the-eclectic-fox

[the-eclectic-fox]

Save the bats

perhaps some will disagree, but i think the world got worse when we changed the colour of the night

[the-eclectic-fox]

Convention Etiquette

First day of comic con down! Lots ...lots happened today. Good and bad ...mostly not great.

But one thing that happened all day that pissed me off to the point I actually blew up at the guy, was, every time there was someone at my table looking, he would call to them and draw them away from my table. Even if I was talking to them. Don't. Fucking. Do. That. Shit. It happened ALL DAY. So finally I'd had enough and I got in the guys face (he was twice my size and twice my weight but I've been awake for 43.5 hours). I, actually managing to bite my tongue and not yell or swear but said "Hey Bud, can you do me a favor? How about WAITING until the people are done looking at my table before calling them away. I paid just as much as you did to be here." He stuttered and tried to argue so I just raised my voice and said "THANK YOU." Then, my sarcasm got the better of me and when he let a customer pass my table before talking to them I applauded and said "there, was that so hard?" And probably louder than I needed to ...

So I got the stink eye the rest of the time ...

I got him black listed so I still think I came out on top.

Artists are a community. You do not compete, you do not bully, you do not shame, you do not steal. You build up, you help, you support. If people come to me and are looking for something that I don't have but have seen, I will direct them there. Hell, I bought a bunch of prints from an artist (like, a professional artist - more pro than my amateur ass) and he thanked me for supporting him like 5 times, like sweetie, it's what we do! Your work is stunning so take my money and start telling me all about how you created it! (He published books with work from like frigging Ramon Perez)

In new comic con tradition I got some new tattoos, which if I get the chance to stream this coming week you will get to see them! I'm slowly getting all my fingers tattooed. I have very high pain tolerance (I'm a ginger with neurological damage, my body has a weird relationship with pain) and my friend has a very light touch (I always recommend him to people with low pain tolerance or scared first timers) so the first few passes feel like nothing. And it's so nice cause like an hour before that his wife ran up behind me and humped my ass (I would explain my friend group ...but I really can't ...the worst is when she did it, I had to look and see who it was because so many of my female friends greet one another that way) and then I talked with him about art, comics, and how much bullshit AI art is. It was amazing, and how I started my day.

It was mostly down hill from there. To block the glaring sun they put up curtains ...but the curtains covered the vents for the AC. SO basically - a sauna. But my system has been a little messed up so my hands were like ice and trembling non-stop while the rest of me was overheating and sweating.

No one was buying anything and we were almost completely dead the entire day. We talked to a lot of people and NO ONE is impressed this year. The weather was beautiful and there was a fair going on not far from it so that really killed us. I'm hoping that the new trend of Sunday's being busier continues on because the asshole beside me left (not because of me, he was only there today anyways) and the Art Director specifically gave me the table to spread out to for Sunday so I'm gonna put all my clearance out and make it look nice.

I hope tomorrow is a better day but I'm starting to lose faith in Comic Cons in general (not just the local one).

[the-eclectic-fox]

Comic Con Eve

I used to have a blog where I talked about art stuff and life stuff. I closed it down cause no one was visiting it, but I kind of miss doing work recaps and just having a place for all my word vomit.

I'm a very angry and tired person today. I'm super warm, but my hands are like ice, yet somehow also clammy. And clammy hands drive me mental so I'm constantly washing my hands and wiping my hands (which is awesome when you're covered in cat hair). So this should go well.

Today is set-up for Comic Con, and set up days are ALWAYS a nightmare (only comparable to tear-downs). Trying to get into the building, getting everything off the truck, FINDING a cart, getting our passes (they screw this part up every year for me), finding our table (also, screwed up every year), and finally getting everything set up.

Then my friend and her dad will be staying with us for the weekend (she volunteers for me, he volunteers for the doctor who society), and I love them dearly, but you can't have any kind of schedule or plan with him around.

Then, my body decided after 2.5 hours of sleep that it was ready to get up. So I've been up since 2am. And starting at 9:45am were the phone calls. Literally between 9:45am and 2:30pm I've had NINE PHONE CALLS, and I'm waiting on MORE! I have crippling anxiety, if my phone rings when I'm not expecting it - it causes a panic attack and sometimes impromptu vomiting. Mental health issues are great.

GI flare started yesterday, plus I have a super weak cold but having the two at the same time is mildly terrifying. If I sneeze or cough at the wrong time I am ruining EVERYONE'S day. But the funny (and sad) thing about it was I've been doing SO good with my diet, I haven't had attacks in months! Then, this week between con prep, house prep, and being sick ...this dumb-ass forgot to eat ...for 5 days. I last ate Sunday ...and it's Friday afternoon and I still haven't eaten anything. I am surviving solely on Tea caffeine (I'm not a coffee drinker) and spite. So the attack was my own stupidity. Sigh. Will I get the chance to eat tonight? Who the hell knows! Yay con! (This is why vendors always look frazzled - I'm not the only one with horror stories about prep)

Comic con fuck-up aside, I got bumped up to the vendor area in the Featured Artist wall! Instead of the tiny room no one can ever find where they stuff all the artists. So I have hope this year! I also have tons of new stuff, and did a complete overhaul to my prints.

This year I will still have prints, only limited to 5 of each and once sold out they're done! But I will also have lanyards, key chains, bookmarks, stickers, cups, shirts, tank tops, and hats. I'm super excited for the lanyards and key chains since this is the first time I've ever made them!

Highlight of it all? I get to see my best friend, my nails are a bangin' shade of orange, and after con starts HUNTING SEASON! I have three of them this year! And also in 2 weeks I will see my parents cause we are taking the last two days of bird camp to hunt birds on my parents property with my dad. Always a highlight of comic con.

[the-eclectic-fox]

So I’ve been enjoying the Disney vs. DeSantis memes as much as anyone, but like. I do feel like a lot of people who had normal childhoods are missing some context to all this.

I was raised in the Bible Belt in a fairly fundie environment. My parents were reasonably cool about some things, compared to the rest of my family, but they certainly had their issues. But they did let me watch Disney movies, which turned out to be a point of major contention between them and my other relatives.

See, I think some people think this weird fight between Disney and fundies is new. It is very not new. I know that Disney’s attempts at inclusion in their media have been the source of a lot of mockery, but what a lot of people don’t understand is that as far as actual company policy goes, Disney has actually been an industry leader for queer rights. They’ve had policies assuring equal healthcare and partner benefits for queer employees since the early 90s.

I’m not sure how many people reading this right now remember the early 90s, but that was very much not industry standard. It was a big deal when Disney announced that non-married queer partners would be getting the same benefits as the married heterosexual ones.

Like — it went further than just saying that any unmarried partners would be eligible for spousal benefits. It straight-up said that non-same-sex partners would still need to be married to receive spousal benefits, but because same-sex partners couldn’t do that, proof that they lived together as an established couple would be enough.

In other words, it put long-term same-sex partners on a higher level than opposite-sex partners who just weren’t married yet. It put them on the exact same level as heterosexual married partners.

They weren’t the first company ever to do this, but they were super early. And they were certainly the first mainstream “family-friendly” company to do it.

Conservatives lost their damn minds.

Protests, boycotts, sermons, the whole nine yards. I can’t tell you how many books about the evils of Disney my grandmother tried to get my parents to read when I was a kid.

When we later moved to Florida, I realized just how many queer people work at Disney — because historically speaking, it’s been a company that has guaranteed them safety, non-discrimination, and equal rights. That’s when I became aware of their unofficial “Gay Days” and how Christians would show up from all over the country to protest them every year. Apparently my grandmother had been upset about these days for years, but my parents had just kind of ignored her.

Out of curiosity, I ended up reading one of the books my grandmother kept leaving at our house. And friends — it’s amazing how similar that (terrible, poorly written) rhetoric was to what people are saying these days. Disney hires gay pedophiles who want to abuse your children. Disney is trying to normalize Satanism in our beautiful, Christian America. 

Just tons of conspiracy theories in there that ranged from “a few bad things happened that weren’t actually Disney’s fault, but they did happen” to “Pocahontas is an evil movie, not because it distorts history and misrepresents indigenous life, but because it might teach children respect for nature. Which, as we all know, would cause them all to become Wiccans who believe in climate change.”

Like — please, take it from someone who knows. This weird fight between fundies and Disney is not new. This is not Disney’s first (gay) rodeo. These people have always believed that Disney is full of evil gays who are trying to groom and sexually abuse children.

The main difference now is that these beliefs are becoming mainstream. It’s not just conservative pastors who are talking about this. It’s not just church groups showing up to boycott Gay Day. Disney is starting to (reluctantly) say the quiet part out loud, and so are the Republicans. Disney is publicly supporting queer rights and announcing company-supported queer events and the Republican Party is publicly calling them pedophiles and enacting politically driven revenge.

This is important, because while this fight has always been important in the history of queer rights, it is now being magnified. The precedent that a fight like this could set is staggering. For better or for worse, we live in a corporation-driven country. I don’t like it any more than you do, and I’m not about to defend most of Disney’s business practices. But we do live in a nation where rights are largely tied to corporate approval, and the fact that we might be entering an age where even the most powerful corporations in the country are being banned from speaking out in favor of rights for marginalized people… that’s genuinely scary.

Like… I’ll just ask you this. Where do you think we’d be now, in 2023, if Disney had been prevented from promising its employees equal benefits in 1994? That was almost thirty years ago, and look how far things have come. When I looked up news articles for this post from that era, even then journalists, activists, and fundie church leaders were all talking about how a company of Disney’s prominence throwing their weight behind this movement could lead to the normalization of equal protections in this country.

The idea of it scared and thrilled people in equal parts even then. It still scares and thrills them now.

I keep seeing people say “I need them both to lose!” and I get it, I do. Disney has for sure done a lot of shit over the years. But I am begging you as a queer exvangelical to understand that no. You need Disney to win. You need Disney to wipe the fucking floor with these people.

Right now, this isn’t just a fight between a giant corporation and Ron DeSantis. This is a fight about the right of corporations to support marginalized groups. It’s a fight that ensures that companies like Disney still can offer benefits that a discriminatory government does not provide. It ensures that businesses much smaller than Disney can support activism.

Hell, it ensures that you can support activism.

The fight between weird Christian conspiracy theorists and Disney is not new, because the fight to prevent any tiny victory for marginalized groups is not new. The fight against the normalization of othered groups is not new.

That’s what they’re most afraid of. That each incremental victory will start to make marginalized groups feel safer, that each incremental victory will start to turn the tide of public opinion, that each incremental victory will eventually lead to sweeping law reform.

They’re afraid that they won’t be able to legally discriminate against us anymore.

So guys! Please. This fight, while hilarious, is also so fucking important. I am begging you to understand how old this fight is. These people always play the long game. They did it with Roe and they’re doing it with Disney.

We have! To keep! Pushing back!

[the-eclectic-fox]

You mean this lovely boy?

Am I doing it right?

Been a while.

I was having a hard time posting things because my brain went “am I doing this right? Am I bothering people by using this wrong?” Yes, I was concerned that I was using Tumblr wrong. How TF do you use it wrong? In other news my anxiety has been through the roof for the past few months.

After the last convention it’s sadly time for a business reset. My formula was working for a while, not super great - but it worked. Well, last convention it stopped working. Usually my original art sells better than fanart, which is why I stopped doing fanart. Not this time, that’s pretty much all people were looking for. Prints don’t sell really well, which has been coming. To compete with that I have decided the only prints I will do are limited runs. From here on out any print will get a run of 5 and then no more. All prints will be marked with which of the series of 5 it is.

Stickers went great, so I started redoing the old stickers I still like and might start working on some new ones. But also, my neighbor at the con sold acrylic keychains and lanyards and recommended the site! So on top of stickers I might make lanyards to match designs.

Fan Art will be coming back. Mostly popular anime, just to see how it goes over, maybe make some cute/kinky keychains. I’m excited to come up with lanyard patters for some reason, I already have a few ideas to match them up to the LGBTQ dice stickers.

My system is still trying to bounce back from the convention (joys of being chronically ill), even my voice is STILL scratchy. I wasn’t sick, it was a weird combination of dry hotel (I woke up every hour or so to get a drink), cold arena, dusty arena, going from super cold arena to 33degree weather, then out to my parents with 2 cats and a dog and 3 smokers in one place. When I got home I had NO voice, but I had no other symptoms. Oh, and since it’s spring - that means allergies and I get an allergy cough and runny nose! I’m still scratchy and sniffly. Once my voice is back I will be getting back to streaming, but I’m basically glued to my (new super cute) water bottle, so streaming isn’t on the books yet.

I also have big plans for my website (theeclecticfox.squarespace.com), which I was starting to work on today but my printer rebelled so I have to let it sit for a day or so and dry out. Apparently this model of printer has one issue straight across the board. God damn sponge. There is a sponge inside you have to repeatedly get updated and repaired cause it absorbs too much ink and then just started fucking up prints. This is definitely going to slow down a LOT of work (prints, stickers, website update, etc) and that does frustrate the hell out of me.

So, if I’m irritating and using Tumblr wrong …sorry?

#boston #dnd #dnd art

[the-eclectic-fox]

Am I doing it right?

Been a while.

I was having a hard time posting things because my brain went “am I doing this right? Am I bothering people by using this wrong?” Yes, I was concerned that I was using Tumblr wrong. How TF do you use it wrong? In other news my anxiety has been through the roof for the past few months.

After the last convention it’s sadly time for a business reset. My formula was working for a while, not super great - but it worked. Well, last convention it stopped working. Usually my original art sells better than fanart, which is why I stopped doing fanart. Not this time, that’s pretty much all people were looking for. Prints don’t sell really well, which has been coming. To compete with that I have decided the only prints I will do are limited runs. From here on out any print will get a run of 5 and then no more. All prints will be marked with which of the series of 5 it is.

Stickers went great, so I started redoing the old stickers I still like and might start working on some new ones. But also, my neighbor at the con sold acrylic keychains and lanyards and recommended the site! So on top of stickers I might make lanyards to match designs.

Fan Art will be coming back. Mostly popular anime, just to see how it goes over, maybe make some cute/kinky keychains. I’m excited to come up with lanyard patters for some reason, I already have a few ideas to match them up to the LGBTQ dice stickers.

My system is still trying to bounce back from the convention (joys of being chronically ill), even my voice is STILL scratchy. I wasn’t sick, it was a weird combination of dry hotel (I woke up every hour or so to get a drink), cold arena, dusty arena, going from super cold arena to 33degree weather, then out to my parents with 2 cats and a dog and 3 smokers in one place. When I got home I had NO voice, but I had no other symptoms. Oh, and since it’s spring - that means allergies and I get an allergy cough and runny nose! I’m still scratchy and sniffly. Once my voice is back I will be getting back to streaming, but I’m basically glued to my (new super cute) water bottle, so streaming isn’t on the books yet.

I also have big plans for my website (theeclecticfox.squarespace.com), which I was starting to work on today but my printer rebelled so I have to let it sit for a day or so and dry out. Apparently this model of printer has one issue straight across the board. God damn sponge. There is a sponge inside you have to repeatedly get updated and repaired cause it absorbs too much ink and then just started fucking up prints. This is definitely going to slow down a LOT of work (prints, stickers, website update, etc) and that does frustrate the hell out of me.

So, if I’m irritating and using Tumblr wrong ...sorry?

#comic con #website #humanartist

[the-eclectic-fox]

Images only, link to original Twitter at the bottom of post.

Full🧵 here:

[the-eclectic-fox]

Getting better

Getting ready for DnD in an hour and I realized when I was helping a friend plan how to clean and organize her place, that I feel better. I could barely clean and organize my own place and now I have a complete start to finish plan that also takes into account pay periods and how we are feeling for my friend’s place.

I’ve been down this whole month. Body has been killing me, mental health is in the dumps, and because of that plus the disarray in my house my creativity is gone. I got steroid injections in my hips again (I get them roughly every 3 months) so the pain has been slowly subsiding. I’m still not sleeping because the pain is still bad so I do get cramps and wake up, but now my guts are acting up (hasn’t been right since my gallbladder removal) so I wake up with indigestion all the time too. So, I’m not GREAT, but I’m not as bad as I was.

I hope this means that I will be able to continue on with my work and LIFE and not just trying to survive. January was definitely just “try to survive” month. The weather was also absolute shit so that kills everything too.

Gotta finish getting ready for DnD! twitch.tv/Bliss_Star

[the-eclectic-fox]

New year, new projects, new updates, new me? Nah, still the same, this is a re-introduction since it’s been like 5 years since my last Meet The Artist.

#meet the artist #artists on tumblr #chronic pain #chronically ill

[the-eclectic-fox]

Feral goblin clan! Feral goblin clan!

Be Prepared

Be prepared for lots of changes! Planning and plotting to get the most mileage out of my work. Starting with reintroducing myself. I’m working on an updated “Meet the Artist” among other things. I want this year to be good, 2022 was an absolute joke. Between my health and just the world, it was a shittier year than 2020. I’m mentally and physically tired, so this year I will embrace my bog goblin side and allow myself to be completely feral. That is the energy I am bringing into 2023. Feral Goblin.

[the-eclectic-fox]

Be Prepared

Be prepared for lots of changes! Planning and plotting to get the most mileage out of my work. Starting with reintroducing myself. I’m working on an updated “Meet the Artist” among other things. I want this year to be good, 2022 was an absolute joke. Between my health and just the world, it was a shittier year than 2020. I’m mentally and physically tired, so this year I will embrace my bog goblin side and allow myself to be completely feral. That is the energy I am bringing into 2023. Feral Goblin.

[the-eclectic-fox]

Musing

I realized today (since my brain is randomly working despite the migraine hang-over) that having both a tumblr and a blog is kind of redundant. And I’m not completely enjoying blogging, it feels like a slog sometimes. So I’m thinking about shutting down the blog and just bouncing over some ideas to here. The last, like, 10 blog posts have no views, and even though it’s not like my posts here get views but I’ve just started and I plan on advertising this around a bit better.

Just trying to make my life easier, and a little more streamlined.

Any recommendations or thoughts help!

#artists on tumblr

[the-eclectic-fox]

Still trying to figure out what to do with this page. Posting all my art sure, but I might start posting work updates or musings.

Like, work overhaul, NSFW Twitter account, fixing the place I post the NSFW, website updates, writing, working on comics. When will I find time for all this and to practice speaking to see if I can get a gig as an audiobook narrator? Who knows, from 2020 on I’ve just been winging life.

[the-eclectic-fox]

This is another redraw, I loved the concept but the style didn’t match with my current one.

Top - 2017, Bottom - 2020/21

#redraw #art #artists on tumblr #moirae #fate #norns #mythology #maiden #mother #crone

[the-eclectic-fox]

Dark Tarot - The Magician

Upright: Skill, will-power, manifestation, resourcefulness, inspired action

Reversed: Trickery, deception, craftiness, manipulation, poor planning, untapped talents

#tarotcards #tarot #art #themagician #artists on tumblr

[the-eclectic-fox]

Dark Tarot - The Lovers

Upright: Relationship, love, harmony, values, soul mates, partners, strong bond

Reversed: Conflict, imbalance, trust issues, detachment, disharmony, strife, lack of respect, lust, indecision

#tarotcards #tarot #art #fox #crow #artists on tumblr #lover #thelovers

[the-eclectic-fox]

Dark Tarot - High Priestess

Upright: Intuition, sacred knowledge, feminine energy, subconscious mind, secrets, wisdom

Reversed: Secrets, disconnected from intuition, withdrawal, silence, repression, hidden agendas, blocked psychic powers, lack of self-trust

#tarotcards #tarot #art #artists on tumblr #highpriestess