Red Clock Artwork

FF8 Shiva in watercolour form

Finished another gift for my sister! Done in watercolor and gouache.

my robot lady Ace

a cute frog i digitally painted. reference definitely used

a cute little Bob-omb made from Sculpey

I need to use gouache more >:L

Garden Run

Happy (late) Valentine's Day!!

Valentine's Day at Littlewood

Love is in the air — and it seems one denizen of Littlewood is particularly smitten this year.

(Littlewood and its properties belong to Sean Young.)

Bat Bundle

I was sick from allergies for a few weeks in January; once I was mostly recovered, I decided to draw my fursona in much the state I wanted to be in while under the weather, bundled up and sleeping.

(Originally completed 01/21.)

Liliputia Concept #1

Fairy character design exploration.

She is Liliputia, a mid-ranking fae. Her powers are largely inconsequential in the world of the fairies, but are considerably more disruptive in the Waking World.

(Originally completed 01/21.)

Treasure Unlocked

Scouring dungeons might be a dangerous feat, but the rewards of the unknown are well worth the risk for an adventurer as experienced as Twitch Shadowfoot.

- - -

(League of Legends and its properties belong to Riot Games.)

(Originally completed 01/21.)

Gem & Flower

I originally intended to make this for my birthday in November, as it features my birthstones (topaz, beryl as represented by aquamarine) and birth flower (chrysanthemum), but I ended up putting it off until January, to serve as the 20×21 a year ends contribution.

(Originally completed 01/21.)

Hey, I wanna follow more people now that the new update is out and I'm on here more. Please boost and share your blogs for me to check out?

Pop Pumpkin Blossom

A final piece from the October backlog — my submission for ARTeapot's League of Legends charity fanzine, Samhain, featuring a skin concept of Bewitching Neeko. I was unable to include a full background as I originally wanted, but I still like how it came out. :jack_o_lantern:

(10/20)

October 2020 — Spooky Celebrations Master Post

This post will serve as an index for my Spooky Celebrations pieces, with links to all of them as they are posted. 🎃

For more information on Spooky Celebrations, see this post: https://redclock.waterfall.social/post/418163

1. Eve of Houndoom
2. Day Job
3. Creepster Custard
4. Easier Bake
5. Not-So-Scary Teacher
6. Badger Badger Garlic
7. Knocking is Polite
8. No Mysteries Here
9. You've Naut Mail
10. Devil's Delight + Sugar Rush
11. The Kraken in the Sky
12. Reaping What Sows (+colored version)
13. The Learning Process
14. Pumpkin Prize (+colored version)
15. Deep Dreams
16. Repeat After Me
17. Puppy Love + Candy Coded
18. Another Devil's Delight
19. Mutual Interest Introductions
20. … and Steady + Not Afraid, Pt. I + Not Afraid, Pt. II
21. Treat Exchange Program
22. Life Drawing
23. Ghastly Glaze
24. Season's Sleepings
25. Sour Stack Attack
26. Out for Delivery + Seasonal Wares
27. Something Wicked
28. Berry Berry Chocolate
29. Rest for the Wicked
30. Mischief Munchkins + Mischief Monsters
31. Reunion, Pt. I + Reunion, Pt. II + Reunion, Pt. III

All Spooky Celebrations art, with 39 pieces for 31 days, has finally been posted!

About a third may not have been uploaded until after Halloween's official end, but for some of us, Halloween doesn't ever really end, right?

Reunion, Pt. III

The goblins — and two familiar companions — taking in the glittering sky of October's last night, long after the festivities have gone quiet. For them, it seems, Halloween never truly ends.

Piece #31-3 for Spooky Celebrations, with Halloween.

See more Spooky Celebrations here!(12/20)

Reunion, Pt. II

Newfound friends have decided to visit somewhere different for their Halloween celebrations.

Piece #31-2 for Spooky Celebrations, with Halloween.

See more Spooky Celebrations here!(12/20)

Reunion, Pt. I

A long month of anticipation and preparation has paid off, as the witches finally get to gather and spend the day together.

Piece #31-1 for Spooky Celebrations, with Halloween.

See more Spooky Celebrations here!(12/20)

Mischief Monsters

The sun has set, and the midnight hour draws near — let the celebrations begin!

Piece #30-2 for Spooky Celebrations, with Mischief Night, National Candy Corn Day, Frankenstein Day, and National Bandana Day.

See more Spooky Celebrations here!(11/20–12/20)

Mischief Munchkins

With Halloween swiftly approaching, a group of mischievous friends await their favorite night.

Piece #30-1 for Spooky Celebrations, with Mischief Night, National Candy Corn Day, and Frankenstein Day.

See more Spooky Celebrations here!(11/20–12/20)

on frustration with Waterfall development

1. Where does frustration with the site development come from?

Waterfall is a nice functional site with decent people on it, it has some neat features, doesn't lag terribly, and doesn't allow creeps on it. However, it's still underdeveloped, and you can't deny it. There's no fast reblog, the queue is set up for two days forward for no apparent reason, I can't write a text box, a message, or create a page without encountering some bugs. These issues are currently being worked on at a steady pace, and we have all agreed to wait until those are solved because we understand the struggles of one man behind this unexpectedly huge project. Most people I know aren't frustrated with how fast the site is developing. However, there is no set in stone date people can look forward to, and all the existing deadlines keep getting delayed, which create some frustration for some of us.

The frustration arises when people start talking about some new global features, or the overhaul of the old, already existing ones, and the way those discussions are being handled. As I see, people on the staff side experience concerns with the way some of the current systems work in the way that they're not very "beneficial for the site" in terms of newcomers, which is frustrating for staff, too. As someone who doesn't see the site from the inside, I often assume that the most trouble newcomers are having are the same troubles I am having, and a lot of them might disappear after the second update. However, the discussion of possible overhauls of big systems that people are currently allegedly misusing creates the illusion that those overhauls will happen and form a new direction for the site. Even if nothing is being implemented right now, people are starting to worry as if though the changes are already being implemented because they are being talked about.

They're mostly being talked about on discord, where it's easy to take stuff completely out of context since a lot of messages are happening at the same time, and the information is easily missed. This leads people to wrong conclusions from time to time and causes more frustration. Also, discord is not something everyone has, visits regularly, or even is aware of, because of multiple valid reasons, including mental health ones. So, some frustration from my side roots in me seeing staff blog say something like "I've talked to people on discord on it and they say it's fine so we will do it" while me not being aware the discussion even happened or that I could join it. I've only seen it happen once, however, so this is more of an exception, but I thought it still is worth mentioning.

In this part of the post, I've covered my perspective on where the frustration comes from. The second part of the post will be about how it is expressed and handled.

2. How is frustration expressed and handled? Why does it cause more frustration?

So the discussions on discord went nowhere and left everyone frustrated. The user side is upset for not being able to have a proper discussion, and the staff side is upset because they feel like they're getting bullied and threatened by the userbase on top of their already high workload. Why did this happen? Why did the discussion about what was supposed to be technical details turn personal? Well, unfortunately, the discussion was ultimately about the user experience, and the user experience is personal, so people have shared their personal opinions. Also, in a chat, people type fast and think fast, so some stuff was said without thinking and got too personal. Thus the frustrations arose that weren't about technical details, but more about the terminology surrounding them, which derailed the discussion to further frustration of everyone. But on top of that, I feel like there was a bunch of narratives that were pushed through the discussion (not by Thell personally mind you, I don't exactly remember who said that and I am not going to put words in Thell's mouth) which just left everyone upset. Here are said narratives.

1. Judging someone's art quality. Thell has stated repeatedly both in discord and wf that he specifically doesn't want to define what is an art and what isn't, and if there's good art or bad art. But we still ended up having the debate about art quality at least three consecutive times on discord, all the time with the same people. And some people went as far as just saying something along the lines "sorry but yes I am implying your art is shitty" and we all just had to deal with the fact that the conversation is going in this tone. I am aware that the timeouts were handed out for the rude user, but it was done completely behind the scenes, with no acknowledgement of rude behaviour being unacceptable and with no way for me to even tell that there was a timeout going on, which didn't really make the environment feel more welcoming and polite.
2. The greater good of the site. The narrative about "people complaining because they don't understand what's actually good for them and the site" and the suggestions of completely ignoring said complaints "for the greater good" and "because there will always be someone who complains" were encountered multiple times by me. Now, I don't completely disagree with the fact that for every feature there will be people in the world who just aren't satisfied with it. But it also seems kinda weird to me to imply that there's only one certain way for the site to grow, even though the current direction of Waterfall isn't even specified as anything else but "definitely not Tumblr 2.0 also artists". Some sites rely entirely on poorly drawn shitty memes and some sites are for displaying high-quality professional photography. Sites can go in many directions and gain activity in multiple ways. And the weirdest thing to me was in this narrative was the implication that we can sacrifice the needs of existing site users by implementing something that might potentially attract new users. In Russia, we have a saying "a sparrow in the hand is better than a crane in the sky". A crane is a bigger bird, but you don't have it yet, and if you let go of your sparrow to catch a crane, you might lose both.
3. Userbase expressing concerns means they hate Thell. But at the same time, I saw a narrative about Thell being "bullied" into implementing featured, being called names, and "threatened" by people who say they are about to leave the site. Now, I haven't seen all the post, I believe there are people who are being purposefully rude to staff which is honestly uncalled for. However, I've mostly observed people expressing constructive criticism politely, and staff side taking the issue with certain words, which felt... Kinda weird? The words "elitist", etc. were thrown around because people were expressing how they've felt and why they are frustrated, and someone saying "you are using elitist language" doesn't equal someone calling you purposefully being elitist, just like people saying "this is ableist language" aren't calling you ableist, and even if they're calling you out on said behaviour in a civil manner, which I've seen most people do, this isn't an insult, this is an opportunity to learn to be more considerate. And people saying they're going to leave the site because a certain thing has left them frustrated... What else are they supposed to do or say? Leave quietly or stay at the site that bothers them because they don't want to offend staff by expressing their frustration in any way at all? Is that a community we want to build? Is there a way to express constructive criticism which is not considered offensive? I honestly have no idea at this point.
4. Discord is a great discussion platform. It's not. And still, I saw someone suggesting that the voices of people who don't come to discord because of various valid reasons should just be ignored because they "don't care enough". Don't think there was anyone else backing this point, but I've noticed it and I don't think this is a valid point at all.

In this part of the post, I've talked about the discussion that's happened and the sources of frustration that arose during this discussion.

I am not sure about the third part, going on a little break now.

I really just want to say, now that I’ve had a sleep and my head’s in place.

The thing that stuck out most to me in the conversation last night was that someone’s actual real art was used by someone else as an example of what was “less deserving” of protection, without the artist’s consent. I saw no apology for the wording of the post and I think it was really inappropriate to use someone’s actual work as an example.

Every time this got brought up people acted like it was others being upset by the **vague concept** of some art is better than others; but it wasn’t a concept of it, someone was non-consentually **singled out** as an example of “worse” artist out of two and when they expressed their discomfort and upset they were ignored/glossed over and it was not shown to be addressed.

It’s VERY important to me that the wording of the post wasn’t “the algorithm will have a worse time with this one” and that it was “this one is *less deserving of protection*”. And it was very frustrating that the insulting wording went ignored by people in the server and that I saw no correction or apology about the use of a real user’s work.

Users should **not** be allowed to single out other users and their art, especially not publicly in front of the entire server and I think it’s *absolutely reasonable* that some people want to leave after seeing a user singled out as a “bad example” be left unaddressed. It was an uncomfortable thing to witness it go ignored when, on other art sites like deviantart, singling out another artist’s work as a bad example is often considered a form of harassment by staff.

A lot of heat from yesterday, at least after I came in, was sparked by the insulting comment and it progressed when people ignored the fact the comment had been insulting.

A LOT of people were trying to say “I’m upset that this users art was used as an example of art that the poster considered bad” but people then replied with talk about the algorithm not being able to pick it up, when the algorithm was **not** the issue with the comment; the direct and real insult to the quality of another user’s work was the issue.

If the comment had been “this sort of art is hard for the algorithm to pick up” I would have no issue. But the original comment was actively implying that an artist’s drawing was worse than another artist’s. It is one thing to talk about some art pieces being good or bad, it is *another thing entirely* to single out a user as an example.

THAT is what a lot of people are upset about and it is making me EXTREMELY uncomfortable that it is has not been addressed, especially now that statements are being made about other things. Where is the acknowledgement of the harm that was done to this artist? Not even just acknowledgement by Thell, but acknowledgement by the overall community? I care about all of you. And I care about the artist who was singled out. And I’m very upset that this is what the community decided was okay to do to someone.

I have supported the site with money before. I was a kickstarter backer, an on-off patron, and I have put actual real effort into advertising the website and had multiple people join on my recommendation, even before things such as the invite system were implemented. And now I feel genuinely **embarrassed** and upset that I put my name and money out there for a community that allowed the public calling out and insult of someone who **literally did nothing wrong** with no obvious statement against it or repercussions for the hurt that was caused.

I’m very upset that the community drowned out the fact that a real actual person, a member of the community, was so obviously hurt by their work being used in the server without their consent. It was far from appropriate and it's left an extremely bad taste in my mouth.

I do not want to be part of a community that thinks it is appropriate to treat its members this way.