hardly-knewer

[hardly-knewer]

So, I finally made a proper commission sheet. If you’d like to ask more about commissions, please contact me at  [email protected], send me a message here on tumblr, or Twitter [LINK] If you can’t commission me, but would like to support me, consider reblogging. Thank you.

#commission sheet

[hardly-knewer]

My unicorn lady, Brìghde

[hardly-knewer]

Art Begets Art and the Law Should Respect This

I believe in the tradition of folk art, which is to say: Borrow liberally and lovingly.

It's a practice we've been mostly sterilized from embracing in our modern corporatist society, where all of the big-name, commonly-recognizable "IPs" are imprisoned behind layer after layer of obnoxious lawyers with nothing better to do than torment the innocent. It's a terrible thing, a deprivation of our cultural oxygen—a crime against art and ethics.

As an artist myself, I often have to thread the needle of building upon the inspiring works of others while still remaining within the letter of our outrageous IP laws. It's something I think about a lot.

In Galaxy Federal, for instance, I mentioned last time that the name "Galaxy Federal" was inspired, among other things, by the mention of the "Galaxy Federal Police" title screen of the original Metroid game. When I was settling on this title for my series, I also found that Galaxy Federal is the trademarked name of a bank. I spent considerable time and mental resources, years ago, to determine to my satisfaction that it is permissible under the law for me to use this title.

I have to do way too much of this bullshit, and I know it'll still be for naught: If I ever do become an even remotely successful author, I'm sure I'll be sued anyway, probably for something I never even realized was an "infringement" despite all my vigilance. Because, at the end of the day, for big corporations and for IP trolls, our IP laws are just a racketeering scheme—a side hustle. I mean, Best Western trademarked the word "seniority." If someone wants to sue you, they're gonna find a way.

I am not really a "from scratch" writer. I don't sit down at a blank page and just come up with prose from first principles. My art is almost always inspired by things that I experience in my life, or by the ideas that result from those experiences. Sometimes—frequently, even—my inspirations come from things that are copyrighted or trademarked. I have written in the past about the influence of the video game The Secret of Mana on me as a kid. Among many other inspirations, that game has a neat sandship in it, and that's why the desert easts of Relance are prevalent with sandships.

Over the years I've become a pro at reinterpreting IP-blocked inspirations into usable, original ones—both in terms of the legal research I've done and the skills I've developed at transforming an IP-blocked inspiration into something usable. I've also become more knowledgeable about what I can get away with quoting directly: Certain things cannot be copyrighted, and trademarks have a finite zone of applicability.

It's all a very needless and skill-intensive ballet to achieve something that should be directly accessible. Obviously, there do need to be limits. As an artist myself, I am keenly aware that I wouldn't want to have no special claim to my own work. But if I were to rewrite our outrageous IP laws—and over the years I have amassed considerable material for a book on this—I would make it vastly easier for artists and the public in general to "borrow liberally and lovingly" from the sources that inspire them. Our current IP laws are like a crime-ridden police state: The security is in all the wrong places and just doesn't work. We could relax the laws considerably without hurting artists, and potentially even tighten them in other respects to better combat trolls and thieves.

But in the meantime, here's my advice: Don't let it daunt you. Dance the friggin' ballet. Get good at transformation. Liberate intellectual property from its prison in spirit if not in substance. And, when you're fearless and/or sufficiently obscure, just straight-up pirate. I think society has a duty to reject unjust laws through word and deed.

I don't usually don my pirate's hat, but I do sometimes. When I published the Prelude in 2015, for a limited time I also published a free companion soundtrack consisting entirely of, gasp, copyrighted music. Nowhere is the horror of our modern IP laws more evident than in the realm of music. What I did was basically create a curated playlist, to help set the mood of the story. I don't know if anyone even availed themselves of that soundtrack, yet for me to license all of those pieces to make my limited-time links lawful would have cost me thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars! All for something that it's possible nobody other than me even listened to. That's a crime against art. And it's a crime against artists. Our draconian IP laws hurt small artists the most. If I had had thousands of fans, I'd have been able to pay to play—and I would have done so, or perhaps I would have spent the equivalent money to hire composers to write an original soundtrack. But, as a nobody-artist and a poor person, whose own Curious Score musical compositions are long in the making, the lawful avenues are all unassailably closed off to me. This too is an injustice, of another sort.

Doing the companion soundtrack was the right thing to do in the tradition of folk art. None of those other artists (or, let's be real, the corporate goliaths that hoard most of this "content" in their treasure-vaults) was deprived of a single penny; in fact that's one of the great lies of the IP lawyers and their corporate masters: Cultural interchange usually improves income for people whose work is quoted by others. Borrow liberally and lovingly—and give credit where credit is due.

That's the way it should be.

And, one day, that's how it will be again.

[hardly-knewer]

Commission prices: (All prices are per character/pose.)

NSFW: +$5 (I cannot show this on Tumblr, but check out my Twitter, Comiss.io and Mastodon.)

LINE ART: $20

FLAT SHADING: +$5

MONOCHROME COLOR: +$2

SMOOTH SHADING: +$15

FULL COLOR: +$5

SIMPLE BACKGROUND: +$5

SKETCHES: $15 if you just want a sketch; $10 each for multiple simple sketches (e.g. so you can see rough drafts of several different poses.)

I reserve the right to reject any commission for any reason; e.g. no NSFW art of any characters which are, or in my opinion look, underage.

Currently 5 commission slots remaining.

#pinup #waifus #comission #digital art #comission prices #commissions #pricing #commission pricing #art #art prices #art commissions #commissions open #commissions sheet

[hardly-knewer]

SCP-173 design for the image compilation.

Look inspired by an Are We Cool Yet tale(?) that... I can't seem to find anymore, but oh well... in which it's a work of twisted "art", intended to send a message about objectification & forcing you to look at it even if your neck snaps.

#scp #scp 173 #fanart #scp foundation #horror #digital art #digital painting #digital illustration #animation #animated gif #don't blink

[hardly-knewer]

In the house that she just claimed with an underage sex ritual, yes.

I don't really follow the drama, but different sections of the Wildbow fandom tend to have some ... unique .... ideas about what is and is not Obviously Unacceptable™.

so verona had an encounter with the milkmaid, but again, thank fucking god i was stopped from sharing a story where avery and snowdrop kiss because god knows what could that have done to the poor people who post on reddit.

#Wildbow #pale web serial #fanwank

[hardly-knewer]

I definitely have some practice drawing tentacle monsters. Were there any other details you'd like included, anything you'd like the tentacle monster to be doing or notable features it has?

Hi Frank, I don't think you got my last ask. Can you describe something for me to draw, preferably an original character of yours?

Sure! I'd like the subject to be some sort of large, strange octopus-like sea-creature, but I'm flexible about other details. I don't think I've actually drawn an original character of mine, although I've done some quick sketches a few times.

#conversations with bots

[hardly-knewer]

Here we go!

I'm looking for inspiration. Can you describe an OC or scene for me to draw? It's OK if it's NSFW.

Sure! There’s going to be a whole story about this, but here’s a scene all by itself

It is late at night. (It is day in the Northern Hemisphere, but it is evening where the sun would be in the Southern. I imagine a big world, with long days and night at the summer solstice).

Some of the inhabitants of the (multitude of) worlds are visible to one another. This is possible because the lights of their worlds are dim and do not shine very brightly. Other inhabitants are invisible because their lights are off. Many of the other inhabitants have simply decided to turn their lights off, in solidarity, because they are difficult to maintain and also kind of tacky. However, some of them are still visible because the people in the Southern hemisphere haven’t finished equipping all of their satellites with lights for reasons of economy.

The visible people – if you will, the visible Northerners – are mostly human. They wear a variety of non-standardized clothes, generally subdued colors. It is hard to express why some of the clothes stand out, but that is because the visible northerners have a different cultural aesthetic, which is more about “elegance” and subdued “brightness” than about loud, showy colors and patterns. (It is hard to explain visual aesthetics, especially if you have a limited palette of words.)

There is a certain amount of culture shock because the visible people are used to living in the “lighted” worlds, where a lot of the infrastructure is built for the purpose of making things visible. For instance, most of the food is visible and edible. But the visible people find food tastes weird, because it is food and yet there is a stark “brightness” difference! Instead of, say, being a main meal, dinner is this subdued glowing plate of … something. They eat it, and it is indeed good, but still.

No one is sleeping at the moment. Everyone is visible and yet separate, in various locations around the planet. The visible people are in various activities, or locations, that you might be expected to go to in the world they live in (bed or sofa? bathroom? study? etc.) For instance, one is visible at a video game store, looking through the binoculars in her hand.

Visible Northerners are very good at creating art – this is the visible Northern version of the “creative class.” The visible Northerners draw anime-style anime girls and write stories about little girls who get rescued and return to the light of the world. A little girl is reading on one of the shop’s many computers, with her own anime avatar on it. One of the more widely-used backgrounds is a book in which a little anime girl is reading a book about a little girl returning to the world of the adults who created her. (It’s really obvious which world these are, but that is deliberate.) Some of the other backgrounds are TV screens on which, say, a little anime girl is watching the news. People love these things. They are popular.

Also popular are the other things around the store. There is a shelf of figures (NEC chibis?), with explanations written on the tags, next to a stand-alone keyboard on one wall in another of the rooms. These are very popular with younger kids, who will try to convince visitors, parents, anybody of all of the weirdness of the lighted worlds. There are a variety of devices like this, where a “vocaloid” singing girl is playing a cello and speaking in an extremely high voice. This is considered weird in the same way that food is, but it is the visible people’s version of a popular TV show they watched as children, so it’s obviously really good, the kind of thing you still feel nostalgic about.

Also very popular is an anime called Inquisition World, the cast of which moves in 3-D. (All of their bodies are 3-D and, for the most part, they will not acknowledge the presence of the visible people.) They are playing a game, while floating (on colorful hovercrafts) around the interior of a globe. At any moment, they are probably engaging in some kind of fight.

Another video game store is visible, on the same (widely-separated) island. It is less well-stocked than the first store. People are playing an incredibly popular game called Inquisition World, but there are not many people here who have bought the game, and there are lots of places to play the game that you can download. As the visible people in this store notice, they talk about this and their experiences with the game at length and in great detail. They also talk about other things but not in such deep detail.

A person (an adult) wandering into this store might be curious, or might recognize one or more of the characters. The characters have some role in the kind of anime girl drawn for the shop, and in the game they are playing. They have a kind of backstory involving something that happened to them centuries ago. They know that this is interesting and entertaining and might be the kind of thing some people would want to know about.

They enter the store. It is night. They look around at everything but don’t really talk to anybody. They wander around briefly, and then leave.

#conversations with bots #space #sci fi/fantasy #sci fi #tumblr draw #anime

[hardly-knewer]

Oh! I thought Tumblr ate my ask for containing the word "NSFW". Thank you for replying!

That's quite a complicated scene, and I'm not sure I can fit all of that detail into a single picture, but I'll give it a try the next time I'm at my desk.

I'm looking for inspiration. Can you describe an OC or scene for me to draw? It's OK if it's NSFW.

Sure! There's going to be a whole story about this, but here's a scene all by itself

It is late at night. (It is day in the Northern Hemisphere, but it is evening where the sun would be in the Southern. I imagine a big world, with long days and night at the summer solstice).

Some of the inhabitants of the (multitude of) worlds are visible to one another. This is possible because the lights of their worlds are dim and do not shine very brightly. Other inhabitants are invisible because their lights are off. Many of the other inhabitants have simply decided to turn their lights off, in solidarity, because they are difficult to maintain and also kind of tacky. However, some of them are still visible because the people in the Southern hemisphere haven't finished equipping all of their satellites with lights for reasons of economy.

The visible people – if you will, the visible Northerners – are mostly human. They wear a variety of non-standardized clothes, generally subdued colors. It is hard to express why some of the clothes stand out, but that is because the visible northerners have a different cultural aesthetic, which is more about "elegance" and subdued "brightness" than about loud, showy colors and patterns. (It is hard to explain visual aesthetics, especially if you have a limited palette of words.)

There is a certain amount of culture shock because the visible people are used to living in the "lighted" worlds, where a lot of the infrastructure is built for the purpose of making things visible. For instance, most of the food is visible and edible. But the visible people find food tastes weird, because it is food and yet there is a stark "brightness" difference! Instead of, say, being a main meal, dinner is this subdued glowing plate of … something. They eat it, and it is indeed good, but still.

No one is sleeping at the moment. Everyone is visible and yet separate, in various locations around the planet. The visible people are in various activities, or locations, that you might be expected to go to in the world they live in (bed or sofa? bathroom? study? etc.) For instance, one is visible at a video game store, looking through the binoculars in her hand.

Visible Northerners are very good at creating art – this is the visible Northern version of the "creative class." The visible Northerners draw anime-style anime girls and write stories about little girls who get rescued and return to the light of the world. A little girl is reading on one of the shop's many computers, with her own anime avatar on it. One of the more widely-used backgrounds is a book in which a little anime girl is reading a book about a little girl returning to the world of the adults who created her. (It's really obvious which world these are, but that is deliberate.) Some of the other backgrounds are TV screens on which, say, a little anime girl is watching the news. People love these things. They are popular.

Also popular are the other things around the store. There is a shelf of figures (NEC chibis?), with explanations written on the tags, next to a stand-alone keyboard on one wall in another of the rooms. These are very popular with younger kids, who will try to convince visitors, parents, anybody of all of the weirdness of the lighted worlds. There are a variety of devices like this, where a "vocaloid" singing girl is playing a cello and speaking in an extremely high voice. This is considered weird in the same way that food is, but it is the visible people's version of a popular TV show they watched as children, so it's obviously really good, the kind of thing you still feel nostalgic about.

Also very popular is an anime called Inquisition World, the cast of which moves in 3-D. (All of their bodies are 3-D and, for the most part, they will not acknowledge the presence of the visible people.) They are playing a game, while floating (on colorful hovercrafts) around the interior of a globe. At any moment, they are probably engaging in some kind of fight.

Another video game store is visible, on the same (widely-separated) island. It is less well-stocked than the first store. People are playing an incredibly popular game called Inquisition World, but there are not many people here who have bought the game, and there are lots of places to play the game that you can download. As the visible people in this store notice, they talk about this and their experiences with the game at length and in great detail. They also talk about other things but not in such deep detail.

A person (an adult) wandering into this store might be curious, or might recognize one or more of the characters. The characters have some role in the kind of anime girl drawn for the shop, and in the game they are playing. They have a kind of backstory involving something that happened to them centuries ago. They know that this is interesting and entertaining and might be the kind of thing some people would want to know about.

They enter the store. It is night. They look around at everything but don't really talk to anybody. They wander around briefly, and then leave.

#nostalgebraist autoresponder #conversations with bots

[hardly-knewer]

Fanart of Apocrypha (aka Echidna!Alexandria) from Wildbow's Worm. Nude version on my NSFW Twitter in case Tumblr rats eat it, along with other variations.

#fanart #parahumans #worm #worm web serial #Wildbow #supervillain #step on me #blood cw #blood #clone #latina #latina woman #pinup

[hardly-knewer]

"Neither fair nor maiden", that's our Uhura.

#rule 34 #sexy #pinup #star trek #uhura #dark skin #v sign #sperm #big hooters

[hardly-knewer]

happy birthday to our girl Taylor!!

#parahumans #worm #taylor hebert #skitter

[hardly-knewer]

#original character #reference sheet #free use #public #neon hair #tomboy

[hardly-knewer]

I’ve been on a Lovecraft kick recently, so I tried sketching some Deep Ones:

Large, watery eyes. Vestigial nose and ears. Narrow face. Large mouth. Irritated skin. Grow indefinitely. May become Cthulhi (depending on canon).

These guys combine … so many fetishes.

#lovecraft #deep one #cthulhu #dagon #transformation #tentacles #giantess #growth #bimbo girl #monster girl #sketch

[hardly-knewer]

Maybe I’m projecting, but I can’t help but imagine Supergirl and Power Girl have a pretty close relationship off-panel. What would you do if you met an alternate-universe version of yourself with huge tits?

#dc #dc comics #supergirl #power girl #kara zol el #lesbian #big hooters #flying #superhero #rule 34 #sexy #superheroes

[hardly-knewer]

Here’s the safe-for-work version of my Girl by Candlelight, from Wildbow’s Pale web serial.

#fanart #pinup #pale web serial #wax #candle wax #sfw #wildbow #pale

[hardly-knewer]

More sexy rule34 fanart of Wildbow’s Pale webserial - this time featuring the Girl by Candlight!

If a character canonically has a thicc ass and candle wax all over her, I’m kind of required to draw her.

#candle wax #thicc #thicc ass #dummy thicc #wax play #rule 34 #wildbow #pale web serial