New Year, New Instagram For Crafty Stuff! I'm Working On A Pressed Pigment Palette And Now My Fingers

chepeng:

I decided to post some unfinished stuff that is floundering on my hard drive!

And to buck the trend of overambitious fanart that I lose interest in when 80% complete or so…. have one actually finished picture :D

the doctor is always worth it

PW6 in three flavors- yacht party, indiana jones, and SCIENCE.

I'll stop drawing so many clothes eventu-LOLOLsorry couldn't even finish that sentence

If you want to paint yourself and your friends weird colors for Halloween season (OR if you’re a nerd who cosplays at every opportunity, or even when there aren’t opportunities because you’re obsessed with makeup like meeeee) I would like to reccomend airbrushing :D

Top photo is my airbrush kit which fits in a toiletry bag from ikea. It includes a mini compressor which you can get for about $40 on amazon.

I use a $20 Badger airbrush from Michaels. I honestly use it more often than my nicer double-action professional airbrush because ngl I get tired of cleaning that thing out. Paint doesn’t actually go through the Badger air gun at all so its easy to clean.

BEST of all, if you also make props or paint fabric for costumes, you can stop spending money on spray paint! Seriously, airbrushes are where it’s at.

THE KEY ITEM is the Badger to Master brand adapter! The most annoying thing about airbrushes is there’s no standard sizing and shapes for ANY brush item or accessory between brands. I got mine in a set from Amazon for about $9. This way you have the choice to use any compressor instead of the expensive air cans.

Anyone who’s tried to do white makeup knows how ANNOYING it is no matter what! Creme makeup has good coverage but it’s gross and gets everywhere no matter how much powder you use to set it! Airbrushing lets you get 100% coverage with water-based liquid body paint. I got the best results with two layers of white and two of Ben Nye final seal (a layer of sealer FIRST helps the color stick and adds a small amount of protective barrier from sweat/oil). The key is to get full coverage with the thinnest possible layers, it flakes off more easily the thicker the paint is applied. Diluting liquid makeup with sealer instead of water or mixing liquid helps too, I don’t have a brand preference and have Ben Nye and Mehron colors, and some more expensive alcohol-based brands for experiments.

Examples! My QT frans (and me, whatever lol) :3 I painted em and they did the rest of makeup and powder. Powder pigments for colors and shading seem to work best before paint is entirely dry, if it gets too dry for blush/shading/etc, I’ve had good results with a light spritz of sealer to make it tacky again. Riles glows in the dark because Mehron has glow body paint so I had to try it, NATURALLY! Also used pure glow pigment as ~gremlin blush~, TKB has it I want to buy it by the pound, lol LOOK AT THAT SPOOKY GLOW THO

OK hope that was informative enough, I’m trying not to make this twenty pages long ok? K.

omg you punk i didn't know you had a tumblr

it's new! New ish! I promise! Augh I am making an effort get off my ass, woman

can’t sleep can’t stop drawing clothes

tomorrowland was all of the things i love!!!!! retrofuturism! saving the world thru SCIENCE! athena's wendy dress (seriously LOOK AT THIS DRESS)! Antique interdimensional rocketships! Hugh Laurie dressed like a crotchety mayor of the emerald city of Oz! murderous yet quirky robot people! directed by brad bird!!! this review sums up how I feel pretty well. I really needed this movie xD

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

Madranek looks like a pretty sweet guy. What's his story/what's he like/got anything interesting to tell us/etc? :) Spill! <3

Madranek is a minor councilman for a small wealthy province of Esterahad, he's psychic and is sort of a mentor figure to Lillia who is a very young powerful psychic. Because my story is mostly about politics a huge portion of my characters are politicians of some kind D: 

Hey there! I've chosen the recent SPG Poster art you created for Fan Art Friday this weekend - it's spectacular! I generally reblog these from the person directly, but your post includes the word "hell," and we generally avoid any sort of cursing in what we post. As of now, I've set it up to reblog with the paragraphs you added removed, so it'll just showcase the art. I hope that's okay! If you'd rather I not reblog it at all, please let me know! It'll post Friday at 12pm PST.

lol I don't mind if you remove my several paragraphs of blathering, I can't help but inflict that stuff on my own blog/followersHow are y'all enjoying the poster? I still haven't actually printed a copy for myself cos I can't stop spending money on cosplay. It is an addiction

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'