#Hang Tough

[bleedingcoffee42]

[banding-those-brothers]

Would I fight Dick Winters in the street over his letters to DeEtta? Maybe.

[bicc-y]

Kicking my feet and giggling reading these letter like they were written to me - this is NOT good for the maladaptive delusions.

[lightthewaybackhome]

I'm getting close to owning and having read the majority of books published about Easy Company. So it gives me no end of delight to read a book about Winters that I haven't read yet.

Also, I found out today that DeEtta Almon and I share a birthday, which I count as a great honor.

[alohapromisesforever]

Shalom Charis

Shalom Charisby Michael DoyleJarred by the fires that burnBroken hearted as we learnThe sorrow of this seasonWe extend our love beyond reasonCalled to be holy through graceWe keep our eyes on God's faceA spiritual gift is shown with careGod's love is meant to shareUnashamed by God's good powerPresent in the darkest hourHis love comes to revealThe best of His will in every moment untilWe can make…

[audiart]

Based on a photoset on TikTok of a Crow and Owl 💜💛

[evidenceof]

look at dick smiling with his personalized wheaties box!!!!!!! HE'S SO HAPPY. HE DISPLAYED THAT THING FOR TWO YEARS ON THEIR MANTEL. IM CRYIN!! kingseed gave it as a gift during a time when general mills was doing an advertising promo where a person could get someone's face on the box. he had one made for dick.

when it was handed to him, dick was so baffled bc he didn't turn the box around and thought the guy was just giving him cereal. lmfao!!

[spiritualseeker777]

[pastlivesandpurplepuppets]

[pngblog]

im going through a rough time right now, could i have some alien plushies? its alright if not :]

[storiesofaot]

💔🥺

[bleedingcoffee42]

May 26, 1945 letter from Dick to DeEtta.

He mentions tomorrow (May 27th) he going deer hunting with an old Sgt. Of his. Which is Tab.

May 27th is also the day Chuck Grant is shot. (Not implying they shot him, just figuring out where everyone was.)

[banding-those-brothers]

[Image description: an excerpt from “Hang Tough: The WWII Letters and Artifacts of Major Dick Winters”]

Dec. 16, 1941

Tuesday, 6:15 A.M.

(it's still pitch dark, although I've been up an hour already and shivering all the while)

Dear DeEtta:

Don't call me Richard. "Dick" sounds more natural to me and personally I prefer it. For in my childhood I developed a dislike for the sound of the name after my aunts mauled it around. So just call me "Dick" and say what you have to say straight from the shoulder.

[narfin-frood]

how do you plan the panel layouts for your comics? i always get stuck and it feels cramped or unsatisfying

okay so i went to college for 2 whole semesters and one of the only art classes i took (and definitely the only one i retained much from) was my sequential art & comics class. so i'm gonna try to explain my process in so many words, but there's a LOT of stuff that goes into a successful comic and i'm by no means a professional. i can however throw some tips and tricks and some recommended reading your way (another longpost ahead!)

first, know what you want to do. know where your comic starts and ends. if you find any joy in writing scripts, you can also do that, but i'm not the best at writing with no visual aide so i usually script while i thumbnail, but always make sure you've got a concept and a goal.

next, start thumbnailing. my initial thumbnails usually look like this:

(incidentally, my storyboard thumbnails look a lot like this, too)

there's no real structure, and i'm just noodling my way from the top left of the page to the bottom right. if you've got what you want from your comic in mind, this part can sometimes just pour out of you. i feel a very strong attachment to these characters and the situations i put them in, so that definitely has to do with how smoothly this part goes. draw the panels as small and as detail-free as possible. i usually don't do speech bubbles, and instead treat it like a storyboard, writing my rough script under the panels as i go.

once you're satisfied with the way your story is coming together, THEN you start laying your panels out. this part looks like this when i do it:

(these are actually from a gfalls comic i never cared to finish from like. five months ago but who's counting?)

honestly, it's best to do this as small as you can possibly get it, to really get your head out of the "but i have to fit all the panels exactly as i drew them on the page" funk. remember that, at least if you're writing the comic in english or other languages read in the same direction, that you're trying to lead the reader's eye from top to bottom and left to right. this is really hard to keep track of, and i still make mistakes and flub up the readability all the time. like here:

the panel layout should be reversed here. the panels in the top left and bottom right should be smaller than the other two, so the gutters would actually guide you to read it left to right instead of top to bottom, but laziness and initial drawing blindness struck me and i never fixed it.

once you have a layout that makes sense to you, it's as simple as blowing your thumbnails up to comic-size and going over your very rough sketches with your final clean panels & inks, or, if you're doing it traditionally, re-sketching your page on your big bristol board after doing some measuring to see where your panels should actually be.

there are other rules to keep in mind when you're in the thumbnailing phase of your comic, like the 180-degree rule (something that carries from film to animation to comics to, really, any form of sequential art), which is easiest to explain with a little diagram:

keeping this in mind really helps with readability. you can do a bunch of things with your angles, you can even omit the other character, but keeping them on the side of the frame you establish them on is very helpful. this is mainly for dialogue, but it does also help if you want to display one character walking in one specific direction, or if you want a fight scene to read as well as possible, etc.

and, if you look at your comic sketch now and think, hey, this looks great, this is so clear and easy to read, i highly recommend stepping away for a few hours to look at it again, or, if you're impatient like me, sending it to a friend. you're also totally welcome to send it to me, if you just need someone to tell you whether your comic is easily readable.

to learn more about drawing comics, i recommend two things. one, read some comics. by professionals in the industry, ideally, though there are many many competent and incredibly detailed comics by independent creators out there. people in the industry will (MOST of the time) be held to slightly higher standards of readability than the average independent artist, and the workflow for professional comics involves several people at once reading and reviewing and revising what's made so that it'll be digestible to the average audience.

two, i recommend getting your hands on a copy of "understanding comics" by scott mccloud. love this book. lots of comic artists love this book. it's fun and informative and packed full of tips, while also being a comic, which makes it even more fun to read. mccloud goes into a lot of detail on stuff i didn't mention, from the gutters between panels to lettering to working with other artists and writers and finding an art style that fits the story you want to tell. great stuff. go to the library, check it out. you won't regret it.

[lightthewaybackhome]

Hang Tough: The WWII Letters and Artifacts of Major Dick Winters by Erik Dorr My rating: 5 of 5 stars This book took me a bit to get into, but it was fascinating to read. I think the part that struck me the most was how different Winter's tone in his letters was after Normandy. He was far more sarcastic almost scathing even. After a time, that evened out a bit. It was crazy the change you could see between before and after combat. I also appreciated how careful he was not to lead DeEtta on and to try and protect her feelings. I love all the advice he gave her and their teasing. It's always dangerous to see your hero's close up, but reading Winter's letters to DeEtta didn't make me lose my fondness for this man or my respect for him. It did make him seem more like a man and less up on the pedestal but in a good way. It reminded me that he loved being a paratrooper but had little respect for much of the rest of the military. He loved his men but held himself at a distance from them. He was proud of his actions in Holland. He was proud of being a Major. He always wanted to do right by his men. He was good friends with Nixon and Welsh, and thought highly of Talbert and Moose. This was an excellent addition to my books on Winters. I kinda want to read them in a semi-chronological order. View all my reviews

[ww2yaoi]

dick winters was really onto something with ‘hang tough’ every time someone is going through something and I don’t know what to say I just say hang tough and it seems to be a comfort. thanks dick