#i feel like this website is so close to being great for artists. they just keep making it harder by | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

consistentsquash · 4 months

Text

Author Love Letter - Scarlet

Folks, definitely chime in you want to add stuff because a lot of folks have probably met Scarlet in different contexts!

Also it's like 4am here so my spag and everything is going to be pretty bad. Sorry about that.

Scarlet, @givereadersahug on Tumblr and emeraldlove on AO3. Powerhouse of a human, brilliant multiship and multifandom writer, moderator, fest runner, community builder, absolute role model. 0% drama, 100% love. People first always. The Queen of giving without expectation.

We were like talking about having a Rec Fest sometime back in March 2023. Of course I was 100% talk 0% action. But Scarlet actually got a lot of great folks involved, started the fest, got comods to help out and literally just made it happen. That's a good TLDR intro: Make Things Happen Behind the Scenes. Like an iphone or something. Scarlet behind the scenes = it was going to work 100% without problems.

When I think about Snarry fandom, like any big and old fandom we have different folks with different strengths/contributions. Great writers, artists, podficcers, organizers. But it's pretty hard to find somebody whose first priority is making the fandom thrive because we are fans/fan creators, pretty attached to the stuff we are doing, we have time limits because fandom is a hobby and we have to prioritize between creating and community building a lot of times. Scarlet really said Community First, People First. I don't even know how to explain it but 0% transactional vibes.

Making space for people. Meeting folks where they are at. Obviously introverts have a hard time in communities sometimes. Some folks learn how to handle it. No judgment here because these experiences can be subjective. But I have seen Scarlet go the extra mile for folks who are new/introverted/feeling imposter syndrome/going through some complicated fandom experiences. Just being there for them and supporting them to get started.

Also a brilliant writer of darkfic!!! Scarlet's darkfic shorts are some of my all time favs because of how dark/delicious/intense they are. These fics really give me 2000s dirtyhotbadwrong vibes because of how totally out and proud they are about their fiction is not reality vibe. Tons of range and lots of genres but the darkfics get my special love because they are just dirtybadhotwrong shameless amazingness. Check out In His Bed to get a sense for that unique vibe! Her community building and cheerleading wins are huge but also her darkfic writing is some of my all time fav.

Also Queen of Attention to Detail. I have read some fests with her and she guessed authors just like that during anon phase. Just incredible observation Sherlock Holmes style.

My fav fest memory is doing Snapecase reading with her. She guessed the author for Candles Lit Against the Dark, @perverse-idyll based on the title because she noticed/connected a lot of the flame/shadow imagery in the author's other Snarry fics. I am pretty good about guessing some authors myself because I can identify their style but guessing from the title is advanced superpowers. I can't even!! So extra, Scarlet. So totally extra and I love love love <3

Another fav memory I have is about analyzing fics with her. When HotD was airing eldritcher's Ossuarium was being written episode by episode. It was an insane time. We had a brilliant time analyzing those fics :D We were both passionate but Scarlet was so extra passionate, noticed tons of detail that was totally lost on me, really good at connecting the dots, just a hardcore close reader.

Also dead dove fics! 100% supporter of folks writing dead dove, incest, darkfics.

Also reccing older fics! Her Dudley phase was insane and she was finding fics from like 2000s on wayback just like that with some superhuman skills. On like websites I didn't even know existed. Really Sherlock Holmes <3

Also smaller fests. Scarlet supported a ton of Dreamwidth fests and got new folks to join them/introduced them to Dreamwidth culture and literally was the bridge between different types of fandom culture a lot of times.

Also reccing fic! Her recs for For I Have Found Salvation by @lumosatnight and also for @wilfriede's podfics have so much love/passion/enthusiasm and I just love those works 2x because of the emotional connect of her reccing <3

Also nwhiker! I really got into this author's Snack fic, Second Life because of Scarlet's passionate, passionate reccing. When Scarlet got into something the reccing happened with big big love and for me that was like the best thing ever because folks who love things with big love are just super special <3

Also my concrit buddy for movies. Ingmar Bergman to Audrey Hepburn to Past Lives just a total knowledge wikipedia about movies/movie making/movie meta/movie crit. I really changed my perspective about movies after learning from her. Also shows! Watching HotD and doing episode reviews with Scarlet is like one of my best memories ever ever ever <3 Also books!

Also moderator of Snarry discords like @houseofsnarry, participated, started and ran a ton of communities and fests including the @hprecfest which is just finishing this week <3 <3

If I have to describe Scarlet in like one word I am going to say Connection. 100% about connection, 100% heart led. So special. Love, love, love.

pic source Los Angeles Street Art photography by bigcitiesbrightlights

#author love letter #fandom #scarlet #love love love #fandom is so special because of folks like scarlet #just love #<3

69 notes · View notes

ashmcgivern · 2 months

Text

Hi I’ve been absent a lot lately, the whole of 2024 in fact I’m realizing.

On top of just not having the spoons to really share much of what I’m doing, in combination with NDA, social media just exhausts me now. The state of the internet in general. I can’t really mentally handle constantly hearing and seeing how AI seems to be permeating every part of online existence, how every website is one big pool of advertisements, and uh, the state of the world in general. There are too many things for my dumb brain.

So I’m taking a bit of a back seat, or rather I have been I guess. Tumblr is really tbh only social media I spend any time on and even then there’s whispers of Automatic partnering up with Midjourney. If it happens I won’t stay here long that’s for sure.

And where does that leave me then? I have a lot of great friends on Discord I talk to and I’m getting into Twitch more, but I know people here still want to see what I’m up to. I have mutuals I like and artists I want to follow that I don’t necessarily want to abandon. But with the state of things, everyone just seems tired. People are sharing less. Is there really nowhere for artists left?

It’s just kind of depressing tbh. I get more fulfillment being away from social media than being on it, which is a GOOD thing, but it sucks that the time I do spend back here doesn’t feel safe anymore.

All this to say, I wish I had more to share, but I’m tired and feeling recluse, and I’m tired of shifting where my social media presence is at any given time. I’m very close to finishing a BIG project that I’ll finally be able to put online, but there’s a lot of processing I have to do first and these things take TIME.

I only have about one month left at WB (unless they extend me AGAIN which would be the 5th time fjdhdhdh) and maybe a break is what I need. But I dunno. I for sure will be streaming more if nothing else, but idk about my other social media presences. If you see me active on social media again, know that it’s def not because I enjoy it. It’s to get my name and face out there ultimately so I can find work again. Not to mention I’ve begun the process of archiving/moving my art blog to a new location where I can self host because…….. I’m so tired.

Idk!!! Morning thoughts. This is nothing my friends don’t already know but for those who are curious, here it is. I spend a lot of time on tumblr but I do t share a lot because of *broadly gestures*. Hope y’all feel me.

#ashtalks #ash talks #tired tired tired tired tired tired

22 notes · View notes

ollydee · 2 months

Text

PAID GIG -- Seeking Book Cover Artist for NA Queer Speculative Romance Duology

I AM ABLE TO PAY: $200 - $300 upfront and I will also obvs include your info --- you will get your own bio and can link whatever you want right by my bio and my links in the back of the book

What I'd really like to do is help out someone at the beginning of their career, as I am someone at the beginning of mine. I could totally go on fiverr, but I'd rather source from the fam. There are so many talented artists here and this website's done a lot for me in terms of developing my own craft and making connections. So here we are!

Here is the back cover synopsis of book one:

In every generation since the first cataclysmic use of the weapon, there has been a human designated the “Knight of Sol II.” The Knight’s job is to house the weapon’s activation switch within their body. In the event of another war between Earth II and alien homeworld Drune, the King Admiral must kill the Knight in order to extract the switch and use it. This arrangement — so it is hoped — ensures that the weapon will never be used lightly. Drew is the current Squire, next in line to be the Knight. It is a great honor. He’s terrified. Eighty years since the end of the war, the Emni — local, alien inhabitants of Drune — have finally achieved a long-sought goal: an exchange program, in which an Emni student is sent abroad to Earth II, where they will study amongst humans. Brave and blunt Riis is chosen as that envoy of exchange. His mission is complex, but laid out in simple terms: Make them like you. Speak the truth. Maybe they’ll stop killing us. Riis only really succeeds at getting Drew to like him. Which adds a whole new level of “complicated” to a relationship that never had a hope of being simple.

How to Apply: REBLOG this with your four BEST PIECES and tag it 'portfolio'

Like, your four BEST pieces that MOST CLOSELY fit the genre. Depending on how many people I get I might do a round two with more specific shit but yeah. If we vibe and I love your work we will move on into the sunset of making money and working together yaaaay

Have any questions? Inbox me for sure, I'd be thrilled to answer anything.

I would like to forge a long-term working relationship with an illustrator based on 1. me paying them and 2. them making art for my books and 3. not just for this, but potentially for future books if we really vibe and your style vibes with my next story. I average about 200,000 words a year (which for me means at minimum three books) and now that I've finally decided to bite the bullet and start publishing, there WILL be more work and you WILL get more exposure. I will also obvs be able to pay more and more each book if we do well.

Also --- anyone who is interested in reading an excerpt to get a feel for the work, pm me with your email address. I will gladly send over a pdf of the first chapter, and I of course will not share your email publicly.

Even if you are not interested, please reblog in case one of your followers is! Thank you so much tumblr fam <3

#illustration #seeking illustrator #paid art job #cover design #science fiction art #major points if you can guess which serial writer i had to hit up for permission to even write this #lol #don't worry he said i could #it's very INSPIRED BY THAT SERIAL THO

18 notes · View notes

dracononite · 2 years

Note

i dont want this to sound mean because i absolutely dont mean it that way.

but genuinely how do you feel comfortable setting prices for your comissions so high? do they sell out?

i ask because to sell comms i have to criminally undervalue my art (legit 8$ for a full body drawing) but no one ever buys comms if its more expensive.

how do you do it.

It's not mean! Artists pricing their work fairly is something I strongly advise and would like to advocate for more often, because I used to undercharge a fair bit as well. I don't take offense to people thinking my prices are high, because I know they're not anywhere close to industry standard, and that plenty of people can afford my commissions, because I do get a consistent stream of clients.

I'd like to get a little more in detail with commission pricing since I know it could be useful advice to artists who have less experience. But it's the end of my work day and this all might be somewhat scattered, so TLDR: I'm comfortable with how I price my commissions because of the time and skill that I put into them, and because I need to price them like that as art is my full-time job.

Now for the long version... To start off with, this is all based on my multiple years of doing art as a full-time job. I started doing commissions in 2017, supported myself through college with my art, and now am financially independent with an apartment lease. In the end this is all from my opinions / perspective, but I do have experience.

I base my prices on an hourly rate that I determined using this wonderful Twitter thread on accurately pricing commissions as a full-time artist. This may not be what you specifically need, but I recommend anyway since it's a great example of pricing your commissions in a way that's fair for you.

Once you've calculated an hourly rate, it's just a matter of timing how long it takes for you to finish a commission-quality piece from start to finish and using that to figure out what the base price of that specific commission type should be. Then you can consider things like add-ons (rendering, additional characters, etc) and upcharges (deadline fee, multiple correction rounds, etc.)

Adjusting your prices to your needs, demand and turnaround time can take a lot of finagling. I constantly adjust my prices, though I try to bump them up by a small bit every few months to account for my growing portfolio and audience, economic inflation, and how much I need to charge in sales taxes. Yes - add sales tax to your prices if you make any substantial amount with art. You can do so easily on Paypal and Stripe invoices! Otherwise, you're gonna get slammed with owed taxes come tax season, since taxes aren't automatically being deducted from your "paychecks" and sent to the gov like salary jobs. Trust me, it's happened to me, and I'm still paying off my 2021 taxes.

Also, doing the actual art is only half of, well, doing art as a job. The other half is what I call "housekeeping" or "agent" work - communicating with clients, building and updating a website/portfolio, posting finished pieces to art galleries, building a recognizable online presence/brand/aesthetic, and actively advertising your work in a way that gets both old and new eyes on it. And you need to keep in mind that this is work too, that you need to be paid for.

Adding all of that on top of what you might originally price your work at may seem excessive or intimidating, but everyone deserves a living wage. Learning to keep that in mind will help your confidence in pricing your work fairly.

Now for a few more tips:

Advertising can be hard because of social media algorithms and economic hardships, but you just gotta keep at it. Learn what type of posts work for you! I recommend using concise, clear language and easy-to-read layouts. Keeping a kind of consistent "template" to your advertisements can help people recognize that it's you before they even start reading.

As you grow your audience and portfolio, you can build a good reputation by being consistent and honest. Communication and turnaround time are huge. I personally give an estimated turnaround of 1-2 months to allow for sick days, weekends, delays and other obligations. Having a solid terms of service is really helpful too. I'm a-ok with anybody referencing mine, even copy/pasting it and adjusting it as you need. Feel free to!

Having small income on the side has been a huge help to doing art as a full-time job, if you're at all interested in it. I get pocket change every week from lineart base sales on my Ko-fi shop, but it really adds up. Patreon is a bigger investment since it operates on a monthly subscription basis. Personally, I use about half of the monthly pledges I get to pay for manufacturing stickers and postage. Even if you don't have a LOT to offer, if you want to do art for an audience and have people looking to support you, Patreon or similar sites might be worth looking into. Monthly sketch dumps, speedpaints, streams etc for a few bucks is more appealing to people than you might think, especially if it's things like storybuilding or character designs. People like getting invested in things!

I hope this helps you in some way, and maybe others out there too. It's taken me years to get to this point, so don't get discouraged! Underpricing art has become such an issue, especially on sites like Amino and DeviantArt that it's affecting artists' self-esteem and view on how they should price their work. But there are always people willing to pay for art. Art is a luxury and should be priced as such! It should be available for those who are seeking it out, not for everyone.

#mail #sorry if this isn't exactly what you needed to hear but i thought this would be useful in some way #art advice #artists #artists on tumblr

99 notes · View notes

goldfishu · 1 year

Text

my feelings about twitter

I have had time over this week to reflect about the whole elon twitter acquisition and I have some thoughts. Initially I was upset, disappointed and even angry by the reaction to it. People were joking or treating it like just another day, that it didn't really matter. This bugged me a lot, and this is not just because I have personally dislike Mr musk. I feel really troubled about huge sources of information and social connection being bought up by hyper rich individuals who are known to have abusive workplaces. If you're not familiar with tesla working conditions you should read up on it. It's not like the previous owners of twitter are angels by any right, but elon is so unabashedly terrible to other people that I cannot really reconcile it. I feel like I cannot ethically use twitter knowing what he is. And I don't want my life to be ruled by billionaires. This is the platform I share my art and my work to not only friends and peers but also clients and people who enjoy it. I don't want it to be tainted.

So I guess when people say "boohoo, nothing changed" it really upset me. But over the week ignoring that type of response or the typical "we can ruin this site so he sells it" rationalizing I see about staying somewhere we know is wrong, I feel like there's a different reason why artists/streamers/coughcontentcreatorscough are choosing to stay. Its a combination of things. Firstly most people don't feel that strongly about elon so they won't leave, meaning that clients or audiences for what we produce are still here pretty much all the time, so leaving would be missing out on work 100%. And since the content stays, the people want to leave even less, it's compounding. I think another reason people don't want to (or cant) leave is because very few other platforms provide the reach that twitter has. Art gallery sites don't attract non artists, closed communities like reddit and mastodon limit your audience and stifle promotion. Tumblr does not feel like a great alternative but its all I got at this point.

I cannot really blame people for not wanting to leave. I dont want to leave!! There are no viable places to share work because everyone wants a centralized website, not niche sites. I feel like at odds with two halves of myself; one half wants to go apeshit and tell elon to [redacted] to finally be banned and the other is thinking about my livelihood. My solution: ao3 sets up some twitter clone. or we coup against elon? I am open to suggestions.

#rant

33 notes · View notes

jess-moloney · 6 months

Note

"She's either a shitty PR manager in general, a shitty person, or actively trying to ruin his image because something's going on here."

Something is going on because nothing is adding up. For all the posts she puts up to make it seem like she is some genius PR expert, she is not even stepping in once to help advise the man she lives with. There is no way I would advise Jamie to go country, put out questionable merchandise. It is jarring and comes off disingenuous. Which is something Jamie always stood against. He has always prided himself in being unique. Now he wants to follow a country trend? I just feel like she is bouncing off any type of ideas and telling Jamie to try them in order to make it stick. Or if he has ideas, she is probably replacing with hers. I can see her using his self esteem issues against him. Where she makes Jamie second guess himself. Like you said she may be trying to hurt his career on purpose. Classic manipulation tactic used to keep that person under control. With his issues, she is exploiting him any way she can.

I was looking at her older posts about MGK. He still follows her but it doesn't look like she had him as a client allegedly that long. I wonder what was going on there. She likes a lot of his posts from what I saw. Maybe they still talk to each other.

I am sick of seeing the private person defense. Surprised there isn't more of "you're jealous". Those are the only defense arguments they have. All in the name of defending a controlling con artist who is probably yelling at your fave to make the bed every six seconds.

As I discussed in the post above, some of the photos on her account (earlier posts) are bizarre and make no sense. She'd have had to purchase a license to use them, she was not the photographer, she was not at the event, she was not involved with anything to do with the celebrity, she doesn't know any of the people she's tagging, and to legally post both these photos without the watermark in the way she's posting them she'd have to pay close to 700 USD. Who pays money to also market people they have nothing to do with and for what reason?

This very practice would make her an absolutely horrible PR agent and it makes me wonder if she is paying these other people for the right to promote their stuff and not the other way around. She did it in the past, and I don't know why anyone would look at her account and think "Oh she's a great PR/Manager" and then hire her. They have no reason to. Also who just has that kind of money to throw away on getting a license to a photo so they can barely be "transformative" with it and tag their own failing studio?

Considering everything going on with Jamie as of late and that entire mess it is painfully obvious she's never handled any celebrities of high status or done it correctly or else her website wouldn't be so old that the last update she made to it was in 2019.

How is she an active celebrity manager of anything when she doesn't even bother to update her website? Who is she managing right now? How much is she charging? What is she doing for them? And how does she have time to do it? What the fuck is going on?

#jess moloney #jamie campbell bower #jamie bower #mail

2 notes · View notes

ibukis-songbook · 2 years

Note

You said you wanted some smut, so imma try and deliver, admittedly this is more vanilla and more body decriptive like those nudity hc’s, but I myself am disappointingly vanilla so I hope this is ok.

Let’s get Sakura, Akane, Chiaki, Angie, Miu, and Kaede volunteering as models for their artist s/o (fem preferably) who makes portrait-like drawings of female genitalia and posts them to her own site (primarily for the sake of promoting body positivity, and if you want to get an idea of what this is like, check out “The Vulva Gallery” website :)

Sakura, Akane, Angie, Kaede, Miu, and Chiaki with an f+afab s/o who runs a blog like The Vulva Gallery

This is such an interesting concept! I looked at their website and it’s super cool, I highly recommend checking this out to anyone that hasn’t. A bit personal, but after looking at the site I felt more confident in my own *ahem* shape. After seeing so many different shapes and sizes, I feel a lot better when I look at myself now and not like I’m an “odd one out”. Pussies be cute. Period. I fucking love this request. Btw, I’m sorry for the lack of dividers. I’m currently in the process of making new ones so the next requests will hopefully have ones!

CW: afab+fem s/o, we talking about pussies though, nude modeling, slightly suggestive?, I’m counting this as nsfw.

.｡.:*☆♥︎♫♪—————— ↫ l l ↬ ——————♪♫♥︎☆*:.｡..

Melanie Martinez - Play Date

Akane

When you first showed her, she thought that you did it for pornographic purposes

(Not that there’s anything wrong with that, I literally write smut on tumblr dot com. Go off nsfw content creators, as long as you’re making things safely and with the consent of all of-age parties involved.)

When you explained it was an expression of body positivity, she got really interested!

Akane gets told that she can’t be a good athlete with her body type (she probably gets bullied and told she’s too top heavy :/) so she holds body positive movements very close to her heart.

She really likes that promoting self love really goes all the way to genitalia too.

If you asked her to model she’d be so down

Sakura

So flustered at first

But also very interested!!

I also see Sakura as getting a lot of shit for not being “ladylike” or “looking too much like a man”

She’d probably need a lot of encouragement to feel confident enough to model for you

But once she does she feels great!

She feels a lot closer with herself and you, and she loves that <3

Miu

Also thought it was porn at first

“Wait, you mean to tell me it’s not porn?”

Miu is an inventor, and does not consider herself an artist, so she never really thought of the human body as art before

But it makes sense!

She likes that you see it in a more artistic way than just carnal

Will model, no hesitation.

Chiaki

Sweet girl Chiaki is like

Totally unphased lol

I see Chiaki as actually being pretty confident in her body. She doesn’t have anything she feels she needs to hide, and wants other people to feel the same way!

She agrees wholeheartedly with your mission and will absolutely model if you ask

She’ll buy your art with that twitch gamer girl money too >;3

Angie

As the ultimate artist, she can see art in anything and everything, including human anatomy!

And that goes for all humans, so body positivity is definitely something she works into her day-to-day.

She’d love to model for you, her wonderful s/o and a fellow artist

Hell, she might even ask to draw yours.

Scratch that, she will.

Kaede

Kaede is veeeery blushy and flustered about the whole thing

She gets it, she does, and she likes it!

But so many lady parts ^///^

She loves the body positive message though, and your art of course!

If you ask her to model she’ll say yes, but she’ll be so so shy about it.

Once she sees the final piece she feels really good about herself!~

#c to d #anon #danganronpa imagines #danganronpa imagines blog #danganronpa #imagines blog #kaede x reader #akane x reader #sakura x reader #miu x reader #chiaki x reader #danganronpa x you #danganronpa girls #f reader #fem reader #afab reader #oh look mod ibuki is actually posting

27 notes · View notes

rebeccawangart · 1 year

Text

A look back on 2022

I will typically do a blog article at the end of the year talking about all the paintings I did in the year and my plans for the following year. Since this is my first year on Tumblr I thought I would post it here as well for anyone who cares to read my drivel.

2022 was a hell of a year. I completed 19 pet portrait paintings on canvas, 8 pet portrait ornaments, and 4 original paintings (with plans to make at least one more before the year is over!) The ornaments are something new which I added a few months ago, and thought it was a nice addition to my pet portrait offerings. I am already booked into April of 2023 for portraits! I did my very first chameleon commissioned painting, thanks to my sponsorship of the wonderful Chameleon Forums, and already have two more scheduled for next year, which I am eager to paint. I created a wonderful original painting of a capybara which has become my most popular work of this year, as well as a box turtle, another red fox, and a polar bear.

The natural color style really seems to have taken off this year, with almost half of the 19 customers requesting that style. This is a deviation from my typical style, which is using bright colors on both the pets and the backgrounds. A couple of years ago, my most frequent customer requested that I paint some of her portraits with more natural colors with colorful backgrounds, and I thought it was a nice change. After doing a few of these I decided to add it to my choices for customers in the hopes that maybe it would encourage more sales of portraits. Maybe not all customers want bright rainbow colors but like my style anyway. In 2020 I did two portraits like this, and again in 2021. But this year for some reason about half of the customers wanted that style, so I think it was a good decision to add the style choice.

Etsy Store News

My Etsy Store has been doing very well this year. I changed my blanket printer, and the new blankets are much thicker and softer than the old ones. They also offer two sided printing, which is spectacular, and was an often requested option from my customers! I also added 15oz accent mugs to the 11oz listings, and added some more color options. I added several new holographic sticker designs, including the infamous capybara, gecko, peacock, panda, tiger, and mandalas. I added die-cut magnets, which are cut out to the shape of the animal. There are cool new ceramic ornaments as well, most of which are available in circle and heart shaped. Garden Flags seem to be a popular product, and make great gifts! I added a few wall tapestries as well, and will add more with time. I also have three cool holographic art prints which have a crystal shard effect. This was a unique find a few months ago when I saw another artist selling these prints, and I found the company that makes them and got a few to start.

The Upending of the Normal

This year has been a never-ending shit show for artists all over the internet. I myself have not been immune to the shit storm this year. Personally, I have had to close down two long standing accounts, move my website, and deal with the Twitter fallout by opening two new social media accounts. It honestly feels like the entire internet just collectively took a massive shit on artists this year, and I am so tired of it.

New Webhost

First, my website. I have had a website in some form since 1996 when it was hosted by Geocities. In 2000 I created my own hosted website with my own domain name. My site had gone through countless iterations in the past 22 years, from self-taught HTML, to plug-and-play templates, to a Wordpress site. Websites have changed a lot since the early days, and it is hard to keep up with all the changes. I have always been on top of security and safety, and am very careful with how my website is set up. That being said, my former webhost was constantly sending me emails saying that I was over limits, which is impossible, as this site is tiny and uses very few resources. They refused to help me diagnose the problem, so after 22 years I jumped ship to another webhost and could not be happier. It was a hard decision at first, but I am glad I left.

Closing Zazzle Store

Next, I had to close my Zazzle store permanently. I have had that shop since the early days of 2008, and was one of the mass-exodus from CafePress at the time. I have generally been extremely happy with the site and their products. But I can no longer recommend them to any of my artist friends. They have made a series of changes over the years which has really hurt artists and designers on that site, and I almost left in 2020 when they made changes that really impacted the quality of the site. They implemented banner ads for one, which make the site look like a trashy scam site and additionally steer customers away from buying products on the site. Not to mention most of the ads were for actual scam and illegal sites! They introduced collaborations and custom backgrounds, which took away a huge portion of the original designers income from that sale. They also had an issue with products continuing to be allowed to be purchased if the product was a customized one, even if the original product had been deleted.

But the straw that broke the camel's back was the removal of the watermark, the increased size of the preview images by almost double, and the implementation of allowing customers to download a full resolution digital copy of the artwork. The changes basically enable thieves to take designs from the site wholesale. I already have tons of problems with copyright infringement, I don't need to compound it. Not to mention the major lawsuit that Zazzle is facing in regards to possibly illegally obtaining the fonts they use in their product design tools.

So I made the difficult decision to close my store earlier this year. Which really sucks because it actually made me a decent amount of money, their products were great and unique, and their design editor was unparalleled.

Closing my DeviantArt and Artstation Accounts

I have been with DeviantArt since 2006. While they have made changes which have upset the artist community, none compares to the bullshit they puled last month. Not only are they doing nothing to stop the massive influx of AI art on their platform, they are encouraging it by having their own in house AI "art" generator called Dream Up which uses the controversial LAION-5B database that StableDiffusion and other platforms use. This database scraped the internet of 2.3 BILLION copyrighted images without artists consent to train their algorithm, which means the database is highly unethical and rife with theft. Due to this, I abandoned my DeviantArt site and just left up my links.

At the time of writing this article, ArtStation is pulling similar shenanigans, so I have closed that account as well. They have made it explicitly clear in their terms of service that they support AI "art", and will not ban it from the site. They are also shutting off comments of artists who are protesting. And apparently earlier this year they were also deleting posts about supporting Ukraine from their site. So I am done with them now too.

Social Media

I will not get into the Twitter issue here, since it has been discussed ad nauseum for the past several months and I am honestly tired of hearing about it. I hear worse and worse news about it every day. I honestly don't want to leave Twitter because it has been a major factor in driving traffic to my Etsy store, especially since Pinterest took a dump 2 years ago and stopped working for me. But will leave if the dumpster fire gets more severe. It will not be a big loss to me.

So in preparation for that, I have opened two new accounts: Tumblr and Mastodon. I actually had a Tumblr account many years ago, but closed it due to inactivity. Mastodon is very new to me, and so far I have liked the experience. I am stretched kind of thin right now so I think that is enough social sites for the time being.

Reopening TeePublic

I reopened my TeePublic store after it was closed for a year and a half. I originally closed it since I was not getting many sales. Also I really dislike the interface for uploading new art. It is cumbersome, and tedious, and the inability to select different files for each product means that I had to upload new "designs" for different products, meaning a lot of duplications in my store. But since I closed my Zazzle store I needed to make up for the loss of income so I thought I would give it another shot. So far it seems to be doing ok.

Conclusion and Hopes for Next Year

My plans for next year are to basically continue what I am doing already. This year saw so many changes as it is, and I am not really antsy for any other major changes at the moment. I will be actively making spaces in my schedule for original art, which has become a very important part of my portfolio. I will continue to offer portraits, and as always improve my skills and hone my style.

I will be monitoring my Society6 store this upcoming year. It may be on the chopping block if it fails to turn around. I do not have plans to open any more e-commerce stores next year. Instead I will be focusing on driving traffic to my existing stores, as well as adding products and new designs to my Etsy store.

And that is all. Hope everyone has a great new year!

#2022

4 notes · View notes

tutuandscoot · 2 years

Note

Love your blog and sorry for the rant below, I have lots of feels!. I too am an Aussie VM fan and I really enjoy your dancing/skating/artistic focus on them, laced with the understanding that it all comes together magically because of their love and connection. I fell down the rabbit hole when I had covid a couple of months ago and soaked up all their performances, the beautiful imagery and hilarious/heartfelt interviews. Accidentally found myself on a couple of terrible websites full of conspiracy and venom and noped out quick as I could. I’ve come out the other side appreciating their skill and am keen to continue that, hoping to avoid all the weirdness sometimes associated with their fandom. Thanks for providing an avenue for that. I don’t want to be a part of anything that turns their talent, achievement and love into something else, remembering that they are human beings (and sound like pretty nice humans too) who deserve to live in privacy and make their own choices, without judgement. Their lives are their own - only their skating is public property and I love indulging in it!

G’DAY MATE 🐨🇦🇺

Yay there’s another Aussie on here!!

Thank you so much that’s so kind of you. It’s so funny how many of us have discovered or fallen back into this lil fandom over the last couple years/months, although I hope lots of people will continue too because lbh they are ice dance and as far as I’m concerned the sport doesn’t really exist with out them (at least I don’t care much about it).

I’m so glad you enjoy my artistic/athletic ramblings, sometimes I wonder if I’m making sense to the wider audience coz I have such a specify perspective but that’s really where my love for them lies and where the discussion I feel should mostly be- on their talent and their beautiful partnership.. not private stuff. I have some pretty detailed posts coming up that dive deep into connection and interaction artistically within their partnership so hopefully I can make it interesting enough and hope it makes some sense 😅

It’s so weird to me that there just seems to be that much negative, unwarranted BS out there that people who discover VM fall into it- when I got back into this I didn’t for a long time, my outlook always stayed so positive and I had no reason to think negatively, mostly because when it comes to new info (new to me or new in general) I just stick to what comes out of their mouths (and people very very close to them) coz that’s the only opinion and info about them that matters to me. So that’s so great you said ‘hell no’ to all that crap coz really it’s all BS and gossip like what happens to so many ‘famous’ people and really it’s just cyber bullying which is so low and shameful.

So anyway… so glad you’re here. ❤️❤️❤️

#ask #Aussie friends!!#we aussies can be educated about FS too

3 notes · View notes

hellothepixel · 2 years

Text

"Thank you to everyone who got me to 10000 likes!" ~ Some member of staff

i want to take a second to appreciate this image. Like- we often take websites for granted but i want to take this opportunity to analyze this. Not because it's particularly interesting to me, just because... Someone had to make this. And even the simplest of details can take time to make. So let's spend time analyzing it.

The Font

Now, this right here is a very nice font, in my opinion. It looks very similar to the bolded version of the default tumblr font.

Thank you!

10k

Likes

But as we can see it's not quite the same. The one used in the image is thinner in the lines, like at a midpoint between the bold and normal versions of the tumblr font. What is also interesting is that the big 10k is rounded on the edges, but that's not observable in the smaller font. Is the difference pixel size, or are they different fonts? Or perhaps it's the same font, but whoever made it gave it a bit of a curve, to give it a soft feeling. Zooming into the image, I'm partial to saying it's the first option, but the third one would also make sense. Social Media is advertised as a commodity and often designed to keep you as involved and exposed to ads as possible, and if you perceive rounded edges as more comfortable and welcoming, it's logical you'd use them like that in your product.

I do wonder if there's a graphical design document somewhere that tumblr uses for their different promotional material. Although I'm not a graphical design major so I can't say I have an authority on this subject.

What really sticks out for me is the font color, however. Again, it's probably aiming for that Comfortable Feeling, but personally the use of a dark purple is much more preferable to a black, specially considering the rest of the color palette.

In fact, let's talk about that now.

2. The Color Palette.

now I'm not as crazy about this one. For the most part is a great, nice color palette. And my complaints are definetly subjective and nitpicky... but is it just me, or do the hearts' reds look a bit off?

Now, unpacking the pallette, we can see that it's more orange than red. And separated like this, it does actually look mostly well together. But I don't know, the red isn't cohesive to me in the final image.

Now, maybe it's like this because it's the actual color of the like button?

now, on one hand this was definetly the intention. And it is like that for all intents and purposes... however, strangely enough it doesn't seem to actually be that on a literal level?

TECHNICALLY they're not the same color. They have are just oh so ever slightly different.

the bottom line is from the other heart. And if you look closely, you'll see that it's just a tad smidge brighter. Which is definetly weird, but it's not really a problem since again, even if it was the original color my problem with the palette would probably remain.

So, how would I have coloured the hearts?

here's the image! On the left side you should see the new colors of the hearts, on the right the old ones. While it does now break with the idea of it being the same hearts as the ones we use every day on this webbed site, to me personally it does look more asthetically cohesive.

I could in theory change the color of the background though, to keep the idea of the hearts while improving the palette.

ok, this one is a bit of a wilder change, but I do feel very happy about it! While I am aware that my screen has some brightness contrast issues, and I'll have to compare this on mobile, I personally think this is not only more ahesive colour-wise, but also more striking and positive with it's bright, sky-like background and bold violet letters.

here's the full version.

Staff, if you want feel free to use this one! I don't ask for much, just credit me.

...does Tumblr have. credits.

...I guess graphical artists and programers can just, put the stuff they've done in the portfolio or be credited in a curriculum vitae. But like, is there not an official credits page in websites like this?

Maybe it's offsite? I don't know.

3. The Hearts

Now, I think i can tell how these were made. Whoever made this image created the heart, then duplicated the heart and moved it a bit, and made it darker to create the shadow. And at some point they added the shine lines.

Now, what I do notice about this process is that they didn't round out the edges.

what do I mean? What I mean is, they duplicated the hearts and offset them, but then didn't cover up this... Inside edge. So if you pay attention, it stops looking like a weird heart cookie, and just like two hearts one on top of the other.

Of course it doesn't break immersion (asdjosadjo who cares about inmersion on this), but it's still interesting. As someone who is frequently self concious about how I make my art, is funny to think something that sometimes worries me about what I make, which i think is lazy or not the right way to do it, is actually a common practice.

anyway, after this they duplicated the heart a bunch, then put all the hearts on the same layer, duplicated that layer, offset that layer, changed the color of the layer to what I'm assuming was a very low opacity multiply layer. And then, they blurred that.

I'm kind of mixed on that, it feels too transparent yet too visible, kind of awkward to me. I'd maybe make it stand out a slight bit more. But it's not really a big deal.

And that's the thing. None of this is a big deal. It's a graphic that happens when a user reach 10k likes. I didn't even know the site was keeping count if im honest!

But i don't know. I really like it. Tumblr as a site has just a bit more style than others. It's slightly, very slightly, but sometimes it's the little things.

A lot of people groan when the site is funny and says stuff like "oh we couldn't find any posts, i guess evil santa claus took care of them" but to me, they add a level of charm that's... very missing in other websites.

And lately tumblr has been capitalizing on this. And I do fear that maybe in the process of being more quirky, they'll wrap around to being more corporate.

But I appreciate the effort. I appreciate the idea that tumblr staff can have a little fun sometimes. And to be honest, I think everyone should get to have a little fun. And not just be exposed to fun, but to partake in it. To be the butt of the joke, the live audience to a comedian website, or a clown themselves.

I usually don't like it when twitter is like "it's your twitter birthday, make a post about it". It feels corporate. It doesn't feel like a post I would make to celebrate it. It's not something I would celebrate.

And while this does feel the same - tumblr is a company as well -, i don't know. Something about the image peaked my interest, and for a moment i just thought.

I don't know. Appreciation. The idea that behind everything ever done there's someone who worked to do it. And because I often liked the creative touches in this website's design, I wanted to focus on one aspect of it. Just, try to reverse-engineer it. In a kind of earnest, kind of comedic way.

Specially as someone who is starting to get into jobs and work and the such. It's just... interesting to me now.

#10000 likes #tumblr milestone #hellothepixel

4 notes · View notes

nctaezen · 2 years

Note

also i feel like its the company's job to remind them of these events and make them post about it like if sm didn't consider it enough of a big deal to remind them maybe yall just tripping

the company has a lot of jobs to deal with in the first place and their priority should be managing the artists work and well-being before anything else.

tell me if you found anywhere on the smtown website the day 12th june to be celebrated as an official anniversary of nctzen, because i couldn't find it anywhere.

all the wishes and events we got officially as a fandom where from their official groups anniversaries (as officially recognised on lysn: nctzen127, nctzendream and wayzenni).

the date is in our memory for us to remind the moment, celebrate by our own i guess, which would make sense. sm would do an actual great job to give them this day as an official rest day.

i don't know why 5 years later some have to do this. making a big deal of something we didn't care for from the beginning anyway.

if we didn't demand it from the first day, why asking for it now to be acknowledged officially? just move on, 5 years passed, 5 more will, and so on.

calling out a member personally when he's not even close to us, just to satisfy someone's selfish wish to get the "happy birthday" written on their screen... 2 words between a dozen of apologetic ones. i'm speechless.

no one is tripping, the words are there and it looks as real as it is.

they're not our friends or family, they are people who entertain us, inspire us and give us the music and content. that's all. everything we get beyond that, it's their free choice, not our demand.

#anon #reply

4 notes · View notes

purplesurveys · 2 years

Text

1540

What is your favourite dog breed? Probably beagles if I really had to pick a favorite. I love all dogs, though.

What colour nail polish do you wear the most? I don’t wear nail polish nearly enough to have a go-to color.

Do you use lip balm regularly? Nah. My bigger issue here is my likely tendency to lose the lip balm roll every 2-3 days lol.

Do you drink soda? I don’t, but I will share that I got to try Sprite for the first time (since my awful experience with it when I was 3) a few weeks ago and I was...surprised to really like it? Hahaha the taste was fine and the fizz isn’t as aggressive as Coke’s, which is as good as it gets for me. In any case I might give at least just Sprite more chances from now on, but of course I’ll still moderate how much I drink soda because I don’t want to end up hooked to it.

Do you drive? Yup.

If so what kind of car do you drive? I still have my hatchback Mitsubishi Mirage.

Look to your left, what do you see? It’s all my BTS merch in a semi-organized, semi-cluttered pile...a pile that is also quickly running out of space, hahaha.

How many people have you dated? One.

Do you use hand sanitizer frequently? More often than before due to Obvious Reasons, but I do still forget sometimes. In any case, I spray alcohol on my hands mainly after playtime with the dogs or when I come from a crowded area.

How many hair products do you use? Two - just shampoo and conditioner is all I need really.

Are you happy with your appearance? Sure. I feel like my insecurities came about largely when I was a teenager, right when those insecurities typically happen. But I’ve grown out of those now - I still have bad days, of course, but they don’t eat me up as much as they used to.

What is the last book you read? I can’t remember.

What website do you visit most often? Apart from social media (which eats up most of my time online) and Google Suite (which I use for work)...probably Wikipedia? I like learning about things and people and events and I never run out of articles to read.

Have you ever broken a bone? I haven’t; the most I’ve been through was a sprained ankle. Zero broken bones, fortunately.

Are you artistic? I like watching people be artistic and I like looking at other people’s art, if that counts. I wouldn’t label myself that trait at all, though.

Have you ever been to a concert? I have, but I usually keep my attendance to those once-in-a-lifetime acts as opposed to others who may go to shows as long as they hold some level of interest towards the artist. That’s why my checklist so far has only been One Direction and Paramore hahaha – then as long as I can see Beyoncé and BTS, I’d consider myself completely fulfilled in this department.

Have you ever performed in a play? Yes, in school. It was mandatory though. < Same. I’ve never been a theatre kid so I haven’t been in a play that was outside school and was outside being mandatory.

Do you like to dance? Not, like, professionally. I keep my dancing to swaying back and forth to music I vibe with.

If you could change one thing about yourself what would it be? To be less of a control freak. I overwork myself to the point of exhaustion because I always want to make sure I have some sort of input over everything I do – and I wish I could just start laying off every once in a while.

What search engine do you use? Chrome, but I use Safari on my phone because I’m too lazy to download Chrome. Do you have a Facebook account? Yep.

What is your favourite food? Sushi. < Great answer, I’ll go with this too. Kwek-kwek is a close second.

Can you use chopsticks? I can. I feel like I don’t hold them correctly though because my food would occasionally fall off and I will also sometimes get finger cramps lol, but I can manage them well enough to feed myself.

Do you use a blowdryer on your hair? Only if I’m running really late and if I have a feeling that my hair wouldn’t dry fast enough while driving.

Do you use a flat iron? No and I never want to be anywhere near one. My mom had my hair rebonded a handful of times when I was younger even though I was always very vocal about how uncomfortable and unconfident having straight hair made me feel.

Do you have a cell phone? Yups.

What colour underwear are you wearing? Green.

What colour are most of your clothes? Black is still leading I think. I’ve been meaning to explore more colorful pieces but I’m just tooooooo lazy to shop and rehaul my closet.

Do you collect anything? K-pop merch. I won’t say I collect as a serious hobby, i.e. participating in photocard buy-and-sells, but I always buy from new collections and releases.

What colour are your eyes? They are dark brown.

Do you have any tattoos? I don’t have any. I did accompany my sister as she got her first-ever tattoo last Friday and both she and Angela asked when I planned on getting my first haha. 14 year old me (who wanted sleeves) would be so disappointed to find out her older self is now terrified of anything sharp LOL

Do you play video games? Eh, not really. I’ve always preferred watching others play, but not me. As a kid I used to watch my dad, older cousin, and uncles a lot; as I got older it transitioned to watching playthroughs and gaming vloggers on YouTube.

Do you speak any other languages? Other than English, Filipino. Do you wear makeup? Just foundation and concealer if my face is going through a rough breakout. Sometimes I’ll put on eyeliner if I’m feeling productive enough and if I have enough extra time.

How many times have you moved? That I can recall, two. I know we moved more times than that, but some of those instances happened when I was too young to remember.

What was the last food you ate? Yangnyeom chicken.

What was the last thing you had to drink? Coffee.

Do you liked grilled cheese? It’s fine, but I never look for it. I can’t remember the last time I had one.

Do you eat breakfast? Usually only during the weekends. Work consumes me the moment I wake up on weekdays.

Do you have a cat? No.

What is your favourite childhood memory? It was always my favorite when it came time to pick up my dad from the airport. His contracts to work abroad were longer when I was a kid, and we went without him every 6 months. Only when I got older did it start getting reduced to just 4 months.

What was your favourite movie as a kid? Toy Story. It still is my favorite children’s movie to this day. I remember liking Finding Nemo and Rapunzel too.

Have you ever dated someone online? No. I experimented with Bumble after my breakup but it was 100% for the ego boost, since it shows you who wants to match with you.

Do you like to take walks? Uhh as much as possible, no. I really wish I could like walking, but it just tires me out and I get bored easily even if I’m doing it with someone. Then again I also feel like this speaks about my fitness (and lack thereof) more than anything lol.

Are you going to college right now? Not anymore; I graduated two years ago.

If so, what is your major? I took up journalism.

Do you like school? It was fun in college because I was infinitely more independent than I ever was from when I was in Catholic school. Even learning was fun because I got to pick a significant portion of my classes, and because I was actually allowed to bring my laptop for note-taking. I barely have memories from my time in grade school and high school because I didn’t like those years too much.

What perfume/cologne do you wear? I don’t wear perfume much these days.

Do you keep a journal? If so how often do you write in it? It’s just this one. It’s updated a few times a week.

Have you ever traveled outside of your country? Yups.

Do you chew gum? Sometimes.

Do you live in a big city? Nope, I wouldn’t call it big.

How often do you go out to eat? Not very often at all, I’d say 4-5 times a month. I get food delivery way more frequently.

What is the last movie you saw in theatres? It was still Knives Out. There’s yet to be a movie that captures my interest enough to want to buy a movie ticket for it.

Have you ever dyed your hair? Once. It’s been due for redyeing for like the last...three months lol my roots have been looking awkward with the light brown now.

Do you drink tea? Nopes.

Do you subscribe to channels on youtube? I do.

Do you have a tumblr? Yup.

Do you watch anime? No, was never into it.

Can you cook? I cannot.

How old were you when you first started dating? 16. Are/Were your parents strict? It was mostly when I was young, which, knowing now how scatterbrained and unaware I was as a kid, is completely understandable today lol. I got better at handling myself as I got older and now whenever my mom attempts to still be strict with me, it’s usually my dad who manages her and tells her to back off.

Is your room messy? No.

Do you have Netflix? Yeah, we have a family plan so I technically have my own account under that.

Do you have any regrets? If so what do you regret? Small ones here and there that I barely remember. I don’t think I’ve had any life-changing regrets.

How are your grades? Pretty ok. I was always good at memorization and since most of the classes I had to take were objective-based, all I needed was to read modules and textbooks front to back and I was pretty much good to go. Conversely, my grades usually suffered under classes that are more open to interpretation – which explains why I hated subjects like philosophy.

Do you get nervous easily? Yeah I can get quite jumpy over anything.

What do you look for in a BF/GF? Someone sociable and adventurous - it’d be cool if I can pull them for a day of gallery viewing or rock climbing or pottery lessons, anything under the sun really. Onto more particular traits, I’m also quite sensitive when it comes to smell and hygiene so it’s ideal if they have these things covered too.

Have you ever written a song or poem? No, I’m not very good at creative writing and have never been.

Have you ever written a short story or novel? I attempted short stories as a teenager but all of those are gross. I never look back on them, haha.

Are/Were you in a school club? Yeah, but they were mandatory every year so it’s not like I had a choice.

Do you play an instrument? Sadly enough I don’t. Where do you want to be in 5 years? If I’ve moved out by then I’d consider it a success.

What do you never leave the house without? Phone, phone charger, wallet, car keys, vape pen.

What food(s) do you refuse to eat? Fruits.

Favourite candy? Maltesers.

Do you have a good relationship with your mom? It’s okay; it’s definitely so much better compared to how destructive it was in my younger years. I wouldn’t say we’re close though and I don’t think it would ever get to that point – we are too fundamentally different. I mean first of all she’s very very pious and I dislike anything that has to do with Christianity, so that will never be resolved between us. Most of her stances are also anchored towards that religion, and mine are the complete opposite.

Do you have a good relationship with your dad? It’s better than my mom’s. I also wouldn’t call myself close with my dad but it’s more of him not really being emotionally capable of closeness, and I accepted that a while ago. But other than that, we do have a good relationship and I appreciate that we’re on the same radar when it comes to beliefs and stuff.

What did you have for dinner last night? I didn’t have dinner the last two nights but last Friday, Angela and I went to our favorite Korean spot and got jjajangmyeon, dakgangjeong, tteokbokki, and gimbap.

Do you wear glasses? Every moment that I’m awake, yes.

Do you have any siblings? If so, do you get along with them? I don’t talk to my brother, but I’m solid with my sister, yes.

Do you watch reality tv shows? If so which ones? Yeah I used to like watching a number of reality shows like Keeping Up, Masterchef, anything baking and home improvement, lol. These days it’s reduced to Korean reality shows like 2 Days 1 Night and I Live Alone.

Do you listen to the Beatles? Nope.

Do you listen to No Doubt? No.

Do you listen to Nirvana? No.

Do you listen to The Cure? No.

How many songs are on your iPod? I haven’t used an iPod since high school.

What do you miss most about your childhood? Playing outside. I don’t miss like 95% of it though; my childhood wasn’t that positively remarkable.

How many pets do you have? Two.

What kind of pets do you have? I have two dogs. What colour are the walls in your room? White.

Do you write "To-Do" lists? I have a virtual to-do list that I keep on Google Sheets. I love love love that sheet and keep it on from the moment I clock in until I clock out.

Do you procrastinate often? Yes, I am really bad (or good??) with procrastination.

What is your favourite book? I don’t have any.

Did you hate any of your teachers? Yes so many from my old school. Others had their favorite students and neglected the rest, others were unnecessarily terrifying, others happened to just dislike me. Whatever it is they were part of the reason I disliked my time in that school.

Have you ever been depressed? Yep.

How do you handle stress? Entertainment through YouTube.

What are you looking forward to? SLEEPING. I’ve been socializing the last three days, barely saw my room and barely had a weekend. At this point I just can’t wait to have a comfy night’s rest.

#survey #surveys

1 note · View note

csperspectives · 2 years

Text

HAYAO MIYAZAKI

written: 3 - 4, june 2022

museum tour: 24, may 2022

(i am super excited to be writing about this entry.)

this is one of the last exhibits i entered in, and it was the whole reason why i decided to visit the academy museum of motion pictures. unfortunately, the HAYAO MIYAZAKI exhibit will be closing on june 5. by the time this goes up, or by the time you read this, the exhibit will no longer be featured at the academy museum.

the academy museum of motion pictures did have a rule where you are not allowed to take any photos or videos inside the exhibit whatsoever. most of the photos and footage i attained was from outside the exhibit. now that i realize it, this rule lets you be fully immersed in HAYAO MIYAZAKI's work.

{little history lesson on HAYAO MIYAZAKI. he was born on 5, january 1941 and is a japanese animator, director, producer, screenwriter, author, and manga artist. not only that, but he cofounded Studio Ghibli. he has many awards, and one of them is the academy award for best animated feature for his 2001 anime movie Spirited Away.}

the question is: why did the academy of motion pictures decide to dedicate a whole floor exhibit on HAYAO MIYAZAKI?

on the museum's website, it stated that they wanted to celebrate him as an artist and a filmmaker.

[just want to give a thanks to curator Jessica Niebel and assistant curator J. Raúl Guzman for creating a beautiful exhibit.]

as stated earlier, this is the whole reason why i decided to visit the academy museum of motion pictures. before i entered the exhibit, i merely thought it was going to be his sketches, drawings, and outlines posted on the wall, but it was much more.

i was completely mind-blown, and it reminded me of my childhood.

being fully immersed in his work will deactivate you from any cellular device or camera you have. when you enter in, you enter through a tunnel, and then the first part of the exhibit.

once you are completely in, you see a couple of sketches on the walls and some encased in a glass table. however, the first thing that caught my eye was the three large screen showing different scenes from the different Studio Ghibli movies. when i entered in, it showed PONYO.

PONYO is my favorite Studio Ghibli film ever. was i a little excited to see PONYO on screen? yes.

what blew my mind the most most is seeing the sketches and outlines progress as you view it from left to right. it was basically the step by step process of his work. they were lined up in a way where, when you move onto the next sketch, you would see what is added or removed. (this includes change in facial expressions, flowers blooming, and more.)

when you continue to walk in, you would completely feel like you are a character in one of the movies. they had a small grass area where you can look up and see the sky. and if i can remember, it is inspired by The Wind Rises or Howl's Moving Castle. sadly, i did not have a chance to look up at the sky because there were many kids that surrounded the area.

the part that excited me the most is the big tree. it seemed to be a major staple in the movies and in the exhibit. i think the tree was inspired by Mononoke. the tree will lead you to the end of the exhibit. however, just before you exit, they will be showing scenes from My Neighbor Totoro and Spirited Away.

i wish i went to this exhibit earlier in the year so that i can keep visiting, but great things do have to come to an end. i am very disappointed to say that this exhibit will be closing. it felt like a complete dream.

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTdcYgj8U/?k=1

signing off: jhanella mae

all photos and videos taken by me.

#studio ghibli #hayao mizayaki #museum #exhibit #ponyo #my neighbor totoro #the secret world of arrietty #miyazaki #spirited away #totoro

3 notes · View notes

raisinchallah · 2 years

Text

why is the twitter art community so insane literally the worst parts of deviantart and the worst parts of twitter combining i think like alfkakkd every few weeks i swear people have like art advice discourse and people scream at each other about the best way to improve at art and for whiney beginner artists to stop harrassing their replies and that if they want to get better they should just practice and also obviously people get very angry at people who have never claimed to be art teachers offering simple advice like practice because theyre sorta at a loss idk its just deranged and i cannot look away i know i should stop being on twitter evil website but its enthralling sometimes but its really so depressing the way the gatekeepy and insane dont steal my secrets just grind at art mindset of deviantart has survived with none of the incredible tutorials and knowledge sharing that also somehow managed to coexist alongside that weird closed community and hmm the lack of like spaces for total beginner artists to easily share stuff in a way that puts them on equal footing with all other artists like that was something nice about deviantart all those groups that accepted pretty much all art and so u could have beautiful fully rendered complex art right next to like some 11 year olds lovingly sketched out colored pencil doodle and like its so distressing in general i guess the entire like never stop the grind always improve mindset being seen as normal and not idk if beginners truly want advice good lord just like find things ur passionate about art should be fun its so insane why is art not seemingly fun for people in these places i guess its the ever growing encroachment of trying to professionalize and everyone hoping the internet will be the gateway to great jobs in art when most of the time thats like an illusion and its also just so crazy cuz i dont even feel like its that hard to give like mediocre art advice that just u know creates a more positive community instead of just being like practice train fight whatever thats it idk remind people to draw things theyre passionate about and that genuinely enjoying what ur doing matters not just pushing towards a skill that will make you totally fucking miserable and idk most people posting art online or taking small commissions arent gonna be incredible professional quality artists but thats literally ok and can be a wonderful good thing to just have a closely held enjoyable thing and like idk u gotta learn to see art is literally not simply about motor skills thats whats also so crazy to me is people seem to focus on improving like the motor skills of physically drawing and not like composition and learning your own taste and discovering what artists you like and admire and study what makes their stuff work things that can be done when ur in an art block mode u know i gotta know how to see like understanding colors and how to frame things and composition are all things that u can like learn to see and grow ur skills by simply seeing and knowing with purpose and implementing that like theres so many levels you can be technically skilled and not put an image together nicely idk so many things that can also u know translate to photography fashion food daily life like whatever this is a total tangent and lord knows my composition sucks but alskkska theres such an aggressive anti copying mentality i think also people dont understand how to use references or how to grab from a lot of different inspiration idk whatever i love to bitch!!

3 notes · View notes

ebbarbera · 3 months

Text

What is Social Media?/Social Media Communication-Erin Barbera

Social media, by my personal definition, is an app or website where individuals, brands, and corporations can represent themselves in any desired way, and engage in instantaneous communication across the globe. The boom of the millennium that is social media has come to serve as a great form of self-promotion, business models, or for speaking about an supporting causes relevant to the given poster. Although social media has displayed it’s vast amount of benefits it supplies for the human race, I would not be hesitant to also define social media as a portable form of hypnosis. My last statement may seem hyperbolic, but I believe my fear is justified! I was raised on social media, but it is obvious to see how it has impacted the the culture of human society so drastically and quickly.

I do think regularly about the negative impact social media has posed on our society, but that doesn’t stop a child of the Generation Z of consuming social media. My role as a social media user has become more invisible over the last 6 months or so. With my recent and long-awaited return to the social media platform, Instagram, I watch over my small and private account followed by primarily close friends. My identity here is EB, an upcoming artist and comedian just having fun and posting silly pictures and jokes for my friends to doom scroll past, hopefully pulling a laugh out of them.

As someone who is heavily aware of social media’s patterns and effects, I feel as though that trait of mine allows me to be more cautious on the internet, but also in real life. By recognizing how much social media plays into our relationships, self esteem, consumption, etc. it makes me hyper-aware day-to-day as I watch how we speak and interact with one another in real life. In an opposing sense, another strength I have in understanding social media is the fact that I was raised on it and am very versed in it. Since I’m such an avid consumer and am surrounded by people who do the same, it’s easy to follow trends and know how to get traction on posts if that is the desired goal. With the internet being so over-saturated with quite literally anything and everything, there are so many obscure techniques in posting that can help boost it. Depending on trends, certain effects or even lengths of videos are important aspects in posting a potentially highly visible post. For example, sometimes using a red circle and/or an arrow on a thumbnail usually pushes it further into the algorithm. Challenges I’ve come across with understanding social media is the algorithm... As I mentioned, small and random aspects push things into anyone’s algorithm. I don’t understand where the need for such an algorithm, and why social media forces us to consume so much of it.

Because I want to use social media in the future to promote my comedy and entertainment endeavors, I am excited to be taking this class. I hope to be able to learn the best ways to reach out to people through these platforms in entertaining, efficient, and beneficial ways. I’d like to find ways to utilize social media in more positive ways, and see how this undeniable resource can be used for good.

#social media #college #humor #hypnosis

1 note · View note