27th January marks Holocaust Remembrance Day. When we think of the millions of lives taken by the Nazi regime. A regime that spurred a systemic white supremacist, ethnonationalist manifesto. A sepratist ideology of a supreme ethnicity, a supreme race, that had been festering across Europe for centuries. Millions of sacred lives, Jewish lives, taken in the name of supremacy. Of hatred and violence.
Millions of Jewish people, Soviet and Polish Citizens, communists, Rromani people, disabled people, Soviet prisoners of War and Queer people were murdered during the Nazi regime. Millions of lives were brutally taken whilst the Nazi regime convinced Germany, through a copious force of propaganda, that those lives were the real threat. That it were those lives who were inhumanely violent, were not just, they were deemed a threat to Nazi society.
Hitler and the Nazis promoted the idea of a master race— an Aryan, German race that needed to be protected as they thought that was the product of “racial purity”. And to Nazism, the Jewish people were the biggest threat to their sepratist, extremist ideology of racial purity. Initially, the Nazi leadership tried to force Jews out of Germany completely, with propaganda encouraging the dehumanisation of Jews to facilitate exile and the subsequent Holocaust of Jewish people in Europe.
“Rats, lice, cockroaches, foxes, vultures – these are just some of the animals the Nazis used to deride and dehumanize Jews. They used words too. In a new linguistic analysis of dozens of Nazi speeches, articles, pamphlets and posters, researchers show how this process of anti-Semetic dehumanization, which began before the Nazis took power and helped fuel the party’s popularity, was modulated to justify atrocity: in the years before the Holocaust.”
These lives, for purely existing, posed as a threat to the Nazis violently sepratist ideology. Propaganda subjugated German citizens with the power of deception; indoctrinating a people with the belief of superiority, purity and organic virtue. Simplifying the regimes ideological complexities to be palatable, unquestionable and targeting individualism. The ideological sepratism had indoctrinated millions into following the belief that Jewish people were sub-human— an undoubted threat to German people, values and society— and this was only achievable through the already pre-established rampant antisemitism that festered through out Medieval Europe, from Christian accusations of “killing Jesus”, to blood libel, the accusation of poisoned wells, and forcing Jews to chose either baptism or death.
“The mood changed markedly in around the year 1100, at the time of the First Crusade. Hordes of religious fanatics from all social classes, driven by a longing for redemption, set forth to kill infidels in the Middle East and to liberate holy Jerusalem. It stood to reason that they should also combat perceived enemies of Christ at home. Jews were hounded and forced to choose between baptism or death.”
The Holocaust happened because for generations, Europe failed to crack down on antisemitism. Christianisation spread through colonialism and with it, they carried antisemitism to new lands. The Holocaust happened because the Nazi party could convince millions of people of racial supremacy and purity. Far-Right ideology holds onto sepratist endorsement when they enforce anti-immigration laws, Islamophobic policies in France and the desperation of English nationalism. The Holocaust happened because Western superpowers only saw the Nazi imperial expansion as a threat to the Western hegemony.
The Holocaust of millions of Jewish people happened, and the effects of which are felt to this day. Every single day. The pain is carried through generations, for now there is a hole in every Jewish soul. We still feel the anguish, the pain. The frustration that this feels so never-ending.
And it is that pain, that fear, that drives us to say that with every last fighting breath, like the Maccabees who faught for our liberation, like King David who defeated a giant with a slingshot and stone and unbridled courage — Never again, for anybody. We will fight with all that we have. For such a magnitude of slaughter and pain should never touch this Earth for as long as we stand. We cannot carry forth our pain like a baton, we must hold it, a sword, to the enemy and ensure liberation of all feet that touch this Earth. They will not make our people, the Jewish people, into a proxy for their imperial expansion and sepratist Western values.
Never again, for anybody, for all life is sacred.
Never again, for anybody, and certainly not in our name.
Never again, for anybody, and that means Palestine.
Valentine's Day tattoo flash. If you're local to me, you can come get one in person. If you'd like to get one but are too far away, tattoo tickets are available for any design. I'm also happy to design something bespoke.
Could you make a tutorial on how you go about making your vhs screenshots? They look awesome and I want to try to implement that style in some of my own art. Thanks so much!!!
So i use clip studio and the settings i always see on other tutorials are only on photoshop (vibrance) so i baso made my own auto actions copying them and i've uploaded them. This will also be long becoz i always try make tutotials that I would want to see when looking up a tutorial.
Sketch ur scene. I don't worry about sticking to 1980s (or whatever era) framing or style choices usually. For backgrounds i can do a bigger tutorial but i basically use clips gouache or some watercolour brushes for blending. Ghibli and 1942 Bambi for the textures and don bluth etc for the colours as a rough guide. I use this blog for some references but also just searching '[film name] backgrounds' or something like 'ghibli snow/roads/grass'
So i draw the scene. Use a dark brown for inks. Duplicate that, fill with yellow, blur 5 and 30% opacity underneath. I copy the base layer/character layer, fill with same brown and blur so its a “drop shadow”
I also duplicate the shadows, blur one about 12-18 and set both to half opacity. Same with lighting. Any rim light is the Ink layer duplicated, filled white, overlay or glow it depends on what fits best, and the bits i dont want white erased.
All text is Arial yellow with a black border. My style of drawing varies a lot by i try for a fuzzy 80s fur look- like kosperry or don bluth i guess. thats what the 'cats' layer looks like ^^^.
Okay onto edits. Flatten image and duplicate in case u fuck up. Auto actions are linked above (i have the box ticked/the action closed to speed things up and only adjust the important bits)
Blur - gaussian, start mild and u can build up from there.
Fake vibrance- you can use saturation ig but this (to my knowledge) targets the light and shadow differently. I literally copied how the photoshop vibrance works. I use anywhere from 25-85 strength (mainly 40), it looks less saturated once u click okay so just experiment.
Chromatic abberation - I use this one. Move to liking and merge
Vhs 2 - this is the other auto action i made, it’s basically another blur, motion blur and some image adjustments.
Final additions - 1 is a noise layer (clip studio perlin noise), 2 is a free VHS overlay set to hue (find one with colours u like!), 3 is a new layer filled with a bright colour/colour that fits the vibe you are going for (here i used blue for the blue background + sunny vibes) set to lighten and adjust