#i just vibed and let the textured brushes do their thing

[c-hrona]

Fallen Angel

Inspired by this tweet

#trigun #trigun stampede #trigun anime #vash the stampede #chronart #mom said is my turn to use the fallen angel paint as a reference #i don't know what happened here #i just vibed and let the textured brushes do their thing #thank them

[alfheimr]

My Favorite Cheap Art Trick: Gradient Maps and Blending Modes

i get questions on occasion regarding my coloring process, so i thought i would do a bit of a write up on my "secret technique." i don't think it really is that much of a secret, but i hope it can be helpful to someone. to that end:

this is one of my favorite tags ive ever gotten on my art. i think of it often. the pieces in question are all monochrome - sort of.

the left version is the final version, the right version is technically the original. in the final version, to me, the blues are pretty stark, while the greens and magentas are less so. there is some color theory thing going on here that i dont have a good cerebral understanding of and i wont pretend otherwise. i think i watched a youtube video on it once but it went in one ear and out the other. i just pick whatever colors look nicest based on whatever vibe im going for.

this one is more subtle, i think. can you tell the difference? there's nothing wrong with 100% greyscale art, but i like the depth that adding just a hint of color can bring.

i'll note that the examples i'll be using in this post all began as purely greyscale, but this is a process i use for just about every piece of art i make, including the full color ones. i'll use the recent mithrun art i made to demonstrate. additionally, i use clip studio paint, but the general concept should be transferable to other art programs.

for fun let's just start with Making The Picture. i've been thinking of making this writeup for a while and had it in mind while drawing this piece. beyond that, i didn't really have much of a plan for this outside of "mithrun looks down and hair goes woosh." i also really like all of the vertical lines in the canary uniform so i wanted to include those too but like. gone a little hog wild. that is the extent of my "concept." i do not remember why i had the thought of integrating a shattered mirror type of theme. i think i wanted to distract a bit from the awkward pose and cover it up some LOL but anyway. this lack of planning or thought will come into play later.

note 1: the textured marker brush i specifically use is the "bordered light marker" from daub. it is one of my favorite brushes in the history of forever and the daub mega brush pack is one of the best purchases ive ever made. highly recommend!!!

note 2: "what do you mean by exclusion and difference?" they are layer blending modes and not important to the overall lesson of this post but for transparency i wanted to say how i got these "effects." anyway!

with the background figured out, this is the point at which i generally merge all of my layers, duplicate said merged layer, and Then i begin experimenting with gradient maps. what are gradient maps?

the basic gist is that gradient maps replace the colors of an image based on their value.

so, with this particular gradient map, black will be replaced with that orangey red tone, white will be replaced with the seafoamy green tone, etc. this particular gradient map i'm using as an example is very bright and saturated, but the colors can be literally anything.

these two sets are the ones i use most. they can be downloaded for free here and here if you have csp. there are many gradient map sets out there. and you can make your own!

you can apply a gradient map directly onto a specific layer in csp by going to edit>tonal correction>gradient map. to apply one indirectly, you can use a correction layer through layer>new correction layer>gradient map. honestly, correction layers are probably the better way to go, because you can adjust your gradient map whenever you want after creating the layer, whereas if you directly apply a gradient map to a layer thats like. it. it's done. if you want to make changes to the applied gradient map, you have to undo it and then reapply it. i don't use correction layers because i am old and stuck in my ways, but it's good to know what your options are.

this is what a correction layer looks like. it sits on top and applies the gradient map to the layers underneath it, so you can also change the layers beneath however and whenever you want. you can adjust the gradient map by double clicking the layer. there are also correction layers for tone curves, brightness/contrast, etc. many such useful things in this program.

let's see how mithrun looks when we apply that first gradient map we looked at.

gadzooks. apologies for eyestrain. we have turned mithrun into a neon hellscape, which might work for some pieces, but not this one. we can fix that by changing the layer blending mode, aka this laundry list of words:

some of them are self explanatory, like darken and lighten, while some of them i genuinely don't understand how they are meant to work and couldn't explain them to you, even if i do use them. i'm sure someone out there has written out an explanation for each and every one of them, but i've learned primarily by clicking on them to see what they do.

for the topic of this post, the blending mode of interest is soft light. so let's take hotline miamithrun and change the layer blending mode to soft light.

here it is at 100% opacity. this is the point at which i'd like to explain why i like using textured brushes so much - it makes it very easy to get subtle color variation when i use this Secret Technique. look at the striation in the upper right background! so tasty. however, to me, these colors are still a bit "much." so let's lower the opacity.

i think thats a lot nicer to look at, personally, but i dont really like these colors together. how about we try some other ones?

i like both of these a lot more. the palettes give the piece different vibes, at which point i have to ask myself: What Are The Vibes, Actually? well, to be honest i didn't really have a great answer because again, i didn't plan this out very much at all. however. i knew in my heart that there was too much color contrast going on and it was detracting from the two other contrasts in here: the light and dark values and the sharp and soft shapes. i wanted mithrun's head to be the main focal point. for a different illustration, colors like this might work great, but this is not that hypothetical illustration, so let's bring the opacity down again.

yippee!! that's getting closer to what my heart wants. for fun, let's see what this looks like if we change the blending mode to color.

i do like how these look but in the end they do not align with my heart. oh well. fun to experiment with though! good to keep in mind for a different piece, maybe! i often change blending modes just to see what happens, and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. i very much cannot stress enough that much of my artistic process is clicking buttons i only sort of understand. for fun.

i ended up choosing the gradient map on the right because i liked that it was close to the actual canary uniform colors (sorta). it's at an even lower opacity though because there was Still too much color for my dear heart.

the actual process for this looks like me setting my merged layer to soft light at around 20% opacity and then clicking every single gradient map in my collection and seeing which one Works. sometimes i will do this multiple times and have multiple soft light and/or color layers combined.

typically at this point i merge everything again and do minor contrast adjustments using tone curves, which is another tool i find very fun to play around with. then for this piece in particular i did some finishing touches and decided that the white border was distracting so i cropped it. and then it's done!!! yay!!!!!

this process is a very simple and "fast" way to add more depth and visual interest to a piece without being overbearing. well, it's fast if you aren't indecisive like me, or if you are better at planning.

let's do another comparison. personally i feel that the hint of color on the left version makes mithrun look just a bit more unwell (this is a positive thing) and it makes the contrast on his arm a lot more pleasing to look at. someone who understands color theory better than i do might have more to say on the specifics, but that's honestly all i got.

just dont look at my layers too hard. ok?

#process #art tutorial #unsure what else to tag this as. if this does not post properly i will cry.

[myreitha]

Costume time!

Okay, you know what, I want to share this process and I've chosen y'all to suffer with me.

SO! A friend of mine doesn't have a spooky show to produce this year, and so is putting all his energy into a cool-ass halloween event (Fancy paper invites, puzzles to solve, challenges, games, seances, etc). The whole thing is themed around this fake secret society that we're all now part of, and the dress cose and we're being encouraged to come up with cool fancy clothes/outfits to match the theme to come in. Best description I can come up with for this theme is "Fancy witchy-vampire" (Like, think VtM, but witchier). THAT SAID. I'm still out of a job, so, I've got to be strategic. AND I've got the itch to make things. Even better. (More past the cut!)

I don't have photos for a lot of these earlier decisions and stages, sorry. BUT I go through my closet and costume tubs (the for-fun-or-cosplay costumes as well as the circus/performing ones) and have a nice closet-runway to figure out what I'm starting with and settle on this one burgundy satin wrap top with big-ass sleeves that I love. . .that unfortunately doesn't go with much that I have in my wardrobe that vibes with the theme. (There's like. . .one or two things it works with, but I want to be FANCIER). So I sketch around and come up with an idea based around this shirt (and a statement necklace collar I have that was some of the best $5 I've ever spent)

I have this old dress I'd bought at a flea market years ago and had altered to be an overskirt for a hoop skirt, and then it's been worn as a bustle with the bodice tucked away more times than it's felt hoops. It's a similar color as the top, so I figured I'd finally take the bodice off it, pull it in to be something I could walk in that wouldn't trail on teh ground, and I could set it under a corset in the center. Bing-bang-boom! Genius!

No. The skirt and the shirt were similar-but-different enough colors and textures that they clashed. Damnit. Well, I can ditch the skirt and figure out the rest! Some skinny moto pants. A decorative corset - I could embroider a corset (Myr no), or, ooh, use gold appliques (Okay, more realistic, proceed).

Next step was to mock things up as I'm trying to find what I want without purchasing a bunch of shit, which got me to this:

Okay okay okay. Cool, I've got a direction (that's not the shirt, but it's the closest I coudl find online to use, so I used it). Now for the endless internet and thrift store (No fingers, not thirst store, dear god) and internet thrift store searching to find me some cool-ass pants and a corset and some shoes that'll work with this. You'll notice, though that my statement necklace has been swapped out for cool-strappy-thing. Because statement necklace-collar is geometric and GOOD LUCK finding geometric applique. Harder than I expected. Took me a couple months to find things that weren't lots of money that I could afford. BUT I EVENTUALLY DID IT. This included buying multiple corsets with the intention of returning things. Benefits of modern shopping. The happy "lets try everything on" day was this weekend!

SO FAR SO GOOD. Took a poll from friends and the short corset is the winner. It's definitely the best constructed of the three, though the pants aren't QUITE high enough waist to be able to wear under it without some adjustments. But it'll do. The shoes turned out to be dark brown instead of black, so I need to see about making them black (and fixing them so the tongue doesn't decide to go deep diving towards my toes.) Other things to do: bring in the wrists of those sleeves some, they're a bit too big (Here they're clipped with bobby pins), decorate the corset, maybe add some gold detailing onto the pants? They've got that gold ridging along the thighs that you find on moto-pants, but that's absolutely invisible most of the time, so I think if I just brush some gold paint along the tops of those ridges, it'll make them pop in a good way. You'll note that none of these photos have the strappy-thingy, and instead we're back to the statement necklace-collar. Turns out the differece between the image I found on the internet and teh shirt I own is enough that you BARELY SEE the strappy. Also, I decided that instead of using applique, I'd buy some gold paint, make a design that'd work, and paint it on the corset. Only time will reveal whether this was a good or a bad idea.

Other thing this showed me is that this doesn't feel FANCY enough. So I'm coming back to that half-skirt idea. This time, though I'm thinking about something sheer - either a burgundy to match the top, or a black with gold accents (OR A FULL DESIGN?!?!?!).

Last night I got flat photos of the corset for figuring out the design, since the shape I was working with in my sketches doesn't match the chosen corset shape. Pls to enjoy some of the designs I was playing with:

Proooooobably going to see about adjusting the eye design. I think it fits the theme best.

Last night I started on the alternations by taking in the waist of the pants. Please have this photo that happened 30 seconds before my thread was attacked.

#Project #costume #sewing #Join me on this journey as I make it up as I go

[aley-nag]

Bumpy road, pretty result

Whoaaaa. This one...

The next fanfiction I bound was Cinder and Smoke by @thelittleblackfox. I lover their work to pieces. They write incredible thought out Stucky!AU's with a lot of fantasy aspects or really good scifi and I wanted badly to do one of their fics, but waited til I was a little happier with my results and could make a pretty cover. We decided together on this one and I started formatting... And then I stopped for a long while because Word is the devil.

Cinder & Smoke is a western!AU and just about the most romantic thing I've ever read. It has yearning and a little angst and a very distinct vibe that feels like Fernweh and wilderness and change. Go read it!

I worked on it between June and December 23 and Christmas was the only reason I finished it this quickly, but I did not want to leave it unfinished for the turn of the year.

Sadly I don't have a lot of pictures, but when I'm finished with my copy I'll post some more.

Now we'll come to the journey it was to finish this!

It started out rather uncomplicated, because I thought I had gotten the hang of formatting and then, when I tried adjusting the font and overall look of the text body Word kept killing the italics. And I googled and tried and experimented and I just couldn't get it to stop. I was so frustrated, oh god. It put me off a little and I had to leave it for a while. When I came back around to it I found a slightly butchered solution, that works though so I won't question it. After that formatting went smoother and I was able to bind it. I used paper from that same supplier that fucked up my paper order for the covers from the notebooks. But only after I had it printed I noticed that it was cut crooked and wouldn't cleanly fold in half. I despaired a little, said fuck it and hoped it wouldn't be to noticeable. I think it's alright.

Binding went really well and I think that's the cleanliest job I did to this date.

Did the endbands by hand to match the color scheme I was aiming for. Because of the title I wanted to invoke fire and used primarily black and red for the coloring.

Then came the cover. First of all, don't use black bookcloth. You will see every. single. mistake. Also dust and glitter... I brushed this thing so often, you wouldn't believe it.

And I tried different vinyl. I couldn't find the right shade of red I wanted, it's a little hard to source it around here so I went an entirely different route and used golden glitter vinyl. What I didn't know until after I plotted the design: The glitter has texture. I couldn't see a single cut-line. I had to keep the picture open to work along the edges and not rip the letters. Still lost all of the i-points 😭

The flower was pretty easy though. Glueing it on was also quite hard because it just wouldn't hold and I got glitter everywhere. Which let to more brushing but I'm afraid mailing it destroyed all that work :D

Anyway. I am sooo happy with how it turned out I instantly forgot about all annoyances and was able to mail it before the end of the year and that was a really satisfying last project, so all is well :)

This was also the first time I had the idea of choosing a little icon for the author's penname because most of the time I don't have enough space for the entire name. I reworked all of the other books to accomodate that.

Binding Details

Body Text: Garamond, 11

Half Title/Chapter Heading: Gold Lines Trial, 20

Full Title: Carnivalee Freakshow, 48

Word Count: 57.197

Pages: 232

Paper: publishing paper A4, 90g, 1,5x volume (from the retailer from hell :/)

#fanbinding #bookbinding journey

[squircatlies]

Today is the day I unleash my Mr. Bonzo fanart upon this webbed site.

This post is relatively safe up until the cut.

Is the *tips fedora* meme over a decade old? Yes. Do I care? No, absolutely not.

~

Now this is where I recommend "getting off" this post to anyone bothered by graphic depictions of body horror, blood, violence, or Mr. Bonzo (monster, not mascot like above).

I know the first image is silly, but I cannot stress enough how serious I am when I say:

Proceed at your own risk.

Now that you have chosen to continue, I have arranged the images in order of least to most vile and disturbing (though that might be slightly subjective on my part).

Remember that you can click off this post at any time.

Final warning: split tongue Bonzo.

I tried channeling Julia Drawfee with the lineart a little bit. Didn't feel like shading that one, so it's a bit flat.

Where did I lose my colours? Plot twist: the first image in this post is actually the last I've made, so technically I gained the colours. I wanted it to have more of a cheery vibe, unlike the ones under the cut, which I wanted to be kinda dreary and I feel like adding too much colour can mess that up.

Alright, I'll address the tongue. Remember how his head splits in tmagp 12? Yeah, it's a nod to that and also I asked myself "how do I make his design worse than it already is?" and that's the only answer I could come up with. I debated adding stitches connesting the two halves of the tongue but couldn't figure out how, so you're welcome. It will be present in all the upcoming drawings as well.

~

The next one is bloody, but it's not that much worse than the previous one overall.

I was playing with filters after I was done with this piece, because I felt like it lacked something, but didn't know what. Really liked this one, I think it's some sort of a gradient map. It pixelised the image and adjusted the colours a bit, it also really made the blood pop out, though it covered up some of the details.

Why did he lose his hat? It's stupid and hard to draw.

You may have noticed the artstyle change a little, the previous images having neat lineart and little to no shading. That's because I am using different tools, sketchy and soft brushes, that allow me to experiment with lighting and textures more (plus the aforementioned filter altering the image even further).

~

Alright, I feel like this last image deserves a separate warning. It references episode 12 (spoiler ahead), specifically the moment before the bartender loses a hand, though it's not entirely accurate. It's rendered in more detail than any of the previous images, so keep that in mind before scrolling down.

Basically it's pov: Bonzo licks your hand.

I feel like I could've made his tongue bigger in this one, it seems kinda small compared to his mouth. I really like how the skin on his face ended up looking. It took a lot of work.

The spit makes it look weirdly sexual, doesn't it? Listen, that was not my intention, but I'm not erasing it. I set out to make the worst thing I could and, though not without cost, I have achieved it.

I tried splattering Bonzo in blood, but it wasn't really working for me and it covered up a lot of the detail I liked, so I just put it in the background.

The human hand is drawn from reference, which I found by googling "hand reaching out away from the viewer". And let me tell you: google is shit at looking for drawing references, but I figured it was just going to be a sketch to explore an idea, so I didn't bother trying to get a better one. And then I fixated on it for a couple hours, you know, like a normal person.

I literally (and I mean no exaggeration) dusted off my drawing tablet after a few months of no use to spend the entire weekend, after tmagp 12 came out, glued to the screen making those images, except for the b'onzo one, which I made this evening.

Just to clarify: I drew all of those by myself. No filthy AI image generation is allowed in this house. I am capable of committing far greater sins than an artificial intelligence ever will.

The only thing left here is to extend my sincere congratulations/condolences to whoever got this far. It's up to you to either think you're brave or realise that you're foolish for doing so, but be comforted by the fact that at least you didn't make this post, which I cannot say for myself.

#this might be my worst post yet #i was so preoccupied with whether or not i could i didn't stop to think if i should (make bonzo worse) #do i regret it? #no #here's the sewage stew i promised/threatened you with a few weeks ago #the magnus protocol #tmagp #tmagp shitpost #long post #fanart #tmagp fanart #bonzo #mr bonzo #content warning #body horror #blood #violence #get bonzed #posts that would send me straight to a psychiatric ward were anyone i know irl to find out i made

[chaosandthe-deadblog]

Sunny's unnofficial rendering tutorial because idk why but people say they like how I color

Hey kid. So you got your drawing, right? And you have your flat colors, now you gotta render 'em, right? Then you find that BAM, you have no idea how to make it look cool? Neither do I! But here's what I do (I've been told that my coloring is cool)

1. Place your flat colors

Imagine these are your flats. A few things: you want your base colors to be all around the same hue, that way they look better together. See how all the blacks, greys and whites are purple/blue-ish? That's on purpose babey! But how do you acheive this? idfk. jk, you have to stay on one (or two) areas of a hue wheel.

This way, all the colors look like, nicer around each other. You're not FORBIDDEN from going outside an area you picked, but you should still try to make sure everything is in the same hue so you have to do less overlay layers later.

(FYI: I do this because it saves me time on rendering. I don't think it's mandatory, there's no rules to art. Go crazy!)

2. Shading

I think shading makes or breaks a drawing. Personally I don't have a lot of rules about it, but there are still tips I can give.

So here's what you gonna do. You're gonna pick a color that's somewhere on the opposite of your main hue, alright? Here, my hue is mostly cold colors, so I'm going to pick a warm tone. You're gonna make sure it's dark enough so it's like, a shade, but not enough so it becomes black when you set the shading layer to multiply.

(Note: I never get this right on the first try)

(Another note: as you can see, I have the entire drawing, including the lines, inside a group. Don't worry! I'll explain this later)

Personally I like to use a paintbrush-esque brush because I like the look of it being hand-painted that it gives my art. Mine is the default paint tool sai brush, but I'll leave the settings down here just in case.

I don't. Really know how to explain the way I shade, I mostly follow the lines I already placed in the lineart phase, and give them depth. I guess my biggest tip would be to FOLLOW THE CLOTHING FOLDS!!!

Idk how to explain this. But people always tell me that they like how I shade the clothes, it's because I follow the fold lines I place on the lineart phase! Not only does this give the clothes depth, it also makes shading a lot easier. Follow your lineart, idk what else to tell ya.

Now you're gonna set the layer to multiply...

And lower the opacity as much as you want until it looks good. No real rules to this, it's kind of depending on the vibe you want your piece to have.

Now, and stay with me here, grab a blending tool, okay? This is the one I use, I have a textured version for when I'm feeling brave, and a regular, flat version (the one I use the most) Here I'll use the flat version.

And. Stay with me here. I want you to blend the FUCK out of this. Just absolutely destroy those borders. Okay? Trust me. If it looks messy you're doing it right. You're gonna want to follow the shape of the shadows tho, this way you don't lose the shape of the objects you're shading.

Woah! Suddenly everything has depth! Let me go back to the clothing folds, because holy shit, the clothing folds.

See how I'm adding depth to the shadows I placed by kinda. Following the line I drew and blending the outside? Idk how to explain this. You blend whatever isn't touching the line, okay? Trust me.

3. Lighting

Ok. I'm holding your hand gently. You have to do lighting on your art, okay? You have to. It adds depth to the shapes and also is sososoososo easy. Here's how. It's so easy.

Grab your airbrush tool. Yes, that one. Hear me out okay?

Pick a light, warm color between yellow and orange.

Stay with me. Make a new layer, set it to whatever lighting mode you prefer. I use luminosity because I live dangerously.

Now.

Airbrush everything that the shadows aren't touching. Yes. I'm serious.

It's gonna look ugly as shit. DON'T BE ALARMED. This is part of the process. I want you to take the blur tool. And blur the ever loving fuck out of this. Just go fucking ham.

Good. You're doing so well. You're being so brave. Now lower the opacity as much as you want, until you like the way it looks.

Like so. I also like to add a few brush strokes and blend them on an up-and-down motion for the hair and certain details, but this is optional. Same as before, you're gonna take a (slightly warmer, but still bright color) and make a new layer on luminosity mode.

Take the blending tool and make it small, only slightly bigger than the brush strokes, and blend these lines until they look nice. Adjust the opacity, and voila!

Now, I could stop here. But I'm extra so I keep going.

4. The pizzazz

AKA, "Ah fuck the colors don't look the way I wanted them to!"

Do not worry! I have a solution that's almost never failed me.

Overlays. Just a whole fuckton of them. I don't really have a method to this, I just kinda try colors and layer modes until something looks good.

For this one, I felt like I wanted the colors to be warmer, so I picked a warm color and overlayed it on multiply. Then, I noticed that the darker colors came out darker than planned, and you couldn't really tell them apart, so I picked a light warm color and overlayed it on screen.

Voila! We're not done! There's one more thing I like to do, and here's where the layer folder comes in!

Remember how I said I keep everything, including the lines in a folder? This is why!

Make a layer that's on top of everything, like this. Pick whatever color you want, make sure it's bright. (Personally I like using pink). Take the airbrush tool again and airbrush whatever edges you want to give a little more pizzazz to.

Blur it as much as you'd like...

And adjust the opacity and layer mode however you like!

5. And done!

Sometimes I add white highlights. Sometimes I add more shading, or more lighting. It depends! But this is the method I use in a nutshell.

Hope you enjoyed it, or at the very least realized idk what the fuck I'm doing!

#sol.art #art tutorial #sol's art tutorials #god this was so hard to explain. idk what im doing guys

[spacecolonie]

Hello! Do you have any advice with painting? Every time I start I end up just doing lineart with colours underneath, and when I do kindles art it looks kind of like plastic. Am I supposed to merge the two layers and then start shading? What would you recommend?

Hey anon!! I actually do have some advice for that!! I'll shove it under a cut because it got way longer than I thought it would, sorry for the infodump everyone _(:3 」∠)_

quick tl;dr: painting process should consider both personal taste & the desired aesthetic of a painting, & to avoid plastic-y colours, make sure your hues vary within your values (and layer modes are ur friend) ♥

there's a million ways to start paintings & its all down to personal preference -- the end goal for the illustration can often influence the approach you take; a crisp digital painting might call for meticulous layering & sharp edged flats, but if you want something to look like an oil painting, you should try and mimic that process as close as you can! here's some examples:

this is the sketch for my FYR zine piece from last year; i intentionally approached it in a way that looks like traditional underpaintings so that when I worked directly on top, those orange tones would peek through like this:

after doing that undersketch, i manually painted everything -- no fancy layer modes, just me, one layer, and screaming ಥ_ಥ it was hard but it worked for the vibe i wanted!!

now v.s something like this:

simple shapes, roughly blocked in shading that just gets merged and painted over, as well as lots of layer modes on top for those colour changes! this is by far the easier one & the one i'd probably recommend, solely because it lets you keep more control. i go more in depth here on that -- but to quickly answer, i personally block everything (including shading) in before I merge & render!

for the other thing you mentioned, a lot of the times that 'plastic' feeling can come from either a lack of transitional shades or only using white/black for your value tones. this tweet thread (direct image links 1, 2 & 3) by frozensoba demonstrates it incredibly well -- by adding certain colour shifts in your values, it can create extra depth which is what makes stuff look more alive!! don't be afraid to really push it and get wacky

an easy way to add it while you're learning is using gradient maps to add richness in your midtones. It's not perfect since different surfaces & materials diffuse light differently, but adding one at the end of a drawing can help tie everything together. If you can do both at once though it always looks best; here's some very quick 2 minute orbs as an example:

ok I'm almost done (and im so sorry for how long this got... special interest moment TM) -- one last thing is to try varying your brush strokes & adding textures if you want. using only an airbrush or heavily relying on blurring brushes can make things look plastic too; sometimes you want that, but for the times you don't, adding some texture & leaving brush marks in can do a lot!!

lastly, since this is just me rambling, here are some artists that are incredibly talented & i highly recommend looking at for their advice & processes because it will be much more coherent than this:

Marco Bucci -- amazing educational content. if you check out any of these artists, he's the one to look at first imo. his 10 minutes to better painting series is a great place to start

Sinix Design has some amazing tutorials on anatomy & the mechanics of painting! This video & the intermediate part 2 are super

Dao Trong Le -- a veritable goldmine of speedpaints

Bo Chen & any of the riot splash artists. If that's the vibe you're after, you can't go wrong with the LoL splashes as reference

i hope that helps!!!

#tutorial #any time i have the opportunity to barf out art talk i will do it #tysm for the question too ♥ #not art #asks

[josouhenshin]

day 1 part 2

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Welcome to the map screen. Usually there’s various points of interest to choose from, but for now it’s just our apartment.

Back in the house, mizuki proposes they go clothes shopping for shinobu. He’s kind of trying to rush him out the door, probably before shinobu has time for second thoughts. But it’s too late. Shinobu wonders if it’s gonna be suspicious that two guys are buying women’s clothes. Mizuki retorts, well do you see anyone else here? Mizuki’s solution to the problem is obvious: crossdressing! Certainly it’ll be less embarrassing to go if it’s with a girl. Mizuki says he’ll go get changed, and breaks out the feminine-sounding sentence ending particle wa. Shinobu wants to watch but mizuki adamantly refuses. 

While waiting, shinobu tries to imagine what girl mode mizuki will look like, but comes up dry. He worries what to do if he has a bad reaction to seeing her. Or what to say either way. But surely someone with a pretty face like mizuki should be pretty good at looking girly. 

“Sorry for the wait,” Mizuki says.

Shinobu barely recognizes her. She’s so pretty he’s barely able to string a sentence together. He also comments that her way of speaking is more typically feminine too, though whether this is just down to phrasing or if mizuki has mastered the art of Up Voice is unknowable in this medium.

“Mizuki, you look just like a real girl,” shinobu commends.

“Shinobu... I’m not ‘like’ a girl, right now I really am one!” she says, having swapped to using the feminine first person pronoun atashi.

After shinobu bashfully offers some more superlatives, they head out. Shinobu feels tense. He’s trying to square the experience of being around someone that pretty but also knowing it’s mizuki. That, and he also gets the feeling people are staring. He asks mizuki what happens if they get caught, and mizuki brushes it off. If anyone’s watching, it’s because they look like an attractive young couple. This flusters the shinobu.

They get to the store and shinobu feels weird being the only guy around. 

Mizuki takes point. “Obviously since it’s your first time, I should be the one to pick things out right?” she aks what kind of vibe shinobu would want to go for. Shinobu protests but mizuki just starts browsing. 

He sticks to her as if his life depended on it. He feels totally out of place. Even though mizuki said they’d just scan as a couple, it’s kind of embarrassing. More than anything he just wants to go home. “Just pick whatever, let’s get out of here,” he pleads. 

Mikuki brushes him off and keeps browsing. It’s important to choose the right thing for your first time. They keep wandering around. Shinobu is curious about everything too of course, but worries that something really bad will happen if he touches anything. But like, there *is* a lot of cute stuff.

Eventually they decide on some things and check out.

“Ehehe, thanks for buying everything, darling~!”

Shinobu becomes flustered. It’s unclear the extent to which shinobu understands that he’s being flirted with through all this but being omega dense in that way is par for the course sometimes.

“Anyway, next up is underwear,” Mizuki declares. 

Shinobu stammers in protest.

“Crossdressing starts from the underwear, yknow!” She professes.

Shinobu really just wants to go home though, he was already feeling weird in the regular clothes store, but if he goes lingerie shopping she might faint. Mizuki agrees to call it a day and head back. 

Back at the apartment, mizuki is excited to see shinobu try everything on. He does. Compared to men’s clothes the new stuff has a much more pleasant texture. And the skirt is kinda breezy. “So this is what women are always feeling.”

Mizuki yelps when shinobu finishes putting everything on. “I knew you’d be cute.” she urges shinobu not to look in the mirror yet, and offers to loan her a wig and do some makeup. But after this, she says, shinobu’s gotta do it herself. When she finishes, Mizuki admires her handiwork, and tells her it’s okay to look. 

“Cute! Is- is that... me?”

Mizuki promptly chides her for saying boku while being a girl. 

Shinobu thanks her excitedly.

Mizuki tells her to look forward to the next step: going out in girl mode. Shinobu is nervous, but mizuki assures her that she’s even cuter so it’ll be totally fine. 

“You’re still looking in the mirror! Did you fall in love with yourself?” Mizuki jokes. She says that she has a present ready for shinobu once she’s finished. It’s a makeup kit. Just a little something to welcome her to the world of crossdressing.

Mizuki has one more thing to say: “If we’re out and we meet someone we don’t want to catch us, call me mizuho.” She continues, “you should come up with a girl name too.”

After thinking for a suspiciously short time, our hero comes up with “紫乃” which can be read a few different ways. Until the game makes it more obvious, I’m going with “shina” as the reading, but “shino” and “yukarino” are apparently also options.

“Shina? Well, nice to meet you, shina.”

Shina stays up late imagining all kinds of different personas she could adopt, and eventually drifts off to sleep. 

prev post Index next post

#trans 2 #they're hitting so many genre tropes so quickly it's hard to keep track lmao

[jrwi-most-nd]

Round 3 Poll:

Pictures and propaganda are under the cut!

William Wisp (Prime Defenders)

(Submitted for Autism, ADHD, Anxiety, Cotard’s Syndrome, AVPD, PTSD, OCD, Schizophrenia, Delusional Disorder, OSDD-1b/Plurality, and BPD)

Look at him and tell me he doesn’t have massive anxiety  ~ Anxiety

I mean his whole thing is that he is literally dead and alive at the same time. One of the first things introduced about him is how quickly he can make himself go invisible/seem like he doesn’t exist. The autism is just because he’s silly :3  ~ Autism and Cotard’s Syndrome

Just like. Look into his eyes and you’ll know. But also don’t he’s autistic how dare you  ~ Autism and Anxiety

- Deep-rooted low self esteem. He’s always felt weird and different, sees himself as inherently wrong, a fuck up and a disappointment. He struggles to even see himself as a person, especially when he was dead. He puts his friends on a pedestal (especially Dakota) and sees himself as someone way beneath them.  - Relatively okay with maintaining some surface level relationships but struggles with expressing his deeper feelings or talking about his past. Always vague and incredibly apologetic, quick to brush past it whenever it comes up.  - Very self-conscious and ashamed of his powers, especially early on. He asks people to look away when he goes into spirit form, and only does it in extreme circumstances. Only comfortable when he’s in the purple morph suit, where he feels like he can be seen as a different person. - When Dakota gives him his heart he immediately feels like he has to dedicate his whole life to making it up to him (literally gets a new complication bc of that). Feels undeserving of kindness or help from others.   - Quick to give up when he isn’t absolutely certain of an outcome. Extreme reluctance to take risks, (avoiding using his powers because he doesn’t trust himself to control them, running and hiding during fights)  ~ AVPD (Avoidant Personality Disorder)

Well its been a while since i spedrun pd but what ive picked up is; They wear alot of layers which could be a texture thing or an unbalance to coldness and warmness and that bitch is definitely queer which is more common for autistic/adhd folks since they tend to be less reliant on social norms and thus more open about their sexuality and gender! Another think is in both the designs his hair only goes does to his neck i have autism and my hair HAS to be a specific length or like texture issues and shit and i know in the one shot between season 1 and 2 his hair is different but i refuse to believe that >:( anyway thats all i picked up i probably can think of alot more but these were a few off the top of my head! (i cant find much for the delusional disorder since its only small details but let me hc jeeze >:()  ~ Autism, ADHD, Schizophrenia, and Delusional Disorder

theres one specific monologue that makes me claw at the fences but i cant find it right now. Just know its true because i know everything and i said so  ~ OSDD-1b

Vyncent Sol (Prime Defenders)

(Submitted for Autism, DID/Plurality, OCD, and generally neurodivergent)

I do not care that it isn’t canon system Vyncent owns my soul  ~ DID I’ve only seen the free episodes but GOODNESS. First of all the multiple personalities are an obvious choice, the fact that he’s from another world and struggles to adapt to this world is SO autism coded for so many reasons, plus just. HIM is so autistic-like I can’t put words to it but it just is. The OCD is just vibes and projection honestly  ~ Autism, Plural, OCD, ND

#jrwi most nd #jrwi most neurodivergent #jrwi #jrwi bracket #just roll with it bracket #jrwi nd swag #just roll with it #jrwi prime defenders #vyncent sol #william wisp #ghostknife fight

[bricommissions]

Here I am to help your blog! Hehehe...hi, my name's Iris. I'm an adult, but I'm chirpy and weird. Despite being an adult, I act much like a child at times, finding ways to make work fun, making weird noises and other stuff to make myself or others laugh.

I have a hard time getting social cues: I usually miss it a lot but do my best to watch for those cues.

I don't like it when people yell at me (makes me close to crying) I also don't like it when we have a scheduled time of leaving or something and suddenly it changes.

I like to sleep and dream; listen to music, play games, draw, and many more.

Buuuut, I can easily get overwhelmed witj many people, and despite my chirpiness, I have a bit of a low social battery so I just shut down.

I suffer from depression and generalized anxiety disorder- I am also super picky about food textures and clothing textures. If something isn't right, I won't eat or wear it. But I do my best to if it's a gift or something-

I'm kind, sweet, a dork, and can get super excited easily, but can get shy like- hiding behind someone or just resting my head on one of my family's shoulders.

I get startled easily so I usually squeak or make noises like that- (I literally got picked to play the mouse in one of our videos because of my squeaking so much- lol xD)

And if you need more information, lemme know!

Also, genshun impact please.

Have a good day!

hello there, iris !! thank you for sending something in to help out & i hope you're having a good day/evening/night as well <3

DRUM ROLL, PLEASE . . .

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

i'd ship you with : ARATAKI ITTO !!

who better to be silly with than arataki numero uno itto himself ?! you both have a tendency to act like kids, but that's not a bad thing; it just means you have more fun than others do. despite both of you being adults, you're able to have fun as if time is non-existent & you're both forever young together.

for sake of story, let's say you're living in inazuma city. whether you have temporary residence or you permanently live there is up to you. if you live in inazuma city, you're bound to run into the famed arataki itto at some point. he's pretty hard to miss when he's usually causing such a ruckus !! the first time you meet, he's running at you frantically. it's all because of the ambitious little onikabuto skittering your way. you squeak as you do when startled.

it halts at your feet & stays there since it seems to like you. itto has since skidded to a stop & calmly walked up to you since he's just... in shock. he's never seen one of his onikabuto run up to a complete stranger like this before.

a little sheepish, he introduces himself to you as the one & oni, doing his very best to impress you since you have energy that onikabutos seem to like. you two hit it off pretty quickly, actually. you have a lot in common & simply vibe together since you have similar mannerisms. as the night goes on, you both become a lovable duo of huge dorks. you don't really get why people are so wary of him; he's a sweetheart just like you.

you make an immediate friend in that goofy oni, so you hang out quite often. he understands that you have anxiety, so he'll always make sure to check on you when you seem to be feeling anxious. whenever you're in need of defending or feel shy. you can always stand behind him; he'll puff that muscular chest out & keep you safe !!

since you like games, itto introduces you to genius invocation tcg, onikabuto battles, & more. whenever you play these games with him or the gang, the night is full of endless fun. speaking of the arataki gang, he ends up inviting you to join it. he's blushing a little when he does. it isn't until the gang members themselves point out that itto likes you in a non-platonic way that it all clicks for him.

you continue to hang out with him as usual, but the moments feel more tender. there's shy glances from not just your end, but itto's as well. blushing cheeks, hands brushing together, flirtatious laughter. it isn't long before you both become something more than friends thanks to the gang being itto's wing-people. when they hear the news, they support you both fully & sigh with relief that you both FINALLY got together !!

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

THANK YOU FOR READING !!

if you are unsatisfied with the results, feel free to shoot me an ask or im !!

if you'd like to receive one of these yourself, they are still open at the moment. please refer to THIS POST if you're interested. they just come out a bit slowly since they're lengthy.

if you liked my writing, please consider commissioning me !! it is my only source of income at the moment. i offering writing commissions such as custom character x reader fics, comfort character emails, ship fics, general fics, & more <3

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

#irisflowerarts #arataki itto #arataki itto x reader #arataki itto x y/n #arataki itto x you #itto imagines #itto x y/n #itto x reader #itto x you #genshin x reader #genshin impact imagines #genshin impact #genshin impact x y/n #genshin impact x you #genshin impact x reader #genshin imagines #genshin x y/n #genshin x you #writing commissions #thank you for sending something in!!

[volfoss]

Franken faceup (finally lol) under the cut :) very very long and text heavy because i had a LOT to say with the new stuff I tried :)

^ mockup :) you can see the placing of a lot of the stitches shifted slightly and that it was pretty dark makeup around the eyes! My big inspo for this was early pics of avril lavigne since I wanted to capture that vibe in the way of silly skater girl in this doll. I very much was kind of on the fence on this one, going back and forth on what I would do with the doll (which is why I um was postponing working on the head [outside of painting it] until now) but was convinced I would go with this.

I promise you I had plans to use this mockup. It just did not feel right when I *did* get around to the faceup so I went into it with my usual tactic of ehh it's fine I'll figure it out later which either goes really well or really bad from my experience. I had gotten some tips from a friend of mine who is a PHENOMENAL doll artist so was very hyped to put those into use as well!

I started with blushing the normal resin, not even touching the other colors until I had already gotten this layer sealed so there would be less color contamination (or that was the hope lol)

I just was focused on building up the pinks in the VERY yellowed resin to hopefully balance it out a little (with my experience with very yellowed dolls, this helps a lot in making the color a bit more balanced and life like instead of just. YELLOW. And with this head being from ~2006, she needed all the help she could get lol)

Next coat was the dark purple which shocker. This paint gave me even more issues lmao in the way that I struggled getting my pastels dark enough to really blush the cheeks and lips :/

Like it's there a bit but not a ton and that was ok! My lip lines kept disappearing with my sealant so I added more and more each layer.

Eventually decided that the small areas I had to blush on the teal and the light purple could be done on the same layer, so did that next

Added a bit more of the lip lines and blush around the eye area on this layer too :)

Brows were SCARY bc i was going to be trying new tactics next coat but for now, just a simple pastel outline was my goal! I was SUPER torn on how to proceed with eyeshadow (whether neutral, bright or dark) so focused on everything else (mainly getting the body blushed and getting things to look good there).

Then well. I would like to say i was just gonna do a TINY bit of watercolor to darken the purple side of the lips but then i got lost in the sauce of watercolors, adding moles, freckles, liner, and lashes with it! My favorite thing about this method of sealant (and this is a drawback to some people but to me it's a fun part) is that sometimes dust or small hairs get trapped in the sealant. And why I find this fun is that I can turn it into facial features on the doll, ie moles or scars. It's something where obviously I would prefer to NOT have it in there and I could pick it out but on this doll I wanted to gain as much skin texture as possible on each color so I let it be as messy of a sealant job as I wanted, which is why she's got the moles you see on the normal resin :)

I also used watercolors to add a bit of color where the pastels were not working well (the dark purple and teal parts of the head were giving me grief so I just got my brush wet, dipped it in my watercolors and placed it where i needed it, dabbing at it with a dry [or wet depending on what I needed] makeup sponge cut into small squares. It helped add a bit of color to the lips especially and I was very happy with how it turned out!

I am THRILLED with it so I'm letting it dry a bit and then sealant time! Honestly i do not think this faceup could have gone better :) i was NOT expecting it to go well but it came together and it feels very much like my doll announced her personality of hey. This is what I wanna look like and who am I to not follow those vibes!

Bonus pic w the eyes in (not perfectly aligned bc i didn't wanna budge the paint, I will be making them look a bit better later but I just was ready to get a pic and then put gloss on lol) :)

Also bonus bonus pic of the finished hand bc i am so so happy w it!!

^ gloss is still drying but :)

I'll post pics once it's all dry and ofc more progress as the body comes along but I'm really happy with it!

#twist rambles #bjd posting #Frankenstein wip #i really feel shes coming together... hopefully ill get a name soon lmao #SO hyped to get her done like... i think its really really pushed me to get comfortable with a lot of new faceup techniques and materials #shes such a unique sculpt like honestly her personality just shown through the second i put the eyes in 🥺 im so excited #wig time soon. hopefully #my phone is SO weird about pinks like it really makes them 20x more pink so the last pic is the most true to irl pic in here :) #i have no clue why i was like hey. light blue under the eye but i really like it! i think it adds a bit of personality to an otherwise #kinda normal faceup. again minus the painting underneath lmao #realizing im gonna have to go back over the stitches on the brow oughhh it's ok i am so so so brave... might make it more of an obvious cut #w using some acrylic to make it have a bit of skin there but idk. thats future mes problem lmao #i feel the arms are SO badly making it look very unfinished rn but i think when theyre done it's gonna be like ohhh its all coming together

[theninjasanctuary]

I'm still getting Tumblr glitches, as in, the end-of-year post I saved in drafts is nowhere to be found in the browser version, which is where I wrote and saved it, but is there on the app. Ehh.

Well, this one did not feel like a year where anything significant happened. Which I suppose is a way of saying I've had a decent enough year? As in, the world continues to burn, but I don't recall anything officially bad happening to me, despite all the whining and strong language I did in my posts. Nobody died, I'm gainfully employed and mostly bamboozling people that I can keep up. Looking at what I wrote to summarize the previous year, this one's been a breeze. Even though when I re-read what I've been posting this year - and I don't actually remember half of it -, it seems at least in the winter and spring, I wasn't having a great time between sleep deprivation, money woes and raising a sweet, but messy and needy cat; and from the summer onwards have not updated much at all, always complaining about stress. Well, for one thing, it is obvious I should reduce time spent on Reddit so there's more of it for everything else...

In no particular order: this was surely a better year from the health perspective. The last time I was ill was an annoying cold in early-to-mid February, where I actually needed antibiotics again because I tested positive for lung chlamydia, and have been generally just fine ever since, a welcome break after all the ailments 2022 threw at me. The achy wrist is still there and annoying, but I'm hoping it is fixable with the new treatment plan. And the toe I stubbed really bad in early September is still not a pretty sight, but in early December I finally started seeing a healthy pink regrowth emerge from under the cuticle, so the purple bruised part might finally be gone by, idk, April?

Could have used more exercise, as always, but I kept up with massage therapy and tried to keep up with physio appointments at least (there were some unintended breaks). And I've made some improvements about keeping my cholesterol level in check, and feel good about the new GP.

The cat is indeed no longer a kitten, but has grown into a fine adult, he's 1,5 years old now, weighs close to 6 kilos and is a pretty, floofy, bright boy with a friendly, curious personality. It has been expensive (getting all.the.things from zero, plus medical costs, plus food), and takes up loads of time, he nearly always delays bedtime so I lose sleep, and I've had to wash all the rugs, even replacing one with one that's easier to clean, because he either puked on them (his tummy is a bit sensitive apparently), or used the texture to scoot dingleberries off his floofy butt. Ehh. I'm now a lot less squeamish about cat poop, and since we are trying to keep his butt hair at least somewhat trimmed (despite resistance), there are fewer accidents, and he's learned to tolerate the occasional butt showers without clawing.

He's also grown less bitey when playing, and is still positive and confident, not holding any grudges. His favourite treat is freshly boiled egg (quail or chicken will both do, and he likes his portion slightly warm). He does not enjoy getting brushed all that much, but we keep a Furminator handy for quick swipes, because otherwise every damn thing is covered with cat hair, and the floors develop hefty, dark grey dust bunnies. Beyond demanding before-bedtime treats and play, he mostly lets us sleep without interrupting, as he's not particularly food-motivated, just gets impatient waiting for his morning cuddles sometimes. He only slept in our bed for a few weeks as a baby, initially between our pillows, then moved towards the end of the bed, but then decided he needs more space, and now sleeps where he feels like - sometimes on a chair in our room, sometimes under the bed, sometimes in whichever comfy spot elsewhere he prefers that night. I sometimes wish he was more of a snuggler, tbh, since he's so nice and soft with big plushie vibes. He does come asking that I pick him up for a cuddle and purr session when I get out of bed, or come home from wherever I've been, or sometimes before bedtime as well, and occasionally he'll have a cuddly kind of mood all day long, but overall, he's not a lap cat. Still, I lift and carry him around often enough that it might be contributing to my wrist issues. (Typical De Quervain's syndrome sufferers are mothers with young children.)

Work-wise, I've been feeling like a failure all year, despite actually getting at least some things done by winging it, and I feel I've been growing and learning with the new tasks I've had. Even so though, there's loads of guilt and stress, and I've often struggled with an irrational urge to avoid looking at my emails. It's not even that the workload is that much, it all boils down to my inability to focus. And I still haven't gotten any professional help with that, because my ability to go looking is limited (because I'm busy either stressing about work or procrastinating). And I still haven't seen an optometrist either, despite it being on the to-do-list since spring.

Can't say I've kept up on the home front that great either. My cleaning standards are slipping, particularly when it comes to dusting. There are just way too many things. And the inability to focus bleeds over to chores, things take way too long to get done or are delayed endlessly. I wish I could fix this. OTL

I keep procrastinating by browsing second-hand stores a lot. Made a switch to Sellpy as the first choice this year, since Momox changed their pricing policy and now Sellpy has the better deals as well as cheaper and easier shipping/returns, despite never having discount codes like Momox does. As for the score of items purchased, there were wins and losses, I did manage to get a few stellar items I wear a lot, but also returned lots of complete duds, either things that unfortunately didn't fit, or things I should not have expected to work in the first place, I guess. And I certainly kept a few items I don't use as much... if ever, as remains to be seen.

I see it would be better to tone this habit down to save both time and money, but since the shopping urges are at least partly hormonal, I cannot count on consistently making rational decisions. At least I'm not experimenting much with skincare at this point, mostly sticking to repurchasing staples. It still gets a bit expensive even so, and it has to be said that I've had an annoying amount of acne and picking issues this year despite keeping up with an elaborate skincare routine. All of this to be filed under *shit I still don't know how to fix*.

The travelling I managed this year was pretty nice in hindsight, a week in France at the end of January, then another in mid-August, then a weekend trip to Brussels, and an overnight in Helsinki to see a great live. I wish I could do more of this without financial stress, and worrying about leaving the cat (he's not taking separation super-hard, but still). The trip to Japan with friends we could not afford to take was a bit of a shitshow, btw: scorching temperatures, then a typhoon and then return flight cancellation, so stuck at the airport for 2 days before eventually getting rerouted.

Socializing: I think I did better than last year in this respect, I finally was in the mood for, and had the opportunity to throw a proper birthday garden party for myself, which was lovely. Additional meet-ups happened too, even if it would have been fun to have more. And having the cool coworker back at the office has been good, as expected. Now if I'd manage to actually get work done in reasonable hours, and feel good enough about my work output to warrant taking the time for fun, including hanging out with people, it would be even better.

Family: things are good with the boyf and most of the family, but I am stressed about big brother, his wife, and mom's will. Idk how any of this will be resolved. Ideally, I'd just buy the things I want from mom before inheritance ever becomes an issue, thus preventing any dividing issues, but I'd need to win the lottery beforehand...

I managed to do more gardening at mom's over the summer, which was rather nice. The summer wasn't as stressful climate-wise as feared, it was very dry in June, but enough rain from there onwards, and not too hot (I didn't get round to buying a mobile air conditioner nor heat-reflecting blinds, nor Birkenstocks, so this was very welcome). Still sad about losing a major feature of the entire garden, the big maple tree. Hoping to plant a replacement in the spring.

My aims for the next year involve being more responsible about money. It would be ridiculous to end up short on funds again when I'll be earning more than ever. The plan is to put more into the index fund retirement scheme, and I've started an automatic saving scheme as well (it rounds up all the card payments to 1 € up + I've added a monthly lump payment). I do hope to finally calm down about wardrobe upgrades, since I already have so much fabulous, joy-sparking stuff, and instead improve fitness a bit, so things will look better on me. I should definitely get more exercise anyway, and get some sort of a cheapish sports watch might be good. And I need to eat less sugar, and it would be good to get back to 8/16.

It also looks like 2024 will be one of the hardest work years of my life, and I have to manage to pull it all off for things to be easier in the future. It would be good if I just read books in my downtime instead of procrastinating on social media. Work guilt has meant very little reading just for fun this year, and that's not the kind of person I want to be.

As for what to look forward to, I will travel to France again in a few weeks, and probably to New York in June.

[namelessmewmew]

[Image ID: Shown is a rough pixel art drawing of an anthro zombie raccoon character. They have bright purple fur and high rainbow pigtails. They are wearing various accessories, including a rainbow spiked collar, a rainbow spiked tail band, rainbow sleeves, rainbow chains, a large pink bow, some pink and blue hairclips and a studded belt.  They are looking at the viewer. There a static/noise filter applied to the whole image. END ID]

Title: Z0MB1E RACC00N N0 CL1CKBA1T

Had alot alot of fun making this. :] The smiley's, stars and hearts are brushes I made X). Oh and I also made the static/noise texture! I wanted to create a old fuzzy image vibe but it’s also, like the watermark, meant to be obnoxious to nft fans/ai prompters! Two for the price of one!

Warning gigantic wall of text ahead.

Rambling: [about my irrational anxiety and ai prompted creations. I'm okay and please don't worry, k? I just wanted to mention alot of stuff that's been on my mind because lots of artists are probably also thinking stuff like this and might need encouragement. Their also may be typos and incoherentness, so if there is just let me know. probs will edit this later.]

Rambling [About anxiety] if you think that maybe some cheesy encouragement to make 'shit' art might do you some good.

Been going through the classic if I make bad art I am a bad person phase this year again and that combined with how busy I have been with studies and work I haven’t had time to work on improving my art so I have been telling myself that I just can’t make art so haven’t been making much this year honestly. [Again, I just have weird anxiety, please don’t worry k?] So, when making quick rough stuff like this, I feel alot more at peace with just creating stuff. I'll try to ride this 'you are allowed to make stuff that might be a bit or very shit' train for my sake for as long as I can. I feel alot more confident in making my rough paint 3d stuff, making a 'shit' voxel model, make something in 30 minutes in mspaint, draw something using highlighters and old lined exam pad.

Rambling [About 'ai 'art'] if you think that maybe some cheesy encouragement to keep going as an artist might do you some good.

I have been for awhile [and still am aiming for] my art skills getting to the point where I am able to make soft shaded anime paintings with amazing anatomy and super expressive faces and full detailed backgrounds, but with how AI Prompters have shown again how their are people [and big corps of course] that only care about the end product and could care less about human heart and soul, I have been thinking a lot about my relationship to the art I create and I think if you are self-conscious about your art not being good enough, or professional enough or reasonably feel mis-treated as an artist I think you should be kinder on yourself. That you should value the fact that you put whatever amount of skill and love for art you have into your art, whether you started a few seconds ago or decades ago. No matter if you think their are areas you really need to improve in or not. Wanting to improve or make grand things is wonderful and a good thing to strive for but like the whole point of art is just to connect with people, to express whats going on inside you, to analyze or interact with something you love like a video game, movie or book, to let your creativity fly and make your own thing, make a living off your passion by making paid art for people, or even just because you think it would be cool to make something! You, me and many other regular people that are artists and non-artists will continue to care about the soul behind art, about their being a person behind the art. We need to continue to care about human created art. If you are on fence about caring, I urge you to at least consider it. Not just but especially for the people that depend on it but also just for the sake about caring about such a base human thing that has been apart of our culture since basically since we started to exist!

I understand how it's hard lately to keep going as an artist and I am actively having to fight myself against discouraging 'I should just quit art' thoughts, because shit like Ai prompters getting hundreds of followers, selling ai 'art' commissions,  training models off specific artists works [including recently decreased ones, mind you!] is very disheartening [Especially with it seeming like they have support of many big corps and sites, including da!] No one should be trying to tell you as an artist or lover of art to not be upset! You have very right to be! Especially if art is your livelihood! Especially if art is very something personal to you! Especially if you rightfully think people should just give a shit about art!

AI Art does suck AND it is actively harming artists work. Especially artists that depend on surviving on their work. If I have a chance of convincing you, someone, anyone that is on the fence or is extremely pro ai prompted creations, I might as well ask you to listen to artists and let them have at least a change to explain why and how ai prompted creations are wrecking the world of art and why artists are rightfully upset.

Please if you can support artists, support them, especially those in need. Doesn't need to just be financially, sharing and engaging with art you think is cool is something that matters as well! We are all just regular people that all are just trying to survive!

Done Rambling:

All of that negativity and positivity leads me to a thing I made spontaneously in 3 days: A very silly very short [2-3 minutes] twine game about the above zombie raccoon trying to escape a rave forest. I really enjoyed making the art for it! It's ‘shit’ and I absolutely love it!

Character[s]:

xX Arc Doom Glitter Xx  [OC]

Have a good day/night further!

[MewMewMew~]

#Nameless creates #Furry #Furryart #eyestrain #tw eyestrain #eyestrain tw #Cartoony Blood #ask to tag

[hareefaree]

Journal - 2022 Fall Reflections - Animation

My animation practice this semester was intense. I spent a lot of time experimenting and focusing in on stop motion. What I’m learning about myself is that I LOVE it! I’ve realized that straight-ahead animation is how I best work and that my visual priorities are texture, how light plays with surface.

More under the read more! (Game design journal HERE)

Early in the semester I stumbled across this tutorial by an amazing animator, Anna Firth (supplemented with tutorials by DIY animation club and Ingo Raschka). I’ve been wanting to get into cels for a LONG time - I love the way the paint has a LIFE that MOVES in front of the camera that it doesn’t have when done in a more professional digital style. I was in an experimental animation class, so I said fuck it! why not! Let's try and do cels!

At the time I didn’t have the funds to buy proper cel sheets and I’m kind of stubborn about using cheap materials, so I ended up using these matte plastic sheet protectors I grabbed in bulk off amazon (sorry). They were kinda problematic at first - they didn't take paint well or ink at all, so my initial experiments were rough. To line, I used a shitty small-nib Micron that I had to run over the surface multiple times. To color, I used some transparent gesso as the base layer and then gouache to try and make the paint stick to the paper (you have to paint backwards with cels, foreground first, then background, etc).

These would be scanned in (which I regret, I think it would have benefitted from using a lightbox/simple lighting set up under a downshooter so I could control how it looked a bit more) and end up looking a bit like this:

I'm really really really enamored with the filmic vibe of this. We used a bolex and some 16 mm film later in the semester and I think the sort of choppiness of this reminds me of the moments where the film is starting and it tries to catch up to itself.

My later experiments would have me move from pen-on-surface to paint -on-surface, which I would apply with a super-thin liner brush. I think this worked a bit better but I didn't quite figure out what exactly I wanted to do with this. (the first experiment below was scanned in, the second under a down shooter using fabric and paper collage elements)

And then... I properly started playing with light. And something kind of magical happened?

I knew for my experimental final that I wanted to use the technique that I was working with as well as the paper-cut out animation I feel most comfortable with, and I'd done this really fun experiment with projected light on tulle so I wanted to use a projector and silhouettes.

And then I spent a few weeks just created a very simple, rudimentary projector box (literally just a cardboard box with two openings, one for light and one for it to project, and a slot where I could exchange paper-cut out silhouette slides). I created a simplistic torso/head puppet with replacement hands and opted to do the facial animation with the bootleg cel process.

A decently involved lighting process later, and I got this.

There are so many things I love about my final sequence - the complexity of the light, the slight variations of how it falls on each surface in the scene. The final film - 2 minutes and 30 seconds long - still needs to be re-edited and re-sound-designed. But I am SO proud of the visuals I achieved.

Anyway, that's about it for my animation work. I'll make another post about the stop motion film I spent the semester doing preproduction for and will be animating next semester!

#journal #reflections #animation #experimental animation

[aparticularbandit]

Finding Family: Part Five: Chapter Thirty

Summary: When America begins universe-hopping again to try and find her moms, she realizes that’s too much scope for her.  She looks for smaller scope, and instead she finds Wanda.

AO3

The cloud dissipates from around them, and Kate unlocks her arm from Agatha’s before stumbling forward towards the nearest trash can, coughing like there’s something stuck in her throat, somewhere between gagging and dry heaving. Agatha’s sure somewhere in the English language there’s a word for it – retching is close enough in texture, but it’s much drier than the image retching evokes – but she can’t quite think of it.  She gives the girl a hard slap just between her shoulder blades, enough to force Kate to give a final cough before glaring up at her.  “What was that?”

“Simple teleportation spell, dear.  Didn’t mean to make you lose your breakfast.”  Agatha taps her chin with one slender finger.  “Or dinner.” She sighs.  “I take it you don’t have much experience with magic, do you, sugar?”

“Nope.”  Kate starts coughing again, hits her chest a couple of times, and then straightens.  “I think I swallowed some of that cloud…thing.”

“Oh, you poor dear.”  Agatha shakes her head.  “Teleportation rules are like rollercoasters.  Keep your arms and legs inside the moving vehicle at all times and don’t swallow the cloud.”  Not that it’s actually possible to swallow the cloud.  It isn’t really a consumable substance.

As they talk, Wendy unwinds her arm from Agatha’s and glances down the alleyway.  Her nose scrunches up with disgust, and then she covers it with her sleeve.  “Where are we, Hook?  It smells worse than a pirate ship out here.”

Kate’s eyes widen, and she stares at Wendy.  “You’ve been on a pirate ship?”

Wendy hesitates.  “Well, no, but I assumed—”

“Assumptions make asses out of everyone,” Agatha interrupts, and Wendy glances away with a look of chagrin.

Kate sniffs the air.  “You know, it’s actually not all that bad.  This smells just like that alleyway next to my old apartment.  Not the side I used for trash, but my neighbor Randall?  It smelled a lot like him. Only better.”  She wafts up with her fingers.  “There’s no B.O. smell.”

Wendy ignores all of this and turns back to Agatha before asking again, “Where are we?”

“New York, of course.”  Agatha offers her a smile that’s more fond than anything.  “Where else would we be?”

Wendy just scrunches up her nose again, still covering it with her shirt sleeve. “New York stinks.”

“Always has, dear.”  Agatha turns back to Kate.  “Now, did you have some place in mind for us to stay, or do I need to come up with something?”

Kate raises an eyebrow.  “What did you have in mind?”

 Agatha looks up at the dingy brick complex, hands templed together in front of her.  She doesn’t have a key mostly because she’s never needed a key.  Magic unlocks doors well enough for her, and a key just means someone else can try to steal it from her (good luck, buttercup) and get into her apartment on their own.  Of course, if they did get into her apartment, a nasty little surprise would be waiting for them, so in all honesty, the only person it would have hurt is the thief.  Who shouldn’t have been trying to take what doesn’t belong to them in the first place.

Yes, Agatha is aware how hypocritical that sounds.  So be it. Let her be a hypocrite.  No one is stealing from her.

“Is that….”  Kate glances to the building next to them.  “Is that the Sanctum Sanctorum?”

Agatha doesn’t even glance over.  “Yes.  The Ancient One and I used to meet up for tea when they were in town.  Quite a nice sorcerer.  Not like the one who keeps the sanctum now.  He’s so….”  She waves a hand in the air.

“Arrogant?” Kate supplies.  “Cocky? Hot?”

Wendy gives Kate a look and raises an eyebrow.

“What?” Kate says, and she turns away, brushing her arm with one hand. “I’ve got eyes, and he’s got hot dad vibes.  Kind of like how—”  She cuts herself off.  “Nope, nope, not going to say that.”

“Not going to say what?”

“Puritan,” Agatha completes finally.  She gives a half-hearted little shrug.  “This isn’t a permanent home, but it’s a nice place when I want somewhere to spend my time.” Then she starts up the stairs into the complex, gesturing for the girls to follow her. “C’mon, girls.  Let’s get inside and make sure no one has fucked with my apartment.”

Something in her twinges at the foul language.  Agatha’s eyes narrow slightly.  That’s odd.  But the feeling passes quickly enough, and while she doesn’t exactly shrug it off, she does file it away to examine later.  And then she shrugs it off.

The doorknob is just as grimy as Agatha remembers.  The hallway smells just as much of smoke, although at least Wendy isn’t covering her nose with her sleeve the way that she had in the nearby alleyway.  The lightbulb overhead still flickers ominously.  The carpet on the floor still looks like the color theory meme, which was useful when…well. Agatha’s never dragged a dead body through her apartment, and she’s never killed anyone in the hallway, and normally when she kills another witch, there’s no bloodshed, just the hollowed out corpse, but it could be useful if she did knife someone down for whatever reason.

Or, you know, in one of the many, many attacks that various supervillains or aliens or monsters from other dimensions and universes have made on New York in the past several years.  To be honest, Agatha’s kind of surprised this building is still standing, given its proximity to the Sanctum Sanctorum, but that have more to do with the protection spell she set up around it decades ago.

Agatha leads them five doors down, to the last apartment in the very back of the building, and three floors up, to the very top floor of the building.  Neither of them complain about this, although it’s clear that Wendy is growing more exhausted with every step.  She slumps forward, feet dragging up the stairs, but she makes it.

It’s when Agatha reaches out to open the door that Kate stops her.  “It’s going to be locked,” she says.  “Don’t you need a key?”

“I’m a witch, hon.  Do you really think I need a key?”  Agatha raises an eyebrow, and instead of grabbing the knob with her hand, she claps her hands together.  The door opens without even a touch.  She strides inside, lifting the lights with an equally gentle lift of her finger, and examines the runes she’s placed in the apartment itself.  They haven’t changed in three years.  Good. She’ll need to modify those if—

No.  Give it some time.  She wants to see how Wendy will react first.

If Wendy will react.

The apartment isn’t as bare bones as might be expected.  There’s a navy blue couch with faded silver paisley looking out through the window, a coffee table in front of it with an—

Oh, right.

Agatha scrunches her nose and scurries in front of both of them, taking the teacup in her hands and hiding it behind her back as she turns to the girls. “You didn’t see that.”

“Didn’t see what?” Wendy asks with a yawn.

“Exactly.”  Agatha points at her.  She sees Kate raise an eyebrow at her again, and she sighs.  “Look, kid, I expected to get back here a lot sooner than now. There may be some things you don’t want to see.”  Or smell, although she doesn’t say that bit.  “I was in a bit of a hurry.”

Kate keeps her eyebrow raised.  “I thought you were a witch?” she says.  “Can’t you just, you know,” she makes a sweeping gesture with one hand, “fix it with magic?”

Agatha gives her a blank stare.  “The only witch you know is Wanda, isn’t it?”  Before Wendy can correct her, she holds a hand aloft.  “Ash, Wendy, Scarlet – all Wanda.  All the Scarlet Witch.  Do you know any witch who isn’t Wanda?”

“I know you,” Kate answers.  Then she shrugs one shoulder.  “Sort of.”

“So no.”  Agatha crosses one arm about herself, elbow resting in her hand, other hand held aloft.  “How to put this in a way you can understand, let me see.”  She taps her chin.  “Ah, yes. Wanda is a PlayStation 5.  Top of the line.  Amazing graphics.  Can do pretty much anything you ask of her.  Every other witch is a PlayStation 4 or lower. Still potentially good graphics. Still a lot of power.  Can’t do everything the PlayStation 5 can.  Make sense?”

“No,” Wendy says at the exact same moment that Kate says, “Sort of?”

Agatha takes in their confused looks and sighs.  “The Scarlet Witch is a nexus being.  She is the center of reality for this universe.  Among other things.”  She waves her hand dismissively.  “Just by her very nature, Wanda – all versions of Wanda, unfortunately – have more power than me.  They don’t need runes.  They don’t need incantations.  They can just do whatever they want, whenever they want.”  She glances over to Wendy briefly.  “Provided they’ve had enough training.”

Or their emotions go haywire, Agatha thinks but doesn’t say.

Kate nods slow.  “So Wendy could fix everything.  If she wanted to.”  Her glance moves to Wendy.  “Right?”

“Um.”  Wendy’s lips press together.  She knocks her heels against each other.  “I…I don’t think I have enough training for that.  And I’m tired.”  She yawns again, covering her mouth with one hand.  “Maybe in the morning?  After I’ve slept?”  She glances blearily about the room.  “Where do we sleep?”

Agatha gestures in front of them.  “There’s a couch.”

Before she even finishes speaking, Kate hops the back of the couch and spreads out on it, dropping her bag, quiver, and bow on the floor just in front of it.  “Dibs!”  She flashes Wendy a bright grin.  “Sorry, but America got the couch last time, and you had your own bed, and I know you didn’t always use the bed, sometimes you slummed it out in the living room with us, but I get the couch this time.”  She immediately tucks her arms under her head and stares up at the ceiling, letting out a relaxed, relieved sigh.  “It’s not the nicest couch, but it’ll do. For a bed, I mean.”  She glances to Agatha.  “You got any extra blankets?  Throw pillows are nice, but blankets, man.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Agatha says through gritted teeth.  She presses her lips together as she turns back to Wendy then gestures again.  “There’s a floor?  I don’t keep extra beds.  People didn’t really visit me for that sort of thing.”  She doesn’t glance away.  “I didn’t really want people visiting.”

Wendy yawns again.  “That’s…that’s fine, if you’ve got blankets. I mean, I’ve slept a lot of places. Floor’s not so bad, just so long as it isn’t cold.”  She meets Agatha’s eyes and gives her a smile.  “Thanks for giving us a place to stay, Hook.  We didn’t really think that far ahead.”

“I could’ve come up with somewhere for us to stay!” Kate says from where she’s stretched out on the couch.  “You just didn’t give me the opportunity!  I could’ve checked to see if my—”

Agatha stops listening.  She’s not really interested in what Kate has to say.  Instead, she reaches over and ruffles Wendy’s hair, offering her a half-fond smile when Wendy glances back up at her with an annoyed expression.  Her head tilts to one side, and she whispers into her mind, Don’t thank me too much.  New York isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Her gaze flits through the window to the sanctum next door.  And if that Puritanical new guy’s around— She rolls her eyes.  Woof.

Wendy just giggles.

Kate gives her a harsh glance.  “What?” she asks.  “What did I say?  What’s so funny?”

“Nothing, nothing.”  Wendy waves a hand at her.  “Don’t worry about it!  I’m just tired.”  But she glances back to Agatha and gives her a bright grin, and that’s enough, really.

Agatha doesn’t like how that makes her feel.

 At first, Agatha doesn’t sleep.

Her bedroom has a mottled collection of books and scrolls amassed over the centuries in one corner, most of their spells memorized but unwilling to be shared with the world at large.  Every so often, she glances over to them, remembering where she found each one, considering running her fingers along some of the older parchment just to feel it against her skin again, but choosing, instead, to stay in her bed. The mattress is harder than the one Scarlet made for her; she’d never really liked the feather soft beds.  She’d spent too much time on beds made of lesser materials that doing anything else felt wrong, and feeling wrong isn’t conducive to good sleep.  She clasps her hands together just above her stomach and stares at the popcorn ceiling without really looking at it, thinking over her options.

She’s free now, isn’t she?  Wendy freed her.  So there’s no reason to ever return to Wanda’s house, even if Wendy and her little friend decide to go back.  Somehow, she doesn’t think Wendy will care too much about that, and even if she does—

Agatha doesn’t sigh.  She reviews.  Wendy is another Scarlet Witch.  A younger one, to be sure, and one that she has personally been training.  That means – in theory – she should know all of the spells that Wendy knows.  She knows what she hasn’t taught her.  But that doesn’t mean Wendy can’t just make magic happen without even knowing what she’s doing.

So – if Wendy wants to force her back, Agatha supposes the child could do it easily enough.  She just doesn’t think she will. For all that Wendy knows about her, she’s not scared of her, which does just fine.  She’s never given Wendy a reason to be afraid.  That was very intentional.  Still is.

With her eyes open, Agatha lets her mind stretch out like mist again, tentatively touching the minds of her apartment’s other occupants.  Even in her dreams, Kate is frustrated. Confused.  There’s a blonde woman in them that reminds Agatha somewhat of her own mother, albeit much more conniving.  On second thought, not like her mother at all.  And Wendy—

Agatha isn’t surprised when the knock comes at the door, but only because she’s aware the girl is there before she even knocks.  “Come in.”  She lifts a finger, and the door opens as if she were standing there to open it herself.

Wendy enters, rubbing her eyes with one hand, and then glances up at her, bleary eyes widening.  “You’re floating.”

“Mmhm.  Helps me think.”  Agatha slowly shifts, and as she does, she lowers, until she sits on the edge of her bed, one leg just crossed over the other, hands resting on the mattress on either side of her.  “Is something wrong, my little Wendybird?”

Wendy makes a disgruntled noise and shuts the door behind her.  Without thinking, her finger reach to one of two necklaces around her neck – a chain, from which a ruby red star dangles.  “I couldn’t get to sleep,” she murmurs, not meeting Agatha’s eyes. “I know you aren’t having any nightmares – you’re, um, you haven’t been sleeping, I guess – but I wondered….”  She pushes a hand through her dark hair and glances up. “Can I sleep in here with you?  If you…if you sleep, if it wouldn’t bother you.”

Agatha’s head lists to one side.  She examines the girl in front of her.  Her lips purse together.  “You won’t try any funny business.”

“No!” Wendy exclaims.  “I mean, no.”

The repetition holds no offense, and for once, despite Agatha’s desire to be dramatic, to hold her hand to her chest and feign being seriously wounded by the words, she doesn’t.  Instead, she examines Wendy a second time and then gestures her forward with one hand.  “Come here.”

Wendy moves across the room, bare feet leaving tracks in the dust that Agatha, hovering just above it, hadn’t.  She climbs onto the bed next to her, and Agatha gingerly wraps an arm around her shoulders, squeezing her against her side.  “You have trouble sleeping alone, dear?”

It takes a moment before Wendy nods against her side.  “You’re not the only one who has nightmares, you know.”

“I know.”

“I just…when other people have nightmares, they want to be comforted, and I always want to be with someone, so it’s always easier that way.”  Wendy reaches up and fiddles with the second cord around her neck, drawing attention to it

Agatha recognizes that cord.  Her fingers itch to touch it, but she chooses not to.  “Having nightmares is a natural part of life.  Everyone has them.”  She rubs Wendy’s arm.  “But if you want to stay here with your Hook, then by all means.  I won’t bite.”

Mostly.

Wendy nods.  “Thank you, Hook.”

It’s the gentlest thing in the world, the way that Agatha moves to the side of the bed that is always hers whenever she’s needed to share a bed with another person (for whatever reason she’s shared a bed with another person), the way she curls on her side but stretches her legs out beneath sheets and blankets that haven’t been used in years, the way that Wendy nestles against her, burying her head just against the hollow of her throat, tucking herself in so small that she just fits.  Agatha slowly runs her fingers through the girl’s dark hair, letting them curve into the curls, and then leans down just enough to press a kiss to the crown of her head.  “Sleep, my little Wendybird.  No pirates will get you here.”

At her words, Wendy gives another gentle nod before tucking closer to her. She glances up, and for a moment, it seems as though, she, too, is going to say something.  Instead, she offers her a sleepy smile and leans up just enough to press a kiss to Agatha’s cheek.  When she pulls away, she flushes a bright scarlet, bites her lower lip, and swallows once before nestling against her once more and closing her eyes.

Agatha doesn’t need to reach into Wendy’s mind to know when the girl has fallen asleep; she can tell from the way her breathing slows and then settles, from the beat of her heart keeping a much calmer time.  But as Wendy settles, something long dead in the center of Agatha’s chest tightens painfully.  She ignores this as much as she can, instead ever so gently tracing a finger along the slope of Wendy’s neck and pulling on the thick black cord she recognizes.

At the very end of the black cord dangles a golden cage even more familiar to her, and inside that cage is a bright, sickly green stone.

Now, Agatha did not disappear during the Snap.  She was not involved with the Avengers or their kin, although she picked up on the explanations they gave for why half of humanity suddenly disappeared.  In fact, the surviving Sorcerer Supreme sought her out for the connection she’d had with the Ancient One and asked, futilely, for her help.  (Request denied.)  She’s certainly heard of the Infinity Stones that are supposed to no longer exist.

That is not how she knows this necklace.

For a moment, Agatha holds the golden cage in her hand, staring at the green gem.  Then she tucks it just beneath the edge of Wendy’s shirt again.  This stone holds no temptation for her as she is now.  She knows better than to try and mess with her timeline, no matter how much—

Okay, so perhaps a little bit of temptation.  But she ignores that.  She can ignore that, unlike some people.

Agatha strokes a hand through Wendy’s hair again, tucking it back out of her face, and then lets out a breath.  Her lips press together.  How does she feel about this?  How can she feel about this?  She doesn’t know.

The worst is the voice in the back of her mind as she closes her eyes – both hers and not hers all at the same time – whispering gently, “Ah, so that’s where it is.  Never thought you’d be the one to find it.  Good girl.  I’ll be seeing you shortly.”

It makes Agatha shiver, but she forgets it by the time she wakes up.

#bandit fic #finding family with wanda and america #wanda maximoff #scarlet witch #america chavez #agatha harkness #kate bishop #mcu #queue

[caspercryptid]

Life Pro Tips from an extremely chronically ill academic (I am not a doctor, take a grain of salt)

If you want to look confident walking in heels, be more careful to walk heel-toe, putting your weight on the heel.

Take meds that upset your stomach with peanut butter or something else that's high in fat. Mix cocoa and powdered sugar with your peanut butter to make a kind of Reese's candy vibe thing that's easier to eat if you don't like just straight peanut butter. Add granola to that if you need more texture.

Take probiotics when a doctor gives you antibiotics, it'll help with your gut flora so you don't shit yourself half to death. they're over the counter. (kombucha also does this but like. Price.)

Take ibuprofen, aspirin, and naproxen sodium with food, or you'll give yourself acid reflux symptoms. If you get acid reflux symptoms, take a daily acid reducer instead of a bunch of those chewable tablets, which will clog your intestines like you're trying to shit rocks.

Pepto bismol will also do this. Do not take it for extended nausea.

If you are shitting rocks, daily metamucil pills will help (it comes in an orange powder form too but I Hate That Stuff). Start with one a day, then two, then keep going more if that doesn't help. It should help in a few days. If it doesn't, miralax powder is tasteless, and magnesium citrate drinks taste like lemon candy and will work in a few hours

If you have intense abdominal pain, test yourself for appendicitis by pushing in on the right side of your stomach and then letting go. If it hurts very very bad when you let go, but not so much pushing in, Go To The Hospital.

If it hurts on the left side and you've been constipated, that may be a GI issue. If you have to go to the hospital for the pain, lead with that, because you don't want them to give you opiates. Those are constipating. If it hurts but not like hospital bad, try laxatives.

I'm sorry these are all about shitting

Read the SparkNotes for your school assigned books even if you read the chapter, in case you missed something. Also do this if you didn't have time to read the chapter— if you get behind, don't try to catch up, just read a summary and then start on the next section so it doesn't add up. You Will Die

If you're disabled, try coordinating directly with your teachers before you get disability services documentation, ideally on the first day of class. This will tell you how much they are willing to help you. If they insist you need the documentation before they'll even have a discussion of what they can do to accommodate you, they will not be willing to do anything not explicitly covered by those papers. Tread carefully.

the magic words with your primary care provider are "I've been having x problem for x amount of time, and I'd like to pursue a treatment for it. could I get a referral for that?" Alternatively, "what are the treatments available for that?" There are some chronic problems that don't require a specialist— a primary care provider can give you first line treatments for migraines and acid reflux, for instance, but if those meds don't work for you you may need a specialist. And if the problem is pain, you want to avoid seeming drug seeking at all costs. Don't ask your primary care doctor for pain meds unless you REALLY trust them, because either you don't get them and you get marked in your file, or you do and the actual problem you're having isn't addressed. Some doctors will be happier to give you pills then they will be to listen to you. You do not want those doctors. If you have a pain condition- is it your head? Neurologist. Is it your body? Rheumatologist. Sinuses or throat? ENT. Stomach? GI, gastroenterology. Were you in an accident or had an injury? Physical therapy.

Anyway sorry this is so long. Brush and floss your teeth, drink water, welcome to Nightvale got good again after everyone stopped listening. Be nice to people. ✌️

#long post #casper's cryptid tales #i am not a doctor i have just seen SO MANY DOCTORS #casper's cryptid tales with id #(id not needed)