#A very terrible attempt of tutorial

[kenobihater]

>use capcut for 3 years

>attempt to edit a 2 hr movie down to twenty seconds with original audio overlaid by a song

>video lags, audio is fine. editing is impossible

>download inshot

>video lags, audio is fine. editing is impossible

>research reasonably priced mobile editing apps

>spend thirty dollars on luma fusion

>video is good. audio is now nearly inaudible demon cows you can only hear if you crank your volume way up

[dreamermonica]

BLUE LOCK BOYS + ROMANCE TROPES

—includes isagi yoichi, bachira meguru, itoshi rin, itoshi sae, michael kaiser (sorry if this asshole's part is freakishly longer than the other boys' parts. favoritism exists in this blog, unfortunately.)

—fem pronouns are used, swearing cause it's me, major crack, fluff, messy attempt at humor, teenage pining and such, god help me t.t

ISAGI YOICHI is definitely childhood friend material. sworn friends ever since diapers, promises of being together till the very end, marriage proposals at the tender age of 6—all that type of cheesy stuff that would get you squealing and have your little feet kicking in the air out of giddiness. but as time goes on with him being set on football and you doing your own thing, the promise gradually gets left behind in your heads, slowly getting buried underneath all the pressure of being an adolescent. the once childish promise only resurfaces during an unexpected reunion—with both of you having achieved your dream careers. will your puppy love rise once more from the depths of your memories and perhaps turn into something...more serious? hah. what are you talking about? this old friend of yours should take you out for a proper dinner first, atleast.

BACHIRA MEGURU with the ugly duckling trope. no friends, seen as an outcast, too eccentric for his other classmates to comprehend—and there's you—the popular and extroverted individual loved and befriended by many others. you as the campus crush, who found an interest in the lonely bowl cut boy. though your curiosity is piqued at first, you were quite reluctant in actually befriending him. with rumors of him being a weirdo—most people often shy'd away from the idea of letting him inside their radars. but you aren't going to let that stop you from—wait, he's actually super sweet? and kind too? surprisingly a huge sweetheart? what kind of plot twist is this?! though the monster he speaks of kind of scares you, you're still terribly attracted like a fly to a light by his strong will to become the best striker in the foreign dimension of soccer. in the end he's just doing what he loves, a good-hearted boy who simply got misunderstood for his obsession with football—oh? why is your heart suddenly picking up its pace?

ITOSHI RIN with...*drum rolls*...quiet kid at the back of your class. 😐 not that surprising is it. anyways, this emo kid is obsessed with soccer, yet still able to keep up with his studies just fine. though he's mostly neutral with everybody, you sometimes fear the he might be plotting all your deaths with that unconventional stare of his that looks like he's constantly displeased. but you eventually come to a conclusion that that isn't the case. you both take the same bus home everyday, and you can confidently confirm that he really just looks like that. the stare only softens when he brings out his phone and starts playing granny or something. not to be a creepy stalker or anything—your field of view just always inconveniently contains him and the contents on his phone! he appears to have a knack for the genre of horror. games, movies, even tutorials. (this lil' cheat—) but of course, for this headcannon to work my way imma have to embarrass you in front of him for chemistry and relationship development purposes :p. so once upon a time, where you're tired as hell after some shit going down in school, you fail to remember your usual spot and slump down onto an open seat beside itoshi rin—who was on his phone paying you zero mind whatsoever, playing a horror game that you recognized to be some popular roblox game. you don't know if it's the tiredness that took over you, or the sole fact that seeing rin play so goddamn horrible on the game got on your nerves up to the point you couldn't hold in your thoughts anymore and outright told him what you'd come to regret in just a few moments—“what the hell, dude. you're terrible. you're supposed to get the key and then—” about to reach for the phone out of sheer frustration, you suddenly pause, realizing what you've just done. oh no. your eyes flicker to his expression and holy crap. rin itoshi is giving you the biggest, bombastic, judgemental, dehumanizing side eye you've ever seen in your life. actually, scratch that—he's full on staring at you like you've just directed 57 slurs at him. you feel like you've shrunk into a mere insect with how intense his stare is, mentally slowly melting into a puddle of shame as you stand up and profusely bow while spewing out pitiful apologies. after a few moments, you hear him heave a deep sigh, you slowly crane your neck up to look at him expectantly—only to find him and his absurdly gorgeous face challengingly raising a brow at you, “then what do you suppose i should do, miss i'm-so-good-at-the-game? please continue.” rin roblox kid confirmed.

ITOSHI SAE as the regular who has caught your eye trope. i really wanted to use childhood friends on this guy with the amount of angst it'd produce but isagi already got the trope so...'eye candy regular at the local coffee shop you work part-time at' trope it is. a bit specific but yeah you get what i mean :). it's hard not to notice this man whenever he comes in with that unfortunately charming blank face of his—so charming that in fact some girls from other nearby schools actually gather to seat themselves and wait for his appearance, shoot their shot with the guy and get immediately shut down with just one cold sweep of his indifferent stare. being pretty sure does have its downsides. you can still feel the shivers from when he full-on glared at a girl who was getting a bit too persistent. you've never really interacted with him aside from taking his regular order, but there's still the underlying fear that he'd cuss you out and embarrass you in front of teenage girls should you get his order wrong so now you have a note plastered onto the wall that always has his regular order tip up to the notch—with a highlighted nickname, “duckbutt james” since you never caught his name. but oh fuck, he sees it one uneventful day and raises a brow at you, nonchalantly and coolly saying that his name is “itoshi sae”. god. is this the part where you roll over and die in shame? why did you even think it was a good idea to put the note in point-blank range?! it's the same as basically shoving it in his face! you think you might pass out—but then suddenly—he smiles. he smiles. what. but it immediately disappears as fast as it came so now you're questioning if you're hallucinating or not. he takes his usual order and heads out once more, but as your head clears itself from the multiple stages of grief you experienced in one singular moment—you think of his name in wonder, finding it terribly familiar. itoshi sae. itoshi sae. itoshi...SAE?! WAIT—

MICHAEL KAISER is definitely enemies to lovers material, change my mind. a football hotshot who has to begrudgingly graduate first before officially signing a contract with the famous german world-wide football team—bastard münchen. at this point in life, he's basically already successful, so he literally just ignores and passes up all opportunities to actually study anything that isn't related to football. he's not a troublemaker perse, but you're convinced the entire faculty staff hates him due to the amount of unnecessary work his laziness spews out, but they would still have to pass him regardless of his lax attitude towards his studies due to the sole fact that the entirety of germany has their eyes on this genius of a prodigy. it was relatively obvious that failing him and delaying his awaited pro-debut would do no good for the name of the school, so he's now spared from the chains of corrupted education. despite being in the same class as him, kaiser was someone you've barely talked to—you both only interacted a grand total of two times. one was regarding a class project, and the other was that time you walked in on him getting confessed to for the what, thousandth time? needless to say, you're both barely acquainted, so being friends was out of the question. besides, it's not like you want to befriend him anyway (y/n moment)—you were both complete opposites. you were a study freak, and he was an infamous prodigy who had a passion for kicking a ball—he's the emperor who lived in a completely different world from your mundane life as a mere commoner in his story.

*rubs hands together* now it's time to get even more delusional, folks. it's just supposed to be a normal day but oh nooo, you're now both forced to fully acknowledge each other's presence after a teacher falsely accuses both of you and sends you to detention—highly biased should you add. it's one of those low teachers that act passive aggressively with his early success. it's bound to get people jealous, but shouldn't you be proud as a teacher? whatever. all that you know is that you're now both stuck in detention and you're blaming him now. you know very well you're both completely innocent so for what exactly are you blaming him? absolutely nothing. you're just bored and michael kaiser was your only source of entertainment in this bland and empty classroom. jabs are thrown around from across the room as you are unable to initiate conversation without you throwing an insult everytime he attempts to flirt with you. you asked him to be quiet? babe, he's going to do the exact opposite. you asked him to shut the fuck up? he'll say the typical 'make me'. your sanity is all but squeezed out of your entire being by the time your detention is over, finally being dismissed for the day until he stops you from actually leaving the room by holding your shoulder in place and asks for your number with a playful wink. you want to slap him, maybe kick his shins, roundhouse him in the face and run away but with the knowledge that you'll both still be meeting in your class the next day is a bitter reminder that you should atleast try to remain civil with this young and growing superstar if you want to survive the school year. albeit begrudgingly—you punch down your numbers into his phone (you put a random number in at first but he quickly confirms it to be false when your phone doesn't receive the message he sent just in-case. tsk.) and immediately leave the premises after he cracks a joke about seeing him tomorrow night for dinner.

unbeknownst to you, he was the one who put the anonymous tip in the school's online forum that falsely landed both of you in detention—all just to get some alone time with you and grab your number without attracting too much unnecessary attention because oh my lord he's genuinely interested in someone who isn't a part of his football kingdom?? wowowowowow

sae reawakened my duckbutt (sasuke) phase ong (also reader doesn't know what the world-class midfielder sae looks like, only his name so that's why she was shocked)

[aphroditeslover11]

What are they like with DIY?

Lenny Miller - he’s the sort of guy who insists that he knows what he is doing with DIY. He likes to think that time spent in the forces before he joined the CIA must mean that he’s handy, but he is still absolutely hopeless. He gets into an argument with anybody who tries to help or correct him. He definitely has an extensive tool kit, but no idea of how to use any of it. In the end he grumpily gives it up and ends up paying a professional to do it instead.

Emmett - of all of our boys he is definitely the best in the DIY department. He’s just one of those people who is really good with his hands. If you give him half an hour to look over something - from a broken car engine to a fence or a watch - he has a knack for just figuring things out. He loves being so practical with his hands, especially if his partner is hopeless in that department, as it makes him feel needed. There is also something unarguable attractive about a man who is good with an axe.

Jim (TDS) - He isn’t terrible at DIY, he’s far from a professional but he always has a go. He likes to do it when the house is quiet and when he is alone so he can concentrate, he also gets embarrassed when it takes him hours to figure something out. If you ask him to look at something he will do it quietly, usually resorting to a YouTube tutorial because he would rather admit that he needs help and get it right than be stubborn and ruin things further.

Tommy Shelby - he doesn’t have the patience for any proper DIY, he fixes things up temporarily until someone else gets fed up of waiting for him to finish the job and does it themselves, usually John or Charlie. If he was alive in 2024, his arsenal would comprise solely of a hammer, DW40 and some duct tape.

Robert Fischer - this man does not have time in his day for DIY, or so he says. He tried to hang a picture once and drilled into a water pipe, that’s the real reason he never attempts it anymore. He has a maintenance man he can call straight to his apartment anyway, so why not just let him sort things out?

Oppie - he isn’t awful at DIY, he is just always to nervous to try it. Ever since he was terrible in the lab when he was studying experimental physics he has no confidence in himself to do anything practical. If coaxed into trying he is very capable of the basics, but he has the common sense to admit that some more complicated things are beyond him.

William Killick - he’s good at DIY, but he does so in more of a rustic way. He’s good at finding the perfectly shaped piece of wood on a beach to mend a fence, or could make a window sill from scratch. He’s not good with more intricate things though, he just doesn’t have the patience and it ends up driving him mad.

[theminecraftbee]

since we've been talking about modded minecraft in general here lately: let me say that i do think the easiest way to learn modded minecraft is one of two ways:

play a modpack with a quest system! despite me shilling vault hunters constantly, vault hunters is actually only half this; its quest system teaches you vault hunters well, but not necessarily the mods within it. luckily, quest systems are popular with modded minecraft, and many modpacks have them. in general, a good quest system doesn't start you with "okay so first you need to do (difficult automation task with many intervening steps)", it should start you with "here is a single task that isn't terribly difficult". for example, create: mekanized starts you with "automate cobblestone, automate lava, automate trees", the first two being VERY easy within the pack, and the latter being a little more difficult (since it requires building an actual contraption), but not by much. if you are being started at something less easy than "make this mod's version of a cobblestone generator", maybe try a different modpack, or go to idea two for learning modded minecraft, which is,

make your own quests! which is to say, the way i learned create, and mekanism, and thermal, and a lot of the mods within vault hunters was finding a specific thing i needed to do--for example, "i need to find a way to get a large amount of cod"--checking jei and what items i have--for example, finding that i had cod eggs available, and that the aquatic entangler can drop fish--and then researching tutorial videos or in-game documentation on how to use those things. yes, unlike the first version, this means a lot of that documentation may not be in-game. create is the gold standard, but many of modded minecraft's giants... are not create, to say the least. so you may have to look up wikis or youtube videos! however, by attempting to solve a task yourself, you will be teaching yourself the sorts of steps you need to take to solve similar tasks in the future, and it will help teach you if you actually like the gameplay of that mod or if you'd prefer not to.

modded minecraft IS VERY INTIMIDATING that's what kept me out of it for so long until vault hunters. but documentation is WAY better than it was when i was in high school and first going "what the heck are all these mods", and also the proliferation of quest systems means there's a lot more that will teach you things in granular steps. so like, if you ever ask me "where do i get started with X mod", these will normally be my suggestions!

also side note: genuinely a great place to start, like a hello world in a programming language, can be "how does this modpack help me build a cobblestone generator". not every mod can do that, mind you, but most modpacks have a weird way to do that, the cobblestone generator is probably the easiest base-level minecraft farm so everyone sort of understands how it works, and it will normally teach you a little bit about that mod's gameplay.

so yes that's my really uninformed suggestion for where to start with mods!

[cilil]

Today I unearthed a folder in which I saved some good memories from school, mostly drawings and doodles I made together with friends or by myself, and it's making me emotional.

I... found that I made fanart for a game I loved at that time and... the art wasn't bad. Especially for a teenager and beginner artist (yes, I am a beginner artist to this day, it's embarrassing, I know). The art was cute, even has some attempts at shading and converting colors to black and white. I like it. A lot actually.

And now I just sit on my bed, holding these old sketches, and wonder why I never pursued art. I loved it so much. I had fun. My younger self wouldn't have kept these drawings if not, and my older self can see it on the paper, in every line, every stroke, every tiny grain of pencil dust.

What made me think that this wasn't worth pursuing, not worth trying again until many years later? What discouraged me? I don't remember an exact moment or anything; the only thing I know for sure is that I knew and believed - and know and believe to this day, to be honest - that there's a lack of innate ability on my part and that others my age are so far ahead and were back then as well. Hell, I've been behind since I failed to color within the lines in kindergarten.

It feels and felt like a fool's errand to deal with my clumsy hands and messed up back for hours just to end up with something that is... maybe charming in my eyes, but so, so subpar in the grand scheme of things.

I stuck to writing in the end because it was the only thing people said I was good at. And I'm glad I - just this once - had the courage to do so and to keep going and, eventually, push myself into sharing it on the internet too. Through sheer delusion and determination and lots, oh, lots of writing I clawed myself up to a place where I feel just confident enough in my skills to not constantly question myself and happily create.

And therein lies the answer for art as well, doesn't it? "Just keep trying, just put in all those hours and days and months and years of work for it as well, until your hands bleed and your back gives out, eventually you'll get there! Talent is not required either!"

But it's not that simple. I'm not sure I can do this again, muster enough courage and delusion to be terrible for years until I finally start making things that go from subpar to mediocre. And maybe never from mediocre to decent or even good.

When I learned to write, I had other people's claims that I was talented to fall back on and wasn't as hopelessly behind other people. Now motivation is lower and frustration is higher. Learning curves and empty canvases paralyze me; the last time I made art it took me 2 full hours until I could push past it. Not to mention that I'd picked out all references and tutorials and everything a week before.

Where does this leave us? What will I do, you ask? Well. Even if I never beat these demons I can assure you that, every once in a while, the urge will overcome me and I will attempt something. Maybe I'll learn and improve just a little by accident. Maybe I'll even get my ass up and actually learn sometime.

I am technically currently doing an art event somewhere else, so at the very least I will be forced to make a few pieces.

And I know myself a bit better these days. That also helps.

I know that, if anything will get me past the demons, it's obsession, the need to illustrate my own fics and, most importantly, porn.

[inkpot909]

Giorno is the type to base his YouTube content around music, focusing on the history behind certain artists while also aiming to introduce people to more obscure musicians. He has an entire ten-part series on Jeff Beck alone. It comes across a tad bit elitist, but he’s quick to grow a following due to his reliable information and passionate delivery.

While not one to upload consistently, Abbacchio talks about true crime on his channel. He used to do conspiracy theories at times too, but eventually pulled back on doing so. His videos are never under an hour long at the very least. After finally releasing a video (usually occurs around once a month), the comment section is full of people expressing excitement to see him on their feed. Definitely makes content that people enjoy falling asleep to.

Fugo himself occasionally dips his toe into true crime content. However, his focus is mainly informing people on subjects including history, media literacy, and even philosophy at times. He has a series dedicated to giving as much information on a specific topic in the smallest amount of time possible. Outside of those select videos, they’re all usually hours long. College students especially consider him a lifesaver.

Mista and Narancia both host a podcast where they upload episodes on YouTube, as well as other platforms. It’s comedy oriented and subject matter varies a lot. They could be discussing a book Mista read one week, and how Narancia’s a terrible cook the next. The appeal largely stems from their chemistry together, their audience finding them absolutely hilarious and often saying that they could listen to them ramble for hours on end.

Without a doubt, Trish’s makeup tutorials are both fun and informative- inspiring, even. Outside of that, she also reviews clothing brands and their latest releases. Trish is seemingly always on top of those reviews specifically, coming out with a video on the matter rather fast. At times, she makes videos giving tips on how to better take advantage of deals or coupons when shopping. Every now and then, she appears as a guest host on Mista and Narancia’s podcast.

Although a tad bit technologically inept and generally disinterested in content creation to even think of making anything himself, Bucciarati is always sure to support the others however he can. Across the board, he’s everyone’s number one fan. Similarly to Trish, Narancia and Mista have attempted to get him on their podcast. He always refuses.

[ethaneldritch]

happy belated birthday to: me! i was gifted an art tablet and finally finished my first piece with it!

meet my Skyrim character who...doesn't have a name yet. he's a vampire dark elf with an over-reliance on under-leveled fireballs and zero self preservation instincts 👍

more in-depth breakdown under the cut:

i'm so excited to finally be working digitally again! i still much prefer the tactile element of traditional art, but the convenience and versatility of digital far outweighs that singular perk at the moment.

i'm surprised this piece came out as well as it did tbh. it's still very basic, but solid. I initially wasn't going to add shading and just leave it as flat color, but considering it's a skill outside my comfort zone, i'm happy i pushed myself to do it. It's not perfect by any means, but i'm content with the result for a first attempt.

...that being said, i chickened out on the background at the last minute and just slapped some filters over a stock image that came with the program. ^^;

also not terribly happy with the way the fireball came out, but i'll admit i kinda rushed that bit too. i should've looked up some tutorials instead of just blobbing color everywhere, but better known for next time.

all in all: not bad! i obviously have plenty to work on, but i'm really happy at where i'm starting, so here's hoping i only get better from here!

[tobiasdrake]

So, I've complained extensively about 3-1's terrible Motive. It's time to talk about what works with this setup - and, in a sense, why such an obviously bad Motive would be written in the first place.

While the Motive itself is terrible, it exists not to create an interesting reason for the characters to kill each other, but rather for a different purpose entirely.

In Danganronpa 1, the characters' relationships with one another was what drove the plot. In DR2, it was driven by the Remnants' missing history and redemptive journey, with sacrifice being a core theme. For V3, a major thread that runs through each individual case is "cutting the knot".

Tsumugi is a talentless hack of a writer, and her Killing Game is an incompetently managed mess - often to a comical degree. In turn, the victims of her Game are able to be the single most uncooperative bunch of would-be Blackeneds ever to grace the Mutual Killing Game stage. The murders that take place throughout V3 happen in spite of Tsumugi and Monokuma's machinations, rather than because of them.

She can't keep her players on the rails. This blows up in her face multiple times over the course of the Game - even to the point of subjecting her to multiple full-scale violent revolts. Someone arms her secret base with an assassination trap in the first case and that's just the start of the insurrections she's going to face. She's. Just. Not very good at Masterminding. As a DM, it's hard to be Junko Enoshima.

In the first case of DR1, Junko expected that her players wouldn't be persuaded to kill even with the interesting Motive she offered. She had a whole tutorial murder set up with a co-conspirator, meant to get the game started and grease everyone's wheels into the necessary paranoia needed for them to start killing each other. Then she was surprised when this became unnecessary; the Hope of the Future were way more willing to go along with her despair than even Junko anticipated.

Here in this first case, Tsumugi finds herself in the opposite boat. The best she can come up with for a Motive is, "Uh, do it OR I'LL FUCKIN' SHOOT YA!" But rather than terrify these randos into submission, her trash Motive has the opposite effect: They come together in solidarity. Rather than hop onboard and start killing each other, her LARPers gather up weapons to fight for their lives against the horde of Monokumas.

That is the worst possible outcome for the Killing Game. When you shove a gun in someone's face and order them to kill, they aren't going to think, "Who can I kill and how do I go about it?" They're going to think, "What do I need to do to get this fucking gun out of my face?" You are now their problem to solve.

She's supposed to turn them against each other but has instead given them a mutual enemy to unify against. She went for a physical threat instead of a psychological one and utterly shot herself in the foot. It's hard to be Junko Enoshima.

It is only by the sheer good fortune of Kaede's attempt to kill Tsumugi and Rantaro miraculously picking just the right moment to investigate Tsumugi's base, that this didn't wind up being the most anticlimactic season in the history of the show. And when that still didn't work, Tsumugi had to put her hand on the scale, fabricating a fake murder through authorial fiat. A fact that will ultimately be the undoing of her sloppily-managed mess of a season.

[the-enzyme]

I repainted my fan-art Ken Kaneki (MYou Bettina male) for the second time. I had enhanced the 1st face up I gave him previously. However, I decided to attempt painting him the way I learned to do 1:6 sculpts, form that one (15 episodes) tutorial I watched. I was impatient however, which I regret to no tomorrow. So, I was able to get most of the pigmented skin texture on there with mostly acrylics. Then I grew impatient, because I was taking too long (it was dumb of me, terribly so!). 

I am still super happy with how he looks despite using pastels and ruining the beautiful subtleness I had going on. I did take progress photos, but they ar more awful than these. I am of course heavily disappointed in my hair strokes -- my eyebrows and eyelashes are horrid. However, I am happy with how much more mature he appears, due to the heavy dark brows, so I’ll probably be keeping them for a while (before I start obsessing and repaint him again!). 

I need to get a new pointy brush, because I managed to already ruin the one I was using to paint my Sephiroth and Leon 1:6 head sculpts. Bettina has much, much larger eyes, and I was still not able to get not-so-clean, but kind of sharp lines like on Sephy. I wasn’t able to do a better job on Leon either, but he has tinier eyes and they were sculpted way off, so I kind of have to cheat with the way I shade his lower eyelid to make it look like they are a more accurate shape. Leaving me to having to pain the lashes on an area that is hard to do so (and yes, I also suck, so there’s that too!). 

Still, I am super happy with my Kaneki fan-art doll so far. I wish he had broader shoulders, and overall, more lean-young-male body proportions, like Kaneki has in the anime. Instead of noodle arms and child-bearing-hips. Besides the proportions, I am in-love with this tiny face! He’s so pretty and has great lips, as he as intended to be female, but can be a very versatile sculpt! (: Now I just need to start making some actual Kaneki inspired clothes and maybe a more accurate wig, as painful as that will be. I was thinking of this wig as his default one, but it makes him look cone-headed. Lol! DX

[theresthesnitch]

So I've been attempting to teach myself to draw in the same way I attempt to do everything (trying to learn the official way with tutorials and methods and classes, and then blundering through it until I manage to make something work for me). I'm having mixed success.

yesterday, I'm scrolling on tiktok and there's this person who is just telling a story, and her face is *perfect*. I don't mean pretty--she was very pretty, but that's not what this was about. But like... I could see the lines of her face and how drawing it would go. So I did the complete creeper thing, took a screenshot, and then drew her face. And honestly? It's not terrible. It's rough, sure, but I also did it at like 1 am for an hour and a half or so. Bu I'm pretty happy with all of it--the sketch, the line art, and the colored in version of it.

I tried to freehand another face (without a model) today, and it feels like I've entirely forgotten what faces look like.

[inkspindle]

This post got a lot longer than intended (oops), so feel free to just skim the pretty pictures, or skip to the bits you find most interesting!

I got bored, and wanted to try something out, just to see how it looked. The goal was: Make a visually appealing pixel-object out of very limited colors, which is both clear in visual, and shaded to give a lil depth. While this isn't a tutorial on making old-school pixel art, I'd love to see if this inspires anybody else to give it a try!

Shrunk a public domain photo down for the silhouette of my base here (https://www.publicdomainpictures.net/en/view-image.php?image=173260&picture=tree) and just kinda riffed on it. Tried to "capture" the way it looked (to me) as best I could, while staying true to the original photo.

In order to tempt people into scrolling past the read-more, here is the final image I settled on after taking several passes at it. (Be warned, this is a VERY LONG post!)

(And what it looks like at normal size)

Normally, when I do pixel art, I prefer not to do the thing where you shrink a picture down, and make it more pixellated. But... I've realized there's a bunch of different ways to emphasize those same pixels. So I decided to experiment.

First-off, my initial goal: The background would be the lightest color, and I would then use a darkest color and two mid-tone colors to re-create the entire image. I couldn't work with any other shades, as it would help me simplify the shapes I'm looking at a little better. So I started by blocking in the deepest shadows I could find, and then sculpting them into more satisfying shapes.

While it "worked," I didn't like the end-result. It wasn't terrible, it just didn't look the way that I wanted it to.

The next attempt was to make all my existing shadows the darkest color in my palette, then "fill in" between them with a nice mid-tone. Something to soften the shadows up a bit, and make it look a little more cohesive.

This also didn't quite give the effect I wanted. The shadows are a lovely shape, but I probably added too many of them. I wanted the "focus" on the bits of the tree that were fully highlighted, but it still didn't look right.

While it broke my initial "rule," I tried combining the first picture and the last one, to see what a "happy medium" looked like. The end-result... looked almost identical to the photo that I started with. (Colors notwithstanding.) While the visual effect was a bit more pleasing to the eye, that definitely defeated the purpose of the exercise. So...I started over completely.

SKIP DOWN TO THE TL;DR TO AVOID THE VIDEO GAME HISTORY RANT.

(Certain things have been heavily oversimplified, to make for a shorter explanation!)

Fun lil video-game history fact: Early visuals in video games started with "off" and "on." A lot of the modern limited-palette pixel art you see is directly inspired by the fact that the earliest screens we had to work with could only show visuals in binary; Parts of the screen were "on" (the lighter color) or "off" (the darker color) and we hadn't gotten to the point we could display a crisp white or black, yet. This meant that you might have a green background with darker green artwork. Later on, they were able to add a mid-tone shade or two for sake of depth and detail.

After we went through our early MS Paint era of video game visuals (complete with blinding use of primary colors), people stretched what early processors (CPU/video card/RAM/low-res displays) could handle to the limits. That harsh limitation on what an early computer could display without frying itself, and what it could display at all, led to some extremely clever uses of color-choice, dithering, and cross-hatching, to trick the eye into filling in with colors and shapes where early video game artists couldn't add them.

See, when we talk about "8-bit" games, we're talking about (oversimplified, mind you) the amount of colors and pixels a computer is capable of displaying, both overall, and in a given section of the screen at a time. Individual tiles and character-sprites for old games had a set amount of pixels per "square," and within those "squares," you were only allowed to display a certain amount of colors. Each separate "square" then had to be designed individually.

Some while after we figured out how to display more than "off" and "on," we developed computers that could handle showing a lovely range of different colors. But then we had a new issue; Within a single "square" (8x8, 16x16, etc) of the screen, you could have white, black, and up to 1-2 other colors. The computer couldn't handle displaying anything else; No midtone shades inbetween, no nothing.

So early video game artists compensated for this by sticking to that old method of "chunking" out the visuals on the screen into tiles, which matched that resolution. You wouldn't notice that your computer could only show 2 gray tones in the same square, if that square happened to be a stone wall. The square next to it could then be two different shades of green, and it would make a lovely piece of grass, or a tree, with shading even!

There was a period inbetween where we had such limited colors to work with, people had purple trees, orange grass, and red skies. It created a wild visual effect, and had all the right contrast (see artwork term: "Value") to allow the eye to see the detail needed for games in which visuals were really important, like early point-and-click adventures.

Eventually, artists stretched the limits further. While that resolution was slow to evolve, people began to create complex backgrounds with visible perspective, that blurred the lines between each "square" on the screen. If you wanted to create a diagonal edge, or overlap two objects over eachother, you had to use a set of colors that could apply to both objects you wanted to create.

So!!! FOR THOSE WHO SCROLLED DOWN, tl;dr-

I wanted to see if I could re-create this tree with only 3-4 total colors (+background) in a way that an early computer could have rendered on-screen. That means white/black + 2 colors per "square." Since I didn't like how harsh a pure black looked while I worked on it, I skipped using it. We're going to pretend an old computer could handle these specific shades of pink and purple (spoiler; they absolutely could not)...but the visual effect being used is true to the idea.

A first-attempt was made. I allowed myself one extra mid-tone, just for the sake of smoothing things out. I then decided on 8x8 pixel squares. You can visually see where one stops and the next starts. It had a fun visual effect, and it was much closer to what I was originally going for...but the artists that came before me made nuch nicer artwork with much worse tech, and I could do better. So I took a second pass at it.

THIS was much closer to what I'd been going for. While you can still guess where each square begins/ends, all the extra dithering and more organically-shaped lines helps to blur the edges of each square, without straying outside of them.

If you got all the way down here, you're amazing. I hope this entertained somebody, and that others will like the end-result as much as I do. :)

[ariapmdeol]

Alright. I'll bite. What's COE? I assume it's a game? And where would I be able to watch a playthrough(?) of it?

細胞神曲 - Cell of Empireo is an RPGMaker horror game by Sharktale Factory! You can find an English Translation on YouTube here!! It has the full game with all of the endings, and the first five Records of the DLC! The game itself is playable in both Japanese and Korean.

If you'd like to play it with Machine Translation yourself, I have a tutorial here! Please be aware that MTL is hard to work with, and can be confusing. IF you choose to do this, there is a walkthrough on how to get the best ending here!

TLDR: You play as Haruki Atou, 28 year old detective! When his coworker, Eiji Shinano, goes missing, Atou tracks his last known location to the mysterious cult called the Empyrean Heaven Research Institute. Atou finds himself wrapped up in a situation far larger than expected, and discovers a lot about both the Institute and himself along the way!

This game has everything: it has gay people. It has religious imagery. There is a headless rat. There's a mad scientist who asks to hold hands. The Divine Comedy is everywhere. There is foreshadowing and lore EVERYWHERE and it is sooooo fascinating!!! Genuinely I love this game so so so much!! There is a reason I have been drawing it for (checks watch) almost a year nonstop.

Cell of Empireo play order:

Cell of Empireo DLC: Records of Sanemitsu Isoi [YT tl stops here, after record 5 Hermit's Room Interlude Cell of Mirage (unreleased, fukao-San is working on it)

If you want to go in completely blind, I'll leave it there, but I'll add some of my own rambles under the cut! I'll also post the content warnings there as well o7 This game is recommended for people 17 and up, but I think you should be fine! The rating is for violence mostly. There are some flashing lights and shaking screen moments.

CONTENT WARNINGS (by me)

religious themes, human and animal experimentation/death, gore, hallucinations, suicide, murder, familial abuse, body horror, attempted SA (brief, nothing happens, i can tell you when it happens if you need a warning for this)

aaand some ramblings

There are soooo many different variations based on what ending you're on track for. It is FASCINATING to see lines change in really subtle ways because of Atou's actions.

the lore MAKES SENSE and adds things SYMBOLICALLY and there are LAYERS and you can theorize about stuff!!! This game is so good!!!

the boss fights are SO MUCH FUN. For an RPGMaker game there are so many different mechanics??? There's a RHYTHM GAME SECTION??? it's FANTASTIC

this is a game and a series about love in all its forms. There is platonic love, familial, romantic, whatever the hell flowerpot trio has going on, and more!

There are so many terrible dads that I was able to run a 'Worst Dads' Poll and people had genuine debates, it was fantastic!!

METAFICTION. IT'S METAFICTION (i am very normal)

Sanemitsu <3 Sanemitsu isoi <3 Sanemitsu Isoi my beloved <3

I have written so many theory and analysis essays. there is so much lore i go so insane it's so fun (LORE ANALYSIS NOT REQUIRED FOR A SATISFYING WATCH/PLAYTHROUGH. I AM JUST INSANE)

The information you learn along the way recontextualizes earlier parts so you want to watch Through it again to catch the details that you missed the first time around!!

Also every character has reasons and motivations for what they’re doing, even if atou doesn’t know it. They are all so so painfully human…. Emotionally devastating

[dreamboundedstar]

Low-Fli Ship Questions are finally here!

PRE-RELATIONSHIP

How did they first meet? Willow was out looking for a date for a bratty family member’s wedding so she doesn’t look pathetic not having a plus one. She’s really bad at starting conversations with random people though. So she almost considers paying a stripper at Pickles to be a temporary, pretend date. The Belcher kids and Linda spot her before she could build up the courage to go through with her terrible plan. Linda immediately decides to (force) help Willow to build her confidence in asking people out. After a few failed attempts at the mall and one anxiety cool down in the bathroom later, Linda decides to do a mini speed dating session for Willow at Bob’s Burgers. That way Linda can pick out the options and take some of the stress off of Willow when trying to start conversations. When Linda dragged Willow out of the mall, they passed Flips Whitefudge. Flips did a double take while walking when he first laid his eyes on Willow. He was distracted by the beauty of her backside and what little of her side profile he was able to glance at. He tried to find the Belchers and Willow to show her some of his dance moves as if he were a bird of paradise doing a courtship dance ritual. Unfortunately, he lost sight of them in the mall crowd. Not wanting to dwell on feeling blue of not being able to show off some dance moves to a cute girl, he moved on and continued to what he was originally doing. The speed dating idea at Bob’s Burgers did not go well for Willow. After she spent so many hours with failed attempt after failed attempt, she had become jaded and gave up. It was just a stupid wedding for a person she didn’t even like that much anyway. She decided she was just not fit for dating and she would go to the wedding alone. So the next day she decided to look up some waltz tutorial videos just in case maybe a cousin would want to dance with her or something. Unfortunately, the internet was down at the worst possible time in her apartment. So, against her better judgment and her roommate’s suggestion, she goes to the “I Want to Dance with My Body” studio to do waltz lessons before the event. She yet again had hit another hurdle when the studio still hadn’t found a new dancing teacher for waltzing. Willow was going to leave depressed until Flips slides on the counter to Willow immediately telling her he can help her out. Shocked at some random guy that slid his booty on a counter and almost crashed into her, she had several questions. The most important one being, how was this 90s kidz bop reject going to teach her waltz? Flips told her not to let looks deceive her and reassured her that he knew more about dancing than just hip-hop. He was lying through his braces. Willow was very suspicious, she was desperate though and had taken what she could get. Flips had told her to come back later when it was less busy and then he spent all his free time watching waltz videos so he could make what he said less of a lie. With bare minimum knowledge and the dance steps drawn on the back of his hands, he was ready. Ready to crash and burn! Willow had noticed the pen marks on the back of his hand immediately and Flips admitted to her his intentions. Willow was touched and surprised by the reason why Flips had done what he had done. No guy had put this much effort to get to know her before and to her surprise, it made her want to stay. To even more her surprise, she asked him to be her wedding date on a whim. Surprised, be excitedly he accepts the offer. So together, they both watch waltz videos and continue practicing. However, Willow made it clear not to add any hip-hop. She didn’t want to stand out and doing hip-hop at a wedding would do exactly that. Willow was very lucky that Flips found her cute.

What was their first impression of each other?

He was allured at first sight to Willow’s beauty (not full-on love yet). Willow was surprised to find an adult more cringe fail than her, that’s saying a lot with her social anxiety.

Did any of their friends or family want them to get together? Shelly was super supportive of Flips’ feelings for Willow as soon as she saw him desperately do whatever it took to get to know Willow more. Sam and Bridget strongly believe Willow can do better than Flips, but are okay with him as long as Willow is happy. Flips is embarrassing as all heck, but at least he’s not a deadbeat or abusive. That’s what Willow’s parents tell themselves at least. Willow's roommate, Anna didn’t care who Willow dated as long as they did their “business” when she was not around, didn’t steal anything, or trash the place.

Who felt romantic feelings first?

Flips, he fell for Willow the moment she did an arm wave during their waltz to signal to him that he has permission to be himself. Thus they perform a hip-hop waltz fusion dance at Willow’s bratty family member’s wedding.

Did either of them try to resist their feelings?

Willow did initially. She didn’t want to admit to herself that she could fall for someone that has such a one-track mind like Flips. She wasn’t the biggest fan of hip hop and thought she would go insane if she heard about “hip hop this” and “hip hop that” every single day for the rest of her life. He was just supposed to be her wedding date and then they would never speak to each other again. However, after they left the reception, Willow laments how sweet Flips had been and wasn’t ready to say goodbye to him. Flips stayed the night at Willow’s apartment. Nothing happens between them except them holding each other to sleep on the couch. Willow realized how pretentious to Flips she had been in her mind and she was disgusted with herself. She’s spent years never being in a real relationship all because of her vitiligo and social anxiety. Here comes a sweet guy who genuinely likes her and she’s judging him just because he loves hip-hop and is not ashamed of how it makes him look. She’s no better than the people that judged or bullied her and she doesn’t want to be that way. So she officially stops seeing herself as above Flips and admitted to herself that he finds him very sexy in a suit and even likes his stupid haircut. No matter what happened next, she wanted to see this relationship through.

If you had told one of them that the other would be their soulmate, what would they think?

Flips: *wolf whistles* woo, damn! I gotta find my boom box.

Willow: Figures, 7.888 billion people in the world and I get the one with saggy jeans. I guess it’s better than being boring, I suppose.

What would their lives be like if they had never met?

For Willow, life would be boring and lonely. For Flips, life would be aimless. He would be content where he is but he would have no long-term goals to strive for.

GENERAL

Who initiated the relationship, and how did it go?

Technically Flips is the one that got the ball rolling. Willow was the first to ask him out for just one date when she saw all the effort he put in just to spend time with her. She was desperate at the time and figured might as well go with the guy that seemed to really like her. It went better than expected after a metaphorical fiery exit from the wedding reception. Flips did everything he could to make Willow feel better after she was trying to hide her triggered feelings of being called an old, mean name from her childhood (birch and cow for example). Willow realizes how much she actually values Flips’ company and doesn’t want him to leave yet. So she set aside her original plan and decided to see where the relationship will take her.

Did they have an official first date? If so, what was it like?

Flips and Willow both agreed to not count the wedding date as their official, first date and decided to go on a real one asap. On their official, first date they just go around the city taking pictures of graffiti before it gets cleaned off, eat at Bob’s Burgers, back to the apartment for a private dance session (not an innuendo people!), and watch a bit of anime while cuddling together on the couch.

What was their first kiss like?

The kiss was a very heat-of-the-moment type of thing that Willow felt guilty about rushing after the fact. She deeply needed to feel like she was wanted and not alone after being called an old, mean name she hasn’t been called in years. Willow felt like she used Flips for self-gratification when she never intended for them to go past a kiss. She never realized how selfish and manipulative she was and she didn’t like that. Even so, Flips didn’t let the first kiss stop at one in that moment and Willow didn’t push him away. After they took a breather, Willow admits to him that she was not ready to say goodbye. So Flips stayed over at Willow’s apartment to hold each other and talked until they both fell asleep on the couch. They didn’t continue kissing at that moment because Willow lamented how she treated Flips. Meanwhile, Flips just sort of had a feeling something was up with her, something they could discuss in the morning. They work it out in the morning and Willow is reassured by Flips that she’s too hard on herself and they are cool.

Were they each other’s first anything (kiss, relationship, etc.)?

Flips and Willow kissed other people before they kissed each other. However Flips is Willow’s first, real relationship and everything else. Flips has had more dating experience than Willow but never anything long-term. He definitely gives me talks a big game but still virgin boy vibes (nothing wrong with being a virgin but still) so I don’t think he ever got all the way with any of his dates whenever he miraculously landed them with his “mad dance skills”.

What’s their height difference? Age difference?

Flips is 5’9” and 29 going on 30 soon. Willow is 28 and 5’6”.

What’s their relationship with each other’s families? Do they share a friend group?

Shelly adores Willow and thinks she’s the most precious thing to ever grace her and Flips’ life. Willow is flattered by Shelly’s affection but it can be a bit much for her at times given her introverted nature.

Sam and Bridget don’t hate Flips. They’re glad he and their daughter are happy together. They just really don’t know what to make of him, mostly Sam. Sam doesn’t know whether to laugh or feel offended by the persona Flips’ presents himself as. They both know he’s harmless though and the world’s least threatening gangsta. Both Sam and Bridget are both introverts and find Flips’ extroverted personality very exhausting to be around. So they’re content with just seeing him on holidays and special events.

Willow doesn’t really have that many friends. She’s not close to the people she works with at Wagstaff and can’t really stand some of them. Even the roommate she’s known for 4 years she’s not close with because they just never really thought to be more than people that just help each other pay expensive rent. Though, through Flips’ natural extroversion, Willow and Anna eventually decided to hang out more because it’s kind of weird that they didn’t in the first place.

The closest thing Willow has to a friend is Linda when she forced her help onto her. Flips hang around people that also love the culture of hip-hop. Despite being great at starting conversations with random people and being unapologetically himself, he doesn’t really have any steady friends. The people he tried to hang out with think he’s a joke and pretty much ditch him when they can. Not until Willow and Anna does he have an official steady friend group.

Who takes the lead in social situations?

Flips being the more extroverted of the two generally is the one to start conversations first. It gives mixed results, especially when they are at a more serious event. Oh well, at least it’s never boring.

Who gets jealous easier?

The two are pretty neutral levels of jealousy. Honestly, Willow is probably more jealous of Flips being able to become friends with her roommate faster than her than him getting with her roommate. She’s known Anna for 4 years and she’s still just Anna’s acquaintance that peacefully co-exists with her and sometimes uses her as a guinea pig for food recipes she needs reviews on for her internet video cooking/ukulele song cover series.

Once Flips realizes Willow has probably seen tons of live, nude models for her art education, he becomes more insecure than actually jealous. It immediately gets dropped though when Willow points out that some of the hip-hop music videos he’s seen are way more sexualized than her drawings of nude models she had no interest in.

Who whispers inappropriate things in the other’s ear?

Flips, especially since his boo’s name is Willow. It’s practically gift-wrapped for him. Dirty jokes aren’t really Willow’s thing so it can be a bit annoying sometimes. Though, when she’s feeling particularly flirty she responds with a meow or purr just to see Flips be caught off guard.

LOVE

Who said “I love you” first? Flips. It was out of the blue, way too soon, and Willow was not ready for it.

What are their primary love languages?

Quality time, physical, and words of affirmation.

Who uses cheesy pick-up lines?

Flips, to no one’s surprise. Willow loves cheese though.

How often do they cuddle/engage in PDA?

Flips’ most common form of PDA for Willow is to rub her back as if it was a record on a turntable or hold her hand just in case for whenever he gets excited and wants to twirl her around or pull her close to dance. Willow’s cuddling is usually reserved for the privacy of her apartment or just anywhere where no one can gawk at them.

When they are alone it gets more intimate such as Flips kissing specifically on her vitiligo patterns. For Willow it’s either lots of hugging, rubbing back while hugging, kissing cheeks, and most intimately, her fingers playfully circling around Flips’ Adam’s apple slowly.

Who initiates kisses? Despite Willow being the one to start it, Flips is the one that initiates the majority of the kisses.

Who’s the big and little spoon? Flips is the big spoon and Willow is the little spoon. Though they switch up every once in a while for funsies.

What are their favorite things to do together?

Since Flips is an extrovert and Willow is an introvert, it can be a balancing act for them to figure out what to do together that won’t drain them too quickly. Flips loves anything involved with the hip-hop culture and Willow loves anything involving some form of art and people expressing different types of creativity. So they do a lot of compromising and try to do a mix of both of those things. Some of the examples are watching rap/dance battles (and watching Flips participate in them), checking out new graffiti, going to dinner theater, check out new, off-Broadway musicals.

Flips would go to more nightclubs with Willow if he had it completely his way while Willow wishes they would go to Art Crawl or art museums in general more.

Though, when they just stay home they enjoy playing some videos games/board games/cards (sometimes with Anna), binging some shows or anime, freestyle song-making sessions with Anna (once Willow and she finally decided to actually hang out more), Flips being her model as she practices her 5/10/30 minute sketches, and making out. (XD)

Who’s better at comforting the other?

I think they both equally do well at comforting each other but Flips would say Willow just to make her feel good because of her originally wanting to be an art therapist.

Who’s more protective?

Depending on the situation, they can be equally protective of each other. Though Flips slightly more so because of him being on “The streets” more.

Do they prefer verbal or physical affection?

Even though at the start, Willow was very touch-starved she actually values verbal affection a little more. Flips is all about physical affection but would never turn down some verbal affection.

What are some songs that apply to their relationship, in-universe or otherwise?

I have a whole playlist dedicated to them XD!

What kind of nicknames do they call each other?

Flips calls her boo, bae, babe, Willz, Low-fi, and his abstract beauty. It’s an uphill battle for Willow to come up with nicknames for Flips Whitefudge, so she mostly just calls him Flips. Though the best attempts she tried to make were Flip, Flip Flop, Flying Flips, and probably the best one, her snickety snack.

Who remembers the little things?

Willow tries her best to because getting to see the look on Flips’ face when he receives a gift from her that is only possible because she remembered offhand things Flips said brings her joy. She values her quality time with Flips and tries to show it by remembering the small things.

Flips tries to as well, but he isn’t as good at it as Willow.

DOMESTIC LIFE

If they get married, who proposes?

Flips moves in with Willow and Anna for a bit before Willow and he gets married. Flips is the first to propose, but it went badly because he did it post-sex and no ring (or at least anything to symbolize one). Thankfully, it didn’t end the relationship and Willow just wanted more effort for next time. Anna gave Flips a lot of ribbing for his blunder. He did better on the second attempt and Willow said yes. The second attempt took so long that Willow was the one that almost proposed to him.

What’s the wedding like? Who attends?

Small wedding with just close friends and family. Anna and her family and the Belchers duel cater it. However, Anna’s family has a bit more responsibilities (which is fine for the Belchers given the last wedding they catered to). Shelly and Willow’s parents are of course there.

The only thing I’m not sure about is whether I want a surprise guest appearance from Flips' estranged dad for the wedding or not, you know for the angsty drama. I’m honestly still debating on whether I want Flips’ dad to be dead or just a deadbeat that left him and Shelly when he was 11 ½.

How many kids do they have, if any? What are they like?

They want kids eventually but aren’t in a rush to have them. They are mostly waiting until they have their own place and not needing to room with Anna anymore. I’m not sure how many yet when they do have them though. I’m thinking either one or twins (one for hip and one for hop XD).

Do they have any pets?

No pets are allowed in the apartment they live with Anna. Flips joked about getting a cat before (because of Willow’s name), he never committed to it though. They eventually get an American fuzzy lop rabbit named Disco and a Lionhead rabbit named Snoopy.

Who’s the stricter parent?

Willow, she’s an art teacher so she has to have some strictness in her.

Who worries the most?

Definitely, Willow is more outwardly a worrywart.

Who kills the bugs in the house?

When they live with Anna, it’s Anna. When they get their own place, Flips takes the job, sees the size of the bug, and immediately calls his mom to deal with it. Only for the really big ones though! XD

How do they celebrate holidays?

They mostly visit in-laws for the holidays. Shelly and Flips usually go singing hip-hop versions of Christmas carols to their neighbors around Christmas time while Willow is dragged along too. It’s mostly traditional at the Hughes residence during the holidays. Big holiday dinners, watching holiday specials, catching up on everything with each other, and playing holiday-based trivia games.

When they don’t visit the in-laws, they keep it casual, order some pizza instead of having a big holiday meal, watch holiday specials, play some games, and sing hip-hop versions of holiday songs (though thankfully, no forcing Willow to sing them outside in the cold).

Who’s more likely to convince the other to come back to sleep in the morning?

Probably Willow because it doesn’t take too much to convince Flips to stay in bed. Meanwhile, it takes more convincing for Willow to stay, though not by much because they both are very bad at resisting more sleep.

Who’s the better cook?

They both are pretty average at cooking and would rather have anyone else cook for them instead. Though Willow takes longer in the kitchen than Flips does for his food because she really values the presentation of her food as an artist, even if it’s still mid in the end.

Who likes to dance?

Do I really need to say it, you all know who this answer is for?!

As for Willow, she was never much of a dancer before Flips. After Flips, she’s still not as active of a dancer as Flips, but she’s gotten more comfortable with how she looks when dancing and does her best no matter how bad she is at it. Her favorite dance move is to be twirled around. Spinny dance moves are just really fun to her.

[clowndensation]

what resource are you using to Learn Art? i would also like to draw but have no idea where to start

questions that make me wish i was doing something more substantive than what i'm actually doing alsdkjfalk. i'm following this video:

and then whenever i try out a day and feel i suck very badly at it (like say, crosshatch shading a sphere), i google "how do i do (thing i'm struggling with)" and find more videos that show me other people attempting to do the thing i suck at. for example:

these two videos.

and then i just keep truckin, beginner artist style (still sucking but with the knowledge that if i practice and google enough things, i will go from terrible to just embarrassing, and then embarrassing to mediocre, and then mediocre to mid, and then mid to passable <- have not thought about getting better than this, because if i think about possibly being good one day i get too overwhelmed and want to give up).

i think probably there are better tutorials out there, but this one feels like something i can work at whenever i want for however long i want, and it's low stakes enough that it doesn't make me wanna quit (key for starting a hobby) so it's what i'm going with <3

[k00294140]

Photoshop?

I had unfortunately missed the introduction to photoshoo due to my CCS and Tutorial so I was quite clueless. I had a bit of previous experience but nothing meaningful. U really just wanted to mess around and try to understand what this program is and what I could do. I discovered you can draw and actually doing quite a little excited I wasn't expecting. I really like the drawing and colouring capabilities of photoshop and wanted to use that mainly for this piece.

I an using my previous thumbnails that I had created on Tuesday in the workshop. We created a other mind map to expand and pin point exactly on how we are exploring our ideas through.. I chose "Flow" (as in creative flow and movement), stuck and unpredictable. I had loads of of fun creating different thumbnail ideas for this project. I made a lot so here they are.....

Mind map.

Thumbnail sketches...

In the end we made the people around us vote for which we should do and then we had to expand on this and make it bigger! Here's my bigger version / final version of what I wanted it to look like :)))

While in photoshop I didn't actually draw the cat as I was already struggling just drawing with a mouse so I decided to use the picture that had originally given me the inspiration to draw this!

I used rough and scratch lines in places to make it appear as if it was drawn. The process of cutting out the background was nightmarish. I tried using the automatic way the program does for you but it cut it out so terribly so I ended up doing it myself. I zoomed in a lot and cut it out bit by bit. Some places were still a big choppy so I used a blur tool to smoothen it out so it looked a lot better. I was really satisfied with how easy it was so draw on photoshop. The mouse using part wasn't but it had everything you would need and a great varaity if colour. I enjoyed myself throughout. I ended up using my previous colour pallets which I have posted before hand :))

There was a lot a lot if different styles of brushes I could use which added to the fun!. The stars and swirlys came from my inspiration of the Baebadoobee posters I have posted earlier. I love how cute yet chaotic thy look and wanted to embody that.

Here it is! I ended up not doing the tail but I kind of regret it do I might add it tomorrow when I get the chance

I started to try work on my original idea if making a rock star poster but I ran into a lot of difficulties. The pictures I have are too small and poorly taken so when I move them to photoshop they pixilate very badly and you can barely see what they even are. I attempted to fix this by looking up solutions but I myself couldn't fix it. I also struggled on how to move one picture to another picture instead of creating their different documents... It was really confusing...

But today u was wandering in EASONS when I came across the magazine section. I remembered how I enjoyed creating those magazine art and sonic began searching through them. I ended up finding this great one filled to the brim of fashion models strutting and posing to very interesting backgrounds. I thought it would be really funny to instead of making a rock star poster to creating a poster for a cats fashion show/ Runway (A meoway)

I thought I could use some of these pictures (I will post separately) to create the runway advertisement and to use the singular models to be the "headliners" at the runway. I'm thinking about using gouache and paining the to be cats instead of humans and changing their names into cat puns etc. Im debating on using Ms paint to digitally add stars and other sparkles because I like how weird and cubic the Ms paint brush is.

[mono--chromatik]

when and how did you get into character modeling? Any tips for beginners? I wanna start but I'm a bit intimidated .

The first time i ever made anything in blender was back in the bygone era of 2016 and i made a really bad top hat out of a cylinder. Wasn't a whole lot else to it. Used the default blender color n' that was that. Practically just extruded the top vert upward and called it a day.

Character modeling, i sat down and made an honest attempt at a Greyscale model way back in 2019 (roughly) for VRChat. Looked terrible, had to get a friend to model the legs and the fingers were rigged wrong. I'd made a Saturate model at around the same time and with the latter being the most updated one, i'm at current day sitting on it being the 7th version I've made (I've went ahead and looked for the models to show a timeline. Version 1 was made by a friend, version 4 i've lost).

I'm personally self-taught with the occasional friend chipping in to give advice (mainly when i first started out), so i can't say i can really redirect you to any tutorials (no, the donut tutorial isn't really for character modeling). I didn't rely very heavily on them and it was more of a case of just overtime improvement.

If i've any advice to give from experience regardless of that fact though it'd be:

Don't try manually dragging vertices when modelling. Use the proportional editing tool to move them in bulk.

Boolean modifier and sculpt tool are your friends.

Don't try and model from memory, have a reference image or model sheet in the project file background.

Making character models at first can be really intimidating, but like with anything you get better at it overtime. I know that statement can apply to art in general, but i think its a case of understanding the program better the longer you use it. Regardless of if you know very little or a substantial amount, it's definitely worth taking a shot at !!