mime-taster
Former 19 year old, aspiring 26 year old, mostly an art blog, might post other stuff here and there though.
53 posts
Latest Posts by mime-taster
Still can’t do faces that well, unfortunately. anyways, here’s an attempt at the bug man. Literally did not even include his most iconic feature. I’m so busy rn, and there were definitely better ways I could have spent my time, but I can’t say I regret wasting it on this. As the saying goes, “it’s just so much fun, too much fun, oh come on”
A plant study I did in watercolour. I actually really like it. It’s the first time I’ve done watercolour in a bit, and I’m happy how it turned out for the most part.
Working on improving at faces, and I’m really happy with the progress I’m making. They’re not all great, but I really love the one of the man on the right. I’m trying to get better at just getting key details across and doing quick sketches, so I kept these all to 5 minutes.
I was thinking about birds earlier today(many such cases), when my thoughts wandered a bit too far and the phrase “ratite-oulli” popped into my head. I knew I had to draw it, so here’s a quick 10 minute sketch. Nothing is to scale at all, and the cassowary is sorta terrible, but this is a shitpost anyways, so…
Little 15 minute sketch I did. Idk who it’s supposed to be, since it’s from imagination, but my quick sketches usually look much worse, so I’m happy. Sorta reminds me of the face I image for an OC I haven’t drawn yet, so maybe it’s them.
The previous drawing, but adjusted to be more accurate to reference.
🛥️
(Based on a picture on the Glacier National Park picture archives)
One Mountain, Two Tigers: A New Species of Gloydius (Serpentes: Viperidae) from the Upper Lancang Valley in Xizang, China, with Comments on the Diagnostic Characters and Evolution of the G. strauchi (Bedriaga, 1912) Species Complex
Jinlong REN, Junjie HUANG, Wei WU, Ke JIANG, Jiatang LI
Abstract
The Hengduan Mountains Region (HMR) in China, a globally significant biodiversity hotspot, has garnered attention for its potential to harbor cryptic species within the Asian pit viper genus Gloydius Hoge & Romano-Hoge, 1981. Based on comprehensive morphological comparisons and molecular phylogenetic analysis of the Gloydius strauchi complex, this study identified a previously unrecognized species of Asian pit viper. Discovered in the upper Lancang (Mekong) hot dry valley of Xizang, China, this species is geographically proximate to G. huangi but exhibits clear morphological distinctions from other members of the genus, representing the second Gloydius species identified along the upper Lancang River. We describe here this new species and highlight the significance of skull and hemipenis morphology, which were instrumental in its diagnosis and in resolving taxonomic boundaries and ambiguities within the G. strauchi complex. This study provides insights into the phylogenetic relationships and evolutionary history of this newly described species, enhancing our understanding of diversification patterns in this genus.
Read the paper here:
One Mountain, Two Tigers: A New Species of <italic>Gloydius</italic> (Serpentes: Viperidae) from the Upper Lancang Valley in Xizang, China, with Comments on the Diagnostic Characters and Evolution of the <italic>G</italic>. <italic>strauchi</italic> (Bedriaga, 1912) Species Complex
I remember seeing her video on this and being absolutely amazed by it.
Here’s her YouTube channel btw if ppl want to see.
Favourite Designs: Frieda Lepold "A Knights Dress" Haute Couture Gown
Captain Nemo
I drew this piece in 2019, and although I can see lots of mistakes and imperfections, it's still one of my favourite artworks
Bnuuy at the bar (based on one of my plushies, a yellow bunny with a yellow ribbon. I leaned him against a bench and it sorta looked like he was behind a bar).
I got a bit lazy with the background tbh, but I like how I did the rabbit.
Been having a bit of art block recently. Still keeping up with practice, but haven’t really finished anything I’ve been happy with. Decided to just sit down for a bit and see what came out and I got this thing. Idek what it actually is, to be honest, but I like it.
(Oops it has one two few petals. That was definitely an intentional decision and not bc I forgot what flowers look like)
I tried to tag the post but warning: Frieren manga spoilers ahead:
I heard good things about Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End from some friends of mine, so I decided to read the manga. I ended up getting through the whole thing in a day. This was an attempt to paint Macht and Glück from the Golden Lands arc on one of the watercolour cards I was given. Honestly, I prefer the sketch to the finished piece. If anyone has advice on how to make the painting look better, I’d really appreciate it.
More thoughts on the manga and this piece under the cut.
Thoughts on the Manga:
Overall, I think it was beautiful and I really enjoyed it. I like the exploration of people finding meaning in long lives and the value of interactions and friendships with other people.
The demons themselves made a bit less sense to me, since although they canonically do not have many human emotions, they are shown expressing things like concern for other demons or demonkind, or other such emotions, even when humans were not present.
Although demons as a villain make sense as sort of a parallel to Frieren, who has been able to improve and find meaning through her connections with people, it does seem like a bit of a strange choice on a meta-level to have a species where the correct choice is always to kill them on sight (they don’t even need to eat humans, they just do because reasons I guess). That being said, I do disagree with people who view having demons as an “evil” fantasy race as inherently racist. I just think in this specific story, it can be clumsily handled at times.
Putting that aside, as a standalone case, I find the story of Macht and Glück very intriguing and well written. The characters are believable and have interesting interactions with each other, and it’s sort of sad that despite genuine effort, Macht’s psychology is just ultimately incompatible with peaceful coexistence with humans. Glück was also an interesting character. He was clever and used Macht’s goals to get what he wanted, but he knew what the outcome would ultimately be. All of his behaviours were knowingly evil in search of what he believed to be the greater good. Even when his plan for clearing out corruption succeeded, he achieved it through unforgivable means, and he was willing to accept the punishment he knew he deserved. His actions were “deals with the devil”.
My thoughts on this piece:
Unfortunately, I sort of fumbled it when painting Macht’s face. I’m really pleased how Glück came out, but the hair and the face on Macht were definitely weak spots here. As I mentioned above the cut, I much prefer how they looked in the sketch. If anyone has advice on how to do hair better, I’d really appreciate it. General watercolour advice or art critique would also be appreciated.
An attempt to draw Sancho from Limbus Company. I’m trying out a more simplified style for this one. I can’t do expressions at the moment, sadly, but advice on that (or just general art advice tbh) would be appreciated.
More stream-of-thought rambling under the cut.
Maybe it’s the text placement, but for some reason this gives me “live laugh love” vibes. Also apologies for the bad cursive. I was taught it in primary school but haven’t used it in over a decade. A few weeks ago, the thought came to me to try using it again, so I started doing that. Still not good at it.
A draft of a sketch I probably won’t finish. I had like 10 minutes of free time(idk if you can tell but it was mostly spent on the dragon head. I’ve never, to my memory, drawn a reptile) then had to get back to work. Please excuse the handwriting.
A WIP I’m doing. Ship in a bottle. I hope to animate it at some point, but I’m really busy currently, and the rotations I’m doing with the ship are currently a bit off.
The next time I’ll be free to really do anything is probably around christmas to be honest.
Did a portrait from a Pinterest reference today. I’ve been trying to get the hang of digital drawing, and I think it’s been working. Of course, I still have a lot to learn(for example, the eyes are a bit wonky) but I’m fairly pleased.
The right edge was a bit wonky on the previous version, so I decided to post a slightly updated version. I made the skull linger a bit more as well. I think it’s definitely an improvement on the previous version.
Irrelevant personal tangent under the cut
I’ve honestly been really happy so far with my forays into digital art and animation. I haven’t had much time to practise properly, so I’m not improving as fast as I would have liked, but nonetheless, it’s been fun.
I’m sort of in a bottle phase right now, so my next piece is probably going to be a ship in a bottle.
Still and moving versions of a little poison vial. I’m actually pretty happy with it. I didn’t really plan anything about it besides the general idea of a vial of poison, and I think the tag and smoke actually worked out pretty well.
Still getting the hang of drawing digitally, but here’s my anthurium.
Everything I draw has to be on a more or less white background since the colour seems a bit transparent.
I wanted to try hatching again, so I made this little piece based on the song “Let the Maggots sing” by the band Mili. It’s definitely busier than I wanted it to be, and very sketchy, but I enjoyed doing it, and I enjoyed the outcome. I might polish it up and ink it later, but this was mostly meant to be a quick sketch, and I already spent more time on it than I originally planned, so it’ll probably remain like this. As always critique is welcome, since I do want to improve.
I’ve been in a bit of a slump for a bit, and although I’ve been drawing and painting still, I haven’t really had the motivation to finish any of them. While I was practising faces though, a sketch I did stood out to me, so I decided to post it.
I’ve been really in my head recently, and haven’t been drawing as much since I haven’t been getting good results with my art in the past week. To get out of it, I decided to try and draw in ink and cross hatch(I looked up tutorials). I think even though these aren’t good, it was helpful to try something different from what I generally do, and something which I know for sure I’ll be bad at. It takes some pressure off.