#I hope this helps!!

[catmask]

I know you said you used veadotube mini for your streams. For the images, do you use gifs?

I apologize if it's a silly question, it's been really inspiring to see your streaming grow! I liked the video game-like talk sprite look you have for your nuzlocke challenge etc! I haven't cracked into looking at the program yet, but I wanted to ask and gather info first:)

yah i do!! i animate a one second or one half second looping gif on csp (clip studio paint) and make sure the starting frame for both the talking and idle gifs is the same. this way they loop into eachother seamlessly.

typically i make the idle animation one second, and have four frames. the talkign animation is 1/2 second, and four frames as well, but because its loop is shorter the frames cycle 'faster'. this gives the illusion of my character talking vs chilling, because the faster frame transition makes it look more energetic!

i will say that the bell animation in the talking sprite is more like 6... 8 frames? but thats because i wanted to add a level of bounce to its movement.

[candyheartedchy]

Do you have any lighting tips? I really struggle but you do lighting so well!

I’m so bad at explaining art stuff, so I apologize in advance anon!!!

I usually do a separate layer for lighting and for adding a glow effect, I make a copy of the “light” layer and blur the one underneath.

[jojo-schmo]

Is it okay to ask what font you use for your comic dialogue? It looks like an exact fit for what I wanna do!

Sorry if you were asked this before.

Hello! No worries, I'm always happy to answer stuff, especially if an ask is buried deep in my blog.

So I made my comic font years ago on a website called "myscriptfont" that no longer exists. It's my handwriting! I made it like what... eight years ago?? Holy smokes. I think font technology has advanced past this but I'm too sentimental to change it after so long haha.

I don't know if I'd give it out though, not just because it's pretty personal to me but it's kinda janky. The 'i's and exclamation marks get pretty close together, the (") quotation marks don't work correctly, and ellipses act weird and I have to space them out manually. I know its quirks and how to work with them but I imagine it'd be frustrating for others. And there's probably a way for me to fiddle with those kinds of settings but I haven't tried yet.

If you want to make your own though, the site I made it on turned into the website "calligraphr" and I believe you can make one font for free when you register!

But if you want my Kirby "Forgotten Language" handwritten font, I put it here for free. :) I made that one on Calligraphr a year ago so it should work great! It's got newfangled font technology!

[librarycards]

feel free to discard this ask, but i was wondering if you have any recs for texts about pet death, pet grief, etc. (or would be potentially applicable to people in those situations). thank you!

hi anon! I'd love to open this up to my followers, too, as I'm not suuuuper familiar with pet loss books (please reply with other recs!). that said, here are a few recs that I know of!

Perhaps the best-fitting recommendation is Dog Songs by Mary Oliver. Here's an article about it with some excerpts.

Planet of the Blind by Stephen Kuusisto. He describes his experience training his first guide dog, Corky, who passed away in 2005. Here's an interview in which he reminisces about his times with Corky.

I recommend taking a peek at this memory wall, hosted by a UK-based cat organization. It made me teary, and it's been well over a decade since I lost my "soul cat." But it may provide necessary catharsis. (Haha, cat-harsis.)

Fifteen Dogs by Andre Alexis. Greek gods give dogs consciousness in order to test theories about society and "human" nature. The dogs deal with the gamut of struggles with ethics and mortality, including both love and death.

Lastly, here is a LitHub article, with excerpts drawn from a recent book on the same topic, about how famous authors dealt with pet loss.

[inpolariis]

Got a question asking for my process for this piece so I made a little tutorial for it :o)

[stressed-sock]

Heyyy Sock!!

So... Do you have a reference sheet for your dominion Sneve design? I may be struggling a little bit...

sadly I don’t have a reference sheet but I think this is close enough to one? (sneve I did for dominionweeks 👍)

for his feet I think he’d go barefoot or have boots and the height doesn’t matter very much :D

[arcadekitten]

Oml I've played every single one of your games and I still have no idea how a pathospire feeds🤕 I understand what a pathospire is, but I wanna make sure I have the correct definition of it. Do you mind giving an explanation of what a pathospire is and how they feed?

Pathospires are emotion-based vampires who receive energy from heartbreak!

Pathospires can "eat" normal food, but it doesn't give them energy. They only get energy from heartbreak!

Pathospires can feed on all forms of heartbreak (from breakups, death, betrayal, etc). Pathospires only need to be around the broken-hearted to be able to feed, but if a pathospire is the cause of a broken-heart, they receive even more energy from it!!

If Pathospires eat a lot, they can become really strong and powerful! (like super strength!)

Pathospire feeding is an essentially passive process, like photosynthesis. They absorb the energy from a broken heart like plants absorb energy from sunlight.

[strawbubbysugar]

Do you have any tips for growing your skills as a concept artist or even getting into the industry? I want to do character concepts eventually here, but I don’t know a huge amount about the details behind the job.

Here’s my advice!

the industry is incredibly fast paced, and in being a concept artist you need to produce dozens of concepts a day. Speed is a very valuable asset- my main tip here is to build muscle memory by practicing drawing as much as you can (by drawing things you like, of course!) and using longer strokes rather than feathered, shorter ones.

Also, don’t be afraid to use reference. I see a lot of people feeling like it’s cheating but it’s NOT, in my job every single concept artist uses references daily, with every concept.

No art is truly original, take inspiration from everywhere and everything, proudly!!

[toomanyfandomsorkinafs]

Tips for LGBTQ+ kids who aren't out/can’t come out

Scrunchies. For example you find sets of three with like one is blue & pink and the other is yellow & pink, the third one tends to be all three in like a pretty fade(aka the pan flag) OR just get all three in one colour and then arrange them properly.

This is my way I've been reping my flag without actually having my flag.(I wear it like a bracelet) It works cause homophobes/people who are rude to the LGBTQ+ just see it as a scrunchie, but those who know/are LGBTQ+ will recognise the flag.

So just find sets of how ever many colours is on your flag then find those colours. Bonus? You can also use it as an actually scrunchie if needed AND have a flag in your hair.

[lyssasdrafts]

Please don’t take this as a personal attack but in future can you please stop adding unrelated relationship tags to your fics. e.g Star Crossed is Rhysand x Reader right, but you’ve also added the tags Azriel x reader, Cassian x reader and Bat boys x reader.

Doing this spams the other ‘ship tags and is really frustrating for readers.

There’s nothing wrong with Rhysand x reader, I love that ‘ship, but when I’m looking for Az or Cass x reader, I don’t want to have to scroll past heaps of unrelated fics for different ‘ship.

I get that people do this to try and promote themselves, but tbh it’s inconsiderate of others and doesn’t help the fandom. It also makes me want to block writers that spam tags so I don’t have to waste time scrolling past their posts.

And blocking them means I would miss seeing any other work they write, which would be the opposite effect writers are wanting if they’re trying to self promote.

So again, this isn’t meant to be a personal attack, just a different perspective and an ask that you try and avoid adding unrelated tags to your fics in future. Thanks!

hey anon! thank you for addressing your concern with me and being respectful, i really appreciate it!

i would like to clarify that star-crossed isn’t just a rhysand x reader story, and it’ll involve all the bat boys being with reader. since we’re only in the early chapters, reader has mostly interacted with rhysand only but as the story goes on, cassian and azriel will become love interests too. and i’m also planning for three alternate endings where each of them end up with y/n. for these reasons, i classified the story as also being cassian x reader and azriel x reader, which is why i used the tags too!

[skiaskai]

Hi I’m a new digital artist and your art style is so beautiful, definitely what I aspire to be!!! I was curious if you could share any info about brushes you use or your process (shading especially)

Ahh welcome to digital art!!

Thank you for the kind words! I use a Procreate for all my works, and I use Georg’s manga and ink brush pack for most of my inking. (Enpitsu, fude, g-pen texture the most)

for shading, it’s hard to explain, but I do my flats, then a gradient layer (multiply), cel shading(multiply), then some lighting effects with overlay and addition depending on the piece. Then I finish it off with some painting on top!

Also art hack I’ve recently started doing: copy the canvas at the end, then blur it slightly, and put it on overlay mode with lower opacity. Magic.

[natjennie]

do the ghosts in ghosts ever like. move on. you know go into the light. or do they just not want to? every day i get this much 🤌 closer to watching the show

no no genuinely this is a good question! so yeah, the ghosts can move on, which they colloquially refer to as "getting sucked off," but it happens seemingly at random and the ghosts are very nervous about it.

basically, when you die in the bbc ghosts universe, one of two things happens. either your spirit sort of goes all glowy and floats above your body and you get a few seconds of afterlife but then you sort of whoosh upwards and that's it. OR you die and then open your eyes again right where your body still is but you're a ghost now. and once that happens, you just sort of hang out. and then, at any point, there's a warm glowing light and you get a second of recognition and then whoosh upwards and gone.

but yeah, the ghosts have a lot of different attitudes towards moving on and big episodes touch on it that I can think of are happy death day, the thomas thorne affair, speak as ye choose, gone gone, and especially carpe diem. I don't want to spoil anything specific in case you watch the show, but moving on is actually a huge point of interest for them.

I also wrote about the sadness inherent to the in-universe rules of moving on here, which I thought was a good post but it got derailed by people making jokes about yknow. the fact that they call it "getting sucked off" which. fair play.

[chococolte]

Hii is there anyway you could make your character setting public? I'm trying to make my own character ai but I can't figure out how to do the example messages at all. Your bots are written so well please help T_T

ok so i can't make zhongli's settings public because of his high interaction count, but here are screenshots of what i put for him:

i made al-haitham's settings public too so you can look at those to reference as well!! ^_^

[lyrebirdgore]

blog anon- I was curious to see what blogs I should check out!

Oooohhhh hehe. Okey!! Well, I’m not to keen on giving out the current blog I have my eyes on but I can give a few that I find personally nice (I reblog them a bunch lol)

We’ve got:

@/azarisrampage

@/dreamvinx

@/weirdcacophony

@/godsworst

@/creepfever

@/m3lat0nin

And @/deludedmarimo !!!!

All very nice blogs with very nice posts in my humble opinion!!! Great reblog-able stuff in there :3

Hope I answered correctly!!! Have fun!!

[librarycards]

do you have any reading recs for the intersection and/or similarities between the disabled & trans experiences? the community of trans, disabled, and trans disabled people working together? tysm sarah

i have many, too many to list here! below are a few links and names to get you started, but trans disability studies is a rapidly-growing field really exploding with new scholarship right now. trans studies specifically is having something of a "crip turn," particularly since the publication of Hil Malatino's long essay, "Trans Care." I don't know what's going to happen going forward, but as it stands, there is active and growing interest in the nexus of trans and disabled subjectivity, especially w/r/t social conditions that design (for) us lives deemed unlivable.

i'm going to focus in this post on scholarship that explicitly engages both with trans and disability studies thought, rather than just work from one area that happens to bring in a topic from the other. Of course, it isn't possible to fully delineate these areas, nor should we try. but trans studies and disability studies are whole academic fields with distinct genealogies and theoretical orientations, and it sounds like you're looking for work that brings these sometimes-disparate orientations together very deliberately. Mad studies also has its own disparate genealogy that is sometimes at odds with disability studies, depending on who you're reading; on the other hand, neurodiversity studies tends to follow and cite DS a little more closely. i'm not going to get into the weeds here, but i did want to provide a disclaimer about how complicated this shit is before i give a LIMITED! INCOMPLETE! list of places to start reading.

my work in transMad studies (which I made up; Trans Disability Studies and Feminist Disability Studies, and intersections therein, predate me) draws explicitly on trans, disability, and Mad studies approaches, as well as/alongside the critical digital humanities, poetics, and science & technology studies. i've written about transMadness / trans disabled digital work / Mad gender noncompliance / trans autie-biography. I also co-authored the chapter on the trans/disabled intersection in Trans Bodies, Trans Selves, 2nd ed.

Some key authors in the area of trans disability studies // transMad studies include but are not limited to:

Eli Clare

M. Remi Yergeau

Nick Walker

Mel Chen

Jake Pyne

Jess Rauchberg

Lydia X. Z. Brown

J. Logan Smilges

Justine Egner

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna Samarasinha

Alexandre Baril

Hil Malatino

Merrick Pilling

Cameron Awkward-Rich

Sky Cubacub

I have included alongside each name a link to one piece of their work that I like. Again, MANY people write about trans / disability / Mad issues in concert, or who talk about certain issues through a t/d/M lens. I listed only a small number of people for the reasons I mention at the start of the post.

Also, much of this work I have selected deliberately to trouble preexisting assumptions about trans disabled solidarity/activism/scholarship – namely, that it starts and ends at the question of pathologization. When we limit the scope of trans disabled liberation work to the boundaries of the clinic (material, discursive, or otherwise) we do ourselves a grave disservice.

i'm going to leave it there as a starting point, but encourage you to check the citations of each of the linked pieces, as they're often treasure troves of further resources.

[tophthedaydreamer]

So I got a comment from @dreamstormdragon asking for tips on how to get VRoid models to work in Blender.

I realized my answer is wayyyy too big for just a reply, so I'm making a whole post about it!

Without further ado, here's my VRoid-Blender workflow:

1 - Use a later version of VRoid Studio. Do not use the beta version! I think I'm currently using v1.28.0.

2 - Use an addon to make .vrm files compatible with Blender. The one I use is the “VRM Addon for Blender”, which you can find here: https://vrm-addon-for-blender.info/en/

Make sure your version of Blender is higher than 2.93. Installing addons is pretty easy, all you have to do after downloading the zip folder is open Blender > got to Edit > Edit Preferences > navigate to the Addons tab > Install > click your zip folder > hit the checkmark to activate it > done! After installing, you should be able to import .vrm files by going to File > Import > clicking the new .vrm option. If you encounter any problems while installing, I recommend watching a video on how to install Blender addons.

3 - So now your VRoid is in Blender. Epic! Most imported VRoids come with a default rig, but it's very basic and has no IK abilities. IKs let you move the hands and feet of the model, by extent automatically bending the arms and legs of said model. It makes posing a lot easier than manually changing each individual bone’s position.

So I use more addons to change that: “Auto Rig Pro” and “Auto Rig Pro: Quick Rig”.

Auto Rig Pro lets you easily make a new, more complex rig for your VRoid character. However, it does mess up the original facial rig, so that's why I use Quick Rig on VRoids. It lets me just add IKs to the default rig, without having to make a new skeleton! It's awesome!

BIG WARNING: You have to already have Auto Rig Pro in order for Quick Rig to work. You can't download Quick Rig by itself because it's connected to Auto Rig Pro. Which sucks because Auto Rig Pro is no longer free (I got it for free during a giveaway for Blender’s anniversary).

You can download Auto Rig Pro here: https://blendermarket.com/products/auto-rig-pro

Download Quick Rig here: https://blendermarket.com/products/auto-rig-pro-quick-rig

Auto Rig Pro has different pricings ranging from $40 USD to $182 USD depending on the features you want, but Quick Rig costs just $10 USD. The installation process is basically the same as the VRM addon earlier. Again, if you have any trouble installing it, watch a tutorial!

4 - But what if you don't want to spend money? Here's my previous rigging process:

Instead of using Auto Rig Pro and Quick Rig, I used the addons featured in this YouTube video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-k1eKcQz29o&pp=ygUUdnJvaWQgbWl4YW1vIGJsZW5kZXI%3D

Basically, the addons shown in this video let you convert the default VRoid rig into a Mixamo rig, which comes with IKs! The video has download links in the description for each addon that you will need, and it also shows how to use them. Best part, all the addons are free!

I animated my Bluey model using a converted Mixamo rig, so it works pretty well. I just like Auto Rig Pro/Quick Rig more because it's a simpler, cleaner process. But both options get the job done, so choose whichever works more for you!