I love seeing stores and cafes that display and sell shitty local art. Everybody on the planet should be making shitty local art. Everyone in the community should get to see what shitty local art everyone else is making. Eventually you will find something and be like hold on. This weirdly speaks to me. I've never seen anything quite like this, whether because of this person's idiosyncratic style or strange choice of subject matter or what. And suddenly your favorite piece of art is a collage painting done by a woman who waits tables during the day and does roller derby at night and uses the excess flyers and paper menus from both places of work to make amateur art on the weekends and you realize this is such a bizarre combination of circumstances that has produced something so striking to you, how lucky you are to live in a world where this got to exist and you got to see it
art will save you, being unreasonably passionate about something niche will save you, letting past sources of joy show you the way back to yourself will save you, earnestness over composure will save you, the natural world will save you, caring for something bigger than yourself will save you, daring to be seen will save you, kindness not as a whim but a principle will save you, appreciation as a practice will save you, daring to try something new will save you, grounding will save you, love will save you, one good nights sleep will save you
LMAO so, recently someone tried to SCAM me, so i'll show you what happened and the telltales of it being a scam.
This one is quite obvious but i know people who are just starting their artist careers and might not have experiece.
Follow the thread:
🚩#1: They pick your most famous/Popular art as reference. They don't know what you actually sell.
🚩#2: They will pick a random popular character. They're not roleplayers or anything. They're not here for the art in any level
You ask me, what are the odds they really like Goku? Oh, well, you'll see. At this point i check their profile for anythign that might indicate it, but as you'll see you won't have to.
🚩#3: They say they saw my ToS. On it i state i only work with paypal and google forms.
🚩#4: Random issue with payment method. They might have a real problem with it, but see; they'll never ever accept any other payment method, such as Zelle, CashApp, Payoneer, Ko-fi, etc.
I already knew this drill so, let's continue.
🚩#5: I love playing dumb lmao. Anyway, this scam revolves on them either sending you "too much money" and asking it back or something like it. I won't be following through because i know it'll be annoying.
BE ADAMANT WITH YOUR METHODS. Do NOT EVER bend them for randos.
🚩#6: They're so ready with the info on how the payment works it's fucking funny.
The reason I PERSONALLY use PayPal INVOICES (no any other payment within paypal) is that they're safe for both me and my client. My rules are stated clearly.
MAKE A ToS I BEG YOU YOUNG ARTIST
🚩#7: They're not even a good scammer lmao they REFUSE to go on my PROFILE to get a link or read anything.
I use Forms because it collects the client requests and it's easier for me to read it all in one place. It ALSO makes scammers bored.
🚩#8: They're so disinterested on the art they don't care for posing, vibes, colors, nothing. Again, they're NOT here for art. That's hilarious.
🚩#8: Same as above. They don't care for posing or anything.
On my art they link me, i have a vampire almost staking himself in a state of euphoria.
IMAGINE VAMPIRE GOKU STAKING HIMSELF THAT'S SO FUCKIGN FUNNY MY BRO, THINK YOUR SCAM THROUGH MAYBE
🚩#9: They will price your own work for you. And they'll overshot what we, smaller artists, charge for it.
They'll overshot by a lot.
They want you to be impressed and showing "generosity" usually gets people who need monay into risky situations. That's just plain cruel.
🚩#9: Same as above. Over generosity and eagerness to pay.
They're not even with the sketch, this haven't been an hour, they don't have any work form me but OH GOD they're SO READY to pay you NEED TO KNOW they WANTS TO PAY YOU SO BAD
Lmao yeah it's working out ❤️
THIS ONE IS JUST HILARIOUS BRO I CAN'T EVEN.
ANYWAY let's continue
🚩#10: They don't know me. They don't follow me. They broke every rule on my ToS. They're making me go through a payment method i am unfamiliar and don't use.
They don't care for my process. They're not interested on my sketch.
BE. ADAMANT. ABOUT. YOUR. RULES. AND. PROCESS.
Now, for the beautiful closure of this:
Have a ToS. Don't bend the rules for randos.
Use Invoices. Be sure you're safe.
Use forms if you'd like. Requests through DM and Discord ARE COMMON FOR OTHER ARTISTS. I personally don't like it, i have ADHD.
Being an artist on an online space is dangerous. If you need help, poke an artist you know, see how they operate and if it fits you. Most of them would help you.
Hey do you live in the Northern Shenandoah valley region of Virginia or the West Virginia panhandle? Do you like drawing in public and maybe making new friends? Maybe you’re into plein air or urban sketching? If so, you should join the Urban Sketchers of Winchester at Cordial Coffee in Berryville, VA for a sketch meet up on Saturday March 21st at 1 PM. It’s an interior sketch so don’t need to worry about the storms we’ve been having. I’ll be there!
You can RSVP on the Facebook post but tbh you don’t need to.
Hey do you live in the Northern Shenandoah valley region of Virginia or the West Virginia panhandle? Do you like drawing in public and maybe making new friends? Maybe you’re into plein air or urban sketching? If so, you should join the Urban Sketchers of Winchester at Cordial Coffee in Berryville, VA for a sketch meet up on Saturday March 21st at 1 PM. It’s an interior sketch so don’t need to worry about the storms we’ve been having. I’ll be there!
You can RSVP on the Facebook post but tbh you don’t need to.
Hey do you live in the Northern Shenandoah valley region of Virginia or the West Virginia panhandle? Do you like drawing in public and maybe making new friends? Maybe you’re into plein air or urban sketching? If so, you should join the Urban Sketchers of Winchester at Cordial Coffee in Berryville, VA for a sketch meet up on Saturday March 21st at 1 PM. It’s an interior sketch so don’t need to worry about the storms we’ve been having. I’ll be there!
You can RSVP on the Facebook post but tbh you don’t need to.
Some of you act like doing minor inconvenient acts of kindness is equivalent to donating a kidney as if it’s not those acts that form our communities and make the world go around.
Return your grocery cart. If you’re able-bodied offer your seat to someone who is not. Help your friend move. Drive your sister to the airport. Make sure drunk people have a safe ride or walk home. Pet-sit for your coworker. Participate in a meal train. Volunteer in your area. That’s what friendship and community is about.
Hey do you live in the Northern Shenandoah valley region of Virginia or the West Virginia panhandle? Do you like drawing in public and maybe making new friends? Maybe you’re into plein air or urban sketching? If so, you should join the Urban Sketchers of Winchester at Cordial Coffee in Berryville, VA for a sketch meet up on Saturday March 21st at 1 PM. It’s an interior sketch so don’t need to worry about the storms we’ve been having. I’ll be there!
You can RSVP on the Facebook post but tbh you don’t need to.
i think when i started drawing i accepted that i never cared or needed to be a 'good' artist and that my two priorities were to be a happy artist and a better artist than i was before and because of that now people will ask me how to be a good artist and its like. well first step is you dont
everything i draw ever exists on a two point axis. will it make me happy or will it help me learn something/practice a skill. and ive never done anything else and thats working out
[First photo: three jack o lanterns next to my front door. The first has a jolly smiling face carved traditionally. The second has a cut out of The Hollow Knight with The Radiance bursting out. The third has a witch riding a broomstick with stars and moons on her dress and a raven on the broomstick handle.
Second photo: The digital sketch for The Hollow Knight pumpkin.]
Yes I know Halloween was months ago but shhhhhhh. It’s always spooky time here.
(AKA: this was sitting in my drafts for months because I forgot to add this to my queue.)
A new feature arrives! Classic Footer rearranges the post footer into a more familiar shape, including showing each post's total notes.
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This version was approved for distribution by Google on 2025-10-10, and by Mozilla on 2025-10-16. Please allow 24 hours for Firefox to pull the update, or see how to update add-ons manually.
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I'm seeing a huge uptick in fanart with artist-written alt text and IDs in my fandom circles recently, which is obviously great! But I can also tell that a lot of people, because they're just getting started, haven't quite figured out how to consider the screen reader experience while writing alt text/IDs.
The remedy to this, when in doubt, is to pull up a screen reader or TTS on your own device. That way, you can hear out how things sound. But in general, a couple things to keep in mind:
For multi-image posts: You don't have to repeat the same information in the description of every single image.
If you have a four-image comic, and a character — let's just say a young adult white woman, with brown hair and glasses — features in all those panels, you don't have to repeat that description in every ALT text. The images are going to be read in order, and in context. If a screen reader user has to hear "a young adult white woman, with brown hair and glasses" four separate times in quick succession, to say nothing of other recurring characters, that's not a good listening experience!
Yes, if you were to share one of those panels on its own, in some other instance, it might be good to slightly edit the image description, and actually re-include that information. The description of an image is always going to be influenced by the purpose and context of an image — just like images being shared to appreciate the artistry will warrant more description than IDs for memes, where it's best to keep things brief. (And on that topic, this post puts it better than I could.)
And, secondly:
In-post image descriptions should go directly under the image. There should not be commentary in-between the image and the ID.
Imagine if every time you wanted to know what an image was, whether a piece of art or a screenshot of a tweet, you had to hear paragraphs of the artist's commentary that presumed you'd seen the art already, or paragraphs of OP's commentary lampooning the tweeter. Imagine if every time anyone posted a graph, you had to read through a short essay presuming you'd seen the graph, but before you actually got to see what the graph was showing.
Yeah, that's the essence of the problem with putting IDs below commentary.
Also, after a point, people will just assume the post is undescribed and skip it! You described your post, you put in the effort to make your post accessible, but you want to make sure it'll have the impact you hope it will, right? Hiding the ID below commentary (or under a read more) is not going to let your effort have the maximum impact.
Here's a visual example of the formatting guideline I just described.
In general, there are many elements of writing IDs that are just subjective, and there are many ID beneficiaries whose preferences differ amongst each other, too. But if you start out by not including redundant information, by considering context, and by considering flow for screen readers? Then you're starting out totally fine.
The setting that prevents your work being used to train AI models is turned off by default! I had no idea about this until now! Artists, go to your settings, click “visibility”, and turn on this setting! Protect your work!
Hey, man, c'mere. Listen. Get in real close, this is important.
You're gonna make stuff again. You're gonna make stuff you're proud of. You're gonna make stuff you're excited to share. You're going to feel that overwhelming drive to create, not just the frantic I want to want to you're stuck in now. You're going to have awesome ideas, and you're going to make them into reality. You're going to create again. You're still an artist. You're still a writer. You're still home to the same passion you had before. You'll find it again. It's not gone. It's just resting. Let it rest. You're going to make stuff again. I promise.
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