#(better scanned + better experience with line art)

[wingsfreedom]

Inktober is around the corner but I'm not very patient. No suggested prompts were followed here.

1st picture is of Sokka in c367, "not even azula can stop him." You can see Kei and Sei's team in the front! And Ruthless (wannabe) Hero. I went with my own imagination of Sokka's opponent.

2nd picture is of Azula in c348, Seethus' ambush. (is it a coincidence that his name sounds similar to the only other 'lightbender' in the series? lol. Anyway, it's fun to see Azula exerting power over him).

Side note: the second picture had been drawn long before the recent chapters when his design wasn't fully confirmed. I took it as a freeform. And to be fair, there is not enough solid design for him because his condition apparently keeps getting worse and worse in addition to the time Azula & Xin Long burnt him if it had any lasting impact, and drawing body horror (+ human autonomy) is both difficult and sickening to me.

@seyaryminamoto

[averlym]

pleaaase may i have 28 and 29 aramour angst ✨ i crave it

28: “Move out of my way before I make you.” // 29: “You deserve better.” (prompt list here)

click for better quality!

[thegalleonsnest]

OK since I haven't seen too many people talk about this since twitter news usually strikes pretty fast over here whenever e'usk does anything ever, let me give ya'll the run down on two things that will go live on NOVEMBER 15TH and why people are mass migrating to Blue Sky once more; and provide resources to help protect your art and make the transition to Blue Sky easier if you so choose:

The Block function no longer blocks people as intended. It now basically acts as a glorified Mute button. Even when you block someone, they can still see your posts, but they can't engage in them. If your account is a Public one and not a Private one, people you blocked will see your posts.

They say because people can easily "share and hide harmful or private information about those they've blocked," they changed it this way for "greater transparency." When in reality, this is an extremely dangerous change, as the whole point of blocking is to cease interaction with people entirely for a plethora of reasons, i.e. stalking, harassment, spam, endangerment, or just plainly annoying and not wanting to see said tweets/accounts. or you know, for 18+ accounts who do not want minors interacting with them or their material at all (There is speculation saying these changes are specifically for Elon himself so he can do his own kind of stalking, and honestly, with the private likes change, it lowkey checks out in my opinion)

Also, this straight up goes against and may violate Apple and Google's app store policies and also is straight up illegal in Canada and probably other countries as well.

If this ACTUALLY goes through, twitter will only be available in select countries, probably exclusively in the US, which would collapse the site with the lost of users and stock, and probably be the last push it needs to kill the site. And if not, will be a very sad and exclusive platform made for specific kinds of people who line up with musk's line of thinking.

2. New policies regarding Grok AI and basically removing the option to opt out of Grok's information gathering to improve their software.

And anything you upload/post on the site is considered "fair game" with "royalty-free licenses" and they can do whatever they please with it. Primarily using any and all posts on twitter to train their Grok AI. A few months ago, there was a setting you can opt out of so they couldn't take anything you post to "improve" Grok, but I guess because so many people were opting out, they decided to make it mandatory as part of the policy change (This is mainly speculation from what I hear).

So this is considered the final straw for a LOT of people, especially artists who have been gripping on to twitter for as long as they can, but the AI nonsense is too much for people now, including myself. Lot's of people are moving to Blue Sky for good reason, and from personal experience, it is literally 10x better than twitter ever was, even before elon took over. There is no algorithm on there, and you can save "feeds" to your timeline to have a catered timelines to hop between if your looking for something specific like furry art or game dev stuff. It's taken them a bit to get off the ground and add much needed features, but it's genuinely so much better now

RESOURCES

Project Glaze & Cara

If you're an artist who's still on twitter or trying to ride it out for as long as you can for whatever reason you have, do yourself a favor and Glaze and/or Nightshade your work. Project Glaze is a free program designed to protect your art work from getting scrapped by AI machines. Glazing basically makes it harder to adapt and copy artwork that AI programs try to scan, while Nightshade basically "poisons" works to make AI libraries much more unstable and generate images completely off the mark. (These are layman's terms I'm using here, but follow the link to get more information)

The only problem with these programs is that they can be resource intensive for computers, and not every pc can run glaze. It's basically like rendering a frame/animation, you gotta let your pc sit there to get it glazed/nightshade, and depending on the intensity and power of your pc, this may take minutes to hours depending on how much you wanna protect your work.

HOWEVER, there are two alternatives, WebGlaze and Cara

WebGlaze is an in browser version of the program, so your pc doesn't have to do the heavy lifting. You do need to have an account with Glaze and be invited to use the program (I have not done so personally so I don't know much about the process.)

Cara is an artist focused site that doubles as both a portfolio site and a general social media platform. They've partnered with Glaze and have their own browser glazing called "Cara Glaze," and highly encourage users to post their work Glazed and are extremely anti-ai. You do get limited uses per day to glaze your work, so if you plan on doing a huge backlog uploading of your art, it may take awhile if your using just Cara Glaze.

Some twitter users have suggested glazing your art, cropping it, and overlaying it with a frame telling people to follow them elsewhere like on Bluesky. Here's a template someone provided if you wanna use this one or make your own.

Blue Sky Resources and Tips

So if your a twitter user and your about to realize the hellish task of refollowing a massive chunk of people you follow, have no fear, there's an extension called Sky Follower Bridge (Firefox & Chrome links). This is a very basic extension that makes it really easy to find people on Bluesky

It sorts them out by trying to find matching usernames, usernames in descriptions, or by screen name. It's not 100% perfect, there's a couple people I already follow on Blue Sky but the extension could not find them on twitter correctly, but I still found a huge chunk of people. Also if your worried that this extension is "iffy," they do have a github open with the source publicly available and the Blue Sky Team themselves have promoted the extension in their recent posts while welcoming new users to the platform.

FEEDS and LABELS

OK SO THE COOLEST PART ABOUT BLUESKY IS THE FEEDS SYSTEM. Basically if you've made a twitter list before, it's like that, but way more customizable and caters to specific types of posts/topics. Consolidating them into a timeline/feed that exclusively filled about those particular topics, or just people in general. There's thousands to pick and choose from!

Here's a couple of mine that I have saved and ready (down below). Some feeds I have saved so I can jump to seeing what my friends and mutuals are up to, and see their posts specifically so it doesn't get lost in reposts or other accounts, and also specialized feeds for browsing artists within the furry community.

The Furry Community feeds I have here were created by people who've built an algorithm to place any #furry or #furryart or other special tags like #Furrystreamer or #furrydev. They even have one for commissions, and yes you can say commissions on a post and not have it destroyed or shadow banned. You are safe.

If you want, and I highly recommend it to get visibility and check out a neat community, follow furryli.st to get added to their list and feeds. Once your on the list, even without a hashtag, you'll still pop up in their specialized feeds as just a member of the community there. There are plenty of other feeds out there besides this one, but I feel like a lot of people could use one like this. They even got ones for OC specific too I remember seeing somewhere.

And in terms of labels, they can be either ways to help label yourself with specific things or have user created accessibility settings to help better control your experience on Blue Sky.

And my personal favorite: Ai Imagery Labeler. Removes any AI stuff or hides it to the best of it's abilities, and it does a pretty good job, I have not seen anything AI related since subscribing to it.

Finally, HASHTAGS WORK & No need to censor yourself!

This is NOT like twitter or any other big named social media site AT ALL, so you don't have to work around words to get your stuff out there and be seen. There are literally feeds built around having commissions getting and art seen! Some people worry about bots and that has been a recent issue since a lot of people are migrating to Blue Sky, but it comes with any social media territory.

ALSO COOL PART,

you can search a hashtag on someone's profile and search exclusively on that profile as well! You can even put the hashtag in bio for easy access if you have a specialize tag like here on tumblr. OR EVEN BUILD YOUR OWN ART FEED FOR YOUR STUFF SPECIFICALLY!

So yeah, there's your quick run down about twitter's current burning building, how to protect your art, and what to do when you move to Blue Sky! Have fun!

[bmbochangetales]

Orgasms just hit better when your dumb.

It was one line and yet it bothered her. It couldn’t be true. She enjoyed her orgasms and she was highly intelligent. She had to test the theory. But how? It had to be measured in a way that she could tell the difference. She had to make herself dumber so she could feel which orgasm was better. How to make her self dumber though?

She rushed in and ask her male co workers.

“Not showing off her degrees. Smart girls want to prove they are smart. They hang them like art work. Have some sexy pictures or some basic mass produced artwork ”

Down all her hard work came off the wall. Up went something from the local store. The night she hit a new high in orgasming. This has to be a fluke, so she asked again the next day.

“Lots of make up and bleached hair.” One commented well checking the stocks. “They always turn out to be ditzy, even if they try to come off as intelligent and well educated. You do that to you hair, you definitely aren’t the smartest and add a lot of make up, you spend a lot of time just fixing yourself up, that’s not time to study.”

She booked an appointment at a salon for that evening. Well her hair was done she watched make up tutorials learning how to emphasize her features. Seeing herself with her new blonde hair even she thought she looked a bit more empty headed. Very cute but maybe not all there. She tested her skills at the make up when she got home. Sultry and it took a while to do, it was nearly bed time, she’d have no time to read. But she had time for two orgasms. It was only because the first one was so fast. It was just so good that she had to do it again just to make sure.

“Just by looking at a girl, what makes you think she is dumb?”

“I mean I know people will yell at me, but when she has for a huge set of boobs, especially if she is showing them off, she is probably not the brightest bulb in the house. It’s hot anyways”

Vacation boobs. A few injections and she would have a temporary set to help her experiment. She would get rid of them later. She walked out of the doctor’s office with a new huge rack on display. She loved the stares she got. She had spent 3 hours getting ready this morning with an extra 30 minutes to masturbate before she left. Now she was ready to see if sex with a partner was better. She called her favorite FWB. He commented on her new look

“I’m trying to look dumb for an experiment, what makes a girl look dumb?”

“Girls who look in the mirror a lot and watch reality tv. They look so dumb.” He added as you went down to start round two wanting another great orgasm.

Three days of having these tits and fucking a ton of guys. She had been watching only reality tv and was having trouble spelling. She began dressing like the girls on TV. Her boss threatened to denote her if her work didn’t improve. But the orgasms were just so good. They kept getting better. There was something here, she knew it.

She was staring at herself in the mirror. Big but not big enough. She wanted them to be huge. Bigger is so better when it comes to tits. Just 3 or 4 more cup sizes. She’d look so dumb then. She scanned her body down. Maybe she needed some other improvements.

Like this ass needs some nice high shoes to make it even better. She quickly went to the nearest shoe store and purchased several pairs making sure to get all the highest heels to emphasize her body.

Oh yea, like the expiri…expuri…like that idea thingy test. That like means it’s totally time to get fucked! Fucking is like sooo much fun! She had to find some partners. She strut into the nearest club and found a couple who were interested in going home with her.

The red head under her and the body builder with his cock deep in her cunt fucking her from behind. Oh yeah this was the life. Being sexy and just finding partners to fuck. Lapping up the beautiful girls cunt as she came on her tongue over and over. Having a cock ducking her deep and filling her with the best cum. Now that her IQ was down even more, this orgasm would be earth shattering. Maybe she could still get dumber yet.

[beartitled]

Hey Bear remember the detailed art where it’s a place and there’s a just filled with different bears, I think it will be a great excuse to practice but idk how to approach it. Any tips?? Or just things you learn when you started drawing those

Hellow 👋

I have a feeling you asked this a while ago, but I only saw it now

If it's the case, sorry must be a tumblr glitch💥

👏a wall of text warning👏/silly

Planning

First thing I usually do is - I plan a lot beforehand

Especially if it’s a drawing with existing characters

Ironically TSP/STP drawings were easier to do for me

Even though bear megadrawings look simpler (I think?)

Basically when you already have a list of character you want to include - you just need to think where to locate them

When you just draw a lot of random characters - you need to design every single one

Which is kinda a nightmare on your brain 💥

The second type is a lot more flexible tho (you can add or remove characters at will, no count needed)

Project stages

I will use TSP + Undertale reblog chain drawing as an example

1) Collecting references - if you plan to draw existing characters, it’s better to gather all the references

Making an additional list of all characters helps too (this way you can track which character you already drawn)

2) Planning the area

Photobashing or finding a good location reference really helps here

Sadly don’t have a photobash I did for this, I deleted everything 💥

This is just an example to demonstrate things 👆

I usually just do a rough sketch on a small piece of paper

You don’t have to have it 100% planned, if characters don’t fit, you can just extend/edit the area

3) Character planning

You have to determine where your characters will be located

The common mistake I see when ppl draw detailed drawings: they draw a singular character and move on to add others

If you’re doing it digitally, this may not be a problem for you (ya know just make a character smaller or move them, problem solved)

But what I recommend doing:

Is drawing shapes where you plan to put characters in

This will help you plan out the composition more and regulate the character amount in different parts of the drawing

Also keep in mind the size of you character

I struggle with it to this day tbh

Usually the characters on the foreground are bigger then the ones on the background (this is one of the art principles used to showcase distance)

But an interesting thing you may notice when looking at illustrations like “Where’s Waldo” series

This principle often may be ignored

It’s still kinda present, but you can pretty much say many characters are -+ the same size

My theory is that it’s done to make every character equal, so the purpose to find Waldo is still challenging

+ I think to keep the whole picture harmonious

I may not know certain principles (the nitty-gritty of detailed art like this)

So keep in mind this is just my experience, do your research too >:D

4) Key characters

This one is a bit vague, but I will try to explain it the best I can

When you have a specific character, who, for example, is way bigger or has brighter colours then the rest

Special bois 🌸

You need to give them more attention

Let’s see an example

- Big creatures on da background - they were drafted first, bc they required a lot place

- Spider Barry - a special area for spider characters

- Thierry - active action, running, led to a chain of characters interacting

- Narry Grilby’s, Bearline, Pixel Alphys - themed areas for certain characters

(my apologies if I made a mistake in any character name here, let me know, I will fix it)

+ Advice for colour: try to keep them the similar saturation, so the image looks harmonious

You don’t really have to have key characters, it’s just my method that makes the process easier to plan out

5) Art part let’s gooo

This part is up to you obviously, different ppl draw differently

For me it’s usually > small draft > sketch > line art > scan > colour

Advice for my traditional artist - ya’ll need a big paper sheet

I usually work on A3 format, bc it’s easier to scan

But the bigger the paper the more detailed characters you can draw

This one as an example

Bc rookie mistake

Too many characters, not enough paper

I used A3, but looking back A2 would work way better here

I used a really thin line pen (005) and didn’t realise the consequences of that 💥

As a result scan turned out not the best quality (+ if you zoom in on the faces 🐻‍❄️🔫)

It was impressive at the time, but rrrr I wish I just bought a bigger piece of paper back then 💥

Just to illustrate the issue

On the top are pens I usually use for comics lineart, the bottom one is 005

And my finger as an obscure reference lmao 💥

As you can see the lines are REALLY DAMN THIN and everything is smol, tiny even

So just keep that in mind 👍

And for my digital fellas

🫵 Big canvas 🫵 big 🫵 the pixels will eat u 🫵

How much time it takes

Practicing concentration and patience is important 💥

This may sound silly, but it does help with finishing stuff

Projects like those require a ton of patience and focus

So just mentally prepare yourself for sitting on your desk for hours™️

From my experience I would recommend to start with small drawings with a small amount of characters

And then gradually build up to bigger amounts and more details

My first ever megadrawing was this piece

Line art took 2 weeks, colouring -+ a week I believe

This was exhausting the first time 💥

After practicing the process became faster and less tiring

The TSP x Undertale took about 4 days (but like full 4 days)

Remember doing lineart in 1 day, taking breaks just to like eat

🫵Ok don’t worry about me🫵

I have a tendency to concentrate on things for a really long periods of time, so it’s not a “🔥I WILL BURN MYSELF OUT WITH THIS PROJECT LET’S GO🔥” type of deal, this is pretty much how I am

If I enjoy a specific process I can spend an entire day doing just that, without getting tired (the only problem could be not enough movement and eye pain, my eternal enemy 👿)

But 🫵 don’t expect yourself to do the same 🫵

Start small, practice, don’t push your limits right away

Take breaks and care about yourself fellas 👏

Good luck with your projects🫡

Alright

Hope it was helpful, thank u for you question ❤️

For new ppl here, you can check the megadrawings section in navigation (pinned post), if you got interested

[helpme695]

Ok! Could I please request headcanons of yandere Pocketcat with female human darling? Thank you in advance 💜

Here you go :3 that's all I got

Sorry for taking so long LMAO

I assumed it would be inside the dungeons too lol

• ────── ✾ ────── •

It's a mistake, not only that, but stupid as well. You shouldn't come here, You shouldn't see this, you shouldn't experience this, the dungeons screams at you constantly to leave as fast as possible, for some reason you didn't abandon whatever unnecessary goal you have and ran- no, fly, straight out this hell and never look back, yet you so determined.

It was definitely harsh, your feel your soul crushing every second you move, your body shaking. You ran into these many cursed Creatures. However escape them miraculously as soon as you spot them.

You exception. How you would guard yourself from harm, how you move extremely fast and smooth like a feather. The way your mind work and respond like a machine. In top of that, you're gorgeous. Even in your lowest. Truly something to admire. And I have news for you, You decide if it's good or bad, someone never missed anything you offered.

Later on, you met a unusual man from the place. As soon he spot you he started talking to you

"My my~ I've been waiting for you to show up with your lovely figure, dove. Oh, you got a nasty wound on your shoulder. Here let me help, it won't hurt."

And talk

"My apologies, I usually pay no mind those disgusting beings, but they really did land a good one on you, don't you think it's enough to leave whatever you seeking for?"

And talk...

"By no offence to your outstanding Abilitys, but these dungeons make the toughest of men go insane. After all, I just like to go after lovely customers like you."

And talk...

"I dare to say, you do have astonishing face of yours, even after it woren off from your silly journey, did I mention how much I love your curves? Your body must been sculptured by the divines "

This man won't SHUT UP, it's hurts your head. And you don't like his flirting and how much he focus on things you don't put attention to even in days you actually take care of yourself.

He's trying so hard to make you stay longer just to talk, even better if you change your mind. And you always pushed his offering and idea's aside. You already too deep.

Since you shaked him off and continued to wonder, you feel eyes piercing your soul, but, things start to get easier. you found many non rotten food and booze neatly hidden in boxes, Sometimes herbs in questionable places. Not seeing the usual Enemies or danger. And whatever dare to bring harm to you, you finish them off as they were just a bug.

You can't help to think, is it because you became immune to these dungeons? Or because you encountered that gentleman, you did felt quite safe around him, but God you were uncomfortable. How he behave so friendly, like a person you know before. The way his eyes scan every inch of you, like he admiring a living art piece. How he get closer to you whenever he can. And of course, touch you in any opportunity. So Shameless. You swore if you didn't put a line he would do much more. Speaking of the devil... you felt you never actually left him behind. Or you just paranoid. :)

Overtime, you manged to meet people and convince them to company you. However, things weren't so good for them as you, completely opposite. They would starved to death if it wasn't for you to share your food. They have to get brutally injured, which you had to take care of almost blinded or limbless members. If you won't look occasionally after them, you would find them getting dragged in darkest corners. It almost something trying so hard to get rid of them.

They weigh you down. you should leave them behind. Why you so determined? Not only accomplish your goal, but also to keep them alive? You truly selfless. And that bother someone. Not necessarily your party members (which some of them are)

However, they won't be bothered for too long, especially when you lost 2 of your party to the crow mauler and split accidentally after pathetic escape for your lives. It was already hard for them, you have no idea how they will survive after the lose. And Why you sick over some mere beings? You have someone much important who's starving to see you again.

_____________________♡____________________

You screwed. That's all I gotta say. Lol

No but for real, yandere pocketcat is NOT easy to deal with at all. This dude will do Anything and everything means to have you. But he's patient, he likes to play with his food, after all.

He sometimes wonder Why his master make him this desperate over someone.

Let him take you and he will spoil you rotten, he will give you whatever you want and need. Just say it. If you don't, well..... it doesn't matter. He will get what he wants. He's immune to whatever tricks you have under your sleeves.

He's never truly get angry at you no matter what you do. Even at others that you interact with, because the thought that he owns you and nobody will shake him off, is too deep in his mind. He allows other people to talk to you but after that they will get some devilish dreams as warning, And if he notice they still confident to keep going, welp.... we know the show.

Of course you won't stay any longer in this dungeons, it's up to him where he wants to take you. But if you Obey him just right- he will ask his master to create the heavens that you shaped in your mind. Only him and you.

There's nothing you can lose other than your freedom. You would never get hurt by anyone but him. Your only luck if his God have mercy on you and kill you for good or have another God by your side.

[johankasas]

I’m sorry if it was already asked by someone, but what materials do you use for your traditional art?

Heya!!

Okay this will be a bit of a longer reply since over the years I do art I've accumulated a lot of tools, but I'll try to write it in a "digestible" way under the cut.

1. Sketchbooks

I am an easy woman, I like sketchbooks that have a lot of pages, can handle multiple tools and doesn't cost me a fortune. So far the winner in this is Canson XL for mixed media.

2. Sketching

For my sketching and pencil doodles I use mechanical pencils in size 0.5 and 0.3 with HB lead, it's the easiest one to erase and it doesn't smudge, not any preference in a brand, just don't really use the light plastic ones since they tend to creak.

For erasing I use a combination of kneadable eraser and tombow mono eraser for more precise things.

3. Lining

tombow fudenosuke!!!!! Best marker ever, doesn't smudge under water nor alcohol markers and has flexible nib.

If you're not a fan of the flexible nib, my other go to are either liners from Uni-pin or microns

4. Coloring

For my marker pieces like this one :

I use the cheapest off-brand alcohol markers I bought in a big set on AliExpress. They're great for personal work but not that much if you're planning to display it anywhere, the color gets immediately eaten by sun

For my watercolor pieces like this

I now use white nights watercolors :]

The set of 36 to be exact and some random brushes I also accumulated over the years.

Before investing in white nights I used watercolors from Koh-i-noor, that looked like this :

And are much cheaper (in Czechia, dunno the prices out of the country)

For white highlights I use Sakura gelly roll pens. I tested out different brands too and these do their job the best.

5. Scrapbooking/ collage backgrounds

For backgrounds like this:

I accumulated over some time a lot of scrapbooking papers and stickers either from action or AliExpress, but also sometimes I use cut outs from magazines I get for free.

For precise cutting I use a precision craft knife, but before that I just used a box cutter knife, just don't press too hard.

Also a very good thing to get is a light pad, again AliExpress is your friend in this, and tbh before moving to the light pad, I used to shine my phone camera under the paper.

Makes the cutting muuuuuch easier.

And last but not the least

6. Taking photos of your art/ scanning

Phone camera + Snapseed is god tier combo for me, there are so many tutorials on YouTube how to edit the photos into full crispy quality.

But between my friend group it's well known that I am not very good at taking photos, so I scan most of my things.

Just a disclaimer that a good scanner is a very expensive thing ... But if you're willing to go through some loops, you can get a very neat CCD scanner from second hand for very cheap, sadly most of the time the cheap ones are very old and it took a lot of prayers and IT friend to set that thing up :DDD

So that's all I can think of right now, don't forget I got all these things over the years, and still I tend to draw or doodle with pretty cheap low quality things, since I believe that art can be made with everything... The more professional tools just tend to make things easier, but still it's better to test it out a bit before fully jumping into buying big expensive sets.

I wish a lot of luck with creating and don't be scared to experiment :3

[metamatar]

ok so i am very much uninformed on politics, i decided at a younger age that i wasn't interested in it and therefore would not read or keep myself particularly informed about it. obviously this is a bad idea, and i want to change and keep myself informed on actual politics and well, abstract[?] (wrong word but cannot think of another, basically mean like. knowing which political .. stance ?? [idk. like marxist or communist or whatever] i might be.) ones as well. what's a good place to get started here? where do i look for actual politics going on in india since i'm pretty sure ndtv or whatever isn't exactly the best source? or maybe it is? idk, like i said i'm pretty uninformed on the matter but would like to learn more

so one thing is, in india you have to accept the media landscape is just dire because being a journalist with integrity is a bit like signing up to have your life ruined. all major media has been bought by hindutva already. what you have to do is more learn to read between lines, understand people's motivations, which is a matter of practice. a good way to start is to read analysis (not news reports) of the same incident in different media and you'll start noticing patterns. even more important imo is to talk and bounce ideas with a friend at a similar place as you or someone interested in politics who won't overwhelm you with their perspective. you can try online but idt its safe or advisable anymore to do that experiment online. i had debate club in university (sad) and some socialist reading groups (better) after. the thing is this journey to self education is kind of personal and im also not pedagogically oriented or trained? so lots of first person description instead of prescriptions.

i still check what's up on ndtv because it gives me a good pulse of what english language media and liberals are thinking. major newspapers i scan hindu and the indian express sometimes. online i have a look at newslaundry (also has some youtube content) and the wire, they're reader supported and haven't turned full hindutva yet. i read longer form things in the caravan and epw, but these are subscription based. i keep tabs on the latest round of hindutva fake news when alt news debunks it.

for the abstract things, i literally did an online course bc i was frustrated by what all the liberal arts grads seemed to already agree on. i did ian shapiro's moral foundations of politics which is available online as both youtube lectures and a textbook. if you want to go that route feel free but it's not necessary, you can also try to read the entries on wikipedia or stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (more expertise) when you encounter something unfamiliar and build up like that. podcasts like bbc in our time will often interview academics to give intros to many political philosophy concepts and thinkers. whatever your learning style supports! i think the important thing is to find something you are actually interested in, and take that tack. i like history, so i might read books about historical revolutions or historical forms of organising society or listen to podcasts like mike duncan's revolutions.

For communism the usual starting points are these very short pamphlets:

Principles of Communism by Engels

The Manifesto of the Communist Party by Marx

Wage-Labor and Capital by Marx

Socialism: Utopian and Scientific by Engels

feel free to ask for more specific questions!

[katerinaaqu]

Oban Star Racers Aikka Theme

Sooo this is the Part 2 of the "get better" gift for my dear friend Arts-Of-Metamoor (@artsofmetamoor) following right after my small sketch collection:

As you can see this sketch was done in the same day, finished it a bit after midnight but couldn't post it till now. Also I have a slight infection to one of my fingers when I got a light cut so with my hand kinda in pain couldn't do it yersterday either. Sorry for the delay dear! (yeah this is also an old sketch but it took me some time to re-post here as well!)

Once again forgive me everyone for the terrible quality of the scanning. I tried scanning the page of my hard-covered sketchbook so it was hard doing it without damaging it! Anyways one again tried to challenge myself into drawing something more complicated without the use of cheat lines and all. I probably messed certain body analogies but I am still satisfied enough with the result. At least I am convinced I can still do it, I guess!

So this is Diego lounching an arrow. The original plan was drawing him drawing the cord, but as I said to my friend the other day, I wanted to cover for my incompitence to draw fingers hold arrows so I made the arrow mid-launch instead.

So I need to mention that it was a conscious choice making him have a hip-quiver. One of them being that I didn't feel confident having him have it in the back but the other is that I was inspired by videos of people like Lars Andersen who practices historical archery and did several experiments in regards to quivers in the back and descovered they are not very practical when running in the forest so maybe Diego in high actions he would have his quiver at his hip and when he is stationary he would have it at his back (since my friend Arts-Of-Metamoor @artsofmetamoor also imagined him with the quiver at the back)

The choice of making the arrow at the draw side was also conscious one. Once again inspired by the historical observations that the arrow could be armed and launched from the draw side and in fact it would be quicker to do so in a heated scene of action: see here

The small piece of lyrics I wrote are of course inspired by the song published by Erutan on YouTube The Willow Maid (I know I know I became obsessed with this while writing about Diego! XD To be honest I have no idea why I imagined it being Diego's song, with his obsession over keeping Caleb close to him at any cost or that he doesn't understand what is going on inside him and in his attempt to do good also, he hurt Caleb immensely)

So a few information about Diego

Diego's back are solid muscles due to the fact that he practiced years in drawing the string of his bow. His body development is still "skinnier" than Caleb's due to the fact that he is not naturally as bulky as Caleb and because he mainly practices archery than heavy weapons like the sphere or battle methods like swordsmanship (although extensively trained to those as well)

Unlike polular belief, archers were some of the fittest soldiers in their units due to their extremely demanding and physical labor with the bow and the battle. However because Diego has a leaner bodytype than Caleb and has less bulky hands, he is oftened referred by Caleb as "skinny" for the funs of it

Diego is up to one point amphidextrous. His main dominant hand is the right one however he can use relatively well his left too. Also due to the excessive excersize with his bow, Diego can shoot perfectly well with both hands so he can hold his bow either with the left or the right hand.

Diego has eyesight higher than average so that allows him to be even more reliable archer. His slit, cat-like eyes have an incredible ability to focus (which allows him notice certain details much better)

Diego is often described as the coquet of his team. He loves wearing more extravagant or decorative clothing (unlike Caleb who prefers more practical and less showy clothing) but he still doesn't wish to lose his mobility and flexibility. So he would often pick comfortable leather boots with decorative buckles and waistcoats or capes with slightly more finesse.

As Diego described his own hair, it can be hard "like horsetail" and made to grow faster. (often compares it with Caleb's who has thinner hair that is prone to breakage. Which is why ultimately Caleb's hair would never grow hip-length like Diego's long locks of hair)

Diego's favorite drinks are Cider and Armagnac (when compared to simpler tastes of Caleb's with ale and wine) but he does enjoy drinking alcohol with friends just like Caleb does.

Diego is a few inches shorter than Caleb (as imagined by my friend @artsofmetamoor )

Diego's voice was inspired by my friend from Ramses from Dreamwork's movie Prince of Egypt and some aspects of his personalty suit too (desperately seeking for approval, taking things at heart, being completely into whatever thing Caleb might be scheming hehehe and above all being always there for Caleb)

Diego tends to have a sweet tooth from time to time. He enjoys puffy cream and custard when he can get his hands on that. He was also delighted when Caleb smuggled some chocolate from earth to Meridian and shared some with him

Diego always called his adopted father by name than call him "father" like Caleb. He might often call him so but more frequently he calls him "Julian" instead.

Ballard is the only known archer who can go toe to toe with his skills.

There are two primarily cultural groups of Shifters, the Mountain and the Desert Shifters. Diego, ironically and tragically descends from both.

@artsofmetamoor has plenty of amazing pieces and features of Diego!

[brightoakgame]

Irregular Monday Update, Edition 10

Here we gooooooooo--!

The Demo:

✨The full Act I Demo will release on Itch.io June 24th, 2023, and Steam soon afterwards.✨

That's right! This upcoming June 24th! Twelve days from now! Less than a fortnight hence! A dozen sleeps from tonight! (assuming I sleep between now and then, hahahaha...haa...)

To that effect, if you missed my earlier post, here's the demo release trailer, complete with @remnantation's excellent character art, and one of the absolutely incredible tracks John Åhlin composed for the original score:

What will the demo entail, you ask?

The full first act (of three) in the story, clocking in at roughly 40,000 words of content!

The first major story branch!

A couple potential false starts, and one early Bad Ending! ...sort of.

OpenDyslexic, Visual Sensitivity, Screen Shake Off toggles are all implemented! (thanks be for super @herotome for making sure this happened!!)

What will be missing from the demo that is planned for the final release?

CGs (for those unfamiliar with the term, these are special illustrations which pop up in response to specific story events and noteworthy dialogues). With the demo release, @remnantation and I will be turning our focus onto pinning down exactly where and what we're doing for this (and no, Rem, we cannot make them all feature Jasper)

We will be updating the demo later on to incorporate the characters blinking (once more thanks to Wudge of Herotome!). For the demo release, it felt better to have no one blink instead of only John and Marybeth, however. It is in the works, though, just to add that little bit more life and movement.

Answers to all the questions the first act conclusion will bring up. 😈

Beyond all that immediate excitement...

Backgrounds:

All sketches AND painting are 💕done💕 for the first act, with just six (+ two variations) remaining to line, scan, and implement for the demo!

For those keeping score, that leaves roughly 10 background sketches remaining for the full game!

I'm abandoning my quest to summarize how many are fully completed against a tally of how many remain, for the simple reason that I've had a great deal of success experimenting with more manual/digital hybrid work, and so my number of backgrounds has ballooned accordingly, though without a substantial increase in workload. How much more, you may ask...? Well, I'm currently clocking 64 backgrounds painted and/or complete, out of previous estimate that 60 backgrounds total, and that number will jump up further still once I'm done with the lining and can do some lighting variations.

Coding:

Wudge the Wonderful has been on an absolute tear with getting all the practical and quality-of-life assets programmed, up, and running!

Among those: moving clouds! The sky! It moves..!

We conferred last night on some exciting ✨special effects✨

I have about two chapters remaining for the demo to program expressions, sfx, and music cues, which ought to be done by the end of the week, so that next can be devoted to playtesting, playtesting, and playtesting some more!

To do next:

Figure out those CGs!

Bring back the blinks!

...backgrounds 4 life, backgrounds 5ever...

Set up Steam page!

Coding coding coding!

See everyone soon!

[l3ominor]

What's your art journey? How did you learn it and get to where you are now?

HAHFHFKDB HI

Ooh art! Okok so I started sketching when I wasssss six or seven? I mostly drew dragons. Dragons sitting on flowers, dragons in caves, dragons brutally murdering each other, the normal stuff a small child should draw. When I was about 11, I started drawing people. Characters for the books I was writing. I also started drawing dragons better(tracing out of the Wings of Fire books). Pretty much all of my begining art skills came from tracing. I never took an art class or watched tutorials on YouTube. At about 15, I was drawing people more than animals, and I started doing some vague angsty comics(I was fully in angsty depresso emo teen phase). A lot of my art then was either angst with my characters, or abstract representations of my emotions. I was also obsessed with Marvel so I was drawing weird fanfic crossovers between Marvel and my charries. I was also doing a ton of tracing out of 'how to draw manga' books, which was kinda what solidified bits of my style. After that, I started sketching every day. I drew scenes, characters, and attempted doing comics in notebooks. I started experimenting with digital art around the end of 2019, mostly scanning stuff in from my sketchbook, then coloring it in with an airbrush tool. After that it was more tracing, more improvising, and more chaos in general. I was drawing pretty much 24/7. In 2020, I started focusing more on comics. I actually spent two years drawing a comic scene in a lined notebook. I took that think with me e v e r y w h e r e, and actually had to safetypin the cover, the back, and the first several pages back into the notebook because it was so worn. Begining of 2023 I started college, and took my first art classes, a watercolor class and an oil painting class. I also started working on Recalled, and since then, that has been my primary art focus. Pretty much my whole art journey has been a mess of tracing, staring at references, hyperfixation, and emotion dumping, but I wouldn't trade it for anything. My art is my passion and my dream, and I love sharing it with people!

Thank you so much for the ask! Hopefully I didn't infodump too much ':D but yeah! Thank you!

[violetjedisylveon]

The Moon Finds A Flower

moonlilyshipping Pokémer AU chapter 1

Summary: Lillie crashes her boat out at sea while trying to take Nebby away from the Aether foundation, she thinks it's all over for them. She doesn't know that she just so happened to crash in the territory of a Pokémer.

Word count: 2.5k

Warnings: angst/torture at the beginning, Lusamine is a bad parent, injury, life and death situations

A/N: I saw really cute Moonlily MerMay art where Moon/Selene (I call her Moon) was a Lumineon based mermaid and I ran with it. So Moon is technically a Pokémon here.

Ages are different, Moon, Lillie and Hau are 14, Gladion is 16, and Nebby is pew years old.

Pokémer AU Masterpost

____________________________________________________________________________________________

All she wanted to do was help.

She had just wanted to help Nebby.

She didn't want anyone to get hurt.

She wanted to cover her ears, the screams were unbearable, but she couldn't move.

She couldn't look away from the torturous sight in front of her.

The deep blue, almost black, and shimmering white fins spasmed out.

The sleek, scale covered body convulsed involuntarily, writhing in pain.

She screamed into the water as Lillie just stood there and watched.

The vice grip on her shoulder tightened, making her aware of the chilling presence behind her.

A cold hand grabbed her face, forcing her to keep looking forward. A poisoned, honey sweet voice cooed behind her.

“See? This is what happens when you step out of line.” The cold hissed.

The cold left her, staring at the pain she caused. It was all her fault.

I never should have become her friend. I should have stayed away and told her to go back where she belonged.

XXX

It was all over for her.

All the risk she took in stealing Nebby from the labs was going to be for nothing, they were both going to drown.

Though drowning is probably a better date than whatever awaited Nebby. Lillie thought as she frantically tried to maintain control of the boat in the stormy seas. Nebby wriggled in her bag, panicked and in pain from the experiments.

Tears filled her eyes, she grabbed the bag and held it close to her, sinking to the floor with the knowledge that it was hopeless.

She squeezed her eyes shut and prayed to Arceus that their deaths would be painless.

Her boat collided with a large rock.

Everything went dark.

XXX

Moon jolted awake at a loud noise traveling through the water. Cautiously, she peaked out of her cave, looking up towards the dark, stormy sky.

Maybe a human got caught in the storm. She thought.

Humans got caught in storms all the time, they were quite dumb despite everything they could do.

Her hip fins fluttered anxiously at the thought of more humans showing up near her territory.

Her cave was situated in a narrow ravine surrounded by rocky and coral filled waters on all sides for miles, humans didn't come here often, and they never came down far enough to reach her cave. The rocks and coral stretched over the ravine opening, interlocking in a complex maze of sharp, fragile stone and coral, making it far too risky to reach.

A panicked, weak cry reached her fin like ears.

A Pokémon was in trouble.

The cry came from the same direction as the crash… She frowned, biting her lower lip.

It was a risk, a human could see her, if they did she could sick an allied Pokémon on them, but it was still a risky move.

Mom always warned her against going near crashes or anything human related. It was always too dangerous for her.

The Pokémon’s cries grew more panicked.

It sounded like a little, scared thing, not made for the seas, not ready to die.

This is going to end badly. Moon thought as she swam out of her cave.

She swam up, twisting through the maze of coral and stone easily, her slime coat allowed her to slide between the tight spots without getting scratched.

Once she was above the coral maze, she scanned the rock spires for signs of where the boat had crashed.

The boat was already below the tumultuous waves. That made her job easier.

She approached the boat cautiously, there wasn't any blood or bodies yet, either it had a smaller crew or everyone drowned and the bodies were stuck.

Her ears flicked at the annoyed, worried squeaks from her friend, quickly coming up behind her.

The little Popplio swam over to her, angrily chittering about how she shouldn't have left the cave without him. He tucked his snout into her side, she patted his head soothingly, Poppy was an anxious little fella.

“Someone needs help.” She whispered.

Poppy glanced at the boat, he glared and shook his head aggressively. Moon rubbed his head sympathetically, Poppy really didn't like humans, he never elaborated on why, maybe it was his coloring.

Her little friend looked different from other Popplio she had seen, his fur was a deeper, more purple blue, and his neck frill was a light pink.

“It's a little Pokémon that needs help, like you did when I found you.” She said.

Poppy frowned at her, crossing his flippers. She rolled her eyes.

“I'm going to help them.” she announced, swimming towards the boat.

Poppy stayed out for all of three seconds, the little guy was a bit of a scaredy cat. He stuck close to her side, brushing against her hip fins as they swam into the ship.

It had the mark of those boats others said were constantly coming and going from the fake island. Those humans were bad news, they kept poking around the various reefs she hunted at.

A flash of light caught her attention.

A part of the boat was sealed, air bubbles were leaking from it at a rapid pace, the weak flashing came from there.

Moon peered into the space through the dark glass, a long cylinder bag was where the light came from. It sat inside a perfectly round air bubble, and a human girl was holding tightly onto it.

“Hello?” She called through the water.

The light flashed rapidly in response, the patterns didn't make any sense to her, it was a whole bunch of gibberish.

“Do you need help?” She asked.

“Yes!” The Pokémon in the bag squeaked.

Moon glanced at the girl holding the bag.

“What about the human?”

“Yes! Friend! Safe!” they squealed.

“If you insist.”

Moon slammed her tail against the glass, bracing herself against the sudden pressure release. She swam into the cramped space, hesitating at the edge of the of air bubble.

“Can you make the bubble smaller?” She requested.

“Mom can't breathe!” They responded.

“The human is your mother?” Moon wondered.

“Help! Can't teleport in the water!” They shouted.

“Okay, I'll get you to the surface.” She told them.

She reached her hands into the bubble, snatching the girl by her waist and pulling her out of the bubble, dragging the bag with her.

Moon shot for the surface with rapid, strong flaps of her fins. She broke the water's surface, holding the girl's head above the water. 

Her gills shut as her body adjusted to being out of water, instinctively, she started drawing air from her mouth. She thrust herself out of the water and onto the rock the boat had crashed on for their collective safety.

She set the girl down on the least jagged part of the rock she could find, humans, she was fairly certain, didn't have a slime coat to protect them. 

Out of curiosity, she removed the girl's large hat. She wanted to see the face of the girl this Pokémon considered a mother.

Thick, straight blonde hair framed her pale face, her skin was soft and smooth, she didn't have a scratch or a scar on her.

Moon smiled to herself.

She's very pretty.

The bag rustled, bringing Moon’s attention away from the cute girl.

“Are you alright little friend?” She asked, reaching to open the bag, somehow.

The little Pokémon let out a weak ‘pew’ type sound, and the bag started to glow again.

Moon yelped in alarm as the glow turned blindingly bright, she squeezed her eyes shut, it felt like she was flying.

The light suddenly faded, she opened her eyes long enough to see that she was falling through the air, with the girl and her bag.

She grabbed onto the girl, curling her tail around her, spread her hip fins out and braced for the impact of their fall.

Her body slammed into the water with a loud smack. She couldn't feel her tail but the sight of her fins twitching out of the corner of her eye was enough to signify she wasn't paralyzed.

Her back brushed against soft sand, her face was still above the water.

We're on a beach. She realized.

As the feeling came back to her tail, she unwrapped it from around the girl.

She heard a small sound, felt the girl shift from her place curled against her body.

Looking down, brilliantly vibrant emerald green eyes met her own pink ones. The girl stared at her with wide eyes.

Moon realized she hadn't let go of her yet, she was still holding her in a tight, protective grip.

She'll feel my scales!

Thinking quickly, Moon shifted, turning her singular tail into two human legs.

Moon didn't like to transform much, she didn't have any trouble doing it, it was pretty easy to change and maintain, she just didn't have much reason to risk everything by pretending to be a human. That's what got her mother killed, she got too close to humans.

Silently, she hoped the girl wouldn't try speaking to her, she couldn't speak to humans.

Thankfully, her eyes slipped shut again and her head slumped against Moon's chest.

Moon let out a sigh of relief.

That's a bullet dodged.

She sat up, using one hand to prop herself up, the other securing the girl, she looked around.

Her initial thought was correct, they were on a beach.

A familiar beach.

Mom lives on this island.

That was as good a place as any to go for help. Mom could speak to other humans.

Moon rose out of the water unsteadily, she hadn't used her legs in a long time. She held the girl bridal style, tucking her bag and hat between their bodies, then she began to make her way out of the water.

It's good the storm chased all the humans inside. Moon thought.

She glanced around the beach, it had changed since she'd last been here. There was a lot more stuff now, she didn't know the exact direction to go to get to Mom’s house.

It was much brighter too, a big shift from light being filtered through the water.

The moment Moon stepped out of the water, she felt different.

Her powers had a limit now, they had always had one but she was always being recharged by the ocean. She was still close enough to recharge her powers, only far slower than she was accustomed too.

Just don't get cut off, as long as I can get back I'll be fine. She thought.

She walked unsteadily towards the darker part of the beach, Mom lived on a darker side of the island, close to the water and temple, she remembered that much.

The sand stuck to her legs, she scrunched her nose at the hated sensation, she wanted her slime coat back.

The beach had a strange path in it now, stacked stones leading up to what was once a cliff that Mom had her own way down. At least she was close to Mom’s now.

She heard something, sound was weird out of water. Her hearing wasn't as good either. She turned in the direction she thought it was coming from.

A human woman was approaching her, she started waving once she realized she'd turned around.

“Hey! Are you alright over there?! Did that blast hurt you?!” The woman shouted to her.

Moon walked in the woman's direction, passing the girl off to this human would wash her clean of this entire situation, she wouldn't need to visit Mom, she could get back to Poppy faster. Her little friend was probably worried out of his mind by now.

She stopped a few feet away from the human woman, her hair was white but she wasn't old. The woman looked her over, like she was sizing her up. Moon fought the urge to growl, humans were different from Pokémon, they showed aggression differently.

“Are you okay? Do you need a towel?” the woman asked, pulling folded fabric out of her bag.

Moon stared at it, glancing at the woman in confusion.

“To cover up? Aren't you cold?” The woman explained awkwardly.

Moon didn't think she was too exposed, she had the flowy piece of black and white patterned fabric that she tied around her waist to use as a sack, that was currently covering her leg area, and she always covered her chest with something, though what she was wearing was likely somewhat see through. Maybe that was the problem.

She shook her head and held the girl out to the woman.

“Oh my! What happened to you two?” The woman gasped.

Moon shook her head, she didn't know anything other than the boat crashed in her territory. She gestured towards the girl in her arms, silently begging for this woman to take her.

The woman gave her a concerned look.

“Do you know her?” She asked.

Moon shook her head again.

“So you don't know what happened to her and you don't know her?” The woman prompted.

Moon nodded.

“Is she hurt?” The woman asked, shifting her focus to the girl in her arms.

Moon nodded, holding the girl out to her again. This time, the woman took her from her outstretched arms, she ignored the weird feeling telling her to grab the girl she didn't know back, instead handing the bag to the woman.

She gave the woman a smile, humans liked those, right?, and turned to leave.

“Wait, are you hurt? Do you have anywhere to go?” The woman asked, taking a step towards her.

Moon shook her head, smiling in what she hoped was a reassuring way. She racked her brain for the signs Mom taught her so they could talk way back all those years ago.

She remembered quickly, smiling as she tapped the side of her nose with her pointing finger three times*.

The woman frowned, brow furrowed in deep thought, then her face lit up with understanding.

“Your mother lives around here?” she asked.

Moon nodded, pointing in the general direction of Mom’s house. She smiled, waved then headed off in the direction of Mom's.

She felt the woman's eyes on her even as she began to climb the slope, the feeling only faded once she was over the hill.

Moon dropped into the tall grass on the cliff’s edge, peering down at the woman on the beach, the other Pokémon didn't bother her, she was too tough for them.

The woman was staring after her, considering following her, humans were too nosey sometimes. Luckily, the woman didn't follow her, instead turning away to take care of the girl. Moon breathed out a sigh of relief, resting her chin on the ground.

She waited a while longer, just to be sure the woman didn't come back and the beach remained empty, then she slipped back down to the beach, into the water. She swam out in her human body, checking for any sign of recording, before diving down, allowing herself to change back to her natural form as she swam against the seafloor.

Poppy must be so worried. She sighed, the little guy wouldn't let go of her for weeks after this.

Moon swam faster, trying to leave her questions about the strange girl and strange Pokémon with the island.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

*I believe that three taps with a pointer finger to the side of the nose is the sign for mother in Hawaiian Sign Language(HSL), I got that from this website https://www.listenandlearnusa.com/blog/hawaiian-sign-language/Cause I wanted to have Moon use HSL whenever she does communicate with people outside of the more vague gestures, but it's an endangered language and so finding sources on it is pretty hard, that really sucks.

Pokémer have the ability to change their forms, as long as they are close enough to the ocean to maintain their power, and have human legs/lower halves; they don't speak any human languages, but they can speak to Pokémon, they stay mute even in their human forms.

Moon's Mom and mother are different characters here, Mom is the mom character in the games, she's not Moon's biological mother, her bio mother is dead

I hope you all have a good day, whatever that is for you!

VJS Out!

[thepatchycat]

Hi, I’m a real new shiny here (on Tumblr, but also at drawing), and it’s the first time I ask anything, so I hope it’s ok. I must say first that I love the way you draw TCW characters (especially the clones)! 😍 I just came across this sketch you made on canvas (if I remember correctly) https://www.tumblr.com/thepatchycat/729224397978828800 and I was wondering, if you don’t mind sharing, how do you get the perfect white background on non-digital drawings? I currently use a scanner app on my sketches and the results are always inconsistent and far from that white… thanks a lot in advance!! 😊

Welcome to the Tumblr crew, shiny! ;) And thank you kindly!

So my dirty secret for that sketch is... it actually is completely digital! I drew it in a program called Rebelle 5, which is designed to mimic traditional canvas/paper and pencils/paints. I picked it up for super cheap during a huge sale last year, and it's a lot of fun; unfortunately, it's usually pretty expensive, as many art programs are. I highly recommend keeping an eye out for sales though if you ever get into digital drawing--and if you'd like a free program, the one I use most of the time is MediBang. But those programs are really mostly helpful for digital art, not so much for scanning actual pencil sketches.

While I tend to stick to digital drawing nowadays, I definitely feel you on the scan cleanliness issue; phone pictures and even proper printer scans tend to end up either kind of dirty or faded. The short answer is that I don't actually have an easy and effective solution, but there might be some things you can try depending on what you have available. I wouldn't be surprised if you've already explored more methods than I have, and there are definitely people with better ideas and more experience than me, but I'll share what I've tried.

Long(er)-winded rambling under the cut!

So, I currently have an unfinished piece sitting in my files that began as a traditional drawing, one that I want to keep all the pencil details for. Here's the sketchbook page, scanned using a household printer:

Not terrible, but it'd be nice to have clearer contrast between the lines and the background. In MediBang, I can adjust the contrast by going to Filter>Levels (or Ctrl+L), which gives me a little box that looks like this:

I don't technically know the nitty gritty of how it works, but by my understanding, the outer triangles for the input and output indicate the range boundaries. Adjusting the input--particularly the darker boundary--so that the output boundary exceeds it basically tells the program to make the darker parts even darker, resulting in this:

Better! As you can see, though, the darker parts of the background also show up a bit more. Rather than relying only on contrast adjustments, what I actually ended up doing was carefully erasing the background around the drawing after adding a plain white layer underneath, and also going over some of the lines digitally. I did this first in MediBang (the only art program I had when I started working on it), then transferred the file over to Rebelle.

MediBang (left) has the pure white background, while the Rebelle (right) canvas settings I chose are a little off-white and more textured, which I think blends a bit better with the texture and shading of the image. It's possible to add textures and the like in MediBang, too, but Rebelle has it built into its design, so it's a little easier to figure out there; I'll likely finish this piece in Rebelle (whenever I get back to doing so, haha), since the canvas and brush settings will be easier to match to the texture of everything that came directly from the drawing.

Most of this is much easier to do with a drawing tablet/pen, unless you're a wizard with a mouse. As for traditional means... the best suggestion I can come up with is to try inking sketches, or at least darkening them further with a pencil. The more contrast you can get between your lines and the background, the more easily you can digitally tease that contrast out even further. I think most photo editors have at least some contrast, color, and brightness adjusters, and probably more useful functions I don't even know about--it never hurts to mess around with any program's filters and settings to see what happens!

Good luck, and happy drawing! :D

[isolated-inkcidents]

Ginkaisyoku by kyo -no-oto

Carrie had not expected the request to be so reasonable. Honestly, she hadn’t expected there to be a request at all. Neither had she expected to find something— much less someone— when she enrolled in an elf-identification (the pamphlet was very clear on this point; this was not “elf-spotting”) course. This course was for the show, though, so she took it seriously. If an elf was asking her to follow him, she wanted to know. And now someone was in front of her, at the end of her first practice search, asking if Carrie would just follow him back to the house. There wasn’t a house. Carrie had tried to discreetly scan the forest behind the oddly-dressed individual, but saw nothing except more forest behind him. Her teacher had warned her to watch for shimmer at the corner of her eye and thorns hidden in an otherwise warm handshake. Neither suggestion was helpful.

The fandom: Oh No Ross and Carrie Podcaster RPF The characters: Carrie Poppy The Prompt: From Drop Kick Writer’s Block

The ink: Ginkaisyoku by kyo -no-oto The colour: Grayish blue with blue shimmer Special properties: Shimmer The pen: Kaweco sport, medium nib.

I've been using this ink a month. For a shimmer ink it is smooth-writing and I didn’t have any issues with clogging, which I seem to experience a lot with shimmer inks. However, when I started the writing sprint, I noticed a lot of starting and stopping. I figure as long as you write slowly, and fairly big, it’s a better experience. It plays nice with corner doodles, which is a plus, though I’m not much for drawing generally.

The colour is this washed out blue-gray that I just love. It builds up on itself as you write with it and can shade, but it took a little bit of work to get a lot of shading out of it. The shimmer is light blue and very subtle. It was hard for me to coax it out unless I had a light like my camera flash shining right at it. When you can see it, though, it really adds a little something to it. The overall effect was a lot like sitting out in the fog.

You can see from the picture that I had a lot of trouble with consistency of the line it lays down. Great for art projects, not so much for long writing sessions. It was really, really hard to write fast with this, though given the ink’s general fanciness, I’m not super surprised. I did have a lot of fun playing with it this month, though.

[scottwbeattie]

Review: Superman in the Seventies

Superman is not just my favorite superhero, he’s my favorite fictional character. Yet, comparatively speaking, I haven’t read that many of his comics, and, prior to this collection, I hadn’t read a single Superman comic from the 1970’s. I blame this entirely on DC, who, apparently, have no interest in publishing anything prior to Crisis on Infinite Earths. Even Superman in the Seventies is out of print, however, I managed to find a used copy on Amazon for a decent price and picked it up. Since I’m completely ignorant of Superman in this decade, I can’t say if the comics that they chose for this anthology are a good representation of the character at this time, but since it’s all that I have, it’ll have to do.

There are quite a few charming stories in this volume. I found that the ones I usually liked most were written by Elliot S! Maggin, but there were strong and weak stories from just about every contributor. The writers include a grab-pack of names that most DC readers of this era will be familiar with: Maggin, Cary Bates, Len Wein, and Robert Kanigher, but the biggest name undoubtedly will belong to Jack Kirby, as an issue of his Jimmy Olsen run is included.

The inclusion of that particular issue is a bit of a head-scratcher in that it ends on a cliffhanger, but the following issue is not collected. This actually happens a few times in the anthology, and so it can make for a frustrating reading experience. Again, I’m not familiar enough with this era to name a better stand-alone Jimmy Olsen issue, and it’s entirely possible that there isn’t one. I understand that you can’t not include a Kirby comic in a 70’s Superman collection, which is all the more reason to just create something like the equivalent of the Marvel Epic line (but that’s an argument for another day).

My favorite story might just be the Krypto story by Maggin, although I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a sucker for Krypto. As dated as it was, I also kind of liked the “I am Curious (Black)” where Lois Lane becomes black for a day. If you read it as a 2023 reader, then, yes, it’s very cringe, but if you’re willing to look at in its context, then it’s an interesting and well-intentioned piece of social commentary (although I suspect that, even in 1970, it came across as forced). “Must There be a Superman?” is a classic story that I’m really glad to have finally read and it lives up to its billing. There’s a few weak stories as well; the issue with Terra Man was just dull as he wasn’t a very compelling villain. The preface mentioned that he was an important foe during this decade, but he never came across as menacing. Instead, it felt like someone in the Superman office was a big fan of Clint Eastwood westerns and wanted him in a Superman comic.

The majority of the comics in this collection are drawn by Curt Swan, the definitive Superman artist, so the book looks great. My biggest complaint is that the quality of the paper and the scans don’t do justice to Swan’s art. Not to belabor the comparison, but the Marvel Epics treat the art from this same era with so much more reverence. To be fair, DC had a line of paperbacks and omnibuses (Wonder Woman: the Golden Age vol. 2, Green Lantern: the Silver Age vol. 4, The Brave and the Bold: the Bronze Age vol. 1, etc.) that was comparable in quality to the Epic line, but they never got around to printing any Bronze Age Superman stories, and, for the most part, it seems that the line has been discontinued.

Overall, I have mixed feelings about Superman in the Seventies. The stories themselves were almost always charming and fun even when they ended on an unresolved cliffhanger, but the format is just not the way that I would go about collecting stories from this era. For Superman fans like myself, however, it’s worth owning until a better collection comes along.

[empty-movement]

SCREAMING The images and the OCR of the table of contents is complete!!!! I just need to do the metadata, packaging, distributing, and presenting, surely not in and of themselves giant pr5ojeifhweu feqw and yes these are the VERY LIGHTLY 'compressed' 10000px copies, the uncompressed full size master copy is 1.65GB lmaaaao

This has been something of a journey in thinking about how to archive, why, what, and the ultimate job of someone like me, trying to share a representation of a thing.

The original 2001 scans were not made with archives in mind. It's just not what we were about. What it was about was that back then, ANY artwork you saw online likely had to be scanned from an artbook, screencapped, or otherwise made from some other original--digitizing content was still new and unusual--although not unheard of.

(The other large batch of Saito's art available at the time was a CD-ROM!!! The Chiho Saito Key Art Gallery CD-ROM included video commentary on some key pieces, which WE DID IN FACT GET TRANSLATED, CHECK OUT CHIHO SAITO'S AWKS 1998 CD-ROM COMMENTARY YEP IT'S LIKE THAT. It struggled with the same thing I did--digitally representing artwork at the time was not as easy, and tended to result in some truly horrendous images.)

Anyway, back then, the goal was less to flawlessly represent the product and more to flawlessly present artwork for use in digital projects--essentially, my goal was to create clean and perfect raws from which to create websites, winamp skins, etc. That goal, combined with the general lack of capacity to do better, means that my original scans of this artbook are like over-compressed audio. To look good on the screens of the day, the images were over-saturated and the blacks and whites, highs and lows so to speak, got cut off. Also, the file sizes were a concern at the time, resulting in a willingness to lose those fine details for a version that could be distributed online. (Obviously also it's a resolution thing--but not much needs to be said about 1250px holding less information than 10000.)

This time, the goal is fidelity to the actual artwork by Chiho Saito. This is probably a controversial choice from a strict archival perspective--I *should* be trying to flawlessly represent the actual pages of the book:

And sure. That'd still be amazing, and more 'honest.' However, I am not an archiver, I'm a hobbyist doing what I fuckin' want, and what I want is the best means to celebrate the absolutely incredible talent of Chiho Saito, as an artist, using the means available to me: incredibly high quality print reproductions of her work, and incredibly powerful imaging tools and experience to tease the most information about the original from the print given to me. Essentially? COMPUTER. ENHANCE.

This is like, maybe a square inch or two or actual content as she painted it. But you can zoom in so far now that you can see how the white strokes, the final touches, never create solid lines--the touch is that light, over a very lightly rippled surface. You can see the rainbow of colors she uses to create the depth of the folds in the cloth, and you can even tease out how they got layered. IDK, I don't really fuck with any other fandoms, but I do think this level of fidelity is rare to see in digital representations of manga artwork that predates profession transfer for digital releases. (And even then--you rarely get your official manga artwork in 10k.)

Sure, I could give you the print moire versions of these, but in a digital format, where you can zoom in far beyond the illusion the print moire creates on paper, the details in the information become fundamentally lost to the eye. I've learned a lot over the years about finding those details, knowing how to tease out scan dust from what's actually there, and so on and so forth. I guess, as someone who has spent over 20 years photoshopping, archiving production artwork, scanning tens of thousands of pages, and also as someone who has seen some of these originals in person... this is an ultimate use of my skills to create something no one else is likely to do, including the creators of the work.

oh hey I ranted on for no reason except I need to mentally dump the last 10 hours of work anyway these are uh, coming soon ig I just wanted to talk more about them

Chiho Saito's Illustration Collection artbook is the highest-quality visual media in the Utenaverse. Oversized, single-sided, heavy pages with extremely high quality printing. It is the first artbook I ever scanned.

In 2001, the average screen resolution was 800x600, and I delivered a 1250px wide collection that for a while, took $60 A MONTH to host, because no normal website was hosting images of this ludicrous size. It took my scanner almost an hour to capture a third of each page. I spent months piecing the scans together in Photoshop. It was one of my first true Utena labors of love, and the result is that for decades, these copies have been the definitive copies of Chiho Saito's artwork on the internet. For a very long time, even kinda now, if you see these images, they're probably my scans.

But decades have passed, and I've never been happy with these results, because they couldn't capture the fine details, the paint spills, the sketch beneath poking out, the brilliant use of gradients of dark color to pop the image but drive me insane. What I am finishing up now is a true, archival copy of the artbook. One that delivers such high resolution, that these can print posters larger than the originals, and thanks to some truly brilliant descreening tech, (Thank you Sattva) I've been able to dig up fine details in the work that the printing obscured, but undeniably included.

It's been over 20 years, and it shows. 1250px? Nah, my archive copies are 15,000px wide. I can't wait to finish this and share it with the world. <3