ghostlymallow

[ghostlymallow]

finally re-installed blender, and I'm just making a mess in the node graph

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lerning disguise! wish me luck!!

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how many layers of irony can one person hide behind?

i've gone back and forth between posting this one. on the one hand, I adore how it looks and I'm really happy with the composition. It nicely juxtaposes the soft greens and gentle mundanity i've been kinda stuck in recently.

on the other hand, the text in this image is the weakest part. i did not revise any of it, it feels kind of immature, like art student "fake deep". and it's so plainly insecure. and nothing is more embarrassing than being embarrassed

additionally, i could not justify any of my decision making, nothing in this image was deliberated. i don't remember any of the process. why is windows xp bliss in the background? vibes, i guess.

and yet I did make it, and I actually finished it. i've been in such a strange funk, this is the first thing I've managed to complete since thesis. and I am happy with parts of it. so is it wise to share it publicly with all this mess attached? who knows. but we're here

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stuff for a previous animation

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my friend tommy made the most beautiful scene, i've stared at it for so long, longing to fall into its warmth obviously, i had to animate this little cat on top of it

painting: oil pastel + graphite by tommy adzema animation: adobe animate + after effects by yours truly :3

[ghostlymallow]

annual self portrait 2025

literally obsessed with this guy (it's a self portrait)

no but for real, look at him!!!! it's sooooo cuteeee, i wish i could hold him

i've never been so obsessed with a drawing i've done or a picture of myself. i'm getting the same type of brain chemicals that I get from the blorbos from my shows. it's an interesting sensation

in a trend from the past two years, I made this as quickly as possible. I'm in the middle of production for 3 films, so I worked with the softwares I already had open. In photoshop, I drew the lineart in two seconds, pulled it into after effects. I slapped some turbulent displace on there, and made a shape layer. I experimented with the fill in two ways. First, I slapped a gradient on (easy), but then I applied turbulent displace + posterize. I really like the subtle watercolor-y texture created, and I want to push it further. Secondly, I played with an edge detect, duplicating the fill, running Find Edges + Turbulent Displace. The fun part here was figuring out the combo of duplicate layers + precomps + track mattes + blending modes I needed to make a nice line. I need to learn the live link + expressions in after effects

On the personal side, I feel infinitely more comfortable drawing myself and pushing the stylization beyond just thinking about capturing likeness. It's freeing to play with line and color in this way. It seems inspired to draw myself without a discernible face.

This is the first year where it doesn't just look like me, but feels like me. And I'm so happy

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morning doodles :3 loosely inspired by ernest et celestine

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horse :3

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bounce bounce

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the coziness

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megadump of random stuff i drew while sick

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i was sick for a week, and I downloaded krita again, so you're gonna get a dump of every quick doodle I did that entire week

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guy

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A little doll

I wanted to make a stylized headshot for my website that showcased my flavor and my skillset. because your honnor, i am just a little guy

it was fun to make a pbr texture that commits to realism, something I don't often get to do. playing with a variety of wood styles was fun, especially figuring out how to project onto round object. most of my experience with wood is on objects with clear planar breaks. the hair was the most challenging, I had to find that particular angle where planar projection sells the illusion and then copy that transformation onto a dozen other layers.

It's interesting to note that - even though this was done completely in Substance Painter - I took a fairly procedural approach, applying noises to specific channels or masks. I especially enjoyed stacking several levels of noises/grunge maps to make the wood feel more realistic.

(I need to remember to upres my lo-poly models)

lighting this was oddly challenging. firstly, the cast shadows were noisy and gross. and then i couldn't get soft-source radius to work on the cast shadows! i was on a time crunch so i got close enough.

and THEN i accidentally set specular==0, so everything was matte and reflecting weird. alas. silly mistake. but i did take the opportunity to play with specular and roughness to get a more intuitive understanding of their relationship

anyhow, finished it up in photoshop, selectively blurred the perimeter to get that vaseline-on-lens look, painted a vignette, and layered up some RGB noise

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happy ween everyone (a day late)

also a fun time playing with stylized textures in a sorta non representational way

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i know that comparing pylons to angels is overdone by now, but these connecting rings they attach to the top of telephone poles couldn't be more halo-like if they tried