#Its a good exercise for me to draw characters better

[nothingbizzare]

Drew some characters for the first time !

Feel free to request some characters from mp100 that i could try to draw them for the first time !

[splankie]

guys i got called in for yuri duty

[httpvomitello]

Helloooo, can I request something for the 2018 turtles (ROTTMNT)? The reader arrives with the guys to show them the softshell turtle they got as a gift at a school science fair. Since they're not very sure how to take care of it, they go to the guys for help. And the turtle... it looks just like the one from The Amazing World of Gumball. I just think it would be fun to see the turtles (especially Donnie) interacting with the evil turtle haha 😭

OMG NOT THAT FREAKING TURTLE 😭😭 When I learned that Donnie is a softshell turtle, my mind immediately went to that turtle from Gumball. Like... Seriously??? That turtle is the reincarnation of evil, that's for sure. Anyways ~ i hope you like it! ♡♡♡♡

Leo is so pumped when you show up with a turtle

He’s already imagining the epic sibling turtle bonding he’ll all have, and he’s definitely scheming ways to turn your new buddy into his own personal sidekick

But as he leans in to get a better look, he catches the turtle giving him a super intense, villainous stare

"Uh, why is he looking at me like that?" Leo laughs nervously, tapping the glass of its little tank

The turtle does not break eye contact

In fact, it somehow looks like it’s plotting something

After a long, intense staring contest (which Leo loses), Leo's more hyped than ever

“Oh, we’re keeping him. This little guy’s got edge.”

He decides to call it something like "Sidekick Jr", and he tries to train it to glare on command, thinking it’ll be perfect to bring it to battle with him

Obviously you don't let that happen.

Raph’s eyebrows shoot up the second he sees the turtle

“Whoa. That turtle is… cute.”

Lying is not Raph's focus

He is all in for helping you take care of it

But as soon as he leans in, the turtle levels him with a stare so intense that Raph is slightly taken aback

“This guy looks like he could plan a heist,” he jokes, but he’s half-serious

He’s convinced the turtle has some secret agenda and will not let it out of his sight

Raph takes pride in helping you build a “fortified tank” to protect it from any “potential escape attempts.”

He even draws up “exercise drills” to help it “build character.”

He ends up calling it something like “Lil’ Warrior”

The turtle's name is Bob

And he spends a suspicious amount of time training it to recognize commands, because “A turtle like this needs discipline.”

Donnie’s reaction is extreme caution

Like... wtf? How is this turtle so ugly?

(He completely forgot that he is also a softshell turtle)

He’s thrilled you came to him about turtle care, especially because this guy is a fellow softshell

But then he notices the turtle’s… ominous glare

For the next ten minutes, Donnie just stares back, analyzing every detail

The turtle doesn’t blink

It feels like a showdown

"This isn’t just any turtle, you know," he mutters, more to himself

He immediately runs diagnostics on it, pulling out his tools to test its temperament and intelligence level, just in case

Donnie takes the turtle care seriously, sets up the perfect tank, gets the optimal UV lamp, and is constantly researching enrichment activities, but he still doesn’t entirely trust it

You catch him putting up tiny lasers around the tank "just in case."

And he insists on renaming it something like “Professor Menace” because, in his words

“Look at that face—he’s clearly up to something.”

Mikey’s reaction is pure delight. “Aw! Look at the lil’ guy!”

He immediately wants to hold it, but as soon as he picks it up, the turtle gives him a side-eye that could curdle milk

Yes, the turtle is judging Michelangelo

He tries everything

Offering lettuce, sweet-talking it, giving it little pets, but the turtle just stares, expression unreadable but somehow… sinister

“Why does he keep looking at me like that?” Mikey wonders, confused but determined to win the turtle’s affection

He’s convinced it just needs a bit of “good vibes,” so he tries playing calming music, talking to it about his day, and even painting a little flower on the tank

Despite the turtle’s apparent indifference

(And slightly ominous glare)

Mikey’s convinced they’re best friends

He starts calling it “Lil’ Grump,” swearing it’ll warm up eventually.

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Winter's King 21

No tag lists. Do not send asks or DMs about updates. Review my pinned post for guidelines, masterlist, etc.

Warnings: this fic will include dark content such as noncon/dubcon, cheating, violence, and possible untagged elements. My warnings are not exhaustive, enter at your own risk.

This is a dark!fic and explicit. 18+ only. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Summary: You are a maid to the Duke of Debray, a lord of the Summer Kingdom. That is, until the king of Winter appears with his particular air of coldness. (Medieval AU)

Characters: Geralt of Rivia

Note: I am very tired.

As per usual, I humbly request your thoughts! Reblogs are always appreciated and welcomed, not only do I see them easier but it lets other people see my work. I will do my best to answer all I can. I’m trying to get better at keeping up so thanks everyone for staying with me.

Your feedback will help in this and future works (and WiPs, I haven’t forgotten those!) Please do not just put ‘more’. I will block you.

I love you all immensely. Take care. 💖

As promised, the king acquires you a full outfit to face the cold. A fur trimmed hat to replace your standard linen cap, a pair of lined hide gloves, and thick boots that go to your knees. He has bolstered you to face the elements but you are wholly unprepared to face the corridors as the glances of soldiers and servants meet you with a new glint of judgement.  

You wear the king’s cloak as before. You keep your head low under the hood as he walks ahead of you. It is a farce. A poorly acted charade. How naive you’d been for so long not see through it all. You were the perfect fool for an intent audience. 

You descend and come out to the west of the castle, through a door beneath a sharply peaked arch. The snow continues to heap over the land though the winds have relented. The king pauses as you emerge and reaches to take you by the wrist, as if he fears you might be lost in the powder. 

He walks you across the yard towards the stables built across a flat of land nestled along a curved rock wall. The doors creaks as he pushes through and the heat of braziers and horses’ bodies greets you within. Sniffs, snorts, and knickers rise in the air as you walk between the stalls. There is one in which a single horse resides, the rest crowded in pairs and trios. 

You look up at the steed’s dark snout, it’s eyes even bleaker as it snuffs out harshly. It’s nostrils flair at your approach and the king clicks his tongue at the beast. It raises its nose then shakes its head. It’s ebony iris fixates on you as its master touches its braided mane. 

“Roach,” you murmur into the dry air. 

“You remember,” he comments gently. 

“Yes,” you watch the horse as it watches you. It bows its head, nose coming close to yours, fuming hot breath around you. It sniffs the trim of your hood. 

“Let the animal see you,” the king advises. 

You bring your hands up and push back the hood, letting it hang over your shoulders. You stare at the dark eyes. Roach continues to twitch his nose in your direction then further dips his head, pressing against your chest. Uncertain, you bring your hands to touch his soft ears. 

“Ah,” the king sighs, “Roach is rarely partial to any but me. Even I receive a nip or too from the curmudgeon.” He chuckles and touches the horse’s thick neck. “others have nearly lost a finger and even sacrificed garment or two.” 

“A creature so volatile, he makes a good war horse?” 

“She,” he corrects you. 

“Oh, apologies.” 

“I doubt she minds,” he muses and pets her long nose as she raises her head. “She is restless. She would do good for the exercise.” 

He lowers his hand and unclasps the stall door. He pulls it out as you step out of the way. The horse clomps through, kicking impatiently as it blows through its lips. The king moves parallel to you and draws you before him. Before you or Roach can react, he has you aloft, urging you onto the horse’s unsaddled back. 

“Hold tight,” he girds and puts his hands to the horse’s shoulder, “come, Roach.” 

The horse starts and you press your hands to her back, clamping on with your thighs. You rock with her motion to keep from slipping. You duck with the mount as she bends through the door the king holds open. The winter snows dusts down on you as you emerge. 

The king drags his palm along the horse’s side and swings himself up with little effort. He sit behind you, Roach not missing a step or buckling at his ascent. He pulls you snug to him, tugging up your hood as the chill nips at your cheeks. He wraps his arms around you and clutches a swathe of the horse’s braids. He whistles and leans, guiding the horse away from the castle. 

“She is obedient,” you remark at her agile response. 

“I prefer mares for that reason,” he returns. You wonder if it is a quip meant for the queen or yourself. Perhaps both. “It isn’t very far, though the path is steep.” 

You nod and stare at the white expanse, a few jutting rocks pocking out above the carpet of snow, leafless branches reaching out here and there. The horse carries you to a ledge, narrow and treacherous, and you lean back into the King Geralt as the edge has you dizzy. He slips his hand beneath your cloak to squeeze your hip. 

“I have you, treasure, you needn’t fear,” he assures.” 

“Yes, your highness, thank you,” you touch his knuckles and shiver. 

“Sweet summer maid,” he purrs as he draws you snugger. “This winter is harsh but I will keep you warm.” 

You shudder and hang your head. For so much comfort as he offers, you find little. It isn’t only the snow which chills you. 

You ride on, the impact of hooves softened by the layers below, the air hollow and biting as it seeps beneath your hood. The sky ripples grey and seems to darken as you descend the curling path along the cliff’s edge. At once, you are plunged into thick blackness. 

The world levels out and the king shifts, sliding off the mount to land on his feet. You peek over your shoulder and see the grim light through the mouth of the cave. The king touches your leg and you turn, letting him help you from the height. Roach kicks and spits. 

The king frames your waist before he releases you. You listen to his steps as he moves through the dim. There’s is a scratch as he strikes flint and flame illuminates his shadow. He bends and takes something from the ground. He pauses and works with one hand, wrapping something around the thick stick. He lights the length of linen around the wood’s tip, a torch to see you along. 

“She will stay, she is not keen on confinement, especially underground,” he girds and removes his own cloak, draping it over the horses back, “the air enlivens me, I shouldn’t need that much.” 

He wears a leather coat, sewn of thick strips of black and studded with silver. He approaches you and bends his arm, offering it gallantly as a gentleman might with a lady. You hesitate and hook your arm through it, hugging his elbow as he leads you deeper, the torch flickering with each step. 

You enter a tunnel with rocky tendrils stretching from top to bottom, encased in layers of ice and frost. The flame illuminates the frozen layers. Deeper and deeper you go, quiet as your curiosity mingles with concern. Where are you going? 

Your boot slips on a slippery patch but the king keeps you upright. You thank him and bring your other arm across to steady yourself on his bicep. You feel his muscle bulging beneath. You do not doubt his promises. He will keep you safe. Down here, but you doubt what he might do without. 

He raises the torch as the air thins and you the cave opens up. You look around as the walls lay beyond the breadth of the torches glow. Your eyes are drawn by the icy fingers hanging from the ceiling. There is one close to you. You reach to touch its pointed tip. 

“Icicles,” the king says, “be careful of the thin ones, they might fall.” 

He moves the torch to show more, all around you, light fangs the line the cave, lining the edges. The flame sparkles on their eerie translucence. Then the king lowers the light and you look down beneath your feet. You’re stand on ice! 

“Your highness,” you instinctively pull yourself closer to him, your soles sliding as you try to walk further. 

“It will not break,” he assures you as he urges you on, “this cave never thaws, even in the warmer months. They call it the Moth’s Den.” He leads you across the ice and your eyes catch on the icicles, thick and thin, some pointed, some reach to touch the floor. You hear an odd hum, almost a buzz, and he sweeps the torch before you. 

You stop to gape at the wall before you. It looks soft and fluffy, almost like fur. Then you lean closer and see the wings. Pale silver moths, fluttering in place, clinging to the wall. Their fuzzy bodies line every morsel of the space. 

“Snow moths. Harmless creatures. Unlike their summer counterparts, the detest the light,” he extends his arm and a circle along the icy wall is sudden bare as the moths move to avoid the glare. “When I was a boy, I always wanted to have one as a pet. I could never get one past the entrance before it escaped and flew back to the depths.” 

You blink and lower your hand from his arm, though you stay hooked onto him, “I didn’t think this was your home.” 

“As a boy it was. At least, that’s how I saw it. My father, king of the day, sent me here to train with Lord Vesemir. As much to keep me out of trouble. I am not unaware of myself. I was not the best behaved. Vesemir took me in and he bides no mischief,” King Geralt explains, “though he does not rule without compassion. He taught me many things more than discipline. He taught me,” the king peers over at you, “that my heart should be heard just as plainly as my mind. If you do not balance them, then it will all topple.” 

You look back at him. Your chest aches deeply. Doesn’t he know you don’t have that privilege? Can he not see that you do not get that choice? Even for a king. 

You might never had cared for Lady Rezlyn and her gossip. You think it cruel and unkind. Often you wonder if she spoke less of others, if she might gain more friends. You never engaged much in Merinda’s whispers either. But you heard them and you know what becomes of mistresses. 

The other woman. That’s what you’ll become. A whore. A name to be spat. A figure to be avoided. A maid might be ignored but she neither favoured or despised. She just is. She has her purpose. A mistress only has the stain put upon her. The one who taints who my walk away, but she never will. 

“The ice becomes you, treasure. The cold it... pales to your beauty,” he smiles down at you. His gold eyes are vibrant and his fine features are even more admirable in the limn of the flame. 

He lifts his chin and takes steady steps away from the wall and leads you towards a jutting stone at the other end of the cavern. He bends to plant the torches base in the crevice at its foot. The torch leans but stands on its own. 

He faces you, untangling from your arm, and puts his hands on your shoulders, “I want to know what you think. Tell me. Do you like my homeland? Do you like the winter?” 

Your lips part and you glance up. Your eyes wander around the space and you turn your head. You raise your hands to touch the king’s leather gloves. 

“I think I do,” you answer. You can’t deny the beauty even if it is deadly. “I might think differently should I meet a bear or a wolf.” 

“It is why you must stay close, treasure, I would never let a beast get anywhere near,” he avows, “I refer to all beasts. Be it man or animal. You will always have me. You needn’t be afraid.” 

You lower your eyes. You can’t say the truth. He knows it but he refuses it. His is a king, he might bend even the world to his whim. You let your hands trails down his forearms. He drops his hands and takes yours. 

“Will you tell me more? About when you were a boy?” You ask, hoping to forget the present a little longer. You are intrigued to think of this man as just a child. It is a rather impossible concept. 

“Hm, well,” he lets go of you and moves around you. He comes behind you and presses himself to your back. He rocks you as he turns you to admire the cave, “I would come to these caves and talk to myself...” he laughs rockily, “you see, if you holler loud enough, your voice bounces back at you. Lord Vesemir, he is not always in the mind for conversation and horses can be just as finicky.” 

He continues to turn you with him. Even without his cloak, his warmth seeps into you. 

“And I would gather bouquets of frostwart and white willowrods for they are the closest to flowers that grow here. I would put the bunches all around, as if I was too be coronated. I was told every day I would be king and I wanted to be ready, but mostly, I’d pretend I was at tourney. I would have my practice sword and I would parry with the air. The air was not so mean as Vesemir with his jabs.” 

You listen, closing your eyes, trying to see it in your head. A white-haired boy with his golden eyes and flowers and swords. Now a man who’s marched through blood and dirt. How time changes more than the seasons, it transforms all. 

“What of you, maid? I want to know of you. When you were a child, did you frolic with the rabbits and the squirrels?” 

You go rigid. You try to pull away but he has you caught. You lean back and exhale heavily. 

“The life of a maid isn’t very interesting,” your murmur. 

“You were always a maid? Even when you were young?” 

“Always,” you affirm. “I emptied pots, brought Lord Dustan his boots, though at times, Lady Jazlene required a playmate...” 

He’s quiet at the mention of his wife. You feel the crack in your heart. Your nose is numb and tingling. 

“Yet, how did you become a maid? Before that, was there nothing?” He asks. 

“Please, your highness--” 

“I bid you call me by my name.” 

“Geralt,” you utter, “please, I beg you, I wouldn’t speak of before.” 

“Did you have parents? Siblings--” 

“None of it,” you hiss and elbow away from him, throwing your arms out to keep balance. You spin and shake your head, “please. My parents are dead. Long gone. And the memories I have of them are nothing more than that. They’ve only ever been dead to me.” 

He is taken aback, his face pale and cheeks tight, “treasure, forgive me, I only... I want to know everything of you--” 

“You know what I am. I am a maid. That is it. That is all I can ever be. I am not a lady, not a wife, not a queen,” you clap your hands together, the impact softened by your mittens, “you cannot make me anything different, king as you may be. I will only ever serve, and you will only ever command.” 

His lips part and he steps towards you, “that isn’t true.” 

“It’s what must be true,” you look to your feet, “might I make a request?” 

“Anything,” he says. 

“Take me back to the castle,” you raise your eyes.  

He nods solemnly and reaches for you, “as you wish.” 

[meruz]

sorry if this has been asked before, but i wanted to ask about your lineart! the weight and line economy are just so nice, i get stars in my eyes looking at your lineart and doodles. could i ask what your approach to lineart is and what tips you might offer?

Wow I love these questions - Line is so interesting!!! It's a really big topic so I feel like any tips I give will be just barely scratching the surface. It's like deceptively simple...any given line drawing is essentially taking all the information we glean from seeing something irl ie light, shadow, dimension, texture, perspective, etc and boiling it down to the simplest possible visual information.

I think most commonly my line is informed by light source so like. thicker more continuous lines face away from the light and thinner more broken lines towards. and a lot of my spot blacks r simply cast shadows.

here's a more extreme example

BUT like everything to do with art there's no hard and fast rules. I use blacks when I think it'll be effective or interesting and I leave them out when I don't need em. umm couple things I find myself doing a lot... using spot blacks to make the separation between characters clearer. I like casting shadow in between characters so its easy to separate and read their silhouettes even when they're mashed together.

u can go even further to purposely create a silhouette like

to draw attention to a finger or tongue LOL. There's some comic book artists who are absolute masters at this type of stylization. Alex toth and his spiritual successor Chris samnee come to mind for me right away.

(toth)

(samnee)

I feel like I'm also often using line weight to separate planes receding in space

im naturally a really heavy handed and scribbly drawer(...?) draftsman. and im nearsighted so when i see things i percieve and break it down into big shapes over thin contours. so stuff like spot blacks and shadows came easy to me, the tricky part was making the rest of the lines lighter when they needed to be so the blacks could actually have impact LOLL. a lot of effective visual communication is about balancing contrasts. like I had to really train myself to press less hard on the pen. I think this is actually really evident if u go back in my archive to older sketches LOL

I actually feel like a lot of how I trained my hand to tackle line weights was thru stuff like hand lettering where you rly have to focus on being sensitive to that kind of thing.. contrasting strokes etc.

also exercises like figure drawing will have you flexing those muscles constantly

I'm starting to just regurgitate lessons from freshman year of art school so I'll stop here with the demos but yeah...I hope this was helpful!? I love line!!! I want to get even better at line work so I can feel confident posting work that's only line no color or value... I'll leave you with a bunch of artists who I think have particularly expressive and beautiful linework (not including toth and samnee who I already mentioned and who's work I love so much). You can probably learn much more from them than you can from me...!

Charles dana gibson LOL

Matias bergara

tonci zonjic

naoki urasawa

Daniel warren johnson

shiyoon kim

michel breton

also yoji shinkawa, tomer hanuka, leo romero, I feel like I'm gonna post this and think of so many more. there's so many good artists...!

[littledigits]

Hi! I absolutely love your work and your art style (and I think Hilda is one of the best animated shows ever made!!) I want to dip my toe into drawing, mainly because I want to be able to do little sketchy character drawings for my D&D campaign lol. Is there any particular book or course you might recommend for getting started? Thank you!

thank you so much ! <3

I would say if you want to start drawing , do whatever makes it accessible and fun for you to start. I cant go hardcore into learning, i need some indulgence to keep it fun.

Its hard for me to recommend anything off the top of my head. there is SO MUCH GOOD STUFF OUT THERE NOW ADAYS. also you may look at a book or a course and the way its explained wont make sense to you, but someone else could put it a different way and it could click better! Everyone has a different workflow and different methods, so what i'd recommend is just poke around in some youtube videos and just watch a few beginner ones, see what methods you vibe with. But at the end of the day do what you feel like is most fun and dont sweat the details

DONT BE AFRAID TO REFRENCE THINGS! When I was in school for animation, one of the first things you did to learn to draw on model was draw overtop of the model sheet and break down the proportions. (how many 'heads' tall is it , how many 'eyes' wide is the face). If you see a style you like, learn from it !

Drawing overtop of a character and breaking it down is a great exercise if there is a style you want to mimic. Understanding the proportions helps because then when you draw, if it looks -off- you can test out your own . Who knows, maybe you accidentally made the body too long or short! People are afraid to trace or draw over, but its a great exercise as long as you dont take credit, especially if you're not just doing it for something to look pretty but you want to *understand* how it was done. This helps a lot in building your own style ! my style is a mish mash of everything i've loved and worked on over the years, and it changes over time. So if you see something and you're like 'ooo thats COOL how did they do it' , save it , break it down , maybe you'll learn a few new things !

also I recommend to start with simple shapes ! I put some screen captures from rough sketches that Scott Lewis did, who is a senior animator on hilda. Even as an experienced animator he knows how important the fundamentals are (which is why hes good at his job haha). I think if you want to do fun sketchy things for DND , keeping it simple is the way to go :) you'd be surprised how much expression you can get out of shapes ! I hope this helps you get started on drawing all the endless DND shenanigans that I'm sure live in your head :D .

[indignantlemur]

Hello lovelies! Who wants a nice, cozy kitchen scene? I'm not back up to snuff, but as part of my physiotherapy I've been encouraged to draw and write and generally give my arm and hand a good work out with all kinds of horrible contortions and exercises. I'm far from at my previous level, and I can't tolerate the kind of shading I preferred before my injury, so for this piece I experimented with a more cell-shading like style this time. I think it turned out alright! A bit rough, sure, but not bad for a first attempt!

I still can't draw a smooth lines without leaning pretty heavily on stabilizers, but I am improving a little more every day. While I'm not completely happy with parts of the overall piece, I think I managed to more or less hit the target!

Detail shot and rambling below the cut, as per usual!

So the main idea behind all of this was a series of slice of life snapshots that felt cozy and comfortable, focusing heavily on the interactions between characters over drama and big scenes. I didn't have a particular location in mind with this one, but I have always thought that Dagmar's Andoria apartment would be conspicuously corporate-bland, the way a lot of common spaces are in Star Trek - and probably the most common examples Andorian architects would draw from without knowing any better.

In the background, we have Dagmar's little notes and reminders, as she's always struck me as the sort of person who uses her fridge like a personal calendar and organizer rather than a showcase for sentimental things.

Transcribed, they read:

[To Do: - Groceries!!! - New books ] [Language Lessons - High Vulcan!!! (<-Email Comm Lorik @ embassy again) - Coridanese - Refresh Klingon - Aenar dialect?] [DRINK WATER - NOT coffee] [Appointment w/ Miraal @ [indecipherable]]

Food in all its varieties has been a big part of Emigre from the very beginning, and I thought in particular that it would be nice to capture a scene with Dagmar and Thelen focused around that point. After all, if Thelen can teach Dagmar the ins and outs of Andorian cooking, why can't Dagmar return the favour?

So, working off of that, I wanted to try for a scene that feels mostly familiar. As much as I wanted to feature familiar objects and tools, owing to Dagmar's past origins and preferences, I also wanted to add little things that are just a tiny bit alien, too. We have the half-drunk drinks of familiar blue ale; the datapad, forgotten, going into screen-saver mode; the cream tarts in unusual shades; and even some odd little fruits that look like cherry tomatoes and come in dull Skittle colours, for example. Then, there's the ulu-style knife just at the edge of the frame. It's an unusual choice over a standard santoku knife or any other perfectly serviceable kitchen knife, but given its resemblance to a ushaan-tor it feels oddly appropriate. Providing my recovery continues to go well, I'm hoping to do a few more cozy scenes, but I can't promise anything just yet!

[ckret2]

3rd times the charm (writing this i lost what i wrote 2 times already) questions/related for/to goldilocks bill 

1 is mabel adhd and or some neurodivergent cuz of hw/grade thoughts/feeling /comments made/referenced and was this me being delusional/implied and will only be implied in the story/foreshadow something or just 

2 can bill hid his cycle long term and who restocks mables pads cuz if its her what does she think of a huge chunk going missing and if not how long and with mable in ca and melody maybe moving out what would he do what are his thoughts on having to ask for menstrual products like asking would be humiliating on a scale of 1 to 10 who would he ask most to least likely what beliefs/knowledge/feeling do the other characters have on periods 

3 would he have any thoughts/preference on different menstrual products like pads/tampons/cups/other items i don't know or it the theme/art the only difference 

4 sorry if this is gross (S&P would never approve) but would bill if he had period blood at the time gone for round 3 of battle of hygiene used the period blood like his stink and the sink incident as bargaining/negotiations chips for something cuz i hate how messy period blood is in my experience and just experience with so many peoiple being so repulsed by it (would he possibly think its funny like blood haha and the blood clots like slipe)

5 why did he get one so soon like his body is 2 weeks old ( i think i'm bad with time(time is and illusion anyway)) but anxiety, depression, sudden weight loss/gain, being under/over weight, extreme exercise, and poor nutrition are some of the relevant things that can make you miss your period and bills got oodles of poor nutrition depression anxiety and maybe (going on only sooses comment so far) sudden weight loss (for me just eating 2 to 1 meals (1 school lunch the other fast food) a day for a long time meant i didn't get a period for like 6 months) but is it the fact it's so new and axolotl set to easy thats he got one (also i don't mean to be rude i have no knowledge of what you do/dont know about periods and stuff)

6 for the kryptos gang Maybe when the accident happens bill rips holes in the dimension of accident and only they are lucky/unlucky enough to fall and get translated though not knowing it was bill and not in bills view/doesn't know/thinks that killed them? And end up stranded in an extremely unknown place worried about the shit going down in the dimension and latter get rumors it was destroyed and they grieve But that way bill is  alone in the aftermath and people spread no survivors present and these shapes are standed  he meets/collects them that way he can promise them something better would them not knowing erase or amplify the guilt or would them know bill did it make more sense sorry if this is bad i know that i don't articulate myself well disclaimer i have not read the book of bill (im :,( broke rn).i have seen some of the website but would this work with cannon and your story i also don't know how the dimension stuff would go would they up or down a dimension maybe the axolotl translated them cuz reason idk or bill accidently did it when the holes ripped open

god that's a lot of text to lose twice I'm so sorry lmao

1. Yes, I write Mabel as ADHD. I don't know if it will ever be directly stated in the fic, primarily because I doubt she's gonna get a diagnosis; but I'm drawing on the experiences of family, friends, & myself to write her.

2. Mabel thinks "hmmm... I used those a lot faster than I expected... but I've been using these less than a year, maybe I just don't have a good sense of how fast I use them yet."

Bill wouldn't consider asking for them any more or less humiliating than having to ask his captors for food access, shower access, or sunlight access. He has no taboos or shame associated with bleeding out of a hole for most of a week, being ashamed of that is a human cultural thing; but he is consistently humiliated by needing to ask his captors to please let him have the basic resources he needs for his stupid body maintenance.

But remember he just got a room with a fridge and permission from Soos to stick whatever he wants on the household grocery list. He doesn't need to specifically ask his captors for period supplies. He can just... put it on the grocery list. Now it's Soos's problem. Maybe Abuelita's, I feel like she might prefer to do the shopping if it's not too strenuous for her yet.

3. Tampons can kill you so Bill thinks humans are pretty dumb to use them. He doesn't much care beyond that. He's used exactly one product.

4. I can't think of a reason he wouldn't but I'm not interested in exploring weaponized hygiene more than I already have.

5. He's been in his body over five weeks. He got the one period he's had so far almost 4 weeks in, giving him a cycle only slightly longer than average. (Even if he HAD gotten one two weeks in—how do you know his body wasn't just created already halfway through a cycle?) He's had a shit month but he started off in good enough health for it not to immediately matter and the shittiest most physically & mentally grueling part of the month (the eclipse + execution) came after he'd bled.

6. begs a lot of questions—"how" "why them" "where were they" "why didn't Bill find out sooner" "why DID he find out". Doesn't feel airtight enough to me. Plus, I already know EXACTLY how Bill's dimension is destroyed, and random rips in the dimension aren't part of it.

[rusty-courage]

Hi, I love your work and art style, it is so cool. I was just wondering what animation program you use? and any tips for beginner animators or artists?

Hi, thank you! I work in ToonBoom Harmony.

I get asked a lot to give advice for beginners, and there's a lot of different skills that need to be developed to be an animator.

The first one is just a general skill in drawing. Drawing from life (looking at an object in real life and getting its likeness down on paper) is one of the biggest ways to learn. If you want to be a character animator, that means drawing people. Over and over and over and over again. In different poses, different body shapes, different mannerisms, etc. There are websites that give you figure drawing references that are super helpful. Challenge yourself- try to get down difficult poses. draw those hands.

(And when I say draw from life, I mean either irl or images of irl things. Learning from life is much much better for your foundational skills than trying to draw based on other people's drawings. However when you have achieved the basics and are looking to cultivate your style, looking at other artist's styles and their depiction of people can be useful to help find yours.)

When I was in college I took a figure drawing class that had us sit in a theater with a model on stage who constantly changed poses for us to draw. We would do timed challenges: Draw their pose in 5 minutes. Their next pose, draw it in 2. Then 1. Then get their pose drawn in 30 seconds. 15 seconds. 10. 5. And then start over.

I think doing that exercise was one of the best ways I learned personally. Because it taught me not to hesitate, to not overthink what I'm doing, and to put down lines with confidence. I also drew with a pen so I couldn't erase anything. Building drawing confidence will make your projects look better.

After gaining foundations in drawing people, the next step would be to research the principles of animation. Here's a good reference video that explains them better than I could: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDqjIdI4bF4

In my opinion, the most important principle is the slow in and slow out, explained at 11:17 in the video. While the other principles are still important, I find myself always falling back on this one. Having a character's movements ease in and out is crutial to making something really come to life. Otherwise things look very mechanical.

And of course, practice practice practice. It will be bad at first. That's normal. But keep going. I have a folder full of old animations from before I got to college and learned the principles, and it made a world of difference.

Good luck!

[tothepointofinsanity]

Out of curiousity wut is op's thoughts on Kyoko considering u love Sayaka so much? (Also i love ur art its a visual blessing everytime good lord)

Today, I can finally give a proper answer on my thoughts about Kyoko. Someone had a similar ask back then, and I felt as though I answered that half-assed, missing a lot of integral parts of her character, but overtime I actually got very attached to her and came to be fond of her. There are many things to like about Kyoko.

She is very cool. I like that she always walks with a certain confidence and has plenty of skills and experience to back up her casual attitude. Her weapon is unique and I remember it caught me off guard when I first watched the show because what is That. Her character design while at first did not stand out to me then actually appeals to my senses now. I like the flow of her long hair and dress being juxtaposed by the solid clunkiness of what she wields.

Secondly, her character is interesting as she was written to directly click with Sayaka despite being opposites. It’s true that she’s very combative and often has outrageous ideas, but it’s just her exercising her freedom so that she won’t have to disappoint herself by being entangled in others’ affairs. She cares for other magical girls in her own way, and isn’t an unreasonable person, just a realistic one. The way she reverts back to having hope for Sayaka instead of directly driving herself to despair in the face of a new reality [that Witches are born from magical girls] also demonstrates the strength of her will, refusing to succumb to simply accepting things the way they are if they get in the way of her beliefs. <- Infected by Sayakaschisms. Instead of just sitting there and hoping things get better, she takes on the challenge to try and change the situation herself even if the odds were not in her favour. She and Sayaka essentially switch places in terms of how they act at the premier of Oktavia.

To be honest Kyoko is just like me fr. She liked Sayaka so much that her own witch was named Ophelia just to symbolise the Shakespearean tragedy of a relationship that she had with the former. Kyoko balances Sayaka’s impulsive tendencies and Sayaka gives Kyoko hope. That aside, Kyoko herself even in general is very cute, but is one of the more underrated characters. Always happy to hear her name mentioned in my inboxes.

My only problem is that I don’t draw her along with Sayaka all that much u_u

Thank you for the ask and kind words 🙇‍♂️🙇‍♂️!!

[squishranger]

AT LAST SEVERAL MONTHS OF BRAINROT COME TO FRUITION

here's a carrd for all tptmers who want to meet some Fun New Girls That I Made (it defaults you to the first girl, but the button leading to the second one is at the bottom... and at the bottom of the second girl's page... is a button leading back to the first! careful not to get stuck in an infinite loop.)

EDIT: OH GOD ITS SO UGLY ON MOBILE. USE YOUR COMPUTER PLEASE

the full designs, transcripts and screenshots of the carrd for mobile users, and other such ramblings are under the cut

REVERIE GIRL , she/they/cloud/dream/star/whatever suits your fancy, wants the world to spin both faster and slower than it does... if she had the gumption, they'd have everything she wanted by now, but they tend to only have the energy to lay in bed and think about lost times. she's a nostalgiacore girlie and she has little else to go off of in terms of defining who she is. (star's... basically just a self-insert.)

PAGE:

JOURNAL TRANSCRIPT: ohhhh my god what am i doing . i cant keep living like this. like its not even living im not even doing anything every morning i wake up and i regret i regret waking up i dont want to wake up but how am i ever supposed to live if i cant do anything other than stare at the ceiling and pretend things are better than they are ??? at this point i'd rather give up. live in my daydream forever with my friends and my cat whos been dead for like two years now i think but i wanna go back to her i wanna go somewhere else. i havent given a shit about reality in fucking forever im so done with it but some part of me wants to live. maybe even get out of my fucking parents house. get a job learn to drive be a person or something. but i'm so stuck. i just hurt all the time. i dont know what part of my heart to follow. i dont know what to do. i can't just go back to bed this time i can't…. i can't…. i always tell myself that and then i do. i need to make up my mind.

CARRIER GIRL, she/he/they/it, has been abandoned by everyone who ever loved her. though she lives a generally stable life, it's a distinctly lonely one, and it isn't enough for her. there is something yet to be fulfilled. some kind of desire. she only wants to feel as loved as she once was.

PAGE:

JOURNAL TRANSCRIPT: hello blog!! i got myself an iced matcha latte from my favorite local cafe today! it was really good. but it like, it got me thinking… will any little treat i buy myself ever make me feel better about how freakin' lonely i am?? man, i dunno why i started thinking like that… i get matcha all the dang time. so often they're starting to feel more like breadcrumbs. i think it'd taste like something again if i shared it with someone. i think i peaked in high school. that was when i had friends and before all that awful stuff happened and yeah maybe i wasn't doing great but i had people. and then they all went to college or got married or had babies or something and… augh!! i can't be bitter!! they're living their best life… just… without me. and now every time i reach out i get brushed off, pushed away… i want someone who won't leave me. will i ever have someone who won't leave me? maybe i won't. maybe i should just accept that. everyone always leaves. i've been nothing but kind to people, i really think that, so what am I doing wrong? ohh boy this one really spiraled outta control didn't it… sorry ;-; i'm just gonna save it and go think for a bittt….

THIS WAS A VERY FUN EXERCISE for character design and branching out with my art style (i did in fact draw both of these characters.. it's probably pretty obvious but i tried to make them look like they were sorta drawn in different styles like the canon girls bc it's cool i think. if that makes sense JSDFJSDF) and coming up with metaphors, i actually had so many other girl ideas that got scrapped for one reason or another, and only two came out unscathed... there may be more... in the future... as for songs, i don't know if that'll ever happen. i have most of the tools, aside from voice synth, so i'd probably just use my own voice. which might be CRINGEEE (ironic statement) so we'll see how that goes!! ^^' don't... don't count on it...

[tomatoart]

mwah your art is good and nice :>

can I ask for some advice? no worries if u don't want to answer.

do you have any tips on how exactly to practice art? everytime I ask for art advice everyone always says "practice" but idk what to practice first! do you have any strategies for learning how to draw something? do you do excercises? and if so how do they work?and are there any beginner mistakes I should look out for and change specifically?

thank you so much!! have a wonderful week :>

thank you so much! im ok w answering! i dont want to speak as if i am an expert on how to draw things in general as i am learning as well and definitely am not completely learned, so i might not be the best person to ask since im not very professional w my art as I do it as a hobby (and I can only speak on mostly digital cartoon matters) but i reallly hope to try and help u out even a lil ! im really happy that you’re eager to draw :] I wish you so much luck muwah muwah

i also hated when ppl told me “just practice” and i dont wanna inflict tht on u EITHER LOL but also thats just what i ended up doing for awhile but i tried to find some things to help ^_^

tips for practice: My number one rule is that practices should be challenging but still fun, I know it can get frustrating trying to redraw a pose over and over trying to get it perfect. And over time it rlly is all about muscle memory, the longer you draw the more your eyes will pick out specific shapes in everyday life and convert them into its own vision of them! or at least its good to look at life that way, try to pin point key shapes and stress less on details in practices. after you look at key points, THEN you can go over what you have and draw in and over it to make it more “complete.” To stop practices from getting too stressful I recommend starting out drawing what you want a little more simple looking than ur desired finished product. This helps eliminate the pressure of everything not looking “perfect” and keeps your art more loose and fun. Doing this a few times is gonna get ur brain to recognize patterns in art and how things look/flow in anatomy and such. dont get stuck in ur own head abt perfecting everything to the point you either 1) give up bc ur not at a level capable of it being 100% “perfect” or 2) focus so much on making it perfect that you end up saying the work looks “wonky” or stale in dynamics, So while I do think studies help, don’t get too lost in them. I always practice with media I enjoy too, whether it’s characters or fashion I enjoy.

Strategies learning to draw something: people get mad abt this one but I think tracing reference photos is great. its been awhile but When I tried learning to draw hands better at first I would trace them then put the traced image to the side of the canvas, then try and replicate what my mind saw as its most important angles and aspects. Same for clothing folds/hair/etc! I think it’s maybe not the best idea to trace the ref and use the tracings as is, because you learn more from tracing it then trying to replicate and simplify what u learned into the style you’re working in. Find what shapes you like from them and don’t over detail it. you may have to go by eye and think “what parts of this ref photo should i simplify to fit my style” and for me, its usually adjusting the length of the torso and then the limbs by associations. i dont recommend feeling like u need a reference for every art you make though, its ok to let ur own head try out its own sometimes too while trying to learn this, see if it remembers any call bad from the past referenced sketches! over time ull remember where everything goes more, these days i rarely kick myself to use refs but im sure they still would help to use, but figure drawing simple blobby figure in a bunch of random poses was a big thing i used to do as well to get better at full body art + overall dynamics (still does this). also paying attention to silhouettes is great 

Exercises and how they work: I WANNA HELP U SO BAD BUT to be honest, all the works on my blog ARE exercises! i rarely actually do finished pieces, if u scroll thru my posts ull notice most r sketches. i usually just fill up a page and call it “warm ups” then i get attached to some of them, take a few, and just line them up pleasingly on a smaller page, then color them in (or sometimes fix the lines to be more clean too). im not rlly a person who “exercises” to practice, it more so happens from just me drawing a lot for fun as a hobby! but i really should. i will tell u this has humbled me a lil i need to start practicing too 😭 LOL but a good exercise is to look at what ur inspirations do, and study it. Make a collage and write out what you like most abt their styles/what u want to gain from them. For ref Here’s a page I did awhile ago when someone asked me abt my insps:

i also look at fashion magazines and as well as anime figures and take insps from that sometimes with learning cool poses and compositions to convert into my own things

Beginner mistakes to look out for: its hard for me to pin point “mistakes” beginners make, as sometimes we cant avoid all of them or even notice them, progress comes from growing out of old ways. some mistakes are even the foundation of ur future amazing cool style! but i think some things to look out for could be these, from my own old art experiences

Hands were the first thing I learned bc i liked drawing them. I don’t know if that is the best way to go but I think it is smart to practice sooner than later, here is a lil guide thingggyyy wingyyy from awhle ago

i see beginners shy away from drawing signs of age in people, sometimes adding too much detail on an older person in cartoon art makes it look weird, so i try and hit the key markings on ppls faces of age.

Too thin of lines. sometimes its a stylistic choice to use thin lineart, and it can look amazing ! but sometimes it can flatten an image if ur not familiar with its flow. im not saying use thick line art, but more so to keep in mind the weight of ur strokes, adding depth with a thick thin combo of line art can do SO much for the simplest of pieces. heres a visual from a while back when i talked abt my brush + more abt lines:

but if ur desired style is thin lineart that is cool too! tbh it was just harder for me as a beginner

sometimes artists think they need to do full lineart for everything and then hate how it looks compared to the sketch, do not fear i will introduce u to my bff: painting over a sketch, extractinging the lines, then calling it line art. i only do this sometimes but its a fun exercise-ish thing to do in a pinch. example:

finding what shading fits ur art. sometimes ill see ppl starting out who have a style thats very simple, but they use a very detailed rendering process on it. this is not something id ever police of course, art is each persons own choice! And it CAN work. It can be so cute! but sometimes mixing two very contrasting mediums of art can throw off the “put together” look of it. i use to abuse the airbrush tool thinking it made my simple style look super cool and detailed, but looking back on it now those pieces looked a little off, having such a simple style have somewhat more realistic shading. dont get me wrong the ability i see ppl use rendering like that is so insanely talented! but i found cellshading to be a good match for cartoony art like my own. a tip i learned way too late abt that is rather than shading each layer by color picking a darker color, instead use a clipping mask over the entire art (above line art too as I color my lineart) and lasso tool the areas u want shaded + fill it w a saturated purple then set to multiply + lower opacity. also, sometimes coloring can come out chalky looking when u meant for it to be smooth and transitional, i think this comes from overshading and overlighting pieces without reason. pay attention to where the light source is, and focus on making the shaded and lighter areas nice shapes that cover the necessary areas, then u can add additional shading to the smaller details of what should have a casted shadow/light  

its good to spice up ur art now rather than later, focusing making ur art pop more w backgrounds will help ur coloring skills look better too! i dont mean detailed huge backgrounds, a small lil color pallet and design rather than a blank white bg. like this will make u feel better abt it or at least it helped me *sweats* yeah:

beginners tend to draw blank faces like “:)” but I think a good thing to do is try and get silly with expressions early on. It’s okay if the mouth hangs off the face cartoonishly with joy or shock, it’s ok if the eyebrows are super high in surprise.

tracing and pasting it as is (already said this but I’ve seen ppl do it a lot with hair styles and it makes it look alienated from the rest of the style) (final fantasy fans found critically injured) n if need a ref for a pose, using a real humans anatomy as-is doesn’t look quite right on a cartoonyish drawing. Shortening torso and legs usually comes out of this for me!

flip ur canvas i promise u it’ll be less embarrassing over time!

using guidelines for perspective and foreshortening is GREAT. Do it stylistically rather than realistically to add some groove to it...yay. Having silly perspective in art can make it look like a 10 so easily opposed to a normal front facing sketch. Look at cool poses from fashion magazines! Don’t be scared to draw something you don’t feel confident in conveying perfectly, this is why progress redraws exist :)

Drawing the hairline b4 u draw the hair is great, it helps u understand where their hair flows from, where it starts and stops, AND prepares u for drawing bald ppl. Also don’t make the head too big, the skull IS bigger up top, but sometimes I see an alien head affect.

Anatomy is an interesting mistake that beginners make a lot, but it’s one they find harder to notice! When I started out, all my art would be SO wonky, but I didn’t even realize it! It still happens today too! specifically though I see beginners struggle with the arms in this department. My advice is to try and measure them out and make sure they don’t go past the knees, and are the same length as each other when Unfolded. asking for criticism is hard but it helped me realize when i would make something bigger/longer than it should have been in my art, and stuck with me being able to go “oh... i see it LOL” 

clothing wrinkles- do not over do it! Too many wrinkles and shading can look unpleasant and wirey- like a plastic table cloth all bunched up which isn’t exactly what ppl wear. pay attention to gravity too

I hope this helped even a lil im sorry tht I’m not very good at explaining or didn’t have much to sayyy! If u have any troubles no guarantee I’ll have the answer, but ur always free to ask!

[dross-the-fish]

Warning you that this’ll be worded weirdly in advance (I’m not good with wording)

I don’t know how to describe the phenomenon but how do you avoid art style envy? Or keep motivation when your art style isn’t where you want it to be?

(Because I feel as though I need to justify everything here’s an explanation) I often use your art as a reference because I like the style and it helps me get a basic idea of the anatomy of some characters (Adam, Jekyll, Hyde, Erik, for example) and then I get art block because it doesn’t look good to me (and then I remember your twice my age)

Sorry the wordings weird and sorry if it’s long

Honestly I think the reason I manage not to get wrapped up in my art not being where I want it to be is down to the fact that as I've gotten older I've started giving less fucks about drawing for an audience. I like to draw, and even if there are people significantly younger who are a lot better I'm drawing primarily for my own enjoyment, not to compete with other people. I also try to be kind to myself, I drew pretty irregularly over the years and went through long dry spells and if you'd seen my tumblr pre 2022 I have maybe 5-6 drawings per year and now that I'm drawing on at least a weekly basis I'm seeing rapid improvements in much shorter spans of time. Practice will pay off. You just have to commit to it and let it do its thing. There's no deadline to get good at something, some people pick up a skill right out of the gate and others don't discover how passionate they are about hobbies until they're older and everyone learns at their own pace. Don't stress over your art being perfect or "measuring up" and even if your drawings don't turn out great at first keep practicing. A hobby that brings you joy can be a wonderful and fulfilling thing regardless of skill level. When I was probably close to your age my own art looked like this. this is a drawing from a really old sketchbook and as an exercise I sometimes go through and redraw old art just as a fun way to test my skills. Seeing your own improvement is a good way to get out of feeling discouraged.

I have learned a LOT about drawing since I was in high school and so will you. I promise.

[the-cat-and-the-birdie]

I just wanna let you know that you have given me the confidence to write and post an Miguel x OC fic. Thank you for that cuz without this blog it probably would stay in my notes app till I die

Thank you so much!! IM SO HYPE FOR YOU!!

I saw this as I was taking a break from drawing Moche & Miguel (because it's free and better than therapy)

And for anyone in the same position - I HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT

I LOVE OCs. I think they add so much to fandom - and like even as a writing exercise, they're amazingly useful!

Writing OCs help you explore sides of characters that aren't shown often - giving them new and challenging/comforting dynamics. It helps explore large parts of the media/lore that are usually overlooked.

Teaches things like how to follow worldbuilding rules, SO MUCH MORE

OCs are awesome.

If you wanna write OC x Hobie or OC x Miguel GO FOR IT.

Like GO FOR IT NOW. Even if you've never done it or never drawn GO FOR IT.

Don't worry about it being self-indulgent, romance is suppose to be!! Don't be afraid to make your Spidersona super powerful or OP! No such thing! - they're in the spider-society for a reason!! Don't be afraid to make them a 'Mary-Sue'! NO SUCH THING!!

It makes you feel good, is great practice, and its FUN. Like, it makes you feel way better than you'd imagine.

Have them kiss, give them a long elaborate dramatic storyline, let them have kids if they way, let them be cute and cuddle, and be in love or best friends or whatever you want!!

Nothing cringy about it, in fact I think it shows a real confidence in one's work and love for the story because they take so much creativity!

It's great practice. Before two months ago, I'd NEVER drawn anything especially digitally, and I started just to draw Diane and Hobie. And I did that like everyday for weeks lol

If you have a OC that's dating Hobie or Miguel by OCs are friend with them. They're all dating them in their own specific ways and we all hang out mhmm

More OCS MORE MIGUEL X OC MORE MORE MORE

[seeingteacupsindragons]

I’ve got another question, if that’s alright—do you have any advice for varying sentence structure? I feel like it’s a skill that is mostly natural / unconscious and I’ve been wondering if there’s a good way to deliberately practice it, apart from my current method of writing as usual and revising with a specific eye on sentence structure

You given me war flashbacks to my tenth grade English teacher and her"sentence starter" worksheet with 10 different opening phrase types for English, and we had to use at least 8 of them in every essay we wrote.

I do not recommend this approach. Most of them did not sound natural or fluid at all. At the end of the day, the vast majority of English sentences are going to start subject-verb because that's just the way English syntax is at its most natural and least stressed. And yet, neither that sentence nor this one did.

Ultimately, sentence structure varying is important not so that it varies, but because varying it has different effects.

Short sentences feel quick and choppy and adding them to short paragraphs feels a lot like movie cuts switching every few seconds. Good sometimes, but you don't want the whole movie filmed that way, either.

Longer sentences will feel slower, drawing out a moment to linger on it and connect things together. A lot of them together can be used to really highlight a character's spiraling mental state.

A lot of knowing which to use is just practice and developing a knack for which part of the book needs what.

And different people talk differently. Yes, they use different vocabulary, but they also structure their sentences differently. "I really wasn't thinking about home," could also be, "Wasn't really thinking about home, you know?" and they mean mostly the same thing but the sentence structures are different.

So it might be a good idea to do some warmups or exercise also focused on character voice.

I pulled out this section from Ceiling Fan to see if I could dissect it for you to show how and why sentences varied, but I actually...ran out of highlight colors because the sentences are all really quite different.

That second-to-last paragraph is all fragments. Long fragments, mostly, but none of them are actually complete thoughts on their own. They're punctuated like that because functionally, they're each their own points of emphasis.

I also have asides to sentences in both parentheses and em-dashes. But they serve different purposes. The parens basically reduce the "probably" to a muttered, under the breath note. The em-dashes are spoken at an equal volume, but it wouldn't otherwise fit into the sentence. Cameron is basically interrupting himself with dashes.

The second sentence starts with a gerund noun phrase because it sounds better than "It was only half the exam to study the formulas"--more natural, and it puts actual concretes upfront instead of a meaningless pronoun.

There's an ellipsis where Cam trails off a thought, searching for words before picking up with the next paragraph and sentence with an interjection.

There's a lot of variety in this...half a page if you look, and I did almost none of it while thinking about it or caring at all about sentence structure. This is just what felt natural when I was writing someone talking. This is what made Cam sound the way I wanted Cam to sound.

I picked up these instincts from reading, mostly--I saw what was impacting me and gave me what tones--so reading with an eye for structure and then writing to capture voice really well, I think, are my strongest recommendations. And then on making sure the pacing flows.

It's hard for me to give advice on how to achieve a means to an end, I think--the means are often different for everyone. You want the goal, and the goal isn't "interesting sentence arrangements." The goal is to make Cam sound like Cam (fill in your own characters here lol) and the pacing and focus to be where they need to be.

[nitunio]

O2A2 Daily Log. DAY/NiGHT 1 (July 5th, 2024)

I'll be posting these until I get to the game's development conclusion!

Day I.

It was around 10 AM when I started working. My initial process laid in drafting the story. After deciding on the main character (in this case, Amaranth) I stripped the story to its two components – place and premise – because in other cases it’d be down to building the plot off of a character, and my mind runs wild whenever I construct it like that.

The place is the library, where souls come after they’ve passed, so an Afterlife Library. And the premise is quite simple – it’s a game for the player’s life! In this case, instead of a gamble it all comes down to outsmarting the machine, ahem, the experienced librarian.

And as a person who barely knows Python beyond freely coding in Ren’py, I wandered to the search engine to find a tutorial and realised that I’ll probably be better off searching on Reddit. One of the posts gave me a really good idea – the OP was talking about imagebuttons and logic and then it clicked for me.

Tic-tac-toe is a game where you draw the image inside the grid spaces, taking turns and adjusting your movements to your opponents’... Was it possible to code something like that?!

(duh, of course it was, this log is a testament to that)

I started by cropping the supposed “images” (solid blocks of two colours – one for the scroll and one for the charcoal), and cropped tiny squares of the scroll's colour. So the layering was like this – background scroll - big dark square - vertical box full of horizontal boxes of scroll’s colour, creating the illusion of a drawn grid, when in reality it is not.

And this marks the beginning of my two-hour suffering. I ditched the idea of imagebuttons that I wanted to go with, since that’d require assets, which I only could use one of. So I opted for textbuttons, and it was the most Hell I’ve had coding.

At first I couldn’t get them to show up. Then, I remembered to set a box just for them (x/y maximum of 70ish, since the squares are 90), had nightmares doing the horizontal and vertical boxes, and increased the font. Hooray! Visible!

Setting a variable on click with “action” function was easy, and soon enough I could fill an entire board with. Xs and Os. Time to code Amaranth’s turn in! (scared)

It wasn’t as scary as I imagined: basically, all tiles are “if” functions, and if they’re empty the player can fill them. If it’s not their turn, they’re not active, and Amaranth is quick to respond (I did a test to see if she’d fill an empty cell and she did!)

Then came the invisible (for now) work – I coded in a win condition. I SCREAMED WITH JOY WHEN I SAW THAT MY ARRAYS FINALLY UPDATED! 

That concluded my day-work!

Night I.

So I decided to push forward and actually coded in her responses!

I took and hardcoded the first two turns for her Xs and the rest was assigned at random. As for Os, I made it do everything at random, since she’s more experienced at playing Xs! (totally not because I didn’t want to look at tic-tac-toe ever again)

Each turn the machine checks if there are any free spaces and if any of the rows match winning conditions. If they do, the player gets to the end plot (I still haven’t written any of it, aaaa!). If they don’t, the game continues until it’s a draw or X’s/O’s win.

With that, I finally slumped into the bed. Even with taking breaks it was kind of a hard exercise to be jumping straight into after a. Year. Of not working with Python’s syntax.

[I’ve cut off a huge text segment of me trying to design a less clunky random placement system, but all of my endeavours led to dead ends caused by my inexperience and complex requests. Thank you for all the answers, StackOverflow! So many people asking the same question, it makes me feel like we’re all a part of a big community…]