#Quite literally pen and paper. I have no other art supplies on hand.

[czerwonykasztelanic]

Haven't put pen to paper in a while.

[meirimerens]

how do i get into drawing more? i've enjoyed drawing since i was a child but i never really practiced it that much and as such most of my stuff is pretty rudimentary from a technique standpoint. i only have physical supplies and i cannot afford an ipad or a drawing pad any time soon

there is no need for an ipad or a tablet if you don't already draw something expansive you don't even have to worry about that. I (and i imagine many/most artists who began drawing young) got my start on normal paper sheets the one they call "printer paper" because it's thin and textureless. Actually that might be a lie because I think that even before that I was drawing on walls so truly full circle of a thing.

The only stuff you need to draw are something To Draw With, whether it be a pencil or a pen; if it is a pencil also have an eraser, a no-bullshit rectangular eraser, I've literally never understood what the good was in the pink & blue ones beyond making holes & stamps in them, just get a normal good eraser, slightly squishy so it doesn't pull at the paper like a maniac when you use; And paper to draw in. I'd say get a sketchbook for the convenience + the chill of it all. Doesn't even have to be thicker "drawing paper" it can just be a random, lineless notebook. I like mine to have a spiral spine so I can take full advantage of the page but don't even need that. Genuinely for years this was my drawing material (+ whatever paper I found, including my school supplies)

(Staedtler eraser very good actually I've been using it for 10yrs among the better I've used if you find it get yourself one. This shit was like 1.50€ at my local papeteries and then again they mightve inflated the price)

Now I'm gonna tell you about my life because I think it colors the way I approach drawing and as such the advice I'll give you: I started drawing really young (like pre-dates knowing how to read or write) and never stopped. That means I, technically, have some 20+ years of drawing, but I still struggle with what are kinda "fundamentals". I only quite late, technically speaking, gotten into trying my hand as perspective & naturalistic anatomy. That's because I had, at the start, nothing but passion.

And that's gonna be the one piece of advice I have for you:

Get really, really into something, and start trying like the devil to get good at drawing it.

When I was a wee lad I loved horses so much (and I still do.) and all I wanted to do was get good at drawing horses so I could draw stories with horses, so I practiced drawing horses from the horse magazines i had. Around 11, I got really into manga and all I wanted to do was get good at drawing manga so I could draw my own (a lot of my actually like Formative Years of drawing was manga, and I think it's still visible especially when I draw cartoony faces these days), so I practiced drawing manga from the how-to books their were at the library (and we had actually good ones, including Japanese mangaka's translated into french). Around 14, I got really into Video Game, and all I wanted to do was get real good at drawing the characters, so i practiced from youtube tutorials & other internet finds. Nowadays I'm into art history & archeology, and go out of my way to see and grasp and understand #whateverthiswas and try to pepper it (or sometimes dump the whole bag) in my images.

If you're starting "from nothing", I feel like practicing anatomy for the sake of anatomy (for example) will just piss you off. When you get more into the groove of things, and actually want to Get Serious, you'll sit down to Actually Practice, but I personally have always found that Learning for the Passionate Goal makes the whole thing more interesting than Learning To Learn To Then Attempt The Passionate Goal.

It's gonna suck for a while. It truly will. You'll see every improvement so drastic you'll be like ewww what was that 2 months ago. But you will HAVE HAD FUN DOING IT!!!

Tldr

1) get into something. Whatever it is.

2) collect tools and tutorial to serve whatever it is you're into, and not try to get into the tools: that will come later, once you're already in the habit of drawing.

3) you don't need fancy material

4) never underestimate the power of the humble ballpoint pen and clicky pencil

5) train your brain, the muscle of your brain, to conjure up images until there is nothing you can do BUT exteriorize them lest they poison you

6) you don't have to post anything online btw. In fact, I attribute the fact that I have always loved art so much to the fact that for the first 15yrs of my life I could truly just enjoy the process and vibe. I still do, don't take me wrong, and truly I draw for myself and you're all trapped in here with me. Looking at the slop i feed you. But there is an inherent, new dimension added with Being The Blogger. So have fun and vibe.

7) the heart is the horse, the hands are the rider

[sweetlilbird]

Would you guys like to read a sneak peek at a new fic I'm working on? 👀

You stood outside the classroom door, triple checking the small scrap of paper you tore from the larger leaflet on the commons board. Sure enough, the room was indeed room 6900 in the Everett building, an arts and humanities classroom building.

You stare down at your fitbit on your wrist - the cute Stardew Valley clock face shows that the time is, indeed, 4:55pm. About 5 minutes before this club is supposed to meet. A club that, despite your greatest efforts, you hadn't planned on attending. If it wasn't for Undyne giving you quite possibly the saddest puppy eyes (and also the fact that you owe her for helping you study for your calculus midterm), you would have been on your way back to the dorms, ready to tuck into a cup of ramen while you did homework. But no, Undyne's buddy was in desperate need of club members, lest their precious club get shut down. Er, what was the club anyways? You hadn't had the chance to ask Undyne. Well, time to find out.

You gently open the door.

...it's...empty?

Did, did you have the right classroom? You check the paper again - yep, this is the right room. And the right time. Well, maybe a couple minutes early, but usually people show up to their clubs early, right? Oh no, did the club get dissolved before you could help? You floundered around near the entrance, trying to figure out what to do when someone cleared their throat behind you.

"AHEM! EXCUSE ME, HUMAN! I MUST GET INTO THE CLASSROOM SO I CAN PREPARE FOR MY CLUB MEETING! UNLESS, GASP! ARE YOU HERE TO JOIN MY CLUB?!" Jesus, did this guy have any volume control? Also did he just say gasp out loud??

You turn around to face the offending...oh! It's a monster. Wait, that sounds bad. They are a monster, a skeleton monster to be exact. Huh, you feel like you've seen another one lazing around in the courtyards with a sucker in his mouth. This skeleton monster had quite possibly the bluest eyes you've ever seen, wearing a gray t-shirt, athletic sweats, and sporting a blue bandana around his neck.

This person must be the club leader. You regain your composure and hold out your hand, "Yeah! Undyne told me about the club," You faintly remember Undyne telling you not to say the real reason you're here, "I, er, I'm really interested in it!" You give them your best (and fakest) smile you can, trying to sell the idea and hope that he doesn't question you further. Your plan works, because now this skeleton has stars (yes, literal stars) in his eye...holes.

"WOWIE!!! A HUMAN, WANTING TO JOIN MY CLUB! THIS IS THE BEST DAY EVER! AND WITH YOU JOINING, THIS MEANS WE'LL BE AN OFFICIAL CLUB!" He enthusiastically grabs your hand with both of his own gloved hands, shaking so rapidly and vigorously that your whole body practically shakes. All of a sudden, he gasps (this time just the action), "OH MY GOODNESS, WHERE ARE MY MANNERS! HUMAN, MY NAME IS THE MAGNIFICENT SANS! BUT YOU CAN JUST CALL ME SANS!" Sans poses dramatically, similar to a superhero. Okay, this was actually a bit endearing. Maybe it wouldn't be that bad after all? You supply your own name, though you don't have a fancy title to go with it. Sans simply smiles and heads into the room, placing the large bag onto the teaching podium. You opt to take a seat, sitting right next to the podium. Sans quickly produces a paper and pen for you.

"PLEASE FILL OUT THIS FORM SO I CAN SUBMIT IT TO THE COUNSELING OFFICE!" You nod, eyeing the blue snowman bobble pen with mild amusement. As you're filling out the paper, two more students arrive.

The first, Undyne, who gives you a toothy grin and a thumbs up before plopping into the seat next to yours. The next student, however, was also a familiar face. In all of his lanky, orange hoodie glory, pops in the only other skeleton you've seen on campus. Well, you guess it makes sense that the skeletons know each other. This skeleton starts to walk towards the closest seat to the door, before eyeing you very suspiciously.

As you hand the paper and pen back to Sans, the other skeleton speaks up, "huh, what's a human like you doing here?" You...didn't appreciate his tone. Humans and monsters may not have always gotten along, but they've been coexisting (again) for a decade now. You guess some monsters haven't forgiven humans, which is understandable. Still, you put on a small smile and try to make peace.

"Well -"

"PAPYRUS! DON'T INTIMIDATE OUR NEWEST MEMBER!" Oh, so the other skeletons name is Papyrus? Interesting name. Then again, monsters have very different naming conventions from humans. Papyrus puts his hands up in defeat before reach into his pocket to pull out a sucker.

"sorry bro, s'just a question." Man, now you kind of feel bad.

You quickly come to Papyrus' defense, "It's all good, Sans! It's not really all that common to see humans in monster clubs, I guess." Papyrus gives you a puzzled look before shrugging. Was he really confused as to why you backed him up? Sans huffed, tapping the thick stack of papers against the podium.

"PLEASE DO NOT ENABLE MY BROTHER, HUMAN, HE'LL NEVER LEARN HIS LESSON THAT WAY." Ah, that makes sense now - they're brothers! Before you could say anything else, Sans speaks again, "ANYWAYS, NOW THAT EVERYONE IS HERE, WE CAN BEGIN THE CLUB MEETING!" He claps his hands together loudly, "WELCOME, TO THE SOCIALLY AWKWARD CLUB!"

...

The WHAT?!

You whip your head to the side to look at Undyne, who gives you a sheepish smile. You can't believe this, a socially awkward club? What does that even mean?!

Great, you're really in it now. Might as well see where this goes.

[littlewalken]

Oct 8

Finally my other Staged DVD is in town which means after it gets here I can look in to cutting down which DVDs I have here, I highly doubt I'll need Wiggles right now especially because I still have a strong desire to punch Anthony in the face, and I have other things I want to watch first.

Otherwise aside from my records, many of which I want to frame and display as decor, I'm done until closer to move out time, and putting the dollhouse towards the very front so it doesn't accidentally become a shelf for someone's bowling ball collection, know what I mean.

Had to break out of a thought spiral about how anything I have Star Trek would disappear if it could, the smothering unit hates everything "Star Trek" and I have to remind her that I feel the same way about game shows and that I don't even talk about Star Trek around her... But another part of the thought spiral was how my art books and supplies would immediately become fodder for her to bribe her way in to friendship with the kids across they way because they "do art" and all my dolls would go to the one around back because she "likes dolls".

I know it's all part of the stress of the move but I'm also starting to note more and more mildly ___ behaviors that the Life Ruiner modeled then amplified to past eleven.

"I don't know how that fell" but I do, because it's mine. Last house I never left anything in the common area I wasn't watching like a hawk because it would get damaged somehow.

Deep breath. The Life Ruiner isn't here. She can't come to this place. She won't be able to go to the next place. I never ever have to see her again. If she ever gets herself together mentally I am under no obligation to accept her apology. I don't have to forgive her, it will do nothing for me.

***

Down to the last like half hour-20 minutes of Picard s2. Just after the one ship took off and before the other ship does. I definitely think a Picard break will be in order. I'll put the DVDs in the keep a little longer pile, or the travel disc carrier if I get down to that. That way they'll be on hand if I do want to watch.

I might go gay pirates next as I could use some humor.

Did have a break thru of sorts in the CYOA Spider-Man story I've been trying to tell for 20+ years. Going to use the colored pens in the reusable notebook to work on it. The cover on the one in my purse is for shit but the paper is holding up and I've used it quite a few times.

If you need to write out anything then feel the need to scour it from the face of the earth a reusable notebook will allow you to literally wash your written sins away.

[merakiaes]

I'm a 5'2, asian girl. Im about average weight, and I have light brown hair that's cut really short and messily. I can be grumpy if you say anything rude, but im normally happy and outgoing. i hate going outside in nature. camping, hiking, anything outdoorsy, i just hate it. im chaotic evil (apparently). im an aries and slytherin. im quite stupid, and (as much as i hate to admit it) i make bad decisions often. i show that i care through actions and gifts. (im open to the occasional cuddle tho) i love drawing and anything related to art. i listen to mostly indie music, mother mother and mac demarco is my thing. can I please be paired with a male character from Harry Potter and/or marvel?

HARRY POTTER

I ship you with Cedric Diggory!

This boy absolutely loves everything that has to do with the outdoors. Camping and hiking are two of his favourite things, and that’s honestly why I think you’d be so great together. Getting you to agree to spend time with him outside would be a challenge, and Cedric Diggory never backs down from one of those.

I can just picture him coaxing you with sweet-talk to get you to go on hikes and camping trips with him. You won’t be happy about being out and about in nature, but it would be okay because he’d definitely make it worth your while and show you so much appreciation by preparing all of your favourite things; your favourite songs, your favourite snacks, and he’d just go out of his way to make sure it was a good experience for you. He’s a very optimistic person and he would go out of his way to get you to see nature through his eyes.

I get the idea that he’s very clingy in a relationship, the good kind. He’ll try to sneak small touches and kisses everywhere you go and you’ll be lowkey annoyed about it when it starts taking a childish turn, which will only make it even funnier to him. So he’ll start poking you, take your stuff and hold it above your head and laugh when you can’t reach it. When he gives in and stops messing with you, he’d try to cuddle you and just hug you tighter if you tried to get away. He’d be that kind of boyfriend, and that dynamic between a Hufflepuff and a Slytherin is just so hilariously fitting.

I actually feel like he would be very into indie music, as well. And he’d love to just lay on your bed and listen, while you sit and draw beside him. Either that, or he’d just watch you draw. 

He’d enjoy teasing and playing around with you, but he’d be able to read the room and be very sweet and romantic when the moment called for it!

MARVEL

I ship you with Tony Stark!

Unlike Cedric who would take you on outdoors trips in an attempt to get you to see the beauty of it, Tony would take you out on outdoor trips solely for the purpose of annoying you, because if there’s one thing our beloved genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist loves, it’s getting a rise out of people - even the people he cares about. It’s just so funny to him.

He’d also roast your taste in music and say “here, give this a try and throw away that crap you’re always listening to”, and hand you a brand new iPod loaded with AC/DC, Metallica, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden and other rock bands who were big during the 70s and 80s. 

He’d enjoy messing with you, maybe a little too much, and if I’ve perceived your personality correctly, then you’d pretty much always be annoyed at him and just be rolling your eyes constantly. Your relationship would probably be so chaotic to the public that people would be absolutely gobsmacked to find out that you were an item. 

To any outsiders, you’d look like rivals more than partners, but at the end of the day, he would love watching you draw. He’d ask about what difference different pens make, what difference different kinds of paper do, and once you’d explained, he would nod his head and research every kind of paper and pen there was until the next day, and then proceed to give you your own studio with supplies to last you a lifetime.

And he’d definitely frame all of your drawings and put them out throughout the building on full display. If he ever passed one of your drawings in the company of someone else, he would ask:“Have you seen this? *name* made this” and just be super proud and supportive. 

He is, contrary to what one might be led to believe by his chaotic and arrogant attitude, very selfless, caring and rational when it comes down to it so he would, in serious circumstances, make sure that you didn’t make any bad and rash decisions. He’d definitely act as your “external” good judgement when your own failed you, sit you down and ask if you’re sure you don’t want to rethink a certain decision before you make it, and help you rethink it if it’s a bad one. 

Your relationship would be the literal definition of “chaos” on the outside but behind closed doors, he’d be so caring and supportive of you and he’d always brag about you to people when you weren’t present. 

[tonystarkbingo]

3 Prompt Summaries

Ransom Note, Royalty and Lending a Hand - suggested by @polizwrites

@rebelmeg - what do you get when you combine elite royalty, a mob boss with a reputation for being ruthless, and a ransom note that tells them both that their child is being held hostage? well... nothing good, that's for sure, because this team-up is going to be the stuff of legends.

@deehellcat - Prince Tony is promised in marriage to King Obadiah of a neighboring realm so their lands can be merged, but marrying that creepy old man is the last thing he wants to do. he confides in his best friend and bodyguard Sir James Rhodes who pledges to lend him a hand, Rhodey pens a fake ransom note that the prince has been kidnapped then helps him sneak out of the castle in disguise.

@somesortofitalianroast - Prince Steven of Brooklyn should have known it was a bad idea when he decided to tour Philadelphia by himself. At night. By the Schuylkill. Yeah, it wasn’t his best idea. He also should have known that the Family that still [still!] ran Philadelphia would send a ransom note to his family. And he should have known that the Duchy of Brooklyn had an inside man who was happy to lend a hand.

@27dragons - Barnes doesn't generally work kidnappings -- he's a homicide detective, so if they're calling him in on a kidnapping, it's because something went terribly wrong. But when Prince Tony is kidnapped off the street in broad daylight by a crew leaving no clues whatsoever other than an encoded ransom note, Chief Fury told him to get over there and lend a hand. The problem is, the note seems to suggest that the kidnapper... is Barnes himself.

@celtic7irish - We have your prince. Four words on a ransom note with no ransom demands. James sighed. The royalty around here caused him no end of grief. He turned to his best friend and Captain of the Guard. “It’s him again. Want to lend me a hand on this one?” Steve grinned, fierce and proud. “When do we start?”

@polizwrites - When Tony disappears leaving only a couple of face cards from his favorite deck laid out on his desk, Jim thinks it’s a joke - that is until Mr. Stark gets a ransom note. And as much as he despises Tony’s dad - Jim knows he has to help.

@Magicadraconia16 - When he complained to his Captain of the Guard that he really needed a break from his princely duties - and Howard - he wasn't expecting to end up staring at a random note . . . for himself.

@rise-up-ting-ting-like-glitter - Ransom Note, Royalty, Lending a hand In sickness and in health. That was the promise. Tony hadn't meant to break it. He certainly hadn't meant to wish Bucky away. Now he's got a ransom note sent by some 'Goblin King' and ragtag troupe of labyrynth dwellers willing to lend their hands...and sometimes paws.

@jacarandabanyan - Royalty AU, Prince Anthony Stark is kidnapped! His parents are searching the realm for him, and offering high prizes to anyone who can return him to them safely. The only clue they have is a ransom note written in Tony's own handwriting, and a claim from a servant that the Prince was seen approaching a rough dubious-looking man with one arm with a request that the man 'lend him a hand' getting out of a marriage contract…

Keep reading for more!

Sunflowers, Starlight and Lollipops - suggested by @magicadraconia16

@polizwrites - Morgan was never quite sure whether her father had made up that lullaby, or if it was something that someone had sung to him as a child, but it was a tune she still hummed to herself whenever she was feeling sad or lonely.

@celtic7irish - Tony had no idea where he was, trapped on an alien planet and lost in some sort of flower field, but with no flowers he’d ever seen before. He was pretty sure those were sunflowers, but they were sparkling in the starlight, making the whole field light up like it was coated in fireflies. Checking around in his pockets, Tony sighed as he pulled out one of Morgan’s lollipops and popped it into his mouth. “Great. Let’s go find the fairies and see if they can get me back home,” he muttered, striding off across the field.

@rebelmeg - art summary - stark family lying out under the stars in a field, sunflowers bobbing over their heads, and probably holding big colorful carnival lollipops because i've got no better idea + @newnewyorker93 - that, but daytime and they're looking at clouds, one of them is definitively lollipop-shaped

@somesortofitalianroast - It was the weirdest offering Tony had ever seen on his desk. A bouquet of sunflowers, a copy of Muse’s Starlight, and a bag of Dum Dum lollipops. There wasn’t even a card to explain who it was from, or who it was too. Huh. Maybe Pepper had put the items there and forgotten about them…

@27dragons - It's late by the time Tony gets home from work -- so late it's early -- and he's exhausted beyond belief. He navigates the house by the starlight coming through the windows and hopes desperately he won't wake anyone. He just wants to sneak into bed and curl up against his spouse for whatever few hours remain of the night. But he has to stop when he gets to the living room, where a lamp has been left on, shining on a carefully-arranged bouquet of sunflowers, Tony's favorite. Stuck in between the flowers are a handful of lollipops, proving that more than one person had a hand in this. The note says, "Cleared it with Pepper, you have tomorrow off. Come to bed." Tony's family is the best. [There, managed to write it so it can be whatever ship you want.]

@jacarandabanyan - One of Tony's less-publicized hobbies is funding off-the-wall science proposals made in jest at scientific conferences. The more outrageous the project, the more willing he is to pitch in money, supplies, networking help, etc. This time, he's even agreed to do the research himself. Which is how he found himself up on the moon of an unfamiliar planet in an unfamiliar galaxy, studying botany papers and trying to find what happens when you grow sunflowers by the light of a different star than Earth's sun. As ways to avoid the press and the Board go, it's original at least. Two months into his experiment, two little girls claiming to be "daughters of Thanos" pay him a rather menacing visit. He offers them a lollipop.

@rise-up-ting-ting-like-glitter - Once a decade, under the light of the full moon, and across the three dark nights of the winter solstice, the Starlight games are hosted. Sunflower has won the last four games running, but that was before Lollipop had Bucky fighting for them. This round they're out for nectar and Bucky intends to be MVP. Of course, the prize this year was extra sweet: a kiss from Starlight prince Tony-and a chance to win his hand.

@deehellcat - the last thing Morgan remembers is her mommy screaming as the car careened off the road and crashed. she sits up and looks around but she isn't in the city anymore, instead in a grassy field. a man comes toward her, a man she recognizes, and she runs into his arms yelling DADDY. they go for a walk thru a field of tall sunflowers (he says they're his favorite) and up a hill, they lie in the grass sucking on lollipops and looking at the stars. then he kisses her & tells her to give her mommy his love, before the world around her fades and she finds herself waking up in a hospital with Pepper hovering over her.

@summerpipedream - "What's this?" The book was frayed at the edges, but had a beautiful sunflower on the cover, a lolipop sticker on the edge. "Ana's cookbook," said Jarvis. "With all your favourite recipes as a child. " Now that omega Tony is expecting, and forced into bedrest by the doctor and his worried mate Steve, Tony vows to learn how to cook, one recipe at a time.

Hallmark, magic, and brunch - @somesortofitalianroast

@somesortofitalianroast - It’s not like Tony was expecting his Sunday brunch to be something out of a Hallmark movie, but he could have done without his fairy godmother showing up and telling him that he was the sole heir to a magical kingdom and it was time for him to claim his throne.

@polizwrites - Tony knows how to conjure up exquisite dishes with the wave of a wand; but to prove he truly loves his partners, he makes them a meal from scratch. It’s not his fault he really, really likes cinnamon…

@summerpipedream - "Nat, how the hell are pancakes supposed to solve anything?" Natasha rolled her eyes and tapped on the sign behind the counter. "Pancakes solve everything." Bucky glared. "You literally just put that up." Natasha waved her wand with a flourish. "And if I did? Eat up Barnes. Your destiny is about to walk through that door." Bucky was about to complain, but then the bell to the diner rang. Tony Stark walked through the door.

@27dragons - This isn't some sappy Hallmark movie. Bucky knows that. He's not expecting some magical force to make Tony fall in love with him, really. But he's going to try, anyway. Starting with brunch.

@rebelmeg - "tony... these are the most flawless eggs i've ever seen. how did you do that?" he grinned to himself as he slid the two perfect sunny-side-up eggs onto the waiting plate. "just magic." rhodey was watching from the table, a smirk on his face. "yeah, that or the hallmark movie you watched last week that made you cry." rhodey kind figured he deserved the piece of toast that tony threw at him.

@newnewyorker93 - Unfortunately for Stephen Strange there isn't a Hallmark card that quite covers apologizing for ruining brunch with Tony when a chaotic interdimensional beastie follows him through his portal (next time he'll take the subway)

@celtic7irish - Stephen glared at the man standing next to him. “What makes you think I can just I this away?” he demanded sarcastically. Tony shrugged, trying to hide a shiver. He wasn't dressed for this weather. “I don’t know. I mean, we were just supposed to be having brunch, and now we’re in some sort of freaking Hallmark Christmas thing, and I’m pretty sure that magic caused it. Because it definitely isn’t science.” He grimaced; Tony hated admitting that things like magic even existed, but when one had the Sorcerer Supreme for a boyfriend, one learned to accept that magic was probably real. Stephen sighed, summoning a portal to the Mirror Dimension. “Well, at least our first anniversary date isn’t boring.” Tony glared.

candlelight, window, vampire - suggested by @rebelmeg

@celtic7irish - The slender figure standing in the window, his profile lit only by the flickering candlelight, turned to look at him, and James shivered. So this was Anthony, rumored vampire and lord of the castle. And James' new patron.

@somesortofitalianroast - They’d all heard the rumors: an honest-to-god Vampire had set up in a moldering castle in Transylvania and was passing himself off as Dracula. After several sets of negotiations, Steve was chosen to go and check out the rumors. He was expecting… Well, he wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but he certainly wasn’t expecting to see the most beautiful man he’d ever seen through the window, shaving by candlelight.

@27dragons - Bucky was starting to get a handle on this whole vampire gig. He'd figured out the best ways to hide from the sun, how to hide the death-pallor of his skin with candlelight, how to mask the scent of blood on his breath with wine. What he hadn't figured out was what to do about the stunningly beautiful man who was currently climbing through his window.

@rebelmeg - it had practically been a challenge, and Tony never backed down from a challenge.  The whole world at large had managed to make vampires unsexy for pepper, but danged if he wouldn’t manage it before the night was through.  The candles by the window had been placed strategically, putting a soft golden glow over the two of them as they looked at their reflections in the glass.  

“Okay, tip your head back on my shoulder.  A little more.  Just like that.  Now look.”  tony saw it on her face when she saw them, framed in the window, his hand resting delicately on her jaw as he lowered his mouth to her throat.

“You win,” she said around a bit of a gasp, her pupils dilating as her heartbeat skyrocketed. “You as a vampire would definitely be sexy.”

With a pleased hum, tony gave her a playful nip.  Just a little one.

@summerpipedream - You have 3 new messages. Press one to playback. 

"Hey Tony, it's Steve. I'm sorry to interrupt your honeymoon with Bucky, but uh- do you remember Count Dracula lookalike last month? The guy who tried to take over the city? Well he's sent some sort of wedding gift to the tower. It's uh- hanging out the window. Hold on-" 

"Hey Tony. It's Steve again. Uh any chance you know where the spare candles are? That's stupid why would the tower have candles- never mind." 

"NEVER MIND. IT'S BAD. WE"RE RUNNING. DON'T COME BACK TO THE TOWER-" 

End of new messages

@gavilansblog - Tony stared at the candle on the windowsill. Or rather, squinted. "What were you thinking?" He demanded, slurring around his fake vampire teeth. "How is this supposed to look like a haunted house when the lights are making it bright as day in here?" Bucky winced. "How was I supposed to know they even made 1000 watt candle shaped bulbs?" (Brought to you by the conversation I was having just now with a friend whose brother made this mistake)

@Magicadraconia16 - "Leave a candle in the window," they said. A load of superstitious old nonsense, if you asked Tony. As if he's really going to leave an old-fashioned burning candle in the window where Dum-E could knock it over (although, that would give him an opportunity to use his brand new fire extinguisher...) It was just a shame that nobody mentioned that the candles weren't to scare the vampire off - they were to feed the light-vampire, and without it... well, the next nearest source in Tony's house just so happens to be his arc reactor.

@polizwrites - As a creature of the night the warm glow of the candle on the windowsill was a bittersweet reminder of the world he’d never see again. “I’m sorry, my love.” James reached out as if to snuff the flame, but Anthony stayed his hand. “No need to apologize, dear one.”

Cats, Sandwich, Chaos - suggested by @celtic7irish

@somesortofitalianroast - Very little had changed since Steve had brought Bucky in from the cold. Except the lunch meat disappeared from the fridge at a rate that not even JARVIS could explain. And that Bucky brought a cat with him. It was a small, white thing that loved Tony’s workshop and loved the bots. It caused more chaos than something that only weight five pounds should have been able to cause, and it loved his sandwiches.

@celtic7irish - Tony stared at the chaos in his living room; overturned tables, toppled lamps, and were those claw marks on his drapes? “What the-?” Tony trailed off, his voice faint, sandwich halfway to his mouth. “Daddy!” Morgan squealed, her eyes wide and face innocent as she held a squirming, wriggling bundle in her arms. A moment later, a small kitten stuck its head out of the blanket, meowing pitifully. “Can we keep her?”

@27dragons - Tony likes to think he takes a lot of weird things in stride, as an Avenger. Magic? Sure. Random visitations from a god of chaos? Old hat, these days. Insane robots and/or aliens trying to take over the city? No problem. But he had to admit, even he was having trouble maintaining his calm in the face of a trio of superheroes sitting at the kitchen table, eating sandwiches and sporting cat ears. Real ones. Oh, and tails. Yeah, he's... going back to bed.

@rebelmeg - “BUCKY!”

“What?”

“Your cat stole my sandwich again!”

Bucky watched as alpine skidded around the corner and dove under the couch, tony’s beloved 3-bacon sandwich clamped tight in his jaws.

“Yup.  he sure did.  Why do you keep leaving it out?”

“IT WAS IN MY HAND!”

Just another tuesday...

[sootbird]

Hey Rox, random question. How can one learn to draw? I mean, I got the whole take a pencil and a paper and practice everyday but I mean, after doing that you understand proportions, light, perspective? Naturally? Just by practicing everyday?

Artists telling people just to practice art and not giving them any solid starting place is a bullshit cop-out and something I’ve probably said at some point, but I’m going to rectify it now by giving you a comprehensive guide to starting art.

Some people may disagree with me (and honestly I recommend asking other artists this same question to see what they say and what you yourself agree with), but I think no matter what kind of 2D art you want to make, you should start with traditional, realistic drawing or painting. The reason for this (aside from anecdotal evidence of it working for me) is that learning to draw things that occur in real life gives you a foundation for branching out into different styles or media down the line. Even if you want to draw cartoons or anime, learning realistic drawing will help you, because it will familiarize you with the complicated shapes that more cartoony drawings simplify or exaggerate. For example, if you learn to draw a realistic nose, then you can see different ways to turn that realistic shape into a simplified version of itself. Practicing realistic art can also help train your eye and get you accustomed to different techniques such as line quality, shading, color theory, composition, and various types of art materials, or media, as I will probably begin referring to it as.

So, the next step is to figure out how the hell to start learning to draw realistic stuff. I will help, using written descriptions, tips, and videos I have found online to help you.

First off is Materials/Media.

You can make art with practically anything. Anything from the humble paper and pencil to the most expensive and high-end art supplies. You can burn a piece of wood in a fire for a bit and then use the charred end to make marks with. You can use mud to paint with. You can dip your toe in ink and use that as a paintbrush. My point is that you can really get creative with it and I think creating art should be a joyful experience, not a painful one.

Art supplies can be very expensive, so for beginners I really do recommend a paper and pencil. Not a mechanical pencil either, but one of those wooden ones. They work well for drawing because you can use both the point and the side of the lead to make marks with. I also recommend getting a good eraser. My favorite kind are the grey kneadable ones, because you can squish them into any shape you need for any particular area that needs erasing. I’ll link to some on Amazon later on.

You can practice pencil drawings on lined paper (I have a whole lot of sketches I did in high school that are just on lined paper), printer paper, cardboard, etc, or you could invest in a sketchbook. Cheap sketchbooks are pretty easy to find, like they have them at my local grocery store, but you can also find them online for fairly cheap. Sketchbooks are made of different paper depending on the media (drawing materials) that you’re using. Paper intended for pencil drawings tends to have quite a fine grain for smooth blending, whereas paper in watercolor sketchbooks is rough and absorbent to suit the wet medium. You can get a sketchbook with any paper you want, really. I’ve done pencil drawings on pastel paper before, because it was the only paper around, and it still looked nice, just different than it would on finer grain paper. What materials you choose to use depends on the look you’re going for, and you’ll figure that out more with experience.

To start with, just grab some paper and a pencil and start making marks on it. See how many different looking marks you can make on the paper. I’m not really talking about shapes persay, but literal marks with the pencil. Thin lines, thick lines, scribbles with lots of pressure or just a little bit of pressure. Scrape the side of the pencil along the paper and see what it does. Try blending the lines with your finger. Just take some time to play with the material without getting hung up on creating anything. Do this sort of experimenting with any new art material you’re introduced to. The first thing you should do with a new tool is acquaint yourself with it, and that’s what this is doing. Get used to how the pencil feels in your hand and what motions feel comfortable with it. Keep in mind that you don’t have to hold the pencil the same way as if you were writing. Often if I’m shading with a pencil, I will hold it with all of my fingers around it and use my thumb to put pressure on it.

Now, shading.

Shading and mark making go together, because shading is basically using the marks you’re making with your pencil or pen to indicate lightness vs. darkness. To practice mark making and the techniques that are used for shading, I recommend watching this video and drawing along with the exercise. The artist uses pens in it but you can do it with pencil too! 

When you’re ready, you can start trying to shade basic forms (shapes). Shading gives a two dimensional shape a three-dimensional look. It turns a flat circle into a sphere. Once you learn how to shade basic shapes, you can pretty much figure out how to shade just about anything. For example, once you learn how to shade a sphere, you know how to roughly shade a head! And what is an arm if not a cylinder? A nose if not a pyramid?

There are lots of videos online for practicing this. Here’s one that’s pretty good.

This is where I recommend starting. Once you are more comfortable with that, here is a list of things that you can look up and try to get a handle on, in what I think is a pretty alright order.

Perspective (one-point, two-point, three-point)

Value, Tint, Shade

Drawing negative space

Foreshortening

Composition

Drawing from life

Color theory

It would take me a very long time to outline all of this stuff, which is why I’ve given you that list of stuff to look for online. There are a lot of great resources out there and I recommend searching for them and comparing them. I can’t go into depth on everything right now because there’s a LOT of stuff, but I hope the little outline I gave you will help give you a foundation and know where to look and what to look for! If you have any questions about specific stuff, feel free to come and ask me about it and I’ll try to help.

Here are links to some cheap art materials on Amazon:

Grey kneadable eraser

Sketchbook for pencil

Pen set

There are lots of other listings for stuff like this online, so do check around for what you want! The ones I linked are just options.

I hope this helped! Thank you for the ask anon, and good luck!

[amethystlogan]

It’s More Than Just a Squishmallow

Alternatively - Patton’s Excuse to Buy All of the Squishmallows

Summary - Patton is adorable and gifts his famILY squishmallows. Fluff and comfort ensues.

Warnings - minor anxiety from Virgil towards the end

No romantic ships, a bunch of platonic fluff

Human AU

Patton loves many things. His roommates-turned friends-turned family top the list, but are quickly followed by a variety of small enjoyments, such as cookies, movie nights, onesie pajamas, all manner of fluffy animals, and many, many fandoms. But also on the list is a thing that Patton loves, but can quickly become problematic - plush toys and stuffed animals. The problem occurs because when Patton loves something, he can easily go a little... overboard, to say the least. Usually it’s easy enough for the others to reign him back in, especially when it comes to his collecting such things. After all. the six of them sharing an apartment leaves limited space for him to accumulate too many things. The general rule established was as long as Patton could keep his collections confined to his space, it was fine.

However, all reasoning went out the window when Patton discovered squishmallows. The others knew things could quickly get out of hand the moment he came home from a run to the store with the soft, squishy, cat-shaped blob clutched in his arms, his face practically glowing with happiness and excitement. Not even Logan, who would normally be strict about sticking to shopping lists and not splurging on such unnecessary purchases outside of special occasions, had the heart to chastise him.

The cat squishmallow found its home on Patton’s bed, and the others hoped that would be the end of it. But then Patton came home with another. And another. Almost every time he was sent on a shopping trip by himself, he came back with an embarrassed blush and proclamations of, “But look how cute he is!” and “It’s just one more, Logan. What’s the harm?” 

But now, Patton faced a dilemma as he stood in front of his bed, dinosaur squishmallow in his arms, with no place left to set it down. With his new squishmallows, combined with the other stuffed animals he’d already had, there was barely enough room for him to sleep, let alone continue his new collection. He pouted, looking down and the dinosaur. He needed to figure out something! If there wasn’t room in his space, he needed to justify using the shared space in the apartment. And he knew he could probably puppy-dog face his way into keeping this one, but it would likely be the last.

Patton sighed, sitting carefully on the edge of his bed, dinosaur balanced carefully on his lap. As he sat, smiling softly at this small, cuddly friend, he began to think of his real friends. Of their smiles, their hugs, their moments of happiness and almost child-like behavior that they seemed to save for Patton’s famILY movie nights or pajamas only Saturdays.

From across the room, lying on his bed with his sketchbook in his lap, doodling with Disney songs playing in his earbuds, Roman glanced up and could practically see the light bulb go off in Patton’s head. Roman paused his music and pulled out an earbud. “You good, Padre? For a moment you looked like Logan when he finally solved that twelve sided Rubix cube.”

Patton looked up, his eyes shining with excitement. “I’m good, Ro! Hey, can I ask your opinion real quick?” he asked, bouncing off his bed over to Roman’s side of their room, dinosaur in hand. “Absolutely!” he replied, setting his sketchbook aside, “Always happy to contribute in a moment of inspiration.” “Do you think Janus would like this?” Patton asked, holding up the dinosaur. “Run out of room to keep them yourself?” asked Roman, watching as a penguin squishmallow slowly slid off of Patton’s bed and onto the floor. Patton followed his gaze and shrugged impishly. “....Maybe?” He gave a small smile, and Roman couldn’t help but smile back. He turned back to the dinosaur Patton held. “Hm, I think Janus would love him. He likes all sorts of reptiles, and due to the general blobbish shape of these, he kind of resembles those snakes he is so fond of. This dino could be the perfect companion! Especially for those all-nighters he spends with his nose in his law textbooks.” Patton giggled, “yeah, maybe he’s pillow-y enough to convince him to actually go to bed, before Logan goes after him with his laminated sleep schedule again.” “Excellent idea. I think he’d really appreciate it, Patt.” “Thanks, kiddo! I’ll give it to him when he gets home.”

Janus had accepted the dinosaur with dignified gratitude, trying to express that he liked it without seeming overly excited, as he attempted to maintain his smooth indifference without hurting Patton’s feelings. But anyone could see that the dinosaur had immediately taken residence, metaphorically in Janus’ heart as a prized possession, and literally at his desk as his new study buddy. It was to no one’s surprise when Janus threatened to physically fite Remus after he almost spilled ink on the plush after bumping into Janus’ desk when leaving their room with his arms full of various messy art supplies. Janus could pretend sentimental affection for the toy due to it being a gift from Patton, but it was obvious he was soft for the dinosaur.

Thanks to the ink incident, it was clear to Patton which squishmallow to get Remus next time he was out. He practically squealed when patton handed him the purple, squishy octopus. “He won’t mind if you get ink on him, ‘cause he could use it for camouflage!” Patton explained, as Remus immediately hugged the toy to his chest, regardless of the ink and paint all over his shirt. “I love him!” Remus shrieked, pulling Patton into an equally crushing hug, before running off to his room, proclaiming, “Me and Inky are gonna plunge the depths of the ocean for inspiration! Anglerfish ink prints dead ahead!”

Logan shook his head fondly, failing to hide his smile at the interaction. “I suppose I should refrain from informing Remus that and octopus of such bright coloration would likely not be capable of accompanying him to such depths due to lack of sunlight?” “Oh, let him have his fun.” Patton said, flopping onto the couch next to Logan. “They’re adorable squishy blobs of animals, it doesn’t have to be realistic.” “I suppose there is some truth to such a sentiment, although I’m sure we are both aware he will begin to speak to it as though it is conscious.” “I know, but that’s part of the fun, too.” Logan gave a small smile to indicate understanding, if lack of agreement, before returning to his book.

And so,to cater to Logan’s clearly more scientific and practical preferences, patton got him a unicorn, but in key chain size. He figured Logan would be able to look past any scientific inaccuracies with an animal that wasn’t even real. And they were all aware of Logan’s fondness for the fantastical, as evidenced by his own onesie. Logan had given Patton a look over the top of his glasses rim when presented with it, but he wasn’t fooling anyone. He had long ago given up the pretense of being all seriousness all of the time, and found to his surprise that the others respected him no less for it. However, he did choose to only indulge in such frivolity on occasion, such as his onesie only making an appearance at their monthly movie marathons. He did appreciate the mythology and folklore behind such creatures, but was grateful for the smaller, more inconspicuous size of the plush Patton had selected. He chose to attach it to the strap of his shoulder bag for library trips, but carefully tucked the unicorn into the bag. He would never deny sentimentality, but would prefer not to have it on display all of the time. And if Patton caught sight of him gently squeezing the small squishmallow with a fond expression after a particularly stressful day, he chose to make no mention of it.

Roman had honestly been a little trickier than Patton had expected. He’d been standing in that toy aisle for way to long, but it was a difficult choice. At a glance, his eye was caught by a lion squishmallow, which had seemed perfect for their own Gryffindor prince. But sitting behind the lion was a soft, light grey and white owl that drew Patton to reconsider, for reasons he couldn’t quite explain or describe just yet. But the longer he stood there looking at it, the more convinced he was that the little owl was just meant for Roman, even if he couldn’t say why.

It became clear when he got home, and found Roman in their room, almost in tears. He was fighting a major bout of artist’s block, and couldn’t seem to put pen to paper. No idea seemed good enough, bold enough. The white expanse of empty paper intimidated him, and he couldn’t find the courage or impulse that usually drove him through such moments. Even if he could make something, the mere thought of posting it anywhere, it scared him. 

But then Patton came in, pulled the sketchbook from his lap, and handed him that little owl squishmallow before pulling him into a hug. As Roman accepted the embrace, and began to calm down, he looked at that owl, soft and comforting, and he found that moment of reprieve that the others could only associate with Patton. Roman knew that he could always come back to his work later, with a fresh mind and new motivation. For now, he had Patton, and when Patton couldn’t be there, he had that little owl.

When Harry Potter faced hardships, he didn’t need the Gryffindor lion to bolster his courage, but a moment with his friends, or with the loyal owl that was there for him until the end. Hedwig the Second, as Patton affectionately called her, became Roman’s go-to for artist’s block, stress, sickness, or anything where he just needed that moment to regroup.

Virgil knew it was coming, he just didn’t know when. What had started as a simple excuse to buy more squishmallows had grown into a mission of sorts, and Virgil knew it was only a matter of days before he was gifted a squishmallow of his own. He didn’t entirely know what to expect, but hoped it would be a bat, or black cat, or something of the sort that would at least fit his aesthetic. His half of the room he shared with Logan was an emo’s dream after all. He figured Patton knew him well enough to suit the plush to the black and purple scheme he had going. But after Logan’s unicorn, he really couldn’t guess what Patton would do.

The very last thing he expected was the pastel blue dragon squishmallow that might have been as big as Patton himself that Virgil found sitting on his bed when he got home from class. But he couldn’t find it in him to care about his “rep” for the moment, as he was about two steps from an anxiety attack. He’d woken up that morning on edge, it was just going to be one of those days. Class had been awful, he hadn’t understood the lecture, and his fellow students had decided to be louder than usual leaving the lecture hall, only making him more uneasy and overwhelmed. Then he’d nearly gotten run over in the crosswalk coming into the apartment building. It didn’t help that it was one of those rare afternoons when everyone else was out, either in class, at work, or at rehearsal for Roman.

So Virgil stood in the doorway of his room, in an empty apartment, shaking, trying to fight back tears, and found himself facing the light, fuzzy blob of comfort that he knew had come from Patton. Virgil choked out a laugh, wiping at his eyes as he toed off his shoes and climbed into his bed, cuddling the dragon close. He breathed deeply, and slowly. In, and out. He could almost hear what Patton would be saying. He was okay. Logan could help him sort out his class notes. The car hadn’t really been that close outside, the sudden honking was just jarring. He was okay. In, and out. He was home, he was safe, it was quiet. The others would be home soon. He fell asleep shortly after calming down, with thoughts of his friends in his mind and the soft, soothing crinkles of the dragons wings and scales under his fingers.

It may have looked quite out of place in his room, but to Virgil, it didn’t matter. That dragon was his new protection from overrunning thoughts when the others couldn’t be there. And when Patton got home that night, he found himself tackled in hugs, and the dragon found a permanent spot right on Virgil’s bed.

Suffice to say, the others never again thought it a problem that Patton like to collect a few too many of the things he loved, because his famILY was still at the top of his list.

[yfere]

M9 Signature Moves! (Out of Combat Edition)

Part 2, with some scattered commentary.

Fjord

Fjord wants to understand other people even if he’s not the best at it. Meanwhile, he’d like to avoid making himself understood. He doesn’t like scrutiny, or vulnerability. Better to step back behind someone else.

Mask of Many Faces. What he says: I like people watching :) What he means: I like imitating other people’s voices and appearances to cope with my many issues :)

Deception Check. The funny thing is, I’m fairly certain Fjord’s talent for deception comes not through dedicated practice or being a habitual liar/obfuscater so much as having deadpan sarcasm levels that are so God Tier that everyone else has to really work at figuring out whether he’s joking or not at any given moment. “Make a deception check,” Matt says, when Fjord is literally just making a shitty sarcastic joke. The party routinely giving him Doubtful Looks until he has to explain that he really was just joking, he didn’t mean that, why would you think he meant that. Likes to joke sometimes to avoid more uncomfortable emotions. It’s important to him, to keep it together.

Gift of the Depths Magic that helped him cope with the drowning thing. Erroneously assumes it will also help other people cope with their water issues as well.

Help Action The beautiful thing about Fjord, I think, is that oftentimes he will not lead in any particular task. Even the ones where technically, they would benefit by him leading! What he does instead, routinely, is pick someone else for the task, someone better than him (Caleb for history and investigation, Caduceus for insight, Jester and Beau for perception and so on) or even just a person who wants to do it, and he will help them with that task, or at the very least make sure they get help. And his help is always a useful thing to have. It helps him, too, to step back, to get out of the glare of the spotlight.

Beau

Beau is curious, she is intelligent, and she is talented. But as much as she postures, she’s not really as confident in her abilities as she should be by rights.

Extort Truth Don’t. Lie. To. Me. How Beau wants to know things, wants to know them so badly she will go after secrets with the bluntest of instruments, something painfully obvious—and it will work for her. It works when she punches the truth out of people, just as  it works when she threatens not to let you into her library unless you tell her of your sordid past.

Persuasion Check Don’t. Lie. To. Me….please? No, but it’s brilliant how the party relies on her to handle their most fraught social encounters, even though she’s not the most charismatic, even though she’s personally better at lying than telling the truth. Because, despite everything, she’s the most trustworthy of all of them. They believe in her, rely on her, and they should.

History Check Beau might claim she’s more interested in the doodles of the margins of the books she read at the Cobalt Soul than the texts themselves, but at least part of that is posturing. She’s a big nerd who has done a lot of studying of some obscure shit, and she’s always looking around her to see if any of the fuckery they encounter matches up with one of those shitty lessons she had at the monastery. She pays attention, okay?

Acrobatics Check “I parkour.” It’s gotten to the point where she does not actually need to make skill checks to do her parkour magic. Still, nothing beats running your way out of a literal pit.

Caleb

What Caleb says and what he does are two very different things. Maybe once you take all his spell components away, he’ll actually be forced to use language to express how he feels. But who are we kidding. He’ll start muttering in Zemnian and you’ll be right back where you started with him.

Leomund’s Tiny Hut As with much of Caleb’s magic, a love letter to his special people. Says all the things he refuses to. Developed in an obsessive fervor while his friends were kidnapped, and unveiled when they were rescued so no one would be taken in the night again. Someday, he will make them something even better. He believes in a future where he will make them something even better.

Identify Demonstrating succinctly a lot of what makes Caleb a lovely and generous person, and also what makes him a bit of a secret-hoarding asshole. Because he likes doing favors for people, and showering them with gifts, and when you’re poor the gift lies in the identify and the giving, even when technically the item you were giving away was communal property in the first place. But also, when Caleb wants something because he thinks it’s fair for him to have as it was fair for the others to have their things, he will learn what it is, and he will keep it without a word. Jerk! Explain exactly what it is so we can keep the illusion that this is a fair process you’ve set up!

Find Familiar Caleb really loves Frumpkin, and Frumpkin is supposed to be a cat, and supposed to be with him, getting pet. But if Frumpkin has to be something else because you need him to be, he will. If Frumpkin has to scope out enemy territory for you to be safe, so be it. Frumpkin will be your landing pad, he will be the trade that will let a caged creature go free, he will sit in your pocket as a replacement owl, he will sit in the rain in the dark and watch over you while you sleep.

Suggestion Sometimes Caleb doesn’t want to leave things up to chance. Deep down, he doesn’t really trust people, so when he’s uncertain or threatened he’ll substitute persuasion and insight to force someone to do what he needs them to do. Tell us the truth about who you are. Show me any dangerous items you have on your person. Go with us into the water, so you are not left behind.

Nott

Nott wants to go back to being Veth, but in some ways she’s really living her best life right now, causing trouble and learning how to cause trouble doing things she never knew how to do before.

Message She can talk to who she pleases, but she and Caleb get their own private line, where no one else is invited “You can reply to this message, and only I can hear your reply.” One of their first spells together, the beginning of Nott the Brave, the Arcane Trickster.

Disguise Self Nott wants to feel comfortable in her own skin. And she doesn’t feel it with the spell, she feels just the same, but she looks the way she is supposed to, and that’s a step. A painful step, when the son she hugs can feel the wrongness of her through the illusion even as she clings to him.

Tinker Check/Alchemist’s Supplies Nott is nothing if not a smart cookie, creative, and reckless as fuck. She will mess with chemicals and she will mess with acid and she will mess with gunpowder—all things which feature centrally in special moves that never quite go as planned like Fireline and Fluffernutter. She will blow things up—sometimes herself. But that’s the joy of a creative mind, really.

Mage Hand Why disable the trap when you can just set it off at a distance? Explosions are more fun to watch than not-explosions, after all. Also makes you look like a cool motherfucker when you’re in a drinking contest.

Jester

Art, heart, and imagination...that is Jester. What she does is more than just pranks and troublemaking, though--her skills are integral to solving any goal put forward by the M9. And what of her own goals? Time will tell.

Sending Caleb might be good enough with his polymorphs to turn people into other people, but Jester, her art, and her imagination give her an edge in another spell. All you have to do is describe a person to her, good enough for her to do a real nice police sketch, to imagine what the person is like. And she’ll be able to cast a spell that will communicate with them anywhere, even though she’s never laid eyes on them before. A hard spell to wrangle for a natural chatterbox, maybe, but her sheer talent you cannot deny.

Zone of Truth She’s too good of an investigator to really need it for interrogation, or believe it when she does use it for detective work. Zone of Truth, Jester believes, can only be truly relied on when paired with the sacrosanct tradition of Truth or Dare.

Locate Object Woooooow, so she was the only one not to get robbed, huh? Guess who is the most responsible person with money after all? Jester is always looking for things important to other people, whether it be lost coinpurses, seals, or those creepy cloven orbs that Fjord keeps sticking into his body. “Oh, he’s going to be so upset!” she despairs, when she can’t find it. But then she picks up where the key has gone, and lights up with joy. She looks for what’s important to others, before ever looking for what’s important to her (because once you stop stop looking it will hit you in the face)

Forgery Kit The pen is mightier than the sword! At nigh every stage of her adventure with the M9, it has been her immaculate paper trail that has enabled them to accomplish their goals and not end up rotting behind bars. Pulled off some amazing government reshuffling, too. I would fear her as a diplomat.

Caduceus

Caduceus has very set ideas about how the world works, but sometimes his lack of experience with the outside world causes him real problems. He isn’t worried, though.

Insight Check Caduceus is a person Fjord believes with some justification to be a kind of mind reader. He certainly has pretty god-like powers here, and he is both a benevolent god and just. He senses sugar off of you, he will bring you a veggie platter. He senses guilt, he will release you from prison against your will so you can face your wrongdoings in the world. Caduceus knows best--at least Caduceus thinks so.

Divination When Caduceus finds out you have family you’re searching for, he will invoke Melora’s aid to find out if they’re safe out there, or what direction they're headed in so you can save them. Caduceus, aren’t you wondering what happened to your own family? No, he’s not going to cast a spell for that, it’s best if he didn’t question…

Create Food and Water Above all else, Caduceus wants the people he cares about to be eating well. Do his non-vegetarian, pocket-bacon loving friends agree with him on what eating well is? Is the beanpole skinny-ass firbolg eating well himself? Ummmmm…

Nature Check he doesn’t know what that is or how it works, but it sure is pretty. When you think about it, everything is just more territory. Nature is nature no matter where you go. Sure, that man-eating seaweed seems a bit odd, as does the enormous murderous bird.  But when you think about it, can you really be surprised by it?

Yasha

Yasha struggles a lot--with grief, with getting close to people. But in her strange, standoffish way, she is always there when it counts. And she’ll always be there, for her entire life and beyond. She has that kind of loyalty, that kind of drive.

Investigation Check She looks for flowers, and special things, in out of the way places, and keeps them in her book.

Strength Check These arms are worth a lot! A check tailor made for impressing people at circuses, winning arm wrestling competitions, and for chasing tail while saving your friends.

Dexterity Check You can shave your friend with your greatsword. That’s how you keep your legs so smooth and shiny, after all.

Necrotic Shroud It happened again.

[zontiky]

*trips and falls, headcanons spilling out of my pockets* yeah, these are- *tries to gather them up* im just- *they keep spilling* ok im just gonna- *one single headcanon keeps evading my grasp* ok ok i’ll just share the one-

“five and klaus draw together” ah i like this one okay cool, cool let’s go

u remember that piano ben post? yeah well while ben is learning piano five ALSO needs something to occupy himself with, or he keeps forgetting they saved the world and he’s not in the apocalypse anymore

he gets nightmares. all the time. after they go back to 2019 he’s like “alright my work here is done” and then he just crashes

he tries to sleep but all he can see is corpses and ash and more corpses and his siblings shouting at him for leaving even though he didn’t mean to, he tried to get back, and the handler with her touchy hands and everybody he’s killed and it’s so much

so five, being the resident genius, wisely decides to just. not. not to sleep. at all.

he lasts about two days and a half before he collapses walking to the dinner table, and all his siblings are immediately like “five what’s wrong what did you do”

so he explains his perfectly logical solution to nightmares, even though its not like it’s their business, fuck off.

and literally everybody is like five... that’s not.... that’s not healthy you can’t do that

so then klaus is like you know what, fieval, i found me a solution, now you’re gonna be soluting with me.

“klaus that’s not a word”

so klaus tells five that he has nightmares too. and honestly which one of them doesn’t.

but instead of avoiding his nightmares by not sleeping, he draws. he just sketches and paints and splatters and does whatever the hell he wants on any medium

and it helps! it actually helps to put the stuff he’s scared of on paper, or to just draw to get his mind off all the screaming corpses around him.

five decides that he’ll try it. fine. he knows he wouldn’t last more than a week anyway

so klaus takes five to michaels or something (even though michaels is expensive, like damn) and just says “pick a sketchbook and some pencils, also pens and brushes and paints if you want them”

“oh and markers you’re gonna need markers”

but because five knows absolutely nothing about art supplies klaus ends up having to  drag him around the store and list off things and their qualities so five can choose

five tries to get the cheapest things and klaus is like “no five there is no way im buying you paper that thin”

they end up getting a multimedia sketchbook (hardcover because those are the best) and some standard pencils and also mechanical! and pens. klaus sneaks a pack of brush tip markers even though five didn’t want them

(five totally knows klaus grabbed them, but he secretly appreciates klaus doing this for him so if he wants to get them ok. but he’ll definitely try to find a way to pay him back later)

so then five has all these new drawing materials! which is very appealing to him, because of all the neat pencils and paper and it’s just so nice? basically that feeling you get when you go to an office supply store or the back to school section at target 

once they get home it kinda hits five that he has... no clue how to draw.

klaus is like “here i’ll show you!” and just starts sketching?? but that makes no sense to five, like where does he start, which lines are the right ones, how?? what??

so then klaus explains that the whole point of this is to express his emotions. he asks five, “when you wake up from a nightmare, how do you feel?”

five has to think for a bit. “I don’t know,” he answers, and it’s honest. He doesn’t.

“Alright.” Klaus flips to a new page in his own sketchbook. “Then let’s start with this. What’s something you see right now?”

Five looks around Klaus’s room. “The flower pot,” he decides. It’s a new one, with bright flowers in it. Klaus has been sticking flowers left and right throughout the mansion, trying to “make this place less of a depressing hell-hole,” in his words.

“Okay. So now get your pencil, and try to draw it.” He holds up a hand, cutting off Five’s protest. “It doesn’t matter if you’re good or not. Just try to, how do you say this. Put the general shape of the flowers onto your paper. Just lines and shapes, how it makes you feel.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Five points out.

“Yeah. Yeah, you’re right,” Klaus agrees. “It doesn’t, not really. But try. Just try to draw out the flower pot.”

Five hesitantly reaches for a pencil. He hovers his hand over the blank paper, trying to figure out where to start. He gently lowers the sharp tip of the pencil onto the page.

Light gray lines cross over each other, each one adding a little bit to the flat likeliness of the pot. Soon enough Five has a messy outline of Klaus’s flowers.

“I don’t know.”

“Hey, no, it’s good! I mean, you’re obviously not Van Gogh, but it’s a start. Now how do you feel?” Klaus asks him, looking over his drawing.

“I...” He doesn’t really know. It’s like there’s been a small shift in something he doesn’t quite grasp. “Better, I think.”

Klaus claps his hands together. “That’s good. Now, do you know what you’re going to do, Five? You’re going to sleep with that sketchbook in your room, and if you wake up from a nightmare, you’re going to get up and draw out your feelings. Doesn’t have to make any sense, just get your emotions onto that page. You can add words if you want, too.”

“When,” reflexively corrects Five. “Not if, when. But okay.”

“I’m going to ignore that for now, but just know that you’re concerning. And if you try to skip out on sleep again, I’ll find you and beat you into unconsciousness with a dirty sock filled with pennies.”

“That’s very specific,” remarks Five, standing up and gathering his sketchbook and other stationery. “But sure. I’ll sleep.”

He flashes out of the room, and that’s that.

five has a nightmare that night. it’s not unexpected or anything, but he’s still upset. just as he’s getting out of the post terror funk his eyes catch on the sketchbook sitting on his desk.

he grabs it and starts sketching what he sees from his window, because why not? he may as well humor klaus.

he ends up drawing the moon. it’s the clearest thing he can see

he shows his drawing to luther in the morning. he tells five that it looks great! it’s really cool, how he can draw like that

and slowly five starts to draw more and more. eventually he’s just sitting around the house sketching. he never gets very good, but it’s nice. the scratching of the pencil on paper and the weight of the pen in his hand are comforting

at one point klaus just plops down next to him and starts drawing five. he’s using charcoal, not pens and pencils, and his sketchbook is different. when five moves to go get himself some coffee, klaus just goes “no. don’t move.”

at this point five understands how fucking hard drawing people is so he stays and just watches klaus draw him.

it becomes a sot of Thing they do, just going somewhere new or to the park or something and drawing. either each other or the things around them.

also five really enjoys markers! markers are really great for him, they’re so smooth and the different colors are very nice

five’s nightmares ease up after a while. some of both his and klaus’s pages in their sketchbooks are really dark, filled with things they just can’t stand and things that still scare them even after the danger’s gone

but there are other pages that are sloppy pictures of allison watching a movie, or diego throwing a knife, or vanya and luther trying to bake

eventually five and drawing just become something intertwined. he draws a lot with klaus, he goes to drawing classes sometimes to get himself out of the house

and slowly, things start looking up

(ben sometimes plays piano with klaus and five sitting in the same room sketching. klaus is humming along and five is just enjoying chilling with his bros)

[mysticsparklewings]

Sparkle By the Sea

Pardon me as I just barely squeeze a MerMay piece of art in. I'll be honest with you guys, I've been pretty lacking in artistic motivation since NaPoWriMo ended. Although if you've noticed my lack of uploads, you probably could've already guessed that.  This isn't abnormal for the aftermath of a month-long challenge for me, especially with a brand-new video game calling my name at every moment of the day, but even so I feel like this particular motivation drought was a bit different. Part of it definitely had to do with the changes to DeviantArt that I'm sure I don't need to remind everyone of, but that's been more of me dreading seeing what the state of the community is than anything else. (However, I have noticed I'm not a fan of the new tag system over the old category one, as confusing as the category system could be sometimes.) Rather, I think this lake of motivation has more to do with the fact that being largely absent from all social media during NaPo reminded me...well, that I hate social media. This is really a bigger discussion for a journal or something, but suffice to say it did not feel good to realize just how many literal hours I had previously been spending trying to desperately to scrape up just a little bit of support on other social media platforms (namely Twitter), versus the more natural growth I see here on dA that also feels a lot more genuine and less forced/obligatory. I can't really explain it, but that reminder/realization really helped my brain slip back into a place where I felt like creating again. And with that, I'll transition into talking about the art and save the social media talk for, as I said, a journal or something later on. Naturally, I've been seeing a lot of mermaid art this month and every year I feel the urge to get in on the fun, though I know better than to try actually doing the MerMay Challenge (especially not this year after having just done NaPo), so I usually either do a one-off drawing or if I'm too busy with other projects I just skip it. But I was starting to feel that need to make art in my brain again and I've had a specific set of stickers from the dollar store sitting in my stash for quite a while now that more or less sealed the deal for me. How do these stickers fit into the mix? Well, I originally fell in love with/picked them up because they are mermaid-themed and absolutely adorable--See for yourself! And I thought they would make for nice decals in a book project since they're wall stickers and therefore repositionable with minimal adhesive-yuck. And at first, I thought maybe I'd end up making them into said hypothetical book project in time for MerMay...except that felt a little cheap in combination with my lack of uploads. Did I really want to come back with a book project featuring mermaids I didn't even draw? And for MerMay of all things? So I sat on the idea and left the stickers out where I could see them, and eventually I sat down and took a closer look at them. The art style, upon further inspection, actually didn't look like it would be too far outside my usual art-making realms...Most of the coloring looks a lot like watercolor, except for the skin which I thought was flat and smooth like alcohol marker and the glitter accents which from my perspective pretty much had to be digital, but could potentially be replicated with glittery/metallic supplies... And that was the moment the idea hatched.  I decided I'd try drawing a mermaid myself in the same style. This would work for MerMay, have something to do with the stickers, and based on my plans would work well for me as a mixed-media project, which as I'm sure I've said before is where I think my artistic talent shines best. I thought the scariest part was going to be replicating the looser and less strict line style, and to a point it was, but it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. I find it's usually kind of tricky to explain this, but really what this part of the process boils down to for me (if I'm replicating an existing style and not using my own), is really just studying the original artwork(s) and looking for patterns, then trying to stick to those patterns. For example, the style here features fairly large & rounded faces, and the hands are more like hand-shaped mittens (which was great news by the way because hands are always a pain in the butt for me), so I did my best to emulate those features. As per usual, I did start with a sketch, but I tried to keep it looser than usual, and then when I did the inking I started with my 0.2 Micron, again trying to keep things loose and no be too fussy if I could help it. Then I went back with a brush tip liner from Prismacolor to get more natural variation in the lines and to force myself to not have quite so much control over the line weight. I was also very careful with my choice of liners because I knew pretty much everything except the skin was going to see a lot of watercolors, which meant the lines had to be waterproof. And of course, I went with watercolor paper (my nice 100% cotton stuff this time) to make sure I didn't have any issues with blending or layering. Now, at this stage, I didn't know what I was going to do for the background, though I was leaning towards the idea of making one separately and placing the mermaid on top afterward, as sort of a nod to the original mermaids being stickers. But I wasn't totally sure yet. What I was sure of was how scared I was to just dive into coloring. The sketching and inking and gone so well I was thinking I was in for a rude awakening at any moment. So, just in case, I scanned my uncolored lines as a fall-back if I royally screwed up. With my paranoid mind set at ease (for the most part), I could begin with color application. I started with the skin since it was the easiest; Just one good layer of alcohol marker, leaving a little white space here and there like the artwork I was emulating. Although 1. The marker color turned out a bit darker than I was expecting and later blended too well with her tail, so I had to lighten it in Photoshop, and 2. because watercolor paper really soaks up the ink, I ended up with less white space than I thought I would. But beyond that, this step went off without a hitch. So then came the second-scariest part: The watercolor. I used a mixture of my Master's Touch watercolors and Mermaid Markers (yes, that was a very conscious supply choice ) and tried to take my time and be mindful of the color balance I was looking for. I'd decided ahead of time that I wanted to try and stick with a soft-ish palette like the original art, but I still wanted my choices to be different. Since yellow/gold is featured in the original but not used for a tail color, that's what I went with, and I opted for the blue-y-purple hair since a soft blue and purple are also prominent in the original and based on color-theory would be a nice contrast to the gold-orange tail. Though I did also try to get some pink in both the tail and the hair for a bit of unity and calling back to the pink in the original art. The trickiest part with the coloring was actually the tiny lips and blush spots. I ended up using a fluorescent pink for that turned out as more of a red originally and had to be touched-up via Photoshop because of that and also because of the lightening I did to the skin. It's more that it was a bit of a challenge to get the shapes of these much smaller areas right and in the correct place, since I had to use very minimal pencil markings, lest I end up with nasty graphite marks mixed into the paint. Getting the hair to be dark enough without being extreme compared to the rest of the drawing was also a great test of patience, but it ultimately worked out, I think. I also had a hard time deciding what color the piece of coral in her hair should be, which is why it ended up as this vague dusky-orange color. And I got more pink on the sand dollar next to it than I intended, but neither of those things is a huge deal. While I waited for all that to dry though, I had to decide how I was going to go about tackling all that extreme sparkle the original art had. I could have just added it in digitally and not even attempted it traditionally, but everything else had gone so smoothly that I decided to push my luck this time. Originally, I started with just glittery gel pens, but I found pretty quickly that they were sinking back into the colors underneath them too much and thus just weren't doing what I wanted. I wanted high-impact sparkle. After some brief consideration, I turned to the metallic watercolor sets I have made by Art Philosophy, which are very high-impact metallic and pretty opaque, which would work well over my failed gel pen and would work wonders for the areas where I wanted that high-impact over an opposing color. (I.E. Where I wanted the blue sparkle over a very orange-yellow area, which would normally make brown mud if the color on top wasn't opaque.) The funny part about that is that I originally used a different shade of purple and gold for those areas of sparkle that I ended up completely covering with different shades (the purple needed to be lighter and the gold needed to be darker/more gold and less yellow). And her eye shadow cover saw all three colors before I settled; The purple just seemed wrong, and the gold blended too well with her skin. I thought the blue wouldn't work so close to her blue hair, but it actually ended up looking the best out of the three. Although, I do have to make a full disclosure that the high-impact sparkle you see here is in fact where I went in and re-did it digitally once I scanned the artwork in. Unfortunately, glitter and metallic supplies just don't scan very well and usually end up looking too dark, dull, or flat by comparison. The metallic paints work just fine in person since you can move the art and see how they reflect the light, but it just doesn't work in a still image that's been captured by having a bright light uniformly shined over it. Still, re-tooling the sparkle digitally ended up being an interesting challenge, especially since it's been a fairly long time since I was messing with digital textures like this. Also worth noting is that I had to re-paint some of the metallic areas because they weirdly lifted off onto the plastic cover I used to protect the art when I pressed it onto the background to make the glue stick. I'm not sure if it's because those were the extra-layered areas and they hadn't fully dried all the way down to the paper, or if that particularly plastic just picks up this metallic paint really easily or what. And speaking of that background... Like I said earlier, I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do for a background for a while, but after reviewing my mermaid-centric Pinterest board I decided a simple rock seat and something to vaguely suggest the ocean/water without getting too detailed would suffice just fine. Based on that, I felt like using gouache would work nicely (and I just really felt like using the gouache since I don't find a lot of opportunities to use it) and that a color scheme that flipped her hair and tail colors would be best for the effect I wanted. I've found I really like the Strathmore 400 series mixed media paper for gouache because of how smooth it is, so I cut a piece down to size and got busy. For the most part, I just kind of went in with the colors doing whatever felt right, and trying to use some gouache I'd already mixed from past projects (since gouache can be reactivated and I've found this kind, in particular, seems to reactivate really nicely) either on their own or to mix the colors I felt like I needed. And I also tried to do a lot of blending straight on the paper to get more variations in color and make things a bit more lively. Oddly enough, this ended up being a good example of gouache's covering power because I accidentally started applying the colors upside down--using more greens and blues on top and more pinky-purple on the bottom--and not only had to flip the paper around but also had to do a fair amount of covering the colors I'd already put down with colors you don't really want to mix with them because they don't make very pretty results.  But it worked out just fine, so yay! I also added some clouds for a little extra ambiance, which I think looks quite nice. Believe it or not, the most difficult thing about the background was the rocks. I spent far longer than I care to admit (or bothered to document, for that matter) trying and in many ways failing to mix the proper shades of gray I wanted, and the end result didn't turn out quite as clean and graphic as I had hoped, but by the time I put the mermaid on top, you really can't tell because you can only see a fraction of what's actually there.  And I mean, the end result isn't terrible, it's just not quite what I was picturing in my mind's eye is all. Personally, I know it's kind of an odd choice, but I really like how there's no defining line between the water and the sky, and yet you still get a clear idea that they're separate and the rocks aren't just floating in space. I'm not sure how, but I think I'd like to work with this kind of ambiguity more often. It's like a step between abstract and more structured art. Anyway. With the background done, the next step was to attach the mermaid, which I felt like doing in a more 3D and less flat manner, so I chopped up a cardboard box that previously held a chocolate bunny I had on hand and glued some pieces together to boost the mermaid up a bit. This where those deep shadows between her and the background are coming from.   Here I feel the need to insert a comment about how difficult it was to get my tacky glue to dispense the glue for me, though there's a chance this is because I need to poke the opening in the tip to be a bit wider. (You have to poke it open yourself and I always felt like I never did get it open quite enough...unless you like strenuous hand exercises...) Of course, once all the above was done then I had to scan the art in, which I was admittedly a bit nervous about after the incident with the plastic cover peeling off the metallic paint (though fortunately, the scanner glass didn't have the same effect), and then all that was left wad the digital retouches. Overall, I'm really happy with how this turned out. It doesn't blend in as well as I originally wanted it to with the original art, but in the end, that doesn't really bother me. It's just a nice piece of art on its own that is also unique from what I normally do...except it's still got a lot of similar elements to how I normally make art. It feels a lot like the days when all I made was fanart. The key difference here is that I know myself better as an artist now and thus can use that knowledge to my advantage. I can't promise this a return to regular posting for me, though I do hope it's a gateway to me posting more frequently at least, but I can say I do intend on getting back to working on art more often and therefore being more present online again. At the very least, I can happily tell you guys that I have a couple of new art supplies en route to me that I've been wanting for a while and am excited to share with you once they arrive.  If nothing else, we at least have that to look forward to! ____ Artwork © me, MysticSparkleWings ____ Where to find me & my artwork: My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble |   Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram

[kichimiangra]

For poor artists...

Okay so weeks ago I came across a post (That I can’t seem to find now...) that roughly went like this: “All you tumblrites with depression need some hobbies to help with depression because hobbies help.”

“Not everyone has the privilege of being able to afford hobbies!  Hobbies cost money!”

“You don’t need expensive stuff to draw!!!  Draw on scrap paper!  Napkins!  Go to the dollar store!”

Now for weeks since seeing that post it keeps coming back to me... almost hauntingly.  It’s not that I can’t comprehend that people can’t afford expensive art supplies, on the contrary I very much remember being like that!  But today you poor artists have access to something wonderful that I didn’t growing up:

Under the cut let me tell you a tale about a wonderful place that could have granted my wish for art supplies growing up!

And that place is called Wish.com!

(Disclaimer #1: Almost everything I’m talking about here are supplies that I myself have personally purchased and tried using AND STILL DO!)

(Disclaimer #2:  I don’t believe that good supplies make a good artist, but good supplies can help make a good artist better/ make their life easier!)

Now growing up I did not come from a wealthy family.  I had 3 siblings, all of us close in age so we were kids/ teens together.  My father worked in a warehouse and my mother was a stay at home mom because it was impossible to find an affordable babysitter considering that My older sister had trouble in school with bullies and a reading disorder, I was an un-diagnosed autistic devil-child, my younger sister had severe asthma and was always sick, and my younger brother was deaf.  We all kinda needed special attention.  As you can imagine we didn’t have a lot of money, and as I got older and more Artish meant I had to make due with what I could get.  That didn’t mean I went without, just often had to save and wait for what I could use, which followed me to adulthood.  Had Wish.com been around in my teens it would have been a godsend and I’m patient enough to wait a few weeks to get my order!

God I love these things!  These ball point pens with 10 colors are what I use for story boarding comics and note taking!  I used something like these when I was in college because notes were much easier to organize and read when color coded!

“But KC!  I like to sketch with blue/red pencil first!” Lookie here!  Colored pencil lead refills in all sorts of colors!  Cyan works great and so does the red!

Now I didn’t know they came this small until recently but I LOVE this 0.3mm Mechanical pencil!!!  The lines are so thin and small!!!  I have literally never seen anything smaller than a 0.5mm in a store!

Now I like mechanical pencils for their consistent lead size as you draw! They’re just a click away from being back to sharpness!  But you may want a 0.5mm and a 0.7mm and this 3pc set is soo sleek looking!  It’s good to have a 0.9mm too! I used to have a spongebob .16mm pencil I stole from my brother but it went missing!  I have never found another one that HUGE again! T_T

Speaking of pencils this nice little set comes with a mechanical pencil+lead+a white plastic eraser.  They work great though the eraser is not my personal fav...

THESE are my favorite erasers to use!!!  Not only are they cute colors but they’re a good consistency!  They’re softer than a plastic eraser but a bit harder than a gum eraser so they feel really good to erase with and do a good job!!!

If you really like working with Pencil you can prolly just get a cheap #2 pencil at a dollar store or a box of them at Walmart, but I Really like the feel of a 2B pencil!  This lead holder comes with some replacement lead too so you don’t have to worry about sharpening it to nothing!!

This set of Graphite sticks are a little messy but it comes with all kinds of lead hardness and you can use an x-acto blade to sharpen them to different size points!!!

This is a pretty basic but nice sketch set and has a lot of size options to pick and buy from!!  I’ve used the small 32 set and it has everything you need if you love pencil art!

FINE LINERS!!!  I have a story about Fine liners! Internet shopping hadn’t quite taken off yet for my family and the only store I knew that sold Microns/Fabercastelle fine liners was a local store.  They didn’t sell them in singles so the cheapest set you could buy was a $15 Faber Castelle set with 5 pens (Sm/Med/Lrg/Brush/Chisel).  Now $15 doesn’t sound too bad until you remember my family was poor.  How poor?  Poor enough where my sister and I would each get one of these sets for Christmas and store one away while sharing the other set in hopes of getting them both to last until June where I could get another for my birthday that will hopefully last BOTH of us until next Christmas.  I noticed when you buy Microns off of Wish.com you have a 50/50 chance of getting a knock off brand but these ones here worked pretty good for their price!

“But KC!  Not only am I a poor artist... I’m a poor HIPSTER artist! I wanna kick it OLD SCHOOL!” WELL This is a nice cheap little set of dip pen nib holders and nibs!  The pink one is cute but I have the black one.  I personally love my Cork nib holder more but for plastic this one is decently comfortable to hold and a good price!  I find Nibs are a bit of “You get what you pay for” but if I was displaced into an apartment somewhere without any of my stuff and I wanted some dip pens this set would do just fine!  Dip pens take some skill to get used to so even if you want to just cheaply try some this is a good set to start with!  And if you want better nibs later on they fit right in these holders!

I also have a very decorative (but functional) glass dip pen!  Unlike the metal nib dip pens above the glass one doesn’t really allow for a lot of variation in line weight, but if you want the line work to stay a consistent size then this one is pretty good for that, though depending on your paper it can bleed a bit... once again takes some practice to get used to it.

Now you’re gonna need some ink for those dip pens!  I haven’t really gotten to try any black ink from Wish.com because I have a few bottles of black ink that I keep getting for birthdays and Christmas and such, so I haven’t run out and gotten to try a new brand.  COLOR ink on the other hand...  These little 5oz bottles have gold sparkles in it!! And they look nice to boot!  They can get a little expensive because on THIS particular order you can only order them one at a time (And pay shipping for each bottle) but you really don’t need all 24 bottles as a lot of the colors look similar to each other.

Here’s a sketch of Keira Hagai from Jak and Daxter along with the supplies used to draw it (Notice the ink, glass and black nib pens and the 0.3mm pencil.  The only thing used not from Wish.com is the feather sweeper I made from sculpey and chicken feathers.)

The ink doesn’t work great as paint though but you know what does?

PAINTS!  I didn’t buy this one but it’s a nice little affordable starter set with pallet and brushes!

Now I’m a bit snooty, I prefer to buy watercolor paints in tubes and an empty paint pallet.  The paint pallet I have isn’t THIS one specifically but this one is a bit nicer than the one I DO have and a bit cheaper as well!  (Mine doesn’t have a lid the folds out into a paint mixing area)(Now I wish I had this one!)(Maybe when my current pallet runs out of paint...)

If you use watercolor paints you’re gonna need some brushes!  This is a pretty good deal!  You get 12 brushes and get to pick either flat or round tip brushes!  They’re also not too shabby!

I use a set like this though!  They has a water reservoir in the handle so you squeeze the water out and onto the paint!  The reason I prefer these is I have a lot of pets and they like to get into mischief, so having a pallet that can be closed if I get up for a bathroom break or water that can’t be knocked over is a must for me!!

“But KC I like more... dry mediums...” Lucky for you colored pencils are all over the place on Wish.com!  You can get all kinds of different sets and sizes and some even have nice carrying cases too!  I haven’t bought any because I own a LOT of colored pencil sets already and don’t use them frequently...  I’ve also tried some chalk pastels from Wish that worked well enough on their own but the way I use them is grinding them into a fine powder and brushing them onto paper and that didn’t grind well...

And What’s art without PAPER!?!?  Wish.com is tripping paper!  Whatever is in your price range look around!  I can promise you you’ll find a sketch book or two within your budget!  Some even name brand sketch pads!

And now some miscellaneous stuff:

I LOVE binder clips!  Great way to keep all my paper together and in some places hang stuff up so I can stare at it a bit before continuing working on it!

I like art markers and not many truly can fill in the shoes left by Copic brand markers.  I have tried a handful of copic alternatives (And watched even MORE comparison videos by other people who own said markers.)  I feel like there is no such thing as a GOOD CHEAP QUALITY art marker.  There are lots of sets on Wish.com that (For their prices) are what I consider “Cheap enough to tinker with”  When I was in highschool back in 2007-9 I really really really wanted Copics and was resentful that I was poor and couldn’t get any.  I would get so angry when I saw 14 year olds on deviantart who drew like ‘14 year olds on devintart’ but had no less that two 72 sets of copics. I know, it was rather petty of me to be resentful of younger more fortunate artists... The trade off with my parents was that I would settle for Prismacolor markers, bought 1 per week with a 40% off coupon provided I did all my chores and kept my grades above failing.  That was the closest I ever had to an allowance.  Throughout the years I’ve settled with ‘Tinker Markers’ (Cheapish alternative markers) and Ohuhu, Prismacolor, and Touch New seem to be the better alternatives.  Just don’t go looking for a brush nib >.<!

MASKING TAPE!  Always good for taping things to other things!!  Unfortunately I feel like Walmart gives you bigger rolls for better deals so if it’s going cheap I’d say you don’t need tape from Wish...

Aaaah!  A light board!  And another long trip down memory lane!  Last October going into Inktober I noticed there were people throwing little fits about Inktober itself and if it’s okay to do it with a digital medium.  One persons comment stuck out (And echo’d in my brain) where they said (And I’m paraphrasing): “How am I supposed to focus on my ‘self improvement’ with traditional art if I just can’t draw from the anxiety of knowing that every pen stroke is permanent and I could completely ruin my drawing at any second without the CTRL+Z and layers!?!?!?!” To which my first knee-jerk reaction was: “Wow kid... I think you have waaaay more problems than inktober if your anxiety levels are THAT high that you can’t just accept an oopsie doodle and try again...” But then I do remember a time when I was like that.  In college I scheduled a really bad semester with too many classes, mostly art classes.  One was a classic Pen and Ink class which I did fear screwing up, not because of anxiety of failure but because I would have to start over on my homework, and that would take time from all my other homework.  Time I didn’t have.  I found a large sum of money on the ground ($100.00) one day, waited a month (Nobody claimed it), donated half to my local animal shelter (As is a karma thing in my family with ‘found money’) and used the other half to buy a light board (With a 40% off coupon.)  It was the size of a shoe box, thick and clunky, and didn’t get very bright, but it did what I needed it to.  If I screwed up on ink homework I’d throw a new paper over it and start again.  You can be cheap and use a window on a sunny day, but light boxes (or light boards now) are so affordable and sleek and thin and wish has a lot of them!  I have a cheapish but large A-Line tracing board that sits on my drawing table and fits well and honestly saves 40% of what anxiety I would have putting pen to paper (If I hadn’t been drawing freehand so long that I just don’t get that kind of anxiety over it)

If Wish.com was around when I was a teenager art supplies would have never been THAT big of a deal and I wouldn’t have had to ‘Carpool’ 3 fine liner sets per year with my sister!

Really, I know there will still be people out there who still can’t afford some of the things listed above, but if you have an inclination to try art whether it’s with pencils, paints, markers, pastels, ink, dip pens, fine liners, whatever you lean towards, Wish.com has a cheap affordable version that may not be the best quality out there on the market, but thinking back 15 years ago little KC would have loved to save up some money, order some new supplies, and wait a month for them to arrive so she could use them.

Once again most of the supplies listed above have been bought and used by myself.  There are some great materials at mostly affordable prices on Wish.com so if you are poor like Little KC was you probably know the patience of putting aside a dollar here and there and having to wait, or if you are well off but don’t want to spend too much on a hobby you haven’t tried yet and don’t know if you’d like Wish.com has you covered!

And if you’d like to, Reblog this for other poor artists so they know they don’t have to share their fine liners!

[exeuntstormtroopers]

Hello, I love your book Eliza and her Monsters! I was wondering if you got any art tips for any struggling artists (like me) out there. If you already answered that, then you can send me a link. Thanks!

Hello! Ooh, I don’t think I’ve been asked for art tips before. I’ve basically stumbled my way through drawing for the last ~23 years so you could say I’m not as dedicated to the craft as I should be (I once described my art style as “laziness”), but I’ll do my best!

- Use references! I was really against this for a long time, for some reason. I didn’t learn how to draw decent hands for like fifteen years because I just refused to examine my OWN HANDS. Once I did, it was like, “oH, hands are kind of a square shape with a part jutting off for your thumb knuckle and and they kind of fan out and they can curve so your palm hollows out…” and then I could suddenly draw hands.

- Look up drawing tutorials! There are a lot of good ones online, on places like DeviantArt. Look up different drawing techniques. Literally this year was the first time I ever heard of the Loomis Method for drawing heads, and it blew my mind. Did you know the sides of your head are KIND OF FLAT?? What?????? (Again, yay me for not paying better attention to the human head…)

- Don’t use gray to shade colors unless you want to desaturate everything. I learned this in art class in high school, but for some reason it didn’t penetrate my skull in regards to digital art until the past few years. Using a different (still saturated) color makes amazing shadows and keeps your picture from looking flat and boring. 

- To quote Bob Ross, “There are no mistakes, only happy accidents.” I mean, sometimes there are mistakes (gosh DARNIT my hand slipped while I was inking that lineart and now there’s a tiny stray line on the jaw that’s super noticeable and can’t be turned into anything else), but it’s never the end of the world and they don’t mean you have to throw out the picture. Everything is a learning experience and is making you a better artist.

- Better equipment won’t make you a better artist, but once you’re pretty good with some basic things, better art supplies do have perks to them that will allow you to do things you may not have been able to do before. The first time I used Copic markers, I thought I was performing magic. The downside: Art supplies cost money. Usually quite a bit of it…

- You may get spoiled by doing artwork digitally. I went to draw something with pen and paper the other day and kept getting frustrated when I realized I couldn’t tap the screen and remove the line I’d just made. Solution: Do ALL your artwork digitally and forsake your pen and paper overlords!!

I hope these help. Like any skill, a lot of drawing is just doing it a lot, and if you actually pay attention to what you’re doing (unlike me), you’ll get better even faster! It’s all about practicing, honing your craft, and enjoying what you’re doing.

[pexerpan]

Tink & Peter

                                   which one in your otp

Steals the blankets to create a blanket cocoon, and which one spends the night trying to tug out a corner of it to sleep under? 

     Tink — because what doesn’t she steal from him? it started with a jumper he offered to her freezing form when they were children ( which, needless to say, was never returned to peter again ), remained a habit throughout the course of their friendship and has now morphed into tink stealing the blanket from him every night. admittedly, peter doesn’t mind it at all. where tink feels most secure wrapped into her own little world and the illusion that in her bed, hidden underneath a blanket nothing bad will ever find her, peter finds his freedom in sleeping entirely without it, without the weight of it pressing him down and holding him back. it’s the perfect fit, and yet, they always find each other drawing closer at night, waking up to tangled limps, the blanket messily slung around both of them in ways that make actually ‘ getting up ‘ a puzzle challenge neither of them is capable of forcing their brain to solve, which ends, you guessed it, in sleeping in together.

Takes spontaneous selfies everywhere, and which one always has their eyes closed in them? 

    Peter — but he has a reason, alright?! there are only so many pictures peter has of his tink and most of them include her hands, her hair or a the blurr of sudden movements covering her face. he’s not the most materialistic person and matter of factly, pictures often make him narrow his eyes for he doesn’t quite understand why anyone would need a picture to remember a moment they claim to have been important. however, now that he has lived without tink for six months, he realised he would not have minded a picture of her; a real one – not any more detailed than the one in his head, but more tangible. he doesn’t mind that her eyes are closed in most of them, in fact he finally succumbed to it and made one of her sleeping, curled up against his chest. he didn’t keep it though. it didn’t feel right and really, why would he keep it? he had her back now and he had no plans of leaving again.

Calls and makes appointments like a responsible adult, and which one would rather eat dirt than make a phone call?

    Peter — there aren’t many things that can make peter act responsible, like an adult or even like a responsible adult, but the terror in tink’s eyes when told she’s to make a phone call would make him do anything. plus, she’s said it before, she would quite literally rather eat dirt than make a phone call, and peter along with his lost boys have learned through many dares that tink is not joking. she would eat dirt. in fact, she already has.

Forgets what’s in the oven because their favourite song came on, and which one smells the smoke?

     Peter — are we surprised? not only does he have the woooorst attention span in human history because he finds waiting for anything to be a waste of his valuable time, but he also would be left stranded without tink in his life to fix things. she’s the one who smells it, who runs into the kitchen too and saves them from the catastrophy of everything burning down. 

Changes their wardrobe with the seasons, and which one has been wearing the same three shirts in rotation for six months?

    Peter — which is shocking, but hear me out. he has to, and it basically translates into tink changing her wardrobe with the seasons too, because it seems every time he gets something new, one of his older sweatshirt or t-shirts disappears into tink’s wardrobe instead of his own. he doesn’t mind it, not at all, and whether she notices it or not he actually started getting new clothes earlier just so the ones she’d sneak from him wouldn’t be as threadbare anymore. it’s not a massive change though, let’s be honest, and he wouldn’t need to change them at all if he wasn’t outside as often and the seasons didn’t change the weather too.

Goes wild in the art supply store, and which one goes wild in the office supply store?

    Tink — in both cases, i’d dare say, and let’s be entirely honest, peter has lost her on multiple occasions in different art and office supply stores. she’s small, she’s surprisingly fast and she’s gone if only you look away once. peter has come to accept his fate, lounging with the cashiers and chatting with other customers, until tink – possibly his favourite type of tink with an excited smile and all the supplies she’d need to tinker – would re-appear and he could carry the supplies home for her.

Journals about their feelings every night before bed, and which one would describe their feelings at any given moment as “mad,” “sad,” or “glad”?

     Neither — listen, they tried and with ‘ they ‘ i mean the lost boys. in a moment of frustration after tink and peter managed to blow up at one another again, slightly threw a journal at each of them with the simple task to write everything the fuck down in order to avoid unnecessary arguments ( logical, right? being able to just go a few pages back and settle their dispute ). however, instead of using it as supposed to, tink managed to amplify her emotions by emptying a pen and re-colouring an entire page back and front a pitch black and peter had recreated the docks in paper form in order to figure out a plan on how to capture the jolly roger. at last, they switched from being ‘ mad ‘ at one another when tink threw her crumpled piece of paper at peter, missing just enough for it to hit the paper boat instead and have it sink to the floor — throwing a boulder at the jolly roger, what a fun idea — and were ‘ glad ‘ once more, and really what other emotions do you need in life? plus, they’re not exactly good at processing emotions more complicated than mad, sad and glad.

Arranges their food to look like a happy face, and which one secretly thinks it’s adorable?

     Tink — sometimes in life, and that’s a fact, you need a little bit of extra happiness when a day has been especially stressful or you’ve woken up feeling a little low, and that’s when tink subconsciously starts drawing happy faces with her food instead of actually eating it. peter ( ever the emotionally limited ) doesn’t quite understand where its coming from, doesn’t even notice the blue feeling clouding her thoughts, but that, for once, is actually okay, because he finds her to be extra adorable then and if he looks at her with nothing but adoration in his eyes, slides his own plate to her with a face fitting to the one she created or finds himself so distracted he reaches for her hand and steals her away from reality, the day is suddenly not as blue anymore.

{ @faeriydust }

[sammy-writes-stuff]

The Stranger, Ch 10.

Chapter Ten: Da Vinci’s

Start.  Previous.

With their art supplies successfully conjured, Virgil and Carrie spread out on the living room floor, lying on their stomachs. Carrie had changed back into her princess dress from the day before. She had noticed that the others wore the same outfits, and she wondered if it was somehow linked to the capacity of Thomas’ imagination. Carrie didn’t want to be a strain while she was there, and not knowing the physics or ‘laws’ of existence in her new…situation…she wanted to play it safe.

So, she set about designing two outfits: one for everyday wear, and one for sleeping in. Her head still throbbed, her mind tying itself in knots over what to believe or what to do, but she absent-mindedly rubbed Eeyore’s ear between her fingers in an effort to stay grounded.

“Why Eeyore?” Virgil grunted, after about half an hour of silence. Carrie looked up in surprise to see that Virgil was looking at her oddly. She blushed a little and put her pencil down.

“I…I was given him when I was about 6 months old. I dunno, I kinda just never put him down when I was little. But…I lost him about a year ago. I know it’s stupid – he was just a soft toy I mean, and a really old one at that – but he used to help me relax…he was a friend…” Her cheeks grew steadily redder as Virgil just held his gaze.

“Thomas has literally invested so much time and thought in us sides that we manifested and became real. I don’t think we can judge you for having a strong relationship with something grounded in imagination.” Virgil broke his eye contact and picked up his marker again. Carrie nodded a little.

“It’s just…” Virgil suddenly added, chewing on the end of his pen. “Most people like the other characters in Winnie the Pooh, because they are happy or smart or fun. Eeyore is…Eeyore is a lot of effort to be around.”

Carrie looked down at Eeyore, pulling him closer and hugging him. “But he is accepted for who he is.” It felt lame, but she couldn’t really think of anything else to say. Virgil just nodded, and started working on his art again.

“You remind me more of Piglet, anyway.” Carrie said, sketching another possible design onto her paper.

“That’s not what I was…why?” Virgil seemed genuinely surprised. Carrie looked up, remembering what Logan had told her about the anxious side.

“Well, he is usually the one who is aware of the consequences, he worries about his friends because sometimes they are too idealistic, and he keeps them safe.”

Virgil refused to look up this time, and Carrie had a hard time reading him. But she was on a roll now, so she figured she would just keep going.

“From what I can tell…well on principle I suppose Thomas would be Christopher Robin…Patton could be Pooh Bear, he’s all about morals and he’s very considerate to others…I suppose Logan would be Owl because he’s very smart and fascinated with the world…which leaves Roman as -”

“Tigger.” Virgil finished, snorting with laughter. Carrie laughed, enjoying the moment. “Yeah that actually sounds about right.”

They lapsed into a more comfortable silence this time, both scratching away with their pencils on paper. Virgil wasn’t drawing exactly…he seemed to be writing.

The pair heard a very distinctive bump from upstairs…and Virgil suddenly tensed.

“What was that?” Carrie asked, looking up nervously.

Virgil stared at the roof, with a dark expression on his face.

“Just a few rats.” He practically hissed, his moody expression making Carrie miss the brief smile she had witnessed. There was a tense moment of watching the ceiling before Patton came down the stairs.

“Hey kiddos! How are my Leonardo DiCaprio’s?” He seemed cheery enough, but Virgil didn’t lose his frown.

“I think you mean Da Vinci’s.” Logan said as he entered the living room with a stack of papers.

“What about my Vintage Cheese?” Patton said with a smirk as he reached the bottom of the steps. Logan just froze, and took a deep breath, exhaling loudly. Carrie giggled. Virgil flipped his work over subtly as Patton and Logan passed him into the kitchen.

“If we’re having cheese I can conjure up some crackers!” Roman boasted, entering the living room. “Oh, I am digging the creative vibe in here!” He looked around smiling, Virgil scowled and looked down, starting to pack up.

Roman shrugged and moved into the kitchen, where Carrie could hear the sound of a kettle boiling.

“Do you like it?” Carrie asked Virgil, holding up her two designs. Virgil looked up, a little defensive, and chewed his lip. Usually with Thomas, he would have to worry about a whole range of factors on the practicalities and issues with an outfit…would it be too hot? Too cold? If the weather changed abruptly would it be bad? Would he end up feeling uncomfortable in it? Would others like it? Virgil actually found it quite nice, for once, to not really have to consider that. He smiled and nodded. Carrie laughed and also started to pack up. Though she didn’t ask, Virgil – after a moment of internal conflict – held up his own work.

“Thomas isn’t very good at drawing…” He mumbled, looking at the floor.

“Wow.” Carrie simply said, and Virgil looked up to gauge her reaction. She seemed…impressed?

Virgil’s ‘picture’ was made up of words…grey words showed a swirling sky; dark black words showed a hill. In the middle, an outline of a person standing alone on the crest, looking out into the abyss.

“That is awesome! Are those…MCR lyrics?”

“Black Parade.” Virgil gave a half smile, pleased with the positive response.

“I LOVE that song!”

“KIDDOS! LUNCH!” Patton called. Carrie looked back at Virgil to see that he was already leaving, picture in hand, in the opposite direction.

Next.

[lnicol1990]

BatIM - Wall Scribbles

Surprise! Another story. And this one is for @upperstories and her Bendy and Buddy AU, which is a spin-off of the Henry and the Ink Machine (HatIM) AU by @thelostmoongazer.

A lot of Bendy and Buddy is kinda sad and angsty, so I thought I’d add a little bit of bittersweet fluff.

Do enjoy!

You can also read this on DeviantArt.

The Searcher was relentless as it chased Bendy down the corridor. He must have run to the other side of the studio, and it still wasn’t giving up.

For a split second, the toon wondered what had happened to Buddy, Joey’s replacement for him after he’d jumped for freedom. The little understudy had been there when the Searcher had popped up, had fled with him, but the pipsqueak had ducked into a ventilation shaft at some point and disappeared. The toon devil had heard rumbling and rattling above his head, which could have been his replacement, but…

He couldn’t really afford to be thinking about that now, though.

As he ran blindly round another corner, he saw a door open at ahead of him. Fearing the worst, he was about to turn tail and try to fake out the Searcher when a sharp whistle came from the open door crack. A tiny, mitten hand waved at him, urging him closer. Feeling his body flood with relief, Bendy raced to the door and slammed it shut. He quickly took stock of his new surroundings.

It was a walk-in storage cupboard with mostly janitorial supplies, along with a few other items. There was a busted ventilation shaft, which was undoubtedly how Buddy had gotten in, and a mop and bucket was leaning against the far wall.

Without a word, Bendy pointed at the mop before hurriedly dropping his hand in favour of bracing the door as the Searcher slammed into it. He watched his little understudy rush to follow his instructions, although it was pitiful watching the tiny toon struggle to move something three times his size. Once the mop was in reach, Bendy jammed it under the handle and against the two neighbouring shelves.

Stepping back, he watched the door shudder once… twice… and then it was still. He could still hear the Searcher outside, pacing maybe but certainly not leaving.

“This, uh…” Bendy panted as the adrenaline rush began to die down, his body still shaking slightly. He looked down at Buddy who was, in turn, looking up at him. He gave the pipsqueak a shaky smile. “This was a good find, Buddy. Let’s– Let’s stay here for a while, huh? Get some rest.”

Buddy looked at him for a long moment before nodding quickly in agreement. He watched the smaller toon peruse the shelves before finding one that he clearly liked. As his replacement climbed to the third shelf off the floor, he noticed that the understudy had found a box of paper, and was settling down in it as if it was his personal bed. The little guy even used a sheet like a blanket.

He chuckled quietly, impressed at the smaller toon’s inventiveness. Then, after giving the door a final wary look, he settled down against a tool box. Repositioning his scarf to pillow his head slightly, he crossed his arms and went to sleep.

---***---

Bendy was woken by the faint sound of scratching. Immediately alarmed, he glanced to the door. It was still; in fact, the sound wasn’t coming from there at all. Now curious, he turned his head to further into the cupboard.

Buddy was sitting with his back to him. The understudy’s tail was dripping with ink from a nearby well and was being expertly used to doodle on the wall. His replacement was actually looking at the wall scribble critically, as if trying to decide if it needed any more added to it.

As Bendy quietly approached, he took a good look at the mural. It was a picture from outside the studio. It looked like a city, complete with skyscrapers, little people and a couple of old-timey cars. The detail was astonishing, especially as it been done in just one kind of ink with Buddy’s tail as the pen.

“Guess you’ve been up for a while,” Bendy noted conversationally.

Buddy flinched at the sound of his voice. In an instant, the understudy had jumped up and recoiled from the larger toon. His mitten hands held his dripping tail tightly to his chest and visibly quivered next to his artwork.

Bendy winced at how badly he’d startled the pipsqueak.

“Eh, sorry Buddy. Didn’t mean to make you jump,” Bendy apologised, sitting down in front of his replacement’s doodle. “It looks good, though I didn’t think you’d ever been outside. How d’you know what any of this looks like?”

Buddy relaxed, letting out a remarkably large breath. He looked visibly relieved, much to Bendy’s confusion. It was almost as if…

“I’m guessing Joey didn’t like your art, huh?” he asked, keeping his voice soft to not spook his understudy again. He nodded understandingly as Buddy shook his head. “Yeah, he’s never liked anything that wasn’t his idea. Heh… doesn’t know what he’s missing. It’s really good, y’know.”

Buddy dropped his tail and his mouth fell open. The tension that was always in the little guy’s shoulders disappeared and he lowered them to a more natural position, standing straighter. His arms relaxed, hanging loosely at his sides, and his eyebrows –barely visible under the ink that covered his face– lost the worried expression and rose slightly. The understudy’s meek, hunched posture was gone, replaced with pure, unadulterated surprise.

Like he’d never been complimented before…

Unsure of how to deal with Buddy’s astonishment, Bendy turned to look at the wall art again. Something about it nagged at him, as if it was familiar somehow. Had he seen it while he was outside? How would Buddy know what such a vista looked like? Those questions bounced around his head for a while before he noticed something in the drawing’s bottom right corner. He’d previously dismissed it as a start-up scribble, Buddy’s way of checking how the ink was coming off his tail, but now he felt inclined to look closer.

He leaned closer and stared at the scribble. It looked even more familiar than the rest of the picture. It was at a funny angle, and Bendy twisted his head to look at it better. The more he stared at it the more the lines made sense, and he began to fancy that he could recognise letters amongst the scrawl.

Henry

It was Henry’s signature.

Bendy leaned back, confused and shocked. He looked over the rest of the mural, trying to understand. But as he did, pieces began to click into place and he smiled ruefully.

The whole thing was one of Henry’s doodles, something he’d done during a break and stuck on the wall for Bendy and the others to look at. Buddy must have seen it at some point, and could copy the picture down to the last detail. Well, except for words, apparently. It seemed the little guy wasn’t literate and could only copy writing in basic, scratchy lines.

He turned back to Buddy, only to find that his replacement hadn’t moved. He got a sense of anticipation from the smaller toon, as if the understudy was waiting for him to say something else.

He didn’t have the heart to chide the pipsqueak for copying Henry’s work, and it was actually quite impressive, if he was being honest. And, even if it was just a copy of his work, it made him feel like the animator wasn’t gone, like he was still here in some way. So, he smiled at Buddy and offered him another inkwell.

“There’s more space if you wanna draw something else.”

Buddy gave him a delighted, albeit wobbly, smile. Without another moment’s hesitation, the understudy rushed forward and took the inkwell. He settled in front of a clear space on the wall and, after carefully dipping his tail tip in the ink and tapping off any excess, began to draw something else.

Bendy scooted over to sit near his replacement, taking care not to crowd the little guy as he drew, and watched him make a new mural.