#anyways ive figured it out finally lol

[coldturkeybabe]

just a little man

[pleasedontcareaboutme]

It's missing my father hours rn so imma just dump a bunch of pictures here and cry

( sorry i don't know the source of anything I just had them on my phone)

(also dont read the tags i just need to let it out lol)

[admincourtneykissesgirls]

i drew (and headcanoned some of) people's courtneys. too out of it to tag the specific ppl these courtlets come from so if you see your courtlet say hi i guess? wanted to post this since i love this piece so much and i love seeing how people interpret concepts.

and a bonus featuring my own courtlet. thank you.

[ratatatastic]

do you write fic on ao3?

unfortunately for everyone involved i do!

[milkbreadtoast]

OC... FINALLY DID SOME PROPER TESTS OF HIM... CLOTHES ARE VERY PLACEHOLDER i didn't look up fashion refs yet🫣🥲 edit: also i cant decide btwn the purple-white and all purple eyes... help...

[burningcomputerpersona]

ahhhhhhhh guess who made the mistake of getting a haircut

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[crescentfool]

never in my life did i think i need to makeout with a piece of software so badly but here we are i guess

[dexaroth]

ive already said this before about how ive felt so disconnected from art. its all just lines and poses and specific distances away from the camera, layers of color... something triggered a switch in my brain that is making things just not feel real anymore.

and its like. ok. whatever. its still fun to draw and i get very happy when i manage to draw something good. but i lack the motivation! so.. lemme think.. ah! my characters! perhaps i should try to actually flesh them out as real people, with a past and personalities and relationships..

and the more i read about it the more disconnected i feel. is that all life is about? traits and backstories and being bound to everything that happened to you.. the ways you think and act being somewhat easily traceable to your history..character arcs. stories just being a means to an end(?)

and i also want a world for my ocs to live in that is a bit believable and justifies them, but every bit of advice and apparently common worldbuilding things have all just been done before.

is there any chance of making something that matters when its all been done before or if everything else feels unreal and abstract. is there a point to anything

[orcelito]

Actually it is SO weird to me to remember that I was an engineering student and that later on I had been pursuing a minor in statistics

I may be a IT & com person in the end, but I do have the foundations of engineering and statistics in my brain too. Wild !

[pagesofkenna]

My sunday itinerary was getting more and more busy, so i decided to wake up early to watch vampire finale before all my other plans. Vampire finale got me like 🥲

[evadingreallife]

Me: owwwwie my foot hurtsssss

The physiotherapist: ok now move it dumbass

[alwastakenofc]

hmmmmm so ! lesser-than-before rant incoming :)

i’ve been playing this game on my phone for the last 3ish weeks bc i’m tryna get $80 from getting to “grand sultan” level thru this app that gives me games to download and rewards me for playing them/hitting checkpoints and stuff idk it’s rly cool but that’s besides the point ! so i figured i would Bounce after the month is up bc like it’s just a gimmicky pay-to-win kind of game where if u don’t keep up daily u fall behind, BUT there’s also a Huge player base for the game (which makes it fun but also gives it that rly insanely competitive edge that makes it hard to miss days without feeling like ur behind). so one of the things i had to do was join a union/guild where i am partnered up with ppl like the guild leader and co-leader and elites and others members ya know? and we can do quests and stuff and it just gives u a good boost to everything which obviously helps u level faster ! so i was like “hmmmm maybe ill make one…” but then i noticed ppl talking in the all chat saying how they’re not new, this is their 3rd, 4th, 5th+ server that they’re hopping on bc they wanna start over again, etc etc so i was like “…. nah im not making my own union LOL” so i ended up joining this one that had free slots and rly didn’t like the guy leading it bc he was kinda rude… so i left, changed my name/avatar, and DM’d the leader of this guild i had my eye on in the first place but was full at the time! they now had 1 space free and i had to wait 24 hours to join bc i just left my last guild… so she said she’d save the spot and BAM, i got in! we talked in DMs abt how i left my last guild bc No One except the leader talked and when he did it was to Demand things from us like “Everyone better donate 200 diamonds or else.” and stuff!! lmao

SO. fast forward to now. it’s been about 3 weeks in the guild and MANNNNNN IVE MADE A FEW FRIENDS, THEYRE ALL SO NICEEEEE 🥺 me and a couple other guild members were up til Midnight last night just talking abt life and where we wanna travel and our jobs and education and Everything !! it was so wholesome and nice and so just idk. pure and innocent and Fun to just have casual conversations with ppl that were complete strangers 2 weeks ago, but who ive gotten closer to and now can have those nice long convos with !! and it was all just in the guild chat so anyone could read the next day lol but idc ! it was fun! plus my name on the game is selene which is Not my real name lol i just like the name a lot and it always makes me giggle when they say “lol, i know right selene??” and stuff and im like heh.. yea, das me 😎 idk the guild leader gave me the “life of the party” tag and said she loves my energy and it just feels so good bc i know i am just so cripplingly socially anxious irl and that’s why i can talk so easily online and love talking online so much more. like im still ME, but… not Fully being perceived to a point where i feel uncomfy or anything LOL . it’s been nice

i think imma keep playing after the month is up, i rly enjoy my guild and the ppl ive met thru it :’)

ANYWAYS!! i also think im gonna go to therapy/go to my family doctor to get reccs on therapists and maybe a psychiatrist? psychologist? idk i wanna get evaluated for… well let’s just save that for when i get evaluated bc if i don’t even have anything wrong with me and my dumbass rly gets laughed out of the office by the doctor saying “LUL no u rly just gotta try harder bruh” imma feel like a damn Fool LMAO. BUT yeah. that’ll hopefully be a thing i book this month.

also gonna be responsible and Not over spend on food when i get paid, like delivery and whatnot… but i Will be buying lifetime subscriptions to a couple japanese apps on my phone that i think will be easy access and help me learn japanese to a point of comfortability before i start college again. 😎

OKAY IM DONE WHEW. rant over :)

[wellnesscard]

im moving the quest for pants that FIT to the most top of the list this is beyond stoopid

[alfheimr]

My Favorite Cheap Art Trick: Gradient Maps and Blending Modes

i get questions on occasion regarding my coloring process, so i thought i would do a bit of a write up on my "secret technique." i don't think it really is that much of a secret, but i hope it can be helpful to someone. to that end:

this is one of my favorite tags ive ever gotten on my art. i think of it often. the pieces in question are all monochrome - sort of.

the left version is the final version, the right version is technically the original. in the final version, to me, the blues are pretty stark, while the greens and magentas are less so. there is some color theory thing going on here that i dont have a good cerebral understanding of and i wont pretend otherwise. i think i watched a youtube video on it once but it went in one ear and out the other. i just pick whatever colors look nicest based on whatever vibe im going for.

this one is more subtle, i think. can you tell the difference? there's nothing wrong with 100% greyscale art, but i like the depth that adding just a hint of color can bring.

i'll note that the examples i'll be using in this post all began as purely greyscale, but this is a process i use for just about every piece of art i make, including the full color ones. i'll use the recent mithrun art i made to demonstrate. additionally, i use clip studio paint, but the general concept should be transferable to other art programs.

for fun let's just start with Making The Picture. i've been thinking of making this writeup for a while and had it in mind while drawing this piece. beyond that, i didn't really have much of a plan for this outside of "mithrun looks down and hair goes woosh." i also really like all of the vertical lines in the canary uniform so i wanted to include those too but like. gone a little hog wild. that is the extent of my "concept." i do not remember why i had the thought of integrating a shattered mirror type of theme. i think i wanted to distract a bit from the awkward pose and cover it up some LOL but anyway. this lack of planning or thought will come into play later.

note 1: the textured marker brush i specifically use is the "bordered light marker" from daub. it is one of my favorite brushes in the history of forever and the daub mega brush pack is one of the best purchases ive ever made. highly recommend!!!

note 2: "what do you mean by exclusion and difference?" they are layer blending modes and not important to the overall lesson of this post but for transparency i wanted to say how i got these "effects." anyway!

with the background figured out, this is the point at which i generally merge all of my layers, duplicate said merged layer, and Then i begin experimenting with gradient maps. what are gradient maps?

the basic gist is that gradient maps replace the colors of an image based on their value.

so, with this particular gradient map, black will be replaced with that orangey red tone, white will be replaced with the seafoamy green tone, etc. this particular gradient map i'm using as an example is very bright and saturated, but the colors can be literally anything.

these two sets are the ones i use most. they can be downloaded for free here and here if you have csp. there are many gradient map sets out there. and you can make your own!

you can apply a gradient map directly onto a specific layer in csp by going to edit>tonal correction>gradient map. to apply one indirectly, you can use a correction layer through layer>new correction layer>gradient map. honestly, correction layers are probably the better way to go, because you can adjust your gradient map whenever you want after creating the layer, whereas if you directly apply a gradient map to a layer thats like. it. it's done. if you want to make changes to the applied gradient map, you have to undo it and then reapply it. i don't use correction layers because i am old and stuck in my ways, but it's good to know what your options are.

this is what a correction layer looks like. it sits on top and applies the gradient map to the layers underneath it, so you can also change the layers beneath however and whenever you want. you can adjust the gradient map by double clicking the layer. there are also correction layers for tone curves, brightness/contrast, etc. many such useful things in this program.

let's see how mithrun looks when we apply that first gradient map we looked at.

gadzooks. apologies for eyestrain. we have turned mithrun into a neon hellscape, which might work for some pieces, but not this one. we can fix that by changing the layer blending mode, aka this laundry list of words:

some of them are self explanatory, like darken and lighten, while some of them i genuinely don't understand how they are meant to work and couldn't explain them to you, even if i do use them. i'm sure someone out there has written out an explanation for each and every one of them, but i've learned primarily by clicking on them to see what they do.

for the topic of this post, the blending mode of interest is soft light. so let's take hotline miamithrun and change the layer blending mode to soft light.

here it is at 100% opacity. this is the point at which i'd like to explain why i like using textured brushes so much - it makes it very easy to get subtle color variation when i use this Secret Technique. look at the striation in the upper right background! so tasty. however, to me, these colors are still a bit "much." so let's lower the opacity.

i think thats a lot nicer to look at, personally, but i dont really like these colors together. how about we try some other ones?

i like both of these a lot more. the palettes give the piece different vibes, at which point i have to ask myself: What Are The Vibes, Actually? well, to be honest i didn't really have a great answer because again, i didn't plan this out very much at all. however. i knew in my heart that there was too much color contrast going on and it was detracting from the two other contrasts in here: the light and dark values and the sharp and soft shapes. i wanted mithrun's head to be the main focal point. for a different illustration, colors like this might work great, but this is not that hypothetical illustration, so let's bring the opacity down again.

yippee!! that's getting closer to what my heart wants. for fun, let's see what this looks like if we change the blending mode to color.

i do like how these look but in the end they do not align with my heart. oh well. fun to experiment with though! good to keep in mind for a different piece, maybe! i often change blending modes just to see what happens, and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. i very much cannot stress enough that much of my artistic process is clicking buttons i only sort of understand. for fun.

i ended up choosing the gradient map on the right because i liked that it was close to the actual canary uniform colors (sorta). it's at an even lower opacity though because there was Still too much color for my dear heart.

the actual process for this looks like me setting my merged layer to soft light at around 20% opacity and then clicking every single gradient map in my collection and seeing which one Works. sometimes i will do this multiple times and have multiple soft light and/or color layers combined.

typically at this point i merge everything again and do minor contrast adjustments using tone curves, which is another tool i find very fun to play around with. then for this piece in particular i did some finishing touches and decided that the white border was distracting so i cropped it. and then it's done!!! yay!!!!!

this process is a very simple and "fast" way to add more depth and visual interest to a piece without being overbearing. well, it's fast if you aren't indecisive like me, or if you are better at planning.

let's do another comparison. personally i feel that the hint of color on the left version makes mithrun look just a bit more unwell (this is a positive thing) and it makes the contrast on his arm a lot more pleasing to look at. someone who understands color theory better than i do might have more to say on the specifics, but that's honestly all i got.

just dont look at my layers too hard. ok?