call this exile

“It starts with you volunteering to be collateral damage after men with axes come to the house.” - Maddie C.

[99yikes]

he's had enough

[stjohnstarling]

C'mere. Listen. There are people out there whose sheer inability to write would dazzle you - lots of them - whose writing is so bad partly because they are so stunningly confident in their own ability that they have never even for a second questioned whether it's possible for them to improve.

These writers are indescribably better equipped to succeed - success, here, being gaining a readership and possibly an income - than writers who spend any amount of of time thinking critically about their skills and improving at their craft, simply because they're prepared at all times to promote their astonishingly bad writing.

This is the actual yard stick you're being measured against in the real world, not whatever standard you're holding yourself to in your head. You can't writhe around in fear of people judging you while the world lavishes that guy with attention and money.

[stjohnstarling]

To be honest, there's no greater confidence builder or motivator than just immersing yourself in the raw, unfiltered reality of the books on the Amazon bestseller charts. Read enough of those as part of your professional development and you will lose all illusions about the world and become truly free.

[ravioliet]

never kill yourself. you have to fill your mutuals dash with shit they don't care about forever, okay?

[podcastwizard]

you don’t realize how important lunch is until you’re wandering around thinking about how unloveable and untalented and uniquely cursed you are and then it’s 4pm and you finally eat lunch and you go Oh. oh right.

[podcastwizard]

lot of people commenting on this post like "who eats lunch at 4pm that's a terrible time to eat lunch" yes. that is the point. 4pm lunch is inadvisable. 4pm lunch is not the ideal. 4pm lunch makes the mind demons real.

[last-picture-show]

René Magritte, The Land of Miracles, 1964

[venusmage]

Editorial illustrations for a conference discussing AI’s impact on communities.

[beingharsh]

you can't kill yourself girl i already bought us tickets to do everything ever

[beingharsh]

oh no i accidentally bought us tickets to the jenny holzer roller coaster experience😦

[jmfenner91]

I'm SO excited to finally share these pieces I created for D&D's Ravenloft: The Horrors Within.

This project was such a huge honor to work on. I remember as a kid looking through the players manuals & doing little studies of the artwork in there, so this feels a bit full-circle. You can get a peek at higher-res versions of them on my insta!

[kalisbaby]

from Viteloi on IG: 2026 ✨

[velinxi]

My artwork for the Legend of Korra concert!

[queer-as-city-folk]

Old man, sitting in the pool steps reading his book

[queer-as-city-folk]

Artists sketch

[spacemancharisma]

UNRESTRAINED SUMMER FUN

[freerealestateforjim]

kirby drawn by the original team

[horrorcitos]

Brendon Burton

[spiribia]

why does sequential art require you to make multiple images? does anybody understand this?

[atmosphere-af]

[rapidhighway]

shadow goin thru it, getting comfyy

[nattousan]

ok so, I approached my local library with a proposal to donate a mural as a way to A: build portfolio/gain practical experience and B: give back to a beloved public institution. The director was very enthusiastic about it and i've been working on it since the beginning of March. Come with me as I endeavor to paint what is in all honesty an excessive amount of birds

I wanted the birds to look like they were actually in the space so first thing after doing the draft was to do a lighting study

after that I covered the walls in letters in lieu of a projector/vr headset bc i have neither of those :) Then i take a picture of the section of wall and superimpose the lineart over top of it so I can pencil in the lines

et voila

and that was a whole week on it's own so next comes the paintin' >:)

[nattousan]

and now, the birds

Birds 1 and 2/14: Red Winged Blackbird, Male and female, Agelaius phoeniceus

[nattousan]

Bird 3/14, American Robin, Turdus migratorius

[nattousan]

hoo boy, ok *out of breath*

GIVE IT UP FOR BIRD NUMBUH 5, THE CANADIAN GOOSE, Branta canadensis!!!!

this guy took me about 4 days to completely finish, all of those freakingk coverts were a bear to render

[nattousan]

speaking of obnoxious coverts:

bird 5/14, Bluejay, Cyanocitta cristata

the friggin stripes almost got me chat, i may not make it

[nattousan]

Madam....

[nattousan]

birds 6 and 7: American Goldfinch, Spinus tristis, male and female

pleasantly simple to paint! next is the flickerrrrr

[nattousan]

*melts into goo*

BIRD NUMBER 8, (yellow shafted) NORTHERN FLICKERRRRR, Colaptes auratus

genuinely made me start questioning my sanity around day 3, it's half the size the of the goose, WHY did it take me 4 days to finish??

nothing but pain and suffering, i'm sure hope the next bird will be much easier and with FAR less barring :)

[nattousan]

in other news, I am losing my mind hairline

[nattousan]

SHE'S DONE!!

Bird number 9: Red-tailed hawk, Buteo jamaicensis

my chains are broken i am FREE. although i did have a great deal of fun with this, the barring on the wings itself took me like four days and i am READY to move on

this was a week and a half of continuous work so please excuse me for getting a little emotional in the bg 🙏

[nattousan]

*does a little jig*

BIRD NUMBER 10!!! The Male Mallard Duck, Anas platyrhynchos

the male and female ones are gonna be posted separately bc they're taking a lot longer lol but yea! super happy i was able to capture the iridescent green of the head, i found metallic green and blue paint at a craft store that really made his head POP. it looks better in person i promise

ALSO!! As this is the 10th one, BIG announcement. The end is in sight!!!!! I plan to finish within the next 3 weeks and there will be a small dedication ceremony/ unveiling happening at the library to commemorate its completion on the 16th of May. If you live in the Western New York region and want to check it out for yourself shoot me a dm!

Also thank you everyone for your kind words and support throughout this whole process, it's been a genuine treat thinking there are potentially thousands of you out there cheering me on while I paint this 🥹

[nattousan]

aaaand another one bites the duck,

we're movin right along with bird numero 11!! The lady Mallard!! Anas platyrhyncos

the 16th is looming in the distance so i'm trying to get thru these as quickly as i can so i can have as much time for the GBH as possible. i still need to do the names next to all of them so i've got about a week and a half to finish everything which is GREAT because i have adhd and nothing gets my ass in gear like a fuckin deadline, let me tell you

[nattousan]

power couple that they are, here's bird number 12 and 13,

the Northern Cardinals, Cardinalis cardinalis

and NOW that they are complete, ITS GO TIME, in the next five days (library's closed for mother's day 😭😭) i need to have the GBH fully rendered, the names of the birds vectored, weeded, masked, applied to the wall, and then painted, plus additional cattails throughout. I may be able to get away with just getting the GBH done in time for the unveiling and then just have the names and cattails added later, but i'm gonna really try to get it all done in time. BUT, i have a plan. Part of why i take so long on these is because i really am just figuring it out as I do it lmao. there have been many a time where i am sitting on top of the ladder googling "how to paint birds" but I think if i take the time tomorro to do all that figuring out how to approach it beforehand, this will go a lot faster. I may also recruit some of my artist friends to help with the placing of the names... hrmm we'll see.

Anyways, shout out to the librarian who tracked down exactly the thing i needed so i could figure out where to place the highlights in my birds eyes, ur the real mvp

[nattousan]

thanks for the reminder, kid

[nattousan]

at long last, we've reached the end...

Bird number 14 out of 14,

The Great blue heron, Ardea herodius

thank you to everyone who reached out or got excited about this project, it genuinely gave me the fuel i needed to keep going. In total, the 480+ total hrs it took me to cover this wall pales in comparison to how long its expected to spend on there, hopefully imparting a sense of beauty and love for the natural world to the next generation and here's hoping i'm only getting started with these.

i'll see y'all soon :')

[internet]