Accidentally Posted This To My Main Blog.

Been seeing a lot of moodboard-inspired furry character designs floating around, so I thought I’d take a stab at it. This was initially supposed to just be a colored sketch based on a bunch on whatever rainbow-y photos I found interesting, but ended becoming something way more polished. I’m pretty surprised with myself.

Photo credits listed under the cut

[Image Description: Drawing of an anthropomorphic brown cat. The cat is wearing a white t-shirt, rainbow flannel, jeans, and glasses. They are holding a book to their chest in one hand, a mug in the other, and a backpack on their back.

[To the right of the cat is a mood-board featuring photos of various rainbow objects. Above the mood-board is the bio of the cat with the following information:

[Name: Andi Orientation: Pan Gender: Genderfluid Pronouns: They/Them Age: 20

[College student studying sequential art Breakfast is just their excuse to have chocolate Loves soft rock music Had a dragon phase in middle school Addicted to thrift stores

End of Image Description]

Moodboard Photo Sources with Links

Bracelets: Marilyn Davenport on Flickr

Mug: 95839 on Pixabay

Flannel: AlexBor on Pixabay

Glasses on Book: pasja100 on Pixabay

Cat: Mikael Moiner on Flickr

Paint and Brushes: Daniel Kulinski on Flickr

Donuts: barcellosalice on Pixabay

Colored Pencils: stux on Pixabay

Books: pqgw on Flickr

Mensah and her wives.

From left to right: Farai, Ayda Mensah, and Tano (until the books or Wells say otherwise, Tano is a they/them enby to me).

Some slightly less abstract art. Still trying to push myself to be comfortable posting more sketchy art.

[Image Description: A fat, dark-skinned person wearing glasses, dressed in a loose pink shirt and pants, and with their dark curly hair tied back in a bun is standing on a balcony, their back to the viewer. They are calmly viewing the row of forested hills in front of them and the sky that is bright and partly cloud. End of image description.] Wanted to practice drawing backgrounds, so I tried my hand at doing some hills and a daytime sky. The character was originally going to Matonne, but decided to draw Alex again instead.

hi i just remembered i had a dream in which mensah was my (and my siblings') mom irl, but it was specifically your mensah design. so that's cool <3

I am smiling so hard reading this. I had so much fun designing Mensah, and it’s so cool that my take on her made its way into your dream.

Boyfriend and girlfriend Camry and Flora snuggling.

My friend @tytoalbias recently created a new DnD character, Elleguire Dubois. Upon learning Elleguire’s backstory, I took a liking to his very queer, very GNC, and very lycanthropic family and decided to draw my take on the Dubois parents.

[Image Description: Drawing of three clown children laying on the floor while watching a video on a tablet together. End of Description.]

Been a while since I’ve posted anything, so have three clown children watching a movie together. Specifically, it’s the royal Klownikov kids from the webcomic @cirqueduroyale. I highly recommend you go read it if you like soft or slice-of-life fantasy.

From left to right are Claudette, Red, and Charlie. I originally was just going to draw a headshot pic of the twins, but since it’s been so long since I’ve drawn an actual scene, I thought I’d take just draw all three of the kids doing something together.

I highly doubt that I'm going to be or have been impersonated, but just in case, I am not taking commissions at the moment.

Scammer Targeting Tumblr Artists

The title says it all really. So if nothing else, please share and reblog this post to raise awareness for those that might be caught out - both artists and followers. For a TL:DR, please look at the bottom of the post

What is happening?

Right now, there is at least one person actively impersonating multiple artists across tumblr in an effort to scam their followers into paying for fake ‘cheap commissions’. The scammer will clone a tumblr, usually using a slight change to the url/account name to look like the real deal. They will then message people directly through Tumblr with messages along the lines of “Hey, i’m doing cheap commissions right now. DM me to get one”. Naturally, this is ends up just being a way to take their money without giving anything back in return.

Who does this affect?

Everyone. Simple as that. As long as the scammer in question works unopposed, they are free to spread their influence and continue to scam more people. Even if you haven’t been targeted yet, it does not mean you are safe or immune. Several artists have already fallen victim to this scammer, and I encourage any artists that have to reblog this post with the details of their affected account(s) and the ones the scammer has set up.

How can we stop this?

Tumblr, like many other social media platforms, seems to care very little about ‘minor’ occurences like this one, and despite reaching out directly to them over a week ago through multiple avenues of contact - they have refused to comment on the situation, provide a recommended response for users, or take action on behalf of those already affected. Despite this, there are still tools at our disposal that we can use to make this scam more difficult, and to increase its visibility to those within Tumblr staff that are required by policy to take action. Tumblr has the following to say on the topic of impersonation: Confusion or Impersonation. Don’t do things that would cause confusion between you or your blog and a person or company, like registering a deliberately confusing URL. Don’t impersonate anyone. While you’re free to ridicule, parody, or marvel at the alien beauty of Benedict Cumberbatch, you can’t pretend to actually be Benedict Cumberbatch. They then provide a link to this online form that you can fill out if you suspect someone’s identity is being confused. Unfortunately, this can only be filled out if you are the victim of impersonation. In other words, only the artists can fill this out legitimately. So, what about the followers and users of tumblr whom aren’t being impersonated? Our most valuable tool in this online platform is the platform itself. It enables us to spread our word near-virally across all the many sub-communities on Tumblr with remarkable efficiency for a user-driven system. We can take advantage of that effect to increase awareness of the situation. Even if you - the one reading this right now - aren’t an artist or don’t know an artist, the act of reblogging this post or sharing it directly with friends improves it’s ‘ranking’ in popularity increasing its chances to be seen by more people. We don’t need everyone on Tumblr to see the post for it to be effective, just like we don’t need the entirety of the human population of the world to be immune to a disease for that disease to be rendered ineffective or eradicated. If enough people are aware, the likelihood of pulling off a successful scam increases dramatically reducing efficiency to a point that it no longer becomes profitable to continue.

Why should I care?

It disheartens me to say this, but of the many artists I contacted directly over the past week to warn about this issue many of them refused to listen or dodged the responsibility with lines like;

“I’m not being impersonated, so it doesn’t affect me”

“I’m just one person. I can’t make an impact”

“I need to take care of my community. Other people can look after theirs”

This is honestly disappointing that so many artists or art-rebloggers care so little as to intentionally wave the responsibility of keeping their followers and fellow artists safe from this, that they cannot spare 10 seconds of their time to share an informative post. I’m not here to bash artists, but it is time that everyone takes responsibility for their own communities, and of those around them. Artists: You have a responsibility to ensure that your followers and fans aren’t being abused by someone who may impersonate you. If they succeed, your reputation will be damaged, and your followers will resent you. Your followers are also almost guaranteed to be following other artists meaning your efforts can spread beyond your own circle of influence, so don’t be naive when you think you have little effect. Followers: You have just as much responsibility to be aware of those that might try to scam you or your fellow followers. Don’t just sit in silence when you see something wrong: Ignoring the issue only makes it more resilient to our efforts to stop it. You are the vocal majority if you just use your voices to be heard!

TL:DR

A scammer is impersonating artists and scamming money from their followers under the guise of ‘cheap commissions’. If we ignore the issue, it will get worse. Every single person that reads this can afford to spend just 10 seconds to reblog and share this post. Those 10 seconds can save others from being scammed for hundreds of dollars. Reblog & Share

It eventually gets a haircut too.