u/MysticSparkleWings

Hi all 👋 I'm new to posting finished work in coloring subs, but not new to art or coloring in general, so I hope this format is okay. 🫶

I tried to include the most important info in the additional images, but just in case they don't load properly or you find them difficult to read I'll type it out here too:

This started as a coloring page posted many years ago by the wonderful DestinyBlue, I just tweaked it (read: redrew some areas in Procreate, mostly the face and hair) to be “more me.” ✨ And the coloring was inspired by some of Blue’s other work, as well as Camilla d’Errico’s “drippy” painting style. 🎨

Materials Used:

• Ohuhu Honolulu Markers
• Ohuhu Nahuku Paint Markers
• Languo 0.6 mm Gel Pens
• Ohuhu Halawa Pencils
• Bee Inspired Mixed Media paper

You can also see some of my thumbnail/mini practice versions peaking in the corners; I wasn't 100% sure how I wanted to include them, especially since there's a lot of messy test swatching not visible (😅), so this was my compromise and it saved me the trouble of having to figure out what else to use as a background for the finished page. 😂

Artwork information first, personal update/explanation after (and most of this is stated in the images, but y'know just in case):

• I started with a coloring page from DestinyBlue as a base and tweaked some areas (mostly the hair and face) to be "more me," and the color palette and lighting were also heavily inspired by Blue's other artworks...
• ...Except for the wings, star, and paint bucket ,which were instead inspired by Camilla d'Errico's "drippy" painting style
• I mostly used Ohuhu Honolulu markers, but the wings, star and paint in the bucket specifically are a mixture of Ohuhu's Nahuku paint pens and Languo 0.6 mm gel pens
• There were several thumbnails/mini versions colored for trial and error (some of which you can see peaking in on the corners) because I am not used to this kind of dramatic lighting with traditional media 😅 Don't think I got any of this right on the first try because I SUPER did not!
• I cannot stress enough that this is genuine and not just "an influencer bit," but: If you're interested in hearing me ramble a LOT more about the art process, I have that typed out on both DeviantArt or Tumblr depending on which place you'd rather read from.

[And please know I had direct links in this post but Reddit really did not want to let me post without removing them, so check for links where you normally would. 🙄]

______

Now, I'm going to try to keep this personal update/explanation brief, but there is also a blog post with more detail/information than is really appropriate to try to squeeze in this one Reddit post.

For those who don't know: Hi, I'm Mystic, and I was a pretty frequent sight on this subreddit trying to help people out until March of last year when my Reddit account was wrongly suspended/banned for reasons still unknown to me.

For 125 days, I tried every legal, reasonable method I could think of (including snail mail) to contact Reddit and at least get an explanation and received no response whatsoever. [And of course, making a new account was not an option lest I risk getting suspended/banned again for suspension/ban evasion...]

The only reason you're even seeing this post is because during the suspension, I befriended the lovely u/homeofstudiobee (through a different community I'm part of now known as the Colour Me Creative Collective) and she later very kindly offered to talk to some Reddit contacts she has through her day job about my situation and they were able to restore my account. [And still, the only possible reason for my wrongful suspension that her contacts could give me when all was said and done was that I might have been flagged as a bot. 🙃]

I have however been missing for far longer than 4 months for multiple reasons I don't really have the space to get into here (that's what the blogpost is for), but among them at least in small part, the fact of the matter is: If you get suddenly locked out of a place/community you had enjoyed so much it became part of your regular routine, with no explanation and seemingly no recourse, that hurts. And that wound needs its own time to heal.

But in the end, assuming this post itself doesn't get me suspended again, I'm back now. And this art is meant to celebrate that, celebrate the friends and community I found in my time away, and hopefully serve as more of a personal reset/"rebirth," as I hope to not just be back to where I was before, but to also be making and sharing a lot more actual art/creative things (swatch charts and resources, anyone? 😉) going forward.

And, yes, this means to anyone that sent messages/comments and been waiting and wondering if I'll get back to you—Next on my to-do list is trying to get through that backlog! 😂 And I intend to go back to popping up on new/current threads too, but I might have to get a little creative to avoid Reddit maybe-thinking I'm a bot again. 🙃