RiverSpirit456

Hello everyone!

So, some things have happened in my life recently that are going to affect how active I am here, especially in terms of commissions. Come the beginning of 2020, I'll be starting a full time job irl. I interviewed about a week ago and found out I had gotten the position. While it's super exciting, it's also pretty scary... I won't have nearly as much time to draw as I do currently, plus I'll still be taking a class or two online for college (as my end-goal hasn't changed; I really want to graduate).

My family isn't in the best financial shape, and I really want to - well, need to - help out. Having consistent pay is going to be pretty darn important  

So, here's a bullet point or two about the changes:

• Activity: I will try to keep active by scheduling uploads, but if there are ever gaps in content, it's because I haven't had time to finish drawings and schedule them.

• Comics: Comics won't upload as consistently (I hate to break my streak, but reality is I won't have time to draw a page every week). I've been working on reviving Star Chasers with and , but I honestly don't know if we'll be finishing pages frequently enough to upload more than, maybe, once a month Torturous to wait for a single page after that long, but you guys did seem to miss Star Chasers, so new pages is better than another year waiting.

• Commissions: I'll be closing the commissions journal pretty much immediately. However, considering there were quite a few people who entered for a commission before this happened, I'll still work to get theirs finished. I simply wont be accepting NEW commission entries for a while. 

Hello Everyone!

I’ve done contests on my channel before, however this one is slightly different. My Biology class has a project due by the end of the semester (April 26th). It pretty much allows the student to do whatever as long as it explores some aspect of Environmental Conservation. I mean, life is pretty important in Biology, right?

For my project, I decided to involve all of you guys! So here’s the gig: Anyone who reads this can attempt to complete one (or more) of the following challenges in return for an art prize/prizes from yours truly, and from anyone who wants to offer prizes! (send me a note titled "Green Prize" if you'd like to contribute prizes. I'll update the journal. )

The Challenges:

  1st Level: For two weeks, I’d like you to collect and separate your family/home’s recycling and trash. If you do this already, awesome! As proof that you do/have done this, just take a picture at the end of the two weeks of all the trash/recycling you have! NOTE: If your neighborhood has a weekly trash/recycling pickup, then simply take two pictures (one of first week, one of second week. Try to have less trash the second week if you can!). The important thing is that you’ve tried recycling for more than just a few days. XD
     First Level Prizes!
- FREE sketch from yours truly!
- A brief feature in my final project video!
- Cat Headshot from
- Flat fullbody from
- Traditional pencil sketch from
- Flat Headshot sticker from
- Headshot from

     2nd Level: Find an area in your local surroundings that tends to accumulate a lot of trash (thrown out of car windows along a busy road, washed down a creek, etc), and take a few hours to clean it up! Make sure to take a before/after picture for me, please! And if you want to go an extra mile, maybe leave a sign asking people to stop littering It's not that hard to just have a trashbag in your car, or wait until you see a trashcan.
     Second Level Prizes:
- FREE 1 character commission, headshot, or chibi from yours truly! Your choice!
- A brief feature in my final project video!
- A 1 character animal drawing from
- Chibi Full Body from
- A Headshot from
- Dragon Headshot from
- Flat fullbody from
- A headshot from
- Watercolor headshot from
-Full Body from
- Full Body Shaded from

     3rd Level: Creative freedom! This category is for those who want to think of their own way to help out in their community. You could volunteer for a green program, plant a tree (native to your area), plant a garden/help out in a community garden, clean out your house of recyclable things and donate them, or...well, anything you can think of! Feel free to ask if you have an idea. And as with the other challenges, make sure to take some pictures (before and after or just the result) of what you decided to do! NOTE: If you decide to plant something, show me a couple weeks progress of how it's growing! We have until the end of April after all!
     Third Level Prizes:
- Up to 3 character commission, short/simple animation, headshot, or chibi from me! Your Choice!
- A Feature/Shoutout of your profile on my DA!
- A feature in my final project video!
- A Gray-scale Fullbody w/bg from
- Flat fullbody from
- A fullbody shaded from
- Acrylic painted headshot from
- Page doll from

Entering/Submitting Photos:

     If you wish to participate, please send an email to sushiruriver@gmail.com that says which challenge you're going to do (whether it's one of them, or two or all three), and then attach the pictures of what you did once you've completed the challenge! Also wouldn't mind a brief story about what you did/why you decided to that, or any problems you had while doing it!

YOU HAVE UNTIL APRIL 20th TO SEND IN YOU PICS! I need at least a couple days to edit/make my presentation for my class.

So yeah, do any or all of those challenges for some art rewards and a warm feeling in your stomach. XD And don’t worry guys, I'll be doing each of these things as well. Can’t have you guys doing all the work, right? I'll post some pictures as well.

Hello all!

I realize this is going to be bad news for a lot of you, but I’ve decided to try raising prices a bit. I did some calculations with my current prices, and the fact is, for the volume I get and the wage I make per hour, upping prices makes a lot of sense. I spend more time on each scene now, and I feel as though the quality has increased. I hope you guys understand, and I am open to hearing any complaints you have. Feel free to speak your mind.

In terms of how commissions work; it’s still the same system. If you’d like to get one (or have already entered for one) I’m still using this journal: www.deviantart.com/riverspirit…

So that order and those entries remain valid. I’ve simply updated the journal with the new prices.

As I take new commissions with these prices, I’ll make sure to include a notice/update in the note w/a link to this journal so no one is like “wait why are the prices different?”

I know a lot of you have saved up for scenes, so increasing the price will throw a bit of a wrench in your plans. For that, I apologize, and hope you can still get the scene you wanted.

Thank you for listening, and please let me know any questions you have below.

~River

Hello! I have a quick tip for aspiring authors, but first allow me to say: I'm not an authority on writing. I myself am only an aspiring author, however recently I've made a discovery that I thought was worth sharing because it wasn't something I had considered at all until actually experiencing it. 

The tip: Try being the Dungeon Master for a group of friends.
For those who don't know what a Dungeon Master is, it is pretty much the person who runs a game of Dungeons and Dragons. 

Why is this a tip for aspiring authors? Well, being a DM forces you to do a lot of things/develop a lot of skills that are crucial to writing a great story (whether it's sci-fi, fantasy, or fiction). 

More about Dungeons and Dragons: The premise of the game is basically that the DM creates/uses an environment that the Players interact with. The DM could have a whole campaign for the Players to go through, with a villain to defeat and mysteries to solve, or simply have a world to explore so the Players create their own campaign (significantly harder to create, though, haha)! The game progresses as Players make decisions, roll the dice to see whether they succeeded or failed, and the DM describes the consequences of their actions. It's a lot of fun and can lead to some pretty wacky adventures. I'll include a fun thing that happened in one of my own games at the bottom of this journal.

A few of the benefits of being a DM:

1. Forces you to World-build: You must create an environment for your friends/Players to play in.  The creatures, the cities, the people...all of this must be within your world, and be developed in order to make a compelling land. An important part of creating any story. 

2. Makes you consider "characters" as people: This is crucial. Your friends are your main protagonists. Despite you controlling the environment, the monsters, the villains, and the people of your world, the ones who determine where the story will go are really the Players themselves. Many people write characters who are simply driven by the plot, not considering the character's own agency. Having other people actually act out the story makes you realize, "Oh, a real person wouldn't just go along with this plot, they may choose an entirely different path based on their personality!" This helps immensely when creating compelling characters for a story. Consider them people first.

3. Engaging the audience: Being a DM can be nerve-wracking because you're constantly wondering if your friends/players are having fun interacting with this world and these characters you've created. Well, this is also an essential part of storytelling. It's amazing to be super invested in a story you've created, but you won't really know if others find it as engaging as you do until you expose them to it. If you see that they're not engaging, that simply means it's time to mix things up. Throw in a twist: a curse, an unexpected enemy, an intimidating villain, a cool/interesting location, a legend! Even if these things are made up on the fly, if your players respond with excitement, it means you'll have to put effort into developing these things into something they can truly enjoy. From there, a story may blossom completely naturally based on impromptu decisions. Of course, it can hurt to realize something you already spent a lot of time on isn't very interesting to your players...don't throw it out! Consider the possibility of revising it using what you learned from improvising, or perhaps try it again with different people.

4. Stealing like an artist: Something important to realize when playing DnD and being the DM is that taking elements of characters, plot-lines or even locations from other stories is alright. We all gain inspiration from other people's ideas, and often we repeat what we have heard before. That's why cliche's are a thing. However, the important part of stealing like an artist is not to directly rip anything off. Transitioning elements of other stories into your own makes you think outside the box, shifting things around so that you create something new. In the campaign I'm building now, I have a character very similar to one from a TV show I watched, however the only part of that character I'm "stealing" is their position/their intimidating presence. Personality, backstory, abilities, connected characters...I am going to shift all of that into a new character, making the person my own. This can be done in your stories as well, especially if you discover something you find extremely interesting that you want to include.


There are probably more benefits, and maybe I'll come back and edit this if I think of them, but for now those are the essentials. I hope you consider them, and I hope you found this useful.


What happened in my own game: I am the DM for my group of friends, however I'm still very new to it. Our first session, I started with a straight-forward adventure: rescuing a maiden from some goblins. My friends went along with it, having fun slaying some goblins and exploring the tomb. However, when they reached the final boss, a powerful hobgoblin, they did not slay him. They managed to knock him down and interrogate him. He begged them not to save the girl, and to allow him and his fellow goblins to complete this ritual: resurrecting their god by sacrificing the girl's life. To my surprise, they sided with the hobgoblin, making a deal to split any profits from his newly establishing stronghold. They let the girl die, and the god was partially resurrected. Of course, this deal was not exactly alright with everyone in the party. My friend Olivia was playing her character Giovanni, a fun-loving bard who wished to save the beautiful maiden. He was outvoted, however, and had to suppress his urge to kill the hobgoblin (that probably would have meant player conflict). In the end, Giovanni carried the maiden's body back to the village, and my players saw the consequences of their actions in the form of the maiden's grieving father. There was an epilogue of sorts where they had to calm the father down, and he very nearly started a fight with them like, "how dare you accept the job to rescue her when you couldn't even succeed!"

Fun addition: I played the same little scenario with another friend, however he didn't even fight the goblins. He cooked them an awesome meal and talked his way in, then convinced them to let the girl live if he brought a different sacrifice (an old woman), to minimize the damage while still allowing them to accomplish their goal. It was quite unexpected, haha! Does go to show that different people come up with different solutions to the presented problem.

Anyway, I hoped you enjoyed reading!

~River

P.S. Anyone here play DnD? If so, share a fun moment you had while playing as a DM or as a Character!

Heyo everyone!

I wanted to make a quick journal about this since it's kind of a vital part of being an artist, professional or amateur. We all need to know how to take criticism and how to give it, and I believe I know a bit about it, so why not share what I've learned, right?

Bottom line, don't be a Sith lord. Don't deal in absolutes. A comment on a piece of artwork saying "I hate this" or "this is awful" is not constructive, or any piece of real criticism. The same can be said for comments like "I love this!" or "this is awesome!" While that's lovely to hear, it does not contribute much to actual growth (but can be helpful for self esteem, haha).

If one wants to give real criticism or constructive advice, my advice is to take a moment and think about what you like or don't like about a piece. Compare it in your mind to another piece that may have done something better.

For example, if I were giving a quick critique of one of my own pieces, say, this one:



You may notice I started with what I liked to give encouragement, then transitioned into what I didn't like (trying to be specific in some way), and ended with another compliment. It's best to soften your blows to avoid the artist getting too defensive because, let's admit, we all can be pretty defensive when it comes to our creations.

If this seems like a lot of work, or maybe you just can't pin down exactly what you like or don't like, then feel free to say something short about something that immediately sticks out to you Maybe "Dude, I like your lines! They're so smooth!" or "Hmm, I think you may want to work on shading. If you tried (insert shading technique or example here), it may make the characters look less flat." 


And that concludes my short journal! I always make these things way too long, so I tried keeping it to one example and one topic, haha.

Let me know if this has helped you, if you want to learn more/have other questions, or if you have an addition/critique of my info, go ahead and write it down in the comments! Everything can be critiqued, and I fully encourage everyone to share their opinions on the topic! Opinion-sharing is a messy thing on the internet, but if we don't practice doing it well, then we won't be able to properly communicate what we really mean, and that's kind of sad, isn't it? We all exist together, so let's help each other grow!


Have an awesome day, ya'll! Stay creative!

~River