my professor said to bring in some past examples of our work & some art by other artists that we like. mostly i make digital art; anything traditional is either scribblydoodles or has been given away as a gift, so i don't really have much to bring in physically... so i thought, making a webpage would be the easiest way to compile this stuff. i also just enjoyed the process of putting it together. :) i tried some different javascript plugins for slideshows and responsive image galleries, but ultimately couldn't get any of them to work, so i just settled for this very basic HTML style of page. enjoy

this is my "standard" type of work. design a furry, pokemon, or other type of creature, put it on a solid-color background. they can mostly be used as reference sheets for the character's design, if you wanted to use that design in a more illustrative piece. i knock this kind of thing out almost every day. the professional way to describe it is "digital character illustration and design," i think.

i really like animating, but it takes FOREVER. so almost every animation i've made has been tiny, simple loops like this. i really want to practice more "fundamentals," but it's kind of boring... so mostly, i study sprite art in video games and try to emulate those principals.

more assorted pieces i've drawn for people online of their OCs. the messy style of the last 2 is my personal favorite aesthetic, but the clean style of Summer's ref sheet is also satisfying and more "professional" looking, i guess.

these two are both gifts i made for my partner! one is a Magic: The Gathering card i painted a Pokemon on, and the other is a techdeck i painted their fursona onto. both done with acrylic paint markers.

i worked for about 5 years cumulitively at two different art supply stores before starting classes here, so i have a lot of random assorted materials from a lot of random assorted different mediums. block printing is probably my favorite one i picked up, since you can do it anywhere and you can keep stamping the same design a lot of times. pink pearl erasers are a lot of fun to work with, because they're so cheap, i don't feel like i wasted too much material if i mess up!

rainbow pencils are my other favorite to doodle with. i always have one on me. i'd love to sell pet portraits drawn with them, tbh.

one of my only "finished" traditional pieces, done with oil pastel. it's a my little pony OC. i'm not a very serious artist.

finally, some pieces from a figure drawing session i attended! the quick gesture drawings at the beginning (1 to 5 minutes each) were my favorites to do, i really want to do more of this and get much better at it.

artbycreeps.com : oil on panel. if i could achieve this level of technical skill i'd die happy, i think. that is my ultimate goal. my drive. my motivation. i'm striving towards it

heatherheitzenrater.com / christopherboring.com : a previous coworker & his partner; both talented oil painters who i admire a lot

hsiangarts.com : ballpoint pen and mixed media. comic about depersonalization that resonates hard and is beautifully drawn. it conveys the feelings very effectively.

@bearsockz : acrylic on canvas. it's hanging in a store in LA. nothing i love more than furry art in the wild, simple as

zetterstrand.com : oil on canvas. common theme of "digital artifacts encroaching on 'real art'" resonates through many of my favorite works.

@outsidewolves : god i love animation. this is so cute. how do people even think of this stuff.

charrfie.straw.page: acrylic on canvas. a surreal take on anime-style bases people used to make and post on deviantart for tweens to poorly draw hair and clothes onto in mspaint. an absolute staple of many of my peers' childhoods. the impact font. i love it.

nalanitran.com: acrylic & airbrush on canvas. digital art programs have been trying to emulate the aesthetic of traditional art's materials and techniques for decades... but at the same time, traditional artists are finding ways to emulate the digital funk of MS Paint. it makes me smile

i dont know! a lot of different things. i want to create art that makes me happy. and i want to create art that is full of genuine love for the weird, offputting online communities i grew up in.

what i really want to do, is become a "technically skilled" "traditional" artist, and then re-approach concepts like "deviantart sparkledog OC" or "sonic the hedgehog fanart" from that perspective. and make things that make me smile in the meantime, as well.

i also am extremely invested in art that is messy or ugly "on purpose"; but in order to properly convey that it is "on purpose," you need to be extremely precise and skipped in your application of "ugliness". ...at the same time, children's crayon drawings are some of my favorite forms of art, and it's certainly not "on purpose" in the same way, nor is it technically skilled. this friciton is something i spend a lot of time thinking about when making art.

look how ugly it is. i love it. these are from a series of youtube videos that take place in the world where the yellow mouse guy (ratboy genius) lives. the creator is a music professor at NYU; the body of work originated as a rock opera, but he kept adding more and different styles of animation and storylines. its "ugly on purpose" but still compelling and fun aesthetic is very, very dear to me. the three main youtube serieses i recommend are: ratboy genius dreams minecraft, little king john 'the flood', and starship genius (the latter two occur concurrently but mess with time travel so i prefer to watch all of one and then all of another). they have a cult following. i think about them a lot.

"you're right it's pretty weird. but only because you aren't used to it.
everything is pretty weird if you look at it a certain way."
-ryan dorin