Darkmoon Dancer's Art

I know a lot of us are feeling stuck and lonely amongst the unfolding chaos that is 2020. And I know that parties and large gatherings aren't something we can currently reasonably plan, let alone being able to see friends and family as much as we'd like. Some of us are having a really hard time right now, and my heart goes out to you all. <3 But we will get through this, and we will do it together. <3 In the meantime, I wanted to share a video I watched today because it reminded me of something very important: I’ve been forgetting, (or perhaps more accurately, I’ve been actively/subconsciously disallowing myself), to dance.

I know, that sounds so #firstworldproblem, but it’s not. It’s a foundational need that humans have, somewhere after food + water + shelter, and somewhere before convenience technology (like cars for leisure transportation, for example). Dance is human expression through movement, and we know that bottling everything up can lead to destructive actions. When dancing is something anyone can do to feel better, why aren’t we taking advantage of this urge to dance? Because someone might see you? That’s silly.

What would they see? - A human delighting in a physical action that helps express an internal emotion. - Maybe they see a human who looks content to relax and enjoy their immediate situation. - Or maybe they witness human concentration and power of will displayed through physical prowess or sheer dedication.

That all sounds great to me! So why are we listening to the handful of outliers who tell us we look silly, or scoff at us for being ‘unprofessional’? You feel like dancing? Then dance. Don't stifle your urge to get up and pump your arms and kick your legs and do a little spin on your catwalk. You don't need to dance in any particular way, because dance is an opportunity for us to express ourselves, for ourselves. These ‘silly’ movements of mine, aren't for you. They're for me. I dance to feel better, so when I decide it’s appropriate for me to dance, I dance. And I think a lot of other people might not realize just how much relief you can feel during or after dancing. Humans have been using dance to express themselves, to tell stories, to release tension, and to bond with one another for millennia. Sure, there’s a time and place for everything, but don’t let others decide when that is for you.

So my long-winded self is trying to say:

Dance like no one is watching, until you don't care who is.

What do you mean Klecksography? This is a Rorschach! Well… that’s not true. But that is exactly what I thought to begin with, and is the reason why I dove into a bit of a history lesson before writing this. Let me roughly summarize for you.

What I found in my research was that Hermann Rorschach was only one of many many many people studying human psychology during the 1900s. And he definitely wasn’t the only one doing it with the help of visual aides like the symmetrical inkblots that are now often associated with his name. He wasn’t even close to the first person to make visuals in this manner. Some sources attribute the inspiration to be Justinus Kerner, who, notably had a book published named ‘Klecksographien‘ in 1890 featuring just such imagery, (though his originals may have dated back to at least 1857). But this art form goes back much further than that. I can’t find an exact source, but I currently have the following leads to follow :

- In New York in 1896 there was a book published, explaining this art-making in the form of a game, named Gobolinks. Which clearly came after Justinus Kerner’s publications, so is likely inspired by them and thus can be dismissed as the original source.

- Many sources seem to agree that there was some sort of game around making symmetrical inkblots in Switzerland, possibly more of Europe too. This seems to be heavily implied to be where Kerner got his inspiration from originally. Some of his writings explain that he re-discovered it while writing as an adult and accidentally dripping ink on his pages, but that it had reminded him of his childhood, hence my conclusion. This would land us somewhere in the late 1700s (based on Kerner’s DoB + childhood).

So the next step is to identify this game and it’s origins or inspiration.

There is some guesswork implying that somewhere along the road the inspiration came from Leonardo Da Vinci’s ‘Treatise on Painting’ compilation, because there is an excerpt where he urges creatives to look to stains and smudges in mundane things like walls for inspiration to kickstart a creative work. I have yet to find any sample of ink blots on folded paper, but this possibility would take us back to the late 1400s. I am not confident that this is the origin, or even a source along the way, but I am keeping it in mind while I look for more information. If this is the origin, then I am still missing a step between Leonardo Da Vinci in the late 1400s and the game in the late 1700s Europe.

Either way, Klecksography is the most accurate name I can find for this delightful practice of symmetrical ink blots for the purpose of creating artwork to ponder and admire. So for the time being, this is the term I intend to use when describing this series of artwork that I am working on.

Now, what am I going to do with my first batch of klecksographs? I’m going to experiment with them, try out a few different ideas and see what I like! There’s already a few I know I want to refine + add details to, and others that I know I want to add more ink to. I started by trying out all my inks to see what I have to work with. Definitely need to thin out the bronze ink, or maybe just save it for accents.

The promise & an explanation

So, you might have no idea what this post is about, or have any context to understand it. If that’s the case, it’s okay. It’s not actually important then. This post is for the huge amount of my past, current, and future clients who have commissioned works from me for the Deviant Art, Art RolePlaying Game, known as Griffia. Structural changes to that game have left some of you being extorted by that game’s owner for more money. In that extortion some of the public relations spin by said owner has put some entirely false but very public blame on me. So firstly. If you have ever bought art from me for this game. Please know, that I deeply did and still do appreciate your business and regardless of any and all drama over there, you can always reach me here to support your purchase. You bought character art from me, if you need more art, I am committed to fulfilling it. I simply can’t do it for free though, but I’ll do my best to help you out. I’m sorry I can’t do more, but despite the “spin” that griffsnuff (owner of the game) has put on this debacle I am not at fault and simply can’t afford to indulge her. I am not abandoning you and please don’t take anything said about me in places I can no longer defend myself as truth. Please just come speak to me. Secondly. Below is the full text of my last letters to griffsnuff and the first in bad faith. It is both exculpatory and personal. It’s not exactly something I’m proud of, but I feel as both an act of self-care and of conscious, it is something I needed to put out in the most wide reaching manner I have. But, there is a character limit on Deviant Art, and I am not exactly a concise writer. So here it is. If you have no idea what any of this post is about, I’m sorry to hurl it upon you. Trust me, you’re better off not reading it. It’s mostly drama.

The Open Letter

I'm not going to beat around the bush about this, but you are very much cornering Qvi, as well as all of the rest of us GAs or ExGAs, and in addition to that you are dismissing Qvi's very valid concerns. (Replying to this comment chain: here)

You are functionally forcing us to re-upload art that we may already have hosted, (or given our permissions for your old MLs to host), or else hazard looking like we don't value our past customers if we don't. By limiting art to the original artist's gallery, you aren't providing any sort of option for people to get permission to rehost art, especially when it comes to reference sheets, batch uploads, deleted artwork, and variations or edited artwork! In this way, you are very much cornering us. You are strong arming us and using this as an excuse to rip off your most loyal players.

This could easily have been avoided if you had taken ANY sort of courtesy to contact us GAs/ExGAs before the VML went live, and make any effort to sort something out that worked for all parties involved.

Why were we not contacted in any form to try to find some sort of amiable solution? Full disclosure: I am pissed off about not being contacted. I am pissed about being fired in the GA purge when you told all of us that you would be contacting us(GAs) again in the new year. You didn't even have the courtesy to reach out individually and tell us 'thanks for your efforts but we aren't asking you back'. You chose to let us sit there with our hopes up for months on end in silence? That's a dick move. Now, when some of us have moved on, or are in the process of trying to, we are being contacted by past customers about a game we might not even play anymore (because it broke our trust and our hearts) all because you decided to put up new random rules on your website? A website that is actually displaying direct image links[1] instead of doing something sensible like coding in a pop-up permissions window that shifts the upload liability to the user instead of the site? You know? Like every modern website doing business inside the bounds of effective DMCA enforcement? Which, FYI, you clearly are not within. I'm not either, as a Canadian. Youtube and DeviantArt are, as corporations existing... INSIDE AMERICA! And don't mumble about WIPO, it's a freaking diplomatic tool, not an actively enforceable legal instrument! Neither is the DMCA, in practise. But that is way beyond the scope of this rant. Seeing as you'd need to have a basic understanding of the history surrounding DMCA and the ensuing voluntary policies put in place as a protective measure by the pre-tech bubble western tech hegemony against the insanity that is the actual base law. Which clearly evidenced by your own words and actions is leagues beyond you. That being said, I am not upset with my customers, or anyone who has contacted me in hopes of getting their art sorted out. I am all on-board to help them get things working, because I respect them and am grateful that they supported me in the past and bought my art. However, I am sick of the abuse that players, mods/exmods and GAs/ExGAs continue to endure in this community simply because you keep changing your product on a whim. Griff, these customers bought art that represents a character in your game from someone you granted license to do so. This art was expressly sold for use in your game, which includes being hosted on the game's ML. All art that GAs made for your game was sold to the customers, as a product that works within the World of Griffia. This was explicit by your own actions, words, declaration and by the license you implicitly extended to your agents. Your employees, the GAs! You know, the people you paid with licensing rights to do work for you? Licensing rights that had DIRECT monetary value! The people you also paid with access to monetary instruments known as proxy currencies, or by game speak, ITEMS! For fuck sake, you prattle on about DMCA while ignoring the actual laws you are beholden to? How in the hell have you not seen the rulings on digital goods that can be exchanged for real money?!? You are Norweigan! You are PART of the fucking European Economic Area. Those portions of EU laws explicitly apply to you! THEY ARE LAWS REGARDING ECONOMIC ACTIONS! How can you be so comfortable quoting laws with such blatant inaccuracy? And now, through all of this, you are telling your customers that it is not your problem? If they don't get to use the art they purchased with real money, in the context it was bought for, then they are clearly suffering a loss. Their character is being devalued by your actions unless they give YOU money? Their investment, as is the case with a great deal of players, is now worth less! They have no other option other than to suck it up? To deal with the n/a page or to pay a now select-few artists (your agents, your employees) real money to fix it? To give you or your agents money or suffer the consequences of a depreciated asset? And make no mistake, your "guest artists" are your agents. They are your employees. Just because you don't understand the most basic principles of money doesn't make it any less so. You are paying them in rights. Your most loyal fans (customers) now must shell out even more money to get a new rebase, or draw themselves new art that can't go in this official slot at all? The least you could do is allow people the option to make themselves a rebase on your official bases that can count as official art. 

On top of it all, you aren't actually providing credit to the original artist since you just have direct image links. Embedded images that only exist so long as dA continues to host that particular library file. Images that don't even link back to the artists original post, but steal it directly from the hosting infrastructure[1]!?! Hosting infrastructure that will clear eventually. Whether by an inactive user, scheduled maintenance, or malice, the links will die. Data costs real money. Somewhere in the world it is taking up warehouse space. Regardless of whether it's a digital set of bits on a storage drive. It costs actual money to host. Likely the real reason you don't want to host the images yourself? The DMCA explanation is gibberish, at best, as noted above. So no, dA isn't going to be hosting the current image files forever, and yes, you will inevitably have images go missing again, which means you are going to be right back at square one (missing images because they got deleted), which is what you've been trying to say you are attempting to avoid this whole time! Asking for a 'stable dA link' is literally nonsense. An entire point of having your own website for a game like this, is so that you are not dependent on dA hosting your stuff… and yet you are making this exact mistake again. You are making a mistake, while in the same breath, freaking out about that exact mistake? Are you insane? You are integrating automation and other features, but to have waited a whole year to see that this new VML doesn't even provide credit to the original artist (either by text, via link-through, or ANYTHING), and be greeted with arbitrary restrictions like no background, no pets, only individuals AND all has to be posted by only the original artist specifically only on dA galleries… AND to be followed up with dismissals that hosting this art is our own problem, when it's in fact all for YOUR game… and to support YOUR livelihood… I'm infuriated that I'm not seeing you taking any responsibility for this or respecting your customers for having put money into your game economy by buying a product that's value was solely granted by it's rights of use within your game! You keep breaking your promises, Griff, and there's only so much ground left to stand on.

I feel like you are not only being flippant towards us GAs/ExGAs, but trying to make this the GA's problem. Is this just so you can hide from your responsibility and milk even more money of your most loyal fans? Some of us aren't even a part of your team anymore and don't have any obligations to your game whatsoever. But you're trying to sell some bullshit to shift the blame regardless? You are breaking your promises to YOUR customers, who are trying to play in YOUR game! Before you go saying that I'm simply blaming all of this on you directly, Griffsnuff… I am. Griffsnuff, you are the owner of Griffia. I don't give a flying fuck what your godly levels of gibberish have to say otherwise. Especially since the words included in that gibberish changes with the seasons of your feelings. You ultimately carry all blame. Responsibility ultimately falls on… that's right… you! You are the owner. That is how reality works, and I agree it sucks, but that is the responsibility you take on when you decide to run a business. You can't keep telling everyone you are doing this all with the intent to have fun and make a game for you and your friends to play. No. If this was all for fun, you would not be selling characters… for large amounts of money… that explicitly say in them that they can be used in this game… and encouraging people to buy these characters to play in this game with you…. That is literally a business. (A proprietorship is still a type of business, so yes, even you as a singular artist are running a business when you sell anything!) So if you're upset that people are expecting to continue to use their characters within your world… who made up the rules that the characters could be sold into your world? You did. You allowed us GAs/ExGAs to freely make in any capacity, quantity and quality the species that you assigned us, as well as Rebases in literally any form/style/quality/etc we wanted. So long as they were on a transparent background, were solo, and at least vaguely followed (when you could be arsed to double check) the non-existent species information that you scribbled across three groups, countless stashes, and numerous google docs. Yes, eventually even you, started to realize that not giving us structure and real (consistent) written rules to follow was starting to backfire on you. It seems you even finally realized that you were giving away actual value. You were in fact using licensing as a proxy for cash. I think even you realized you were losing money out of your own pocket from your utter failures to comprehend your own decisions. But wait, this is the part where it's everyone else's fault right? Wrong. You gave out those license rights. You told people that they were buying a shiny special character design that could do things based on their status, subtype or species. Then you were surprised that people were upset that you made yourself out to be a liar when you changed those things to have less value? You allowed GAs to make as many of their designs as they wanted… and then act surprised when the market tanked because suddenly there was more supply than demand for any given thing? You create new and exciting things with nothing more than whimsy and then act defensively when people get upset with you when you randomly alter your half baked ideas?

You have created all of this for yourself. 

TL;DR: You have clearly, and repeatedly, over many years shown a complete inability to comprehend markets, or market forces. Regardless of creed, philosophy, or ideology the inscrutable fact is that Griffia is first and foremost a market. Griffia is not art. Griffia is not stories. Griffia is not a game. It is a marketplace in which people (yourself included) create stories, play a game, and trade art. Trade makes a market. Gravity makes apples fall. The sun makes life possible. Your job, your profession, and your livelihood is the production and management of this marketplace. The ramblings in which you lament otherwise are no defense from reality. You sold a marketplace, to sell your art. You hired artists to work for you and paid them in licensing rights. Your incompetence left buckets of money on the table, and when you finally noticed it, your reaction is to fuck over every one of your customers who didn't predict the future collapse of your idiocy? Fuck you, Griffsnuff. 

I'm done giving you my attention, my effort, my work, and all the space you have rented in my brain over the last 3 years. I would have been better off dedicating that time to literally anything else. I only have myself to blame for sticking around for so long and continuing to hope that maybe things would improve. 2 years ago, I told you all of this in less jargon and kinder words[2] because I wanted to help you grow. A year ago, I despaired and wrote you a second letter[3], urging you to reconsider your actions and warning you that you were leaping off a cliff-face. Today, 3rd time is the charm and I'm fucking done. This letter was for me, not for you. I'm so fucking done. This is where I draw my line. I hope for their sake, that others do so too- players, mods/exmods and GAs/ExGAs alike. They deserve to be treated with respect, not whatever this web of constant lies, broken promises, ass-kissing, randomly enforced unwritten rules, favouritism, and arbitrary yet crushing lore/anatomy changes is pretending to be. This is my third and final letter I will write to you Griff, as I fear it yet again will fall on deaf ears as my second one did. I sincerely hope you will read it, and take the time to thoroughly understand it. But I doubt it. Past clients, I'm still supporting you. I'm only done with Griff and Griffia, not with you. Check my blog here for the preamble to this letter where I address this.

PS: I would like you to answer 'one' question. If I choose to leave dA entirely to get away from this mess of a game once and for all, how do you propose to deal with the artwork I made for others? How will you honour that agreement? The agreement in which you licensed me to make art for your customers in exchange for services rendered. How will you cope with your resentment that you lost a bunch of money because you are shitty at your fucking job? The one where you run a marketplace for art governed by licenses you don't understand? It certainly wouldn't be fair to punish your customers by taking away their access to the art they bought from me. But, that seems to be your current choice? You have currently cornered everyone and provided no solution for those who are affected. If I were to simply go through and delete all my artwork or account to get a fresh start what would happen? If granting them permission to rehost my artwork isn't enough, and granting your past MLs permission to do so isn't enough, and granting your current VML permission to use any and all Griffian art I have made up until today isn't enough… then I'm at a loss. Is your completely mindless understanding of a set of laws that doesn't affect you, enforced by a policy guideline voluntarily adhered to, and failed to be managed by you due to sheer ignorance, going to stop you from doing what's right? So my 'one' question?

Are you really willing to be an extortionist? Because, despite your massive inability to comprehend reality, I suspect at the very least you can wrap your head around the facts. If you continue this tact; You are simply and plainly extorting your most loyal players while lying to their faces about your intentions and covering it all up with blatant defamation of your past artists. You are telling people that if they don't give YOU money, the things they own, will be worth less. By any and all moral definitions, that is extortion.

PPS: Now legally? Well holy shit that is WAY more scary seeing as how you are Norwegian and are not as protected by the disgusting monster that is crony capitalism. You NEED to see a Norwegian corporate lawyer regarding your legal requirements of disclosure. Because, according to your own nations Criminal Code (as translated to English) "Chapter 25. Extortion and Robbery", if you are altering the marketplace in an unlawful manner then you are using "unlawful conduct" as a tool to cause another party to suffer "loss". The unlawful conduct being your actions and the loss being the devaluation of artless characters in a market (in your words "a game") about character art. You could be facing your nation's minimum sentence of prison time for extortion. How strong are your consumer advocacy groups? How focused are your cops on white collar crime? How much do you trust your law enforcement to protect individuals over business interests? Morally speaking you are clearly extorting people, but you need a lawyer to give you advice on whether you are doing so criminally. You absolutely fucking need to go see a lawyer! In your own country!! To see if you are even allowed to abruptly change a market in this way. Your nation will have its own complex legislation prescribing your conduct as a market provider. It will likely fall under contract law. PPS:PS: Please keep in mind, when you do your due diligence (reading your own countries laws) before doing the smart thing and talking to a lawyer, that in legal writings, subsequent statements and sections are subservient to the prior. Seriously, go see a lawyer. You could be in actual real danger. The minimum sentence for extortion is jail time with the option of a fine in addition! (Not even touching the whole loot box/winning flower/treasure bean stuff that you are laughably under protected from if other EU web presences are to be used as an example.)

I'm not an expert, but I can read. You should too. Then pay a fucking expert.

[1] Inspect the source and URL, WIXMP is Wix Media Platform, the backbone of the DA hosting architecture. They switched to it while ramping over for the move to Eclipse. [2] The first letter, written in good faith.

When you see a fennec fox X Pikachu hybrid in your mind’s eye in a bowl of nondescript chips… well ya just gotta draw it! So, here you go! I am crazy proud of how this turned out. Not only do I feel like I can call this a painting, it’s a piece that I completed for myself, but also I think I made a leap forward. I think I kept expression and motion and left in some abnormal shapes for character, and believe me, for me, that was really really hard to do. Yay me!

I have been wrestling my little Leshy for some time now, trying to get any of the art I make of her to look decent, and I think I’ve finally at least gotten over that ridiculous pre-conception xD

My little Leshy has survived (just barely) to level 2! So we made sure that all of her concepts and bits and pieces were in order this week, and after a bit of conference with our GM, she did get a few small changes made that fit her story better. She is officially a Vine Leshy (not a Leaf one), because I had literally styled her after a Vine before we knew exactly what all the subtypes of Leshies were going to be. Vine gives her a few boosts to climbing, as makes sense, but more importantly I had already decided that under all the bark she was mostly a mass of vines, as she was already holding her clothing together with one, so this was just a logical fix. Secondly, we also updated her Background to Pathfinder Hopeful, replacing her previous Dragon Scholar. While this one seems a little strange to begin with, it was due to player error that I didn’t realize that Pathfinder Hopeful fulfilled her concept 100% where Dragon Scholar fit with it’s name… but it had given her bonuses to Intimidation which… really just didn’t make sense for my small-sized adorable character to have. Swapping this our for Pathfinder Hopeful when I realized that it granted me not only the in-character motivation to be doing thorough research and reports on everything she sees and comes across… but it also gave her the Additional Lore skill feat which she chose to be Dragon Lore to keep the story consistent. This skill feat also means that she is actually going to continue to get better at Dragon Lore as the game progresses, so the end result is that she is more of a little dragon scholar when built in this manner, than she was when we first created the concept with the previous background. (Which is functionally why the GM allowed it, since it made things make more sense and didn’t really move anything around other than remove a skill that made no sense for her to have training in - intimidation). SO, without further ado, let me tell you a little bit about Sahga’s cantrips!

Cantrips are the lowest level of spells, which follow some special rules, mainly their allowance for you to cast them as many times a day as you like while most spells need a rest period after you cast X amount. In her current spell repertoire (basically the list of spells that she is allowed to cast), she has the following cantrips : Read Aura, Detect Magic, Shield, Telekinetic Projectile and Acid Splash. Shield : When she casts Shield on herself (which she does most rounds of combat), it grants her 1 AC + the Shield Block reaction, as well as a bonus +1 AC because this is one of her Sorceror Bloodline spells. So when she casts this, she concentrates her bright green magic and forms it into a pair of semi-transparent wings that bob and weave around her, swatting away attacks as best they can!

Telekinetic Projectile : This cantrip allows Sahga to pick up small loose or unattended objects and fling them across the room with just the power of her mind (+ magic of course). However, Sahga manifests this spell by way of imbuing this magic into one of her free vines (which compose 90% of her body, she merely wears bark over top of the mass of thorny vines as a sort of pseudo clothing to maintain a humanoid shape since she thinks it’s more pleasing to other humanoids ;) ). She then uses said imbued vine to pick up small objects and flings them at her attackers with a satisfying snap! Sahga isn’t one to be unprepared, so she makes sure to always carry a collection of items that are easy to throw should her surroundings not provide her with suitable projectiles.

Acid Splash : This is probably Sahga’s go-to cantrip whenever she can manage to find the opportunity to use it, and it’s a fun one to have been able to flavour into her magic usage. Acid Splash, just as it sounds, produces a globule of magic that does a bit of damage to it’s target as well as splashes everyone around it for a bit of acid damage. So when Sahga casts this cantrip, she puffs up her little chest and with surprising force spits out a tightly formed ball or bulb of leaves that bursts upon contact to reveal the liquid within as some form of acidic plant sap that the Leshy isn’t one to discuss the details of. Wouldn’t want to get doused with one of these leafy ”waterballoons”!

It’s been a while, but I still eventually want to complet my Alliteration series! Here is the next one, a stylin’ Xeric Xolo!

Please welcome my newest Pathfinder character, Sahga Brackenhide! She is a leafy Leshy, which are a magical crafted body that houses a nature spirit. She is quite literally made up of branches and leaves, and her whole thicket is said to have once been created long ago by an Ancient Green Dragon. Many of the thicket revere dragons as a result of this, others merely have respect or interest in finding out more about them. Sahga’s closest “relatives” are very much dragon enthusiasts wanting to know all there is about dragons, with the hopes of maybe one day finding a way to become dragons themselves!

Sahga is setting out in search of new information, knowledge, texts, prophecies, anything related to dragons that she can bring back to her thicket’s knowledge repository.

I finished this illustration a little while back but couldn’t find the words to put with it to put it up in a blog post. I think in the end I don’t really have anything to say about it other than I am really happy with how my humans are progressing, and I think I’m still trying to find my way back to art that pushes me forward and keeps me from stagnating. One With the Wind is a small reminder to myself that I need to keep moving forward. :) Hope you like it!