Ko-Fi Memberships, Shop, is now Open! Help Fund my Dreams and make them Reality
For those who don't want a long read: I am finally opening up monthly Memberships on my Ko-Fi, as well as offering up high-resolution prints of some of my art for download! My goals in 2025 are to work on not one, but TWO new children's books, one fully written and illustrated by yours truly. Join today and get news on my book updates and any other original work I may be working on.
Become a Member Here || Shop Here
I plan on providing monthly updates for members, and it's all available in a single, comprehensive tier: the $3 Noodle Tier. The Noodle Tier currently gives access to updates and to my discord with a special role. Nothing fancy, just the privilege of watching my work come to life.
It's a very small price monthly to simply help keep me above water in these trying times. And that includes NO AI: All made by me, with words by people, and drawings from life.
Thank you everyone who supports, and has followed me for so long on this journey!
Now for the long part lol
I don't talk about this a lot, but for many years, I have feared (rejected) the idea of a Patreon. Mostly because, I would see what artists were doing, fulfilling orders and burning themselves out on a monthly basis. I never saw what I was doing as worth that. I never believed I would be able to keep promises, and I don't like making promises I can't keep.
But over the years, my tune has been changing. I have realized I can simply ask for support, and in doing so, that support can help me do what I want to do, as opposed to what I think I need to be doing, and in turn, be able to produce more. I also have been changing my tune because after so long, I have finally realized: I cannot make what I want to make, alone.
May is my birthday month, and what I would really like for my birthday more than anything, is a little more financial security to help my pursue the things I would love to do with my life and my time. I chose Ko-fi because I trust it more than I do Patreon, and it gives me far more freedom and flexibility with how I can approach my customers.
What is the first thing I would like to share with my members? Information on what I want to do most right now: Starting on not one, but TWO children's books -- one centered on a very special borzoi named Jack and his story, and one based on my own two dogs, Strudel and Zill. This support will also help fund any other smaller projects I would like to work on, including paintings, prints, editing, learning Blender, and more.
For now, the tiers will unlock sketches and works in progress on pages as they are illustrated and painted. Some of the final images will be available for preview there, but not all of them, for the sake of the book. As work progresses, you'll learn firsthand on any ideas for kickstarters or crowdfunding campaigns, to make one or both of these books happen.
Once again, thank you to everyone always for your support! Whether it is through commissions, monthly subscriptions, my twitch subs, or just general moral support of being there for me, I can't thank you enough. This sort of support is very difficult for me to do, I never have felt like I had enough to give. But finally, I have a goal and a direction I want to move. Thank you to everyone who is helping me move that way, and making my longtime dreams, a reality.
Until next time! I will see you then. Please feel free to share!
Damn. Can you believe this puppy with this intensity is now a Best in Field Winner? This is what 3 years of working on that plastic bunny looks like! Onwards and upwards to Field Champion!
So I can across your art on my Pinterest (or what I think/hope is your art and was wondering if I could use it as a tattoo? It won’t let me attach an image but it’s wolf running with a Corvid flying above it
Gotta love pinterest just doing whatever it wants and posting whatever it wants, lmao. Is it this image?
This is fanart of corvo and daud from dishonored as animals, so I'm not surprised it ended up over there. Lemme know if this is the one; if it is, you can use it as a template and just remove the fanart stuff (like the scar on the wolf's face).
The reblog chain is one of the things that makes Tumblr unlike anywhere else. All the notes on reblogs are attributed to the original post, no matter which branch people actually liked or reblogged. We want to keep encouraging conversations, and give contributors the recognition they deserve.
Soon, you'll be able to like, reblog, or reply to any part of a reblog chain, and that note will go to that reblog's author. Each reblog will have its own counts, instead of one aggregated number from every version of the post. And yes, you’ll be able to like multiple posts in one chain.
If a reblog doesn't add anything, the love flows up to the last person in the chain who did. Your post doesn't lose notes just because people spread it quietly.
Past notes will stay on the original post — we're only changing what happens from here on out. Retroactively re-attributing all of them would be... a lot.
This is just the beginning. More changes are coming as we keep building this out – stay tuned!
Not only will this ruin a core element of Tumblr, it will make it very difficult to tell where and when a post is getting traction. People are on this website because it isn't Twitter. Making it more like Twitter will turn people away.
The last thing this website needs is a culture of catty twitter-style quote-retweets. This will actively encourage more toxic users to interact with your posts because their traffic will be more difficult to track.
Happy Birthday to the Starswift Borzoi Supernatural Litter and a happy heavenly birthday to Jack as well. They all turned 4 today.
As people may or may not be aware of (because I am terrible at advertising myself) I am working on a kid's book, written by my friend Yelena and edited and illustrated by me. The book was conceived last year, I did some thumbnails, and then progress slowed as life happened. This is common with me and passion projects... I put them to the side to work on a myriad of other things capturing my attention. But this book is still planning on being illustrated, and I always tell myself, one step forward is still one step I didn't make yesterday. So inch by inch, the illustrations will be done.
Here is some color tests, as well as the first completed page. Not a lot, but it is a proof of concept, one I am pretty happy with.
This is a full passion project, which means I am only doing this because I want to. It takes time and effort, but the effort is lessened with support. If you are interested in seeing this book come to fruition, with more behind the scenes work then I am previewing here, please support my book (and other books I will be working on) over on my ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/laurrants
A big thank you to everyone have already been supporting me since I started this project last March. It means the world to me and even that little bit of support helps me out.
I have plans to work on this weekly and update monthly, so if you'd like to see this book come to life, join and follow along with me.
For those who don't know, or who haven't heard, this may be the way you find out: Jenna Marbles' little dog, her first dog, Mr. Marbles, has passed away. The last video Julien did with the dogs, was a yule stream, where Marbles was snuggled with his best friend, Loni the greyhound. I had planned this piece before the news (the yule log was just last week), but I did not expect to wake up last night to the sad news. Mr. Marbles, you were a wonderful entertainer, a great protector, and more importantly, a fantastic dog. Thanks for all the laughs, now excuse me while I cry and watch the video where you try to learn to sit for 20 minutes straight. <3
Dinocember 2025 begins! This year, I'm trying something different, both to help myself learn a new skill, and also to keep it easier (in a way). I'm doing the bones of the dinosaurs I draw, with their bodies transposed behind them! If I like them, I hope to transfer some of them next year into linocut prints.
My Day 1 for Dinocember is Compsognathus, which has a majorly complete skeleton, but is still missing some arm and tail bones.
My list, for anyone else who wants to join along!
hey so don't use this. RabbelLabs, the company actually creating this platform, trains AI models. Jack Dorsey is best friends with Elon Musk and they both advocate constantly for the abolition of IP law because it stands in the way of AI 'growth' (theft). They're banning AI on the platform so they can use it as a clean slate to train more fucking AI. They're also using images of Divine, the drag queen, to push their shit and I guarantee they didn't get permission from her estate.
The DiVine website says that it's made by Rabble.
If you go to their website you can find this:
if you click that And Other Stuff you're taken to an entirely different website that explains what all that 'other stuff' is: five pillars of building Nostr AI.
You have to wonder why they're hiding it, right? Why is it so hard to find? Why register an entirely different domain (it's andotherstuff.com, not like rabblelabs.com/andotherstuff) just to talk about the AI stuff you're doing if you're so proud of it?
Stop simping for billionaires just because they jingle keys in your face, start doing some fucking research.
These bastards know the people hate ai so they market their ai slop platform as ai-free. We need to do a much thorough research into all the platforms that claim to be anti-ai because as you can see here, they use it as a disguise to push MORE fuckass ai
