#but I can make tolerably good lineart from photos

[markscherz]

A new friend!

[ruthlesslistener]

yo!!! jus' wanted to say that your take on lurien slaps Unbelievably Much [and honestly, the entire concept of making him a jewelmark has gotta be among the coolest overall everything i ever done did see]

now, if it's alright to ask, i've been Wondering -- are there any specific little habits/quirks/whathaveyou you've adapted to fit him somehow, as based off general jewelmark behaviour? or was the entire jewelmark thing mostly design speculation that doesn't really extend to habits and such? [which would honestly be fair and Extremely valid, what with how jewelmarks might as well be the cryptids of the butterfly world lmao]

overall, though! keep on keepin on, man -- your art [especially the level of detail to your lineart + shading, hot DAMN] and headcanons and literally everything are Baller n it's always a delight to see it all [and by extension, you!] around! hope you have a good one!!

Hjsgfbjsdf thank you so much!! I love fleshing out barely-existent characters, so hearing that people enjoy my take on them is great! 

As for choosing to make Lurien a jewelmoth, that pick was done entirely based off of looks rather than behavior; I decided I wanted to make him a butterfly based on the headcanon of mine that he doesn’t like to be looked at (bc butterflies are rare in Hallownest/they’ve got pretty wings so that is like the WORST thing to be if you hate people staring at you), and then I chose jewelmark bc the fluff would explain why he’d look chunky under the robe while still having that sorta butterfly body type

For the behavior quirks- yes, he does have species-specific behaviors! Unfortunately, they’re not jewelmark specific though, and are mostly based on some lorebuilding I did for butterflies in-world. Hours of combing through google scholar for articles on jewelmarks ended up being pretty fruitless- all I could find out was that they’re one of the few butterflies whose caterpillars eat nonvascular plants like mosses and fungi, which ended up being more of a lucky coincidence for baby Lurien rather than something planned. Them being rather small animals + being rainforest critters probs doesn’t lend well to many studies on them specifically (hell, I’ve only been able to find one black and white image of their caterpillar phase, and the lack of larvae photos is driving me nuts. Lov the fuzz sausages). 

For butterflies in-world, I kind of wanted to make them be nebulously tied to the Grimm Troupe, which makes a lot of them traveling performers or artists that live in big extended family clusters- kind of like the moth tribe, but more mobile, and focused on a wider range of spell arts than simply essence-melding. Lurien’s family, however, got disbanded by force on the way to Hallownest, so the only relatives he had were his parents. But they were often busy and away from home, so he grew up alone with only stories about what his life would have been like if they stayed with their kindred, which sort of fucked him over socially. He’s one of those people who are so painfully, desperately lonely that they consider it a standard; even if he’s an introvert by nature, he’s got the instinct to be in a big family group, and subconsciously longs for one even though he does his best to stay away. Unlike PK, who is an asocial being that can barely tolerate social shit unless it’s from a few specific people, Lurien’s rigid adherence to loneliness has a legitimate affect on his mental health. It’s sort of a vicious cycle- he genuinely needs quite a bit of space and enjoys the quiet comfort of being alone, but because he knows nothing else, he also has no idea how to respond to social situations other than the rigid etiquette demanded by manners, which causes anxiety when it’s lapsed to something more casual, which in turn makes him terrified of social interactions and forces him away, which leads to depressive episodes. I like to compare and contrast his introverted nature with PK’s, but the root cause of the difference is def. bc of an attribute I tied to his species- he’s of a social nature, whereas PK isn’t. With him, being alone can be too much of a good thing, whereas with PK, he often needs to be away from others (even WL) in order to calm down and avoid being overstimulated. Like indulging in a sweet rather than needing it as a sort of factory reset.

(Also pls keep in mind that most butterflies irl are actually solitary in adulthood but shhhh we’re ignoring that for favor of anthropomorphized literary parallels here; moths don’t tend to be social either, to my knowledge, but they were implied to be in HK, so butters are also social in HK)

As for species-specific habits- I think mutual grooming would be something that would be important to a jewelmark family! So Lurien doesn’t just need a long cloak to hide his wings, he also needs a long cloak because he’d pull all his fuzz out trying to groom away his stress. Petting him or trying to fuss over him would relax him significantly, even though he’d likely try to flinch away- part of why I headcanon him and Herrah to have started getting along after a while was because she ended up respecting him sooner than he started respecting her, so she’d often do things like lightly brushing her claws through his fluff in a sort of reverse hair-ruffle when he unmasked. He’s also prone to wanting to flare his wings when he’s greeting others he likes or showing off, as many butterflies have family and person-specific markings on the wings that help identify each other, but that’s something he tamps down quite well (guess it helps that he almost never uncovers his wings). He’d also quite dislike getting cold and wet bc his kind come from more tropical weather than the cool lake downpour the City gets, which would probably lead to more fastidious grooming habits that are specifically due to him being a kind of bug that prefers looking meticulous...even if Lurien himself has a slightly rumpled, bedraggled look to him once he actually decides to disrobe 

That’s all I got for now, bc I tend to hc Lurien to hide being a butterfly to avoid kicking up a fuss/being identifiable, but ty for the ask!! Also, if anyone wants some tips for lining and shading, then I’d be happy to offer some advice- don’t hesitate to ask!

[hetbigbang]

2019-2020 Rules & FAQ

Welcome to the Het Big Bang!! The HetBB is an opportunity for authors and fanworkers to create stories and fanworks, from any fandom, for any het pairing! General Information What is a Big Bang? A Big Bang is a writing challenge that prompts authors and fanworkers to work together, to create a story and fanwork that go together! The HetBB focuses on any heterosexual (male/female) pairing, from any fandom and original works are also welcome! We have two word goal options: 20,000 for the Big Bang and 10,000 words for the Little Bang! Big Bang stories are qualified to receive a fanwork through the claiming process on HetBB. Stories and fanworks must be posted, in their entirety, during the due date period. (Check the Schedule for when this is!) There will be no exceptions made to post before the reveal date. If, for example, your story is 100k with 19 chapters, all 19 chapters and 100k words must be posted during the due date period and ready to be revealed by May 1st. What is Allowed for the Het Big Bang: Any het pairing, any fandom! Any genre, any rating! Crossovers, fusions, and alternate universes are all allowed, so long as the focus is on a het pairing! Want to write a story with Harry Potter in a relationship with Wonder Woman? Excellent, please do! Want to write Harry Potter and Hermione in a relationship and joining the Justice League in a Harry Potter/DC Comics crossover? Great! Want to write Batman and Catwoman in a relationship, in a Harry Potter AU fusion? Feel free to write that story!!! More than one pairing, het or otherwise, in a fic is also allowed. Slash and femslash pairings can be included, so long as they are secondary and not the focus of the story, such as a story about Tony Stark/Pepper Potts, who happen to hang out with their good friend couple, Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne occasionally. Characters in the het pairing do not have to be strictly heterosexual, either! Mentions of past relationships with the same sex are fine, such as a story about Buffy Summers/Spike, and Buffy mentions a past relationship with Willow, or Buffy having an interest in women is fine, so long as the focus of the story is not Buffy's desire to get with another woman. Threesomes or moresomes should not be the focus of your story. Gen fic with a hint of ship also doesn't qualify for the Het Big Bang and while we aren't going psychoanalyze how "shippy" your fic is, we ask that you use your best judgement. Remember, we're here to celebrate het pairings! Original Works, genderbent characters to make a het pairing (such as Tony Stark genderbent to a woman and paired with Bruce Wayne, or Thor genderbent to a woman AND Jane Foster genderbent to a man), and RPF (real person fiction) are all allowed! Mod Contact Info: If you have any questions or concerns, here is the Page-A-Mod Post. You can also contact the mods at thehetbigbang@gmail.com or by messaging LuciferxDamien or JesterLady on the HetBigBang Discord Server.   General Guidelines --Be kind to each other! We all like different things and rudeness for disliking a pairing, characters, any canon, genre, or kink, etc. will not be tolerated! We want everyone to feel welcome and supported here!!! --Please provide us with an email address that you frequently check. The mods need a good email address in the case that contact is needed, such as during story/fanwork claims, or for clarification purposes. All important announcements are sent out via email, as well. In the event that you change your email during the duration of the Het Big Bang, it is your responsibility to update the mods! Your email address will ONLY ever be used for official Het Big Bang business. --Please keep in contact with the mods and your author/fanworker partner, if you're working with one! If something comes up and you need to drop out at any stage, that's okay! Just let the mods know! Needing to dropout before the final default date is not a bannable offense, and even if the default date has passed, please let us know, so we can work something out. You can contact the mods at any time via email at thehetbigbang@gmail.com.   Author Info/Story Requirements and Guidelines --Authors can work with a co-author or a group, just make sure to sign-up all authors on the sign-up sheet and have everyone join the comm if they wish. --WIPs are allowed, so long as it has never been posted anywhere. If you have never posted the story anywhere, it qualifies for this Bang, even if you started writing it 10 years ago! --Authors can sign up to do two stories. Both times for the Big Bang, or both times for the Little Bang, or one Little Bang and one Big Bang! To sign up twice, fill out the sign up form twice! The Big Bang --The minimum word count for the Big Bang is 20k. There is no maximum word limit, but please be aware of time constraints and obligations, if you’ve chosen to be paired up with a fanworker. IE don’t try to write a 100k story and choose to be paired with a fanworker if you’re not certain you can finish it on time! --Stories at least 20k in length can choose to be paired with a fanworker during the claiming process on the comm, and have an accompanying fanwork created for that story! Stories that are over 20k in length can opt out of receiving a fanwork, if the author does not want the pressure of working with a fanworker! --Authors that choose to be paired with a fanworker have an obligation to finish that story, or face consequences for dropping out! Little Bang --The minimum word count for the Little Bang is 10k. There is no maximum word limit, but a story that is over 20k is guaranteed an accompanying fanwork, while stories less than 10k can still go through the claiming process, an accompanying fanwork is not guaranteed. --Stories less than 20k in length are not guaranteed to be paired with a fanworker during the claiming process. Stories less than 20k in finished length can still post a summary during the Little Bang story claims and try to get matched with a fanworker. --Little Bang summaries will be posted after Big Bang stories have all been claimed. --Authors that choose to be paired with a fanworker have an obligation to finish that story, or face consequences for dropping out! What requirements are there for stories? --All stories must focus on or revolve around a het pairing of your choosing! --All stories must be complete by the due date period. Please check the schedule for when this will be. --All stories must be beta read. This is not an option! We suggest finding a beta sooner rather than later, and the HetBang comm and Discord will be great places to start seeking a beta. If you want to have more than one person beta read your story, that's fine, too! --All stories must be posted to Ao3! Once the collection reveals, stories can be posted anywhere else the author chooses. --Stories must not be posted before the due date! Posting guidelines will go live in April, before the due date period.   Fanworker and Fanwork Requirements --The minimum amount of accompanying fanworks per eligible story is 1 piece. If you are a fanworker and choose to claim 3 stories, that means you will need to create 1 fanwork for each story, 3 total. Please do not take on more stories than you can handle! --Fanworkers can claim as many stories as they are reasonably certain they can handle. Please do not take on 5 stories to create a fanwork for unless you are reasonably certain you can finish all 5 fanworks! --Fanworkers that sign-up are not required to claim a story. Claims are a few months off from author sign-ups, and we understand that life can happen and you may not be able to claim a story as planned, this is totally fine! Just let us know that you’re dropping out and you’re good to go! --All fanworks must be complete by the due date period. Please check the schedule for when this will be. --Fanworks must not be posted before the due date! Posting guidelines will go live in April, before the due date period. What are the minimum requirements for fanworks? Each story a fanworker claims is required to have at least one accompanying fanwork of quality for each story they claim. If a fanworker decides to claim 3 stories, they will be required to create one accompanying fanwork for each story, so at minimum, 3 fanworks. You’re creating something for a work that is at least 10k in length, so we want the fanwork to match that effort! Here are the suggested guidelines: Traditional/Digital art: Cleaned lineart, on unlined paper, that is at least 500x500 pixels is the minimum. Additional sketchier/rougher pieces are welcomed so long as one piece of art is at the cleaned lineart stage! Manips: Clean renders and non-blurry images that do not contain watermarks should be used for photo manipulation. Examples of the quality expected for this Bang can be found right here on Fanlore. Banners or Icons or Wallpaper: 5 icons, of at least 100x100 pixels. 3 banners. 1 wallpaper. More is of course always welcomed! Picspam or Gifsets: At least 6 images, but more images, or multiple sets are welcome! Vids: At least two minutes long, or a full song! Fanmixes: At least 10 songs and include cover art (this can be a manip!).   Het Bang FAQs Do I need a DreamWidth/LiveJournal/Tumblr/Ao3 account? The only account that is required at this point is Archive of Our Own. The reason for this is that all stories will be posted to the Het Big Bang Ao3 Collection, rather than being posted to the DreamWidth/LiveJournal communities. After the Ao3 collection reveals, you’re free to post your story/fanwork anywhere you wish! I have my own fanworker I work with, or I found a fanworker to work with, do I still have to go through claims? First off, that’s great you’ve found a partner to work with! All you need to do is let us mods know that you’re already paired up and have your fanworker sign-up, if they haven’t already! You do not need to go through claims, story claiming is for authors that are still seeking a fanworker to work with. Can I join this comm? Absolutely! Feel free to join and watch the comm even if you aren't signing up! What support communities are there for Het Big Bang? We’ve got a few places to hang out!

het_banghelp is a community set up for members only. Every year, previous members are removed so that only this year’s participants have access. Once you sign-up, you can request to join again! Authors, fanworkers, betas, and cheerleaders are welcome and encouraged to join! This comm is for all your hand-holding, snippet sharing, and flailing. Special writing and enabling events will be hosted on that comm, such as Snippet Days and Block Writing Events. HetBang Discord Server is another choice if you like chat-style platforms. There are channels for sprinting and word wars, sharing snippets, asking for writing help, beta reader/cheerleader seeking, and offtopic channels for chatting! The Discord server is open to anyone that wants to chat and be supportive, whether you have signed up or not for the Het Big Bang. What are check-ins? Check-ins are a way to see how you’re doing on your work! Some of them are mandatory and some of them are not, so it’s important to keep track of which ones are mandatory! They’re also a great way to keep yourself on track and a time to talk about your work and let others know how you’re doing. What is the amnesty period? The amnesty period is a chance for participants that couldn't quite finish on time to have one last chance to post for the current Bang! If for any reason you cannot post on your chosen reveal date, please get in contact with the mods ASAP! I signed up last year, and then dropped out. Can I still sign up again? Yes!! Can I drop out? Yes! Sometimes life gets in the way or a story just doesn’t happen, and we understand that! However, there is a cutoff point, and if you do not let the mods know before this date, you can be banned from the next round. Even if it is after this cutoff date that you need to drop out please let us know so that we can discuss options. We can’t help if we don’t know there is a problem! Can I sign up as an author AND a fanworker? Absolutely! What can I do if I have problems with my author/fanworker? Contact the mods! Let us handle things as we understand that sometimes people just don’t get along. Abuse or rude behaviour toward any participant in the Bang will not be tolerated, especially for story/fanwork content. (It’s important for fanworkers to read all the warnings in a story summary, and for authors to list all warnings in their story summary!) Please just get in contact with us mods to resolve issues between participants, rather than disappearing. from Het Big Bang https://ift.tt/2nJcamh via IFTTT

[killfaeh]

Back to childhood with AppleWorks

Hi everyone! Today I'm going to tell you about a very old software that kept me busy for many, many hours during my teenage years and that I've had the pleasure of rediscovering these days. Apple fans will have glitter of nostalgia in their eyes, others will have the opportunity to discover a beautiful tool that has not forgotten to be compatible with Windows. It is AppleWorks! AppleWorks was an office suite, installed on all Apple computers of the time, which, in addition to the classic word processor, spreadsheet and Power Point presentation, also offered a vector drawing tool and a bitmap drawing tool. It was my first experience in digital drawing and photo manipulation and with a bit of inventiveness, I was able to get some amazing things out of it. Behind its apparent simplicity, this little soft hides an unsuspected power. Let's go for a little trip back in time!

Small overview

The painting module

Gallery of illustrations

Install AppleWorks (Yes! It still works! )

Small overview

AppleWorks is 6 softwares grouped into one. When you launch it, it offers you the possibility to create 6 types of documents: word processor, spreadsheet, database, presentation, bitmap drawing, vector drawing.

I quickly talk about Spreadsheet, Database and Presentation because I never used these modules. Anyway, know that with Spreadsheet you could make like with Excel, with Database, create databases and with Presentation, make like with Power Point. (You can click on the images to enlarge them to full size.)

And here are, then, the 3 modules that I really used!

The word processor

I wrote all my comics scripts, presentations and internship reports there when I was at school, until my dad bought Microsoft Office. Hard to compete with the Word arts. 8D Except that Microsoft Office did not offer vector drawing software, nor bitmap drawing software. So it was not about to dethrone AppleWorks.

The vector drawing module

This module helped me a lot to make diagrams to integrate in the word processor, draw dungeon plans for our Donjons and Dragons sessions, make some logos or paste editable text on images like my comics pages. I particularly liked its ability to generate gradients that roughly matched the shape in which they were applied, and there are recent vector drawing technologies that still can't do that and that's a little bit annoying to me. And finally, here is the module where I really spent the most time!

The bitmap drawing module

Well... Some geometrical shapes, a pencil, a brush, a filling tool, an eraser... So far it doesn't look much different from Paint. Wait until you see what it is capable of. :p

The painting module (bitmap drawing)

To begin, AppleWorks 6 is not the first version of AppleWorks that I worked with and already at that time, I had my little habits and what a disappointment for me when I didn't find my favorite features !! Looking for a little bit it turned out that they were just a little hidden and just needed to be tidied up a bit. Because yes! This small software already had a customizable interface by drag and drop as on a modern Photoshop!

Now all is clear, we can get to the heart of the matter: drawing! :p I've already mentioned the toolbar on the side earlyer, which is already familiar to you if you've ever used Paint. Now, let's move on to the area just below: the palettes. AppleWorks offers a limited palette of colors.

You can combine the selected color with a pattern to apply. Some of them look like manga screentones.

Some fun colorful patterns are also available.

And finally a small palette of gradients is also available.

Well... A few funny patterns, some gradients. It's enough to have fun for 5 minutes, but nothing special. We will going not very far. That's where the real work begins. :p Do you remember? A few moments ago I added buttons in the horizontal bar at the top, including this one.

And this is what it opens!

A customization window! :D Not enough colors in the default palette? Never mind! You can create as many color palettes as you want.

Not enough patterns either in black and white or in color? You can create as many pattern palettes as you want!

The default gradients palettes is too poor? No problem! You can create as many gradient palettes as you want! And for the moment, I spent a lot, a lot, a lot of time on this section! You can make circular gradients.

Linear gradients.

And gradients that fit the shape in which you apply them. Well, it's far from perfect with concave shapes, but it already allows for interesting things.

And to give the coup de grace to Paint, with AppleWorks you could even create your own brushes! :p

There are even some effects available such as blurring.

This AppleWorks is a piece of cake in the belly! :D Now that we know about its possibilities, I propose to show you a small gallery of what I was able to do with this software from end of nineties to middle of 2000s. :D

Gallery of illustrations

Let's start with the very first drawing I made with AppleWorks in 1998. We didn't have a scanner at the time, so I had to do it entirely with the mouse. It was also a time when I didn't have much notion of saving the original files and I considered that as soon as I had printed the drawing, it was no longer worth keeping it on the computer to save space (the hard drive was 4 GB). So this is a scan of the printed version you see here. x)

A good old Darth Vader! (1998)

Well, making a drawing from A to Z entirely with the mouse was laborious, so I also used AppleWorks to create backgrounds and print them. Then I would do my drawing by hand and cut it out and paste it onto the printed background. I was able to make interesting effects by understanding the limitations of the software and exploiting them. By understanding that gradients were composed of a series of solid color bands, I could make focus line effects by filling them with the filling tool with a different patterns or gradients.

This posing remind some Dragon Ball character (Between 1998 and 2000)

It is also with AppleWorks that I made my first attempts at photo manipulation. I used photos from an encyclopedia we had on CD-ROM and manipulate them by tinkering them and copying and pasting small pieces here and there. Then I printed my montages and paste them onto the comics pages.

My montages were mainly used for space scenery. (1999 - 2000 in collaboration with my sister)

This software really pushed me to be creative to get what I wanted out of it. I had even managed the tour de force of pasting a white lineart over a photo.

(2000 - 2001)

In the absence of layers, I had to work on 2 files in parallel and with the lasso select tool. And then one day, our first scanner finally arrived home! There the serious things could begin! I was able to stop trying to make drawings with the mouse and use AppleWorks to put in color drawings made with the traditional way. So I was able to go further from the end of nineties. It obviously started with Saint Seiya. x) (You can always click on the images to enlarge them to full size.)

I loved the Aquarius saint. He was my favorite character from Saint Seiya. ^^ (2000 - 2001, this way)

At the beginning I was just doing solid colors, but as I experimented with the features and learned how to combine them, I ended up getting more and more advanced renderings.

Aoshi Shinomori from Kenshin and Ashram from Record of Lodoss War. These two were also my favorites characters at one time. (Between 2004 and 2006)

If you have enlarged the images you must have noticed that the line is particularly crenellated. There was no antialiasing, no layer system with opacity levels, no tolerance threshold for the filling tool. So it had to be black, or white, but not in between. As a result, AppleWorks was not really adapted to work on drawings with small details, hatching or heavily detailled backgrounds...

I tried anyway. :p These last 4 examples I think I made them between 2004 and 2006. The comics pages come from the first version of the Nécrotech project which is currently in a dormant state (but which I intend to resume one day). You'll notice on the first image of the last page some effects whose style stands out a bit from the rest. It's normal, I made them in another old painting software, Art Dabbler, but this is another story. :p In 2007, I got tired of suffering, I started to use The Gimp, in 2008 I bought my first graphics tablet, in 2009 I embarked on the Photoshop adventure and you know the rest: I sold my soul to Promarkers and Clip Studio Paint. And then there are days like that, we fall back into childhood. (Click on the image to see it at full size and distinguish the pixel patterns. I know, I repeat myself, but the devil is in the details. :p )

Last week, I decided to make a theme of the Drink'N'Draw from A to Z with AppleWorks to see what I could get out of it with 15 more years of experience in drawing and illustration. 8D With some tips you can get a pretty amazing result! I am happy with the result, especially the colors. It wasn't done without pain. The feature I wanted to take full advantage of (customizing color patterns) is buggy on the Windows version of the software, so I had to set up a Mac OS X Snow Leopard virtual machine to be able to do the finishing touches. What an adventure! In any case, AppleWorks is always well adapted to make pixel art and this experience has allowed me to learn new things applicable in recent and professional softwares. I had never really tried pixel art, which I love, by apprehension of the execution time. I think I found the trigger to get serious about it. I will explore it further. :D Well, well, well! But in fact, calculating gradient patterns for pixel art with shaders shouldn't be complicated. I think I will add such an effect in Péguy ! :D

Install AppleWorks

You've read it right! You can still install and use AppleWorks in 2021! :D

Windows

I did the test with Windows 8.1 on my Cintiq Companion tablet from Wacom, and in the comments it seems that it also works very well on Windows 10. To do this you will first install the latest version of QuickTime 7 which you can find on this page. You double click on the installer and you do next, next, next... Even when you are asked if you have a product key. It is not mandatory and useless for our needs. Then you go to this page and download the first file. You unzip the file and double click on the installer, then same procedure as before: next, next, next... You can do retro digital painting now! :D

Mac OS X

Apple computers have changed so much in 20 years that it is now impossible or at least very complicated to run the original programs on today's machines. The manipulation therefore consists in using the Windows version with the Wine emulator. If I had no problem with the procedure, it may seem a bit complicated for non-technical profiles so I simply propose you to download the final application I created myself via this link on Google Drive. You just have to download it, unzip it (with a double click) and launch it. If you're a computer geek and want to get a version of AppleWorks without the color pattern bug, you can get the .dmg here and install it in a Snow Leopard virtual machine.

Be reasonable about the size of your files. This is an old software that will have trouble supporting surfaces exceeding 2000px by 2000px. There is a way to cheat a bit, it is by creating a vector drawing file and creating a bitmap drawing surface inside.

That's all for that nostalgic moment. I think I will come back with some illustrations made with AppleWorks in the future. :D Have a nice day and see you soon! Suisei

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Source : https://www.suiseipark.com/News/Entry/id/308/