#027
JUNE 24, 2023

i'm pissing myself actually because this part was actually meant to be an announcement that i was closing my graphic lotto and retiring this graphic portfolio to create another one. it was also meant to be a recap of my 2022 graphics; it is now june, so i think it's a bit late for that 😭 if you couldn't tell, the passage of time has been against me all year. life in general has been against me all year. but we're halfway through now, so hopefully my luck will change. thank you to everyone who's supported me these past few months, both on and outside the app. i am a very private person, and i like to suffer alone, so i won't go into what's been happening, but i want you all to know how grateful i am for you. this is probably something i'm going to look back on and cringe at, but... whatever. past the point of caring. it's winter where i am, and it's cold, and everything feels a little hopeless, but we—i—am getting there. slowly but surely.

credit to @/annalaura_art on twitter.

anyway. like i said, this was meant to be an announcement for a new graphic lotto and portfolio, but i can't be fucked to make a new book, create a new aesthetic for it, and somehow find a way to deal with all the clutter on my account. so we'll continue in this book until i run out of chapters (i feel like that's a thing? i actually do not know. i guess we'll find out.)

i haven't been very active the past few months, in terms of both writing and graphics. i've made a few things here and there for close friends, so that's what i'm going to show you guys in this update. for now my graphic lotto will remain closed, and i ask that you refrain from requesting graphics from me until it's officially open again. please do not dm me asking for graphics, either. dms stress me out. (read: everything stresses me out.)

the majority of the graphics i've made have been for the bestie, elfaouly. i will go through the other graphics i've made first, and then we'll end the chapter on what i've made for kat.

first up. losing dogs for pelides. i made the original cover for this fic back when it was called sidelines, and so i wanted to keep that same hand-drawn aesthetic. the painting i used is called the wolf and fox hunt by peter paul rubens. i did the title treatment myself on procreate, and drew over the wolves on procreate as well. i'm pretty happy with how this turned out; i feel it's grittier than the original. the wolves are also less ugly ❤️

next is false god by stxrmborn. vic and i are currently suffering from a miguel o'hara folie à deux which... #real. the title treatment for this cover was a little different to what i usually do. i like there to be margins on every graphic i make, but as you can see, false god's tagline ("haunt me, then") is cut off by the edge of the cover. in my head, this made sense? something about cohesiveness with miguel's spider-symbol also being cut off. i made the original version (left) and the red-and-black version (right) as a call-back to a cover i made for unspun ages ago.

🗝️

on to the graphics i made for kat.

this is for a currently-unreleased mabel mora fic: i am my own muse. if i get the chance to project my obsession with nancy drew and the hardy boys, i can and will; kat knows this. very much so 😭 my username, bayports, is actually a hardy boys reference. everything i do is a hardy boys reference, actually, but i digress. this cover was inspired by the original yellow nancy drew hardbacks, some of which i'm lucky enough to own myself. i used the font that was originally used for these covers, way back when in the 1930s. i'm very excited for this fic. not only do i love only murders in the building, for its characters, plot, and how it made the hardys ever so slightly more mainstream, but i also love kat and everything she does. stay tuned for this one guys 🫂 🫂

midnight mass is next. i wanted to incorporate all three primary cast members into this cover: hopper, eleven, and kat's oc camilla. however, i didn't want to go the typical "mcu-ensemble poster" route. so that's how we ended up here, with everyone blurring into each other. there are also heavy religious themes in this fic, hence the title and the cross that's been incorporated into the title treatment.

i made these head/heart covers too, which i'm extremely proud of. i already talked about these a little in my graphic lotto, but yeah. i used parts of the game's opening titles as an overlay/texture (different parts, obviously, for both the primary cover on the left and the black and white cover on the right). i think it was a pretty cool idea; using the game's aesthetics to inform a fic for the show. as you can tell, that one picture of kate siegel has a grip on me.

i also made these posters for the fic. i won't pretend that these were super complicated or hard to make since i was basically superimposing kate siegel into the background and splattering a little blood here and there. regardless, i really enjoyed making these. all the promotional material for the show was super high-quality, and it's always great as a graphic designer to have lots of content to work with.

these covers are for another unreleased fic, borderline. all hot girls have a deep history with five nights at freddy's; kat and i are no exception. i don't have a lot to say about these covers, to be a hundred percent honest. i don't know whose idea it was to cast josh hutcherson as mike schmidt, but they deserve some kind of national peace prize.

and finally, these comic covers for kat's upcoming moon knight fic, graveyard. i've been dying to use diana prince (especially jenny frison's diana prince) in a comic cover for ages. i feel like i could've done something more complex with this cover, but at the same time, i do quite like how it turned out. the red-and-blue version is inspired by NUMSKULLS.

🗝️

anyway. i wanted to take this opportunity to bring up that even if i'm inactive, that's no excuse to plagiarise, imitate or otherwise copy my works. graphic or written. i have been messaged multiple times over the duration of my hiatus by friends, mutuals and literal strangers notifying me of users who have copied my graphics and writing. copying me to begin with is awful, but for certain users, taking advantage of my absence is just disgusting. especially if we're mutuals and you act as if we're friends. you are no friend of mine if you think you can copy me, take credit for my ideas, then switch up the second you see that i am active again.

these past few months have been some of the worst of my life and still i have to deal with this shit. and even if this year hadn't been so shit, that's no excuse for your behaviour. i shouldn't have to deal with traumatic events in real life and then log on online to find not only strangers copying me, but my friends, too. i don't want to sound narcissistic, like everyone would be deprived if i suddenly disappeared from this account, but i am genuinely this close to removing myself from the graphics sphere on this app. i love making things, i love making people happy via those things, but it is not fair that i have to constantly deal with this. it has become a staple of my wattpad experience, and it shouldn't have. i am so sick of it.

and i am so sick of having to be charitable about it. having matters settled privately and discreetly is a privilege you are being afforded. i get nothing from it. it is not fucking fair, and the next person who copies me is being @'d for everyone to see.

so please give credit where credit's due and please stop pretending to be my friend under the guise of getting graphics or getting away with stealing graphics. touch some grass. get a job.

to everyone else, thank you for supporting me; past, present, and hopefully (!) future. i really appreciate it. i'm currently on break from university, and i've been working fewer hours to give myself more me-time; fingers crossed i find the motivation to come back here properly. i hope you've all been okay too and that the rest of 2023 treats you well. sending you all my love 🫂🫂