DeathSurplus
Welcome to the site! This layout is its third iteration. You'll find restocks and announcements below on this page
Why did I make this?
RESTOCK 033
9/30/23
What? You thought I wouldn't post anything all of September? I just barely managed! The present is finally done and delivered. Here's an actual print of the wolf from Fantastic Mr. Fox, and the box I put everything in, from Grand Budapest Hotel. You can see that the sides of the box bow outwards a little bit so I had to use some tape to fix that. I'm real proud of myself for coming up with and executing all of this, it's one of the biggest projects I've done in a while.
Basically everything else I've done in the past month has been sketches on paper in my various classes. These, except for the jellyfish, are from film class. I'm missing a lot because I've gotten out of the habit of taking a picture as soon as I'm done drawing. For whatever reason I've been drawing a lot of jellyfish again.
Another thing I realize I didn't mention despite having worked on it for the entire summer is that I'm making another game! The last one has a lot of bugs that I honestly just don't want to deal with, so it is a lot more fun for me to just start a new thing. Like last time, I'm not allowing myself to really make any art until I'm done with the programming, so I don't have much to actually show for it. I'm not sure if I want to really explain it yet, but just know that I am working on something...
RESTOCK 032
8/28/23
The saga of my friend's birthday present continues. This is the one acceptable print out of my run of around 10, but, hey, it worked! As you can see on the block, a lot of the small details got filled in as I predicted. But the prints made around the start of the run were clear enough, so oh well.
And I carved the wolf! Didn't print it yet but it should (hopefully) be simple.
Aaaaand here's the box I'm gonna put this present in! And a little mini version I made as a test. I ordered a print on cardstock from signs.com to make the full-sized version, but I couldn't find a picture of a side of the box that was high enough in quality so I had to make a vector version.
This is an idea I have for a tattoo I want. The letters are initials :)
This is a character for my worldbuilding project-- I've kind of decided to take a break from working on the logistics of the world and instead focus on making characters and deriving worldbuilding from that. I randomly really wanted to worldbuild some cowboys, so I got to thinking about how I could somehow fit that into my world and I got this guy! He's a demititan. His titan parent is the titan of a specific kind of flower (seen in the bottom left). The bird he's riding on is the bird that eats the seeds of those flowers. His titan parent doesn't let him join human society, instead he's tasked with guarding the titan's sacred flower field on his magical giant bird by his lonesome. He has a lassoo made of petals which he uses to snipe intruders from his bird.
Finally, here are some pictures I've taken :)
And sorry for the extreme hiatus. No real reason, I just got lazy.
RESTOCK 031
7/7/23
The tracing of the Grand Budapest Hotel only took... *checks watch* 5 hours! I then had to print that out and trace it again onto transfer paper. And only now am I finally actually carving it. The picture below is where I'm at. This one is gonna be real difficult cause of the amount of detail :") pretty much every cut I make is partially a mistake. But oh well, I'm hoping it'll end up looking cool in the actual print. Sometimes imperfection makes the piece better somehow.
I also did a tracing (sort of) of the wolf from Fantastic Mr. Fox to turn into a print-- but honestly there was very little I could actually trace. I had to change the gesture quite a bit and guess on the paws, since in the movie he's standing on a rock which obscures his feet. I think it's still pretty recognizable though!
THIS IS NOT MY CHARACTER
they belong to Nblank!!!!Here's the first attack I've done so far for art fight! My profile is pyradim if you wanna attack me >:) I'd super appreciate it
Here are some pins I made out of wrappers I've had crumpled up on my desk for months haha. I'm really surprised that it actually worked out because those wrappers were truly wrecked
Finally, not exactly art, but here's a cheesecake I made that came out really good (ignore the one bit of overflowing jam) so I wanted to share it. I'm trying to learn to bake and cook a bit better so this was a good step for me
RESTOCK 030
6/17/23
This thing's done! I'm incredibly happy with it. Still annoyed that I have to scribble out part of it to post here, but oh well.
And now that I'm done with that linocut project, it's immediately time for another. It'll be for yet another friend's birthday and it's of the Grand Budapest Hotel. This is the sketch of it so far. Once I'm done with the sketch I'll print it out to-scale and see if there are any sections that are too crowded / too empty. I'll fix those and then it'll be transferred onto lino :)
This is another practice in character design-- I used an emoji generator and a palette generator for the idea.
And here is yet another WIP practice in character design, also using the emoji and palette generators. He's gonna be a sunflower-themed raccoon cowboy.
Finally, here's a random little thing I did to practice some difficult poses.
Also, this is the 30th restock! I kind of can't believe it. I didn't do anything special for the occasion, but I'm thinking of yet again redesigning the site layout (no promises, though). This time hopefully to look slightly sleeker :) but even if I don't, thank you all for sticking with me and looking at my art. It means a lot.
RESTOCK 029
6/1/23
Here's something I am nearly finished with for one of my teachers :) unfortunately I have to scribble out the top due to personal reasons, but I think this is a decent view of the design anyways. Left is my digital sketch and the right is the nearly finished carving. So far making this has been super fun. And, hey, I'm only posting like a month late! Lol
Another linocut thing I finished, and also another gift for a different teacher. The lettering was absolute hell (and I didn't carve that, that was done by hand) and unfortunately didn't quite turn out as good as I wanted it to. Otherwise I'm pretty happy with the process behind this one! The odd rim around the edge of the orchid is from the paper towel that I laid down to not get ink on the counter. I'll have to rethink that and find something that doesn't end up on the final print.
Here's a photo I took that I really like.
This is a random little sticker I drew.
These are two random little characters I'm trying to design for no particular purpose-- probably will end up giving or trading them away. Just wanted to work with fun color palettes :)
And, finally, another whiteboard drawing of some pilk, sprite, and random fizzy water that was somehow related to a class.
RESTOCK 028
5/3/23
Starting off with something I am real happy with, these print! Drawn, carved, and printed in the course of two days for a friend who is performing this Saturday. It's based off of a lyric from the song he's covering, A Little Bit of Everything by Dawes. I'm sure you can guess what line it is but to be specific it's from one of the final verses: "Oh, it's a little bit of everything, it's the matador and the bull...".
Also, somewhat of a side note, it's crazy how when you actually listen to advice given by other artists, things work better! Insane! All this time I've been printing by putting the paper down first, then placing the block on top of it and pressing the roller against the block. Turns out everyone does the opposite of that for a reason, and they're not just being silly. It worked out MUCH better.
Below are some test prints, the digital sketch, the block itself, and some prints of that fish thing I made a while ago.
Here are my design notes for a very ambitious project (again for a birthday, can people please stop having them?) where I plan to make linocut prints out of frames from the movie the Grand Budapest Hotel, which I, and my friend who this is for, love. As the notes say, I want to make a little booklet of these prints that would allow him to take each one out. The box I'd present it in would look like a Mendl's box. The bottom picture is the first sketch I've got of one of the frames. Not quite satisfied with his face yet, but it's pretty close!
And here is the start of my first-pass design for the god of animal husbandry for my worldbuilding project. Shears and a bucket are her main symbols, at least so far.
RESTOCK 027
4/18/23
First things first, I changed the layout of the website! I've gotten rid of the various pages for my projects and decided to just use this main page with the ability to filter by project type. I want to add a separate page for "junk" as well, but I may or may not get to that soon. Anyways, everything is shown on this main page by default, but you can use the checkboxes on the right side of the page to uncheck certain types of posts. Hopefully this will serve the same function as the side pages :)
Starting off, here's an embroidery project I'm working on for a friend's birthday! It's going quite a bit better than expected and pretty fast, knock on wood.
Here is a very small stamp I made to help me keep track of my running progress.
And here are a couple drawings I've made for my worldbuilding project (click on the Greek Iceland link to the left to learn more). The first and second pictures are renditions of a basic house, and the third picture shows a residential fish farm on the top and another view of a basic house on the bottom. The houses are a combination of the traditional Icelandic turf houses and Ancient Greek stone-based houses.
Allllllsoooo, I was inspired by a post by neonaut to make a webgarden pot, so here it is! It's not the prettiest but I think it gets the point across. Copy and paste the following to add to your own webgarden:
RESTOCK 026
4/1/23
Whoopsie, I've completely skipped over the month of March. Here's some fish that I eventually want to print out and put on my inline skates for your troubles.
Here are attempts at painting, based on pictures of my friends. I still don't really like painting but I know that's just because I'm not as good as I think I """should""" be, so I'm trying to push through that!
And here are drawings from my classes again!
These are a bunch of random pictures I took recently.
This is a linocut thing I am yet to print but really looking forward to getting to!! I really love how it looks so far.
These are butterfly wings I drew with the intent to laminate them and turn them into stud earrings, but now I'm feeling ridiculously lazy and I'm unsure if that'll actually come to fruition.
And here are some random sketches I did :)
But what I'm MOST excited for is my worldbuilding project!! I've been doing so much research about Ancient Greek fishing techniques. There's a strange lack of information about it but I think I have a good enough understanding of it now. Boats, though... my lord I do not understand boats lol. I'm trying but it's hard to get past the giant wall of terminology at first.
Either way, I've also been wondering what the "main" gods would be and I've settled on nine archetypes which I'll flesh out into actual characters soon: Animal Husbandry, Family, Craftsmanship, Intelligence, Medicine, Hunting, Force (meaning something like violence), Passion, & Death. That is definitely subject to change, but so far I'm happy with it :) I think it covers all of the most important concepts for this society.
RESTOCK 025
2/19/23
This time I'm beginning with a triptych of artist trading cards. All these guys are based on guys in a photo taken by my favorite photographer, Patrick Joust, in his series Beautiful Country. (It's picture number 49, if you wanna go look! Which you should!!)
And here are more ATCs I made :)
Here are a bunch of random sketches I did to escape art block (not that it worked lol).
And here is a little comic thing I made just so I didn't forget a character idea I had-- hopefully one day I'll actually draw his face and make him distinguishable from the other half-existent characters I have!!
Here is a thing I drew for my friend of Retro.
I also decided to give that Tailspin character an outfit design.
Finally, something for philosophy class.
RESTOCK 024
1/31/23
Hello!!! Happy nearly February. Here's a new character dude I made in tandem with my friend. The theme was deep-sea, and thus he's based on the tubes that live around hydrothermal vents. I tried rendering for the first time and I am ridiculously happy with the results. I included the non-rendered version and it's just... completely and utterly not comparable. And this was my first time trying rendering!!! I took maybe 15 minutes out of my way to make it look that much better! It's almost like the steps I choose to skip are really important. Nahhhhhh.
Anyways, here's more of him and then some little graphics I made for his toyhouse page.
Next up is a glow-in-the-dark rosary I made to replace my old glow-in-the-dark rosary I got from Catholic school which broke a while ago. Obviously I had to step up the tackiness. Go big or go home.
And this is a painting I did that I am super happy about. My first time ever painting on a canvas, my first time ever really painting a picture rather than a clay object, and my first time painting a human being. I kinda just set out to paint a dude and I did. In person his skin ends up looking kind of gold. (If you're wondering about the crosses, he's vaguely supposed to be Judas because I've been on a Jesus Christ Superstar kick.)
Finally, something I drew in history at my teacher's request. It's been a while since I've done a whiteboard portrait.
RESTOCK 023
1/16/23
Can you believe it? I'm on time! Here are some charms I made when I got a strong urge to just paint on cardboard. Above is my favorite. Each of these pairs are on the same piece of cardboard so that the charm is double-sided.
This is another cardboard thing I did but not a charm
Here are some stickers I've made. I decided to mess around with cutting out a template shape and seeing if I could tolerate making a billion stickers out of it. I may not have made a billion but I made way more than I usually can muster, so I'm very happy! I am the kind of person who can't use something if I perceive that resource as limited, so if I only have one or two stickers of a certain design I'll just never use them. This is hopefully enough to satisfy my brain.
Below are also stickers, whose design I shamelessly completely stole from this pinterest post I saw.
And these are misc. oc drawings I've done recently. It does surprise me sometimes that I end up drawing so many non-human characters. However I might as well admit that I started drawing because of Warrior Cats... I know.
Finally, some more whiteboard drawings! I've noticed now that I've gotten "good" at drawing things on the whiteboards in class that it's less fun to draw because of pressure to live up to my old stuff. If I figure out how to make peace with that thought and move past it, I'll let you know. I think the solution is to just draw what I find fun rather than what;s strictly related to the teacher's lecture.
P.S.: I'm thinking about what to do with the side pages. I'm yet to actually make uploading to this site automated which SUCKS, and also means I'm too lazy to put art on the appropriate pages. We'll see if I muster up the courage to learn how to automate or if I do something strange with the layout.
New Year's Roundup
1/1/23
It has been a year, a month, and eighteen days since I've started (cough-- restarted) this site. What a notion! Every single bit of art I've made over the past year, minus a handful of tiny sketches, is here. I've recently had the experience of walking into a room full of my art and, while that was absolutely magical, I find this far more magical and far more important. If you want to know why, read this.
Number of illustrations (finished): oddly, or I guess evenly, enough, exactly 50
Number of clay pieces: 11
Number of linocut pieces (individual carvings): 10
Number of pictures taken (ones where I was actually trying): 31
Number of kandi cuffs: 5
Total number of absolutely anything: 181
I have a lot of trouble being able to believe that I've accomplished anything, but here is literal, actual proof. I would like to say, however conceited it is, that I am PROUD of my work. This website is a testament to my life, my efforts, and my drive and passion. I will keep doing things. This site says so. It proves it to me. Thank you for looking at it, it means a lot.
RESTOCK 022
12/31/22
Happy New Year's Eve! I can't believe it but it's already been over a year since this iteration of the site began. To have a collection of my art like this has helped me a lot, and especially since it's on neocities. I feel a sense of connection with others that I just don't think you get from social media, even though I can't directly comment on anyone's site and no one can do so to mine. I find it much more fulfilling to make the choice to remember someone's site, and then have to go look at it, rather than just having an occasional post served up to me. But having a year go by also means that I can look back on my art, finally, and take note of my accomplishments-- something I'm absolutely terrible at doing usually. I'll make that a separate post, though.
Anyways, here are some ornaments I made of my african clawed frogs for Christmas. I'm really happy with how these look. Midway through painting I was certain that they were just unsalvagable but nope! I've found recently that sticking with it and powering through the shitty zone will result in something that you can be genuinely proud of.
And here are a bunch of animals that I've drawn for my worldbuilding project! I've been thinking about Greek Iceland (temp name) a lot and finally decided to tackle the animals again. Before I had tried to draw them on paper but that just didn't work out at all, so this time I used a big, blocky, digital brush instead. I'm very happy with the results!
To provide some further explanation, the top row of sheep are the wild versions while the bottom row are domesticated variants. Their forward-facing horns are smaller and their coats are more uniform in color. If you want to read more about my worldbuilding project go here.
I also made some pac-man style gifs of two of my OCs for their toyhouse pages. Since I can't upload gifs to this site (I think-- I'm too lazy at the moment to actually check), here's the still images.
Annnnd finally, here are some random fish that I drew. I've been playing a lot of Splatoon 3 and I really like some of the fish stickers in that game that you can put on your locker, and in lieu of having sticker paper I decided to just sketch some creatures.
Expect another post very soon about the New Year!
RESTOCK 021
12/21/22
At this point I genuinely don't remember what parts of the month I promised to upload on. I've sanded and painted the fish charms, though!!!! I was SO impatient during painting so I'm very happy with how these turned out considering that! And I'm also really surprised how well the sanding worked. I only have one grit of sandpaper and it worked super well for getting rid of unwanted clay. I also finally have proper glaze that works well, isn't sticky, AND dries fast (deco art triple thick gloss glaze), so I might be adding that on. Also also I want to learn some decorative knots (maybe) for the strings that I connect these fish too. Basically, I just want to get fancy with them.
Only one whiteboard drawing this time, but I like it a lot.
Horrific lighting but I also made this thing randomly. Just wanted a physical fish sign-thing for whatever reason.
First things first, the second image is TRACED over a picture of a real cat. With that out of the way, I got this character called Laughs-a-Lot and I decided to redesign him a little :) I really love his outfit and the premise of him, and I plan to combine him with my dragon character (who I also traded for from the same person): Samsara.
Aaaaand finally, here's a little graphic I made for a ttrpg I'm planning to run :D I've found it very difficult in the past to flesh out a story/mechanics (yknow... the key things) for my ttrpg campaigns so this time I'm trying to approach it as if I was a researcher within the world, documenting what's going on. It's been so much easier!!! That way is far more fun.
I also just wanted to say: I have no idea who is reading this or looking at my art but if you're doing that at all.. thank you. It's been quite tough recently art-wise and in my personal life. I feel very lucky to have a website and even have the chance of people looking at my stuff. So, thank you! It means a lot to me.
RESTOCK 020
12/2/22
Firstly, another attempt at drawing some statues! Dionysus and another deity whom I forget. My lord drawing his right arm is basically impossible, I can't imagine having to sculpt it.
And here are yet more whiteboard drawings from class-- the religious ones being drawn while learning about William Blake (which hopefully explains why they're so crazy lol). Sorry for the lighting, I know it makes them hard to see but they usually get erased right after class ends so I don't have time to wait for the light to get better.
Another silly little drawing of an eel because my obsession hasn't ended yet.
And here's a candle stamp I made recently. I'm honestly really happy with how it looks (we'll see what it looks like when it's actually printed though), and I didn't make a single mistake while carving it!! First time that's ever happened!
And more Mountain Dew pins!
Finally, some clay fish charms I'm hoping to sand and paint soon!!! I'm really excited about these so hopefully I'll have more to show of them by next time >:)
RESTOCK 019
11/11/22
Well, I'm not as late as I could have been, by far. To start with here are some prints I've made, a bunch of a stork and also some of the fish and snake blocks I have. I did them as a demonstration for my classmates so as far as working under duress goes, I'm happy with them! A lot of the stork prints are missing detail around the eye but that's pretty much the only gripe I have with them, so it's a success in my book.
Here are a bunch of random drawings I made in class :)
More drawings I made for a different class.
And some pins I've made out of the packaging for a case of Mountain Dew Spark. I've got a lot of it left and my friend's dad works for some sort of soda factory so I assume I'll make more of these sorta things. I'm a big fan of the colors!
A picture of a bird next to the moon.
Also, I've been working on a little ttrpg project based on GURPS, and to make it easier on my players I've made a tool to help them create characters. Play around with it here!
Finally, I've been doing a bunch of writing which I won't upload immediately with this post, but will later today :) you can find that in the writing aisle
Finally, I've been doing a bunch of writing which I won't upload immediately with this post, but will later today :) you can find that in the writing aisle
RESTOCK 018
10/15/22
I'm on time!!!! To begin with, I've drawn a character I was traded. Designed by Lycan-Nerium! I really, really like this character so expect more art?
And drawing that character (as well as watching a documentary where Jerry Garcia pet an eel) started me on an eel kick. So here's Thall, a giant albino eel god that I'm incorporating into my worldbuilding project. Also, two little eels that I made just as filler images.
Then, to continue with the eel theme, I made a linocut print that I used to make stickers! I'm REALLY happy with these and for the first time the process of physically printing linocuts onto paper was actually fun. I finally felt like I had at least an okay idea of what I was doing-- in particular how much ink to use. You can see that I definitely did have some trouble, but I also had a lot of great prints!!
Here's this slightly deranged drawing of some ivy that I made during a difficult time.
Another drawing from philosophy.
Aaand here are a bunch of character drawings from my OC trading ambitions. Reminder that a lot of these characters aren't mine, but I designed their original designs (some might have been redesigned after I gave them to other people) and I drew all of these images. At first it was really hard to be willing to come up with cool ideas for a character and then just give them up, but now it's actually quite freeing. If you're looking into enjoying the process more than the outcome I highly reccomend giving away your art.
RESTOCK 017
10/1/22
I'm back! There's a lot of stuff I want to show so I won't explain all of it.
First of all, looots of photography!
And this articulated shrimp.
I finished the jellyfish!!!
I've also been doing a lot of linocut stuff-- the deer is just a sketch for now but the dragon thing is being carved.
Been drawing a lot in class and I'm super happy with the quality of these doodles :)
Here's a random little doodle of my depiction of cloning.
I've changed the art style of my game because the old one was just... not at all fun to draw in and took a long time. Personally I also think this looks wayyy better and more cohesive.
And, finally, I've been getting into trading OCs, so I'm going crazy just designing random characters. Some of these characters, by the way, are no longer mine since I've traded them away, but I did design and draw all of these.
I've also worked on the worldbuilding stuff a little bit in terms of coming up with different categories of critters that might be around on the island. But with that, that's most of my art! I also did a lot of stuff which I'm very unhappy with that I did while having art block which I probably should share for the sake of the purpose of this site but I'm not going to because I'm late.
I Still Exist!
9/7/22
hello! id just like to specify that im not in fact dead, just struggling a bit lately. also im typing this from my phone and its hell so ignore any errors if you can. i am still making plenty of art i just havent had the time or energy to photograph it and post it here. i thibk about doing it every day but i just havent gotten around to it
Site Statement
8/3/22
I've been checking out a lot of other sites recently and I thought that it would be good to write my own little thing about this site. What does this place mean to me and my life? Read it here.
RESTOCK 016
8/3/22
Once in a blue moon I have a good excuse to do linocut prints, so here's a bunch of things I haven't gotten to print in a while.
I've also finished painting the ray. I tried to go for a super complex design at first which was very frustrating so eventually I just gave up and looked up how to paint a galaxy instead. It's surprisingly easy!
And with the leftover paint from that I made a bunch of stickers.
I also drew this little vase as another test for working with crayons :) Honestly they're by far my favorite traditional coloring method.
Sooo that's why I used it to draw a bunch of animals! The weird deer with the horn coming out of the middle of its face was from a museum. All of the deer-like things were practice for life drawing. The shrimp were just for fun with coloring lol.
Besides that, I've been making some important progress in my worldbuilding project. I've done a lot of research into climates and biomes and I think I understand what sort of environment my island is. Climate-wise it's actually very unlike most of Iceland, and in general it's way more similar to the Faroe Islands. Next up is working on the animals. It's quite difficult for me to understand what sort of animals would've evolved naturally in that setting so I might just throw in the towel soon and just chalk it up to divine interference so I can have an interesting array of creatures instead of realistic ones.
That's all for now :) hopefully next time I'll have a bit more stuff but I've been pretty tired so I'm very happy with this level of output.
That's all for now :) hopefully next time I'll have a bit more stuff but I've been pretty tired so I'm very happy with this level of output.
RESTOCK 015
7/16/22
Why hello! I don't know what it is, but this month I've just been on an absolute roll with art. Starting with art fight: I drew this parthenon-esc thing for my page, and I really like it. I might incorporate it into this site somehow... But also, I've done 3 attacks for art fight so far! I would like to make it REALLY clear that:
THESE ARE NOT MY CHARACTERS
I drew them in the context of art fight and they belong to their owners, who I will link below each piece. Subsequently, because they're not mine, these drawings are not free to use! You cannot use likenesses that I don't own.
This is Jelly! He belongs to BloomShift :)
This is Vaire-- look at art fight forcing me to figure out how to render lol. She belongs to Lycan-Nerium!
And this is Bugbriar! He belongs to Melissa_Titanium. My god, drawing a cat was difficult after all this time. If you don't know, I used to draw exclusively cats, and then furries, but now I've moved on to humans for the most part. Drawing all of these non-human characters though was a blast!!! I might start making some non-humans again...
I'd also like to mention, if you don't know what art fight is, it's an online game where you're put into one of two teams, and to earn points for your team you draw characters belonging to people from the other team. The more effort you put into your art (shading, amount of character shown, quality of the coloring, etc.) the more points you earn. It happens throughout all of July, so there's still time to join!
I've also done quite a bit of clay stuff! Painted the dog-- admittedly not my best paint job but I'm still learning how to properly use brushes. I just gave up trying to make the orange edge of his mouth smooth because all I was doing was extending the border closer and closer to his mouth instead of actually fixing it. This doggie is going to my sister as a gift. Below is a cat, a butterfly, and a manta ray that I'm yet to paint. I get to actually keep all of them this time! I meant to use them as charms but I forgot to actually put the rings in while I was making them soooo we'll see how I manage to do that haha
There's also this draft of a sticker I want to print out :D I'm not a huge fan of the color of the outline on the snake, but besides that it's done. If I keep this up I can have a whole section on the site specifically for trans symbols lol
I also randomly got the itch to draw on one of my shirts. It was kinda nerve racking but SUPER fun. The feeling of freedom that I can just wear literally whatever I want was cool. Uh, I'd also like to say: I know the crown of thorns is quite a powerful image but I believe I'm using it for a good reason-- more than just looking visually interesting. I want to grab Christians' attention, and remind them that "love thy neighbor" is exactly what Jesus died for.
And here is a little test I did in my sketchbook to see what working with my dollar store crayons is like. The answer: confusing. The gray thing is a teapot that sits on my desk with the top and handle broken off, just to explain what that is.
Last, but absolutely not least, I drew a statue! Apparently it's of Saint Augustin, though I couldn't find a saint by that exact name without an "e" at the end so who knows. It took me about an hour and a half, but it really flew by. Just sheer focus which was a nice relief from a lot of distracting thoughts I was having at the time. Below is the statue I was looking at.
RESTOCK 014
7/1/22
Managed to randomly do this the other day! In one 4 hour fever dream. If it's not super clear, Veros (shirtless guy) is supposed to be laughing and wiping a tear from his eye. I'm not really certain how old I want them to be so I went for a significantly more grown-up looking version this time, and I really like it! What I don't like all that much is drawing shoes. I kinda have no idea what I'm gonna do for that and I'm not looking forward to it lol.
Besides that, though, I have only pictures. I saw some pretty neat stuff recently!
Some stormy weather.
And some nicer weather.
As well as this guy! I took him home with me. Probably should've checked if that was an ecologically okay thing to do first, but it was at least pretty clear that all his edible parts were already cleared out.
Finally, some pretty purple flowers I saw :)
Also, by the way, I'm doing art fight this year! Not sure how much I'll accomplish and how long I'll last (last year I think I participated for about a week and then got burnt out lol), but if you're interested in attacking me or having me attack you you can find my profile here.
RESTOCK 013
6/19/22
Hello! I've gotten into an air-dry clay kick recently, and it's been actually really relaxing. I painted the fish from last time (you might notice that he used to have two eyes poking out but those fell off lol so now his eyes are concave), and started glazing him with mod podge but that takes a looooong time to cure so only half of him is done. The left picture below is of the original sketch I made as an idea for colors.
This is a little rat I made as a gift for my brother who has rats that look like this. She's not glazed yet because I'm going to try a polyurethane varnish instead of mod podge.
And here is a clay dog I am yet to paint. It's gonna be a gift for my sister :)
I also had wayyyy too much slightly-off black paint left over from the rat so I just sketched a bunch of stuff on sticker paper as quickly as possible. Some of it is not great lol but whatever I can just not ever use them if I don't want to.
And finally, a little sketch of Panotil and Veros working together which I assume I will never finish haha. One day I'll get back to actually working on that world but I haven't had a lot of time to do anything lately (yay work!) so it will have to wait.
Briefly I also want to talk about the game just in case anyone is waiting for updates about it: right now my next priority is coding the saving and loading stuff but I've never done anything like that before and I'm very lazy so I've made no progress. It'll probably take me a while so I just wanted to say don't get your hopes up for a bit! I have to learn how saving and loading actually works and do a bunch of smaller tests to work out what I'm doing before I will even touch my actual game. And I'm making myself hold off on the art until then (so I don't go crazy making art for a game that's not even finished). I make no promises to get going with that anytime soon so please don't hold your breath for it! But thank you for taking an interest in it at all!!!!
RESTOCK 012
6/4/22
First off, a bunch of different markings for the breeding mechanic! And some examples of how those markings can be combined to make interesting-looking rats are below. I actually kind of violated a rule I have where I shouldn't make too much art just to test out a feature, but I couldn't stop myself lol. Most of the markings are real rat markings, but I made a few of them up. Here they are from left to right: hooded, bareback, mismarked, capped, blaze, sealpoint, made this one up, variegated, spotted tabby, berkshire, agouti, dalmation, made this one up, rex.
I also realized that to properly draw the rats now they'll have to be a series of separate sprites on top of one another rather than one sprite, which was thankfully pretty easy to code. Every rat now has two arrays: one of the markings that they have, and another filled with HSV colors. The colors correspond to the markings, so I can draw each marking in the order specified in the first array and set the color it's drawn in to the corresponding color in the second array. Now ALL pets will end up being drawn this way, which means for the "premade" rats I'm going to need to manually make these arrays which is a bit annoying but not bad at all.
There are a few other things I'm gonna have to change now, like drawing all of these markings for every single sprite which... I sure hope it's worth it! And I am yet to actually implement the breeding menu / system to begin with. I know, I know, I jumped the gun on making the art first but at least it's done, right? Any progress is progress, even if inefficient. As for the breeding itself, I'm not super sure if I'll keep it like this, but essentially:
It'll check the first parent for a specific trait, and then there'll be a 1 in x (right now 4) chance that that marking is not passed on to the offspring. If it's not discarded, then the program checks if the second parent has that trait. If only the first parent has it, then the offspring will look at that trait's color in the first parent and use that color (or a slightly different shade of that color, randomly determined whether the hue, saturation, or value will change) for itself. If both parents have the trait, then it'll randomly pick whether to go with one or the other.
And here is a little clay fish that I made the other day out of air dry clay. I'll paint it soon, hopefully :)
This is just a random trans symbol I made. I want to turn it into a little keychain thing sometime, but it's annoying to cut out that shape so it might take me a while haha.
Aaaaand here are a bunch of pictures I took on vacation! Mostly at the Flume Gorge in New Hampshire. The craziest part of the trip was that we saw a moose! Like only 30 ft from us! We were indoors so it was safe (enough). It walked right past our cabin.
Here's another button as well
RESTOCK 011
5/22/22
Oops it's 7 days past the day I'm supposed to post. I have a semi-decent reason this time though because I've been trying to figure out why my phone randomly decided to upload my pngs to dropbox as jpgs, and I finally realized that it's because the file size was just too small apparently? It was very strange.
Anyways, here's a sketch of a dragon which I plan to print out and put on my phonecase!
And here are said pngs. They're for my game!! A bunch of rats doing things. The one where they're sitting in dirt is kind of confusing because it's an animation and it was hard to make a single frame understandable, but the left rat is digging and the right rat is half-submerged in dirt. The first two images above and the last two images below are of rats using particular toys, and the other two middle images are the rat's sitting and climbing frames. (The three images above this as well as the three images beneath this do not follow my usual copyright rules. All rights are reserved.)
I've also realized that my game is, in fact, not feature complete! I want to add a breeding mechanic in so that you can have more interesting animals and spend time trying to create animals that you particularly like the look of. Also, at first I was content to just not worry about saving and loading because this was just a side project, but now I do want to actually consider it a priority since, yknow, if I want anyone to actually play it that's quite important. So I'm back to programming alongside the art for a bit. I'm excited!!
Finally, here's some makeup I did :)
RESTOCK 010
5/5/22
Been on a stained glass kick recently. Above (left) is a design I printed out onto sticker paper after taking the sketch in the rightmost picture and tracing over my lines in inkscape. I have a few more stained glass sketches that I definitely want to do this to!
There's not much other stuff I have to show for this past two weeks because I've been busy working on... my game!!!!!!!!!!!
I'd call it's current state a "functional release". All of the features (except one small thing which I added after making this zip file) are there, however it's full of debugging stuff and I don't think anyone but me can look at it and figure out what on earth is going on. Unless you're really, really interested in what I'm working on, I don't think it is at all worth downloading the zip, but if you want to you can find it here. (Note: everything in this game-- all of its art, code, and anything else found within it do not fall under my usual copyright rules. All rights reserved.) For everyone who doesn't want to do that, or is trying to understand what they're looking at, here's a little explanation:
The game opens to this screen. The left and right arrow buttons don't work until you make more than 8 pens, which then creates a new room. To create a pen, you click the green plus button.
It will then take you to this screen, which is a menu for selecting which kind of pen you want to make. Right now there are only two kinds (but both have the same sprite): a rat pen or a reptile pen. It's extremely hard to read this text so I'll just tell you that the first button in the list is for a rat pen, the second is for a reptile pen, and all the rest are for rat pens.
Once you click on one of the pen buttons you'll be taken back to the main room. Then, you can click on the pen you just created. If it's a rat pen, it'll take you to a screen that looks like the left image. If you created a reptile pen it will have all the same buttons. In order, the buttons are a green plus to buy a new pet, a pink and purple tennis ball to buy a new toy, gray arrows to add a new "addition" to the pen (aka more room), and a gray "i" to look at the list of what pets are in the pen and their information. (Note: if you open the info tab you have to click enter to exit it again.) The red "x" is to exit the pen. Also, in the new pet menu and new toy menu, you can start typing any letters to search! Deleting your search will go back to the state the menu was in before you typed anything.
If you click on the green plus and pick a pet to buy, it will take you to a minigame, which is the right image. Small sprites of whatever pet you were trying to buy will spawn on the left side of the screen and move towards the very faint white rectangle, and you have to click on the screen when the sprite crosses over the rectangle. If you click correctly every time, you win the pet!
If you buy an addition, you can use the arrow keys to scroll around the pen. Rat pens build upwards, so only the up and down arrows work, while reptile pens build sideways, so the left and right arrows work.
After you win the pet it will take you back to the pen's screen, and your pet will be moving around every so often, like in the left image. You'll be asked to name your pet and then press enter to confirm.
Then if you try to open the toy menu, you can do the same: click on any toy you like. This time, however, there's no minigame, and the toy will follow your mouse around until you hit enter to place it. You can place your toy anywhere you want, and your pet will start to use that toy, like in the right image. Depending on what toy you bought, the pet might play a small animation or just hold a single frame that's different from it's usual moving around frame.
Each pet has a favorite "type" of toy. When the game is more fleshed out, there will be many types. For example: a rat's favorite type of toy might be "chill", which describes things like hammocks and beds, or "puzzle" for puzzles, or "climbing" for ladders and ropes. Each pet also has a "memory" of previous toys they used, and if they used the same toy more than once in their memory, they lose a happiness point. If they've used completely different toys, they'll gain a happiness point up to 4. If they've used their favorite type of toy in their memory, they can get up to 5 happiness. The money you make from your pets is multiplied by their happiness, so the incentive to have multiple toys of many different types is high. If you overcrowd your pen by putting more than four animals per addition (a pen by default when you buy it has one addition), all of the pets' happiness will be set to zero, so you'll make no money from that pen.
If you click on a toy or a pet it will be highlighted (click again elsewhere to deselect). If you press backspace while something is selected, it will be deleted. You can't delete a toy while a pet is using it but you can delete a pet that's using a toy.
And that's all of the gameplay! Obviously right now things are looking a little... strange. I don't want the final game to have a pixel art look, and none of the sprites currently in here are going to stay. All of the text on screen that makes no sense will be removed, and the text that remains will be a different font, size, and color. As for the final feature I added, there's a small chance that when you win the pet minigame, instead of getting the pet you bought you might get a special rare pet instead! But remember that's not in the zip file version so don't try too hard.
I've been working on this for sooooooo long and yet so short, really. Started it a long time ago but the actual development has come from me working nearly every day since the start of April. I'm extremely happy with the results!!!!!!
I'd call it's current state a "functional release". All of the features (except one small thing which I added after making this zip file) are there, however it's full of debugging stuff and I don't think anyone but me can look at it and figure out what on earth is going on. Unless you're really, really interested in what I'm working on, I don't think it is at all worth downloading the zip, but if you want to you can find it here. (Note: everything in this game-- all of its art, code, and anything else found within it do not fall under my usual copyright rules. All rights reserved.) For everyone who doesn't want to do that, or is trying to understand what they're looking at, here's a little explanation:
The game opens to this screen. The left and right arrow buttons don't work until you make more than 8 pens, which then creates a new room. To create a pen, you click the green plus button.
It will then take you to this screen, which is a menu for selecting which kind of pen you want to make. Right now there are only two kinds (but both have the same sprite): a rat pen or a reptile pen. It's extremely hard to read this text so I'll just tell you that the first button in the list is for a rat pen, the second is for a reptile pen, and all the rest are for rat pens.
Once you click on one of the pen buttons you'll be taken back to the main room. Then, you can click on the pen you just created. If it's a rat pen, it'll take you to a screen that looks like the left image. If you created a reptile pen it will have all the same buttons. In order, the buttons are a green plus to buy a new pet, a pink and purple tennis ball to buy a new toy, gray arrows to add a new "addition" to the pen (aka more room), and a gray "i" to look at the list of what pets are in the pen and their information. (Note: if you open the info tab you have to click enter to exit it again.) The red "x" is to exit the pen. Also, in the new pet menu and new toy menu, you can start typing any letters to search! Deleting your search will go back to the state the menu was in before you typed anything.
If you click on the green plus and pick a pet to buy, it will take you to a minigame, which is the right image. Small sprites of whatever pet you were trying to buy will spawn on the left side of the screen and move towards the very faint white rectangle, and you have to click on the screen when the sprite crosses over the rectangle. If you click correctly every time, you win the pet!
If you buy an addition, you can use the arrow keys to scroll around the pen. Rat pens build upwards, so only the up and down arrows work, while reptile pens build sideways, so the left and right arrows work.
After you win the pet it will take you back to the pen's screen, and your pet will be moving around every so often, like in the left image. You'll be asked to name your pet and then press enter to confirm.
Then if you try to open the toy menu, you can do the same: click on any toy you like. This time, however, there's no minigame, and the toy will follow your mouse around until you hit enter to place it. You can place your toy anywhere you want, and your pet will start to use that toy, like in the right image. Depending on what toy you bought, the pet might play a small animation or just hold a single frame that's different from it's usual moving around frame.
Each pet has a favorite "type" of toy. When the game is more fleshed out, there will be many types. For example: a rat's favorite type of toy might be "chill", which describes things like hammocks and beds, or "puzzle" for puzzles, or "climbing" for ladders and ropes. Each pet also has a "memory" of previous toys they used, and if they used the same toy more than once in their memory, they lose a happiness point. If they've used completely different toys, they'll gain a happiness point up to 4. If they've used their favorite type of toy in their memory, they can get up to 5 happiness. The money you make from your pets is multiplied by their happiness, so the incentive to have multiple toys of many different types is high. If you overcrowd your pen by putting more than four animals per addition (a pen by default when you buy it has one addition), all of the pets' happiness will be set to zero, so you'll make no money from that pen.
If you click on a toy or a pet it will be highlighted (click again elsewhere to deselect). If you press backspace while something is selected, it will be deleted. You can't delete a toy while a pet is using it but you can delete a pet that's using a toy.
And that's all of the gameplay! Obviously right now things are looking a little... strange. I don't want the final game to have a pixel art look, and none of the sprites currently in here are going to stay. All of the text on screen that makes no sense will be removed, and the text that remains will be a different font, size, and color. As for the final feature I added, there's a small chance that when you win the pet minigame, instead of getting the pet you bought you might get a special rare pet instead! But remember that's not in the zip file version so don't try too hard.
I've been working on this for sooooooo long and yet so short, really. Started it a long time ago but the actual development has come from me working nearly every day since the start of April. I'm extremely happy with the results!!!!!!
Purposeful Delay This Time
4/29/22
I'm so nearly done (knock on wood) with a fully functioning version of the game I'm making (it won't be actually fun to play yet because I'm missing variety-- right now there's only one or two types of each thing in the game) that I kind of just want to wait so I can share it along with the rest of my update. If it takes wayy too long (like around 5 days over schedule) then I'll just go ahead and save it for next time.
But I'm really really excited about this! It's actually coming along!
Grocerization
4/16/22
Also I just changed the site a little bit to make the theme more apparent. It's experimental so I might change quite a bit of it as time goes on.
RESTOCK 009
4/16/22
That's right!!!! I started AND completed a project within a two week time frame!!
I modeled the clover links and bigger piece in blender and then 3D printed them which was... whoo boy quite the experience. It took me so so so so long to figure out even the most basic things, and I still have literally no idea what I'm doing when it comes to 3D modeling. I wanna keep trying though, as frustrating as it was there's just nothing like it except for carving and sculpture, but those obviously come with a different set of problems because they're in the real world. I also had to learn how to paint with paintbrushes for this project which was actually pretty okay! I bought real paint and brushes so I didn't have to use my awful crayola stuff and it made a world of difference.
The thing in the big clover is just a thing I drew, printed out, and then laminated. It's double sided :)
Here's something I was kind of debating about posting because drawing furries is weird but too bad so sad I wanted to draw this dog. Based off of a saluki.
And I also fixed the wing on that bird from last time because it was really bothering me.
Besides that though I haven't done much of anything because I had top surgery! It's been very strange and recovery is annoying but I've been very lucky so far. One thing I did keep working on, and actually made SO much progress on, is that game I mentioned in 006. I do in fact have enough to show but I realized that with the file restrictions on neocities I have no real way to display it... we'll see. I still want to become a supporter but I'm probably going to wait til I get to about restock 20 to prove to myself that I'm serious about this site.
Naturally, I continued almost none of the projects I started last month, but I'm planning on getting back to some of them. Especially the jellyfish!
RESTOCK 008
3/31/22
Happy trans day of visibility! In one hour I will go back to being invisible :) In the meantime, I am on vacation and I've seen some really cool birds. I unfortunately can't share most of the videos because of the file whitelist, but I'm hoping to fix that problem soon if I keep posting consistently!
Here are some pictures that I can show you though.
Here are some pictures that I can show you though.
Here's a drawing of a jellyfish that I'm working on for my dad's pedal board. I'm going to use oil pastels (which I've heard are very difficult so we'll see how that goes) to color it!
Also, a random photo from what me and my friends did at school.
And this is a random vector thing I made in my exploit to make keychains. I've acquired a color printer so the next step is to actually print stuff. I've also actually made LOTS of other vector stuff for keychains and even buttons, but they include my school logo, so I don't feel comfortable sharing. Sorry :(
This is a speculative idea for some clothes worn by a religous sect in my worldbuilding project. Nothing is final and I am definitely not keeping the long sleeve ribbons just because they are super impractical, but it's a good starting place for what some of the cults might wear.
And an exciting update: I got a 3d printer! The first thing I printed was a miniature bust of George Washington which I don't have a picture of sadly, but here's a picture of him being printed.
Finally, here's a crazy watch I found with the masonic temple logo for some reason??? I got it for $15 at a random convenience store. I like it a lot honestly!
That's it for this fortnight. Hopefully one day I'll actually finish projects I started earlier in the month haha. I'm planning on making t-shirts and buttons to sell at the skate park near my house so that will probably end up taking most of my time.
RESTOCK 007
3/20/22
Once again posting very close to the end of the month. Here's the completed drawing of that lady from last month! It was really difficult to figure out what color to make the lines for her face, but I think this was a good resolution. I'm trying to branch out more from the people I usually draw, who always end up looking very similar.
Another little side project I want to start doing is making more inkscape stuff! And, in particular, stuff which I could laminate and turn into keychains. The tiger is probably gonna take me quite a while with all the stripes, but it should be fun anyways.
Yet again I have some music to share. Quick disclaimer, don't be alarmed by the title! It is an anti-war song. Here's the link! My dad's on guitar and background vocals, I'm doing the main vocals, same as last time.
My other main project right now has been the worldbuilding. I'm in the middle of this sketch of Panotil. It has been a WHILE since I've done any worldbuilding at all, but I've had a lot of ideas floating around that I haven't written down yet, so I'm trying to go through all of that. I feel surprisingly close to being able to make genuine stories with this world... and I've definitely never gotten this far on a worldbuilding project ever before.
A brief summary of the updates:
Expanded more on the concept of aspects.
Wrote a bit about this society's ideas when it comes to sex, gender, and pronouns. Still not super happy with anything I came up with, so I'll probably revisit this sometime!
Gonna start delving into the various cults and religions.
A brief summary of the updates:
Expanded more on the concept of aspects.
Wrote a bit about this society's ideas when it comes to sex, gender, and pronouns. Still not super happy with anything I came up with, so I'll probably revisit this sometime!
Gonna start delving into the various cults and religions.
And finally, another pasttime of mine that I haven't shared yet: makeup. I do it just for fun and I don't really care about looking good, so a lot of what I'm going to end up sharing might seem "weird" or poorly done, but I don't care! I don't need it to look good, I only want to improve.
RESTOCK 006
2/28/22
And here I thought I wouldn't have anything to post this time! Boy was I wrong. My friend came over to make some lino prints, so these are prints of various bugs, and a picture of the beetle stamp separately. I really really like these :) the golden ones came out a bit wonky because I used some of my friend's extremely old inks and the gold was... chunky. My friend ended up making an absolutely awesome print of sonic that sort of looked like a cave painting but sadly I don't have pictures of it.
Here are more artist trading cards that I actually made two weeks ago but I forgot to post.
Yesterday there was a concert which me and my dad got to perform in (which I am SUPER proud of!) Here's one of our recordings during practice. My dad's on guitar and background vocals, I'm doing the main vocals.
I'm also halfway through lining this random character. Really happy with how it came out so far!
(The two middle images and rightmost image have all rights reserved and are not free to use). And HERE is something that I was genuinely surprised that I was able to make. Open them in a new tab to see them properly. There's no better feeling for an artist than having an idea and being able to just do it from start to finish, exactly as you envisioned (& with no corners cut). That's what this weird angel thing represents to me. I saw some designs I liked, sketched something up based on them, then just went into inkscape and did it with ease. Nothing was confusing or didn't make sense. I had all the skills I needed to come up with the idea, make the drawing, and then recreate it as a vector image. I'm really surprised with myself, since I've been feeling very frustrated in a lot of other artistic areas, so this was a welcome change.
Speaking of which, I have also been working on a programming project. I don't have enough to show for it yet, but I have made a good amount of progress. I think what frustrates me so much about programming is exactly that I can't just come up with an idea and execute it. I don't have the skills yet, and right now it feels like developing those skills is going to take a very, very long time... I'm stuck right now because I have a lot of instances that are taking up space and should be deleted when the player moves to another room, but those instances have a LOT of information that I need to store somehow, so I can't just delete them and make a new instance in their place when the player returns. I really don't know what to do about that, but we'll see. I know eventually, just like how I used to be incredibly frustrated with inkscape, I'll understand what's happening, and everything will make sense. Oh well!
RESTOCK 005
2/20/22
Here's what you're getting this time :) Some Valentines stuff. When I made the cuff itself I was really dissatisfied with it, but after putting on the hearts and the links between them I actually like it quite a lot! I find it difficult while making these sorts of things to remember my original vision and so a lot of the times by the end I can't understand what I don't like about it, but I just have to go back to why I was excited to make it in the first place.
And here are some more random little bracelets for Valentines Day to wear on my other arm.
In the meantime I'm trying to come up with some ways to incorporate the grocery store theme into the site better, so I'm thinking about changing the folder icons to something more fitting like bags/food/etc.
And last but not least, some more linocut stuff that I have not printed yet. I'm still really struggling with working out how to transfer sketches onto the lino and getting a decent print out of anything... but we'll see! It's way too fun to stop trying.
Let's see if I even have anything to post in eight days!
RESTOCK 004
1/30/22
For whatever reason in the middle of the month I thought I had absolutely nothing to post, but looking back I actually had plenty, and since then I've worked on plenty more things. So here's all of that at once.
Here's what I'm most proud of: a little stat visualizer. It's meant to be for oc / rpg character stats (which is why I have the meaningless 0 to 4 label on the left, it's supposed to represent points you can allocate) but for now it's just a neat little tester project. Eventually I'll probably make it look a bit better so I can actually use it, but this is what it is for now :)
Another thing I'm proud of-- way more kandi cuffs :) This one came out significantly better than I expected it to. It has always perplexed me how people manage to make the initial double x-base cuff (the beads in the center of the bracelet) so rigid, and I figured out that it's just thicker string. I'm still really considering whether or not to make an etsy store for this stuff. If I do I'll actually buy decent string and a good lightbox for taking photos. I've been doing lots of research but I'm pretty afraid that I'll commit to it when I have a lot of energy, and then realize three days later that it's unsustainable for me. We'll see!
In honor of my stupid patronus, here's this thing I made as a joke. With the cuffs I made recently I took the opportunity to see how many beads they take and how long they take me to make so I could calculate the cost for one of these bracelets. This is a single x base cuff with one layer, which apparently takes 200 beads! The size I usually make takes 480 beads.
Here's a smaller version of the much larger just peachy cuff. This one is actually semi-wearable!
The actual cost of the beads used to make these bracelets is very very low because I buy in bulk, which saves me shipping fees. Speaking about this cuff: the cost of all of its beads is $6 exactly, mostly because it uses a lot of star beads which are 50 to 70 times more expensive than a regular pony bead depending on whether or not they are translucent or opaque. If I paid myself an $11 minimum wage the final cost would be $50 not including shipping. Most kandi cuffs are sold for $25 maximum. Try to remember that if you ever buy any cuffs that are complicated-- most people charge only around $5 an hour for their labor. Be kind.
Here's what I'm most proud of: a little stat visualizer. It's meant to be for oc / rpg character stats (which is why I have the meaningless 0 to 4 label on the left, it's supposed to represent points you can allocate) but for now it's just a neat little tester project. Eventually I'll probably make it look a bit better so I can actually use it, but this is what it is for now :)
Another thing I'm proud of-- way more kandi cuffs :) This one came out significantly better than I expected it to. It has always perplexed me how people manage to make the initial double x-base cuff (the beads in the center of the bracelet) so rigid, and I figured out that it's just thicker string. I'm still really considering whether or not to make an etsy store for this stuff. If I do I'll actually buy decent string and a good lightbox for taking photos. I've been doing lots of research but I'm pretty afraid that I'll commit to it when I have a lot of energy, and then realize three days later that it's unsustainable for me. We'll see!
In honor of my stupid patronus, here's this thing I made as a joke. With the cuffs I made recently I took the opportunity to see how many beads they take and how long they take me to make so I could calculate the cost for one of these bracelets. This is a single x base cuff with one layer, which apparently takes 200 beads! The size I usually make takes 480 beads.
Here's a smaller version of the much larger just peachy cuff. This one is actually semi-wearable!
The actual cost of the beads used to make these bracelets is very very low because I buy in bulk, which saves me shipping fees. Speaking about this cuff: the cost of all of its beads is $6 exactly, mostly because it uses a lot of star beads which are 50 to 70 times more expensive than a regular pony bead depending on whether or not they are translucent or opaque. If I paid myself an $11 minimum wage the final cost would be $50 not including shipping. Most kandi cuffs are sold for $25 maximum. Try to remember that if you ever buy any cuffs that are complicated-- most people charge only around $5 an hour for their labor. Be kind.
On a significantly less number-crunching note: here's something I'm planning to make into a linocut print sometime :) This image (above) does not fall under my usual licensing-- all rights are reserved. That's gonna be the policy for most illustrations or sketches I believe.
I got to see the 50th Anniversary Tour performance of Jesus Christ Superstar this month, and I had never heard the song Could We Start Again, Please? with Peter and Mary, but I really liked it! It turned Peter into a more dimensional character. I wanted to draw something of them performing that song (left image) and I also turned it into an opportunity to try and cure my same-face-and-body-type-syndrome that my art has, which is why they look so particularly stylized. I also wanted to remember some of the poses that they did in the upper right corner during Trial Before Pilate in the show, so that's what the rightmost image is.
If I didn't have a policy of posting absolutely everything I make I really wouldn't share unfinished sketches like this, but I know it would help me, personally, a lot to see other artists do this, so I might as well.
Speaking of things I don't really want to post but am going to anyway: here's a house I painted. The page is super curved but I gave up trying to fix it.
And here's more prints of the cow that I did. For whatever reason it was REALLY hard to get good prints, these are the best two out of like seven different ones. I might have to get a press for such large prints?
Another hobby I have which I haven't yet talked about is artist trading cards! Not sure if I'll make a new section of the site for them or just throw them under misc. But I'm planning to catalogue all of the ones that I have with their titles and creator names on the back.
ATCs are supposed to be one of a kind, so while you're free to share these images without credit like usual, please don't use them for any online ATC trading. You can't trade something that you don't own!
Nearly at the end, I promise. Here's a moth I haven't printed, and also the first thing I've ever mounted to a block! It's just a little rectangle that I wanted so that making flashcards was easier (since I'm learning a new alphabet and you need to know about ascenders and descenders relative to the lines of a page. The box represents the normal height of a letter).
Finally, here's some little notepad graphics I've made. I do a lot of what I'd describe as digital bullet journaling (i.e. making calendars, lists, keeping track of things, etc.) so I like making some colorful backgrounds to write on that aren't just the equivalent of lined paper.
Tis all, hope you enjoyed the long post! I'm going to take a few minutes before uploading the images to their respective pages.
New Year's Rambling
1/1/22
I was gonna make a post with lots of my old art that I made before I started this iteration of the site, but now I'm not really sure what I want to do. I think I'll just slowly introduce those pieces to the site when I feel like, without making any big long restock post for that. In other news, the about page exists now :)
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My New Year's resolution last year was to finish as many projects as possible. I'm not really sure if I've done that more than I've created new projects, but I think that goal has led me to create more things than ever before. Every year my setup for working on projects improves, too. I've recorded 3 songs this year (the last one me and my dad recorded yesterday!), made 41 separate vector images, created my first complex halloween costume, done about 20 different digital drawings depending on how you count it, made 3 different little clay things, nade about 5 miniature pieces of furniture, and, generally, been way more productive when compared to previous years. I could really go on about things I've done.
I don't mean any of that as a gloat (for the most part, haha)- more as inspiration, hopefully? I consider myself a very slow worker. A good amount of my friends have drawn nearly 100 finished pieces this year compared to my 20, a few have started recording entire albums of their own, and I'm sure most of them have completed more projects than I did. But... I don't care! The important part, I think, is being satisfied with what you've done, and challenging yourself in a pleasant way. Many people say you have to draw every day to get better at drawing. That's probably true if you want to get better fast, but the quality of work and the way that you go about it, I think, are more important.
Judging by my numbers I drew around 2 things per month- that's not very much at all! But my style has progressed in that time. It's only gotten easier and faster to draw humans over this year. I believe my composition has improved. My ability to draw and shade folds has absolutely, undoubtedly improved. The "draw every day" advice has always intimidated me as someone who wants to draw for fun. If anything, as a semi-perfectionist, I think it stopped me from drawing more than anything.
In my opinion and experience, if you draw at least somewhat regularly, and with the intent to improve (by doing studies, analyzing what you're weak in, etc.) you can, in fact, improve without drawing every day. Of course, drawing more often will yield more improvement, but all I'm saying is it's not an absolute REQUIREMENT for improving. And, ultimately, my point is: just because you don't do something every day, or even often, doesn't mean you'll lose all your skill. Draw for fun. If it's not fun, don't draw that day. You don't have to have a study or specific thing in mind to improve upon- drawing at all is an improvement. There is no drawing requirement- or any requirement for any other hobbies.
Even just doing related things is very helpful, I believe. 3D modeling in blender has probably helped my miniature making. Drawing for vector art, drawing for linocut (and when doing linocut: thinking about positive and negative space), painting on clay, thinking about design, and thinking about composition for photography have probably all contributed to my digital illustration skills. If you feel stuck, try some related mediums. If you're struggling to embroider, or enjoy embroidery, try some sewing or something that requires a lot of hand-eye coordination- or something that requires a lot of attention-to-detail. All of those related skills will probably improve your embroidery. The same goes for any hobby. Just because you don't, specifically, embroider constantly doesn't mean you aren't working on your embroidery if you sew or work with your hands in your spare time.
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In short: you don't have to do a specific task every single day to improve. You don't even have to improve to have fun. If something is just a hobby and not your livelihood, focus on what makes it fun. If you feel stuck with your hobby, and want to get better, try other things you like which might improve related skills. Don't be discouraged if you don't have a lot of time or have trouble sticking to a routine. Every single thing you do affects all of your other abilities- every time you pick up and manipulate something, every time you catch a ball, every time you read or look at others' art you are doing something. The more you do the better you get. Just go for it! Do things!
Good luck, happy New Year, and do lots of stuff this year! My resolution, at least, is going to be the same as last time.
RESTOCK 003
12/31/21
Sorry for missing the restock in the middle of this month, finals and making Christmas present absolutely killed me. There'll be another post tomorrow (or a few days after haha) for the New Year!
Speaking of which, here are some Christmas cards I made this year :)
I also completed the highland cow! Top right is the print on paper, bottom right is the print on fabric. Bottom left is a pillow I made out of that fabric print (unfortunately I rushed so much through making it that I don't have a picture of the pillow when it's actually stuffed) as a Christmas present. I have to make one more cow pillow for a class, though, so hopefully I'll actually manage to get a picture of that when I get around to it.
Also here's a very low quality picture I took :)
Here is a somewhat wonky incense holder I made for my friend for secret santa! It was honestly really fun to make and I really, really want to make more clay stuff like this.
This was also for the same secret santa, a little jewlery tray. This was my first time painting on polymer clay BEFORE baking it and also my first time putting a shiny finish on something so I'm pretty happy with how it turned out! Definitely going to try to make some more things like this (I want some trays and incense holders for myself, haha).
And I've also made a lot of progress with Greek Iceland! Maps! The gradient around the island is water temperature, the warmer the color the warmer the water. I have a LOT of things to add to the google doc which I haven't done yet, but there are a lot of world-mechanic things that will really separate this project from Greek mythology I believe. Here's a short summary:
> The clouds hold up the palace of the gods. When the gods are watching down on a specific part of the island, the sky above that part is overcast.
> Birds, being able to go above the cloud level (clouds are closer to the ground in this world) are believed to be messengers of the gods.
> Different weather patterns mean different things about the gods' opinion of a specific part of the island.
> More separation of titans and gods. Gods exist because of worship from humans, titans will always exist and are not dependent on anything. The more a god is worshipped the more powerful they are. Titans have no specific home like gods do, and don't watch over humans unless humans are screwing with their domain.
> Maybe introducing "aspects"- as in, there is one core deity with different aspects of themself, or that two deities hold the same domain or something. I'm not sure. This is only going to be a thing because I think there are certain domains which are both related to and not related to humans, meaning there would need to be a god AND a titan for it. Fire is the biggest example with this, I think. So Veros might be getting some changes.
Finally, I don't like Harry Potter but my friends made me take a patronus test and... my patronus is a salmon. I've never been more sad.
RESTOCK 002
12/3/21
Three days late this time, I expect it'll go like this pretty often. Posts are officially gonna be on the middle day (usually 15th) and last day of each month. So essentially every fortnight. Art output is gonna vary each time based just on how busy I am.
Here are the pins! I found out that there was a colony of seed shrimp (ostracoda) living in my frog tank that I had somehow not noticed for a long time, so I tried to draw them on a pin but it turned out pretty creepy haha. I want to make a point of putting ALL of my art, even what I don't like, on here. I love the little seed shrimp- they're much cuter than I portrayed them, and they're good for the tank :) The frog pin was to go along with it.
The holiday pins aren't cause I like Christmas all that much, a relative's work was having a contest to see who would wear the most holiday-themed stuff so I made her these.
Officially finished this kandi cuff, minus cutting all the strings short. Gonna add a section for kandi to hold all of these. I'll hopefully open an online store soon to sell smaller cuffs, but no promises on that yet.
Made a mushroom-themed hexahexaflexagon, here's its traverse. I know the numbers are backwards but this is what made the most sense to me when I actually used it irl.
Planning to put this onto lino (real lino this time- not easy carve). Finally got vellum paper so it should be easy, knock on wood.
A rare illustration- with no ulterior motives or further plans! Here's Veros, of the Greek Iceland (WIP name) project. God of fire and runners, mostly sprinters, since I think that fits with how a fire spreads quickly and "races" through flammable materials. This image (above) does not fall under my usual licensing-- all rights are reserved.
Finally: a random photo from photography class. We were supposed to make something themed around lighting so I found a place with weird blue light to put this mannequin we happened to have.
RESTOCK 001
11/15/21
Only a day later than planned- a great start. I haven't quite decided yet, but I think I'll be posting restocks on the 2nd and 4th Sundays of every month. If this isn't enough time for me to actually produce art, I'll change it to once a month. We'll see how it goes! This week I give you some buttons, some instant photography, a linocut project, the phone case of the week, a worldbuilding project update, and a camera review.
Here are the pins. These were just really quick warmups for doing more productive things. I find it useful to start with an easy task just to prove to myself that I can actually get myself together.
These are pictures of 3 out of 5 of my cats taken with the Kodak printomatic. Not my best work but since a picture is only 50 cents I didn't try too hard.
A relief I'm yet to actually print. This one was annoying- my first time trying to copy something from another piece of paper. I just ordered vellum paper (which works great for transferring graphite onto lino!) but this was before I had any sort of tracing or transfer paper. Grids.... not a fan.
The review. I've written an amateur review on the Kodak Printomatic, which so far has been a treat to have.
This month's phone case! Text says "silly billy" btw.
And finally, the worldbuilding update. This time I've been thinking about the clothes they wear while working- particularly blacksmiths (and particularly particularly Panotil's clothing). Not a huge addition but my god... researching sucks.
Yet Another Redo
11/13/21
I'm back! You can't kill me that easily. The first restock will come tomorrow and the rest of the site will fill in from there.
