#something about digital art just makes me such a perfectionist

[theswedishpajas]

The man truly can’t take a genuine compliment 🙄

[anothermonikan]

Ponee (It is half 3 in the morning)

[sparklykat-hideoutenthusiast]

I've seen people doing an intro post so I suppose I should do the same right? I have no idea how to do this, I'm just winging it :3

INTRO POST TIME WOOO!!

[last updated: sat dec 7th at 7:18 PM 2024]

(I update this often, a reread of it every now and then would be greatly appreciated!)

Maybe every week/month depending on your time scale? ↑

Follow my other blog where I reblog a bunch of stuff and things for the full experience of my personality and interests! @eckos-reblogs :3

@everytime-i-reach-the-postlimit ←Exactly as the name entails

@nature-is-mystical ←is my other random blog that you can follow as well if you want.

that blog is just for reblogging nature stuff and posting nature stuff. (Occasionally rhymes come with it ig)

side blog for fanart!: @sonar-fanart-hall

I'm always working on making reference sheets for OCs ^^

Chill dude side blog: @cool-dudes-official

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I will continue to edit this, probably for the rest of time to get it right since I'm a slight perfectionist lol

Hello! I've been an artist for around 5 to 6 years, and I still kinda suck at it! I do traditional art normally but I've been branching out to digital art as well. I mostly draw animals, anthropomorphic creatures, creatures in general, whatever beautifully ugly faces I can come up with, and sometimes human faces!

I classify as a furry but do not reblog a ton of furry stuff nor do I have a fursuit. I just like drawing and seeing anthropomorphic animals :3

Furries, Therians, anyone of lgbtq+ community (including ace people cuz apparently there's a debate about that), weirdos (but NOT in the gross way), and more are welcome on my blog! :3 ❤️ (you're kinda automatically welcome if you're kind anyway lol but whatevs :3)

Tags and stuff! To help you find stuff in my blog better through search :)

#Ecko draws -exactly as is obvious, it will be for when I make art, digital or traditional.

#Echo Rambles -For posts of mine that include mainly me talking about random stuff

#Echo rants - for when I rant. Similar to #Echo rambles but different..

#Echo answers - For when I answer asks!! :D

#The Clowder seeks - For when you guys ask me stuff!

#Mama Change - For when I mention my mom. (Her name is change..or it's more of a nickname but no one calls her by her actual name except for professional/job people like a dentist or something)

#Echo asks - For when I ask questions :3 lol

#Eckos moots <3 - for interactions with moots, obviously 🙄 (I love y'all sm)

#Ecko irl - me irl

My main Media for traditional art is, pens, pencil, gel pens, paint markers (posca) and normal markers! I hope to soon branch out to ink! (Maybe one day you'll get to see some watercolor stuff from me. It's not that good of watercolor art and I don't enjoy painting too much tbh)

Anatomy You say? Don't know her 😔

If you are interested, I do art requests! It's not guaranteed to be good or to be done quickly but I will try my very best every time. You can even request multiple times if you'd like! Like a ton of times! I really don't mind!

You can also request art of fandoms I'm not in but make sure to give me a good reference or the drawing will look off :3

Art requests open until further notice.

If there's something I don't mention here that you're wondering if I can draw or not, give me an ask in my inbox and I'll let you know! (Pls, I'm friendly I swear)

You can also dm me if you'd like but I'd prefer the askbox instead (⁠´⁠-⁠﹏⁠-⁠`⁠；⁠)

I can't draw/don't want to draw: items, anatomy, bodies (unless you want the equivalent of a boxy stick figure), rendering, lighting, dragons (without a reference), romance/NSFW (no, just no.), hands, human legs (for the life of me 😭), +more

I can draw/like to draw: faces, animals (mostly cat related ones but you can request any animal and I'll at least try to draw it.), different hair styles (only with a reference), eye bags (I think they're pretty lol), dragons (only with a good reference), gore (not the best at it but I'll will try my best to make something nice and bloody for ya!), +more!

My name is Ecko and it's my preferred name but you can refer to me as Melleona (my OC) or by a nickname as well if you'd like! (just please ask me first if you want to use a nickname as I'm bad with setting boundaries.)

My pronouns are She/Her but feel free to refer to me as it/it's! :3

Speaking of which! This is my OC, Melleona:

She is 14 years old, she is introverted and blunt but also shy and insecure. She has anxiety, dealt with a bit of depression, and she's very casual as well as lazy (like me lol)

She's half Cat, she has greyish blue eyes (not visible in the drawing), slightly blueish black hair that's long enough to reach her ankles, she has a mushroom themed party hat, and some wicked whiskers!

If there's anything you'd like to ask me about her or ask her, go ahead and ask away! I love anons and normal asks! ❤️❤️❤️ (There is a slight filter on the drawing. I'll edit this later and put her color palette below ❤️)

I'm a minor! Mind your words, don't send me gross/weird asks or messages. (I've already had a few people message me asking for my age, a picture of me, and my sexuality. No, I will not be sharing my real appearance on here. my age? Minor, that's all you need to know. My sexuality? I don't know and you don't need to know either, respectfully ^^❤️)

IDC if I post something slightly suggestive or that says I know about 18+ themes. I posted it, not someone saying something to me of those themes. Sure, I understand the stuff but It really doesn't matter now does it? It just means I understand enough to know you shouldn't be saying that stuff to me. (Boundaries ✨)

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I do half-curse in posts from time to time. I do censor it a bit tho, like "f7ck" for example. Hope ya don't mind (⁠；⁠^⁠ω⁠^⁠）

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I'd appreciate it if people reblogged my art!

I don't appreciate reposting it however.

Just in case you don't know what the difference between reposting rather than reblogging: it's when you (typically) take a screenshot of the art, and then repost it on either Tumblr or a different app rather than hitting the reblog button!

While this has never happened to me personally, I do feel like it's worth mentioning.

Oh, and, don't under a circumstance feed my art to AI. I can forgive reposting my art. I put out there for people to see not to get fame from it but under no circumstances EVER will I allow feeding my art to AI. It is not human. It does not make art.

AI artists don't exist unless it's used ONLY to assist with a process that is still mostly YOUR OWN SKILLS THAT YOU'VE CULTIVATED OVER TIME. AI is NOT art but it can HELP with art.

ミ⁠●⁠﹏⁠☉⁠ミ-ミ⁠●⁠﹏⁠☉⁠ミ-ミ⁠●⁠﹏⁠☉⁠ミ-ミ⁠●⁠﹏⁠☉⁠ミ-ミ⁠●⁠﹏⁠☉⁠ミ

don't dm asking me to commission from you. like said before, I don't have money bc I'm a minor + I don't like being pestered for me commission you. talk to me like a person, not an ATM.

If I want to commission someone, I will dm them and even then, I'm most likely to commission art from a friend to support them.

I support the lgbtq+ community! And I don't discriminate against race. I really shouldn't have to say this. (˘⁠･⁠_⁠･⁠˘)

I will respond to money asks with "!!" And that's it. I don't have money and even if I did I don't got any money to spare. I'm broke and struggling too. Not to mention, I'm a minor and can't just go out and get the stuff. I hope you understand and I wish you all the best!❤️❤️❤️

Some games and shows and stuff I like:

Shows and stuff: Rick and Morty, adventure time, lost in space, bsd (never watched it but I've seen enough of it on the Internet to know a bit about it. Very interesting :3), Some of the Life Minecraft series, httyd, doctor who, and more!

Games/fandoms: Yonder(Yonder Cloud Catcher Chronicles.), Minecraft, the Stanley parable, tiny bit of South Park, cotl, MLP(childish I know but I don't care. I love them), creepypasta, SCPs, Trevor Henderson's creatures (mostly cartoon cat), plants vs zombies, fran bow, little misfortune, and more!

Stuff and things (hobbies?): Art, apparently I make rhymes now too??, rollerblading, climbing, Hiking (iffy), sleeping, being annoying+lazy, doom scrolling, interacting with people, and more!

(I'm not really in any fandoms really..kinda like on the edge of being in each and every fandom I come across..)

General facts about me! Yippee!

I think eye bags and wrinkles are pretty (odd, I know lol), I live in a bus (not decked out like you see on social media though. We just live in a bus lol), I live with my ma (my dad is my step dad and he and my mom just broke up psooo ye), I blank out a lot and just stare at people for no reason (which freaks them out), I have greyish blue eyes (a long with some, I'm pretty sure permanent eye bags lol), I get energy right before nighttime mostly (and then it disappears as soon as it reaches around 11 pm to 12 am), My favorite color is maroon (and any type of blue along with orange and yellow and forest green..mostly just comfy vibe colors tbh but maroon is a fixed piece), my favorite animal is a cat (although I have a dog. Muffin doesn't count as a dog, she's practically human. Apart of the family.), and more!

(I'll update this as I go)

[I will block as I see fit]

Do not interact with my blog if: You're racist, you only or mostly have sexual themes on your own blog (I apologize but it makes me uncomfortable. Have some other interests and it might make me less uncomfortable ^^), if you in general just enjoy hating on people for no reason (I like to make my area a safe space for people) if you're a Zoophile (No explanation really needed but animals can't consent.) (more will be added later when I think of what to add)

Don't dm me unless you're a moot or you say your intentions within the first 1-3 messages. (moots that I've interacted with can send me a dm unprompted with stated intentions anytime they'd like. Special privileges ✨)

(Added a specific part of that bc a moot felt they were making me uncomfortable by having such themes on their blog. I didn't really realize at first but yes that does make slightly uncomfortable but I don't really care as long as you have other interests. If s3x is your only interest, it weirds me out to have those types of people interact with me. Just know you're all good moot, you're not the type of person I was aiming it at. There are other people that just don't think about anything else but $ex and relationships that creep me out and you are not one of them. ^^❤️)

Things about me, (random stuff): I am cringe from time to time, my fav colors are maroon and any kind of blue, orange is nice too though,

I appreciate any and all constructive criticism. IDC if it sounds rude and might hurt my feelings, TELL ME so I can help better myself and my blog! I'm dum and will most likely not notice I'm doing something weird or anything :P <3

•Send me asks! Wanna to hug one of my OCs, Want to slap the sh1t out of one of em, Want to introduce me to a new (or old) fandom I don't know of but you think I might be interested in, Want to say hi, Want to give a music suggestion, send an ask!

I LOVE interaction and if possible, I want to be busy with asks at all times so send a ton!

•Moots:

@theachskid @voidsweirdthoughts @burningbutter @rafrfr @rateater2000

@footlongdingledong @ender-the-insomniac @thistlebriar @rspoetry @virtualcroissantflapcolor

@jawdoesstuff @storythesilly @yourfavoritecuntist @chamber-of-voices @i-draw-things

@2oo7xddd @catsreblogging @silli-billy15 @totally-not-a-commie @khloethecatsworld

@1nd13gh0st @cur1os1tyk1lledme @nonbinaryriverclan @ilove-fanart-and-lore405 @hermitchild

@my-mom-named-me-duck @hermitchild

@williamsart12345 @lilytheaxoltollover @twobraincellsremaining @nn-the-doodle @emmajasonartz

@bugba-bugbee @railway323 @xho-the-scribble @asqadia-banthen @nasthesilly @ceaselessbackflips

@the-anxious-acrobat @justuravghazbin @callmekiyo24 @maybeyoullfindthissomeday

@sensehumor ♥️

+any future moots/one's I might have forgotten (I hope I wouldn't forget anyone 🥲)

If you don't like being tagged in tag games, let me know and I'll move your name over here cuz I copy paste the ones above for tagging in stuff: (nothing here yet!)

Moot side blogs: @thistlebriar-tags @my-dad-named-me-goose @mysterious-other-being @

Btw, moot/friend privileges: tagging me in whatever the heck you want, sending nonstop and possibly annoying asks, dming me and having a convo at random, +more! I love all y'all and am more than happy to interact ❤️

My art ↑

Yippee!! That's all for now folks! ❤️

I'll update this whole thing as I go, any questions, just send an ask and I'll update this with the answer as well as you know- replying in general lol :3

I seem incredibly childish in this intro post and my general posts but do know, I am over 12 years of age lmao 🤣

I'mma keep some notes here as well... mostly for tone stuffs cuz I can't remember these 😭

/lh = lighthearted

/j = joking

/hj = half joking

[almostempty]

get to know your moots

thanks for the tag @yxtkiwiyxt, i can never resist a classic myspace about me bulletin survey throwback bc i yearn for the days of agonizing over finding the perfect profile song

what's the origin of your blog title?: it's too much pressure to create a witty name, i've used such gripping online usernames as waterbottle, casual-stapler, oldfruit, etc..

favorite fandoms: this is all i participate in actively! but i do enjoy being exposed to other fandoms through y'all here and there

OTP(s) + shipname: i just want all of the various fictional ppcu characters for me

favorite color: black n yellow 🖤💛

favorite game: nothing recently, but i enjoy zelda games, rdr2, elden ring, and roller coaster tycoon (1999)

song stuck in your head: listening to Sativa - Jhené Aiko, Swae Lee currently

weirdest habit/trait?: dissociating in car (parked)

hobbies: reading, writing, finding new/old music, making myself laugh over silly memes, swimming, solo adventures, people watching, going to da movies, etc.

if you work, what's your profession?: drug and alcohol counseling and juvenile justice advocacy

if you could have any job you wish what would it be?: obligatory i do not dream of labor, but like @yxtkiwiyxt, for my next trick i'd like to be a digital nomad somehow

something you're good at: i have a good picker for friends, i'm occasionally funny, dogs like me

something you're bad at: being concise, perception/management of time in any manner and remembering

something you love: music, all day, every day, non stop

something you could talk about for hours off the cuff: various rants about capitalism (i'm fun), movies i haven't seen but feel like i could accurately guess the plot of, my fav cursed double features

something you hate: my poor perception of time and memory issues, executive dysfunction, facing my demons aka doing IFS work in therapy

something you collect: concert vids, i think i'm the only one that rewatches them?, books, nearly dead peach ice Lost Mary's

something you forget: plans, texts, objects and people not in my line of sight, if a memory real or a dream/idea, if i've already told you the story i'm halfway through (but i still think it's funny so i intend on finishing it either way)

what's your love language?: i know it's an innocent question, but i have mad beef with the author of the book about love languages and the christian gender roles perpetuated in the book and lack of empirical research around the concepts, and the creator's homophobia, but i digress (i told y'all i'm fun)

favorite movie/show: some movies: office space, SLC punk, eternal sunshine, the thing, drive, bottoms; don't make me pick shows rn

favorite food: been unable to stop getting nachos and the poblano crema from the taqueria on my block for the last ~6 weeks

favorite animal: big time animal lover here, shout out to my dogs!! i can't choose a fav otherwise

are you musical?: i can play a couple instruments, i wish i could sing

what were you like as a child?: a pleasure to have in class

favorite subject at school?: art, but i pursued science

least favorite subject?: i never took chemistry because everyone complained about how hard it was and i figured out you didn't need it to graduate, but i suppose technically i didn't take it so can't confirm

what's your best character trait?: adaptability (i just took an updated personality test lmao to help me figure one out)

what's your worst character trait?: perfectionist (not with editing heheh)

if you could change any detail of your day right now what would it be?: a few interpersonal interactions

if you could travel in time who would you like to meet?: maybe an artist from the 27 club, just to see them perform

recommend one of your favorite fanfics (spread the love!):

two completed longfics i enjoyed <3, best kept secret- enemies to lovers/bodyguard din by luckbealincoln on ao3, vampire waltz - idiots in love/ max phillips by absurdthirst, wardenparker on ao3

obligatory free memes if u made it this far

tags, but no pressure: @auteurdelabre @gothcsz @lovely-vamp-princess

@slimybeth69 @swankyorange @syd-djarin @itwasntimethatdidit40 @probablyreadinsmut @thundermartini @ace-turned-confused

@persephone-girl @thischarmingmandalorian @pinkypromisepascal

@hoelaris @lilac-boo if u read this and i didn't tag you, tell me all ur secrets and tag me anyway <3

[africanmorning]

Trying to get into digital art for the first time? Having a hard time adjusting to drawing on a tablet while looking at a screen?

Most people will tell you to just keep at it and make bad art until you get used to it (at least, that's what everyone told me), but I'm a recovering perfectionist with insecurity up the wazoo working multiple jobs who hasn't got the time or emotional fortitude for all that.

What I did when I first started doing digital art 4, 5 years ago?

Hooked my drawing tablet up to my computer and started using it like a mouse to browse the internet/do general computer stuff (playing with some of the tablet's input settings can make this smoother). This helped me develop the hand-eye coordination I needed to use the tablet and get used to the way the stylus moved in space versus on the screen while also accomplishing something that felt productive and not like an act of repeated self-torture. Once I got used to using the pen and tablet like a mouse, it was much easier to open my art program and start messing with the brushes and other tools because I no longer had the big "where is my hand???" barrier getting in the way.

Disclaimers:

This method will not solve all of the coordination woes; some fine-tuning does have to happen in the art program itself. But it did help me get through a big chunk of the process.

I am definitely not a professional artist. I don't think I would even call myself a "good" hobby artist. I'd say I'm a passable hobby artist. This isn't about making one's art suddenly much better, just about closing the gap between digital skills and preexisting pen-and-paper skills. You're on your own for everything else.

[archive-of-the-lost]

𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐉𝐎 𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐞! — @sugutoad

Backstory:

Your siblings are demigods, all four of them (Athena must have really loved your dad). Your dad never let you use the internet so your location wouldn't be revealed to monsters. Most of your entertainment came from books, though you were also naturally drawn to them because of your heritage. Speaking of heritage, your father expected you to perform well in school and set an example for your siblings due to your specific demigod powers, despite you having ADHD and dyslexia. This caused you to struggle a bit and develop perfectionistic tendencies. The monsters started coming the moment you hit double digits, and they would come for your siblings in the same house too. Having so many demigods targeted in the same house, you were noticed by a satyr and brought to Camp Half-blood, where you were taught to fight. But Camp Half-blood can only keep you safe during the summer, so you're forced to defend yourself and your siblings for the remainder of the year. It was a big source of stress in your life, having to protect 5 people with no combat-based powers, but you managed to keep your siblings alive until they grew old enough to defend themselves. It was a huge relief to you when they finally grew old enough to hold a sword and use it (well for their age!) but you're still constantly worried about them. Especially if they get called for quests.

Camp, cabin, powers, fatal flaw:

Camp Half-blood — Cabin #6 — Athena

Between Camp Half-blood and Camp Jupiter, I think you would be in Camp Half-blood. Camp Jupiter is more militaristic and warlike; I don't think you would thrive in an environment like that. The more casual and welcoming Camp Half-blood suits you better. Your cabin was such a no brainer for me honestly. INTJ, blunt, realist and considered intelligent by many. You seem to share a lot of similarities with Annabeth too. Who else would be your parent if not the Goddess of wisdom, warfare and the arts? Your powers are not as flashy as some of the other demigods, but that isn't to say they don't have their uses. Audiokinesis (affinity for arts and music, though limited), weapon proficiency (where you instinctively know how to use any weapon), genius intellect, and proficiency for craftsmanship. You're more of a tactician rather than a warrior, but you can still hold your own in a fight. You can also weave very well. And finally, perhaps the most useful power of all: Memorisation (you can never forget anything you hear). Just listening in class is able to get you through most of the questions in exams, isn't that great! But there is still that dyslexia problem... Fatal flaw: Perfectionism - This is pretty obvious, right? You're never satisfied with something until you deem it flawless. This can be detrimental in high stakes situations where say, you have to make a weapon while a monster approaches, but you spend too long trying to make it better instead of settling for it being functional enough. The monster pounces. Something like that. By extension, hesitation and overthinking are also your weaknesses.

Relationship with:

Percy Jackson

I'm sure you already know who your SO is! A lot of the info in your ideal type section fits him so well. The brave and go-with-the-flow Percy and you, the passionate and logical realist, compliment each other with the traits you lack or would like to work on.

He loves your passion for the things you like to do and how you'll get everyone's opinions to make sure no one gets left out. Those are admirable qualities worth complimenting you for! Your sense of humor also matches his. He thinks you're super fun to be around despite the differences in your personalities.

Percy is more of a "live in the moment" type of guy, and he often tries to get you out of your head to appreciate the feeling of grass under your feet and the wind on your face. It's not good to think and stress so much. How else are you going to live life? Take a deep breath. Everything is going to be okay. He'll make sure of it.

Your love languages align perfectly! Percy also seems like the type of guy to like physical touch, often hugging you or using you as an armrest when you stand next to each other. He likes to be close to you. And quality time too! He loves hanging out with you, just being in the same room as you. You both don't have to talk if you don't want to. Sometimes you need to recharge your introvert batteries or work on your stuff, and he respects that.

You strike me as the type of demigod to not really be a "hero", not getting called to quests often and just kind of existing in peace whenever you're at camp (unless it's being attacked). So you're Percy's rock. Whenever Percy returns from a quest and sees you running up to greet him, he smiles in relief. He's safe. He's home.

Annabeth Chase

Bonded not only through blood, but also through similar personalities. You're probably Annabeth's favourite sister because of how similar you both are, so she can relate to you a lot. Even your names are similar! After she saw you cry for the first time because of some criticism, she became protective of you. But she doesn't coddle you. She doesn't want anyone hurting you, but she also would like for you to toughen up a bit.

Jason Grace

The both of you have a mutual respect for each other, but aren't that close really. You're in different camps, and you're not part of the seven or in any leadership positions, so he doesn't interact with you often. He does come across you occasionally when you're with Piper or Annabeth, and knows a bit about you from them.

Piper McLean

You and Piper would get along really well, and the two of you often hang out with Annabeth! She likes your listening quality and how you try to give others a chance to say something without being judged for it (even though you secretly judge them HELP but hey, at least you're supportive). The both of you share a bunch of inside jokes and can often be seen attached by the hip around camp.

Leo Valdez

The both of you have enough differences in personality to have a fun dynamic. Though your senses of humor don't align well, the both of you do share a tendency to make self-degrading jokes. He's intimidated by how smart you are, as he is with Annabeth as well, but you both have a respect for each other's craft. He also has a problem with starting projects and not completing them so he can wholeheartedly relate to you on that lmao.

Hazel Levesque

She admires you for your intelligence! And likes your tendency to daydream, as she does that often as well. You're like a big sister figure to her. It's hard for her not to view you in that way, being so young and having so many role models around her. She's very understanding of you and tries to refute you with a compliment when you make a self-degrading joke, even if it's just a joke.

Frank Zhang

Hazel tries to meet and hang out with you whenever she can, so he ends up seeing you almost as much as Hazel does. He also likes you for your intelligence and willingness to listen to people while reserving judgement, and considers you a friend. His self-esteem is also not the best, so you both make a point to lift each other up and point out something good you did that day. :)

[localsamalicer]

The “how do you draw” person is back. I meant like how did you develop your style and do you have any recommendations for beginner artists. THANK YOU

Ahh I see! I’m sorry I’m not a good teacher, I don’t know how I did most of it lol!

Consume a lot of art and artistic and inspirational media, even if you don’t draw a lot look at other people’s drawings (I have always been a fast artist who drew literally every day sometimes multiple times, but I know that’s not realistic and you can still improve without having to draw every day n don’t feel ashamed for not doing so)

Early on do your best to study big body types as well and small ones, learning both at the same time will help, and in my personal opinion I feel like learning how fat distribution works on fat bodies will make understanding flesh anatomy easier all around and then you can mentally ‘take away’ rather then try and learn how to ‘add on’ bigger fat deposits later down the line. Like all bodies doing figure drawings of bigger people will help with how people move so you may do less stiff posing

Disconnect from your art, don’t fuss over making it perfect is what everyone says, and I feel like that isn’t enough for most from what iv seen. Your art isn’t as much a reflection of you as you think in the ways you are trying to be a perfectionist over it most of the time. Your art isn’t a reflection of you in the sense of your anatomy feeling off or your eyes being different sizes. However, I don’t mean don’t feel a connection or pride or strong feelings for your art, that is the whole point of being a creative! To make art because you want to and are drawn to. Just it’s okay to turn off the critical eye to your slightly shakey lineart of all that’s going to do is make you hate a piece.

Draw to draw for yourself first and only (even for commissions, but there is an aspect of your client’s input being important) post it only if you really want to, don’t make art may to post, make bad art! Make art you don’t like! Make art you only like certain aspects about. Dont post ever piece apologizing for something about it being not up to your standard. There is an understanding and or sentiment that you should just suffer and let yourself hate it and yeah that’s okay but I think you should disconnect yourself further, not just “oh suck it up if you make bad art and hate it” even if you like it, I think there’s a healthy amount of disconnect you can have with all art you make

I can direct you to some people better explaining then me and teaching ^^ everyone’s learning differently but Duchess Celestia on YouTube is one of the first people I can think of who has a trove of videos about specific and broad aspects of art and learning, she’s great. Some others I watch are Pikat, Bluebiscuts, qrbits, Jackie Dorujiko, Ethan Becker, and other scattered videos about anatomy I can’t seem to find currently bc I watched them years ago 😅 generally just watch and look at as many artists you like as you can, everyone’s taste is diff so everyone will gravitate to diff artists and therefore be surrounded by different style inspo.

Other artists I watch mostly to put YouTube videos on on the bg while I’m draw for inspiration and company are Emma Artful, GinjaNinja0w0, ABD Illustrates, LavanderTowne, and Prickly Alpaca.

I don’t have many book recommendations other then Morph’s Fat and Skin Folds, there is a free compete digital scan on Archive.com that’s where I looked at it if you can’t buy a physical copy :)

I’m not a good teacher, I don’t have a clear path to look back on as I mostly just spent years unconsciously improving. Like yeah I was drawing all the time and I wanted to get better and I was looking at some guidance but I just drew for me 90% of the time. I still draw for me most of the time I don’t do as many studies as I should, just luckily for me I happen to really like drawing clothes and unclothed figures and hands so figure drawing, one of the most pushed improvement exercises, is just something I do haha.

I wish I could help more! 😞 I am honored you think I’m at a point where I can give good guidance, I do honestly wish I could do more. Bottom line draw for yourself, which I know that and a lot of advice I gave is already given around a lot but it is at least a little true for everyone’s journeys.

[frodo-with-glasses]

Ma'am do you have a store in which I can purchase your wonderful artses? In any and every form I might desire?

Funny you should ask that, Anon! >:-3

I am currently in the process of setting up a Redbubble store, featuring all the digital art I’ve been posting over the past month. It’s taking longer than I thought it would—because I am a Perfectionist(TM)—but I expect to have the store all set up and open to the public by the end of this week. So keep an eye out for that!

A few Q&A, to keep this simple:

Q: How many designs will there be in the store?

A: Approximately 35. Most of them feature hobbits, Gollum, and/or Beregond.

Q: Will all the digital art you posted be available in the store?

A: Not yet. Things like In The Van are a bit too small to make good products, so I’ll have to redraw that sometime in a higher resolution. (I also plan to redraw Perfect Satisfaction sometime, since it turns out it’s too small an image size to be a proper poster.)

Q: Will you be adding more designs to the store in future?

A: Absolutely! Currently I’m a little under halfway through my stockpile of sketches that I want to turn into digital art. As soon as I finish those, they will be going into the store!

Q: I requested something for the store a long time ago. Will it be there?

A: Eventually. ;-) Patience, my friend.

Q: Are the Field of Cormallen and Scouring of the Shire posters available?

A: Nope X-D Sorry. Haven’t gotten to those yet. But they will be! And in the meantime, I will have both versions of the Horn of Rohan poster available, if that strikes your fancy.

Q: How many designs do you have uploaded in the store right now?

A: I estimate I’m about a third of the way through. If I continue at the same pace, it’ll take me another couple of days to get everything uploaded and set up.

Q: Will going back to your day job affect your posting schedule?

A: Yes it will. The building where I work has been under renovation for the whole month of June, but they just finished, and I’m going back to work tonight. That means I’ll have less time for digital art. But I’ll continue to chip away at it when I can!

Q: Can we have a preview of the store?

A: Maaaaaaybe.

[lovebirdgames]

To the ready...

This is my last devlog and final reflection before Band Camp Boyfriend releases. We started working on the game in 2015. We released the demo on Itch.io in 2018. We got our Steam page up in 2022. Now here we are in 2023, almost eight years later. We’ve been working towards this moment for eight years.

To be honest, it’s a little bit scary. My anxiety can’t help but whisper, “What if they hate it?” but thankfully logic growls back, “They won’t.” The most important thing is…I love it. I love it and I’m proud of it, and I’m here to reflect on everything and thank everyone for their hard work. Band Camp Boyfriend was once an idea in an instrument truck and today it is a reality thanks to you.

I may use “I” and speak from my perspective here, but I am only one half of the soul of this game. My sister’s heart, creativity, memories, and talents also make up Band Camp Boyfriend. She is just the shyer of the two of us and not as present on social media. So while I speak from my heart, know that it also comes from Alex’s.

Alex and I came up with the characters and stories together. We bounced ideas on band fields, long walks, and over coffee. There are so many warm moments of us barely able to detail our scene ideas in between peals of laughter. Together, we crafted it into better versions, constantly improving on it. As we worked, we covered for each other’s flaws. Alex is the perfectionist between the two of us and she is the more knowledgeable one when it comes to music, as she majored in it. She also was able to do the math and figure out the tough programming. Then she taught me—I am not the perfectionist, but I am the workhorse, the motivator. I am obsessed with checking things off my list and constantly working to whittle it down. And while her writing style is to carefully hone each paragraph, mine is to just devour. I sit down and I just write—though I like to say the characters write themselves. I’m just an invisible presence within the story, writing the scene as it plays out. If you know the characters deeply enough, you always know what they’re going to say next and your fingers fly across the keyboard just to keep up. But enough about me.

Band Camp Boyfriend is the kind of game that absolutely needs an original soundtrack and by God did Alex create an incredible one. The themes, the motifs, the fine details. She has put so much thought and hard work into the music of this game. I have no idea how she does it. It’s magical to me. It adds so much to the game and heightens the emotion by tenfold, and I can’t wait for you to hear each song—from “Let It Slide” to “Swan Song” to the full band performance of the alma mater and that final song in the credits. Every single song brims with Alex’s talent, passion, and hard work.

And honestly, I am blessed to have her as my sister and my best friend. Thank you, Alex, for sharing this journey with me.

One talent my sister and I do not share between us is digital art. We write, we program, she composes…but sprites, CGs, backgrounds, GUI? That’s not something we can do. So we commissioned artists we found on Lemmasoft Forum and I’m so grateful to have found them when we did.

Bunny, our background artist, created the entire world of Band Camp Boyfriend! She worked with us closely to make sure the details were right and was so sweet. It was so cool to be able to move around the world she created and help capture the shots that we wanted. Potouto (now Khoaisama) was also wonderful to work with. She is so full of talent and creates amazing, unique GUI for many different visual novels! Also, I love her enthusiasm. And our chibi artist, Mayunnaise, has created some of the most adorable chibis I’ve ever seen! Thank you all!

I want to say a special thanks to Flora, our sprite/CG artist who was so incredible to work with. She was patient, devoted, talented, and granted us art even better than we imagined…seriously, I would lose my mind over everything she sent us…but one of the best things we attained on this journey was certainly her friendship. Flora, you are a fantastic human being with a wonderful sense of humor! I’m glad you will finally, finally get to see your stunning art in action. Thank you for sticking with us as we kept spinning in circles. “Okay last round of CGs…actually, can you do one more round? Actually, just one more CG. I swear this time it’s the last one, I swear!” She also needs to be commended for her dedication to nailing all the detail on the instruments. That’s not easy to do. Flora, you rock. I hope you love the game.

Next, our stunning voice cast. They brought these characters to life in a way no one else could, better than we ever could have envisioned. Seriously. Their talent made me love these characters even more, which I didn’t realize was possible. I’m sorry for making you all wait for the game so long and I’m thankful you continued to reprise your roles throughout the years when we asked for more lines. Joe, Jonathan, Wish, Jared, Richard, Joseph, Mark, Emily, Melody, Daisy, Daniel, Lasli, Angelo, Riley, Sara, and Steve…thank you from the bottom of my heart for lending us your incredible talents. You are all spectacular voice actors and lovely people.

And I could never forget my fantastic friends who helped beta test the game! Becca, Karen, Kristin, Ross, Chris! Thank you all for lending your time and for being my friends through thick and thin. You each brought your own talents to testing and really helped me to clean up the game. Ross the genius also helped with programming and I am extremely grateful to him and his brilliant mind! Programming the Extras menu was no small feat and I don’t think we could have done it on our own and still met our deadline. Thank you so much for offering your time and working so hard.

We are sorry to cast, crew, and fans that creating the game took so long. This is a hobby and a passion rather than our full-time jobs, and you only have so much time for hobbies as an adult. Life can easily get in the way and we certainly faced our fair share of life changes and hurdles these past 8 years. We often beat ourselves up for not finishing the game in 2020 as we had initially hoped, but I believe this is what was meant to be. The game only got better. Some of the early story decisions make me cringe. Some of the writing I revisited was written by someone with less life experience and a bit tone-deaf on real issues so I was able to fix it. Most importantly, a final route (which was previously going to be DLC for later on) was added and wraps up the game wonderfully. Band Camp Boyfriend was meant to be released in 2023.

I want to thank both of my parents for their unending support through it all. Our dad helped us with the business side of things, getting the game copyrighted, and the joy of taxes. He wholeheartedly supports us in whatever we do, though he is a tad skeptical that a game called Band Camp Boyfriend will sell many copies…so we’re gonna surprise him, right guys? :)

As for my mom…I owe the fact that the game is finally on the cusp of being released to her. She has been our biggest supporter and fan. She has spent hours helping us program and running tests on the game. Until the very last minute, she scraped through the game to make sure there was no crashing. Before that, around two years ago, she sat me down and asked what she could do to help see this special game finally become a reality. It was a major turning point and we owe her so much. Her love of the game kept us going.

Love you both more than words can say. <3

Finally, I want to thank all of the people who have contributed to the wonderful memories and hilarious quotes that have found their way into Band Camp Boyfriend. The three different marching bands I was lucky to be apart of. And to my favorite, hilarious band director and my wise, gentle French horn teacher, who are no longer of this world…thank you for fostering in me a strong love for music, for seeing a talent in me that I couldn’t always see, and for building me into a stronger person. You both left this life too soon, but your impact in so many lives remains. I wish I could show you the game Alex and I created, the game that you helped inspire, and make you smile one more time.

I know some people will look at the hokey title and think it’s just another dating sim, just another gimmicky game, but to some of you, I hope it will be much more than that. As it is to me. It brims with a life of experiences. But not just mine—I’m sure so many of us who have worn a marching band uniform have had the same experiences. And through these experiences, we are connected.

I’ll say it once again, even though it won’t be the last time you hear this: Thank you for playing Band Camp Boyfriend. I dearly, truly hope you love it. I hope the game makes you smile, makes you laugh, makes you cry, and I hope you carry the characters, their lessons, and their story in your heart long after you get that final CG. I’ve carried Band Camp Boyfriend with me for almost eight years; I am so ready to share it with you.

See you at band camp.

-Taylor

[ryanyflags]

You sound too perfectionist and I think that's great but I worry about your hypervigilancy, are you doing fine?

I guess I am a bit of a perfectionist. I remember when I first started digital art, always got caught up in the details, but eventually I learned it's better to just draw/make something and let my improvements show on the next piece. It's the same ideas with the flags.

Sometimes if I can't figure out how to make a flag I'll just come back to it later, or drop it. The matching flag formats though, they are extra work (that wasn't requested), but I find I genuinely enjoy it. Flags not matching, or terms, it's just what happens when a lot of different people come together. Diversity is great. I was nervous about making my own versions of flags before, but I'm more confident now. It's just me adding another alt flag / my own interpretation to the pile.

Having a bunch of flags all matching, same format, same high res, it's satisfying. Or wondering why there isn't a counterpart to whatever nonbinary gender, even if no one else cares about it, I still think it's nice to have / fix that. I have a particular way of doing things, but as long as I'm having fun, it's fine. In the case I can't figure out a counterpart, or get it quite right, I just accept it is what it is.

Not sure what hypervigilance has to do with anything. But anyways I'm good, this is a fun hobby.

[eemamminy-art]

14, 20 and 35!

14. whats your favorite thing about drawing?

Making exactly the thing that I want to see!! Well not always so much in execution but like, oh, a ship is making me happy? I love a character? I'll just make something of them for myself, instant serotonin 👀 it just sucks when I'm too tired to draw what I want to see and I realize it's not gonna finish itself haha

20. is your workspace, digital or not, organized (not neat, organized)?

It's organized in the sense that it has all the things I need where I need them to be! It tends to be pretty messy otherwise though and always seems to get dusty even though I draw every single day haha

35. if you had one piece of advice to give your younger artist self, what would it be?

It's okay and good to be confident!! I am and always have been extremely critical of anything I do or make (perfectionist. hi), but that opened the door to people around me to be very cruel and devalue my abilities and hard work. People who often wanted to get free artwork from me, or people who lacked the technical skills I had and wanted to take me down a few pegs. It's a constant journey even now, about 20 years into my foray into taking my art seriously, for me to talk about the good qualities in my work. It is challenging because I see the room for improvement! But letting those other voices tear me down did not help. It was not constructive, and I think only gave me some spite fuel to improve but I had to seek out resources on my own to do so.

So to my past self and any other young artists, recognize both the good and the bad in your art, but don't let anyone tear you down for the things you can't do yet. Build yourself up, and look to supportive artists as mentors who will help you find the tools and resources you need in order to grow. Your "friends" who hate how good you are and want to rip into your mistakes are 1) not good friends and 2) projecting onto you. Don't listen to them.

[voxasks]

🫐 Hey Vox! About me, hmm. (Trans) Male, He/him. AuDHD neurodivergent. Extroverted and enthusiastic, a yapper really. My friend told me: "A lovable goof with a heart of gold", I mean they are not wrong I think! I do care for others a lot and people often come to me for vents (cough my psychology degree). I have a lot of friends whom I adore, and I have a pretty strong moral compass as well. I'm studying psychiatry now! Studying for PhD hehe. My work ethic is insane and quoting my friend again: "The type to somehow end up getting bonus points on a project even after getting a 100 on it".

I like art and singing! Mostly digital art, I haven't drawn on paper in a WHILE. I also do music, guitar and singing! And also longboarding. I self taught myself these since I was in middle school! My special interests are psychology and nature, and oh I adore animals. Especially sharks, birds and cats. I dislike heights and loud noises, bitter stuff (I have a sweet tooth)!

I think I laid out a lot of my positive traits so let me balance that out with my negative ones so that I don't seem so Mary Sue lol. I am pretty inconsistent, whether it be emotions or anything. Everything I do and say contradicts each other like a paradox. And I'm also an insane perfectionist (peep my 4.0 GPA). I'm extremely driven by stereotypical success. Though despite all this, I can't go a single day without medication because neurodivergency is unfortunately, a bitch. I also may or may not have manic episodes where I become really impulsive and well- endorphin chasing. And uh, let's just say me in mania is something that you would see from an anime character going through it's breakdown era in every way concerning lmao. (I swear my cons make me really wonder if I'm any fit for my degree) I guess you can just say that I'm multifaceted.

I'm extremely self aware, so I'm curious of what you would say! Also, thanks for your efforts, mod!♡

“the  editor  also  happens  to  have  adhd  and  is  in  the  process  of  getting  a  diagnosis  for  autism,  and,  i  gotta  admit—a  lot  of  these  seem  like  inherent  traits  of  your  audhd.  perfectionist,  wanting  stereotypical  success,  and  being  inconsistent.  i  get  that  a  lot.  being  at  your  A  game  twenty-four  seven  is  just  ...  hard  sometimes.  sort  of  feels  like  you  lean  towards  adhd  with  your  personality  and  autism  with  your  work  ethic.  but  in  any  case,  you  remind  me  of  a  certain  ... king  i  can't  avoid  here  in  hell.  in  any  case,  i'm  glad  medication  works  for  you  but  i  also  understand  that  sometimes  the  neurodivergent  tendencies  can  still  shine  through  even  after  all  that.  and  sharks,  hey!  something  we  have  in  common.  do  you  have  a  pet  shark  as  well?”

based off of the 200 follower event.

[kenthenugget]

I Don't Get Tangents (Art Rant)

During my formative years as an artist back 2017 up to early 2020, I can remember watching a ton of art related content ranging from DeviantArt cringe video's to tutorials on how to draw manga to general art community topics like tracing and so on. But up until mid 2021, I had never heard of tangents. And even now, I still dont fully get it.

If you don't know, a tangent is pretty much when lines intersect in a visually non pleasing way. There's a great blog that goes into this which I'll link here:https://schweizercomics.tumblr.com/post/11966164633/the-schweizer-guide-to-spotting-tangents

Let me be clear by saying that I do know what tangents are and what they mean. I'm not an idiot. And its not like I don't understand why they're bad but at the same time I don't get it, if you know what I mean. I've seen examples of tangents where it does a good job at illustrating why its bad but there are some where I just cant see it. Going to the post I linked, I had a difficult time discerning what the tangents were for examples 2 through 5 until someone pointed them out. Even then, I still didn't find anything wrong with them despite the tangents. And if I'm being honest (and I mean no shade at the creator of the post), it does feel nitpicky. Because you wouldn't know it was a tangent unless someone pointed it out.

I guess in general, tangents are not to big of a deal, which is probably why I never heard of them until recently. It is something that can be easily avoidable, especially if you're not that skilled of an artist. But for someone like me who is a perfectionist, tangents act as some sort of curse. Especially when it comes to digital art.

I honestly feel its a lot harder for tangents to form in traditional works than it is for digital ones. When you're creating a complex illustration on paper, the backgrounds, characters, and other objects are on the same surface. As opposed to digital where you can separate those things via layers, and this is where tangents often tend to form for me. Since everything is separated, I'll tend to work on those elements separately when inking. And its not until then where I turn on the character or background layer, I see tangents forming. And only when its inked do I notice these and not when I'm sketching them. Maybe that has to do with the pencil brush not being as thick and bold? Im not sure. This has happened to me constantly, ever since I began separating my backgrounds from the layers my characters are on. Tangents just form and there's nothing I can really do about it, unless I revert to drawing everything on the same layer. And its a problem when it comes to comic pages as well. Particularly with speech bubbles and sound effects, which is a whole other can of worms entirely.

Now this doesn't mean I hate everything I've drawn in the past year or two, but noticing these tangents really bothers me. That these images are immediately deemed bad because of one or two tangents caused by separation of elements on layers. And like I said, all of this feels very nitpicky, as in you wouldn't notice it unless you were actively looking for it. It honestly feels like tangents are a fuel for perfectionism, an unhealthy amount of it at that. Its partially why I try not to let it bother me and do my best to avoid it.

No one is perfect, and that's okay. I don't think something as small and hyper specific as a tangent should bring an illustration down. Hell, I'm pretty sure art created by your favorite artists have one or two tangents in them that down make them bad because of it. Im not really sure how to end this but I don't try to be perfect as an artist because no art is perfect. And if it was, is it really art anymore?

[emeritus-fuckers]

Hello! Hope the match-up event is still going on? I'd like to participate! :D A Papa match would be preferable 👉👈

Sooooo I'm a 20-year old freelance artist, I mostly do traditional and digital paintings, drawings and some animation. Some of my main interests are writing, sewing and fashion history, art history (history overall really) and language learning (I'm multilingual). I love sightseeing/travelling, going to the opera or ballet and talking loooong walks. Aside from that, I'm an amateur cook/pastry chef and have been doing well at that for some years now! :) Despite having some issues with eating myself, one of my favourite pastimes is baking/cooking for my friends and our game nights, it always brings a smile to my face when they enjoy what I've made. My favourite are French, Korean and Italian cuisines so I guess the latter would suit any of the Papas. :P

Oh, I also have two dogs that I love dearly, they're both silly noodle husky/borzoi mixes and they're like five? They like to chill with me when I'm reading. <3

As for my personality, I'm fairly quiet unless spoken to, I can honestly get very talkative discussing most topics. Messes stress me out, I cannot function around them. I'm an extremely anxious person to the point of it causing some serious mental and medical issues, so that's something that sadly has an impact on my everyday life. Sensory overload are a given more often than not (mainly from noise – I can deal with a concert every now and again!), I'm also shit at getting more than 5 hours of sleep a day. I'm a huge perfectionist, that's a flaw that leads me to destroy/discard a large chunk of my works, both verbal and visual. Nothing is ever good enough when it comes to me, my looks or the things I make.

On a more positive note, I used to be very shy around most people but have trained myself out of that and would consider myself fairly charismatic? Hope I'm not tooting my horn too much in this description, damn, YiKeS.

Anywayyyy thank you for all the works you've written for the fandom so far! We love you, byeeee :*

Your match is…Secondo

His hobby is painting, so if you have art to do he’ll paint with you and keep you company.

His favourite piece is a painting he did of you, when you were painting. He hung it up in his office to cheer himself up when he’s got loads of work to do.

He will buy the best seats for the ballet and go with you. He’ll lean across to you, and with a straight face, say his dancing is better. You struggle not to laugh out loud just as the music reaches a quiet part. You see him smile to himself, and he gives your hand a squeeze.

He loves your cooking, especially the Italian dishes you do. He can also cook and date night is sometimes spent in the kitchen cooking together.

He takes it seriously wanting to make the food perfect. But as soon as he gets a moment he’ll walk up behind you and kiss your neck. He’ll pull you close to him and whisper his plans for after the meal in your ear.

That once backfired when you both got far too distracted.

He completely falls in love with your dogs. His favourite thing now is curling up with you all and reading. Sometimes he won’t even read he’ll just sit there and enjoy your company.

He is very tidy so mess isn’t an issue. Even so he has assigned a Ghoul to be on hand to tidy up incase any mess developed. Between him and the Ghouls the place is kept immaculate.

He’ll pay for all your travels and come with you when he can.

He’ll often take you away for a week, any excuse he can find. You will travel all over and sight see as much as possible.

He plans out what sights you will see, and research’s them so he can tell you about them.

Or he’ll hire your own private guide for the day.

~

This post is a part of Match-up Event. The Event ends on July 15th.

Written by Nyx

[wind-up-thancred]

hmm. personal ramble re: creativity and value under the cut since december has gotten me feeling a specific kind of way. fairly long.

dipping my toes into another platform and trying to actively make new friends to talk about creative stuff with has revealed to me some weird internal views on how i view the things i make and the way people interact with them.

it's been spurred on by self doubt, i think. that, and comparing myself and my work to others'. for context, i first tried out bsky because i had seen from a distance how much chattier twitter felt, but i wasn't going to actually touch that site with a 10 foot pole because. well. it's twitter. i am a fairly nonconfrontational person with rejection sensitivity and quite frankly i don't think the general vibe of that site would be good for me mentally.

but i was attracted to the way it felt more like a social media site than a blog site the way tumblr is. don't get me wrong, i definitely do like having my stuff archived here, separated into tags, easy to search for. it feels good! but i also wanted more folks to actively chat with about OCs. so when i heard that bsky was significantly more chill for the most part i was like, fuck it, why not.

but i think "starting fresh" per se has revealed some internalized vulnerabilities that were probably there for a while but just have not been properly brought to light.

namely, i am not confident that the things that i create "count" as art, i think.

here on tumblr i've mostly just trawled the gpose tags and followed primarily gpose-centric blogs because that's what i initially came here for, and what i wanted to see. but being on bsky, i have noticed that i see a lot more digital art and writing compared to the amount i see here. it gets more attention, too. perhaps it's a sample bias— it may just be the group of folks i've chosen to follow there.

regardless of the reason, though, it's got me thinking— can the things i make with gpose ever hold a candle to the more traditional, widely accepted forms of what's considered to be "art"?

i would like them to. i want my gposes to tell katsu's story, because he means a lot to me as a character. to me he is escapism, and also a form of projection and introspection, and also a way to remind myself to have hope in my real life too. having him has brought joy to my life in a way i never really thought an OC could.

i am the sort of person to see inherent value in uniqueness and rarity. i think OCs are actually really fascinating because they are a culmination of all of a person's lived experiences, their likes and dislikes, the things they want to explore IRL but can't for whatever reason. nobody else will ever have that exact same lived experience, and therefore nobody else will ever create an OC that's completely identical to someone else's. i think that's magical.

so i create because katsu, his story, and his journey mean a lot to me. i think i "owe" him that, in a way. but now i find myself doubting that the things i spend time and energy on creating are worth something the way other artforms are worth something.

for what it's worth, i've dabbled in a few other art forms. i doodled almost every single day for over a decade when i was still in school, but eventually dropped it because my poor attention span made practice exercises really unenjoyable to me. i have an art tablet and pick it up maybe two or three times a year. my own technical limits make creating with it difficult because i cannot execute the things i see in my head, but at the same time i do not have the patience or the discipline to improve. so i stopped. and quite frankly i don't think i'm very interested in picking it back up.

i had a similar problem for a while with writing, where any attempt at it was super frustrating due to my own aesthetic knowledge surpassing my technical knowledge. nowadays i am very, very slowly trying to get into writing fic for katsu, but i am unfortunately also cursed with the perfectionist trait of not wanting to share things until i feel they are "good enough." so for now there will probably only be very sparse and tiny snippets of my writing shared anywhere, at least until i have more confidence in it. i will keep doing it, though, just privately.

on the contrary, i have found that gpose comes fairly naturally to me. i have the knowledge of the posing tools, the environmental tweaks, the prop making, the outfit tweaking, the shaders, all that stuff that actually lets me get the results i see in my head before i create the shot. i even learned blender and other modding programs so i can further alter the components of a shot to my liking. i'm no expert for sure but i am pretty confident in my ability to envision a scene and then execute it to physicalize my vision.

i am torn on what this perceived ease actually means. from my point of view it could mean one of two things: 1. the two or so years of gposing i've done, starting with vanilla gpose and slowly learning other tools along the way, have actually contributed to my technical knowledge bank. my gposes were not as good when i started but the many, many shots i've taken have genuinely improved my eye for aesthetic. 2. it was never really that difficult, this was never really a "skill" that needed developing, anyone could pick it up and it only came naturally to me because gposing is inherently easy.

i am hoping the former answer is the truth, but recently my confidence has been slipping and a part of myself is trying to convince me of the latter.

i think i would be be pretty damn unhappy if the latter was actually true. i am very neurodivergent and deal with a lot of anxiety, and therefore have never held a "proper" job. i am technically a contractor with a captioning company right now, but finding work has been really difficult for me recently due to dwindling clients who are being drawn away by the artificial intelligence fad, and the aforementioned poor attention span. so the two things that i try to do as often as i can in my life to actually make me feel fulfilled nowadays are creating and helping people.

if i realized that the last two years i've spent learning this medium amounted to almost nothing, and that spending it learning any of the other mediums i've dropped or ignored would've been a more valuable use of my time... i don't think that would be very good for me. or my self-worth.

i don't want to fish for compliments or pity. i hope this doesn't come across as that. if anything i think i'd like it the most if this could resonate with the self-doubt someone else might be feeling right now, because i think that's one of the most beautiful parts of public self-expression— other people may see it and go, oh, i have felt that way before. other people feel the way i do sometimes. i am not alone.

i'm not going to stop gposing, probably ever. regardless of what the answer is to my internal question, what hasn't changed is that i find the actual process of gposing, setting up a scene and framing it, to be enjoyable. the only thing that might be threatened is my attempt to make my creations public. because if they are not truly art, then they will not cause people to feel emotion when they see them. and if they don't evoke emotion when seen by others, what even is the point of publicizing them?

i do sometimes wonder how i'd feel about my creations if i had never started posting them publicly. i'd been gposing for a good while before i started this tumblr blog and i doubt i would've stopped. but i do feel like i would probably see the value in my creations differently.

there are still some shots that i take and do not post here, or anywhere, that i keep just for myself. ...mostly because they don't abide by tumblr's TOS, lol. so evidently i do still enjoy creating just to create, just for myself. and i truly hope i never lose that, because i want to believe that my own self-expression is worth something regardless of how many people see it or how it makes them feel. just because it's unique, and nobody will be able to make anything exactly like i do.

i think that's just about the gist of it. i kinda doubt anybody will read all the way to the end of this, and that's okay, i just wanted to get my thoughts out in text. perhaps it will help me process how i feel. but if you did read all the way to the end, i appreciate it a lot actually, and it means a lot to have something like this seen even when it is not performative or cleaned up. especially when i have been feeling as invisible as i have recently.

chalk it up to the winter, i think— i don't do very well when the sun is fully down by 5:30. but there is always a summer for every winter and perhaps i will feel differently in the future. here's hoping i always find a reason to keep creating.

[sauyuenchan]

Major Study Project - Week 04

Reflective evaluation

It is a long time coming, and I am very delighted to say I have completed my project now. That is probably the biggest and hardest project I have ever done and I am proud to say this project can define me as a digital artist. I also feel I have known myself more by working on this big project.

During past three months, except the week of vacation, I work everyday for my project, and averagely around 6-7 hours, sometimes 10 hours efficiently each day.

Here comes the first question, what gives me this motivation?

Passion

Doing a project certainly there are something that are less favourable for you. For example, do I really love programming? Probably not. I don't hate it but also not a big fan. It was really a painful experience for a beginner to do different kinds of new functions and debugging by programming. However, I can still highly concentrate on doing programming. The main reason passion on creative work. I know those programming proccess will bring me a great artefact, and this pushes me to fix every difficulty I faced. At many times, I want to give up the programming proccess, but when I thought about how much I want my artefact be completed, then I kept doing it. In my mind, I just want to get improved in different aspects for my project and make a project that can define me as a digital artist.

This taught me that when you are passionate on something, those difficulties you face will not be a big problem. Passion is everything you need.

Anxiety

I realise one of my biggest motivation is anxiety. When I encounter a bug, I will pay 100% effort to fix it until I find out the solution. It is because I was so worried that I couldn't finish the project.

Besides, I am kind of a perfectionist or stubborn on problem solving. When I am facing a problem, I will prefer to fix it immediately and until it is solved. Even though I can fix it tomorrow and I still have time, I just don't like the feeling that I will be sleeping or eating with some problems ongoing. To be honest, I don't think this habbit is an advantage, and it needs to be changed. Because this habbit will hurt me in the long run, that I may forget to eat or sleep. I should not work for anxiety, but passion.

Media softwares

I realise I can concentrate much more when I am working in a media software like Blender, Unreal Engine 5 etc. It is because I always know what to do next and effectively locking me into my work. This can be a reminder for me in the future to allocate my working time.

Sef-improvment

Besides, I would like to mention about my improvement. During the proccess, I always ask myself what should a digital media arts master student's artefact should be like? How artists improve themselves? What are the most important skills for us?

At the early stage, I was quite panic since I know nothing about creating a game in Unreal Engine. I watched tonnes of tutorials online, but still it won't be as 10% efficient to learn by literally doing it. Then I came up with so many questions when I started, and some of them I couldn't find solution online. So, I decided to ask for help, and thankfully my major study teacher introduced me a tutor - David Tree, that he gave me some tutorials each week and solved my problems each time.

Sometimes it is not just about how much effort you put in self-learning, but you need some fundamental guide to figure out the nature of certain realm, espcially with limited time.

After few weeks of guiding from David, I started to fixed the problems myself. Those problems are different with the ones I have encountered before in video editing/3D modelling/graphic design etc. Those questions I got mostly have no one raised on the internet, which means I can't directly find out the answer.

In the problems solving period, in some case I realise when there is no solution offered by others, then I can be the one who create one. Keep thinking in a computer logic and I was lucky enough to solve them all. Also, try to find some similar examples close to my situation and it will help sometimes.

So, how can we improve ourselves as an artist? No matter you are a student or a creative talent, you always need referencing to improve, and internet is a very convenient place for us to get inspiration. Pinterest or Art Station can provide tonnes of high quality examples. Self learning is one of the most important skill for a master student in terms of longevity.