#im only an illustration student

[messrmagpie]

little preview of what I’m working on- it’s going to be a while before it’s done though I reckon, so hold on tight :)

[zmorowanie]

it's so fucking weird and uncomfortable to me to make personal art and share it with others. like hello stranger, here is my whole heart and you can think Whaateeeverrr you want about it and i'm going to pretend like i'm unbothered

[unhonestlymirror]

Maybe it's for the better that I don't remember what I had at home

[lovromajers]

Also might have to go into debt to study art in england in a couple of years <3 love it!!

[funshape]

haii. hellowwwwe introducing Meee :3

🔴 im kaz!

🔸19 (bday on april 1st!!!!)

🟡 he/him, dont refer to me by they/them please. also im an aro gay guy lawl

❇️ hispanic + latino 🇵🇷

🌀 im an artist and cartoonist! im a full time art student and i am very passionate about character design and illustration. im also developing a comic, and im very passionate about storytelling!

🟣 i have several mental disorders and dont do very well with social interaction, please forgive me if im not very talkative or communicative @_@

💖 my i have a lot of interests but the main ones are my ocs, flightless birds, reptiles, various design aesthetics of the 80s-90s like factory pomo and global village coffeehouse, theme park history, venture bros, metalocalypse, horror media, cartoons from the 2000's, and music like new wave, prog rock and funk metal (i loveee mr bungle, ween and primus dont even get me started). i love music a lot so if you have any recommendations feel free to send them over to me ^_^

please dont follow me if youre under 15, also if you're a pr0shipper/'anti-anti' or a t3rf or a zi0nist or anything similar (censoring because tumblr is annoying) Get Off My Page Forever

though i do get jokey and less serious here sometimes, i also want to make it known that i will always try to use my platform to boost the voices of people who are suffering at the hands of injustice and oppression. im very fortunate to live the life that I do and making my followers aware of issues that arent as widely reported on is very important to me. if youre one of those people who only likes it when people on here goof off all the time and you 'get annoyed' when people actually try to raise awareness about serious issues, then youre not someone i want to be associated with frankly

i ask that you refrain from acting too overly familiar with me like referring to me as your friend when we've never really talked, stuff like that. im really sensitive to stuff like that and seeing people act like that towards me just kinda icks me out. please respect me and my boundaries

thats about it i think! uhh yeah. my other socials are belowwww if you wanna go follow me on those places! have a nice one ok bye

twitter / youtube / toyhouse / art blog / kofi / insta (not super active there, i just use it to talk to my friends jsyk

also if you wanna get in touch with me the easiest way is to dm me on discord! my username over there is papaplasmic. i tend not to use the dm features on other apps including tumblr so if you wanna talk with me thats the easiest way as im always on there. just know that sometimes i wont respond to stuff just because talking with people i dont really know isnt something im up for all the time :P but ill try to respond if i can

[torao4577]

Hello im torao :)

I'm a 19yo art student from 🇲🇫

I have autism and adhd so sometimes im a bit too blunt don't hesitate to tell me to shut up

-> I'm in a LOT of fandoms, recently it's mainly : Death Stranding, Ultrakill, Metal Gear, Devil May Cry, One Piece, Our Flag Means Death, Cruelty Squad, elden ring etc etc

-> I do art, both on free time and for school (I'm only in 1st year so I'm not very good haha)

-> you can find me on twitter, discord and Instagram with the same @

-> I also make memes, mainly for my twitter ( @MSFfact1 )

-----------------------------

DEATH STRANDING!!!

ds is the biggest obsession I've ever had and it seems like it's going to stay so

da discord : https://discord.com/invite/Av3mVKaX (message me if the link stops working)

- I am making a Google slides compiling all of my thoughts and theories (and comics about them, to illustrate etc) I'll share once it's readable

- I draw higgs with pink boots for this reason:

Texture bug in my game = it's canon shuttup

[writingquestionsanswered]

How do i know if a relationship im writing is going to fast. Ive never been one for slow burns so ik im rushing just a little but i feel like i rushed it too much to seem natural but im not sure id its just in my head or not. How do i know and how can i fix it?

Pacing Relationship without Slow-Burn or Insta-Love

It's totally fine not to write a slow-burn relationship, but you definitely don't want to swing the pendulum so far that you end up writing "insta-love."

I want to clarify that "insta-love" is a term that is frequently misapplied. It tends to be attributed to any romantic bond that forms in a short amount of time, but believable romantic bonds aren't as much about time as the quality of that time. You can have two people stuck together in a dangerous, high stakes situation where they're forced to get to know each other, learn to trust one another, learn to rely on one another, and let down privacy barriers and emotional walls, and that's more than enough time for a believable romantic bond to form. Because you can likewise have two co-workers or students who "believably" fall in love over the course of a couple months, but if the actual amount of time they spend together is less than an hour a day a few days a week, and maybe a couple extra hours on the weekend, that's about 34 hours... so not significantly more actual time spent together than the pair trapped in a high-bonding situation for 24 hours.

So... it's important to know that "true" insta-love, which we want to avoid, is when people "fall in love" without doing the emotional legwork of getting to know each other believably and bonding. Exactly how much time that needs to take depends on the people involved and their exact situation, but the point is you need to make a case for the audience that this couple has done that necessary emotional legwork. The audience needs to "see the math" (so-to-speak) so they can understand all the steps that led to this couple becoming romantically invested in one another.

And how do we do that?

1 - Illustrate Romantic Chemistry - Romances aren't believable if the characters don't have romantic chemistry. In order to pull that off, they need to have enough interactions (either on the page or off the page) to show us why they're attracted to one another.

Physical Attraction (which doesn't have to be about "looks")

Emotional Attraction

Intellectual Attraction

Social Attraction

Guide: Creating Romantic Chemistry

2 - Transition Them Through Levels of Affection - All of the attraction built up during those interactions leads the characters through several stages of affection...

The “Like” Stage

The Friends Stage

The Regret Stage

The “In Love” Stage

Even if each stage can only last a few hours (as in the romance forged over a high stakes 24-hour adventure), the characters still need to go through these stages and the reader needs to see it. These can be explored through internal cues/thoughts/feelings, external cues/dialogue (external cues being body language, gestures, actions), etc.

Transitioning Through Levels of Affection

3 - Transition Them Through Stages of Falling in Love - As they're experiencing each stage of increasing affection and all that goes with it, they'll also be transitioning through the stages of falling in love.

Lust/Attraction (during "like" stage of affection")

Preoccupation (during "friends" and "regret" stages of affection)

Idolization (during the "in love" stage of affection")

Intimacy (during the "in love" stage of affection")

Exhilaration (during the "in love" stage of affection")

Guide: Characters Falling in Love

4 - Give the Reader Swoony Moments - Part of making all of the above a success is giving the reader all the "swoony" stuff that goes along with it all. These are all the little internal and external emotional cues that show us the chemistry, affection, and romance. Things like their eyes meeting from across the room as their faces melt into blushing smiles, butterflies or sparks when they touch, gazing a moment too long and looking away bashfully when caught, flirtatious tics when interacting, making excuses to be near one another...

The Subtle Signs of Romantic Interest and Love

As long as you pull all of this off, it really doesn't matter how many days or weeks your characters know each other before they fall in love or embark on a romantic relationship. Doing the above convinces the reader of the quality of their interactions over the quantity.

I hope that helps!

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[bapouro]

If you have the time and if it’d be fun at all, can you talk about how going to school for art is/was? Like what was bad about it but what did it make you realize about why you create? What was originally incomprehensible that became digestible after being surrounded by it? I’m just curious because I really only got into art after college age.

Hi

ive finally handed in my final project ever last friday and after somewhat recovering i can now answer u. (ill put an aside here that before i started uni, i saw a lot of the online umming and awing about art school and it being a scam etc that made me nervous going into it. i dont really think it has been for me but keep in mind im doing this in the uk. i think if i was in the usa or somewhere where it was that expensive i think youd get just about as many benefits going to somewhere like a community college instead. its worth a bit of money but not a lot of money.)

i realised while turning over your questions in my head last week how much doing my degree (illustration undergrad) during covid lockdown, illustrated (haha) the point art school had for me. and the point being that after trying to stick it out for the first few terms during lockdown, i deferred, i didnt really see the point i had already spent my entire life making art in my bedroom online for free, without somebody telling me what to do. practically what that degree offered me was physical facilities and resources, but really what i wanted it for was that vague miasma of drive and something bigger than myself to physically 'prove' myself to. i was and still am very interested in that gap between the online environment i learnt art within that felt a world away from my 'real life', and coming to meet with that 'real life' was kind of my goal. i needed both to meet on a very basic level for my quality of life. and id say i succeeded. twice now somebody i was originally mutuals with online turned out to be in my class. i live with one of them now. and i feel some pride now looking back on how much i felt like i had to separate my 'school' art and my 'personal' art during secondary school and now theyre practically one and the same. in fact one piece of advice ive kept with me from the uni tutors here is they consistently wish the students wouldnt 'hold back' so much on the kind of work they make: one of my friends, the one i now live with, was doing a tasteful furry pinup statue for a project and one of the tutors essentially asked them why the statue was being so sexually subtle with it, for example.

so what was bad about it! man... thinking about it the same reason i gave for why i came back after lockdown could also point out how flippant the reasoning was. its still a lot of time and effort let alone money to be putting into something that you dont Need an institution for. and art and academia, as much as you might try, arent going to be as neatly married as maybe STEM and academia. not that there isnt a place for it. we need it in there. but basically your work still has to get 'graded' on things so they can prove themselves as an institution so they can still get money to run. i ''apreciated'' the deadline part, for what it was, because i was(/am) a serial put-er off-er and i knew i needed something big to try and train me out of it. but the actual mark scheme and trying to work off of it is never not going to be nebulous. what the hell does it mean to 'demonstrate my awareness of the changing landscape of contemporary illustration' graded between 0 - 100 via a 3d animation. ive done pretty well. sometimes id get top marks. a couple times i wouldnt even pass and id have to do it again. the only pattern i could really see between what got those marks for me and what didnt was effort? so take with that what you will.

yea that being said, what it helped me realise why i create... i am thankful my particular course at my particular uni is so into their experimentation / medium diversity. because it proved to me again that experimenting is something i love to do. i could keep doing it forever maybe. but that also made me realise after trying to do that project after project that its only one part of the enjoyment. i couldnt sink my teeth in as much as i wanted. part of why im glad to leave is im glad to try and focus on just a few things now. take a project at my pace... reeeally get way too into it. hopefully.

what was originally incomprehensible that became digestible after being surrounded by it? mm.. i think getting to see a lot of the behind the scenes and the people actually doing illustration as a job kind of softened my glare on some art styles / ways of working i dislike. not that i Like them now but that kind of flat illustrator thing.. for some people it really is more of a job than anything else. i think thats fine. theres all kinds of other art to enjoy outside of their 9-5. i just hope they like it too. but of course it does set a precedent for what clients expect/what you feel like you should be making..? oh also i did actually end up really enjoying the couple of art essays we needed to write. reading cultural/art/etc pdf essays was something i already liked to do like reading baudrillard and ellen dissanayake and things but it was great to actually get to apply it in writing. and i think it certainly became more digestible to realise that these kinds of writers and this kind of writing wasnt some hard to penerate academia i couldnt be a part of really but turned out to be writing about things that already applied to life, whether i went to uni or not. really the whole experience... for me i felt like it was just something i needed to do. if anything just to get away from my family and make my own life. im glad i did it. but really art is art no matter where you find it. uni gave me a push to go further, i could sit around and say i couldve done it without uni but i think we overestimate ourselves. i think i couldve but i bet it wouldve taken longer and i may have experimented less, challenged myself less. who knows. just dont ever let something like that put you off art, it will always find you again eventually. im glad you got into it too.

[jeannereames]

where would i be able to read your monograph? especially about the ‘you are nothing without me’ incident

The Protracted Reality of Writing Academic Shit 😂

First, and assuming the asker means my Hephaistion-Krateros book, the quick answer is: It’s still in process, not even close to being in print. In the meantime, a number of my articles are available on academia-edu.

Now, to explain why the book is “still in process,” let me explain the monograph writing progression. IME, the average person uninvolved in academia is often surprised by the sheer complexity and time involved. (After all, why would you know if you don't need to?)

Below, I talk only about academic monographs, although I’ve also edited academic collections, and of course, have published a number of articles. I started to tackle fiction publishing too, but that quickly devolved into a long-ass post (even for me), so I’m sticking only to the topic the asker requested. It's long enough! Maybe I’ll do fiction later, assuming anybody wants to read that. (If so, put it in an ask.)

To write an academic book in the humanities typically takes years. There are several stages just to produce the initial manuscript, never mind getting it into print. I’ll outline the general process below, using my current project to illustrate the steps. One thing I’ve found consistently among both students and non-academics is utter surprise at just how extensive research/writing is. New grad students often think writing a thesis/dissertation is akin to writing a really long term paper. Oh, no. You will write it, submit it, get critique and feedback, go research some more and revise it, get critique and feedback, go and research yet more and revise it again … rinse and repeat. How long? Until it’s cooked. There’s not a set timeframe. It will always take longer than you expect. Always. I’ve been teaching grad students almost 25 years. I have yet to have any require less time than they first assumed.

Writing a monograph (including the thesis/dissertation, which is a type of monograph) is one of the toughest forms of academic writing. Papers/articles are much easier, and not just because they’re shorter, although that’s some of it. They also generally have a simpler point. They’re proving ONE thing, like a string.

A monograph presents a coherent, complex argument like a rope woven from several strings (the chapters). It’s not an edited collection by multiple authors in a single volume (or two), or even a collection of various essays by a single author. Collections may have a general topic, like, say, Macedonian Legacies (the collection we did for Gene Borza), or the one I’m editing now, Macedon and It’s Influences. Just trying to figure out a decent order for the varied papers can prove a challenge in these. If some of the papers actually do bear on each other … bonus! But the papers aren’t necessarily expected to come together at the end in any cogent way. A monograph’s concluding chapter should, however, bring together the chapters into a solid conclusion, like the arch’s capstone, holding it all together.

Yet the researcher may not know the answer to that until done with much of the research. After reading everything, and considering it, she may wind up in a different place from where she started. Like any good, responsible research, the researcher must be prepared to follow the data and facts, not cram them into a preconceived notion. I’ve changed some of my ideas and goals for my current monograph, as I no longer think I can do the project I originally intended because the nature of the sources get in the way too much. But I have a more interesting project as a result.

The first phase is research: pretty much for any academic field, period. How this progresses, and how quickly, varies with the individual, field, and topic. Furthermore, some of us are planners (that’s me), others are pantsers (e.g., they dive in and figure it out as they go: by the seat of the pants). But we all start with a question or observation, then go out to track down information about it. In history, sometimes we just read the primary sources/archival material and see what we find. Something strikes us, so we go on to read more, which produces either refined questions or entirely new ones.

Right now, I’m finishing up the initial stages of the research. Then I’ll start work on the chapters, which, yes, I’ve outlined as a result of my initial research. But those chapters may (and probably will) morph as I write them. It’s during the writing phase that the other, “attendant” research comes into play: chasing down all the references in other secondary sources for smaller points. Rabbit-hole time.

My initial research tends to be more measured. I read a while, stop to think—sometimes do stuff like write replies to asks on Tumblr while my brain churns. 😉 Then I go back and read some more. But the writing phase is where I can lose all track of time while running down just-one-more-citation-then-I’ll-stop. The last time I looked at a clock it was 3pm and now it’s 9pm, I’m weak with hunger, I really have to pee because I’m drinking too much tea, and the cats are mad because I’ve not fed them in hours. 😆 It’s two really different types of research for me.

Anyway, for the initial (pre-writing) stage, there are really two substages. The first is what I think of as archival work: e.g., getting down and dirty with the original (primary) sources, including digging into the Greek and Latin to see what it actually says, and if there’s something noteworthy in the phrasing. At this point, I may not really know what I’m looking for, except in the broadest sense. For my current project, I collected every single mention of Hephaistion and Krateros in the original sources. For all five ATG bios, I read them front to back, tagging all sorts of things, plus large chunks of important other books (e.g., the first part of book 18 of Diodoros, the extant fragments of Arrian’s After Alexander, plus a couple bios, esp. Plutarch’s Eumenes, etc.) in order to get a FLOW, not just collect things piecemeal. There are some passages that may not name Hephaistion or Krateros specifically, but they would include them. Piecemeal will always be incomplete, like trying to see a clear image in a broken mirror (a mistake I made with my dissertation, in fact, but I was young).

Then I assembled all that collected data on huge sheets, arranged by author for each man, so I can cross-reference and compare. I also did a deep-dive across 4 days, grabbing everything in Brill’s New Jacoby (BNJ), so I can also tag the original (lost) author cited in our surviving sources, where we know who it is. Not actually that many, but it’s useful and can prove significant. I want to see where the same information, or anecdote, crosses sources, and how it changes.

All of that (except adding the BNJ entry #s to my big sheets) is now done. The next step is figuring out what it all means. For that—and where I am right now—involves historiographic reading/rereading of secondary sources on the ancient authors. What is Curtius’s methodology? Arrian’s? Plutarch’s? What are the themes of each? What is the story they’re telling? They’re not just cut-and-pasters from the original (now lost) histories; they have agendas. What are they? How do Hephaistion and Krateros fit into those agendas? How do the sources use them? This is, to me, the really interesting piece.

It's also why this book will not be just a cleaned-up version of my dissertation, but a completely new look at Hephaistion, and now Krateros too. I haven’t even consulted my old dissertation chapters. I started over from scratch. Sure, I remember my main conclusions, and as I write, I’m sure I’ll go back to check things, but the same as I’d check anybody else’s.

I’d hoped to start writing by May, but I’m not quite there yet, in part because, between the Netflix series plus helping to write/edit a grant that I didn’t expect to have to do, I lost virtually all of February. Now, about half of April has been eaten by home repair/yard stuff plus small family crises. That’s just the nature of a sabbatical, especially if you don’t have a spousal unit or SO to take care of everything for you while you just write. 😒

Now I hope to start writing by mid/late May. But as this 9th International ATG Symposium is looming in early September, plus I go back to teaching in the fall, I’ll have to knock off by the end of July, if not sooner. Ergo, not a long writing time. I can do some more during winter break, but I probably won’t have a draft done until next summer. If I’m lucky. It is just not possible, at least for me, to write while teaching! As I do plan to present at least one (startling!) piece of my research as the ATG conference, I have a concrete deadline for a subchapter bit. Ha.

So, what happens after a draft is done? Well, if one is smart, one finds a reader or three. One just to read it for sense, but (if possible) another specialist to start poking holes in the arguments, noting secondary sources one forgot, and to offer general pushback in order to refine it all. This assumes your friends/colleagues actually have time to look at it, as they, also, are teaching and writing their own stuff. (I’ll go after my retired colleagues.) At the same time, one may also begin seeking an academic publisher.

It’s important to match the project to what the publisher is already publishing. It can also help, but isn’t necessary, to have an in: somebody known to/trusted by the editor of one’s broad field (ancient history, in my case) who can vouch for the scholarship. Submitting means writing up a summary of the work, perhaps including letters from colleagues/readers, etc., etc. I’m not even close to this stage yet, so I’m primarily going by the experiences of friends. At this point, it starts to dovetail a bit with fiction publishing. You’re on the hunt and do some of the same homework.

Once a publishing house requests the manuscript, they’ll farm it out to 2-3 readers to evaluate. This is the “refereed” part, as the readers will be specialists in the field. The publisher, who can’t be a specialist in everything, may ask for a list of names for these potential readers.

As with academic papers/book chapters, the book will come back from these readers with a vote on publishability, plus suggestions for improvement. The basic choices range from, “Go back to the drawing board; this has major issues and here they are” (e.g., not ready yet for publication). To, “It’s got good bones but here are improvements on chpts X and X, oh, and go read ___ works you forgot,” (e.g., revise and resubmit). To, “this is pretty solid as-is but could use a few more things” (e.g., revise but ready for a contract). You will NEVER get a “Publish it right now.” 🤣 It’s hard to say how much time this revising phase will take, as it depends entirely on the level of revisions requested. This is why it’s often wise to find a reader or three in advance, to make this phase less lengthy. Yes, books do sometimes get turned down entirely, with no “revise-and-resubmit,” but more often it’s one of the three above. And yes, sometimes an author may be unwilling to make the requested changes, so finds a different publisher, with different readers, hoping for a more positive outcome. Sometimes, with the revising stage, there’s a non-binding contract involved, but this seems to be usefully mostly for younger scholars who need some sort of proof for their RPT (Reappointment, Promotion and Tenure) committees.

Once a publisher gets a manuscript they believe is worthy, the author receives a (real) contract and is provided with in-house editors to fix grammar, sense, etc.: copy- and line-editing. What would (in fiction) be called “developmental editing” is what the refereed part entailed. This is the simple part. Getting TO the contract stage is the tough part.

The publishing house will then schedule the book with a publication date and discuss things like page-proofs, cover art, permissions, formatting, etc., including indexing, which most publishers either don’t do, or charge a high fee for. It’s almost always cheaper to hire an indexer separately. I’ve already got mine lined up for the Hephaistion-Krateros book. But that can’t be done until it’s typeset and through page-proofs as one needs, yeah, the page numbers. Ha. From contract to the book hitting shelves can take a full year, or more.

So, with the exception of those folks who are just writing machines, the average monograph is c. 5+ years, at least in the humanities. This assumes the luck to get a sabbatical, not trying to do it all crammed into summers or breaks.

So yes, I’m still a couple years from this book seeing print. And that assumes there’s not a lengthy revise-and-resubmit process because my readers don’t like my conclusions.

[urostakako]

Utahime and Maki!!! Hiii <3

hi circe <333

utahime:

favorite thing about them: i love how fun she is. she has to behave in front of her superiors but away from them shes so passionate and loud and the contrast is really funny to me. and i love the fact that she gets so smug when bad things happen to people she doesnt like lol shes so funny

least favorite thing about them: idk maybe the fact she works/allies herself with gakuganji? but idrc about it THAT much cuz it seems to me shes just doing what she has to to get a say in what goes on in kyoto tech. OH actually i dont like that shes into anti aging makeup.... utahime dw about that ur so hot already....

favorite line:

"I GET TO DRINK ALCOHOOOOL 🎵" (168.5)

brOTP: uhh idk ig i like the dynamic between her and her students :)) her teaching style is very different and focuses on working together and they also love her a lot, and she clearly cares about each of them so <33 enough to cheer them on even if only one of them is playing (phanpara illustration my beloved...🫶) im a sucker for when the adults care about the kids

OTP: SHOKOHIMEEEEEE 🫶🫶🫶🫶🫶🫶🫶🫶🫶

nOTP: her with any jjk man. they all suck and are gross and she doesnt gaf about any of them god bless

random headcanon: shokos the one to heal up her scar.... she used to lord over the fact she was taller than shoko and got bitter that shoko ended up growing taller than her... doesnt like yuki that much i think because shes annoying... beef with kusakabe

unpopular opinion: hate it when ppl say she has motherly instincts. shes not boring or annoying. SHE DOES NOT LIKE GOJO !!!! IN ANY WAY !!!! and i cant believe this is unpopular 😔... but shes a lesbian

song i associate with them: Aaware Bhawren by Hema Sardesai and Malaysia Vasudevan, and NIGHT DANCER by imase

favorite picture of them: <33

maki:

favorite thing about them: her role as an older sister and her relationship with mai, the fact that her motivation was for mai but mai assumed the whole time she had been abandoned... </3 this and her post shibuya design

least favorite thing about them: that shes friends with yuuta. she can find better friends

favorite line:

Naoya: "Don't you have a human heart?"

Maki: "No... It was taken from me." (150)

"Sorry... would you repeat that?" (151)

brOTP: i love the idea of the dynamic between her and yuuji, both being the physically strongest of their group and how they might bond over that. and ofc maki and mai </3

OTP: nobamaki <33 the way nobara was so immediately infatuated with her and maki always going so soft around her... how they would navigate their relationship post shibuya with all the changes, with mai and nobara's friends gone, with all their new scars... </3

nOTP: i hate yutamaki. and all the proship garbage. and also her pairing with any dude

random headcanon: she and mai met megumi as kids and she disliked megumi initially and was distrustful of most strangers and ppl within the clan. even when learned megumi wasnt really a zenin she still thought he was hoity toity. this impression dissolved when she got to know him and now she messes with him all the time for being prissy

song i associate with them: I Guess by Mitski, Usseewa by Ado, and I Liked You Through The Veil by yuragi

favorite picture of them:

[blorbopolis]

hello! im sorry if you get asked this a lot, but I was curious how you got into doing art ttrpg? and what should an interested artist have in their portfolio? thank you 💖

hi! so i wrote out a big "how to" before re-reading your message and considering you maybe just... asked how it happened for *me*, not necessarily how someone else should do it LOL. so, how it happened for me: i've been actively courting freelance art work since ~2009, and fantasy ttrpg is a natural extension of my interests - my portfolio was already full of world of warcraft fanart by the time ttrpgs & D&D really started having their modern moment. TTRPG is a good low-to-mid level place to find leads, as well, because the barrier for entry is super low for creators, which means a lot MORE projects to go around. (If you want to make a board game, your artist has to know a LOT about packaging, printing, manufacturing, graphic design, etc. if you wrote a D&D module and just want to publish it on itch.io? your artist only needs to know how to send you a decent sized .jpg.) as far as portfolio goes, when i started getting consistent replies to my cold emails, my portfolio had mostly covers and half-pages (ie, narrative illustrations), portraits, and animals. If you want to be more well-rounded you could also include pieces focusing on environments, items, and creatures. Don't include anything unless it's GOOD though. (i am so serious about this - bad work in your portfolio makes the good stuff look like a fluke.) now. if you wanted a "how to" answer, here is 600 words lol. I'm gonna start with the base assumption that your work is already hirable so we can focus on just like, specialization + client acquisition tips. getting a folio up to snuff is a whole other can of beans short version goes like this:

this whole thing only works if you have the ability to honestly self-assess. new work & skills: you should have fresh stuff that's a snapshot of what you can do *right now.* this doesn't mean old work can't stay in your folio if it's still good, but a small, current folio that really hits is WAY better than a bloated old one with irrelevant studies or student work. new artistic peers: as you continue to evolve as a professional, you should have an idea of which other working artists your work is most similar to, in terms of skill/tone/specialties/other relevant skills (3D/graphic design/etc) in order to see how you stack up to your """competition""" for lack of a better word. Additionally those artistic peers have hangout zones (discords or FB groups, etc) where you can talk shop & pass around job leads. research peers' clients: research who those peers are contracting with. See if your work would be a fit for them; if so, find their contact info and put it on your list. Those clients are probably also promoting other similar projects or publishers on their feeds; twitter has a handy "you might also want to follow" list that has other similar accounts you can explore. You can also work backwards from the product to the creator (see any cool battle maps, CCGs, board games, etc? find out who made it and whether they're the ones doing the art hiring.) Additionally, those discords & fb groups I mentioned will have leads (of varying quality) shared around that you should be assessing as they come in. reach out to new batch of clients: cold email. be realistic about who's worth contacting, but don't self-disqualify. that part is a balance. art directors are people with problems to solve, and you need to be able to A. anticipate the problems they need solving, and B. confidently (and honestly) let them know exactly what you can do for them. Attach A FEW, SMALL, RELEVANT jpgs that they can easily download and keep for reference. do not send massive high res attachments, their inboxes are full enough as it is. If you're responding to a specific call, attach relevant pieces or curate a page on your portfolio site specifically for work that would fit the project. If reaching out to clients doesn't result in a lead - *or*, if it takes them 3 months to get back to you, you should spend that time doing your own stuff and bolstering your skills. eventually your portfolio will be good enough that it kicks down doors for you.

you'll notice i never included "be active on social media! post your new work! feed instagram's ad revenue by giving it more content!" in this strategy because it doesn't matter. i'm not professionally active on any social media. we were getting hired before twitter existed and we'll still get hired after it dies. just do make sure you have an online portfolio (your own website >> artstation >>> other free folio builders >>>>>>>>>>>> an instagram feed.) the more times you do this cycle the easier it gets; both because you'll just get good at every step of the process, and because more people will know you and have known you for *longer* so you seem like a safer bet. I'll be honest: it's a ton of rejection lmao. I would get a rejection in my inbox at least once a week - even more than that i'd just get radio silence. But eventually you'll get a yes, and if you're lucky that yes will result in high quality new work you're proud of and can put into your folio (taking you back to step 1 lol.)

the freelance life is (INSHALLAH!!!) behind me since i now have a full time job doing marketing/supporting art for video games. But my portfolio never would've gotten there if i didn't have the experience of going through the freelance meat grinder first. it really taught me how to be an actualized *creative* (who can stand up for her own expertise, think like a project manager, and take creative ownership of / responsibility for my assignments) and not just a hired hand. my team likes that. i think

[emerulynn]

hi!! i saw a post where u mentioned u go to wdka, im also applying for illustration and im super nervous. whats the worst thing about the school? or do you have any tips for the portfolio?

oh shit sorry I haven’t been checking my asks, but I think yesterday or Friday was the Open Day, idk if you could’ve gone bc that would also help but I hope my rlly late answers help as well 😭

Hmmm the worst thing about the school and I’m gonna be honest here is how it sometimes feels like some of the assignments aren’t helping me all that much?? Like wdka’s concept of illustration is broad, it’s less than just drawing and more of visual storytelling through any medium. So sometimes I find myself struggling with an assignment that doesn’t involve drawing and pushed way out of my comfort zone.

I think it gets better now that I’m in my second year tho because I know how to navigate things better and also learn how to put a bit more balance on personal work and assignments. You just have to get through the Practices and Second big assignment in first year Illustration tbh, that’s the point where most people dropped out 😭 The most useful thing in the school is the facilities, teachers (ask for suggestions or networking opportunities from teachers you think have the same career path/vision as you) and ofc your peers, sometimes classes. Also if you don’t feel like you align with illustration that much you can always switch majors after the first term without having to repeat the year.

Note that I might also be harsh about the academy bc I’m paying international fees which is like 10x the tuition EU students have to pay.

As for the portfolio, they love to see you explore and experiment with different mediums and methods of art-making, so include photography, clay, mixed media work if you have them. If you don’t, don’t worry because my portfolio barely has any range, that was their critique for me after receiving my portfolio too since I mostly drew digitally and only included some analog drawings and photos. but i got in heyy

Another thing is make your portfolio easy to navigate ofc, you don’t have to go over the top with the design, just write concise texts of your work and make it not look confusing. Number your works and number the pages.

That’s it I think they love versatility that’s the main takeaway. Good luck and hope this helped!!

[elmflowers]

man, the pjo gods, amiright?

i really appreciate the trials of apollo for fleshing out the gods some more. while we are mostly focused on the titular character, his perspective lets us glean what the rest of the pantheon is like.

riordan’s gods are incredibly human. they are humans that have been given so much power and have overstayed their welcome for so long, and have never known anything different. their inhumaness is mostly characterized by those facts: they are powerful, they have and will be around for thousands of years, and they have never known anything different.

thats the only thing that separates the gods from their children, or hell, any other mortal. personality wise at least.

the snag is is that their power comes from belief: what they can do is completely up to what their believers think.

its like if you tell someone youre a college student majoring in business and someone goes “oh you must have a minor in math!” and suddenly oh shit you gotta pretend like you totally have a minor in math also. or if you say youre an artist and someone goes “obviously you know graphic design and thats what youre working in specifically” even if youre like. a hobbyist mostly doing illustration work. and you go “yeah man i love graphic design. its my passion also”. this is how youd reply if you are someone who wants to fit everyone’s expectations and have low to no self esteem. or just dont care what people think what you do.

however this is worse for the gods because they literally cant go “haha no i dont have a minor in math” or “oh i do illustration not graphic design”, they just gotta roll with that perception. like oh you think im the sun? okay i guess its my job now fuck! alright!

the nice thing is that they mostly automatically get that knowledge so they dont fuck up too bad but also yeesh. Yearsh. if they dont measure up to that perception, than what about the things that are true? if apollo isnt the sun, is he even the god of music? or as powerful as he says? is his epithet even phoebus? so on and so forth.

so like the gods are saddled with the worst golden child expectations and are told to fuckin ball with it. which explains why they are all so terrible. girl id be too, honestly.

[juni-ravenhall]

asking for help from fellow eu ppl on my dash - jobs, studies, place to live.

apparently the """easiest""" way for yasmin to get a swedish spouse visa would be if both of us leave sweden for 6 months, live in another eu country together as a married couple, and then when we re-enter sweden theres apparently a eu law thing that forces sweden to give her a spouse visa since we were already living together in another eu country. (so this is a legal way for poor ppl to get around the money requirement of the regular swedish spouse visa.)

problem is, it means finding a job or uni studies in another eu country so we can move there. we have no savings, no money. either of us could get a job and then move together, if we found a job (i have basically no resume and no degree, but i am an eu citizen so i dont need a work visa, therefore could theoretically do simple work if im able within my handicap - yasmin prob needs a specialist work visa using her design degree).

uni studies would only work if its free for me in that country (eu citizen), then i could potentially study something for 6 months, and hopefully get student money from the government to pay for food (and we need to find a place with cheap rent). in general this whole concept is really difficult when youre as poor as we are (aka barely money for food rn).

if anyone of you knows that its free for me (eu citizen) to study in your country and if you could help me with finding potential uni classes and a place for us to live for a few months, and help with other questions/info about the moving process, please let me know.

if anyone has tips on jobs yasmin could apply for in your eu country, pls let us know - stuff like concept artist or other related to illustration, design, graphics. (since shes not an eu citizen your country might require her job to be specialist to get a work visa, aka use her design/art skills.) and if you could help us with questions and information about the move and finding a place to live as i said above, pls let us know too.

i really wish we lived in a world where someone of you just happen to have an uncle who runs a farm and could pay me minimum wage to help out at the farm for 6 months, bc i could do that. but those kind of things are impossible to find. i really dont know if we can succeed with this eu spouse concept, but im just trying to look into it as much as i can bc we have so few options.

the easiest option rn would be if she gets a job with her degree in finland bc its nearby and i dont even need to do anything as a nordic citizen, i can move there no questions asked. and then we would be in a eu country together + i dont have to push my disabled health to work hard + its easier to move there bc its close. but we're gonna try to look into all eu countries, even if nordics (easy move for me) or germany (i speak some german) or ireland (since we both speak english) are the most convenient options.

if my posts seem stressed and unhinged thats bc i am!!! i dont want my fiance to be sent back to a shit country at war where there is danger!!!! i dont want to be separated from her at all for any reason either!!!!! we are just having a really really horrible time about how to solve our near future!!!!

[saw-facts]

your post inspired me so here's who I think certain saw characters favorite artists would be with no explanation at all:

hoffman: george bellows

amanda: paul cezanne

john: osman hamdi bey

lawrence: allan kaprow

adam: marta minujin

lynn: doris salcedo

strahm: caravaggio

oh i like this!! i want to add some:

the eerie quality of henri de toulouse-lautrec's work (at least imo) feels like it'd be appealing to hoffman. along the same vein, i'd say edvard munch too. ALSO FRANCISCO GOYA. im surprised he wasn’t also painting fucked up shit on his own walls.

amanda would love louise bourgeois, ana mendieta, joan mitchell, and eva hesse. i feel like she'd also be really into fiber arts in general (tamara kostianovsky, kiki smith, raija jokinen). also we know she likes some renaissance/stylistically classical art bc she has the birth of venus print next to her bed in saw 3! i think this is more for gay reasons but i bet she'd like john william waterhouse’s mythological paintings.

i love this one for john! the obvious one for him would be da vinci as well- john's drawings actually remind me a lot of his. i think he wouldn't be into abstraction because “it lacks intellect” or some shit. probably dark, dramatic, pensive baroque art.

i feel like lawrence would be into impressionism but NOT post impressionism!!! he'd be so annoying about it. monet, degas, cassat, etc. i also think he'd enjoy botanical illustrations. probably a fan of edward hopper too.

adam would like jc leyendecker. just based on vibes. others i think he'd enjoy include john singer sargent, norman lewis, lee krasner, yoshitaka amano, salman toor, yayoi kusama... these are all over the place uhhhh i just think he'd enjoy a wide range of styles. now ofc he has favorite photographers, but that is not at all my area of study and the only one i could think of off the top of my head that would fit him is robert mapplethorpe.

for lynn, andrew wyeth makes sense to me- the lonely, empty, desolate feeling his paintings give you would probably speak to her :( agnes martin (ESPECIALLY agnes martin) and louise nevelson would probably appeal to her too.

strahm liking caravaggio is basically canon to me. like of fucking course. for one, he'd just loooove telling people that the Old Master painters are the finest of fine artists just bc he's a dick (and doesn't know shit about art made after like the 18th century). but also caravaggio was gay and killed someone and was murdered so. it fits. he'd probably scoff at rene magritte paintings but deep down he'd really enjoy them.

im obsessed with this ask and i've been drafting this response for a hot minute bc i wanted to put some real thought into it. VERY fun and a great way to procrastinate on work as an art history grad student

[indulgnc]

👤🖋️👃 for your asks if you're still doin em :3

ty for the ask!!🥺

(readmore cuz long lol)

👤Describe your current favorite character (including OCs):

sweats… hard… its 🌱. its him. not gonna talk toooo much about him cuz i have a lot already but just know that he 1. was sickly as a kid 2. has a weak immune system and mentions worrying abt catching a cold 3. says hes allergic to animal fur and 4. is physically weak and 5. I need him to be exposed to an allergen NOW!!!!! ive been hyperfixated on him for. 4 months straight genuinely i have thought abt him every day for 4 mo😭😭😭😭 im crazy

oc wise… he hasnt been debuted here yet but harlowe! been working on him in the oc server and having a lot of fun w him. hes a way-too-laid-back lab baby w no sense of self preservation or privacy. lol. “almost anything makes him sneeze”—probably self quoted. hes a student who will get himself into situations to get attention from his favorite medical student that he wants to convince study him <3

🖋 - What is your favorite media that you have made? (Illustrations, writing of any kind, WAVs, manips, etc):

mmm i have a few fics on here that turned out decent! but nothing im crazy proud of… i guess wavs maybe? ive only done a few but mostly bc like. years ago i could Never see myself doing any.. but its fun to explore that aspect of the kink/sexuality! ^_^ so im glad ive allowed myself to try it out and build enough confidence to ever post one!

👃🏼 - What would you like to do with your fav’s nose? (Break it? Tickle it with a feather? Wipe it with tissues? The possibilities are endless!)

Ahaha…. all of the above? 🌱 once again… the sadist in me says break it LOL<3 want him to get punched in the nose and its broken and sensitive to heal and have ice packs and painkillers and also i ❤️ nosebleeds!!

the snzfucker in me…i want someone to spray perfume near him or bring out a super dusty box or something covered in cat hair (!!!!!) and he cant figure out why hes so set off ehehe…. i do like the imagery of flowers shoved in someones face but hes not allergic to flowers (trust hes not) but i think even some that smelled super strong like the scent (lavender or smth similar maybe) would be an issue…. :3 cover his nose w his hand and kind of scrunch up his face as soon as he notices the presence of something thats Definitely gonna make him sneeze ahaha …….. :3