November 2023

Hi there! I just wanted to reach out on how much of a creative inspiration you are to me. After finishing the Mighty Nein campaign, I stumbled upon your art and was immediately captivated by how beautifully you depicted Essek, Caleb, and the rest of the members. I haven't caught up on Jujutsu Kaisen, but I find your art for it incredibly stunning as well. I always find myself eagerly awaiting your next post. Thank you for sharing your breathtaking art with us and continuing to inspire me every day while I draw!

thank you! 🥺💜 i’m so happy to hear that my art has been able to inspire you in your own creativity!

hi I’m obsessed with your art, do you sell prints by any chance? Would love to put some on my wall lol

hi, thank you! 💜 currently i don’t sell prints due to how complicated the whole deal is logistically, but i might start again in the future!

goddammit tumblr immediately hid my latest post and then denied my appeal right after. god forbid a bitch posts some naked nipples

I just want to say your art is really pretty and I have a lot of it saved in a folder on my phone and when I’m feeling bad I look at it and I feel a little better and since I’m not good at complimenting I thought maybe this long run on sentence would maybe help get across how much I absolutely adore your art because like wow, that art is arting real good. It’s doing such a good job at being art.

i’m so glad to hear that my art makes you feel better even just a little bit, that’s a really big thing for me! thank you so much for messaging me 🥺

Just saw on your recent (awesome!) art that you think of drow as “bug elves”, what do you think of the God of War dark elves design?

no thoughts because i don’t know what god of war is, my apologies 🙈

(From the god of war ask) Sorry for not explaining! God of War is a video game series and the last two games have had dark elves with very insect-inspired designs, they even have bug wings.

ah i see! no apologies needed, i looked it up now that i’m not falling asleep 😂

re: your previous question, my thoughts are as follows: a) beautiful design, very scary and i love the wings and the horns and the cute bug feet, b) i think i need to clarify that when i say that i love dark elves (specifically the Kryn drow) being bug fairies i mean less them being insectoid in their anatomy and more insect-coded aesthetics-wise 😂 i know Matt described Kryn fashion as rather geometric in its design, but i latched onto the bug armor description the moment it was described as such, which was waaaay before tm9 came to the Dynasty and saw how people dressed there, so my brain is just filled with Kryn elves dressed in stuff inspired by, like, plants and mushrooms and lichen and bugs and stuff. rainbow beetle armor all the way, weird organic-looking architecture and furniture.

i would actually love to make cr elves more creaturely in my drawings, especially because it’s been driving me insane that Mr Matthew Mercer keeps saying stuff like you can tell that a humanoid is an elf by their skull or footprints alone, and elves have such distinct facial features that you do not need to see their pointy ears in order to identify them as elves, so much so that you don’t go ‘oh that’s just a delicate-looking twinky human’, you go 'ye that’s an elf’ ‼️ WHAT DO ELVES LOOK LIKE IN THE EXANDRIAN UNIVERSE, I NEED TO KNOW. do they have four toes on each foot and eyes on the sides of their heads like prey animals. anyway, i don’t make them creaturely in my drawings because i haven’t been able to come up with a design that looks good. i’ve tried a LOT. a lot of failed sketches.

sorry for rambling. god of war dark elves good

I love the way your lines capture the volume and gravity of the subject. It's so skillful.

thank you so much! 🥺 i really like playing with the line weight, i think it can convey a lot of physical properties, distance and motion

if i ever art the way you art after like a million years of practice then i can die happy knowing ive archieved godhood after you

ah i’m no god at all, just a lil guy that hyperfixates on something hard enough to draw tons of art for it and get better at drawing thanks to that 😂 thank you though! 💜

currently in my college’s rare book collections looking through a book of ancient russian fashions and thinking of your art :)

hehehe making slavic fashions popular. one step at a time

i greatly recommend looking up moravian folk costume too if you haven’t seen it! the dresses are some of my fav as far as slavic folk clothing is concerned. look at the collar on that first dress!!

Hello! I figure you closed your inprint for the payment issue, which is super understandable, but I was wondering if there was any other way now or in the future one might be able to buy prints of your work. Are you looking to move to another storefront? Or would you be open to allowing me to print one of your pieces at a business center in exchange for a boosty tip? Thanks so much - hope you're having a great day :)

hi hi! 💜

i don’t think i will be selling prints any time soon. there aren’t really any international print-on-demand services that i can use at the moment, and i’m wary of releasing high resolution files of my art into the wild. my apologies!

Do you start working on a white/grey canvas or do you start with on a coloured canvas? Your use of colour is so beautiful and fascinating!! I’m always trying to get better/push myself to use more creative colour schemes in pieces, and your art is always so inspirational.

hi, thank you so much! 💜

i always start with a colored canvas for my full-render pictures, it helps me set the mood and pull the color palette together. : )

ok your crit recap essek made me wonder! your expression work is STUNNING and it’s something i’m trying to train rn, do you have any tips on where to look for refs or how you get so much Feeling in those faces? (also totally ok if not i know sometimes this kind of stuff just spawns in from the ether and i have some stuff i’m already targeting for my practice)

aww thank you!

more often than not if i need to depict a very specific facial expression i just take a picture of myself making that expression and use it as a reference 🙈 exercising that acting muscle. there are also tons of models and photographers on deviantart who specially create references for artists and you can find a lot of good refs there, but it’s usually quicker to take a picture of my face so i don’t go the deviantart route that often haha (plus you can watch your own face in motion, and it often helps me to make the drawing less static). i do go hunting for other people’s faces though if the person i’m drawing has a facial structure that is very different from mine and i know that with this specific angle/expression my face would be useless as a reference. it’s usually the case when the expression is very extreme and significantly warps the facial muscles and skin! when using references i also try to pay attention to the fact that different people give different twists to even the simplest of expressions (muscle hypertension can change your smile drastically for example), so i try to make sure that i don’t put too much zmeess into the character i’m drawing haha. but tl;dr i just look at my own face a lot.

Hello! Just dropping by to say how much I enjoy your art. Your use of texture and color is exquisite, as is the way you evoke emotion and context with the poses/expressions of the characters. Essek's wardrobe is a continual delight. Thank you for sharing with us!

hi Ariadne, thank you for dropping this sweet ask in my inbox 🥺 it cheered me up so much! (made me want to draw some more fashionable Esseks and gave me motivation to continue working on my winter outfit redraw too!)

How did you learn to draw faces? Their so well constructed...

I've done studys, used references, followd lord know how many tutorials but Im still struggling hard... It's always good to learn from another artist if you have any advice

i’ve done the same things you have! learning the theory and the anatomy, using references, doing studies. as someone who has struggled with drawing faces since they learned how to hold a pencil, i think the best piece of advice i can give is to just continue drawing even if it feels like you’re not getting better. i’ve found that at least for me, theory and studying real people and references and other artists’ works helps and is essential to improving, but my brain still needs time to learn how to apply that knowledge and to develop the eye for what looks good and what doesn’t. i’m not sure i can recommend anything that you don’t already do, but i can say for certain that what has helped me most is just drawing a lot for many years and being patient with myself 🫶