s t a r d u s t

Hey guys! I’m back with another GIVEAWAY! I’ve participated with 90 different amazing artists in the New Horizon Tarot! This project is a FULL tarot deck of 78 cards with a variety of ALL heroes being featured! 

I’m hosting a giveaway so one lucky winner can win a variety of prizes! This giveaway starts today and ends June 23rd at midnight PST. Exactly 1 week before the kickstarter ends. That way if you wanted it but didn’t win you still have a chance to buy your own! Also! If you want more of the bonus merch but realize you can only win 1 here you can get just that specific item on the kickstarter! There WILL be add-ons once it’s over ♡

Now for the fun part, one lucky winner will get:

1 full deck/box + guidebook for the tarot

1 piece of bonus merch

and as an added bonus 1 physical copy of Stylewatch which is no longer up for sale!

Rules:

Must have an open askbox

Must be willing to disclose your shipping address to me

Blogs purely meant to reblog giveaways dont count

Likes and reblogs BOTH count as entries!!

You can reblog up to 3 separate times over the course of the giveaway leaving you with FOUR possible entries 

Must be aware that once the giveaway ends your copy will be shipped at the same time as the rest of the kickstarter copies as they’re all ordered at once. ESTIMATED time your copy will be shipped out is september! 

Support the kickstarter HERE!

See card previews

someone: so tell me about ur oc

there’s always gonna be someone better than you. try to work less on comparing yourself to their work and instead learning from them and turning envy into a personal challenge for your own stuff. i know its hard, trust me.

the best way to get better at art is to practice. there is no special trick to improving, no secret method. practice makes perfect is a tired old saying that im sure you dont want to hear but unfortunately, its true.

draw as much as you are able to. i wont say draw every day!!! because i know that there are folks that dont have this sort of luxury, whether it be because of physical or mental restrictions, or simply because they dont have time. draw whenever you can and have the strength to. try not to be too upset if you miss a day or a week or even months. shit happens, do the best you are able to.

if you get bored or stuck, try another way. change mediums if you can, flip the canvas, do something weird that you wouldnt normally do. sometimes this is the best way to un-stick yourself from art block.

dont be afraid to ask for help. this is so important! its ok to ask for assistance from other artists you admire (given that they have time to give pointers.) even if asking for help is straight up asking for a redline of your work, its ok to ask for it. improvement doesnt come without outside assistance, more often than not.

references are 100% a legitimate resource. i’m not really sure where the idea came from that real artists dont use references, but its not true. every renaissance painter used references in the form of in-house models. disney artists use references of animals and people to correctly model and then correctly exaggerate their designs. you cant learn to draw the world around you without actually studying it. use references, even if its just google searching.

your art is not an island. you will pick up styles from other people like tape picks up pet hair. its inevitable, and its not something that should be seen as a negative. artists inspire other artists. use your discretion, and study what you like about another artist’s work. every artist’s style is a mashup of a hundred other artists. its ok, experiment.

youre not going to make masterpieces all the time. youre gonna suck more often than not. but youre putting effort into something you enjoy and in the process you are getting better, slowly but surely. you arent going to see your stuff improve overnight, be patient.

hi, y’all! i get a lot of similar, very broad questions about being an artist so i thought i’d take some of my time and make you all a master post with basically my be all end all advice/references/etc so y’all can refer to this whenever you need. hopefully i’ll also be updating this in the future!

1. there is no right or wrong way to do things. there’s only learning, figuring out what works for you, and finding ways to incorporate skills you accumulate through time and research into your working method. there are rules, some of them are great, some of them are stupid, most of them can be broken when you know what you are doing.

2. learn as many things as you can. doesn’t matter if you think it’s useless, if you’re having fun, if you like something, research it, learn as much as you can about it. the more things you know about the more interesting and varied your work will be, the more opportunities you’ll have, and the more unique you will be (and that matters whether you want a studio job or to be self employed!) sometimes you’ll learn something you really enjoy and you think it is COMPLETELY useless for what you actually want to do but then five years later you’ll be using that cool skill you had fun learning and be grateful you learned it!

3. make things for yourself. make things you like. when you enjoy what you’re making, you work harder on it and you make better stuff. people can sniff it out when you’re just trying to make something you think will be popular and more important, you’ll enjoy it less and feel bitter if you’re not doing it for you.

4. push yourself. this goes back to 2: learn as many things as you can and work hard.

5. don’t compare yourself with others. everyone comes from different backgrounds. some people learn more easily or quickly than others. you don’t know how much they work or what their history is and it’s very easy to see someone else doing something cool and think that it must come easily to them and then feel jealous. let me tell you: it is not worth it.

6. art is just as much about seeing as it is about drawing/painting/etc. you have to train both your eyes and your hand. that’s why figure drawing is so important – it challenges you to be able to see more correctly and precisely.

7. growth is not steady or constant. generally you get bursts of growth and then stretches of “stagnation” – essentially times when you haven’t figured out anything new and are just making things. this can be frustrating because during this time is usually when your taste/ability to see will grow and outpace your drawing ability. it happens to everyone, the fact that you are not happy with your work just means that your ability to see is improving!

8. for the love of god, track your art-related earnings and expenses (google sheets is free!) and learn how to do self employed taxes. they are not difficult as long as you keep updated records!

9. build a group of peers, people near your skill level (ideally also around your age), in person or online. these people will support and challenge you and help you grow!

10. if you want to learn how to do something, there are numerous tutorials for just about everything on google. it’s just a matter of learning how to refine your search terms and having the determination to stick with it. some things will be really easy to find, others less so. all the cool people online telling you to google stuff aren’t brushing you off. it’s how most of us learned things and the wealth of information available is far greater than you’d get asking some random person!

reading material for learning:

making comics - scott mccloud

figure drawing for all it’s worth - andrew loomis

wally wood’s 22 panels that always work

perspective for comic book artists - david chelsea

color and light - james gurney

framed ink - marcos mateu-mestre

pricing & ethical guidelines - graphic artists guild

steal like an artist - austin kleon

reading/watching material cuz you can learn a lot absorbing good stuff:

persepolis - marjane satrapi (the movie is also great)

asterios polyp - david mazzucchelli

amphigorey - edward gorey

the amazing world of gumball

paprika - satoshi kon

tekkon kinkreet - taiyo matsumoto (movie adaptation is also great)

cucumber quest - gigi digi

online resources (they’re all free!):

dear art director

line of action

croquis cafe

muddy colors (specifically this entry)

10 perspective errors

gurneyjourney

google sketchup

griz and norm

frenden tool reviews

kyle webster brushes (some of them are free!)

paletton

cgtextures

lostandtaken

adobe kuler

gamutmaker

fontsquirrel

animationbackgrounds

i’m love my lesbian bird mums 

mccree seems like the guy that’d forego an umbrella because he’s fine, he’s got a hat and a serape and has no idea he’s dripping everywhere 

a mini-print for melbourne’s supanova coming up next month ! 

Hey everyone, I’m opening temporary emergency commissions, for a discounted price! I’m not in a good financial situation right now, I recently left a shitty job with a boss who was underpaying me and over-working me (all around a douche guy) and I’m looking for a new job, in the meantime i still need food and to pay rent. if you cant commission me even a reblog would help! thanks guys