🌿 I mainly go by Ni but you can also call me Val or Pine. I’m a freelance illustrator with a love for plants, anything fantasy, tea, storytelling, and the ocean among other things. My specialty is drawing characters from fantasy worlds living their day to day life.
🌱 I currently mostly draw personal commissions for people and pieces for zines but am trying to break into publishing as a book cover + interior artist. I also have a couple orginal worldbuilding and comic projects that I’m slowly working on in the backrgound, which you can read more about here.
🌵 I do general commissions through a waitlist system, which you can sign up to anytime. You can email me at [email protected] if you’re interested in something not on my site! I also have an inprint shop and a kofi for tips and where I post monthly sketchbook scans <3
🌈 I love to design characters and make adoptables from time to time, you can find those on dA, toyhou.se, or my adopt twitter.
🐝 You can find all my other links on my carrd, including my twitch where I sometimes stream art.
one more comm sale because I keep starting oc wips to replace old comm examples and then not finishing them, I need external motivation and I know nobody has money right now so happy pride month here are some 70%+ off comm slots <3 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️
New comm type to help promo my vgen + I'm running a general sale! These will have really limited slots going forward (monthly? every once in a while? might do them for streams) since I've priced them lower than I usually would but they're fun & simple and I do love having more accessible pricing options <3
stream is done yahoo! it was fun, I'll def try to stream more often. it has been aggggeeessss though since I last streamed and I'm very out of practice talking & drawing at the same time.
New comm type to help promo my vgen + I'm running a general sale! These will have really limited slots going forward (monthly? every once in a while? might do them for streams) since I've priced them lower than I usually would but they're fun & simple and I do love having more accessible pricing options <3
After all this time, dinner's finally served! And to whet your appetite, we've included a glimpse at the Table of Contents... See something you like? Please download our free zine with over 100 pages of recipes, writing, and illustrations all about soup! And if you're still hankering for more, our digital merch is sure to hit the spot!
Art blog (re)launch, 2025 retrospective, & ongoing art goals
Last year I put my blog on hiatus after some health issues (which have now gotten better). Up until then I’d been using this space to document my process with my various art projects, with occasional other notes and updates on my art & commissions. I’ve missed blogging a lot, and have been thinking for a while about how I wanted to return.
Alongside having a place to talk about my work, a large motivation for starting my initial blog was accountability, some external motivation to push me to make faster progress on my projects. That… wasn’t really effective. I’ve come to accept that I either will or won’t do things entirely at my own pace and that’s perfectly fine. Especially now that I no longer have a goal of trying to make art a sustainable full-time thing. The idea that I Have to make consistently monthly progress with anything really has become much less appealing.
I’ll be doing monthly blog posts again but rather than a comprehensive look at everything I’ve done in the month it’ll be about whatever topic is on my mind at the moment. Probably to do with art. Maybe? We’ll just have to see!
[Side note, I’ve added patreon as a place to cross post these blog entries to, alongside my wordpress & my tumblr. They’ll still be free though! I just know a lot of people like using it to keep up with blogs/newsletters. I did set up a tip jar tier where I might sometimes post early access stuff I’m working or free downloads from my shop but nothing will be exclusive. I miiight set up some goals where after the amount is hit I’ll do a tutorial post on a voted on topic? It’s on my mind to do something more in depth about how I design borders or an introduction to life drawing. Let me know if that’s something you’d be interested in.]
As I do every year, I’ve compiled everything (or almost, there are a few pieces I noticed afterwards I forgot to add) I drew in 2025 into two free/pwyw(I consider this my yearly tip jar) pdfs, one for general art and one for life drawing.
My main goal for 2025 was just to get back on my feet, get back to a state where drawing felt smooth again and not like rubbing sandpaper on my skin. It took some time. Roughly by July I was back to drawing pretty regularly and feeling more comfortable about it again! I still wasn’t pushing myself much and sadly I do think it shows (to meeee)
I’m not very happy with most of what I’ve drawn this year, not that I think I made bad pieces or haven’t improved from before, just I’ve been having a slowly growing feeling of disconnect from what I enjoy in art compared to what I’m drawing. I’m not resonating with my own art anymore.
These three last big pieces of the year I was drawing with those thoughts in mind, and while each are early in my latest experiments each touch on something closer to what I’m seeking to capture. They’re my current touch-points on ongoing experiments with style, plus I’ve been revisiting both old and new inspirations and trying to dissect and mimic what resonates with me in them.
Things currently on my mind to experiment more with include: desaturated color schemes, strong lighting, watercolor-esque layering, textures & screentone, clearer areas of focus in narrative pieces, painterly & looser brushstrokes, thinner lineart, and detail-heavy pieces.
Anyway, that’s all an internal conundrum on my own goals & desires. If my art has resonated with you in any way (if you’ve had a fav piece from the year perhaps?) I would love it SO much if you commented and let me know.
