Sysable, fandom pioneer, has passed away.
Posted 3 months agoI just thought you'd want to know. I grew up in the era of VCL, Furry Mucks, and Furrlough comics. None of it would be possible without those that came before us in the fandom. I loved every bit of this subculture I had grown up around, even if I was the only furry in my academy and after school clubs. It was just something I feel deeply in love with, and never wavered or drifted from in all this time. My thoughts are with his friends and family.
His gofundme set up by those closest to him help describe just how pivotal he was; https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-a-t.....ource=customer
If there is someone you love in the fandom, please tell them how much they mean to you today.
His gofundme set up by those closest to him help describe just how pivotal he was; https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-a-t.....ource=customer
If there is someone you love in the fandom, please tell them how much they mean to you today.
Happy Holidays (I'm Drawing Again)
Posted 5 months agoI hope you're all enjoying the current season. I only have a small personal news update, in that my education is up in the air as I'm exploring options. This can involve me going back to college part-time to finish my HNC in Art & Design along with learning to drive, or doing an access course for the OpenUniversity in the Social Sciences that'll pave way for me to later enter the Psychology and Criminology degree I want. An HNC is equivalent of first year of what you'd imagine a 'proper' art school to be and the highest qualification I can earn where I'm currently at, while the latter will be a larger undertaking going over six to seven years, that I'll need to fund entirely out of pocket. Ideally, I'd want to do both, but it's going to cost me.
I'm not asking for a hand-out, nor am I opening commissions. I've a list of everything I said I'd do for other people that I've tried getting around to before, truth is I struggle drawing outside my comfort zone and decided just to slap myself and hold my face under cold water till I can see what I needed to do. It always comes back to this, I never took time to pursue the fundamentals and properly learn art; I got the advice I should do two things at once, learn by doing. Didn't work.
I set up a Cohost page, that I'll be updating daily: https://cohost.org/Lysov
Current plan is to do five gesture sketches for a minute each, and one five-minute study. I also do a before and after doodle to measure the impact the exercises are having on me, as well as to internalize what I'm drawing from gestures. Then build on this with what I can with other studies and directions to cover weak points, and just continually push the envelope. As I'm getting older, and more frustrated from my lack of progress and I think I'm approaching the final straw of where I give up entirely and disappear from the public-facing side of the internet. But it's only day four, and I feel positive about how I've managed to stick with gesture sketching for even just a short amount of time. I've some additional sketches I've only shown a few friends for feedback, and initial views are looking good.
Ultimately, I'm not going to be posting to FurAffinity for a long while since I'm taking up the basics (again) and that Cohost page is what's going to keep me accountable, to the point it'll probably factor into my new year resolution in some way. I intend to follow-through on just building my skills as an artist with gesture sketching and what else I can do for six months, then I'll take stock of where I am, and decide what to do then. Till then, I'm just more focused on form, proportions, value, lighting and so on.
Cohost isn't the only place to reach me, if for whatever reason you'd like to connect to me. My Socials are the following:
Telegram: AberdorkUnited
Discord: Vosyl
I don't use anything like twitter or tumblr, so no mastodon, bluesky, diaspora, tiktok, ello or any mobile exclusive app. I am also never not so busy I won't speak to people, so don't feel afraid to say hi to me.
I'm not asking for a hand-out, nor am I opening commissions. I've a list of everything I said I'd do for other people that I've tried getting around to before, truth is I struggle drawing outside my comfort zone and decided just to slap myself and hold my face under cold water till I can see what I needed to do. It always comes back to this, I never took time to pursue the fundamentals and properly learn art; I got the advice I should do two things at once, learn by doing. Didn't work.
I set up a Cohost page, that I'll be updating daily: https://cohost.org/Lysov
Current plan is to do five gesture sketches for a minute each, and one five-minute study. I also do a before and after doodle to measure the impact the exercises are having on me, as well as to internalize what I'm drawing from gestures. Then build on this with what I can with other studies and directions to cover weak points, and just continually push the envelope. As I'm getting older, and more frustrated from my lack of progress and I think I'm approaching the final straw of where I give up entirely and disappear from the public-facing side of the internet. But it's only day four, and I feel positive about how I've managed to stick with gesture sketching for even just a short amount of time. I've some additional sketches I've only shown a few friends for feedback, and initial views are looking good.
Ultimately, I'm not going to be posting to FurAffinity for a long while since I'm taking up the basics (again) and that Cohost page is what's going to keep me accountable, to the point it'll probably factor into my new year resolution in some way. I intend to follow-through on just building my skills as an artist with gesture sketching and what else I can do for six months, then I'll take stock of where I am, and decide what to do then. Till then, I'm just more focused on form, proportions, value, lighting and so on.
Cohost isn't the only place to reach me, if for whatever reason you'd like to connect to me. My Socials are the following:
Telegram: AberdorkUnited
Discord: Vosyl
I don't use anything like twitter or tumblr, so no mastodon, bluesky, diaspora, tiktok, ello or any mobile exclusive app. I am also never not so busy I won't speak to people, so don't feel afraid to say hi to me.
Re-Enabled My Account (Wasn't Feeling Myself)
Posted 8 months agoI'd like to thank friends who reached out to see if I was okay, I am, I just needed some time alone to think.
Not getting into university this coming semester affected me more than I realized, I'm still committed to reapplying for the year after once I'm in a better position to secure funding. Just this past two weeks haven't been great for my self-esteem. I've been out to my family for over a decade, and lately decided to inform them I've started HRT (I did not tell them I started eight months ago, what I'm actually starting is T-Blockers). Their support has always been, uh, rocky while they get the name and pronouns right, we've had our difficulties. I've tried to make my family happy by making and delivering soup and bakes I've made but they've generally been unappreciative except for my siblings. I also asked some close friends for feedback on my art, honest feedback and while I did need to hear it, no one pulled their punches and I was left feeling that I couldn't do anything right. The things they compliament me for, was often the result of me struggling to the point I'd trace over a reference photograph to get a hand right or a 3D model for the head at a particular angle. I never felt my 'anatomy got better', it was just the product of various cheats I used to achieve that effect.
This has been one of the lowest points I've felt since recovering from depression, and I realize something in my life needs to change now that I feel better.
I wrote a longer post over on Cohost that you don't need to read: https://cohost.org/Vosyl/post/27868.....ot-leaving-but
"Summary: I'm taking charge of the time I spend online and will be around a lot less socially, as I'm going to focus art and my physical health going forward, likely for the next year I'm only going to be available to chat with on Thursdays. Every other day will be in my art program of choice or working with a sketchbook. I'm deeply shamed of never applying myself better over the years, and want to make amends to 'correct' course for myself instead of relying on short-cuts that carried me till they couldn't anymore."
Ultimately what this means is I'm going to be taking a lengthy haitus (including from Furaffnity, and I'm 'unpublishing' my patreon) and recede from the internet until I'm in a place where I'm both happy with my art and output. This means I'm making time to actually getting around to learn how to paint digitally (This helps explain what I mean: https://www.ctrlpaint.com/ ), it's early days and I want to remove the pressure to have something presentable looking to a large, faceless online audience and give myself the space I need to experiment and fail. Just to make the ugliest art I need to make in order to start getting better.
I'll make an update once every few months to let people know my progress.
Not getting into university this coming semester affected me more than I realized, I'm still committed to reapplying for the year after once I'm in a better position to secure funding. Just this past two weeks haven't been great for my self-esteem. I've been out to my family for over a decade, and lately decided to inform them I've started HRT (I did not tell them I started eight months ago, what I'm actually starting is T-Blockers). Their support has always been, uh, rocky while they get the name and pronouns right, we've had our difficulties. I've tried to make my family happy by making and delivering soup and bakes I've made but they've generally been unappreciative except for my siblings. I also asked some close friends for feedback on my art, honest feedback and while I did need to hear it, no one pulled their punches and I was left feeling that I couldn't do anything right. The things they compliament me for, was often the result of me struggling to the point I'd trace over a reference photograph to get a hand right or a 3D model for the head at a particular angle. I never felt my 'anatomy got better', it was just the product of various cheats I used to achieve that effect.
This has been one of the lowest points I've felt since recovering from depression, and I realize something in my life needs to change now that I feel better.
I wrote a longer post over on Cohost that you don't need to read: https://cohost.org/Vosyl/post/27868.....ot-leaving-but
"Summary: I'm taking charge of the time I spend online and will be around a lot less socially, as I'm going to focus art and my physical health going forward, likely for the next year I'm only going to be available to chat with on Thursdays. Every other day will be in my art program of choice or working with a sketchbook. I'm deeply shamed of never applying myself better over the years, and want to make amends to 'correct' course for myself instead of relying on short-cuts that carried me till they couldn't anymore."
Ultimately what this means is I'm going to be taking a lengthy haitus (including from Furaffnity, and I'm 'unpublishing' my patreon) and recede from the internet until I'm in a place where I'm both happy with my art and output. This means I'm making time to actually getting around to learn how to paint digitally (This helps explain what I mean: https://www.ctrlpaint.com/ ), it's early days and I want to remove the pressure to have something presentable looking to a large, faceless online audience and give myself the space I need to experiment and fail. Just to make the ugliest art I need to make in order to start getting better.
I'll make an update once every few months to let people know my progress.
University Application Stalled Out.
Posted 9 months agoDue to my inability to secure funding for this coming semester, I'll be reapplying next year. This means I'll be focusing more on my fitness aspirations, and also art. I'm currently winging together a very different plan for myself in the coming months. Mostly just giving myself time to play around with things and experiment, and take the pressure off of having something to upload to any online gallery as I want to break out of my current habits and finally attempt digital painting once more.
I know I sound like a broken record with this, but I had blocked away so much time to study for a degree that I suddenly found freed up, I don't really know what else to do with my life. I've already taken up sketchbooking.
I know I sound like a broken record with this, but I had blocked away so much time to study for a degree that I suddenly found freed up, I don't really know what else to do with my life. I've already taken up sketchbooking.
Commission / Project List
Posted 10 months agoI just wanted to write this quickly to let people know where I am with things. I had shotgunned every treatment for depression this year; tl;dr it worked, I feel great. It just feels like I'm sobering up in the middle of a trainwreck. Energy company got bought out, and the bill landed at my doorstep this month. My financial situation was dire until this weekend where friend's stepped in with some much needed cash. This has not been the first time the fandom has came to my rescue, and I am grateful and want to pay everyone back. However this is also a nightmare because I had earlier joined Art Fight this month and raised people's hopes of getting art by asking them to lend me their reference sheets while I 'warm-up', I only know two other people doing Art Fight proper. Far from feeling stressed, I feel reinvigorated and want to make the best use of my time before I start my degree in October. Which leaves me with two and a half months.
I want to give a special shout-out to , , and all fellow artists who've given me instructional advice and morale support that has gotten me back into drawing, although the true list of people who helped me would make this journal five times larger than it needs to be. There is a lot I've forgotten and need to relearn when it comes to art, their advice has been crucial in coming up with a plan over the weekend to speed back on track. eg, gesture sketches, daily sketchbook practice, recommending guides, redlining my art, critique. The works, really. A pipeline is emerging, and I'll still be slow to work as I do more studies and learn thoroughly at a snails pace (instead of not doing anything at all as I was while depressed.)
The list is as follows:
1. Blackadder281 (Emergency weekend comm; Kink Illustration)
2. MadEyeWolf (Emergency weekend comm; Reference Sheet)
3. Zydras (Art Fight Piece.)
4. Randomdude1 (Art Fight Warm-Up; Sketch)
5. HandofBlades (Art Fight Warm-Up; Sketch)
6. TigerWriter93 (Art Fight Warm-Up; Sketch)
7. PmarProject(Art Fight Warm-Up; Sketch)
8. SilverWlf(Art Fight Warm-Up; Sketch)
9. Ralanr(Art Fight Warm-Up; Sketch)
10. Nyx(Art Fight Warm-Up; Sketch)
11. MadEyeWolf (Art Fight Warm-Up; Sketch)
12. Eris Moth (Art Fight Warm-Up; Sketch)
13. LopsidedWorld (Art Fight Warm-Up; Sketch)
After these I'll be going back to the commission block from where I last left off.
14. Violent Hyena
15. MadEyeWolf
16. Blackadder281
17. Sasha Zebra
18. Ari & Sunta
After this I'll be digging through my files, and picking a random person to spend a weekend on fulfilling everything I had written down for it, be it commission, trade, gift, or request until the list is burnt through completely. I'm not intending to get rich from the fandom, and enjoy having something to keep me preoccupied that makes my friends' happy. People are free to send me money at any time via Kofi ( link here: https://ko-fi.com/aberdorkunited ) as a donation to help out and to encourage my pursuit of art. I do have to caution that my approach will be slow and methodological. I was taught a very specific way to handle projects as part of a process; so I intend to be doing a lot of ground work such as making sketches of client's species to nail the particular details right, do thumbnails instead of go with the first pose that springs to mind. The kind of legwork I never gave myself time for that always bit me in the rear, I want to make sure skills are getting consolidated.
Currently I don't have a timeline of when I'll get through everything, I just intend to weather the storm and get through things in my own pace one at a time. I'm much more interested in developing a timetable for myself, as I want to work on multiple fronts in tandem: My website to host my own art, my presentation as an artist so I have a nifty (niftier, even) icon, banner, the works across each gallery site I'm on, building up a portfolio around themes that are of interest to me and clients, and attaining the technical ability I want. I subscribe to ImagineFX, and there's a lot of artists I see featured on its pages I wish I could draw like, in the latest it was Cindy Avelino who's art you can see on her Art Station: https://www.artstation.com/cindyavelino
The other reason why I'd want a timetable is I might be involved in a secret unannounced project with a friend that involves animation and I need to divy up my week to make sure I have time to work on it. There's already a reference sheet of two of my characters potentially in the works by me. I think it's something that'd be of a great interest to a wide audience. I've also been an editor to a small community of supervillain writers, and during my low mood I took up writing and learning game development; there are no demos but drafts of a novel's chapters i'm using to springboard the game. Which again is exciting but likely for a smaller number of people.
Things are moving along, hand is on the pen, pen is touching paper. It's just going to require a dedicated use of time. The first sheet of thumbnails goes out today.
I want to give a special shout-out to , , and all fellow artists who've given me instructional advice and morale support that has gotten me back into drawing, although the true list of people who helped me would make this journal five times larger than it needs to be. There is a lot I've forgotten and need to relearn when it comes to art, their advice has been crucial in coming up with a plan over the weekend to speed back on track. eg, gesture sketches, daily sketchbook practice, recommending guides, redlining my art, critique. The works, really. A pipeline is emerging, and I'll still be slow to work as I do more studies and learn thoroughly at a snails pace (instead of not doing anything at all as I was while depressed.)
The list is as follows:
1. Blackadder281 (Emergency weekend comm; Kink Illustration)
2. MadEyeWolf (Emergency weekend comm; Reference Sheet)
3. Zydras (Art Fight Piece.)
4. Randomdude1 (Art Fight Warm-Up; Sketch)
5. HandofBlades (Art Fight Warm-Up; Sketch)
6. TigerWriter93 (Art Fight Warm-Up; Sketch)
7. PmarProject(Art Fight Warm-Up; Sketch)
8. SilverWlf(Art Fight Warm-Up; Sketch)
9. Ralanr(Art Fight Warm-Up; Sketch)
10. Nyx(Art Fight Warm-Up; Sketch)
11. MadEyeWolf (Art Fight Warm-Up; Sketch)
12. Eris Moth (Art Fight Warm-Up; Sketch)
13. LopsidedWorld (Art Fight Warm-Up; Sketch)
After these I'll be going back to the commission block from where I last left off.
14. Violent Hyena
15. MadEyeWolf
16. Blackadder281
17. Sasha Zebra
18. Ari & Sunta
After this I'll be digging through my files, and picking a random person to spend a weekend on fulfilling everything I had written down for it, be it commission, trade, gift, or request until the list is burnt through completely. I'm not intending to get rich from the fandom, and enjoy having something to keep me preoccupied that makes my friends' happy. People are free to send me money at any time via Kofi ( link here: https://ko-fi.com/aberdorkunited ) as a donation to help out and to encourage my pursuit of art. I do have to caution that my approach will be slow and methodological. I was taught a very specific way to handle projects as part of a process; so I intend to be doing a lot of ground work such as making sketches of client's species to nail the particular details right, do thumbnails instead of go with the first pose that springs to mind. The kind of legwork I never gave myself time for that always bit me in the rear, I want to make sure skills are getting consolidated.
Currently I don't have a timeline of when I'll get through everything, I just intend to weather the storm and get through things in my own pace one at a time. I'm much more interested in developing a timetable for myself, as I want to work on multiple fronts in tandem: My website to host my own art, my presentation as an artist so I have a nifty (niftier, even) icon, banner, the works across each gallery site I'm on, building up a portfolio around themes that are of interest to me and clients, and attaining the technical ability I want. I subscribe to ImagineFX, and there's a lot of artists I see featured on its pages I wish I could draw like, in the latest it was Cindy Avelino who's art you can see on her Art Station: https://www.artstation.com/cindyavelino
The other reason why I'd want a timetable is I might be involved in a secret unannounced project with a friend that involves animation and I need to divy up my week to make sure I have time to work on it. There's already a reference sheet of two of my characters potentially in the works by me. I think it's something that'd be of a great interest to a wide audience. I've also been an editor to a small community of supervillain writers, and during my low mood I took up writing and learning game development; there are no demos but drafts of a novel's chapters i'm using to springboard the game. Which again is exciting but likely for a smaller number of people.
Things are moving along, hand is on the pen, pen is touching paper. It's just going to require a dedicated use of time. The first sheet of thumbnails goes out today.