inkformyblood

[inkformyblood]

throwing corn at a mountain face would fix me I think

[inkformyblood]

For the five year anniversary I drew my players' characters for our finale arc. We're in the home stretch and so I made them tarot themed cards as a lil gift to show my love for them and the stories they weave.

[inkformyblood]

youre telling me an öyster blew this cult?

[inkformyblood]

video title "EXPERTS RECOMMEND THIS ONE TRICK TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE" thumbnail shows a woman running naked into the woods never to return

[inkformyblood]

The best part of waking up

[inkformyblood]

les mis twitter 4/?

[inkformyblood]

A.I. photos are flooding social media and contributing to an Internet where we can't believe what we see. Spotting A.I. 📷s is an important media literacy skill.

None of us have time to research every image we see. We just need people to notice BEFORE THEY LIKE OR SHARE that an image might be fake. If unsure, check it or don't share.

I've started drawing some comics explaining the basic of AI spot-checking and media literacy in the age of disinformation. Follow along here or on my Twitter.

[inkformyblood]

He looks up to find Kenobi watching him with those piercing blue eyes. “What do you remember, Cody?” His voice is so gentle, not pressing, just a soft knock on an open door. “That’s not my name,” ‘24 croaks. It seems like a good place to start. “I’m not him. I’m CC-2224.” Kenobi’s eyebrows furrow, and his mouth folds down into a stubborn line that ‘24 is surprised to find familiar. “I won’t treat you as anything less than the person you are.” “But I’m not the person I was , sir,” ‘24 says, and the honorific just falls out. He snaps his teeth shut as if he could recapture the word. It makes Kenobi laugh, short and sour, and shake his head. “Why are you here, then? Did the Empire send you?” “Yes,” ‘24 answers. “Well, not to Tatooine. The Empire told me to find you.” “And kill me.” -Set the bone straight by @galateagalvanized

A post-Order 66 AU: Nearly a decade after the Rise of the Empire Purge Trooper CC-2224 discovers a Jedi hiding on Tatooine.

FYI: Cody is wearing Purge Trooper Commander armor, as well as the typical Purge Trooper red facial markings. The two golden stripes are the only thing he keeps as a reminder of pre-Empire days.

[inkformyblood]

[inkformyblood]

Some more here..

[inkformyblood]

that door!! It's absolutely beautiful! I saw the reblog in which you said it didn't even take you that much time, and now I'm curious how long it took you to learn how to work with the multitool

Thank you so much!

I’m actually all self-taught with the multitool - it’s quite intuitive? The door was one of the first bigger projects I did with it - before that I’d done a few smaller wooden lists and engraved monograms on glasses. I just went with it. :)

I use it much the same way I use a brush, except I remove material instead of spreading paint, I think?

But I happened to have a small project lined up, so I decided to document my process as I went along, to show how I’m usually working with it. Hopefully it will be helpful! :D

This is the multitool I’m using, the Dremel 3000. I have tried a cheaper brand, but that didn’t hold onto the bits well enough and almost took my eye out when the bit snagged and went flying, sooo. No. Dremel it is. This one was about $70, I think?

The bit shown mounted here is the one I use for the vast majority of my work; a pretty heavy-duty tungsten bit, egg-shaped. The material and roughness means you eat away plenty of wood with every stroke, and the shape means you can alternate between a small precision tip and wider flatter strokes just by tilting the tool. :)

These are my bits. The upper row are diamond tips, they’re for finer work. You can use them on wood, metal, engrave glass, do finer surface detailing on stone etc.

The bottom set are my tungsten bits - these are for more heavy duty work, like removing a lot of material at once, or carving deep. Using these on wood and stone.

You can get bits like these at most hardware stores - I got my tungsten set off ebay years ago and they’re still going strong.

This is my current project - a belated Christmas present for my mom! She loves autumn leaves, so I got this nice wooden box and will engrave it with a maple leaf.

A word on the material you’re engraving - a multitool isn’t always great on pure wood - the grain and difference between hard and soft areas can make the bit jump, leaving you with very squiggly lines. So if working on wood, a very smooth one with minimal grain like this is the best.

(Plywood is no good - it splinters very easily so the edges get messy. I prefer MDF - it’s virtually wood, but ground into sawdust and then glued together into sturdy sheets. So it behaves just like wood, but without the grain. That means you can get nice, sharp edges on it, but it’s still hard enough not to wear or break!)

I also use my multitool on limestone, but the dust is killer. This is a messy process! There will be LOTS of very fine sawdust, and it goes everywhere. Wear a mask and goggles.

Outlines! I used the tip of the egg-shaped tungsten bit for this. The lid of this box is very thin, so I didn’t dare carve very deep - you can go much deeper in a thicker sheet of wood/MDF.

Once the outlines are in place, I tilt the tool to work with the side of the ‘egg’ instead, to remove the wood outside the leaf-shape in a gentle gradient.

It’s easier to keep the lines steady if you work towards yourself than pushing away. Depending on which is your dominant hand, it may be easier to turn the thing you’re working on around a lot, rather than working in the ‘wrong’ direction.

This is what it looks like with the wood outside removed with the tool at an angle. Trying to always tilt away from the relief shape you’re creating is important, so it really stands out with sharp edges. If you tilt it inward as well, the edges will be blunted and not as crisp.

Went over the outside with sandpaper to smooth the surface down a bit.

Time to switch to one of the finer bits, to go over and sharpen up the contours, as well as engraving the finer details, like the veins of the leaf.

Contours sharpened, veins in place!

A bigger one of the diamon bits, to polish the outer contours a bit deeper where the tungsten bit couldn’t fit and bring out the shape of the leaf a bit more.

I ended up using it to cross-hatch in the narrow gaps, and also working over the surface to give it a bit of texture, so the smoothness of the leaf stands out even more.

Making a fake stain with acrylics and water. My mom likes dark wood, so aiming for a pretty dark brown, but I still watered down the paint a lot - I want the wood grain visible still, not just a flat brown painted rectangle.

Second layer of staining, with a bit of extra dark brown around the contours of the leaf and then faded out in an ombre to make the 3D pop even more.

One of my favourite parts of the process - distressing the surface just a bit with very fine sandpaper (going with the grain, not against!) This brings out all the edges by removing the dark paint there and making them brighter, and the 3D of the engraving really comes to life!

Finished result! (My mother loved it. ♥)

The engraving itself took maybe half an hour from start to finish? The most time-consuming bit of the whole process was waiting for the paint to dry between layers. You won’t want to sand damp wood, it goes all mushy.

I hope this was helpful!

Of course it helps that I’m an artist and already have good hand-eye coordination, and skill with making patterns and such, but the process itself isn’t hard - I taught our friends’ 13 year old daughter to work with the dremel, and she made cute name signs for her rabbits’ cages. So don’t be afraid to try! It’s lots of fun. :)

[inkformyblood]

Fanfic writers, I am begging you- even with dialogue that is clearly attributed, start a new paragraph with each new speaker. The reader shouldn't have to wait until after the dialogue is spoken to understand who is saying it.

Even if it's one word?

Yes.

But it makes things so long!

Great! Your stories will be the king of scrolling, a feast of thumbs, and a gentle stroke across a phone screen.

This convention exists for a reason! Each new paragraph should be a new idea or a new speaker. It's a shortcut for our brains to know that we have jumped across a gap and into the unknown, and you as the writer are about to explain to me where we have jumped to, but at least I know we are somewhere different.

Please practice this! I see so many good fanfic I want to read but except for this huge, glaring issue and it becomes impossible to understand what is happening.

[inkformyblood]

Husk's secret weapon

[inkformyblood]

“deceptive outward appearance” by ole martin lund bø

[inkformyblood]

Brain worms really be like this lol

[inkformyblood]

“how did you get into writing” girl nobody gets into writing. writing shows up one day at your door and gets into you

[inkformyblood]

#WorldSparrowDay