Artist Interview #3: BSARTSSS

Howdy, everyone!

For our third artistXauthor interview, we have the mighty purveyor of the buffest, grittiest women to ever grace the internet, Ash aka BSARTSSS. You might know her from back in the halcyon days of Twitter for her awesome Witcher lass or maybe some very buff Vi’s from Arcane. If you started reading The Unbroken because of Touraine’s Arms, then you won’t be disappointed.

(note: there are boobs below. if you don’t want your manager looking over your shoulder in the office with questions, save this one for later.)

Do you have a favorite project you’ve worked on? 

Getting to work with Summerfall Studios on Stray Gods was a very fun project! Sometimes its nice to step out of my usual workflow and jump in on projects like this. I got to do a bunch of art with some talented artists and some well known VAs [voice actors].

What art called you into this life? 

Art has always been in my life, my father is an artist/tattooist/wood carver, so I naturally gravitated towards it. I don't have specific art that called to me, I was an anime kid so that as a whole is what led me to pursuing the art to where I am now. 

You could say that was the calling for me to learn more ‘screencap’ or  ‘cinematic art’ through watching anime. That fantasy of wanting to see your characters in an anime was strong with me, so the next best option to that was making mock screencaps and learning to master that and further tell the stories of my ladies through cinematic pieces. Because one thing about me is, I can't write to save my life, so learning to capture it through an art piece was the next best thing. 

And that extends beyond anime. Also studying films and the art of cinematography with framing your shots was and still is a learning experience.  

What’s one piece of advice you had to UNLEARN? 

Not feeling the need to grind and learn as many art forms.

Now I prefer to practice working smarter, not harder.

Initially, I had a grind mindset and felt the need to learn how to draw everything—characters, environments (which were my nemesis), props, and creatures—because in concept design these things were kind of essential in the industry. I can do a decent amount of these now, but I felt like I had spread my stats out into so many classes that I was getting overloaded. So I decided to respec into what I liked the most: storyboarding, character design, and women.

Allowing myself to stop being hardheaded helped me find ways to improve my work process. I took time to learn basic sculpting in Blender so that I can quickly pull them up, angle them how I want, and draw them. I don't, however, fully sculpt them; I more messily sculpt with just enough information to work off. I still like to be somewhat independent of it.

For example, my Gorgon ladies are Medusa, Stheno, and Euryale. Drawing snakes is very taxing; I got lots of references of snakes, and when those snakes are the ‘hair,’ I’m drawing them multiple times. There’s got to be another way…enter Blender.

With a quick sculpture of Stheno and a snake’s head, I've made my own reference to refer to when I need it, with the added benefit of lighting if I feel something's off in my work.

But I’d like to make it clear: learning your art fundamentals, understanding anatomy, composition, color theory, and conceptualizing are important things to know! I already have these tools; Blender has just assisted me in cutting down time and working smarter while not being completely reliant.

What role does music play in your life? Your artistic process? What are you listening to these days? 

When I'm story boarding something around a character, music plays a pretty big part. I usually make two types of playlists for my characters, lyric songs and instrumental. They help me get into the creative zone and set the tone for what I'm making. So what I listen to can be all over the place nowadays.

I find it a good way to build ideas or expand on my characters, as well; music is some powerful stuff.

My own personal daily playlists can be pretty varied, and more often is a mix up of all the playlists. But the most recent has been a cyberpunk playlist.

Demi - WildChild
Demi

Why is making queer/sapphic art important to you?

I always say I make my ladies for the ladies.

I wasn't really exposed to many female characters while growing up, which is why I want to create things I would have liked to see back then—especially queer women! Xena was the closest thing to it. As I grew up, I often saw cool and badass roles played by men and thought, “I want to see this, but with women playing these roles.” Over time, I began to create characters that I would have preferred to see. 

Characters like my vampire Demi, who is an unapologetically bad person (we need more of them!), a bloody, stunning woman seducer, shirtless with her tits out all the time. In many ways, she started everything and became a favorite of fans. I think it’s because I did cater her for women and they loved it—at least I hope so. I always refer to Demi as my golden child.

Somewhere along the way, other people just so happened to like what I was doing and the characters I was making, and it was onwards to really focusing all my efforts on making queer women I wanted to see and pushing them more outside the norm. 

Another good example would be Shal. During the Witcher hype, we all know Witchers were pretty much a men-only club, School of the Cat being the exception, but we only saw the fellas. So I thought, Screw that, I'm going to design a female Witcher, which then kicked off the witcherlass OC wave; seeing so many artists make their own female witchers was amazing. Ah, good times. 

On a sidenote, I've become known for drawing shirtless women, as you can tell, and one of my favorite comments that I get is when people (especially the fellas) tell me that when I draw shirtless women, it strangely never feels sexualized. It makes me happy because, of course, it doesn't. Intent is important; you can tell when someone is doing it with the intent of sexualization of women's breasts and when it's just a lady with her tits out being casual as.

If my gay women are getting reactions, be it like or hate, I must be doing something right and I’m going to keep pouring all of my ability into making these gay as hell ladies.  

Why is depicting queer/sapphic eroticism important to you? 

One reason I like to do it, aside from looking at it from an artist's perspective of skillset learning, which has been very insightful and tested my skills!

The few crumbs of W/W eroticism we see in the past would be done with male view in mind, very hypersexualized dolled-up women. Don’t get me wrong, I love some femme x femme goodness. But a lot of the time it never felt done with the intentions of lesbians in mind. Even so, I still ate those crumbs up every time. Not so much anymore.

And when we do get it, often it would always be too soft for me; even in video games, female romances felt delicate and emotion focused. I wanted the romances the guys were getting! (Ahem, Morrigan, Jack and Panam!) I want some messiness too. I love a mean woman, a monster woman.

Sometimes you gotta make the food yourself, and also feed other people too! So creating content like this was my own personal indulgence. And the people crave to see my ladies having a great time too. 

Do you have an exercise routine/physical practice? How does that enrich the different areas of your life? 

I'm so boring that outside of work, the gym is my only other thing; I make sure to try to get in there every day aside from when my body needs rest. It keeps me sane when you work at a desk all day/night and your home life is also in the same space as your work life. 

It's honestly a mental health thing too! Getting to step away if I've had a stressful day, feel like crap, don't want to move or work out. I always feel better afterwards having done it than if I hadn't. I am more of a class person; I want to walk in, the coach tells me to do this, and I grind my hardest, lift heavy weights and get wrecked. 

I've lived a pretty unhealthy life, so I'm in my era of trying to be a better self. I am also an introvert. So it's a part of my social time, something I also think is important to do because living rural, it's very easy to get comfy in solitude. Luckily I have mates that drag me out.

Artists, do gym! Our bodies and minds need it to survive.

Describe a dream project you’d like to work on—are you working on it right now?

I'd love to work on anything dark and sapphic as hell, be it a show or game, etc. I still haven't gotten a chance to do something like that. Until then I'll keep making my own stuff. I’m still craving something that scratches that itch since Arcane. 

I would say that I am currently working on a dream project, one that I can't say anything about right now, but hopefully in the future soon! 

What are you reading/watching/playing? 

I actually started rewatching Arcane again! I haven't watched it since season two aired, so I've thrown myself back into the all-consuming void with its amazing female characters. It's been nice to watch it again from the beginning and see my favorite butchfemme, Vi and Caitlyn. 

I finally had some time for games and started Mortal Shell 2, if you're a Souls [Dark Souls] enjoyer and like to suffer, it's pretty well made. I was especially drawn to this one because they have a female character aka shell to play as. I'm a simple person! Souls+lady = I'm there. 

What was your gay (media) awakening?

I can't say it was really a gay awakening, I always knew I liked girls since a child. But I always remember having the baddest crush on Jessica Rabbit in Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988). What a woman.

Sadly, I was not exposed to gay content through a lot of early/teen life despite liking girls, but the truest gay awakening would hands down be The L Word, seeing that late night was eye opening, haha. 

Do you have a particular project or service you’d like to highlight for lovers of the queer arts?

I have a Patreon that is focused on queer arts and women, the focus being my OCs (original characters), with fanart sprinkled on the side. It's the main place where I post my work now. I do monthly cinematic stories with my characters that patrons decide through prompts what kind of story might happen, on top of a bunch of other artwork!

Thanks so much to Ash for being our third artist interview! (You can check out the first and second here.) Don’t forget to check out her Patreon and follow her on Instagram, etc.

Keep an eye out for the next interview, and until then…

Stay sharp,

C. L.