Assby

slablet for sketching, screen for drawing, slablet for editing is my current process

im not heavily moved over to bsky yet because despite following several hundred people across four different fandom/interest specific accounts, my TL actually does not move much at all bc the artists i follow aren't RTing (i haven't been rting bc of family issues so not helping but yeah)

I think bsky is more like tumblr where you need the boost from your fellow artist to access that circulatory system

I don't even think tagging is the issue, I think it's because artist to artist RT culture is depressed here bc other platforms have a more audienced fueled circulation culture that doesn't quite exist here yet.

Aww I know that's a long time coming for you, so happy for you!

picture of a scarf on a desk that has a tiny chihuahua wrapped up in it

up close of chihuahua falling asleep within her scarf cocoon

Dont be weepy sleepy puppies

Yup, its literally no longer functional. I feel like on purpose

I use scrapers to download things and now i keep getting rate limited and banned after a while so it's hard to get past tthat 3k limit lookback

even when you download your own archive, the search isn't that functional, so much is just lost, it kills me

twitter search has been broken for a while and you can only look down to like first 1k to 3k posts on a timeline so essentially anything you post on twitter eventually becomes lost media after a while

i wanna say that you can draw comics while holding a full time job. I don't just mean doujinshi. I have a friend w/a published manga that has been officially localized in NA and they have a day job. I also have a full time job and I draw this much but I'm comics georg adn should not be counted

the culture difference between jp conventions "i'm here for the joy and whimsy and only charging to recoup printing costs" vs US cons "money money i must draw the most popular current IP" is jarring

my mom hand a hand go partially paralyzed this year and i was like oh 🙃

whatchu gonna do when you got old people claws that don't work and u can't draw anymore in your 60s man

so many AA artists just not gonna ever be able to retire bc they don't have the financial literacy which is embedded into regular job culture and their wages are not consistent enough tot be compatible with regular fin security institutions who demand large deposits

I agree with this but also want to say that I hope the breaking point of the hyper competitive convention hustle culture ends up with people finally focusing more on local community driven art markets and events

i made a guide on how to write, draw, and print a doujinshi/fanzine/whatever you want to call it.

this is a crash course on literally everything i know about making doujinshi. it's over 40 pages long. i hope you like it.

docs.google.com/document/d/1...

its a bit of a relief to see other artists feel the same about how US artist alley has become more ""hustle culture"" with a focus on making marketable goods with ok enough art, and less ""check out this mental illness"" with 200 doujinshi pages of the best sucking and fucking you can ever imagine

@r2e054.bsky.social happy birthday!!!hope you are having a beautiful day today!!

on twitter/X it's easier to sit back because it's more populated so the vehicles of visibility are like artist -> public/algorithm. But Bsky doesnt have that so much so the vehicle is more like artist->artist and that is the worst car to ride on lately

maybe that's part of economic strain and inherent selfishness about protecting the funds of your audience pool for your own work but it's a big contributor to why this is being perceived as a very difficult platform

It's circulating that Bsky is boring and I feel like the reason why it's boring is because it lacks a sense of community. Most of the artists scolding about success do not return the gift of visibility they were granted, they do not repost, they don't hold space for other creators

actually one more thought

in this era of social media, 70% of your success is going to be tied to your charisma and social skills.

If your personality stinks or you are inclined to negativity and aren't in the practice of holding community, then your success will directly reflect that

the grim reality is that it's not enough to just draw this day and dutifully wait by the window for your time to magically come to you. You HAVE to shake your ass. You HAVE to be a content creator too. I mean you don't HAVE to but you SHOULD.

the real answer is imo is balance in what you do and consistency, should you have $40k and 100 hours wrapped up in just doing keychains of ur oc? no. but variety helps and also life is short, fuck it, do what makes happy

play the CURRENT algorithm game and it's kinder and better to say I do not know it just happened for me than to act like all efforts are futile and stupid and tthey should do nothing but draw and wait for a turn that is never coming without playing the game everyone else is playing

just because 2025 looks very very different and demands a different strategy does not make one better than the other. It's like a core misunderstanding of the question people are trying to verbalize when they ask how to market what they're asking really is how do they

It's a critical misunderstanding of how social media works or it's disingenuous because nothing is made in a vacuum and then miraculously finds success. Some level of advertisement, of reaching out, of being your own cheerleader/marketer led to your success and visibility

established artists sneering down at new gen artists who are maturing in a vastly different creative space and saying things like marketing and making merch of your ocs is a waste of time/effort better poured into comic making are so out of touch and miserable

LMAOO this shit is giving me an adjustment disorder