kradeelav | (no subject)

What do you collect?

Tag meme on tumblr, tagged by seikilos-stele :D I'm actually quite a minimal person in general (partly out of necessity with tight living spaces, partly out of liking a clean area), but there's a few minor items that pop up now that i think about it ...

* pantone mugs! my very first freelance design client gave me the first one, and I'm probably up to 20 or so now. They go quite well with the eclectic mid-century look I've got going for long term furniture, and are a great conversational starter at work (remotely). I tend to focus on the brighter rainbow colors - it's a known fact so much that my favorite grandboss gave me one for the birthday not too long ago.

* every illustration that exists of zihark online ~ admittedly i've fallen off a little since i refuse to touch twitter, but there genuinely was a point in 2012 or so where I could confidently say that considering that was pre-social media and personal sites/deviantart's golden era.

* VHS tapes / DVD's - ironically this is half of my parents, but all three of us are major VHS/DVD collectors simply because we unanimously can't stand streaming for many reasons and we've always had one of those VHS/DVD combo players. ironically watching movies this way has been way cheaper lately. :v I also plan to get one of those small CRT TV's (again) soon for nostalgia reasons.

* imported artbooks from japan but just a lot of books in general (genres split between that, mil-history, crufty animation history, and a hodgepoge of other stuff). the only real piece of furniture I've allowed myself is a large bookshelf behind my desk that acts as a backdrop for video calls and also a home for all of them. by far the biggest fun-money expense I splurge on ahead of food/clothes/etc.

* contemporary glass paperweights

* every illustration / manga panel / anime screenshot that interests me and stored in the hydrus network; there's some images easily dating back to 2002 or so (older than some people reading this? wild). I go less for sheer amount (9k images in there now) and more for exact inspiration that make me want to draw. I cannot tell you how thankful I am for my younger self for doing this especially in the socmed collapse of the last few years...

tagging anyone who wants to show off collections! more specific the funner ~

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neotula

it's honestly super fun/interesting to think of collections in the terms of digital media/images saved!

i like what you said about your hydrus collection as to specific images that make you want to draw: had a professor back in college who challenged us to do the same: make a collection of images that hit just right/contain the inspiration (for me, it's my tulipbean tumblr) and it's always interesting to see how my taste has evolved/changed over time, and how it's stayed the same.

i think i remember you posting about hydrus when you first set it up: how tricky was it? it seems like it'd be really nice for organizing/storing images.

kradeelav

that professor was onto something nice; i love how that little assignment works with absolutely everyone and their flavors of taste/inspiration and not just a derivative off of a specific school or medium like so many get stuck into. tracing the art history back and finding surprising new lines of commonalities is so cool.

hydrus was pretty easy! i know the maintainer keeps all three of the mac/win/linux versions pretty up to date and was definitely one of the easier linux installs. def couldn't hurt to give it a whirl and it's honestly the most important software i'll always take with me outside of krita + libreoffice. being able to organize inspiration by tag vs by folder is just too useful, and it's got a wildly robust downloader built in for all the major art sites.

sushiflop

I had no idea Pantone mugs were a thing! I googled them and I like them, maybe I will get a couple for myself. Also I bet the glass paperweights are gorgeous...

I used to have a lot of books, but moving out of the house I'd grown up in for 25 years was such a horrible endeavor (coupled with an ongoing familial health disaster and many tears) that now I'm very, very choosy about what books actually get granted shelf space. Recently I bought 5 books - well, 4 books and one nice boxset on sale! It's been a very long time since I indulged on that many books at once, but either they were books I'd thought about for years or they're books by authors I want to know more about and am open to pruning once I've read them. The boxset is the Tea Dragon Society collection, three nice big hardbound editions on sale for $30, shockingly cheap for what the books are.

I've also got a little crystal collection going. I'm trying to be a bit modest with it but the natural patterns of rock are just so pretty... they're like lovely miniature obelisks for the most part.

Also Hange stuff, I'd like to have more merch of one of my Blorbos of All Time.

Got some pictures of stuff! Including some cute stuff I didn't mention bc I don't quite consider it a proper collection (not big enough, don't really intend to pursue more of the same type of item)

A small rock & semiprecious stone collection!

The rock collection.

Some blind box figs. I try to be really careful about this kind of thing because I'm often really picky; if I don't like all my possible figs, I won't get the box. I couldn't resist the butler-bowing bird set or the kubrick stare lizards though, and I got really lucky with those. Also the little succulent sprite was just cute...

I taught abroad in Thailand, and traveled a lot in country; the shells on the left are called Shiva's Eyes and actually come from snails. I love them, I think they're absolutely beautiful, and I obsessively beachcombed for hours and hours to find all these (I have more at home, definitely enough to fill that container; those are what made it here for now). The Hong Thong bottle is from Thailand and was excellent for being dirt-cheap liquor. The bison plushie was just very unique and cute, and on the far right, one more for the rock collection.

amado1

These are great. Like, the zihark illustrations and imported artbooks were no surprise, but I loved hearing about the pantone mugs and paperweights -- never would have guessed!

I totally forgot to mention VHS tapes/DVDs when I did my write-up on tumblr. I'm the same way re: streaming. I only just upgraded to a Blu-Ray player and I've already spent a ghastly amount this year on boutique Blu-Ray sites...

It's so much fun when it's the oddly specific surprise material collections, isn't it? :D your vhs collection probably far outstrips ours to be honest - speaking of, one of my favorite vhs factoids is the 'history of violence' movie (only watched it b/c of my previous crush on viggo mortenson) was both the last movie released on vhs and i *think* the only movie there for the longest time to have an onscreen 69?

(awful movie btw, even with the fanservice. eastern promises is sooooo much better)

Oh, I love that. I'd seen History of Violence going for surprisingly cheap prices considering it was the last VHS ever made. I always wondered why -- I guess it's just so unpopular that no one cares about the novelty XD

Revenge of the Sith was, I think, also one of the last VHS ever made, and it sells for way higher. I remember owning the first two Harry Potters on tape as a kid and being so bummed out that the third was DVD only, because we didn't have a DVD player! XD

'minature obleisks' is such a cool way to describe rocks and crystals, i love how you wrote that... just studying how light reflects and refracts from them at different times of day is so cool isn't it?

nodding a lot with your mentality with books too - and feeling for your past self for having to deal with that terrible move. quality over quantity feels really nice especially when you can run a finger across the spines of all of your physical books and have a warm feeling for each and every one of them.

The light, and also the natural patterns of stone are just so beautiful... I love especially when the towers are cut in such a way that like, the natural inclusions of the stone include little caverns lined with crystal, or a piece of like - the shape of the natural rock. The texture of them can be just so lovely.

And yes! This is the goal with my book collection, lol. I have totes upon totes full of books that I haven't looked at since that move actually, and some of those books are childhood classics that will always hold a place in my heart (the Wise Child series, Young Wizards, I still have my whole Animorphs collection haha) and some of them are mass-produced forgettable pieces printed off to make a buck (some would say this describes Animorphs. I couldn't agree less) or just things I care about less. Streamlining to a collection of personal gems will be a longterm project but so worth it in time...

ellerean

I recently bought my first Pantone mug! They’re so fun. My married name is also a common metallic, so it was a necessity 😉

awwww, pantone mug sisters! :D they really are so much fun even if to accidentally accessorize/color code with the day ~

always wanted to reply back to this comment because your pictures of your collections from thailand are gorgeous!! genuinely smiled at seeing these here. i laughed so much at the kubrick stare lizards (you're not wrong!) and learned so much about the shells when googling them out of curiosity.

re: books - honestly sometimes if a book's read at the right time in the right mood, even the mass produced paperbacks are magical; one of the reasons physical books are so nice. thank you again for showing me your collections. :D

😳 aww! I'm touched, and glad that learning about these lil collections brought you some joy. My mom especially is a huge beachcomber and shell collector so I grew up in a home decorated with shells and shell collections, and I truly do think even the humblest of seashells are works of art and beauty. I actually love it when the shape of the shell is broken too, so that you can see the internal curves that are usually concealed... visually they are lovely and texturally they simple feel good to touch. The Shiva's eyes feel great to run your fingers through too, or just hold. They're heavy and smooth and somehow feel cooler than the things that surround them...

Love a good book as well. There's some true diamonds in the rough out there. Thanks for replying!

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