#one of these days I’ll really get the hang of digital art

[valeriehalla]

I don’t know what to do about the internet. It’s getting worse, and getting worse faster than I think any of us ever could have imagined even just six years ago. Tumblr shot itself in the heart at the behest of Apple, at the behest of whichever nameless evangelical finance perverts are in charge of credit card policy, whereupon people like me (artists and people who like art) fled in droves to Twitter, the present state of which I don’t have it in me to be funny about.

Even after that one-two punch, Twitter and Tumblr are still the only (major) social media platforms I can stand to use. I mean, they’re the last ones left where you can, for example, see posts that your friends have made. I might have said that that seemed like the whole point of social media; every digital elsewhere has now collectively agreed that it is, in fact, social media’s greatest flaw. Your friends like to hang out and post weird jokes and titty drawings — they don’t know the first thing about your favorite marketing trends, let alone your unslakable thirst for 30-second phone videos. We have to move on: I’ll die if I think about it.

Uh — I wanna let you in a little. Here’s where I’m at, okay? I’m working on this project. I like it a lot: it’s a writing thing and an art thing and a music thing all at the same time. I’m still struggling with art burnout, but every day I get to sit down and write or compose for this thing is an unending delight, so on the balance it’s been great to work on. It’s taken me a while to get here, though — I’ve blown past all my estimates about when it’d be done. Still, it won’t be much longer.

In the mean time, I keep having these compulsive worries. I feel that I should be posting, but the nature of a long-form project like this is that I don’t have anything to post. I tweet complete nothings now and then, as if to announce my presence, like a lighthouse pulsing in the distance. And every week the websites get worse. They’re bleeding out, and it feels like some of my blood’s in there, maybe. Like, maybe you’d call me naïve, but it wasn’t that long ago that I really, really liked all this online stuff. I never had the hustle culture mindset about it: by good luck alone I managed to make a living posting the stuff I wanted to post on the places I wanted to post it.

The places I liked to post don’t exist anymore. My experience of using the internet feels hostile, alien. The ground beneath all our feet feels eggshell-thin.

But I have to use the internet: it’s where my stuff goes. It’s where all of you are. Here is where art and artists and art-likers live.

The things I love live here, in precarity, as the saw blades and lava traps of our digital dungeon grow every day more numerous.

Anyway, what I’m saying is that the web sucks now, but as long as we’re here — and we will be here — I want to try loving it again anyway. I want to untangle myself from all this disappointment and expectation and try simply “vibing” again. I wanna use cohost more: I’ll even crosspost stuff to Tumblr like I keep saying I should. I’m making a cool thing and I should show it off! I should relearn how to draw a little doodle and post it without feeling like it’s a suboptimal use of my time or whatever!! I want to believe in what joy may find us, though our world be a dumpster.

[biconickyoshi]

Zuko and Aang as they appear in Book 2: Water of my slowburn Zukaang AU, The Avatar and the Fire Prince!

Overall Synopsis (for new readers):

In the year 96 AG, a freshly burned and banished 13-year-old Prince Zuko discovers a strange boy frozen in an iceberg. When Zhao interferes with Zuko's plans to deliver the Avatar to his father, Aang helps Zuko and Iroh escape. They take refuge in the abandoned Air Temples, Aang searching for any remnants of his people that he can find. Along the way, he teaches an indoctrinated Zuko about the true nature of the Air Nomads. Zuko must come to terms with the fact that everything he has been taught was a lie, while Iroh must acknowledge and face the sins of his past. Eventually, Aang and Zuko become close friends, and Zuko begins to feel things he has never felt for anyone before. However, Zhao will not give up easily, and will do whatever it takes to capture the Avatar and his traitor accomplices.

Book 2 Synopsis:

Zuko and Iroh have now officially denounced the Fire Nation and the Royal Family and are dedicating themselves to helping Aang fight against the forces of their homeland. After narrowly escaping Admiral Zhao at Crescent Island during the winter solstice of 96 AG, Aang, Zuko, and Iroh travel south in search of the Southern Water Tribe village Aang has been dreaming about. The village is in danger: the Southern Raiders are coming, and it will be up to our trio - with the help of a couple of Water Tribe siblings - to unite the remaining villages of the Southern Water Tribe so that they will stand a fighting chance.

I got an iPad for Xmas and I’ve spent the past couple days working on this! :) I’m super happy with how it turned out!

Zuko’s about 14 here - his hair length is how it looks about halfway through this Book. I’ll probably do another piece to show what he looks like at the end of the Book since his hair is a lot longer now with it being almost a year since he cut it in the AU’s timeline (we’re now approaching the Northern Water Tribe storyline). I’ve also never drawn weapons before… so I hope his broadswords don’t look too wonky 😅

Aang is about 13 here. He’s wearing a new outfit as well, which I thought made sense since this AU takes place over 3-4 years instead of less than one year like in the OG series. Aang’s gonna grow a lot over the course of this AU, so he can’t just keep wearing his Air Nomad trainee clothes indefinitely lol.

I plan to do a lot more pieces in the future as I get the hang of digital art, so I would like to draw more characters (like Iroh, Sokka, and Katara) and more looks for Aang and Zuko. I’m also really excited for Book 3, which will be Earth in my fic (Earth is my absolute favorite season of the OG show). Zuko’s hair will probably be long enough to pull back into a ponytail again at some point during that book… Though this time it will be a different style :) gotta do some brainstorming for that one!

I’m close to wrapping up the next chapter, in which our characters make a return to the Northern Air Temple! I haven’t had as much time to work on it recently just due to all the holiday stuff that’s been going on. It’s probably gonna be a shorter chapter as well (which I don’t mind, I hope y’all don’t either). But after that, we’ll finally be in the Northern Water Tribe! :)

[the-100-days-of-junkan]

Day 100

One hundred fuckin’ days. God. Actually happened. 

I spent 3/4ths of the year drawing more Junkan art than I think anyone else on the internet ever has. Which might be presumptuous of me, maybe i’m just looking in the wrong places y’know? I’m a solid second place bare minimum.

And like, that’s still pretty funny right? This whole event is something I’m gonna cherish forever, the memories, the art itself, the friends I made because of it. But like, c’mon. I drew 100 fucking pieces, learned new skills like digital painting, animation, all that shit, for a ship that I used to hate, and a ship that for the longest time I thought was gonna get me fuckin banished to the deepest depths of the internet just for drawing a poor sketch of them kissing. This ship has become more deeply entwined into who I am as a person that it’s passed up Tokomaru, the ship that literally made me realize I’m a woman.

It’s gotta be at least a little funny, right?

Ah but enough of that, I can talk more on that subject a bit later. For now I reckon I should focus on our art piece for today! Wouldn’t you agree?

Yeah it’s the Wedding. I’d say even before Day 60 I decided the final pic of the Project would be The Wedding, even before I decided to draw a comic of the proposal. Because like, c’mon, it’s basic but how the fuck else was I supposed to end of the project? With something that ISN’T a wedding????

And very shocking to hear after this entire project has gone by, but I did in fact scale back this pic massively. You wanna know what the original idea was?? 22 images, each one depicting different parts of the wedding and afterparty, including the kiss at the end. And the kiss at the end? I was gonna feature every character from the 3 main classes + Ruruka, Seiko, and Yasuke. Fucking why??? Because Excess is all I know people ITS ALL I KNOW.

However I had decided that I wanted this project finished and ready before October, because I wanted to do the Vampire Fic to coincide with Day 30. And again, say it with me here, “Jem was severely burnt out on the project!” 

So it went from 22 images, to “However many I can get done in time + the big group shot” and then that became “Just the big group shot,” and then finally, i cracked and just drew The Kiss. 

Speaking of which before I divulge some more info about the original plan, i’ll get all the fun things about the actual art I did go through with.

As you can tell I shaded this differently from anything in the project. I normally have two different ways of shading art, I don’t think these are the proper words but I call them Soft Shading and Hard Shading. If you need immediate examples, Day 95 was Soft Shaded, and Day 94 was Hard Shaded. Generally speaking I prefer to do Hard Shading, as I think it works better with the rest of my style, and also just looks better in general. Soft Shading is what I do for pics with like, a very specific tone and energy to them that I can’t really put to words. It’s also significantly easier to do compared to Hard Shading. 

A few months back for a commission of Kaede and Marceline from Adventure Time hanging out (yes this is relevant) I was trying to capture a very specific aesthetic that I’m obsessed with called Frutiger Aero. This mostly was in the background, however when lighting the pic I needed a very specific aesthetic that I didn’t know how to capture with just one of my shading styles. So . . . I fuckin did both. And in my opinion (which is crazy because this requires I compliment myself) it looked fuckin great. That said it was significantly harder.

I think I’ve done it only one other time after this, but I don’t remember what the pic was if it exists at all. But obviously as you can see, I decided that to really commemorate the occasion I’d go all out and do both shading styles again. It was very worth it, but fun fact! Doing this style on Roses is a fucking pain in the ass and if I ever have to do it again I will fucking SCREAM!

Anyway, the pic was definitely a lot harder to work on because of that stylistic choice, but the end result makes up for it by a massive margin. 

Hope ya’ll like the dresses because they were the hardest part of this! Fun fact, Val (She’s back!) did a chapter for her legendary Year of Love and Despair fic where the gals are in wedding dresses. And the designs she came up with are amazing! I still really wanna draw em when I get a chance! However! I woulda felt bad if I just yoinked em for this, so I had to do everything in my power to come up with completely different designs. And given that I am a perfectionist, that was significantly more difficult than it probably shoulda been. But I did it! I really like how Mikan’s dress turned out specifically, I thought giving her a fit that covered up more skin than a normal wedding dress would be fitting for her. Also I really like drawing Mikan’s hair in a bun, I never had a chance to say that so I’mma say that now. 

Wow fuck I just realized there’s probably a lot of random details or thought processes I have on this ship that I just never got an opportunity to talk about, either because I had a different topic to cover on previous posts, or I just forgot, or I just didn’t have a good segway! Crazy right? 

Also yes! Shading Junko’s hair was heavenly~

Okay i’ve run out of words on the art. Time to tell you about everything I cut! Now I’m sad to say but no, I didn’t actually cut 22 planned images. I never got far enough to actually figure out each individual pic. Only a small handful, which I almost speedily sketched out for this post, but I don’t have it in me, especially on my current schedule. So i’ll just do my best to describe what I had in mind!

First piece would have been Mukuro being on Security for the Wedding, because of course. She would have also enlisted the help of Mondo and his entire gang, because that combination in this context sounds funny. Don’t worry though they were well behaved.

Ruruka was gonna handle the Wedding Cake, with Teruteru on the rest of the food. Either Ruruka or Mukuro would have been giving him a death glare during the process of course.

Behind the scenes Mikan would be getting prepped for the Wedding. And by prepped I mean Seiko, Ibuki, and Sayaka would be trying very hard to keep Mikan from crying as a result of how happy and overwhelmed she is (Ruining her makeup). Seiko trying to blow air into her eyes to keep them dry while Sayaka and Ibuki desperately try to find an outlet to plug in a hairdryer in because that would be significantly more efficient.

On the reverse, Junko would be doing all of the work on prepping herself for the wedding, with Ruruka, Yasuke and Tsumugi standing in the background, questioning why they’re even there. Junko would yell at them that they’re morale support in this instance. 

Warriors of Hope would of course be there being scamps of course, Kotoko would be the Flower Girl because I play favorites. Toko and Komaru would probably be there trying to keep them in line.

I didn’t have anything in mind with the afterparty but I more than likely would have drawn the drunkest Junko I possibly could. Maybe even Mikan too!

For the Bouquet Throwing I was gonna have Syo jumping at it like a feral animal, and thinking about it now I’d probably also have Tenko jumping for it with killing intent in her eyes.  

And I think that’s it for ideas I had prior to cutting them. Which means it’s time for me to get sappy about the fact that the project is finally ending! Fuck! Usually when I write these I try to have a decent idea ahead of time of what I’m gonna fucking say, this time however I’m just gonna talk, and i’m gonna keep talking until I’m either struck down by nature or I run out of things to say. Sorry! 

This is going to get silly, sappy, and maybe even a little venty, jump in at your own risk. 

If you told me at the beginning of 2024 that I was going to draw 100 days worth of Junkan related art, including a gif and a music video, 2 comics, and also get back into writing to make gay fanfic, I’d be so god damn confused. Because what the fuck right? And that’s not even counting everything I drew AFTER I fuckin finished! Like hold on a minute i’m gonna count up how many times i’ve drawn these two, including the individual comic pages from the three i’ve made.

204.

Fucking, I. I didn’t even know we passed 200 by this point. 

And that’s not counting the sketches I’ve drawn on paper in my sketchbook. It’s also not counting unfinished pics. It ain’t counting the art I might draw WHILE writing this! It’s not counting the stuff I probably forgot about while searching my files cause I suck at naming the aforementioned files!

AND I’M STILL NOT BURNED OUT EITHER?

I got burned out on the project sure but the moment I had the freedom to do whatever I wanted I fucking IMMEDIATELY drew a Junkan pic for Halloween. And then I kept going, and then I didn’t fucking stop, and I don’t think I CAN stop! I don’t even WANT to stop but you’d think by now I’d be like “Well I don’t have any ideas right now-” NO I HAVE TOO FUCKING MANY IDEAS! I KEEP FUCKING THINKING OF MORE IDEAS, AND THEN I COME UP WITH AN AU AND THAT COULD HAVE LIKE 10,000 MORE IDEAS. JUNKAN IS A MENTAL HYDRA YOU DRAW ONE PIC 2 MORE POP UP IN ITS PLACE!

I can draw these pieces in like a few hours if not shorter, because I don’t have to fucking sketch them properly anymore. I feel like I shouldn’t be able to do that! This ship has done unspeakable things to both my mind and body! And i’ve said it before but i’m not trying to complain here, as you’ll see when I start talking about this ship like it saved me from falling into the grand canyon. But it’s just, so, absurd???

Danganronpa is only like my third favorite piece of media behind Bo-bobo and Fairy Tail and yet I’ve drawn more art of JUST THIS SHIP than I have of just general art of those series! That’s not even counting all the other ship art I’ve done! Like Tokomaru! Remember Tokomaru? The ship that is responsible for me being a woman and being able to find the happiness of being my true self? I think i’ve drawn that and Syomaru a combined like, 20 times across my entire life as a DR fan. ALL OF THIS JUNKAN ART SAY FOR LIKE, 5 OF THEM WERE IN ONE YEAR. 

And bare minimum for 2025, assuming I don’t make ANYTHING ELSE OF THEM (Which I will. You know I will.) I’m gonna draw 21 pics for Junkan Week, because you know I’m gonna just draw EVERY prompt from all three lists. And then 30 more for the Month of Junkan (Will try to have that prompt list up soon btw!). So that’s 51 I’m going to do. That’s over half of what I realistically was supposed to do bare minimum for this project. That’s so fucking much, and I’m gonna do it, because I love this ship, and also it sounds REALLY funny if I did that. 

I think genuinely the only other ships I could fucking do this for are like, Toko/Syomaru or Flarelu. Maybe Togachako if I did a reread of MHA to get me back in the spirit for that series. And even then i’m not sure I physically have it in me to go that distance even for those ships. I certainly want to draw a lot of them, especially Flarelu because that’s a ship so rare that it makes Soft Junkan (before I fucking flooded the tag on tumblr) look like a bustling city.

Speaking of tags, I still think about sometimes how like, the Junkan Tag maybe got like, a post like, a few times every month. The normal amount for a ship of this general Rarity. And now it’s like, for so many pages, just half of it is me. Because I was asked to bring something to eat to the function for the buffet table and I fucking crashed a Food Truck through the wall. I feel bad about it sometimes, sometimes. I’m imagining the scenario in my head where someone who likes Junkan but didn’t check the tag super often because it wasn’t like, a super commonly updated one, and then pressing it for the first time in a year and being like “What the fuck happened here?” You know what still shocks me? Not once have I gotten hate for any of this. I was so fucking scared for like half of this projects creation that I was going to get bombarded with people angry at me for shipping this, and NOTHING. I’m not complaining I’m just confused. I have to at least have had a few people block me right? It’s just so eerily quiet. And it’d be one thing if it’s just a thing of like “Why would people who hate Junkan check the Junkan tag” because yeah, that makes sense. But also I’ve been putting at least one Junkan pic in both characters tags every day for 3 fucking months, there had to be at least one Mikan super fan who is eternally fed up with my antics. Like, awesome that I didn’t get harassed over a ship, that actually gives me a little hope that nature is healing, just. Crazy right???

So like. Fuck.

I guess I’ll get to the sappy shit now?? I think I ran out of things to be confused about in terms of what I did this year because of this ship. So I guess I’ll just start talking about how much it means to me, both the ship, and this project. 

(trigger warning, mentions of abuse, nothing super graphic in my opinion but could be mildly uncomfortable. Either skim ahead or stop here)

2024 kinda, fuckin sucked for me to be honest?? I have like 2 good things I can speak for it in terms of major positive points (Obviously I had other good experiences but if I just said “Oh I read a I Love Amy and it was one of the greatest things ever” it lacks the same impact). Not counting getting this project to like, work, obviously.

I finished the 5 chapters of my webcomic that I wanted prepped so I could actually make a website and start posting (ignore how I didn’t make the fuckin website yet). And I started dating my darling Yves and Rivette. Who I cherish deeply. I made other friends this year, a lot of them in part cause of this ship. And I went through a lot of emotional change. 

But to get that change it required I unpack a lot. And by a lot, I mean one bag that was filled to the brim. Gonna try real hard not to like, talk about this in excessive detail or turn this post into some woe is me bullshit, but I feel like I should at least make mention of it.

At the beginning of the year, I asked Yves (who I wasn’t dating yet) about my previous romantic relationship. And she confirmed to me that, based on everything I had told her about it overtime, that yes, it was abusive.

During 2021-2022 I was in a relationship with a girl I won’t name here, you wouldn’t know her of course, it was a completely different community. It started out as friends, I got a crush, jumped at it because I was still inexperienced with feelings, and it didn’t work out. And that’s the simple way of putting it, and that’s how I viewed it till Yves opened my eyes.

From the getgo it wasn’t healthy. She was manipulative, constantly had outbursts towards me, and yanked me around emotionally constantly. I would later find out that she had a previous history of just, generally being an awful person. Even after we broke up we still stuck around each other, mostly because I felt guilty for breaking up with her, and was also just generally terrified of her. The abuse was all mental of course, it was long distance so she couldn’t hurt me physically at all. 

I of course, didn’t process any of that as me being abused, I even viewed myself as being at fault for a lot of it. The experience was so bad that I identified as Aromantic because just convinced I wasn’t able to feel proper romantic feelings for someone. It wasn’t till much later when I got another crush that I realized that I’m Panromantic, and me being Aro (and very briefly Aegoromantic) was basically just a coping mechanism to write off my trauma. I still feel guilty about that since it feels like I devalued the importance of people who do identify on the Aro spectrum, but that isn’t relevant here.

Point is, a lot of bad shit happened to me because of that woman, and even after a year and a half of us not talking because we both mutually decided it would be better for us to not stay in contact, she still found ways to worm her way back into my life. One conversation we had just by chance, to catch up, that’s all it took and I was thinking of her again. I never talked to her after that, and I have her blocked now, but I didn’t need to for shit to hit the fan.

So I asked Yves that question, she answered, and I now suddenly had to deal with the fact that I was abused, and that I was traumatized as a result. And like, I never really viewed myself as a traumatized person up till that point, I viewed myself as someone who wasn’t very smart but tried her best to do good by people who didn’t have too much baggage beyond some sucky school memories.

When I had to unpack what happened that kind of spiraled into severe Self Confidence Issues and even more Self Hate. I struggled to accept even the slightest compliment if it wasn’t directed at my art. The reason I even quit weed is because I used it almost exclusively to suppress all of the negative emotions I felt. 

I’m in a somewhat better place now, I’m trying to give myself more breaks from artwork, rather than overworking myself constantly just to feel something (and being fully open, I realized near the end of december that I pretty much used Overworking as a form of self harm). I’m gonna really try this year to like, actually let people be nice to me, and in turn try to be nicer to myself. And I have goals to work towards for this year. But I wouldn’t have gotten to this point without two things. One, my girlfriend Yves, who even before we started dating helped me through multiple breakdowns and has helped/allowed me to grow into a (I hope) better, healthier person. And even after I got over most of my feelings related to my Ex, has continued to help me cope with my self hatred. I cherish every moment we share and wouldn’t trade her for anything.

And the other thing, which I know will sound silly right after I talked about my girlfriend, is well. Junkan.

Let me say this, I didn’t get into Junkan to cope with my abuse. I have toyed with the notion in my head before and the idea of it pisses me off to a quite frankly irrational degree. I was into Junkan before I realized my issues. If you want my coping mechanism it’s Alex from Minecraft and no I’m not explaining that right now.

That said, it, like all the yuri ships I like, was a source of comfort for me. Originally I read stuff like Tokomaru fics just to help me reduce stress, back when I dealt with really severe anger issues due to the online spaces I occupied. And to this day reading a nice, fluff fic can calm me down a bit. But now they can serve a much deeper sense of comfort, away from all the bullshit, and obviously, gave me a way to distract/calm myself from the storm of negative emotions and memories that filled the brain.

I see myself in Mikan more than I’d like to personally admit, obviously not to the extreme, but in aspects. So it’s just, nice to see a better timeline for her with Junko, ones where she gets to be happy and maybe even heal as well. It just so happens that I also think there’s a lot of genuinely good potential for the ship from either a canon or non-canon perspective, and Junko’s just a really enjoyable character. 

Working on this project helped too. It gave me a way to dive deeper into my love for this ship, and gave me a sense of purpose and validation that helped me work through the rough. Whether it was the really bad mental health days, or just a shit streak of commission work that tore away at me because my job even if I love drawing can be a real drag at times, and i’m unfortunately a workaholic (Trying to work on it though).

I think i’ve said it before but even something simple as Val showing her excitement over the art pieces I was prepping could genuinely brighten my day even while I was at my lowest.

And then when I really started pursuing this as a project, rather than just a secret stash to satiate myself and one other person minimum, I realized I could do something good here. For the people like me who loved this ship but might have been too nervous about expressing it, the people who were just really craving it, and the people who had already made all of the fics and art that sent me into this spiral of obsessive passion in the first place! A gift to all of them, to make ya’ll happy. 

In hindsight, may not like, the healthiest mindset for setting off this whole project. But hey it all kinda circled around into eventually helping my mental health recover. So like, win?

And i’ve already spoken on how Day 60 allowed me to feel a lot more emotionally free as an artist even if I still have my struggle days. I’ve gotten better just in general as an artist as I improve more at stuff like expressions, posing, linework, etc. And I’ve even managed to make friends with some of the people I used to look up to as idols and can finally just view em as normal people now. (Even if I might still be a bit excessive in my praise, I swear I’m normal about ya’ll besties I just don’t have like, a middleground for showing my appreciation and affection for my friends. It’s maxed out unless I’m tired as shit) 

I find myself comedically terrified of how this ship has affected me over the course of 2024, and how it will likely continue to affect me through 2025 even as I try to move onto other projects not related to Junkan. I wanna show off my love for Fairy Tail on my main blog, and I really think that with a full years time and the first five chapters done I really can get my comic off the ground and focus on that for the foreseeable future.

But hey, 2025 at least we got two whole Junkan Events. And with Junkan Week I’d like to keep that going for as long as I can, unless someone else takes the reins way down the line. So this ol’ blog’ll keep going for a good while I imagine, even if it’s a lot smaller. Maybe I’ll find other ways to keep this place active, I’ve considered just making it a one stop shop for all things Junkan though I don’t think I’m really suited to manage that. Maybe someone’ll read this and try there hand at it down the line, maybe someone’ll do their own 100 Days of Junkan! 

Oh hey did I ever tell ya’ll I was gonna make a comedic video just making a guideline for how one could make their own 100 Days Project. It was gonna be like, pretty obvious points just framed in a very exaggerated and comedic tone. 

Alright anything else I should cover? Fun facts? Deep personal anecdotes? Sappy stuff?

Lemme check my files, maybe i got another dumb joke image- 

. . . 

Oh . . . Well there’s somethin.

Alright, don’t get to excited ya’ll, but just for a bit of fun, how about one last day in the project. I know 101 days doesn’t roll of the tongue as well, but I think this is vaguely interesting enough to make up for that! Tune in tomorrow. Same time, same place. 

As always, Reblogs, Comments, and Little Notes in the Tags are appreciated!~ They always make my day!~

[aurenflare]

my 2024 art summary 🫶🫶

for me, this year was the first time that i really tried out digital art, which has definitely been a journey! i think i’ll always feel more confident with traditional art (and there are a couple months where i didn’t do digital art at all! april has a sketch bc i was SOO busy that month, and october has a fun little marker piece) but it’s so interesting to explore digital!

i think i’ve really started to get the hang of it, especially in my november and december pieces — but i also think i’m going to make an effort to get back into posting traditional art. my alcohol markers are rotting over here …

anyways because i’m actually incapable of not babbling here’s a little explanation for each month

january, february, and march: all drawings i did for a mental-health oriented small business in my area — basically each one represents a different cognitive function. these were literally my first rendered digital art pieces ever but yk … there are 6 in all but these i feel are the best ones lol

april: i had ZERO time on my hands due to aps but luckily i was still sketching! my style has evolved a bit since then but what hasn’t changed is my love for coloured pencil sketches ILY COLOURED PENCIL SKETCHES

may & june: these are a couple of oc ref sheets that i was intending to use for artfight! except i never finished the full set and so never participated in artfight. next year i swear. this was also from my phase where i used the crosshatching pattern brush for every single background ever

july: so this was actually a design for a screenprint! the stippling made me and my art teacher miserable in the end but u know it’s about the experience … this was also inspired by kiki’s delivery service my 3rd favourite ghibli movie … i love u kiki

august: this is a wip that i will never ever finish (and i actually posted it on tumblr here over a month after abandoning it 😭) but it’s also the only kotlc thing i’ve drawn in like a year and a half (at least until the unravelled release) and i think it’s cute

september: listen i Love Laufey and every september 8th she does a little fan celebration called a very laufey day! so this was inspired by that, specifically the song “dreamer” — there are a lot of little details that reference various aspects of the lyrics or official video! super fun to draw and one of the digital pieces that i’m the proudest of 🤭

october: okay this one was sooo fun because i hadn’t touched my alcohol markers in a longggg while … it was inspired loosely by the inktober prompt “nomad”

november: this was a piece for one of my school’s publications, and was loads of fun to draw! one of the digital pieces that i’m proudest of tbh simply because there’s so much going on but it still feels fairly cohesive

december: this was my kotlc secret santa gift and also the first fully polished kotlc piece i had done in a VERYY long time — so while i was deathly sick while creating it (literally i was and still am On My Deathbed) it was super nostalgic and fun :)

if u made it to the end of this I LOVE U. why did u read all this u mean more to me than i could ever possibly articulate. have an amazing day u icon 🫶🫶

[junowritings]

Hey!! Hi!! Hello!! I noticed your matchups are open right now and I was wondering if I could get a BG3 matchup :]

I use any pronouns and have no gender preference!

I tend to be a bit introverted and like being alone but the second I’m around my friends I am the LIFE of the party and am usually the one to organize hangouts and parties among the group. Comedically enough though my friends typically compare me to Gale, usually calling me a recluse who “hasn’t seen the light of day in 3 years” lmao. I,,, may be autistic.

My hobbies primarily include art, whether that be digital, traditional, animation, 3D modeling or hell, playing guitar, ukulele or even the ocarina. I’ve also recently rediscovered my love for reading and learning languages (I’m currently learning Swedish lol). I also really enjoy traveling and will get out of town and occasionally out of the country whenever I get the chance. On a nice sunny day I’ve also been known to walk to the nearby park and just walk around barefoot cuz I like the feeling of Nature*tm*.

In a relationship I’m typically the person to initiate contact, usually bringing up date ideas and initiating physical affection and the like. I don’t mind PDA though I do generally prefer being affectionate in private. On that note, I am VERY AFFECTIONATE and once someone has accepted me hugging them it will be a WHILE till I let go lol. Besides the obvious physical touch I do show affection more often through sharing fun facts and the like :]

Likes: Physical affection, art, music, hanging out with my friends, chai, mochi, being in nature, anything steampunk and anything relating to pirates

Dislikes: bright lights, loud noises, extreme temperatures (though mostly hotter weather), people acting like they’re better than me

My strengths id say are primarily my creativity and initiative. Id also argue I have good planning and social skills.

My weaknesses primarily include my tendency to get overly focused on things and sometimes forget to take care of myself because of it ehe,,,

Thaaatt,,, should be all! Thanks <]

Heyya hi! :D You certainly can get a match-up! Been a hot second so I need to brush up on my BG3 knowledge, but I think I found a lovely fit for you...

Welcome to opposites attract. On this episode-

Whilst I’ll admit that at first you and Gale seemed like a potentially good fit, Rolan inevitably won out because I believe that you two would compliment one another really well and bring out the best in each other!

You keep to yourself initially, which Rolan is unsurprisingly respectful of; if there’s anyone you have to worry about needlessly bothering you when you’re not up for the interaction, it’s definitely not him. He understands that preferring to spend some time on your own isn’t a bad thing; he’s very much the kind of person to enjoy some alone time (though the chances he gets to actually do that are few and far between even after things have settled down lmao). Sometimes enjoying one’s own company is healthy and has its merits, allowing you to recharge after a long day.

The first time he sees you break from your shell though the contrast is rather stark. Rolan had already caught a few glimpses of the life bubbling under the surface of your otherwise introverted nature the more that you warmed up to him - but when he sees you in the company of your closest friends for the first time? He’s taken aback by the way you practically lighten up in their company. He’s heard others in your circle commencing that you’re the life of the party whenever you’re around, but the tiefling definitely didn’t anticipate that to be so literal watching you immerse yourself amongst friends with a renewed vigor.

The jokes your companions crack about your comparisons to a certain wizard of Waterdeep earn an eyeroll or two from the tiefling as he listens to them ribbing you over your occasional tendencies. He’s been on enough of your planned outings to know that’s hardly the case and will tell them as such, though it’s all in good fun thankfully - besides if you prefer to hole yourself away with your creature comforts, you’re always welcome to do so at the tower. Oftentimes the wizard will chime in on the usual banter to add that it’s a good thing you made an exception to that little reclusive streak of yours for him - it would have been quite the loss otherwise.

Your instruments always have a safe place in the tower, that’s assured from the moment you make any kind of mention about the instruments that you play. He says it’s because there’s few places as well protected as his home, so why not keep them there to practice if you ever come over to visit? In reality it’s all a not so hidden excuse just to hear you play. He’ll leave his office door open or linger on the main floor of the upper levels of the tower whenever he knows you’re about to start playing, acting as though it’s not completely obvious he’s actively listening. I personally think that Rolan would be quite partial to the ukulele, if only for how fluid the notes as you pluck at the strings. If you were to take a peek at the tiefling as you’re playing, you’ll find that he often stops what he's doing to bask in the melody for a little while, the slight tilt of his head towards the direction the music is coming from a dead giveaway that you’ve got his attention hook line and sinker. Speaking of the tower though, sorcerous sundries provides a wealth of entertainment for your rediscovered passion in reading. In truth most of the stock is ancient texts and magical tomes older than both of you combined, but whatever you find that peaks your interest is yours for the reading (once he’s ensured it’s safe and not somehow curse-laden - hells knows what’s in some of those things.) It’s the first sign that he’s actively vying for your affections - Rolan hopes to earn your approval through impressing you at every turn. So the moment you express a shred of interest in the books lining the shelves all around, he’s set. And perhaps he uses some of his new connections to quietly add a couple of actual reading materials to those shelves just for you, who knows~?

After the events of the main game, Rolan is rather stubborn about staying put in the tower and the gate in general. After everything that he and the other Teiflings went through just to get here, and honestly having experienced some of the worst things the outside world has to offer he’s set on sticking to the four walls of his new home, thank you very much. It can admittedly be a point of contention given his reluctance to explain how he’s feeling sometimes; coming off as downright stubborn until you learn that he’s not exactly opposed to the idea of traveling, it will just…take some time before that avenue opens up for discussion. Trips around the gate though are fair game for the early relationship. Rolan learns quickly to spot the signs that you’re plotting another day out - hears the hum as you mull them over and the way your mouth quirks when you’ve settled on an idea. Thankfully there’s some wonderful places in the city where the bustle of crowds and incessant noise struggles to reach, offering a respite for the both of you where he can enjoy the quiet of your company and you can get your fill of being out in nature.

You and Rolan are definitely on the same page about preferring affection in private. In the early stages of your relationship you may find that it takes a little while to warm up to your affectionate nature. He certainly doesn’t mind it - quite the opposite, as the guy is so blatantly wanton of any romantic gestures that you could very well reduce him to a mess in your hands if you wanted to. In the privacy of your own home you’ll find that the man is far more open with his own affection, tail curling around you as he slips into your arms. Please card your hands through his hair - even if you accidentally knock his horns a couple of times in the process you’ll be able to watch the stress evaporate from his body with each moment, sinking deeper and deeper into your embrace. Gods forbid you cuddle him lying or sitting down because once he’s truly relaxed in one place neither of you are going anywhere.

[stepswowdsen]

【KagePro】 Sen's .dsd/V Scans: Part 2

Sen's Scans and Edits

.dsd/V Sidu MV Material Works 2011 - 2018 (WHITE ver.)

Outer Science - Kuroha/Saeru

Yuukei Yesterday - Takane & Haruka (& Chibi Takane & Konoha)

Children Record & daze & days - Mekakushi Dan & Ene & Azami

Summertime Record - Haruka

Rambles

I tried scanning Outer Science, Yuukei Yesterday, Children Record & daze & days, and Summertime Record from Sidu's .dsd/V artbook.

I bought two copies of Sidu’s .dsd/V artbook, both the Black and White cover versions. I was scanning with .dsd/V (White Ver.)

I wanted to post my progress update!

Refer to this post if you wanna read my initial scans and rambles:

Link: (X)

I’m gonna disable reblogs on my WIP progress updates for now. I tried to scan and edit these as best as I could for now! I’ve been scanning the pages slowly in my free time. I posted LQ versions of my scans for now since I haven’t finalized these yet.

The artbook is bigger than my scanner, so I have to scan a page twice to try and get the full page.

I accidentally bent the the Outer Science page on Sidu’s .dsd/V (White Ver.) artbook after scanning the Yuukei Yesterday art cuz the book had to get scanned at a really awkward angle. The Summertime Record Haruka art is on the next page. The bend isn’t too noticeable or on anything significant, at least.

Thankfully, I have scans of the Outer Science page before it happened, though.

Thankfully, I have two copies of Sidu’s artbook, because I figured that just in case one gets damaged while getting scanned, I’d still have the other one. My .dsd/V (Black Ver.) artbook is still safe, but the Outer Science page in my .dsd/V (White Ver.) artbook got a bit bent while scanning. Thankfully the bend is not on anything important.

I try to be as careful with my artbooks as possible, but Ig it can’t be helped too much cuz of the awkward scanning, and me handling the book a lot. I had to prop up the book with boxes so that it’d rest on the scanner properly (depending on the pages being scanned)

I’ll continue to scan with my .dsd/V White Ver. artbook, since it doesn’t make sense to risk my safe copy. I’ll try to be as careful as I can, but I don’t have to worry as much since my other copy is still safe. I can rescan stuff when I’m finished if I need to.

Hopefully people don’t mind the other pages showing in the background? I did that this time instead of putting just 1 page down on the scanner because I felt like it’s easier to be more careful with the page and avoid bending it when it has the rest of the page’s weight underneath it. I can always rotate and crop the scan once everything is finalized.

Close up of my scans… I have some ideas on how to remove the print screen-like grainy texture on the scan, but I’ll need to look into it. My mutual in scanlation said he’s busy, but he can try and look into it sometime whenever he has free time. Hopefully I can get the hang of it sometime ^^

It’s really hard to get the parts where the book binding cuts off (middle of the scan) due to the book binding, since I can’t lay the book completely flat. Because of that, it casts a shadow, the parts closest to the book binding appears a bit blurry on the side closest to the book binding. This is the best I can get, since I’m a hobbyist scanner.

Imo the only way to get the full pages would be to remove the book binding (debind it) and safely retrieve the pages. My mutual in scanlation is experienced with physical scans because he has a method that can retrieve the pages safley by melting the book binding, but I’m not.

Even if I have two copies of Sidu’s artbook, I’d be really hesitant to risk damaging my book like that tbh, especially since I’m not experienced with working with physical scans. I can rip most things from digital scans/e-books, though.

Sidu’s .dsd/V artbook unfortunately isn’t available online, though.

I will try to stitch the scans through editing when everything is finalized, but it’s not gonna be 100% perfect because there’s a shadow over the part nearest to the book binding, and the scanner might not scan the colours the same, so it might not line up perfectly.

Anything related to 9/6, including XX/6, and all related charas/ships (Kuroha, Takane/Ene, Haruka, Konoha), I will scan first 🖤💛💙

Basically, I prioritized 9/6 first because of my bias LMAO.

Though, I will scan the other pages later!

Ones I’m planning to scan next:

Headphone Actor - Takane

Konoha's State of the World - Konoha (& Hibiya & Hiyori)

Additional Memory - Ayano

Losstime Memory - Shintaro

[foxs0x]

Ask game!

🥦 Can you share an old piece of work next to a newer piece and say what you've learned?

I just love seeing how people’s styles develop over time.

Ok I had this question from a couple of people so I’ve held onto this until I drew something new!

I have a comparison from 2015 to now, plus one from 2019 to show how much my style has actually changed over the years!

2015

2015 I bought some comic markers but I couldn’t get the hang of them. It was around this time I was phasing out of only drawing manga and trying to find my own style. I remember being quite proud of this. I’ve since put a lot of focus on drawing portraits and now I’m working on anatomy.

2018

In 2018 I was learning to shade and add texture but I stuck to black and white. I was really inspired by Greek mythology and heavy metal album covers. It was also the same year I got an iPad and started trying to learn digital art.

2024

I’m still learning and growing every day. I’m trying to learn colouring and shading 😂

I struggle with bodies and anatomy and I struggle with clothes and costuming, but I’ll get there!

I’ve learned to loosen up my sketches. I have a habit of obsessing over minute details that only slows me down. Now, I SCRIBBLE! Then I build something out of that. Below is something I’m trying to to work on. I literally just grabbed a pen and sketched. I usually skip the pencilling because I find it freeing to just commit lines to paper and work from there without having the power to erase it.

Under that is Astarion, which is an example of how I’m trying to learn to use colour palettes and drawing costumes. My BIGGEST challenge at the moment is trying to keep a movement or flow in my drawings because they usually look pretty stiff.

[texas-chainsaw-fanworks]

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Fanworks Event is going to last for one week in December (exact dates to come) where fans of TCM can come together to share their creations!

All kinds of works will be allowed! Fics of any length, art both digital and physical, moodboards, manips, edits, playlists and so on!

The only restrictions come down to content, and there aren’t many. I’m only asking that this event does not feature certain “dark” ships. These are things like adult x minor ships, family x family ships, or non-con ships. I will not curate that kind of thing on this blog because it is my preference.

Dark topics are allowed however, as long as everything is tagged properly! All that means is a simple tag warning about things like abuse, violence, or blood, etc. Victim x family ships are allowed as well of course, so long as it abides by the rules above! If you have any questions or would like to know if something is bending the rules, just shoot me a message! I will be happy to answer, through direct messages, the inbox, or the discord!

Speaking of, there is a discord server just for this event! I created it by myself so there may be some bugs, but I have a few channels already laid out with descriptions for what goes in them! I am very very easy going about discord servers though. Don’t worry about constantly messaging or following a format. Just have fun! The link will be at the bottom of this post!

Cause that’s my motto for the whole event! Have fun, and spread some love and creativity for our fandom!

When I say the fandom, this includes The original Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) and it’s direct sequel, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Part Two (1986), as well as the new TCM game (2023) I genuinely apologize for limiting the films this event will explore, but I really don’t know the others that well, and so I would find it impossible to find, tag, and share content from those films.

That’s how the system will work. When a piece is finished and posted in December, use the hashtag #tcmfanevent and @ tag this blog so that I can find it! I will then reblog it according to which day or prompt and it correlates to!

Prompts will be loose! I have a list that I will post separately elaborating on them, so more details there will be coming out soon!

No sign ups required! If you’re interested but don’t want to dedicate, that’s totally fine! This is a low pressure, no obligation event just for fun. It’s okay if you can’t do it. The same goes for the amount of works. You don’t need to participate for the entire week. If you just want to plan one piece for that week, that’s fine too! The the dates mostly refer to the amount of time I’ll be taking submissions.

I am only one person, and I am disabled, so I will do my very best to answer all questions and run this smoothly, but I might make mistakes. Let’s just all be patient together and get ready to do something cool!!

[dragonemery]

Stuff about me/my page

I doubt anyone will see this page but anything can happen, so just in case:

Anything goes for my pronouns.

I’m AuDHD which will get increasingly more obvious. Prepare for the same stuff over and over, internet strangers!

In case you couldn’t tell by this post, I tend to link the (less popular) things I talk about because C R E D I T

If you’re transphobic/racist/sexist/ablest then I shouldn’t even have to say get out. I won’t entertain you, instant block and report.

My current interests:

The Property of Hate (pls read it guys it’s so good I’m going to put a link)

I slurp up horror like water at 3:00 AM.

Roblox, just look at my pfp.

My shitty art which will probably never be posted here! Welp that was short lived

Dreamcore/weirdcore/liminal spaces/The Backrooms

SCP, yum!

LOTS of webtoons that I can’t list because there are more webtoons I like than plastic in the ocean

The Amazing Digital Circus (and other gooseworx stuff)

My beautiful children (my axolotl and tortoise)

Cartoons (I absorb them for power)

Analog horror (specifically vintage 8, I’ll link them too)

BUDDY SIM 1984!! PLAY IT, THATS AN ORDER SOLDIER!

WILL YOU SNAIL WILL YOU SNAIL WILL YOU SNAIL PLAY IT NOOOWWWWWWW

And various other video games.

I’ll edit when/if interests change lol

I should probably do rules:

RULE 1. Have common sense and don’t be an asshole.

RULE 2. If you can’t follow rule 1, please direct yourself to the nearest kindergarten.

:D

Quick stuff about my OCs so people aren't completely confused if they come across my drawings, if ye are interested:

Circuit: Main character, still hasn’t been named after a year, drawn the most. Age 20. TV is his actual head. Runs a strange store with even stranger products, has a loud voice and has the personality of a used car salesman/TV show host/announcer. Also has reality bending abilities. Head changes color based on emotion; Boooo, cliche I know, but whatever. Overall just a really bizarre guy.

Olivia Kelly: Girl with red hair. TV OC’s roommate and romantic partner if I decide to go through with it lol. Age 21. Runs a bakery that shares a building with TV OC’s store. Always tired, works retail along with running the bakery, has zero patience. Really strong and sporty (she’s supposed to have muscles but I can’t draw those yet lol) also has a pet dragon named Tangerine.

I’d like to make a cartoon (or more realistically a webcomic) about them one day. (I did it! Existentialism & Tummy Aches on WEBTOON :))

Only those two for now, will probably add more later, I have a lot of OCs lol

[aajjks]

BC!JK

are your eyes believing what they’re seeing? THE jeon jungkook defending you against jongin all because he snapped your headphones. he even forces him to apologize to you and though you didn’t enjoy the brutal example jungkook made out of him, you were happy to see one of your tormentors apologizing to you feeling helpless.

you’re unsure why jungkook defended you and you’re hoping the bully club will leave alone but they still insist on making fun of you and giving you weird glances.

“don’t think just cause jungkook defended you means you’re safe from us” namjoon says as he shoves you into the lockers “he’s still the leader at the end of the day” yoongi follows up which means nothing will change.

they didn’t need to break it down for you anymore than that and maybe that will get people to believe that you and jungkook aren’t a thing because you’re sure those kinds of rumors are already brewing. your last two classes weren’t that bad but you ended up taking a lot more time than usual thanks to your least favorite class, chemistry.

you still haven’t seen danielle and you decide to head back home to get caught up with your homework and maybe start on your essay on production for your art class.

unexpectedly or maybe unfortunately, you hear a familiar voice calling out for you and once they get nearer, it’s jeon jungkook shoving his cell in your face demanding you give him your number. you remember politely declining an exchange in numbers but then you remember the cafeteria incident and yoongi’s words.

he still hates you and if you don’t hand him your number, he’ll hurt you like jongin or maybe worse. with a sigh, you put in your number and pray you don’t regret giving your bully your ACTUAL digits but of course you do.

by the time you arrive home and freshen up, jungkook is already ringing your cell phone and sending texts threatening you to pick up.

you really regret giving your worst enemy your phone number….

“yes jungkook?” you say in a bothered tone as you continue to finish your math homework that was starting to irritate you.

“listen…can you please delete my number? i appreciate you wanting me to help but there’s so many other people who are smarter than me. and-AND they’re actually attractive. you don’t want to work with an ugly loser like me. you should work with someone like soojin, danielle, or alina”

He’s in the comfort of his home and he feels awfully hot, the air conditioning doesn’t really help him out because he’s talking to you right now, so he does feel a little excited.

But what you say next has him clenching his jaw in anger. “shut the fuck up. They are dumb bitches and you are really smart.” of course, that is the truth. “And. Soo Jin is only good for fucking, Danielle your dear friend is way too grumpy for me to deal with, and who the fuck is alina?” He scoffs.

“I want to work with you, understand? You.” Jungkook makes sure to emphasize on you, “you are ugly but those women are plastic- at least you’re natural and smart.” he doesn’t want to sound too corny, but the truth is that… you are really beautiful.

You’ve got the perfect lips, the most gorgeous eyes, and the most adorable cheeks. And your nose is absolutely perfection, but his most favorite part about you is definitely your mouth.

Oh he loves it so much. “come on now, speak up little lamb.” it’s like he’s talking to his crush and maybe that is the truth… he feels so giddy. “Come on explain to me about whatever the fuck I missed on in the class.” He smirks. He hears you say over the other line, and you just give up and begin explaining.

Jungkook loves the way you talk it’s so soft and.. it’s just so you. “Ok ok I got it..” he interrupts you once again, because he’s really not interested in that. “Before I hang up, I want you to tell me if he gets you new headphones and if he doesn’t, just let me know.” He bites his lower lip, his gaze settling in his bruised knuckles.

“I’ll make sure that he learns another lesson.”

[foldingfittedsheets]

Hey I followed you a bit ago (came for the gay cat comic, stayed for the nonbinary autistic dnd nerd energy bc same hat), it’s been cool getting to watch your art develop while you’re going through art school!

I can’t remember if you’ve ever posted about working in Blender, but I’ve just recently started learning how to use it and it’s my first foray into 3d modeling from exclusively 2d digital art and graphic design. I was wondering if you had any advice you’d be willing to share for a 3d newbie based on your own experiences learning to make 3d art? It’s been fun so far, but it feels like there’s so much to learn!

Aww!! This is really sweet, thank you!

Well, I guess the first thing I’ll say is I learned on Maya which I’ve heard it pretty different from Blender. I think the hardest part is really staying excited. There is SO much to learn and new technology can be frustrating. (For me I’ll usually cry over a program for a while before I really get the hang of it). I spent twelve hours one day learning all the wrong ways to unwrap a UV, but that time wasn’t wasted. It was frustrating, but I was learning how to do it a little better each time.

I highly recommend the efficacy of keeping a log- whether it’s for yourself or on social media- of the progress you make. Getting to look at the first 3D thing I made (that I really struggled with):

versus what I was able to make when I got my feet under me:

Is a pretty remarkable improvement, but if you’re only looking at the last thing you made you may not see how far you’ve come.

If you have the time just play around. Decide on a personal project and be wrong about a lot of stuff. Try to make a character you like or model some kind of vehicle you like, check out tutorials that get you excited to play with some new tool you haven’t messed with. You’ll be wrong about most of it but you’ll learn a whole lot about how not to do it and how to do it better next time.

Ultimately I’m not delving further into 3D modeling. I liked what I learned but I found my passion in a different aspect of tech art but I still love that I have the tools to make little personal things if I want to!

[a-student-out-of-time]

Days 118 - 121!

//Okay so I think I found what the problem was and now my fridge is working again…mostly. It’s fluctuating between temperatures but it’s not as bad as it used to be last week.

//In other good news, I finally settled on a design, personality, talent, and backstory for my fanganronpa protagonist!! I am also half-way with his older sister, who is also included in my roster. So, yeah, I’m really excited about that. ^^

//On the other hand, I suck at digital art, 😵‍💫 but I’ll try to draw something of either one or both of them in the future

//ALSO HIYOKO LOOKS SO CUTE IN HER NEW OUTFIT AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

//That’s all for now. Hope you’re doing well, Mod ^^

//That's good to hear ^^

//Hooray for development! And yeah, digital art is tricky, but you get the hang of it the more you do

//And she really does, doesn't she? ^^

//Thank you!

[coccyodynia]

things:

i went home the other weekend and didn’t steal any pills, as much as i thought about it, so thats kind of cool i guess

i got a very fun and cool tattoo yesterday, its a woman swinging an axe with that line i wrote a few years ago - “i swing and i dont miss”

i am seeing a The Plot In You tonight with justin

we’re planning on hanging out before the show too but the weather is gonna be shitty so who knows, he’ll probably flake out at this point

we’re also planning on going to chicago in a month but im concerned i wont be able to afford it idk. i just stashed away $250 for it but i wouldn’t be surprised if i had to dip into that before then

we’re on okay terms right now. its been a huge rollercoaster as usual but he still wants to keep me around in some type of way i guess bc he’ll respond or say shit like ‘i’m always here for you’

ive been dissociating a lot still but im practicing the skills to get a handle on it

ive officially stopped caring about anything at my job, i just dont give a fuck at all anymore

if i start caring again it will probably kill me, at least considering the rate we were going before 

i had a friend OD twice in the last week or so and im literally just bracing myself to lose another person to fent

its been almost a year without michael now and im still really heartbroken about

i can tell ive started letting my apartment/kitchen get bad again and it’s upsetting me but i feel paralyzed about it

one of my best friends is having a really tough time too and we keep messaging each other little check-ins even though neither of us have the capacity to really support or help the other person in any meaningful way

ive just been way too tapped out lately, and it has been affecting my health for quite awhile

my weight seems to be stable now or at least kinda, i lost 50 lbs and last week for the first time in awhile it didn’t go down when i got on the scale

my parents and grandma all made comments about how they can tell ive lost a lot of weight since i saw them last (6 weeks or so ago?)

my mom has been telling me “youre not eating enough calories” which i think gave me whiplash considering up until now my entire life shes been insistent that i eat too much

my financial situation is really about to get fucked up since im not teaching this summer, so i will lose that income for a few months ($800/month)

im pretty nervous they wont ask me back to teach in the fall bc the head of the department doesnt really like me

i got great evaluations from my students tho! at the end of the semester, two of my students asked if i would be comfortable with giving them a hug and i got emotional

i helped one of my students get into their first gallery show in NY and im just so fucking proud and excited for them

another student had made me a little embroidered camera patch for my bag 

im still very much thinking about applying to graduate/phd programs in the fall

there’s about 5 programs im interested in, but none of them are local so i’d have to move pretty far if i were accepted

im going to re-apply to university of denver for the MA emergent digital practices program

i applied to there in 2021 and was accepted but i wasn’t offered enough financial aid since i applied after the priority deadline so i’ll try it this fall and see what happens

im still dreaming about going to Brown for their digital writing/cross-disciplinary writing and art MFA but it's such a pipe dream

i also found a fascinating phd program at duke but they're not accepting applications this year?

i want to write and photograph more but by the end of the day i am so incredibly burnt out that it seems more like a chore than an outlet

i really wish there was a way for me to just quit my job and take some time off before going into another job

anyway therapy is back to once a week and sometimes 2x a week just depending on how well i handle things

my mom is still being the worst person ive ever met and im really trying to disconnect from her/the family as much as i can

she just spent $500 on a plane ticket so she can go spend a week with the guy she was engaged to in college

she sucks so much and i hate her 

anyway that’s all

[violetvelourr]

How long I have been doing art

People occasionally ask me how long I’ve been drawing and that question gets me utterly confused 😅 um, probably since I remember myself?.. 😅

First of all, big reveal. I’m old. Much older than you probably ever guessed. Because I’ve been doing digital art since 2003, and I was not exactly a toddler at that point, he-he. Don’t ask me my age though – I’m still a lady and I consider it impolite 🤭 but that might actually answer the questions of many teenagers why I don’t particularly interact much 🙈

So anyways, now we have settled my “art career” span. But saying “I began doing digital art in 2003” – well… I don’t want to do that, because people will be like, “whoa, 20 years”?! And will freak out at such a prospect – 20 years to get to my level, which is, frankly speaking, far from professional. Not to mention that before digital art I also drew traditionally quite a bit.

But the main reason is because “doing digital art since 2003” does not equal “for 20 years”.

How about we revisit these years and look closer at my digital art journey? I can’t promise that I will recall everything 100% accurately, but I’ll do my best.

So around 2003-2004 I tried drawing in Photoshop for the first time. It was an image of a lion, and to be honest, to this day I’m hella proud of myself.

Yes, first attempt. Yes, I drew with a freaking mouse!

My second piece from the same year span is the “Dancer”. oh yes, the remakable hepatitis skin tone 🙈

To be honest, I don’t recall having a drawing tablet that long ago, I'm quite sure I got it only in 2008, but looking at it, despite its flaws, I can hardly believe I drew that using a mouse… I’m not sure, it’s a mystery. The Lion was definitely a mouse artwork.

From thereon I abandoned digital art for a while due to studying, then work, and finally online RPGs…

In 2008 I posted my first digital WIP after a 5 year break.

Oh my gosh... Remind me to never try realism again, clearly not my thing 🙈

I think I was trying to draw an avatar for myself, which doesn’t exactly justify drawing a woman aged probably around 40 🙈 I was not that old!! As far as I can see from my journal, that artwork crashed and only this snippet of it was what I had left. I think it’s for the good. I ended up commissioning the avatar from a proper artist, ha-ha…

Over the span of 2 months I posted 5 more digital art pieces, none of them ever completed actually 🙈 And yes, behold how ugly they are...

My ambitions were growing faster than my skills were improving. The piece with the couple with that naked girl is my special pain because I even attended a digital art course by an amazing artist I was really looking up to back then – Anry – to try and finish this piece, but I failed miserably. I was the only person in that course (5 day 12hr/day intense course) out of 15 people who came “just for fun” – the rest were pursuing a professional digital illustrator career.

This is what I left off with after that course.

In this collage you see on the left what I came with, the middle – what the teacher did after I explained my concept, and on the right – my attempt to take the piece to its final form. But I could never accept that the base was made for me and not by me...

It still grips my heart when I look at it because it was one of my greatest fails. I think that to die peacefully, I need to finish this artwork 😆 If anyone is curious about the story behind this artwork, I’ll post it separately.

Anyway, as I said, I didn’t reach my goal, was hugely disappointed in myself and dropped digital art in April 2008.

However, I came back 1.5 years later, in November 2009, when I got into anime 😂

I think that’s also when I first tried Paint Tool SAI. Up until March 2012, I uploaded roughly 20+/- digital artworks/WIPs. The quality was a bit inconsistent, but I was beginning to get the hang of it a bit, finally. Here are some of them (yeah, the span of the mood is extraordinary):

P.s. yes, I began drawing winged men way before it became mainstream 🤣🤣🤣

So, in 2.5 years – merely 20 artworks. Just to compare, in 2022 alone I made 75+ artworks, which doesn’t even include animations and stuff I considered to not be proper artworks.

So, my last artwork from that period was in March 2012 (the one with the winged dude blocking the way for the girl), after which I abandoned digital art again, for good this time. I actually thought - forever, to be honest.

I’m not sure what happened then. I guess I just lost my motivation, got over my fictional crushes, was depressed and not happy with myself…

Problem is that in reality, I don’t have any imagination at all. Part of the reason why I always suspected that despite being quite decent in drawing, I would never succeed as an artist, so I could only say that my dream was to draw for Disney. But I knew I never would. And I knew I can’t do original art. Fan arts – yes, subject to being highly inspired, a feeling similar to a crush. I was too dependent on the mood. But even so… my artworks never were particularly fancy or original, I admit it.

Part of the reason why I’m also so sensitive about AI now. I see people actually living my dream, and I'm so happy for them. Working as illustrators, having an income from what they create... And that is being stolen from them now. That’s why I will probably never accept AI.

Ugh, turned off the subject…

Anyway, as I said, I abandoned art in 2012 and only picked it back up in October 2021 because of Kakashi. 😆

If my math is correct, that’s a 9.5 year break. I have been going non-stop since October 2021, so I would say that my ongoing artistic journey lasts for almost 2 years now. The previous 2-year period with 20 artworks – I’m not really sure about the value of that. The previous 7 digital artworks – even more so.

If I had to sum up my entire digital art journey, – I would say it is around 5–6 years, but in reality probably won’t add up even to 3 years, because the 3 years adding up from a bit of 2003, a bit of 2008 and bits of 2009-2012 had me produce only around 30 artworks, a majority of which were never even completed.

My main progress happened between 2021 and now, so in the last 2 years. And to be honest, I understand that if I am to continue - this is only the beginning...

[petchypeach]

Gotta hustle on over to that bustling marketplace.

[clarabellewrites]

chapter one teaser: congratulations

the sun don’t shine when i’m alone / i lose my mind and i lose control / i see your eyes look through my soul

When Fez woke up that morning, the red numbers on his digital alarm clock read 7:00 AM and Lexi’s side of the bed was empty. As far as he knew, that was strike one and two.

How the fuck she leave without me knowin’? thought Fezco, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. In his line of work, Fez had to be ready for anything to happen—good or bad. What was the point of him taking the left side, closest to the door, if he slept through every fucking thing?

Shaking his head, Fez got out of bed and pulled on a pair of pajama pants. The room was dark, shades drawn—a real tripping hazard. He spent a good few minutes trying to find his cigarettes and lighter before swiping them off the bedside table.

Swinging the door open, it was like God said “let there be light” or some shit. Too damn early for this, he thought, shielding his eyes.

Fez had never been a morning person. Then again, neither was his grandma, but comas didn’t really care about that.

Crossing the hallway, he checked on her. In times like this, so early in the morning, he could almost pretend she was asleep like everyone else. Dreaming peacefully. Ready to wake up after a few hours and steal his smokes. The beeping of her heart rate monitor kind of took away from that fantasy.

“Mornin’, grandma,” Fez said, venturing deeper into the room. “How you doin’?”

Her vitals were good. Ashtray was probably in here earlier. Her piss bag was new and empty. Either that or her kidneys were failing, and Fez didn’t wanna think too much about that possibility.

He fluffed her pillow. “Aight, I’ll see ya later,” Fez said.

Hands in his pajama pockets, he made his way past the living room and to the dining area. He could see Lexi moving around in the kitchen. Ash sat at the table, eating a bowl of cereal and scrolling through his phone. Fez punched him on the shoulder.

“Hey, man,” he said. “Whatchu doin’ up?

Only Ashtray could angrily eat a bowl of Froot Loops. “Last week of school,” Ash answered.

To be honest, sometimes Fez forgot that Ash was still enrolled in East Highland Middle School. It was mostly a formality to keep CPS off their back. Fez had to call a guy to get the papers drawn up. Ash O’Neill, adopted son of Marie O'Neill. He called in sick a lot. Chronic illness. Either his teachers truly didn’t give a fuck or Fez had finally perfected the art of forging his grandma’s signature. As long as they weren’t asking any questions, that’s all he cared about.

Deep down, Fez knew he wanted more for his brother. Fezco taught Ashtray everything he knew, from basic math to the different types of drugs they sold. But there was a lot more to life than that. As long as Ash was willing to go, Fez was happy to spend weekdays dealing at the shop alone.

“For real?” Fez said, lighting his first cigarette of the day. “That’s wassup. What grade you in, anyway?”

“Seventh,” he said, spoon clanging loudly in his bowl.

“Yo, congrats,” Fez said, puffing out smoke. “Lemme know if you need a ride or somethin’. I gotta drop Lexi off anyway.”

“She’s listenin’ to her weird music again,” Ash said, ignoring Fez’s offer. “It’s too fuckin’ early for that shit.”

“You give her headphones?” Ash gave him a dark look. “Aight, I’ll talk to her, damn.”

As Fez shuffled to the kitchen, he drank in the sight of his girlfriend. Lexi stood at the stove with her back turned to him, dancing along to music Fez couldn’t hear. She wore a pair of tiny jean shorts and a plaid yellow top, all ready for the day despite the godawful hour.

Her hair was tangled with the white headphone cords. Cigarette hanging from his mouth, Fez wrapped both arms around her waist. “Mornin’, Lex."

“Good morning, Fez,” she said, smiling up at him. She took out the earbuds and placed them around her shoulders. “Are you hungry? I’m making food.”

She had half the fridge out on the kitchen counter and an empty pan in front of her. Raising his eyebrows, he put his cig between two fingers and kissed the side of her neck. “Hell yeah, I’m hungry.”

“Stoppp,” she said, giggling but pushing him away. “Go sit over there or put that out. I don’t want smoke in my eggs.”

“Bossy,” he said, stubbing out the cigarette and jumping up on the cabinet. “Ash said you was listenin’ to your weird music again.”

Lexi rolled her eyes while cracking eggs into a bowl he didn’t know they had. “Hyperpop isn’t weird."

“Hey, that’s what I told ‘im,” Fez agreed, holding up his hands in defense. “You excited for school?”

She poured the mixture into the pan and turned up the heat. “Yeah, finals suck but it’ll be nice to take a break. Plus I have that college class this summer so it won’t be that different.” Lexi sighed. “Is it weird that I’m a little sad?”

“Nah, I getchu,” Fez said, shrugging. “You like school. ’s hard to quit somethin’ you love, even for a lil while.” Just ask Rue, he thought to himself.

Lexi nodded, stirring the eggs with a spoon until they clumped up. They sat in comfortable silence as she cooked.

Fez scratched his beard, thinking about what he had to do for the day. First, eat a bomb ass breakfast that he didn't even have to make himself. Drop Lex and Ash off for school. Head to the store, count the cash in the register and sell a bunch of overpriced Flamin' Hot Cheetos to stoners. Give Grandma her meds at lunch time. Go back to the store, hook up the blue collar crowd—after all, it was 5 o'clock somewhere. Wait until 3:15 PM rolled around and finally, finally it was time for Lexi to come home.

Since when did he measure his days around East Highland's teaching schedule? He hadn't stepped foot in there in years, except for dealing at the winter formal last December. Of course, the answer to that question stood right in front of him—and was currently adding lettuce to his eggs.

"The fuck is that green shit, Lex?" he asked, pointing at the frying pan. Looked like something straight outta Dr. Suess.

"Oh, this? I brought kale from home. It goes really good with eggs," she said, adding some salt and pepper like that'll make it better. At his skeptical look, Lexi added, "What, don't you trust me?"

With my life, he didn't say. "Aight, I trust you." Then, under his breath, just loud enough for her to hear: "Fuckin' green eggs and ham shit, for real."

"Fezco!" she squawked, brown eyes wide as hell, throwing a piece of eggshell at him in fury. He dodged it no problem. "Fine, no food for you then."

"Aw, don' be like that." He laughed and jumped down from the counter, stealing a piece of cheese. He knew Lexi well enough to know she wasn't actually mad. "Lemme make you dinner tonight. None of that kale shit, though."

She pointed the spoon at him. "I'm holding you to that."

*

read the rest here!