kcdragons

[kcdragons]

This'll be my 4th year of Art Fight, here's some of my tips:

For Your Characters:

- Don't worry about having a perfect ref sheet, a clean image of your character is fine

- If you don't want a character to be drawn a certain way (with drugs/injured/etc) specify that in your character permissions

- There are global permissions and character specific permissions that you set up

- A lot of people include a Design Me A Character option which is always fun! (for me it's specifically design me a dragon)

For Attacks/Defenses:

- If someone attacks you, you can start a revenge chain by attacking them back (just remember to mark your attack as revenge when you upload it) but there's also no obligation to revenge

- Points are awarded based on level of detail in a piece, so make sure you mark your attack accordingly

- Some people do mass attacks where they include a bunch of characters into one drawing for a lot of points

- You can attack people from your own team but you get less points than you would if you attacked the opposite team

- Hopefully goes without saying but make a point to thank the people who attack you, nothing's worse than putting time and effort into a drawing and getting no response from the character's owner

Honestly the best advice I can give is just to have fun! Don't feel obligated to revenge every attack you get and only participate as much as you want/have time to

Hope to see you in the fight!

Art Fight

I'm thinking of taking part in Art Fight this year. Any tips?

[kcdragons]

Art Fight!!

[kcdragons]

Yo I am HYPED for this year's Art Fight teams!!

Team Fossil all the way!!

[kcdragons]

Okay, here's my humble yearly Artfight advice, because with every AF, there's always a bit of an ongoing cycle:

While you can't ever guarantee revenges, your chances of getting art back are always higher if you target people with positive ratios. There's a lot of people on site who have +75% attack ratios (meaning they've drawn way more art than they have received). Go target them! They deserve love AND are way more likely to return art!

DO NOT fall for random celeb tiktokker with 50k followers who is, for the seventh year in a row, promising they will be revenging all the art they get all while their ratio sits at a whooping 5%! There's always some people like this and a lot of younger folk fall for it again and again. And then these people don't even bother with commenting on the art they receive

In my experience, it's younger folk or people who are newer to art that will go more apeshit (affectionate) about the art they receive. If you really wanna make someone's entire week, find yourself someone who is new to AF or someone who has just started drawing and give them a lil something, they will adore it!

Artfight can be a great opportunity to make friends. I've met some wonderful people through exchanging art there. Use the search function to find characters tagged as things you have an interest in and go ham. Chances are, you may meet someone with similar interests who may end up becoming a long term friend.

While receiving revenges is great, don't try to guilt trip people for them. Don't go around posting comments on people's profiles like "If I draw for you will you revenge me??" Just draw for the person if you'd like to draw for them, don't do it expecting the whole situation to be a transaction

A lot of people will mention in their profiles whether they are revenging or not. It's a good idea to check that out if you are interested in revenges- But never take these as a 100% guarantee

Comment on art you have received! It doesn't need to be a deep comment. Sometimes gushing over it and dropping 30 emojis and a big thank you gets the point across. It can be rather daunting to not receive any confirmation that the person you drew for even saw the art you made for them.

And honestly, just be honest with yourself and how much art you can make without burning out or hurting yourself. Make your stretches, rest your hand, and try to have fun without sacrificing your health on the way!

[kcdragons]

Art is a sport

One common thing I see among artists who are just starting out is that they are very precious about their work -- ironically, way moreso than experienced artists. They need to get every line JUST right, because in their mind, getting that line just right is what stands between the piece being bad and it being good. I was like that too, for so long that I'm still struggling to catch up because of how it hampered my progress.

Being precious about every line is kind of like a track sprinter starting a run, but then restarting every time their foot lands in any slightly suboptimal way. This is comes off as silly, because we know that the "unit" of what they are doing is a sprint, and that they would make their greatest progress by finishing the full sprints, because that's how they train.

Well, similarly, the "unit" of art is a finished piece. What stands between the sprinter and the time they want isn't 1 individual step, but 1000 sprints. What stands between the beginner artist and making art they like the look of isn't that 1 line, but, i'm sorry to say, 1000 pieces.

Taking note of any mistakes you made afterwards is something done by both the experienced artist and experienced sprinter -- this is healthy and helps you improve. But you can do that later, after you're done.

That line is good enough.

[kcdragons]

Computer update (week 3):

Got a call from the shop. Apparently when my motherboard died so did Windows, so they're going to have to reload it onto the system. Which means when I eventually get my computer back I am going to have to redownload. Every. Fucking. Program I had

[kcdragons]

shot in the dark here. anyone familiar with accessibility tools for peripheral neuropathy *in the hands*?

I am not a fall risk, because I’m already fully seated with back support. I am at risk of dropping glass in the lab because I am suddenly unable to move my fingers. Everything from the wrist up is fine, but my hands get “stuck”

The goal is to find some sort of support that lets me hold/manipulate small objects without fine motor control.

and yet! No matter how many different ways I phrase it, in multiple different search engines, I keep getting told “no actually you just need to use handrails”

[kcdragons]

It's been a while since I've given an update on my medical fiasco. Guess now's as good a time as ever

Background for new followers or anyone who missed it: For the past year or so I've been struggling with hip pain that no doctor I went to could find an answer for. It took them nearly that full year to finally figure out the issue and I had surgery to resolve it almost 3 months ago (I've been out of work since the surgery) -- This issue has cost me several thousand dollars to resolve between numerous tests/scans that showed nothing, the surgery itself, a ridiculous amount of physical therapy both before and after the surgery (still ongoing), and my shitty insurance

I am officially back at work as of last week (with short shifts for the time being)

In addition to all of this my computer also decided to up and die on me last weekend. The motherboard, CPU cooler, and graphics card all need to be replaced. Luckily my local repair shop found me a new motherboard, but it's going to be a bit more expensive than I was expecting to replace, and I haven't even started looking at a new cooler or graphics card yet.

All of this to say I'm still struggling financially. So if you'd like to help me out by tossing me a few dollars on ko-fi I'd be very grateful. Feel free to leave me your Tumblr url (so I can tag you) and an art request if you donate as well!

I've also got a PayPal and Venmo if ko-fi isn't your style

It's been kind of a crazy year and a quarter. Here's hoping this is the end of expensive things happening to me for a while

[kcdragons]

🏳️‍🌈 HAPPY PRIDE!!! 🏳️‍🌈

[kcdragons]

first 5 faceless emojis are how your summers gonna go

[kcdragons]

Put Anguirus in the new movies you cowards

[kcdragons]

Eclipse for @hazard-115

Thank you again for your support!

[kcdragons]

[kcdragons]

Just watched the Mickey 17 movie. Mickey 7 is one of my favorite books (as well as the sequel Antimatter Blues)

Anyway the movie was absolutely nothing like the book and I was extremely disappointed. They changed pretty much everything until it wasn't at all the same story

Highly recommend skipping the movie reading the books instead. Or listening to them, the voice actor who did the audiobooks is fantastic

[kcdragons]

Just to make sure for future reference but are we allowed to report people using Generative A.I? Like using AI Artwork for attacks, revenges, etc and people making A.I OC's? And also state in our permissions that we don't want people using A.I? Because I had to deal with people making AI Generated OC's onto Toyhouse so I really hope people don't get the idea that it's okay to make things like that on Artfight

Yes, please report it! Generative AI is not at all welcome on any of our platforms.

[kcdragons]

You’re not depressed. You just need $250,000 in your bank account.

[kcdragons]