#creativity central

[creativity-central]

Blog 12: Line Weight

Hello everyone! It’s nearly the end of summer, and with the weight of school drawing ever closer, I’d like to talk about the weight of… line art!

Personally, as an artist, I used to take pride in my uniform, unweighted lines that make my work look more consistent. Indeed, there’s nothing wrong with doing so, but over time, I started to experiment with using line weight in my art and found that it enhanced my work drastically! Thus, I’m passing these findings onto you!

Line weight can be unconscious depending on the pen you use for line art, both digitally and traditionally! However, there are specific ways that weight can be used to emphasize certain parts of your drawings. Areas that aren’t hit by a light source can have thicker lines to simulate shadows. Objects placed closer to the camera, and thus enlarged, can get thicker lines as well. Lastly, things pulled down on by gravity can have a transition from thin to thick lines going down (typically fabrics, like skirts!). These three examples are typically the main examples of varying pen weights being used.

Another common use, however, is shading as well! Familiar with crosshatching? Well, making thicker lines the farther down you go can also enhance its look! This kind of stuff can be found in traditional comics that depend on pure black in order to shade.

If this variance seems daunting, start off with some exercises to warm up to it! Make rows of straight lines that start off thin and end up thick. Make thick lines that end up thin. Make lines that pulsate between thin and thick (this can create a stitch or bead-like appearance!). Go crazy, and don’t be afraid to put pressure onto the paper!

Line art is more than just a more polished sketch, it can be used to make bold emphasis or smooth, flowing textures, and much of that can depend on your use of line weight! Make the most out of it! And with that, I’ll see you all next month!

[suburbanbonfire]

Another year, here we go!

(prints here)

some wip shots since I know some people like seeing them!

meant to take more screenshots, but ended up super busy and forgot once I came back after a few months, whoops. Making the iceberg itself was super fun!

[coffeenuts]

[pjharvey]

yah middling/extremely radio friendly pop artists have been doing crazy and provocative visuals for their videos, stage performances, album art, etc for ages and having outfits that are “too out there” for how their music sounds so re: chappell roan this is nothing new. lil nas x kind of does pop rap that isn’t bad but also nothing particularly special, and he has had some insane music videos. lady gaga did this, miley cyrus did this, halsey is doing this, the weeknd did this, even taylor swift in her reputation era did this

[kaynineacademy]

i couldn't possible explain it but somehow new york city makes me want to be alive.

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

hey hey ! ive been lovingly staring at all ur art ever since i found you n ‘ i wanna say !! i love ur artstyle !! sm !! waaugh !! <33

have a star ⭐️

a question ive been meaning to ask though , i cant really seem to find much information about your lights out au , unfortunately ^^”

may i ask what exactly is the premises ? :O

so the Lights Out au is essentially: the Welcome Home Puppet Show was shut down prematurely, and without any warning to the puppets. the employees turn off the studio lights when they leave for the last time, completely abandoning the building and the sapient puppets inside. the building is locked and boarded up to ensure that nothing gets out.

the lights turn off halfway through the neighbors' "day", and everyone - except Wally - goes to sleep, assuming the day got away from them & its just time for bed. the lights never come back on, the neighbors don't wake up, and problems start to arise from the lack of light. Wally and Home are left to deal with all of this alone.

(and Eddie is in the water cause... well. he's just in there! fr tho it's just a running joke for the au <3)

[the-eldritch-it-gay]

Sanrymic "Flint" Tēhal Aesthetic — God consumes you, digests you, makes your decomposition a sacrament. You consume god, tearing into Him with your teeth every time you eat; He is not the god of harvest, He is the harvest.

Poem from [here]

[theknitpotato]

Entrance Hall of Antwerp Central Station, Belgium. Designed by Louis Delacenserie. 1905.

Photo by: @joethommas [IG]

[murdleandmarot]

Hi!! Gonna ask this to everyone I can think of, do you have any AUs you like/made up for cats? Or for bluebelle?

HI HELLO‼️ sorry for the delay in answering 😭

It’s hard for me personally to come up with AUs for Cats, (mostly because of the cognitive dissonance with the names. It’s so difficult to get past the names), so I personally only have a couple. Firstly, Much Ado About Nothing, by William Shakespeare.

I saw the show live and I just felt that the whimsy of it really matched cats, and I have all of the roles planned out, I think it would be very interesting and fun to write out :). I don’t want to go into too much detail here, (I really don’t want to make this post a thousand years long 😭), but if you’re interesting, just shoot me an ask and I’ll be happy to rant about it, I love Shakespeare :D

I have another au that I unfortunately can’t reveal right now, as it’s something I’m currently working on, but I promise it’ll be out soon :D

(it’s completely unserious btw and entirely for silly goofy indulgent reasons-I’m not trying to be dramatic about it but it’s just. Very special to me :)

OH‼️ there was a Bluebelle au I had, based on the movie Barbe Bleue (2009)

It’s a French movie about Bluebeard and it’s one of my favorites, it’s very vaguely historical, very gloomy with some REALLY fun scenes and ideas.

I’m more than a little obsessed with it, and at some point I REALLY want to do something with it, maybe a redraw of a still with Bluebelle, but who knows :)

Of course, other people’s au’s are the coolest in the entire world.

@/cillyscribbles has been driving me CRAZY with her human au, (it’s mostly about the Deut bros, and it is insanely good. Hasn’t left my mind since she told me all about it. Cilly when I get you Cilly)

@/margo-mania’s celestial au is SO rad, the concepts are gorgeous, and honestly could be made into a really really rad non-replica, especially with the potential of cool stage lighting, or poses (I’m thinking specifically of the eclipse (also I need Celestial!Victoria to marry me immediately))

@/pinkieclown’s doll(? Toy?) au is SO CUTE OMG. The character designs are so adorable. I want the newest design, munkustrap, as a plushie SO BAD.

Honestly, ALW should just give all of us collectively a billion dollars so we can create as many non-replicas as we want.

(Honorable mention to @/diorlusional’s apartment au, it’s my darling forever and ever)

[hiraethwrote]

don’t mind me, just going to queue up some amazing fics while i sulk a little about not participating in kinktober 🥲

[creativity-central]

Blog 10: Mermaids

A common artist tradition held in May is Mermay. It’s nothing official, but the pun sounds nice and it lets people have an excuse to draw as many mermaids as they please, whether they be original characters or favorites turned into mermaids! So, this months post is going to be a bit more lighthearted in nature by giving some observations I’ve seen in mermaid designs that could help you in the future, and in the future Mermays to come!

There’s not a single right way to draw mermaids, as long as part of them is a human and part of them is a fish (although the human part is preferably the torso and up). In fact, it doesn’t even need to be a fish. Lots of mermaids have been created with other aquatic wildlife, but let’s start simple before we reach that point.

Talking about mermaids will almost always bring up Ariel in people’s minds, her red hair and contrasting green-blue tail are just too iconic. However, her kind of mermaid is the simplest out of the ones to be mentioned here. Her fish side has tail fins, scales, and nothing more, and she wears a purple seashell bra. Other than these two aspects of her, there is nothing separating her from a normal human being, making her design feel like two beings stitched together rather than a whole.

The point of a mermaid may be that contrasting feel, and if Ariel is the ideal design you want in a mermaid, feel free! However, when considering mermaids as an actual singular creature, and bypassing the friendly vibes needed for a children’s’ film, you can get really creative with what you put into a mermaid.

When I think of an interesting depiction of mermaids, what comes to mind is the popular web comic Castle Swimmer. Not only that, but a variety of animals are referenced when creating the people of this world, from octopi, to sharks, to hermit crabs. So how do they do it?

The first thing to note here is that, unlike the Little Mermaid, this rendition decides to include more features of the fish. Not only are the tail fins included, but there can also be other parts of fish anatomy. In these designs, the dorsal fin is logically placed on their backs. The variety of fins on a fish are essential for proper movement, so including them in these mermaid designs makes it feel more believable. Not all aquatic animals have fins, but it’s good to acknowledge this even when designing other mermaids. Including additional legs, spikes, or whatnot to create a more cohesive design rather than putting a torso and tail together could be what brings it together.

Not only that, but the animal a mermaid is based off of can influence the physical appearance and clothes worn by the human side. Remember how Ariel looked like any old human without her tail? That isn’t the case here, as you can see their skins share the same scales and colors as their fish sides. Not only that, but features such as gills, sharp teeth, and webbed hands can make your human side look like it belongs underwater. You may need to go out of your comfort zone and mess around with physical features in order to find what fits. Some characters in Castle Swimmer have elongated noses or funny mustaches to go with their creature, and you might have to make the same cartoonish choices too!

Clothes are highly influenced by a mermaid species and their culture, so up to this point it really depends on whether you want the mermaid design to be lighthearted or have a deeper meaning, whichever makes it fun! That being said, a big part of clothes is just getting experimental. Some mermaid designs implement trash into their designs because of rampant water pollution, and how actual aquatic life can get stuck and choke on littered plastic! When considering culture, think about what your animal may represent or, if you’re an animal nerd/willing to research, find out what the animals can actually do and what their lives are like. More feisty animals can have battle armor, while intelligent species can make use of complex tools alongside their outfits, the list goes on.

I hope this shed some light on how the designs of mermaids can work, and how diverse you can get with them. I hadn’t even gotten into the trend of turning mermaids into cryptic creatures due to how scary deep sea wildlife can be! There’s truly a lot to be done. Mermay is an opportunity to have fun and draw mermaids for the sake of mermaids, but it can also help exercise your creativity and go beyond your comfort zone! Even while the month comes to a close, there’s nothing stopping you from designing a mermaid any time of the year, so why not try it out now? Use some suggestions from this post, pick an animal you like, or maybe one that’s more uncommon in the mermaid community, and have fun drawing! That’s all for today, see ya around!

[humblemooncat]

I'm reusing this picture, it's too cute not to

Mooncat's Housing Crawl Masterlist

Housing Crawl 1

[x]

Housing Crawl 2

Aether/Dynamis | Crystal | Primal

I'll add to this as I do more so there's a central location to find all the wonderful places I've visited! <3

[coffeenuts]

[asmileforyourscrapbooks]

listening to remembering sunday and crying bc nobody cares enough to write a song about loving me 😔

[drumlincountry]

So one of the WONDERFUL ladies in my writing group took me aside last time we met and said she'd been thinking about me a lot recently. She said she felt her creative self had been in suspended animation for years and years and years while she was working and raising a family. she said that NOW she's had a new lease on life because she's just retired and even tho she's taking care of aging parents and learning piano she's written more than ever before. And that made her think of me because I always say how I wish I had more time to write & she feels bad that none of the group can give me any advice on that because the only thing that helped her was retiring. But that she empathised and wished me well.

So I REALLY DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH THAT.

[midnight-drip]

shoutout to the short story I wrote in grade seven which included:

Accidental arsonist Ash Redmothe, whom I was far too vague about when mentioning exactly how they were involved in the arson (I had a really fun time writing them)

Strange wish-granting ghost who speaks in the third person and who I had a really hard time writing because I kept forgetting its pronouns

My signature Anxiety-Having MC who I think was low-key inspired by Moon from WoF

Minor antagonist, who, when I was naming him, I specifically remember translating words into French for and changing the spelling slightly (his name ended up being Culle Vaniteux)

Unnamed background character who was just constantly lying, even when talking directly to a P.I.