#Made some crappy texture brushes

[floralstorms]

Moonlit Melody

[coulsonlives]

Mkay, time for my in-depth review of Zuko's scar in the live action ATLA, because I'm a lil salty.

This is the first shot of Zuko we see, and my first impression is: this isn't the best makeup. The first thing that stands out is the flatness of the scar. It's unrealistic, because burn scars usually heal in a lumpy way, it's called hypertrophy. See the burn scar from the Hound (Sandor Clegane) in GOT:

That lumpiness is super important for making skin appear like it had been burned by fire and healed over! But because it's not really there in Zuko's face, it just looks like he got a bad sunburn:

I understand Zuko doesn't need a super deformed face, or enormous textures in his scar, but we basically have just flat skin right now, and it doesn't sell 'bad scar' at all. The makeup should've been somewhere between those two things.

The second thing is the general inaccuracy of the scar itself. I'm not gonna nitpick how it doesn't go as far down his cheek, or how it's not affecting his left eyelid, but there are some major things I am gonna mention. In the animated show, his left eyebrow was burned away because the fire contacted the skin underneath it, and then went over that, up into his forehead:

Here's a crappy edit I made where the brow is mirrored, you can see how much the scar extends over it.

But in the makeup, it looks like the fire either stopped directly at the underside of his brow, or it did burn his skin under the brow, but the brow grew back somehow. It looks weird. Because the brow is still present, there's less contrast to draw your attention to the scar and subconsciously say 'this isn't normal'.

Here are two other edits I did:

This is what I'm talking about when I say the brow (and height of the scar) drastically changes how Zuko looks. He looks so much closer to the animated version now, but he's still free to emote because his eye isn't affected at all, and his brow could still move normally. It also helps give him that harsher appearance, which people tend to say exists with the ponytail hairdo! But it would also work great with his long hair look, which would soften everything anyways.

(For the second edit, I also tweaked the ear a lil bit.)

When it comes to the colours of the scar, I'm undecided. In the OG show, they probably had to change the colour of his scar so much to indicate there was even a scar in the first place, because it would've been annoying to add tons of line detail for the animators to deal with instead. At the same time, the live-action show could tone it down a lil bit. But it doesn't look bad, per se.

The third observation I have is Zuko's ear. If you look in the animated show picture above, his left ear (your screen right) is smaller than his right ear, because it's scarred over. I don't think it's practical to have that kind of effect in the live-action show, because it would mean even more CGI (they'd literally need to paint out the real ear, and then replace the ear with a digidouble ear). But if you look at the trailer capture, you'll see the scar colour doesn't even extend to his ear at all!

If you open the picture in photoshop, the scar around his eye and cheek has a reddish hue, but the skin on his ear is the same colour as the skin that isn't scarred. This isn't a cherry-picked sample, the hue is the same in each entire area. As soon as you stop sampling the ear and start sampling the cheek, it drops right into the reds/oranges:

I think the ear coming away unscathed might be a little unrealistic too, considering the scene where Zuko is burned by Ozai currently looks like this:

The fire is obviously going around the sides of his face, not just going directly into it and then bouncing away. It's kinda brushing around. With a scene like this I would expect the ear to have some kinda damage. Is it because they toned down the overall scar so much that any apparent damage on the ear would become nonexistent? Maybe. But right now, the scar just looks like a blob on his face, instead of a spot where fire actually flowed around.

And I just wanted to point out something else I've seen, not in the trailer, but in the fandom. Because I'm already tired of seeing it, it's dumb. Basically I was on a forum and I saw someone say 'if you want something like Two Face from Batman, this is the wrong property to ask for that'. I thought it was super unreasonable because nobody is asking for this:

And nobody is having a 'meltdown', like some other dishonest peeps are saying! People are just mildly upset that the actor's skin looks like it's been coloured in with dye, and there's almost zero hypertrophy to actually telegraph the fact that it's definitively a scar.

So those are my thoughts.. The scar is barely serviceable, they kinda dropped the ball imo.

Don't get me wrong, I totally understand the ~hollywood need~ to make things super toned down so you can see actors' glamorous faces or whatever, but some additional scar makeup wouldn't have harmed his ability to emote or anything. They didn't even need to do anything to his eye.. Just fix the overall first impression the scar gives, which would've worked with the stuff I mentioned above. So I'm not sold on 'it's to show the actor's face better' as an acceptable reason. It's an explanation sure, but it's just not good enough to justify the difference to me.

[adiwan]

Ruins of Alph Ho-Oh replica

I was yet again approached by one of my friends to create something from Pokémon, namely the Ho-Oh puzzle from the Ruins of Alph from Pokémon Gold/Silver/Crystal. I did such a good job with my previous Pokémon creations that they felt compelled to have something too. This time I was compensated fairly.

I used a screen shot from the Game Boy Color game, traced it in Adobe Illustrator. Instead of trying an exact copy I tried to imitate a look of a ragged outline that resembles the pixelated look without being too on the nose.

Then the file needed to be converted into a SVG in Inkscape (because of some wonkyness importing it into Autodesk Fusion 360), and then imported it into Autodesk Fusion 360, where I extruded the areas into a 3D-printable giant cookie cutter model. With that giant cookie cutter printed out I put that immediately into action and stamped an equally-sized slab of polymer clay (about 15cm x 15cm) and textured it with a balled-up piece of aluminium foil. After 30 minutes of baking and a little bit of cool-off time the most arduous part began with the painting process. It took me about 6 hours of carefully building up (and messing up) the paint job with the crappy acrylic paint that won't get used up fast enough. I messed it up a few times trying some color experiments and using my miniature painting washes. The last part was that gave me the most head ache as they are hard to fix when applied. Washing or rubbing it off meant that the crappy acrylic paint would also be removed. I felt stuck at some point using the wash as it made the surface too glossy and the brown darkened a ton. I was disheartened for a bit but rolled with that mistake. All I wanted was to have some minor darker variations. The majority of the time painting on it was to create a more coherent look by switching between dry brushing and applying very thinned layers of more washes. I got to a point that made me happy again with the outcome (also a little bit of sleep helped too).

For the photo I used my Canon EOS 350D (Canon EOS Rebel XT), for which I needed to buy a new battery. The old battery couldn't hold a charge. Next to my house there is a big patch of moss I find quite appealing to look at and I thought it would complement the golden-brown paint job very well. I propped it up with a small box so the whole thing wouldn't sink completely into the squishy moss bed.

[where-i-bitch-about-nashville]

so i have been working crazy hard all summer to finish my kitchen remodel and move out/sell my place.

sort of sad to leave a place that has been home to some good memories but i just can’t grow or heal here, i am always on the back foot trying to stay alive anf that just isn’t enough

not that moving may change all of that — it seems i’ll be up against the children of the corn when i get moved (don’t ask, hopefully i won’t have much to share about that).

but the best part is how good the kitchen looks! every time i walk in the doorway i am greeted by the new brushed stainless steel appliances and the blast of multiple wood grains in tung oil finish. I’m removing the crappy vinyl sticker squares from the floor and have 8sqft to go. I’ve done this all a few at a time so i didnt feel like a giant rat stuck in a glue trap, but also to have the ability to keep using the kitchen.

ahh it looks so good!! it’s really leaning in to natural materials in an industrial way — steel with a little polished brass on the entryway, polished black granite with a pop of trapped mica shooting holographic reflections around the room along with a matte faux travertine made of porcelain for the floors that provides a good textural contrast while tying together all of the boldest color, red and white oaks cherry and poplar wood for all the cabinets and doors all show the same tung oil finish in different ways. Opening the doors to the upper cabinets reveals a deep cherry with its own holographic reflections of reddish auburn and amber tones. The poplar shows less brown and more a natural yellowish, while all of the oak shares tons of open grain texture.

also it has a great dishwasher, and all the appliances play happy little tunes for their control tones. and it comes with rumors, mysteries, a pool, gym, parking, bedroom ceiling riggings! and more!

now as soon as i am done, i’d like for someone to buy it all from me for $560,000

[plaguedghosts]

I got myself out of bed and showered, im still wearing my gross clothes tho because I don’t have any soft textured clean clothes and I cannot bare to wear anything that isn’t a soft texture bc it’s like razor blades on my skin, I also sewed up a sample of a project I want to start on. Oh I also brushed my teeth

It’s a bit wonky but I wanted to make sure my sewing machine could sew through these fabrics before I went and spent over $100 on fabric to make myself a blanket

I gotta pick up my aunts ashes from my cousin whose like in his mid 50s who I have never met

I’ve also decided I need more durable stickers so I can decorate my walker some more. I have a poorly made seat cover that has butterflies on it, and then my crappy caddy bag for storage. Once I get the motivation to create creatures and sell them for money, I want to get a nicer caddy bag that’s more 3D than a strap on zipper pocket so I can carry a drink and actual stuff rather than only my phone keys, wallet, and a small plush

Hi I am in a depressive episode and have been wearing the same clothes for two weeks and can’t bring myself to answer texts or do anything except rot

[uwurakax]

boy, i hate you ♡

pairing: akaashi x reader ♡

genre: angst // cheating // suggestive (not explicit) ♡

summary: you swore to yourself that you’d never stay with a cheater, so why was it so hard to let go? ♡

♡ the sequel “boy, i need you” - read the second part here ♡

word count: 1.9k ♡

author’s note: ok this has been in my mind for ages now and i need this to go into the universe. i haven’t written in years so i am crappy rusty as hell (pls be kind ty). i don’t normally write but i had to. i also believe theres no gender mentioned? (it’s like 4am and i’ve had zero sleep so pls), but i suppose it leans to f!reader. i’ll regret uploading this later haha 🤟😭 also hasn’t been proofread and i wrote this at like 1am (excuses for my terrible writing yup, don’t judge me haha) ♡

♡ (inspired by f.u by little mix) ♡

infidelity

/ɪnfɪˈdɛlɪti/

noun

1. the action or state of being unfaithful to a spouse or partner

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Standing in front of the bathroom mirror, with your eyes red and wet was not an uncommon occurrence. You supposed at one point, it was, but those days felt like a distant dream. You had cried so much, it was a wonder you could keep up the waterworks. Your eyes were swollen, bloodshot and dry. The moisture had left them and were spilled, half dry, on your cheeks. 

It was pathetic. So pathetic how you could keep putting yourself through this. Day after day, breakdown after breakdown, you didn’t know how much more you could take. You quickly wiped away any more stray tears with the sleeve of the hoodie you were wearing.  His hoodie. 

You wondered how much liquid had been soaked up by his clothes. An ironic display of him comforting you indirectly when he was the one who caused those tears to spill in the first place.

You took a deep inhale and leaned over the porcelain countertop. It felt wrong. It felt awkward. It felt..dirty. You gripped the sides of the counter. You couldn’t pinpoint exactly where it all went wrong, it was just like it happened. Or maybe it didn’t, and it was there long before you had taken notice of the signs. 

All you knew was that suddenly, he wasn’t yours anymore. The home you shared with him wasn’t yours. Hell, even this goddamn pristine white bathroom wasn’t yours. For the past year or so, it was slowly losing the essence of you and him, and somehow converged into a you, him and her. You wondered if it just lost your sense entirely and had become his and hers - you being just a warm body that filled the cold space when he was gone, whether that be at work or when he had to take a ‘trip’. 

You were so sick of it. All the insecurity of when it started, why weren’t you enough, how’d it happen, and all those basic questions associated with a partner cheating were bubbling up inside of you. 

You wanted to push all the blame on him. You wanted to hate him, despise him for reducing you to the pathetic crying mess you were now, but you couldn’t. You knew, deep down inside, at some point it stopped being entirely his fault and that it shifted to you as well. Was it a week after you found out? A month? 3 months? 6 months? A year? Did it even matter anymore? You knew you had to stop this. You had to break it off with Akaashi. His unfaithfulness hurt you in a way that you couldn’t possibly imagine. You couldn’t keep living with the fact that he’d come home into your arms, holding you in the same way that he had just held somebody else. Somebody not you. Somebody who wasn’t his girlfriend. Geez, just how many times were you going to repeat that to yourself? You’d lost count on how many speeches and psych up’s that frequented your mind. 

This will be the last time. 

A silent promise to yourself, that this would be the end. That you’d finally pick yourself up, and gain some self confidence to just rip off that bandaid. No matter how much you loved him, no matter how long you had loved him, you had to do this for your sake. With a firm nod, you braced yourself, ready to finally free yourself from the love that was Akaashi Keiji. 

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

It had been a few hours since your breakdown in the bathroom happened. You were anticipating Akaashi’s arrival for the past hour or so. You knew exactly why he was late, it didn’t take a genius to know that he was with her. You wished that just for tonight, he wouldn’t. The suspense was suffocating. You just wanted to get this over and done with.

Not even the soft material of the pillows on the lounge you sat on calmed you. You absentmindedly ran your fingers through the plush texture, hoping to quell the dread and unease steadily rising with each passing moment that Akaashi didn’t enter through the front door. After what felt like forever, you finally heard his car coming into the driveway, the headlights peeking through the blinds. You closed your eyes and took in a deep breath. It did little to slow your racing heartbeat. You got up to greet him when the jingle of his keys echoed through the silent space that was ‘your home’, as he had put it the first time you entered into the building. Thats all it was to you now. A mix of brick and cement that no longer held the warmth that it once had, or perhaps it still did. Maybe that radiating glow just wasn’t for you anymore. 

“Keiji..”

“Hello my love” he was quick, or you were just too slow. Either way, his arms had found their way around you, pulling you close into his body. You couldn’t deny that your own craved his, fitting just a little too well, like jigsaw puzzle pieces. At one point it was relieving. At one point it would have brought you immense comfort. 

At one point it would have felt right. 

However at this moment in time, it didn’t. Maybe for a split second, you could’ve deluded yourself into thinking he was only yours, and you were only his. That sense of peace was gone in an instant when you smelt the pungent perfume of her on him. It clung to him desperately, and would soon dissipate throughout the house. The sickly sweet floral smell invading whatever little nook and cranny it could. Pushing out the fresh air.

Pushing out you.

It just further pressed the need to end things with him. Neither of you were happy in your relationship now.

For your sake and for his, you needed to do this quickly. 

You pulled away from him, hands on his chest. You had to force yourself to look at his face. It was time, you needed that bandaid off now. But when you searched his profile, you couldn’t see any other emotion but pure admiration.

Pure love.

Your breath hitched. Though it was when his hands made their way up to cup your cheeks that your body lost all rationality. Your heart now pumping quickly and loudly for a completely different reason. He slowly leaned in close and you instinctively closed your eyes. Soon enough, his lips were against yours. Soft you thought to yourself, but you could taste it. The underlying taste of something sweet. It was artificial, and definitely not Akaashi. 

God it hurt. It hurt, unbelievably so. 

His hands moved down and rested on your hips, fingers digging in ever so slightly. You both parted from each other, and this time, you decided to look into his eyes.

Gunmetal Blue.

It perfectly matched his beautiful face, and you knew you could get lost just staring into them. It honestly wasn’t fair how easily everything about him could just draw you in.

But you hated how he looked at you now. Like you held the stars in his sky. Like you were the most important person to him. It could almost make you sick, the gaze he had on you. How could he look at you like this? How could he touch you like that? How could he kiss you with such furore when he was just with somebody else, doing the exact same things that he was doing to you?

It just hurt. You never even got a chance to voice your thoughts on his infidelity, on the other woman, on anything. Because soon enough you found yourself led into the bedroom. Had he made love with that woman on the very bed you shared with him? There’s no way you could fool yourself into thinking that that space was sacred anymore. The sheets, the pillows, the mattress. All of it had been tainted. Much like everything else on this house. Contaminated with her touch when you were away and he had to stay home. Everywhere. Every surface, every room, hell every inch just had a lingering scent of her. 

Disgusting. Filthy. Soiled.

All those thoughts were washed away when Akaashi pulled you into the bed. Clothes now discarded haphazardly on the floor, easily forgotten. He gently brushed stray hairs away from your face and just observed you for a moment. He watched you with a smile, and you could reminisce back on your high school days. How was it that Akaashi Keiji, the sweet, shy and most amazing guy was doing something so horrible behind your back? You couldn’t understand. He was such a gentleman, so respectful and kind. So how? How could he do it so easily. 

He pulled you in, lips connecting once again. You knew it was wrong. To fall back into him would just lead you back into the spiral of pain and heartbreak. And yet, here you were, doing that exact thing. 

Because when he looked at you in that regard, when he touched you in the way that set your body ablaze, when he kissed you with such emotion and love, you could pretend that, just for a short period of time, that it was all just for you and only you. You could forget about the other woman. Could forget about all the thoughts of all the things he’d do with her. Forget the marks that he left on her, the same way he did you. 

You’d think of the consequences later, like you always did, because during these moments was when your heart didn’t ache so much, and you didn’t need to be left with your own intrusive thoughts. Here, like this, right now, you could just be two people together. Pretend that he did love you unconditionally.

Pretend that everything was okay. 

You knew tomorrow you’d regret it. Wake up in his arms and sob about how much of a coward you were to walk away. 

This will be the last time.

How many times had you repeated that phrase only to continue this toxic cycle? It wasn’t the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last. You hated Akaashi, but you hated yourself more, because you knew that you’d always lose yourself to him. Like a puppet master with the strings, you were pushed and pulled to his desire. 

You now lay in bed, with the covers over you both, and his hand rubbing a soothing trail up and down your arm. You wondered if this would’ve been a good time to do it. To cut your loses and go.

But..

Akaashi scooted over towards you, his hand now finding its way behind your head. His own now angled to press a delicate kiss on your forehead. You shut your eyes, willing the tears to not show. 

“I love you”

..you could never do it.

With a small, sad smile (hoping that the darkness of the night shielded the pain from him), you whispered the words that contradicted everything you had been feeling.

“I love you too”

It wasn’t an uncommon occurrence. You knew tomorrow you’d go through the same process. You knew you’d feel the same anger, frustration and ache. Knew that you’d put on one of his shirts or hoodies on for any sense of comfort. Knew that you’d cry and get lost in your thoughts. Knew that you’d swear that this was the last time this would ever happen. 

And deep down, you knew that you’d never really do it, because you’d fall right back into loving Akaashi Keiji again, just like all those times before.

[sword-and-stars]

Hi! My ask is about art as well. Specifically, can I ask what sort of painting supplies do you use? Your art is usually tagged as watercolor, do you use liquid watercolor or something else? Tempera maybe? Do you use ink(s) as well? How do you make the white lines/light? I'm very amateur when it comes to paint so I'm hoping to broaden my horizons.. especially when it comes to the usage of white. I hope it's not too invasive 😅 You do not have to answer everything!

I’m actually very much a magpie when it comes to my art supplies; I’ll try about anything once! I haven’t had much chance to play with liquid watercolors so mine are all either from tubes or pans. Watercolors are my main medium; I don’t really like acrylic or tempera much, and I’ve never tried oils.

Pictured above are all of the palettes I have. On the right are all by art philosophy/prima and on the right are all hand-poured by me from tubes, except for the one set on top. Brand-wise I like to use Daniel Smith, Mijello Mission Gold, and Holbein, though the Turner watercolors are slowly growing on me.

More important than your paint is always going to be paper. I personally like a very textured paper, but mostly you just want to look for 100% cotton if you can get it. If not, the canson xl pads won’t hurt you. They’re not amazing but they’re serviceable and fine for practice, and I’d never turn up my nose at using one. If you’re going to spend a lot of money on something quality, paper is where you want to put it. You can get away with cheap, crappy paints and cheap paintbrushes, but paper? Good paper will change your life.

Traditionally, I know that you’re meant to leave white in your paper for highlights instead of using inks or gouache, but I’m not traditional, nor am I trying to be a professional artist. So for me I have no issue using inks for my highlights and spots of white, especially in the case that I’ve accidentally painted over it. I also really dislike using masking fluid.

For my highlights I really love Dr. Ph. Martin’s bleedproof white and for my lines, I keep a bottle of Blick’s house brand of India ink. India ink is great because it’s archival and waterproof, so as long as you let it dry completely, it can handle being painted over.

Brush-wise, I can’t say that I’m a loyalist to one particular brand. Synthetic fibers these days are great, which means you can get brushes that are cruelty-free that can take a bruising and cost way less than something made from real hair. I really like Princeton brushes and the Rafael synthetics, but really you can get away with most anything as long as it holds a point. The biggest differentiation between a watercolor brush and say, a brush for acrylics, is the softness and snap of the bristles and how thirsty that watercolor brush is going to be. Or basically how much water it holds. Snap is how easily the brush goes back to its original shape. Some artists like a softer brush and some prefer a snappier one; it all depends on what you like using.

I hope that helped!

[floatingpetals]

Boys in Blue || Pt. 11

Pairings: cop!Stucky x F!Reader

Warnings: Steve’s a little cheeky, and then all the fluff, no joke, tooth rooting fluff

Word Count: 3500+

Summary: (Cop AU) There was just one crappy thing after enough that happened to her. It possibly couldn’t get any worse, or so she thought until she saw the dreaded flashes of red and blue behind her. Could things get any worse?

A/N: I have NOT forgotten about this wonderful story. I hope you all haven’t either lol. This part is completely fluffy like I said in the warning. Because it is a warning. I just want you all to know that you might die for cuteness overload. So yeah. Fair warning. I hope you all enjoy it and let me know what you think! 

The gifs are not mine, credit to the owner.

Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Series Masterlist

Y/N grumbled under her breath, hitting the breaks as she yet again caught another red light. She let her head fall back against the headrest and let out a heavy sigh. She was so close to being home. It was her day off and she was supposed to be relaxing. But no. Instead, she’d been running errands all day and didn’t get one second to take a breather. She was exhausted and just want to kick her shoes off. Literally.

Robert, Maddie’s oldest, was turning four this weekend and Maddie was at her wit's end. Lexi had learned how to walk recently, although Y/N would never admit to her friend that the ‘first time’ Maddie saw her daughter walk it technically wasn’t the first time. While it was a huge milestone for Lexi, it meant Maddie’s little girl was getting into anything and everything she could, basically a walking tornado. 

Throw in the fact that Robert now thought he was a big boy who didn’t need to listen to his mother since he was turning four and with Jason being gone to work most of the time, Maddie needed an extra set of hands getting the party-ready. Of course, in a very Maddie fashion, she let some of the slightly more important details wait until the last minute. Such as the cake, decorations, and food. Not willing to let not only her best friend down, nor her godson, Y/N stepped in to help. She didn’t mind, Y/N would do anything for her best friend, but even she had a limit.

Only one thing turned into two, that turned into three and now it was six o’clock in the evening and Y/N was ready to pass out. She had already dropped off everything to Maddie’s house, who was incredibly appreciative and swore up and down she’d pay her back somehow. Now Y/N was on her way home to slip out of her jeans and into her comfy sweats.

During all the excitement, she didn’t have much of a chance to speak with either Bucky or Steve. Not that it mattered much, both had work and needed their focus on their jobs. She would send them texts every once in a while, and would occasionally get a response back, but they all had been rather busy today themselves. At one point, Steve jokingly mentioned the full moon was the reason for so many idiots running around today keeping them on their toes. She knew they’d call her once they got off like they always did, so Y/N didn’t think too much of it at the time.

She was almost home, sitting at the red light right down the street from her apartment. Mentally checked out and on autopilot, Y/N slowly put her foot to the pedal when the light turned green. She hadn’t seen the car that pulled up behind her, a familiar black and white dodge she knew well. But she did notice when the car flicked it’s light on, that wonderful dreaded red and blue. Y/N jumped when the sirens went off with the lights, her heart hammering in her chest.

Muttering an oath under her breath, Y/N turned into a gas station parking lot. It was like Deja vu all over again. Once again, Y/N had no idea what she could have done, but today she was too exhausted to even get slightly worked up about it. She let out an irritated groan, her eyes closing shut for a moment and let her head fall back against the headrest. She just wanted to go to bed.

The rhythmic tap on her window pulled her out of her thoughts. She let out a heavy sigh and reached to roll down the window, not once sparing a glance at the officer. She was already reaching for her purse beside her on the passenger seat when the officer spoke.

“License and registration ma’am.”

Y/N’s froze, recognizing the voice anywhere. Snapping her head to the window she stared into a pair of familiar blues and a wide grin.

“What the fuck Steve?” She growled.

Steve let out a laugh, not looking the least bit sorry and crossed his arms to lean against the window of her car. He titled his head to the side, smirking his stupid smirk that always made her stomach flutter and flip.

“You’ve still got a mouth on you, huh?”

“You know what, Rogers.” Y/N grumbled, narrowing her eyes in exasperation. Steve laughed through his nose, his smirk morphing into a smile that caused the corners of his eyes to crinkle. “Isn’t it illegal to pull me over without cause?”

“What makes you think I don’t have a reason?”

Y/N didn’t respond, instead sent him a flat glare. Any other time she’s snap back, but today she was all out of snap juice. All it did was cause Steve to cackle and simply shake his head.

“Oh, come on. Don’t be mad.” He snickered. “You weren’t answering your phone and Bucky and I were getting worried.”

Y/N paused, confused. That didn’t sound right.

“But you haven’t text or called me?”

“Yeah, we have.” Steve frowned. “Where’s your phone?”

“Um,” Y/N grabbed her purse and dug around in its bottomless pit. She could have sworn she looked at it before she left Maddie’s and didn’t have any messages from them. It definitely hadn’t gone off since. Finally finding it, Y/N tossed her bag aside and turned the screen on. Sure enough, there were several messages and missed calls from both Steve and Bucky. “Oh. I guess you did.”

Steve snorted with an amused smirk and shook his head. There were moments when Y/N spaced, whether she was exhausted or just checked out for a minute that Steve always thought was adorable. It only took him one glance at her phone to see it was on complete silence. No doubt she flipped it on at one point during the day completely unaware she did. Y/N ducked her chin bashfully and glanced over to Steve.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you worry.”

“Nah, it’s alright, baby girl. We had a feeling you weren’t intentionally doing it.” Steve reassured her and leaned in to press a kiss against her temple. “I just clocked off and was driving back to the station when I spotted you.”

“Ah. Where’s Bucky?” She asked, glancing over his shoulder. He was supposed to be on patrol today, but one of his stipulations for the next week was always to be with someone. Steve typically was the one he picked as a partner, Sam being a close second if Steve had other things he needed to get done for the day. It made seeing him go back out on patrol a little easier knowing someone else was there to keep an eye on him.

“He had his therapy session push back to 5:30. He should be done by the time I get to the station.” Steve explained absently and brushed some hair from her face. “I gotta pick him up, but we were wanting to know what you wanted to do tonight. Although from the look on your face, you’re about ready to crash. I can tell Buck you might need a rain check.”

Y/N tried to hide her disappointment, but it was hard when all she wanted to do was melt into her mattress. She wanted to see the both of them tonight, even though she’d probably pass out on them. Although, cuddling with them did sound like an incredibly appealing idea.

 “I doubt he’ll listen to me though.” Steve rolled his eyes. He already knew how that conversation would end. “You good to drive? You look that exhausted.”

“Yeah, It’s right around the corner.” Y/N said. Any further she probably wouldn’t feel very comfortable with that idea, but she could see the gate from where they were sitting. Steve was quiet, mulling over whether he should drive her the short distance or not. She was right though; it was right around the corner and he could always sit and watch her just in case.

“Alright, text me when you get home. And turn your phone off silent.” Steve leaned in to press a kiss to her cheek. Y/N hummed happily and mumbled an okay. She waited until he was in his car before she pulled off and went the short distance to her apartment.

She had barely kicked off her shoes before she fell face first on her bed and let out an over the top groan. Her feet were killing her, her back was sore, and she had no clue that she was so exhausted. It took her less than five minutes to hit the mattress and she was out like a light. It wasn’t until a heavy weight settled beside her on the bed and the familiar smell of oak and chocolate that caused her to jolt awake. Blearily she realized who it was. The boys must have let themselves in with her key, either that she forgot to lock the door.

Bucky inhaled deeply, snuggling as close as he could by pressing his front against her back and his arm around her waist. They must have run home to change, she could feel the texture of his favorite Henley against her cheek. He began pepper soft kissed up the column of her next, his nose skimming against her skin. Y/N’s lips curled up in a blissful smiled and nestled back into his hug.

“Maddie run you ragged?” Bucky whispered against her hair. Y/N nodded slowly, still too tired to form coherent sentences. “Well, Steve’s ordered some Chinese. While we wait, do you want me to make you a bath?”

That sounded like a wonderful idea. Y/N mumbled an unintelligible noise of agreement and began to wiggle out of his grip. Bucky snickered and held her fast, locking her against his front.

“Nope, you stay put.” He stated. “I’ll get it started and then bring you in when it’s ready.”

Cracking an eye open, Y/N watched Bucky crawl off the bed and make his way towards her bathroom. He paused to press a kiss to Steve’s lips when the other man walked into the room. He murmured his plans against Steve’s cheek and went off to do set up things in the bathroom.

Steve cocked his head to the side and smiled warmly at Y/N from where he stood leaning against the door frame. She flopped over on her back and opened her arms in invitation. Steve laughed when the effort of holding her arms up was too much plopped beside her and crossed the distance to the bed. Carefully scooping her up in his arms, he drew her close with a happy hum. She let out a sound of content and nuzzled her nose into the crook of his neck.

Steve allowed his eyes to fall shut, listening to her soft breathing and the sound of Bucky starting up the tub. He lived for moments like this when there wasn’t a care in the world, and he had his best girl in his arms. He could spend the rest of the evening snuggled up with her, maybe a movie playing and Bucky on the other side of her. It had been a long week, and he was ready for a much-needed break.

The sound of the tap turning off made him crack open an eye and turn his head towards the bathroom. He could see Bucky bent over the tub, dropping in a bath bomb from the basket she kept under the sink. He spotted several candles set up already, the soft smell of eucalyptus and mint filtering out the open door. Y/N inhaled deeply, the corners of her lips turning up at the smell.

“You two are too good to be true,” She whispered against his skin. A shiver went up his spine, his cheeks flushing. He started running a hand through her hair and pressed a kiss to her temple.

“Why’d you say that?”

“Cause you are.” Y/N shrugged. Steve snorted and shook his head.

“Nah, I think it’s you who's too good to be true.” He countered. She pulled her head back, a brow raised in disbelief. “You are! Never thought I’d ever love another person as much as I do you. I don’t know how you put up with both of us, but my hearts happy you do.”

Y/N opened her mouth to argue, that she was the lucky one and not the other way around when Bucky walked in the room and made an over exaggerated noise of disgust.

“You’re both gross, sappy, and I love you. But the baths done and I’m not letting all my hard work go cold.” He smirked and began untangling her from Steve, who was quite content on keeping her there. He paused when there was a knock on the front door. Steve groaned and let Y/N go. “Go get the food, I’ll put our girl in the bath.”

Steve whined and reluctantly pushed off the bed, dragging his feet as he went to get the food. Bucky scoffed and shook his head, helping Y/N up and towards the waiting tub. She grumbled and leaned back against him, knowing he wouldn’t let her fall.

“Want me to help you get in?” He asked and rested his hands on her hips. Y/N thought about it for a moment before nodded sluggishly. Bucky chuckled fondly and helped her get undressed, occasionally peppering soft kisses on the skin he revealed under her clothes. She pulled her hair up, not wanting to deal with getting her hair wet or having to wash it. She didn’t have the energy to deal with that tonight.

A few moments later, Bucky was helping her settle in the tub when Steve walked in. He plopped down on the closed toilet seat and took in a deep breath of the calming eucalyptus, letting his head fall back against the wall with his eyes closed.  

“Foods stayin’ warm in the oven.” He said, rolling his head to the side and looked over the two with hooded eyes. Bucky was crouched by the tub, one arm resting on the lip while the other arm was draped over the side. He was absently swirling shapes in the bubbles in the water. Y/N had melted in the warm water, watching Bucky’s hand swirl the water with a content smile.

Warmth grew in Steve’s stomach. It was so domestically sweet that he swore his teeth would rot out. He loved every second of it too. The only reason why he hadn’t decided to join her in the tub was the fact it could possibly contain all three of them. They already tried that, and it ended poorly.

“Do we wanna watch a movie while we eat, or catch up on The Good Place?” Bucky broke the silence as he reached for Y/N’s bottle of her favorite body wash and loofa.

“Don’t know if I could focus on The Good Place,” Y/N sighed. Bucky nodded and started to run the loofa up her leg. “I can do that, you know.”

“Shush.” He remarked, completely ignoring the hand she stuck out to take over. “We’ll put something on, pig out on dinner and probably pass out. Do you work tomorrow?”

“No, I took off today and tomorrow so I could get ready for this weekend. Didn’t think I’d have to do everything all in one day though.” She grumbled.

“Well, at least you got it out of the way so you can prepare yourself for Saturday,” Steve said, watching Bucky help her sit forward to get to her back. “Buck and I have off too, a miracle in of itself.”

“We also both grabbed bags incase you had off, so we don’t plan on leavin’ after you fall asleep.” Bucky paused, his hand resting on her shoulder. “If that’s okay with you?”

“No, that’s an awful idea. I don’t want to share my bed with my boyfriends.” Y/N remarked smartly. Bucky scoffed and flicked water at her in retaliation.

“Lean back you brat.” He rolled his eyes. Y/N giggled but did as he asked. “If I didn’t like you a lot, I’d splash more water on you, but you’re lucky I understand the struggle with hair.”

“Have I ever told you how charming you are? You just sweep the ladies right off their feet, don’t you?” Y/N quipped.

Bucky stopped and swiveled towards Steve. Steve blinked and raised a brow.

“Do you hear this? I was all sweet and made her a bath, even helpin’ her and she’s givin’ me attitude.” Bucky complained in faux exasperation. Steve shrugged and cross his arms over his chest, a smirk playing on the corner of his lips.

“I hear her. Cant’ say I blame her though. You’re the one who pulled her over first.”

“Yeah! This is payback!” Y/N interjected. Bucky groaned, rubbing his temple with his dry hand. “Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time!”

“Alright, enough outta you,” Bucky growled, leaned forward to quiet her with a kiss. A peal of laughter slipped from her lips despite Bucky’s best attempts at smothering her, his mild irritation the funniest thing all day for her. Bucky nipped at her lower lip when she didn’t stop and let the loofa plop in the quickly cooling water. “You’re such a brat.”

“Mhm,” She hummed, a cheeky grin on her face. “But you love me.”

“I do,” Bucky sighed. “I question my sanity sometimes, but I do.”

He pushed off the tub to stand with a groan, stretching his arms up over his head and reached for a clean towel. Steve stood as well, stepping around Bucky to leave, gently squeezing his hip as he passed.

“I’ll go get Netflix started and get the food on plates.” He said before Y/N could ask where he was off too. He could see her scowl while he made his retreat. As he walked towards the kitchen, he could hear Bucky teasings.

“Alright, you heathen. Let’s get you out before the water gets colder.”

Steve heard Y/N giggle and stand in the tub, smiling to himself as he set up the television in her living room. By the time he had the food waiting on the coffee table, Y/N and Bucky emerged from her room with Y/N in her favorite pjs. She pouted when she realized they were going to sit on the couch and nod her bed like she thought.

“No cuddling?”

“We'll eat first and then move to your room to finish the movie,” Steve assured her.

Y/N nodded and sank into the plush cushions next to Steve, tucking her legs underneath her. Bucky took up his spot next to her, eagerly grabbing a plate to fill up with food.

“What do you wanna watch?” Steve asked as he flipped through the movies. Y/N paused in filling her own plate and glance up.

“Um… Coco!” She wanted a movie she’d seen plenty of time before and didn’t have to focus too much on to follow.

Steve nodded, agree with her selection and turned the movie on. He grabbed his own plate and the three settled in to enjoy their dinner and movie. Half an hour later the food was gone, and Y/N was slouched against Bucky’s side, her eyes dropping shut now with her belly full. He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and jerked his chin to her bedroom. Steve didn’t need to be told twice, already shutting down the tv to move into the bedroom.

“Wake up baby girl,” Bucky cooed. Y/N’s face scrunched up and she shook her head with a whine. He grinned. “Guess I’ll have to pick you up then.”

By the time Y/N processed his words, he had already scooped her up in his arms and heading towards her bedroom. Her eyes flew open with a squeak and her arm flung to wrap around his neck. She knew his muscles weren’t just for show, but it always caught her off guard at just how strong he was.

Steve, ever the planner, had her television on with Coco pulled up where they last stopped. The sheet was pulled back for Bucky to gently deposit her in the middle of the bed while he was in the bathroom changing out of his clothes. Bucky pressed a kiss to her forehead and grabbed his own bag beside her dresser.

“Be right back.”

When Bucky stepped in the bathroom, Steve paused with the brush in his hair. He smiled at Bucky through the mirror, his heart growing in his chest at the blissful expression on Bucky’s face. Bucky wrapped an arm around his waist, resting his head between Steve’s shoulder blades.

“You okay, Buck?” Steve set the brush on the counter and wrapped his arms around Bucky with a squeeze. Bucky let out a relaxed sigh and pressed a lingering kiss to his back. 

Steve twisted around in Bucky’s arms and wrapped his arms around the shorter’s neck. Bucky stared at him for a moment, his blues eyes dancing with a light and happiness Steve hadn’t seen in a long while. The corners of his eyes crinkled while Bucky tugged Steve forward and kissed him, humming contently. He rested his forehead against Steve, holding his boyfriend tight.

“Never better.”

[et-lesailes]

lily white in blood red // chapter two

prologue | chapter one

pairing: curtis everett x reader

word count: 2100

series summary: you are a part of the upper-middle section aboard snowpiercer, but you do not agree with the classist views of the people you are surrounded by. when the infamous curtis everett reaches your part of the train, you decide you want to join him in overthrowing the train’s misguided inventor– while curtis agrees to let you join, he has other plans in mind.

series themes: angst, romance, obsession, fighting/bloodshed, smut

chapter summary: day one is over, and it’s been surprisingly calm and smooth. however, now night one is beginning, and while curtis may be able to behave then, the next morning is a different story.

chapter themes: mentions of sex, masturbation, a little bit of curtis’ obsession beginning to come out :))

taglist: added in reblog!

notes: feedback is always, always appreciated  ♡

“So. What the hell’s that all about?”

Curtis watches as Edgar gestures towards you, fast asleep. Your first twenty-four hours with the team has passed, and so far, no bloodshed. Not yet, anyways. You’re sure you’ll come across forces eventually, but Yona had explained to you that each day, each cart was always different. 

“What’s what about?” Curtis asks, though his blues are focused on you, watching your frame lightly moving up and down as you breathe and your hair fanned out behind your head on his folded up jacket as a makeshift pillow. He wishes you all could have found a sleeping quarters so you could have a proper bed, but he was pleased that you did not complain at all. 

Edgar looks at him in disbelief, clearly thinking his friend’s gone crazy. “Look, Curtis, I can understand sparing her life. Seems like a sweet girl, definitely beyond fit, but bringing her with us? She’s just-- I don’t know, extra weight we don’t need, especially if ya aren’t even going to let her fight. What’s the point?” Curtis sighs deeply, taking his beanie off his head to run his hands through his hair. “Leave it alone, Edgar.” He simply warns; to be honest, he would have no problem answering any of the boy’s questions, but he truly does not even know the answer to this one. Not the full one, anyways. He knows that for some reason, he needs to protect you, but why? Not a clue. He does not need Edgar to think him even crazier than he already does. 

The boy who has come to be a little brother to him looks at him somewhat irritated before standing up from his sitting position leaned against the wall of the cart. “Whatever, mate. But if that girl holds us back, it’s on you.” He speaks bluntly, though not appearing to be fully mad or upset-- Curtis knows well by now that he’s simply straightforward by nature. “Get some sleep, Edgar.” He says in response, putting his beanie back on though remaining seated. “It’s been a long day. We'll talk about this later.” The younger reluctantly gets up, giving Curtis one last look before walking away, heading over to a spot near Tanya to settle himself as comfortably as he can on the floor. 

Curtis waits until the blond drifts off before standing up, approaching your sleeping figure. Slowly crouching down by your side, he wraps his jacket more tightly around you, ignoring how much significantly colder he is without it. Some carts of the train are well heated, and some are not. Of course, the tail section was the latter, but by the section you are all in, most cars are quite warm-- this one seems to be the exception, seeing as it's just for the purpose of storage, shelves lining the walls. Unfortunately, there were no extra blankets or clothes among said storage.

He strokes your hair gently as he studies the peaceful expression upon your face, marveling again at your smooth, clear skin. He allows his fingertips to brush against your cheek gently, then almost feels bad for doing so. He is dirty, soiled, tainted-- especially in comparison to the ethereal figure that is you. However, when he pulls back, your eyes open as if immediately noticing the absence. He blinks, then frowns. "I didn't mean to wake you." He tells you quietly, and you look at him for a few moments; even though he is still wearing a rather thick sweater, he somehow looks different, maybe even more vulnerable without his coat on. "Come lie down," you whisper in response, slowly turning so that you are facing him. The floor is not very comfortable, especially not when compared to the bed you were used to, but you can accept that it's all you have right now. They had explained to you that it simply wasn't possible to be able to find sleeping compartments every single night, and that made sense to you. It was dangerous to advance too far in one go, especially when Wilford seemed to already know about the revolution.

"Next to you?" he asks lowly, and you see surprise in his features for the first time-- scratch that, an emotion in his features for the first time. You nod your head slowly, biting on your lip as you lift up the jacket. "This is big," you say softly, giving him an encouraging look. "We can find a way to share.... or at least give each other warmth..." 

He feels something in that moment, but he can't quite place what it is. He does not argue or protest, but instead slowly lies himself down beside you. You are laying on your side facing him, your hand moving to divide the "blanket" as equally as possible; however, before you are even done, he pulls you close to his body with a strong arm, your cheeks almost instantly becoming a shade of pink as you feel yourself pressed against his broad figure. “Night.” He mutters lowly near your ear, making you shiver slightly. You aren’t sure how this feels so good, why it makes every single night you had before this one suddenly seem much emptier and more depressing. “Goodnight, Curtis,” you whisper, unbeknownst to how the mere mention of his name upon your silky voice makes his entire being palpitate. 

He’d like to say this is the first time he’s ever slept soundly ever since boarding Snowpiercer, but quite honestly, he had learned a long time ago to become accustomed to the tail section at night. Despite the poor and terrible conditions, his body had adapted, and he had eventually become more submissive to sleep as the years went on, even in such uncomfortable “beds”. 

However, this is the first time in a long, long time that he’s woken up with this feeling, a feeling he cannot even describe. Has he even had it before? He’s not sure. 

It’s hard to tell the time, especially because this cart has no windows, but if he had to guess based on his biological clock, it seems to be early, early morning. Perhaps four? Five? The others are still asleep, exhausted from the previous day-- including you. Sleep shaded blue eyes inspect your figure as he’s spooning you, first checking to make sure you are not too cold. He still has you held tightly against his body, practically trying to both physically and mentally force all of his body warmth upon your own. You are more covered by the jacket than he is, but he still sees your bare shoulder underneath him, the strap of your nightie having slightly slid down. Fuck. He really wasn’t thinking when he made you wear that, he should have remembered that some parts of the train would still be cold. He supposes he had been too focused on arriving to the front section, even parading through the middle section, where heat would be a concept of convention rather than one of rarity. He pulls you even closer, letting out a gruff but soft exhale. You smell good, unlike, well, pretty much everyone he knows. He can’t imagine he smells any better than them, but you don’t seem to shy away from him, both when conscious and slipped away in dreamland. 

He lets himself appreciate your figure a little more. It’s as though you fit perfectly into his body. He admires your shiny, washed locks fanned out behind your head, some close to tickling his nose if he were to move his own head ever-so-slightly. He loves how smooth your skin looks and feels, how silky the nightie feels under his fingertips as he grazes over your stomach; it seemed like a simple matter, but this is a texture he hasn’t felt in years, and it is comforting. Much more pleasant than his rough, dirty coat or crappy tweed blankets back in the tail section. 

He can’t help but slowly let his fingers drift underneath the material, dancing them lightly along your bare abdomen. Shit. He’s already getting hard, and he has to wonder what the hell he’s doing. This isn’t the reason why he brought you along. No, you’re so much more than this. But as the bulge in his somewhat misfit pants tightens, only pressing against the soft curves of your ass that are far more revealed thanks to his hand riding your nightie up, he’s losing his sense of mind. He’s breathing heavier now, but trying his hardest to keep it as inaudible as possible, which is only even more exhausting. Barely craning his neck to look at your face, he sees you are still fast asleep despite his slight shifting and the incredibly intrusive addition pressing against your lower body. He can’t help but get into his imagination a little. How would you react if you felt it, if you saw it? He barely groans to himself thinking of those wide, innocent eyes, those parted lips making a perfect ‘o’ shape, those delicate hands pumping him and slowly sending him over the edge…

He realizes he’s rubbing himself against you now, and he stops with another low and frustrated groan. As much as he’d like to get some type of release, he definitely can’t inside his pants, considering they’re the only pair he has. For fuck’s sake, he hasn’t done this in God knows how long. Yes, it was difficult for a man to be deprived, but when it had been over the span of a couple decades, it eventually became normalcy. Arousal was the last possible thing he could feel while inhabiting the tail section. 

He carefully shifts to lie on his back, now appreciative of how dark this cart is. Still, he keeps a part of the hefty jacket draped over his bulge, now reaching his hand down into his pants to take it out. He hisses quietly to himself as he starts rubbing, his palm sweaty from his thoughts, from the situation, from the sight of your perfect frame next to him. He imagines you straddling him at this exact moment, picturing how perfect you would look gazing down at him, your legs on either side of his hips and your ass nestled comfortably upon his thighs. He thinks of you riding him, still wearing that damn skimpy nightie, straps sliding down your shoulders and teasing him with a partial view of your bouncing breasts, your cheeks pink from pleasure and your moans sounding through the entire front section. He pictures you gasping with delight while coming all over his cock, your chest heaving from being so breathless, so worn out from him and only him. 

A grunt, low groan, and another hiss. He comes, and he’s panting quietly, almost immediately looking around to make sure nobody witnessed this. Thankfully, everyone’s still asleep.

He’s about to use the jacket to wipe off the rest of the remains from his length, but pauses. Looking towards you, he can’t help but hum thoughtfully. He had known from the start he never wanted you tainted. You are something he could never previously have on the train, you are purity itself. 

However, what if he was the one who managed your innocence? If it were in his hands, he would make sure you would never get hurt. He could take it from you, but no one else could. That would be far too dangerous. If your innocence were in his hands, he could protect you and have you. 

He taps his thumb lightly upon the tip of his cock, letting a hint of white adorn his skin. Leaning over, he admires your sleeping face once more before slowly swiping his thumb across your lips, humming lowly as he watches you barely smack them in your sleep at the contact. “Does that taste good, sweetheart?” he mutters quietly, tilting his head. “It wasn’t a lot. I don’t want you to wake up, so the taste can’t be too strong.. For now. We’ll get there one day.” He promises, his voice barely above a husky whisper. 

Wiping the rest off with the jacket, not really giving a shit considering how grubby it is anyways, he fixes his pants before resuming the same position as before, arm wrapped tightly around you. You stir, only just now realizing that there had been an absence to begin with. “Curtis?” you let out a soft mumble, half asleep, and he swears he is already turned on again. “I’m here,” he murmurs, moving to rest his head on top of your own. “Sleep. It’s going to be a long day, you’ll need your energy.”

[antoine-triplett]

STEP 1 - NEW ICON Create a new canvas in Photoshop that is 150 x 150 pixels.

STEP 2 - IMAGE PREP Select the photo you want to use. Photos of one or two people/things work best (For this tutorial I chose a photo of Eleanor from The Good Place!). More than that and the details will be too small to see once you upload the icon. Open the image file in Photoshop and then copy and paste it onto the canvas you created in Step 1.

STEP 3 - SMART OBJECT Right click on the image layer and click “Convert to Smart Object”. Select Edit > Free Transform from the top bar and drag the corners that appear until all of your image is visible in your little icon canvas.

Smart Objects are layers that contain image data from raster or vector images, such as Photoshop or Illustrator files. Smart Objects preserve an image's source content with all its original characteristics, enabling you to perform nondestructive editing to the layer. In this case, they allow you to make edits to a larger version of the image in your icon that will then apply to the small icon canvas instead of shrinking the image and loosing a lot of the detail and editing capabilities.

STEP 4 - BACKGROUND SELECTION Double click on the layer thumbnail and a new Photoshop window will open. This new window should contain a copy of your image. (Tip: Make sure to close the original image file in order to avoid confusion!) Zoom in to around 800% magnification and select the Polygonal Lasso from the toolbar to the left. Slowly and carefully use the Lasso to select the edges of the person/thing in the image. If the selection isn’t perfect, don’t stress! You will be able to edit it once you do the next step.

STEP 5 - BACKGROUND REMOVAL Once your selection has been made, click the button at the bottom of the layer panel that looks like a rectangle with a circle inside. This will create a mask on your image layer and remove the background (as seen in the example).

STEP 6 - CLEAN UP This is where the mask comes in handy! In the layer panel, make sure you have the mask selected and not the layer itself. Use the Brush Tool (I use a regular round brush at 100% hardness) to soften any edges or remove parts of the background you missed. You can use either black or white to remove or add to the mask. This will cause parts of your image to disappear and reappear, depending on how you want it to look. In this case, we want to isolate the person in the image by removing the background.

Save the layer file and the changes should apply to your icon file as well.

STEP 7 - COLOURING I will usually colour icons one of two different ways, depending on the quality and lighting of the photo. For dark, crappy screen caps, I go with the colouring in STEP 7-A. For nice, high-res photos with good light I go with STEP 7-B.

STEP 7-A For dark, crappy screen caps

Brighten the image as much as possible using Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Brightness/Contrast.

Create new layers for skin, clothes, hair, and face - 4 in total. Select those layers, right click and select Create Clipping Mask so you don’t have to worry about colouring inside the lines.

Zoom in to around 600% and use the Polygonal Lasso to select the skin. Fill the selection using the Brush Tool with a skin tone that will match the character(s) in the image. Here is an example of some you could use: https://www.color-hex.com/color-palette/547  Set the blending mode of the layer to “Colour”.

Do the same for the other three layers, using colours that will match their hair and clothes. For the clothes layer, I use the background colour so it matches. On the face layer, I subtly colour the lips, cheeks, and eyes.

Tip: I will often choose colours that I know will be too saturated and adjust them later using the Hue/Saturation panel. It’s easier to see what works once everything is coloured in.

STEP 7-B For nice, high-res photos

Unfortunately, I have no set values to give for these. I mess around until the photo looks the way I want it to and every image is different. What you’re aiming to do is bump up the vibrancy of the colours in the image so they really stand out at such a small size. Pay attention to the background colour you want to use for the icon and make sure it blends well.

Create the following layers and adjust to your best discretion:

Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Brightness/Contrast You want a fair bit of contrast so the details stand out, but be careful not to wash out the skin or lighter colours of the subject

Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Colour Balance If an image is too red/yellow/blue looking, you can use this to even it out

Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Selective Colour Make adjustments to the Black, Neutral, and White sliders to impact contrast; Red, Magenta, and Yellow sliders will usually help even out skin tones

Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Vibrance Fiddle with the Vibrance toggle and not the Saturation one as the effect is generally too intense and looks cheesy

STEP 8 - BACKGROUND Add a background colour of your choosing by clicking Layer > New Fill Layer > Solid Colour. 

You can use a solid colour or add textures/patterns, depending on the look you’re going for. I often go to unsplash.com and search for things like “light texture”, “watercolour” or “grunge texture”. I don’t like using Google search for this because you can almost be guaranteed you’ll be stealing a texture made by someone else, but everything on that site is free to use! Experiment with different blending modes and textures. You can use more than one and try moving it above the photo as well for different effects.

If you want to use a solid colour but feel it looks too flat, create a blank layer and use the Brush Tool in white (#FFFFFF) at around 230px/0% hardness to make a halo behind your image. Set the layer to “Soft Light” for a subtle glow.

STEP 9 - SHARPEN The final touch - Copy the canvas by clicking Command/Ctrl + A, then paste it as a new layer by clicking Command/Ctrl + Shift + C then Command/Ctrl + V. Select Filter > Sharpen > Smart Sharpen

and set it up like so:

Save the icon as a .png file by clicking File > Save As. Aaaaand you’re done! 

I wish I could be more specific about certain steps, but what I do changes a lot from icon to icon. Hopefully this helps! I’m here if you have any questions. :)

[a-sweet-pea]

Hospitality : Part Seven

Previous : Next

“I shouldn’t have let him go.” The squire muttered to himself as Gwen followed the faint tracks in the powder. “Or I should have gone with him.”

“If you had gone with him, there would have been no one to tell us where you were, and then you’d both be stuck out in the snow.”

“Well, at least I could have made sure he was alright.”

The trail of indents got deeper as she went; presumably because they were more recent and closer to the knight. She kept her steps a good foot an a half to one side of the trail and scanned the snow in front of her before each step she took, just to be safe. It made for painfully slow progress, but one wrong step would be one too many. “Do you see anything?”

“No, milady.”

“Name’s Gwen, not milady.”

“Beg pardon, milady. I mean Gwen!”

“I’ll pardon you if you tell me your name.”

“Hob, mi-Gwen.”

“Well, Hob, I don’t know about you, but I can’t see shit.”

They were hardly four feet from the stoop and already the blinding whiteness was straining her eyes. The whole snow covered yard was blurring into a featureless whiteness, no texture, no tracks.

This isn’t working.

“Brace yourself,” she said. Hob planted his hands firmly on either side of where he sat, cross-legged. Gwen lifted him up to her chest. “I’ve got to get closer to the ground if I’m going to see anything, and that means getting on my hands and knees, which means you can’t be in one of them.” It took a moment of fumbling to undo the button of her coat's breast pocket using only one hand, but as soon as she had it open, she brought the squire up to it. “Luckily, I’ve got a nice warm place you cang hang out while I look.”

“But…I wish to help!”

“You can help once I find him, but it’ll go faster if I do this part solo, trust me.”

Hob scooted over to the edge of her palm and looked the pocket up and down. “How…do I just…” He looked up at her with worried eyes. “Should I wipe my feet first, milady? Ugh!” He smacked his head. “Stupid. Gwen.”

“Don’t worry about it,”Gwen laughed. “It’s a crappy old coat. And you can call me milady, it’s growing on me.”

Hob swung his legs around so they dangled above the lip of the pocket. “I suppose I can just-” And he did just; tumbling off the edge and into the thick black wool with all the grace of a newborn puppy falling down a staircase.

“You okay?” Little elbows and knees poked into her chest as he righted himself. She could see the movement from the outside of the pocket as well, the faintest wriggling.

“I’m awright,” came the muffled cry. “Warm!”

“Good.” She buttoned the flap closed and dropped to her hands and knees. These gloves are less waterproof than I would have liked. Which is to say, they are not waterproof at all.

Now that she was closer to the ground, she felt confident moving a bit faster. She shuffled forward, knees already wet and soaking. (As waterproof as her gloves weren’t, pajama pants were doubly impractical.) She moved her flat palm across the snow in front of her in wide sweeping arcs. It was three inches deep now, not quite as tall as one of the little knights, but certainly enough to be practically impassible. He can’t have gone far.

But he had gone far (for such a small thing); eight feet from the door in fact. That’s where she saw it. Just a slight divet in the snow, next to a little white lump. The snow was still fresh and powdery on it. She only had to brush it lightly with her thumb to reveal gleaming silver beneath. The shape shuddered.

Bingo. She pulled her right glove off and dug her bare hand into the snow bank. Her fingers curled around a shivering shape; a little figure clad in metal so ice cold it hurt to touch, with soaking wet fabric and slick leather between plates.

The incident with Owain and the cat couldn’t have lasted more than five minutes and getting the food ready couldn’t have been more than another five. He must have gone off almost right after the door closed, to be so cold already. Was Owain’s armor this cold? She didn’t remember. But clearly it didn’t take long; her fingertips were bright red and hurting already, dusted with rapidly-melting snow.

Despite his fancy title, Lord Tyrian was almost as small as Hob. He must have been one of the youngest knights in the company, younger than Gwen. He was thin too, in a scrawny-kid-who-got-held-back-a-few-grades-and-only-ever-brings-plain-baloney-sandwiches-for-lunch kind of way. Come on. She rubbed her thumb back and forth against his breastplate. Open your eyes little guy.

He did. And opened them wide. And he didn’t take his eyes off her, as he prodded the skin beneath him. “You had me worried for a minute there.” She whispered, but he still tensed up at the sound. “What were you thinking, wandering off into the snow? You’re practically a popsicle.”

“I thought…I thought I could find another way in.” His voice was hoarse and frail, like he had a frog in his throat, and the frog had pneumonia. “D-did Owain fight bravely, at least?”

Gwen laughed. "He was crazy brave. He drew his sword on me and everything."

"And the others…"

"They’re all inside warming up."

For some reason, this news was not at all comforting to the young knight. He stared at her torso with an expression of mounting horror. Cold metal gloves pressed into her palm as he pushed himself backward; his arms were shaking. What did I say? The broad-shouldered man’s parting words to her echoed in her head; ‘he doesn’t know you’re not a man-eater.'

Gwen pressed her gloved hand to her face. "Holy fuck, I need choose my words better.” She laughed, not because this was a particularly funny situation, but in an effort to untangle the hideous uncomfortable knot that formed in her stomach at the realization of what the knight feared.  "I didn’t eat them.” He flinched at the word, and it made her heart hurt. "They’re in the house, getting comfortable and having snacks."

"But, I-I can hear them c-crying out…" He pointed at her chest with a trembling finger. Gwen could almost hear it too; muffled shouts coming from her jacket.

“Oh, I’m an idiot.” She fumbled with the button of her jacket pocket for a moment before pulling her glove off with her teeth and tossing it aside. “That’s your squire, and I totally forgot about him, and that’s my bad.” She unbuttoned the pocket and reached in as gently as she could, but the little figure tucked in there still jumped at the sudden appearance of a hand. She pinched what felt like either side of him between two fingers and lifted slowly up. The squire emerged gasping, arms wrapped around her two fingers like they were the safety harness on a roller coaster. 

He looks so helpless with his legs just kicking in the air. Her heart hurt again, and she had an overwhelming urge to wrap both him and his lord in Nadia’s cashmere scarf and give them thimblefuls of hot chocolate.

“Hob!" Lord Tyrian tried to sit up but he was too weak. He only managed a wobbly half-sit-up and before collapsing against her fingers.

“Whoah, easy!” She couldn’t keep a dumb grin off her face. “Gimme a second and I’ll orchestrate the big dramatic reunion.” Gwen shifted her weight backward and stood up as carefully as she could. Other than the wet spots on the knees of her pajama pants catching the breeze and freezing the dickens out of her, it went smoothly. It helped that Tyrian was lying down already so he couldn’t fall over.

She lowered the dangling squire to her other hand and let go. His legs were moving before they hit skin, and he barrelled into the prone knight, wrapping him in a tight hug. She lifted her hand so she could hear their quiet voices.

"I shouldn’t have let ye go alone.”

Tyrian coughed. “You shouldn’t have let me go at all.”

“I told ye not to!”

“Well, I should have listened.”

Tyrian turned his face toward Gwen, but he still addressed his squire.

"So, the giant…”

“Didn’t eat Owain. Not yet, anyway.”

“Or anybody else!” Both men flinched at the interruption. Not so loud. “And I’m not planning to either. ” Gwen brought her hand close to her chest and turned back toward the door; still open a crack. “I don’t know about you boys, but my ass getting numb. Let’s get inside.”

A/N: I maxed out the 100 text block limit my dudes, I had to go back and condense multiple paragraphs down to singles. WORTH IT (I hope/assume). @a-black-pegasus

Extra A/N: FUCK ME ITS 4 IN THE MORNING. WHAT IS THIS NONSENSE

[not-poignant]

Hey Pia, recently I started therapy but my therapist brushed aside me being emotionally abused & gaslit by my sibling by saying sibling fights are normal & we should focus on how I continue 'letting' it happen. I left the session rlly upset & it sent me into a spiral of self-loathing & doubt all over again/had I made everything up after all? I'm in a better place now but it would be lovely if you could tell me how to deal with such situations better, but no pressure!

Oh boy, bad therapists. Have I had some experience with them.

tl;dr: bad therapists suck, don’t give up, etc. etc.

THIS POST IS SO LONG I AM SO SORRY

Firstly, it is awesome you made the effort to go see a therapist. And please please don’t think all therapists (or even most therapists) will be like the one you saw.

Therapists are regular people, and unfortunately, sometimes regular people suck and a degree doesn’t change that.

Caveat: Not a therapist. Just a person who has seen a lot of therapists. YMMV.

I have seen a lot of therapists in my lifetime. And a lot of bad therapists. I won’t give you the exact number, but it’s well over 10. It’s actually pretty normal to sometimes meet therapists that are just a poor match. Even if the therapist had good reasons to think you were participating in a difficult situation, there’s a lot of ways to bring that up that aren’t straight up invalidating, and they should have tried to hear you, rather than put their opinions forward over yours.

Therapy should be a collaboration. Not just you listening to them. Not just them listening to you. They might disagree with you, they have to be able to do so tactfully and respectfully, and role model to you how to do this in a way that is respectful. And you have the right to disagree with them.

And I’m gonna be honest with you. Sometimes therapists will say things you’re not ready to hear, that hurt and make you doubt yourself. When I first heard: ‘Pia, do you think maybe you want to be sick?’ I about lost my shit internally, and went home and felt suicidal for two weeks. I didn’t think they were right, but I was terrified they were right, and I didn’t think I could tell them about it because how dare they ask me that question in the first place! What the hell?

But I went back and was like: okay, so after this session, and what you said, this is what happened. And I felt totally unsupported and certainly didn’t feel like I could tell you about this, because what, are you gonna tell me I want to be suicidal too? Here are all the ways I think I don’t want to be sick. I’m still deeply scared that deep down I might want to be, but I think you have to realise that what you’ve said is really hurtful to all the parts of me that fight every day - through lifestyle, coming here, eating well, reading self help books etc. - to not be sick. And I need you to acknowledge that.

And they did. And they apologised. Do I think maybe they wanted me to have a reaction? Yes. Do I think maybe they had no idea it would make me suicidal? I think also yes. They never would’ve done it otherwise. The aim isn’t to make your clients want to kill themselves. At all. Ever.

But anyway, the point is (...ignore how long I took to get here), part of therapy is actually telling the therapist when they’ve fucked up and seeing how receptive they are to that. That’s your responsibility as the client, and that’s something you take on when you hire them. Whether or not you feel you can do that is another thing. It’s totally okay to write down how you feel in a letter, and hand it to them, or email it to them. You can say ‘read this and I’m going to go wait in the waiting room and you can come get me after.’ I have written down a ton of things I wasn’t ready to say.

But it’s an important step in actually - weirdly - learning how to stand up for yourself in a working relationship that goes both ways.

Now, about therapy in general. They work for you. You hire them for your health. So if it’s really not working out, then you also have the right to fire them and find someone else.

Sometimes it can be worth explaining why you’re considering firing them in an email, so they know where they went wrong, but to also give them a chance to reconsider how they’re approaching you, i.e.: ‘I feel like you invalidated my experiences and my feelings, and therefore reduced all of my difficulties and issues around this to something you could sweep aside before telling me things about my own experiences, without ever really hearing me. That’s not fair, it’s inaccurate and it’s not helpful to me. I accept that I might have things to learn about my own behaviour here, but not through you invalidating my upset and hurt, and not through you minimising my real feelings. Because of what you did, these were the consequences (and tell them that you became more self-loathing and so on, that’s not how they’re supposed to leave you feeling after a session!) As a result, I’m not sure / don’t think this is a good fit / will look for another therapist / would be open to suggestions from you as to how to proceed.’ Etc.

That’s a mature way of handling it. (And honestly, even if the therapist doesn’t like getting the email, it is good for them to know why people are leaving early. So they know you’re not just a ‘non-compliant patient’ or whatever the fuck (which you’re not), but someone who has been genuinely distressed by a session that they directly contributed to - like you paid money for that shit! That’s crappy.)

But another mature way, if they really just seem gross, is to fire them and find someone else. You can take a break first, for sure. I always have taken a short break and sort of thought about what I really want too. Like, what do I want? These days it’s ‘to be more functional and to enjoy life more.’

It’s worth calling around and actually screening therapists if you can (depending on how the system works where you are). Screening therapists can be asking things like: what therapy modalities do you prefer? How do you deal with situations where someone is being verbally abused by their sibling? Do you take this seriously? etc. You can definitely pre-screen. I’ve always done this in emails which look like this:

“Dear (whoever they are)

I’m (such and such) from (place) and have been diagnosed with (disorders) due to (one sentence history). I am seeking therapy to help me with (specific things like - learning how to be less anxious, or learning how to be more functional in my life).

Are you taking new clients?

If you are, could you please let me know the following to see if we might be a good fit? 

(Here I ask about modality - CBT is contraindicated in my case so it rules out a lot of therapists automatically, and then I ask about their experience in extensive child abuse trauma and history, as well as medical and chronic illness, and pain and fatigue issues. Here is also where I ask if they offer a sliding scale to people with a low income and no insurance.)

Thanks so much for your time.

(Pia.)”

If they can’t take the time to answer a simple email, either with a call or by replying, then I don’t want to see them anyway, imho. I’m looking to hire them, not the other way around, they can at least communicate some actual credentials to me that mean more than a damn BA degree. But in Australia, therapists will often reply to emails like this. I’m not sure how that is in other places in the world.

Now as to the actual meaty part of like, you going home and feeling fucking awful afterwards. Here’s some stuff you may want to keep in mind in the future:

1. They work for you. And their job is not to make you feel like you are the worst ever. That is no therapist’s job on the planet. Challenging you is not making you decompensate and become non-functional. They fucked up. Sometimes therapy will be challenging and sometimes it will hurt and if you are prone to feeling self-doubt it is going to make you self-doubt. But there is a line between ‘this is stuff that would come up anyway’ and ‘this is something you directly made happen by invalidating my feelings.’ When that happens, it is not a sign that you are the worst ever (you are not even the worst), it is a sign that they made a mistake in their job, like any person who has a job can do.

Unfortunately when therapists make mistakes, they’re making mistakes with people’s psyches, instead of fucking up the icing on a cake, or the level on a brick wall.

But yeah, they are not some authority on high to tell you What is What about Your Life.

The only expert on your life is you. And you invite them into that space to treat you with respect in the process. Invalidating your feelings is not respect. (And I say that even as someone who has disproportionate reactions to things.)

2. Idk what your support situation is like, but it may be worth reaching out to people (or animals) who can make you smile or feel a bit better or get you outside of your head for a bit.

3. Sensory stimulation to also get you outside of your head for a bit. A warm/hot shower or bath. Running your hand over interesting textures like velvet or a nubby couch. Sipping a hot drink that you took the time to make for yourself.

4. Reflecting on what’s actually happening internally like. ‘I feel like they think i’m X and X’ or ‘they must think that I’m just X’ or whatever it is. And then write that down somewhere - both for yourself, and if you decide to share it with them later, so you have clarity on what’s occurring. Sometimes just naming what you’re going through can give you enough knowledge to be like ‘right, I’m afraid that a relative stranger thinks I’m terrible because they know almost nothing about my history and they made an assumption about me.’ - If you take a step back from that, it can help to remember they are a relative stranger who knows almost nothing about you.

*

It’s hard here because I’m not in that session and I don’t know why the therapist said what they said (though trust me, I do believe you that they fucked up - some of them suuuuck), and I know that you go to therapy to be challenged, because if your therapist is just ‘hey fam everything you’re doing and thinking is fine go home you’re just great’ - you’re gonna go home and nothing is going to change. But I think you and I both know that there’s ways of challenging people which don’t suuuuuuck, and that if you have a good trusting bond with your therapist, you can also tell them when they fuck up, and they will actually make steps to repair that with you, so you can be stronger going into the future.

That’s actually one of the best parts of a therapeutic bond, imho, especially as someone coming from an emotionally abusive background - learning how to repair mistakes and realising that you can both do that collaboratively together, and see things get stronger. (Since, in situations of abuse, ruptures can mean no opportunities for genuine forgiveness or growth ever).

But you can’t do it with all therapists. Because some therapists are just shitty at their jobs. Like a bad baker. Or like the dude that makes pizzas but you know he just doesn’t care about pizzas really. Or the doctor who fat-shames instead of doing their fucking job.

I don’t know if I said anything that helped. All I have is some sense of solidarity because I have done the whole bad therapists thing too. My life was helped a lot by realising I was hiring them, and that they work for me. Before that, I always felt like they were some kind of godly authority figure that could see into my inner mind in a way I couldn’t and blah blah blah could Judge Me Like A God (thanks childhood, for featuring an abusive figure who was a cop that fucked up my relationship with authority figures forever). It was really hard for me to understand that no, they’re just like every other damn person you’re gonna hire to work for you: they can be fired if they’re not good at their job or if their vision is totally different to yours.

You’d fire an interior decorator who wanted to fit out your house in something you hated. You definitely have to fire a therapist who wants to fit out your brain in something that makes you hate yourself.

[deoffal-mp-adm7000-n-s1-2022]

Paintings Part 7, my thoughts.

Immediately before rushing into why many of the pieces don’t have concepts or exact meaning behind them, I just want to go over my processes within the collection just to properly explain how the pieces were made and on what quality of media they were made on and why. I will also be segregating my work into phases of development as indicated by the year and media marked in each section of this collection, those phases being the 2021 section and the start to this collection, the first uses of colour in the collection, the woodblocks and the 2022 phase so far. No further paintings are in development and I am currently capping the painting collection off at 51 pieces, the reason being for capping them at this stage is due to me now focusing entirely on research and not wanting to make even more pieces when I have already made more than enough, as the eventual climax shall evidence, I’m sure of it so much so because I won’t even be able to exhibit all my works and so there will plenty still left to make up the bulk of this project and will prove for some great publication stuffing once my submission is all rounded off.

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2021 PHASE

The essential points to this phase are that I mainly focused on making low effort hobbyist pieces that were white, portrait based, varying in levels of resolution and all were to refresh my painting abilities. After all, I hadn’t painted for close to 2 years at this point in late 2021, and had wanted to pick it back up again but felt no motivation nor any encouragement either way. Yet at the time I was going through quite a rough patch at home and took to making quick and experimental paintings to take my mind of off family drama as I always used to as a younger person. These painting are all done on 150gsm black paper and are done automatically the same way any of my sketches would be done, yet these pieces of course rely on playing with permanency and so I find excitement in an organic challenge like that (the obvious dilemma when comparing paint like acrylic media to erasable pencil, i.e. graphite etc). The reason behind their varying resolution quality and the layering of paint and the inconsistent meanings behind each piece or lack thereof all together, was because I wanted to enjoy just letting go for a while, and I used to be quite the quick large scale painter and so I would waste no time in painting each of these within 30 minutes and with no water on my brush for hours. I would acrylic paint and almost scratch at the building layers of paint with any rudimentary tool at the time, from spoons, the ends of straws and toothbrushes, even glue spreaders and dry brushes for textured effects or to blend the edges, or to even create wisping almost smoke like strokes over the pieces to give them greater atmosphere, rather than simply painting a collection of flat white concentrated marks on the page. I was in my element as an expressionistic painter, something I had done many years before I became fascinated again by my need to use ink and to focus on immense line based detail in my work again. The reason for the use of black pages and the lesser quality of them is because I found an old pad and wanted to remind me myself of the dynamics of wet crappy paper when trying to make pieces on the fly, It is also hard to get affordable and easy to access black papers, especially in A4 for some reason, I can only believe that’s due to it being such a niche within contemporary art practice but I’m no expert on that considering I tend to use pliable yet cheap enough paper for my white paper works simply because it allows me to make many works on a budget, yet due to the average paper quality (I typically buy 200gsm for my pencil works, it’s a happy medium between firm and malleable when working with pencil, ink and paint the way in which I do) and how I use it I’m never getting a bad result or a material failure for using it the way that I do given that my processes don’t require the most expensive of tools and mediums to create impactful resolutions. I also didn’t paint any of my subjects on canvas, because stretching or buying canvas in bulk is far too much effort for the result and speed of production that I’m wanting when working, plus it would be counterintuitive to my processes to work on something as bulky and rigid as canvas with it’s framing too that makes transporting, scanning and even storing said piece far harder and less economic than I prefer, paper is just simpler in scale but can yield fantastic results on a smaller budget yet with greater more pliable scale, especially given it doesn’t need a built in frame to support its own composition as a media when exhibiting too.

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The Introduction of Colour in the works:

This element of this post should be the simplest, I can’t stand the usual suggestion of adding colour to my works and will be making a post about this soon enough due to how much frustration it causes in me upon the typical gesture towards colour from various people around me. Those closet to me now that I don’t see colour as essential as a form of symbolism, it’s most certainly far harder to make an image of grave importance and detail without such simplifying notes as colour and the objective symbolism behind each colour. I want to work achromatically and so I only paint colour when I feel free and manic enough to do so, I don’t often get this impulse as my catalogue of work shows, but I can often say that most people can’t leave sleeping dogs lie and assume I either don’t work with colour out of complacency or laziness, this couldn’t be further from the truth, I’m just a mighty stubborn person who doesn’t like being directed by outsiders when it comes to my creative license. I love wearing and living life in an abundance of colour, my partner and I often enjoy warm and bright tones with celebrated embellishment and design, not often wearing bland or boring pieces, it’s often a disconnect between Deoffal and myself of course, Deoffal is so much more the mythological in story and depiction, whereas I am just a man who enjoys most of life and can’t overcomplicate out of fear of giving up the ghost here and now. In short, I believe that living in black and white or monochromatically (notice I’m not speaking about the aesthetic of the work because my main work has nothing to do with colour of any kind as stated before) is far too narrow and so I do indulge in all manner of cultures and clothing in my own personal dress, and is often and always noted within my research references too. I’m sure Deoffal will also echo elements of this too once I create a costume that represents them comfortable while proving I am still their creator and imposter alike by the colour scheme and the symbolic elements of how they will dress, This will eventually become important in my notes when concerning how to present Deoffal to the world as a physical alias draped over my own visage, but for now I’ll leave this probing of colour for future notes.  

In summary of this phase I needed some colour to spice up my painting sessions and to make the most overt aspects of each piece pop all the more, to crown certain details the same way any other painter would attest to doing too, that pops of colour are keys to drawing the eye and they are naturally attractive to our most basic of instincts, it’s black and white, the achromatic and colourless that terrifies us or atleast emphasises the uncanny quality of work such as mine. This in turn can add to the horror and subtract from it in equal parts, it can for example look far too garish and become cartoony if the colours are far too bright and light, and it can exemplify the horror by again making the uncanny all the more disquieting due to it’s likeness in textural play within the painting to emanate flesh or meat. I of course take this subtext directly from a Baconian understanding on the importance of red as a symbolic colour within painting and especially within works of ultra-violence and pieces that depict futile subjects, especially when you merge white and red, looking like coagulated fat and viscera, offal by any other name. I’ll expand on colour all the more in the next sections but here you get the idea behind my casual approach. The only real outlandish paintings to consider from this section are those which depict jellyfish, as the notes for each of those pieces showcase, I like their supernatural qualities as living tentacular bodies with no nervous system, they are one of my many smaller tit bits within my list of references which directly represent my fascinations for the abhuman as found in other species that prove the depths and challenges of existence and anatomy as far more experimental in nature than we believe ourselves as capable of being. This theme being a usual one of mine when you consider just how probing my portraits are past the typical and ordinary, while keeping to an uncanny parallel with rare real world intersections within certain details in each piece, after all I don’t do people but I do reimagine how the unknown can create it’s own versions of establishing entities and evolutionary configurations within the millions of species here on earth.

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Woodblock pieces:

These two pieces, though an incredibly minor section of this overall section of my current portfolio are by no means a crazy change from the beaten path laid out by the other works. However, there major difference is the emphasis on layering and using the rigidity of the boards to hold the weight and thickly Goghian layered paint, something which would ruin the standard black or white paper easily due to just how weighty and soaked the medium can be when being worked over to make it this overdone. As the notes to these piece entail I was using the layers of paint to play with texture in the most physical way any illustrator/ painter can, by using scraping off and reapplying paint to get this beautifully abstract marks and patterns, they all come together to make one coagulated viscera of an atmosphere is most certainly and utterly different to the smoke like marks of the previous paintings. This is where you can start to see why I paint over my ink works too, it gives greater weight to the atmosphere of piece, emphasises it’s shadow play and tonal workings, and even blends the lines between the background and the foreground, like a charcoal piece but with a far more permanent outcome. Almost similar to my notes on Chiaroscuro and the Sfumato of Caravaggio’s and Rembrandt’s paintings as featured in my essay, this texturing of both the emerging background against nauseous white and the pops of colour are most certainly trends in my ink pieces too. Of course forgetting the colour, yet the pieces are supposed to be submerged in blackness on black isles of deep contemplation and so these more thickly made pieces are far closer to represented the black oceans and terrains of said concepts, the murky and inconsistent waters surrounding my at the time thoughts on pessimistic discourse within art as I was writing my essay while painting these. I’m not a huge fan of these experimentations, as I see them as unable to be evidenced properly as they have a certain shine and quality in real life that no scanner or camera could recreate them best in this now digital format, and I much prefer the transcendental nature of the quicker and less layered paintings before this. After all, these pieces took far longer to make are less visually stimulating than the more diverse selection in the previous works and the later 2022 series. I have however broken down many cardboard boxes and old sketchpads to make more boards to paint on so there may be more experimentation in future to further study this mode of work, though you’ll have to check my social media for those tests once this project is done.

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The 2022 pieces:

In summary of this section, there is a clear merging of both the textural experimentation of the woodblock pieces and the lightness and generally typical style of the first set of pieces, this time the referencing is seemingly more overt and less mindless. The only reason for more close referencing in these pieces is because I was revising alot of medical and art books of all kinds and so the paintings were a natural result of my own mental scrapbooking of the select images of interest I knew I had to put a spin on for my own enjoyment, as often is the case with being an artist, it’s not always about being academic. Even Mozart wrote songs like “Leck Meck Im Arsch”, and so most creatives need to vent their creative impotent into something else and in turn climax in the eventual outcome jovially out of the necessity to simply make works just for the impulse to make something if anything at all, without needing a whole lot of weight behind the intention of making said works in the moment.

In summary of the dabbling between meaning and non-meaning within the paintings, it’s a subject as inconsistent as the imagery found within each piece, meaning in these works is so Baconian, in that to me alot of this is about mentally evidencing things I’ve seen or concepts that I can’t simply jog from my head by going for a quiet walk, after all alot of my ideas haunt me in both unnerving and hopeful ways too. Unnerving to me contextually meaning, I have alot of nightmares that don’t even feature in my work, I believe this is often due to just how explicit some of the material I am viewing can be when studying such subjects within my work, and can effect the brains internal ability to process graphic material subconsciously when you overload your brain with deeply questionable and unconsciously, paranoia inducing material, after all I often have nightmares about the very anatomy and entities that my work creates, that’s of course not to say that my work is fuelled by dreams, my dreams are fuelled by my art and so if I abandoned what I deeply enjoy making automatically and avoided my subconscious stresses then I wouldn’t be honouring people like Lovecraft, as he often wrote about things that unnerved him as he had pantaphobia. This directly leads into the hopeful perspective, i.e., because my work is so subconscious and automatic I never run out of ideas and so the work can flow like water and in turn I am constantly making works based on literally anything relative to my interests, this of course being of great ease as I am constantly reading new weird material to fuel said ideas and so it’s a paradox either way. A paradox in this circumstance being to mean I can create meaning in the pieces in the Baconian sense, as in, by turning my spaces, my books, brain and practice into a constant and open scrapbook that immediately returns to fuelling the production of everything I make, and of course I can’t explicitly remember the reference behind a piece than it becomes an intentional test of material and medium or of a certain angle and style of methodology within the work. In short it all informs and constantly adapts my progress into producing diverse and avidly quirky pieces seeing as I limit my medium and expertise to portraiture, yet, allow for total freedom as to what becomes the next portrait, this will become a support important theme within the main illustrations, as you’ll see. The reversal and duality of the hopeful then of course being that the brain can’t often handle such a compounded of unconscious data everyday and so I often get headaches, have nightmares, lose track of reality sometimes and even have been known to hallucinate, my work is both a creative outpouring and a drowning, like a fountain perpetually filling it’s base to completion and spilling itself over and over again, such is human consciousness, the parent of all horrors and the pessimists greatest enemy, a reoccurring and hugely important motif within the horror genre too. In summary of all that has been noted in these sections and in this post, meaning is fleeting in these pieces, the same way it is utterly inconsistent in the works of Francis Bacon, someone my paintings of course aim to pay tribute to in their subconscious state, after all, Bacon was not fond of tacking on meanings where it would be irrelevant or would not make time to even consider greater depth in some of his pieces because all he was reoccurring symbolisms and a passion for misdirection and miscommunication, something art critics lapped up and began to write books about as if to gain his favour. This isn’t me arguing Bacon was not conscious of his work’s greater subliminal messaging, often arguing he painted truth in the most blunt way and that truth always left a ghost of subjectivity wafting about, no matter his own clear and high intelligence when discussing his work, he was found of citing symbol from torn periodicals and moth bitten photo albums to recreate those same images through his own design and intuition. This is something painters like myself deeply admire and don’t want to overcomplicate their expressions all the same by pretending there’s some greater and well established depth, it keeps the mystery of painting breathing and most see it as a gateway to their own take on the work, of which I implore you to do with my work, you have my permission and you have my written manifesto made subliminally throughout this blog so use it as a guide, that’s the point of writing all of this in the first place, and it’s about time the audience did their homework. Great art needs space for some mystery, otherwise it’s just tacky and overworked for the sake of pandering to everyone who can’t make the time to study a work, yet instead follow the most beaten and destroyed path to simply and voyeuristically judge each work as to how well it would fit as a tax write off as the next commodity, or whether or not it would look good on a t-shirt to sell to brain dead chimps. Meaning will be subjective to the audience either way and so I won’t give them all the answers if their going to make up their own anyway.

[ohhkkaebsonggg]

Title: Mis à Nu Pairing: artist!wonho ✗ student!reader AU: artist! ✗ college! Genre: angst, artistic humour, slight fluff,  Rated: NC-21+ Summary: He was an artist looking for a student who had guts and strength but also the gentle hand that could make a circle look a million dollars. You were that student, sure you had the gentle hand but did you have the guts? Shin Hoseok was handsome but he was serious when it came to art as well, what was he famous for mostly? Painting the exposed physique. A/N: Okay, so this is my first Monsta X series type anything. I hope you all like it, smut will be in the later chapters for now it’s angst and slight artistic humour. Also shout out to @btsfanficss as she’s an inspiring writer and I love her work and promised to tag her in my own.  Word Count: 7.8K | ❶ | ② | ③ | ④ | ⑤ | ⑥ | ⑦ | ⑧ | ⑨ | 

| KPOP Smut Game | TextingStory | Admin Apply | Selca Ship |

It was one thing to get accepted into art school, but you never thought you’d actually end up landing in the top three to go help curate an art show for the Shin Hoseok. He was a legend, his first ever art piece was his bedroom wall which he drew on as a child.

But it wasn’t just drawings, it was art, creativity, it’s what drove him to be the greatest artist of all time. You had read many books on him, his own autobiography he wrote, watched interviews even sat one of his live talks.

One thing you adored was his explicit taste, in the human body and how he sees it. Using various colours, textures and techniques to show it in all different ways. You were nervous, this was a dream come true. All you had to do was pass the exam, go to the fancy gallery dinner and then wait.

You continued to doubt yourself, there was ten minutes before you had to go in and settle into your seat and really focus. You had studied all the books, looked over all the websites yet you felt like you were walking in with a completely blank mind.

They didn’t say what the exam would be about, they barely even mentioned it in all honestly, they just said ‘there will be an exam.’ And so, you went straight to the library, spending as much time there studying as you could.

Your best friend and roommate both thought you were crazy and needed to calm down, but you had no time for messing about like they did. They didn’t understand what the fuss was until you had to put it in a way they would understand.

Of course it was no use, they still had little understanding of it but you just shrugged them off and continued studying. You glanced down at your watch, seeing time fly by so quickly. Miss Kim walking out and greeting you along with the other two female students that were chosen.

“Please come in.” She said before turning on her heel and walking back inside, expecting to see three desks with test sheets you sat three A1 canvases, bare and palettes filled with selective colours.

“Ladies, you have one hour to paint a nude. Be careful, these will be shown at the gallery tonight. Please go stand by the canvas and have your brushes in hand.” You walked over to the far right one, picking up a fairly normal sized brush and glancing at your professor.

Waiting for her approval, she looked at her watch. Eyes waiting for the hand to hit noon exactly.

“You may start.” She went and took her seat and you turned to your bare canvas, what could you do? Okay so you had the colours of brown, white, blue, red, yellow and black. An hour to paint it all onto an A1 sized surface.

You could do this, you placed the soft cream bristles into the white, bringing the colour to mix with the brown a bit to create a lighter shade. Almost of a tan skin tone. And so, you began your basic outline of the body.

Starting with the back, making it arched slightly to show the curved of the butt. Once you had a basic shape and outline you picked up the palette knife, grabbing some of the chalk paint to mix in with your own paint. Creating a thick texture before applying to the canvas.

Making sure to thickly layer it on as you go, You weren’t exactly sure what you were doing but you were going with the flow in a way. You had the back and butt done with slight tonal and shading with darker shades used.

The arms were by her side and her hair flowers to halfway below her shoulders. The thick stokes and plain white background all had a meaning to you. The sound of an old alarm clock began ringing throughout the studio and you glanced at your piece.

Pleasantly surprised with your work, you never have yourself a lot of good feedback. But now the more you stared at it and compared to the others, you realised that you could have done so, so, so much better.

They had scenery, variety of colours in theirs making it more interesting and friendly while yours looked like every other piece an artist has probably done. You sighed, placing the painting knife down and leaving after you signed your work.

You had five hours before you had to be showered, dressed and ready for this stupid galley show tonight. Great, now everyone could see and judge your crappy artwork. Just what you wanted.

You headed straight back to your dorm and showered, there was no time to waste at this point. You needed to be there in time to meet some artists and get advice. You also wanted to guard your piece and maybe keep people away from it so they aren’t blinded.

After dressing yourself in a powder blue cocktail dress that hugged your body you did your make-up and hair. Grabbing your clutch, keys and phone and taking them with you as you drove yourself to this gallery. Your phone decided to be a fuck up though and stop working halfway there.

Making it impossible for you to arrive. You finally did, at six thirty in the fucking evening. You were an hour and a half late to an exhibition featuring your own artwork. You walked inside, earning looks from guests around. You looked at the walls, eyes finally locking with your piece.

You strutted over towards it, coming to a quick stop when you saw one tall gentleman with his hands tucked away in his pickets observing the piece.

You slowly walked towards it, acting like a normal person just looking at a painting. You glanced in his direction, seeing his side profile which showed such angelic features. The dim lighting from the lights that hovered above your canvas made his face glow.

“It’s rude to stare you know?” He muttered while he kept his gaze on the painting, you quickly withdrew yourself back and looked up at the terribly done picture.

“Sorry.” You apologised, going quiet and wondering when this guy was going to leave.

“I like this piece, it says something.” He spoke once again, you turned your head to look at him. This time taking in his features quicker so you weren’t caught staring. He had fair skin, not too pale but not dark either.

A pair of rounded frames sat on the bridge of his nose, light chocolate brown curls just hovered above his eyes. His lips were plump and mesmerising, and his eyes. Although you couldn’t see into them much, the lights reflected into them as if they were glass.

“Byun Baekhyun.” He said finally turning to you, holding out his hand while you glanced at it. You placed your own on his and looked up to meet his sharp gaze.

“Y/n L/n.” You introduced yourself, going to shake his hand instead he brought your hand to his lips and pressed them against it. They were warm and soft, exactly how they looked.

“So, I get to meet the famous Y/n L/n.” He said with a slight smile and you could feel the blood rush to your cheeks.

“I-I wouldn’t say that.” You said looking down at your feet, embarrassed. He used his index finger to push your chin back up and look into your eyes.

“I adore your artwork. I have a friend that’s actually looking for a student to help with him this autumn. Shin Hoseok?” Your eyes went wide, was this guy joking.

“Y-You know Shin Hoseok?” You asked shocked and he nodded before adjusting his glasses on his face slightly.

“We’ve been close friends for a long time. I’m sure someone like you would enjoy his company.” He said and as much as you wanted to say yes, those two other girls put in just as much time and effort into this as you did. Possibly even more.

“As good as that sounds, it’s not fair. Those girls are amazing and have a better chance. I’d hate for him to waste an opportunity on someone like me. But thank you.” You said and he nodded, accepting your declination.

“Well if you ever change your mind, you know who to contact to get to me.” He said before you nodded and walked off towards the buffet table. Baekhyun pulled out his phone and went into his contacts before clicking on the familiar number.

Holding his phone up to his ear as he listened to the sounds of ringing, shoving the other into the pocket of his dress pants.

“Hoseok? Hello, how you been old friend? That’s good. Look, I don’t want to try and play favourites but I think I found you your girl.” Baekhyun said as his eyes trailed up your figure. You were like an angel to him, he’d never seen someone to beautiful.

“Y/n, L/n. She’s an art student and applying for your programme. I promise you, she is not a waste of time.”

Your phone was working but your car broke down halfway back to campus which means you were walking in the dark, in a cocktail dress and uncomfortable heels with no reception. It felt like hours had gone by and not a single car and passed.

And when you thought all hope was lost you saw headlights approaching fast and quick, slowing as they got closer to you. You prayed it wasn’t some creep mistaking you for a prostitute or something. They wound down their window.

That face looked so familiar but it was so dark and you were so tired you didn’t even care at this point.

“Are you okay? Do you need a ride?” The man’s husky voice asked as you nodded, stepping towards the car door and opening it before sliding in.

“Where to?” He asked, placing his hand on the gear stick and the other resting on the wheel.  

“Just Kyung Hee University.” You said and he nodded, keeping his face in the shadows. You felt a little uncomfortable getting a ride from a complete stranger but what else were you supposed to do? Sit around and wait for a friend to show up?

The drive was quiet, it felt like the drive was taking hours even though it was only twenty-two minutes to get there.

When he pulled up outside the school grounds you thanked him and hurried out of the car before running to your dorm.

You peeled the tight clothing from your body and kicked off the heels that were causing your feet to blister and grow sore. Not even caring about showering or putting on other clothes you fell right into the squeaky mattress and fell asleep.

Waking up the next morning to loud banging on your door made you drag yourself out of bed and throw on a t-shirt and answer it. Seeing your best friend with a large grin on her face as she tried to hide the excitement that was dying to burst out.

“It’s here.” She waved the white envelop in his hand as you reached out and grabbed it while pulling her inside and sitting down on your bed. Her sitting opposite with you as she watched with a smile as you stared at it, reading the label.

You bit your lip before tearing open the top in straight line before sliding out the folded paper, shaky hands unfolding it neatly before eyes scanning over the letter.

“Dear Miss L/n, we would gladly like to inform you that you have been chosen out of the top three nominated students and will be attending the six weeks as a student working under great artist Shin Hoseok…!” You squealed with excitement, jumping forwards into your best friend’s arms.

“I knew you would get it! You have amazing talent and you worked so hard for that position.” She said as you pulled back and reread the letter quickly making sure it’s real. Black on white.

“I can’t believe it. I mean I’m glad I got it but…why me?” You said slightly shocked, this is all you’ve ever dreamed about and it’s happening.

“So, when do you start?” She asked as you look back down and read over the details.

“Next week, four in the morning!?” You almost screamed at the time you had to be up and at that place by. Was this for real?  

“Damn, why do they want you to start so early?” She asked, peering at the letter to see no reason as to why you must start at such a ridiculous time of the morning. 

You were already swamped with your other studies and keeping on top of them, how were you supposed to do that and do this?

Maybe you should reconsider this, sure it is a one in a life time opportunity but this should go to someone who has time and deserves it. You looked up to make eye contact with your best friend.

That look on your face which she immediately recognised and shook her head while crossing her arms over her chest.

“No. No. Absolutely not. You worked just as hard for this shit, even more plus did you other subjects. I can take notes in class for you and help with your homework and assignments. Do not give this up please.” She begged and you sighed.

Maybe you could do this, you nodded your head and agreed.

“But if it gets too much for you then you tell me okay? I don’t want you swamped with work just because you have to do my stuff too. Deal?” You held out her hand and with a smirk and a nod she shook it and agreed.

“Deal.”

“Now, what am I going to wear on my first day?”

First impressions were important, not with just attitude but with how you look as well. After many hours and even days of trying to decide what to wear you went with a beige skater skirt and a tucked in white blouse.

You had your hair pulled back into a low bun with strands handing out and decorating the shape of your face. Your rounded golden rim glasses sat on the bridge of your nose and your art diary tucked into your arms carefully.

Along with notes and your own paint brushes. You got your friend to drop you off, so there you stood. Outside the large building that looked like it was old and falling to pieces. You walked up to the door, looking down at the address and number to make sure it’s correct.

You pressed the button for the apartment number and heard a loud buzzing before a little silence followed.

“Name and what do you want?” You heard a deep voice boom from the speaker and you jumped a little.

“U-Uhm, Y/n L/n and I-I’m here for t-the art thi-ng?” You stuttered, your cheeks heating up. There was silence on the other end before a loud buzzing was made again and the door creaked open a little. Allowing you to open it wider and step into the building.

There wasn’t an elevator which meant you had to walk up 5 sets of stairs before getting to his apartment. On the way up you kept trying out things to say and all.

“Hi, it’s so nice to be working with you.” You said in a chirpy tone, shaking your head as you realised it sounded fake and girly.

“Thank you for allowing this opportunity. I take this very seriously.” You said in slight monotone, it made you sound grown up but also like you were trying to make yourself sound older.

“I thank you for accepting me, what shall we start with?” You said in your normal happy tone, it wasn’t perfect but at least it didn’t sound fake or forced. Before you knew it, you were standing outside his door.

Hesitating to knock, you hand had been balled into a fist and ready to knock but thoughts that hadn’t even crossed your mind started to swirl.

What if he doesn’t like me? What if I look too slutty? Will he be mean? Can I actually do this?

You knocked softly three times, hearing only silence as you gripped your book tightly enough for your knuckles to turn white. You held your breath, your eyes growing watering from the lack of oxygen.

Finally, you heard some movement meaning the man was still alive, the door opening and there he stood. A white shirt clung to his body, he wore black sweatpants and grey socks. He had his glasses pushed up so they day on top his head pushing his hair off his forehead.

His brown locks sticking in different directions as if he hadn’t brushed it or combed it. That breath you had been holding slowly left your body, allowing you to suck in another deep breath.

“Ah, the student?” He asked with a slight smirked, you could only nod and look anywhere else but at him.

“Well come on in and we’ll get started.” His eyes quickly scanned over your frame as he said so before shuffling back into his apartment with you to follow. You closed the door and watched him disappear behind a door, you just stood awkwardly as you looked around.

Seeing many famous paintings and some his own he must have painted, all different styles, colours and techniques. They went well against the white plain wall. Hoseok returned just moments later with a silver tray and two tea cups with steam flowing out the tops.

A small bowl of sugar cubes sat between them as he placed them down on the coffee table and gestured for you to sit on the couch.

“I made you some tea, I want to thank you for coming to early. I understand it’s not a good time to be up and working but you have a lot to learn. So we’ll have tea and then I’ll take you to my studio and we can get started…what was your name again?” You wanted to frown but smiled instead and repeated your name.

You tried to remind yourself that he must have a busy life and so him not remembering your name wasn’t the end of the world but this man was your idol. Someone you looked up to and strived to be in so many ways.

He had confidence, rhythm, techniques and a way that made him to not only loved by many but desired by the opposite sex too.

Women wanted to be with him, men wanted to be him. He was just so balanced and into this world and that’s all you’ve ever wanted. A place to be in this world. 

“Right, now we shall start. Follow me.” He stood up and began walking down a hallway, you stood and followed. His studio was in his own apartment? That’s new but interesting. You watched as he twisted an old rusty doorknob and opened up to a bright room.

The silk curtains had been opened to let the warm sun beam in, there in the room stood a few canvases in a semi-circle around a small what looks to be a couch or bed of some sort. Some of the canvases were just started, you could see the outline of curves.

Some had colour, watercolour to be specific added to them. The body shaped and positioned in ways a normal human probably could achieve with willing enough. Some were unrealistic and some were.

He walked over to one and removed the large canvas, placing a new blank one on instead before retrieving a set of watercolours and paint brushes.

“Oh it’s okay, I have my own paint brushes. They’re my lucky ones.” You stated, showing him the few you held tightly in your hand. He scoffed at your comment and rolled his eyes. Did he really just do that?

“Jennie!” He called out, you were confused and about to tell him your name was not Jennie when a door opened and a completely naked woman walked out and towards you two. You looked away, feeling red colour your cheeks as she approached you two.

“Ah Jennie, this is y/n. She’s an amateur art student who has come to learn under me. Y/n this is Jennie, my partner.” You didn’t know why but your body froze. Partner? Your mind circled with the definition.

Partner;

1.  a person who takes part in an undertaking with another or others, especially in a business or firm with shared risks and profits.

 either of two people dancing together or playing a game or sport on the same side.

 either member of a married couple or of an established unmarried couple.

 a person with whom one has sex; a lover.

 a friendly form of address by one man to another.

Maybe they were just close friends, wait why do you care? You are just here to paint and learn and get this over with. Who this man has any sexual relationship with is none of your business. You nodded to whatever they were saying and turned to your canvas. Picking up your pencil ready to start.

“What are you doing?” He asked glancing at your hand with what can only be described as a confused and irritated look.

“I usually draw my outline in pencil before I start.” You said softly, he pulled the pencil out of your hand and threw it across the room. You just stood there in shock and scared.

“No, we don’t do grade five shit. Pick up your paint brush and get started.” He spat, why was he so angry all of a sudden? Not long ago he was a gentleman and made you tea and welcomed you nicely?

You nodded and quietly begun, trying not to stare and show your awkwardness. It was a little hard since a tall woman stood naked in the room in a very what you can only say is a ‘sexual position’ to you.

You glanced over to Hoseok’s canvas to see him doing so well, his eyes trained on her body carefully as he painted what he could see on the canvas. He ran his tongue over his lips and glanced back at his canvas, watching his hand glide along the soft surface.

Creating shape, colour, mood and more. You looked at your own, seeing how realistic it had been trying to be. Maybe you should try something unrealistic. You washed your paint brush off the beige skin colour and began to apply a navy blue instead.

Gliding it along where the beige sat, but doing it in a way that made half of the body navy and the other half skin colour. You continued, working in with other colours of red, yellows and purples. Enjoying how it was turning out.

Hoseok sighed as he put his paintbrush down and looked at his canvas, to him it was another stupid nude piece that would never sell for more than 2,000₩. He bit his lip as he glanced at your canvas, watching your hand glide and create such a big expression.

How is some college student able to do something so beautiful when I can’t even do a body? He though as his eyes moved from the canvas to you. Seeing the trained look in your eyes as you worked. Blocking out the world and distractions.

“Times up.” He growled, causing you to jump and luckily your brush didn’t flinch as you did. Jennie let out a sigh of relief as she got up and stretched her body out from staying in such a position for so long. She walked back into the room and you assume she’s going to get dressed.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he spat, grabbing your wrist and pulling you towards him. You held your breath once again, trying to find your voice somehow.

“I-I was just doing w-what I thought you wanted me to do.” You stuttered and tripped over your words, you could feel your eyes stinging with tears. What was this man’s problem? 

“Well stop trying. You are here to learn and follow my orders.” With that he let you go and stormed off to another room. You stood there shocked and confused as to why he was suddenly being an asshole. 

“Well I’ve never met such an asshole.” You rolled your eyes and scoffed as you spun around to glance at your piece. It had some type of glow to it? You weren’t sure if it was just the bright lighting through the apartment window of the early sun or maybe it did have a glow. 

You began pacing back and forth, trying ti figure out what to say to this man to try and get him to calm down or at least stop being cold towards you in a way. 

“Hello sir, I’m so sorry for causing you any trouble and I do want to learn--no that sounds too ‘pet teacher.’” You said to yourself as you shook your head and continued pacing. 

“Excuse my behavior, I don’t work well in new environ--fuck no. Fuck! Fucking hell. Why am I so shit at all of this? He’s a fucking dick and needs to grow a pair and get over the fact he has a tiny cock!” 

“I have a tiny cock?” You heard a stifled laugh come from the other side of the room and spun around to see him standing there. His hair still pushed back by his glasses and a look in his eye that send shivers down your spine. 

“I-uh, no! That’s not what I meant. I meant to say ‘clock’ cause you have one on the wall that’s very very tiny and I can’t read the time on it. I-uh, I should actually go. Coming here was a mistake this was a mistake.” You said reaching and grabbing your cardigan and bag. 

Going to walk past him but instead he grabbed your arms and pushed you against the nearest wall. His face only inches from yours but his lips only millimeters and they hovered over your own trembling one. 

“You leave when I say you do.” His tone was demanding, very dominant, very...

“Daddy.” As soon as the word slipped you slammed your hands over your mouth and pushed past him and out of the building as fast as your feet would drag you. This was not happening, you did not just say that to your mentor. 

What the fuck happened? It’s like you had no control over your mouth at that time. Out of all the times you could have embarrassed yourself with words it had to be then and there didn’t it? 

You sighed as you walked down the sidewalk, completely unaware of anyone or anything. Your shoulder barging into another and you looked up to apologise to the person only to see eyes you’ve seen before. 

“Baekhyun?” You questioned just to make sure you were talking to the right guy. 

“Y/n, it’s nice to see you here. What are you doing here?” He asked as you chuckled and brushed some loose strands behind your ear and glanced down at your shoes. 

“I um, just finished my first lesson with Hoseok. I got in! I can’t believe it. It’s been...great. Really great.” He gave you this look where he wasn’t sure whether to believe you or not. 

“Why am I having trouble believing you?” He asked and you smiled and shrugged your shoulders. 

“I--” 

“Y/n, there you are. You forgot this at mine.” Hoseok suddenly piped in, holding up the navy blue cardigan you must have dropped when he pushed you up against the wall. You were so stunned you didn’t even notice. 

“Oh Baekhyun, good to see you. I see you’ve been talking to y/n.” Hoseok glanced at your for a second. 

“Yes, we just bumped into each other. I was about to run over to yours actually and tell you about this true artist competition coming up that y/n might be interested in. This is her chance to get her name out there.” Baekhyun said gesturing to you. 

“Well I’ll discuss it with my student. Come along y/n, we still have a lot to work on.” Hoseok said but you shook your head. 

“Actually, I’m kind of unwell. I think I’m going to head back to campus.” You said, rubbing your stomach slightly. 

“I’ll walk you home.” Baekhyun said, going to place his hand on your waist but Hoseok instead pulled you into him and smiled at Baekhyun. 

“Actually, I think I should take her home, I know her address.” And with those words you were being dragged to wherever the heck Hoseok decided to take you. You were a little scared, what was he going to do to you? 

Was he really going to take you home? Or take you to his apartment to abuse you or something for running out like that. You kept your mouth shut the entire time, afraid if you spoke you might upset him more than he already seems to be. 

You arrived back at his apartment, you tried to keep your distance from him but it was a little hard with him backing you up against the wall. You felt a little intimidated by his height and how close his body was to yours. 

His cologne was strong and filled your nostrils, you weren’t sure what he was wearing but it was beautiful. 

“If you ever speak to Byun Baekhyun again, I will end any chance you have at becoming an artist. I’m a very powerful man, I can do things that people wouldn’t even dream.” His harsh tone mixed with his words frightened you. 

Was this man crazy? Thoughts on what to say swirled in your head, you wanted to practice them, a habit you gained from a child. But nothing seemed to want to leave your mouth. You decided to nod and try and squeeze past the man and out the door. 

Taking the fastest way you could back to campus so you could just hide. Your nerves burned and you fell a buzz rush through your body as soon as you made it into your room. Throwing off your cardigan and slipping off your shoes before sitting down. 

Your head spun and your chest heaved up in down, what had you gotten yourself into? This man was very weird and different from what you had read and seen from on stage events. You could feel your stomach bubble and mind twist to come up with a solution. 

Listen. That’s all you could do for now, just listen and follow orders that he gives you and then you can paint and gain experience and then he’ll write a reference letter for you guaranteeing you a gallery show of all your artworks and then you can officially get your name out there. 

Easier said than done.

You ended up falling asleep and waking up to your phone ringing like crazy, who was trying to disturb your slumber? You grabbed your phone, blinking harshly so your eyes could focus as they got used to the bright glow of the screen. 

‘Kim Taehyung is Calling…’ 

You sighed and answered the call, holding the phone up to your ear to listen to your brother probably yell into the phone about something. 

“WHY IS NUI UPSET!?” You winced as his voice bombarded your ear and nearly made you go deaf. 

“I don’t know, what did you do?” You asked, voice hoarse as you sat yourself up and brushed your fingers through your bed hair. 

“I don’t know. I did everything right. I put the toilet seat down after using it, I did the washing, I folded the clothes and put them away in the correct drawer.” He explained and you nodded, responding with a hum. 

“Have you said anything that might of made her upset with you?” You asked and you heard silence for a minute.

“I don’t think so. I was telling her about work giving me more hours and—“

“Ah, see. You did something without consulting her and so she’s upset about that.” You explained and he finally understood.

“Ooohhhh. I’ll talk to her, thanks so much sis.” He said and you smiled to yourself, where would your brother be without you?

“Okay, give my love to Nui and tell mum when you see her next I’m doing great. Love you bro.” He said his goodbyes and hung up, you got out of your bed and slipped into something more comfortable.

Some silk pink shorts and a simple dark grey t-shirt, letting your hair fall out as you slipped on some slippers and grabbed your wallet. It was time for a late night trip to McDonalds for dinner. Only a three minute walk from where you were.

You walked in, thinking on what you want as you read the menu. You finally walked up and ordered, getting your receipt and waiting for it to be ready. Once it was you walked outside, not looking as you bumped into another figure.

“So sorry sir.” You apologised, bowing slightly before meeting their eyes. A smirk appeared across their face as you recognized them.

“Mr. Shin what brings you here?” You asked stuttering throughout your sentence as you avoided eye contact as much as you could.

“I was just getting something to eat quickly. I didn’t realise the time I was so busy painting. Care to join me?” He asked but you only shook your head and was on your way.

Things felt so weird around him now, you didn’t feel comfortable or anything. You just felt like you were, a waste of space.

“I’m sorry, you were pestering me about this before you were selected and now you want to quit? What changed your mind?” Your professor crossed her arms over her chest as you played with your fingers.

“He just is weird. He has a different mood like every five minutes. He was nice in the start then something changed I guess? I don’t know, but I can’t keep seeing him.” You said calmly as she began chucking.

“What?” You asked confused as to why she would laugh at a student’s safety.

“What Mr. Shin Hoseok has Miss L/n is a condition called ‘Bipolar.’ It’s when he has an often change of mood. I’m sure with a little research you can find out a way for you two to get along.” Her hand directed towards the door of her office.

Stating for you to ‘leave’ while she got back to her work. You had heard of the condition before but never thought that an artist like Shin Hoseok would suffer from it. You decided to take her advice, getting into your laptop and researching what it was and how you could handle it.

A lot of web pages and books written about how to handle someone with this issue and what things they don’t like. After some time you finally put the laptop away and grabbed your coat before taking a walk outside.

You wanted to walk around for a bit, get to know the city in a way. You decided to call Baekhyun to ask if he wanted to show you around, you pulled out your phone and dialled the number for his assistant who would transfer you to him.

“Byun Baekhyun’s office.” The lady answered as you stopped and moved to the side so people could walk past while you talked and stood in the stop.

“Hi, my name is Y/n L/n I was—“

“Oh yes! Mr Byun said to let him know when you called. I’ll put you through.” And within seconds Baekhyun’s voice was ringing in your ears like a beam of sunlight warming you up on a cold day.

“I thought you’d never call again.” He chuckled, a smile broke out on your face.

“Actually I was wondering if you wanted to give me a tour around the city maybe? We could meet up outside a restaurant and maybe get something to eat?” You asked, you weren’t sure if he could hear the shakiness in your voice but he still agreed.

“I’d love to. Where do you want to meet up at?” He asked, you looked around. Spotting a simple restaurant before glancing at the name.

“Minho’s?” You suggested and heard a small hum.

“Alright. See you soon.” He hung up and you headed over to wait, sitting down in the seat and waiting quietly for Baekhyun to show.

As soon as the call ended Baekhyun couldn’t wipe the grin off his face, he began getting ready. Putting on a simple white button up shirt tucked into some blue jeans and putting on some shoes before grabbing his sunglasses and slipping them onto his face.

He left this apartment quickly and began heading down the pathway to the restaurant, he was thinking about what he would talk about with you once he got there. He didn’t want to talk about work or jobs or Hoseok.

He’d prefer to keep it casual, normal conversations about interests and dislikes. He was practically power walking down the side-walk, people giving him funny looks as he went by which he ignored. Until he ran into someone he didn’t want to see today.

“Baekhyun, it’s nice to see you today. Where you off to?” He asked, a small smirk on his face and Baekhyun tried to think of a quick excuse.

“Just out for lunch with a friend.” It wasn’t a total lie, he was going to lunch and you were just a friend…for now.

“Who’s the friend?” Hoseok asked, crossing his arms over his chest as he watched Baekhyun’s face slightly stiffen.

“Nobody you know, just an old art friend of mine.” Baekhyun lied right through his teeth causing Hoseok to smirk.

“Seven years and have you ever been able to lie to me?” Hoseok asked and Baekhyun sighed, getting irritated because he had to meet with you.

“I know who it is now, you’re off to see my student.” Hoseok chuckled at how red Baekhyun began to go in the cheeks, but even though he looked like he was mocking Baek on the outside on the inside his insides were burning in irritation.

“I-I know what this looks like Hoseok but I promise you it’s not what you think. We’re just going to lunch and having a nice day out together.” Baekhyun said calmly, face still heated and red.

“Yeah, like a date.” Hoseok stated and Baekhyun shook his head, not wanting to give in easily. Baekhyun did want this to be a date, but he didn’t know if you saw him like that or not.

“Baekhyun, if you go on that date, I’ll tell everyone about Lisa. I’m sure the newspaper will love to have your photos splashed and in black and white. ‘Critic? More like Killer.’” Hoseok said, using his hands to get out what he was saying.

“Lisa was an accident! You know that, and you’re just as guilty as me that night!” With that Baekhyun stormed off, in the opposite direction. He wasn’t sure if it was a good idea for you to see him right now, Hoseok smirked as he watched his friend storm off.

He began heading towards the restaurant that you sat at, you were glowing. He’d never seen you looks so relaxed and happy. But he could feel his insides burning again knowing that the only reason you were so happy currently was because you thought Baekhyun was coming.

He walked on over, acting like he didn’t see you at you. You looked up and almost yelped when you saw him standing there at the front counter. You grabbed the menu, hiding yourself behind it.

“Ma’am are you ready to take your order?” The waiter asked, holding a pen and notepad as he looked down at you. Hoseok looked over, already knowing it was you and smirked. ‘

“No not yet thank you.” You squeaked out, after a few minutes you decided to put the menu down. He must have not seen you. As soon as you placed it down you screamed slightly and your body jolted as you saw a smirking Hoseok sitting across from you.

“What can I do you for?” You asked, trying your best to plaster a smile onto your face as Hoseok smirked slightly.

“Well hello to you as well, it’s nice to see you after you ran out of my apartment the other day and we haven’t had any contact since then.” Hoseok said and you began to go red, feeling embarrassed that he knew you were trying to avoid him.

“I-I’ve been busy.” You defended causing a small chuckle to leave his lips.

“I don’t know how you think this works but you’re required to come every day from four to whatever time you leave. Staying for at least four hours which is the minimum time before you can leave.” Hoseok explained causing you to roll your eyes.

“Yes, I know how it works I read the letter when I received it thank you.” You said with an irritated tone evident before pulling the menu back up to hide your face.

“Then what are you doing, sitting in a restaurant, waiting for Baekhyun?” He asked, causing you to slam the menu back down onto the table. A few people glancing in your direction to see the commotion.

“How do you know I’m waiting for him. I could be waiting for my mother to arrive.” You said and he smiled, enjoying your reaction to this.

“He told me all about it, he told me how he was going to come to this lunch, then walk around with you, he would buy you flowers, then when you thought things couldn’t get better you two would go to the fare tonight and he would kiss you on top of the Ferris wheel. Once he’s got you all over him, he’ll take you back to his apartment, sleep with you, then slowly destroy your life.”

As Hoseok explained Baekhyun’s ‘So Called’ plans to woo you, he kept a stern face. His tone didn’t weave any silliness or over exaggerations. He was dead serious.

“No, Baekhyun wouldn’t hurt me like that.” You said, trying your best to fight back the tears. Is that really who Baekhyun is?

“Well if he didn’t want to hurt you, then why did he stand you up?” You opened your mouth to protest and defend Baek but he had you there. Where was Baekhyun? Hoseok lived further away from Baekhyun and he made it here before him.

Your phone began ringing, the number reading a slightly memorable one so you picked up. Eyes on Hoseok as you answered the call.

“Hello?” You asked, hearing the same female’s voice you spoke to earlier.

“Yes Miss L/n, I am Mr. Byun’s assistant calling to inform you he had to cancel last minute due to a meeting coming up. He would like to reschedule and would like you to call back when you have a time and date in mind?” Your eyes tried to leave the man’s who had been sitting across from you.

But they couldn’t, you were so shocked that he knew this would happen. Had Baekhyun done this to women or girls before? Lead them on and make plans and ruin everything at last minute. No he was too good to be like that.

“Actually, I’m free Monday night, would he like to take me out then?” You asked, hearing some shuffling of papers before her voice returned.

“He has a meeting from six until eight so he should be good for eight-thirty to eleven.” She said and you agreed to the time and date. Hanging up and looking away from Hoseok.

“Let me guess, he had some business to attend to? Yeah, that’s his message of ‘go away.’” Hoseok said, you didn’t care anymore, tears burned your eyes as they threatened to fall while you shook your head and kept it low to avoid any fuss.

“Why are you doing this? Do the problems in my life entertain you or something? You’re a sick person.” You stood up and stormed out of the restaurant, paying the bill before leaving.

Hoseok sat there stunned, your words hitting a nerve and something in his head was triggered. His own mother abandoning him after she said she would be back later.

He was sitting on the floor in the living room, playing with his blocks when he saw his mother with bags in her hands. She looked sad.

“Mummy where are you going?” He asked, his mother whimpering as she fought back the tears.

“Just out for a bit baby.” She said softly.

“Will you be back?” He asked, she nodded. Biting her tongue as she tried not to cry.

“When?” He asked, she sighed. Taking in his picture for a moment before answering.

“Soon.” And with that she left him, alone. Forgotten.

Hoseok didn’t realise he had phased out and stood up before leaving as well to return to his own apartment.

He sat in his chair, hand balled into a fist as he rested his chin on it slightly. Thinking as his other hand rested on the arm of the leather brown couch, his fingers tapping slowly against it as he was lost in thought.

“Hoseok, are you coming?” He was brought back to reality a he looked up to see Jennie standing in the door frame facing him. A silk black robe around her but not done up showing him the black lace she wore underneath as she had a subtle smirk on her lips.

He sighed and stood up, slowly walking over towards the room. She made her way towards the bed and he turned around so his body now faced out towards the couch he just sat on. He closed the door slowly, not sure if he was really in the mood tonight. 

“Is something wrong baby?” He sat on the edge of the bed, still lost in thought. He felt so confused and lonely. She began kissing down his neck, running her hands along his torso feeling his upper body build. 

“No, nothing.” He said, mind still lost somewhere else but slowly coming back to the real world. 

“Good.” His hand slid down and grabbed his clothed crotch, squeezing it causing an aroused grunt to leave his lips as he succumbed to the pleasure she was giving him. But while she did everything to him, he couldn’t take his mind off you.

You were stuck there like glue in his head, he wanted to only think of Jennie and no one else. He wanted to not be that guy that thinks of another girl while fucking someone else. 

But he was, and it looks like for now that might be a secret he’ll keep to himself. 

The first part is done yayayay! I hope you guys like it, I enjoyed writing it even though it was long. But yeah, part two will be out soon! 

- Admin 체리≈

[carolinginholly]

For me it comes down to a few things. The biggest one is construction of the wig. If I see the wefts when I'm not styling the wig against its natural style(For example, trying to style a loose style wig into a ponytail), it's a cheap crappy wig. I don't care how nice the fiber is at that point, if it's made badly it's just bad to me. And I've had this with both cheap and expensive wigs. Second is the texture of the hair. I like my synthetic fibers to feel silky and smooth like healthy hair. Third is the shine level. Nothing is a bigger tell on a really cheap wig like being overly shiny. Some wigs have a very natural hair shine that looks really lovely, but a cheap cosplay wig I have for example just looks like cheapest piece of plastic crap I've ever seen. In every aspect it looks CHEAP! And while there are things you can do to tone down the shine, in my experience that really shiny hair just never performs well. Which leads into the fourth point:

Manageability of the hair.

Some doll hair (I'm not sure which since so few pages list the fiber type) are just awful to deal with after just a short period, they either tangle really badly with minimal friction, or the edges get really gnarled and start to look awful.

For example, my old and current favorite orange wig. My old wig had kinks in the hair constantly, requiring me to regular soak, straighten, and restyle the wig if I want those fibers to relax again, where as my current wig hasn't done that at all. I have put very little effort into maintaining that wig outside of keeping it brushed nicely and it still looks amazing and I've had it for months at this point.

The 5th is the fit of wig. A lot of wigs are really bulbous and don't contour well to the head because they're meant to fit a wide range of heads in a general size, so they're shapeless.

A really good synthetic wig will have a nicer shape in my experience.

Final point is the shed factor. I've made this mistake too while learning, but some wigs just constantly shed hair. If after the initial brush or two they're still shedding copious amounts of hair then it's a really badly made wig, and is likely going to look ratty much faster than a well constructed wig.

All of this nonsense is why I figured out a couple fibers I really like and started making my own. It winds up being roughly the same for a wig guaranteed to fit and meet every requirement.

I have no idea how people distinguish a good synthetic wig from a bad one... I've gotten synthetic wigs from companies that people rave about, but they're no better (sometimes even worse) than a $5 wig I got on taobao. It's especially confusing for short hairstyles, since some well-regarded shops try to sell you basic Bieber wigs for $35. Why the hell would you pay that much? Is this just a holdover from when people didn't have options or am I just missing some vital feature my cheap wigs lack??

~Anonymous

[flowing-paint]

Painting on a budget

So you decided to get into the wargaming hobby? Good! Let me welcome to what many people seem to perceive like one of the most expensive hobbies around. But is it really true? Is there any way you can cut the expenses? As a matter of fact, there are many ways you can reduce your costs so I will try to show them to you. Less money for the tools means more models and more games to pump up your fun!

I had this idea after discussing with my friend that is trying to jump into tabletop wargaming. We were discussing how, with board games, you go to the shop (or internet) and buy your big box where you have all you need to play the game. If you are new to tabletop wargaming you already probably know that, whatever the game you chose to start, the models need assembly at the very least and in most cases, you need to remove them from sprues. Then you have mold lines, flashing, warping… you need a lot of tools. While all modeling related tools can be easily substituted with stuff from the hardware store for half the price, this is always not the case for paints, brushes and the likes. With this post, I want to help newcomers to try and get into the hobby with the smallest possible investment.

First of all, let’s make a list of stuff you need to buy to paint and then let’s see what we can do to reduce the cost.

Paints

Primers

Texturing materials

Paintbrushes

Palette

Miniature holder

As you can see you need a lot of stuff and we know that when it comes to “hobby” use, the prices increase easily. Let’s tackle each item one-by-one and see if we can come out with some good alternative.

Paints

They are the core of the painting phase: you cannot paint without paints, right? But, have you tried to go on eBay, Amazon or even in a Games Workshop store to look for some paints? They are extremely expensive, probably due to the amount of research needed to get them to best suit miniature painting but also because of the hobby effect. The de facto standard in miniature painting are Citadel paints (the most widespread) and yield really good results: but take a look at their price on the official website. It is a huge set but it’s roughly one-month salary worth of paints. I don’t know you but for me, that’s a big no-no. Even small sets cost around 400$ so that’s not feasible for those who want to paint on a budget. Let’s see how we can reduce the costs:

try different paint manufacturers

I mostly use Vallejo paints (as you can guess from my tutorial posts) they come in 17 ml dropper bottles for 2.7 USD while Citadel paints come in 12 ml pots for 4.8 USD. That means Vallejo paints are more than 2 times cheaper than GW paints. The same is true for Reaper Master Series paints that come in dropper bottles similar to Vallejo and only cost 4.5 USD.

*: all prices in this post are based on a conversion from JPY.

try fine arts paints

This is the cheapest option: go to your local art store and look for acrylic paints. Take a sampler for each manufacturer and throw them on some test miniatures (don’t forget to prime them). You will probably realize that you need to thin them quite a bit but if you are lucky you can find paints with fairly small pigments that will give you good results. I oftentimes use the acrylic paints from Amsterdam Acrylic standard series: they have super-fine pigments and some gorgeous colors you can check out here.

They are perfect for miniature painting and the 20 ml tubes are a nice bargain for 2 USD! They may last you forever. You can have a taste of how they look like by taking a look at my “Leoric of the book”. The orange and the light blue come from these paints. Not bad!

Primers

Primers are really important (check out this post) and you need at least two in different colors if you plan to leverage underpainting. You can buy more colors but that costs you more money, of course. A medium bottle of brush-on primer from Vallejo costs 6.5 USD and even if it goes a long way, buying five of them is a lot of money. If you want to get the highest bang for your bucks you must try to prime with Gesso for an ultra-thin matte finish. This is also sold in art stores and a big 50 ml pot was 4.8 USD. And if that sounds too expensive, you can also try to prime with liquid acrylic “gouache” which gives you the same result but with roughly half the price! I have a 30 ml bottle of Turner gouache that cost me just 1 USD! For these prices, the results you get are really super-cool.

Texturing materials

This is one of those never-ending fields: just have a look in one of those railroad model shops and you will understand what I’m talking about. You have thousands of different stones/sands/grasses/etc. that give a realistic representation of the environment. But if you just base some miniatures for gaming purposes what you really need are just three ingredients you can get for free:

baking soda: used with CA glue gives the illusion of sand on the base

kitty litter: gives some more variegated texture, from dust-like to small rocks.

some dirt: go and get this on the side of the road where the rain washes out some random grit and dust. You can use it as is or put it on top of the CA glue/baking soda achieving the same result as the kitty litter.

There you have them: three texturing materials that cost you nothing.

Another texture that is commonly looked after is “water”. you can get some amazingly good water bases just by using PVA glue slightly pigmented with a brush tip of green or brown wash. Nobody will ever know you did not use one of those super-expensive resins! Check it out! (sorry for the crappy iPhone pictures).

Paintbrushes

Many painters can confirm you that, together with paints, these are the most important tools. It almost goes without saying that a good brush helps you a lot. What is not always completely understood by the beginners is that a good brush helps but you do not need to go super-fancy. For example, the golden standard of brushes for miniature painting is the Winsor & Newton Series 7 with Kolinsky bristles. The uniform consensus is that these paintbrushes are the best because of their bristle size vs. tip size. I could not agree more. But I don’t have one them and I am not planning on buy one anytime soon. Why? Cause I can have similar results with 1/10th of the price with my Holbein Series N (no. 0) paintbrush. You can see the whole series here (Japanese only). The bristles of this paintbrush are made of Itachi which is the Japanese for weasel. This means that this paintbrush has almost the same properties of the Kolinsky sable but for 2.5 bucks. No surprise it’s a Japanese market only product…. for this price I could almost start thinking to export them via eBay. Of course the tip is not super sharp like the WN7 but still, 1/10 of the cost so, I’m fine with that. If I want a Kolinsky brush I usually use one of my Bunseido “woody” that cost around 8/10 bucks each and give awesome results. 

Yet, with the full set of brushes in the above picture, it is still cheaper than a single WN7. What’s the lesson here? Go to your art supplies store and try all the brushes… even the cheap ones. You may find some amazing quality for bargain prices and don’t feel any pressure if you’re not using the same stuff the pro painter use: they are so freaking good they could easily make a masterpiece painting with toothpicks.

Palette

If you use to watch Warhammer TV, good! Those painting tutorials are great for beginners! There is just one thing that I do not understand: why don’t they use a wet palette? What’s a wet palette you ask? Is the way to save tons of paint and to have your color mixes going on and on for days without drying. They sell fancy wet palettes in art stores but they are expensive… so why don’t you make your own? It’s super easy if you have the following:

parchment paper

a Tupperware

some heavy duty kitchen paper

Fold the paper to make it fit in the Tupperware and moisten it abundantly. Do not let the water flood the whole thing. Place a piece of parchment paper on top of the moist paper and voila: you have your wet palette. You can leave colors on top of it for days and forget about them. I will do a detailed tutorial on how to build and use the wet palette. Someday….

Miniature holder

Holding your miniatures from the base is terrible: you can drop them, move them while you paint some detail, etc. It’s a really bad habit. For this reason, on the internet, you can find a whole bunch of fancy handles called miniature holders that supposedly help with the above problems. They come at a cost of course, which is usually not so small (you can use them forever). GW, for example, opened pre-sales of its own miniature grip. Getting a miniature holder in your hobby box is important but 16 bucks is really a lot for a piece of plastic. What to do then? All you need is some poster putty (also known as bluetack) and a comfortable handle of your choice. You can use old pill bottles, photo-film holders, everything that you can hold firmly on and just stick your miniature on top of it with you poster putty. It’s so very easy and so cheap that is probably the most important thing to do when you start to paint. This is so straightforward that I will skip the picture.

This concludes today’s post. I hope you found some interesting idea if you are planning on painting on a budget or if you just don’t have the money. You may also be one of those people that prefer to invest money in models or games instead of the tools. whatever your background is, if you put into practice all these tricks, you can lower your painting expenses up to 50/60%.

Game on!