#as many words as I can fit on an A5 piece of paper

[ace-malarky]

1. It Is Said

Sometimes you just. wake up with a definite line in your head (it may have been last night actually but whatever) and y'know, since you're going to avoid doing work for as long as possible anyway, you might as well write some weird stuff to send to other librarians?

idk I have been thinking of escalating the little notes I send back to DB and this! this might be it!

Anyway. have you considered there might be monsters in your library?

~

 It is said that there is a monster in the library.

 There are monsters in most libraries, of course. It comes of having so many books in one place, it is said, of all those softly whispered stories and tales and ideas that float amongst the couches were more pictures have described a journey than will ever be remembered.

 Monsters, it is said, are variations on a theme. They are – well, monstrous. They skulk. They creep, they slither, they lurk. They bear fangs, unleash talons, drip toxins from shimmering stingers.

 Monsters, it is said, are to be feared. They are killers, they are nightmares, they are the evil to be slain. To be defeated.

 To be feared.

 It is less said (it is never said) that all monsters protect something. Dragons, with their hoards and their towers; goblins, with their tunnels and their caves. Kraken, with their depths and their shipwrecks.

 They rarely protect something that is not worth protecting. Everything is worth something to somebody.

 So.

 It is said that there is a monster in the library.

 The specifics do not matter, much. It is there now, after all, and there are very few heroes left to fight it.

 (The damage would be irreparable; have you ever tried to leech blood from a book?)

 It hides when the library is open, when there are people around.

 After hours, it stalks the shelves, it lounges amongst the books. It dreams.

 It is not said what monsters dream of. That would make them something other than monster. Something other than itself.

 There is a monster; do not be afraid. It is not here for you. Probably.

 It is here, as all monsters are (it is said), for one thing.

 Only just for one thing. It is a monster, they are defined solely by just one thing.

 It is said that there is a monster in the library.

 It has never said why.

[hanakoofthejungle]

Another HuskerDust Hazbin Hotel fanart because I am obsessed with these two.

Speedpaint process below:

This piece is based on the fanfiction, Wicked Old Soul by BunnyBight. It is also a Overlord Husk AU fic but has its own distinct and captivating plot. I highly recommend.

The scene comes from Chapter 24 where Husk and Angel host an engagement party for Asmodeus and Fizzarolli, and of course they have to dress the part :))) in other words, excuse for me to draw Husk in a fancy suit and Angel in a beautiful dress.

I took a lot of leeway in interpreting the clothes.

BunnyBight describes Angel's dress as "made of a black shimmery material. Not sparkly, it was too subtle to be called that. The top of the dress wrapped over one shoulder and under the other. It fit snug to his body until it hit his hips where it then draped straight to the floor. The front of the dress had a large opening. The left side of the skirt fell straight down but then another layer started at that hip and crossed in front to end at his right ankle. His entire left leg was bare as was the bottom of his right leg." So I was thinking of silk chiffon as the material for the blouse/bust and first layer of the skirt and taffeta silk for the bodice and second dress layer. As both fabrics has shiny property, they would look a bit more grey than black as opposed to Husk's wool suit. I added a layer of pearlescent watercolor on top to make the dress shimmery but it doesn't show after scanning. Check out my speedpaint Youtube short to see how it shines under the light. The dress is also supposed to have gold and red playing cards embroidery, but I was lazy.

Angel's necklace is the centerpiece of the outfit, '[t]he necklace was an intricate design of many small black diamonds and seven large rubies, all set in gold [...] It looked like something royalty would wear." So I went ahead and based the necklace on Empress Elisabeth of Austria's ruby parure. I saw the necklace in her portrait by Georg Martin Ignaz Raab while visiting the Schönbrunn Palace some years ago. There are exactly 7 rubies in this fanart and some small black diamonds. The details do not look good up close since I was drawing on a small A5 size paper and this is the best I can manage with tiny tiny jewelry. BunnyBight also mentions a pair of earrings that go with the set, but I don't know where the ears of a spider locate so I replaced those with a matching hair ornament.

"Husk was wearing another three piece black suit with gold pinstripes and buttons. His gold bowtie looked fabulous over the red shirt he wore with it." I found that when executing all these details on paper, the suit would look very busy and lack an emphasis. Hence, I instead put Husk in a pure black double breasted suit, kept the red shirt and placed all the red, gold and black color in the tie as the highlight of his outfit. I couldn't draw the tiny "little gold and red playing card cufflinks at his wrist" (again the limitation of traditional art on small paper) so I replaced the with heart shaped gold cufflinks. A nice allusion to Husk's wearing his heart on his sleeve just for Angel, which was definitely my plan all along and not just mere coincidence. I skipped Husk's fancy top hat and cane because I was lazy. One very wrong detail in this whole outfit is Husk's ring which he doesn't get until Chapter 36 :((.

The background is just me freehand drawing that tapestry with card symbols and other motifs appear in Loser, Baby and the marble column.

[toastedcatbread]

🌟Zine Making🌟

So, having completed @sefikurafanzine as the co-head mod, there are quite a few thoughts I’d like to share. Either for those preparing to make your own zine or those who are planning on joining a zine.

It’s a hell of a commitment.

Moderating is different than contributing. It seems obvious, but it’s something that I think a lot of people forget. It’s not a “one and done” thing, it’s continuously checking up on the server and people’s progress. It’s encouraging people when they share their progress. It’s keeping an eye out on the schedule to make sure that things are progressing smoothly. It’s sharing information with other moderators and contributors (when necessary) and giving advice or feedback.

The job of a moderator isn’t done when “all the contributor pieces have been submitted” or “the layout is done”. It’s over a year’s worth of moderating. As a mod, you can’t claim “cluelessness” and must respond to inquiries. If not personally, you do need to make sure that someone on the mod team responds.

The timeline can be tricky. 

You may not want it to last a year (or over a year), but it’s better to plan for extra buffer than to run into the situation where things get pushed back again and again. Too many delays causes people to lose confidence in you as a moderator and in your project. Consider what a buyer may think, if they were to look at your timeline and it gets repeatedly pushed back. If you are constantly adjusting for delays, people may not buy your product since they aren’t sure if you will deliver.

That is why, one of the earliest things the mods and I had to consider was how large we wanted our zine to be. How many pages and how many people to take on. More people meant more time needed and more buffer needed to accommodate them all. The more people you have, the more accommodations you need to make (contributors have lives too!). 

Having said that, LAYOUT PLANNING IS CRITICAL!

I think one of the reasons we were able to complete successfully and within a timely fashion, is because we already had some idea of what the layout would look like. Even as early as before opening contributor apps, we knew how many pages each writer had on the layout. The more pages you have, the more it costs to produce.

Depending on the size of the pages (A5 paper vs standard 8.5x11in), you can only fit a certain number of words on each page. The fact is that writers hold more weight in zines than artists, so, unless you’re planning to have a zine full of nothing but writing, limiting writers is how you maintain a proper page count. There is far more wiggle-room with artists, as they typically only take a page or two, whereas a 1,500 word fic can be 5 pages on A5 paper.

Taking on too many contributors can sink your ship. You NEED to limit your contributors, both for artists and for writing. “How many people can you handle?” is a question that a lot of people don’t seem to consider if they accept everyone. Yes, other mods are there and will help moderate, but it’s still a pain to have to chase down contributors for their part.

This also runs true for mods. Too many mods can sink a ship.

Having more hands on deck for moderating sounds great, but that also means decisions need to filter through more people. It takes longer to respond to inquiries and those asking can and will be frustrated without an answer. Too few mods means that you may largely be doing the work yourself, but too many mods means it takes a long time for everyone to see the announcement or notice.

Too many mods also runs into another issue: Do you trust everyone you are working with?

Bringing on all your friends as moderators sounds great, but can you work together with them? Working together and being friends with each other are two very different things. It’s important to realize that you may not be able to work with some people, even if you enjoy their company. It’s important to trust the people you work with.

Mostly because, unless it is a free, digital zine, YOU ARE HANDLING REAL MONEY!

The responsibility of finances is not a light one. Money is being exchanged for a product that is being delivered (either electronically or physically). Then that money goes somewhere. Not everyone can handle their own finances, let alone a whole other project worth. Experience may not be enough to say that someone is capable of handling finances. A lot of zines run into money issues because the planning of finances is often tricky.

As a baseline, when I looked at our finances, I wanted us to be in the positives before we went to Leftover sales. That meant, the cost of production of the zine book and the merchandise needs to be less than the amount we made during preorder sales. This can often be tricky, as you won’t always know how many people will buy your product during preorders, but you still need to price it. There is also taxes and fees that are deducted, as well as the cost of shipping physical copies that must be accounted for. It’s not an easy task.

There are also other hidden costs that people don’t necessarily consider when they plan for zine production. Merch tests, zine book tests, shipping of merchandise from the manufacturer to you, those all cost money. Unless you’re willing (and able) to cover the costs out of pocket, your preorder price needs to reflect this. 

Artists advertise better than writers.

Speaking of preorders, advertising is important. Depending on the platform, this may vary, but in general, artists draw more attention to their work.

Having a lot of writers seems nice. But other than the page count issue, where writers take up a lot of space, writers also do not advertise as well as artists. This is especially important if you are making a zine to sell (for charity or for profit; it doesn’t matter). Art draws more attention than writing, as it can cross language barriers and cultures far better than writing can. 

Learn to say no!

This is a personal lesson in life. We, as people, want to do our best to accommodate everyone and anyone, even if we don’t have the ability to do so. You have to say no. You have to learn to make the rules and stick to them the best you can. Making 50 people wait on a single person isn’t fair to everyone.

This also applies to applications. There were a lot of applicants that were good, but we had to choose, due to the limitations of the zine. Having a lot of people apply is amazing and wonderful, but we just couldn’t bring everyone on. 

I’ve mentioned it before on my Twitter, but rejection isn’t a reflection of your craft. It’s a reflection on your person. How you deal with it defines you. And no matter how successful and amazing someone’s craft may be, I would not want them on if they handle rejection and disappointment poorly. 

And finally: YOU WILL RUN INTO FANDOM DRAMA.

The fact of the matter is, no matter what you do, you are dipping into the pool of the fandom when you create. People will create fandom drama on principle, no matter how hard you try to avoid it. I experienced rumors and people spreading nasty accusations, just because they didn’t bother to ask questions like “why did you make this a SFW zine?” and “where can I find the mods?”. Questions that were easily answered by looking on the linked carrd on our profile page.

People will stir the pot, just because they can. Not everyone will take rejection well and it’s important to be able to brush it off. How you deal with the drama also defines you, so pick the battles you want to fight.

ALL IN ALL:

It was a fun experience. I’m grateful I got to meet a lot of new Sefikura fans and see their work come to life through our Zine. I’ve reiterated many times in the server that this was our (contributors and mods) project, not the mod’s project. I learned a lot about how to run an online project and the skills needed for future ones. If I had to do something differently, I think I’d like to plan out more graphics and posts earlier and use the scheduling function that Twitter and Tumblr have. That way, people can expect consistent posts and news.

[mcrmadness]

Madness draws: Behind the Scenes of the “Alleine in der Nacht” die ärzte fan comic.

A few weeks ago I posted this comic:

This post is yet again just another drawing behind-the-scenes post but You can go and reblog the original post here.

And as always, all my ramblings are under the cut!

This one was relatively easy to do because I just woke up one morning and internally died from laughter because this idea just happened like a random pop up window in my brain. I wrote it down to my phone notes and later on also into my sketchbook:

I was laughing out loud when I was drawing those images, Bela’s face still is cracking me up :D And because I’m yet again trilingual with my comics, there’s only one word in my mother tongue and it’s: Bela laulaa = Bela sings.

And other fans might recognize the lyrics of the song, I needed to write them down in order to decide which ones would fit the comic the best.

This one is then again me trying to see how it will fit on a A4 paper. Originally I saw it in my head more like a short, regular comic strip with 3 panels but somehow I couldn’t get it to fit into 3 panels. And 4 panels was too many in a row so I decided to go for a full page then. That caused bits of trouble to me because I normally don’t draw the comic book faces THAT big and it’s surprisingly hard to draw them in bigger scale. (With pencil drawings it’s the opposite, the bigger the better. It’s much easier to draw an eye the size of a finger instead of a size of a tip of a needle.)

Here’s the first sketch! Just the shapes to see how and what I need to draw. Sorry for the awful photo quality again, my phone’s camera has really gotten really bad after these 3 years of use...

Anyhow, the third panel caused me some troubles because I knew how I wanted Bela’s arms and hands to be but I didn’t see them that good in my head so what I did next was to try different postures into my sketchbook:

I also tried this foreshortening technique I saw in a video of after a Tumblr post, even tho I don’t find that too hard to do myself anymore but it was still interesting and can really help making the eye and brain to see the image in 3D. So here I finally figured that I wanted Bela to have is arms like he was singing something very theatrically. I think it turned out pretty good.

Next I struggled with the bedsheets and I figured that I am a bit too good at blocking out information when I draw because I tried to draw unmade beds from reference photos and I’m able to follow a line but also able to completely not see any other lines around the line I’m following. Like I’d often follow a line to somewhere and suddenly notice that wtf there’s SO MUCH MORE lines all over the place in the photo but I just did not see them.

^Here’s two pages in my other sketchbook that I got for the comic stuff especially because the paper is actually white. The bigger sketchbook has light yellow tint to the paper so it can mess up with the colors when I need to try out and look for perfect colors from the colored pencils. (This sketchbook is also smaller aka A5 because Derwent sketchbooks are expensive but this was the only A5 one with a bit grainy paper in white. The A4 one is cheaper and from Mont Marte.)

After a while I was done with the besheet and the rest of the second sketch. I don’t have a photo of the comic with just the lineart, only a photo where the first panel is already colored and now I actually need to talk about the coloring.

That caused me lots of trouble because I really love playing with lights and shadows in everything (drawing, photographing... everything) and I do know how to do the night effect in black and white, but I have only once before done that with colors and it’s never that easy. Plus that one was my first comic when I started drawing again in 2018 and it was not that good to begin with.

I run some tests with the pencils, as well as some shading tests:

Käsi = hand, iho = skin. I use Derwent Flesh Pink (I have a 72 set of Derwent Watercolour pencils) for the skin color and was then trying out other colors to see which one would look the best for shading. It was actually really difficult to do and my sister suggested that I’d use only cold colors but like... how do you use cold colors on a skin without making the character look dead? :D

I imagined that there’s a moon shining in from a window that would be behind the “camera”. I almost ruined the first panel because I wasn’t exactly sure what was I even doing and what did I want from the colors:

Here’s the lineart and almost finished first panel in colors. I really liked the lineart and this would have looked so nice in black and white too, maybe even better. But I just saw that blue background so strongly in my mind that I just had to go for it.

The first panel was really difficult to do like I said and I almost ruined it at some point. But it also taught me something because with the rest of the panels I knew to start with the skincolors and end with the black (I started the first panel with black, I think... kids, never do that, always start with the light colors! :D) and I think the last panel is the best what comes to the colors in the final comic. I also added light blue here and there to make it look more like the colors of a moon at night:

I’m actually very happy with all of the other colors in this panel! It also reminds me of a book I had and used to read as a child. It was about this girl that went to an appendix surgery and all the images were drawn with either colored pencils, pastels or crayons and it looked grainy the exact same way as this one too. It also had lots of red and orange and brown colors in it. (I wonder if I still have the book here...)

Then there’s also the title and “Das Ende”. Originally I was going to do the late 80s logo they have e.g. on the 80s live vhs/dvd but then I just saw another post in my dä blog’s queue and I just needed to do this logo instead!

I had just a couple of weeks prior ordered a pack of white Sakura Gelly Roll pens and needed to test what would make the best compination and with which black!

I also had bought a white paint pen but it’s useless. As you see, it just looks grey after it dries and it just... doesn’t look nice. Plus it takes so much time to dry AND it’s extremely messy and I have paint more in my hands and a puddle on the paper but barely none where it should be. So my choice for the logo was to use either Pigma Microns or Promarkers (I think I chose the latter) and the thickest Gelly Roll aka 10. This was the result:

And I’m actually super happy about how it came out! Couldn’t do that good looking spots on the letters because can’t make splashes with a gel pen so I did a few bigger ones here and there and then just poked everywhere with the pen to make it look more random. You can actually see how it’s slightly whiter than the paper if you look closely, but it’s not too strongly whiter so it looks pretty nice like this.

So, this was less work than the “Widumihei” one but it was also an interesting piece to draw. And I think I have now this comic drawing more freshly in mind so that drawing the next ones (there’s three waiting for sketching already) will be much easier as well :)

[alfiejeffreys]

FMP Evaluation

Disorder/Order

I found myself favouring this theme because I felt so much connection to everything with it. I felt it having the most inside it rather than the other themes, like I could link any and everything through it. Wondering why I chose it, maybe the idea of order or disorder was on my mind at the time, maybe I visualised my project and what it could be, before it was.

Ive always loved something wrong, something without structure from someone else, the idea of distorted art work always was with me. I don’t like realism as much as imagination coming to life with something new, something your unsure of where it comes from. I watched a Joe rogan podcast and he spoke about how when your hammering a nail, you know your hammering it and can recognise that you did it after. But when it came to creativity and more expressive work it’s like you’ve tapped into something else, like your not fully there, that the art is using you to make the work not the other way around. You don’t know where it came from, the work is being sieved through your psychical motion, like it’s someone else who designed it, or a deep self.

Loui Jover very much intrigued and affected my work. His detached forms work really was part of my idea generation.

I wanted to do something with distortion, and his work instantly connected to my artistic wants. An artist who I’m unsure of who they are, wether they were an artist we researched in class or a past student who we researched I don’t know. But their work very much was good for my work, it helped me to understand how I wanted my distorted faces to come across and how i wanted them to look, since their work was of the same style.

I believe the movie Joker 2019 starring Joaquin Phoenix affected me a lot with this distortion sort of theme.

Psychological disorders interest me in a weird way. As well as Shutter Island 2010 starring Leanardo Di Caprio also affected me, his character and his story through out. So amazing. Really made me want to express myself through it.

What you see when you look into someone’s eye, what do you see? What do you think about them as a person, without knowing them. Now question why you think that, where did that idea come from? That judgement came from you, but where did you get it from. That concept, that sort of theme. Really. Really intrigues me.

Thecollinson. An artist I found on Instagram. I’ve been following his work for a while, 2 years almost. I would call his paintings slightly distorted, almost like their unfinished. He has a very interesting way of using the paint, using various different colours and shades with a large range of differential amounts of paint.

Mostly working in painting faces, though it may not actually have a face, or at least a normal one. Leaving splurges of paint at different points to represent the features of a face or even just having it all blank. Possibly painting only around the face.

In fact. I contacted him and asked him a few questions. Let’s see what he has to say.

Alfie: Do you have a plan to make this or an idea in your head?

Or does it just come together as you go along

TheCollinson: Something like that I have an idea of just an eye then build around it. That piece was for a client. They just wanted one eye and had some colours they like so I just went with the flow bringing it together. I just love working with thick oil paint. The outcome feels great.

Alfie: Amazing! And would you say their are any other artists that inspire your work or your mark making. What got you into this style? X

TheCollinson: My favourite artist is Van Gogh his use of thick impasto, the way he applied brush strokes and his use of colour is just mind blowing. I always look at Bram bogarts work and the way he Created texture . Also incredible Contemporary artist like Joseph Lee & Elena Gual really inspire me with their subject matter, mark making and use of thick paint.

Alfie: That is great, Van Goghs colour making is incredible! I agree. And if you could describe your paintings or a painting of yours in 4 words, what would they be?

TheCollinson: I’d probably say;

thought-provoking, abstract, colorful and unconventional.

Lino print, woodblock print, plastic board print, fabric painting, spray paint, developing ink photos, Photoshop and more, everything I’ve worked with in the FMP I’m grateful for, I think I’ve definitely enjoyed digital work and spray paint most.

Since I’m going into Graphics Design in the next year of the course I’d say it’s been my best. I’ve learnt how to make frame animation and gifs, understanding the software and how to work all I can on it.

Pushing my creativity through it with outcomes I’ve posted on my tumblr and Instagram pages.

I wanted to test what sort of faces or distortion I wanted to create for my outcomes. Looking at my artists and how they made them, I wanted to make collage a part of my work. So using collaging with faces from magazines and papers was quite perfect. Experimenting with paper collaging on many other occasions got me used it. Making it nice when piecing together the faces and which I wanted to use.

The 12 A5 collages we made on our first week back from lockdown was gorgeous.

That work definitely made me want to keep collaging as a part of my work. Using my collaging on my vinyl record, CD, and pizza box just pushed me even more to keep wanting to use objects. I find it so much more valuable when it’s on an object or with an object rather than paper or a canvas. All these factors came through to my project naturally from this experimentation.

Presenting my outcomes at the end of year show would be an interesting one. I think I’m going to turn all my outcomes into a single sculpture and would present as so for the show. Sticking them together with very serious super glue. I’d present my outcomes in their habitat.

The plate and mug in a supermarket or China store, alongside regular kitchenware. The golf club would be in a golfing store or course next to regular clubs. Are you seeing a pattern? The frame I’d like in a gallery on the wall. The plunger I’d like in a household. The taps would be on a sink, connected. And the pan finally I’d like to be used to cook with. Though I’m not sure what I want to do with my future sculpture yet so maybe I will be using it.

Ten words to describe my overall outcomes.

Relatable

Empty

Individual

Free

Usual

Full

Useable

Colourful

Comfortable

Warm

Songs In The Key Of Life by Stevie Wonder would be my soundtrack.

I listened to it a lot through this time and listening to it whilst viewing my work just feels right. As well as i was listening to it whilst creating and designing my work. Three hours. Three hours a week I spent working on my project outside of college, wether it was designing final outcomes, sourcing objects or experimenting with medias. It was all enjoyable. My bedroom, living room and garden is where I’ve worked on my project.

I can’t fit in the photos for the four picture descriptions below so! I will number the three words to describe the image then then post the image after this with the corresponding number.

1

New

Pulling

Development

2

Helpful

Relatable

Attaching

3

Personal

Connecting

Mine

4

Thankful

Beautiful

Valuable

[maddiviner]

Dzień dobry and merry meet!

We’re all different. What works well for one witch might be a disaster for another. I believe keeping a notebook is useful for most witches, though!

I’ve written a lot about why a grimoire and keeping one can supercharge your magical practice. 

 It’s always going to be something I recommend. While not everyone can or does keep one, it’s always worth trying because for many of us it is so helpful.

The question becomes, though: how? What format should you use for your grimoire or Book of Shadows?

I’ve got an article about different types of grimoires here. Regardless of what style you choose, it can be helpful to keep it organized!

There are many advantages to keeping a binder-type notebook for a grimoire. It allows you to add and remove pages with ease! This means you can create tabbed sections for each Craft-related topic. 

You can then add to each as you see fit, without disturbing the rest. It’s also very easy to find information in your grimoire when you need it!

In the past, I used hardbound notebooks. I loved the Peter Pauper Press line of journals, and the Leuchtturm 1917. Over the past few years, though, I’ve come to appreciate the advantages of the binder system. 

I still use a normal Leuchtturm for my bullet journal. It doubles as my general magical diary and record.  

When it comes to making notes on my research and gathering Craft information, I’ve begun using a binder. It's so easy! You might want to try a similar setup. I definitely recommend it!

Supplies

To start, I purchased a six-ring A5 binder. I chose a coral-colored Carpe Diem binder, because it wasn’t too expensive and I liked the color. 

I chose A5 because it fits the size of my hands and my style of handwriting pretty well. If your hands are bigger or smaller, a different size might work for you. I also like A5 because it is quite portable. A three-ring letter-size binder could work, or even a small personal sized folio.

I filled the binder with dot grid paper.  I chose the dot grid because of its versatility. If you’re sketching, making diagrams, or drawing, the dots make measurement on the page easy. If you’re only writing, they function as lines to keep your handwriting straight and neat on the page, too.

The dots are subtle and not intrusive, too, making any art you might want to do on the pages very clean and visible. Most A5 dot grid paper is prepunched with the six ring holes, and despite this, you can even print on it!

This is good, because it allows me to print longer bits of information or diagrams. Granted, most files aren’t designed for A5 size. Yet, it’s very, very easy to resize something for that format, even if it includes images.

Organization

I added some blank tabbed dividers, labeling them with different Craft-related subjects. There’s one for Tarot, astrology, spellcraft, spiritwork, etc.

If you do this, your dividers would reflect whatever interests you. I recommend sticking to four or five different topics to start with. Any more than that can be overwhelming. 

I've written a bit of study tips for the self-taught here. If you’re a virtuoso who can juggle eight or nine topics without getting overwhelmed, go for it!  

I keep the dot grid paper in the very back of the binder. I add pages from that to the different sections as I finished them.

What to include?

Your grimoire is your own; you can include anything and  everything that you want! I included the following different sections in mine so far.

Blessings, Divination, and Spiritwork

First, I invoked celestial forces to bless this grimoire. Blessing your tools (including grimoire) can be very advantageous. You can ask the spirits and any deities you follow to bless your work. I used to have one of these at the front of mine, but recently ended up writing a separate blessing for each section.

You could devote a section to poetry or prose inspired by the spirits - I do, though I haven’t written much in it recently. Don’t ask me to ever share any of my poems, though - it ended up being very personal!

I devote a sizable part of my binder to writing about the divinatory exercises I do on my own. In other words, it's for notes on my personal Tarot, Lenormand, and scrying sessions. If you do divination, I recommend keeping such a record of your exploits!  I also sometimes keep a dream journal.

Spellcraft Details

Without a doubt, it’s useful to record your own spells and their ensuing results. If you’re starting in spellcraft, you can jot down ideas and brainstorm.

Then, you have a record of the spell’s development from start to finish! This is helpful for refining your approach to spellcraft. It helps you become more effective with it.

If you’re casting spells another witch developed, you can record those, too! Whenever I cast a spell from a book or website, I record it  by hand. I include my own notes on it, and any modifications I’ve made. 

Of course, I also include a citation explaining where I found the spell and who wrote it, too. Credit where credit is due!

The biggest thing, though? Remember to go back and record the results as they manifest. I recommend doing this in as much detail as possible, too. Keeping track of how your magic flows can help you to develop greater finesse.

Print Information

I also print out public domain texts from the Internet to add to my growing trove of information in the binder. If you’re using an A5 binder, you may have to fiddle with formatting on anything you’re printing so that it’ll fit the page. It’s not hard, though!

Many older translations of Classical texts are public domain now. So, you might include that sort of thing! And yes, most printers will print on prepunched A5 paper!

Some witchblr folks will also allow you to print their work, and add it to your personal grimoire. Be sure to check with the person in question first, though! Always keep track of where each piece of information comes from!

For the record, it’s always okay to include spells <INSERT LINK HERE> I’ve written on this blog in your personal grimoire. That is, as long as a) it’s only for personal use, and b) you credit me, even if you’re only printing it for yourself.

Personal Notes on Books, etc

I’m a big fan of taking notes when I read a book, be it a Craft-related one, or even something else. Everyone has a different way of taking notes! My notes synthesize my readings from several different books on the subject.

I took inspiration from studyblr in formatting my notes. That particular tag on here offers lot of great tips for taking notes that are effective, neat, legible and even aesthetic.

I realize the studyblr “aesthetic” isn’t quite the type of thing you’d expect from a grimoire. I like it. I can find things in my notes with ease, they’re readable, and fun to make.

Spawning

This system works well enough for a while. Soon, you’ll find that the binder gets full, unwieldy, and bursting with information. What do you do then?

When it first happened with mine, I wasn’t sure. I tried taking the pages out, tying them with string, and stacking them on my shelf. This turned out to be awful and messy, and some of them got torn.

The trick here is simply to get another binder. Look through the sections in your main binder and find which one is largest. Then, get another binder and transplant that section into it.

Keep doing this as your main binder fills up again and again. You end up with two or three different binders dedicated to different subjects. This is, to me, an excellent way of organizing things, provided you label the binders! It’s wild binder mitosis!

Thus far, my main binder has “spawned” two more - one for astrology, and one for spiritwork. I suspect other sections in the main binder will someday need to move into new binders, too.

In Conclusion

Keeping a grimoire is fun! I definitely recommend it! This article only gives one way of organizing such a grimoire, the one I use. Your methods will no doubt be different. I hope my suggestions above are inspiring and helpful, though.

Stay magical, and blessed be!

[alloaroworlds]

I’ve spent this weekend putting together a mockup zine layout to try and get a handle on what it is we’re looking to make and what our size limitations are. This isn’t a formal sign-up post; I just want to give folks a break-down of where I think this project is going and what we need to consider.

While I suspect that the most use and promotion of this will be digital, I think a good goal is to create something we can release under a Creative Commons license so anyone can freely print it off and hand it out at events/meetings. I can make PDF versions suitable for professional printing (you take it to a print shop and have them print and saddle stitch it) and at-home printing (print double-sided, fold pages together, staple outside edge unless you have a really long stapler) in addition to an interactive PDF, so that’s not a problem, but it does impact how long this will be.

(My intention is to have a landing page on my WordPress site telling people how to print and bind it, along with any credits and contributor information we can’t fit in the zine itself, and a link to said page in the zine.)

The easiest-but-still-readable size for a document that’s going to contain some amount of text, I think, is A5 - or an A4 page folded in half, more correctly. That means we can have four, eight, twelve or sixteen pages (one, two, three or four sheets of paper, folded, printed both sides). At sixteen pages, we’re really pushing it in terms of the whole “print at home or school and self-assemble” aspect, so I’d consider that the absolute maximum, and twelve is probably better. Anything more than that I think is better held over for a second issue.

So, if we go for twelve, by the time we take out the cover and a credits/contents/licensing/links page, we’ve ten pages left.

Now, using a not completely-tiny type size and leading in the following mockup, I get roughly 300 words per page or 240 per title/header page:

(Yes, I used my own stories. I dislike Lorem Ipsum because it’s harder to get a sense of true paragraphing. I also hate not keeping lines together at the start/end of paragraphs, but it wasted far too much space.)

A two-page spread, with header and author credit, gives us 540 words. A three-page article gives us 840 words. With ten pages, we’re looking at two three-page articles and two two-page articles, or one three-page, three-two page and a one-page article. Whatever we’re writing, it’s going to be short (hence my feeling that we’ll likely have to push it out to sixteen pages). If we insert images or add pull quotes to break up the text, that gives us even fewer words!

Now, given that this is meant to be an introduction to allosexual aromanticism, I think the content we’re looking at for the first issue includes:

How to make your a-spec community welcoming for allo-aros (@crimsonsquare and I are calling dibs)

Why allo-aros need aro information separate from asexuality (my thinking here is the Standard Allo-Aro Experience Narrative and a demonstration of how it impacts us: the I didn’t know that I’m aromantic because it’s so often regarded as an asexual experience story)

An article with terminology explanations and definitions (allo and allosexual, queerplatonic, etc)

An article on how to avoid allo-aro antagonism/microagressions/amatonormativity

An article or articles on allo-aro identity and the difficulty in finding our sense of identity?

Short 50-100 word pieces from allo-aros talking about what being allo-aro means to us (these are good for filling up half-used pages)

Anything else folks want to pitch, because if it doesn’t fit in here we’ll do as many issues as folks want to make things for

We could also consider doing a print edition that’s more compressed and a digital edition with longer articles and more pieces, if there’s a lot of interest. I know a few of the suggestions above could be covered from multiple angles by multiple allo-aro folks, so if this is the case, a longer/complete digital edition may be the best way to go. Or discarding the print version of this entirely and sticking with digital-only, perhaps?

We also need cover art (it’d be really cool to have something from an allo-aro artist) and a title. I have a few awful puns in mind (Hallowed Arrows? Alloyed Arrows? Allocating Arrows?) but suggestions are so welcome on this point.

I’d also like at least one other editor, if anyone’s interested in volunteering. If folks want to translate the zine content into the language of their choice, let me know because I’m happy to place the translated content into the zine layout and host the translations on my WordPress site.

I would clarify that this project will be run entirely on a volunteer basis: nobody is paid and all creators retain full copyright over their work and can publish it anywhere else they feel like at any time they feel like. (But please consider that by submitting, you’re giving me the the right to a) possibly have your work translated into another language and b) publish your work under a Creative Commons license for free and unrestricted non-commercial distribution offline and off.) Folks can be published under whatever name they like (real name, pseudonym, Tumblr username); the only real requirement is that you identify as, in part or in full, as allosexual-aromantic or a member of the allo-aro community.

I’m not yet at a point where I’m ready to take submissions; I’ll do a formal, fancy post when I am. What I’m doing now is just talking about the limitations, the process, what I think could work for a first issue, early expressions of interest, and then seeing what folks think.

So. What do folks think?

[ask-bts-pls]

I’m proud to present to everyone the first ever BTS fanart Zine Hosted by me!!

Intro to all fellow artists about to join this collab: 

Hey guys.

Credit to @melly_arts for this amazing idea - yeet

If you’re new to this, read on for an idea for what everything is. Get some word meanings cleared outta your head etc.

Do know that this is a very new idea that is still in the works, so the organizers are just as new to it as you are. But it’ll all make sense as time passes.

What is it?

It’s an artist collab to create a zine that’ll go towards donating money to the Love Myself campaign started by BTS last year.

This zine in particular is a compilation of the fan-drawings, and maybe even a line art drawing which fans can color in.

Here’s what an art fanzine looks like:

Hope that clears stuff for you guys.

THEME - BTS x BT21

You have all liberty in this art. Since the Zine will be printed on a standard size printer the dimensions of your drawing should be able to fit an A5 format, which for those of you who don’t know is roughly the size of half a piece of 8.5x11 paper.

ALL ARTWORKS WILL BE FORMATTED INTO A ZINE AND NO PREORDERS WILL BE TAKEN UNTIL WE DETERMINE THE AMOUNT TO BE SPENT INTO MAKING THE ZINE.

Half of the cost of the zine goes into the works, part of it is the shipping (roughly 3 dollars?), and the rest is to go to the ”Love Myself” Campaign.

DEADLINES

The Deadline will be roughly estimated to be around late August to early September.

HOW IS IT PRINTED?

@Melly_arts (instagram) will be printing the pieces and shipping them.

Any further info will be given later.

How is the artist involved in the zine?

Each artist will get 3 pages.

 Your art piece - Page 1

The line art of the piece (for coloring)*This is optional for those of you doing realism but it would be great to include. - Page 2

A bio of the artist etc. - Page 3

Things to consider for your Bio page:

If you have an instagram or any other social media it is a must that you include at least 1.

It would be nice for you to include a self portrait (it doesn’t have to be elaborate a doodle would suffice or even your logo would be ok if you have one).

Your age and a little bio about yourself would also be nice.

*PLEASE READ*

Currently, all we’re trying to do is get an idea of how many are going to be participating in this, and determine the number of traditional and digital pieces. Once that is determined - give it a week at least - we’ll be able to send out any further details regarding how we will receive the funds, stuff for what you’d like on the bio etc.

After that, artists will get a reasonably good time period to work on their art pieces. This is around the time deadlines will be announced. Do note this won’t take effect until mid-July.

Following that, it’ll probably go into a period of sorting through submissions, and formatting the zine. Preorders are likely to take place around August-September.

Hope this gives a good idea to everybody!

PEACE

IF YOU ARE INTERESTED PLEASE CLICK THE LINK AND FILL OUT THE SIMPLE FOR HERE

If you have an instagram please message me to be added to the all important Group chat!

If not please message me as soon as possible so i can keep you updated!

I will be sending out reminders through email to those who arent in the Group chat.

I’d love if everyone would spread this around!!

#lovethroughoutthegalaxy

[jemimaboultonmessagesmultiverse]

15/09

Today we learned how to use Photoshop to manipulate our art and enhance it to create a new composition which looks completely different. For this work we took inspiration from David Carson and used many techniques seen commonly in his work.

David Carson

David Carson is a graphic designer who is best known for his work in Ray Gun magazine. The main features that reoccur in his work are a prominent use of type and lots of overlapping. There isn't much blank space and that is something I really like about Carson’s work as personally I think the overall “business” of all his art is very eye-catching and appealing to look at. We used him as our inspiration this lesson because we were experimenting with type and tools on Photoshop and his work contains a lot of the techniques we were experimenting with.

This piece contains black and white type on a colourful collage of photos in the background. By doing this, the message in the type stands out due to the contrast created. All of the type is very clear to understand and the font isn't abstract or chopped up to make it difficult to understand, which is another contrast to the background, due to its blurring nature making it difficult to understand what the photographs are of. Carson may have done this because the words he is using in the foreground are the most important part of the composition, as they may be advertising something or displaying an important message. While clear to read font is common within Carson’s work he does also like to overlap and cut the type up to make it almost abstract, as shown below.

This piece contains another blurry image in the back which would make the viewer believe that the type contains the message, which is correct, but this type is also like a selection of small irregular shapes that vaguely make words than easy to read words like the previous poster. There is a very small amount of colour within this piece but it is on the type to draw the audience’s attention to it. This also contains smaller but more regularly shaped font underneath the abstract font, to provide further information about the message and project he is promoting. This variation in type is very interesting and is a unique way to have more information in type without it drawing away from the main image.

This piece differs from the previous two as the imagery shown seems to have come from some sort of stencilling technique. The limited colour palette and solid shapes in this reminds me of Nate Kitch’s work. I really like how the only colours are the primary colours as it serves the purpose of being eye-catching, which is presumably something Carson would’ve had in mind when making this due to it being a magazine cover. This piece moves in a certain direction, with everything pointing towards the top right hand corner, which may have been done to make the overall composition of the cover cohesive and not have certain elements of it contradicting eachother and working against one another, being unappealing to the consumer. He plays around lot with the tracking of the letters within this piece and includes some very big spacing, especially on the word  “on”. It appears to have been done to make all the type fit into a rectangular shape and therefore it fits the geometric theme of the piece.

The main focus of this piece is a famous celebrity, Damon Albarn, which will have been made the focal point of the magazine cover to attract fans of him or his bands to the magazine when they see it on the shelves. However, Carson’s graphic design and typography makes this much more visually interesting, as this cover is an example of him really being creative with scaling and tracking. The type at the top is large and close together compared to the rest, and the tracking is regular. By having different size spaces between the repeating words Carson has created an effect which is similar to a glitching electronic. This could be foreshadowing the contents of the magazine as it states on the cover that it contains a conflict and a glitch in a computer is also an issue which needs resolve. He also has turned some of the type 90 degrees and displayed a list that way, which may have been done so that overall the type on the cover frames the central image of the face.

While the other pieces appear to be made digitally, this seems to be a collage made with real paper. Many of the colours are very muted and don’t seem to stand out too much, which makes the red type on it’s white background very striking. The tracking of this type is split up with gaps in the paper where the colour behind shows through, so the overall image doesn’t appear too crowded. 

After looking at David Carson’s work I thought about ways I can digitally add type to my art to portray the message and narrative of my chosen articles. Adding type that faces in a different direction to the norm is a staple within his work and is definitely something I want to experiment with more, as it could fit with many of my articles themes of “all is not as it seems”, such as the CIA dragonfly and brain implant articles. Different scaling is also something I want to use as the size of something on the page can be used to indicate it’s importance to the message and therefore I could include some sort of context to parts of the image which aren’t as easy to interpret.

Using Photoshop to manipulate my collage

In my lesson I took the collage that i made the previous day and used elements from it, and some new type, to create a new composition, taking inspiration from David Carson and his use of graphic techniques and typography.

To begin with, I chose to make my work A5 as that is the size of a postcard and the final product of this project is meant to be 6 postcards and A5 is postcard size. I also set the colour mode to CMYK, as this will mean that my colours will be tailored to be printed since these are meant to be postcards and therefore will need to be printed. 

I then went online to find a more diverse range of fonts and I downloaded some which I thought fit the idea of robotics and CIA, the one I used most is called “Distortion dos Analogue” and I picked this one as it was cut up in a similar way to some of David Carson's work, but it was still readable and it’s clear block letter roots make it feel very futuristic, just like a robot spy fly.

When adding the type to my canvas I thought about the tracking and arrangement of the individual letters. I really liked the way David Carson would flip letters and arrange them in an unconventional way, so to begin with I made the top of the page reflected at the bottom by reversing the text. I then made each letter of the word “robot” it’s own layer an played around with flipping them and having them diagonally across the centre of the canvas

By having individual layers for them i could really experiment with their placement on the canvas and how they looked layered and flipped individually. They worked well in this placement at the time but after I added some elements from the collage I scanned in I removed these letters as they made the overall page look too cluttered for my liking and they made some things difficult to distinguish.

When I scanned in my work from the previous day I adjusted some of the levels to make the colours vibrant and increase contrast, as some of the quality of the colour and the contrast was lost in the scan.

After I did this, I lassoed some elements of my collage so I could add them to my typography. I chose to take the letters and the bug from my collage as then I am sticking with the overall theme and appearance of mainly typography whilst also include an image to be the centre. With the pieces I took I experimented with the threshold, creating a high contrast black and white, almost silhouette effect . I then layered the same images over the thresholded images but in a lesser opacity so the thresholded elements could be seen through them.

At this point I removed the word “robot” from the centre of the canvas and replaced it with the bug extremely large, taking up a majority of the space. I also moved the type saying “robot dragonfly” to the side of the image and rotated it 90 degrees so it would fit down the side of the page. I think this made everything fit much more cohesively together as it filled a space where there wasn't any type with some type. The outcome of this was a piece which heavily differs from the collage I started with and also shows my inspiration from David Carson’s work.

I am very happy with my outcome although I believe it is unfinished and I would like to add some smaller scaled type which contains some extracts from the news articles in the white space which is left, and experiment with more tools on Photoshop to see what various effects I can achieve. I particularly enjoy the effect that changing the threshold has as it looks very futuristic and fits the theme of robotics and technology. I also really like how changing the opacity can almost make two images join together instead of overlapping on top of one another. 

[titmasjack]

Weekly Summary

Throughout this week I gained an utmost sense of relief when I was informed that our deadline for the 14th of January was decided to be pushed back until the 25th of February. With the stress of a deadline being hung over me, I started off this week with a sense of doubt that I wouldn't be able to meet all the outcomes of the two briefs we were set to hand in, not only at the standard that I hope to present throughout my work but at the minimal level of completion. I feared that due to not being able to continue my studies over the holidays this set me back to a point that I wouldn’t have been able to recover from with the management of time I had left. 

With the extension of the deadline and how productive I’ve been this week, I feel in a much more comfortable position moving forward as I’m at a state of mind where I feel confident in what I know I need to do moving forward in the upcoming weeks to prepare myself for the 25th’s submission date. Although we won't be working on just these projects alone, these additional weeks have given me a great deal of peace so I can take the necessary time to produce an outcome that I’m proud of. 

Although now coinciding with the 1500 word essay due on the same date, I believe I have given myself enough time and realistic personal deadlines to achieve all the outcomes necessary to a presentable standard that I would be proud of. With the hopes of being able to complete the morphing project by the 11th of February, in time of our newly introduced brief, this gives me an additional four weeks to not only work on but refine an outcome to a professional standard that I want to be proud to submit. 

Even though I haven’t had the opportunity to write up as many blogs posts as I usually do, having focused on the production of my creative work has allowed me to get a point where I feel happy moving forward. With no current need to rush through my workload, I’m happy with the pace that I’m moving forward taking care with both the production of my sketchbook and morphing animation. 

Research Narrative

In terms of ‘Research Narrative’, this week was very much about learning to implement what we have already learnt over the course of this term to through given examples, analysing two narratives over the course of the week, we applied an approach of two separate theorists beliefs in the hopes to convey how various narrative functions can be used to dictate the functions of story in classic folk law and contemporary story.

This gave me a great deal of confidence in two significant methods to how I could approach my own chosen narrative to analyse. Showcasing how I can implement these studies through work that would benefit my own analysis of ‘The Road to El Dorado’ as I begin to gather a range of sources and information about the film itself.

Compared to sitting through a 3-hour lecture like we do most weeks, with Lynsey's absence from the lesson provided a nice change of pace. Feeling like a much more relaxed environment as we were given the opportunity to watch ‘Up’ to then study and reflect upon in our own time. With no time like the present, I found it best for myself that I reflected on the film whilst watching and straight after, not only as a key opportunity to manage my time, but this allowed me to process the elements of the narrative whilst they were still fresh in my brain. Discussing with peers around me about the impact and contradictions the narrative of the film made to Voglers archetype and hero’s journey theory that we were implementing to the story.

Although I can understand why we wouldn’t do something like this each week, using this lesson to my advantage, I was able to spend more time producing more physical work in other projects as I didn’t have to spend an additional day reflecting on the work we produced and learnt about in our typical lecture.

Digital Morphs

The deadline extension gave me the most positive response when realising that I had more time to dedicate towards the morphing project. My favourite project of the BA1b curriculum thus far. The delayed deadline has allowed me to cater and expand my projects progression to consider elements of production that I wouldn’t have had time to explore beforehand. 

With creating both a finalised pre-visionary animation of what I want my outcome to look like. This week allowed me to refine my ideas and give as a comparative example of how my ideas had evolved and changed over the subsequent weeks leading up to this point. This week gave me a chance to reflect on how the various influences and studies I have been analysing have been used and implemented within my own work. Inspiring me to create something that challenges perspective, weight, timing and anticipation, the principal analysis’ has given me an in-depth opportunity to review how I can incorporate these varying elements to make my work better. 

Having had the opportunity to focus on this project throughout this week, I was able to create a finalised version of my pre-visualisation to the standard that I am proud of. Ending up adding another full morph and making the transitions between objects a lot smoother, I wouldn’t have had this chance if limited to the original deadline. I hope to use this extended time to my full advantage to consider how I can best explore my animation through the use of colour and texture, to create a finalised, polished outcome that reflects the needs of the brief. 

I will continue to explore this in the upcoming weeks, as I begin to translate my work to shape layers so I can fully animate my outcome in Adobe After Effects. Although I’m not as confident with the software as I would like, these extra weeks will help me solidify a foundation of the program and hopefully showcase how I have overcome these challenges as I hurdle them.

Animated Sketchbook

This is the project that I am most worried about developing throughout the weeks. Whilst I’ve always found sketchbooks to be a benefit, my interpretation of a sketchbook widely differs from the expectations of the brief. Almost treated as a notebook, I treat my sketchbook as an opportunity to explore my ideas through thumbnail sketches and writing. I typically manage to fit this onto an A5 sketchbook comfortably and the expansion to an A4 book leads me with the feeling to present an almost portfolio-eqsque level of presentation that guides my viewer through the variety of ideas I have throughout the weeks.

I see this project almost as me ticking off a list of sketchbook tasks and experiments rather than as an actual form of experimentation. Although I do find benefits to working in a sketchbook, this formal manner, as I feel it has been presented is not something I find comfortable to be able to explore quickly through experimentation. 

As I hesitantly slowly progress through this book, I’m beginning to learn and see the benefits of me working to a smaller scale, as I tend to work slow and this leads to me spending around at least an hour at a time working on filling up the entirety of the A4 sketchbook. 

This is the only project I don’t feel enthusiastic towards as it has become a begrudging task to fill up an A4 sketchbook that I find inferior in its use to the A5 sketchbooks that I always keep on me at hand. To record, visualise and take note of any ideas that I have throughout the day.

Life Drawing

This weeks life drawing session mixed up the work as we began to look at the negative space of a figure. Identifying how we could determine both highlights and shadows using a variety of tone. Limited to charcoal and rubber as our mediums, this provided me with an enthusiastic and messy challenge that I thoroughly enjoyed. Although I was hesitant about going into the class, I can see the benefits of working in this manner as it allowed me to consider both the foreground and background. Using a pre-toned piece of paper to allow me to further push the highlights that hit the figure directly through the use of a spotlight. 

Although I have taken the opportunity to write less about my ‘Life Drawing’ outcomes throughout my blog, I think including them best demonstrates my progression as an artist and the variety of experimentation I have been able to produce during my time on the ‘BA Animation’ course. 

To summarise;

Extending the deadline gave me a great sense of relief as I have more time to work on the projects I enjoy. 

Once I get to stage in my sketchbook that I’m happy with I think it would be best to get a one on one tutorial with a tutor to discuss how I can develop my work further. 

At the moment I am confident in being able to reflect and produce blog posts on an every other day basis, this is something I hope to continue.

I should begin to consider researching into my essay so I can reach my personal deadline of producing a first draft by the 29th of January.

[comecesario]

senpai notice me uwu.. anyway i came to ask for advice abt the medium of taking notes in highschool. usually we use B5 aka that tiny ntbk wherein ur not sure whether its for first notes or revision buut i see others trying out diff methods like loose leaf or binders or a4 notebooks. i'd appreciate it if you compare the pros & cons of each. thankies

I can definitely do that!

So, there’s generally two or three methods of note-taking, depending on whether your school will let you use a laptop. There’s notebooks, binders/folders, and your laptop. I’ll compare the three below, and give you my personal verdict.

Notebooks:

Notebooks come in various sizes, but generally the ones you’ll find in most stores are either A5 or A4. Personally, I prefer A4 because I find it difficult to put all of my notes in anything smaller, but the size kinda depends on your preference.

Some good notebooks are:

Muji 5-pack (comes in different sizes, but the one I’ve linked here is A5)

Pukka Pad Jotter

Pukka Pad Divided Project Book

Rhodia Pad (this one also comes in different paper styles and sizes)

Pros:

Keeps all of your notes in one place - you’ve got less of a chance to lose them if they’re all in one book)

You can get various paper types: dotted, squared, lined and plain

Most tend to be smaller than binders, making them more portable (which is important if you’re carrying them in a school bag)

Some notebooks come with dividers, making it really easy to have one notebook for multiple subjects (Pukka Pads are great for this)

if you want to, you can take notes during school and then offload the notes into a binder at home

Cons:

If you make a mistake or realise that you messed up a page you’ll have to tear it out, which is a problem if you’re a neat-freak like me

It’s difficult to re-order your pages if you realise you need to do so

Once you fill up a notebook, that’s it - you can’t refill it like you could a binder, making it slightly less cost-effective

Binders:

Binders generally come in two types: smaller, and larger ring-binders. The smaller ones can generally fit in a bag, but you might have trouble fitting a larger binder, especially if you’re also carrying textbooks and pencil cases.

Some nice binders are:

Here

Here

and here (though I’m not sure if this one ships to anywhere outside of the UK)

Pros:

It’s easy to re-order your pages if you need to

If you mess up a page, you can simply take it out - no need to rip any pages out of a notebook

If you’re given sheets at school, it’s easy to simply hole-punch them and keep them in your binder

You don’t need a separate binder for each school subject - just have a large ring-binder divided into sections for each subject (this is a lot cheaper, too)

Cons: 

They’re big, so they might not fit inside a school bag

If you only have one binder for all of your subjects, and you lose it, you lose everything (seriously, this has happened to me before)

They can break

Ring binders don’t tend to take too many pieces of paper, so you’ll have to offload them into a larger binder, which can get tiresome

Laptops:

If your school lets you use a laptop, there are quite a few apps that you might find useful for note-taking:

Microsoft one-note

Evernote

I know quite a few people who just use Microsoft Word, and store all of the documents on their laptop in folders

Google Docs (this one’s free!)

Pros:

It’s very easy to organise everything, and to keep everything neat

It’s quicker to type than it is to write everything down

If you have Google Docs or your other friends also use Onenote or Evernote, you can sync your notebooks and add to one another’s notes (I find this super helpful if I’ve missed a lesson)

Cons:

It’s often difficult to make diagrams on a laptop (this won’t be an issue if you have one of those laptops that turns into a tablet, or if you use an ipad, but I do not)

When I used to do maths, I found it really hard to write down equations quickly and efficiently with a laptop (though this could just be me)

Laptops are expensive - of course you can find cheaper ones but generally they are far more expensive than a notebook or a ring binder

Personal Verdict:

Personally, I use a laptop (Macbook Air, if you want to know) - the app I use is Microsoft OneNote, and I make all of my revision notes in a notebook (I use the Pukka Pad Divided Project book). I have used binders in the past, and don’t mind them - I just have trouble with carrying them around, and given that most of my revision and note-taking is done outside of my house, portability is super important for me.

I hope this helped!!

[ccorinnef]

Sketchbook Flipthrough: Dec 19 - Jun 20

One of the creative practices I have developed is to work in my sketchbook for one hour every day. It seems that the key to my personal creativity is consistency rather than quality. I have gone through so many sketchbooks in my developing career as an artist but this is the very first one that I have fully completed. I worked in this Seawhite of Brighton A5 sketchbook from December 2019 to June 2020.

This first page I was attempting to finish up my self-made Inktober prompts by drawing a Garden Chafer. I don't think I really did it justice but it got me past the dilemma of the first blank page. On the next page I've drawn a mandala - I love drawing mandalas to practice symmetry and linework.

This next drawing was for a Christmas present for my partner; it is one of his favourite Warhammer characters: The Green Knight. The composition of this piece was taken directly from the reference picture I had from a Warhammer book but I drew it in my style of ink illustration with a bold triangle frame. Next to this I tried my hand at some faux calligraphy by inking the words "lose hate not weight." This is a message that became a personal mantra in the post-Christmas and New Year diet culture frenzy that is so overwhelming and all-consuming.

This collection of small drawings is titled "Some things I found while walking the dog." It features some winter plants and a lot of litter as well as a turnip that had washed up with the recent floods, which my dog thought was the best ball ever.

This spread has a very simplified not-quite pattern of houses of different designs. I was just playing with different shapes and patterns to create the buildings and their features. Beside this we have a baby Yoda - can you tell we started the year watching the Mandalorian?

Next, I've drawn a very fine lined rendition of the Wallace Monument in Stirling - this one may become a print in the near future, I am as yet undecided. On the opposite page I've drawn another mandala, this time taking up the entire page. I love practicing my linework and incorporating more bold black elements is something I am going to work with more going forwards.

This is a random doodle page - I tend to have my sketchbook out on the counter while volunteering with Made In Stirling so I can doodle in between customers when it is quiet. I like to do these random shapes of lines to practice getting the flow and ease of specific line styles more natural. The drawing beside this is of Stirling Castle - this one is definitely going to become a print in my collection soon! I just love the combination of the semi circle and the trees.

On the next spread, I've done a simplified drawing of a local building - I use local estate agents pictures as reference images as they tend to take really good building pictures! The next drawing was another style I have really started to gravitate towards. It's a kind of line practice except in the style of a topographic map. I had great fun doing this and they'll definitely pop up in my sketchbook practices regularly in the future.

This drawing was one of the ones I did while idly watching TV to stop myself from fidgeting. It's just a collection of tiny leaves that look as though they are drifting slowly in the sky. On the opposite page is a weird lined abstract shape thing - I don't particularly like it, but bad art is just as important to the creative process as good art.

This next spread is another that I don't particularly like. On the left, I've drawn a group of tree shapes in a similar vein to the not-quite house pattern. On the right is an attempt at a more structured architectural drawing of a fancy modern style house. You can tell I got fed up of it by the time I got to the shading.

This next piece is actually my first ever drawing from life. I took a life drawing class at my local college at the start of the year to push my boundaries a bit. I just glued it into my sketchbook after class and folded it so it would fit properly. It was drawn in charcoal and I didn't use any setting spray on it so it has smudged a little bit. Beside this is a tiny collection of baby animals which I think I drew at one of the Community Creative Club meets. I will never not love baby hedgehogs - they are the cutest thing on this planet.

Next up, I've got a collection of the local birdlife. These are all birds that I have seen around my home and tried to identify as best as possible. The heron, which I had mentally named Herman and saw every morning, unfortunately died after being caught in the floods of the start of this year. I have since seen another heron take its place in the misty mornings. This spring it was a delight to watch the swan and duck families grow up - we saw the same goosander family almost every day and took great delight in witnessing the mum duck diving under the ducklings and teaching them how to swim and forage.

This drawing is another random linework practice piece - it's kind of noodly. On the right is a drawing of Mooncake from Final Space which we were watching at the time. Chookity Pok!

This is another simplified building drawing using local estate agents' pictures as reference images. Beside this, is another drawing from my life drawing class. In this activity I thouroughly misunderstood the instructions so everyone else in the class ended up with tiny drawings on the side of their bigger collaborative pieces.

Next, we have another topographic style line drawing but a lot more simplified, as well as one of the first of my portraiture practices for the 100 Heads Challenge.

This two page spread is another piece from my life drawing class - this time I drew with materials more familiar to me, using white ink to add highlights and make the figure pop out from the brown of the paper.

On the next pages I've drawn a leafy plant and a Totoro - this was when Netflix started adding Studio Ghibli to its catalogue.

This next drawing is another that I don't particularly like, I think I just got the composition not quite right. It's a kind of composite of a few different trees that formed the view out of our cabin window on our February holiday to Aviemore. Beside this I've drawn a collection of simple fine line mushrooms.

The next page is an attempt at illustrating a map of an imaginary town - I have mixed feelings about it. On the opposite page is an aimless doodle of tiny flowers, for no particular reason.

Next is a page of random tiny doodles which almost looks like a (really bad) tattoo flash sheet. On the right I've drawn a self-portrait.

Next is almost a cartoon board but made up of intricate food illustration. I wanted to really test my textures with ink in this piece to try and capture a sense of likeness of the food items. Also, a pine cone. I have a weird obsession with pine cones.

On the left is a kind of spiderweb doodle which was probably another line work practice. On the right is another piece from life drawing class which I've just glued in so as to keep a memento of my progress.

This drawing is yet another one from life drawing class where I used different colours of ink pens to create depth and shadows in the model. Beside this is a drawing of a monument in Edinburgh called the Dugald Stewart Monument.

Another piece from my life drawing class is followed by a rough sketch of the Falkirk Kelpies.

The next two pages are made up of another piece from life drawing class - I like the way I've used different shades of ink to add highlight and lowlight to the figure.

Here is a monument in my typical style, this one is a part of Glasgow University. And next to this is another very simplified topography style map.

This spread features more monuments of Glasgow - the Duke of Wellington Statue (complete with cone hat, obviously) and the Clyde Auditorium. Both of which will become prints before long.

These next drawings are of another topographic map and the Falkirk Kelpies. These Kelpies took me about two weeks to draw in total because there are just so many intricate details.

Up next is a couple more monuments, the Stirling Robert the Bruce statue, and Edinburgh's Greyfriars Bobby.

The next drawing is another in my usual style of Castle Stalker. I love how this one turned out and it will definitely be in my shop soon! Beside this is an attempt at drawing a building from the Royal Mile in Edinburgh - I don't think it turned out very well, I got some of the angles of walls a bit wrong.

This next page features a simple drawing of a piece of hawthorn blossom that I found earlier this year. Beside this is a cute little Japanese building which I've coloured in with pencils. I was inspired to draw this from watching Midnight Diner on Netflix.

This painting was one of the first that I did during lockdown - it's of some daffodils that smudged a wee bit. On the right is an ink illustration of St Andrew's Cathedral, which also has some smudged daffodil paint.

This spread includes a yin and yang mandala and another colour pencil Japanese style house.

This is some more linework practice. On the left is a drawing of some wintery cow parsley stalks. On the right is some simple lined circles - I really like how when they cross over each other it appears like cross hatching.

This next page was inspired by watching Chris Riddell's IGTV's during lockdown. Beside this is a fuzzy bumble butt grazing on a thistle.

These next two drawings are my first tentative steps into character design - when I'm learning something new I tend to take inspiration from artists that already work in a particular way so that I might pick up some of their tricks along the way.

The next spread features another tiny building and an adorable mouse peeking out of a tulip flower.

Next is another practice of character drawing and an attempt at a fairytale style house, I didn't get the proportions quite right unfortunately.

On the left is a drawing of a treehouse which looks like an amazing place to live. On the right is an illustration of Fenton Tower - you might recognise it as Archie's humble abode from Balamory.

Next is another couple of spaghetti like line practices. I love playing with flow and texture within linework.

This drawing is a local building, the reference picture came from estate agents’ images. Beside this is some triangular line practice with the crossing over crosshatching again.

This is an illustration in my usual style of Dunnottar Castle - it will soon be in my avaible print collection. Next to this is an ink and watercolour drawing of a building from Culross, Fife where they have very distinctive white washed walls and bright brick edging.

This is another spread of linework practice - this time with squares and another topographic map.

This is a funky building I found online and wanted to draw - it's wedged between two sheer cliff faces! Next to this is a random page of scraps really. I started trying to draw some fairytale buildings before abandoning that idea and splashing some watercolour over the page instead. I then added this small watercolour painting of Kate from @kateshappinessjourney, which I tried to paint with a colour palette similar to Fran Menses.

These are two paintings of tiny country cottages done in ink and watercolour. I really enjoyed doing these and will probably do more going forward. Beside this is another bumble butt on a flower.

This is another Studio Ghibli inspired drawing and some character design practice. On the right is a couple more tiny watercolour cottages.

This page is has a random drawing from a reference on Instagram of a person wrapped up in a blanket along with a quote that reads: "I have planted worth, beneath my skin, in all the places, you made me doubt." Beside this is a practice loose watercolour painting of some flowers and leaves in a vase. It's not my usual style but I like to practice using watercolour regularly so that I can continue to develop my skills.

Next up is a collection of tiny drawings taken from scrolling through Instagram - I do this particularly when I want to draw but don't have a specific subject in mind. On the right hand side is a little landscape painting in gouache. I'm still learning how to use this medium so I don't expect masterpieces any time soon!

This is another weird building drawing - it did not turn out how I had envisioned so I am quite disappointed with it. On the adjoining page is a Draw This In Your Style challenge from @moonylux on Instagram. Its a very dainty and glamourous looking mermaid that I quite enjoyed drawing.

Here are some more gouache painting practices of some Scottish landscapes. I really like how my use of brushstrokes makes the paintings more vibrant and alive. Beside this is a little line drawing practice of some ocean waves.

This next drawing is another bumble butt on a flower. I think I might turn these into a print. On the right is a tiny collection of watercolour snails being adorable and curious creatures. I'm low-key obsessed with snails - I always move them from the path after the rain so they don't get stood on. I think these paintings could do with another layer of paint to increase the saturation of the colours.

This is an ink drawing of a Jackalope. I wish I could have one as a pet because they are so freaking cute. On the other side of this spread is another gouache practice piece - this one of a pink flower on a dark blue background.

This is another in my series of mythological creature illustrations. It's a fairy based off of the flower fairy drawings by Cicely Mary Barker in her books. Next to this is my first attempt at creating a repeating pattern for Minnie Small's #minniemission. It did not go well but I like to keep the scraps of my ideas.

This is a series of sketches for a commission for The Kitchen at 44. I often test out ideas in my sketchbook - sometimes completing the whole commission in my sketchbook and other times, as in this case, transferring the drawings over to something more fit-for-purpose (like watercolour paper).

Here is another of the great Scottish mythological creatures - this one is a Kelpie which features in stories across the country. Beside this I've done another gouache practice, of yet another landscape... I miss my studio and my acrylic paints a lot, but I am having great fun learning to use a new medium!

This is an illustration of a bean-nighe, or washer woman, who foretells death when she is seen washing the bloodied clothes of the people who are about to die. She also has breasts so saggy and cumbersome that she throws them over her shoulders to keep them out the way while she works. Next to this is a drawing of a building inspired by Ian Mcque's incredibly intricate illustrations.

This next drawing is another mythological creature illustration - this one is an uilbheist of Orkney and Shetland legend. This three headed sea serpent protects the islands from danger. On the right, is a little gouache seascape study. I really like how this one turned out.

This is another gouache study - I don't like how this one turned out much but there are tiny elements of this piece that I like. Beside this is some portrait practices for the 100 Heads Challenge - the challenge is to do 100 Heads in 10 days but that is way too difficult for me to achieve, so I just practice some here and there when I want to draw something different.

This is an illustration of a Boobrie, another of Scotland's mythological creatures. Beside this is some more portrait practice. I don't think I did these ones very well - but that is exactly why it is called a practice.

Here is a random piece of paper that I was testing pens on when decluttering. Over the top of it I've just drawn a quick flower doodle. Next to this is a collection of some of the Black Lives Matter protestors from June. Please keep this movement alive, listen and learn as much as possible. Only we can make the future better.

This next drawing is a commission I did for a friend who is about to embark on her probation year as an English teacher and wanted some literary themed illustrations to make signposts for her classroom. They are Narnia, Desire St, and East Egg, since they are some of her favourite stories. Beside this, on the right, is a collection of random shapes drawn with a highlighter and then turned into cartoony people. This kind of drawing practice really pushes you to look at shapes in a different way.

Here is some more portrait practices. I'm quite pleased with these. Next to this is some random leafy doodles, just for the hell of it.

This is another simplified house using a reference image from local estate agents. Beside this is another topographic map style linework practice.

Here is a creature by Karolina Plutowska from the book 'Sketching from the Imagination: Creatures and Monsters.' Practicing drawing like this helps me learn new ways of approaching illustration that I might not have considered before. Of course, I would never seek to claim any kind of profit or credit for drawings like these since they are based on someone else's artwork. On the right, is some more portrait practices which I never got around to inking. The pencil lines are very faint but you can see that I use a lot of shapes and lines to get the proportions right and help map out the whole page before I ink.

And this very last spread consists of another creature drawing from the book 'Sketching from the Imagination.' It is an illustration by Ksenia Bakhareva which I am particularly fond of. On the very last page of this sketchbook I've stuck in the finished repeating pattern that I made for Minnie Small's #minniemission. I am really pleased with how this piece came out and I can't wait to turn it into something fun!

And there you have it! That is the entire contents of my last sketchbook - dated from December 2019 to June 2020. It was been a wild few months but I've grown a lot as a person and as an artist, as can be seen from my sketchbook progression.

I hope you enjoyed taking a look inside my sketchbook. I use it basically as a place to store all of my art and treat each page as a new opportunity to practice my skills and talents. Not everything you create has to be a masterpiece but the act of practicing your skills every day will get you so much more creative than you ever thought possible .

[aerithsage]

2018 Highlights #1: The Transition to Bullet Journaling

This year, I wanted to try something new and be more organized.

The past few years since I started using planners, I always used the Belle de Jour Power Planner or the Starbucks Planners. This year, I tried out Bullet Journaling.

So what is a Bullet Journal?

The Bullet Journal is an analog system created by Ryder Carroll, a Designer based in New York. In his words, the Bullet Journal is meant “to help you track the past, organize the present, and plan for the future.” It’s an amazing system that keeps a record of everything you could ever want to toss at it. It can be your task manager, sketchbook, journal, idea catcher, and much more!

The Bullet Journal is a organizational system in a notebook that keeps track of anything you would like to write down in an coherent way.

- TinyrayofSunshine.com

How I got started:

1. I researched the best type of notebooks to use for this as well as other materials like pens, washi tapes, etc.

2. I watched a lot of Youtube videos about Bullet Journaling.

3. After the videos, I thought about how I’d do my own spreads / layouts.

4. I went to Pinterest and pinned a lot of images to get inspiration from. (If you want to see my entire Pinterest board about it, click HERE.)

5. I planned out everything, bought the materials and just dived right into it.

The Materials

1. Notebook: Leuchtturm1917 Dotted A5 Notebook (Army Color).

Well, they didn’t have any other color available then so sadly, this was the only color I got. I planned on buying a cover for it or wrapping it in paper or something just to make it prettier but it’s almost the end of 2018 and I still haven’t done that. Oh well.

So for the 2019 notebook, I ordered early (way back November) and this time, I got the Leuchtturm 1917 Bullet Journal - A5 Dotted. I ordered it from Shopee for 1600 php + a pack of stickers.

2. Pens

Uhm, where do I start with this? I already have tons of pens because I just absolutely love buying these things. My desk has so much pens but it’s like there’s always this need for MORE.

So just to list off the ones I commonly use, here they are:

Sakura Micron Pens (5-piece set)

Stabilo point 88 Pens (I have the entire set of all colors available)

Stabilo Boss Mini Highlighters (Pastel Colors)

Faber Castell Pitt Artist Pens (S) 

Pilot G-Tec (0.4) Purple and Black as well as the entire Maica Set.

Zig Kuretake Pens

Tombow Dual Tip

Mechanical Pencil (definitely a must have)

All these are available in National Bookstore or you can also check out Scribe. You can buy online and they also have stores as well.

3. Washi Tapes

Oh boy, here’s another one.

I have a mini drawer on my desk all just filled with Washi Tapes. Whenever I go to the mall, I always have to stop by a bookstore and check out their collection of Washi Tapes. 

Some are expensive and some are super nice but really cheap. 

Here’s how my Washi Tape drawer looks like

(Excuse my messy desk. Haha)

4. Other Items Needed

Ruler (My recommendation: get a small one that fits in your pencil case so you can bring it anywhere with you along with your BuJo. You can also insert the ruler in the envelope flap at the back of the notebook.

Eraser

Glue Stick / Glue (for when you paste movie tickets, pictures, or other keepsakes)

Scissors

Colored Paper (Optional) Just to add an extra oomph to your BuJo

Stickers (optional just like colored paper)

My Messy Bullet Journal

Okay guys so I’m going to give you a peek at some of the pages (my absolute favorites) of my journal. 

It’s a bit messy since this is my first and my goal was more on being more consistent and more organized rather than the aesthetics of it.

First picture I’m going to share is how I do my month spreads. So I kept it simple and maximized the use of the available space. It’s color coded per month too so the drop shadow and the washi tape used is different for every month.

Kept this layout simple so it’s easy to use. My goal for my bullet journal was consistency and I thought earlier that making elaborate and beautiful layouts would cost so much time and I may end up not finishing it especially if I’m busy.

So for this next one, this is how my weekly pages look like. (I purposefully took a pic of a week I didn’t write anything because some stuff are private, sorry!)

I kept it simple just like the calendar so that it doesn’t take me a lot of time to make it every month. By the way, all monthly spreads, I prepare before the month starts.

The weekly spreads are on the left and then I keep a blank page on the right so I could write grocery or shopping lists, memories, wants and needs, paste movie tickets and more.

The washi tape at the bottom also matches the color of the washi tape on the calendar page. I just want everything to be cohesive and color-coded.

 Next pic: The month intro layout. 

So for extra spaces per month, I usually doodle on it or it’s a space for me to post my calligraphy practice stuff. I also love doing calligraphy. It relaxes me and now I have a place to paste all those and make my BuJo just a little bit prettier.

Left side of the picture is one of my doodles and right side is one of those coloring stuff for adults that I got from the internet. I printed it and then colored it using Faber Castell Color Pencils.

Next up is one of my “Memories” Pages.

I made this one after my birthday. I turned 26 last January 25 and I took my family to Viking’s for dinner. We had so much fun, took many pics, and totally ate a lot. 

I printed some of those pictures using my Pringo P231 Portable Printer and then pasted them here. Added some simple text and some washi tapes and voila!

Last pic I’m going to share is my Mood Tracker. I got the idea from Pinterest and wanted it so bad.

It’s a good, simple way of glancing at a page and then seeing how you were feeling that day. I totally love how it looks like someone played Tetris so shittily.

My Bullet Journal Experience

I. TOTALLY. LOVED. IT

So the thing with me and planners is that I am super organized and always write on the planner during the early months of the year. And then when the year is about to end, I just end up not writing anything at all.

That’s annoying and sad as well because I forgot to write about some of the most amazing days and I’ll just totally forget those. 

The thing with BuJos is that you just don’t have to use it to plan your life or your day. You can also use it like a diary where you can write your memories and save them forever.

Imagine the feeling of keeping all your past BuJos and then just sitting at home one day and rereading BuJos of the past years. That would be incredibly insane. So this 2018 is my first time doing this Bullet Journaling thing and it already gives me so much feels when I reread my notes and memories from the previous months.

The BuJo also kept me very organized. Everything I need to write is all in one place. My grocery lists are here, plot points for my stories, story ideas, rants and things I need to get off my chest but cannot say to anyone, memories, and so much more!

It’s such a great experience and I learned a lot and now have a clearer picture for how I want my 2019 Bullet Journal to look like. And yep, I’m definitely doing it again.

I already started doing it actually so that I have a good head start before 2019 starts. This way, I can also start doing more aesthetically pleasing layouts to be some sort of upgrade and also a way to challenge myself.

If you want to get more organized with your life while at the same time, keep a diary / notepad / scrapbook for everything, then I highly recommend trying out Bullet Journaling.

My first tip is to start small. Consistency is key. It’s more important that your journals being super beautiful but taking up so much time that you end up abandoning it. 

Don’t worry if what you make isn’t Instagram or Pinterest worthy. Dude, those people are pros. Haha They are super good at calligraphy or lettering and thinking of layout ideas. You, on the other hand, are just starting. So don’t worry about it.

Also, if you need ideas, remember to check out my Pinterest Board.

That’s it for now! Will be back soon with another 2018 highlight. Hope you liked this post. :) And if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.

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Twitter: @aerithsage

Instagram: @aerithsage

[little-rose-08]

✨Star Atlas Zine✨

I received my Star Atlas package this week!! I was a little late uploading this since my internet is so bad and I’m trying to figure out how tumblr works.

Edit: Our internet speed was just recently upgraded (thank you mom!!!), so this post was much later than I expected to have posted it. But at least it’s finally posted? I guess? (this is so late, omg)

First off, sorry for the bad image quality. My phone is not that great. igh.

Anyway, the Star Atlas Zine has a few bundles that they offer, and the bundle I purchased was the Voyager Bundle. It Includes 1 physical zine, 3 A5 prints, 2 sticker sheets, and 1 keychain! The pic below is all of them:

Also! The bubble wrap!! It is so pretty! I have a pic of it right here:

(I’ll be saving this beautiful bubble wrap for future scrapbooking purposes)

This zine itself was really pretty! The gold foil on the cover is beautiful, and the art is just precious. Space lovers wearing their pretty, sparkling engagement rings.

I don’t know how much I can show you on this post, but I have a lot of favorites in this zine! Especially Astra Inclinant by @okwtr <3. And the accompanying art by mikkapi is awesome as well! Otabek in a desolate planet, meeting fallen star Yuri is a jam I totally never knew I had. It’s like Treasure Planet meets Star Wars the Force Awakens and Stardust. (I love all these movies so Astra Inclinant was perfect!)

Also, special mention for @tosquinha ‘s art, because you’re the main reason why I purchased this zine. Your art has so much detail that you’re going to be pleasantly surprised by every new thing that you’ll see each time you take a good look. (I loved every bit about the zine in the end, so getting this bundle was a really good call. I’m following every contributor in this zine now, because of this project)

B-612 by badkisser is also a fic that I love and hate at the same time. It is heartbreakingly beautiful, thank you! The short comics paired with it made by @shelliihe was so adorable and charming as well!!

All in all, this is an amazingly cosmic project! and I am over the moon happy with how it turned out!!! For a first zine, that was soo not bad at all. Despite the delays from the crew, the end product was really, extremely good. Thank you to the crew and contributors for all your hard work!

I’ll be adding the crew and moderators below to give thanks and my additional thoughts about their works! :D (and also spoilers maybe? for those who haven’t gotten theirs yet.

@aaaliyaamj Yuuri and Victor on a stargazing date! The sky full of stars and a peek of the Aurora Borealis made your art look so whimsical and calm.

@tybirb This is a movie. This should be turned into a movie. Victor doing whatever it takes to get his Yuuri back, and Yuuri being all smart and resourceful and dramatic doing anything to survive and communicate back to Victor. With love giving them the power and hope to go against all odds and finding each other in the end!!

@babypears Russian Space Scientists Team!! Your art style is so unique and your use of colors and lines are awesome.

@awanqi THE SKY. OMG THE SKY. The use of colors and how you layered them is fantastic! I can almost feel how the wind blows through the image, and the way you drew Victor is beautiful. Is he looking for something? or maybe someone??

@helllodeer This is such an exciting fic!!! This should be a novel!! I’m not so knowledgeable about deep space conspiracies, but your story is so interesting. I searched about the detail that you featured in this story and it’s so appropriate for Victor and so funny for me. I partly believe in aliens, hahaha, because the universe is soooo vast that it is impossible that we are the only intelligent beings occupying it. It may be humans like us, or another versions of us. It maybe exact replicas of us, doing the same things we do, experiencing the same events as us, y’know?? Or maybe beings sooo different from us! There’s just no telling because there’s no evidence against it. So anything is possible!

@gehirnkaefer Why’s Yurio alooone? He looks so lonely! His image of listening to music while staring into space is so solemn. Or maybe he’s just having alone time away from his annoying crewmates? Yurio would totally do that. Your art shows so much emotion and feels so cold, but wonderful nonetheless!

@berrycrisps I’m not very sure if your Victor and Yuuri are aliens or human representations of heavenly bodies, but it’s still soooo good! The golden detailes on their faces are freaking fantastic! God, I hope someone cosplays your art, its is wonderful!

@butleronice Mischievous comet Yurio is *shakes fist* i love it!! Don’t worry Beka, someday you’ll catch that bright star for your own! (Also, Otabek’s glow-in-the-dark undercut is seriously awesome. a fashion icon Otabek.)

@_xarem You made a whole new world with just one page of art!! Fashion icon Otabek makes an appearance once again with a bomber jacket with a Scorpio design. The sky is colorful and whimsical and full of wonderful things!! Yurio in a a dark hoodie is so Yurio, haha, but the colorful background makes him look so soft, along with Beka.

@rollround Bunny Moon King Victor met Astronaut Yuuri and wants to keep him for forever! I guess this is inspired by Japanese Mythology? The colors are so bright and soft, I hope they get their happy ending ;v;

@eimqo Sara and Mila YAAAAAAS Your art style is soft and so adorable!! They’re like models of astronomy-inspired clothing and I AM LIVING FOR IT. Their headdresses are the bomb! I kinda want them for myself :D

@trinketier Chubby Astronaut Yuuri!!!!!! He looks so precious in your art 100000/10 And heavenly body Phichit looks so happy and playful here trying to tour Yuuri around Saturn(?). I kinda wanna join them on the tour!

@princebunbuns your art is so very golden!! Yuuri and Victor dripping gold is fantastic!!

@peggyshrooms’ Yuuri and Otabek portrait is beautiful. The soft colors and the shooting star, I love it. Can I ask from what constellation this is inspired from? If it has one? Thank you!! Despite space being such a dark place, your art has so much light in it that it looks heavenly!!

@winchilsea’s fic “A Long Conversation in Space” features Yuuri and Phichit as heavenly bodies talking about what they are, what they do, what they’re supposed to be, and their past experiences. Most of the phrasing is really deep, I’m not a native English speaker, so this was a little hard for me to read and understand. The use of words is wonderful, nonetheless. But I’ll be honest, this is a fic that I might need to read repeatedly before I see and understand its flow. Which is a great excuse to visit this wonderful zine again and again!

@chronovale Made an art piece where Yuuri and Victor are embracing each other literally wearing the universe! I think they’re both separate galaxies ‘cause they both have stars, planets, and moons in their clothing. But maybe they’re in the same galaxy living within each other’s space! I love it!!

@villainsbynecessity Hikoboshi and Orihime feels!!!! Your Yuuri and Victor, literal star-crossed lovers depiction is so nice!! They’re both really happy in your art, and I’m really happy with this one too :D

@zuoji I’m not very good at astronomy and I barely know any constellation, but I suppose your depiction of Yuuri and Victor are inspired by real constellations? I’m so sorry I know so little ;_; But the art is awesome!! Gladiator Yuuri kneeling before God victor is 👌👌👌

@hatepotion Are these reminiscent of Tarot cards? I also have very limited knowledge about astrology, but if they are, then Yuuri and Victor representing The Sun and The Moon are very accurate! Yuuri the solitary being that seems cold, but in truth, he’s just shy but still the brightest thing in the sky at night. Victor is the sun because people just can’t help it but want to get close to him, but he never lets them too close. But somehow, against all odds and science, these two just can’t keep their hands off each other <3 <3 <3

@maydraws_ Made the art to accompany “A Long Conversation in Space”. The mix of mythic astronomy (is that even real? I don’t know) and traditional Japanese(?) art is wonderful! It’s simple, but the earthy tones and visuals are breathtaking. It really shows Yuuri’s solemnity in the fic and Phichit’s role as his companion.

@elleshivers Are Yurio and Beka supposed to be wearing Filipino pre-colonial inspired clothing?? If so then you did a really good job!! Your art has a mythological feel to it that I just had to think that. The details on their clothing and background are fantastic!

@suppuuri Your art is pure beauty. Yuuri and Victor lovingly gazing at each other before a kiss IS. THE. JAM. Their haloes are great accessories to their pure, true love. I’m tearing up, your art is magnificent ;v;

@insecticidesoap Your short but heartwarming comics is wonderful and brought tears to my eyes! Mama Katsuki is so supportive of her baby Yuuri as an astronaut and it just filled me with warmth and so much love!!

@sparklyfawn *whispers aggresively* Alien Yuuri rescuing lost astronaut Victor!!!!!! Your depiction of alien Yuuri is so creative! And Victor’s pink astronaut suit (and the most beautiful tears in the world) is so awesome. 

@agenderemryspaperart Is this your paper art??? It’s so intricate and detailed and so unique! Do you have a story behind it? I’m guessing your art featured Yuuri and Phichit’s dorm room? Do they have figure skating in your world?? I have so many questions, but your art is still so beautiful! Yuuri in a half-man bun is also 10/10

@roselph Your short comics for “A Minor Victory” captured the fic perfectly! It was such a fun story and your art really fits the characters! Alien Victor is so funny!!

@aluhnim Long-distance relationships are hard. And you showed how strong Yuuri and Victor’s bond is, even though they live countries apart! How they show their support for each other, and promising that things between them will never change no matter how long or how much they are apart. *crying intensifies* 

@aurigaearts It’s so dark!! It’s so realistic though!! How did you do this? This is magnificent! For such a short piece, you did an amazing job delivering so many emotions with Yuuri and Victor. You gave us loneliness and hope and love with just two pages, and that takes talent! Thank you! 

@laurenbaldoart The gang exploring an alient planet with evidence of intelligent life! A movie, I say! Give this art a freaking movie! Phichit with a selfie is a must of course! Haha! Yuuri and Victor is especially sweet outside of Earth <3 <3 <3

@giftwrappingpaper Your fic was so much fun!! One of my favorites, definitely! Alien Victor falling in love at first sight at Yuuri’s true form is awesome. He definitely wasn’t disappointed. Yuuri also lowkey saving the planet earth from alien invasion possible doom is soooo him, hahaha!

@fatimajpeg I hope I got your new tumblr right! Your piece for this zine is incredible! I can feel Yuuri’s loneliness and depression. Bearing the whole of his country on his shoulders is such a huge burden, and you can really see him suffering from it. Your piece was beautiful, thank you.

@banacotta Yuuri, Victor, and Makkachin riding a boat through space! Or during an evening boat date while the starry sky is reflected on the water. This is so idyllic, I want to experience this! Your piece is so calming and such a beautiful scene of just relaxing in each other’s arms while the beautiful night sky frames their peaceful visage.

@haedraulics Astronaut x Astrophysicist/Engineer AU! And they’re engaged! Public displays of affection!! Outerspace wedding proposals!!! First meetings!!!! Everything in your comics is beautiful!!!! I LOVE IT.

@yuuris-piano your compositions are b e a u t i f u l, thank you, so very much 

@miupoke The cover you did for this zine is magnificent! The stardust that surrounded the two, emphasized by the glittering gold foil and the loving gazes made it perfect!

@nuupu The gang in outerspace wearing such fashionable astronaut clothing!! Even in outerspace, these fashion icons never disappoint! Your art is dark, but the details and their facial expressions are clear.

I assume that @roarsharktest @roadhouss​ @krayonela​ made some of the prints and/or sticker sheets? Oh gosh, I hope I did not forget anyone. If I made any mistakes, please tell me!

Thank you so, so much for this project! It has given me so much joy and happiness, and was a great early Christmas present for myself. The crew of @yoispacezine are all wonderful and amazing! Thank you for all your hard work!!! I enjoyed it so much!

[dotfalla]

Evaluation

I started pretty slow, I had decided to surround my topic on a particular article called ‘The Dark side of Oz, The Exploitation of Judy Garland’ by Neil Norman for the Express. I found out that the young actress was humiliated while working under MGM’s constraint. She was drugged, groped and isolated by the other actors. I just could not believe this happened to an actress who played a character that was a huge part of my life when I was younger. Not only do I share my name with Dorothy form The Wizard of Oz, but it was also one of my favourite movies when I was little. I think it really upset me, but I’m glad I found out, I feel like I can now, in just a tiny way, help Judy Garland by acknowledging her distress.

I understand that I got this information from an article, with no real sources or back up. I obviously didn’t want to base my entire final work on an article that was basically fake news. That is why I went and looked up the facts and figures and found, in not so many words, that this was the case. I even found that one of her ex-husbands, Randy L. Schmidt had written a whole book called ‘Judy and I’, and it was about how her life at MGM had completely formed her life as an adult and how he dealt with these issues in their marriage.

My concept was, in short, to create a hard-hitting, shocking and quite upsetting read into something more light. That is why I chose to create a coffee table book, these have huge amounts of text, in the format that is easy to read and easy to understand. (My book came out a bit smaller than a standard coffee table size but the reasons behind it are still valid). This is so, that, if wanted, a reader could pick it up, flip through it and get a good understanding of what the book is about. I feel that this is something that the final book entices; because of the texture and it’s bright colours, the reader will want to pick it up. When it is opened, the textured inserts contrast against the plain white text and therefore, aesthetically, look intriguing for the reader.

To begin, I was unsure how to pursue my final results so it was suggested to me to start experimenting, to look at metaphors for Judy Garland’s treatment, and to then relay that on paper. I was asked to think about duality, and how to visualise two entirely different worlds coming together to become Judy’s life. I tried marbling, weaving, glitching and defacing, all to get an greater understanding to how I could visualise the humiliation and ugly truth for the reader. At one point I really believed I was on for a winner when I began cutting images into little strips to weave together to create powerful imagery portraying multiple perspectives. This woven technique was inspired by an artist called David Stern who uses this method on far larger images with much smaller strips to create a really unusual and eery piece of work. Unfortunately, even though the final woven bits that I managed to create were refreshing and successful, when I tried to include them in my work, they didn't seem to have a place, this was because I still hadn't managed to decide on a final concept.

When I had my one on one tutorial with Neil, we looked through all the different types of experiments I had done and focused in on an initial first draft with small, colourful inserts. The example was just a collection of white pieces of A4 paper which had been folded into an A5 booklet. Small coloured offcuts had been placed in between the pages to create little interruptions in the clean white booklet. This was something that Neil and I really gravitated towards. We talked about how the book in questions had began to challenge the reader, and how all these interruptions were sprouting out uncontrollably. We discussed textures, and how, with these inserts, the ‘normal’ texture of a book was denied, and how, using contrast of bright, vivid intrusions, and white, pure paper the book also explored duality. It was decided to pursue an idea the the book would include the entire story of the Wizard of Oz, the happy, joyful fairytale with a happy ending, but with truthful inserts relating to the mistreatment of Judy Garland.

I began creating prototypes for this idea, I used imagery I had created from the experimental process to fill these inserts with darkness and contrast against the story book white. However, no matter how hard I tried to re-jig and change the composition up, every result was noisy. There was just too much going on with a bunch of text on both sides, and imagery smacked in the middle. That’s when I decided to take a step back and look at the idea of using the inserts as plain colour pieces and use the shocking text from the article to carry out the concept. While doing this, it wasn’t long until I realised that, if I plan to use these small inserts, I will have to booklet print, and then saddle stitch the signatures together, therefore meaning, I would need to paginate roughly 110 pages of text. To hopefully avoid this, I decided to perfect bind, however, if this were to be the case, those inserts would not be able to be placed perfectly as there would be no way of knowing exactly where they would end up in the vice, and furthermore, they would get very limited amounts of glue and might very well fall out entirely. Because of this discovery, I’ll be honest, I was completely deterred from the idea of small offcuts as inserts so I began looking at entire pages for the inserts. These would stick in a perfect bound book so much easier and the amount of interruption to the story has become even more using this method. While getting excited about these new, full page inserts, a problem solution was presented to me regarding the smaller inserts. I was told to keep the inserts with a long line up the spine, this is what would keep the insert in with out falling out because the sheet would get as much glue as possible, and you would be able to decide exactly where to put it. However, while I was very grateful for this suggestion, I had already got my eyes set for a large insert, possibly even with laser cut holes to see onto the next page.

I was really excited about this new idea, I was keeping the concept of ‘challenging the texture of a book’ but instead of small interruptions, I would make much larger ones. However, even after getting excited about a couple experiments using bright vivid colours to represent the modern connection to Judy’s story and Weinstein and #metoo movements in the current day, I wasn’t considering any of my previous experiments that I did over the Easter holiday. Therefore, I went back to looking over my trials and came across the scrunched up portraits I did, inspired by Alma Haser who uses printed photography, scrunched, over another photo. Her portraits inspire conversations about mental heath and loneliness. By using the scrunched up versions of photographs, the image becomes distorted and fuzzy. I really admired this message and used it to inspire my very own message; when scrunching up the paper, I then began to careful try to unfold it because I had forgotten to take a ‘before and after’ shot. This was when, of course, I discovered that once a picture has been screwed up, it’s impossible to flatten out and recover it. I thought this idea had many connections to Garland, how her time at MGM had been the catalyst for her downward spiral that ended with her death at 47, just 30 years after the film was made. This was when I decided to keep the colourful inserts, inspired by contemporary trends, keep them full size for easy binding and full exposure to their message but instead of place one of my visuals that I attempted, but to, instead scrunch it up like the photos by Haser. These inserts are part of the ‘reality side’, they tell of the horrid experience Garland endured, therefore they represent her and her life, it makes sense for them to be screwed up and ruined. The folds become to look like scars and small tears appear to show her submission and her weakness.

I had decided to include these bright colours, because of their contemporary link, but also because they are youthful and fun. We must remember that Judy Garland was only 16 when she began working on the film and therefore was still just a child. Instead of plucking colours out of my head, I first drew inspiration from existing Oz art from posters and book covers, I found artwork such as Mark Mahle’s and then colour swatched to get a feel of inspired choices. It was mainly greens and yellows, representing the Emerald City and the yellow brick road. These two colour visuals are very fitting to my idea, however I thought I should add another, one that I recognise, which was the blue checked dress that Dorothy wears. Using these colours, I created a gradient to decide what shades would be best suited to the story, this was when I found the idea of using a gradient told the story in itself. Starting with the blue dress, then going down the yellow road, to finally get to the Emerald City. This transpired multiple times to become a recurring gradient of blue and yellow wth green being dropped due to it’s shades resembling nastier symbolism. While making mock ups and  printing tests, it became clear that for maximum contrast against the text and the colour, the shades would need to get darker. Therefore no more light blue, because white text got lost amongst it. I ddi try a darker colour for text, but then, when placed opposite a white page with story text all over it, there was no reflection or complimenting links. I decided to go for a dark blue to coral orange to mustard yellow, and due to the looping gradient, it is mostly the yellow (representing the yellow brick road) that you see. Yellow also represents fun, happiness and joy - which relate to The Wizard of Oz tale, but contrast nicely with what the text on the inserts say, like ‘Mayer (her boss) took to groping her in his office’.

Now that I had the concept down, and knew there would be inserts every other page or so, all at different colours to represent this story-telling gradient, I made more realistic mockups to show in my final critique presentation. I asked the group if these visuals were repetitive, if the final piece would be boring and whether I should have tired something else. The group told me, in a book, these colours would break up the repetitive-ness and if I decide to use the actual scrunched up paper, rather than the scans, each insert will be different and invite the reader to feel the ridges and the texture. They assured me that the book itself would be enticing, that people would pick it up and look at it, but only if I decided to use more texture. For example, I suggested I might use an A3 version of the woven piece inspired by David Stern to create the book cover, this was received well. However, when I came to see Rich and Laura for a last catchup and tutorial the day after, I asked the same questions, and received very different answers. It was decided that the woven book cover, while it does look and feel interesting, would be a waste of time seeing as the method of attaching it to the book is still undecided, and because it really didn’t match any of the visuals or colours inside the book. As for repetition, they believed it was quite repetitive, and that perhaps I should attempt to make text bigger, change directions and be a little more different. Once I did this, suddenly the book became more punchy. The messages on the inserts became more prominent and could be read much easier. Laura suggested I make my first two introduction pages reflect each other, so that, from the very beginning, it is obvious that there is a kind of duality to this book which will later reveal itself. I thought this worked really well, it was also suggested to me to try making some of the inserts cut up, or only being able to see half of them, this would encourage the reader to turn the page and carry on reading. At first, we discussed printing half the txt on one side, the rest on the other, but then we spoke about making it fold out, giving the reader more texture and interaction with the book. This was a great idea, and while It made it slightly harder to bind, I considered this advise invaluable to my project and got it to become so much more than what I had had before the tutorial.

The novel part, the ‘fantasy’ part is something I have taken a slight risk on. I wanted it to represent the old fashioned book, just like the ones selling in 1900s when L Frank Baum wrote the book. this meant the text was small, in a serif font such as Athelas and strictly justified. While normally, I wouldn't have decided to have an entire book in justified, it was a conscious decision because, that way, the fairytale story looked so bland and dull compared to the contemporary, Futura fonts on the inserts. However, once decided, I really enjoyed the outcome with the contrasting sides.

Once my book had all the right pages in the right places, with a full guide in my notebook to follow, I was able to start thinking about how I could make the cover. It was decided that the woven piece, while it is lovely to look at, would not be appropriate for my book cover, so I began to consider different approaches. It took quite a long time to make my mind up, I was adamant I did not want a white book cover, knowing how messy they got due to fingerprints and what not, however, I could not ignore the element of innocence white brought. I wanted to have a book, that when not even open, showed the poor, innocent girl, with all these colours inside of her. Because, even though the subject matter is quite bleak, the book does not need to be made out of black paper, with dark metaphors and misery. It should be fun, bright and hopeful, it should shed light on the matter, to engage an audience and captivate interest. I used a scrunched up version of Dorothy, an image where she is looking so young, and quite scared. I printed this off, scrunched it up and scanned it directly into the photocopier machine, it then, printed out an exact copy onto my sheet of card which could then go around the book. Once bound and covered, I was able to fully evaluate my end result. It came out so well and I am very pleased with it. After all my worries about the binding process, Joseph in the binding studio helped me out and gave me lots of suggestions on how I could make the book as successful as possible. The sickness of the book, and it’s weight are really effective and this is due to the different paper thicknesses I used. I had 120gsm for most of the novel pages, with all of the inserts being 160gsm card. This made for the two sides to have even more difference and the result is really striking. When looking at the closed book, it is obvious that the cover is not at all centred, this is concourse due to the photocopier, but if I could have done this again, I would have liked to have spent a little more time on this seeing as it would not have been too difficult to print out another version with better placement. I decided not to have too many words explaining the concept, I really wanted it to come through by looking at the book and taking time to understand the reasons, however, I am now wishing I had put in another insert, a prologue before the introductions that just briefly explained the dual narrative and the contemporary influences. I decided, pretty last minute to include ‘screen-print’ style numbers over the chapter heads to relate to the merging sides, while the aesthetic looks good, I would have liked to have spent more time trying to achieve a similar result, but perhaps without merging the two ‘worlds’ and have kept them separate. I am really happy with my outcome and I think I have a clear and precise development from beginning to end with design choices that have been considered and theories and trends analysed to create a full body of work that shows off the final piece to the best of it’s possibility.

[che-an-l]

Before a book...

‘Typography’ and related quotes were our original intention.   We thought about some ways to present the word ‘Displaced’ in the book, like using the tracing paper to reveal the texts or next page, hidden messages and texts, morse code, the phonetic alphabets and different languages.

Although those ideas were good, we still needed to find the main topic and narrow it down since we had too many ideas and directions at the same time.  This was why we were a bit behind other groups while they had already on their tracks.  

After several discussions and meet-ups, we still wanted to go with the typography and quotes.  Also, this time, with a hidden word in it.  

‘Creativity’ was what we decided to put in the book.  We separated the word, and everybody got two letters to work on:

And the contents page would be like:

Then based on these positive words, we were going to find the related quotes and take photos as the background.

I got ‘T’ and ‘Y’.  So I picked ‘Tender’ and ‘Yearn’ as my keywords.  

Here’re the quotes I found:

“Everything tender and melancholy-as life is sometimes, just for one moment.”— Jean Rhys

“Dare to dream and yearn to learn to cross the boundary of fears and doubts.”— Debasish Mridha

About the typography, I tried with the writing brush first, however it looked way too big for the texts to put in a A5 sheet.  (But as the title, it fits.)

So, I tried the fountain pen.  It’s much more thinner and smaller.  I would write the quotes and the titles( Tender and Yearn), then scan them to the computer for further editing.

These are the photo I took before which I think are suitable for my keywords:

Yearn-

This was taken on a beach in my hometown, Yilan, Taiwan.  The waves are like memories and our yearn, which may come and leave immediately but it’s still somewhere out there.

Tender-

Flowers and the petals, can be soft, tender and fragile.  This was in the Botanical Gardens.

I planned to use black and white photos, however the feeling of these photos would change if it’s not in the original colour.  The colours could tell the feelings and stories, therefore I didn’t change anything on them.

Those two quotes were written in black by a LAMY fountain pen.  I quit colouring the background since that would be too much.  I like simple designs, and the photos are already colourful.

Let’s see how these four pages look:

We decided to print our book using the printer at school since the clock was ticking, and that’s the quickest and cheapest way.  The size is A5, so we were going to print them in A4, then folded into A5.  I have some bookbinding kit.  I would bring them at school so that we could finish our final step!  

It’s quite mysterious that we didn’t really know each others’ page designs until the very last moment.  So excited to see the final piece!