@StitchMiss - @Aalasteir (Q) - Index
Q: You create a lot of art, but you don’t often talk about it in everyday life with friends or family. Why is that?
That is a good question. A challenging question, but a good one. I guess it’s not something I think they’re all too interested in hearing about. Many still view my artmaking as a hobby and not something I hope to make my job someday. Where I live, it’s not really a viable career path unless you solely do graphic design, and even then, most companies think graphic designer means: social media manager, web-coder, marketing strategist, all while owning your own equipment and software. I’ve done some freelance stuff, and now work in an unrelated field, but art has always been the thing I want to do. Until then, I don’t bring it up to them.
Another aspect of it is unfortunately family dynamics – we all tend to downplay our achievements or successes, especially the women due to culture. When mentioning something exciting happening in their careers or lives, its often mentioned in passing rather than being celebrated.
Q: What is it like creating all of your digital works using a mouse and keyboard?
Challenging at times, but I think I’ve gotten used to it. I have no idea how to use a stylus or drawing tablet and have gotten so used to the keyboard shortcuts alongside the mouse that it’s become routine.
When I first started back in High School, I used Paint XP, which wasn’t much better and my proportions often ended up terrible. But after discovering GIMP and playing around with the program for several years, discovering layers, filters and finding new brushes or modifying the ones I liked, I got the hang of it. I’m fully self-taught with digital art and only learnt my traditional stuff like painting and sculpture in school. But it has all contributed to one another and helped make me the artist I am today.
Q: What advice do you have for artists?
Always compare your art against your art: this can be really hard, and even I fall into this trap from time to time. Art is super subjective, and comparing your style and technique against other artists usually just makes you feel like what you’re doing is wrong. Something I started doing was redrawing old pieces I drew six months, six years or even several decades back, to see where I’ve improved and what I still wanted to work on. Skill comes from lots of practice and focusing on your weak points – for me it was shading, lighting, lines and backgrounds. Be open to advice if it is constructive. If five people tell you it’s good and one person says it sucks, with no reason as to why it sucks, don’t take to heart what that one person is saying and change up everything you’re doing. And just keep trying your best and doing what makes you happy. Art should be enjoyed. It’s scary being an artist, but as the little saying on my profile states: Creativity takes courage.
Q: What are your inspirations?
Hmm. Well, I take inspiration from traditional artists like Salvador Dali and Andy Warhol. I love the stories they told in their artworks, the symbolism hidden in their pieces and their overall approach to art. I admire the heck out of indie animators and game developers like Krinkels, James Lee and Toby Fox – you can see the passion in their creations and the respect they have for the craft, as well as embracing and supporting their fans. As for work ethic, that comes from my mom. She’s a single parent bad ass, who gives 110% in any career she has found herself in. She never gives up, no matter how daunting the situation, and has always encouraged my passions, even if and when my family has expressed doubt.
Q: How did you first get into Newgrounds?
It was a slow progression over several years that eventually led me to creating an account. I recall a Fancy Pants Man reference in a game series I loved to play in Middle School (SHIFT 1-4). I had a friend who sat us down one day and made us watch Salad Fingers with no context in High School. And during college, I began exploring the Indie scene more, looking for interesting stories, unique styles and just something different from the usual. Fell in love with The Binding of Isaac and somehow 100% the first game. Jammed out to some Friday Night Funkin’ tracks, even though I am pretty bad at the game itself. And then discovered the series that made me join the site: MadCom. I drew a Madness Day piece that I never posted, two years before I joined the site. And last year, I said enough is enough, I need to put my stuff back out there, and I did. And it has been a blast ever since. I’ve been able to be a part of an art community, joining collabs, sharing fan art and finally pursuing my passion again. I really do have Newgrounds to thank for that.
Q: What are your methods for making animations using Windows Movie Maker? What’s the story behind Madness Combat: PUNCH In (FanAnimation)?
This heckin’ animation XD This was not the one I had made for Madness Day last year: I had created a better detailed one called Angst (that is up on my YouTube).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8cRy9sU8Lg
But due to the copyrighted music, there was no way to post it on here, so I rushed and made this one in three days.
With these animations, I break them down into scenes. Create base images and then add on new layers, draw the movement needed to create the final animated piece (like how they used to originally do flip-animation in film studios).
I then import the 100s of images into Movies Maker (which sometimes crashes in despair) before playing around with milliseconds to get each still to fit in line with the music or lines being spoken in the animation.
Like with my digital art, I wasn’t able to formally learn programming in school, so I taught myself ways to do things, and this is how I learnt how to make animations. It’s a complicated process, and maybe someday I’ll sit down with some proper software and learn an easier way of doing it.
Q: What do you think about YouTube and CinnamonToastKen?
I am very nostalgic for old YouTube, I have to admit. Ken was another reason I discovered Newgrounds, because a lot of his early content featured Flash Games and series from the site. I enjoyed his Meme Couch series and like that he never tried to change his style and content too much – he just does what he enjoys. He also seems like an awesome dad and animal lover, so good on him. Thumbs Up. No Drama.
YouTube as a whole still makes for a good place to find animators, artists and filmmakers with unique content. But there are times I get very frustrated with the site and the disregard to its creators and viewers alike. I am not here to watch an Analogue Horror or Disturbing things across the Internet series, to have every other word censored and replaced with ridiculous alternatives, like PDF-files and L-ore and Stopped Existing._. It reaches a point where it becomes a lil offensive to the serious nature of the content. There’s YouTube Kids, YouTube (which is a whole other rabbit whole I am not getting into)
Q: How did you come up with the idea for your Today’s Future Problems: Online Exhibition Announcement
https://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1545398#bbspost28070479_post_text
It’s mentioned in my brochure for the Exhibition in detail (which will be released on my Ko-Fi after the event), but the short version: I have a degree in Fine Art that I am currently not doing very much with XD I studied art history in depth in college and enjoyed learning about how history brought art to where it is today, and how each master artist contributed to each art period. Kind of in a similar way Newgrounds brought artists, animators and game developers to where they are today. I liked the contrast and thought it’d be a really cool idea to celebrate the 30th Anniversary. Because of how many artworks I planned to reimagine, I went with the title ‘Exhibition’, and it just went from there.
There is also a little personal motivation attached, which leads into this question…
Q: What are stories you like to share?
When completing my degree, we had a year to create an exhibition for the university gallery. A body of work with tons of research, essays, artist statements, the works. I created a body of work discussing Invisible Illness, looking at the complex nature of OCD as an example. The lecturers hated it. Didn’t understand the concept and didn’t care to. They were more focused on aesthetics and not the meaning behind it. So, they made me change it multiple times, adding and greatly taking away important aspects of the work, to the point that the final project no longer represented anything I had originally imagined and who even knew what the project was supposed to represent. And after all that, I was told to take it down, that it wasn’t good enough for the final exhibition in the gallery.
It may sound sad and demotivating, and at the time, it was. But they didn’t kill my passion – they just proved there are still old farts that think art needs to resemble what it did 20 years ago, and it is very sad they are in any kind of educational position. Because there were other students who felt so demotivated, they planned on continuing their degrees in other fields now.
I didn’t let this stop me, though, because unbeknownst to them, I entered a digital piece into a competition at a local art gallery. We were asked to modernize a master’s work (heh heh, see the link here with my exhibition). I was one of four digital finalists. Got the piece printed on canvas and hung up in the gallery, where it still is today after I donated it. I never told them this, because they were very much the types to kick you down but swoop in to take credit for your success. I was just happy to know that my art wasn’t as bad as they made it out to be.
And this all goes back to what I discussed earlier with my advice to artists – always be careful of where and from who you take feedback.
Q: How would you describe your experiences living with OCD?
At times, I can see benefit in it. I am very organized, got twenty lists reminding me what I need to get done. If something needs ordering, fixing or rearranging, I am happy to do it. Like with my move now. I am organized as heck for it. Got my lists. I know what is in every box, and how to set up each room and environment. Which just makes the process and transition easier for everybody. But at times, it can be very inconvenient. I have certain rituals I do that have to be done, or I cannot concentrate, especially at night, like checking certain apps in a certain order and completing tasks or projects before I could even hope to begin another. I am very indecisive when it comes to basic things like what to eat or where to go out, that sometimes I just give up. I usually eat the same meals every day and prefer not going out at all, just to keep things simple (but boring). I have mild contamination OCD, so expiry dates freak me out and if I touch something I think is dirty like a cloth or sponge, my hand feels dirty until I clean it and I cannot touch anything until I do. I’m also a perfectionist to the extreme. Even when posting art, I still see the little things I’ve missed or things I am unhappy with, rather than the piece as a whole, making it hard to appreciate the hard work behind it. It’s one of the reasons it took a long time to start sharing art again after I took a five year hiatus from it. So it can be difficult and I have no doubt it comes off as a little strange. But I am trying my best to get it better under control each day. I also make sure it doesn’t inconvenience others.
Now my Fibromyalgia and Arthritis – that’s a much longer story I will likely discuss in a proper post one day XD
Q: How did you come up with your sonas, Stitch Miss and Still Ness? Which your username is based on.
After making too many cross-stitch pieces to keep, I wanted to find a way to sell them and discovered craft markets as a viable option. I needed a name for my stall and settled on Stitch Bits. Stitch Miss became the little character for it, and I used that name or a variation of it for my online profiles. Stitch is my more cheerful, chibi-like persona that I use for marketing my plush and sculpts, which tend to be very cutesy.
Stillwaters was a name I considered for Graphic Design work – like company logos, letterheads and boring marketing stuff like that. Still Ness came from that concept and is the more somber half of the two that handles the ‘serious’ stuff I work on, like short story work, poetry and digital content now.
Q: Why do you like to feature your cat in your creations?
My cat features in all my work and logos because she is usually on me or very nearby when I work on anything. Trying to draw – she is on the keyboard. Trying to sew – she is on my thread. Trying to sculpt – she is knocking my tools on the floor. I joke I do art through ‘cat-vision’ sometimes while I try work around her.
Q: When you’re cross-stitching or cross-hatching, you usually listen to metal. What metal songs do you enjoy, and how did you get into cross-stitching and cross-hatching?
I enjoy Rammstein (which helped when I began learning German), Slipknot and Ghost. Past the screaming and intensity, there are some beautiful lyrics and stories told in their music. Like Rammstein’s Was Ich Liebe discussing being afraid of loving something, in fear you will lose it. Or Slipknot’s Nero Forte which talks of an emotional abuser and how a victim tries to reconcile this and walk away from it while still holding onto who they were. Music is another form of art that allows us to express what we cannot always put into words for others to understand.
As for cross stitch, my momsy taught me when I was quite young. I got back into it a few years ago, as I absolutely love the pixel art style but can’t actually draw it. So cross stitch is kind of a traditional substitute for it now. I make little patches or framed pieces I sell at markets, and this year, I want to include them in a series of Shadow Boxes I hope to work on after the exhibition. I recently made a few Madness ones and they are heckin’ cute.
Q: What media do you enjoy, and why?
I like media that tells an interesting story, where the characters or setting at unique and captivate you. The type of stories you still think about afterwards and can learn from. I love graphic novels like The Killing Joke and V for Vendetta. I greatly enjoyed games like Undertale, Hotline Miami and the Arkham series. Analogue Horrors that mess with perception and have incredible art styles like The Walten Files, Vita Carnis and Lacey Games are a must see, especially if you enjoy horror. And speaking of horror, the Silent Hill series and many of Blumhouse’s works are very enjoyable, like Get Out and Us. Sure, I have guilty pleasures like SAW and Postal, but yeah XD I like a good story!
It is one of my goals to one day create a story or character like that! Something memorable that leaves the audience thinking.