Thanks so much to $Moonbeam13 for the subscription and for the lovely `ctJemm for getting the contest results and prizes out so quickly and efficiently. I'm so surprised that I actually won anything with this deviation:



Here's the link to the article: [link]

Now I feel guilty because I won't have much time to truly enjoy this subscription, but I will do the best I can.

Thanks everyone, and hi everyone who has watched me since I've become silent. I'm sorry I'm not online to reply anymore, but I do read everything and I still view all deviations in my inbox and I read every single journal entry that seems important.

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Junior year has begun for me. I finished the week and now I'm about to go back for the 2nd week.

Already I can feel the strain. Right now it's ever so gently pushing on me, but I know soon enough that it will begin to rage.
This is not to say that I cannot handle it. I'm fairly good at dealing with stressful situations and the lack of time. However, I'm sick of dealing with it. I feel like I'm killing another year of my life every time I struggle over something difficult, especially because I know better than anyone else that it's completely unnecessary. There is no reason for me to do this. Right now I'm looking at the clock, it's almost 8 PM and I'm so, so aghast that I've spent the whole day sitting in front of the computer drawing. Granted it resulted in my newest picture, but at such a great cost.

Point being, I think I need to cut off art. The past month where I was at debate camp (which went amazingly), I was working very hard daily and got a lot of work completed. I brought my sketchbook but I only touched it once, when we had Saturday night off. I guess I have finally come to the realization that like everything else, art is expendable. I don't need it, it's just another accessory tacked to my name.

While I love it more than possibly anything else in this world, I must prioritize. I know I can handle all my AP classes and debate work, but I need to be organized. I need to save time and use it more ostensibly.

I no longer will sit down to spend hours and hours on finishing a painting. I won't even log onto deviantart until the weekends. I will delete all of my art related bookmarks. Livestream will have to wait...maybe one saturday every month I will indulge myself.

I just can't afford to allow myself to be distracted. In order for me to not slide down the slippery slope, I have to nip it in the bud and just sever myself from it. I don't see myself offering anything valuable in the art community nor is having art a career high on my practical lists. It's my only ideal world but one that I can't pursue. In the practical world, creativity is zero. The world needs tangibility, a formula to follow. Math is formulaic. Science is formulaic. Language evolves but has its own rules. It's all about the technicality and nothing about emotions. Efficiency, efficiency, simplicity, simplicity. We can't go back to where we don't destroy the environment anymore. We can't stop the spread of technology. I acknowledge capitalism. So, instead of fighting it I will use it. That's the way to beat it.

Art cannot lead to my success. My success will lead art.

Sorry everyone who has supported me all along. I will still reply to questions and comments, but on the weekends. If you really have something important to say, please contact me at my email. akanei_rin@yahoo.com

I will probably only be seriously working on commissions provided that I get any. Only because I desperately need to make money so that I can help alleviate debate costs.

Otherwise I'm going to shut myself away from art.

Thank you everyone. I'll seriously see you when summer comes around again. [link]

Saturday, 8:42 PM: Hi everyone, thanks so much for participating in my last livestream (at least for a month or so). I hope you will continue to watch my on-demand videos though and hopefully have fun doing so. I will be doing more shows after I get home from debate camp. See you everyone on August 8th!

I'll try to finish my painting tonight.

Hahah I totally lied because right now I'm gonna go on livestream. Give you 20 ish minutes to get over here COME RIGHT NOW!!: [link]

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CHECK YOUR TIME WITH MINE: [link]

CLICK ME 4 LIVESTREAM

FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER: [link]

I think this will be my Livestream updates journal haha. It would be too annoying to write a new journal everytime. I'll buy myself a subscription for a month and probably put up a bulletin board or something.

If you missed the last livestream, don't worry, just hit the "On-Demand" button next to the Power button and "On-Air" button near the Power sign.

This time I was thinking, instead of you guys watching me draw, how about I walk you guys through a "tutorial"? I mean, I always meant to write a tutorial for Into the Inferno, and I had screenshots and everything, so I might as well just do it live! I'll have to script some parts out, seeing as I only wrote around half of the tutorial. Just so I don't sound dumb.

Let's say this Saturday at 8:00 PM Mountain Time, shall we?

Anyways, ask any questions you have for me right here and I'll answer them live haha! And ask questions during the live stream too, I'll answer them. XD

Quick little update: Haha so just cleared half of my watchlist and it's so much nicer! I'm not getting 20 new deviations every hour now. I'm thinking I can probably cut even more people from my watchlist. From now I'll be a lot more careful about what I add to my favs and even more so, who I watch. I'll actually have to really, really like a piece and I'll have to love the artist completely, gallery and personality. Or if they have no personality, then just gallery.

I had so much fun with everyone who came to watch me draw! You guys are the best. If you missed it, don't worry, just hit the "On-Demand" button next to the Power button and "On-Air" button near the Power sign. And I'll be holding other sessions too so don't worry.

Hey everyone, I'll be live in 15 minutes so go ahead and just head over to the link now! [link]


COMMISSION INFORMATION: [link]
Help me earn money for my 4 grand camp.

So, after seeing how successful and fun *janaschi's livestream was, I decided to make my own too! This is also in thanks of 40k+ pageviews (wow...I haven't checked in awhile and look at it!) and 800ish watchers!! You guys are the best.

[link] is my channel! Fairly easy to remember.

I'm gonna do some painting for probably 1-2 hours on Tuesday, 1:00 PM Mountain Time. (Check your time with mine: right as I'm about to submit this journal, the time here is Sunday 9:30 PM)

All you have to do is click the link, create a temporary nickname and start chatting and watching. It'll be really fun, so I hope you join in! It's also a good time for me to interact with you guys a lot more (I'll be chatting too!).

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Feel free to follow me on Twitter as well. [link]

I'm using it a lot more now that I figured out how to text Twitter.

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I got my permit the other day and I went practice driving the past few days. It's pretty fun! I'm mostly just handing the 40 MPH and lower streets right now, not gonna tackle anything too busy. I'll get my license in December and hopefully my dad's old car!

Speaking of cars, my dad put off buying a car he really needs so that I could go to debate camp at Northwestern for 4 weeks. $4000, not including extra money for laundry and various things. ;__; I feel terrible, so I'm trying really hard to make money for it. I leave July 12 and don't come back till August 8, so don't expect any activity from me for a month!!

Please consider commissioning a sketch from me for $10 dollars (well, $12 for the Paypal transaction fee) so that I can help pay off camp costs. Even better, please consider a pricier commission from me!

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Happy Father's Day too!

By the way, both =luciole and *minties are selling Wacom tablets at VERY good prices, I encourage you guys to check their journals out:

=luciole's journal: [link]
*minties's journal: [link]

COMMISSION INFORMATION: [link]

I've got 1 commission now!

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Edit: Wacom

So, I just browsed through the Semi-finalists again, seeing as how the winners will be announced very soon.

Some disturbing things about the contest-

1. [link] looks just like the famous [link]

2. [link] looks just like some of =One-Vox's angels. (For example, this: [link])

I am sorry, but this is just an insult to everyone. To think that the DA staff lack so much knowledge about very famous pieces! When I saw that Perspective piece, I had thought it WAS =One-Vox. I can't believe this artist is saying he's never seen =One-Vox's work either. I think that's a blatant lie, considering the artist in question rose to fame BECAUSE of his unique take in his Angel Series.

Furthermore, quite a few of those entries on there have signatures on them. Um, what? The rules say VERY CLEARLY that NO distinguishing artist marks, such as signatures or watermarks, are allowed! To think that the judges, who can't even judge 75% originality worth crap, also can't adhere to black and white rules. To think that people who can copy others get a spot over people like *janaschi and ~monarchism! Infuriating.

I'm a bitch, but I want those entries who can't follow rules and ones that clearly copy/borrow from other artists out of the running. Completely unacceptable.

Right now I'm seriously rooting for =cryslara, who is completely amazing and original.

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Hi everyone, I've updated my Contest entry (should be in your inbox). If not, here's a link: [link]

Unfortunately I lost my subscription and therefore can't display thumbnails anymore.

As I've explained on my deviation, I'm breaking the rules by updating it. Because I had no chance of making to any finals round anyways, I decided to patiently work on it throughout the week, in order to truly "bring my vision to life".

I'm very happy with this picture, and I don't really care that I'm not winning anything. In a few days I'll update it with a signature too (I hated that rule in the Contest, where you weren't allowed to put any "distinguishing artists' marks")

I've learned a lot from making this image. Not just in drawing and coloring, but just background information too. I've experimented a lot with textures, brushes, painting styles and layer adjustments. I've learned new things about Photoshop that will surely help my workflow. For example, I created a chain brush for myself.

The process that I made this image is entirely different from all of my other pictures, and I'm happy with how it turned out.

Anyways, it's important to list out and give credentials to references, so here we go:

CREDITS:

1. The different skulls
Human: [link]
Horse: [link]
Pig: [link]
Cow: [link]
Frog: [link]
Goat: [link]
Dog: [link]
Bear: [link]

2. Brushes used are by and

3. Textures by cgtextures, under paper category.

4. Pose and anatomy reference is my own photo of my two good friends, Alisa and Kari. I prefer not to post it because I don't have their permission to publicly broadcast their image.

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Now let's talk about the Wacom Contest semi-finalists.

Personally, I like the entries; they are all very high quality and beautiful. However, my issue is with the whole "originality" factor. A majority of those pictures are the stereotypical angel/demon relationships. This is a problem because Wacom advertised weighing Originality as 50%. To me, it seems like false advertising; if they said they wanted "pretty art" to promote the Intuos, I'd be perfectly ok. It seems they just clicked "Popular" and picked the entries from there, because I've seen a LOT MORE original entries than those.

Second, I also take issue with the fact that someone has TWO entries chosen as semi-finalists. I find that extremely unfair, especially because the entries are virtually the exact same thing and completely unoriginal as well. No offense meant to the person, because I find her very sweet and her artwork is lovely, this is a jab at the Wacom judges.

Thirdly, there are probably only 5-6 entries in there that AREN'T digital. I'm rooting for those entries because they are incredibly unique both in medium and subject matter. Even though Wacom is for digital, they expressed that ALL entries are welcome, in which case equal representation of traditional and digital should be fair. :\

Oh well, good luck everyone! Realize that I'm not bitching because I'm bitter. I'm really happy with how things turned out. I'm just saying that yet again, a deviantART contest fails to be truthful about what objectives they are REALLY looking for.

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I'm getting to all the comments and WILL start commenting on a lot of deviations now! That's the "Other" part in my journal title haha. However, I'm not going to reply to the wonderful comments left on "If You're Ever Around" ([link])

Mainly because it's a very personal image and I don't feel like going back to it at all.

I have a bunch of different WIPs in different stages so expect more art from me!!