mental health too. i have no excuse for that (except i’ve become super anxious about socialising/communicating this year). i’ll try to answer messages in the following weeks. not that it changes much, but i did think of you often.

love to you all, can’t wait to see all your snapetober contributions and the million posts i’ve missed 💗

[thegoldenshi-shi]

Hello Shi-Shi! It’s already been two months already and I am dumbfounded at how fast time goes, I swear it was just the start of June yesterday haha. I hope you are doing well!

Not much has happened since I last spoke unfortunately. I had Softball provincials last weekend so that’s exciting! We didn’t win or anything, but we played good and I’m kinda sad it ended so soon. Where I am, we’ve had a lot of rain so lots of my games were cancelled this year, unfortunately.

I’m still learning to driving! I’ve gotten better, definitely, but I still need a bit of guidance and help sometimes, especially when driving through the city. I really enjoy driving; it’s unfortunate that schools ended so now I don’t get to drive to school every morning and drive back, but I love the times that I do get to drive.

I’ve seen your recent artworks and I absolutely love them! I’m sure you’ve seen me pop up every now and then to like your posts. The Bluestreak one, with its beautiful colours and all that, is perhaps my favourite (I may be slightly biased as Bluestreak is one of my favourite TF characters,,) but all the others are wonderful too! Especially the Ratchet one haha, he looks so confused or traumatized. I also love the two grumpy children and the happy baby bug, they are all so beautiful ^^.

And the Mermay drawing of Leona! That one is so gorgeous, he looks so cheeky and the lighting is so well done! All the details, it’s just *chefs kiss*. I didn’t make anything for Mermay this year unfortunately (or maybe I did,, I’m not sure anymore, I’ve been on a drawing roll with a lot of drawings, I’m making a humanformers Jazz/Prowl right now!)

I think after all this text, that’s it haha. Don’t want to make this a whole essay, after all. I hope you have a good day/night, Shi-Shi!

-Meister/Vexian?

Hi there Meister! It's nice to see you again! I saw your message in my inbox and gave a little hop. Time really does fly doesn't it?

I'm sorry to hear that you were rained out for so much of your season. That being said, I think that so long as you had a good time with the games you played, it's a good season.

I didn't drive myself to school until college, so I had a different learning curve than yours. I also didn't enjoy driving just because it takes a while to get from Point A to Point B where I live, but I can say that learning to drive is definitely a slow process. If you like doing it, you'll be driving well and comfortably quickly (a lot faster than I did hehe).

I'm very happy you liked my latest pieces. I've been stuck in an extended rut and have had to fight tooth-and-nail for every picture I draw. But returning to comfort characters (I too have a soft spot for Bluestreak) and putting some of my more ambitious projects on hold has helped a little. Mermay is the only art-event-thingie I actually try to put something out for, and as I said on the Leona picture, I BARELY squeaked him in. Getting art ready for a prompt like Mermay or Inktober for example, can be a challenge so more often than not I'm in the same boat of "didn't make anything for it this year" Kind of like how I always say "I'll make it to the art-fight next time" and never do lol

I'm glad to hear from you and happy that you're doing well Meister, or would you rather I use Vexian now? I wish you good luck on your art pieces and that drawing roll will continue~ Have a wonderful day/night

[mysticsparklewings]

Mystic's Museletter - Long Time, No Type!

This blog entry was originally posted to Ko-fi and DeviantArt and may also be read in full in either of those places.

Hey there Sparklers; It's been a while, hasn't it? 😅

So I suppose I should start with an apology, because I am sincerely sorry that it's been almost a year now since I was doing my regular "Monthly Museletter/Round-Up" Posts [on dA & Ko-fi, doing them here on Tumblr is entirely new], and it's also been a few months now since I was posting art...really at all, let alone regularly.

And because of that, if it wasn't already obvious, this isn't even going to be quite like my former "regular" long-form posts. It's going to be long, which itself isn't unusual, but because of how much there is to cover, I'm going to try and divide this all up into mostly self-contained sections, and have a list of those sections (marked by headers of the same title) beneath this paragraph so you can jump/scroll around and read "the interesting bits" at your leisure:

Overview of Where I've Been

DeviantArt's Changes

Other Things I've Been Doing - Part 1: Ohuhu Again! - Part 2: Social Sites & Dolls - Part 3: Everything Else

Peeks At Actual Art Things I've Done

Wrap Up

Overview of Where I've Been

So what happened? Well, the Monthly blog posts were just a victim of my executive dysfunction—I got in my head about how long they usually take to put together and when I'd miss one or put it off too long, naturally that would mean the next one would take even longer to catch up and it just spiraled downward from there.

Clearly, if I want to continue with those going forward, I need to make some changes to how they work so I can actually do them. At the moment though I don't have any concrete plans, but I have some general ideas that relate more to the next section.

Okay, but what about Artwork? I was on a pretty good roll there, especially with Winx Art, and then...Crickets.

This one I can't even fully explain myself. At first, I know I was largely bogged down by the fact that I just kept missing self-imposed deadlines to have certain pieces finished by, and my motivation to post art was majorly crippled by some Changes DeviantArt Made, but I feel like those two reasons alone don't cover everything.

My personal life has also been a bit of a roller coaster these past few months, but that is somewhat "normal" for me, so I don't feel right blaming it on that, either.

My best guess is those things combined with my usual Post-Inktober Funk™ and made a kind of "Seasonal Burnout," sort of like Seasonal Depression (as is fairly common for a lot of people to experience around the holidays and winter months). I've had plenty of creative ideas and was even able to do some other creative things I'll touch on more in a bit, but the motivation to actually draw was just...not there.

The other reason I chalk this up as "Seasonal" is because as the weather has finally, slowly started to warm up, I have noticed some internal changes with myself...Nothing major has happened yet, but I feel more squarely pointed back in a "Drawing Direction," if that makes any sense.

I think the last piece of the puzzle to get me at least sort of back on track is related to those Changes I mentioned DeviantArt made. So let's talk a bit about that...

DeviantArt's Changes

Towards the end of October—Naturally, my busiest month!—All of a sudden, I could no longer edit Deviation descriptions directly in Sta.sh, which I'm sure some of you Sparklers are familiar with.

This matters because I found writing & editing descriptions in Sta.sh much more convenient than typing them directly on the Submission Page. Mostly for formatting reasons, but also as a hangover from many years ago when I lost a a few descriptions that were written only on the Submission Page, which didn't (doesn't?) auto-save consistently like Sta.sh did.

So. That wasn't good, but I figured out that I could still edit existing Text documents that I had in Sta.sh, so I took to writing the descriptions in an old one of those and would copy & paste it into the final Art description later. But eventually, that method stopped working too. (I think around mid-November, but I'm not 100% sure.)

As of right now, you cannot edit any text of any kind in Sta.sh anymore. You either handle it directly (on the Submission Page for Artwork, or using dA's on-site text editor for written work), or you don't bother.

Now, I'll wholeheartedly agree that on paper this doesn't sound like a big deal. And it really probably shouldn't be. But nevertheless, to cut an overly long explanation short: It is/was for me. It felt like one of the last few threads tying me here, to DeviantArt, snapped.

Again, to cut an overly long explanation short, emotionally, that really hurt. I have more or less been mourning the loss of the DeviantArt I first joined back in 2011 as a result. 😞

And to cut one more explanation short: I've been thinking for a while now that it might be in my best interest to start up a more proper dedicated blog for my long art descriptions, and this blow to the way I write said descriptions on dA really solidifies that. I still have to figure out exactly where said blog will be—possibly here on Tumblr* which is why I'm posting this here now—but I have pretty much made up my mind that it does need to exist, one way or another.

(*I'd stick it over on Ko-fi, but as it currently stands Ko-fi doesn't have great organization or archive functions for older blog posts; If it's not recent it's difficult to find, and that just won't work with the blog-ish flow I know I'd need, among other small issues with Ko-fi's formatting.)

With all that said...I don't really want to say there's still a bit of light at the end of the tunnel for dA because that doesn't really feel accurate, but that's the closest expression I have.

Very recently, DeviantArt announced a new overhaul coming to the Submission Page, and while I have extremely mixed feelings about it (because I strongly suspect this is exactly why Sta.sh has been crippled)...I don't hate it. There are things I like about it, I'm mainly just bitter and fearful about Sta.sh's future.

But I also haven't fully put this "Studio" thing to the test yet—That requires actually submitting art. So, perhaps there is yet more hope than I think...

Other Things I've Been Doing

To that end, you're probably wondering about those "other creative things" I've been able to do I mentioned earlier, and also if there is any "proper" artwork to show for these past couple of months.

I'll go ahead and spoil that yes, even though there isn't much of it, I do have some "proper" artwork things I can show you, but I think (as this section title implies) it'll be better to address those other creative things I've been doing first.

Part 1: Ohuhu Again!

Probably the most interesting to you Sparklers will be the revelation that I'm in very early stages of working on a kind of "Buying Guide" for the Ohuhu Honolulu Markers.

I'm sure some of you Sparklers are familiar with my Ohuhu Chart and the unofficial "ongoing saga" of keeping that thing up-to-date. Some newer Sparkles may also have originally heard of the chart and/or me from the Ohuhu SubReddit, because I've spent quite a bit of time over there helping people figure out the best way to get all 363 of the Honolulu colors...since unfortunately, Ohuhu has made that process kind of confusing. 😅

Very similar to my chart sorting out confusion over how many colors there are in the first place, I want to make some kind of fixed resource I can point people to that would hopefully help clear up a lot of that said confusion.

I don't want to get to specific on the details of the "final" guide at this point since it is so early; Rather I want to just tell you Sparklers the actual work I've been doing to make it happen, and that all boils down primarily to three things:

Collecting and Organizing some text-based information (mostly in the form of Spreadsheets), and I was already doing a fair bit of this before I decided to even attempt making a Buying Guide

Fixing up my marker storage. I keep my Honolulus in their original bags for space-related reasons, but I've been meaning to make dividers for the bags to make everything more stable, and Spare-Cartoonist6276's Honeycomb method was the final push to do that I needed to actually do it. The only real downside has been that it just takes a while to construct each honeycomb section (and I'm not even bothering with the pretty color-matching cardstock). Fortunately, at time of writing I only have 2 sections left to go out of the original 11!

Swatching & Attempting to sort every color in a "Proper" Color Order. This is also something I've been meaning to try anyway and how useful it would be became pretty undeniable as I started thinking about how this Buying Guide is going to work. I'm in Stage 1 for this process—As I finish a honeycomb section, I swatch the markers in that section, so when the honeycombs are done, the swatches for colors I actually own will also be done. This is also different from my usual swatching because I made very basic little cards with holes punched in them so hopefully comparing colors and physically arranging them is as easy as possible. This swatching has been a long time coming though and is also taking a little bit longer because...I don't actually own every Honolulu color! I'm missing about 35, all of which belong to the "Pesky 43" that only come in certain sets. And with other expenses and trying to save up for a new website (yep, that Ko‑fi Goal is still active, folks!), I just haven't been able to justify dropping $130+ on yet more markers to fix that problem.

However, after some poking around and discussion in the wider Ohuhu Community, a Reddit User by the name of JayZedHorse very kindly reached out and offered to send me physical swatches of the missing colors! They are en route to me as I type!

There are still many small ways in which this isn't a completely perfect solution, but it is still a very solid step in the right direction and I am eagerly counting down the days until I have those swatches in hand!

So at the moment I have the small goal of being finished with the Honeycombs and my own swatches before the swatches JayZed sent me arrive; That way I should be able to jump pretty straight into the comparisons and start on color arrangement. But, fortunately, even if I can't be finished with the honeycombs by then, it won't be the end of the world. Both things will get done either way, it'll just take a little longer.

But that is about all I have to say about this Buying Guide that I think you Sparklers would be interested in, for now, so on to the next subject...

Part 2: Social Sites & Dolls

I'll start by saying there are two Social Media sites I've been semi-active on and so people that either follow me in those places or frequent the same communities I do will probably already have a few ideas of the other ways I've been flexing my creative muscles lately. [...And Members of the Sparklers' Club Discord Server will also have seen a fair bit of the same posted directly in there!]

As I sort of mentioned with the Ohuhu section above, I've been spending quite a bit of time on Reddit. It's not my favorite place on the internet, but I do like that I've been able to have long-ish form discussions about things over there that I would be pretty hard-pressed to cleanly fit inside of art posts. That's where most of my writing muscles have been getting their exercise.

The other one, and probably a little more interesting to you Sparklers, is BlueSky, one of the half a dozen "Twitter Replacements" that's been floating around.

To be fair, there were points where I thought either Mastodon or Threads were going to be my "Twitter Replacement" of choice, but ultimately neither ended up sticking with me and I'm not really sure why. It's possible the same will eventually be true for BlueSky as well, but so far even without fresh art to post it's been jiving decently enough with me.

I've mostly been posting Doll Photos over there; Literally the month after I lost the will to keep up with the monthly blog posts entirely, my interest in Fashion Dolls was finally renewed after a probably 5-6 year hiatus with one Karla Choupette.

I'll spare you Sparklers the nitty-gritty details (especially since I think I may be able to delve into them more appropriately in the future 😉), but suffice to say after falling in love with Karla and Monster High finally producing dolls I actually like again that I've been having a bit of a "Doll Love Renaissance" and I have taken probably a gross and shocking amount of photos of small plastic ladies over the course of the last year.

I don't know what it is about BlueSky that's made me genuinely want to share over there—It certainly isn't a massive following or massive amounts of engagement—but there is something, and it's pretty nice when previously I had to really talk myself into sharing anything that wasn't directly art-related over on Twitter.

Aside from just letting you Sparklers know I'm active on BlueSky at all, this is also relevant because I've taken to fairly regularly making things for the dolls—Mostly tiny crochet clothes, but a few other accessories too, like a belt I recently made to cover up uneven stitching on one doll's dress. And sometimes I re-paint details on certain dolls as well, but nothing super dramatic like some Doll Customizers do!

I would eventually like to compile photos of all (or at least most) of the things I've made for the dolls and maybe actually post them at least over on Ko-fi, and maybe here on DeviantArt too, since I am pretty proud of a lot of them and I think they'd be mildly interesting to my audience. But there are no concrete plans for that at the moment, just wishful thinking.

One related thing I do have slightly more concrete plans for though is the release of a Crochet Pattern—I got a little tired of the lack of pants options for the Rainbow High dolls, especially non-skinny ones, so I did some research and muddled together a pattern for some fitted bell-bottoms. I think the pattern itself is pretty much ready-to-go for sharing, but I did want to make one last test pair of the pants first (this will be the third pair in total) just to make sure one of my yarn recommendations works as well as I think it will.

The pattern will 100% be posted in the Ko‑fi Shop when the time comes, I'm just not completely sure if I'll be attempting to post it (or example photos at least) to DeviantArt as well, but...probably. We'll see!

Part 3: Everything Else

There is one more "not proper art" thing I've been slowly chipping away at that I think you Sparklers will find interesting.

...To be fair, there are some other much smaller things that I've shared with the Sparklers' Club on Discord that would also fit in this category, but they're not as interesting and would normally be saved for the "From the Archives" section in a Monthly Round-Up, so I'd feel out of place discussing them here.

Anyway. I've started the maybe-minorly-insane project of maintaining a Wiki for my Winx Club OCs: "The Mystix Dimension."

I've been keeping a running Google Doc with information about said OCs over the past couple of years as I've been doing major redevelopment on them, but I was getting tired of the limited ways to organize everything in that format.

After a lot of research that ultimately ended up going nowhere, I opted for the format I know best. I spent quite a bit of time making pages for my most-used Winx OCs on the Winx Fanon Wiki back in the day, but in the present I wanted the freedom to mess with the Wiki's code to both make it look more like the "official" Winx Club Wiki and also tailor it more to my own specific needs.

The "Mystix Wiki" is still very Under Construction with a lot of stuff missing, but it is slowly but surely getting there and most of the "bones" are in place.

So if you Sparklers are curious about my Winx OCs specifically, you can pop over there and have a look around—Of the information there, there's already a nice sampling that's pretty different from what long-time Sparklers may remember of my OCs from the earlier DeviantArt days when I was posting about them super regularly. 😉

A side effect of the Wiki that I semi-expected though is that it has made me realize how little I've actually drawn of my OCs even though they've been pretty consistently on the back of my mind for months. So I think pretty soon there are going to be more new Winx drawings in the works as I continue to fill out the Wiki. 😆

And speaking of drawings in the works...

Peeks At Actual Art Things I've Done

Now, as I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I definitely don't have a lot in the way of Work-In-Progress (WIP) Drawings, but I do have some that I started on before this unintentional hiatus. While I'd normally save some or even most of the WIPs for a Monthly Round-Up instead, given the circumstances I think it only makes sense to go ahead and share them with you Sparklers here and now.

We'll start with a few that should be recognizable as "updates" from the WIP Palooza that I posted back in August:

Firstly, and this will most likely be the next finished piece I actually post, I did finally polish off that sketch of Karla Choupette in the Winx Club art style. (And this is what I meant earlier when I mentioned I might be able to elaborate on my Doll Renaissance feelings later—The description for this piece would be a good place to do that!)

...I'm not showing the completely finished version here because I would like there to be some surprise when it goes public, and also even after all this time I'm still not 100% on the background I chose. So it could still change before the final post.

But Karla herself I'm happy with. I have no idea if I'll ever draw any more Rainbow/Shadow High characters in the Winx Style, but the door is open if I decide I want to.

Next we have...heh, My Winxsona in the Fan Transformation Formalix, better known as "Winxsona Winter Week 7". Incredibly, unbelievably late for "Winxsona Winter" at this point. But nevertheless, I started on the final two pieces for the series and I do want to finish them!

This one isn't fully finished like Karla, but it isn't too far off. It mainly needs shading and a background...And if I had no clue what to do for a background for Karla, then I have like -5 clues what to do for this one. 😅 I'll figure something out, though!

Likewise, I also have the "finished" sketch for "Winxsona WInter Week 8," or: My Winxsona in the Fan Transformation Dimentix.

Mystic Stars and Above on my Ko-fi already saw this WIP back in July, but this is much further along than you Sparklers saw in the WIP Palooza; At that time I had the concept sketch for the outfit and the wings done, and the pose, but I hadn't drawn the outfit on the pose yet.

The Dimentix wings are also ready for coloring (and the Mystic Stars & Above saw this one already too), but they won't be colored until after I get the flat colors down for the outfit/main image so I have a better idea of what colors should go where:

Again, no clue for the background on the finished Dimentix piece, but push-come-to-shove, I can skip a proper background and just recreate the..."wallpaper" effects that were used for the original Dimentix images made by FlorainBloom back in the day.

That leaves us with the two final WIPs I have to share, but for my Winx-loving Sparklers, I think they'll be the most exciting...

Yes, over a year later, I'm picking up the "series" that technically began with Light that Burns the Sky! 😁

Originally, I wasn't sure "Dark Enchantix" (or, my preferred name that I way overthought: "Incantix") would even be a series, but the response to Bloom and Stella was so positive [the Time Lapse has over 20,000 views on YouTube!!] and I did enjoy the concept so much...Yeah, it only feels right to give the rest of the Winx the same treatment. 😄

​As you can see, I've managed to come pretty far. Tecna and Flora have most of their shading done, so next for them is getting their wings in order, then the background (and I plan to use basically the same background that Bloom and Stella got for everyone, so that shouldn't take too much work). And Layla and Musa are pretty far along too...However, I have gone back and forth a bit on Layla's blues and Musa's golds/yellows.

Once again, I'll spare you the nitty-gritty for now, but was one of the challenges for my "Incantix Vision" from the beginning and is the smaller part of why these two drawings have been delayed so much. [...Y'know aside from the other things we talked about at the beginning of this journal.]

The other thing is that I lost my mojo for these two pieces specifically because I had hoped I'd get them finished by the end of the year to submit to a Winx Club fan project, and clearly that didn't happen. (I did go ahead and submit Bloom & Stella since they were finished, though!)

However, that fan project recently re-opened submissions through the end of May this year, so naturally I'm feeling a bit of an itch to see if I get can them both finished by then, even if it's just the still images and the Time Lapses (which only make sense to make since the first one did so well) have to wait a bit longer.

...Considering it's nearly the end of April now and I'd like to get at least 1-2 other things posted before I jump back into Incantix, and all the other circumstances, I obviously have my doubts about whether or not that will happen. But, who knows, maybe telling you Sparklers about it at this stage will be the extra encouragement I need.

At the very least, you Sparklers now know those finished pieces are coming eventually even if it isn't in May, and that was the main point in sharing the WIPs anyhow.

Wrap Up

​So. Now you Sparklers know where the heck I've been and some of what I've been up to in my time away.

I really didn't mean to more or less up and disappear and I am not happy that I have so little to show for my absence...But there's no time machine to go back and un-do it all, so for better or worse it is what it is.

I am, however, writing this blog post in the hopes that it'll be the "permission" I need to give myself to at least attempt to get back into an art posting rhythm.

As I touched on in the previous section, I do have a vague plan for my next finished piece to post, but it felt kind of wrong to just randomly go back to posting art like the past 4-5 months didn't happen with no explanation, especially over on Ko-fi. So here we are.

And...Beyond that, I really don't know how to end this. It feels a bit cheap to leave on my previous usual blog post send-off when this one is so different in nature...But I also don't consider myself as very good at ending these things in the first place. 😅

I should say though before I go—I really, sincerely do appreciate you Sparklers that have stuck by me in one way or another while I went radio silent. Every like, comment, whatever—I've still seen them all while I was away, and those are the little things that keep bringing me back when I do hit rough patches like this. Knowing that at the end of the day the art things I do matter to someone out there. It means more than I can put into words. So thank you, Sparklers, for just being there.

​Hopefully, it won't be too much longer before I can share some new things with you Sparklers to make it really worth your while. But, until then, as always...

Take Care and Sparkle On ✨

~Mystic~

[fruttymoment]

how do i begin to love to draw if it's always just low quality and poor no matter how hard i try or practice

You dont need to make a quality art to love drawing. If drawing realistic and high quality is your main goal, then it will take pretty long and you need to resist.

But like i said! Quality of a drawing shouldnt be how you can have fun while drawing. The way you can love to draw, is being able to draw something you desire to draw. If you desire something like tall building on a detailed night time with street lights reflection and moon on the sky with clouds raining 1920x1080 scenery , that.. wont work out well, if you are inexperienced.

The harsh truth is, we cant just "bam, done" our way out espacially when it comes to drawing something. Sometimes, for quality work, we need more than practice.

Now i obviosuly am just a doodler and not a professional, but i can give few tips to help you and others who desire high quality work and for those who are unsure how to love making art!

Research, And Study Art

High quality works requires their respect. You need to research and study the art topic of your mission.

For example, you want to draw humans? You need to take a look at anatomy.

In today's internet and technology, the information you want can easily be accessed.

Be Stubborn A Little

Do not ever give up if you truly want to love drawing. Be stubborn, and dont let go easily. But of course, this is only IF you are SURE you want to learn and love drawing.

Love cannot be forced.

Make It Interesting

Now, if the topic you want to draw is not interesting, it may bore you and you'd think drawing is no fun.

Drawing OF COURSE ISNT fun if you dont carefully choose your topics!! For example, i myself always find normal human drawings a bit boring. Sure, i would respect if it is highly detailed and all. But if someone draws a regular ass human portrait, with not even a pose, uh.. thats a bit boring? What am i supposed to do w that? I see humans all of time. It just looks regular, and not interesting to me.

However. If someone shows me some crazy shit about i dunno a war art of tanky robots taking over a castle with dragons fucking flying in the air or something they just drawed, and even if its low quality, THEN I WOULD GO "OOH THE FUCK IS THAT."

You even may notice it on my works as well! I oftenly do memes or overall stupid silly stuff! For me, i cant just draw Niko standing in there. No. I NEED to add something stupid. Like a banana costume. Maybe TWM in the back making a nuclear bomb with a horrific smile. Or just Niko but with some silly pose.

The point is! You should use your imagination and add elements to your art that interests you!

What is interesting to you? Or your hobbies? Try adding them to your art! And not for the sake of high quality, remember! To love drawing, you first need to have fun with it.

Challenge Yourself

Yes. Challenging yourself on ANYTHING can dramatically improve you.

For example i challenged myself to learn Python last year. I was like "if i dont learn more coding language i am going to die"

Okay maybe you dont need to be that harsh

Another example is me challenging myself to install Arch Linux with text to speech screen while i blindfold myself.

I know, sounds insane and looks pointless. But that stupid decision made me actually fucking learn Linux, virtual machines and bash language more.

Sometimes, all starts with an challenge. My last example is me starting to learn how to play flute just because i thought i should play sans music in a flute while walking around.

Okay my last LAST example : I challenged myself to draw Niko's hat accurately, months ago. Which was incredibly hard but it DID improved me how i draw their hat today!

Challenge yourself, but in a fun way! Dont quickly lose hope and get angry if you cant complete the challenge you just decided to do. You WILL complete it. Once you decide to, its over. It only takes time.

I can suggest daily stuff like Inktober Challenge too! I always wanted to do that!

Different Styles

Like i said previously, never try to draw the same thing in a same way. The result will not change in that way and you'll be exhausted.

Try different brushes, colors, style, objects etc.! Sometimes, draw something completely unrelated to you! Yeah, fr!

Friends Are Good. Artist Friends Are Even Better

If you are lucky and have art buddies, oohh DONT WASTE TIME. Draw with them!

I have bunch of art buddies that i draw with, mostly with online ways like aggie.com , skribbl.io , Gartic Phone etc! I can not explain enough how fun and important these moments are!

If you dont have artist friends, its actually easy to find! Like me, being in a fandom and making art for it is mostly enough to have interacting with other artists in the community!

They comment on your work, you comment on their work! You then talk other stuff besides art with them too, and in time, bam! Friens!

That's how it went for me! Amazing artists in OneShot community (also from other communities!!) reached me out, and so i reached them out too!

How? Drawing, of course :> when i draw Niko, other fellow Niko enjoyers found me, and so did i found them!

And i admit, i feel like a little bug sometimes when i compare my works and some of my artist friends work. Some of them are really born to draw, oh i can say! Me, not really am just vibing!

But this also helped me. Because, well, if someone is good at something and they see no problem teaching it to you too.. YOU ARE BLESSED!

Anyways this also went kinda long sorry

I hope my tips(?) helps you!

[bvannn]

Weekly Update October 27 2023

This week wasn’t the best but hopefully things should be shaping up for a bit. I’m still trying to get art stuff done

I’m still behind on all my prompt lists, but I’ll still keep chipping away at them until they’re done (except the handful of cringetober prompts I’m skipping). I finished some inktober and a goretober drawings tonight so I can queue those up for this weekend, which should carry me to Sunday, which is a mostly free day I can draw some more for. I may be able to get stuff sketched tomorrow too, but no promises.

TRGA I’m still behind pace but I’m getting caught back up. Provided my mood and body stay stable I should be back to a reasonable pace this week. I got Emile all keyframed generally, there may be some bounces and stuff that need to be done, since I want Emile to come off as bouncy and energetic like he is, so that may be annoying to do but shouldn’t be that much harder than the high inertia stops I did on Jon’s movements. I’m getting better, just a bit slowly. I can probably brush up some earlier animations too, since they’re already tweened. Generally going well.

Music is also generally going well-ish. I tried pulling out my old guitar, sucked, had a meltdown because I sucked, and found a nice free vst. Also found a hole in my schedule next semester that I can hopefully fill with real guitar lessons through the university. Adding in a bass guitar would be the next step which shouldn’t be too hard. At the rate I’m learning things I should hopefully be able to do proper songs reasonably consistently in the future, provided I keep at it.

I’m doing things. I’m trying. Sorry is short tonight I didn’t realize it was so late, was playing a game with a friend (and drawing while doing it). Life stuff is kinda sorting out, even if today started off rough. I’m still going to prioritize school above all else though.

[brella-boi]

I can't believe the year has already gone. It went by so fast...

As per our tradition let's do a quick recap!

January: It was immediate work on new merch for a new years february update. This time it was focus on wooden charms.

February: I was ending my job contract that month, and didn't do much other than start listening to Lemon Demon and go a little insane.

March: Start of Merch and end of February I was doing donation commissions for helping Ukraine. Who knew this would be going on so long...

April: A month where I did NOTHING and I was a happy camper about that. Just straight up chillin

May: First time I decided to get out of my shell and start doing something fun with my life. I got my first car that month, and joined a local art group that sells art every saturday at a local park. The nicest people I hung around all summer, and this was the month where I worked on new prints to sell!

June: Preparations for artfight.... ref sheet hell.

July: Artfight

August: This was my holiday month!!! I barely drew because I also had a day job while on holiday. I was a wreck.

September: Back from holiday and out of a job again, I got to work on some new shop stuff in the meantime.

October: This month was a blur. I did some sketches here and there and worked a good bit on cosplay.

November: Everything Is On Fucking Fire. I may have skipped out on inktober and huevember this year, but I I did something so much worse instead. I was working day in day out this month without a moment break. I think I took maybe like 5 days off that entire month. It was neck breaking create new items for tabling at a con, neck breaking finishing kenku cosplay, and neck breaking family visit. Speedrun of everything. Im exhausted just thinking about it.

December: Month of strangling myself to do NOTHING. I travelled to america by myself. It's a tale and a half. I came home yesterday. I'm tired, I'm upset, I'm missing my luggage which has the kenku and other things I needed for christmas, I'm sick and my brain immediately wants to get back to work. Lord help me, two weeks was not enough with my friend to wind down

Here's to hoping that 2023 will be a better year. I've a lot of travel plans already, and I think art wise I just want to relax again. This year I've been breaking my neck over expanding my shop, and while I'll still like to make some new things, I'll be focusing on having fun like going to cons and tabling and meeting my friends. And have some time to relax and play games. I overwork myself way too much when given the time to do so.

Thank you everyone who have stuck around this year and hello to all the new people coming in!! I achieved my goal of drawing more bug themed stuff and will continue to do so! So here's to a whole new year in a week <3

[bad268]

Lesbian (Logan Sargeant X Reader)

Fandom: RPF/F1

Requested: Day 13 of Writing Inktober prompts instead of drawing!

Warnings: Non-sexual use of daddy, marriage (idk if anyone's afraid of commitment), also based on this Instagram reel

POV: Second Person (You/your)

W.C. 483

As always, my requests are OPEN

MASTERLIST // HITLIST

Writing Inktober 2024 Materlist

~~(^Pinterest)

“When can we have lesbian?” You snapped your head around as you heard your daughter ask your husband in the living room. You were in the middle of making dinner, and Logan had taken the liberty of distracting her, giving you a break from the overly-curious toddler.

“I’m sorry, I don’t think I heard you right,” You could tell Logan was trying his hardest not to laugh. “Can you repeat that?”

“When can we have lesbian?” Your daughter repeated with an emphasis on lesbian. You had to bite your lip to stop laughing as you moved to look into the living room without them seeing you. ”Lesbian, daddy!” 

“Okay, maybe I did hear you right, sweetie,”  Logan started as he tried to explain, still racking his brain to figure out what she was asking for. “I know what you said, but I don’t think that word means what you think it does. Okay?”

“Daddy, it’s like spaghetti!” She shouted as if it were the most obvious answer while she threw her hands up. Immediately, you saw Logan cover his face as he covered a laugh by clearing his throat.

“Do you mean lasagna?” He finally replied with a smile as your daughter’s face lit up.

“Yup,” She said simply as she leaned into him and wrapped her arms around his neck.

“Okay, uh, yeah. I’m sure we can have lasagna really soon,” He stuttered through, still trying not to laugh too much. “We can make sure that we can eat that soon. Does that sound good?”

“Yeah!” She shouted again, pushing away from him and running around the living room.

“Alright, cool, thank you,” He said back, even though she wasn’t listening in the slightest while he covered his face with his hands again. You could see his shoulders shaking as he laughed silently as not to attract your daughter’s attention, so you walked over to him and sat next to him. You leaned into his side as you watched your daughter get distracted by some of her toys while Logan dropped his hands and looked at you. “Did you finish already? You’re never gonna guess what conversation I just had with her.”

“I wanted your opinion on dinner,” You chuckled lightly, thinking it would be fun to tease him even though you had already put dinner in the oven. “How does lesbian for dinner sound?”

“Lesbian?” Your daughter questioned as she dropped her toys and ran into your arms. “Like now?”

“You heard the whole conversation, didn’t you?” Logan asked as he wrapped an arm around you and your daughter while he whispered in your ear with a fake smile plastered on his face.

“I may have, but only a little bit,” You whispered back with the same over-exaggerated smile on your face before turning to your daughter. “You’re in luck because I happen to have lasagna in the oven right now!”

~~~~~

© BAD268 2024. DO NOT REPOST WITHOUT PERMISSION.

[tazmilyduster]

October 4, 2024

It's overcast and slightly windy today. I've taken so long to post an update that fall has arrived. I'm still trying to find a job. Still trying to fix the house and still trying to get sober. My last attempt failed and resulted in a two week backslide, but I've been back on track for the past few days, at least in terms of medication crap with the pharmacies.

I've been trying to just locate and address the things that bother me to try and better maintain my stress levels. I started with backing up a lot of the files on my computer so I can feel a level of security after having my hard drive wiped twice in the few years, the first of which took probably over a decade of photos and video that I had taken around the midwest of nature paths and wildlife.

I used to be more routine about posting photos on a social media, but the pace of trying to keep up with everything and everyone while getting limited returns started to exhaust me.

When things are really bad, it just feels like I was just posting obligatory health updates to my friends/family to let them know that I still exist and am the bare minimum of okay. Or, wow, he must be doing great, they just posted a nice picture of their cat. But usually, the situation is like, three things are broken, I have a plan to fix two of them, and I'm desperately hoping nothing else goes before I can get to the third, but it probably will.

I did complete a drawing as part of the curse relics series (an alternative to Inktober that's 3 drawings/week rather than 1/day) but I'm sort of disappointed in both it's quality and originality tbh. It's like the scene in The Fountainhead (horrible book) where the main character catches his sculptor friend making something like shitty derivative precious moments figure. Most days I don't even feel like an artist anymore, I just feel like someone who pretended for too long. Anyways, it's time for lunch now.

[karen-carlisle-off-the-artboard]

Obligatory 2023 Round Up.

https://karenjcarlisle.com/2023/12/29/obligatory-2023-round-up/

It’s that time of the year. Time for year round ups and formulating new year’s resolutions. I thought I’d share a quick look back at 2023.

Books

This year was busy with writing, revisiting works-in-progress, releasing three more books, and all the events that go with them.

The following is the number of book-related things for 2023:

local events attended: 5

This year I attended Oz Comic Con, Comic & Toy Fair, Supanova, and two new events: Mayhem Collectors Fair and Author Night Market. I trialled new tables displays and book merch at the last two events.

   interstate events attended: 1

author talks: 1

This was the first year for the Wimmera Steampunk Festival (to be held bi-annually). I was fortunate to be invited to do an author talk (and steampunk 101 for those new to steampunk). The talk co-incided with my character – Viola Stewart’s – birthday and the 30th anniverary of (the coining of the name:) steampunk, so bonus!

  books published: 3 paperbacks (includes republished Department of Curiosities) and 3 eBooks

online book launches: 3

This year, I re-published The Department of Curiosities with a new cover and new internal art. Two new books included the steampunk short story collection Cogs and Conspiracies and Blood Ties, the first book in the mini adventure series the James Findlay Journals.

Both new books had an online launch party with giveaways, and there was another (delayed) launch for the re-release of The Adventures of Viola Stewart eBooks, combining the previous stories, with new covers, to match the paperbacks. You can rewatch them here:

Blood Ties – book launch 

Cogs and Conspiracies – Online Launch

eBook Series Launch – The Adventures of Viola Stewart

words written on current WIP: 45,824 / total November NaNoWriMo: 17,227

I’ve made headway on book 2 (The Department of Curiosities series) during the two dedicated NaNoWriMo events this year. Not as many as I’d have liked, but it is moving forward. Real life has been an issue.

new story ideas added to my list: 8

I can’t elaborate too much on this, as… well, spoilers. (Patrons get early sneak peeks… just saying)

number of book covers created:5

Two were: Cogs and Conspiracies and Blood Ties. One was for a fellow author (and I can’t show it until she’s ready to publish), and two are related to the new story ideas. (See above comment re spoilers). I tend to create the cover while the story is bubbling away in my head.

number of writing/research courses attended: 5 (online)… actually six!

These included research for future book projects, an ASA (Australian Society of Authors) course on public speaking (in hope it may help some pre-event panics), one on using a writing resource, and writing courses dedicated to specific genres.

Shorter Stories

short stories written for Patreon supporters: 10 (+2 excerpts from WIP)

short stories submitted to anthologies: 1

Top tier supportes get a short story reward each month. Many are exclusive. Some have been printed in the recent Cogs and Conspiracies or other short story collections. This year, I also added two excerpts from the first chapter of my current work-in-progress (book 2 of The Department of Curiosities series)

Art, Design & Book Merch

bees crocheted: 49

I started crocheting bees as book-related merch for The Aunt Enid Mysteries (the bees communicate between the many worlds in my stories), with AU$1 from each bee sale going towards helping bees on Kangaroo Island. I’ve sold 31 so far. I love bees. They are crucial to our lives and pollate various foods, especially stone fruits. They also provide us with honey. Though I’m allergic, we plant bee-friendly plants at home, and don’t use sprays.

new t-shirt designs: 8

new mug designs: 2

When I can’t write, I crochet. When I’m not crocheting, I draw. I NEED to create. This year I did (half) of Inktober. Some of the images were digitalised, coloured, and uploaded to my RedBubble store as t-shirts (and mugs)

new badge designs: 5

I loved the cat and books design (from my original art in Aunt Enid: Protector Extraordinaire), so I made a new badge… then I designed and made some more. The new badges debuted at the Author Night Market this month. I’ll have to load them onto my webshop some time…

On a more personal note:

tiktok posts: over 365

This is both book-related and personal. Someone told me I was too old for Tiktok. Ha! There are many on #over40tiktok and #over50tiktok, especially authors and readers. Books do well on Tiktok. While I’m not in the popular genres of romance, romance fantasy, or spicey romance fantasy, there are many who read my genres. I talk about my books, as well as tea, D&D, and mental health. I’ve found creating short posts has helped with desensitising myself to appearing in public… (even if it takes several ‘takes’ to get in the right headspace.)

number of mid-night hospital trips: 1 (only one is a record!)

I’m still working on minimising my panic attacks before events. I continued to talk about mental health (and my experience with anxiety and PTSD). Talking about mental health is important.

I usually end up at hospital (via ambulance) 3-5 times a year (my extreme panic attacks mimic heart attacks). So far, I’ve only had one this year! I’m extremely happy about that.

Health Scares and dodging bullets: 1

2023 started in the worst possible way. I faced January 1st with a diagnosis of breast cancer, prepping myself, then surgery and my family for ongoing treatment. One week after surgery, I returned to the oncologist. I was confused. Why was he grinning like a Cheshire cat? Turns out I had a very, very rare (<0.1% in women 25-45 years had this option, and I was over that age group) fibromatosis – a benign tumour that mimicks breast cancer in every way. The only way to differentiate is with extensive pathological testing once the tumour was removed.

So, a worst-case scenario became one of relief. Weirdly, I found a sense of calm from the whole situation. It’s helped my mental health, and I’ve actually had more moments of bliss than I’ve experienced in over a decade.

Please don’t forget to do your checks!

And that’s the short version…. (I know)

Thank you all for following my adventures this year, and I hope you have peaceful and safe holidays. See you next year!

[alexthemenace]

Inktober 2019 archive

Posting all my Inktober 2019 pics cause it was the only year where I successfully did a drawing for every day of the month. And also used actual ink for these which I know is not required but I wanted to. Most of these were never posted outside the "Rebel Taxi" Amino so I wanna document their existence and share them with the public. My gimmick with these was to do them in 5-15 minutes as a challenge to come up with ideas on the spot. And also so I wouldn't spend too much time on these since my college projects took priority. I also had my purple Halloween neon lights on when I took these pictures so that is why they're all purple (minus day 31's drawing). Anyway, here they are in order of the days I made them.

Day 1: a generic east coast rapper on the mic rocking a show. Mostly inspired by Chuck D of Public Enemy and maybe subconsciously Todd in the Shadows. Oh and totally forgot that I was watching Vin Diesel's 1997 feature directorial debut, Strays, before I drew this which had a very gritty 90s NYC setting. At the time I was very impressed by his short film directorial debut, Multi-Facial, so I wanted to see if his feature was just as good (it wasn't).

Day 2: a defeated young man submitting to an alien/holy light shining down upon him. You could also interpret it as seeking of a higher power. Inspired by the CD artwork of OutKast's ATLiens album. This was later turned into a self-portrait oil painting for class which turned out really great.

Day 3: vaguely retro comic book Batman crashing through a window upon a crime scene. This was done right before I went to see Joker in theaters. The perspective and anatomy is meh but it was a quick drawing so I can live with it. Apparently I took 20 minutes with it according to my notes from Discord in 2019 which wow.

Day 4: Close-up of Cesare from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. This was one of two drawings where I intentionally broke my 5-15 minute rule as I did this in about an hour. I used a reference of the iconic scene of him waking up but I still tried to be quick so the face looks less like Conrad Veidt and more like David Bowie imo but I'm still quite proud of it.

Day 5: a possessed woman. Took a wee bit longer to do but this was a fun exercise to draw longer hair like this (something I still don't have a lot of experience with) and to play a bit with perspective and anatomy without a reference iirc. She is also supposed to vaguely be from an older era far from civilization - hence the lack of clothing (she is tastefully censored though). Apparently I wasn't happy with how stiff she turned out back then but I think in hindsight it works quite well.

Day 6: a bald child from a mental ward stares at a man laying face down on a haystack. The girl was loosely based off Eleven from Stranger Things. The man in the haystack also reminds me of that one Junji Ito manga but I don't remember if that thought that came to me while making this or that's just hindsight. Also I didn't start with a finished concept in mind for this one so, very randomly put together.

Day 7: Nostalgia Critic 2Pac. As it says, it's Doug Walker if he modeled his Nostalgia Critic character after 2Pac's aesthetic. I personally really like this one. Have also been told he resembles a Beavis and Butt-head character which I see lol but that's ok. Apparently I was watching JAR Media's video on if Nostalgia Critic was cringy and for some fucking reason the idea of 2Pac came to mind lol.

Day 8: a baby with a dripping spear celebrating the head of a medium sized therapod dinosaur they successfully hunted. This one was inspired by Genndy Tartakovsky's Primal which I was a very big fan of at the time. Censored cause I like my Tumblr account and don't wanna risk losing it.

Day 9: Count Orlok from Nosferatu opening a door. I think it turned out nicely but don't really have much else to say about it other than the fact that I didn't use a reference.

Day 10: sullen twink laying bare on the ground. This was inspired by that iconic image of Maria from Silent Hill 2 laying down on the ground by the Heaven's Night neon sign. I think I just particularly like this kind of imagery since a mood piece I shot later that month incorporated a shot that is exactly like this (minus the lack of clothing). Also, the uncensored drawing actually shows nothing explicit since I intentionally had that area covered in shadows. But I worry Tumblr will think otherwise and smite down upon me so it's better to be safe than sorry. Also the perspective on his right leg is off so better to not see it in full anyway.

Day 11: gentleman combing his hair in a mirror that reveals a skeleton doing the same thing. The pic crops off the bottom part of the drawing which shows his legs and the tail flaps of his suit. But I always thought that part looked extra janky so I never include it. It was a rushed drawing anyway.

Day 12: Tim Burton inspired child sitting in the corner of a room, looking very sad. Supposed to represent being overwhelmed with life and emotions. I recall I also had Dib from Invader Zim in mind when drawing this. I don't tend to draw in this art style much so I'm pretty surprised even now how good it turned out. At the time I was doing a presentation for my Directing class on Tim Burton - so he was definitely on my mind for this.

Day 13: imprisoned droid waking up in the middle of the night. Apparently I was thinking of a bunch of movies when I did this plus I think Scud: The Disposable Assassin and my own avatar. Also I just like robots with this kind of thin pill shaped build.

Day 14: my idea of man that has fully evolved into only being able to eat, sleep, and stare at a screen. I didn't sleep the night before so I thought to draw a human that has devolved into a lazy slob who only eats and sleeps and as a result is incredibly out of shape save its legs to move around as it scours the land for any food before deciding to fall asleep for days. Thank you Discord notes from myself in 2019 for helping me remember this exact story lol.

Day 15: Undead Pan Pizza of RebelTaxi singing his pathetic little heart out. The design is based off of Jack Skellington (namely the proportions and spooky qualities like the stitches across Pan's face) during one of his more sad song numbers in The Nightmare Before Christmas. It's worth noting this era was sorta the last big hoorah for my obsession and fanboyism of Pan. I had a mild burst of being hooked one last time around Fall 2019 after losing interest in his podcast around the beginning of that year (a podcast I previously would follow religiously). I still liked him after this era and would definitely have periods of renewed interest but not to the same extent as before sadly.

Day 16: an imprisoned boy looking at the light coming through his barred window. This one used more pencil than ink to break away from mostly keeping it ink. It's very janky but the idea speaks to me. Apparently was also trying to think of a portrait for my oil painting class so this was one of the ideas that came to mind (didn't end up using it for anything though).

Day 17: a spooky little sickly old guy. I apparently was inspired by a character from Courage the Cowardly Dog when I did this. No clue which episode now though unless you guys can remember what he looks like.

Day 18: guy getting his face vacuumed off. I like that one episode of Ed, Edd n Eddy where Eddy's face get sucked by a vacuum. I got nothing else to say.

Day 19: self-portrait of me directing. It's a cutesy little drawing of me! And also the outfit I wore when I directed my mood piece that day.

Day 20: a large and vicious snake lizard hybrid. It's pretty self-explanatory. I think ultimately it's more just a snake with forearms and a spike tail. I guess I just was thinking at the time "what would be the ultimate snake?" Like a snake that can beat any snake. Also this was done on day 21 since I didn't have time on day 20 for it.

Day 21: large older guy hiding a knife behind his back. His looked is based on a friend of mine I went to college with and how he looked on set a few days ago when the light glistened over him. Although instead of a knife he held a script. He also vaguely reminds me of Al from Toy Story 2.

Day 22: sleep paralysis demon taunts twink. I like twinks, ok. Also I think just noticed something about that demon that I forgot I did but oh well. I think it'll be fine.

Day 23: guy with a very, very itchy head. I really like the pose and facial expression so it's actually one of my favorites here despite it being relatively mundane. Also, the itchy head may have been cause my head was itchy while drawing this but I don't remember. But I do remember part of the influence here was how sometimes great feelings of stress and anger would trigger an itchy head for me.

Day 24: a corpse brought back to life in a very rough and unfinished form. Obviously a bit of a Frankenstein's monster meets I guess Sally and Dr. Finkelstein from The Nightmare Before Christmas influence here. I may have had Pearl from Steven Universe in mind when I did this too since me and another friend definitely saw the resemblance.

Day 25: a twink who hit their face a little too hard on the bathroom sink. Twink. The full picture isn't really that gruesome imo (the face isn't visible) but I was trying to censor the liquids a bit for obvious reasons I already disclosed earlier. Also, he was loosely based on me but don't think too hard about that. I just had a bad day directing on set was all.

Day 26: Cute, unamused Hot Topic employee being bitten on the left leg by his pet lizard. Yet again another twink but this one's outfit is based mostly on my wardrobe at the time (minus the Jack Skellington shirt but I did/do have some pajama pants of him). And I guess I find reptiles cool so, only just noticing a bit of a reoccurring subject here (along with twinks).

Day 27: a melting zombie-like corpse crawling away from a puddle of acid. A tad more gruesome, sure, but I think it's a pretty cool drawing. And also it's like, a zombie, so it's not that inappropriate for standards here I hope. Apparently took a while to come up with an idea for this one.

Day 28: that one guy from Jacob's Ladder with a bag over his head and no legs walking with his arms. When I drew this, I had just seen Jacob's Ladder the night before for the first time and it became an instant favorite of mine. So, I drew a character from it. Him walking with his arms is based off of Mugshot's mode of travel from Sly Cooper.

Day 29: Jimi Hendrix inspired voodoo guy with a crystal ball. Pretty self-explanatory. Had fun with the texture and lighting although I was never quite satisfied with how I did the shading on his hair. The straight lines make his fro look like a porcupine lol. Regardless of that, it's a pretty cool drawing. Also worth noting is that during this time I fell back in love with 60s music. The Doors and Beatles in particular were major points of obsession for me. Especially their psychedelic period and ofc Jimi Hendrix was part of that era so that deep fixation for psychedelic and hippie music made its way into this.

Day 30: lizard amphibian fish mishmash girl with pony tails happily waving at us. This was definitely my least favorite of these and if not for my next and final drawing, would've been a lackluster way to end this. It's not awful but eh, just never really personally resonated with me. Also, she is wearing a seaweed braw so don't panic moral guardians of the world. For some reason Mrs. Bighead from Rocko's Modern Life came to mind when I drew this. Along with a certain friend of mind, @fishboigazer-blog, (which if you or a mutual is reading this lol hey).

And that's it for now since I can't fit more than 30 pics. Which is fine by me cause Day 31 deserves its own post since that one I did spend a few hours on as opposed to the rest of these. That one I also did actually post to Tumblr back in the day so I may just reblog it come Halloween.

If you actually read this far, thank you! I spent hours trying to put this together in a way that is satisfactory to me and hopefully gives plenty of insight into my process. This has been a very long time coming and hope to actually post more original stuff on here instead of just endlessly reblogging things.