#I can already feel that my sketchbook is going to be full of Will fanart

[thai-09]

[omegaxenonaut]

Introducing the Xenonaut Museum of Art History-- a comprehensive archive of my sketchbooks from the past 4 years.

From the day I could pick up a pencil, I was drawing pictures. I started with lines and shapes and continued on to creatures and characters. I've never really stopped. However, I've always been reluctant to share my work with others beyond my immediate social circle. I felt that each drawing I made was not as representative of me as the larger whole, and without that larger whole how others viewed and judged me would be based on an incomplete premise. As I move on to a new chapter of my life, I feel like a look back at where I've been and how far I've come is past due. A first step in sharing my work, and through that who I am, with the world. Therefore, I have gathered most of my illustrative work from the past four years (amounting to over 1300 drawings in total), arranged it in a rough chronological order, and spent a few weeks converting it into a digital format that can be viewed in an online archive. All these drawings have been sorted into folders representing each of my notebooks, allowing for easy viewing. I will add that the second half is generally more high-quality than the first (as is wont to be when one hones one's craft over time), but there are some pieces where I think I did a good job even in my earliest sketchbooks. Of these I will be posting some of what I consider to be the best and/or most interesting from each folder, adding context or commentary if relevant. These will be tagged #curator's pick, and I will eventually arrange them into a Moments thread. Some of the pieces omitted from the #curator's pick may be because I seek to flesh out their concepts into more complete works-- games, movies, etc. Some pieces may be fanart of things I admired at the time, and most of the time still admire now. This will be fully acknowledged, and I take no credit for the concepts behind these pieces. In a few months' time I will also be adding 2-3 notebooks of my more recent drawings to the archive, as well as posting what I consider the most interesting of this batch to my social media. This will continue onto my contemporary work (some of which I've posted already), and hopefully over time this will become an overall archive of my art going forward. All of this is the full picture of myself that I have wanted to share for so long, but for so long have been unable to. I hope that you will enjoy or at least be interested in tracing the development of my art, and in doing so see the whole picture of who I am and what I can do.

[cafe-sugar-skull]

.:~Ink’s Sketchbook “Error #2″~:.

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tfw a chapter of your current favorite fan fic has a part where the characters are looking through a sketchbook and it lists a bunch of sketch descriptions and you go like “challenge accepted”.

Okay, so no one was actually challenging me, but it was free drawing prompts and it felt like the universe was daring me so I immediately jumped for it.

I like Error’s hobo outfit much more, but since the Ink in the story has known Error for about a thousand years and has nine total sketchbooks full of nothing but the glitchy cutie pie plus another 6 full of Ruru erotica I figure in “Error #2″ he’d have his classic outfit.

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Page 1

“A collection of Error's face with varying expressions...”

Hate the top left expression.  Looks weird, but since it was my first go drawing an Error face without a reference I feel I can forgive myself for that.  Hate the bottom right expression too but only because that peaceful face doesn’t feel like Error.  And because I couldn’t figure out how to do peaceful with a Sans mouth.  It was my first attempt for Page 5 and in the end I admitted that I just don’t have the expression skills needed to pull what I wanted off for that picture.  It was still a nice looking face though so I included it in Page 1.

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Page 2

“Error scowling on his bean bag with his game boy. Error arguing with a less distinct other person.” 

My favorite page!  These prompts were the most fun to draw.  Error makes for the most adorable grump and I love him for it. <3 The “less distinct other person” is an Anonymous voice!  I thought the idea of Error feeding a troll to be hilarious and ran with it.  At least one of them seems like they’re having a good time. xD

Also, fuck the paper I drew these on.  The book has some pages that are colored grey instead of white and that messes with things.  Gave the drawings a dark tint that I can’t do anything about, so I’m a bit salty about that.

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Page 3

“A notable one of Error standing as if in triumph over the viewer of the image, one fist clenched and pulling a collection of strings taught.”

Not exactly how I first pictured it but it will do.  Also I forgot that Error was supposed to be standing instead of kneeling until I was pretty much finished with it.  Oops.

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Page 4

“Error laughing, hands in pockets, as an arrow labelled Killer pointed down into a collection of muck and marsh plants.”

So. I drew all of these sketches in my 365 drawing book.  You know, the one with the ruled lining in it because it’s supposed to be a book for writing prompts.

So imagine me, initially thinking I’d just draw a few plants, getting carried away and drawing the whole dang swamp, and then realizing when I was done that I was going to have to edit out all those damn lines.  I went “oh fuck” and then proceeded to spend two hours on clean up for this sketch alone.  Cleaning up each sketch already took a long time so holy hell.

Oh well, at least it looks neat.  Just wish Killer’s booty didn’t get lost in all the details. :(

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Page 5

“Finally, Ink stopped on a page near the end that had clearly been looked at a lot. The top corner was a little crumpled and dog-eared as if Ink fiddled with that section of the paper often. This one was of Error smiling. Not the smirking grin, not his crazy smile, but his normal smile. The one usually only seen in private by very few beings. Ink smiled back at it. The image had been delicately painted with watercolors making it even softer than the expression had been.”

*flips a table*

Could have been better. Could have been worse. I found a great digital watercolor tutorial but in the end I still didn’t know what I was doing.  Maybe someday I’ll try redoing this when I level up my arting skills but for now it looks nice, it looks soft, it fits the prompt, I’m done.

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Whew... well that’s one big project done.  A major “Our Tangled Web” itch has been scratched.  Maybe now I can go back to working on some of my own stuff.  Or do fanart for other fanfics.  =w=

...............Pfffffff... yeah right, maybe.  We’ll see how long I last. xD

=========================

“Our Tangled Web” by: @raithwin and @avatarkayla

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Error (c) @loverofpiggies Ink(’s hands) (c) @comyet

[mrfutureboy]

I would like to know when you started drawing and where your passion for fanart started 😊

Oh FUCK dude i did not see this i’m so fucking sorry this is so late 😭 damn you, tumblr, for not fucking notifying me!! Anyway buckle up this is gonna be much longer than you asked for <3

Honestly ive kinda been drawing all my life! I hope that doesnt sound dumb cuz obviously almost everyone drew pictures when they were kids, but i know that it’s been a consistent hobby for me since i was little. By the time i was in 3rd grade I was hoarding notebooks to draw in. Cuz that’s something fun about me: i had a real huge habit of drawing in things that werent sketchbooks. Through middle school and beyond I did buy/receive sketchbooks, but I started out with various kinds of notebooks. One I had from like 2nd grade was like a hardcover, stationary-type notebook that I drew cats in lol, and I have 2 velvet lisa frank notebooks from 3rd grade. In high school and college I had a really bad habit of drawing in the margins on my notes and on handouts the teacher/professor would give. Those classes where the prof just prints out all the notes beforehand and gives them to you to follow along? Oh man, I spent so many classes barely listening while I drew on them! I also used to draw on my physics homework and tests and sometimes I even got extra credit for them (thank you jeff :D). I actually have a folder of various drawings I’ve kept from that 8yr time period and a lot of them are on classwork 😂

Obviously, I’ve been doing a lot of digital art lately, which I’m sure is what u were more curious about rather than the shit about drawing on my homework. I got a surface pro as a graduation gift in 2016 bc prior to that i had a wacom tablet and a janky ass laptop, so the gift was kinda a 2-in-1: i can do schoolwork AND art easily! i like digital art a lot and honestly im still learning new things abt it every time i draw. I use Leonardo currently (i’ll skip that story) but I started out doing digital art on sketchfu WITHOUT the wacom tablet in maaaaybe 2012??? 2011??? does anyone on this site remember sketchfu? Honestly couldnt even tell u how i found that site hahah the internet was just full of wonders back in the day. RIP sketchfu. Once i got the tablet tho some time later i used sketchfu still (i think) but also gimp and krita i believe.

Oh i suppose I should mention that i took art all four years of highschool and also minored in it in college! So it’s something i did academically as well as for fun. I keep thinking about going to art school for realsies but idk. I’m already $$$ in debt from my first degree i dont feel like adding to that 😅😓

Ok now for the second part of your question: I’ve also pretty much always done fan art! Ive never really been one for OC’s, EXCEPT for the self-insert superhero double life “comics” i wrote about a poodle named Sassy when i was in third grade. And then the knock off “comics” i wrote at a later time which honestly it was weird that i did a knock off of my own thing rather than just adding them to the original or making it a spin off with at least one of the og characters. Cuz it wasnt a spin off!! But anyway there wasnt really much to any of these characters; i just needed vessels to get my weird ideas out.

So anyway yeah most of what ive ever drawn has been fan art or self portraits, because its just easier for me to take characters that already exist and bend them to my will (artistically). Well excluding art assignments in school i guess because i would usually have to draw something specific and therefore not something self indulgent. But yeah ive drawn for lots of fandoms like the earliest i remember is warrior cats. Then theres things like pokemon and warriors and random other books i read thru middle school (i used to read a LOT but now im practically illiterate); spn, sherlock, and marvel through high school; and then marvel and bttf thru the end of hs and beyond. Idk i also have always loved looking at other peoples fan art and so im like “shit i wanna do that too!”. Tho i will say marvel was my biggest fandom and the one i had the longest interest in, so that was probably where the passion REALLY came from cuz I was drawing marvel stuff for such a long time (tho not posting shdjsk u have to trust me), but ive been doing fan art forever :)

(Of course, a lot of the fan art i was making prior to recently was drawn in lined notebooks or on homework sheets or what have you, and I wasn’t posting really any of it, but i was still making it and a good chunk of it still exists. Oh i should also mention most of it was with pencils or ballpoint pens like i wasnt doing anything too fancy. There was some digital art in the highschool-college time frame but it also really wasnt…much. Honestly i barely posted any of it here but I know some of it’s on deviantart)

I cant pinpoint the exact time I started getting more “serious” about my art in general, but i know the first pandemic lockdown gave me more free time and i was less stressed about schoolwork so i just kinda had a good outlet. (Tho i will say that prior, I had been in a life drawing club for a short while, and i had also been working on a personal sketchbook project that had me pretty ~inspired~ to do art. Also i watched twin peaks around this time and it inspired a lot of Feelings and i was making funky collages and other art pieced that were sometimes related to that. Some of those are on deviantart)

Honestly I think the Big thing with my digital art was coincidentally getting back into BTTF the summer of the 35th anniversary bc the fandom here was THRIVING and i was like “oh shit wait i want to contribute!” But as i kept drawing i kept wanting to improve and that leads us to right now where im constantly trying new things (whether subtle or obvious) and challenging myself to do full body drawings with different poses, and doing screencap redraws and what have you for various reasons (backgrounds, proportions, pose, etc)

So yeah :) Basically I’ve been doing fan art forever (I didnt even get into all the mediums ive tried but that’s another conversation bc this is already so long and convoluted) and it’s kinda coincidental that ive suddenly really gotten back into it and have improved dramatically in such a short time. Thank you so much @rovermcfly for the ask and again im really sorry you had to wait so long for a response! Stupid tumblr

[zer0pm]

Imagine drawing V and he catches you.

In response to this wonderful submission by @jenoscity and also as a thank you to @little-faerie-artist for the wonderful fanart for V that inspired this

V: “That’s quite impressive.”

You nearly jump when you heard his voice and downright almost screamed at how close his face was to you. He was leaning over your shoulder, looking at your drawing pad. You were in the middle of coloring your sketch...of V himself.

You: “Ah! Don’t look! It’s not ready!”

V: “Really? But it already looks so well.”

He goes around to take a seat right next to you, taking the pad from your hand. You were too shocked to fight him, but when you came to, you were blushing furiously.

You: “What are you doing?!”

V: “The eye-altering, alters all. Never would have thought to be in the presence of such a talented artist in a world where beauty is snuffed out by its poisonous roots.”

You feel your cheeks burn hotter, you had to force yourself to look down to avoid looking him in the eye and him catching your embarrassment.

You: “It’s not that good...”

V: “On the contrary, it is a marvel. You are, as that one woman Nico calls herself, truly gifted.”

You laugh. You almost had half a mind of thinking he was making fun of you, but you got understand the mysterious man long enough to know that every word that comes out of his mouth is not just the truth, but his truest thoughts and feelings. He can be rather straightforward in a roundabout kind of way unique only to him, a trait you found that adds to his charm.

V: “There is one thing about this piece I must point out, however.”

You: “Huh? What is it?”

V: “Why me?”

You: “O-Oh?”

V: “There are plenty, more interesting things to capture on canvas, yet you took the time to draw me. My apologies, but this seems rather puzzling.”

He must not think too highly of himself...

You: “....The answer is easy.”

You gently take back your sketchbook, closing it completely before flipping it open again to the first page, the the next, then the next. Each one a different drawing but all of the same thing. The same person. V. Him fighting, reading, summoning and commanding his demons, looking over the city. You even sketched him playing the air violin, one of those rare moments where it seemed like he truly was enjoying himself compared to the cool mask he wears passively. You can feel his eyes intently taking in each of your works and you continue to show him until you reached the last page, the first he has seen and set the book on your lap.

You: “It’s ‘cause you’re amazing, V.”

You didn’t dare look at him, almost despairing at the very real possibility that he may scorn or humiliate you for seeming obsessed with him. A moment passes. Perhaps he is too stunned and has now thought of you as strange, a stalker, and was just simply too polite to say anything about you.

You move to get up from your seat to walk away and never mention this again when you felt a hand upon your arm, pulling you back down on the seat. Your head twists to see him staring in your eyes and you found yourself ensnared by the most beautiful shade of green. This is the first time that you ever truly got to look at him, the angles of his slander face, the full pout of his lips, the slant of his eyes, the soft, luscious waves of his hair. The tattooed man was too beautiful and you found yourself wanting.

V: “...Thank you. For showing me. Would it be vain of me to pose as your muse once more?”

This stunned you for a moment. You wanted to ask if he was joking, but no, he was serious. You tighten the grip on your pencil, careful not too give away your anticipation in fear of possibly frightening him with your enthusiasm at his offer.

You: “You’d have to stay still for awhile.”

V: “What will you have me do?”

You: “I’d....I’d really like to catch you reading. Only with you facing me. Would that be okay?”

V: “It would be my pleasure.”

He makes himself comfortable on the shared seat, facing you as instructed and pulls out his hard cover poetry book with the signature V on the front and back. V flips it open to a random page and you see his eyes skimming over the lines. Leaning over the sketch pad on your lap, you begin to draft out the basic shapes of the drawing. You pause for a moment to admire him, noticing how immersed he was in his reading. His eyes lose the aloof aura, his mouth you notice moves as if reciting the words aloud and the apples of his cheeks seem to almost glow as he does this. V seems so at peace like this which is why you asked for this particular pose. But there was something missing...

You: “Could you read to me too?”

He stops in the middle of the passage to glance up at you, careful not to move any other part of him, conscious not to lose the pose for you.

V: “Are you familiar with Blake?”

You: “Not really. But I’d like to learn. Besides, you have a nice voice. It’s nice to hear you recite the poems out loud.”

V: “Ha.”

He glances back down to his book, you can see the smile crack on his face.

V: “The most moving pieces in the world in my hand, yet it is your words that stir the verses of my heart.”

You felt yours skip a beat. You watch him relax before you, taking a slight breath before speaking with that mellow, raspy voice that sounded lustrous silk to your ears. Your embarrassed blush was gone, replaced with a flush of something else, something that made you feel tingly inside. Instead of questioning it, you rolled with it, not once breaking concentration in your drawing, riding the waves of V’s voice as you go.

V: “It is right, it should be so;

Man was made for joy and woe;

And when this, we rightly know,

Thro’ the world we safely go.”

V felt himself, for the very first time, at ease. Shielded from the darkness of the world outside, from the demons, from his duty to defeat Urizen, from the inevitabe. For once he can say to himself that he feels...protected. And he gathers that it is because you are with him. You and him, and no one else. It is an emotion he has not felt in a very long time, and he delights in enjoying this with you for as long as possible. V hopes that when you finish, you would allow him to keep the drawing. He would like to keep it within the pages of his book, a memento of this moment and, he selfishly muses, to keep you with him always.

[mysticsparklewings]

2019 Art Summary!

It's that time again when we all look back on the year we've had and reflect, and then look forward to what's to come in the New Year. This only my second year doing a yearly Art Summary piece (I didn't miss February like I did last year!) but I'm grateful for the tradition now. Looking back, 2019 had a lot going on for me and my art; I started out not that different from how I've been handling my art and myself online for the past couple of years, but as the year went on, I feel like I've done a lot of growing, finding myself, and even though I didn't start off in a terrible place, I think I'm in a much better one now. This really was a year of tremendous personal growth for me, both in art and just in life, and I can only hope that continues through the New Year and beyond. (As sappy as that is to say, I really mean it.) That said, let's look back on 2019 in a little more detail, shall we? January: Birthday Wishes I actually didn't have a ton of options to choose from for this month, as I think I was a little burnt out from the last couple of months in 2018 and giving myself some breathing room.  Still, this Shopkin colored to match my actual birthday cake actually remains one of my favorite mixed media pieces I've done. I don't know why, there's just something I really enjoy about how it turned out, for as simple as it is.  And for the record, I think I will be doing another custom Shopkin drawing for my birthday again this year, but I haven't decided anything beyond that yet. February: Floating Away (+ Time Lapse!) So as I mentioned earlier, on last year's Art Summary I discovered I didn't have any submissions dated in February and I hadn't yet gotten in the habit of documenting completion dates for my artwork, and so I didn't have an artwork to put there that I could definitively say was done in February. This year, however, February was actually one of my busiest months and I had a pretty wide variety to choose from. I ended up going with my little hot air balloon, as while it's a bit different from my normal work, I still think it's really cute and it also represents one of my attempts to start making videos of my artwork...Which I've been too lazy to do since the few attempts I did during this month... But who knows? I have a better camera and slightly larger workspace at my disposal, so perhaps I'll try again and be a little less lazy about that in 2020. March: Once a Killjoy, Always a Killjoy Oh boy, if past-me had only known what was to come later this year! March saw a lot of pieces from me practicing with watercolor and new supplies, but I think my favorite to come out of the month was my annual artwork to honor March 22nd, the anniversary of when My Chemical Romance, my favorite band, broke up. Only this time instead of doing pure fanart, I made myself into a Killjoy for the occasion.  (The design of which needs to be revamped a little because my hair is purple now, but that just means I already have one option for the anniversary this coming year!) And once again, this is a mixed media piece that I look back on very fondly. The concept is fun and the end result looks pretty cool. April: Doodle Moon I leaned pretty heavily into honing my watercolor craft in April, and among those efforts, this one is definitely my favorite. (Even if it doesn't fit on this template very nicely ) This one was a bit of an experiment in branching my traditional and digital art together in a different way, and I still really love how it turned out. Although unfortunately, I've yet to return to this technique, simply because I feel weird a lot of the time about "half finishing" a traditional piece and then making a lot of modifications to it digitally. It feels like cheating or being fake in a way to me. But I think I get that hangover from the concept of editing photos online and then passing them off as real & unedited...in which case it's a personal problem that I just need to deal with on my own. May: Butterfly Babe I didn't have a ton of artwork in May, but what I did have were usually bigger/more involved pieces, and this one is no different. I think 2019 is the year when I really came into owning my love for mixed media (which comes in large part from "I'm not good at x thing with y supply, but I can do x effect with z supply really well!") and this piece is a really great example of that. Once again, still one of my favorites and the scan really doesn't do it just with all the sparkle/metallic accents I incorporated. And I think I want to do more involved almost crafty projects like this more often, but that usually comes down to having the right inspiration to make it happen. June: Bug Girl Funnily enough, June 2019 is now my busiest month of all-time (in the almost 9 years I've been here on dA), and yet I only had one "real" piece of art for the Summary.  This was the month when I really got heavy into making my own Swatch Charts/Swatching Resources, and while some did carry over into July, the bulk of it was posted in June. I have to say, I don't think a ton of other people are using the charts, but I've certainly been getting good use out of them! And if I'm being honest I mostly wanted them for my own personal use anyway.  But for the artwork that you see here, this is another mixed media piece, this time commemorating one of my favorite books I've read this year, How to Make Friends with the Dark by Kathleen Glasgow. The artwork itself had some annoying problems in development, but the result is really beautiful to me, and so I think it was worth it in the end. July: Homemade Mini Sketchbooks! This month is more of a craft project than artwork, but I couldn't help myself as these little sketchbooks I made myself are probably one of my most favorite projects I did in 2019, and these first two spawned many more afterward.  It's funny to me because I've always wanted a way to combine my loves of books and art beyond just illustrating my writing (which isn't always something I feel like doing) and this, while maybe not a perfect solution, is definitely a unique way to do that. Plus, while making each book does take a little while, it is usually a pretty fun process now that I've gotten the better hang of it. These first two books aren't perfect, but they kicked off something I think I'll be sporadically doing for a good while to come. August: Mon Cher It feels like a lot happening this month, despite not having quite as much art as other months this past year. The month started off with the end of our family vacation, and I posted a journal when I got back where you can see that part of the reason this month felt so busy is that this is probably when I had the most new art supplies available to me to test out/play with during the year, including some items that I got at the tail end of July.  Out of the options I had though, this artwork seemed like the best choice to represent this month, as just like in April I leaned pretty heavily into using and practicing with watercolors and painting in general (as I dipped my toes into seriously painting with Acrylics this month too) and this is one of my more ambitious watercolor pieces. As I said when I first posted it, it has its mistakes and growing pains, but I still think it's really lovely. September: Fly By the Moon I was actually surprised, looking back, at how busy September was. My second acrylic painting (this one more in-depth than the first), an array of cute kitty drawings which have sort of become a series now, some personal pieces, and two contest entries. (One of which actually won!) I went with the acrylic painting since I'm still very proud of how it turned out, given that I don't use acrylics terribly often and hardly ever I go for realism (even semi-realism like this painting) either. Plus, this one is a nice memory of the two real luna moths that visited us, and I had to admit that it is just really nice to have a full painting on a canvas to hang up too.  I haven't done much more with acrylic painting yet, but I definitely want to. My main issue is that for me it's hard deciding on a good subject for the way I like to paint that I don't feel like would look equally as good if not better with a different medium. But hopefully, I'll find more excuses to break out the acrylics in 2020. October: Ink Dance Oh boy, what a month this was!  Inktober, new mini-magnets, trying gouache for the first time, and on the very last day the news of the decade (at least for me) that My Chemical Romance is back!  I followed my same principle as the art summary last year where it just doesn't feel fair to pick a favorite Inktober or use the wrap-up picture, so that left me with my gouache pieces or this one that looks more like a normal person's Inktober artwork, and out of my options, this is the one I like best. The gouache paintings aren't bad, I just need more practice and this one has more charm to me. And it's also funny to me that I was so concerned about ending up hating this one for the stippling and yet it turned out to be one of my favorites from this year. November: I will be with You The artwork for this month was pretty much a no-contest. I made this piece as a love letter to My Chemical Romance after the news of their Return, and likewise, I poured my heart and soul into it. It just might be one of my most favorite artworks to date; perhaps even worthy of being a "portfolio piece" on my website. Even more so after the fact now that I've seen the Return concert (albeit over a Livestream and not in person because California is like 2-3,000 miles away from me ). I was pretty busy throughout the month trying to keep up with a prompt challenge from Art Philosophy, but even so, I pushed myself to get this piece done and I'm so glad I did. December: Daises on Strawberry Hill Ah, and here we are at the very last. It's funny, the first half of this month seemed to drag by pretty slowly, but then after the second week things picked up pretty quickly (what with the Return concert and all) and I have to agree with my mom that Christmas went by so fast we almost missed that it happened at all. I don't have as much to show for this month, but that's in large part because I've been taking time off for my mental health and to spend time with and enjoy my family. I'm pretty happy with everything I produced this month, but my Looking for Alaska inspired art is definitely my favorite of the bunch. It's very graphic-design-ish and despite at the time having been done rather quickly and not super precisely, looking at it now it reads very cleanly. It's a little outside my normal art realm, but if anything I think that makes it stronger on its own.  I'm still chipping away at my longer review of the Hulu series I originally made it to talk about (like I said when I posted it, I have a lot of thoughts I want to talk about and not rush through), so I am indeed still planning on finishing and posting those...I just don't know when that'll be, considering I've already got a bit of a content schedule for myself going into the New Year, but eventually! Eventually, it'll be done! Overall, I'm honestly very happy with what I've managed to accomplish this year. Just like last year, I did a lot of experimenting with new supplies and new mediums--this time some I thought I'd never touch--and I hit even more milestones, including my first Daily Deviation in November. I feel like I've grown significantly more as an artist and a person this year though than I did last year. And in many ways, I feel like this year has renewed my confidence in my own skills and work. I'm not much of a "New Years' Resolution" type person, as I think the concept as tied to that particular phrase has been...I'll be generous and say overinflated and mistreated...but some of my Art Goals for 2020 are: Post more consistently/regularly (which I worked on a lot in 2019 too) Be more active & engaged on social media (I've already started working on this a little, but for some reason, this is honestly kind of hard for me as I always debate what's worth sharing online and what isn't ) Promote me and my work/art outlets more (Also something I find hard to do) Keep experimenting (Not really a goal so much as my artistic state of existence but whatever ) This past year has been one heck of a wild ready, but I'm more than ready to see what 2020 has in store for me. Cheers for the New Year ahead! ____ Artwork © me, MysticSparkleWings Art Summary Template: 2019 Summary of Art Template (Blank) ____ Where to find me & my artwork: My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble |   Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram

[catbatart]

SKETCHBOOK SLAM SEPTEMBER (Patreon Update)

As some of you know, I had to take a break from doing Patreon commissions this summer due to a combination of Health and Personal Life reasons. 

However, I’m ready to come back with a bang! ...or a...Slam?

Some of you might already be familiar with the Sketchbook Slam Challenge that was started by Youtube Artist H.C. Brown. The Challenge? Fill out a massive 300 sheet (600 page) sketchbook in 30 days (approximately 20/pages a day.)

For the month of September, I am going to be doing a special set of Patreon commissions- Sketch pages. 

Starting at the $5 tier, Patrons can get at least 1/4th a page dedicated to sketches of a character of their choice, a full page at $10, and all the way up to 1 full sketch page per day at the highest tier! I typically do Sketch Pages at conventions for $50, and a sketch bust at a convention typically runs $15 so this is a huge discount on all fronts!

For further details, read below the cut!

-My Patreon is now a Charge-Up-Front-  PLEASE DO NOT PLEDGE FOR THE SKETCH TIERS UNTIL SEPTEMBER 1st OR YOU WILL BE DOUBLE CHARGED! If you want to support me without any immediate benefit, feel free to pledge earlier! However, if you are only interested in the sketch page tiers, wait until the 1st!

-This is a September 2018 Exclusive reward tier! Only Patrons who pledge/already have a pledge during September are qualified! If you want any of the larger tiers, please pledge in early September! I will not be doing sketch pages after September! Starting in October, I will transition back into normal pledge tiers! -Upon pledging, email me references of the character you would like ASAP at catbatstudios (at) gmail (dot) com! Please specify if you are okay with NSFW content of your character (tasteful nudity for anatomy studies! No sexual content!) If not, no worries! I’ll just make sure to sketch your character clothed! Feel free to provide a brief summary of their personality as well!  -I will draw ANY type of character provided they are not hateful in any way! This is for me to practice! Fanart, OCs, furries/Anthros, mecha, monsters, and humanoids are all welcome!  -The sketches are up to my discretion, and no WIPs will be provided (as they are sketch sheets.) This will likely be combinations of expressions, poses, and costume studies, but could include hand gestures, pin ups, etc. The discounted price is essentially allowing me artistic freedom with your character of choice!

-Sketchbook Slam September Tiers are as follows: 

$5: A quarter of a page dedicated to a character of your choice. $10: A full page dedicated to a character of your choice $25: 2 pages (front and back of a sheet) dedicated to a character or characters of your choice with the option of mailing the page out at the end of the month. $50: 4 pages (front and back of 2 sheets)  dedicated to a character or characters of your choice with the option of mailing the page out at the end of the month. $75: 6 pages (front and back of 3 sheets) dedicated to a character or characters of your choice with the option of mailing the page out at the end of the month. $100: 10 pages (front and back of 5 sheets) dedicated to a character or characters of your choice with the option of mailing the page out at the end of the month. $225: 1 page per day, amounting to a total of 30 pages (front and back of 15 sheets) dedicated to a character or characters of your choice with the option of mailing the page out at the end of the month.

[codywalzel]

It is my personal belief that no one can teach another human being a single useful thing about how to make art. My understanding of “teaching” is giving someone something directly, like a full-proof method for balancing algebraic equations, or the definitions of SAT words. I went into art school with the hopes that cryptic lesson plans would lead to a Mr. Miyagi style evolution that would unlock my hidden powers. If I knew what I do now about how to art-learn, I might have gotten something substantial out of college. But in my experience, art education begins and ends with either: 1. Another artist opening your eyes to an idea about drawing that you hadn’t noticed before, or 2. Elaborating on their go-to solutions they use in their own work. Someone can tell you that you can ground your storyboards by drawing a ground grid. But using that grid in correct perspective, to it’s intended effect, is not something someone can do for you. Art educators and mentors can help you identify solutions to problems, then you work out how to implement it yourself. At the risk of sounding like a pedant for drawing that distinction, I’ll say that since I started approaching creative learning from this perspective, I get a lot more out of it. It’s become more “guided experimentation” than recording a recipe for the perfect painting. That said, storytelling in art is definitely something you can teach yourself. You’ve identified a trait already, storytelling, so you’re already at the limit of where some teachers can take you. Plus you identified something astute, because I’ve been trying to incorporate storytelling into my art for a while, and have only recently started to get a handle on it. So in my opinion, you’ve done the bulk of the thinking work. Now comes the heavy practice work to master this new spell. This journey has a lot to do with finding your voice as a storyteller, so the tone of “YOU”, and the style of rendering that best expresses that tone in this time and place, will have a unique set of challenges for each person. But, I’ll take you through some of the realizations I had on the path to where I am now: A proud adult with two cats and a hit or miss batting average at clearly expressing thought in a sketch.

Capturing an entire scene in a single, static drawing is something my mentor Ian Abando does masterfully. I used to try to emulate the personality I saw in those drawings, but I was only copying the surface. I realize now that me and Ian’s outlooks are so different, that Ian and I would never tell the same type of stories, much less the same exact same story about those people at the adjacent cafe table. He’s personable, outgoing, jovial. Ian is like a friendly labrador with a dark streak in his sense of humor. He can sketch two strangers and capture a warmth that makes you realize they’re actually two old friends that haven’t seen each other in years. I can find something in that coffee shop too, but I’m just a way bigger weirdo, so I’m more interested in weirdo shit. For me, the first step in capturing those stories was finding the right subject. I keep a sketchbook with me at all times, and I’ve developed a patience for waiting, for hunting the right subject. When Ian and I meet up at a coffee shop to sketch, it always seems like he can draw anything. He seems to rest his gaze somewhere in the room at random, then drop pencil to page and watch that snippet explode into life. But now, I think he’s hunting too. I think he’s searching for what’s interesting, what’s worth drawing to him. It only seemed random to me because I couldn’t see what was beautiful about a subject. That he can see a particular magic in a certain 6 square feet of space, and not 6 feet next to it, has to do with who he is. In my mind, he was making that table of pleasant, unremarkable strangers more interesting on the page than it really was. But in his mind, maybe he saw that a girl was counting down the seconds until the end of a bad date, and the guy was trying to find subtle ways to flex.  Even now that I can “see” more, I might never appreciate the specific things that Ian does until he draws them.

The potential exists for that to be true of all of us. Art is a magic that lends other people your eyes. So let people see the pieces of your world that only you can. Just like he can do for me, I can see what’s interesting in scenes that Ian would overlook. And there are a million scenes where we’d see the same fascinating thing, but we’d have a different approach to it (for one, his approach would be to be way better at drawing than me). And there are a million more scenes that we’d both see something interesting in, but we’d each attach to a different feature of it.  All of that to say, don’t just pick out something and draw. If you want to tell a story, then don’t draw just to put something down on the page. Wait. Observe. Find a moment that makes you laugh. Find somebody despicable, and capture what’s despicable about them. Use a sketch to vent. Or make a sketch intentionally cold, and show everyone what your specific brand of loneliness feels like without begging for sympathy. I’d rather keep observing and draw nothing than to try to draw something dull because it’s in front of me. Find the stories you’re personally interested in, you probably have something funny or insightful to say about a given situation that is unique to you. Try to put that weird part of you on display. If it scares you, then it’s probably coming from an honest place, and you should keep going. It may be clumsy at first. The story I want to tell still doesn’t come across on the page every time. Meanwhile, Ian seems to capture his stories without a single failure. If stories are Pokemon, he’s tossing great balls while I’m stuck with a standard issue poke ball. He’d probably say that comes down to pencil mileage. So keep practicing. Keep putting pencil to page even on the shit drawing days. It’s a toll you have to pay to be good down the line, even if you’re not good today. But, please, keep your brain turned on, that means always make an effort to be interesting. (Everyone go ahead and make that same effort in life too. Being boring around the water cooler at work is super rude and depressing.)  Like I said, being interesting in your art usually just comes down to taking an extra second to consider your subject before you start drawing. What am I seeing here? Is this the thing I want to draw? Where am I going with this? Is this coming from a real place? Am I digging to find the best I have today, or am I just making the same tired observation about airline food that I’ve seen before? And if I’m drawing something a lot of people draw, I make sure to ask what can I bring to this? What story can I tell about this that no one else is telling? Example: for the most part, if everyone around me is gushing about some new Star War via fanart, another well rendered post telling the story that you also enjoyed the Star War isn’t that interesting to me. I’d rather a worse drawing driven by a more interesting idea. You can participate in the cultural conversation without just repeating what’s already been said. I’m more likely to enjoy your Star War art if it comments on that one character’s funny butt pose in the third act. Or whatever. That’s just an hypothetical it doesn’t have to be butts. The point is to put more thought in to your art. Wait a sec for the right idea, don’t just start drawing. You will know when you spot the right subject because you will already see it on the page. Plussss, when you start drawing with a clear idea where you’re going, not only is it more interesting, but it actually informs your craft- your drawings will come out better. Okay, let’s say I’m not interested in the people a table over at the coffee shop, how do I know what else to look for? As stupid as this sounds, tweeting helped. Not just reading other people’s tweets, but putting myself out there, wording an idea with limited characters, figuring out what types of things could be explained, and what things were hard to express. And then I started to notice more and more effective way to express those ideas with a specific tone. One thing I realized about myself was that I trying to say two or three things about something at once. It made good ideas muddy, and weakened all three. I challenged myself to clarify, to combine, to present a single, strong idea. I’m still working on it, but for me tweeting is a storytelling exercise that’s helped put more “me” into my art. It forced me to get thoughts, ideas, jokes, frustrations, etc. out into the ether unadulterated by technique. There was no consideration of line quality or volume, so a thought had to stand on it’s own two legs. I doubt tweeting would help many artists in the same way.  But I think in words exclusively, images come later. I write outlines and dialogue in detail before I ever touch storyboard or comic thumbnails. But I’m in the middle of transitioning into writing, so I think my brain is naturally more verbal than most artists. Even with so much internal commentary, my art was without clear storytelling for a long time, because ideas either got lost in the drawing stage, or were too complicated to fit into a single image. Tweeting taught me how to be concise, (I’m clearly not using that skill for this reply, but whatever). So find your own method for making yourself comfortable enough to open up. Which leads me to the most my recent storytelling realization: Don’t be afraid to put your opinions in your art. What you feel passionate about from the deep to the mundane can guide you in your search for a subject. I think people’s egos are funny. LA’s coffee shops are flooded with aspiring creatives mouth-shitting hot takes on art with dogmatic authority, and all from their designated unemployment-check-opening-butt-crater that they’ve worn into the cafe couch. I’m not denigrating anyone that hasn’t made it yet. But I am laughing at the unearned confidence of beardy over at the next table, and the volume at which he’s dropping that savage insight into the Black Mirror episode using stolen lines he just finished reading in a Robert McKee book. Beardy is a “writer” you see, I know because he might have mentioned it a few times to the people he’s with. So yeah, one thing I like to draw is people with their ego’s showing. It makes me laugh. Probably because I too have a big, fragile ego.

That “storytelling” thing is a muscle, like being funny at a party. You get good at party banter if you put yourself through the pain of attending multiple parties close together. (I’m convinced no human being actually enjoys parties, by the way. We all think we’re the idiot just outside the conversation circle that can’t find a big enough gap in people’s shoulders. But parties are the hardest social video game and It’s a little fun to be good at it.) The same way, you keep that storytelling muscle active in your drawings, and you’ll get momentum. If you take a month off, it’ll get weaker, and you’ll have catching up to do when you come back to it. Draw “you” day in and day out. One day you’ll starting getting these bursts where you stop thinking about the drawing process. You’ll stop actively trying to make it “good”, you’ll be swept up, and you’ll disappear into your own rhythm. It’s probably on that day that you’ll look down and realize you just communicated on the page. But let’s move on to a matter of real importance:

The older I get the more I resemble an anime. Thoughts?

[mcrmadness]

I don’t understand it why all professionals think that staying at home 24/7 it worse for one’s mental health than having to work 8h/day and 5days/week. (At some point I was doing 6 days a week actually.)

I mean, I told my therapist today that sometimes I get so tired from just visiting my parents 2-3 days a week that I can’t get much anything done. And she then asked if I remember how it was for me when I was still working, and she thought it sounded like I’m running out of energy a lot more when I don’t work than when I did work. But I told her that I do remember what it was like when I was still working - I could not do anything at all at home. I was just watching TV or staring at my computer screen and fighting back my body’s urge to fall asleep while sitting on a sofa or in my computer chair. And that really does suck. (Partially the tiredness came from the fact I always stayed up too late because I felt that 8h of free time was no enough for resetting my brain and when I couldn’t make the work days shorter, the only option was to take hours from sleeping. My average day is longer than 24 hours and does not fit the normal 7 days in a week system.)

Literally when I was still working, I never created anything. I had the urge to create but I was always so tired and exhausted that I didn’t even have time to think anything before falling asleep. I’d just pass out the second I put my head on the pillow. I never drew, I never wrote a fanfiction, I pretty much created just one video per YEAR and only because I had what, 2-3 weeks off during summer and started and finished the video during those weeks. Sometimes I worked on a video for years because I started it one year and then went back to work and school and had no time nor energy for it until the next longer holiday (usually summer).

What comes to drawing, I kinda stopped drawing (and also writing) somewhere in 2012. In 2013 I drew a few new things when I quit antidepressants and had just so many kinda dark thoughts in my head and my brain chemicals were still so fucked up I suddenly was able to draw random things, but then it stopped again. Mainly because I started work and school in 2014 and I didn’t draw again until I was done with both in November 2018. Since then I have been just at home and it’s been... awesome. I mean, I still struggle with starting things, even things I like, but at least I still have created things. I have made 3-4 videos, 5 fanart comics, 9 other fanart drawings with my comic style, finished 1 pencil fanart drawing and on top of that all: 9 self-comics. All in just a span of 2 years which is INSANE, especially for my inattentive adhd. And currently I have 3 more fanart comic plots/plans and 6 self-comic ideas in my sketchbook, one unfinished pencil WIP and have been kinda planning on two more pencil drawings. Oh and I have also written over 30 pages of my never-released fanfiction and I have an endless list of “fanfic ideas” in my head because that’s what I keep thinking about every night when I go to sleep because I just have to think about something in order to fall asleep.

So, me getting tired from just meeting people is not worse than me never being able to create because work makes me so exhausted. I think I was permanently so exhausted I just didn’t feel it anymore. I had no free time. After work I was fighting against my body falling asleep and on weekend I visited my parents (or was working) so there literally was no full free days. All I needed was to have a day when I don’t need to go to ANYWHERE but I couldn’t do that because, well, work and I wanted to meet with my parents every now and then too. Since I don’t have friends so it’s good to have at least some sort of socializing - I’m still a social animal even when I’m mainly introverted.

I think my problem is that when I have work and have a structure in my days, I can never create because I have no energy, and the limited time makes it even harder to start anything. Because I already had to do all these other things like house chores and cooking, or showering. Which is why I basically never cleaned here, apart from taking out the trash and doing the dishes.

But now as I have nothing but time, I have so much time it’s so easy to procrastinate because I can always do everything tomorrow. That’s how days and weeks and months go past so fast. I keep planning on how I want to draw or write or edit a video or play a video game asap but because I have all the time in the world, I have no deadlines and I have no pressure, I just never get to that. Until on that one day when the inspiration hits so hard it brings motivation with it and I just start creating something out of blue. Usually I cannot sit down and think “now I start drawing” - if I don’t feel it 100%, I can’t concentrate on it and I will just get more frustrated than excited. This is why I hated school assignments - even when all that was interesting! - because the deadline was never lining up with my motivation and when I forced myself to start writing a paper, I spent the first hours online complaining everywhere how I can’t focus and I was so frustrated and had several sensory overloads from my own skin, muscles and bones because I knew I had to focus and I always get so self-conscious that I have sensory overloads from my own body. Actually now I remember one time from when I was a teenager and still living with my parents and I wanted to draw something so bad but I couldn’t come up with anything and the next thing I know was that I found myself from arranging my mom’s bookshelf because even cleaning is fun when it’s not the priority.

I’m not sure what I’m trying to say here. I think I kinda just lost the plot. It’s just that time management is hard because there’s always too little and too much of it simultaneously.

[unproduciblesmackdown]

i've said how it's occurred to me that the idea of "don't compare other people's art to your own" (which you do most of the time anyways even tho you know the reasons you shouldn't) can apply also to like, comparing how people relate to their art and what they expect of it and want from it, vs what you do. and i also make that comparison anyhow even though there's no reason to, and so i'll see some convo on twitter or something & get all somewhat frustrated or riled up coz i'm like, that's not me. so anyhow

i talked too much about the sink and now i'm trying to remember what my thoughts were that i was meaning to put here. i guess i was thinking first that it was weird to see a conversation about people being able to make money off their art, which is like, it's great of course when people who want to do that, can. but it's strange i guess because for me i've never drawn with the idea that it was what i "wanted to do" as a sort of career thing. and to get the full picture, i never had or have had anything solid i felt i wanted to do as sort of a career. that's just not how it goes for me. but it's odd because i've been drawing for ages and i've gone to classes outside of school for a good while and i did some classes in college and stuff, but mostly got kind of re-into drawing a while ago and started drawing more just on my own, not for any classes or anything, and have largely been self-taught in that way. and i don't mind the busy-work aspect of it, or spending 8+ hours on something in one sitting, or any of that, so it would seem to make sense like, oh this is your passion and what you're good at and so this should be your job. but, well firstly i don't think that the world of what a person does to make money is inherently meant to be the same as whatever their passion is. but also i don't even consider drawing or art in itself to be a passion, maybe an interest, but not really. it's what i'm drawing, which is gay shit—if i don't have something i want to draw into existence, i don't draw the way you should to just practice or create or something. and i Get all that about myself, but i suppose when the subject of being an artist as your job comes up, i have to feel defensive even if nobody's talking to me

i mean, there are reasons i've never felt it was something i would or could get money out of. mainly it's that really, i don't make art unless it's to make exactly the picture i want to see, which as you might know tends to be very specific and personalized exactly to what i want to make. as though nobody else does, i know, but the thing is that if i'm not drawing exactly what i want, i'm not drawing at all. back before i realized this about myself, i'd once or twice told a friend i could draw something for them, and fully expected and intended to, but of course never did because i just couldn't make myself even start. i can't do the sitting there for ten hours without tiring of it or enjoying the busy work or monotony or anything like that. i can't even put a pencil to paper or get my brain to start planning it out. it's why i tell people who ask that i don't do requests or commissions, it's only once in the bluest moon that i manage to even do it for friends. i sort of half-assed a bday card once and then some of my family got the idea that i ought to draw cards for relatives or something, my grandma told like a small child that i'd draw something for her, i started to lose my temper about it really fast which was an especial effort in that scenario, as the fallout for standing up for yourself could be pretty severe. but it was just that, that i can't even force myself to do it more than a handful of times, and those few times are miserable.

so what i'm getting at is that i genuinely really can't draw hardly beyond my niche fanart for myself. the whole thing just shuts down really fast. and for whatever reason, i'm 0% a creative person when it comes to stuff like making up my own stories, i can't even do that if i try. so i can't really draw things other people ask me to, and i've never wanted to use my art to make my own x y or z. i didn't even hardly want to draw before i realized i could make gay fanart for my blog, and as you can tell my ambitions for my ability to draw have never changed.

i don't know, i've supposed i could do illustrative art, but when i imagine it i know i'm mostly thinking about it in terms of "what if i was asked to draw this thing that would seem already slightly interesting to draw" and of course that wouldn't always be the case. plus, i have no experience, and also i'm lousy with traditional media, and also digital media. i only give myself an office pen and a cheap barnes and noble sketchbook because thats all i need, and i don't have the talent to get the quality out of quality art supplies and stuff. like, sure, copics would be fun, but i'm crap at inking linework, so that's out. and bad at choosing colors. so nah. and anyhow i can't even think of any other "job" sort of application

another problem is the true horror of how i can't draw anything in like less than a couple of hours, and even my fancier drawings are fairly simple and still take me hours upon hours or multiple days or even weeks. and i'm really inconsistent with output, i have "bad" periods where i just can't even meet my own standards, and i can't even get anything out of a few hours of effort. plus, my drawing process is lousy and counterproductive. i get too caught up in details before i've done the simpler planning stuff. and my focus is terrible, too, and i have to sort of have a set "distraction" like music or a podcast or a show to at least hold my wandering attention sort of nearby. even being aware of this sort of stuff doesn't fix it; my head just isn't good for getting stuff done quickly. i'm sure i couldn't work fast enough for anyone on anything

plus, my sketching is lousy. i have to clean stuff up too much, in part because i just like details too much a lot of the time. but just moreso, some people's sketches look really good you know? it's not clean or fancy or whatever but you can just tell it has life and it holds their style, because they're good at their linework. it's hard to make good "messy" drawings and people that can are just really good in general. i'm not good enough to draw fast, and my slow drawings are ludicrously slow. r.i.p.

i'm just not that good, either. in addition to having no experience with most mediums or with doing "projects" or with doing anything job-related or part of a group work or anything useful to anyone or applicable at all, i know that in my sheer drawing ability, i could say i'm middling, or probably middling-bad. and within the stuff i do, i have a lot of weak points, elements i don't practice as much & can only say i'm barely adequate or still just bad at. i'm not about to be competitive about what i can provide. and i'm inconsistent as fuck still, its like i'm always changing my ideas about how i draw certain things, or going through those "bad" periods where i forget how to draw somehow. frustrating. and not useful for work

anyhow then i have to think about what the value of it is. because while i've never exactly had ambitions about my art or considered it any more important that the one purpose it has, which is to draw the content i myself want to see. but thats not useless or anything. it entertains me and gives me something i feel i can do, and then when i've made something, it fulfils that purpose in that i get to look at it and have it exist. and if i'm lucky, someone who happens to want to look at it too in the same way i do will get to find it. i like to know that i'm providing that too for a handful of people who happen to have that exact same rando niche taste as i do. and of course i really value anyone saying stuff they like about what i make. i do put a good amt of feeling or meaning into a decent number of things, and some feeling into basically everything, so in that way everything is important to me and its meaningful to get compliments about it or people saying they enjoy it or caught that feeling i'd put in or whatever. i don't need to feel that it's super impactful or lasting or significant. i mean, i don't even like to call my art "art," because it feels so disconnected to a lot of concepts tied to that concept.

it reminds me too that i've gotten a lot of value in my life from the less "ambitious" or life-changing work that other people have done. like, not that anything isn't life-changing, but not a huge project that's intending to be a masterpiece or super serious and deeply meaningful or all-encompassing or whatever. how much mileage i got out out of mh, a youtube video series made by college students who just felt like it and it wasn't anything formal and it wasn't anything not Internet Horror Genre but i looked forward to those videos every week, i liked to spend time analyzing them and making diagrams and trying to guess where things were going, i liked to talk and joke about it. the pals i made from other people who liked it were some of the first people to talk to me even nearly that much and were people i could talk to during really shitty times when i didn't feel like i had any support. mh gave me something to look forward to on a scale of not only day to day or week to week but also month to month to year to year. during some really shit years. i had fun and i had stuff to be happy about, and its still really important to me. and it was always just some amateur people's spare-time project where with $20 and a forest or abandoned building they made something for their youtube channel. not that i'm saying marble hornets isn't super high quality and recognized as such because it absolutely is. i'm just saying that on paper it doesn't exactly sound "lofty."

thats always the stuff thats been most important to me anyways, and sometimes i'll see people who make exactly the kind of projects as the things i've always been enjoying, and they'll talk about feeling like they're not complete without that "big" project that's really signicant or something and really meaningful to people. and i absolutely get that people's goals should be whatever they are and they can strive for whatever they want, but it tends to make me feel kinda bad. as if that stuff they're doing now, the family of stuff that's what has the most value for me, isn't the important or meaningful stuff or otherwise not good enough. i don't know. so i tend to be aware that i don't think stuff that looks fancy or polished or that has any form more permanent than a png file on one specific website is inherently without value. i don't mind if people only get a little enjoyment out of my stuff. it's not that life and death important to me either. like, i don't mind if i don't make anything that anyone remembers all their life; if it dies with me and gets totally buried just a little while later and largely nobody thinks about it ever again. it's just more of an in the moment thing, if someone gets a small moment of enjoyment and moves on, that's totally fine

and really the more behind the scenes mechanics that you need to make money off anything you do is another reason i don't see myself ever being any kind of artist as a job. i already said i really can't be competitive about it, i'm just not organized, i'm not willing to push about anything or advocate for myself or any of that stuff. maybe someone would read all this and say well it's just excuses and if they would just motivate themselves they could do all of it or something, and if you do think it's just my faults and shortcomings then? ok. i won't stop you from thinking that. whether that's true or not, what difference does it make to me or what i do or don't do.

and also i just think that stuff you do that doesn't make money or doesn't even have an apparent usefulness to anyone doesn't mean it doesn't have value or isn't a skill.

anyhow, that's some ways i think about drawing when i have to think of why i don't intend or believe myself capable of using my drawing to get that cash. it's not a blow to me on account of i'm not a person who had/has dreams/goals/ambitions etc. i just get defensive about everything b/c i'm too used to being attacked. it wasn't relevant to the stuff here but i did once have to try explaining why i, with literally like minimal photoshop experience and nothing else, couldn't reasonably apply to a graphic website design position for a decent-sized company with an intl customer base. couldn't get my mom to believe i couldn't argue to them that i could learn digital art and vector art and website design and coding and photoshop and other platforms all in the course of several weeks or even a month or two, if i tried hard enough. it just goes to show that for every topic, i have a ridiculous story about my parents for it.

anyways, that's why i don't strive at all for any career position related to art and yet why i feel i have to argue for why i don't. useless or unimportant stuff is alright too. whats it to the world if one person's passable drawing abilities don't reach the loftiest imaginable potential and rake in the dough for life? the answer is: nothing

[riyysh]

Would you happen to know places to help get started with digital drawing? When search it, the only things that come up are advice on programs and tablets, etc. I already have a tablet and a program, I just have no idea where to start with actually drawing, not being a great artist myself. I want to learn how to do fan art like you and other blogs in the community. Do you know how I could get started with that, not having a great amount of drawing talent? Anything would help. (asking others too!)

Searching on youtube and tumblr is a really great place to start. Watching speedpaints by other artist can be helpful since you can see how the process is from start to end. There are tutorials and videos that will help you understand how to use your drawing tablet and other neat tricks like coloring and so forth. In fact, I'm actually learning more about digital art myself since I'm self taught.So where to begin? Well you can start by drawing things you like! It can be anything! It can be your original characters (i have like a full sketchbook filled with one original character i just love them alot lol but it will never see the light of day im shy), fanart or little doodles. Do not be worried about making it nice yet - you walk before you run - so start by sketching. Go crazy and be messy. Then when youre happy with the sketch do you then start making your draft much cleaner.This is what I can think of from the top off my head so anyone else looking at this ask, feel free to add on! :o

[todokori-kun]

Well, at least it hasn’t been confirmed yet, only heavily implied (honestly Mutsurie has been implied since the Auction arc)…sad thing is that back when Mutsuki was likable I used to kind of ship it. But now…

Ishida, bring Saiko back.

Urie deserves to love someone who truly cares for him and could actually give him a happy, stable life/relationship (because Saiko is totally filling the ‘Sasaki’ role for the Q squad now that Ken’s gone).

Not this murderous angsty yandere who’s very much obsessed with somebody else.

Also, I’m getting a bit tired of Kaneki making everybody’s relationships difficult. First it was Kanae loves Tsukiyama but Tsukiyama loves Kaneki but Kaneki loves Touka, and then Kanae DIED, and now Ishida’s going to replace that with Urie loves Mutsuki but Mutsuki loves Kaneki but Kaneki loves Touka? No.

The only thing worse than that would be Saiko loves Urie but Urie loves Mutsuki but Mutsuki loves Kaneki and so on and so forth… I seriously hope Ishida won’t do that. Not only would it be terrible for my feels, it would also be kind of ridiculous.

Though that freaking centipede was hands down the worst part of this chapter tbh

I’m really, really happy Yoriko’s alive, but this isn’t 100% fluff either because there are three questions I have now:

Since Yoriko appears to have both of her hands, whose hand did Mutsuki show Touka? (I just remembered that Torso cut off Mutsuki’s hands and put a wedding/engagement ring on one of them…ew. This is getting creepy)

Who was it that called Yoriko while she was out shopping?

Do the other two questions have anything to do with how somber Yoriko looks at the wedding, or is that just because of nerves (she does smile later on when throwing her bouquet, but…)?

(And yeah, Urie has known Mutsuki is biologically female since the auction arc: I got confused about this too because of weird translations, but apparently he smelled their blood and realized it was from menstruation and not an injury. For them, Mutuski being AFAB is an ‘I know you know I know’ kind of situation)

(Aww that’s so sweet! Tysm <3 Wish I had a Shuu irl…I got diagnosed with SA earlier this week so things are difficult over here ;-;

Once we got close, though, Shuu’s dramatic behavior might start to trigger my sarcastic/teasing side…like,

“Ah, so you’re using watercolors? How lovely! What are you painting? Is it me? Well, of course it’s me, your one true-”

“Actually, it’s Yomo. I’m kinda into the strong, silent types.”

“…What are you implying, love…?”)

Luna/Urie (Lurie? Uruna?) HCs:

-Urie’s attitude around you is a bit like this:

Urie around other people: (Total scum. I can feel myself getting stupider whenever I talk to you) Of course, sir. You are truly setting a great example.

Urie around you: (I was going to work more but then I remembered I haven’t spent much time with you this week…ugh, this is like those cheesy games Yonebayashi likes to play) Be quiet, I’m trying to exercise. I suggest you do the same (oh ***** wrong answer)- just to clarify, it’s not because of your looks, it’s because you have to get stronger.

-He’s super organized and has a great memory so you can just text him when you’ve lost/can’t remember something (‘Urie, where’s my notebook?’ 'second drawer in ur desk’).

-Though he’s more comfortable with texting, he occasionally leaves short sticky notes for you when he’s busy. Usually it’s serious but maybe not quite flattering stuff like 'there are bags under your eyes. The average human of your age requires at least 7.5 hours of sleep per night' but there’s also the rare, awkwardly sweet note- 'I’ll try to be back soon’,'stay safe’,'Your hair looks nice’ (when you cut it when he was at work and he came home when you were already asleep)

-Cookie’s actually nervous about making this relationship work and the sticky notes were inspired by advice from the internet.

-when it comes to school and studying, he’s extremely impressed with how many things you’re managing to do at once.Though he usually doesn’t express this openly he definitely lets you know when he’s proud of you.

-He helps you with Japanese when you need it.

-in social situations like parties, you usually stick together and don’t talk much to anybody else unless you’re with the other Q squad members (I think I remember you mentioning you’re an introvert?). Though it might not look like it, there’s a lot of banter in these situations and you almost always have fun together.

-Urie secretly likes your 'weird, slightly pervy’ jokes

-He probably has a secret sketchbook with dozens of pictures of you in it. His face when you somehow find it is priceless.

-At some point you turn him into Hamiltrash. When you try to tease him by asking him to rap Guns and Ships, he disappoints you by rapping the whole song perfectly. He also relates to 'The Room Where it Happens’ on a personal level.

-He doesn’t understand your manga/anime obsession. Especially when it comes to Love Live- one day you get him to watch the anime with you and he remains poker-faced the whole time (honestly he looks more interested in playing with your hair than watching the show). In the end, you agree to disagree.

Until a week later, when you discover Urie’s been secretly listening to 'Storm in Lover’.

(I’ll stop rambling now…I admit that a lot of these were slightly crack-y, though I did try my best to throw in some fluff and serious HCs as well ^^;; I hope you like it! :D)

Again, thank you so much for being so nice and supportive <333 (I say that a lot, don’t I XD) I actually tried out the watercolors yesterday, and though I messed up my picture by adding too much water (I’ve never actually learned to use watercolors and I started painting with them this month), the paper is actually pretty good! I was right when I guessed it wasn’t really watercolor paper, but it wrinkles much less than my other sketchbooks :D

but wait, 'Huge airhead with the memory of a goldfish’? Are you sure you aren’t talking about me? I don’t really have a bad memory, but I only seem to remember the things I WANT to remember LOL for example, I remember almost everything about my various fandoms, but sometimes I find that I have no idea where I put my glasses when I took them off barely a minute ago (plot twist: they were on the shelf in front of me the whole time and I couldn’t see them because of my terrible eyesight. Yes, this has happened before. Several times, in fact).

Burr would later be unable to look Lee in the eye lol. Seriously though, I ship this a lot. Burr is way too shippable ;-; Remember when I said I ship him with Eliza? The fic 'True and Earnest’ on ao3 is what really made me ship them but still (I totally recommend that fic you get the chance to read it because it’s just perfect. So sweet and beautiful <3 plus, there’s some implied Angelica/Alex at the end so everybody gets to be happy! :D)

btw, just found some fanart of Burr titled 'Aaron Burr has strong opinions’

Burr in the picture: 'Personally, I love things…

…AND stuff.’

And they call Jefferson a francophile. At least we know he knows where France is.

Last note of this ridiculously disorganized message:

I just wanted to ask, are you into the MCU fandom? Because I’m very deep into it…I haven’t watched the Iron Man trilogy or the Guardians of the Galaxy movies yet (though I have the latter on my computer and am planning to watch it soon) but I’ve watched almost all of the Captain America movies and all of the Thor and Avengers movies.

Honestly I have 0 problems shipping Cookie with anyone as long as they’re mentally stable. Hell, I’ll even ship him with Shuu as long as it means Urie would be happy. The amount of suffering in TG is starting to be too much. There is a fine line between ‘a little angst to keep the plot moving’ and ‘bucketful of angst because everyone shall suffer for no particular reason’. 

I read the new chapter myself (I always seem to do after you update me on the happenings hahah) and I am screaming. It’s like Ishida put a huge ‘No happiness allowed’ sign on his desk and looks at it every time he’s thinking of how to advance the plot. Sigh.

Honestly, it’s so heavily implied, I consider it canon. ‘I wasn’t going to come, but then I heard you’d be here’? Come on, Urie would never say that unless he really liked someone. 

Oh, what if Sasaki/Kaneki is Urie’s true love! I mean Saiko=Sasaki and he wanted to see Mutsuki since they might know about Kaneki’s whereabouts… Don’t mind me, I’m just trying to think of something, anything that doesn’t involve Mutsuki/Urie because that has become my ultimate NOTP.  But Saiko/Urie is very attractive…

Everyone loves Kaneki. Ishida lied to us, this is actually some sort of twisted harem/reverse harem manga that’s only full of suffering for the lols. When the end of the manga comes, it’ll turn out this is a stage play/movie/dream and that everyone is Kaneki’s classmates who have a crush on him, but he loves Touka, whilst she doesn’t give two shits about him. Yeah, that’d be a nice end.  Waaait a minute. That implies Urie will die ;-; Nooooooo, come one, the cookie deserves happiness, his life is a big enough shitstain already. 

The love relationships form a centipede. It’s like this a→b→c→d→e→f→g→h→i→j→k→l→m→n→o→Kaneki. 

I was studying biology this morning, and passed the Chilopoda unit. GUESS WHICH BUG WAS THERE. I WAS THIS CLOSE TO SCREAMING OUT LOUD BECAUSE FUCK CENTIPEDES.

Oh, those are good questions! Here are my thoughts:

a) Maybe it was Mutsuki’s hand? But the hand looked…. fresh, in lack of better expression. Who knows, maybe Mutsuki just chopped off a random person’s hand to use as bait. Honestly, it wouldn’t surprise me. 

b) I checked the panel, and Yoriko didn’t look alarmed or confused when she turned around, so maybe it was a random person she knew? Or someone from the CCG she met before? (what would they be doing in a wedding dress  shop, tho?)

c) I’ll choose to believe it was simply wedding nerves, because if it wasn’t the nervous, it was something else more sinister and there’s already enough suffering.

Oh, right! Now that you mention it, I remember! Thanks for reminding me ^^

That can’t be easy for you… If you ever want to talk, I’m here ^^ And I’m very sure Shuu would be persistent in getting to know you, yet he’d be careful not to trigger anything. Once he’d realise you have that teasing side, I’m sure he’d be a lot happier, because ‘HOLY SHIT EVANS OPENED UP TO ME HELL YEAAAAAAAAAAH’. He’d get a bit pouty if you’d tease him, tho. Of course, that’d make it even funnier. 

MY HEART! A critical hit. You really know how to pull those off.

Here’s an accurate representation of me while reading them:

Urie perfectly rapping Guns and Ships is now my favourite thing, especially considering he’d do it with a perfectly straight face. Like ‘oh this? this is nothing’ while everyone stares at him like -_-

I’m pretty sure that Storm in Lover came from my ‘the names can be weird af’, but you chose the one which is sung by the girl that I’m sure would be his absolute favourite.  whoops, my idol trash side is showing again.

Thank you so much for this ;-; It’ll serve as motivation for me to survive next week which is the last one this school year with exams (and they’re the hardest ones, whooo). THEN I’M DONE AND CAN WATCH TONS OF ANIME AND REDA MANGA AND WRITE AND SLEEP AND RELAX IN GENERAL BECAUSE NO MORE SCHOOL FUCKING FINALLY.

We all make mistakes when trying something for the first time, so it’s completely normal that you added too much water ^^ Now you know how much you should(n’t) add the next time you draw :p  Ah, that’s great to hear! Now you have somewhere to draw where it won’t be as bad as if you painted on normal paper.

We used to paint a lot with watercolours and temperas in elementary school, and my drawing always ended up being disfigured blobs of colour. So I’m sure yours are perfect ^^

The useless things I usually end up remembering are usually animal facts (and, for some ??? reason, heights and blood types of characters. don’t question it). Here are my proudest goldfish moments: Search for glasses for 15-20 minutes only to realise they were on top of my head all the time. Thinking I lost my ID only for it to be buried deep inside my bad. Finding a fork in my bed (I’m not joking, I somehow managed to leave a fork there for some twisted reason). And my favourite: Being late and looking for my shoe for around 5 mins to realise I already put it on. Yeah, I’m not very smart. 

Yes, Burr is very shippable. Musical Burr, at least. I ship him with Angelica, Eliza, Ham (to some degree) and Lee. Man, that’s a lot of Burr ships. 

Ask him a question: it glances off, he obfuscates, he dances

Honestly, no so much ^^;; I mean, I’ve watched the Iron Man (and went through the obligatory Robert Downey Jr. fangirl phase, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Guardians of the Galaxy, Captain America (1st part) and Ant Man, but that’s it ^^;; However, I was planning on having a marathon during the summer, because I like superhero movies (that probably explains my obsession with BnHA which is a superhero manga.)