Can we as a community agree that “I made an art (ten seconds pass) now I fuckin hate it” comics aren’t funny and are in fact detrimental to artists? I had a teacher that told us constantly that if you don’t care about your work, why should I? These comics (that have been done again and a-fucking-gain) took something that’s just an Artist Feel™ and perpetuated it into rampant self deprecation in artists for not only their work but their abilities as well.

People who haven’t been drawing for long know that their work isn’t as good as someone who’s been drawing for a long time, and it’s so difficult to get it into their heads that they shouldn’t open with “I did this thing and it’s awful” because that makes others dislike it. I have a friend who started drawing only recently and every time he showed me a drawing, he would open with “I did this and it’s awful” and I, as much as I wanted to help him improve, didn’t want to look at it or critique him because of that immediate negativity. Once I told him that shitting on the art before anyone else can form an opinion is detrimental to not only the view of the person he’s showing it to, but also his OWN view, he stopped doing it, and I actually saw an immediate and marked improvement in his work. Hell, he posted something recently with the comment “I’m learning! :D” and the work was FAR beyond what I’d seen him doing previously.

So please. PLEASE. Can we all agree that those comics, despite their original #relatablecontent, just aren’t fucking funny anymore and are doing literally zero good for the art community as a whole?

That rant out of the way, I know it takes a lot of effort to see the good in your creations when you’re so used to the negative feelings about it. It’s so difficult to break yourself out of that mentality, but please, for your own sake, try. Just remember that before you put pen to paper, stylus to screen, hand to keyboard, thread to needle, whatever your tools, before you started, it didn’t exist. Now it does. You’ve created something, and that’s amazing, and you should be proud. I’m proud of you. Keep going <3

Just got home from my graduation ceremony, and I’m officially now a holder of my Bachelor of Science in Illustration. I even got a gold tassel to honour that I achieved the highest honour roll 4.0 GPA.

I...I really don’t know what to say or how to feel right now. I’m currently an emotional wreck but I don’t feel capable of really showing the emotions I feel.

So what’s next? Well, I’m taking a week off. I’m taking a week off to do nothing for the first time in four long fucking years. After that week, I’m open for commissions full time again, and this time, I’ll be able to devote the time necessary to you guys that you really deserve, rather than just getting things done when I can. I have a current queue of three items, and those are first on my list, but after that, I’m all yours for whatever you want. :)

Just got home from my graduation ceremony, and I’m officially now a holder of my Bachelor of Science in Illustration. I even got a gold tassel to honour that I achieved the highest honour roll 4.0 GPA.

I...I really don’t know what to say or how to feel right now. I’m currently an emotional wreck but I don’t feel capable of really showing the emotions I feel.

So what’s next? Well, I’m taking a week off. I’m taking a week off to do nothing for the first time in four long fucking years. After that week, I’m open for commissions full time again, and this time, I’ll be able to devote the time necessary to you guys that you really deserve, rather than just getting things done when I can. I have a current queue of three items, and those are first on my list, but after that, I’m all yours for whatever you want. :)

(HINT HINT)

What are some funny things you would want to hear Rytlock Brimstone say?

So I didn’t win best portfolio, and I’m fine with that. I didn’t expect it, honestly, because so much of the work I have been able to do outside of class projects has been...let’s just say not applicable (it’s been porn for you guys). However, one of my best friends won best portfolio, and I’m beyond happy for him. He absolutely earned it, and I would feel robbed on his behalf if he didn’t.

But here I am. I made it. Four years of pain, misery, excitement, joy, hardship, suffering, elation, success, failure, and the hardest I’ve ever worked in my fucking life, and I’m here, and in 9 days, I take the biggest step of my life in my graduation walk.

After that, I take an even bigger step and build something else to be just as proud of. It’s not the end of the book, only the end of the chapter.

So there's a good reason for the lack of art lately, and that's because I'm graduating in...11 days. I'm also in a couple of classes that aren't even related to my major just so I can get the required credit amount for graduation. Because they're classes that I have zero education in, I'm actually close to failing one of them because the teacher is fucking garbage and expected all of his students to know shit like they're actually in that major, which is fucking stupid and horse shit. So that's going on, and I'm putting as much time as I can afford into that.

On top of that, my tattoo got infected, so right now I'm on heavy antibiotics that are making me feel like a bucket of asses, which is making it SUPER difficult to even focus on the work that I need to do in order to salvage this grade, let alone actually get it done.

So my plan right now is to just focus on the things that I need to get done in order to graduate, and then I'm taking a week off to do literally nothing because I haven't had an actual vacation in four fucking years. After that, it's back to commissions as normal, and now I'll actually be able to work on them full time and get things done, and done well, in a timely manner! :D

I got some very helpful advice from a friend and decided to do another take of this and also figured I should include a little information about Kraest as well as the script.

So, the very basic tl;dr for Kraest is that he was an angel, and he fell in the middle ages and became immediately obsessed with the medical practices of the age, particularly surgery. His abilities as an angel were to heal, and once he fell, his abilities were no longer capped by God, and he was able to heal things to death.



The script:

“Alright, this is how this is going to go. I’m going to open your chest and see how you work. Unfortunately for you, I need you to tell me what you feel, so I need you awake.

Gentlemen, I give you…the human heart. So fragile, and so small. This insignificant piece of stringy flesh and tissue is all that keeps your head in the air and your feet on the ground. Without it, you are little else but feculence and decomposition with sad kin left behind. How long can you live without it? What if I gave it a little squeeze? Pressed my thumb into it and didn’t let up?

What force keeps you tied to this mortal plane? What tethers you inside this shell of meat and bone? And what feeble touch would be enough to sever that leash?

Now tell me…How alive do you really feel?”

So there's that Fursona Voice meme going around on Twitter, and someone told me that the only person who would be perfect for Kraest's voice would be me, so I did the thing. :3

Well, that's a good question you're asking, imaginary projection I seem to be conversing with!

The answer is quite simple! It's back to regular commissions for me! The price list is the same as it's always been, and I operate through Commiss.io now!

Important note: art is currently my only job, as I'm approaching my graduation and getting a new job is honestly far too stressful and time consuming around six classes and the workload that comes with it.

Come on by and drop me a line! https://commiss.io/kraest

Commission Price Guide

BEFORE COMMISSIONING ME
You must read and agree to the TERMS OF SERVICE

Sketches - $30
[SFW EXAMPLE] [NSFW EXAMPLE]
Linework - $35
[SFW EXAMPLE] [NSFW EXAMPLE]
Flat colours - $40
[SFW EXAMPLE] [NSFW EXAMPLE]
Backgrounds - $50-80*
[SFW EXAMPLE] [NSFW EXAMPLE]
[SFW EXAMPLE] [NSFW EXAMPLE]
Ref sheets - $80-100*
[SFW EXAMPLE] [NSFW EXAMPLE]

Extra characters - $5-15*
Excessive clothing/armour/design - $10-20*
Multiple versions - $10-20*

Important note - The first three edits to the sketch are free. The fourth is $5. Each after that are $10 each!
The first major edit to the linework is $5, and each after are $10 
SO MAKE THEM COUNT

_{*Prices are subject to the content of the piece, i.e., more detail=higher cost, less detail=lower cost}

Subjects I won't do:
Straight NSFW pieces
Intersex (herm) characters
Fat Furs
Inflation
Hypnosis
Baby Furs
Scat
Watersports
Vore (of any kind)
Anything involving foot/paw worship
Anything drug related
Copyrighted characters
Snuff of any sort (implied as well)
Feral

There's currently not a single person in my queue for Iron Inktober and I have nothing to draw!

All information can be found here: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/8892031/

I'm sure y'all have noticed from the recent submissions, but this year I am finally and fully committed to doing Inktober!

BUT THERE'S A TWIST! ^{*m night shyamalan's ghost floats by*}

Each day that I do is done as a commission! Since I no longer have my job in the library and am taking 6 classes in order to graduate before my school closes means I just don't have time to look for a job, so this right now is literally my only income, and paying rent is nice. So is eating, if I'm honest. >.>'

Oh yeah, that whole discount thing? The finished pieces are all inked (obviously) with flat grey tones, which are usually $40, but these are being offered at a $10 discount! :3

ANYWAY! Here's the journal with all of the information you need! Go check it out and throw your prompts at me and you'll have it on the day that corresponds with your number on the list at the bottom of the journal! 8D

http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/8892031
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/8892031
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/8892031
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/8892031

I honestly fucking hate the traditional vs digital art divide and the elitists who make each one exclusionary against the other. Neither is easier than the other, and comparing them, while not as close to the apples and oranges arguments as I’d like for this topic, may as well be close enough. There are things you can to with traditional art that you can’t do with digital art, and vice versa. There are tons of people who are intensely skilled in one who have never once touched the other, and even people intensely skilled in one who are absolute garbage fires at the other, just because they are intensely different worlds. However, there are also people, myself included, who breach both worlds and do just fine with both. Despite being adept with both, I can’t say which one is easier, I can just say which one I have a preference for, and that’s digital. It doesn’t waste paper or use up my pens, and it doesn’t leave a mess behind for me to clean up afterward.

Despite their differences, they go hand in hand like strawberries and cream. Do you know how I learned to be a digital artist? I applied what I learned from traditional art. How did I learn to be a traditional painter? I applied what I learned from digital art. I practiced my digital art by sketching traditionally and finishing it digitally. I practiced my traditional art by drawing and painting all on one layer digitally. Doing these things made me a more rounded artist, and for that I’m thankful.

Because I can recognise this, though, it makes me bitterly angry when I see people shitting on digital artists for doing Inktober digitally. I’m not doing Inktober digitally because it’s easier, it’s because I know that there’s no fucking difference between doing traditionally or digitally, you still end up with art in the end, which brings me to my final point, which is the simple choice of wording in “traditional” and “digital”.

To say that something is “traditional” is to imply that it’s the “normal” way of doing it. To say that there’s the “traditional” way juxtaposed to anything else implies that the other option is “not normal”. As I’ve stated, there are artists who do things one way having never once touched the other. Take a look at one artist on YouTube, Borodante. He’s a digital painter by profession, and recently reached 100,000 subscribers, and to celebrate, he did his first painting with real paint. He spent the entire video lamenting how he had no idea what he was doing, but consider that using “traditional” methods is not “traditional” for him. His “traditional”, his “normal” way is digital painting. I’m not saying this to try to cry that “artistic methods are a social construct” or anything like that, what I’m saying is that everyone has their method, and if it’s not yours, who are you to judge?

So if you’re going to sit back and deny digital artists the satisfaction of doing Inktober digitally, here’s an idea that’s truly groundbreaking in its simplicity: don’t.

WELCOME to the single largest project I’ve ever undertaken as an artist!

Due to the library shutting down and no longer having a steady stream of income, I suddenly have a lot more hours per week that I can spend on art, and I’d like to celebrate by doing a giant project FOR YOU! :D

The basic idea is this: these will be $30 commissions, and what I want from you is for you to pick a word from one of the lists below (the official lists from 2016 to present, please tell me which lost, just for ease on my part), give a few extra of your own words and a reference, and then I have complete creative freedom from there. You should also specify if you'd like them SFW or NSFW, or if either is fine.

Note:
These will still follow my commission guidelines, which are available on my profile. References supplied must be image only, no text references. Also, when I say a few of your own words, I mean only a few. Don’t tell me every detail you want, just give me a couple extra words for a good starting off point.

I’ll also being doing these prompts only once, so once one is taken, it’s taken, and no one else can use it. These prompts will be striked out, so it’ll look like this:

1. Prompt not yet taken
2. Prompt taken already

TO THE LISTS

List 1
1. Fast
2. Noisy
3. Collect
4. Hungry
5. Sad
6. Hidden
7. Lost
8. Rock
9. Broken
10. Jump
11. Transport
12. Worried
13. Scared
14. Tree
15. Relax
16. Wet
17. Battle
18. Escape
19. Flight
20. Squeeze
21. Big
22. Little
23. Slow
24. One dozen
25. Tired
26. Box
27. Creepy
28. Burn
29. Surprise
30. Wreck
31. Fiend (changed from friend because why not)

List 2
1. Swift
2. Divided
3. Poison
4. Underwater
5. Long
6. Sword
7. Shy
8. Crooked
9. Screech
10. Gigantic
11. Run
12. Shattered
13. Teeming
14. Fierce
15. Mysterious
16. Fat
17. Graceful
18. Filthy
19. Cloud
20. Deep
21. Furious
22. Trail
23. Juicy
24. Blind
25. Ship
26. Squeak
27. Climb
28. Fall
29. United
30. Found
31. Mask

List 3
1. Poisonous
2. Tranquil
3. Roasted
4. Spell
5. Chicken
6. Drooling
7. Exhausted
8. Star
9. Precious
10. Flowing
11. Cruel
12. Whale
13. Guarded
14. Clock
15. Weak
16. Angular
17. Swollen
18. Bottle
19. Scorched
20. Breakable
21. Drain
22. Expensive
23. Muddy
24. Chop
25. Prickly
26. Stretch
27. Thunder
28. Gift
29. Double
30. Jolt
31. Slice

SLOTS TAKEN
1. goodmoon
2. ryoken
3. ryoken
4. thatguyfitz
5. jaxa
6. khral
7. addotrail
8. goodmoon
9. wanderer-of-time
10. datsecret
11. chemdragon
12. enigma530
13. anjimcdohl
14. cimmaronspirit11
15.
16.
17. Dragonnology
18. Dragonnology
19. Pigminted
20. drenton
21. goodmoon
22. goodmoon
23. jaxa
24. atharen
25. toreg13
26. fenryk
27. rotovirus
28.
29. Avergrove
30. Avergrove
31. free8wolfie

GOOD LUCK!!!

...NEXT TUESDAY When I lose my job...

_{at time of writing, “next Tuesday” is September 11th}.

I’ll be operating through Commiss.io, which also gives you the option of supporting me monthly as well! Check it out here! https://commiss.io/kraest

So, what brought this about? Well, as mentioned, next Tuesday is my last day at work in the library, which absolutely kills me because it’s honestly the best job I’ve ever had and I legit cried when I got my 60 day notice. I knew it would have to come to an end since only students can be student workers, but I never dreamed in a million years that it would come to an end via my school shutting down and me getting laid off. In the two and a half years I’ve worked here, I never once dreamed of finding another job because I didn’t like what I was doing in the library.

However, I am still a student, and I’m set up for six classes this term and next in order to graduate before my school is torn down and turned into a dog park, which means that I won’t have the time for a regular job in order to sustain me and to pay my rent and feed myself, so I’m aiming to take the time that I would be working and turn that into commission work time. Without the extra 15-20 hours per week in the library, that’s a lot more time to spend on art that I’m honestly excited to get into! I went into this school wanting to make my craft into my living, and this seems to be the option I’ve been forced into, albeit a little earlier than expected.

So please, view my wares, consider a purchase, and please consider a monthly subscription as well!

https://commiss.io/kraest
https://commiss.io/kraest
https://commiss.io/kraest
https://commiss.io/kraest

IF YOU ARE GOING TO READ THIS AND THINK THAT I MEAN THAT SUFFERING IS GOOD FOR YOUR ART, PLEASE READ EXTREMELY CAREFULLY ALL OF THE PLACES WHERE I EXPLICITLY STATE THAT STRUGGLING DOES NOT EQUAL SUFFERING.

A thought in regards to the petty drama I've seen all night due to what was stated by Noah Bradley: Struggle is not suffering, struggle is a challenge and nothing more. Struggle is good for your art because if you're struggling, it means that you have more to learn. Embrace it. I've turned my struggles with my art into a game: whenever I'm complacent with my process and struggling to get to the next step of my progress, I remove a part of the process and see how far I can get without that step.

Here's what my process used to be:
Sketch
Inks
Flat color
Shading
Highlights
Textures
Brightness/contrast

Here's my process now after playing that struggle game:

Color.

That's it. Nothing else. I put down color and create until it's done, and it's thanks to my struggle.

How long did it take me to get to this point where I can reliably do this? Years. Over a decade. Over a decade of, yes, struggle. It has been painful, I have cried, I have considered giving up so many times, I've resigned myself to never making anything worth a damn. But you know what I did? I pushed on. I struggled. I fought. I embraced the pain I felt and recognised it for what it was: directions on how to improve. What do I hate? Why? How do I fix it? Good. Now what's next? I've said for years that if you're not experimenting with every piece you draw, then you are a failed artist. That experiment is the struggle to improve. It is a fight and anyone who pulls that namby-pamby bullshit about art being easy is a fucking moron.

Art is fucking hard. You want to do it professionally? Deal with it. Get better, or get left behind.

Thanks to making sure I had shit for my school that’s shutting down and leaving everyone scrambling, I’m overdrawn on my account by almost $100. I have even less time for commissions than usual due to 6 classes but if you want to help, you can donate here: https://www.paypal.me/kraest

How things currently stand:

My school is shutting down. That much we know.

They’re going to start the mass layoffs in August, but it may take until December.

The current plan is to have the entire school shut down by the end of the year.

What this means for me:

I most likely will not be able to graduate because my graduation date was set for March 2019.

Art institute credits do not transfer to other schools.

If art institute credits did transfer to other schools, the closest school with a reputable illustration program is 9 hours away, and their illustration degree is a Bachelor of Arts, whereas mine is a Bachelor of Science, so the credits still wouldn’t transfer.

If I could take an extra two classes for the next two terms, I could graduate a term early. This, however, would mean that I would have to quit my job, since I work for the school library and would then be taking classes during the hours that the library is open.

If I quit my job, I can’t pay rent, and the other people in my apartment absolutely cannot cover what I would be lacking there and we’d lose the apartment.

I SWEAR TO FUCKING GOD, THEY HAD BETTER GIVE ME MY DIPLOMA. I DIDN'T BUST MY ASS FOR FOUR FUCKING YEARS AND MISS MY OWN FATHER'S FUNERAL BECAUSE I COULDN'T AFFORD TO MISS MY FUCKING CLASSES TO GET SHOT IN THE FUCKING KNEE JUST BEFORE CROSSING THE FUCKING FINISH LINE.

So I have no idea how many of you who have commissioned me have actually read MY TOS, but I just want to clarify some things in it in case it's...too dense of a legalese mishmash which is totally understandable.

BASICALLY: You (specifically YOU) have the right to post it and use it as advertisement for your stuff, or as a book/album cover (so long as it's credited) etc, but I retain all copyright to the art. Not your character, just the art. This means I can do anything I want with it aside from transfer the rights to someone else. This does include using the art for sale of prints and such.

A while back, I found that art that I had done for someone was edited and used without my permission as cover art for a story and no credit was given as to who did the art, and obviously as the person who spent days on the work, that greatly upset me, so there's a tenant there that any usage outside of the intended use must be discussed between us. I'll probably say yes, much like if someone asks if they can post my work to a Tumblr or Twitter page I'll probably say yes so long as it's credited, so this is just a way for me to know what happens to the works I create more than anything else, rather than being a dictator over it. I just wanna be in the loop with my shit, basically. XD

KEEP IN MIND: A CONTRACT IS AN EVER CHANGING AMOEBA AND IF YOU'RE NOT HAPPY WITH ANY PART OF IT, WE CAN DISCUSS HOW IT CAN BE CHANGED.

So I’ve got three weeks off, which means I can finally do some work again! I don’t know if I’ll start them today, but I’ll definitely be at it tomorrow.

HOWEVER - I kind of feel like doing something a little bit different this time. I think I want to try some experimental pieces that are less structured than the usual sketch commissions and involve more colour and emphasis and dramatic lighting and angles, if I can. So many of my sketch commissions are just sketch of dude in void with boner and that gets a little old after a while, at least for me. I want to try new things, to expand my abilities, and hopefully gain new skills while I’m working for you guys. This doesn’t mean no porn, though - do not get me wrong about that!

The other reason I want to do this is because I did a LOT of figure sketching in my sculpting class this term and we had only 5-7 minutes per sketch and I was still doing things like this in that time: https://twitter.com/kraest/status/9.....738192386?s=21 The base minimum cost for my sketches has always been $5, and I’m sorry to put this as selfishly as this sounds, a full body sketch would be about that detailed in 10 minutes or so and is worth a hell of a lot more than $5. However, while I do want to give you guys your money’s worth, I want to get my money’s worth out of it too. I’M NOT CHANGING MY HOURLY RATE, I just want to try some new things. There are several pieces I’ve done over the last term that took me less than an hour that are full colour with backgrounds and perspective details, and I’d love to continue working on that kind of thing for you guys.

Does that sound good to y’all?

The most hilarious thing happened to me today. I’m in a media law class right now and someone in my class plagiarised my post on the assignment page for the last assignment of the term. Here’s a screenshot of mine and his with highlights to show you what he copied: https://twitter.com/kraest/status/9.....04488797085696

Now, reading his paragraphs, you can see that he’s not a spectacular writer. The lines that he copied from me were a couple of lines I quite enjoyed writing because of their flow from word to word. I caught it because we have to reply to at least two other students for each assignment and I noticed the flow of the words when I read his. Compared to the rest of what he wrote, they flow very differently. Notice his only outside source that isn’t the textbook is also one of my sources.

But what really hits me super hard about this is that this is a media law class where the first half of the class was about plagiarism and how awful it is. Out of the 10 lines in his two paragraphs, three full lines are taken almost verbatim from mine. That’s a 35% plagiarism!

I immediately emailed the professor and I’m eagerly waiting for her response. The school has a zero tolerance policy on plagiarism already, but for a MEDIA LAW class where we had “PLAGIARISM IS BAD” crammed into our heads for three weeks, this is fucking hilarious.

UODATE: ‪Woke up to an email from my teacher thanking me and informing me that she’s now reviewing everything he’s posted over the whole term. Good times.‬

Guess I have to get out of the fandom now according to that one asshat on Twitter. XD

Come get you a doggo boy! They're good boys and they're for sale, NOT FOR AUCTION, so once someone gets one, it's gone!

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/25679876/
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/25679876/
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/25679876/
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/25679876/