Clef's Lair

The only reason (with Holly ) that made me watch #strangerthings season5 .

Check it out on Tapas. it's free

Here are two painted scenes where I blended the worlds of Love and Deep Space with:

1- The French Royal Navy (and piracy) around the 1750s

2- Tolkien's universe

What do you get when you mix the handsome protagonists of Love and Deep Space with the perfect members of the Saja Boys from Kpop Demon Hunters?

You get the Aether Boys! Welcome to the new Boys band of Linkon City !😄😄😄

3 bloody days of work on Clip Studio Paint. I can finally go to sleep ! ( and eat, and go outside)

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But social media like Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, whatever... make you feel like what you put your whole heart and skills into is not worth the interest.

It is very depressing. As an artist, I'm happy when people see my art and when it sparks something in them ( joy, comfort, love, etc....) but most of the time, when I post on the apps listed above, I have so few reactions and so little views that I feel like it's just trying to tell me I'm a bad artist and that I should forget about even trying. I'll only get views if I pay for it. ( like for real, I have to pay for each of my post..)

Is that normal? Is that how every artist does? I'm really curious.

How do successful artists manage to get thousands and thousands of views, reshare, and followers?

I post stories every day, progress, timelapses, photos, videos, I'm trying everything except I can't speak on my videos because my English isn't good. I can't do live streams in English either because of it.

Nothing works.

As a person who would like to make a living of my art, it's a struggle.

Here is my latest illustration which got only 80 likes on Instagram ( which I paid for....) 25 on Facebook and 10 on X.

Is this illustration that bad?

If not, what do I do wrong?

My version of the fight of Gandalf against Durin's bane .

This note by @greenleaf4stuff made my mind blown away because my intentions were to make him at peace and the only way I could picture him at peace was him quietly blending with nature and warm like he was back in his Mother's arms ( I tried to draw him on a marble gravestone like we could do for a king but it was a big NO NO)

Nature was the only answer to my eyes.

I imagined little earth spirits cleaning him up a little bit , organizing his stuff ( getting his sword back because they are spirits ) and watching over him while singing songs to accompany his soul crossing over and going to Mandos. ( The fireflies are those little spirits here )

And then ... I tried different kinds of details (beams of lights , flowers , petals etc...) and the only thing that made sense to me were these flowers ( I tried many different colors, but I picked these flowers because it made sense. and I don't even know why)

And then you wrote this about Simbelmynë flowers.

I just took a look and 🤯.

These flowers look so much like the ones I put on my drawing.

And I didn't even know their name. The only explanation I have is that I must have seen them previously in a scene related to LOTR , OR, I just connected my mind to Tolkien's soul (^^) .Because It had to be white flowers with a touch of yellow .

In any way, I'm glad people can feel the emotions I meant to convey while I was making this illustration 🥰

The long rest.

I did this dedication as a sketch for one of my art books and since I wasn't happy with how sad it made me feel , I decided to redraw it and give Adar a proper burial.

Back to the past! Here's an illustration I made ... 23 years ago 😅 (uuuuh time flies fast) and that I decided to recreate with my current style 😅.

I think I'm going to redesign some more old stuff, it could be fun, right?

Thanks to my left hand for being my model 🤣 . However, I had a hard time with the folds of the clothes ^^,,

Imagine being 4'5" to 5" tall.

Okay, Gimli looks gigantic here, but that is because he is sitting on a high stool. XD