This is my new and refurbished art and streaming blog. The old blog is dead, long live the new! I'm still getting things off the ground but let's hit it running with this nice new intro page!
Who am I?
My name is Freyr and I am a digital artist currently in my thirties living on the west coast of the United States. I draw a lot of things that fall into the realm of the nerdy and geeky, particularly Transformers, Pathfinder/D&D, Video Games, and Anime. I do a lot of streaming and I'm doing my best to get my life together after having a rough start in my early years.
I do have a laundry list of health issues and I don't always have the best memory or capacity to check this blog every day but I'll do my best! Thanks for stopping by and checking me out!
A Handy List of Do's and Don'ts
Alright so to get things started right here are a few do's and don'ts to avoid getting blocked from this here blog!
Don't be rude. Simple enough right. Don't send me rude stuff, don't get blocked.
If you're a bigot you are blocked on site. Also straight forward, this blog does not tolerate bigots of any kind and you will be blocked immediately and no I don't feel bad about that.
If you don't like what you see just block me. If you have some sort of issue with my art or it's content then just block me. Don't compalin to me about it because I will just block you.
Do not start or drag me into drama. I have a heart condition and don't do added stress if you try to drag me into any drama or try to start drama with me I'm just going to block you. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Commissions
First things first, yes I do take commissions and you can view my price sheet as well as my open commissions in this handy sheet below!
While it's true the majority of my art is currently robots and I am all too happy to do more fantasy artwork, aliens, or anything your heart desires so long as you come to me with some reference and an open mind and heart.
The Sims AU
This is a project I do for fun to practice my interior decorating skills and to express my interest in Transformers content in a new angle. Also, I just like playing the sims. The Sims AU masterpost is linked here.
Streaming
You can catch any past live streams on our youtube page located here!
Luke warm take: I don't mind the female Transformers having more "feminine" designs. I honestly didn't even know that was discourse until I saw tiktoks about it.
The feminine designs aren't so drastic that they distract from everything. In modern day, and it's not making the female transformers more sexual than male Transformers (like the sterotyical "male video game character vs female video game character" thing). It's mostly just making female Transformers smaller and slightly slimmer. They put larger lips on a lot of them which resembles lipstick, which I guess could be a gripe, but it's not like it's overly distracting or anything, and it's not really that noticable. Other than that, they look completely normal. Hell, the smaller and slimmer thing doesn't even happen in some media, and the female Transformers might just have chest plating that looks like breast armor.
I think it comes from the "they're robots, so why should they have gendered appearances?" thing. To that I say; idk. I'm afab and I like seeing characters with more female-like bodies not being seen as week and female character designs that areb't overly sexualized or weirdly human-like compared to the male characters.
Shout out to female Transformers. They could never make me hate you <3
Also, more modern approaches have been getting more liberal with the designs and ignoring gendered stuff, so it's not like it's a MUST that female Transformers have to be slimmer and all.
Ex for "masc" (more gender neutral since I don't think most obots look one gender or the other-) looking female transformers: Aileron in IDW, Elita 1 in Cyberworld, Twitch in Earthspark, Strongarm in RID 2015, Velocity in IDW, Chromia in Transformers One. I'm not going to name them all, but you get the gist.
Male Transformers that have a more "feminine" build (aka, smaller, slimmer waist, chest that pokes out more): Swerve in IDW, Rung in IDW, Rewind in IDW, Rodimus Prime in MTMTE, First Aid in IDW, Starscream in TFP, plz do not expect me to name all of them, I'm tired.
Making this post has also made me realize that a lot more of the designs in modern day are more gender neutral than anything with only slight changes in design that can indicate a Transformer is female. Like, I'm sorry, if you took away they're lipstick, I would NOT be able to yell who's male and who's female.
Tldr: I don't get why people complain about female transformers having more feminine designs. Maybe it's bcuz we're sick of overly gendered things, maybe it's fear that they'll be sexualized (this fandom sexualizes men WAAAYYYY more than they sexualize the women), or maybe it's even an internalized mysoginy thing where we associate feminine design = weaker, and then we get frustrated at the female transformers being "weaker" (they're not, but internalized mysoginy is a BITCH that everyone knows and it is inside all of us 😔)
And credit where it's due, whilst Beast Wars Blackarachnia of 30 years ago was VERY gendered in robot mode in the cartoon (her toy being a repaint of Tarantulus... less so)
Air-Razor really wasn't gendered in design, and they genderflipped her to male in the Japanese dub without any changes required beyond the voice (Which also gave us a gay relationship between him and Tigatron)
And with Beast Machines Strika I would defy anyone to have guessed she was female until they heard her voice
My one objection to some of the more feminized designs is simply that they’re a lot harder to translate into toys. Look at how much backpack most versions of Arcee end up with, or the “Search for Alpha Trion” girls from the Power of the Primes toy line.
A lot of them like Windblade are getting around it with big stompy boots, which I heartily approve of.
Honestly, I love having feminine designs on Transformers. Obviously, I think more thought needs to go into how their alt mode fits in style wize, but I do think that overall, they're getting better about that. But also, as someone who identifies as genderfluid I HATE the prevalent idea that more masculine equals gender neutral. Or that skinny and flat is true androgyny. I do appreciate the larger designs in Transformers. Hell, they really help sometimes to prove my point that skinny and thin or angular doesn't mean androgynous. I think that the amazing thing about Transformers designs is just how free you can be when designing them because they really can be ANYTHING and look like ANYTHING. So, I guess I get frustrated when feminine designs get written off as sexist for some reason.
The only time I would argue that feminine designs in Transformers was sexist was Thunderblast who was actively designed with underboob and to be nothing more than arm candy for Galvatron (and no I'm not exaggerating please check the tfwiki ). But literally every other instance is just adding inclusion to this series that has been OVERWHELMINGLY MALE.
Like why the hell are people arguing against inclusion? Oh, I know why because they're part of the 'no girls allowed' club OR somehow got suckered in by their ridiculous arguments that say "they shouldn't have a gender because they're robots but also that 'no gender' should be male aligned". Honestly, I'd argue that there should be way more and way different gender presentations in Transformers exactly BECAUSE they're alien robots. It's the same reason I get mildly annoyed that Asari in Mass Effect all identify strictly as female and only female when honestly they could have and should have way more gender presentations than that.
Okay, doing another stream tonight because I feel like it! I have the spoons and it's spooky month (officially) so streaming at night feels right y'know? Anyway, picking up with more Baldur's Gate 3.
Hey guys! Initially I planned to stream the Sims today but a certain announcement concerning EA has changed my plans. So we're playing BG3 instead! Watch me fumble through my first Dark Urge playthrough and giggle about murder.
So I have been posting some Sims 4 content on tumblr for awhile and I will always happily admit that there's a lot that the Sims team and EA does wrong. Hell, I still actively think of EA as the literal devil of modern gaming. The Sims4 (beyond the free base game) is expensive if you want all of the content currently available (buying it during sales is better but you're still putting down quite a bit of change for a single game). That said, I've seen some things I really like from the Sims team when it comes to diversity, inclusion, and community engagement.
The Sims4 team has paid creators in the past, gone out of their way to work with POC for culture themed packs, and has been adding more inclusive details for disabled representation (far from perfect but the fact that there's options at all is an improvement over none). The Sims team also regularly listens to what the community wants when it comes to future packs. They're not the best at fixing bugs, that's true and some of those bugs are absolutely game breaking and absolutely should be fixed. But the fact that the devs are willing to listen at all is pretty impressive in the current gaming atmosphere.
How does this stack up to InZoi, the game touted as the Sims rival? Well... other than graphically? The Sims still comes out on top.
Granted, Inzoi is still in early access and thus some buggy aspects can be overlooked. But what can't be overlooked is Inzoi's reliance on Ai. The game doesn't mention it and you'll need to actually read the creative license to learn about it, but Inzoi (particularly now as of early access release) RELIES on player created content and that content WILL be used to train Ai models per the creative license agreement. Everything you make in the game and upload to it will be used to train Ai and can be reproduced and disseminated by the company behind InZoi. The license does state that you will own the creative rights to your work but they will also have the right to reproduce it, make derivative works based off of it, and again USE IT TO TRAIN MACHINE LEARNING MODELS AKA AI.
There is also generative Ai options in the creative modes of the game. Now using Ai has always been apart of gaming when it comes to certain aspects such as filling in spaces of loading graphics (Avowed), and npc/enemy actions (Sims and many many others). And I'm not objecting to InZoi using Ai for the Zoi's actions themselves or background functions. But using Ai for creative features in the game itself? That I object to. Using Ai to generate textures does not mean pulling a random texture out of a hat. It means using stolen image data to cobble together a texture that kinda looks different. Instead of, you know, paying an artist or developer to create more textures for the game (something the Sims actually does).
If you object to Ai taking away jobs from artists then you should object to this game. I certainly do.
If you object to a company relying on unpaid player created content to make up the bulk of your in-game inventory and content, then you should object to this game. Which I do. And I don't mean this as 'oh I don't like the base game options so I'll make some stuff myself that I like better' which is often the case with Sims players/modders (totally justified the Pet items are atrociously ugly imo). I mean that there is so little base game content in Inzoi that you are practically obliged to either create your own content or to use content created by other players. And that's the part that feels predatory to me, particularly in a game I paid $40.00 for. I paid $40.00 for a sims pack and I got far more content than is available in InZoi as it stands right now.
The graphics and Zoi creation is better than the Sims. Personally I don't like more realistic art styles like InZoi features but that's a personal preference (it hit uncanny valley territory for me and deeply reminds me of Second Life aesthetic [IYKYK]). But I can say that yeah, there's some more freedom in creating your Zoi than there is when creating a Sim. That said the options for Black hair are abysmal and while they state that they have LGBTQ+ play-ability that is not reflected in the actual state of play as Zois react negatively to same-sex attracted player Zois.
There are also functions that just do not work or are entirely missing from the game despite seeming to be included such as the ability to scale objects or the option to turn off the 'snap to grid' function [called 'snap on' in game].
A lot of these gripes may change over time as InZoi is still in early access. But the most egregious sin of using Ai and training Ai off of player created content I don't expect to change and that's the real problem here. Particularly as that is not advertised anywhere in the game, it's trailers, or it's advertising content. Which I suspect in intentional considering how much people dislike the use of Ai in creative spaces.
Maybe InZoi will get better and beat out the Sims. But based off of this start, I doubt it. And based on it's Ai practices I sincerely hope not.
And that's not to say that the Sims team is faultless, as stated above there are a lot of issues with the Sims team and EA in general (seriously EA I fucking hate you, you have killed TWO of my favorite franchises and if I could get away with it and wasn't a pacifist I would be lighting stuff on fire). But as far as comparisons go, The Sims 4 is still far superior to InZoi and unless the InZoi team makes some serious changes I don't see that changing.
That's not to say I don't want other life sim style games either. I do! More competition is always better when it comes to breeding innovation and evolution in any medium. But I won't be playing InZoi or recommending it to anyone over the Sims any time soon. I still have some hopes for a few other life sim style games coming out that I'm eager to try and play. But I wasn't super enthusiastic about InZoi from the start and having played it (and then subsequently asked for a refund) I can say even the little bits I was interested in I was let down on.
TLDR; Don't buy this game it uses Ai to avoid paying artists and your original work will be stolen and used to train Ai models.
Sims Au: New Iacon, Arts District, Angled Art Unit 2| Dirge/Acidstorm/Cliffjumper
Hello there everyone, it's been awhile but we're back with another tour courtesy of New Iacon Reality tours! Today we'll be touring the lovely 2 bedroom flat of Acidstorm, Dirge, and Cliffjumper.
Starting, of course, with the foyer we're greeted by some lovely personal touches amidst the charming gothic inspired furniture. The dark and witchy vibes are complimented by antique and vintage art deco lighting as well as a few more modern touches to make the space practical as well as cozy rather than overwhelming.
The entryway leads into a charming hallway appointed with an antique runner as well as some fun vintage movie and advertisement posters as well as some classic picture frames of gothic figures. The well appointed paneling, brick, and wallpaper compliment the dark wood tones quite well.
Going into the door on the right we're greeted by the lively greens and soft warm copper tones of the well-appointed kitchen. With some lovely victorian style tile work on the floor as well as some lovely ceiling paneling this kitchen is practical, homey, and downright lovely while holding true to the gothic feel.
Across the hall from the kitchen is the laundry room which also provides plenty of storage for the three occupants as well as a cozy atmosphere so waiting on clothes can be passed in comfort rather than in boredom.
Going through the first door in the laundry room leads us into into the first bathroom that serves both as Cliffjumper's personal bathroom as well as the guest bathroom. The tub and shower are modern recreations of antique tub and pipe work designs and the eclectic but vintage artwork and wardrobe provide lovely accents to the warm tilework.
The washroom itself features some more lovely warm tile and marble countertops set against some dark woods and a vintage dark toilet. The artistic appointments of some movie posters as well as the classic curtains provides an intimate feel set well against the warm lighting.
Going back through the laundry room and through the other door we find ourselves in Cliffjumper's personal space which features a lovely walk-in closet as well as space enough for a desk. With his love for horror and action films on full display Cliffjumper's eclectic tastes are well set against the more classic and vintage vibe that thrives in the rest of the apartment. The warm reds and wood tones give the space a comforting and intimate atmosphere that suit the rather aggro man.
Leaving Cliffjumper's room we can find the man himself as well as Dirge hanging out in the small and intimate living room space which features a cozy and open atmosphere through the open walls that lead into the dining room. With enough space to game or cuddle up this space is perfectly set up for dinner parties or quiet nights curled up at home with your throuple.
The dining room itself features a lovely little bar space that leads into the kitchen as well a cozy atmosphere set against the built-in bookshelves against one wall and large windows against the other. While small the space feels open due to the various open wall spaces, well-placed vintage lighting, and large window space. With hanging planters and well-placed greenery the space offers a modern take on a classic cozy dining setting.
Past the hidden pocket doors we find ourselves in the home office and den space where Acidstorm and Dirge can relax, work from home, or curl up in front of the fireplace to watch a movie together. With a mixture of cute, cozy, and vintage pieces as well as modern glam this space feels well appointed and adult despite the cute additions.
Past the door in the den we enter the master bedroom suite which features a lovely sitting and drawing space to get dressed in peace while showing off and exploring every piece of an outfit. With antique dressers and wardrobes this space has a classic and nearly pastoral feel despite it's gothic vibes.
With an elegant lounge chaise couch, large staple windows, and classically gothic pieces Acidstorm can nap in peace, surrounded by a space set aside for intimate and quiet moments. With his and her nightstands and plenty of antique pieces this space has a wonderful take on a modern gothic design.
Finally we end our tour in the master bathroom. Featuring lovely modern features against victorian tile the bathroom is serene and classic, bringing to mind a rich victorian garden with it's well placed flowery pieces and indor planters. The dark tub and toilet are lovely pieces that stand out against the lighter tile and bring a bit of classic inspiration with modern thinking. With a water feature this bathroom ensures a relaxing space for any who use it and makes for an excellent last stop on our tour!
Somebody pointed out to me that it's the year of the snake and now I've got a whole series of pieces planned dedicated to my oc Redstrike...because he's a snake and I'm weak. I'm gonna be starting off with this piece that I've sketched out above. I plan on doing a final lineart and then fully coloring and rendering it but it's also just nice as a sketch. ... I also have plans to do a nsfw version of it lol.
Also, ngl, my favorite part was the snake. I love Redstrike's alt mode lol.
Finally finished my latest corset piece! Took me awhile because I kept getting sick and I really wanted to try out a couple new things with this piece that I THINK came out pretty good. Trying to go back to a bit simpler backgrounds so I don't get bogged down in THOSE details and can instead focus on the details of the main subjects lol. But yeah, nice two-fer in this piece as we get both Knockout and Breakdown.
And hey, if you guys like this go ahead and check out my commissions page to get something similar for yourself!
So I'm getting back into the swing of things art wise. I've been having a rough couple of months so it felt nice to get back to working on something and finishing up a project so I could move on to finishing others or starting something new.
This was a commission for a friend on Discord who wanted a design for a crab that appeared like a skipping stone (and could even be used as one). She also requested that the stone used be a Red and black agate which I was all too happy to accommodate. I fucking love crabs. And if you'd like to commission me for something similar you can check out my commission page here!
I've been working on a few projects lately and needed to take a small break so I did a quick sketch of a redesign I've been thinking of for my OC Codeblue. I wanted to pull him away from looking like Ratchet as I want him to be a lighter, smaller model ambulance. More sleek van than the armored trucks a lot of ambulances are here in the states and which most Tranformers ambulances tend to be based off of. I think I'm almost there but this was just a quick sketch and I'd like to refine it a little bit more.
And hey if you're interested in getting your own transformers oc sketched out or if you're looking for some Transformers One art I'm happy to say that my commissions are open and you can check out my commission sheet here. Or you can see it on my pinned post on my blog!
Had to take a break from my corset series for a bit to work on this commission for a discord acquaintance. This is her wild life cleric, Bejih. She's a florist and she's been helping to direct the reconstruction of her romantic partner's family home. I was a little bit nervous working on this piece just because it's my first time doing stuff with any mechanical tools (even if they're medieval ones lol). And I'm hoping that the brushes I picked up to help me create natural curly hair came out looking better as I'm still working on my personal skills in that department. But the natural hair brushes really are a life-saver.
And hey if you'd like something like this for yourself my commissions are currently open! You can check out my prices on my pinned post here.
