#wips / sketches that I'm never going to finish further

[popcornkwantum]

Some old henry sketches that I originally mostly used for some anatomy practice (+ trans henry endulgance :DD) some time ago. My Henry design has changed by now tho

[hurricanek8art]

Okay, I don't know what's going on with Tumblr and everything has been absolute chaos with my life the past few months, so y'know what, screw it. I think I'm actually brave enough to share some of my art. At least it won't just be sitting on my tablet that way.

This is my Sith Inquisitor turned Force-sensitive Outcast from SWTOR, Roodaka Greatstorm-Kallig. I haven't really plotted everything out with her regarding her story, but she's not my Outlander. She leaves the Empire right after Ziost, after losing all of the family she'd used her Dark Council connections to find and save from slavery, and Lana recruits her to help Sana-Rae run the Enclave about two years before the Outlander (my Knight Aja Verdona) is rescued. She's prickly and petty and spiteful but I love her dearly. And because I've never posted art before, art process and a little bit of character lore ramble under the cut, I guess?

I usually work with lined art/sketches that are admittedly very messy, but when I did the first one back in May I was experimenting with actually rendering/painting, and I saw a fashion post thing that looked like something Roo would wear, so I was mostly just playing around, it's not a solid outfit design for her. It's janky and wonky and oh Lord please don't look closely at the anatomy or face it is not up to my usual standards, but I was so proud of myself for the lighting on this one, as well as how I managed to render the muscle. Like, the lighting! I have no idea what I'm doing but I think it looks so flipping good! And I was happy with how the crackly lightsaber blade turned out—it is supposed to be Aloysius Kallig's lightsaber, meaning it's at least over a thousand years old, right? It should be a little janky with age!

The second one is supposed to be post Fallen Empire, after she's left the Sith and become sort of a wandering Force-user—think Ahsoka as of, well... Ahsoka, but more on the side of Ventress if she'd survived TCW (don't get me started on that choice 🙄🙄🙄). I came into it knowing a little more of what I was doing, but I kinda got in over my head and gave up on the 100% lineless thing, you can definitely tell with the sword/clothes. 🥴 The second piece has been sitting unfinished in my WIP folder for months, so I just said screw it, finished up some details and called it because I am SO PROUD of her face and hands (I DREW A GOOD HAND WITHOUT LINEART WHO AM I?!?!) and how I rendered her skin, I don't want it to live in WIP purgatory forever. You can actually tell that's muscle! And a neck!

I'm proud of how her tattoos turned out, too. I played around with Cham Syndulla's tattoo pattern, turning it at different angles. It felt like a good way to root her in Twi'lek culture despite the Kallig bloodline having been separated from it for so long. She gets the first one to cover up a slave tattoo, and the rest after Ziost to further reclaim her identity and culture, leaving the Sith behind.

I have no idea how to close this post. Um... thanks for reading all this, if you have? I've never posted art before, I'm kinda terrified. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[black-wolf-spirit-art]

It's okay to have some miscommunication and miss some details on some parts. As long as you communicate further to fix an issue, everything is okay!

Since there is money involved, the matter on the situation is much more important, definitely, and the client is the boss.. but don't beat yourself up for this, okay? Mistakes happens and you went through a rough one...

Just take the time to talk things out and take as much details as possible next time so you can prevent unnecessary comes and goes.

Just please understand the client like the client understands you too so everyone gets a win!/lh

Hi there! I assume this was about the Afreakingdorks post. Thank you that's very sweet. And thank you for reaching out.

There was absolutely some miss communication between the two of us and I adapted to all of her requests as best I could. The issues arose when she requested more than 3 edits past the sketch phase. In my price sheet I state that they are alowed unlimited edits in the sketch phase, then 3 free edits past the sketch stage, but after 3 edits I would need to start charging for my time. This is when the issues began because they were unwilling to pay for edits but insisted, I make them for free. When they were unwilling to compromise, and the conversation was seeming to go downhill I agreed to show them the flats layer to prove I did in fact add gray to their Sona's fur and reduced the opacity in the light layers to make them show more. I also emailed the files to them with the edit function enabled so they could mess with the files any way they pleased since it was not quite what they had wanted. I also offered them a 50% refund for the piece which they refused. I know they were also talking about the file "conveniently appearing" after they harassed me on 2 different tumblr accounts. But they didn't consider that I had sent them 3 high resolution PNG's that take a few minutes to send over. So I guess to her it looked like they just appeared after she started spamming me on her two other accounts.

To be perfectly clear to any of her followers that came to my page due to this altercation. She received several WIP's. She made edits to those WIP's which I then made, and she approved of them/ gave the thumbs up for me to continue the illustration. This happened several times during the sketch phase and 3 times during the line art phase. She then received said finished piece but requested more edits for free. When I told her I couldn't make any more edits for free she got upset. She requested I send what I had to her email which I did, and she received it. The transaction was completed.

She also showed screenshots of our conversation but cut them up and rearranged them to make it look like I was taking advantage of her on her blog.

I've been receiving commissions for over 5 years and never had an issue with a customer. I'm always willing to compromise with the customer as well. But once it was clear she was trying to get more work for free and continued to gaslight me in the conversation, it was time for the transaction to end. They paid for a fully rendered illustration with two characters and two side images. I illustrated the background for free for them. Thats the full image they received. I would share our screenshots as well and the image itself but since It was an NSFW piece and there are minors following me I do not want to expose the imagery to on this platform.

There were several instances where they were directing me to manga/comic style while contradicting themselves and insisting I draw it in my own style and liked where the piece was going which added another layer of confusion.

All and all this has absolutely been an interesting customer experience. If she wants to moan about how I hurt her reputation and sladerd her good name, she has ever right and I certainly won't stop her. It's disappointing to see from a 31 year old adult. But what can you do, I'm not willing to add to her pitty party.

I'm sorry to keep going on about this. That was a long post and I really appreciate the fact her followers are willing to stand up for her so much.

I'm just an illustrator she commissioned to draw her sona having sex with Donnie from ROTTMNT in a bathroom stall. I'm not interested in making this into a whole ordeal.

[tuherrus]

1, 3 and 8 for the art asks!

Show your most recent wip

this is actually not that recent but it's a wip i never ended up going further with than this sketch, but maybe the filename gives enough of a clue of what it was going to be......maybe i'll finish it now that i stumbled upon it again and remembered it exists

Least favourite things to draw?

i don't really like drawing a lot of buildings or objects that are simplistic in shape, i think it's easy to see how bad i am at that stuff when there's not a lot of things to cover up basic mistakes i make.....but i'm trying to practice it a bit more!

What do you like most about your own work?

i think a lot of times emotions i wanna put into it come through in ways i intended, or my things make people feel things i wanted them to feel...there might be some simpler way to put that, sorry!

[mirukimary]

My Art Summary for 2022!

(Under the cut I'll go into more details for each month, for memory's sake. Warning: It's LONG.)

Come one, come all for your opportunity to see all of the drawings I should have posted but never did! The ones that make me work harder every december to remember when tf i drew what! The ones that, in missing, make it seem like i only draw once a year--! (going through my twitter media tab is depressing LMAO)

JANUARY

[Pictured: Iola in Prenda clothing. There was a Twitter Post going around asking you to draw your WoL in your country's traditional clothes. Ofc I didn't skip the opportunity to do it! And drew my BF's WoL too for good measure. Still my fav drawing of the year!]

Also worked on a VTuber model for a friend (i drew it as a bust january last year; then this year was asked to expand it to full body). It was very challenging, but also fun!

For the rest, I designed some backstory NPCs for Asera (Daimyorus childhood friend, his goddess and a mage that helped us multiple times); and drew some twitch emotes for a client. Was a fresh, fun start. I remember having a lot of fun and finding that month quite relaxing.

(Goddess Rondra, Mage Rupin & elf-friend Pedro (RIP))

FEBRUARY

[Pictured: My friend's bunny boi~]

Further work was done on the VTuber model, a lot of parts that weren't quite working before were redrawn. He was taking form!! Now that most of the work was done, also did a ref sheet to go with it. I couldn't wait to see him moving!

That's when I started preparing to open commissions for realz, trying to think of prices and set up examples. I drew some BGs and the Complexity Guide, and set most of the boring things up. I plan to open comms either Jan 2023 or February 2023, so let's hope all the work paid off~

MARCH

[Pictured: 'Smile at the Blue Skies', or "Fuq i need a bust sketch ref for my commission examples page". Sounds a bit less dreamy now, huh? LMAO]

But yeah, most of the month was dedicated to the VTuber model, working to fix it as the rigger found issues. Ref Sheet was finished this month. I'll stop mentioning the model, but the back and forth lasted till june or so?? Had to fix all of his toggles; and redraw his entire hair to allow for a better 3D effect when moving (it went from 3~6 layers to over 20). This was my first time working on vtuber models, so there was A LOT to learn. It surprising how many pitfalls there is in vtuber making. I'm very proud of how it turned out, and eternally grateful to the rigger (and to my friend) for being so patient with me. I was sent a small demo of what he looks like, and seeing your drawing move so beautifully like that feels magical!! There's still much to design and draw before he can debut, but hope you can support him then!

Oh yeah, there was this attempt too:

APRIL

[Pictured: 'With Friends' the commission I worked on through March and April. Extra special because that's my friend & his pets there!]

Also sketched some ideas for illustrations of our RP characters (hi Irene), but never really completed them:

It feels so long since I made these... Double checked like 3 times to make sure it wasn't April 2021 LMAO

I REALLY want to revisit some of these now.

MAY

[Pictured: #XIVARTBASH drawing, featuring Nero.]

Also drew the catgirl from Love2DrawManga. Didn't do much this month (...or did but forgot). I believe I worked on some BGs I can't show, but these are still very much stuck at WIP :(

JUNE

[Pictured: Nia's WoL, Mat. Just a smol gift for someone that brings a lot of joy to FFXIV Twitter.]

So... I completelly forgot I was drawing my OCs outfits [facepalm]:

(Don't mind the two in the corner, I don't want my essay to get hit with Tumblr hammer LMAO They're nowhere near done). But yeah, these are my OCs from 'Elder''. I've had them since childhood, and still love them, even if I gave up on the book idea. Will make an actual post once all is done and I can go back to their character illusts uwu

JULY

[Pictured: Cade from 'Still Shining'. Working on this was an amazing experience~ Won't go on detail bc I already did, but still glad for the experience!]

Instead I'll talk about... Art Fight month!!!

SO.MUCH.FUN

I'm 100% going back next year! This event just proved how much I love drawing people's OCs. I really want to be a commission artist so I can do that for a living. Sadly I didn't get to draw everyone I wanted, plus I wasted a lot of time trying to look through OCs while the website was dying LMAO Next year I'll come prepared!

Also I drew that Spring picture to use as a reference in her profile there. I missed drawing her!

AUGUST

[Pictured: Commission for 'Under Maintenance'.]

Mostly worked on commemorative stuff. Anniversary chibi for Brie; that Under Maintenance pic; Thank You for DL message for 'Loving You Fully' and 'Still Shining'. Also designed some outfits (and painted some sprites) for Mythic Meetup: Midnight Mystery (not released yet!).

Started a bday gift for my boyfriend, but something kept looking 'off' about it so I didn't finish in time. Turns out it was overblended... And will require a redraw. Sorry boyfriend TT But my wife (tm) needs to look perfect!!

Also made the design for our new RP characters:

(mine is the not-cat girl, obviously)

...And I belive this is when I made that cursed Yshtola feeding Zero picture? Yeah.

SEPTEMBER

[Pictured: Witch Torunn]

Made the YCH bases, as well as 3 examples. I have no memories of this month, but Windows says this sketch is from september:

OCTOBER

[Pictured: Old OC redraw, for my Commission Guide. Decided to do it after a client asked for clarification if an old drawing was halfbody or fullbody (august last year, Torunn sitting down).]

They're really old OCs of mine. Ever RP-ed in Deviantart groups? I did!!

Cecilia (<-) is pretty much a Iola prototype: salve maker and potion seller who lives with her dad (who taught her the craft). One day he collapses during work, and Cecilia ends up overworking herself to afford his medicine and other living expenses. In desperation, she joins The Guild as a novice magician for money, and gets herself involved on a war she never intended to join.

Celticca (->) is a archer and aspiring musician who wants to make the most beautiful song (tm) for her family. She's very sweet, but naïve and scatterbrained. I didn't have much planned for her, but had a lot of fun seeing her constantly get involved with Evil/Neutral alligned characters w/o noticing LOL

....Now that I think about it, she's literally a FFXIV bard, before I knew anything about XIV.

The rest of October was focused on Magni's Birthday Project and my YCH Halloween Commissions.

...And THIS:

Halloween pictures of our current RP characters \O/ To go with our halloween session~ Also drew these two for our halloween one-shot:

Ellie (<-) and Hadrianus (->). Ellie is a yandere witch I made as a joke and fell in love with. Hadrianus is my BF's wizard. Yes, he looks like Dr. Strange. Yes, that's the joke. The 3rd character was Rosemary, but I didn't ask to draw her so she's missing :( I do want to draw all of them at some point. We accidentally made "Spy x Family, but it's horror and Loid wants to run away" LOOOL I love this trio!!

Made 2 adoptables, but since they went unsold I decided to remove them and redraw for next year:

(The neutral pose doesn't help them stand out ^^;; Sorry bbys)

Also sketched Julio from Atelier Sophie~

(Hoping to finish it early next year. He's not the only idea I had while playing, but other stuff took priority"")

October was so much fun!! Sadly it let me completely drained by the end of it. I got hit with such a HUGE art block it was like my hands just... Forgot how to draw. Everything came out weird. Sadly, that resulted on me having to drop a drawing I was making for Brie :/ Hoping I can pick it back up soon... (better late than never right?)

It's around that time I decided to work on an AI redraw. Used Crayon (old Dall-e Mini) to create some monstrosity for me and tried to turn it into an actual drawing.

The monstrosity:

The Work In Porgress:

This drawing is a bit painful to look at, because of all the self doubt and bad feelings attached to it. But I want to finish it someday. My prompt was something stupid like 'cute anime girl having fun'. I want to remain true to the prompt and make her meeting with lil ladybug feel warm and fun!

...Like of the feelings I was missing back then, and am just now starting to get back.

TL;DR: Take breaks or you'll break.

NOVEMBER

[Pictured: Chibi Adra for Kyou.]

Managing burnout through most of it. Eventually just decided to stop fighting and played games instead. Even with the frame drops, Atelier Ryza is pretty fun~ Hoping to go bk to it soon.

At some point my boyfriend said I should just draw things to have fun for a bit. I followed his advice...

DECEMBER

[Pictured: Art Party (DracoLunari's WoL)]

...By drawing Iola as a sheep herder. It was much more fun than it sounds. I didn't care for polish at all, just seeing Iola in a cute outfit LMAO It's... A mess of a drawing. But it's MY mess of a drawing. I feel this thought calmed my mind a lot.

Also went for my first ever Art Party. It was fun, tho brain did get in the way after a bit, as expected ^^;;; Still want to go to these more often!! It's fun to draw & chat with others.

For random drawings, all I have is a(n embarrassing) fanart of Elf from Isekai Ojisan. I'll post eventually..... (that anime is hilarious)

For now I have a commission and a collab to take care of, and a certain Moon Goddess to draw as soon as possible~ Will be doing my best these next few days, and hope Iola can be my sheperd and guide me to the path of 'having lots of fun drawing again'.

ONWARDS TO 2023...

May my year be filled with bad drawings that I love;

And good drawings I'm proud of.

May your year give you the same

And everything else you wish for!

Thanks @/Taxkha on twitter for the Template!

[sleepykalena]

How do you get into writing mood? Do you plan everything beforehand, do you have scenes and/or dialogue outlined, do you just start writing and see where it takes you? (I'm super interested in people's writing process apparently. :D)

I actually have a post somewhere, INCREDIBLY DEEP in my archives, because @skitzofreak had asked around about how people go about writing fics (specifically, any rules of writing they set for themselves, outline vs no outline, etc.)

Sadly, i can’t find it, so here’s my writing process again LOL:

Get a plot bunny (this happens way more often than i expect it to)

let the plot bunny run around in your head until the headcanons flow~

come up with a general plot you wanna take with it

figure out what theme/issue/message you want to address with it (this is kind of important to me when i’m writing my fics, even if it’s smut; if i don’t have a message to state with it somehow then i feel like it’d be useless for me to write it because i feel like i’d be wasting everyone’s time)

figure out which additional characters will make their appearance

make an outline of major events from start to finish (most of my plot bunnies die before they reach this point, so the idea just kinda never gets mentioned to people)

designate which HUGE pieces of dialogue or whatever you thought up between steps 1 and 6 will go where in the outline

make a spotify playlist of songs to help you stay on track (note to self: stop listening to let’s plays while writing, jfc)

be on a good roll for the first 1k words

cry because you can’t fill in the blanks

curl up into a ball of anxiety

???

post the first chapter

repeat steps 9 - 13 for each chapter until you’re finished

**bonus: avoid releasing consecutive chapters for fics (i.e. alternate your chapter releases between different fics you have as a WIP) so that you can keep your mind fresh and prevent burn-out

it’s not obvious to folks who don’t really talk to me, but i even have outlines of subjects and potential plotlines for each chapter of Gestures and Tension, even if it’s supposed to be treated as a series of unrelated events

outlines are my friend, even if they may not be Mel’s XD (friends enable friends to make outlines in order to keep their fics in line and not skyrocket in word count *cough**cough* :P)

I also never start writing a damn thing until i have an outline; the only exception to this is Pearls Before Swine, in which i had headcanons floating around, and some major plot points planned, but no outline, and yet i churned out the fic for Valentine’s Day because it still felt like the story would work within the universe regardless of the end result

[get to know me! ask me any question you’d like (either now or for the sketch stream)!]

[empressxmachina]

Inquiries on WIPs, lore, and what to do with both

Hi!

I hope y'all are well! I didn't expect to make a journal today, but here I am! I do hope I get some answers because I do have some thoughts and questions.

word wall under the cut

First off, I've done a lot of proofreading and re-outlining lately.

How I keep coming up with ideas, I don't know. Why I can never sit down and write prose except for when I'm meant to be doing something else is even more unknown. But at least I'm thinking, I guess. I like what I'm pondering.  I have done some intensive writing, though.

I made a manip that's been done and in the queue for months, and I liked it so much that I've made a whole novella (novel?) idea for it. If I do it right, then I hope to get about twelve (12) parts from it - they're all now planned - of which I've completed seven. I'm closer to eight (8) than not, so that's good, right?

Since the pic is done and so is its relative part in the story, should I just release it/them, or should I wait until it's all done?

I've even made a Wattpad/book cover for it; that's how much I like what I'm doing.

Regarding Welcome Home, Sasha, specifically, it's been plotted for months, too. But I'm having some issues with writing an expository soliloquy, aka the explanation of what the fuck happened to Earth.

The actual information is cut-and-dry, but I don't know how to best frame it. I find Ki to be an analytical person - sensible for a scientist, I suppose - but with a flourish. Putting his brotherly, almost fatherly love of Sasha on top complicates things further since he wouldn't want to break his heart... and the answer will definitely bruise at the very least.

Luckily though, how he'll react and everything after that is as straightforward as an apocalypse can be. Will I ever write it, though?

I technically have three (3) or four (4) continuations to long fics, but I don't know why I'm not releasing them. I want to, yet I don't? Is this my mediocre perfectionism in action? Is this normal?

Syntrophy has changed in my head, like, four times, regarding the relationship between the two MCs. Their separate stories have maintained but not how they connect to each other.

I wish I was kidding. There's so much I've deleted.

I've been adding excerpts to my manips and making visuals to go with stories. Read more about that in the next section.

Secondly, I've been conceptualizing visuals like mad!

Ideas just keep coming, and they don't stop coming.

The queue is probably at peak fullness, which is cool. I was hoping I wouldn't have to widen time between posting stuff because as much as popularity doesn't affect whether I make something, I wouldn't want y'all to just forget about me. You know?

I know some people don't even have a schedule or set up expectations, so I might just say "Fuck it," and leave submission dates to RNG. It hasn't been a problem, but I don't want pressure from time restraints to become a problem. We'll see.

Like the unnamed, new fic way above, some of my ready works are images from tales not-yet-released. I've done that before numerous times, but one in particular literally happens in what would be the literal next part to post, and I'm not done with writing it, yet, at least to where I'd like it to be.

Should I post the pic anyway, despite context being right behind a corner? I kind of want to, but I've already been putting it off so much...

I just really need to get motivated and focus using Pomodoro or something. Maybe I'd knock everything out if I did.

My most recent completion from literally this morning might just be my favorite in all my years of manip-making.

Meanwhile, the one finished right before it might be the worst thing I've ever made, and its excerpt just makes it worse. I enjoyed it thoroughly, though, which makes me question myself as I'm seeing patterns...

I want to draw/paint again. I've done stuff for IRL projects but not size content.

I need inspiration to just sit down and pen for hours or days.

Would y'all mind me doing sketches again? That'd be quicker.

Lastly, the real reason why I chose to make a journal:

I'm really considering putting expanded, not-yet-seen lore for my stories on my blog site (on WordPress), and I feel like I've pondered this before.

As repeatedly mentioned, I have too many ideas but not even drive to collect them all into something worthwhile. But I'd like to get them out there somehow so others can indulge in my babies as much as I do. Some creators have blogs just for certain stories and their characters, settings, etc. that I adore, and I want to feel that in a way, too. However, most people don't have ten (10) or more stories at once that they equally love. Fuck, I need to edit my blog with more pages for more things I've conjured but isn't there, yet.

I feel that by doing so on my site,

People who do want to know how a plot of a tale will go, because I write as quickly as molasses runs yet have an outline for everything, can know.

It'll be organized as I see fit but my own control (unless WordPress does something drastic).

In addition, the data wouldn't be directly attached to the works on other sites like here, either, in case ideas change or people are averse to spoilers and want to stay away.

Reading all this over, couldn't I put the same data/lore in DA journals, Tumblr posts, etc., too, adding tags or titles to mark what's what? Couldn't I also put the works themselves that are here or even the damn music list on my site, too? Should I?

Am I overthinking this? I think I'm overthinking this.

That's it, I think.

Does any of this make sense? Please let me know your thoughts on anything but mostly the blog stuff if you can.

(I've also put this on DA if you'd prefer to respond there.)

Stay safe, and Happy Equinox! I'm glad I'll see flowers blooming again soon.

~J