magic-pistachio

[magic-pistachio]

breakin from hiatus to upload some teasers for my cover for the wonderful @harriertail 's cover remake zine (:

[image description: three illustrations of cats on a purpley blue, spooky background. the first cat is looking from below and is a skinny white cat with white eyes and a scar across his left eye. the second picture depicts the red eye of a gray tabby cat whose mouth is open. the third picture is of a smoky gray tabby cat with its mouth open as it faces away from the camera]

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i got a real job finally :) after applying to a Lot of places for eight months.

it's not art related!! in the nonprofit sector.

thus marks the end of my commissions, for the forseeable future. im still going to try and do fan art and stuff just for fun, and maybe do gift art every once in a while. :)

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[image description: digital painting of a gray tabby cat's eyes and nose. it has red coming from its nostrils and pale red eyes. its expression is scary and intense]

wip of my cover for @harriertails cover zine baybeeee .

my goal for this piece is to look JUST LIKE a wayne mcloughlin cover so im combining a blendy airbrush (his stuff is so smooth??) and a bunch of oil paint brushes. we're getting there.

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posted on twitter but here's a longer post about it...

hey! in a transitionary period before entering a non-art career, so i'm announcing LAST CHANCE commission slots. after this batch, i won't be opening up slots for the forseeable future, though i will be doing fan art. you can DM me or email at magicpistachioart at gmail.

boring longer explanation below...

ive been applying to jobs in nonprofits/philanthropy since returning from abroad in like JANUARYYYYy but it's been difficult as heck. this job market...is somethin else. but i wanted to open up commissions up presumably for the last time. however, i will continue to make fan art as well as be working on different fan projects in the next few months.

i also plan to do charity commissions in the future! so it's not a forever thing, i don't think.

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remember when the show dogs 101/cats 101 would spread blatant misinformation. not like harmful misinformation. just like. someone on staff would just be like "if u want to know ur cat is a maine coon, look for an M on their forehead" as if every tabby doesnt have an m on their forehead

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[image description: digital painting of the front torso and face of a longhaired cat with curled ear tips at a purpley night. half of her face and body is ginger, and the other half is black. the left eye of the cat is green and the right eye is yellow, and each eye bears a little bit of the other side's color on it. the cat is crouching, and behind it, there is the silhouette of grass. a full moon is visible on the left top corner.]

siri play moon river

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im 24 now and im still 2 YEARS YOUNGER than van gogh b4 he decided to become a painter and 6 YEARS YOUNGER than jesus b4 he started his whole thing and A LOT OF YEARS younger than my parents whose future years and outputs i await with so much enthusiasm

i read something a while ago how steinbeck, upon east of eden's completion, believed that every work he had done in his (entire life's work) library before had just been preparation to make this Magnus Opus. whenever i have an idea nowadays and im like. well idk if this is That Good. im like well let me put my all into this bc even if it's not East of Eden it is, at least, Of Mice and Men.

in my Age what i can pass on to ppl also is like. okay im not like Loving Myself now or probably ever (i am neutral about myself and i Love being alive + the project of Self) but at least im like why tf did i ever hate myself. like thats so corny. helps no one. youre a project and whats the sense in hating a project. be enthusiastic about your ever-growing potential. pls. why not.

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[image description: digital painting of the front torso and face of a longhaired cat with curled ear tips at a purpley night. half of her face and body is ginger, and the other half is black. the left eye of the cat is green and the right eye is yellow, and each eye bears a little bit of the other side's color on it. the cat is crouching, and behind it, there is the silhouette of grass. a full moon is visible on the left top corner.]

siri play moon river

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"due to the high volume of candidates we can't get back to all of you" oh me too. i get so many emails you wouldnt believe. job offers all the time. yeah it's embarrassing the high volume of emails i get yeah

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WC COVER ZINE beginner friendly - 64 pages - all main series books - closes 28th June!

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mccartney ate writing a song about his wife's ex, esp ending it with "i hope you never know how much you missed dear boy" like yeah

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[image description: digital painting of the face of a yellow and orange wolf with sky-blue eyes and white pupils. its mouth is slightly open, and its tongue is blue. it has a white sun marking on its forehead. the background is a blue and cloudy sky.]

when i was a kid i was OBSESSED with the concept of elemental wolves (probably from pinterest). i had like so many composite notebooks filled with stories n drawings. here's a sun wolf. i think he was one of the 2 god/kings/something.

[incoming corny art + childhood + social anxiety + etc musings below]

sometimes i get sad bc the type of art that i've specialized in (bc of my interests from ages 12-18) is not the type of art i now feel so particularly called to do--i'm not really sure what art i want to do.

but then i think about me, a 12 year old, drawing ''elemental wolves'' in my school notes. whose interests (and perhaps overall demeanor) sometimes drew barriers between my peers. and then now! i'm sure 12 year old me would've been a huge fan of 23(nearly 24) year old me's work. and now, though i lost some enthusiasm for the interests of my youth, i have friends who let me monologue at them about warrior cats, or dogs, or those things that i fixated on in the years i was alone. and some of these friends are family members, with whom my relationship has grown deeper over the years, but some are people i met only just last year! and im only 23!! im gonna know more people and make more art for 12 year old me to be proud of !!!!

anyways. just go with the flow. make art as it occurs to you.

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[image description: a screenshot of an artist's account: text: kat, below text @magicpistachiokat, below text 23 year old freelance artist | any pronouns | posts mostly animal illustrations, below text: 0 following 0 followers. there is a circular profile picture on the left side which is a drawing of a scruffy brown and white dog wearing a cape and glasses]

hey im on cara now. still gonna post here in the immediate future but just wanted a nice curation space. :)

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that's so scary to me. i'm the opposite and regularly use 100+ layers on fully rendered pieces. (this combined with my 3-4k-pixel canvases makes my art program lag a lot near the end of completing a piece lol) even just with flat colors i usually have a new layer for every single color just in case i want to change it in the future quickly and easily

yeah thats so valid. it definitely screws me over sometimes, but i think i think it's maybe just bc more layers just stresses me out with my process. i def think it's much better to do what you do. for me using too few layers is just a bad habit ive developed.

for normal cartoon-style things, i usually do sketch/lineart/color/shading and then whatever is going on in the background--but i usually havent ever gone over 30 layers for something like this comic page

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one of my artist confessions is i legit hate using more than 1 or 2 layers even if it makes it harder to edit it. this makes me virtually 100% unemployable outside of just individual commissions. <333 one of many reasons i dont have a real career.

like the moonpaw in the moonlight i posted was max like 3 layers at one time. idk more just stresses me out + im lazy

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i'll see you on the dark side of the moon!

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[image description: digital drawing of a cartoon tortoiseshell cat. half of her body and face is ginger tabby, and half is black. she is standing, facing the camera, and has heavy stylized eyeliner. she has tufted ears with curled tips, and her long tail is also tufted and curled at the end.]

this moonpaw design shops at hot topic if u even care