When you send me paypal payments for commissions, please always mark it as being for Services. (Don’t worry too much if you didn’t do this, though).

I understand the seller always pays the paypal fee/tax in this situation. I am okay with it.  I do not mind giving paypal some money for enabling me to even receive the payments in the first place. It’s okay. Paypal is not a Big Bad for wanting compensation for their services. Woo.

If you’re getting a digital commission, please also mark the payment as requiring no shipping. (this should be an obvious one, but in the rush to throw dollars at people I know it can get lost). Part of Paypal’s Terms of Service requires sellers to agree “not to use your PayPal account to sell goods with delivery dates delayed more than 20 days from the date of payment”, so when you attach a shipping address to something that doesn’t need to be shipped, and never gets shipped, it can be a slight problem. 

This has been a Public Service Announcement from your local Skeptical Archer.

docshirley121 asked: What kind of red pencil do you use?

I use prismacolor col-erase pencils for sketching, along with Pentel .5 mm red mechanical pencil leads. 

eleanorea asked: are there stories going with you OCs ? They really are awesome and I would love to know more about them ! :D Especially the Fish Lady =)

Yes! I am actually working on scripting a story to go with her and some of my other OCs at the moment, but it will be a while before it is complete (I hope to eventually make at least a mini comic out of it at some point.)  It started out as something heavily inspired by Beauty and the Beast, but has since evolved into its own entity, with fish people and pirates and badass ladies everywhere. I’ll see if I can start posting more solid info about them sometime soon!

misguidedperfectionist asked: Are you by any chance going to Comicon in Seattle?

Nope! I’m an east-coaster so that’s a little out of my reach/budget for a convention.  I’ll pretty much be sticking to Otakon and Katsucon, and possibly NYCC if I can get up there. 

aavv4881-deactivated20130324 asked: I know this has been asked before during your streams, but what are your brush settings in Sai for painting?

I just tweaked the normal brush tool to this: 



Pretty much use this for everything. Persistence I tweak between 23 and 31, and brush size is scaled on my tablet’s scroll ring.

1:  Yeah, I will definitely continue to post everything here. I have galleries elsewhere but I have a huge problem keeping up with them because Tumblr is just way simpler/easier to use for submitting images, and I am pretty lazy.

2:  I have a couple story ideas floating around with a bunch of my OCs involved, but at this point I need way more practice with my comic layout and writing skills before I can hope to do anything with them, and a lot of the concepts themselves are just extremely undeveloped right now.  For a couple cases, I do hope to eventually do something visual-novel-esque, though whether or not they’ll actually be published in that format is anyone’s guess. It’s more likely they’d be something along the lines of a short-form webcomic.

ON A COMPLETELY UNRELATED NOTE, sorry this blog has been pretty much all asks and scribbles lately, the tendons in my drawing hand are acting up so I’m forcing a temporary break on myself to avoid making it worse.  When that gets better, you still might not see more than a couple warmups until I finish with these few commissions I have lined up. But those definitely get my focus for now.

Anonymous asked: will we see some more mindfang+redglare sketches or pictures from you hopefully in the near future? I miss your fantastic drawings of them <3 Although I totally understand being busy!

It’s possible. I’ve been chatting with Avis about them a lot lately so I might draw them some more if a particular idea hits me.

Like I said in the last ask though, I’m trying to steer away from doing so much fanart.  What I do will probably be restricted to warmups/sketches except for the couple prints I have planned for otakon, which will be proper paintings.

I appreciate people taking an interest in my stuff, even if it’s only the fanart,  or specific subsections thereof, which is totally valid. But what I draw has never really been determined by what other people want, except for the few instances in which what I want to draw and what people want me to draw happily line up. Or, you know, commissions.  This is part of why I don’t do requests.

Generally I just draw what I’m in the mood to draw. And if people happen to enjoy it, that’s great. If they don’t? At least I had fun with it. Unless I’m doing work-related things, I prefer to make art as much of an obligation-free experience as I can.

Sorry that got a little off topic from the ask, but I kind of get things like this a lot, asking if I plan to draw more of [thing] than I already have.  

My answer for all of these asks is as follows: If the mood strikes me.

notzilon:

Anonymous asked you:

Hello!! First off, your art is so beautiful. Secondly, I wanted to ask you if you could give me some advice on how to improve as an artist. Lately, I just feel like I’m unable to draw anything more than a sketch, and it’s hard for me to draw lineart and to usually even just make my coloring look right. I also want to try and draw more original things, but I can never really think of any cool characters or just original things to do. Is there anyway you could help me? ;u;

I’ve been thinking for awhile for how to answer this, simply because there’s such a wide variety of ways to improve and I don’t have an example of your work in front of me to give you an exact critique. As a result, most of my suggestions are going to be general purpose!

You’re having trouble finishing work. I know how that is! From what you say this seems to be a recent artistic malaise than something that’s a long-term suffering, so I’m going to guess this is simply artistic block. In terms of having a block, I think something very important to remember is that there is positive and negative stresses that you put on yourself, or is put on you from various sources. What these are differ from person to person, but a positive stress might be urging yourself to do better, or just a deadline - things that help you move forward, and give you a sense of urgency. Likewise, a negative stress is something that creates a mental wall in front of you. Things like comparing your work or another person’s, or convincing yourself you’re not good enough. I know I sometimes get into an overload where after looking at so many other artists’ work, and wanting to try SO many new things, nothing works and nothing turns out right, and I end up frustrated and miserable.

My point is, try to locate whether you’re putting unrealistic standards on yourself. This doesn’t mean “don’t have standards,” it means “understand what you’re doing and don’t be critical on yourself to the point that it becomes a detriment instead of a motivation.”

That said, sometimes things just come out shitty. And you know what? That’s okay. You may not be satisfied with the finished product, but sometimes that happens. Sometimes it’s more important to just finish something and move on, take note of what to do better the next time, and take to the next project than worrying about something being “right.” Sometimes you have to just get the bad, disappointing work out of your system. Sometimes you just need to loosen up and draw a whole bunch of REALLY DUMB, LOOSE SHIT to relax yourself enough to be successful. Case in point:

They’re going to be shit.

That’s okay.

The point is to loosen you up and relax you, to make you stop worrying so much and to just focus on your art, your strengths and weaknesses, and nothing else. Going out of your way to compare yourself to others and putting yourself down is a destructive process and energy that could be better used powering through a drawing.

In terms of original things, shit anon, I’m a fanartist. I love original things, but I admit they’re a lot more energy than just drawing a ready-made IP! That said, I think it’s always useful to use references and inspiration at hand to help you think of new ideas. In convenient bullet format, my suggestions are:

• Draw what you know, draw what you love: you’ll be more likely to enjoy drawing if you draw things that you actually enjoy drawing. This doesn’t mean sequester yourself off to ONLY drawing things you enjoy, but thinking about things in terms of what you enjoy vs. what you think is a chore can be beneficial. Find ways to make what you do applicable towards your interests.
• Start a morgue: “morgue” here meaning a collection of references and inspirations. It could be something as simple as an inspiration tumblr where you exclusively reblog things to use for future reference. A lot of artists, including myself, keep these! They’re useful and a good place to go to browse through your collection when you don’t know what direction to take something.
• Use those references: there’s no shame in looking at other things when drawing. It helps you understand what you’re drawing better.
• Seek to understand rather than rejecting ideas or projects. If you’re feeling frustrated, ask yourself why. Locate the source of the problem and deal with it from there.
• BONUS TUTORIAL: I wrote this a couple months ago, it’s a giant tl;dr about how I changed how I see/use color.

I’m sorry I can’t offer anything more, anon! Artistic block hits lots of people for lots of reasons, and it’s hard to offer aid without knowing exactly what the person’s problem is. However, everything I’ve mentioned does tend to help me.

Good luck in your future endeavors!

eskiworks:

I really love this short article because it talks about something all us artists struggle with; comparing yourself and your work to others. These are all valid and valuable points, but the one I ALWAYS say to people is number three, just in different words. It says “rather compare and despair, admire and inspire.” YES. There is no need to get down on yourself for what others have accomplished. You cannot help how you feel, but you can use your feelings to better yourself instead of digging the grave of your artistic ego. Use those emotions to fuel yourself on your journey as an artist.

(via raptorbane)

justiceagainstthehangedman asked: Although I'm a pencil and paper kind of artist, I've always wanted to try sculpting things. Noticing that you sculpt a bit on the side, I just wanted to know if you have any tips on sculpting. Also, do you use any specific tools to aid you in your endeavours?

I’m not SUPER experienced in sculpting as far as actual proper technique goes, I just sort of fiddle with things until they look right, but here are some things that might help:

I use super sculpey as my clay of choice, because it holds detail well and doesn’t give you the problem of drying out, and can be baked to a really nice durability (for people who have had problems with sculpey’s durability in the past, I recommend checking out this thread, which discusses baking times/temps/clay mixes that will give you a more durable sculpture.)

Tools-wise, I tend to use whatever is convenient and the proper size/shape for what I need at the time. I’ve been known to use pins, pencils, the round butt-end of various pens, screwdrivers, X-acto knives, and even (GASP) actual sculpting tools! You should be able to pick up a set of wooden sculpting tools for like 7 dollars at a local art supply store. 

Super sculpey has sort of a weird natural translucency to it, which can make seeing what you’re doing pretty difficult, so you might want to try mixing a small brick of black and/or white sculpey into it, which will make the clay more opaque and easier to work with.

The last tip that comes to mind immediately is for getting a smooth surface with Super Sculpey, as anyone who has used it probably knows, it’s a pain in the butt to smooth out all your little details so they look like natural textures instead of just awkward tool marks.  Rubbing alcohol + paintbrush. Going over the surface of your sculpture before baking it with the alcohol will smooth out any weird edges or fingerprints and pick up any little clay-shavings from doing scratchier textures.

Hope this helps you out a bit! 

essiecat asked: Do you have advice for how to design realistic-looking alien and fantasy creatures? (Especially those that are not close to the anatomy of earth creatures.) I'd love as many tips as you have, since you do it so wonderfully! Thank you for all your excellent art.

Even when doing fantasy and sci-fi designs, it is always important to reference actual real-life organisms. 

It really depends on what sort of thing you’re trying to design, but for a lot of my own sci-fi work I enjoy referencing deep-sea creatures, bugs and sometimes plants and fungi.  

I greatly enjoy biology and nature, so  I end up digging through video and photos and articles about that kind of thing a lot, but I know that’s not everyone’s cup of tea.  

You can find some REALLY crazy stuff in nature though — animals adapted to do tons of different things in ways you’d never think of.

So I guess start with your creature’s purpose — what has it evolved to be able to do? What’s its niche, how does it hunt (if it hunts!), etc etc. And then it becomes easier to give it features that make sense for how it lives.

I’ll close this off by linking to one of my favorite biology blogs, run by Paxon, who is a wonderful person and posts information and pictures about thousands of creatures, both obscure and well-known.  So by all means, check his blog out here: http://rhamphotheca.tumblr.com

Anonymous asked: Do you have tips on drawing fur?

These will give you way more info on it than I can coherently type out right now: 

http://sullivan.deviantart.com/art/A-Fur-Tutorial-Part-1-213293289 

http://sullivan.deviantart.com/art/A-Fur-Tutorial-Part-2-217035127 

softowl:

lexxercise:

Preface

Between the girl whose necklace concept was stolen by Urban Outfitters recently, and Andrew’s announcement regarding his official stance on fan-created merchandise, I’ve noticed a lot of people are completely unaware of copyright law and what it does and does not dictate. Since I’ve…

like this. please read this. please just give it a lil skim. you can do it!!!

(via softowl)

(Source: halftruth, via mspandrew)

yay pictures!

This guy was built up on a lump of foil for bulking him out/basic shape. A flat layer of clay goes on and then balls of clay for the eyes and then everything else was built up using those as the key feature to keep everything as symmetrical as possible, and then smoothed out with sculpting tools. 

I don’t use anything fancy! In fact, it’s kind of the opposite. I make due with whatever i have that is a good shape for what I need — screwdrivers, pins, knives, paintbrushes, etc. I have a set of really cheap wooden clay tools that I got at the local A.C. Moore store, but that’s pretty much it!