#i wish i went to artschool

[arcaneteaparty]

Sunny<3

Personally cannot wait for the summer cause here where I am we still have like half a meter of snow

[thatone-artsykid]

INTRODUCTION POST (i guess)

Ummmm... Since I have almost 300 followers, then ig, i should make some welcome post or smth, so, HIIIIIIII, HAIIIIIIIII EVERYONEEEE!!!

(I'll TRY to keep this updated, no promises tho)

I'm Kamil, you can either call me by my name, or Kamik, or any other way you want (except slurs ofc, unless we're close friends lmao). I am a minor, trans/enby artist, who went to artschool BUT most of the art has learned by themselves:333

Art

The comms are open!! (Feel free to ask about em if you have any doubts)

Askbox is also open, if you have any doodle ideas or smth, feel free to share (I don't promise I'll do em, sowwy😭)

I mostly do digital art (I use Krita for everything), occasionally i do some scribbles in my sketchbooks, doodles in class, or generally school assignments (which i hate, but let's move on). I am a multifandom artist, who draws whatever they are hyperfixating on (rn im again stuck in re8 brainrot).

Here's the list of fandoms im (mostly) in:

Resident Evil series (mainly Resident Evil Village)

Just Shapes and Beats

Hollow Knight

Detroit: Become Human

Jojo's Bizarre Adventure (mostly Stardust Crusaders)

Original characters

I'm trying to finally bring my original characters to life, and give 'em a proper lore (which isn't going well, for now, lmao). Here's the list of em!

Claire/Clara Heisenberg (re8, Karl Heisenberg is her uncle, who became like a father to her)

Carl/Clara Heisenberg (same as Claire, but in D:BH universe)

Kazakura Marcatney (jjba part3, i'm shipping her with Kakyoin Noriaki)

Surya (Kazakura's stand)

Asuril and Lumi (Hollow Knight oc vessels)

Blixer Fresh (my version of that circle coward from jsab)

Lessyr (golden eyelash pit viper oc I made based off a song Snakes from Solence)

Spooder (a jumping spider oc I made when I was bored)

Bumblee (oc based off my ikea bumblebee plushie)

Other socials i post on (including my redbubble shop)

ThatOne._.ArtsyKid

That1-ArtsyKid

Now, let's settle out, 🚫DNI 🚫 if you either are a:

transphobe/homophobe/anyother lgbtq+phobe, a terf, JK Rowling Supporter, pro-shipper, racist, NSFW/18+, p0rn bot, sexist, or any other problematic folk (if you have an blank blog with an emtpy bio, then im also gonna block you)

More things about me :333

I come from Poland (therefore my english might not be the best)

My b-days are on 29th April

I have 4 budgies (named Lemon, Lemonade, Lime and Larry) and one rabbit (named Robin)

Im not the best with human interactions, sowwy

I easily get overwhelmed, and tend to disappear for few hours/days if I do, bear with me

Not looking to become friends with anyone, but if our vibe match, then hell yeah

I'm taken by the sweetiest pookie ever existed on this earth (my bf)

I have a tons of plushies occupying my bed

I've lived most of my life having high anxiety levels, so now im tryna take everything slowly (please be patient with me)

My fav music genres are metal, alternative metal, rock, rap-rock or anything that sounds good for me

I mostly listen to System Of A Down, Solence, My Chemical Romance, Grandson, Linkin Park and Cavetown (ofc)

I want to have many face piercings and tattoos in the future (I wish to have a septum, snake bites, a helix piercing and brow piercings so bad)

i'm a really really big bug nerd, if you have any cool bug pics, SEND EM OVER!!(im not joking)

my fav drinks are green tea and mojito (alcohol-free cuz i despise alcohol)

My comfort characters are:

Karl Heisenberg from re8 (I see him as a father figure)

Connor from dbh (the tism android)

Kakyoin from jjba part 3 (he's such a nerd, istg we'd go along together)

Lucas Baker from re7 (im not joking, i love this psycho-nerd)

Luis Serra Navarro from re4 (he so diva)

Angel Dust from hazbin hotel (i love him by his feminity and sassines)

Quirrel from Hollow Knight (another father figure, yes, I see a pillbug as a father figure, don't judge me)

[suneiaaa]

2022 recap!

Hey so I want to reflect about 2022 cause it's been one hell of a year. I do this for myself, but perhaps someone else is curious. I also want to bring back writing blog posts. I hope you'll excuse me if that's difficult and ends up being just a wish though, cause nowadays it's very hard to drop the phone and stop watching silly videos. I hate how our attention span goes off the window just like that. Actually let me make that a New Year's resolution: stop with the silly videos, thank you. The only reason I don't feel guilty about it is because I know it's the way social media is designed that manipulates our attention span left and right lol

Anyways,

2022.

In summary, I finished artschool, found my first industry jobs, moved into a new flat with my partner.

That was a lot of changes in a short period of time and I feel like I'm still recovering from/processing it.

_

In January, I was working really hard on the last 8 pages of Crow of Stone for one of my projects. That was the steepest learning curve up to that moment. From having to change the plot 7 or 8 times, to thumbnailing and scribbling, to storyboards, to handling critique and applying it, to being hella stressed out because perfectionism & still being unable to guess correctly how much information 8 pages can hold. Doing Comics Is So Hard, it's so much harder than you think!!!

I also put myself in charge of putting together the InDesign document of the zine Crow of Stone was in and that was really stressful FUCK THAT!!!:) We sold our zine at Comic BCN a couple months later, that was also a nice experience.

--

Then I got a chance to catch my breath but not really because that project ending meant the start of the final project And I Did Not Know What To Do Yet

I focused on adding some more pages to Crow of Stone and make it to the deadline of the International Comic School Contest of Clip Studio 2022 that is very long to write so from now on it'll be 'CSP CONTEST'. That was very important to me! I had always wanted to participate. I couldn't make it during 3rd year (my classmate won though!!) and this year felt like my last chance. So I did that. I had already given up on the idea of making something new with the time I had so CoS would have to do! You can read it here.

We were also Kindly Asked to participate in another scolarship (?) contest and had to create several comic(al) strips as entry. That wasn't too bad even though it didn't go anywhere lol

------

A NY WAYS, there went my time for the final project lol

It must have been April by this point. At first I wanted to create a storybook with my OC Neia but I struggled to give the story a... story.

My brainstorming for a new idea started. And it was a bit desperate. What did I want to draw? Should it be a comic? What did I like to read? Should I make something according to my inspirations? Quick, what are my favorite genres? Tropes? And most importantly, what do I want to tell? Etc. 

Lots of little drawings ensued.

And I finally came up with something that I felt was 'me' enough, and cool enough, and worth exploring. Llamadas Perdidas (missed calls, or lost calls.). The plot is STILL very hard to explain so I will translate it literally below and make of that what you will...

----

May. So my final project was pitching this whole thing. Thus creating a portfolio with the premise, plot, synopsys and sample pages. Just like with CoS, storyboarding was hard, thinking was hard. Time was almost up when I decided to pour all my energy into 6 pages. I was even finishing up the cover just a few hours before my deadline. 

That moment was fun, actually. I showed my work to my professor full of self doubt and wondering if it would be enough. He looks at me like girl this is fantastic sdhsjdhsjdh 

I had barely slept that day. On the way to school I found some broken glasses in a puddle and wondered, who could have lost their glasses like that? Flash forward and I'm home and I had taken a quick nap. And I can't find my newest, goodest pair of glasses. Before paranoia got the best of me I went outside and looked for them on the street (yeah I couldn't believe it either). Halfway to my school I gave up and went back home... And I found them before that: someone had left my glasses, intact, on a windowsill. On my fucking street. I had dropped my fucking glasses on my way home. Hah. I'll admit I cried a little bit.

---

June. As an extraordinary school thing, we were visiting a publisher's installations that day. When we met up with my teacher, for some reason, he said to me something like 'Thank GOD you're here. If you hadn't come I would have killed you. Are you nervous?'

And I said 'No?'

And he replied 'You better be'

Which puzzled me for a bit, but haha... During our meeting with the publishers they actually said 'Later we want to talk to X and Sun' and OH MY GOD was I fucking shocked (laughs)

Yes, they told me they Wanted To Publish Llamadas Perdidas. They saw my pitch and thought it was very cool. So I'll let you imagine the look on my face. Finishing school and already landed my first gig and as an author, no less. Man.

I spent several days being in a weird high and processing and I'll admit I haven't processed it yet. And thus I finished 4 years of art school.

---

I've written so much so from now on it'll be an actual summary.

Dealing with my first contract, panicking a little bit... On July I also received this good news: Crow of Stone had been awarded a runner-up prize in the Manga category of the CSP contest!

This was really great!! I fucking loved reading the critique and checking the other entries and I felt very proud...!

Also!!! They contacted me from ANOTHER publisher to work on another comic project. Since comics aren't well paid I took the job too :^) Freelancing in Spain is also hella expensive like you wouldn't believe soo... No, but it's also a good project and I'm glad I'm working on it as well! Can't talk about it yet.

MEANWHILE my partner and I were LOOKING FOR A PLACE TO MOVE IN TOGETHER!! Barcelona is so fucking expensive and it was straight out impossible to find anything decent. Even in the suburbs. So it sucked for a while... but eventually we decided to live in the small town we live in now. And we could find something pretty quickly :') And we moved in in August!!! WAHOO big lifegoal achieved :')

---

Fall. I've become a freelancer (oh god finances are such a headache...) and have been working on my 2 comic projects mostly. It took a while to adapt to like working everyday but I'm proud at how hard I've been working. Llamadas Perdidas is definitely the most difficult because I want to get it right/so many demons to fight and so much to learn. I'm also happy about the commissions I've been taking and love the style I developed. In December my art school and Clip Studio invited me to have a small panel at Manga BCN where I talked about Crow of Stone. I was honored & happy, especially since I met with my professor (the same I mentioned before) and he was very happy to see me and encouraged me a lot!

----------

That's about the major events that happened. My reflections? This year has been the steepest learning curve by far and also my most successful. I hope I can grow as an author and artist and keep flourishing. Also I literally just want to pay my bills with my work lol so there's my hopes and dreams. I haven't had much time to draw for myself, planning and drawing comics is super time consuming. But I didn't want to force myself too much and properly adapt to my new life (deadlines deadlines...deadliens...dead aliens...)

Videogame wise? I played Earthbound. It was the greatest thing I'd played in the longest time. Definitely a highlight. Triangle Strategy was cool too, but I hate Roland with all my heart. Xenoblade 3 was a good game but a disappointment story-wise. I had genuine fun being hyped for it, and playing too, though. So as we say in Spanish 'you can't take away the time in which I've been dancing'. Endwalker was fine though I like Shadowbringers a bit more x) OST wise this year was super fantastic. There were more games but I forgor. Oh yeah, Paper Mario was being great but it broke on me :( Also I became addicted to Eve and blame myself for not discovering him before. It's my fucking jam I admire him a lot.

To wrap up.

Wish me luck, I'll be working on comics all year, head full, want to maybe try streaming with the mic on,aaaaahhh thank you all for supporting me ESPECIALLY those who have been there for YEARS those who have commissioned me and just. Thank you! Happy New Year 2023, manifesting good mental health for all of us.

[babygirlwwx]

what if i quit uni and pursued fashion design instead 🤔

[artofmaquenda]

Hi it's me again, tired art student

How did you start your freelance art career? Etsy? Random commissions?

Haha hmmm i was an online nerd from a very young age (cannot reccomend xD) , started on online art forums and did very cheap commissions here and there that was my 'pocket money'. Later on i did more and more furry commissions, but I knew it wasn't sustainable. I wasn't good enough to charge more and I didn't have the energy to draw commissions every day. I didn't know what I wanted with my life and didn't feel like I was capable of doing much (super mega anxiety, dyscalculia and not feeling smart and skillful enough) so I went to artschool, which sucked and made me feel more lost and burnt out, until i had an art explosion at the end of my study and drew what the fuck i wanted, i realized i restricted myself a lot.

I realized i didn't like drawing for other people (like constantly for a living I mean) and managed to find a side job in cleaning (i felt really comfortable about that, something very physical and no interaction with customers or things that stress me out, honestly I feel like a loser writing all this but i want to be honest 🥲) so I could work on my on art at home. I lived very cheap in a student house back then so that was possible. I also started selling a bit more of my own work as prints on Etsy and conventions.

My partner and I started renting a place elsewhere and he didn't mind paying more for the costs of living as I was trying to figure out what to do with my art, I was very uncertain and had a lot of mental problems that honestly went unnoticed by my family as well, especially my extreme anxiety and probably autism, I never really got help for that and thinking back, I wish I had. I was also considering a new education again as I felt quite hopeless about art. So I started a vet assistant course but I totally failed. I got huge anxiety over it and attention deficiency made it all worse to be able to study at all, it was horrible so I quit 🙃

Anyway, it was dumb luck but things slowly started to pick up for me art wise, I've been online for years so I made a bit of a following on several social medias. I think I got more serious about art in the recent.. 3/4 years? I also got to do some cool albumart projects here and there so that was like a dream coming true.

So there, that's my art career 😆

[ocular-intercourse]

mangosandchili hat auf deinen Eintrag geantwortet “i have this scene in my head for asher and devin’s dad, where they are...”

I love him ������ But why is she like that? How's he feeling about it?

she’s just very protective over her big brother, and from her perspective asher is nothing but trouble. when their parents split up years back devin stayed with his mom while his sister went to live with his dad, to the town where asher’s family and the artschool is based, so she’s been there for a while and knows a lot more about who asher is than devin when he first tells her about this cute guy at his therapist’s office, to which she is already like ‘god how stupid can you be’ and then she figures out who exactly this mentally unstable crush of her brother’s is and it’s all downhill from there, cause a) a white billionaire’s kid is already wildly unlikable in her eyes and b) all she sees from the outside is her brother running after this guy who treats him like shit only because sometimes he’s kinda nice inbetween and has pretty eyes or whatever devin’s reasoning is and c) this guy’s last boyfriend just vanished?? helloo??? that’s shifty as hell

i have not quite decided which variant i like better, but when asher & devin secretly get together and asher forbids devin to tell anyone anything about that, his father & what has been happening devin is either keeping that promise, and then she just sees her brother in this weirdly abusive relationship that he has to keep secret for some reason (in her eyes probably cause asher is ashamed of dating devin or whatever) and her brother being clearly distressed about SOMETHING but he just wont tell her so it’s gotta be about asher being an absolute dirtbag and him mistreating her brother. or devin breaks his promise and tells his sister what is going on cause they talk about everything and he can’t keep it to himself cause he just does not know what to do about it, and then she’s just ‘for the love of god i will not let this white boy be responsible for your death you will get out of there RIGHT NOW MISTER’, which is actually very fair and also the fun part cause if asher’d be there he would just agree with her ‘i’ve been trying to get him to leave too’ and she would hate everything about that

and devin understands why she dislikes, or rather why she has to dislike asher, but for once he is very steadfast and tells her that he likes this guy and he wont abandon him with everything he’s been going through and that she does not understand asher and might not understand devin’s reasoning but she is also never going to change his mind about this and that she just has to accept that he’s going to be with this guy, and she can continue to be against this if she likes but she should not do it in front of him, and his sister just kinda begrudgingly accepts that cause dang her brother standing up for himself like that is new to her and well apparently there is something to this relationship that she can’t deny she just wishes it weren’t the case. so her interactions with asher are either ‘if you are gonna hurt my brother i will kill you!!!’ (to which asher is like: ‘hah, not if i kill myself first!’) or ‘your privilege literally makes my blood boil your lifestyle makes me so angry!!’. she’s very judgmental about him being a rich kid, and again asher would absolutely drive her insane cause he’d just agree with her, they really see eye to eye on most things but through sheer force of will she still manages to ignore his positive traits and hate him instead, and eventually dislike him, and then some day tolerate him and that might be as good as it gets

and asher is just like.. that’s fair i deserve that i’m glad your sister is watching out for you devin you should listen to her more. he’s just stoic about the whole thing, she might attack him and he’s just like ‘yeah okay’ and that either defuses the situation or makes her scream in annoyance. i have another fun scene in my head where asher gives her a very thoughtful birthday gift and she is on one hand like ‘god damn it nobody has ever given me a gift this good this is exactly what i’m into and why the fuck does he even bother to look that closely at a person that clearly dislikes him arrrrrrg fuck why is he a great guy i need to hate him!!!’ but also ‘this thing either cost a ton of money or just the right connections god being rich must be so fucking easy what a piece of shit!!!’ she has a lot of strong feelings. meanwhile devin (and asher to an extent) just hope she’ll eventually get over it. asher’s dad dying (asher being the one to do it even more so) and devin being out of immediate danger will definitely help but even then she’s like.. grumpily befriending asher

[hcmj]

HCMJ’s Favorite Albums of 2018!

Listen to a mix featuring these albums here: HCMJ’s 2018 End Of Year Mix

Honorable Mentions: 

LLLL - Chains Phase 4: Resemblance

Various - 慕情 in da tracks

Endurance - Shade Terrarium

Farragol x dropp - 楽感 / optimo

pool$ide - aquarius

FUJII - EUPHORIA

Andrew W.K. - You’re Not Alone

Stardazer - Vacation Dreams

Alex Crispin - Open Submission

Foodman - Aru Otoko No Densetsu

20) TUPPERWΛVE - To you baby, with love

As the years go by, sometimes I still crave that classic-style (or as Tech Honors once described SEAWRLDハートブレーク, “trash-ass”) vaporwave sound. It’s the usual fare of slowed down antiquated R&B with filter sweeps and side-chained kicks, but TUPPERWΛVE’s sample choices and looped snippets stay inspired throughout, building emotionally impactful arrangements and proving the artist has what 90% of contemporary vaporwave is missing: a sense of taste and purpose. NUWRLD vibes.

STREAM/DOWNLOAD

19) The Caretaker - Everywhere At The End Of Time - Stage 4 & 5

Leyland Kirby released stages 4 and 5 of his six part, multi-year epic simulating a mind falling into dementia. It’s said the last memories someone suffering from dementia retains are the melodies heard in their youth, and on this year’s installments we find melodies from the first stages lost in a haze of static and noise. While not as easy to listen to as the first three stages, these 8 tracks lose the poetic titles of the previous installments and present an absolutely horrifying interpretation of the confusion that comes with a mind breaking down.

STREAM/DOWNLOAD

18) Kate NV - для FOR

I won’t lie, I went into the new Kate NV hoping for at least a few heart-melting rib-cage exploding pop masterpieces like what she showed us on Binasu (my favorite album of 2016). However, the absence of conventional songwriting on для FOR ends up being its defining characteristic. The album delivers a set of impressionistic synth sculptures that slowly develop an album that blossoms into blissful organic structures with brushstrokes of vocals before skipping off into a brightly lit horizon.

STREAM/DOWNLOAD

17) 忘れた頃に手紙をよこさないで - Tamao Ninomiya

There is an air of surreality drifting through the new crop of Tokyo underground post-pop. Tamao Ninomiya’s “lo-fi bedroom pop” is always performed in PJs and has a playful gloominess with a thousand-yard-stare kind of shyness that exudes a special kind of emotional resonance. Everything is gentle, subtly “off” - it’s an inventive and delicate pop sketchbook. 

STREAM/DOWNLOAD

16) Kero Kero Bonito - Time 'n' Place

The same way Pokémon Yellow was a video game based on an anime that was based on a video game, Kero Kero Bonito is a British group that has arrived at a sound closer to early 2000′s jrock than the British rock that crop of Japanese musicians were imitating. While the final 1/3rd of the album drags, there’s no denying the pop perfection of “Time Today,” the Blue-Album-Weezer thunder of “Only Acting,” the Parklife-era Blur artschool bounce of “If I’d Known,” the whimsical bubblegum of “Make Believe,” or the saccharin yet heartfelt “Dear Future Self,” a pop meditation complete with "Mr. Blue Sky” charm and melodramatic chamber orchestra arrangements.

STREAM/DOWNLOAD

15) we could die here - we could die here

While “brooding ambient” is a genre I have drifted away from these past years, ‘we could die here’ reminded me of why I was once drawn to it. It’s all about creating atmospheres, and while so much of genre these days seems to be producing the same, boring, smoke-filled neon/black room, ‘we could die here’s lush sound succeeds in building a sprawling, haunting world with enough depth that it’s worth returning to.

STREAM/DOWNLOAD

14) poemme - Moments in Golden Light

Similar in scope to ‘we could die here,’ Moments in Golden Light is as advertised - warm and soft. Blissful pillows of ambience constructed in the old style, poemme pulses and drones with the silkiness of Hakobune and the breadth of Steve Roach, featuring a track that even unabashedly layers in bird samples.

STREAM/DOWNLOAD

13) Machine Girl - The Ugly Art

The Ugly Art is special, as it’s the first Machine Girl album that begins to capture the raw energy and power of their live shows by showcasing live drums. The insane breaks are intact and the blistering Dreamcast punk is more hardcore. It’s dense, unrelenting in its shredding, and culminates in the epic “A Decent Man,” a 10 minute violent rave masterpiece with more content than all 3 Matrix movies combined.

STREAM/DOWNLOAD

12) Oneohtrix Point Never - Age Of

Age Of is a complex concept album more convoluted than a Roger Waters solo project. The music itself makes the trip one worth taking, through 13 immaculately produced tracks painting a post-apocalyptic machine world. It has an ability to turn pop tricks on tracks like “Black Snow” and “Same,” while the sound remains distant from any of comfortable paradigm. Bits of static, broken samples, and walls of noise develop into larger-than-life ballads that seem eerily familiar despite being so alien. The arrangements are complex and the production is deep, it’s a cyber-western soundtrack that always commands full attention. 

SPOTIFY / APPLE MUSIC

11) Seth Graham - Gasp

Gasp has a charm and complexity that sets it apart from a lot of experimental composition. The tape cut samples of “Whisper - Slap” sound impossibly worked on, while the ASMR freakouts of “Binary Tapioca” and the restrained playfulness of “Flower Cheese” make the process sound like an artist working effortlessly. Deeply emotive and loudly expressive, Gasp has a sound that digs in its hooks and burrows deep.

STREAM/DOWNLOAD

10) Equip - Synthetic Core 88

The long awaited followup to the seminal faux-ost I Dreamed Of A Palace In The Sky, Synthetic Core 88 delivers on the promise of Equip’s earlier work and brings it to a new realm of legitimacy. This is a 32-bit RPG I wish I could play - with all the themes of interwoven technology and magic revealing themselves in the clever score. The conflict between the cold steel and floral lushness emerges in the sound somewhere between Uematsu and a “Tales of” game. This album could only be made by someone who truly understands how music supports the worldbuilding an RPG needs to be a successful narrative platform.

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9) Utsuro Spark - Static Electricity

Utsuro Spark is a miracle. One of the highlights from the impressive output of the Japanese label, Local Visions, this mini-album is a collection of beautifully crafted metropolitan electro pop. Sharp instrumentals including studio-perfect guitar and on-point synth work lay a foundation for blissfully creamy vocals - pop music that is full of desperate longing and unpretentious charm. The katakana titles recall the old Japanese pop it draws inspiration from, but in many ways the soul of this music at the very least meets the bar set by the old masters. 

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8) Tsudio Studio - Port Island

I was lucky to play a show in Kobe with Tsudio Studio, whose brilliant songwriting and iconic vocal delivery completely won over my heart and soul. The jazzy coolness and gorgeous chord structure for tracks like “Azur” and “Snowfall Seaside” are absolutely intoxicating, while the hooky R&B in “Mikage” and the Phantasy Star Online space-shredding of the opener “Tor” make Port Island a mini-album where every single track is a stand out.

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7) Dinosaur On Fire - Populous Romantique

After a 6 year gap, dds cohort Tech Honors unleashed the second Dinosaur On Fire album in a maelstrom of prog rock and laser beams. It’s an ultra hi-fi production that bounces from stoner prog to krautrock to synthwave to operatic video game symphonies to Ray Lynch arp fountains and back again effortlessly. Populous Romantique showcases the expansive reach of Tech’s abilities both as a visionary artist and producer.

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6) Monari Wakita - Ahead!

While so much jpop has become aggressively intense and fast-tempo, Ahead! provides a soulful contrast. Monari Wakita is an ex-idol and alumni of Especia, a group known for capitalizing on 80′s/90′s nostalgia. Ahead! mostly pulls from the 90′s, with new jack swing aping and hyper-produced city pop so technically perfect that the instrumentals would sound at home on the soundtrack of a 90′s Sonic Team video game. It’s that FM bass, synthetic swing, and plastic instrumentation against Monari’s powerful and soulful voice that gives Ahead! its irresistible charm and made it one of the most addictive albums of the year.

VIDEO 1 / VIDEO 2

5) Ventla - Plugged-Matic/Sublingual Odyssey

After years of silence, Ventla returned in 2018 with 10 (!) new albums on his quest to release 100. Ventla’s music continues to be eclectic vignettes of scratchy pop music, utilizing a seemingly endless variety of instruments and synths. Of the 10, the “classic Ventla” sound of Plugged-Matic and the playful exoticism explored on Sublingual Odyssey were my favorites - but with an artist whose entire catalog of 477 songs is easily played on loop for days on end, picking only 2 albums is almost an act of futility.

STREAM/DOWNLOAD: Plugged-Matic/Sublingual Odyssey

4) emamouse - Pigeon’s Point

emamouse’s genius visual art and surreal identity are accented by her equally forward thinking music. The iconic opener “01_PP2″ is a brilliant statement of purpose; a homicidal vocaloid squeaking words you can’t quite understand but frighten you nonetheless over a synth organ jamming out hypnotic post-pop you can’t help but dance to. This is music written by a true artist with a powerful vision of reality and instrumental chops informed by video game music deep cuts. “08_Pigeon’s Swipe” is another great showcase of emamouse’s ability to skew Dragon Quest baroque synths and contort them into the brilliant, unsettling world of her boundless imagination.

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3) TWICE - What Is Love?

Kpop can be a divisive genre, but its meteoric rise in the US is no fluke. The Korean pop machine has mastered the art of the pop song, and nowhere is it more evident than in TWICE’s “What Is Love?” Perfect structure, heart-tugging hook, surprising turns, and a chorus that sounds like 1000 girls yelling the lyrics from the bottom of the grand canyon, “What Is Love?” is technically perfect and sweetly endearing. It’s truly the most perfect pop song I’ve ever heard.

VIDEO

2) Mid-Air Thief - Crumbling

Crumbling is an album so in tune with my personal taste it’s hard to believe it exists. With a foundation of Lamp-esque dreamy pop labyrinths, Mid-Air Thief weaves complex arrangements peppered with ELO synths, chiptune fireworks, lo-fi indie folk revery, underwater voices and Elliott Smith whispers, even some Merriweather Post Pavilion electro-hippy clouds. It’s all the right flavors and textures coming together in a perfectly balanced, romantic masterpiece.

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1) Lamp - Her Watch / 彼女の時計

I discovered Lamp through a vaporwave album back in 2014 that sampled them heavily, and while those short samples of cooing vocals and breezy guitar looped with their heads underwater certainly worked in a satisfying way on that album, discovering the source material was a revelation. Lamp is the result of an algorithm to determine music that would be most appealing to me, and they hit new ridiculous heights of personal appeal on Her Watch. Their signature labyrinthine hurricane of Beatle-esque chord changes under soft voices and bossa nova rhythms is re-fitted into a nostalgic frame, sometimes approaching an almost city pop revivalist sound. The tenderness of “Slow-Motion,” the romance of “A Train Window,” the pop genius of “1998,” the borage of melancholic brightness that rolls from the opening chords of “At The Night Party,” all of it falls into place on the most sublime 36 minutes I have heard in a long time. It was the soundtrack to my life this year and my favorite album of 2018!

STREAM/DOWNLOAD / SPOTIFY / APPLE MUSIC

[icharchivist]

@nechrollomicon replied to your post “i know its; like, how schools and such work, but im still baffled i...”

This is so great! I'm so proud of you pumpkin! Tell us more!

hkjdfhfk thank you!!!  <3333

It’s a little complicated of a situation, but basically the artschool i intended to a few years ago opened a new school just now specialized in manga, video games and animation (the “video game and animation” being the one that is.... really eyeing me). The school itself is kinda selling itself more as a “formation school” than a school, as in, it is supposed to make us in contact with compagnies around the world. (I could meet some of the animators working for the school when I went on the open door days). 

The problem is that the school is kinda expensive and out of our means so a lot of things need to unlock for it to work - Regardless tho, they had a introduction internship planned for this week. And since the artschool somehow remembers me (i’m actually shocked the provisors remembered me i was shit. I may have had a diploma from it but d u d e h o w), even if i came aware of the internship quite late, the provisors still let my internship contract pass because they know I would show up and such. (and, if anything, while the internship would work well to get me into the school (since places are extremely limited), both the diploma i have, my history in their school, and how i apparently impressed the provisors and intervenants during the open doors day, if the money gets to happen i *should* have a place more easily*)

*The Open doors days were w i l d, they had animators and such present the program and i could talk to a couple of people and the more i elaborated both on my formations and my passions and why i was interested I was getting very interested reactions and like, it reminds me that *i have qualifications*. I’m bilingual which is always a plus and it still shocks me that people even more when i mention it casually or how i became so for trivial purposes. I have experience in langue and history schools and translation and such, i have a cultural background, a confirmation in art - and my own personal interests and analyses align with the kind of mindset they want, i spent hours rambling about animation and gaming and technical aspects like.

ANYWAY the Internship - is sooooo great? So far it’s mostly introduction to Game Design, and all the jobs that are available in it - from handling Photoshop and 3D’s programs (note to self 3D programs are a lowkey form of death), to analysing the marketting, to even explore the writting aspect of a production of a project, and all the things that must be taken into account by a productor (what to use, what purpose does it serves, thinking about level designs, about how it supports your project ect..). All of that with game trivia analysis in the middle.

And we’re only 7 so we’re closely followed and in a really cool espace and I’m handling it quite well, more or less (again, battling against the 3D program and yelling but *technically* i’m managing). And there’s a good ambiance in general.

so djkhfd maybe it’s too early to say “it’s going well!” and it finishes tomorrow afternoon so i’m midway through the internship, but ye this is really the sort of ambiance i really like and it’s not nearly as stressful as I expected. And it makes me realize that in a team, this is maybe the kind of elements I could eventually feel more at ease into.

Also i’m really getting along with the teacher and we talked a lot, and she compliments either my job a lot (which still baffles meeee, but at the same time there’s an aspect of it that makes me confident. Ie we had to make a “fake video game pitch” at some point and make a cover for it with a summary and all, and i was preparing mine and she went behind me and went “this is really good! and it’s really well written!” and my reaction was “ye, i’m glad i found the right police character” and she was like “no. I mean, the synthaxe.” “AH. Thanks.” i’m an idiot) or she is really enthusiast by how enthusiast i am (i keep replying all her questions like “do you know what are the different parts of the developpers’s works” and I was just, always mentioning something dkfhdkff she knew my name after 3 hours bc of how talkative i was about all of those) idk there’s something so validating to see my passion on stuff being validated and see i can make a decent work applying it i’m really happy dkjfhdk

Moreso, since it’s in my sister’s city (which is far from my parents’s house), i’m remaining at my sister’s place for a few days and tbh this is probably the most relieving part of it, far from the parents, i don’t really talk to them a lot, and while my sis is under some stress bc of my parents (very long story), she’s so much chill and sweet and it feels so much more comfortable than when we see at our parents’ home (and we could discuss in length yesterday about “how our parents ruined our lives”, the most validating convo ever tbh). 

So i’m in a good ambiance, good environment, and i’m doing stuff i like. 

There will be a few things to adjust if i can get the opportunity to get to the school, but ye, for now i’m trying not to think about this big If in case of disappointment and i’m trying to enjoy what i’m doing now - and it’s really a tone of fun. 

So ye dkjhfd we’ll see how the two next days will go,but so far i’m loving my stay and it’s really fun. :’D

thank you sweetie <3

Wish you well, take care!!

[painted-bees]

I havent even gone to an art college or anything but even taking art in highschool, i got lesser grades bc my art teacher was very "Freedom to do things however! Oh. Not that." and that caused me to butt heads with her because I am always a very strong willed person

I found art school (the one I went to) to be a lot of that.I mean, the concept surrounding first two years is understandable imo. Especially first year. The idea that you enter through those doors to shed all your previous (mis)understandings and resulting arrogance about how to draw/paint/compose–in order to allow yourself to be sculpted into a well rounded artist by your instructors–is great and necessary. Working with black and white shapes to learn shit like contrast and composition, so on and so forth, and then moving on to how to observe and dissect forms… all that junk. Yeah, you’re not drawing your OCs and cartoons like you want to. BUT these are all lessons that’ll help you draw that stuff better, and it’s good stuff to learn.The problem is, this really relies on your instructor knowing how to actually teach.I’ve had to kinds of instructors: those who were excellent artists and shit instructorsand those who were shit artists and consequently shit instructors. In a perfect world, where your instructors know their stuff AND know how to deliver the lessons in an unbiased, open, and truly “you’re paying me, I just want to help you rather than take personal pleasure in delivering ‘hard truths’ and making my students cry” kind of way, art school is great! And I understand that there are instructors out there who are like this. I only ever met one, he taught me color theory. He also defended me when he became the head off the department I was majoring in. In third and fourth year, school was supposed to be about considering what kind of work you want to produce after you graduate, writing artists statements about it, and producing the work you want to produce. The instructors were supposed to help us go in the direction we wanted to go in.I wanted to do narrative illustrations.You know…the stuff I’m doing now, seven years after I had graduated.And I was met with a lot of resistance about it. In turn, my artist statement had to become an air tight argument about why narrative illustration was just as valuable as anything you’d find in an art gallery, and why I should be allowed to pursue it. My instructors didn’t like it, because it had been so easy to dismiss illustration and design as “stuff that someone else pays for, ideates, and directs” rather than “something self-directed that an artist does personally, for themselves, which can be monetarily valued once it has been published”. And the tune that was sung in the last two years of art school was that “technical skill doesn’t matter”. Something that drove me up the fucking wall. I wished I was joking, but I’m not even paraphrasing. Those exact words were said to me by several different instructors during my third and fourth year. And they’re right, if you’re pursing a very particular direction with your work. But that wasn’t the direction I wanted to go in. I didn’t want to produce work that’d look and sound good to gallery curators. That wasn’t my jam. But that’s all my instructors knew how to approach and talk about–so that’s what they really tried to pressure me towards. I was a bit too bullheaded for that.  Thanks to the internet and my peers, who provided assistance and lessons for free–I was able to teach myself when art-school failed to do what I was paying it a lot of money to do.In this day and age, if you already know firmly what you want to pursue, imo, the internet is an infinitely more valuable and helpful resource than art school…The exception might be like…calarts or something. But I’ve never been to calarts, so I can’t even say that with confidence.Who knows, maybe there’s a particular kind of person who finds artschool super helpful and worth all the debt (And I’m sure they’ll leave their two cents on the matter). But it sure as heck wasn’t me haha. 

[nichiriin]

A friend with an amazing artstyle went to an artschool. And even if their proportions were getting better, the soul of their art kinda vanished. That was very sad to see.

Even myself was enjoying drawing à lot, then i went to an artschool where they always told me to not draw like that coz it was too "manga"...it took me years to enjoy drawing again, in à style that was like the one they told me to drop.

So yeah sometimes art schools Can be very toxic when they dont support personnal art and want to force you to draw more conventional.

Some others are good and encourage people to surf on their particularities and change their doubts into strenght. I just wish more of them were like that.

The left is what their art looked like before calarts and the right is pretty much what it is now.

HOW THE FUCK DO YOU GO TO ART SCHOOL AND IMMEDIATELY GET WORSE

[nicothewolf]

Today for class we went to Skyward Studios and @nashvillegrip they were awesome and showed us tons of toys I wish I had. Including this lawn mower fog machine! • • • #fog #grip #gripandlighting #fogger #toys #film #filmmajor #filmschool #filmstudent #filmfriends #art #artschool #filmtools #filmtoys #fogitup