ABOUT

Name	Julian Cormac
aka	Feral Royal
Familiar	Marceline
Sign	Libra
Type	Fairy/Poison
Blood Type	Secret ♥
Favorite food	Meat
Least favorite food	Tomato (raw)
Highest stat	CON
Lowest stat	WIS

Hi! I'm Julian, a multidisciplinary artist and nasty little horror enjoyer living in the USA. I live with my better half/creative partner Arden, and we make fun sexy comics and videogames together. When we're not cooking up our next project, I can probably be found crocheting or watching tv. (My favorite show is Dark, and my favorite movie is a three-way tie between Let The Right One In + Dr. Strangelove + Phantom of the Paradise.)

Firing off a few shots to keep good company only: I'm a faggy weirdo transsexual and Jewish socialist in support of a free Palestine. If you take issue with this, there are plenty of other places online that will happily welcome you. Buzz off.

I've overhauled this website several times for various reasons but overall my driving intent is to have a static spot I can host my work without concern about 'the algorithm' or censorship lol. Plus, I ended up sick and tired of polishing my personal space into a sterile area with no real indicator of personality or feeling behind the art, y'know? It's not my style! I'd rather be living my best life with a portfolio site packed full of sparkly pixel gifs.

I also spent a lot of time thinking about how I used to feel browsing the internet as a kid — how I could easily spend an entire day on someone's pages, looking at their art and writing and exploring webrings... before I explain further, I think I should put a disclaimer here that I was pretty much exclusively on Pokemon fan sites during this era of my life. Yes, I'm waxing nostalgic about how I thought some 14-year-old's PaintBBS drawings were the most beautiful images possible. But, at the same time, the Mew's Hangout sprite edits were what got me experimenting with pixel art! The first drawings I ever posted online were on oekaki boards! In the same way a lot of professional programmers got their start coding pages on Neopets et. al., Pokemon fansites were responsible for me 'getting into' art. I'm much less rosy about the internet as a whole but the structure and atmosphere of personal fansites was, and is, important to me.

It feels self-evident that the work I make now is tonally very far afield from my childhood inspirations, but at the same time you gotta chase what makes you want to run. I grew up into someone who loves both cute things and deeply upsetting messy stories, as is the case with a lot of other people! Learning how much I loved horror art was just as important to me as finding joy in drawing in the first place. If I can achieve anything with this domain, I'd like to create the feeling of a place that has been inhabited with both intent and authenticity.

That said, the Pokemon darkfic is staying in the vault.

As far as tools of the trade go, digital artwork is mainly done on an iPad Pro. I also have a Cintiq 13HD, but I tend to use it with the screen unplugged. (Before upgrading to the Cintiq I was rocking Old Reliable the Pen and Touch, so drawing without looking directly at my surface feels more natural for desk work.) At my desk I also use a Tourbox for shortcuts in Clip Studio Paint + Affinity Designer. When it comes to writing, everything past notebook brainstorming happens in either Google Docs, Scrivener, or Visual Studio Code.

With non-digital art, I use a wide range of tools, so if you're curious about how I achieved a particular look please feel free to ask! I generally am very fond of Kuretake brush pens, plus the Uniball Signo Ultra Micro 207. I started using these when I was drawing on the clock at an old office job and the UM207 is BAFFLINGLY nice for a cheap ass ballpoint pen. I've used a few different film cameras, but my current and favorite child is a Canon EOS ELAN. As for stock, I'm strongly of the belief that the best film is whatever you have ready to go — I use a lot of Fujifilm Superia 400 because it's stocked in every drugstore ever.

currently

watching: Downton Abbey, On Cinema
playing: Myst, Balatro
reading: American Prometheus, Chainsaw Man, The Summer Hikaru Died

recently

watched: Star Trek TOS, Gastronauts, Letterkenny
played: Alan Wake, Mediterranea Inferno, Dragon Age: Veilguard
read: A Wizard of Earthsea, Unicorns Aren't Horny, Adversary