#best of luck!

[ao3-shenanigans]

Help! I want to write a fanfic but I'm anxious about sharing my interest and I've never really written anything like this before

Any advice? ;w;

Well, there are TONS of resources available for writing all sorts of fiction but my quickest advice is just to have fun with it and not to worry about anything too much at first- once you have some words down, then go back and polish whatever you’d like; but you can’t edit what isn’t there

Also- fanfiction sites are where everyone goes to share their interests so don’t worry about being ‘weird’ or ‘cringy’, this is the place for it, I promise :)

#best of luck! #ao3 #fanfiction #archive of our own #fanfic #fandom #writing #ao3 shenanigans ask

[murderandcoffee]

"as strange as the situation was, at least there were people" honey those aren't people <3

#best of luck! #tmagp #tmagp spoilers #tmagp 8 #the magnus protocol #josie listens to podcasts #bs.txt

[save-the-villainous-cat]

Advice for getting back into writing after a long break and absolutely no ideas?

Take it slow. Writing is like a muscle you have to train, so don’t try to overwhelm yourself with big projects.

I don’t know what exactly you struggle with (sometimes it’s the lack of ideas and sometimes the words just won’t come out), so I’m just gonna give you advice on both.

In general, I’d recommend to read a lot. If you don’t have any ideas, try scrolling through prompt blogs and use their prompts (give credit if you post your writing!) or read one of those books on your long to-be-read list.

You will certainly find that characters will end up in situations you find intriguing or that characters themselves are worthy to truly come to life through your writing.

If you struggle with getting words onto paper/the screen, reading can help you as well. I usually feel like interesting vocabulary or concepts/information on a certain subject can be really helpful when the words don’t want to come out.

Just don’t give up. Your stories deserve getting told, so you shouldn’t push yourself too hard. You have enough time to get back into it.

#best of luck! #no writing #an answer for an ask #but what do I know amirite

[bisexualbaker]

hi, can you reccomend ways to make dreamwidth *look* more like tumblr/discord/modern web stuff? I have a really hard time tracking text across the screen, identifying/reading buttons in headers and sidebars etc with the default designs - its not the light mode, I figured out how to switch everything to dark themes and it helps maybe 15%, but is there a way to change fonts? what about making the navigation buttons have decent visual hierachy? or rounding off all the hideously pointy corners and making posts narrower? what is the sort of change I'm talking about even called, so I can search for it?

I am super low on brainpower right now, so the first place I'm going to direct you is the Beta Features page. Turn on Beta Testing for the New Create Entries Page and the New Inbox Page; that should modernize those a bit.

There are communities that can help you with the general how-to of customizing your journal, but that's never been something I did a lot of; however, the latest news post is specifically about how Dreamwidth is officially moving to the beta Create Entries and Inbox pages in as little as a few weeks (and a few months maximum), so you may be able to ask for more tips in the comment section of that post. Here's a link to the post in question.

If any of my followers have any tips about journal customization, I yield the floor to you!

#best of luck! #i hope one of these things helps #let me tell you about #dreamwidth #let me tell you about dreamwidth

[tbcanary]

Hi! Do you happen to have basic/simple/easy tutorials for editing comic panels to recommend?

i do not actually have one to refer you to, but i’m happy to write some things up! i’m assuming this is just for removing backgrounds and creating icons; if you want a how-to on the way i animate panels, that lives here.

i use photoshop cs6, but the same general principles should work in other editors. also, there are probably easier or faster ways to do the things i do. i like my methods and i’m comfortable with them, but i’d recommend experimenting to find what works best for you.

and... yeah! let's get into it.

step one: finding a panel

i save panels as i’m reading comics. they all live in one PSD file named “panels,” and i make a new one for each run. anything that seems pretty or thematically resonant gets copied and pasted in there. this way, i don’t have to dig through endless comic issues to find a specific image that stuck with me. i usually save the full page just so the edges are clean and everything is included.

let’s go with this page from birds of prey:

step two: cropping

the way i crop the image depends on two things: what i’m hoping to make, and what the image looks like. here, i’m just doing a basic portrait, and helena is taller than she is wide. that makes it easy; let’s crop it so she takes up most of the frame.

(my preferred ratios are 4x6 for smaller panel edits like this; for banners, i usually do 2x1, but if the framing works better as 3x2, I have done that, too. just feel it out. actual pixel sizes depend on the size of the original image.)

step three: removing the background

this part is, I think, the area with the most room for personal preference. we need to erase the background, and there are a LOT of tools to do this. each one varies depending on what the image itself looks like. there’s the magic selection tool, the eraser, or the lasso or magnetic selection tool. 

(i don’t use the lasso or magnet because they’re evil, to me, but they work reasonably well when you have a character on a mostly solid background and art with thick, defined lines. i have no real advice other than that.)

here, we can mix and match some things. i’m going to start by using the magic selection tool to grab all the white or solid colors and remove them with the delete key, like so:

surprise! gone.

after that, for the more finicky areas, i am a perfectionist and i go in and erase pixels using the eraser tool at 4-5px width. i start by outlining the character, like so:

from there, you can use the lasso tool to select all of the remaining background and delete it. i usually hide the white background layer at this step, too. (i'm also going to color the smoke and the man in the foreground black and redraw the crossbow string with the paintbrush tool. this ain't about him.)

you should end up with something like this:

step four: cleaning the linework

this part is mostly using the layer style stroke and the tool refine edge.

so, because of how selection tools and erasers work, there are a bunch of hidden pixels throughout the image you can’t really see. this drives me absolutely bonkers. at this point, i combine all the layers of the paint i've done so far -- everything except for the transparent background. select the layer with the character — Helena — and apply the layer style stroke, set to “outside” at 3px.

those little black dots are what we're after. there aren't too many right now, because this was a fairly clean edit; sometimes, it looks scary and messy, but that’s okay. the layer style has just outlined all those invisible pixels. i go through and erase them — especially in tight places like corners. for example, this pesky area between strands of hair:

(before vs. after)

once you’ve erased all of those pixels and cleaned up the image, you can go back into the stroke layer style.

you’ve done a lot of erasing and feathering and cleaning up, so chances are, the line work is not nearly as crisp as it looked in the original panel. that’s fine! shift the settings to “inside” and 1px, like so:

sometimes it’ll need to be 2-3 px, sometimes it’ll need to be center-aligned, and sometimes you might even decide it looks better outside or without the stroke style at all! this is all personal preference. do whatever you like.

once it's where you want it to be, i like to duplicate the layer -- to save the one without the new outline in case anything goes wonky. then right click the copy of the layer and "rasterize style" to get a flat image with new linework.

your workspace should look something like this:

if it happens to feel like the edges are a little harsh — which happens sometimes! especially when using selection instead of eraser — you can select the whole image and use refine edge. this softens it. you don’t need to do much; i usually do 2-3px of feathering, a couple pixels of smoothing, and some contrast, depending on how it looks. see below:

you'll have three layers now. it gets confusing, so try to keep track of which one is your active layer. you can delete old ones, if you want; i generally don't, just in case.

there isn’t a hard and fast rule for this part. do what you think looks good. and if you want to refine the edge before you add the new linework, that can work! do another stroke layer style after the first round! test things out and find out what you like. most of the time, it depends on the image and your preference.

after all that, this is the helena we now have:

step five: creating a new background!

this part is easy. create a new layer, pick a color you like — i tend to pull from the actual background using an eye dropper tool, or if it’s for a multiple-part edit, I use the swatches i’ve decided on for the color scheme of the whole thing — and paint bucket that thing right on there. this is some of the blue that was behind her originally:

i don’t like flat colors, pretty much ever, because they feel harsh to me. so i go back and add artistic touches and mess around with the filters a lot. sometimes i pull text or accents from other panels and follow the same steps as above to incorporate them into the edit; sometimes, i don’t. no rules just vibes.

in this case, i want it to be pretty simple. so i’ll make a new layer, then fill it in with a gradient tool. i usually make a custom gradient; one side is the color of the background and the other side is either black or white, depending on the vibe I want.

i do an orbital gradient most of the time — circles are your friend — and focus the center on something that I want to draw the eye to. here, i’m going to do helena’s face.

then i mess around with the opacity until it looks the way i want it to. like this:

step six: final steps

congrats! you have an edited panel! you’re perfectly fine to post/share/use it at this point, but there are a couple other things i like to do to give it that final polish:

if you want to jazz up your edits, try messing around with outer glow, or drop shadow. both of those layer styles can add some emphasis to your focal point. (i prefer those be kept at a low opacity, when i use them, which isn’t often.)

i'd also recommend messing around with gradient maps if you want to superimpose a larger silhouette over the background. that would take more room than i have left in this already far too long guide, but it does add something to have it in there.

i dislike having text bubbles in my edits unless i specifically put them there, so i do have a process for removing them, much like the smoke or the man in the foreground. again, we are running long already, so i won't get into that here. my recommendation if you don't want to deal with entirely removing a bubble is to just paint over the text inside with white so you have an empty text box or speech bubble instead. it's simpler, quicker, and honestly the more common practice based on what i've seen.

that being said, if you want to know how i paint over them -- or how to do anything i didn't get into here -- feel free to ask. i don't mind writing these up.

i have a guide on how i size my images here, which walks through the exporting process. it’s not strictly necessary, but i like for my edits to remain consistent in size, so i do usually follow it.

and that’s it! you’re now ready to edit comic panels to your heart’s content. happy cropping and so on, and thanks for asking me. <3

#how to #ask.tb #anonymous #i hope this answered your question #and i especially hope it did so in a simple and easy to follow manner. despite how lengthy it got. i tried to stick to basics here. #but yeah! thank you for asking #best of luck!

[bluegiragi]

so this might be an odd question, but how long does it take you to complete a piece of art (im thinking specifically like a chapter of ur soap/ghost/könig comic) because u put them out v frequently it feels? as an artist i create things so incredibly slowly, it feels as if i never actually get anything done, so i was wondering if u maybe had any tips for improving the speed at which u actually create stuff?

( also an obligatory “im in love with your art and your interpretations of the characters” bc its true and ur also my fave cod artist <3 )

it's funny that you ask that, since I've recently been feeling super insecure about how long it takes me to draw comics and how I don't think the quality's up to par which. goes to show how personal perception fucks with you haha

first, you should remember that art is never a race. It's always great to aspire to improve, but never beat yourself up over having to take a little longer than others. and for another thing - I'm lucky enough to be completely self employed which means that art IS my job. I have the luxury of spending literally all my time every day on this craft (which is a DREAM) but it also means i've had years of experience with making comics under my belt. I've gotten faster at it simply because I've done it for long enough.

In terms of tips...I honestly don't have much meaningful advice to help you speed up the process. If there's a section of it that takes too much time and frustrates you - consider looking up speedpaints, online tutorials and other resources that can give you a different direction. Change up your brushes! See if you can find one that just makes the lines come easier. And if you're an artist focused on people, practise your anatomy. You'll be able to bust out a pose in seconds once you're familiar enough.

edit: i just realised i didn't even answer your initial question. Usually takes me 3 days to complete a 'chapter', maybe more if it's extra long or I'm just having a couple of bad art days :P

#i sincerely hope this helps anon :) #and for what its worth #everyone feels like theyre sluggish #except idk. demons like umikochan sdaljfkdk #but even she struggles sometimes #its good to just see which parts of the creation process you wanna keep and which ones you need to refine #best of luck! #askbox #anon

[simplydnp]

Wait can i read ur twitter phannie essay? It shows up as a blurry mess to me😭

context

if this is the post you mean, you'd have to ask @bewareofthenewphannie for it cause they wrote it ☺️ i haven't read it either, but i always approve of a dilm break mid-essay

#best of luck! #dnp #c.text #dan and phil #phan #<- for the fandometrics #answered

[blorbocedes]

hey blorbocedes i hate to do this but do you have that video/gif of charles rubbing his n*pple looking like a twink? i’m trying to get my non-f1 friend to become a chirlie and that’s going to have a 100% success rate

unforch I am not a charles scholar (cholar) and don't know what this is referring to off the top of my head, however @monagasque or @vegasgrandprix may know...?

#blorbocedes ask #best of luck!

[goblinmixtape]

Any tips for a game designer who wants to advertise their new game?

It partially depends on your strengths!

In my opinion, the best way to advertise your own game is to be actively involved in the community. Play other people's games, talk about them, join Discord servers where people chat about game design. Not only will you meet some incredible people and read/play some awesome, inspiring games, but you'll also slowly build a community who care about your own work. It's truly a win-win.

With that said, the TTRPG community is very much online, and a lot of people don't enjoy being on Twitter/Discord. If group chats aren't you're thing, you can try posting about your games here on Tumblr, or making short videos about them on TikTok!

When you're advertising your game, try to keep the pitch short an concise. You might want to mention how many players it's for, what materials are needed, and what some of your inspirations are (imo inspirations can be a huge draw to a game - for example, if a game listed "Gravity Falls" as an inspiration, I would immediately be interested).

While there are many, many incredible games that are text-only, having art really helps with advertising. If you can't afford to hire an artist, there are a TON of public domain resources out there, such as the Open Access at the National Gallery of Art, and photography on Unsplash.

Above all else, try to find a form of advertising that you at least somewhat enjoy! If you like being on Tumblr, try challenging yourself to make unique Tumblr posts. If you like making videos, give TikTok or YouTube a try. Enjoying the process helps tremendously.

#best of luck! #ttrpg #ask

[slavicafire]

I keep having dreams about my dad and in my dreams we always argue or he does something really annoying and I was wondering if you know how I can get it to stop? I love my dad, he's really great but he can be mean sometimes and does annoy me but we rarely argue

without going either into psychology or deep rethinking of your relationship - or, the other way around, magical thinking and folk solutions - I will tell you what I do when a particular dream happens too often and annoys me. no guarantee it helps, of course, but I've shared this with my friends and they've used it successfully, too.

I imagine, an hour or two before I actually go to bed, that exact scenario - but not what I already dreamed or what I am afraid I will dream that night again, but that whole scenario with the very same basics, slowly, how I'd like it to go. how I'd solve it, how I'd deal with it, how I'd behave throughout. this way I retain control - using up my brain's need to make it up as well as any emotional build-up that resided within me - and I go through the whole scenario in my mind, in painstaking detail, different possibilities, the whole thing. how it starts, what happens throughout, how it ends. I make sure to give it proper attention, keep it mostly realistic, make it make sense, and then nicely lose interest in it and put it to rest.

#best of luck!

[whimsiclay]

@crapscicle I'm not sure if this question was for me or op but I'd definitely ask your teacher! it depends on what resources are available to you - especially since you're using a class kiln, since glaze can run and ruin shelves. if you do decide to glaze them, I'd make sure you'll be able to use wax + kiln safe wire/stands and either way do lots of research on different styles before you jump into it :) best of luck!

#not trying to butt in lol sorry if i over stepped #best of luck!

[cruelsummer-ficfest]

Manifesting Speak Now for Georgelina this time around!!

Be careful what you wish for...

Your Ship: Georgelina

Your Song: Foolish One (TV) (From the Vault)

#cruel summer fic fest #song assignments #speak now/folklore #era number five #very very intrigued to see where you take this! #best of luck!

[getbreaded]

Hellooo! So through a friend's reblog, I saw that you can code!! We have computer programming in our first semester and they're teaching us c language and it started about three weeks ago and I'm not getting a hang of it 😭 do u have any tips or online resources I can use for this?

P.S.: sorry if the ask is too sudden or random :')

Hi, sadly I haven’t made anything with C, I only learned enough to get through a computer architecture class 😅, but I’d recommend freecodecamp, I found this c playlist that looks like it has some helpful videos! Codecademy is also a favourite of mine when I’m starting from scratch with a new language, and I found this website that seems very beginner-friendly and organised. Here are the links :)

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWKjhJtqVAbmUE5IqyfGYEYjrZBYzaT4m&feature=shared)

Sorry I can’t be of more help! Please don’t get discouraged, learning something new is always hard, especially something so different as new programming concepts. The only tip I can give you is to learn the very basics of the language (data types, functions, loops and conditionals) and build very simple things as you go just to practice and build up muscle memory. And be kind to yourself as you learn :) We all start at the beginning! You’ve got this!

If anyone has other tips or resources please feel free to weigh in 🌱

#hope this helps! #best of luck! #answered #coding

[frostbitedoesart]

thanks for reblog

No problem!! <3 It's kind of rough on Tumblr for artists who post original, non-fandom artwork, especially if they're just starting out, so we should definitely help each other in any way we can 💗💗💗💗

#like I recently posted a 20 minute doodle of Pinkie Pie from MLP #and within days it's gotten more notes than all my other posts #y'know. Like of art I've spent hours of my life on and was infinitely more passionate about #don't get me wrong #I really do appreciate people taking a lil bit of time to like and reblog that post #but it really does go to show that to an extent the amount of TIME put into something doesn't matter as much as what fandom it's in #and if it's NOT from a fandom you're just kind of fucked #small piece of advice for you: #interact with other people's posts more! #even if it's just like leaving a comment or something #it helps alert people of your existence and gets people to check your profile/interact with you #like how you following my blog led to me reblogging your commisions!!! #that's all from me though #best of luck! #anyway extra tags that you can ignore// #frostbitedoesart #artists on tumblr #small artist #small artists

[dawns-beauty]

HEY

Sorry to bother you but I was wondering if you know any other ways to backport mods? If you dont thats okay!!

Besides the tutorial I linked in my pinned post? No, sorry! I've been on Skyrim SE exclusively for a while now.

If you're on the Nexus, maybe the users turtlegodking or xtudo can help? They do a ton of backporting

#answers #best of luck!

[ladykagewaki]

For all the students taking exams and finals!

#thrawn #grand admiral thrawn #star wars #chiss #eli vanto #star wars fanart #star wars rebels #thranto #final exams #best of luck! #jcmmw