#there's a million things you can do with art and a million ways to make it into a career on or offline!

[voraciouspangolin]

So, I struggle with chronic fatigue. I also struggle with some kind of ailment that makes it so that I have the creative drive of a thousand suns and if I don't express my creativity I feel like I am wilting away. And sometimes drawing would take too much energy to do... so what do I do? I go to picrew dot me and I try and find a character to make that interests me.

Most of the time, I don't find anything, and I remain unsated. And sometimes, I try out random character maker that I think'll be interesting but I end up abandoning it. And I think the reason for this is because... its exactly as you say, it takes away my own autonomy in making art.

There is a puny amount of fulfillment to be found in making silly characters on picrew, but it is absolutely not able to replace the real deal of actually making something.

I've never tried GenAI, and I never will. Not because I think it looks bad, or uncanny. I am of the belief that there will probably come a day where GenAI can flawlessly and perfectly create things that look good- I'd even venture into saying that the current levels of GenAI can make things that look pretty pleasing to the eye. I am against it, and utterly uninterested in it, because it would rob me of the very thing that makes me an artist, that makes me love being an artist, which is the process of making art. I am against it because it is inherently unethical in its unconsensual scraping of millions of other people's works. I am against GenAI because there is a lack of transparency inherent to AI in general- if a GenAI spits out an image, I cannot ask it to tell me exactly what it was inspired by, which images it took to create this new image, it cannot directly trace back the process it went through to create the image. This is antithetical to the practice of studying art. This lack of transparency also applies to how the GenAI model was trained- who exactly did they employ to train the models? Were they paid and treated ethically? I am against GenAI because it is an environmental parasite with no genuinely new or revolutionary applications in the real world.

Even if art is hard, even if I struggle so much with actually doing it. Even if it feels like I'm suffering the whole way through... I do it because it fulfills me. GenAI can never replace that

As gen-AI becomes more normalized (Chappell Roan encouraging it, grifters on the rise, young artists using it), I wanna express how I will never turn to it because it fundamentally bores me to my core. There is no reason for me to want to use gen-AI because I will never want to give up my autonomy in creating art. I never want to become reliant on an inhuman object for expression, least of all if that object is created and controlled by tech companies. I draw not because I want a drawing but because I love the process of drawing. So even in a future where everyone’s accepted it, I’m never gonna sway on this.

[unproduciblesmackdown]

Lackadaisy Enrichment

[lethality-of-dual-strike]

in case you were wondering who I shipped Cupid with, it’s,,,,,a lot,,,,a lot of guys. he’s just so shippable though I can’t help it help me cupid help me break through this art block with gay

[moe-broey]

Miwabiwis.......

I actually do like her official outfit! I just... had a deep need.... put that girl in a nightgown and slippers RIGHT NOW‼️‼️‼️‼️ Also it is admittedly so much easier to draw 🧍

I did try to keep in line with most of her official look though! Or add more emphasis to little details, like the red berries... other details I added, like the bloomers, keep the roundness of her og dress! BUT ALSO.... they are just so cutes.... I imagine they're made of rose petals...... I was also thinking angelic motifs. With the dress shape, and the smaller wings shaped as such!

[gobstoppr]

and btw im in my hater arc rn. as time goes on the more i find a lot of 'fandom' stuff insufferable (i like art n stuff. just the way that fandom refits every media to fit a single mold and set of boring archetypes is exhausting.)

i just get really easily annoyed lately. and have been unfollowing people on a whim a lot. its not personal i promise

[stormofdefiance]

An incredibly lazy wee doodle of barn swallows since I'm struggling to sleep and going back to my teenage ritual of drawing birds far too late into the night. Where I live, it will soon be time for the swallows to leave and make their bi-annual 8000 mile migration all the way to South Africa. Summer goes with them, and already my late North European nights seem to be turning dark so soon. A couple of months ago the night would just be a muted blue until dawn would crack with a skylark's song at 3am, and from now it will just be a couple of months until the black sets in before the afternoon ends.

It genuinely makes me want to cry thinking about these matchbox sized little beings throwing themselves into that endless blue all in pursuit of airborne insects, those small bodies making their way over the widening, waterless Sahara, that 40 day excursion that, by mid-October, will be over. How long a journey that seems, how short for a being smaller than my hand.

I'll miss them as much as I'll miss the sun until my late-March birthday comes along again and the spring sky is briefly interrupted by their sudden return, their tumbling bodies celebrating the world waking up again, back - somehow, dare I project a sense of sentiment, remembering - to the very same nests they'd left behind just months ago.

[articskele]

HEEEEYYY i think this is my first time telling you something directly but uuuhm i wanted to thank you for always reblogging my posts and not only that, always analyzing them and things like that THIS IS WHAT I APPRECIATE THE MOST JEKEJEK i llove reading all the tags you put and not only in my posts, in other things you reblog or post!!! soo yeah thanks‼️

AAAA thank you so much!!!! I love love love seeing all the little details in what people make, it's so fun :D

And sometimes art has a certain taste or feel to it? Like that "this is all so gratifying" art has an inexplicable coldness on the tip of my tongue? But it's subtle, like breathing in cool evening air mixed with the sting of smoke.

Something about the cool colors and the machinery and knowing this is the moment before everything goes wrong for him lol. I just adore how art can really get you immersed in the environment, especially with how you do backgrounds!!

[chat-dank]

You have the right to like your Angbang intense. You have the right to like your Angbang fucked up. You have the right to like your Angbang unhinged. You have the right to like your Angbang harmful. But you also have a right to like your Angbang fluffy, too. You are not woobifying them if you like it soft or write a fic where they say they love each other or kiss or high five or take a bite from the same sandwich or whatever. You have a different interpretation, that’s all. You’re not committing some horrid unforgivable atrocity against your fandom. You’re not an “annoying fan” if you want your ships happy, even if other people dislike you for it, the same way you are not an “annoying fan” if you like your ships intense and other people dislike you for it. You’re not a mean person for having an opinion that the majority dislikes. You’re an individual human being who has an opinion and your opinion is worth JUST as much as every other opinion in your fandom. Because that’s how opinions work. You’re not disregarding canon any more than people who bend it to fit their other non-canon ships or headcanons or other interpretations of this ship or their interpretation of any other ship or anything else that JRRT or Christopher or the Tolkien estate disagree with. We all see a piece of media and interpret it differently. It doesn’t make any of us better or worse for it. Ship and let ship. 

[gibbearish]

idk looks pretty clearly posted to me, kinda seems like you just. didnt read the rules and then broke them lmao

Today's sponsored post is to inform everyone that Reddit's r/Art community is run by pigs with no lives. At best, I was mildly annoying initially. They just slung mud. If this is what a community touts as its “best,” it's trash.

[mortalityplays]

This is a dangerous sentiment for me to express, as an editor who spends most of my working life telling writers to knock it off with the 45-word sentences and the adverbs and tortured metaphors, but I do think we're living through a period of weird pragmatic puritanism in mainstream literary taste.

e.g. I keep seeing people talk about 'purple prose' when they actually mean 'the writer uses vivid and/or metaphorical descriptive language'. I've seen people who present themselves as educators offer some of the best genre writing in western canon as examples of 'purple prose' because it engages strategically in prose-poetry to evoke mood and I guess that's sheer decadence when you could instead say "it was dark and scary outside". But that's not what purple prose means. Purple means the construction of the prose itself gets in the way of conveying meaning. mid-00s horse RPers know what I'm talking about. Cerulean orbs flash'd fire as they turn'd 'pon rollforth land, yonder horizonways. <= if I had to read this when I was 12, you don't get to call Ray Bradbury's prose 'purple'.

I griped on here recently about the prepossession with fictional characters in fictional narratives behaving 'rationally' and 'realistically' as if the sole purpose of a made-up story is to convince you it could have happened. No wonder the epistolary form is having a tumblr renaissance. One million billion arguments and thought experiments about The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas that almost all evade the point of the story: that you can't wriggle out of it. The narrator is telling you how it was, is and will be, and you must confront the dissonances it evokes and digest your discomfort. 'Realistic' begins on the author's terms, that's what gives them the power to reach into your brain and fiddle about until sparks happen. You kind of have to trust the process a little bit.

This ultra-orthodox attitude to writing shares a lot of common ground with the tight, tight commodification of art in online spaces. And I mean commodification in the truest sense - the reconstruction of the thing to maximise its capacity to interface with markets. Form and function are overwhelmingly privileged over cloudy ideas like meaning, intent and possibility, because you can apply a sliding value scale to the material aspects of a work. But you can't charge extra for 'more challenging conceptual response to the milieu' in a commission drive. So that shit becomes vestigial. It isn't valued, it isn't taught, so eventually it isn't sought out. At best it's mystified as part of a given writer/artist's 'talent', but either way it grows incumbent on the individual to care enough about that kind of skill to cultivate it.

And it's risky, because unmeasurables come with the possibility of rejection or failure. Drop in too many allegorical descriptions of the rose garden and someone will decide your prose is 'purple' and unserious. A lot of online audiences seem to be terrified of being considered pretentious in their tastes. That creates a real unwillingness to step out into discursive spaces where you 🫵 are expected to develop and explore a personal relationship with each element of a work. No guard rails, no right answers. Word of god is shit to us out here. But fear of getting that kind of analysis wrong makes people hove to work that slavishly explains itself on every page. And I'm left wondering, what's the point of art that leads every single participant to the same conclusion? See Spot run. Run, Spot, run. Down the rollforth land, yonder horizonways. I just want to read more weird stuff.

[turtlemagnum]

i feel like "normal" sports video games have been about the same amount of tedium since they've been making that shit for the second generation consoles, e.g. atari and intellivision and such. like don't get me wrong, i can love a good sports game when it involves mario or punching the shit out of a lanky frenchman, but when that shit strives for realism???? like, real sports are boring as shit as is, now you're expecting me to actively engage with them??? boring. boring as all hell. and every year studios are pumping millions of dollars into making basketball sweat more and more realistic. i feel like if you took all the money that went into sports and sports video games, you could solve homelessness in at least like 3 big countries, but no we've gotta make sure people are made millionaires for playing with balls and writhing in green flavored electrolyte liquid when they play with balls good enough. it's a wretched industry and while i don't think it should be like, illegal or anything, i just wish my fucking taxes didn't go to it. like it's not as bad as the military shit, but i feel like if we took like a tenth of the military budget and like half of the sportsball budget we could have free healthcare and shit, but no! we've gotta spend money on playing balls forever!!! there is no better way to spend my tax money, apparently!!! fuck off

[mokeonn]

She actually started doing craft shows, events, and garden shows as a vendor post 2020 after covid shut her gallery down. So no, it's not because she got started before the internet was a big thing.

All of the advice I was personally given and witnessed for myself (find a niche, selling art is all about networking and getting repeat customers, word of mouth is a powerful tool, the words you use when selling or marketing your art matter, etc etc) can all apply to an online space as well, tbh. It's not all about luck, sure luck plays a part in it, but saying that the only way you can make a living off of art is with pure luck, is a pretty surefire way to make you hate art and see it as nothing but a numbers game (speaking from experience).

Also I will add the disclaimer that I AM speaking from an area with a large and thriving art scene and tourism scene. It's far easier to find galleries and shops to sign consignment with or find events you can vendor at in a place like Florida compared to a state like Idaho.

No, I don't think the recent problem with a lack of third places, and people do, in fact, want to pay for handicrafts. I think this mindset is honestly pretty limiting because it's just shoving the reasons why something might not be working to the forefront and getting upset because those things are out of your control, instead of focusing on the things you do have control over and working on improving those. Like you can't control if someone doesn't want to pay for your art, but you shouldn't market to that person, you should market to the person who does. Because that person who doesn't want to pay is probably never going to want to pay.

Like, I am quite literally working for this artist as my job, I have been to shows, I have worked with shows, I have talked to people, and I do plan on starting my own little business! I am very lucky to have a mentor and a friend who has helped me find confidence in myself, my art, and helped me realize there is a career in art! It's a lot of work, but it is doable. There's more to it than luck and there being more places for people to regularly go to, and a lot of it really does come down to you.

Unfortunately, it's not luck. It's worse. It's marketing.

I think at some point in time we need to sit down and start explaining to artist who want to make a career out of art that there are FAR more options than just "living off of commissions" and "posting my art online and praying I get paid for it".

[paganinpurple]

AO3 Etiquette -UPDATED

Based on both decent and not so decent replies, I have made some changes to my original post below.

It would seem a whole new kind of AO3 reader/writer is emerging and it is becoming clear not everyone quite understands how the website community works. Here is some basic guidance on how most people expect you to go about using AO3 to keep this a fun community archive that funtions correctly:

As well as likes, kudos is for when the story was interesting enough to make you finish reading. If it sucked or was badly written, you probably left. If you finished it, you liked it - so kudos.

If you really liked it, you should try to comment. It can be long and detailed or a literal keysmash. Writers don't care, we just love comments.

No critisism unless the author has specifically asked or agreed to hear it (so use your notes to say if you want some constructive feedback). Even constructive critisism is a no-no unless an author note tells you it's okay. No, posting it online is not an open invitation for that. Many people write as a fun hobby or a way to cope with, among other things, insecurity and just want to share. Don't ruin that for them. I've seen so many authors just stop writing coz they can't handle the negative emotions the critism brings, and it's only meant to be a fun thing shared for free (pointing out tagging errors is not included in this).

Do not comment to ask the author to write/update something else. It's tacky and off-putting and will probably have the opposite effect than the one you want.

There is no algorithm, it's an archive. Use the search and filter function to add/remove the pairings/characters/tropes etc. you want to read about and it will find you the fics that fit the bill.

For this to work, writers must tag and rate stories. This avoids readers finding the wrong things and missing the stuff they want. I don't care how cringy that trope is in your eyes - it gets tagged.

The tag exception is if you don't want to tag a million things or spoil your story, you can rate it as "chose not to use warnings," and maybe tag the bare minimum.

Don't censor tags. How can someone exclude a tag if the word isn't typed out correctly? There are no content bans for terms so don't censor them.

If the tags are mostly content/trigger warnings, especially if they are things considered very fucked up or graphic, you might want to use "dead dove - do not eat" to ensure people know that you're not messing around with tags and what they get is exactly what you've warned them about.

Character A/Character B means a ROMANTIC or SEXUAL relationship of some kind. Character A&Character B is PLATONIC, like friendship or family.

Nothing is banned. This is an rule because banning one thing is a slipperly slope to banning another and another, until nothing is allowed anymore. Do not expect anyone to censor for you. Because of the tags system, you are responsible for your own reading experience.

People can create new chapters and sequels/fic series any time after they "complete" a story. So it's considered perfectly normal to subscribe, even to a finished story. You can even subscribe to the author instead just to cover your bases.

Do not repost stories or change the publishing date without an extremely good reason (like a complete top to bottom rewrite or an exchange youve written for going public). It's an archive, not social media. No one cares what's the most recent, only what fits their tag needs.

Instead of deleting a story you wrote if you hate it - consider making it anonymous or orphaning it so others can still enjoy it, without it being connected to your name anymore. If you still want to delete it, fair enough.

It's come to my attention that metaworks ARE allowed on AO3, which is something I wasn't aware of. So if you do post an essay or theory, please tag it as such so others can choose to search for it or exclude it. Art is also allowed.

The only reason this archive works is because NON ONE PROFITS. Do not link to your ko-fi or patreon or mention monetary gain in any way or you violate the terms and risk having your account removed. If anyone does link, it leaves the archive open to people claiming it's for profit and having the whole thing removed.

I KNOW there's plenty more I missed but I'm trying to cover most of the basics that people seem to be struggling with.

I invite anyone to add to this, but please explain, don't berate.

[astranauticus]

'wow the vibes are rancid in here today!' i say, referring to the inside of my own brain

[sunsburns]

been thinking about dating college!art and you get into a really big fight until he decides to show up at your dorm *cough* make up sex *cough*

i had wayy too much fun with this… SMUT 17+

“i’m still mad at you, you know.” there’s no real bite to your bark, not when your voice is breathless, your cheeks are flushed, and your hands keep running through his hair.

“yeah, i know,” art drawls, his voice softening. he says it because a part of him knows it’s true, but he can’t help the faint smile that grows on his face. he knows you won’t stay mad for long, but he still feels the weight of his guilt pressing down on him. he’d do anything to make it up to you. with every press of his lips, he mutters a quiet “i’m sorry,” against your skin, then grazes his teeth along your ankle before making his way up your leg.

he’d thought of a million different things to say to you, how he would stand his ground or cave to your defences. but all of it was thrown out the window the moment you opened that door. you were wearing his shirt—or maybe it was patrick’s, maybe even tashi’s—and a pair of panties. the sight of your messy desk, covered in textbooks, notebooks, and your open laptop, reminded him you were doing homework, or trying to. but the ache in his chest at the thought of you hating him was overwhelming.

it was killing him knowing you were upset, and he was the cause of it. that’s why art had taken a trip to the nearest farmer’s market the moment he was off the court, and he bought you flowers and your favourite snack and knocked on your door.

now the flowers are forgotten by your desk, the snacks on the floor, and you’re still trying to keep up the act that you’re mad at art. but the truth is, you can’t even remember what you were mad at him about in the first place. 

the way he looks at you, with such earnest remorse and tenderness, makes it hard to hold onto your anger. you sigh, running your fingers through his hair again, feeling the tension between you start to melt away.

“i hate how you do this to me,” you whisper, your voice barely audible. art’s eyes meet yours, and he pauses, his lips hovering just above your knee.

“i know,” he says again, his voice filled with a mix of regret and hope. his hands roam up the sides of your thighs, fingers brushing your ass before they turn into the curve between your legs. “but i’m here now,” he presses a kiss against your hot skin again, making his way up, up, and up. “and i want to make it right.”

as he continues his gentle kisses, moving slowly and tenderly, you feel your defences crumbling. the anger that once felt so strong is now just a distant memory. art’s presence, his touch, his voice, his words, all of him- it’s all you can think about.

he looks up at you, sitting on the bed while he kneels before you. you’re watching him, waiting for his next move when he is still between your legs. 

when you run your nails against his scalp, art doesn't bother hiding the quiet whimper that slips past his lips before he closes his eyes and leans his head towards your arm. 

he lets you hold him while his hands trail up your sides, reaching and groping anything he can before his fingers tug at your panties, and he carefully slips them off you.

when he kisses your clit, you rest your leg over his shoulder, heel pressing against the muscles of his back. his arms wrap around your thighs, pulling you closer while he starts to eat you out. 

art starts slow, calculated strokes of his tongue against you, running it in tight circles against your clit, dipping it lower when he gets a little more confident. when you arch your back and whine, pushing his head closer so you can ride his face, he starts to pick up the pace, hoping to hear that sound come out of you again.

when his tongue pokes at your cunt, it draws a loud moan out of you, blood rushing to your ears. “fuck, art,” you whimper, grinding against his face. “feels so good.”

art seems to like it more than you, eyes closed in bliss, humming and moaning against your cunt, each vibration from his mouth making you spiral. his hips buck up into nothing, but he doesn't seem to mind as his hands hold onto you tighter, as if he is afraid to lose you. 

“you’re so pretty like this,” you barely manage to get out, your heart thumping against your chest.

art moans again at your praise and finally opens his eyes to meet your burning gaze. his low, nearly pathetic whine with his eyes on you was what it took to push you over the edge.

art lets you ride it out, he lets you grind against his face, he lets you use him again and again and again until you’ve had your fill and there is nothing left of him.

and when you cup his cheeks and bring his face to yours and kiss him like you have a one-track mind, he has an inkling feeling that you're not mad at him anymore. you press your forehead against his, hand cupping the back of his neck, and he lets out a sigh and you breathe it in. 

“i’m sorry,” he whispers, one more time, to make sure you know he means it.

you smile, offering him half a shrug and another kiss. “just let me return the favour.”

[comicaurora]

Hey, sorry if you’ve been asked this before, but I have ADHD and I’ve been following your comic for years and just now have started to write my own comic (partially because you really inspired me). But I’m really struggling with staying on the project even when it’s boring and getting myself to work on it in the first place. Do you have any tips on how to keep your brain invested or just to make yourself do the work at all?

I have excellent news, I literally just figured out something really important about this.

So when you're an ADHD kiddo or otherwise have difficulty staying on task in a structured environment where Task is the Priority, the main way people try to MAKE you stay on task is by removing your access to anything that is not The Task. No phone, no TV, no doodling, no going outside, etc. In practice, this just makes us miserable because it takes the boredom that's always simmering around a 2 or 3 and cranks it all the way up to 11. In the same way that you would have difficulty staying on task if you were in physical pain, this crushing existential monotony makes it very difficult to work. The work might get done simply because you have no other options, but it will not be done quickly or well, and it will take a while to recover from how much it hurt.

What I realized earlier this week is I caught myself doing this to myself. I had 42 pages of background colors to do, and I thought to myself "this sounds really tedious, but I suppose I have nothing better I can do." And I realized what I'd just thought, and got very alarmed.

Because back when I was an ADHD kiddo imprisoned by school scheduling and a million little factors that keep children immobile and restrained, I couldn't stop thinking about how big and exciting the world was, and how much I wanted to be anywhere but here. When I was feeling really crushed in I'd pick a random spot on the maps on my wall and just imagine being there instead of my bedroom. This was the impetus behind almost all of my creative energy. I've said it before - anything is a prison if you can't leave, and being in a prison makes it easy to imagine how amazing things could be outside of it. Aurora's initial worldbuilding was forged in the crucible of fifth grade misery. My enthusiasm for art and my creative drive are inextricable from my sense of wonder and yearning for excitement in the real world. Not escapism, but appreciation. Wonders unimaginable are out there, and I gain just as much joy seeking them out as I do conjuring them up in my head and sharing them with all of you.

So now that I'm a grown-up with actual freedom in every way I've been able to get, the idea that I was staying on task by making myself believe the world was small and not worth seeing was extremely alarming. It could keep me on task for an afternoon, but at the cost of slowly extinguishing the thing that made me want to make art in the first place - the hunger to experience and draw inspiration from all the myriad complexities in the world.

So what I've been doing is I've been purposefully and intentionally taking excursions whenever I catch myself thinking "I could take a break but it wouldn't be worth it, it's the same outdoors as always, I'll be uncomfy and unproductive and tired." Because that is never true. Every time I've put down the stylus and gone out, I've been renewed in one way or another, and when I come back to comfort fully recharged I get a lot of shit done. Because it is easier to work on anything if you remember why you wanted to make it in the first place, and it is self-defeating misery to just lock yourself in with it and tell yourself you're a bad person if you can't get it done.

I honestly don't know how widely applicable this is. I have worse wanderlust than anyone I know, so for me this has always been modeled as imprisonment vs freedom. I've also been extremely lucky to find myself in a profession that lets me set my own pace on literally everything I do. But I genuinely believe that when it comes to making art with ADHD, you need to give yourself freedom to move laterally, not just in the direction of obvious forward progress. We don't think linearly in any other part of our lives - art is no different.