Wow... Talk about some mixed emotions
Check it out HERE!

The Huffington Post! Yes THE Huffington Post!! Has done a brief editorial on my Princess Avengers. Saying that, "At a time when it's still depressingly normal for franchises like "The Avengers" to be marketed with sexist slogans, Stoll's art is a powerful way to flip princess culture inside out."

A glowing appraisal from one of the most popular sites on the web! Sign me up!
It's nice to receive some publicity for my work, and you'd better believe that I'm gonna milk it for all it's worth, but I honestly wish that it was some of my other art.
The PA's aren't really my property, much less my creative vision. They are conglomerations of characters that don't belong to me, they are even based heavily on the work of other artists and cosplayers.
I began them to practice digital art and manipulation, I initially continued them as a joke, and now I am compelled by their positive reception to produce more.

Still, I can't say that they are truly mine. I don't feel as though they represent my art very well. I can only in good conscience continue to oversee their distribution as long as I make NO money from these works and remind my audience that (in my opinion) fan-art, however skillful, is never fully yours.
Mashing up the creative works of others is not my idea of a meaningful creation.

P.S. THEY INCLUDED THE SULTAN BLACK WIDOW!! XD
I did that as a joke and to buy time to produce without being questioned about the Princess Avengers! I still intend to do a "real" female Black Widow, but seeing my goofy but good-natured trolling on the HuffPost's main page was enough to bring gleeful tears to my eyes.
This day! I have won the Internet.

I HAVE 150,000 DEVIATION VIEWS!!
That may not seem like much compared to some of DA's heavy hitters, but when I started my account I never believed that I would amass that much interest in my work.
And I wanna thank everyone who has taken the time to go through my gallery!
You rule!! No seriously! You, hey pay attention! You, seriously... You, You totally rule!!
Yes you!!

I've been too busy to upload much recently, but I have some very exciting stuff in the chamber for the next couple of months! The end of the (real) Princess Avengers set, some personal work, mixed media stuff, and even a massive engineering project!! IT WILL BLOW YOUR MIND

So stay tuned boys and girls! You'll never believe what's coming up next!

ಠ_ಠ    
Never......

Been a long time coming! But I'm sure it won't disappoint!
Please come check out BLACK WIDOW!

Black Widow was undoubtedly a tough piece to pull together, you may recall that I posted an old journal earlier this year to test the waters and let the fans decide the face of the newest Princess Avenger.

The feedback was overwhelming and unanimous, and the results certainly don't disappoint!
Balancing the disparate gender-elements was the biggest challenge, next was balancing the comical elements of the Sultan's cartoon face with the realistic style I have chosen for the Princess Avengers! Earlier versions gave him a very realistic middle eastern appearance, but it wasn't immediately recognizable as Aladdin's Sultan... Plus I wasn't able to bring the same expression of sincerity and determination to him that you see above. I eventually relented, making Black Widow the most cartoonish PA so far!!

Please let me know what you think with a comment. I certainly put a whole lot of work into this, I hope that you all like it!! It's important to me that these Princess Avengers appeal to the fans, as you can tell I always do my best to take viewer preference into account when designing.

CHECK OUT MY OTHER AVENGING PRINCESSES HERE

I don't remember the last time I kissed her.
It would have been just another kiss on just another day, a mechanical step in the course of that goddamn insignificant day, one without fanfare or regard.
It never occurred to me that one forgotten stage of my daily ritual might be the last time I let her know how much she meant.  
If I had known that it was going to be the last time we kissed, would I have done something different?
Lingered longer, tasted deeper, paused before letting go?

I have to believe that it was a good last kiss...
Though I don't remember it, don't remember why I gave it to her, don't remember if it was a worthy final performance before the curtain-call on a relationship cut short.

I want to believe that I lived every moment of the relationship as though it might be the end, and that this impassioned stance is what lets me say now without reservation,
"I did it! I lived without regret! Any kiss could have been my last and any kiss would have been as loving and joyous as a last kiss should be."

But that's not the case.

I'm enjoying this MtG guild project so much that I might just go ahead and do the remaining 5 guilds of Return to Ravnica in addition to the Gatecrash ones.

Recent comments have been made about the lack of credit for stock photos on my Princess Avengers, in particular the basis for the Hulk turns out to be a cosplayer named Tallest Silver.
Let me be perfectly clear,
I meant no disrespect.
The piece I used was an old picture that I had happened upon and its source was unknown to me. In each of the Avenger descriptions I mention that they were created from dozens of stock images and visual inspirations, including multiple sources of hand-drawn and photographic art, but until just today I didn't have anyone to directly credit for that piece. Now that I have been made aware of the issue I have taken steps to apologize as well as give credit in the images themselves.
I hope that we can put this incident behind us.

Sincerely,
Chris

_You want _art

Hey Everybody!!
I've gotten some questions, so this entry is to remind my various viewers that I do indeed do commissions.
Don't _Resist

In fact, YOU TOO can have a piece of your own in the same quality and style as any piece currently in my GALLERY

.....
Yes, let the subliminal advertisement that I embedded in this message sink into your subconscious...
That's right... Yessssss....

buy_buybuy_buybuy

You feel it don't you?    
     
_{want art}want_wantwant_want
That's right _sheep! You _want to order your _very own _mashups of characters!

Don't fight it.

Feel _{the message} tug on the _nerves behind _your eyes.

There is no shame in surrendering to my unbeatable commission prices. Starting at only $10!

You _know you _want it.

_Want to see _{what it would} be like if your _{two favorite} characters fought, or to bring _{your very own} fantasy characters to _life in high _quality digital art

Haha! Just kidding... You know that subliminal mind control isn't real.

You_are mine _now.

Thanks,
Chris
_YourNew_Overlord

Send me a message at cstoll17@me.com if you are interested!

You _will be...

Once upon a time you needed to pay see an artist's newest work, toss money in the hopes that you would enjoy what you had blindly purchased.
But the relationship between creators and viewership is changing, and I'm glad that we no longer need live in such a world.
Instead I offer you an alternative. I give you what I've done for free. Hours and hours of work tossed like a coin into the wishing well of the internet.
It's yours to download, and cherish, and ponder...
I give you all I have for free. My skill, my time, and my dreams.

I want nothing in return except for the opportunity to keep doing what I do, and if you like what I do then you can help me to produce more,
and you can do it in any amount that you see fit.

And I know that all the true artists out there understand me when I say...

It means a lot.

-Chris




Also, Good News Everyone!!
I am CURRENTLY ACCEPTING COMMISSIONS!

I promise professional treatment, high quality, low prices, and customer satisfaction.
Individual pieces typically run from $15-30 depending on color, style, size, and subject matter.
I don't charge generally anything for conceptual work/sketches/storyboards* and I've found that this helps clients to pinpoint exactly what they are looking for and makes my services much more reasonably priced for potential buyers of all kinds.
If the above description has made you at all interested, then please send me a DeviantArt Message or an email at:
cstoll17@me.com

I look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Chris

Hey guys!! I've really seen my numbers jump recently with the beginning of my Princess Avengers series and I want to thank everyone who took the time to enjoy my work...
You rule!! No seriously! You, hey pay attention! You, seriously... You, You totally rule!!
Aaaaaaaand you're my only hope.

If you have been keeping up with the project thus far then you know that the next one should be Black Widow but unless I can get some aesthetic advice from my artistic fans I may need to postpone the piece. I am having trouble figuring out exactly how to proceed around a couple artistic difficulties:

-Choosing the #%*! Princess-
Lots of people have recommended Ariel, but there's a big problem with stuffing that spicy mermaid redhead into skintight black latex in the realistic style I've chosen for the series... She would look exactly like BlackWidow does now! It's not a significant enough departure from the original character, but most other princesses would not look enough like poor BW. I'm stuck... Who gets the dubious honor of being turned into our killer secret agent supersillious badass action chick?

-Just Like Congressional Legislation, Paint Drying, Your Mom....-
Black Widow is boring.... She doesn't have very much that physically characterizes her aside from the fact that she's the only woman on a team populated exclusively with manly man's men. You can already see the problem, on a team of women she's boring. No costume, no powers, not much to express on the page except for boobs.
And I have boobs, boobs galore, enough boobs to fill the world's funnest Chucky Cheese ballpit to the brim, I don't need them... I need personality.

-Giiiiiiirl?- Which brings me to my final point, should she/he be a woman at all? Pause and think, because this is more complex than it seems, and I really want to get an impression from my subscribers. I originally wanted to do a princess mashup and not a gender swap, but a couple people have come to me with this idea. The issue is that Disney doesn't have very many iconic or strong male characters who suit the mantle of Black Widow, and whoever I choose will really stick out against the otherwise female team.

Who should I choose, how do I keep it quality and avoid some gimmicky pitfalls?
Man or woman? Do you see any other possible issues?
Please let me know, i promise to read and take your feedback into account and if your idea holds water I'll use it.
I look forward to your comments!!!

Must keep.... keep up... DRAWING A DAY O.e
Even though nobody is watching

Today I had a tremendous epiphany and am no longer an atheist. Startling, I know. I've dedicated myself to combating religion for so long that I cannot remember when I first took up the cause, but all things must end. For those who know me this will come as a bit of a shock, but read on and I think you will begin to understand my reasoning.

I started while I was debating one of my Christian friends, we had been going at it for about an hour and finally she came right out and said that "God had written the bible".
I tried to sidestep it, told her that it there was clear historical precedent for multiple authors of the book and centuries of cross pollination of the Bible's stories with other period myths had been recorded. But she would have none of it, it wasn't even enough to argue that the bible was divinely inspired, "God himself had written it."
I started to laugh. It was like something had snapped in my chest, the smirk became a chuckle, became a laugh, became a guffaw, became a shout, became a howl. Harder and harder until I could barely breathe, just sat across from her nearly moved to tears by the escalating noise of my own laughter.

God writes books? This was the last straw, the stupid statement that epitomized religious dogma. God WRITES BOOKS?! Does he also direct films? Does God code software or post tweets? The creator of the universe, who hurls stars into icy eternity and spins the miracle of DNA from mere willpower, writes a single book then gives it to dirt farming, pig-fucking, illiterate peasants 3,000 years ago. Not the Chinese, Egyptians, Japanese, Russians, Aztecs, Greeks... stone age goat-farmers in the poorest most violent region of the middle east.

I've sometimes wondered how good a book written by the creator of all things would actually be.
I've read the bible, and let me tell you, had God been the author it would have had more useful things to say. Moreover, GOD MAKES SHAKESPEARE A BETTER WRITER THAN HIMSELF.

No, no, no, no...
It was too foolish, to narrow minded, too silly.
Gone were all my evasions, all my practiced flourishes of speech and reason, all my cloak and dagger arguments. Gone, Gone, Gone.
It was like a curtain had been swept away, and there was suddenly no protection between me and the full stupidity of her ideas. For me, it was like Frodo first glimpsing the eye of Sauron. A huge, angry, rippling ball of foolishness that towered over me, a coiled web of terrible logic that groaned and whispered fallacies and fickle desires.

I was still laughing when I realized what I had done, the mistakes I had made by treating religion differently than any other stupidity. I had spent YEARS of my life not laughing at it. Trying to talk people into seeing just a little bit more perspective concerning their place in the world. I had oriented my identity in opposition to true stupidity, called myself an "atheist" hoping to make those who hold religious beliefs realize I stood against them. I had spent so much time and energy taking these ideas seriously by fighting them on equal footing.

But now I see. If a man walks up to you and says that he believes that people are powered by AA batteries, or that Lemmings are suicidal, or that winged horses exist, or that a dead man is coming back to earth to punish those who aren't expecting him to, YOU MUST REACT IN THE SAME WAY TO ALL OF THESE IDEAS.

Laugh. Laugh harder and harder until your belly contorts, and your eyes tear-up, and you feel like you might pee yourself. These are after all stupid ideas. All of them. Equally stupid and worthy of mockery.

BUT... I have never felt the need to call myself a "Doesn'tbelieveinWingedHorses-ist"or attend seminars on "LemmingsWannaLive-ism" so why the hell am I an Atheist?
There is no title or movement for people who don't believe in astrology, or alchemy, or racism. Why is there a group for people who don't believe in God? Why does there need to be? In the future I hope that the idea of being an atheist will be as preposterous as the idea of being an "Anti-Alchemist"is now. Nobody needs to say it, people know better.

Bad ideas like religion are never defeated by becoming their inverse, that kind of opposition only lends them power.
From here on out I am no longer an atheist... I am just a man who seeks to destroy ignorance and bad ideas wherever I find them. Religion is no better or worse, it's just another bad idea. Laugh at these people and sooner or later they will realize that they are not warring for their cause with non-believes, we are mocking their stupidity and moving on.

I'm RESTARTING DRAWING A DAY!!! Maybe this time I'll be able to get some momentum going and keep it up, here's hoping. If you like any of the sketches leave a comment! If I get enough of them then I'll revisit the particular drawing and remake it as a permanent piece.
Thanks!
Chris (SpikeDrink)

In preparation for my upcoming gallery spot on the Austin College Campus in Sherman Texas I've locked myself in a studio with a bottle of absinthe, some sleeping pills, and painting supplies. Hopefully I will get around to uploading some of my work soon, and the artistic drought will have ended...
That is, if I don't kill myself with a charcoal pencil first.

I haven't been uploading because I've been busy with preparation for this Friday's Dallas Comic Con, where my art will be showcased as part of a new project "Nowhere Road"

Afterwards I'll finally upload some of the more exciting pieces I've been working on mainly promotional material for the comic.

If anyone is in the neighborhood on August 28th you can stop by and see my stuff, I hope to see you there.

SpikedDrink
Christopher Stoll

I'm planning on getting a tattoo, and I would like to design it myself...
but so far I'm at a loss, any ideas on where to put it, cool pics of tattoos you like, or other inspirations that you might be willing to provide would be AMAZING.

-Spiked

OMG XD I've been on a backpacking trip across America and I MISSED MY 5555'th view!!!!
HOW EXCITING!!!!!!!!! I'm going to upload a special commemorative pic when I finally arrive back home.
Thanks for those who have viewed my work, you have made an aspiring artist very happy
Chris (AKA SpikedDrink)