#i haven't rendered a drawing like this in MONTHS and i'm glad to say i still got it!!!

[koidroplet]

HOHOHO~!! 🎀🌱

[storyofmychoices]

For @choicesfandomappreciation's Countdown to 2024.

There are so many talented artists in this fandom. I could never pick only four. I am seriously in awe of all of you and your talents. You truly make this fandom a more beautiful place. We are lucky to have you all.

In no particular order

💛 @hydn-jpg: I absolutely adore you and your talent. I can't thank you enough for the beautiful creations you've made for me. I just adore your style. I'm glad you are doing better. I've loved seeing your art on my dash again. Thank you for sharing all of your beautiful visions with us.

💛 @cashweasel: What can I say?! I absolutely adore you and your art. You've created some of my favorite Mal pieces and you gifted the world Valen. How can we ever thank you enough for that?! Valen is everything, but I adore Gideon too!

💛 @oh-so-youre-a-nerd: I've only been following you for a few months but ohmygosh you are so freaking talented. Like how?!!! I absolutely adore seeing your art on my dash, no matter the subject matter, each piece is just stunning. Your use of light is unlike anything I've seen. You are amazing.

💛 @artbyalz: Your art is so much fun! I LOVED your 12 days of Christmas art series. You gifted the fandom so many beautiful and unique pieces. I absolutely adore all you've created, and ohmygosh how can I even thank you for this gift you've given me?!!!

💛 @cassie-thorne: GAH your art!!! The recent art with Astrid is still living rent free in my head. She is so gorgeous! I truly admire and adore all of your work, though I'm a little biased toward your CoP art! I can't wait for the next book to see how you tackle all the new content we get!

💛 @baldwinboy5ive: I've absolutely enjoyed all of your art and memes from Blades. They were simply fantastic. Your work always puts a smile on my face!

💛 @fairymatchmaker : JOY!!! You are just so so lovely and amazing, and your art is brilliant. I know you haven't been able to draw as much as you'd like to have recently, but please know we are here waiting patiently for when you can. Your art is just brilliant.

💛 @violentinecrl: I am still absolutely in love with this gorgeous gift you made for me. I never expected anything like this and genuinely treasure it. It lives rent free in my head always.

💛 @callmebeem: I only discovered your art this year, but I am so in love with it. I love the 3 commissions you've made for me so far (even if I'm still holding on to one of them) but I absolutely treasure each and know I will be back for more soon! Thank you for them!

💛 @rosefuckinggenius: what can I say about you and your art besides you actually are a fucking genius. Your talent is amazing and I'm grateful for all the times we've worked together!

💛 @bayleedraws-sometimesx: you are an absolute delight! You are a sweetheart who creates such lovely art for the fandom. I love your minimalist style. You bring so much love to your work and it shows.

💛 @erixafleur: I've loved seeing all your gorgeous Blades art throughout book two. I can't wait to see more. Your style is lovely whether it's fully rendered or the sketchy style.

💛 @sazanes : Your art is so beautiful! I love seeing all the gorgeous stuff you create for the various appreciation weeks. I truly look forward to seeing all your works. You can see your care for each piece in every stroke.

💛 @twinkleallnight: you write, you do art, what don't you do? Thank you for sharing all of your many talents with the Choices fandom

💛 @mydemonsdrivealimo: Jensen is an amazing character and your OH art is so lovely. Thank you for the Valentine's doodles you made for my Bryce and Olivia. I truly treasure it!

💛 @gaiuskamilah / @talasintahan: your art is simply brilliant. I haven't been following you long, but I'm loving seeing all your gorgeous work.

💛 @weetlebeetle: You're technically not in our fandom, but you've created so many amazing pieces for me and so many others, you might as well be. Thank you for sharing your talent with us! We are so lucky to have you

💛 @hashiedraws (I know you're no longer active in the fandom, but I will always adore and treasure your art!

There are so so many amazing artists in this fandom, just mentioning a few more:

@somewillwin , @garlickk , @myautumnrose , @rainesenator , @ellezelindraws, @totojo2 , @choices-ceri , @crowlion ; @gremmiie ; @cpt-indigo , @mavidraws , @javsarts

This list is by no means exhaustive, please know that it was not intentional if you were left off!

[shadows-coffeebeans]

Howdy, chummer! Sorry I've been away so long!! Life's been A Lot Lately and I've missed you the whole time!!! Will catch up on art over the week, don't have the spoons to fill my queue tonight, but for that ask game I'm a month late for:

4. piece you wish got more love?

6. favorite thing to draw?

10. How do you deal with art block?

13. talk about a wip you like!

14. what's your favorite thing about drawing?

16. how do you motivate yourself to draw?

17. what is something youre confident about in your art?

21. what do you think your art style would taste like?

28. whats a piece you'd like to redraw at some point?

Wordy‼️‼️ I've been wondering where you've been! Glad to know you haven't been eaten by the void 💥

I've missed you too‼️‼️ I just hope life's treating you better now ^^

4. I couldn't choose, so just both of my self insert posts, though i think its mainly cause i've been spoiled by the attention my other pieces started getting lol (1, 2)

6. At the moment, I think my favorite thing to draw is Confusion (self insert) and Starlight (fankid)

10. I usually play with those oc creators/challenges on pinterest or ask people to tell me what to draw

13. Well I guess I can count tffs as a WIP! I can't say much for obvious reasons but I can say that I've created a blog for tffs related things ^^

14. Hm, this is a hard one. I won't lie and say attention isn't up there in my favorite things about drawing but I think my most favorite is how I get to create something

16. Boredom, mostly

17. Lineart? I guess? I don't know, I've been trying to change my rendering style though.

21. Like these

28. This (these? the second one was a sketch i scrapped) definitely, might redraw it for the tffs anniversary (july 11th)

[agapi-kalyptei]

the sequel to the 80/20 rule

"Remember Hofstader's rule: everything takes longer than you think it does, even when you account for Hofstader's rule"

Even without a strong parasocial relationship with her, it's comforting to see the How To ADHD lady grow older and more accomplished and talk about finishing writing a book. The quote above from a comment on that video reminded me of the rant I wanted to write about a few numbers that are actually useful in real life:

80/20

90/90

1 day for 2 minutes / 1 hour for 1 minute

10'000 hours

⁜

First, the classic 80/20. Some of my favorite applications include:

20% of your friends create 80% drama

80% of my art supplies and instruments collect 100% of the dust (was sad to see my viola go, but it was the only sane decision)

80% of your scrolling time adds (2)0% to your happiness

80% of your followers are inactive

20% of your mutuals actually could be RL friends

80% of the art you make can be unremarkable, but there will still be 20% of people who will think it speaks directly to their soul

20% of the things you learn can cause 80% of your growth

(with ADHD) the tasks that seem like 80% of your mental burden actually take only 20% of the energy (doing dishes, phone calls)

※

Second, there's a software development wisdom saying "the project/task is now 90% done... now for the other 90%".

While doing dishes might be hard to get started with for some of us, for the most part, the task progresses in a linear fashion - washing 20 plates takes about 4x more than washing 5 plates, give or take.

For tasks involving a lot of mental work, like art projects, product design, comedy, game development, I'd say that "the blessing is in the details". Think about how many jokes you can easily ruin by adding or removing just one word, or using just a few synonyms. Move one sentence around, add or remove a dramatic pause, and you can absolutely kill the pacing and punch of the joke.

Having the joke idea is 90% of the work. Flashing out the joke is another 90%. Having a "final draft" of your fiction, or your thesis before editor's review, a peer review or fact checking, is the first 90%. Having a youtube video "almost done, just a few things to iron out" means you still have many hours to go through everything, re-render it, re-re-review things, ask for a friend to review it with fresh eyes, find another mistake, etc.

There's a related rule, about multiplying estimates by their lack of detail. Let's say you come to me with the proposal to make "a new facebook". You say a few sentences of what is and isn't in the scope, give me your elevator pitch, I think "ok hm 20 developers, 4 years". But because we haven't ironed out so many things, I multiply it by ten, and tell you that number.

The smaller the scope and the more flashed out the details are, the less you multiply it. If you ask me to change a color of a button, I can say it's 10 minutes, give or take 50%. If you ask me to add polls to the site, I'll say it's a few months, give or take 50~400%.

⁂

Third is the rule of thumb TV and movie production goes by - expect to deliver 2 minutes of finished footage per day.

This of course varies by industry, country, budget, team size, production values etc. But it's important to have a humble but repeatable pace. For me, I find when editing 7-camera ERSO footage, it's about 1 hour for 1 minute of the result. (Assuming all the busy work and color grades have been done.)

Find your own rule of thumb. Maybe you can compose 1 minute of music in a week of work. It probably doesn't feel like enough. But maybe it's what you need to not burn out.

⁙

Fourth is the classic 10'000 hours to become very good at something. Playing an instrument, composing music, drawing, teaching, programming.

"Oh, but I spent 1000 hours and I'm already very good." I'm glad! Congratulations, honestly. But I'm sure you'll be a lot better after 9000 more hours. Remember the shuhari (守破離) concept:

At first, you're in the shu (守) "protect", "obey" phase. You follow a recipe, you learn the basics, you obey instructions.

Once you're competent, you move to the ha (破) "detach", "digress" phase - you've learned the rules, you know why they exist, and you're capable of breaking them here and there when it makes sense.

Sometimes, if you truly master your craft, you get to the ri (離) "leave", "separate" phase, where everything comes naturally, and you're ready to redefine the rules.

Not everybody gets to the "ha" or "ri" levels of mastery, and that's OK. It's fine to suck at art and have fun. And it's ok if you as an amateur make something good, and people like it! It's not bad to enjoy simple pancakes done by following a recipe, because, hey, they're pancakes. They don't need to have 20 exotic organic ingredients from a specialty shop.

There are no shortcuts to mastery. The best you can do to better use your time is to be deliberate about your practice. Have a good teacher, and pay attention to how you're learning. If you think you know something, to verify it, teach it to someone else. If you can't teach it, you haven't mastered it.

The 10'000 hour rule is also very comforting - if you feel like you suck at something even after spending a lot of time on it, just remember that progress is a long path, and mistakes are just the uneven stones on the path.