2025-10-29

MC4D 001: April M. Mildew

The artist known as April M. Mildew can be found on-line at tumblr & fur affinity. A digital artist working in the realm of cute anthropmorphic cartoon creatures, she has shared profoundly intimate work with me and given me the wonderful honor of answering some questions on how she creates what she does. Today, I will share that with you.

		[see below for 9th image]

MC4D Interviews April

What tools did you use for rendering these digital works?

I do it on the computer. The works selected here were mostly done with mouse and keyboard (cheapest ones I could find at walmart) in the windows 10 version of MS Paint, sometimes with later edits in Paint.NET. With the exceptions of the big snake one which was done on a telephone “app” (read disdainfully) called Sketchbook or something equally generic, and the one with the popups which I am always inexplicably embarrassed to state I did in the demo of “SuchArt” due to there feeling to be a sort of de-legitimizing quality to that. But why should there be? Because it sounds silly to say is the answer. But everything in the world is already inherently ridiculous so it’s fine. Oh and also the one with the thing looking at the stars that was a screen recording of a different telephone app on a different phone than I have now. Which died half a decade ago. Which is sad because the app was good. Artstudio? Paintstudio? Something equally generic.

Why do you use these particular tools?

The answer is usually just that it’s what’s available and familiar. I lean towards digital because I’ve long since fallen out of practice with pen-and-paper. For “Sketchbook” in particular I use it because it’s the one vaguely useable free offering I could find on the Google Play™ store – I need some option I can turn to while rendered bedbound by the mysterious and exotic ailments that afflict me.

Do you have any advice for those using similar or the same tools?

Don’t use something like MS Paint out of novelty or nostalgia. Especially not second-hand-nostalgia. Actually no, scratch the part about novelty. Absolutely use what is novel to you, but don’t treat the tool or medium you use like a novelty, like a joke. You get out what you put in…!

What goes on in your head as you draw?

I do not remember. Not that it’s been too long since I’ve done anything, more that the thing in question is just difficult to recall. I might be able to answer this with the contradictory and laconic pairing of “Not much.” and “Too much”. The process sort of occurs like walking, it just starts up and gets propelled forwards. A lot of the thoughts I have are probably just “yeah i like how that looks” or “no i dont like how that looks”. And a lot of “Wait, that looks wrong” or “That doesn’t look how I want it to”. I do know I think a lot – probably too much – about how something will be percieved and recieved while I’m in the process of making it.

Where do the characters and ideas come from?

Hunches, gut feelings, dreams in waking life, values and biases instilled by the society I was raised in, tropes I enjoy, paraphilias, knock-offs of work by better artists, et-cetera. The same things that fuel most art, probably. I think I might fail to think of most of the characters I depict as characters per-say, and more like, a character in the way a videogame’s skybox is a larger world out there. If you were to directly ask me about one there’s a fair chance it’d have the same effect as no-clipping through that skybox and recognizing it as a facade. The characters I draw are a little bit like Hell Valley Sky Trees, I guess. By not having the author-side view of the things I draw, you’ll usually know more than I do. My friends in particular have much more to say about anything I make than I ever could.

Do you have any advice for conveying a sense of intimacy?

There’s a stock cartoon gag where a character will be starving and start hallucinating the things around them to be food. It’s a bit like that. Also, rip off that one Car Seat Headrest album cover. And that one picture with the college girls people liked reblogging on tumblr. Just see things on the computer screen and copy them I guess. The actual sensation of intimacy is surreal and overwhelming in a way that disrupts to visual perception, so it’s hard to visually draw from that in non-abstract forms. I think a lot of direct representative intimate artwork draws from expreriences of isolation more than it does togetherness. It’s daydreaming, yearning for intimacy as seen in images produced by people who are probably in the same ballpark of loneliness. Just draw the characters resting their weight on eachother and give them U U eyes.

How do you sustain yourself in order to create?

I don’t do a good job of it, in honesty. It’s sort of just done for me by the fact I was born into a privileged enough position that the foot of my pyramid of needs is mostly secure. Step one, do not be born into poverty, step two, have family who aren’t going to follow through with the threats they make. Have energy to spare that you aren’t yet coerced to sell off in order to survive. Exist within the range of mental unwellness where it’s bearable to continue living rather than following through with the harebrained schemes to jury-rig your parent’s dog’s leashes into a noose. Be born in the place the bombs are made and not one of the ones where they’re used. Have food and clean water. In short I do it by being lucky, I guess. This feels grotesque, like gloating almost. I hate that the world is like this.

How long do you spend on a piece?

Variable and untracked. A common length is probably 2-3 sessions, each roughly as long as I can go until my body starts hurting, with anywhere from a few days to half a year between them. A fair chunk of the works selected here were born from a single-session-frenzy, though, those seem to be the two extremes. The comic about making comics is one of those, I think.

I usually make a lot of last-minute-edits before posting too. about 3-10% of the work occurs there. Sometimes more. A fair amount of Wait, I nearly forgots and Wait, that doesn’t look rights that tack 5-50 minutes onto the length each. An example is the corner of the one with the popups and the censored figure, which originally had “NEW” written in it. the N was half cut-off by the white border and read instead like a J, and having what inexplicably read as “JEW” in the corner felt. odd in a very unintended way. I couldn’t edit just the N out because then it would become “EW” which would also have shifted the feel of the image a fair bit, but the box still needed something in it so I just left the “W”.

Do you have any particular conditions which enable you to draw most effectively?

It’s a bit similar to the ideal conditions for starting a fire. Dry. Stores of energy to burn. Excited but not so much so that I just jump around and fizzle out. Adequate blood sugar. Wrapped in a blanket because otherwise it hurts to sit at my desk. I lost the metaphor. Forget the metaphor. Forgetting my surroundings exist. Forgetting I exist. Not recieving too much validation because I’ll lose motivation but also not being too starved of validation or else I’ll lose motivation. Showered. Teeth brushed. Shaved face. Joints not inflammed. Not playing video games. Not annoyingly overwhelmed by the sensory experience of being an animal. Anticipating dopamine from finishing the drawing and being determined enough not to seek it out in an easier form. Horny