#(what i wanted to do was make it easier for me to colour sketches and not spend so much time agonizing over the colours)

[ethosiab]

[Day 29] boob window hypno ftw

[noliaert]

some fanart of THE vampire that owns the night🫰

[heretherebeturtles-comic]

Hello! Many people have said this but ill say it too, I LOVE YOUR COMIC SO MUCH ( ´ ▽ ` ).｡ｏ♡

I really wanted to ask you about how you do the backgrounds? (Something i struggle with) whats the process? Like from start to finish, also, to do the rise backgrounds do you use reference from the show and generally real photo of ny? Or do you come up with them? And last question- The shadow and light on the background- Like HOW

i know it’s a lot of questions but i’m just so curious qwq and wanna learn to be better, thank you again in case you read this and respond, in case you don’t, i hope you have a nice day and a wonderful life uwu keep up the great work! (≧◡≦) ♡

Backgrounds are a really broad subject and I'm always a little overwhelmed when asked this question. Just like drawing the human body, backgrounds take time, repetition, and practice!

My answer got a bit long, so it's going under a read more :) but if you digest info better in video format I found this on youtube

It pretty much goes over everything I wanted to say, but in a much better way. I wish I had found it before writing all this out lol

ok, first of all, I'm not a teacher nor was I built to be one of those cool helpful art tutorial people who do a full coloured tutorial filled with illustrations. This is just going to be a messy "how I do backgrounds / environment layouts from start to finish." kinda thing.

... lets start with a sight tangent.

Sketch from Life!!!

If you want to get better at backgrounds I recommend doing some sketching out in the real world!

When I was first getting into doing backgrounds I went to cafes and parks to just sketch the buildings and objects. Sketch rocks, flowers, clumps of grass, garbage cans, bottles, tables, street signs, etc. If you are drawing a tree observe how the trunks twist, how the bark flows, or how the leaves are bunched.

If you can't leave the house the same still applies! Sketch the interiors of your house, the walls, or common objects like chairs and bookshelves. How are objects stacked? items on the floor?

If you aren't comfortable with drawing outside or in public you can take some photos to draw from! They are good for practice and you can use them again as references later. Alternatively you can find pictures online of buildings and objects to sketch as practice.

All spaces have objects in them, it becomes easier to draw those kinds of spaces when you already have spent time observing and sketching them.

ALSO! They don't have to be good sketches! It's just to build out your mental catalogue and strengthen your perception of perspective.

now the actual thing...

BACKGROUNDS

(the pictures used for this are my own. I dug them out of my 2022 folder)

Backgrounds have slightly different rules based on what you are making them for. Videogame Environment Concept Art vs Animation Layouts vs Comic Backgrounds vs Illustration backgrounds.

They all follow the same basics, which I will go over here, but the intention and function of those designs are going to be different. It's all about how you set up the scene and what it's purpose is!

Brainstorming and Thumbnailing

I like to think about a location as though it is a character. An abandoned old house with creaky sagging floorboards is very different from a futuristic space ship with sharp metal floor panels. A gas station has a very different feeling from a library.

I usually start by asking what is this location's story? Why was it built and for what purpose? What kinds of things does this room need to fulfill that purpose? You don’t need solid answers, but its good to be thinking about it while you are working.

Next, sketch some ideas for how this place is going to look. For me, this usually involves drawing the idea from multiple angles and then making lists & small sketches of the objects I think should be filling the space.

Example: The main character of my original work is a Wanderer. They collect a lot of things on their travels, but those items have to be small enough to be easily carried in a backpack. I wanted his room to be in the corner of an attic, walled off by curtains, and filled with trinkets. You can see some of my brainstorming above.

References

I only look for references after I've done some sketching and planning; this is to solidify my idea first so that I don't accidentally copy anyone else's work. I will make a moodboard with pictures of lighting, colours, items, rooms with specific ceiling beams, old chairs, etc. basically whatever I feel fits the vibe.

Honestly, I don't use references as much as I should. For ROTTMNT fanart I look at backgrounds and screenshots from the series to study the style. I also reference actual photos of NYC to get a feel for how Rise condenses the visual information.

In general, it's good to have references of real life objects/locations, because there are so many details like cracks in pavement, stickers on polls, crowning on buildings, fancy fencing, weird chair legs, etc. that you might not think of. It's the imperfect details that can make a location feel more alive.

Perspective

Once you have your chosen sketch we move to.... the infamous perspective boxes. Doing backgrounds is just learning to be comfortable drawing So Many boxes and carving items out of them.

Many better artists than myself have made videos on perspective, vanishing points, and all the technical bits. Videos like THIS ONE and THIS ONE are helpful (this post is great too!!). There are probably a lot of classes to be found on Skillshare or Schoolism. I learned a lot of this in my college art course, so I can't give you a specific video which helped me.

You can get by and be a good artist without learning this stuff. There are quite a few successful artists who have admitted they never bothered to learn perspective (one of these people even made a whole graphic novel series).

I personally avoided properly learning this stuff until I was in my 20s because I thought it would be boring and difficult to do. tbh I really wish I had learned it earlier because it's so much fun to make those silly little boxes imo. It looks scary and complicated but, just like drawing humans, it just takes time, repetition, and practice to develop the knowledge and skills.

Cleanup

You have your boxes and lines! Cool! Now to make a scene out of it. Fill in the details, get everything placed were you want it! Generally, the lines of each item will point back towards the horizon line, but they can have different perspective points.

Generally you would want to clean it up and get your room completely sketched before doing the lineart. I tend to combine the steps (not recommended)

Lineart

I've mentioned how I do this before. Closer objects have thicker lines and more detailed inside. Further objects have thinner lines and less detail. I didn't quite achieve that balance with the image below, but it's close enough.

Colours and Shading will have to be a separate post. In the meantime, I highly recommend the book "Color and Light" by James Gurney. I used to borrow it from my local library and a good chunk of my knowledge was learned from it :)

[queenie-avenue]

Hii! 🌟

So..i want ask for request about CEO ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

What if one day reader is caught sketching the CEO in some fancy clothes? Would he like to wear this for reader?

(Thank you in advance! Hope u have really good day 👁️〰️👁️)

/// sorry for my English kinda bad at grammar (ง’̀-‘́)ง

He'll wear anything you make.

💌 ⤻ THE CEO, Adrian Houde

—> he's your muse, you're his obsession.

⤻ reader is gender neutral, reader has a crush on Adrian, obsessive behaviour, posessive thoughts, snooping, fluff, red flags but they aren't so apparent.

notes: i altered the prompt a bit, i hope you don't mind but thank you for the ask! i'm glad you like adrian as much as i do. feel free to send in more asks! love the cute emoticons btw <3 did not proofread, we die like men.

Adrian strolled about the fashion department, his hands raking across the abandoned tables now that everyone had headed home. He rolled up his sleeves to check the time as he walked past the messy and cluttered desks, the heels of his shoes clacking against the floor.

One might ask, what was the CEO of the company doing so late at the fashion department? Everyone had gone home, clocking off early for the holidays — even the ever-busy fashion team — except him. His blue eyes raked across the table as he searched for your table, and finally, he came across it and smiled.

You didn't have a table before, you cramped alongside the lower level employees but well, Adrian pulled some strings here and there for you to get your own table.

It also made it easier for him to look through your belongings.

"Hm?" He hummed when he saw an unfamiliar book on the table. He had memorised every detail of your table, to the point where he knew where you put your emergency snacks — sometimes even refilling them for you anonymously — but this sketchbook was new.

He knew it was wrong to sneak into someone's belongings, and his grandmother would no doubt absolutely pulverise him for such ungentlemanly actions but you already belonged to him. You didn't, but you would soon.

He was slowly cracking you down, he knew. Adrian could still see the blush on your face when you were caught staring at him for too long.

His nimble hands reached for the book and flipped through them. The pages crinkling in his hands as he gazed at all of the different designs. His eyes slowly widened as he recognised the dimples on the model's face, the tousled blonde hair, the dashing pale blue eyes, and the silhouettes you had crafted just for him. The suits, some dresses, some eccentric, some more subdued, and multiple designs made with styles he had a penchant for.

He smiled, knowing that you had to have been observing him rather closely to be able to craft such flattering outfits for him.

"Hah," he breathed out, feeling his cheeks heat up. "You're driving me crazy." He whispered to himself as he felt his entire body grow hot.

He continued to flip through the pages, taking in the sight of him as your muse. He almost wanted to hop in his car and drive off to your house now just to kiss you but he had to restrain himself.

He was a gentleman; even if he snuck into your belongings. He would wait for a while more. His grandmother had always said that a prolonged courting period was needed, filled with flowers, chocolates, gifts, and, of course, polite flirting.

He placed the book on the floor and snapped a few pictures, making sure to make it look accidental, like he had just stumbled across it and sent it to you.

Adrian. H: Stumbled across a cute little thing on the way to a late-night meeting. Mind if I get it privately made? I'd love to wear something you made.

He smirked, knowing that you would fluster. He just wished you were here just so he could see colour fill your face. He made a note to visit the fashion department during lunchtime just to tease you further. Maybe he'd even wear something akin to your designs tomorrow.

He just wanted to get this courting phase over so he could wrap you in his arms like a snake and never let go.

Your sketchbook was practically an invitation for him to do so.

[apple-salad]

Rose Ribbon Embroidery "Mini" Projects (for BABY NYFW) Part 2: Embroidered Bonnet

I decided semi-last minute to attend BABY's fashion show at NYFW!

BABY had mentioned in their NYFW brand description that their newest collection would be a return to their origins, as well as presenting archival items.

You have to dress to impress for NYFW, right? So of course, I had to pull out all the stops and wear my Rose Ribbon Embroidery.

Also at the last minute, I decided to make a few extra complementing items...

A matching RRE kumya JSK, and a bonnet.

What follows is more of a sew-along/journal rather than a tutorial or guide, mainly for my own memory's sake. But if you enjoy looking at my process (sometimes sloppy), I'm happy!

Also feel free to take a look at the more romantic process video I edited.

Part 1: Kumya JSK

Part 2: Bonnet (you are here)

This post will be my process pictures and notes for the bonnet, as well as a matching mask as a bonus.

I don't believe BABY released matching headwear for Rose Ribbon Embroidery, although I've seen an unknown velveteen headbow with rose lace sold with RRE before.

BABY usually coords RRE with the bunny ear bonnet since Ichigo wears it this way in Kamikaze Girls.

I do own this because I wanted to wear an Ichigo-like outfit at some point, but for this occasion I decided to do something different and make a "matching" embroidered bonnet.

I originally wanted to make a hard bonnet with a very defined brim that could show off the embroidery clearly as I don't really like soft bonnets, but when looking at existing BABY bonnets as a reference, it doesn't look like hard bonnets were a thing back in 2004 (and as it is, BABY rarely releases hard bonnets). So to keep with the oldschool theme, the bonnet is a soft one, although I later make some decisions to make it slightly more structured.

The next decision to make was full bonnet vs half bonnet. The bunny ear bonnet is a full bonnet and I think this is technically more "period accurate", but I am not a fan of how they look like a weird hood from the back so I opted for half (plus, that makes construction and patterning easier for me).

I still used my own bunny ear bonnet as a reference for approximate brim dimensions!

The kumya JSK was a little easier to carelessly sketch out and embroider since I was copying 1:1 from an existing design, but I felt I needed to do at least a bit more careful planning for the embroidery on this. I'm quite bad at creating embroidery designs from scratch, but with the mental image of the rose clusters and swags of vine, as well as referencing the embroidery from the film, I came up with this:

I wanted to emulate the embroidery style of the Momoko's (well, in reality likely the embroidery designer Onoe Megumi--unclear if she did the actual embroidery, but it's likely) embroidery, which I figured wouldn't be too difficult if I was also embroidering by hand.

For material, I am using the same velveteen I used for kumya's JSK. Not my first choice and I actually purchased some thicker looking 100% cotton velvet that I thought would be more similar to the original JSK material, but was worried it wouldn't arrive in time and wanted this project out of the way in case things went wrong/took longer than I expected (it did arrive about a week before the event, but it was totally wrong IRL so I'm glad I just went with this acceptable option). I also bought some more torchon lace, so I used that and another lace from my stash.

The colours of the embroidery in the film also seem to be quite different than BABY's dress. I'm not sure if the pink of the roses has faded over the years, but it has a slight salmon tone whereas the film's roses seem to be more of a pale cool/neutral pink (hard to tell with the yellow tint of the entire film) with some variegation. I love the colour scheme of the film's embroidery, but to keep things coordinated I try to opt for the same colours as the actual dress I have.

I only have white silk ribbon in the width I wanted, so I opted to attempt to dye it to match. Previously I have used alcohol markers to colour the embroidery afterwards, but I find the colour hard to control and it tends to bleed into the fabric. I've also tried colouring the ribbon with the marker before embroidering, but without heat setting the colour transfers onto the fabric as well (and it seems like trying to do so with the amount of ribbon I need would be a waste of ink).

I don't have a lot of experience with it, but since the ribbon is silk, acid dyeing seemed like the way to go.

Very interesting photo of ribbon in pot (the pink ribbon gets eaten up by pinwheel roses much faster than I expected so this is the second batch I had to dye--not ideal as they are definitely slightly different in colour but it's not too noticeable). In total, I think I had to dye 3 batches of ribbon and 4 for the pink ribbon as I just barely ran out near the end, and they are all slightly different colours. Thankfully the undertone is the same so it's difficult to tell unless you are really comparing up close.

I thought I would take this opportunity to use the "peach" acid dye that I bought years ago for another project, but this ended up being a mistake as the colour was totally off (maybe the red dye was too expired). I ended up using my regular fiber reactive procion dyes (with heat/acid), because I have many more colours I could mix together, and that was much better. I really should have done this from the start as I wasted perfectly good silk ribbon by making it too dark/off for my purposes (I ended up overdyeing it in pink so it's a usable colour now, but not for this project).

The silk seems to take on dye extremely fast--even just heating up the dyebath will colour it. In some cases I removed the ribbon before adding any acid at all because I felt the ribbon was already getting too dark.

I managed to get a fairly usable mossy green colour for the leaves and vines, however the pink still ended up being a little off/dark compared to whatever BABY used. It's not too bad here as one strand of ribbon, but when many layers are on top of each other in a rose it seems pretty dark. While not ideal, I think it's still okay, especially considering the embroidery colours used in kumya's JSK match nothing else (many pinks will be going on in this coord).

After dyeing and drying, the ribbon is super wrinkled so I ironed it and wound it on some spare card so it's ready to use.

And now I can start the arduous process of embroidery.

Like before, I mainly use a combination of ordinary ribbon stitches, pinwheel roses, and french knot roses. However, this time I try harder to duplicate, or at least evoke the appearance of the embroidery of the film.

It's interesting how plain and somewhat boring the roses look on their own, especially with this monotone colouring. The varied colours of the film's embroidered roses are lovely, but I decided against it here because the BABY dress has monotone ribbon roses.

The roses definitely seem to just be pinwheel style which is very easy and doable, however I am a bit more confused about the leaves. They look like a number of straight stitches in various lengths and directions that fill in a leaf-like shape. I have no idea if this technique has a name and if there is a proper method for it, because I am a silly beginner who is very uneducated in embroidery.

Anyway I do my best and hopefully I got close enough. Ribbon embroidery is really all about the texture, which is really lovely to look at. Except I have trouble looking at my own work for too long because I start nitpicking all the mistakes I made...

Adding the green and leaves really helps the embroidery come to life.

I took even fewer pictures of the embroidery process than kumya's JSK this time because it's not that interesting. I was definitely getting sick of doing the same pinwheel over and over...

I stupidly decided that aside from embroidering the front of the brim, I also wanted a little bit of embroidery on the back of the brim for interest, as well as on the side.

The designs I drafted out for these two pieces is much simpler, but still, more work....

Almost ready for construction! Hopefully a lot faster with the handwork out of the way.

I iron on some interfacing onto the back brim panel and the bonnet band for slight extra stiffness.

The bottom part of the brim is plain cotton sateen because I was worried that the part that touches the head would get dirtier more quickly it if was velveteen.

I wanted some lace gathered around the brim and an extra velveteen ruffle on the back of the band, so I prepare that now. The lace is gathered with a single gathering thread and sewn down before sandwiching between the two brim panels.

Brim sewn and topstitched (and band is ready for attachment).

The upper flowers ended up a little closer to the top of the band then I intended, but I think it's okay.

Gathering brim and attaching it to band. Because the velvet fabric is so thick, the usual "sew one line of stitching with a wide stitch length" not only made the fabric incredibly difficult to gather, but the thin polyester thread also continually broke when trying to do so. Therefore, I opted for an alternative method I think I'd remember seeing in my sewing machine manual of all things--a zigzag carefully stitched over a central gathering thread. This worked much better, although I probably should have used a thicker/extra strong thread as the central gathering thread because it did break the second time I had to gather the brim due to a mistake.

I also add a bit of lace to the inside of the brim. I think this adds some luxury and frilliness between the head and the bonnet's brim, so I wanted to add a small width. I probably could have used even more of the lace's width since it turned out very subtle when worn. But I still think it adds a small amount of interest to the innermost part of the brim and was worth adding.

Unfortunately here after sewing on both brim parts I realize that I gathered both using an incorrectly marked centre line, so I had to rip it out and do it again ;_;

Next, I can carefully align and pin the bottom of the brim to the bonnet and sew it down. I tack this down by hand because I'm not skilled/accurate enough with a sewing machine to topstitch both sides nicely at once (look closely, and my messy stitching is quite visible...)

I also fold in the raw edges and finish the sides of the brim by hand, leaving some openings for ribbon ties.

At this point I spray almost the whole bonnet with water to disperse and fade my markings. Unfortunately, some of the earlier batches of ribbon that I dyed (Can you tell the variance in the 3 dye batches I needed to do?) were probably not washed well after dying and seem to have bled into the fabric from the water...but hopefully it's not too noticeable.

Next I topstitched all around the brim and attached the ribbon ties.

I bought some double sided velvet ribbon in my last minute supplies shipment and made some bows from it. I think the material is a little thick and petersham would have worked alright as well, but the consistent velvet material feels more luxurious, doesn't it? I also think as an added benefit (?) the ribbon being plush and double sided made the bows more puffy looking.

I add some clips to the sides and a toupee clip to the top for security. I opted for a toupee clips because I think it's really the way to go if you don't want the head item to move at all, no matter how thin or slippery your hair.

Finished.

Bonus 1: rose accent pin

I was in a bit of a rush at this point as it was near the end of the week coming up to the show, so I didn't take any photos of the process here but the technique and templates I used were identical to my handmade faux rose rosettes I made for UM (and the bonus corsages). I have a post with all the details of this sitting in my drafts that I will post eventually, and I will update this post when that happens.

The brooch was just meant to add a bit of 3D faux flower accent to the bonnet, bringing in the rose motif even more. Partially inspired by the faux flowers BABY adds to their bonnets sometimes, like on Milk Tea Doll.

The fabric was "custom dyed" with the same fiber reactive dye I used for the silk. The fabric was further starched, cut out by hand, and shaped with flower iron tools before gluing together.

Bonus 2: matching embroidered mask

I wasn't sure about whether or not I wanted to wear a matching mask, but decided to do so for situations when I would want my face at least half-covered in public. I didn't really expect to be visible in fashion show pictures as someone in the back, but just in case. (I think this decision was worth it, although my makeup transferred all over the thing and in most pictures my face was even more unflattering. eh well)

I forgot to take a lot of pictures of my process for this, but it's very uninteresting and not dissimilar from every other mask sewalong from 2020. I draft out a design similar to the bonnet motifs on both of my mask panels (cotton sateen), and embroider.

I should have embroidered closer to the centre of the mask because when worn the embroidery is not very visible/covered by my hair at the sides. What can I do since the panels were already cut though...oh well!

The lining material is some Japanese CLEANSE Ex fabric I had bought previously to make masks during the pandemic. It's supposed to be antibacterial and antiviral, as well as washable, but I have no idea how well supported those claims are.

Sew together normally on both upper and lower sides, turn inside out, add a channel for nose wire and side channels for elastic.

I also have some mask elastic on hand so I use that.

And the finished outfit again with all my items~

Thank you for reading! If you ever feel inspired to take up a similar project, such as the kumya JSK, I'd love to see it!

[asleepyy]

THAT LAST CHAPTER!!!!???!!!!! SO BEAUTIFUL!!!! THE DIALOGUE IS INSANE, THE COLORS, THE LITTLE DETAILS AND HIDDEN THOUGHTS THE CHARACTERS HAVE, I COULD SPENT HOURS TALKING ABOUT IT.

But... i won't (at least for now) because there is another thing that i wanted to talk about that this new chapter made me think, the artistic improvement of the oopsie!omens comic, specially on the designs!!

Let's start with Azazel's owl forehead. Yes. His forehead. That's a very important topic for me, the way his forehead is drawn has improved significantly over the time. When i was reading the first chapters, i noticed that his forehead mark was drawn in the same way regardless of his facial expressions or the camera angle.

BUT as the story went along, I began to notice that this has started to change... for the better!!! His head mark started to be drawn attached to his eyebrows and IT LOOKS SO MUCH BETTER!?! Not only does it look more realistic ofc but it also looks a lot more expressive, SO IM TALKING ABOUT IT. CUZ IT DESERVES TO BE PRAISED.

Uurrrrgh ok so idk if you guys can see what i mean so i drew a little example to make it easier:

I know that i should go back to paying attention to more important details like character development, dialogue, etc but im just way too obsessed about every single detail i cant control myself im SORRY

FLIPP you know i love you!! i'm glad that these little quality improvements are being noticed and appreciated!!

to be quite honest, I only actually have around 2 days to work on each update; the first day I spend writing and sketching it out, and the next day I line it, colour it, and do all the text and paneling, so it's really hard for me to keep things improving, some updates look better than others, unfortunately. so i just really appreciate that you guys can see small improvements like this!!! <3

[ziyuanyuan1113]

I am in love with your art style. I love all your jjk art, it’s like stitching back the pieces of my shattered heart. Your art is so soothing and has such a warm feel, I love it. Also if you don’t mind me asking what program do you use for your art, and do you have any tips? I strive to someday create art that gives the same feeling of comfort as yours. Thank you <3

Thank you so much for the kind message! I'm actually in the middle of making another jjk piece but it's been a while so I've been trying to remember and consolidate my process. This ask came at a great time hehe

I use photoshop for most of my art pieces but I think there are a lot of cheaper alternatives (procreate on Ipad, clipstudio paint, medibang etc) that would work just as well. As for tips, I have a technical and an emotional one:

My technical tip would be to use references!! Especially if you're just starting out, it's SO IMPORTANT imo for catching mistakes especially with anatomy, lighting and perspective. And by reference I mean real life photos. I think you can be inspired by other artists' work, but there is the danger of picking up their bad habits if you only use their work for reference. I would recommend sticking mainly to real life and looking to other artists only for resolving specific stylistic details once you have a solid grasp of your fundamentals.

I would start with a rough sketch first of whatever you want to draw and then look for refs that match the mood and tone you want to go for. Get the idea down first and draw from the heart. Then the refs come in to help with the specifics (ex. what a window looks like, how someone would hold a cigarette) The jump from the rough to the clean line version is an amalgamation of all the little things you learn along the way. For example, on one day, I learned that clothing folds usually start at one point and spread out. Then another day, I learned how to do 1 point perspective and so on and so forth. Then all those tidbits slowly add up to help you get better and better.

2. My second tip would be to understand what you want to convey with your artwork. If it's fanart, what about the media that you're interacting with draws you in? It doesn't always need to be a complex answer, sometimes you just want to draw a character because you think they're hot and that's totally valid imo.

I occasionally tutor very young artists and oftentimes, they will tell me that they want to draw like X artist or X painting/piece of media. I always try to encourage them to go deeper. What about that drawing resonates with them and what specifics are occurring in the picture to make them feel that way? For example, I recently realized I love environment heavy drawings not for the background itself but because they ground the characters and seeing them do mundane things makes them feel more real to me.

For the example below, the whole set was to explore friendship and mental health. Sometimes just having someone there who listens and is willing to talk with you can make a huge difference.

Once you know the purpose of your art, then I think it makes the decision making for the rest of the process much easier. What type of lighting scenario conveys support and comfort? I went with dusk. Then I started searching up references for dusk lighting. Couldn't find the ref I actually used for colour but a quick google will show you lots of similar options.

What kind of poses feel in character for Shoko vs Geto? What is the focus of the picture? As much as I love details, I think sometimes they can actually take away from the main message. For example, if I had rendered the lamp on the right a lot more, it would've distracted from the main point of the picture so I tried to keep that and the background in general simple (still something I need to improve on haha).

Then those extra technical things (value structure, cool vs warm light, reflective lighting, connotations behind colours) you pick up along the way are all there to help you better communicate what you want to convey with your art.

Okay I lied one more tip, be patient and learn to appreciate the process. Like with any skill, there are a lot of technical aspects that you have to study and practice. I think because the end result is so visual and easily accessible in comparison to other hobbies/jobs, it really cripples beginners. Even with writing, you won't realize a book is good until you learn how to read. With art, you can resonate with a painting without having drawn a single line yourself.

I think beginners and even professionals see a lot of beautiful finished artwork and get enticed by that only to be discouraged when they find their process/finished work didn't end up the way they wanted it to look. Treat it like you would learning how to write. The fundamentals can be tedious and do take time to drill into your head, but learning them will help you SO MUCH with the creative fun parts. You can't write a poem without first taking the time to learn the alphabet, spelling and grammar. You're also probably going to write a bunch of shitty poems before you write that one good one, but that's okay because each piece lets you experiment and exercise your voice. Art is the same thing, don't rush it! Enjoy the process and celebrate your improvements.

[blakbonnet]

ARTIST OF THE WEEK @merryfinches ♥️

This week's aotw is Kylie who has bewitched us body and soul with her lovely art and even lovelier personality. Always there with a kind word, just all round a stellar human being, and someone who makes my day better anytime I see her on the dash. She was also game for answering a few questions:

Which do you use to draw (app/digital or traditional)?

I use Procreate on my iPad! I like being able to put it on my bag and draw anywhere - I don’t have as much time to draw as I want, so I do it in bits and pieces whenever I get the chance.

I love sketching with coloured pencils in my sketchbook too, I LOVE digital art, but there’s nothing like the texture of pencil and paper!

Fave brushes/pencils/mediums (links/screenshot?)

These are the ones I use most. The top 3 are all standard Procreate brushes. Chalk is my go-to for sketching and line art, and lightbrush and lightpen for highlights. I used Gingerbread Inker for colouring - it’s a free brush I picked up from somewhere, but I can’t find where!

Your favourite piece you've drawn?

Oooooooh, I don’t know! It’s easy to look back at basically every drawing and see the flaws, but this one of Ed and Stede in their inn is special to me, because I think it’s the first time I felt like I’d developed a comfortable style after messing around trying to draw them for months with… varying degrees of success.

And I’m really proud of the comic I drew of Ed having a nightmare, because i find comics so hard to draw and I’m in awe of everyone who does it!

Who's harder to draw: Ed or Stede?

Aaaaah, they both have challenges, but Stede I think? I prefer drawing his left side because of the way his hair swishes differently on both sides, and that side is easier. And he has a very particularly-shaped nose that can be really hard sometimes! Unless I’m drawing Ed’s leathers, in which case it’s him 😆

One essential tip for beginner artists?

There will be a point where you look at all your art so far and think “oh these are terrible, what am I even doing?” But that’s GOOD because it means you’re improving! And I’m sorry but that never stops - you will be improving forever! Nobody I know is ever really satisfied with their own art, and your art style is like your handwriting - it’s unique to you.

Also, get a sketchbook and a pencil, make mistakes, practice drawing your own hands and feet, screenshots, your cat, anything basically. And remember it’s supposed to be fun 🥰

Why OFMD? 🥹

Because it’s the fucking BEST! 😎

No seriously, I guess I like drawing Ed and Stede so much because they’re everything. Love, sex, tenderness, fun, cuteness, heartache and joy. Two souls who are so insecure and alone, and then they have someone who GETS them, who loves everything about them. They’re just wonderful.

[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

[moonsofmachinery]

So this isnt a pride req but you still don't have to answer!! But how do you draw so quickly?? I swear you draw like 2-4 times a day? I wanna get on a really good schedule about that so I can keep up with a art blog but idk how to draw fast! How'd you do it?

I hope it helps If I go over my entire process here because I've been wanting to showcase my process for awhile anyways :}

Haha! Yeah, i usually try and draw ~4 things min a day. Now, let me clarify, to run an art blog you don't have to draw fast! I do try and take breaks if I need them!!! But a lot of my speed has to do with the fact I've just been in a very art-inclined mood as of late :} It's a lot easier to draw if you WANT to draw! and knowing people like my stuff is a huge motivator.

Long post below where I explain my process and some of the shortcuts I take!! :]

For more skill-based tips though, my method definitely helps. Drawing lineless and paying attention to my stabilizer helps a lot. I'm definitely not a perfectionist when it comes to my art and I do tend to reuse poses I KNOW im comfortable with if I'm not in the mood to go all out.

I sketch freely with loose stabilizer using a pencil-like pen that allows me to get a good idea of the details I want down... Ex:

I have a very good grasp on the way i draw slugcats and how their bodies are shaped! Depending on the characters you're drawing, you should try drawing them a TON to get to a point where you can sketch them without even looking at a ref of any kind. My designs tend to stay consistent as I have a solid idea of each slugcat in my mind! It helps me pace myself as I generally don't need refs! :}

Next, I blot out my main body shape. I then, using a clip layer, add in lines and line in limbs! Generally I do this all in the same colour, get the main shapes down before you add detail and all that...

I blot out different regions of my character in different colours and section off areas to ensure I can later select these and go over them! Doing lineless helps me a ton as I don't use a lot of layers! it's just the style im more used to :}

Lastly, I add in my colours and adjust places where I can adding in all markings and details and recolouring where I need to! I use the selection wand to help me and I also use clip layers.

The details are relatively easy for me, most of the time its just getting to doodle whatever I want to make the colour combo look the best I can!!! :} The final result of this one will be posted on its own, but I just use CSP tools to add an outline-- I'm not sure if you use Clip Studio Paint, but if you do, you can use the effect feature!

Its just a little thing I add to make my drawing pop against the background!!!! :D

Anddd thats how I pump out art at an inhuman rate! Drawing is one of the few things I can do without my chronic pain kicking my ass so a lot of my day is spent at my computer cozy n' arting! Drawing for too long does cause fatigue in anyone though! I reccomend listening to something engaging in the background (if your attention can take it) and taking regular breaks every ~15-30 minutes.

This piece took me 30 minutes?? maybe a little more! I hope this gave you what you were lookin for :D!!!!! I wish u well in ur art blog n' make sure not to stress urself!!!!!

[dom1re]

Hi 👋🏽 I so admire your arts too!! If it’s ok, I’d love to know more about your approach to shading and rendering. I always find your use of colour so calming and complementary. 💖💖

Whereas I tend to be over saturated and why I often draw in greyscale

When I read that you liked my arts too I died. I was down on the floor. Crying tears of joy. Then I realized I have a response to draft so I got up.

So here ya go!! I hope you find something interesting here. I organized it into 3 parts for easier reading:

Rendering Overview

Picking Colors

Shading (or winging it and hoping for the best)

Also if anyone has any tips I'm all ears!! I’m always trying to optimize my process, make it quicker + cleaner

Rendering Overview

My current rendering process on Procreate (click and swipe):

1. Rough sketches

This is where I try to get the anatomy and pose right. I can get up to 3 reps in here depending on how refined I want it to be. Yep I care a lot about my lines...

2. Clean line

... coz it's my favorite part!! I get such a dopamine rush seeing the sketches come together into a clean line lol. Here I use the Selection Tool and Liquify to resize and adjust the forms (gotta move away from doing this too much tho)

3. Color

First I create a flat base layer and color over it using Clipping Mask (pretty standard I think). Then I divvy my drawing into as many layers as possible - one each for skin, hair, shirt, waistcoat, trousers, etc - as I color them all. More on this below.

4. Shade

ewww shading... my least favorite part. I use Multiply layers and gray colors, again pretty standard. I usually have 1-3 layers here, stacked on one another, depending on the desired depth. More on this below.

5. Finishing touches

This stage involves a lot of small (but important imo) things, which vary depending on the drawing:

Tinting lines (Because shading makes the colors darker, lines need to get darker too)

Highlights on hair, face, clothes, eyes, etc. I can never make up my mind between Overlay/Hard Light/Soft Light layers for this

Little wisps of hair or lighting effects 

and voila I have something to share with the world. wooo

Picking Colors

Ok about my colors… I wish I had some fancy technique to show but tbh I just eyeball them and try them out a bunch. Now if I’m using a reference I could use the color picker, but I don't like to coz the results are way off for whatever reasons (ex. lighting in the img). Anyways it doesn’t have to be the same color as the reference; as long as the colors “make sense” to me I'm happy.

But what if the colors I chose are too saturated or too dark? I use the Adjustment Tools for this. I can just select the layer (or an area using the Selection Tool) and edit its darkness and saturation. I found this way easier than painting over or color-dropping repeatedly.

This is why I leverage as many layers as possible. It allows a modular control on my rendering - I can change the color of my character’s skin, eyes, or waistcoat patterns and keep all other components unaffected and clean. Sometimes I have like 100+ layers and it drives me batshit crazy but the pros still outweigh the cons. Or so I tell myself

( + I would love to understand grayscale and use it as freely as u do. I watched bunch of vids on it but something about it just hasn’t stuck with me yet 😔)

Shading I guess

Similar to coloring, I create several Multiply layers and stack them together for depth. For example:

This is again for that modular control but honestly I wouldn't be doing this if I was good at shading... I feel so lost every time, I just don't know how it works. But one ‘hack’ I’ve come up with is shading skins and clothes differently. I use reddish gray for skin (and brown/red hair), and just gray for everything else.

The character feels more lively and natural with a bit of red undertones in their skin. I don't think this is the best way to render skins though. Just a little shortcut til I get to study the topic more.

Something else I do to get over my fear of shading is using good references. I’m always lurking on Pinterest for them but alas, I can’t always find that perfect image with perfect lighting and poses. It’s kinda sad funny how the quality of my rendering depends so much on the reference:

(it's not a 'bad' reference per se - I chose it really for the pose, not for shading)

At the end of the day tho I’m just a learning artist so I try not to be too harsh on myself. Someday I'll render shiny shoes and shirt creases without refs. I yearn for that day 

Well on that cheerful note thanks for coming to my Ted Talk your interest in my rendering approach! I’ve been wanting to document it for my own records so this was great.

I picked up digital illustration just last year and self-learning it has been a fun but lonely process. If you have any tips or more questions talk to me ANYONE PLEASE I’m dying to talk about it if you can't tell by the sheer length of this post. For which I'm sorry but hopefully it wasn’t too dense a read ok I’m really done now bye!! 

[kozachenko]

I RETURN BEARING DOODLES OF ZE KEIK!

Hello again! :D I felt like drawing Keiki because I had nothing else to do and I also wanted to draw Keiki again because C R E A T E !

{Artists Note}:

So I had some ideas bouncing around for how I wanted to draw Keiki, and the first time I went with a more robotic look that was inspired by BoTW. I also wanted an excuse to try out some stuff with collages, and so I used an 1800s drawing of a skeleton to put this together. I added a face and a head just for fun, but tbh I wasn't 100% happy with it even though I did like how it looked. I might wanna save the BoTW inspired parts for a future Okina design as I think the constellation motiffe some BoTW Sheikah stuff has fits her more (and I have adopted the headcanon that she has prosthetics, I love it so much).

Like ok, context for this is headcanons. So as I mentioned in my post about Eirin, I wanted to play around with the visual idea of gods in Touhou being very much related to what they're gods of.

So at first with Keiki I tried just making her look like a haniwa herself, but I ended up not going with that as I like the idea of her being distinguishable from the Haniwa she creates. So instead, I ended up going with a more cyberpunk aesthetic for her, inspired in part by Cyberpunk Edgerunners (no spoilers plz, I haven't finished it yet). It's also the reason why I did an alternative cyberpunk outfit for her (inspired by a dress I found on Pinterest).

I feel like the hardest things about drawing Keiki are her dress and hair bandanna. In the image above with her normal outfit, I had a lot of struggle with the sleeves, and I couldn't really get her hair bandanna right. In the faces I drew of her I had a slightly easier time, but still, it's hard to get it to look right. However in the alt design I gave her I somehow managed to make it look right??? Don't know what I did there but I actually like how it looks, so I'll keep what I did there in mind for the next time I draw her.

Speaking of her alt design, it was actually a lot of fun for me to do. I imagine that's her more "official" outfit, don't know what she'd where it for but I mainly drew it on her because i had a cool idea ok?

Also, on the day I drew her initial face render, I had watched Serial Experiments Lain and I think those vibes bled into the sketch version. Upon further inspection of the rendered and coloured version it kinda lost that but it's more to try out a different brush for my style.

Also also, I experimented with giving her earrings! Which didn't make it to the final cut, but still wanted to try it out! This also came as a learning experience on what makes Keiki look like Keiki... it's the hair bandanna, every time she doesn't have it, she doesn't look like herself.

To end it off, I think the unhinged Keiki face I drew for her expressions (since everyone I've been drawing recently has kinda all been lookin like varitations of this face -> (o _ o) gonna need to draw more expressions period actually, need practice on that) is now my favourite unhinged Keiki face I've ever drawn LOL. Expect more Keiki sketches in the future because I do love drawing my beloved blue haired blorbo.

[manasurge]

Just the WIPs/sketches of Mourynn's Greatsword(s) progress before I start lineart and colouring. I just wanted to show how she cultivated her Greatsword from a seedling/bloom as it grew to a dagger->sword->greatsword, and then how she Reforms it with broken Caladbolg later down the line, using her parasitic vines and magic to graft them together. I figured that after doing that poll deciding which weapon she should us (which ended in a tie lmao), I thought it would work even better if it reflected her own life as she and the Scion were both grafted together as they were both broken and weak (and this is the same method she uses on her "minions"), and it's sort of bittersweet to as she loves her GS (I'll give it a name later) and seeing it get completely mangled will hurt a lot (it's her baby), and seeing as how Caladbolg was also broken, it works thematically for her to put it together (using her own unique magic). I'll probably wind up repeating what I said here in the finished drawings lsjfldk. I just wanted to provide some context. (Also for reference, this is for my Gw2 OC for non GW2 goers. I often see Gw2 stuff mislabeled as DnD when they're not specified) Also under the cut here is what her Greatsword is based on:

It's based on the Pink Quill Flower! It's funny bc it was absolutely not what I was expecting to find when I was looking for "plants/flowers shaped like blades". I mean, look at it!!!! Also I just put a compilation of my refs together into one image to make it easier for me lmao

[ryuichirou]

Hmmm, any headcanons for twst boys in nebula college? Saw your drawing of Lilia in the Dragon house and it opened up a whole avenue of possibilities for me :3

Omg Anon!! Yeah, this is exactly what happened to us when I was drawing it, well not this exact sketch, but the one similar to that. The realisation that Nebula College is already thought out enough to have a crossover of sorts really hits hard lol So ironically, we did end up discussing which houses the twst characters would be in. And now you’ve given us the opportunity to share those thoughts, so thank you so much for your ask and for your interest <3

For those who don’t know: Nebula College is a project that Katsu writes (and I illustrate)! Katsu also wrote a post about the cast of Nebula College in NRC a couple of months ago, so it’s only fair to link it in this post >:3 Also, here is the description of all the houses and what they represent.

Riddle – the Dragon house; it’s debatable whether Riddle’s love for discipline and rules is something that is natural to him and not just his trauma lol but he would fit perfectly there: “organised, yet impulsive and loud” sounds like the most Riddle thing ever. He would be great at patrolling the school, plus he is technically a sporty boy.

Ace – the Snake house; the other option was the Unicorn house, and he would really prefer the latter because he would be super excited to be surrounded by rich and dazzling senpais spoiling him for being such an adorable charmer. The boy can dream all he wants, but he is destined to be a Snake because of his slyness and opportunism.

Deuce – the Dragon house, and he would probably be so honored. He would always do his best during the patrols… And also think about how being surrounded by reliable and organised people should be a good influence on him.

Trey – the Snake house; Katsu made two notes about him: the first one “asshole/knave I mean snake”, and the second one is “he’s a boa snake wearing glasses”. I think it describes Trey perfectly: he really is like a large calm and collected boa (the image of a boa snake in glasses is related to some of the cartoons we used to watch as kids lol), but at the same time the man is a liar and a hypocrite, he would fit right in with those fake bitches lol Even though he would probably consider himself a Dragon.

Cater – the Snake house; he is similar to Ace in a way, and I can picture him trying to befriend some of the Unicorns and maybe even succeeding at that, but ultimately he is kind of a poser. He is very good at communicating, but he is even better at knowing things about other people.

Leona – the Unicorn house; he is a prince, so it’s kind of a given. Falena probably graduated from this house as well, so Leona thinks that him being there is kind of a joke; it’s obvious that they people compare them all the time… but hey, at least the Unicorn colours look good on him.

Ruggie – the Snake house, this one is easy lol He also probably hangs out close to the Unicorns (this isn’t how Snakes usually act, it’s just the NRC Snakes are fucking leeches I guess), but that’s because he runs errands for Leona, to whom it’s much easier to talk to Ruggie than to fellow Unicorns.

Jack – the Dragon house; he would probably have a good time there surrounded by those who aren’t just as sporty as him, but also as responsible and earnest. Damn, Deuce would be his dormmate instead of Ace’s 😳

The Octa-Trio are from the Snake house;  there are some meta reasons for that, but also it’s just pretty obvious come on look at these lying bitches lol They are everything a Snake should be: smart, cunning, sociable when necessary, great at making connections and getting information, they’re also good at business and stuff. Azul would probably advocate for connecting with other dorms more though, and Jade would be intrigued by others too. Floyd probably doesn’t really care which dorm he is in, but don’t get fooled: he is one terrifying and dangerous snake…

Kalim – the Unicorn house! Nothing to add here, he is just there. People think he is a good-for-nothing princely type, but he is actually surprisingly good at communication. He is probably well-liked by everyone there.

Jamil – the Snake house, at least until Kalim enrolls and somehow Jamil gets transferred to the Unicorn house for some reason. He would hate it though because he really felt at home surrounded by Snakes, and now… now he is surrounded by Kalim-adjacent people who are amused by the fact that Kalim managed to get his servant to live at his dorm….

Vil – the Unicorn house; he has very strong charisma and amazing leadership skills, he is also charming and stubborn at the same time. He probably wasn’t necessarily expecting to end up there, but he fits in perfectly. But he is kind of a Dragon at heart when it comes to discipline and stuff… similarly to how there are some similarities between Pomefiore and Savanaclaw.

Rook – the Dragon house; his demeanor is a bit off, but honestly Rook could pull off being at every single House successfully, and his demeanor would always be off lol Now this is someone who loves patrolling. When it’s his shift, some students probably make a mistake of assuming that if they can’t see the patrolling guy then he isn’t there. But Rook is always watching…

Epel – I’ll quote Katsu on that one: “Epel is an idiot. The Dragon house, his dream came true” lol He shouldn’t get too happy about getting into the sportiest and “manliest” of dorms though because they are super serious about discipline, and no one is going to allow him to look like a hooligan. Brush your hair, Epel.

Idia – the Raven house- WOW, IS THIS OUR FIRST RAVEN? DANG so much for Night Raven College lol but yeah, Idia is definitely a Raven, and this is the only dorm he would survive in: he’s introverted, but very knowledgeable, perceptive and honestly surprisingly good at reading people for someone who hides from them all the time.

Ortho – the Unicorn house; he probably wanted to join Idia just so they could be together, but he is such an obvious charismatic leader when he wants to be. Considering that this is likely human!Ortho, he would also work as a kid from the Shroud family... Idia and him could be a great example of the Unicorn + Raven alliance.

Lilia – the Dragon house; there are some meta-reasons for that as well, but even without that, Lilia is very organisation-oriented, and he would be very comfortable in a structure that is the Dragon house. He is a great leader, but a different kind of leader, a war general, if you will.

Sebek – the Dragon house; pretty self-explanatory, look at this boy.

Silver – the Dragon house, but a Unicorn at heart. Sometimes it feels like he is in the wrong place, but it’s absolutely not because of how he acts: he does everything he is supposed to very diligently and tries very hard to be an honorable Dragon student. It’s just that if he stands near the Unicorns it just feels… right somehow.

Malleus – technically he should be in the Unicorn house, but he we couldn’t decide: he is kind of a mix of Unicorns and Ravens lol He has a lot of charisma and he is a good leader when he needs to be, and he sure as hell knows how to persuade people, but the overall vibes and architecture of the Raven house + their attitude is very close to him…

[phoebepheebsphibs]

They live here now

Ok so rather than spend an eternity sketching this out, I'll write it! STORY TIME!

CW: some descriptions of body horror (it's a hallucination)

@boots-with-the-fur-club @daboyau @tmntaucompetition

Prev || Next || Illustration

They'd decided to split up, in the end. That way they could cover more ground. The No Fun in Fungus Mikey had gone with the Until I Found You April and Karai. The others had gone off in their own little teams, with Mikey.02 going with the semi-evil Donnie and the morally grey Leo going with the Raph with anxiety issues and huge spikes on his elbows, taking Misa with them.

Mikey didn't want to pick favourites, but he had to say he was so ecstatic to spend more quality time with Gram-Gram. He'd teared up when he first saw her, and almost cried when she'd suggested that he come with them. Of course, mutant April was cool, too! But Mikey stayed close - almost uncomfortably close - to his alternate universe gram-gram. It took all his willpower to keep from holding her hand, clutching it tightly, wrapping his arms around her in a long-overdue hug. But he didn't want to make her uncomfortable. He tried to keep his hands to himself. But that only made him focus on his scars and bandages, picking and scratching nervously at the marks that decorated his forearms and fingers.

"...Are they uncomfortable?" Karai asked, breaking the awkward silence between them.

"Huh? Oh! Uh, well, no, not anymore, really. Donnie got me these really cool compression gloves, and they help a lot. It's just a lot of scarring, now. But it looks cool, right?" He chuckled.

"Then why do you irritate the wounds?"

Mikey didn't really have an answer to that.

"Um... I guess... I'm just not used to them. I know they aren't bad or anything, but... they tell a story, y'know? And... I don't really like that story."

"I understand," Karai said, nodding softly and taking his hand in hers.

Mikey's stared down at the clasped hands. He smiled, squeezing her hand in his.

"Is it alright if I hold your hand? It will help keep you from fidgeting with the injuries," she asked.

"Yes," Mikey chuckled, awing at the irony. "That's fine! I don't mind."

The group pressed on. They walked past the many stands offering refreshments, references, lil kid coups, and villain squads to take over the surface world. There was a colourful assortment of characters they passed, each one having a somewhat familiar Leo with them.

"How will we tell which one is yours?" April asked.

"He's got really noticeable scars on his shell and plastron," Mikey explained. "Plus he's wearing blue nail polish. I painted his nails myself a few days ago."

"I think the prominent shell injuries will be easier to spot than the polish, but that's helpful," Karai noted.

"Look there!" April shouted suddenly, pointing towards a small cloud of blue in the distance.

The trio ran towards the smoke, finding several of the contestants screaming and crying as they tried to get away. Unseen by all, a disembodied sentient hand began scuttling away from the scene.

"There it is!" April shouted. "Get it! We get the hand, we find the alternate Leo!"

April immediately gave chase, Mikey and Karai calling after her to wait, be careful, it wasn't what it seemed. She didn't hear them.

She simply kept running after it, hoping beyond hope that her somewhat unreliable powers could help her catch the little creep. It certainly was fast! It slithered under a team of turtles, past April's reach. She concentrated hard, focused on the hand, and...

Poof!

April landed in a small area a few feet away from the hand, which somehow saw her - despite not having eyes - and attempted to stop itself. It slid on the floor, desperately trying to go in the opposite direction, when April's feline reflexes kicked in and she pounced on the creature. She placed all of her weight on the hand, crushing it under her stomach as she reached down and grabbed it by its wrist and gripped it with all her might.

"Ha! Gotchya! No scurrying away now -"

The hand threw the spores into her face. How?! Where had it gotten that secret stash from?! It wasn't as though it had pockets or anything to carry the extra fear spores in! April hacked and coughed, rejecting the air from her lungs and backing away. She felt the hand wriggling furiously in her palms. She held on to it with a death grip.

"No, no! You won't get away that easily, I don't care what you show me..."

April stood up, glaring at the arena before her as it slowly melted away.

"Now... show me what you've got."

The halls went dark. The crowds turned and looked at her. They started screaming. Faces came into focus... Dale, Kendra, Jason, Jeremy, Taylor Martin: the coolest girl in school, Seigel the lizard boy... all her "friends" from the school she'd had to quit. All of her previous bosses and employers, little Timmy from Albearto's, the guy who always dropped his groceries... they were here, too? And they all looked terrified of her. Disgusted by her. Some people started throwing stones and rocks at her, shouting at her to "get away from us, freak!" A bruise formed on her arm. April's knees started to shake. If this wasn't real... then why did it hurt like it was? She took a step back. The hand kept trying to wrestle itself free. She pressed it against her chest, digging her fingernails into it. It returned the favour. Still, she held on. She turned away from the crowds, only to be met by her mother and father.

"Mom? Dad...? What... what's wrong?"

"April, honey? Is... is that you?"

This wasn't a hallucination. This was a memory. Her parents, loving and understanding as they were, were terrified and horrified when she'd come home that night, covered in fur and sporting a brand new tail.

"What... what happened to you, sugar?" Her dad asked, his eyes pooling with tears behind his glasses.

"I... I know it looks bad, but..."

"We want our little baby back," her mom sobbed. "We want our sweet little April! Give her back to us!"

"What? I'm the same as I've always been! I just... got a little update, that's all!" April tried to choke down the sickening feeling in the pit of her stomach. "You... Mom and Dad never said that. They... they weren't - they aren't scared of me! I'm not a monster!"

"Yes you are."

April's eyes widened as the voice echoed all around the halls. It was deafening. She took a step back, felt something crunch and crack underneath her shoes. She looked down, and saw she was standing on a broken mirror. It's shards showed a deformed amalgamation of a beast, hairy and gnarled and bones bending the wrong way, large and warped and horrible! It looked like one of the giant zombie bosses from the video games she played, flesh turning in odd angles and folds, the four eyes burning and glowing but nearly falling out of the face, held in by loosely fitted bags of skin. The hair was snarled and the teeth were jagged. She It had four arms instead of two, and each set looked different. One pair was human - hers, her wonderful beautiful human skin spackled with mangey tufts of yellow hair. The other set of arms were smaller, almost animal-like... she knew exactly who they'd belonged to.

"You are a monster. You meant to save him, but you ended up killing him. You wanted to be his saviour, but you became his demise."

April screamed at the sight, the reflection howling and roaring right back at her. She ran from it, it followed her. The room got darker the further she ran away. She tripped over something, screaming with fear as the monster came closer...

...

"Where did she go?!" Karai yelled angrily. Not at Mikey, not meaning to be aggressive, but quite obviously she was worried. April had no idea what she was getting into with this thing! They didn't even know what that hand really was! It could be an oni, or a demon, or a interdimensional force, for all they knew!

The duo kept running through the crowds, searching for their friend.

"She's gotta be here somewhere," Mikey huffed as he tried to keep up with Karai.

Suddenly, a scream.

"Found her."

The two rushed towards the screams, and found April running at them frantically, her eyes glazed over with a blue tint, her arms hugging the hand close to her as she barrelled towards them. Mikey pulled out his nunchucks to stop her, and golden chains burst forth - one of which wrapped around her ankle and caused April to trip.

"Nicely done," Karai complimented.

Mikey beamed with pride, as the two dashed to April, who was still shrieking and trying to get away from whatever terrified her so.

"April? Can you hear me, April?" Karai tried.

April hyperventilated, her breaths short but fast. She wasn't getting enough air in her lungs...

"April!" Mikey shouted. "It's me and Gram-Gram!"

"Oh please, not you too," Karai mumbled under her breath. She'd save it for later, they had more pressing matters at hand... Karai knelt by the young girl. Mikey danced nervously around them, reaching for his AU friend.

"I can use my ninpo to snap her out of it--"

"No," Karai ordered, holding a hand out to keep Mikey at bay. "As painful as this is, I suspect that if she is under the spore's spell, she can counter it and use it."

"Use it... how?"

Karai ignored him, scooting in closer to April. She reached forwards and placed her hand on her shoulder, a soft green glow emanating from the touch.

"April. If you can hear me, know that you can beat this. You CAN beat it. This is nothing more than a fear, a thought, something you came up with, and as such you can destroy it. You shall not be challenged with something beyond your abilities!"

"I... I can't," April whimpered. "You're not seeing what I see..."

"That means nothing. You can beat it regardless."

"NO!" she screamed, clutching onto the evil hand so tightly that it turned purple. "YOU DON'T KNOW THAT! I'M NOT -- I'M NOT BRAVE LIKE YOU, I CAN'T FIGHT WHOLE DEMONS OR CURSED SETS OF ARMOR OR MONSTERS OR ALIENS OR--!"

"But you can, wakai hito, you can!" Karai insisted. "You ARE brave! I have seen you be brave! Just because you experience fear does not mean you are absent of courage. Courage is not the absence of fear, but the confrontation of it! It is how we respond to our terrors that is what is so important. And right now, I need you to help us."

"H-help?" she whimpered. "What do you...?"

"April, I believe that by using my ninpo, I can connect you to the spores hive-mind. You can use them to search for Leonardo. But you MUST defeat your fears first!"

"Come on, April!" Mikey joined in. "You got this!"

...

April thought about it. The monster came crashing through the glass, roaring at her. She stared it down.

Defeat my fear. Defeat my fear. Defeat my fear.

Okay then.

April stood up, staring the gross frankensteinian beast in its misshapen eyes. Drool dripped from their fangs, it snarled and heaved its heavy breath and growled low at her. April casually walked towards it.

"I know what you're scared of. And it's not that we killed him," she said, tears pricking her eyes as she crept closer to the ugly thing.

It growled louder at her. She took another step forwards. It took one step back.

"And it isn't that everyone else thinks that we're a monster, or a freak, or an outcast. They thought that long before we ever mutated, and it never bothered us."

The beast whimpered as she continued to come closer and closer. Its arms went slack, its deformed body turning in on itself as it tried to get away from her, terrified of her. The broken form betrayed itself, the legs caving in under the body, the stubby little arms cracking under the weight as it tried to hold its grotesque self up. It lay on the ground whimpering and whining and crying as April O'Neil stood over it.

"I'm not afraid of you," she said, her voice wavering as she finally admitted the truth. "I'm afraid of me. I'm afraid that... I'll never accept this. I'm afraid that who I am now... will never be who I wanted to become. I'm afraid that I will hate myself and blame myself for as long as I'll live. But that isn't true. It can't be, I won't let it be," April said, tears stinging her eyes and voice shaking as she knelt down by the monster, which had slowly been re-forming, changing into a proper reflection. It looked exactly like her, before she had been mutated. Her human form.

"I'm not afraid of you," she assured the frightened reflection. "And... and I forgive you, too. It wasn't your fault. You can let it go..."

April wrapped her arms around the reflection, who stiffened, and then went limp, sobbing into her jacket.

"I'm sorry."

The world erupted into light and darkness.

The figure burst into tiny specks of glowing blue light, fluttering away into the sky like stars determined to become a constellation, and April found herself floating, out of her own body, like a ghost. This must be the whole "pinpo" thing Karai was always going on about... The world was dead to her, she was far beyond it. It was a void, but not an empty one. It was filled with stars and light and souls and voices and music and webs - lines that connected one light to another.

"...pril! If you can... hear me.... Leo... find Leo!"

"Karai? Is that you?"

"Find Leo... hurry!"

Right, right! Find Leo. April began swimming in the near-emptiness around her, the realm that resembled outer space. A flicker of light soared past her. She reached out and touched it.

April gasped for air as she became an intangible ghost, witnessing someone's fear as they were spore-bombed... a moth/butterfly creature, watching as a thousand million spiders came for them.

She released the light, and found herself back in the void. So... each of these lights was a person, and their hallucinations from the mushroom spores!

"How am I supposed to find one mutant turtle in all of this?!" she shouted.

Her echoes flowed through the cavernous nothingness. Well, not complete nothingness, there was... wait, what was that?

Far off in the distance, there was a black hole. A dark spot, inky devastation, with nothing but a singular blue spark in the center, dimly lit and slowly fading. April soared towards it.

The darkness was suffocating. It was cold, frigid, and lonely. She had to hurry, she could feel herself slipping away from this place... waking up, coming to....

The tiny light she'd seen was no bigger than a firefly, blinking sadly and losing its will to keep the light going. April cupped her hands under it, holding it close.

And she waited to be transported into the fear. But nothing happened. The light from her hands faded away, but she was left drifting in the black hole.

She was utterly, painfully alone.

No... There was a shadow, floating nearby... A person?

"Leo?"

He didn't seem to hear her. She tried moving towards him, but couldn't get her phantom self to move in this place. She stretched her arm out, trying oh so desperately to get to him...

Her arm ignited in flame and a ghostly extension grew, reached out, her ninpo hand getting closer and closer and closer... but the world began to fade around her. She was running out of time!

"Leo!" she shouted desperately.

He turned softly.

His eyes were half-shut, but glowing an ominous shade of blue. His cheeks were stained with tears, which were also a bright neon glow-in-the-dark blue. He looked like a zombie, like he didn't even register who she was so much as the fact that she'd disturbed him.

He sadly reached out a hand... and touched her ninpo fingers.

APRIL WAS SNAPPED BACK TO REALITY SO FAST THAT IT GAVE HER WHIPLASH, A THOUSAND VISIONS FLOODING IN HER HEAD AND CAUSING HER TO SCREAM IN PAIN. SHE SAW THE DESTRUCTION, THE DEVASTATION, THE PAIN AND MISERY AND HURT AND LONELINESS. SHE SAW HIM REACH FOR HIS PACK AND FIND THE CONTENTS MISSING, HIS DETERMINATION TO RETRIEVE THEM, HIS CHASE AFTER THE HAND, THE ROOM --

...

"APRIL!" Mikey shouted, shaking her as she woke up. "ARE YOU OKAY?!"

"I-I'm... I'm alright," she panted, a cold sweat running down her neck and soaking her back. "That... that was kind of intense..."

"What was it like?" Karai asked nervously. "You were... not really present here. I sensed you'd gone to some other plane, or dimension - when I touched you, It felt like the Twilight Realm all over again..."

"It... I don't know what it was," April said, breathing heavily as she rubbed her arms from where the hand had scratched her... wait...

"Where... where's the hand.PNG?! Where did it go?!"

"You dropped it when you... hugged whatever it was you saw," Mikey whimpered. "We should have gone after it, but once you let go you started glowing and floating and were in your weird trance thing, and the hand sort of vanished."

"That's... that's alright, we don't need it anyway."

"Did you see him?" Mikey begged. "Did you find Leo?"

"I did," she said, the memory of that cold, dank, dark place slowly seeping back and causing her spine to freeze like ice and her hair to stand up on the back of her neck. "I saw him. He doesn't have much time left."

"W-Whaddya mean, he doesn't have much time left? What's happening to my brother??" Mikey whimpered.

"I don't know. But I think he's... he's stuck in the spores. Stuck in the hallucination, and if we don't find him soon--"

"But what's the worst that can happen? He has a heart attack or something? Could he literally be scared to death?"

"I fear it's much worse than that," Karai said, her voice low. "Michelangelo, you told me that the spores were connected to a larger mushroom?"

"Y-yeah, why--"

"I think that the longer he stays in his hallucination, the more... under its control he becomes? He barely reacted when he saw me, he looked like a sleepwalker or something," April explained. "We have to get him out before..."

"...Before what?" Mikey squeaked in terror, his head slowly retracting into his shell.

"I don't know for sure. But don't you worry," April said, standing up and dusting herself off. "I know where he is."

[xephia]

Hi, i hope this question doesn't bothers you, do you have any videos of your process?, im currently starting to learn how to do digital art and have trouble knowing where to start and what to do (im always like, should i start drawing this part first?, is it better to do clean lineart or just paint over the sketch?, do i work on the lights first or the shadows?, etc)

I can probs make you a video on this at some point based on something I'm currently working on, although I have a few on my tiktok already (@ xephia) if that helps!

My process is a bit messier than many other artists - I alternate between stages of sketch and colour before I even think about ‘final colour’. I’ll start with a sketch like the ones below, then slap some rough colour on. This is because IMO colour is an important part of the composition so I want to see what works before I line. They’re not meant to be pretty or social media ready. This stage can look super messy or tidy depending on how I feel or how complicated it is. And they can look wildly different; here’s some examples:

That stage also helps me decide if I want to finish the piece or if I should abandon it (I abandon a lot). Sometimes this stage takes 15min, sometimes 2 hours, it really depends on the piece. But for me personally, it’s crucial because otherwise I find it very hard to envision how it will look later, or forget what I was planning.

Then, I do at least one more layer of ‘sketch line art’, which is basically a first layer of line art to see what works and what needs changing. I colour the important bits relatively cleanly (usually character/s) and add might some subtle shadows/gradients and/or lighting to get a feel of what it will look like finished. Sometimes I repeat this process a couple of times if I’m not happy with how the first iteration looked. This stage usually looks a little like this character sheet I’m working on, and this slice from a Kiki delivery service sketch:

It’s usually not until I’ve done all that, that I go over and do the final lineart, making it thicker, colouring the lines, redoing the flat colours, tidying it up, and adjusting where needed. Essentially I don’t start ‘finishing’ a piece until I’m happy with where everything sits and what colours I’ve picked. It’s only at this point I feel like the sketch is ready to line, and lining and final colouring can actually take less time for me than all those layers of planning somehow haha.

At this point I keep tidying, cleaning, lining, colouring, until the piece feels complete. Sometimes complete for one piece is tidier than complete for another, it really depends.

I’ll also use Procreate’s push tool to adjust things as I go in all steps - it saves a lot of time and isn’t cheating.

Although as you can probably tell from my examples, I do change this procress up a lot depending on the piece! Sometimes I’ll even paint over parts of my final piece like I did in this magical girl street. I think find whatever works for you, everyone will work differently and things like mood, energy levels, how patient you feel, how stressed you are, if you have any hand pain or shaking, and how much free time you have that day to draw can all affect your process day to day, week to week.

Some days it will be easier and more comfortable to sketch messily, other days tidier. Some days you will draw well, other days not well at all. At least for me, I find consistency almost impossible.

So I think there's no right or wrong order to do things and it's great to switch it up and keep things interesting for yourself, and different processes work for different people. Hope this helps!