#i think my theme doesn´t display lists as lists so that will be fun for you

[barksbog]

frequently sent anons and stuff

gonna answer some thing people keep asking me or keep getting wrong or i just really feel are important to know

(i have a faq but we all know what tumblr mobile be like)

how did you become a plush making gremlin?

always loved plushies and weird creatures

learned how to make plushies on The Internets

took some commissions for custom ones (did not enjoy that too much)

started to sell my own designs

here we go

^most professional image that exists of my face.

whole lot more under the cut

1. business/onlineshop related 

Do you take commissions? I don´t really open for regular comissions.

i sometimes accept “sponsorships” of stuff that fits with my other work. especially if it´s just a recoloring of an existing pattern (like a different species of slug or toad for example).

will you sell more of this plushie?

if it´s still in the online shop but listed as out of stock the answer is most likely yes. it takes me a while tho because i really do make each one myself. this is a one gremlin operation.

i really wanted to get one of your microraptors, spinosaurs (or any other dinosaur plushie)? will they come back?

sorry they really won´t. neither will i restock any of the dinosaur charms, pins and stickers once they sold out. for a good amount of reasons i have decided to leave paleoart behind. as cool as dinosaurs are. i like my mental health more.

i feel like everyone who witnessed the level of drama coming from certain members of the paleo community understands completely what i mean and while i know you can create paleoart and just reduce interaction to a minimum i like to be active on social media and discord servers relevant to what i do.

do you ship to ...

yes. yes i ship worldwide.

does that plushie really cost 30,000€?

no my likely american friend. it´s 30.00€ we just use commas here and so does my shop when set to €. i can´t set it to $ because i need to pay my. everything. in € and honestly don´t want to constantly gamble on the current exchange course being steady so i actually get my money. paypal will let you pay in your currency tho and just send me €.

i tried to contact you and you didn´t respond?

-if you contacted me like “hey” or “hey i have a question” i´m unlikely to have the energy to respond. please always contact artists with what you want to know

-i have answered that question a lot before or it can easily be answered by looking at my onlineshops faq

-you sent me an anon about a order. i can´t help you there

-if you have order related question it´s best to email me through the contact form of my onlineshop. if you just email my business mail it often ends in spam and i don´t see if for a few weeks.

2. sewing/plush making related

Where do you get that fabric? how does that happen to have toads on it?

i get it custom printed by spoonflower (they have a factory in the US and in Germany). i design it in photoshop and just upload it and they print it for me. they can be a bit slow. or just send you a meter of middle earth for no reason. or print a meter half black for no reason but overall their quality is great and so is their customer support when they do mess up.

a few tips i have are:

- the minky piling runs from the top down.

- you can design meters even when it says and displays yards in the preview, just check if it´s set to meters when in the basket before checkout.

- never set anything to center and order more than one meter, it will be printed once in the middle and leave you with a bunch of white useless minky.

- if you don´t want to wrangle 4 meters of fabric apart just keep adding One meter of the design at the time and you will get precut meters.

where did you learn to sew? how do i learn to sew?

I had a very basic crafts class in school with a shitty teacher that told me that “i´m sloppy and Can Not Sew” but really everything useful i ever learned i learned from The Internets so just go and look for some free patterns and tutorials and you are good to go. after trying a few patterns you will get a feeling for how plushies work and can combine what you learned. it´s really just like when you learn to draw and break things down into shapes.

if you have some questions or things you can´t figure out or just want to talk about crafts i run a really nice server with palaeoplushies

https://discord.gg/Cqwq4r3

what´s it like to run a business with 21?

stressful. i´m not always sure what i´m doing. but i´m doing it. and i believe in you, you can do it too. there is a 10kg bag of stuffing and a 25kg box of beans in my room. i have a whole huge sorting box full of eyes.

you are doing this fulltime? that´s really cool

yes i do this fulltime However. i really wish i could have a sidejob but i can´t because i have a funky brain and migraines so i really can´t find or keept almost any job.

^me doing my job.professionally. my job being. turning the fricking frogs gay.

3. personal.

so you are australian, how are the kangaroos?

No. Stop. I´m austrian. i don´t even know if you are joking or for real. just don´t.

so you are german? you speak german right?

again. i´m austrian. yes we speak german here but a different dialect so i likely don´t sound like the germans you have heard in movies. in fact the majority of germans will not even understand me.

can you stop complaining about the weather?

yes i complain about heat because. i´m heat sensitive. also because i´m actually an Alpine Gremlin and shouldn´t be subjected to temperatures over 30°C. our house doesn´t have AC. i work in here all day at 28°C room temp and with high humidty.

yes i complain about the cold too. because our house is old and badly insulated and i have to carry in firewood in laundrybaskets to feed to an old woodburner and it sucks. our house frequently falls down to 16°C.

so there is a spelling mistake?

yes i make a lot of spelling mistakes. or just switch out whole words. or forget whole words. unless it´s something important like a salespost please just don´t point that out constantly. like mentioned before i have a funky brain and it just be like that. also like mentioned before. i´m austrian. english is actually my second language so. be nice.

way too long list of spire fun facts:

i´m nonbinary and use they/them pronouns. i´m also very gay.

if you see me refer to “my wife” that´s the moon. i´m legally married to her. i really like dramatically standing on my balcony and looking at her.

if you see me yell about “the lesbians” that´s my mourning geckos.

i have 13 furbies. and you have no right to insult them. they are baby.

i also have a lot of skulls and other dead things

I´m autistic and come with some extra dyslexia, depression and anxiety.

i also come with intense migraines that can make me useless for a solid week

i live in a village surounded by woods with less than 200 people

i did spent a lot of time in vienna for 6 years tho and lived there for three of that 6

i actually have a diploma in graphic design. that i don´t really need for anything but winning argument about aesthetic choices or making jokes

yes. i am kinda short. (162cm/5.3ft)

i have two cats. they are littermates tho. so i get some people have a hard time telling it´s not just the same cat. i swear they are two different cats tho and actually really easy for me to tell apart.

milk belongs in tetrapacks. not jugs. fight me

tapirs are nasty creatures

krampus comes on the 5th or 6th of december. stop calling him the christmas devil you fools. my source? growing up with the krampus tradition.

you know what happens on the 24th tho? me. that´s my birthday. and that is in fact austrian christmas day. all christmas happens that day. if you wish me merry christmas before happy birthday i will never forgive you.

i really loved balto as a child. the dingo pictures version tho. i was enraged when i saw the ofiicial balto because i thought they stole it from dingo pictures. i watched a lot of dingo pictures and that´s why i´m Like This

^my lovely wife

if you see me rambling in the tags. generally i´m. okay. you don´t have to worry but if you relate or just feel like talking to me? you can dm me and i have actually made friends like that before so.

if i don´t respond to your dms or asks it´s not because i don´t like you i just have very low social energy most days 

and finally.

if you think me and @palaeoplushies are the same person we have a legal right to your soul and your favorite child for our Collection

we prefer none human children tho

(i´m sorry for tagging you. and making you scroll through like “wtf is spire taggin me in now again” but it would have felt weirder not to let you know about the future souls i´m sending your way)

[artmakingturtle]

Muse’n’Ramble #3: 2016

A Personal Retrospect of 2016

Each year I have a tradition. I choose a theme, usually an abstract idea, ideal, or aspiration, and I muse over it throughout each year. Every month, I choose a sub-theme in tandem with a music track to tie in with that month. By the end of each year I have a playlist of twelve songs to listen to. These songs help me backtrack and reflect on my year and prompt me to think of why I chose the monthly themes or tracks that I did. In 2016 I chose the theme: Phoenix Awakening.

The mythical creature that can burst into flames, cry magical tears, and revive itself from its own ashes. I admit to my own personal fascination to the creature's healing and fiery abilities while looking incredibly majestic. Towards the end of 2015 I was still trying to break myself free from a rather dark spell of what was essentially depression. Aiming for becoming like a Phoenix seemed like a good idea. That month of course, Star Wars: The Force Awakens also came out. I couldn't stop myself from combining the idea of becoming a force using, light-saber wielding, phoenix-like Jedi. (Incidentally, a favorite game of mine is titled: Fire Emblem: Awakening. A medieval fantasy game for the Nintendo 3ds, which also... fueled ideas for 2016.) Thus, 2016 was a year I hoped would be filled with honor, healing, energy, fire, a sense of duty, and glory. Looking back, I think it was.

January: Energy (Potential to Kinetic) Still trying to recover from that dark spell of depression, I knew if I was to become this Phoenix I would need energy. I started to question what energy was. Dipped into information about ATP, calories, and nutrition. Reminded myself that there are different kinds of energy such as kinetic, potential, thermal, and nuclear. Also relearned one of the laws in physics that energy cannot be created, but can only be converted from one form to another. At that time there were two things I honed in on, and still do. The first is potential and kinetic energy. I realized that I was bathing in my own potential energy. I had so many ideas in my head, so many aspirations that were floating around, that I was enjoying that energy. But it is a stagnant energy. I realized I needed a way to convert that energy into kinetic energy. It needed to be something that would put those ideas out of my brain and into motion. Music: Uragiri no Yuuyake- Theatre Brook

February: Focus (Aim, target----) Towards what though? I had targets. I had a senior thesis to work on, a language to study, a study abroad trip to prepare, and better health habits to develop. Focusing on Art, Japanese, and Health became the common denominators for me. But those being broad categories, I found myself being distracted within them. I remember dipping back into old eating habits, and almost back into another spell of depression because of it. Ultimately, despite the month's theme, I remember losing focus. Music: Solitude- Zircon and C-GPO

March: Fire (Find a spark) With my thesis date approaching, time was ticking. Eventually I had no time, and I had to scramble. Scramble I did. I realized I was dipping backwards again, and I made effort to recover. I admitted my lack of progress, made a promise to show up to get to work, and put myself into an environment with people to help encourage success. That was my spark. That's when I learned just how important (and fun) it is to work with people in an environment who are working towards similar goals as you are. It's taken me way too long to learn/realize that. These environments are not always easy to find or fit in, but if you have the opportunity: connect, immerse, and embrace that environment, those people, and those opportunities. It's an incredible source of energy. Music: Psycho-Pass Feat. Akane- Yugo Kanno

April: Maneuver (Stay light on your feet) I knew this month was going to be a difficult one, hence the theme. I knew, like a rebel fighter pilot or a phoenix in the sky, I would have to gracefully maneuver myself towards a completed thesis by mid-April, completing Japanese homework I put on the back-burner, finish up some scholarship applications so I could lower my financial burden when studying abroad, and avoid my ever consistent bad eating habits and love of sugar. (yum). It's also fun to maneuver life when you and a few of your fellow comrades get sick during the week of the thesis show and your own personal display has a few malfunctions. (part of which literally goes up in smoke....heh...heh...) That being said, that show was a moment of glory and a small taste of victory. I didn't quite maneuver all those aspects as well as I had wanted, but I did my best and got a few victories from the previous months of work. The school year ended, and I was left with a summer knowing I had to keep the energy flowing. Music: Sans Battle- Stronger than you (Steven Universe Parody) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TzVOLOROkM

May: Momentum (An object in motion stays in motion.....Keep moving) I started playing Mirror's Edge at this time. A free-running type game where the goal is to see how quickly you can run, jump, climb through multiple levels while under gun-fire. It was a fun and exhilarating game to play as a reminder to myself to keep moving. That environment that helped spark my initial momentum was no longer available in the same format. School was over. So I had to keep my own momentum. Something I also relearned while studying energy in January was Newton's laws of motion. An object in motion stays in motion unless acted upon by a greater or equal force. This is true for objects at rest as well. I developed a mentality that the more frequently I practiced drawing, ate something healthy, exercised, or studied Japanese, the easier it would be to do it the next time. This was because I was building a momentum. This thought process has became the longest echoing thought process of 2016 for me. I constantly ask myself if my current momentum is leading towards a direction I wish it to go. If not, I try to see how many actions I can do to adjust the momentum. Music: Edge and Flight- Solar Fields

June: Blaze (Blaze the trail!) Summer began with watching The Road to El Dorado, going on a few hiking excursions, and playing Dungeons and Dragons with a group of friends. I was reminded of my love for nature, adventure, exploration, and fantasy. Summer also meant furthering my preparations for my big trip. I went back to the summer job to save up some money while trying to maneuver studying, preparations, and my art practices. Music: On the Trail we Blaze- Elton John

July: Burn (don't burn out) Admittedly, attempting to maneuver all of those things was quite difficult. I had plenty of fun trying, but I feared I was going to burn out. But I didn't want to. I wanted to keep going. I wanted to keep burning, not burn out. Music: I Burn- Jeff and Casey Lee Williams

August: Resonance (Connect to/Create good vibes) This was the last month before I would leave to Japan for a duration of a year. I tried to spend time with friends and family as much as possible. I tried to finish up things I wanted to do for that summer. I also made sure I remembered what I had learned thus far for the year. I went over my list of themes and prepared for the next month. My goal was to resonate with what good vibes I had laid out for myself in the past, as well as the potential future vibes that might come from the good vibes I create in the present. Music: Resonance- T.M. Revolution

September: Rebirth (Restart/Renew/Resest) I left America and I made it to Japan, something I've been wanting to do since I was a child. Being in Japan, I was hoping to set aside my past views, language, and customs to adopt new ones for a while. I wanted to know what it would be like to embrace a new culture and language. It turns out, it's harder than expected. Old habits die hard. Music: Rebirth- Valve

October: Rhythm (Cast your spells/create your music) Even going into Japan, one doesn't just absorb and automatically learn the culture and language. I was surprised how much I had to hunt for culture and language opportunities. Because it is rather westernized at this point, there's a lot of Japan that made it seem right at home to me. For better or worse. Or maybe it's because I went in wanting to be culture-shocked that nothing has really shocked me. That being said, what really frustrated me was my slow progress in the language and my eating habits.

At the time I found a great Japanese band called Nabowa that I really enjoyed. Jamming out to their music, and finding an opportunity to go to a concert of their's nearby was a great way to realize I needed to construct some music in my own life. That same month I went to an arcade and played something called JuBeat where you listen to music and hit these glowing tiles in rhythm to the music. Soon after I downloaded a game known as Cytus for my phone. In these games, the goal is to essentially tap the screen or tiles as rhythm prompts appear on a screen. I started to take this mentality into my daily life. I started to see moments throughout each day as these prompts. I could take these prompts and keep a decent rhythm towards music I desired to craft, miss prompts completely, or hit prompts that led to an undesirable rhythm, so to speak.

Essentially, I was using the concepts of rhythm and music to expand on the earlier concept of momentum. This made things more fun and interesting to me. I've since taken it a step further and added spell-casting into the visualization. Not only am I creating a momentum which builds a rhythm, but that rhythm becomes a form of spell-casting that helps me have a little more fun and enjoyment in building and maintaing better habits and an overall lifestyle. It's a fantastical take on life that, for me at least, spices things up. Realizing these things and starting to put them into practice, I felt as if I found a decent rhythm for myself. Music: Cal< Ion/pulse/Aurelia [Live]- Nabowa

November: Roost (How do you rest?) One thing I realized as I tried to improve my life's rhythm was that I wasn't including quality rests. Sometimes the best music has strategic pauses that allow the listener and player to relax before another session of tense playing. So, I wanted to think about my own restorative powers. I now have a few sets of exercises (sets which I consider “spells”), that I can do to help me relax. My new favorite is simply taking my contacts out, closing my eyes, and taking a few deep breaths. I've started to use music to allow my brain to relax and wander, drink a little water or tea, do a few Tai Chi motions, go for walks outside for sunshine and exercise, or write/journal. Music: Oath to Order- Theophany

December: Evolution (Progress to a better version) I had this image in my mind. I wanted to evolve by the end of the year into a self that would be better than my current self and more like the phoenix. Specifically, I wanted to be at a higher Japanese proficiency, have a better grasp on my personal nutrition so I can feed myself without resorting to sugar, convenient stores, or fast food, and have a daily rhythm in regards to my art-making process. Being in Japan I have a had a great opportunity to make progress on these goals. But, when the year was getting closer to its end I had a particular excursion that I think really triggered my evolution.

One day I started walking to the super market and simply decided that instead I would hike towards a mountain way off in the distance. Hiking to and from the mountain took longer than hiking the mountain range itself. But, the vista point at the top was gorgeous. It looked out over the prefecture I am currently residing in. It was then I confirmed (again) how much I love hiking in the mountains. I wanted to hike more. I wanted to hike across mountains, rivers, forests, and explore more of this earth.

That includes the areas of interests I have chosen as my battle arenas: Art and Japanese. Within those subjects I have my own mountains to climb and vistas to find. I've now taken that vigor into my studies. Even now, that excitement of exploration is assisting in my denial of trips to the convenient store, acceptance of healthier life choices, and a greater focus in my work.

As I started to reflect on my 2016, I asked myself, did I evolve into this phoenix I wanted to evolve into? During that hike I remember feeling a sense of change within me. I felt I found what I needed to evolve. In consolidating the lessons that I have learned throughout the year, I have strengthened their memory. Since New Years, that feeling of evolution has become stronger. So, I can say I have indeed evolved. Or at least, I feel I am in the process. The Phoenix has indeed Awakened. Music: Battle! (Ho-oh)- HeartGold/SoulSilver- Game Freak and Go Ichinose

Epilogue: 2017: The theme for this year is The Hunter, with hopes that I will increase my rhythm towards a more active role in life. My first hunt is for memory. While making progress in my language proficiency I hope to contemplate the process of memory. How does it work? In our brains? Our computers? What is required to make these processes work? How can we advance them? How can we lower the resource cost? Who is researching these questions? These topics? Who is making art in regards to these topics? Progress? Technology? How can I advance my own memory? Short-term? Long-term? What can I do to more easily memorize this language and culture I wish to learn? Is there a way to include art as a memorization device or technique?

These will be a few of the things I personally contemplate as I move into January 2017. Here's to a year filled with exploration, adventure, and the thrill of the hunt! There's magic afoot!