#but as you can see i learned how to use overlays! so i feel fancy at least

[therigeling]

How. Do you paint. Please. I have tried. I have cried. Tell me ur secrets 😭

i see you, bestie, we’ve all been there.

the technique i use is a common one for painting - make a mess, work on top of it. you can see it for yourself here:

(btw, i’m entirely self-taught and still have a lot to learn, so my use of this technique is probably wildly unorthodox. but it works for me and may or may not work for you.)

so the process basically goes like: 1. get yourself a messy ass sketch, don’t even worry about details, nor anatomy really. you can fix everything as you go. 2. FIGURE OUT YOUR BACKGROUND COLOR. it’s important!!! all your colors are gonna depend on it. (but again, don’t worry too much since anything is salvageable through our lord and savior gradient maps.) 3. slap some base colors on. paint some basic shadows and lighting as well. BUT! BE MESSY ABOUT IT. NO DETAILS, NO DEFINITION. 4. play around with your colors a bit. color correction? gradient maps? overlay? yes. 5. got your colors down? alright, you can add SOME definition. just fix wonky shapes, nothing too fancy. 6. NOW we’re talking about details. fix the shadows, add some highlights. get the edges nice and crisp, or cute and smooth. go all out. 7.MORE COLOR CORRECTION! fix the little places that bother you.

and that’s all, basically. Make a mess, make mistakes, fix them, have fun!

Don’t like how your artwork turned out? it’s okay, try again! art is all about practice and making mistakes, it’s not that serious to cry over it.

if y’all are interested i can post some of my older, cringier paintings (from 2014 till now) to make y’all feel better about your own journey :)

[artsyjesseblue]

Whenever I feel like I’m losing my skills in drawing the human body, I always go back to the basics and start studying again. Especially hands, those seems to always fade faster from my drawing memory. I wanted to share my process of drawing hands, because I’ve heard many of you raising similar issues.

There are many drawing techniques out there and lots of pose reference sites; a very simple technique is to view all body forms as simple 3D geometric figures. Yes, that is a good way to establish the general forms and their proportions in relation to each other. But my recap does NOT start off with this:

Instead, this is my go-to method:

The old, classic anatomy… The hardest to master, but once you understand the skeletal structure and how the muscles and tendons overlay, then the drawing starts to make much more sense. This is the foundation for best art.

Halloween just passed, but some of you might still keep outside those fancy skeletons. Some of them are anatomically quite accurate. If you’re looking for a way to learn to draw, you might discover that it’s been there all along. 😉

Wondering what those red arrows and lines mean in my above drawing? Those are anatomical landmarks. They are my clues to where everything is situated underneath the skin.

Without entering into crazy bone names like scaphoid, lunate, capitate, etc (which I used to know by heart a long time ago - but reciting their names doesn’t really help me with actually drawing them), just know that besides the finger bones (the phalanges) and the metacarpal bones that make up the palm of the hand, there is that cluster of tiny bones right at the base of the hand. These guys basically create the connection between the hand and the bones of the forearm (radius and ulna). Depending on the angle of the hand, they give lots of reference points to an artist, along with the radius and ulna extremities, which form the base of the joint (top two arrows on the drawing).

The anatomical landmarks are the key to mastering human figure drawing.

One important thing to remember is that no finger bone is like the other. If, when you’re drawing a hand, you begin to “count” the fingers like twigs, instead of drawing them as unique elements, that’s a sign that you lost the anatomy of your drawing. Each finger is like a different person. It has a different character. Sure, they’re all related, like siblings in a family. You won’t see a hand with two pianist fingers and three lumberjack fingers. They have common traits, but they are not quite the same. And that’s because the bones underneath the skin are not the same. In the drawing above, I highlighted the way the knuckles and the joints of the fingers align in concentric arcs (which are not necessarily parallel). They don’t align in straight paths. Whenever you draw a hand, keep that in mind.

Below, I added a few pics of my own hand as a drawing reference. Although my hand is not the best at depicting anatomy since I don’t have very evident joints, there are still discreet changes in the contour lines that indicate where there are bones underneath the surface: the ulna, the radius, the metacarpal joints, etc.

Here are some more pics with various angles. Notice, again, the subtle transitions, suggesting the bone structures underneath.

There are as many hand types as people on Earth. Not one is like the other, and that’s determined genetically and by the amount and type of physical activity - because the bones underneath are reshaped by the pull of muscles and tendons. So studying a hand is basically like studying a portrait.

A good way to practice learning how the bones align underneath the skin and muscles is to study x-rays of hands. You can understand the relationship between the outer shape of the hand and the internal structure. Sure, there are muscles and tendons that further refine the shape, but the bone landmarks will always be right where they are supposed to be. Draw, draw some more, practice a lot, repeat. Study the differences in bone length from one hand to another, from one finger to another.

No plastic skeleton model? There are some really cool apps out there; I’ve never used them, in fact I just downloaded one today to play with it and it’s really cool. Search for “anatomy 3D” and you’ll find lots of apps, some of them include body movement.

So here are three steps (I won’t say they’re easy, because anatomy is complex) to get better at drawing hands (and by extension, the whole human figure):

Best is to start with basic images with the palm laying flat, like the x-ray image above. Draw the bones and the outer shape of the hand. Examine the ratio between the length of the fingers and that of the palm, the width of the palm vs the height, etc.

Then transition to more complex models, like the anatomical 3D models I mentioned before, so you can see how the bones look from the lateral view, and so on. Draw from many angles, see how the bone shapes look in perspective.

Last step is to use a real-life model (your own hand is the easiest), and knowing where those anatomical landmarks are, start practicing. Again, simple poses first, more complex afterwards as you get better and better. NB: there are lots of landmarks on a hand. I pointed out the less obvious ones. There are also the knuckles, the finger joints, and I have not discussed at all about the palmar side landmarks (the inside, or the palm of hand) but you can find them in the apps I talked about. As a rule of thumb (pun unintended), there are landmarks wherever there are joints between two bones, or where the bone has a protuberance. Some are discreet, others are more evident. Palpate your own joints to better understand what is underneath the skin.

I hope this helps others too! Whenever I’m stuck, I return to this routine, and it helps my rusty drawing get back on track. I focus on whatever body part I need to re-learn, and then zoom out to the whole human figure. Knowing these landmarks will make your drawing look natural, the shapes will flow coherently.

[comicaurora]

how did you do the fancy gradient linework for vash in starfire form? and also, what was your logic behind which parts should be white and which should be black? i've been curious about it for a while, but it only occurred to me that i could ask now

That's a fun one! Drawing Vash's nova mode was an on-the-fly learning experience, so the effect I ended up using was more "whatever works best to my eyes" than anything planned.

Without the colored lineart overlay, with standard black lineart like everyone else, he looked like this:

Not bad, but I really wanted that powerful glowing-from-within look that light lineart can provide, so the first thing I did was take the whole lineart layer, duplicate it and recolor it to his glowy blue shade. This is also the layer I drew the outline of the fire on.

This looked good almost everywhere, but I didn't like what it did to his facial features. It felt weird to make his mouth and nose sort of reverse-outlined, so I soft-erased all the parts that just looked wrong to me.

That was better, but it needed intensifying. So I did two opposing things: I made another copy of the lineart layer, recolored it a dark blue, set it to multiply and whited out the parts I thought looked best with light lineart -

AND I went back to the very base lineart folder and I recolored all his base lineart (outside the deliberately dark sections) to a pale blue to intensify the glow.

The general rule I used was that anywhere a shadowed section touched the outline of the figure (chin, nose, the hair around his face) the lineart needed to be dark to blend with the shadow effect. Underneath all the fire and rain it looks like this:

I also had to play with it when showing him in profile, because I hold that his nose and mouth just didn't look right with white outlines, but I REALLY liked what the white outline did to the eye glow. You can see how I mostly kept to my rule about darkening the lineart where it touched a shadowed section - like the line of his right arm where it touches the shadow of his leg, or the curve of his left shoulder when it overlaps with his chest or the shadows on his hair. Because his facial features were mostly shadowed, I felt comfortable darkening the lineart on them specifically. It also made the effect feel better and more coherent than just darkening the facial features in isolation.

In the version below, you can see why lightening the lines uniformly starts looking really weird in the face area and makes the expression hard to parse. A nose is mostly defined by its shadow and a mouth by the contrast between light teeth and a dark, shadowed interior - if those shadowed areas are flipped to being bright instead it makes the entire face look Off. The lines of the nose no longer make sense, and we see the lightened interior of the mouth as where the teeth must be when that's not at all where they go.

What's cool is that clearly I'm not the only person who noticed this problem, because they used a similar effect in the W.I.T.C.H. comic when a character glowed in a similar fashion! Every other line is full radiant, but the facial features are kept outlined in a color darker than their surroundings!

Fun stuff!

[atsadi-shenanigans]

Feeding Alligators 8: Mind Your Language

You have words! And immediate bad news!

On AO3. Rated M for language and violence.

“Are you sure it’s working correctly?” Goth Girl says.

“For the price I paid, I certainly hope so,” Mumu says.

You hear the words. Not as they are, but their meaning. Like an overlay voiceover of original dialogue that British documentaries like to do.

“Say something else,” Fancy Pants says in an absolute goblin tone.

You sniff noxious fumes, blow your nose again. The taste of burning dirt lingers in your mouth like grease coating your teeth.

“Y’all can understand me?” you say.

Mumu’s face lights up. “Yes! Yes we can! Hello! So nice to finally be able to communicate with our mysterious traveling companion.”

Mysterious. What you are is lost, dazed, and in desperate need of a toothbrush.

“Sorry for the swearing,” you say. The words form on your tongue in English. Leave your lips as English. And twist their shape in midair before they reach the others.

“No apologies needed, my friend. I myself can rather attest to the affront to the senses that is the Potion of Tongues. I am glad to see it’s worked, though I am sorry it took me so long to realize this particular cure to your ailment; Wither’s commentary was the last piece of the puzzle.”

Your eyes still water. You squint at him as the speech assembles in your brain.

“Withers?” you say.

“Our good friend over there.” He gestures to Jerky Man. Whose actual name isn’t much better.

“Right.”

“So. Another dimension, eh?” Mumu says. “I suppose the mindflayer nautiloid did travel extensively.”

You’re trying to come up with some sort of answer to the first part, catch the word “mindflayer,” and all that extra thought grinds to a halt. “Wait, what? The hell is that?”

“The tentacled monsters that snatched us,” Goth Girl pipes in. “Is that not what your people call them?”

…what. Wait. Squidward isn’t an alien to them. They know of them?

“No. I don’t…none of this is anything I’ve ever had to deal with.”

Keep it simple for now. Hide the full extent of your ignorance. You have to be useful to these people. If you become a problem or a drag, they can cut you out. You have no friends, no family, no…no culture here. You can’t even talk to anyone without Mumu’s charity (potion). You need to make allies. You need to make them your allies, and that means shrinking yourself, taking all your weirdness and loudness and folding it small and shoving it into a box.

It tastes like swallowing that potion again, burning down your throat to boil your gut. You won the right to be weird and loud. To have opinions. To flail and bitch and be dramatic. It took fucking years to dredge up all of what makes you actually you. But you can’t be that here. You have to be quiet and calm. Be docile and small. Fade into the background.

For a second, the nasty little thought pops up: maybe you should have sat back down on that beach.

But no. No. You’ve put too much work in to lie down and die. This will be temporary. You’ll make sure of that. Just until you can learn enough to secure yourself a place here. Until you can build the skills or the good feelings or hell, the money to be able to protect yourself. You can do this.

“I take it mindflayers aren’t a common occurrence in your, erm, realm?” Mumu says. He’s totally fishing.

Calm and quiet and perhaps a bit simple.

“Eh, not really?” you say. “I ain’t any kinda scholar or whatsit. I’m just an office clerk. I file paperwork, mostly.”

You’re not important and you’re not a threat. Head empty, hands busy. You can almost hear your mother smirking triumphantly.

Mumu’s head tilts. “What an interesting accent. I wonder if that’s a consequence of the potion?”

How does the damned stuff even work? It seems to be fucking with your brain. With your language center. You’re hearing a difference in the way they all form their own words—mostly from Fancy Pants, who sounds like some hoity toity British guy. So it has to be somehow translating social connotations of their language at you. Which might mean your own, basic southern accent can work in your favor here.

You lay the backwoods on as thick as you can. Really channel Uncle Randy at his most self-parody. “I don’t know about any all that.”

It comes out “ah-oun’ na-oh ‘bou’ any awl ‘at.” Every vowel is too vowels—unlike clipped, too-fast northern—and half the words don’t have their proper start or end.

“Oh gods,” Fancy Pants drawls. “She’s a bumpkin.”

It does translate connotations. Huh. His last word comes in a little weird, but you think you get the gist.

“Those cephalopod monstrosities,” Gale says. “Nasty bunch. I don’t suppose, then, that you understand the full horror of our circumstances?”

Well that sounds like bad news.

“No?”

“Regarding the tadpoles? And the melt-change-condition?”

That word morphs in your brain way weird. Comes in totally garbled. What he says is one word, but what you hear is a very literal etymological breakdown of it? And it sounds downright nasty.

You squint at him.

“The tadpoles gestate in our brains before turning us all into mindflayers,” Goth Girl says. “We saw the results on the nautiloid.”

It takes a long second. That day is kind of a swiss-cheese fuckaroo in your memory. And then you remember the girl’s mouth splitting open as tentacles vomited out of the ragged hole in her face.

You stare at Goth Girl. Back to Mumu. The floor tilts beneath you.

“The what, now?” you say.

So Mumu repeats it, but in full-body graphic horror this time. Sweating. Bone liquification. Skin splitting. Shitting out now-useless internal organs.

You’ve never fainted before. Gotten dizzy? Yep. But an honest to god swoon?

You reach out and grab the edge of the table to keep yourself vertical. Fucking xenomorph bullshit, is what this is. Uncle Randy was right: aliens are out to get you, and they’ve got you.

As if sensing the brewing existential crisis, the brain worm—tadpole—behind your right eye gives a jaunty wiggle.

You swallow down the urge to puke. “How the fuck d’you fix that?”

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out. I don’t suppose you or, your people? Would have any solution?”

A surgical wing. Probably in some top secret “on foreign soil so U.S. laws don’t apply” military facility. They’d knock your ass out and go in with scalpels. Probably try to take the damn thing alive, your carcass be damned. Another missing Indian woman what a shame.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

“Not that I know of,” you say. “I’m from, I guess y’all said another world? It’s called Earth?”

You get blank stares. So this doesn’t happen often, then.

“We don’t have any of all this, this magic and monsters and shit. I was asleep, and then I woke up on that ship. I got no idea what’s going on, sorry.”

Mumu sighs and nods like he’s expecting it. “Well, I suspect a proper introduction is in order. Hello! I’m Gale Dekarios of Waterdeep, and it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

Gale. Sounds English.

“Eleanor Ripley,” you say.

“Ah. Interesting. Can’t say I’ve ever heard a name like that. You are from a long ways away, aren’t you?”

“It’s French,” you say helpfully. “I picked it.”

He doesn’t ask why. Doesn’t make it weird. What about the name your parents gave you and why would you change your whole name and isn’t that the lady from that alien movie?

The name your parents gave you fits someone who doesn’t exist anymore. You picked a first name that sounded pretty, and your family name was too easy to track down, too tied to all that bullshit. And yes, it is a variation of the lady from the alien movie because that was the first one you watched that you weren’t supposed to. It scared the absolute piss out of you for about a year. But you saw it and got away with it and you got rather…attached to it, after you got over yourself.

Goth Girl is Shadowheart. It translates literally, and for a moment you think Gale must just be “particularly strong breeze”. Until Fancy Pants introduces himself as Astarion—with a little bow. No translation on that one. So Shadowheart really is rocking around with the gothest name you’ve ever heard.

Good for her.

Everyone properly named and all, you then make the mistake of trying to figure out where y’all landed. And you realize that listening to Mu—Gale—when you couldn’t understand him made for a pleasant background noise. But catching the torrent of words that pours out of him all translated is an entirely different matter. You stop paying attention about a minute and a half into the geographical specifics going back to naming conventions from five dynasties ago.

He doesn’t stop talking.

Previous - Index - Next Chapter

[clairethecutepup]

Weekly Update: 5/8/23 - 5/13/23

Creative Work:

I'll admit it: I just had to drop everything and make fan art of C2ndy2c1d's "Assassin AU" for the Ed Edd n' Eddy series... I'm sorry, when I saw the mother and the Kizuki of the spider family, in Demon Slayer, the puppeteering and cutting threads just reminded me of the alternate Sarah and Jimmy. So, I had to draw fan art of them replicating said slicing and puppeteering. I'm doing the "bases" traditionally, via pencil-sketching, and utilizing my lightboard and glue to overlay cut-out "pieces" for an easier outline completion overall. Trust me, better to draw over illuminated notecards than to sketch overlapping features on other parts...

To be honest, part of me is screaming at myself over not using the "faster" tablet of mine to make the bases instead; but then I scream back at that part how I hate doing sketching digitally, and I only ever wanna digitally draw when it comes to outlines and coloring. I know, I know, doing the sketches digitally allows for easier manipulation and all, but it just feels easier to whip up a pencil "base" and do the fancy-pants digital stuff after scanning it. Perhaps it's the fact that with DIGITAL sketching, I also had to basically draw everything TWICE: not just the basic shapes, but the hair/eyes/etc. as PART of the base, then tracing over it all for the final outline? I dunno, with simple, blank "bases" on traditional paper, I can easily just draw the fancy-pants digital lines only ONCE while outlining everything...

As for Getting Your Goat, the first chapter image is almost completed, too: it simply needs to be colored in and have the appropriate lettering added. That'll be my next priority, once I get that fan art image out of my head and onto paper/file.

I'm also still enjoying some "writing practices" on the side, particularly another EEnE themed one. Honestly, it may technically count as a "series" at this rate, given the consistent factors... The main characters of interest always seem to be Sarah, Jimmy and Claire (You, whenever the 2nd person POV isn't changed); each "entry" has some focus on characters learning an overall theme of being better to others/yourself; and some other things. But still, it's something meant to improve writing abilities for actual "mainline" stuff from me. Still, I'd recommend seeing if you simply enjoy it as a fan fiction fan, if not to critique it.

Personal Life:

So far, I think I'm seeing results from exercising during the weekdays, instead of saving it all for a back-to-back session on the weekend. Of course, that could also be the factory work helping shape those calories into muscles. Nothing like an after-work workout, with some fun cartoons to serve as your "timer" with their overall runtime. Don't forget the 2 minute "rests," though!

I've also heard word the factory plans to switch to a "9-4" schedule: 4 days of 9 hours, with the addition of only 4 hours on Friday. I'm hoping to use that to my advantage, somehow, when it comes to creative work and all. I can already plan ONE idea of how: no more overtime on the weekends~, so plenty of time to do stuff then.

Misc.:

I'm thinking of just getting rid of my traditional monitor and keeping my tablet as the unofficial "gaming/creating laptop," made courteous of my wireless keyboard. Seriously, you find some good stuff at thrift stores-- referring to the keyboard, though, no way you'd find something like the drawing tablet I have now there...

Also, it's amazing how, even as an adult, you'll still feel fear toward certain characters in animation... I don't think I'll fully get over my anxiety of Brak, the space cat pirate, and even Sarah and Jimmy can still be a bit intimidating. ... What? Sarah is undoubtedly stronger, no matter how ripped I'd get, and Jimmy can be a cunning fiend. I'm not ashamed to admit, I felt a bit anxious and terrified the night I went to the wiki for the unnofficial EEnE "sequel," titled "Peach Creek," and read he'd be a rather conniving individual. I dunno what it is, but I've a strong fear toward helplessness, and they can be a duo of outclassing brain and brawn. Those "Assassin AU" versions of themselves up the antae, now that Jimmy's supposed to be as physically capable, and the duo's main gimmicks are puppet strings and equally physically manipulative acupuncture. I know, I just deserved to have an inquisitive eyebrow raised at me, at times...

[09kags]

Happy Haikyuu Day! 

Sorry for the bad quality first off T^T I keep having to resize these so that they’re smaller for Tumblr and it ruins the quality. But more importantly, happy Haikyuu day! (at least it is Japan already!) This edit embodies some of my favorite moments within the series and below, I’ve written some of the thoughts that went into this piece/my feelings on these moments! Manga spoilers ahead (I'm pretty sure I’ve kept them to a minimum but just to be sure, please proceed with caution!), and I hope you enjoy this edit! (Overlays: accio-glow, aulia-chan on dA; PSDs: hurtears, hallyumi, yangyanggg on dA) 1. “Today might finally be the day we get the chance to let our talents bloom… it could be tomorrow. Or maybe next year. Or maybe it’ll finally come when we’re 30. I’m not sure if physique has anything to do with it but I do know for sure that if you don’t believe that day will come, it never will.” This quote is a testament to Oikawa’s growth and is a symbolic representation of Oikawa freeing himself from the shackles of “geniuses” and “prodigies.” So what if your opponent is a genius? So what if they possess more innate talent? As his mentor and inspiration Jose Blanco states, “Are you saying you know what the limits of your abilities are already? Even though you aren’t yet finished growing physically or mentally? Even though you haven’t mastered all the skills you can master? If you’re going to complain that someone with more talent than you will always be better than you… no matter how hard you work, how many tricks you learn and how many great teammates you have… do that only after you’ve given everything the very best effort you have.” There will always be someone better in the world. But to claim that you cannot hope to compare to the likes of them is to resign yourself to a predetermined defeat as well as dismiss both your own efforts and theirs.    There’s no guarantee when your efforts will pay off. As Oikawa declares, it may be today, tomorrow, or even when we’re 30.  But if you don’t believe in yourself first, if you don’t believe that you will bloom in your own time, “that day will never come.”  The flower in the background is the iris. It is known to represent trust, faith, and hope amongst many other ideals. I chose this particular flower because of the manga cap used in this panel. I cannot emphasize how much I love the bond between Oikawa and Iwaizumi, especially this particular moment when Oikawa points at Iwaizumi with such authority and determination as if saying, “This ball, this moment, is meant for you.” Not to mention the pairing with the iconic “Talent is something you make bloom, instinct is something you hone” quote. An absolutely masterful sequence of scenes that always gets my blood rushing. 

2. “Don’t look down! Volleyball is a sport where you’re always looking up!” This moment gives me chills every time. It’s something so fundamental and simple and yet, when Ukai yells this,  it instills that feeling of “You can do it.” It makes my heart flutter and I feel so excited because it’s such a beautiful way of saying “Don’t give up, it’s not over yet.” And even if the ball has dropped for the last time or you have lost this match, there’s always tomorrow. There’s always the next match where you’ll have to look up. This quote gives me the same feeling as when Takeda-sensei says, “For the rest of your lives, you can do anything you set your mind to!” You only truly lose when you stop trying or you give up.  3. “It hurts. I’m tired. This is painful. I don’t want this to ever end.” / “The ball hasn’t dropped yet!” Whenever Haikyuu characters say “Just one more!” or “The ball hasn’t dropped yet!”, the tension and desperation is almost palpable. It’s so incredibly moving to see them strive to save that ball just one more time, to focus purely on what is in front of them. Even if they don’t all pursue volleyball as a professional career, the passion they all have for the sport is real. That sort of passion is beautiful to watch and admire, and I wish I could have that kind of passion for something in my life.  4. “The underhand only uses two hands. The overhand uses 10 fingers. That’s all the more to support your spikers with, which is what it means to be a setter.” / “To cut through the wall that looms before your spikers, that is the purpose of a setter.”  This particular panel depicts the two ideologies of Atsumu and Kageyama respectively, two of my favorite setters and characters in general. Atsumu “may be pretty cocky at times, and overwhelm his teammates with his thirst for victory, but he treats his spikers with more sincerity and selflessness than anyone else.” He may be overbearing and an asshole at times, but his love for the sport and the art of being a setter is second to none. On the other hand, there’s Kageyama who’s so damn cool with his one-liners. Kageyama’s passion and drive to win may blind him to his surroundings and teammates but he truly believes that the setter is the one who clears the path for their spikers. When their spikers feel cornered and the walls are closing in, it is the setter who “cuts through the wall that looms” ahead. The old Kageyama who was a prisoner to speed is no longer, and his growth as a player brings me to tears every time.  5. “Someone once asked me, ‘Do you ever feel bitter over the fact that you’re not a regular on the team, and amongst your juniors there’s a genius to boot?’ I never understood the exact definition of what it was to be a genius to begin with, but upon hearing the question, I understood the general gist of what they were getting at.  Every so often there will be someone who thinks that ‘people like Atsumu’ were ‘good’ from the get-go. But the thing is, if I practiced something from 1-10 every day, then people like Atsumu would have done it from 1-20. Or, they would have done the same 10 but in a more efficient or concentrated manner. They might also ask ‘Instead of doing it 1-10, how about I tried it from A-Z, what would happen then? Now doesn’t that sound interesting?’  They’re the kind of people who think about stuff like that. Even if they fail, even if they are hated and get ostracised by others, no matter whether they’re right or they’re wrong, even if they subvert something the rest of us hold in high regard, they’re the kind of people who can’t sit still without giving it a go. Even if they start coughing up blood from their lungs, they’re the kind of people who want to keep on running, no matter what.  There’s going to be a lot of people in this world who make you go ‘Wow, I’ll never be able to defeat them,’ and it’s only natural that you think they’re amazing people. I think that to be able to keep charging ahead is a talent in and of itself. You can call people like them whatever you like, the term ‘genius’ isn’t exactly an insult. That said, to think they were ‘good from the get go’ is to condemn yourself to a predetermined defeat without even playing a match against them, and I also think it’s very rude.”  This quote, hands down, is one of my favorite quotes of all time. It is not genius or natural talent that makes individuals truly great, but it is grit. Without a doubt, people are not born equal. There will always be someone with more innate talent or latent capabilities. We all begin at different starting lines. But those who truly stand out are those who go the extra mile, like those dubbed to be the Monster Generation (Kageyama, Atsumu, Hinata, Bokuto, Ushijima, Oikawa, etc.). To others they may seem like natural prodigies but behind their flawless technique and precise ball control lies countless hours of training. They trained harder than anyone else, sacrificed in order to hone their abilities, and ran farther than the rest of the pack. They’re the type to fixate on what lies before them without much regard to anything else.They eat, sleep, breathe, and live volleyball with every waking second. They’re always trying new things (Atsumu pulling off the freak duo quick in the middle of the Inarizaki match) and continually looking for ways to improve (“But the thing is, if I practiced something from 1-10 every day, then people like Atsumu would have done it from 1-20. Or, they would have done the same 10 but in a more efficient or concentrated manner. They might also ask ‘Instead of doing it 1-10, how about I tried it from A-Z, what would happen then? Now doesn’t that sound interesting?’ They’re the kind of people who think about stuff like that”; Kageyama keeping a volleyball journal). It is not what they were born with that makes them great; it is their overwhelming desire to win.  6. “‘Yesterday’ has already disappeared behind us. Many, many yesterdays have become a part of our muscles. What shall we do, today?” This quote, chills. There’s no point ruminating about the past or what has already passed; you can’t change it. (In retrospect, I wish I included another quote from Inarizaki in this panel: “One time is enough. We rise to the challenges of today.”) You learn from the mistakes of yesterday and use them as stepping stones for tomorrow. I wish I could eloquently phrase how much I love this quote or my interpretation of it but alas, my writing is fancy Garbage.  7. “But if… just if… that moment comes for you, that will be the moment you really get hooked on volleyball.” If you didn’t get chills when Tsukishima blocks Ushijima, I have no words for you. Tsukishima-it’s-just-a-club Kei, Tsukishima-I’m-the-normal-guy Kei — Tsukishima Kei, who always underestimates his own capabilities and relies on what he can see in front of him, blocking the Ushijima Wakatoshi, one of the top three high school aces nationally. The character development from someone who did the bare minimum (as noted by other players/coaches at one of the training camps) to someone who finally had their moment to get hooked on volleyball is one of my favorite progressions of all time. Seeing him fall in love with volleyball gradually and then all at once is truly heartwarming and beautiful to witness.  8. “No matter what other people may say, we are the protagonists of the world.” This quote is incredibly empowering to me. Even if your days consist of mundane activities, you are the protagonist of your own story every day. You may not be the main character in a shounen manga or an adolescent seeking to usurp the government in a dystopian novel, but this is your story. No one can tell it like you do and no one can replicate your story. It is yours and yours only.  And that concludes my Haikyuu word vomit! I really do wish I could have properly conveyed my pure adoration and love for this series better. I truly do love Haikyuu so very, very much. It will always have a special place in my heart and I will never forget the memories and lessons it has taught me! Thank you, Furudate-sensei, for such a beautiful story. And thank you Haikyuu, for everything. For all the losses and victories we shared. For all the smiles and laughter, and for all the tears we shed. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart. 

[jonathan-byers-remade]

Hello, my loves! Got requested to make a tutorial on how I did my paper tear effect on my Vanya edit so here it is! I want to preference that I first learned this trick of editing through @anya-chalotra​’s multiple gifs in one tutorial right here. I HIGHLY recommend also checking out her’s and her other tutorials and sources. She is an incredible creator on here and has been a HUGE help on my own gifs. 

Please know basic Photoshop giffing skills. I use Photoshop CS5 with timeline.

First things first is you’re gonna wanna pick out your media of choice to gif. I’m using My Chemical Romance’s Helena music video for the Helena gif and the outtake version for Gerard’s gif.  

These two gifs are only cropped and sharpened. I prefer to not color until the end but you can do it before if you wish. Also PLEASE have the gifs have the SAME amount of frames. As you can see my Helena gif is smaller in length and that’s because that’s gonna be our “tear” gif. I would recommend both gifs to be the same width. I’m only doing one tear for this gif, but you can add more if you want. How I did all my tears from my Vanya edit is all followed the same.

After you have your gifs, pull up and focus on the gif you’re gonna ‘tear’. You’re gonna want a paper tear overlay to mask on to your gif. I suggest Google searching and checking out Tumblr resource blogs. I find resource blogs and also DeviantART to be great places to find textures, overlays, etc. I tear I will being using is from DeviantART from a pack of tear textures. You can find the pack here. 

Once you pick your texture of choice, move it to your tear gif and place it how you like:

Mine looks a little funny because the pack’s textures were a little transparent. If you use it, make sure to Duplicate it and Merge it until you get a solid color. 

Next, click on the little box of your texture layer on the right and click on Select Pixels:

And now the texture is highlighted:

Yes I know my texture is still a little transparent when I said to fix it because I didn’t do it until I figured out later please do as I say not as I do lol

You could start to do the masking here, but with my tear it won’t show the part I want which is the middle. So to fix that we are gonna invert the highlight bit by clicking right and selecting Select Inverse:

Now the part I want is the highlighted:

Now on to masking! Here’s a quick little trick I learned with playing around with setting a bit ago.

On your left timeline, move your texture layer under your group of gif files and then add a mask to said group of files:

You can learn how to move the frames of a gif to a group here in one of my old tutorials. 

And Ta-Da! Our gif is now looking like this:

Our tear gif is ready! You can, of course, stop right here but I wanna show you 2 different styles of tears I have gotten from doing this. One has a white outline, and one doesn’t. 

1. White Outline: After you finish your gif, save it as normal and then bring it back up and move it to your base gif. Even if you got rid of the white texture layer, you might still have that white border. But that’s not a bad thing depending on the look you want. It’s a good way to get a pop of white or outline the tear if you suits your likings.

2. No White Outline: Once you finish your gif, don’t save it and go ahead and copy your frames from your Timeline. Paste them Over the Selection of your base gif and now you don’t have it. 

Whichever tickles your fancy, go ahead and follow it. For my final gif I’m going with the white border because what I wanna do is go heavy on the red and the white will make it pop out more. 

From this point, go ahead and color your gif if you haven’t yet, style, customize and have fun! Here’s my final product:

Aaaaand that’s how I do my tear effects and also any shape if I wanna add another gif to one. Please feel free to send in any questions!! Happy giffing!! <3

[littledewdrops2]

My niece loves to perform and she is a mini boss lady, into making clothes for her dollies and always gets super invested into a character, stellium in 12th, all her planets are gemini and leo hahah.

A good friend of mine has her Venus in 12th. I’ve seen this a few times in people that have body dysmorphia, struggle with eating disorders. She is absolutely gorgeous and creatively talented, and she really struggles to see this in herself. There’s a lot of self doubt.

Cacner mars here but damn I love leo mars hahaha, my bestie is one, two of my sisters, my extremely well loved grandma. There’s no one like a leo mars to hype you up and they will cut you if you are out of pocket with anyone they love, because they are royalty in leo’s eyes. I unashamedly wanna spend all my time with you, lmao.

My dad thinks he comes across sooo differently then he really does Neptune conj rising and his rising is scorpio, lmao he comes across as sooo intimidating but he thinks he’s easy to come and talk to and doesn’t understand how other people keep distance from him. He has Lilith and pluto in 10th and has no friends. He doesn’t try to make them either (he dgaf hahah) but really I think his intensity is sooo obvious to others.

My sister is the best person at advertising herself and promoting herself, she’s extremely private but amazingly talented and yes, handling others people seems so natural to her. A BOSS, I hope she sees this. She has a stellium in leo in her 8th. She also has a libra mc! She’s strong and brave and intense. Also her Neptune and Uranus being in her first makes her so interesting and special and different.

My son has been talking about how he wants “fancy brown shoes and a blue suit”, and if that doesn’t fit these bougie signs hahah. Libra rising, libra mars and taurus venus in 7th.  

Talk about virgo energy being healing and helpful, my baby girl is all that and more. Everything is a baby to her. If you lay down on the floor, she is there in a second with a pillow and a blanket. She will rub your back if you’re sad and get this, one time we had talked about how I was feeling a little stressed. She asked why and I said a few of the things I had to clean up.

This little angel, grabbed a notepad and her unicorn pen and wrote down what I said and then said “I wrote down all the things that are not beautiful so we can tell them to leave and you won’t feel stressed.” Like y’all, I don’t deserve such blessings.

My son has said things to me that have been ON ANOTHER LEVEL. He knows some about my relationship with my mom because inevitably kids ask. He knows she didn’t know how to love me and that we don’t talk because when I asked her to apologize and say sorry and change, she didn’t.

Anyway, one mother’s day my daughter wanted me to call my mom and before I said anything my son said “Well she- HOLD ON”, “Mom, did she love you?” I said, “No baby, she didn’t know how.”

I cried a bit and he jumped on me and said “WE HAVE YOU NOW AND YOU HAVE US” This is my cancer moon, cancer mercury kid.

The epitome of it’s beautiful and scary is Libra sun and aries moon/scorpio rising, lmao, my neice has this and she is A FORCE to be reckoned with. She loves make up and fashion but also eyes and all this spooky hahaha.

TW Abuse mentions ---

I have nessus conjunct my vertex. I sat with it for a while, vertex being what is brought into our lives and nessus being the asteroid that represents abuse. I genuinely have felt this play out in my life, I still am working on getting back out in the world after an assault. Now I don’t think that one aspect is going to signify what could you possibly go through but if you look at your chart and have the same nessus placement, please be careful. Please learn red flags, please love yourself and keep yourself safe.

I have pluto conjunct mercury in 6th both squaring my chiron in 4th, when I was younger I didn’t speak, not that I was unable to speak, I couldn’t get the words out. I was filled with anxiety, and terror.

Chiron trine north node, I am meant to be on a healing path in my life, and with pluto squaring chiron, the call to transform my life and trauma is something I constantly feel and caused tension in my day to day life and at work. I may be able to turn around and help other people heal once I have done my work.

Chiron square moon, this right here has been painful. This connects my 4th house and the 12th house, my mom has been institutionalized, and she has MS. When I was young, for a long time they had no idea what was wrong with her, and she was misdiagnosed for many years. The connection between my chiron and the 6th too with my pluto, my mom’s illness did transform my life.

If you feel misunderstood by your family, you probably won’t have all those wonderful overlays that other people talk about in your charts with them. A lot of the overlays with my parents are negative planets in my 4th, pluto, lilith, mars and overlays in 2nd house, 8th house and 12th. Feeling very vulnerable around them, scared and intimidated, there has always been not-so-subtle possessive feelings, obsessions and jealousy flying around. This is combined with terrible synastry also.

[highwarlockkareena]

From planning to posting, share your process for making creative content!

To continue supporting content makers, this tag game is meant to show the entire process of making creative content: this can be for any creation.

RULES: When your work is tagged, show the process of its creation from planning to posting, then tag 5 people with a specific link to one of their creative works you’d like to see the process of. Use the tag #showyourprocess so we can find yours!

Thank you ali for the tag on this collaboration with @nyx4, ali! @wendashanren

tagging: (I mostly talk about collaboration for this one but if you check #showyourprocess most people talk about how they made their creations or check my first post about giffing here!)

@elysean for this set @timothyolyphant for this set @sugardaddyahxu for this set @jun-hee for this set @bloominflowers​ for this art

I wanted to collaborate with Jackie on a set. We’d talked about it anyway, and thought about what we could work on. So when I saw this request on mdzsnet, i knew this was the one for us.

wei wuxian, black/red, cql, yp!wwx/sunshot campaign scenes/nightless city scenes, the lyrics from "the war" by syml

I knew Jackie loved Syml, so she’d want to make this request, so I put both our names down to claim it, then when Jackie was online checked if she’d prefer to do this one solo, or shared. She loved the idea of a collab, so we got to work.

First we listened to the song a couple of times, thinking about how it worked for wei wuxian. then we broke down which lyrics we wanted to use and the general scenes for them.

We split them out across a number of gifs (originally it was 4 but I don’t have a screenshot of that) with a general idea of scenes we’d work from for each. As you can see, I do plan but my notes tend to be sparse reminders rather than detailed. jackie wanted to dig the angst knife in deep and wanted the ‘my war is over’ to coincide with wei wuxian falling off the cliff, so we worked back from that for our scene choices. 

Jackie:

Originally it was going to be 4 gifs, all of them with the lyrics that made it to the final set, but it would have been too much text on each gif so first we decided on a gif without text in the middle before deciding on spreading out the song a bit more which led to the 7 gif set.

We started making gifs 1 and 3. in my usual fashion i made about 10 gifs to pick which scenes i wanted to work with & jackie made 1 because she isn’t an idiot. 

Jackie:

Kareena does make a ton of gifs just to choose one or two, which is both amusing and amazing. I have proof!

Luckily we’re both admins on WoHDaily, so we used the drafts in there to share a post we could both edit gifs in & out of. 

I’d wanted to do a silhouette edit similar to one in @lan-xichens lovely overlay tutorial, but it wasn’t coming out the way i’d liked, so I had to keep trying different things until it worked as I’d envisioned. 

I finished a touch before Jackie who had taken time to pick emotionally devastating scenes for her gif, so we used my red throughout both, but then  tweaked each gif with feedback from each other. 

Jackie:

When we first decided on the scenes, I waited for her to do the first gif so I could match her colors. Once she made the first one, I showed her this template I made so we could visualize how it’d look.

Then we moved on to the next gifs. This was harder, because we didn’t want to overload the set by making every single gif super fancy, so we tried out a variety of things to see what would hang together nicely. 

Above is an example of one idea of mine that got discarded. I think i had 3 iterations before we got to the gif below. 

Jackie:

I then moved on to gif #6 and I made a gif which Kareena completely shut down. She said, Jackie, this is really ugly. I accepted it, because she is the one with the skills here, and because she was right. (KAREENA: this is a lie - the gif is *gorgeous* but it just has a lot going on in an already busy gifset.)

There was too much going on in that gif and it didn’t really fit with the set we were making. The gif we ended up with fit much better and I’m glad she said something. For the last gif, I showed her a few shots and we both agreed on those two (wwx crying, walking backwards on the cliff). I made a couple of gifs that Kareena was nice enough to say were gorgeous, but I thought they sucked. Third one is what we ended up with.

For me, most of the work was in getting the scenes to fit the lyrics and to work with the color scheme that the requester gave us.

We continued to work this way, making ideas and sharing them, tweaking or discarding or remaking as necessary until we were both happy with the gifs. It wasn’t too hard to get them to work as a set, it was mostly about communication and honesty. jackie and i get on well enough to crit each others gifs without worry, so we both liked what was created. We pushed each other, Jackie knows I’m very lazy & she didn’t let me slack. I pushed her in other areas so that we both tried out new skills. 

Once the seven gifs were made, it was time for typography! We spent a little time discussing our love of simple fonts, sharing a few examples, before I handed over to jackie as the typography queen.  

Now, fonts:

Yup, I like simple fonts and for the typography not to take over the whole set. Luckily, Kareena feels the same way, so early on we decided on two fonts, one of them to highlight a word here or there. I showered her some fonts samples, we agreed on a style, and then I got to work.

The fonts used were:

Ostrich Sans  https://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/ostrich-sans

Memories  https://www.dafont.com/memories-2.font

I kept it simple, just looking where the text would look best. I didn’t know how to wrap text around a shape before, which is what I wanted for gif #3. Turns out it’s very easy and people probably know this already but I’m a ps noob (lie). Still putting this here just in case anyone wants to know.

Using the Ellipse Tool/Custom Shape Tool, I made a circle 2px bigger than the bw gif i wanted to wrap the text around. I didn’t want the shape to be visible, so I chose Path there. (If you choose shape, the actual shape will be visible in whatever color you have chosen)

With the Type Tool, just hover over the line of the shape and a squiggly thing will appear. Click and start typing. I then dragged the text and fit it over the bw gif. I made the shape on the side so I could see it clearly, but you can make it over the actual shape you want the text to wrap around. Listen, this is the best I can describe it ✌

We discussed how to post the set. Since it was a group effort, should one of us post it or should we post it via the net? Since we’ve also got another request lined up to collaborate on, we decided that I would post this set & Jackie would post the next one. 

TLDR: 

It was fun, it was about communication and compromise. Pushing each other in our weak spots, nitpicking at each gif to make them the best we could, agreeing why one gif might not work in this set. It was about mixing two styles but still creating something we both liked! It was enough fun we have two more collaborations planned, just to keep having fun and to keep learning.

[s-k-y-w-a-l-k-e-r]

Tagged by @jimmytfallon for this gif meme. I’m not really sure how the meme started so I may be missing the point, but I think it’s to show overall skill with coloring and whatnot? Also this project presents a minor challenge for me, in that all my .psds and previous gifs are almost all full-width. So it was fun practicing with half-width!

Anyway, I have three different methods I use, depending on the source material, for getting videos to work with. 

For YouTube/Instagram videos of 720p or lower, I screencap the video, load files into stack, and use the basic method outlined here. I think it’s the best way to handle smaller gifs.

For YouTube/Vimeo videos of 1080p or higher, I directly load the video file itself into Photoshop and work off of that.

For screen recordings (most of the Pacific, BoRhap, and Robot gifsets I do are like this), I simply don’t have the option of screencapping—my computer records at almost 3000px width and the screencaps fill up my hard drive in a matter of minutes. So I open the screen recording in Photoshop, and after I’ve slowed the clip (in all three cases, it’s usually around 81% speed for it to be somewhat normal speed), I resize to the desired width immediately. This has to be done or my computer will crash and this thing is not exactly bottom of the line.

From there, I do my adjustment layers and then I sharpen. It doesn’t matter what order you sharpen in if you’re doing this as a smart object. You can turn on and off these sharpening effects—and if you’re feeling fancy like I have lately, you can do the same with the artistic effects like oil paint or half-tone.

Adjustment layers in order of preference/use:

Curves. You can literally do everything in curves if you’re really willing to learn how they work. Initially, you might think they effect lighting. The bottom left corner turns up and down blacks. Left of center, you’re changing how light or dark the shadows are. Right of center, you’re changing the highlights, and to the top right, you’re changing the whites and how bright they are. But you can also change colors within the different toggles of Curves. I don’t always do this because to do an effective job, you still have to create multiple curves layers—and why do that when you can just do...

Color balance! This is the absolute most important coloring tool that I’ve found to deal with Mr. Robot’s pallor. It’s so green-yellow that I find myself turning things back to red and magenta and blue to try and give Elliot a little bit of life back. In the gif above, you can see that it was almost a pea green tone over the whole thing, so I gave it back some peachiness (and don’t get me started on how dark all of Mr. Robot is).

Brightness/Contrast. I try to use this sparingly, but sometimes it’s just the simplest tool to get things done.

Selective Color! I didn’t know about this for a long time and once I figured it out, it was a game changer. When you just want a yellow robe to be a warm yellow without green undertones and you want high contrast in the rest of the image but not in the yellow robe—Selective Color is where you need to go. Hue/Saturation can only do so much for you here.

Solid Color. Lately I’ve been trying to vignette some gifs using this. And it can be really helpful to do so because it cuts down on flashing pixels that will add to your overall gif megabyte-age. So I’ll load one up in a dark color (if not completely black) and then use a layer mask to get rid of a lot of the solid color. This is not shown anywhere above, but you can see it in action here. It’s more valuable in extra-big gifs.

And then Smart Object effects

Plain old Sharpen. I always do this before the other. And sometimes I turn it back off after I’ve gotten the next step down. In the yellow robe gif above, I wound up turning off this sharpen layer because it introduced too much edge noise.

Smart Sharpen. Learning how to hone this is absolutely vital. 500, .3, 20, Gaussian is always a good place to start—and if that doesn’t mean anything to you, just try opening the Smart Sharpen tool and putting those four things in. Of course, once you get a handle on Smart Sharpen, you can go wild trying to get things just right. Layering it with other Smart Sharpen layers can sometimes help create a balance, too.

Oil Paint. I’ve been screwing around with this a lot lately and haven’t quite got it nailed down, but I’m having fun with it!

Other Useful Layers

Overlays. I love to layer up two separate video files! So much so that I now have a drop-down menu for them on my full browser layout. The YSL/Rami modeling overlay above is the perfect example. Want to see how I do it? Ask for a tutorial. I don’t want to give everything away in one post!

Layer Masks. For mostly-still scenes, especially in cinematography where the camera doesn’t move a lot (like Mr. Robot, or in an interview), you can take a picture basically of your gif, super-impose it, and then make a layer mask to make it smooth. Works really well in many of my Mr. Robot Rewatch sets, like this one. Again, willing to give a tutorial if you ask.

Captions. All of mine come out looking fuzzy and I’m not good at them so I don’t do them much. If you’re a gif maker reading this and have a method you like, please share because I cannot figure out why I can’t make this look good.

So anyway, as you can see, it’s a lot to work with. So many options! There’s so much that can go into a single gifset, and though I have a system down to where I can make certain gifs really quickly, it’s still usually an hour or two on even the simplest gifs. I like to think it doesn’t take as much brain power as a fic writer, but it does take a certain intuition and know-how that takes years to hone.

I love my fellow gif makers and would love to see how they do. Tagging @gwil-lee, @ewan-mcgrxgor, @ilygwilym, and @warmommy because I want to learn your secrets see your process if you’re willing to share!

[strudeldoodlearts]

Things I learned while using a smartphone for digital art

This week was pretty fun but also quite busy/rough. 

A picture I’ve been working on got lost when Autodesk Sketchbook encountered a “cannot open file” type of error. Partially due to my fumbling hands and the app lagging, the file was overwritten with a new canvas, so I lost progress on it...

Maybe that’s a blessing in disguise. I’ve been rethinking the layout/form of the drawing (one of those aesthetic, ‘choose a magical pill’ kind of drawings). So this situation forces me to go back and improve on it. Which I’ll do because while I may be a scatterbrain with many ideas that don’t become a tangible thing, I still don’t like abandoning most things I actually start doing.

Also, funny to think that this happens shortly after my SO gifted me a drawing tablet (though it’s still on its way.) While it isn’t the fanciest device out there, it seems to have promising reviews and might just be a good way for me to break out of my comfort zone (as a mobile drawer) so I could properly learn how to do digital art via a tablet.

So be prepared for a good deal of experimentation in my future works! I still plan on using Autodesk. But I also see how using the PC program and having a tablet and pressure-sensitive stylus could produce different results. 

That being said, drawing on a cellphone with a stylus had some perks. The biggest one being on-the-go drawing and being able to quickly scan in a sketch after drawing it naturally via pen/pencil.

Here are some things I learned while drawing on a mobile phone:

Layer management is your best friend. 

It’s likely that your cellphone may not be able to handle as many layers as a PC program. While this may seem like a flaw, this limitation forced me to learn how to block out what I was drawing so that I wouldn’t be swimming in a sea of layers to begin with.

The above illustration uses 16 layers (not counting the scanned in pen/pencil art from my sketchbook.) The line art gets one layer (which is generally made simple from tracing the pen sketch). Each character/object (in this case the bench) gets a layer for coloring and a layer for shading. The background is all one layer + a layer for shading. Throw in a layer for lighting, a layer for a warm, bluish overlay, and a layer for my signature, and that’s the picture.

My trick for coloring each character was to assign them two initial layers. The bottom one would eventually be the final result. The top one would be where I color in a region using the fill tool, add detail if needed, and then merge it with the bottom layer underneath. Rinse and repeat as many times as needed until the character/object is completely filled in on one layer.

I worked through each character, one by one and not multiple ones at once, to prevent merging the wrong layers together.

Blocking things out by character and object helped with shading in both their general form and also details without interfering with the shading of other objects.

Choose your phone carefully, and check for stylus compatibility! 

Unfortunately, the phone I have doesn’t work with a pressure-sensitive stylus I once ordered that was advertised to work with both iPhones and Android phones. I figured this out when checking out its manual. I lucked out at the start because I had a Note 4. But then that died on me. This was likely an internal failure and something due to wear/tear. A new battery wouldn’t cut it. 

In the interest of being frugal and needing a new phone ASAP, I got the Essential Phone since it was affordable, stylish, and super spacious. At the time, I failed to think about stylus compatibility. I figured that any thin, capacitive stylus that wasn’t like your finger would cut it. Somehow I made this setup work. But this lack of pressure sensitivity (which was much more present in the Note 4 + its stylus) was also noticeably limiting.

So if you’re buying a phone that you plan to use for drawing, do the research on how it handles styluses if you aren’t planning on buying a phone that includes one already.

Sit through adjusting your preferences to avoid future headaches. I personally don’t like zoom-in features that tilt the canvas. While this is partially due to my own clumsiness, I also thought: Why use that when you could simply tilt your phone? 

Other things to consider are going into your app’s Pen Mode so your hands can’t leave stray marks on your drawing. Since I wasn’t able to do that with my phone, I adjusted how I held the stylus and got used to the double-tap Undo shortcut since I was prone to the occasional stray dot.

Be careful not to close your app without saving! 

This may sound laughably basic. But when it comes to cellphones, it’s easy to make a careless mistake in the midst of multitasking while drawing--whether you’re researching reference pictures or shuffling through your playlist. I suspect that I left Autodesk on multiple tasks (like having a selected region) and closed it out sometime in the middle of doing something else only to open up the app again and then work on another drawing. This might have contributed to something like the most recent error that made me lose a drawing.

While you’re at it, expect to back-up many pictures/projects to your computer. 

This process will force you to label and organize your drawings. Also do this so that whenever you need to reset your phone or change drawing apps, you don’t lose everything. This is also good for seeing how your picture turns out on a bigger screen.

At the end of the day, your drawing skills are more important than whatever tools you use. Having good tools is great for making the drawing process feel more natural to you. However--this is something many artists can agree with--it’s better to master what you do with the basics than to get overwhelmed by fancy brushes and effects (especially when you misapply or overuse them.)

[natural-0-games]

Let The Flames Begin: Tune Tuesday

Alright y’all might have seen that this account’s been starting up for the first time in a while. We’re actually going around and doing stuff, cool. There’s one simple reason for that, and this is me, Lexi, the one behind this whole thing talking: I’ve decided to cut out all the toxic people in my life and extend my vetting for letting new people in. (queue this music because I’m allowed to have musical overlays on my textposts it’s tuesday! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_ohWuaNPWo ) If you’ve been reading my other posts you can probably piece it all together, but in the last 6 months I found myself a decent friend group at college... at least I thought I did. See, originally it was just me and this real chill guy who I won’t say the name of because internet, so I’ll just call him E. E and I met up near the start of the school year because E was just such an approachable person that even I could overcome my big NPC energy to talk to him. We got to talking, and decided it would be cool to start up a club for RPGs at the school, so that players and gamemasters could draw from a pool of people to make sure everyone got the experience they wanted. Then came D (again, not their name because privacy, but also y’know, I can’t resist calling him a D because he’s a d i c k), he was originally pretty chill, but almost immediately he ripped the club idea from my hands and decided all on his own without any input from me or E or anyone else that the club was going to include all tabletop games. Alright not at all what the club was supposed to be about, but okay. So a month rolls by, and D has determined that the club is going to do RPGs at most once a month. You know, the thing we were designed around in the first place, not ‘each campaign once a month’ which I could vaguely see to prevent burnout but nah, nah he means ‘one official club campaign session spread across all campaigns per month’. What. The. Fuck. Then it’s October, and I’ve got this cool idea, reverse trick-or-treating, you know that thing where you go door to door and give people candy? It was gonna be nice, and cool, and I told the whole friend-group about it at the start of October. Other shit happened in October regarding people I look up to and the discontinuation of my absolute favorite show, so there’s that. But the important thing to this post happened on Halloween, that day when they all said they’d join me going around giving people candy, and we’d all have a good time. I’d arranged it for six... six rolls around, no one’s there. I check the group discord, and I’m like ‘hey, where is everybody?’ only response is from E, saying that most people are at dinner and we should probably reschedule to later. I reply that it’s understandable and rearrange for 8. I get a message from B (only time she’s mentioned) saying she’ll be able to show up for sure. No one showed up. Only one person at 10 who came to console me because I kinda exploded in the discord server because I’d been planning this all month and no one fucking showed up. Yeah I cried myself to sleep that night, don’t judge. So now it’s November, and I finally put into action a plan I’d wanted to work on since the start of college: A larp league at the school, only problem is I’m going to have to craft the system from nothing. Alright, I’ve got inspiration from said favorite show ever that was cancelled in october, I’m going to base it around that. I then tell everyone in the friend group and they encourage me, I tell them I’ll be running a christmas event after thanksgiving break, they say that’s awesome. That’s when I realized I’m going to need to make over 1200 abilities because each of the 40 classes needs 33 abilities. I asked them for any suggestions, got a grand total of 0. So I worked my ass off, far more than is healthy, and got... absolutely nowhere because there was no chance in the first place. Right before thanksgiving break I tell them ‘hey, there’s no chance of me finishing the whole system in time, we’ll use a simplified edition i’ll come up with now’ they gave approval. I made a whole mini-system on 3 hours of sleep. I went home for thanksgiving break and caused my whole family extra stress during their move by needing to make swords for this event. So the day of the event rolls around, I’ve got everything set up, I’m out of the field, waiting. The event starts at 11, and that’s when i get there. No one’s there. ‘That’s okay’ I figure, ‘they’re not exactly punctual, they’ll be here in 15-20 minutes’. They are not. At 11:30, E shows up, I ask him where the fuck everyone is. Turns out B is still asleep despite giving me confirmation she’d be here last night, D and the rest of the group are at breakfast and have no intention of showing up despite being 25 seconds away, and E doesn’t see anything wrong with this. I waited until noon, still no one, so I gave up and headed back to my dorm, I’d informed them on the discord that if no one showed up by noon I’d cancel. And I fucking seethed. These people didn’t give a single fuck about me, or my time, or my effort. And after a few hours of calming down, past the tears, past the attempts at breaking things, I got onto the discord server, and I told them, in no indirect terms, that repeatedly encouraging people to devote time and effort to projects for the group, to get them excited for their events, to say that you’ll be there, and then all ghost without a word was absolutely abusive and I didn’t want that in my life. Instead of even a single attempt at an apology, or even a bullshit excuse, they all started yelling at me and kicked me from the server, the club, and the friendgroup. So that’s where I am. I don’t give a single fuck about people who disrespect my time. I don’t give a single fuck about people who think that just because someone has bigger problems than me my problems don’t exist. I don’t give a single fuck about people who bail on plans without a warning or remorse. And I feel so free. So I’m turning all the effort on projects I was making for those toxic assholes inward, I’m making the shit I love, and if you don’t enjoy it, you don’t have to be around me or use my stuff. Sure the first few apprentice games and such will be free, and the proof-of-concept for anything will be free, but if I’ve put in serious effort? If i’ve put in 150 hours already (like on a certain larp system...) and it’s not even a tenth of the way done? You bet your left buttock that I’m not giving that away for free. If I’m going to make something I want to get something out of it. So there’s that. And just because I know I need help here, I do have some open positions: Sabrina needs a pilot, and that’s the fancy lore way of saying I desperately need an artist, because my art is shit and while I have no idea how to make UI-interactive games, I’m going to try my best to learn. Elluwen needs a pilot, and that’s still a fancy way of saying I need playtesters. I’ve been relying on my friend groups too much for this, posting a message about this new game I’ve got that’s nearly done, and waiting 2 weeks to get a single person to even try to play it. Meanwhile I’m playing it repeatedly to try to find bugs and their version is almost completely replaced. and several more... honestly to just put it clearly: I need reliable people in my life, and if that means setting up a patreon for people to see sneak peaks and be playtesters through, wonderful! If I can find an artist willing to be on call for my projects, and of course still pursue their own endeavors, I can’t afford a full-time artist, that’s amazing.

I know what you’re here for, at least on tuesday, you want the shitposts, I’ve still got those, but everything above is far more important.

This week’s themesong: Let The Flames Begin This week’s cryptic meme: Slowly ripping the limbs off an effigy This week’s mood: Focused Anger This week’s character: Lokeeda

[spacebrick3]

Evenfall University: Ring of Fire Part 4

Part 4 of Mira’s adventures at Evenfall! And things are starting to take an interesting turn, here in @note-katha‘s university, and who knows where it will lead them…

The problem with grand proclamations like “changing the world” is that there’s a lot of groundwork. Everybody knows the leaders of the revolution, but few the ones who build the stage. “So…how do we find the First Circle?” Mira asks awkwardly, waiting outside her dormitory (and missing her class). “I mean, it’s not like we can just go up to a teacher and ask.”

“You’d be surprised,” Sam says, “but…generally better not to. Keeps them at a distance, at the very least. But they rely on their warnings more than any actual security - trust that we’ll listen to the authorities of the school, mostly.”

“What does that mean? Their authority’s pretty solid if there’s no information,” she says, glancing sideways with a frown. The early-morning sunlight shines strangely off of her, a faint translucence to Sam’s skin. Or maybe it’s just a holdover of her aura, the lighter gold over the darker brown giving it that strange effect. “I mean, no one has to guard any of the scrolls from Alexandria because they’re all gone - have they done the same here?”

Sam motions for Mira to follow, one corner of her mouth ticking upwards into a smirk. “No. They’re still in the library. Just sitting there, on the shelves. After all, they wouldn’t destroy the information that helps them, would they?”

“And…we can just pick them up?”

“No, they’re restricted. There’s a spell - it manipulates you, tells you that you don’t really want the books. People turn away and they’re convinced it’s their own reasoning, and they have no idea. After all, put up a wall and everyone will want to break in - make them think they have a choice, and they’ll willingly give up their own knowledge.” She grimaces. “Insidious, really, prying inside your head.”

It doesn’t sound good. She’d like to think she wouldn’t be affected, that she’d be strong enough to break through such a spell, but she can’t even convince herself of that. If it’s even real. Everybody speaks of it as though it’s real, because for them it defines their life, and can she risk otherwise? Can she take the risk of venturing blind into something she knows nothing about?

She doesn’t know. “So…how do we get the books, then, if we can’t even…keep wanting them?”

“Oh, leave that to me,” Sam says. “Because it’s Third Circle magic, manipulating mind and emotion. And that’s a certain speciality of mine - but I do have to be careful, to make sure they don’t know we’re there.”

“You think there’s a warning system or something?”

“I know I’d set up something if my magic was tampered with,” she says with a shrug. “So…Mira. So far you’ve not lent yourself to stealth-“

Stealth. Right. “Yeah. I’ll…leave that one to you, actually.” Mira shakes her head, rubbing her forehead with a rueful grin. “There’s a reason I’m here at Evenfall, a reason it was a good idea for me to be here and not at some normal university. And that reason, or at least all of it you’ll get, is a distinct lack of stealth on my part.”

That gets her a raised eyebrow, but no comment. “I…see. Um.”

“I mean, you don’t have to worry or anything,” she adds, “it’s not like it even made the news. And I’m not planning on trying again, obviously, plus there are less abandoned NASA workshops - well, I thought it was abandoned-“

For whatever reason, that doesn’t seem to reassure her. She pushes open the door of the library, glaring at the single student sprawled in the corner. “Right. The books should be upstairs, on the third floor, directly opposite from where we are now. I assume you know the structure of the library?”

“I’m still new here, Sam.” She looks around, at the old stone drilled into to let cables snake in and out. Lights glow in the ceiling, the filaments gaining the quality of all old libraries - bright, white light fading to yellow, with just enough flicker to make them appear aged. Books covered in velvet and gold, or at least the important ones, others tucked into shelves or stacked on top of them. “I’ve literally never been here before.”

“Oh, yes. Of course. Each floor gets quieter, as you go up - fairly standard, although it’s imbued with its own magic. Fifth Circle and Third Circle, mixed to restrict Voice and Emotion, as well as boost Mind. In a sense. There are several layers, all overlaying one another, and it will be a challenge to break one and not the other.”

You know in movies? When the scientist character says a bunch of what’s supposed to be ‘fancy scientific formulas’ and is really just a bunch of words jammed together? And all the other characters stare blankly and the one Action Hero™ asks ‘speak English’ to general laughter?

That’s what just happened, except with magic. “I…okay…”

“It doesn’t matter,” Sam says. “It’s not your problem. I’ll be the only one heading upstairs, and the only one who has to deal with this. There shouldn’t be anyone in the top floors, not this early. It’ll be your job to keep them out.”

“What?”

“Mind work is delicate, and what we’re doing is very against the rules. If you’ve been breaking into workshops and you’re not in jail, your lying skills are probably better than your stealth. So lie.” Sam picks a book from the shelf, turning it over in her hands. “Make up something, I don’t care what.”

“I thought you said no one was here.” Mira looks around, noting the exactly one (1) student. “I mean, a lot of this is available online - just being on campus wifi gets people access to papers and stuff. We should be fine.” Except in her dorm, of course, where the wifi runs at the speed of a slug. At 1 fps (frame per slug).

Sam blinks, rubbing her head. “Right. Computers, of course. Then…come with me, kay? You’re still lookout.” The stairs spiral up the outside of the library, glass strips running down their length. They climb together, half in sunlight and half in shadow, Sam frowning at a name scratched into the wall. “That wasn’t here the last time…”

The scratch is in jagged script, the sharp edges of something carved with a knife. Into stone, somehow. Remember Alian, it reads, tucked away in the corner. “Do..you know an Alian?”

“No. Something probably happened to them, though, or it wouldn’t say ‘remember’,” she says, sighing. “Come on, we’re almost there. Can you feel it?”

Her voice is dropping, quieter with each step. “I think so, yeah,” she says, and she’s whispering. “How quiet do we get? Or…are forced to get? Does it quiet us just…all the way?”

“Not quite,” she whispers, “for the people who talk to themselves while studying. But close.” The landing onto the third floor is lined with silver, instead of gold, a colder blue replacing the warm light of downstairs. It’s hardly more modern, with embossed panels set into the wooden wall and shelves of dark mahogany, but certainly colder.

Colder, and hostile somehow. “Maybe we shouldn’t be here,” she says, resting a hand on the door. “It doesn’t feel - I don’t know. But I don’t think-“

“You’re not going any further,” Sam says. “It’s already affecting you, here. Just watch the stairs, make sure nobody gets up here. Say there’s, uh, maintenance or something. Bookkeeping that cannot be disturbed, by even the slightest motion.” She sighs, tapping out a asymmetric rhythm on the wall. “Now…have they changed anything?”

 “You’ve been here before?”

Sam doesn’t answer. “Mind magic is a tricky thing. Sensitive, see. It’s difficult to manipulate from here, no matter what you do. Maybe…it’s a spiderweb, and so any motion on it will disturb the web, no matter how careful.”

“So…what will you do?”

She gives a small smile, though there’s something unrecognizable behind it. “The perks of not being a first-year. There’s some…uh, manipulation of Mind magic you can accomplish. It’s difficult, and dangerous, but it’s the only way to get past. It’s built for a purpose, a specific purpose - to change things in one way, and it can be bypassed.”

And we’re back to the, uh, magical jargon. “That’s not an answer. I asked what you’d do, not how you’d do it.”

“Impatient.” She takes a breath, staring out across the shelves. “Mind magic doesn’t fight itself. It can’t, or it would tear the web apart from the inside. And magic is part of you - you’ve seen the auras, and all it takes is…letting go, I suppose. Separating mind and body, or just putting one above the other.”

“Still not an explanation.”

Sam glares at her. “Just watch.” She takes a breath, then fades, the floor of the library visible through her. The parts of her in the sunlight are barely there, only a faint outline of gold. “Look. Mind over matter, quite literally.”

“I-“ Mira shakes her head, waving a hand through where she stands. “You…feel like syrup?”

“Don’t do that!” she whispers, swatting her hand away. “Would you want someone waving their hand through you?”

“How - what-?”

She makes a show of brushing herself off, still irritated at her. “It’s like…learning to swim, I guess. That’s the only way I can think of it,” she says at last. “But I’ve heard it’s different for everyone who tries it.”

“What do you mean?” she asks, still hopelessly lost.

“When you first learn to swim, you - you’re scared,” she says, shrugging. “You cling to the shore, barely in the water. That’s how most everybody is, clinging to the world. And it’s terrifying to let go, but…if you can…well, if you can let go of the shore, of the world, then…” She gestures at her transparent self. “But stay in shallow waters.”

That’s ominous. “What’s…what’s in deeper waters?”

“Nothing’s there,” she says darkly. “Nothing at all. If you’ve ever been to the sea, you know how it drops off, how the shore falls hundreds of feet to the ocean floor. You stay in shallow waters because otherwise you drown, and there’s no way back. Those are the realms of…of ghosts, of spirits, mostly, the minds who’ve lost all connection with the world.”

“But you still have one.”

Sam scowls. “Yes. Although it’s still scary, letting go. There’s a reason people cling so desperately to the world, and there’s always that fear, that I’ll never be able to get back. That I won’t hold tightly enough to the world and I’ll be lost, falling back into-“ She sighs, breath shaking a little. “Never mind. Just keep watch.”

“I’ll do that.” Sam strides into the library, vanishing as she walks into the sunlit patches. She leaves no footprints, no trace that she’s ever been there. “Wait-“ Mira whispers after her, though it’s much too quiet. “How are you going to carry the books-?”

She’s gone. “Right, then,” she mutters to herself. “…what more can the First Circle give us? She can - she’s like, psychic or something, and Ardis - that is his name, right? - can control time. Apparently.” Mira can’t get closer to the shelves, her own fear that she doesn’t belong there keeping her away. 

Except it’s not her own fear, is it? It’s somebody else’s, manufactured and put into her own head. And she can’t escape it. Mira tells herself it’s not real, and that doesn’t make it any less so. “Get out of my head!” she whispers at it, pacing back and forth on the landing, and it doesn’t.

Maybe that’s what the First Circle does. Maybe it doesn’t do anything but protect her from magic.

It takes exactly 40 minutes and 11 seconds for Sam to return, according to her watch, or enough time for the sun to burn off the last of the fog as it rises. She has a stack of books in her arms, the pages faded to yellow and with dust still thick on the covers. “I got the ones I could,” she says, handing Mira the stack. “The ones that will help you most, anyway.”

“How do you know - how can you tell?” she asks, brushing the dust off one of the titles. The Inner Circles of Magic, it reads, A Comprehensive Guide to Exploring the Second and First Rings. The author is unreadable. “What will be useful and what’s not, I mean?”

“I have my ways,” she says, wincing as she becomes (mostly-, although Mira doesn’t mention it) opaque again. “Probably best to leave, and quickly, too. Come on, you probably already want to-“

She’s not wrong, and Mira hates it. “So what now? We have the books, but…”

“That’s the easy part,” Sam says, shaking her head. “Magic is an art, and - well, any closer to believing in magic?” she asks, almost resignedly. 

Yes. “No.”

“Great. Time for you to become an artist, with colors you can’t see.”

Tag list: @lady-redshield-writes, @no-url-ideas-tho, @ratracechronicler, @ken-kenwrites, @ravenpuffwriter, @cirianne, @lonelylibrary @maxbeewriting, @endlesshourglass, @thebloodstainedquill,  @anip-ocs, @note-katha @dreamwishing, @incandescent-creativity, @fatal-blow, @danafaithwriting, @wri-tten, @writingwhithotchocolate, @katekyo-bitch-reborn, @klywrites and @dogwrites!

(and if you liked this, don’t forget to check out Evenfall University at @note-katha, since it is actually their amazing story and all!)

[mieran-sanctuary]

How did you make those drawing that mimic the dragon age tarot card look?

I’m sorry that it took me this long to reply, anon! There were some complications and illness that kept me away for a bit, but better late than never! I assume the drawing you’re referring to is the experimental card I made of my Inquisitor 4 years back?

It’s been a while since I worked on it, but I tried to dig up the old psd file to go through the layers and see what steps I made. The drawing itself was highly experimental, as I was completely new when it came to trying my hand at the DA:I card style. For the most part I decided to make the character and his anatomy very simplified, and rather focus on putting the details in the shading and background.

Let me show an example of what my drawing looks like without the added textures and extra overlay soft brush shading:

And here is the same drawing where the textures and shading are added:

But if there is one thing I’ve learned from both my own attempts and other artists, is that textures can sometimes make a very huge difference when it comes to that final touch. Whenever it’s from digital brushes or images that you’ve gathered. It’s no question that most of the work with these paintings lies in the drawing itself, but adding those final textures can really give it that ultimate DA:I card feel you’re looking for.

I’m not really experienced enough to give proper advice or tips on how to make these drawings, but for now, all I can recommend is studying the DA:I cards themselves, take inspiration from other artists, tarot cards in general, or patterns/paintings that can inspire what to use for the backgrounds. Another thing I personally like to recommend, is staying away from too much realism or overblending the image. The more the textures and those rough brush strokes are apparent, the more it adds to it. Keep it simplified, while the more detailed/realism stuff is kept to a minimum in comparison. But once again, this is my personal taste, and not the ultimate way to do this.

However, something I can add to my reply, is showing you guys a very quick, basic and simple way on how I generally go on with these paintings and how I add image textures. Please, rather look at these tips as suggestions on how to do it, as there are plenty of other and simpler ways to go about it. But since this will be a very long post filled with images, I’m gonna keep it under a cut, so that anyone interested can check it out there! Also keep in mind that I’m using Photoshop CS5 on an iMac for this.

First of all, I will apologize to everyone for the extreme low art quality, as I only have my computer mouse to draw with for this. Not to mention the extreme lack of balanced values that makes this more chaotic than it should. Make sure to always keep values in mind with these things, folks!

Anyways, I always start by making the drawing itself. Most of the work and style are put into this part of the process, as the image textures will just be extra flavoring.

Now let’s say that we want to add some fancy gold details to this drawing. We’ll be doing so by making a new layer over the drawing itself, then use a basic round brush to draw the shapes we want to be textured with gold. Wherever you choose to make something more detailed, or just make simple shapes with a single color, is all up to you.

Now I’ll be locking the layer by clicking the icon shown in the image below. It’s usually found over the layers, and make sure to keep the layer with the new shapes activated when you click it.

This will now make us able to draw on the shapes without going outside of them, so let’s use this to add some simple shading based on gold in general. This will add a bit extra once we apply the texture itself in the end. (References are your best friend here!) Also be aware that the colors you choose on these shapes will affect the end results once they are merged with the texture image. Here’s how it looks like after I’ve added some simple shading with a brush.

Now it’s time to add the extra gold texture itself. We’ll be doing so by first digging up your preferred gold texture image that you can either place or copy/paste into the psd file. Make sure the image is on a layer above the shapes we just added. Once that is done, we will right click on the layer with the image, and choose the option ‘Create Clipping Mask’

Now it should only be covering the shapes drawn in the layer below it. So now we can mess around with the image layer until it gives you a look you’re satisfied with. It’s mostly common to put the layer on Multiply or overlay, but try to experiment to see what you prefer. Also play around with the opacity of the layer, too! In this case, I set the layer to multiply and the opacity to 80%. I also adjusted the colors on the shape and the texture itself until I was satisfied.

I also added a gold texture to the circle in the background by doing the exact same thing. Make a layer with the shape, add the gold texture image in a layer above it, right click it and choose ‘Create Clipping Mask’. Then adjust to your heart’s content. This layer is set to multiply with 100% opacity. Colors were adjusted until I was pleased with the results.

And this is basically how I add textures to my art in general. Sometimes the Clipping Mask isn’t even needed if you want to cover the whole drawing itself with it. However, another thing you can do to add a texture over a painting, is having the image on its own layer over the drawing, but instead of setting the texture layer to Clipping Mask, you add a Layer Mask by having the layer itself chosen, then clicking the icon shown in the image below.

The texture layer should now have a white page next to it that looks like this.

This layer will now only let you draw on it with either black or white. Basically what this means, is if you draw on the layer with black, it will “erase” the texture, so that you can draw on the spots where you don’t want the texture to show on the painting. If you want to bring the texture back, all you have to do is draw over the black again with white, and it will appear.

I added a final grunge texture to the background, using the same method as we did with the gold, but simply skipping the Clipping Mask part. Instead I added a Layer Mask and drew over it with black, so that the texture would only show on the brown colored part of the background.

As a final touch, I added one more texture to cover up the whole image. It’s the same gray paper texture that I made and use for all my sketches or paintings in general. It can be found and downloaded here.The gray paper texture was set to overlay, and I darkened its values, as it tends to brighten up the drawing a bit too much when set to overlay.I also added a final layer on top of it all, setting it to overlay, and then draw with a soft brush to add some extra highlights and shadows to give it that final touch. Highlights were drawn with a very light/pale yellow, while the shadows were drawn with more dark brown tones. All in all, I used colors to match the ones used in the drawing.After all of that, this is how it finally looks.

Now this last step is completely optional, but I’ll add it to this post, in case some people will find it useful. One final step you can do to give the painting that extra crisp, is to add Unsharp Mask.First you need to save the drawing as a png file, and then open that file, so that all the layers are merged into one image. From here, we will click on Filter, among the tabs found at the very top of the program. From there we will find and choose Sharpen, then Unsharp Mask. Here’s an image to make it more clearer.

When you click Unsharp Mask, a little window will pop up, letting you adjust on three different sliders. Treshold will be on 0 levels, Radius will be on 2,0 pixels, while Amount is where we can adjust the slider to our liking. Usually it’s enough to keep it somewhere between 60-80%, but experiment and see what you prefer. Once you are done, click OK, and the changes will be added. Make sure to check the box next to Preview, to see what the changes look like before you click OK. When you resize the image to make it smaller, the unsharp mask effect can look pretty neat!

Aaaand one more optional final touch that we can add, is something called the Grain Texture. However, there is already a very great tutorial made that explains easily how to add it, so I’ll link to it here!

And FINALLY. After all these walls of texts and images, this is what the end results look like.

I apologize if my way of explaining these things is confusing and pretty bad. It’s always been a weakness of mine, so if any of you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask! I’ll try to answer as good as I can.Other than that, I hope this is somewhat helpful to some of you. This is basically how I do things in most cases when I make art.I’m not sure how much this helped to answer your question, Anon, but hopefully it shed some light on some of it! If not, I can always try to make another tutorial some other time, once my health allows me the extra time.

Thank you so much for reading, and good luck with your art!

[fulcrum-agent]

About the Character - Ashe of Dalmasca

NAME OF YOUR CHARACTER:

Ashe of Dalmasca (Princess* Ashla Manasse)

ALIAS OF YOUR CHARACTER:

Ashe, Phoenix (Little Phoenix), the Princess of the Heart, the Lioness Rampant

ONE PICTURE YOU LIKE BEST OF YOUR CHARACTER’S FC:

Dark Embers (Balmung)

While I am updating all of the graphics for the FC, I still really love how the original logo (which is above, once you ditch the Year Five! subtitle) turned out for the FC. The new one is in progress, as I lost all of my layer styles and PSDs during the issues with my PC.

TWO HEADCANONS YOU HAVE FOR YOUR CHARACTER:

[ Twinthings ]

Most twins have some sort of innate bond, particularly monozygotic and bi-monozygotic (there’s a third, yet unnamed type of twin science is looking into, so I gave it a name, your welcome science), but the bond shared between Ashe and Rel exists on a deep and complex aetheric level. The existence of such has manifested several times over the course of the Manasse Twins lives.

While minor changes to her aetheric configuration, such as colouration changes or ‘hiding’ her freckles, don’t affect her twin all that much, major changes to Ashe’s aetheric configuration - like longer-term aetheric dispersal - do have an impact on Rel.

Despite being in their 40s, Rel looks remarkably young, though not quite as young as Ashe does. He’s only just starting to get his first grey hairs, and there aren’t many of them. This discrepancy stems from the handful of times that Ashe's aether has shattered, for a total of somewhere around 7 - 10 years of ‘missing’ time; while she looks barely 30, Rel looks to be in his mid-30s or so.

Major alterations to their forms brought about by things like injury also reflect from one twin to the other, to varying degrees. While Rel’s hands were nearly destroyed during the battle at Nalbina Fortress, his sister frequently has arthritis-like symptoms in her hands, particularly within the palms, which is where most of the damage to Rel’s hands occurred. And while his scar has faded quite a bit more than hers, the scar across the bridge of Ashe’s nose is from an injury her brother suffered not long after Nalbina.

There’s quite a number of additional scientific and anecdotal things involving twins that I’ve as headcanons for the Manasse Twins, but the above is the most modified version of such.

[ Aetherology as Particle Physics Science ]

As much as people baulk upon the initial hearing of this phrase, the game has plenty to support the idea that a lot of aetherology has roots in quantum and particle physics. The most notable being the way the aetheryte systems and other forms of teleportation are described/how they work.

The specifics of Ashe’s Echo gift are all based on this concept, built on the same sort of idea as the Sphere Rote system of Mage: the Ascension. The applications of this are only limited by the person’s imagination and their ability to think on their feet - much like on the fly Rote casting in MtA, which I got pretty good at (I also dodged Paradox like a champ, but that’s for another post).

However, much like MtA’s Sphere system, there are a number of things that can limit how much or how fantastical Ashe’s use of this can be. While it’s not quite like the Paradox system, there’s a similar underlying concept. There’s checks and balances on this, even though they weren’t all that clear near the beginning of playing Ashe, due to having to frequently make the Storyteller call of removing the limiters to deal with certain RP situations.

Underpinning all of this is Ashe’s core Echo gift - the ability to ‘see’ aether in its rawest forms. Much like Neo in the Matrix, the minutiae structure of aether is plain to her, though how it’s actually seen is more like the colour/shade overlays of the Miraluka sight in KotOR.

THREE THINGS THAT YOUR CHARACTER LIKES DOING IN THEIR FREE TIME:

Cooking - While she’s always been a capable enough cook, after spending time learning the more granular layers of the art from Elric, the Roegadyn chef employed by the Knight-Captain, cooking has become something that is relaxing, even though she’s constantly challenging her skill level with new styles, techniques, and recipes.

Writing - Although she’s thus far only published translated works since arriving in Eorzea, Ashe writes frequently. Sometimes it’s just updating her journal (though I’m shite at that since a couple of months after starting the character), or working on writing the modern history of the Kingdom, or working on the occasional piece of fiction. Aside from long-form novella writing, she’s got some skill with poetry and prose and can write song lyrics, when such a fancy strikes her.

Dancing - Most make the mistake of thinking that Ashe learned how to dance due to her family’s station prior to the invasion, however, they would be mistaken. Ashe loves dancing, having learned and taught herself myriad of different styles and techniques, as well as creating something of a fusion style with all she knows. Though she doesn’t get to dance often, she does really enjoy such.

SEVEN PEOPLE THAT YOUR CHARACTER LOVES/LIKES/RESPECTS**:

[ I. Her Knight ]

{ @thelionofdalmasca }

There will always be a soft spot in Ashe’s heart for the squire that had been assigned to guard her when she was a child. No matter the trouble she got up to, no matter how well hidden she was, he’d always find her, being sure to make her smile and laugh before guiding her home.

[ I. The Lion of Dalmasca ]

{ @thelionofdalmasca }

Despite the passing of decades, the man the squire became ultimately didn’t fail in keeping the promise he made to her when they were but children - that he would always find her. Though the passage of time has greatly changed him, and though their paths have since parted, she’ll always care about him, and always - though sometimes begrudgingly - respect him.

[ II. Her Starlight ]

{ @jurien-ashur }

If someone had told her how important he’d become, how integral a part of her life he’d be, the day she met Jurien, she would have laughed and brushed their words aside.

Perhaps it’s as much of a surprise to her as it is to everyone else that she and Jurien have become something far more than anyone ever imagined. After everything that had come to pass between herself and her Knight, the last thing Ashe was looking for was something that lay between philia, ludus, and pragma***.

Despite the fact their marriage was something of an accident, she can’t bring herself to take off the ring from their eternal bonding ceremony; thus far, he’s given her no reason to want to, and she’s hoping he never will.

[ III. The Doctor ]

The level-headed nature of this Raen, along with his penchant for tea and the higher sciences, led to Ashe coming to respect and trust Doctor Briggs in short order after their first meeting. Before she began her rapid trips between Dalmasca and Eorzea, she considered him something akin to her royal physician, even though she knew he’d never enjoy such an unforgiving position amid the court.

[ IV. The Violet Mage ]

{ @gal-the-violet }

Despite initial uneasiness between the two, Ashe developed a healthy respect for Galtara during her few moons with the Desert Sapphire Company. The woman’s passion for knowledge, both practical and theoretical, gave the Mage something of a foot in the door with Ashe. Her capability as a combatant, as well as her quiet method of leadership, also garnered respect from the Dalmascan.

[ V. The Axe-Maiden ]

{ @vayduh }

While there is still much Ashe doesn’t know about J’veda, what she has seen from the Seeker has earned the woman an odd sort of respect from Ashe, one that’s quite unique to Veda.

The warrior’s confidence with her feelings, stating her mind, and particularly her body and sensuality - while sometimes overwhelming - creates something of longing respect for the Seeker. Ashe would very much so like to be as carefree and confident about such things, but always feels the grip of noblesse oblige and the expectations of her behaviour it places upon her.

[ VI. The Gilded Lily ]

{ @mai-takeda }

Although they’ve not interacted all that often, soft and quiet respect has been growing for the Raen. While initially, she seemed far too naive and far too shy, Ashe has realised there’s more to Mai than she initially expected, finding her wide-eyed selflessness to be incredibly endearing.

[ VII. The Playwrite ]

{ Return to Ivalice NPC }

Despite the fact that he’s a Garlean pureblood, she has nothing but respect and admiration for Jenomis cen Lexentale. His love for her kingdom and the kingdom that came before it, coupled with his passionate sacrifices have deeply touched Ashe, and given her hope for the Garlean people.

With her understanding of auracite, knowledge of the Lucavi, and the geography of Dalmasca, Ashe became something of a fixture within the group attempting to prove the writings passed down within the Lexentale’s family correct. The journey from a return to Rabanastre, to the Lighthouse of Ridorana, and finally deep within the Golmore Jungle to discover the strangely familiar Orbonne Monastery has been something she’s quite thankful to have experienced.

For some time, she’s been working on both a written adaptation of Lexentale’s precious artefact known as the Durai Papers and an adaptation of the play he’s created from the Zodiac Braves myth that’s more palatable to foreigners with no background to the story - primarily, Eorzeans.

TWO THINGS YOUR CHARACTER REGRETS:

Her time as a conscript within the Garlean Military.

Revealing her childhood love to the person whom it was for.

A PHOBIA YOUR CHARACTER HAS:

Arachniphobia****

Tagged by @jurien-ashur (This was sooooo long! And I crashed like six times and lost most of my work on it. YOU HAD BETTER APPRECIATE MY FINISHING THIS.)

Tagging: Everyone in the list of seven people are tagged for this, along with @snow-and-sea, @the-ruby-rogue (WHY YOU CHANGE YOUR NAME ON ME, I WAS SO CONFUSED), @kazexvoss, @arcanakiller, @galla-xiv, @rinrin-rinalys, @aelathetrashcan, @catdette, @velarishiku, @thewitchofthechocoboforest, @zhauric, @garlean-nonsense, @hei-lowell, and anyone else who’s wanting to torture themselves for a few hours!

ANNOTATIONS

* - I made the mistake of not hauling down my line of succession information off my SCA document backup before working out the Manasse family’s place in the nobility and lineages. As it turns out, it all put Ashe into the line of succession, and given the death toll in Dalmasca, she’s now fairly near the top of such. Until there are more clarifications on the leader of Lente’s Tears, and/or perhaps the B’nargin twins’ life before the Garlean invasion, it leaves her within the top 5.

I considered retconning it but got encouragement to keep it, and so I did. It should be noted, that unless something is really super wacky with the Dalmascan story that’s unfolding, Ashe is so not going to become the rule of Dalmasca - and even then, I’d feel awkward as hell and probably not. XD

** - Choosing just seven people was rough because there’s more than that many people that Ashe gets along with, or has respect for while saving space for some of the NPCs she deals with. In the end, I picked just one NPC, even though there are three or four who fit the bill.

Please don’t feel like your character isn’t important to Ashe if they’re not mentioned in this list. All of Ashe’s friends and colleagues are important and cherished by her - and by me.

*** - Anyone who knows me has heard me bitch about how terrible a language English is, in so much as the fact that we have words that have myriad and varying meanings, which leads to far more confusion than necessary. Often, when expressing some sort of ‘love’, I will revert to the 7 Loves created by the ancient Greeks. Because while they still don’t cover the various different types and levels of love, they do a hell of a lot better job of it than English could ever hope to.

Also, as English is nigh a requirement in this world, I prefer the Queen’s English. Deal with it.

**** - Most of my characters have this phobia because my RL arachniphobia is so bad, I can’t even fake that it doesn’t exist for role play fun times.

[izaswritings]

Title: it’s just a mild inconvenience

Synopsis: Pro Tip— When you die saving the life of your worst enemy, make absolutely sure there’s no chance of survival. Otherwise, things get awkward. Like really, really awkward.

Personally, Varian would take the death and dying. At least then he doesn’t have to deal with all this “caring” nonsense.

Notes: The response to this story makes me so happy to see!! Thank you so much for all your support! I'm overjoyed to know you guys are excited for this au!! It's going to be a fun ride, ahaha 💖

Once again, many thanks to the amazing @jessucakes for brainstorming this monster of an au with me! It’s getting me through college, ahaha 😂

Warnings for: cursing/swearing (Varian, tsk tsk, watch your language), references to past character death (including references to past impalement), and... that's all, really. Huh. As always though, if there is something you feel I missed, just let me know and I’ll add it on here!

-

AO3 Link is here!

Chapter One is here!

-

chapter two— it’s not kindness, it’s ______

-

Varian doesn’t get very far, regrettably.

It’s Eugene who catches him, mostly because he’s taller and has longer legs and, unlike Varian, is neither in shock nor drugged, and so clearly has the advantage. This is the only reason he wins. The only reason.

“Are you a child or some weird shapeshifting eel creature,” Eugene wheezes, trying desperately to keep a hold on him. He’d caught up to Varian no problem, but Varian takes a demented sort of glee in the knowledge that catching him sure wasn’t easy. Though the commentary is a bit insulting, so just for that, Varian elbows Eugene in the chin with gusto. He doesn’t get free but he does get petty revenge, and really, isn’t that all that matters?

Eugene hauls him back into the infirmary room regardless of Varian’s many efforts. Despite the quick scuffle and enthusiastic measures to escape, Eugene has somehow managed to find a way to hold Varian in such a way that he’s effectively useless. He’s hanging half-way upside down and trapped between Eugene’s side and his arm. It’s ridiculous, uncomfortable, and probably mortifying for the both of them, but Varian can’t kick or punch Eugene at all now, and he suspects darkly that this was the intent.

He scowls at the ground, the blood rushing to his head, and gives another go at squirming out of the hold. Nothing. Varian’s not yet at the point where he considers biting Eugene to be the best course of action, but— well. He’s getting pretty damn close.

“Put me down!”

“Sure, kid,” Eugene says, and the world goes topsy-turvy and then suddenly and painfully soft. Eugene has—he’s dumped Varian face-first on the bed, that jerk! Mattresses hurt!

Varian pushes himself upright and turns to glare at him, rubbing at his nose. Rapunzel is still here—and, damn it, still smiling, hands twisted in a knot before her chest and face cast with a shade of uncertainty, but all in all still disgustingly positive.

Varian can’t look her in the eyes—he’d died, and he’d died saving... why the hell had he—so he glares at Eugene instead, because Eugene is easy, and still despised, and also in general kind of an ass, so there’s no harm in hating him. He jabs one finger at the older man’s face and says, “Let me go. Right now.”

“We can’t do that, Varian,” Rapunzel says, and wow, that’s pretty rude, can’t she see Varian is ignoring her with every fiber of his being? He doesn’t want to look at her, and then she goes and starts talking anyway. “We still don’t know if you’re entirely okay! You were in a coma for three days, and before that, you had just di—”

She stops, voice withering, and all of sudden he can’t look at her for an entirely different reason. His stomach twists into knots, his breaths shortening, chest tight with an echo of searing pain.

“Doctor says bed rest,” Eugene announces in a rush, but he says it so loudly and with such desperate gusto that it sounds more like “DOCTORSAYSBEDREST” and just about sends Varian falling from the bed out of sheer fright. “So, uh, yeah, no can do, that lady scares the shit outta me and I’m not going to be risking her wrath anytime soon, so just—just—” Eugene clears his throat, and for a moment his eyes shift to Rapunzel, something wordless passing between them.

Varian waits, glaring up at them. “Just what?”

“Do… that…?” Eugene offers, and beside him, Varian can hear Rapunzel sigh.

There is a long and awkward pause. Eugene clenches his jaw and then sighs, the tension finally falling from his shoulders. He lifts one hand and rubs it down his face.

“Look, kid… Varian,” he says finally, voice slow and measured. “I know this is… weird. And yeah, I’ll be straight with you, this is goddamn strange. You’re not the only one wanting to jump out a window, though as per usual you’re the only one bonkers enough to actually try and do so—”

“Eugene,” Rapunzel says.

“Right.” He clears his throat. “I get it, okay? You don’t like us, that’s fine. And hey, you’re… actually pretty unlikeable yourself, to be fair—”

“Eugene.”

“BUT,” Eugene says loudly, waving his hand down at Rapunzel. “We don’t, y’know, actually hate you. Or want you to die. Or suffer. Or… any of that awful stuff. Which might be a really weird concept to you, kid, except—” And here Eugene pauses, and Varian can feel his heart sink, “Maybe you do know what I mean, don’t you?”

For a moment Varian cannot respond, any response drowned out under what has been said and what has been implied. You didn’t want her to die. Or suffer.

You don’t actually hate us.

The memory of that spike through his chest is clear, sharp and sudden, and for a second Varian cannot breathe under the weight of it, can taste phantom blood in his throat and almost see that dark earth behind his eyelids. And then the words register, and his anger rises up, so wonderfully familiar he could cry.

“Oh?” Varian says, and he feels cold, now, at last in control of himself. This anger is welcome, so terribly welcome. It drowns out the memory of that dark world, that echo of pleading still in his ears, the questions twisting around his heart and soul. Why did I—

“What makes you think that?” Varian says, and he smiles. The tide has shifted, and it has shifted in his favor. At last he knows what to say.  “What, did you just forget the past, oh, year of me trying my best to brutally murder you all? Do you think one good deed will change that? You think this changes anything?”

Eugene falters, and Varian’s smile grows. The relief he feels at this is startling. Nothing has changed, not really. This is merely a bump in the road, an obstacle of little importance. It doesn’t matter. None of it matters.

“Doesn’t it?”

Rapunzel’s voice is soft. Quiet, yet firm, and at the sound of it, Varian falters. He forgets himself, he looks at her, and he sees her red-rimmed eyes and her hands clasped before her, back straight and head tilted. The memory arises without warning, overlaying on the present, the image of her silhouette against the dark sky, the clearest memory besides the pain—

Sour bile rises in his throat, and Varian tears his eyes away.

“It does matter,” Rapunzel says, a note of finality in this statement. “It matters to me, Varian, even if it doesn’t to you.”

He sneers at the bed covers. “Trying to redeem a villain, Princess?”

“I’m trying to repay a kindness.”

Something in him withers at that, at that wording, at that quiet reproach in her voice. Varian shivers, grasping for that former confidence, but it had faltered at her voice and now has slipped fully from his grasp.

He ignores it, all of it, because what else is he supposed to do, and how is he supposed to respond to that? Damn them, this is exactly what he didn’t want to happen!

Rapunzel wants a happily ever after; screw that, Varian thinks. She wants him to play along, to pretend everything’s okay—well it’s not, and he refuses, and she’s just going to have to live with it.

He’s not sure what they’re expecting—Tears? Heartfelt apologies? Declaration of feelings? —but they aren’t fucking getting it, oh no, not from him. Instead Varian lifts his hand and jabs a finger at her, now, a sharp point of accusation that breaks her calm and makes her blink back. The tension breaks with her stare. All at once they are again on even ground and oh, god, thank god.

“This is shitty repayment!” Varian announces loudly, something desperate in the words, and takes delightful pleasure in how her nose scrunches at the swear. Ha-ha. “Repayment is money! Me being left alone! Revenge or something! This?” He waves a hand at the room, confidence growing, the desperate edge giving way to offense. “This is just kidnapping! What the hell!”

“To be fair,” Eugene says, “The alternative was, y’know, death, so I’m not entirely sure why you’re complaining—”

Varian swings that finger onto him, nearly jabbing Eugene in the eye. “Don’t you start, Fitzherbert!”

Eugene blinks, then snorts through his nose, crossing his arms. “Ooh, fancy, last-name basis now. How long did it take you to learn how to pronounce that correctly?”

Varian splutters. “That is not the point! The point is—”

“Also, considering your usual, y’know, plots, isn’t kidnapping actually appropriately ironic? Food for thought!”

“It’s still kidnapping!” Varian snaps, and jumps up off the bed onto his feet so that he can glare at them properly. It doesn’t help. They still tower over him. “It’s only okay when I do it!”

“Okay, now that’s just plain—”

“Guys, please,” Rapunzel starts, and Eugene turns to argue with her, and Varian takes delightful pleasure in yelling at them both. For a little while the world is back to as it should be—blessedly antagonistic and chaotic in equal measure, and the memory of his death and what it meant, is, if only for a little while, thankfully far away.

-

They’re about midway in a shouting match when the doctor finally hears them. She doesn’t appreciate the noise, if her exasperated threats are any indication. She sweeps in with a pile of fabric and glass in her arms and just about drops it all when she sees them, dark skin going even darker with anger and eyes going wide when she takes in the events.

“Are you lot yelling at my patient!?” she says, with a voice full of ominous thunder, and everything after that is a whirlwind. It is, honestly, a tiny bit scary: the doctor sweeps in and wrestles Varian back under the covers and the Princess and Eugene out the door in about ten seconds flat. Between one blink and the next—gone. One minute Varian’s shouting at the top of his lungs, the next he’s flat on his back and the room is near devoid of people.

Seriously, what?

Well, Varian thinks. It could probably be worse. At least he doesn’t have to listen to Rapunzel’s prattle anymore, or Eugene—thank god, really, because his neck is starting to hurt from staring up and shouting at them for so long. Seriously, why are they so tall? That kind of height should be illegal, or something. It completely throws a wrench into proper revenge ranting.

The doctor, unlike Eugene and Rapunzel, is blessedly silent in comparison. She barely even looks at him—not directly, anyway, though she eyes him every once in a while, pinning him with a short stare and then looking away. She does that… a lot, actually. It’s kind of freaking him out a bit.

Okay, maybe its freaking Varian out a lot. It’s just… little things. She keeps eyeing him like she’s faced with a puzzle she doesn’t get, which. Okay, granted, could be explained by him dying and then coming back (thanks for fucking nothing, Rapunzel, you useless princess, you’ve brought him back and made him a circus sideshow freak in the process). But then.

In the weirdest move doctor lady has pulled yet, she puts an old (and way oversized, which means it’s Eugene’s, and at some point Varian is going to have to burn it on principle) shirt on the dresser before leaving. Which, whatever, except as she does it, she pins him with another unreadable stare and gives a really cryptic statement of “You’ll be wanting this dearly, child, the collar will help hide your neck and arms.” And then she just… leaves without a backward glance. Boom. End of conversation.

Like. The hell, lady?

Still, weird-ass doctors aside, Varian is finally—finally! —on his own. He waits a good few seconds, listening intently, and the moment he is certain that no one else is coming back, he slips out of bed without any hesitation. He pads his way silently across the room, and then he eases open the door with a careful creak, ready to duck out. He just needs to see where the guards are at, and then—

Varian stops. He opens his mouth, closes it, and then draws away, shutting the door very softly. He stares at his hand for a long moment. He pursues his lips. He squints at the air.

“No,” he decides, and opens the door again. The same image. He closes it. Opens it. Closes it. Absolutely no change. The scientific method has failed him.

Varian throws open the door completely, letting it bang against the wall, arms outstretched, ears straining. Nothing. Empty hallway, silent house, not a single goddamn guard in sight.

He stares at the empty hallway for a long moment. “What the fuck,” Varian whispers, and grabs the door handle, slamming it shut. He waits. No footsteps, no yelling… “Whaaaaaat the ever-loving—”

Okay. So. Apparently the whole… dying thing must have really addled some brains here, because Varian is starting to think they haven’t even posted a damn guard. Which is—it can’t be. He’s almost offended. Why on earth would someone forget that? He could just—walk out! Right now! They’d never even know!

Do they probably think he’s in too much shock to escape or something? Or too hurt, and well, he is probably a little drugged— no, still no excuse. That’s it. Varian is offended. He’s spent a whole year building up his reputation as a someone to take seriously, and apparently one tiny, practically inconsequential mishap has sent it all spiraling down the drain.

It’s goddamn typical, is what is it. It’s also terribly insulting.

Just for that, Varian jumps out the window. No guards outside his door? Screw them; Varian’s sneaking out properly regardless, and he’s jumping out as many windows as he can along the way. They must have at least guarded the perimeter. He’ll jump out, scare of few metal-heads, maybe trip a few guys. That’ll teach them to not post a guard at the door, the inconsiderate jerks.

Still, the whole thing leaves him jittery and uncertain. It’s not until Varian’s jumped out, oversized shirt pulled over his head, bereft of any of his possessions, that he realizes he— really didn’t think this through. No Rudiger, no alchemy, none of his things…

But apparently, that doesn’t matter. Because even outside, there are still no guards, either. Not even a stranger. Varian looks around the side of the infirmary house with a growing sense of unease. No one. Nothing. They’d just— left him. Alone. Completely alone. What the hell is going on? Are they stupid? Did someone’s head get knocked the wrong way when he wasn’t looking?

His mind, without warning, strays back to Rapunzel. Maybe she just trusted me not to leave.

Which is—weird. So weird. What is Varian even supposed to think about that?

He lingers at the bottom of the window, struck with sudden uncertainty, a strange anxiety. No guards at the door, or the windows, when they should know—

But hell, what’s he supposed to do, climb back up? No, no way. Varian is being ridiculous. Why is he even hesitating? Who cares if they decided to trust him? Who cares if he breaks that trust? He’s not their friend, and nothing has changed, and Rapunzel is just going to have to get that through her remarkably thick skull.

Varian hisses through his teeth and marches away. He’s not looking back at the window. He’s NOT looking back at the window. Nope, nope, nope.

He looks back at the window.

…Not even a single guard. Not around the house, or side-streets, or… anything. Just a house, the doctor, and him.

“What the fuck,” Varian says. No answer. “Screw you, Raps.” Still no answer. Someone’s got to be hiding behind a corner somewhere, he refuses to believe they’ve left him unsupervised. They just… no, no. Guard around the corner. There has to be. “I’m leaving, you can’t stop me, ha-ha!”

Nothing.

Varian clenches his jaw and turns his back deliberately, inwardly furious with himself. Okay, no guard, so— Ugh. What now?

He’s acting so stupid. It’s the painkillers; it’s gotta be. He’s just... moody, is all. Teenagers are supposed to be moody, right? It’s a puberty thing! He’ll wake up tomorrow morning faaaaaar away from here, and everything will be as it should.

The more he thinks about it, the more sense it makes. Dying, puberty, drugs— terrible mix. Varian’s a scientist, he should know. Everything’s absolutely a-okay, it’s just his dumb teen mind is being… dumb, again. Yeah. Yeah, that’s it!

Varian lifts his head, cheered by this idea. There’s a perfectly logical explanation for all of this, he’s just got to be in a better frame of mind to see it. All the more reason to leave!

The town is small and circular, and in the distance, growing closer, he can see a ring of trees. Varian fast-walks down the roads, eying every alleyway suspiciously. He’s so close to the edge now, and there’s not even a town border wall or anything. The moment he gets into the woods, he’s home free.

He’s so close he can almost taste it. Spirits bolstered, Varian speeds up, walking fast, and blindly turns a corner just in time to hear, “…doing all right?”

Varian halts in his tracks, mind going blank. No. There’s no way. Not even his luck can be that bad—

Doctor lady’s raspy voice says, “Princess, I’ve told you three times, he’s perfectly fine,” and promptly shatters all of Varian’s hopes and dreams into dust.

Well, Varian thinks. So it is them. Shit.

“Oh,” Rapunzel says— Rapunzel! Out here! Practically five feet away! Why!? — “I know, I’m sorry, I just… those bandages, I just thought…”

Varian flings himself against a nearby wall, pressing a palm against his mouth to quiet himself. He is so close. He can see the edge of the forest just a few blocks away, but if he moves they’ll hear him and—damn it, damn it, damn it!

“As I said, your tear healed him. But…”

“But? What does that mean? There’s shouldn’t be a but!”

Doctor lady sighs loudly. “But,” she says, “the rocks created… some weird complications. The healing perhaps wasn’t as—thorough as you are used to. It’s nothing bad, but the bandages were necessary.”

Varian freezes, panic stalled and mind caught on the conversation. That was… even more cryptic than the shirt comment. He picks at the collar of his borrowed top, suddenly hyper-aware of the bandages wrapped around his neck and the whole length of his torso. He feels fine. He feels pretty great, actually, so—why is he covered in bandages?

“I—not as thorough? What do you mean? Is, is there still danger?”

“It is nothing you need to worry about.” Footsteps echo in his ears, and Varian jumps, drawing back—but they are moving away, not towards him. He can hear them only distantly now, the doctor lady saying, “Worry not; I know what I’m doing, even with all this magical involvement…”

Their voices fade. Varian waits, and when he peeks out from behind the wall, there is no one outside but him.

He rubs absently at his chest, feeling the bump of the bandages through the borrowed shirt. Complications? What in the world does that mean?

His head hurts. The night air is cold, and the conversation has left him rattled. He’s too tired to think about this right now, he can barely think straight as it is. Varian scrunches his hair in his hand and presses his palms against his eyes, bending at the knees, a strangled cry of frustration at his throat.

He bites it back just barely, rocking on his heels and then standing so fast it makes his muddled mind spin like a child’s toy. Varian steadies himself against the wall and sucks in a deep breath.

…It doesn’t matter, Varian decides finally. It’s not important. Why, oh why does he keep getting stuck on these things? He’s free, he’s out! The painkillers and trauma can take a goddamn hike. Varian is getting out of here, and in the morning, everything will be just fine and it’ll be like nothing happened.

Take that, Rapunzel. This whole thing has been way more trouble than it’s worth. See if he ever saves her again! Hah!

Varian casts one last look at the infirmary room and that empty window, then turns away. Good-bye, silly princess; good-bye, unguarded window; good-bye, creepy cryptic doctor lady and unfamiliar town! Varian is out and he’s unsupervised, and that’s always meant good things for him and terrible things for everyone else. Freedom at last!

He doesn’t quite skip from the village, but it’s a near thing. And really, why shouldn’t he? He’s free and he’s alive, awkward conversations avoided successfully. He certainly won’t be seeing any of them anytime soon, that’s for sure, not if Varian has any say in the matter.

Varian is heading home. The ordeal is finally over.

-

The ordeal is not over.

The ordeal, Varian is finding, is not even close to being over. The ordeal has gained a consciousness and a downright awful sense of humor and is currently sitting up in the trees and cackling like a deranged manic child at his misfortune.

“Ooooooh, sure,” Varian mumbles, kicking a spare stone across the path. It’s been hours since he left the village behind, and the moon is high in the sky. “Eugene gets to die and come back, and he gets a castle, he gets a celebration…”

Varian is lost.

“He gets a warm bed and food… ugh, food… hot drinks… cocoa…. Warm blankets...”

Varian is lost in a dark forest in the middle of autumn, with no food, no jacket, and no idea of where he’s going.

In hindsight, leaving the infirmary room was—probably a bad idea. At least it was warm there.

“But me? Ohhhhh nooooo, I die, and I get manhandled, weird shows of dumb trust, creepy doctor ladies and Eugene’s old shirt… do I get cocoa? Do I get a castle?”

High above him, the moon sits heavy and bright in the sky, shining through the towering pines. The ground is obscured to his eyes, shadows long and all-consuming. Varian has no idea where he is or where he’s going. He isn’t even following a path.

“Oh no, no cocoa for me! No castle! Me, I get annoying princesses, I get dumb shadowy paths in the middle of freaking nowhere, I get lost—”

His foot catches on a root, and Varian goes plummeting head over heels. He hits his side and then pitches down a hill, because of course he does, and then he keeps on tumbling down that, because why not, and then at last he manages to roll up on his feet just in time face-plant an icy stream, because clearly all that other stuff was letting him off way too lightly.

Thanks, Universe.

Varian comes up spitting water, coughing hard, rubbing at his new bruises and stumbling back up on his feet. “This is—this is BLATANT FAVORITISM,” he bellows at the sky, breathless with exhaustion, “and you should be ashamed!”

No answer. Varian stomps his foot, slips on some algae, and falls backward into the stream with a loud splash and high-pitched scream.

The water is even colder the second time around. Of-fucking-course it is.

Varian sits there in the stream, staring up contemplatively at the night sky, and finally closes his eyes with a whine. He slams back his head into the water, icy droplets splashing his face, the stream brushing through his hair. It is so cold.

Seriously, just—why him? Why is it always him?

He sits there until the cold of the stream starts making him shiver, and slowly climbs up to his feet, wisely keeping his mouth shut this time around. Okay. Stay calm, Varian. Take stock of the situation. Surely there’s something good in all this!

He’s wet, cold, lost… dirty and muddy… he’s pretty sure the fall back there bruised his arm, and that hurt, damn it… he’s standing in a stream…

Tired though he is, this thought makes his mind perk up. Stream, water, running water—people. People, houses, they tend to cluster around water, which means—

Ha-ha, makeshift path. No more stumbling blinding around the woods for him!

“There’s a bright side to everything,” Varian mumbles, except saying it aloud makes him think of Rapunzel, and that’s… hmmm. No no, less positive, he’s got to think less like her— “Except it’s also cold, and rocky, and I fell in it…”

There, Varian thinks, marching up the streamside. Now he feels much better.

He follows the path of the stream for all the rest of night. It leads him up a few hills, and gets him turned around once it splits at a crossing, but at long last—shelter.

It’s not much, but it is better than the woods, at least. A rugged and abandoned house—a hunter’s cabin—resting high and by the streamside. The windows are broken and there’s no door, but it’s shelter, and Varian stumbles through the threshold feeling so relieved he almost cries.

No cocoa—damn it—but there is a bed, and drawers, and mirror… A wardrobe, tools, even some dried meats and a tiny jar of honey. Food, at last, and Varian settles on the floor with his findings, feeling immeasurably pleased with this success.

“Take that, Princess,” he mutters, chewing furiously at the jerky. It tastes stale and dry in his mouth, and he makes a face as he gnaws at it. Ugh, gross, dust flavor. “I’m doing just fine. Trying to repay a kindness, blah blah blah, it’s kidnapping and we both know it… hah! Whatever. I’ve got food, honey, clothes; I’m doing fantastic! See if I ever come back now, you bast—”

Varian stops. He takes the jerky out of his mouth, because it is honestly pretty disgusting, and also it gives him something to stare at. He looks at it for a long moment, eyes gazing past and through it into nothing. His mind is going a million miles an hour. His fingers clench and unclench as he thinks.

“Wait,” Varian says.

He is in a cabin in the woods. He has food, shelter, clothes… food, shelter, clothes… Something is missing, something’s not right, and for the life of him Varian just can’t figure out what it is—

At long last, the dots connect. The jerky slips out of Varian’s numb fingers. His eyes have gone wide, his mouth slack.

“Oh,” he says weakly. “Oh, no, no, no, no—”

The cabin in the woods. The empty cabin in the woods. The empty cabin, the quiet nature and the nighttime and Varian—just Varian.

“Rudiger,” Varian breathes, and then, “Oh, shit, Rudiger!”