#I love my pixelated reference pic

[soralo]

new fav character just dropped-

[cinnamon-flame]

Pigeon studies

Okay so long story short, my love for pigeons reignited over the last few days and I drew only pigeons for like a week to the concern of everybody who saw me enter that state of mind.

The first three are drawn based few different pigeon shots I found, the two after that are referenced from my weirdly pixelated vacation pics and the last one is so high quality because my bestie @wilczuuu let me use one of their gorgeous photos for reference.

Also just for fun I filmed the last one as a timelapse to see that that would look like

I struggle a lot with bird anatomy and while these drawing made me get a firmer grip on that, I'm still super confused about that. So if anyone has some experience with drawing birds and would like to share some tips I would be very thankful.

[nicnsmth1]

I've just realised that I never showed each person in my assassination classroom socmed au's account so here are some and a few explanations on why I made it that way

pt1!! (feat. karma, shizuha/shinsuke (oc), asano, ayaka (oc), isogai, kataoka, irina, nakamura, korosensei, nagisa)

akabane karma:

dn: mostly nothing except for things he finds interesting (aka the new movies that he likes being released)

username: a = akabane, karma

bio: nothing interesting

followings: class E students, he's a priv acc

pfp and header: himself and nothing

kamiya shizuha/shinsuke:

dn: they really like masuki in bandori

username: opposite of shi-kun (shin-chan) and kmy = kamiya

bio: countdown for ras events in bandori

followings: big five, class E students after following karma

pfp and header: them and their fave masuki card currently

asano gakushuu:

dn: number 1

username: his name

bio: he's doing business on here

followings: majority of kunugigaoka and a few other companies

pfp and header: notes and misc pics he had

kamiya ayaka:

dn: her name

username: no idea, it just sounded cute

bio: kasumi from bandori's catchphrase

followings: friends from class 2B and a few other main campus students

pfp and header: herself and melody

isogai yuuma:

dn: his name

username: his name with the year the anime was out

bio: cheerful greeting

followings: class E and a few main campus students

pfp and header: his goldfish and a pretty view

kataoka megu:

dn: her name

username: it sounded cute and I hc that she's into jp idols

bio: smth cute, again, my hc that she uses twt to follow her oshis

followings: fave idol groups and class E

pfp and header: an idol that she likes and a matching header to make it pretty

irina jelavic:

dn: her name

username: also her name

bio: lyrics from a marina song (primadonna)

followings: a big account that always get hit tweets, she only follows the class E students back tho

pfp and header: her and a place she went

nakamura rio:

dn: yippee

username: ref to the nico catchphrase from love live

bio: a hamilton reference

followings: mostly just students in class E

pfp and header: her and a pic of london

korosensei:

dn: a reminder to the students on why he's actually on socmed💀💀

username: his name but wonky

bio: mostly there to snoop, but you can dm him for studying help

followings: strictly class E students and the teachers (irina doesn't want to follow him back TT)

pfp and header: those octopus dolls that changes moods and notes

shiota nagisa:

dn: his name

username: his name again + numbers that I do not recall what for

bio: he only have it bcs the others wanted him to join

followings: class E students

pfp and header: his notes and a cute pixel header

[meme-loving-stuck]

I really love your art style! ♥️ Do you have any recommendations for tutorials on learning to draw digitally? I know I could just look at little micro tutorials but I’m autistic so I need really specific instructions step by step to get started

Hey thanks! Honestly I am not good at digital art as much as traditional. Also, this question is pretty vague and you havent reblogged/liked anything of mine so Im not sure which artwork you might be referring to... if you mean pixel art, digital paintings, commissions Ive done, etc

But, I have a HUGE tag full of art resources that are 90% for digital art because I also had a really hard time getting started!

If you want to scroll through my #art ref tag, I have been compiling resources for almost a decade.

Here is a small tutorial Ive been pulling up for years to look at whenever I forget how to digitally paint, that just shows exactly how the artist does layering, shading, etc

Also, Tutor Tuesday is a BUNCH of tutorials that are all about very specific things (hair, faces, animals, lining in general, sketching in general, you name it) , in fully illustrated guides so you can see step-by-step how to do it. This is the best resource I can find for beginning digital art

Also check the users I reblog tutorials from, if the above aren't really what youre looking for. Drawingden, etheringtonbrothers, and art-tutorials-n-references are all good pages to follow if you want to see more guides!

Feel free to message me if you want to see more of my processes, I might have some old pics or videos I can share!

[softpine]

@bb-enablefreebuild it's true, but asa says it himself, "I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I have everything a person could want and a better family than some could ever imagine - but it’s not enough for me. I don’t know why. I want to be happy, but I don’t know how." it was important for me to include that part in there, because that has nothing to do with finn – well, only a little bit in that he knows he can come across as ungrateful given that his family is incredibly supportive and some people's families, like finn's, are the opposite. otherwise, this is entirely centered around asa's internal feelings. he's had depression nearly his entire life, it's just that when finn is around he's able to find reasons to take care of himself (going outside for long walks, sleeping regularly, paying attention in class because finn tells him to, taking his meds, etc.) and without finn there to ground him, asa is falling apart for more reasons than one. so yes it's the heartbreak of losing your first love, but it's more than that for him. it's losing the primary reason for living in the moment and looking forward to the future :(

he will be soooooooo pissed :( we'll have to wait and see if asa tells him the truth (or the full truth) about how he got to this point... especially after everything asa said in this post; he KNOWS finn wouldn't approve of any of his actions thus far, but he keeps digging his grave deeper and deeper because he's already gone too far, he's already broken finn's trust and he can't leave things like this now :(

that tag is so funny, i wasn't even referring to myself in Sim God terms i was just mad at him as if i'm a powerless reader like the rest of you jfkjsds and YEAH poor casper :( he'll come up in one of the next posts so i don't want to say too much, but the fact that his worst fear is missing out on something important while he's away, to the extent that he's calling constantly to check on his family is so..... :(

bro yes 🤭

thank you for sharing!! that makes complete sense to me and that's a really sweet way to incorporate your mom in that decision 🥺

RIGHT he needs the sense knocked into him fr

@forgotten-pixels ahhhh i love this question, i was JUST thinking about mac while i was making vegan chili mac the other day fjkjsds i'm actually going to save this in my inbox and take some pictures for you when i have the energy because i miss mac and honey too :') they're always hanging out in the same room while i'm taking screenshots, they just NEVER make it into any good pics. it's actually a curse i swear

i honestly have no idea, i'm sorry 😭 it'll probably be awhile though, i haven't been doing great tbh but i want the next post to look as good as it does in my head so i don't want to half ass it!!

@itsalwaysgonnabeher oh you caught that huh sjfkjsds don't worry (yet) 💖

@little-orphan-ant I'M SORRY 😭 i'm thinking brandi wtf at all times too lmao

omg okay so i'm saving this message in my inbox for later because i KNOW for a FACT that i listed everyone's favorite candy many years ago but tumblr's search function is so incredibly ass and i don't have the energy to keep searching for it right now but i will find it eventually i promise 🥺 and if not i'll just rewrite it and then when i inevitably find the original post we can compare my answers and see how well i know my characters' tastes fjksjds

absolutely yes i'm afraid 😌

in my head i still have to sound it out sometimes if it's been forever since i've typed her name fjksjds

@rebouks thank you so much 🥺🥺 the same goes to you!!! 💖

@moonfromearth thank you!! it's so sweet you thought of me ;-; 💗

[vividmeadow]

I just saw Across the Spiderverse and I loved it!! I’m currently in the middle of drawing my favorite character Spiderbyte! But I noticed something when I was looking for reference pics.

Her Funko Pop design is completely different from her movie design.

I love it! Especially the pixel hair and arms but I’m not sure if this is a mistake or a spoiler.

[windydrawallday]

Where do you find inspiration and motivation to make art? Is there a process to the whole mental prep for creating?

(Love your art so I thought I would ask :D)

You want me to make a TED Talk about art? Because that is what this will be coff

Inspiration comes from everywhere for me! I think it helps to have not only an open mind but also the spirit of an infant: get awestruck by what nature, science, history, culture, etc. offers. Even between my everyday activities, I find myself asking about how it felt for the first human to discover they could cook their food, or experimenting with so many shapes for pasta to get sauce stuck to it! I'm that silly.

Because most if not all things were already thought of if not invented by someone: we have so much heritage. We are blessed to have access to all this information and tools. Don't feel afraid to reference them! To dig critically into the work of someone else you feel it vibes with you and make it yours, too. Is healthy. Is good!

That ties in with one of the processes that helps me yank the abstract clay from my head to the canvas: making MOOD BOARDS!* I use them mostly to nail the visual style I want for illustrations (almost all my zine pics started with a mood board):

I use a similar method but call them MUSE BOARDS when working with character's archetypes, mannerisms, behaviors, etc I want to portray both accurately and with personal twists:

*Some prefer to call them aesthetic boards because of how the internet bastardized the use of the word for gif sets but ask a graphic or fashion designer, architect, etc; the term for a collage of visual references that are usually static IS mood board.

Tho, lately, during these weeks dealing with the burnout and gnawing art block, another thing became my motivation to keep doing art... and I'll put it under the cut because it can be quite dark for some (CW mention of death/mortality themes):

Probably I'll sound cynical and/or edgy for saying this but it's the truth:

One of these days, I could die (not by my own hand but this world is bigger and powerful than me, I can't control everything in it) and all those ideas and visions I never put on paper, will die with me.

And so, when I'm struggling with a part of the process during a piece and find myself wanting to quit, I say: If I give up now, I'm letting the idea die before I step into the graveyard.

When I'm killing my ideas, I'm killing myself, slowly. And I don't want that.

I go back to the canvas and try, TRY and T R Y. Until the idea comes out.

Probably incomplete. For sure imperfect. Still a work in progress.

But out of my mortal brain.

Flesh of paper, blood of ink. Colors of pixels, layers upon layer of illusory ligh and shadows.

Mine and at the same time, for the world. It's free now to be welcomed by other minds, to be wanted and played by other hearts.

It's immortal, it can inspire people beyond my reach. Even after I'm not here in constant presence.

Isn't that enough motivation?

I got overboard with this but I hope it doesn't sound too overdramatic orz I needed this out of my chest too haha

THANK YOU for your interest! Is always welcomed ✨✨✨✨✨

[ask-dcf]

Hey Mod? Why don’t you make a collab pic of the Dark World Charas. I know at least 3 others. Could even do one with Frisk. :D I think that would be fun!~

Oooohhh! Thats an idea!~ And I think I know who you talking about. Sadly I can not for the life of me draw and my gf way too busy making lore stuff and pixel references and remakes for the collab and other stuff.

Gf mod: *INSERT WOMAN SCRIBBLING ON DRAW TABLET TO THE POINT OF SCREEN AND COMPUTER SMOKING* CHESHIRE MY LOOOOVE! U WHOLESOME BOI!

I couuuld commission an art friend to make a fan art for two separate pics of them as fan art. I think that would be adorable just to have the Frisk’s and Chara’s in delta world together. X3 I’m sure the other creators wouldn’t mind of a simple pick of them all together, plus we kinda need something wholesome after the near heart attack we all had with that flowey garden. I’ll see what I can put together for a commission. Till then imma continue asks tomorrow. Much love and bless all. ^^

[elektroyu]

When I recently went through my files I got reminded of this old speedpaint from 2016 that I did from probably the grainiest, most pixellated references I'd ever gotten in my 9 years of doing client work. By far actually. But the cat was soooo beautiful 🥺 I really wanted to do him justice.

At the time I did have something resembling the lower pic in mind, but wasn't able to execute it at all as you can see. The portrait looked kinda sorta fine from a distance, but that's about it. All these years this has bugged me so much! This has probably been the worst portrait I ever delivered, and while I loved the concept of it I was rather ashamed of the poor execution. I don't think I even uploaded it anywhere, so that says a lot. But I guess I've learned a thing or two over almost a decade of painting pets, so maybe I can remedy that!

Once I've finished this rework I'll try to contact the client to see if they want the updated piece :) Hopefully they'll be able to see it!

[simlicious]

Sims 3 Nostalgia I found an ancient Sims backup folder on an old hard drive and I think it's the earliest backup I found of my Sims 3 screenshots, from July 2010 (I am not sure those timestamps are even correct, they might be even older!). Back then, only World Adventures and Ambitions were available EP's. I did not share a lot of gameplay pics back then, so these are all subpar quality angle-wise, and my monitor resolution was a meager 1680x1048 pixels (on a 19-inch monitor, I believe). We've come a long way since then! For this save, I used the motherlode cheat to splurge on a luxurious bachelor pad (yes, there was a maid AND a butler). I made two YA male sims who lived there and they had the time of their lives throwing wild pool parties. I believe that save was called "young and wild" or something like that, lol! Of course, it features the obligatory pool and pool tables and sim-painted paintings of their own house. For some reason, I loved that "paint from reference" feature and proudly hung my sims' paintings! I also made quite a lot of money painting wiht my sims, I think I forced most of them to paint at some point or another 😁 I think this was a vanilla or minimal CC save. UV mapping was a huge pain back then when people used Milkshape to UVmap, so most people did not really pay attention to it (some mapping was quite terrible and you could only stick with solid colors). This is what really got me into creating CC. I started to fix CC that I liked but was low in quality for me personally, so I should really be grateful for that incentive 😄

[gaymer-hag-stan]

Okay, to my fighting game fan followers, I'd like to present: River City Girls!

The series is a spin-off of the Kunio-kun series, a beat 'em up game series that has apparently existed since the 80s and I had no idea about until recently.

The original game was released back in 2019 and stars Kyoko (the ginger) and Misako (the brunette) who are trying to rescue their boyfriends, series' protagonist Kunio and Riki (Misako is Kunio's girlfriend and Kyoko is Riki's)

The game is endlessly charming with amazing pixel-art-style graphics, a killer soundtrack and very cool boss fights! It also has a great sense of humour, you're gonna love it! You can even check out a bit of gameplay from Matt McMuscles, a favourite YouTuber of mine, through whom I got introduced to these game by a video he uploaded on the second game a few days ago on his other channel and made me look into these games. Apparently he's voicing a character in the second game and JackSepticEye is even voicing one in the first one!

Be warned though, the first game, the bosses in particular, can be challenging if you're playing alone. The game seems to have been made with 2-player co-op in mind so it's recommended that you get one of your friends to play with you, it's generally more fun this way. The first game however features no online multiplayer meaning that you actually have to depend on your real-life friends and mine are all STUPID and don't wanna play this with me so I'm stuck trying to beat the bosses on my own 😭😂

If you're feeling retro, the 1994 SNES game where Kyoko and Misako first appeared in has also been localized in the West for the first time ever this year as River City Girls Zero and serves as a prequel to the original and a second game, River City Girls Two, has just been released as well. All three games are available on Steam, PS4 / 5, Xbox One / X / S and Switch so I trust you'll have no problem getting them on the platform of your choice. The 2019 game which I got today seems to be on sale until the 22nd of December so you'll be saving up money and I think the sequel is also around 40€ and it just came out so even on full price the games aren't expensive.

According to Matt the second one, which he played solo, without his friend Liam who's playing with him on the video I shared above, is less challenging and it also features online multiplayer this time.

If you're a fighting game fan I think you're gonna have tons of fun with River City Girls because the games feature TONS of references and Easter Eggs to many popular fighting games and beat 'em ups. I've even seen pics of Sol Badguy and Jam Kuradoberi from Guilty Gear making cameos in the sequel, ArcSys is the publisher of both series.

Anyway, let me know if you actually end up playing any of the three games as I just started the first one myself and I'm really pumped!

[beautifully-lumpy]

the beautiful person's journal - #16: the collectible world of caddicarus review!

sooo....this is about 3 months late, i know. BUUUUUT i have much more free time now that it's summer, and i can sing this box's praises!

ever since i was a young caddicarus fan, i'd always wanted to own merch from him. however, being in a family that wasn't too fond of a 12/13-year-old watching youtubers who swear like sailors, i couldn't express my love for caddy, let alone ask for merch. however, now that i'm in my 20s, i was able to ask for and receive this wondrous blu ray box set for christmas...well, at least the idea that i'd be receiving the box at some point.

if you stay up to date on all the happenings in the caddicarus community, you may have heard about the nightmarish experiences people have had with pixel empire and the shipping of this box.

needless to say, i was among the lucky ones who received theirs in mid-march. pixel empire just seems unable to handle merch drops for million-sub youtubers - scott the woz fans are still waiting for their $100 merch boxes to ship.

but pixel empire woes aside...was this $100 blue ray box set worth the wait?

✨ absolutely! ✨

upon receiving this adorable ps1-shaped box laced with references - both visual and auditory - i was the most excited i had ever been in all my years as a beautiful person/lumpy germ! and the contents inside did not disappoint.

to this day, i still haven't used all the stickers yet. but the ones i have used currently live on my sketchbook...

the stickers have such pretty art by prominent comedic game reviewer thumbnail/branding artist kevin fagaragan. they're super high quality too! i love how we have an official sticker of the "good!" thumbs up guy now - that's the one surviving pre-2020 thing that made it to this box. speaking of which, the box includes very few references to pre-2020 caddicarus aside from the history video so if you're a veteran fan who hasn't watched/doesn't like the newer vids but still wants to get this, you're out of luck.

as shown in the pictures above, i've used the pins on my backpack! but during the time since i took that picture, the pins have moved to my beanie! it's now blazing hot where i am in the mid-south, so i'm obviously not wearing this out anymore lol, but anywhere i went when it was cooler outside, this beanie would be on my head, showing off my caddicarus and onward fan pride! just like the stickers, the pins are really high quality, much higher quality than the disney enamel pins and buttons i've had. the caddicarus ones stay on super tight!

and let's not forget the gorgeous poster that's on the top of this post!! i feel like it's a comedic game reviewer rite of passage to have a beautiful 80's-style poster designed by PE founder dylan west. pixel empire may tend to bite off more than they can chew but damn, do they have some talented folks.

and that sapphire ticket in the first pic? that's a $10 pixel empire gift card. it can't get you much on the site, but if you got the gold and platinum tickets, you got $50 and $100 respectively...and a 15/30 minute zoom call with caddy!! to this day we haven't seen any reports of gold or platinum tickets yet, strangely. but man, that would've been a dream come true for me.

the picture of jim by the sticker sheet is actually a scratch and sniff. and in true caddicarus fashion, he gave us fans the ability to smell his beard - which actually smells very nice! and on the back is a thank you note signed by the man himself!

but of course, that's not all there is to this box. the meat of this wondrous collectible is the blu ray - packaged in a jewel case with PS1-style boxart. it even comes with a "game" manual that features all kinds of references, and interviews from different people who have worked with caddy!

the disc itself resembles a UK PS1 demo disc. and when you pop it inside, it carries on that aesthetic, as the menus look and sound like old demo discs!

(on the right is the gif i pulled from the pixel empire page for a visual)

the root menu uses the actual music from UK demo discs, but the "press start", main features and bonus features menus use these beautiful, ethereal, supposedly original pieces that i adore so much. unfortunately, while the credits specify who did which pieces of art for the box and menus on the disc, they don't specify who composed the menu music, or if the music was taken from epidemic sound. i tried shazaming it and got nothing. i wish we knew who composed that beautiful music! :(

and now - let's take a look at the videos on the disc!

the first one i watched was "how did i get here, and why is it damp?", as i'm obviously a connoisseur of caddicarus history and i was interested to see how jim himself would recap it. and this is how i learned why jim unlisted all those private videos - sir toasty needed access to them so he could edit the video! this video was the shortest of all of the main features, only being around 40 or so minutes. and i loved it!

not only was it such a surreal experience watching a caddicarus blu ray on the big TV in the living room - as i said, this never could've happened when i was younger - but also, the video was a trip down memory lane and the ending actually made me tear up a bit. it's a reminder of how the caddicarus channel wasn't even supposed to keep going after the 2010s, and it was because of jim's determination that he was able to pull through and make it to 1 million subs.

after that i watched "the secretive world of filming stories", which was about a whole hour longer. it was basically caddy, cerys and olly going through different scenes of the caddicarus show's reboot, and telling the stories about how they were filmed. i adored this one too, as the history and production of the caddicarus show is (obviously) a huge special interest of mine!

then i watched the last main feature, which was "the precious world of caddy's PS1 collection"! this one was also around an hour and 40 minutes, and it was exactly what it said on the tin - caddy going through his PS1 collection and discussing it.

also as a sidenote, seeing jim standing in front of his shelves and talking, along with him bending down to grab two video games off the floor gave me flashbacks to season 10 caddicarus, as that was his exact filming setup and he would bend down to grab the slaughter and salvage guns during the intro...

while i loved this video, i will admit i didn't love it as much as the previous two, but that's pretty much just because i mostly love caddicarus for the comedy/production/history aspects rather than the video game aspect. however, i have seen caddicarus fans who only cared about the PS1 tour and not the history or filming stories vids. different needs for different fans!

and onto the bonus features...

the hidden block reunion podcast was so good!! for a caddicarus veteran like me who was around during the golden age of hidden block, it was so emotional seeing these boys together again, even though balrog wasn't there.

the battle between caddy and brutalmoose was like, a 30 second video. i won't say what it was, but oh my god it was the funniest shit ever.

the stanley's phrase of the week compilation was cute, but honestly any fan could've made that and put it on youtube. i don't get why it had to be a feature on the blu ray.

and finally...the credits!

this is where my biggest disappointment with the blu ray comes in. don't get me wrong, i am 100% grateful with what we got and i couldn't ask for anything more wondrous than this. but in advertisements for the box, there were a few scenes animated in a PS1 style that showed jim fighting different bosses, and the bosses were different characters he's faced throughout the caddicarus reboot. the back of the case states that there are "animated gameplay featurettes", implying that there are multiple animated shorts. however, the credits seem to be the only animated featurette on the disc, and they only showed those exact shots we saw on the advertisements, including a couple extras. the only other animated thing was the secret video on the "press start" menu, which was only a few seconds long. idk i just expected there to be much more drawn-out, fully-voice acted featurettes. they even went to the trouble to make 3D models for olly and caddy's family, and they were only used for a second in the credits. i wasn't the only person confused about this, as there were also others on reddit stumped on it. and it's sad bc i was really excited about that :(

but other than that...i wholeheartedly recommend this box to any die-hard caddicarus fan!! it's a piece of merch that none of us could've ever dreamed of years ago, let alone 8-10 months ago!!

[david-box]

I love the way MLTs talk about stuff sometimes. My hematology professor likes to call immature blood cell chromatin "lacey" and someone in a video we were watching as a class while we were learning cell identification called peripheral basophilia "ballerina skirts"

pics for reference:

Image ID: An pixellated screenshot of an illustration representing a prorubricyte, an immature form of a red blood cell. It is circular, with blue cytoplasm surrounding a large red and white nucleus with a lacey, open structure.

Image 2: A photo of the flowers of Queen Anne's Lace, seen from above. It is almost circular in shape with white flowers and yellow stamen above the green and brown ground - the flowers are arranged in a way that they create an open, lacey look with bursts of color.

Image 3: A low-res screenshot of a reactive lymphocyte as seen on a peripheral blood smear. It has an irregular shape, with it's clear cytoplasm wrapping around several over blood cells. It's nucleus is dark purple and leans towards the side with a slightly irregular shape, and the borders of the cell are dark blue where they touch the other red blood cells.

Image 4: A picture of a black ballerina wearing a pink drapey/flowy tutu, spinning, photographed from above against a black background/flooring. The tutu has an irregular shape, showing her motion. End ID

[hospitalterrorizer]

diary117

1/8-9/2024

monday - tuesday

i know why i was so tired yesterday, now.

i am sick once again, my whole body hurts and my nose is hard to breathe through and stuff, i feel like i'm always about to have a nosebleed, my throat hurts too. i love to live. i am so glad annoying cokeheads got me sick.

anyway today i was looking at old scans of fashion mags from south korea/china (probably hong kong i'd guess but no one specified) and japan (inescapable). i'll post some of my fav pics:

spur - japan - i like this last one because it gives me a fun idea for cover art, not the image itself, though it helps w/ pose ideas or whatever, but little watermark someone put up onto it. i think i need to do that w/ the photo i take of myself for the album art, have that there in pixelated text.

harper's bazaar - china

fhm - china - this one's super weird, the last image especially, hard to tell exactly what they were reaching for, the strangeness/relative uncanniness of these photos / defamiliarization of a magazine's approach to sex sells and whatever turning so genuinely weird and offputting feels artistically useful. it's so wholly gaudy and disorienting. weird stuff.

w - south korea

vogue girl - south korea - the scans of this mag are all super crazy, honestly, i didn't expect these all to be so interesting and good.

cosmopolitan - china - i can't tell if this one's text is part of the image or not but it's maybe my favorite part, how it's so ugly beside everything, the really strange gradient, too.

fruits - japan - i didn't realize this one continued through to 2007, really crazy, you only ever see the y2k stuff get passed around really. these outfits are super cute but like that one spur scan w/ the user's watermark, the watermarks here of this website are really interesting to me, i think i also want to stick some weird watermark onto the picture i take, i don't know what i'll call the fake site or whatever but i kind of want it to maybe be something ridiculous/violent in another language. i'd also probably do it in like 128x128 and upscale the text, and instead of having it be something white w/ lowered opacity, i'd try to index it so it's dithered white pixels, instead of smeary transparent text, and then upscale that.

the watermarking stuff is interesting, it's interesting that these scans of magazines that people used to create a sense of self/consume/receive what they ought to be / do are then turned into a kind of capital, at least when it's a website, to get people to refer back to the site/increase traffic, likely get people to pay money to not have to see the watermarks. it's a fun thing to play at, to me, the accumulation of basically trash information, the trading of images and their valuation. scans of magazines online are kind of like trading cards, it seems like, there's stuff uploaded on archive.org but not as much as anyone would hope, at least with this niche stuff. and there too, the safeguarding of images from being stolen, is sometimes present. i know they keep vogue locked up on there, same with a lot of books, you can't rip books out easily, i mean sometimes people do, but i don't try to do that really.

so en magazine - japan - another example of the watermarks on 2 of the 3 pics, this is what i'm imagining i'll try to approximate the above methods and stuff. also i really love how so en seems to really go in on a kind of fucked up revival of the 60s, the above range from like 07 to 2013.

re: music today, i did 2 tracks, i wanted to do more but i was getting hit like a truck by illness in the middle of the day. i think they've both turned out pretty good, maybe both need a little help w/ getting the kicks louder, but idk, my ears are maybe a bit messed up when trying to do that kinda thing. but i have to proceed. tomorrow i think i'll have to take care of this really tiny thing w/ a song, to get it right, and then maybe 2 other tracks. i am eventually gonna have to get back to my big problem track (really there are 2) but maybe by then i'll have a way better idea what i'm doing.

i am so sick, there's more i wanted to say, though. i read this pretty, frustrating, i guess, comic, tonight. someone posted it saying something like "this says a lot about being trans in north america" or whatever, and it mostly doesn't but it's interesting i guess to read something like that and think about why/how i feel alienated from ever being able to say anything stable about my own identity/gender. the frustration mostly though comes from this sense that everything's too perfect, the relations between characters are too neat and the things they know are too easy, almost, at one point a character looks at kiwifarms, and it's like, is this kind of person, because the comic is kind of working in types, the sort to so easily know about that. like, i dunno, it feels too easy, it seems like something find out about, when they're in the middle of the kind of thing that character was in the midst of, which would have been more interesting. but overall idk, there's a certain way of interfacing w/ oneself/other present in the comic, the sort of types it runs through, and stuff, it creates distance, even though i can sit there and be like, oh i know this type of person, i've met someone like that, or even just, i've seen this kind of thing from a distance. it's valuable to reflect on, because i try writing in similar directions sometimes maybe, i don't want to rely on types totally, i get why a comic would, in prose fiction it's better to get away from that but there's just stuff like that. really what i'm reflecting on, in my inability to say anything stable about myself, like, i can't say: i'm a girl, i'm a boy, i'm a man (speaking honestly, man is what i never want to be, i don't think i ever say i am one), i'm a woman (i don't really know what being one means, maybe, i'd need someone to tell me (and this throws up the whole issue of why girl/boy, that feels weird to me, i'm 25, i'm something else (but what, and like, i dunno))), without ever having to contradict it right after, i just want to be what i am without what feels like interference, but 'cis' is an interference too, i'm not cis, i know that, there's nothing else to know i think. anyway, because of that, when i write characters, the ones i'm writing as/using my personal life for, i can't really gender them, they can't gender themselves, they just are, no matter what, people stick things to them and they all let it linger, or they're troubling themselves over if they pass or not but that's something internal and particular. anyway, i guess there's a thought, where by never really saying anything outright, is that a cowardice, where i let the idea of normalcy/being normal creep in, i don't think so, i don't think i'm normal, or i don't think ultimately i help things be normal with my presence. i dunno though. i kind of hate the "some men are just feminine and are actually super normal" thing, not because it's untrue, but to say there's no complication there, and also that this isn't just a cope or whatever, is frustrating. it's frustrating because people are at once alienated from being 'trans' (a broad thing that can mean all sorts of things really) and wanting to still be seen as cis so people don't think you're weird. it's not something i hate the people that feel that way for, i hate the world that makes that desirable.

anyway, i dunno. it's basically all complex and fucked up. sometimes i think of myself in percentages but putting it to text feels like a commitment, i don't ever want to be committed to performing some percentage of gender. i really just want gender to disappear as a thing, but i also, obviously, really want to look a certain way, be seen a certain way, because of stuff that happened to me as a kid and stuff i saw and whatever, it's like necessary, i have to. no one has a gun to my head except i feel like one shows up when i'm ugly. i'm on a tightrope, i was put there, it's not my fault, a lot of people are on it too, like everybody is, it's terrible.

i think if tiqqun were writing currently on the young girl, they might be compelled to speak on trans stuff, but i think all they might say ultimately is that basically every human on earth is on hrt. they would be right. although that makes it sound like i think hrt is bad or something. or maybe not. i think hrt is good and i think about trying it sometimes, or not trying, i'd have to commit, that seems less scary than the percentages though because i could still really be whatever/nothing/everything. everyone's on hrt but they receive it via socially enforced norms/reality stamping down on you, you will conform to standards and so on and whatever. sometimes i think gender euphoria is really a negative thing, in ways, if you think about cis men and their gender euphoria, where they might get it from, being hard laborers or beating women, basically suffering and then throwing it around, things become more frightening. i experience euphoria when people stare at my ass and i want to kill them but i also want people to stare. when my gf is transfixed by me, it's really nice, but it's also scary, why do i want to be totally inert and just looked at. it makes me wretch but i can't help it, really. i need attention all the time. i'm writing about how fucked up my insides are, i'm so histrionic.

that's one thing on my mind. the other really is how much i hate being sick and how i am like a sick and withering whateverrrr. my head hurts distantly, in a threeway sort of thing, different points of penetration along my brain and stuff.

so, i should like, sleep, probably.

so:

byebye!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[quantum-lock-art]

Mountain With Hills

Just finished this newest piece! Been working on it (read: agonizing over it) for a couple weeks, as I've been inspired. I love landscape art and it's my dream to make a really beautiful mountainous landscape piece. Anyway, this'll be this blog's new profile pic! As might be obvious, I'm still a bit of a beginner when it comes to art. So, with this piece, I decided to do a couple of things: - Small canvas: I have a tendency to get over-ambitious with my projects (even outside of art), so I forced myself to limit the drawing space. So, when I inevitably started obsessing over things, those things would be the minute details, making the piece that much better. - Simple Shapes: You'll probably notice most of the objects in here have simple geometric shapes: the mountain is a cone, the hills are sorta half-egg-shaped (sorta a cross between a cone and a sphere). This was to make the shading easier. An unexpected benefit was that the anti-aliasing that I did was a lot easier to envision. - Cel-Shading: Other than the anti-aliasing, you'll notice most of the shading is only one color for all objects. As might be obvious, this was to make the shading easier. An interesting thing that happened during the process: I was getting really annoyed throughout that the edges of some objects were really jagged and sharp (especially the mountain against the sky). I was trying to avoid doing object borders and anti-aliasing for this, but I realized that the latter was what I needed. But just a sprinkling; I didn't want to go overboard on it. So, now it looks a little crunchy, but not jagged, so I'm happy. I guess I'm a little disappointed that, despite adding a lot to the composition, it still seems a bit empty. But I'm not sure what I could have done to fix this beyond adding more hills. I feel like this would dilute the composition, though. :/ Maybe if I added more details to the mountain and hills? All the ideas I have would end up with a more messy composition, I feel. I thought of adding some cirrus clouds to the sky, but everything I tried sucked, so I just said, "screw it". Speaking of clouds, the clouds I did make I'm actually really proud of! I had to reference some other pixel art clouds, but the designs are my own! I was having an issue with this at first; I couldn't get the overall shape of the clouds just right. Turns out, most clouds (or at least most depictions of clouds are sorta half-circle-/dome-shaped. They tend to have a flat or mostly flat bottom and either a curved or bell-shaped top. Also, the shading; the references were good for that.

[fellamarsh]

Face reveal?!

My friend and housemate made me this custom pixel art profile pic and I really love it (though maybe I should have given her a reference where I'm smiling lol??)

The roses in the background are inspired by Kurama from YuYu Hakusho... So I guess this is a weeb reveal as well (unless you follow my main where it is. Apparent)