Can You Please Have An About Page Somwhere? It's Just That I'm Nosy And I'd Like To Know Things. For

This hat!! and I have been in a battle of wills for 2 months!! I've made hats before but nothing as... ambitious. I knew it had to be purple ostrich leather because that's basically fantasy dinosaur skin, its synthetic, but even so a big splurge for me (50usd from aliexpress), its so cool. So that was problem one, never made a hat out of heavy pleather before, I tried heat shaping it, didnt work due to the suede-y backing material. Problem two was making the cone easy to separate from the brim for easier packing but honestly wasn't a problem at all because velcro is awesome. Problems three through infinity (ongoing xP) was my need to have a fancy musketeer-inspired brim shape that would also be stable enough to mount a huge feather from the edge, lol! I'm still stuck here. I made a framework from plastic canvas, music wire, floral wire and the last of my worbla, and a small socket from a piece of plastic tube (dogpoo bag roll core lol) and a tiny metal corner brace. All of this would have been absolutely overkill for a real feather but turned out to barely be enough for my handmade yarn feather. Thinking of making an organza feather but I really love the realistic texture of the brushed out yarn soooo. Further experiments needed. Wire core is too floppy and steel rod core is too heavy so carbon fiber rod is on eventual to-buy list. Right now the feather shaft is a combination of wire, vinyl tube, ribbon and two metal headbands that I flattened out which is actually really great wire on its own! Feather will get its own post, it ended up being kind of complicated too (...also unfinished) Part of my annoyance is thinking that just making the entire brim out of worbla and/or varaform would solve a lot of my structure issues AND help the hat weigh a bit less but waaay too spendy for me. I'm going to make do with my scraps, aida cloth, felt, wire and glue. ITCHING to rip off all the fabric and start tweaking nowwww Because hat brim will also be supporting the weight of leds and LOTS OF BLING Its so heavy already aaargh! Problem infinity plus one? Securing it to my gigantic wig??? I'm going to try using chopsticks as hatpins lol https://www.instagram.com/p/B2OshoojEDg/?igshid=1qwksvo6y2w98

Heraldry was pretty design-trendy a while back, but like most trends/fads it was pretty shallow. Pretty! And shallow. But the worldbuilding nerd in me wanted to make some designs that actually had some research behind them so I could use them for story. Blazon, the hardest part (hard=interesting I'm so predictable bleh), is the most interesting to me since the designs have to be reproduceable reliably through their written descriptions.

Have several of these, using them to learn inkscape. This one is for the United Houses of Applied Thaumantic Radiology (ahem). Described as:

A kite, gyronny of twelve, murrey and tenne with an orle argent; overall a five-toothed cogwheel Or, on a rondel azure.

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

Couldn't resist, yo. Art by Tom Rhodes widgets made by me with Samurize.

Am I gonna apologize for not posting? Ever? NAaaah. xD I rarely have time to draw while I'm away for work and when I'm home I'd rather MAKE STUFF. Even then I have to make annoyingly hard choices about what to work on cos I just can't do everything I want, weh

Buuut here's some semi-recent Jak & Daxter fanart I'm probably not going to finish cos I don't have tiiiiiime :C Fuzzy little douche was very fun to draw tho

Do you still draw elves? I miss Errikan...

I miss him too, friend :( tbh I'm really struggling lately, creatively and otherwise, I don't have passion for anything anymore, just trying to exist until things get better

Why are you not working in an art related capacity?!?!?!

I think I got this note a million years ago, but I'm gonna answer it NOW~

multiple reasons-

a- I may be slightly awesome at art but I am a hot mess in every other possible way

b- ways that affect my ability to properly network and manipulate the necessary channels to get real, regular work as an artist

c- this isn't true much but has been occassionally in the past and is currently true: I have a job where I make more money than I would drawing. And I like money. A lot. Money is awesome.

this makes deciding on color schemes a no-brainer! I'll definitely buy when the beta is over.

Coworker introduced me to a really awesome little Photoshop plugin. Took a screenshot of me playing around with it at work that I blurred to hell for NDAs. Gone are the days where I have to open up the color picker window to sample colors!! I definitely recommend at least trying it out.