rodent-scribbles

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I'm gonna be thinking about this all day

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leitmotifs never get old to me like holy shit dude there’s this melody that corresponds to this one guy and if you hear the melody it means the guy is there. holy shit. and sometimes it refers to ideas too not just guys. has anyone heard about this

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cheesed to meet you

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The full Dragon series!! Each creature from a different biome… I had a lot of fun coming up with the different types of dragons and imagining what it would be like for these warriors to face each one. The fire dragon being particularly destructive. The night dragon near impossible to see coming in the dark. The ice dragons the size of mountains. The river dragon’s keen eyes. The sand dragon’s deadly poison. The mist dragons forcing the battle into the sky. The water dragon hiding in the deep. The garden dragon is chill though. Good lad.

Fire Dragon

Komodo

Mage / Staff

Night Dragon

Wolf

Samurai / Sword

Ice Dragon

Bearded

Viking / Axe

River Dragon

Crocodile

Thief / Dagger

Sand Dragon

Cobra

Archer / Bow

Mist Dragon

Eagle

Knight / Spear

Water Dragon

Eel

Sailor / Harpoon

Garden Dragon

Iguana

Healer / Potions

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oh btw one of my favorite things to do when im having writer's block is to uh. get inspiration by. trying to translate something really stupid into poetry or prose. personally i like to see if i can 1. make funny jokes to myself, 2. keep the purple prose to a minimum, and 3. not make it obvious what i'm writing about. but like, these are my rules. you don't need em. the whole point is to relax.

one of the poems i wrote about my pokemon game got published. so did a piece about thanatos & zag from hades. i was recently able to start writing again bc i watched paul blart mall cop 2 and wrote a scene about a shadow man playing piano whilist paul gets his ass kicked in by a bird. i've written about how i used to be able to eat cheese. about how i burned my popcorn. whatever.

but - this is key - set a timer. do not write more than 5-10 minutes. i say this so so lovingly: you are not trying to start another fanfiction. you're not trying to write another book. you gotta stop thinking of your words as only being important if they necessitate longevity. sure, it might be a book later. but the point of this exercise is to have fun, not to get more stressed out bc everything u write "doesn't end". don't fuckin end it. clean it up if u love it. otherwise. like. keep writing about different dumb shit. it's literally so much more fun than forcing yourself to constantly write about stuff that "matters". nothing does, so like. everything does, kids.

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🎉🍾🐈‍⬛

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I absolutely hate it when I hear that my name gets brought up at publishing meetings as an example of "authors who made social media work for them." Like fuck you, the lesson you should've learnt from my case was "take a chance on a book an editor is eager to acquire even if it's in a genre that hasn't been selling well" (Iron Widow got shot down at every major American publisher for market reasons even though many editors wanted it), not "LET'S PUSH AUTHORS TO BECOME INFLUENCERS." The skillset someone needs to be popular on social media is completely different than what's used to write books. Why would you force the average author to shake their ass on TikTok instead of DOING THE MARKETING THAT IS YOUR JOB and letting authors write in peace

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i hope goncharov ends with a crowdfunding scam we haven't had a good crowdfunding scam in a long time

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...that your audience won't hate.

This is a method I started using when NFTs were on the rise - thieves would have to put actual work into getting rid of the mark - and one that I am now grateful for with the arrival of AI. Why? Because anyone who tries to train an AI on my work will end up with random, disruptive color blobs.

I can't say for sure it'll stop theft entirely, but it WILL make your images annoying for databases to incorporate, and add an extra layer of inconvenience for thieves. So as far as I'm concerned, that's a win/win.

I'll be showing the steps in CSP, but it should all be pretty easy to replicate in Photoshop.

Now: let's use the above image as our new signature file. I set mine to be 2500 x 1000 pixels when I'm just starting out.

Note that your text should not have a lot of anti-aliasing, so using a paint brush to start isn't going to work well with this method. Just use the standard G-Pen if you're doing this by hand, or, just use the text tool and whichever font you prefer.

Once that's done, take your magic wand tool, and select all the black. Here are the magic wand settings I'm using to make the selections:

All selected?

Good.

Now, find a brush with a scattering/tone scraping effect. I use one like this.

You can theoretically use any colors you want for this next part, but I'd recommend pastels as they tend to blend better.

Either way, let's add some color to the text.

Once that's finished,

You're going to want to go to Layer Property, and Border Effect

You'll be given an option of choosing color and thickness. Choose black, and go for at least a 5 in thickness. Adjust per your own preferences.

Now create a layer beneath your sig layer, and merge the sig down onto the blank layer.

This effectively 'locks in' the border effect, which is exactly what we want.

Hooray, you've finished your watermark!

Now let's place that bad boy into your finished piece.

You'll get the best mileage out of a mark if you can place it over a spot that isn't black of white, since you'll get better blending options that way. My preference is for Overlay.

From here, I'll adjust the opacity to around 20-25, depending on the image.

If you don't have a spot to use overlay, however, there's a couple other options. For white, there's Linear Burn, which imho doesn't look as good, but it still works in a pinch.

And for lots of black, you have Linear Light

Either way, you're in business!

EDIT since this has escaped my usual circles, and folks aren't as familiar with my personal usage:

An example of one of my own finished pieces, with watermark, so you can see what I mean about 'relatively unobtrusive'-- I try to at least use them as framing devices, or let them work with the image somehow (or, at the very least, not actively against it).

I know it's a bummer for some people to "ruin" their work with watermarks, which is part of the reason I developed this mark in particular. Its disruption is about as minimal as I can make it while still letting it serve its intended purpose.

There's other methods, too, of course! But this is the one I use, and the one I can speak on. Hope it helps some of you!

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fuck consistency in art !!!  we ballin !!!!!!  whatever comes out of my hand next is up to god !!!!

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artists please divorce yourself from the internet attention machine and focus on becoming weirder and having more fun instead of creating more engagement for corporate social media giants

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SO mean that i have to make content of my own ocs. cruel that i can't just beam what's in my brain onto paper or something

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“source?” i can feel it in me bones

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IT'S REAL Y'ALL

THEY’VE PROJECTED A LETTUCE ONTO THE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT