Hi! My name is thałamì ayv́hanà ushúma (IPA: /tʰáɬámì àʎə́hánà ùs̻ʰúmá/); my pronouns are she/her. I am first and foremost a visual artist, and in addition to art I also do a fair bit of conlanging, and I'm interested in getting into music composition and performance!
I mainly work in traditional, as it's what I first learned to draw with, and I'm in the process of learning digital art (exciting)! The media and styles I use are, in no particular order:
- Ballpoint pen -- I have a red pen, a blue pen, and a black pen. I'm trying to find a pen with yellow ink but those are rare; once I do I'll be able to make full color artworks in ballpoint!
- Dip pen -- I'd like to develop two distinct styles with this medium: a simpler outlined manga style, perhaps with screentones, and a more complex and realistic unoutlined style which relies on more complex hatched shading (ex. Bernie Wrightson).
- Fineliner -- it's hard, but I'm learning an intaglio engraving style which essentially relies on a matrix of contour lines across the form, varying their thickness to indicate shading. Very excited for this one!
- Graphite -- ah yes, the pencil; it's how I learned to draw. Lately I haven't been using it much, but I may experiment with drawing in pencil and later coloring those drawings digitally!
- Alcohol marker -- very nice for a colorful and simple rendering style; I wish I had more of them!
- Colored pencil -- I love the control they give, but they're so hard on my paws! I don't use them often.
- Digital -- there's a variety of things I want to do with digital art; I would like to make art in a sort of retro anime style that looks like it's a screenshot from an old VHS recording... I also want to learn basic painting.
- Mokuhanga (woodblock printing) -- I haven't had the chance to do this yet but it's one of my ultimate art goals. I'd love to be able to make and distribute prints...

Subjects I most often draw are usually myself and my friends, characters in kimonos, floral designs, and calligraphy in my conlangs.
I'm working on diversifying my artistic repertoire--more dynamic poses, more anatomical accuracy and complex lighting, interesting backgrounds, more developed aesthetics, greater consistency and versatility.

hoping to someday take commissions maybe...

this page is sort of still a work in progress because I'm not super sure what to put here!