In The End, This Is The Design I Went With. I Have A Store Now, But Its Empty At The Moment Other Than

In the end, this is the design I went with. I have a store now, but it’s empty at the moment other than some shameless commercialism in the form of print-on-demand shirts. Soon it will have prints, dolls, figures, and other stuff. 

This is my shop.

Made these stickers for someone incredibly cool that I’m pretty dang fond of. I’m making them myself on my plotting cutter. Drawings in colored pencil.

Screen printed what is hopefully my last round of tests. #screenprinting #studiotime

Here’s a proper overview of what I am currently working on. The biggest things are sculptural ocular tripod creatures, the intended result of which you can see above, and a number of ball-jointed dolls; the dolls are currently in the planning stage. Outside of that, I have a couple of figurines, and some fanart projects for fun and to give me something to practice techniques or processes on. All in all, more updates as progress is made.

Bought a new sketchbook, one with watercolor paper. First time I've had one of those.

Something on my mind for all my students who follow my blog, and to anyone else who finds it meaningful:

Don’t let anyone else tell you what you have to like or care about. Don’t let other people determine your tastes for you. It doesn’t matter if it’s other artists or teachers or parents or people in places of authority. Your interests are your own. As a younger person, you’re often going to go up again the tastes, tendencies, cultural biases, and indoctrination of people, particularly older people, who believe that your youth means that you don’t know what “good taste” is. 

Your tastes develop over time, yes, as you deepen your interests and delve more thoroughly into the stuff that interests you. That’s the keyword there: YOU care about it. You are the up and coming taste-maker. It’s not your job to make art history categories for what you make; art historians went to school for a long time for that privilege. 

If you’re in a class or a program and you’re butting heads with teachers telling you that your interests are worthless, that’s hard. You have my sympathy. I’ve been there. You’re not getting the direction you need to really find your own footing. I promise you that it will get better if you don’t let yourself get discouraged and you make time to pursue your own interests away from the piercing eyes of insecure instructors. 

Your choices do not need to validate their choices. If you don’t want to go to grad school right out of college, don’t go to grad school. If you don’t want to be a portrait artist, don’t be a portrait artist. Make work in class to get by and in your own time, try to take what you’ve learned and apply it to what actually gets you excited. If you’re in a fine arts program and it feels like everyone around you hates illustration and comic books, but those are your lifeline to feeling a sense of joy, don’t let those people trample all over that. Make your own work and treat it like a quiet rebellion. 

Teachers are people too, and sometimes, they can be petty, judgemental, or closed-minded. Their authority doesn’t make them right.