#bit messy. i did clean it up a bit in photoshop

[cornsarts]

So please relax Take a pain Laugh out loud When you forget your name

[snowyh2o]

Ok, so I think I’m finally sufficiently bored enough and have enough time on my hands to do this.

First post of the planned six ??? I have in mind dedicated to analyzing (every frame he’s in) Alastor and whatever his deal is in each of the episodes he shows up in!

Part 1 of Episode 1!

So let’s start right away with Episode 1! (I am skipping the pilot for now, because the characterization of his character has changed some. Particularly how he presents himself to Charlie and how he acts around Vaggie.)

First time we hear about Alastor is Vaggie mentioning he had something he wanted to show Charlie and Vaggie. This implies that while the two may have asked him to make the TV ad, he does seem eager to show off his work. And that they probably haven’t asked how much of the ad he’s finished.

First time we see Alastor is during his little TV ad!

He’s actually walking around Hell holding a camera and recording the ongoings of the sinners there, most likely what’s literally happening down the street from the hotel.

Notably, none of the demons start running away in fear, instead they all just look. Really confused.

More of them do pop out of the rubble when he starts speaking.

All of them do appear to be listening. Even the guy who was getting beat up.

Looks like he interrupted a turf war of some kind, or was recording in a place that hadn’t recovered from the extermination. Or a combination of both, this was likely recorded within 5 days of the last extermination.

When his hand appears in front of the camera the video glitches slightly.

There’s a messy static filled cut when he pans over to the hotel, so probably recorded the hotel’s image separately. Or while panning he caught himself in the camera by accident and couldn't be bothered to fix/redo it.

All the other shots of the hotel members are very clearly candid ones. So Alastor waking around the hotel recording everyone is canon, btw (someone make a comic or fic about the hotel members asking why he’s walking around recording them).

When he’s recording Charlie, Angel Dust pops up to give her 4 bunny ears and Alastor shifts the camera just slightly more to the left to recenter Charlie and push Angel a bit further out of the frame lol

He says “founded by Lucifer’s delusional daughter 5 days ago!” Which means he, at the very least, did the voice over 5 days after the hotel’s opening/extermination day, and 2 days before he shows Charlie and Vaggie the finished product. Probably spent all that time editing the whole thing lol.

Next shot of Charlie seems to have been a clip of her failed attempt at advertising the hotel’s opening from the pilot.

The next clip is actually very well edited together. It’s a still image of the hotel in the background while photos of Charlie are placed over top of it. So we know he either edited those photos to slide onscreen and added the little fwhip noise of photos being placed, or he green-screened that scene on a table and cleaned it up that you couldn’t tell it was green screened.

Also how did he get those photos? Were they just lying around?? Did he photoshop them???

By this point it’s clear he’s doing a voice over for his ad, so we don’t know if what he said at the beginning to all those sinners are what we hear in the ad, or if he was spouting off nonsense to grab their attention lol

The remaining shots of the hotel and the residents are longer clips, but also just so happen to capture the worst state the hotel is in (Husk collapsing onto the bar counter, a rafter? Beam falling and crashing onto the parlor table, Angel Dust being so done with Alastor’s bullshit he’s giving the camera a middle finger.) this implies that Alastor was either waiting around for the perfect shot, orchestrated those events himself, or by complete coincidence filmed it once and it was just Like That.

These shots are also interspersed with bold full cap messages that follow the narration he’s doing. Definitely edited in, and very reminiscent of those old informercial ads. Also the little spins and borders and sound effects and WOW.

And the fun little background music playing the entire ad.

Never caught this on the first watch through, but all the shots where Alastor’s actually recording with a camera are always slightly unsteady, like he’s doing it with a handheld recorder. Which means the shots where it’s not wobbling slightly weren’t recorded by him. Which means he actually did edit in those photos and that sound effect.

He keeps the sound of the camera zooming in and out. Actually, he didn’t edit out any of the original sound from the videos. You can hear Nifty very quietly go “Staby stab!” And the sound of the wood beam crashing into the table.

The clip of his drawing was recorded. He’s holding a camera up to the drawing instead of just taking a picture of it. You can tell because the camera slides around a little.

Lots of fun things on the drawing!

Looks like he drew the hotel on some clean, new paper, then cut it out to tape it onto something older and with a Danger: Authorized Personnel Only sign on it. Which was then stained with blood. Somehow. Or he cut out someone else’s drawing of the hotel.

There’s a lot of detail in the drawing, it looks surprisingly good, but the coloring is very low effort.

Actually, I think he stole someone else’s drawing. The handwriting for the sign on the hotel is slightly different to the one that’s scribbled everywhere else. The drawing is also done with a much finer pen than Alastor’s notes. He might’ve colored it tho, and added the little red lights to the radio tower lol

He stuck smiley face stickers all over the paper, and then drew bigger sharper smiles on them.

Sale, 50% off, $1

Ship! I guess

The sticky note with “No tacky circus decor! I promise”

“Neat”

“HOTEL!!!”

“Haha I named it!”

“Best part!” Points to the radio tower that definitely looks like he just slapped it onto the side of the building.

All his notes are written in capital letters, the handwriting isn’t bad, but it is uneven. Hard to tell if he did it on purpose or if that’s just his handwriting. They are also, for the most part, written slanted instead of straight, which is an interesting detail.

The final shot of the ad is a pan-up of the hotel. This time the camera remains steady the whole way up and even as it stops to focus on the hotel’s sign. Which we know is still a recording because the lights are flickering. This means the guy finally pulled out a camera stand or something and used it for the final shot.

Call now! Or don’t! We still don’t have a working phone!

The voice he does for the TV ad is slightly different to his normal speaking voice. I can’t tell if it’s because the filter is stronger in the ad, or if it’s because he’s actively putting on an advertisement voice, but something about the intonation or inflection sounds distinctly different when we cut back to reality and Alastor speaks normally.

Best thing about all this is how the low effortness of the ad is 100% on purpose. He could summon up an entire recording studio cast complete with all the necessary equipment. He's choosing to make it look unprofessional (and then did an absurd amount of editing for it all anyways).

Holy shit how did that get so long. What have I gotten myself into

Anyways! Alastor worked very hard on his ad, despite how low effort it seems at first. It took him like, a week to finish. And he did it all by hand/himself.

Like, guys. This is Alastor. Self proclaimed hater of all things technological after the 1930s. Made a fully edited— with music, visuals and sound effects— video advertisement for the hotel because Charlie and Vaggie “insisted” he make (a TV ad) one.

It’s well made too. 100% captured the tone he was going for. I have no idea why they didn’t like it lol

.....so I had less time than I thought I did. Gonna have to post the rest of the episode 1 analysis later.

[tacky-optic]

I saw the Lupin recolors you did (they’re amazing btw) and I’m curious how do you keep lineart so clean on your recolors? I’ve been doing some recolors recently but my technique is usually either trace the lines on top of whatever color I’m changing to which results in slightly-sloppy and inaccurate lines or I spend a million years doing masking. But yours look so clean it’s awesome! How do you do it?

Hello, anon- thank you for the kind words and for sending an ask in!!

The screenshots anon is referring to are in this post!

Sorry it took me a while to get back to you-- I wanted to make some example images to go along with this since this is a question I've gotten quite a few times. I'll try my best to answer as concisely I can!

I personally use Clip Studio Paint (which is what I'll be using to explain this), but I've also done this with Photoshop. I'm hoping this method is simple enough so that its usable for whatever program you (or whoever else sees this guide) uses.

We'll see how it goes ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Some bits to start:

I know this is kind of a no-brainer, but a big thing that always helps is image quality. The better the image quality, the less obvious your changes will be-- so make sure the screenshot you're recoloring has good resolution. This method (in theory) should work for lower res stuff too, but it'll be harder to avoid messy lines no matter how careful you are when selecting. Here's the images I'll be using for this example:

Make sure to have a backup of the original screenshot you're editing!! Even though I didn't include this in these upcoming examples, have the original below the image you're editing so you can check your progress and make sure you didn't miss any changes you wanted to make in your edit.

We'll use this pt. 4 screenshot of Lupin as our first example!

Let's say we want to make his jacket red-- it's as easy as it sounds, but it'll still take a bit of time.

I use selection tools over masking-- primarily the polyline tool. Even after testing with masking and layer overlays, this is the best way I've found to keep line integrity and cleanliness.

When you select with the tool, you'll want to go along the edge of the actual color you want to change, not the linework.

It's going to be time-consuming (which is why I only outlined his sleeve lol) but from all the testing I've done, it's what gives the nicest results. Plus we don't even have to use any layers or masks-- we can just change the color of the screenshot directly!

To do that, we'll want to find the option to change hue, saturation, and luminosity.

From here we can tweak the colors in whatever way we want without any of that ugly crunchy outline stuff or having to fiddle with a dozen different layer settings.

This way of doing it is really good for changing the hue, saturation, and darkness to whatever we want it to be without sacrificing line quality.

Here's the final:

Even though I eyeballed the color for example's sake, the final change doesn't look half bad!

The only catch I've come across is when you need to make something a lighter color. You can bring the luminosity of an image down, but once you bring it up you start having some unavoidable issues.

We'll use one of my favorite Zenigata screenshots for our second example.

Let's say we wanna change his red pt. 4 trench coat to his green one from pt. 3 (again, only changing the sleeve for time's sake).

This is a tough change since there are a lot of lines and extra details on his coat that get caught and lightened in the change.

At this point we're going to have to do some line tracing.

Yeah, I'm not a fan of this part either, but unfortunately it's another time-consuming necessity if we want an edit to look as unedited as possible. Every other method I've tried to keep the lines dark ends up really corrupting the linework already in the image.

I'm sure you've noticed the edge of the selection we made in this; even though I skipped this part for time's sake you're going to want to go over those outer lines, too.

I recommend using a simple default brush set to a size that is as close to the actual linework as you can get. If the brush you're using doesn't have tapering or line size pressure just make sure it's slightly smaller than the actual lines. Stabilization isn't exactly a requirement; I'd only suggest turning on line stabilization if you aren't very confident with your linework (practice makes perfect and all that).

When we're done, it'll be pretty obvious that we went over the lines-- there's another really simple fix I found that helps to make this a little less obvious.

Messing with the layer opacity and the blur filter helps to bring out the linework beneath what you've gone over and makes the lines look less obviously drawn in.

I'm sure you could also tweak the layer's settings until you find something that looks right, too-- it'll be the same sorta "experimenting until it looks right" deal as with changing the colors earlier.

I generally stick within the 2.5/3.5 range when blurring for decent res screenshots. In hindsight I probably went a little too low with the blur for this one, but you get the idea.

I think that it mimics the semi-blurry quality that lines tend to have in screenshots and helps to make it look less like it was drawn over.

Here's the final:

I'm sure if I bothered to do the entire trench coat it wouldn't look half bad, lol.

ANYWAYS that's a crash course on how I make lines not look like doodoo in my edits :3

Hopefully this is helpful!!

Thanks again for the ask, and if you have any more q's don't be afraid to send another ask in!🫡

[ashtcnirwin]

If you don't mind, can you explain the process behind creations like those? I dabble in Photoshop every so often but I wouldn't know where to begin with a project like that

the process goes something like find photos > click buttons in hopes that something good will happen > click more buttons > question life choices > click another handful of buttons > keep clicking on buttons until satisfied

no hgkfjfg uhhh well it's definitely a "it's not difficult or in any way technically advanced, it just takes a bit of time and patience"-type of edit, and i'm also very much an amateur at these things, which means that my process is chaotic, messy and nonsensical, so it's kinda hard to do a walk through as i bounce back and forth between steps a lot, but i can try and do a quick rundown to give you a basic idea!

using the ashton-one as an example, i started by finding the background texture and the photos of ashton i wanted to use, and then worked on finding the "perfect" placement for them on my canvas (i made the canvas 1080x1080 to fit instagram's requirements but for tumblr 540x540 would be enough). a lot of trial and error involved here, i have no idea how many photos i tried to make work but had to discard for one reason or another. once i was fairly confident i was happy with my selection, i took each photo out of the canvas, cleaned them up the best i could (remove blur, reduce colour noise, etc), then put them back in the canvas, and hardcut them and did a few small adjustments for the photos to blend in with the background (for example ashton's hand in the left-side big photo and his arm in the right-side big photo) using layer masks, leaving me with something like this

then came probably my least favourite part of making these types of things: making photos that are wildly different in terms of quality, colour, light balance, etc etc, match each other. using those adjustment layers for all they're worth bby, after which we had this

after that, i duplicated the background texture a number of times, placing them on top of all the photos of ashton, and played around with placements, layer masks and blending modes, as you can see here

with all of that, i'm left with this

after that, it's a whoooole lot of adjustment layers placed on top of all the other layers to achieve whatever colour scheme it is you're aiming for. i just counted and for the edit to go from the photo above to the one below, it took 18 adjustment layers (mainly curves, exposure, selective colour and colour balance, but also a gradient map and a colour lookup)

(oh and i also set the layer style of all the photos except the two big ones to outer glow at 75-70-70 for opacity, size and range)

then i stamped the whole thing, threw a quick little smart sharpen at it (i thinkkk i used 200-0,2-50 as my settings but don't quote me on it), and...that's it!

[lilygreyham]

Fundamentals 1: Week 6

29th March

In this week's class we learnt about compositing by using Photoshop and Illustrator together. We were given this photo seen below of a man jumping in a karate action position. Our goal here was to use our skills and selection tools to create a mask and cut the man out of the photo.

Already I could tell that this was going to be difficult from looking at his hair. But we started just by getting a basic selection around him to create the mask and then we can erase/ blur out necessary parts later.

I decided to use the magnetic lasso tool as I thought it was quite handy for getting around awkward edges. It was definitely a slower process than others but it is definitely more accurate which saves me time in erasing parts that I don't want. As you can see above I managed to get quite a neat and tidy selection around most of the body. The hair was a bit of a messy selection but we'll fix that up once we've created the mask.

I created the mask and got rid of the background and added a layer of dark blue (or purple apparently once I put it up on Tumblr) to help me see what parts in the outline I needed to erase or blur out so that I could get a clean finish and it would help me create a realistic end result. The image above is what the mask looked like once I had finished erasing all of the excess light and colour around the mask. I was pretty happy with this as we moved on to the next task. Toby asked us to open up Illustrator and create a thick squiggle line vaguely following the one that he drew himself. Here's what mine looked like:

We saved this as a normal file on Illustrator onto our desktop. We then opened it up on Photoshop by choosing the option "Place Linked" from the file menu. Through that we placed the squiggle onto the file with the mask of the jumping man. Toby then showed us that through the linked image, if we made any changes to the file on Illustrator it would then update and change the file shown on Photoshop. Here is where it got a little bit tricky as Toby explained that we would make the squiggle appear to be wrapping around the man.

What we did was create a copy of the squiggle layer and make sure that the order of layers had a squiggle layer underneath the jumping man mask and a copy of the squiggle layer on top. We then used the lasso tool to select the area of the squiggle that was covering the middle of the man's body and turned that into a mask. You can see in the image below how the layers are set up and even how the mask of the top squiggle layer is cut so that only that part of the squiggle is covering the man's body. (I actually thought this was a really cool edit to do). After that I got rid of the coloured background and was left with this man and some squiggles.

Next, Toby asked us to find an image that we could then place this on to. I decided to go with a sandy beach photo as it seemed like a legitimate place that a man would be jumping (not sure if that actually matters). After using the image I realised that the lighting on the man and the lighting in the beach photo didn't quite match up but at the end of a long day I was pretty happy with how it looked.

I really enjoyed this class as I learnt how to make quite a fun photo edit by using both Photoshop and Illustrator, and learning about how those two softwares can work together with interchangeable files. It also started to give me more confidence in my photoshopping abilities when it comes to cutting out an image and making it look tidy so that I could place it into another photo where it would look realistic as if it belonged there. I'm really enjoying learning some more advanced techniques and I feel like I have come a long way from the beginning of this Fundamentals class where I didn't even know how to get around Photoshop or Illustrator. I'm happy with the progress I have made over these six classes so far and I'm excited to see what we do next!

[ashmcfarlane]

Jumping man

Composite image creation task. We have been tasked to edit an image of a jumping man. First we had to select the man to be seperate from the background, which was a similar process to what we learned last week using the layer masking tool. Firstly I used the object slection tool, but it is not the most precise and it ended up cropping an arm off and attached some of the background to the man. Had to fix it up a fair bit in the masking to get the man selected.

Cutting him out of the background was a massive struggle considering the shapes complexity, but once I got into the groove of it, it became quite easy. To cut him out (using the layer mask filter) I used a mix of the pen tool, polyagonal lasso, and brush - To either mask or unmask parts of the original image. I definitely could have put more time into the cutting to make it cleaner.

For outlining hair I had to use a mix of oppacities to make it look natural, since a lot of the hair isnt a solid colour/shape as it thins out into the background.

After he was fully selected (took a very long time) we then exported and linked the selection to illustrator and drew a backwards 'S' shape over the man. Then once we saved the file in illustrator it would then update the file in photoshop (linked), meaning we could see the edits done from illustrator, in photoshop.

The shape was infront of him, but I wanted the effect of it wrapping around him. So o then selectected the part of the 'S' that overlaps his waist and then masked it. I pushed the original shape under the 'jumping man' layer. This made the area infront of his waist visible with the other two over lapping segments behind him. so it looked like the shape is wrapping around him. He was inbetween two layers, the part that overlaps his waist (top) and the rest of the 'S' (bottom).

I then begain editing the 'S' in illustrator, it was originally a path with a stroke, but i decided to be different and swap the stroke with the fill to give it a more abstract 'S' shape. I decided to go for pink and blue for a more retro colour pallette. Once I'd save the file in illustrator, it would then update it back in photoshop.

I added a gradient on part of the shape to act as a hole/shadow for where the mans leg is sticking out. Played around the the colour intensities and layout of the shapes (circles and lines) to have it be more balanced.

I then added a hyperspace backdrop to show the messy chaotic abstract theme of the piece. Blends futuristic and avant-garde elements together.

Also did the same layer mask effect to cut out the cats, as the task said I had to add two other images to the project. (cats were a good choice)

Used the objects selection on the first cat, the edited and cleaned it up under layer mask.

Used good colour correction to fix up the edges of the cat, like I learned in last weeks class. I used a low opacity brush using the average colour of the orange cat to cover up the harsh, dark brown edging of the cat that occured from the object selection. Also used the polyagonal lasso tool to select the cats whiskers. Not the most realistic but the cats aren't the focal point of the image.

I moved the cats to wear I think is fitting and then used the smudge tool over the cats to make it looks as if they are getting sucked into hyperspace.

Had a lot of fun creating this, learned heaps. I had no clue you could link layers from illlustrator to photoshop. Also the simplicity of overlapping shapes to complicated images is very good to know. This style can come in very handy for creating bold posters or graphics. I'm happy with the outcome. This man is going on a spiritual journey like no other.

[mi401leiascott]

Photos: These are photos I have edited to make them feel more cleaned up or to have an airport background. I tried to find ones that differ from each other in colours, moods, and angles. In Picture A, there wasn’t much editing I had done. The first step was zooming in the image, second was selecting around the model then cutting it out and lastly was finding an image to put in the foreground. So once I found an image, I then blurred that image and then changed around the values to blue to match the image. I was happy with the lighting and felt that it didn’t need that much editing. The only thing I would say that could be improved is the black line underneath the hallway. It looks messy in hindi sight because of how much I tried to make it not look photoshopped. Other than that, I had picked photo A because it had a warm feeling about the image yet it was quite sad. It gave a sense of hope and goodwill to the main character. That it will get better for him and the audiences.

In picture B, there was a lot of lighting and contrasting that I did. The balance was put in to make the image pop. More contrast was brought in to show more of the green and orange. Then I put in more green in by drawing more green over it with an overlay. Reduced the harsh line with the blur tool. After that, I was happy with the overall result. I went with this image as well to contrast A, the picture shows the dark sides. It is made to make you feel scared and worried for the character.

With picture C is my least favourite because I made more mistakes when I tried to clean up. I tried selecting an area, copying that area and tried pasting over the gaps. The first mistake was trying to blend it but it ended up having a patchy look. Then when I tried covering the white bits of glue up by painting over it, it ended up looking just plastered on and unnatural. So, I went back in again to fix those tiny mistakes by blending the shadows more, adding more painting over the top, and liquefying the sign so that it was skinnier. I also added the burger king logo because I wasn’t pleased with the glue being unclear on what it said. It is now to the point where I am content with the look. For this image, it was to compare the two images. B showed failure of the place and C showed success with a lighter green. The yellow is now used for absolute joy, pride and optimism.

Lastly picture D, this one also didn't do too much editing either though there was some tightening up. I painted over the missing gaps, grabbed a picture of an airport, then multiplied the image and erased the areas. The picture now shows a strange side to the terminal. Almost like it's a twilight zone, it is like being stuck between space and time.

[ifritcookie]

Honestly I just use my standard painting brush (I use Photoshop CC and its one of the defaults that comes with it; haven't used Procreate in years unfortunately!), but for the purposes of narrowing your search, I think any brush with a lightly textured and possibly a bit faded edge (or ability to fade with pen pressure which is what mine does) would work! Mine is specifically meant to emulate oil paint, but I use it for everything lol. It's oval-shaped and has edges with varying amounts of texture/feathering (the left side is pretty smooth, the right side is highly textured)

I am gonna go into detail on points of interest with the art style as a whole and how I view and would tackle them, assuming anyone else may see this post in the future that is looking for a guide on the gacha pull art style. So not all of this advice may cater to you OP and I will likely overexplain stuff; it is also going to get long so here, have a read more break.

From studying the gacha pull art it does look like they alternate between more faded/textured and hard, straight edges. There doesn't seem to be much else outside of gradients, which may or may not be hand-drawn (hard to tell, sometimes they look like it and sometimes they don't). The lineart I feel like is just a hard round brush/pen that they paint over in some areas or mix with the shading. It's not always the "cleanest" artwork in all areas either and I think that's good to keep in mind. Some areas are just messy or wobbly-lined or whatever. Some areas have clearly been deformed/squashed/stretched/warped, which isn't noticeable when animated because their animation style is just warping the art in certain spots anyways.

(My references for this analysis; I usually use the Carrow art as my drawing ref but also wanted to ref Devsisters' most recent CR:K gacha art at the time of writing this, so have a Pitaya too.)

For the soft textured fades (Pitaya's armor highlights, Carrow's hair), likely any lightly textured brush (I wouldn't go for a grunge or cloud brush or airbrush, that's too much and too loose) that you can layer over top in multiple strokes would be how I would get that look. A brush with varying levels of edge texture/fading/softness is nice because I can also do the hard edged shading and lineart too with the same brush, and they likely do similar because you can occasionally see areas where it transitions from hard-edged to more faded like the artist let up on their pen pressure or didn't clean up the edge fully (the shading on Pitaya's wings and hair). If you can't use/find a textured brush I would go for a brush with a semi-soft edge. Not a bonafide airbrush, that doesn't have enough substance; not a hard-edged brush because you'll be rendering and trying to get that soft feeling forever. In Photoshop I'd likely use my 50% or 70% hard edge brush (higher percentages being harder-edged).

Here's a couple of tests I did with the mentioned brushes! For my painting brush I used all the same brush; for the other two I started with a hard round brush, and then went to the one w/ the faded edge for the faded area. All of them I started with the blue color first and then went back in with the white to achieve a smoother effect, I couldn't do it with just the one color. For the faded areas like on Carrow's hair streaks or some areas of the colored lineart, I'd just leave my brushwork more streaky and not do as thorough of a pass with the white/base color. To me it looks like they soften certain edges more than make a genuine fade or gradient, at times.

Hopefully any of this makes sense or is useful to someone! I wish I could provide brush recommendations but I download so few custom brushes these days that I just don't know any. I used to be a brush fiend, but I stick to just one or two brushes for most of my work atm.

I also haven't ever tried to draw or emulate the decor assets before so I can't provide any advice there, sorry! (Decor is not my thing I hate drawing Objects and Items and especially Buildings)

has anyone managed to find/make brushes that emulate the more detailed crk art style? preferably for procreate but any in general would be cool to know about 😊👍

[usersitcom]

hi i absolutely love your header! do you mind giving a tutorial on how you made it?

yeah ofc!

I did not save the final psd for that gif so this turned out a bit different than the actual header but the process—which assumes some photoshop familiarity, but includes lots of examples—is the same and gets us really close

if anything feels skipped, confusing, or glossed over, pls feel free to ask questions 😊

FOREGROUND — alright so we’ve got a shot of lexi from saved by the bell

— before cropping, convert to smart object at its full size so it’ll retain its quality in case there’s any need to resize later

— then just crop to mobile header dimensions: 640 x 360. and adjust the shot until it fills that space the way you’d like

— there are a few ways to mask but for a still frame esp, I think the easiest is object selection (W) because you get pretty clean edges. I find rectangle mode misses too much, so set it to lasso mode on ‘add to selection’

I missed the entire desk but bc of add to selection, I can just loop around and add it without losing what’s already selected

you’ll notice you truly do not need a steady hand for this, just get close and the tool will do the heavy lifting

— add a layer mask

— then just brush over the missed parts (like the edge of the desk) and erase the extra (like where it caught some of the bookshelf by her shoes)

— so that’s pretty clean except there’s a noticeable stroke around the layer (much more obvious against a background). if there’s a way to avoid this idk what it is! but it's simple enough to get rid of with the brush. in this case I used 10px at 60% hardness + 100% smoothing

— so now you can make any adjustments on coloring and sharpening. running through it really quickly, I got this

— and that looks fine so the foreground is done!

BACKGROUND — for the background, just add a gradient layer

OVERLAY — the overlay is from this pack: https://www.deviantart.com/scottvandyne/art/GIF-OVERLAYS-PACK-by-scottvandyne-796712849

like i mentioned, I do not have a psd for our header but the first overlay in the pack works the same as any of the others, so I’ll be using 'falling sparkles' for this tutorial. but there are like 43 options. lots to have fun with

anyway

— create video timeline if you haven’t already

— open the overlay psd of your choosing. drag (or copy then paste) it into the header file above the gradient

— this overlay is only 500 x 281. you can duplicate it to cover the extra space but it’s honestly not that much smaller so I just resized it

— blending will get rid of the black background and just leave the sparkles

if you want dark or colorful sparkles you could invert and/or use the other modes (really good video on the topic btw: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1D9ijh3_-I), but we’re gonna keep white sparkles over the gradient, so we only want the lightening modes

literally any one of them work fine, it’s just a matter of preference. I am always a sucker for linear dodge (add) which gives us this:

BORDER

— you could do what I’m entirely sure I originally did and pull a vector off pixabay if not google tbh and then clip layers to it and use masks and do too much

however pen tool is quicker + less messy

— use the curvature pen tool. as you leave anchor points, it will curve the line for you. it doesn’t matter what color you use (esp since you can alter it later) but stroke will determine how thick the upper line is

tweak the anchor points to clean up curves

— copy the line shape layer, then paste in place (ctrl + shift + v)

— raise one line higher, leaving a gap between them at whatever thickness you like

— rasterize the lower line, use the magic wand to select both the line and the empty space below it

then brush over everything

— when you brush over the selection, you lose smoothness. there’s a trick to smoothing it out but honestly just copy the upper line (which should still be a shape layer), paste in place, and lower until it rests just above the rasterized layer. same effect, no brainpower

just to show the difference:

— and that’s it! just save as a gif and you’re good to go!

ok sike. actually the overlay is a good 200ish frames so whether you export from timeline or flatten to clips/convert to frames, remember to shorten the work area first

— ok that’s it for real this time!

vs. the original. not too far off!

[marycecilyy]

Hey could you do headcanons for the mcl guys (or if not all of them castiel, armin, and kentin) when their S/O is a famous singer? Thank you❤

Oh god this turned out so longer than I expected huahahushaushu

First of all, these are too long to be headcanons, all three of them have more than 1k words each. Also, I changed a bit the prompt. It's more like "Candy has the dream of becoming a famous singer". The rest you'll see... I'll only say that I'm very proud of this one ;)

Castiel, Armin and Kentin with a Candy that wishes to be a famous singer

Castiel

Castiel wasn’t one to be friendly to new students, but he knew you weren’t like any other when you came to him and asked if Winged Skull was one of his favorite bands too. He was shocked to know that there was another person at Sweet Amoris who enjoyed the same bands as him. Yes, bands (in plural). After he answered that, yes, Winged Skull was his favorite band of all times, you started talking about your common interests and discovered that there were many.

He was a very closed off guy, but somehow you managed to break into his skull in a short time and, in a few months, you turned into best friends.

When Debrah came back and that whole situation happened, your fight with Castiel had a lot of impact over you. In your head, you had just lost your best friend forever. Fortunately. Lysander not only helped you recover from the blow and gave you energy to gather your friends and expose Debrah, but also helped you admit to yourself that, you did have feelings for Castiel.

Once she was unmasked and ran away like a coward, things quickly came back to normal. In less than one week, you had restored your reputation, your friends apologized for misjudging you, Castiel and you were once again friends. The only difference was that you knew that you were in love with him.

You didn’t tell him about your feelings right away, you decided to keep your friendship and focus a bit on your lifelong goal: become a music star. You started learning how to sing properly and doubled the days of your guitar lessons. Castiel even helped you get into the music club (they were full when you got into Sweet Amoris, but he found a way to enroll you).

You knew that your chances of actually becoming famous were pretty low, the market was difficult and depended a lot on having the right contacts. That was why, while you tried putting your name out there, your plan was to get a degree in music as soon as you finished high school. Antheros Academy offered a good education and was close, it was your best option.

As you channeled your energies towards your goal, Castiel started to acknowledge his own sentiment towards you. He liked to watch your focused face as you tuned your guitar and your singing voice earned a sweet accent all of the sudden. He always considered you a special girl, but, to his surprise, feelings were starting to develop inside his closed off chest.

That was why, as soon as he won those concert tickets on a raffle, he knew he’d take you there as your first date. Luckily for him, you accepted right away. Castiel had a feeling that night would be something else.

And it really was, as he kissed you, without even thinking it through, when the vocalist sung what he knew was your favorite tune. When you kissed him back, he wrapped his hands over your waist and lifted you up, feeling your warm lips open up for him.

The months that followed were full of bliss. With you and Castiel officially dating, the school had a lot to talk about. Amber pestered you quite a bunch of times, but that didn’t mess with your relationship at all. Everything was perfect, as it was supposed to be.

But that didn’t last long. Right after you finished high school, your dad had to move to another town because of his job and you had no choice but to go too. You were sure that your relationship would survive the distance, after all, you were in love. This situation would be worked out.

Castiel came to your new house a couple of times and you two called frequently, but in the end distance started to grow between the both of you… and it hurt. Knowing that Castiel was sad made you miserable and you decided to break up before it became unbearable.

You lost your count of how many nights you cried thinking about him.

4 years later.

You were zipping your jeans up when you heard a knock on your dressing room’s door. Who could it be? Your parents had already congratulated you over the phone, there was no one supposed to come that night. Did your manager schedule a press interview for after the show?

You put on your shirt and told whoever was on the other side to wait. When you finally opened the door, your jaw almost fell. You couldn’t believe he was there.

He looked exactly like in the magazines, (a bit less photoshopped, but that was to expect. You went through that as well and it sucked). His hair was shoulder-length and he wore a black shirt that showed off the tattoos up to the middle of his arm. He wore some light makeup, most on his skin, which you deduced his manager made him put on. Castiel looked like you expected him to after all those years, but one thing about him surprised you.

His eyes, although more mature and serious, had the same brightness as before.

"Are ya going to keep staring like that?” He asked and you noticed you had just been looking at him for a solid minute.

“Sorry. Come in.” You said and made space for him to enter the room. For your luck, there was nothing private to be seen, you had the habit of leaving your clothes and personal belongings messy and only cleaning up the second you had to go.

Castiel cleared his throat. An awkward silence hung between you. You hadn’t been alone with each other ever since the breakup. You two were two of the biggest stars of nowadays rock music, but you barely had any opportunity to talk. Not that you haven’t tried, it was the opposite. You avoided contact. Your fans knew you had dated in high school (you used to have pictures on your personal instagrams and fans were quick to dig over old accounts to find information about their idols), so they never expected a feat or any kind of collab. Everyone knew that you weren’t on best terms.

You remembered just a couple of days ago, when you were interviewed for one of those talk shows. The host made a lot of personal questions about Castiel and even asked if you would get back with him if you had the chance. You tried to avoid answering, but the public instantly read your unconscious signs: yes, you would.

That was why, you assumed, he was there. To make things clear. After all, because of you yours and his fans started shipping you two and got you on twitter’s trending topics. He probably was pissed. There was also a possibility of him wanting to take advantage of the situation, maybe propose a fake relationship? No, that wasn’t like him. Or was it? You barely knew him anymore.

“So… you probably guessed why I’m here. I saw your interview” You were right, then. “And I want to make things clear.” Ouch. You should prepare for the blow. “Look, we both know time has passed and we’re not the same as before. You broke up to avoid more suffering, and I get that. I really do.”

Castiel crossed his arms and glared at you. You looked back at him with fear, fear of knowing what his next words would be. “But...?” You asked.

“Tsk.” He huffed. This would be more difficult than he thought. “Look, little girl…” You felt a shiver run through your spine at the sound of the old nickname he gave you. You had always loved it, even though you didn’t say it out loud. After what felt like hours, he continued. “I don’t want to be cheesy, that’s not like me. So I’ll just say that if what all of the fans are theorizing is true.... If you do want to try again....”

Castiel took your hand and you jumped in surprise. He turned your palm to him and grabbed a pen from his back pocket. He wrote down a phone number on your hand and let go of it, capped the pen and turned around to go.

"That's my personal number. It’s pretty useful if you wanna call me without having to schedule an appointment with my manager.” You managed to laugh. You knew exactly how these things were annoying.

Inside, you were bursting with excitement. However, you answered playfully “Hm…. I’ll think about it, mr. Rockstar” Castiel chuckled and excused himself, saying that his manager would get pissed at him if he took too long. You smiled.

Maybe it was not over, after all.

Armin

When you told Armin, very early on your friendship, that your dream was to become a famous singer, he got so excited for you. He already knew that you played the guitar and was good at singing, but he had no idea that you wanted to make this your career path.

You couldn’t have chosen a better partner. Being the tech nerd that Armin was, he helped you a lot in recording your covers with the best quality possible considering the amateur camera and microphone you had.

However, the times that his presence most comforted you was when you showed him your new songs. He was always eager to see your composing progress and gave you pure honesty in his feedback, keeping in mind that he was no expert but still wanted to help you.

You always asked him for a way to return his favors, but he always said that it was his duty as your best friend to support you and that it was more than enough having you to talk about all his geek interests.

As time passed, you started to notice that you liked him way more as a friend. Without an idea of what to do, you asked Rosa and Alexy for advice. They were your closest friends apart from your crush (and you couldn’t run to him in that situation, duh)

After a dozen pro tips and date ideas from them, you decided to take Armin to the movies (basic, you knew, but couldn’t go wrong).

When you asked him if he was available Saturday night, you didn’t say properly “Hey, we’re going on a date”. Actually, you didn’t mention the word “date” at all, hoping that he would read between the lines.

And he did, because as soon as you sat and the film started, Armin grabbed your hand that was resting in the armrest and entwined your fingers. You couldn’t pay attention to what was going on screen at all and your attention was completely drawn from the movie when the boy grabbed your chin and brought your lips to his.

You only stopped kissing when the lights went on and the credits started scrolling.

“Hey…” You asked as soon as you two left the place, holding hands with him. “What was the movie about again?”

Armin laughed out loud. He teased you about it a lot before you made him confess that he didn’t know either.

A few days later, it was him who asked you out. You kept going on dates for the next week, all of them simple but interesting at the same time. However, you two weren’t dating. The whole school knew there was something going on between you two by the chuckles and timid kisses when you thought nobody saw them, but you didn’t make things official… yet. But that was about to change.

It was friday and you invited Armin over to “study” (he was sure that the afternoon would be spent between videogames and kisses, but if you wanted to call it a study session, it was okay for him).

As he comfortably sat on your bed as if it were his own, you told him to wait as you brought him some juice. When you came back, he was already grabbing his nintendo switch from his bag.

“What makes you think that we’re here to game?” You teased, handing him the glass.

“Come on, Candy, we both know that none of us are interested in learning orbital hybridization…”

“Maybe I am. I really need a good grade on those tests.” You approached him and held his jaw up so your foreheads touched. With a trailed voice, you continued. “Unless you have something more interesting to do in mind...”

Armin opened up that playful smile of his. “Oh, I do, actually.” In a quick movement that caught you off guard, he threw you in bed and started pampering you with kisses all over your face. You couldn’t stop laughing from how his hands tickled your belly, but you managed to stop him. “W-Wait, Armin!”

He looked at you, confused. “What?”

As you caught your breath, you explained that there was something you wanted to show him first. You got off the bed and went to grab your guitar that was hung up on the free wall of your bedroom.

“Did you compose a new song?” Armin deducted as you sat in front of him again, this time with your guitar in hands.

“You’ll see.” You tuned your instrument under his curious gaze. When you felt satisfied with the sound, you looked back at him. Armin didn’t miss the blush that coloured your cheeks. “I know you’d never do it, but I have to ask even so: promise you won’t laugh.”

You started playing the first chords of the song you had finished composing just a few days before. Usually, you composed simple songs that anyone could identify with, songs about friendship, inspiration, changing the world. You never wrote about your personal feelings. The notes never made you cry.

This song was special, though, because it was about him.

The day it hit you that you had feelings for him, you had the idea of writing random verses that could one day fit into a new song. After your first date, you felt so overwhelmed that, looking at the words, you decided to turn them into a song. You didn’t think it would turn into something so personal and emotional. Every note, every word, everything was clearly about him, that dorky geek you had fallen in love with.

Falling deeper every time

I can’t help but think, oh my

I’m through, but I don’t mind

Would you trade you 2D girls

For this hopeless lover

That just wants your heart?

I’ll just say that he got the message very clearly and, as soon as you finished playing, he practically jumped on you, kissing your lips with such tenderness that you almost teared up.

Of course, he asked you to be his girlfriend XD

Kentin

The first time he heard about your dream, he was still little Ken. It was one of your first days at Sweet Amoris and you two were eating cookies in the staircase. You were ranting about how sad you were that the music club was already full and you couldn’t join. Ken asked you the reason why you were so upset.

“Well… There weren’t those kind of classes in our old school. Learning how to play an instrument and sing, even during extra classes would be so cool! If I went well, maybe I’d be able to convince my dad to pay me for some private classes and then I’d be one step closer to my dream!”

“Your dream?” Ken muttered.

“Yeah! I want to become a famous singer in the future! I know that it’s impossible and even kinda silly, but-”

“No, Candy! It’s not silly at all!” Ken said. Learning more about you made him happy and he didn’t want you to think for even a second that your dream was worthless. “You shouldn't be ashamed of dreaming big. You’ll have a long, difficult path to walk through, but when you get there - and you have my word on that - I’ll be cheering for you!”

“Ken... “ You flashed your best smile at him. It meant a lot to you to have his support, he was a kind person and a very good friend (he did cross a few limits with his adoration for you, but you weren’t bothered by it). You liked being around him a lot.

-x-

“Kentin!” You threw yourself in his arms and gave him a tender kiss. “Good morning.”

Your boyfriend chuckled and held your hand, walking with you through the hallway. You talked about how your weekend had been and, between light smiles and sweet kisses, you thought of how quickly things changed between you two.

When he came back from military school, a lot of things had changed in him, including his nickname. You were facing a new person and it had been a challenge discovering Kentin and building a new relationship with him.

Even though he was a different person from before, one thing didn’t change at all and you noticed it clearly: he still liked you. Obviously he was no longer that guy who professed his feelings to everyone and followed you everywhere, he had found new ways to show you his love. You enjoyed that more mature version of him, but wished he had the opportunity to grow into a man without all the trauma he went through. You knew that most of his growth had been through suffering, and that upset you.

You didn’t know when, but somewhere into your friendship you started to grow feelings for him too. After some coaxing from Rosa and Alexy, you managed to ask him out on an official date.

The whole school already knew that Kentin was head over heels for you, but everyone was shocked to know that you loved him back as your relationship became official.

“Hey, love.”

“What?” You asked your boyfriend back as soon as you got in front of your lockers. You started looking for your books, checking that day’s classes.

“I really liked that video you posted on youtube yesterday. I never heard that song before, did you compose it yourself?”

The book you held in your hand fell to the ground. “What video?” You whispered, eyes wide.

“What do you mean, babe? That video of you singing and playing the guitar. You uploaded it yesterday night. I saw right away, you know I have my notifications turned on to all your videos. I got surprised that you decided to finally show your face and sing something of your own and- Candy? Is everything okay?”

Kentin noticed your face and got worried for you. You looked absolutely terrified.

“That video… How did you see it? I posted it as private”

“No, you didn't. It was public.” Kentin was starting to understand why you were so surprised. He put one hand on your back as you blushed and hid your face on his chest in embarrassment.

“Oh god, I can’t believe I did that! I’m so stupid! The first time I record something like that, I accidentally post it for everyone to see! Dumb, dumb Candy! Dang, now everyone’s gonna know I’m bad!”

“First of all.” Your boyfriend frowned, bringing you close to him. “You’re not dumb, you just made a mistake. And it’s okay, probably just a few people saw it. Last time I checked was before I went to sleep and it only had 20 views. But why are you so upset, Candy? Didn’t you tell me a few days ago that you were finally ready to show your face along with the covers. Did something happen to change your mind?”

“Well, I was not ready to show right away, especially not in a video that I looked terrible in. And it’s not just that. It was my first original song. I never showed it to anyone, what if it sucks?”

Kentin held your chin up and looked you in the eyes. “Candy, it doesn’t suck and you look great in the video!” You closed your eyes and snuggled close to him. “But I understand your concerns. Luckily, that can be solved if you delete the video. You’ll have other opportunities to get famous, and with better videos.”

“Yeah, I can do that.” You reached for your phone and went to your youtube page. “Fu... No way…!”

Your hands trembled. Kentin was right, the video had few views (which was good). Only 50 people had seen it, but the problem wasn’t that. For your bad luck, one of those people had been Amber. You knew that because she had left three comments on your video.

AmberOfficial: lmaooooo

AmberOfficial: Thank you for the laughs. That’s hilarious

AmberOfficial: Just give up already, looser

“That girl....” Kentin grunted, looking at your phone screen. “I swear to you, Candy, I’ll make her regret this. I’ll-”

“You don’t need to, I’m fine.”

You untangled your arms from his torso and started walking away, trying your best to hide how upset you really were. Amber was right, your music sucked. You should give up on your dream of becoming a famous singer, not only because you were bad, but also because you could barely show your face to a few people without feeling like shit. You wouldn’t be able to deal with fame.

Kentin tried to call you, but you didn’t answer. He figured you needed some time alone. He could use that time to think of something to support you and get back at Amber.

-x-

You walked out of the bathroom, your eyes red and swollen from crying. You had already deleted the video, but you couldn’t stop feeling stupid for getting so upset by a few bad comments. And feeling stupid made you even more upset.

When you got to the hallway, it was empty due to classes having already started. You probably spent half an hour locked up, but at least no one would mess with you.

You went to the garden to get some fresh air and wait until the next class started. You sat at the bench, breathed in and finally calmed down a bit.

“Candy.”

You turned around, surprised to see your boyfriend. “Kentin! What are you doing here? Classes have already started.”

He just waved his hand in a “don’t worry about that” way and sat beside you. He kissed your cheek and took your hand, checking how you were. Seeing that you seemed to be more calm, he smiled lightly at you. “So… I talked to Armin. He already found out Amber’s password and he’ll hack into Amber’s youtube account. He’ll just mess with it for a bit, delete some videos and upload some random stuff. Nothing too bad, I promise, just some memes and rickrolls.”

“Hmm…” You muttered, thinking about what he said. It wasn’t right, for sure, but you didn’t feel like stopping them. You were still hurt. “Okay. Just promise you two won’t do something serious, okay?”

He agreed. You felt a bit better, but that wasn’t enough to lift your mood and Kentin knew that. That was why he also had something else prepared. "That 's not all. I did some quick search for places where you could record that music of yours with its deserved quality. You are a good composer, Candy, believe it. Your talent doesn’t have to stay hidden in a dark room with only you, a guitar and your cellphone recording it.”

“Kentin…”

“If you want to, I’ll help you rent a studio and record your song. That would be very useful for your portfolio. I know that’s expensive, but we can find ways to-” You cut him off with a kiss. He cared about you so much, to the point of skipping classes to think of ways to make you feel better. You loved your boyfriend so much…

Lucky. You felt lucky to have him.

“I love you. Thank you for taking care of me... “ You kissed his cheek, happy to have his support. That was more than enough at that moment, Amber’s words were far behind you. All that mattered was that you could go through this.

You had Kentin, and when you had him, you had your whole world holding you so you wouldn’t fall.

[miss-bvnny]

It's my birthday so I can finally be cringe legally. So, here's some bits and pieces of something that I've been playing with off and on since about June. As I sit here and finish off the last of my birthday sushi, I ask myself what I'd regret more: NOT sharing something I'm admittedly proud to have slaved over played around with for the last few months, OR the fact that this basically spells out how I'm a LeFou stan. Oh well. There's only one way to find out.

''One evening, whilst being dragged along on a hunting trip with his self-absorbed meathead of a stepbrother, LeFou gets lost and ends up at a mysterious castle forgotten by time, hiding a secret far more mysterious and peculiar than anything anyone's seen before. But at the same time it is, in every way possible, a tale as old as time.''

There's a whole lotta words to be said about all of this junk, so I'll put it under a readmore for the convenience of all. Please don't be mean to me about my interests.

Sketches 1 and 2 - First (Left) and final (Right) pass of Beast!Nicole

I was very tense in life and about this entire idea when I first started to dip my toes into it, and that definitely translates into my first try at drawing Beast!Nicole. Much like the Beast in the original 1991 Disney classic that has luckily never been turned into an ugly abomination of a live action cash grab remake, I tried to mix several animals in her design. She's got the lower half and tail of a wolf, upper torso of a lion, and her head...where it gets messy. I've always loved the designs of the hyenas in The Lion King, so I drew inspiration from Shenzi for her neck and part of her head. Her mouth/muzzle however is based on some of those cursed photoshops of horses with wolf teeth:

I can remember I'd JUST come back from seeing a special showing of Kung Fu Panda 2 the morning I drew the very first one of Nicole, and I've always LOVED Boss Wolf. I think you can see just a BIT of inspiration from his body shape looking at her. It probably comes across a bit better in the final when I cleaned her up somewhat. I hate looking at that first one so much, actually. It's so unforgivably clunky. BUT I did get the hang of her with time, hence the second pass. Wanna know a fun fact? Those colors were originally just something I kinda slapped together as placeholders. But...I grew pretty attached to them, so they stayed. There is...almost a month between her initial test and her final, btw.

Sketch 2 - Expression test/me having some fun

Yeahhh there was a time when I had no idea how far I was gonna actually try and go with this stuff, so I just kinda...played with it. Beast!Nicole is a treat to draw, so I jumped at any excuse to sketch her. Where the Beast in the movie had to learn to be bit more of a gentleman and control his temper, Nicole is...prone to impatience and outbursts under extreme stress. In this AU, she was forced to take the throne at a young age after the death of the previous king and queen. Going from a teenager to a ruler almost overnight weighed heavily on her, and she's got a short fuse. The night o the party in which the enchantress cursed her was a result of her breaking down and not thinking. I know there's debate in some places about whether or not the enchantress was right to curse an 11 year old prince for denying entry to a stranger, so...I tried to make this version a bit more...ambiguous on who's at fault. Maybe Nicole was being hasty, and maybe the enchantress was wrong to condemn a teenager to Eternal Fursuit just for trying to abide by stranger danger rules. IDK.

Side note - I can't help but imagine that in her Beast form, Nicole sounds like April Winchell. Think prime angry Sylvia from Wander Over Yonder.

Sketch 3 - Smiledog.jpg ''And give him an elegant, ladylike smile!!''

I wanted her to be unsettling. LITERALLY so unsettling. She;s got a horse mouth with canine teeth, I can't imagine that puts a warm feeling in anyone's heart at all. I also just really wanted to redraw that smile scene as an excuse to draw a lot of teeth.

Remember how I said Nicole's got BAD trust issues? Most of that comes from the memory of having suitors, possible consorts, and foreign princes trying to woo and flirt. They were suffocating, and it left her with a lot of lasting bad impressions. Wouldn't call it outright sexism on her part, just...caution based on experience. To the point where the rest of the enchanted objects heard that only true love's kiss could break the spell and they all went ''Hahaha we are so fucked'' Took them forever to even begin to fathom the idea that this LeFou guy MIGHT maybe be the one to break it???

But...in the end, they work together because...they're not typical of what the world expects from them. In MY headcanon, which ignores and disowns any and all alleged ''Live action remakes from 2017'' that may or may not include ''Josh Gad'', LeFou is Gaston's yougner step brother. A headcanon, I might add, that was inspired by @wreckham and their Balto rewrite where Star is Steele's younger brother. What does that have to do with Gaston and LeFou? Well:

A weird hill to die on headcanon-wise, but I'll take it. Anyway, Nicole is a huge terrifying beast. A practical manifestation of how awkward and out of place she felt as a young princess trying so hard to fit into a role she ascended to before her time (Honestly, Nicole is just Twilight Sparkle's bookworm tendencies and lack of social skills mixed with the intimidating aura of Vitani and Sergeant Calhoun. Kiiiiind of a mess). She isn't small and lovely and fair like a young princess should be. MEANWHILE, LeFou is the young brother to the ''town hero'' and...that's kinda hard to measure up to. He's not the huge hulking man that's traditionally sought after. *COUGH* *COUGH*

They sort of...find a connection over this topic. Nicole likes him because he's nothing like the rich stuffed shirts that always flexed their looks and wealth to try and win her heart, and LeFou likes that she doesn't care if he's not a big and tough guy. Every Furry girlboss needs a short king.

Sketch 4 - ''THAT HURTS!!''

TBH the thing about this was...there WERE a few scenes I felt...REALLY obligated to try. The Ballroom scene WAS one of those, but unfortunately you won't see that one, since its over tumblr's photo size limit. Kinda happy about that, since it looks...less than great. Where was I? Oh yeah. Uhhhh this is one of my favorite scenes from the movie so I ABSOLUTELY wanted to give it a shot with these two. Sketches 4-6 are all drawn directly into screenshots from the movie because I was NOT about to try and redraw those backgrounds. God this movie is GORGEOUS but soooo intricate and i am only a little creature who scares easily. Also, I had OTHER things that were hard to draw that I was more focused on. Wanna know what those things were?! LEFOU. I don't know if I'm bad at diverse faces or maybe he's just genuinely a little tricky, but GOD I still have a hard time drawing him. Assume every sketch of LeFou here in this post took me three hours minimum. That's why most of these are of him and Nicole. My deal with myself was that if I at least gave him a good college try, I could ALSO have fun drawing Nicole, who is WAY easier. I mean I'm...getting a LITTLE better at him, but still. He was NOT east the first few times.

Nicole's snarly face in this one was so fun to draw. I looked at a lot of Nala during the chase scene with Pumbaa, and Sabor fighting Tarzan to get her teeth right. Hilariously, I also looked at Steele.

Sketch 5 - ''It's obvious there's a spark between them..''

''You are a strange sight

Some new kind of wonder

With good hidden under

I'm sure that it's true.''

A theme song??? Is for me??? Is for my silly little drawings???

Sketch 6 - Nicole's hour in the fursuit is over

THat's right I KEPT her in the dress for the final fight in this AU. Why??? I DON'T KNOW I wanted to. Maybe it was a reference to the ''running from a T Rex in high heels'' scene in Jurassic World. Maybe it was me trying to convey how Nicole has finally come to own the ''princess'' she never thought she could be. I DON'T KNOW. OH. and by the way. her dress is loosely inspired by the one @Johannathemad drew here

Sketch 7 - A most peculiar Mademoiselle

I was looking at these by @davidgilson and they were SO cute I....KINDA wanted to give something similar to it a shot. That tiny LeFou is going to make me fucking scream he is SO small

You guys wanna know a really embarrassing fact? So...LeFou is voiced by Jesse Corti, right? Who ALSO provided the signing voice for Charlie in All Dogs Go To Heaven 2. So....AHEM and COUGH maybe Ive been listening to these a lot while I draw LeFou and Nicole. What of it.

Um....that's all for now, but....Hopefully there might be some more on the horizon. I've been...kinda burnt out and tired as a result of some work drama lately, but...I have more sketches and ideas with this AU I'd like to do. It's been...really fun to play with, honestly. i had a GREAT birthday tho, and...I think it was more than appropriate that I shared this today <3

[airborneice]

I'm very new to digital art and was wondering what sort of process/brushes you use for your Hilda art? I absolutely love your trolls and centaur designs ❤️

aw that’s very kind, thank you!! tbh my art approach is kind of all over the place but I’ll do my best to answer!

first off, I draw in photoshop and use mainly these two brushes -

the 1st is pretty much the standard PS brush and the HB one is what I used for most of the trolls/centaur stuff! generally I pick one of these brushes and use it for both lineart and putting in colour/shadows. (to be honest photoshop somehow got the settings on the HB brush messed up a lil while ago which is why I use it for lineart less now, but it’s still nice for doing shadows bc it has a really pretty soft edge :) )

as for art process, I’ll try to explain with the hilda little mermaid drawing I did recently - explanation thingy under the cut!

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so with most of my art I usually start out sketching it on paper first and then move the sketch to my computer - since you’re new to digital you might find it easier to start that way, it helps make things less complicated bc you already have something to start from

so for the drawing in question I started with this which is. A Mess

everything is all over the place and yasha from crit role is hanging out in the middle of it but this is the type of thing I start with! first with the lil thumbnail sketch up in the corner, and then doing the characters in more detail separately (if I know I’m gonna end up moving something to digital I’ll just draw the characters anywhere I can fit them on the page, bc I can worry about fitting them together properly later)

u can honestly skip the thumbnail sketch if u want, but for bigger drawings I find it useful to have something rough to refer back to, so I don’t forget what I’m aiming for overall when I start getting into the details

anyway then I move the paper sketch to digital and arrange things properly and add anything I’ve missed, and depending on how messy it is I do another slightly cleaner sketch overtop -

I’ve learned the hard way that fixing things at the lineart stage is a lot more hassle so I try to make sure everything’s looking as it should in the cleaner sketch - david’s initial sketch looked mostly fine to me so I only redid a couple things and added some details, while I changed a lot of kaisa til I was happier with the pose. I knew the salt lion was gonna end up being mostly hidden so I didn’t worry about refining it

SO next I make a new layer and start drawing the clean lineart over the sketch. I like using coloured lineart these days, so I pick a colour to sketch and do lineart in - literally any colour except black, since photoshop lets you change the hue later (you can go to Image -> Adjustments -> Hue/Saturation and change things as much as you like). I did all the lineart for the characters here in purple, like the sketch, and I made sure to keep all the lineart for different characters separate so I could mess with it individually later. I’ve got a bit of what kaisa’s lineart folder looks like below, and you definitely don’t have to put Everything on a new layer like I did, but I usually keep the eyes, brows and little details like the fin lines and scales separate bc they’re the things I’ll most likely want to adjust later

once I’ve got the lineart done in that one colour, I’ll use the Adjustments-> Hue/Saturation slider to change some parts of it (this is where having things on different layers comes in) to blend in or stand out more, so by the end it looks like it does below. I made some swatches so you can see which parts I changed from the main outline colour:

so I kept the original purple for most of it, but I changed the salt lion’s lines to blue, and kaisa’s scales to a light grey so they’d blend in more, and made her eyebrows much darker so they’d stand out from her hair. (I usually do this step after I’ve started colouring them in, bc it’s easier to see what’s working then and what isn’t, I’m just showing it here so you can see it in isolation). also, I’ll usually set the whole lineart folder to ‘multiply’ so it blends in with the colour layer even more

(tbh you don’t have to do it as complicated as this, everyone has their own approach depending on what they’re going for and it might take some trial/error before you find what works best for you. I just do this bc I’m used to it and don’t mind the extra hassle. pretty colours go brrr :) )

for colouring in, I use the lasso tool to trace over areas of the drawing and the paint bucket to fill them in. I usually put every different coloured area on a new layer so it’s easier to go back and change something if I decide I don’t like the colour. so everything is built up over a number of layers, and I can use the airbrush tool to soften the edges of some areas (like david’s arm fins). for the parts with gradients like their tails, I put down a flat colour layer (like the orange for david), select that area and then make a new layer and put the gradient on with a big airbrush tool. also for stuff from hilda I usually colour-pick straight from a screenshot of the show with the eye-dropper tool, it’s much faster than guessing them

so then we have the flat colours done, and I can show you why I like doing coloured lineart even though it takes longer bc

here’s the lineart all in black vs the final result with the colours. like…it’s fine, there’s nothing wrong with the all black one, but having the colours really helps soften things imo!

I didn’t really do much by shading for this one but to go over it real quick -

if I was just drawing a character on a white background I wouldn’t bother with this step, but here I know this scene is taking place in the dark & underwater, so I selected the characters, made a new layer and filled in a dark green colour overtop on a low opacity & set to Multiply, so the characters get this slight green tinge and look more like they’re in the setting (I did the same with the salt lion but I’m gonna just focus on these two for now)

for the actual shadows I got the same green colour, and on another multiply layer blocked it in, and just played around with the opacity til it looked about right

honestly not my best job at shading lol but it helps give it some depth and put them in the scene! if I hide the colours and lines for a sec you can see that literally all I’ve added over the original colours is this:

and if I add the basic colours of the background in, you can see how much it helps compared to the flat colours I started with -

they look so much more like they’re in the scene!

anddd after doing the same thing to the salt lion (which is just the same shading process but more layers and darker) and adding the rest of the background that’s it!!

don’t worry they’ll be fine lol

anyway sorry this got so long, I hope it helps!! I’m not the best at explaining myself so if anything I said here doesn’t make sense then feel free to ask :)

[ink-the-artist]

Its a lot harder to do with traditional art but I'd love to see progress shots of your colored pencil stuff its so neat

I wanted to wait until I had progress shots to show before answering this and I took some as soon as I was starting a new colored pencil illustration, which was the Pepto Bismol one I just posted. Gonna put a keep reading cut here bc this’ll probably be a bit of a long post lol. 

I don’t have any kind of strict process I always follow, I just do whatever works best for each specific drawing, so I kind of just took a pic whenever I finished anything that felt like it could be it’s own “step.” Also keep in mind I worked on this during different days, different times of day, and different locations, so the lighting will be pretty different throughout the pics here which will affect how the colors look and the overall quality of the photos, I did the best I could with the changing lighting.

First step is the graphite sketch. Since I’m focusing on the colored pencil part of the process I didn’t document the process of sketching, just the final outcome

I go over the sketch with a colored pencil, I usually use a lighter color so that the lines you’ll see in the next step are lighter and not going to be noticeable when the drawing is all done, and I’ll go with a color that would be found in the illustration so that it doesn’t look unnatural wherever it may show through (I chose pink because, Pepto Bismol)

then I go over the whole thing with an eraser, only the graphite erases completely while the colored pencil stays, even though it dulls a bit. This is so I can still have a sort of outline to color in without having to worry about graphite mixing with the lighter color pencil colors and muddying everything up (it also just cleans up the sketch a lot which makes everything easier to work with)

then I start putting some of the colors down while also adding some basic detail that I’ll color and shade along later. I also go over the lines again just to make sure everything is shaped correctly, but I’m using the base colors of whatever the object is because I don’t actually want things to have outlines later on

I’m kind of mapping out the colors now as well as shadows

(also I finally found a use for this super bright neon pink colored pencil I have lol)

I’m basically just continuously layering on more color and detail, making sure to go light to dark. I mostly work on everything evenly rather than meticulously finishing one area after another but I was a bit more meticulous with the pepto bismol tablets just because they were the most detailed part of the illustration

I pretty much color the borzoi last because it’s the one white thing in this image and I want it to sort of “reflect” all the colors that will be around it and you can see I’m still adding new colors to the background as I go along

adding some green, Im basically trying to get a black without using black by layering opposing (is that the right word?) colors over each other, it makes it so that the black still looks like a natural part of the image because it’s made up of the colors in it, and it gradients toward the foreground better. I’m also doing the same for the nose and lips of the borzoi

finally putting some more color down on the borzoi, both giving it a base color and making the shading more defined

added the pepto splash before I layer any more color on the background. Also in just about every step here I’m continuously touching up the pepto bismol tablets, maybe a bit too obsessively

adding more colors from the background to the borzoi as well as shading it some more

adding more green (and some dark blue) to the background and floor to darken it some more, and again to the borzoi

I blend some of the lighter areas with orange-yellow, dunno if this is a real technique I just like the kind of glow effect it has and I do it a lot in my drawings (basically layering light colors over dark ones and sort of pressing harder with the strokes to blend/smooth everything together while giving it an almost glowing undertone of that light color)

still layering colors to darken everything up

Only at the very end I use a white colored pencil, I haven’t used it at all so far. I give the borzoi it’s fur texture + its whiskers, basically using the same method as earlier when I blended the yellow into darker colors by pressing harder with the strokes, here the strokes are just fur-shaped. I also add some highlights to the metal bowls, the splash of pepto bismol, and the nose and mouth of the borzoi with white colored pencil and a tiiiiny bit of white gel pen (a really tiny bit, basically a few little dots here and there)

oh and I added the “Pepto Bismol” writing to the pepto bismol tablets (or as close to writing as I could get)

also at some point in this step a mysterious black line appeared on the drawing that I couldn’t get rid of :( but its ok I just removed it in photoshop later lol

then I just take as good a pic as I can and touch it up in photoshop, this is for getting rid of flaws like that weird black line as well as to make the photo resemble what the drawing looks like irl as closely as possible, I’ll usually have the drawing next to me so I can reference it while editing the photo to make sure it looks like the real thing. 

also in this step I usually crop the image both to hide the messy edges and to give it a better composition.

you can see how different all these pics look from each other (in terms of lighting and quality) let alone from the final piece, which is why the editing step is important lol

hope this is helpful!

[closedafterdark]

would you be willing to write a haseul mommy one shot? also looking forward to any jinsoul or kim lip works you put out in the future !

“Oppa, what are these…?”

You have just returned from the bathroom, having done a deep clean as today was your only day off. Having been together for several months already, your girlfriend was able to enter your apartment due to you giving her the entrance passcode. Although you knew she would be arriving shortly, you were not aware she was already inside your bedroom.

“Are these… photoshopped pictures of me in cosplay outfits?”

“I, uh…”

“One of them says “An outfit I want to buy for Jinsoul” on the back of it.” She said, crossing her arms as she gave you a deadly stare.

“I wasn’t talking about you when I wrote that.” you replied.

“Oh? So there’s another Jinsoul you know? That just so happens to be your girlfriend as well?”

“When did you get here?” you asked, trying to divert the conversation.

“20 minutes ago. I wanted to make us dinner- hey, don’t change the subject! So you want me wearing these in the bedroom, huh?” Jinsoul asked, raising her hand to go through the photos. You watched her loose sleeve roll down, revealing colorful ink in various patterns and words on her arm.

“What is this?” you asked, softly holding onto her wrist and pushing back her sleeve further. Jinsoul’s eyes widened, mentally cursing herself for forgetting to wear thicker outerwear.

“It’s nothing, it’s just-”

“When did you get these tattoos? There’s so many of them!” you said, your voice projecting the slowly building frustration.

“Oppa, I…”

“You know oppa isn’t a fan of tattoos! And you got them anyway! What happened to you constantly saying your body is oppa’s. Did you lie just so I could fuck you?”

“No, oppa. It’s a misunderstanding. I-”

“This won’t do. Oppa needs to punish you.” you said, pushing Jinsoul onto her knees as she positions herself between your legs. She places both of her hands on your thighs and slowly rubs them back and forth. Looking up at you and awaiting your next command, you pat the top of her head softly.

“So you do know how to listen to oppa. Good.”

“Oppa, I didn’t mean to disobey you when getting them. I just wanted to-”

“Enough. Since it seems every single word that comes out of your mouth is pure filthy lies, I think it’s time I cleaned it properly.”

Jinsoul’s submissive nature began to manifest itself as you thought about the ways you wanted to punish her. You thought about edging her, overstimulating her to the point of no return. And while you certainly would have enjoyed it, Jinsoul’s repeated rubbing of your thighs caused the ever growing erection in your pants to form an uncomfortable hardness.

“Take off my pants and suck my cock.” you said bluntly.

Jinsoul simply nodded. She was equal parts frightened and aroused. She was a bit of a clumsy girl, often relying on you to help with tasks around the house and wanting to cut as many corners as possible whenever doing chores. The bedroom was no different. Jinsoul loved being on the bottom, allowing you to ravage her body in order to satisfy yours and her carnal desires.

You watched as she brought her slim hands to your belt buckle and quickly undid the latch. Removing it along with your pants in one swift motion, Jinsoul squeezed your cock through your cotton boxers before freeing you of them as well. She stared wide-eyed at your cock, licking her lips in anticipation of the upcoming tasty treat.

Jinsoul parts her lips and takes you into her mouth. You moaned as you feel the warmth of it and the tight grip of her very soft lips surround your cock. She swirls her tongue around your tip and top part of your cock. Taking one hand from your thighs and cupping your balls, she bounces them up and down her hand to feel just how heavy they are for her. You let out a satisfied moan, watching her give you a meticulous, yet very messy blowjob. She is showering your cock with a copious amount of saliva as she gives every inch of you her undivided attention. Once she feels you are properly prepared, Jinsoul grabs onto your thighs and begins to deepthroat your cock. Your head tilts back as you release another long and satisfied moan.

“Fuck, baby… that feels amazing.”

Jinsoul’s oral skills were not the greatest in the beginning. It was understandable, her inexperience coupled with naivete were things you learned about her right away as she told you she hadn’t had the chance to be intimate with too many men. She mostly learned from watching adult videos or what her older friends would tell her about the best ways to pleasure a guy.

Bringing your head back down from the wonderful bliss that was Jinsoul’s mouth wrapped around your cock, you looked down and appreciated the fine work she was doing. Her lustful gaze stared back, as she continued taking more of you inside her saliva-filled mouth. You felt your tip repeatedly striking the back of her throat, causing her to gag slightly. You were enamoured by the symphonic like sounds of Jinsoul sloppily feasting on your cock. She began bobbing her head up and down with an ever increasing speed. Her beautiful eyes have now turned into bright pools of lust.

“Oppa’s little slut likes cleaning her mouth with cock doesn’t she? That’s a good girl.” you said.

Your words excite Jinsoul, causing her eyes to form crescents as she increases her speed and continues deepthroating your cock. You closed your eyes once more to enjoy the sounds of her gagging on your shaft as it repeatedly became lodged into the back of her moist cavern. And although you certainly enjoy it, you remembered you wanted to punish her for lying to you. Jinsoul bobs her head all the way down to your base before releasing you with a loud pop, spit drooling down her mouth and coating her chin.

As she begins to lower her head into your crotch and parts her lips open once more, you hold onto both sides of her head. Looking up at you, she sees a cold expression staring back at her. Jinsoul has only ever seen this look from you once, and it wasn’t in the bedroom. You were frustrated at her one evening when she tripped on air and accidentally hit the table, causing a glass to drop and accidentally break. It was a glass cup you and four friends made together during a class in the community center one summer before you all went your separate ways.

With your hands still caressing the back of her head, your cock remained in her mouth.

“Hands raised the entire time. This ends if you move them in any way, got that?” you said, as she does her best to nod and removes her hands from your thighs. Jinsoul gets into a more comfortable position by sitting down. Now came the part you originally planned.

There was no acknowledgement of her feelings from your very first thrust. You held onto both sides of her head, slamming your cock into the back of Jinsoul’s mouth with force. Each gag caused tears to spill out of her eyes, as she is delighted at the liberal use of her mouth for your pleasure. You watched as inch by inch of your hard cock disappeared inside. Jinsoul’s tight grip on your cock began to slightly weaken, causing saliva to leak out and coat your balls. This only made you want to fuck her mouth harder. You weren’t sure how long you fucked her face, it may have only been several minutes, but after one final deep thrust and holding her head on your base until she moaned, you allowed your drenched cock to slide out of her mouth.

“You liked oppa fucking your mouth, didn’t you?”

“Y-Yes.” she moaned. “I love when oppa fucks my mouth senseless. Use me however you want.”

“Get on the bed.” you replied, giving her butt a harsh slap.

She removes her clothing quickly before she feels herself being pushed down onto the mattress. You plant kisses on her beautiful back, starting a trail that leads to her ass. Giving each cheek a tender kiss, you stand up once more and deliver two more hard slaps, causing Jinsoul to moan loudly.

Although you desperately wanted to eat her out, you saw Jinsoul shaking her cute butt at you, as if inviting you to fuck her hard. Never one to turn down such a request, you guide your tip against the lips of her pussy. Jinsoul breathes heavily as you tease her, rubbing your tip up and down and pressing it softly against her damp pussy. When your cock finally parts her beautiful lips and tight walls, both of you moan loudly as you finally enter her.

Despite feeling the suffocating tightness of Jinsoul’s pussy, it will never get old for you. Having been lubricated by facefucking her, you had no problems entering her as you felt her be drenched. Her moans continue long after you have entered her. You grab one of her arms with one hand and her long, silky black hair with the other. Pulling her up to your chest, she cries out in slight pain but mainly surprise. You blow hot breath into her ear, causing the baby hairs on her body to raise up. Still holding onto her hair, you let go of her arm as you give her ass another harsh slap.

“Fuck… oppa!” Jinsoul screamed.

“Did I say you could say my name?” you said, giving her another slap. Jinsoul’s erotic moans filled the room as you continued thrusting into her while slapping her ass. Although she could feel the pain, the pleasure overtook her body.

“I-I’m sorry…” she moaned.

Jinsoul whimpered as her body fell back onto the mattress. Your cock continued to be coated with her juices, letting you know she was aroused by your aggressiveness towards her. As you continued thrusting in and out of her tight pussy, her erotic moans only grew in volume.

Your hand moved from her ass and went to the back of her neck, as you gave her harsh and deep thrusts. You loved how tight Jinsoul was, no matter how many times she wanted to have sex with you. Your lust combined with your disappointment in her getting tattoos when she told you she wouldn’t caused you to fuck Jinsoul at a fast pace. The tight grip her pussy had on your cock was very satisfying, allowing you to release your utmost inhibitions.

“Fuck… oppa! Harder! Punish me harder!” Jinsoul screamed in delight.

Her screams caused you to continue fucking her hard, as she buries her face into the mattress and bites down hard on the soft bed sheets. It is a futile attempt to control her moans and suppress the building tension within her. As your harsh thrusts continue, Jinsoul’s energy is rapidly depleting. Although you were used to her body shaking violently, you can tell she feels on fire, and her moans are ache filled as she begs for the pressure to be released.

“Harder, oppa! Harder! I’m so close!” she said, the feeling of being fucked along with you being angry at her heightened the experience for the both of you. She can feel herself at the tipping point, ready to release and experience such an intense pleasurable orgasm. Seconds away from achieving bliss, you suddenly stopped. Retreating from her tight grip on your cock, Jinsoul whines in confusing and annoyance as you remove your cock from her body.

“Oppa, I was so close! Why did you fucking stop!” she screamed.

“Did you just fucking yell at your oppa?” you said in an ice cold tone.

“Oppa, I… I’m sorry.” she said, realizing what came out of her mouth.

“Now I really will fuck you senseless.” you said. Holding onto her hips, you entered her tight pussy once more. Jinsoul releases a half moan, half satisfied hum as you drive yourself deeper and deeper inside her. The pressure from earlier begins to build up inside your body. Within minutes your slow and sensual thrusts have become rampant and aggressive pounding, as neither you or Jinsoul can form any coherent thoughts or words. Both of you cycle through squeezing your eyes shut, your mouths opening and your moans satisfying each other’s ears as you create a harmonic and erotic ecstasy.

Each thrust you deliver into her heavenly tightness brings you all the more closer to your impending orgasm. And despite your best efforts to prolong it, Jinsoul’s tight body along with the satisfying feeling her pussy provides you causes you to be unable to resist any longer. Giving her a series of harsh and powerful thrusts, your bodies slam together as you push every single inch of your cock inside her.

“Fuck… Jinsoul!” In one satisfied and loud moan, you finally released your load inside her pussy. Your bodies shake as you release your pent up anger and about a week’s worth of cum. Each throb of your cock sends thick, hot cum into her tight pussy. Jinsoul’s eyes widened in satisfaction as she moans alongside you. Spurt after spurt of your semen is deposited inside her. When Jinsoul feels you have given her everything you have stored up, the both of you collapse on the bed.

The both of you laid down, staring at the ceiling as you struggled to catch your breaths. You feel Jinsoul snuggle underneath your arm and against your body, her hand drawing circles on your chest as the both of you give each other tender and satisfied kisses. You can only smile as you wrap your arms around Jinsoul. Giving a kiss on her forehead, you feel her wrap her own arms around you.

“Oppa… that was amazing.” she said.

“Fuck, it really was.” you said. “Might be in the top three.”

“Thank you, oppa.” she said, as she gives you another kiss. The both of you embrace one another and revel in the warmth of each other’s bodies. You refused to let each other go as you continued kissing each other.

“Oppa…” Jinsoul said in between a kiss.

“What is it?”

“I… didn’t really get tattoos. They’re temporary, but last longer than most. They’ll fade away in a few days. I just wanted you to fuck me rough.”

[bakugou-tm]

oh really; kuroo tetsurō

I started Haikyuu 👁👄👁 As you can see I’ve fallen in love with Kuroo, but I gotta admit I just started the show a few weeks ago so I don’t have his personality perfected yet. This is why I’m writing a lil short oneshot to get used to his character, which I totally didn’t steal this idea from a KC Undercover scene cause I’m rewatching disney shows. Anyways enjoy mah bbys -3-

word count: 2500+

warnings: he’s a teasing little shit

“Kuroo what the hell are you doing!”

One minute you found yourself brushing your tangled locks at your vanity, the next you heard your window being shoved upwards.

Your head whipped around to see a pile of messy black hair leaning inside your room, the boy ungracefully trying to enter your room that was on the second floor of your house.

“Y..You should really keep your windows locked love-” Kuroo spoke in between grunts before he fell to your floor with a thud causing you to wince as you quickly closed the door to your bedroom.

Sure enough what you dreaded happening happened as you heard your parents call your name to ask if you were alright.

“I’m uh.. I’m okay mom! I just slipped out of my chair when I dropped my brush!” You called out, letting out a sigh of air at the somewhat good on command lie you shit out of your mouth.

You simply heard your mom chuckle and warn you to be careful, that’s one problem off your plate. Now you had to deal with the next bigger problem that was sitting on your floor with a lopsided grin.

“Wow what a mess (L/n), you didn’t clean up for me?” Kuroo taunted while showing you a piece of paper off the ground that must have fallen out of your bag.

All you could do was deadpan at him, his use of sarcasm to mock your perfectly neat room not helping the fact that he literally broke into your room.

“Stop avoiding the question you weirdo! Why the hell did you just climb through my window?” You loudly whispered, hands on your hips expectantly awaiting an answer.

Kuroo raised a brow to you, as if confused as to why you were so angry he broke into your house.

“Easy love, to pick up where we left off.” Kuroo said with his signature grin, he was quick to pick himself off the floor and walk over to you with confidence. 

But unlucky for him, you were quick to shut it down as you placed your hand on his chest stopping him in his tracks.

“Pick up where we left off?” You hissed out with narrowed eyes, “I hope you’re not insinuating when I confessed my feelings for you in front of the entire volleyball team before your tournament and you said “not now” before walking away from me.”

You were amazed at how Kuroo’s expression changed, had it really not dawned on him that he was an asshole in that moment? Like a child his shoulders hunched up bashfully and he began to shuffle his feet.

“That uh.. that wasn’t what I meant (L/n)-” Kuroo began but you cut him off by walking past him, your shoulder smacking against the side of his arm as you moved back to your vanity.

“Oh yeah? Then what did you mean?”

Kuroo simply stared at you as you placed your scrunchy in your mouth and began to run your fingers through your (h/c) strands of hair, how perfect you were.

And how stupid he was.

The entire tournament he was in the best mood of his life, his crush of a year now confessed as if to wish him good luck, what else could he want? All he could think about was how he couldn’t wait to come home to see you waiting for him, ready to hold you in his arms and start the beginning of your new relationship.

And yet when the bus arrived back at school after the long week of games, you were no where in sight. In fact you seemed to avoid him in school even. It never even occurred in his mind that you were angry with him.

“It’s just I’ve liked you for so long (L/n)!” Kuroo started, his lip jutting out in annoyance when he saw you roll your eyes and huff, “If I had said anything to you then I just would’ve been distracted the entire tournament, I had to keep a level head for my team!”

Raising an eyebrow your mouth dropped in just pure confusion. This guy really was an idiot!

“So you embarrassed my ass in front of your entire team, just so you wouldn’t ‘lose focus’?” You growled, whipping your head back to face him while ignoring the hair that smacked your face, “You had me thinking you weren’t interested at all for an entire week, and couldn’t even spare me a single text?”

All Kuroo could do was blink. He hated being wrong but, you were right.

But of course he would never admit that.

“Well I was hoping you would be waiting for me after the tournament so we could talk about it but you weren’t even there!” Kuroo shot back with narrowed eyes, the accusation causing you to chuckle dryly.

“So let me get this straight,” You said with a crazed grin as you folded your arms, “You expected me not to be hurt by your dry heartless response, not to be offended that you not once tried to explain yourself over text, and even after all of that wait for you at the school when you got back like you were some prince that returned from battle?!”

The boy’s face before you was blank, you were hoping the gears in his head were just spinning so he would answer this correctly. The man had a perfect GPA and was the captain of a freaking team, he couldn’t be this dense.

“Well.. yeah?”

Your eyes squinted as your eyebrows furrowed, the amount of the stupidity coming from the boy had you at your limit.

“Ridiculous! Absolutely ridiculous.. I can’t believe I ever thought we would work.” You hissed while storming up to him pointing an accusing finger towards his chest, “I’ve never met someone as selfish and dense as you, get out of my room you jerk!”

Kuroo watched your outbreak with annoyed eyes. Okay.. maybe he could’ve handled this better, but he honestly didn’t think you would get this mad! You were pretty cute when your cheeks got all red and puffed out from being flustered, but the fact that he was the cause ruined it all.

“Come on (L/n), we both know you don’t mean that.”

You didn’t mean it, but like hell were you going to let this jerk.. well.. be a jerk!

“Oh you better believe I meant every wor-”

“(L/n)?”

The sound of your best friend’s voice caused your eyes to widen, you glanced up to see Kuroo’s golden eyes widen as well.

“Quick get in the closet!” You whispered as you grabbed his wrist and dragged him over to the door across from your room.

Kuroo stumbled after your quick pace before quickly stopped at the entrance of your closet, his eyebrows furrowing as he looked down to you.

“Huh? I don’t wanna be shoved in your tiny closet I’m like six feet tall!”

Narrowing your eyes you pressed your hands against your chest and shoved him in, “Too bad!”

You grit your teeth at the sound of him dramatically sigh when you slammed the door in his face, his next words causing your eye to twitch slowly.

“I’m gonna look through all your underwear princess.”

Clenching your fists you banged your hand against the door to shut him up, just as your friend opened the door to your room to see you suspiciously guarding your closet door.

“What’s with that weird stance (L/n)?” Your friend said with a raised brow, her eyes glancing across the room before her eyes widened, “Do you have a boy in here?”

Your mouth opened wide, not sure what lie you could even come up with to trick your friend. Curse her for always being able to read you like a book.

Before you could even respond your friend chuckled and shook her head, “I’m sorry I just heard what I said, there’s no way you would have a boy in here after you spent your entire weekend depressed over Kuroo Tetsurō.”

The sound of the boy’s name being said cause Kuroo to perk up from your closet, pressing his ear close to the door to listen in.

Pinching your lips together you forced out a laugh, waving your palm as you tried to cross your arms as nonchalantly as possible.

“Pffft whhatt? Girl what are you talkin about?”

Your friend simply laughed at your strange behavior, bouncing on top of the edge of your bed as she pulled her phone out.

“Are you serious? You don’t remember how broken hearted you were this weekend? I have the voice audios to prove it if you don’t remember.”

Your eyes widened as you saw your friend scrolling through the messages of your group chat, quickly you lunged forward and snatched her phone away.

“N..No need for that I remember!” You said quickly before rolling your eyes, “I just wouldn’t say I was broken hearted, that’s a bit extreme.”

Your friend looked at you with a confused expression, you already knew what was about to come. Why couldn’t the lord just take you out of your misery?

“Um... you cried all weekend,” Your friend exclaimed as she stood up from your bed and started pacing around, “You were all like: he’s bad but he’s good and he has such beautiful hair and I’ll never find another guy like him!”

Your lips were formed into a pout as you drooped your eyes, you were sure Kuroo was soaking all of this up like a sponge, like he needed anything else to add to his ego.

Sure enough a loud chuckle was heard from the other side of your closet door, causing you to kick your foot against the door to hopefully startle him and shut him up. 

“(F/n) I think you’re exaggerating a little bit..” You said through gritted teeth, hoping this would just end the conversation for good.

Your friend simply looked at you with unimpressed eyes as she blinked incredulously at your attitude of denial.

“Honey you photoshopped what your kids would look like...”

That was the final straw, you closed your eyes in pure pain as you watched your dignity float away into an abyss. So much for showing Kuroo no mercy and moving on.

“You’re clearly head over heels for that guy-” Your friend kept going until you opened the door of your closet, your friend seeing a smirking Kuroo Tetsurō inside as he leaned against the door frame in a cocky manor with his arms folded.

“guy- Kuroo!” Your friend exclaimed in shock as he began to walk out of the closet with a shit eating grin plastered across his stupid lips.

“Soooo, our kids...” Kuroo purred as he looked down to your annoyed expression, “Do they have names?”

The sight of that overly confident jerk towering over you with smugness literally radiating off him made your blood boil, and ironically not because he had the upper hand, but because deep down you weren’t even really mad at him.

“For the record, it was only one kid!” You said in a matter-of-fact tone until you realized Kuroo and your friend both shared the same unimpressed face causing you to puff your lip out and sigh, “And I’m now realizing that doesn’t make me seem any less pathetic.”

Kuroo and your friend both nodded in agreement, but (F/n) was quick to jump back to the bigger matter on hand.

“(L/n), what is Kuroo doing in your room?”

Running your palm down your face you opened your mouth to explain yourself but the tall boy next to you beat you to it.

“I snuck through her window to apologize for being a dick.” Kuroo said bluntly, your friend’s expression melting as a dragged out “aaaawwweeeee” escaped her lips.

“How romantic! (L/n) did you hear that? He’s such a sweetheart.”

Your mouth dropped in confusion as you glared up to his smug expression before looking back to him.

“You know what? I’ll leave you two alone! It seems like you have some unfinished business to attend to.” Your friend said with a wink as she quickly darted out of your room.

Your attempt to stop her was cut off by the sound of your door slamming once more, leaving you and Kuroo alone in your room once again.

Folding your arms you let out a sigh before looking up to Kuroo, the situation was just exhausting at this point.

“Look, as much as it didn’t seem like it... I did come here to apologize.”

"Yeah? By trying to make a move on me?” You huffed with a raised eyebrow.

Kuroo’s brow twitched at your sassy reply, sometimes you really could be such a brat.

“Well I was hoping if I got you in a good mood it would be easier for you to forgive me.”

Your face simply remained unimpressed, Kuroo mentally facepalmed as his stupid reply.

“You know what, I didn’t need to say that!” Kuroo said quickly before you shut him down again. Letting out a sigh he looked down at you with a rare serious expression, “(L/n), I’m sorry for ditching you in front of everyone and putting my own needs before your feelings. I was selfish and you deserve better.”

For once your hardened expression loosened, your eyes returning back to their wide innocent expression as you blinked up to him. Progress...

“And I’m hoping maybe you’ll let me prove I can give you better... by becoming my girlfriend?”

Honestly Kuroo wasn’t a fan of having to seem so vulnerable in front of you, but after the entire line of events that just happened he would be an idiot not to apologize.

As confused as he was at first, he knew he was in the wrong. Captain or not, he had no right to toy with your feelings, especially since he liked you back!

Ever since you decided to be the team manager he’s fallen in love with your bubbly yet stubborn personality, he wasn’t about to give up the girl of his dreams because of his fragile ego.

The sight of the corners of your lips curling into a sly grin had his heart doing a backflip.

“Perhaps if said boyfriend took me out for a nice date tonight, I’ll think about it.”

The only thing Kuroo heard out of that was yes. His eyes widened as he gave you a warm kiss before darting towards your open bedroom window.

“You won’t regret this (L/n)! I’ll be back at six to pick you up.”

You couldn’t help but giggle as he once again ungracefully made his way out the window, leaning over the edge you raised a brow down to him.

“You know I have a front door right?”

Kuroo simply grinned up at you as his feet dangled over your patio, “No time, I gotta get ready to pick my princess up pronto.”

His words had your cheeks warming up, you couldn’t even help the smile that flashed across your lips, but lucky for you Kuroo missed it as he fell into the bushes beneath your window.

What were you going to do with this dork.

[letterboxd]

Beautiful Day: The Don Hertzfeldt Q&A.

In which the singular creator of It’s Such a Beautiful Day and the World of Tomorrow trilogy answers 57 questions put to him by the Letterboxd community, about death, gills, snacks, back flips, the best time of day to watch a movie, and the sick pleasure of emotionally destroying people.

Since his first animated outings in the 1990s, filmmaker Don Hertzfeldt has had a way of staring deeply into humanity’s soul via a humble stick figure, and his skill at blending existential questions with situational humor breeds intense reactions. To browse Letterboxd reviews of Hertzfeldt’s animated works is to meet film lovers at a rare, collective gathering point: heaping great piles of love for films that do “the exact opposite of helping with depression”.

There’s something optimistically anti-feel-good in Hertzfeldt’s works; a bleak view of the future, and a frank appreciation of death’s inevitability, that makes viewers urgently want to fix the way they’re living right now. “I’ve built a lot of my life philosophy on the messages of this film,” writes Misty, of his acclaimed It’s Such a Beautiful Day. “It has kicked my ass completely,” writes Dirk of the first, Oscar-nominated World of Tomorrow instalment, “making me angry at myself for letting trivial stuff take over things I love and making me happy I have so very, very much in my life to enjoy and be grateful for.”

The filmmaker’s magic lies as much in the process as the content: “Hertzfeldt is able to make every moment count,” writes Artpig, of the second WoT instalment, The Burden of Other People’s Thoughts, “every line of dialogue, every moment of silence, every note of music, every line of animation.” The World of Tomorrow films, says animation expert Toussaint Egan in our Letterboxd Show animation episode, are “some of the best science fiction films, period”.

And his timing. Oh, his timing. Just as the northern hemisphere days were turning cold, and the drawn-out misery of the pandemic was really taking hold all over again, Hertzfeldt tweeted:

WORLD OF TOMORROW EPISODE THREE everywhere october 9 5pm est 🚀

— don hertzfeldt (@donhertzfeldt)

October 8, 2020

And like that, World of Tomorrow Three: The Absent Destinations of David Prime was ours, an overnight gift to the quarantined and bereaved-weary, on Vimeo for all to rent or own. The gifts, they keep coming: a master list of movies that have their fingerprints on the World of Tomorrow universe, and now, in recognition of our community’s love for his films—and in his signature lower-case—the answers to questions asked in an exclusive Letterboxd Q&A.

To make things easier for Don, we grouped similar questions (and have noted which members asked what). Read on for more than you ever thought you might get to know about Hertzfeldt’s process, brain, heart and influences.

Filmmaker Don Hertzfeldt.

From “holograms that yell at you!” to the stunning colors, textures and folds of the blue mountains, to attributes David progressively deletes to make room for memories, would you please give us an insight into World of Tomorrow Three’s world-building process? —Letterboxd in the grand scheme of the series, episodes one and two still felt like baby steps to me. episode three was my first chance to really start blowing things up and exploring this universe. when i’m writing, i don’t want to worry about going over the top or think about structure or meaning or really much of anything yet. writing is playtime, it should be fun and messy. i want to go over the top. there is no top. i don’t want to start thinking too much until i’m rewriting and sorting through it all. thinking too much too soon can get in the way, like being too aware of when you’re trying to fall asleep. when you write a diary entry or a text to a friend, there’s no self-consciousness or creative blocks, you just write. it’s casual and fluid and automatic. but if you’re asked to write a term paper or a screenplay, suddenly all those lights turn off. it can be paralyzing. it’s hard to get to that place of truly not caring what anyone thinks and approach all forms of writing just as freely as writing those immediate thoughts in your diary. but that’s what i try to do.

When you start writing a new piece, do you usually start with a plot idea, a thematic idea, one uniform philosophical notion, or a little bit of each? —Kodiak J. Sanders, Trenz, Mr. Tables i don’t think i ever write in a straight line. i’ll jot down a hundred stray ideas over time, and one day i’ll sit down and see what connections might be made out of them. i really want this scene to be in the movie, so how do i get there? this is a good line, how can i get a character to say it? so the actual story usually only starts to reveal itself when i sit down to logic all these bits and pieces out. hey, in order to connect this strange idea to that strange idea, suddenly there is a very interesting third scene.

I’m astounded by how much the animation and the visuals improve with each instalment of World of Tomorrow. What have you done differently for each one? —Aske Lund, Cringetacular the characters needed to physically perform a lot more in episodes two and three so there were more demands put on the animation. when emily 4 dances or david staggers up a mountain, those sorts of scenes were animated in “ones”, which means doing 24 drawings per second versus my usual twelve. it’s still all 2D hand animation, just more of a classic disney approach that gives the movement a smoother look and a little more room for nuance. and obviously it takes a lot more work. but i hesitate to call such things improvements because i’m not sure i like the idea of different techniques being thought of as good or bad. it’s just another way of doing things. it really depends, sometimes super limited animation can be more effective.

Likewise, Part Three’s sound design is incredible. What conditions did you create it in, and what are all those sounds, and how do you have such an incredible command of the cut-to-silence trick?! —Letterboxd thanks, the sound design is always my favorite thing to do. other than julia’s lines, it’s easy to forget that all the animation starts with dead silence. obviously there’s no sound coming from a live-action set. so adding sound and music to everything, usually pretty late in production, is when all the stuff i’ve been working on suddenly starts to feel like an actual movie. this is not a future that works very well—particularly david’s, which predates everything else we’ve seen so far by a century or two—so you’re hearing a lot of creaky old hard drives booting up, electric distortions, and bent circuits from broken toys.

Emily and Emily Prime in a still from ‘World of Tomorrow’ (2015).

World of Tomorrow used to fill me with existential dread, but now with the current state of the world it’s become more and more comforting in a strange way. Do you feel that at all as you make new episodes? —mariano gg i wish that were possible but when i’m making something i’m usually so close to it i’m unable to see anything but all the things i need to fix.

Can you talk a little bit about sourcing the photo-realistic images for the backgrounds in Part Three? —Jack Moulton most of the environments were 2D images i built in photoshop, usually starting from close-up photos of different textures (like sandstone), all sort of reshaped and puzzle-pieced into something new. an easy to see example was david’s cockpit, which was cobbled together from all sorts of different old aircraft engine and machine parts. the trick in building and lighting these locations was always figuring out where the line was drawn in making these places realistic, but not too realistic for minimal characters to inhabit. i kept landing on a sort of painterly looking middle ground.

If the cloning process in World of Tomorrow existed right now, would you go through that process and create clones of yourself to prolong your life? —tim probably not, that process doesn’t seem to work so well.

If you were put into the world you’ve created, would you buy gills? —Lauren Torres i tend to avoid putting my head under because i almost always get water in my ears so i guess i wouldn’t need them. gills also seem like they’d be a real nuisance to keep clean.

What does love mean, and why do your characters go through so much effort to find it? —Andrew Michalko oh man.

In this year of years, what do you hope people will understand about death and its inevitability (or is it all there on the screen, and if so, that’s okay too)? —Letterboxd understanding death and its inevitability is maybe the most valuable thing a person can do for themselves.

Was the absence of Emily Prime in Part Three a practical decision [Don’s then-four-year-old niece Winona provided Emily’s voice] or an intentional departure from the first two films? —Michael it was both. i couldn’t find a way to fit her in naturally and i also felt like the series needed to start growing in other directions and not rest on the past. episode two had also been really difficult to write, it was so reliant on winona’s recordings, and it felt like the dam was really broken when i was finally able to write without any restrictions this time.

In a series like World of Tomorrow, where you headed in a direction that is a lot more plot-driven than your previous work, how far in advance do you plan? Did you always know this was in David’s past, or are these stories told one at a time? —Ryan Welch, Kodiak J. Sanders, julius, Alex Leon i could tell early on that this wasn’t a story like it’s such a beautiful day with a clear beginning, middle and end, but a much wilder thing that could continue to grow. the openness of it is still what makes it so interesting to me. i have all sorts of notes for the next episodes but if i already knew what would happen in episode nine i think that would take a lot of the air out of the tires and i’d start to feel like i was just connecting the boring dots. while writing, i’ve also had to be aware that there someday might be an episode nine so i can’t go wrecking the timelines before i get there.

What were the rocks and the gas pump that Emily fell in love with meant to represent? —Ekaneff she was learning how to love, and like all of us, in her youth she gravitated to a bunch of individuals that were wrong for her.

Aside from the ability to release more frequently, is there something about the episodic structure that you prefer/appreciate, as opposed to creating one larger feature-length film? —SiddFinch1 there’s just more freedom. the traditional running time of a feature film, 90 to 120 minutes, is a totally arbitrary number.

Have you ever considered writing a World of Tomorrow book or graphic novel? —Jay Smith the earliest ideas for world of tomorrow were sloshing around in a graphic novel called the end of the world that came out in 2013. but i don’t have any talent or much confidence in making another book like that. it’s a different world. when i look at someone like chris ware and then look at something like the end of the world, it’s like, “wow, baby made a mess”.

A page from Don Hertzfeldt’s graphic novel, ‘The End of the World’ (2013).

What attracted you to the unique style [of minimalist stick figures]? Is there a sense of intimacy that you feel you can achieve with this simplicity? —Evan Whitford when i was little, before i wanted to make movies i wanted to be a newspaper cartoonist. i think my drawings today might have more in common with newspaper comics than the sort of characters you usually see in animation. comic-strip panels were always composed in a very reserved way because they were generally intended to be skimmed. you needed to be able to read the strip in five seconds so you could be off to read the sports pages and obituaries. the comics pages were also under constant size and space restrictions. so they were minimal by design and the artists reduced their characters to only their most essential parts. there was no room for fussing. charles schulz said “i only draw what’s necessary”. and that’s actually incredibly hard to do. you’re accomplishing so much more with so much less.

i’ve also found that if there’s a scene that’s not playing right and bothering me, most of the time it’s because my composition was too cluttered. i almost always find myself removing things from the frame and trying to pare it down to only what’s necessary. very rarely do i ever think ‘i need to add more stuff in here’. because this shot is only five seconds long and i want you to be looking over here when this moment happens and this character says something, and if you’re distracted by this other flickering junk i put in the corner it’s going to throw everything off.

Animation-aside, which creative medium do you resonate with the most? —Bronkdan music.

How much did you pull from real-life experiences to make It’s Such A Beautiful Day, if any? What research did you conduct into memory? —Gunnar Sizemore, David Sigura, Micah Smith whenever i got a little stuck writing it’s such a beautiful day, i’d go back and reread my journal and pull more things out of it. dreams, conversations, small scenes. reading the journal now, it seems like i stole something from it every few pages. i also heavily researched neurological problems. it’s never said in the movie what exactly’s going on with bill, but i needed there to be a real diagnosis to base the medical writing on. so all the things he’s going through are real treatments or symptoms based on an actual condition. i didn’t want to ever come out and say, “he’s got terminal brain clouds”, or whatever in the movie, because then it becomes a “brain-cloud movie”, and that’s too easy for the audience to compartmentalize and distance themselves from… “brain clouds are so rare, that will never happen to me”. but not being told exactly what’s wrong with bill might help make the story more relatable and universal.

In what ways have you kept your mind fresh creatively? How do you keep yourself from slipping into complacency? —Watchmoviez, Drew’s reviews most creative blocks or stagnation come from anxiety, second-guessing and doubt. over the years i’ve learned to just sort of calm down and trust myself more. it’s like the old aesop fable: when you stop thrashing around in the water, the water becomes clearer and you can see more. if a scene isn’t working right, i can more easily chill out about it these days and trust that i’ll eventually figure it out—because i’ve figured these sorts of things out a hundred times before and i know by now that i’m not the sort of person who’s just going to allow a scene that isn’t working to remain in the movie. there’s a little more panic about that sort of thing when you’re young: “oh no, the movie sucks right now, will it always suck?!” i’ve reached the point where i know that i will not let it suck. and that sort of thinking allows all the movie gears to turn more easily.

Do you have a specific thematic, emotional or other miscellaneous motive in mind when including classical music pieces? —James Y. Lee when i’m listening to music and suddenly the right piece arrives, it’s usually blindingly obvious to me: there’s just no doubt this needs to be in the movie somehow. it’s like the idea has always existed and i’ve just finally uncovered it. it’s the same with writing. when the right thing floats along, it is striking and obvious and into the pile of notes it goes.

How much of your animation style lends itself to experimentation, such as discovering new tricks and pretty shots, that is then discarded if you learn it doesn’t work as intended? —Adam, Jacob i think i’m always experimenting. i figure if it doesn’t work, at least i’ve learned something.

What is the strangest compliment or critique you’ve gotten personally or of your work? —Elliot Taylor i’ve always remembered this one. i am so proud of you came out a couple years after everything will be ok. it was a continuation of that story, so it was basically the first time i had ever made a sequel. and everything will be ok had done really well when it came out. it won sundance and got all these great reviews. so i am so proud of you comes out and i remember reading this review that says, “everything will be ok was probably my favorite animated short of all time. it honestly changed my life. it was funny, sad, beautiful and just so wonderful. everything will be ok, boy did i love it. incredible. two thumbs up. truly, best thing ever. wow. so, unfortunately, its sequel, i am so proud of you, just feels like more of the same.”

A still image from ‘It’s Such a Beautiful Day’ (2012).

Are there any pieces of fiction that have influenced your work that we probably wouldn’t think of? —Gyani Wasp, Mikolaj Perzyna, Aaron McMillan, Harrison, Axel, Cringetacular, The25centman, Hunter Guidry one thing that pops to mind is the phantom tollbooth. my favorite children’s books were the ones with all the fun metaphors and clever wordplay. when i was plotting out episode two i wanted to lean into that, where visiting different sections of emily’s brain would be like milo visiting the land of math, the land of letters, the land of sound, with different looks and logic to it. so we had the bog of realism, glimmers of hope, broken memories, the logic center, and all the stuff in triangle land and square land. i guess that’s a lot but i wish there had been a bit more.

How did your friends and family respond to the “my anus is bleeding” part of Rejected? —Alex Tatterson they were pretty used to me by then.

Do you know of the work of David Firth, the internet animator? His work is also surreal and has dark humor, but more sinister than whimsical. Would you ever consider making an animation in the realm of horror in future? —KEVIИ HДWKIИS i’m afraid i don’t know him. i’d love to make a horror movie. from a certain point of view though maybe it could be argued that most everything i’ve made is a sort of horror movie?

My first tattoo is of Billy from Billy’s Balloon hanging from his ankle and it was the best decision I’ve ever made. How do you feel about people having your work tattooed and do you have any ink from other creatives that have meant something to you? —Elias it really fucking enrages me when people get my stuff tattooed on them. no just kidding. mostly i feel embarrassed but i’m glad you haven’t changed your mind about it yet. sometimes i wonder how many people have.

Have you ever thought about directing live action? —Abeer, Noah Thompson yes.

Is there an update on your feature film Antarctica? —Rylan California it’s one of many things swirling around.

Will you do a remake of Robocop and why not next year? —Simon no, because robocop is already sort of perfect.

Do you ever see yourself directing a large studio film? Or working with a large team to make something with a higher budget, maybe through a crowd-funded project? Or do you just strongly prefer working on your own? —Vteyshev, Monotone Duck sure. i’ve never preferred working on my own at all. it was usually just the only way to ever get anything made. i haven’t had the funding to pay a big crew, or really much of a crew at all. there’s the old saying: you can make something good, you can make it fast, and you can make it cheap, but you can only pick two. if you make it good and fast it won’t be cheap, if you make it cheap and fast it won’t be good, etc. so my only route in hoping to make something good and cheap has been to totally forget about making it fast.

What did you find digital animation added or took away from your work, and what did those changes do for your storytelling? Will you continue using the digital medium when/if you decide to move on from the World of Tomorrow project? —Alec Lai, Slipkornbizkit, Aldo digital just sped everything up. it’s still one person drawing everything, so we need to remember that speed is relative here, but i felt like i went from riding a bicycle to driving a car. there are many pleasant, wonderful things about riding a bicycle but you’re not going to get anywhere very quickly. and i’m not in my 20s anymore, in fact my 20s and 30s were mostly entirely devoured by making movies in what was maybe the slowest way possible. so these days i am appreciating the speed of digital.

If you could have a conversation with any filmmaker, dead or alive, who would it be and why? —ToBeHonest, Cringetacular if i could resurrect one of my heroes from the dead i think i would feel terrible wasting his time forcing him to have a conversation with me. he might also just sit there, covered with graveyard dirt, screaming in horror.

What is the best time of day to watch a movie? —Sammy night. i always feel a little nuts coming out of a movie and the sun is still up.

What’s your all-time favorite science-fiction film, and why? —Letterboxd 2001. because come on.

What is your favorite of Julia Potts’ films, and why? —Letterboxd i like the one with the severed foot.

Are there any animated films that you felt had a profound impact on you as a child? —Sprizzle probably fantasia. and ray harryhausen stuff. whenever there was a sunday-afternoon movie on TV, my brother and i learned that if in the opening titles there was a credit for “special effects” we should keep watching because we might eventually see something cool.

Which one of your movies is your personal favorite? —Jakob Böwer, RodrigoJerez i don’t know. sometimes it’s the newest one because it’s usually the one with the most experience behind it and therefore feels like it has the fewest mistakes. but then over time i realize they’re all riddled with mistakes. of the it’s such a beautiful day pieces, i think my favorite has always been i am so proud of you. and then i’ll see reviews that say “clearly the second chapter is the weakest one”, and i’ll think, man you guys don’t know what you’re talking about.

One of Don’s layout sketches for ‘I Am So Proud of You’ (2008).

What’s your favorite Pixar film? —Jordan inside out.

What film would you want to be the last one you watch before you die? —Gavin honestly if i’m in the process of dying i hope i won’t be watching movies at all.

Do you have faith in humanity? —Connor Kriechbaum not often.

What is something that worries you about where humankind is headed? —Felix_Bouchard social media.

What is the most valuable thing you have ever lost? How often do you think about it? —Siminup well now i’m getting sad.

Can you do a back flip, mister Don? —Doug maybe with the help of a catapult.

What is your take on the after life? What do you think happens to us when we die? —Luisdecoss i guess that it’s probably a lot like our memory of what the year 1823 was like.

Do you want anything from McDonald’s? —Andrew Rhyne only if i’m in an airport and desperate.

What’s your favorite meal or snack? —Pfitzerone, Evan lately in quarantine i’ve been discovering this particular breakfast burrito.

How’s your quarantine life, Don? —Ivan Arcena it’s okay thanks. eating lots of breakfast burritos.

Hi! I can’t believe you’re going to read this. I am currently filled with an unparalleled amount of joy, wow. This is a long shot but here I go. I’m 17 and your (self-proclaimed) biggest fan. I’ve seen It's Such a Beautiful Day eight times now and every single time I pick up on more details. I’ve watched a few of your interviews and in the AFS one about Rejected you said that the louder you play a movie, the funnier it is. On my seventh watch of It’s Such a Beautiful Day I hooked my laptop up to three huge speakers and I must say—you were so, so right. I made a video essay about the movie. Lol, I’m not sure if this will get to you but Michael Jordan once said something about missing shots or not taking shots or maybe about tequila, I am unsure but I know it was important. Thanks MJ. Not you, Mr Jackson. I’m sorry Ms. Jackson…

I actually do have a question, sorry about the rambling. Every single time I watch the guy at the payphone flip his pencil and go “fantastic, fantastic” I cry. And I think what really does it for me is that “we’ll finally have our day”. Earlier in the movie, Bill’s co-worker talks about how all of time is happening at once. So what I constantly ask myself is if the guy at the payphone is simultaneously having his day and waiting for it. And I’m no longer speaking to that one specific example or even to the movie as a whole but I guess I’m wondering if the idea of all events happening at once comforts you?

In Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut writes: “The most important thing I learned on Tralfamadore was that when a person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past, so it is very silly for people to cry at his funeral. All moments past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist.” When I read this I immediately thought about your movie. I think the idea of all of time happening at once makes all of life feel less important but more special. You know? Anyway, I suppose I’d just like to know what inspired the lines about time in the office scene. This isn’t much of a question, more an incoherent ramble but thank you so, so much for all you’ve done. I feel so incredibly inspired and so deeply moved by your work and I know that so many people in this comment section and around the world would agree. I can’t believe I’ve been given the opportunity to ask something. It really is such a beautiful day. :) —Eli Osei (co-signed by Vooder) that old guy at the payphone was someone i saw at the laundromat once and he borrowed my pencil and the whole thing just played out like in the movie. i just thought it was such a perfect little scene that i’d just witnessed. anyway, the idea of time being a landscape and everything taking place “at once” just came straight out of a science magazine. i don’t know how, but apparently it’s been more or less proven to be true? we perceive time in one direction, but the past and the future are always all around us. think of it as though we’re driving our car through a landscape. even though the mountains we saw ten minutes ago are behind us now, it doesn’t mean those mountains have ceased to exist. they’ve only ceased to exist from our point of view. we’ve only just driven past them. the mountains, like your childhood, are still going on back there. anyway, i had never heard of that before and thought it needed to be in a movie.

A still from ‘World of Tomorrow Episode Two: The Burden of Other People’s Thoughts’ (2017).

Are you a fan of Kurt Vonnegut by any chance? It may be coincidental, but I love how you both utilize science-fiction settings and concepts like being “unstuck from time/memory” to explore the human condition. I feel his writing and your animation are both capable of making me laugh wholeheartedly one minute and weeping genuine, sorrowful tears the next. —Vooder i’m embarrassed to say i’ve never read him and i’m told on a regular basis that i should. that all started after i am so proud of you came out with those discussions about time being a landscape. but i almost only ever read non-fiction. it’s a long story. but now i’m almost afraid to ever read vonnegut after all these years of build-up.

Hey Don, this is really cool. I don’t have as much of a question, more of a comment. It’s Such A Beautiful Day has gotten me through a lot of hard times, being in middle school sucks, I think everyone knows that: and your movie has made life just a wee bit better for me. It also gave me the inspiration and motivation to finish my first feature! Thanks lots. Love from Indiana —Blood Mountain: Experimental Cinema <3 hey thank you. yeah middle school was pretty much the deepest pit of hell. there’s this old saying, “if you find yourself in hell, keep going”. and i’ve never understood that saying. “keep going”, because, i guess, you can always just go deeper into hell?

Hi! Has the vitreous humour in your eyes started to deteriorate and have you experienced floaters within your eyeballs? If not, that’s okay. Just remember it’s part of life, so don’t get scared when it happens! Just keep moving on! But if you do have them, follow-up question: Do you think it’s funny that the body of vitreous fluid that allows your sight to be clear is called the vitreous humour, and when it detaches it’s anything but humorous? I find that pretty humorous myself, in, like, an ironic way. —Clbert1 i actually blew a blood vessel in my eye a couple weeks ago and the whole thing turned bright blood red. it didn’t hurt or anything, i just walked into the room all disgusting and my girlfriend was like, “what the fuck?!” and then the next day i had further weird eye problems. i just went to the eye doctor yesterday. i think i will be fine but i was thinking, wouldn’t it be like the most heavy metal thing ever for my biography if i just suddenly went BLIND? “and then in 2020, HE WENT BLIND.”

Will Intro ever be released to the general public outside of theater screenings? —Melissa okay yes you’ve talked me into it. on that note, i noticed that the poster of intro used on letterboxd is a weird fake and i’m not sure where it came from. someone just used a picture from rejected. if fake posters are to be made i would prefer it if they used a picture from raiders of the lost ark or something.

Do you have plans to combine the World of Tomorrow shorts into one feature-length film à la It’s Such a Beautiful Day? —David Sigura, Sam Stewart, An_Person no, it’s going to be much longer than a feature-length.

Will we ever get a ‘Hertzfeldt 4K Collection’? Or at least a Blu-ray with It’s Such a Beautiful Day and all episodes of World of Tomorrow? —Teebin, HippityHoppity there is actually already a blu-ray for it’s such a beautiful day. up next we’ll do some sort of world of tomorrow blu-ray of the first three episodes. but 4k is too many k’s. you don’t need that many k’s.

Would you ever consider comprising an OST album of all the songs you used and mixed from your films? —PhiloDemon i don’t think so. i read that for many years cat stevens resisted releasing his original songs from harold and maude on any records because he thought they were more special if you could only ever hear them in the movie. i like that.

Do you get a sick kind of pleasure from emotionally destroying people with your movies? —MaxT26 yep.

What’s been your ongoing experience of the outpouring of joy and love of your work? —Henry gratitude. how sad for me if, after all this work, nobody was watching at all.

Related content

Don’s invaluable Twitter thread about “old-school animation camera stuff”

A Few of the Fingerprints on the World of Tomorrow Universe: a list of influences curated for Letterboxd by Don Hertzfeldt

Modest Heroes: the Letterboxd Showdown for indie animation

The Drawn Cinema: Analena’s list of rough animation, pencil textures, watercolor effects, dynamic brushes and other poetic artistry.

Beloved Indie Animation: a list by Gui

Animated Sci-Fi and Fantasy: an extensive list by Stonefolk

‘World of Tomorrow Three: The Absent Destinations of David Prime’ is available now through Bitter Films on Vimeo.