Hey guys, so I noticed that my templates have been saved a couple of times and I’m glad about it but I just wanted to make an updated version that’s easier to handle.
Feel free to use this and post without my permission.
If you want to make a stats/summoning dialogue for a character, place the stats/summoning background, [insert character], mid-ground, and foreground in different layers on an art program. (Don’t forget add a drop shadow/ outer glow and then merge the stats/ dialogue template as well as giving the characters that gold shine and glow effect.) (Since this isn’t the cleanest design, you can also make another layer in the background for a shadow effect and clean things up a bit if there are any pixels that hasn’t been removed.)
OH MY GOD SO NO FUCKIN BULLSHIT I SWEAR To GOD. I reblogged this an hour ago and IM NOT Lying My Tax Refund which I did in late march popped into my Bank Account, and it was a Decent sized amount……
WHAT THE FUCK Is THIS MAGIC!??!?!?! Im trying this again IM NOT BSing hahahaha thats actually pretty cool xD
An artist : Aw man! I saw my arts were reposted on Instagram. I’ve asked them to take my arts down but they ignored me.
Me : Say no more! Click this link, then click ‘fill out this form’. Fill the form and wait for about 1-2 days, the staffs will remove the image you were reporting from the reposter’s account :^)
This is roughly what I make sure I have in my kitchen all the time along with rough estimates of local prices (MN). I buy a lot of things when they’re on sale and stockpile them.
instant oatmeal packets with fruit in them - $3 probably and this can be breakfast all week and maybe even a lunch or dinner too since you usually get 10 packets
bag of rice - $2-3 depending on size. 1 cup dry rice makes enough for about two meals depending on what you add in. if you get cheap rice, rinse it before cooking
canned beans - usually under $1 per can - mix the can with your rice and you have a meal. chili-spiced beans will make bean tacos. Rinse non-spiced beans before adding to anything.
Tortilla - usually around $3 but you get like 8-10 of them. Tacos, wraps, and quesadillas are all fair game here
lettuce - $2 max around here, either a head of something or bagged precut depending on preference, use as a salad or on tacos
protein other than beans of some sort - probably $5-7 for meat, $2-3 for eggs. sometimes I can get bags of frozen chicken breasts in this price range and each is usually 2 meals if I add in a bunch of veggies. fry/scramble eggs and add to any of the options.
your favorite stir fry sauce - $3ish
vegetables - $5ish. literally anything that you can 1. fry in a pan and 2. you’ll eat. fresh carrots are usually pretty cheap. get frozen if it’s cheaper and you’re strapped for cash/prep time on this part.
alternative to stir fry: pasta (~$2), fresh tomatoes (~$2), cheese (~$3).
cheese and fruit if you have extra - look if your store has loyalty cards for free that you can load coupons on for cheese there’s always one it seems like.
Reblogging because there’s never knowing who’ll need it.
Adding also: the single most nutritious food on earth is potatoes in their peel. Potatoes + some milk and butter = everything you need. They don’t last all that long, but they’re fairly cheap and the quickest cheat to “How do I not fuck my body up.”
(Cooked potatoes’ll last a while in the fridge. Potatoes nearing the end of their useful lives? Cook them to half-done first, figure out what to do with them later.)
Easiest baked potatoes: slice thinly but not paper-like, spread like cards, brush with oil (a silicone baking brush is totes worth the little it costs), spread salt and pepper (a little less than you think you’d like), cover with foil, stick in oven or toaster-oven at 150C for 40min. (If you have the patience, at that point click up to 180C, remove the cover and add 10-20min.) Reheats well, lasts in the fridge longer than it’ll take you to nom.
Dead-Animal-Free Whole Protein: some legumes + some grain. AKA rice and lentils, or rice and beans. (Maybe some fried onion for flavor; onion’s cheap and stays good a descent while. Fried onion makes everything taste better and keeps forever in the freezer, so frying up a bunch and keeping portions is not a half-bad idea.) (If going for the beans option - lentils are cheaper around here but fuck if I know what it’s like in your area - dump some tomato sauce and oil in; canola or soy are best health-wise, and far cheaper than olive; avoid corn.) Oh, what does instant couscous go for in your area? It keeps for fucking ever, it’s usually cheap, and it takes well to any and all added taste.
If you get to choose, black lentils taste the best and need the least soak-time (0-20min), green lentils are best for cooked stuff and red lentils are best in soups. (Red lentils + potatoes + root vegetables of choice + spices; cut into small pieces, cook, run through the blender if you wanna [stick blender’s awesome], freeze in portions.)
When possible, get instant soup mix. Get the good instant soup mix. (The kind that’s not made primarily of sugar, yeast or both. The rest is optional.) Dump 1/2tsp (or more, but start on the low end) into couscous, or chicken, or sprinkle over potatoes being stuck in the oven. Whatever. It’ll make most cooked-food-type things taste better. And again, lasts forever on the shelf.
If you can have eggs (goodness knows they’re sometimes expensive), dump some tomato sauce in a pan (tomato sauce lasts forever on the shelf), add some oil, onion/beans to cook in it, hot peppers if you wanna, then when it’s nearly ready crack an egg or two in. Hard-boiled eggs last a remarkably while in the fridge, so when eggs reach near the end of their usable lives, just hard-boil and stick in the fridge.
(Have eggs as often as you can, particularly as you have brain-shit going on. You need all the eggs, salt, and 60%-or-more chocolate you can get. Brains are made of cholesterol and salt, so folks with neuro or other brain shit need more of both. Potassium is also aces. You know what has the most potassium? Tomato paste.)
Grated cheese keeps in the freezer for ever. Grated cheese will make a lot of things taste nicer. Preserved lemon juice keeps forever in the fridge. Grated cheese + oil + lemon = instant and awesome pasta sauce that’ll liven up the weeks-old dry pasta in the fridge.
Slices bread also keeps well in the freezer. Try to have half a loaf or a loaf. Dry bread gets cut in cubes, mixed with oil and the aforementioned instant soup, stuck in oven at lowest until properly dry, then kept in an airtight jar to add to soups.
(Over-ripe tomatoes come cheaper. They get turned into soup or sauce, then frozen in portions.)
And speaking as someone who is also living off oatmeal, beans, and brown rice, if you need recipes, I have them!
Today I made 16 bean soup with chicken sausage and it was crazy good and I got 8 servings out of the one batch (froze half). I usually get the cheapest beans I can find, and GOYA bags of beans are usually $1-2. I soaked them overnight,rinsed them, and threw them in a gallon lidded saucepan with 2 boxes of chicken stock (also on sale for $2), two bay leaves, sauteed green pepper, onion, and celery, some garlic from a jar, about two tablespoons of dried herbs de provence,and the “fancy” bit was adding $6 bourbon and apple chicken sausages. You can actually sub veg stock for chicken and skip the sausage and make it vegan and it would still taste great.
Oh and I’ve been doing steel-cut oats. I don’t buy the name brand ones, I just pick whatever store brand/generic I can get for less than $4. They take about ½ an hour to make, but they’re super tasty and I make 2 cups
of dried oats at a time
with dried cranberries and that’s breakfast for 4 days at least.
I’ve also been making black bean soup, red beans and rice, and curried potatoes and chick peas. I got 100 quart and pint take-away containers from Amazon for $20 and they all stack neatly and are perf for one serving of whatever.
Additionally, depending on where you live, whole rotisserie chickens are something like $4-$7 and are easily 4 - 6 servings of protein and on TOP of that, if you stick the carcass in a ziplock bag and then the freezer you have excellent soup makings. Using bones in soup literally squeezes all viable vitamins and minerals out of the suckers. Soup made from lots of bones is great to keep around if you get sick, it’ll feed and sooth you relatively easily and as you get better you can add noodles. ON TOP OF THAT, a quarter to a half cup of soup broth added to a lot of dishes also adds those nutrients PLUS flavor.
I have been dealing with a lot of copyright infringement over the past few years and it has been no fun at all. I have seen unauthorized copies of my work all over the place including on Amazon, Etsy, clip art sites, T-shirt vendors like Sunfrog and Teespring… and so far I have been successful in getting these images taken down fairly quickly.
A few months ago, a friend noticed this kid’s shirt at kohls.com
The boston terrier images on the t-shirt are badly traced copies of my Boogie Doggie Language drawings. Small details like eyes and ears have been changed, bow ties and glasses have been added, and most of the images are flipped. (Examples below have been re-flipped to clarify the similarities)
According to my attorney, the legal team at Iconix (the parent company of Mudd) does not believe there is any copyright infringement. They are refusing to take any action or compensate me in any way without a lawsuit. If I want them to stop selling this t-shirt or to get any money back from their sales, I have to sue them.
Litigation may not be a big deal to a large company like Iconix/Mudd; but it would be ridiculously expensive for a solo artist like me. Costs could go up to $60K if the case goes all the way to trial.
I cannot claim statutory damages ($150K per infringing item) because my copyright registration was not completed within 3 months of when Doggie Language was first published.
If I win the case, I will recoup revenue from Mudd’s sales and my attorney fees, but this may not be enough to cover all the other thousands of dollars worth of court fees including expert witness fees. I basically have to pay out of pocket if I want to sue.
I already had in mind a crowdfunding campaign for my Dogs of The World book project later this year or next year, and if I were to request donations now to cover legal fees, I feel that I would be overimposing on people by asking for money twice and I don’t feel good about this. I would rather that people donate to my creative projects than fight this stupid expensive battle to prove that the copied images are mine.
Also - I worry about not raising enough money or not achieving the resolution that all my contributors are hoping for. Taking money from other people = extra pressure.
I have not yet decided what I am going to do; these are just some of the concerns I have right now.
For now, this is HOW YOU CAN HELP:
1. Please SHARE this information. Tell people about this bootleg t-shirt at Kohl’s and Mudd’s response, and spread awareness about the larger issue of fashion retailers stealing and profiting from indie artists and getting away with it. Use Facebook, Twitter, and other social media.
2. Boycott these companies. Write to these companies to let them know you will not buy from them. Pressure Kohl’s to sever their relationship with Mudd/Iconix.
3. Buy directly from artists if you can. I am going to be making a similar Boston Terrier shirt available soon, for anyone who is interested.
4. If you are purchasing artwork online (like stock images, clip art etc), check the source carefully. I have seen copies of my artwork on sites like istockphoto and freepik and had to have them taken down. If you are a vendor/designer who buys stock imagery from these sites, be aware that ANYONE can upload images to these licensing agencies/libraries and lie that the work is theirs. (yes, it sucks)
IF YOU ARE AN ARTIST or DESIGNER:
1. Learn from my mistakes. When you create new artwork, register your copyright within 90 days of publication. You can do this online.
I did not know about the 90-day registration window and I don’t think many people do. If you registered within the 90 day period, and if your copyrights are violated, you can collect statutory damages in court ($150K per item) regardless of whether the infringing party made any money from your work. If your copyright registration is too late (as mine was for Doggie Language), you can only recover their profits & your attorney’s fees - and this may or may not be enough to cover all other expensive court fees. If the infringing party can prove that they made no money from sales, then the artist gets nothing.
2. When you look to other artists’ works for inspiration (as we all do and this is normal), make sure that what you create is not a recognizable copy of what you are looking at. Tracing someone else’s work, changing colors or a few details here and there, or flipping the image 180 degrees is STILL plagiarism and copyright infringement. Another example is taking the “head” from someone’s drawing of a dog, and sticking it on a different body - this is STILL copyright infringement.
I want to say thank you again to everyone who is supporting me. There are times I find myself feeling depressed, insignificant, and powerless, and your passionate support really helps! Thank you for standing by me!
Also thank you to:
- Robynne Raye for her help and advice. Details about Robynne’s/Modern Dog’s copyright infringement case against Target and Disney HERE and HERE. They won!
THANK YOU TO EVERYONE for the signatures, reposts and retweets! There is power and justice with social media group effort: Kohl’s has removed the shirt from their website!!! We have yet to check if the shirt has been removed from physical stores. No response from Mudd/Iconix, but this is a big step!
8/8/2016 UPDATE
Kohl’s now claims the shirt design is not infringement (their “design team” created it) and they are going to continue selling the shirt.
It appears that another item in the Kohl’s catalog has an unauthorized copy of my Boogie design on it. Sonoma is a Kohl’s in-house brand. These socks are selling in their stores and on their website.
This boston terrier is lifted from the SAME “Doggie Language” poster probably by their same in-house “designer”. And they are still denying copyright infringement and are refusing to stop selling these products!
And this is as good a reason as any why so many artists might never ever share their art online again. Companies who allow their in-house designers to just rip off and ‘change’ art they found on the Internet are LOW. The majority of the designers are freelance, it would take little effort to just hire the artists who CREATED THE CONTENT in the first place. Likewise, company designers who have zero qualms in ripping off the work of a fellow artist: take a long hard look at your life and ask, what if it happened to you? It’s sadly a horrible Catch-22. People absolutely DO get hired for jobs like this based on their online art posts, it’s happened for me quite a few times, now. But post your art online, there’s the awful risk of mass reposting-without-credit, etsy theft or wholesale corporate plagiarism as seen here. I wish I could give a safe answer. All I have is: watermark everything CLEARLY with a portfolio URL or an email address.
