This Time I WILL Apologize For Not Posting Cos I Am SUPER Proud Of This And Worked SUPER Hard On It,

The JUICEBOX is my ongoing struggle project to make a useful (and *safe*) powerbank for big powerhungry costumes. I'm not there yet at all lol! But I keep hacking at it occasionally. Holds 6 rechargeable NiMH D cells- for juice to last up to full day of running leds depending on the number of lights of course, as well as the animations and colors... And brightness.. etc... Uhhh battery life depends on a lot of factors... Why NiMH though? Lipoly batteries pack more power into a smaller package but thats also what adds to the risk. So thats why I decided to go with D cells instead. If you've seen the videos of phones and laptops combusting and then imagine the abuse a costume goes through, maybe you too can reconsider strapping one of those to your flammable human body! PLUS if they're drained and you want to repower your costume NOW its easy enough to go pick up fresh ones from a store. The Juicebox outputs about 6-7v, good for servos, fans, speakers, and small motors. 5v/15A UBEC to run mostly neopixels! Up to 200 at full power if you're crazy. 3v voltage buck for sensors and microcontrollers. I used a different style of connector for each output for foolproofing, its not attractive but hey at least you wont fry anything by plugging it into a higher voltage output xD this is still something i'll be redoing because I have some other ideas Id like to try. Each output also has a fuse so if you cant resist the tempation to plug in a million things or miscalculated somewhere you wont overheat the pack. The enclosure is the molded EVA kind for headphones or other various gadgets so its easy to cut holes into! Unfinished things- tiny cooling fan for the UBEC, an ammeter, tiny OLED display for detailed info on power usage, and a neopixel programmed to battery life color indicator on the end of a long cable so you can route it to an easy access part of the costume, to check the juice levels at a glance. All of the code I consistenly fail to get working runs on an arduino pro mini lol If you're still actually reading this and havent fallen asleep you might be interested in my and @maddycatcosplay 's new maker discord for crafty costumers! Invite in bio! https://www.instagram.com/p/B0Tx9-Jjcig/?igshid=91wqvlq99sjf

Rushed Malfunction cosplay for WWWC4! Not pictured: the ten strands of fairy lights I wove into the wig which broke as soon as I put it on LOL Pictured: post-con carnage xD Wig is maybe 20 percent finished; you'll know when it's done because Ill be shouting from the rooftops, dancing in the streets, etc

Been stumbling through months and months of frustrating art constipation where my drawing attention span is just not even there, and my ability to simply draw anyway has been faltering? Normally I don't sweat this and if drawing is too hard I just take a break from it but that hasn't been an option this year (I am SO poor you guys)

Doodling a fun thing yesterday I thought would get me more motivated and excited about drawing but even then I just constantly felt like stopping! Today I am workin on another commission and its a bit of the same story. BLARRHHHHhh

Anywaaaaay. This is Megla she is a unicorn faun and I want to make a costume for my best friend, pretty much every time I design a random character Im like DUDE THIS NEEDS TO BE A COSTUME I'm totally gonna do it ok it's gonna have glowing sparkly hair and tail (leds and fiber optic threads) and digigrade legs (I found some tutorials!) and its gonna be so awesome XD I notice when I have artblock its not so much creative block so much as I wanna do something else I wanna make stuff :E But crafts have waaay more overhead when I make money I have to buy food instead of art supplies

I have been thinking about this SO MUCH wrt my own high sensitivity. This sort of three-factor approach to emotional personality stuff is really useful for sorting thru your own life and thoughts for personal growth and self awareness, etc. My personal low baseline, high sensitivity and slow recovery time are all "problems" that have to be addressed seperately. Once I acknowledged that my own baseline is pretty skewed toward the negative thru NO fault of my own it helped me resist attempts to shame me for not being a naturally "happy" person. Some people are rays of sunshine and some people are misty fogs and that is OK. Its been much harder for me to accept the sensitivity because I grew up under the delusion that this was something I could change about myself. I feel this is related to the attitude that sensitive people shouldn't be "coddled" and bullying/abuse can be justified if it toughens them up. So it really did take an entire lifetime of effort and FAILURE to realize that was patently untrue. No amount of willpower will make this skin thicker, and thats OK too. The time it takes to return to baseline/regain equilibrium/find balance is the most important thing to address in my experience. If you don't have a whole lot of control over your basic brain chemistry (medications can only do so much after all) or your sensitivity (degree of sensitivity to stimulus is *biological*), what CAN you control? Your thoughts, decisions, and your actions. These affect the intensity and duration of emotional reactions. This is what true cognitive behavioral therapy is all about. Acknowledge what makes you feel things and why. Understand WHAT you're feeling. KNOW that emotions serve a PURPOSE. I see lots of posts circulating with long lists of actions you can take to deal with negative feelings in a healthy way and that makes me happy that people are sharing this, because I had to learn most of those things on my own and the more time saved from having to figure out what to do is more time you can use to figure out what actually works for YOU. Coping skills, emotional management skills are all just that, skills you can learn. It boils down to the usual idea of change what you can control and accept what you can't change... the hard part is figuring out which is which. tl;dr, feelings.

Dug around in my archive drives for Discworld fanarts. I have a lot of Feelings I can’t articulate very well soooooo I’m not going to, just enjoy the draws xD FYI Zombie Reg is still one of my favorite faces I’ve drawn of all time, ever!

MAN I just remembered how I sketched the Vimes family portrait after I read Thud! I should find that and finish it...

Portrait commission, tried to move out of my comfort zone a little and do more dramatic light/shadow.

Thank you for being honest about how your college life killed your art. I've completely stopped working on my art. I only doodle at work now. Your art has always inspired me and it's good to know that I'm not alone in feeling stressed anytime I want to sit down and finish something more than a doodle. Someday I will draw again, or maybe I won't but at least I won't feel the same level of shame & betrayal to my supporters anymore. I gotta heal up and find my motivation again, my reason for art.

-octopusowl

I had an old post talking a bit about how much I hated art school… heh. I KNOW YOUR PAIN THOUGH. I UNDERSTAND. I have SO much unfinished art that I think could be really great but I just... can't. I've always avoided persuing art jobs cos it's hard enough for me to draw the stuff I *like*. I see how much even my most talented and well-connected artist friends struggle and they actually love what they do and I'm just like nope. Not gonna.

I'll be real with you, this is gonna freak some people out but I don't love drawing. I hate drawing comics because it is too much damn drawing, and discovered very early that I could never be an animator despite how much I love it because the thought of drawing that much fills me with existential horror. I love CREATING. Drawing is just the best way to get my ideas out. I was driven to draw well so I could convey my ideas clearly. I actually enjoy making stuff so much more, but crafts and fabricating is EXEPENSIVE and drawing is practically free. Making things requires tools and workspace, drawing at the minimum requires a pen and paper and you can do it anywhere. So basically 99% of what I draw is stuff I want to make but can rarely afford to :C My dream is to someday have a props/costumes shop where I just make so much cool shit (for example dyeing and styling wigs with weird colors and crazy anime styles is SO much fun omg- PLUS I'm currently obsessed with the idea of making glowing fiber optic wigs but once I calculated how much it would cost... uh. Augh. Still totally gonna make it happen eventually though). That's why I care about practical costume design, when I'm drawing clothes I've pretty much already drafted the patterns in my head and have chosen the fabrics, etc. I make decent money right now so that's actually what I'm working toward and yes holy cow it costs SO much. And next on my to-get list is a high quality sewing machine I can feel my bank account crying already :C

UM SO my theory is sometimes its possible that the thing you struggle to do is actually tangential to the thing you REALLY love and that's why it can be difficult and unsatisfying, despite seeming like its something you "should" love. I hope you can find that thing. I only just realized this about myself recently. And even if that's not true for you, at some point you may end up in a better headspace and find joy in it again, because if you did once, why not again? I can understand the guilt but just remember that art is a gift, given freely *when you can afford to*, and you don't owe anyone gifts.

I've been using Sai for years and only just now tried the vector linework tools I AM SO MAD I didn't bother sooner they are perfect and wonderful. I can be as anal as I want and scootch the lines around, adjust the lineweight at every control point, and NO handcramps omg. INKING.

Linework tutorial here.

Drawing real people is haaaaaaaard. weh

Going overboard with layer fx in photoshop again. BEVELS

Fluorishes from the vector lab

This is fanart for my favorite band or something

got infected by marvel brainworm for le reasons obvious. Everyone's got their character they want to see join the Avengers next, mine is Monica Rambeau/Photon which is never gonna happen. Its not like she led the Avengers or anything. BUT still I wanted to imagine her fitting into Earth-199999 continuity, costume redesign, fiddling with origin story etc. I aped her sexy detective look off Lisa Bonet's character in the US Life on Mars cos I loved her, don't judge me.

It's just that UGH she's such a cool character and her powers are AWESOME and because I am a huge nerd who's been reading a book about quantum mechanics (I'm not as smart as I think I am but I don't let that stop me) it did occur to me that using the powers to their greatest creative potential would require extensive working knowledge of quantum electrodynamics and radio physics. Thankfully she has help from resident radiation expert Bruce Banner :3 I can also imagine her tapping into Tony's uplink with J.A.R.V.I.S and asking him to calculate the best wavelengths to cause maximum damage and it would drive Tony so, so crazy. I just can't help but imagine him being a little possessive of his butler supercomputer :p

Doodle from tiny sketchbook I keep with me at work. Still figuring out designs for supporting AEM characters... In the past I'd get a little agitated after short doodling sessions because I always immediately wanted to figure out colors but HAVEN'T THE MEANS. Problem solved! Sketchbook Mobile app is great for anytime anywhere color studyin'