Admin Post: Community Check-In for July 2025

[goss]

Today's the last day of July, and we'd love to have you check in and chat with us. How have things been with you this past month?

Did you sign up for or take part in any fandom activities in July, or have you been working on any personal art projects? Are you currently trying to meet a deadline? Feel free to share upcoming art challenges that have got you excited, any frustrations you've been experiencing, possible goals for the next month, and so on.

NB: A Round-Up of art entries for the What Makes You Happy challenge will be posted on August 16th, since it's been extended by two weeks. :)

Comments

[zenigotchas]

July's Sunshine Revival/Challenge!

Chugging away at comicking shit. I haven't finished my comic yet, but I added more lore and fleshed out more of the story, so yay! Uhhh here's the info if anyone is curious (I'm trying to get into the habit of sharing and not just talking about my art): https://zenigotchas.dreamwidth.org/645574.html

(Makes me want to make a seperate comm/sideblahg for comics I make or even for just this specific series!)

Idk I want to make more for the current challenge because I like the variety of it! There are so many things that make me happy. I hope other people share their happiness too (but I know things have been rough lately which makes it hard to want to share)

[mific]

Go you with the comic - it's a bit complicated working out the details!

[zenigotchas]

Thank you!! I have realized though that the most important thing is writing it down. That's the only way to make progress even if you only write something you end up not liking or wanting to keep.

[goss]

Yay for having lots of happy-making things to draw! Cheering you on. :D

[zenigotchas]

Thank you

[leecetheartist]

Personal art for me, got to hang out with other artists at my local community shed and drew a dragon with a shiny ink which I'll post here soon. It certainly made me happy!

[mific]

A shiny dragon sounds very happy-making! :D

[goss]

Yay, dragon! It's great that you got to hang out with other artists in your community. :)

[troyswann]

Hello! I just subscribed/joined so I'm looking forward to seeing art and chatting with folks. I do have something for the Happiness challenge, but don't have a hosting place yet so I can't share at this time.

I'm a painter and love life drawing. What's making me happy right now is two projects: making graphite portraits of my friends; doing paintings for a novel(?) project I'm working on. I've just done a to-scale painting of a whale's eye in acrylics and am working on some abstract portraiture for that project too.

I hope to get the hosting situation sorted soon. If anybody has any recommendations for something that is easy to use, I'd be very grateful!

Looking forward to seeing all your work and happy-making things!

[mific]

I might have recommended squidge images before? https://images.squidge.org - It's easy to use. It's fandom oriented but fine to post original works there too. https://drive.google.com/file/d/104KWzgQLuiloRHdhtPTpu9fRUbwtJB5v/view?usp=drivesdk

ETA: you might like salchat's work, on tumblr. Dean of SPN is her main subject, also Castiel and Sam, and a few musicians. She mostly works in pastels. https://www.tumblr.com/salchat/tagged/fanart

[goss]

I just subscribed/joined so I'm looking forward to seeing art and chatting with folks

Hello, and welcome to the community! :)

I've been using Dreamwidth's image upload feature in recent years.

But also seconding Squidge.org for image hosting.

[mific]

Just to mention that if you host art using Dreamwidth's image upload you can only post it to Dreamwidth - can't embed it anywhere else on the internet. I use it, but just for things I only want to post to the Drawesome comm or my journal.

[elyusion]

I've been scared of drawing for a long time, and since it used to be my #1 hobby I really wanted to know why. After many failed drawing attempts, I've learned I can't draw anything I care too much about. I've been trying to get back into the flow with studies and very general doodle prompts and stuff -- but I'd really rather be drawing the things I care about. I started drawing in the first place to force others to witness my ideas, and my ideas are my favorite characters frolicking about, not sketches of random nude people and fruit or whatever.

I also made a personal bingo board where all the squares are types of fanart or original character art, hoping that the reward of "a day with no chores" would motivate me, but I'm still too nervous to touch fan/OC art. I feel like a reward isn't enough; I need a gun pointed at my head forcing me to draw, but I don't know where you'd hire someone like that 🤔 It's a shame I had pretty much all summer free and I drew nothing presentable. Sad!

[mific]

Sorry to hear you've felt blocked. Is it a block at the start that stops you even starting to draw, or a problem finishing, or in how you feel about the piece afterward?

I hope you can overcome it - probably the state of the world right now isn't helping. Hang in there.

[elyusion]

Mainly getting started -- I procrastinate drawing like it's homework instead of something I do for fun. But even when I do make myself draw, I can't finish anything. I conclude I'm not good enough to draw whatever idea I was drawing and resolve to try something else. I've been in this cycle for months. I didn't always have this problem, so I know I'm probably setting my standards for myself too high... But if I literally cannot draw something, then that's that, I think?

[goss]

Mainly getting started -- I procrastinate drawing like it's homework instead of something I do for fun

Ha, I am the same way!

I've been on vacation for the past 3 weeks, and haven't been able to convince myself to just sit down and draw something, even though I love making art. Brains! /o\

I think I'm going to stop thinking about it as "waiting for inspiration" to magically strike, and just assign myself a task to complete, just like I would with any other tedious chore. Schedule in a specific day this week, at a particular hour, to sit down and draw something, and hope that gives me the motivation to follow through on making a start with this month's drawesome challenge. :b

[zenigotchas]

Do you want advice or just to be heard? Because I can do either (the comment resonated with me)

[elyusion]

I'd like to hear the advice <:3 I've avoided saying all that elsewhere because I figured there was no advice for someone like me left; I just need to Make Myself Draw somehow. No one can make me draw unless they're volunteering to be the person who stands behind me with a gun (would be funny). But when I saw this post on my reading page my fingers started typing before I could think about possible reactions, or how I even hope anyone would react TT

[mific]

I did a couple of Murderbot artworks earlier this month, one a digital drawing based on a screenshot, and the other a different style, a collage/manip. Then the recent Podficcers one for "what makes you happy", and a few podfic covers in between.

I'm currently very into the movie "Sinners" and have started a complicated work of the big music/dance scene - having fun with that. Art and podfic are still combining well for me - making art while listening to podfic. :)

[goss]

I'm currently very into the movie "Sinners"

Ooooh! I've been curious about this movie! There's been so much positive buzz around it - must add it to my summer watch list. :D

Also planning to check out Murderbot, so I can doubly enjoy all the fannish works it's been producing. ^__^

[mific]

It's a great movie! Unsure if it's still in cinemas, but it's also rentable on Apple streaming now. The music in it is so good, and it's very powerful. Vampires though, so lots of blood, but really it's about racism, and standing up to racism.

[goss]

Sounds intriguing! Thanks for the heads up.