WORK IN PROGRESS PAGE

Hello I'm Sullivan but I often go by Ghast. I'm a 25 year old hobbyist artist specializing in digital illustration from Illinois (the US state with Chicago in it), I've been drawing for most my life but I was 8 when I went online and discovered websites like deviantart that art became something I dedicated myself to. I'm pretty much entirely self taught the extent of my formal teaching being taking art as an elective in my first two years of high school.

This website exists both to catalogue my art as well as to keep track of and provide information about my original characters which are a big interest of mine and the primary subject of my art. I love thinking about my OCs I am almost constantly thinking about my OCs.

I love art and at this point it's a fundamental part of my identity, in a world where I didn't draw I wouldn't be me. I consider my art to be an extension of myself and my self expression and it's one of my biggest interests. Not just an interest in drawing but also studying and learning about art, from it's history to it's techniques and science, and the philosophical thinking when it comes to art I love it all!

I'm a gay man and use he and it pronouns, think like Frankenstein's Monster.

You'll find me on most places online under the username GHSTMSK, pronounced Ghast Mask and stylized either all uppercase or all lowercase.

Questions:

Nobody asked me these but I think they're good questions to answer to get an idea of me some more

What works and artists inspire you?

I'll write out the answer to this one later blughglgbglu

What programs/tools do you use?

I currently use an XP-Pen Star 06 Tablet at my desktop. For normal illustration I use Clip Studio Paint though I also enjoy drawing in MSPaint7. I've also used Aseprite and Blender. Some programs I like to use for my process are PureRef to create reference boards and DesignDoll if I'm struggling to find good refs. Prior to 2022 I used a (Pirated) copy of Photoshop CS6 for illustrations and prior to 2014 I used PaintTool Sai (constantly resetting the free trial). Previous tablets I've used are a Ugee M708, a Huion K58, and a Turcom (don't know the model).

Programs I've experimented with are FireAlpaca and Krita.

Why are you a hobbyist?

Well what makes me a hobbyist is that I don't make money off my art, there is no exchange of money for labour so it's a hobby. I thought about doing art as a career a bit when I was younger and I've had family members say "You're so good you should trying getting your work published :)" but let's be real even if I wanted to be a professional actually "making it" as a professional is tough; I have no formal teaching, no connections, and I just don't think my art at the time that I considered art as a career would've made the cut.

If you'd rather be self-employed instead of proletarian there's always the online artist taking commissions which is much more accessible and I have considered commissions but I don't do them and I currently wouldn't be able to accept payment anyways. Plus to get steady commission work you need a following online, a lot of followers, and the most I've ever had is 74 (on Unvale of all places lol). I could also try selling designs for cash, I did after all have a lot of characters that I got rid of that I could sell and some of my friends have egged me on to do that. Buuut idk something about it leaves me with an ick in my stomach, maybe it's cause I hate copyright so much. No offense to the people who sell them but adoptables really feel like capitalism having it's grip on art, it's really just selling copyrights ain't it? There's a real problem of "copyright brain" in art spaces when we have people saying "don't color pick my designs".

Why didn't you go to art school?

Simplest reason? Money. Art school is a privilege and you don't need me to tell you that, college itself is a privilege within a society without free education and I'm broke. I'm from a rural rust belt town and the majority of my family have been factory workers for generations, including my dad who raised me and factory work pays but it doesn't pay very well and I don't know if he ever had a college fund set aside for me in the first place.

Second reason I just didn't really know what I wanted to do with my life when college seemed a possible option to me, ever since I was a kid I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, really bad depression since I was 8 made it so I didn't expect to live past the age of 13 lol. So the majority of the life I've lived so far was more just coasting and watching the days go by, it's only in the past couple years when my mental health has improved and I feel like I'm actually taking some control of my life and figuring out who I want to be and what I want to do, and college just kind of isn't part of that. PLUS I did REALLY BAD in school, I was like an Fs and Ds student, my teachers expected me to be held back a year, I don't think college is a great idea when I struggled like that.