nest of the foxmoth

(A pitch from a fellow Murderbot fanartist who loves OCs)

What is ArtFight?

ArtFight is an annual month-long art event centered around gifting and trading art of original characters (OCs). It takes place in the month of July. The event is structured as a “fight” between two teams. Making a drawing (or other artistic creation) of someone’s OC is called an “attack,” and you can “revenge” by drawing one of their OCs in return. Attacks earn your team points, and at the end of the month one teams “wins.”

Despite the competitive framework, this is all really just an excuse to gift people art of their OCs and receive some of your own in return! It’s a really fun, collaborative event. (I participated last year for the first time, and loved how freeing it felt—it’s great to know that at least one person is going to be super excited about what you’re making!)

ArtFight is for artists of all skill levels. There’s no lower limit for the “quality” of an attack. Attacks are scored according to effort put in, with more complex or time-consuming elements getting more points, not according to your artistic skill. Anything from simple pencil sketches up is allowed and welcomed, and you can decide how much you're willing & able to commit to, from 1 attack to many. If you want to go all-out, you can also make anything from a 3D model to an actual physical sculpture to a full-blown animation.

You can find more info on the ArtFight Website, including the Rules and FAQ.

Why should I, an artist in the Murderbot fandom specifically, do this?

Well I personally intend to attack as many Murderbot OCs as I have time for, so this is partly a self-interested attempt to get me more cool OCs to draw XD

But also, this fandom has such a thriving OC scene! There are so many cool construct, bot, and human characters that people have come up with for fics or just to noodle around with in this universe. I love that about this fandom and want to celebrate it! ArtFight is a great chance to get to draw other people’s cool designs, and to hopefully receive some great art of your own.

So please! Show off your super cool band of rogues, or your SecUnit and its Human duos, or your unique experimental construct designs, or whatever cool Murderbot characters you have come up with! (Let me draw them!)

ArtFight also allows AU versions of canon characters as long as the design meaningfully differs. So this extends to your human!ART or your vampire!Murderbot or your PresAux who are all dragons!

(And I know some of the very talented artists in this fandom don’t do Murderbot OCs, but have your own original projects or OCs for other fandoms cooking up, and you should absolutely participate too!)

I’m convinced! What should I do now?

Make an account on the ArtFight website, and start setting up character profiles! You need visual references for people to work from, so now is the time to draw those if you don’t already have any art that clearly shows your OCs’ appearance. (Picrews and such are also allowed as references, with credit to whatever maker you used.) You can also specify permissions for what you are & aren’t okay with people including in their attacks of your characters.

Character profiles can include tags to describe the character and help people search for a specific species or other category. If you have Murderbot OCs, use tags like “the murderbot diaries,” “murderbot,” “secunit” and “comfortunit” to identify them so people (me) can find them in a search :)

Check out other people’s characters and maybe bookmark a few you want to draw! Don’t start drawing attacks until July 1st—that’s against ArtFight rules. But if you plan to start drawing right away once the event starts, it’s a good idea to download some references of characters you’re interested in before the event starts, because the website usually crashes on day 1 from all the traffic. (I did not know this when I participated last year—learn from my mistakes XD)

In conclusion

happy 20 year anniversary of Neil banging out the tunes!

though every rat is special, it's a wonderful and unusual thing for their accomplishments to be remembered and cherished by so many people so many years later. we're all so fortunate to know about the rat who banged out the tunes!

thank you to all the people who sent me reference photos of their beloved rats for this piece!!! credits under the cut!

The waitress, several years younger than us and near-blindingly blonde, sets down our tray of shots. Fifteen in five different colors and color combinations. "Let's play a drinking game," I say as she sets them down. "Let's play 'Would You Rather.' I'll go first: would you rather be a murderer or a slaver?" Before anyone can answer, I take the two glasses closest to me and drink them both in quick succession. I must be more drunk than I thought, because I don't taste either. I set both glasses down on the table and wipe my mouth on the back of my hand. There is a silence. Haden is staring at me. Her face is hard to see through the haze of it all. I stare back at her anyway, and then become afraid that she can read my thoughts in my eyes. I don't know what I'm doing, but I know why. "Uh," Jessia says. "I don't think that's how you play 'Would You Rather.'"