AreolTheJinx

After midnight, this blog turns into Mettaton trash.

If you’re a woman at the con and you’re being harassed or feel uncomfortable in some way, my table is a safe place.  You can come by and hang out behind the table or whatever you need. We’ll back you up. 

I’m usually there with my husband, but even if it’s just him, he’ll help you out.  Bonus, he’s a big dude who can look scary if he needs to. This is him (and me):

I guarantee he’s 100% an ally and will do whatever you need. He’ll pretend to be your boyfriend or let you hide under the table or whatever. Or if you just want to chat about our cats until a creep wanders away, he’ll tell you all about our dumb kitties for as long as necessary. No worries at all. 

If you’re being followed, harassed, or just generally feeling uncomfortable with someone’s behavior towards you at the con, just swing by!  I’ll pretend we’re old high school friends or coworkers at the drop of a hat. :)

DeviantArt’s size is pretty much a double edged sword. There’s a lot more people on there submitting art, but there’s also a lot more people that can view your art. DA also has the most options I’ve seen to promote your artwork, on most other places (tumblr included) you just gotta upload your artwork and hope for the best. So if you want commissions, DA is probably your best bet. (We also promote commissions on Art and Sterf!)

If you wanna get noticed on DA, you gotta be as active as possible. Post on forums, comment on other people’s artwork and journals, join group collabs, and post artwork at a somewhat steady pace. 

Groups are the best way to get people to see your artwork, However, I don’t really recommend joining those large groups that accept all types of art, those are probably the hardest ones to get noticed in. Instead, look for smaller and/or more specific groups.

For an example, let’s say you like to draw superheros, then you should join active groups about superheroes. There’s a MUCH better chance of people noticing your artwork because the only people joining on people interested in that theme. It’s also a good way to meet other people to network with since you like similar things.

You should also write up a commissions journal if you haven’t already and submit it to a bunch of commission groups. And don’t be afraid to let people know you’re in need of money in the journal or blog post! Even if they don’t commission you, they might be able to help get the word out.

And even if you don’t get any commissions at first, try not to get discouraged! Lots of people are hurting for money, so even if people don’t commission, that doesn’t mean they don’t want to! They just might not be unable to spend the money at the moment.

Hello humans! This is Dee, and I really need your help! Best friend and I need to move out and find a place to stay within Kalamazoo, and we need to have enough collectively to pay for the first month’s rent! My best friend (Shaina) and I have to leave campus because we can no longer afford schoo…

Commissions prices so far! I’ll add in the prices for the Full Bodies and Chibi characters when I finish the examples :D

for folks who can’t load the image

Portrait Sketch - $5, these will include colored lines and some basic shading

Semi Rendered Portrait - $10, This will include some of the line work and full color

Fully Rendered Portrait - $20, This includes a fully rendered portrait, which all colors painted in and textures painted in as well.

- Half Body Sketch - $15, This will include colored lines and basic shading

Semi Rendered Half Body - $20, This will include some of the line work and full color Fully Rendered Half Body - $25, This includes a fully rendered Half Body, which all colors painted in and textures painted in as well.

- Some things that aren’t on the sheet -

Chibi characters - $10 per figure, Chibi’s are full body and will be in full color.

Full Body Work - this will be done on a piece by piece basis, as some full body work can be far more difficult then others. Custom Armor Design - These run at $20 for B&W, $30 for Color Custom Adoptable Armor Chibi - $10 per armor adopt, Full Color

Character Exploration sheets - $25 flat rate, I’ll doodle a whole page of expression and body studies for your character. basically I’ll explore how the character moves and acts, and some facial expressions/facial proportions. you can direct me on what facet of your character you want explored.

Private Streaming Session - I am open to talking about these, the prices may vary and will be charged per hour. I can do Armor design for you on stream, or give you tips or private critique if you’d prefer.

My Paypal is [email protected], you can also contact me at that email for ordering if you prefer to do so off of tumblr!

Some Portrait commissions I’ve done recently! I’m selling busts like these for $5 - $15 depending on the portrait size! I’m still offering these too by the way, $5 will get you a 4000px by 4000px fully colored bust, I love to do OCs and character designs!

As you go up in price the size of the images will get bigger and more detail will be able to be added! just take a quick chat with me and we can totally work out a price :D

I got into a conversation with someone on Twitter about Sketchbooks and how to work in them. 

Personally I’ve got a long and fraught history with Sketchbooks and like many difficult relationships in my life, it took years to finally get to a place where the Sketchbook and I could be friends who fight fair and make each other better. 

When I was a kid in High school, I had a ton of sketchbooks. I had no fear and just filled my cheap spiral bound whatever purchased from Wal Mart full of drawings. I was proud of almost all of them (blessed that naive ninny) and never had a problem filling them to the brim. 

As I got older and started engaging online with artists communities, I found myself pushing to create better work and this caused me to start realizing that a lot of my sketchbook drawings were (gasp) actually quite terrible. I started getting self conscious when I was around other artists or when I was sharing my work online. 

I remember the first time we had a meet up of our artist community at San Diego Comic Con. It was amazing to meet all these great artists who I had gotten to know online in person! (I also met my future husband here, but we only said hello and didn’t actually ‘meet’ until two years later) But I was so nervous about my sketchbook. These events were all about passing around your sketchbook to show other people and to have them do a drawing for you in yours, so it was very nerve wracking to see these professional full time artists looking at my high school sketchbook. That book was very thin because I just kept tearing pages out of it. This was bad because not only was the book thin, it was also obvious that I was a very self conscious artist. 

After this I actually abandoned sketchbooks entirely. I chose to draw only on copy paper so there was less pressure. I would walk around with the pages on a clip pad so that if one was bad I could just toss it and nobody would be the wiser. 

I would start sketchbooks, but would never get further than halfway through before I abandoned them. I would go through a lull of not drawing and then the drawings would just show a skill level so far away from where I was I had to just get rid of them from the shame. 

It also didn’t help that I had a weird hoarding tendency with sketchbooks. I used to travel a lot with my family and would bring back blank books from all over the world. I had some from Nepal, Japan, Germany, and all of them were beautiful and perfect. 

I was too afraid to touch them. I knew that the drawings wouldn’t all be good and I couldn’t ruin this one book that I had. This led to me having a whole shelf in my house of blank un used sketchbooks. 

It wasn’t until we did our first Kickstarter, with Curiosities, that I sort of got over that way of thinking. I started to realize that this project that we were working towards could be good, could be bad, but we had to finish it. If it wasn’t perfect, that was okay, we were learning and we would do better next time. With our next project we could always show improvement and have people remember the good drawings/paintings rather than the less than stellar ones. 

This philosophy got us to finish a project that I couldn’t have imagined that we would have done if I had still been that insecure high schooler tearing out pages from the sketchbook. It’s incredibly important to move on and just keep moving forward even if those mistakes are embarrassing. 

After this, I started to think about my sketchbook in the same way. If I did a bad drawing, I just had to do a better one next. People don’t tend to remember failures only successes, so even though my book isn’t totally full of great drawings, people walk away only remember the decent ones. If I had torn out a bunch of pages in the book, I don’t think that I would have been able to finish any of them.

The year to date, I’ve finished two sketchbooks. A huge acheivmenet for myself. I feel like I finally broke through a wall that had been haunting me since high school and now I’m able to move more quickly learn from my mistakes and get better fast. 

Even Hayo Miyazaki, the legendary film maker, feels the same way about his films Acorrding to his new book “Turning Point” Miyazaki says: 

"Making films is all about—as soon as you’re finished—continually regretting what you’ve done. When we look at films we’ve made, all we can see are the flaws; we can’t even watch them in a normal way. I never feel like watching my own films again. So unless I start working on a new one, I’ll never be free from the curse of the last one. I’m serious. Unless I start working on the next film, the last one will be a drag on me for another two or three years."  — Hayo Miyazaki