#and I keep saving all of this art so I have like over 100 images of him now

[immortallovinghours]

Keep seeing art of J/ing Y/uan around and I swear, if this keeps up I’m not gonna make it 😔

[twptwp]

Please share

Hello, I contemplated it a lot, I decided it would be best. I will be sharing this beware on a rather big artist here who hurt me personally.

I will write more at the end. Please take care. Warning: the post is very big

Pestkitty is also known as Nopperabou if I remember the name correctly on other platforms such as Artfight and Youtube

*It should be noted this is very blatant lying on that guys part, I was keeping to myself for this entire time and harassed nobody, on the contrary his friends had been harassing me. I regret not writing that more clearly

I don't think I mentioned it in the original post images but I would also like to note at the time I was not an adult yet and it was my first time going on a plane... 11 hour flight completely alone is scary, no family, nobody in my family has ever travelled so far. It was a very big deal

END OF IMAGES

Description from original post on Instagram (it's a lot so I'll make it small):

HI HI PAWB! Lots and lots of people wanted me to put this together, please do share, even if you do not know the people it would be great help. The more people who know the more people who can stay safe. This post is a little overdue but I was gaslit by them into thinking these were not big issues and that I was the one being strange so it took a while for me to gain the stability to put this together, I ended up downplaying my feelings a lot and it wasn't untill somewhat recent when I realised I may be developing a new disorder from their abuse that oh... I was not wrong for my concerns and feelings; these people really are harmful. I do not condone harassment so please do not go messaging these people. Block, share, and move on. Stay safe. That is my internet mission for you🚀

I make this post because they are rather gross and dangerous and have considerably big audiences, people have told me their opinions that they should not have the platforms that they have because their behaviours are dangerous. There is more things they've done that I have not included because I would like some of my own privacy even after my private information was leaked in a comic haha... I've displayed enough behaviour from them to show who they are and what they do though, so this is enough!

This is quite intimidating for me, so, I will be going offline off of this account for a few days and just let this post simmer... Not for too long because I have some awesome art cooking HEHE but YA! If there are questions in the comments my friends will answer for me! Though, I think I've been rather transparent so I don't think there would be any.

I will also be providing more proof in my story, specifically proof that slide 10 IS that guy because quite frankly anybody could be "Instagram user" and they have fabricated stuff against me in the past so I think it would be good to prove it is that account.

Okay bla bla that is all, apologies this is such a scary and serious post especially as I like to keep my account a friendly nice place but ahhh it really has been burning at me. So, thank you for reading so very much. Bye bye pawb!

End of description^

That was a lot! So here is why I'm sharing it to Tumblr:

☆Awareness! NOBODY should have to risk getting close to these people. NOBODY.

☆Better circulation! My Instagram post got over 3000 likes, lots of shares, 100s of comment and many saves so it did very well however after a while things leave the light and become something "of the past". I notice this does not happen so much on Tumblr and things continue to be shared

☆This still effects me. The original Beware is from 3 months ago however I am currently doing this because I was restless from lastnight nightmare (I had a nightmare about these people) and now I'm all nauseous and shaky again! It's 3am and I was panicking a lot so I put this together, I'm yet to rest

And finally....

☆TAGS

I notice that if an image in a tag becomes popular enough it shows up on things like Google! Isn't that cwl! So, if a fan of these people searches for them on the internet the beware could show up which may deter them from the artist. This is great, which is why I also need your help in making this popular!

Thank you sincerely for your time, it is greatly appreciated. I feel calmer now that I have made this post, I regret not making it earlier but it is better now than never. Nos da ac breuddwydion melys pawb♡

[longing-for-rain]

This is unacceptable behavior

So this morning, I found this blog who has apparently taken it upon themselves to “call out” anyone they suspect of using AI in either fan art or fanfics. No proof needed; just send them an anon ask and they’ll start throwing people under the bus.

This person is harassing artists, writers, and anyone who questions them. They’re even demanding that artists upload videos of themselves drawing by hand to “prove” they’re real.

Reading their blog gets even more disturbing. Apparently “suspicious activity” for artists can be something as simple as experimenting with a different style, having trouble drawing hands, improving too quickly, uploading too quickly, or even using digital watercolor. So essentially, artists deserve harassment for being too good, not good enough, or if they don’t use 100% traditional techniques. Do you really think that’s helping artists? All you’re doing is intimidating people away from their hobbies and encouraging toxicity. Cut it out.

For context, yesterday @azula-brain messaged me in my DMs to accuse me of AI usage. I explained that a) I don’t consider my images “AI art” in the sense of “push a button and it makes a picture” because I only use it as a filter over my existing work, b) that I’ve posted detailed explanations of my artistic process before and that still didn’t stop people from harassing me over anon. She also accused me of charging people for art, which I very clear state in my pinned post that I do not accept commissions.

I’m committing a crime by not using fully traditional art, and by having a tip jar (keep in mind, many blogs simply use the built in tumblr feature which is easily understood to be for tipping bloggers they like, not art commission payments). I told her I suggest she simply block and move on if she was unhappy, but apparently that wasn’t good enough, so she called me out by name instead along with the above noted misinformation after I refused to bow to her threats over DMs.

But anyways, I’m done caving to threats, and so should the rest of you. Nothing you do will ever appease the mob, and I’m sick of these literal children making blogs like this thinking they’re saving the world, when literally they’re just stirring up drama and harassing random artists who were doing nothing wrong.

[asiadoesstuff]

Ok ok guys so a lot has happened in the past couple of days.

So, on the 17th January, Fandroid came back!!! Woohoo!!! 🥳

And that’s amazing, right? It is!! 😆 But something fishy happened…

So, today, I found out that apparently both Fandroid and Melody joined the Roblox Game: ‘Starving Artist’.

And obviously, they made some art! But it was kinda ominous, like Mandela Catalogue kinda ominous… (Credits to kronderflopping._ on TikTok for the images):

Now, although you might see nothing in these, I do see something. Let’s go over it:

So, the 1st Picture kind of looks like a Gas Mask.

What were Gas Masks originally used for? To keep toxic chemicals out of you during the war. Fandroid mentioned something about “coming back from the war”. Although people usually say that jokingly after leaving their Social Media Account for a long time, I think in this case Fandroid might be serious. (As in the Character, not Griff himself).

The 2nd Painting has Secret Messages.

Now, this is where it gets very ominous. Obviously, as you can see, this is a sign for help. With what, I might not be sure. Maybe Fandroid is still fighting a “war”, just not a physical one. The ‘us’ in ‘Save Us’ is most probably referring to both Fandroid and Melody, but maybe ‘Us’ could be referring to more than 2 people.

The 3rd Painting looks like a Human.

Sure, this is already creepy, but what’s more creepy is this looks similar to another theory about Fandroid. Ever heard of the Theory where Fandroid could be a human child in a robot’s body? Yeah, this painting of a human looks extremely similar to the fanon human child design. That, or it’s a painting of Griff, or it’s just a random human.

There’s another Painting; it has another secret message.

Now, this gives me major ‘about to introduce a villain’ vibes, or it’s actually Fandroid assuring his fans that he’s there. Or, it’s something else that is saying it’s there. The “Static” kind of looks like Static on a TV. Fandroid’s head is similar to a TV.

And if you thought that was creepy, wait until you see this.

After the Paintings were made, the human painting was pulled up, and this happened:

I’m gonna be honest: I’m not 100% sure what this means. In the first image, it looks a bit like some hands were drawn on, and the eyes have been slashed out with red. Maybe it represents the person drawn went blind? Or something else which I don’t know how to put into words…

The 2nd Image has been scribbled over with red. Maybe that says the person in the image got killed/erased?

The 3rd image has some sort of character drawn ontop of the red scribbles. That could be a New Character, or the thing that killed/erased the person, or maybe it’s the enemy Fandroid is ‘fighting’ with?

And that’s not all, look what what Fandroid and Melody said…

“We are trying to get back.” This sentence feels extremely important. Maybe they aren’t back from this ‘War’, or maybe they are and a new one has started.

“Please don’t forget.” Either this is extremely lore-important, or maybe Fandroid is saying that he hopes we won’t forget him and Melody. That, or something is about to happen that could either kill or erase both of them. (I really hope that doesn’t mean Griff’s gonna deactivate the account…)

And that’s my Theory. Either I have Cracked The Code, Cracked part of it, or I’m insane.

Maybe this is New Lore to a new start of the Fandroid Legacy, or maybe this is a way to put Fandroid to bed and to deactivate the account. (Please don’t be the second one…)

I’ll keep making these until this Lore has been completely pieced together, stay tuned!! 😁

Cya in the next Post!! 😄 Bye!! 😊👋

[vesemirsexual]

Can you tell us more about Artemis and Anisette? I need more wlw in the witcher fandom lol

oof okay. I’m putting it below a cut and putting some tw as well because I gotta be clear: they’re both super fucked up people, and their relationship is 100% toxic. like they both need to speak to a psychiatrist and a judge. but also we do love them.

tw for: abuse, trauma, untreated mental illness, csa mentions, violence, violence between partners, attempted suicide, emotional abuse

• Artemis is from the School of the Cat, and she hasn’t even been a decade on the path when she meets Anisette. She’s very avoidant about her age but shes roughly 25 (note: this is occurring when Stygga is still operating)

• Anisette is a much older, well-established sorceress. She’s also very financially well-off and powerful, and appears to be some form of former nobility

• Artemis is 5’8 and lithe - she honestly looks quite small for a Witcher. She has the characteristic eyes and short blonde hair which she keeps messily cropped at shoulder length. She has quite defined and fine features and would probably actually be considered quite stereotypically attractive if not for the Witcher thing and her abysmal self-image

• Anisette is 6 foot and girl has some muscle on her (she uses this to wind up Artemis literally all the time - poor Art literally has to stand on her tip toes to argue). She has dark hair she keeps in a pixie cut, and she’s out butch queen most the time. She also has no problem ripping out the Met Gala level gown if she needs to flex on people though, one of her fave activities

• They meet when Anisette is being a fucking creep (as per usual) and decides to stalk the Witcher she’s seen who’s taken a contact in a local swamp. Ani is fascinated because she’s never seen a woman Witcher and she’s nosey as all hell. She literally waits till she knows Artemis is out there just vibing and then she sets a camp fire and waits for the girl to come find her in the dark so she can be dramatic and ominous

• Artemis is genuinely quite freaked out by Anisette when they first meet and she doesn’t actually click she’s a sorceress - she’s pretty sure she’s some monster she can’t place who’s 100% trying to eat her. That also doesn’t stop her from poking at the situation and getting drawn into conversation, bc she’s also a stupid baby and weak for pretty women

• Anisette at first is like okay, I’m satisfied, well. And then she really gets Artemis chatting and she goes from winding up this little Witcher that’s she’s going to murder her in a dark swamp to being like. Oh okay I see, I’m keeping this one. Do you need a permit to keep a Witcher.

• Anisette wanting to keep Artemis becomes a really obsessive thing for her. The more she learns about Artemis over time and their meetings, the more she’s convinced that’s totally an okay thing to do because 1) she has the power to do it and 2) she’s saving her! she just doesn’t understand that yet

• Artemis is understandably freaked out the first time Anisette makes this plan known. She tries to argue her way out of it a few times - nobody wants a Witcher in their house, points out that Cats are dangerous and prone to episodes, threatens away, etc

• One point when Anisette brings it up and is getting more aggressive about the idea, Artemis has a Normal One and tries to slit her own throat because she doesn’t want to be taken alive. The sorceress is not having that and she rips Art a new one - it’s pretty nasty too.

• Anisette manages over time to draw more and more about her life out of Artemis, and it’s very clearly sad and depressing. The girl clearly has incredible issues around the Grasses, and reveals that she tried to make a suicide attempt shortly after them by cutting her wrists (Anisette says some really nasty things about this too). It’s clear that Artemis also has some really bad internalised misogyny about being one of the only women Witchers out, on top of a range of other self-esteem and image issues. She’s very blasé about death and very clear that she thinks that a Witchers purpose is basically to die.

• Artemis also mentions that post-trials she had a very close relationship with one of the Schools mages (Sabrine) and that she feels she wouldn’t have made it through without her. This is one of the only things that Anisette is never able to get her to elaborate on, and has some pretty strong suspicions. Artemis is extremely defensive and very very loyal to the woman whenever she’s mentioned.

• Anisette is incredibly manipulative. She really has no problem finding out how to get people around her to do what she wants. Artemis is a lot more easily manipulated than she thinks as well. It’s really easy for Ani to give her constant positive reinforcement and show genuine attention to her that she finds near impossible to ignore, but Ani also has no problems ripping her up verbally sometimes and making her panic as well.

• Anisette is really clearly a bad person, and Artemis seems more normal next to her, but the more time you spend around Artemis the more clear it is that she is also…really not that great. Her moral code really is whatever she feels at that point in time. She is incredibly capable of being vicious, and her fuse isn’t short but once she gets angry, things get scary very fast. She also very clearly doesn’t really see the inherent value of life.

• They are so toxic but the thing is. They are obsessed with each other. Anisette is openly very obsessive and possessive, whereas Artemis will flick between affection and cold, but would literally lose her shit if Ani looked at anyone else or if anyone was getting a little too close to her. It’s a really fucked up love, but it is genuine at its core.

• They threaten each other violently all the time, but neither actually have the inclination to carry through actually harming or god forbid actually killing each other. Anisette is fairly sadistic, whereas Artemis is definitely falling into the sadomasochism category, so if they did get physical, it would 100% be a sexual thing because. They’re freaks.

• Artemis thinks Anisette is 100% joking about wanting to keep a collar on her (she really isn’t).

EDIT BC I FORGOT TO ADD:

general faceclaims for them -

* Anisette - Lera Abova

* Artemis - Lena Mantler

[fistofgaivs]

Working on a TTRPG which is a sequel to my free suggestion book "Not F.A.T.A.L. but Serious!" both a tip of the hat to a notorious sh-t lord RPG from earlier (zero connection) and a favorite American but Manga comic. Was hoping I could put up the uncensored version here but it seems Tumblr still has blue noses even though it's almost like reading the best of Penthouse magazine again.

In essence it'll be erotic TTRPG play with no holds or holes barred. We are F-cking adults playing the games now, but the core properties were owned and dominated by dry corporations making "Product" that had to be G-rated. Now the "Woke" rated is far far worse. So not for kids but you can download the original here and working cover for the upcoming full RPG later.

Serious - click the link (+18), go to the image of the top left and right click "Save as..." PDF document! - I'm privately hosted and NO ADS no SCRIPTS no GARBAGE. Not a full RPG just a book of suggestions that got the woke tourists invading to ruin TTRPGs to scream. That's their agenda, this is mine... I'll play my F*cking games any F*cking way I want them and I want to be able to buy and sell +18 interest.

The rainbow unicorn snowflakes can have Thirsty Sword Lesbians and Zwei-Hander. I'm not holding my gladius to their soy throats with no chins to play MY stuff but I expect something they are incapable of; respect -and that means for someone who has different views than them. If they can't understand that are their snowflake fake sh-t politics worth ANY respect? Jeebuz, I'm quite "Liberal" not a right winger.

Ai + 3D art by me. She's WAY over 18 like 200+ even in fiction, slime minds...!

Heads up - like any real Indie TTRPG I'll use AI art but still keep the few artists who'll do commissions for me employed like Max here. He can do hundreds of pretty damsels in distress and ribaldry in the time it'd take him to paint a swamp or dungeon Midjourney can do in seconds so why waste the time and money?

Let WotC ruin D&D for Blackrock EFT social credit - though I advise writing your Congress + Senate reps for the tax $ they'll scream to turn a failure into profit. The best out is to support the REAL indies that do NOT Bend the Knee to woke whine-buckets.

DEMAND from your TTRPG maker and game at least one element the "Woke" will NOT tolerate. I'm not for real sexism or racism and don't care who you voted for. The world has (and always will) 1,000,001 problems... Censoring comic books, video games, movies and pandering to rainbow unicorn snowflakes from some 'safe space' at a debt factory (College) does NOTHING to help anything on that list. Here are some statements free to include for free speakers, free thinkers versus "Woke" whine buckets:

Oh and speaking of lists...

One of the BEST things on the internet for RPGs "The List".

They just want you to know if your RPG maker is a rainbow unicorn snowflake who cares their woke fake politics vs anything to do with a RPG at all. Agenda vs product. Invaders. Tourists. Most of these people are vile on Twitter and (Zwei-Hander) demand you do NOT play their game unless you agree 100% with them. How in the world their books sit in PILES at major bookstore chains for years no sales but can NOT fail is beyond me - save knowing about 'short-selling' and corporate EFT.

So I advise looking for GREEN on the list, companies that care about their games and players NOT warmed over re-hashed master of the obvious "Woke" sentiment that preaches to its own choir.

[freebooter4ever]

Are the lines on your drawings stylistic choices or are they measurement/guiding lines? Either way, they are cool, but just wondered. I dont understand drawing at all, might as well be a magic spell to me. I was looking at the pencil (?) sketch of Malkin with the cheesecutter hat on.

i, uh, definitely did not google 'cheesecutter hat' until after i saved out these images. :/ sorry about that. if you'd like the other one broken down, i can do that too lol. my reading comprehension when im tired is kinda lazy i just saw 'cheese' and imediately thought 'omelette'. SO here's the 1) initial sketch, 2) 'clean' sketch, and 3) final lines for the omelette boy drawing instead:

also i have had a cumulative of about 9 ish hrs of sleep total for the past two days so keep that in mind for if this explanation makes no sense, its not my fault. :( anyway! the way i draw definitely has changed over the years but currently im really trying to focus on the line i "see" rather than the one that is actually "there". i've been applying this to my writing for years (story vs happening truth) and you know it never occurred to me that i could do it in my drawings too till like...a few years ago. in general these lines seem to form the planes of the subject. if you google 'stanford bunny' you can find an easy example of a 3D surface turned into triangles. I do this too - see things in relative triangle proportions, except i've been doing it long before i knew how computers worked. i cant begin to tell you how long d*sney and cartooning's obsession with round building blocks of anatomical structure fucked with my brain until i finally decided i could cast that teaching aside completely.

ANYWAY sorry off subject again. so we have these sketchy under lines, and usually as im trying to find the proportions and form of the subject these lines end up being where the light/shadow hits. here i saved out the 1) 'flat colors', 2) the 'light', and 3) the 'shadow' parts on their own (i lightened the background for the 'shadow' so its easier to see):

the light is like four or five 'overlay' layers of pale yellow/orange. you can see how each of these layers follow one of those sketchy lines i did initially. and the same with the shadow but instead its a dark red color set to 'multiply' for each layer. and when you combine everything together you get:

some bullshit :). anyway you know that anniversary edition of beauty and the beast that featured the version previewed to nyc audiences in 1990 with the glen ke*ne sketchy keyframe animation of the beast's transformation? i watched that - must have been sometime after i graduated college - and i felt robbed that THAT version was never presented as a final piece. the 'unclean' drawings had so much more life and movement and intensity to them. tldr i like the messy lines, i hate 'inking' with a passion (HATE. IT.), and when i finally allowed myself to stop giving a fuck drawing became way more interesting. but my art is shit and i will never be glen k*ane so i dont really feel like the best advocate for this "style". alas. there was this one artist on tumblr who i fucking loved whose sketches were SPECTACULAR but the asshole racists in the m*c*ha*nz*o fandom bullied her off tumblr and ive never been able to find her art anywhere else since. she was also very negative about her 'unclean' sketches and it made me so sad. there was also this other artist whose sketches were awe inspiring but all she drew was p*rn and well...we all know what happened on tumblr in december 2018.

also i 100% stole the lighting scheme from The Bear which is currently one of the most gorgeous shows on television right now in my opinion

im really really sorry if this makes no sense, if im feeling motivated maybe i'll try again when my brain is fully functioning but with the actual 'cheesecutter hat' doodle ^_^

[incorrectinfinity]

Alright. I have no art and their birthday was like... exactly a week ago, I just wanna do a quick thing :)

Let's talk about Clockmaker. What I haven't elaborated on, how they came to be, and secrets I have kept about them.

All images I think are important will be at the end. This is LONG btw, but Clockmaker is my most beloved oc and they have a lot I have hidden.

So first of all, their key.

It was designed by my friend @miniatureobjectperson and basically acts takes the role of Timekeeper's weavers. It is no where near as strong but it is more reliable and less dangerous (if used properly and if... hehe)

It can go to Clockmaker on command and can be used by others if needed, something Timekeeper'a weavers cannot do.

Now... how did Clockmaker come to be? Ok. Here we go. So I have had this story in my head for over a year... it's replayed in my head thousands of times. It's the basis of the entire TK variants AU. It's incredibly important to me, I adore it.

And I am not telling it here.

Why? It's not time, it's long, and it DESERVES it's own post.

Anyways how did they stray? It was at the last second, it was practically a flinch. And it was 100% intentional.

They saw the futures they could experience, they saw the power they could hold, the things they could see... and they refused.

That's the key difference between Clockmaker and Timekeeper, when given the choice to choose endless power or temporary happiness, they chose happiness.

Clockmaker will die, they are not immortal or godly. But they still could be. If presented the option, they could flip the switch.

It never ends in happiness, never. That's how Clockbreaker was made, they lost. They lost everything. Nobody saved them. They were the plaything of a larger power and succumbed to their situation.

Clockbreaker can't die, by the way.

Clockmaker is the director of their own TBD, but like Timekeeper they don't actually stay there very much.

Clockmaker met Timekeeper when they were working and Timekeeper popped out of nowhere and scared the shit out of them. They actually had a pretty good conversation and then their relationship sort of degraded since then the more they learned about each other.

Now, I have called Clockmaker the most stable and healthy of my TK variants, and that is definitely true but they're still a TK variant.

They have a lot of issues they keep hidden, old habits die hard, and they cary a lot more than they can bare. They lash out at people sometimes and that has caused problems, like General (which wasn't their fault but it didn't help).

Now on the brighter side. Some stupid shit.

So Olive is their therapist and their sessions are kinda strange, I have said this before.

But Clockmaker actually lives in the same neighborhood as Sunflower Seed, Peanut, Lavender, and Olive. They kinda have a reputation because they are a hotspot for time travelers who need to rest or hide from whatever.

Having a lot of people, some of which look strangely like you, who have never been seen before *ever* in this timeline visit your apartment a lot is really weird.

Also the form of their cosmos gear is a songbird :)

Anyways here are the pictures

Their ref

A pic of their key

Average therapy session

First ever drawing

[oo0-will-of-the-wisp-0oo]

On ai- I think one of the main distinctions between editing something and having ai produce it is one requires. Effort, and actual time/thought behind it. Spending a minute feeding a database prompts until you get something you want is nothing compared to the countless hours put into a piece, be it writing/art/etc

You could argue that by virtue of posting something online, people sort of sign away on what people do with their art, but even in such cases you cannot deny that ai companies went about collecting data in malicious and deceptive ways- often without any time to genuinely revoke consent.

With ai art, people can replicate someone's style, which can then threaten their own personal brand/livelihood. This becomes more apparent when you know that a major part of the actors strike was specifically against ai owning the rights to people's image/voice indefinitely. An actors entire workplace existence hinges upon the fact that they will be paid to be somewhere and say and do something- this gives them the security of an income, but it also gives them the right to turn down any works they don't agree with/don't want to be a part of. By removing the actual *actor* from acting, the company can get away with not having to actually pay someone, let alone pay someone a living wage

I think the biggest reason I, and many others, are against ai, is for the same exact reason people would be against reposting art instead of reblogging, or the reason we used to get all the warnings against online piracy: it will directly hurt the creators that spent countless hours working on something. The difference between piracy and ai, however, is ai hurts creators that are just like you, and your community, and it will continue to do so if left unchecked

It is a very big win that ai generated works cannot be copywrited, bc it means that people will not be able to profit off of something they did not truly make. It would be unreasonable for someone to launch a TV show where the premise was ai, or the script itself, or the actors, and then try to claim ownership over it, and insist that they make a profit off of it, that no one else can use it, when in truth they had no part in the actual creating of the show

This is kinda a mess, and im open to more discussion/providing links to stuff mentioned later, but hopefully this is kind of an insight into why ai isn't. The best

Yes! Thanks for the discussion!

I think you’re responding to my previous post: https://www.tumblr.com/oo0-will-of-the-wisp-0oo/748487000957550592/any-of-my-people-interested-in-discussing-ai

If I were to use AI, I would be 100% honest about. Also I would charge less in most cases.

The reason being is it feels to me like it is providing me with images/information, and therefore helps me save time. I prefer to use it as a tool, though rather than use it as a means to an end. At least with the few AI I’ve experimented with, I’ve noticed that the program/algorithm kind of does a half-ass job on it’s own and the final piece would need to be edited to my satisfaction - especially text prompts. Using only text-prompts produces pretty substandard results. I find whatever the AI spits out usually needs to be edited, sometimes rather extensively, or else it’s unusable. And it takes up more time than I like for the program to process. I don’t just want to text-prompt and keep whatever gets developed.

There are some AI that you can use a photo or drawing of your own as reference. AI Arta is one of these. I’m playing around with Bing and Picsart, too. And of course EVERY app seems to be providing its users with its own AI (although usually using original products such as Dall-E or Midjourney, is what I find)…

Also, my original link on my blog said AI can’t be copyrighted… However I’ve found at least Dall-E allows you to make a profit: “Subject to the Content Policy and Terms, you own the images you create with DALL·E, including the right to reprint, sell, and merchandise — regardless of whether an image was generated through a free or paid credit. Oct 29, 2023” - although perhaps this still doesn’t mean it’s under your own copyright… I’m not sure about that.

I’ll just finish this reply to you saying I think everyone should keep discussing AI. Thanks again for your own input. I figure the more it’s talked about, the more we’ll figure out how to use it. I don’t want to snub people who are completely for or against it. I WANT to hear what people think about it. If I learn something I didn’t know before because of keeping an open mind, that’s a good thing.

Hope what I’m writing is comprehensible, it’s after 5am. I should get to sleep! lol

Here’s a website where the opinion is that AI won’t “take over” people’s jobs/artistry, but it will make their jobs more efficient for them.

[timelessxmemories]

Post canon headcanons bc i feel like it:

Sera is able to pursue the things she really loved, like playing guitar, singing, art, and just being outside!

She set up a chair outside for days where she can't really walk, so she can at least be in the sun

Health trips to the seaside (and for funsies)

When she's bedbound, she'll often take long naps with the windows and curtains wide open, or draw, or read

She gets to wear more of the clothes she loves! Long flowy skirts with colorful patterns, big hoodies, cute lil things, etc!

She'd smile a lot more, and just generally be happier

Sera'd want to adopt a cat. or rather several.

Sometimes, she'll take out a picnic blanket and nap outside

Long walks on the few days where she is able to walk mostly painlessly

She'd have to learn to ask for help; she used to be able to lift heavy things and run long distances fast with ease, now she can't

Donating a lot of her (large amount of) savings to rebuilding and helping former SOLDIERS

Learning to love herself again <333

HELL YEAH!!!!! Post Game Lock headcanons to follow the trend!!! (+wedding & relationship headcanons)

Opens a bakery obviously!! But mostly on the weekends!!

Cuts out all contact with her father finally

Finally gets therapy for her fucked up past and traumas

Shes always had an incredibly bad and fucked up left arm from the previous experiments, so after she and Sera moved to Kalm, Lock goes to a doctor after Sera basically forces her because holy shit girl, you cant keep suffering like this, and eventually, her arm is amputated and replaced with a metal prosthetic which looks like this image I pulled from pinterest:

She also finally gets to do the one thing she's always wanted to do but never had the chance to, visiting her mother's grave monthly.

Also, she's picked up the hobby of welding, forging and wood work.

She also gets to use her wings a whole lot more than she was able to before.

Shes genuinely so glad that her little girl Amaris gets a chance to grow up in a good environment alongside their dog Charlie and their rabbit Snickerdoodle.

Because the experiments kind of really fucked Lock up, she gets sick way more frequently from the slightest of things, and like Sera, pain. A lot of pain most days.

She also retired from being a Turk and instead, pursues her own hobbies.

She's working way more on her communication and social issues. Cid's helping her with that.

Yeah, she and Cid are really good friends now.

They bicker like an old married couple while dating.

I like to think that when Lock and Sera finally gets married, Amaris is the little flower girl.

Also, adding onto that: during the wedding ceremony Cid randomly shouts: "Uh, yeah, I object! They're too cute for their own damn good!" And then he has to quickly explain he was kidding and for them to continue the wedding.

Lock and Cid's wedding Sera does the exact same thing because I'm assuming by now Sera's social anxiety is a lot less nowadays, except instead of that, she shouts something along the lines of: "Lock! Don't marry him! He's a himbo!" And Cid just gives the most offended look while Lock is just laughing absolutely non-stop because, she's not wrong. Also, flower girl Amaris again this time accompanied by Sera.

During the after-party for both weddings, Lock dances with the both of them and then forces Sera and Cid to dance together and stands back, watching as they most likely try and constantly mess each other up, playfully obviously.

Also, playful one upping each other is probably a thing between Cid and Sera, they're stupid your honor/aff

Sera is 100% done with Lock and Cid's bullshit, and by bullshit I mean their bickering over nothing.

They do in fact get a cat and it's name is Tunafish because Amaris was very persistent and it's hard to say no to an adorable 6 year old.

[strapskinkstories]

Mar 29 2024 - Where’s the content? WHERES THE FUNDING! WE ARE RUNNING OUT OF FUNDING!

theres been no new content because there’s a funding crisis. Provisional talks are in progress with an angel funder who might save strappyskinks from going belly up due to lack of funding.

That all said. One angel investor can’t float me forever.

See this? You can actually donate towards my clothing food electric internet phone and other things eligible to be paid from my disability trust account.

Before you ask: can gear come from the trust account?

Answer:YES! - Gear is classified either as clothing not otherwise specified or sensory therapy equipment not otherwise specified.

Ultimate dream is for this trust account to explode one day. How is it findoms can get a damn Lamborghini and have people constantly fill its tank and get them sushi and Starbucks when I can’t even complete one of my basic life goals Pay off the house so me and my caregiver can live in peace without worrying about busting ourselves or ending up out of runway to run the business. StrappysKinks is very much technically a business. Even though the product is free. I create content, written video and photographic as well as AI generated entertainment art.

All that content has *intrinsic value* that intrinsic value so you are all aware. Per video. The intrinsic value of an approximately 50 minute bondage video of Amateur/ProAm (I consider myself ProAm at the actual gear stuff. Still kinda amateur on the camera work cut me some slack, I’m working on zero funding right now! Read: out of pocket funding from my already paltry social security) costs pay per view $20.99 YOU PEOPLE HAVE OVER 50 OF SUCH VIDEOS FREE! That’s over $2,500 OF VIDEO CONTENT PER PERSON THAT IS FREE! 100 views would usually = $2,099 if I were running hard core PAY PER VIEW.

I don’t. Because I think paysites suck. And I also think JFF onlyfans all that sucks.

But let me continue. Then there’s my thousands of stories and now my anesthesia stories. Per document a story typically is about $1-$5 let’s just assume I’ve written 5000 stories and documents to keep shit simple. That is again $5000 of content PER PERSON THAT IS FREELY AVAILABLE. AS FREE AS GATDAMN LINUX! Now let’s talk about my image library. It’s on Flickr and spans 14,000 images. Typically a photo set in a paysite is like $10.99 so a little division aaaand the math comes out to… 466 image sets or a value of $4,660 PER PERSON FREELY ACCESSIBLE. It’s late. I can’t math right now. I’m too upset but when I just smash those numbers together and total them up you get. As a single viewer. If you access all of my social medias and my Flickr and use my XHamster. $15,000 of content FOR FREE!!!

I cannot continue as the American economy shoots disabled people in the foot and also screws over low income LGBTQ folks to produce content for free. Something has to change.

Either I have to shut down production. Whoa. Holy fuck.

I didn’t expect the outcry to be so intense. It wasn’t even outcry on Twitter.

The telegram group members went into total open outcry status.

Ok. So. Shutting down production is not an option.

Sustaining production at current funding levels is impossible. Especially considering I just lost $120 per month of government funds thanks to reckless cuts on food stamps and the affordable connectivity program being recklessly ended by a Congress that I can only politely describe as a pile of diarrhea dung from a deathly ill cow with mad cow disease.

So. This is not a tribute me. This isn’t a fucking pay up call.

This is a do me a favor.

Look at yourself in the mirror.

Think about how many times you’ve probably jacked off looking at my videos or photos. Then think about how much time money and gear it takes to make that entertainment material go from here to your screen. I want my 3000 something followers (as I am carbon copying this onto Twitter Etc as well) Do the following

1. Self reflect on your consumption of my media. You owe it to chip a dollar or two in if you’ve done so much as listened to a minute or two of my video. An average street musician gets a hundred dollars a day if they are in a good area. If you’ve watched my videos and you’ve done nothing not even liked them retweeted them or thought about donating them. Are you really being a sustainable consumer? Sustainable consumers support the creators who provide them content. If they can’t give financial support at the least hit the goddamned retweet button. It is not hard! One tap or click ffs!

2. ITS TAX DEDUCTIBLE! (Not sure if you can deduct for 2023 still. But you can deduct it on your 2024 taxes.) So instead of sending money to the fat cats at some national charity where the executives take multimillion dollar paychecks IM LOOKING AT YOU YA MOTHERFUCKERS AUTISM SPEAKS. WE DONT WANT A CURE RESEARCHED AND WE DONT NEED YOUR DAMN BIG HONKY TONK GALAS ON TV EITHER.

3. Realize that if funding doesn’t change in the next 20 days. Immediate cutbacks will begin and by 2026 StrapsKinks will entirely stop filming, photographing, producing AI art, and writing stories as all funding will be exhausted and instead of engaging in kink I’ll have to start selling off gear and computer equipment as we do last ditch efforts to make ends meet before ending up in a shitty apartment rental again or worse homeless. So yeah. Thanks everyone. Thanks for almost a decade of consume consume consume. All without giving back a damn dime. Hopefully this makes things start changing and before the first April 21 cutoff. If funding doesn’t increase by April 21 Twitter stories will permanently cease and the StrappysKinks website will be slated for destruction. If funding doesn’t increase by June gear purchases from Bronco and other planned vendors will be postponed and or canceled If by December funding does not increase there will likely be no further new gear acquisitions and if equipment breaks it won’t be replaced. If by January 2025 nothing changes. All Twitter accounts and the Tumblr will be deleted. The Flickr account will be deleted. The website will be erased in preparation for the October 2025 termination of the StrappysKinks services. At that time anyone who has my contact details will know me and those left in the community simply won’t. At that point I’ll just disappear off of social media and take all my stuff down.

Because guess what.

I’m not leaving $15,000 of content available for free if I go bankrupt. So sit down. Think about what you people are doing to small creators especially those with disabilities and think. Do you want to see StrapsKinks go bankrupt.

The fate rests in your hands folks. This is a publicly funded venture technically. Public funding from the federal and private……. Yeah that’s the problem. Nobody done fuckin stepped up to actually do the funding. Let’s hope this funder that is on the lines actually comes through because if he does his single round could set us back onto at least able to sustain current production even if it does mean slowing down gear purchases. That said. If new funding lines are not received by January 2025 *STRAPPYSKINKS WILL GO BANKRUPT*

[minheeskitten]

oh no 😢 i really don't understand why people can't seem to respect "don't like, don't read", it's as simple as that! i'm sorry you've had to deal with that, there are all kinds of ways to interact with the things we love and writing fic is just one of them! this is art too 😠 😡 💢 i haven't watched too much of kingdom's content yet tbqh but i've always loved their concepts and they also seem so cute from the little that i have seen 🩷 i need to get into them properly so i can fully appreciate your fic 😊 but oooh gosh i totally feel you on the wips and all the ideas, i feel like i'm drowning in a lot right now myself 😭 having so many ideas is fun until it's time to write and i don't even know what to work on 🥲 but i'm glad to hear you've got a lot of ideas because that means a lot more fic for me to read in the future ~🩷

Haha all of my fic is 'dont like dont read'

Im personally not bothered by them calling me things bxa well, if you're gonna call me disgusting, i can and will show the absolute monsterfuckery and scare you more :3

I am by far not a clean person mentally. I will fuck anything that passes the harkness test :3

I am a furry, im queer, im trans, im a monsterfucker, ill write just ab anything. I may eventually write a non-con scene, but that would be entirely at my leisure and very much something i wanted to make.

I have a doc full of just prompts

One of my favs is Werewolf dann w massive cock and hwon :3

I also really love my dissection fic idea

Or rebel!jahan w king!arthur :3

I keep adding more prompt ideas to it so i can save em for later, and rhats not even including the fic ideas in screenshots- that album is over 100 images alr lol

I write for anyone i want to, so if you're ever curious if i know a group literally juat ask haha!

Im very friendly n i don't bite (unless you want to be bitten!)

Though it is getting late for me and i should go to bed for tonight. Feel free to send any asks you want! My inbox is dry asf and i love having more asks to answer when i get them!!! :3

Have a good day/night anon! Ill be asleep for ab 10-12 hours but after then ill reply to anything!

[notwhelmedyet]

Part IV: I Finished the Typesets While You Weren't Looking

As you could probably guess from the absence of updates for several months, I steamed on ahead without updating y'all 😅

Let's cover the important details I might want to remember later:

General approach: I used the same workflow I usually do (set up as much as possible in the HTML source document prior to importing to Scribus), with the difference that this time I split out each chapter. That allowed me to easily place my header image and initial capital in the same place in each chapter and also stopped Scribus from blowing up when I imported multiple 50 mb images.

I initially pulled the text in september, edited, flopped about being anxious about asking for permission and then reached out to Ealcynn...only to learn she'd made a complete edit pass a week after I pulled the text. I then went back and merged her edits for her gift copy. Whoops! this is why you should ask before getting neck-deep in a project.

I discovered a bug in Scribus while typesetting this - hyphenation exception lists from Document Setup don't persist across edit sessions. I put in a bug ticket and it's apparently fixed in future versions. But I figured out a workaround in the meantime - you can set universal hyphenation exception lists via Scribus->Preferences and that works fine. This saved me from manually unhyphenating lots of elvish names when I did my final pass.

About 80% of my typesetting time (minimum) was spent on that final pass, where I remove hyphenation that shouldn't be there (ends of paragraphs, ends of pages, names I forgot to put on my exception list) and adjust word spacing & max/min glyph extension to remove widows and orphans wherever possible. Sometimes there are too many 3 line paragraphs in a row and there's just nothing you can do, but I managed to remove almost all of them around page turns. A few had to be left across spreads in order to make that happen, but it was a necessary sacrifice.

Some people just use the default "keep paragraph together" options in their typesetting program. Those people are very sensible. But consider: I hate the way it looks when the pages don't all end on the same line. Isn't it worth nine or ten hours of a little typesetting to avoid those uneven lines?

Extra Decorative headers: Given how ornamented the chapter titles were, I wanted my colophon, author's notes, copyright page and title page to also be pretty. But the extra ornaments I could find in the source book weren't a very good fit for the shapes I needed. I looked around a little at other nouveau books, but couldn't find what I wanted. Eventually I decided to do exactly what I swore I wouldn't do at the beginning of this project: juxtapose my amateur art skills next to alphonse mucha's masterpieces. whoops.

As inspiration, I turned to the vellucent bindings published by Cedric Chivers. I decided to add a beech leaf element, to tie in with my planned cover art & the floral motifs of the chapter titles. While I won't pretend I'm 100% happy with these (they feel so awkward and untidy compared to the mucha art), they fulfill the necessary functions and I have other projects to work on someday - if I stretched this project out till I felt like my art could stand shoulder to shoulder with Mucha's we'd be here my whole life.

I settled on a computer heavy workflow for these. First I sketched a design based on the Chivers bindings. Then I scanned that sketch, adjusted it where necessary in GIMP and then mirrored the image. I printed the revised sketch and taped a piece of tracing paper over it, which I then inked using a dip pen. I was very happy with the discovery you can get good results inking on tracing paper, it saves for so much time with the lightbox.

Of course, then I decided I wanted to do the titles pages in color, and had to use the lightbox anyway. I was very happy with how those turned out though - I got to play with my thickened watercolors as inks and it is so much fun making color transitions. I landed on a early fall/late fall motif for the two volumes by coloring the design in greens/yellows for ATWW and reds/browns for DR.

The Colophon: Originally I designed a fun archway shaped colophon for the books, but as I kept going I realized I wanted to include more information in there than I could reasonably fit on one page...so for the first time I've split out the copyright page at the front, describing where the fic was first published and how I came to bind it, and the colophon at the back, describing my font choices, binding style etc. I wanted to play with a shaped colophon and do a circle, but it is very hard to make a typeset circle look actually circular...so I went ahead and added a frame.

....and yes, now that I'm looking at it (with the damn thing already printed out and sewn into two books) I see that the divider managed to cut off the tails of some of the letters 🤦 luckily there's still time to fix Ealcynn's copies, this is exactly why I'm doing mine first.

Layers: The other thing I'm doing differently in this fic versus any other I've bound is attempting to print on both a color and laser printer for the same pages. Logistically this is a bit of a mess, but I want my colored frames in color and the text looks much better printed by the laserjet. In order to make that happen, I had to export two versions of each document - one with only the text and one with only the colored headers/drop caps. Thank heavens, I discovered Scribus has layers that allow you to do exactly that.

I set each header image in the background layer and made two additional layers - text for my black/white elements and initials for the drop caps. By toggling which layers were visible and exported for printing I can easily export only the colored or only the black and white parts of the book.

typesetting 'A Fire Shall Be Woken'

So I've been nibbling away at this project in secret for a month but I finally reached out to the author Ealcynn (who I don't believe has a tumblr?) and got the go-ahead to post updates so! here we go!!

Over the past year I have fallen absolutely in love with a LoTR AU fic series called A Fire Shall Be Woken, which is essentially a "for want of a nail" AU where Legolas was exiled from Mirkwood and has never met Aragorn. It is very well written and intricately detailed and it makes me cry every time I read it & after reread #3 I decided I should probably bind a copy.

Around that same time I discovered Cloches de Noël et de Pâques, a french book from 1900 illustrated by Alphonse Mucha. There's a wonderful quality scan available online and each page has a gorgeous floral frame & I said to myself: well. I'm never going to find a fic that's a better fit for these illustrations than this series.

So, step one, I went through the book and picked up some of my favorite frames that has winter/autumnal vibes, since both fics take place from October-December. There are about 80 pages of frames, but less than 40 illustrations because they are repeated with varying color schemes. I needed 19 illustrations to have one per chapter. I recruited some friends in the Renegade Publishing server to vote on the order, though I ignored a lot of their sensible advice to put my favorites at the front and back of each volume.

Then I had to do basic image editing to clean up the covers. The scans were good quality but were very grey. Each page had a dark and light side due to the curvature of the pages during scanning. So for each image I:

Cropped to size & auto-adjusted the white balance to brighten the background to white

Selected the transparent frame between sections and filled it with white

Used a layer mask on a duplicate of the image to lighten the dark side of the page, using an opacity gradient to make the transition seamless.

Covered the text frame and top illustration with smooth-sized white frames of matching sizes. I tried just filling these with white but at the reduced size I'll be printing the imperfections of the original linework were jagged and distracting.

[daburuwosagase]

Manga scanning: a practical example

Lately I've been getting a lot of people asking questions about how to scan and subtitle. And it's kinda hit me: there aren't a lot of visible, accessible resources for this, are there? As time winds by, the masters of these arts have moved on and vanished from the internet. So for posterity, I want to talk about my own work process. (Remember to save a backup of this post somewhere if you like it...)

Maybe someone else has already written this up better than me, but it's nice to infodump about the process regardless.

The book I'm scanning is Inazuma Eleven GO: Saikyou Senshu 100-nin Zukan. It was a magazine extra drawn by multiple artists, and to my knowledge it's never been rereleased in tankobon format. Which is a damn shame, because it's full of hilarious gags! Time to bring it back to the world. So, how do we start?

0) Tools and programs

Before anything else, ya gotta have a good, clean scanner. My actual scanning is done with a basic 11x17 flatbed scanner with 1200dpi max. Default OS scanning programs usually suck, so I always download the scanner drivers and programs from the manufacturer's site!!

Other physical requirements are a microwave and some black paper. The digital steps are all done in Photoshop and XNView.

1) Scan the cover

For scan settings, I default to 600dpi PNG. I used to scan things at 200/300dpi, and while this is quicker and more economical, it's not nearly as crisp! It can also cause some weird color banding, due to some scientific phenomenon that still confuses me! Basically, if a scan looks stripey, change the DPI. It's much better to work at higher resolutions and then shrink it down later. I don't have to fret over 100mb+ raw images anymore because I have plenty of external storage! Yippee!!

Before doing anything else, I scan the cover while it's still in the best possible condition. Obviously, opening the book too far will cause creasing near the spine.

Since my edition was a well-loved secondhand copy, there is a LOT of creasing. But I don't feel like spending 3k yen to get a mint copy that I'm just gonna rip apart anyway, so this is where Photoshop comes in!

2) Retouching cover damage

Fortunately, there isn't any color fading to deal with here. The majority of these imperfections were touched up with Content Aware Fill. It's a very powerful tool that assumes what the selected pixels *should* look like based on the surrounding pixels. Use the Lasso or Magic Wand to select the imperfections, and try to avoid selecting pixels you don't want fixed. Content Aware works best on small spots, so you kinda have to break it up by color blocks, but it's still a million times faster and way less depressing. Seriously, cleaning and typesetting let my mind wander too much.

I currently have two Actions shortcuts to make this process even faster:

1) regular Content Aware Fill

2) Expand by 5px > Content Aware Fill > Deselect

When Content Aware fails, this is when I have to go manual. Clone Stamp is my best friend ever. Carefully select a source with the Alt key, line up the dots over the touchup area (toggle Enter for better viewing), and keep brushing! This can be painstaking, but man, I love seeing and comparing the finished result.

Healing Brush is helpful when you have to clone a pattern but the color is different. It'll preserve the source pattern but adjust the lighting to match the surrounding pixels. It's a lot more finicky and will blur colors *too* much sometimes, especially near borders. This tool's really better on photographs, but it still comes in handy.

(I hear that Patch combines the functionality of these two! I wanna try it out next time...)

When Healing Brush can't blend colors well enough, using Clone Stamp in combination with Dodge (lighten) or Burn (darken), with strength adjusted accordingly, is the next best thing. Burn is GREAT on lines that aren't quite black enough! This technique works wonders when touching up gutter shadows especially. I will spend an exorbitant amount of time on retouching if it means I don't have to rip apart my nice books (that being said, it's important to really gauge whether it's worth retouching in the first place! I waste too much of my time on tiny details that nobody else cares about!!)

If being able to see the printer dots bothers you, there's an easy fix: the Surface Blur filter. This is one I've only discovered recently and I'm still playing around with it. On one hand, it gets rid of the tiny white dots and can make scan images look absolutely magnificent. On the other hand, it has some trouble preserving sharp lines and small highlights. Since I don't like altering the original image too much, the scans I post aren't usually blurred -- but it's something you can try out at home!

Hot damn! Look at the difference! Look at my boy Tenma! You'd hardly guess the condition the original is in!

Note that the final version does not have all the creases removed. At this point I had already spent a couple of hours retouching and decided nobody else was gonna care THAT much about the peripheral damage. If you do care that much, feel free to spend *your* time perfecting this.

3) Melt

Now that the cover's scanned... it's time to toss the book in the microwave!

(Pictured is a *different* book, but you get the picture.)

No, seriously. Microwaving is the easiest way to warm up the glue enough to tear the pages out. Or more accurately, gently tug on the pages till they separate from the rest of the bunch. I start from the front cover and tease the pages out one by one. On thicker books, I'll alternate between front and back covers.

I set the initial heating count to 30-50 seconds, and sometimes I turn down the power level if I'm feeling apprehensive. Really gotta play it by ear depending on the book’s size and condition. After tearing out a couple dozen pages, the glue gets cool again and the pages start to resist again. Continuing like this results in the paper tearing!! This is when I chuck the book back in for another 10-15 seconds.

It's a little scary at first, but the toner on the pages heats up too! It doesn't bleed and it shouldn't be *too* hot to the touch though. So it's just something I've had to get used to.

This particular book kinda smelled when I heated it up! I blame either the paper quality or, y'know, being secondhand and maybe not being stored in perfect condition. But the stink was fortunately temporary.

Some people prefer ironing the spine (with a towel over it), but IMO that's more precarious and time-consuming. Maybe it works better for the middle pages though...? Worth trying out someday.

You could just slice out the pages with a knife or something, but with melting, it's possible to rebind the pages later! This is another thing I haven't done myself yet, but I'm excited to try it out with a nice archival glue. I'll update with the results eventually.

So, with the "how" out of the way, "why" would you take apart a book in the first place!? It still feels a little sacrilegious. But scanning pages one at a time gets you the best possible results.

It eliminates three major issues:

1) Gutter shadow

As mentioned before, shadows at the "gutter" (the inside spine) naturally happen because the page isn't lying flat there. It looks bad. And it takes a whole lot of work to retouch.

2) Angled pages

The cousin to gutter shadow, angled pages happen when the spine is a leeeetle more open/closed at the bottom/top. So with a spread, you've got the left page at -1 degree and the right page at .5 degree. Both of these pages are going to have things cut off when they're cropped. And it's going to look very weird when you're flipping through pages and have slightly alternating angles. Rotating these pages so that they're at the same angle is a lot more trouble.

It's really hard to keep the spine open exactly the same way for an entire book! The weight of the scan lid can throw off careful positioning anyway!

3) See-through pages

Manga in Japan is CHEAP and is not printed on the best paper possible. If you have the pages all bundled together, you can see large splotches of black or white from the spread that's behind the page being scanned. Leveling the image can fix this, but it comes at the cost of destroying midtones. Which is to say, any gray in the image becomes off-white or almost-black.

I hope you're beginning to understand how much effort and technical detail goes into the scans you enjoy.

4) Scanning

Same scan settings as the cover (600dpi PNG). I always scan in color, even for grayscale images. And I don't trust the auto settings enough to let the machine fiddle with colors and cropping.

You know how scanners have a little arrow at the corner saying "align here"? Don't do that. The ones I've worked with like to shave off a few millimeters from the edge because they assume there's a margin anyway. So I place my documents about 1cm AWAY from the edge just to make sure the whole page is scanned in. This inevitably causes some slight rotation, which will be fixed later.

A new technique I've learned to reduce the effects of aforementioned see-through pages: use a black background! The toner blends in with the dark backing. This reduces the luminosity of the whites, but that's something that can easily be fixed via leveling later. I do not have black paper around the house, so I resorted to fabric.

For comparison, here's the first page scanned with both a white and a black background. Note that white is slightly brighter, but there are some weird shadowy lines in the background. If you look really hard, the line goes through the screentone on Tenma's hair! Maybe it's excessive, but these tiny details can be weirdly distracting.

This book doesn't have page numbers, so I had to be extra cautious about missing pages (or accidentally dropping the stack)!

5) Leveling

Typically this step is something I leave for last, but since it significantly reduces file size, that's going to make the next steps easier.

So I've mentioned leveling before. But what is it?

Essentially, Levels make black *blacker* and white *whiter*. This is one very easy step to make pages look SO much better.

Switching over to XNView now, I'm setting these pages to about 40-220. Usually this would be a bit too heavy -- this could easily erase something light or turn something dark into pure black. But in this instance, the high dpi means individual screentone dots are visible and any grays are pretty well preserved anyway. So let it rip! XNView batch processing can run through all selected pages all at once and save the leveled copies to a new folder.

There's a ton of dust left still. Leveling gets a *lot* of it, but again, the paper quality is not great in the first place so it's kind of unavoidable. Resizing and cleaning the page later will help somewhat.

6) Rotate

This is the one step I do fully manually. I haven't had much luck with auto deskew/crop before, nor have I tried any different methods for it recently. Please tell me if there's a better way of doing this step that won't sacrifice border pixels.

Anyway, since I scanned slightly away from the edges earlier, the resulting digital image is slightly rotated at a random angle! For some ungodly reason, Photoshop doesn't have a shortcut for custom rotation, nor can you really set an action for it. XNView once again comes in clutch here. The basic steps are:

5a) Click and drag to create a bounding box. This will be used as a guideline to check whether the digital image is actually upright.

5b) Shift-O and test out values from -3 to 3. Ctrl-Z and repeat until it's just right.

After a while, you get a hang for approximate values, but "just right" means getting within .05 of a degree!! Even the untrained eye can tell when something's off by a mite.

5c) Adjust the bounding box's borders to the edges. If the box is aligned to one corner and the adjacent corners *aren't* aligned too, that means you have to rotate until all four corners are aligned. Then crop and save and move onto the next one!

7) Align

This is a new step I've never done before! Given the number and size of pages I'm working with here, I had to think and plan out this process in advance for once. Basically, instead of cropping and resizing each individual file, I load them all in at once so that they're perfectly aligned with each other. This is gonna require a lot of Photoshop automation.

First off, I go to File > Scripts > Load Files into Stack. There are four types of pages here: 1 comic on the left, 1 comic on the right, 2 comics on the left, and 2 comics on the right. This process will have to be repeated for each type so that the automation doesn't get confused. Then we check the "Align Source Images" box and let the process run... for a while.

So now I have a single file with one layer for each of the pages, and the comics themselves are all nicely aligned! Yahoo! The edges are mismatched though, so it's time to crop again. There's gonna be some cutoff but that's acceptable in this instance since I just care about the small comics. If I was doing bigger, full-page manga, I'd probably *add* some margin after cropping.

The pages are approximately a 5:8 ratio, so I've decided to crop these down to 2550 x 4080. To make sure that the comics are at the same distance from the margin regardless of page type, I'm using Guides to roughly estimate the comic positions after cropping. I want them to end up at about 70px and 100px from the horizontal and vertical margins respectively. I could also change the size of the canvas instead of cropping if I really wanted to.

Once I'm satisfied with the cropping, I use the Timeline/Animations window to flip through (at about 0.5 seconds) and check that all of the layers look right. There are a couple tears and visible background instances which are quickly fixed with Content Aware Fill and Clone Stamp. Since the background's black, I even had to temporarily change the Photoshop interface color lighter so that I could detect the imperfections better.

Then at last I go to File > Scripts > Export Layers to Files and... wait for a while again. Now we have separate files! And now I have to repeat these steps all over again for the three other page types!

Lastly, it's time to rename the resulting files in order. I actually screwed up on this step. Photoshop exported all the files *backwards*, which gave me file names like "PSexp0025-InaGo01". This is an issue because it makes batch-renaming via XNView a whole lot harder!! Photoshop automatically adds a numbered prefix to all the auto-exported files, and XNView can't remove wildcards from filenames. The result is weirdly staggered out-of-ordered files. It took some careful manual work to fix this, but at long last, we have a whole folder of 90 beautiful pages!

8) Translate (FINALLY)

You see how long it took to get here!? This took at least six hours for 90 pages. After all that work with the raws, finally I can do something with them!

Guess what! If you have a digital edition, you can skip all of these steps! Instant gratification for five bucks! Buy digital editions when you can and give your money directly to the author!!

Anyway, further stages may be discussed in another post once we get around to them. Lassoing translators and typesetters is its own struggle. I hope you learned something new from this post!

[jmoriarty-221b]

Ok so this idea was inspired by AUs where Tim Drake is a member of the Addams family and thus this cute idea was born

Ok so, Tim’s parents still travel a lot but instead of leaving him alone in a big empty manor they leave him with his aunt and uncle Morticia and Gomez Addams

And Tim is a weird little kid who grows up without fear of the dark figures at night because the boogeyman is actually a pretty nice fellow who was very touched when Tiny Tim gave them a drawing of themselves, the monster in the closet actually gives great fashion advice as well as providing the perfect clothes for playing dress up, and the monsters under his bed are great storytellers and the shadow man gives Tim great advice on how to hide and use shadows to his advantage, etc.

The point is that Timmy grows up under the care of the Addams when his parents have to leave on long business trips or excavation sites and as such, is exposed to Gomez’s great appreciation of swordsmanship and fencing, and the haunted suits of armors are always great at comparing which kind of swords are the best in which kind of combat as well as the the importance of craftsmanship when in relation to having a reliable sword

And then one day Timmy watches the movie ‘The Legend of Zorro’ and becomes absolutely obsessed with learning how to use a sword and fight with it in the way only little kids can become obsessed with something they find completely cool, and Gomez is so excited to be teaching Tim everything he knows and they work together to craft Timmy his very own mini rapier for learning how to fence (swords are heavier so Tim learns those from Gomez when he’s older and can parry more weight)

And Tim becomes very Focused and Serious on learning how to fence and he’s very excited when he manages to finally best his uncle in a fencing duel (not as excited as Gomez tho, “MY CHILD SHALL BECOME THE BEST SWORDSMAN YET MY LOVE, DID YOU SEE HIS TECHNIQUE, HAD I BEEN SLOWER HE WOULD’VE RIPPED OPEN MY THROAT IN ONE SWIPE, I’M SO PROUD” “Our child dear”)

And then the movie ‘Count of Monte Cristo’ comes out and both Tim and Gomez are super fans (as a whole the family’s favorite movies are this one as well as the Legend of Zorro because 1. Revenge is achieved to the improvement of the main character’s well being and 2. The Aesthetic) and Tim just focuses on getting the hang of swords now with Gomez being more than happy to help his darling nephew

So years pass and Tim’s parents have finished one of their most taxing excavation digs so they return to Gotham and Tim has to return too (for the purposes of this AU Janet and Jack actually do give a fuck about their son so they would call him every other night when they’re away and if they can’t then at the very least they would call Tim once a week; they also call Morticia and Gomez at least once a week to check on how Tim is doing and they were also very happy to know that Tim has taken a liking to swords so they try to bring new types of weapons or literature related to weapons from the culture of their latest excavation so Tim can learn how different types of swords are wielded all around the world)

But anyway, Tim is going back to Gotham so he and Gomez work on creating a new sword for him with the family motto carved on the blade “Sic Gorgiamus Allos Subjectatos Nunc” which translates to “We Gladly Feast on Those Who Would Subdue Us” which is metal as fuck so yeah, and this sword is super durable and strong, inspired by a katana’s durability and a rapier’s gracefulness with a blade that is such a dark purple that it looks black like obsidian and the inscription of the family motto is carved in letters that are ruby red with a black hilt where an image of a drake is engraved in the same ruby red as the family motto (basically it is a Very Deadly Sword that is also Very Pretty with a dark aesthetic)

So Tim gets back to Gotham and one day he’s watching the news and sees The Batman saving the day and what not and sees Robin do a quadruple back flip and figures out their identities and decides that he wants to meet them at some point while on his nightly photography sessions of Gotham architecture; and if he manages to snap a couple of shots of Gotham’s heroes sometimes then that’s a bonus but Tim is mostly focused on capturing the essence of Gotham city (at this point in time when Tim moves back to Gotham he physically looks like 10-12 year old; he did meet Dick at the circus when he looked like he was 4 years old but for the purposes of the timeline Tim, as an Addams, can choose to remain at any age he desires for as long as he wants so while he did appear to be 4 years old at the circus, he had been alive for a couple of years more at this point, this also explains how he can master swords and fencing while physically looking like a 10 year old because he has been practicing for years as well as why he remembers Dick from that night at the circus)

So the timeline continues with Tim figuring out that the Bats are actually his neighbors but instead of staying away from the Waynes, he decides to go ask his parents if he can stay with the neighbors whenever they have to stay later than usual at the company or have to take a short business travel and they talk with Bruce about it and he agrees to take care of Tim, so now Tim has an in to befriend the Waynes and helps smooth out the edges of Dick and Bruce’s relationship so Bruce doesn’t fire Dick from Robin, but rather they talk about their feelings for once and Dick decides he wants to create his own superhero identity and Bruce supports his decision (Tim may or may not have had to talk about how his family happened to be very open about their feelings and worry for one another and how much closer they are due to talking to each other and resolving conflict; Alfred may or may not have been 100% behind Tim every time he made such a conversation) also, Tim is basically a trial run for Dick on becoming a big brother for when Jason arrives

One time Tim asks Dick if he knows how to fence which Dick can’t really answer because technically he knows how to fight with a sword but that’s for vigilante purposes which his civilian self isn’t supposed to know so Dick says that he doesn’t and asks Tim why he wanted to know, Tim proceeds to talk about how his favorite masked hero uses a sword to fight injustice and he has a black cape and a black horse and Bruce comes into the living room they’re in in the middle of Tim’s rambling about his favorite hero using a sword and is Concerned for a hot minute until Tim finishes the rant by saying “. . . and that’s why I like his movie so much, have you seen the Legend of Zorro?” (Cue relief for both Dick and Bruce because for all that they scrambled to put a name to the hero Tim was describing they couldn’t come up with one and were considering the possibility of a new player in the vigilante scene) so then Tim asks Mr. Bruce if he knows how to fence and Bruce says yes and asks if Tim would like to learn cue the “Oh, my uncle taught me how to fence a few years ago and when I lived with them we had a duel at least once a week, it was very fun so I was just wondering if you knew so we could practice if you want to Mr. Bruce”

Dick is 100% on board with this because the idea of Tiny Tim and 6’1” Bruce fencing is hilarious in his mind, Alfred is there to supervise and both Tim and Bruce are provided with the appropriate fencing equipment and protection; Bruce starts off slow and is surprised when Tim manages to beat him before starting to enjoy fencing with someone who can surprisingly keep up with him (Dick is taking pictures because the height difference is just too cute to be ignored and Tiny Tim is adorable in his own mini fencing equipment)

Whenever his parents do have to leave for extended periods of time (any company trip that takes more than 3-5 days qualifies as this) Tim stays with his aunt and uncle, thus starting a fun tradition of having spontaneous fencing duels with his uncle Gomez, basically if one of them is in the library then the other will shout ‘En-garde’ while throwing a sabre towards the other person and engaging in a quick duel; basically, if Tim is reading about the latest poisonous plants produced by Poison Ivy and annotating his research in order to get an idea of what would be a nice gift for his aunt Morticia and Gomez walks into the library then Gomez will grab two of the sabres they have on the wall for this exact purpose while shouting ‘en-garde’ before throwing a sabre at Tim and engaging in a duel, same goes for Tim, it’s almost instinct to the point that Tim has to hold himself back from doing exactly this whenever he sees Bruce in the library of Wayne Manor

Later on, when Jason is already adopted into the Wayne family, Tim still comes over and makes it his sacred mission to teach Jason the art of swords so he has another fencing buddy because “Mr. Bruce isn’t always here and I have decided that we will be friends and you’re pretty cool but knowing how to fight with a sword just ups your coolness level ya know?” So now Jason has smol Tim teaching him how to fence and it’s pretty fun to be able to do a taxing physical activity outside of being Robin with a friend, when Jason gets the hang of fencing Tim decides that he must now advance to the next level: sword fighting (Alfred is always there to supervise and give tips and pointers because he also knows how to fence but chooses to stay in the sidelines and let the young masters have their fun)

The problem with this is that, while the Waynes do have sabres for fencing, they don’t have swords, at least not in their civilian selves, so Tim decides to bring his own swords to teach Jason how to sword fight, Alfred is the first to see Tim’s very own special sword and is both impressed at the craftsmanship and concerned as to why a child has a sword, Jason thinks Tim’s sword is the coolest he has ever seen and Tim is happy to talk about how he made it himself with his uncle’s help when he finally learned all about sword fighting and promises Jason that they can make him his own cool sword when he learns how to sword fight too, Dick also thinks that the sword is a little concerning for a kid to have but he also wants his own cool sword and so now he insists Bruce has to teach him how to sword fight because Tim said he’s not allowed to have his own sword until he learns how to sword fight, Bruce is baffled as to why Tim has a sword, impressed at Tim’s skills in craftsmanship, and a little Concerned as to why Tim’s sword has that Latin inscription on the blade (no Tim, knowing that “we feast in those who would subdue us” is your family motto doesn’t calm me down yet it explains a lot about your mother)

By the time Damian comes along to the family he is very interested in where Jason and Dick got their Very Cool swords from, his father also has one and he wants to have his own Very Cool Sword too, thank you very much, and Tim visits them when Damian is still settling in and asks his customary question of if he knows how to use fence and gets an affirmative answer he asks Bruce if it would be ok for him and Damian to have a fencing duel, Bruce explains the rules to Damian and makes sure that Alfred, Dick, Jason and him are present in order to keep Damian from maiming/killing Tim

The duel does get a little out of hand as Damian gauges that Tim is more skilled than he previously thought so he stops holding back, Tim is positively grinning at this since he always has to hold back with the Waynes in a way that he doesn’t with Uncle Gomez because while an Addams won’t die from a stab to the heart, the same can’t be said for anyone else; the duel ends with Tim winning because he has more experience than Damian but he is positive beaming at how awesome Damian was and how these duels could become a weekly thing before they transition to swords and once Dames graduates from swords he can design his very own sword with Tim’s help as a sort of graduation present for learning how to sword fight and he’s sure that it won’t take too long for Damian to master swordsmanship because he’s basically a natural already and very skilled and this duel was so much fun Damian we have to do this again sometime oh my gosh I want to teach you everything I know it’s gonna be so much fun

And Damian, a poor baby, was mad at having lost to Tim but then Tim hits him with all this excitement and smiles and it’s the promise of getting his own Very Cool Sword is what gets him to agree to learn from Tim, it’s not that he feels warm at getting compliments from someone who also likes swords and knows what he’s doing in a fight, he definitely doesn’t find Tim cool at all, he’s just making use of a resource and he will learn everything Tim has to offer and become better than both Grayson and Todd, that’s all (that’s not all because it turns out that Damian is the younger brother Tim never had and he takes Dami under his wing and helps him adjust to a life outside the League of Assassins and how to find hobbies to enjoy; Damian won’t admit it but he is also Very Attached in to Timothy and feels like he won’t be judged for his past with him and he is also a fellow sword enthusiast so yeah)

Tim decides to do the same thing to Damian and initiating a quick fencing duel whenever he sees that Damian is in the gardens (no fencing inside the Manor on pain of Alfred’s eyebrow of disappointment); this helps Damian with the transition of learning to have fun and also learn to realize that not everybody is an enemy, it also helps keep up his training and burn some energy whenever he gets restless and helps him bond with Tim more

The idea was that Tim and Uncle Gomez would surprise each other with spontaneous fencing duels by shouting ‘en-garde’ at the other person whenever they find one another in the library, and now it turned into a fluff AU where Tim isn’t Robin but he’s still a family friend to the Waynes and an Addams and helps bring the family closer through his love of swords because yes

[nim-lock]

Art Career Tips, 2021 Edition

Here’s an edited version of my 2019 answered ask, because... this feels relevant. 

It is a problem of capitalism that folks equate their income as a judgement of their value as people; and let me preface. You are worth so much. You have inherent value in this world. Your income is not a judgement on who you are (plenty of billionaires are actively making the world worse). LARPing self-confidence will go a long way to helping you get paid more for your work, because clients will believe that you know what you are doing, and are a professional. 

& real quick—my own background is that I’ve been living off my art since 2018. I went to art school (Pratt Institute). I work in a publishing/educational materials sphere, and a quarter of my income is my shop. Not all of this information may apply to you, so it is up to you to look through everything with a critical eye, and spot pick what is relevant. 

So there are multiple ways of getting income as an artist; 

Working freelance or full-time on projects

Selling your stuff on a shop

Licensing (charging other companies to use your designs)

This post primarily covers the freelance part; if you’re interested in the other bits there is absolutely info out there on the internet. 

IF you are just starting (skip to next section if not applicable) dream big, draw often (practice helps you get better/more efficient), do your best to take "a bad piece” lightly. You’re gonna RNG this shit. At some point your rate of “good” works will get higher. Watch tutorial videos & read books. A base understanding of “the rules”; anatomy, perspective, composition, color helps you know what the rules are to break them. This adds sophistication to your work. One way you can learn this stuff is by doing “studies”—you’re picking apart things from life, or things other people have done, to see what works, and how it works. 

Trying to turn your interests into a viable career means that you are now a SMALL BUSINESS; it really helps to learn some basic marketing, graphic design, figure out how to write polite customer service emails; etc. You can learn some of this by looking it up, or taking skillshare (not sponsored) classes by qualified folks. Eventually some people may get agents to take care of this for them—however, I do recommend y’all get a basic understanding of what it takes to do it on your own, just so you can know if your agent is doing a good job. 

Making sure your portfolio fits the work you want to get

Here is a beginner portfolio post. 

Research the field you’d like to get into. The amount people work, the time commitment, the process of making the thing, the companies & people who work for them. 

Create work that could fit in to the industry you’re breaking into. For example, if you want to do book cover illustration, you draw a bunch of mockup book covers, that can either be stuff you make up, or redesigns of existing books. If you’re not 100% sure what sort of work is needed for the industry, loop back into the portfolios of artists in a similar line of work as whatever you’re interested in, and analyze the things they have in common. If something looks to be a common project (like a sequence of action images for storyboard artists), then it’s probably something useful for the job. 

CLIENTS HIRE BASED ON HOW WELL THEY THINK YOUR WORK FITS WHAT THEY WANT. If they’re hiring for picture books, they’re gonna want to see picture book art in your portfolio, otherwise they may not want to risk hiring you. Doesn’t have to be 100% the project, but stuff similar enough. If you aren’t hired, it doesn’t mean your work is bad, it just wasn’t the right fit for that specific client. 

If you have many interests, make a different section of your portfolio for each!

Making sure you’re relevant 

Have a social media that’s a little more public-facing, and follow people in the career field you’re interested in. Fellow artists, art directors, editors, social media managers; whoever. Post on your own schedule. 

Interact with their posts every so often, in a non-creepy way. 

If you’ve made any contacts, great! Email these artists, art directors, editors, former professors, etc occasional updates on your work to stay in touch AND make sure that they think about you every so often.

Show up to general art events every once in a while! If you keep showing up to ones in your area (when... not dying from a sneeze is a thing), folks will eventually start to remember you. 

Industry events & conferences can be pricey, so attend/save up for what makes sense for you. Industry meetups are important for networking in person! In addition to meeting people with hiring power, you also connect with your peers in the community. Always bring a portfolio & hand out business cards like candy. 

Active job hunting

Apply to job postings online.

If interested in working with specific people at specific companies, you could send an email “I’d love to work with you, here’s my portfolio/relevant experience”, even if they aren’t actively looking for new hires. Be concise, and include a link to your work AND attached images so the person reading the email can get a quick preview before clicking for more. 

Twitter job postings can be pretty underpaid! Get a copy of the Graphic Artists’ Guild Handbook Pricing & Ethical Guidelines to know your rate. I once had a twitter post job listing email me back saying that other illustrators were charging less, and I quote, “primarily because they’re less experienced and looking for their first commission”. This was not okay! For reference, this was a 64-illustration book. The industry rate of a children’s book (~36 pages) is $10k+, and this company’s budget was apparently $1k. For all of it. 

Congrats you got a job! Now what?

Ask for like, 10% more than they initially offer and see if they say yes. If they do, great! If not, and the price is still OK, great! Often company budgets are slightly higher than they first tell you, and if you get this extra secret money, all the better for you. 

Make sure you sign a contract and the terms aren’t terrible (re: GO GET THE  Graphic Artists’ Guild Handbook Pricing & Ethical Guidelines) 

Be pleasant and easy to work with (Think ‘do no harm but take no shit’)

Communicate with them as much as needed! If something’s going to be late, tell them as soon as you know so they aren’t left wondering or worse, reaching out to ask what’s up. 

And if all goes well, they’ll contact you about more jobs down the line, or refer you to other folks who may need an artist, etc. 

Quick note about online shops/licensing and why they’re so good

It’s work that you do once, that you continuously make money off of. Different products do well in different situations (conventions vs. online, and then further, based on how you market/the specific groups you are marketing to), so products that may not do well initially may get a surge later on. 

Start with things that have low minimum order quantity and are relatively cheap to produce, like prints and stickers. 

If you are not breaking even, go back to some of the earlier portions of this and think about how you could tweak things as a small business. Ease of access is also very important with this; for example, if you only take orders through direct messages, that immediately shuts off all customers who don’t like talking to strangers. 

Quick resource that you could look through; it’s the spreadsheet of project organizing that I made a while back 

Licensing is when people pay you for the right to use your work on stuff they need to make, like textbooks or greeting cards. This is generally work you’ve already made that they are paying the right to use for a specified time or limited run of products. This is great because you’ve already done the work. I am not the expert on this. Go find someone else’s info.

“I am not physically capable of working much”/ “I need to pay the bills”

Guess who got a hand injury Sept 2020 that messed me up that entire month! I had a couple jobs going at the time that I was terrified of losing, but they were quite understanding when I told them I needed to heal. So:  Express your needs as early as you know you need them. Also do lots of stretches and rest your hands whenever you feel anything off; this will save your health later. Like, the potential of a couple months of no income was preferable over losing use of my hands for the rest of my life.

This continues to apply if you have any other life situation. Ask for extra time. Ask for clarification. If you tell people ahead of time, folks are often quite understanding. Know how much you are capable of working and do your best not to overdo it. (I am.. bad at this)

Do what MAKES SENSE for your situation. If doing art currently earns you less money than organizing spreadsheets, then do that for now, and whenever you have the energy, break down some of the tips above into actionable tiny chunks, and slowly work at em. 

The original ask I got in 2019 mentioned ‘knowing you’re not good enough yet’. Most artists experience imposter syndrome & self-doubt—the important thing is to do your best, and if anything, attempt to channel the confidence of a mediocre white man. If he can apply to this job/charge hella money for Not Much, then so can you! 

Check out this Art Director tumblr for more advice!

Danichuatico’s Literary Agent guide

Kikidoodle’s Shop Shipping Tutorial

Best of luck!

–

Once again disclaimer this post is just the ramblings of a man procrastinating on other things that need to be done. I’ve Long Posted my own post so that it turns into mush in my brain if I try to read it, but I wrote this so I should know this content. If you got down here, congrats. Here’s a shrimp drawing.

Yee Ha. 

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