#and no i don't mean I wanna make online tutorials and whatever. no. thats not what I'm talking about.

[knifeforkspooncup]

My dream is literally just to have enough time and energy to share my skills with other people.

I long to invite someone over and show them how to bake my favourite cake recipe. How great would it be to show someone how to tie a bowline knot in a way they'll remember? Yes, I would actuallt love for you to come over to my house and learn stained glass with all my supplies, it would make my year. Oh your parents never taught you how to use an electric drill or how to change the oil filter on your car? Don't work luv I'll walk you through it. Here don't forget your eye protection.

[jacobtheloofah]

Hey, my friend wants to get started in voice acting but doesn't really know where to start... Do you possibly have a F.A.Q or a list of resources maybe? I'd really appreciate it! <3

I can give some pointers sure! I'll do two segments, the equipment/software part and then the actual acting part, it ended up being way longer than I intended so check it out below:

For hardware it's definitely easiest to start with an affordable USB mic. Ignore all the bullshit that people say of like "ThE bLuE yEtI iS gArBaGe" cuz first of all they're overreacting, it's perfectly fine, and second of all you're literally starting out so you don't need to spend hundreds and hundreds if not thousands on audio equipment. Hell if you've got an iphone you can use the audio recording thing built into that, it'll just be difficult to get consistent sounding audio unless you get a stand and filter for it. I'm getting sidetracked but yeah any blue microphone is great to start out with, I also recommend Audiotechnica, their AT2020 USB is what I started with and it served me well for many years and I think these days it's cheaper than the yeti even.

I also highly recommend a good stand and most importantly some sort of pop filter for the mic, if your microphone comes with a stand thats good and all but uh make sure it's a good stand cuz it sometimes isn't lol, like the AT2020's default stand is so flimsy and top-heavy and shitty. You want something with either a good solid base or a wide enough base that it will support the mic and not wobble or topple. It's easy enough to find one-size-fits-all mic stands online, so don't worry about that too much, but definitely look into what pop filter works well and works for you.

A filter like this is gonna be very good but it can be tricky if you're tight on desk space. Otherwise you can get filters that go right over the mic like a sock and those work well enough but you'll need to still be aware of plosives (sounds like your P or T sounds) cuz those may still pass through the filter.

And then as far as software, just use Audacity. It's free, it's user friendly, you can get tons of plugins for it, it's free, there's like 5 billion tutorials for it online for whatever effect you're trying to achieve, and on top of that it's free. If you wanna sink your teeth into something more then you could do Reaper, which is less user friendly but you can do more with it and mess around with stuff easier for reasons that I won't bog this down with any more than I already have. It's not free, but only technically. It's a "paid" service, by which I mean they do charge a full price for it, but they offer a full-usability free trial of it and out of principle do not stop you from just using that trial forever and ever and never paying. Do I feel bad about abusing this loophole? Yes, but they surely knew it would happen so yknow power to the people ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

One final note on the technical side, be aware of your surroundings. You may wanna figure out ways to dampen audio around you in case it'll leave background noise in your recording. Audacity has a built in noise reduction tool which has saved my ass so many times so that's good to use, but it won't work miracles. Don't expect to record with your family talking in the background and for your audio to be fine in the end, you'll still wanna make sure you can record in silence without bothering other people and cut off outside noises (air conditioning, noise from a window, etc) as much as you can. A physical solution to just static background audio is to get a shit ton of noise dampening foam panels and either pin those on the wall around where your computer is or find creative ways to hang them up around you. My solution was to get an affordable room divider with fabric panels and attach the foam to that so I could prop them up around me. But that isn't really necessary when you're getting started lol. If you don't mind being sweaty you can just throw a blanket over yourself and your computer and record in there. If you've got like a spare closet you can bring a laptop, mic, and small folding table or something into, even better!

So you get yourself a nice microphone, you get comfortable with Audacity, and you're ready to go. Now what do you do?

You learn to act.

It seems obvious but it also feels important to say it out loud just in case, voice acting is acting and if you wanna get good at it you have to put in time and effort to practice. Do you need to go and get a theater degree? No but if you're anything like me and you're on tumblr in 2023 I bet you already have one. But if you don't and you havent studied acting before, I do highly encourage taking an acting class if you're able to. If not, aside from whatever studying on the "craft" you do on your own, you just have to dive in and work at it. I feel confident as a performer right here right now, but that's because I did do a full 4 years studying and performing and on top of that I've been doing voice acting stuff online for a decade now. So if you get all the equipment and you start doing it, please don't be discouraged if it takes you time to sound good. It's not just about how to act, it's about how to work with a microphone, it's about understanding what you're saying in a way that communicates the performance with *just words* cuz you ain't got a body to help with it. It'll take time, but just keep at it.

I think a lot about this series of videos that Tom Scott made about making content online and "being successful," I'll link those videos here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. Anyway the gist of it is that it's very easy to feel discouraged by many things, whether it be because one video you made got a lot of views even though you put seemingly little effort into it or it wasn't up to your standards, or you put a lot of effort into something and it got no attention at all. You'll put a lot of coal into an engine that seemingly will burn it all away and pick up very little power from it, and you'll probably do that a lot to the point where it feels pointless. Maybe once in a while you'll get a burst from it, but then back to just smoke. Don't stop. Keep making things. Keep working at it and eventually you'll get to a point where you've made so much stuff and done so many things that even if you look back on things and go "that was terrible" or "I didn't know what I was doing back then," it doesn't matter! You made all that stuff! You've got so much experience under your belt! And I bet dollars to donuts you learned so much and grew so much without even realizing it, because if you are able to look back and cringe at your former self then that means you've grown and developed. You can still judge yourself all you want, but it's better than what you were doing 4 years ago. So just find things you wanna record just for the hell of it, a poem or a fandom comic or a novel you like or funny tumblr posts or tweets or whatever the fuck. Just record it, slap it together in whatever editing software you like (good free/affordable video editing software is a whole other can of worms but my short advice is keep your eyes peeled on humble bundle cuz they've done deals with vegas pro in the past) and put it up on youtube or tumblr or tiktok or wherever. Just make stuff, keep making it for your friends or whatever amount of followers you may acrue, but most importantly make it for yourself. If you don't enjoy the process then you're not gonna get far. Find joy in the process of creating and learning and growing, and at the end you'll have a giant pile of experience you can pull from to go forth and voice act the shit out of some stuff.

I hope this far too long beginner's guide can help your friend out, but if there's anything I missed or any clarifications please feel free to ask me to expand on this! But yeah I wrote way more than I anticipated so I'm gonna go back to playing tears of the kingdom

[beddybites]

hello everyone and welcome to my totally professional tutorial about my process with lining and coloring specifically . ill make another one of these that isn't just a drawing of a stuffed animal but for now. behold

step 1 - sketch/line!!!

note: i usually just clean up my sketch, thus why i have messier lines!... i also immediately give the art a sort of outline to make it pop out more, though you don't HAVE to do that-- it just depends on what im feeling

step 2 - fill lines!!!

what i mean by this is make some of the lines thicker based on the perspective. the front paw/arm is going to have thicker lineart because its closer to the camera. the lineart of the head will be thicker to show its in front of the back paw. stuff like that makes your art look less flat!

step 3 - base color!!

color color color!!! i dont usually color my eyes until last-- refine details later!

step 4 - color the lines!

color color color!!! i dont usually color my eyes until last-- refine details later!

keeping in mind the perspective again, i use different shades of the color! the outer arm lineart is darker, but its a little lighter in the back

i rarely color the lineart on the outside (just because i don't really think it looks good most of the time)

usually when i color the lines, i color pick the base color (so like, her fur color, or her bow), change the hue a bit, and darken it accordingly. makes the color pop a lil more!! her fur color goes from plain old white/gray to an outline thats more magenta-y! there's no rule for this, just keep color theory in mind and do what u think looks pretty!

step 5 - details !!!

this is when i go in and color over the eyes (in a humans case, the hair, too!)

i like to add a white outline to empathize perspective stuff !!! but you don't have to do this-- again its one of those things where i do it depending on what looks good

some other stuff to keep in mind

choose your background color first! dont draw on a white canvas then struggle to find a color that looks good AFTER you've drawn everything!

color theory and palettes you can find online are ur best friend if you're struggling to figure out what colors u wanna use!

your art doesn't have to be clean to be good! use messy lineart! messy coloring! do whatever u want its ur style ur rules

never let anyone make u feel bad abt ur art ever. comparison is the thief of joy. everyone needs YOUR vision too

thank you !!! ill do another one of these when im not in the middle of finals week but i hope this helps for now ;u; if u have any questions lmk!

I love the way you do lineart! And like your rendering is there a specific process you have or recommend brushes?

Also feel free to ignore this if you don’t wanna answer it! I do love your art tho very scrumptious :D

hi anon!!! i promise ill give a more depth explanation when it isn't 1 am-- I'll reblog this post and add a tutorial tmrrw!!!

for now, i would recommend any sketchy brush really! you can find all of them on Clip Studio Paint, but i know other programs have similar brushes-- just find one you like! i prefer thin lineart and a more clean sketch type of style, and the Felt Pen & Obonbong Pen are my best friends for it!!!

ill actually explain my process i prommie... ill draw something and show how i do it !!! come back tomorrow! :D