#am i qualified to give this?

[1nk-ling]

What advice could you give for drawing???

I think I'm really bad ;-;

Ooh, that's hard. Take all of the following ramble with as much salt as you need because your workflow is gonna be different than mine. What worked for me might not work for you.

1: You probably know what sort of stuff you want do draw, right? But there's also probably that thing that you don't want to draw, yet you're better at it. Wanting to draw action poses but being better at drawing plants, for instance. Super frustrating.

You should still obviously practice your dificult dreams. But let yourself draw the easy/boring thing once in a while. It's good to feel like you're good at something even just by a tiny bit. Making easy art is not cheating.

2: Switch up mediums when you're getting frustrated. Want to draw with pencils but it's just not working out? Try dipping a paintbrush in ink and flinging it around. Because it's not the thing you specifically wanted, you wont want it to look a specific way. It loosens me up when I do that because "It's gonna look bad anyway." Also, if it's a permanent thing like a ballpoint pen you'll be forced to leave it be. Make bad art. It's good for you.

3: Music. That's it. Find music that makes you feel the way you need to feel to make art. It takes forever, but it's worth it.

4: Play around with art style options. Try wierd stuff knowing that you can leave it behind any time. Just because you tried drawing eyes a certain way one or three times doesn't mean you owe them your artstyle. Some of my favorite parts of my artstyle came from just slapping an aspect of someone else's art onto a drawing of mine and finding I liked it. But I left behind SO many more. Sometimes it just takes realizing you can't draw outlined eyes yet, but dot eyes can be plenty expressive and you can actually succeed at drawing them. (Very personal that last one to me)

5: Don't stop. It's basic but it's true. It's bloody war. It's probably the most horiffic thing you'll have to do in years. You gotta crank out pages and pages and PAGES of bad art. Awful, terrible, cringy art.

And I'm not going to give the "all art is good art" speech, because that doesn't help. If you think your art is bad it's because you want something better, and no ammount of me telling you that it's actually good will change that. It's good that you want something more. It means you'll get better. Just find some little thing to be pleased about so you don't give up, and keep at it.

It took me two full years to like my art, and it felt terrible the entire time. And then I started digital art and felt terrible all over again. You can do it.

Thanks for the ask.

[egophiliac]

is the method you use to create stained glass texture the same as the one for paper/graininess texture?

yep! it's a combination of a couple of different stone/marble textures, set to 'overlay' mode, which are doing most of the heavy lifting texture-wise! though I also like to go back in after the texture's been applied and add some extra shading and grungy scribbles, just wherever I think it could use a little more work (which, bonus, I think also helps keep it from looking too much like the texture's just been slapped on). :D like, since I suck at words, here it is with the texture layers turned off:

and then with the textures over it:

[fima11]

Im trying to learn ur artstyle (and semi realism lol)

Can I ask for tips on what you do and what methods do you use in your art? (For example some people use Loomis method or boxes)

Its fine if you don't want to answer tho.

Hello! I once was asked how to develop an artstyle and I wrote a lot there, it touches semi-realism as well, so here is answer if you wanna check it. But I'll add someting more down there. 👇

I personally haven't ever used boxes (this is my nightmare actually), when I draw, I usually start from lining the silhouette, simple lines of action, without a construction, so my sketches usually end up looking like this.👇

some of my scanned pencil sketches for example because I usually quickly (most of times trying not to think about construction at all) draw A LOT of faces and it fills all the paper sheet, so draw a lot just for the sake of it! You'll get what you want eventually.

Loomis method is useful, I used it for some time to practice, it's helpful – but I've outgrown it and can build faces without it now most of times.

I am no master of semi-realism, so it's hard for me to answer how I did it since it wasn't on purpose😭 so my only advice is to study on real photos — you can even trace them to see how the line goes, and then try to recreate them on your own. It's when loomis method comes in handy...

[queenlucythevaliant]

Just to clarify my thoughts (since I've had a number of people ask me about it) re: Job and cursing God. There's a big difference between cursing God as used in Scripture and how we generally would think of cursing at God today.

Cursing someone, in the Bible, has a lot of depth to it. It's not just saying "screw you " in anger, it's got a sense of forsakenness to it. It's the opposite of a blessing, a removal of blessing. If the blessing is presence, your face shining on the person you're blessing, then a curse is absence. In some translations, Job's wife tells him to "renounce God and die," which I honestly think makes a lot more sense to modern ears.

Job says a lot of unpleasant things to and about God in his anger and grief. So do the Psalmists. A number of the Prophets. So can we. God can take it if we come to him with honest expressions of our emotion, including those not-so-nice ones directed at him. I don't think there's anything wrong with getting mad at God and saying, "How dare you, you bastard" when you suffer unjustly. You can say much worse, I think, without sinning, though I don't feel particularly inclined to give examples. But as long as it's an honest expression of your heart, I think you're doing exactly what prayer is for. You're presenting him your heart with an open hand. He can use that. Opposite of love is not hate but indifference, etc.

Job doesn't renounce God. Neither should we. But I think when you're truly suffering, you're gonna have those feelings toward God either way. He'd rather you address them with him directly than try to avoid them. Cursing at God in the modern sense is actually a great way to keep the relationship strong and not end up cursing/renouncing him in the Biblical sense.

[royalarchivist]

[A sad violin song plays over an image of a sad hamster]

Pac: This doesn't have anything to do with me – I wear a blue sweatshirt, you're crazy, this mouse doesn't even have a sweatshirt, this hamster! [Reading chat] Am I a depressed hamster?

[ Transcript continued ↓ ]*

–

Pac: Actually– that's fine! I embrace that idea – of course I'm going to be depressed, are you crazy? [He hits his desk, then starts counting off people on his fingers] Fit is gone, Richarlyson is gone, Ramon is gone, Bagi and Empanada who were always there when we were there are also gone, I haven't seen them! It's just me and Tubbo, and sometimes Philza shows up.

Pac: I lost Chume Labs, I lost the Favela, I lost Murder Mystery, I lost Ilha Chume Labs, it's crazy! Look at how much I've lost, and I've gained nothing! Of course I'm going to be depressed, are you crazy?! How am I supposed to be happy?!

Pac: [Reading chat] "You have us Pac," that's true, thank you. No, that's true, sorry.

* NOTE: Please note that this is an incomplete transcript, as I was primarily relying on Aypierre's translation mod at the time and if I am not confident of the translation, I do not include it. As always, please feel free to add on translations or message me corrections.

[weregonnabecoolbeans]

Captain America: Civil War pisses me off so much. (I know i just said i love this movie and i do but man it pisses me off)

Like what do you mean you want to hand over control to the people who’s *in the words of the great Nick Fury* stupid ass decision was to NUKE NEW YORK in response to Loki’s attack

[relevant-wikipedia-articles]

I don't think I'm alone in my head !! (^o^)

Hooray for never being alone!

[kaygee-doodles]

So I am trying to get into writing and have been really inspired by gloom and doom and am wondering what you use or if it is ao3 or just a google doc. I would also reeaallly appreciate any tips as I have no idea where to start

I am really loving your work and can’t wait for the next chapter (as well as your gifs and funny/cheeky responses to any potential spoilers)

Well hello there!

I write in a google doc, but it's one google doc per 'arc' in the story, so if I have an idea that needs to happen later, I can open up THAT part of the story and write up an outline for me to forget about and find later.

To start, I guess I would advise to write the part you really want to write, and then fill in the rest.

A lot of my writing is done in scenes, like, Just This Event, open, middle, end. Sometimes the following bits come naturally, the consequences, the wind down, the exit stage left. Sometimes they don't want to get written at all, and I have to move on to the next thing that's interesting happens, and come back to the inbetween.

Sometimes I just do a time jump, because time has to pass between events, but it's not very interesting time. Reader...went to work, ate shitty fast food, took a poop, and brushed her teeth. Not super interesting, and not very plot relevant unless being used to say, emphasize something about her life.

[sugaredoleander]

i say this with love. house fanfic writers, if you ever want me to beta something for medical accuracy, i'll fucking do it no questions asked

[evienyx]

im not too sure how to ask this, but i'm reading the first book in the fractures series, and really enjoying it, and you said that you started it when you were 14. i'm 14 at the moment and am thinking of writing a fic and was wondering if you had any tips on how to plan a longfic or for writing in general

Oh my god this was asked back in August I'm so sorry anon.

As it is, I can still give a pointer or two, regardless of how late it is.

So, as much as anyone hates to hear it and I hate to say it, the best way to get better at prose (as in sentence-level writing) is just by writing. You gotta train it, develop your own style, figure out what works.

I have a tendency to be very flowy and long-winded, often to my own detriment, which is something I'm working on trimming down in the Fractures Rewrite without sacrificing the emotional weight from the scenes.

When it comes to planning a longfic, generally the most important first step (for me at least) is figuring out where you want to end it. Anyone can write a fic whose plot goes on and on for eternity, but if you want your fic to kinda be a classic, having an idea of where it's going to end up will immediately help you.

After the end, the hardest part for me tends to be the middle. It is just as important as anything, and you want it to stay just as interesting. The middle part of the story is the plot, the beginning and end are just vessels for it.

Oftentimes, the earliest form of my outline is literally just a document with the entire plot written out. I don't care for length or details, I just sit down, write the beginning, and then write how the story gets to the end. From there, I clean the outline up. I figure out what makes sense to use and what needs to be added or taken away. I start separating the stuff into possible chapters and outlining those chapters to figure out what they will include.

As I'm doing this, I also write out (smaller) outlines for the arcs of individual characters. Depending on the size of the fic and what the focus is, I might do this for dozens of characters or only for a handful. Regardless, I need to know where they start, where they end up, and how the plot changes them to get them from point A to point B.

If you're ever struggling with coming up with a plot that flows well with good tension, one that feels like it's building to something satisfying, you can always just use a plot template from online somewhere. Even if it feels rudimentary, Exposition-Rising Action-Climax-Falling Action-Resolution works for a reason. It's often how I outline stories of my own that aren't related to fanfiction.

One more tip: Read. And I don't just mean fanfiction. The best fics are often compared to published novels, with some even being considered better than them. One of the reasons these stories are so good is because they don't flow like many fanfictions do - rather they flow like published novels, with a proper plot, arcs, prose, and a satisfying ending.

[sleepnoises]

is it that this 673 page book doesnt quite cohere or is it that i am perhaps doing it a disservice by reading it in 24 hours. who is to say

[deeply-unserious-fellow]

Y'know, when it comes to ships with similar dynamics to Goosepowers I normally don't like adding more characters to it(with the exception of *occasionally* adding Wander to Deathglare or adding mE TO FIZZMODEUS PLS JUST GIVE ME A CHAN-), but like Matthew x Gideon x Julie is actually really good. Dont know if I like it as much as just Gideon x Julie on its own but still its so fuckin good-

[sainz100]

Fernando Alonso arriving on Media Day ahead of the 2024 Singapore GP | 📸 by Denzyl KY

[queenaeducan]

I heard myself stutter at work today and I was like "omg just like Ian" and I felt so special

[overlymetaromantic]

hi! im not quite sure my question will make sense, but how do you determine which scene to draw in correlation with the dialogue? For example, if there are multiple text bubbles on a page with only one accompanied drawing which dialogue to do choose to represent the characters saying?

I hope that makes sense, I am currently working on my own comic which is pretty dialogue heavy and noticed your comic flows very smoothly with the dialogue! Just looking for some advice^^

Oooh that's a fun question!! I can definitely try to give some advice—I can fully admit I'm by no means a professional and make a lot of my own mistakes, but I'm happy to hear that my dialogue usually flows well, especially considering how wordy I can get!! 😂

I have to admit, a lot of my choices in scenes relies heavily on instinct, but my primary goal with everything is to be as economical as possible. There are SEVERAL instances where I could have drawn more panels per dialogue, but since my personal priority is keeping my panel counts under control, I end up with more dialogue per panel instead. Based on that, I tend to look for compositions or expressions that can match with multiple lines of dialogue; so for instance, if there's a conversation in which a character's emotional state remains steady throughout, I don't need as many panels to show their face, since there's no new information to be gained.

It might be helpful to remember that people are specifically reading your drawings in a comic! It's therefore similar advice to writing in that sense—if something is redundant or unnecessary in that it doesn't add anything to the text, cut it. Otherwise, it tends to be a matter of answering the question of what's most important for the reader to see. Does the character's expression matter, or does just the dialogue convey enough? Who is the most important character or detail in this scene? Can the reader tell who's speaking without a new panel to show the speaker? What needs to be conveyed so that the reader isn't confused? Or the flip side—what can be cut without disrupting the reader's comprehension of the scene?

Aside from that, my biggest piece of advice is page flow! I can freely admit I cram a LOT per page for MBNSSB, and I know it doesn't always flow as well as I hoped it would, but I promise page flow is always at the forefront of my mind 😂 The idea is to lay out your art/dialogue in a way that naturally draws the reader's eye in the direction you want them to read the page—in Western comics, that's usually left to right, in manga it's right to left, and in Webtoons it's top to bottom, etc. I usually rely on the height of the speech bubbles and the direction of the tails to help guide the flow of the page, but there's a lot of fiddling that can be done with this. Here are a couple of different comic pages I've drawn and my intended reading flow of them, if the visual examples helps at all!

In each instance, the goal is the use both the art and the speech bubbles to guide how the reader is looking at the page—a speech bubble leads to the art, which leads to the next speech bubble, which moves back to the art, etc. There are a lot more theories that have to do with composition that I am NOT qualified to lecture about lol, but for me it's a similar instinct to deciding what needs to be drawn in the first place. Every panel is doing double duty in that sense: first, it's answering the questions of who/what/where/why/how, aka information the reader needs to know for the story; and second, it's pointing them in the direction of where to read next through visual cues, like a character looking in that direction, a speech bubble placed so that you look at it right after the art, the flow of the lines in your art that curve your eye towards the next panel, etc.

I hope that rambling made sense and at least answered part of your question! And sorry if I misunderstood anything you were asking for—I can admit I get very excited about these kind of technical details and am definitely prone to spiraling off into them as seen here lolol 😂

[is-the-owl-video-cute]

Is North Korea actually bad

It is not what you have been told it is. There are many bad things about the government of North Korea, there are many bad things about those running it, but it is not what you have been told it is.