Q&A | part two (Patreon)

♡  Any advice for character design and dealing with art thieves?

Man, spending most of my teenage life on toyhou.se and deviantart made me want to drop character design almost completely at some point: character and art theft everywhere, every single week, and dealing with these people gets really tiring, really fast. At some point you stop caring. The thing is, unless you're on a website with a decent report/DMCA system there's nothing you can really do about it, no matter how angry you are. I've found out that instagram's DMCA filing is surprisingly good!, however the rest of the platforms have pretty much useless help desks: submit your tickets as many times as you want, they won't care ⸺ toyhou.se and deviantart are exactly the same.

What you can do, instead, is make sure that people know who made your art or characters: add watermarks in your art, hidden everywhere: your oc is holding a phone? BAM, your logo on the screen. There's a tag on their clothes? BAM, watermark. Add it in a corner so it "distracts" people thinking it's the only one in the pic, then add one close to the face where it can't be cut out. Add a QR code leading to your page somewhere. Tshirt logo? It's now your logo.
If you post your ocs/sales on TH then ALWAYS use the watermarked version for your gallery. I've seen people write something along the lines of: "character created by xxx; do not repost, edit or trace. if you see this picture uploaded by someone else, message me on xxx".
That's heartbreakingly extreme, however it works.

Sometimes people care, sometimes they don't ⸺ unfortunately, by posting art on the internet you're going to take a deep breathe and understand that's impossible to have eyes everywhere and that people who aren't artists don't care and don't understand.

As for inspiration i found out pinterest is extreeeemely good! It needs a little time to be able to suggest you good things based on your pinboards, however when it starts to get a grip of your likings that website is pure gold. Many clothing brands use it to advertise their shop, so it's easy to find some cute clothing or accessories you can use as inspo!
I personally like to keep my characters' designs pretty simple in the 'naked' version so i can play with their outfits, sometimes creating a whole OC just out of a single accessory or clothing piece i liked and wanted to give them (Mongrel was actually created because i've seen a cute bi-colored horned headband on a pink bedsheet lmao). Inspiration is purely personal and there's no correct way to create a character, but i often find it super fun to create OCs based on songs, palettes or photos!

                                                                  ⎯ ⎯ ⎯ ⎯  ⟡ ⎯ ⎯ ⎯ ⎯  

♡  What inspired your artstyle + who are your biggest inspirations + what is your favorite artist currently?

Oh, i love answering this question. I have filled my life with so much art from people i like i could talk about this for weeks without interruption.
I cyclically change and "force" myself to find new artists to study and learn from because i don't want my style to become stagnant ⸺ consistency isn't something i strive - nor i've never strived - for, and it makes art a lot more fun to experiment things every few months. So, i don't have many 'stable' inspirations at the moment ⸺ however! there have been people who very clearly have been staples in my path and the one i've always practically adored is Takeshi Obata. I want to absorb his creative process to its core; i'm so extremely fascinated by the way he does composition and prop design. His aesthetic taste is immaculate, to me.
Range Murata and Shinichi Sakamoto are two big teachers, too.

In the last year or two i've taken great, great insterest in imlllsn, suteinua and unxi's art, however i had to distance myself from the latter cause i realized i was going a bit too much towards their direction and the last thing i wanted was to be recognized as a knock off ⸺ it wasn't respectful for me, nor for them.

Being art my main source of joy (and adhd rotting my brain OTL), i tend to obsess over specific things a lot, and when it came to unxi it was really bad, especially because we had very similar taste in aesthetics, clothing and character design, so that made it even more blatant. I've slowly started to strive away from that path, though! Tried new ways to shade and approach different parts of the illustration process, so i can hopefully go back to look at their art one day and not feel like  i'm doing it to be like them.

I also have non-illustrator inspos too, which i think is very important as well.
Music artists like OliSykes, Alva Noto, Susumu Hirasawa, harumakigohan, and creators like Hiroto Ikeuchi push me to try new things on the daily. Fashion also plays a big role in my daily creative process.

                                                                  ⎯ ⎯ ⎯ ⎯  ⟡ ⎯ ⎯ ⎯ ⎯  

♡  How do you find the motivation to finish full pieces?

Just like the inspiration process, the motivational one is also very subjective and both are strictly connected i'd say. Finding motivation to do anything needs a little introspection first, so you can find the root of why you're not feeling stimulated enough to keep doing something you should, at the end of the day, enjoy: are you feeling burnt out, maybe you've overworked yourself and you need a little break for other activities?  Are you too anxious for the outcome, so you lose happiness in the process? Are you doing things in a way that doesn't satisfy you anymore, or maybe you don't receive enough validation for your effort? Maybe you're stuck in a root and need to change things around a little bit; maybe you're bored? or maybe you just don't like what you're drawing?

Understanding why art - or any other activity - is becoming less and less fullfilling to the point where you're having a hard time finishing a project is crucial to get back on track. Losing motivation, on the other hand, is very common and completely normal ⸺ especially if you, like me, have art as your main or only hobby (bonus points if you also work in the field): doing the same activity over and over again, even if it's your favourite, slowly becomes tiring.

If art isn't arting, take a step back and either try something else (bake a cake, knit something, go shopping, take your dog for a walk, or do something that gives you a little serotonin boost), try to keep your attention span high (music, podcasts playing in background, try new techniques or do art challenges), and don't worry about the outcome. You don't always have to finish pieces, and trying is always better than not: if it goes well, that's great! If you drop the project, remember it's a hobby and it should be enjoyable, not a punishment.

                                                                  ⎯ ⎯ ⎯ ⎯  ⟡ ⎯ ⎯ ⎯ ⎯  

♡  I love your artwork and you have been a big inspiration for me. Though, the hardest part I have with doing art is painting skin so it looks soft and full of life instead of flat. Do you have any tips for coloring skin?

Skin coloring tutorial is on its way! I know i promised them several months ago, but tutorials are hell to make, for me. They require so much work that i'm definitely putting in, but at such a slow rate i embarass myself sometimes. T__T)
I can definitely give some tips though, and the best thing i've ever done in my 10 years of digital art is: color it on the same layer! The key to having a soft looking skin in my experience is not separating it with layers, or use as little layers as you can ⸺ find a good paint/blending brush and only use dark shading in areas where light really doesn't hit. Most of the time the skin palette i use has 4-5 shades that are very similar and 1 or 2 that are a lot darker and ashy/grey-ish. Softness and fullness is in subtle details, such a small muscles getting a bit of light, little wrinkles and plumps.
Think of the body as a squishy and don't be afraid to exaggerate some parts to make them look rounder or softer.
(forgive the shitty collage, i'm on mobile)

                                                                  ⎯ ⎯ ⎯ ⎯  ⟡ ⎯ ⎯ ⎯ ⎯  

♡  Is it possible you'll ever make a discord or anything so we can get in dept lessons? I wanna learn how to draw hair like you! <3

I completely and unapologetically suck at social interactions. I've thought about a discord for months; years, even. And i also tried it out couple years ago! It was a mess and unintentionally i was never active there. However, if it's just for the purpose of learning and using it as a tool to give advice / tutorial stuff i could consider it in the future, especially since it also has a streaming feature and i could use it for private group tutorial sessions that i could record and upload on there for you guys.
Thinking about it.

                                                                  ⎯ ⎯ ⎯ ⎯  ⟡ ⎯ ⎯ ⎯ ⎯  

♡  I recently got obsessed with the Alien franchise, so I was wondering your opinion on it, and Xenomorphs in particular. Would you ever draw creepy creatures like that?

Man, believe me if i say the things you see me drawing are the smallest fraction of what i'd like to draw and monsters and horror are two of my favourite things EVER.
I wish someone commissioned me to draw their cute frilly pink oc with a fucking xenomorph because that stuff would be SO MUCH FUN. The grosser, slimier, creepier the creature the best the fun is.
Might open monster themed comms in the future.

                                                                  ⎯ ⎯ ⎯ ⎯  ⟡ ⎯ ⎯ ⎯ ⎯  

♡  Spotify playlist? 👀

https://open.spotify.com/user/8ab99flidf7q5np9t5oi3rx8r?si=77f7ea8bfc384fd3
this is my profile! most of my playlists should be public eheh, have fun! ^__^)

                                                                  ⎯ ⎯ ⎯ ⎯  ⟡ ⎯ ⎯ ⎯ ⎯  

♡  Not a question but is it ok if i request a holographic tutorial, the way you shade it is so gud

Glad you like my holo paintings because they are HELL to do!
I'll try to show the process but the best tip i can give you is to find very specific references because copying is the best thing you can do when it comes to holo stuff  -- at least for me T__T)b