#pose is referenced from this thingy i saw on pinterest

[frogtossing]

the skrunklies <3

[floralcrematorium]

How do you decide what expression/body language you want to give to your next drawing subject? Inspired by music, something that you read about, someone you saw in real life, etc?

Hey, thanks for the ask!

When I draw, my starting pose very rarely is the end pose. That happened with the Nyo!FrUK valentine’s day piece. I have the original thumbnails on paper, and at one point they were sitting down??

I tend to photobash references I find online or take my own reference pictures. When I draw Amelia, I’ll usually use myself as reference.

Music does inspire me to a certain degree. I’ll loop the same song for HOURS.

I will say usually when I’m drawing Belarus, it’s because I am GOING THROUGH IT. Like. It’s either uncontrollable rage or the feeling of a deep hollow pit in my chest that I then turn into putting Bela through the wringer, lol. The last time that happened, I ended up with the piece of Belarus lying in the field of flowers. The pose was completely made up, I just slapped that onto the page, aside from the hands which I referenced from my own body. I think I felt more rage when I made that piece, but I know I listened to “The Diner” by Billie Eilish around 200 times and “Fire and Ice” by the Nova Twins nearly 100 (I have this song counter thingy connected to my spotify.)

Here’s a screenshot of the bot receipt from the week I did the flower field Belarus if you don’t believe that I listened to that song 200 times, lol

A piece I haven’t gone back to I genuinely remember feeling genuine rage and anguish while working on it. Here’s the WIP of the piece and the four songs I had on repeat:

I was actually thinking today of going back into this piece and changing the composition a bit - make it more tense and connected. The composition feels too separated between the foreground and the mirror at its current state. I also overworked her face when I was trying to render (you can find it somewhere on my blog) and that’s when I dropped it.

I would like to sincerely apologize to Nat for putting her through the wringer when I cannot verbalize my extreme emotions, lol. I don’t know why I pick her every time.

As for other illustrations… the scene kid platonic Ameripan piece was inspired by “Faster n Harder” by 6arelyhuman. The strawberry bikini Amelia was inspired by a strawberry bikini I saw made by mochipan. The pop art FrUK piece was “Me and My Husband” by Mitski. The gangster AU Czechia piece was something I did when I saw an 1899 art nouveau poster by August Patek (you’ll see instantly what I mean with the black framing elements and the yellow background.

My most recent FrUK sketch with the smudged lipstick was something I saw on pinterest and wanted to practice with because I’m actually terrible at drawing people interacting, so I did a quick study. That sketch has since inspired an entire fic that I keep sacrificing my sleep to work on.

Otherwise, sometimes I just draw because something popped into my head or other times there’s a concept I want to work out.