#DM Tutorial

[girlboyburger]

How do you get that grainy texture on your art? It’s very nice!

thank you!! i love art that's soft and fuzzy...

i generally do it a handful of different ways, but i tend to bounce between a color noise filter layer in soft light mode, between 30% and 50% opacity,

... or i use something from my wide array of paper textures, and usually set the layer to overlay and play with opacity till i'm happy with it

......oooorr i do a combination of the two! which i did in the final version of this piece, which i Also added a gradient map to to make the colors a lil more ✨Dramatic✨

here's where i got (most of) my paper textures and here's a rainbow color noise texture (that i don't personally use but looks rlly similar!)

[lotus-pear]

still hesitating abt joining [because how the hell do I draw a dazai] but more seriously, everyone's entry are so pretty

bbg drawing dazai is soooo easy trust🙏🏼 he's literally the autism creature with a black wig. observe

perfect replica

[evidenceof]

how do you do the coloring in your gifs? it's so pretty 🥰

this is such a huge compliment. thank you!! i'm glad you think so, considering this is my first whack at ~seriously doing it. coloring is my favorite step! i’ll be as helpful as i can, but if you find any of the tips too vague, feel free to dm me!

we’ll be using this webgott gif set you indicated as the guide! here are the before and after samples of the gifs so you see what we'll be tryna achieve from base to final frames:

for the steps, ill go over several things: a. Why I do this step: a.k.a. what i’m trying to achieve with each adjustment layer b. How I do this step: how i personally adjust the settings c. Before and after samples of the colors so you can see the progress after each of my steps

onward

this is my first time typing down a tutorial so please be kind. i am (very) new to all of this and most of what i learned, i’ve learned from reading a bunch of tutorials on here (that i’ll credit down below), and watching too many youtube videos on color adjusting digital images, and coloring old wwii photographs.

this answer will be focused on just how i personally color, but i’ve linked some guides for creating base gifs that i also studied.

! before anything else !

i use photoshop to create and color my gifs and mpv to capture my screencaps from my files. also this ISN’T the ONLY WAY and the BEST WAY to color. this is just how i personally go mad on photoshop. <3 

Coloring tutorials that have been super helpful in getting me on track:

dicom gifs - not technically a coloring tutorial, but this is how i import my scripts on to photoshop.the process feels smoother for me (no need to reverse the frames etc. and the resolution always looks and feels better when i'm done with them)

general coloring + hi res gifs - great place to start with tips on what files to use for maximum crispness

masking layers -  for when you only want to apply an adjustment layer to a specific part of your gif, great for skin tones!

STEP ZERO: know what you like

This sounds very “ok captain obvious” but i do think it’s such a vital part of the process. the technical stuff gets very tedious, very quickly. and if you don’t know what colors draw you in, what colors you’re trying to lift and see in your gifs, you’re going to be tinkering around with the settings for longer than you’d like. so have references ready, if that’s your jam.

and with that, i'd like to show you some examples of colors that i gravitate towards that greatly influence how i color my gifs. i'm a huge 40s technicolor girl, 35mm 60s film girl (see ernst lubitsch, powell and pressberger, jacques rivette, agnes varda). and because i’m coloring a piece of media set in WWII, 1940s, i like studying the colored photographs (think winnix chair photo in color).

so am always looking to punch up my reds and greens, deepen and add browns, saturate skin tones so there's warmth there, while grays/shadows tend to veer towards a cooler tone. 

sorry for the thick paragraphs under this but i think it’s very crucial! once you’ve got that down pat, or at least have some handy references with you, it’ll be less of a pain to go through the next steps.

My process/sequence of adjustment layers

Base DICOM Script → Curves → Levels (optional for me) → Color Balance →  Color Fill Layer → Hue and Saturation → Selective Color

What that looks like on Photoshop:

STEP 1: DICOM BASE SCRIPT

Why I do this step: These are your frames! This is also the part where you adjust the sharpness of the gif so you don’t get a blurry image after cropping it down to tumblr dimensions.

How I do this step: I use actions for my DICOM script. I used to do it manually but now I use this Good Good Action Scripts by Redbelles. Cuts down the time, arranges them in the timeline for me. And as I’ve mentioned, it just feels better for me.

If you’re using pngs/screencaps as your base script, you can follow the instructions here instead.

This is also the part where you can adjust you can play back the gif and see if you’re happy with the positioning of your crop. Your timeline will look something like this.

STEP 2: CURVES LAYER 

Why I do this step: i’m concerned with getting what i just label as "true color." you'll notice that with band of brothers especially, the more you look at the scenes, the more you'll just how a) yellow the daylight scenes are, b) how blue gray and nothing else the darker scenes are, c) the lighting can get muddy. 

personally, when I adjust curves, my goal is to try to get the image as neutral as possible, which then allows me to inject as much color as you see fit. So think of it as eliminating as much of the coloring the editors of the show placed into the scene, so that you end up what is essentially a blank canvas.

How I adjust my Curves Layer: I pick the high, mid, and low lights of the scene. This video goes into that in depth. But you can also just choose the auto options if you’re just, like me, concerned with getting the image as neutral as possible. For a while I did in manually to understand what it was meant to do. But if you want to do it easily do the following steps.

> Auto adjust - by clicking the hamburger icon/ the three lines on top.

> You can choose between “Enhance per Channel Contrast” or “Find Dark or Light Colors”. Make you you tick on the “Snap Channel Midtones” to get the most neutral image. The tool bar should look like this:

Let’s compare the frames with and without the Curve adjustment layer:

Great! We’ve gotten rid of some of the darker overlays on both their faces, see more contrast between the foreground and the background. This gives us a better base image to color in for the next steps.

STEP 3: COLOR BALANCE LAYER

Why I do this step: To me this is like underpainting but not really? It feels like that though.What it helps me do is to adjust the hue/dominant colors of the highlights, midpoints, and shadows. so let's say even at it's most "neutral" state, I still find the image too yellow or too red. At this point of the process, I’ll add more cyan. if i want the yellow to adjust into an orange/brown area, I add in a bit more magenta and adjust the greens. it's here where i decide if i want the shadows to lean more towards a cooler tone or a warmer tone. It helps you make these crucial adjustments before you go in with the Hue and Saturation layer. (This is where you knowing what colors you like, comes in immediately!)

How I do this Step:

> Add a Color Balance Layer

> Adjust the three points: I’ll exaggerate the Color Balance adjustment so you can see what points are being targeted by each hue adjustment and where you can add those colors under this step. The tones do bleed into each other, so adjust sparingly if you’re not going for a complete wash of color.

Midtones: Let’s you adjust the “middle” areas, i.e. some of the biggest chunks of the frame. See Web’s entire face, the gray wall in the back ground, his ODs

Shadows: Let’s you adjust the darkest parts of the frame. See his hair, the barrel of the M1, the darkest parts of his glove. 

Highlights: Let’s you adjust the colors of the the brightest parts of the photo. For this frame it’s Web’s forehead, and the very tips of his fingers.

Let’s compare the frames: With the Curve adjustment vs. Adding the Color Balance

You’ll notice that I’ve only nudged the tones a little bit here. The accompanying gif (Liebgott’s) has greener overtones, and I wanted to balance some of that hue in this set. 

Highlights: Wanted more brown tones. Nudged the arrows to add more red, green and justtt a small bit of blue.

Midtones: Nudged the arrows to have a touch more red and a touch more yellow to make the skin tone lean to a warmer hue.

Shadows: Needed this to be cooler so I nudged the arrows to give it a bit more Cyan, while still adding just a hint of yellow. Together they make the image a tinge more green.

Once I’m happy with this, I move on to the next step. You can go back to this step, of course! If you want to make adjustments after you’ve applied the next layers. <3 

STEP 4: LEVELS LAYER

Why I do this step: I use this in place of a Brightness and Contrast layer or Exposure Layer. This is where I reintroduce shadows and points of light. Here I can choose to add a bit more depth, or to reveal more of the shadowed points of the image. I don’t always move this around, and this is an optional step for me, but I did it for this gif set.

How I do this Step:

> Add Levels layer

> Adjust midpoint arrow to the right or left - this can lift any shadows if you move it towards the left, and deepen any shadows if you move it towards the right.

> Adjust the highlights arrow to the right - Optional as well. If you want to introduce/emphasize the brightness in the image, make the high points even whiter, you can slide this more to the left.

> ****I don’t adjust the bottom slider. This adds a “fade” into your image. If you want lesser contrast, and more of that flat quality, you can move this around but I barely touch this.

Let’s compare the frames: With previous adjustments vs. Adding the Levels Layer

Here, I deepened the contrast and shadows, I wanted more black in Web’s hair, and to give more depth to his ODs and gloves. The shadows also help define their features more prominently, better outline for both their eyes and nose. For Lieb, I lifted the shadows a bit to show more of his face, and see more of the redness of his lips that I love.

STEP 4: HUE AND SATURATION LAYER

Why I do this step: You’ve prepped your canvas! This is where everything’s sort of breathed into life. Spoiler alert, if you’re coloring Band of Brothers specifically, you’ll be moving the red and yellow a LOT, and rarely any of the other color layers since they are… non-existent in most frames. Here is where I give the skin more color, differentiate the shades of olive and green that’s prominent given that they’re soldiers. This is also where you’ll see the blue/green eyes pop out if the frame permits (Web, Winters, Bull, and Randleman’s eyes tend to reveal some blues and greens every now and then!)

Hue Area: Mixes your chosen color and adds more magenta or yellow.

Saturation Area: Dulls or Saturates said hues. 

If you move your arrow towards the extreme left, you get a dull green, if you move it to the right, you get highlighter green.

How I do this Step:

> Add Hue and Saturation Layer

> Open the drop down - I try not to move the ‘Master’ area because it washes the entire gif with hue and color. I’m only targeting specific areas and colors.

> Adjust Reds - I tend to make my reds lean more towards magenta. To do this I drag the arrow towards the left and inject some more magenta into the mix, not too much that they look sunburnt (though sometimes that’s inevitable. I’ll show you how to fix it later on!). I saturate the red a lot. As I’ve said, I love red lmfao. So I want that to be lifted in the image.

> Adjust Yellows - I also want my yellows to be a bit more orange in darker scenes where they’re seen mostly on skin. So I move the arrow again to the left.

> Adjust Greens - There’s green here huzzah! I wanted to lift the color a bit more from his uniform, make it more olive than a dark gray/brown, so I added more yellow by moving the arrow to the right and upping the saturation.

*Tip: If you’re unsure about which color you’re adjusting, you can take the dropper tool on the screenshot, click on the area of the frame you want to fix up, and it will register the prominent color.

Let’s compare the frames: With previous adjustments vs. Adding the Hue and Saturation Layer:

You’ll notice there’s a lot more pink on their faces, some reds on Web's fingertips, and a brighter, more prominent red on Lieb's lips. The color of their ODs is a bit more true to its name of olive drab now! The contrast of the added color to Web's skin also makes his eye color pop out more. Their skin looks alive! Yay!

STEP 5: SELECTIVE COLOR LAYER

Why I do this step: I think of this as finishing touches. Sometimes I find that I want to adjust the reds, yellows, etc. more specifically and I can mix in more color to get it to the exact tone I want. This is where I can do that. Selective color lets you add or remove more cyan, magenta, and yellow tones from your hues.

How I do this Step:

> Add Selective Color Layer

> Open the drop down and choose which hue you’ll be adjusting

> Adjust the colors accordingly- I don’t use it in this specific gif, so here’s a different one of Harry in Carentan. I adjusted the reds and yellows to have more cyan (moving arrow to on the Cyan scale to the left), making the red more purple, and the yellow more green. It’s VERRRY subtle, but it matters greatly to me lmfao. 

STEP 6: COLOR FILL LAYER

Why I do this step:  I really... love browns and warmer skin tones, even if they're right smack in the middle of Bastogne (lawl sorry!!!!!). band of brother's footage in particular, if i only adjust the skin tone at the hue and saturation level, there will be parts of the skin that register as white or gray (i.e. technically not hues) and not "red" or "yellow", what that means is, even if you adjust the saturation and hue and amp it up to the highest level those patches of white and gray will remain white and gray and you'll be left with patchy soldier skin. sure, it's realistic but i want warm skin! 

How I do this step:

> Add Color Fill Layer: Click the Circle symbol that's half white, half black. Select "Solid Color"

> Choose a color: I gravitate towards a light brown or a light orange. Click okay and don’t panic when your entire image is covered by a solid block of color.

> Play with Blend Mode and Opacity: I usually use Linear/Color Burn which allows me to see warmer colors overall but especially, and most importantly for me, their skin. The end result is giving them the TINIEST bit of a tan but also introducing more natural color against the grays and whites that register. Less patchy skin on you WWII vet!

You can tinker with the opacity and blend modes to see which looks best for you.

Let’s go back to Web and compare the frames: With previous adjustments vs. Adding the Color Fill Layer:

Tada!

Now all that's left is to transform them back into frames on the Timeline (see linked tutorials above!) and save.

And that’s more or less how I color my gifs! I tinker a lot with the layers after. Sometimes you need to see it all together and then make the adjustments after. I do more of some steps, and less of some depending on the frames and the scenes.

Having a good grasp of color language helps a lot and it’s something you do end up learning while making gifs or just looking at images/media whose colors call to you.

Sort of as an end note/exercise, you can see what it is about the color and lighting of The Pacific that draws you in, and amplify that in your gifs. Perhaps you’re drawn to the orange of the sun, or the bright almost jewel green of the tropical foliage. Maybe you’re really into the browns and the dusty scenes. It all helps you pick out what you want to ramp up and tone down in the colors.

I hope this was… even a tiny bit helpful. Again, feel free to DM me or hit me up on Discord if you want some clarifications/if you need help WHILE you’re making the gifs. Happy to help! <3 

[freeshephoun]

so the people seemed to apparently really really love tiny tek .. he has a friend now

i found him on the side of the street and picked him up. anyone know this guy?

[vonlipvig]

sooo obsessed with them v

[flufflecat]

sculpting myself a golden idol

[lestatitties]

IWTV Slime Tutorials

https://ww16.0123movie.net/movie/interview-with-the-vampire-season-1-1630854184.html

https://ww16.0123movie.net/movie/interview-with-the-vampire-season-2-1630857030.html

[qiekzart]

i decided to draw bakura cuz i was bored ^_^

[plz reblog]

other edit.. + before edit

[pinkyjulien]

NexusMods blocking system sucks ass

I understand why it's the way it is but I'm still pissed off by how... basically useless it is; people who don't respect you will use your mods regardless of any boundaries you might have, acting entitled and dumb while doing so 🤷‍♂️

Also wish Blocking people would mean not being able to see their comments anywhere - or AT THE VERY LEAST stop them from being able to interact and comment underneath your post in public threads, that'd be the minimum deadass

[pyrotechnicarus]

Is merrily an accurate depiction of the musical theatre writing process

It is true that he goes 🎹🎹🎹

and I go 💻💻💻

but we do generally hum along, write a song, etc without interruption!

Less referentially/facetiously, it probably was in the 70s! I'm honestly neither old enough nor career-wise advanced enough to tell yet (I mean, I assume it's exaggerated and condensed for the genre, but all the talk of contracts/movies/critics seems pretty similar to what my professors are teaching us.) I think that musical theater as an industry is very different nowadays than when Sondheim was starting out (and not just in bad ways! For example, you don't have to be the white male protege of Hammerstein to have any hope of making it, lol). But the core themes of faith to one's convictions versus making money and friendship tangled with professional relationships in the art world are still as relevant as ever!

[the5n00k]

Tips on drawing scratch? Sounds like a weird ask but I cant figure out how his body bends. Is he a pillow sorta shape or how? I love ur art btw!!!

Anon you are completely valid it took me like six months to get his look just right (and even then he's still wildly off model lol) but I'll tell you how I do it! (Pillow/flour sack shape is a good way to describe him, especially when bending or laying flat) Just a disclaimer, I highly recommend you search up his model sheets and rules because I tend to gloss over and bend a few of them but if you're planning on drawing him more stylized, here's the rules I follow:

1: As with all characters I draw I start with a circle sketch, it's not necessary but it helps when drawing multiple characters to keep them around the same size in comparison with each other.

2: colored line art sucks, especially with this character because you have to make sure that if he has any overlapping parts with another character (say Molly has her arm around him or something), they're on separate layers which makes coloring a NIGHTMARE. I have no advice for that other than play around with it until it looks right to you

3: coloring can either be really fun and satisfying or a pain in the ass, again it's trial and error for what looks right to you

4: some more dynamic poses and fluid actions are super fun and what I get complimented on the most! Breaking the model sheet to push your expressions more is super fun once you get the hang of it, just try drawing a bunch of random squiggles and shapes and try to draw Scratch over them, it's a super fun exercise!

Like I said before I'm not the judge or end-all when it comes to drawing scratch so just have fun with it! Experiment! Maybe study how some other artists draw him! I know I greatly admire some of the ways some artists I know and even some crew members and storyboard artists draw him so definitely start looking at fanart for inspiration. Hope this helps, I'm not a very good teacher!

[space-writes]

Obsidian Quick Tip - Pinning Sidebar Notes

So you know you can drag notes into your sidebar? Did you know you can pin them there, same as pinning a regular note tab?

Just right-click on the note in the side-bar, or use the command palette and select the ‘pin’ option, and you’re done!

[ID - a screenshot of notes in the Obsidian sidebar. The context menu for one has the ‘Pin’ option highlighted. The two that aren’t selected have a pin icon next to the note icon.]

I like this personally because it saves me from losing notes I want to keep in my sidebar when I open a new note with one of them selected. ‘just don’t do that, space’ well look i can’t fix my own issues, so I just mitigate them. By pinning them.

[ID - a purple decorative divider]

check out my obsidian tag for more posts

check out the tutorials tag for other obsidian tutorials

obsidian resources masterpost

download obsidian

got questions? tutorial suggestions? want to say hi?

[celestialspritz]

Hiya, hope you don't mind but I wanted to ask how you got the fish mouse cursor for your blog? Is it part of your theme, or did you add something to the code yourself?

to put a custom cursor on your blog, you need to:

find a cursor site, i chose this one

2. look for a cursor, in my case i chose the nemo one

3. copy the html for it

finally, paste the text under the <body tag on your blog!

[utaesthetics]

DM-Tutorial

[kaiowut99]

GX Finalized-Subs!114 (WIP): Screaming into Place

Getting some work going to prep everything for finalizing my subs for GX 113 and 114, and as part of that, I thought I'd try to take a crack at an error that happens here which first turns up in 113's preview for 114, and then wasn't addressed in-episode, subsequently being kept by the dub too.

So, as Judai orders Neos to attack Professor Satou's Attack-Mode Scab Scarknight, Satou activates his Scab Scream Trap Card, which reduces the Battle Damage there to zero before letting Satou send Scarknight to his Cemetery/GY to destroy Neos and summon Crying Scarknight through it. The way it plays out, Satou declares the activation, tells Judai that he won't lose to him, and the card here glows as we fade into Scab Scarknight before it starts to glow and chip away, its pieces flying towards Neos and making him go boom.

But given that, I thought it an error because it doesn't really make sense for Scarknight to be the card glowing, since the effect Satou described isn't coming from it--and throughout the series, shots like this are used as a card's effect comes into play, typically as a Magic or Trap Card gets activated on the field. (And since it's in Attack Mode, Scarknight's card wouldn't be on the field with it [it'd be horizontally under it if it was in Defense Mode].)

So, I thought I'd apply some AfterEffects skills (and a Light Rays tutorial) to try and fix it, giving me what I have here after messing around for a few days (albeit very briefly each day bc work). First, I made a proxy for Scab Scream in Photoshop, then CC-Power-Pinned it into place in AE with some color correction and light blurring. After that, I tried to see if any YouTube creators made AE tutorials on lighting up a card like the original shot, to no avail; most of them were around setting and then flipping cards up in 3D, which while useful wasn't quite the goal, lol. So, I found one on the CC Light Rays effect and was able to play around with it enough to get something that I liked in replicating the original glow here decently.

To account for the fade into Scarknight, I took this into Sony Vegas, where I faded it into about 12-14 frames of Scarknight post-fade that I reused (the original shot actually loops it some too--the dub, meanwhile, hilariously faded into a still shot of Scarknight because of how they dubified the card, and you can tell because his aura suddenly jumpstarts). I then played it a few times (or 20) with the audio from the episode to make sure I felt it natural with the SFX and all, lol.

But overall, hopefully that looks good! Not as 1:1 as I'd like, and if anyone has dabbled in AE for things like this, it would be nice to make it a bit more similar (I would've liked a way to make a few points on the art light up rather than just the total center, for example [and it did make sense to center it on Scarknight's body in the Scream art], or try to recreate the glowing lines around the card more [which I couldn't really keep due to the fade to Scarknight]). I did toy with the idea of masking out the original light-up spots for use with a new solid-color layer to redo them some, or masking Scarknight out from Scab Scream's art and making a light-up glowing effect from that, but wasn't really feeling how those were coming out. But that said, I think this'll work nicely enough--though yeah, open to improvements on the off-chance anyone else has dabbled with making cards glow like this in AE, lol.

[puppetshcw]

how do you make stupid cupid logo if you don’t mind me asking 😣💕

AINE ˳ ⠀⠀⠀ ok so hopefully i explain it well, but you'll need photoshop / photopea for it! btw, you need to have at least some knowledge of how to work around photoshop! i'm going to put the tutorial under the cut &lt;3

to achieve your words to look like this :

i first wrote 'STUPID' as i normally do, however, i selected the 'TUPID' part of the words and went to 'TOGGLE CHARACTERS' icon ( as seen in the screenshot underneath )

click on it, find this icon ( named 'SUPERSCRIPT' ) and select only that

this is how the words would usually look vs the superscript version :

next thing i had to do, is write 'UPID' part of 'CUPID'! now i do it a little bit more complicated than it's supposed to be, but i go right-click in the layers and go to 'QUICK EXPORT AS PNG'

i'd then place that saved png on the header, and before i click actual 'PLACE' i press on 'FLIP HORIZONTAL' which will turn the words the way i want them to

like so!

i then resized it so it's the same as 'TUPID', then placed it on the lower bottom of the big 'S'. after that it was quite easy, i just added the shadow on all words, and found cute png that would match my group's "vibes". for the lock, i needed to delete a small part of the png so it looks like it's going over the letter ( same thing for the arrow because you could see a shadow going over the 'S' unless i deleted it / but you can simply put it behind the letter if you don't wanna delete anything )

after that, i just put the psd on to make it look cuter and fixed the photo of the header. and that's a wrap! hopefully, this helped you anon, but if you don't have / use photoshop, there's a free version of it, called photopea and you can basically do the same things there!