#drawing straight up with a drawing pen without sketching is actually pretty fun

[randomgentlefolk]

Da boys :)

Haha I'm just kidding

#drawing straight up with a drawing pen without sketching is actually pretty fun #yeah i'm still struggling with the pose for an art idea #skejwjs #cursed princess club #cpc #prince frederick #cpc frederick #prince blaine #prince lance #cpc blaine #cpc lance #plaid princes #plaid princes angst my beloved #DAMN STRAIGHT UP THROWING TAGS HERE LMAO #does this count as shit post? prob #mono's art

[darkdumbass]

Hi there! This is random, but I really really love the way you do line art! I love how simple, clean, and direct it feels. It has great energy and feels really appealing! I’m trying to improve my own line art right now… I feel like it takes me a long time to choose the “right” lines and end up with clean finish. What to you think has helped you get up to this point with your line art the most? Do you have any suggestions of ways to study and practice? Any favorite artists you look up to for their lines?

I love your work ❤️ thank you

Hello! Thank you for the kind words. I enjoy doing linework a lot, so this is nice to hear :)

These days my line art is more of a "clean drawing" rather than what one usually imagines under traditional line art, which would be opaque lines with varying weight. Right now I like to use a brush that doesn't vary size with pen pressure but varies opacity only. It gives the lines a very soft feeling that I've grown to love.

I browsed through your art, and I was a bit blown away actually, because I think you have a fantastic energy and expression in your drawings, which is something I aspire to have myself. You are very knowledgable about line weight and shapes, so I won't bore you with explaining any of that, haha.

I think good line art comes down to confidence. Obviously, an artist needs a confident hand to avoid shaky lines, to lead them exactly the way they want to, to give them an energy. This sort of mechanical skill is acquired through experience.

But! I've always felt there is a sort of a mental side to this as well, which is best observed during traditional inking. You have to commit to your lines, you have to trust them. You have to sit back and give control to your hand, because with the experience it has, it also has a mind of its own. This sounds pretty out there, but it's about letting go and not overthinking it. I realized this when I looked up to Jim Lee's work as an older teen. There's a lot of videos on YT where you can see his process, which looks utterly effortless. Take this one for example. It's quick, so it's a bit rough, but it does look like his hand is just doing whatever!

I fostered that approach in my art while doing daily drawing from life - straight to inks without sketching. The drawings look wonky a lot of the time, but it gave me confidence where it mattered later. To this day, when I do clean lines in digital too, I adopt this mindset of letting go, which gives the lines more leeway, which also means that if the line doesn't go exactly where it should according to the sketch, I can still trust it. (Although contrary to this, I still put a lot of controlled effort into faces, and this approach comes more easily while drawing bodies and clothes.)

As for suggestions for practice, as I've already mentioned, drawing from life straight to inks (I recommend this over going straight to inks from imagination as that's extremely difficult, at least for me). Have a fast hand, and do long lines even if they come out wobbly. Try to let your hand roleplay Jim Lee here and there - let it do that flick that crosses a line it shouldn't have, let it make a turn with an accidental squiggle, let it pool a bit of ink at the end of the line. Fake it till you make it. At first, I suggest trying this on subjects that aren't your expertise (eg. in my case, draw a bottle instead of a person), so you don't subconsciously compare this to your best work, but make sure you're still having fun :)

Of course, it helps to like doing line art too. I don't know what your relationship to it is, but if it suffers, I suggest busting out the traditional inks with dipping pens, wodden skewers and brushes. It connects me with the process like nothing else.

As for my favorites, I can recommend one of my favorite manga artists - Satoru Noda. Superbly confident and energetic linework. Check out his series Golden Kamuy or Dogsred :)

I hope this will give you a small idea of how I approach my line art. It might be a mess… If you have any more questions as a result of this, or related to anything else, don't hesitate to ask!

#ask

[cheapsweets]

The musophobic Zomargon

My response to this week’s BestiaryPosting challenge, from @maniculum

Pencil sketch, then lines in Sailor fude nib fountain pen, using Diamine Sepia ink.

As ever, reasoning under the cut...

"There is an animal called the Zomargon, which has no desire to mate. His nose is called a trunk because he uses it to put food in his mouth. The Persians and Indians, carried in wooden towers on their backs, fight with javelins as from a wall. Zomargons have a lively intelligence and a long memory; they move around in herds; they flee from a mouse; they mate back-to-back. The female is pregnant for two years, and gives birth no more than once, and not to several offspring but to one only. Zomargons live for three hundred years."

There's a lot of behavioural information in here, but not much I can see that would affect creature design (though it's good to know that they are sociable creatures). "His nose is called a trunk" however, now that term definitely rings a bell 🤔 Obviously this is one of the more obvious prompts we've been given so far, but of course, half the fun is about putting onself in the shoes of someone coming to this description without any preconceptions, and seeing what we come up with...

A nose this creature uses to put food in its mouth really doesn't leave a lot of room for interpretation; it has to be long and flexible enough to ferry food to this creatures mouth, so I ended up taking a lot of inspiration from seals of the genus Mirounga, with the additon of some muscular flanges on the end to help with actually holding things (as revealed in the head sketch to the right of the main image).

We also have a tiny sketch in the top right of some Persians (though they might actually be Indians...) hurling javelins from the protection of their ramparts atop their wooden tower, in term atop a large Zomargon...

I'm going to assume that where is says a Zomargon gives birth no more than once, it means per pregnancy, otherwise I can't see the population of these beasts being sustainable...

"If a Zomargon wants to father sons, it goes to the East, near Paradise; there the tree called mandragora, the mandrake, grows. The Zomargon goes to it with his mate, who first takes fruit from the tree and gives it to her male. And she seduces him until he eats it; then she conceives at once in her womb. When the time comes for her to give birth, she goes out into a pool, until the water comes up to her udders. The male guards her while she is in labour, because Zomargons have an enemy - the dragon. If the Zomargon finds a snake, it kills it, trampling it until it is dead. The Zomargon strikes fear into bulls, yet fears the mouse."

Udders! So we know the Zomargon must be a mammal/beast.

"The Zomargon has this characteristic: if it falls down, it cannot rise. But it falls when it leans on a tree in order to sleep, for it has no joints in its knees. A hunter cuts part of the way through the tree, so that when the Zomargon leans against it, Zomargon and tree will fall together. As the Zomargon falls, it trumpets loudly; at once a big Zomargon goes to it but cannot lift it. Then they both trumpet and twelve Zomargons come, but they cannot lift the one who has fallen. Then they all trumpet, and immediately a little Zomargon comes and puts its trunk under the big one and lifts it up. The little Zomargon has this characteristic, that when some of its hair and bones have been burnt, nothing evil approaches, not even a dragon."

Now, an animal with no joints in its knees is going to have a pretty frickin' weird gait... I drew this creature with almost perfectly straight legs, and I almost imagine it swinging them around to the side in order to get some forward motion.

Have another tiny sketch of the littlest Zomargon coming to help its fallen elder up (this is going to be another religious allegory, isn't it...?); I didn't have the time or space to draw all 12 other Zomargons, but one of them is trumpeting...

The mention of hair, as well as the previous knowledge that this is a beast, implies that the Zomargon is most likely covered in hair. This also implies that a hunter has caught one of the smaller Zomargons and butchered it for parts/components - I suppose if a little Zomargon falls over there is no-one else to help it 😢

"Whatever Zomargons wrap their trunks around, they break; whatever they trample underfoot is crushed to death as if by the fall of a great ruin. They never fight over female Zomargons, for they know nothing of adultery. They possess the quality of mercy. If by chance they see a man wandering in the desert, they offer to lead him to familiar paths. Or if they encounter herds of cattle huddled together, they make their way carefully and peaceably lest their tusks kill any animal in their way. If by chance they fight in battle, they have no mean of the wounded. [IDK bro, that’s what it says.] For they take the exhausted and the injured back into their midst"

Well, the only land animals I can think of that have tusks are swine, and some deer... Partially because it's not a type of animal I've drawn thus far, and partially because it's a more obvious fit for 'tusks', I ended up taking a lot of inspiration for wild boars, particularly the head, ears and body shape (albeit a giant boar with very long, unbending legs!).

Of all the creatures we've met so far in our bestiary tour, this feels like one of the ones I'd be most happy chilling with :)

#Zomargon #maniculum bestiaryposting #bestiaryposting #my art #art challenge

[cfrog]

for the art questions thing: what’s your process for shading? how do you come up with drawing / animation ideas? how do you sketch / how does a sketch differ from a complete piece for you?

Oh boy thank u for the questions! Uhh i ended up writing a lot w these so I'll throw this under a cut. I added pictures too. We'll call this a first draft for whatever I end up doing for my class assignment.

My process for shading changes pretty dramatically between if I'm doing my easy cel shading or my fancy soft shading. Lately, if I'm doing cel shading, I'll just come up with colors straight off the color wheel (colorpick and move it darker, more saturated, cooler/warmer depending on the material). OR, one trick I like, I'll draw where I want the shadows all on their own layer, THEN copy my color layer, mask n merge it on top the shading, and multiply that onto the actual layer. So it's the same colors for each exact section multiplied on top of itself? If that makes sense? Does nothing for the Atmosphere but it is Darker, and if I'm drawing them in a void anyways, it works fine. Sometimes I like to just slap a random tilted rectangle on it like its a garfield background. My soft shading is much more trial and error; for those fancy Xiph pin-ups I've been doing, I'll have like 30 different layers going, all doing different shit. Multiply mostly for shading, then for highlights I'll just try overlay/screen/soft light/hard light until something Works. A fun thing I do on these too: To get that "painted" look without adding a bunch of random texture, I use my default lining pen sized WAY up with the opacity WAY down and just go ham. Close up of robot ass for reference.

For ideas: I'd say the majority of the art I put out is "inspired" from something else, like memes or songs or tiktok audios. Honestly, I'd say every piece of information I receive has to pass through a "could this be about my ocs" filter in my brain, and if the answer is even kind of yes, I Will Make It So. Everything is ocs to me <3 and sometimes I inflict those oc thoughts on everyone else :3 For actual Original stuff though? Most of my ideas come about as a natural result of trying to figure something out with my characters. How would they respond to this, how would they do that, how does that work? The whole reason I started doing art is cause I have such a hard time with words, and sometimes drawing it out is just the only way I can communicate a thought. Expressions, camera angles, visual gags, subtle details, timing, those are things I could never figure out in writing. So I make comics and animations!

Sketching, what can I say about sketching. My sketches are very messy because I try for a Zero Erasing method like I do in real life (<- enjoys drawing in pen). If I sit there overthinking every line of a sketch, I get too caught up in the details before I've figured out the full picture. Sketching is for blocking/framing/posing ONLY, clean up is for lineart. I do sketch in only black/grays if that's a thing people care about, but that's because I have very strong thoughts on color, again it's too distracting. The main difference to me (that im sure no one else notices) is I let my sketches get fuzzy from resizing. I'm very particular about my art having NO anti-aliasing/transparent pixels. Crisp and clean, and VERY easy to color. Sketches I have on hand for example. Lil preview of smthin im working on :3c

Actually, sometimes I don't do sketches at all ? Like I go straight to clean lines. Only for certain characters, like LEDD and the lab rats, and if it's not a crazy angle or something. I can just draw them on command at this point. Very handy.

Thank you again for questions ^^ I am. slowly figuring this assignment out.

#chayos speaks #im not gonna tag this oc talk cause Technically thats for Lore. I did mention ocs tho :] #ask #tumblr keeps wanting to move my read more. keep it where i put it Please

[4aloysius-porteu]

i really wish i hated you || tsukishima kei

masterlist | 1 | 2 | chapter 3

pairing: tsukishima kei x f! reader

sypnosis: It was an accident that (Y/N) met a certain tall, blonde male; a memory she isn't fond of remembering, but it is where it all started. And ever since, she magically makes her to his path. The image of the bespectacled man dwelled in her mind more than she thought. Tsukishima pushed away his softer emotions and denied their existence, or at least that's what he told himself. But then, he couldn't believe that this girl he labeled as a clumsy, unlucky creature who smashed his glasses is slowly bringing these strange emotions back to him. She might be irritating and dumb sometimes, but he couldn't get himself to completely hate her. Either that destiny was stupid, or he was blessed or cursed.

genre: fanfiction, fluff

wc: 2.6k

She has met the tall, blonde, and bespectacled male yet again.

"Oh, the midget stalker is here."

"You again?! Seriously, I think it's you who's following me!"

"Hah, what do I get from following an extremely short person like you?" He said, borrowing her words from yesterday.

(Y/N)'s eyebrows creased further in irritation. "Why do you keep mentioning my height?!"

"It was you who started it. Anyways, can you shut up? Do you know that you're in a library?"

She didn't retort back and simply sat on the chair with her arms crossed. It was a fine day then —BOOM— this giant decided to appear out of nowhere. She was trying to forget this person who's associated with some of her embarrassing moments but those just got smashed back to her mind. (Y/N) sighed and pulled a book at the bottom of the stack to start reading, but noticed that the blondie is still standing near the edge of the table, hesitating to sit down while glancing somewhere and back to her.

"What?" (Y/N) frowned.

"Why am I unnecessarily stuck with you on this table?" He sighed, pulling out the chair.

"Because all of the tables here are taken? If you're worried about your glasses being knocked off, don't worry, I won't do anything reckless anymore."

"That's a nice reassurance," He settled down and brought out his studying materials.

Both of them shared the table in the crowded library. Ignoring the people, between them was a silent atmosphere. No one was talking as they both minded their own studies; he was reading quietly and turning pages of a huge book while (Y/N) wrote key points from the printed work and highlighting her notes. Sometimes, the other would leave to return books to their shelves and came back with new stacks. This went on for a few hours until her pen ran out of ink. She scribbled at the back of her notebook in hopes that the ink just got stuck, to no avail. She sighed, resting her head on the notebook. But she really needed to take down notes for her upcoming entrance exam.

"Hey." (Y/N) reluctantly said.

The blonde male looked at her, confirming if he's being called, "What?"

"I'm sorry to interrupt your business but... do you have a spare pen?"

He stared at her with a straight face and placed his chin on the top of his knuckles, implying his refusal to lend one.

(Y/N)'s mentally gritted her teeth. I'm just going to borrow a pen and he's making it hard for me?!

Swallowing her pride, she said, "Look, I need to finish my notes. I'll return it to you right away when I'm done. I promise. Please?"

He scoffed as brought out a pen, "An inkless pen is all it takes for you to become a less lively puppy? You better keep your promise."

A puppy?! "You didn't need to compare me to a puppy but, thanks."

She continued her work but her focus was a bit shaken. This happens whenever she's interrupted or took a break away from writing. Soon, her focus vanished and boredom took over. She tried to read a book to review ideas but her brain won't cooperate. She groaned, her head and arms fell to the table again. The blonde saw but chose to ignore her.

She closed her eyes for a second, however, her gaze fell to the blank paper in front of her face. Her hands are itching to do something other than reviewing and writing, so she put down the pen she borrowed and took a pencil out of her pocket. She placed a pile of books near her notebook so that the male won't notice what she's doing. There, she started to sketch the base of the figure.

She would observe the four-eyed guy who's busy reading some sort of article while taking notes. He has a calm expression on his face rather than an irritated scowl or a mocking grin he usually has. He wears a long blazer and probably a long-sleeved shirt inside. His blonde hair is short yet the edges are a bit curly and his upper eyelashes are prominently long. This was the first time she stared at the jerk's face who she kept bumping into random places that irked the hell out of her, but for some reason, she felt that she had seen this person before the accident in the park, albeit she doesn't know where. (Y/N) came to a conclusion; he was a little good-looking.

The girl looked back to her drawing and shook her head at her own ideas. I can't believe I actually thought that this guy is handsome. How can such a mean creature be blessed with such looks?! Ugh, don't mind, (Y/N). I'm only drawing him because he seems like a great canvas subject, it's not like I haven't done this to other people before...

She went on drawing and drew details to the sketch similar to the boy in front of her. To make the drawing more accurate, she stole small glances at him. She kept things low key because it'll be another embarrassing event if he found out what she's doing. She made the lines smoother in one swift move. The hair and clothes' folds are already well-drawn while she focuses on the detail of his eyes and glasses. She was about to shade when the male finally caught her.

"What is it?" He questioned, closing his book with a low voice and creased eyebrows.

(Y/N) froze on the spot. As much as she doesn't like it, she maintained eye contact with him, thinking of the best alibi that he couldn't argue with. Then, she remembered that she doesn't know his name.

"Uhm... nothing. I was just wondering if you have a name." While talking, her finger subtly moved to grab the nearest object it could get to cover her drawing.

"I have, but why would I mention it to you?" He cooly replied.

"It's alright. I'm not asking you to. Unless you want to be referred to as he/him or the tall, blonde glasses guy all the time?" (Y/N) countered.

He silently turned a page before answering, "Well, it's not like we'll meet every day."

"Oh," was her only reply. Looks like he will stay a nameless guy in her head for a long time. She was about to get back to her business when he spoke.

"Tsukishima Kei."

(Y/N) looked at him in surprise. "I'm not going to repeat it." He added.

She smiled, having clearly heard it right away. "Can you tell me how it is written?"

He looked at her to check for ill intentions but found nothing in her eyes. He hesitantly wrote the characters of his name on a piece of paper.

"I'm (L/N) (Y/N), nice to meet you again, Tsukishima-san." She'd like to initiate a handshake for peacemaking, but she knows how he'd only decline it. She wrote her name for him to see as well.

Tsukishima Kei. She repeated in her mind. What a nice name.

With a notebook covering the upper portion of the paper where she had drawn his portrait, she wrote his name at the bottom. She proceeded to the shading and background features. Backgrounds are one of the things she hates in art because it takes too long to draw one compared to the subject itself. Luckily it's only a sketch so she won't have to suffer. Although she doesn't know if Tsukishima had seen whatever she's doing so she's still cautious. She peered at him for the nth time so she could distract his peripheral vision. Maybe to test the social initiative skills she hasn't used for a long time too.

"Uhh, can I ask something?" She started.

"Hm?" He responded without taking his eyes off the page.

"What school are you from?"

"Amemaru Middle School."

(Y/N) hummed, thinking of another question, "Then, what school are you enrolling to? It must be an upper class one since you had to read those large books and all."

"Not really," Tsukishima closed the book, "I plan to go to Karasuno High School. They may not have a difficult entrance exam, but these readings are for decent grades and some stock knowledge."

"Decent grades, huh... you look like you could achieve more though. I'm pretty sure you'll ace it." She answered, "I was from Kitagawa Dai Ichi. I'm taking an exam in Shiratorizawa soon."

"You're going to that high-class academy? I see, I failed to notice that because you don't look like one. Have fun clashing with other elites there."

"Elites? What are you talking about, you still believe there's such a hierarchy?" (Y/N) chuckled.

"There is though. A gap between them and mere humans in terms of skills and power."

"In the end, they're still humans though. Be it numbers, hard work, or some unique strategy, those 'mere humans' you say will always struggle to step on equal levels with those on the highest rank."

Tsukishima only hummed and stared down at her, "Perhaps I was wrong on assuming you're an elite. You're clearly not."

"Are you underestimating me?" She challenged.

"No, I was just saying. Can I ask something though?"

"What?"

"Why are you suddenly talkative?"

She was caught off guard but tried not to stutter, "Me? Talkative? I'm always like this."

"Really?" He raised his brows, totally not buying it.

"Ugh, fine! I'm tired of studying!" She sighed, "I was scribbling some doodles on my notebook because I'm bored so I thought it wouldn't hurt to talk to Mr. Beanpole in front of me. Forgive me and my awkward social skills."

"Your social skills are not bad. I'm just thankful you aren't using the precious ink of my pen for drawing." He said, stacking the books he used.

She gasped, panicked inside, "You aren't looking at my drawing, are you?"

He got up to return the books,"Don't worry, it's none of my business."

She exhaled in relief, spared from another memory of embarrassment. Her eyes followed his walking figure and watched his movements. She looked at her drawing to compare and used her fingers to define lighting. When Tsukishima got back and placed new reviewers on the table, (Y/N) asked him once more.

"Do you ever get tired of studying?"

"Sometimes I take a break, but I can only do that if I have finished everything."

"What a diligent student you are."

"I hardly see any benefit in being dumb and slacking off all the time."

"Eh, I hardly see any benefit in studying Algebra and Calculus. I have a lot of questions. Do you use derivatives in counting money or salary? Do you use trigonometry in dividing pizzas or corn chips? Why do I need to find the limit of a function if numbers are infinite? Why do I need to get the formula of a certain point in each line or curve I draw on the graphing paper? What is the correct answer for?" (Y/N) complained.

Tsukishima looked at her blankly, doubting her chances of passing the Shiratorizawa's board exam. "I couldn't argue with that, I'd rather read a book composed of words than formulas, but you don't have a choice. Although, if you plan to be an engineer or something, that'll be a different perspective."

"No, thanks, I won't eat math books for breakfast. Other subjects are interesting enough to keep me awake in class, but numbers don't really entertain me."

"Then, what do you do?" He asked, writing on his notes.

"Not much. I just draw, paint, listen to music, and watch anime."

He let out an amused hum, "How about you? What do you do other than to study?" (Y/N) asked.

"I play volleyball, listen to music, and read narrative books."

"Volleyball? So that's what your height is for! I thought it's just for cleaning and reaching high places."

"That's rude."

"If I am, what do you call yourself? Besides, I don't want to make wrong assumptions."

"You just did."

"...right. I'm sorry."

The sense of familiarity took over (Y/N)'s brain, telling her that she definitely had met this Tsukishima guy before. Her face scrunched a little, trying to search her memories and connect the dots. Her eyes found his face again.

"Why do you keep looking at me?" His eyes narrowed, his annoyance towards the girl slowly rising.

"I HAD met you somewhere... before that accident, where did I see you?"

He was about to say something when (Y/N) stopped him, "Shh, I'm thinking."

He crossed his arms and frowned at her. Volleyball, Amemaru MS... She was about to say it but Tsukishima spoke first.

"Were you one of the audience who watched the middle school volleyball inter-high a year ago?"

"I was! Wait, you remember?"

"That was the only place where I could find someone from Kitagawa Dai Ichi." He confirmed.

"Correct. I was a part of the school paper where I was assigned in the sports category. I took a picture of you when my senior was interviewing you! You were the tallest middle blocker in the games! How could I forget that! So that's why whenever you irk me, it was familiar!"

"How am I annoying you? Aren't you the one who kept on talking right now?"

"I've figured out that there's no kind bone in you. And the way you keep on stuffing the spikes from the opposite team. It was never-ending that they didn't have a chance to score properly." She pouted.

"What do you expect from a middle blocker? It was my job to block spikes."

"You could've gone easy on them."

"The game would lose it's sense if that's the case."

"Fine. You're not wrong." Their conversation was cut short after she ceased talking. At least she found out where she first met Tsukishima. She finished the portrait sketch. Grinning, she believed that she captured his features accurately in her drawing. She'd like to hold it near him and compare to make sure though. Satisfied with her work, she went back on turning pages.

"So, you've finally decided to continue to study?" Tsukishima prodded.

She smiled, "I guess. Thank you for talking to me. That was a great stop."

Both of them worked quietly, but now, the irritation they felt towards each other lessened. After some time, a person in the speaker announced that the library will be closing before 6 pm. Tsukishima returned all the books he borrowed and packed his things.

"You're going home?"

"I don't want to come home late. You aren't finished with your notes yet?"

"Yeah, maybe I'll leave five minutes before six."

"Alright. I'll get going now." He swung his bag over his shoulder.

"Hey, wait! Your pen!" (Y/N) abruptly remembered seconds after.

"I don't need it anymore. It was useful, apart from its close on running out of ink."

"But it's yours and you told me to keep my promise!"

"Whatever. Keep it or throw it." He walked out and wore his headphones, having no intention to listen to anyone.

She sighed and checked the ink. More than half of it is gone, but she can use it again if she wishes. (Y/N) placed her fist to her cheek while writing.

Random Tsukishima Kei facts:

In the second prototype chapter (unserialized, one shot, the first idea of the author on how haikyuu will go) Tsukishima was a second-year, which was changed in the serialized version where he's a first-year. His initial height in the prototype chapter is 184cm, a little shorter than his official height (190.1cm). In an extra sketch, Furudate commented, "Tsukki and Tanaka being in the same year would spell chaos!

©4aloysius.porteu.2021. please do not repost, copy, or edit. plagiarism is punishable by law. 

#haikyuu!! #tsukishima kei #haikyuu tsukishima #haikyuu fanfiction #haikyuu angst #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu fluff #kei tsukishima #tsukishima x reader #tsukishima kei x reader #haikyuu headcannons #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu headcanons #tsukishima imagine #tsukishima scenarios #tsukki

[catzula]

Don’t be late.

Warnings: Cursing, 4.5 k words, fluff in general, Bakugou being a dumbass, reader is always late.

a/n: I genuinely had fun writing this fic and I hope you guys have fun reading it!

Synopsis: you're a student at the support section and since Bakugou literally drove everyone else insane, you were the last person that would help him with his costume. Little did he know that you had a crush on this sparky sparky boom man.

Everybody in the support section just hated that one guy. That guy named Bakugou who would practically harass people until he got what he wanted. Well, okay, almost everyone who knew Bakugou hated him but people in the support section hated him in a whole new level.

He was a nightmare. Nobody could even stand him.

Well, nobody except for you. You thought of him as intriguing, as well as a pain in the ass. But even him being a pain in the ass could be justified in your eyes, you knew he was doing all this simply because he was a perfectionist. Of course he could tone it down a bit, but... That would.be very out of character, wouldn't it?

He thought of himself as the best and it shouldn't be a surprise, for him to want to have a hero costume that was also perfect. You could understand that, but it still didn't change the fact that he was the worst kind of customer anyone would ever have to work with.

He had never worked with you though, he was in class 1/A for gods sake, of course he didn't work with you... Well, that until he ran out of people that would help him willingly.

"You know what? I'm done. Go fuck yourself." Were the words that echoed in the room, suppressing even those deafening machine sounds. Your friend threw Bakugou's costume in his face harshly, still cursing under his breath.

"Tch, whatever! You're just some extra that can't even do what I asked for." You watched Bakugou as his upper lip curled threateningly, reminding you of a wolf, and boy did he look pissed. Like, really pissed. His crimson eyes glaring at the guy in front of him, who was packing his supplies and trying to get away from this angry dude as soon as possible.

"That's the thing, Bakugou! What you want doesn't exist! I don't have these miraculous powers that when I snap my fingers your costume just turns into something else. You have to give me details of what you're asking and you have to ask something that makes sense! Not just some dumb idea that popped into your mind!" Everybody knew that was a lie. Bakugou always had the most amazing ideas, so creative and so... Logical. It's just that they were too... Much. To much to execute, they were brilliant but not doable.

"First of all, it does make sense, it's you who can't understand! Second of-"

"Whatever, Bakugou. I'm done with this shit. Go find someone else to help you with your costume."

"Who the fuck are you to not let me fucking talk? I will fucking kill you-"

"That's enough Bakugou." A monotone voice that came from the door made Bakugou freeze. You knew this black haired guy, he was the Eraserhead! You saw him around the campus but never from up this close!

Bakugou looked at his teacher, never losing that wolfish expression on his face, and he exited the room without saying anything, which was a first for everyone in this room. Eraserhead also exited, looking like he was about to go in a coma.

The room was still silent, until it wasn't.

"Oh my God, what a fucking jerk."

"I can't even believe how you managed to put up with him that long."

"He's not even that good."

Lie. That was a big fat lie because Bakugou may not be a lot of things but he was that good. Still, you chose to stay silent, your eyes still glued to the door he just exited from.

He amazed you, really. You noticed him the first time he came to the support section, his aura screaming confidence. He started to come there frequently, making everyone else go crazy, but you just kept noticing small details about him every time he came there. He was an asshole, no one could deny that, but he was also amazing.

It was amazing how determined he was, even though it was a pain, his perfectionism also left you in awe, how smart he was, how confident he was, how strong he was...

You realized your big crush on him the day you saw him on that sport festival. The other people thought it was so unheroic of him to go that hard on Uraraka, which was so stupid. Didn't she also want to be a hero? Wasn't she going to the same school as him, going through the same trainings? It was only normal for him to beat her, because if he didn't, she would have beaten him. Would people tell her it was so rude of her to go that hard on him too? No, you thought he was astonishing to act the way he did.

Him being so proud, not accepting the first rank made your heart beat faster. He was just so strong, so proud, so vulnerable it made you want to hug him tightly and tell him that he was your hero.

Not that you would ever have the chance though, or so you thought.

He came back not even after a few days, making everyone groan in frustration. He went straight to the table that displayed the recent projects that were done. The table existed to give an idea of what anyone could do so they could choose along shit what they had in mind. So that meant, who's item he chose would have to work with him. All of you eyed him, waiting to see who was the very unlucky person.

He picked one invention of the table, looking somewhat intrigued, and looked around the room trying to guess who it belonged to. When he couldn't guess he went to the nearest person and shoved the invention in their face. "Who does this belong to?!"

The person he was holding eyed the object he was holding suspiciously, relief written on his face when he saw it didn't belong to him. "I think that's Y/N's."

You could hear the sighs of relief around the room. So did he, but he didn't seem to care. Instead he walked towards you, he was so close you could smell-

Why on earth did he smell like... Caramel?!

"Is this yours?" You felt the tingling sensation of excitement all over your body, giving you goosebumps. "It is." You answered, which made him narrow his eyes, looking at you suspiciously.

"Is it really yours? You did this?" Now that was straight up rude. "Yes, it's really mine, asshole. What kind of a question even is that?!"

He shrugged shit a smug grin on his face. His eyes wandered over you, looking at your (e/c) eyes, your face, your figure, and his grin grew wider.

"I haven't seen you around here before." Ah, the angry boy was back. His upper lip curled ever so slightly, looking at you like you were some lowly human. "Oh yeah? Well I have seen you quite a lot here. You know, while you were making everyone else go crazy."

Your answer turned his face red with anger but -a miracle- he was holding back! You could see it was really hard for him not to scream insults in your face but he was aware that you were his last chance. Oh didn't that just boost your ego. Now it was your turn to look at him with a smug grin on your face.

"Whatever." He mumbled pulling you to the nearest table. "What are you-" Before he even let you finish he shushed you and lay down the papers he was holding on the table. You looked at what's on the paper, it was a costume drawing, a really detailed one at that. As you got closer to the paper, inspecting it, he was watching your every move with narrowed eyes.

After you memorised everything on the paper you bir your lip, trying to hide your admiration. "Did you draw this? Are these all... Your ideas?"

The drawing wasn't amazing but it was neat, everything was calculated to the very core, the ideas were so clear on the paper, making you feel like you only had to follow these instructions and do nothing else. "Yes, of course I drew them! Everything you see there is mine." He said angrily but you could see he wasn't actually angry, just proud.

"Well, they're pretty good, if I'm going to be honest." You said trying to hide your excitement. You traced the drawing with your finger.

"I know they are. But can you do it?" His smug grin was back and you couldn't help but roll your eyes at him. Could you do it?

You smiled sweetly and surely enough he smiled back, already knowing your answer.

"Nope."

His smile dropped, leaving it's place to a furious look in his eyes. "You dumbass, then why the fuck are you wasting my fucking time?!" He screamed, people around you shot you a knowing look. He pulled the paper of the table harshly, about to leave when you held his wrist and made him stop.

"Can you stop for a fucking minute and listen?" His eyes widened when he heard you cursing, a big contrast to your sweet tone and face. "I can't do this, but neither can anyone else."

"What the fuck does that mean?" He screamed making you winch. "Can you just- shut up for a second? This is not possible, get that in your bigass head. But-" you stopped thinking for a second. You shuffled around the drawers in search of a pen. "But, I can do this instead. This would be much more possible, and it would give you what you were aiming for. Of course it wouldn't be the same but the end product will be helpful."

You said quickly sketching your idea on the paper, as quick as possible before you forget what you were thinking about.

When he saw what you drew his burrows furrowed and for a second you thought he was mad at you but instead he huffed. "Tch, not bad I guess." He said, but internally he was so impressed that you actually came up with this alternative in a few seconds of so.

"Wait, does that mean you'll work with me?" You said eyes open wide. Well the question was more as, would you work with him, but he didn't say that. "If you can do it, I will."

"That's amazing, now I finally have a worthy client!" You said excitedly and on of his burrows went up, sending you an questioning look. "Worthy of... You?"

You shot him a killing glare but stayed quiet. "Let's work on this idea a little more, what do you say?"

He shrugged. "It's too noisy in here. Lets go to the library." He said ready to pull you out of the room but you shot a glance at your phone, pouting. "Can't, I gotta finish this side project today. Meet me at the library tomorrow? How is 4pm?"

He wasn't really happy since you couldn't work on it immediately but he had to be a little nice to you, not just because you were the last person that would actually help him, but your idea was also pretty good. "Tch, whatever. Don't be late."

You smiled sweetly, making his heart beat a little faster. Why did his heart beat this fast? Was this your quirk or something?

"Bye Bakugou." You waved as you started to sketch something on a sheet of paper.

***

Bakugou was sitting in the library, shooting angry glances at the clock. When he saw you coming towards him with a big smile on your face, your hands full of papers, books and stuff, he felt his heart jump. This had to be your quirk.

"Hey! So I worked on this idea we talked about yesterday and-" Before you even sat next to him you started to talk without even stopping to breath. "You're late." He murmured with and angry look in his eyes, you looked at your watch and smiled apologetically. "Oops, sorry, I was with Shinsou about- well that's not important is it? It's 5 minutes anyway."

Bakugou had always been an angry individual but today he could practically feel his explosions itching for him to release them. You saw the look in his eyes and laughed, "Hey, chill out. I'm sorry, alright? I'll make it up to you with a coffee, how does that sound?"

Bakugou didn't even like coffee but he couldn't refuse this offer either. "If you get there in time."

You laughed once again, a sweet sound that made Bakugou feel proud, even though he didn't even know why he was proud. "Yes, yes, I'll be there on time. But let's discuss this now." You lay the papers down, showing a few new sketches.

You both worked on it for a long time, even though it felt like a few minutes at most. You sometimes felt his gaze on you, instead of the paper in front of you, which made your cheeks flush red.

"So um-" you said, not really sure what to even say. "This was nice."

He had never heard anyone from the support section say that working with him was nice, but he still took the compliment. "Meet me at the coffee place tomorrow? Since it's weekend we can meet a little earlier too."

His eyes narrowed as he looked at you. It was weird having someone who actually wanted to work with him and it felt odd. A good type of odd, if he had to confess.

"Don't be late." He said.

You laughed. "I won't."

***

You were late.

Bakugou was about to go crazy waiting at the coffee shop. He felt so stupid for waiting for you but felt even worse for not being able to leave. His mind kept making you excuses, every time the door opened he felt his heart jump and that made him so angry at himself.

He was about to leave when the door opened once again, this time it was actually you entering. His eyes widened when he saw you, you looked incredibly pretty without any dust smeared on your face, your (h/c) hair in a cute style that enhanced your beautiful face and was that... Make up? He wasn't sure, hell, he never even realized any of these things before. But he couldn't take his eyes off of you and felt his anger die inside him.

You saw him and your eyes shined in a way that made him want to smile too, a cute smile was on your face when you came to his table.

"You're late!"

"That can't be I'm actually-" you checked the time and pouted. "Oh, I'm late."

His eyebrows furrowed, so he wasn't even important enough for you to actually show up on time? He was about to say something mean but held his tongue when you giggled. "I actually left the dorm an hour early to be here before you..." You shrugged. "Apparently I'm incapable of actually arriving anywhere at the time we agreed on. I hear this all the time, I just can't get anywhere on time!"

He felt a little better knowing it wasn't only him, but still. He was Bakugou Katsuki for Gods sake! He wasn't just someone, he was the future number one hero. Still, he couldn't help but feel good knowing you intended to be here early.

"Whatever." He said not looking at you. "No, I'm actually sorry!" You said biting your lip.

"It's whatever. Let's just get some coffee and get this shit done with." You felt a sharp pain in your chest, he wasn't wrong, but it felt bad hearing that from your crush. You should have known he wasn't actually interested in you, he wouldn't have chosen you if you weren't his last chance.

You still didn't let that spoil your mood, at the very end you were here, drinking coffee with him, weren't you?

"Well, what would you like to drink?" You asked, taking your wallet out of your handbag. His eyes shined with anger when he saw what you were doing.

"Like hell I'll let you pay for it!" He said, stopping you.

"But this is for making you wait yesterday!" Feeling his hand holding you made your heart jump. "And well... Today too." You added.

"I don't care, I said I won't let you pay, and I won't."

"But-"

"Stop arguing for fucks sake!" You closed your mouth at that. "O-okay. Well I'll have (your favorite beverage)." You saw him smile at your answer and stood up.

You were trying to calm yourself while he was buying you coffee, didn't even realize someone was calling your name. "Y/N!"

A hand touched your shoulder, making you jump in surprise. It was a certain indigo haired boy who looked very much sleep deprived. "Oh, Shinsou!" You smiled sweetly. You have helped him a lot before, which ended with you guys being close friends.

"What are you doing here?" You asked, even though it was a stupid question, he was addicted to coffee. "Well, duh." He said, shaking the carton of coffee on his hand. You smiled at that. "But what are you doing here?" He looked around to see anyone familiar that you could be waiting for. He saw Bakugou ordering coffee, but it was such an impossible thing for both of you to be together so he didn't even think about it.

"Well I uh..." You didn't even have time to answer when an angry boy came close to your table. "What the fuck are you doing here?!"

Shinsou's eyes widened ever so slightly looking at the angry boy, and then back at you. "You're here with him?"

"You got a problem with that?" Bakugou asked, taking his seat right across you.

"Well, we're working on his costume." You said sensing the tension.

Bakugou scoffed, apparently not happy with your answer. "Well, okay. I'll see you around?" Said Shinsou, you could understand why he was walking away, since his motto was stay out of drama. "Yeah, sure!" You smiled sweetly, feeling a little bad because you felt like you were dusting him away.

"Are we gonna start working or not?!" You flinched when you heard him scream, a sinking feeling reminding you once again, he wanted nothing to do with you other than working on his costume.

"Sorry." You mumbled. "So I um, worked on this a little more after you left and I think it would be much better if we changed this to this. Because otherwise it would be too heavy."

Bakugou scoffed. "Hah, I can handle heavy." You glanced at him, surprised by his unnecessary narcissism. "Yeah, I know. But still, wouldn't it be better if it were lighter?" He stayed still for a while then shrugged.

"Tch, whatever." Oh, you were starting to see a pattern here. Maybe it wasn't just unnecessary narcissism, but more like... Trying to impress you?

"Are you training today too?" You asked, just testing the waters. "Of course I am! If I'm going to be the number 1 hero, I gotta train every fucking day."

You tapped your chin with your finger. "That's true. Although I've seen you train before and it looked pretty intense." And that was true. He was training so hard it made you shudder just thinking about it.

"Oh, you were watching me?" Oh, shit. You tried to ignore the heat rushing to your cheeks. "Well I wasn't watching you specifically, but it was so... Extra so I may have looked your way once or twice." You tried to cover. But the smug grin on his face told you he didn't believe it a bit.

"Yeah, sure. Whatever you say."

"So, what do you think? Should I change this part? Oh and I thought it would be better if we did this too-" You stopped talking when you felt his eyes lingering on you, instead of the paper. "Bakugou?" You said smiling. "Why are you staring at me?"

"I'm not staring at you!" He shouted, your smile dropping almost instantly. "Why the fuck would I even stare at you?!" His hands were tight fists on the table, his red eyes reminding you of flames. Your eyes widened at his response and you forced a laugh.

"Well, ouch." You said with the same forceful laugh. "I- I wasn't implying anything, you know..." You mumbled.

"I- I..." This was the first time you have seen Bakugou in a loss of words. You shrugged. "Yeah, I know, you want to get this over with as soon as possible."

That was far from what he wanted to say but he accepted it nonetheless.

You both worked on it for hours, once again the time passed quickly, felt like it was a blink of an eye. "That was intense." You said while stretching a bit.

"Well, that was it. We finished the whole design and idea process and I'll take it from here."

His brows furrowed. "What do you mean by I'll take it from here?"

You shrugged. "I just have to actually do this now, so we don't really have to meet like this." Why did Bakugou feel that sting in his chest? For Gods sake, what the fuck was your quirk?

"Y/N." He said that made you stop stretching. Hearing your name from him made your heart beat faster. "What the hell is your quirk?"

"My quirk?" You asked, a little surprised at the sudden question.

"Yes!"

"Well it's not a big quirk. I can manipulate shadows." You shrugged. Your quirk had never came off as handy but it was fun to change the shapes of people's shadows and seeing their reactions.

Bakugou desperately tried to find a relation with your quirk and this weird sensation he felt every time you smiled but he couldn't find any.

"That's a dumb quirk." He said instead. You giggled, surprising him. "It is, but I don't really need a quirk to be special, I can work without it just fine."

His brow quirked up at your response. "If you say so."

***

Everyday for the next week, Bakugou had visited you in your workspace. "I want to see if you're doing a good fucking job." He said when you asked him why.

He stayed with you as long as he could, telling you about his day, about those damn extras in his class, with the exception of "Deku." He was talking about Deku like he wasn't even a part of the class. You knew he was talking about Izuku Midoriya, that green haired shy guy who broke a limb every time he used his quirk. Oh, Bakugou talked about him a lot, with great hatred too.

But even though he was just rambling, you loved to listen to him. And even though he never even implied it, you knew he liked watching you work too. It was probably because he was interested in how his costume was coming up but you still enjoyed it very much.

But the truth was that he had almost completely forgotten about his costume. He was coming to see you every day, every chance because you... You just understood him. But Bakugou was so foreign to these feelings, it made him feel scared and vulnerable.

You weren't aware of any of this, of the internal crisis he was having, so you were surprised when he suddenly stopped showing up.

You couldn't really work too, since your eyes were practically glued to the door, waiting to see a glimpse of the spiky blonde hair, but you never did.

The day you were done with the costume, you texted him. You tried to look as good as you could, cleaned the dust off of your face and your uniform, wore your best perfume only to see someone else who came instead of him to pick the costume up.

It was Kirishima, you had chatted with him before, he was a pretty cute guy, and you knew from your daily chats from Bakugou he liked him too. So just seeing him reminded you of Bakugou which made your mood even worse.

"Is... Is Bakugou okay?" You asked.

You saw the uncomfortable look on his face and you knew Bakugou was avoiding you. "He- he- he is okay... He's just-" You sighed but smiled nonetheless. "It's okay, I understand." His eyes widened. "You do?!"

You shrugged. "He's done with me, I see that. I had the same treatment from some other students too, although it's not very nice, is it? Still, say hi to him for me please."

"It's- it's not like that, he's just-" Kirishima looked a little embarrassed but mostly panicked and you couldn't help but giggle. "It's okay, I'm just happy I could help him."

When Kirishima went back to the dorms, only to find Bakugou on the couch looking at his phone, he was pissed.

"Dude you must be the dumbest person alive."

"Who the fuck are you calling dumb, shitty hair?!" Bakugou jumped from the couch, about to end Kirishima once and for all but Kirishima wasn't having it. "You! I'm calling you dumb! I took your costume from YN, the girl you have been avoiding like the plague, and I was embarrassed for you!"

Kirishima saw Bakugou stiffening as he mentioned your name and smiled knowingly. "Bakugou, if you don't go there and talk to her I will kick your ass."

"You can't kick my ass, idiot." Bakugou answered gruffly.

"Oh but I can. Go fucking talk to her dude! She asked about you, you know? What you're doing is so fucking unmanly." Kirishima gave Bakugou the costume he was holding and Bakugou could swear he could smell your scent on it.

"You call me unmanly one more fucking time and you won't have a tongue to call anyone unmanly. I am the definition of manly."

"Not with that attitude you're not."

"Who the fuck are you, my mother or something?" But Bakugou knew Kirishima was telling the truth, and he just couldn't get rid of this stupid feeling in his chest. Yet, he had thought that if he just stopped seeing you, he would never feel this way ever again. He was wrong. Oh, he had thought of you almost every second of the day, his heart feeling heavier with every second he didn't see you and it was more than he could bear.

He knew what he had to do, he just didn't have the courage before.

"I think- I have to go." He said practically running to the door. He passed the now entering Kaminari with such force and speed, Kaminari almost lost his balance. "Woah, where the fuck is he going?" He asked looking at the grinning Kirishima.

"You'll see." Was his answer.

***

You were about to leave the workshop, later than usual but you didn't really mind working a little longer, anything that would take your kind off of him, you accepted gratefully.

All of that until you heard his voice.

"YN!"

You jumped not expecting this at all. Your eyes widened when you saw the face you had longed to see for almost a week, and there he was, cheeks flushed like he had ran all the way here.

And you knew why he was here. You weren't stupid, the look in his eyes just gave it away. So a smile found its way on your lips, the sweetest smile he had ever seen that made him feel like he could die right than and there.

"Bakugou!" You said, walking towards him. "You're late."

#bnha scenarios #mha imagines #bakugou x reader #bnha x you #bakugou katsuki x reader #bnha bakugou #bakugou imagine #mha bakugou #bnha x reader #bnha bakugo katsuki #mha x reader #mha bakugo katsuki #katsukibakugou

[fluffykitty1999-blog]

Dog of the Military- Chapter 29

Chapter 29- Mr. Fingers

In this chapter, we learn more about our new serial killer.

Obligatory ko-fi link here; https://ko-fi.com/fluffykitty12 .

It'd been awhile since Roy had done regular alchemy. When your signature attack was so useful, you didn't really have need for anything else.

But he still liked to dabble in it occasionally. He still got the monthly journal, still read the articles about newer forms of alchemy. He still liked to know about new discovery.

Fusing woof to other wood was a simple transmutation for someone as experienced as him. A simple chalk circle on the side windowsill- he touched two fingers to the small array he'd drawn, watching the blue light flash and focusing.

The blue light faded, and the wooden sash of the window was now fused to the windowsill invisibly. It couldn't be opened- either from the inside or the outside.

Roy was sure someone as experienced as Ed would be able to figure out and undo the alchemy if he'd needed to. But he was also sure that Ed respected him enough to at least be wary of changing things in his home. Hopefully if Ed realized Roy had gone to the trouble of using alchemy to fuse his window shut, he'd think twice about sneaking out.

Even though, having seen Ed at the office today, Roy was pretty sure the kid wouldn't try to sneak out anyways.

After he'd trudged back from the showers, Ed had looked worn out. If Ed hadn't been such a moron, lying to him and sneaking off on his own, then Roy might've pitied him enough to send him home early. But Ed had lied to him and snuck around, and so it was only fair he was forced to live with the consequences.

Still, as Roy peered into the guest room that night to find the boy sprawled out on top of the covers- his boots still on- he knew he was worried over nothing. Ed would stay close by. Where Roy could watch his back.

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"You won't let me go anywhere. You won't let me investigate Banks. You might as well let me help with the Mr. Finger case."

"Mr. Fingers?" Hughes looked surprised at the moniker. Ed had strode into Roy's office and flopped on the couch, shrugging.

"All I do is sign paperwork. It's boring. Let me help you catch this guy."

"Haven't you had enough of him? You almost got tangled up with him yesterday- you brought back a severed finger. That's enough to give anyone nightmares." Hughes said, steeping his fingers.

"Yeah, that wasn't fun. But I'm also probably the only one who ever saw him. I can describe him."

Hughes sat forward, the sunlight reflecting off his glasses.

"Alright. So what did you see, Edward? Describe him for me."

"Tall. Lanky. Six foot, about- he walked... oddly. Shambling gait. All black clothing. Black knit cap. Black long sleeve shirt, button up. Black slacks. Black boots- size 12."

Hughes wrote it all down on a notepad, frowning as he saw Ed pause.

"His hands. Long fingers. Long, black, acrylic nails. Unusual... for a man."

"So you really did see him, then." Hughes set his pen aside, pushing his glasses back up on his nose so his eyes were once again visible through the glare.

"You thought I was lying?" Ed asked, looking at him quizzically.

Hughes shook his head. "No. I thought it might have been a copycat killer. But you saw the real thing- the finger you brought back- you remember which one it was? You saw the corpse... which one was missing?"

Ed leaned forward in his chair, resting his elbows on his knees, pressing the heels of his hands to his closed eyes and trying to remember.

"Left ring finger. The same finger that would've had a wedding band on it, if she was married. I could smell the blood... I was standing in it..." Ed opened his eyes and looked up, eyes wide. "I could smell the glue."

"Glue?" Roy raised an eyebrow, interested.

"Yeah. Glue. Those fingernails- he'd put them all on recently. With glue. I didn't realize it at the time, all I registered was the smell of blood, but the glue... She wasn't wearing those nails when he killed her. He put them on her corpse. And cut off her ring finger for a souvenir. But the rat got it and ran off with it- he must've been looking for it."

"Where was the body, Ed?"

"Right by the manhole- the one in the alley of hammer and mill streets. I thought I told you about it yesterday?" Ed said, frowning.

"You did. We found the bloodstain and a bottle of acrylic nail glue- but no body." Hughes admitted grimly.

"So he moved her." Roy postulated. "Are you searching the sewers?"

"Currently- no." Hughes gave a quick, humorless chuckle. "I'm not about to send my team in there with the wedding band killer still on the loose down there, Colonel Banks rumored to be on the run, and possibly hostile Drachman agents lurking as well. We have no idea where to look. Those tunnels are miles long..."

"I could show you." Ed paused as both eyes landed on him. "I think I remember most of the way. I remember the turns- the tunnel I went in, the one I came out of. I saw which direction he was headed."

"You're so eager to go back to the sewers after your little escapade yesterday? With Banks and 'Mr. Fingers' down there?" Roy cocked an eyebrow. He shot Hughes a glance that clearly said- there is no way I'm letting him go back into the sewers, even if he is with us.

Hughes raised his head almost imperceptibly, acknowledging him. "I don't think having you underground would be a good idea, if you remember the turns you took above ground- the manhole you went down, where you saw him- that'd be helpful to our investigation- letting us know where to search."

"Okay. But I wanna see the casefiles."

"What case files?" Hughes feigned innocence.

"You called him the 'wedding band killer'. He's killed before. I want to see what you have."

Hughes shot Roy a glance out of the corner of his eye. Roy nodded from behind his folded hands, where his elbows rested on the desk, and Hughes pulled a large file folder from behind him. "Read up. We'll head out in an hour."

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"I went in here." Ed was standing atop a manhole in a deserted alley on Frost Lane, looking serious. Roy, Hughes, Ross and Brosch were with them for the investigation.

"I walked straight for 100m, about..." Ed was absorbed in his work, walking in the approximate direction he'd gone.

"I turned left here. And right here..." his full concentration was on the road in front of him. Roy's heightened senses had kicked in. The streets were quiet right now, but one never knew these days when a Drachman operative or hidden enemy would pop out.

Brosch was sketching a rough diagram as Ed was speaking. But Ross obviously wasn't assigned to keep the case- she'd been assigned to watching their backs. Her hand appeared to rest covertly in the pockets of her long black jacket, but Roy say the slight glance of metal- she had her pistol concealed in one hand and was watching.

He was grateful Hughes had thought enough to bring her along.

"Where did you find the finger, Ed?"

"There was an alcove, midway along the passage. The sewers form a T-shaped junction soon... a little further along, I think." Ed paused, before he kept walking on the sidewalk.

Three minutes later he'd stopped and was frowning. "We went too far. This isn't right."

He doubled back, frowning. "This would be a lot easier if you'd let me go underground." he said, frustrated.

"Not happening. Think. You're smart enough to retrace your steps above ground. What did you hear down there?" Roy asked pointedly.

"Besides running water, not much." Ed snapped, frustrated. It had started to drizzle, and Ed paused, continuing on to the edge of the street. He saw something that caught his eye, trotting into the road- just as a black car came around the corner too fast, heading in his direction.

"Ed!" Hughes shouted.

Breaks screeched, and Roy grabbed the kid by the back of his hood, pulling him back and into his own grasp. Roy spun to the side, ducking into a nearby alley for cover.

The black car had screeched to a halt in the middle of the street.

Hughes, Brosch and Ross had all drawn their weapons and approached cautiously, and Roy kept Ed tucked beside him and fingered his ignition gloves in his pocket with his other hand, watching from the shadows.

"Get out of the car!" Hughes shouted.

Ross opened the door with one hand, keeping her gun trained on the driver, and Brosch pulled the man out.

The driver was a young man- he couldn't have been over twenty- dressed in a button down shirt and slacks. He looked sufficiently rattled.

Roy watched Hughes grill the kid for a moment before drawing the conclusion the man wasn't a Drachman operative, but a young idiot who'd gone around the corner too fast.

He turned to look at Ed, who was shaking off his surprise. "Holy shit." the blond managed.

"No kidding." Roy said dryly, scrutinizing Ed carefully. Ed wasn't hurt- so Roy felt it appropriate to reach over and smack him upside the head lightly.

"You just walked into the middle of the road without looking?"

"I was absorbed in the investigation! I was remembering the sounds I heard in the sewer, like you said. There's only so much I can think about at once."

"Your parents never told you to look both ways before you crossed the road?"

"There was one dirt road in my town. It was never that busy. I always heard the horses coming before they came around, and people actually watched out for others..."

"Don't let it happen again."

"Right." Ed was peering out of the alley now, curious as to what was going on.

Hughes had let the driver get back in his car, and the man drove off at a much more reasonable speed.

Hughes nodded to Roy as they approached, letting him know he'd handled the threat, and Ed paused, looking towards the center of the road.

"That's what I was talking about." he pointed.

In the middle of the road was a grate. The road didn't form a T, but rather, it was an X, with roads going in all four directions, but the grate in the center clearly accounted for the waterfall Ed had seen underground. "That's the waterfall. Thirty meets left is where I found the body."

Ed was already moving down the sidewalk, though he made a point to stop and look both ways before crossing the road to continue his quest down the sidewalk.

The rest of the little tour was uneventful, with Ed concluding it at another alley manhole. "That's where I got out. Whoever he was- he followed me, grabbed my leg and tried to pull me back down..." Ed paled for a moment at the recollection, before he seemed to shake it off.

"Hope I helped with the investigation somehow." he said, shooting a glance over at Hughes.

"I think we have some leads to go off of after this." Hughes replied, placing a hand on Ed's shoulder. Roy knew what he was talking about- the fact that their was a battered woman's shelter two blocks down form where Ed had supposedly found the body underground was a big one.

They parted ways- it was nearly six, and as they walked towards home, Ed was silent.

"How long you think it will take to catching this guy?" Ed asked as they walked along, his gaze far off.

"I don't know. Hughes has it well in hand, though." Roy said simply. "You think about work too much. What do you want for dinner?"

"You think about work too little. And I want mac n' cheese." Ed said back. "Any word on Banks?"

"Nothing yet." The sun was starting to set. They were four blocks away from Roy's house. They were waiting at a crosswalk. Roy gazed up at the rooftops, watching the sunlight fade- and saw the reflection.

He grabbed Ed's hand and pulled them both behind a parked car for cover.

"What the hell!?" Ed groused, surprised.

Roy simply raised his hand and hailed a passing taxi, pulling Ed into the back of it behind him, giving him his home address.

Ed had fallen silent in his complaints, but was still looking at Mustang curiously. Roy said nothing, craning his next to look up at the rooftop as they drove out of sight. He vaguely saw a shadow, but it could've been any number of rooftop vents or chimneys in the long rays of the setting sun.

"Care to tell me what that way about?" Ed asked, crossing his arms and looking pissed.

"Saw a reflection on the rooftop. From a sniper's scope."

"You what?" Ed paused, looking shocked.

"Rooftops are excellent for snipers. Banks is at large, as well as the Drachmans. You weren't even paying attention." Roy admonished.

"I was so paying attention! I was paying attention to the road and the crosswalk saying don't walk and getting home for dinner." Ed protested.

Roy sighed. "You were paying attention to that, yes." but not to the right things. Roy's mind whispered. But he quickly silenced that voice. Ed had never been in active combat and didn't know what to look for.

"Snipers like to camp out on roofs. If they get sloppy, you can often see the muzzle flash in the dark if they don;t use a suppressor, or a reflection of light on their scope. I thought I saw a reflection of a scope up there."

"So are you going to send someone to investigate it?" Ed asked.

"No. Because if it was a sniper, they missed their chance and they;re long gone by now." and I'm not sure if I really saw one or my mind was playing tricks on me.

"I'm tired of this shit. Of hiding- we don't even know if there really was someone back there trying to get us. And if there was, we don't know who they were! I just want to get back to searching for the stone."

"You won't be able to help Alphonse if you're dead. And you won't be able to enjoy mac n' cheese if you're so pissy. So suck it up and at least pretend to be in a good mood for your brother."

They'd pulled up outside Roy's home, and Roy quickly paid the cabbie and they ducked inside.

Alphonse was perched on the couch, a book in his hands that actually wasn't about alchemy.

"You're reading those crappy dramas again?" Ed complained, flopping down on the couch beside them.

"I needed a break from all the alchemy. It helps refresh me." Alphonse commented cheerily.

"Just don't go prattling on to me about them this time. I don't care if Julia finds love or not."

Roy went into the kitchen to start a pot of boiling water.

Ed continued to tease Al for his taste in literature.

"You know brother, maybe women would like you more if you actually read something like this and learned some sensitivities." Al said as they sat down to dinner.

"Yeah right. Women love me." Ed shoveled bites of mac n' cheese into his mouth feverishly.

"With manners like that, who wouldn't." Roy said sarcastically.

Ed shot him a glare.

"Winry might like you more if you weren't such an idiot and read about feelings and love. You'll never get married if you don't learn how to communicate with women." Al said wisely.

Ed choked on his mac n' cheese. "I can communicate just fine! With my fists! I fight people, Al, I'm a state alchemist. I don't need a woman, and especially not Winry. She doesn't know the first thing about communication- she just hits people with a wrench!"

"Sounds like she speaks your language then. Violence." Roy smirked.

"You shut up!" Ed pointed his fork at him angrily, steam starting to come out of his ears.

He turned back to Al "And as for marriage- the only rock I care about is the philosopher's stone. Now quit ruining my mac n' cheese with your feelings and crap." and Ed was back to digging into his meal.

Al sighed, and Roy could've sworn he was giving Roy a look that said see what I have to deal with? before he retreated back to enjoying his book. After much complaining and badgering Ed managed to switch Al's drama novel for an alchemy book, and the boys chattered long into the night about research and theorems. Roy occasionally interjected from his armchair when he thought of something useful, but before long it'd grown quiet.

Roy looked up from his newspaper to realize it was almost one in the morning. And it'd been quiet for awhile- no one had said much.

He looked over to see Ed had passed out on the couch, a few notebook pages scattered around him and an open book in his lap. Alphonse was sitting cross-legged on the floor, having carefully bookmarked the page he was on in his alchemy book and resumed reading his drama.

Soulfire eyes looked up as Roy strode across the room, picking up a folded blanket he kept nearby and draping it over Ed's slumped form.

"Don't tell brother I started reading this again? He thinks they're a waste of time." Alphonse asked him gingerly.

"Learning to understand how women think is hardly a waste of time, Alphonse. In fact, it's one of life's great mysteries. It'll come in handy for you someday, when you get your body back." Roy smiled slightly, imagining Alphonse going on his first date.

"What you do in your time awake is hardly my business anyways, Al. Just please keep an eye on things and be quiet. You know where my room is- wake me if you need anything."

"Okay. Goodnight, Colonel." Al's voice was decidedly more chipper- almost like a young boy who'd just been praised by his father.

"Goodnight, Al."

#fma #fma fanfiction #Fullmetal Alchemist #fullmetal alchimist brotherhood #Roy Mustang #edward elric #Parental Roy #parentalroy #whumph #whump #hurt/comfort #hurt #comfort #dogofthemilitary #injury

[landeg]

31 Days of Apex: A Retrospection

I participated in the incredible #31DaysOfApex challenge hosted on Twitter, where fans created new content for every day of July based on a one-word prompt. I’ve signed up for/started lots of similar challenges in the past but always ended up having to drop out or trail off before the end... but this time, I managed to complete something for every day of the challenge!

My only goal was to make something by each day’s deadline, and it was a really interesting exercise both in technical skill and also in my management of not only my time, but my expectations and energy. Below, I go into more detail behind each piece.

To preface; the beginning of this challenge coincided with the beginning of a new personal time-management exercise where, for 5/7 days a week, I would only go on the computer at night. Combined with the deadline, this had an interesting effect on my time management and the quality of certain pieces.

Day 1 - Memory

From the start, I wanted to use the challenge as an opportunity to do more studies and to push myself wherever possible. This was the first piece I did and I had more time to work on it, so I used it as a digital painting study. I still think it’s a strong piece and it’s probably my favourite of the month. Symbolically, this character’s backstory doesn’t match up with her own memories, so the idea is she’s missing information she can’t quite place or remember, and this both scares and comforts her.

Day 2 - Blood

Another digital painting and lighting study that didn’t work out as well as the first, mostly due to time constraints meaning I couldn’t scrap it and start again. While I don’t like how it turned out, I did learn a lot. The character on the right is a field medic, and my intent was to show the calm after a successful rescue.

Day 3 - Mercy

Some days I relied more on the humour of a piece’s concept than the skill of its execution, though I also liked how this piece turned out artistically. After two days of intense studies, though, this was very quick and easy for me to turn out as it relied on existing skills.

Day 4 - Prize

This one thankfully came together very quickly, which I credit to the two previous painting studies making it much easier to achieve what I wanted. The character is searching for the disembodied head of the man who killed her parents, who is now acting as a robot, hence the vaguely half-machine-half-human silhouette in her hand.

Day 5 - Family

Another quick, simple illustration under a time crunch. The character framed by the nameless foreground figures has no memory of herself or her family.

Day 6 - Noise

For some pieces where I was under a time crunch, I experimented in an opposite direction; instead of studies, I played loosely with different techniques/brushes/etc to see what came out. This was a lineless style I ended up employing a lot when short on time. The piece pictured here was just one of four alternate colourways, presented in a pop-art style. The character is almost always depicted with thick coverings over her ears, so I thought she might be sensitive to auditory overload. This particular piece was retweeted by the character’s voice actress!

Day 7 - Mask

More relying on humour for lack of time/a better idea. A fun experiment in colour, though.

Day 8 - Healing

Another technically “easy” piece but with a stronger concept. It was actually pretty hard to get the reflection & condensation elements balanced right. The character pictured has a narrative thread relating to an old ex he has trouble moving on from.

Day 9 - Weapon

While obviously another joke, and made to be finished quickly, it was surprisingly difficult to get the duct tape and knife to read clearly without over-cluttering the lineless image. This little ‘bot is a drone used by one of the playable characters to hack areas of the map; it’s not NORMALLY an offensive weapon. This image was promo’d in a video stream by the character’s voice actor!

Day 10 - Truth

I only had less than an hour to finish this one by the deadline, but I still tried to experiment with silhouette and colour. It was surprisingly hard to get the interior silhouette to be legible. The outer silhouette is a playable character (not easily readible unless you’re familiar with his design) and the inner silhouette is his sister, whose disappearance he is trying to investigate.

Day 11 - Shield

A fun, self-indulgent one. Had a blast simplifying the game’s characters down into little caricatures. The character in the centre has abilities related to shields and protection, so many other people were drawing him for the prompt; I wanted to try and flip it, so I picked other characters he would be friendly with, and picked a non-lethal, lighthearted setting.

Day 12 - Ruins

Short on time so did a quick lighting study. A recent game plot has changed one of the areas of the map, submerging it in water and leaving it to “ruin”.

Day 13 - Hero

Another painting study. Really didn’t like how this one turned out, but had to turn in something, and I did learn a lot in the process. If I’d had more time I probably would’ve scrapped it and started again. This characters had recently been revealed to have been manipulated by another character who used gas-based offenses, whom she admired.

Day 14 - Rest

I was going to be away from mt computer until after the deadline, so I decided to make a traditional piece. I ended up enjoying it so much I tried to take the time to do a few more traditional pieces later. This piece was sort of a comedy of errors; I had to do it while I was out, and the pen I had brought with me to ink my sketch ran out, so I had to make do with a blue ballpoint pen, and I was missing several colours of coloured pencil. I think the finished piece reflects how rushed it was, and it did’t meet my concept, but I do still like it.

Day 15 - Skull

Another quick one but I wanted to experiment with a different line style. Wanted a sort of “graffiti” effect. One of this character’s skins includes a skull-shaped mask.

Day 16 - Growth

Extremely quick play on words because I didn’t have the time to work on anything meaningful and couldn’t think of anything better!

Day 17 - Home

Another traditional piece, this time by choice and with more time. Markers. It looks extremely like some janky art school homework on 2 point perspective because it extremely is. Perspective and backgrounds are very difficult for me - they just don’t “click” - but I had a lot of fun with this one. I kept my mistakes intact because I didn’t want to edit it too much. A lot about the technical perspective is wrong, but I think I achieved the “mood” I wanted. This location is a bar owned by one of the player characters where many of the other characters are shown to meet.

Day 18 - Sky

Very happy with how this one turned out, even though there are still lots of problems. Markers again. There’s a lot I would fix next time, and I think technically it’s lacking, but there are some specific areas I feel happy to have achieved, such as the almost brushed texture of the curved metal above his shoulder and the values of the shadow/reflections on the underside of the head piece. I’m also happy with how I was able to draw from my shoulder rather than my wrist when inking the curved lines, something I struggle with.

Day 19 - Target

An experiment in pushing the lineless style I’d already been playing with for a stronger likeness. The pose and expression in this could both be pushed more but I like the result. This character had just learned that one of the other players, whom she had trusted, was actually sharing her secrets with her enemy, and she didn’t know which one it was.

Day 20 - Friendship

I had this one concepted from when I first looked over the prompts. It was a fun challenge trying to simplify all the elements into the lineless, blocky style while being legible. This character has a strained relationship with one of his friends, and finally pushed her too far with his selfishness, and she now no longer responds to him.

Day 21 - Scar

Quick joke. This character was introduced briefly as a red herring for another character before being killed off. He was stabbed through the chest by another character’s hand, hence the scar pattern.

Day 22 - Dream

I wasn’t sure about this one while I was making it but I ended up liking how it turned out. I wanted to capture the character’s robotic legs bent at an unnaturally straight 90 degrees, like a Barbie doll. The flat background and lighting make it feel like an indoor stage. The little “electric sheep” are inspired by iDogs.

Day 23 - Meal

After a few days of not having time to really spend on any piece, it was fun to get to spend time on concepting and composing this. I always admired these kinds of watercolour-like food illustrations and this is the first time I’ve had any success in creating one myself. I concepted and sketched out the individual items traditionally before working out the composition within the box digitally. Each food item/utensil is inspired by the different characters’ design elements. Only two of the now-current characters are excluded due to plot reasons. In particular, I like how one of the character’s dome-shaped shields acts as the base and cover of the box.

Day 24 - Hobby

Wasn’t a fan of how this one turned out. I think the likeness is a bit off, and his facial anatomy is skewed. But I also like how the general composition, tone, and bee turned out. This character’s concept art originally imagined them as a beekeeper who would use smoke to fight.

Day 25 - Fear

An incredibly rushed piece that I intended to go back in and add more detail to, similar to day 4, but I actually took a step back and decided I liked the blocky, flat-colour version. This character is the youngest of four, all of whom are MIA or worse, along with his father, and his mother is losing her memory. He’s talking to her through a handheld holographic device. This piece gained more traction, most likely thanks to the subject matter since this is a popular character.

Day 26 - Holiday

I didn’t want to do a religious holiday like Christmas or Easter. A lot of other people also interpreted the prompt as a vacation, but I had already done a sort of “beach vacation” piece for day 11, so I instead went for a “public holiday” and chose NYE/NYD. This was fairly quick but the lighting was an interesting experiment. I knew this one wouldn’t be as popular because it wasn’t as “flattering” but I personally really like it. The girl on the left is kind of goofy and completely un-self-conscious and I think it’s captured here.

Day 27 - Music

Really didn’t like how this one turned out. I don’t think the likeness is good at all, the lighting is poor, and the gold detailing feels lazy. But I liked other elements, such as the pose and the clothing.

Day 28 - Treasure

This is my least favourite of the entire month, but I also had the least time available to work on it before the deadline so I had no opportunity to scrap it and start over, which I sorely wanted to do. The likeness is terrible, but more than that the base anatomy is off, the pose is stiff, and the lighting/colours are cheap. I wish I could’ve done better by this character; but, I am glad I had something finished at all.

Day 29 - Skin

This was probably my third attempt at this picture and I’m still not happy with it, but again, I had to finish something. I almost considered scrapping the concept entirely and choosing something easier but ended up seeing it through. The concept itself is actually recycled from an older piece of mine for an entirely different fandom, because I didn’t think I did it justice then, either. Would still like to revisit this concept with this character and take more time.

Day 30 - Trust

After a few days of feeling really dissatisfied and uncomfortable with the art I’d been making, I finally more time to dedicate to a piece, and I’m overall happy with how this one turned out. I decided to go for a different medium entirely with pixel art, which also gave me the opportunity to try and animate it. I started off confident and then started to get worried towards the end, but all the elements came together when I added the portal colour effects. This is an alternate reality version of one of the player characters, who appears through a portal and allows that character to escape the facility she’s being kept in, encouraging them to trust the “voices” she hears which are actually versions of herself trying to help her. This piece was retweeted by the official Apex Legends Twitter account!

Day 31 - Freestyle

I had this planned out early in the challenge and I’m really, really happy with how it turned out. It’s probably tied with my favourite along with the very first piece (how fitting). I was worried about how I was going to capture the movement without over-complicating the lineart, having so many people in one image, etc. before I realised the focus was entirely on gesture, and then everything clicked. I went for a thicker brush, which forced me to conserve my lines, and tried to simplify each character down to the bare minimum needed to recognise them. They’re also all wearing new non-canonical outfits so I used their familiar colour schemes for the same purpose. It’s not perfect, but I love it, and it’s everything I’d hoped I’d be able to end the challenge on.

I really, really enjoyed the entire month and the way it tied in with my new time management schedule. It gave me some achievable short-term goals which added up to this long-term achievement I can now look back on; I learned a lot both about balancing my energy and about technical skills, I found ways to stay motivated, and most importantly I learned to not get caught up on the individual slip-ups and pieces I didn’t like as much and to instead focus on the bigger picture. Thank you to everyone involved in organising and supporting this event! I found so many other incredible fanartists, writers, and content creators through this challenge and I can’t wait to see the bonus content released over August!

#31 Days of Apex #31DaysOfApex #highlights

[castielartandcomics]

Can you give inking tips? My inking techniques SUCKS, and you'rs are incredible! (Totaly ok if you don't tell me tho)

First of all, I’M SORRY… This ask is here from probably months, and at first I didn’t have time to answer, but then I just straight up forgot about it and I’m so sorry about this! Hope I can still be helpful after so long, and sorry again!!

Thank you for considering my inking incredible, it makes me super happy! /)u(\ I grew really fond on inking, and it’ll be a pleasure for me to give you some tips!! This post might get a little long so, prepare yourself.

So, first things first!

1. Study the heck out other’s inking.

Take yourself some sweet free time and get something of your favourite authors. Inking, like drawing in general and a lot of other things, can be improved by first of all observing and studying how others do it - pretty much like when learning how to cook!So sit comfortably and get everything in front of you, and begin to really observe! I will give you a lot of examples, and they’ll be all from comics, since these are my usual inspiration because of the job I want to do. If you want to make illustrations, consider various illustrators, or covers of the comics!Just to give you a rough example of just how many inking techniques I looked up and still look at…

… these are just a little part of them. Look at how many different hands you can find, because everyone inks differently - and you don’t need to have them in physical form, you can also just look on the internet, but showing off part of my collection of comics and mangas is nice, haha-

2. Black and white VS coloured drawing

Do you want to make drawings that will stay black and white, or do you want to colour them? This is a very important question you should make to yourself, because the ink will eventually serve two different purposes.

Let me explain.

If you want to make a drawing that will remain black and white, the result will be very flat (obviously, because there will be no shades!). This means that your drawing will need to be clear, which you can obtain by making the character’s border thicker, the background thinner, and/or by making black shadows or elements on the characters to make them stand out.The most practical examples I can make you of this is from mangas:

In these panels from Dragon Ball Super, see how the characters have pure black elements while the background doesn’t? It makes them stand out a lot!

And in this from BBC’s Sherlock’s manga, despite the use of a lot of grays, the characters have black clothes (like John’s, under the jacket) or shadows on them that make them stand out against the background, that remains instead much more clean.

An inking that has to remain black and white is often more elaborate, then, because it has to make the scene as clear as possible with just the white of the paper and the black of the ink!

But, if you want to make a coloured drawing, the inking is generally kept simpler, because the colours will give the drawing the right equilibrium. A very elaborated and complex ink can get completely lost, or even ruined, when coloured - unless you want to make flat colours and want to give the ink more importance, but sometimes it gets lost in there too.

Look at this panel, for example, from PK (which I think is called Duck Avenger in foreign languages?). The comic is coloured, so the inking is left pretty simple, filling with complete black just a couple of things that are useful to the panel itself (pk’s costume, and the background behind the dust, that gives the scene a more scary look). If you take away the colouring, the drawing is very flat: because the colours make everything stand out!

Same thing for this panel of Blacksad: it’s far more elaborate, but the details are left pretty simple, even “sketchy”. It’s the colours that make everything move (handmade colours, even! This comic is fully colored in watercolours!)

Now, it’s not always the case:

In Witch Doctor, the inking is very defined and complex and yet it is also coloured, and the effect is very good! Even a bit “dirty”, which is very nice to see, seeing the horror theme of the story. As someone who has read all of it, I can tell you: sometimes it’s a bit distracting, though. It’s an incredibly complex ink, because the equilibrium between black and colours is hard to find, and sometimes it doesn’t work entirely. But when it does, the effect is incredibly cool and nice to look at!

Personally, my biggest inspiration when it comes to inking is Sky Doll:

The inking is so smooth, but manages to remain dynamic and even sketchy in certain details. And it couples with colours just PERFECTLY.And about this, actually:

3. Make your trait dynamic!

What I mean with this is that I noticed that a good inking trait isn’t the same in the entire drawing. Look up at Sky Doll’s panels, especially the first one: the details inside of the face are thinner than the border of it. To make a comparison, look at the trait that defines the border of the cheek, and then look at the sign on Lodovica’s cheek: it’s much thinner! It gives a clear impression of what is what.For another example, look at my last drawing of Sammy: try to focus on one part, like the bandages on the hand. The external trait for them, that defines where they start and where they finish, is thicker; the inside traits are thinner, and the traits inside them is even thinner.

4. Experiment. A LOT.

You won’t find your way of inking a drawing if you don’t try. Do you ink a lot digitally? Try doing it handmade. Try using only inking pens. Then try to use a brush to ink. They try to mix them! Do you feel better inking eyes with a pen, but hair with a brush? Try it! Try making a drawing with much more complex ink. Then try to make one with very simple ink! Try colouring it! Or even both, and see the difference! And digitally? Try changing brush. Then try inking the whole drawing without zooming in. Try inking it with a brush that doesn’t change size, than with one that changes size depending on how much you press! Try, try, try. A fun idea is also to make a sketch, make various copies of it, and then experimenting a lot of ways on the same drawing, and then see the comparisons! Try really everything, without fear, and without looking for extremely professional stuff: once I made a lot of drawings with a pen! Yes, a simple pen, with the ones you write with! Try that, too!And yes, at the beginning you’ll make a mess after another mess - but you’ll see, slowly you’ll start to get the hang of it, especially when you’ll understand what path is the right for you!

Just to make you an example, always with that Sammy drawing of mine: inks are completely handmade. The face traits, lines of the hair, and thinner details, are all made with inking pens; the border lines and the thicker ones are made with brush and fresh ink; the black of the vest and tie is made with marking pens that are used to write on cds; the washed-out black of the Bendy cutout is made with the same pens, but unloaded!Nothing is ever wrong, just try! And you’ll discover some neat tricks!

I hope this helped somehow!! And sorry again for making you wait so long!!If you need any other tips, I’m here ready to help! And hopefully I won’t make you wait so long again, haha- ^^’

#inking #inking tips #inking techniques #tutorial #inking tutorial #klydiar

[destinywillowleaf]

SWN-002 Wing Man

“That's the power of love!”

Wingman was created by Dr. Wily in an attempt to beat Mega Man in a field outside of battle by harnessing the power of love. Wing Man has flight capability and wields a piercing arrow called his "Cupid Crossbow". Being designed to defeat Mega Man through love, Wing Man has a large board dedicated to unravelling his love life. Similar boards exist for Proto Man and Bass, forming the "Tiny Trio". He'd call them the Big Three, but they're short.

Wing Man likes cheesy romcoms and dislikes Proto Man (for being hard to read). His strong point is his dedication to his task, though he can become blinded by the task at hand and not remember the other couples he's trying to get together.

This took longer than I expected to actually write and get out to share.

With this year’s Valentine’s contest over(courtesy of rockmiyabideusexmachina), I can finally talk about this boy! He was so much fun to make and I’m definitely gonna be using him more in the future. I’ve got a lot of thoughts on him, the stages of his design, and a lot of pictures, so it’s gonna be under the cut.

Now that that’s outta the way, let’s get into the process of Wing!

...I thought we were talking about Wing Man, who’s this?

Meet “Playboy Bunny”, this duality of a Maverick and the first draft of a character for this contest. Usually she’s the sweet Playboy Bunny, a majorly human-like Reploid acting as a performer. However, once you’ve provoked her, she throws off the sweet guise and becomes Magnet Hare, the quick and fast-attacking Maverick with attractive properties. 

To be honest, I’m half wondering if I would’ve done better if I had done more with her design and actually gone with her instead. The main reason I didn’t go with her in the end was cause I thought someone else was gonna go with it and then there would’ve been repeats.

I might come back and do more doodles of her someday, refining her design to be less human with bunny accessories and more rabbit/bunny with human-like proportions. 

The very first drawings of Wing Man. The only thing I really had down at this point were the general heart-shapes, his name, and his weapon’s name. The one on the left was the first draft, and the right one was a case of “should he actually have wings or nah?”. The name actually came to me when I was sitting in class and I think that’s part of the reason I got attached. The pun name is probably the biggest holdover from Bunny, though another element did come by later…

This is where the magic happened. The front-facing sketch was the first real attempt and trying to figure out what I wanted from him. I knew that he should have a general heart-shape for his chest armor, and maybe his helmet could follow the same idea with one in the center. It took a bit to look through the other Robot Master helmet designs, but I feel like Wing’s looks like it could fit with everyone else’s. At one point I was considering giving him a heart braid kinda like Tundra’s, but I wound up scrapping it. I think it was because I was sick of braids after doing so many for Nahyuta…

Then some arrows! I couldn’t decide whether to have actual arrows or energy arrows, but I feel like the energy arrows make it look more unique. And the first appearance of the bowtie! I didn’t even know if I was gonna give him one at first but once I made the doodle I knew it was gonna stay. Bunny has a bow, too, but hers was just a regular ribbon one. 

The collapsible crossbow was something I knew I wanted from the start, because Wing’s not a huge fighter. He will fight to achieve his goals, and sometimes it’s more necessary than at other times, but it’s easier to have it folded outta the way. The “string” of the crossbow forms when it is expanded out, and then he can start firing his weapon.

Also, his boot. Simple enough design. Not much to be said. Same goes for the side profile, I was just trying to get a better feel for his design.

I was debating for a while about whether or not to actually give Wing Man wings. On the one hand, it’d help for the joke of him being a wingman and a wing(ed) man, but on the other hand I don’t like drawing wings because I still don’t really understand them all too well.

The bottom center image was a pretty defining part of making Wing, to be honest. It’s probably one of my favorite drawings/doodles of him just because of the causal nature of suggesting a relationship with someone(and it’s up to you to decide who it is) and Rock’s immediate reaction of fear/concern. I don’t screw around with expressions enough anymore…

I don’t have any versions of this page without color on it, but that’s because this was a color testing page. I wanted to test out my physical colors first before spending too much time digitally experimenting, and I had two main ideas: either red-pen red in varying pressures or coral Sharpie highlighter. By the final design, you can tell which one I went with. I wanted to compare them side-by-side, and the half-and-half wasn’t really cutting it for me. I did a second comparison on the other page(which is gonna be further down this post).

I was trying to get a better grasp on the wings, too, since I eventually decided just to go for it and make it more of a pun.I couldn’t decide if I wanted the wings like on top of the jetpacks or off to the sides, but I went with on top of the jets in the end. The off to the side wings were taken from how Tengu Man’s “wings” are positioned. As for the wings themselves… I was honestly mostly taking reference from Pit’s emotion portraits from Kid Icarus Uprising. I had the image with all of his different emotions and it wasn’t like Wily would be going for complete accuracy how big wings would need to be since, y’know, jetpack.

The color scheme of the wings also changed over time, and I think probably for the better. Layering the colors instead of just making a weird gradient overtop looks nicer(even if those colors could probably use some refinement all things considered). I was also deciding on the weapon “type” for the crossbow, since Megaman’s weapon get picture is on this page. Piercer seemed like it would fit the best, going through multiple enemies in a straight shot.

Designing the ability get was actually pretty simple, which I’m glad about. I wanted to go more off of the Megaman 11 style of weapon get, altering the helmet, arm, and color only, and I wanted to stick to that. I also wanted to keep two of Wing’s more defining elements - his bow and wings - on the ability get, so I moved them from Wing’s torso to Rock’s helmet.

Alongside the ability get, an unfinished battle scene. Nothing too special here.

I tried the color testing thing again, and it was here, I believe, that I first settled on the idea of “hey what if he looked like he was wearing a suit or something” and colored it accordingly. The color on the feet honestly sold me on the left one, because the cherry-red was beautiful and it was just red pen under the highlighter. I was happy with the pieces I had and started to put it all together into the final product…

Every Robot Master needs a pose for their artwork, and Wing was gonna be no different. I could’ve gone for something more dramatic, I know, but I was really really happy how the posing turned out for the one on the left. The smaller one on the right was more for fun and was messing around with some line thickness. There’s also less feathers because I was kinda lazy.

The main reason I have him sitting is because I think his boss entrance, were he to be fought in a typical arena, would have him pulling a Meta Knight and coming down from a high ledge to attack. Saying his pre-battle line, sliding/jumping down from on-high, and with a flourish, the battle begins.

Also I just wanted to draw my boy looking cute. Sue me.

The physical version of Wing sitting(on the left) is what I had initially been going for in color scheme, with a lot less coral-ish colors in the mix. Trying to recreate those colors, however, was a problem, so for all intents and purposes this is what I hold as why he's really supposed to look like. But with a complete physical form, what's next?

...hoo boy.

Trying to make the leap from physical to digital was a pain. I realized after I had essentially finalized the physical sketch of Wing posing that the helmet and face kind of made no sense. I spent a while trying to make it right and nothing worked how I wanted it to so I eventually just moved on from that. 

One thing to know is that I basically only work in MS Paint. I don’t have any other digital drawing software on my computer and the tablet available to me doesn’t respond to styluses as far as I can gather. So taking the widely-varying-in-color picture and making it not like that was something I had to remember how to do because otherwise I was gonna suffer the consequences. I knew it had to do with outlines but apparently Paint didn’t want to accept my drawn outlines and would only take ones made in the software. And jpgs were pixel-y, which I forgot since the last time I was extensively using the software.

Once I had my system back, I made the silhouette and digitalized “I’m just sayin” as a practice round of sorts. But with the simple pieces out of the way… the time came for making the whole reference sheet. The pose, the front and side views, the shipping board to serve as a back view, the wings, the Weapon Get, the weapon, and the little character-defining details.

Save states fill most of this folder for a reason. Working with what I had and going over and through everything to make sure I had all the pieces ready, making saves before the background deletion so I would just have outlines, and just hoping that this was all gonna be worth the work.

One of the more… challenging, I guess, parts of the design process for Wing: trying to give him a unique silhouette. Including the wings was, in part, because of this. Most, if not every Robot Master has a unique silhouette that you can look at and say “Oh that’s [name here]” or at least be able to tell them apart. Whether it’s fire, a boomerang, a snake tail, a lightbulb, a weird body shape, or their arms, there’s something to set each one apart. And I wanted Wing to have that same feeling, so if you were to see a blacked-out version of him you could still tell that it was Wing and not someone else.

Without the wings, he’d probably resemble a downgraded Quick Man - which makes sense, considering I was using Quick’s body shape as a base for Wing’s for a more subtle top of a heart. But I didn’t want Wing just to look like Worse Quick Man, so the wings had to stay. The crossbow helps in that regard too, but the wings really set him apart.

This is what I’m talking about. He looks like a generic character without the wings.

Trying to keep Wing in the same vein of design as other Robot Masters was also, I guess, the reason I used the colors I did. Robot Masters typically don’t have too many colors, and didn’t want Wing to be a colorful mess. Maybe I could’ve had another more striking color in his design, but I’m happy with the colors I have. Reds and pinks and white with a skin tone taken from the physical doodles that I tried to have be a brownish-cherry if that makes any sense. Like it was supposed to still be in the red(kinda orange) family of colors but still be distinct enough as a skin tone. I didn’t want to have too many variations on colors, but I do think I could’ve done better on some of the distributions(and holding onto the idea of “stop using so many colors”).

Like I said, I consider the physical drawing to be the true colors of Wing, and the digital can’t quite capture the physical.

...Okay, I think that’s everything I wanted to say. If you actually read through this entire monstrosity of a post, thank you. I do have a full colored version of the "I'm just sayin'" that'll go up eventually because it was fun.

#willowtalks #willowarts #wing man #rockmiyabideusexmachina #Valentine's day 2020 robot master design contest #mobile is a pain #even though i don't like drawing wings i love my boy #i should work on my other projects #like Golden Days #or school stuff #if someone draws him ill cry #i should draw my characters moreeee #finally went back and edited the images to be in the right spots ^^; #mostly because i wanted to draw him again #still don't like drawing wings

[handmadecp]

A5 Leather Sketch Pad Cover.

Hi Guys, here’s another little Project that I reckon is suitable for all levels, as with the Previous A4 you can pretty much do as much or as little as you feel capable of for these. I’m doing a bit of a ‘Run’ on these types of covers at the moment as I discovered I have a draw full of new Notebooks etc. That’s what happens when you pick ‘the odd one’ up every time you go out. (Ha). but they are all varying sizes so should be fun figuring it all out. So..let’s get on.

So, here’s what I was aiming for and as you can see it came out pretty good. Always room for improvement..but not too shabby I think, hope you agree. I decided to do a Sheridan…esq’ type of design that I found in a big Leather craft book which I will show as we go through the build. Here we have the front view.

Back View

Side view showing the Tooled design going over the spine, I was going to leave it blank along here but after cutting the design in I didn’t like it so carried it around and I think it has given the cover a nice look, not often you see a cover with so much detail along the spine…you can do as you choose, it’s your project, if you are a beginner..don’t sweat the small stuff, just do what feels right for you, if you leave it blank this time…maybe you will have built some confidence by the second one..it’s all good. So let’s see how we got to this point.

I struggle to understand the ‘Ounce’ measurements they use to choose thicknesses..which is why I like to get hands on when choosing my leather, so for the benefit of all those who like me would rather they spoke English (lol) I will just describe it. I found a nice shiny, bendable and very ‘tactile’ piece of Veg tan leather, has to be on the high end of the ‘Grading’ as it is a beautiful piece..See, if you think it feels right for a Book cover..go for it, basically find a piece you like, not a dried out lower grade one as the shinier it is to start, the better the finished look will be.

Next I chose the book size I was going to do, I chose A5, you can choose whatever size you wish and just adjust for it as you make it. Seen here is me checking that I have a good excess around the edges. Many times when I first started I would think I had enough then by the time I’ve tooled, cut burnished, stitched and all the other doo dadding that goes on I would find that I couldn’t fit the book in any more and would have to cut the back cover to fit…not a good look…but you live and learn. also I will show another little trick that I use…I have to say I’ve never seen anyone else do this ‘ever’..so I’m claiming it lol. keep reading.

I like to use this method as it saves on a lot of measuring ( not that measuring is bad..I just prefer simpler ways..like this. I place the book inside the cover (to be) and run my finger around the outline of the book as shown here, this leaves a nice outline of the book…after that all I have to do is make sure I don’t glue or stitch any where near that and I’m good to go. Easy. Also, you can do this more permanent as a feature by wetting (Casing) the leather and use something to make the outline more pronounced as a ‘Feature. I like this look but it’s your choice.

Here I am tracing the design I want from a big Leather Craft book, there are many to choose from out there.( I can draw, but tracing is much quicker, I’m still practicing my Sheridan tecnique…for a future project. So this is fine for now. ) Tape the paper down if you need to, I would recommend decorators paper tape..it leaves less marks and doesn’t tend to tear your books. (Generally lol).

Next I wet (Cased) the leather really well, you don’t want it soaking , then leave it to dry out a bit enough to place the tracing over it without it going ‘mushy’. take a ball point stylus tool if you have one and trace over the whole design. If you don’t have one..you can use a pencil or pen but go easy you don’t want to tear through the paper, you only need a light imprint.

Here you can see how the ‘imprint’ has come out, faint but enough, no deep gouges. also note the outline of the book after I wet it and rubbed all around it. I actually used a spoon to do that.

I have chosen to use my new swivel knife with the thicker grip, it is a better option for people with hand problems like myself.

Almost half way, I am cutting the design into the leather. You need to remember how thick..or not your leather is, you want to leave a reasonable depth cut but at the same time you don’t want to cut right through…not a good look.

The design is now cut into the leather and ready for tooling. By now there should still be sufficient moisture in the leather to give a good imprint of the tool…if when you strike the tool you are left with a dark..brownish looking mark   / line..then the moisture is about right, if it is very light then just wipe a damp sponge over it again…not as much as the first time as you are just ‘Topping up’ the moisture content.

Using the Swivel knife, notice I’m trying to keep the knife straight..but I am also tilting it back at an angle ..basically cutting using one corner of the blade.  I learned all this from youtube vids, there are a lot of talented people out there willing to share their knowledge to us for free. Using a swivel knife feels very strange if you have never used one before, I thought I would never get it right…but time and practice is all you need.

The design after the cutting is done.

Half way through the Beveling. Note the white glove, I use soft cotton gloves to prevent my finger nails leaving drag lines or indents on the leather, I was told about this from a youtuber and it’s a great bit of advice for helping to keep your work that bit more professional looking, but …your choice.

Beveling finished, now for the detail work using the rest of my tools and the swivel knife again.

Half way through the detailing.

Close up of the detailing work, the darker areas are the ones that haven’t dried out as quickly.

Notice the marks on the flower leaves, these are called ‘Decorative cuts and are not meant for beveling, they add depth and character to a picture ( this is all learned from youtube vids, I highly recommend you have a look if unsure how to do certain things…or feel free to ask me  and I’ll answer as best I can, by the end of this there wil be hundreds more.

Much more detailing done now, there is a tool called a Pear shader…so called because it is shaped like a pear lol…I have used it to give a flattened almost bruised look to some of the leaves, you can see the light catching on them on the leaves. also, lots of ‘spiraling’ done now along the edges of leaves making them look like they want to unfurl. all these looks are created using a very basic tooling set, it just takes practice. I am by no means a professional…far from it but I have been doing this now for three and a half years and have seen how my old work looks compared to todays, like I said..it takes practice and I practice every week and hope to get even better one day.

After letting it dry out for a while this is starting to look like a book cover now.

Glad I chose to cover the spine too, it looks great.

So now I need to fit the inner piece that will hold the book in place, nothing fancy here, I just cut a piece of the same leather to fit, glued the edges with my evo stick 528 glue (which I use all the time) as shown in next pic and stuck them together , used a roller to flatten it.

Marked the area to glue..expecting that some of it will get cut off when I ‘Trim’ the cover to it’s final size…but for now it helps.

I have now trimmed the cover to it’s required size and used a coin to round the corners, it always looks better than leaving them square I think.

You can see here that I’ve done a stamped edge to the inner piece, there will also be one on the outside upper area , it catches the eye and ‘pulls’ the whole thing together…in your mind.  ( wooaah..deep lol. ) See the block of wax, If you are punching the stitch holes and you find it getting trapped in the leather…once out, push it into the wax a few times then try again, you should find that it slides out easily.

So, we are all cut, bevelled, tooled, stamped and had stitch holes put in where needed, now I’m covering the bits I don’t want to dye, I like the inside to be left flesh colored so I use Decorators tape to cover it but you might choose to dye that too. I’ve also tucked a piece underneath the inner flap thingy piece incase any dye tries to ‘wick’ to the underneath.

As it’s a big ..ish area to dye I didn’t use the daubers they awould take too long and it’s harder to get even coverage, so I use a sponge as shown and it goes on fast and I am able to even it out quickly as shown below.

A nice even coating of the Eco Flo Burgundy color water stain dye. here it is drying out.

Same on the inside, here it is dried and tape removed.

Here you can really see the Leather taking on a new life as a Book Cover but it still needs the Antique coating to really make the design stand out.

About to add the Antique dye, when using this if your first time, put some on a sponge…have some rags to hand….rub it over the area you want to cover ..as quickly as you can then wipe off immediately…Antique dye will darken everything it touches within seconds, so get it on and wipe off, if there are areas that need more…put a bit more on and do the same again…on..then off. Eventually you will probably just need to check there are no tiny areas that need doing..just dab these areas and wipe of until done. If however you look at it and think..oops it’s really darker than I expected now, don’t panic, also have to hand a fresh sponge with some water, dampen the sponge and wipe gently those area you wish to lighten. Don’t press down or you will lift the dye from inside the detail lines….you want the dye to stay inside the detail as that’s what makes it stand out.

Right, so now we are within sight of the finish line, you should be pretty pleased with your efforts by this point if you have given it a go. here you can see the decorative stamp work across the top, this was added to cover a large un tooled area but once a line of stamp was added inside as well it all started to become one. ( Yes..we arty farty types do get dramatic hahahaha. )..nearly there.

The full area just antiqued and drying.

For a finishing touch I added a small snap stud fastener strap which I stamped before doing the stitching.

That strap was attached with a rivet as can be seen here, nothing flashy and I coated the dyes parts of the project with leather Sheen by Fiebings, using a sponge again, there will be bubbles when you do this…there always are, some people water this stuff down a bit and that works for them, but I use it straight and keep gently sponging until the bubbles are gone and it starts to dry and disappear.

You can see the bubbles as I add the sheen coating, easy to do, just keep wiping gently and as the sheen thickens there become less bubbles ..then it goes smooth and see through leaving a lovely shine.

You can leave it there if you like, just Buff up the sheen coating till it shines and you’re done, or..you can add a Leather Balm coat, I use Effax from Norway which is a Bridle treatment that softens leather and it smells great, you could also use Aussie coat or any other Good leather balm if you wanted, that’s just my preference.

These two previous pics show me rubbing in the Balm coat, It’s very waxy so I also then use a hair dryer (Not a heat gun)..to melt the Balm, leave it about 20 mins and then start buffing as I am doing here, it can take a while but keep going because that effax balm does shine up after a bit of elbow grease and the finished look is just brilliant.

Annnnd..we’re done. If you’ve made one of these yourself after this give yourself a round of applause, if you are thinking of doing one after seeing this..I highly recommend you do…you will have great fun and a sense of accomplishment when you are done. If you can’t tool..no problem..a plain nicely dyed and shined up leather cover looks equally as stylish and cool. Hope you will put your pics up if you give it a go..please send me some private pics in my messages as I don’t seem to be getting to see anybodys work lately….and ask any questions, always happy to help, thanks. More to come from the new Workshop this year, hoping to be self employed soon and will be banging stuff out lol…well..thats the idea, we’ll see. Guys, thank you for following my little blog, I hope it entertains you and encourages some of you to give it a go. ‘Till next time..stay Crafty.

#book covers #leather books #leather covers #crafts and hobbies #student books #artist books #Arts and Crafts #gift ideas #drawing pads #sketch pads #artists #drawing #drawing supplies #leather goods

[critterpdf]

What kind of things do you use for your traditional art? Like supplies n stuff gjfk

hey bud! I hope u are ready for a big ol’ tangent dssfvjdf

TOOLS

So like for sketches (which y’all rarely see) I just use a graphgear 500 .3 mm lead! I also have 2 different eraser sticks? eraser pencils? what are they even called sbfhsd

EDIT:  The blue eraser is the Staedtler Stick Eraser and the green one is the Tombow MONO Knock 3.8

my brush pens.... my inkers... these two pens are my babies that i love and will die for. the grey one (which is what i used for the pinecone pic) is the Pentel Aquash light black (its grey. its grey pentel you can just say grey). It’s just so fckin PRETTY and gives such good textures!! the black pen is the “Pentel Pigment Ink Brush Pen - Extra Fine“ if you ever just wanna look for it on amazon lol. I got my first one of these like. in 2014? 2015? and i love them so much for the good variation in line thickness. Super thick to super thin without even having 2 change pens! Plus, if you have a shaky hand, this pen is pretty forgiving - you cant really see mistakes as easy. 

these! are what i use for lil’ deets in white or when i wanna fill a space! The gel pens (gellyroll) are pretty good for like, adding chatter or patterns, but the posca pens are better for when i need a more opaque option. I’ll give a little more detail on that in a bit!

And these!!! you guys also dont see too much color in my traditional artwork, but these are my pens - Faber-castell pitt artist brush pen..... as u can tell i just really love brush pens. They don’t have the same sort of brush tip as the ink pens, but they are defs still brush-like in nature and i love them

honorable pen mention: the pebeo masking fluid marker. i’ve been doing my art in a very Weird way as of late which like. doesn’t work well w the drawing gum but!!! i really love using it when i actually use the correct kinds of paper that can, u kno, stand up to being rubbed!! which like, is how u remove this stuff

TECHNIQUE??

recently ive just been doing art funky, like, just ink straight onto cheap tracing paper. like, yea, the paper curls really bad which sucks but also you get such a nice texture from it!!!

The other fun thing abt tracing paper is layering! What I do is I will line the image on one side of the tracing paper, and then color the reverse image on the back. Once all the ink has dried, I take my pc-5m white posca pen and just cover up the back!! that way i can have areas where the color still pops, while other areas are transparent. What also works really nicely is like. it helps w tonal stuff too? like in the pinecone pic I went ahead and used my light black (its just grey oh my god) pen on both sides of the paper, and that’s why marina’s tentacles are darker than her skin despite using one pen.

When I am being a “””””Good, Proper Artist””””” (no such thing, moving on), I like to use strathmore sketchbooks (usually the recycled paper bc its a little more off-white), and I just recently found the strathmore mixed media visual journal which is nice for like, ink and stuff.

There’s some other stuff I don’t use too often - actually bottles of ink w actual brushes, watercolors, etc - but these are my mains. 

tl;dr i main a brush in both splatoon and irl

#dsfhbjsdb im sorry if this was too much i just love talking abt art supplies #my art #putting that in the tag just like #why not #ask #long post // #4thagent

[mysticsparklewings]

Roses in Your Eyes

Oh look, a not-Inktober thing! So after my first dive into The Realm of Gouache, I really wanted to play with the medium a little more and try doing some different things with it. More accurately, I wanted to try using the gouache more opaquely, since last time I took a more transparent/watercolor approach. Full disclosure, I actually had the sketch for this done before the gouache set even arrived to me. My original plan was to do the rose part of the "glasses" in the watercolor style from my In Bloom Le Plumes piece, maybe the leaves too, and then do the hair and possibly the skin in the more opaque gouache style. That was the plan so that I could try to get the most out of both sides to what gouache can do. But after I got the gouache and swatched it out, I wanted to try something a little more experimental before I jumped into this drawing so that I'd have a better handle on what I was actually working with. So that's where the first gouache painting came in. So it was after that when I made the decision to commit a little more closely to using gouache in it's more opaque form. The concept for the drawing is something of a play on the phrase "looking through rose-colored glasses," (or whatever the full version of that phrase is, you know what I mean). The original expression, as I'm sure we all know, means seeing something as being better than it actually is, usually because of personal bias. This idea takes it to a bit of an extreme; the glasses aren't just tinted in a rose color, they're straight-up roses. Instead of just viewing something as better than it actually is, the person is willfully ignoring or otherwise blinded to seeing things as they really are entirely. And possibly hurting themselves in the process, if the roses have thorns. (I didn't draw any but they could be there, unseen.) A couple of other notes on the drawing design before I move on: I went with buns in the hair since I usually draw loose/down hair and wanted to mix it up a bit, and to "close off" the drawing I added the leaves at the base of her neck, which also kind of double as a shirt-collar in terms of appearance, which I thought was neat. The leaves and the bit of vine across the nose, as may be obvious, are supposed to represent the frame and bridge of glasses. I transferred the lines from the sketch to piece of Strathmore mixed media paper since I didn't think I'd be using enough water or watercolor techniques to warrant breaking out some 100% cotton paper, but I wanted something thick enough to handle paint, and I thought the smooth-ish texture would suit the gouache based on what experimenting I'd already done. The roses for the eyes had no lines, and admittedly I probably could've gotten away with even fewer lines than the ones I did transfer since the gouache is opaque. I actually had a fair number of hairlines drawn in that got totally covered up since that was way easier than trying to carefully work around them. Anyway. For all the gouache parts, I started with a darker base color, since it's usually recommended that you work from dark to light in gouache, and then I'd go back in with 2-3 lighter colors on top to add shading/depth. The main issues I ran into were when the gouache color wasn't totally opaque, such as the rose base color (which is actually called "Rose," believe it or not) which gives me mixed feelings because on the one hand, it can look kind of interesting in giving you less structured, more unpredictable shading based on how you layer it, but also...well, it's not as opaque, so you have work with it slightly differently compared to the more opaque colors. The other issue was that I really struggled to have enough paint on my brush, particularly when doing tiny details, to get the full opacity and smooth color that I wanted, without leaving a glop of paint where it didn't need to be. Especially in areas like the hair that had a lot of fine tapering lines. I'm not sure how much of the problem is me and how my is or isn't my brushes or what, but this is something I occasionally have issues within acrylic painting too, but it felt way more prevalent here. I did manage to fix some areas that got away from me by layering darker colors back on top of the lighter ones, but then you also have areas like one of the loose hair strands around her chin that got away from me and I had to make noticeably longer than it originally was in order to fix it. (You can probably guess which one it was without me having to point it out for you.) I also had an "issue" in that it was seemingly very easy to mix up way too much of custom color, but that's more of a me problem than a problem with the paint. (And admittedly the above aren't necessarily paint-specific problems either.) Speaking of which, I'm still not sure if my "Titanium White" and "White" got mixed up or not, but since I suspect they did, I used the one I felt like looks more like the mixing white to do so. (Although admittedly I probably could've tried some mixing tests with both to see if I noticed a difference there whatever, perhaps some other time.) And I specifically avoided using black, since I thought it would be too harsh in mixes. For the hair, I just used one of the pre-mixed browns for my darkest and then used lighter colors and made my own lighter mixes to go over it. For the leaves, I actually mixed some of the Prussian Blue into one of the greens to make it darker. I think I may have benefitted from going a little lighter on how much of the blue went in, though. The roses were actually one of the more fun parts since they didn't have to be so precise or specific to make the look work. I started with a base of the Rose/hot pink color, mixed a lighter pink to make sections that probably should've been a little less light in color and slightly larger in shape, and then a slightly lighter pink than should have been lighter to layer on top of the already lighter pink parts. Partly because of some the issues I mentioned earlier and partly because I was just kinda going for whatever with only a minimal plan, I did have to go back and forth with the lights and darks in some areas on these, and I still don't think they look quite alike enough, even though I never intended to make them perfectly symmetrical. I also decided to not totally abandon gouache's watercolor properties with the background, since at this point I was thinking I didn't want to leave it plain white, but I also didn't want to do anything too complicated or intense that might take away from the rest of the art and the concept behind it. So I watered down some of the pink I used for the roses' base color and just kinda went over the background to my heart's content until I was happy with what the textures were doing since I knew it was unrealistic to expect to be able to get the background totally smooth trying to work around the rest of the drawing. Now, originally I was planning on painting in the skin with the gouache, however, I made the grave mistake of not thinking about it until after I'd pretty much finished with all the other painted parts, and I really did not feel like trying to paint around everything. And, honestly, I really did like the contrast of the white skin against the other colors. I did acknowledge that I could have mixed a gray from the gouache and shaded the white skin with that, but it felt like too much of a risk and still like too much of a hassle, so I conceited that I could bring other mediums into this since I'd already done my gouache-exclusive test piece. I grabbed a couple of very, very light gray Copic markers and added some very careful, very subtle shading to the skin. And you guys haven't seen the first time I used this mixed-media paper just yet (it's coming down the pipeline, I promise!), but for the second time I'm kind of in love with how it handles alcohol markers and I really need to try a more marker-heavy illustration on it sometime.   After all that though, it was still missing a couple of things. I ended up breaking out my white uni-ball Signo gel pen to line around the girl just so she really would pop off the background, opting for it instead of the white gouache because, again, that seemed like too much of a chore to try and do. And my white Sakura gelly roll tends to be a little more transparent compared to the Signo, and I really wanted the stronger, stark white look. Then after some thinking, I added the rose lines in the background using a pink and a green Sakura gelly rolls and the stencil I've toyed with using on other projects before. And overall it, it has its faults (especially if you look at it too closely), but I really like how the whole thing turned out. It has almost a surreal vibe to it that I think drives home the initial concept really nicely, and just, in general, it's very sweet colors but has a more eerie feel to it. (At least when I look at it, anyway.) It also very vaguely gives me Luna-Lovegood vibes, so of course, I like it for that alone. I'm not sure what I'm going to make with the gouache next, as so far it seems its planning requires a slightly different thought process than I'm used to, but I have some ideas and all this has succeeded in doing is making me want to use the gouache more.  This definitely isn't the last we'll be seeing of it, that's for sure! ____ Artwork © me, MysticSparkleWings ____ Where to find me & my artwork: My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble |   Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram

[shaddy-bee]

I KNOW ITS BEEN LIKE 300 YEARS BUT-

5 things you’ll find in my bag

Right now theres uhh Notebooks, both school and 1 art. Drink mix ins, with such great flavors as sour apple jolly rancher and crush pineapple (tm) Two packs of cards, one of which steam punk themed and the other your regular ol bicycle. A calculator. Its a shitty old one but its for tests, i have google and shit for anything i need myself.

5 things you’ll find in my bedroom

A roommate. Idk if he is gay or what but he isnt straight, name’s will. Chill dude. Sleepin rn, what a fella MY SICK ASS COMPUTER IM MISSING OUT ON BECAUSE MY ROOMMATE IS ASLEEP AAAAAAAAAAAAAA I WANNA PLAY ROCKET LEAGUE WITHOUT LAGGING TO HELL also programming my mods. Need to upload that shit. Shit what number we on, 3? Okay cool. A bed. Wow really a bed in your bedrooM? yeah its pretty fuckin spectacular i know. I dont have posters n shit so like i gotta be creative you feel. A microfridge. Now i know what youre thinking, “ah a small fridge whats the big deal?” but no you dont understand, its a microwave fucking bolted onto the top of a fridge. They gave zero fucks attaching these two together and apparently the name is the same way, WHY NOT A FRIDGEWAVE EVEN LIKE MICROFRIDGE JUST SOUNDS LIKE A SMALL FRI- Last but not least, im tempted to just say my wallet here tbh, cuz its old but like, youd EXPECT that now would you? Something boring and mundane for me to fill out the word count with making everything super exciting so nah man, fuck it. Theres air in my bedroom. Fight me.

5 things I’ve always wanted to do in my life

Make a videogame. Like okay, a lot of stuff on this list is jokes and stuff, and I know im going into too much detail and my followers will probably murder me in cold blood for this shit, but im serious about this one like - i have some ideas, but i never have the motivation alone to like work whole-heartedly and finish one but like, at some point in the future id love to sit down and just go at it and make a game. Doesnt matter if its popular or big or small just i wanna make something that i love ya feel? I wanna like, go to newark, delaware. I know, its delaware and all, no one lives there, but ive met a bunch of cool people there and i was promised a donut run sometime, so lookin forward to that. Yknow that post awhile back that was like “i dont wanna be rich and like buy shit, i just wanna have enough money to throw at kickstarters whenever i want without having to strain on my food and rent costs” thats me. 100% Like i wanna have just enough money to be able to donate to cool people and watch them do cool shit - it wont always work out but thats fine, I just love shit. I wanna be able to donate like the high prize and fly out to meet these game studios for coffee and shit and just talk with em and see their passion and ideas. I love it. Im not actually really sure besides those. Like idk. I think itd be cool to enter a game tournament with my brother and win, but i doubt thatll happen and its not super like on my desires just itd be cool cuz we named ourselves Sora and Shiro after NGNL and to see that like, have us win would be great. Yeah. Ill make my fifth to think of a fifth one.

5 things on my to do list

FLOPPY DICKS i mean disks. Floppy disks. I do binding of isaac ab+ modding shit, and im currently working (its mostly done for what i want it to do) which adds a new consumable called floppy disks, effects are based on viruses, bugs, and just computer based shit. Like BSOD for instance, which makes the screen literately bluescreen. Or atleast look like it. Cant wait to watch people play with it. I gotta work on the programming class project too but honestly i dont waannnaaa. Like its cool as shit. Recreate a card game using c++ code. But man, i just love Apocrypha and Floppies so much more. Eat today???? Please. Dining hall opens in 3 hours. Its goddamn 4 am. I want my food. Dunno if ill get it - if ill stay awake till then. But i want it. Probably draw some stuff? Like i posted one drawing already (check it out if u wanna ;) kay?) but like theres wacom tablets here i can just kinda use whenever???? its great. I love being able to just draw stuff on em. Even if i suck at drawing, even if it took 10 hours to make the one i posted here, still love. Probably play more rocket league. Sleep first, soon as i get that food im CRASHIN BOI IM OUTTIE HA but uhh, rocket league has a halloween thing rn and i like playing it. Was playing earlier today and i matchd with a dude in 2v2 that had the same car, skin, AND colors set up as mine. Totaly random. We kicked some major ass together. I kept thinking of the same hat comic the entire time. (also my card was superior because it had furry ears on it ;))

5 things that make me happy

Getting an idea for a thing and working at said thing until like boom it went from this abstract idea to now it has a physical form and it works! And its fun and its great and i can share it with other people and they can have fun too!!!! that feeling is wonderful.  Obviously friends man. Just doing shit with people can be so great sometimes - like not all the time sure but like man. Its nice to talk to people and share experiences and just smile and tell bad jokes and have them groan but like it anyway like thats the shit. Going out at 2 am and walking to a nearby run down schoolyard and swinging on the swingsets and watching shooting stars burn up. Thats the good shit. Getting tents and setting em up in your friends back yard when your friend from far away comes up for a few days, and playing ridiculous games in a group like kick the can or fuckin zombie screaming your lungs out in the dark to freak em out, or just talkin around a fire about fuckin life man. The people make life great. Shits worth living for. I realize that last answer covered a LOT of shit but like, im just gonna add here videogames. Would be amiss if i didnt mention that, considering the rocket league rant above lmao. Yeah i better not make this category any longer.

5 things I’m (currently) into

Isaac modding, probably will be for awhile. Its good shit. As a suggestion from one of the people I work with (we also fuck around its a good time) i have started watching space dandy. Its a slow progress through lol like an episode or two a day but god man like its pretty ridiculous and the main character is pretty much everything i was expecting from seeing him everywhere. Rocket league again. It comes and goes with various different games to tide me over, give me a break from working. Bout 2 months ago or so said relaxing time was dominated by anime - i suddenly went on like a massive streak of watching shit. By that i mean, i watched all of hunter x hunter in like 2 weeks, among other shows prior to it. But yeah. Fuck man HXH I LOVED THE KING WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. I have too many emotions about that. I wrote a rant to the Groupchat (tm) about the fucking battle and how everything is in slow motion but it fucking like makes it like foreshadowed and have so much of an impact and still so much fucking happens even while everything runs at super slow mo just GOD KLASFJBHUGHASFIUHIPJASK anyway. Yeah. Music, as always im listening to like constantly. Wireless headphones are a wonder for this, but uhh....i cant say im especially into any specific thing rn right? Like a bit ago i was super into joywave and then that faded out and now im just listening to whatever random shit, yknow? But I am into music in general. Its good. Art! A lot of times i dont do shit like for drawing right, like especially not in like pencil in notebooks but like, i sorta started doing a lot more art stuff? Like i had a period awhile back last year where i stopped using pencils and used only pens and i just loved the aesthetic of the ink like how it looked (funny how im doing the opposite of the fucking inktober though, huh?) but yeah im back into using pencils to draw shit occasionally. Im still terrible at drawing people (which is what i see mostly everyone drawing on tumblr lmao RIP) but its fun to sketch stuff out and just let my thoughts run and bounce to some music and shit right? Also the tablets. Especially with the tablets.

5 things people may not know about me (at least on tumblr)

I basically constantly wear sweatshirts, and they all have like earbuds where the strings go. All the earbud shits are broken pretty much, like occasionally they work (the one i have rn does) but like, i dont ever really use them? i have wireless headphones for my phone and a headset (because i need the mic for my computer) for said computer so like, idk. But yeah. I rarely take em off when im not home, and sometimes even when i am i just kinda keep em anyway? (also just now i realized i talked in the section for room shit about all the stuff in my current dorm, my room at home has all KINDS of wierd fucking shit in it. Really missed an opportunity there.) Like many people i like to stay hydrated and shit, but drinking water all the time seemed like a chore more than anything so i got like drink mix ins and shit, mio’s or whatever offbrand version you can find at your local SUPERSTORE CONGLOMERATE. I drink em like all the time pretty much so atleast im health in one way :P. Also gummy vitamins. I dont excercise but you can only ask for so much. Idk, its hard to think of things for this section because tumblr knows so little about me yknow? Like i never make my own posts or shit like its SUPER rare so im pretty much just tryna find random facts but that might not be interesting? Like i have a bad habbit of like talking way too loud when im excited about something right? Not quite yelling but like getting there and like idk. See? Thats not super interesting but it is something no one online would be able to really know ya feel? Idk. I mean physically im kinda fat as you do, but im also like wierdly strong? Like for someone who never works out i sure do have arm strength if nothing else lmao. My endurance is shit tho. Honestly? I can only blame it on osu and groceries. Osu is just a game i like where you mash buttons to the beat of weaboo shit tier music. The groceries is just because like, well, my policy is Least Trips Possible which means carrying in 13 bags at a time if need be it, fuck it milk too? And a watermellon? Bring it. 

Who am I tagging? Idk man. Just for shits and stuff tho i do wanna tag @theoriginalyami just to see what all’s changed in teh long time since i actually went to fill it out :P Dont feel like you have to add as much as me tho omg @milkchocolateowl because honestly? love you. Think about you a lot, just like glad im mutuals with that ray of sunshine. Good. @fantaledfish <3 (this is the friend i mentioned earlier, runs a QUALITY blog i guarantee it, better than mine for sure) @dragonfucker-supreme always top in my notes, a silent bond, like two guards assigned to watch back to back in the early dawn. Birds gather round. I can only tag so many people (i set myself a limit of 5 because...idk why i just mentally it felt right) so for my last trick gotta go with @ask-oncies-jizz like cmon man name changes for the win, also has quality icons and quality shitposts tbh, supreme top meme. Have fun yall.

#god im #sorry #this is long #i hope its atleast somewhat enjoyable though yknow? #<3 #shaddy-online

[postfuguestate]

Rewrites

So I’m writing this Life is Strange fanfic called Grit and I recently found a draft of a scene where the protagonist, Victoria, has a run-in with her social rival, Rachel Amber. I had to rewrite that scene from scratch, partly because I thought that I had lost that draft.

The high quality of those opening sentence indicate how necessary redrafting is for me, generally...

Anyway, for (hopefully) fun, I’m bunging the original draft and the final version below for your comparing and contrasting pleasure!

(And if you wanted to read the whole thing from the start, you can read it right here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10449993/chapters/23067879 )

So, a quick note: the original draft was written a couple of months before the final draft. I had an idea of what the scene was likely to be, but I didn’t know specifically where it would fit into the story, or where Victoria was emotionally. So the original draft was written in a vacuum, just to get the ideas down.

This isn’t really a normal process for me. I tend to just rework and refine a draft rather than write multiple versions. But I thought this might be interesting?

Oh, and I have resisted the considerable temptation to fix anything in the first draft. It’s pretty much as I first wrote it.

First Draft:

"Well, well, Victoria Chase walks among us again! I would be strewing rose petals at your feet, but I ran out of roses."

Rachel fucking Amber strides towards Victoria across the quad with all the poise and certainty of a catwalk model. And while she might be too short to walk runways, she's too beautiful not to turn heads wherever she passes.

Everything about Rachel Amber pisses Victoria off at the best of times, but if her voice is warm, her words are ice down Victoria's spine.

"Fuck off, Amber. We're not friends and I'm not interested in that changing."

Rachel gasps in mock horror. "Don't you even want to know how my Thanksgiving was? Or what I did with all my roses?"

"I want to go to my dorm without throwing up at the stench of skank. Move."

Rachel isn't really blocking her path, and it would be easy to walk around her, but that would be too much like giving in for Victoria to consider it.

Rachel taps her chin with one long finger. Her nails are perfect. "Hmm. Here I was, all ready to tell you all about Heliogabulus and a prank I have conceived in his honour, and you go straight to cheap insults."

"Still don't care. Get to the point or move."

Rachel pouts. "I'm almost beginning to think that you don't like me, Victoria!"

"You are slow on the uptake, Rachel. I'd hate you if I thought you were worth the energy."

Rachel's expression brightens. "Ooh! That's a bit better! Still room for improvement, but preferable to name-calling."

Victoria takes a step forward. She glares down and the shorter girl. "Are you done?"

"Fine, fine!" Rachel holds up her hands. "I was only teasing. I'd like it if we could be friends, Victoria. Or at least not enemies. Having enemies clogs the pores, don't you think?"

Victoria smiles her most cutting smile and steps forward. Rachel moves out of the way, and Victoria smirks and heads towards the dorms.

She makes it two more steps before Rachel says, "You should lay off Taylor."

Victoria stiffens. She turns around and glares at Rachel. Rachel smiles pleasantly back at her. Victoria growls, "What the fuck did you say?"

Rachel shrugs. "Taylor. You know, the girl who seems to want spend all her free time in your shadow? She's too nice to be stuck with you."

Victoria feels her skin heat up. "Fuck you, Rachel. You don't know anything about me. Or Taylor. Who happens to be my best friend."

Rachel laughs. "Oh, Victoria. You're kinda transparent, y'know? And the only thing you and Taylor really have in common is that you're both trying too hard to be you."

Victoria glares at Rachel but for some reason she can't stop herself sounding defensive when she asks, "What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"

Rachel rolls her eyes. "Oh, honey. You're not the right kind of pretty to be so obvious."

Victoria does not need any of this right now. She grits her teeth. "Why don't you go fuck-"

Rachel steps forward, crowding Victoria. Her are like icebergs: cold, hard, dangerous and hinting at unknowable dimensions beneath the surface.

In a flat, clipped voice Rachel says, "What? Don't like it when someone pops out of nowhere and starts giving you shit for no good reason? Huh. And I thought that was your thing."

Victoria can't think of anything to say, not before Rachel steps back, grinning and warm again. "Anyway, see you at the Vortex reunion bash later?"

Rachel keeps backing away, head cocked and grin locked in place.

Victoria can only ask, "What the fuck...what is your problem?"

Rachel laughs and spreads her arms. "Oh, come on, don't you know? There are no problems, only opportunities! Later, sweetie!"

And with that, Rachel pivots on her heel and strides off. She's long gone before Victoria can think of anything to say.

And the Final Version:

Victoria doesn't want to retreat, but she doesn't want to have to deal with Rachel. She tries to walk past the table, ignoring her.

Before Victoria has even drawn level with her, Rachel says, "Victoria Chase walks among us again!"

Victoria pauses, reluctantly.

Rachel is drawing her right hand with her left. Near the wrist, her sketch dives beneath the skin, revealing muscle, sinew, and bone.

It's exquisite. And fucking creepy.

Rachel looks up at her, smiling all the way to her hazel eyes. "If I'd known you'd be out so early, I'd have brought some roses. I could've strewn rose petals in your path."

Victoria's whole body tenses, the last wisps of her delicate mood burning away. "If I'd known you were going to be here, I'd have gone somewhere else."

Rachel laughs cheerfully. She taps her chin with the pen while she studies Victoria.

"Hmm. Good thing I didn't waste all those roses, I suppose. Perhaps I'll borrow a trick from Heliogabulus when I use them later."

Victoria wants Rachel to stop talking, but she doesn't want to show weakness. "Perhaps you'll get to the fucking point. If you actually have one?"

Rachel switches her pen to her right hand, and makes a few quick, bold strokes on a fresh page of her sketchbook.

"I'm just saying welcome back, Victoria. Be nice, or I won't tell you who Heliogabulus is."

Rachel's pen moves quickly. Her eyes stay mostly on Victoria, though she flicks a glance at the page from time to time. Her lips continue to smile.

"I don't give a shit!"

Rachel glances down, saying, "That's really not your problem, my darling Chase."

"I don't have any problems, precious Amber."

Rachel raises her free hand and waggles it. "Eh. Bit obvious, but not bad. You and Taylor both have the same problem, in fact."

Victoria grits her teeth. "Other than dealing with you, I don't see what that could be."

Rachel finishes sketching. She tears the page out of her book, and shows it to Victoria. She's surprised to see her own face scowling back at her. It's a simple sketch, but startlingly lifelike.

As Victoria studies herself through Rachel's eyes, Rachel says, "You're both trying too hard to be you."

Victoria stares at her. "What...? What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"

Rachel tuts. "Oh, honey. You're the wrong kind of pretty to be that kind of dumb."

Victoria isn't sure when she started shaking. She has to make a conscious effort not to chew her lip.

With a convulsive jerk, Victoria yanks Rachel's drawing out of her hand. She tears it in half, wads the pieces into a ball and tosses it at Rachel's face.

Rachel doesn't even so much as blink when it hits her cheek. "Play nice, Victoria," she says, calmly.

"Listen, bitch. I've tolerated your bullshit so far, but I'm about fucking done!"

Rachel smiles over Victoria's shoulder. "Good morning, Mr Madsen."

Victoria takes a quick breath before she turns.

David Madsen glowers at them both. "Everything okay here...ladies?"

There's a tightness to him that manifests in the skin around his eyes, and the pitch of his voice.

Victoria nods stiffly. "We're fine."

"You were yelling." He glares at her, stepping forward so that he's standing just a little too close. "And littering."

His kuckles are white.

Before Victoria can say anything, Rachel chimes in with, "We were just playing a game, Mr Madsen. Sorry if we got too loud. And look!" Rachel scoops up the paper ball. "No more litter!"

David glances at Rachel, grunts, and walks away in the direction of the dorms.

Victoria fumbles for her cigarettes.

Rachel says, "He...is one motherfucking piece of shit asshole."

Victoria's so startled by the undisguised venom in Rachel's voice that she drops the packet.

Rachel tucks her sketchbook into her bag and climbs off the bench while Victoria recovers her cigarettes.

Victoria is about to light up when Rachel touches her wrist. "Come on, silly. Not here."

When Victoria hesitates, Rachel gently grips her wrist and tugs Victoria towards the steps.

Victoria finds her voice. "I'm not going to the fucking bleachers. Not with you."

Rachel tilts her head and studies Victoria again. "Oh? Who do you normally go with?"

Victoria snatches her hand away. "Fuck off, Rachel. Leave me the fuck alone."

Rachel sighs. "I had hoped we were going to bond, but..."

Rachel takes a step back and curtsies ostentatiously. "Good night, sweet Chase. And flights of angels sing thee to thy cigs."

Victori snarls, "Why are you fucking with me today?"

Something dangerous pushes every vestige of warmth from Rachel's eyes. "It's not nice, is it? Being fucked with for no good reason? That's something you should maybe ponder once in a while."

Rachel turns, pauses to blow Victoria a kiss, and strides away.

#Life is Strange #fanfiction #Writing #Grit #Is this how one tumblrs?

[pixiealtaira]

When I get bored, I…

And the one for the 5th....

Pairing: none really....another friendship post with Kurt, Elliot and Dani

Kurt Hummel had a free day! Well, his band had practice that evening at 8pm…but until then he was free.  No classes, no work, no roommates and roommate drama and no Blaine and Blaine drama.

He’d planned for days what he was going to do.  Unfortunately several plans had to be scrapped, because he could not go shopping or to a show or travel very far.  His free day wasn’t because he had money…it was just timing.  However…he still had plans.  He’d started simple.  Sleep in, watch tons of tv, sing whatever he wanted at the top of his lungs, walk around in his underwear, and eat whatever he wanted without concern about anyone seeing and commenting on it.

And his day started out great.  He woke an hour later than he usually did (which really probably shouldn’t count as sleeping in but it was for him) and lounged in his boxers and nothing else for three episodes of Fame…first season.  During the second episode he fixed himself a green smoothie and an egg white omelet, with ham and mushrooms and topped with avocado and ate it without having anyone whine at him.  Then he showered while singing as loudly as he could with the door open so his voice filled the loft and dressed in his most comfortable clothing…the ones he would rather no one ever saw.  He then played an episode of Queer as Folk full blast on the television while cooking bacon…real bacon…for a BLT with cheese.  After cooking he stripped down to grey boxer briefs, just because he could. And he was naughty while finishing the episode...in the living room…on the couch. (He kept his mess to himself and didn’t soil the couch…no one should have any true complaints if they ever found out.)

However, by the time he’d watched an Elvis movie he’d found on TV and eaten Ice Cream straight out of the carton without a break-up being involved…Kurt was bored.  Like seriously bored.

He tried reading. However he’d finished the play they were reading for class and they hadn’t been given the next play yet and he was in the middle of three books but none were capturing his interest at the time and he didn’t want to start yet another book.  He’d read all the magazines they had about, and the newspaper was read with his breakfast.

He’d already been singing and dancing around the loft, music was playing…but he wasn’t in the mood to just sit and listen.  

He considered a walk, but that meant getting dressed.  So did a movie out at a theater.

He wasn’t in the mood for any of programs on TV at the moment, nor any of the videos or series they had on DVD.

The internet was not even entertaining.

Then as he was flipping through a channel and had paused very briefly to pick up the spoon that had dropped from the ice cream carton, something caught his attention for a few seconds. The TV was on some talk show on some channel he never actually watched when the lady that was being interviewed talked about reading old classic books and then imagining how they would have to be in a modern time…using LM Montgomery as an example.

The idea was fleeting at first. Wouldn’t that be a bit fun…to move something like Barefoot In the Park to some other time instead of the old standard of moving Shakespeare forward in time.  Kurt changed the channel and continued to try to find something to watch.

There was nothing on and ideas just kept swirling.  Was there somewhere else…another country or time   when Oklahoma would work?  Would Phantom of the Opera work in ancient Greece?  

He turned the TV off. Kurt pulled his sketch book and pencils out; he got back on his laptop. He was pretty sure once an outfit or two were drawn up he’d be bored again.  It wasn’t even past two in the afternoon yet. He put his music onto his musical play list.  He still didn’t feel like getting dressed so he laid a blanket out on the floor and settled down with paper and pencils to chase some ideas.

Elliot and Dani knocked. Several times over a ten minute period they knocked at Kurt’s door.  Elliot heard music from inside and so figured they might as well just let themselves in. Dani ran into Elliot’s back a little over four steps into the loft.  They both stared for a few moments before the giggles burst forth.

Kurt Hummel was in boxer briefs sitting cross legged on the rug between the coffee table and the couch. There were sketches everywhere, mixed with open notebooks and bits of paper with musical notations. Colored pencils, pens and even water color paints were scattered about.  Kurt had a pencil in his mouth, one tucked between toes, and was busy drawing with one as he used the eraser in his other hand to lighten the marks he’d just made. They both moved further into the room, expecting Kurt to notice them.

Dani was all the way over to the kitchen area before he did.

The pencils went flying as Kurt looked up and them shouted and jumped.  The dart to his bedroom area was accompanied by a squeal and then a lot for swearing.  Dani was laughing near hysterically, while Elliot was still standing with his mouth open. Dani came his way and pushed his jaw up.

“Remember?” She said. “We don’t drool over our friends.  Besides, you should come see what is around you instead.  I never knew Kurt wrote music and for some reason I never realized he designed either.”

“You knew he designed. We’ve been putting the outfits for the band together since it started.” Elliot said.

“I mean not like this. I didn’t realize he designed like this.”

Elliot looked down and realized what she meant.  Kurt had never shown him anything like he saw spread-out all over the loft.  The drawings were amazing…the costumes and outfits, the details, the bits of writing attached to the sketches, the bits of lyrics and melodies.  

“Amazing.” Elliot whispered.

Kurt swept back into the room, dressed and put together, picking up drawings and setting them into piles, tidying up.

“What is all this?” Dani asked.

Kurt shrugged.  “I was bored. Sorry I lost track of time, hope you don’t mind the hair. Of course considering you caught me much more au natural than pretty much anyone has ever seen me before I doubt the hair is traumatizing.”

“Neither was nearly seeing you in the buff.” Dani said.

“Sooo…shall we start practice?” Kurt replied with a blush.

“We should.” Dani answered, steering Elliot towards the table.  “We were talking before we got to the loft about doing a like a bubblegum music night…with songs like Sugar.  Things you might have heard off Scooby-Doo or Josey and the Pussy Cats.  Or maybe beach boys…”

Elliot followed Dani and Kurt to the table, taking the time to pick up and stack bits and pieces of work still scattered about and stack them like Kurt was still doing.  He peered down to a bit of lyrics with the notation ‘to be sung as the displaced oracle is loaded into the nuthouse wagon’ and marked with a note to see some other paper.  He and Kurt were going to have to sit down and have a major discussion here soon, because everything in Elliot’s hand was utterly brilliant.

Kurt needed to be able to be bored more often.

#glee fic #kurt hummel #Dani #elliot gilbert