#comp to work in black and white. and then if i try to put colour on top it like always looks awful. why do i do that.

[venomous-qwille]

I start with a quick comp sketch ! This step is necessary because art is chaos and once you actually start painting you will be glad you have something to look at and remind yourself what the fuck you're doing. Once this sketch is done I line it and figure out the way the water is going to make shapes- I can use this water layer later (set to multiply) to instantly add depth:

Next is the underpainting layer- I come from a trad painting background and it's my fervent belief that this is the real secret sauce to lovely colour. Go ham: add as many bright, saturated colours as your little heart desires- the more textured the brush the better. Some artists who use this technique like to stick to complimentary colours, personally I prefer to live on the edge and make it up as I go. Follow your heart: (Extra tip- turn your line art into a mask and fill it with a very saturated colour- red, purple or blue etc- avoid black at all costs, we want to keep aaaall desaturated colours away from the early stages of our painting. Only add black at the very end- it will stop your colours getting muddy when you use the eyedropper tool)

Lol looks terrible right now, but don't feel bad. It's all worth it in the end.

Time to paint the rest of the owl. No really, smother all your beautiful vibrant hues in gross desaturated colours which are much closer to real life. Use a textured brush to block in the values/shapes and forms- you should still be able to see some of your bright underpainting peaking through! Once you have put down your more saturated block in you can start to play with fun things like blood and iridescence. Iridescence is all about contrasting desaturated/saturated hues which share a value- if you look at the below two pics and squint you will see that the tail stays the same 'value' in both- one just has flat colour, whereas the other has very saturated colour of the same value slapped on top. Your eyes will always read changes in value contrast first and colour second! As artists we can abuse this to great effect.

I always use HSB sliders to track the value & hue relationships on my work as I paint:

If I'm feeling extra powerful I will use the RGB sliders:

HSB sliders let you understand and make changes to the colours in your painting really fast! RGB sliders however allow you much MUCH more subtle control, and playing around with these will teach you a lot about hue/value relationships but learning to read them is a goddamn arcane art. If you can master RGB sliders you will essentially ascend to art godhood (I am just a novice). The down side is the RGB method is very very time consuming to use & learn. To get an iridescent effect e.g on Moon: use your colour panel (whether you are going RGB or HSB) as you paint to shift blue hues to purple and cyan while always keeping the value the same. Use these colours to pick out the highlights. Try to avoid using white/desaturated brights when attempting to make something look nacreous- you will just end up mucking up the value levels/exposure of your art and lose out on a bunch of colour opportunities. Speaking of colour opportunities.... if you are working on mers leverage the water- any opportunity to have light bounce around in your image is an opportunity to add more colour. I used it to add extra contrasting greens because why not.

Ok that was a bit of a tangent. As I rendered out the rest- eg the net and the fishy patterns I just focused on opportunities to add colour contrast wherever I could. For example- adding yellow to moons tail- even a tiny bit kinda helps the iridescent purple/blue pop a bit more. The goal is just to keep adding more and more colour until your brain melts and you're like fuck it I'm done.

Anyway thanks for coming to my ted talk.

Shallow Water

[obsob]

im like tamftgebka (thinking about maia from ‘the goblin emperor’ by katherine addison)

[waternilly]

The End of an Era

Ship: Blackleg Sanji x f!OC Language: english Word count: 1.5k Warnings: none Ao3 link: here | Wattpad link: here Summary: Musicals! But what if this time the rivals were lovers in real life?

Many weeks and hours of hard work had come to their end. Tonight was the big finale of the musical Florence had built with both old and new friends over the semester. It hadn’t gone without troubles, but they had made it in the end.

As she waited between the wings on the side of the stage, the young woman let her mind drift off.

She thought back about the moment Mozart l’Opéra Rock had been announced as this year’s project. How all the students who would graduate in June shared the same excitement and thrill at the prospect.

She remembered the audition and how learning the lyrics to “Si Je Défaille” had been easy, being engraved in her memory ever since she was ten. She also remembered when she had to show up at the next audition to sing “Tatoue-Moi” on demand of her professor.

Florence had already performed as a male character in a previous project and she knew the professor’s demand was far from innocent. They had something in mind.

And she was right. The next week, once auditions for both singers, actors and dancers alike were over, the results were published.

1. Florence Moire ..... Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

A smile had crept on her face instantly. But what made her even happier was the name just two lines under hers.

3. Sanji Vinsmoke ..... Antonio Salieri

Not only would she perform as the main character of what was probably her favourite musical. The one to act as her rival was her own boyfriend.

Images of her sweet Sanji in black hair and eyeshadow had immediately crossed her mind and she couldn’t wait to see it happen.

That evening, the entire crew had gone to a local student pub and celebrated all night long. Florence lost count of how many times she got congratulated or all the teasing her and Sanji had gotten for acting out rivals.

It was one of Flo’s favourite memories. Everything felt right. No pressure or stress related to the production, school or the internship yet. Only pleasure, joy, excitement.

Rehearsals had started the same week, beginning with a script reading. Songs from the original musical were played whenever they were reached throughout the session. A few voice cracks and poorly acted sentences were uttered, but they were laughed off.

Florence and all the singers then went through some coaching first. Even though they were all decent already, they were still merely amateurs. Some had gotten such lessons the previous years, but everyone welcomed the tips from the teacher with open arms.

While those were reaching their end, they simultaneously started rehearsing with the actors. Their friends had already started learning their lines and now it was time for them to do as well.

To help with that process, Florence would often play the entire musical as background noise while studying or working on anything, to Sanji’s greatest amusement.

He early on realized that the one he tenderly referred to as ‘princess’ was nervous about the pressure put upon her shoulders. He often reminded her that the professor wouldn’t have given her the part if they didn’t believe her to be capable of it. He also loved to add that she would make for a great Mozart and an amazing rival, which would often help her calm down, at least temporarily.

As the dates approached and the rehearsals became longer -every song being performed in their entirety, accompanied by the dancers- the pressure among the whole crew rose. People started worrying about costumes or set pieces not being finished on time, about black outs on stage, about wigs falling off or ladies tripping over their massive dresses.

All of these faded shortly after luckily and everything was done in due time. The final rehearsal in full costume and make up also reassured everyone about what they had created. Which meant, representations could start. But not without some last minute preparations.

Bonney was left with her bright pink hair despite the professor’s reclamations who feared she would steal the show. The young woman’s determination was stronger however and she refused to incline, making her the very first pink haired Constanz Weber.

Luffy, who interpreted everyone’s favourite comic relief, Rosenberg, got his hair coloured grey with sprays often used for Halloween. It was slicked back and his face was painted bright white with two outrageously red spots on the cheeks. All of it, topped off with pencil-drawn eyebrows and two fake moles.

Sanji agreed to changing his style for the occasion. He got his hair dyed in a dark brown and slicked it all back except for one rebellious lock. Needless to say he was a sight for sore eyes like this. But every evening, before the representation, the benevolent make up artists who were fellow students painted his eyes with black eyeshadow, crayon and eyeliner. Black lipstick had also been considered at some point but was eventually discarded. And aside from all of that, he also walked around with black painted nails for a week.

As for Florence, the main thing she had to do was get a haircut. Her pixie hair had grown out during the semester and it required some touch ups. She was the one who had the wildest, most natural hairdo. It only got comped and sprayed to create some extra volume, but nothing too perfect. Her eyes got the same treatment as her lover’s however, which they liked to point out.

And then it was time.

The premiere.

Everyone was nervous to their core while simultaneously trying to help their friends calm down. Singers and actors alike reunited back stage to warm up their voices, a loud buzzing sound filling the room. Dancers took that opportunity to stretch and prepare as well. The entire crew was in its own bubble, in symbiosis with each other. Any conflicts that might have existed before were forgotten for now.

“Are you nervous, my love?” Sanji had asked his girlfriend just before she had to walk on stage.

“Yes,” she admitted.

With a smile, he had said: “You’ll feel better once you’re up there.”

She thanked him with a smile.

“Maybe turn on your microphone before it’s too late though,” he had teased.

Florence agreed, flipped the switch and ran up on stage. Sanji had been right. Merely seconds later, as she was uttering her very first line, she was calm, confident, poised. Every movement, every sentence flowed naturally. She felt good, at home.

To everyone’s surprise, nothing went wrong during the entire first act, which their professor naturally pointed out backstage during the break. They also complimented everyone’s acting, singing and dancing, clearly ecstatic with the result.

Flo knew what would come next. Someone started playing music while another person shouted to turn off the lights. Everyone jumped around and loudly shouted in unison with the music. A few even climbed on the table in the middle of the room to dance on it in a silly way, making the whole crew laugh.

That little tradition remained during the entire week of run, lasting the entire entre act every time. A twenty minute break of partying halfway through the musical.

Except it was now time to walk back on stage for the last time.

A loud ominous music played and Florence stepped into the light.

She gave everything she had in her, jumping and running around on stage.

Sanji then walked up himself, followed by Bonney who gave her best vocal performance yet.

Before long though, they reached the end of the musical and with it, the famous “Vivre à en Crever” scene. The only time Flo got to sing with her boyfriend throughout the entire performance.

She started, careful to keep a steady and clear voice. Then Sanji joined in. And ultimately, they sang together.

It was always one of the most poignant parts of the show and Florence had lost count of how many times she had almost kissed Sanji during it, never giving in however. Until now, whoever didn’t know them personally couldn’t have guessed they were a couple.

But that was about to change as it was time to salute and Florence had an idea in mind.

Once everyone had bowed in their usual position, they all started singing the most famous song of the musical -”Tatoue moi”- to celebrate the final representation. Florence took advantage of the context to ask Bonney to switch places with her since she was traditionally between her and Sanji. Florence wondered if the audience would react and how if they were to. By now, majority of the public wasn’t even from their college.

She started by just tangling their fingers but soon enough they were smiling at each other while singing eye to eye. When they reached the end of the song, Florence stood on the tip of her toes and pecked Sanji’s lips. He only grinned down at her before kissing her back.

Audible gasps, soon followed by extra cheers, could be heard throughout the audience. The public’s reaction was even better than what Flo was hoping for. She imagined the surprise it could be to see two people you pictured as rivals during the past two hours suddenly kiss. It amused her as well.

It might have been her last performance with this great crew of people but Florence had no reason to be sad. They had all gone out with a bang; Ace, Kid, Bonney, Sanji, herself. That night wouldn’t be one of mourning the end of an era. It would be a night to celebrate what they had achieved.

A/N: Bit of a cheesy ending yes, but oh well ^^” Please let me know what you thought of it, I haven’t written 3rd person fanfics in English in literally so long! Also, yeah, OC! Long time since I last wrote one. Any comments are welcome ^^ Thank you very much for reading <3

[snapessecretdiary]

So far down the road

Summary: eight years, four month and 27 days after your first date with Matt Murdock your facing a difficult decision.

A/n: writing this hurt.

Word count: 2132

It had been like this for a while now. Work being complicated, and that more than usual, your flat looking like someone just dropped a bomb and your Mom who was just about to move into another city quite far away which didn't really add to your desperate wish for relaxing. What only add to your miserable situation was your boyfriend.

You've been with Matt for a long period of time now, almost 8 ½ years. And to say you loved him was an understatement. The both of you had been through so much on your own and ever since you two were together, you fought your daily opponents together. When you were strong alone, you were so much stronger together. And maybe this was what encouraged Matt to do this. Maybe this was what made him think he could fight the dark of the night all on his own. For a while, it seemed like a good idea; you knew how outstanding his hearing ability was- it seemed to completely compensate his blindness. Matt was a fighter, he never did complain about what he could and couldn't do. When you got to know him, he was blind already. That was the Matt you knew, the Matt you were used to, and you wouldn't have it any other way.

So as he started leaving your shared flat in the night, you were encouraging. You supported him, as best as you could. You, on the other hand, weren't a fighter. You had never been involved in a fight and you wished so hard to never be part of one. So what really could you do? Other than stay at home and worry and force yourself to sleep? Nothing, really. And as time dragged on and sleep didn't come you started to worry even more. What if this would go wrong?

Now, eight years, four month and 27 days after first having met this boy called Matthew Murdock, you sat on the floor, your back to the couch, knees pressed to your chest, head in hands and tears spilling pathetically from your eyes. So what did happen in those years?

Well, it was easy. Really, really easy: It did go wrong.

The thing is, it was not because Matt got hurt. At least not seriously so. It wasn't anything new to see him with a new scratch or bump or bruise on his body. You had gotten so used to this, you kind of started to wonder whenever you didn't found him covered in blood. On a point, you even stopped asking whether it was his or someone else's.

It wasn't like you didn't care, it was just that you cared too much.

Worrying day per day and in ever minute that you should normally spend sleeping, took its toll on you, and you knew it.

Those eight years, four month and 27 days had changed you, and it did change your mind.

You loved Matt, and you did so for a long time and you would probably always love him. But you had enough. You had worried about him too much. You wanted peace, you wanted a day spend like a normal couple would, you wanted a full eight hours of sleep, cuddled closely to a body that didn't harbour a newly forming scar each other day. You just wanted Matt and you to be like you once were again. Happy, in love, leading a quiet life and planing your future.

So now- now it was the day you had dreaded for oh so long. Of course you knew this day would come. It was your decision, after all.

So right now, sitting there, with no more tears left to give, you closed your eyes. And suddenly all was dark. No more shade, no more colour, no more needing your eyes. And you got up. It was confusing, to not see anything.

The couch pressed against your legs and lower back, you pushed yourself off, slowly walking towards your bedroom. You wanted to know what Matt felt like, when he walked around his surroundings, but not seeing any of them. Maybe if you could understand from this perspective, than maybe you could understand what he felt, too. In a quite ridiculous way, you even thought you could feel his pain. But of course you didn't. You never did.

With something hard pressing against your knee caps, you re-opened your eyes. You stood in front of your bed. The bed you had spend so many days twisting and turning, never quite settling because the worry slowly drove you insane.

Looking down, your eyes took in the black material of you bag. You had only packed your most important stuff. Clothes, tooth brush, a comp, your mobile phone, some other things you thought you'd need and a picture of you and Matt. This would do, for a while. You'd come back to get the rest when a little time has passed.

Tracing your fingers over the material, you wondered what he would say right now, if he knew. Don't go. Those famous words would probably be involved. Maybe he would plead for you to re-think about your decision. Or maybe he would accept it.

So this was it, you thought, this was goodbye.

It was ridiculous. You had spent so much time trying to talk your best friend out of splitting up with her partner of three years. „You're together for so long now [F/N], don't just throw this away.“ How ironic of you. Now it was you who was about to throw away a relationship that you would have thought lasted a lifetime. But how little were eight years compared to a lifetime.

By the time you had finally managed to get your back to the door you felt a knot build up in your stomach. You had experimenced so much in this flat. So much love and joy as you first got here, devorating every room, making it look homely. It was a little difficult, but you soon grew attatched to the bright billboard outside your window. And you grew used to the fact that everything in this flat reminded you of Matt. Hell, it even smelled like him, as if you had never been here. As if you were destined to leave one day. And of course it was. This was Matt's now. His flat, not yours. With that bag in your hands and your foot about to step towards the door, you were a stranger to all this. You wouldn't think of this place anymore, when you talked of home, you wouldn't remember exactly where you put your favourite shirt or where exactly Matt's razor was placed. You were about to leave the one place you called home, about to search for another, when the door opoened out of nothing, reavealing the one person that you wanted not to see right now. Matt Murdock. Your home.

And maybe it was because of his special senses, or maybe it was because it's Matt, but he knew something was off. He just knew.

There was no sound that was anything close to what he had gotten used to hear when he returned home from work. There was no silent breather that made him realise you were home, no delicate flipping of pages that indicated that you, once more, read a book. There was just silence, ever defeating silence and in a way Matt thought it was so unbearably loud. It floadet his senses, drowning out everything he knew. There was something that wasn't supposed to be this way and he was about to find out what it was.

And he knew it had something to do with the erractic speed-up of your heartbeat, sounding nothing like the rhythm he loved to listen to when falling asleep, but so much like a strangers. What was wrong?

„[Y/N]?“ he asked quietly. Your name had rolled so often down his tounge, but you had never heard it sound much like this. Broken.

And this was what truly shattered your heart- this voice that was so unlike Matt. And it was your fault. Only yours.

„Matt I'm so sorry,“ you cried, tears streaming down your face almost violently. You let them. It was okay to cry. Right now, it was the only logical thing to do.

„I cannot do this anymore. I'm not strong enough.“ Your own voice was barely more than a whisper, but you didn't care. Matt would understand you anyway, he always did. And you really hoped he would do now, too.

„No-“ he sobbed. You had seen Matt cry before. But never like that. He never fell to his knees like that, he never almost hit the ground. „No..“

He has fought enemies that could have easily killed him, but Matt wasn't afraid.

There were so many times that he was closer to death than to being alive and still, he wasn't afraid.

But Matt was very much afraid now. You were slipping through his fingers and he closed his hand to late. And before he could try to put all his power into holding you, keeping you close by his side, he had lost already.

„Please,“ he begged, the back of his head pushed so hard against the wall behind him, you were sure it hurt, „Please don't leave me [Y/N]!“

Of course he would say this, you knew he would. Hollywood had already taught you so. And this situation was very much movie like.

„Matt you have to understand. You've got to understand me.“ Even though still standing, you were in the same state as him. Your hand gripped the wall so hard, your knuckles had started to turn white. If it hurt you didn't feel it, right now it was the only thing to prevent you from falling over.

„I have to do this. I have to, and you know this.“ you sobbed, your stomach twisting so violently, you wanted to throw up. „You know I've gotta do this Matt..“

His deep brown orbs darted around the room madly. He couldn't make out where you were, everything was just too much, the thoughts in his head were too loud. How could he let this happen? How could he be so stupid and not see this coming?

Trying to contain himself from sobbing, he pushed himself off the wall and walked further into your flat, his eyes blurry from tears, his hands outstreched. He was searching for you. Right now, Matt did want nothing more than to touch you, to hold you in his arms, as if that could change everything. It couldn't, he knew that. And you very surely going to flinch away from his touch, but he had to try. He would never forgive himself if he wouldn't.

„[Y/N], love, please don't leave me alone.“

His cry seemed inhuman, so unlike him. That only teared at your heart even more. You had to do this. You ought to. That much you had promised yourself.

Seeing his hand reach out, about to touch your ellbow, you let it happen. Matt seemed almost surprised. His soft fingertips dancing delicately over your skin. This once would have been enough to give you your much needed solace- right now it just burned your skin. But you wouldn't move away, so you took his hand yours, gently drawing small cirlces on his palm. Just for the sake of a last time. To remember how his hands felt like.

„You won't be alone Matt. You have Foggy, and Karen, and you'll be okay. I'll be okay too. And maybe one day we can be friends again.“ you whispered, a sad smile on your lips. You reached out, took your bag and went to kiss his lips. „I love you Matt. Goodbye.“

Taking a deep breath in, you watched as his head head dropped and his plush lips formed themselves into an expression of pure hurt. This sight alone stung. Nothing had ever been more beautiful than his smile. The way the corner of his lips pushed up all while his deep brown eyes lit up. People found it unsettling when his eyes darted around, never really foccussion on where one actually stood, but you didn't. You had grown used to it, couldn't imagine how it was possible to be any other way.

Gently stroking his stubbled cheeck, you smiled at him one last time. This was Matt Murdock, a great lawyer, part time vigilante, the man you loved. But it was over now. Eight years, four month and 27 days after you fell in love with him, you were facing your end. You both put up a decend fight, but in the end, you were defeated.

[evannalily]

  https://www.newlook.com/uk/womens/clothing/tops/off-white-frill-button-up-cami/p/626618912

Good afternoon guys and happy Sunday I hope the week has treated you well! Todays post is all about some Summer pieces in my wishlist from Newlook as Summer is (hopefully) just around the corner! We were teased a bit here in Ireland a couple weeks ago as we had some really nice warm weather and because of that I started packing away the Winter pieces and stocking up on the Summer stuff except now its gone back to being rainy and grey typical! That doesn’t stop me from keeping an eye on some pieces though some of which I have already bought. I am definitely switching up my style this Summer a little bit as I have already bought a few pieces that I would never have bought before. I have always been quite safe with my outfits in general the usual jeans, top, boots etc and in summer shorts, top, boots so I am excited to actually put on these outfits I have in my head and see them come to life but I just need the weather to co-operate!

  https://www.newlook.com/uk/womens/clothing/tops/off-white-button-front-cami-/p/616718112?comp=Search

https://www.newlook.com/uk/womens/clothing/shorts/petite-black-distressed-denim-shorts/p/615018001

https://www.newlook.com/uk/womens/footwear/shoes/white-leather-look-metal-trim-lace-up-trainers/p/577458710?comp=Browse

https://www.newlook.com/row/womens/clothing/jackets-coats/petite-light-grey-snake-print-blazer/p/626757708?comp=Browse

https://www.newlook.com/uk/womens/clothing/tops/white-cotton-boxy-t-shirt-/p/611634210?comp=Search

https://www.newlook.com/row/womens/clothing/skirts/white-snake-print-tube-skirt/p/624884319?comp=Search

https://www.newlook.com/uk/womens/footwear/shoes/sandals/white-faux-tortoiseshell-block-heeled-sandals/p/609639910?comp=Browse

https://www.newlook.com/uk/womens/clothing/dresses/black-pocket-front-button-up-midi-dress/p/614938901?comp=Search

https://www.newlook.com/row/womens/clothing/knitwear/off-white-twist-detail-knit-jumper/p/620289512?comp=PDP-Color-Swatch

https://www.newlook.com/uk/womens/clothing/tops/black-ribbed-scoop-neck-bodysuit-/p/617518001

https://www.newlook.com/uk/womens/clothing/skirts/petite-black-daisy-tube-skirt/p/623973109

https://www.newlook.com/uk/womens/clothing/tops/pale-blue-frill-trim-bardot-bodysuit-/p/626261045?comp=Search

https://www.newlook.com/row/womens/clothing/swimwear/blue-tropical-floral-frill-trim-playsuit/p/619288549?comp=Browse

https://www.newlook.com/uk/womens/clothing/swimwear/high-leg-swimwear/black-scoop-back-swimsuit-/p/604538201?comp=Search

https://www.newlook.com/uk/womens/clothing/shorts/red-ditsy-floral-frill-beach-shorts/p/609965969

https://www.newlook.com/uk/womens/clothing/dresses/black-ribbed-tie-bardot-bodycon-dress-/p/623637201?comp=Search

https://www.newlook.com/row/womens/clothing/playsuits-jumpsuits/brown-leopard-print-strappy-playsuit/p/614630329?comp=Browse

https://www.newlook.com/uk/womens/clothing/trousers/cameo-rose-black-military-button-trousers/p/626411301?comp=Search

https://www.newlook.com/uk/womens/clothing/playsuits-jumpsuits/black-floral-square-neck-button-up-playsuit/p/619511009

https://www.newlook.com/uk/womens/footwear/shoes/black-suedette-stiletto-heel-pointed-courts/p/587737201?comp=Browse

https://www.newlook.com/uk/womens/clothing/dresses/cameo-rose-red-ditsy-floral-frill-sundress/p/624437369?comp=Search

https://www.newlook.com/row/womens/clothing/tops/black-spot-mesh-frill-trim-t-shirt/p/627189901?comp=Search

https://www.newlook.com/row/womens/clothing/skirts/black-satin-bias-cut-midi-skirt/p/619399001?comp=Search

https://www.newlook.com/row/womens/clothing/tops/blue-floral-frill-trim-mesh-t-shirt/p/624605149?comp=Search

Newlook have started to get some really nice pieces in and in my honest opinion for a while there they didn’t really have a lot that I felt like was amazing like there was nice stuff but thats all it was just nice and not really something I felt like I really really wanted but in the last few weeks I have definitely treated myself with a lot of the newness that has come in! Out of the pieces that I have included here is my outfit planning :

Snake print Jacket – White Tshirt – Snake Print Skirt

I cant really claim the idea for this one as its how it is styled on the website but I would definitely put a belt around the top of the skirt just to break it up a little and wear either boots or white trainer with it as I think its a really cool combination and the print isn’t something I would usually go for but I feel like its a good colour for me as I am almost addicted to black and white combinations and even though its grey its a step away!

Black Button Dress

I am definitely not one to wear casual dresses and usually only for for them if its an occasion but this dress is actually so cute on and it has an open back with a little tie to put the top in to however you want it to fit. I think I would probably wear it with boots as it sits at a good length on the leg that it gives a cool festival-esque vibe from it and of course it would be so handy for a vacation as well as everyday summer wear!

Blue Bardot Bodysuit – Black Shorts

The bardot bodysuit is a cute simple one that you can wear with anything really jeans, skirts, shorts and I think it would definitely be cute with the black ripped shorts as it has the little frill detail around the neck so it just adds a little something to a look. I have worn it already with black jeans and just some small but statement earrings with my hair up as I personally think when you wear a bardot top your neckline is really the accessory so theres no need for any jewellery but thats just me!

Leopard Print Playsuit – White Tshirt

I have to admit I didn’t really think twice about this playsuit when I first saw it in store and then the other day I literally just thought of it over a white tshirt and I had to have it! It has an elasticated waist which is always handy and really handily adjustable straps too! I just picture it over the white tshirt with boots and maybe a little belt to break it up. This playsuit is also cute on its on for vacations or beachwear and is available in plain black, yellow, lilac and another like tie dye print also!

Red Cameo Rose Printed Dress – White Trainers

I again didn’t really think much of this dress when it first landed in stores then one of the girls at work wore it with white trainers on a night out and with tan on it looked stunning on here and I fell in love with it! It is very cute on and has a little lace up detail on the front on the neckline too. I would wear it with a waist belt but its really cute either way and I honestly cannot wait to wear this! Its available in a black version as well but I just love the red more as its just such a nice change from black and is really summery.

Black Mesh Top – Black Shorts – White Trainers

The black mesh top is an adventurous one for me because I am not one to wear anything kind of see through or too revealing but this top is so nice over a bodysuit. Some of the girls at work wear it over a bralet which is great if you have that kind of confidence but I don’t so the bodysuit works for me!

Black Satin Skirt – White Trainers

This skirt I am actually going to wear as a dress. As I am more petite these style skirts are usually a bit too long and a bit too wide at the waist for me personally so because the waist is elasticated I an pulling it up to wear as a strapless dress and putting a little waist belt around the middle to shape it more and thats it! I think it would be really cute with the white trainers for everyday or with nude strappy heels for more dressy occasions and because its more of a satin material than cotton its just sits in all the right places. This is available as a petite skirt if you are like me but want it for a skirt but thats how I am going to wear it anyway!

There are a few more pieces in here that I have purchased which are the black court shoes, black scoop back swimsuit and the black bardot dress. I do have to try on and make my mind up about some more items and no doubt there will be a lot more added to this list by the time May comes around and summer does eventually hit us here in Ireland so stay tuned! Also because of this wardrobe update I have added a good few pieces over on my Depop along with a few accessories, homeware and footwear too so take a look and let me know if you see anything you like!

Thanks so much for reading guys and have a nice weekend!

Ever Yours

Lily

xx

May Wishlist – Summer Is Coming Good afternoon guys and happy Sunday I hope the week has treated you well! Todays post is all about some Summer pieces in my wishlist from Newlook as Summer is (hopefully) just around the corner!

[srattueba2b]

Cleanup, colouring & editing burnout

As I did with 'spark', to finish this segment I began by cleaning my rough linework & adding details like expressions and the drawing glove. My filmed reference really helped with this, & I think I was able to portray Allie's emotions quite effectively. Then I used the same colouring method as I did for 'spark'- filling in flat colours with the bucket tool and using a brush to add block cel shading. Again, this created some inconsistency with my other group members' sections, however, by combining dark shading with a bright blue highlight I was able to achieve a very dramatic look that I think works well with the tone of the scene.

I also made the decision to colour her eyes in quite a dark off-white, which help draw attention to the reflection of the tablet.

Some areas I struggled with were details like the hair- in my first attempt I added too many rows which didn't look consistent with the rest of the sequence, and I had trouble trying to visualise them at different angles. As a result, when she puts her head down her hair looks a little strange- her braids come down further on her forehead and seem to come towards us rather than towards her left ear. I think using reference for this probably would have helped. Additionally, making a quick model using plasticine (like I did for the last character design project) could have been an easy & effective way of making sure my drawings were accurate. So, for my next project I may try to sculpt a model of my characters beforehand & have it next to me as I animate.

My original drawing for the 'outside' didn't seem consistent with the floor level- it looked as though there was a hill right outside the door, so I redrew it with a lower horizon. I also made it lighter & blurrier to give the idea of a road & trees without being too specific. Exactly what is outside doesn't really matter- the sheer contrast between this & the black room is enough to symbolise freedom.

I also tried my original idea for showing the 'burnout' title first. It worked & looked quite effective, however, the scene itself didn't look right as Allie didn't have a shadow behind her. Then, reflecting on Helen's notes, I then had the idea that I could instead use the word 'burnout' as a kind-of shadow. I utilised what I've learnt during my work on the Jellytots video and used an invisible mask on Allie to slowly reveal the word as she walks. .

Then, I added an outer glow to the letters, so that when the screen turns black, a vague imprint of the word still lingers & quickly fades- so you may not even notice it. I love this effect as it reminds me of how you can still see the shape of lights when you blink, or how a match glows then quickly fades after you blow it out (adding another layer of imagery to the term 'burnout). I originally had it visible for much longer, but a peer recommended I shorten it to about half a second and I think this is much more effective.

Additionally, since this piece now ends with a completely black screen (instead of black with a lightly coloured word), we can then easily fade into Tiago's section or the credits for a smooth transition.

The last thing I added in After Effects was the static cloud. Firstly, I followed this tutorial to create a comp of static, then, I used a mask to create a jagged shape and an effect to roughen the edges- giving it a softer (more cloud-like) outline. This was relatively simple to do but achieved the exact look I was aiming for & I don't think there is anything I would change about it.

[artificialqueens]

Heartbeat (Sashea)- Ortega

A/N: Hey! This is a silly little fic I came up with having completely fallen in love with Sashea. It’s technically part of MAPverse, but can completely be read standalone if you have never read Masquerading as Professionals before! (guess who can’t let go of things lol it’s me). Thank you so much to Dandee who checked the tricky part over for me, and of course my AQ Brits who give me life every waking moment of the day. This is a cis girl AU because I’m full of originality. Also, full disclosure- the line about the lobsters was stolen from The Thick Of It. 

Summary: Shea Coulee takes the empty position for a classroom assistant at Paul Visage Primary School only to please her cousin Bob. When the teacher she’s working for turns out to be cuter than she expected, Shea starts to come up with ways to make her job a little more bearable. Sasha Velour just wishes she didn’t blush so easily.

Clip-clopping her huge turquoise platforms through the door, Shea shoulder-barged her way into her flat as she struggled under the weight of two huge plastic bags full to bursting with groceries. As she stumbled past the pile of boring brown envelopes littering her floor, she uncomfortably held her phone to her ear using her tensed-up shoulder until she finally reached her kitchen and set the bags down on the linoleum floor as if they were two-tonne weights. Rolling her eyes a little, she pushed her long, dark hair out of her face and replaced her shoulder with her hand, keeping the now-burning phone in place at her ear.

“I’m going to be completely honest, I don’t give a rat’s ass about Great Aunt Carol’s new cooker,” she said bluntly down the phone, kneeling down and unstrapping herself from her impossibly tall shoes. Stepping out of them and suddenly becoming a good few inches shorter, she continued. “I want to know how you’re doing. You seeing anyone cute?”

As Shea looked out of her kitchen window to the less than impressive concrete view outside, she scrunched up her face at the reply she received. “Oh Lord, what, again? Well you remember what happened last time, don’t be surprised if he does the same thing.”

She’d hit a nerve. Regretting her quick tongue, Shea’s voice became less disapproving as she knelt down and started unpacking her bags. “All I’m saying is I want you to be careful. And I don’t want my big cousin getting hurt. Because if he tries any shit again, I’m going to have to go round to that school with a craft knife and do some work, you know what I mean?”

Shea let out a loud peal of laughter, happy at the amused response she’d received. It was cut short, however, by what she heard next. “Oh, no Bob. We already talked about this. I am doing fine. And if I do start working anywhere, it won’t be anywhere where you can come bug me all day, that’s for damn sure.”

Walking over to one of her cupboards with a tin in her hand, Shea continued to protest, a frown appearing on her face. “I said no, god damn it! I’m sure there’s plenty of girls who’ve worked at the clubs all their life and not starved.”

Stopping abruptly and tuning out of the voice on the other end of the phone, Shea cast her eye over the situation at hand. Her cupboard was completely empty, save for a couple of mouse droppings, and the tin she was holding in her hand had that embarrassing green and white value label plastered over it. Turning around and looking at the contents of her shopping bags, they were full of identical green and white, little uniforms on cans, tins, and even washing-up liquid. A little thrown, she tuned back in to what her cousin was saying. Christ, he was still trying to push that damned TA job on her, telling her all about how he could pull a few strings with the deputy head of the primary school who, from the way Bob was raving on about her, was the second coming of Jesus. She snorted down the phone. “If I do decide on a change of career path, I’m going to enter into it on the basis of my credentials, not because I’m the baby cousin of the damned English teacher.”

Hearing Bob’s reply and huffing a little, Shea turned round from the cupboard in annoyance. “Well do you wanna open up Fred Astaire’s coffin to tell him it ain’t a real career?”

A pause in which Shea rolled her eyes at nothing in particular. “Dancing is dancing for Christ’s sake. Doesn’t matter if you’re flinging some generic white girl round a ballroom or getting your titties out on stage.”

She laughed a little as Bob expressed his disapproval down the phone line. Peering down the hallway as he spoke, she was a little irked by the letters littering the floor. She walked towards them, slowly leaving the warm yellow light of her kitchen and quickly becoming enveloped in the dark of her hallway, the lightbulb having long since blown. Thumbing the envelopes a little with her fingers, she could just make out the writing on each of them through the evening light hazing through her front door.

FINAL DEMAND

WARNING: FINAL REMINDER

URGENT: PLEASE PAY NOW

Each message screamed at her in capital letters and red lettering against the plain manila of the envelopes. Shea’s heart began to beat quickly, her stomach feeling as if it was sinking. She hadn’t realised how long she’d been putting off paying her electricity bill. Or her council tax, or her phone bill. Her tips from last night were barely enough to get all her food shopping, and she didn’t have a shift at the club again until Thursday. Sighing deeply and thumbing the seal of one of the envelopes, she opened her mouth and cut Bob short.

“Bob,” she began. “When do you think I could start?”

***

Sasha didn’t really get nervous easily. She’d sort of conditioned herself out of it- having to be the paragon of strength and guidance for 26 eight year olds every day left little room for nerves and required that such feelings should be replaced with pure, marble-hearted stoicism, and balanced every so often with being a big softie. But today she was only slightly nervous, looking up from her desk at the clock as the minute hand ticked five minutes past four. That was okay. Maybe traffic was bad.

On one hand, Sasha was happy she was getting a classroom assistant. Ecstatic even, and relieved too. With a solid chunk of the boys in Year 3 having severe behavioural problems that CAHMS weren’t fixing any time soon, she was glad that they would be getting the support they would need- and also, (a little selfishly, she chastised herself) she was glad she could maybe now teach the other twenty-one children in her class without having her lessons disrupted every five minutes. So of course, in that sense she was very grateful.

But on the other hand she was anxious.  Whoever this person was, there was no doubt that Sasha would be spending a huge amount of time with them. She prided herself on being as friendly as possible to everyone, especially people she was meeting for the first time, but she knew that not everyone acted the same. She supposed she was most scared in case that was the case with her new assistant, and that she’d be stuck with a person she just didn’t click with for the rest of the year. If she was being honest, Sasha couldn’t imagine anything worse. She glanced up at the clock again. She hated to be that snooty person who looked down her nose at someone being a little late, but she was just growing more nervous about who this person could be with each passing second. Courtney had said that she’d come round with the new TA at four o’clock, so that she and Shea could have a meeting and sort out the lesson plans for the boys she would be taking out. Shea. Sasha thought it was an interesting name, one that instantly sounded elegant and graceful. She desperately hoped that personality-wise, she would be the same.

Suddenly, she was startled by a rapid and sharp knock on the door. Jumping a little, Sasha turned round, her heart hammering in her chest. She was surprised to see Bob, who Sasha knew taught at the Comp but what, she couldn’t remember, still getting her head around how huge the school was and how many staff worked there even after being there for a term already. He stood proudly beside a girl who looked to be perhaps a couple of years younger than him, but still firmly in her twenties. She had the same dark skin as Bob beside her, and her long, dark hair was straightened and kept neat with a bright pink hairband placed just behind her ears. She wore an equally pink miniskirt, which she’d paired with a black sweater with a plunging neck. On her feet were the highest pair of black platform boots Sasha had ever seen, which came to just above her knees. Her makeup was colourful, and the inner corners of her dark eyes were dotted with shimmering white highlighter, making them stand out. She was smiling- hesitantly, but Sasha was glad that she was smiling nonetheless. She was pretty, Sasha noted.

Bob instantly beamed at Sasha as soon as he made eye contact. “Hi! Sasha, isn’t it? I don’t think we’ve ever spoken much in depth.”

Sasha nodded politely, looking again at Shea to gauge her reaction. She was still smiling, now a little long-sufferingly as she looked at Bob. He carried on speaking rapidly.

“Great! We got the right class. Well, I’m Bob, and this-” he waved dramatically at the girl next to him. “-is my cousin Shea, who just happens to be your new classroom assistant. I know that Courtney was going to introduce you both, but I just had to give her the grand tour, you know?”

Sasha smiled at Bob, his enthusiasm and excitement emanating from every pore. Shea still looked a little reserved.  

“Thanks, Bob,” Sasha finally smiled back at him, nodding at Shea in acknowledgement. “I’ll let you get back to whatever it is you have to do! I’ll look after Shea, don’t worry.”

“Great! Well, I’ll get out your hair. You kids have fun!” Bob beamed, squeezing Shea’s shoulder affectionately as he bounced out of the room. The moment he was gone, Shea’s small smile dropped as she rolled her eyes dramatically.

“Sorry about him,” she sighed deeply, the smile now back on her face even if it now held more of an apologetic air. “Sometimes I swear he thinks I’m still twelve years old and need protecting from the world! Nice to meet you, I’m Shea.”

Sasha was a little taken aback at her forthright manner as Shea stuck out a hand for her to shake. Still, she thought, warm was a whole lot better than frosty. Smiling back at her, Sasha took her hand, making sure not to stab herself with one of Shea’s long, painted talons.

“Shea! That’s a lovely name,” Sasha said politely. “Like shea butter?”

“Yeah! Or truffle butter,” Shea paused before suddenly letting out an uproarious laugh, slapping Sasha lightly on the arm.

Sasha suddenly felt all the blood in her face rush straight to her cheeks, laughing in spite of herself. Obviously catching her blush, Shea smiled coyly.

“Gosh, I’m sorry. I guess I have to remember I’m going to be working with kids now, right?”

“Kinda,” Sasha laughed, willing the pink in her cheeks to go away. “It’s alright, though. I accidentally swore in front of mine before, so you’re doing better than me already!”

As Shea laughed, Sasha instantly got the feeling that maybe she shouldn’t have admitted that. She was having a professional conversation, for Christ’s sake. She didn’t know why she felt different around Shea already, or why the nervousness hadn’t yet dissipated. Trying to wipe the slate clean, she smiled and beckoned to one of the tables the kids sat at.

“Please, sit,” she offered Shea, her tone apologetic as she followed it up with, “I’m sorry I can only offer you tables and chairs built for eight year olds.”

“Well, I’ve sat on worse,” Shea smiled, her eyes twinkling a little. Pulling out one of the tiny blue chairs and sitting down, Sasha cursed herself as she felt a blush pricking at her cheeks again.

“Okay, so. Is this your first TA job at all, or do you have any experience?”

Shea ran her tongue over her teeth deliberately. “Um, well I was an au pair for a while before I became a dancer.”

Sasha was intrigued. Unable to help herself, she propped her head on her hands and leant forward. “That’s amazing. You were a professional dancer? What kind of dancing?”

Shea let out one of her huge waves of laughter again. Looking a little sheepish, she swept a sheath of her long, black hair out of the way and rubbed the back of her neck. “Uh, not the kind I could ever teach to kids. Or show kids. Or indeed, show you.”

“Right, okay,” Sasha laughed a little, forbidding herself to ask any more about it. Her cheeks were still flushed red. “Well, you’ve worked with kids before, that’s the main thing. What you’ll be doing here is maybe a little step up, but it’s nothing to worry about. There’s some boys who could really do with working in small groups away from the rest of the class- James has ADHD and we think that Alex is on the spectrum, but he’s yet to get an educational psychologist out so unfortunately he’s undiagnosed at the moment. The other three are just basically really poorly behaved for whatever reason, they just like to noise up the rest of the class. What would be amazing is if you could work with them for maths and literacy- it’s where they’re really struggling at the moment.”

Sasha noticed that Shea looked a little worried. Anxious herself that she hadn’t been clear enough, she backtracked a little. “Of course if you have any questions about anything, I’m more than happy to help you out with everything. I know what it’s like being new to a school and not knowing any of the routines or staff or anything like that!”

“Are you new here yourself? Bob did mention that he hadn’t heard much about you,” Shea asked, seemingly a little more relaxed as she leant back in the miniscule chair. Sasha felt her stomach flip a little with anxiety at the thought of having been spoken about by the other staff, but she simply smiled placidly.

“I joined in August, so just a couple of months ago. The staff are all really lovely, don’t worry, you’ll be well looked-after. Courtney is an absolute saint, especially,” Sasha explained, looking at the tabletop for a few seconds and wondering if it was appropriate to add a little something else. “I think…I think they really liked the teacher I replaced, so I guess they’re still a bit sad about her leaving.”

Shea nodded as if she’d remembered something. “I think Bob mentioned. Was it Jojo?”

“Something like that. I try not to bother everyone too much, so I’m mainly just in the classroom most of the time. Anyway,” Sasha laughed, shaking her head and waving a flippant hand. “You don’t want to hear my life story!”

The twinkle in Shea’s eye was back as she tilted her head and gave Sasha a little smile. “Sure I do.”

Flustered, Sasha gave Shea an awkward little smile back. She didn’t really know how to feel about her comment, but all she knew was that her heartbeat felt a lot more prominent than normal through her starched white shirt. “Well, in any case we’ll be seeing a lot of each other from now on!”

It only made things worse when the shit-eating grin stayed plastered on Shea’s face as she shot back, “Good.”

Sasha tried to avoid meeting her eyes in case the pink striking her cheeks became any more intense than it already was. Blinking quickly, she cleared her throat a little and smiled tightly at her new classroom assistant. “I’ll, um. I’ll get my plans for next week and show you what I’m going to get you to do with them!”

Standing up quickly from her chair and smoothing her long, black skirt down self-consciously, Sasha walked over to her desk to where she knew all the week’s plans would be stored neatly in her lever arch file. She was glad to no longer be sitting immediately in front of Shea. She had no idea why she had such a strange effect on her; she was pretty, and clearly funny and smart, but Sasha had only just met her. She was just a new colleague, so why was Sasha so anxious around her? Her heart was still thrumming in her chest like the wings of a hummingbird. As she turned back around, Shea had crossed one leg over the other, her tiny skirt riding up her thigh.

What the hell had Sasha let herself in for?    

***   

Shea didn’t want to be rude, but she was going to lacerate Bob’s head for recommending this job to her.

She was halfway through her first fortnight, and the thought of having to reach the end of the week was exhausting enough, never mind cope with the whole rest of the year. Granted, the class as a whole were lovely and the kids she mainly worked with were cute, so long as you weren’t getting them to do any actual work. Then, Carlos and Robert would start a fistfight, James would work at a speed of one sentence per hour, Yusef would spit in his jotter and close it over in an act of defiance, and Alex would either diligently go about his work or kick his textbook into the air depending on what topic they were working on. She had no idea how Sasha had put up with them on her own for this long.

She supposed that was one saving grace of the job- the teacher she was working for. Sasha was essentially the reason Shea had held on for as long as two weeks. She wasn’t crushing on her or anything, she just found her a little bit cute and fun to mess with. The high point of her day was the blatant flirting she got to inflict on her in front of the kids, delighting whenever she very obviously flustered her or made her cheeks go pink. It was just playing, though. Shea was just bored, and the other staff were all so cliquey. Bob had tried to introduce her to some of his friends in the staffroom, but Shea couldn’t help but feel they all sat and looked down their noses at her, a mere peasant of a classroom assistant. She was sick of the other teachers’ judgemental glares.

Sasha wasn’t judgemental. Sasha hadn’t scrunched up her face in disgust at the revelation of Shea’s previous job, or given her a funny look or made some snide comment. She’d just smiled, and laughed, and accepted it. And blushed. Shea supposed that even when she wasn’t winding Sasha up, she was a pretty cool person. She was even cuter when she blushed, at least.

One lunchtime, Shea had resigned herself to the fact that she was going to hide away in the classroom to each her lunch. She’d decided that she was perfectly okay with her own company, and was probably more fun than half the girls in the staffroom anyway. Coming back from her locker with her plastic bag full of lunch curled around her hand, she stopped abruptly at the entrance to the classroom when she saw Sasha sitting at her desk, eating what looked like some form of salad as she marked the kids’ jotters. Hesitantly, Shea wondered if she should go in anyway but she decided against it, turning on her heel and making to walk away from the classroom.

That was until she heard Sasha’s low voice call after her. “Shea!”

Almost excitedly, Shea bounced back up to the boundary between classroom and corridor, a shy smile on her face. She didn’t really know why her heart had skipped a beat when she heard Sasha say her name.

Sasha shot her back a hesitant smile, beckoning her to come join her. “You deciding against the staffroom today?”

“Yeah. I don’t really know if I’m their kind of person,” Shea admitted, pulling a tiny chair out from under its desk and perching herself on its seat. “I get the impression they don’t really feel that TAs are within their realm.”

Sasha frowned a little, brushing some of her white-blonde candyfloss hair out of her face. “Oh, I’m sure they don’t think that way, honestly. I guess all it is is that the teachers here have their friend groups already, and they’re pretty fixed. Which is fine, I guess! Everyone’s been really welcoming to me. Just I think there’s not really a place for me, you know?”

Sasha paused for a second, appearing to realise what she’d said. Looking at her jotters a little embarrassed, Shea was anxious that Sasha regretted opening up.

“I get that. I guess I’m so used to immediately making friends wherever I go. Maybe I’m just still finding my place here,” she shrugged, then seeing Sasha’s earnest face she smiled and added, “Maybe we both are.”

Sasha attempted to conceal a smile as she looked down at the jotters she was marking. Deciding to change the tone of the conversation, Shea opened the little Tupperware box that contained her homemade cheese sandwich and motioned to Sasha’s marking.

“Are these the reflective thingies they were writing yesterday?”

Sasha nodded enthusiastically to make up for words, having just popped a bit of salad into her mouth. Smiling affectionately, Shea waited for Sasha to finish.

“They’ve all done really well so far actually. James’ is amazing, I can’t tell you how much you’ve helped his work,” she gushed, her face lit up as she smiled at Shea with gratitude.

The smile made Shea’s stomach turn over and her heartbeat jar a little.

“Well, it’s no problem,” she shrugged nonchalantly. “I sometimes wonder if I’m even getting anywhere with those boys, but at least it’s paying off.”

“The class loves you as well. Tina absolutely adores it when you’re in, it’s always Miss Coulee this and Miss Coulee that!”

Shea couldn’t help but break out into a bright smile. She had a special place in her heart for Tina, the little girl with the even bigger afro and skin as dark as Shea’s. She didn’t seem to have that many friends, and so whenever Shea got to work with the whole class Tina would immediately latch on to her. Shea never minded.

“Hey, do you want a hand marking some of them?” Shea offered, gesturing to the books sat in front of Sasha. “I know what the assessment criteria is and my spelling isn’t horrific.”

With a grateful smile, Sasha shook her head. “Thanks, but I don’t really mind it. I like marking writing, if I’m honest.”

Shea gave a little snort as she was reminded of nights at Bob’s house, the English teacher driven senseless by students submitting shit essay after shit essay. Memorable in particular was one bout of frustrated tears and a choked exclamation delivered to a creative writing assignment of, “You’re a year 12 student, Kimora, how the fuck do you not know what an adjective is?!”

“Bob always says how much he hates marking,” Shea explained, as Sasha gazed at her, intrigued. Sasha gave a little laugh.

“Most teachers do. But I don’t know. There’s something about the writing that kids do that’s so interesting. More entertaining than adult books, you know?”

If it had been any other time, Shea would’ve made a flirtatious quip about what kind of “adult” books Sasha was reading, but instead she rose from her chair and tentatively hovered behind Sasha’s shoulder to read. Looking up at her, Sasha shuffled her wheely chair to the side a little so that Shea could get a better look. Leaning over her shoulder, Shea noticed the subtle smell of perfume clinging to Sasha’s black fluffy jumper. Internally chastising herself for making such a weird observation, Shea read the chunky scrawl of paragraph on the lined page in front of her.

“The best day of my life. The best day of my life was when we went to Disneyland with my Mum and my Dad and my sister Aysha. It was a sunny day and the ground was like a big hot grill pan with the heat turned way up full,” Shea read, unable to stop herself from smiling. Sasha had a big satisfied grin on her face. “Marlon is going places, girl. That’s one hell of a simile.”

Sasha let out a deep laugh, which only made Shea’s smile stay firmly on her face. As her laughter died down, Sasha put one final gold star sticker on Marlon’s writing, then closed his jotter and moved onto the next one- Allie’s, a good writer from what Shea had seen from her two weeks in the class so far. As Sasha opened it up, she smirked at her mischievously.

“Do you want to do a dramatic reading of this one as well?”

Pursing her lips together in a vain attempt to conceal her smile, Shea knelt down on the floor and started off. “The best day of my life was the day my baby sister Tamsin was born. It was Springtime and it was still a bit cold but it was a really sunny day, and the air had a bit of magic in it like it knew something exciting was going to happen.”

“She’s so good,” Sasha murmured proudly. Shea carried on.

“My Mum was cooking dinner then all of a sudden we had to get in the car really fast and drive to the hospital. Then my Mum had to go into a big room with the doctors and nurses, and I didn’t see her for a while and I was very frightened. But then after a while, we got to go in and see her, and she was holding my baby sister who looked like a wrinkled-up thumb if you’ve been in the bath too long.”

Both Shea and Sasha let out a huge roar of laughter, Shea delighting in the way Sasha’s eyes would crinkle up leaving only the perfect wings of her eyeliner at the corners of her eyes. Snapping out her thoughts and taking a few deep breaths to calm down, she continued to read. From the first sentence, Shea could tell that this chunk of text was different.

“When I saw my baby sister, I loved her. I felt my heart swell up until it was all tight and bursting, and my heartbeat was going really really fast like a motorbike. I wanted to give her a big cuddle to show her how much I loved her, but Mum said that it might hurt her. I knew that I was going to be the best big sister in the world, because I wanted to protect her and teach her things like reading and maybe maths even though I’m not very good at it. I think it was the best day of my life because I finally knew about love,” Shea’s voice suddenly caught in her throat as she kept reading, feeling as if she and Sasha were part of a moment that neither of them had prepared for. “It’s not like in Snow White where the prince kisses Snow even though she’s dead. It’s when you get really excited to see someone and your heartbeat starts going all crazy because you want them to be happy always, and you get really excited about all the time you’re going to get to spend together and you start thinking about them more than you think about yourself, which is called putting someone else first. And I think this is for all kinds of love, but maybe for the kind of love where you want to marry someone there’s extra things you feel, like levels of a game you haven’t unlocked yet. But love is the nicest thing to feel in the world.”

Shea stopped when she reached the final sentence, gazing at the jotter, dumbfounded. Sasha was still as well. Turning her head slightly to gauge her reaction, Shea realised how close together they were sitting, and was a little taken aback. As Sasha’s eyes met hers, they suddenly became a little wider, her lips parting a little as the breath hitched in her throat. Without knowing what compelled her, Shea hesitantly began leaning in, her eyes flicking from Sasha’s lips back up to her gaze as if to ask for permission and confirm that this was actually okay, and she was actually doing this, oh Christ she was actually going to-

“Aw, there you are, girl!” came a cry from the classroom door. Instantly recognising it, Shea snapped her head round furiously, fixing her fucking idiot, oblivious, moment-ruining dick of a cousin with a glare that she hoped conveyed the amount she hated him right then. Impervious to her death stare, Bob just gave the two girls a bright smile. Shea didn’t even want to turn to see Sasha’s reaction, and momentarily cursed the times she’d deliberately made her blush as her own cheeks were definitely scarlet by now. “Sorry to interrupt your work, Sasha. Just was wondering why it was taking this bitch so long to get her ass to the staffroom!”

“We were fucking marking,” Shea spat through gritted teeth, rising from her position on the floor and grabbing her Tupperware container from the desk it sat on. A little shocked by his cousin’s rage, Bob raised his eyebrows as he turned to walk with Shea out of the classroom.

“Jesus, who pissed in your cheerios?” he muttered, giving her a side glance as Shea stormed out in front of him.

It took all of Shea’s power not to turn and yell “you” right in her cousin’s stupid face.

It also took all her power not to turn and see Sasha’s expression. She wondered if she was as annoyed as her that Bob had ruined the moment. Somehow she knew she’d never get to ask.

***

After a full month with Shea in her class, Sasha was surprised she still had hair left in her head to tear out.

After they met, Sasha was convinced that she would never have any feelings for Shea; that she was just nervous because it had been their first meeting and she had been eager to get along with her. But by halfway through week one, she began to get the feeling that she was completely and utterly screwed. She found herself noticing little things about Shea without even realising; how she would flip her hair over one side of her shoulder when she was helping with the kids, how she walked everywhere as if she was carrying herself down a runway, how her smile was always big and bright and brought the sun wherever she was. Sasha could’ve explained all that away if she didn’t find her heart rattling away in her ribcage whenever Shea turned and smiled her way, or whenever Shea would indirectly flirt with her in front of the kids. She’d first noticed it in that first week, when Shea had time with the whole class and one of the boys asked her for help during reading time.

“Miss Coulee, what’s radiant mean?”

Shea had looked up for a second, seemingly making sure to catch Sasha’s eye before turning back to the small, confused boy. “Radiant can mean two things. It can mean really bright and glowing, so sometimes the sun can be described as radiant. Or it can mean beautiful, so you could say Miss Velour is radiant.”

Sasha, of course, had pretended she hadn’t heard her. Yet her face had completely betrayed her, flushing a bright pink which couldn’t NOT be noticeable. And Shea must have noticed it, because she had begun winding her up increasingly often, which didn’t help Sasha’s feelings for her at all.

What did Sasha feel for her? She hadn’t wanted to admit it to herself, but after the midway point during the second week she couldn’t ignore it any longer. When she’d been marking the class’ writing with Shea the mood had changed, and even to this day Sasha couldn’t really tell if she had been leading up to kiss her or if it was all a practical joke. That was the trouble with developing feelings for someone like Shea- she was so permanently flirtatious and lighthearted that none of it seemed serious, and Sasha would never forgive herself if she’d simply taken it all at its surface.  

Sasha was brought back down to earth with a bump by one of her class tapping gently on her shoulder. She’d been in such a daze that all she’d been doing was sitting at her desk as the class worked, staring into space. Turning her chair around to face them, she discovered it was Tina. The little girl was normally much more upbeat but right now she seemed more than a little subdued.

“Everything okay, Tina? Do you need help with anything?” Sasha asked her, concern tainting her voice. The little girl just shook her head, her eyes sort of glistening in a way in which Sasha couldn’t tell if it was caused by tears.

“Is something the matter?” One nod of Tina’s head. The tears were definitely more prominent in the little girl’s eyes, welling up and threatening to spill over her lashes like a riverbank breaking.

“Do you want to talk to me about it?” Sasha asked softly, growing ever more concerned about the little girl. Sasha was surprised when Tina paused then shook her head. She opened her mouth to speak, a little whisper coming out.

“Want to speak to Miss Coulee.”

More than a little taken aback, Sasha paused for a second. She couldn’t see what sort of problem could be solved by Shea but not herself, but if Tina felt that it would help, Sasha was more than happy to indulge her.

“Well I’ll go and help everybody else, and you and Miss Coulee can go and have a chat outside, how does that sound?” Sasha smiled, the little girl nodding and going to find Shea from across the classroom. Sasha watched as Tina tapped her hand gently, Shea’s face earnest and then filled with surprise as she nodded at Tina and then followed her outside. Before she crossed over the doorframe, she turned to Sasha as if she had any more answers, but Sasha simply shrugged apologetically.

As she drifted around the classroom advising spellings here and there, Sasha found herself in perhaps even more of a dream-like state than she had been before. She had no idea what the matter was, and as the minutes ticked by she found herself becoming more and more concerned. Looking at the clock, she suddenly realised she’d left herself with only three minutes to get the kids tidied up and ready to go home. As she commanded the class and promised house points for those that were the most helpful at tidying up, she noticed Tina dash back into the classroom, her demeanour much more upbeat and cheerful than it had been before.  Comforted, Sasha finally dismissed the class for home.

Turning from the window as she made sure all the children had found their parents, she flashed a beaming smile as she heard Shea come back into the classroom. Her face fell, however, when she noticed the other girl’s face. She looked wearied as she rubbed at her undereyes (obviously being careful not to smudge her makeup), and her body language looked defeated, as if she’d come back from fighting a battle she hadn’t been able to win. Sasha had been relieved, but now she was more confused than ever and having to fight that confusion with an overwhelming urge to crush Shea in a protective hug.

“Hey,” she started, walking hesitantly forward to where Shea was now perched on a table. “Um. Was Tina okay in the end?”

Shea looked up at her, a faraway look in her eyes. “Yeah, yeah she was fine.”

There was a small pause in which Sasha looked to the floor, not knowing how to follow that up but knowing that she should. Shea did it for her.

“Fuck, it was Casey,” she blurted out, her eyes turning angry. “I know that she’s said mean stuff to Tina before, but this time it was to do with her skin colour and her hair. Asking her why she didn’t look normal, for fuck’s sake.”

Sasha’s heart sank to the floor. Of course there was going to be one thing that Shea could relate the most to, and that was her identity as a black woman. Sasha was horrified at the fact that one of her eight year olds had been racist in her class and she hadn’t been any the wiser.

“I’ll need to speak to Casey tomorrow. And I’ll need to inform Courtney about this too,” she said decisively, immediately meeting protestations from Shea. “Shea, I’m not letting this slide! She needs to know it was wrong, and if she doesn’t know why it was wrong then I need to tell her why!”

“There’s no point,” Shea said simply, her shoulders slumping as she let out a wearied sigh. “So you tell Casey why it was wrong. Maybe you do something with the whole class about it. Fine, they’re educated, they know why racism is bad. Until they go home to their parents, who all have different views and more influence than we ever will. And then Tina grows up and she’s sixteen, and she gets yelled at across the street by a 46 year old white UKIP voter with a beer gut who tells her she doesn’t belong here, that she’s not welcome. How can you influence that, Sasha? You can berate Casey for her actions, fine. But your energy is best spent being poured into lifting Tina up, filling her with as much self-esteem and self-love that she can get until she’s bursting at the seams with it, because in this day and age that’s the most powerful weapon against racism. That she knows how beautiful she is, that she can be strong, that she is strong. Fill her with as much fight as possible. Fuck knows I’ve lost a good amount of mine.”

There was a short silence in which Sasha tried to think of something to say. She knew it wasn’t her place to talk over Shea, and she knew she was right- Sasha could try to change the mindset of her class, but she couldn’t affect how everybody thought. A massive part of her still believed in the importance of teaching these lessons to children even if they fell on deaf ears. Then again, no wonder Shea had become a little disillusioned. Sasha knew that despite Shea’s protestations, Casey still had to be dealt with, but that conversation could wait for now. Sasha decided instead to offer Shea a place to open up a little more. The best she could do at the moment was to listen.

“Society is fucking shit,” Sasha offered sincerely as she sat down on the table beside Shea, immediately regretting how feeble the sentiment sounded. To her relief, Shea let out a laugh.

“You’re not wrong, girl. You’re not wrong.”

Sasha paused before asking her next question. “Did you get a lot of that at the clubs?”

Shea smiled, staring straight ahead at the whiteboard attached to the wall. “Well, you know. They needed a token black girl to fetishize.”

Sasha’s heart hurt. “I’m sorry.”  

“Nah, don’t be. At the end of the day I got money for it. The least I could do was exploit the system that fucks me over every day.”

Shea was smiling at her, and Sasha felt guilty for the surge of affection she felt in response. She couldn’t help her curiosity, couldn’t help but want to find out more about Shea and her life and everything about her. Sasha felt that Shea was one of the most interesting people in the world.

“But you still liked it there?”

“I liked dancing. It didn’t really matter that I was doing it basically naked because I was still getting to do what I loved. At the end of the day, it’s still a form of art. So if performing at clubs was the only place I could express it, then I did what I had to do.”

Sasha felt her heart swelling up at how passionately Shea spoke about the thing she loved. The life was back in her eyes, and Sasha had never been so glad.

“I get it,” Sasha smiled, feeling that she needed to offer Shea some affirmation. “I always felt the same about art. I actually studied it for a while at uni and then tried to make a living out of it. But then I quickly realised it was something I was never going to make any money out of, and annoyingly you need money to live, so I went into teaching. People always wonder why I never wanted to teach it at secondary level but I’d rather stick pins in my eyes than try to teach kids over 12 anything.”

Sasha delighted at Shea’s huge, genuine laugh that exploded across the room. As she calmed down, she fixed Sasha with an affectionate smile.

“We’re just a couple of artists in a world that doesn’t pay for art,” she smirked, her words hitting Sasha in a place she didn’t really know existed. Seeing the twinkle in Shea’s beautifully made-up eyes, Sasha found herself wanting more than ever to lean in and kiss her.

She didn’t. Instead she tore her eyes away from Shea’s and up to the big clock on the wall.

“Can I give you a lift home at all? I’m going to finish up here, don’t really fancy marking 26 sets of grammar exercises in one go.”

Shea gave her a grateful smile, Sasha becoming hopeful that maybe they’d get to spend more time together. Her heart fell when Shea shook her head.

“Thanks, but Bob’s going to drive me back. I should probably head up to the high school actually, he’ll be wondering what’s taking me so long,” she sighed. Sasha couldn’t help but wonder if the sigh was one of regret. Nodding briefly, Sasha gave Shea a tight smile, trying her best not to look disappointed. Her heart jolted, however, when Shea stood up and opened her arms out wide. Without thinking, Sasha almost fell into them, wrapping her arms around Shea’s waist as Shea held her tightly.

“Thanks for, you know. Being there. Listening to me rant,” Shea thanked her softly, and Sasha could tell she was smiling. Sasha simply squeezed her waist in response, knowing that eventually Shea would have to pull away but not quite wanting to accept it yet.

Sure enough, Shea’s arms slowly slid back over Sasha’s shoulders with what Sasha liked to imagine was reluctance. With a soft goodbye as she left the classroom, Sasha wondered if she could survive another month with Shea as her assistant without having a full-blown heart attack.

***

Shea was permanently exhausted.

As someone who’d previously been used to working nightshifts and dancing for six hours in heels, this didn’t have shit on being a classroom assistant. A month had turned into another, and as Shea was more comfortable around the school and staff shortages were ever-present, she had begun to spend less time in Sasha’s class, having been asked to do increasingly more with other kids from different year groups.

Shea didn’t like to think that it was because she no longer got to see Sasha as often that she was starting to become totally disillusioned with the job, but it was the only explanation she could think of. She could no longer say she hadn’t let Sasha in now, and every minute Shea wasn’t with her was spent thinking about her, thinking about the kiss that could have been and sometimes burning with embarrassment at the fact that it hadn’t. Sure, the kids were lovely, but all that was countered by the prep, the constant last-minute switches, the occasions where sometimes Shea didn’t know where she was going or what she was doing and her head just got so full and fuzzy and confused. She never got like that; in fact being in control of herself was something Shea really prided herself on. It got so bad one day that she was called into Courtney’s office for a “little chat”, where Courtney politely but firmly in so many words told Shea to get her shit together.

She missed dancing, she missed being the centre of attention and for people to look at her and admire her even if it was just for her body. Sometimes she wished Sasha looked at her the same way. Sometimes she thought Sasha did.

When Shea returned to her flat after a particularly damp, cold and rainy day, she was at least comforted by the fact that her cupboards were full and she had the luxury of putting the heating on. If nothing else, she could at least admit that Bob had been right in this regard- she had a steady job, and it was putting food on the table that wasn’t supermarket own-brand value. Taking some chicken and some tomatoes out of her fridge, she was alerted by the sudden buzz of her phone on the kitchen counter. A text from her old boss at the club.

Hi Shea, wouldn’t contact you but it’s kind of a last resort. One of our girls just dropped out of her slot and none of the other girls can make it because of this damn stomach virus that’s going around. I know it’s last-minute but we would be totally open to having you back for a slot tonight.

Time seemed to freeze, and Shea couldn’t really think of how to reply. Every fibre of her being wanted to say yes; there was nothing she wanted more than to go back and do what she loved again. Something was holding her back. Was it the thought of Sasha? She didn’t know. She didn’t know what Sasha would think. But she’d said she understood how Shea felt and her passion for dancing. Surely she would support her? After all, it was extra money.

Shea paused for only a second more before she texted her boss back, packed a bag, and headed out the door without dinner.

The next day, Shea arrived at the school with a little spring in her step and more confidence than she’d had in ages. Last night had been so much fun, she’d made a lot in tips, and it had reminded her just how much she loved working there. Her old boss had even offered her a shift for later in the week, which Shea had taken in a heartbeat.

It wasn’t a completely perfect night, though. Something had felt ever-so-slightly off, a feeling she’d not felt when working at the clubs before. It was almost like guilt. Sasha had kept popping into Shea’s head at the most inopportune of moments, and Shea wondered why it felt so much like cheating when they weren’t even in a relationship.

When she made it to the classroom, Sasha had given her her usual bright smile, which Shea returned flirtatiously.

“You seem very upbeat this morning, did you put Ritalin on your toast or what?” Sasha laughed shyly. Shea simply gave her a mysterious flutter of her eyelashes.

“I’ll tell you all about it at lunchtime. I’ve got a ton of prep to go do,” she smiled, dumping her stuff and rushing out the classroom to the photocopier. Her heart was fluttering with excitement. She was sure that Sasha would be happy for her.

It was a stressful morning, but lunchtime eventually came. Shea and Sasha had got into the habit of eating lunch together in the classroom, and it was the time of day that Shea looked forward to most. She was usually filled with nervous excitement at the prospect of spending time with Sasha, but today she was even more so.

“So, you said you’d tell me at lunchtime and we’re eating lunch,” Sasha smirked playfully across the tiny table from Shea. “What happened?”

Shea smiled hesitantly, nervous but excited to share her good news with Sasha. “I got offered a shift last night at the club and I took it. I got to dance again! And they offered me one on Friday so I get to go back!”

Shea ended her sentence a little less excited than she’d began, as she watched Sasha’s smile slowly drop from her face the more she spoke. There was a pause.

“What? What’s the matter?”

Sasha tangled one hand in her huge blonde hair nervously. “Shea, you can’t…you can’t do that.”

“What do you mean? It’s just dancing, it’s doing what I love. You know that,” Shea said softly, hurt by Sasha’s reaction.

“Yes, but Shea, you work at a school now. With children. You can’t work at a club, you can’t be seen in that environment,” Sasha’s tone was gentle, but her words felt like ice against Shea’s skin.

“I was just there for the night trying to make a bit more money, I thought you’d understand,” Shea frowned, her voice now a little louder and angrier than it had been before. She instantly saw how her raised pitch affected Sasha- a small blink and a frown. She was upset. In that moment Shea felt a pang of guilt, but was too irritated to see past her own hurt feelings.

“Of course I understand, Shea. I get it, I tried to make a living from art, remember?”

“Right, but your art deserves more respect than mine?” With every word Shea said she could see the light dying a little more in Sasha’s eyes, and she absolutely hated herself for it. But her words kept flowing like some relentless tide.

“No! That’s not what I’m saying at all,” Sasha calmly placed her hand very gently on top of Shea’s. She felt warm and soft and electric all at once, and it absolutely terrified Shea. “I’m just concerned, I don’t want you going down a hole that you can’t get back out of again. I care about you, Shea.”

Sasha cared about her. Shea felt her heart speed up to twice the pace it was at before, and everything suddenly felt too much for her; this whole argument, the mess she’d got herself into, this job. Snatching her hand away back across the table, Shea tore her other hand through her hair.

“Well damn, Sasha, you don’t have to care about me, it’s not like I’m your girlfriend!”

Shea’s words had come out all too loud and quicker than she’d expected them to. For a moment the two girls stared at each other in shocked silence, eyes wide, brown meeting blue. It was Sasha who blinked and looked to the floor first. Shea felt as if she’d stabbed both Sasha and herself in the heart. She instantly regretted her quick anger, instantly wanted to fix things, but she knew she’d just broken all the fragile bones of the bond they’d made over the past month. Slowly pushing her untouched lunch back into the plastic bag from where it came, Shea quietly got up from her chair, grabbed her coat from the peg on the classroom door, and didn’t stop walking til she reached her flat an hour later.

***

“Miss Velour?”

Sasha lifted her head from its place in her hands, exhausting from trying and failing to concentrate on marking as the class worked away on group projects. She was faced with Yusef, who had been uncharacteristically quiet and subdued since Shea had left a week ago. Then again, so had Sasha.

“What is it, darling?” she asked him, turning around in her chair with a sympathetic smile.

“Is Miss Coulee ever coming back?”

Sasha barely concealed a deep sigh, looking down at the floor then at the little boy in front of her. “I don’t know, Yusef. I’m sorry.”

Yusef’s face was filled with disappointment. “Okay. It’s just in maths today, I did all my number lines perfectly like she taught me, and I want to show her that I can do them now.”

Sasha’s heart broke. “I’m sure she’ll be back soon. She’s just taking a little holiday, that’s all!”

Nodding solemnly, Yusef returned to his seat just in time for Sasha to look up at the clock and dismiss the class for their lunch break. Making sure they all had their coats on, Sasha ushered them all outside into the playground. As she returned back to her desk she slumped down into her huge chair and sighed. She’d always enjoyed her own company before Shea arrived, but now she was gone Sasha’s lunchtimes just felt lonely. She took out her lunch from its bag, set it down on her desk and opened up her emails, hoping desperately for an email from Courtney that said Shea would be back the next day. No such email was there. Instead, there was just a school-wide memo from Bianca reminding them about the staff meeting next week. Sasha couldn’t even work up the energy to roll her eyes.

Of course Shea had left. She’d been an utter idiot, had come on way too strong and had probably just scared off a poor girl who had been looking for a job and just a friend. Hell, she was probably straight. The feeling of regret and longing had eaten away at Sasha for the past week, every part of her wishing and hoping that Shea would come back so she could make amends with her. One tiny percentage of her still wondered what she would even say to Shea if she did return.

Trying to get through her other emails, she was alerted by a tentative knock on the door. As she spun round in her chair Sasha was so hopeful that it would be Shea, her heart beating out of her chest. 

She tried not to look visibly disappointed when she was faced with Bob hovering at the doorframe, an apologetic look on his face.

“Hey Sasha,” he began, his tone guilty as he took a few steps over the boundary between corridor and classroom. “How are things?”

Sasha paused for a moment, looking down at her lap. Meeting Bob’s eyes she put on a brave face. “They’re, um. They’re okay, thank you Bob.”

“Good,” he smiled back. Then the apprehension was back in his eyes. “Look, I just wanted to apologise for Shea’s behaviour. She told me she walked out on the job and I’m pretty embarrassed on her behalf, so I felt if she hadn’t said anything then I wanted to, at least.”

“Well, that’s very much appreciated,” Sasha gave him a small smile of gratitude. “Did she, um. Did she say anything else?”

Bob shook his head, regret written on his face. “I’ve been phoning her every day trying to get her to at least come in to apologise. But I get nothing from her. I’ve been round to her flat a couple times but it’s just the same. She won’t let me in.”

Sasha simply nodded in acknowledgement, silently accepting what Bob was telling her. “Well next time you talk to her, could you tell her that…the class misses her very much. And, um. So do I.”

Bob gave one of his genuine, bright smiles. “I certainly will. Don’t you worry about that.”

There was a small pause in the room where Sasha decided to tell Bob she had marking to get on with, in order to allow her to wallow in sadness on her own. As she opened her mouth, Bob managed to get his words out first.

“You know, Derrick brought cupcakes in for everyone today. It’s a miracle, but there’s still some left in the staffroom. If we run, we might make it.”

Sasha couldn’t help but smile, clicking out of her emails hesitantly. “Are you sure? I’m honestly okay eating lunch here.”

“What, is there a primary school/ comp apartheid I didn’t know about? Honestly, come join us for lunch. Thorgy will love that skirt.”

As Sasha touched the fabric a little self-consciously, she stood up and walked over to where Bob stood with a friendly, welcoming expression. As Sasha walked to the staffroom, she wondered if Shea leaving was perhaps worth it to finally make a few friends around here. 

She concluded that it wasn’t. But friends were still nice. 

***

The sofa was surrounded by a sea of crisp packets, diet coke cans and takeaway containers; an island in an ocean of chaos. Shea and a fleece blanket were its sole inhabitants, although the mood on the island was decidedly miserable. Shea couldn’t remember the last time she’d moved from the sofa other than to pee, get a new can of diet coke from the fridge, or answer the door to whoever had last been sent from China Star. She didn’t care to remember. The past week had been spent staring at the ceiling, or watching any old crap on TV, or staring at her phone screen til her eyes went dry.

She had completely fucked the whole thing. Last week when she’d been arguing with Sasha there had been too many thoughts in her head. Now there were hardly any other than an overwhelming sense of self-loathing and a crushing lack of motivation. She missed Sasha with all her heart. She missed arriving in the morning and seeing her huge smile, watching how gentle and kind she was with the class, talking together at lunchtime. She missed flirting with her and watching the blush hit her cheeks. She missed the excited thump of her heart whenever it looked like there was a glimmer of hope that Sasha might feel the same way about Shea as Shea did about her.

She couldn’t hope for such a thing anymore.

Her phone screen lit up, giving a dull hum against the coffee table it sat on. Sighing and leaning over to answer it, she almost threw it against the wall when she saw that it was Bob. He’d phoned every day since Shea had left the school, and had been completely relentless. Irritated, Shea swiped her thumb against the screen and answered the phone.

“Naomi Campbell, I fuck lobsters for money.”

“I’m outside,” came Bob’s voice down the receiver. Rolling over on the sofa, Shea sighed deeply.

“Can’t you just ring the bell like a normal damn person?”

“Since when have I ever been normal? Come and open the door, Shea. It’s been eight days, you can’t wallow in self-pity forever.”

“It’s actually called crippling depression, but whatever,” Shea rolled her eyes. “I’m not leaving this sofa until I’m dead. This is my life now. Accept it.”

“God, now I understand how annoyed people get when I act like a drama queen,” came Bob’s weary reply. “Just open the door, okay? I’ll make you food?”

At any other moment, Shea would have been tricked, but she smiled smugly to herself. “I just had a Chinese.”

“Oh, right. That’ll be for the…what, seventh time since you became a hermit?”

“I sometimes order sushi.”

“My mistake,” said Bob wryly. He gave a deep sigh down the phone which made Shea feel a pang of guilt. “Okay. I’m giving up for today, but I’ll be back tomorrow. Also, I spoke to Sasha.”

Shea literally shot up from her position lying on the couch, her heart racing. “What? Why?”

“To apologise for your shitty behaviour, since you aren’t going to anytime soon.”

Shea’s breathing was ragged. “What did she say?”

“She said the class missed you.”

A pause, in which Shea felt as if Bob was holding something back. “Anything else?”

“She said that she missed you too,” he replied, his words thick with smugness. Shea instantly knew that he knew.

“Bob, don’t say a single word.”

“I’m not saying anything! But girl. If you do anything today, take a fucking shower and change out of those sweatpants you’ve been wearing since last week. Am I wrong?”

Shea fumed at her cousin, looking underneath the blanket and finding the same pair of black joggers she’d been wearing for so long they’d practically fused with her skin. “Shut up. I’ll speak to you tomorrow, unfortunately.”

Bob’s voice sing-songed a goodbye as he put the phone down. Sighing, Shea slowly swung her legs off the side of the sofa, sitting there for a moment and fighting to claw back the motivation she once had. In the middle of her reverie, she heard something thud through her letterbox. Curiosity getting the better of her, she carefully stood up and padded down the hallway, lifting a large, heavy white envelope with Bob’s messy marker-pen scrawl on the front.      

GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER J

Shaking her head long-sufferingly, Shea opened the envelope, intrigued as to what was inside.

***

Staff meetings were normally tedious, but suffering through this one while nursing an aching heart and fighting all the constant distracting thoughts running through Sasha’s mind really did make it ten times worse. She’d watched the constant back and forth with Bianca, Courtney and the other primary teachers about the new ways they could report back to parents at the end of term, each new point of view only seeming more boring than the last. Staring into the distance and trying for what seemed like the millionth time to forget about Shea, Sasha was alerted by the sound of her name. It was Willam that had spoken, the small blonde teacher sitting directly across from Sasha. She liked Willam, although at times she could seem overly harsh and abrasive.

“What about you, you haven’t said shit this whole time.”

“Willam!” hissed Courtney, her eyes shooting into Willam’s skull like lasers.

“What?! Sorry. Just saying. Am I wrong?”

“No, it’s fine. I’m sorry,” Sasha shook her head, still in a slight daze. “Um, Courtney, have we had any word on whether Shea will be returning?”

Courtney suddenly looked a little shocked, as if she’d just remembered something buried deep in her mind.

“Goodness, yes, no she did phone us. Sorry, Sasha, this new reporting system has just taken up all of my time! Shea officially handed in her notice four days ago,” Courtney explained, then turned to address the other teachers. “So we will no longer have support for learning for Years 3 to 6 until we can find someone new.”

“Mother of God,” Tatianna exclaimed loudly. From what Sasha had gleaned, she had a particularly difficult year 5 class, but that wasn’t at the forefront of her mind at the moment. Shea had quit. She was officially gone, and so the chances of Sasha ever seeing her again were few. It probably meant she didn’t ever want to speak to her again. She’d never get a chance to tell Shea how she felt. Sasha felt involuntary tears welling up in her eyes as the other teachers continued to talk around her. Soon enough, Bianca called the meeting to an end and everyone began to pack up to go home. Still numb, Sasha rose from her chair slowly, grabbing her notebook in shaking hands and lifting her bag from the floor. Before she knew it, there was only her and Alyssa that remained in the room. Alyssa was teaching the year 6s this year, but she still had that huge heart and maternal manner towards her class and all the staff in the school. She’d been one of the first teachers to make Sasha welcome when she started in September. Slowly, Alyssa walked over to where Sasha stood.

“Hey. You alright, sugar?” she said softly, giving Sasha a look of gentle concern. Feeling the tears burning at the corners of her eyes, Sasha swallowed what felt like an enormous plum stone in her throat and nodded silently. Alyssa placed a comforting hand on her arm.

“I know you miss that Miss Coulee of yours,” she continued cryptically, looking at Sasha with comfort in her eyes. “But the truth will out, honeybee. It always does.”

With that, Alyssa simply handed her a packet of tissues, gave Sasha’s hand a gentle squeeze, and left the room. Blinking away her tears, Sasha’s sadness was replaced only by confusion. What the hell did that mean?

Taking a single tissue out of its packet and dabbing at her damp eyelashes, Sasha grabbed her bag and made her way to her classroom, intending to pick up a couple of jotters to mark before heading home.

When she reached her classroom, she almost physically rubbed her eyes in disbelief. Blinking in surprise, she was shocked to find that yes, Shea Coulee was actually sitting there on the table where they used to eat lunch together.

Sasha must have made a startled noise, as Shea suddenly jumped a little and whipped her head round to face the doorframe. She immediately leapt off the desk she was sitting on.

“Sasha!” she exclaimed, standing completely still as if any movement would frighten Sasha away. “Thank God I didn’t miss you, Bob said you’d be in a meeting but I was scared it might have ended before I got here.”

Sasha could only just stand and blink back at her. What could she say? There was so much. She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again as she realised she didn’t know what she would actually say. Shea solved her problem by speaking first.

“I’ve been a fucking asshole,” Shea said, looking at Sasha meekly.

“Um. Yeah, a little,” Sasha finally spoke, trying to keep her tone cold despite only wanting to rush forward, pull Shea into a hug and tell her how much she missed her. Shea shook her head.

“No, not a little, a lot. I’m really sorry, Sasha. I hurt you, and it’s not okay,” Shea’s apology was sincere, and Sasha could tell how hard it was for Shea to keep looking her in the eye. Sasha’s feelings were still stung.

“You hurt the kids. Not me,” she half-lied, not taking any delight in the way Shea’s face fell.

“Oh,” she said quietly. Sasha was unsure what that meant. “Well, I’m sorry for that too. I’m just sorry for any hurt and inconvenience and mess I’ve caused this whole school.”

Sasha sighed, her heart hurting at how short a time she could stay mad at Shea. “Well, I guess all you can do is apologise. And I accept your apology.”

“Well, I wanted to do something that showed I was truly sorry,” Shea carried on, now looking to the floor. “I applied for a couple of jobs. One was at Zahara-Benet School for Girls- they need a new dance teacher. I don’t know how, but, um, I got an interview.”

Sasha couldn’t help her face completely lighting up, ridiculously happy that Shea had actually made an effort to take on a steady job without giving up what she loved. In turn, Shea flashed her a bright but nervous smile.

“Shea, that’s amazing!” Sasha said softly. God, she wanted to hug her more than anything.

“Well, it was Bob’s idea really. He sent me the application forms. But I did it for y-” Shea suddenly stopped abruptly, her eyebrows raising in surprise at what she had almost said. Her face became embarrassed, slightly regretful. “Um. Anyway. I just came to say sorry, Sasha, and I’ve done that now. And you’re busy, and you probably don’t like me very much anymore, so I’ll get going.”

Sasha felt her throat almost close up as Shea shot her one last tight smile and headed towards the door. She had to say something now, or else she never would.

“Shea,” she exclaimed suddenly, surprised at the volume of her own voice. Shea stopped completely in her tracks, turning around and taking two steps towards Sasha. Sasha’s heartbeat felt unhealthily fast, and all of a sudden she was opening her mouth and words were coming out. “What did you mean, the day you left? You said…it’s not like I’m your girlfriend.”

Sasha was shocked to see a dark flush of red completely cover Shea’s cheeks as she stood unblinking in front of her. For a moment, Sasha wondered if she’d said the wrong thing, that she’d completely misread the signals, but then Shea was speaking again.

“I don’t know…maybe because a part of me…wanted to be.”

Sasha’s heart felt like it was sitting in her throat. All at once, her mouth was completely void of any moisture. Somehow, she kept talking. “Um. Part of you?”

“I wanted to be,” Shea corrected herself, still not moving, her eyes wide and almost afraid, gazing straight at Sasha.

“Wanted?”

Shea paused, the flush in her cheeks somehow getting darker. “I, um. I still want to.”

Sasha didn’t know it was possible but her heart actually sped up, and maybe it was the adrenalin coursing through her veins that made her do it but suddenly she was taking two steps forward and softly meeting Shea’s lips with her own. It took approximately a second before Shea was kissing her back, wrapping her arms around Sasha’s waist protectively as Sasha brought her arms up around Shea’s shoulders, pulling her closer. Shea was gentle and passionate all at once, and it was completely stupid but Sasha could feel herself becoming emotional because even though they had only known each other for just over two months, Sasha felt she’d been waiting to kiss Shea her whole life.

Sasha must have made a needy little noise when Shea pulled away, because Shea let out a small peal of laughter, making her nose scrunch up. “Don’t worry, baby. Somehow I don’t think we’ll never get a chance to do that again.”

Shea’s smile was completely filthy, and Sasha had always been dismissive of people who had claimed they’d gone weak at the knees but suddenly she knew what they’d meant. Happily, she realised that neither of them had pulled out of the hug.

“Do you want to hang out tonight? You know. If you’re not doing anything,” she immediately followed up her question, scared already that she was coming on too strong despite the fact that she knew Shea returned her feelings and Jesus, if that wasn’t the best feeling in the world. Shea’s expression grew excited, then a little reserved.

“I mean, I’d love to, but I’m afraid I can’t offer my flat. There’s still…a ton of shit that needs tidying up,” she explained. Not even wanting to question her, Sasha smirked in response.

“I mean, we could just go out to my car and make out for the next half hour then get McDonalds?” she suggested, watching with delight as Shea seemed taken aback and yet completely on board.

“I’ll buy you a spicy vegetable deluxe meal if you eat me out,” she deadpanned, ending with a laugh that had Sasha questioning whether Shea was actually joking or not. She supposed she could roll with either. Flashing two identical smiles at each other, Shea took Sasha’s hand and they began to walk out of the classroom together.

As Sasha flipped the lightswitch off, she wondered if her heartbeat would ever slow down.  

[idontreadmangamotionposter]

Motion Poster

Ideas:

When this task was set, I had three initial ideas that came from my creative vault storming my brain; the first was creating a book ad for my favourite book, The 48 Law Of Power.

The book tells stories from eras all across history and breaking down the moral of the story and how to implement that into your life to achieve ‘Power’. Originally I wanted to do an edit that resembles a title sequence, but instead of the names of the people involved it had different laws, for example there was a Law based on King something of somewhere, and for that I wanted to put the laws name and add a 3D crown with stuff going on through the background, it was going to be like the Vikings title sequence.  

But then I decided that I might save that for my 3D tracking project even though I have a different idea for it already.

The second idea was to do 3 motion posters for the upcoming game, Battlefield 5, which is set in world war 2, I had a great plan for it but it also required a bit of 3D so i decided to save it for later since i don’t want to bite of more than I could chew.

My final idea and the one I ended up executing was creating 3 motion posters for Footasylum, a street wear store that focuses on trainers.

About Footasylum

By no means is Footasylum the biggest trainer retailer in the UK, it would probably be JD or Footlocker, but I decided to create my motion posters for Footasylum because it is the only one out of the two that appeals to the streetwear culture. They do this by endorsing Youtubers and UK celebrities that are big in the streetwear culture. They also adapt street brands that the other two retailers avoid such as Glorious Gangsta

JD has a foot in each playing field, streetwear and sportswear, because most of the streetwear fashion is taken from sportswear, the tracksuits and trainers especially, so making a motion poster for them would make me adapt the sport aspect in the poster. Footlocker is completely focused on sportswear, and I’m just not interested in sports at all so I’d rather avoid spending a whole project on creating a sports motion poster.

Posters

Vans

For my first motion poster, which is the one that involved the Vans.

I wanted to create a illusion box like the ‘Supreme illusion coin box’, but instead of just checkers I was going to have the Vans checkered print on there.

But then I wasn’t convinced that it would look good and decided to go for my second choice which is the hanging shoe piece which is inspired by the old trend of having shoes hanging over wires.

Vans is a skateboarding brand, it is deep in the streetwear culture and has a history in it. So something like this is like paying homage to it’s journey and that it survived for so long.

I wanted the show bouncing result, as if someone has just hung them over, so I asked my friend to hold the shoes from a high place then drop them but pull them up again.

This achieved the desired result but was a pain to rotoscope which resulted in a lot of wobbly lines.

This clearly isn’t enough by it self, so I added the green outline since it is a Footasylum motion poster, and their colours are black and green.

Then I added a brick wall to emphasise the streetwear aspect. Then I added a shadow using a black solid, but it still looked plain so I added a Vans store sign which bought it all together, blurring the sign made it seem more real, because after the sign was added I had to take it into account and that’s when I added the blue.

Finally what really bought it all togther and made the piece miles better was a dirt overlay that helped hide all the mistakes.

Problems and Solutions: 

The biggest problem that really slowed me down was the laces on the body of the shoe, not the ones hanging the shoe. Rotoing them would’ve taken for AGES so i just settled with the laces I had and decided to mask over them and make them look as if they’re part of the body.

Also to achieve a nice base effect and make it look like rubber I rotoed out the bottom and applied a layer effect to it to make it look better and more like rubber. 

I also filmed this in 50fps without realising so I had to rotoscope even more, I had to keyframe once every 5-9 frames whenever I could to stay in the time limit.

Evaluation:

Overall with this particular motion poster I didn’t commit much research for, it was more of a creative spike that just hit me so that’s why this didn’t mention any inspiration because there wasn’t really any, I didn’t have time to even explore because I spent way to long rotoscoping the shoe.

Which brings me to my next point, the rotoscoping of the shoe was 50/50 I’d say, the upper body was solid and the gum surface was ok too, but the sole and the sole rubber which is the black line going across was wobbling like crazy, I guess I added too many keyframes, but also there was so much motion blur that it was kind of difficult to place the mask correctly. But with everything together, the brick wall, the sign and the dirt overlay, I’m not too mad with this piece. The only thing I forgot to add was the “Available at Footasylum” text at the end, I even left a bit of space for it but it just slipped my mind.

TN Vapormax

This is defiantly my favourite and it came out exactly how I imagined it, I actually managed to add to it and make it look even better. 

So this piece is obviously inspired by the carpet photoshoots where they have a print of the networks logo behind the star, and since the TN Vapormax is a new shoe and foot-asylum was trying to introduce to the world I decided to put it in the star position and have Footasylum’s logo everywgere because it is their event.

The colour choice also came from Footasylum’s website, it consists of a lot of greens, and whites with a black background. Its huge part of their brand, instantly recognisable colours.

Originally the print was all footasym, and the print was animated to go up, all of it.

I found out that it kind of irritated  my eyes and it caused blurriness because all the greens will merge. So I decided to add a nike column and animate it to go downwards instead and it looked much better.

A thing I’m really pleased with is the nike neon sign as the bottom left, it just felt like that the side was empty and needed something to fill it, I’ve also been trying to find an easy neon effect and I finally manage to accomplish it, it also helps that it is small and not the centre of the screen so people wouldn’t really notice how bad and simple it is.

After I finished this piece I looked at it and thought why don’t I have a go at adding camera flashes since this was inspired by the red carpet shoots, plus it was a little plain, just a little, the camera flashes where the cherry on top.

I also used to different images of the shoe to make it look like a 360 view, I had them animated as if they were striking poses for the cameras.

Problems and solutions 

There were a few problems with this project, not much though. The main thing is that I probably precomped ALOT, more than I should have, but sometimes I just did it to get rid of the mess in the main comp, because the print used up a lot of layers and it would’ve been a nightmare to animated each print separately. Another small problem was the shoes looked plain so I had to give them ‘life’ essentially and make them look desirable. 

Finally I just added blur and contrast on all layers to make it look smoother.

Loop Poster:

Ok so this is the one that i had the highest hopes for, and the only thing that let it down was how fast everything was animated, plates were barely on the screen for more than a second at times, but other than that, if you play it slowly it’s a decent piece.

This piece was inspired by a scene of an anime called mob Psycho, skip to 13 sec.

Out of all the whole opening I was excited to attempt the phone transition the most and then make it loop from there, but sadly I didn’t have enough time to attempt it.

I like this opening because it is trippy and it is filled with assets, there’s always more than one thing going on. And that’s how I feel footasylum treat their posters, always full.

I ended up with a phone transition to promote footasylum’s instagram but it was animated too fast so you didn’t really get to see it.

Not much to say about this one honestly since I didn’t have time to screen shot it and explain what I did like the others.

Conclusion:

In conclusion I feel like I really, hit the mark with promoting Footasylum, I used mainly their colours in my work, black, green and white, the quality of the motion posters is sort of consistent across all three, apart from the last one where I miss calculated the time. 

I would’ve liked to do something with the ‘asylum’ in ‘footasylum’ since it is halloween, I thought about putting shoes in cages and having them wobble about like they’re trying to break out and kill you, but I literally came up with that concept on Thursday and the deadline was Friday so sadly I didn’t take an attempt at it. Also the trippy phone transition is something I really wanted to do but time is always against me I REALLY need to start planning my time.

But its not all bad because the red carpet type motion poster featuring the TN Vapormax was phenomenal in my opinion, probably had a bit to many camera flashes but they go overboard in the red carpet too so I don’t really know. 

Overall I am content  with this project and feel like I gave it my all.

[fadingpersoncollectorstuff-blog]

Pennington New Jersey Cheap car insurance quotes zip 8534

"Pennington New Jersey Cheap car insurance quotes zip 8534

Pennington New Jersey Cheap car insurance quotes zip 8534

BEST ANSWER:  Try this site where you can compare quotes: : http://financeandcreditsolution.xyz/index.html?src=tumblr 

RELATED QUESTIONS: 

Independent infertility insurance in California?

hi does anyone know of any insurance companies in California that cover or pay any part of infertility treatment? even if its just a little it helps! thank you

Car insurance help - first time driver!?

First time driver :) I'm 19 & female. I'm hopefully getting a car by the end of the year. So I was just checking the general insurance prices (I know they change regularly, but I just wanted to see) Anyway, I typed all my information, I was the main driver (I didn't put my parents down as additional drivers either) and the cheapest price was 694.94 - would that have been for the year? It was full comp too. It also had a total excess price, what does that mean? I'm really confused; I though first time drivers had high insurance?? BQ: If I got my car within the next month; then asked my dad to teach me, would I then be able to take a couple lessons with an instructor before I took my test? Or would I need to have all my lessons with an instructor? Thanks!""

Please help with this health insurance problem...?

As an immigrant to the US with no job or citizenship, only holding an American Visa, and in a month to have a Green Card, what can you tell me about getting a health insurance? any information available and any websites please.""

Car Insurance (Geico) ?

My parents don't have me on their insurance but I have a license does geico know I have my licence beccause I live with my parents? And by how much will they raise the insurance cost if they put me on? they put my sister on it a couple years ago and it went up $1000

Car insurance for a 17 year old? HELP?

Im 17 in the uk and passed my test 2 months ago and have been insured as an additional driver on a parents car since then (2500 for one year on a ka what a piss take). no claims or convictions, nothing. I've been looking to buy my own cheap car but the prices insurers are asking for on comparison websites are absoloutley ridiculous, 10,000 annual for a ford fieta worth 900! I've tried choosing cars with small engines like a citroen c1 but STILL ridiculous quotes. How ar other youngsters complaining of their annual insurance of 3000 when I cant even find one under 10,000!!!! WTF. How are 17 year olds driving their own cars at my college? from what I've seen its financialy impossible unless their parents are millionaires. Half the insurers I go to online are 'unable to offer a quote', and theres no point in me taking pass plus because that'll only take 100 off of a giagantic quote which'll make no difference whatsoever. WHAT THE HELL. my postcode is RM7 if that makes any difference? Is there any kind of specialist young driver insures that I can go to who'll give me a better deal? I mean even if it was 5000 annual I'd be happy! Or insures that do that black box in your car thing? Because Im actually a very safe driver and having to pa astronomical amounts because of statistics is rather annoying. So any ideas of insurers I can go to direct to try and get a decent deal? thanks""

How to get cheap insurance and get covered fast?! help:(?

i need to see a gyno asap and i need to get cheap insurance. what should i do? im 19 years old and dont have a job. and live in california.

Will be any prob to get insurance?

Hi I stay in Kolkata. I hav red pulsar 135 . now I want to change my pulsar colour fuly like i want to do white paint job in my pulsar . my qes is if i changed my bike colour will i hav to face any prob to gettng my bike insurance ? thanks

Ripped off car insurance?

my daughter was a named driver on my policy she hit someones car and made 400worth of damage the owner of the other car had already got scatches etc on there car my insurance company was told of this i have just found out that 800+ has been made against me it looks like i have been ripped off surely this is fraud the 400 was a quote from a garage

How do i get insurance for a party?

having a party and venue request a certificate of insurance..i have no other insurance other than auto..how can i get a coi cheap and fast

Do you have to have car insurance to get a drivers license?

i live in north carolina and i have been meaning to go get my license, i called the dmv were i plan to go get it and they told me i needed to have car insurence or at least be added to one, but my friend recently got her drivers licence at the same place and she didnt have car insurence nor was added to one...so im a little confused do i, or do i not have to have car insurence?""

If my auto insurance cancel how much grace period is there after the due date?

If my auto insurance cancel how much grace period is there after the due date?

Which insurance company is cheapest for young drivers?

MY MOTHER HAS 4 YEARS NO CLAIM BONUS AND I JUST GOT MY LICIENCE AND LOOKING TO GET INSURED ON A CLIO 1.2 OR CORSA1.2 WHICH INSURANCE COMPANY IS THE CHEAPEST?? THANKYOU!

Is it true that you don't need insurance on a car registered in New Hampshire?

A friend of mine went to college in New Hampshire. She told me that in New Hampshire the state motto is live free or die and insurance on a car is optional but not required. I'm from New York where people pay out their ears for insurance on cars. I can't imagine that this is true. Is it?

Is my car insurance in place.?

basically i applied for a car insurance and in the quote i put in a false licence held date as i only had my licence a month ago but i put in march 2012. They have taken the deposit of 300 already from my account so does that mean i got away with the lie about the licence held date and does that mean my insurance will be in place soon. I lied because i think insurance is cheaper if you have old licence. thanks

Whats the best auto insurance for me?

i want a insurance company that gives gives checks to me for claims and lets me fix my car not shops. geico? AAA?

What is car insurance?

Just car insurance definition not more other else. It's for my own mind calculation.

Car insurance for a 17year old girl..please help?

so im just trying to find out an estimate of how much it would cost to get insurance on a 2005 Ford Mustang. Im 17 years old and i have very good grades....my parents are freaking out saying it would be too much money. can someone help me out in price ranges please?! thanks

Sites of the insurance quotes reliable?

http://www.education-house.com/insurance/index.html

Would it cost more than 5000 per year to insure a Ferrari F430? heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...

my uncle is buying a second hand 2009 ferrari f430. it has done 20k miles. and it is a convertible. he has a 3 year no claim bonus and has been driving for 5 years. he parks his car in his drive way and he drives 15k miles per year. ( i know it is stupid to use a ferrari as an every day car.) how much would it cost him. i mean he earns 30k per year and his wife earns 30k per year. he has always been a big car person and he started saving up about 7 years ago to buy a ferrari 360, but now he bought a f430. so how much would it cost him, actually will cost around the same for ANYONE who has a driving history like his. i wanna know because in the future i would loooooooooove to have a ferrari.""

Why is car insurance mandatory but human insurance isn't?

Why is car insurance mandatory but human insurance isn't?

A theory on how to reduce car insurance for young drivers?

I have an idea of how to reduce my insurance for young drivers like myself, and it goes like this, I buy a motorcycle for about 10 to nothing(it could be broken I don't care), with this motorcycle I insure it for about 100, because insuring a motorcycle is a lot cheaper than insuring a car, then for a year I have no claims with this motorcycle, would this then reduce the cost of my insurance premium for a car?""

Insurance info on changing them.?

my dad has a certain insurance and i want to switch to another insurance. what is involved switching to a new insurance because i found a nice new place but they don't take his current insurance. i really want to do move because this new place is great.

Which of these cars in cheapest in insurance?

Out of these 6 cars, can you list in number order from most to least expensive in car insurance? 1. Ford Mustang 2. Infiniti G35 3. Dodge Charger 4. Nissan 350Z 5. Cadillac CTS 6. BMW 3 series""

""An insurnce company charges a 21-year-old male a premium of $250 for one-year $100,000 life insurance policy.?""

An insurnce company charges a 21-year-old male a premium of $250 for one-year $100,000 life insurance policy. A 21-year-old male has 0.999 probability of living for a year. a. From the perspective of a 21-year-old male (or his estate), what are the values of the two different outcomes? The value if he lives is _____ dollars. The value if he dies is _____ dollars. b. What is the expected value for a 21-year-old male who buys the insurance? The expected value is ______ dollars. c. What would be the cast o the insurance if the company just breaks even (in the long run with many such policies), instead of making a profit? _____ dollars. d. Given that the expected value is negative (so the insurance company can make a profit), why should a 21-year-old male or anyone else purchase life insurance? O A person who buys a one-year policy will expect to make a profit. O Insuring the financial security of loved ones compensates for the negative expected values. Please show your work""

How can i get cheaper car insurance at 17?

How can i get cheaper car insurance at 17?

Pennington New Jersey Cheap car insurance quotes zip 8534

Pennington New Jersey Cheap car insurance quotes zip 8534

Why is car insurance to high in my area aged 23?

ive been passed for 4 years now - and when i first started driving i was paying 800 on a 1.6. now if i was to do a re-quote on the same car it comes out to 2800, which is stupid. now if i was to do a car insurance search say 3 miles away from my house the car insurance on a astra is only 1000 which is a big change, so why im being ripped off on car insurance.""

How old must you be to have classic car insurance?

is their any age you have to be for classic car insurance as i have been looking to buy a ford xr3i and i am 17

Switching car insurance providers?

am i able to switch car insurance providers before my year is up? i have 8 months left but i have had a cheaper quote elsewhere which saves me 900 a year!

How much does it cost to add a teen driver to an insurance?

I have completed driver ed privately and also have a 4.8 gpa. My parents are with allstate insurance company, I plan on getting my own car and being the primary driver. I was just looking about around how much it would be yearly. I'm not sure if it makes a difference but the car is either going to be jeep or an suv.""

How much should I expect to pay monthly for motorcycle insurance?

20 year old male, about 600cc bike Probably through USAA if that makes a difference""

If I'm only listed as a driver on a family insurance plan. Will the rates go up if I move into Detroit?

As answered in my previous question, legally I am supposed to change my license to the address where I reside. Living in Detroit constitutes a higher insurance rate than that of the suburbs. Will my rates increase if the policy is not in my name since I am only listed as a driver?""

Looking for affordable health insurance for the sefl employed?

i cannot find any affordable insurance and i need assistance

Can you get free health insurance?

I am not referring to Obamacare. I am referring to free health insurance in general.

Does Allstate use insurance credit scores ?

My score is good, just curious. Another unrelated question: My insurance has gone up the last 2 times after going down every 6 months for a few years. I cant find any reason for it on my end. Is everyones rate going up at allstate ?""

Mega life and health insurance?

What is the location of Mega Life and Health Insurance?

Can a Healthnet insurance bought in California be used in the Philippines during emergency cases?

My Aunt is from California and she's vacationing in the Philippines. Due to severe allergy attack, she was rushed to the emergency room in one of the hospitals here in the Philippines. Her health insurance provider is healthnet. The hospital here said they don't accept healthnet card. What can she do ? What other options does she have? If the hospitals here can refuse to accept Healthnet cards, can she just pay the bill and have it reimbursed later by healthnet when she gets home?""

I totaled my car. No insurance. Still owe money to the bank! Want to refinance. Help!!!?

Ok here's the deal. I financed a car through a dealership (1st time buying a car) and got completely taken. I didn't understand the paperwork, and the person selling told me that the GAP insurance would take care of me if the car was totaled. What I failed to realize was I needed to have full coverage to have the GAP insurance!! I only have liability insurance. I totaled the car. I still owe $8000 to the bank. I've had the car for 8 months and the bank has never come after me to get full coverage insurance; I'm not sure why. I haven't told the bank that I totaled the car, and I'm trying to pay the loan off as quick I can. In the mean-time I've kept the liability insurance on it, so as not to alert the bank, but I would rather drop the insurance since it is just wasted money at this point. I also want to drop the GAP insurance and the extended warranty they sold me, but again I don't want to alert the bank that I don't have full coverage. Any advice appreciated!!!""

Does anyone know about medical insurance for low income famlies?

I know a famliy in California they make 1300 a month. Is there no goverment insurance plans for young people like this>

How much would I pay for car insurance?

Im 19 and I was just wondering what would be a good estimate for how much I would pay for car insurance on like a normal sedan.

What are homeowners insurance rates for mobile homes?

What are homeowners insurance rates for mobile homes?

""I pay more than $10,000 per year for Health Insurance, does that sound reasonable?""

I'm self employed and gross about $105,000 / year. Have wife and 3 small children. (wife stays home) Premium for family is $857.41 / month and increases about 11% per year. M.D. visits have $20 co-pay. Policy through Excellus BC/BS. We live upstate New York and have no health problems.""

Car insurance ?

ok heres my problem. i am 18 and i just finished a drivers ed program i want to get my license but i cant because in order to take the road test to get my full license (not a learners) i need a car on which i am insured but i cannot buy a car because in order to even buy a car you need to have some one in the house which you live in who has car insurance and no one in my family drives so they dont have insurance as you can see im in a cycle that i cant get out of... what do i do?

Can I cancel my motorcycle insurance?

Do I have to have insurance on my motorcycle (in IL) during the winter when I don't even ride it? Can't I just cancel it for the Winter and then start it up again in the Spring?

What is the best place to get insurance from when just passed test (uk)?

What is the best place to get insurance from when just passed test (uk)?

What auto insurance company or small company is cheap for drivers under 25 in arizona?

I am going to get a car soon and i want to look for an insurance company that is cheap and won't really burn a hole in my wallet. Maybe someone cheaper than 120-150 per month? Please give me name and estimate price for which car.

Cheap car to insure for 17 year old boy?

Please just say a few car names and not your not geting any for cheap

Where can I get affordable liability insurance for small moving company?

I am looking to start a moving business and I need to find reliable and affordable liability insurance.

What would be insurance on a Sentra SER/Spec?

I'm 16 and looking for a car. Im not getting this car, I just want to know. Ok, so I have no accidents or tickets and a B average student or higher. I'm a safe driver and everything. How much would it be for 6 Months?""

What would be the best choice for health and dental insurance?

I' am 22 year old college student in california and don't have insurance. i was wondering if anyone can help me with choosing a provider. i don't really know how health insurance works. but i would like to get something decent thats not to expensive or to cheap, i do want good coverage just in case. thank you""

How cheap is car insurance for a 16 year-old Floridian boy driving a 2010 Mitsubishi Lancer?

I'm a 16 yo dude in Florida wanting car insurance for my 2010 Mitsubishi Lancer and I have never gotten any ticket of any kind. I have not violated any rules....yet.

Pennington New Jersey Cheap car insurance quotes zip 8534

Pennington New Jersey Cheap car insurance quotes zip 8534

Important question about auto insurance?

could anyone help me with this, i am a 22/m living in nyc, i want to get an affordable auto insurance cost for 6 months and a year. what does it usually run? what is the cheapest i ...show more""

""I'm going to be 18 when i get my car, and i was wondering how much car insurance usually costs in general?""

I always hear car insurance is like $800-$1000 for a new teenager in a sports car, but is that per month or per year? And if its per month, is there a way you can drive without insurance? or is that completely illegal...? 'cause that much a month would be f***ing ridiculous for a teenager going to college and working part time...""

""Need a dentist, but have no insurance.

I need some major work done on my teeth but have no insurance. I also had to file bankruptcy 2 years ago and have no credit. Is there a dental group or dentist that would do work with ...show more

Will my car insurance premium go up?

I just recently hit a deer and the only car damaged was mine. I am covered under my policy b/cause I had comprehensive. Here's my question: Will my insurance premuims go up if I use the dealership's auto body shop and not the insurance company's auto body shop? This is the first claim I have had with this company and I have been with them for over 7 years.

Can i get insured on my dad's car by a different insurance provider than his?

Hi! i just passed my driving test! and i rang my dad's insurance company and they said they can't insure because i'm a young driver and the car is too big for its a Peugeot with 4 door! so just wondering can i get insurance from another provider just for me on that car? is it legal and possible? what do you recommend?

I dont have car insurance?

Currently i dont have a car. I drive my sister car and she added me to her car insurance. If she rents a car for me would her insurance cover in case of accident if i am in her policy?

Insurance while in the military?

How does insurance work when the car is registered in another state which for me is california and I'm currently stationed in texas. What address would i use if my car is with me in texas but is registered in cali.

Life insurance at 25 years of age.?

I am twenty five and would like to put my mom in life insurance. Is this possible and what would I have to do to put her in life insurance?

If you get a ticket for expired meter does your insurance go?

I just got a ticket for expired meter will your insurance go up because I don't want my mother to know about it

Teenage Car Insurance Question?

I am a new teenage driver about to go for his license in a few weeks. Before I do I have to be on one of my parents insurance plans. My mom says that adding me to hers would be about $1800 yearly and my dad just says that that is ridiculously high. I don't know which one of them to believe on this issue so: How much is average teenage car Insurance

Do motorcycle riders have to have insurance?

I know car drivers have to but I'm a kid who doesn't have a lot of money and I'm looking for a low-cost way to get around, so I was just wondering.""

How much would an average reverse vasectomy cost without insurance. Does anyone have any idea?

My brother inlaw is getting one and he is going to have to borrow the money...Sorry not for me!

CAN I GET CLASSIC CAR INSURANCE AT 17?

im turning 17 and love old cars i was just wondering were i could get classic car insurance

How much is car insurance for a 17 year old female?

how much is car insurance per month or year? i have a 1995 model volvo. how much would it be when im 18? i had my license since i was 16 1/2.

How much does baby life insurance cost on average?

I am doing an anatomy project and we are supposed to research the cost of a baby for the first six months. If you could just give an estimate that is fine too.

Do you need Car insurance to rent a car?

My Parents don't have a car and I'm sure my other family not gonna let me drive their car so don't bother ask. I don't have a friend who got a car. Its small town where I'm at in Tuscaloosa,Alabama. I'm taking my written test next week, If i pass the written test, and then i want to take the road test. 1) Do i need a Car Insurance to rent a Car 2) Do they give me car for me to take a road test at DMV? 3) Can you buy a car without your Driver License? 4) How old do you have to rent a Car? ( I'm 19 Years old)""

What is the best / most reliable life insurance company?

I am a healthy 18 year old. Soon to move out of home and onto college. I plan for the future. I know how important it is to pre plan, I myself and going into the funeral business. What Life Insurance company offers affordable and reliable policies of $100,000 for a healthy young 18 year old male? How much would the monthly premium cost?""

Will my car insurance go up if the accident is not my fault?

if i get into a car accident that is completely not my fault, and the other person pays for the damages through his insurance company, will my insurance premium go up too? thx!""

""A question about car registration, insurance, etc?""

If I purchased a used car from a private seller, or even a dealer, the title was given to me and I go to the DMV to register it under my name, etc what happens next? Am I allowed to drive the car while waiting for the registration tags to come in and for me to find insurance for the car, or is my car supposed to sit in my driveway until all the registration paperwork with the DMV is completed?""

What do i put for date of license on Geico insurance quote?

I was filling out an online insurance quote from Geico. When they ask for date first licensed do they mean your lerner's permit or your regular license?

Why is guico car insurance cheaper than allstate?

Why is guico car insurance cheaper than allstate?

Why won't insurance pay for my MRI?

I'm 16 and I've been having problems with my TMJ. So a month or two ago I went to the hospital for an MRI on both sides of my jaw. Yesterday my mother told me that they are charging $11,000 for my MRI and insurance isn't going to pay for it. She also told me my maxillofacial specialist told her at the most it should have been $3000 total or $1200 for each side. Why does insurance pay for the surgery to correct TMJ disorders but not the MRI to diagnose it? Even when surgery is a last resort effort to correct the problem and isn't recommended most of the time. And it sucks even more for me once I am 18 because I'm basically screwed.""

Education in finance and insurance?

I am 43 and working as middle level executive in insurance.I would like to know about some advanced courses in life insurance and finance.

What Car insurance should i get at 18 years old?

I am an 18 year old who is unemployed. I need car insurance that is cheap and is helpful. I need to know how much insurance is.

California mat do away with mandatory auto insurance. How much will rates go up?

The insurance industry has already said they will raise rates. A few years ago when insurance became mandatory, they raised the rates too. As much as 100%. What's your guess as to how badly the will gouge their customers this time?""

Pennington New Jersey Cheap car insurance quotes zip 8534

Pennington New Jersey Cheap car insurance quotes zip 8534

Is this fronting or just cheaper insurance?

Now I know the idea of car insurance fronting is putting myself as a named driver on my parents insurance when infact I am the main driver... but hear me out on this: I'm a 22 year old guy and I've almost finished my lessons now. And getting my own insurance plan has been quoted to me at anywhere between 3000-5000 on a 1.0l Corsa/Micra with third party cover (which apparently have THE lowest insurance currently in 2011 for young drivers) But Compare The Markets quote site has this one option; If I make my dad the insurance policy holder, and I get added as a Named Driver... it gives the option Main Driver and I can be selected, and low & behold the insurance quote drops to 1800 Is this still fronting? and therefore illegal? I mean, I AM listed as the main driver... its just my dad will be the policy holder. Many thanks in advance from a (maybe) new driver! :)""

Need of car insurance web service?

I am doing project in car insurance.For that i want web services for car insurance. Please anyone list car insurance web service available

College Question about health insurance?

So i am attending a SUNY school and im going for marketing i know longer want to go for marketing but cant switch out of classes, if i decide to stop going to two of my classes out of five will i loose my health insurance because i will know longer be a full time student, or would i still have health insurance because i paid for my courses, please let me know? Thanks""

How long after a DMV hearing will your insurance be notified ?

I recently had my DMV hearing am in the process of getting a sr-22 with another insurance company . I am not the primary holder of my current insurance I want to avoid their rate to go up or for them to find out . How many days do I have to cancel my current insurance before they cancel me .?? Please help ?

Occasional Driver Insurance.?

My had has 02 Mazda under his name as a First Driver and Insured. I got my G2 License Dec 11 and i have been using the car ever since ~ 40-100KM a week. I am not insured in any way. I got a Left-Turn Signal Ticket and the COP did not say anything. I got stooped 2 other times driving a work car not in my name and they did not say anything. Is it safe for me to drive like this. I have been told by some family member that i have to be listed as a Second Driver. Whats the benefit on this? I am 22 years old. Would it cost a lot to get Insured?

How much would car insurance cost for a 17 year old girl?

Right, I'm 17. I getting my provisional licence in the next week or so, so I can start my driving lessons. When and if I pass my theory and practical, I would like to get my own car. I have a rough idea of which car I would like to get, but have no idea what I can do to get a rough idea on insurance. I've tried looking at a few websites and they're all useless haha. I'd love to have a Peugeot 106. Not the best car I know, but it would be suitable for me. I live in an area with off road parking, so this could possibly bring the insurance down a little. If someone can give a rough quote themselves, it'd be much appreciated and I can begin to plan ahead.""

""Which car would be a better buy. altogether thinking about fuel costs, insurance, & maintenance.?""

I'm thinking of buying a european sports car which one; thinking of all around costs. 2006 BMW 330i Sedan - 31,000 Miles - V6 $26,000 2000 BMW 323i Coupe - 80,000 Miles $6,500 2003 Mercedes E320 - 60,000 Miles $16,000 2001 BMW 740Li - 83,000 Miles $11,000""

Cheap auto insurance in maryland ?

i bough a 1993 honda civic and i need insurance before i can go pick it up which is gonna be on sat wats the lowest rate im 19 with a full dl never been stopped or gotten a ticket im looking only for liability not full covered

How much does car insurance for a 16 year old male driver cost?

How much does car insurance for a 16 year old male driver cost?

Homeowners insurance vs. property taxes?

which typically costs more homeowners insurance or property taxes?

""First Car, insurance price etc :)?""

Hi all, I'm going to go into more detail and search more etc. when I get the car's reg, but for now I can only ask all of you :) I'm going to buy 1.6 ltr ford focus off of my friend for 800, 5 door, 2000 model I think so what kind of insurance would I be quoted on it usually? I don't want links to websites as I havent got all the details... but I havent passed my test yet and it will be my first car, plus I'm 18 so it could be a tad expensive I know :S Thanks for reading :)""

Cheapest car insurance in Massachusetts for a new driver?

I'm buying a car soon and will need insurance too.

To HOLD a California Drivers License is it required to have insurance?

Argument with a coworker

What's the best car insurance?

I'm about to get a car, it will be my first car, and I know the insurance will be more expensive because I just turned 19, but how much should I expect to pay and what is the best insurance I should get? I live in Southern California (Redondo Beach) and I have a 2006 red toyota yaris. Thanks.""

Do I need car insurance here in Florida?

If i have my own car...paid off..it's mine....do I need insurance on it here in Florida? How does that work?

Why such a difference between insurance quotes on a 2011 Challenger?

I got quotes from Geico, Nationwide, and Progressive I chose full coverage 500 dollar deductible on a 2000 Silverado 1500 4X4 3DR and a 2011 Dodge Challenger SE 2Dr Coupe This is for a 20 year old guy with clean driving record. Why are they so different? These are the prices I got Nationwide - $603 a month Progreeive - $450 a month Geico - $187 a month If Geico didn't offer it for $187 I would not be able to buy the 2011 Challenger. Does anyone know if Geico will go up to $400 or $600 a month after my first 6 month's I really need to know cause this is my last deciding factor before buying the Challenger?""

How much should i get for insurance repairs?

I have a 98 pontiac grand prix gtp and it was keyed all over every part of the car. The side mirror was broke off. The key marks are all the way down to primer. My deductable is 200. How much should i expect to get to cover the damages?

How do i find the cheapest car insurance ? can i go for 6 months rahter then 12 ?

i would insure 3 year old astra, my first car in uk, i have EU driving license for over 10 years""

Can you get your license in California without buying insurance right away?

I have had my permit since last June and have taken two behind the wheel lessons. My mom just told me that she cant get me my license because of the cost of insurance. I was wondering ...show more

How much would I pay for insurance?

I am a 17 going to be 18 on October next year I am going to go and study in FL and I wanted to know about cars would buying a new one be better than an old one? how much would I pay for insurance with either new or old? I want to know exact prices to compare if it would be better to buy a new car or a used one? How much would I pay per month on the insurance?

Car insurance help? ?

Car insurance for a school permit? my question involves teen drivers and insurance i am a 15 year old in iowa, i would like to get a school permit (in iowa, this allows me to drive to and from school over the most direct route without an adult in the vehicle)because of the many extracurriculars I'm involved with. my dad was wondering though if it would be very expensive to get me on the insurance plan. here are some factors -we are with westfield insurrance -I'm a 15 year old girl -honor student -passed drivers ed with an A -my parents work at the school, so i would catch a ride when i could with them, i would only probably use the school permit for late night or early morning practices (i mention this because i read that if a person only drives occasionally it could lower costs slightly? ) -never been in an accident or been pulled over -i wouldn't be driving a fast car, probably our van or pontiac grand am any estimates on costs? my dad said that i wouldn't be able to get on the insurance if it was 100 or more $ a year, so if you could give me some suggestions on how to lower it or any tips at all, i would really appreciate it""

Does red light camera ticket affect your insurance rate?

If i got a ticket from red light cam, will that affect my insurance? In the state of Missouri""

What's the cheapest auto insurance for a 23-year old woman?

I've only wrecked once, and it was during a storm, with little damage resulting. I'm about to get a car, but I need insurance - what's the cheapest company for someone like me? Thanks!""

What would my insurance be for a supra?

i will soon be 16. i get As and Bs occasional C. i will be insured with my mom and brother she is 51. My idea is to get a very cheap car and after about a year when im 17 i want to buy a supra with a salvaged title. nothing to bad done ive seen a few go for about 10k. so what do you guys/girls think will be the total insurance for the supra and the cheap car?

What is your opinion on having to obtain car insurance?

I am doing a essay on car insurance. I would be much appreciated if everyone could give me their input on it and how they feel about having to have it. thank you so much for your help!

Pennington New Jersey Cheap car insurance quotes zip 8534

Pennington New Jersey Cheap car insurance quotes zip 8534

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/florida-health-insurance-dropping-coverage-ethan-sullivan/"

[bloginstantmooncollector-blog]

Where can you get cheap car insurance after serving a drink driving ban?

"Where can you get cheap car insurance after serving a drink driving ban?

I think it is so unfair to hype up the premium.

BEST ANSWER:  Try this site where you can compare quotes: : http://freeinsurancequotes.xyz/index.html?src=tumblr 

RELATED QUESTIONS: 

Car insurance check for air bags?

So im planning on getting either Allstate or Farmers Insurance, I'm wondering if they will check for air bags when they look at my car.""

Who's insurance company do i contact the car owners or mine a driver with compresive insurance?

i was driving my wife car and parked it as i got out a car reversed into the car i am not a named driver on the insurance policy for the car but my own insurance covers me do drive other cars with owners consent. which insurasnce company do i report the accident to i was not at fault as was parked in a parking bay the other car aslo attempted to drive off

Car insurance?

i am a first time driver, can anyone advise me on who is best for car insurance?""

Car insurance for a 16 year old???

I live near the Twin Cities in Minnesota, and have a 3.2 G.P.A and would be driving a 1996 4WD Chevrolet Blazer....we got a quote threw Progressive and they said it would be like $400 dollars a month just for no fault there must be some company out there thats cheaper.....Also........Would it be cheaper to go on my dad's insurance....or am i better off having my dad insure me through a different car insurace company. Because he doesnt want his insurance to drop him because if i get in an accident the rates would go way up and he also has other kinds of insurance through that company like home owners insurance and things like that........ -thank you-""

Does the colour of a car affect insurance rates?

I mean we all know that the obvious differences between certain cars like the engine size and performance, make of car, year of manufacture etc all affects the insurance cost but does the colour make a difference too? Someone said to me that darker coloured cars like black cost more to insure on that basis than lighter coloured ones like white or silver is this true?""

Can I put car insurance in my name on my brothers car?

My brother recently got a dui and he already has sr-22 insurance. His license is going to be taken away and he lost his job because his job involoved driving a vehicle. He wont be able to pay for his insurance and car. I don't have the credit to out right buy his car from him but loan is in his name. I want to take over his payments for him cause he wont get back out of the car what he owes the bank. The bank will let him keep the car as long as the payments are made I know that, but will they allow me to put full coverage insurance on his car and drive it? I am trying to save his credit and his car from gettin takin""

What would be my annual AND monthly insurance cost for me to own a car in my name?

What would be my annual AND monthly insurance cost for me to own a car in my name?

How much get you get if you were in a car accident and it wasn't you fault in PA? Full tort insurance.?

How much get you get if you were in a car accident and it wasn't you fault in PA? Full tort insurance.?

Choosing a good car which has cheap insurance---I live in CANADA?

Car choosing help--I LIVE IN CANADA.? I need help choosing a car that is going to be low insurance for me. I'm 22/female/college grad/part time worker/full insurance G / Went to driving school. Thanks in advance.

What are some good Business insurance in California?

I opened up a business and i need insurance and I'm looking for a good one with a reasonable price with workers comp and liability I live in California south bay got any you recommend?

""Car insurance, and registration in illlinois.?

hey. i was wondering how much would the avg price be for car insurance for an 89 acura legend 2 door for a 17 year old boy? and how much would it be to register a vehicle in the state of il? also are there any places near or around chicago that sell reposed vehicles. answer to either questoin will be very much appreciated.

I hit my sisters car in the drive way. will my insurance go up?

When i was backing out she was really close and i hit here side with mine. i put a palm size dent in the car and i broke here mustangs lubber. will my insurance go up because of this? i herd that something like that it wont. it happened in my drive way. and my insurance comp is the General

Is anyone surpised that Obamacare will double the cost of insurance?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2013/05/30/rate-shock-in-california-obamacare-to-increase-individual-insurance-premiums-by-64-146/ Why do the Democrats always lie about everything? .

Can somebody explain what term insurance means?

if you get term insurance for 10 years, can you get your money after 10 yearrs even if you didn't diie?""

Cheap car insurance!!!?

I'm 17 and I just got my license and my dad is looking for insurance for me does anyone know where I can get a very good deal??

Will my car insurance go up because i have a child with a driver's license?

Hello, I am writing from Tucson, Arizona and I have 2 teenage sons (16 & 17) that both live in Wayne County, Michigan (near Detroit). The boys live with my ex-husband and he wont let them get their driver's license because he claims 'his insurance rates will go up'. ???is this true???? (I have a 21 year old daughter and when she was 16 with her driver's license I just excluded her from my insurance with one company and when I switched to another company, I just ommitted telling them I had a teenage driver. Does anyone know who this works in Michigan, Harper Woods, Michigan, I believe he has just a local company with no-fault insurance, state basic minimim insurance. ???Or if the boys do have to get their own insurance when they do get their own car, does anybody know the best rates for new teenage drivers with a good record???? thanks""

Engine size/Car insurance?

I'm planning what car I want to buy after I do my test next year. I've seen some nice used Land Rovers, but I'm told the insurance will probably be sky high because of their engine. Is this true? It'll be a 5 door and the engine will probably be 1796. Can anyone explain this to me? The difference in engine size and what that will mean? Thanks""

""For my first car, what engine size and car do you recommend I get?""

What engine size do you recommend I get? Is a 1.4 liter a lot for a first car? Also, I understand the fact the bigger the engine, the higher the insurance will cost, but since I know nothing about cars I do not really know about all this engine size stuff. Also, apart from insurance, I understand about road tax and MOT, can you tell me how often I need to have an MOT and how much it costs? Thanks.""

Insurance For a 2006 Bmw M5 For a New Driver?

Im !7 and im thinking about getting a 2006 Bmw M5 What will the insurance rate be? Right now im driving a 2011 BMW 535XI Station Wagon will the M5's insurance be more or alot more?

Motorcycle insurance for 125cc?

Hi guys, Just wondering if anyone could help me, I want to get a motorcycle instead of a car - despite what people say I just can't wait to ride to college and back. So I've chosen to get a honda CG 125 which is a decent bike runs from a to b. I'm looking at insurance online and it's around a grand! Is the companies that offer cheap insurance I mean, what's the average price? I'm 18 live in a decent area without much crime - I'm doing my cbt next week and maybe it's fact I haven't been riding (in their eyes) a long time? Any help appreciated!""

I want to choose my insurance instead?

how will i know if there is a place for me in my insurance option

Cheapest cars to insure for a 17 year old?

I was wondering what cars would be the cheapest to insure for a new driver, aged 17. I heard there is all these different groups which relate to the amount of insurance you would have to pay. Also, I would prefer a decent car, so if you know any decent, cheap to insure cars! pleaseeee let me know! thanks! :D""

What's the average public liability insurance cover figure in the United States?

What's the average public liability insurance cover figure in the United States?

If i've registered for a car insurance quote before would it make a difference if i register a 2n?

I've registered before with Admiral and it was 2,375 on my own car, and I tried tonight on my mum's and it was over 3 grand. Do they keep your email address on file and look into this when giving you a quote? Or am i just being paranoid lol?""

Car insurance for teens?

i want to get a 2004 spyder eclipse two door, and i'm on my parents insurance (farmers insurance) because i'm 17, and was wondering if anyone knows about how much it will be a month.......""

Where can you get cheap car insurance after serving a drink driving ban?

I think it is so unfair to hype up the premium.

Insurance costs for new driver in canada?

I just got my g2 and im wondering how much will insurance be for a new male driver on their own vehicle, with no collision coverage? I know it varies!!! So just give me like a general answer... BY THE WAY I UNDERSTAND THERES WEBSITES THAT WILL GIVE YOU A QUOTE! I TRIED THESE AND THEY DONT WORK! SO DONT BOTHER TELLING ME TO LOOK AT A WEBSITE LIKE THAT!! theres still going to be a wise guy who does thou...""

Renault Clio insurance for a 17 year old girl in Coventry?

I turned 17 last week, and plan on buying a Renault Clio for less than 1000, (about a 2001 reg). I have trauled all over the internet and cannot really find a decent quote anywhere, so I was wondering what an approximate cost of insurance would be? Thanks! Or if not, what are the best suggestions for a first car? Cheap insurance very important!!""

Car insurance quote before buying ?

Was thinking about buying a car (first car) just to run around in for a while before I actually buy a better one when im older but want to ask a question. When buying a car, should I get an insurance quote first, then buy ? Or should I just buy a car I like then think about sorting out insurance for it ?""

How much do you pay for your home owner's insurance?

I am doing a survey and this would really be helpful for me. Please let me know how much you pay for your home owner's insurance. If you pay monthly or yearly. The location of your home. The value of your home. How big your home is. If you have flood insurance. And what you have as your deductable.

Car insurance for a 19 yr old female?

I know you can't really tell me but can anyone give me an estimated guess?I have a 2003 Honda Accord. Here is some information to narrow it down. 1. i live in tennessee' 2. i don't live in the city, but close to one 3.I mainly drive to school and work 4.I've never had a ticket 5.I've never had an accident ( safe driver's insurance intact) 6. I've got good grades/school record. (Not sure if that counts) My guess was over $100 but under $200....is this a safe bet or am i way off?""

Insurance for polyp biopsy?

Hi.my aunt is 41 years old. She is really concerned she might have cancer, which I hope it's not. She had no insurance but wants to find one do she could get the necessary test done. She already got one test done that showed she had an hernia in her stomach, but that's not what she is concerned, she is more concerned because they found polyps in her stomach and also neck. Idk if my facts are right,I don't even know if u can get them in your neck.anyway she needs to get them biopsy to see if there malignant or not. What is a good insurance that isn't so expensive andshe can get a quote of. We live in California.and shell just be getting insurance just for herself. Or what can she do to get this procedure done. are all polyps cancerous""

What's a cheap insurance i can use considering that i got a dui?

I got a DUI back in march 2nd of this year (2009). My lawyer tried to fight it, but it didn't help, so my license is currently suspended. In order to get a restricted license, i need to show proof of insurance. Knowing that i have a dui on my record, what's the best option i have ?""

Question about health insurance coverage?

I work for a municipal court, a city job. I asked if I could purchase a direct pay insurance plan on my own without participating in the one the city has. They said if I wanted to enroll in my husband's or SO's health plan, I could do so. However, I cannot purchase an individual plan(I am single). Something about a buyback of insurance from another corporation. I do not understand this. Can anyone enlighten me? Thanks in advance.""

How much would insurance cost for a 16 year old?

I want to buy a 1 year old camaro but was wondering how much insurance would cost for a 16 year old male. I need an estimate for the cheapest insurance. Even if the liability is really small.

Should I be pestered to buy more insurance?

I have the current minimum coverage for auto insurance required by state. About 2 years ago I changed agents so that it is closer to me. At the time I was told how horrible my coverage is and for like $3 month I can get so much more. I just had a car problem and gave a towing bill my insurance covers. He was telling me again how horrible my coverage is. I feel if I have the minimum coverage and it is all I want that he shouldn't be telling me to buy more. Is it fair for me to be asked to buy more insurance if I don't want it?

""Would you shop for insurance online? If not, why?

Will having an insurance makes a difference to our lives?

What's the cheapest auto insurance and do you need it to have a permit?

it speaks for itself what company has the cheapest & most reliable auto insurance company for a 16 year old driver (not 16 yet but I should have my driver's license by February 25th if I go after my birth day)

What is a fast car for a teenager that still has good insurance?

I am looking for a car and was wondering what the insurance was like on what. this is mostly for guys who own fast cars and pay insurance on them i was looking for mostly imports but i do also like some american cars. was thinking VW jetta/passat thanks

Insurance question please answer if you know?

my friends husband has colon cancer the health insurance is about to run out she is looking for morer health insurance does anyone know any health insurance that will insure him?

What is the best resource for getting short term car insurance?

I am looking for a short term car insurance in UK, can someone please recommend some affordable and reliable companies?""

How much does it cost to get a license to sell insurance?

How much does it cost to get a license to sell insurance?

Would the risk-neutral person ever buy insurance that was not fair?

If any one knows about this then please write in detail. thanks!

""According to the Hillary healthcare proposal, Individuals will be required to get and keep insurance in a

system where insurance is affordable and accesible. Is this a good idea? Why or why not?

About how long does it take to get plates for a new car through insurance company?

I just bought a new car and i have no plates for it. How long will it take for me to get the plates if I'll be registering through my new insurance company in MA?

""Car insurance for a 17 year old UK, is it cheaper if i add my mum as a driver?""

Basically, If I add my Mum as another driver to my car on my insurance, does the price get lowered?""

Local Car Rental Brooklyn NY No license/insurance to practice?

Local Car Rental Brooklyn NY No license/insurance to practice driving I will have a licensed person in the passenger seat, but i need a car just for one hour, to practice my skills and prepare for the exam this is very simple, i need a car to practice driving, i have about 15hrs, need mroe any local car rentals in Brooklyn NY? I do not care so much for the cost, as much as just simplifying the process of renting a car for a measly hour. Thanks""

Why buy life insurance?

I'm married, have 2 young children and wonder why I need life insurance""

Premium vs deductible? Health Insurance?

I'm really confused by everything having to deal with Health Insurance. I know a deductible is what you pay before the insurance company pays the rest. But what is the premium? And are these two related?? Please Help.

Steps in getting health insurance in one day?

Steps in getting health insurance in one day?

Go auto insurance company?

i am looking for some cheap car insurance company and i have found go auto insurance to be the cheapest so far with what i need. has anyone heard of this insurance company? and if so, good or bad?""

Where can you get cheap car insurance after serving a drink driving ban?

I think it is so unfair to hype up the premium.

Do you have to insure a vehicle that's not driven?

I own a Jeep that sits in front of my house (its not driven). Do I have to insure this vehicle?

Is the insurance for a ford mustang convertable cheaper or higher than a coupe?

I heard the convertable is cheaper but, that doesn't sound right. Please only answer if you have an idea.""

Do i need insurance to clean a church?

do i need insurance to clean a church?

What do you belive is the best insurance agency for teens?

I am a 16 year old who needs insurance. I plan on get a new car in a month which is my 17th birthday. The only problem is, I need to know what agent is the cheapest.""

What will happen to my insurance rate?

I'm an 18 year old driver with geico and I have just been in an accident (my fault). My tires skid as I braked and I hit the stopped car in front of me. Nobody was hurt and the other car's back bumper suffered some scratches. The bumper was still intact and the only thing noticeable is the paint transfer. The police came and he offered to not involve insurance but the other person insisted so now my question is, how much will my insurance go up? Cause I've heard the geico is pretty notorious for jacking up rates alot . Thanks""

16 yo male car insurance cost?

I will be driving my moms 2011 ford fiesta i have taken drivers ed i live in Ohio and the good student offer wont use how much does drivers ed take off

What car insurance company has the policy that you insure on person but anyone can drive it and be insured?

What car insurance company has the policy that you insure on person but anyone can drive it and be insured?

Can I Switch my Auto Insurance to Full Coverage Just To Get It Fixed????????????????

Currently I have liability auto insurance and i hit a deer. I have a really nice car but can't afford to get it repaired at the moment.(THE DAMAGES COSTS SOOOO MUCH!!!!!!!!!) Is there anyway that i can switch my car insurance to FULL COVERAGE JUST to get it fixed????? I heard that some people get full coverage and are able to fool the insurance company into paying for there damages, BUT HOW. IS THAT REALLY POSSIBLE WITHOUT GETTING CAUGHT. IF SO , PLEASE EXPLAIN TO ME HOW. I REALLY LOVE MY CAR, BUT CAN AFFORD TO GET IT FIXED. I REALLY NEED SOME HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!""

Ticket and insurance rates?

My parents have 3 cars all insured in their names. I am 18 and I have my license but they never put me on the insurance because I almost never drive I usually just bike or get rides so it would be a waste of money putting me on. But recently I had to drive and I got a ticket driving for the first time in about 6 months. I am trying to get my ticket taken off my record but if I can't and it stays on then whats next? will it affect my parents insurance? or will I be forced to get on the insurance too? Is there anything I can do since I'm most likely not going to drive again until I go out and buy my own car later on.

""How much would the cost of a 2003 lincoln ls front bumper be, and where can I find a bumper?

2003 silver Lincoln LS. Only reliability insurance on the car.

Best Job description for a full time eBay seller? (For car insurance quote)?

I'm about to renew my car insurance but need to find the most appropriate and accurate job description for my trade. I am self employed as a soul trader (UK) and my main income is achieved through making small hand crafted items (mostly material based) and sell them on eBay. So far I've been using the job description of 'artist' In the 'manufacturing' industry, but I was wondering if there was a more accurate one on the standardised job description list?""

I have reasontly had my car stolen and am wondering how much the insurance are going to pay me ?

my car was a red vaxaull corsa M reg (1994) very excellent condition one OAP as a previous owner it had done 95,000 miles and had 11 months mot on it i valued it with the insurers for 500 even tho i think its worth more! and i was covered for 3rd party, fire n theft! so and ideas as to how much i will get?""

Would fitted speakers in my car increase the insurance?

I love my music, especially dance music (can't get enough of Pjanno and Rolex) but I'm worried that the insurance might go up if I fit speakers in my car because in comparision websites, one of the sections talks about additional equipment on your car. If so, how much will the insurance go up by? getting quotes for around 1200 atm""

SSN check for auto insurance - WHY ?

I've received a number of answers for the question. It seems that in a number of cases the quote that's received depends on how good or bad your credit is. What's the difference if someone has bad credit, as long as he's a good driver? Insurance premiums are paid in advance so why the credit check ?""

I'm pregnant with no insurance and don't qualify for medicaid.?

I just found out I am pregnant. I'm 18, and I want to be realistic about how I can do this. I do NOT have insurance, and I know for a fact that my mother makes too much money (that all goes to bills) for me to qualify for medicaid. We literally have nothing left over, and still struggle. So I would have to pay out of pocket.. but I have nothing to my name. I just had a job interview but even that isn't guaranteed & I'm not even sure if I can work because I am already getting morning sickness. The father has no money or insurance whatsoever. & I am not stupid enough to rely on him. Is there any way that I can get help? *Please no lectures on how I should of thought of that before. No ****. We all make mistakes. Thank you.""

Cheapest auto insurance?

Cheapest auto insurance?

Vespa Insurance Help...!?

So I've just got a new Vespa LX50, 2009 - I'm 16 and have a provisional license and CBT. Does anyone know who the cheapest/best insurance providers are for scooters for young people - all the price comparison websites say different things, and that's no good. I'm looking for answers based on pass experience. If you're a young person and ride a moped/scooter - who do you use?? Thanks!""

I need cheap but good car insurance what do you recommend?

I need cheap but good car insurance what do you recommend?

Does medical Insurance transfer to a different state?

I have Kaiser Permante for medical insurance. It is very possible that I will move from California to Florida next January. How will my insurance switch? I heard there is no Kaiser there. Is there an alternative company? How can I find this out if I can't find out here?

Car insurance cover note?

Hello. Could anybody please help me to sort out? The thing is that at last I have just registered my European left-hand drive car in the UK. Before that not too many insurers could insure such a car,but I've found AJ Car Insurance company. They sent me a monthly Cover Note until my installments have payed in full, but the last Cover Note has been sent 5 days later then expected,because the insurer just forgot to send it on time and sent it after I reminded them...In fact they left my car without insurance for 5 days ... So can they do so and what can I do in such situation? Can I charge this company for that and how? Thanks anybody who answers my question.""

What is the definite BEST car insurance company?

My boyfriend and I are both 20 years old and we own a 2001 honda civic dx hatchback. Right now were on a plan with my brother so it's cheaper on us(Farmers insurance) but we are going to be moving out and getting our place and start paying for our own stuff. I'm confused as to which car insurance company is really the best because they all they they're the best. So really... tell me which car insurance company is the best and why. Allstate, The general, 21st century, geico, progressive, farmers, esurance or nationwide? Also note we live in california.""

I want a new car please help Car Insurance Help.?

Hey please help me i really want to get a car as soon as i can. I'm 20 years old i live in NYC. I am planning to buy a car as soon as i know the answer to this question. I want to know how much will i have to pay for my car insurance? I was thinking on putting it under my fathers name. He's 63 years old but he does not have a license but i heard he can buy a car and insurance it with his permit. How much would u think i have to pay if i put it under his name and mine? Please Help.

Florida Home insurance help?

I was recently dropped from my insurance company.My credit is bad so no one will cover me what should I do? I will also need flood insurance.

Will my Progressive Ins. rate go up with speed camera tickets?

I have progressive car insurance in MD and have received a lot of speeding camera tickets in the last few months (due to my driving and my brother driving my car). Does anyone know if Progressive insurance will keep track of these camera speeding tickets that will cause my car insurance rate to go up?

""I broke my brand new phone 2days after i got it, and i was still able to get insurance. Can i replace my phone?

I dripped my phone in a river 2 days after i got it. I called them and they said i can get insurance(but didnt tell them i broke it) i waited a few days and i was wondering if i can replace my phone?

Where can you get cheap car insurance after serving a drink driving ban?

I think it is so unfair to hype up the premium.

Cheapest insurance companies for 17 year old in the UK?

Got my cheapest quote from AdrianFlux so far. Anyone know any really cheap companies that would cover a 17 year old in Northern Ireland. Thanks

How much is an auto insurance for a $12.500 car?

How much is an auto insurance for a $12.500 car?

How much will my insurance go up after I've gotten a speeding ticket?

I got my first ticket when i was 14 and it was a $10 ticket. i recently turned 18, and i just got pulled over again. it was an $11 ticket. i dont want to tell my parents, but i know the insurance rate will go up, but how much? i live in north dakota.""

How much would a doctors check up be without insurance?

Please excuse my grammar, but I'm a bit panicky. I need to know the cost of a doctors check up in California for a 21 year old man without insurance. My boyfriend has been having some chest pains, and we think he sprained his wrist. I'm so worried about him. He can't afford insurance at the moment, due to the fact that he can barely pay for his college classes and food. I need an estimate from anyone who has been in a similar situation. Thank you so much in advance!!""

Do you need car insurance if you're bonded?

If I have a SR22 bond do I need car insurance as well? I've heard about them letters the BMV sends out and I don't wanna lose my license if they ask if my car is insured.

""Car insurance, applies to other car?""

Alright so, I plan on driving to a camping trip up in WI and I live in IL. The thing is, I don't know if I'm insured on the car I want to use. I usually drive an SUV (which my parents said they put my name under to use) so I'm insured on that one. But I want to take the other car because of gas mileage. I don't know how the insurance works. Am I covered on the other car too? P.S. My parents have State Farm as our insurance.""

Cheap car to insure for 17 year old boy?

Please just say a few car names and not your not geting any for cheap

Car Insurance quotes - when you get an online quote and it asks you?

how much your car is worth, do you quote the price you paid for it or its present price..? I ask because if you think about it you could have bought your car last year for 12, 000, and one year later it's worth 9,000. If you car is written off it isn't as ther inusrance company will pay out on the amount you paid for the car.. this happened to my brother and they only paid the value it was worth on the day of his crash which was considerably less....""

Car insurance ?

ok heres my problem. i am 18 and i just finished a drivers ed program i want to get my license but i cant because in order to take the road test to get my full license (not a learners) i need a car on which i am insured but i cannot buy a car because in order to even buy a car you need to have some one in the house which you live in who has car insurance and no one in my family drives so they dont have insurance as you can see im in a cycle that i cant get out of... what do i do?

Is AAA a car insurance?

is AAA a car insurance? and how much a year?

What's a good insurance company to sign with?

I'm 20 years and pay $800.00 every six months for my insurance. I want to find a better and much cheaper insurance company. Please help me out.

Will car insurance price drop in 2013?

I went to a local insurance company, called NFU Mutual - I was advised to wait till next year because its likely prices will drop a bit, young drivers pay a lot and was also told that women's insurance will be as much as men, there wont be a difference anymore whether you female or not. Is this true? I'm 21 and the cheapest I have been able to find was at 1.400 per year, or 1.500 per year paying monthly - on a Peugeot 106 Zest 2, 1.1 with quotemehappy.com Thank you!!""

Buying used car. What do I do for insurance?

I'm buying a new car today and I was wondering if I could drive it home (~2miles) without insurance. If not, what do I do? Thanks""

Teen car insurance question?

Hello. We moved this past summer and I currently reside with my grandparents for the purpose of keeping my job and staying at school. So he got a car insurance statement today saying that he has to pay nearly double his total amount just for me, a 17 year old driver, driving two of his cars. I only have a level 1 license by the way. They drive 2 new 2012 cars and trucks, would this price be accurate? Thank you.""

How much would insurance cost...?

For a 16 year old girl with a 1994 4x4 Jeep Wrangler:4 cylinder, 12 suspension lift, 15 black steel wheels, 36 Irok tires almost new , 455 gears, Detroit lockers, Chrome molly axles, rear disc brake conversion, front and rear steel braided brake lines, slip yoke axle flip""

How much is SR22 insurance?

i have 18 pts within 18 months and i have to take an ADI course and get SR22 insurance, how much will it run on average each month?""

Is a Infiniti G35 Coupe a good car For A Teenager?

I live in Alabama and my parents use Alfa Insurance and i about have them talked into getting me a 2004 Infiniti G35 Coupe and if they do get it for me which they probably will i was wandering if it would be high on insurance and is it a good car for a 16 year old?

How can I get a better auto insurance settlement?

I was involved in a collision recently. The other partys insurance company (met life) agreed that it was their clients fault. However, the other party had a witness saying I was speeding which I knew I was not. The claim adjuster from met life told me that there maybe a high possibility that theyll only give me 80% of the repair cost once it is proven that the witness doesnt know the other driver. If thats the case, is there a way to get a higher %? Or Ill need to fill a lawsuit against the other driver? PS: I do not have full insurance coverage, thats why Im dealing with Met life myself. I have not gone to get an estimate on repair cost yet, but will do tomorrow.""

Vehicle Insurance Survey4?

11) Please mention your agreement level with the following statements 1) Strongly disagree 2) Disagree 3) Neutral 4) Agree 5) Strongly Agree Statements 1 2 3 4 5 My insurance company settle claims faster as per my expectation My company introduces different product to my requirement My insurance company does not settle claims as per my expectation 12) Please mention the level of satisfaction with the following features offered by current insurance company. Criteria Highly Dissatisfied Dissatisfied Neutral Satisfied Highly Satisfied Cost Brand Referral Hassles free claims Bonus rate Ease of purchase Return fee Professional advice Linked with another product Choice of selecting your own service centre 13) How many years you have been using your vehicle (i) Less than 2 YEARS [ ] (ii) 2-5 YEARS [ ] (iii) 5-10 YEARS [ ] (iv) MORE THAN 10 YEARS [ ] Please fill Vehicle Insurance Survey5

Can my insurance company sell off my total loss car without making payment to me first?

My car was involved in an accident in Dec 07 to which the insurance company said was a total loss. To date i have not accepted their offer and the matter has now been refered to FOS. I have just received a letter from DVLA advising me someone else has requested a V5C for the car and if i am still the legal owner. Can the insurance company sell the car without me agreeing? is this not theft? What can i do about it? any advice/help will be greatly appreciated...

Renting a car with no insurance.?

Hello there, I'm over 25 and have a driver's license but I currently don't own a car therefore I do not have car insurance. I know that usualy when you rent a car and you have car insurance, you won't have to pay extra for rental car insurance. How does that work if I don't have insurance right now? Is extra insurance from the rental company expensive? Or would they even let me rent a car (only for a couple of days when I go to my cousin's wedding out of state) if I don't have car insurance? Any insights would help! I would hate to show up and not be able to rent a car and have to call someone to come get me. Thanks!""

Big car cheap insurance?

Can anyone suggest some large sized cars that are not high insurance. I'm very tall and need something comfortable but without a massive engine. I need comfort not speed. Plus I much prefer to drive bigger cars. I've looked at Audi's, BMW, Land rover, the usual suspects etc but all seem very high insurance. Even smaller engine BMW's and Audi's are high on insurance. Thanks!""

How much of a difference per month for car insurance is there between a sports car and a regular car?

How much of a difference per month for car insurance is there between a sports car and a regular car?

""Any good, affordable companies to get life and disability insurance from?""

Any good, affordable companies to get life and disability insurance from?""

Cheapest auto insurance rates?

i dont care what is covered and whats not, i don't care if i have a damn five thousand dollar deductible, i just want to be legal! How can this government mandate that we all must purchase insurance with some ty[e of non-inflated public option. Please answer the first question, and not the second...""

Where can you get cheap car insurance after serving a drink driving ban?

I think it is so unfair to hype up the premium.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/named-non-owner-insurance-florida-alan-riley/"

[usw-nuke]

A - Z

A list, in alphabetical order, of the majority of nodes or principles you will be using within Nuke, along with hints and tips on how to use them best.

Alpha

Information that tells Nuke how much or how little of an element should be output or shown.

An alpha can be created by rendering something out with an alpha channel. It can also be created through keying, Rotoscoping or with rotopaint.

You can see an Alpha channel by hitting 'A' on the keyboard whilst hovering over the viewer.

You can limit an element to solely outputting alpha information, or even remove an alpha channel, with a shuffle node.

Black = 0, nothing, 0%. White = 1, 100%, everything retained. Everything in between - some transparency.

How does an Alpha work? See - Premult.

Blur

If you wish to add some natural looking blur or depth of field to an element, then use Defocus or adjust the depth of field on a camera within a 3D scene, rather than the Blur node.

You can use a Blur node with a roto node if you want to soften up a shape.

Copy

A copy node is one of the main advantages of Nuke.

It lets us take alpha information from just about anywhere within our script, and apply it to something else. For instance, when keying, if we have applied a log2lin node to obtain a better key, we need to route our key back to the original footage with all that lovely, flat information shot as intended when originally shot within the greenscreen.

The A input needs to be plugged into the alpha, and the B input needs to be plugged into the backplate - or whatever you wish to apply that alpha to.

You need a Premult to finish the operation off - or else the alpha information and whatever you wish to apply it to will be left in two separate universes, never to be united - until you apply that Premult!

ColourCorrect

Use a ColourCorrect node to adjust the shadows, midtones and highlights of your element you wish to comp, to the shadows, midtones and highlights of whatever you wish to comp it into.

You can do this within the master settings, with contrast, gamma, gain … however, do not touch offset.

You can also adjust the colour and saturation of the element by clicking into the Hue ball to the right of the Saturation setting. If this is a little too subtle for you, you can always try a HueCorrect for a stronger approach.

Disable/Enable

You can disable or enable nodes by clicking on them and hitting 'D' on the keyboard. Useful for when you want to compare with or without a particular effect.

Dilate/Erode

If you wish to adjust and refine the edges of an element, you can apply an Erode node. Erode (fast) is probably your best shout, but be careful - it can occasionally damage the internal area of the alpha as well as the edges. It's possibly best applied as part of a Copy process.

Despill - See HueCorrect

See HueCorrect below - Getting rid of spill on a greenscreen plate - don't rely on plugins, as these will not always be an option for you within the industry. It's also not good to click a button mindlessly within a plugin and not understand how or why it's working within your script, as this makes troubleshooting harder later on.

Edge Blur

Can help soften up things like a harsh key edge, or a hard roto edge. Quite nicely mimics the natural falloff and blend of pixels found in original footage.

Edge Detect

A useful little node that can find and output the edge of an element. Have a look through the filters to see which works best for you. Useful if you want to create your own lightwrap, or blend a backplate into your key to help things out. Will need a Grade node directly after it to help refine the node's edge finding, as it doesn't always see the edge straight away.

Edge refining in Keying -

http://franzbrandstaetter.com/?p=452

An excellent bonus tutorial that does help if your key has some nasty edges and is a pretty reasonable and easy way of fixing things.

Framehold

Can be used to freeze the animation or playback of anything - a rotopaint or roto patch, footage, or even a camera or geo in 3D.

Grain

When denoising footage, grain needs to be reapplied at the very end of your script, right before the Write node.

You can adjust the red, green and blue values to match the original plate within size, irregularity and intensity. You can be more specific and match it by channel also, by looking at the R, G and B channels individually.

Don't forget to uncheck 'Apply only through alpha' to ensure it is evenly applied to the whole comp.

Grade

A grade node can be used to match one element to another - by clicking into the colour selection box of the blackpoint and command-clicking to choose the darkest point of the element you wish to match to (Identical process to choosing the green tone you wish to key in keylight). You can then command-click to choose the darkest point of your element in the 'lift' colour selection box to match to it.

The whitepoint and gain can be used in the same way to match the highlights or whitepoints.

You can also use a Grade node to refine an alpha, under whitepoint and blackpoint. Ensure you change the 'channels' option to alpha.

HueCorrect

Huecorrect is a great way of manually dealing with spill. With the huecorrect node open, command-click into any colour within your viewer, and watch as the graph moves around to show you where a particular tone lives on the colour spectrum (yellow vertical line) and the value (horizontal grey line).

Command-click to target the colour you wish to get rid of - let's say green - and then click the green channel within Huecorrect once the graph has frozen to indicate the tone and value of the colour.

Line up one of the dots vertically with the yellow line, and then drag downwards - carefully - to reduce the value of the chosen colour.

This may cause breaking or noise in other areas of the plate, so if you wish to be really careful, roto only the bits you wish to affect, and plug the roto node into the Huecorrect node via the mask input.

Keylight

Important things to remember when using Keylight -

1. Breakup your key into as many parts as possible. Key a few different parts of your footage at first, see where keys easily, and see what will need more work - and mask accordingly. 2. Your clip black and clip white values need to be adjusted as little as possible. Your clip black ideally should not go above 0.1, and your clip white ideally should not go below 0.8 (0.9 at best). 3. Use the Y gamma slider to help see where the grey values are, that need to be gotten rid of. Push it up to 2 for clip black, and down to 0.2 for clip white. 4. Ideally always, but especially if you key using log2lin, the key needs to be applied back to the original footage. See Copy for a reminder.

LightWrap

This node helps replicate the effect of light from the backplate affecting the edges of your keyed element or any other element you are comping in.

A is what you want to apply the lightwrap to, and B is where you want the light to come from.

Don't forget that you can apply things like Glow or Transform into the B line between the lightwrap and the element you're taking light from, to make the backplate blurrier, bigger, or adjust its position to apply lightwrap more effectively and realistically to your element.

Log2Lin

When shooting in log in the greenscreen, it gives a 'flatter' look, and retains far more information within the footage, allowing us to really push colour correct and comp the element more effectively.

We can also apply a log2lin node to footage to convert it back to linear. This results in footage with more vivid colours, and higher contrast, making keying far easier. Log footage, as it is naturally flat and dull, can have greens that are difficult to key or for Keylight to recognise.

Don't forget to apply your key back to the original footage - See Copy for a reminder.

Multiply[Math]

A common question is, how do we affect the opacity of something in Nuke, like we can in After Effects? Welp, here's your best node for that. Attach a multiply node to an element. Bringing it down towards 0 will make the element disappear, as we are multiplying by 0 or a value lower than 1.

Pushing the value up above 1 will multiply the alpha information, making something stronger or more vivid.

You can keyframe a multiply node if you want to make something appear or disappear over time.

Noise

The noise node is handy to play around with if you wish to create a soft effect like clouds, haze, atmospherics, or to make something appear/disappear with some more creative control.

Plugins

Use responsibly, if you must … and bear in mind you will most likely not be able to use them within industry.

Never produce something using a plugin that you can't produce yourself, or it could be embarrassing if you get hired to produce that particular effect.

For plugins in general that appear to fix things like spill etc., I quote Mr. Weasley, in the Chamber of Secrets - "Ginny! Haven't I taught you anything? What have I always told you? Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain…"

Premult

A premult node essentially completes the mathematical operation of a Copy node - or, it directly applies alpha information to an element.

The way it works is like so - Alpha information consists of values of 1 (bright white), 0 (black) or anything in-between (grey, will be semi transparent).

If you imagine that we then put the alpha directly over the top of the plate we wish to apply it to, like two pieces of paper overlaid ontop of each other - The premult applies this alpha information to the RGB values directly underneath it.

So for instance, when keying, we choose all the green and we make an alpha with black - or a value of 0 - in all these areas of green. Everything else is white, or 1.

When this is applied to the greenscreen plate, Nuke gets rid of all the green, as the premult tells it to apply a value of 0 to all the areas of green. But everything else is retained, as it has a value of 1. And that's how the keying process, and premulting, essentially works.

You could use a Premult after a Copy, or after a roto node.

Project Settings

Always ensure that your project settings are set to the size of the plate you are working on - or things like roto, rotopaint, transform or even tracking will not appear to line up.

Sometimes this can be fixed later, but mostly it can be catastrophic and will mean parts of a script have to be redone. So please do ensure this is set correctly as soon as you create a script.

Roto

Important rules when Rotoscoping:

1. Use as few points as possible.

2. Find a sensible place to start Rotoscoping from. Watch the plate a few times first and get a feel for how things animate and move.

3. Break up an element into as many pieces as you can, don't fight to retain too much within one mask.

4. Rather than feather within the roto node, use a blur or an edge blur after it.

Rotopaint

Important things to remember when using the Rotopaint node:

1. Try and have one rotopaint node per patch when cleaning up. This makes it easier to control later on, especially if you end up having to change the shape or animation of a patch, or revisit it.

2. ALWAYS VIEW THE ROTOPAINT NODE WHILST WORKING ON IT. Or you will see nothing, nada, zilch! This is the most common issue or problem that comes up. Get into the habit of creating a rotopaint node and viewing it straight away.

3. Keep your opacity very low, around 0.1, when cloning. This helps you to blend.

4. Use the line between your source and the paint area to help you line up elements with straight edges, like doorways or corners.

5. Check out Blackboard for a tutorial on removing tracker markers.

6. Sometimes footage is fast enough and varies enough frame by frame that you can get away with cloning something out frame by frame…sometimes.

Reformat

Let's say you are working on a plate of 1920*1080, and your project settings are correspondingly 1920*1080. If you bring in a 4k element, or an element of any other size, you will need to apply a reformat node to it, or you will see a 'tearing' effect.

Reformatting can be used to change the size of an element if needed, but it can be very slow. Don't work on a 4k plate and reformat it to 1920*1080 if you are eventually writing out a 1920*1080 comp for example - just work on a 1920*1080 plate!

Shuffle

We can use a Shuffle node to output a single channel of information from an element - e.g., just the alpha information, or we can use one to output just R, G, or B if we want to key using a particular channel.

Scanline Render

A scanline render performs the pretty cool task of taking everything in a 3D scene and converting it back into a 2D element for use, so we can comp everything in that 3D scene back over our 2D plate.

If you ever see pixellation or strange quality issues in a scanline render, try changing the filter.

Switch

A switch can be used to swap between two elements, nodes or parts of a script. Simply keyframe a switch between input 1 and input 0. Be careful, this isn't always a smooth transition.

Tracker - 2D

Important things to remember -

1. The inside area of the tracker box is what you want to track.

2. The outside area of the tracker box is where you want it to search.

3. Always set a reference frame for the frame where you have deliberately lined up things correctly.

4. You can export multiple things from a Tracker - like a transform node, a corner pin …

Tracker - 3D

Important things to remember -

1. Try and tell the tracker as much as you can about the camera … but sometimes, Nuke can do just as well without it. Always be prepared to try different things if the first way didn't work.

2. Nuke recognises floor planes really well as, well, flat floor planes, but it doesn't do so well with vertical planes. When producing a Card from chosen points in the scene, you may need to zero out all the rotational values.

3. Always preview features and set them as high as possible - around 500 is normally good. (In the Settings panel)4. You can use a colourcorrect and a sharpen before the cameraTracker node to help it identify things within the plate a little better, by darkening it up or lightening it, increasing contrast, etc.

Write

We use the Write node to render out from Nuke. The write node will actually do you a lot of favours if you tell it what you want to do directly.

If you want to write out a basic .mov - simply click the folder icon next to file, click and navigate to where you want to save it, and then add the name of the file at the very end of the path it will have created for you. Finish with .mov, and the Write node should fill in the rest.

If you want to write out an .exr sequence - as above, but instead of .mov, write .####.exr. Always use four #'s or frame pads.

[seanbyrnevfxblog-blog]

Glow Worms Evaluation

Firstly, I decided I was going to look at the client reference and come up with a plan on what to do. I also created a PowerPoint of which I presented to my tutor, within this research I looked at a lot of what was on our brief then moving onto one of my all time favourite creators Walt Disney himself. One of the things that kept sticking into my mind that would also blend very well into this project was his creation of Alice in wonderland and her whole world being about the unseen world in the grass and bushes etc. I came up with the idea of creating a character out of plasticine. With this character I was going to take stop motion images on a green screen background then take some pictures with a camera of a street and a small patch of trees to get the look of my character walking down the street then shrinking down to the size of the grass to then be able to interact with a glow worm. Although I believed this to be a very good idea I believed it to be a little tricky and also a little bit too time consuming as I wanted to complete my project on time for the deadline we had set. I also noticed that the rest of my class was also doing stop motion. With this in mind I the took the initiative of setting myself a task that was apart from the rest of the class. Keeping the idea in mind of a glow worm and the patch of trees I then set out to look into creating 2D spaces look like 3D spaces with camera on After Effects. I also did some primary research by asking my manager of where I work on how the effect of cameras in After Effects can set my work into this 3D world through the different perspectives.

After doing some research on cameras I then looked into how to make an effect of burning wood carvings. Using YouTube I taught myself how to create this effect. I also used my laptop to draw up a few different ideas on what I wanted to use for my project. I came up with the idea of creating a wood type effect on a text format of the words ‘Glow Worms’ after this I set out to create a small glow worm and a patch of tress and grass focusing more on the size of the grass. This way I could incorporate my original idea of the shrunken world (Almost like Alice in wonderland). Although some things were a little tricky with creating my own assets for this task. Starting off with the fact that I created everything from digital creations in Adobe’s different programmes. When doing this I kept on being obstructed by the fact that different programmes do not always work very well with the formats I was attempting to use on my final outcome. After I made the wood type effect for my text writing in photoshop. I then was stuck with the problem of the colours and different formats not working correctly with Illustrator. I over come this in the end with doing a little more research and asking people I know, to then not use illustrator at all. I removed the colour from my original drawings and inverted the colours of my drawings with only white and black. This also included my trees, grass and glow worm.

 Now that I have finished creating my assets that I want to use in my project I gathered the wood plane I also wanted to use as my ‘Background’. I imported everything into After Effects and started by taking my background and putting my inverted artwork into place all within the 2D space. After putting everything into its position I selected all the drawings apart from my background and image traced and inverted them into the background. What this did was turned them from images into an outline making them look as if they have been slightly carved into the wood. Then using this effect, I made After Effect hide the lines and draw them out over a short period. By starting all the outlines at different times this created the look that everything had sort of a domino effect. After this I duplicated the layers of what I just did to then create a blur layer and an overlay layer using this allowed me to change the colours to make it look as if there was a ‘spark’ burning into the wood this then allowed it to look as if it was leaving the burned lines as carvings behind the spark. This effect was made up by the trickery of colours, blur radius and line sizes allowing the person viewing the final outcome to believe in the illusion of burning, Again, there was some small set backs with this like finishing with 5 or so layers then realising that the radius or the depth did not match correctly so with a few minor changes I was able to make everything sit together nicely.

After all of this I decided to get a light and have the light glow twice on the tip of the glow worms tail, doing this just allowed the glow worm to pop out from the grass. This had a few different problems itself such as not being able to get the correct radius or being able to make the light glow brightly and fit well with the rest of the project. After tweaking the light 3 or 4 times I settled on what I believed to fit nicely into the project without being exaggerate.

 I then moved on to start with my camera after liking the outcome of how all my assets fit together smoothly. I encountered one problem almost instantly after placing the camera into my project. I could not understand why my camera would not zoom out, as I knew this was what would take my project from the 2D world into the more 3D element of after effects I thought back to my primary research with my manager. As this was one of the first times I have ever used a camera in After Effects I finally noticed that I had not turned my pre-comp into a 3D layer. After doing this the camera allowed me to use it freely. I started with my end point where I wanted the view to end up zoomed in a little to allow the effects to carry on for the last 3 seconds just slowly moving out. Then I took the camera down the view of the background using all the axis I twisted and turned my camera to give it a final effect of a 3D background in a dark space. I believed the camera to be a little tricky to use but after using the camera tool for about 3 hours I got the hang of how it moves and where are good spots to place it. I also encountered the problem of zooming too far in and turning 180 degrees, this then made everything look reversed. Again, as this was my first time of properly using the camera I was extremely confused but after playing around with the camera for some time I came to find out what I had done.

 Next time I will be taking into consideration when using the camera tool is the zooming distance and the rotation of prospective. One of the other things I wanted to consider when using the camera is using a null object and using the parent tool. This could then attach the null to the camera giving me the ability to move the null object freely and see the outcome a lot easier. This will be another thing I will also try out to see what is the easiest way of perfecting the camera.

 All in all I encountered a few little set backs but I believe my final project outcome to be at quite a high standard and to run very smoothly as this is the key element of what I was attempting to achieve with this project, This also allowed me to learn from my mistakes and I will be taking this all on board as a good learning process.

[evannalily]

https://www.newlook.com/row/womens/clothing/loungewear/pale-blue-button-up-ribbed-knit-cardigan/p/656719845?comp=PDP-Color-Swatch

So obviously while we are all in quarantine our usual routines are out of whack and all normal rules go out the window so I don’t know about you but my usual wardrobe has gone out the window and I am living in sweats and hoodies. Any other than these is only on for the sole purpose of going to buy food. I usually put effort into my day to day wear as I need to be stylish for work and then change into sweats or pjs when I come home to be comfortable but now Im literally in a vest and joggers everyday. I applaud anyone who is actually getting dressed to be at home!

I used to be like that years ago and I would always be in jeans and a nice top with full face make up on on my day off with my hair styled just incase someone called to the house and up until about a year ago I didn’t own a single pair of sweat pants. Since then I have calmed down and now on my days off I am make up free and in comfy wear. Since work closed I was actually quite excited at the thought of not having to be “on” in terms of being dressed for work and having make up and was looking forward to just taking a break from having to put effort into my everyday look. My skin is having a serious break from make up and cosmetics only getting its usual face mask when I shower and a touch of moisturiser in the morning and evening and just being exposed to the air and light without having an extra layer on it. Another thing I think a lot of women will agree with here is the fact that we can go bra free every day which is great. I also think it is kind of healthy in a way that they are not propped up/lifted up/sitting up on a wire or elastic everyday as opposed to just being free. However if you are still having to put that little bit of effort in for video calls, work face-times, college video calls etc then there are some cute everyday pieces you can wear as comfortable home looks too.

Also fair play to any bloggers/influencers who are doing full on looks for instagram/tik tok videos/content because I literally cannot be bothered and the thought of having to take off make up is draining at this point!

https://www.newlook.com/row/womens/clothing/loungewear/camel-puff-sleeve-cardigan-/p/651925617?comp=Browse

https://www.newlook.com/row/womens/clothing/jeans/pale-blue-%27lift-%26-shape%27-emilee-jeggings/p/643899545?comp=Search

https://www.newlook.com/row/womens/clothing/loungewear/white-v-neck-t-shirt/p/647358110?comp=Browse

https://www.newlook.com/row/womens/clothing/loungewear/black-cycling-shorts/p/655905901?comp=Browse

https://www.newlook.com/row/womens/clothing/loungewear/dark-grey-acid-wash-oversized-t-shirt/p/656076503?comp=Browse

https://www.newlook.com/row/womens/clothing/leggings/black-contrast-side-stripe-leggings/p/659005009?comp=Browse

https://www.newlook.com/row/womens/clothing/loungewear/pale-grey-long-sleeve-jersey-hoodie/p/632406202?comp=Browse

https://www.newlook.com/row/womens/clothing/loungewear/black-organic-cotton-vest/p/648821601?comp=Browse

https://www.newlook.com/row/womens/clothing/loungewear/pale-grey-marl-cuffed-joggers/p/632963802?comp=Browse

https://www.newlook.com/row/womens/clothing/knitwear/pale-pink-fine-knit-button-crop-cardigan/p/644836272?comp=PDP-Color-Swatch

https://www.newlook.com/row/womens/clothing/loungewear/dark-grey-fine-knit-batwing-jumper/p/657711503?comp=Browse

https://www.newlook.com/row/womens/clothing/loungewear/cream-fine-knit-rib-longline-cardigan/p/597301914?comp=PDP-Color-Swatch

https://www.newlook.com/row/womens/clothing/sportswear/sculpt-pink-marble-print-sports-leggings/p/655378179?comp=Browse

https://www.newlook.com/row/womens/clothing/sportswear/sculpt-pink-marble-print-sports-bra/p/655381479?comp=Browse

https://www.newlook.com/row/womens/clothing/sportswear/pale-blue-colour-block-sports-leggings/p/644323845?comp=Browse

https://www.newlook.com/row/womens/clothing/loungewear/black-midi-length-leggings/p/655906101?comp=Browse

https://www.newlook.com/row/womens/clothing/loungewear/black-revere-collar-pyjama-short-set/p/647779801?comp=Browse

https://www.newlook.com/row/womens/clothing/loungewear/black-lace-trim-cami-and-shorts-pyjama-set/p/632376201?comp=Browse

These pieces are all from Newlook (*not sponsored/affiliated/advert) and I have seen a good few bloggers/influencers in some really nice knitwear pieces like the camel coloured cardigan which would be very cute with jeans as well as being paired with leggings. One thing that I think is a must have during this stay at home period is cycling shorts. They were all the rage last year and even though it took me a while to come around to that trend I love the pair I have! They go so well with oversized t-shirts, hoodies but are also good under dresses and blazers for everyday. The look that I am going for (inadvertently) everyday is more the Kim Kardashian joggers and a vest top which is the exact two products here with he grey joggers and the black cotton vest so I still feel a little trendy. Obviously Pjs are another option and these two options here are very casual chic pieces. Paired with a nice fluffy robe you have a very cute at home look without having to go the full sweats and a vest look if you prefer to look like you have a “look” without having to go the full way.

As I mentioned I am not being sponsored/affiliated/paid to advertise Newlook and its product in this post but the Newlook where I do work as my main job in Killarney does have its own Instagram (@newlookkillarney) where I along with other management post outfits, promotions and products and even though the store is closed at the moment there is a highlight in the profile where I am posting items from online and we have a couple of games going in our stories like find the emoji in the image so if you want to keep up to date with us and the products we have in-store (once reopened) then please give us a follow! (again I am not being paid/sponsored to do this I am just trying to keep our lovely customers minds from getting overwhelmed by the news and the pandemic with some fashion and games thrown in).

Ever yours

Lily

xx

Comfy Cosy : At Home Looks So obviously while we are all in quarantine our usual routines are out of whack and all normal rules go out the window so I don't know about you but my usual wardrobe has gone out the window and I am living in sweats and hoodies.