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Each week, we interview a different artist and share their art and featured answers on our official Facebook page. This week's featured artist is Kate-FoX!
Artists often say that they feel that they "must create." Do you have a similar drive? What pulls you to continue to make art? Why is art important to you?
Drawing has always been my favorite pastime and entertainment. I just like to follow goals that I set myself, experiment and bring my ideas to life.
You have spoken in the past about the importance of "learning to learn." What have you found in your studies that allow you to identify important information? What is the most recent technique or aspect of your art that you worked on learning more about?
I try to try something new in almost every picture. It can be a new palette, brushes that I haven’t yet used, things that I have never painted before, some new software functions or even a completely different application (Realistic Paint Tool). For example, I still do not know all the Adobe Photoshop capabilities.
The last thing I experimented with were ways of making a beautiful star sky the way I see it in my mind, as well as how to properly fit my characters into this composition.
How do you make sure your artistic growth doesn't stagnate? What's the biggest change you've noticed in your work over the years?
I love learning and trying new things. I often change the style, approaches to art, composition, colors. After trying as many different approaches, tools, styles, software, etc. as possible, you will be able to form something original. Also, do not forget about your “visual experience”. It’s also important to know how to properly use references. “You are what you eat”, right?
You are writing a story that takes place in the world you illustrate. What challenges do you find in writing over illustrating? Do you often discover things through drawing explorations that you then write about or vice versa?
My main problem now is that I have a ton of ideas and nowhere near enough time. Having to put my energy into Patreon and the comics, I wasn’t able to do much writing. Previously, I would use that time to do research, and work on my story and world related articles. Nowadays writing the story itself is far from the top of my To-Do list.
Therefore, many of my illustrations are sketches for the future episodes of my story or even standalone “little art stories”. Showing a little story in a single picture is quite an interesting task. On top of that, I add my usual experiments, and so I grow further as an artist.
What tips would you give someone who is looking to create their own fictional world and OCs? What are some things to avoid?
This is a difficult question for me. I've made a lot of mistakes myself. If you paint around your world and OCs, then about 90% of people look at the picture in front of them, not the story behind it. It’s a good idea to focus attention on the original designs and distinctive features that will make your world and characters recognizable. It's the same with your style and presentation.
Have you ever suffered burnout from art? How did you recover or how do you avoid burnout in the first place?
I was lucky enough to avoid burnout. Drawing is wonderful and, as I said, it has always been entertaining and relaxing. As far as I can tell burnout is a sort of fatigue, and you could avoid it by balancing work and rest.
How has the internet and streaming shaped your perception of art? Does having an audience that looks forward to your art add pressure to your process?
The Internet allowed me to get into computer graphics. The very moment I found out about digital art, I wanted to try it for myself. There were no streams yet, and tutorials were very difficult to find. Now my entire visual base is formed thanks to the Internet. My audience is loyal, I don’t feel pressured by them and I’m very grateful for it.
See more of Kate-FoX's work in her DeviantArt gallery! In addition, Core Members can visit the Core Lounge this month to join her for an AMA and see her art in action in April's Creative Crate!
I just wanted to write a quick post here, to share some of my recent thoughts about Discord and how some clients use it as a way to avoid being reported on deviantart, furaffinity, etc, as well as to manipulate text in such a way that would support chargebacks in their favor.
I would encourage other artists to be careful of using discord to talk to clients during the commission process.
I want to encourage artists to communicate ONLY on whatever platform the client reached out to them on. If the client initially messaged your DA account, speak to them only on there. FA- only there, etc. It’s not nearly as convenient, but it is safer. I advise my fellow artists to NOT discuss commissions on discord, especially with new/unproven clients.
I've slowly been fading from using discord as a way to chat with clients about their orders, and now I am stopping altogether.
Using discord to discuss commissions, in my opinion, seems risky for both artists and clients. My perspective is mostly from the artist standpoint, so that's what I'm mainly going to speak on.
A few days ago, for the first time, I had a client extort me- trying to force me to continue doing art for him, even after the commission was completed. The exchange was entirely through discord.
A deceptive and manipulative client has a lot to gain by using discord as their way to communicate with an artist.
They:
1) can edit anything they've written
2) can delete anything they've written
3) have no association with their DA/FA accounts, while on discord, and can't be reported there
Volatile clients can manipulate the discord conversation via editing/deleting. They can gaslight an artist, and can change text to appear in their favor, if they wanted to chargeback an artist on paypal and get screenshots.
A client communicating on discord can, essentially, treat you in any way, and their DA/FA/etc accounts will still be safe. Discord seems like an invitation for these types of clients to run all over an artist and continue to get away with it.
Malicious clients like this will masquerade as polite and respectful when reaching out initially, only showing their true nature as the commission continues, or especially when any kind of confrontations/disagreements arise. So there’s not really a sure way to know if the person you’re about to take an order from is sociopathic. That's why I feel like it's safer to just communicate through DA/FA's noting system- at least with that, the client cant edit/delete text, and can be held accountable for their behavior on the site.
In my experience, discord is not a very safe platform for an artist to discuss commissions with clients on. It gives a client a lot of power, and the artist a lot of risk.
I’ll no longer be giving my discord out, and all future commission conversations will have to be done exclusively through FA or DA’s noting/chat process, sadly.
PLEASE be careful about taking commissions from unproven clients and conversing through discord! It could be a disaster for you, as it was for me.
Hi all! Ready for some free points? ^ω^
This is a special points spree in celebration of our sponsors & because we passed the mark of 700k pageviews! o(≧◇≦)o
Also thank you for the constant support and almost 30k llamas!
Brenda, why are you doing a special spree?
A: I am actually a lot happy that the project is growing again after the arrival of the eclipse. It was very difficult. I worked very hard to be able to organize things, define the new methods and the profile design. I had to attract new donors too. The tasks were not easy but I feel that I now have wonderful new people on my side now. And let's celebrate this with lots of points! ✿♥‿♥✿
HOW TO JOIN:
you must be watching me;
reward (watch/llama/fav/comments) the sponsors bellow that you like the artwork;
comment "done" in this journal once you reward at least 6 donors.
SPONSORS LIST:
DAVIDE76 (give him COMMENTS on his artwork only. He'd like to know how you feel about them. Favs and llamas are not necessary.
ᴥ Who are the sponsor? → incredible artists that recently also helped the project with points and paypal donations. if you are not in the list, you'll be in the next, don't worry ♥
ᴥ Want and get featured to my 20k watchers? Note me! ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ
ᴥ Join our current giveaway! you can get 1,500 points for free!
Thank you for joining my events!
-B
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I use my own resources and free time to provice this project in deviantart alone.
If you want the points giveaways and spree to keep happening,
please consider making a donation clicking in the button bellow:
Every donation gives you a special feature!
I'm putting oc organic models up for public use for SFM users! These can be used just like the FNAF models on the workshop. Recolor, port to VR chat, use in animations, whatever you'd like! Have fun!!! Download them here on MediaFire: https://www.mediafire.com/file/994pkc8qa7x9d83/My_Organic_OC_Models.rar/file
Omg everyone I feel threatened. Basically there is a Perv user named Tomgang who said some really nasty things about a drawing of a girl. You can see what his view is on women so I feel really threatened by him. His username is @Tomgang and now I feel like he is going to harass me. He never said anything yet but I can't help but feel threatened. Why am I making a big deal out of this you may ask? Its because he treats and talks of women as sex toys, objects he can just use anytime. Drawing or not, this is unacceptable. I hate how people treat women as objects. He is also a sexual predator, so people WATCH OUT! Right now I dont know what to do, and I need help. My life -_-