Do you make art for a living?
No. I used to pine to be a career artist, but after seeing firsthand how overworked industry artists are, I didn't want it anymore. I did try being a freelance artist for awhile. It was fun for about a month. Then I had to worry about taxes, finding my next clients, not knowing where my paycheck would come from next, and scammers. I couldn't handle the lack of structure at all. I need a preset routine, which is why I have a normal fulltime job around which I build my artistic endeavors. I enjoy the security of having regular work.
What are your artistic values?
Above all else, I stay true to myself and my vision. This means no bandwagons, no trendy art styles, and no social climbing. I make art for self-enrichment and the love of the craft.
What are your favorite brushes?
My favorite inking brushes are all from The Rusty Nib brush pack by True Grit Texture Supply. I use both Rusty Nib 4 and Cleaner Chisel Nib for general line work, and I use Micro Nib for small little details. They have a good balance of realistic dip pen texture and tight control of line weight. I came from a long history of using dip pens for traditional work, so these brushes were perfect when I made the transition into digital. Link
My favorite general rendering brush is the Daub Gred Dry from the DAUB Verve pack. It mimics the look and feel of acrylic paint on canvas. I'm able to build up layers of color and texture quickly by using glazing techniques and dry brushing. Link
For stippling, I use a free brush pack called ST Stipple. They're perfect for adding old-school texture to monochrome work. I used them all throughout "Is This You?" Link
I do use other brushes and digital tools, but I use these brushes more than any others.
What are your favorite subjects?
I enjoy creating dark, surreal stories about nerdy, strange people wandering into bizarre situations. Nearly everything I've written involves a socially awkward, nerdy, but mundane character falling down a rabbit hole of insanity where the laws of reality can break. I like to send an Everyman into a waking nightmare so that the reader can connect with the feeling of disorientation and horror. Anything can happen in the realm of thought. Dreams leak into the waking world. The mind becomes a physical place that can be explored, exposed one's darkest secrets. I also like to find humor in the weird little mundane parts of life. Crooked pictures, sarcastic advertisements, smiley faces on dangerous objects, comically-timed accidents, and awkward social interactions can all be found here. I also focus on the beauty of quiet moments, often lingering on environment shots, unspoken interactions, and small details to immerse the reader in the story.
What other websites do you use?
I tried using social media, but I did not have fun on them. They are distracting and I want to prioritize my craft. Posting to my own website is great for my mental health because it gives me autonomy. I have full control over how I present my art. It's difficult to browse art on social media because it gets buried, but having a gallery makes it easy because it's all in one place!
It is impractical to expect there to be a perfect art website that is similar to old deviantart. Old Deviantart wasn't even that good—it had major problems. It had rampant flame wars, unfiltered fetish content all over the entire site, inappropriate contact with adults and minors, and nude bathroom mirror selfies. The moderators did not do their jobs. I can't name even one person who got banned from the site. What people are nostalgic for is a sense of handmade community and a home base. We don't need to wait around for a perfect art website. We can make it right here, right now.
You can make your own website. Learn to code, or find someone else who does—my best friend Pearlnight codes my site for me. It doesn't have to be beautiful. It is allowed to be ugly! Everyone has to start somewhere.
What program do you use?
I draw exclusively with Procreate on a 13 inch iPad Pro. I like to call myself an iPad baby. I used to be a fully traditional artist and worked with mixed media. My most recent traditional media was done with India ink and markers, but I have also worked with oil paints on canvas, charcoal, acrylics, watercolor, and ink wash. I did not pick up on digital art until I was 26 because drawing with a standard tablet felt unnatural. Drawing on the iPad feels almost exactly like drawing on paper, and Procreate is capable of reproducing the textures of traditional tools. I liked it so much I stopped drawing with physical media altogether because Procreate gave me everything I wanted.
Where do you find reference material?
I have a variety of sources for them! I often use the 3D mannequins in Clip Studio Paint. They're easy to pose, and you can recreate almost every body type with them. They even have options for anime/stylized perspective, head proportions, and simple lighting.
JustSketch.me is a good free resource for creating pose references with a generic 3D mannequin. If you want a wider variety of body types and character styles, you have to pay for it.
I also search stock photos on Google Images for basic references and Frankenstein several of them together to give myself an idea of how things should look.
My favorite reference material is Roomstyler. It is a free, browser-based program that lets you build interior rooms with premade 3D assets. All of the materials are drag-and-drop. A child could use it. You can move the camera around at any angle, with a choice of wide-angle or normal lenses, and take pictures of your rooms. It gives you a choice of day or night lighting, along with levels of ambient brightness. It is a lifesaver for drawing complicated perspective shots. They even give you generic people (not posable) that you can add in to get an idea of scale. I personally trace over the pictures, add my own touches to the furniture and styling, and use the generic people as basic reference for where to put my characters. I've built the houses of all of my characters with this program.
Where is your shoutbox?
Managing a shoutbox would be too intensive because I'm too busy to moderate comments from anonymous internet users. Send me an email instead!
Thanks for reading!