#i was just going to do like a really messy sketch and then grey scale or something but I- didn’t… do… that-

[princesskkfish]

Day 1: stars

idk man when I saw the prompt I knew I was doin somethin with the glowy stars-

#rottmnt #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #risetober 2023 #rise of the turtles #rottmnt leo #rottmnt mikey #rottmnt donnie #riseofthetmnt #rottmnt raph #i was just going to do like a really messy sketch and then grey scale or something but I- didn’t… do… that- #Oop oh well #ALSO INGORE the cork boarddd i don’t like it fksjcjjsjshah #rise of the tmnt #Ok now I’ve gotta hit the hay so bye bye

[shapelytimber]

Hi there! I am obsessed with those TES tarot cards you made. The shapes, the lines, the colors . . . I think The Devil is my personal favorite.

If you don't mind, could you talk about your compositional choices for those? Like layout, structure, arrangement/placement, visual hierarchy, color decisions? Seven years of art school and no composition lessons . . . I'm taking things into my own hands.

Hello !

First of all, omfg thank you so much ?? I'm so glad you like my silly tarot cards :D

I'm really flattered you asked me this question, so I'll try my best to answer it (I'm no teacher and english is not my first language so I hope it will be comprehensible lggklflfifkf)

When you say your an art student who never had any real composition class, I feel you- I've been an applied art student for 4 years (7 if you count design), and apart from really basic and classic stuff like dividing by thirds, the different shots used in cinema, using a little window to help frame what you are trying to draw from life (witch are all very useful), I never really had many composition tips ?

So yeah idk what I'm doing, but that's art baybee

I'll share my process when it comes to designing my cards and hope it'll help lhgktlgofk

I begin by doing little thumbnails (3-4 cm long maximum) with a non erasable pen (or if I'm doing it digitaly, I dezoom a lot, use a big brush and don't erase what I'm doing)

It helps me coming up with big shapes and an interesting compisition (if your doing this on paper, never draw the borders first, it limits your creativity by "putting your drawing in jail" (wisdom from one of my best teachers))

And I personnaly don't use black lines when doing this, because the uglier the lines the less precious I am.

And because I associate dark lines with clean lineart, and this step is about being messy ! So the uglier colors the better :) (for me)

(I'll use two cards as exemples, one I did by doing thumbnails on paper, and the other on my art program)

(And sorry I could not use the devil as an exemple, it was one of the three cards I did in class and so I skipped the thumbnailing for time saving :/)

Next step is sketching, still using my ugly colors :)

But to talk a bit more about composition, for these I always have the important element of the card near the middle (sanguine's face and his lovers head, and miraak as a whole) (I know trick of the year glgjorlfifjl)

And to help with dynamism, I use a lot of diagonal elements (sanguine's shoulders and hips, his right arm and leg, his is leaning back slightly, and his lover is laid a bit to the left. For miraak he is also laying back, his shoulders are not straight, and his to dragons are going on two different diagonals)

Next comes the line ! For this project I chose to use a pretty simple-ish and stylised look (mainly for time saving since it began as a school project)

The colors are really simple, I just do a grey scale version then apply an overlay on top :)

And as a final touch before adding the title, I add a white frame, that I always put behind the foreground to try give them a bit of depth :))

So to sum up my design brief for these :

- clean and stylised lineart

- one color for the whole illustration (exept for the devil because it was the first one I did and I did not know what I was doing glg'goflf)

- a second very saturated color used to highlight important elements (in either yellow, blue, purple or red)

-always have black somewhere

-white frame behind the foreground

-the numbering alternate between the top right and top left (exept once angain for the devil gmgkfnfon I'll have to change that someday)

-the title is always in the middle on the bottom, on top of the white frame

Hope I answerd your question ^^'

thank you again for the very kind message :)

#I hope this helps jihjhprj #tarot cards #card design #art process #my art #tes fanart

[airborneice]

I'm very new to digital art and was wondering what sort of process/brushes you use for your Hilda art? I absolutely love your trolls and centaur designs ❤️

aw that’s very kind, thank you!! tbh my art approach is kind of all over the place but I’ll do my best to answer!

first off, I draw in photoshop and use mainly these two brushes -

the 1st is pretty much the standard PS brush and the HB one is what I used for most of the trolls/centaur stuff! generally I pick one of these brushes and use it for both lineart and putting in colour/shadows. (to be honest photoshop somehow got the settings on the HB brush messed up a lil while ago which is why I use it for lineart less now, but it’s still nice for doing shadows bc it has a really pretty soft edge :) )

as for art process, I’ll try to explain with the hilda little mermaid drawing I did recently - explanation thingy under the cut!

.

.

so with most of my art I usually start out sketching it on paper first and then move the sketch to my computer - since you’re new to digital you might find it easier to start that way, it helps make things less complicated bc you already have something to start from

so for the drawing in question I started with this which is. A Mess

everything is all over the place and yasha from crit role is hanging out in the middle of it but this is the type of thing I start with! first with the lil thumbnail sketch up in the corner, and then doing the characters in more detail separately (if I know I’m gonna end up moving something to digital I’ll just draw the characters anywhere I can fit them on the page, bc I can worry about fitting them together properly later)

u can honestly skip the thumbnail sketch if u want, but for bigger drawings I find it useful to have something rough to refer back to, so I don’t forget what I’m aiming for overall when I start getting into the details

anyway then I move the paper sketch to digital and arrange things properly and add anything I’ve missed, and depending on how messy it is I do another slightly cleaner sketch overtop -

I’ve learned the hard way that fixing things at the lineart stage is a lot more hassle so I try to make sure everything’s looking as it should in the cleaner sketch - david’s initial sketch looked mostly fine to me so I only redid a couple things and added some details, while I changed a lot of kaisa til I was happier with the pose. I knew the salt lion was gonna end up being mostly hidden so I didn’t worry about refining it

SO next I make a new layer and start drawing the clean lineart over the sketch. I like using coloured lineart these days, so I pick a colour to sketch and do lineart in - literally any colour except black, since photoshop lets you change the hue later (you can go to Image -> Adjustments -> Hue/Saturation and change things as much as you like). I did all the lineart for the characters here in purple, like the sketch, and I made sure to keep all the lineart for different characters separate so I could mess with it individually later. I’ve got a bit of what kaisa’s lineart folder looks like below, and you definitely don’t have to put Everything on a new layer like I did, but I usually keep the eyes, brows and little details like the fin lines and scales separate bc they’re the things I’ll most likely want to adjust later

once I’ve got the lineart done in that one colour, I’ll use the Adjustments-> Hue/Saturation slider to change some parts of it (this is where having things on different layers comes in) to blend in or stand out more, so by the end it looks like it does below. I made some swatches so you can see which parts I changed from the main outline colour:

so I kept the original purple for most of it, but I changed the salt lion’s lines to blue, and kaisa’s scales to a light grey so they’d blend in more, and made her eyebrows much darker so they’d stand out from her hair. (I usually do this step after I’ve started colouring them in, bc it’s easier to see what’s working then and what isn’t, I’m just showing it here so you can see it in isolation). also, I’ll usually set the whole lineart folder to ‘multiply’ so it blends in with the colour layer even more

(tbh you don’t have to do it as complicated as this, everyone has their own approach depending on what they’re going for and it might take some trial/error before you find what works best for you. I just do this bc I’m used to it and don’t mind the extra hassle. pretty colours go brrr :) )

for colouring in, I use the lasso tool to trace over areas of the drawing and the paint bucket to fill them in. I usually put every different coloured area on a new layer so it’s easier to go back and change something if I decide I don’t like the colour. so everything is built up over a number of layers, and I can use the airbrush tool to soften the edges of some areas (like david’s arm fins). for the parts with gradients like their tails, I put down a flat colour layer (like the orange for david), select that area and then make a new layer and put the gradient on with a big airbrush tool. also for stuff from hilda I usually colour-pick straight from a screenshot of the show with the eye-dropper tool, it’s much faster than guessing them

so then we have the flat colours done, and I can show you why I like doing coloured lineart even though it takes longer bc

here’s the lineart all in black vs the final result with the colours. like…it’s fine, there’s nothing wrong with the all black one, but having the colours really helps soften things imo!

I didn’t really do much by shading for this one but to go over it real quick -

if I was just drawing a character on a white background I wouldn’t bother with this step, but here I know this scene is taking place in the dark & underwater, so I selected the characters, made a new layer and filled in a dark green colour overtop on a low opacity & set to Multiply, so the characters get this slight green tinge and look more like they’re in the setting (I did the same with the salt lion but I’m gonna just focus on these two for now)

for the actual shadows I got the same green colour, and on another multiply layer blocked it in, and just played around with the opacity til it looked about right

honestly not my best job at shading lol but it helps give it some depth and put them in the scene! if I hide the colours and lines for a sec you can see that literally all I’ve added over the original colours is this:

and if I add the basic colours of the background in, you can see how much it helps compared to the flat colours I started with -

they look so much more like they’re in the scene!

anddd after doing the same thing to the salt lion (which is just the same shading process but more layers and darker) and adding the rest of the background that’s it!!

don’t worry they’ll be fine lol

anyway sorry this got so long, I hope it helps!! I’m not the best at explaining myself so if anything I said here doesn’t make sense then feel free to ask :)

#ask #anon #little mermaid au

[flowercrown-bard]

ok so let me start by saying that I don't have the slightest idea what I'm doing or if this is in any way helpful but @forceofconviction and @spiciestmarinara asked for a pattern for the ace dragon embroidery so here's my attempt at explaining what I did

This is the basic dragon shape I use for everything. I try to vary it by making the dragon more hunched over or give the tail a different direction to swoosh in. I also like to make it so the wings follow the curve of the embroidery hoop

(the wings are supposed to be somewhat equally big but I messed up and now it's to late to fix so ignore that)

The amount of stripes on the wings varies depending on which (pride) colours you want to lose. For this I went with four for the black, grey, white and purple of the ace flag. In my embroidery piece I added a couple more stripes bc I tried to give it some more shading but the sketch for that looked like a mess so four stripes it is. The weird lines in the middle of the top (black) stripe isn't necessar, but I like to put a little lighter shading there to indicate where the bone of the dragon wing would be

Now we add stripes to the body. I always use the colour of the top stripe on the flag for the spikes. For the ace dragon I used grey and white where the normal scales are and then for the scales down the dragon's front I used light and dark purple.

For the lesbian dragon I used the top stripe colours for the spikes and the rest for the normal scales. The front scales were just the lesbian flag repeated. For the bi dragon I used a base of pink, purple and blue for the whole body without giving the dragon that front stripe down. And then I used different shades of these colours to go over the base. (I wouldn't recommend that. It got a bit messy)

When embroidering I mostly start with the head, then do the body and lastly the wings. I don't know if there's a difference but I just think the wings are the easiest part so I like to keep them for the end, when my patience starts to dwindle. The arrows show the direction of the stitches. For the front scales I think it's easiest to go from side to side instead of up and down. For the spade part of the tail I used something kind of like a leaf stich but starting at the broad part, so pretty much a leaf stitch reversed (I have no idea if there's a name for that)

For the shading of the head, I honestly don't know what I'm doing. I think I like to take a light shade of the colour from one of the middle stripes and use it for the stripe going from nose to the eye. Then above that I use a slightly darker shade. Below the light stripe goes a the same darker shade and then below the mouth, you use an even darker shade. But really I still haven't figured that out. For the non-binary dragon I used dark yellow for the top of the head and light yellow for the beneath-the-mouth-part.

I fill the eye up with black or a dark shade of whichever colour is the darkest of the pride flag you use and then I take the brightest colour of the flag and do the tiniest french knot in the middle of the eye. For that it's best to split the thread in half or use only a single strand of the thread.

And just because I personally like the pose of the aro dragon more than the one of the ace dragon:

So you can fill in as many stripes as you need for your flag (or other colours you fancy). With this dragon shape everything is exactly the same except the direction of the left wing stitches go from bottom left to top right and I'd only use a darker shade of the top stripe colour bc the wing is angled so we only see the top part

I hope this helps and I hope that those who know how embroidery patterns really work aren't judging me too harshly lmao

#Listen I really don't know what I'm doing #I'm just figuring this out as I go #But maybe it helps someone? #Embroidery #Dragon #Dragons #Hand stitching #Needlework #Crafts #Tutorial #How to #Yeah I didn't really take into account that the wing would need space #So I went over the page again whoops

[liketheinferno2]

here sending this in an ask because . i'm still not good w/ tumblr all i know is you can add Images in Asks. So before i go play polly pocket monsters i hold up Yargui to you. . . my dancer lass. . .

she looks like this in game but i should also note- she's canonically 6'7 and very much like . she's got muscle . transfem yolo, even. I need to find a way to make her that tall in game bc the moment I can I will be unstoppable . and be able to finally take pics of her and y'shtola without having to worry abt the heights being off.

also quick tidbit between images . i can't stop calling fantasia "fantasy HRT" and i'm pretty sure i picked up the habit from you . i'm not mad it's just amusing to me

anyways here's some cropped and p messy art (that's also filtered quite a bit) that shows her a little more accurately . and a peek of tsumugi but . it's not much but it's my only piece done w/ her golden scales and it's just a colored sketch but anyways .

i like to think she's that Really Cool Aunt Figure - the one who'll spoil you and make sure you know you're well loved and do her best to give advice . rotates her in my brain. somebody please teach her how to talk about her negative emotions though bottling is not healthy ma'am.

anyways i'm getting embarrassed so skitters off i'm really Not good at explaining her in a way that gives her justice i hope you like auntie Urumet

NO NEED TO BE EMBARRASSED anyone with a trans au ra is huge brained. Love the gilded scales and general pearl/gold thing going on. I'm sure I've said "fantasy HRT" on here but I would not have been referring to fantasia, that's what I call Patchi's special potions he taught himself to make by gathering in the shroud. DIY transition. The hard way lol.

I'm trying to think of how you could make her huge with anam. There's a scaling feature for general bigness and then just careful positioning for photos, maybe? I did the reverse with Na'amar here who is still taller than a min height miqo but not THAT much. Moderate success.

I love that fem au ra hairstyle with the extra horns, I wish more of them had stuff like that because it opens up some POSSIBILITIES yknow? Also rarely see those grey-green au ra but I love it, love grey au ra, keepers, viera, duskwight, grey is gud.

The alternative is make her a model on the m body and just dress her in a way that's as fem as you require, also maybe with bone scaling? You can also get darker lippy in anam than you can in the game. I'd be down to help. Obligated to also show my attempts at that with Dominique:

Be not fooled, she is 6'3, Vicky's just GARLEAN. But yeah gender wizardry in this game is my passion so if you need help with that hmu

#asks #transcredwaters

[tobesobri]

Bust | Part One: Chisel (7.8k)

“Disappointed?” She tilted her head, smirking at him. She had no right to think he liked her better than Rose. She, herself, liked Rose better too. So she was sure he had to be at least a little bit sad to see Rose missing.

He smiled and the second she saw those dimples she was reminded of his Instagram all over again.

“A little,” he nodded, pinching his thumb and index finger together in the air and she painfully agreed.

“Well, you get me all by myself tonight.” She didn’t realize how it sounded until it was too late. Until she was cringing at all the sexual insinuations she’d just made for absolutely no reason. She could have said something else that wasn’t laced in an innuendo. But no, of course not. She had to continue her embarrassing streak when it came to Harry.

Instead of being creeped out by her, however, and pulling a confused and slightly terrified face, he laughed. And, on God, his laugh was the most amazing thing she’d ever heard. This wasn’t the first time the sound of his laughter graced her eardrums, but it was the first time he was laughing because of something she said that wasn’t about crooked penises.

“Lucky me.”

In which Y/N is an annoyance in Harry’s sculpting class.

story masterlist | my masterlist

It’s not her forte. Her hands don’t know how to hold onto things. They tremble under pressure. They mess things up no matter how hard she tries.

Not that she had really tried very hard to begin with.

Sculpting was just not something she saw herself doing. Ever. Not with her lack of agility and poor attention to detail. But to appease her whining best friend… she’d do just about anything.

The class was held in a little art studio with large windows for ventilation and tall ceilings to display the mass amounts of student artwork on butcher block shelves. She never thought she’d be back in a classroom type setting after graduating college, but here she was.

Learning, what she proclaimed as, a useless skill.

The studio was smack dab in the middle of an inclined street. Little quaint buildings that sat on an angle because why not pour foundations on a hill and make her weekly walks to the studio a little sweatier than she would have preferred. Even if it was winter in their little beach village town. Sweat still happened. It just happened underneath a scarf and a hand-knitted beanie from the sewing shop next door.

She could not deny, however, that the late afternoon classes every Wednesday and Saturday brought her way more joy than she’d anticipated. She looked forward to meeting up with Rose at the bottom-of-the-hill cafe, sharing the daily special with her before making their way up to the studio. It was calm in the middle and end of her hectic weeks that she most definitely needed.

What she didn’t need, however, what she most certainly did not look forward to, what she could have done without, what took her joy and smashed it against a wall was him.

The instructor.

Harry ‘I have nice hands and a misleading smile’ Styles.

It had only been two weeks into their classes and he had already told her one of her bowls was garbage. That the way she sculpted a face was terrifying. That she couldn’t draw for shit and that made her attempts at sculpting even worse.

So by Saturday of their second week, she didn't care anymore. He was a jerk and she would be the best pain in his ass she knew how to be.

While everyone called him Harry, like he’d asked them to the very first day, she called him Mr. Styles. Just to see the way his eyes rolled back into his head and his nostrils flared. While everyone asked him insightful questions, like what glaze was best to use or what tool sculpted eyes most efficiently, she asked him if she could use the bathroom.

She got a fucking kick out of irritating him. Knowing he went home after their classes just as irritated as she’d been. With clenched fists and a pounding headache.

It helped that he was insanely too attractive to be teaching a bunch of millennials about sculpting in his free time.

“You should really leave him alone, he might kick us out, you know,” Rose said on their first third week walk up Justice Hill. There was no justice in walking uphill, and most fucking certainly not in the humidity-ridden beachside town. She found the street name personally offensive.

“Oh fuck him. If he kicks us out, he’ll have to refund us.” Y/N did not, even for a second, bother to lower her voice as they neared the studio, knowing any one of the other students could hear her if they were to walk by.

“Refund us what? We got the class for free, remember?”

Y/N racked her brain like she’d completely forgotten that little detail before shrugging it off. “Whatever. He won’t kick us out.”

“How do you know for sure?”

Before she could make some stupid remark about how Harry secretly liked her pestering him or about how much he seemed much too impressed by Rose’s progress to ever get rid of them, the devil himself turned the corner in front of them.

He came out from an alleyway that connected the street to a tiny parking lot. And while they were going uphill, he was coming down. He was hard to miss and so were they, but still he attempted to not see them.

“What a prick,” Y/N mumbled under her breath as they got closer to each other. And almost as if he could read her lips, he rolled his eyes so fucking hard she thought maybe they’d finally pop right out of his head this time.

“Shush,” Rose warned as the three of them finally met in the middle, at the door to the studio that was decorated with a bright yellow ‘Open’ sign, children’s drawings, hand-painted hours of operation, and one too many polaroids of past students and their sculpting creations.

They all stood and stared at each other for a moment before he opened the door first, holding it as, to Y/N’s surprise, he let them go in first. And while she was still in shock at the gesture, his body language said it all. Like he was forcing himself to be nice to the dynamic duo, to the bane of his existence. While she was too distracted by Harry and his clay-stained trousers and cable-knit sweater with a cartoon deer embroidered on it, Rose walked into the studio first. Giving Harry a polite smile that he returned almost… genuinely.

And right when Y/N made a move to follow, Harry stepped in front of her. She jolted back as he just about let the door slam her in the face.

Today was going to be fantastic.

*                                              *                                 *

“Right, so,” Harry began, clapping his dry hands together as he took a seat behind his messy table at the front of the studio. “I know some of you haven’t finished your heads yet, but our focus today will still be on the bodies. We’ll have a catch up on Saturday to make up for it.”

Y/N sought out her head on the wall where she’d placed it last week beside Rose’s, realizing for the first time just how ugly it really was. And to think she’d been trying to sculpt Harry’s annoying face. Even more annoying that no matter what she did, he was always a lot more handsome than her hunk of polymer clay.

“... because, like I mentioned, we have special guests today who will be modeling for you.” Harry stood again while two very thin and very conventionally perfect people came out in white robes. Y/N couldn’t help but gag.

“This is Hope and Jordan.” Harry motioned as he introduced them, not getting any further in his instructions before Y/N raised her hand in the back of the class.

Rose attempted to get her to put it down, too, because Harry was clearly in the middle of something, but it didn’t really work out so well. Y/N was a stubborn son of a bitch.

“Yeah?” He pointed at her, sighing while planting his hands on his hips. He knew nothing she had to ask was going to be at all beneficial to the group.

She cleared her throat and just from the smirk on her face, he braced for impact. “Are they going to be modeling nude?”

She made just about everyone blush, except for Harry. He hated how she never took anything seriously. That the art he’d spent years perfecting enough to teach meant nothing to her. It was all just a primary school joke in her eyes.

“Yes, actually,” he answered bluntly and then returned to what he was going to say before Y/N’s interruption. “So I want everyone to get a piece of paper and while they’re modeling, do a rough sketch of what you might want the body of your sculpture to look like. The importance is to get the proportions down so that when you use the clay, you’ll know how much you’ll need for each part. Just like we did for the heads.”

Harry walked around the class once the models were stripped and the sketching began. Rose started immediately, concentration on her face as she flipped between the female model and her piece of sketchbook paper.

All Y/N had was a scratch piece of grey-toned mixed media paper she’d found laying on their table. And absolutely no clue where to even begin.

She stared at Harry instead of the naked models, watching as he helped others around the room, pointing at their sketches and where they could improve. His other hand behind his back that gave her perfect access to stare at his rings. Remembering how he’d taken them off guide their first few sculpting lessons. Remembering how his hands had so gently but so fucking firmly caressed the mound of clay into the exact shapes he wanted like he knew exactly what to do with those things.

“See it’s going just as I expected back here.” When his voice was at her ear, she jumped out of her skin and out of her daydreams. Twisting her head around to him as he stood behind her, she found him staring over her shoulder at her blank piece of paper.

She narrowed her eyes at him once she’d fully processed what he said. “Sorry I’m trying to figure out the best way to scale up that dude’s micro-cock, proportionally, if you don’t mind.”

He just about choked on his own spit, and rightfully so. But when he glanced to her eyes instead of her disappointing blank canvas, with his eyebrows furrowed and his cute little nostrils flared just the way she liked them, it was clear his reaction wasn’t for the reasons she’d intended.

He was quiet. Lips pursed, mind completely empty apart from hearing her say cock over and over again. Echoing against his skull. Making a home for itself in his hippocampus for later purposes. When he was not in a class full of students with their eyes on him, watching him get hard at the fucking way she said cock.

“Leave you to it then,” he cleared his throat and continued on.

“He may not kick us out, but killing you is still an option,” Rose whispered once Harry was a safe distance away from them.

Y/N leaned back in her seat to watch him walk down the rest of their row. His hands behind his back again, eyes wandering over shoulders.

As long as he had those rings on while he choked her out, she was okay with that.

*                                              *                                 *

Everyone had moved on to their bodies. Gathering the clay they needed from the front and using their sketches as guidelines to build around the pre-made wire and aluminum foil armature. Most everyone had some sort of a form being attached to the heads of their sculptures by the time Y/N even got started.

Because she decided on using Harry as reference after all and he would just not stand still.

With the models gone, they were on their own, with help from Harry of course. He played several videos and gave various demonstrations to aide them. It wasn’t supposed to be perfect, but after she gave it her all for about ten minutes, she was ready to give up. Her body looked like a very lumpy, very deformed version of Shrek.

She took a break again, watching Rose sculpt for a while instead. She watched Harry sometimes too as he walked around the class again in gloves this time. Smoothing out features and picking up tools to aid in the process of forming collarbones and wrinkles.

The studio was in its typical state of disarray. Random cups of milky water on every table, pieces of clay smushed into the tile floor, tools and used gloves strewn about with no rhyme or reason. Harry thrived in that kind of environment while Y/N well… she hated it.

She wanted organization and cleanliness. Her nine-to-five called for that kind of thing. But she was slowly getting used to it. To letting go and embracing the mess while she was here. She wasn’t the one that had to clean it all up anyways.

The only time she wasn’t daydreaming was when Harry started up their aisle again, walking in front of their table this time however. He helped a couple others at the end of their row, watched some of them work before eventually landing right in front of Rose’s station.

He cocked his head to the side while he watched her struggle to form an even pair of breasts on her headless lady. And even though Y/N was trying her best to look busy, she just couldn’t help it.

Rose handed her work in progress over to him with a frustrated huff after he offered his assistance. And like… no way was Y/N missing out on Mr. Harry fucking Styles fingering some clay into the perfect set of boobs. No way.

Especially fucking not when he removed his gloves and used those fingers in their bare glory the way she wished he’d use them someplace else. She watched while he slapped some more clay on Rose’s poor flat-chested model and proceeded to smooth it out with his expert fingertips. She watched the clay melt under his touch, watching him dip into their shared cup of water to aid the process. She looked away long enough to admire the concentration on his face, the way he bit down on his lip and furrowed his brows the way she was used to. She watched again while he fixed all of Rose’s mistakes just by gliding his thumbs over the two perfect little lumps on her sculpture that sure as hell hadn’t started out so perfectly.

She had no idea why Harry sculpting a tiny set of breasts on what would eventually become a mermaid got her so hot and bothered but… it did. It did so fucking much, she was almost salivating like a dog by the end of it, thinking about what his hands could do with the real deal. But then he handed it back to Rose with a content smile on his face and burst Y/N’s little bubble.

“Might be better,” he said softly and Rose nodded in agreement. She hadn't noticed before, but when he stood to his full height it was clear he’d been leaning over on their table. Closer to the both of them than he’d ever really been before. And she knew he was tall, taller than Rose, who was five foot seven inches herself. And not just that but his shoulders were broad and his arms were a humble amount of muscular. Almost like he was a sculptor that kneaded clay a hundred hours a week. Maybe that was why she was a soaking wet mess.

He stretched his gloves back onto his hands and glanced Y/N’s direction. Eyes going straight from her disaster of an art piece to her flushed face and back.

“Don’t even know where to start to fix yours up,” he commented while moving slightly to his right until he stood directly in front of Y/N this time.

She looked at her abomination, wondering if it would be her worst idea to push more of his buttons or not. But, she went for it anyways. Her lack of impulse control would definitely come back to bite her in the ass one day.

“It’s the penis. Still haven’t gotten that down yet.”

He nodded, amused rather than his previous reaction to her antics. “Can see that, yeah. He’s got a bit of a crooked willy there.” Harry poked at it with his index finger and she became hyper aware of his closeness this time while he leaned over her tabletop again. Because his hands were right there, almost touching her own. And they were big, bigger than she realized. She could see him perfectly through the transparent gloves, his long fingers with clipped nails at the end that were well taken care of, considering.

She would need to soak herself in holy water for a while after this.

“Oh, is that not what the male anatomy looks like?” She teased, not fully realizing they were getting along for the first time and it was because of dicks. Because she’d put an oddly shaped protrusion on her figure before she’d even done much else with the blob of clay stuck to her form.

“No,” he laughed, shaking his head at her and standing up straight again. “Maybe if you paid attention when the models were out here, you’d know that.”

“Maybe if you hired someone who’s cock I could actually see from all the way back here without a fucking magnifying glass.” She was only slightly aware of how fully immersed she was in the debate over this penis.

But all he heard was cock again. She really needed to stop saying that. Because this time his mind was a little more imaginative while he stared at her lips and thought about the way she might say that on her knees in front of him.

He shook his head clear. She was an insufferable nuisance that he just barely tolerated on a good day. He didn't need her clogging up his brain with her cock talk too.

“Just fix it.” He mumbled.

She huffed when he left her to her own devices, not even bothering to offer his help, but she really shouldn’t expect any less. If he helped her, he would be doing it all for her. And that was hardly the point of taking a class to learn how to sculpt if the hot instructor was just going to do everything for you.

“Is there a reason why you’re arguing with him about penises?” Rose asked, hushing her voice around the apparently taboo word.

“It’s fun. And if I’m going to sit here in this stupid class with you I’m going to have some fun.” Y/N, on the other hand, was not hushed or subtle at all, as she ripped off the phallic piece of clay from her sculpture.

Rose cringed when she glanced past Y/N to find Harry looking right at her. He had been helping someone a few seats down and clearly not far enough away to have missed what Y/N said. All of his features drooped and he looked genuinely upset. Rose wished she could put a filter over Y/N’s mouth to save everyone from her insensitive outbursts. Especially Harry. He always tried so hard and for Y/N to brush everything off and boil it all down to a ‘stupid class’ even broke Rose’s heart a little. So she could only imagine how Harry felt.

After their typical hour and a half was up, once everyone at least had some semblance of a body minus the legs and arms, Harry called the class back to order.

“Alright, that’s time. You can put your armatures back on the shelves, carefully. As always, I’ll be around for a little while after. Have a great rest of your night, I’ll see you all on Saturday.” He finished his spiel, turning away to help clean up before a lightbulb went off in his head and his voice rang through the studio again, “Oh, and make sure you bring your sketches back with you!”

Everyone worked on cleaning up, including Harry. And while Y/N took both her and Rose’s sculptures over to their respective spots on the shelves, Rose walked up to the front of the class without any warning whatsoever.

She tapped Harry’s shoulder and watched while his smile faded just the tiniest bit after he turned to find her. That Rose’s poor face had to be associated with the thunderstorm that was Y/N.

“I just wanted to say sorry… about Y/N.” Both Rose and Harry glanced at the girl in question near the back of the studio, playing with their two sculpted bodies like they were barbie dolls. “I forced her to do this with me so she hasn’t really taken it seriously. But I’m really enjoying the class, you’re a fantastic instructor.”

His smile returned again and if he was being honest with himself, it really did make him feel better to hear her say that. He had some sort of a reasoning for Y/N’s horrible attitude and while he wished it was her apologizing and not Rose, he figured it was good enough.

“Thank you. You’re doing really well so far. I’ll see you on Saturday, yeah?”

She nodded, giving him one last polite smile before trotting back to Y/N and helping her clean up the last bits around their workstation.

“Please do not tell me you were flirting with him.” Y/N gagged, using a ball of clay to gather the little pieces spread across their table like a magnet.

“No, actually, I was apologizing to him for your behavior.”

Y/N snapped her head up, first at Rose and then Harry all the way across the room from them. “You what?”

“He’s just trying to teach and you’ve been a fucking knobhead.”

Y/N gasped in fake offense, which was actually slightly real offense. “Excuse me, he made fun of my bowl the first day, you seem to have forgotten about that.”

“A toddler could have made a better bowl than that, Y/N, and you know it.”

She frowned, grumpily averting her eyes to the table with her arms crossed over her chest like she really was a toddler.

“I’m just saying,” Rose started, a bit calmer this time, “stop pestering him.”

*                                              *                                 *

Y/N thought about everything Rose had said. About how much she wished she could take things seriously and not constantly get on people’s nerves all the time, but she simply did not know how to. Taking the piss out of things and making jokes was how she got through her days.

But she did agree. Harry didn’t deserve her behavior. Maybe he was a bit of a jerk to her to begin with, but insulting his class might’ve been crossing a line.

Because she didn’t actually think it was stupid. She quite enjoyed listening to him. She liked learning something new and following his instructions as he walked them through some of his techniques. She liked being connected to all the people in the little studio, even if only briefly. Complete strangers all shared that one little thing in common and it made her all fuzzy and warm inside each time she met up with Rose at the end of every Wednesday and Saturday.

Hiding behind a bit of humor, however, was a lot more comfortable than admitting she found pleasure in anything as corny as sculpting classes.

On Friday night, boredom got the best of her and she took a chance upon searching Harry’s name on Instagram while she took her weekly bath. It had been Rose’s idea, the bath, not stalking her attractive sculpting instructor online. That decision was completely her own. But the baths at the end of stressful weeks had a little influence from her best friend, as did most aspects of her life. Baths were a waste of time, in her opinion, and she preferred the efficiency of showering. But Rose had given her nice smelling soaps and weird fizzy things for bath time and well… she couldn’t let them go to waste.

So, amid her regularly scheduled, once-a-week bath, she scrolled shamelessly through Harry’s feed. Because he did, in fact, have an instagram. And she only knew it was him because every fourth post was a video and in said videos were his hands. And, fuck, they were just as nice on film as they were in person.

He didn’t post much of his face, which she thought was an actual crime, but there was a lot about him and his sculpting. She found out it had been his sister’s birthday recently, who, when she smiled, looked just like him. He’d also just finished a piece he seemed really proud of, a clay head and bust of a pit bull, to which he linked in the caption about a local shelter who rescued the breed specifically and needed donations. Her heart nearly fucking melted.

Harry wasn’t much of an open book, though, unless he let his art do most of the talking. He seemed to enjoy sculpting women the most, which is probably why he’d been so good at de-lumping the breasts on Rose’s mermaid. But all the female sculptures he made weren’t sexual at all. They had meaning behind them. Like every single clay face she clicked on throughout his photos had a story. Like he was uplifting rather than fetishizing.

And not every single one of them was skinny and had perfect features. She was shocked to see at least half of the creations she’d skimmed through were of larger women with imperfect breasts at times and asymmetrical faces. Not sticking to typical European beauty standards as she may have originally assumed he might.

It made glancing down at her very much imperfect body feel a little less like an attack. Because Harry spent his time putting all his love into his little sculptures with diverse body types that she almost felt ashamed for ever hating hers.

Once she was done clicking on just about every single post he’d ever made, she finally found a selfie. Well… not really a selfie. Someone else had clearly taken it of him candidly while he had been working. But there was an awfully cute smile on his face and very familiar dimples poking into his cheeks that make her heart warm up again.

He wasn’t a damn thing like she’d assumed he was from the beginning. She thought his art centered around the ideal, and that maybe he was a little condescending because of it. But his Instagram told a different story about his art. And she wanted to know so much more about him.

She was completely lost in her dreams about him that just the smidge of distraction led to accidentally liking a photo of his from two years prior.

She’d have to move countries. Change her name. Delete everything. Never look back. Y/N? A distant memory.

Before dropping her phone in the tub and really making a complete ass out of herself, she threw it, instead, onto her furry rug in the middle of the bathroom and sunk herself down into the water. Wondering if it would really be so bad if she just drowned a little bit.

Because she desperately wanted to. There was nothing she could do. Not even unliking the picture would help. He’d still see the notification. Still click onto her page and realize who in the fuck had just liked a two-year-old post of his that he, himself, had probably even forgotten about.

She wanted nothing more than to sink her head under the pink-tinted water and never come back up. Her mind would not stop with the visualizations of what his reaction might be. Things he might be thinking. Like is this that fucking bitch from my sculpting class? Or whether or not she might find herself blocked by morning.

God, just make it stop.

But suddenly her phone buzzed and her heart just about stopped beating. It had to be the notification that Harry blocked her. Was that even a thing? Did Instagram notify you if someone blocked you? And why was her phone on silent? Because her Instagram notifications and her text messages made very different sounds. If it was just a text, she’d consider ignoring it. She’d continue marinating in all her shame a little while longer. But it ate her alive not knowing what the buzzing was from.

So, carefully, she pulled herself upright and reached across the floor until she had her phone in her hand. Before she clicked the screen on, though, she closed her eyes and inhaled a deep breath.

But when she opened her eyes and found out why her phone had buzzed, she let that breath out and settled her ass down again. It was Rose.

Hey, I can’t make it tomorrow for class. Felt like absolute shit at work today and had to go home because as it turns out I have the flu.

“Fuck,” Y/N mumbled to herself. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to go alone because facing Harry after she just did what she did was one thing, but doing it all by herself was another. But a part of her did still want to go tomorrow. The part before her horrific accident when she was full on getting a love boner over Harry. She’d wanted to see him again so fucking bad.

Okay. I probably won’t go too then

Y/N physically frowned at the idea of waiting another five days to see Harry again. Her brain really needed to make its fucking mind up about him. Did she want to see him or not?

No! You have to go and tell me what I missed!

Y/N rolled her eyes, but felt relieved. Even after her embarrassing slip up, her desire to see Harry again still prevailed. And she hated it. How was she even supposed to look him in the eye tomorrow, both of them knowing damn well she’d been stalking his Instagram back to two fucking years ago?

*                                              *                                 *

It was beyond weird sitting in their usual cafe on Justice Hill alone, even without the whole Instagram fiasco of the previous night she was trying everything in her power to forget about.

However all the desperate attempts to bury that awful experience were fruitless when she glanced across the room over her latte and found a very familiar set of grumpy-looking eyes already staring at her. But once she did notice him, he immediately looked away, stepping up to the counter to order his own cup of coffee.

She nearly choked on her drink, having to set it down and wipe what had spilled onto her chin off with a napkin she’d already used to sop up another one of her messes.

Of the three weeks now they’d been going to classes and frequenting the cafe just before, she’d never seen Harry. It was like he didn’t have a life outside being an instructor. He just popped up in the studio and she always left before him so she had no idea what he did after class either.

But seeing him here was like seeing a fucking unicorn in real life.

She couldn’t help watching him either, even if she knew she shouldn't. But, in her defense, he was wearing beautiful wine-colored corduroy pants with a tight white t-shirt tucked into them and a beige coat thrown over his arm to match. And for shoes he had on his usual white vans that had gained a few more scuff marks since the last time she’d seen him. His fashion would look terrible on anyone besides him.

He glanced her way again, briefly, when he left the counter with his cup, fighting his legs from walking in her direction but not exactly winning that battle.

And to her surprise, he stood right in front of her, behind the chair where Rose usually sat.

And when she looked up at him, he completely forgot why he had come over. He had no fucking clue what he was doing there. But it was too late now for him to back away and pretend like it never happened.

“Your friend's not coming?” His voice shook, but she didn’t notice with the way he finally took his fucking eyes off of her and gave her a chance to breathe again. He glanced at his watch just to confirm that it was, in fact, only five minutes until class started and it seemed reasonable to assume Rose wasn’t meeting her before then.

She pulled herself together and pretended like his close presence wasn’t intimidating her in the slightest.

“Disappointed?” She tilted her head, smirking at him. She had no right to think he liked her better than Rose. She, herself, liked Rose better too. So she was sure he had to be at least a little bit sad to see Rose missing.

He smiled and the second she saw those dimples she was reminded of his Instagram all over again.

“A little,” he nodded, pinching his thumb and index finger together in the air and she painfully agreed.

“Well, you get me all by myself tonight.” She didn’t realize how it sounded until it was too late. Until she was cringing at all the sexual insinuations she’d just made for absolutely no reason. She could have said something else that wasn’t laced in an innuendo. But no, of course not. She had to continue her embarrassing streak when it came to Harry.

Instead of being creeped out by her, however, and pulling a confused and slightly terrified face, he laughed. And, on God, his laugh was the most amazing thing she’d ever heard. This wasn’t the first time the sound of his laughter graced her eardrums, but it was the first time he was laughing because of something she said that wasn’t about crooked penises.

“Lucky me.”

He left her so fucking speechless, that after he started backing away from her table, reminding her to not be late, she still ended up being late. Because she sat in her chair for what felt like a century repeating his two words over and over again in her head.

Lucky me.

She knew he was only teasing but the way he’d just gone along with her original joke and how his voice sounded when he said it, she could not believe it. She could also not believe how Harry had some kind of massive hold on her that she sat staring at a wall for ten minutes trying to figure out how to operate properly again just to get up out of her chair.

Lucky fucking me.

She could scream.

If she wasn’t in public.

There was an extra pep in her step as she took Justice Hill alone this time, partially because of how giddy Harry had made her and partially because she was late… right after he told her not to be. But how was she supposed to be on time after what he’d just done to her emotions. And to the throbbing mess between her legs, but that's another story entirely.

Everyone was all over the place when she’d finally arrived, though, so it made slipping in the back that much easier. Not that she got past Harry’s watchful eyes, though, but at least she wasn’t interrupting anything while the class readied their workstations for another full night of going ham on their sculptures.

Harry kept his eyes on her mostly the entire time she did the same at her empty little area, watching as she tucked her purse under the desk for safekeeping and threw a couple tools he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen her use onto the table. When she wandered off to the wall of shelves to retrieve her absolutely horrifying work of art, he finally gave her some privacy again. But he couldn’t help the fact that he’d been worried sick when she didn’t show up on time after he’d just seen her at the cafe, thinking something horrible could have happened to her between there and here.

So making sure she was unscathed before he, too, got his area organized was essential.

She sat in her chair and stared at what she had made the past three weeks. They’d started with something simple on the first day, taking a pre-cut slice of clay and free-handing a bowl with a few tips from Harry thrown in here and there. Then they jumped straight in after he showed them a few clips of sculptors working, pausing to explain specific things about creating a head and face. They were given everything they needed to make sculpting a complete figurine of a human body as easy as possible.

And still, she managed to create a combination of Shrek and the abominable snowman.

She huffed, wondering if she asked nicely enough Harry would let her just start all over. But before she could even think to do so, he clapped his hands together and got everyone’s attention for today’s mini-tutorial.

He explained smoothing to them and how there were many different ways of doing it so that your end results weren't littered in fingerprints. He reminded them to use water to smooth out the initial shapes of the clay they wanted and if they were having a really hard time with too much warmth from their fingers to use the gloves.

He ventured a little into detail work of the bust, showing a short clip of another artist forming collar bones with just two tools and her fingers. He explained what tools those were and why they were the most efficient for details and went on some more about other detail tools that were good for different things.

And the entire time she was far too lost in his voice and how his eyes lit up passionately when he rambled to even think about the fact that she wasn’t taking a single note for Rose’s sake.

They’d done a few lessons on details for the face, but they had yet to really get that far, only having put on tentative eyelids, lips and a nose for their heads before he really dove deep into details in what she assumed would be a full class later on.

And when he finally took a break to ask for any questions, she was, of course, the first to raise her hand. He thought about ignoring it, knowing all too well that anytime Y/N raised her hand in the back of his classroom, she was up to no good. But he was too nice to do that to anyone, even her.

So he called on her by nodding his head and she cleared her throat while he grimaced, expecting the worst.

“So, um, for example if we were going to do bigger details like abs on a male figure, what would be the best tool for that?”

He could have sworn he was having a heart attack. He had to blink a few times just to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. She was actually asking him a legitimate question, and a good one at that. He had to repeat what she said in his head first, just to make sure it was real, before he answered, completely unprepared.

“Um… well after you lay out the clay where you want on the body, you can use one of the knives to blend the edges,” he held up an example of one for her, “and then a large ball or oval tool like this,” he held up another, “to smooth everything out. You’d probably want a more blunt pointed end to shape them, though, after you blend the clay in.”

She nodded like she’d been fully absorbing every single word coming out of his mouth and then he watched as she dug around quietly in the tool kit on her desk, in search of the types of tools he’d mentioned.

He could not fucking believe it though. She finally showed a stitch of interest in learning about sculpting. And he had no idea why she decided to right now. Maybe it was because she was without her partner in crime, but either way he was stunned. Absolutely fucking marveled.

After a few more questions and some demonstrations, he let everyone go and continue working on their projects while he circled the room as he normally did. And he found himself glancing at her from time to time, all by herself in the back with a genuine look of concentration on her face as she attempted making her creature a little less loch ness monster and a little more human.

Eventually, after he figured she was giving it enough effort for him to step in and help if she needed, he headed her way. And just as she sensed him walking down her aisle, while she was busy shaving off clay, a piece of it went flying into the air, completely out of control.

He stopped in his tracks after almost being smacked in the face with a chunk of clay and bent over to pick it up before someone squished it into the bottom of their shoes. He leaned over the edge of the table in front of her again, setting the piece of clay down next to her gently while she bit her lips between her teeth and tried to hide her embarrassed red cheeks behind her hands.

“Sorry!” She squealed at him, further digging herself into a hole.

He shook his head, “S’alright. Not the first time that’s happened.”

She laughed at the thought of him actually getting hit in the money maker with a hunk of clay and it eased her worries a little.

“So how are those abs going then?” He asked.

She stared at her sculpture for a moment before she sighed and turned it around to face him. It wasn’t as bad as it had been before, but it was still pretty rough.

“Mind if I…?” He held his hands out and she, without a single hesitation, handed it over to him.

He immediately grabbed the shaving tool she’d been using, and since it still sat next to her where she’d put it down moments ago, his fingers brushed against her hand when he picked it up. Sending every one of her nerves in the general area on a field day to mess with her nether regions again. It’s just… his fucking hands were an art form in and of themselves. His knuckles prominent, stretching soft skin around the bone. His veins protruding every time he made a more delicate move that required precision. Even the ones on his arms underneath the ink when he was a bit more rough with her sculpture sent her over the moon, while he shaved off bits and pieces with firm pressure to define the shape of the body and somehow create a human-like figure from her mess.

Then he started smoothing down the surface with a little water on his fingers and she went batshit. His hands while dry were one thing, but sparkling, wet, slippery fingertips? Lord have mercy.

She watched him spread a chunk of extra clay onto what would be the figure’s chest to build it up a little more with the knowledge of their previous conversations about dicks and abs making it clear she was attempting to make a male figure. She couldn’t help but watch his muscles flex underneath his tight white t-shirt. From far away across the cafe it had caught her attention. And now right here, she was definitely not letting it go unnoticed. It wasn’t too tight that he looked ridiculous, but just the right amount to show off every curve of his biceps and triceps and whatever other -ceps he had hiding underneath the shirt. He was normally in oversized tops so she was taking full advantage while she still had the chance to.

When he handed it back to her, it was like he’d done some kind of magic spell to get it to look so good after what she’d given him to work with. He leaned forward a little more and pointed at the figure’s chest and she was only halfway paying attention to him when he spoke, mostly focusing on how close he was and every single time he accidentally brushed his skin against hers.

“So if you want to make the abs,” he paused to glance over and dig through her pile of tools until he found the one he was looking for. “Use this to kind of sketch out the shape like we did with the faces,” he took the ball tool and rolled it down the middle of the chest, making a short indent to separate where the pectorals might be, “then you can add on the dimension like I was saying earlier.”

She took over the tool when he flipped it around and gave it to her so she could try for herself. And he watched for a short while as she did what he said to do, sketching out tentative abs, but not really knowing exactly what they looked like to come to any sort of realistic end. Her figure started to look like a shirtless Johnny Bravo.

He just giggled and pointed his stupid finger back into her personal space, smoothing down her mistakes until they disappeared, “Have you never seen a six-pack that wasn’t on a cartoon character?”

She racked her brain, trying to say something funny, but once she looked into his eyes, nothing came to mind. “Of course I have. I just don’t know how to make them look realistic.” She couldn’t exactly remember the last time she’d been faced with a naked man’s chest, but she had seen them before.

“Well…” Harry sighed, resting his head on his hand and staring at her sculpture sideways, “he doesn’t have to have abs.”

And then she said it. Something worse than her earlier set of words back at the cafe. She had no clue what was going on with her tonight, but she needed an ass-kicking for it.

“Do you have abs?”

“Me?” His eyes flickered up to hers in shock and it was far too late for her to backtrack, she was here and she had to face what she’d done. Even while he looked at her like she was fucking insane.

“Uh, well. I mean…” She had no fucking clue what she meant. And even if she did, she sure as shit wasn’t telling him.

Then it clicked in his brain. “You’re not using me as reference, are you?”

After a solid three seconds of just staring at him, she laughed. “No, of course not.”

“Hope so after you gave him that wonky penis.”

She sighed once they were through it. Once he’d proved, yet again, that he didn’t make her embarrassing statements feel as bad as they really were. He kind of just... went along with it.

But then she made it even worse.

“So yours isn’t wonky and crooked, then?”

Jesus, fuck Y/N just shut up.

His smile never faded, however, and instead, he leaned close again and whispered, “Maybe one day you’ll be lucky enough to find out.”

#harry styles fanfiction #harry styles imagine #harry styles fanfic #harry styles writing #sculptor!harry

[mcrmadness]

Madness draws: Behind the Scenes of the “Alleine in der Nacht” die ärzte fan comic.

A few weeks ago I posted this comic:

This post is yet again just another drawing behind-the-scenes post but You can go and reblog the original post here.

And as always, all my ramblings are under the cut!

This one was relatively easy to do because I just woke up one morning and internally died from laughter because this idea just happened like a random pop up window in my brain. I wrote it down to my phone notes and later on also into my sketchbook:

I was laughing out loud when I was drawing those images, Bela’s face still is cracking me up :D And because I’m yet again trilingual with my comics, there’s only one word in my mother tongue and it’s: Bela laulaa = Bela sings.

And other fans might recognize the lyrics of the song, I needed to write them down in order to decide which ones would fit the comic the best.

This one is then again me trying to see how it will fit on a A4 paper. Originally I saw it in my head more like a short, regular comic strip with 3 panels but somehow I couldn’t get it to fit into 3 panels. And 4 panels was too many in a row so I decided to go for a full page then. That caused bits of trouble to me because I normally don’t draw the comic book faces THAT big and it’s surprisingly hard to draw them in bigger scale. (With pencil drawings it’s the opposite, the bigger the better. It’s much easier to draw an eye the size of a finger instead of a size of a tip of a needle.)

Here’s the first sketch! Just the shapes to see how and what I need to draw. Sorry for the awful photo quality again, my phone’s camera has really gotten really bad after these 3 years of use...

Anyhow, the third panel caused me some troubles because I knew how I wanted Bela’s arms and hands to be but I didn’t see them that good in my head so what I did next was to try different postures into my sketchbook:

I also tried this foreshortening technique I saw in a video of after a Tumblr post, even tho I don’t find that too hard to do myself anymore but it was still interesting and can really help making the eye and brain to see the image in 3D. So here I finally figured that I wanted Bela to have is arms like he was singing something very theatrically. I think it turned out pretty good.

Next I struggled with the bedsheets and I figured that I am a bit too good at blocking out information when I draw because I tried to draw unmade beds from reference photos and I’m able to follow a line but also able to completely not see any other lines around the line I’m following. Like I’d often follow a line to somewhere and suddenly notice that wtf there’s SO MUCH MORE lines all over the place in the photo but I just did not see them.

^Here’s two pages in my other sketchbook that I got for the comic stuff especially because the paper is actually white. The bigger sketchbook has light yellow tint to the paper so it can mess up with the colors when I need to try out and look for perfect colors from the colored pencils. (This sketchbook is also smaller aka A5 because Derwent sketchbooks are expensive but this was the only A5 one with a bit grainy paper in white. The A4 one is cheaper and from Mont Marte.)

After a while I was done with the besheet and the rest of the second sketch. I don’t have a photo of the comic with just the lineart, only a photo where the first panel is already colored and now I actually need to talk about the coloring.

That caused me lots of trouble because I really love playing with lights and shadows in everything (drawing, photographing... everything) and I do know how to do the night effect in black and white, but I have only once before done that with colors and it’s never that easy. Plus that one was my first comic when I started drawing again in 2018 and it was not that good to begin with.

I run some tests with the pencils, as well as some shading tests:

Käsi = hand, iho = skin. I use Derwent Flesh Pink (I have a 72 set of Derwent Watercolour pencils) for the skin color and was then trying out other colors to see which one would look the best for shading. It was actually really difficult to do and my sister suggested that I’d use only cold colors but like... how do you use cold colors on a skin without making the character look dead? :D

I imagined that there’s a moon shining in from a window that would be behind the “camera”. I almost ruined the first panel because I wasn’t exactly sure what was I even doing and what did I want from the colors:

Here’s the lineart and almost finished first panel in colors. I really liked the lineart and this would have looked so nice in black and white too, maybe even better. But I just saw that blue background so strongly in my mind that I just had to go for it.

The first panel was really difficult to do like I said and I almost ruined it at some point. But it also taught me something because with the rest of the panels I knew to start with the skincolors and end with the black (I started the first panel with black, I think... kids, never do that, always start with the light colors! :D) and I think the last panel is the best what comes to the colors in the final comic. I also added light blue here and there to make it look more like the colors of a moon at night:

I’m actually very happy with all of the other colors in this panel! It also reminds me of a book I had and used to read as a child. It was about this girl that went to an appendix surgery and all the images were drawn with either colored pencils, pastels or crayons and it looked grainy the exact same way as this one too. It also had lots of red and orange and brown colors in it. (I wonder if I still have the book here...)

Then there’s also the title and “Das Ende”. Originally I was going to do the late 80s logo they have e.g. on the 80s live vhs/dvd but then I just saw another post in my dä blog’s queue and I just needed to do this logo instead!

I had just a couple of weeks prior ordered a pack of white Sakura Gelly Roll pens and needed to test what would make the best compination and with which black!

I also had bought a white paint pen but it’s useless. As you see, it just looks grey after it dries and it just... doesn’t look nice. Plus it takes so much time to dry AND it’s extremely messy and I have paint more in my hands and a puddle on the paper but barely none where it should be. So my choice for the logo was to use either Pigma Microns or Promarkers (I think I chose the latter) and the thickest Gelly Roll aka 10. This was the result:

And I’m actually super happy about how it came out! Couldn’t do that good looking spots on the letters because can’t make splashes with a gel pen so I did a few bigger ones here and there and then just poked everywhere with the pen to make it look more random. You can actually see how it’s slightly whiter than the paper if you look closely, but it’s not too strongly whiter so it looks pretty nice like this.

So, this was less work than the “Widumihei” one but it was also an interesting piece to draw. And I think I have now this comic drawing more freshly in mind so that drawing the next ones (there’s three waiting for sketching already) will be much easier as well :)

#here take the last behind the scenes post then #I mean next ones are going to be actual new drawings because now I'm done with these I had in mind #mcrmadness draws #mcrmadness draws: behind the scenes #my comics #dä fanart #die ärzte

[cutiecrates]

Cutie Reviews: YumeTwins April 19

“The cherry blossoms are blooming, the weather is getting warmer, and our furry little friends are out to play! This time of year motivates us to get outside and enjoy the magical season that is spring! We absolutely love having picnics in the park during cherry blossom season and watching all the cute pets run around. Beautiful scenes like this inspire us to get creative and sketch, paint, and write so we can share it with our friends and loved ones. That is why for this month’s theme being Fluffy Pen-Pals, we’ve filled this box with kawaii animal friends and spring goodies that will allow you to get creative and inspired! We hope you enjoy these kawaii goodies as much as we enjoyed putting this box together for you!“

Yume Prize

This month, inspired by the fluffy theme we have goods featuring Rilakkuma and Pochakko.

Photo Contest

Meanwhile, cuddly Kuromi is the focus of the photo contest.

Pets Lunch Mat

Purrfect for a picnic during spring, or just on the go or at the table, we get this adorable cloth mat covered in various dog and cat prints and colors. You might recognize these designs, as I’ve gotten a few past items featuring very similar shiba.

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ 

No, there isn’t much to it. But it’s pretty cute isn’t it? It adds a fun touch to meals and would probably be a suitable item for messy or young eaters, or suitable for those moments when you’re not at a table. You could probably use it for crafts too, and I assume it’s easy to wash. . .

Shiba and Neko Strawberry Plush

To go with the puppies and kitties in the previous item, we also get an adorable fluffy companion. Each plush is 25cm and there are three different colors of both the cat and dog. I got the light grey shiba, but I would have loved to have gotten the pink kitty~ It also has a pink button (by that I mean... the thing Pompompurrin has), which I think is kind of cute.

Their strawberry hat is also removable! According to the booklet, you can also wear it, which I think is a fun little idea.

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

The plush is very mochi marshmallow squishy like, but it doesn’t have as much stuffing. It’s very soft and stretchy, but I feel like it could have used a little bit more stuffing, because to me the paws look kind of weird and shriveled up. The strawberry hat is the same, and again I like how you can remove it, so you could put it on other things, or just take it off to change your animals look. However, the stem pieces are made of felt and as such one of the leaf on mine is bent and I can’t fix it. 

Cube Toothbrush Stand

Now for something a bit different, we have an adorable little cube used for holding a toothbrush. These come in a large variety of Sanrio characters, and Doraemon, Snoopy, and Kirby characters!

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

I kind of went over this in the previous review from DokiDoki Crate, but I don’t really have much use for a toothbrush stand due to the ones I use. But I do have various “teeth tools“ I could use it for instead, or holding ear cleaners... or or or as I discovered, it’s perfect for holding a pen!

It makes a great pen holder and I’ve been having fun using it for that, it almost gives it a fancy look, like those pens you find in offices or banks attached to the ball chain.

I can guarantee that’s probably what I’ll be using it for~

Plushie Magnet

(sorry for bad lighting, I took the picture but somehow it didn’t save so I had to re-take it.)

Our next item once again features the various cast of Rilakkuma and Sumikko Gurashi, but this time in the form of a semi-cuddly magnet :D This adorable magnet is very fluffy and plush-like, and on the back is a small rounded magnet (which can be shifted around as I discovered). It’s cute pastel tones make it an adorable spring accessory (although mine kind of gives me winter vibes you know~) for hanging up papers, photo’s, or just decoration.

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

I don’t really have much to say about it, but I really like it. It’s so cute and adorable. My only annoyance is that I’m not sure I’ll actually get to use it, because I was informed it’ll probably collect dust and hair, and in having it un-packaged I noticed that this was indeed true. Kind of annoying. But I still want to use it, so I’ll probably end up finding a place for it after we move...

Pokemon Pen & Kawaii Notepad

Now some actual stationery, our first item is an adorable Pokemon-themed Pen. There was 4 available in 2 different styles, a basic pen featuring Pikachu and various foods, available in brown or black- or there is a thinner, sorta fancier looking pen in either pink or white featuring Eeevee.

I feel like there’s no real point in giving the pen an in-depth review. It’s a typical pen, but it has no trouble writing, dotting, or anything. The ink lasts a long time without dropping or becoming faint, I think it’s a pretty good quality pen and would recommend it.

-------

Our final item is an adorable, pastel colorful notepad based on the recent trend of drink science and the unique containers people are coming up with to put them in for an instagram worthy pic. There was 9 variants (one of which was Yeastken, so I’m glad I didn’t get it twice...) and I think out of all of all the options, this is the one I’d have wanted. I’m very happy I got it!

There are 2 different styles of paper in this pad, one facing vertical while the other is horizontal. The pages feature designs from the front, which have a clear cover over it to help keep it clean.

Again, I feel like there’s no real actual point in rating this. Notepads are notepads, it’s pretty much like the Yeastken one I just got (they’re by the same brand). Paper is fine, it is written on very smooth and cleanly. I think this is very very very very very cute~! I love how shiny the spine seam piece across the top is.

♡ Cutie Ranking ♡

Content - 4.5 out of 5. I feel really content with this box. I’m not sure I’m in love with it or anything, but the quality of each item was great, and everything had variety and is practical, which as you know is very important. I sort of felt like there wasn’t much of an evenness in terms of the size of items though, but it’s probably for obvious reasons.

Theme: 3.5 out of 5. I felt conflicted over this one, because it was very similar to the previous box in that it features cuddly animals. I mean don’t get me wrong I adore animals and kawaii goods, obviously, and because of how the box carried itself the items had a different feel about them. However, I kind of wish the box actually played up the fluffy part of the theme more (the Photo Prize and Yume Prize did excellent in improving that but not everyone gets it...), and given the description I feel like they should have given the box more of a spring vibe. I can see the pen-pal part, but only a little...

Total Rank: 7 out of 10. I liked the content and I would recommend this one. But I did have a little concern that due to how small a majority of items were, I’m not sure this box would cost as much as we pay. But I don’t really have any way of finding that stuff out, so I could be wrong due to being name brand and all. 

♡ Cutie Scale ♡

1. Cube Toothbrush Stand - I might not have gotten my first choice but I do like Rilakkuma, so I’m not complaining either. I’m obviously going to use this as a pen stand more than its intended purpose, but I also like how fun it is in general. If I could I’d buy the rest of the collection just to decorate with :P

2. Strawberry Inu/Neko Plushie - Even though I am a cat person, I can’t resist how sweet this doggy looks~ He’s so squishy soft, he’ll make a great bed time companion; I’m kinda looking forward to dressing him up a little too~

3. Notepad - I have several of these so I can’t say it was a necessary item either in my case, but I love how cute it is! I love stroking the textured spine seam thingy on top, and admiring the adorable drawings all over it and in it~

4. Pokemon Pen - It’s so sweet looking, the pastel colors and drawings are adorable. I kind of wish I got the sleeker pen with metal accents but I’m very impressed by how smoothly this one writes. I really like it so I’ll probably keep it nearby.

5. Lunch Mat - Not a necessary item, but I do like it. It’s pretty neat to use, and I’ll probably end up folding it up and bringing it with me, so if I end up eating in the car or somewhere else, I’d have it just in case.

6. Plush Magnet - As cute as it is, I’m not sure if I’ll end up using it. I’d hate to have to clean it all the time due to pet hair or dust snagging it. 

#cutie reviews #yumetwins #sanrio #rilakkuma #sumikkogurashi

[artsymeeshee]

Hi I just noticed that you use Gimp?? And I've been just getting started in digital art and right now I only have Gimp. And the things you do with it look like magic??? Like, I can barely produce passable sketches. How do you get the lines so clean? How do you color? Color is my biggest weakness. (you totally don't have to answer :o I'm just amazed by all the wonderful things you do)

Yes I do! 

With any art program, it takes a while to get used to them and learn little tricks from them. So for sketching, I usually sketch with the airbrush tool. With sketches they don’t always have to be perfect and can look messy. I usually use a hard edge brush for sketching.As for line art, I use the ink tool. I discovered this beauty last Summer and I wish I had sooner. Size usually depends on how thick I want my lines so I usually have it at 1 or 2 or sometimes 1.6. As how to get my lines smooth, there’s this amazing thing called the “Smooth stroke” in the tool options. 

This option is what makes my lines smoother. I always have the quality as 100 and you can play around with the weight. The one thing odd about it, is that it will lag the line work a bit while your cursor (if it’s visible) will be slightly ahead of the line work. It’s a bit weird and takes some time to get used to, but it’s amazing nonetheless. I also have the smooth stroke on for the eraser and paintbrush tool. I still don’t really know how to color either XD As for coloring, I simply use the color picker tool. The resolution on my computer is not the best so I don’t really trust it when it comes to picking colors because they end up looking different when I look at the finished product on my phone. I simply copy and paste an image of the character(s) and use the color picker to pick their respective colors or I take one of my other drawings and use the color picker tool. There’s also this little trick I found on how to color faster here. It’s on Photoshop but can be achieved with Gimp as well. After selecting an area with the magic wand tool, I go to Select - Grow and grow either 1 or 2 pixels; thinner lines I grow by 1, thicker I grow by 2. It’s also important you have the add selection picked as well so you can select multiple areas.

Now for shading, I usually pick blueish-grey or purple-grey or sometimes a pinkish-grey. I make a layer for shading and set the mode to Multiply, normally between 60-70% opacity. Also, if you select, say the color of the shirt and once you see the tick marks showing it’s selected, then you can go to your shading layer and have fun with it. This is nice because the shading color will always stay within the border and you don’t have to worry about coloring outside the lines and having to erase.I’ve also been using another fun mode called Overlay. I have a layer specifically for overlay and I tend to use reds, pinks and sometimes oranges. Opacity is either 55 or 60%, depending on how red or orange I want it affecting other colors. I tend to have the overlay layer at the top but you don’t have to. Another fun thing is textures! Most of the textures I use come from here but you can also look them up as well. Textures are almost always the top layer unless I have something I don’t want the textures affecting. I make sure to have a layer just for textures. I simply paste the texture and scale it. I always have the mode set to overlay, unless I wanna try out different modes. Opacity varies depending on the texture. I mess around with the opacity until it looks good enough for me.

But that’s my normal technique! I hope I explained it well enough (because I can’t explain things well at all dhjaksf). If you need more help on explaining certain things I’ll try my best at explaining and even showing examples. Hope this helps! :D

#ask #flamingredskyes #art tutorial #long post #sorry it took a while to respond! #i was figuring out a format on how to answer this #you can dm me if you're still unsure

[dalmatianplantationsensation]

CHARACTER SHEET: Roger Jonathan Radcliffe

As I hide behind these books I read  / while scribbling my poetry / like art could save a wretch like me / with some ideal ideology / that no one can hope to achieve. / And I am never real; it is just a sketch of me. -- Waste of Paint, Bright Eyes

It takes strength to be gentle and kind. --I Know It’s Over, The Smiths

STATS:

Birthday: 11 October 1991

Hogwarts House (Primary): Ravenclaw (modelling a blend of Hufflepuff and Slytherin)

Hogwarts House (Secondary): Ravenclaw

Myers-Briggs: ISFP

Enneagram: Type 5

Height:  5’11

BACKGROUND OVERVIEW:

Mother: Harriet Martha Hunter Radcliffe

Father: William Jonathan Radcliffe (deceased)

Mother’s Occupation: manager at a fabric store

Father’s Occupation: musician

Family Finances: lower class

Birth Order: only child

Other Close Family: Gran on his dad’s side; he has two male cousins on that side who are pretty Patts-esque lol; didn’t really talk to his mum’s side all that much till about a couple of years ago

Best Friend: Paul Patts

Other Friends: from home: Lucy, Finn, Ed; from here: Anita, Perdita, Berlioz, Stan, Brad, Belle?

Enemies: none, really—Lou?

Pets: 32 Dalmatians lol (he had a Dalmatian named George when he was growing up)

Home Life During Childhood: eh so it was happy till he was about ten, then his father started drinking more than usual and doing bad drugs and there were a lot of fights and broken furniture and all that and Roger blames himself

Town or City Name(s): London, England—East End, near Shoreditch

What Did Her Bedroom Look Like: sloping wall with green-striped wallpaper, lots of books jammed into a little shelf, a little wobbly desk with a single desk lamp, kept a bunch of knick-knacks on his desk, lots of sheet music

Any Sports or Clubs: probably in school band or orchestra, also did theatre

Favorite Toy or Game: He had a stuffed dog that he went to bed with every night till he was like 13 or something and it wasn’t “cool” anymore and one of the bigger kids teased him about it so he stuffed it in the bin, but his mum rescued it and it’s on the shelf above his childhood bed

Schooling: finished secondary

Favorite Subject: Music, of course, and English

Popular or Loner: had his own group of friends, was never really a true loner, also helped that his best mate was like the most popular bloke in school

Important Experiences or Events: Dad died when he was 15, he found the body in the bathroom

Health Problems: prone to addiction, undiagnosed depression probably, also near-sighted if that counts lol (he wears contacts most of the time)

Culture: English

Religion and beliefs: his mum’s family goes to church pretty regularly and he’s, like, the type of guy who wishes he could believe in God but isn’t sure—even so, does Christmas, Easter, that whole thing, and when he’s feeling particularly vulnerable, he will pray

PERSONALITY:

Bad Habits: nervous talker, easily addicted to substances, smokes, drinks too much when he’s in a depressive spell

Good Habits: loyal, dedicated to his craft when he is in a steady spell, very good with kids and animals

Best Characteristic: dedicated—to the people close to him, to his craft, to his passions, he won’t quit on you

Worst Characteristic: low self-worth—he doesn’t think much of himself at all and it’s a big hindrance to, like, his life

Worst Memory: finding his dad’s dead body ha ha ha

Best Memory: when Powell approached him and introduced himself and said he had talent

Proud of: his musical ability

Embarrassed by: uh his like,,,everything—his looks, his background, his finances, his grades

Driving Style: he’s very average, speeds a little but remembers his turn signals

Strong Points: kind, artistic, passionate, intelligent, goofy

Temperament: melancholic

Attitude: can be broody

Weakness: tbh he’s like really sensitive if you doubt the one thing he is proud of (musical ability); also fuck with Paul/Anita/his mom (and Perdita by extension), he will get upset

Fears: not living up to his artistic potential, turning into his father

Phobias: turning into his father highkey

Secrets: sometimes he’s happy? His dad died bc it really put his mum out of a lot of misery…

Regrets: getting good at music, because that’s what ultimately drove his dad down the drain

Feels Vulnerable When: talking about himself in general lol, he likes talking to other people and does genuinely want to know more about them but he hates it when it’s about him

Pet Peeves: snobby rich people—he can deal with regular rich people who aren’t snobs and think that his social class is his own fault, kale (really does not like kale)

Conflicts: desire to follow his artistic dreams vs how freakin’ hard it is to do, as well as not wanting to like totally leave his mum in the dust

Motivation: to be a true, genuine artist and hoping success will follow

Short Term Goals and Hopes: get some sort of record deal—either as a musician or a composer

Long Term Goals and Hopes: gosh—make a decent living as a composer, trying not to be a sell-out, but also still getting his time in the limelight

Sexuality: bisexual, if we’re talking Kinsey-scale it’s like a 2.5 (prefers women, but still likes men)

Exercise Routine: gets most of his exercise from working tbh

Day or Night Person — Night.

Introvert or Extrovert — Introvert.

Optimist or Pessimist — Pessimist  

LIKES AND STYLES:

Music: jazz, of course! He grew up listening to the greats and has a fondness for Charlie Parker. Errol Garner is another favorite. Other than that he listens to a lot of classic rock—London’s a great city for classic rock, eh? Got the Stones and the Beatles and the Who—real great place, music’s everywhere, didya know that lots of the classic rock bands were influenced by jazz? Roger can show you where they played. Also really into the Smiths. And indie stuff. Fan of the occasional really good musical. Just doesn’t really like pop is all (ok except for some songs....)

Books: classics, he’s partial to the 1920s era—Hemingway (yes, I know), Fitzgerald, Stein, and all that good stuff. Also a fan of Virginia Woolf. Also a huge Jane Austen fan, he won’t admit that right away but it’s easy to pry out of him.

Magazines: tbh not many,,,he keeps up with music stuff online

Foods: good pub food—he likes a good steak pie with loads of green peas and mashed potatoes on the side. Also a good English breakfast (his favorite part’s the sausage).

Drinks: tea—black, the English Breakfast blend. Likes a good beer as well, or a shot of whiskey.

Animals: Dogs. No, but seriously, he’s always been fond of them and will take care to point them out on the street to whoever he is with.

Sports: He plays football but sucks at it haha, but he follows Paul’s team!

Social Issues: LGBTQ+ rights, he’s like really against gentrification, having lived it firsthand

Favorite Saying: “Life is like jazz; it’s a lot better when you improvise.”

Color: Grey. He likes how varied it is. It reminds him of home and of silver and the sky and the Thames and a lot of things he likes.

Clothing: he’s like very particular about how he dresses, tries not to wear shorts and t-shirts, he likes to keep it dressy casual, like hipster style (wow, roger)

Jewelry: he has a nice watch his dad passed down to him and a ring his granddad gave him when he graduated

Games: played pokemon when he was younger, will take a turn on those first-person shooters when he’s with friends, likes the Legend of Zelda

Websites: Instagram, tumblr, has his own like wordpress or something with music reviews, posts some piano covers on youtube (not terribly many)

TV Shows: Fools and Horses, other british sitcoms which i am too lazy to research r now but he’s a sitcom sorta bloke when he does watch tv

Movies: he likes weird horror movies, big zombie fan; secretly really adores Love, Actually, but says his favourite movie is Ray (which is a great movie, he just likes Love, Actually more....); prefers the BBC Pride and Prejudice over the Kiera Knightley one and is passionate about that

Greatest Want: to be a true artist™

Greatest Need: to overcome his bad self-esteem and love himself

CURRENTLY:

Home: lives in the Dalmatian Plantation farmhouse, on the top floor in an attic bedroom

Household furnishings: lots of sheet music, he keeps his closet pretty neat, but the rest is quite messy. Always has a stack of books on his bedside drawer. There’s usually an empty mug of tea because he’s too lazy to bring it downstairs lol. Bed is usually not made.

Favorite Possession: probably a book from either Paul or Anita (or both)

Most Cherished Possession:  the piano in his house in London, which belonged to his dad and his dad’s dad; also the watch his dad left him

Married Before: Nope.

Significant Other Before: Finn, Sarah (those are the only significant ones)

Children: n/a

Relationship with Family: very close with his mum, they stuck together when it got really bad on his homelife end; she’s always been supportive of him; his mum’s family used to not speak to them much, but recently have been reaching out; dad’s family talks to them more

Car: n/a

Career: dog care-taker, record shop clerk, musician/composer

Dream Career: composer/jazz musician [music teacher, but he doesn’t know that yet]

Dream Life: ok so honestly—Roger’s destined to become a teacher. He’s great with kids and in the end, he will (hopefully) realize that his passion for music is meant to be passed down to others. Sure, he’s gonna still write the occasional almost-famous tune and play in ensembles and venues, but he’s gonna be truly happy as a teacher.

Love Life: uh—kinda dating Anita? What is? Going? On?

Hobbies : playing music, reading, walking the dogs lol, likes playing football sometimes (sucks at it), acting

Guilty Pleasure : will, on occasion, like a pop song; rom-coms

Sports or Clubs: n/a

Talents or Skills : great musician—plays piano excellently, trumpet pretty well, and can manage a bit on saxophone and guitar; has a good singing voice too (baritone)! Decent driver (can drive manual wow that’s impressive to me tbh); good with kids and animals (also impressive to me lmao)

Intelligence Level : artistically inclined—he was bad at science/math classes, but good at music, literature, and history. He’s not dumb by any means, but his strengths aren’t really in a technical area. He’s knowledgeable and interested in learning about things, but don’t ask him to solve some intricate mathematical proof

Finances: manages alright on his own (he basically doesn’t have to pay rent, so he’s doing p good; sends money back home too)

#roger gets two quotes bc he's special #and im in love with him #character sheet #about #hc #stuff

[sickchickenstudios-blog]

Guard Duty: A Development Retrospective - Devblog #4

The Art of Guard Duty - Pixel Practices

Howdy. Today I would like to take some time to talk to you about my process when creating art for Guard Duty. I’m going to be focussing on pixel art and practices you need to be mindful of when creating your art. Hopefully this will give you a bit of an insight into my process for creating the many pixel packed locations in Guard Duty.

Let’s start with a few basic things you’ll need to keep in mind when working with pixels. My advice here is geared around creating pixel art in Photoshop, but most of the rules will apply to other art packages.

First thing’s first - Decide upon a resolution and stick to it.

The problem I see a lot of people run into when starting in pixel art is in consistency of resolution, that is they often mix different resolutions within the image (or game). Mostly called ‘mixed resolution’, it is a where pixels in the image are not all of a consistent size, often leading to an undesirable look. Traditional pixel art is based on the foundation of a grid, where each pixel acts like a grid square. The pixels are unable to be placed outside of these grid squares, therefore keeping a consistency throughout the image. The hardware used to render pixel art in it’s heyday was unable to handle high resolutions, meaning that each pixel had to be carefully placed to make up the intended image.

See this graphic for example, the image on the left is using a consistent pixel density whereas the one on the right is using a different density between the character sprite and the background (mixed resolution).

You see the difference? The larger pixels on the right-hand image look messy compared to it’s counterpart, this not only looks a bit strange but does not keep with the traditions of creating pixel art. You want to stick to the resolution you started with. There are some examples of modern games which used mixed resolution pixel art successfully, but these are normally used sparingly and are scaled in-engine, mostly to benefit gameplay.

Platformers often use sub-pixel movement to make gameplay smoother, which can lead to character sprites not lining up correctly with background assets. Sprites however are very rarely scaled in engine as this is far more jarring to look at.

Either way, you will save yourself a lot of hassle if you decide on your game’s resolution at the start and stick to this resolution throughout. Guard Duty uses a similar resolution to many of the early LucasArts and Sierra titles using a 4:3 ratio of 320 x 240px. It might not sound like much but that’s 76,800 pixels you’re going to have to wrangle. More than enough for me!

Moving on - Do not use anti aliased tools

Another problem I see that newcomers often run into is the temptation to use tools designed for high resolution artwork, things like the brush tool, smudge, burn/dodge and gradient fill are all inherently anti-aliased and will give you a heap of extra clean-up work. These tools create way too many pixels, with a massive array of shades and colours. You’ll find that tweaking your artwork becomes increasingly harder when using these tools. So just forget them, resist temptation to smudge your wall texture, or use your neat grass brush, It’s really not worth it if you want to create pixel art. The easiest way to keep track of anti-aliasing is to use (almost exclusively) the pencil tool, the pencil tool can be found by click-holding the brush in the toolbar and selecting the pencil from the drop-down menu.

I also recommend turning off the anti-alias setting on the marquee selection tool, transform tool, paint bucket tool and magic wand tool. All of these can be used in pixel art, but with the anti-alias checkbox active you will find that they create a lot of different coloured pixels around the edge of your selection, again causing issues when flood filling areas, or otherwise editing the image.

So as a general rule, make sure each pixel that is going onto your canvas is intentional. Photoshop isn’t really geared towards creating pixel art and you want to make sure it doesn’t do anything without your permission. Bad Photoshop! Behave!

Try to avoid scaling your pixel art

This is similar to my first point, but can often catch you off guard. Once you’ve drawn something on the pixel grid you may find that it doesn’t fit in a scene you’ve created previously, despite both images having the same resolution. You’ve drawn the sprite too small and although the pixels are consistently sized, it just looks tiny in the scene. Well, you’re probably going to have to redraw it, somewhat.

When you scale pixel art Photoshop will try to scale the pixels to match the resolution’s pixel grid, anything under a 200% scale will result in only some of the pixels being larger than others (some will become rectangular) and at 200% the pixels will be twice as big, but still fit into the grid. This is because Photoshop has to keep to the bounds of the canvas resolution and doesn’t know what to do with the new space between pixels.

You can see from the image that some of Tondbert’s upscaled pixels have stayed 1px wide/tall whilst others are now 2px wide or tall. His eyes, nose and left shoulder have suffered the most. Poor Tondbert. This is because Photoshop doesn’t know what to do with the pixels, at the chosen scaling it only has ‘small’ (1px) or ‘big’ (2px).

Anyway, to combat these issues you should always draw your pixel art with other assets in mind. When working on a game you don’t want to have to be scaling the character sprites differently between locations, so you should paste your character sprite into the blank canvas for the new location, so you’ve got something to reference the size. If you stick to a consistent resolution with all your art and be mindful of other assets you’re intending to use together you shouldn’t run into any of these problems.

When scaling pixel art, always use Nearest Neighbour interpolation and scale in multiples

Pixel art is kinda small and most modern computers are displaying a 1920x1080 resolution or higher. This means when showing off your pixel art on a website, it can often look reeeeeally tiny. So, you want to be aware of your image resize settings. You need to make sure the image is scaled in exact multiples of itself, 2x bigger 3x bigger etc. So if your canvas is 320 pixels wide and 240 pixels tall, the upscaled image would need to be 640 pixels wide and 480 pixels tall. To keep it simple scale the image to either 200%, 300% or 400% depending on how big you want it, but never 250% or 225%.

There is also a setting at the bottom of the ‘Image size’ box in Photoshop that has a drop down list of interpolation types, next to the ‘Resample Image’ checkbox. Set this to drop down to Nearest Neighbour(preserve hard edges). It will make sure that your pixels always stay crisp when resizing.

There is a similar drop down box when using the transform controls which you will also need to change, if you do not your sprites will become blurred.

Note the amount of pixels Photoshop has added when trying to smooth out the sprite to 121%, this would make the sprite near impossible to modify beyond this point. Using the Nearest Neighbour interpolation solves this issue.

Stick to a limited palette

When starting out with an image I try to keep the colour count to a minimum, this way you won’t get bogged down with tweaking the finer details and can focus on the bigger picture. It also makes tolerance selecting bits of the image a lot easier. Try to keep to three or four colours per texture, dark, mid and highlight colours. You can add extra colours later if needed but removing colours is a bit of a pain.

Now we’ve gone over the basics, let’s get started on a creating a scene.

Start with a basic thumbnail sketch

This technique applies to both sprite and background creation, but for the purpose of this post we’re going to work with a background.

I like to sketch out a few different compositions for the scene before committing to one. I usually find I get something decent by the third sketch but it may take longer, just stick with it. Each sketch shouldn’t take more than a minute or two, we’re just establishing where the shapes in the scene are going to sit. I use a black 1px brush for this stage but the colour is mostly irrelevant (we will be changing that later). I liked the composition in the second sketch and decided to make the opening more central, adding a fallen tree to the left similar to the first sketch.

Develop the thumbnail sketch

I was pretty happy with this so decided to roll with it. The next image shows how I developed the detail in the image, sticking to the sketchy black lines for now. I occasionally use a dark grey colour to show objects that are further back in the frame.

Establish clean 1px outlines

In the next step I set my sketch layer to semi-transparent (20-40%), lock it and create a new layer then begin to outline each of the individual elements. Remember to use a 1px brush and the pencil tool. About 80% of the time I’m holding shift whilst click two points on the canvas to draw a 1px line between the two points. This saves a lot of time and really helps when drawing straight lines, or long curved ones. At this point in the process you want to keep your pixels as clean as possible, avoiding ‘double pixels’ where the line becomes more than 1 pixel wide.

For the time being I’m using a different colour for each of the elements in the scene, this will make it easier to colour them in the next step and helps to cut down on having lots of layers at this early stage. It’s not necessary, but if you’re drawing everything on the same layer I would recommend it. Plus this is probably the only time you’ll get to use bright pink, vomit green and orange in the same scene!

Separate the outlines and block in the colours

Once I’ve outlined the each of the elements in the scene I pick one and start detailing! I don’t worry about the finer details, I just aim to block out the main shapes and colours. What I have done below is use the magic wand tool (anti-alias turned off) with the tolerance set to 0 and contiguous turned off. This way it will select just that colour from the scene. I cut out the element and paste it into a new layer.

I decide upon a highlight colour and start blocking out the parts of the trunk that are raised, drawing these on the same layer as the trunk outline. Underneath on a new layer I am able to fill in the darker base colour of the trunk, as seen in the third image. This leaves the outline and highlights intact and allows me to use a larger brush size to block in the colour underneath.

You can see where I’ve added some trees and foliage from another background in the top right of the image, this is to get a feel for the colours used in those backgrounds, to help consistency between scenes and because I’m too lazy to draw new trees.

Apologies for the slightly blurry images, they were pulled from the timelapse video.

Add definition with shadows and fine highlights

This is the fun part, giving the object volume. First you want to add another layer above both of your previous layers. Then by carefully placing your shadow colour you can add heaps of definition to the shape. Here I’ve used it to bring out the cracks in the wood, as well as help the branches stand out against whatever will be behind them.

Thanks to having the colours on separate layers I am then able to tweak the balance between the three colours, ready for adding an extra fourth colour for fine highlights.

After adding the fourth colour we’re about done, the object has a nice shape to it with a decent amount of detail. You could work on it further from this point, maybe adding a second dark colour for shadows but I tend to leave it here. Remember, every step of this process was done with the pencil tool and a 1px brush, the only exception was the use of a 10 pixel brush for blocking in the colour. You can use this technique for everything in your scene, I like to merge the layers once I’m finished on each object but that’s personal preference. If you do decide to merge them you have the option of using a Brightness/Contrast or Hue/Saturation adjustment layer to tweak the contrast between the highlights and midtones etc, this won’t affect the pixels or add any anti-aliasing.

Okay! That’s about it. There’s nothing particularly fancy going on once you’ve setup Photoshop to handle pixels appropriately, you just need to follow the process I’ve laid out above and you’ll be creating rad pixel art in no time. If you’ve got any questions feel free to drop me a line on one of our social links or email me on the contact form @ www.sickchicken.com.

Here’s the finished image:

You can watch a timelapse of the process on Youtube here:

For a bit of additional learning, I highly recommend watching the ‘8bit & 8bit-ish’ Graphics GDC talk by Mark Ferrari:

Cheers!

-Nath

#games videogames gamedev indiegames gamedevelopment retro pixelart