#i need to get back to drawing full pieces

[amirasainz]

Hey could I request one where mini alonso meets the wags and takes a liking to Alexandra and lily zneimer.

Enjoy reading and send some requests!!!

-xoxo babygirl 💕

Princess Make-Up

The paddock was alive with the familiar hum of engines, chatter, and clinking coffee cups, but today, something — or rather someone — was stealing the spotlight. Three-year-old Yn Alonso, sporting a pair of sparkly play high heels, oversized sunglasses, and a mini Disney handbag, strutted alongside her father, Fernando, with all the confidence of a seasoned model. The F1 paddock, usually reserved for roaring engines and serious faces, had suddenly transformed into her personal runway.

Fernando chuckled as he watched his little girl prance with exaggerated steps, clearly relishing in the attention. "Where did you learn to walk like that, mi princesa?" he asked, amusement flickering in his eyes.

Yn pushed her sunglasses up her nose with a dramatic flair, barely glancing back at her father. "Papá, I'm busy. I need to get to my fans," she replied, her voice full of sass as she twirled around, causing a few members of the pit crew to chuckle.

As they made their way through the paddock, they encountered several drivers lounging around. Oscar, Lando, and Carlos were chatting near McLaren’s hospitality area when they spotted the duo.

"Well, well, who’s this little superstar?" Carlos grinned, kneeling down to Yn's level. "Can I get an autograph?"

Yn looked at him over the rim of her sunglasses, one eyebrow raised in an unintentional imitation of her father. "Hmmm, maybe later," she said nonchalantly, waving her tiny hand. "I’m busy right now."

Lando laughed. "I think you’ve been dethroned, Fernando. She’s got more attitude than half the drivers here."

Fernando took a sip of his espresso, an amused smirk on his face. "Oh, trust me, I know."

Just then, Lily, Oscar’s girlfriend, walked over, giving Yn a warm smile. “Well, aren’t you just the cutest little princess I’ve ever seen?”

Yn's face lit up. "Princess?" she gasped, her eyes widening as she took in Lily’s perfect hair and stylish outfit. She tugged on her father's sleeve excitedly. "Papá, she’s a princess!"

Lily crouched down, her eyes softening. “Of course I am. But I think you’re the real princess here.” She held out her hand, and Yn immediately placed her tiny hand in it, looking up at her in awe.

Yn took a step closer, her voice dropping to a whisper. "We could be princesses together," she proposed, as if revealing a grand secret.

Lily laughed, absolutely charmed. "Oh, I would love that."

Seeing his daughter’s pure delight, Fernando couldn’t help but chuckle. He leaned back, sipping his espresso with a relaxed smile. He hadn’t seen Yn this animated around anyone besides him.

As they continued their little princess chat, Yn noticed Lily had a compact mirror out, carefully touching up her lipstick. Intrigued, Yn dug into her tiny handbag and pulled out her wooden play makeup set, the pieces worn but clearly loved. She opened a pretend lipstick and began mimicking Lily’s movements with utter seriousness.

“Oh my gosh, is that your makeup set?” Lily asked, amused.

Yn nodded proudly. "Yup! This is my special makeup. It’s got sparkles," she explained, applying her invisible lipstick with practiced precision. "Do you like it?"

“I love it,” Lily assured her, applying her real lipstick while Yn kept at her imaginary one. The two of them giggled and compared "lipstick" shades, drawing quite the audience.

Lando crossed his arms, watching the scene unfold with a look of fake jealousy. “What happened? I used to be Yn’s favorite,” he said with a dramatic sigh.

Oscar nudged him. “Mate, you’ve been replaced. Look at them — they’re a royal duo now.”

Carlos shook his head, sighing. "This is hard to watch," he said with a grin. "I don’t think we’ll ever be able to compete."

Fernando watched, a smirk playing on his lips as he listened to the drivers' banter. "I guess you boys just don’t have what it takes," he said, chuckling.

Lily, noticing the crowd, gave Yn an encouraging look. “Should we show everyone our princess wave?”

Yn, always up for a new challenge, nodded. Together, they held their hands up in that classic royal wave, greeting the imaginary crowds. The drivers chuckled and applauded, while Yn, clearly delighted by the attention, curtsied as best as she could in her little heels.

After a while, Yn seemed to remember something very important. She ran over to her father, practically leaping into his arms. “Papá! Can Lily come with us forever?” she asked, looking up at him with hopeful eyes.

Fernando raised an eyebrow, trying to keep a straight face. "Forever, hmm? Well, princesa, that might be a bit tricky. Lily has to stay with Oscar, remember?"

Yn looked over at Oscar, clearly considering this dilemma. She furrowed her little brow. "Hmm. Oscar can come too, I guess."

The entire group burst into laughter, with Oscar raising his hands in mock surrender. "Well, I don’t mind being part of the Alonso crew,” he said with a grin.

Lily smiled, patting Yn’s shoulder. “How about I come visit you as often as I can, okay?”

Yn nodded happily, seeming satisfied with this arrangement. She grabbed Lily’s hand and led her back to their “makeup session” while the drivers continued to watch, each one more smitten with Yn than the next.

Fernando took another sip of his espresso, a soft smile on his face. "Better get used to it, boys. She’s got the Alonso charm."

[gaywineauntsstuff]

Birthdays

Dicks starts a tradition, for every first birthday one of his loved ones spends with him, he gives them a part of his heart.

Jason: Dick isn't there for Jasons first birthday at the manor because well... he isn't exactly welcome at the manor but he snuck Jason his number weeks in advance to make sure Jay would be at his crappy apartment the day after his birthday. And he gives Jason a collection of poetry his mother had written while they had traveled around the world. He had memorised all of them many years ago but he wanted to give Jason something tangible to connect them together. He might not be related to Bruce, he might not be Jason's brother by law or blood but Jason carries the robin name and Mary Graysons words so he is Dick's brother no matter what Bruce wants to say about it. Some of the poems aren't in English but they all flow beautifully and are written in the same black swirling script. Jason cries real tears and clings to Dick because this isn't something he can say he's had before. When Jason died, Dick took it from Jays room because he didn't allow it to be part of a mausoleum for his brother he wasn't going to let it be part of one for his brother.

After Jason comes back to life, and he's left Gotham he finds that familiar notebook in a safe-house he was sure Nightwing didn't know about with a post-it note on top reading.

I'm so glad you're back little wing

-DG

Tim: Dick and Alfred celebrate Tims birthday alone and Dick knows that Tim is struggling with who he is and his place in the family. Jason needed connection Tim needed purpose. Tim needed something to do to prove his value so on Tim's 13th birthday Dick teaches him the quadruple summersault. he teaches Tim the Full-Twisting Shaposhnikova his mother's favourite move on the bars and the moors. They spend all day practicing together until Tim can do a loose approximation of as many of his parent's signature moves as they can squeeze into one day. And every time Dick sees Tim for the next two months he asks for a spotter and they spend two odd hours practicing the moves. Tim never ends up incorporating the Flying Grayson's moves into his fighting style but he starts to follow Dicks habit of getting up high when he's stressed and working out all his frustration by practicing those moves over and over again until his body is pleasantly sore. Sometimes when Dick is on undercover missions, Tim will do one of the routines to help with the fact he cant reach his brother.

Damian: canonically Dick gave Damian a trapeze bar but that was long into his Robin tenure I believe it was after the Lazarus island debacle. So I think that by the. time Damians 11th birthdays rolls around, Dick and Damian have a pretty solid relationship and the first thing Dick would have given Damian was his father's unfinished sketchbook which contained the original designs for the robin costume. This book is Thick and its not like a modern sketchbook no, John Grayson found this leather bound monstrosity in Egypt and paid pennies for it. Its so dense that its filled with about 3 years of drawings and still has more the half of its pages a yellowed blank canvas. Damian, who is naturally talented at art and was encouraged by Dick to try and find non-vigilante methods of enjoyment has already taken up drawing months prior but this gets him to start practicing with fervour. He tries hard to mimic John Grayson's art style before eventually giving up at trying to create identical pieces and just incorporates various techniques the man used. For Dicks birthday that year he gifts him a portrait of his late parents but unlike the ones he's made for the manor, Dick's parents are in motion, with his John Grayson's grin stolen right off his sons face and Mary Grayson's boisterous laugh as she crashed into her husbands side could be heard in the famous cackle of her son.

now I wanted to do Cass or Steph or (maybe even Babs or Kori if I wanted to pivot from family to romance) but I genuinely the girl who has Mary Graysons wedding ring would

Donna Troy: Dick Gave it to her when they were still wonder girl and boy wonder. They were 14 and it was right after they had started the titans, back when it was a kids club more than a hero organisation. It was accompanied with a whispered confession of his identity, an identity the rest of their team wouldn't learn for another to 2 years. She wears it around her neck with a simple gold chain. She didn't take it off during her wedding or funeral, she was buried in it and came back with its barely there weight a comfort against base of her neck.

[hetacon]

Oh my gosh, thank you so much??? Really didn’t know if anyone was gonna respond to my question but I’m grateful to have been proven wrong! Also I’m glad it’s not just me who’s struggled with this

All the stuff with my hand started when I made a short storyboard for one of my classes and was working on it the night before the critique for 10 hours straight with my stylus in a death grip, and then proceeded to physically write out two final projects for my other classes in the following couple of weeks, and subsequently couldn’t hold a pencil for an entire month after the quarter ended. I unfortunately did something similar back in July trying to get a piece done, even though I tried to be conscientious of how hard I was gripping the stylus 😅

I really do try to remember to stretch but I forget a lot of the time since I’m usually so excited about getting right into it. You’re probably right that I should start with drawing simple things so that I can better pay attention to if I start gripping it too hard, I’ve kinda just been diving into full pieces without thinking about it, which probably isn’t the greatest idea. Also you’re definitely right on the “big unruly pen” part, my new stylus is significantly thicker than my old one and my mechanical pencils (or even just most of my materials) and it’s felt really clunky trying to use it which is a bit discouraging in all honestly, cause it feels like all my art skills have literally gone out the window as soon as I try to do it on the computer. I know that very much isn’t the case but struggling so much with it definitely makes me feel like I don’t know what I’m doing

Once again, thank you for the advice, I really appreciate you taking time out of your day to help me out! And thank you for the additional offer if I need more help in the future 💜

I've never played ALBW so I have zero context lol, but maybe some sort of mirror inspired art of Ravio gasping in pain, clutching at his chest in the same spot that Legend, on his LU quest and somewhere and somewhen far away, has just been injured 👀

I might've gotten just a teeeeny bit carried away with this one, oops-!

Did someone say soul-bonded Ravioli? I think someone said soul bounded-Ravioli 👀 The people familiar with my sideblog might already be aware of this but I love soulmate AUs, so much so that I actually created a soulmate universe of my own with a type of bond I don't see super often! It's not my original idea by any means but I did flesh it out into an entire magic system and have many many ideas for various ships of mine that I hope I can write at some point, and so given that, I may or may not have completely blanked out after seeing this suggestion and suddenly oops, how did these get here! :)

Thank you anon for gifting me with the chance to indulge in one of my absolute favorite concepts, and also yes, I do have ideas about Ravioli in my soulmate au, maybe I'll be able to write it at some point 🤔

(P.S. if there are any digital artists reading: Does anyone have any advice on how to get accustomed to holding the stylus for drawing tablets? The reason for my hand pain I've mentioned before is because I've been having trouble with my grip being too tight and it's causing the tips of my fingers to hurt after long drawing sessions, and so I've had to stick mainly to traditional art so as not to further injure my fingers. I really want to do more digital art though and I can't do that until I'm able to train myself to hold my stylus better)

[ravenmccookies]

Please draw freaktrap

Y/N gets hired as a mechanic for the attraction, and springtrap refuses to be normal about it. More at 11

[salamispots]

posting a gift wip since I know my siblings aren't on here haha

[poniko-w]

look at my zombie adukin doodle

10000 gela for the first person who can get adukin to admit she has issues & go to therapy. or like any of the numas really

[bones-n-bookles]

Cave Bean for @losech 💜

[achilleslyre]

i need to draw my ocs in finished drawings more and not just have them standing there all the time

[inkedhorror]

oh when did that happen...

[mymp3]

drawing on the train is so so difficult but sometimes its more important to sketch anyways

[rindomness]

i think the thing that makes me most powerful as an artist is the fact that i have kept copies in some form or another of almost everything i have made since i started and thus whenever the imposter syndrome is hitting i can look at the literal piles of sketchbooks and notebooks and binders i keep the physical copies of my work in and go oh yeah. ive been working at this for like ten years. and then it just goes away.

anyway i absolutely recommend this as a strategy no matter how cringey it might seem keeping visual evidence of skill progression is an incredible tool against imposter syndrome. voice in your head can't tell you you're faking your skills if you can pull out a literal record of your skill growth against it

[oatshow]

“haha oh yeah ill draw a quick post-scarif au comic” says local man who will proceed to spend the rest of his night drawing ideas for a cybernetic hip implant

[autistic-shaiapouf]

Also with so little time before the con and so much Outfit left for me to make, I'm starting to enter hyperfocus when I'm working on it 👁👁

[iceeh]

now that i've put to rest (for now) even the vague inclinations toward art as a career... i'm feeling independently inspired to draw for like the first time this year...

[iraprince]

gonna show u guys a little opalescent highlight hack i threw together today

rainbow gradient above your main figure (i usually have all my main figure folders/layers in one big folder, so i can clip gradient maps + adjustments to it!). liquify tool to push the colors around a bit. STAY WITH ME I KNOW IT LOOKS STUPID RN I'M GOING SOMEWHERE WITH THIS

THEN: set it to add/glow (or the equivalent in ur drawing program), lower the opacity a bit, and apply a layer mask. then u can edit the mask with whatever tools you like to create rainbow highlights!!

in this case i'm mostly using the lasso fill tool to chip out little facets, but i've also done some soft airbrushing to bring in larger rainbow swirls in some areas. it's pretty subtle here, but you can see it better when i remove the gradient map that's above everything, since below i'm working in greyscale:

more granular rambling beneath the cut!

u could also just do this with a brush that has color jitter, but what i like about using layer masks for highlight/shading layers is how simple and reversible it makes everything. i can use whatever brushes i want, and erasing/redoing things is super low stakes, which is great when i often approach this stuff with a super trial-and-error approach.

example: have u ever thrown a gradient w multiple colors over an entire piece, set it to multiply etc, and then tried to erase it away to carve out shadows/highlights? it's super frustrating, bc it looks really good, but if u erase something and then change ur mind later, u basically would have to like. recreate the gradient in the area u want to cover up again. that's how i used to do things before figuring out layer masks!! but masking basically creates a version of this with INFINITE undo bc u can erase/re-place the base layer whenever u want.

anyway, back to rambling about this specific method:

i actually have TWO of these layers on this piece (one with the liquified swirls shown above, and another that's just a normal concentric circle gradient with much broader stripes) so i can vary the highlights easily as needed.

since i've basically hidden the rainbow pattern from myself, the colors in each brushstroke i make will kind of be a surprise, which isn't always great -- but easily fixable! for example, if i carve out a highlight and it turns out the rainbow pattern in that area is way too stripey, i can just switch from editing the mask to editing the main layer and blur that spot a bit.

also, this isn't a full explanation of the overall transparency effect in these screencaps! there's other layer stuff happening below the rainbow highlights, but the short version is i have all this character's body parts in different folders, each with their own lineart and background fill, and then the fill opacity is lowered and there's multiply layers clipped to that -- blah blah it's a whole thing. maybe i'll have a whole rundown on this on patreon later. uhhh i think that's it tho! i hope u get something useful out of this extremely specific thing i did lmao

[maikaartwork]

Artists, let’s talk about Instagram commission scammers

There’s been a huge rise in commission scammers recently, mostly on Instagram. A lot of new artists don’t know what to look out for, so I figured this might help people.

How they begin

Usually the scammer will write to you asking about a commission. Something deceptively cute - mostly I encounter asks about pet portraits, with one or two photos sent. They’ll probably try to sell you a sweet little story, like “It’s for my son’s birthday”. They will insist that they love your artwork and style, even though they don’t follow you or never liked a single piece of your art.

What to look out for:

Their profiles will either be private, empty, or filled with very generic stuff, dating at most a few years back.

Their language will be very simple, rushed or downright bad. They might use weird emojis that nobody ever uses. They will probably send impatient “??” when you don’t answer immediately. They’re in a crunch - lots of people to scam, you know. 

They’ll give you absolutely no guidelines. No hints on style, contents aside from (usually) the pet and often a name written on the artwork, no theme. Anything you draw will be perfect. Full artistic freedom. In reality they don’t really care for this part.

They’ll offer you a ridiculous amount of money. Usually 100 or 300 USD (EDIT: I know it might not be a lot for some work. What I mean here - way higher than your asking price, 100 and 300 are standard rates they give). They’ll often put in a phrase like “I am willing to compensate you financially” and “I want the best you can draw”, peppered with vague praise. It will most likely sound way too good to be true. That’s because it is.

Where the scam actually happens

If you agree, they will ask you for a payment method. They’ll try to get to this part as soon as possible. 

Usually, they’ll insist on PayPal. And not just any PayPal. They’ll always insist on sending you a transfer immediately. None of that PayPal Invoice stuff (although some do have methods for that, too). They’ll really, REALLY want to get your PayPal email address and name for the transfer - that’s what they’re after. If you insist on any other method, they’ll just circle back to the transfer “for easiest method”. If you do provide them with the info, most likely you’ll soon get a scam email. It most likely be a message with a link that will ultimately lead to bleeding you dry. Never, and I mean NEVER click on any emails or links you get from them. It’s like with any other scam emails you can ever get.

A few things can happen here:

They overpay you and ask for the difference to be wired back. Usually it will go to a different account and you’ll never see that money again. 

They’ll overpay you “for shipping costs” and ask you to forward the difference to their shipping company. Just like before, you’ll never see that money again.

The actual owner of the account (yes, they most likely use stolen accounts to wire from) will realize there’s been something sketchy going on and request a refund via official channels. Your account will be charged with fees and/or you get in trouble for fraudulent transactions. 

You will transfer the money from your PayPal credit to your bank account and they will make a shitstorm when they want their money back, making your life a living hell. They will call you a scammer, a thief, make wild claims, wearing you down and forcing you into wiring money “back” - aka to their final destination account. 

Never, EVER wire money to anyone. This is not how it’s supposed to go. Use PayPal Invoice for secure exchanges where the client needs to provide you with their email, not the other way around.

You can find more info on that method HERE.

What to do when you encounter a scammer:

Ask the right questions: inquire about the style, which artwork of yours they like, as much details as you can. They won’t supply you with any good answers.

Don’t let the rush of the exchange, their praise and the promise of insanely good money to get to you. That’s how they operate, that’s how they make you lose vigilance. 

Don’t engage them. As soon as you realize it might be a scam, block them. The sense of urgency they create with their rushed exchange, and pressure they put on you will sooner or later get to you and you might do something that you’ll regret later.

Never wire money to anyone. Never give out your personal data. Never provide your email, name, address or credit card info. 

Don’t be deceived by receiving a payment, if you somehow agree to go along with it. Just because it’s there now doesn’t mean it can’t be withdrawn. 

Here is a very standard example of such an exchange. I realized it’s a scam pretty fast and went along with it, because I wanted good screenshots for you guys, so I tried going very “by the book” with it. 

Please share this post, make it reach as many artists as possible. Let young or inexperienced artists know that this is going on. So many people have no idea that this is a thing. Let’s help each other out. If you think I missed any relevant info, do add it as an rb!

Also, if you know other scam methods that you think should be shared, consider rb-ing this post with them below. Having a master post of scam protection would AWESOME to have in the art community.