AngeliRaferArt

SO much of the cultural and artistic nostalgia that society chases was just art made when people got paid to do it. Lavish movie posters made by human artists, video games made by people without sixteen different investment companies breathing down their neck, movies made by studios taking a chance.

Sometimes I think about how years ago one of my editors asked me if I could pencil and ink my 260-page graphic novel in two months.

And you know what I've witnessed a lot of red flags in my publishing career, the only problem is they usually pop up after the contract is signed.

Remember the first few months of this year, when all we talked about was DOGE and spending cuts and waste, and this administration gutted USAID?

And now they’re giving $40 billion (!) to Argentina.

Insane the amount of amnesia in this country and in our politics and media.

I'm back on my bullshit~

The bullshit: trying to convince kidlit imprints that five years to illustrate a 200-page graphic novel is a fully reasonable and actually excellent time frame considering publishers neither offer artists health insurance nor pay enough for artists to live on.

A digital illustration in a bestiary inspired style featuring a medieval style dragon with feathery wings and a lion-like head, wirh a severed arm in its mouth. The dragon is mostly blue, with green spots and legs, green and orange feathers in its wings, and an orange head. The severed arm is wearing a modern shirt and jacket sleeve and the hand is giving a thumbs up. The background is dark blue with sparkle-stars and a moon, and there's a picture-frame-like border with flame details and a label reading: eat the corporate leeches.

One of the stamp rallies I'm joining for MCM is the Medieval rally!
Here's the postcard print I'm contributing to the prize pack! 😁💕
#MCMLdn #MCMLondon #EatTheRich

No. As a general rule, I reserve top third for type and the publisher handles the rest. We dedicated a newsletter to the topic recently if you'd like a more detail on that:

theartofmichaelwhelan.substack.com/p/setting-type

An illustrated cover for a short comic called The Hearth by lainey williams. A cabin sits in a clearing in a snowy forest. The small windows in the log cabin are lit yellow and there is a trail of blood through the snow leading to the door. Smoke rises from the cabin’s chimney to surround the title. On either side of the smoke are illustrations in the style of Karelian embroidery, showing stylized geometric patterns in red thread. On the left side embroidery section, there is a depiction of a woman kneeling. her hands are stained red and she wears a headscarf. Opposite her is a woman standing. Instead of a left arm she has a wing. Over the top of the image, two geese shaded in red fly over the cabin and smoke. The trees all around the cabin are shaded in dark blue.

The Hearth (1/21)

A sapphic horror comic about witchcraft and hunger in the dead of winter.

Photo of purple ube crinkle cookies

A plate full of ube crinkle cookies nearly demolished

A full plate of ube crinkle cookies cut into 4ths

B) Hello again it's me with my Bake Off Winning UBE CRINKLE COOKIES I am so proud of them and the fact that MANY people vibed with the ube flavor! I also think they are my platonic ideal for the kind of texture I want: tender cookies with a crisply, craggly and crackly top all at once!

Treating myself to some colors todayyy

Cover for the newly announced series The Crying Doll, the latest collaboration between Mariko Tamaki and myself, coming from Vertigo in 2026!! 🪆🩸

LACES! To get the FREE monthly How to THINK When You draw digital MAGAZINE, (including NEW tutorials, a YEAR before they appear online) just tap the link in the bio HERE: @etheringtonbros.bsky.social
#anime #manga #comicart #conceptart #gamedev #animationdev #illustration

I'll post pics later BUT I WON MY CATEGORY AT THE COMPANY BAKE OFF AND I AM GONNA CARRY THAT VICTORIOUS ENERGY FOR THE NEXT FEW DAYS 😤✨️✨️✨️✨️✨️✨️🤪✨️✨️✨️✨️

If you didn’t know, Alaska has been hit by a massive storm, causing severe flooding. Many Indigenous villages have been completely wiped out, with some houses floating away with PEOPLE INSIDE THEM. Please keep posting to spread the info. They need help.

Well now, would you look at that?

A massive study of NEARLY 300,000 people in the United States found that receiving an updated 2024-2025 mRNA COVID-19 vaccine REDUCED people’s risk of severe disease AND death in ALL age groups, REGARDLESS of immunity from prior infection or vaccination.

🚨The absence of media coverage of this natural disaster in Alaska, the lost/missing people, and the destruction of the aftermath is up to us to share. Please help if you can - even if it is just spreading awareness. There is no FEMA going to help them. 1/2

the first rule you must tell yourself when you are making art is that you are not going to change hearts and minds with your art but it is imperative that you make it anyway

October 10, 2025 4 min read Marilyn Monroe in Game of Thrones? AI Could Make It Happen Soon Despite early, and familiar, copyright growing pains, Sora may be the prelude to AI-generated on-demand TV and movies Screenshot includes an AI generated image of what looks like a human cross between Daenaerys Targaryen and Marilyn Monroe on the back of a dragon.

I don't know how many times to point out that is absolutely ghoulish and non-consensual and disgusting behavior.
To exploit the image of a dead woman who was also exploited in real life so you can live out your momentary fantasies of "what is possible" with AI is bad science journalism, also.
Sick.

some panels of concept art of a cat girl in grasslands

concept art

You can't logic your way out of being burnt out. Unless you're me. Who should be able to do it and it's a personal failing that I can't

Publishers should be invested in promoting the books they publish.

tea kettle guys

chibi art of lowen from fire emblem: the blazing blade.

lowen!

#fireemblem #elibe

I never finished posting my Hobbit-themed alphabet here.

S for Smaug.

illustration of a girl walking through a forest fire with a giant wolf made of smoke

🔥

A sketch w le pens and highlighters #harpygee #artspud

A pencil sketch

Limited Palette 🎨

"well what are the Democrats supposed to do" I don't know! They're supposed to know! I'm not the one who sought and obtained a political position that would require me to know what to do when the ruling party attempts to install the President as a dictator!

Also low key high key it's usually been my cousins or their spouses that ask, so I've been LONG established as the "artsy" cousin, but please x')

Them: Please, I LOVE your work!!!!

Me: *Portfolio full of children's book illustration work and comic pages* 🤪 Uh.

🙏 Do you design logos? ✨️

Do it for exposure