2pcbart

[2pcbart]

oh god i’d heard about the “i won’t commission artists who undercharge for their art” post and now it’s making its rounds on my dash.

please understand that this concept does not actually help anyone. the sensible thing to do if an artist is undercharging is to tip them for what you think their work it worth, and be sure to let them know that. even if this doesn’t cause them to actually change their base prices, at least YOU’RE paying for what it’s worth, and THEY’RE getting business instead of nothing.

by essentially boycotting artists who are already unsure of the value of their own work (and are thus underpricing) you’re not sending any positive message. no one is going to up their commission prices when nobody is buying them. the only thing the artist gets out of it is that people don’t want to buy their art for some reason, and people who’s products aren’t selling aren’t going to say “oh i guess it was because i wasn’t charging enough, i’ll pump up the prices!”

if you want to support a commission artist, please do it by actually SUPPORTING THEM WITH COMMISSIONS rather than by choosing to take your business elsewhere because their prices were too low.

[2pcbart]

two watercolors I painted for a save the date/bridesmaid invitation

[2pcbart]

the last mid-autumn festival celebration in the Xu household

(sketch)

[2pcbart]

Haikyuu!! Siblings [ 49 / ? ]

↳ Towada Yoshiki: two older sisters, one younger brother, one younger sister

They’re not the band of delinquents that everyone thinks they are… 😈

Birth order note! The brother is the youngest! We’ve got a lot of info on him, including that he’s about junior high age and that he loves his Vabo-chan shirt ❣️

[ Siblings Masterlist ]

[2pcbart]

baby_pen was probably the singularly most influential artist on me, and it's a bummer that I haven't been able to track whether she's still making art now. I tried to emulate her skinny bishounen style as a t(w)een, and learned digital illustration on Photoshop because of her. Chyldea and Alexe Cinz are runners up in this.

over time, the writers/artists who influenced me were the ones who changed my perceptions of the medium. Fic on Livejournal that used special formatting blew my mind. Humorous fics that weren't purely crack was the biggest eye-opener of perspective/voice in writing. (No shade to crack–one of the few writers I remember from my first go in fandom was Reverand Maynard, who I remember for their ridiculous humor and somehow forgot the PWP part.) Comics or illustration that utilized new/different digital presentations to enhance the reading/viewing experience. Eventually I want to make more immersive/experiential works in a similar vein, and I got a taste of that when I put the Weed Grandpa Cookbook together.

GW is magical in that it inspires people in so many ways - illustration, fic, cosplay, gunpla, moodboards, emojis, memes, metas, etc. I would really love to make a semi-interactive GW project in the vein of Annie96 is Typing... with a cryptographic theme (in the spirit of stuff like Cicada 3301), but that'll have to wait when I'm not 6mos behind on other stuff -_-;

Hiatus Pause: Who Inspired You?

Pausing the hiatus for a moment to ask a question: who inspired your creative works? Fandom especially. I had mentioned in my hiatus post earlier about how much of fandom is about building community (and building even tinier communities within the whole). But a lot is the exchange of ideas too.

Insofar as a writing style is concerned, I feel like I've gravitated towards the works of Stephen King, Justin Cronin, and James S.A. Corey, wherein a character's voice and the dialogue take precedence over general description.

But for my fandom creativity, I can say right away that @persisting inspired my tiny Latino Duo, @danceswithronin inspired the politically empowered Duo, and @alexecinz inspired my "not everything is happily ever after" post-canon imaginings.

What about you all?

[2pcbart]

"Wufei didn't expect his fellow preventer partners and ex-pilots comrades to be this dedicated in his- how did they put it again? Ah, yes "sexual education and self-discovery" and yet, here he was, leaning against Barton as he was undressing him slowly. It was quite enjoyable how the ex-mercenary could be this gentle and patient. Wufei was surprisingly at ease. Where did Barton learnt to do- all of this?"

[2pcbart]

Project Post-Mortem: Weed Grandpa Cookbook

This is probably my most ambitious/complex project to date, and yet in many ways, the easiest and most intuitive creative project I’ve worked on! I originally didn’t set out to present all the works in this way, but the works really dictated the visual direction. One of the written works (by ASpecialUnicorn, shown as p29 above) was a set of bong editorials, ‘written’ by Howard and Sally Po. I already planned on presenting Howard’s Gift (by Boxofhatebrains, p44 above) in bits and pieces throughout the zine along with recipes (p45) to tie the whole thing together, interspersing other fics in between chapters would require a lot of editor/author’s notes or big titles to help readers understand they were reading a new story that I chose to stick between another story for some reason. However, I loathed the idea of pulling readers out of the story to switch gears, so a different solution was needed. Presenting the editorials like they were printed in a magazine solved everything and unlocked a whole new dimension of potential. Now, the written works did not have to have a homogeneous format, and their presentations could even enhance the stories. As soon as I read Noirangetrois’ fic excerpt (p50-51), presenting it as a letter was a no-brainer, and that it would pair perfectly with ASpecialUnicorn’s illustration-as-a-Polaroid. I am insanely up my own ass that these four pages managed to present the work of 3 independent creators as one cohesive bundle. I could go on and on about this, but I’m most excited that my fellow creators supported my dabbles in quasi-experiential zine design and expressed interest in seeing their works transformed in this way. (Or perhaps - relief that the project was moving along at all 😅). Hopefully in the future I’ll find another way to explore this type of presentation for (fan) works! In the meanwhile, this is now the coolest thing I have had a hand in making 😎

[2pcbart]

🔥4/20 BLAZE IT UP🔥

The Weed Grandpa Cookbook is now available, with options for imperial and metric measurements! Folks have the choice of three file sizes: lower quality (<300mb), standard quality (<650mb), and high quality (~1gb). Please DM or email weedgrandpacookbook@gmail if you are experiencing any issues accessing these files! Imperial (cups, tablespoons, etc): LQ | SQ | HQ Metric (grams, milliliters, etc): LQ | SQ | HQ

[2pcbart]

i haven’t drawn in like half a year but i’ve been climbing (totally inspired by the work of @theboringbluecrayon, who has always done amazing, dynamic action-packed multi-pilot compositions)

(close ups under cut)

[2pcbart]

[2pcbart]

Been a minute since I’ve updated here, but I thought I’d let y’all know I’ll be teaching an online workshop on February 25th. 

I’ll be doing demos on how I draw perspective for animation and storyboarding. I rarely get opportunities to teach, so I hope you’ll consider signing up! I’ll be drawing live the entire time.

[2pcbart]

To be able to draw is a skill, not a talent!

I drew as a kid, I drew when I was a teenager, and in 2015 I bought my first drawing pad and started drawing digitally. I was already in my 20s. And I’m drawing now! It’s a skill! Something I trained and polished over years! Decades!

[2pcbart]

adding some of my usual process discussion. TLDR: this took a year to complete, and to all makers who look at something like this and think ‘wow how??’ the secret is to just do it bud

If you’ve ever seen those posts that are like ‘just draw/write/do the thing, even if it’s for 5 minutes, that’s better than nothing’ buddy it’s true. There are a lot of hurdles that keep people from making the thing - low energy/time, getting frustrated/maker’s blocks, blindsided by life. It’s totally understandable that things beyond our control can derail our creative process. There are also an incredible amount of makers who create despite these circumstances. Here’s what helped me:

1. Make time to do the thing. Whether it’s setting a consistent amount of time every day/weekly targets, etc, a thing only gets done when you do it. This also means being honest about how much you’re actually doing the thing vs making a playlist to get hyped about doing the thing, chatting with mutuals about doing the thing, etc. 2. Work on the whole project. This ensured that I had something to continually work on, even if another portion of the project burned me out or frustrated me. It’s understandable why people have the perception you need to have P1 fully rendered before you move on to P2, but even with daily/weekly productions, handling these in batches will ensure the set of pages/strips are consistent and allow yourself to take breaks and look at each one with fresh eyes. 3. Manage your feelings to support #1 and 2. Yeah life happens; let it. Get your house/work/health in order and then get back to the project when you can. There’s no universal fix or solution for this; everyone comes in with different lives and obligations and have to find a solution for themselves. Often times what you can most easily manage is your attitudes/feelings about the project you are working on. One of my favorite tweets about creating is that if you are finding you are unable to complete projects, the project is either too complicated or too uninteresting to hold your interest. There’s nothing wrong with putting the cookie jar on a lower shelf.

finally completed a long overdue @fandomtrumpshate gift for @noirangetrois! The full project can be found on AO3.

[2pcbart]

finally completed a long overdue @fandomtrumpshate gift for @noirangetrois! The full project can be found on AO3.

[2pcbart]

Apparently once upon a time I had an idea for a sex pollen sort of comic and forgot about it in the layers of a totally different project, and I only rediscovered this because I wanted to compare how many layers I had. (Turns out I had about 10 secret layers of nonsense like this bloating the file)

[2pcbart]

warm up clean up!

I have a few h/cs about how Michael ends up actualizing his body differently from Lucifer. one of them involves his wings growing back as mushrooms; decay begets life. Lucifer would (in this Hannibal-tinted h/c) find this novel, and credit himself as the catalyst for these transformations. Angel wing. The toxic fungus grows out of Michael’s festering wing stumps along with oysters–identical in appearance only. One is harmless, a popular staple in meat-free kitchens; the other containing a toxin that can fatally damage the brain. poetic. Lucifer imagines what wonders Michael’s body could reveal, what oeuvres could he inspire his brother to create with the right push.

[2pcbart]

I am gnashing my teeth and frothing at the mouth at how glorious this is! Thank u @lokineko for entertaining my deeply niche and specific request 🥺 you really outdid yourself with it, 15/10 would recommend!!!! (Reblogging on my art account because main doesn’t show up in tags+searches, and this needs more eyes on it!!!)

Hey lookit!  It’s @2pcb​‘s @fandomtrumpshate​ auction piece! Akki feeding Towada a takoyaki at a festival.

Thank you for your bid!  May your dinghy become a mighty ship!

BTS under the cut.

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