#I was just trying some limited pallettes and thought of them

[lailalory]

My OCs from my original work Polawa

[nocek]

Hello, do you have a guide to drawing faces? I'm going through an artstyle revision to be more soft around the edges and less sharp and I've always struggled with faces...

oh my... that's a very broad question to ask and hard to give any usefull answer without actually seeing your work. But it's good that you have concrete goals and can pinpoint what exactly you want to change about your work. It's a very professional attitude.

Which is why I may be a bad choice of person to be asked for advice. Because I'm not a professional and I want very much for drawing to stay just my hobby to keep me sane. I never consciously thought about my artstyle beyond maybe making it less manga (but residue it's still there, art teachers were right lol XD). It's about having fun in the process for me.

That's why I can only give you some fun things to try out. Maybe one or two will work for you.

If you want to soften your faces in generally paintery way best way I tried is to gradually unblurr your picture. Like take the most basic round brush with soft edges and make it very big. Turn down the opacity a bit and try to sculpt basic shapes of the face using the main limited pallette colors of your reference. Then use slightly smaller big brush to add bit more details. Then gradually make the brush smaller and smaller. And gradually add new details and colors if necessary.

This actually does wonders because helps you stop being precious about some sketch details because there is no sketch. It helps you stop seeing face as face so you don't draw what you know but what you actually see.

Actually speaking of that. Another great trick is to put your reference upside down. Our brains are lazy and just extrapolate the information and our brains are great at face shapes so it's actually harder to draw them. But if you put them upside down you actually need to focus on proportions of this new unknown shape. It actually does wonders!

When it comes to lineart (because after all this rambling I figured that's most likely why you've written to me, sorry) i have 2 suggestions.

Try to figure out if you draw with only your wrist. It doesn't decide if you draw more in straight or in curved lines (I guess in that department we have opposite problems :D) but it's good idea to try consciously draw using more of your elbow. It works well with bigger canvases and actually taught me to draw really long straight lines (yay architecture, it was useful for that and learning how to do really tough boxes XD) but actually it's about stability which is crucial in doing curved lines too.

On smaller scale try using different media or have fun with new pens. It will help you get out of your used path and is an excuse to raid nearby cheap art store.

I guess many people would recommend doing lineart with brushes. The varying thickness will encourage you to use more round lines and so on buuuuut.... actually I think brushes are very discouraging when you don't have the muscle memory to control them properly. My advice here would be to use felt tip pens actually. They are more springy thus more forgiving. Try the ones that are soft and more spongy than actually felt. Idk how to describe them. If that's something you think may be interesting let me know and I'll try to dig up the ones I used.

Generally let me know if you want more details in certain direction because all above is kind of rambly stream of consciousness answer and idk how usefull it actually is but I prefer to post it that way otherwise I'll get stuck in perfecting the reply limbo >.<

[equestrianwritingsstuff]

For You

Warnings: vampire, feeding blood, IV, drawing blood, forced drugging, passing out/collapse, blood loss, delirious state of consciousness, hallucination, death thoughts, fever, starvation, pills, forced medication

There was no strength left in their body. No strength to run, no strength to fight, and absolutely no strength to take care of them.

Villain laid on the cool, wooden floor of their bedroom, too weak to do much more than periodically twitch their fingers. Their eyes drifted closed every once in a while, only to open when they remembered that Hero was starving in the bes above them.

Villain rolled over onto their stomach, the motion causing the world to contort and waver into a dizzying pallette of pastel colors. They breathed deeply, gathering their arms underneath them before heaving themself up and into a sitting position.

After about five minutes of sitting there with their eyes squeezed shut, trying not to sway from their taxing position, Villain reached forward and grabbed the IV off the night stand.

"V-villain," Hero murmured. Villain cast them a long glance. Their nemesis was hardly conscious on the bed, starved and heavily drugged. Villain gulped. They didn't want to keep them sedated like this, but they would try to kill Villain otherwise.

"Sorry," Villain slurred, their voice was as fragile as Hero's.

"Mmn," Hero groaned and slightly opened their mouth, awaiting the meal. Villain gave a small nod that nearly caused them to fall back onto the ground. They put a tube into Hero's mouth then inserted the needle into their own wrist.

Within a second, the delirious and greedy vampire started to gulp frantically. Villain's bottom lip trembled as they felt their limited blood supply diminish.

After only thirty seconds, Villain began to feel incredibly light-headed and contemplated whether or not to stop Hero's feeding. But one look at the desperate face made Villain decided on the former- just a minute longer.

"Hmph," Villain gasped as they slumped forward onto the bed, their consciousness wavering. With shaky hands, they clutched the needled and deftly drew it out of their vein before falling completely unconscious.

Villain drifted between sleep and wakefulness for a while, still collapsed on Hero's bed. During their brief stints of consciousness they woule remind themselves of Hero's next dose, but couldn't bring their depleted body to do so.

They feel vaguely feel the awakening Hero stirring under their body. Villain pushed themselves backwards, planning on standing fully up and going about their day, but their body had other plans. They fell back, hitting their back against the ground as the world was submerged in a dark shade of ebony.

"Villain! Open up!"

Villain moaned and tried to peel their eyes open, but they were too heavy.

The voice- it was a voice, they were sure- came again, "Villain. You need help, open the door!"

Villain didn't need help, they were sure of it. Hero did- Hero needed to eat and Villain was able to take care of them. For them.

"For you," Villain whispered, almost like the faintest breeze.

Their fingers curled into the hard ground. They were aware of the floor's cool features, but oddly it felt warm. Too warm.

Villain forced their eyes open and saw a trickle of blood coming out of their veins from where the IV was still attached. They were so certaib that they removed it and seeing it felt like a rock was dropped into their stomach.

Villain tried to reach over and pull it out, but failed, letting out a strangled sob as they tried to call upon their healing powers. Using them made them completely exhausted, but it kept them and Hero alive.

Villain, after a few agonizing seconds of calling their power, finally felt a comforting tingling through their fingers as their body created some blood. It was low in oxygen and lacked all the necessary and vital functions that blood cells carried out, but it did a decent job at feeding Hero.

Villain sighed in relief as the new warmth spread throughout their body, drawing them back into sleep...

Villain woke rather unpleasantly. They were only aware of the heat gathering in their head and the fact that they were cold- oh so cold. They moved their hands about, testing their environment, but was quite confused at the outcome. Wet. They were wet and cold.

Villain cracked open an eye and looked around. White walls with small shelves that held various bottles. Looking down, they saw tiny glaciers floating around a small expanse of artic water.

Suddenly, they tensed, scared and completely convinced that they were indeed trapped in a frigid ocean.

"Shh," came a voice, foggy and distant as if Villain's ears were underwater. Maybe they were, Villain couldn't tell for panic consumed them.

So Villain continued their struggles even as ropes wrapped around their head pulling them against hard surface. A boat. They were going to be crushed by a boat. They kicked and resisted the ropes that tied them so tightly against the imminet danger.

"Let me go!" Villain yelled, pushing away. The ropes let go, cut away by the knives that threatened to slit Villain's throat.

The term "knives" was literal. There wasn't just one silver dagger, but five, all working to free Villain before they decided to end the suffering person themself.

Those knives grabbed Villain's bare chest, right above their heart as they were pulled right back against the boat.

"Villain. You need to calm down. You have a fever, you are safe, okay? So is Hero. Do you hear me? Hero is being taken care of."

Hero... taken care up... Villain allowed their tired body to slump deep into the cold waves as they waited for one to take them to their grave.

But the merciless ropes and knives held them up, keeping them from drowning. Soft tendrils drifted through their hair and for a moment fear enveloped Villain at the thought of a mysterious plant suffocating them.

But, once they decided that the tendrils were kind, they leaned into the gesture, closing their bloodshot eyes as darkness closed around them...

Villain woke up, dazed and confused. They struggled under the thin sheet that covered their pale body, but was too weak to push it off.

Looking around, they noticed that they were in a foreign- possibly dangerous environment. The memories of the night before were foggy like they were swallowed, threwn up, then swallowed again.

But they did remember Hero, sick and starved on Villain's bed.

"Ah your awake," came a tired voice. Villain's gaze shot to the person sitting next to them. It took a moment but...

Supervillain.

Villain flinched and tried to run away, only to get tangled and stuck on the floor. Carpet, not wood.

They weren't in their house.

Villain squirmed, terrified of the all too familiar face. The face that brought tears of pain to many. The face that was probably here to punish Villain for taking care of a hero.

But Supervillain only walked to the other side of the bed, scooped the weak villain up, and laid them prone on the bed.

"Are you too warm?" Supervillain asked, placing their cold hand upon Villain's burning forehead. The cold hand that was going to be the death of Villain...

"Still running a fever..." Supervillain murmured and turned around. Villain barely had time to register the words before they were faced with a small, evil-looking, torture device.

Oh boy did it look simple and the possibilities were endless of what it would do. Villain imagine maybe it had a hidden needle and they would be drugged. They also wondered if it contained a knife- knives were threatening them before, why not do it now?

But nothing prepared them for the way Supervillain clutched Villain's jaw, forcing it open and sticking the device under their tongue.

Nothing prepared them for the lack of pain other that a sharp pinch. Their eyes began to flutter closed. After all, Supervillain wasn't torturing them...

A loud beeeep brought them back around. They stared deep into Supervillain's concerned eyes.

"I'm going to get you some medicine. Okay?" Supervillain laid a hand on Villain's head. "Try to stay awake for me."

Villain swallowed and nodded, small and helpless. Weak and fragile like a thin glass just waiting to break at the slightest touch.

But, despite Supervillain's request, Villain began to doze off only to awake when they felt like they were falling. They kept on forgetting what their half-consious self was dreaming or thinking about after those falls.

"Dang it Villain," Supervillain groaned when they entered the room and saw their colleague's eyes half-rolled into their head as they stared at the ceiling without any real object or reason.

"Come here," Supervillain cooed and gently cupped Villain's chin, opening it, and slipped the medicine into their mouth. They hoped that the sick villain still had some instinctual reflexes as they dumped some water down their throat. Supervillain then went to work on rubbing Villain's throat until they swallowed, taking the tylenol nto their stomach.

"Good job," Supervillain praised. They wiped Villain's sweating brow with a wet cloth while their patient drifted off to sleep. Supervillain did nothing to stop it.

Hero was struggling against the restraints as henchmen pried their mouth open.

"Gosh!" One of them squealed when Hero nipped at their hand. "They got rabies or something? They are wacko."

"They are a vampire you dim-wit," another henchman growled. That same henchman took Hero's mouth with some pliers and held it open long enough for the other to slipped some tablets into their mouth.

The hero swallowed and hissed.

"Okay. Supervillain told me that those will keep their vampire side at bay until they gain some weight," Henchman1, the one got bit said, wiping their nose with their hand.

Hero continued snarling until they exhausted themselves, slipping into sleep. Henchman2, the other, stood up and started to pace.

"Knock that off," Henchman1 snapped, standing up themselves. "You are taking first watch."

"No. You," Henchman2 shoved their friend. "I am not sitting with a freaking vampire. Did you see Villain? Part of me wonders if they were mind controlled."

"I thoroughly assure you that they weren't," Henchman1 rolled their eyes and slipped away from Henchman2. They opened the cell door and left.

Henchman2 walked over to Hero where they laid on a cot, unmoving. But, as if the presence of another was like a stimuli, the hero woke up.

Their eyes this time were not filled with desperate starvation or anger, but of worry.

"Where's Villain?" They asked, looking around. "They are not thinking. It's dangerous... it's..." they trailed off, their gaze meeting Henchman2's. "Are they dead?" They chirped.

"No, but sick and unconscious," Henchman2 replied, relaying the last update. That was about five minutes ago.

"They need my saliva," Hero continued. "To quicken the healing process. I cannot stimulate blood production, but I can share my healing."

"Villain has a healing factor as well and it doesn't seem to work."

"Because they are beyond exhaustion. Pair that will blood loss and starvation themselves, their chances of surviving are low. They need my saliva."

"How do I know this isn't a trick. A way to eat more?"

"I am human now. I need actual food. When the vampire takes over is when I can only consume blood," Hero glanced down at their bony wrists. "Blood satisfies like candy, but it is far from nutrious, but I thank Villain. Truly."

Henchamn2 smiled despite their best effort to remain nonchalant.

"I'm glad you do."

~ not going to edit, so I apologize for any mistakes

[firehedgehog]

Retconned Chapter Thirteen: Unlucky

So the plot is moving forward, this is linked to another story. and yes.. this was planned when i originally started both stories 

“The Good Sans want to have a meeting with the Dark Sans?” Goth said in surprise.

“The Retcons have rather spooked them,” Error said as he knitted.

“Well... is is a rather spooky issue,” Blue said, the rather energetic small Sans had appeared in the anti-void earlier in the day and was using the hanging strings as swings.

“How did you get here anyway, Error didn’t cough kidnap cough you today and he didn’t open any portals today?” Goth asked, after living in the anti-void so long eh became sensitive enough to feel portals open there.

“Err...” Blue said a strange look on his face.

 Flashback

 Blue was cooking his Taco’s, he was sure that this batch would be perfect.

“They smell perfect,” he said happily, putting them down to cool.

 Even better, he’d heard Cross would be busy till tomorrow so no Taco stealing Sans would get them today. He sat down to relax til he could eat them.

“Arf!”

“Noooo,” Blue cried spinning around, dropping his book.

 Sitting on the counter was annoying Dog, the white mutt that seemed to jump between multiverses on a Lark.

 A counter devoid of Tacos.

“No, bad annoying Dog, Bad!” he cried, and starting chasing the dog in wain hope to retrieve the Taco’s in whatever subspace the canine had hidden them.

“Toby.. no!” he cried.

 Then tripped.

 When he looked up, he was alone.

 And in the anti-void.

“That’s cheating!” he cried.

 Twenty minutes later Error found him.

 End Flashback.

“Ha ha ha, nothing to be concerned about,” Blue laughed.

No one wanted to ever speak of the things that dog did.

“Riiiight...” Goth said dryly.

OoOoO

The room was enormous and over crowded, people giving some of there neighbours nervous looks.

There hadn’t been such a huge gathering.. well ever.

Dark, Light.. neutral.

Beings of as many AU’s as could come.

It was a freaking zoo.

There were quite a few nervous glances towards the very front off to the left, for there were a lot of the Sanses known as the big bad’s.

Including the destroyer.

For Error and Nightmare to be there, along with Nightmares crew something had to be up.

Silence filled the area as Ink and Dream walked onto the stage.

“From your silence, by now you’ve realized this is a serious issue,” Dream said placing his notes on the podium.

“For the last several years, there have been thousands of AU’s destroyed. Yet not by the destroyer,” Dream said, that set off whispering of disbelief. “Part of it you might have coem across, the fact no one can actually what these destroyed AU’s were, or suddenly you feel as if something or someone is missing.”

There was a very deep silence at that.

“We have discovered the cause, its called Retcons. It erases Au’s people.. everything it touches. There has been only one true survivor, and only Error’s anti-void kept them alive. I escaped being retconned because of that person, but it still cost me several minutes of memory,” Dream said.

Hidden between Error and Nightmare Goth sighed, after being in pretty much isolation for years in the anti-void many people made him nervous.

“Each of you find packets under you seats, the survivor’s name is not on it before you ask and will not be released. I ask you to reach out with bit of information you may have or come across, All the information as little as we have is in it. Thank you,” Dream said, and left the podium.

Goth felt deep relief his name would not be released.

He had enough nightmares of people demanded while he existed why another didn’t.

“Let’s get out of here kid,” Error said patting hsi shoulder Goth nodded and gripped his lantern tighter.

That’s when the roof came off.

Literally.

OoOoO

 Perfect!

 Just perfect!

 So many of them together!

 Even the one that escaped.

 Without that one, bits and pieces that they couldn’t retcon would be erased.

 They’d wipe more then half the multiverse in seconds.

“Then they will be gone, just like you brother,” he laughed.

OoOoO

The multiverse must have a sense of irony.

That was what Geno thought as arcs of purple lightning began to bleed into the world, anything ht was just gone.

The ceiling was just gone, revealing a black sky.

Monsters or humans it hit, were just gone.

This was a Retcon.

He was pretty sure, that the only reason that they remembered those lost was that they were in the midst of the event.

Screams surrounded him, as people tried to escape causing injuries to others as they trampled them in there panic. Portals and Shortcuts didn’t seem to work, so this situation didn’t look good.

“This is all your fault,” a Sans screamed at the destroyer, who hadn’t escaped either.

“Your a nimrod,” Error said, the sans would have attacked but more screaming caught those nearbys attention.

“Please, let me go,” A child’s voice cried.

“Were all going die, give me the freaking lantern,” a voice snarled.

Geno spun around and ran, the Sans didn’t have a moment to prepare and Geno slapped him away from Goth.

“Are you okay Gothy?” Geno asked, the nickname slipping from his mouth to his surprised.

Goth broke down in tears, Geno grabbed Goth into a hug.

This was his child, he might not remember but this was his kid.

“I.. don’t want to be retconned again,” Goth cried.

“Shh.. we’ll figure this out, your papa always has a plan,” Geno whispered.

Suddenly he flying back, shocked as Goth violently threw him backwards.

The world seemed to go quiet and frozen to Geno, his hand out reached towards Goth.

Goth smiled.

“I love you,” Goth said.

Lightning hit.

Geno screamed as the lantern fell to the ground.

Shattered.

OoOoO

Goth stumbled and fell, cold sand under him made him more aware.

He’d been retconned.

Again.

But shouldn’t he be non existent?

Wincing he slowly got up, noting he was lacking his save lantern but he didn’t feel that time limit eh did usually.

“Where am I?” he asked outloud.

The sky was darker then black, the only bits of light were purple lightning which was signs of being retconned. Where ever he was, it was also gone, except for this small space of sand.

And a statue.

...

“Palette,” he screamed, recognizing the statue.

“No no no,” he cried.

“Oh...” he said freezing, as one of his many selves memories came forward.

He wasn’t just Goth, he was teh Goth’s of this multiverse also.. a multiverse fully Retconned except for this one spot.

Now he could feel it, a tiny shard of soul.. a piece of his soul.

“We have to wake you up,” he whispered.

OoOoO

“Please please wake up,” a voice begged.

He hurt, so badly...

“Come on, I know your alive... I need you to help me reverse this!” the voice begged, it was a child’s voice and familiar.

Wait that Voice!

That was Goth’s voice.

He gave a gasp as something shattered around him, and he fell to the ground.

Woozily he looked up, he could see shards of Stone on Sand.

“Goth?” he asked his voice raspy.

Wait.. the clothing were wrong.

“Sorry, call me Retconned,” the Goth whispered.

Palette fell unconscious, from the stress of breaking free from being turned to stone.

OoOoO

When Palette woke again, it was to the thought that it was too dark.

Slowly he shifted til he could see the Goth called Retconned, who was curled in a ball on the sand tear track down there face.

It was then that he realized that something was seriously wrong.

The sky was pitch black... with purple lightning arcing across it, but there was no sound and he could only see about five feet away from himself and Retconned.

“Its called a Retcon, when your AU or multiverse is erased from everything even living memories,” a soft voice sad, turning he saw that Retconned had woken.

“My... multiverse got Retconned? But how am I still here! Wherever this is that is.... and how are you here?” Palette asked panicked, e couldn’t save Gothy if Gothy didn’t exist.

“Two things saved you, you being sealed in stone and this,” Retconned said, gently opening his hand. Palette made a strangled sound, as a speck of glowing soul was revealed.

“How... I thought that weird Alternate o me stole all of Goth’s soul shards,” he said in disbelief.

“He loves you very much, you never did check your own soul for a speck,” Retconned sighed.

“That idiot,” he cried, even now Goth was protecting him.

“As to how I got here, I’m from the multiverse right next to this one. The retcon hasn’t swallowed all of it, but apparently it finally got me. Originally all the Goth’s got Retconned in my multiverse at the same time yours did, but I survived... you could say in simple terms I’m all the Goth’s,” Goth sighed, and explained his situation and the function of the save lantern.

“Wait... are the Goth’s of my multiverse there too?” Palette asked quickly, Retconned blushed heavily and Palette felt relief. “Than there is still hope, I still exist... and your still here even though you said your not. Then lets fix this!” Palette said jumping to his feet.

“I don’t know how to fix it, the save lantern that kept me stable is missing and I’m in the wrong multiverse...” Retconned said unhappily.

“Since your the Goth’s of both multiverses maybe you can slide back over and we can smash the source of the Retcons!” Palette said excitedly.

“I can try,” Retconned said frowning.

“Ah... before we try anything, do you have any idea how i got turned into a stone statue?”Palette asked embarrassed.

“From my memories here, just as you went to leave Nightmare Pallette reappeared as apparently he never left. Using the apples curse he sealed you away. I’m afraid at that moment the retcons hit, the sealing and the soul shard somehow slightly moved you a bit out of phase keeping the retcon from you,” Retconned replied. After all his Goth was part of him, and was still connected to the soul shard.

“Thanks...” he said, he wasn’t happy that his.. multiverse was just gone with only himself and his Goth amalgamated into Retconned to remember it.

“Well, lets try this,” Retconned said with a sad smile.

“No try, do,” Palette said grinning.

Retconned laughed, and then they were gone.

Seconds later the spot they were in was Retconned, no longer phased away from the rest of the multiverse. And thus The Shatter multiverse appears

[entropy-game-dev]

The Best Birthday Postmortem

Hey all! Voting/rating was recently enabled for all games in the #GM20 gamejam - if you downloaded and liked the game, we would really, REALLY appreciate it if you rated it using this link! You can also download and play the game here as well, of course, otherwise this postmortem might not make too much sense!

Gameplay Summary:

You are throwing a birthday party for your 19 best friends and yourself. You bought 20 gifts online, but didn't really think about who to give what to. So, on the day of the party, your goal is to talk to each of your guests (and you can also display your own thoughts pulled from a random selection) in order to figure out who would like what present the most. Each gift-guest combination has a rating from 0 to 1, and your goal is to give all the gifts away while scoring as high as possible!

What went right:

Tutorial: Learning a very harsh lesson from the last game, this time we endeavoured to have a proper tutorial that explains each action in turn and was planned from the beginning of the game. You can't progress the tutorial until you do each action in order, which is helpful as the thoughts button and giving gifts to yourself would not be very intuitive otherwise. Not having done a tutorial in this fashion before, I found relatively nice ways to advance the tutorial and to limit user actions as well. As tutorial states were cumulative, actions were only ever added and it was easy enough to add a series of if tutestate > whatever to the controls which Lucinius had neatly set up.

Scope: Yes it's a new record for us, we finished and submitted the game a whopping 4 hours before the deadline! This was in contrast to the last two gamejams were we were submitting in a rush and the quality of the last features were were adding had suffered. I can't really say if we're getting better at estimating our workload or we're getting more efficient at working, or it's just been luck, but honestly like most complicated aspects it's most likely a combination of a variety of factors. I thought I bit off more than I could chew regarding the 20 character and present designs, PLUS the animations - and admittedly, those animations were the last thing that got done - but we did get there in the end, which is the most important thing.

Art: After a day or two of experimenting with a 32 colour pallette (obtained from the always-useful Lospec, I realised that for what I was trying to achieve, 32 colours wasn't cutting it for me and so I swapped over to a 64 colour pallette. Now, while I did notice more and more things that annoyed me about it over the course of the week, I've been taking notes of, and I'll be producing a modified palette for next time around. Nevertheless, I was able to stick with it and produce a mostly unified set of asset - with the caveat that I did have to resort to outlines on characters and presents because the skin and floorboard colours were very similar.

Reusable code: I think we made a lot of progress here - not only did we use some modular code from past projects here, we got a lot of useful code out of this project. Of note is the work Lucinius did converting bbTextbox (highly recommended, by the way) into a box that can have multiple "boxes" worth of text, with controls for fast forwarding, skipping, and even a yes/no choice system for future projects. This was also our first time working with GMS2's new camera system, and we also got some nice code and functions out of that. Well, Lucinius did, I didn't have much to do with it...

Pair (🍐) programming: I think we both found that when we were able to work together and discuss/bounce ideas of each other, we were at our most efficient. There was a lot of stuff I wasn't familiar with that I could quickly ask Luc, and likewise some code I was more familiar with - like bbTextbox and database management, he could ask me about. I'm pretty sure most of the hard problems were solved working together which means we complimented each other well!

What went wrong:

Dialog: Yes, there was a lot, and no, that isn't the issue as such! The main issue here was that the majority of dialog and characterisation was hidden behind presents, and it was unrealistic to assume that players would be doing multiple playthroughs to see each character's reaction to different presents - there were about 6 lines per character that could be read just from talking normally to them, and then another 20 lines per character for the gift giving portion. I also tried hard to give the characters relationships to each other outside of the party, but namedropping characters without some sort of reference (either a visual aid or maybe a colour coded system) probably didn't work that well. Also, there were about 80 different thoughts you could pull up but I had forgot to randomise the seed at the beginning of each game so you'd see the same thoughts in the same order! Ugh!

Score system: Tying in to this, the score system was designed as such that characters would score your gift from 0 to 1 in order to provide a max score of 20. However, I think there might have been too much emphasis on scoring, because during playtesting, my guinea pigs were worrying too much about who got what present, without really understanding that the score isn't that important and it was more about the experience (seeing what each character had to say). Compounding this, the dialog was not completely explicit on who wanted what gift - and this was by design, because I wanted to lessen the focus on giving THE PERFECT gift to each character, but the ambiguity only served to highlight my players' anxieties! 

Workloads: Content is seriously hard work - it took me a good 2 days to write up all the text for the game and 3 days to do the tilesets, designs, and animations. That meant that Lucinius was left to do most of the heavy lifting on the programming side, and given that we work well programming together, I think that portion of it could have been much more efficient! Of course, I helped out where I could but in the end I was mainly contributing in terms of dialog and art, not programming.

Timings: Furthermore, due to our schedules, we were mostly programming separately except on the weekend and the final night! We of course, had a chatroom where we were able to leave each other messages and had a project management system backing us up in terms of tasks etc, but the main body of work was done asynchronously, which was not bad, as we got it done, but we could have been a bit more coordinated and efficient had we been able to work simultaneously.

Final thoughts:

Overall, we were both really really really happy with what we were able to achieve. It was honestly pretty smooth sailing from start to finish with quite a bit of time spent on the dialog system (with good reason, mind), and we produced something that was pretty well received by the people who played it! Still haven’t played/rated it? Check it out here!

[curestardust]

Dust Watched: Jouran: The Princess of Snow and Blood

Genres: Historical (AU), Supernatural, Action // 12 episodes

False advertising, the main character is neither named Jouran nor is she a princess.

✧  story  ✧

Upon finishing this anime my main thought was “Well, this was a rushed adaptation.” Imagine my surprise when I found out this is actually an original anime. Which makes things so much worse on 2 fronts: one is obviously that everyone decided that *this* was good the way it was and two... there’s no external information. Which is a really big problem considering how many questions “Jouran” leaves you with.

“Jouran” takes place in an alternative Japan during 1931 where the Shogunate wasn’t abolished. An alternative energy source (basically Electricity 2.0) called Ryumyaku was found and then monopolized by the Shogun. However, this energy source is scarce, and while appearances can be kept up in Tokyo, other parts of the country are feeling the effects of the dwindling Ryumyaku. Thus it’s only logical that a rebel faction, the Kuchinawa, is trying to bring down the government while a secret elite force called Nue is trying to suppress them.

Does that sound interesting? Well, that’s good, cause you’ll see basically none of what I just mentioned. The focus is on the Nue executioners, among them our main character, Sawa. 

The story is broken up into 3 “Books” or major arcs, ala ATLA, except each Book is about 4 episodes long even though each one could’ve been its own season. This makes the pacing *extremely* rushed, and with barely any breathing room to even take in the main plot, the Shogunate and the Kuchinawa are basically just annoying pests that come up here and there in the story but serve no importance overall.

✧  characters  ✧

“Jouran” is heavily character focused but the rushed pacing near destroys any nuance these characters could have. Sawa has “blue blood” due to being a part of the Karasumori clan, ones who enjoyed kinship with birds and some could fuse with them, gaining superhuman powers. Thus, you’d expect Sawa to be the strongest among the 3 of the executioners. Well, there are 2 times she one-shots a giant enemy, yes, but when it finally comes to a big showdown where the fight would require any strategy she is smacked around and almost killed immediately. Hana and Tsukishiro are normal humans and yet they have more badass fight scenes in my eyes than Sawa, due to them actually being able to use their brains. 

The rushed pace doesn’t only ruin Sawa’s story though. It affects most characters to varying degrees, but Tsukishiro gets the worst of it. He is by far the most intriguing and complex character in the show but his actions are completely nonsensical. Tbh, justice for Tsukishiro cause what the fuck was going on in Book 2.

Character development is almost impossible to take seriously because there’s just no time to take in what’s on screen. As soon as you’d be getting attached to what you’re seeing, there’re 4 plot twists and someone dies, to start everything all over again.

✧  art  ✧

This is the second time I’ve come across an anime where the animation quality actually goes *up* as the anime goes on, which leaves me extremely confused every time. Most of this anime has your average anime style just with more of a limited colour pallette. Fight scenes however use that typical old Japanese art style; thick, messy brushstrokes for the lineart. It *would* look very good, if the animation was actually able to compliment it... which isn’t true most of the time. Action is very stilted and stiff with very odd angles used. It does get better later on. I do have to give props for the way they played around with the colours red and blue.

✧  sound ✧

The OP and ED are fantastic, I think the OST was good as well, but one of the VA’s could barely be heard because he was half-whispering the entire time so his voice got almost drowned out by the background music.

✧  overview ✧

This had quite the potential if only they would’ve tried to pace things out instead of showing everything in before it inevitably burst. The setting didn’t interest me too much, I’m not really into Historical anime, but the characters! AH, the lost potential absolutely kills me with this one.

My Rating: 4/10

[thefun41]

Next up is Lesbian!Maya This one was definitely a challenge! I’ve drawn Maya a few times but I think this one is the best so far!

I’ll be blabing under the cut but in the meantime look forward to Gay!Klavier (hopefully) on Wednesday!

Edit: I have been informed that this is not the flag currently used. :/ I was wondering why kept seeing a pink one, just not where I was looking.

(Warning : rage and bitching below)

*deep breath* OH BOY! OH GOLLY AHH JEEZ Like DAMN was this a challenge. This took me an entire week!!! Other then Sebastian (because of that jacket) all of the pride requeswts have taken 3 days or less. During those 3 days I research an outfit, make a sketch, normally have a goofy side image to post before it because my brain is hyperactive, obsess over how to pose them and make the final image. Not this time!!! Even though this was an incredible struggle there was a lot that was learned by this… experience. 

So let’s break it down. 

Struggle #1 : Which flag are we using again? On the Ace Attorney Amino, the requester requested a Lesbian Maya. Here is the issue, in my research I have found a lot of lesbian pride flags and narrowed it down to 2. The lesbian pride flag which is  purple one with the black triangle and the battle axe (which was used) and lipstick lesbian, which is this pink one (see above). Now this bodes the question : What’s the difference? Well as far as I can tell, The purple one came first and is generally an umbrella flag for lesbians, while the pink one was made spicifically for a lesbian subculture : lipstick lesbians. There is a stereotype that lesbians are “masculine”, lipstick lesbians are very comfortable with their femininity, in fact very “girly” and seemed to be underrepresented sooooooo they have their own flag and subculture, kinda like the opposite of gay bear that we covered last time.  It seems like the Pink flag overtook the purple one in popularity OR whoever made the pink one was just better at marketing, who knows. Now the requested went with “a regular lesbian” so battle ax flag it is. Also battle axes are cool, so there’s that.  

Lesson learned : the LGBTQ+ community is waaaaaaay bigger then I thought with subcultures and whatnot. Knowlage is half the battle! 

Struggle #2 : Fashion is hard guys.  Picking the outfit took at least 2 days, and then I changed it at least a half dozen times. there are 3 issues I had (lists within lists, listception) : Maya’s limited style,  using the colour pallette with my messed up, self-restricted viewpoint, and Maya’s age. First Item, off the top of my head, I believe Maya is only seen in 5 outfits, her usual outfit, iris outfit for a moment, a waitress outfit for an hour, a red dress in that one promotional image where the case is super fancy, a white suit outfit thing for soundtrack stuff and a conductor uniform??? Out of the ones I can rememer, mostof thesse are dresses. When debating on weather or not I should put her in a dress I decided no because (as far as I can remember) she’s always ion a dress. and then my brain went nuts with questions.

Why is she always in a dress? is that sexist? It is a problem? What’s wrong with with her always being in a dress? Why do I want to really get her out of a dress? Am I sexist? why do only women were dresses? Is it the hips? Why don”t men wear dresses? Can they? They don’t really have hips so they can’t really wear skirts. Wait a minute men do kinda wear dresses, I mean kilts and kimono’s exist. would the bulge be an issue? Would men emphasize their bulge like women emphasize their breasts? Can men look good in dresses? Can any man look good in a dress? Can I put Edgeworth in a dress and make him look good? I’ve seen a ton of Phoenix in dresses but why not Edgey? … So yeah a lot of useless questions taking up my time for no reason. The point is I purposely designed an outfit with pants … this obviously did not happen. I had this idea of a cozy look in a cute sweater but this leads to the next issue. The issue with this cozy look? It’s too simple.Yes that look is cute but it’s not for me, it’s for the person who requested it. Any it’s entirely possible that this person may have seen the other works from this pride project and the outfits I made for them and then they just get Maya in a sweater? It’s a cute sweater but it didn’t seem fair. A similar issue happened with Phoenix but the solution to that was just to open his shirt and BOOM, extra layers and thus a more complex look. Now maybe the the OG requester wouldn’t mind but I just couldn’t do it, I feel like I needed to give her an outfit with more effort into it. And thuys Maya went back into skirt, now this lead to the third issue : Maya’s age. I found a lot of nice outfits, outfits that would look great on Maya! … When she was a teenager. Now maya is most definitely a full grown women and not a child. Now weather or not I pulled off the 28 year old Maya will be discussed later but nonetheless, all of those cute outfits I found? Out the window. I was so indecisive that I just asked my brother to pick one. Honestly? I really liked what he picked, and I confirmed with my dad that, yes, you can put this outfit on a almost 30 year old. The scarf ended up being omitted in favour of her magatama, otherwise we ended up with the same problem as before, it’s too simple. this time with a few days of work under our belt so there was no way I was going to start over. The solution to this was a nice floral pattern based on a cherry blossom. this makes it more visually simple. I think it looks pretty! After all that work I do like the end result. 

Lesson learned : Stop. Over. Thinking. Things. And for the love of god sketch it out. Just looking on google and imagining on the character  sometimes will not cut it. If I don’t get it relatively quickly, doodle, draw and scribble some more.  

Struggle #3 : Why can’t I draw women?? I am one?!?! Like seriously, why, it makes no sense. Well actually it does make sense because I am fairly sure I can count the amount of women I’ve drawn with one hand. It’s a simple measure of practice. I was foolish to think that simply drawing human’s would be enough. sadly that is not the case. Men and women are built differently and of course I failed to accommodate… many many times. The amount of times I have modified maya and changed her proportions is unreal. One thing I do all the time is make the abdomen too long and I have no idea why this is. Her face! I have no cluw what went wrong the first dozen times but it just didn’t work! I wish I could explain why but it just didn’t look right. you”ll notice that she doesn’t have lips even though she does in her new design, It’s because I have never been able to draw lips. Ever. Not once. Does she even look like an adult? I can’t even tell anymore. She is a little thicker then her concept art but making her look thinner just didn’t work out. Her arms, I had to hid them since the preportions were all off, the hands were held together in front of her checkl and they were too lanky and there was nothing I could do to make it look good and don’t get me started on her hands please don’t. If I didn’t cut off her legs I would have issues with that too. Her breasts, how on earth do you shade those??? Does not compute. DOES NOT COMPUTE!!!  So yeah the struggle is real. The solution? Trial and error. Just keep trying until it looks good. Play with your strengths. A friend of mine told me that she reminder her of Tina from Bob’s Burgers… ok? Sure. So after all that while I do like the end result I also see what can be improved, and sadly we have reached the limits of my skill at this time. 

Lessons learned : Practice practice practice. I don’t draw enough women, I need to draw more women. I can’t quite comprehend how cloths fall on the chest area and obviously looking the mirror is not a solution. What is the solution? Drawing naked people. … No seriously. Once I learn proper anatomy and human proportions and how muscles distribute over the body not only will I have a lot easier time drawing these characters I will also be able to figure out how clothing would fall on their bodies and i’ll have a easier time shading. Right now I’m drawing and shading clothing without knowing WHY it’s folding like that or why the light is hitting this area. Of course I’ll be doing this for both men and women because as started before, they are built differently. do you know what I also can’t draw? Children. I am NOT applying this to the kiddies. That’s weird and gross. The kids will have t deal with being freaks. I’m cool with that.

Struggle #04 :  Life How did we break 3 fuses at my house while I was at work? Why did it effect half my room upstairs, the computer setup that is downstairs and the WiFi on the main floor when the thing used to blow the fuse was in an upstairs room across the hall. why did no one fix it until the next day? Why just leave it like that? Why did I sleep in until 1 when I’ve been consistently waking up at 9? I had things to do what gives? Why did I accept a split shift the next day when I’m exhausted? Why do I get super stressed out when I set an alarm that I can’t sleep? Why am I spending 3 hours writing this when I never bothered to put this much effort in school work? How have I not punched someone yet?

Lessons learned : Don’t rely on anyone but yourself. Do what you can with the time allowed. Pat yourself on the back for not resorting to violence. How to change fuses. Writing this is very therapeutic.  Did you last this long? Who knows! All I do know is that yes this was a struggle but I plan on learning from this. Next up is Gay!Klaver and I’m REALLY looking forward to it!

[libbystorerba2a]

Motion Graphics - Thumbnails

These are my thumbnail ideas for my motion graphics project. For this project we had to create a looping animation that would help inform people about issues of diversity, sustainability and wellbeing. 

In the first set of thumbnails on the left I was focusing on wellbeing. I had been researching tips to help people connect with the outdoors more during lockdown. Some of these tips included growing plants and also creating a workspace near a window. My first idea was simply just to have a plant grow upwards and my second was just a window opening. For my last few ideas I thought about creating scenes with windows that would have a very relaxing vibe and very little movement. Each loop was only allowed to feature 3 colours and so it was a challenge to create these scenes with such a limited pallette.

For the middel 3 ideas I was still focusing on wellbeing. Another tip that I had read was to combat stress by learning a new skill or doing something creative. The first loop is inspired by stargazing and the loop would show the stars being joined up in constellations. The next one was based on doing crafts. I wanted some scissors to literally cut the word stress in half to show you could reduce stress by doing this. Similarly the last one features a paintbrush painting over the word Anxiety.

For the last 3 ideas I was focusing on sustainability. I had been researching fashion sustainabilty as it is something I have been more focused on and trying to improve in my own life. I wanted to focus on the idea of second hand clothing and altering clothes to get more wear out of them. The first loop idea would show an item of clothing changing in to different items to show how you can alter and create new clothing out of old garments. Next I wanted to show people swapping clothes and so my idea was to have a piece of clothing put in the middle of the screen and it was taken away by a hand from the side and then replaced by another item which was taken by someone else etc. It was hard to show this idea with only 3 colours, I think it would be better if I had more and so I don’t think I am going to go for this idea. Finally I had the idea of one item of clothing, a t shirt, having lots of different outfit ideas being placed over it. These would change very quickly to show how you can buy items that are versitile and are reuseable for a long time.

[ciathyzareposts]

Game 118: Eric the Unready (1993) – Introduction

Written by TBD

Eric the Unready is the next graphic adventure game from Legend Entertainment, and the highest rated adventure game ever, according to Computer Game Review.

A quick glance at a screenshot shows that it uses essentially the same interactive fiction (with graphics) engine as Legend’s other games, Spellcasting 101, Spellcasting 201, Timequest, Gateway and Spellcasting 301.

This is their penultimate[1] game using that engine, with the final game Gateway II: Homeworld, coming later in 1993. Their other game in 1993 is Companions of Xanth, which is a more standard 1990s graphic adventure.

As for the game, the title and name of the protagonist, Eric the Unready, likely gets its name from the historical English king, Ethelred the Unready. Though Eric’s character has no basis on the historical person, and the name was likely chosen just because it seemed funny.

Ethelred the Unready, after learning the ways of the Force and constructing his own lightsaber

The designer of this game was Bob Bates, co-founder of Legend Entertainment. We’ve seen Bates’ writing and design so far in Timequest (1991) and Gateway (1992). Joe Pranevich should also get to Bates’ Infocom work during the Infocom Marathon, with Sherlock (1988) and Arthur (1989). Bates’ love on Interactive Fiction hasn’t waned, as his most recent work in Interactive Fiction was in 2017 with the kickstarted Thaumistry: In Charm’s Way. 

Thaumistry’s main character is named Eric Knight – a clear homage to this game’s protagonist.

Like many games of 1993. the game came in both a diskette and a CD-ROM version, with the CD version released some months later. Unlike most CD versions, this CD version doesn’t contain voiceovers for the characters, instead just adding animations, Super VGA graphics and a soundtrack. I’ll be playing the Steam version, which appears to the the CD version, based on its not letting me forget that it has Super VGA graphics during the intro. 

Wow. You really are proud of your colour pallette, aren’t you?

Okay – enough with the Super VGA thing – I feel like I’m using the demo version of a word processor?

The introduction cutscene has our hero, Eric the Unready, go out to fight the dread Knight of the Black Pauldron.

The game gets its tone clear right out of the gate by playing happy, whimsical music and throwing out jokes about Eric’s unreadiness.

If he didn’t even bring that book with him, would he be called Eric the Extremely Unready?

He wins the battle in the standard comedy style of Inspector Clouseau – accidentally. Eric drops the book and his visor falls down. While trying to lift his visor he happens to be poking his lance upwards into what happens to be an apple tree. Apples rain down on the Knight of the Black Pauldron, knocking him off his horse and giving Eric an undeserved victory.

“Zounds!” quoth the Knight. “I thought thou were just happy to seest me.”

After his success, a feast was held in Eric’s honour, where he knocked over a pot of oil while toasting, burning down the entire feasting hall.

I think the guy in the green shirt died, because while the other guests left in the next frame, the green guy stayed there, transfixed by the flames.

It wasn’t a surprise that this is not the first time Eric’s clumsiness has caused problems, as his Shop Steward listed his previous highlights and put him on the equivalent of light duties suitable to his limited skillset.

And thus starts our first mission

The game then gives us our Legend Entertainment interface screen, which I expect to see a lot of.

From seeing the intro in both CD and Diskette versions, the most obvious difference, apart from the overly colourful SVGA stamp over the title card, was a pig squeal sound effect in the CD version and the higher resolution graphics, as seen below.

The graphics on the top have higher resolution, but is that enough difference to slap a big SVGA watermark all over the title?

As for how good the game is, though I believe I’ve heard the name, it’s not what I would call a famous or popular title. But it seems it might have been more popular than I thought. 

It won Adventure Game of the Year from Computer Gaming World, along with Star Control II (a game that didn’t even apppear in our list – mobygames lists it as an RPG)

It was Computer Game Review’s highest rating adventure game ever – considering it’s come after our current top games in Monkey Island 2 and Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, that’s an interesting statistic.

In an interview on Adventure Classic Gaming, Bob Bates said Eric the Unready was his favourite of all the games he’s designed.

Even some of our other adventure game protagonists give their testimonials on the back cover.

So will I rate this game as the highest rating adventure game ever? Will it get our Adventure Game of the Year Award? Is it more fun than a barrel of monkeys? While I’m not expecting an all-time great, I am expecting to enjoy it. Playing through the first mission has been a good time so far, so I have high hopes for the game.

To give you a guide in your score guesses, so far our Legend games have scored, Spellcasting 101 – 48, Spellcasting 201 – 51, Timequest – 47, Gateway – 65 and Spellcasting 301 – 45., giving us a Legend average of  51!

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: There’s a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no CAPs will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. As this is an introduction post, it’s an opportunity for readers to bet 10 CAPs (only if they already have them) that I won’t be able to solve a puzzle without putting in an official Request for Assistance: remember to use ROT13 for betting. If you get it right, you will be rewarded with 50 CAPs in return. It’s also your chance to predict what the final rating will be for the game. Voters can predict whatever score they want, regardless of whether someone else has already chosen it. All correct (or nearest) votes will go into a draw.

[1] Editor’s footnote: TBD keeps trying to use the word penultimate instead of the more common term second last, which is easier to understand and contains less syllables. He won’t stop until he finds the occasion where penultimate gives more information or less confusion, and is therefore the appropriate word for the occasion. This is not that occasion.

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/game-118-eric-the-unready-1993-introduction/

[josephkitchen0]

Building Your Garden with Upcycled Garden Ideas

A casual stroll through your local home and garden center will lead you to believe that gardening is an expensive endeavor, but it doesn’t have to be wallet-consuming. We’ve found that we can use quite a few reclaimed and cast-off items in our garden. Because we use these upcycled garden ideas, we’re able to spend our gardening money on things that we can’t get for free.

We started growing a garden to feed our family when my husband was in graduate school and we were living below the national poverty level, we relied on reclaimed items for our gardening and homesteading supplies. At first it was hard to think outside the box and not just run to the store to pick up what we thought we needed. But over time we’ve learned that if we slow down and think about what we want to accomplish and what we already have, we can usually figure out an upcycled garden idea to get the results we want.

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Upcycled Tomato Cages

One of our first upcycling in the garden ventures was what do to with our tomatoes. For years we bought the tomato cages from the store but most didn’t last more than one or two seasons. And even then, they weren’t really strong enough to hold a mature tomato plant loaded with tomatoes.

Then we tried to make our own cages with livestock fencing which was labor intensive, somewhat pricey, and they started breaking after two seasons.

Tomato cages made from metal tote cages are a creative upcycle and last.

About eight years ago we started using 250-gallon tote cages for our tomatoes. These are metal cages that surround a 250-gallon industrial tote. We have a friend who uses these in his business and gives us his extra cages. I’ve also seen companies sell these inexpensively, similar to those that sell burn barrels because they don’t have a way to get rid of them after they use the contents in their business.

These are the best tomato cages we have ever used. We can easily put four tomato plants in a cage and use strips of old cotton t-shirts to tie the tomato plants to the cage as they grow. They do take a bit more space to store than a small tomato cage so we just keep the amount we use and store them in the garden year round.

We’ve also used them for pole beans and cucumbers, but they don’t work as well for long vine plants as they do for tomatoes and tomatillos.

A metal frame has new life as a decorative trellis.

Upcycled Trellises

For long vines, we have several upcycled garden ideas we use in our garden.

When we bought our home, the windows had wrought iron bars over them. We removed them and use the largest one in the garden for a trellis.

When our son’s metal futon frame broke we stacked the frames and used t-posts to turn them into another trellis.

Our church was getting rid of some old eight-foot wooden folding tables that had water damage. We took them and removed the legs and tabletop from the metal frame. We staked the frames with t-posts and added string to make seven-foot tall trellises.

My sister uses a couple of 12-pane window frames in her garden as trellises. She had to replace the windows in her home and wanted to do something fun with the old ones. They look so nice in her little cottage garden.

Pretty much anything that is tall and either has a way for vines to grab and climb or you can add string or wire to will make a good upcycled trellis. T-posts are inexpensive and old ones can often be found hanging out in various areas of our property so we use those to stake whatever we’re using for a trellis.

Upcycled Irrigation

Keeping our garden watered is a chore every summer. All of our water supply is near our house and not throughout our property. So we water by hand. I actually don’t mind hand watering because I find it relaxing. But I can’t always get out to the garden every day.

Years ago we started using milk jugs to help water our garden deeply. During the heat of summer, it’s especially important to water deeply and not just the surface of your garden.

We save our milk jugs and use a drill with a small bit to put small holes in each side and the bottom of the milk jug, we don’t put holes past the shoulder of the jug. Depending on the size of the drill bit, we put 10 to 20 holes on each side.

We put two milk jugs in each 4 X 8 bed and bury them up to the neck of the jug. When I’m watering, I can put the hose in the jug and just let it fill and overflow a bit while I do a little weeding and harvesting.

If your space is limited and you’re growing crops in containers, these self-watering planters are a great idea.

Milk jugs buried into the garden help with watering deeply.

Upcycled Raised Beds

I love using raised beds in my garden instead of row planting. Somehow the idea of having many small areas to plan and work is less overwhelming to me than planning and working in one large area.

But building planter boxes can get expensive if you’re using all new materials. We’ve built a few this way, but it’s not my favorite because over time the wood breaks down.

Some people use pallets to build planter boxes because the wood is free. But you need to make sure the pallet isn’t built with treated wood. Not all pallets are stamped (only international ones are required to be stamped) but if you have one that is stamped MB it’s treated with Methyl Bromide and should not be used.

We’ve used fallen tree logs to build some of our raised beds. I love this look even though not all of the beds are the same size or even straight. But over time even these large logs break down.

Pallette collars are upcycled for raised beds.

This year we decided to start looking for salvaged bricks and cinder blocks to build our beds. It will take time. We won’t have it all done in one season, and it won’t all match, but I think it will be beautiful once it’s filled with plants.

And that’s the thing, the beauty of a garden is in what it’s growing and how it’s feeding your family, not in the decorations. So don’t be afraid try some upcycled garden ideas in your garden. Some will work out great and some won’t but it’s worth upcycling in the garden before you buy something.

What upcycled garden ideas do you use in your garden? Let us know in the comments below.

Building Your Garden with Upcycled Garden Ideas was originally posted by All About Chickens