I was starting to miss doing symmetrical snowflake-type patterns, so I decided it was time to do another one.

​I forgot that I'd set the multibrush tool to 8 brushes instead of 6, but once I noticed, I decided I liked it the way it was, so I kept it.

Once the central leaf pattern was done, I had to figure out how I wanted to decorate the background. I decided to go with dark blue threads and some smaller copies of the plant in the corners.

After that, it still didn't look complete, so I added some green vines, and then brightened it up with some fireflies.

At that point, it seemed almost done, but still a little too flat; there wasn't enough contrast between the plant and the colors behind it. So I added a dappling of darker blue, crashing my computer in the process (whoops!), then made a tiled version to see how it looks.

I'm happy with the way this one evolved - from a single plant floating like a lily pad, to a twinkling forest drifting in the depths.

If you want to learn how to draw symmetrical patterns like this, I've got a handy tutorial for you here.
​​
And if you want to wear this pattern or use it to decorate your home, it's available on blankets, coffee mugs, dresses, iPhone cases and more in my Society6 store and my RedBubble store.​

Here's what it looks like on some of the available items:

You can see all the RedBubble items with this pattern here.

​Society6 doesn't have a "view everything in this pattern" feature, so here are the links to the items in the picture above:
​
Tote Bags
Wall Clocks
Throw Pillows
Comforters
Skirts
Towels
iPhone Cases and Skins
Shower Curtains
Wall Tapestries
Coffee Mugs
Rectangular Pillows
Dresses

Me: "Now that Fly With Pride is complete, I can focus entirely on Just Cause."

Also me: "I bet a bunch of L shapes on a black background would look cool on clothes and pillows. I should do it in several different colors for good measure!"

I'd originally planned to have fewer L shapes, and to have a gradient on each one, but then I went and zoomed in to make some of the shapes and ended up packing them way tighter than I'd originally intended, and making a lot more of them. Whoops!

​And now I don't want to take the time to put a gradient in every single one of them.

Oh, well - I think it still looks cool.

Here are the links to the items in the collage:

​Tote Bags
Wall Clocks
Throw Pillows
Comforters
Tank tops
Towels
iPhone Cases and Skins
Shower Curtains
Wall Tapestries
Coffee Mugs
Rectangular Pillows
Dresses

After a couple weeks of working on my "Fly With Pride" series, I wanted it to go out with a bang.

I thought it would be great to have a version of the pattern with a richer, fuller look, so I used a night sky background with all 17 versions of the butterfly soaring together in a densely packed kaleidoscope of almost 100 individual flyers. (Also, this week I learned that a group of butterflies is called a kaleidoscope.)

I'd originally planned to have the butterflies layered on top of each other and overlapping, but that got visually confusing, so I went with the starry sky instead.

Here are the links to the items in the collage:

​Tote Bags
Wall Clocks
Throw Pillows
Comforters
Tank tops
Towels
iPhone Cases
Shower Curtains
Wall Tapestries
Coffee Mugs
Rectangular Pillows
Dresses

In a recent post, I commented that I wondered how Regal Scales would look in green. So I tried it, and it looked so good that I tried it in blue, then purple... and I liked all three of them so much that I decided to keep them.

​I​f you want to wear this pattern or use it to give your home a beautiful, unique flare, it's available on coffee mugs, dresses, iPhone cases and more in my Society6 store and my RedBubble store.​

Here's what it looks like on some of the available items:
​

You can use the links below to see all the items with each pattern in RedBubble:

Emerald Scales
Magenta Scales
Sapphire Scales

​Society6 doesn't have a "view everything in this pattern" feature, so here are the links to the items in the picture above:
​
iPhone Cases and Covers
Wall Clocks
Throw Pillows
Comforters
Skirts
Towels
T-Shirts
Shower Curtains
Wall Tapestries
Coffee Mugs
Tote Bags
Dresses

That's probably it for me making different versions of this pattern, unless something unexpected comes to mind. On to new things!

After creating my most recent symmetrical pattern, "Regal Scales", I had a lovely little thought: "What if I tried inverting the colors?"

​This was the result:
​ 

Of course, I had to see what this frosty gem looks like on dresses, coffee mugs, blankets and such, and I'm glad I did. Check this out:
​ 

You can see all the RedBubble items with this pattern here.

​Society6 doesn't have a "view everything in this pattern" feature, so here are the links to the items in the picture above:
​
iPhone Cases and Covers
Wall Clocks
Throw Pillows
Comforters
Skirts
Towels
T-Shirts
Shower Curtains
Wall Tapestries
Coffee Mugs
Tote Bags
Dresses

Hm... now I'm wondering what this pattern looks like in green.

I wanted to try another scaled pattern, like "Earthen Scales, Golden Streams" and "Golden Diamonds, Rainbow Void", but with curved shapes and a more intricate pattern on each scale this time. I started with the single-scale version above, then turned it into the overlapping pattern below.

I​f you want to wear this pattern or use it to decorate your home, it's available on coffee mugs, dresses, iPhone cases and more in my Society6 store and my RedBubble store.​

Here's what it looks like on some of the available items:

Hi, everyone,

Some of you may have noticed that the latest pages of my Undertale webcomic, Just Cause, have been taking longer than usual. I wanted to give you an update to explain why that’s happening, and what you can do to help if you so choose.

About a year ago, I decided I wanted to spend more time creating stories and art. That’s always been my passion, but for most of my life, it’s had to play second fiddle to the other things I had to do in order to pay my bills.

I wanted to change that. So I set up an account on Patreon, opened up commissions, started selling art on Society6 and RedBubble, and created a tutorial on SkillShare to teach others how to draw symmetrical snowflake patterns.

I spent more time working on Just Cause, while also juggling a part-time job as a sighted guide and another business.

Between said other business, the job, and my writing and art, I often worked 50-60 hours a week.

The results… have been deeply discouraging.

I recently lost my biggest supporter on Patreon (she had her own financial obligations she needed to prioritize), and I’m getting next to nothing in monthly pledges now. The income from my tutorial and print-on-demand patterns hasn’t been nearly enough to put a dent in my bills, and after all the countless hours of work I’ve put into all of this, I’m frustratingly unsure of what I’m doing wrong.

As a result, I’ve needed to cut back on the time I spend on art and storytelling, so I can focus on things that actually bring in income. If I don’t, it won’t be long before I won’t even be able to buy food.

What can you do to help?

I understand that a lot of people reading this are low on funds themselves, and I don’t want to make you feel guilty or obligated. I intend to continue to work on Just Cause, but it will likely continue to go slower than before as long as my financial situation stays this way.

If you want to help me spend more time making stories and art, here are a few ways you can do it, and some of them don’t require any money from you:

1. Watch my symmetrical pattern tutorial on SkillShare, and share it with anyone you know who might be interested.

SkillShare is basically like Netflix: it pays the creators who put content on it according to the amount of time people spend watching that content. The more you and other people watch my tutorial, the more I get paid.

Here’s a link to the tutorial.

2. Share my Society6/RedBubble art, and/or purchase it.

If you see something you like in my S6 or RB stores, every purchase helps. And if you don’t want to buy something or you don’t have the funds, sharing product images and links to the store with people who you think might be interested in buying something for themselves or getting something as a gift is a way you can help for free.

My RedBubble store
My Society6 store

3. Share my art, with credit.

If you think your social media followers will enjoy something I posted, please reblog it on Tumblr, or share it on your other channels with a link to the DA or Tumblr page on which I originally shared it. On DA, you can find a series of social media “share” buttons near the upper right corner of each “deviation”s page.

You can follow me on Tumblr here.

4. Support me on Patreon.

Ideally, I would LOVE to have a stable, reliable monthly income that enables me write and create art with the knowledge that doing what I love is HELPING my ability to pay my bills instead of putting me in financial jeopardy.

In return for your support, you get early access to completed art and stories and exclusive access to works in progress, as well as other tier-exclusive rewards depending on the size of your pledge.

You can see a breakdown of the available rewards on this page.

5. Commission an art piece or a panel of Just Cause.

Another way to support me financially is to hire me to draw something for you. You can see my commission prices here.

If you want to use your contribution to make the next page of Just Cause come out faster, you can commission a panel of the comic. When you do this, I can schedule creating that panel into my work hours, in addition to the ones I draw during my free time, so I get more panels done that day.

Once your commissioned panel is done, I’ll send you a copy of it right away as thanks for your contribution. You’ll also have the option to be credited as a sponsor on the page once it comes out, unless you prefer anonymity.

Thanks for reading this journal entry. The last few months have been pretty stressful for me, and anything you can do to help will be greatly appreciated!

You know that thing some artistic children do, when they scribble a random shape into MS Paint and then fill in the gaps? That's basically what I did here.

It started with the idea that I wanted a blue and purple background with a yellow symmetrical pattern in the foreground, and maybe some pink here and there for flavor. I wan't planning on making a snowflake this time - more like the shields the Masters of the Mystic Arts create in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The trouble was, I wasn't sure what pattern to use for the purple part. I tried clouds, rectangular glitch effects, blotchy textures... nothing felt right. Eventually I selected the multibrush tool, set it to 20 brushes, chose a soft-edged brush, and basically started scribbling, adding whatever doodles and shapes felt right in any given spot.

By the time I was done, it looked so nice that I didn't want to cover it up. So I ditched the shield idea, and instead started filling some of the gaps between the purple lines with pink and yellow, then added green when I felt like something was missing.

In the end, I liked both versions - the muted yet elegant blue-and-purple lace, and the more vibrant explosion of pastel colors - so I decided to keep both.

I might still use the shield idea for a future pattern, but first I'll have to figure out what kind of background to give it.

If you want to learn how to draw symmetrical patterns like this, I've got a handy tutorial for you here.
​​
And if you want to wear this pattern or use it to decorate your home, it's available on coffee mugs, dresses, iPhone cases and more in my Society6 store and my RedBubble store.​

Here's what it looks like on some of the available items:

I wanted to try a less symmetrical pattern comprised of simpler shapes this time, and this was the result.  When I put it in my Society6 and RedBubble stores, I included both this blue option and a transparent option, so people have choices.

I also made a version of the picture with the various elements rearranged, so they'll look good on clothes that use a single image on the front as opposed to all-over print.

Speaking of what this looks like on clothes and other items, you can see some examples in the image below:

​I went into this pattern with basically no plan except for "purple snowflake on a red background".

As it turns out, that's garish. Eye-bleedingly garish.

So I replaced the red background with a deep blue, and used the red for something I haven't tried before: a snowflake behind the main snowflake, this time using "normal" mode for the brush instead of my usual "screen".

I wasn't sure I liked the way it looked until I experimented with lightening the sky a bit, and tried adding in the teal.  It didn't really work as part of the sky, but I was surprised by how well it fit as part of the snowflake.

I still did end up brightening the sky, but subtly, with a faint dappling of lighter blue.

Here's what the pattern looks like when tiled:

If anything, I think this one actually looks better when tiled.

If you want to learn how to draw symmetrical patterns like this, I've got a handy tutorial for you here.
​​
And if you want to wear this pattern or use it to decorate your home, it's available on coffee mugs, dresses, iPhone cases and more in my Society6 store and my RedBubble store.

Here's what it looks like on some of the available items: