#putting up the one of the right onto Redbubble as a sticker just cause I can

[bee-can-art]

Waterparks is just three lads in a trench coat

• Click for better quality (16/08/2024)

(Shoulder stack sticker here!!!)

[that-was-anticlimactic]

top 5 ships! ♥️

F E E L I N G S

1. rarijack

okay so. rarijack was like. my first real introduction to gay was via ninjago fanfiction i accidentally stumbled upon, but it wasn't a great fic so i didn't think much of it. then, i found myself shipping rarity and applejack even tho they were both girls. i didn't know why, and for awhile, i just. didn't think about it and simply shipped them. but this has been a comfort ship since 2013. it fills me with great joy and makes me all giddy and flappy hands and like. it's the epitome of opposites attract and being able to love someone... somepony despite being so different, learning to love what they love simply because your partner loves it. it's understanding someone on such a deep level that you can say "honestly, i don't know why you're giving me your frowny eyebrows". like. f r o w n y e y e b r o w s. to know someone so well that you can tell the different moods by their eyebrows. it's being willing to give up what you want for love, wanting the one you love to take care of themself. putting their happiness above your own until they make you take care of yourself... i just. i love rarijack so much. they are everything to me. my internet friend beth made me two rarijack stickers on redbubble and they're my favorite stickers on my laptop.

2. zukka

is anyone surprised? they mean so much to me. i love them so much. they're so important to me. sometimes, i self-project onto sokka so much that it reminds me that i'm worth loving, if that makes sense? there's so much good in zukka, so much learning and self-discovery and recovery and pure love and just. okiuhgyfdgyhuijop. my brain isn't working great right now, so that's all imma say for now, but i have so much more that i can say. brain just says no :/

3. renga

is anyone surprised? to be honest, renga is a lot of self-projection??? like. i want a langa in my life. ftgyuhioiuygfg as dumb and selfish as that may sound, i just love the way that they love each other. it's so passionate, but so natural. they love eachother and naturally as they breathe. they both brought each other happiness and meaning. reki gave langa the spark of life he was missing and langa gave reki someone who genuinely cares about what he has to say... there's just so much good and pureness in it. i love them. so much.

4. jetru

oops. jetru came out of nowhere and stole my heart. just. the potential that they have is so good. i love writing for them and i love thinking about them. they always give me this warm glow in my chest. i love this dynamic and how they would both love each other so passionately and just. ahhhhh i am so excited to write you happened verse jetru edition when i have the time because i have Ideas <3

5. jack & goldilocks

so, they're from my favorite book series, the land of stories ! i love them so much. goldilocks is a very important character to me, and her love story with jack is just so sweet and wholesome. i don't really have too much to say here because i just genuinely love them so much.

i'm doing six cause i wanna sorry

6. kiane / howzer & gilthunder

so, i don't think you know them, but kiane is king and diane from the anime seven deadly sins and howzer & gilthunder are as well! kiane is canon, the other is not but it always makes me so happy and giddy! kiane makes me feel so many good feelings! it's falling in love all over again and loving each other even when they're so far apart. they're just so pure and mean so much to me. and i headcanon howzer as gay but suffering from internalized homophobia / a maybe homophobic father and he figures it out around like s3 of the show, and gil is bi and i just love their chemistry and the way they interact and ahhhhhh wish they were canon:/

[rebeccathenaturalist]

I actually had a different multi-page comic prepped for today, but over the weekend I got a wild hare to do something on topic right now. So if you've ever wondered how a disease can jump from other animals to us, now you know!

Species portrayed: Rabies virus (Rabies lyssavirus), SARS-CoV-2, Lyme disease (Borrelia sp.), Ebola (Ebolavirus sp.), human (Homo sapiens), domestic pig, (Sus scrofa domesticus) domestic chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus), domestic dog (Canis lupus familiaris), domestic cow (Bos taurus), masked palm civet (Paguma larvata), Chinese pangolin (Manis pentadactyla), large flying fox (Pteropus vampyrus), domestic cat (Felis catus), Senegal parrot (Poicephalus senegalus), bearded dragon (Pogona sp.), domestic rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus domesticus)

(Just a reminder that I have stickers and other fun merch at my Redbubble store, and you can also tip me for my work at my Ko-Fi! Like many people, my income has been pretty badly affected by current circumstances, so every little boost will help.)

Transcript under cut.

[Title: Zoonotic Diseases - the second O and the I in Zoonotic, and the I and season S in Diseases have been replaced by drawings of bacteria and viruses]

[First panel: A doctor in scrubs and carrying a chart waves to a man, a pig and a chicken all laying sick in bed. A table by the bed holds tissues, cough medicine and a glass of water. The window nearby shows a view out onto a sunny landscape.]

Animals are hosts to all sorts of diseases, and humans are no exception. Some diseases are able to infect multiple unrelated species. Those that jump from other animals to humans are called zoonotic diseases.

[Second panel: A yellow short-haired dog snarls and foams at the mouth.]

The zoonotic virus most in our consciousness right now is SARS-CoV-2, which causes the illness COVID-19. However, there are many zoonoses; some of the better known are rabies, swine flu, bird flu, Ebola, and Lyme disease. Ironically, chicken pox is only found in humans, other than a few great apes we passed it on to.

[Third panel: a man sits on a stool while milking a Jersey cow into a pail.]

When humans are in close contact with other animals for long periods of time, it’s more likely a virus or bacteria in the nonhuman species will mutate to be able to infect us. These diseases usually spread through airborne particules, contact with fecal matter, or in some cases a bite from a dog, bat, tick or other animal.

[Fourth panel: Three circles with squiggles inside them represent viruses. One has a red squiggle, another has a green squiggle, and lines from these two point to the third which has a red and green squiggle.]

One way this happens is through recombination. When a strain of a disease found in nonhuman animals encounters a strain found in humans, the former may gain the DNA that allows for infection in human hosts. Viruses and bacteria both practice recombination.

[Fifth panel: Several animals are on a blank background, including a masked palm civet, a domestic pig, a domestic chicken, a Chinese pangolin, and a large flying fox bat.]

For example, we know the SARS virus from the 2003 epidemic came from civets, through recombination. H1N1 (swine flu) came from pigs, and H5N1 (bird flu) from chickens and other birds. Scientists suspect SARS-CoV-2 was passed to us by bats and pangolins, both traded in wildlife markets in Wuhan, where it originated. DNA from SARS-CoV-2 closely resembles that from the SARS strains in pangolins and bats.

[Sixth panel: More animals on a blank background, including a Senegal parrot sitting on the back of a great dane, a bearded dragon, a domestic cat, and a domestic rabbit.]

Some worry whether zoonoses like SARS-C0V-2 can infect their pets. While there’s a small chance you could pass avian flu to pet birds, and some other pets like guinea pigs occasionally catch human respiratory illnesses, it’s not too common. If your pet isn’t regularly around lots of other animals in public they’re not likely to catch something to give to you. Just keep your pets’ vaccination up to date, and try to avoid kisses and other close contact when either of you are sick. It may be good to not let strangers pet your dog during the pandemic, as the virus could sit in the dog’s fur and then pass to you when you pet them, though it’s less of a risk than direct human to human contact.

[Seventh panel: A golden retriever in green scrubs and a stethoscope sits looking at the viewer. Next to her is a sign that says “Wash hands! Clean everything! Lots of space! Good hygiene! Let wild animals stay wild!”]

How do we prevent zoonoses? By limiting close exposure to wild animals, and keeping all captive animals in clean, uncrowded quarters. Treat sick animals as soon as possible. If you handle animals, even pets, wash your hands thoroughly before eating, drinking, or otherwise putting your hands near your face. Be familiar with zoonoses that the animals in your life may be susecptible to so you can all stay healthy!

[chariot313]

Western social media has no respect for Japanese online artists - and it’s killing online art

The visual arts have evolved to suit the most popular medium of each era. In nowadays’ case, the internet is the go-to method of sharing the fruits of one’s labour). However, as stated in that tweet thread of mine you can see if you scroll down a bit (assuming you’re viewing this post on chariot313.tumblr.com) different cultures have different attitudes towards how their customers react to their products. This include you know what fuck the formalities, I’ll just say it: The exclusively western concept of someone seeing something they like online and hitting the share button to stimulate the “Haha, upvotes go ‘brrr’!” dopamine in their smooth-ass lizard brain will be the death of online Japanese artists. Or rather, it has been already, and you would know that if you’ve ever seen an artist’s Twitter bio be in mostly Japanese save for one sentence in English; “Reprint is prohibited.”.

If you want to hear me rationalize the absurd claim I just made, feel free to click the “Keep reading” button. Otherwise, turn back now and save yourself from me possibly wasting your time.

Alright, you’ve chosen to stick with me. Just remember, you asked for this.

Introduction

Social media as a whole is based around sharing (posting, uploading, submitting, tweeting, blogging, streaming etc.) and other’s reactions to what one has shared (views, likes, subscribers, favorites, followers, upvotes, retweets, reblogs, crossposts, etc.).

However, miscommunication and culture shock due to language barriers and cultural differences is one of the many factors that can negatively affect one’s experience on social media. For example, the Japanese artist community, active on sites such as Twitter, Pixiv, NicoNico Seiga, FC2 blogs, etc.. Twitter is mostly inhabited by English-speaking users. Here in the west, our main motive for sharing something on social media (such as art) is for fame and recognition. However, over in the East, most online artists only upload their works to the internet for personal use. I’m not saying one cultural attitude towards sharing art is better than one another, but when these two worldviews collide, the culture shock can negatively affect the careers of artists who are unaware of the other culture’s differing views on sharing art.

So, I’ve listed numerous social media platforms below and I’m going to elaborate on how each of them contributes to the alienation and discouragement of Japanese artists.

DO NOT WITCH-HUNT OR HARASS THE CULPRITS I’VE LISTED AS EXAMPLES; THEY ONLY SERVE TO BACK UP MY ARGUMENT

Twitter

Go into the twitter search bar and type in the name of an anime character (usually female). What do you find? Most likely an account named after said character that does nothing but post unsourced fan art of said character with cheesy “in-character” captions on them.

Exhibit A [NSFW]

Exhibit B [NSFW]

Exhibit C [very NSFW]

Aside from that, Twitter isn’t that bad in this regard, as a lot of the art that gets stolen is originally uploaded to Twitter anyway. But I’m just getting started. 

Wattpad

Ah yes, Wattpad. One of the “trinity” of fan fiction communities (the others being fanfiction.net and AO³), featuring many different stories with varying degrees of readability. The problem is the option to add a picture to adorn your fanfiction, at which point most of the authors google “<fanfic subject> fan art” and use something from there without considering the repercussions. This causes Wattpad to be one of the top results when reverse image searching to find the source of some fan art, aside from another site I’ll mention later on...

Reddit

There’s a subreddit I often browse called r/ChurchOfJirou, a community for sharing anything relating to the character Kyouka from My Hero Academia (I mean come on, she’s like the cutest thing ever). A lot of the posts on that sub are sharing fan art of the aforementioned character. One of the rules in the sidebar is “always include the source in the title or the comments���. And most of the submissions make good on that rule. However, a lot of the posts are from Japanese artists on Twitter or Pixiv, and following the source link leads you to find the artist’s bio, which usually has something along the lines of “don’t repost my work”. And what’s more, the biggest offenders (of submitting art to the sub without OP’s permission) were the moderators of the subreddit. You know, the ones who are supposed to be enforcing the rules? I even got so fed up that I called it out, to which one of the mods replied,

“It doesn’t really make a difference, does it?”

Luckily, not all subreddits are like this. For example, other MHA-related subs like r/BokuNoShipAcademia or r/ChurchOfMinaAshido have moderators that are more considerate of artists’ wishes. Overall, Reddit is usually a hit-or-miss when it comes to this kind of thing. At best, you’ve got subs like the two I just mentioned which make sure to respect artists, and at worst you’ve got people trying (and failing) to edit out watermarks. Also, not to self-promote, but this tweet of mine represents this situation pretty well:

Imgur

Imgur isn’t that bad compared to the rest of these, but it’s a common one that people link to when asked for the source of whatever they’ve shared on Twitter or Reddit or whatever.

Amino Apps

Amino Apps is a strange case. I don’t know much about it since I’ve never used it, but from what I do know it seems similar to Reddit in that there are numerous communities for different niches. That said, judging from the way it clogs up Google image search results, I doubt OC art is posted there often.

YouTube

Now, you may be thinking, “How does a video site rip off others’ art?”. The answer is uploads of soundtracks. Look for any OST from a video game or anime on YouTube and the picture used for the video will likely be some fan art by a Japanese Pixiv artist, usually one that forbids reposts of their work. Not only that, but if the uploader did bother to add the source in the description, it’s usually not even a link to the actual source, more likely a link to Zerochan or Pinterest or something. Now take into account that some of these videos get millions of views. Imagine working hard on something, and some numbnuts takes it, slaps some music onto it, uploads it to YouTube, and gets millions of views while you get next to nothing in comparison.

Exhibit A

Exhibit B (re-upload; original had nearly 40 million views before it was copyright claimed)

Exhibit C

and many many others

Pinterest

Alright, this is the big one. When Pinterest isn’t giving recipes or wardrobe ideas to suburban white moms, it’s clogging up Google reverse image search, punishing anyone who just wanted to find the source of some cute fan art. I feel like this meme by ZebitasMartinexSi on Facebook sums it up:

For example, this piece of Legend of Zelda art by Twitter artist @_nomeri_ (I’ll just link to it, since it would be hypocritical of me to embed the image even though @_nomeri_’s bio warns people not to repost their art). Good art, right? Well, if you right-click and hit “Search Google for image”...

...yeah. Pinterest is a plague. It thrives on theft. Even worse is when someone will post fan art on Twitter/Tumblr/Reddit/etc. and have the nerve to say “IDK the source I found it on Pinterest ^_^”. Or worse yet, they link to Pinterest saying it’s the source.

Instagram

While many other sites rag on Instagram for its reposting of memes, it’s no better when it comes to reposting fan art, especially from Pixiv. I’ve seen lots of stolen pieces with fan fictions written in the description. Personally, if I were an artist, I’d rethink my career choice if I saw my art reposted on Instagram with a half-assed fanfic under it, so I don’t blame Japanese artists who close their Pixiv accounts after seeing that. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to prevent it from happening in the first place.

DeviantArt

DeviantArt is more “renowned” across the web for its niche circles of bizarre fetish art, but in its defence, there are some legitimately good pieces on there. If you do find a good one though, try checking to see if all of the uploader’s pieces have a similar overall art style, because if not, that’s a sure sign of someone passing off some Pixiv user’s art as their own, which is unfortunately fairly common on DeviantArt.

9Gag

Not a whole lot to say about 9Gag. I mean, it does contribute to reposting of art, but nothing really separates it from the others on this list, aside from its watermarks. At least the watermark gives away the fact that something was reposted.

Know Your Meme

You know that Zelda pic by @_nomeri_ I was talking about earlier? Well, to add insult to injury, it became an object-labelling meme.

Imagine putting hours into something and politely asking others not to repost it, only to find that some nincompoops on r/DankMemes made it into an object-labelling meme.

But this isn’t KYM’s fault, per se. Know Your Meme only documents memes; they do not create them. However, as someone who regularly browses the Know Your Meme image galleries, I can say that the image gallery has essentially become Know Your Fan Art (unlawfully reposted fan art, that is).

Redbubble

There’s an NSFW artist I follow on Twitter by the name of Nico-Mo. A while ago, his Pixiv account was suspended, and there were numerous pictures on there that he had not uploaded to his Twitter or DeviantArt, so I found a mirror of one of those pieces on Gelbooru and reverse-image searched in hopes of finding it on his Twitter. No such luck. What came up instead was a .png of the piece made into a sticker being sold on Redbubble. In fact, that’s one of the major reasons why artists disapprove of their art being reposted, as it may find its way onto a sticker or a T-shirt being sold as merch without the original artist giving consent nor the artist receiving so much as a single nickel.

Facebook

Surprisingly, I think Facebook is one of the least offending sites on this list. Still worth mentioning, though.

Funnyjunk

Like Imgur, Funnyjunk isn’t that bad compared to some of the rest of these, but this exchange in the comments of a repost of an MHA artist that deleted their account (not hard to see why considering people straight-up ignored the big-ass watermark at the bottom) is proof enough of western social media’s flippant attitude towards ruining online artists’ careers.

Aggregator imageboards such as Yande.re, Konachan, Danbooru, Gelbooru, Rule34, SankakuComplex, Zerochan, etc.

I don’t think I need to explain these. But like Imgur, these are what most people link to when asked for source instead of bothering to find the original post.

We Heart It

I don’t know much about “We Heart It”, but it seems to be a “Pinterest Lite” considering it clogs up image search almost as much as Pinterest does.

iFunny

Basically the same as 9Gag, in the sense that its watermarks are a dead giveaway.

4chan

I’m not sure if 4chan really “counts” among these, as it’s a chat board where nearly everything is impermanent anyway. However, I was once on an NSFW subreddit where one submitter used a 4chan thread to get Patreon-exclusive material from an artist to upload to the sub (even though one of the rules of the sub was “no paywall content”), so that alone earns 4chan its spot on this list.

Tumblr

Yes, not even Tumblr is innocent. Although I’m sure you knew that. Similar to what I said about Twitter, look up any blog named after a fictional character and it’ll likely be chock-full of unsourced fan art.

“Why is this even important?”

Because if an artist sees that their work is being reposted, depending on the artist, they may delete the original post when they wouldn’t have to if people had just respected their wishes. Now, if an artist wants their works gone from the internet for other personal reasons, that’s up to them and we should respect them for it. But artists taking down their works due to mass reposting is 100% preventable, which is why it’s sad. If you don’t respect an artist, they won’t create art. Simple as that.

“Why do you care so much?”

Eh, I’m just weird like that. It just ticks me off when anything online, whether it be art, or a video, or whatever, is lost. In my opinion, nothing hurts more than clicking a Pixiv link on an imageboard and being greeted with “The work was deleted or the ID does not exist.”.

“But lots of western artists forbid reposting of their art too!”

Indeed, that is correct. But while many artists of every nationality and culture frown upon reproduction of their work, it seems only western social media is responsible for reposting art in the first place. I mean, why else do you think Japanese artists are saying “Reprint is prohibited” in English when the rest of their bio is in Japanese? Because English-speakers are the ones reposting.

“But exposure can help an artist!”

Yeah, that’s true...

...but “exposure” doesn’t mean much if those “exposed” to one’s work don’t know or care who it came from.

And if you need even more reasons, look no further than these posts about the same topic by other blogs:

https://cranberrywitch.tumblr.com/post/143456002228/stop-reposting-art-from-japanese-artists

https://thegospelofnagisa.tumblr.com/post/143308182398

https://edendaphne.tumblr.com/post/163117317030/ive-been-wanting-to-make-this-educational-cheat

https://marklightgreatsword.tumblr.com/post/190056977650/discourage-art-theft-in-fandom-in-2020-dont

https://letusrespectpixivartistconsent.tumblr.com/post/92189994896/why-is-this-important

also, not to self-promote but I made a thread on Twitter on this topic about a month ago that you can check out here.

That’s all.

posted Jun 14; last edit Jun 21

[skeletonbuddycos]

pyrrha nikos update 7/8

this costume has been a journey, but i’m super happy with the results so far (ღ˘⌣˘)

i started with the skirt & sash, because i figured those would be an easy start to this soon-to-be shitshow. i used this pattern from jalie (i wanted a skort instead of a skirt because skorts are basically the real world counterpart to monty oum anti-upskirt technology). i altered the pattern to take out the side panels & overall shortened it. for the sash, i used a pattern i came up with a few months back to get that wave/fold that pyrrha’s has. i like the end results, but the sash isn’t quite as long or full as i hoped it would be, so i might remake this.

i’m ridiculously proud of the belt, mostly because after a few days of staring at my corset, wondering how i’d fix the binding (more on that later), i finally had something go right. i based this belt off something i saw on labinnak’s instagram story, with a little help from this video from zonbi. i hotglued a bunch of 1 1/4″ strips of craft foam together (two strips to give the belt some sturdiness), sewed a long tube of fabric (using the same fabric as my skirt, shoes, & gloves so everything matches!), then pulled the tube over the foam. i then added a buckle i picked up from the the craft store that i spray painted a while back with the same spray paint as my armor & punched in some grommets. it’s not super sturdy since it’s just craft foam & hot glue, but i don’t plan on this belt actually holding anything up, so i think (hope) it’ll be okay.

the gloves are just cheaters gloves, with an added flap on the thumbs so i can use my phone while wearing these

the boots are......not my proudest accomplishment. i’m quite pleased with the (currently unfinished) boot cuffs, but the boot covers.....yikes. i’ve never made boot covers before, so let’s blame it on that. luckily, these are just shoes from goodwill, so i’m not upset over ruining them (& they’re actually half a size too small, so i might just get another pair & redo these before dragoncon). the red paint on the soles is also a hot mess, because the plastidip i bought to seal it didn’t actually seal it. tbh, i wouldn’t be upset if these shoes met a horrible fate & had to be replaced.

now the corset. holy shit, the corset. pyrrha has such a distinctive top & i’m a perfectionist asshole when it comes to costumes, so i’m going all in on this. one thing i noticed while planning this out is that pyrrha’s corset is probably made out of metal & the 3 panel design of it doesn’t translate well to fabric. i wanted something fitted & supportive, so i started looking for commercial corset patterns (i actually tried to make a custom corset pattern first, but that was its own separate disaster). i finally decided on simplicity pattern 8201, which i think is supposed to be.....a star wars thing? i dunno, but this pattern has a few features i was looking for, including being a generally basic but fitted pattern, having a seam straight up the middle, & being designed for ridiculous fabric. i picked it up at the craft store with some muslin & got to work.

i first made a mockup of the original, unaltered pattern in my size to get an idea of the shape & look, then i started figuring out what should be altered to get to pyrrha’s corset. i don’t have a dress form, so i found it easiest to (badly) draw on myself what i was going for.

then i transferred the pattern onto paper, added my alterations, & made a mockup of that. my alterations included cutting the center front pattern piece on the fabric fold so i get one piece instead of two, extending the top line of the front & side front pieces for the tabs, extending the side back pieces so the corset can lace up (the original pattern calls for a zipper in the center back), & adding a modesty panel. (pyrrha sticker on my phone is from @binch-queen‘s redbubble!)

it took a few tries to get the tabs to lay right, but i finally managed to get something i liked.

i finally started on the actual corset, but because i’m a baby, i started with my inexpensive lining fabric instead of my pricier outer fabric. i fused the fabric, a woven fabric i found at the craft store that happened to match my knit fabric for the skirt perfectly, to heavy weight fusible interfacing, then sewed the pieces right sides together. i wasn’t sure how exactly i wanted to do the center gold panel, so i didn’t sew that lining piece to the rest. i then sewed my boning channels onto the lining seams.

the lining went well, so i finally started on my outer fabric. i looked around online for some faux leather fabric, but couldn’t find anything i really liked. however, when i went to joann to get fabric for another project, i found some upholstery vinyl that had the perfect faux leather look & color & i knew it was meant to be  (ღ˘⌣˘) (side note: while looking up that link, i noticed the fabric is flame retardant, so if any cinder cosplayers try to fuck with me, i’ve got that going for me) i did the same to the outer fabric as i did the lining, fusing the heavyweight interfacing & sewing right sides together, then topstitching along the seams to get everything to lay flat. then i placed the outer & lining right sides together, sewed along the bottom & the lower 2/3 of the center, flipped it right side out, then topstitched again to get everything to lay flat.

i added a lining for a few different reason, the first being that the inside of the corset will (probably?) be visible with the tabs, so i didn’t want the ugly wrong side of upholstery vinyl to be on display. i also didn’t want the boning channel stitches visible on the outside, plus the additional layer of interfacing makes the whole thing a lot sturdier. sewing the whole thing together was a nightmare & i’m pretty sure my sewing machine was screaming at me at more than one point, but it looks much neater & more professional.

i was on a roll with the corset at this point, but the gold panel & binding quickly derailed me. my original plan was to spray paint the same vinyl fabric gold, fold the binding over the top edge, & sew it down, but i ran into a few different problems. the first was that vinyl doesn’t just fold over like normal fabric, the only way you can get it to lay flat is to topstitch it, which i was planning on doing after folding it onto the fabric. i also couldn’t pin the fabric down without putting in a bunch of permanent holes, so i started to tacky glue the binding onto the corset to hold it in place while i sewed, then discovered when i removed my clamps that the paint pulls up & transfers onto pretty much anything it comes in contact with. my shiny gold accents were now looking quite worn. i tried a clear polyurethane to seal the color, but it also had a sticky surface, so it had the exact same problem as the unsealed paint. i kept gluing & clamping out of denial, but the binding just looked bad. i put my corset aside for a week & started on armor while i tried to figure out how to fix this.

i eventually started looking up sealing spray paint on vinyl (apparently pinterest moms love to upcycle vinyl chairs), but most blogs didn’t give any detail on how they sealed the paint, & the only blog that did mention it used an expensive wax that you can only get from specialty retailers. i tried another clear spray paint, one specifically designed for sealing, & got......whatever those bumps are, plus a really ugly color (although to be fair, that’s the same vinyl binding that was currently being painted for the 4th & 5th time). i shared my dilemmas on reddit, got some tips for helping the color actually stick to the fabric, & discovered that the clear plastidip that betrayed me on the soles of my shoes actually sealed the color without discoloration, weird bumps, or stickiness. i still haven’t stress tested it, but this process is looking much better now than it did yesterday morning.

another thing i disliked about my original binding was how it looked on the inside, which would be somewhat visible. the only way i could get the binding to lay flat on the opposite side would be to cut slits in the fabric, which would be visible. i ended up digging up a vinyl binding tutorial from december wynn that i considered when i was first patterning the binding, but decided against because i thought i wouldn’t like it. i tried it out on some scrap gold fabric, & holy shit, it’s infinitely better than my original plan. don’t do my original plan, it’s terrible & will cause you nothing but pain.

i’ve also been working on armor the past few weeks, but this word vomit is long enough so i’ll save that process for another update. i’ll be starting on a commission for amon & a hylian hood this week, so those updates will start soon. thanks for reading! if you found this useful or just enjoyed it, please consider buying me a coffee (ღ˘⌣˘)