cat drawer snail keeper

Hi I'm Finch ! I'm an animator/illustrator/rig artist from the UK, who thinks animals and plants are really neat

My art tag

You can find me elsewhere here:

I'm taking commissions if you're interested lmao

Opening slots for this valentines YCH 🙏

I kinda wing in with traditional art sometimes but maybe I can help a lil! I think a lot of the fun with traditional media comes with learning it and what effect it can have, so I'd enjoy just playing around and making a mess at first! Just swatching your colours and materials is a nice low effort way to start, gets you making marks with no pressure and lets you see what you have to work with

With watercolour I started off just kinda pretending I'm using them like markers; I was annoyed that I'd need to buy a whole new marker just for a new colour, so I figured I may as well just colour with watercolours instead bc I can mix any colour I want out of only like 6 paints. So at first I was just laying down flat colours as decoration, without any intention of 'painting'. Then as I got more confident I started exploring the actual painting side of things. With watercolour especially the paper is most important, as that what allows you to layer and for the paints to behave the way in which they're designed. I paint a bunch on lower quality paper too but that's in more of the 'marker' way instead of the traditional watercolour way with lotsa water. Start with simple stuff, fruit is always great, and learn to start with thin/watered down layers and slowly build up.

Watercolour (and gouache) you tend to work with it in different stages of water/paint density: tea, milk, cream, and butter. Always start with your thinnest and lightest layers/colours (tea) and finish with your thickest layers/darkest colours (butter). If you paint a thinner/wetter paint on top of a thicker one, itll lift up the colour and create a weird effect. Sometimes it causes that 'cauliflower' effect

With anatomy it's best to observe and draw from life/photos! Maybe diagrams of muscles and skeletons too if that helps give you an idea of whats going on under the skin. I actually did a course on animal joint anatomy last year, and although I cant make it public yet I'm hoping I can one day. I think I have some bits n bobs here for now if that helps:

Thank you!! ;0; I'm actually hoping to open some adopts or design commissions soon

For a sona I just kinda collect all the things I love and try to incorporate them in little ways.

Finch is a colourpoint caracal, a cat colour and animal I love, and I added markings that I find really appealing, like the dark muzzle features on wildcats that make them look really Wild, or dalmatian spots bc I love dalmatians.

With Teal I did this more bc she's newer and made to be more like me; I made her more like a small sandcat which I felt suited me more, and I wanted sandier warmer colours in there. I love birds/dinosaurs so incorporated bits from those in there, like the raptor feet and feather crest. I also love blue and orange together, but like kinda subtle designs with pops of colour, so hid those colours underneath the feathers and in the eyes so that they're accents. She also has stripes on her legs as a call to prehistoric animal colouration, and spots again for dalmatians.

I'm so sorry I never really know a good answer to this question 😭 A lot depends on where you live and how good you are, so it goes up and down. I don't think it's a secret right now that the industry is in a huge pit and lots of people are unemployed. I'm optimistic it'll get better, but with everything happening in the world rn I think networks are just finding it too risky to greenlight new projects (n just making legacy sequels and reboots instead)

For a good 5 years I had consistent employment with very few breaks so I think that counts for something! As of now though I've effectively been out of the anim industry since june last year and self employed doing commissions since then. Idk when it'll get better, I'm lucky I can sustain myself doing this atm, but I have to face moving to a lower cost area and finding temporary hospitality work if it gets worse

but I’ve been doing some studies on your art- I obviously have NO plans on posting them but I was just genuinely curious on how you’d feel if someone did? (Assuming that they (properly) credit it you! It’s a completely different story if they don’t ofc)

just bc I know some artists are TOTALLY chill while others are VERY against it? So I was curious where you stand! /genq