I SOLD Something on DeviantART

Wow. First sale on DeviantART in two years (minus one month)

It was a print of this.



...I am currently 10c from getting a payout (my first and only payout). Ten. Cents.


Actually, my Zazzle and RedBubble offerings tend to be slightly more finished. The one on Zazzle has a customisable background colour, which is quite fun.

Firebird (Little Phoenix) by Flynn_the_Cat

The Unsuspecting Adoption and Subsequent Care of Websites

Don't feed it - you'll never get rid of it.


Sadly I didn't realise until too late that the old axiom about stray cats also applied to websites. Squidoo, DeviantART, Facebook, RedBubble, Zazzle - even little Twitter, perched on the shoulder of your browser. They all require care and feeding, constant attention and minions, bound into servitude.


Take Squidoo, for example.

For the first few months, I innocently tossed a few tidbits - fed it some content about art, got to know it and told it about myself. And then the affection started creeping in, as it responded to my attentions by arching its traffic levels higher and prodding me with comments and little responses. And then you teach it that first simple trick, and it obeys, producing your very own affiliate sale!

Squidoo is like a team of trained horses, all racing along.. until they trip over their own tentacles, flop over, and start squirming in all directions. A lot of learning is involved in corralling unruly lenses - but Squidoo has by far the greatest potential, when it comes to getting it to perform tricks for an audience.


DeviantART Is The Neediest



DeviantART is the sulky stray that ignores you, while you spend months holding out treats, throwing it scraps and begging it to come visit. you constantly count each glance it sends your way, agonising over the views on your page. And then, almost without realising, it decides to accept you through sheer inertia, and you find yourself overwhelmed with affection and neediness.

A complicated and unpredictable creature, you can never predict what it will prefer - the painting you laboured over for hours will be disdained, while the amusing sketch will be devoured with much purring.


Twitter is the Canary...although it grows into a vulture!


Ah Twitter. So welcoming, so easy to look after. The pet every new internet inhabitant picks up on a whim, to keep their other sites company. 140 characters is hardly a big commitment - a tiny little meal! But the more you feed it, the bigger it grows. And soon, you discover that it's lonely and failing to thrive - be warned. Twitter accounts naturally exist in flocks. A Twitter alone is a sad and miserable creature.

So you adopt another to complement it, and hook it up with some friends - and soon you have an entire flock of Twitters on your hands, to keep fed on fresh updates, entertained, and orderly. You have to watch out for the scavengers, the spam accounts, who exist to prey on the more innocent, and brainless, Twitters.

My Twitter  My DeviantART  My Squidoo

The Best Mother Gothel Fan Art

(so far)

DeviantART is one of my favourite places to go to when illustrating a lens - there's a wide range of images (usually!), some of it tends to be awesome, and I get to promote artists. So, naturally, that's what I did for the Mother Gothel page. So I got to see a lot of good art emerging. Enough that it's time to list my favourites.

I'll be entirely biased and list mine up first, out of the way,

Mother Gothel 

Rapunzel's So Mature Now 

Sketches

This is a beautiful colouring of one of the official concept sketches

Tangled painting practice 

by ~Dewii on deviantART

Sometimes sketches look better than coloured works - these all capture Mother Gothel wonderfully.

Gothel

by ~CenturyHaze on deviantART

Tangled - Character Portraits by ~ItoMaki on deviantART

Gothel and Rapunzel by ~kra on deviantART

Finished paintings

What I like about these three paintings is that not only are they 'good' art - recognisable characters, suitable colour choices, etcetera, but they all add an extra spin - Mother Gothel is doing something. They aren't just 'yet another character study/screenshot'

Tangled: Mother Knows Best 

by ~g0N3Morganna on deviantART

I can't hear you 

by *NorthernBanshee on deviantART

Mother knows best 

by ~LordAlphie on deviantART

And by FAR my favourite is this custom OOAK doll (the only really good Mother Gothel doll so far!) that I talked about previously

Mother Gothel OOAK Doll 

by ~ShannonCraven on deviantART

The Night Before Christmas/ Amazing Artist Feature

This starts off talking about The Night Before Christmas but finishes with lovely watercolour, pencil and cut-paper illustrations, so please bear with my rambling ;D

Written by Clement C Moore for his many children back in the eighteenth century, this seems to have had a hundred different books published for it - some are very jolly, and others are quite lovely picture books. I don't actually like 'jolly'.

I only vaguely knew of this poem-story, until last year I reviewed the really unique version illustrated by Himmapaan (very very amazing artist on DeviantART). It's definitely my favourite and has lots of tricky little details, such as mouses and windows in the paper.

Sadly, most of the visitors last year were looking for the much less artistic, but more suitable for children, Recordable Storybook version from Hallmark (which had sold out and was selling for up to five times the original price second hand *shakes head with the disbelief of one with no grandchildren*)

So today I am both posting up the lyrics (is it lyrics for a poem? Or just words?) so that I can stop looking for them and showing off some of his fine and fancy artworks.

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;
And mamma in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled down for a long winter's nap,
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.

Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below,
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer,

With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name;

"Now, Dasher! Now, Dancer! Now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! On Cupid! On, Donder and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!"

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky,
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too.

And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my hand, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.
He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack.

His eyes -- how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow;
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath;
He had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook, when he laughed like a bowlful of jelly.
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose;
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,

"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night."

The Top Ten Unique Night Before Christmas Books

The Night Before Christmas is a classic poem that children everywhere enjoy and adults remember with nostalgia., There are hundreds of children's storybooks available (and even a few for adults!) so where do you start? From pop-ups, to cut-outs, to r...

Right, good, splendid, and now for the pretties. Niroot Puttipipat is a painstakingly detailed artist with a lot more patience than me! Recently taking Bronze in the Books category of the Association of Illustrators' annual award: Images 34 - the Best of British Contemporary Illustration 2010 for this lovely artwork:

The Frog Princess, from Myths and Legends of Russia, published by The Folio Society.

Himmapaan works in detailed and intricate watercolours:

Quatrain 70 and Quatrain 74 from the 150th anniversary edition of Edward FitzGerald's translation of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, published by The Folio Society, in a limited (sold out) edition of 1,000 copies

Very detailed pencilwork in moleskines (must dig mine out again)

and of course, the cut-paper silhouettes.

This is a greeting card based off the final spread of The Night Before Christmas: A Magical Cut-Paper Edition (more images through link)

I recently bought a few of the prints that are actually available (most are commissions so can't be sold):

(I went on a buying spree of pretties - these were by far my mother's favourites!)

Most of Himmapaan's work is now exclusively for The Folio Society, but there are some illustrated books available:

That I've Reviewed on Squidoo (with pictures!)

The Musicians of Bremen - a beautifully illustrated version

The Musicians of Bremen is one of those fairly well known and classic fables from the Brothers Grimm, here retold and wonderfully illustrated by Niroot Puttapipat. If you know the story, then I must emphasise the beauty of the art. If you do not know...

The Night Before Christmas: A Magical Cut-Paper Edition

I discovered this book through the artist, Niroot Puttapipat - someone I personally consider a friend,and have watched in delight since I discovered their artwork on DeviantART. I am an enormous fan of their work, which also prompted me to start tryi...

That I've seen on Amazon:

The gorgeous Red Fairy Book, published by the Folio Society in 2008, has popped up on Amazon for only $225.



You can see the illustrations here in this gallery.

There are cheaper (un-illustrated) versions of The Red Fairy Book by Andrew Lang around, of course! And there are a few more books illustrated by Niroot Puttapipat around - I discovered that the dragon on the cover of a fantasy book by Charles Ashton that had been sitting on my shelf for ages was by Himmapaan!

This artist is definitely one of my inspirations/influences and has set me a benchmark to try and reach one day ^_^

How Mermaids Should Be Painted

Today I dropped back into DeviantART to have a quick look through the new pictures in my inbox (currently around 10,000, if you cared!). Anyway, this utterly gorgeous and enthrallingly realistic mermaid was submitted to the mermaids club I started up (for fun, mostly, I'm a very hands off moderator...). And having dissected a fair few fish in my last few years (marine biology geek ;D ) it's something that often bugs me and I really appreciate coming across.




This is how mermaids should be painted. This is fantastic. You can actually see how stiff and shiny the tail fin really is on a fish, and the shiny sparkling scales and the salmonid colours. I could nitpick on the lack of anal or dorsal fins, or an underbelly or ... but it would be just that. Nitpicking. (And ugh, now I'm reminded of the sealice that tend to spread via salmon farms onto the wild fish - two or three of those monsters are enough to kill a fish. I just finished my latest Aquaculture paper...)

The seaweed is also a really nice touch. I think those are trout, but they might be salmon (both migrate to and from the ocean - which way, catadromous or anadromous, depends on the actual species). They're pretty similar anyway!

Which reminds me, the results from the FDA review in America on the transgenic salmon should be out soon. I had to Research on the topic for one presentation ;D Lots of nasty environmental implications if when they escape. They bred some monsters (size of a person) but the effects of that much growth hormone had too many other negative effects - cranial and organ disformities, aggression, higher activity (and therefore higher feed costs), reduced reproductive activity and success... Yeah. Aquaculture is currently not the Way of the Future. Especially as there aren't enough fish to create enough fishmeal to feed all the farmed fish even now.

...way off topic there. I mean, NO. IT WAS FISHY. Anyway, I was disappointed in that the artist (Maryumi) didn't have a Zazzle account , so I couldn't add the painting to my mermaid posters page.

(belatedly) Also, the one thing that drives me nuts and I forget about, and this picture also didn't do - fish do not have knees. I keep seeing all these paintings that have basically taken a woman and painted a tail over her legs. It looks so wrong - it's not optimal for swimming! If you can't get your head around fish, then look at dolphins - most mermaids are closer to the shape of a dolphin anyway.

Muro-Glare

Random drawing in the DeviantART Muro comment picture tool. It's annoying, but easier to use with a tablet...

Hanging Around... Quick Sketch

This popped up in the DeviantART daily deviations today and I decided to quickly sketch it - so I opened up ArtRage (2.5 - I prefer it to the new version just for the pencil work) and shrank the drawing area so that I could see the browser as well, and did a five minute sketch which actually kinda worked. Head's too big though :D




Back to user education in libraries now... I have a massive assignment and an exam both on Wednesday.

Armageddon Ends: Day 3

Monday was officially cosplasy day, and I saw a lot of fantastic ones. Didn't recognise most of them, of course, but they were impressive and I kept wanting to ask people to pose for photos, but didn't dare >.>

I bought a skeleton Unicorn t-shirt off Murk for $25 - I spent most of the con wandering past him/saying hi as he wandered past me and going "...oh, I have to buy your t-shirt. Oh, I have no money on me. Make sure I buy the t-shirt". Anyway, I wore it to work tod...uh, yesterday (it's 5am! >.> danged flatmate talking to me and making me watch awesome internet stuff. And many curses and boils on the internet connection which went down on us all). It's not as soft and shiny as my more costly RedBubble shirts, but it's very thick and sturdy (I only care/notice because I'm analysing t-shirt printing right now :D ...and because I'm going to get to hot. I hate summer). Anyway, I wore it to work; my mother went into "What! You can't wear THAT, it's not appropriate!" mode (she plays the role of the fashion-conscience in my life, because I'll go to work in almost anything), but I checked with my boss, who said it was fine, I just looked like a student (yus, camouflaged! ...sadly I failed to either be hidden or scare anyone off - the printing network was down and we had the one non-network, working printer hooked up to one of the desk computers, during assignment-pre-exam period. I was on my feet for hours, and we had at least two people on desk the whole time *collapses*)

Murk came past at one point doing random miming, which was amusing - he was, of course, wearing his Mime Field shirt. He also had a very cool tie.

These guys were next to us on one side (and I enjoyed looking at the pictures on the wall but was too shy to actually look at their stall in front of them), and on the other were some people (or a person with helpers?) selling resin (? or plastic) jewellery - necklaces and earrings and pendants and stuff on very very shiny chains, which were all game desings - Pacman and the Mario mushrooms and such. They were selling very, very well.

Oh, and one of the highlights of the event - or it would have been, if I hadn't only been present for the warm-up and missed the main event, was Thomas the Musician coming and live-rickrolling us after his demonstration music player died - so we got a serenade on his guitar at oru stall, which we got to sing along to, which was AWESOME. And then he apparently was playing pied piper to a large group of cospayers (internet people *shakes head sadly...*) which I missed (I did say 'go find cosplayers' but I think he was doing that anyway, so I can't even claim reflected glory :D but I was already amused about it before hearing it actually happened). Oh. Yeah. He makes music.

The DrawFest stall looked really professional - the cardboard-backed posters in the box made me want to buy stuff, even though I was already going to (see yesterday's post for the shinies)/looking for my own poster to grab for my sister. HUGE props to Murk for that. And all the walls were covered neatly and with many colours. The Robot Unicorn poster was amusing - the sort of thing I'd want to buy for the flat poster collection or give to Archmage for the fun of it XD


Uhhhm, did a whole post on Georges Jeanty already, didn't mention that he was friendly and I'd have enjoyed tlaking to him more, except that I didn't really have much to say and didn't want to monopolise him with boredom. Also was restraining the "OMG I DRAW TOO COME LOOK AT MY STALL" that was trying to get out ;D But then, I want to do that to everyone I meet at Armageddon. Just, I know most people won't be interested, and the famous artist people probably get it a lot. But when I went back, some lovely lady with a gold pass had bought some of my prints, and came back to get them signed. Luckily I have figured out how to have a consistent signature by now >.>

Oh, misc bits and pieces: TPP had a space elf cosplay the first day (the fake ears were apparently annoying) and now I want to watch Star Trek. Also I had candy-floss both Saturday and Sunday :D And then I couldn't face the sugar on Monday and had to break the burgeoning tradition. Stopped by Bria's 501st stall a few times, and scored a free fizzy-tablet-drink. Which should be avoided if it has not completely dissolved.




Sales...
Apparently really good towards the front, but as you got into the second and last main rooms, there were more complaints of people just not buying. It was a lot bigger, by number of stalls this year, and the wrestling wasn't hidden up the end for some reason, like it was last year. But I got a lot of people looking, then either saying they had no money (if I emerged from behind the stall and t-shirt and pictures enough for them to know I was there XD ) or went 'awesome' and walked away. One girl was showing her friend something she bought off me last year, so I got to internally squee at being a) remembered and b) worth pointing out. Also, the one who bought my Careless (phoenix) picture also made me happy and was fun to talk to.

Being squashed three on a stall was a majorly bad idea - I made about $120 from little prints from my small folder over the entire weekend, but I had no room to put my larger folders out at all. And my stickers were squashed around the edges of everything. Actually really, really glad I decided to leave posters in the hands of Murk on the Drawfest stall (that and I still haven't figured out easy/affordable/quality printing for posters).

On my posters; looks like Mystic, Buffy, Firelight and Suddenly sold out, and I gave the last Tui one away to one of my flatmates. And the Alice Inverted poster I had to do for my sister (for her friend) was actually surprisingly popular (I only printed it to get the cheap poster printing. And to see what happened. But I actually sold three posters and a small print and there were more people going "ooooh, oh, I have no money". Also.... FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFfffffffffff. Just realised I printed the first version, which had the YinYang symbol around the wrong way and I spent ages fixing. Also most annoyed with self about some of the URLs - some just weren't as nicely corner-blended as I meant, and the worst culprit, Balance, had a huge one running down the hair that I'd somehow completely missed (and I DO have a good print file for that, I must have mixed them up). Ah well, makes an awesomely eye-catching promo poster.

Zazzle Posters of the above mentioned

Slightly sad, as I wanted a copy of Mystic for myself ;D and Murk was being all paranoid and trying not to get my hopes up (and worried me a bit, then handed me a pile of posters at the end half the size of what I expected and I stood there like an idiot for a little while waiting for the rest) so I thought I'd have one of everything, at the least, left over, so I'd already planned what to do with it! Not that this is bad news. It just threw me and then I had to count posters. I like counting things... >.>

I estimate that I came out roughly even, or possibly slightly profiting (that is... maybe $5, maybe $50, but probably $7.30 XD ) but that's waiting on Murk to recover and get the printing bill before I'm allowed to annoy everyone around me be cavorting and proclaiming that I won! Or possibly moping and strategising for next time <.<

T-Shirts: Some people really liked them, and a few of my website paper things vanished, but not enough that I expect anything to come of it. Unfortunately, they weren't in common sizes - but the designs seem to have been the best I could have picked. I'm probably better off using them as displays and trying to drive traffic to the RedBubble store - it would cost people the same either way, give or take a couple of dollars, and then they can choose their actual size and the style and design they want. And in the meantime, I'll try and find a better/cheaper/acceptable local printer. And then maybe chase after the markets...

Also, turns out that not only does my brother actually like the one he picked out a few months back, but my dad wants one with exactly the same cat on. His credentials as a cat-hater are forever destroyed.

Energy crashed around midday and I drooped everywhere for the next three or four hours, then went into so-tired-I'm-slightly-hyper mode. I think I was miserable (i.e. just standing and sucking all the energy out of the world in exhaustion) at Drake of the Ninjet stand, in passing *beams telepathic apologies*. And I wanted to fall asleep in a corner. And got bored because I ran out of stuff to do. Aaaaaaand too many people for too many days. I need at least a couple of hours alone each day to stay sane. Came home and fell asleep for nearly the next day and a half (well, got up at 7am for a couple of hours then went back to bed). Was smothered by the cat who couldn't believe I'd left her alone.

The NZ comics stand - I didn't look much, but I heard a lot of people were impressed with the improved offerings this year. Was actually trying to get long shot down to the Drawfest stall, but people kept getting in the way.

The DrawFest stall - serious awesome this year and I was very, very impressed by how professionally it was put together (I suspect Murk gets 90% of the credit, but on the off-chance that someone I don't know anything about contributed blood, sweat and pixie dust, I'm leaving it open ^_^ )

Cute free paper drawings from ThePlanPony; a fox of awesome (because 'it looks like a fox'!) and a snakey, pearly, unicorn-dragon-pokemon. I grabbed one for me and one for my flatmate, who took the fox because 'the other one looks like some kind of Pokemon' :D

AAARGH. This was an awesome sketch, and I was very proud of both the likenesses and the composition (referenced of the Serenity DVD while watching it) but the watercolour paper kept eating my soft prismacolor pencil leads and spoilt it. I didn't want to borrow anymore of Arkillian's 'hard' Faber castells, because I'd been doing that all day.

I think I'll try painting over it. (For non-Firefly fans, that's River in the foreground, Inara in the background, and one of River's Reaver-axes - that she's actually holding - in the backdrop. See poster for original reference.

Sketched this on Sunday evening from references, then tidied and coloured on Monday. I like the gold and grey effect, but it looks unfinished... meh :D

Princess Leia - another sketch that I coloured with Prismacolours at the stall on Monday (on computer paper, which wasn't so soft that it ate all my leads!). She has green eyes, because Bria kept complaining that my Slave Leias were wrong, because apparently all Slave Leias must now be of her, and she screwed with my head to the point where I couldn't colour the eyes blue and then made them brown by mistake. And then greened them somewhat. Also, I hate tiny braids!

Random kitty, vaguely Ninjet inspired, with a mouse-balloon. Started colouring, then realised I could have made him a Siamese, but it was too late, I'd added too much black. Officially the weirdest cat I've ever drawn.

Tiny tui I drew and cut out - gave it to my mother as a souvenir.

Day One
Day Two
Georges Jeanty

I have more photos, slowly going through. Nobly resisting the temptation to post Bria's awesome derp face I captured :D Feel free to leave links/mention things I missed, so I can add to the list here.


More Reports:
Auckland Armageddon Summary - Drawfest, by Murk, DeviantART
Day one and Days two and three photos and updates - Xephia on DeviantART