#some stuff I wanted to add because I posted on my iPad and it hard to type on there

[charon-cries]

Hiya! Hope this message finds u well :3 I absolutely love your art; found you from insta! Quick question also; I’m not sure if you’ve answered this before, but which brushes do you use for ur digital art? I love the textures they’re so crunchy (endearing)!! Have a lovely day!! :D

hello!! here's a little brush tour ft. this half rendered martin.

also, a great app for ipad artists who really want to dig into texture is art set 4. i swear by it and i've been using it for about two years. none of my more recent art uses it, but that's just because i'm experimenting with my process rn

so here's a list of my most used brushes lately, and there will be links to all of them at the bottom of this post.

the two labeled "custom pencil" are both my own personal modified pencils (both sourced from the 6b pencil) but the narinder pencil and the vanilla 6b pencil are both very similar to them. i use these two for sketching and flat color specifically, and if you do specifically want these two brushes then i'd be happy to upload them somewhere for you to download, but they're not really necessary for texture

i also use G&B halftone brushes sometimes! but i greatly prefer the RSCO sample pack, and i cannot find the link to the G&B brushes no matter how hard i google, and pretty much any halftone brush set will do the same job

and here's what they look like in practice!

(i like to set these halftones to color burn. color burn is my most used blending mode, even for shading)

and then i hit "copy all," paste, and duplicate it. so you should have two layers of just your entire canvas. then import a paper texture

i'm partial to the set i'll link down below, my favorite is #5. you should absolutely check out the rest of the free texture packs on their website if you're wanting to diversify your texture process btw, all of their stuff is fantastic.

to use that texture, your layers should look like this!

on the layer set to the linear burn, i also like to go into the adjustments menu and bump up the brightness until all of the colors are at similar values to what they were before. and the normal layer on top is just to control the intensity/opacity of the paper texture!

after all of that, sometimes i'll go in with brushes like MM rake follow, or more from COFE's weird pencils, on top of all of those layers for finishing touches.

definitely play around with it, try new free brushes all of the time (i heavily recommended subscribing to Manero. they have a lot of free stuff and it's all fantastic) and see what works for you <3

here are the links to the brushes in this post, as well as some extras! some of them are paid and some of them are completely free. + it wasn't mentioned here, but i use the tatyworks linen fabric brush for blending! for any of the paid brushes, i'll try to link some free alternatives

paid brushes:

alternatives to paid brushes:

free brushes:

extra goodies:

#procreate art #procreate brushes #art tutorial #artists on tumblr #digital art #digital artist #art recommendations #art resources

[skaiind]

A lot of your work has really inspired me to take a shot at making comics. I know it's a lot to ask but I was wondering how to go about the process. Do you write and refine scripts before illustrating pages or do you just have a general plot in mind? Big fan of your work, your artstyle is magnificent.

first of all, that's amazing! comics are one of the best ways to learn art, because they challenge every aspect of your skill, it can be frustrating, but very very rewarding and worth it! and i am deeply moved that my work has inspired you to do so! thank you very much!!

my process has several steps, an each one sort of refines the last one as i revisit the same page over and over (which is great because i look at it with fresh eyes and manage to make it even better!!) but it turned out long, so get comfortable:

first i write a rough draft, trying to write as fast as possible with no stopping as much as i can, just so you can get the story (chapter) out. once the whole thing is finished, i edit it to make more sense! fix any mistakes, format it sort of like a script and also i try to be as descriptive as possible when explaining a scene - not just the vibes of it but i try to write out what i want the panels to look like or have, what POV or angle they're in, what details should be visible, describe the page design alltogether, etc. for the scripts i use notion.to because it was the most comfortable to organise all the chapters and notes and stuff in one place!

once the script is completed, i plan out the panels - that means i get a bunch of sketch paper (a3) and one by one as i reread the script, i draw out the panels and use little post its to shortly describe what should be in each panel (ex.: wide view of room, Michael in middle looking angrily at the clipboard). during this i also can edit the script a bit again, as with fresh eyes maybe i managed to think of something BETTER for the scene. i usually plan out about 15-20 pages in one sitting this way, because it's mostly just drawing rectangles and visualising the page in your head.

then we move on to ACTUALLY SKETCHING inside those panels, and with this i start from backgrounds first, then characters, then added details. at first i used just the red lead pencils, but then i began adding different colours like layers for the beforementioned categories. and when doing this i try to do as many pages as possible in one sitting, because the first page always comes out wonky, but then you get the flow of the story going and it gets easier (also good practice!!) and again, here i can refine the script, because maybe the post it i placed earlier doesn't make as much sense anymore and the scene might look different. so i sketch it how i think is best at the moment. i try to be as clear as possible, so the lining process later doesn't frustrate me too much.

now it's time to scan everthing and because i have a smaller scanner that means i must do it twice for each page. that's okay though because at least it comes out high quality when i photomerge them on photoshop later on. i apply autocontrast+autocolor to the picture, and the page looks more legible, and then transfer some to procreate on my ipad.

then you test out what lines/brush look best, and once you've got a chosen one - you LINE IT. Starting with defining the panels better, so they're not wiggly unless they look better that way. i again start from backgrounds because they're tedious and hard, then the characters, add some more details and then the speech bubbles. each on a separate layer so i can edit each one later if needed.

then all that's left is shading everything and exporting that bad boy out into the world!

what is common in most of these stages, is that i keep editing as i go. when i think of how i want the panels to look, i try to imagine it not just as a comic panel but like a scene in a movie (if specifically - horror movies and other times a one-camera comedy tv-shows or just a combination of both) and that really helps me visualize the panel.

another thing to keep in mind when writing a bigger/longer story is to know where it's going or at least what are you trying to show through it, but even that isn't necessary because in comics you can just keep exploring an idea or a concept without going really anywhere and it can still end up being amazing.

in the end you must remember that the comic you're making for YOU first and audience second. because when you start thinking about what other people will think, it'll become frustrating very fast and lose the fun. an creating comics is already frustrating in on itself, there's no need to bring in any more to it.

i hope you will make comics! i hope they will be fun for you and i'm very happy you want to put out more of this fantastic media into the world!

i also hope the long answer helped :))

#long post #asks

[zeltqz]

niyaaaa do u have any tips for people who wanna get into fic writing? 👀

i don’t really get how the whole posting format for fics works on here tbh 😭 and like your info area it’s so cool

YEAH OFC!! btw dm me your username so i can follow and support you <3

tip 1- the posting format isnt that hard to get used to actually its just you create a tumblr text post and then copy and paste your fic onto it, add the tags and stuff then post it. if you want to add banners, headers and stuff to make it look better then go ahead, just add images to the text post

tip 2- the info area is the same as above, just add pictures of your choice etc to the text post, add your information, name, age, fav things etc and then to link posts to your post, highlight where u want the link to go, then copy the link of the post u want linked then press the hyperlink that looks like two chains linked together when you highlight the text if that makes sense? sounds like a lot but its rlly not i promise haha

tip 3- always type your fics on other apps like word or google docs since they have an auto save feature!! i dont reccomend typing your fics on tumblr since one if the app crashes, it doesn't automatically save your work so everything you wrote will get deleted (some versions of tumblr do have autosave, my laptop has it but my phone and iPad doesn't, so i dont rely on it)

tip 4- idk if you want tips on actual fic writing or just how to get your fics onto tumblr but ill help you with that anyway. with me when i write fics i always imagine it out in my head. theres some of my fics where i just went with the flow and wrote wgatever came to mind and those are the fics i hate the most because they dont rlly make sense to me. theyre always so random and it just seems rushed and bad.

i picture my fics like a scene in my head and whatever i want the character to do, think, say or feel i write that shit down asap. i use other online sources to help get more descriptive like the emotion theasurus <- honestly one of my favourite things to use ever, they have so much body language to use for every emotion in the damn book

dialogue is also something i find difficult. i've improved i personally feel like but its still hard for me especially if im writing a new character. i never want to make the character seem OOC so i do lots of research before hand. i normally use the wiki to read up on a characters personality.

for example i'll use ran for this since he's like 99% of my account lmao. in the wiki, he's described as "naturally whimsical toward others which makes him inscrutable" though ran doesnt have many scenes in the manga (which i hate bc i love him sm) its impossible to actually write him down to a tee so i use that naturally whimsical description to make him playful, charismatic, carefree etc, going off what little information i have with him.

getting a characters personality down is what can make or break a dialogue. for me when im reading a fic of a character and their dialogue is so OOC it puts me off and i dont even wanna read. so i apply my same fic icks to myself and think if I don't like seeing this and that in a fic, why would I incorporate those in my fics and have ppl get put off it if they have the same fic icks as me?

hope that makes sense!!

tip 5- dont rush yourself at all. i used to rush a few of my fics and i just ended up hating it so much after and fought bck the urge to delete them so many times but then i'd see people's comments and realise i was being too harsh on myself. i'd keep them up but i'd just hate seeing them get attention.

rushing only makes you hate your work and the quality of your work will decline if you are not in the right headspace.

thats also why i have the don't rush me thing in my rules because not only is it annoying to see people constantly asking for updates, it also makes me mad because i know i'll just put out a piece of garbage if i did rush.

also another tip don't give yourself deadlines!! if you know your writing consistency can be a little sloppy, don't tell your followers that you're going to upload every so and so day. if something happens and you miss the deadline, you'll feel bad and rush something out and most times out of ten, a rushed fic doesn't do well. so take your time and don't rush.

tip 6- dont listen to what other people say or feel obligated to write something you don't wanna. establish your boundaries!! for example, from day one i started this blog i said im accepting requests but i will not write anything to do with non-con, incest or minors. i made sure that was out there so i wouldn't feel uncomforable writing anything i wasn't comfy with.

there are people on this app that may like your writing and request you to write something for them. you are not obligated to write anything for anyone! don't feel like you have to just because they asked nicely.

if you want to accept requests you can im not saying you shouldn't, im saying don't feel like you have to. you always have a choice. its your blog.

tip 7- remember this isn't a job. you're allowed to take breaks, allowed to have a personal life. don't feel like you need to be updating every day. i used to think i was obligated to be uploading consistently at least every week because i was obsesssed with engagement and seeing peoples comments and was scared if i took a break ppl will unfollow. now i honestly don't care. i'm not active as much as i used to because of school and that's fine! if ppl want to leave, let them. don't feel like you're forced to keep being active in order to keep your follower count stable.

tip 8- this app can get really toxic sometimes. luckily enough i've only had one toxic anon in my inbox and i've been on this app for a year. some people have so many, some ppl get harrassed etc. if that happens to you just be prepared since there's no actual way to find out who's behind anons. you can turn off your anon options which means if ppl want to inbox you something then their account will be showing. some people arent comfortable with that and that's fine! i keep mine on because i want people to feel comfortable on my page.

just remember though if you ever feel like this app is getting overwhelming take breaks! for the sake of your mental health take breaks. i know so many writers on here that took breaks and came back healthier and stronger.

i feel like this tip goes for social media in general. as much as i love social media im aware how unhealthy it is. breaks are so important for you. remember that.

i can't think of anymore tips right now but if i have some more i will edit the post and add it on.

if u have anymore questions about the tumblr posting format dm me and ill help you out :))

[tmgmrk]

Do you have a place where you have talked about your process or perhaps tools of use (e.g; interview)? I've just started drawing and illustrating and am lost but highly inspired by you and some others. Thanks.

Oh god, no. I'm a nobody so I never saw the point in posting anything like that.

But I can tell you I use an iPad pro and Clip Studio Paint. I know people complain non-stop because the app is subscription based but I draw almost every day so it's worth it for me especially with the amount of free assets I can download. Plus their default brushes are already so good.

What helped me when I started out drawing digitally was copying other people's artworks as practice and I color-picked their palette as well because I had no idea how to put a good palette together or what colors I want to use. I'd say don't focus on special effects, texture, etc. right away and stick to the very basics (sketch > lines > color). You don't need to add effects and all that fancy stuff because the possibilities of them are endless and that's pretty overwhelming and can easily get frustrating when you start out.

But I honestly think the most important thing is that you don't stress yourself, set small goals and most of all - enjoy what you draw. Try to figure out what you'd like to draw (i.e. cute girls, very colorful, simple or detailed style). I just wanted to draw SO bad and I pumped out a lot of art in a short time, sometimes even several illustrations in a day because I was having so much fun.

Sorry if it's a bit messy it's a bit hard to explain when everything in my brain was just always JUST DRAW!! lol.

And also thank youu! I hope you will enjoy it!

#ask

[bigjimbopickens]

Hi! I wanna say I love your art first of all! I just read the message under your last post about Kevin’s art video and you said you’re mostly self taught - I’m curious about how you get into that? I’d love to learn to draw but have no idea where to start!

Sorry for getting back to this so late I am not as active on Tumblr. And yes, I am mostly self-taught because of my circumstances growing up. To those who don't know, I am SnowfallWarning/Big Jimbo and I am currently an animation student. I do 2D animation, concept art and character design and I graduate this year (hopefully). I am disabled both physically and mentally which is why I mostly do digital art. I have a coordination disorder (dyspraxia) and am blind in one eye but that doesn't stop me. For my entire childhood I was discouraged from drawing as I apparently wouldn't go anywhere with it or that I was terrible. Where I lived most of my life had no opportunities for someone like me so I had to leave to continue pursuing art. Because of the poor access, the only things I had was notebooks, school supplies and an old iPad mini to draw with growing up. I learned everything I currently know now from using those. I don't know what got me into drawing still, may have been Warrior Cats and dinosaurs. Like what Jose said in Kevin's video, art comes from the soul. It is human expression and we've always been doing it. Anyone can be an artist and we all start somewhere, trust me. Here's some stuff I usually tell people because I do get asked this often (I'm also not the best teacher): 1: Experiment. Find what works for you. Be messy with it, not every piece needs to be perfect. If you are a digital artist then also trying different programs can be helpful too. Maybe you're better at drawing landscapes, characters or abominations that defy God. 2: Use references if necessary. Not sure why for a while it was considered "cheating" to use references. Everyone in the industry uses references, I would know. If you also want, you can try tutorials but I found I learn more from references. 3: Take inspiration. I'm always adding things I see in other people's art to my own style if I like it. Though try not to copy them. 4: Tracing. I believe tracing is okay for learning purposes. It's how I learned to draw humans after doing exclusively furry art for years tbh. I tend to stick to real-life references for this, this is a great site for practice: https://line-of-action.com (if you're not okay with nudity then do remember to turn that off). "But where do I even start?" Grab a piece of paper and pencil (or open a blank canvas on a digital art program if you prefer that) and just start doodling whatever. If you have an idea then go for that as well. Every class I've had in college so far has started with drawing and rendering a bunch of shapes to see where everyone was at and to get a feel of our styles. So maybe try that too. Draw random shapes with different materials/brushes, colour them in and add details like shadows and highlights. I know it seems ridiculous but I do it every once in a while to experiment and try different methods. You probably won't improve overnight. Hell, it took me 7 years to get to where I currently am. A lot of people quit because they think they're not good enough when pretty much every artist is only proud of about 10% of their work. Definitely the case for me. Not every piece is going to be a masterpiece and the imperfections can be what makes it special, so please don't be so hard on yourself. Don't be discouraged because other artists may be better than you either, they've probably been doing it for longer. So please, if you are dedicated enough, keep trying. I'm sure you will get somewhere :) So basically, - Use whatever material you got and draw what comes to mind, even if it's terrible it is a great start. - Experiment with your style and/or materials. - Reference, take inspiration and trace for memory. - Don't give up but do take breaks to avoid burnout. - Try not to be intimidated by other artists, we also don't really know what we're doing tbh (and just as afraid of you as you are of us).

I hope that all made sense and was somewhat helpful :)

[bsdndprplplld]

7 III 2023

it's the second week of the semester and I must say that it's easier than I predicted

statistical data analysis is boring but easy, algebra 2 is easy but probably interesting, so is differential geometry

algebraic topology was funny because ⅓ of the group completed the algebraic methods course, so at first we told the professor to skip half of the lecture (we all know the required part of category theory) and then with every new piece of information he would say "ok maybe this will be the first thing today that you don't know", to which we would reply "naaah we've seen this" lmao. but the course overall will be fun and maybe it's even better that the level of difficulty won't be as high as I though, that would leave more time for my other stuff

the tutorial part of number theory was scary, because the professor wanted us to work in pairs. my autistic ass hates working in groups and the noise in the room was unbearable (everyone was talking about the exercises we were given to solve), so I was on the verge of a meltdown after 30 minutes of this despite ANC headphones. next time I will work by myself from the start. maybe without the requirement of communication it won't be as bad. the course itself will be easy, when it comes to the material. I know nothing about number theory, so the novelty will make it more enjoyable. a few people said that they would prefer the tutorial in the standard form, maybe I won't have to worry about surviving it if there are enough people who want to change it

my birthday is tomorrow and as a gift my parents gave me enough money to buy an ipad, I was saving for it since november. for a few days now I've been testing different apps for note taking, pdf readers and other tools useful for studying. I must say, this is a game changer, I absolutely love it

taking notes itself is less comfortable than on an e-ink tablet, which gives very paperlike experience, but it's better than traditional ones. the upside is that I can use different colors and the whole process is less rigid than on an e-ink

two apps that seem the best for now are MarginNote 3 and GoodNotes

the first one is good for studying something from multiple sources. the app allows to open many pdfs, take pieces from them and then arrange them in a mindmap. it's possible to add handwritten notes, typed notes, photos and probably more that I don't know yet. all of this seems to be particularly useful when studying for exams or in other situations when it's necessary to review a huge chunk of material

the second app is for regular handwritten notes. it doesn't have any special advantages other than I just like the interface lol what I like about taking notes on ipad is that I can take photos and insert them directly into the notebook, which I can't do on the e-ink. it's great for lectures and classes because I don't usually write everything down (otherwise I can't listen, too busy with writing) and even if I do, I don't trust myself with it so I take photos anyway. being able to merge the photos with notes reduces chaos

oh god this is going to be a long post! other news from life is that yesterday I had a meeting with my thesis advisor and we finally picked a topic. some time ago he sent me a paper to try and said, very mysteriously, to let him know if it's not too hard before he reveals more details about his idea. the paper is about symmetric bilinear forms on finite abelian groups, pure algebra, and I was supposed to write about algebraic topology, so I tried to search where this topics comes up, but didn't find anything. it turns out that it's used to define some knot invariant, which I would use to write about the classification of singularities of algebraic curves. in the meantime my advisor had another idea, which is an open problem in knot theory. we decided to try the second one, because there is less theory to learn before I could start writing the paper

to summarize what I'm about to do: there is a knot invariant called Jones polynomial, which then inspires a construction of a certain R-module on tangles and the question asks whether that module is free, if so, what is its rank. now I'm reading the book he gave me to learn the basics and I can't wait till I start working on the problem

#studyblr #mathblr #math

[mjulmjul]

hey! i am consistently in awe of your work, i genuinely adore it (I’d love to get prints of some of your pieces if that’s available anywhere 👀) but im writing to ask abt your technique and brushes! Im new to digital art, and i wanna create the sort of effect you make and i cannot for the life of me figure out how to do it! you have these strokes that look sort of like charcoal but also paint? also refracted light???? idk what program u use or anything and im just a noob still learning how to get the most out of the brushes that come w procreate, but even if you’re using a different program and stuff, I’d love to see if there’s anyway i can translate that effect somehow to the tools I’m using. It’s really cool stuff!! im sorry if you’ve already answered this somewhere 😅

hey! ok first off take anything i say with a grain of salt because 1. i'm self taught 2. there are many many ways to do art, there's no One Right Way. experiment and settle on what works best for you!

atm I basically only use procreate on ipad with an apple pencil.

I've compiled the brushes I use most into this post click here, I'd say download some sets and try them out! this seems to be a bit of an unpopular opinion because I regularly see advice to stick to the basic brushes however if you were making traditional art you wouldn't unnecessarily limit yourself to the cheapest brushes/paints either (assuming you could afford everything), so. go ham.

the main technique I use is a pretty common one where I use a big textured brush and then use a base color layer + clipping masks (you can google how to use these) or selection tool to get sharp edges. so I'll make a selection of the shape I want to paint and then paint within that selection. i often do this with light strokes and/or the brush on lower opacity so i'll keep texture. if you look at concept artists on instagram you'll see this technique used a lot too :) 'edge control' is a term to google to find more about hard/soft edges and how they'll improve your art!

for the light, even for digital art I would very very much recommend james gurney's book 'color and light' because it teaches you almost all you need to know about, well, color and light, and you can apply these principles to digital art too. it's well worth the price but if you can't afford it then there are perhaps some copies to be found online ;) for the actual method in procreate, I like to use layers on the add and screen blending modes, sparingly, and NOT with white highlights but with the actual color of the light e.g. yellow, blue-ish, etc. for stuff like wings, it's usually multiple layers stacked on top of each other!

(i am not organized)

as a final note i will add that i painted traditionally for years before starting digital art, so i do think that'll have influenced my approach in a couple ways because i basically took all that knowledge and methods into digital rather than starting from scratch.

#hope this is comprehensible and sorry for lack of more pics I just know it’d have taken even longer otherwise #feel free to dm me if you have more questions #if anyone is wondering about a specific painting let me know and i'll happily explain howeverrrr #am terrible with answering asks tho so pls be patient & just in case too many ppl ask i may not get around to all of it #not art #mjulmjul answertime #LONG post

[inevitably-johnlocked]

List five things that make you happy, then put this in the ask box of the last ten people who reblogged something from you. Spread the positivity 🌻🌼🌷

Awww Lovely!

Needed to see this, thank you! Feeling BLUH this morning, cramps are murdering me, LOL.

Let's see...

Puppies (or cute animals in general).

Staying curled up in bed under 2 covers and hugging 3 pillows, and reading fanfics on a lazy Saturday.

Drawing on my iPad. I am SO glad I bought it last summer. It's really helped with my feeling "trapped" on my computer.

My current hyperfixations, whatever they may be (right now, it's Moon Knight, chocolate milk [like, I'm ALWAYS CRAVING it], and sorting recipes, which is a weird one but okay, LOL). Most of the time these are fandom things, and they just... really give me dopamine hits whenever I see stuff from said fandoms, which is why I spend so much time on Tumblr. If it's a show, I'll rewatch all my fave parts over and over and OVER again. I'm on Week 3 of rewatching MK in chunks, LOL. Before that, I rewatched OFMD a LOT.

Video games... currently any of the Assassin's Creed games. I get REALLY into open-world games and I will spend literal MONTHS on grinding to get everything before I get to the final boss of the games I play. (AC Valhalla, I have around 350hrs clocked on it. Before that, the longest was Skyrim, with 225 hours). Problem with me gaming, though, is that, again, it's a hyperfixation I think, because I will game for literal hours and lose track of time and not eat. It's why I got the iPad so I could try to focus a bit more on my art work and be more aware of my hours.

Can I add a sixth? Writing ficlets. Y'all, I have SO many fanfic snippets half done, because I get invested in fandoms, then ideas happen and I have to write them down but nothing comes of them. I should try to finish some. I miss publishing. What I want to do is find my old Sonic stories and rewrite them. Hmm.

OKAY ONE MORE: My collectables, especially my Funko Pops. Yes, I know they're terrible shitty things, but I fucking LOVE my Funko, okay?? They make me SO happy. Plus my obsession is keeping a local business very happy LOL. I mostly only get Funko of shows and movies I think I will love, and I get a hit whenever my pre-orders come in and one of them is a hard-to-get Chase figure because I legit sit and refresh their website a year ahead of release daily so I can make sure I pre-order before the photos are even up LOL. Just sad that I have most of them in storage because I have no room for them in my apt. I can't wait for a bigger place.

ONE MORE I PROMISE: Making people happy GENUINELY makes me happy. I think that's why I spend so much time working on this blog, because I know it makes other people happy, and I just... always hope someone messages me, and tells me, and then BOOM instant dopamine hit. I dunno. DOWNSIDE to this is that I'm also prone to "feeling bad" if I think I failed in making people happy. It's a horrible thing, sometimes, to be a people-pleaser BECAUSE I like making people happy. I dunno. I'm weird, I guess.

Anyway, thank you so much for this! It helps with my mood to do these positivity posts <3

Feel free to do this yourselves, friends! <3

#steph replies #happy posts #positivity #about me #fave things

[not-xpr-art]

Art Advice #4 - A Beginner’s Guide to Digital Art

Hi all!

This weeks entry into my Art Advice tag, where I offer various advice for artists of any skill level, is about digital art! Now, I am by no means an expert at digital (I’ve been doing it for nearly 8 years at this point and that is almost entirely self taught), but I have picked up a few pointers in that time which will hopefully help anyone just starting out!

(this blogpost is a little over 2000 words long btw)

A Beginner’s Guide to Digital Art 

I know that the world of digital art has changed drastically in the 8 odd years since I started, but I’d still say that some of the options I started out with will be just as good for anyone who’s starting out now! 

As always, I’ll be splitting this into sections to make it easier for you to navigate this post!

Part 1 - Equipment/Hardware 

There are a lot of drawing tablet options on the market at the moment, and I’m not going to pretend that I know anything about half of them lol. But I think for a beginner, don’t worry about going for the most expensive option, even if the reviews are really good or your favourite artist uses it, especially if it is way above your budget! 

An important thing to know is that there are two types of tablet. One is the plug-in kind. These are essentially a pad which you plug into your laptop or computer and draw on that whilst looking at the screen (they basically work the same way as a plug in mouse works). The other kind is the screen variety, which is a lot more like what most of us know as ‘tablets’ nowadays. And you draw directly onto the screen. 

(a plug-in vs on screen tablet, both from Wacom)

Now, as for choosing between these, it is honestly a personal choice. But I’d say if you’re just wanting to try digital and you’re on a budget, a plug-in tablet can be really useful since it gets you used to the mechanics of what digital is like, and they are often significantly cheaper than the screen alternatives. I would say that plug-in tablets are a big learning curve, especially if you’re used to doing traditional stuff, but I do know a lot of professional artists who still use this kind of tablet when doing their work, so if it’s something you can get used to I would definitely consider it! Also, they’re often a lot more portable than some screen tablets! The first one I had was a Huion (a model so old that I can’t even find a link to it now lol), and I also know that Wacom are a well known brand that do some decent plug-in tablet. I’d recommend you do your own research on other brands and options, though!

Screen tablets are often a lot more expensive, but if you’re used to traditional art, they are a lot easier to get a handle of! But I know if you already have something like an iPad, or other general use tablets, then they offer apps that you can use to draw on (as well as things like the Apple pen, or other stylus’). The big difference between using these general tablets and ones specifically designed for drawing is pretty much purely a personal choice. I personally prefer the bigger screen of my XP-Pen tablet, along with a special screen protector that removes the shininess of the tablet screen and makes it feel more like ‘paper’ over when I used a general use tablet it draw. But if you already have an iPad, or something similar, then it’s honestly a really great starting point!

I think it’s important for me to mention that you don’t need fancy equipment to be an artist. The incredible Elicia Donze has revealed countless times how she has very basic equipment but still manages to produce the most stunning artworks! All you really need is some kind of drawing apparatus and a lot of patience lol! Getting good at any kind of art takes a lot of time and effort, but I would definitely say it’s worth it when you’re able to look back at your progress!

Part 2 - Software/Drawing Programs 

Much like with the hardware discussion, choosing which program to use is entirely down to personal preference. I personally have never really liked Photoshop purely because it’s really complicated, but I know so many artists swear by it. 

I think the main aspect to consider when you’re starting out is whether you want to pay for a program. Software like Photoshop, Clip Studio Paint and Procreate are some of the popular ones I hear about a lot of people using, but all require you to purchase or subscribe to them. So if you’re young or on a very tight budget, I’d honestly recommend the free alternative versions of these, such as Krita (Krita is quite a large program, but it has a lot of really awesome features and is very similar to Photoshop!), Gimp (this one is similar to Krita, but has slightly less options, I’d honestly recommend Gimp for anyone who does photo editing though!) or FireAlpaca (this is the one I use, by the way and it’s a pretty simple program, but has a lot of fantastic features and is perfect for how I work!). These don’t have as many features as some of the paid alternatives, but I honestly think all you really need to start digital art is some kind of ‘canvas’ and set of brushes!

Another great free program for beginners I’d recommend is MyPaint, which is great for doodling and just getting used to how digital art feels in comparison to traditional! It also has a bunch of ‘traditional style’ brushes, to make it look like charcoal or watercolour (which I’m sure the paid alternatives have too, but it’s always better when it’s free, I find lol...)

(this is an example of a drawing I did on MyPaint using the ‘charcoal’ effect brush!)

Most of the sites are pretty self explanatory, with sections dedicated to different brushes (I’ll go into the types of brushes later on in this post btw!), adjusting brush size, shape and opacity, a colour wheel, etc. You also have a section dedicated to ‘layers’ (another thing I’ll go into more detail later), and various ‘filters’ and editing options and effects you can add to your work to make it more interesting!

I’d really just recommend playing around with programs until you find your one!

Part 3 - The Pros of Digital Art!

I realise this section should probably earlier in this blog post lol, but I kinda wanted to go into what digital art can achieve in comparison to traditional art, and how beginner artists can utilise this!

I definitely didn’t take advantage of certain aspects of digital art when I first got into it, and they’re things that would have definitely made my life a whole lot easier lol!

Digital art allows you to tweak drawings as you do them. So if you accidentally drew the eye too far to the right, then you can easily move it to the right place. (I usually do this by selecting whichever area is wrong, cutting it out and then pasting it into a new area... And yes, there is probably a better and quick way of doing this but...I haven’t found that way yet lol...). And I honestly think that this has allowed me to look a lot more at a reference image in order to figure out where I’ve gone wrong with a drawing! Whereas with traditional art, I usually spend so long trying to get an eye right, that even if it’s slightly in the wrong place, I don’t want to completely redo that section. Digital allows you to completely rub out sections without leaving indents, which is honestly such a saving grace!

Another pro of digital is the Undo/Ctrl Z function! This means you can easily go back to before you made a major mistake with just a click of Ctrl Z... Though I have to say that this function has honestly ruined traditional art for me... Oh what wouldn’t I give for a real life Ctrl Z... But yeah, this is a great part of digital art and definitely something you will grow to love lol!

Another great thing about digital is that it allows you to flip and turn a canvas as you’re drawing on it. I spent a lot of time trying to turn my tablet around in order to draw certain parts of a piece before I realised you can turn the canvas itself without having to move yourself or your tablet!

Layers are another part of digital that can be super useful, and I have to be honest but I don’t really use them a lot. I know a lot of artists create layers for every section of their artworks (so, one for the linework, one for colouring, a separate one for the background, etc etc...). And there’s something really great about being able to paint without worrying about smudging into a previous section of the painting. This works well for my work since I do a lot of bright backgrounds. I also often create a lot of ‘versions’ of my works, so it’s useful to be able to change the background without affecting the main figure of the piece! (I have to say that I often work in one big layer when I’m doing paintings, just because I like how it feels more like ‘traditional’ art that way, but layers are such a brilliant tool, and definitely something you should play around with!)

The eyedropper tool is another one that is really useful! Although I never colour pick from my reference photos, I know some artists find this useful when they were just starting out (especially if you’re not sure what colour to make shadows or how to mix skin tones, etc etc). The eyedropper basically means you don’t need to mix your colours every time

Part 4 - Just some other things I wish I had known about when I was starting out lol...

This last section is just dedicated to a few things that I would have liked to have known when I was just starting out all those years ago. 

First one is fluffy/textured brushes! 

I spent most of my art life from 2013 until 2016 using ‘round’ brushes which are notoriously hard to blend with, so I’d recommend either downloading some fluffy/textured brushes (DeviantArt was where I got mine from a few years back, but there are probably other places you can get them for free too!) to your program of choice, since most of the programs I’ve used haven’t had fluffy/textured brushes as pre-set. 

I may make another post about how I blend in my artworks if that’s something people would be interested in?

(this is an example of textured brush blending vs round brush blending... I usually opt for round brushes for rougher blending styles and the textured brushes for more smooth and ‘realistic’ blending... for a lot of pieces, though, I use both brushes (the round brushes are good for details!) in the same way that you use different sized brushes for real paintings!)

The next thing I wish I’d discovered earlier is the Brush Stabiliser option. Some programs may do this automatically, but the one I use (FireAlpaca) requires you to manually change the amount of stabilising you have on your brush. This is particularly useful if you want to draw neat lines or straight lines (the stabiliser essentially slows down the ‘ink’ as you’re drawing). I only recently started using the stabiliser, and although I still like having it mostly turned ‘off’ for doing sketchy work, it does make doing line work a lot easier, and also gives pieces a more polished look!  

Next advice is to explore all the options you can in whatever program you use! 

I feel like with certain programs, you can get overwhelmed by choice and you end up just using a few of the functions. But I’d really recommend just playing around with these programs, trying all the filters and editing options to get used to how the program works. You can often find interesting ways to adjust your artworks this way! In a way I’d recommend this way of working more than finding tutorials made by other people... Unless there’s a specific function you want to learn how to do, just having fun with digital art is a major part of it’s appeal to me! 

~

There are probably a lot of other options I could go into, but this is already over 2000 words long, so I’ll leave it here for now lol! (I may do a part 2 though so... keep a look out for that!)

As always, if you have any questions to things I’ve said here, or are just looking for more advice, don’t hesitate to message me!

And if you like my work on here (art & blog posts) feel free to support me on my Ko-Fi! <3

#art advice #digital art #art advice for beginners #digital art for beginners #artist advice #digital art tips #artists on tumblr #just want to say again that i am not an expert at this at ALL lol #i just want to offer some really basic advice to anyone interested in starting out with digital!

[jaskiers-sweetkiss]

Sunset Swerve - Part 9

Pairing: Luke x OC

Word Count: 5.7k

Warnings: discussion of death, mentions of drunk driving and car crash, light swearing

A/N: omg okay it’s finally here!! This part took me longer to get out because I wanted to finish the next one before I posted it. So, for the first (and probably last) time ever with this fic you’ll be able to read the next part immediately after this one!! There are some Jordan/Julie moments in here that I’ve been waiting for for a while so I’m really excited for you to finally be able to read them! Also, oops, not me finding more ways to add Talia Mar songs into this story. The lyrics are from her song Selfish and I would totally recommend checking it out, I just felt like the lyrics really fit Luke and Jordan’s relationship! Anyway, enough from me. Send me a message/drop a comment if you want to be added to the taglist and as always let me know what you think!

Part 8  Masterlist 

___

The atmosphere in the Molina’s living room was conflicting. Though in the back of her head she knew it was unreasonable, Jordan had expected them to poof into the living room after leaving the cafe to find Julie being scolded by her father. Instead, they were met with Carlos lurking around the house with his iPad while Tia repeatedly tried to convince him that ghosts weren’t real (rude). Meanwhile, the four ghosts sat on the couch silently, the mood surrounding them somber as they considered what could be happening between Julie and her father. Jordan wasn’t sure what the standard punishment was for sneaking out after being grounded missing school and lying these days, but she was certain it couldn’t be good. Julie was probably being grounded for life and forced to quit the band.

“Typical adult,” Reggie whined, puling the other three from their thoughts. “Remember when we were kids and they never believed what we said?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure that was just a you thing,” Alex said skeptically before proudly adding, “I was always pretty trustworthy.”

“Yeah, me too,” Jordan added, staring at the boy strangely.

“Shouldn’t we be more worried about Julie?” Luke interrupted. “Her dad just busted her, okay? He’s probably making her quit the band”

“Woah, when did Luke become the voice of reason?” Jordan teased, trying to ease the guilt she felt.

Luke rolled his eyes but Alex and Reggie cracked a smile at her joke, making her feel a little better.

“Well, there’s nothing we can do about Julie right now,” Reggie spoke, a glimmer in his eyes that made Jordan worried about what he was about to do. “But, we can still help Carlos. Adults not believing children ends tonight.”

“Showtime,” he whispered to himself before leaning back and turning off the lamp behind him.

Tia gasped and Carlos perked up.

“‘Ghosts aren’t real,’ huh? How do you explain that?” Carlos asked and Tia shook her head.

“Lightbulbs burn out all the time Carlos.”

“Ooh, wrong answer Tia!” Reggie exclaimed hopping up from the couch and heading towards the window while the others looked on disapprovingly.

“Explain this,” he challenged, fluttering the blinds open and closed.

Luke, Jordan, and Alex all wished, each of them expressing equal parts disapproval and disbelief at the dark-haired ghost’s actions but none of them doing anything to stop it.

It took Tia calling him a demon for Reggie to stop, but it seemed he wasn’t quite done yet.

“Wait, I gotta get it on video!” Carlos explained and Reggie perked up again.

“Yeah, you do!” He agreed, now moving to stand in front of the basket of laundry on the coffee table. “Time for an old classic.”

Before anyone realized what he was doing, Reggie had taken ahold of the white sheet in the basket, throwing it over his upper body. The result was frantic screams from Tia as she dragged herself and Carlos out of the room.

“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” Alex asked sternly as Reggie plopped down in the armchair, sheet discarded.

“Yeah, I do. I’ve defended every kid who’s never been believed,” Reggie answered with pride and conviction before adding, “Some might even say I’m a superhero.”

“Or the first person to be killed twice,” Jordan scoffed and Reggie’s eyes went wide as he realized what she was implying.

“We should probably get out of here before Julie finds out, huh?” He said, jumping up from his seat and running out of the living room.

Luke, Jordan, and Alex all exchanged exasperated looks before quickly following after him.

In hindsight, they probably shouldn’t have chosen the studio as their hiding spot but in their defense, they were sure that Julie was going to be detained for a lot longer than she was. It was only about ten minutes after Reggie’s haunting that they were found.

“You four,” Julie exclaimed, storming into the garage. “Are in so much trouble. Explain yourselves.”

She was immediately met with a barrage of shouting from the ghost, all of them thrilled to see her so soon and not paying attention to her words.

“Julie! You’re back!”

“How’d it go with your dad?”

“Did he make you quit the band?”

“Are you grounded for life?”

“Nuh-uh, stop speaking,” Julie commanded, face still stern as she crossed her arms over her chest. “I just watched my aunt run from my house screaming about ghosts. What did you do?”

Luke, Alex, and Jordan turned to stare at Reggie who was staring back at them with eyes wide. The three ghosts looked between each other, making a silent decision before turning back to Julie.

“It was Reggie.” Alex and Jordan said simultaneously and Luke gapped at them.

“Guys!” Reggie yelped, betrayed.

“Sorry Reg,” Jordan shrugged. “I’m much more afraid of her than you.”

“Reggie?” Julie whined, staring at the wide-eyed bassist.

“I just wanted to defend Carlos! Ta kept saying ghosts weren’t real but he was trying so hard to be a ghost hunter!”

“Aw, Reg,” Julie cooed, dropping her arms and stern facade. “That’s actually really sweet.”

“How does he do that?” Jordan whispered to Alex as they watched Reggie weasel out of trouble.

Alex just shrugged.

“You’re off the hook this time,” Julie sighed, addressing all the ghosts again. “But please stop scaring my family.”

They all nodded quickly in agreement.

“So, Julie, how’d it go with your dad?” Luke asked tentatively.

“I’m still in the band,” She started and the ghosts cheered excitedly. “But, we talked and I have to rearrange my priorities a little. School has to come first or he said he’ll pull the plug.”

“Wow,” Jordan said, shocked. “I would’ve been murdered for something like that.”

“Yeah, your dad is the coolest,” Reggie added and Jordan rolled her eyes with a smirk, they all knew how much the boy loved Ray.

“Yeah, he is,” Julie said softly, nodding slightly as she smiled to herself. “I gotta get back up to the house. School tomorrow.”

The ghosts all nodded understandingly, sending her off with big smiles and enthusiastic waves.

___

The next few days passed in a bit of a blur, though Jordan could distinctly remember feeling like some moments were never-ending. It seemed every passing day brought Julie and Luke closer together and Jordan felt as though she was being torn in two. On one hand, Julie was now one of her closest friends and she couldn’t help but be happy for the girl as she knew about her crush on Luke, but on the other hand, she really couldn’t help those flare-ups of negative emotions she couldn’t identify every time they were near each other. Then there were the moments that passed by too fast which had increasingly and alarmingly begun to include Luke.

She’d started using her free time to write after a rehearsal one afternoon. Jordan and Luke were sitting knee to knee with their guitars in their laps despite the practice having ended. They had been quietly working on some new melodies when Julie called Luke away to “ask him about something”. Luke had, of course, jumped up and followed her out of the garage immediately. It had been one of those moments that had ended all too soon, and the silence and emptiness that followed had felt like an eternity. Her swirling mixture of unidentifiable emotions had left her feeling quite angsty so she turned to the best outlet she knew: songwriting.

She knew the guys were nearly out of their minds curious as to what she was working on with all the time she’d been spending at the piano or strumming her guitar, trying to figure out melodies and chord structures. Reggie had essentially told her as much one afternoon before Alex had hit his shoulder and told him to give her her privacy. The drummer was extremely preceptive and sometimes Jordan wondered if he had a better understanding of what she was feeling that she did.

Still, she should’ve known it wouldn’t be long before one of them got too nosey and she should’ve done a better job keeping track of her stuff.

“Hey, has anyone seen my notebook?” She asked, walking into the garage the day after Luke and Julie’s ‘talk’.

She’d spent the morning wandering around Hollywood searching for her old haunts in an attempt to clear her mind but instead she was left with more writing fodder.

“Uh, I think I saw it over by the couch?” Reggie answered hesitantly, not looking up from the ‘old’ iPod Julie had gifted him (though technology like that hardly seemed old to any of them).

The boy hadn’t been wrong, per se. When Jordan turned to look towards the couch she did see her notebook, however, she found it in Luke’s hands. As his eyes scanned the pages her stomach plummeted and without even thinking she was marching over to the boy.

“Woah, Moss, What’s this?” He asked, pausing at a page before reading off the lyrics,

“I’m selfish, I’m selfish, I’m selfish

when it comes to you.

I can’t help it, can’t help it

crazy things that I do.”

“Give it back.”

“When I need you I come back to you.

I’m selfish, I’m selfish

when it comes to you.”

“I’m serious, Patterson,” she said sternly, grabbing the top of the notebook but not pulling for fear of ripping any of the pages. “You don’t see me poking around in your notebook.”

“You don’t see me leaving my notebook lying around,” he responded cheekily, letting go of the notebook. “Who’s it about?”

“None of your business.” She answered, face hardened as she glared at the boy, hugging the journal to her chest.

“I think it’s about me,” he smirked, leaning back on the couch.

“I think you’re a dumbass,” Jordan snarked back, refusing to give him the satisfaction as she spun on her heels, taking a few steps before poofing up to the nook she’d carved out for herself in the loft.

The next day was the exact opposite of the ones preceding them. Before, Jordan was using any excuse she could come up with to spend time with Luke- making edits to songs, working on melodies, hell she even stayed up all night reading her book while the guys were out so that she could pass it on to him the next day with the idea that once he started reading they could talk about it. However now, she stayed as far away as possible. Or at least she tried.

She poofed up to her spot in the loft after a band practice of pointedly ignoring Luke. She spent the afternoon and evening there, entirely uninterrupted. She’d tried to immerse herself into the next book in her series, hoping a new quest might suck her in and help her forget her thoughts for a while. Instead, they persisted and she put down her book, trading it for her notebook and guitar and spending the rest of the day strumming and humming softly as she worked out the lyrics and melodies. The song still plagued her, despite the anger she was feeling towards the boy.

She’d made it until after Julie had gone to bed before anyone interrupted her solitude.

“C’mon Moss!” Luke called from the garage floor. “We’re going exploring.”

Jordan didn’t miss a beat, not even bothering to look up from her notebook where she had just scribbled down a new chord.

“And why would I want to go anywhere with you?” She spat back, picturing the hurt look on the ghost boy’s face. She had expected it to bring her some sort of satisfaction as being snide had always done in the past, but this time it also brought a little pang in her chest.

“Look, I’m sorry alright?” Luke called up, sounding like he’d rather be saying anything else. “I shouldn’t have gone through your notebook, it was a dick move.”

Jordan blamed the pang in her chest for why she gave in so quickly, poofing down to join the guys.

“Fine.” She conceded, rolling her eyes and crossing her arms over her chest, refusing to look Luke in the eyes. “Where are we even going?”

When she did finally turn to look at the brunet, she had to look away immediately. His eyes were too full of raw and unhidden emotions that she was too afraid to search through for fear of what she’d find.

___

“Guys!” Reggie exclaimed, poofing into the garage a couple of mornings later.

Jordan had returned to her spot on the couch, notebook placed protectively beside her but her book open on her lap as she read. Luke was seated a couple of seats away, reading his own book, and Alex was sat across from him making a friendship bracelet like Julie had taught him.

“You’ll never believe what Ray just told me!” Reggie continued, and Jordan looked up, quirking an eyebrow at the boy. “Okay, well, he told Julie but I was there!”

Jordan nodded, satisfied with his correction.

“We’ve got a gig!”

While Luke and Alex hadn’t even looked up before, Reggie had all their attention now. Each of them tossing aside whatever they were working on and jumping off the furniture, bounding towards the boy and bombarding him with questions.

“Where?”

“When?”

“How?”

Reggie beamed, bouncing on the balls of his feet slightly before dramatically shushing them.

“The gig is here.” The statement caused the other three ghosts to erupt into chatter once again but Reggie held his hands up to quiet them.

“Ray said they could host a garage party and we can perform tonight!” Reggie explained further and the studio was once again filled with screams until he was able to quiet them down again. “He felt really bad about potentially messing things up with that manager from the open mic night that he and some of his buddies are gonna film us for YouTube!”

“What’s a YouTube?” Luke asked finally after the garage fell silent, each of the three ghosts in varying stages of confusion.

Jordan was pretty sure Julie and Flynn had shown her YouTube but she couldn’t remember if that was the one where all the fangirls went to post all kinds of stuff or if it was the one with all the different video genres that people upload. Or was it the one Flynn called the worst part of the internet, where people just talk shit about everyone and everything for no reason?

“YouTube,” Reggie began, clearly enjoying getting to be the one teaching them for once. “Is a website where you can make and upload your own videos. People post all kinds of stuff, playing video games, tutorials, and music videos.”

“We’re gonna record a music video? Like on MTV?” Luke gasped, eyes wide as he stared at his bandmate.

“Yes, dude! And Julie says if we get enough views we could go big!”

Luke gaped at the other three ghosts, opening and closing his mouth like he was going to say something but then changing his mind before he just poofed away altogether.

“Where’d you think he’s going?” Reggie asked and Alex shrugged.

Jordan tilted her head slightly, trying to think through Luke’s thought process. She rolled her eyes when she figured it out before poofing away herself.

“Where do you think she’s going?” Reggie asked, sounding more alarmed this time but Alex just sighed, shaking his head slightly as he collapsed back into his chair.

___

Jordan reappeared in the hallway of Julie’s school, poofing in right next to Luke and causing both him and Julie to jump in surprise.

“Sorry, my Patterson Idiocy Meter was going off,” Jordan smirked and Julie, “It lets me know when he’s doing something especially stupid.”

Julie gave a small chuckle at that while Luke stuck his tongue out at Jordan, who just gave him a false smile in return.

“Anyway,” Luke said dramatically, rerouting the conversation and turning back to Julie. “I was thinking, you should just ditch school today and come rehearse with us.”

“Something especially stupid like that,” Jordan said, smacking his shoulder with the back of her hand.

“No, I can’t,” Julie said firmly. “I promised dad school first.”

“Right, you were at school first, and now you’re leaving to go rehearse,” Luke grinned at his own cleverness and Jordan rolled her eyes.

“Stop trying to persuade her to do bad things!” Jordan huffed exasperatedly and Julie gave her a small smile of thanks.

“I really can’t,” Julie repeated. “Plus I promised Nick I’d be his dance partner…”

Jordan wiggled her brows at that, knowing about Julie’s feelings about the blond-haired boy.

“…and he’s heading this way,” she finished, pretending to hang up the phone in favor of talking to the boy.

“Well don’t you look sharp?” Luke teased despite the boy not being able to hear him and Jordan huffed irritably, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Uh-oh! I think somebody’s got a crush on Julie,” he continued and Julie glared at him and Jordan just about dragged him away by his ear.

Luke continued to mock the boy, mimicking his movements and expressions until he walked off. If Jordan hadn’t been trying to push down the feelings that were making her pissed at him, she might’ve even laughed.

“Well, he’s just too cute!” Luke gasped to Julie once Nick was gone and Julie rolled her eyes.

“Boundaries,” she reminded him. “I’ll see you after school.”

“Fine!” Luke called after her as she began to walk to her class. “Guess we’ll just have to carry you tonight, just like we always do!”

“Shut up, Luke,” Jordan rolled her eyes before calling down the hall at her friend. “Good luck Julie! You’ll be great!”

“Yeah, kill it on the dance floor!” Luke called, doing a small shuffle of his own in the middle of the hallway.

“Dork,” Jordan muttered under her breath but Luke still heard it, snapping his head around to give her a faux insulted look which earned him another eye roll.

“C’mon, we’ve gotta get rehearsing,” Luke spoke, but Jordan waved him off.

“Go ahead, I’ll be right there.”

Luke frowned slightly but poofed away anyway, leaving Jordan alone in the now empty hallway.

She wandered down the same way Julie had gone, deciding that she wanted to watch her dance. She hoped supporting her friend would give her the opportunity to stop thinking about a certain brown-haired ghost in any capacity.

____

She was right, it had helped. Of course, any tranquility she had found sitting on the gym bleachers was immediately destroyed the moment she reappeared in the studio. She had clearly arrived in the middle of something, but she wasn’t quite sure what.

Reggie was going on about “never forgetting your first ghost,” whatever that meant, and then Luke started talking about how talented of a drummer Alex was.

“I wouldn’t let all that stuff get in between you and what you love,” Luke finished saying when Reggie pipped up again.

“I don’t know, man,” he pondered. “Sometimes a little fire can make things better on stage. Like you and Julie.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Luke stuttered out, looking around nervously.

“C’mon, everyone can see the way you look at her when you sing,” Reggie continued, piling it on and for some reason, Jordan thought she might vomit. “You guys ooze chemistry.”

Luke’s eyes kept flitting around the studio, refusing to look at any of them until he made direct eye contact with Jordan who frowned, looking away as she swallowed thickly. Of course, everyone had noticed the chemistry between him and Julie. She’d half hoped she was imagining it but clearly it was real.

“Please never say ooze again, but you have to agree he’s right,” Alex shrugged, standing up from his drum set.

“No, no.” Luke denied, and Jordan eyed her shoelaces, not wanting to catch his eyes, afraid of what she might find. “I have chemistry with everyone I sing with.”

Alex and Reggie must’ve been giving him looks of disbelief because he huffed in that way a child does when they don’t get their way.

“Seriously, watch.”

Jordan watched his feet as he took a step towards her.

“You’d better take that step back,” she growled, hoping she sounded as menacing as she planned to and not like the kicked puppy her heart was making her feel like. She didn’t think she’d be able to take it. Looking in his eyes and feeling like he’d set her on fire but knowing it was all just to prove a point, that it wasn’t real for him.

Luke huffed again, and she watched his feet turn around walking in Reggie’s direction now as he began to sing.

“I believe, I believe that we’re just one dream away from who we’re meant to be,” knowing his back was turned to her, she looked up, watching as he inched closer and closer to a wide-eyed Reggie. “That we’re standing on the edge of… great.”

“Wow,” Alex remarked, “I see chemistry.”

“Yeah, that was pretty hot,” Reggie admitted, voice cracking as he spoke.

Then Luke kissed two of his fingers before placing them on Reggie’s lips. Jordan couldn’t stop the giggle that escaped her at the bewildered expression on the boy’s face and Luke whirled around to grin at her. She rolled her eyes in response, trying to ignore the smile and the feeling that something was flapping around in her stomach that it brought.

“Girls, amiright?” Reggie croaked out.

“Yeah,” Luke chuckled and Alex quickly chimed in.

“No,” he said definitively with a light chuckle.

Jordan barked out a laugh at that, poofing over to the drummer to give him a high five before poofing back to the front of the band setup. The three guitarists slipped their instruments back over their heads and all of a sudden they were rehearsing. Jordan was grateful for the distraction, music was always the best outlet for unwanted emotions.

They rehearsed like that until Julie got home from school, the four of them taking their music seriously while also goofing around. At some point, Jordan had relocated her amp to Reggie’s side of the setup, the two ghosts doing increasingly ridiculous and dramatic stunts with each take through the song. Julie walked into the garage just in time to watch Jordan and Reggie perform a run-through while attempting to backbend as far as they could while still maintaining the integrity of their sound.

“What on earth are you guys doing?” She asked, staring at the two ghosts as if they’d lost their minds.

“Julie! Thank goodness you’re here!” Jordan exclaimed dramatically, “Luke’s been singing your part and…” she widened her eyes, drawing her hand back and forth in front of her neck to silently convey that it wasn’t good.

“Hey! I take offense to that!” Luke exclaimed and Jordan rolled her eyes.

“That was the point,” she sassed, smirking at the boy who pouted in response.

Julie just shook her head exasperatedly at the pair.

“Let’s start practicing before these two can get into it fully,” she suggested to the group and Jordan looked down at her feet embarrassedly before poofing herself and her equipment back to the other side of the setup.

“Girl, where are you going?” Julie asked, her look of bewilderment barely concealing her grin. “This is our song, I want you next to me.”

Jordan didn’t even try to conceal her own grin at the offer, poofing back up by the girl.

They practiced that way for about another hour before they had the song to a place they were happy with. Luke was a bit stressed when Julie called the rehearsal. He wanted to run the song more but the rest of the band shut him down, reassuring him that they would be fine.

Jordan had started to pull out her small makeup stash to get started on her look for the performance when Julie invited her up to the house, asking for help picking out an outfit and suggesting that they get ready together. Jordan readily agreed, shouldering her backpack of clothes and scooping up her makeup as she followed the girl to her room.

She set her belongings down off to the side before joining Julie as the girl opened up the chest across from her bed.

“What’s that?” Jordan asked as Julie began to dig through the clothes.

“Oh, it’s my mom’s trunk with a bunch of her old clothes,” Julie explained, pulling out a piece of fabric. “I try to wear something of her’s when I perform, it’s as close as I can get to having her there with me.”

Jordan nodded, leaning back against Julie’s bed frame as she sat on the floor. It was an incredibly sweet and sentimental gesture and Jordan suddenly found herself with a lump in her throat and an overwhelming bout of homesickness as she fiddled with the small, silver pendant necklace she never took off. Her own mother had given it to her on her last Christmas.

“That’s beautiful,” she said softly, referring to the sentiment and the white shirt Julie was holding in front of her.

Julie made her way over to her dresser, rifling through pants as Jordan remained on the floor, nearly entirely lost in her thoughts.

“We all lost our parents too soon,” Jordan sighed deeply, voicing her thoughts as she leaned her head back against Julie’s mattress. “Reggie’s spent all their time bickering and left hardly any time for their child, Alex’s basically disowned him, and Luke ran away. I was the only one with a decent relationship with my parents and then they...”

She squeezed her eyes shut and sighed, unable to finish the sentence. Nearly twenty-five and a half years later and the wound was still as fresh as it had been on day one.

“It can be hard to talk about trauma,” Julie acknowledged sympathetically, sliding down onto the floor next to her, outfit forgotten on the bed. “Can I ask when they passed?”

“H-how did you know?” Jordan stuttered out, looking at the girl next to her in confusion. She knew she’d never said it. She was still barely able to think it.

“Grief recognizes grief, I guess,” Julie shrugged. “My mom and I were really close but after she died, I couldn’t even hear her name without crying for months, let alone talk about her. It took even longer to be able to look at pictures. You say you had a good relationship with your parents but I’ve never heard you talk about them.”  

Jordan nodded thoughtfully at that. She closed her eyes, swallowing thickly before opening her mouth to speak.

“It was about five months before… before I died,” she answered, eyes clenched shut to stop the tears as images from that night swam behind her eyelids. “It was a car accident. Drunk driver, you know?”

She could still see the flashing lights in her driveway, the faces of the police officers blurred by her tears as they told her the news.

“I’m so sorry,” Julie said, and Jordan knew by the thickness of her voice that she was fighting back tears as well.

“Luke said there was a time where you were the closest thing to family he had. I assumed he was talking about when he ran away but was it because of what happened to your parents?”

Jordan nodded slightly, looking down at her hands in her lap.

“After their… after the funeral, I ran.” She explained, voice cracking. “I was less than a year away from turning eighteen, I figured I was better off waiting it out than any of the other options.

“Luke, uh… Luke sorta took me in. He’d been living in their practice studio- your garage- since he ran away and offered to let me stay with him. I would’ve turned him down but I didn’t exactly have anywhere else to go. I guess He was all I had. None of the guys knew, pretty sure they still don’t, so don’t like…”

“Mention it.” Julie filled in, staring at the ghost with a look of caring and understanding that she hadn’t felt in ages. “Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me.”

Jordan nodded, giving the girl a watery smile of thanks as she wiped the tears from her cheek with the back of her hand.

“Never thought I’d be back living in that studio but it’s better now. We have each other,” Jordan added, trying to lighten the mood. “And we have you.”

“Do you wanna cross over?” Julie asked curiously. “Figure out your unfinished business?”

“I do. When Alex first told us about it, it was all I wanted. A way to see my parents again,” Jordan sighed contemplatively. “But not just yet. I like to think they’re with your mom right now, and they’re all watching over us. I think they’d be proud.

“All my parents ever wanted was for me to do what I loved- to play music- and I’m doing that now, just never in the way I thought I would.”

“I’m glad I can help you achieve that,” Julie said sincerely, reaching over to cover Jordan’s hand with her own, forgetting that it would just phase through it.

“Me too,” Jordan smiled, wiping the fallen tears from her cheeks as she stood up, “We should probably stop crying and start getting ready, huh?”

Julie laughed, pulling herself off the floor as well.

“I have an idea for the song if you’re interested,” Julie said, changing the subject as they moved around her bedroom.

___

Jordan thought maybe after years of performing, the pre-concert nerves would fade away but as she stood in the garage bouncing uncontrollably she started to think they never would. She shook her hands out in front of her as Flynn began their introduction, the doors sliding open to reveal the crowd of high schoolers.

When Julie took a seat at the piano, Jordan felt someone grab her hand. She looked over to see Alex smiling at her reassuringly and Reggie holding his other hand. She smiled gratefully at the two boys, delighted by the fact that they had picked up the pre-show ritual. She turned back to see Luke looking at them all curiously, looking slightly upset that he was being left out of something. Jordan smiled at him, reaching out her spare hand which he took eagerly.

The four ghosts stood in silence, listening to Julie sing.

“Like a rubber ball, we come bouncing back. We all gotta second act inside of us,”

Jordan squeezed the boys’ hands briefly before they were all poofing to their spots on the makeshift “stage.”

Julie immediately jumped back to where she was playing her guitar, singing the first part of the chorus to her before moving to give Reggie and Alex some attention. As the ghosts joined in on the backup vocals Jordan noticed Luke give Julie his signature head nod, signaling that he wanted her to come sing with him and Jordan immediately flashed back to Reggie and Alex’s comments about the pair’s chemistry. She was grateful for the presence of mind to remember that they were being filmed so she fought the urge to roll her eyes and plastered a smile onto her face.

She angled herself away from him slightly as she picked up the second verse.

“We all make mistakes. They’re just stepping stones to take us where we wanna go. It’s never straight, no,” she sang to the audience, basking in the cheers and letting her negative feelings fade out only for them to come right back as she caught another head nod out of the corner of her eyes as he and Julie joined the vocals.

“Sometimes we gotta lean, lean on someone else,” Jordan sang to Julie, doing her best to ignore Luke and the unreasonable and boiling anger she was feeling. “To get a little help, until we find a way.”

Julie broke off when they hit the chorus again, making her way in front of the piano to interact a little with her classmates in the crowd. As they sang, Jordan and Reggie switched spots, the bassist joining Luke at his mic and Jordan singing to Alex from Reggie’s mic.

“Cause we’re standing on the edge of great,” Julie sang from the front as Reggie and Jordan returned to their own mics to sing the backups.

“On the edge of great.”

“Great.”

“On the edge of great.”

“Great.”

“On the edge of great.”

“Cause we’re standing on the edge of,” Julie sent Jordan a quick smile before stepping up onto the piano bench.

“Shout, shout. C’mon and let it out, out. Don’t gotta hide it, let your colors blind their eyes. Be who you are don’t compromise and shout, shout. C’mon and let it out, out.”

“What doesn’t kill you makes you feel alive.”

As Julie took on the chorus by herself, Luke stepped up beside where she crouched on the piano. Jordan tried to ignore the puppy dog eyes he gave her as he played his guitar solo, her stomach sinking as Julie smiled back at him. She focused her attention on Julie, drawing on her pride for her friend as she slid over to Reggie.

“Something big, something crazy, our best is yet unknown. That this moment is ours to own,” she sang with Reggie as they all joined back in, for the rest of the final chorus.

As the chorus came to an end Jordan stepped forward, sliding next to Julie on the piano bench, her guitar disappearing along with the guys. She played out the rest of the song, sharing the piano with Julie as they sang together.

“Running from the past, tripping on the now. What is lost can be found, it’s obvious.”

They shared a friendly smile before she disappeared. Reappearing in the garage as the crowd erupted into cheers. She watched proudly as Julie took her bows before catching Luke’s eyes. She frowned at the scrutinizing look he was giving her. It was like he thought she had wronged him somehow. What was his deal?

Part 10

___

JATP Taglist: @meangirlsx @morganayennefertyrell

Sunset Swerve Taglist: @oopsiedoopsie23 @angryknightstatesmantrash @onlygetaway @deni-gonzalez @advicefromnixxxx @brooke0297 @vicesvsvirtuesfanfic @cordeliascrown

#jatp #julie and the phantoms #jatp fic #luke patterson #luke patterson fic #luke patterson x oc #luke jatp #jatp luke #reggie peters #jatp reggie #alex mercer #jatp alex #julie molina #sunset curve #edge of great #sunset swerve

[0uu0]

what software do you use and what is your process like for digital painting?

I use Clip Studio Paint! Mostly on iPad these days, but before I got an iPad I used it on my desktop.  Both work equally well in my experience.

My process does vary a bit from piece to piece, but I almost always start with a sketch.  This example is pretty old (it’s something I just never finished) but it’s the best representation I can find of what my stuff looks like in its early stages:

I generally like to work on a tinted background as seen above because working on white makes it harder to plan out values for me.  So the gray bg would be on one layer n I’d start working with a dark brush to sketch on another layer.

A lot of times my sketch includes an environment like this-- other times it doesn’t. Either way, my next steps tend to be the same:

I then start adding color to the sketch on the layer below the sketch but above the background layer. I almost always get my colors from a palette-- either one I made previously or one I made for the specific thing I’m working on.  I make a habit of saving photos that have color palettes I enjoy.  They don’t even have to be particularly amazing colors...even colors that evoke a specific feeling or sense of place are great.  I color-pick from photos I like and turn them into palettes for future use.  It’s good to have a lot of em saved up.

After I’ve blocked in the colors, I clean up the sketch.   I mostly just erase lines I don’t need and add some additional ones for detail.  Sometimes on a new layer, sometimes not.

Normally, the sketch becomes my “lineart”.  I don’t like drawing lineart so I kinda just...don’t do it.  After I have the base colors/some shading blocked in I color the lines.

Then, in a layer on top of everything else, I just start rendering! This part of the process is hard to explain, but it’s a matter of turning something like this:

into this:

And if I wanted to make the latter image even cleaner I guess I could.  And leaving it messier could work too.  idk. But at some point in the rendering process I like to merge the “lineart” and color layers and just work on one single layer because it makes blending colors easier.  

I def didn’t include everything in this explanation, but I didn’t wanna make the post crazy long! Hope that helped anyway.  If you have more specific questions you’re free to ask!

#Anonymous

[kyidyl]

Kyidyl Explains Bones - Part 4.1

(These are all under the KyidylBones tag.)

Sorry for the pause in this series....it’s difficult to produce these when I don’t have my meds and I ran out.  But I refilled them, so now we continue! 

Anyway, today we’re covering something that is, if possible, even more complex and thorny than sex determination: race determination.  

Ethical Statement: Race is not a biological reality.  Now, hear me out before you run away.  Race isn’t a biological reality, but that doesn’t make it *not real*.  Race absolutely is real and effects how society interacts with an individual.  But between these two statements, which gives you more information about a person: 

“I’m white.” 

“I’m white and I live in 21st century America.” 

The second, obviously.  Because skin color tells us virtually nothing about an individual.  Ethnicity - where they’re from, what social groups they might have interacted with, how society might have treated them, etc. - is a lot more valuable than knowing the color of their skin.  HOWEVER.  And this is a big however.  However, in a modern person’s understanding there is a lot of crossover between race and ethnicity.  And, in fact, as with sex, when a set of remains is being evaluated for identification we must at least attempt to identify the race because that’s how they’ll be categorized in the missing persons’ database.  And identifying race in archaeological remains helps us track human social interaction and migration because ethnicity doesn’t really survive intact outside of grave goods (and those may or may not be present.).  And, yes, if you’re wondering, DNA tests can confirm a lot of the data that we attempt to glean anatomically but for the most part we don’t have the money to do DNA tests on remains, or they don’t have anything surviving that has intact DNA (you can have a nearly complete set of remains and not have any DNA because damage to the outside surface of the bone and/or teeth causes damage to the DNA inside it and causes it to break down.). 

So since race isn’t a biological reality but it is a social reality, it’s helpful to attempt to determine the race of the individual in question.  And, obviously, that’s before you even take into account that people interbreed all the time.  So how can we begin to do this with any degree of accuracy, since the classifications are social and not biological? 

Short answer: we can’t, but we try anyway because of the reasons I mentioned above.  And there’s something that I should have added to the post about sexing a skeleton but I didn’t because I’m human and I make mistakes sometimes: we don’t ever refer to a set of remains as definitively X sex or definitively X race (well, we do when we’re with other scientists who have an understanding of what I’m about to say for brevity’s sake.), we say “this individual has _____ features consistent with or indicative ______ race/sex.” Sometimes the features are very stereotypical and we’re fairly certain that they definitely are X race or sex, but other times they’re not.  And the markers that we use are based on averages, so obviously within those averages there’s a huge amount of variation - that’s why we use so many different markers.  So like with any science, it’s good to remember that there’s always room for change and that it’s all theories.  

Also if you want to do some reading on it, you’ll see that these determinations are still hotly debated among anthropologists because we are well aware of how racist and shitty it all is and we hate that we have to engage in it but at the same time it’s important for the reasons I mentioned above, so we’re always trying to find new ways that are more accurate and less racist.  

Categories

Essentially, we have a list of anatomical features that tend to be similar in geographic regions and we go through these features and grade them according to which race category we think they most closely match.  There are three, sometimes four, categories: 

Caucasoid/White/European depending on what reference you’re using.  

Black/African (Outdated term: Negroid. We all hate it but it’s in the literature, especially older stuff, and if you do any reading you’ll run into it.)

Asian (Outdated term: mongoloid. Same as above.) - This includes Native Americans because their anatomy is so similar to Asians, especially eastern asians, that it’s well-nigh impossible to distinguish without a DNA test.  Mostly we know based on the context the remains are found in.  

Aboriginal - This is specifically for indigenous pacific groups, especially in Australia and Aotearoa (New Zealand. In this lab we use the indigenous name.).  They have some interesting anatomical differences that are only found in that area of the world.  Obviously it’s not going to be as used in the rest of the world tho so it’s often not covered.  Plus their biggest differences are brow bone size and tooth size so while it’s different it’s not AS different as the other three categories.  

So as we go through the markers, we add them to these groups and then at the end average them out to see which one the remains most resemble.  

The Anatomy

There are a lot of markers of race on remains, and more are being studied all the time, so I’m going to cover the most common ones in the interest of length.  Also, pretty much all race markers are on the skull, so I’m not really going to get into the rest of the skeleton, even tho there ARE markers on the post-cranial (means exactly what you’d think: not skull.) skeleton.  And like with physics ignoring friction for the sake of illustration, we’re going to ignore cultural changes to the bones ala the slavic squat and pathologies.  We’re gonna start in on the bone pics in a hot second, so time for a cut.  

I went back and forth on the most concise, easy to understand way of doing this and it took me a bit to figure it out, but I think it’s going to be like this: I’m going to tell you what we look for generally, and then give specific examples in each category as we go through race by race.  So, there are a lot of things that can indicate race in a skeleton, but I’m only going to cover the easiest to digest.  Understand though that there’s a lot of smaller indiciations.  Like with sex, these are graded on a scale in relationship to how stereotypical they are of a given feature.  And, unlike with sex, it’s much easier for the opinion and biases of the examiner to alter the results because a lot of these comes down to “what shape is this thing and which shape is it closest to”.  This is, of course, subjective.  The ones I’m going to cover are: 

Eye orbit shape and sharpness. 

Prognathism (the amount that the “muzzle” area of the face sticks out.  Eg., how flat is or isn’t a face?)

Nasal shape

Nasal sill (this is the bit that sticks out at the bottom of your septum, and the “floor” of your nose/top of your maxilla in your nose.

Nasal bridge

Unique racial features.  

First, I’m gonna use some screenies from my ipad to be very specific about the area of the skull I’m talking about here.  These all were taken by me in essential skeleton and edited.  

Eye orbit shape: 

I think this one is one of the more accessible things to understand without a skull in your hand.  If you think of the way that people look IRL, there are physical features that tend to be more common in various populations, and that translates to the skull (and in case you’re wondering: no, white is not treated as the baseline here, but you’ll see.).  Here it’s the shape of the eye socket.  

Eye socket sharpness: 

When you hold a skull in your hand, if you run your finger over the part of the eye socket between the lines (really, the whole edge, but the effect is more pronounced at the bottom and on the lateral edges), it’s sharper on some races than on others.  Again - this is a skeletal marker of physical features that you can see in a living person.  I’m not going to point this out in the example skulls because you won’t be able to see or feel it in the images, but it’s a pretty easy to understand way of adding another racial marker to your tools.  

Prognathism: 

So the easiest way to understand this is twofold.  First, how far does the chin stick out in relationship to the top of the nose? This shows how far the face protruded in life.  Here you can see the angle is 88 (although honestly i’ve never known anyone to measure this - I’m using it to illustrate the point.), and I only know that because the ruler tool I used to draw the lines told me so, lol.  The easiest way to see this is to look at the curve of the profile like I’ve illustrated with the green line.  

Nasal Shape: 

The shape of the nasal opening varies between racial groups.  We look at the height and width from the places I’ve illustrated above.  Sometimes we also look at the shape of the sort of upside down heart area I’ve outlined, because human variation means that you’ve gotta have a couple of ways of doing things.  

The Nasal Sill gets two images cause it has two parts: 

The top one has a landmark called the anterior nasal spine highlighted (honestly I think of it like the pointy nose thing).  The degree to which it sticks out  varies by race.  It is part of the maxilla, and together with the two portions of the maxilla that i’ve circled forms the nasal sill.  A lot of textbooks refer to the nasal sill as having a “height”.  I found this confusing and I found the pictures confusing too, so I’m gonna try a different tactic with you guys.  So first of all, you can feel some of these bones in your face.  Pinch the bottom of your septum where it meets your upper lip and wiggle it.  Feel how there’s a harder bit under the cartilage? That’s the pointy nose thing...er, nasal spine.  Now - and this is a little gross but it’s ok I won’t tell anyone - if you feel down into the bottom of your nasal passages you can feel where this blends into your maxilla.  The cartilage rises up and that forms your nasal passage.  On a dead person, that cartilage isn’t there.  So the hard bone that you feel there is all we have.  Well, the angle at which that slopes deeper into the nasal passage varies by race (because nose shape varies by race).  In some individuals, the anterior edge of that opening is sharp and lifted, forming a sort of dip in the area I’ve circled above.  This is the nasal gutter.  And if you google that, you will be hard-pressed to find anything that explains it with any clarity, especially because you don’t have a skull in your hand.  But it’s one of those things that’s useful to know because it can be really distinct and easy to see the differences in.  

The Nasal Bridge: 

Because the shape of the nose changes the bones all around it, another indicator is what I’ve shown here.  The angle of the curve of that red line, and the length of the blue line.  That’s basically the length of the nasal bones.  You can also tell with the shape of them, and the shape of the place where they connect to the frontal (the suture that connects them to the brow bone.), but I’m not going to cover that.  We have enough nose things.  

I’m going to cover unique features when I get into the examples of different races.  You might be thinking that this is a lot of attention paid to the eyes and nose, and you’d be right, because although there are distinct differences in mouth shape and size they don’t translate to the bone.  And, fun fact, the most accurate indicator of race is actually teeth - but we’ll cover that in the entry on teeth.  But for now, I’m going to stop here and split that into its own post because this one is long and picture-heavy.  So come back in a couple hours after I’ve finished and posted that one.  

#KyidylBones #race #skeletal anatomy #forensics #science #anthropology #archaeology #archeology #bone #human bone #interesting things #skulls #humans

[matildainmotion]

All That We Carry - and the launch of the MWM Peer Mentoring Programme.

Image by Zoe Gardner @limberdoodle​

“How are you?”

“Oh, you know, surviving,” I say. 

Or

“Taking it a day at a time.”

Or

“Just about upright!”

Or sometimes I say nothing but describe a hilly landscape with my hand - “Up and down,” I might add.

Over the last ten years, since my son was born, I have accrued a ready-made stock of replies when someone - at the school gate, the shops, on a zoom call- asks the generic “how are you?” I can’t bring myself to smile gaily and say, “Great, thank you!” so my responses are designed to indicate just enough of the truth not to make the questioner worried or burdened, but do not tip me into the territory of barefaced lying. Because, the fact is, it’s hard.

‘It’ means everything - my son, my daughter, their school, my mother, time for my husband, the house, my work, my health, my sleep, the world.

‘It’ is a tiny word. In this context ‘it’ makes me think of an ant - the way they clamber across the dirt track by our house, carrying a stick, twice their size and weight. We do this. Parents and carers do it. Women do it. Non-binary people too. We carry A LOT, and often we do it in relative silence, either because we are too exhausted to shout about it, or even to notice or fully acknowledged it to ourselves, or because we do not know who to tell or how to tell them.

This is not new. Not news. We have been doing this - carrying a lot - for a long, long time. In fact, there is even a well-researched theory that the first thing that a mother ever made was probably a net or sling* - a thing to put things in, to enable her to carry more than she could manage to hold with just her hands, just her arms. We have been carrying stuff around in nets, slings, sacks, pots, on our heads, on our backs, in our bellies, in our hearts, we have had loads on our minds for millennia. The act that is less well documented, because it happens less, is that of us setting things down. Of course, some brave pioneers have done it, through acts of radical art, or resistance: Hildegard of Bingen, Rosa Parks, Mary Wollstonecraft. But all too often when we hear of someone ceasing to carry it all, it is a story of crisis - of dropping the lot, out of exhaustion, ill health, burn out. Because mostly, as a carer, there are so few opportunities to set things down, we just carry on carrying.

Six months into motherhood, when I was feeling the hardness of it already, I enrolled on a support course for parents and I still remember the phrase that the course facilitator used: most parents, she said, walk around with “a huge empathy deficit.” Empathy, I believe, involves someone else bearing witness to all you are carrying, acknowledging its full weight. It is a miraculous thing, but this acknowledgment in itself lightens the load, or perhaps, more accurately, the load gets no lighter but we feel stronger, better able to bear it. Earlier this year - still feeling the struggle - I enrolled on another course, a Hand in Hand Parenting one. The founder of Hand in Hand, Patty Wifler, did so out of a recognition of the severe lack of support that parents receive in our culture to do the enormous task of raising children. A cornerstone of her approach, her answer to the ‘empathy deficit’ is the idea of Listening Partnerships - a peer support arrangement that enables parents to offload regularly, safely, with another adult.

For a long time now, I have wanted to run something like this within Mothers Who Make- a way to provide one another with support, encouragement and accountability, as we do the almighty work of caring and creating. It is the same impulse that informs our peer support groups, but there is something vitally different that can take place in a one to one exchange - a more precise sharing of the weight of what you are carrying, a chance, for however brief a time, to set it down and take a good look at it. This month then, I am delighted to announce the launch of the MWM Peer Mentoring Programme. I ran a trial in July and it was everything I hoped it could be, so I am very excited to offer it again now. Please read about the programme below - what it is, how it works, how to enroll. Before you do, however, I want to use this moment as I might a peer-mentoring session, to set down what I am carrying, not because I need empathy (though, like everyone else, I do!) but because I hope it will give you permission to do the same. One thing I love about writing is that, despite the distances of time and space it traverses, it is strangely intimate, like a one on one exchange - just me, telling this to just you.

So, in answer to the question, “How are you?” here is the fuller response, which I do not give most of the time:

I am tired, always, and tired of being tired. The nights feel like dark imprints of the days, a negative image, not restful but grainy, smudge. Last night I slept on the children’s bedroom floor because it was easier to relax without the pressure of being in a bed, with the hardness of the floor against me. Today my breasts are tender even though I am only partway through my cycle - I googled it - another symptom of the perimenopause. Next door, as I write, my son is playing Lego Star Wars on the TV and my daughter is watching Lego Friends on Granny’s iPad - their daily dose of screen time so that I can have my daily dose of this, but it never sits easy. I dread the week ahead, of dressing them in bed, still half-asleep, readying them for school, where it is uncertain how their day will go, how long they will stay before I get a call asking me to pick them up, how they will be when they come home - it is a shock, although it shouldn’t be, to realise that both my children are neurodiverse. This is a trendy term nowadays, one to celebrate, and I do, but it is also a weight, to carry all the not-fitting-in-ness that goes with it. The last two nights my son has thrown up with anxiety, from the fear of anything bad happening to any one of us. I managed to get the potty-as-sick-bowl there in time, on to his top bunk, calmed him at last, till he fell asleep just before midnight. I went downstairs to turn off the lights - I always stop at this moment, to look through the back window into the tiny dark of the garden, to Granny’s room, or shed, at the end of it, and wonder how long my mother will live and if it will be long enough to see my novel published - apparently it takes two years even once you’ve got a publisher. I told her this yesterday and she frowned, said she would have a word with God, thought she ought to be able to manage it. I am wondering, though, how I will manage it - manage to do the rewrites the book needs, to do the work MWM requires, and the work I have taken on for Improbable, the finding of a new home for the company, but also for us, a new school, a place for us to be. And meanwhile, the house is overspilling – every room - with toys, books, dvds, with plastic trinkets from the inside of Kinder eggs, dried up felt tip pens and stale biscuits, stored in tins too late, which I should throw away but I can’t face the waste and so I continue to pretend that one day they may get eaten.

That’s me. And all the short answers are still true - I am surviving, I am still upright, taking it a day at a time, through all the ups and downs, and I am, actually, in a position of great privilege, on many levels.

And you? How are you? That’s my question for the month. And I’m interested in the long answer. Here are some ways you can respond:

You can post below this.

You can participate in the MWM Peer Mentoring Programme - read all about it and apply here: https://motherswhomake.org/peer-mentoring

You can attend a peer support meeting - read all about that and book your space here: https://motherswhomake.org/international

*The Carrier Bag Theory of Evolution by Elizabeth Fisher in Women’s Creation (McGraw-Hill 1973)

Image by Zoe Gardner @Limberdoodle

[josephmyplace]

ART EVALUATION - MULTIVERSE ASSIGNMENT

themes of the assignment

The multiverse assignment took us through a variety of artistic styles, drawing, printmaking, typography and collage, but there was also a narrative element introduced through the penguin book, we were tasked several times to draw inspiration from narrative elements from the book, or to depict scenes from it, this I felt was similar to fine art, however while on the computers we worked on 'postcards' (personally though I always felt their purpose was more like covers for our books), which again had inspiration taken from the book, this reminded me of graphic design; we were attempting to express a product through a visual means.

the three ‘postcards’ that had text added to them, overall i find that the first one below is my favorite, the central image i feel is a strongly emotive one, figures shrouded in darkness, almost in solidarity over some tragedy, which is why i annotated it “a reminder of better days”, as a reference to how i felt the image was tragic. 

this image i annotated it with words associated with god, the drawing i used because i wanted it to resemble an old medieval representation of an angel, which i feels far more visually interesting, and below it is the shattered sky and broken buildings, riven by strange flames, all part of the ‘wrath’ and ‘profound fear’.

here was see the hand receiving what should cause ‘the rapture’ i used the sun as the object because i felt as though the sun’s connection to the heavens, and it being unreachable was going to add to the piece. i also inverted the colours of each of the annotations, to draw contrast between the statements.  

This all being said I'm confused over how the multiverse plays into this, the assignment was about creating art based around a narrative, not around other universes.

Two artists I felt influenced the art I made during the assignment were Brooks salzwedel and pokras lampras, Brooks' art I have already examined, still,  he depicts floating land masses, and strange forested scenes obscured by mist, while pokras lampras is an asemic writing artist, his particular

Brooks salzwedel

style was structured and merged aspects of Cyrillic, English, Greek and Arabic creating an interesting visual style.

Pokras lampras

What did we learn in lesson

This assignment did not focus on new artisic methods (in comparison to the last unit we learnt screenrinting, intaglio, chalk, graphite etc.) but rather ways to express ideas through it, in this case through the aforementioned narrative.

Animation:

animation is relatively simple, animations are composed of several frames, then the amount of frames per second will determine how the animation plays put, generally the higher frame rates are used for smoother, more high effort animations, 24 fps (Frames Per Second) is industry standard.

In a programme the last frame can be viewed to better let the animator decide where they want to go with the animation.

Light box art:

our light box art used tracing paper, each piece of paper was drawn on, the penned, the most 'misted' paper would be at the back, giving an impression of dictance, the paper in fromt would similarly appear closer to the veiwer.

Though as for what we used, screen printing, digital, painting, drawing were all used, of note was the continued use of animations in digital atr.

the use of light boxe was interesting particularly the use of layered tracing paper to create a obfuscated image, though I personally wonder how I could use them in my own art.

Out of lesson

digital art became my focus, I've found my transition from traditional methods difficult, lines are less stable, and dealing with  confusing interfaces has proven itself difficult.

The quality of my artwork has been reduced as a result, but this is expected when moving to a new, unfamiliar medium.

Though digital art has allowed me to use colours freely, which again is difficult, as I never developed any real sense over how to use colours using traditional drawing methods.

Inspiration

Additionally I asked each individual artist the same three questions about their work, which were

what is your source of inspiration? (meaning what initially inspired you and what continues to)

how did you start? (what did you draw initailly, when?)

what processes and materials do you use?

void_illustration - Richard Saunders Illustration

Richards art either is obviously biological, where a creature is depicted, or has a distinctly biological edge to it, metals seem to bend,twist and stretch like flesh, nothing seems to be truly just a machine or device, rather every ridge, bulge and groove hints at a more organic truth to his figures and objects.

1. im inspired by so many things, its good to pull from a wide range of inspirations.

2. Ive been drawing for a long time, im not professional but im hoping to change that, most of my work forms into narrative universes and then develops on from there.

3. For materials I use a range. My 'bio warrior' series is mainly pencil sketches with marker colours and white paint pen highlights. My brown paper dragons are watercolour on strathmore toned tan paper, lined digitally, though I will layer them up further with paint and markers.

Fuelstains - Nikolay Georgiev

His work similarly to Richard's trends to directly be a creature or rather, monster, these organism often have strongly textured skin, often appearing to have many grooves, showing the musculature underneath, then there are his mechanical pieces, either directly depicting a machine of some kind, such as a robot, or depicting a human who has been massively altered by technological augmentations.

1.I was initially inspired by comics, as a kid, stuff like spiderman, bat man and transformers, but later on it could be anything that inspires me.

2.I started in primary school and it was mostly superheros or stuff from movies.

3.Pencil, ink fineliner, brushpen, watercolour, ballpoint pen, digital.

Milesr.art – Miles R art

miles' art focuses on creature drawings, particularly drawings of alien life, creating some truly bizarrely fascinating, most bearing little resemblance to earth organisms, if any. Another aspect of Miles' work that I appreciate is that it seems grounded, the animals, in spite of their bizzarreness still seem like they could exist.

1.some of my biggest sources of inspiration:

- C.M koseman, Brynn metheny, and dougal dixon are some of my most inspiring artists

-just thinking about the natural world in general like on our planet

2.what initially inspired me to draw and that goes into number 2) in kindergarten I saw some kid drawing a honey comb pattern with neon markers and was like huh okay im going to do that but better.

And I always drew monsters and characters, always becoming more based on science overtime, and here I am now.

3.Now I exclusively  make finished things digitally with my ipad pro and apple pencil using procreate, but I often make sketches on post it notes with just regular pencil. In terms of processes I feel like I just do what I do it, its hard to define ones process.

[rachelthompsonauthor]

The past two quarantine months have been like nothing I’ve ever experienced in my lifetime, and I turned 56 in January. So rather than regurgitate what you’ve likely read in the news or on social media, I’ve decided to share how I’ve spent my time these past two months along with random thoughts. I hope you’ll continue along with me as I share what I’m doing each week.

Books

Oh, how I’ve missed reading! With my business so insanely busy (for which I’m truly grateful) these past few years, I’ve barely had time to read little more than Slack, emails, texts, and social media updates. Not exactly satisfying for this lifelong, avid reader. This quarantine has allowed me a little bit of extra time, which I’ve put to good use.

In no particular order, here’s what I’ve read: 

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow is fantastic. Read it in one sitting because I didn’t want any of the details of this lacy, incredibly intricate work to fade. I highly recommend it. A mix of fantasy, drama, and a love story (because in the end, aren’t all stories love stories?), anyone with a working brain will love this novel.

  Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng is also superb. I’d heard about this book for a while, yet only got around to it because it’s also now a mini-series on Hulu (which I watched afterward – also very good, though the character arcs and the plot changed in crucial, at times startling, ways).

Curious if you’ve read the book and watched the series, what your thoughts are? I could write an entire post about it, yet I’ll only share this…

As a child, my parents hire a housekeeper. My folks both work full-time and we are not in any way rich or well-off. Neither of my folks has college degrees – Dad is an assistant manager at a chain drugstore and Mom has just completed x-ray tech school and works nights at San Bernardino County Hospital. We live in a small house on a long street in the smoggy Inland Empire of California.

There are two of us, my older sister and me. Then my mom gets pregnant when I’m nine and has my baby sister when I’m ten. My folks advertise for a housekeeper and Miss Louise answers. She’s African American and willing to work for the little they can pay her. She smokes a lot (outside only, so as “not to hurt the babies”), insists on wearing a uniform though my mom tells her it isn’t necessary and comes looking for us in her big old white Caddy if we aren’t home from school exactly 20 minutes after it lets out.

(Miss Louise’s husband’s name is George. If you are alive in the 70s and watch The Jeffersons, you understand why this is an endless source of amusement to my sister Caren and me.)

Being that young, neither Caren nor I understand what privilege means. We didn’t get whatever we wanted because my parents are always strapped, yet there is food on the table, and the lights are always on. Except for the occasional venture to Disneyland or Knott’s Berry Farm that one time (mom hated it), our vacations consist of driving to visit our Zayde (great-grandfather) in a nursing home in Santa Cruz, or some other relatives we don’t know somewhere in L.A. (I remember one great-aunt who drank. A lot.) We’d always stop at Cantor’s for a soup and sandwich (the highlight for us), and be back on the road. We don’t mind because it is anywhere but home.

Anyway – my entire point is that in Little Fires Everywhere – the show – Kerry Washington’s Mia is an artist who takes a maid job with Reese Witherspoon’s Elena Richardson’s family to keep an eye on her daughter Pearl, who is quite taken with the teenage Richardson clan. The racial and financial dichotomy is blatantly obvious: a rich family who’s seemingly got it all vs. a seemingly poor black single mother, which adds to the ‘fires’ mentioned in the title.

The book really made me think about my own privilege and despite how well my folks treated Louise, and how much we loved her, and she us, there would always be that wall. Granted, it was a business arrangement and my folks paid her for her services, and in truth, anyone could’ve answered the housekeeping ad. The fact that she was African American and we were white created a racial divide that’s undeniable.

The third book I read is Certain Cure by Jennifer Valoppi, also excellent. It’s the first in a series (parts two and three aren’t out yet, darn it). The novel chronicles the life of three generations of the Cummings family; Claire, a woman in her 70s who has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, Helene, her television journalist daughter and Justin, the teenage grandson whose adoration of his “Grams” leads him to discover the dark secret behind the miracle technology that is not only curing Claire of her cancer but tempting his mother with eternal youth, as traditional medical industries wage war against the mysterious doctor from China who threatens them all.

I had no idea what to expect with this one, and I’m glad I read it. Valoppi is a former TV journalist from NYC so she knows her stuff. I’m not particularly religious (or scientific), yet I didn’t find either the science or religious stuff bogged me down.  Fascinating read. I highly recommend it.

Movies and Shows

Gosh, so many. With four of us in the house (and two teens), it’s worth it to me to pay for Hulu and Netflix, Amazon Prime Video comes with my Amazon Prime membership already, plus my internet plan comes with AT&T Direct, Showtime, HBO, and other premium channels. For the amount of entertainment, it’s worth the money.

I watch movies and shows on my iPad at night, once I’m finally off my computer. I don’t know about you, but I don’t like a super loud TV with stereo surround-sound barking at me after a long day of noise and stress. So I go upstairs to my cozy bed, surround myself with blankets and pillows and cats, and snuggle in for a few hours to watch a movie or a few episodes of something I enjoy.

Another note: not a big ‘reality TV’ watcher, mostly because, as a writer, I prefer well-written shows. I also don’t like the negativity and yelling normally associated with those shows. That said, I do watch Vanderpump Rules (on Bravo) with my daughter (age 20). We bond.

Shows

Here’s what I’ve binged these past few quarantine months, show-wise (no links because you can Google):

Ray Donovan – ggggggreat! Heard it was wonderful, yet truly had no idea how awesome. Liev Schrieber is captivating as Ray. Flawed, human, sad, and, in case you don’t know, a childhood sexual abuse survivor (church abuse). I had no idea going in this would be a theme of the show, yet it was handled with care and truth. The entire supporting cast is also amazing. Every season is great. Watch it all. I hated to see it end.

Homeland – the first four or so seasons were mesmerizing. Then, I got bored. This last season had me falling asleep and then WHAM! that ending. Worth it.

Hunters – Good, not fantastically great. The twist in the last episode will get you, though.

Upload – Loved it! Thought it would be silliness (and in some places, it was, but that’s okay – we need a little silliness right now). Had a ton of heart which I love.

Bosch – come on, it’s Titus Welliver. He’s fantastic. This last season didn’t draw me in as much as the entire rest of the series, though. You?

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel – terrific, all of it. Every season, every episode, every character.

Tales From The Loop – amazing. Anything having to do with time-travel or the bending of time, I’m a total sucker for. This hurt my brain in a good way.

The Feed – weird but good and thought-provoking.

Dark – by far, my favorite show year. A German show dubbed in English (you get used to it – don’t let that scare you off), this time-bending, decade-moving hit show spans two seasons and every episode is worth watching. And the music – my god. Amazing. Here’s a Spotify playlist link.

Movies

Parasite – thought-provoking. Took a while to get into it and then boom! It just goes full-on insanity. Well-written, well-acted, and the message of the movie is just, wow. No spoilers in case you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it.

Hustlers – loved it. Whatever issues people have with strip clubs and ‘dancers,’ get over it. These girls are amazingly talented, are in amazing shape, and work hard to make money for their families. What I loved the most about the movie is that it’s all about the women; the men are only there as a plot device. It’s a movie entirely shot through the ‘female gaze’ (though of course, men will enjoy the dance scenes which are sexy, yet not unclothed). How many movies can say that?

Memento – I think I’m probably one of the few people who had never seen this neo-noir psychological thriller starring Guy Pearce looking like Brad Pitt (who was originally considered for the role). It was great, I think? LOL. My brain still hurts.

Call Me By Your Name – Lovely, sad, gorgeous. (And I will not make a juvenile peach joke.) And the music! Oh, my.

Zombieland – I hate zombies, I hate horror movies. I hate gore and squishy sounds. This movie was cute. (Not ready for the sequel, yet.)

Music

As mentioned above, the music in Dark sent me off on a ‘who are these talented musicians?’ lark. I’ve discovered so many. Here is who I’m listening to right now (all free on Spotify) and links provided here:

Apparat (you’ll recognize the opening theme of Dark and stay for the rest).

Agnes Obel – wondrous. I’ve played her entire catalog repeatedly since discovering her music on Dark. She’s become a commercial favorite as well now. Familiar is the song used in the show that’s received the most play.

Alev Lanz – otherworldly. I’ve not heard anyone like her. Her songs on the Dark soundtrack and Black Mirror are what she’s most noted for (May The Angels, and Fall Into Me, respectively), however, I love all of her work. Her harmonies are like nothing else. One song is layered with her voice and African throat singers – it’s gorgeous (May The Angels). She’s active on Twitter and we’ve interacted a few times. She’s beautifully transparent about her love of music and it shows in all her work.

Patrick Watson – I heard this song, Good Morning Mr. Wolf, on the Ray Donovan soundtrack and immediately clicked my SoundHound app. Who is this talented being? This song, in particular, sounds so large and cinematic – I wondered – is he is a film composer? (yes). A band? (yes). And so much more. I cannot get enough of all of his music, and still, I play this one song on repeat – repeatedly.

London Grammar – I discovered this band a few years ago and still adore them. Strong is still my favorite song, though Rooting For You is a close second. Hannah Reid’s vocals are big and beautiful.

Hilary Woods – ethereal and lovely. Especially the song Kith.

Sufjan Stevens – many of us just discovered him from the movie Call Me By Your Name soundscore, however, he’s been a working musician since the early 2000s. Talented beyond.

I could go on and on, but I’ll stop here. I made a Female Rockers list on Spotify which you’re welcome to.

Thoughts on Quarantine

My Business

Living in California, I’ve barely left the house in two months, with the exception of going to the pharmacy for meds or for the occasional physician appointment for me or the kids, because of the quarantine restrictions in place. And I’m okay with that.

I’m fortunate that my business is primarily online-only: I work with authors and small businesses on their branding, marketing, and promotion, so given that all real-life events are off the table, I’ve been quite busy working with my clients to ensure their products and services are still viable.

This doesn’t mean I don’t need help as a small business. I applied for an SBA loan and couldn’t even get onto the website the first time – it was pretty ridiculous – like the end scene in Beetlejuice. You all know who those first small business loans went to, right? Not small-potatoes people like me. So the second time around, it went much smoother, and I’m grateful to have received a small loan which will definitely help me keep going with rent, insurance, and other expenses.

I still did my annual non-profit initiative for writers, NaNoProMo (National Novel Promotion Month) this year over on my business site, BadRedhead Media, yet only for two weeks instead of the entire month. Daily blog posts from experts on everything publishing-related plus amazing giveaways. It’s always exhausting, yet I find enormous gratification in helping writers.

This year, however, getting writers to comment to win amazing, FREE giveaways was like pushing a house up a hill. I get it – people are focused on putting food on the table instead of commenting on blog posts, even if the giveaways were worth $500. That’s why I wanted to do this initiative this year – to help writers who are in a jam – yet only a smattering of writers participated.

I’m seriously rethinking if I want to do it next year given the financial cost as well as the personal toll. My first therapist, who I started seeing after I gave birth to my daughter Anya (I was terrified to leave her to go back to work, given my history with childhood sexual abuse), gave me this tip whenever I had trouble deciding whether to do something:

“If you ever aren’t sure if you should do something, ask yourself this question: Is this good for Rachel? If the answer is yes, do it. If the answer is no, don’t. It really is that simple.”

Self-care, y’all.

Social Media

I’ve stopped interacting with the crazies on social media (and who knows, maybe you’re one of them so truly, no offense), but I’d rather stay safe and keep my family safe by working exclusively at home – which I mostly do anyway – than venture back into face-to-face meetings with clients. I support four people with my business and if something happens to me, four people are doomed.

So the answer is simple to me: stay home, work from home, and don’t risk dying from this virus.

I don’t buy into any of this ridiculous conspiracy crap. Sorry, not sorry. You can if you want to. Spending time arguing with people online about it takes away time from my business, my kids, my guy, and my own sanity. Speaking of which…

Mental Health

There were a few mix-ups with my meds when this all started, and I couldn’t get my prescriptions filled and delivered before I ran out, so I ended up having about a week of insomnia which I’ve never had to deal with. I was a zombie (the non-squishy kind) and it sucked.

If you have insomnia, I’m sorry. I feel for you.

It’s all straightened out now, thank goodness. My son Lukas and I donned our masks and drove to the local CVS the other day because I couldn’t wait two days for my meds to be delivered. It felt like walking into a dystopian future walking in there: everyone in masks, tape six feet apart for the waiting line, plexiglass between us and the cashiers.

I’m thankful for these measures, of course, and wonder how long we’ll need them, or if this is our new normal?

My Writing

I finished the final edits on Broken People and sent it back to my editor. She’s had some health issues, so the delay is understandable. To be honest, I’m not in a huge hurry to launch a new book right now. Here are the questions that run through my mind:

Do people have money to purchase a new book?

If they do, will they want to read my new book?

If they do want to read my new book, will they take the money they do have to read mine, and then review it?

Does it even matter in the grand scheme of life? 

I’m an author just like any author – I want to get my work out there so people can read it, engage with it, connect with me. I hope they’ll like it, feel something, reflect on their own lives, learn something new, particularly about being a childhood sexual abuse survivor. It’s a weird limbo to be in right now.

Our New Normal

This phrase is bandied about quite a lot yet let’s face it: it’s life as we know it, now. The anxiety is real, too. I haven’t hugged or kissed my elderly parents who live two miles away in two months. I bring them toilet paper and cookies from our favorite bakery (drive up and trunk drop off, pay online only) and drop it on their porch.

All these scenarios run through my mind: If I go to do this, what happens if? I know I’m not the only one. And yet, we can’t predict anything. So I sit here, writing this post, safe inside my little house bubble, grateful I can pay my rent, put food on the table (delivered by Instacart, thankfully), and everyone around me is healthy.

What’s your new normal? What have you been reading, watching, and listening to? If you’ve stuck it out this far, I thank you. Would love to hear your comments! Safe hugs, y’all. 

***

Read more about Rachel’s experiences in the award-winning book, Broken Pieces.

She goes into more detail about living with PTSD and realizing the effects of how being a survivor affected her life in

Broken Places, available in print everywhere!

                The post This is How To Spend Quarantine With Me appeared first on Rachel Thompson.

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As soon as a gamer, usually a gamer, and whilst i may not play as many video games as i did in my teenagers and twenties, i do nonetheless experience the escape a very good game affords. Gamers can join and compete with different users for more linked gameplay. [2] the sport is freemium (unfastened-to-play with intrusive commercials and in-app purchases). It utilizes track and pix just like the 2013 simcity sport, although it is barely down scaled so one can healthy in with the ios and android devices' graphic abilties. The game begins with 25,000 Simoleons and 50 simcash reachable. There is no zoning characteristic in simcity: buildit. As a substitute, homes are moved manually. Industrial and commercial homes produce gadgets, and home zones require them on the way to upgrade to a better density. Within the city, you may building up to 6 omega laboratories. At the omega research middle, omega merchandise are made from omega material. It's far to be had in the government - offerings menu. Click on the omega research middle and deliver the omega fabric there to start processing. While the products are equipped, click on at the containers to collect them. Wherein am i able to shop omega products? Search for an omega warehouse in the offerings menu - energy. In case you need extra area, click on on boom warehouse to see what you want for this. I tested it on an ipad seasoned 10.5 and an ipad air 2, each running a exclusive city. (there doesn't appear to be any true manner to run multiple metropolis on one device.) I first mounted SimCity BuildIt at the ipad seasoned—that sport is now on level 35—and then mounted the app on my ipad air, curious to see if the sport could be as stable on it. It's miles, and i am up to stage 17. the simplest distinction i have observed in walking the app on the two machines is which you get a more zoomed-in default view on the air because of the distinction in resolution. There is not simply a storyline that you're following in buildit, however this recreation is truly greater task-oriented than the laptop model ever changed into. I'll get extra into element approximately the SimCity BuildIt financial system, however for example, the best manner to enlarge the land of your town is to purchase land tracts (rectangles of land) to permit extra time to construct. Nicely, the only manner to buy those tracts is to shop for or locate bulldozer parts. If you can not locate or have enough money the elements, you can not develop the land place of your city. You could handiest view a maximum of 20 items at a time and you cannot select what you spot. The listings seem to be completely random. Any item may be offered in gthq, including the specialized items such as vu's tower, beach, mountain and bulldozer items. Because of the limits on the gthq, it's very rare that you'll actually be able to find what you're looking for, especially if it's one of the more rare items in the game. Rather than the current market, i would suggest an auction system where you can bid on items and have more control on pricing. (there are additional items for expansion to the beach and mountainside.) To increase your territory or your city's storage capacity, you need to get a certain number of each of a set of three parts. For example, to expand into a certain 6-by-8 lot, you might need five dozer wheels, five dozer blades, and five dozer exhaust pipes. For a different lot, you might need seven of each item. To acquire these parts, you can buy them in the global trade hq (be advised that they sell quickly), or on rare occasions receive them as gifts when you travel to another city to buy something else, and click on a gift icon. If red exclamation marks appear on the icons on the right of the screen, find out immediately what is happening! These icons will tell you what can be improved to make your citizens happy. You can also visually assess the level of happiness of each individual district by selecting the government icon in the city services menu. What is city services? Your citizens have needs! As a mayor, you must consider eight key points that make up the well-being of your citizens. These goods are consumed at such a rate that they do not reach the warehouse. The increase in the city warehouse. Go to the city warehouse and click on the green button "increase warehouse" to see what special items for storage space are required to increase its capacity. Collect the necessary goods, click on the screen to confirm, and the size of your city warehouse will increase instantly. If you do not want to view icons with the opinions of your fellow citizens, you can purchase missing special items for simcash. In some cases, you can even permanently lose your city. How to download a city to a new device? Complete the training mode until the city councilor tells you that you will play next yourself. Click on the "settings" icon and log in to the appropriate account. Do not see the authorization buttons? So, you have not completed the training mode in the game. Why didn't my saved city load? Have you saved the original city? If you did not save it using the in-game settings, you will not be able to access it from any device. These videos only work while you're online. Also, sometimes if i didn't notice the movie icon quickly enough, the video would expire and nothing would happen when i clicked on the icon. Several times, i would listen to my advisor and watch the ad, but the advisor would not reappear to let me pick my reward. When that happens, i find it's best not to click on the movie icon for a while, because if it happens once, it's likely to keep happening. Athough maxis could have designed SimCity BuildIt's commerce function for single-player use, making transactions with real players and visiting their cities adds greatly to the richness of the game. The downside is that i really miss the ability to trade when i'm offline. One online feature that lets you directly interact with other players is the mayors' club, which unlocks at level 18. You can join a mayors' club, which is a group of up to 25 players who can chat or make deals with each other. As mayor, you lay down the roads, place houses, stores, and factories, collect taxes, and arrange deals with other cities. You must also provide services for your citizens, the sims, when the options become available—power, water, sewage treatment, sanitation, and education. If you neglect expanding services and the overall city upkeep, your sims move out, you lose tax revenue, and the city stagnates. First, though, they can and will talk back to you (with their words appearing in an opinion bubble above a house or other property), tell you what's working and what isn't, although their responses are admittedly canned. Some updates and upgrades may change the way we record usage data and metrics, or change data stored on your device. Any changes will always be consistent with ea's privacy and cookie policy. You can withdraw your consent at any time by removing or disabling this app, visiting help.ea.com for assistance, or by contacting us at attn: privacy / mobile consent withdrawal, electronic arts inc., 209 redwood shores pkwy, redwood city, ca, usa. Ships of battle - age of pirates - warship battle 2.6.28 apk + mod (unlimited money,free shopping) + data for android gangstar vegas: world of crime 4.4.0m apk + mod (money/vip gold/diamonds/anti ban) + data for android note - make sure that you disable your internet connection while playing this game. However, i think a better idea is to know exactly what you're looking for and to play to the requirements, not to stock. If you have a bunch of residences that are looking for a certain material, go crazy on stockpiling those as at least you know you'll be able to quickly in and spend those on actual upgrades once they are ready to go. Once you unlock the trade hq, i recommend using it to sell your excess rare parts (i.e. It'd been 10 years since its last outing - simcity 4, which retained the classic blocky approach to city building. However, the reboot overhauled the game entirely, as it surely had to -  it received a brand new game engine, a fully 3d experience and an online home, where players could trade with others in close proximity. The problem is - this was the only choice: there wasn't an offline mode. Cue server issues, downtime and many more problems, and what was left was a disastrous relaunch for a much beloved franchise. Daniel is a father of two boys, husband to jenb and works in digital marketing for the 2nd largest hospital system in florida. He's founder of dadtography.com, a travel & video blogger and avid digital photographer. Daniel is a father of two boys, husband to jenb and works in digital marketing for the 2nd largest hospital system in florida. He's founder of dadtography.com, a travel & video blogger and avid digital photographer. Be a dadtographer... Copyright © 2020 dadtography, llc · read our privacy & user generated content policy · built on genesis the content of this website does not constitute legal advice and should not be relied upon as such. When traffic congestion begins to roll over, the adviser will notify you of this, and a red exclamation mark will appear next to the road icon. Modernization of roads. Click on the upgrade icon with helmet and traffic light. You will see a view of the city with a highlighted road network. Green / black roads = good. Red roads = bad! The yellow light in this view indicates average traffic congestion. In the event of a sharp increase in population in this area, residents will complain! My biggest complaint has to do with the game's decision to limit some of the cooler buildings to premium currency buys (and at amounts that you'll never earn in-game). Meanwhile, buildit's strongest facet is its graphics. Simply put, i absolutely love the visuals in SimCity BuildIt. Players have full rotational control of their town and all the structures are highly detailed and simply look great. Your city is also teeming with life — zoom in and you'll see cars on the street, stoplights, and even traffic jams when that becomes a problem for your city. But as often as not, the deals are for your storage and expansion parts. Money generated from these deals come at the expense of your city's growth, so think long and hard about giving these parts up. You're the mayor, and have the final word. Tapping the global trade hq, which i always think of as the world trade center, shows items that other sims have put up for sale. Touching the building brings up a list of offers, which you can refresh every 30 seconds. You can make the road upgrade smaller by running another road into it, this will help you save significant amount of coins. As a rule of thumb, you should request for new upgrading plan, whenever the upgrade request asking for 2~3+ items that you do not have. Always go forward with the upgrading plans that require materials only from the factory. At mid point in game with upgraded factories, you will find yourself loaded with the basic materials. 2. Slow down on building the stores, refresh the upgrades, and only upgrade if you do have the materials that can be made from your existing buildings. Your futuristic city adviser will tell you what products your neighbor wants to buy. Click yes !, to accept the offer or no, thanks !, to refuse the sale. There are ten different omega products. Based on the results of using the omega research center, you receive a random omega product. How to unlock a futuristic city? Click on the neomall site between the wu tower and the mountains. If you meet the requirements for access to futuristic cities, an adviser will appear on the screen, which will guide you into the future. If you change your mind and want to remove the lot from the shelf of the warehouse, click on the red button (but think carefully - it will cost you simcash, and the goods will be lost!). If you have run out of empty boxes at the warehouse, but you want to put up for sale other goods right now, you can purchase additional boxes for simcash. Click on the box with the yellow sticker in the lower right corner of the warehouse. Now you will send your main facebook account (that you have connected SimCity BuildIt to) a friend request that you accept. Now you're able to start SimCity BuildIt with that facebook account and you will see your main city in the friends list. If you want to build your feeder city right there are some things that you will need to mind, otherwise it might get less effective. This takes a little time, i'd say some hours but you can simply do it on breaks and don't need to do it all straight. Whenever you overbuilt, you run a chance of losing a building completely, and it can happen to your biggest building, so do not risk it! If you have to choose between placing your services, pick the area where you have the most dense population. This means if you only have enough money for a fire station or police station, you better make sure those cover your tallest buildings. Your tallest buildings will have the most impact on your city in terms of happiness and money. Because it works at the first time after you install it, but if you want to play it free forever then you must turn off any internet ln your phone forever even after you close the game because the game is still running at the background and it will sync with ea server at the background while you turning on the internet and the server will detect that it's illegal and will notify you that data is corrupt, that means your app is blacklisted already so if you don't mind with internet forever, this mod is for you, but if you still want to use internet after playing, don't download it or you will regret it losing all your record because it is already blacklisted note - make sure that you disable your internet connection while playing this game. But as often as not, the deals are for your storage and expansion parts. Money generated from these deals come at the expense of your city's growth, so think long and hard about giving these parts up. You're the mayor, and have the final word. Tapping the global trade hq, which i always think of as the world trade center, shows items that other sims have put up for sale. Touching the building brings up a list of offers, which you can refresh every 30 seconds. What are these deals that constantly offer my city? This is just a convenient way to earn Simoleons and free up some storage space. Click on the icon for the image of speech in which the simoleon is drawn as soon as it appears in your city. To close the deal, click "yes!" And the Simoleons will appear on your account. To opt out, click "no, thanks." No one will be offended, and soon new offers will appear. If at the moment you do not have a product, but you would like the transaction to take place (perhaps these products will appear soon), click on the screen outside the transaction window and then it will be saved on your card.

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