#this is part of the bigger canvas btw …

[saudrag]

idk something something about hughie being butcher’s most loyal pet just scrubs me right…

#the boys tv #butchie #throat baring #yes #this is part of the bigger canvas btw … #hughie x butcher #hughie campbell x billy butcher #nobody understands my obsession with them #also feel free to interpret as you want #i like the omegaverse thingy #maybe something about omega publicly obeying his alpha … idk tho :) #also #hughie’s beard #that’s the tag #i love him bearded #my art #the boys #hughie campbell #billy butcher #one day i’ll write a fic about them i’m swearing

[ravenloop]

hi darling! i do see that you want requests in your inbox so im here to fullfil that want of yours :)

oh, btw i really do expect that you're well and, if you don't, please take care of yourself okay??

anyways, the request is for the arcana characters, more specifically for julian, asra and muriel (idk how much characters you accept for request but if you need to you can take one of these off) with a reader that does like art and try to make everything in their lifes a little bit more fun, colorful and artsy.

you can write in any format you're more comfortable in writing, but i think that maybe headcannons is easier. oh, and if you could do the reader gender neutral would be good!

oh and if you couldn't understand something, im sorry, english is not my first language. and if you want to, feel free to ignore this request.

AN: Thank you for the kind words!! I am doing well, busy but well :)) also you speak English amazingly!! Anyways here's your request <33 I haven't done Muriel's route yet so forgive me if anything is wrong :')

Headcannons: Julian, Asra and Muriel with an artistic S/O

—————————————————

Julian:

Honestly? He loves it!

It may not seem like it with the pirate outfit and rogue-ish lifestyle, but Julian is quite the colour lover himself. He just loves the energy and atmosphere vibrant colours bring.

So when you and him meet, and he finds out you're an even bigger lover of colours and an artist at that—the man was practically bursting with excitement.

Definitely gets you some art supplies. But since Julian has little to zero knowledge on being an artist, his art supplies aren't always the most helpful. Though you still appreciate him for trying to help with your hobby, even if his "paint" looks like it belongs in a potion brewing shop.

Practically demands to see some of your older art works and becomes sad if you say no. It's fine though if you don't let him, he'll find them eventually (his words, not yours).

Whenever you're painting or doing anything artsy, he's almost always by your side asking questions and just chatting with you. And as always you enjoy it when he's with you, it makes you feel warm inside knowing he's as passionate about watching you paint as you are about painting.

"Julian, I need you to-"

"I know, I know—you want me to stop staring at you. But I can't help it! You're just so beautiful when you're focused on something you're so passionate about!"

"...That's really sweet, but that's not what I was gonna ask. You're sitting on my paint pallette, could you maybe get off it?"

"WHAT—"

Asra:

You're an artist?? He's ENAMOURED already.

Asra adores everything you paint. He himself is a bit of an artist, but he doesn't paint as often as you since he's always busy with the Major Arcana amongst other things.

When he travels for long periods of time and comes back, he always brings you things like art supplies, trinkets or flowers, saying, "They reminded me of you." And he loves watching your eyes sparkle as you think of the different ways you can use the items.

After a long day, Asra just likes curling up besides you while you create your masterpieces. He'll bring you a warm drink and food too, before settling down on a blanket besides you.

If you ask, he'll give you some pointers or tell you what you could add to your work as you paint. He has an eye for detail.

"I think a few flowers would look really nice over here." He points to a certain part of the canvas.

"You always think flowers look nice in every painting," You playfully respond, and see him look away shyly. "What can I say? They really do!"

Asra could stare at your work for hours without feeling the need to look away. He just loves the mixture of colours and patterns you use. They remind him of the different realms and he finds that beautiful.

Sometimes you even use things from around his home for inspiration. It could be anything—his clothes, the intricate patterns on his curtains, sometimes even his tarot cards, and he won't say it aloud but it gives him a bit of a confidence boost. It's almost as if a piece of him is within your art work.

Muriel:

Muriel is a very... Dark and gloomy man in general.

The forest is his home, but not the pretty and flower-filled part, he makes his home in the shadowy, dark and somewhat dangerous parts of the forest.

So when you come into his life and bring all of this colour and vibrance, it throws him off. He doesn't know what to make of it. He feels to seen with all of it.

"What are you doing?" He approaches you as you hang a vine of flowers over the fireplace.

You look back and smile, "I thought it could use a little bit of... Decor..." You notice the way he frowns, even harder than usual as he stares at the decoration. "I'll take it ou-" "No. Leave it."

You're shocked, "Muriel, if you don't like it I can-" "I like it. It's pretty... Like you" He mutters the last part, so softly you almost don't hear him. Then he leaves. Quickly.

You smile to yourself.

After that you notice he spends more time with you as you decorate or make things, you even started asking him for his opinion on some things. He always responds with "Hm..." But you'll take what you can get.

Sometimes you take Inanna with you to hunt for things in the wild that you could use. Muriel was weary at first of letting you go with her, but Inanna seemed happy to go, so Muriel allowed it. After a while you even convinced him to come along on your art scouting journeys too. He comes in handy when you get carried away and find a little too many items that you need to take with you.

Oh and if anyone ever criticizes your art, no they didn't. In fact, almost as soon as they criticize it, they're on their knees worshipping you and the art itself. Why? Let's just say a big, terrifying man glaring down at you with eyes that say "I will rip your limbs apart and relish in every second of it" is not very fun.

—————————————————

#the arcana #the arcana x reader #julian devorak #the arcana julian #julian devorak x reader #the arcana asra #asra alzanar #asra alzanar x reader #the arcana muriel #muriel x reader #julian x reader #asra x reader

[edgepunk]

I love your gifs sm and i was wondering how you make the colorful glow around them if you don't mind me asking? Like the red glow around this set? It's so pretty btw 🥺 /marvels-spider-man-favorite-fast-travel/4moq349njsca

Hi, thank you! And sure, no problem, I'll show you.

Putting it under a read more.

The "glow" is actually just the basic soft brush tool, I only lowered the opacity. You don't need a tablet for this, you can do this with a mouse btw

I tend to change the opacity somewhere between 50-70%. I change the size of the brush too, but I suggest a bigger brush since it looks softer. Here are my settings just in case (as I said, the size of the brush depends on the size of your canvas or your personal taste):

And you can change the opacity up here when you have selected the brush tool:

I usually add the glow after editing the colors and pick some brighter colors with the eyedropper tool. Here is an example with no glow (already edited colors):

Now create a new empty layer above the adjustment layers and pick one of the colors in the gif with the eyedropper tool:

Then, select the brush tool and just draw on the edges of the canvas, like this:

And if that's not enough for you, you can play around with layer modes - the most common ones I use are Screen, Lighten, Overlay, Hard Light and Vivid Light. Hue and Color are good for recoloring certain parts of a gifset.

Honestly, I can't help much here, because it depends on personal taste and you need to experiment with the layers; coloring and lighting makes a huge difference. Sometimes it takes me a while to figure out what works and what doesn't for a certain gifset. You can even make multiple layers to give it a brighter glow.

Here I made two layers, one Normal layer and one Screen layer (I made this really quickly so it looks a little sloppy):

And last but not least, to give it an even softer look - I use a sharpening gif action that adds a soft glow. I use it on all of my gifs, you can download it here [LINK]

If you have any further questions, feel free to ask!

#ask #Anonymous #ref #gif tutorial

[copyrittenbones]

To go along with the last post: Here's the Sketch, in progress shots and finished render from June this year :D

So here is the wonderful starting point. I never do lineart! It's purely just sketch to colour. Generally, this takes me atleast an hour to acccomplish :)

The first stages of rendering: The flats! The easiest part for me since I bullshit my way through colour theory :D. This stage? Easy peasy—10-20 minutes, even shorter when working with someone elses OC's bc they generally have a scheme already

Stage two: What The Fuck, PUT IT BACK.

Since I work on seperate layers for the colours, it always looks cursed in the beginning and all the way to the middle due to the varying amounts of detail. Welcome to the render phase btw, this is what eats up most of my time.

Stagae 3: ???

(Im skipping a lot rn due to tumblrs limits)

but! most of the bigger things have been completed at this point, the rest is finishing up the smaller layers

and merging all of the detail layers because sometimes I choose to work on a giant fucking canvas

Stage 4: Profit. (Open to see all of the microscopic detailing)

I do all of these renders with my finger btw! I lost all of my pens years ago, and now doing it with a pen hurts my wrist.

But honestly speaking one of my average renders takes 7 hours, and I don't even notice time going by

Hope you don't mind the older stuff!

-Copy

#digital illustration #digital art #art #digital painting #original content #bro i swear to god though #i want to render but i have no motivation #so im just doing character sketches so i dont wither away

[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!

[thetransguard-archive]

couldnt find the promt posts but: joenicky monster/supernatural au? i absolutely adore ur writing btw💕

you cannot hand me the word supernatural and not expect me to think of buzzfeed unsolved RGEHFBRWFHKJL im sorry this turned into a ghost hunter’s au i just don’t know how to write vampires or werewolves or whatever else constitutes supernatural

nicky does not believe in ghosts.

so why is he standing in front of a long-abandoned house, carrying several hundred dollars worth of largely useless equipment, wearing a shirt emblazoned with a big cartoon ghost? he tells himself it’s a favour being returned. his room mate, lykon, is endlessly more enthusiastic then he is, mumbling to himself as he fiddles with the camera that was paid with money that probably should’ve gone to rent.

“don’t look so worried nicky,” lykon says, as they step inside the threshold. his best friend flashes him a wide grin which is immediately contradicted by the alarming creak of the floorboard under his foot. “we’ve got holy water and everything else. we’ll just check to see if there are any ghoulies in here, they can’t hurt us.”

“you know i think this is a load of horseshit. i’m more worried about the house collapsing on our heads.”

“don’t be dramatic, dude. it’s in perfectly good shape.”

as they start setting up lights, laying out their sleeping bags for preparation of sleeping the night in this place, nicky is forced to admit there’s a sort of melancholy beauty to the place. it would have been a very nice house, once, not too ostentatious like the other houses they’ve “investigated”, with high ceilings and large windows, and stunning art covering the walls. landscapes, bowls of fruit, studies of fire and light and the night sky. but not a single person. nicky notices the same sprawling signature on all of the art, and steps closer to see if he can make out a name-

“nicky! let’s start recording.”

lykon begins unrolling the backstory of this house and the ghost allegedly haunting it, and nicky interjects throughout, punctuating the otherwise dead serious narrative with bursts of skepticism and humour, the way they’ve always done. lykon’s little ghost hunting channel is small now but getting bigger every day, and nicky can’t say he doesn’t enjoy it, verbally sparring with his best friend. lykon’s a believer and nicky isn’t, and while they’ll argue fiercely on camera they agree in pretty much every way off screen. apparently this house used to be home to an artist who’d been slowly making his way up in the art world before being murdered mysteriously. with no convictions, the story went that people were compelled to stay away from the house, wouldn’t be able to write without doodling, and smell fresh paint. also the standard doors opening and closing on their own, lights turning on and off, footsteps and the like. nicky was not exactly enthused to spend a night on the dusty floor, but hey. it beat sitting on the couch watching reruns of the same bland reality tv shows.

nicky’s halfway through a longwinded joke when lykon jolts like he’s been zapped, hand gripping nicky’s forearm, eyes darting around in sudden fear.

“what? dude, let go.” he elbows lykon in the ribs gently to get his attention back. “hello? what happened.”

“swear i heard a laugh, from upstairs, maybe,” he replies, face furrowed in concentration. he flashes a smile at the camera. “alright, i think we got all the background done. lets investigate.”

predictably, they find nothing. well, nothing of worth to nicky, but lykon insists that the room that used to be the studio feels colder then the rest of the house, they hear noises from inside the room once they leave it, and the spirit box spits up a few noises that lykon insists are words. a pretty standard investigation, then. they pack up their stuff and tuck in for the night. lykon spends half of it jumping at every little noise, but eventually drifts off as the exhaustion of the drive here finally gets to him. nicky turns over in his sleeping bag, hoping to salvage at least a few hours of rest from the night, but-

is that paint?

nicky breathes in as hard as he can, and it’s unmistakeable, that scent of chemicals that reminds him very vividly of the disaster that was year seven art class. he sits up, rubs his eyes. lykon doesn’t stir and nicky sniffs again. it’s still clear and strong, and now that his ear isnt pressed against the pillow, he can hear faint clattering, like the lid of a paint tin being wedged off. it’s coming from upstairs, where the artist’s studio would be, if he had to guess.

oh, fuck. 

there’s a perfectly rational explanation for this, he reasons to himself, even as he crawls out of the sleeping bag to cram on some shoes and get a torch and a camera. he should probably wake up lykon, but something inside him is telling him, wait, to just see for himself first. maybe we disturbed the paint when we were in there earlier. an old house like this, it’s probably just settling. hell, there’s probably raccoons in the roof, or something. ghosts aren’t real.

the studio is... not how they had left it. it had been such a sad space, everything covered up in white sheets, shelves of paints covered in dust. now, the room is strangely warm, like the summer sun had spent a few hours streaming in through windows that were now uncovered, the night visible through dusty panes of glasses. there is an easel set up, with an empty, clean canvas about the size of a dinner table on it. and on the floor, a thin, fine paintbrush rocks back and forth, like it had just been dropped.

this was entirely too much weirdness for nicky’s brain to handle, but he wasn’t giving up on his hard line stance on ghosts just yet. strangely enough, he doesn’t really feel afraid at all. 

“if this is a prank,” he says, deliberately loud in the empty room, as he bends to pick up the paintbrush. the tip of it is still wet, and the paint looks black on his fingertips. “if this is a joke, lykon, i swear-”

hi, nicky.

the words appear abruptly on the canvas, a rushed hand like whoever’s writing isn’t sure if they can keep it going. nicky almost drops the paintbrush he’s holding, but steps closer. the paint is still wet on the canvas, and it’s the same dark shade as the stuff on the brush. he shines his torch at it. it’s a very dark blue, not a black like he’d first assumed, the colour of a twilight sea.

“what the fuck,” he mumbles to himself, touching the canvas. it’s just fabric on wood. what the fuck.

did i scare you? i didn’t want to do that. 

"i’m not scared,” he says, feeling oddly giddy. “this is a very strange dream.”

i promise it’s not a dream. tah-dah! ghosts are real. i am one of them.

as whoever it is writes, they doodle around their letters with incredible skill, little birds and flowers and suns circling their words. it’s strangely endearing. the paint smell gets stronger and nicky finds that he does not mind.

“what’s your name?” he asks, remembering that he is technically a ghost investigator and he should probably be doing some investigation. his phone is left forgotten in his pocket, though. he doesn’t know if he should be recording this or not.

joe, joseph, but it’s yusuf, really. the art world of my time was not quite ready for a name like mine, but i suppose it doesn’t matter anymore.

“you’re the artist, then.”

who else would i be? as far as i can tell i am the first, last and only death of this house.

“you were murdered.”

yes, but can we not talk about that? it wasn’t a pleasant experience.

the last full stop of yusuf’s sentence is darker then normal, like he’s pressed harder. nicky touches a finger to the canvas.

“i’m sorry. i won’t bring it up again.”

thank you.

nicky takes a step back, the room is lightening around him. he hadn’t realised it earlier, but the windows of this room all face east, which is why he supposes yusuf chose it to be his studio. on some level, a part of him is wondering why he isn’t screaming and running to get lykon right now. he really isn’t afraid, though. yusuf hasn’t meant him any harm.

“why did you choose to talk to me? we were up here earlier.”

it’s harder when more alive people are in my room. you take up so much energy. the handwriting pauses, like yusuf is considering. and most people are so afraid. i’ve tried talking to others before, but they get so scared. you didn’t seem frightened at all.

“that’s because i didn’t believe in any of this stuff.” nicky presses a finger to yusuf’s words, just to check. his finger comes away dark blue. “part of me still think i’m dreaming, though.”

well, you can’t see reflections in dreams, i’ve heard. there’s a mirror behind you.

nicky turns to see a sheet drop off a large standing mirror in an ornate frame, and sure enough, he can see his face, a pale shape in the darkness of the room. he steps closer, and skids a finger over the glass, leaving a smear of paint behind. not a dream, then.

he feels a gust of air, warm, behind him and he turns. nothing but the canvas. when he turns back, that’s when he sees him.

he’s about the same height and build of nicky, standing just behind him and to the side. handsome, a full beard and a rueful smile and curls, and eyes that are the kindest nicky has ever seen. and the most startling thing- he is opaque. his head and shoulders are more or less solid, but his torso peters out into nothing at all.

“ghosts are real,” he says, to the spectre in the mirror, dumbfounded, and yusuf’s half-smile widens to a proper grin. he does a little wave in the mirror and something in nicky’s chest swells. he smiles back.

“your friend downstairs is waking up.” a breath, barely a whisper in his ear. and sure enough, noises from below. he can almost hear the sound of his name.

“i won’t tell him about you, if you don’t want me to,” he says, and yusuf shrugs, flickering.

“i don’t mind, but i'd rather you not. the more people come in here, the harder it is to... exist.” 

nicky can hear footsteps on the stairs now, and he blurts out, quickly, before this bizarre moment is over, before he is thrust back into the mundane of his normal life. “we’re leaving now. can i come back, sometime?” and the thing is, he really wants to, wants to know this strange, sad ghost with messy handwriting and beautiful art, and kind, kind eyes. he has so many questions. what’s it like, being a ghost? are you lonely in this house? and, why do you not have any paintings of people? yusuf meets his eyes in the mirror and smiles again.

“i’d like that.”

“nicky!” the door opens and nicky blinks, his hands dropping to his sides. lykon sweeps his gaze around the room looks at him with a raised eyebrow. the canvas, nicky is stunned to realise, is now as clean and blank as when he’d walked in.

“c’mon man, you know we’re not allowed to mess with this stuff.” lykon steps forwards and plucks the paintbrush out of his hand, the tip still wet with paint, and sets it on the easel. “you said it yourself, nothing in here now. we’ve gotta get going.”

“sì, of course. i was just... looking around. it’s a beautiful room.”

his room mate just gives him a look. “uh okay. whatever, man. let’s go.”

before nicky leaves, he picks the paintbrush back up again, tucks it into his pocket. says to the empty room, slowly filling with light and colour from the rising sun, “i’ll be back, yusuf, i promise.”

the faint ghost of laughter as he walks out feels, somehow, right.

#the old guard #yusuf al kaysani #nicolo di genova #lykon #kaysanova #joe x nicky #usercacau #usershan #userlyde #userkayla #tuseradriana #anonymous #ask #reply #OOF what did i just write........... i dont know <3 #maybe i have backstory for all of them. maybe. what about it #my writing #mine #the ghost au

[caiabresebun]

ahh!!! tysm for that tutorial! u even added pictures!! as someone with adhd and learns visually thank u!! i just recently started digital drawing and its so difficult to translate my work digitally bc it feels so unnatural and overwhelming ashsjs. you see im just that type of artist that draws on small notebooks but when im asked to draw on something huge, im just not comfortable doing it. thats the same feeling when i tried out digital art :(

also same anon!! im sorry if this is annoying (just excited i got a response from one of my fav artists!!) i wanted to ask in my earlier q but word limit ahh. may i know what canvas size + resolution you think is the best? or... if you have other things to say pls share them! im not familiar with any of these digital art jargons at all! i hope you enjoy your day!

Oh yeah I totally get you w drawing digital like the learning curve is so weird and hard :( You’ll absolutely get used to it and you shouldn’t feel discouraged bc you’ll find your own way that works best for you w practice!! (Unfortunate part is practice). If it makes anyone reading this feel better: I cannot draw traditionally at all bc I don’t practice!

I adjust my canvas size depending on what I draw but I usually draw on 4000x4000 px at 300dpi. Dpi represents how something will print, so if you don’t plan on printing, 72dpi is usually the default suggested by art programs. Btw 4kx4k is GIANT but that’s bc I like to draw many pics on one canvas :-)  Plus bigger is better w digital so that if you shrink down (resize) it’s harder to see the mistakes! Sneaky!! 

#NOO PLEASE tysm for reaching out you're so cute.. thank u #im so sorry i dont have a rec for canvas size for you #re dpi: higher dpi makes the canvas bigger I DONT KNOW WHY #please google dpi to understand better.. i know its function but not how it works #text #GOOD LUCK!! #Anonymous #@ everyone: i am so delighted to get messages thank you. instant high five #another learning curve imo is from drawing traditionally to drawing digital w a tablet w no screen #i draw w a tablet w no screen! so drawing on paper now is like wym i look at where my pen goes... #(i think the actual term is tablet vs monitor tablet.. whatever. im stupid its fine) #OH LAST THING #i do think me drawing on a giant canvas takes away from my ability to draw good compositions #idk if the suggestion to draw on a giant canvas will add that difficulty too... #SORRY I LEFT OUT HAVE A GOOD DAY TOO!!! THANK YOU

[youvebeenlivingfictional]

Nathan Bateman with a non-technical S/O? Like maybe an artist or writer or teacher. How would he navigate that? Loved your last Nathan fic btw.

Thank you so much!! Honestly I’ve been kinda stunned (and super grateful) at the reception that The Logical Progression has gotten. Like... It’s been insane and it’s been super cool and thank you thank you thank you So, I’ve thought about this for a bit, because... I don’t know, at first I kinda thought that Nathan would have a little bit of adjusting to having a more creative partner. But! Then I thought about this scene with Caleb, when he’s discussing the Jackson Pollock. I think that Nathan would be really into being with someone that engages with the world in a different way than he does. He doesn’t see it as lower level than where he operates, he sees you guys as like, the same level on different planes. I think he’d fall in love with someone while listening to them explain their process. He’s surrounded by tech and code and wires all day, so listening to you talk about how and why you do what you do? Breath of fresh air. It’s the hottest thing. And it’s got the gears going in my head, I’m just imagining, like. Say, Nathan’s drunk one night. Online shopping. We all do it. And he spots a piece of art that intrigues him. There’s one small part of him that goes ‘what is that?’ but that bigger, louder part of him goes, ‘how is that’? Because a lot of Nathan’s work is ‘how’. The man that has delved so deep into the mechanics of the human brain, that has developed ‘wet-ware’ instead of software to simulate the way we think and function, has spent a lot of time looking at behaviors and impulses and patterns and considering how. The piece is beautiful. Nathan loves beautiful things. Beautiful women, beautiful art, beautiful landscapes. So he buys the painting and then gets up to grab another beer.

There’s a snag, though. It’s the gallery, they require a buyer to come in and sign for a piece in person. It’s a technicality, they apologize profusely. Nathan is a little clipped on the phone, has a motherfucking hangover, he doesn’t have the time or the patience for this. He considers telling them to bag it and to just ask for a refund. And then he opens his computer. He never closed his window the night before, so he sees the piece again. It’s a half second of consideration, then he tells the gallery that he’ll be there tomorrow to sign for it.  And fuck, it’s even better in person. He’s so enamored with it that he almost doesn’t hear the gallery owner apologizing again. But what he does hear is that the artist is there, and would he like to meet them? And fuck yeah, he would. The gallery owner brings you over. You’re very nice, a little quiet. At first, Nathan’s questions only elicit one- to two-word answers from you. But then he asks this one question, and fuck, it is like striking oil. Your eyes light up, and there’s this bright smile on your face, and wow, he’d like to hang that smile on his wall (in a portrait kinda way, not in like a ‘these are the prototypes of all my previous AIs’ kinda way). He pieces together the fact that you kinda have no idea who he is. I mean you know what Blue Book is, have a Blue Book phone, but it doesn’t register with you that he’s him - he’s just the guy that bought your painting. He cashes in on this, invites you to coffee. He tells himself that it’s because he has more questions about the artwork he’s bringing home, he hasn’t gotten to the root yet. He knows himself, knows it’ll drive him crazy if he walks into a room, sees the canvas and still feels himself ask ‘how?’. As he listens to you, though, and as it becomes less of a seminar, and more of a dialogue - as he learns less about your process when it comes to your art work and more about you, he has more questions. More ‘how’s. The problem is, they’re not about the art. Nathan can’t stick around for long, but he thanks you very kindly for your time. You laugh, tell him that you appreciate him listening to you prattle on for an hour, though you’re not sure if you answered his questions. He tells you that you more than answered them, though he does have a few more. He grins when you tell him that you’d be happy to answer them. That night, as he lays in bed, he can’t sleep. He frowns, asks himself how he can shut his brain up long enough to fall asleep. When an image of you pops into his mind, he allows himself a half-second of a smile before rolling over and closing his eyes.

#oh hey look it's another post that got away from me #Nathan Bateman x Reader #Nathan Bateman x You #Nathan Bateman #Nathan Bateman/Reader #Nathan Bateman/You #asks #replies

[struwwelzeter]

So I read your reply to Nyarisu's comment on Lionheart and I'm really intrigued by your comments about how people understand punk compared to what it was initially. Could I possibly ask you to expand on this? Pretty please?

Yes you could! This is a very (very?) personal point of view and I know a lot of people will disagree, but here goes nothing, I guess. If you disagree with me (and somebody will), that’s fine, but I will not engage with anything that’s not a constructively put argument. I’ve spend too much time thinking about this for a “I don’t like what you’re saying and that’s why you’re wrong” anon to change my mind. Just putting that out there - with love 💜.

The thing is, especially on tumblr but I think just in generally aswell, the idea of punk is presented as this ... Robin Hood kind of thing. Beat the system, stand up to bullies, live your own truth, all of that, but it always is presented as something that is supposed to come from a ... dare I say, nice place? Like those pictures of people in studded and sprayed leather jackets rescuing puppies. All of that, you know? And I don’t want to say that is wrong, because it isn’t, and I love the idea of that, it’s just not the entire truth.

Especially in the early to mid 70s, when arguably punk started, there was a lot of fatigue between an old and stuffy establishment and the lovey, dovey peace and love “let’s all be happy” movement of the hippie scene. I was at Force Attack in 2006, which is a punk festival (and possibly dirtiest place in the world) that got established in the early 90s and went on til 2008 (?), and even then some of the “death to hippies” sentiments ran pretty deep. And I know the counter argument to that will be a well meaning “well, that’s not real punk,” the problem is that I think it actually partly is. (Please keep the partly in mind for the rest of this argument.)

The problem with having the exact choice between “get a good job, built a nice house, think of what the neighbours will say, and don’t ask me about what I did in the war” and “we’re all a big part of one human family, and isn’t nature beautiful, lets all make peace, and btw we would have never done what our parents did” is that both models aren’t a sustainable life style for everyone. That’s why you get alot of people saying this is all fake bullshit, and they start being purposely offensive. This is why you get alot of Swastikas around the sex pistols, you get all these artists singing about suicide and incest and rape. It’s not that uncommon for some of those early acts to play with Nazi imagery, or claim that homosexuality is disgusting (despite the scene always being full of LGBTQ+ people), or idk, thinking it’s fun to piss on someone while they’re asleep. It’s alot of outcry, of saying life actually is this shitty and disgusting and I am gonna be that because in a way you will hate me either way. And it’s not always nice. Disdain and hate and petty selfishness are common human emotions and many of them are low and unhealthy, and honestly not nice or helpful or inclusive, but they are there, and I think alot of that early spirit was just about stopping to pretend that they don’t exist.

I think a reason for why we don’t think of the scene that way anymore is that many people very quickly outgrew that, and said “actually, we’re better than that, that’s not who we actually are. I sadly can’t find that interview right now, but Die Ärzte are actually a good exemple of that and they even admit it themselves, that there was a sense of “enough with the happy hippie bullshit, let’s disgust them” and then later going “uhmm - maybe that went a bit far.” I mean offensive or not, but ultimately a scene that is centered around artistic expression always ends with that question of creation, maybe like “if the world isn’t like what we want it to be, how do we make one we like?” - and then you end up with having to come up with answers that are more than just destruction. And then it turns into something else - something that I think is alot more like what tumblr seems to think punk is. And that’s a wonderful thing. Still - a side of punk, whatever that is, has always been what people like GG Allin (please read the wiki for context) have taken and pushed to the limits, and it just - isn’t nice. And here is where things get a bit tricky.

Because against that backdrop, things like John Lydon (Johnny Rotten) suddenly being a dirty old Trump supporter aren’t that surprising anymore. And then you get these 20 year olds “cancelling” the Sex Pistols, and I think there is just a bit of ... missing the point going on. I’ve read a comment on here recently, that basically said something like Richard should stop supporting the Sex Pistols (because he has that album in the back of the studio), and it’s just ... asking for a history to be erased that has rightfully been made obsolete but has still happened and was necessary at the time. You can take any of these early bands and pick their lyrics apart and find something that from our perspective now is disgusting, mean, exclusive, or outright racist. Songs about Fucking? Part of that record is a mysogynisy shitshow, something they were very aware of even at the time, and they still did it anyway because being disgusting was part of the point. The thing is though, the Sex Pistols were hugely influential, and alot of the positive things that grew out of that wouldn’t have been possible if kids like young Richard, or any of the bands you love that were influenced by them, wouldn’t have gotten that moment of “finally a place where I can put all of my petty hate”. It matters, and just because that moment is overcome, it doesn’t mean it should be forgotten, or stops existing in the people that lived through it.

I understand that the question of how much we should justify things with “it was the time” and how we deal with the result is an ever ongoing debate and their are many good arguments for why maybe we shouldn’t try to defend the wrongs of the past that way, and I want to point out that while I rarely agree on that in the first place (because I understand history as a natural learning curve where people aren’t perfect at the first try and it’s doing a disservice to humans just doing their best, but I digress and that’s a bit of another duscussion), I want to point out that I don’t want to defend anyone, rather I want to say “actually, being that horrible was often calculated, part of the point, and if you don’t like it, just leave it, fight it or debate it, but don’t pretend like it was a “missstep” or just a few black sheep of a scene that was never as nice or perfect as you want it to be.” You don’t get to erase half of a movement simply because you wish it wouldn’t exist the way it does - or well. I guess in this case mostly did - past tense.

The ugliness is part of the story to me, and it’s actually the bigger part of why I love this scene. I don’t need “punk” to define my politics, I need it to soothe my soul, and so did many, I think. The Sex Pistols breaking happened 20 years before my time, but I still feel connected to that world, and in particular the ugly parts of it. I often feel like I look at the world, and there are people that seem honestly shocked by the idea that maybe sometimes I find doing the right thing really hard, that I want petty, self serving revenge, that I don’t find it easy to not be selfish and unkind or sometimes want to hurt people because I am hurting myself and see an opportunity to do that. Obviously those aren’t nice things and I don’t want to be that way, but are you honestly telling me you don’t feel that? I find that hard to believe, and it leaves me with an ongoing question of if I am just worse than most people or if most people are just more fake. Both scenarios are equally shit. The ugly side of punk provides - not an answer to that - but maybe a partial solution, at least for me.

Another discussion we have all the time is about how what we consume or allow in artistic expression is influencing how we act as people in real life and how we want the world to be. Where do we draw the line? What is still ok? If I put me entertaining ideas about murder on a canvas, is that still good? what if it’s racism? What if it’s rape? We argue alot about how providing a safe space in art for those feelings is actually preventing us from acting on it in real life, how it’s an outlet of something we would never actually want or do, but then where is the limit to that? I am putting this intentionally controversial, but if we admit that most of us grow up with internalized racism and mysogyny, by that logic, why can’t I paint something that is blatantly hateful if I have those feelings? Maybe that is my way of fighting it, you don’t have to look at it? Not saying that’s what I am doing or would want to do, but what if? For some people Rammstein singing about not wanting to be Angels is crossing that line, for some of us that line is drawn alot later. Who is right? Isn’t that just personal sensitivity? Can you honestly rationalise that? Isn’t it just processing our different levels of petty hate in different ways? I don’t have the answers to any of that, it’s just questions I often have and that I think have to do with this, because alot of the nasty bits in punk will justify it exactly that way, as artistic expression. Alot of it isn’t as political as this scene is made out to be, it’s simply asking those things. I personally relate to that alot, as someone who arguably would draw the line of “we should stop doing this” in art very, very, very late - and certainly later than my own personal comfort zone.

I’m not sure if any of this makes any sense at all. I hope it does - and if it doesn’t it’s probably because I don’t know either, or because I don’t want to fully blow this up into an essay (sorry, too late?) or because I suck at making a point, or maybe because we simply disagree. All I know is that I sometimes see these posts of “what is punk and what isn’t” and it leaves me with this taste of “you’re describing a utopia and it’s cute and I want that too, but it’s not everything punk as I know it is, and it feels like you don’t want to see something that mattered too - even if it was brutal and disgusting.” And everytime I see it I feel alien, like something that mattered to me so much as a teenager and young adult gets taken away from me and made into something so sleek and pretty it becomes something unattainable to be that I simply don’t manage to live up to in the way I would like. I guess that is a petty, selfish way of looking at it too.

«It's a repressive society where you can't be horrible, I'm not horrible, they made me horrible, I'm just honest.»

- John Lydon

#sorry for this getting out of hand

[leonardbetts]

I’m love with your gifsets “characters I see myself in” and “Mulder and Scully + touch” they are sooooo wonderful, your talent!!!

I would like to ask if you could give some tips for a gifset like the Mulder and Scully one? I’ve seen a lot of gifsets that use that effect (?) let’s say, but never so well done as yours ?! It’s so beautiful honestly🥺💗 I’d be grateful for any tips but mostly I’m grateful that you’re around blessing us with your creations! Thank you!

This is soooo nice, anon. Seriously, I appreciate the kind words a lot. I can definitely explain how I made that set!

So, the key to overlaying (the effect of more than one scene blended in one gif) is choosing scenes with contrasting lighting. In the first gif of that set, the graveyard scene is dark while the scene of Mulder and Scully in the office is lit pretty well. 

First, open your gifs as usual and edit both scenes separately (ie. sharpening and coloring)

Resize so the darker gif is larger and the lighter gif is the normal 540 px width (I generally resized the darker gif to 800 px width)

Take your light gif, once you’re happy with everything, and select all layers by pressing Alt + Ctrl + A. (I make my gifs using timeline mode, btw. If you don’t know how to do that, you can message me or search for a tutorial.) Right click on one of the highlighted layers and select Convert to Smart Object. 

Repeat step 4 with your darker gif.

Right click on the darker gif in layers now and select Duplicate Layers... then select your light gif file name in the drop down menu and duplicate it.

Once it’s duplicated, change the blend mode on the dark gif to SCREEN. Then, press V and select the darker gif layer to move it around the canvas. You can also resize using Ctrl + T. This is why I left the darker gif so big... so I could adjust it right where I wanted! 

After you’ve placed the dark gif where you want, click on the dark layer in the layers panel again and make sure that the tiny picture of the gif is highlighted as well. 

Now, add a layer mask onto the dark gif by clicking on the little label at the bottom of the layers panel that looks like a Japanese flag....the one between fx and the half black/white circle.

Now, click B to bring up brushes. Make sure you have black as the foreground and white as the background in the bottom left of the screen. If the white is in front, just click on the arrow above to switch them. 

Take your black brush, and make the brush BIG. The bigger the better because the edges blend smoother. I had mine set at 300 px with 0% Hardness. 

Now, this is the fun part :) you’re gonna make sure the mask is selected on the dark gif (that’s the white square to the right of the picture in the layers panel), and then brush the black on the layer mask to “erase” the parts of the dark gif that are in the way of the lighter one. This takes a lot of patience, but with time and practice, you will get a lot better at it.

I feel like I should also mention that if you erase too much, you can switch your brush color to white to “paint” the area back on.

After that, you can change the opacity of the darker gif as well to make it blend better! 

And it’s done!! All that’s left is saving the damn thing.

Okay, I think I covered all of it from start to finish. If you have any other questions, don’t hesitate to ask! And again, thank you for being so nice <3

#anon #ps

[sweeping-the-clouds-away]

Illustrator Tutorial

So for quite a while I’ve been mulling over the idea of making a tutorial of how I create art in Adobe Illustrator. I’m not the best at explaining things but I just thought I’d share how I make my art! Warning—this is a super long post. And it’s not exceptionally interesting. Sorry about that….

I draw traditionally, so when I’m satisfied with my drawing, I open up Illustrator, make a new file, and place the artwork in it.

This is how I set up my file and work space. My layers are at the right of the screen (the top layer is my drawing layer, the bottom layer is my “sketch” layer, locked and usually set on 65-72% opacity). If I wanted to change the size of my Artboard (the file, basically) I would go to the Artboard window (located above my layers) and make my changes there. To the left is the Toolbar. It contains a ton of useful tools, such as the Selection tool (basically the “mouse”), Direct Selection tool (helpful for editing line work), the Pen tool (what I use to trace over my drawings), Type tool (for typing), Rectangle tool (for making quick shapes like squares, stars, circles, etc), Shape Builder tool (for merging shapes), the Hand tool (for moving the screen around—if that makes sense…) and the Zoom tool (lol pretty self-explanatory). There’s many more tools of course, but these are the ones I utilize the most. (Uh unfortunately the tools I am using aren’t showing up in my screenshots while I work…so I’ll just point them out as I use them)

Now that I’ve got my file set up and drawing in place, I trace over it with the Pen tool. There is also another way to make line work. If you’ve got nice line work that you’re satisfied with you can simply select your drawing, then click “Image Trace.” Illustrator will make a vector image of the drawing. Personally I don’t like making line work that way because, well, I’m sorta odd when it comes to line work and I prefer to use the pen tool.

When I make a shape and connect two anchor points together, they make a single shape, like this head. You don’t necessarily have to make shapes in Illustrator, but it does make things easier imo.

To edit my line work, I select the line work itself using the Selection tool, then go to Object>Transform>Reflect.

Another window will pop up, and from there, I can choose if I want the image to be flipped horizontal or vertical. Then I click “Ok.”

I make edits using the Direct Selection tool. Then I flip the line work back to how it was. I can do this by right clicking the line work and going to Transform>Reflect. The same window will pop up again, and I click Ok.

But how do I make lines in Illustrator? I use the mouse when I work in Illustrator (I used to just use my laptop’s track pad, but uh…I highly suggest that you don’t do that! Using the mouse is a lot easier on the hand, and the track pad is pretty bad for carpal tunnel). You can also use a Wacom tablet or whatever, but I prefer using a mouse. Anyway, to draw in Illustrator using the Pen tool, simply click anywhere on the canvas to make an anchor point and drag the mouse away from where you clicked. As the mouse moves around, a line will follow it. If you click again, a straight line will appear.

To make curved lines though, after you click on the canvas, drag the mouse around to make a curved line.

To merge shapes, select each shape with the Selection tool (click on a shape, and while holding down the Shift key, click on another shape. Two shapes are selected at once now…or just drag the Selection tool over multiple shapes at the same time). 

Drag over the selected shapes with the Shape Builder tool…

…and one shape will be formed.

So that’s how I make line work and shapes in Illustrator. If I want to rearrange which shape is “in front” or “behind” another shape, I select the shape, right-click on it, go to Arrange>then Send to Back or Bring to Front.

If I want to make a duplicate of a shape, I select it with the Selection tool, click “alt” (on Windows) then drag the new shape away. Then I de-select it.

When building shapes, sometimes I have to “delete” part of a shape so that it doesn’t show up in the final illustration. For example, when I make pupils. To do this, I select the shapes that have to be edited: the iris, pupil, and the eye itself. The eye won’t change, but in order to make the iris and pupil fit inside the eye, I’ll have to select it. If I don’t then all I’ll manage to do is merge the iris and pupil together.

So after they’re all selected I use the Shape Builder tool and drag it over the part of the iris and pupil that I don’t want anymore. While doing this I hold the “alt” key down, so that when I’m done editing the eye, the extra shape will be deleted.

And finally the line work is DONE!

Now to add color. To change the color of a shape, I select it with the Selection tool then change the color from the Swatch window.

When the artwork is colored, I get into the intricacies of line work! I like bold line work, and I like to create tapering lines for legs, mouths, and other little details. To make a bold outer line, I select all the major shapes that form the “outside” of the image, make a copy of them, and send them to the back (Arrange>Send to Back)

To make the lines bold I change the stroke to a 5 pt. Oval (the upper left section is where the lines, or “strokes,” can be edited) then increase the stroke weight to 4 points.

I slide all the shapes back behind the “front” shapes like so.

For the front leg, I don’t want to keep the line work near the shoulder odd-looking like this.

So I use the Direct Selection tool, select the anchors at the shoulders, and move them around till I’m happy with how they look.

To further edit my lines I can select individual lines and change their shape from the “Uniform” line to any design I want. I like using this triangle-shaped line for whiskers and toes. Then I can edit the stroke width to be bigger or smaller.

And finally, a cat is born!

I’ll go over how I make backgrounds too. It’s not all that interesting though XD When I make backgrounds for my Warrior Cat drawings, I like to include patterns and gradients in them. First though, I make a simple shape.

I try to avoid tangents at all costs so I use the Direct Selection tool to move the anchor points and lines around the main drawing. (BTW a “tangent” is when two lines touch each other without intersecting. It isn’t the most desirable thing to have in a piece of art). For example, the edge of the background square touching the bottom of the cat’s foot forms a tangent.

When I’ve settled on a final design for the background shape, I make a pattern to fill it.

I like to keep my patterns simple, so for this one, I made a circle pattern. To make the pattern, select the shapes you want for the pattern…

…go to Object>Pattern>Make. A window will pop up saying that a new pattern has been added to the Swatches panel; click ok.

In the dialogue box to the far right, the pattern can be edited even further. When I’m done editing it I click “Done” in the upper left corner of the screen.

And a new pattern has been added to the Swatches! I make a duplicate of the background shape and change the Fill color to be the new pattern.

Then I slide the patterned box in front of the orange one, but behind the cat, then I adjust the opacity.

I make a third copy of the background shape, move it in front of the last two shapes, then click on the gradient box in the gradient window. It automatically makes a white and black gradient in the shape.

To edit the gradient I click on the Gradient tool in the Toolbar. Then I can adjust the direction of the gradient.

In the gradient window I can change the colors. I also change the opacity of the shape and switch it to “Overlay.”

I add a bold white line behind the illustration, add my watermark, and I’m done!

If I want to add shadows, I draw them over the illustration and adjust the opacity of the “shadow-shapes” till it looks decent. I change the shadow-shapes to “Multiply” as well. (I uh was just too lazy to add them to this pic but I have examples of cell-shading in a lot of my other pics).

Like I said, I’m not the best at explaining things, so here’s one of my speed drawings that show me using all the tools mentioned to make my drawings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hD3wA_pwn4k

To finish this long (and probably boring) post, Adobe Illustrator is a vector based program. It doesn’t utilize pixels—I am NOT eloquent enough to discuss the differences so here’s a few sites that do:

https://stinajones.co.uk/the-difference-between-vector-and-pixel-graphics/

https://www.printcnx.com/resources-and-support/addiational-resources/raster-images-vs-vector-graphics/

https://www.ionos.com/digitalguide/websites/web-design/pixel-graphics-vs-vector-graphics-a-comparison/

Anyway I hope this was useful, even if in a small way! If any other Illustrator artists have tips, tricks, or tutorials they’ve made or have found useful, please share!!

#long post #my art #tutorial #adobe illustrator #vector #digital art

[chickenscript]

if ur takin prompts, what do u think it would be like for mikey to befriend a human that's also an artist like him? (U dont have to write a whole fic or anything if u just wanna do headcanons that's fine!! love ur work too btw!!!)

- you guys are like honey and sugar.

- you share the whole i just have to get this down on paper feeling that comes around way too much. (your minds are both a catastrophe of ideas that want out)

- you spitball ideas and ask advice about how you should go about an art piece. ("How does this palette look?" "Should I go bigger?" "Should I expand on this idea I had the other day?" "How're the proportions on this?")

- you really like each other's style, and as such, tend to pick out little things you like the most to influence your own. but, you still draw pretty differently from one another, so when you collab on a project, it really shows.

- the pieces you make together are brilliant and stunning, even more when you use the city as your canvas. there are a ton of unused billboards and high up building faces that no one else dares to get to that you both have left your mark on.

- there's a combined tag you and mikey made that interlocks your nicknames in orange and what ever color you decide on that day. (you two have gotten a ton of followers that seek out each new piece and take snapshots of your work to post on social media. trying piece together who you are and it's made you guys new internet art sensations)

- you mostly run around to graffiti under the cover of night. (you have plenty of dark hued clothes to wear whenever you go on a witching hour adventure with any or all of the bros)

- you've gathered an army of art untensils, and between the two of you, you have every shade in the rainbow. mikey doesn't occasionally mention - very excitedly - a shade he doesn't have and really wants in any one of part of art media.

- you bet your ass you buy it for him that same week if you can.

- you also got him a mask to wear while your spray painting - the fumes are shit for your respitory. like yours, that has a lung dragon maw design you painted onto it, his has a smiley face sharpied on for character.

- the rucksack you and mikey use to carry the spray paint cans is covered in heaps of patches and buttons. a new one gets added every week or sooner when you find a new witty one that just has to be put on. (you've personally put a couple on leo's fanny pack and one of donnie's shells after he let you)

- your stock of utensils at the lair is in a wall cubby in mikey's room, and there's also plenty of those packaging stickers from post offices that you doodle on and slap everywhere and anywhere.

- you like being on transit and seeing the artwork you made together in glimpses while you're looking out a window on the train or bus.

- out of everything, you and mikey don't have body paint, but that doesn't stop you from drawing on each other.

- mikey also has a collection of glitter and gel pens - microns too, but he prefers blunt sharpies so he let's you have any microns he finds - he uses to draw on people, and you always end up going home with something vibrant scrawled on your arm or any other exposed skin mikey can get to.

- you've thought about commissioning mikey for a future tattoo before, but you think you'll just choose one of your favorite pieces from him and get it done as a surprise after your eighteenth birthday.

- you guys sketch when the whim comes, no matter what you're doing. so you either have a small sketchbook or flippad on your person. leo actually carries some of mikey's art supplies in his fanny pack upon a long ongoing request and it's part of routine when mikey asks for them and leo promptly digs them out.

- you and mikey see the world in a very colorful way, and you just have to mark it up as much as you can. including, half the time, mike's brothers.

- they're cool with it since mikey's been doing it for years now, and it makes you feel closer to them whenever you do it too.

- leo helps you two find city canvases since he tend to do a lot of exploratory travel around the city on his own - or with you, and you're always excited when you find a perfect spot for you and mikey's next project.

- you've gotten used to drawing with mikey, so it feels weird to do it without him.

- you showed him how to digital art, but he still prefers traditional.

- there have been a few mishaps before that involved breaking pens or spray cans, and well, no real artist can ever get art done without making a mess, right?

#rottmnt #rise of the teenage mutant turtles #x reader #reader insert #tmnt mikey #headcannons #whew #two posts in one day #a couple hours at the laundromat does that to a person ig #i imagine reader and mikey are just a pair of cuties #like #you can be sassy with donnie #punny with leo #soft with raph #and a bean with mikey #uwu #anon ask #prompt #answer #rottmnt headcannons #my writing

[istheresomebodywhocanimagine]

Hi!! I saw you were still doing ships and was curious who you'd see me with out of Queen and the Bo Rhap cast. I'm a Korean girl with straight, dark brown shoulder length hair with bangs and blackish, dark brown eyes. I'm pretty short at 5'3 and I love music (mainly classic rock) and art. I play violin, piano, and dabble in guitar, and I love drawing and photography. Btw, I absolutely adore your blog and writing! Looking forward to your new posts! Much love xx

hiiiii THANK U FOR THE LOVE ahhhh!!!

i had some trouble deciding between two of them for the queen ship but i think i’m just going to choose one and go w it 

ships r below the cut :))

For BoRhap, I ship you with Gwilym Lee!

Yes, yes, the height difference, I know! 

But I think that Gwilym would absolutely adore the height difference just as much as he would adore everything else about you.

Gwilym is 100% the type of boyfriend that is posting videos of you noodling on the guitar, or just idly playing tunes on the piano. But the reason you two had met was because of your photography.

He was looking for some new pieces to put up in his home, and had heard there was going to be a sort of freelance art market happening downtown, and your photography/artwork had caught his eye first. But when he looked up to see who was behind the stall’s table, he suddenly turned into a blundering schoolboy with a hopeless crush again.

“Beautiful work,” he’d commented, making you smile as you came around the table to see which piece he was looking at. He easily towered when you got next to his side, but it didn’t seem to bother either of you as you smiled up at him, receiving a charming smile in return.

"Thank you! Which one is your favorite?”

“I think I favor this one the most.” He pointed to a beautiful landscape photograph you’d blown up onto a bigger canvas, watching as you scanned it for a moment, familiarity running through your eyes. “The color is phenomenal.”

“That’s one of my favorites too. I have it hanging in my apartment,” you’d replied, looking up at him again and admiring the way he was so responsive to all of your words, right from the jump. It showed you he was listening, and it was rare to find a man at these markets that absolutely respected your craftsmanship and didn’t try to mansplain your own work to you.

“Oh really? Where at?” Gwilym asked, intrigued that you both found a favorite in the same piece. His eyes twinkled with curiousity, and you found that your heart was racing as you raised an eyebrow at him teasingly.

“That’s quite a personal question to be asking before you even get my number first.”

He began to apologize profusely, his cheeks turning pink as he smiled sheepishly. “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be nosy! I was just looking for some work for my house and-” 

“I’m just joking, no worries,” you giggled, giving him a gentle nudge. “I know these things can get a bit stuffy and seem too serious, so why don’t I do this?” You walked back around the table, pulling out one of your cards before uncapping a pen and and writing a note on the back, then handing it to him. “If you’d like to buy the print, here’s my card so we can talk more about sizes and pricing.”

Gwilym smiled as he took the card, putting it in the breast pocket of his button up as he chewed on his lip, trying to single out whether you were flirting or not. “For business discussions, right?” he asked, although the way he smiled said otherwise.

“Oh, absolutely,” you agreed with the same smile, and then you were off to talk to a new possible customer as Gwilym walked away, reading the note you’d left on the back of your card along with your cell.

It’s above my piano, if you’d really care to know. :) xxx-xxx-xxxx

Once you two had finally started dating a few months later, Gwilym found any excuse to make you play the piano. Sometimes, he actually even pretended he wanted you to give him lessons, which consisted more of you playing and Gwilym watching you with complete ardor in his eyes.

“Wait, I missed that last part - play it again,” he’d insisted one time, smiling sheepishly as you rolled your eyes playfully at the obvious attempt to get you to play again so he could record it.

“If you miss it one more time, you’re in trouble, mister.” With that, you restarted the brief piece you’d just played, Gwilym sneakily holding his phone up to record you from over your opposite shoulder while your fingers moved expertly over the keys, not missing a single note. 

When you finally stopped and realized it wasn’t just his hand on your other shoulder, you laughed and grabbed at his phone, which he retracted quickly and shoved into his pocket as you wrapped your arms around his neck, trying to stop him from running off. But he easily just pulled you up off the bench with him, and you had to ride all the way over to the couch dangling off of him and laughing.

Finally falling back on the couch, he landed with a small ‘oof’ as you fell on top of him, giggling. “I ought to get you for that one, Gwil.”

“You’re too cute to be threatening,” he murmured, giving you a wide grin before quickly kissing your nose. Your hair fell down over his face just slightly, so he tucked it back behind your ear as you tried to look grumpy with him, failing miserably.

“You’re too cute to be mad at, that’s so annoying,” you sighed dramatically, moving down a bit to rest your head on his chest as you pouted. But Gwilym’s hand running back through your hair soon made you forget why were were upset with him, and you were about to ask him if he really wanted to learn piano when an Instagram notification popped up on your phone, making it buzz in your pocket.

Pulling it out of your pocket, you saw Gwilym had tagged you in something, and you opened it to see the video of you playing, the ending showing you laughing and grabbing for the camera before it went dark.

“You turd!” you gasped melodramatically, pretending to pin him down as you attempted to look as mean as you could. “I’m going to get you for that one for real this time!”

But Gwilym’s hands quickly subdued you when they went to your sides and started to tickle relentlessly, his lips matching the frantic pace of his fingers as he peppered kisses all over your face, making you squeal and giggle in pure delight. 

For Queen, I struggled between Roger and Brian, but I officially picked Roger Taylor! 

Although I think you would fit just as well with Brian, I wanted to pick Roger for the reason that I think you have some similarities, but you possess differences that would make a perfect pair that learns from each other!

Seeing your similarities with Brian, I actually think that you would originally meet Roger through Brian. We’ll say that you helped Brian on his solo project, and when Roger needed some help on his concerning some keyboard parts, you were the first person Brian recommended.

What Brian didn’t count on was Roger pretty much stealing you from him - as soon as you two met, you hit it off, and you spent more and more time around Roger, which took away from the time Brian usually had to shoot the shit with you and smooth things over after studio hours. 

But when he saw the way you were around each other, Brian seemed not to mind as much anymore.

“Oh, that was beautiful! Play that again, and put a little-” Roger made a gesture mimicking a slam of a single chord, “at the end, to round it off.”

“Yes sir, Mr. Piano Expert,” you teased, and Roger laughed as he waved off your playfully patronizing of him. Brian was watching from one of the chairs in the booth, where he was fiddling with a guitar that Roger needed him to play a few riffs on for one of his songs.

Brian couldn’t help but notice the way Roger watched your face instead of your hands when you played. Sure, he glanced at your hands every once in a while, but he was increasingly focused on your impressions as you played, and when he realized that Brian had noticed, he sent him a quick middle finger behind your back while you began to finish up. 

When you played the single slam chord to end it, Roger cheered, giving you a quick kiss on the cheek before starting to babble on about how he couldn’t wait to hear your parts on the songs after final production.

When final production had actually taken place and they had their end product, Roger invited you over to his place to take a listen. 

So you curled up on the couch together, listening to his album with a bottle of wine and a Polaroid camera, which you kept taking pictures of Roger with. Although he was no stranger to the lens, he kept insisting that you should be the one in front of the camera, not him. To keep him from stealing the camera from you, you’d sat at the other end of the couch.

“Oh, you’re full of it,” you laughed, raising the camera to your eye before taking another pic and pulling it out once it had dispensed fully. Climbing to your feet, you sat the camera down carefully before you tiptoed over to the drawers on one of his cabinets, setting the photo in it and closing it so it could develop properly. 

Before you turned, you could hear the familiar click of the shutter and the grin on Roger’s face when you turned said it all as he sat the camera back down, then stretched out on the couch with the developing photo. “I bet you look so cute in it.”

“I bet it’s blurry,” you teased, coming back over and crawling back onto the couch with him, letting him curl up around you and grabbing your glass of wine again as he did so. “Could be a bum shot.”

“Oh, it was definitely a bum shot.” You groaned as you realized the double meaning too late, and you reached back to give him a very gentle smack on the shoulder as he cracked up at himself, making you roll your eyes playfully. 

He got comfortable as he wrapped an arm around your waist, pulling you close while occasional chuckles still shook his body. “You are something else, Roger.”

“It was funny, admit it,” he giggled gleefully, pressing kisses to your shoulder as he went back to listening to his album, rubbing circles on your tummy with his thumb. “You love me.”

“If you say so.”

“Hey!”

[templeofgeek]

Artist Alex Gross art is some of the most unique we’ve seen.  It’s a perfect blend of pop culture, pure imagination, and realism.  As he says it’s hard to describe but he has a definite style and it’s absolutely beautiful. We interviewed Alex on his art and how he broke the internet…

How would you describe your art to our readers?

I’m not big on describing myself. it’s so easy these days to just look at images. i’m a painter, is the simple explanation that i tend to give. some of my work deals with pop culture. alexgross.com is the other answer i give

Your “Mix Media” collection is amazing, taking antique photos and giving them an “upgrade”. How did that come about? 

i started collecting old photos, and specifically cabinet card photos, a long time ago. i’m not sure how, but the idea occurred to me at some point to try painting on some of them, because i had so many. at first i played around with collage and other experimental stuff on them. many ended up in the trash bin. then, i stumbled upon the idea of making them into characters from pop culture. this gave me direction, and also resulted in far fewer disasters. half of the challenge these days is finding the right card for the right character(s). for example, i wanted to do a darth vader with young luke and leia as kids. i found just one card on ebay that was right for it, a father with his two young children. when that happens, it almost feels destined to happen somehow.

You have a lot of superheroes and Star Wars in your collection, is there one fandom you prefer creating over the other? 

comic books and super heroes was always my first love as a kid. it’s how i learned to draw. copying the drawings in marvel comics, and i even had a book called “How to draw comics the marvel way.” but when star wars came along, i was also immediately on board. i got all the toys and loved it as well. by the time ‘return of the jedi’ came out,  i was over it. but now, i have enjoyed many of the sequels, especially “Rogue One,” which i think is the third best star wars film. so, it’s hard to say that i prefer one over the other, but if pressed, superheroes probably would win out.

Other than the geeky stuff, where else do you draw inspiration from? 

i love to paint other stuff too. the geeky pop culture artwork is just a part of my overall body of work. i love to work with models, photographing them and creating paintings based on more psychological and surreal scenarios. this gives me more control, because when i paint pop culture characters, i am very dependant on finding existing imagery of those characters. but when i paint a model i have shot, i have already taken hundreds of photos and can decide how i want her to be lit, the setting, etc.

“Compulsion” has a somewhat hidden Spock… what reaction do you usually get from that? 

“Compulsion” has Spock, and “Diversions” has Batman, in the same way. Both of them have completely broken the internet, so to speak. Comments on both pieces on social media have skewed heavily towards those points. Some folks seem to get the joke. But it’s amazing how many people don’t seem to understand the humor involved. or they just think i’m stupid. i already have another piece in this series planned for spring, and i’ve got a good idea about who the “Spock” of that piece will be as well.

Gross , 4/6/18, 10:31 AM, 8C, 8774×9298 (201+1231), 150%, Repro 1.8 v2, 1/25 s, R65.5, G61.6, B82.6

What came first for you the geeky stuff or the art? 

as i said above, it was all about comics for me as a kid. this was long before marvel movies were mainstream. i was, and still am at heart, a comic nerd.

When did you realize that you could make your talent into a career?  Was there a specific time that made you realize it? 

i was always pretty good at art in school, but it was not clear to me what i would do with it. i planned to draw comic books for a long time actually. then, with some nudging from my parents, i went to a regular university for a year. this was the university of Virginia, a huge school (founded by Thomas Jefferson btw). within a few months, i had a regular comic strip appearing in their daily newspaper, and it was clear that art should be where i put my attention. so, after a year there, i applied to art school, and came to California to go to art center college of design. although going to UVA was sort of a lost year for me, i think being in a bigger pond, so to speak, and seeing that even as a freshman, i was regarded as a good artist there, helped solidify my feelings about doing art. of course, once i got to art center, it was a whole other story. i was not even close to the top talent there, and i learned that it was all about hard work.

Camera Setup: “BetterLight 6150 | IR 2mm | NorthLight 900W”, Artwork Image: “Alex Gross 6-28-16_2.tif”, Artwork Colors: “Oil Paints.txt”, White Image: “Alex Gross 6-28-16_4.tif”, White Colors: “Foamcore White.txt”, Yoked Image: “Alex Gross 6-28-16_2_yoked.tif”

Camera Setup: “BetterLight 6150 | IR 2mm | NorthLight 900W”, Artwork Image: “Alex Gross 8-16-16_2.tif”, Artwork Colors: “Oil Paints.txt”, White Image: “Alex Gross 8-16-16_3.tif”, White Colors: “Foamcore White.txt”, Yoked Image: “Alex Gross 8-16-16_2_yoked.tif”

Gross 11-10-17, 11/10/17, 10:10 AM, 8C, 8882×8792 (0+1551), 150%, Repro 1.8 v2, 1/25 s, R74.5, G70.6, B91.6

Any advice for young artists out there? 

see last sentence above. it’s all about working hard. i don’t think you’ll find many successful artists, or any other creatives, who haven’t worked very hard to get where they are. once you’re in the world, there are plenty of people with natural talent. that only gets you so far. you have to put in the time. also, try to marry someone rich!

What’s the strangest commission request you’ve had and did you do it?

i tell people with commissions that i like to create most of the image on my own, but if they have someone they want included in the work, i can try to accommodate that. i had a request to put Vladimir Putin in a painting, which was fun. i included him in another painting after that too, not for the client.

Where can our readers find you next?

I will do some new cabinet card paintings for the LA Art Show. I have two huge cards that are group shots, very ambitious images, that i am transforming. they will be exhibited with Arcadia Contemporary Gallery at the LA Art Show in January 2019. thats http://www.arcadiacontemporary.com and the show is January 23-27th. i am also doing one or two oil paintings on canvas for this show. it’s a huge art fair, so it’s exciting to be a part of it.

Artist Interview: Alex Gross Artist Alex Gross art is some of the most unique we've seen.  It's a perfect blend of pop culture, pure imagination, and realism. 

#Avengers #Batman #Captain America #Comic-Con #Comics #Conventions #DC Comics #Disney #Gaming #GEEK #Han Solo #Marvel #Marvel Cinematic Universe #Movies #Spider-Man #Star Wars #Temple of Geek #Wonder Woman

[breaksandbites]

Dubai never fails to astonish me, it is the part of world which is always happening and buzzing with events all year round. The love is immensely increased in winters, when the weather is just perfect to be outdoors. On top of that, the weather these days is absolute loooovvveee <3 I swear! It has been more than 3 weeks since we are enjoying clouds and light rain every now and then here in Dubai which is so unusual about this ‘Paradise in Desert’ city.

As you all know my in-laws are visiting us these days that is why I have not been able to post much. Anyhow; guests visiting, killer weather on a weekend and so many festivities going around is a deadly combo I tell you. We went to witness the last match (of Dubai, the final is going to be in Lahore – Pakistan tonight) of PSL 2017 which was a thrilling experience with full packed sold out house at Dubai International Cricket Stadium on Friday.

And on Saturday we explored two of the most talked about events of town this weekend, thought to tell you all a bit about those so that you can jump in one of them or both the next weekend if you haven’t got a chance to visit them till now, just in case.

Etisalat Beach Canteen

We randomly opted to visit the Etisalat beach canteen set up at Kites beach Dubai which is a part of Dubai Food Festival. It is one out of many locations that are participating in the said festival. The place is full of food; from masala tea to pasta, burgers, sliders, ice cream and what not. So much food options coupled with breathtaking beach views, kitesurfers and Burj al Arab in sight with some shopping options too makes it a perfect day out for the family. One word for the set up – “Idyll“!!

It will last up till 11th of March 2017, make sure you visit it over the weekend before they wrap it up. Don’t miss out the time lapse video of sunset that is added after the pictures below.

The spell binding panoramic view of the beach

Sun peeking through the clouds

This beauty follows you everywhere :D

Enjoying the awesome weather

us <3

E loves playing in sand and I know she needs a haircut very badly

Kitesurfer at sunset

leaving behind my prints

After the sunset – Burj al arab in view

Flamingos at beach

They welcome you with these Arabic delights

Delicious Vanilla Panna Cotta with Strawberry sauce – they were serving this for tasting

Play area at the canteen

The Directions

Bigger and better

Dubai Canvas

We had literally no plans of visiting the said event which is a wonderful 3D art festival being held at City Walk Dubai but I had to pay a visit at Sephora to collect my loyalty points gifts before the voucher expires and Sephora city walk outlet being the closest one to our home was chosen to do the honors… Lol. The festival is scheduled from March 1st to 7th but I am assuming the art works will be up for display for a little more time. We had an amazing time posing with the painted 3D images, hats off to the painters who have done an awesome job and came quite close to create the optical illusions. Definitely worth visiting guys, see for yourself!

Let’s paint

Yes I <3 Dubayyy

Flying away

posinggg

:D

E is clearly not interested

E was fascinated by trees’ eyes

Burj never leaves us :D

;)

The Japanese food stalls are also located there as a part of Dubai Food Festival and they are offering free tasting to all – anyone up for sushi? btw this was some dessert we tasted. 

Dinner at Maharaja Bhog

My Mother in Law was interested in having an Indian thali dinner and Maharaja bhog came up with most liked restaurant upon googling since we don’t have any idea about the traditional Indian restaurants much, suggest me some for next time please :). It was a pure veggie Rajasthani style restaurant where we were treated as Mughal emperors… Lol. The food was good, I’d give a 3.5 star rating on taste but I loved their service and hospitality, full stars on it.

The thali – it costs around 43 AED per head

The Paan :D

This was about my crazy weekending peeps, both the festivals are stupendous and worth a visit. Plan your next weekend accordingly, thank me later ;)

Enjoyyy

Things to do in Dubai this weekend Dubai never fails to astonish me, it is the part of world which is always happening and buzzing with events all year round.

#dubaicanvas #dubaifoodfest #etisalatbeachcanteen #MyDubai #3D art festival #city walk dubai #dubai international cricket stadium #dubai weather #dubai winters #Indian veg restaurant #kites beach #Maharaja Bhog #psl 2017 #rajasthani cuisine #sold out stadium #sunset at kites beach #Thali dinner

[ormlacom]

8 Predictions for SEO in 2017

Something every woman should know - WHY MEN LIE!

Posted by randfish

It's that time again, friends... That time where I grade my 2016 predictions to see whether I've got the clout and foresight to get another shot in 2017. This year is gonna be really close, as I was more aggressive last year than in prior ones, so let's see where we end up, and what I've got to say for the next 12 months.

As always, my predictions will be graded on the following scale:

Nailed It (+2) – When a prediction is right on the money and the primary criteria are fulfilled

Partially Accurate (+1) – Predictions that are in the area, but are somewhat different than reality

Not Completely Wrong (-1) – Those that landed near the truth, but couldn't be called "correct" in any real sense

Way Off (-2) – Guesses which didn't come close

If I'm at breakeven or above, you can have more trust for what I'll posit for the year ahead. If not... Doom! Well, OK, maybe not doom. But at least shame and embarrassment and what I hope are lots of hilarious tweets at my expense.

Grading Rand's 2016 Predictions

#1: Data will reveal Google organic results to have <70% CTR

+2 – I won big with this one, though it was one of my more conservative projects. According to our clickstream data gathered in the summer, approximately 40% of Google searches do not garner any clicks at all. Granted, some of those are probably Google autocompleting a query before the searcher has finished typing, but given the threshold of 70%, I've got plenty of room to spare.

#2: Mobile will barely cut in to desktop's usage and its growth rate in developed countries will slow

+1 – I'm giving myself a conservative point here because while Google's mobile growth has appeared to have slightly more of a plateauing impact (data via SimilarWeb Pro, which shows Google on desktop at ~51% in 2015, down to ~49% in 2016, with mobile the reverse) on desktop search volume in the US, I have been unable to find data on the growth of mobile/desktop in developing countries. If someone has a source to help me better refine this prediction, please leave it in the comments.

BTW — I'll grant that SimilarWeb's data on Google usage probably isn't perfect, but they have enough of a sample set that the shift in mix from desktop to mobile is likely statistically significant and thus, the trend's probably accurate.

#3: Twitter will figure out how to grow again

-1 – While Twitter did indeed grow monthly active users in 2016 (from 305mm to 317mm) compared to 2015 (when they only grew from 302–305mm), that was a very low bar. Growth is growth, but I don't think Twitter has truly "figured out" how to grow yet. Maybe they'll take a page from Hunter Walk or Anil Dash.

#4: Social content engines will become a force

-1 – This is a tough one... SimilarWeb shows Pocket down in the overall app rankings but up as a referring source, and up on the mobile & desktop web with more engaged users on the platform. Meanwhile, Nuzzel has grown ~30% on the web (again, according to SimilarWeb). Instapaper and Feedly seem to be doing well, but not exceptionally so. I think these apps are a force in the influencer world, but their success breaking into the mainstream seems, as yet, limited.

#5: Yext will IPO, prompting even more interest in the world of local listings

-2 – I'm shocked I missed this one. I think Yext is probably still a likely IPO candidate in the next 12 months, but credit to them for staying private longer and building up for what I'm guessing will be a strong public offering.

#6: The death of normal distributions will hit both publishing and search results hard

+2 – Tragically, we did indeed see more consolidation, the loss of more news sources and networks, and the continued domination of Google's search results by the few over the many. I showed off our clickstream data on this in my MozCon intro:

#7: The rise of adblocking is going to trigger attempts at legislation and incite more sites to restrict adblocking users

-1 – One out of two isn't bad, but since my primary prediction was around legislation, I'll stay conservative and deduct a point. We did certainly see more sites, particularly ad-driven sites, shifting to subscriptions and getting much more aggressive in their treatment of adblocking users. Mashable wrote about how it appears, from many reports, that adblocking itself seems to have leveled off in 2016, which few would have predicted. Maybe the savvy users who wanted to avoid ads have all done their bit and most of the rest of the web's users don't mind ads all that much? Or maybe just not enough to do anything about it.

#8: DuckDuckGo will be the fastest-growing search engine of 2016

+2 – Barring perfect data for things like Amazon's Alexa/Echo (which is arguably a personal assistant, not a search engine) or for Google itself (which probably grew searches in the 10–15% range), it looks like this was spot on. Pretty impressive to see DuckDuckGo go from 8,606,321 searches per day on January 2nd, 2016 to 11,183,864 per day on January 2nd, 2017 — 30% year-over-year growth.

#9: Content marketing software for the non-enterprise will finally emerge

+1 – There's no clear, breakout market leader in content marketing software for SMBs (Canva might be on the brink). But, there are a lot of players and a few in strong positions. I'm not seeing any with tens of millions in pure SMB revenue, hence only one point, but this is a market space that even today is hotter than the SEO software space has ever been. There are at least 50 content marketing software companies with VC backing who have SMB offerings. In SEO, I don't think more than 5 companies have ever raised VC (versus private investment). And those 50 companies (plus the many private and unfunded ones) probably combine to serve a lot of customers, possibly more than the few SMB-focused SEO software companies ever have.

#10: The "big" trends for 2016: Wearables, VR, smart home, and Internet of Things will have almost no impact on the world of web marketing (yet)

-1 – I'm going to say that voice search applications that circumvent the web (and, thus, web marketing) are at least on the verge of having an impact on at least search, and possibly other channels soon too ("Alexa, read my Facebook feed to me so I don't have to see the ads.")

FINAL 2016 SCORE: +2

Whew! Just made it... Let's see what's on deck for the 12 months to come.

Rand's 8 Predictions for 2017

#1: Voice search will be more than 25% of all US Google searches within 12 months. Despite this, desktop volume will stay nearly flat and mobile (non-voice) will continue to grow.

I'm going out on a limb with this by predicting what most aren't — that voice search won't actually cannibalize desktop or typed mobile searches, but will instead just add on top of it. Today, between 20–25% of mobile queries are voice, but oddly, Google said in May 2016 the number was 20% whereas in September 2010, they'd said 25%. Either voice has been relatively flat, or the old number was incorrect.

KPCB's 2016 Trends report suggests the growth in voice search is higher, using implied Google Trends data (which, as those of us in SEO know, can be a dangerous, messy assumption). Clickstream data sampling and sources that track referrals (like SimilarWeb Pro) are likely better ways to measure the impact of cannibalization, and hopefully Google themselves (or third-party data sources with direct access) will report on the relative growth of voice to validate this.

In my opinion, voice search is the first true high-risk technology shift ever faced by the SEO world. If we see it cannibalize a substantive portion of search activity, we may find a pot that's been growing for 20 years is suddenly (possibly rapidly) shrinking. I'm still bullish on search growing for the next 2–3 years, but I'm watching the data carefully, as should we all.

#2: Google will remain the top referrer of website traffic by 5X+. Neither Facebook, nor any other source, will make a dent.

Here's SimilarWeb's breakdown for who sends traffic on the web:

I'd generally ignore "direct" as those include HTTPS->HTTP referrals that pass no referral string, every opening of every browser and browser tab, bookmarks, links from apps that don't carry referrals, etc. The data below is where I pay attention. There, Google is ~11X bigger than Facebook, which is ~1.5X YouTube.

My prediction is that Google continues to dominate, no matter the prognostications about Facebook or Snapchat or Amazon or anyone else making inroads to the overall traffic pie.

#3: The Marketing Technology space will not have much consolidation (fewer exits and acquisitions, by percentage, than 2015 or 2016), but there will be at least one major exit or IPO among the major SEO software providers.

Scott Brinker has been helpfully tracking the growth and changes to the marketing software landscape over the last decade, and there's been a metric ton of new entrants.

But, oddly enough, SEO has always remained a small player in the software world. The vast majority of the companies and tools in the list below are private, unfunded, and have annual revenues of <$1mm. A few larger players exist, but in every other marketing tech category, there's at least one player at 2–10X the size of our entire market combined.

Part of this is because very few entrepreneurs in the space have chosen to go the VC-backed, billions-or-bust route vs. pursue the relatively higher success and survival rates offered by small investors or bootstrapping. Part of it is because SEO as an industry is dependent on Google, which creates risk that many entrepreneurs and investors dislike. And part is because SEO has a bad reputation thanks to its shady past and a few spammy operators.

In 2017, I believe we'll see very little acquisition or IPO activity from martech players. But I think we will see one of the major SEO software players (most probably Yext, Searchmetrics, SEMRush, Brightedge, Conductor, STAT, Rio SEO, Sistrix, Yoast, or Moz itself) have a major exit. An IPO would make our field vastly more interesting to analysts and potentially investors and entrepreneurs, too. A large exit could start a wave of consolidation.

#4: Google will offer paid search ads in featured snippets, knowledge graph, and/or carousels.

In 2016, Google put shopping ads in image search, rolled out ads in local packs, and increased the number of top ads in AdWords to 4 (which can dominate many top-of-fold SERPs). Despite this, paid CTRs have been pretty flat.

Merkle/RKG data is awesomely transparent, but of course biased by the sites that use the agency and share their analytics/AdWords data. Directionally, it's usually solid, particularly on metrics like paid CTR, and I trust that it's rarely going to be way off. Their data also matches nicely to our own clickstream analyses, showing that 1.5%–2.5% of all search queries result in a click on a paid ad.

#5: Amazon search will have 4% or more of Google's web search volume by end of year.

You might have seen a report noting that Amazon is "beating" Google as the place consumers start their product searches. Unfortunately, that report used survey data, and we're all familiar with how poor web users are at estimating how they actually behave online.

Moz's clickstream data was more revealing here, showing that Amazon's probably ~2% the overall search volume of Google. You could certainly make the argument that perhaps only 4% of all Google searches are for products, and thus, Amazon is neck-and-neck. I suspect Google's still winning here, but my prediction is that Amazon will grow their search penetration and volume, in part thanks to Alexa/Echo, and in part because of their formidable Prime strategy, to be 4% or more of Google (doubling where they were this past summer).

#6: Twitter will remain independent, and remain the most valuable and popular network for publishers and influencers.

It's very in vogue to rag on Twitter — their share price has sunk. Their growth has been tepid. Trolls and abuse plague the platform and many of Twitter's leaders are culturally locked-in to a focus on "free speech" over improving the platform for abused and marginalized groups. Buzzfeed's report on these trends reveals a deep cultural rift that seems to be hurting the platform still.

Despite this, I'm bullish on Twitter remaining the most powerful way for publishers and influencers to connect, share, and converse. The platform's open systems (versus the closed ecosystems of Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, etc) and its huge media presence give it a hard-to-catch lead in this field. That, and no one else seems to be trying, possibly because Twitter hasn't shown the growth that closed networks like Facebook have.

My other prediction, that Twitter remains independent, is a thorny and unpopular one. Supposedly, Twitter's put itself up for sale, but the bidders have been less than excited (or perhaps the premium the company is seeking is simply too high). In 2017, I think we'll continue to see an independent Twitter, growing revenue and users slower than Wall Street wants, but maintaining their cultural and influencer status.

#7: The top 10 mobile apps will remain nearly static for the year ahead, with, at most, one new entrant and 4 or fewer position changes.

Mobile apps have been a bugbear for many big brands, marketers, and app creators. While apps have dominated time spent on mobile, apart from games, the money to be made and that precious time spent is almost all flowing to the top few apps.

Nielsen reported that Amazon broke into the top 10 this year, but apart from that, it's been fairly quiet in the rankings shakeups at the head of the app curve. What's scarier is that Google and Facebook own a full 8 of the top 10 apps, and those apps are responsible for more than 90% of all app activity.

This is a winner-take-all market, and one with a surprisingly short tail to its demand curve. I'm predicting almost no change in 2017. Apps will be dominated by these few. For SEOs, apps continue to provide some extra ranking opportunities, mostly in mobile on Android (and a little less on iOS), but the "App Takeover" of SERPs and mobile search never appeared. Hopefully, you didn't over-invest in the trend!

#8: 2017 will be the year Google admits publicly they use engagement data as an input to their ranking systems, not just for training/learning

2016 saw Google backtracking a bit on the issue of search/visit/click/pogostick data, most saliently via Paul Haahr's excellent slide deck, How Google Works: An Ranking Engineer's Perspective.

Since then, there have been fewer dismissals of this fact than in the past, but some Googlers have maintained in public talks and on Twitter that query and click data cannot influence rankings (which we've proven over and over is highly improbable). I'm proud of Google for their work over the last few years to be generally less misleading and more open on issues of how their search engine works (subfolders vs subdomains being one of the continuing outliers where statements don't match reality). I'm hopeful this extends into the realm of engagement data because I believe it would have a real and positive impact on how many brands, publishers, and content creators of all kinds on the web think about what they create. The story in many circles is still "links + keywords," and the nuance that low-engagement content (and sites) will, over time, underperform even if they do these right, would be a great nudge in a positive direction.

Now it's your turn — where do you think I'm right? Wrong? Crazy? And what predictions are you making for SEO and search marketing in 2017?

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