#risky rambles

[kairisk]

Yooo what brushes do you use?!? They're so epic

Oh thank you! I don't make my own brushes;; but I have quite a collection! I'm happy to pay a little for the grit and shapes I want. The ones I use for my lunar year posters are these:

The Oil flat comes with Clip Studio, the main program I use but the other brushes are from Frenden's brush packs. I bought the complete pack for 15$ but the charcoal brushes are in the Pencil and Dry Media pack and the HAWLEY and Acrylic from his Paint and Wet Media pack. You can find them here Other than that, I have a good knowledge of animal anatomy so I'm throwing my lines into the contours of the bodies I sketch. That way I'm getting the taper and expression of the brush texture I want in one or two strokes. For sketching I just use the rough pencil that comes with the program usually, or this one:

from the Clip Asset Library, it was free I believe!

[bunnkick]

i’m trying my mcfreakin best

[kairisk]

Hi! You recommended cuushe a while ago and she's been one of my favorite music artists ever since. Do you have any songs or artists you've been in to lately?

Woah!! I'm so glad Cuushe ended up being a mainstay for you, she's still making killer stuff! Hmm hmm! I certainly do, here's a smattering of what I've been listening too:

Toro Y Moi is still a mainstay for me haha;; but I'm really liking Mk.gee and Terry Presume now? You by Mk.gee is also a great track ;o

[kairisk]

I'm a different anon, but I'm sorry to hear your audience fiddled out with the nsfw ban from years ago! Your art is absolutely gorgeous, and the way you present your ideas in them is so unique! Especially with the Chinese zodiac animals and the quotes you have for each of them!

Also, I'd like to ask how you started making art. I'm very interested to hear the personal journey of artists. Did you always like drawing animals, for instance? Did you go to art school or to a training of some kind, like ateliers? And do you make traditional art too, or is it all digital?

Oh thank you so much!! I do my best as I really want to just keep making art for as long as I'm alive. I'm really happy to hear you say it's gorgeous and unique ( ᵒ̴̶̷̥́ _ᵒ̴̶̷̣̥̀ ) Yeah it is unfortunate, but I still like being here and sharing art on here, so who ever is here to enjoy it, I'm glad! I only hope new people stick around and old ones come back, I've certainly missed getting to interact and chat like this! Oh how cool! I'm honoured ahahaha I'd love to answer these q's into my process and profession so far: I absolutely have always liked drawing animals. It started with dinosaurs, cats and dragons, I loved them all as a child, just their whole concept and how cool I thought they were! I wanted to get good at drawing so I could depict them and make my own designs, and in learning how to draw their anatomy (mostly big cats) my mom got me a book that had all sorts of animals in it and how they worked and how to render these forms. I devoured the book and I gained an interest in all animals through drawing and learning from it. From there I kinda just delved into researching whatever animal piqued my interest! Not to mention dragons (one of my prime interests) are amalgam creatures and so in my pursuit in being able to draw any kind of dragon, knowing a whole lot about different animals is a huge boon in designing them! I did, I actually went to a Fine Arts university as I originally was going to be a bonafide gallery artist and wanted to gain as much knowledge into different techniques and mediums and conceptualization as I could. I'm pretty poor but had stellar grades so Uni was a great option for me to get access to studio equipment and knowledge thanks to qualifying for scholarships and loans. It was like a pressure cooker for 4 years and I can only describe it as the best of times and the worst of times;; I have a Bachelor's Alma Cum Laude in Fine Arts. I do! Since I originally was going to be a physical installation artist, I know how to build and construct kinda whatever? I have a minor in sculpture and I've made something in almost every medium from paper to concrete to silicone to plasma cutting metal and more.

When I got out of Uni I unfortunately lost my access to a ton of this equipment and wasn't successful in finding a replacement studio due to the financial/location/funding cuts barriers. I kinda became disillusioned with the prospects in the art world at this time and realised this wasn't the only space where I could have a career as an artist. So I changed my focus to becoming an illustrator and character designer. I taught myself digital at the same time I was getting my degree, so I honed my skills from then to be up to snap for production level art. I'm currently art director for an indie game project rn doing exactly that! (Although this is one of three jobs I'm juggling atm, it's why I've been posting less these days, I'm quite busy ( ´ ◇｀)ゞ)

That being said I still make things occasionally at my house as I still like making physical things from scratch when I have the time/money to do so! I like making masks and small sculptures, examples of these being this mask and this keychain :3c I always thought that the medium should be chosen based on what best serves the idea in mind, but most of my art is digital due to the production costs for making this art being nearly zero (as long as I have my tablet and electricity!) and having greater access to offer my artistic services with digital media ;o

[kairisk]

Hello! I know people might have asked you already, but is there a possibility of you drawing the rest of other Chinese zodiac animals? Just curious. Thank you for these beautiful drawings :D

Absolutely, I plan on doing one each new year! I won't be churning them out all at once however as the way I do these is in reflection of the previous year and to have a message going into the new year. They don't have as much punch without that contemplation, what I want to think about going forward, and in the spirit of the current year's animal. That combo seems to give me the best results and resonate the most with not only myself but everyone who enjoys them? It's more fun for me that way too. Year of the Dragon will be next year and with dragons being my ultimate favourite animal I'm pretty excited! Please look forward to it and remember to embody the swift and clever rabbit for this year! I know I'm going to try >:3c Thank you for enjoying my work ;u; a lot goes into them behind the scenes

[kairisk]

KAI!! i still love ur work i hope youve been doing good c:

Mel!! Oh my goodness I hope you are well also! Ah I've had some tough plague years but at least mentally I'm doing much better! And I'm still making things I enjoy! Yippee (۶•౪•)۶

[kairisk]

I also hear you on the NSFW ban hitting hard, mind you I was already struggling on my side art blog and still am, but it was Felt. I'm super glad you are still posting though! I love seeing your work always and I'm very pumped whenever you're on my feed 💜

Oh god it hit everybody!! Every one of my mutuals (including you werewolfboy-jay my comrade) and I had a sharp decline in how much attention our art usually got, no matter whether or not they even made nsfw art. I personally think the sterilization of internet is terrible for everyone and freedom of expression is super important for friendly art hubs like tumblr esp! Like here you can tailor and blacklist solidly and people used to tag their stuff appropriately so nuthin I didn't want to see would show up! Now it's free reign no tags chaos AND so many people I liked left ;o; At least we got nudity back thank god, I've noticed a slow returning of people following that policy adjustment (and the whole Elon-induced twitter exodus;; )

[kairisk]

Whaaa??? You don't get tons of asks? Your stuff is so rad I just kinda assumed but if you don't mind... how do you come up w your color palette? They're so cool and poppy! And the shading/ texture of the pieces are so cool, is there any other artists or pieces that inspire you?

Yeah I doooon't, a lot of my audience left during the NSFW ban a few years ago (even tho I don't post nsfw art here??) and I never left! I kinda hate twitter and tumblr is the most tolerable social media imo. I just like it here best! Oh man I'm honestly thinking basic colour theory, primary colours esp tend to stick in the mind most and give a visual punch so I used those for the first little bit with a rich black being my silhouette. I changed things up this year having my main form (the rabbit) being the most colourful in the image. Because the posters are highly graphic in concept, I wanted to really limit my detail and colour options (hence the stick to the primary colours and overall maybe 3 colours tops). So simple palettes with high graphical effectiveness was my goal! It's hard to restrain myself for these as I'm usually a high detail painter and use a ton of colours haha;; I like old slavic advertisement sensibilities and definitely looked to those for my typeface, spacing and themes. I also just love animal anatomy, I think their flowing lines are the most fun to draw! I try not to look too much at other artists as I don't want to erase my initial ideas, I'm influenced easy and sometimes my first thought really is the best one for me? When I have an idea for an art piece, it's usually pretty clear in my mind already. I try to translate it best I can and then tweak and refine to what I think is the best ver it can be within my time and skill restraints. In general tho I love the work of Joy Ang, Joe Sparrow, SAPRO, jothelion and imugarou (although I can't find them anymore, idk their twitter handle and I can't find them anymore *sobs*)