@agarthanguide

Hi! I love your work! I was wondering if it would be okay to ask you for advice about sort of professional stuff as an illustrator? I made a post so that anyone who might have anything could respond but you're one of the few professional illustrators I know of on here, so would it be ok for me to send it to you or tag you in it? Thank you, have a great day!

Hey.  I don’t really give advice on tumblr, but I didn’t want you to think I was ignoring you, and I’m worried I was giving that impression. Here’s my thoughts on this post of yours.

1- I’m the wrong person to ask about this.  First of all, I’m old. I’m in my 30s.  So I don’t have any stuff from my teens floating around online to cringe about. I wish I could scrape some stuff from my early 20s off the internet, but only because it’s young and airheaded, not because it’s offensive or potentially damaging.  I came of age at a time when it was mostly considered a Bad Thing to post personal stuff on the internet.  Second of all, I don’t hire artists.  Art Directors would be able to tell you more about this particular concern.

2- Honestly, I’ve never had an art director go through my personal blogs.  Sometimes I wish they would, so they know what to expect from me on a personal level, but.  Tbh, they are busy people, and they don’t care what fandoms you are in. In fact, if you leave your portfolio on a blog site where work is harder to find, they’re more likely to write you off and not look through your work at all.  They mostly want clear and available portfolios, not backlogs of private thoughts interspersed with art. Despite how anodyne my personal website is, it’s also where employers look first to see if I can do Their Thing. If they do look on tumblr, I’ve seen no evidence of it.

3- Fandom is not a dirty word. My current job, which I’m extremely excited about, I got because I was in the fandom and created work that got noticed by the higher ups.  Every working artist under 40 has participated in being excited about stuff online.  You don’t need to hide it. I once saw a piece of mine on a Behind the Scenes at the BBC Musketeers video.  They printed it out and put it on a cork board of inspiration.  Art Directors WANT you to care about stuff.  They will not be put off by your interests.

4- If you (not you, @he-said-irene, you are good folks, but if ONE) says something racist, exclusionary, or unkind online, someone will find it and you will probably be dragged for it.  That seems to be the direction things are going, and I’m not sorry about it.  If you are worried about your past catching up with you, then you probably should be, frankly.

5- So yeah, @he-said-irene, don’t worry too much about it. While I generally advocate for privacy and compartmentalization online, I’m also not ashamed of my fandom past, and I don’t think most people should be.  If you think your work is more generally not for sensitive audiences, that’s a good reason to put viewer restrictions on your blog, but lots of very successful industry artists have done erotic or horror or whatever art, and it’s not really seen as a Big Deal in the industry.  Your work and your ability to work with people in a kind a professional manner is gonna be the stuff that gets you in the door and keeps you there, not your favorite ship from when you were 18.

AU where Gerry is alive and runs an occult tattoo parlor but otherwise everything is pretty much the same.

My tame writer @corvidfeathers">agarthanguide:

AU where Gerry is alive and runs an occult tattoo parlor but otherwise everything is pretty much the same.

My tame writer @corvidfeathers wrote this and frankly that’s a good enough reason to read it but also I have added visual aids.

AU where Gerry is alive and runs an occult tattoo parlor but otherwise everything is pretty much the same.

My tame writer @corvidfeathers wrote this and frankly that’s a good enough reason to read it but also I have added visual aids.

Everyone look at my weird dog I love her

Part next of live drawing critical role. Saint Laura Bailey.

agarthanguide :

I went to the Highland Games yesterday, and I really enjoyed the womens’ caber toss.

throwback to that time in 2017 when I abruptly discovered a Type.

I miss discworld, and I wanna do art about it, but I’ve got three projects on rn, and I’m not gonna have the opportunity for a while, here.

So that’s why I’m feverishly following every active blog that is Discworld-adjacent.

Critical role live portraiture night part 5

Thursday Night live portrait practice continues with Ashley!

Do POV

more facsimile stuff of course :D At first I was going to go with something more from cass’s pre-canon story, but I thought it would be fun to give a minor, non-POV character a try?  the full snippet is under the cut!

aaah thank you for the prompt!

• POV — something that’s already happened, retold from another character’s perspective

It’s the crash of breaking glass shattering that puts you on alert.

The sound cuts through the hum of the lights and the sleepy lull of the music; this late in the night, or early in the morning, there’s few customers hanging around, and it sounds like whoever is on the piano well and truly gave up.

You set down the makeup brush, and pad to Aikaterina’s dressing room.  The door is closed, but when you knock a familiar voice makes an incomprehensible sound that could well be come in.

She’s not supposed to be in tonight.  

You push the door open, and find Aikaterina sitting on the floor in a pool of light, hunched over.  Her long auburn hair hangs loose and tangled over her face, and by her hand lies the fragments of what had probably been a bottle, along with a crumpled length of fabric that looked like one of the scarves she usually wore knotted into her hair.

“Kat-” you say.  “What are you doing here?”

Aikaterina’s head jerks up.  A half-dozen expressions flash across her face, but it’s the first that stays with you: fear.

“Oh.  Cleo.  Right.”  She nods to herself, her expression clearing.  “Right.”  

 Aikaterina isn’t a clumsy drunk, or a morose one.  More than anyone else you know, she runs hot; swinging to the highest point of emotion at the slightest provocation.  You’ve seen glimpses of edges, anger and despair, but they’ve all come out sharp-edged and bitter, not this blank fear.

Keep reading

Travis Willingham joins my CR live portraiture night thing I’ve been doing.

Hahahha, that attempt of your dad's reminds me how my dad used tricked me into drawing Christmas cards by using the old hippie anti-authoritarian approach his mother used on him. (AKA you don't want to force your child so you make them believe they'd a choice.) "Either you draw Christmas cards, or we ca take a picture of you and your brothers in pretty christmas woolly hats. Your choice."

AWWW I’m torn on that because it’s objectively better to get a Christmas card drawn by a kid (in my opinion), but at the same time…

My dad once called me into his office, showed me a picture of the bike he bought my mom for her birthday, and told me to draw it on a card real quick.

Nice try, Dad.

Bro the M9 art series is THE COOLEST shit I’ve ever seen! Coming from an art history student and nerd, I’m in love 😍👌🏻

Aw thanks that’s very nice. I’m glad it’s resonated with you. I def made it for the art history nerds.

Hi I was stress scrolling through my dash and your portrait of taliesin came up and tbvh I’m super baked but your drawing is gorgeous I love love love the bolds lines and deep shadows and stark highlights and tbh that uneasy piercing gaze you drew is semantic and SPOT ON basically I just wanted to tell you I love your art, please never stop :) <3

I respect the hell out of you, anon. <3

A Marisha to go alongside my Taliesin from earlier.

I. Can. Do. Better.

2020 was, among many other things, the year I lived the dream and got to illustrate Uk’otoa (the game) for Darrington Press/Critical Role. In celebration of the high point of a difficult year, my dad gifted me this unbelievably beautiful pot by Ephraim Pottery (near my hometown) to commemorate my Year of Sea Monsters. I’m putting up a new shelf just to hold this piece of art.

Here’s my contribution to this year’s Critical Role Holiday Gallery! I was honored to be invited- frankly, I’m honored to be listed among the other artists in the gallery on any old day, much less for Christmas. There are some unbelievably lovely pieces this year, and you should go look at all of them.

agarthanguide :

Here’s my contribution to the Critical Role Holiday Gallery!  I was honored to be invited, and I loved working on it. Check out the whole gallery, there are some amazing pieces there.

Merry Christmas! Here’s my Crit Role holiday gallery piece from last year. I can’t wait to show you what I did this year, so tune in tomorrow!

Your portraits are just.. so good. I want Tal's portrait on my wall.

Thanks!  I’m on a bit of a run with the charcoal-esque thing, aren’t I? I’m a little worried I’m gonna fall off it any minute, now.

Thursday night has slowly been morphing into live portraiture night, for me.

agarthanguide :

Aaaaaages ago, I asked for fanart prompts and someone asked for Gerry Keay after the death of his mother. This idea has been kicking around since then.

Aaaaaages ago, I asked for fanart prompts and someone asked for Gerry Keay after the death of his mother. This idea has been kicking around since then.

They recast Grindelwald, but only one guy could bring me back to that franchise.

(I drew these ages ago for @akathecentimetre. Aaaages ago.)

BAKE OFF SPOILERS

Fair warning

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Hermine is out so who wants to go with me to burn down the tent.

What is your insta?

@agarthanguide

Thanks for asking!

One of my favorite ways to practice is by drawing historical reenactors and impressionists on Instagram. Visit me there for links to all of these models.

A bit of Agnes Montague for my ever-expanding folder of Magnus Archives fanart.