Viri's Universe

⚜️ the hughes saga ⚜️

explanation below!

“My berries cluster black and thick

For rich and poor alike to pick.

I’ll tear your dress, and cling, and tease

And scratch your hands and arms and knees.

I’ll stain your fingers and your face,

And then I’ll laugh at your disgrace.

But when the bramble-jelly’s made,

You’ll find your trouble well repaid.”

~The Blackberry Fairy, Cicely Mary Barker

I named this one Demented Nightmare after a redraw of this piece from 2018, Distorted Nightmare:

Oh jesus christ"

So this is from 30,000 Miles From Chang’an, which is a 2 hours 47 minutes(!!?) long Chinese animated film that is basically an actually legitimate historical epic and historical biopic (think Gladiator & Amadeus) made into animation, and also passionate tribute to classical art and culture, similar to something like Miss Hokusai or Millennium Actress.

I heard it was decent before, but was not expecting it to be This Ambitious. The Criminally Underrated Champ of 2023 Animation

And what options do artists have? What options do I personally have?

Glaze and Nightshade everything? I personally don't have the time or GPU power to glaze billions of artworks that I made. Fucking imagine you make a quick-ish sketch and spend 40 minutes glazing it (and don't get me started on some results of that process looking like the artwork went through 9 circles of bitcrushing hell based on how artifacted it looks)

Put everything I make behind a paywall? I for sure know that only a super small fraction would pay to see whatever I draw, the rest would just not care (either for some personal/general reasons or because people are also having a financial crisis 'cause, girlie, same)

Not post at all? I guess so.