#have bad internet and no way to do digital art for some time

[70sscifiart]

The Last-Minute Sci-Fi Gift Guide

There's only one thing worse than procrastinating on getting gifts for your loved ones, and that's procrastinating on putting together a guide to help out everyone else with all those gifts. It's Dec 12, so you can decide for yourself which I'm doing.

Art book: Worlds Beyond Time, $32

If you follow this blog, you might have heard of this one. I published Worlds Beyond Time: Sci-Fi Art of the 1970s this year after five years of work on it, and I think it's really good! 400+ images, 100+ artists, with lots of fun art history and jokes.

Also, it's just $20 right now if you order through my publisher and use the code SKIPTHELINE! Cheapest it's ever been!

Card game: Coup, $14

In this "social deduction" card game, you play as a government official in a future dystopia who needs to backstab their way into power. Everyone starts out with just two cards in this bluffing game, so the tide can turn pretty quick when players start assassinating each other's cards. The fast pace makes it a good gift for someone who loves spies but thinks they don't like card games.

Game to play over Zoom: Bad Spaceships, $3

If a bluffing game stresses you out, try Bad Spaceships: It's a collaborative world-building game in which you roll dice to see what area of your spaceship connects to another, forcing you to spitball exactly why this is the case. As the game puts it, you might fix the hull by playing Tetris, or charge your weapons in the swimming pool. You're basically getting weird prompts to tell a story that can evolve over the course of the game.

It's such an indie game that it comes as PDFs you download from itch.io, but you can play it just as well over Zoom, if you're looking for an excuse to catch up with your old digital nomad college friend.

Movies/TV: Streaming service gift card

Gift cards are all well and good, but you can personalize them by recommending a few of your favorite shows as well. I suggest:

Hulu: Cowboy Bebop

Apple TV+: Severance

Criterion Channel: Ravenous, Paprika, Strange Days

Paramount+: Yellowjackets

Amazon Prime: The Devil's Hour

But to be honest, this entry is just an excuse to talk about the new Max show Scavenger’s Reign. Inspired by the work of French artist Moebius and with a clear debt to famed 70s animated film Fantastic Planet, this stylish sci-fi show features a bunch of humans trying to survive on a beautiful but hostile alien world. Perfect for lovers of fictional nature.

Vintage sci-fi

This Etsy shop has some good stuff, like the 1971 Frank Kelly Freas NASA poster above, a bit of history that I even mentioned on page 167 of my art book.

Penguin science fiction postcards, $28

These postcards have a ton of very cool sci-fi covers I've blogged in the past – great value if you want a lot of art for a low cost.

Meteorite pendant necklace, $34

I think we all know what kind of rock your loved ones need around their neck: A chunk of meteorite straight out of the 1576 Argentinan meteorite fall.

Book recs

For astronauts: Packing for Mars by Mary Roach, The New Guys: The Historic Class of Astronauts That Broke Barriers and Changed the Face of Space Travel by Meredith Bagby

For comedians: Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir, Even Greater Mistakes: Short Stories by Charlie Jane Anders 

For sleuths: Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty, Drunk on All Your Strange New Words by Eddie Robson

For crafters: Knits of Tomorrow: Toys and Accessories for your Retro-Future Needs

For the resistance fighters: The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley, An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

For slasher movie fans: Clown in a Cornfield by Adam Cesare

Syd Mead "Biomorph Vehicle" button down shirt, $49

T-shirts aren't classy enough for the world's coolest visual futurist, Syd Mead. I haven't actually bought this incredibly odd shirt, but I really need to.

Art prints (and more) from 70s sci-fi artists

Artist shops can be surprisingly hard to track down on the internet, but here's a short list of ones I've come across. All of these artists are featured in my book (except one), so you can read up on them before you commit to a print.

Michael Whelan 

John Harris

Syd Mead

Don Maitz

David B Mattingly

Peter Andrew Jones - Jones was one of just a few artists who declined to be included in my art book, but he has a distinct, colorful style that I would have loved to have featured!

Finally, here's one extra bonus, just for everyone who made it to the end of this article: The UK-based educational charity Centre for Computing History sells three big officially licensed John Harris posters featuring these three artworks, famous for their use as covers for Sinclair programming manuals.

It's a great deal that I've never seen mentioned anywhere, and Harris' work has a timeless quality that makes it great for an unassuming wall decoration. If you're outside the UK, the shipping costs will be a pain, but there's no better deal for a classic sci-fi poster.

#gift guide #sci-fi #sci-fi gift ideas #gift ideas #retro sci-fi art

[theempresstrash]

Welcome! :3

If you are here right now more than likely you are a Twitter crypto artist denizen who has heard me, @maxcapacity and probably many other shouting about Tumblr on Twitter. Why Tumblr? It is part nostalgia, part necromancy, part homage to the the Web3 greats who spent years here (some are still here), part rebellion, and part reminding artists to come together to help each other.

Twitter heavily favors text base tweets - it's just a fact. Here is not the case. Many of us are also maybe a little jaded on what is happening overall and feel ignored as artists. Discord is full of scams, twitter group chats are cliquey, but here we are free to roam, explore each others works, and create a visual digital identity we want to present.

Come play with us and remember why we are all here! For the art, to make friends, express ourselves, have a good time and build a better future for artists. Yes we all want to sell work too ofc - we have physical bodies to take care of and bills to pay - but what if we share with each other our wins and how we got them, and our failures and what we learned from them as artists so when we go back to the rest of the internet hellscape we can find more success? At the very least, make some friends here or rekindle connects that may have been lost to not feel so alone. For some of you this is a trip down memory lane, for others you have never been here before. Old or new a like I encourage you to check out who I am following to get started finding each other.

This isn't rocket science - if you can understand blockchain web3 stuff, I have faith you can understand this old beast of a social network. Love you all ~~~ <3

P.S. I'm writing this for specific purposes of a pinned post. It feels so good to be able to write more than 150 characters. Also here are multi gifs side by side -- for the culture.

EDIT: Because I can edit and also adding this - for the culture 🫡🚫

~We are here to focus on the art and building up artists and to build an open, non hierarchal structure to provide mutual support for each other while showcasing the hard work and dope art crypto artists do to try to shape the landscape of web3 to be more artist friendly for ALL artists from diverse backgrounds. ~ Here are some guidelines to foster a healthy community growth:

~ NO SHILL POST/ART SHARE POSTS - why? we want the focus to go back on the artist and deep thoughts, not engagement farming. Shilling/art share is a viable way on twitter to get your art out there because of how the social media is structured. Here - content is the focus. You can discover new artists a multitude of ways including searching hashtags, looking through your fav artists feed of who they are sharing or following, and generally just wandering around.

~ INDEPENDENT ARTIST FOCUS - 10k pfp projects are a part of the nft ecosystem, and thrive on twitter, but here we want to again have the focus stay on independent artists. A basic issue with these projects is to access a lot of their communities they are token gated, and a lot of artists just can't afford them. Also many feel we are drowning in the noise of a lot of the politics and drama that goes on between projects, and need a place again to share ourselves with each other for feedback, support and overall good times.

~ REPORT AND BLOCK THE HATERS / KILL WITH KIDNESS- anywhere on the internet hate is prevalent for lots of different reasons related to our content and not. Bullies are cowards, and to bully someone for a technology they use is boring. Tumblr also does not tolerate hate and harassment in any form. Maybe someone is having a bad day and if able extend kindness. For extreme comments, report them. For continual harassers, block them. This is your space to curate how you wish. We deserve to be here as artists as anyone else, and hope to on top of supporting each other showcase our dope af work we are doing within the crypto art ecosystems to show we aren't all scammers, just artists trying to build a better future.

#crypto art tumblr takeover #empresswrites #nftumblr

[cypriathus]

For those who stumble upon my account... Hello and how are ya? This is my very first time using Tumblr! You can refer to me as Banana Cat, Yume, Dreamy, Floof or JJ. I'm a genuinely curious individual who sometimes gets obsessed with stuff that I eventually want to get engaged with or stuff that I have no intention of trying out, but I'm very fascinated by it. I'm also just a silly, creative Canadian who's trying to get the most out of life.

My general pronouns are she/her, but I genuinely don't mind you referring to me as they/them and he/him. I will not specify my age publicly due to privacy reasons. If you want to know, just shoot me a DM/message.

Some of my hobbies include writing, drawing, listening to music, reading novels and manga, watching YouTube, occasionally watching movies, TV shows or anime, and baking once in a blue moon. For those wondering what kind of art I do, I've primarily been doing a lot of digital artwork as of now. However, I have been using traditional mediums (acrylic paint, markers, coloured pencils, and regular ol' pencils) for many years now. You can find most of my current artworks that I have shared on my Instagram account (@cypriathus). Before we move on with other stuff about me, some of my interests include psychology, sociology, criminology, law, biology, outer space, mythology, folklore, legends, religion, history, internet mysteries, and lost media.

I listen to a myriad of music artists including:

Muse

Evanescence

Set It Off

The Raven Age

My Chemical Romance

Citizen Soldier

Clarence Clarity

Fall Out Boy

Finger Eleven

Get Scared

Avenged Sevenfold

Infected Musroom and so much more

I have watched a lot of anime and there are still some I need to get around to watching eventually. Some of these anime include:

Cat Soup

Ergo Proxy

FLCL

Perfect Blue

Tokyo Godfathers

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Kaiba

Haibane Renmei

Outlaw Star

Now and Then, Here and There

Serial Experiments Lain

Summer Wars

Belle

Angel's Egg

Most Studio Ghibli movies

Cowboy Bebop

Metropolis

Steamboy

The Tatami Galaxy

Mind Game

Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms

Devilman Crybaby

Mononoke and so much more

Non-anine movies and TV shows that I remember watching:

Breaking Bad franchise

Seven

American History X

Coraline

ParaNorman

Mad God

Schindler's List

Final Space

Cliffhanger

Del Toro's Pinocchio

Tetsuo: The Iron Man

Possum

The Mask

The Wedding Singer

Labyrinth

The Dark Crystal

Midsommar

Hereditary

Scarface

Monty Python and the Holy Grail & Monty Python's Life of Brian

Silence of the Lambs

Popee the Performer

Mr. Stain on Junk Alley

And many more

Some manga and books that I have currently read are:

Homunculus

Chainsaw Man

AKIRA

The Girl from the Other Side: Siúil, a Rún

The Ancient Magus' Bride

Dandadan

Trigun and Trigun Maximum

Bibliomania

Heads

Goodbye, Eri

Look Back

Yogen no Nayuta

Eden: It’s An Endless World

Keyman: The Hand of Judgement

Shigahime

Rojica to Rakkasei

BLAME!

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

Animal Farm

The Green Mile

Salem's Lot

Lord of the Flies

The Catcher in the Rye

To Kill a Mockingbird

The Complete Tales of H. P. Lovecraft and more

Do not interact with me if you're one of the following:

Pedophile

Anti-LGBTQ+

Racist

Sexist/misogynistic

Ageist

Ableist

Someone who invalidates a person's pronouns, gender, and/or identity

Someone who supports, participates, tolerates, and/or justifies any of the above.

That's most of the stuff you need to know about me as of now. Anyways, as I mentioned in the description, I plan on using this blog as a way to share various ideas in regards to my own little multiverse. I'm open to listening to your ideas, sharing new ideas, and even constructive criticism! I hope you enjoy your stay here and I can't wait to share my ideas with y'all!

I have a side blog where I roleplay, make moodboards, and post stuff that ain't related to my work: @floofgryph

Writing request rules

Worldbuilding:

Story plots and major worldbuilding

Characters:

Main protagonists

Deities

Infernal beings

Angels (TBA)

#hello online people! #i'm a silly lil' newcomer #big ass introduction LOL #looking for moots #i want mutuals #wanna hang out #mutuals #amatuer writer #amatuer art #creative writing #set it off #evanescence #the raven age #citizen soldier #100 gecs #florence and the machine #fall out boy #finger eleven #get scared #infected mushroom #ergo proxy #neon genesis evangelion #flcl #tokyo godfathers #kaiba #akira manga #trigun manga #hp lovecraft #serial experiments lain #stephen king

[elbarkla]

Check it out everyone, 3 years of art progress! And I wrote a guide for beginners! 😊

Hi! I’m Laura, age 31. I’ve always drawn occasionally, but never really stuck with it. Frankly it stressed me out. I’d draw for a month, then cry a bunch, then quit for a couple more years. But this time I turned it into a habit somehow. I’ve been drawing near-daily since Feb ‘21 and my life is better for it. Art’s a huge part of me now; it affects how I spend my time, how I express myself, and how I see the world. I feel like a happier, more complete human being.

So here’s what worked for me. This is a guide for hobbyists (I don’t have commercial ambitions) and it may or may not work for you. But I hope you can learn something from it regardless. Without further ado, my thesis:

 ~ Laura’s Steps for Drawing A Lot and Hopefully Getting Better ~

 1 – Manage Your Health 

Know what’s bad for your art? Depression! Glad I got around to treating mine. But for real, if you lack self-confidence you might want to check your mental health. It isn’t the sole factor but it can rapidly overtake the others. Every day I see a post like “how do I improve, every time I try to draw I’m overwhelmed with thoughts I’m bad at everything and a burden to the people around me”. That’s relatable but not a healthy way to see yourself. Low self-esteem can be treated. Please consider talking to someone - you’re a wonderful, lovable person and deserve a happy life.

Also, try to get plenty of sleep and eat regular meals; it helps with everything. Exercise is worth a shot too. Going for walks is good for your mind and body. Yes it’s boring, but boredom gives you space to imagine things.

 #2 – Make It Fun

You’re taking this too seriously. Yes, you. It’s just a hobby. Take the pressure off. Have fun.

What does that mean? It means you need to make art approachable. It has to be a comfort hobby you’re naturally drawn to. That means killing all thoughts of what you SHOULD do. If it makes you want to draw, go for it. Anime characters? Pretty ladies? Fanart? Furries? Doodles from imagination? Zentangles? Pencils? Digital? Do it. If drawing the “right way” burns you out, draw things the wrong way instead. You know who draws a lot? Children. You know who doesn’t draw super well? Children. Have that mindset. Draw like a child. Don’t compare yourself to others; just enjoy the process of creating something. You had that ability once and I know you can reacquire it.

 Intimidated by an empty sketchbook? Don’t wanna ruin a white page? That’s OK; find something you don’t mind ruining. Grab a half-used notebook and a ballpoint pen. You EXPECT those to look horrendous. If you can have fun filling that notebook, you can have fun drawing regularly, and if you draw regularly you can slowly improve your art. It happened to me. I went from rarely drawing to wanting to do it every day. I still sketch in ballpoint now; it’s fun and comfortable.

Also, if drawing’s NOT fun? That’s OK too! There’s loads of ways to express creativity; go do do one of those. For me it was The Sims 3, then knitting, then drawing. Find something accessible and build your confidence up. The world needs bonsai trees and Minecraft castles just as much as drawings. <3

#3 – Seek Instruction

You’ve made drawing a habit, congratulations! You’ve probably learned heaps already; it’s natural to work out techniques as you go. But deducing art wisdom from scratch isn’t super efficient. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel when you can learn so much from others.

You can do a paid course (great way to meet people), but you don’t have to. All the information’s free on the internet! Teachers will cover the same things in different ways or from different perspectives. There’s no exclusive knowledge; the more you study, the more overlap you’ll notice. It all comes together for a more complete understanding of fundamental concepts.

Here’s some of my favourite resources (currently all available free online)(except the Winslow one which was taken down, boo):

  r/artfundamentals, ie. drawabox.com . A great starter course on how to hold a pen, draw lines, build forms and so on. You can follow structured lessons or just practice whatever you need to.

How to Draw: Drawing and Sketching Objects and Environments from Your Imagination, by Scott Robertson. This book’s the gold standard on perspective and great for technical thinkers. It gets VERY advanced but there’s basic stuff to learn from as well. If the textbook intimidates you, try this excellent video playlist by Dan Beardshaw. He walks you through the same concepts in a simple approachable manner. Vital information if you want your work to look 3D.

anything by Andrew Loomis. He’s an icon for a reason; the Loomis head is a standard art tool to this day. I also enjoy the anachronistic career advice (“all advertisers will pay for a well-drawn head” or whatever it was). Here’s the ones I’ve read and enjoyed:

Fun with a Pencil

Figure Drawing for All It’s Worth

Drawing The Head and Hands

Creative Illustration (my current fave, great for composition)

Classic Human Anatomy in Motion, by Valerie L. Winslow. Hot take – people who say “learn anatomy” to beginners are idiots. SO MANY fundamentals come before anatomy if you wanna draw good-looking characters. You’ll get better results studying proportion, form, gesture, shapes and composition first. But if/when you want to learn bones and muscles, this is the book for you! It’s probably overkill, but I loved the breakdown of facial muscles and how they create expression. Top-tier reaction image material.

Proko!! Fabulous Youtube channel. Not only is Stan a great teacher, he invites on other artists too. Just go to his search bar and plug in a keyword; you’ll always find something helpful. I recommend his channel if you want to draw humans (loads of gesture, forms, proportion, anatomy etc.), but there’s a video or two on everything. Some of my other favourite videos:

Mind-Blowing Realistic Shading Tricks. Simple effective intro to light and shadow, I still go back and learn from it.

How to Draw Dynamic Shapes – FORCE Series Part 3. So compelling I bought the book afterwards. Blew my mind, instantly improved all my shapes and in turn my composition and gesture.

Painting Skin Tones and How Light Affects Color. Marco Bucci’s a genius with colours, he explains value and saturation in such fascinating ways.

Digital Shape Carving with Scott Flanders – good companion to the shading video above, teaches dramatic silhouettes and cel-shading within a really interesting workflow.

Google. Any question. Throw it in. Someone’s made a video or reddit post about it. You’d be surprised! I swear, the number of times I’ve typed “composition tips” or “digital watercolour clip studio paint” or “how draw horse head”.

Remember, take it easy. Don’t burn yourself out. Back off if you feel the tears creeping in. Study should supplement your drawings, not replace them. If in doubt, revert to step 2 – “bad” art is better than no art.

4– Study Life

If you did step 3 you’re way ahead of me on this one. USE REFERENCES. Draw things from photos (or real life if possible). Fill your brain with visual information. Here’s a thread I made for sharing references of humans.

What if you prefer to draw from imagination? That’s fine – try a hybrid approach. Doodle whatever comes to you, then look up references and try again. For example I’ll doodle a bear, then draw from photos of bears, then doodle new bears using the things I learned. It’s fun and also a good way to test your knowledge. You may also enjoy combining different references; eg drawing animal fusions, combining poses with an outfits etc. It gets easier to do the more you practice.

Between art pieces I keep a balance between drawing from imagination, drawing from reference, following art lessons, and studying other artists. Speaking of which –

5 – Study Art

Ever heard “Don’t draw anime until you’ve learned anatomy?” or “Learn the rules before you break them?” I strongly disagree with both of those statements. Fundamentals are great but there’s never a point you stop learning them, and studying life won’t teach you how to stylise. That’s why you also need to learn from your favourite artworks. This gets easier/more efficient as you build your broader art skills, but you can learn styles at any point of your art journey (see – step 2). In fact, it makes study more enjoyable, since stylised art can look better and feel more “you”. You already know what you want to create– why not start now?

Let’s take anime as an example. That’s a huge genre with loads of variation. So, what’s your personal taste? Round and cute, or sharp and serious? Choose your favourite shows and study how they do it. Observe their lines, shapes and proportions. Then try it yourself. Make fanart. Not only is replication good art practice in general, it’ll teach you a bunch of new tricks. For original work, pull from loads of sources, the more diverse the better. Work in your love for Silver Age comics or medieval tapestries or German expressionism. The more places you learn from, the more unique and personal your style will be. Your art becomes a visual scrapbook of all the artists you love. I think that’s beautiful. <3

 6 – Find Community

Art friends! Best thing ever. You can bond over your shared obsession, commiserate over tough parts, and learn about art together. A lot of my drawings are in-jokes exchanged with my BFF. I’ve known them from childhood (lucky) but apparently adults can make friends too. Fandom spaces are great for this; many Discord channels have a dedicated artists’ zone. You can also try r/sketchdaily or challenges like Mermay/Inktober if you want a sense of community.

If you don’t have art friends (yet), that’s OK; parasocial works too! I like watching “Draw With Me” content on Youtube. It’s great to put on while you’re creating, especially when you don’t have the energy for something educational. Not only is it inspiring, you can learn tips and tricks along the way. And of course, you can never go wrong with Bob Ross.

 7 – Be Interesting

The very first step was to manage your health. In a way, we’ve looped back to the beginning.  Because no matter what you do, art begins and ends with who you are. You can practice fundamentals 12 hours a day but if you never live your life, you’ll never make interesting art. No one cares for artists whose only character trait is how hard they grind. So go be the most vibrant version of yourself. Take up weird hobbies. Make weird friends. Seek new experiences. Question the beliefs you grew up with. Read books for a while instead of drawing. Develop your principles. Embrace what makes you different. Survive the worst year of your life somehow. Learn what makes you thrive. Your art won’t be for everyone. But it WILL mean the world to some. And to me, that’s the whole point of doing this. Good luck, fellow artist. The world is your adventure yet to come. I believe in you. <3

#art progress #art tips #art tutorial #art resources #art guide #artists on tumblr #elbarklaart

[thankskenpenders]

Comic-Con has come and gone! It’s been an exciting time for Sonic comic fans with news about the upcoming Scrapnik Island miniseries, a live mural painting from Adam Bryce Thomas, Gigi Dutreix, and co., and more. Also, Penders was there

For a while now Penders has been saying that SDCC 2022 would be where he released the new hardcover reissue of Mobius: 25 Years Later with an added extra chapter and a few names changed, now packaged as The Lara-Su Chronicles: Beginnings. (Before anyone asks: yes, he has the rights to rerelease his old Archie Sonic stories following the lawsuit, and yes, he says he’s going to pay the artists royalties. Kudos to him for that, at least.) While I take every creative endeavor the guy announces on Twitter with a massive grain of salt for obvious reasons, I thought this one might have some small hope of actually happening because it’s mostly just a collected volume of some comics that already exist and not a whole new graphic novel

So, did that happen?

Nope!

But he did show off a new build of the iOS-exclusive The Lara-Su Chronicles motion comic app, which is the main way he plans on releasing these things. He’s shared a few new videos on Twitter, too, so let’s take a look at those. This is what he’s been working on all these years

Let’s tackle these in chronological order. First up: the M25YL “remaster.” (I'm just linking directly to the original tweet because Tumblr won't let me upload more than one video.)

From that first page it's immediately obvious that the hand lettering is gone, replaced with a font. Between the few character names changed to maintain consistency with TLSC and the many translations he's doing, digital lettering is probably just easier on that front. I won't knock him too much for that, although the fact that he kept the same random words bolded is funny to me

No, what really knocks me on my ass here is when we get to the second page and we see that the new motion comic format and the need to show more of the backgrounds means that not even this "remaster" is safe from Ken's horrible fucking photo backgrounds. Here's a direct comparison of how he ruined this panel, originally drawn by Steven Butler and colored by Jason Jensen:

I should add in here that I don't hate the use of photo backgrounds on principal. You can do some really cool things with mixed media! As is true of basically everything in art, any technique can be cool if it's used with the right intent. I was a Homestuck reader in its heyday, and it made cool use of color-altered photo landscapes and images taken straight off the internet mixed with the cartoony characters and original elements. But this is not that. This isn't trying to be mixed media or alternative or counterculture or whatever, it's just a shoddy attempt to save time on a hamfisted tribute to Silver Age comics

It's also worth noting that Angel Island, which looks extremely tiny here, is in fact the same shitty image Penders has been using as his personal logo for years

Next up, an excerpt from The Storm, the prologue chapter starring Geoffrey that will be included with the rerelease of M25YL. He's been posting previews of this for years

This one also has voice acting! Bad voice acting!

When asked what happened to Geoffrey's signature accent, Penders said that he only had access to an American actor, and that he'd rather not have him use a fake accent. The audio is apparently also temporary, although how much will or won't be changed in the full release is impossible to predict. Either way, the wooden voice acting does Ken's typically clunky dialogue zero favors here, and it continues to baffle me that he thinks all of these motion comic bells and whistles are somehow worth all the added time and effort when it's been over a fucking decade and he still hasn't released the first of seven planned volumes

Also noteworthy here is that we actually see the point where the timeline-altering energy wave or whatever hits? I guess? I assume that's what's happening, because the art style deliberately changes from Ken's best approximation of what he thinks Archie Sonic looked like (which already isn't great, although the dog girl is almost kinda cute) to his new style for TLSC, which. God. Look at that profile view of Geoffrey

Lastly we have a preview of the opening of The Lara-Su Chronicles: Shattered Tomorrows, AKA the actual first volume of the series. It's the scene of Lara-Su walking on the beach and shedding a single tear over how Knuckles is dead, as one does

It's not as noticeable in the video, but I need to link to the full res version of the shot of Lara-Su sitting on the rocks so you can appreciate how truly fucking horrendous the jpeg artifacting is. At the risk of referencing Homestuck too many times in one post, this is truly some Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff level shit. I don't know how he did this

And, at the very end we have a special guest appearance from the one, the only... the unlicensed likeness of Anthony Mackie that he is still fucking using for this character. Despite his appearance changing slightly in other art, this page still very much just uses a redraw(?) of Mackie's IMDB profile photo

And that's it! If you've been following the updates on this project for years like I have, you may have noticed something

None of these pages are actually new!

I'm pretty sure we've seen every single one of these before. Some of them are from years ago. If there's actual new material in this preview build of the app beyond the addition of speech bubbles to some of these pages, it's not present in these videos. Penders says that his next priority after recharging from the con will be releasing TLSC Beginnings (the M25YL rerelease + that Geoffrey chapter), but it's hard for me to believe he's anywhere close to releasing anything in the state these previews are in, unless he's secretly sitting on a whole bunch of pages that he just didn't want people to read for free at his con table

As usual, though, Penders claims that the responses from Comic-Con attendees were positive, particularly in comparison to the constant dunking he's subjected to on Twitter. People were even buying his prints. (He also posted a photo of Karl Bollers visiting his table. I don't know what Bollers thought about the app.) My kneejerk reaction is that I find this kind of hard to believe, but it's also like... I dunno, people are just generally going to be polite at a con, nine times out of ten. Most people are not going to walk up to someone at an artist alley and be like "hey bro your prints look like dogshit." It isn't the place for that. They don't wanna cause a scene by getting into an argument in the middle of their expensive con trip. I also don't doubt that there are a lot of people out there who probably see the old Archie Sonic comics he always has for sale at cons and go "oh hey I've heard of that" or "oh I read some of those as a kid!" and then realize he was one of the writers and wish him luck on his new endeavors, blissfully unaware of decades of obscure Sonic drama. And while it's well documented that I don't like the guy or his work, I don't think that's a bad thing! People are allowed to be polite to him. I do not want him to get pelted with fucking tomatoes every time he goes outside

But the thing is, most of the feedback the guy's getting is either polite well-wishing within the context of a busy convention, or people spamming him with pictures of Donkey Kong and telling him to retire on Twitter. And so he's shutting out the latter, and taking the fact that people aren't beating his ass in the QRTs at the SDCC show floor as a sign that he's on the right track, and that Twitter is just full of haters looking for ammo

And like. He's not wrong on that last point! People blame him for all sorts of shit he didn't actually do and take many things wildly out of context and spam his replies for fun

But Jesus Christ, my guy. You've been working on these comics for a decade and the art looks like this

#tkp post

[eerna]

Hello! This is incredibly random, but as a fanartist, enjoyer of critically examining media, and critic of capitalist corporations (*cough* Disney), do you have any thoughts about fan art being a form of unpaid labour?

Context is I’m writing an essay about digital labour and how fan creation is basically kind of like free PR for big corporations… and now whenever I do fanart I can’t get that thought out of my head uGH. I want to believe that drawing fanart is my own form of creative expression and way of showing love for the media, but at the same time I’m like “am I being exploited???” since I’m helping advertise smth for free and these corporations are just capitalizing on my love for said media??? and I can’t reconcile these thoughts 🥲🫠

Also I’m struggling with the essay LOL my eventual conclusion is that we as fans do have agency but we kind of still are being exploited… so it’s not a very optimistic outlook haha. Doesn’t help that the scholars’ articles I’m reading are all very negative about this digital labour thing. Help.

Sorry if this is unexpectedly deep!! 😅 just really curious to hear a fellow fanartist’s thoughts, and I respect you a lot for being unafraid to criticize media 🙏🙏

Hi! First of thank you for your kind words~ Second off, what a cool concept to discuss. Your message is pretty much how I feel. It is very frustrating to remember that so much of the media I love is so closely tied to the harmful cycle of capitalism. I grew up in a country that didn't have access to merch or much in the way of official media so piracy was my go-to most of the time. This means I was introduced to the concept of consumerist aspects of fandom via the Internet as a teenager and started feeling bad about "not supporting" stuff I love, but I told myself "Well I pay back by doing fanart and talking about it online". And then I found out about the way capitalism shapes the media landscape and started feeling bad for playing into it, the same as you. It gets even more conflicting when I am talking about something I dislike made by a company I dislike - yeah, I am probably preventing some people from interacting with the media for themselves, but I am also probably making others interested. What makes me feel better about the entire thing is that the "digital labour" I do is that I'm doing it for other fans like me, and to express myself. I love things so much that it makes me feel like I am going to explode, but pouring it out onto paper helps with it! Of course, I don't have to post it online for it to be worthwhile, but sharing it with others who feel the way I do makes the feelings even better. BUT one of the most important aspects of the issue is how willing those companies are to let me gain something monetary from the relationship. Are they ignoring fanworks being sold as fan merch, as commissions? It is illegal, but I feel like it should absolutely be allowed as a sort of unmentioned perk of being a fan worker, and the companies that don't allow that are evil. My audience gets bigger, I sell more prints, and so do they. (This is also why I never accept money for fanworks made by small creators, such as webcomics)

There's also the fact that lately I've been seeing the rise of "If you REALLY love this piece of media, it is your DUTY to consume it as much as possible and spread the word about it as much as possible and make the company as much money as possible if you want to see more things like it!" takes. These are utter bullshit and where enjoyment of media goes to die. The moment you reduce your love for something only to how much money it can make the evil capitalist overlords who allowed it to grace your eyes, you completely deny any kind of artistic worth. Media should exist because we deserve to have our hearts touched by stories, not because it makes someone money.

I don't have a clear answer or feel like my approach to the issue goes entirely along with my morality. But I don't think we can find a way to feel good about the entire situation as long as our media is dictated by capitalism. It's the sad reality of loving something in a system that will squeeze any money out of you that it can. But we gotta march on, remember that we are the ones allowing them to survive and not the other way around, and love while we do it. Good luck with your essay, stay positive!

#eernask #elsartzz

[meruz]

some weirdly specific artist game questions im answering while eating dinner. im gonna use my truly abysmal surface pen so theyre gonna be jittery af.

2. Is it easier to draw someone facing left or right (or forward even)

8. What's an old project idea that you've lost interest in I feel like I don’t lose interest in projects so much as I run out of time to do them nowadays. I had a bunch of ideas for a shortbox comics fair project and then got too busy to execute and meet the deadlines. same with some zines... I still want to do them!! Idk when though. I guess when I was a kid I used to be interested in more ambitious original writing, long form fantasy type stuff. I think if you really dig through my archives you can probably find ocs from ideas like that but I don’t have a lot of interest in pursuing stories like that anymore because... idk even writing short things is tough for me.

11. Do you listen to anything while drawing? If so, what

5. Estimate of how much of your art you post online vs. the art you keep for yourself

I think this is mostly because ive been “finishing” art less lately? or like... making less small things and more singular big/complex illustrations? idk. it’s tough, I want to post more because I like posting art on the internet. I grew up watching other people post art on the internet and wanting to do the same. there’s a lot of artists who don’t like it but its fun to me. unfortunately this whole year has kind of been like a non-posting year tho.

26. What's a piece that got a wildly different interpretation from what you intended

25.  Something your art has been compared to that you were NOT inspired by Uhhhh this is tough idk. I think I’ve gotten like...ava’s demon before?

Which doesn’t make a lot of sense to me looking at the style alone but does like...make sense in the way that I think I share similar cultural inspirations with that comic like...being online in the mid 2000s...deviantart digital art type stuff. So even if there isn’t any direct inspiration there’s some shared dna probably.   I think I’ve hard art compared to transistor (the supergiant game) too and I think its like. a similar story there. Heck, If i drew more sexy characters my inking tendencies would probably get my art compared to hades just with how big that art style is culturally rn.too bad i only draw dumb looking kids.

I’ve never played a supergiant game. they look very nice and I rly respect them as a company but they’ve yet to make smth that’s really up my alley.

(unrelated but tumblr user wellnoe I’m a huge fan of ur art you have one of the biggest brains in xmen fanart imo...!! thanks for sending in an ask LOL ;-;;;)

#ask #wellnoe #viivianite

[disabledunitypunk]

Okay, we're going to be posting essentially an image ID minus the images of a post, because our phone is being wonky about images.

Tl;dr since it is very long: Having hobbies doesn't make you a morally better person and not having hobbies doesn't make you a morally worse person. Some disabled people are disabled enough by their disabilities that they can't have hobbies and this kind of thing hurts them the most. Erasing them and saying all disabled people are abled enough to have hobbies is ableist. The idea that hobbies - productive or consumptive - determine whether a person is going to be a decent upstanding person or a complete asshole is literally based in christian protestant ideals about work ethic that have suffused our culture.

Take your moral superiority complex about being better than people who don't have hobbies and your crybullying about the existence of severely disabled people being ableist elsewhere.

The original post:

"get a job" as an insult: piddlin. implies one's value is determined by employment. feeds into capitalistic ideals

"get a hobby”: strong. cutting. implies that instead of feeding your soul and potentially creating something beautiful, you are here bothering me.

OP's reblog:

i can't believe i have to say this but for the people getting angry in the notes or sending me harassing asks: if this post makes you feel attacked, it's because you're an asshole.

if "you should find something rewarding to do instead of being mean to people" reads as "problematic" or "antagonistic,” it's probably because you've been told something similar after being unkind to others, maybe often.

and no, sorry, "get a hobby” isn't ableist. i'm disabled. disabled people almost always have hobbies. we are as capable of creating something beautiful, be it a knit scarf or a cake or a nice memory, as anyone else.

telling someone it's within their power to find something that makes them even a little happier isn't ableist, y'all have just become obsessed with this weird tumblr narrative that you aren't responsible for ANY of your own wellbeing and that pushing or enriching yourself in any way is EVIL.

stop being in love with your fucking misery, treat people better, and get a fucking hobby.

Our response:

It's still fucking ableist. I'm also a disabled person. It affects people more disabled than you in ways it doesn't affect you. Congrats, you're just a privileged asshole.

Conflating morality with productivity is ableist bullshit and also just based in culturally christian bullshit. People don't mistreat people because they don't have fun little activities to do. I've encountered literally THOUSANDS of the nastiest people you'll ever meet who are fanartists and fanfic writers, knitters and crocheters, who play instruments and write music, who make indie games in their spare time or create mods for existing games. I've also met incredibly good people who don't do anything "rewarding", often because they can't, and are the most compassionate, patient, understanding people you will ever meet.

You seem to think the only reason someone might find this antagonistic or problematic is because they are secretly guilty of not having any hobbies and spending their time attacking people. Is this projection on your part? Do you have to occupy yourself with distractions to avoid being an asshole on the internet? Are you even aware that the axiom that people who don't have hobbies are assholes still isn't true, and you've just once again said "the reason you're mad about productivity and hobbies being moralized is because you are a Bad Person and unkind because of your lack of hobbies"? Circular logic, anyone?

Like, I'm not a perfect person. You can scroll down my personal blog (@xxlovelynovaxx) and find times I said shitty things, and apologized and attempted to take responsibility for them. I also have LOTS of hobbies, including writing, reading, gaming, drawing, painting, digital art, papercrafting, playing flute and ocarina and recently kalimba, photography, doll collecting, music composition, singing, sewing, and learning languages.

I am also profoundly disabled and becoming more so. I am not becoming a worse person because of my lack of ability to continue doing many of these things. In fact, there is zero correlation between the times I have been an asshole and the times I have been unable to engage with my hobbies for prolonged periods of time. Meaning, not that I am only ever an asshole when doing hobbies, but that when I've made mistakes and hurt people, it's equally likely that I was or wasn't able to have hobbies at the time.

You know what's also ableist? "We are as capable of creating something beautiful, be it a knit scarf or a cake or a nice memory, as anyone else."

We are "as capable", as disabled people, as "anyone else". As cap-able.

No. Not all of us are. Disabled people who are incapable of doing these things exist. Disabled people who are so profoundly disabled that they can't even participate minimally in social situations to create "nice memories" - which, by the way, hanging out with others and "making memories" isn't a hobby. Disabled people who literally are unABLE because of their DIS-ABILITY of doing any of these things exist.

No, "most disabled people" don't have hobbies. But thank you for "defending" disabled people with literal inspiration porn about how actually, we all CAN have hobbies just like any other person, and how disabilities can never disable us to the point of being unable to participate in hobbies. Telling someone to find something that makes them happy isn't ableist. Deciding that there is a direct causative relationship between "not pushing or enriching yourself" and "being a massive asshole to strangers", or that the reason they are being dicks is because they "aren't taking responsibility for their well-being", IS.

Even setting aside that yes, pushing yourself can be unhealthy in some cases, that hobbies aren't enriching to everyone, that hobbies are necessary for a person's well-being (arguably true, because people who are disabled to the point they can't have hobbies often find their quality of life suffers) - people aren't "refusing to take responsibility for their own well-being" by acknowledging the reality of their disability.

They aren't thinking that it's "evil" to pursue something they enjoy or being in love with their misery or sitting there cackling about refusing to "recover" or whatever it is you think disabled people are doing when you've decided they're "choosing" not to have hobbies. For my part, I spend much of my time when I can't participate in my hobbies desperately wanting to, or planning how I can when I feel better, or as I've made peace with my reality, looking forward to the good days while I appreciate even the long and difficult rest periods forced on me by my body.

(Although also, if you think it's not okay for disabled people to be sad or angry or yes, miserable, when factors outside of their control make them unable to do the things they love, you're also an ableist for that.)

"Get a hobby" still implies people don't have inherent worth. It just takes capitalist ideals and does the "can I copy your notes? yeah but change your answer slightly" and makes it about an arbitrary abstract standard of "fulfillment" (usually still determined by creation of a product, as 'non-productive' hobbies like watching shows/ movies, listening to music, or other 'media consumption' are often vilified in the same way as lack of hobbies).

It's still moralization of productivity. It still bases both worth and "goodness" around what a person can DO. It's still based in exactly the same protestant labor ethic that contributed to the formation of capitalism, only now instead of "idle hands are the devil's work and cause sin" it's "idle hands cause an unenriched soul which causes sin I mean assholery". Seriously, what WAS that weird pseudoreligious bit about "feeding your soul" in the OP? The pretense is SO thin.

For all your fake concern trolling about it really being about "people finding stuff that makes them happy and taking responsibility for their recovery", the truth is, you don't actually think it's about people being healthier and therefore less of an asshole (also, being an asshole is a choice, not a mental health condition. Congrats on contributing to the exact stigma we continuously have to fight. Lack of health does not make you a worse person or more likely to hurt others).

To you, it's that if people can't, in your words, "create something beautiful" and "feed their soul", they are fundamentally less good of a person and more likely to hurt others.

Finally, even were all that true - that lack of hobbies directly causes people to be assholes - is it really worth making the most marginalized disabled people feel ashamed and worry that they're really fundamentally lesser? Is it really worth taking the people you believe to be outliers and essentially sacrificing them and their already much worse mental health outcomes, just to make a quip on the internet?

Or do you not actually give a fuck about other disabled people, have you bought into lies and stigma that productivity makes you a more "pure" person who is less capable of harm, and that having poor mental health makes you a morally lesser person that has to fight harder and fails more at not being an asshole, and that the only reason people might disagree with you is that they're bad people who choose not to recover and wallow in their misery, because a disability making someone unable to do things you can do isn't possible?

You literally said that people who have hobbies are better than those that don't. You think that hobbies determine morality. That's ableist no matter how you shake it.

Maybe you should get over your obsession with hobbies equaling worth and making someone a "better" more moral person, stop making other miserable, and maybe even with it being untrue, focus more on your own hobbies, because if nothing else they make you happier, right? And you don't seem too happy right now.

Repost because this originally caused a wave of ableist harassment when attached to OPs post.

[id0what1want]

What does Cereza look like and how tall is she compared to the other characters and pokemon (it feels weird calling them characters)

*me vibrating at the exact frequency required to shatter glass* yeah I can do that for you

(I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS ASK (scroll to the end for some sketches of Cereza))

SO FOR STARTERS

Cereza is NOT tall, she's like maybe five feet somethin' short. She's Kieran's height during the Teal Mask and stays the same height forever. She does wear thick boots or sneakers all the time though in order to remedy this. Chunky soles are also good for traction and she climbs everything. She likes having stompers. Cereza seems taller than she is cuz she's all arms and legs, little gangly creature. She's also very sticklike, if you shook her she would make a rattling sound. All her muscle is very lean. Compact cryptid. I should clarify that I subscribe to the headcanon Kieran gets a growth spurt over the timeskip between the Teal Mask and the Indigo Disk. I think he shoots up to Amarys's height but still has issues with slouching so he might not seem like exactly the same height. Height is evidently in his genes if Carmine is any evidence. He's not done growing. (Cereza is pissed that she's not getting any taller and Kieran IS STILL GROWING) Cereza looks fucking hilarious next to all her huge freaking pokemon. Little creature next to big creature(s)

Cereza's hair is very specific in color and style in my brain. It's very wild and thick, as well as very long. It's the same consistency of a Hex Maniac's from the gen 6 games. Cereza's hair is ash blonde/white, exactly like the ash white option in game except the white streaks are even whiter (especially in the Indigo Disc, partially because fluorescents). It's very pale and muted, probably a shade lighter than the ash white in game depending on the lighting. Her hair is nigh constantly in low twintails that reach about her hips to maybe her thigh in length (it does grow over the timeskip, but it's so wild that it's kinda hard to notice especially since her bangs don't change). She will do little mini braids in her hair sometimes purely as a fidgeting habit to keep her hands busy or that piece of her hair isn't cooperating, and she wants it outta the way. Cereza's hair is the perfect length and consistency to play with and do things with. Lacey has to use every ounce of self-control in her body not to play with Cereza's hair. Deadeye has no such self-control and will bite at Cereza's hair all the time. Hair color refs!!

(DUDE THE IMAGES ARE SO BIG HOW DO I MAKE THEM SMALLER-) and also a hex maniac for hair texture reference

Moving on, Cereza's eyes are a darker red in Teal Mask, more discreet, but in the Indigo Disc they've gotten more saturated to the point of becoming a startling red. Her eyes are really big and round and sharp at the same time?? like they're round but her eyelines and eyelashes are pretty sharp. Her eyelashes are dark and pretty long. I would say her eyelashes are a dark DARK brown as opposed to black. Her eyes are very reminiscent of Briar's but a slightly different shape. Her pupils have a four-pointed star shape. This is not foreshadowing anything /lying

Cereza also has a beauty mark under each eye, perfectly identical and symmetric. (research says they're called tear moles, and they signify bad luck or hardship in life. It fits for plot reasons you'll see later lmao) She also has faint freckles all over, they're light enough that they aren't visible at a glance but you can see 'em if you squint. They would be more visible if she went out more during the day. Cryptid ass.

Posting this sketch is genuinely so scary like putting my own art on the internet? BLEGH. Giving people a visual of my own character? BLEGH.

Alright that's Cereza. Have some bonus sketches of the boys.

might transfer them to digital. idk. Anyway, thanks for staying this long!!!!!!

✨Do whatever you want forever✨

~ Cytoplasm

#cereza pokemon #pokemon oc #scarvi oc #kieran x oc #pokemon sv #dipplinshipping #kieran x mc #oc x canon #rival kieran #the indigo disk #juliana x kieran #juliana x kieran pokemon #the teal mask #oc art #pokemon art #trainer kieran #pokemon kieran #pokemon sv dlc #pokemon scarlet and violet #kieran x juliana #drayton pokemon #elite four drayton #trainer drayton #indigo disk #pokemon scarvi #kieran

[undeadorion]

I've been bothering Reddit lately, mostly giving advice to newbie artists. A lot of "learn the basics" and "slow down, think about what you're doing" and "talent is a myth, it's all hard work."

Once I racked up enough fake internet points to be allowed to post to r/LearnToDraw, I made this. Mostly so I had something up to show I wasn't talking out of my ass when giving advice, but to also show that growth can be slow.

And oh boy were there some responses.

One guy went on a tirade about how the middle one was actually superior and how it's possible to be "too good at digital" and called said it becomes "lesbian fantasy fanart", whatever that means. And he just kept ranting about how I actually got worse. Then he called the middle one "anime" and I realized he owned NFTs. So his opinion is garbage anyway.

Another person just went off the rails about how I shouldn't say how people suck. It felt like I was talking to someone from Tumblr, because they kept going to extremes and ignored that it was a quote from Adventure Time, even after being told directly. I even tried to explain that it's about accepting you're not good at something, not telling people they suck. But they just kept making it more absurd.

And third, multiple people have decided that this is some sort of statement of how long other people should take to improve and that I'm intentionally trying to discourage people. When it's just where I started (or the earliest I could find), where I was along the way, and where I am now.

People really will find a way to be offended by anything.

If you want to be an artist, you have to be willing to be bad at things and to put in a lot of work for a long time. There will be bumps in the road and sometimes you lose progress. You might take 5 years, you might take 20. There's no set timeline because there's no end point. Art is a journey that never ends.

[artcommunityvent]

heres my rant for today: (sorry in advance for long post)

i hate how modern art communities have to “fandom-ify” every single new trendy thing literally DAYS (and sometimes even hours) after it drops. i know this is a lot of the same sentiment as those people that just go “popular thing bad” but honestly it really puts me off some medias because i dont want to associate with anyone else who likes it

do we really need a million different fan ocs and aus for EVERYTHING? and like, i know its nothing new, obviously we have the onceler and undertale aus to look back on, but its exhausting at this point because while those communities were presumably genuine, in the present day it just feels like the fandom equivalent to an industry plant. and most people dont even stick with the thing they decide to make their entire personality!!

remember when spiderverse came out and everyone made spidersonas? who can you name thats actually drawn their spidersona more than once? it feels like everyone just trend hops, and yes i know thats how the internet is but its just exhausting especially when it brings down otherwise creative and inspired works

fnaf security breach: everyone makes fnaf aus and glamrock animatronics, then spiderverse as previously mentioned, then welcome home dropped and thats becoming a shitshow with how yall are fandomizing what is essentially a small creator telling their ocs lore in a creative way, and now its happening with digital circus. im so tired of seeing projects that are cool and visually appealing becoming a cesspit of bland, unoriginal aus and piles of fanart only to get dropped when the new shiny comes out

and i wanna elaborate on welcome home for a second because i know damn well if one of these people who makes “daddy dom priest wally is actually the devil” aus had an oc they loved, and someone came along and made their own aus of it in the same way, that person would bitch and cry oc theft. some people dont even change up the characters design, like how entitled do you have to be to essentially just steal someones oc and call it your own? it disgusts me how people are treating clown and honestly i wish they would put the series on indefinite hiatus or complete their story privately to teach these people a lesson

another thing that puts me off is how every piece of media has to have the “fandom daddy” for lack of a better term. glamrock freddy, hobie brown, wally darling, or jax, its all the same thing repackaged; someones gotta be the tumblr sexyman. its so tiring—ESPECIALLY as a lesbian who doesnt really wanna center men in my life at all—to wanna see fanart of the media you like and its only: “heres the one character everyones horny for drawn in a totally different and more sexualized body type” with everyone in the comments salivating over them. i really like digital circus! but all i see are people who would walk across a mile of broken glass just to suck a fart out of jax’ ass. what about the other interesting characters? why does EVERY conversation with popular media have to be about “which guy is the most fuckable” (guy specifically because come on, when has a female character been the highlight of attention; using the previous example have you seen ONE person talking about digital circus that even remembers zooble exists)

it feels like nobody can appreciate work anymore without having to claim some form of ownership over it, to say “hey this thing is so popular and important that it is now a part of my identity!! look at my millions of ocs that i will draw one time and never again!” im just tired of people being unable to passively interact with media they enjoy and everyone seeming to fight over and prove some connection to the things they like

tldr: im tired of everyone in the art community making heaps of fanart, aus, and fan ocs for stuff the second it gets popular and then totally forgetting about it the next time something else gets popular

(and before yall bring up hyperfixations: i am autistic; i understand having so much love for a piece of media for a short while and then dropping it for no reason and its heart shattering; BUT AT THE SAME TIME this pattern is on oxford to me and its on such a large scale that it infects the greater art community as a whole)

That is indeed the nature of media consumer at its finest. I do feel like it is more appearent now due to the way most social media algorithm works. They only show what is trending at the moment, so naturally, we are exposed only to this specific thing until another trend eventually takes over.

Even artists who never create fan content can be influenced to do so by looking at the other artists, be it to dive in along the hype for the popularity of it, for the geniune fun, for the sense of community, and many more reasons.

- ☁️

#vents #general

[africanmorning]

Trying to get into digital art for the first time? Having a hard time adjusting to drawing on a tablet while looking at a screen?

Most people will tell you to just keep at it and make bad art until you get used to it (at least, that's what everyone told me), but I'm a recovering perfectionist with insecurity up the wazoo working multiple jobs who hasn't got the time or emotional fortitude for all that.

What I did when I first started doing digital art 4, 5 years ago?

Hooked my drawing tablet up to my computer and started using it like a mouse to browse the internet/do general computer stuff (playing with some of the tablet's input settings can make this smoother). This helped me develop the hand-eye coordination I needed to use the tablet and get used to the way the stylus moved in space versus on the screen while also accomplishing something that felt productive and not like an act of repeated self-torture. Once I got used to using the pen and tablet like a mouse, it was much easier to open my art program and start messing with the brushes and other tools because I no longer had the big "where is my hand???" barrier getting in the way.

Disclaimers:

This method will not solve all of the coordination woes; some fine-tuning does have to happen in the art program itself. But it did help me get through a big chunk of the process.

I am definitely not a professional artist. I don't think I would even call myself a "good" hobby artist. I'd say I'm a passable hobby artist. This isn't about making one's art suddenly much better, just about closing the gap between digital skills and preexisting pen-and-paper skills. You're on your own for everything else.

#art #art tips #digital art #digital art tips #beginner artist

[dragonomatopoeia]

Do you have any recommendations for zines?

I ended up writing a pretty long front-matter to this ask, so I've put it all under a Read More. If you only want the resources, feel free to skip to the end

So: I am always going to be a little too pedantic and autistic for a comprehensive, unambiguous rec list. Someone asked me what my favorite book was once, and it felt like my brain stalled and rebooted five times.

Don't get me wrong! I love putting specialized recommendations together, like puzzle-box mystery novels, or horror genre video games with thematic emphasis on grief, or documentaries on sewage treatment

But I am very, very bad at recommending general purpose Media full stop. alas I am a fussy and particular creature who hisses at five star rating systems on review websites because I think using the same Quality Metric regardless of genre and medium and purpose is Silly

Making recs gets even more difficult with things like zines, where they are small press by nature. A lot of my favorite zines are DIY projects with Very Small Distributions. One of my prized possessions is a small, hand-drawn zine of one hundred cats the artist drew with their eyes closed, which they gave to me for free because they liked my shirt. But that's a zine that means something to me because of circumstance and taste and my own ability to pick it up in person

Your mileage tends to vary with this stuff. If I found a Repo The Genetic Opera zine that ranks every organ in the human body, I have friends that would love that WAY more than I would, and I'd probably send it their way. If I found a zine about Gundam and gender and disability and idealized bodies that have been shaped into weapons, then I have dozens of friends I would need to send copies of it to, but that wouldn't make it any less niche. Zines are for VERY specific audiences. That's one of the best things about them!

That Being Said! There ARE popular, more-accessible, or more well-known zines and artists with broader appeal, and I mean that in an enthusiastic, complimentary manner.

I've even seen zines being advertised on my tumblr dashboard. Zines like:

Oh No! A kidpix zine by Louie Zong (Pay what you want- all proceeds donated to LA Foodbank)

Golem Zine is a publication by and for Jewish creatives living in areas where Jewish life is challenged. Their Out West issue sold out before I could grab a copy ($10 per issue, physical)

FYMA: A Lesser Key to the Appropriation of Jewish Magic & Mysticism goes hand in hand with the previous zine, I think (Pay what you want)

But you're more likely to get something that caters to your specific interests and artistic sensibilities by getting in touch with your community members, asking friends who have similar tastes, or checking out some of these resources:

Your Local Library (I'm being serious here-- your library likely has connections to local artists, galleries, resources, and e-resources that can set you on the path to zines you'll enjoy)

Any local art walk or small press events near you (your library can help you find these)

Itch.io's Zine Tag (Adding more tags will help you filter these)

Papercut Zine Library's Virtual Library

Internet Archive's Zine Collections

The DC Punk Archive Zine Library (Specific to punk and DIY interests, as you might imagine)

The Library of Congress Online Zine Web Archive Collection

QZAP (The Queer Zine Art Project)

POCZP (People of Color Zine Project-- and they're on tumblr!)

Hevelin Fanzine Collection (Literally a bunch of sci-fi, horror, and fantasy fanzines that were all collected by one guy which are now being digitized)

From Staple to Spine: A Compendium of Zine-Related Books (This doesn't have zines itself, but the books included can be a great starting point for where you should be looking and what will be of interest to you)

I also recommend making your own zine! It's fun to make things and put words and images on paper.

And if you downloaded the bundle for Racial Justice and Equality off itch.io, you already own the Electric Zine Maker (Warning for brightly colored, glitched, and moving visual elements that may cause eyestrain. I would also be wary if you're prone to migraines)

I know this has been a Lot and I got a bit carried away, but I hope that this helps you in your quest for finding cool, obscure art made by people who care deeply about niche topics. Personally, that's my favorite kind of art

#asks #anonymous #recs #resources #should i tag this as research aids. i feel like this is now a research aid

[bogkeep]

stuck in the brain bog shallows today, stirring up some mud soup

hi it's more traumaposting

i wrote some time ago that i got like, Stalked and Harassed which is obviously very trauma. but then there's the trauma behind THAT trauma which is actually a lot harder to speak about, because that IS actually relatively easy to spin into You Are A Horrible Person And You Clearly Deserved What You Got

but i know i'm not the only one who's experienced this.

have you ever had a friend or acquaintance or someone who just. copies you. treats you like a blueprint for themselves. who slurps up your personality like juice. eats you like a whalefall? humans are a social species and copying others is a normal thing we do! of course we pick up mannerisms from our friends! of course we pick up habits from people we admire! everyone is a tapestry of the world we've absorbed. i can go poetic about it, you know, how we keep people alive by harbouring their memory in our daily lives. and yes obviously i am well aware of the zealous "how DARE you copy my art" digital artist archetype. i am very very aware of the precarious position i put myself in by speaking about this at all. but it wasn't really about art. it was - my interests. my mannerisms. my friends. my ideas. my goals. my way of speaking. my words. my memories. anything i shared where they could see, nothing was sacred. (they never created enough art to ever actually copy mine.) towards the end, i could predict what they would do next, only because i had done it. like a drinking game. i didn't get to keep anything for myself. is that selfish? is that greedy? to share a piece of my life on the internet and hoping it gets to stay my own? obviously i don't own everything. i don't own concepts or ideas or experiences. i can't stop other people from doing the same as me, even if i wanted to - which really, i don't. i don't know how to convince people that i really don't mind. it's just, there's a limit. i think the limit is where i start thinking "are you mixing up my tweets with your own memories?" "are you doing this on purpose or is your self-awareness really that lacking" or maybe the weird feeling of responsibility i get when someone clearly tries to solve their own problems by trying to be Me, Someone Who Obviously Has No Problems Ever, and i have to, somehow convince them that our lives are different and being me can't solve their problems because they're not actually me, or i try to let them know how i ACTUALLY solve my problems, or try to show them a way of solving problems that involves Not Doing Exactly What I Do, and it turns out all of these options are actually deeply uncomfortable to everyone involved. welp (i made grim jokes to myself about it being a form of cultural appropriation - to whisk off my surface level behaviours without understanding the deeper roots of why i act the way i do.) and i spent months trying to convince myself that it was wrong of me to be uncomfortable with this, that i just need to stop being so selfish and greedy and just relax about it. in fact i may just be mistaken and making the whole thing up! how self-absorbed am i for even having the THOUGHT this is what's happening! just a coincidence, just a coincidence, just a coincidence, just a coincidence, just a coincidence, just a coincidence - how do you even... talk about this. with anyone, much less the person doing this to you? because like the good outcome is that you go "hey i feel like you keep mimicking everything i do and it's starting to feel really weird" and they go "oh shit i did not realise" and then they walk on eggshells around you forever and you get bitch eating crackers disease about anything that even remotely resembles copying you and the bad outcome is that they go "whaaaaaaaat i didn't even notice but i'll TRY" and nothing changes, and then it becomes "well actually it's your fault for being so INFLUENTIAL, you're basically brain-washing people around you when you think about it" so you apologise for doing that (and nothing changes), and then it becomes "actually i have trauma and that's why you must let me keep doing this" and nothing changes until it must because there is no other way out of that. they can do it all they want but they can't be your Friend at the same time. you have to Leave.

i tried - i tried not saying anything, i tried saying anything, i tried Giving a lot so they would Take less, i tried keeping my distance. it was clumsy and desperate but they were attempts. a hard lock leave and burning down a dozen bridges was my only way out.

for a long time it made no sense - why were they so angry at me for leaving when they hated me so much? why did they follow me everywhere if they wanted nothing to do with me? a friend explained to me: i had left them cold turkey.

close to where i used to live, someone had spraypainted a phrase on a wall - "mitt liv er ikke et måltid." my life is not a meal. i gave it a salute every time i passed by.

#traumaposting under the cut #im doing okay! the fact that im able to write this means that i'm okay

[ottiliere]

do you have any more stuff on dirks kf thread? i love that idea

referencing some of the stuff in this post, specifically dirk's.... art. how it's mainly shock value content...highly graphic, self-hating, misanthropic, nihilistic, 90s and early 2000s edgy humor art taken a disconcerting turn for the sexual. and, okay. this content would not be enough to warrant a kf thread on its own. what's been established is that his physical assault of hollywood director dave strider is what put him on the map and by extension in the crosshairs of the types of people who...use kf. people would start digging into his internet history, tracing his digital footprint, you know. his deadjournal, the boorus he uses, they'd identity an art style and essentially go to town tracking down everything he's ever made and posted, even if it was posted anonymously (4chan).

and, like. the things he draws... I don't know how to describe this but to him this isn't really vent art, and he's not, like, a shadman. (most of*) what he draws isn't drawn with the intent of it being hot, or appealing. it's... again, shock value. I think he thinks you'd have to be really stupid to think anything he draws is funny (the actual joke he's making is that he's stupid enough to waste his own time and energy doing all this shit, and the ACTUAL joke beyond that is that he knows it's stupid and is doing it as a joke and is so elevated beyond both criticism of the work itself and of the creation of the work on a sincere AND ironic level. you cant touch him because engaging seriously at all with anything he makes makes you a dribbling drooling IDIOT), but I dont think he cares about people getting off to his weird shock value porn.... though at some point he would have? earlier in life. like i do think he would've had a kind of puritanical phase where he realizes how wrong the way he was raised was, but I also feel like he quashed this relatively quickly on realizing that it just made his everyday life that much more humiliating. his creation of shock value porn SPECIFICALLY the porn part. is not to get off to it or to be sexy or to help anyone else get off. it is all part of the joke. if you get off on it you're stupid and missing the point but no more so than if you are out here laughing at his non-jokes. I don't think he'd LET himself be sex repulsed, basically. he'd feel that way for a little while but he is so surrounded by it that letting himself be disgusted by it feels weak. he isn't a kid he's not some girl or whatever. it's sex it's no big deal to him because why would it be. no seriously like tell me why why would he even be thinking twice about something like this. elaborate on it.

Like. I just really lean into the idea of him delibrately quashing a natural aversion to sex that comes from a history of being violently assaulted...to me that ties into him fueling his own internalized bizarreness refusing to get help or admit weakness etc. it's similar to the involuntary agere** and the bedwetting; if he could only look his own humanity and weakness in the face and come to terms with it he could heal but he will NOT let himself do this, no self-reflection no criticism just straight ahead into oblivion forever it does NOT get any better than this it isn't even that bad now it was never that bad then and you're projecting OBVIOUS STYLE if you think he's ever even struggled with jackshit.

but anyway.

the people hobbling together everything he's ever made, into one big thread... with the masses completely misinterpreting his intentions, the message, the motivation he had behind these pieces... he would be so mad. like he's not even mad about the insults, he does not give a shit about that, it's how little people are understanding that is what's truly offensive to him. like none of you get it you're all just laughing at the barest most obvious layer of absurdity out there. you're not even thinking not even for a second you're all so stupid compared to me and you'll live and die and you'll never fucking know it I'm going to blow my brains out on camera in front of you I'm going to kill you you are so fucking stupid how do you even justify your own existence etc etc etc.

*I can see him being, like, a legit puppet fetish artist. like these pieces are about the same quality of any of his other works but there's a much more sincere quality to them than any of his other art that depicts more grotesque topics. if people genuinely made fun of this stuff I think it's one of the things that would genuinely make him grind his teeth into dust. they don't fucking GET IT.

I'm envisioning the prominent features of this thread consist of, like, compiled scs of his deadjournal account...which if you don't know is like livejournal but they do not filter anything you write or anything like that. it’s got a smaller audience, no one reports you and no one monitors it. so i imagine he uses this as an outlet for utter bullshit fabrications of his life, like blatantly untrue ironic traumaventing with some stake in his emotional state at the time (e.g., extremely exaggerated stories of him being kidnapped and trafficked and tortured and shit, really long ramblings/lies that are adjacent to how he goes down stupid one-sided conversational rabbitholes) mixed in with EXTREMELY occasional genuine breakdown vents. kf members would tear all of them apart, but especially the latter kind once they figure out what they're looking for. like every once in a while someone does manage to hit a legitimate pressure point I think, like some weird analogy he makes a couple times. someone makes a random guess and happens to describe something that like actually happened to him and hes like stunned for a second over it.

in general i feel like this would just be so monumentally terrible to him. like hes aware of the extent to which people do not "get" him but. his little brain would boil at this he'd be so mad i think he would break things in his home. need to draw him sitting at his desk about to physically explode.

**I forgot to post meta about this in response to an ask I got. we've talked about it for cumulative hours and written fic of it and it is like. the cause of timeline branchiations. I cannot get into it now. it will be so long.

#hospital dirk #ask #csa discussed a bit #specifically the way it shaped his brain #and just like. the kinds of things dirk would make in general. nsft I guess #I drew the preview image weeks ago in like. 15 minutes I think. at 7 in the morning

[seakicker]

Miss Seakicker HI! 🦦 anon here, I just wanted to pop in and ask a question but before that;

How have you been? I’m loving the new theme and layout for your blog! I hope you’re drinking enough water and taking enough breaks. We can’t have Fertility archon Juju getting sick!

I started playing Tears of The Kingdom and there’s a place called Joju-u-u Shrine in the game (we almost had Juju Shrine!) I went bra shopping earlier (nothing spicy, just needed some new ones).

I’m not really sure how else to ask this but do you have any advice for when the insecurities about one’s body image start to get…loud? Like some days I’ll feel good in a pair of pants because i fill them out really well but then there’ll be bad days like the time i spent 2 hours on an online site buying a kazuha cosplay because I didn’t want to admit i was a size bigger. (I bought the bigger size in the end and that one fits like a glove)

Feel free to answer this whenever you like! - 🦦 anon

HELLOOOOOOO SWEETHEART GAH i’m very late in answering this because i’m just tryin to find the motivation to use tumblr consistently again, but i was thinking about this ask again today bc i’ve had it in drafts since you sent it to me. i’ve been working a ton but i’m alright; drinking water and working on eating healthier for myself 😊❤️ what kinds of things do you think we’d do at a juju shrine… 🤔👀

as far as the insecurity part goes, honestly i’ve found that staying off the internet entirely on days where you’re maybe feeling a little worse about yourself is extremely beneficial. with how prevalent bodychecking and diet culture BS are on tiktok and instagram in particular and with how advanced filters and photoshop have gotten (remember when people considered it impossible to use filters/edits on videos? good times), taking a bit of a detox and staving off of doomscrolling rlly go a long way on days where i may not be feeling the best about myself. like, i’ve seen people recommend eating an entire block of cream cheese under the guise of health because keto influencers love spinning nonsense and trying to make you genuinely believe that an entire brick of cream cheese is inherently better for you than a single piece of bread for toast, lol.

at any rate, i think it’s good to remind yourself that you are real and your body is real and not everything you see online is real— most people are able to (rightfully) internalize that they shouldn’t compare their bodies to digital art or anime characters, and i think that mentally should extend to just about any 3D picture you see online— while i’m not inherently anti-photoshop or anything like that, i DO think it’s harmful for these people who participate in photoshopping their pics or using filters to pass it off as (A) all natural genetics and/or (B) simple diet and exercise because no amount of genetics, diet, or exercise are gonna give you a 13 inch waist and 42 inch hips. even pictures of real life people can be twisted to the point where they might as well be fictitious, but your body is real when you look at it and real in anything and everything you wear, so why worry about how it stacks up compared to a picture that’s certainly edited?

i first read this on pinterest in like high school but it’s honestly sound advice and something that’s really stuck with me— we don’t get mad at our feet for being too small/too big/too wide/too narrow when shoes don’t fit, we just buy a different size— shouldn’t the same idea extend to all our clothes? our bodies aren’t made to fit clothes, clothes are made to fit our bodies— and buying a bigger cosplay to fit you better isn’t a fault of yours nor your body’s. you got this ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

#i love u i’m always happy to hear from you #chats #cw body image #🦦 anon