Hello all you wonderful people and supportive followers<3

It’s been such a long time! I truly hope life has been treating you kindly.
Lately I’ve been doing a bit of soul-searching after moving forward in my own life. I've taken some time to reflect on the past and I realized how much I’ve missed being part of the furry community. It’s always been such a supportive, fun, and welcoming place, and those memories mean a lot to me :)

Therefore I am hoping to make a small and gradual comeback here. I'm quite busy at work (however I am loving where my career has taken me and feel very thankful for where I am after so much hard work), so it won’t be an instant or flashy return. Just a quiet, steady one :)

To ease back in, I might host a little sketch raffle or something fun to get back into drawing anthro's, it’s definitely been a while!

So yeah, keep an eye out for a stream announcement in the future, I'd love to see you there

Thank you for still sticking by

Lots of pancake hugs <3

Hope you all had an all right Christmas, I feel everybody felt a bit meh about it this year (me included). Even so it was nice and I made and ate a lot of lovely food, which means I can't really complain :)

I just wanted to give a quick update on things: I was asked to help out with some art for one of the partners we collaborate with at work during my Christmas break, which is why commissions got a bit put to the side earlier this month, apologies for that! I'm planning on having the art done before New Years so that I'll have a few days after New Years or the weekend to finish up my commissions :)

However, I think work is going to get a lot less hectic (I say now lol, but still keeping my fingers crossed) which means I'll get more time to do my own art and more commissions if people would like some :)
I am aiming for a promotion this spring which would be great, but that also means I need to meet the last few criteria to be able to get promoted to lead artist. It also means saying yes to things that would help out the company, which means me ending up working through my holiday (that being said I am having a lot of fun drawing something else!). Therefore I'm again sorry for postponing things a bit, but I'll get back on track as soon as that's sorted!

Sending you all some hugs and best wishes! Cheers!

Hello there!

I hope you've all been well! I've been having such a lovely time at work, working on some amazing projects I never thought I'd work on in like 10 years, so I'm having such a blast!

However, due to work being very busy I didn't take 2 weeks of for summer, which means I have those weeks off from the 22nd of November to 3rd of December.

Therefore, if you're interested in getting a commission from me during those two weeks, please take a look at my commission info here: https://www.furaffinity.net/commissions/mithril07/ and send me a note if you're interested and we can work something out!

Any questions you can also send me a note or comment below on this journal :)

Cheers!

Just gotta sort some things out and I'll start :)

https://picarto.tv/MithrilStream

Just gotta take the puppy for a long walk first so she'll sleep for a few hours. I did get the screen yesterday, but the cables were too short for my new setup trying to set up both my personal computer with my work computer that they sent from the studio, so had to get some new cables that just arrived as well. But now it's all good and ready to go! :D

So I needed to move around my work desk to make room for the PC that's getting sent over from the studio, and whilst under the table, I managed to bang my head so hard it tipped over my very expensive 4K screen :(

(https://twitter.com/artofmithril/st.....57427909885952)

I've ordered a new one that should arrive tomorrow, thankfully I had some money saved up, but sour money to pay. However, I'll end up with one insane 60" setup once I've got my old screen fixed and restored, so I guess there is some positives to this lol.


See you all tomorrow! ^^

Been trying to start the stream but it wont go online. Everything seems to be in order, it worked yesterday and I have really fast internet?

Thanks!

_{(I will most likely not answer to every comment below, but feel free to join in on the discussion! Just keep it civil, thanks!)}

--- whatever you want to call it. I just figured I'd do a rant on this as I keep getting asked about styles and particularly how do you develop one/how I developed one and especially what my views are on what seems to be a controversial topic around the art-sphere; so-called "style stealing".

For the aspiring, new artists I always tell them that it is important to develop your own, distinct style. One of the reasons for that is that I believe that people are very interested in buying art (if becoming a freelancer is one of your goals in art) if said artist has a very distinct, interesting or unique style. I'm like that myself. The very few commissions I've actually had the money to splurge on I got because the artist had a style I, personally, found original or unique.

K.I.S.S (Keep it simple stupid)
What many young artists believe is that to get a unique style you have to do most, if not everything, different from everybody else, which is actually not the case. You can if you want to of course, but choosing a couple of things that you want to experiment with and "do different" is a lot more effective than doing something that is all-together new and haven't been done before.

Me, for example, chose to be inspired by Leyendecker with how I do my eyes; I draw shiny eye-lids and dark, often black, heavily framed eyes and eyebrows. Thats my "thing". I also focus on rendering, and how you choose to color/render is often a thing that people neglect trying to do differently. You can do very textured renders, psychedelic color schemes or very simple, clean and shiny renders.
You could say I stole the idea from Leyendecker and made it my own. The thick, dark eyebrows was also inspired by another artist I greatly admire called Phobs.

And the styles on FA (just to keep the topic more grounded to the fandom) that are well known are because they are doing one or two things differently. I bet if I cropped away the eyes on my drawings and posted just the render (for example) you could see striking similarities to many artists here. I bet if you took away the renders on many artists and compared just the lineart they would bear striking resemblances to another. But because they are doing one, two or even three things a bit different, big or small, they look different.

Everybody "steals"
"Good artists copy, great artists steal". A quote I bet many have heard in the past. Now, I am not saying you should "steal"; I'm more of a person that feels that if I see something I like, I try it out with my own art and spices it a bit up with my own style/tastes, and then decides to include it any further or not.

-- and why you should not
Kinda contradictory, wouldn't you say? I just told you that everybody "steals". Well, there is a thin line to be considered here, and one that should not be crossed too often if it can be avoided. Why? Well, there are several reasons as to why that can be discussed, but I'll try to keep my focus a bit more narrowed

People buy styles
As said above, people tend to buy art if it's done by an artist that has a style that they like. I know I might be stepping on a few toes when I say that I see many young artist getting heavily influenced by popular artists, some to a point where the resemblance is so striking that it's hard to tell them apart.
But then again, this is a good way to get noticed and get followers, as that artist is most likely a very popular artist to commission due to the fact that their style is in demand, so, in short, people like it, and if you do the same, they will most likely like you too.
However, and I see this a lot, there is a point where you will be more recognized as being *insertpopularartistnamehere*s lesser good version, than actually being demanded for your own version/style, if you get what I'm trying to say. And in the long run, you will end up getting known for the "lesser good version" than actually your own version, which in turn is not a good way to build up self-esteem and confidence in your art.

And some people dislike that people are heavily referencing/stealing/copying (whatever you feel like calling it) other people's styles, some people dislike that a lot. However, this being FA and FA has always had a flair for drama (but I still love you guys<3), I do believe we see it more here than other places. Some dislike it so much that they start white-knighting for the artist and are blaming that he or she is copying, and for a young artist trying to find their style that can be a terrible blow to your self-esteem, one that is often pretty low to begin with when you're starting out as a fresh, new kid on the block.

You'll always feel like the lesser good version
And this is the sad truth. Again, I see it all the time with artist that heavily influence their style from just one or two other artists; people compare the artist to the copied artist style constantly, to a point where it gets annoying and your not getting valued for your art, youre getting valued for the other artists style. Kinda sucks, and if that were me I would feel rather shitty after getting comment number 100 telling me "oh you draw just like *insertname*/your style looks just like *insertname*" instead of "oh your style is really unique/love your art, it's really original". So yeah. Consider that <3

Style stealing - a compliment?
However, I firmly believe that most artists actually find "style stealing" to be a compliment. I know I would if it were to happen to me, and frankly I don't really give a shit if they are making money on my style. I have gained followers and commissioners for my own style that I also have a great customer or friendly relationship with, so I'm perfectly happy with what I have gained.
And if somebody wants to follow me down the road I paved, I have absolutely no problems with it, because I know that even though I am being copied, they will never be me.
I am also not trying to get known only for my style, but for being a nice person and portraying myself as a kind and generous person too. I also try not to take art too seriously, have more fun and interact with my fans in a way that they find enjoyable, and that also gets noticed and spread around.

Summa summarum
So yeah - if you see something you like, try it out! It might work, it might not. If your goal is to get famous, you gotta stand out, but I think many famous artists have no problems that you are walking down a more easier path by following them for some of the way. Just remember that you should also try to pave your own, and that style is not constricted into how you draw your lines; it can be something as simple as eyebrows or something as complex as rendering or how you apply colors.

Have fun, try stuff out, and remember that people are more often well known because they have been nice, helpful and just generally kind people (even though that isn't always the case, but that happens in every aspect of life), than just having a unique and original style.


//END RANT

**
<sub>A little end note; I know that many artist has gained followers for drawing porn and not because their style is amazingly unique, which is true, but I wanted to mention it because many of those who ask me "how do I get famous" always feel incredibly pressured to draw porn because they see how it gains followers, but they don't feel like doing it, but see no other way and end up feeling very torn between the two.

Never EVER draw porn unless you are certain you'll enjoy it, and if you are uncertain, experiment by yourself and see how it goes. Sometimes the more intense porn you draw, the more comments/followers you'll get, but then you are drawing for the wrong reasons and I can promise you you'll end up regretting it later. Yes, comments and feedback is good, but do not draw to please others, draw to please yourself.

And I always believed that its how many friends you have, not followers, that matters in the end <3</sub>