#as much as I love tumblr it is nice to have a portfolio site I can tell people about that's on its own

[hyperionwitch-art]

Hey holy shit I have a website now! Mmmmainly it is a portfolio atm, so it has all my big illustrations (still adding more) and a section for Tev/Dren comics and stuff.

I'm not going to stop updating my Tumblr or anything, this will be in addition to all my socials (which, uh, I have a Bluesky now so look up Hyperionwitch if you want in on that??), but I figure if people are trying to make Ye Olde Internet happen again with the personal sites and the webrings and the sparkly cursors and autoplaying MIDIs (jk I do not have that, I promise), I might as well join in.

I'm still adding to it (more illustrations and sketches coming, probably a commission section, probably a link to my TeePublic, maybe a cosplay section?, etc.), but it's working adequately for the moment.

Thanks for checking it out, if you feel so inclined! 🖤

[rentenwins]

silly little excuses (newneighbour!leehan x reader)

ch 1 • ch 2 • ch 3 • ch 4

synopsis: who goes there? a silly little story of your fish-loving neighbour. with a little egging on from your friends, surely a few hints would’ve been dropped on his head right? right?

content: slice of life, fluff, (a lot of) banter, (eventual) idiots to lovers, f!reader, university-aged characters, leehan’s love for fish, mild cursing(?), the bnd members <3

a/n: my first multi-chapter fic on tumblr after being on this site for… 6 years? please be nice to me >.< a lot of love for bnd here ofc hehe

wc: 1268

chapter 1: a new neighbour?

It is a typical Thursday with your classes not starting until past midday. It meant longer mornings in bed, and in this case it was to sleep in. Well, at least you planned to.

There was an unknown dull thud near your door. You groan as the thuds made itself known in succession and you know your sleep was ruined for the morning. You check your phone, a mocking 7:34am flashes and you groan louder. The next sane thing for you to do was to check the commotion outside.

Your apartment building was oddly peaceful for a complex near the university. Your luck skyrocketed when you realised your floor was filled with students from a couple of your classes, so it added extra peace of mind. They weren’t noisy either, it helped on nights where working on your portfolio actually seemed feasible.

Slippers on and a jumper on, you shiver a little because of the chilly morning air not yet warmed by the sun. Unlocking the door proved a challenge in the morning, but the door swings open nonetheless and you peer your head outside. Across the hall, you see a stack of boxes, suitcases and eco-bags plopped into the corner haphazardly. You jump as you hear another thud and a huff from someone down the walkway from the elevator, the rolling of wheels louder as it approaches you.

Your eyes might have been deceiving you but a man, around your age with a kind face, strolls in with a dolly, carrying yet another cardboard box and a tote bag on top of it, but also a bucket on his free hand. He sets the bucket down as he rummages through all his jacket and jean pockets before pulling out a key to open the door to the apartment across your floor. He opened the door with a sigh of relief and began to carry in the lighter bags inside, never letting go of the bucket on his left hand. Barely you can see the barren inside of the apartment, the sign of a house about to be made into a new home. The man comes out, no bucket in hand, but locks eyes with your head peering out your door.

In your curiosity and tiredness you forget that you probably looked psycho, your tired resting face the only thing peering out the door essentially looking at a stranger and suddenly knowing of his new address. The man stiffens and lets out a small “Oh.” as you come to your senses. In a near-frantic state, you fly the door open and stand outside your door, properly looking at the man now.

“Sorry, was I making too much noise?” the man says as he sheepishly looks at you.

“No! no, no not at all, I usually get, um, up at this time anyway,” You lie casually, though he makes no telltale sign that he didn’t believe you. “Well, I see you’re just moving in. Are you from around here?”

His face soothes when you ask the question. “I’m actually from Busan, but I moved here for university. I’ve been to Seoul a couple of times before but this is my first time staying here for longer than a few days.”

You hum in response, now fully straightened up outside your door. You two continued talking for a while, albeit not so comfortable but you had to be friendly nonetheless. You find out each others’ majors, the boy revealed he majored in marine biology while you studied interior design.

You swore you saw him blush when you mentioned you went to the university near the apartment complex. But you paid no mind. It might’ve been the morning daze, but his hair was pretty, tied up in a small ponytail on the back of his head. His face was pretty too, proportionate and screamed friendliness. The way his mouth tilted upwards as he spoke and eyes crinkled as he spoke was attractive, though to be polite you managed to catch all he said with equal enthusiasm.

You asked the boy, “Oh I didn’t quite catch your name? What was it aga—“

“LEEHAN!”

An unknown voice echoes through the hall towards the elevator along with dragging footsteps. Oddly enough, you recognised the voice. There was no way…

You peer down the hall as you see Taesan and Sungho carrying what seems to be buckets in their hands. Your new neighbour, apparently named ‘Leehan’, peered over too and smiled at the two boys.

“Oh! Fancy seeing you here?” Taesan teases as you roll your eyes and Sungho gives a friendly wave behind him, “I see you’ve met Mr New Neighbour?”

The dots seem to connect in Leehan’s head as his eyes widen, “Hey, you know these two? You know y/n too?”

“Of course!” Sungho beams, “We’re all at the design school. Just so happens we live here too.” You and Taesan nod in agreement as Leehan looks at you two, a glimmer of bewilderment in his eyes still. It was kind of endearing.

“Hey, why are you up so early?” Taesan looks at your comfy form.

“I heard noises outside. Had to make sure it wasn’t any trouble. Turns out I didn’t have to worry all that much.” You reply, in the corner of your eye you see Leehan bow his head in embarrassment again. God, you couldn’t stop thinking how adorable it was, and it makes the corners of your mouth tilt upwards.

“Well, you don’t need to worry about any noise at night! After all, all this dude ever cares about are his co—“

Leehan quickly shoves a hand over Sungho’s mouth, “Okay!! That’s enough!! Come inside. Now. Please.” he stutters as he pulls Sungho towards the door, taking the bucket out of his hands. The bucket left a water mark on the concrete. Odd, why would they be carrying wet buckets around—

“Oi, there’s still stuff in the truck downstairs!” Sungho protests from inside Leehan’s apartment.

“It was nice meeting you, y/n!” Leehan quickly gleams, taking the other bucket from Taesan as Taesan smirks at his friend. Leehan sets the buckets inside his apartment and grabs Taesan's arm, about to pull him down the hall to the elevators.

Taesan’s eyes gloss with humour at Leehan’s behaviour as he smiles and waves at you, “See you later y/— WOAH!” and Taesan and Leehan are down the hall again, footsteps echoing.

That was odd. The sound of a clearing throat brings your eyes back to the front of Leehan’s apartment, Sungho leaning against the doorframe.

“Just between you and me, nothing gets in the way of Leehan and his fishes.”

“I’m sorry, his what?” Your face contorts in confusion as Sungho giggles and takes the buckets again, beckoning you to look inside. You didn’t expect to see puffer bags of water with around three decently-sized fishes.

“Are those…?”

“Corydoras apparently,” Sungho explains. “I don’t know what’s so cool about them, but he seems to love them a lot. Brought them all the way from Busan to here. It’s a miracle it got here in one piece.” You swallow a laugh as you back up towards your door and tell Sungho you’ll see him later after class.

“Oh and,” You turn back from your door, “Make him feel welcome, yeah? Don’t want him thinking I’m friends with a prickly heathen.” Sungho teases. You flip him the bird as he throws his head back in a laugh as he greets you goodbye just before the door closes.

Great, a new friend. A good-looking one. You wonder how many more of these people Taesan and Sungho know.

[ohnoitstbskyen]

Hihi Skyen :) I was wondering if you had any thoughts on the movement of bringing back old personal websites and webrings and rejecting the social media capitalistic hellscape

Last year I got into old websites and Neocities stuff, even getting into coding to make my own website there, and you come across as the type of person who could have some interesting thoughts on a subject like this :O

Such as being a content creator and being inebitably shackled to popular social media, for the lack of a better word.

I don't know, sorry if this is silly, I hope you're having a nice day :) Love your content, been following for years!

Oh I have a lot of thoughts about that actually, and not just because some of my videos are sponsored by Squarespace™

Squarespace™, build your online presence today!

In seriousness, though... I am first of all strongly in favor of the personal website (I should really get around to properly rebuilding my own). Platforms fundamentally cannot be trusted, and their amoral business interest is to homogenize their users as much as possible, the better to package them as product for advertisers, which is their business.

Personal sites are personal, they allow you to take back control of your online profile and online life, and of the things you publish. They are absolutely fantastic for any creative worker as a means of building a strong portfolio and brand, albeit at the cost of requiring upkeep and maintenance.

The thing they lack, and it is a critical thing, is discoverability. They lack the means to connect with an audience, to be found among the hundred billion websites on the global web.

It used to be Google took care of that, but its search results are increasingly bought and paid for and the scope and scale of the internet makes it functionally impossible to make it to the front page of any search result unless you have money to drop on serious SEO and, of course, advertising with Google. So now the platforms hold a functional monopoly on that feature. Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Tumblr... at this point even TikTok serves that role.

I could make the videos I want, no significant number of people would ever have seen them if not for YouTube's recommendation algorithm. And because my audience is hooked to their platform, trying to get them to pick up sticks and come with me to a new one is... functionally impossible. Worse is that a vast majority of web traffic in the modern day exists on mobile, and the vast majority of THAT is locked in the ecosystems of apps, which introduce their own host of walled garden conditioning and barriers to drawing users to personal websites.

These issues can be addressed in some ways by old school means:

Mailing lists

RSS feeds

Webrings and other linkswaps

Old-fashioned networking

But it will almost certainly never reach the scope and scale of discoverability platforms can do by sheer dint of their size and resources.

Which is why I wouldn't necessarily recommend personal websites as a Content Creator's™ main form of publishing, for example, but as a supplemental way of building a presence online.

But as a thing to build for yourself, a means to stake your claim to a space on the internet that belongs to you, as a means to be creative, a personal website is a fantastic project.

[stillcominback]

𝚢𝚎𝚝 𝚊𝚗𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚕𝚒𝚏𝚎 𝚞𝚙𝚍𝚊𝚝𝚎! so, i thought my last day was going to be oct. 13th and my manager just spoke with me [ apparently she's been working 'behind the scenes' to approve this new plan she has for me ] -- basically: now, my last work-day will be either thursday or friday of next week. they found my 'replacement' and she's going to start i'm assuming on like the 19th or something ... essentially, my manager didn't think it was fair to ask me to have to like meet her / train her, etc. so she wanted to get rid of the overlap for me [ which i appreciate like sldjfhksd usually i wouldn't mind! but the circumstances just ... make it tough right now emotionally ].

they're still going to pay me through 10/13 even though i'm not going to be working AND they're going to pay me out for the vacation days i won't be using which will be a pretty nice little chunk of $$$ [ on top of the next few little paychecks i collect ]. it's just making everything like ... super real??? BUT! overall, i think it's a positive thing and i really appreciate that i'll actually have time to not have to think about work on top of moving and everything else.

i'll be able to actually maybe rest a little??? for a change???? and i'll have more time / energy to help my mom finish packing AND i can have more time to finish working on my personal stuff for the job search [ almost there! just trying to finish getting a little portfolio site together rip i hate it lol ]. i guess it's bittersweet that it's suddenly like RIGHT NOW, but i think it'll be a good thing for this huge transition and allow me to breathe a bit more and like get my life together at my own pace w/o being stressed and exhausted from work on top of it [ if that makes sense klsajkghsdfsg ]

anywho! that's all! just wanted to loop all my friends here in 💞 i'll still be mostly off tumblr / on discord primarily for now just cause it's easier overall [ cause i'll still be busy even without work lmao ] BUT YEAH! hope you're all doing well and agaaaaaain just know i love and appreciate you all so much!

[pahichannel]

AnimeExpo Recap Day 1-2!

I like the idea of using Tumblr for more blogging style Pahi rants so... that's what I'm gonna do! Welcome to Pahi's adventures at AnimeExpo! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*✲ﾟ*｡ Boy is LineCon not a joke. Get in a line to get in to get in a line to get into the area you want to go to get into a line to see a paticular artist... it's absolutely wild out here LOL. I really didn't stop walking (or standing) for 11 hours the first day and day 2 wasn't much better. But I GOT A LOT OF COOL THINGS FOR MY TROUBLES!!!

Hitsukuya was my Day 1 first stop because she had limited post cards and I love her OC Hi-chan so I really didn't want to miss it! They were numbered and I was customer #10! Hitsu goes to a ton of cons so I already had most of her stuff but the Honkai stuff was quite new! Next picture is Xeph whom I have a lot of prints from last AX but the Honkai ones are new so I picked up that as well! Then there's Minsgraph who had a holo Silverwolf which looked SO GOOD. I wouldn't be surprised if I accidently double-bought the Gura and already have it... aaaaa I have too many prints. I could stand to more properly organize what I have but at a certain point they're all either on my wall or in a portfolio and you start forgetting who drew what and just kill me. Maybe I should start asking for business cards to slide in with each poster I keep safe. Last pictured is Gyool! They had THE ONLY TOKI I COULD FIND IN THE WHOLE VENUE. I love Toki. Someone please draw more Toki. Also always nice to still see someone drawing Sagiri!

Dealers Hall was next and Inti Creates just reprinted a Lola tapestry I've been looking for forever...??? No seriously, I've been camping Yahoo Auctions, Mandarake and Surugaya for probably a year now for this exact tapestry and it either just doesn't exist or costs 8000 yen plus. And there it was for 25$? Excuse me? Was tempting to buy 2. Probably the happiest surprise of the con for me. As much as I didn't care for the first Gunvolt game the designs are so heckin' cute and Pahicore. I'll probably give the Luminous Avenger games a try at some point...

I have no clue what Fatal Twelve is, I literally pointed at it and said "sell me on this" to the people at Sekai Project and they did a good enough job. I may never make the time to play a lot of visual novels I own but I just love to own them physically and have a soft spot for collecting them up. I'm sure it's just boomer brain where even only 10 years ago visual novels were extremely niche in the west and what was available licensed was incredibly sparse. I'm very happy I can finally buy stuff like Beat Angel Escalayer, something that feels a bit surreal to be a new release given my first encounter with the series was on some backwoods anime hentai site probably 15+ years ago.

Probably my happiest accomplishment was getting alternate color variants of Reimu and Marisa fumos from the AmiAmi booth! It was first come, first serve with a small allotment for them each day so I made the decision to make getting them my mission day 2. At first I just wanted Reimu as she's my favorite 2hu but... she needs a friend right? So I caved lol. Thanks @myrral for joining me to double our chances getting through the crowd for them! I actually had a scare where I thought Marisa was stolen or fell out of a bag but luckily I set it down at a artist friends booth and they kept it safe for me. Glad to have them reunited!

While the entirety of day 1 involved going through all the shops, day 2 I spent a little bit of time in panels! ...getting to them was absolutely awful! I wanted to get to the Lazulight panel but it was absolutely packed and there was no way I was making it with how little time I got there before it started. There was literally a line to get up an escalator so you can get in line for a security checkpoint so you can get in the actual line for the panel, which was capped. I stuck around to get to the next event, a Q&A panel with CDawg and Ironmouse... though that had it's own mishaps. I somehow got ushered into another panel room which was some sort of Studio Bones press announcement panel? I almost gave up and stayed there but I wondered my way out and by some fluke I found where I was supposed to enter the same time security said they can let a few more people inside. They didn't allow anyone to line up once they thought it was full so I got to sneak right in, super lucky!

Day 1 and 2 were so hectic that it ended feeling like I really did everything I wanted to do. I went hard on trying to line up for the things I cared most about and min-max'd my browsing time amongst the artists and exhibitors booths. I'm ready for a much more chill day 3 and 4... so chill that this is my first time I've decided to take a breather and sit in my hotel room the whole con! I'll have a follow up blog for the last days and lots of photos of the general sights and not just what I bought lol. But until then it's time for me to weather the crowds once again though, wish me luck! (￣^￣ )ゞ

[plagueislost]

Hii, for the artist ask game: number 4 and 10 is something I'd love to know :3

i wrote A LOT for this ask, sorry! i wanted to do the questions justice, yknow how it is.

4. piece you wish got more love?

Ive found from experience that original art tends to not do very well on social media, which kind of makes me sad. It's not much of a problem for me (because most of the stuff i post is fanart anyways) but i can't help but think that part of the reason i rarely ever draw original pieces or make OCs is because of the lack of feedback i get on social media. I know tumblr is supposed to be the fandom website, and maybe id have a different experience on another site, but it is disappointing when i post something original that I'm very proud of and it barely manages to get more than 20 notes, whereas something i like less easily surpasses 100 just because of the tags i put on it. i think the most recent example of this is this piece, which admittedly did get quite a few notes for an original piece, but definitely would have gotten more had it been fanart of the same caliber. this is also not to blame anyone or make anyone feel bad about not reblogging original art (god knows im guilty of that too, and art piggybacking off the popularity of other works of art are of course gonna get more notes), its just something ive noticed from my time on social media.

10. how do you deal with artblock?

i dont get art block very often, but when i do, its ANNOYING. it mostly manifests in me having a bunch of motivation for a part of my process that i cant get to without doing the stuff i have no desire to do (does that make any sense?). like, ill have a strong urge to render an artwork, but no ongoing WIPs that are at that stage, meaning i would have to sketch and color and shade a whole new piece before i could satiate that urge, or do the steps out of order which could mess up the flow and end look of a project. when i get like this, i find its best to try and translate those desires into different activities and take a step away from art. for example:

if i want to sketch, but nothing comes out right digitally, ill find a scrap piece of paper and a crappy pen and make thumbnails until i cant think of any other iterations of the ideas in my head. if one of them turns out good, ill take a picture and transfer it into my software, but only go over it a day or so later so i can have fresh eyes.

if i want to color, but i have no sketches currently ready for coloring, ill go into my photo editing program, find some random old photos that i never edited, and post-process them until i get something im happy with.

if i want to shade, but have no colored artworks ready for that, ill usually do a study of a photo ive taken, because most of the time me shading is really me wanting to see how light and shadow interact in certain scenarios. i actually did a whole AP portfolio on that because i liked shading and lighting so much!

if i want to render, but ive got no pieces ready for rendering, i find its easiest just to find a tedious activity where i can be a perfectionist but also feel like im the smartest person in the world. this generally turns into me cooking some big meal because its constantly engaging but also not that difficult. i know its probably weird for it to not have anything to do with art but this is just what works best for me, and i get the bonus of a nice meal at the end of it!

if i get the more classic kind of art block where everything sucks and nothing i make is good, i find its best to go back to the media that inspires me to make art, and not worry too much about having made something by the end of it. generally the media that inspires me ends up, well, inspiring me, and i can remind myself that art is a voluntary practice that i do because its fun, not because i want something out of it. if it doesnt manage to inspire me, thats okay, i can just tell myself im taking a break and live life for a bit.

i hope that was helpful, and i really enjoyed answering these questions! if anyone else wants to ask a question, the artist ask game is here.

[whitespacecomic]

Hello all! ovo/ If you're a reader of my comic, or just a supporter of it and my art in general, I ask you to please continue reading. I need your help.

So, White Space. I've been doing this comic for over 9 years now. I know, that's a long time, haha. Back in 2010, I was in my second year of university and had this literal dream for a story. I concepted it and the more I did so, the more I loved it. And loved working on it. At that point I had read webcomics for several years and recently started reading manga. So I decided to start a webcomic! Uploads were sporadic, maybe one a month. Understandable, since I was still studying and putting together a portfolio for a 'real' job. I studied animation and film, by the way! And you would think jobs for something like that would be plentiful! ...not where I live. The industry is small in my country and your best way to get a job is via word-of-mouth. But there is still work! Let me continue... To be very honest with you, my finished projects weren't...A+ material. I passed, got my degree, but I wasn't getting work, no matter how much I applied. I was very lucky and thankful that a friend put a good word in for me at a Forex trading company as a video editor (for a few months). I was a bit down in the dumps, feeling not good enough for the places I wanted to work or things I wished I could do. I turned toward the thing that really made me happy: White Space. After all, there was a sense of accomplishment whenever I posted a page, and achievement whenever I got a comment or fave or like. It really loved it and I wished that THIS could be my job. Fast forward a few months and my contract for the video editing ends. Back to looking for a job...until my husband got a really great offer for work. I'm married by the way! After I finished my studies,(literally two days later) I got married to my high-school sweetheart. He moved into my little flat (where I had been staying while I was studying) and for 2 years that was our home. If you were wondering why I didn't just emigrate somewhere with better work opportunities, he would be the reason. Not that I blame him at all! I treasure him with my entire being and I was sure we could make things work. Anyway... My husband got a really great promotion but it came with a condition: we had to move back to my hometown. Now, I was studying and working in the big city; where work in my field would be easier to get. Our hometown was 600km away from anything CLOSE to resembling animation or film work. I didn't want to go...but an opportunity presented itself: I could try to make the comic my full-time job! My husband would be getting a decent salary to support us both. Why not, right? So we moved, I dedicated myself to the comic and opened a Patreon. For the past few years that's what I have been doing. Comics, illustration and commissions. There have been some wonderful support! Not enough for a decent paycheck but I was so happy to just be doing what I really enjoyed (and felt good at for once). Of course there have been uphill climbs; I was diagnosed with epilepsy and bipolar disorder and had to take a while to fix my mental health. My husband fell into some debt but he kept above water. I tried to work for some horrible people for more income, got rid of the toxicity. We lost homes, moved homes, lost family, lost friends, lost and found pets. But that is life! As far as I was concerned, I was living my dream; trying to make my comic my job. Then... Recently, I found out some very disturbing things about my husband's workplace and bosses. He was being treated like...well...like shit. Being forced to make decisions he didn't want to, getting yelled at for things that weren't his fault, even being attacked on a personal level. On top of it all, he was sinking in dept. Remember that promotion? Yeah, it came with a few more conditions and baggage. Baggage like an entire company's debt. I couldn't believe it. And it hurt more because well...my husband's bosses were my parents. That's right. The reason he didn't tell me these things was because he didn't want to make my family the villains and he believed he could handle it. But finally he just couldn't anymore. We're selling our house now and will be moving to a financially better home end of May(we estimate. Could be later or sooner, we're not sure). But we've decided we've had enough. We want to get out of this place. Away from the people that are trying to push all their mistakes onto us. The people that keep promising things will change but never do. Finally we get to why I need your help... I need an income. As simple as that, haha. >v<'' I never liked asking for money and I still don't. I was hoping the Patreon and the comic's popularity would kick up over the next year and if it didn't, THEN I would ask for help. But I'm desperate now. If you are a reader of the comic, please consider pledging! The tiers are $2, $5 or $10 a month and you get a bunch of rewards for each! Early access pages, behind the scenes previews, WIPs, requests, commissions and more! If the rewards aren't to your liking, there is a chatroom in the White Space Discord Server where we can discuss and compromise ;D (we are very nice people, come and join us!) If you are unable to pledge, please share! Share the comic and Patreon page on social media. Even if you can't afford monetary support, sharing the comics with others will be huge help! (It doesn't have to be this post.) I don't expect to get $300 right away, but if we can get this train rolling, I can see the comic having a future. Even just more readers and views can be helpful. With that, I can apply to webcomic sites like Hiveworks, who like to see numbers ;D If however I don't get some support, monetary or otherwise...I'll have to stop the comic. I'll need to get a new portfolio together and/or look for work(whether it's in my field of study or not), which means less time for this thing I really love to do. I really, really don't want to stop. This is such a passion for me and brings me so much joy. And I have so many exciting plots waiting and characters I know you'll all love! If you've gotten this far, thank you for reading!! I apologize for my life story. I don't mean to guilt anyone into feeling sorry for me. I just feel comfortable if you know what the situation is and why I'm asking for your help. TL;DR Our life and money situation has changed and I need support! Please pledge to the White Space Patreon and/or share the comic and Patreon on social media! Join the Discord Server if you wanna discuss pledges and talk to me ^v^ I'll have to stop this comic and look for other work if there isn't a rise in numbers or pledges. I love this comic and telling this story. Please help QvQ THANK YOU! <3 LINKS!: deviantArt Group |  LINE Webtoon | ComicFury | Tumblr | Facebook | Twitter  | Discord Server |  Patreon |

[nathsketch]

Answer Time!

Hey dears! Sorry it’s taking me so long to reply to your questions but I always want to take some time to answer them properly and hopefully provide some insights that may help you in the future! Here is a very long reply and long overdue to fellow artist Archie, from Indonesia!

“Hi, Mrs. Erica, It's nice to know you. I've seen your artworks on your website and they're all awesome, great post, love your artworks, keep it up. Oh yeah, first of all, let me introduce myself. My name's Archie. I'm 23 years old and I'm from Indonesia. I'm currently graduated from visual communication design major (concentrated in animation) in 2017. Currently, I worked as a freelance in different fields. I do animation, illustration, photography, cinematography, and video editing, but I want to focus my career on animation, concept art and illustration. By the way, if you don't mind, or if you have a time, can I ask you some questions about concept art or illustration?”

1. Do you have any tips/advice to make a professional illustration portfolio for applying to studios/company (especially for a fresh graduate)?

The timing for this question is indeed excellent because I’m currently working on my own portfolio! The main advice would be to set a goal for it: story, visual development, character design, lighting etc. In other words, what do you want to achieve with that project? After you defined the purpose of your portfolio, you need to organize your ideas, try to refine them as much as you can so you end up with a clear plan of what is going to be created during the coming weeks/months. For example, my focus and my main interest is visual development and character design, so when I chose my portfolio themes (A Series of Unfortunate Events and The Lord of the Rings) I had to spend a lot of time trying to narrow down the countless ideas that these impossibly rich books brought to my mind to a reasonable number of artworks that hopefully will help me get a job in these areas in the future. Lists are very helpful at this moment. Also, those wonderful “The Art of” compilations are such invaluable resources. You can learn so much from them and their insanely talented artists! Finally, I would say that patience is also a huge factor because after months of working on a project this complex and that demands so much from you, you can easily get sidetracked and lose interest or feel unmotivated, but you have to remember that this is something you’re doing because you love it and because it is absolutely possible to achieve your goal if it’s what you really really want (totally not a Spice Girls reference ha!).

2. Is it too idealistic or “picky” if I want to work as a freelance (for a long-term) than work at the office/studio? Because I feel like sometimes it’s hard to get a job for the fresh graduate. Almost every company/studios were looking for people who had a work experience while being a freelance has to interest clients from our portfolio or social media feeds to make a money. I would feel so insecure if I tend to be jobless while everyone's growing up on their career and work. Currently, I just do some daily stuff and focus on learning and practice every day and also studying from online art course while there’s no job from others.

I don’t think it’s picky nor too idealistic. I think it’s extremely important that you know exactly what you want and that you focus on achieving it not because it’s said to be the easiest path and because the alternative (being employed by a company/studio) can seem harder in comparison. Freelancing is great but it can be just as hard, and as a freelance artist myself, I can say that there will always be a lot of challenges to overcome, despite the apparent freedom to choose the jobs you want, to make your own schedule and to have your own work rhythm. I completely understand your insecurity and I do too worry about the whole work experience requirement but fortunately for us artists, the quality of our art is a determinant factor to help us get our dream jobs. I live in Brazil and the clients I’ve had so far weren’t concerned at all that I have little work experience in this area or that I’m mostly self-taught. The mere fact that you’ve found me all the way from beautiful Indonesia and were interested enough in my work to ask me these questions is an example of how our art can touch people’s lives even though we haven’t necessarily worked on a studio or have had that many professional experiences. You keep doing what you feel is better for you at the moment, keep practicing, keep learning, and above all else, keep believing in your potential to grow. It may seem difficult not to compare yourself to those incredibly famous and talented artists, especially in our social media age, where we can be easily overwhelmed and intimidated by their number of followers, likes, reblogs, retweets etc., but I read somewhere - and I completely agree with this phrase - that we cannot compare our start with someone else’s middle. It’s not a competition, it’s a journey.

3. When studying anatomy, is it very necessary to strictly learn and practice to draw the details of each part of the anatomy itself and also draw human/animal anatomy from every angle?

I wouldn’t say it’s strictly necessary but of course that a big part of being a good artist is learning how to draw a bit of everything. You don’t need to be an Andrew Loomis of anatomy but try to fit in some life drawing lessons every once in a while. No matter what your style is (realistic, cartoonish, abstract, surrealistic etc.), you will always be grateful for taking the time to learn a bit of anatomy. Drawing animal anatomy is also pretty important and I particularly love it! I never post any life drawings here but I should follow my own advice and start working more on them! I never formally studied Art before my sudden career change (more of that later). Only recently did I finish my studies in Traditional and Digital 2D Animation, just so I could have a proper degree that wasn’t related to Law, but I like to think that most of the challenges I had to face were overcome by me being self-taught. Definitely not an easy thing to do and of course I would have preferred it if I had gone to art school from the start, but I’m very grateful to know that we can pretty much do everything if we just set our minds to it.

4. When was the first time (I mean, how old are you) you started drawing and began the career as an artist? and how long do you draw a day?

Sneaky question haha! I’m a 90’s girl! I have been drawing since I was very little (three or four years old I think, or so my mum says) but in the meantime I went to Law school, I got my degree and my law license believe it or not, and I’ve only decided that I really wanted to be a professional artist about three years ago. So for me, it was a rollercoaster indeed. I didn’t have that much time to get from it being just a hobby to it becoming my livelihood. If I’m being honest, it still amazes me to think that I get paid to do what I love and that feeling is something that I always try to keep in mind when I get anxious about the future or uncertain about having left my legal career behind. So, it’s all pretty new to me too! I try to draw every day because practice and determination are the secrets, not gift or talent.

5. If you have a time, can you please take a look at my artworks and give some feedback/critics/advice (and what I need to work on). I know it’s still lack of artworks, I’ll add more of my artworks soon. I would really appreciate it. Thank you very much.

I will send you this little feedback via email!

As always, you’re very welcome to send me questions, here on Tumblr or via my site and I’ll do my best to answer the most helpful way possible!

Happy Monday!

[1tarot1with1k1o]

Hello! i am sorry for disturbing, but if it is not a secret can you tell me please how to write such a cool and pro post that you made? a mean first one. I can't find any site on google about that=(

Hii! You’re not disturbing me AT ALL love

That’s such a nice compliment 😭 and there’s no gatekeeping around here! hahah

I don’t think there’s anything pro about it tbh, I simply put together all the things I learnt from experience. See it more as a post you want to create to state your boundaries, and to serve as a portfolio.

You can put whatever you feel like you want to say about yourself, and about what you do. I think that it mostly just comes from experience honestly. This is the 4th one I made, and after years spent here on tumblr, as well as the tarot community, I knew exactly what were the things that I was comfortable and uncomfortable with, and what I wanted to share about myself/my work.

Maybe try looking at different tarot blogs, and see if there’s any layout you really like. There’s nothing wrong with getting inspiration from other blogs! If you want to copy someone’s post, just remember to ask them if they’re okay with it, and if they would like to be credited for it. That way, you can use theirs even just for a little while, and get a general idea of how you want to present yourself to others.

For the aesthetics, I just tried to create a pleasing-to-the-eye layout, that was also easily readable. I digitally drew the images, and inserted them between sections, to make it all seem a bit more organized. Try and try again until you feel satisfied with the post you create. You can always add and take away stuff, so don’t stress too much over it! You will eventually end up finding a layout you really like, and stick to it for a while. Just have fun with it! ☺️

thank you for liking it 💞

[babblingfishes]

Another FroodPad Update

(I’m sending an email instead of tagging people about this one because the majority of you guys have changed urls.)

For anyone who used the original FroodPad (PiratenPad) teamsite for fic writing, the host is taking down the site next month.

As before with the Mozilla alternative, I have backups of most of the text.

Here’s what I do not have:

Backups of locked pads

Chat logs

Authors / authorship colors

Time slider histories

If you want any of those, you’ll need to grab them yourself asap! If you’ve forgotten a password, the quickest way to grab my attention is to let me know via the tumblr messager (or my Discord, if you have it) and I can help you.

As for the actual text of the pads, I have these saved! I can send them to you whenever you like. Under the cut is a VERY lengthy list of the pad titles I have backups of. I can also do a text search if you need.

!!HEY GUYS -- WRITER PROFILES *Goat scream* 2SPOOKY 2c Stories 365 days of Rabbit No! A Very Frood Pad Christmas An attempt to organize chaos And the Band Plays On Annie got her gun Ask Walter Kids BADLY SINNING BRAINTHUNDERING Best Ship Around Broken little pieces CC 4 editing Care Cat!Steve. Don't ask. Cat's sehr whichtig grad portfolio stuff Catori's Little Pad ^^ Cheeroko: ES Drabbles And Possible Story Cheeroko: Elder Scrolls Brainstorming Cheeroko: Fanficing Fanfics since ... Today? Cheeroko: Has Started Yet Another AU Cheeroko: Rabbit Appreciation Pad (Aka, SPG Pad) Cheeroko: Walter Manor Cheeroko: What Should I call this? [{Original Fic}] Cheeroko: You Know What? I'm Just Going To Use This Pad For My Gender Stuff Christmas List Come keep French Company! Please? Configuration (new-new CC and biocore planning) Counter Nonsense Crazy Community Fanfiction Crazy Community Fanfiction II Crazy SPG Collab Thing 2.0 DANGER 5 SOLVE THE GREATEST CRIME OF ALL Derelict (spoilers yo) Derelict 23 and other stuff Derelict Chapter 20 Derelict Chapter 24 Derelict Chapter 25 Derelict Chapter 25 for real this time Derelict Dragon Dreads Derelict Take 73 Derpy-Nuns Don't come here unless Fish is whining at you Don't look Dr. Babblefish's Quest to Only Become Moderately More Insane Dragon Lurve Elephants and Nachos Everyone Writing Everything FRANKENPAPPY Fantastic Mister Vox Fish Does Terrible Things Fish Fanfictions Salgexicon Now Fish and Serif attempt a role play thing. Fish and its monospaced text Fish has an F in evil Fish is Sailing a Ship Fish is a terrible person. Fish is just rambling Fish writes things about other fandoms Fish's Awkward Nonfandom Headcanons Fish's Lupin Drabbles Fish's Magical Tragical Guide to Not Writing Mary Sues Fish's OC Boat Fish's Originalish Pad Fish's Plots and Characters French Rambles French Writes Stony French is a Poet Froodpad Rules and Instructions Further proof we're all insane Futureverse G-Mans and Watering Cans GW2 Cav stuff Ghost! Ghostfacers! Hangout pad Happy Little Family Happy Little Family Notes Here ye go, Redacted Heyo, Achgfd Homestead-Ch.1 How to be nice in RP I blame everyone but me I figure at this rate I should just make a Weird SPG Dreams pad I have no idea what im working on I never tire, I serve I- I- I- LOVE ROBBIE DARREN IT IS A SMUT POWERED BLANKET MY GOOT SAR Ice Cream and Knit Bow Ties Imma figure this thing out by posting prompt responses Improb In Which Pappy Dies In Which Reed Becomes a Robot In Which Steve Drops Bass In Which There is an Abandoned Lab In which robots become metaphors for Autism Spectrum stuff Laying Down The Law Here MATURE REPLY MBG Tumblr Planning   MERRY HOLIDAYMAS YOU WEIRDOS! MWFGOH Notes MY FRIEND MATT WHERE YOU AT May B. we Feta get outta here May B. we Feta get outta here pt2 Muppet Baby Giraffe Fics Myth fanfiction maybe??? NOBODY PANIC (MICHAEL GOT THE D) Neoma's Writes Not Actually a Funeral Not!Derelict Nuns could use help writing a comedy piece for English Nuns does a research paper on GAY GODS Nuns fools around with a hero's journey Nuns hunts for the Holy Grail (and a good essay grade) OC ADVENTURE!! OFF Musingses OOPS Oedipus Script Old Money On the wings of steam One of the Fanmily Original stuff is harder than we anticipated PSILENCE WILL FALL Pappy Pad 2 Pappy Rabbit Old (Still needed though!) Pen & Kari's Pad of Fairytale Badassery Philosophy Notes Pokemanz SPG Post-Derelict Headcanons Princey and Leeland's Walter People Pad Princey definitely isn't using this pad for homework anymore Princey is the best right Leilani right Princey tries Original Stuff Princey wanted to write OC stuff too Princey's self-indulgent stuff Princeyfic (An Accident of the Smallest Kind final chapter) Princeyfic: An Accident of the Smallest Kind Princeyfic: Basically nothing but a mermaid OC Princeyfic: Canoe Catastrophe Pronz Psi does homework and other stuff Psi does homework occasionally Psi gets his shit together Psi is in pain. Also class. Psi jacks Cat's characters Psi plans the Derelict!Verse RP blog early because he's bored Psi reads Marsupial Psi takes out dysphoria on The Spine Psi tries for "canon" SPG Psi writes Cabin Pressure stuff Psi writes a thing about an author Psi's Headcanon Psi's Kazooland OCs??? Psi's class notes Psi's class notes and HatchWorth stuff Psilent's Hatchworth Feels Psilent's Pscribblings Psilent's Pstuff Psunny's Muppet Babby Stuff Public pad 2: 2 public 2 pad Pun and Psi Make a Porno Punny: Ask Index Punny: Broken little pieces Punny: Crack Fic ideas Punny: Ficlets Punny: HLF Th teen years Punny: Happy Little Family Punny: Justice Giraffes Punny: Major fics Punny: Rainbow! The Spine Punny: Trying to figure out how the hell Super spg works RABBIT NO RABBIT NO 2: electric boogaloo Rabbit writes fanfic Relish's Ramblings Reverse Pre Mid Life Crisis 3000 Rex and Captain. Rover! SICK ROBOTS. (Princey and Leeland) SIMNANIGANS SO I may have discovered aquabats and it may have given me some muse SPG/Avengers cross over collab-fic SS kills a lot of young women SS: Aftertheendverse SS: Aggressively writes happy fanfiction SS: Amnesia Home Pad SS: Amnesia Revisions SS: Amnesia!Spine Headcanoning SS: Ancient Mariner SS: Angsty Poetry xP SS: Annie/V SS: Dragon!Steve SS: Genderbends because of reasons SS: Just our positronic electronic harmonic SS: Michael wants the D(erelict!Steve's dick) SS: Michael wants the D(erelict!Steve) #2 SS: More Spine/OC junk SS: Okay actually writing Amnesia now SS: Poems by Peter VI SS: Possible Natalia 'Verse SS: Private Party SS: Ratchet and pumpkin SS: Spine/OC SS: Spine/OC #2 SS: Spine/OC #3 SS: The Only Constant SS: The Way Home SS: hoamwork Satyr Adventure script Secret Santa (Sign-ups closed, Santas have been assigned!) Serif needs to kill something apparently Serif's Dump Pad Serif's Dump Pad 2 Seth only starts things and never finishes them Sewing Stitches SisterofaFish's Pad So much craft poisoning Something Wicked This Way Comes Space-Opera Spoons' Stuff Goes Here Stalking Information Steve has Joined Your Party! THIS IS WHERE THE PARTIES AT TIME TO SCARE THE BABIES Tango's Reason Why The Case of the Quest of the Missing Coffee The Mythos Mythos The Rake This is a public pad because Fish is bored This is utter crap Thunder Charge Title! Too Many Thoughts Untitled 180 Untitled 217 Untitled 314 Untitled 322 Untitled 323 Untitled 324 Verse Fable...or something like that WE GON WRITE FLUFF WE LAV U HRUP WRITER PROFILES We write Mirrormask fics now. Mirrormask is cool. Well look what the cat dragged back in World Building You know what, ignore Nuns a surprise in every pad and no one was ever happy the end awkward monsters/spg campfire song song cat used to write hannafic class notes copper conduction 3: REVELATIONS copper conduction p. 4 death lullaby ye everybody look down fear and loathing in san diego half-baked hatchworth stuff hesitantly works on new chapter how rabbit got his groove back 2 i leik ur silileh lteile hat incdrop - frisk incwrites it's sort of like hellraiser except not lemarchand's fic oh heck there's a plot one time ruffy wrote angst original sexy awesomeness possibly part of Two Birds One Stone possibly not psi is the batman psi's original story (caution may contain robots) ((totally contains robots)) psi's presentation that's due in six hours ruffy's writing a thing schoolwork and such (go away) shit so many fics so little time so much writers block sometimes i doubt your commitment to sparkle motion the end. the fucking crying game the future doesn't love you the wit and wisdom of spg woo lets write pirates woo

[colorousme]

A little word from me here before the tiddy prohibition starts tomorrow:

I’ve had a swell time here for almost 6 years now. I was 17, just started playing Assassin’s Creed and I found out tumblr had way less restrictions when it came to adult art than DeviantArt so I came here. I’ve made art, made friends and made a ton of personal posts which I probably should not have posted but did anyway because I felt the freedom to do so. 

It may sound like I am leaving, but I am not. I am, however, saying goodbye to the time of adult content on this website and how much I’ve enjoyed it. When I was horny for some Free! fanart or smutty Assassin’s Creed fanfics I could always count on you folks to provide it no matter how specific. 

Also half the artists I ever followed have left this site by now which saddens me, but is also a sign for me to say goodbye to them and the time in my life where I was most fortunate to see their art almost on a daily basis.

I am very greatful for all the gorgeous, sexy art and the hot stories. But sometimes we have to say goodbye to the things we love I guess. It was nice for as long as it lasted.

But now that the adult content is gonna be gone, y’all better shitpost real good and find some quality memes, ‘cause that’s literally the only reason I’m staying on this godforsaken website. 

If anyyone’s interested in finding me on other social media, I am fairly active on Instagram: 

My main/portfolio: hillianneleupen  My sketches/experiments: hilliansolo

Tldr: I am staying on this hellsite because of the memes and shitposts, but I am saying goodbye to the time of adult content and the time I came across some amazing artists who I’ve followed for years but are leaving due to the ban on adult content. It has been a wonderful time art-wise these 6 years and I am very greatful for it. 

[musts]

Tumblr URL

Hello, loves! 

It has been a while since I posted on this blog or even check on my Tumblr dashboard. 

How is everyone doing? I doubt there are still people who keep an eye out on my little blog. But if you see this post: HI! You’re awesome! Let’s chat, maybe? 

Hahaha gosh, I miss those days when we would interact and you guys would send nice messages and stuff.  

Unfortunately, as much as I would like to say “I have returned,” this isn’t the case as you may have noticed on this post’s title. 

I am writing this because, in the past years that I���ve been on “Tumblr hiatus,” I’ve been contacted several times with the purpose of trying to ask if I would be interested in letting go of my Tumblr URLs for a certain amount. (I maintain two URLs that some people think are of certain value -- musts and a two-letter url.) 

To get it out of the way, I am not selling my URLs. This is against Tumblr’s Community Guidelines. I also intend to return to this site and actively post again in the future so I would like to keep things the way they were. I have recently made updates on the other blog as well and have made use of it as my personal portfolio.

That said, please do not contact me about this. You can offer me your life and your first born or even a lifetime supply of pizza, and that will not change my decision. Puppies though, I might consider. 

Thank you and have a wonderful day! :D

TL;DR

If you are planning to contact me to try and buy my Tumblr URL, please don’t. Not for sale. No intention of selling it no matter how much your offer is.Thank you, nonetheless. :)

[smokingtomas]

3, 6, 10, 12, 14, 18, 19, 23, 24, 26, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 41, 47 :)

Thank you for the ask!! You’re the MVP and I adore you

3. In your opinion, what’s your best fic?You know, it’s really hard to pick between Late Night Lullabies and Akai Ito because they’re precious in their own way. LNL is a very special fic for me since it’s my first Sorina fic and well, you can say that… some people know about it, and the fic is very cute and fluffy. With Akai Ito, it was the a very labor-intensive fic. There was a lot of drafting (which I never do when it comes to writing), a lot of different docs filled with just backstories, poems that inspire it– it was a hard work, and I’m proud of myself that it all paid off. Yet after those two fics (and those I’ve recently published), I still have so many things to learn and calling one of them my “best fic”.

6. Is there any fic that makes you super embarrassed to reread and remember you wrote that?Probably Keeping You. It’s the one that I wrote during Mortal Kombat X and a sequel to Mad Souls (which I discontinued) and yet Keeping You is completed and published… Like it’s so weird tbh.

10. Have you ever written for a fandom without reading other fanfic for it?Nope! To write a fic for a fandom, you have to be obsessed with another fic first imo.

12. Have you ever written a fic and decided never to publish it? Why?Yes, because apparently every time I do a collab with my beta @itsardnaid, it’s gonna be a lot of OCs and inside jokes that people wouldn’t get.

14. What’s the biggest change in your taste between when you started in fandom and today?Should be very obvious from my two most popular fics (God I hate saying that). LNL is generally me with my hopeless romantic fantasies which I still love, but with Akai Ito and it’s realistic feels plus a mix of angst, I’d say I appreciate angsty fics more now since it’s not easy to get all emotions into one fic. Also, I used to love writing smut before, but it’s not my cup of tea to write anymore (but reading it tho…)

18. What’s your most underrated fic?Twisted Trees. I mean I ship Sorina with all my heart and soul and I want them to be canon af, but you gotta admit that Eishi looks good witth Erina. And the text format I wrote it in, it’s so easy to read and totally not overwhelming for those who doesn’t have a lot of time to read.

19. If you had to pick one fic/scene/chapter of your work to describe your entire portfolio to a stranger, which would you pick?I’d say read Chapter one of Symphonies of Dawn. It’s got Megumi (the most relatable character for me), a beautiful European boy, and baked goods! xD

23. What’s the nicest review you’ve ever gotten?Ahhhhh there are so manyyyy that I feel like I don’t deserve >.

24. What’s the meanest review you’ve ever gotten? Do you think the reviewer intended it?I got one from my older MK fic. The reviewer said he/she would burn my fic down and throw the ashes outside of the earth if he/she could. Does it get meaner than that? xD Plus, the reviewer also did it with a guest mode so I can’t interact back.

26. What aspect of your writing do you most enjoy to see praised?My characterization of Soma :’) because man he was HAAAARD to write, especially having him in love with Erina knowing how dense he is, so to have it praised is kind of an accomplishment lmao.

31. Who’s the one character you’ve just never managed to get perfectly right?I think Hisako. A few weeks ago I reread the short Akisako fic I created for @wishingforatypewriter, and then I feel like her character is too… happy? And seems different from what I wrote in Akai Ito, but idk maybe it’s just her being around Akira, but I’ll definitely work on that.

32. Who’s the one character who shines without you even trying?Megumi? Because you know, I’m basically writing about a shy girl who is all over the place at times and doesn’t believe in herself too much when she’s not supposed to. So it sort of feels natural.

33. Is there any particular character whose scenes always wind up being longer/more frequent than you expected? Does the quality hold up?I don’t think so. On the contrary, the scenes are often shorter than I think it’ll be.

34. Was there any fic that you wrote that really surprised you in the fandom reaction? Was it just by the numbers or did they take it an entirely different way?Both LNL (for the numbers) and Akai Ito (for a fandom to actually read a 20k words one-shot and actually liking it and be their most favorite and have it in a few fic recs)!

35. Have you ever written a ship into a fic without meaning to?Tbh Akisako in Akai Ito was kind of random/afterthought. I was like, “Meh, slight Akisako will be cute in this.”

41. If you cross-post your fics on multiple sites, do you have a favorite? Are there certain fics you would only post on certain site?ffnet is definitely the site I post all my published fics to since it has more traffic than ao3/wattpad. Some shorter drabbles I only post to Tumblr, but I recently have been including those in my Sorina drabble series.

47. If someone you know in real life who isn’t involved in fandoms asked to read your work, would you let them? If yes, what would you recommend they read first?Sure! I mean I put a link to Akai Ito on my Instagram bio for something xD I don’t expect them to read the whole thing, but it’s a glimpse for what I can actually do.

Whoa that was a lot of fun! Thank you for asking and I wouldn’t reject a few more :D

fanfic author ask

[mona-moth-blog]

2. Budget

When I said I wanted to create a clothing line from scratch. First thing in everyone’s mind (including mine) is probably “Nice, and what’s the budget?”

There is no budget. When I say I’m starting from scratch I really mean from scratch.

I may have some nice fabrics left from my fashion school life and of course I can continue to work in the factory to earn some coins. I have lots of artsy friends that might help me out where I cannot. But right now I have not checked my fabrics, not set a budget and not contacted any of my friends yet. It’s all part of the journey after all.

With that out of the way, I did some research online. (I also read books but all of those I found in the library seem to assume you have thousands of dollars to spare for your project) A professional brand is obviously way out of reach, but I don’t want to handle it as an amateur either. (I found a pretty good article here, which explains the differences between amateur, indie and professional. I would put myself in indie) So the plan is to save money where it won’t damage the quality of the brand too much.

My ideas are:

Use of free online platforms Maybe setting up a site or a blog isn’t that expensive. But I have found that many little things that ‘aren’t that expensive’ together is still a very big bite in your budget. I have decided on tumblr as my first startup website due to the possibility of text-pictures and the already large chump of artistic people present. (But I’ll be making another blog on online media)

Free promotion Paid promotion will reach faster and is definitely better, but for now the only option I have is to try and build up a small fanbase with free promotion. When time comes I can put in some extra money in this department.

Use of art Think prints on clothing, logo, promotional materials. I consider myself a decent artist (not the greatest but also not the worst). I have knowledge in Concept Art, Graphic Design and Fashion Illustration. So for now, the cheapest option is to do all this myself. Another reason it might be the best idea is that Mona Moth is still developing, drawing it yourself might give me a better idea where I want to go with it.

Quality of clothing Is something I’m going to compensate as little as possible on. The quality of the clothing is very important. This is the only category I won’t be a cheapstake on. Since this is the actual product being sold.

Branding Bags, tags, boxing... all that extra (but important) stuff that dresses up your brand. I will be looking at each subject seperately and try to find cheaper substitutes without sacrificing too much quality (For example making the tags myself)

Photography In the future I want pictures of my clothing of course. For promotional reasons and to show the clothes in action on a model. I have knowledge about photography and I have done shoots before. What I am not, however, is a model. Luckily I have friends who’d love to build up their portfolio as beginning models. So maybe we could strike a deal together there.

[checanty]

Hi! I studied illustration and graduated this year, now I'm trying to get my foot into the professional illustration and character design world. My work goes more into the spooky and pulp art direction, I'm also quite introverted and have social anxiety and you seem like an introvert too. I just wanted to ask how you deal with interacting (mails, phone calls) with clients and I'll glady take any tip how to find clients in general and to network. I just feel like I don't really know how to start.

Hi there! Yes, I’m an introvert as well. And socially anxious. All that stuff you’re mentioning right there sends a shiver down my spine. So let me tell you about how I deal with it ...

But let me tell you, we are not uncommon in the art community! Back in school I was warned being an artist would be twice as hard because I’m horrible at selling myself (ok my work, but the lines blur nowadays.) and it made me feel terrified of the future. There was safety in knowing I could always work on my craft and get better at it, but I’d never been able to figure out to be that outgoing person I thought I needed to be. (My whole time at school was pretty much people telling me ‘you’re good, but you’re quiet, so you’ll never be good enough. Over. and over. and I never managed to change and it fucked me up good.)But, as I said, lots of illustration folks are introverts and a lot deal with anxiety issues. It’s good if you can find a forum of working pros (facebook groups, etc) that talk openly about problems they face, so you can realize once and for all you’re not the odd one out and a bunch of the people you admire and thought had it all figured out have been hiding and crying in hotel rooms, too, if that one convention that was supposed to be life changing turned out to be too much to handle.Also, praise the internet! There are basically no phone calls to make! Writing e-mails … well, that one gets easier! You end up having to write about similar things a lot of the time and learn some go to phrases (if you are very clever you can write and save some template mails, e.g. for what your quotes are, things people ask you a lot in interviews, etc. to save some time!) and start caring less about every mail to be perfect. It also gets easier to weed out the mails that are worth an afternoon of composing and which are not.When e-mails are especially scary and I have a lot of emotions and feel I need to answer without much delay, I boil my reply down to the essentials. What is the person actually asking? People often write a lot, but really they only ask: Are you interested in this? Are you available?So I just answer something like: Hey XYZ, thank you so much for reaching out! I’d love to be part of the project. Could you please fill me in on the details?I sometimes feel bad basically ignoring 80 % of an e-mail, but often it’s simply not relevant at the time. Just make sure you *do* filter out the important information/questions. (Asking for details when the e-mail is filled with everything you need to know doesn’t make sense. But quite often people try to gauge interest to see if they need to continue looking before they take the time to delve deeper into it.)If people ask you for a quote, feel free to simply ask them for their budget in return. My e-mailing solution is usually keeping it polite and to the point. The simpler the better.I used to not write simple ‘thank you!’ or ‘got it!’ e-mails and write only when I had something I felt was worthy contributing because I didn’t want to disturb the busy people I was working with, but I noticed people did it to me and it’s just nice for them to know the e-mail got through and all. And it really doesn’t disturb most people. So I do it now.Generally, for a lot of e-mailing questions and art business questions in general I can only recommend checking out @dearartdirector where you have a bunch of art directors answering your questions. Make sure to see what they have answered already before asking away! They’ve already covered A LOT. It’s a super valuable resource and I have some of their answers, especially for e-mail communication, saved in my favourites here on Tumblr for reference.Oh and let yourself some slack. There’s a learning curve. Sometimes having WRITTEN that scary e-mail is the most important part. Just get the ball rolling. There’ll be so many mails more … and if you need to do a silly dance after sending a scary email, do it. Nobody’s judging. Unless you have a cat.So, phone calls. They usually don’t happen. If people want to call and it’s for a book cover or something similar tell them no and that you’d rather have all the information in writing. Which is better anyways. For your records and because it’s much harder to misunderstand or forget something typed. Now, I’ve had phone calls happening this year for my tv work. Sometimes it’s quicker to receive feedback and explanations ‘in person’ and people call. They’ll ask up front though and you can set a date/time. Nowadays you can usually opt for Skype, too, which was possible with one team I worked with, which I was very grateful for. Skype is for some reason easier for me than phone calls, probably because I feel more in control having the screen in front of me and being able to see other people’s expressions, gestures.Before the first call I was still incredibly nervous. Chattering teeth nervous. I couldn’t concentrate the whole effing day. But the job paid well enough that I could risk deciding to tackle nothing besides the call that day. (I made other plany for the day, but nothing important and I was fully aware I’d most likely end up not doing it. It was more a gentle … when you feel up to it, draw. But if you need to watch 4 hours of Netflix and then spend an hour writing down your worst fears to get through this that is absolutely FINE.) I know myself by now. Stuff like this will keep me from being functional for the whole day, so I won’t force myself to be it despite it all. Keeping it easy, prepare what I can, most of all deep breathing.The calls got less anxiety inducing with every time and I even started to look forward to them because the team was lovely to work with and I loved the job. (And it felt so professional! Like. Yes, fill me in on the news. I got this covered. Expect sketches in a hour. Expect final on your desk tomorrow.) So know what you can expect of yourself, don’t bring yourself down. You’re good at other stuff. I’m great at working by myself for a long time and it makes me grow fast as an artist. I’m not good at phone calls. One of these things is MUCH more important to find work.Nevertheless, I had to do an actual phone calls with another team. It was horrible. The people were perfectly sweet, but that phone was basically gliding through my sweaty fingers. Make sure to get all the important info in writing even if they’ve explained things to you on the phone. Even if you took notes. even if you’re afraid they’ll think you didn’t listen to them. Or are stupid. Better safe than sorry. I once didn’t catch that other people having a meeting was meant as a deadline for me which ended in one very relaxed evening and one panicked all-nighter to make it in time. So rather than do that write a ‘thanks for the talk, can you confirm this info I noted down, thank you’ e-mail. Especially when you’re like me and a part of your brain just shuts down when on the phone. (On the phone I can forget my name and birthday.)Finding clients … well most clients have found me. I’ve e-mailed some art directors I’d like to work with (find that address, Write ‘Hello, I’m an illustrator, would love to work with you some time, here’s a link to my portfolio. Maybe add 2-3 (low res) jpgs.) and sent out postcards, but I’m not good at doing that regularly and most jobs come from people finding my work on the internet. So submit your work to blogs and magazines (e.g. illustration age), be active on social media. Put your e-mail address somewhere where people can find it easily. I’ve actually had some good job inquiries from people who’ve found my work on Behance. I update that portfolio maybe twice a year, so it doesn’t take as much effort as Facebook or similar sites.Oh this got quite lengthy. There’s a cup of tea getting cold somewhere …Seriously, check out that Dear Art Director blog. It is invaluable info, no matter which part of the industry you want to work in.

[spoonie-living]

Photo: Oscar Alexander

[Image: A thin, olive-skinned person sitting sidesaddle in a manual wheelchair and looking down with a smile. The text reads, “Interview with spoonie model Pansy St. Battie / ❤️️, Spoonie Living” in black and green gothic font. The model has one arm rested against their knee and the other bracing themself against the side of the chair. Their hair is a huge pompadour of two shades of green with yellow roots. They have thick brows and matching purple eyeshadow and lipstick. They are wearing all black, with a bleach-stained leather jacket, layered necklaces, a crop top, a high-waisted skater skirt, and huge lace-up platform shoes with cherry blossoms suspended in the clear plastic of the platforms. Their wheelchair is decorated with matching flowers.]

Interview with spoonie model Pansy St. Battie

Folks, we’re delighted to bring you an interview with Pansy St. Battie (@qcrip), a spoonie model who’s been making waves with their glamorous wheelchair shoots.

You may recognize this particular one we posted recently, L E G E N D A R Y.

Pansy is a desi, queer, trans, chronically ill, and mentally ill disabled model with quite a portfolio. If you want to know more about their story, especially if you’re interested in modeling yourself, just click the Read More!

[CN: brief mentions of drug use, homophobia, ableism]

Q: To get started, I'm sure all our readers would love to know: what's your spoonie cred?

A: Well, I'm officially undiagnosed for most of my systems. Unofficially, my doctors suspect I have EDS. Besides that I got chronic fatigue, joint inflammation, hypermobility, scoliosis, seizures, you know, all that fun stuff. I'm a well rounded medical mystery.

Q: How has disability impacted your life, identity, relationships, and work?

A: Disability has impacted me in two major ways that directly correlate, negative and positive. The first is obviously direct ableism. Having to deal with ableism led to a lot of lost friendships, lost aspirations, and lost opportunities, and of course the inevitable confidence issues none of us love to talk about but most of us have.

On the flip side, it gave me a lot of time to myself, and put me in a lot of situations that called for me to introspect on who I am, what I value in society, and what's truly important to myself. I credit my interest in modeling and fashion quite a bit to my disability. Fashion and makeup became something I could do without leaving the house, and modeling became a way to reclaim my otherwise medicalized body.

On the work side of it, it attracts a lot of fetishy weirdos who want me to pose for their self congratulatory shoot of the day (unsurprisingly, they get blocked), but it also attracts a lot of brands and artists who genuinely see the value in me as a model. Those are often brands run by people who are bold, take no shit people (dare I name drop Laura Byrnes, of Pinup Girl Clothing), and people who stand for causes and make art that I believe in.

Q: What does an average day look like for you?

A: It changes so much, but I sleep super late. Like the only way you can convince me to wake up at a semi-reasonable hour is if I have a shoot. Usually besides that I wake up sorta late, and then either go to the doctor or take my dog out depending on how lucky I am that day. Then I get home and I give myself some time to chill out.

Quite honestly, the best self care for me is dressing up and taking photos, but I'm also into Pinterest and watching cartoons on more average days. Then usually studying and then staying up super late doing stuff like answering these questions and sending emails. Which is why I sleep in late probably, to be honest.

Q: You have a lot of marginalized identities. Do you have any thoughts on the ways they intersect with disability and the interplay between them all?

A: Well obviously, they all intersect in the medical landscape. I can't get painkillers and they all think I do heroin! Like, if I did do heroin that'd be a horrible excuse to mistreat me but my drug tests have come out clean since the beginning of time. They also always think I'm pregnant which my current relationship doesn't exactly lend itself to. Oh, and some doctor told me I have seizures because I'm too gay, which is ridiculous, but a hilarious story I have now.

Then there's the social aspect which is just, complicated. I think I'm lucky in the sense that working freelance and being financially secure allows me to chose who I spend time with and avoid people and places that are scummy to me. It obviously affects a lot of things though, especially when it comes to discrimination. I'm like, wait, why are you discriminating against me, there's too many options! Also when people say they're praying for me like wait, why, it could be so many things!

Q: How did you get into modeling initially? How has your relationship with it changed over time?

A: I initially started modeling by accident when I had the pleasure of doing a lovely shoot with Shameless Photography for my birthday. It really boosted my confidence, and from there I got to shooting with friends and started posting photos and let it grow.

I think the biggest change is my skill level and confidence. I obviously didn't know what I was doing super well at first and I think that makes it way more nerve wracking. I think once I started studying and practicing I became way more confident. I became able to take risks, and to know who I am as a model.

All through, though, it's been a very empowering and healing process for me. I know for a lot of people the way the industry is, it's not. I [make] strong choices to frame myself and work with people that frame me in the way I want to be seen, but it's also tough because I know plenty of people need to make the choice between self-advocacy and enough success to get food on the table. I'm very lucky to not have to, and because of that this really has become my passion.

Q: How does your modeling intersect with your disabilities? What challenges have you faced, from an industry perspective or just logistically?

A: There's obviously the major challenge of people that don't want to hire me because I'm in a wheelchair. It's weird to me that people think it won't sell clothes because like, everyone sits down in clothes. It's not like no one wants to see what clothes look like while seated. Abled people don't stand 24/7. Then there's travel because I can't exactly get on a plane on the regular. That's tough for agencies, and it limits the scope of people I can work with for obvious reasons.

Q: What sort of advice do you have for fellow spoonies who are interested in modeling? Any resources, sites, or communities to recommend?

A: My biggest advice is just to find people, friends, family, college photography students, professional photographers if you can afford it, who you enjoy working with, and take photos.

The downside is the modeling industry is super exclusive. It's hard to make a living off of it, and hard to get famous. If that's what you aim for from the start, you're going to be disappointed.

The upside is models are needed for so many things. If you're modeling because you enjoy it, there's always going to be brands, artists, and your own instagram to model for. If you're good at it and you hustle you can make a bit of cash. If you get lucky, you can make more, but that's just luck.

Q: Finally, what's your favorite spoonie product or life hack?

A: Wheelchair cupholders! They changed my life. Also Biofreeze.

Want more Pansy in your life?

Pansy St. Battie on Tumblr Pansy St. Battie on Instagram Pansy St. Battie on the web

...and if you like their work, why not buy them something nice?