Costume DUMP Because I Had To Move And Put Most Of My Stuff In Storage So I Don’t Know When I’ll

It’s Arduino Daaaaaay! If you don’t know why that’s awesome watch this Ted Talk. Or watch it anyway because open source hardware is the greatest thing. Sparkfun is celebrating! with! a! sale! so if you have been interested in building your own future gadgets from scratch because we live in the future NOW IS THE TIME

This time I WILL apologize for not posting cos I am SUPER proud of this and worked SUPER hard on it, its just that as soon as I finish a thing (which is rare in itself, UGH), I immediately move on to the 5,462,000 other Things. It sounds so terrible to complain about having too many ideas but I can’t keep up and I at least try to get them all into my sketchbook but then have a hell of a time picking a thing to work on, tho if I HAD to make an excuse its because I’m teaching myself lots of new things these days and a lot of it is experimental and failures LOL

Learn by doing ;p

Anywaaaay, I am obsessed with gigantic posters and that combined with fangirling was all the motivation I needed, apparently. (obviously I won’t be selling prints of this, sorry, its fanart) I have a hard time explaining all the stuff I do to add Rainbow to my art so uh, its a lot of strategic outline coloring and layer fx and filters?? Photoshop frickin *~magic~*

I kinda miss livestreaming cos I love to chat about ART but I don’t have the patience to draw at my desktop when I can doodle on my tablet PC at a coffeeshop… And I have been spending a lot more time with my soldering iron rather than my tablet pen, sooo.

I saw this markers caddy at the craft store (Michaels) and immediately wondered if I could use it for not-markers... yes! Its a lil pricey but I got it on sale, and because I do crafts all over the place it was getting annoying to shuffle all my most used tools around in various bins and cans... Tombow makes this organizer too but it's 3 sections instead of 4, but it miiiight be more accessible if you can't shop at a Michaels. The inserts are removeable so I took one out to fit scissors, rotary cutter, brand new 20-32awg wire crimper (received in mail today YAY). I also have some squishy silicone brush holding trays (you can find em by searching for makeup brush holders on ebay or aliexpress) and THOSE inserts fit in there too! Perfect for smaller tools like tweezers and lead holder for my chalk pencil. I LOVE TOOLS. Swipe to the end to see the state of my desk and why I took photos of this on my bed :p https://www.instagram.com/p/B3XaDz3jGbk/?igshid=4nldle1icrsg

http://widgets.ign.com/video/embed/content.html?url=http://www.ign.com/videos/2013/04/23/ratchet-and-clank-movie-teaser

YES.

experimental boot painting with purple/gold chameleon pigment from paintwithpearl mixed into leather studio clear gloss. Im sure much better results could be achieved with airbrush but I dont feel like it! I think Ill goose the effect a bit with interference orange on top...

I got a book on artistic printing a while back and it really spoke to me, especially the slightly bizarre compositions... I think of it as roughly the design era that happened just before art nouveau, it has a little more anarchy to it that I totally love. Then my awesome friend gave me a book of clipartprinting press designs from 100 years ago, I spent 2 days scanning my favorite designs and converting them to vectors (arrrugh that was so much work ahaha) and I still only converted the stuff I wanted to use right away. AND I have been working on a new look for my website that is SUPER influenced by that design era, see?? SEE?

Since I want the title bar to look like moveable type I think I'm going to go all the way and flip them, it'll be extra cheeky that way, oho.

Gryph Encarcer, Jackalope Faun Ranger, Ghostbuster of Eldritch Horrors and Primordial Evils, fights with a giant paintbrush staff using calligraphy magic... because OCs can be whatever you want to draw all at the same time xD

First time I'm tempted to do a proper character Illustration in FOREVERRR, something fun like a flashy calling card maybe

Oh wow, I had no idea you had a tumblr! Your art has been some of my favorite for years and years. :'D /creeper

The tumblr is new! Also, WELCOME CREEPERS, come one, come all!

A wig made out of basically four wigs, guys. SO much painful sewing because I kept poking myself with straight needles (I used curved needles too but they feel so clumsy, I dunno!). It’s three wigs from eBay which ended up being cheaper to take them apart vs buying wefts, and two sets of wefts from Arda because they have some super pretty shades of powder blue.

Tried to get a gradient with minimal dyeing, so I blended five shades of blue… I dyed the tips though. Jaquard iDye Poly for synthetics works pretty well (Arda has great wig dyeing tutorials), best out of every other technique I’ve tried! Which is most of them xD If you look hard enough you can find wig hair in pretty much ANY color and I reccomend that route if you plan on having a wig you can wash and restyle and don’t have to worry at all about any color rubbing off on costumes, etc.

I want it BIGGER, I need more styling practice, I was tempted to add more hair but tbh it’s too much weight tradeoff. I have some ideas to add fluff without additional hair so we’ll see! One thing about big cartoon hair is how often it’s drawn with MORE volume near the ends which is pretty, but nonsense since any layered hairdo will obviously be thinner at the ends, plus teasing it makes it big at the scalp! It has plenty of volume at the scalp cos my head is huge :p I put some tubular crinoline in it last time I wore it which helped me make a big fat braid, so there’s more possibilities to explore there, man I am writing too much about this

ITS ALSO GOT TINSEL IN IT but the process is SO tedious I haven’t got much progress on that yet meeeeeeh! BTW it’s gonna be entirely fiber optic 8)

When creating/designing anything- fantasy races, settings, clothes- do you prefer to try isolate them from this world and let your imagination flow by itself or do you like to do things like deliberately draw from history, base cultures off other cultures, places off other places, etc?

I would say a mixture of both but I think it's SO important to make the distinction that creativity doesnt happen in a vaccuum ever, springing forth purely from mysterious dark recessess of your mind, everything you think of has a previous frame of reference. I feel as an artist (and ahem as a human being) the goal is to learn and study as much as possible, collect as many experiences as possible, stuff that into your mental reference library and a creative inspiration will do the rest. Even ideas that pop into my conscious are never fully formed, so it is often at that point I work on it more systematically. What are my goals for the idea, what interests me about it, how can I make the idea more effective.

I think maybe an example could illustrate this best? I've been working on a sort of fairytale thing, it's based on a dream I had that had a couple of characters (a singing robot guy, and two witch princesses) but not much else to go on if it would be made into a story, which I totally felt needed to happen as soon as I woke up! So I started with the character, and the starting "facts" of them. And then I had to decide the type of story I wanted, and the tone (fairytale! cute and romantic... possibly... a love story). Then the ideas for setting and genre were important (if one of the characters is a robot, and there are also shenanigans involved that are suspiciously magical, well then let's go with steampunk. Ottoman Empire steampunk). New characters are developed to serve the needs of plot (a protagonist/other half of love equation was needed, so I created Edie and made her a mechanic), and once those things are figured out I start doing lots more research to fill in all worldbuilding details (this is not important to the story at all.. maybe... lol sometimes I am so torn about what is plot relevant or not- but I made up a country for the alternate history timeline and the reasons for its existence, its political system, economy, and culture) so that in the end, everything involved in this imaginary story and world and people is actually coherent. That helps the emotional aim of the work to feel more true, even in fantastical settings and situations. Sometimes the setting is closer to "reality" ( near or distant future perhaps, historical fantasy, urban fantasy, parallel universe), sometimes not as close (making a world from scratch, decidedly NOT in our universe, totally different laws of physics apply- or don't apply- its misleading to think that this type is simpler and requires less research; but that's a whole looooooong extra thing to talk about imo).  Either way, things have to make their own type of sense or the story won't be as engaging. If art is self-expression and you are communicating, it's about being a good communicator, making a connection.

BLA BLA PREACH PREACH. Point being is that this is a both/and thing, but also niether. Creativity is problem solving. When its in the form of art instead of say, engineering or even design, people make out the process to be more mysterious and abstract but my personal view on this is that it's not really different, its just that the problems art (and philosophy, etc) try to address are more emotional and existential.

I don't know if I'm making any sense :( But that's how I feel about it and I articulate it as best I can man this ended up long and rambly