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Tal Natha Blog Entry |
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August 17, 2019, 3:12:50 AM December 30, 2020, 9:13:24 PM 8/17/19: Another rough ROUGH anthro sketch, this time an Ocryx, Tal Natha. For some reason I can't figure out 3/4 view; I know I used to know it. It's annoying how you don't forget how to ride a bike, but you do forget how to draw. :/ Guess I'll have to look for tutorials at some point... [Rough Tal Natha Sketch 2019 [Saturday, August 17, 2019, 3:12:50 AM]] 12/30/20: r/SketchDaily theme, "Wolf." Rough drawing of Tal Natha, a main character from my fantasy serial Manitou Island. He's an Ocryx, a type of "wolf demon" with horns, wings, and a snake tail. "Tal Natha" means "Dreamspinner" in the Ocryx tongue; he's responsible for bringing dreams to the people who live upon the Island, though he doesn't create the dreams, he merely carries/"spins" them from where they're born, in a place called the Gemfields, in the Borderlands (a dreamlike boundary realm beneath the Island). The sparkles behind him are crystals; crystals line many caves upon the Island and are somehow connected to dreams and other mystical resources. HERE'S a very old and outdated sketch that shows roughly what an Ocryx looks like all put together (bottom sketch). [OMITTED.] They can stand upright or walk on all fours, speak aloud or communicate telepathically. As a type of manitou (spirit), they're aligned with various elements, in this case, wind and water. Very rare and territorial (Tal Natha is one of only three full-blooded Ocryxes on the Island), they tend to be standoffish from each other since the only ways an Ocryx can die are if their source of power is destroyed (in this case, the Island itself), or if they're pierced by another Ocryx horn. EDIT: I seem to have acquired a hater on Reddit again. First my off-theme doodle from the other day was downvoted quite a few hours after I'd submitted it, when I figured the thread would be done with; now again, many hours after I submitted it and the new thread is already well in progress, this drawing apparently got downvoted, too. (I say "apparently" as this time, one person had actually upvoted it first, but now it's back down to 1 and my karma lost a point as well.) Prior to these, I think I'd been downvoted maybe twice in all my time posting in r/SketchDaily--once on another crappy doodle of a scooter (I assumed this user disliked low-effort doodles), the other time when I mentioned a subreddit for...romantically unwanted...users (a sub held in low regard by much of Reddit and, after a painful while spent trying--and failing--to fit in there, I understand why). Given all this, I figured I knew why my previous doodle got downvoted, somebody seems to dislike low-effort art (even though it's called SKETCHDaily and I'm not the only one who occasionally slacks off). This drawing, though...? I put effort into this, more than originally planned, in fact. Technically, it's on theme. And I for sure didn't mention anything remotely controversial in my description. (Reddit is...weirdly unpredictable...regarding what's considered "acceptable" or not--one time I responded to a photo of an abandoned library with a comment about how I wanted to rescue all the poor books and got a decent number of upvotes, a few years later when I offered a similar comment on a similar photo I was promptly downvoted. And this was despite there being other, similar comments that had been upvoted previously. I've had M-A-N-Y similar experiences with downvotes on completely inoffensive and even positive comments/submissions (e. g., numerous downvotes on my heartbroken eulogy to a missing cat in a pet loss sub--and numerous downvotes when I once wistfully told those other romantically unwanted users that I wished we lived closer so we could hang out). I've given up trying to understand or to communicate in other subs. I just stick to the relatively uncontroversial SketchDaily, mostly because I don't want to break my streak. And because downvotes there are so rare.) Anyway, this is all my way of saying...why THIS drawing? Why target this? What about it is so offensive, or piqued somebody so much, that they chose to click my username, go through to my profile, and deliberately downvote me from my own page (because downvoting is disabled in the sub itself)? It's either one of the several trolls who simply will never give up on following me around (despite me pretty much giving up attempting to reach out and fit in ANYWHERE online anymore aside from my piddling drawings in this one sub where I'm almost never noticed), or...what? Who could it possibly be and why is my art so obnoxious to them that they feel the need to go to such trouble over a nobody? As if my self-confidence, especially in my crappy art and writing, isn't poor enough. -_- I had actually typed up a similar but shorter note to append to my previous downvoted drawing to get the hurt out of my system but refrained from immediately editing it in case this person clicks through my Tumblr links and were to see it and realize they succeeded in getting to me. I'll probably regret adding this here; I almost always end up regretting it when I try to vent my frustration. But screw it, I guess, I don't have a blog to post this in. And I feel like making it clear that petty people like this exist and I've been dealing with variations of them since I was a little kid. (Thus my crippling anxiety, and longwinded Tumblr complaining to an audience of zero, today.) The ones online are somehow worse than the ones IRL, perhaps because they can so easily hide behind their computer screens and never need to face any sort of repercussions for their actions. Yet I'm the coward. It's sad how life works. I now get to deal with the dread that this is going to turn into yet another ongoing thing (I've dealt with persistent stalkers in the past). It's especially discouraging because most Redditors have a few other users who like their work and will upvote it to counter any downvotes, but I'm too invisible and crappy an artist to attract positive attention more than once or twice every couple of weeks. -_- I've had an idea for today's (New Year's Eve) piece for a while; I now get to look forward to it being downvoted, maybe even more than once if anyone reads this, because it's not even going to be slightly good (which I'd hoped this one was, but I guess not.) I may need to make a habit of venting in here more often since I have nowhere else. Sorry. Happy New Year...and thanks to that one person who originally upvoted this. [Tal Natha 2020 [Wednesday, December 30, 2020, 9:13:24 PM]] |