#mjs asks

10 - what's something you're excited for

next week i'm going to visit my dad's family in ny which is fun!! i barely got to see them growing up but i have a bunch of little cousins and its just gonna be nice to be the magical older one for once!! (also might get to egg my abusers house with my aunts, massive win)

14 - favorite feel good show

real housewives of beverly hills. my grandma and i hate-watch reality tv for fun, it's absolutely amazing.

19 - most important thing in your life

besides my friends & family, i have this stuffed dog that i got as a baby. hes a golden retriever named buddy and i swear he's been through everything with me. first thing i packed when i left my dads house & when i moved to my grandparents. he went to most of my teletherapy sessions with me & i just genuinely do not know where i would be without him. my bestie fr.

One — it’s incredible. I adore your art style. There is something so beautiful about it that really works for him.

Two — the spiraling tree within him. He tends to hallucinate a lot of spiraling things, but the tree was really fascinating. There’s something ethereal about it. Kind of like how he was so quick to identify that what the antlers were were a crown, there’s just something about it in that way.

So I guess I just — I am here to gush and here to listen to anything that inspired your artwork because it’s incredible.

First off, you don't know how happy it makes me to receive such a thoughtful ask about my artwork. Especially about something that means as much to me as TD.

My goal when creating that illustration was to exemplify the cyclical nature of the events and the environment in TD that Rust experiences, so I used the motifs within the show that best do that (in my opinion). Rust's hallucinations are some of my favorite visual symbols as well.

The placement of the empty circle of branches over Rust is kind of commenting on how he is a character constantly affected by an extreme loss (his daughter) that leads to some of the other cycles he experiences (Drug and alcohol addiction, as well as the cycle of solving the case that he becomes obsessed with in order to keep going).

it beats me how this kind of colouring/painting is done though. how do you pick the right colours? the right places? the value of colour and it's warmth?

i always have trouble with colouring because i have a very strict basic knowledge of shadows and colours and no visual imagination

sorry for such a long ask

hi anon!! no need to apologize this is such a kind ask and i still really struggle with this sometimes. i didnt start experimenting with color in my art until around summer of 2022 and before that it was so frustrating to color that i almost didnt produce any colored work.

i also have complete aphantasia so my visual imagination is very limited! this leads to a lot of trial and error in my work because i cant tell what looks good until i simply try it lol

i will try to answer about my process as thoroughly as possible! but a lot of it is seriously just vibes, and playing around. a lot of what helped me was studying how artists i liked used color in THEIR work and trying to work it into my style.

a lot of the vibrancy and harmony in my work comes from my base layer, which i put under the sketch like im “priming” the canvas. when im coloring later on i let this base layer inform my choices and also let it show through in places for unification of the colors. its a lot like doing an underpainting except i dont go crazy on the range of values

the hardest part for me is doing the base colors over this layer. i dont have a lot of guidance for this because i kind of just pick colors to start with and then edit them bit by bit until it looks satisfying to me/matching the intended mood and harmonizing with the base layer. i edit the colors mostly by using gradient maps and layer modes until i find a version i like and merge it to just create a normal layer with the colors i want. i keep this base layer underneath my sketch

i render on top of my sketch/lineart always so i can better define the shapes and have smoother edges. this is the part where i really go crazier with my colors - some conscious decisions i make:

- where can i make my highlights and shadows stand out more? i accomplish this by choosing warm colors on the cool base or cool colors on the warm base. theres blue in the flesh tones of the face and orange in the blue tones of the coat.

- where does the rendering need to be more “clean”? someone viewing an art piece will gravitate to places in the drawing with finer detail, so i put a lot more work into the shapes and colors of the faces and the fish, because this is where i want someone to look the longest

another thing i usually do is pick one really saturated color and place it throughout the drawing. for thos one its that bright red, around the eye, blood, and outline of the fish as well as the characters’ hands.

this part of my process takes me the longest and can be seriously frustrating at times! something i always force myself to do is to keep working on it. whenever im like ok its done! i go back and render for another half hour and it ends up looking a lot better

gradient mapping the final drawing! for further unification i have a gradient map i made that works for most of my warm pieces

and i put it on top with an overlay layer mode and then adjust the opacity

it makes a big difference in the warmth and unification of the final drawing!! so honestly i cheat a little with my colors :P