#WHAT A LIFESAVER

[rosecoloredknight]

this is how much my mom loves me: "get out of here cause I'm going to fart".

[deoidesign]

How I save time on backgrounds as a full-time webcomic artist

Hi! I make webcomics for a living, and I have to be able to draw a panel extremely fast to keep up with my deadlines. I draw about 50 panels a week, which gives me about 45 minutes per panel if I want any semblance of a healthy work-life balance.

Most webtoon artists save time on backgrounds by using 3d models, which works for them and is great! but personally I hate working in 3d... I went to school for it for a year and hated it so much I completely changed career paths and vowed never to do it again! So, this is how I save time without using any 3d, for those of you out there who don't like it either!

This tactic has also saved me money (3d models are expensive) and it has helped me converting my comic from scroll format into page format for print, because I have much more art to work with than what's actually in the panels. (I'll touch on this later)

So, first, I make my backgrounds huge. my default starting size is 10,000 x 10,000 pixels. My panels are 2,500 pixels wide, so my backgrounds are 4x that, minimum. Because of this, I make them less detailed than I could or that you might expect so it doesn't look weird against my character art when I shrink portions of it down.

I personally find it much easier to add in detail than to make "removing" details look natural at smaller sizes, but you might have different preferences than I do.

I also make sure to keep all of my elements on separate layers so that I can easily remove or replace them, I can move them to simulate different camera angles more easily, and it's simple to adjust the lighting to imply different times of day.

Then I can go ahead and copy/paste them into my episodes. I move the background around until it feels like it's properly fitting how I want.

Once I've done that in every panel, I'll go back through the episode and clean up anything that looks weird, and add in solid blacks (for my art style) Here's a quick before and after of what that looks like!

This makes 90% of my backgrounds take me just a few hours. This is my tactic when I'm working in an environment that an entire scene, or multiple scenes, will take place.

But many panels will inevitably have a location that's used exactly once, and it would waste time and effort to draw a massive background for those. So in 10% of cases, I just draw the single panel background in the episode. I save all of these, just in case I can re-use it later (this happens more often with outdoor locations, but I save them all nonetheless!)

I generally have to draw about 2 big backgrounds per episode, and 3-5 single-panel backgrounds per episode! At the beginning of an arc/book the number is higher, but as the series is continuing and I'm building up an asset library of indoor and outdoor elements to re-use for the book, the number generally goes down and I save more time.

My series involves time travel and mysteries, so there's a lot of new locations in it and we're constantly moving around. If I were working on a series that was more consistent in this aspect, this process would save me even more time!

Like I said earlier, this also saves me a lot of pain and gives me a lot more options as I'm converting from scroll format to print format!

panels that look like this in scroll format...

can look like this in print!

because I drew the background like this, so I didn't need to go through the additional effort to add in the extra detail to expand it outwards at all.

Anyways, I hope this helps someone! As always if it doesn't help, just go ahead and disregard. This is what I do and what works for me, and I feel like I only ever see time-saving tips for comics that involve 3d models and workflows, which don't work for me at all! I know there's more people like me out there, so this is for you!

Enjoy!

Also obligatory "my webcomic" if you want to see this in action or check it out!

[kimeoshi]

I love you spy churin, I'd let you play hot wheels on me

[wyvernity]

grayscale practice (i colored it, there is no more grayscale)

[echoesdistant]

head 1968 is so scary like you are in a dark box in a box in a box in a box in a box chained and locked and sinking into the ocean and nobody on shore is doing a thing about it they just watch in assured silence because you will be back you ALWAYS come back the light of the sun can reach hundreds of feet down into the water and it will always shine on you

[cairafea]

was on a plane for 13 hours. have phone doodle Ghost Squad

[the-final-sif]

As someone who is on adhd meds and who it was lifechanging for, I'm really glad Dream was able to give them another shot and find meds that actually worked for him. When adhd meds suck, they can suck hardcore, even more so if you're a kid with adults that just want you to be quiet. Giving meds another shot later in life and finding a medication that does work for you takes a fuckton of courage and it's really cool he was able to do that.

[shoshiwrites]

Decided to try my hand at a little postwar. Big thank you to @basilone for the prompts that inspired this ♡ Bucky Egan/War correspondent OC, also on Ao3! NSFW.

the nearness of you

The table’s littered in paper, a handful of pens, black-red-blue, the bound copy of her manuscript beside, her wristwatch, the coffee cup separated from its saucer.

The clock behind her, above the stove, reads just after one. 

She should probably try and get some sleep, she knows, but he’s due back in tonight, the tiny D. C. apartment they share until the paperwork goes through on a house. She hasn’t seen it in person yet, but he’s told her about it. Says she’ll love it. It’s got a nook for her desk, he says, a big window to the backyard.

A yard.

That’s a new thing, too. Hydrangea bushes and trees to watch the birds.

She inspects the coffee grounds at the bottom of the mug, dark specks in the dim light of the bulb above her head. There’s more sugar to be had now, a whole canister of it there on the counter, labeled in blue, and she can’t break the habit of only sprinkling a touch with the tiny spoon.

She doesn’t know if she’ll ever get used to it, waiting.

It's not like she hasn't done. The landscapes blur in her mind, the muddied boots, the blood, the tall dry grass, the leaden skies and swoops of birds — starlings, and the flies.

The radio next to the canisters of sugar and salt punches out the program sign-off in static, the tinny “Star-Spangled Banner“ that follows. She keeps it on for the baseball games, when he’s not here. The noise keeps her company, the promise that he’ll ask about the scores. Thank you for listening. Good night and good morning.

She makes it through half of the next page before she hears the turn of the lock.

“In here,��� she says, like a stage-whisper, and her voice is thick, like she’s been sleeping. Like she hasn’t spoken since he left. 

“You’re up,” he says, and it’s a statement and a question at once, colored by his own face and curls that look like they might have seen a moment of shut-eye in the back of a taxi. He sounds a little surprised, maybe that she’s awake, that she’s greeted him before he’s opened his mouth. His cap must be by the door, and no need for an overcoat in the summer. She knows it’s only the hour and the neighbors that have kept him from coming in with a boom. He looks tired, the same softness to his face that she knows comes from exhaustion. She wonders how he’s been sleeping.

It’s the usual questions and answers, slow this time, and still rushed — have you eaten, how was the train, how’s the story going, hear anything good, and the last one means she gets to produce the little scrap of paper with her pencil marks, the scribbled notes. Two to one Yankees. Chandler walked nine in the first four innings but took a no-hitter into the ninth. Someone hit a one-out single. He guesses until he hits the name that rings a bell. She nods, and his eyes crinkle in delight — at the win, at the paper, at her own eyes warm with love.

He sees the manuscript pages too, the coffee grounds, the hunch of her shoulders. There’s a question in it, like maybe it’s not going as fine as she says it is. She reaches for him. “I missed you.” Maybe it doesn’t help anything, saying that, when this is what they do. Have done. Maybe it does. He smells a little bit like a smoking lounge, the faint scent of aftershave applied many hours earlier.

“Missed you too,” he says, wrapping his arms around her when she stands. “I missed my wife.”

She doesn’t know when she’ll get used to that, either.

Maybe she doesn’t feel like one, a wife, here with a dirty plate in the sink, and the coffeemaker that needs cleaning, and her slacks, and her hair curling away from her forehead.

He kisses the top of her head and maybe she does, here in his arms.

“How much,” she asks, and the feeling gathers in her throat, something tumbling.

He pulls back, the smallest smirk playing at the corners of his mouth. “I’d say — a hell of a lot.” He cups her face with his hand, traces his thumb at her chin, kisses her like he’s passing a secret. “A whole hell of a lot.”

“Mmph,” she says, into his shoulder, and he looks like he might laugh.

“How much for you?”

She tucks a curl behind his ear. “”Bout the same. Maybe more.”

“More, huh?”

She pokes her tongue into his mouth, in the next kiss. His hands grasp the small of her back, his fingertips wandering lower. She shivers when he travels beneath the hem of her top, skims his fingers along the bare skin of her hip.

“John-” Her voice is a little breathy now, half-serious. “Don’t go starting something you can’t finish.”

“Now, just what are you accusing me of, Josephine?” His thumb presses against her hip, a promise. She starts to unbutton his jacket, the back of her hand falling to ghost against the front of his trousers. “Where’s the goddamn couch?”

They’d moved it to the spot themselves, not-so-gracefully accounting for the difference in their heights. It’s not as plush or as comfortably upholstered as either of them would really like, but they’re not about to waste too much time complaining. He settles himself over her, or tries to, hipbones framing hers. 

She bites her tongue with a crack about needing coffee, even though she knows he’d laugh. He’s like that, he can laugh at himself. She lets him work his hand between her legs, over the brown herringbone. 

Maybe they didn’t think it through either, as clothed as they are. It doesn’t stop either of them, her from pulling him down to her mouth, the wet kisses and flushed cheeks, the growing hardness of him under the olive wool.

They hardly wiggle out of them, the inconvenient trousers, just enough for her to grab at the back of his thigh and squeeze. “Alright there, Mrs. Egan.” 

She goes redder, a sight, and the dark tufts of hair just above the waistband. He sighs out against her throat. 

She’s wondering just how comfortable he is exactly, knee wedged like that against the couch, until she feels him against her, slick and swollen, until-

Her exhale’s sharp, the twist of it, the little gasp-groan of it, of them, her nails against the curve of his back. 

He covers her like a blanket, heavy and warm, the dull oak moss of his aftershave, like everything she’s ever missed. The movement of his hips grows quicker, spooling tight in the bottom of her stomach. 

“Got me right where you want me, huh,” he asks, and his eyes are hazy with it, stormy-beautiful-blue. 

“All I dreamed about-” she breaks off with a noise, a whine, a spot inside hit just right. 

“Missed me, huh?”

“So much-” Every day, since-

She clenches around him, the edges of her sight shimmering, watches his mouth fall open that touch it always does. A second or two before he remembers just what exactly they’re doing, how they ought to be careful if they don’t want-

She arches, her gasp swallowed with a kiss. He comes in her hand, a dribble sliding down the crease of her thigh. The sound the sticking makes, between their bodies, pulls another noise from her chest.

Heavy, unthinking kisses against her nose, her forehead, her lips. Her shoulders lift, needing more of him. 

“I kept thinking about this,” he says, hoarse. “On the train.” A fresh thrill runs through her, touches her cheeks. “Almost missed my damn stop.”

She doesn’t push the errant curl back that brushes her forehead from his. “That wouldn’t have made either of us too happy.”

“Me in Richmond, and my darling wife here on this couch.”

“My darling husband in Richmond and me here on this couch.” Her fingers play at the back of his neck, the moments before they’ll get up and clean and dress for bed. “Good thing you wised up, then.”

“With the real thing here at home? Be pretty hopeless if I hadn’t.”

She traces her thumb against the corner of his mouth, watches his eyes follow her collarbone. “Does Mr. Not Pretty Hopeless care to join the Mrs. in the shower?”

He dips his head, kisses the crook of her neck and shoulder, intent on kissing across her chest. “Care to? That’s the best offer I’ve heard all week.”

[anetherealpoetess]

thinking of lucy maclean desperately slurping irradiated puddle water while lassoed by a sexy gunslinging ghoul like why wasn't that me?

[boleynqueenes]

""That can't be true, Londoners hate her," Jane insists, recalling the last letter of the Marchioness of Exeter (they are ready to rise up, for the Bishop and the Cardinal, for the scholar and the martyr, for the monks and the Maid of Kent, for the Princess and the Queen, they will esteem them their friends who are hers, and hers…)" — Chapter 23 of Nowe Thus

[clotpolesonly]

Blue Lily, Lily Blue ch 47 // The Raven King ch 67

[faestelle]

everyone look at the three majestic men i made at 1 in the morning yesterday. i literally gained the ability to make good-looking male sims. idk how

[keeps-ache]

spillage.

[ + other things :D ]

[hyunpic]

❣️

[shellsweet]

How do you do turtle anatomy? Do you have reference sheets that help?

This is kind of a hard question to answer! There are multiple ways to answer this, but to start here’s just a speed video of one of my recent sketches and a rough draft of how I usually begin a gesture drawing for a figure. I know I’m a visual learner, myself.

But there are a few tools I highly suggest! Some you guys have probably heard a million times!

Use references! Take a bunch of photos (of yourself or online searches), or check out professional anatomy drawings and trace over them to learn the shape language. What looks like tubes, circles, triangles, ect. The more you do this, the more you’ll start learning to break down each part of the anatomy into simple shapes to build upon.

There are also tons and tons of great anatomy drawing tutorials on YouTube!

Be messy, it helps for more expressive lines because you can always erase the excess.

Believe it or not, I also recommend just watching people draw and just studying people in real life too, build up that visual library in your head. Absorb that as much as possible to see how other people are tackling drawings, you’ll pick up all kinds of techniques.

For turtles in general, I take lots of inspiration from super hero comics/shows, the plastron (chest plate) plays a huge part for me in forming the entire figure, everything else pretty much follows after and I’m not afraid to make a ton of awkward mistakes to get where I want the figure to go.

Practice lots and don’t forget to have fun. Lord knows I’m still learning and still got a long way to go too. :)

[ziigee]

Wet Misha, Open mouth Misha is my weakness.. On my knees 🥵🫠and i don't pray help i can't stop staring at his mouth! Feral need to blog this

So many thoughts on the last one.. Instant combustion.

Mipples. Chest Hair. Unruly Hair. So Wet. Mouth. Auugh!. Cuties. Brooding.

Also, Misha in full white!! 👀

#personal note.

Monsoon was really getting to me, such a hassle with non stop rain for 12+ hours, flooding everywhere, dengue endemic, power cuts, lugging extra pair of dry clothes and rain accessories , bleh

After watching him i went and got drenched in rain!!! absolutely did nothing for the fiery unholy desire for HIM but it felt really good. Monsoon still sucks but willingly getting soaked in rain has a different feel to it..

This with the cockles panel video should keep me functioning for the next few months 💙💚