#doing actual studying with grayscale

[th3e-m4ng0]

ok i like how i painted the top

[xuune]

Hii first of all, I FUCKIN LOVE YOUR ART! ITS GORGEOUS AND IM SURE EVERYONE CAN UNDERSTAND YOU REALLY GIVE YOUR SOUL INTO THAT🤧 Your color palette looks so good, What do you pay attention to when painting? (Like when do you think its better to use multiply or something like that and etc.)

first off, I'M HAPPY YOU CAN TELL THAT I PUT MY SOUL INTO MY ART!!! im genuinely in love with drawing and am always finding ways to make creating art enjoyable and impress myself with what i can achieve and learn :D

second, thanks for asking your question!! i dont mind answering it, but my response is quite long. here's my thinking process:

(you specified layer modes like multiply, so im gonna gear my answer towards that a bit) 1. REFERENCE SEARCHING IS KING. color is actually extremely hard for me, so i search around for artworks with palettes i'd like to use and study how an artist uses it. some situations i have a clear idea of what i want, but usually the images in my head are extremely vague, so i borrow palettes from various other artworks that fit the vibe of what i want. an example is this one. my main palette reference were from these artworks. im looking at this artist's use of high saturates and how drawings are overlayed on top of each other. while looking at references, im asking myself how is this artist using warm/cools, where are these warm/cools placed, if their illustration used any form of texturing (like halftones, hatching), how do they use their palette to render form/shape/gradient, when/where do they saturate/desaturate their colors. those questions inform my decisions when using colors too.

2. USING LAYER MODES WHEN NECESSARY. i used to be reliant on multiply for everything, which atp i dont do since i can definitely push colors more first before using layer modes. only when i feel like my current colors are lacking do i start tinkering with tone curves and/or brightness/contrast/hue/saturation/luminosity settings. and if that doesn't work, then i start using layer modes. using layer modes do help with achieving certain effects, color corrections, or when i want to fuck around and find out. i think having a better understanding of what these modes can do makes you more decisive on how you can properly utilize them and to achieve a particular look (like using multiply for a cel shaded style). here's an example:

this leads into my next point:

3. BALANCING OUT VALUES. big thing that makes an illustration hard to read is if values blend together which affects the hues and contrast. i check for what elements need to be distinguished from one another and if it can be read clearly. using layer modes can either help with this or not help at all. it's very dependent on the type of layer mode. here's this example where i applied pin light:

back to #2, there are various instances where i'm using layer modes for quick color corrections and/or to help with readability:

other times, i start off having my entire subject in gray and to figure out main shadow/lights (similar to the multiply cel shaded process i linked ealier). im thinking about what this should look like if i only used 2 value tones:

when in doubt though, i check my artwork in grayscale to ensure values aren't overly blended into each other, especially if i didnt start with grayscale like this one:

painting for me takes into consideration a lot of different aspects. im thinking about how colors should interact, where/when to give contrast, checking/balancing out values, etc, but im also making it a time to study off of how other artists use their colors through the references i collected.

hope this answered your question! lmk if there's more :]

[reverse-runaways-au]

humbly requesting some Reverend and Will first meeting content 🪽🤞🏻

This was both fun and a challenge to write!! No warnings here, other than what you probably already know about the characters and the Reverse Falls au.

Standing alone in the room, staring at the candles on the wooden floor, he braced himself. Again, the warning rang in Stanford’s mind.

Do not summon at all costs.

It was not a phrase to be taken lightly. Not an action to take without long, careful thought. Long sleepless hours of research and study, restless nights alone, turning it over and over in his mind. Preparing himself for what he wanted to do. A reckless man would have summoned the strange spirit, this dream demon, as soon as he could. He didn't like to think of himself that way. He liked to consider himself better than that.

Nothing else he'd come across had a warning like this. Nothing else had the potential like this. Nothing else begged for his attention like this. Begged for his control like this.

Too good to resist. Too good to hold back.

Yes. Whatever this truly was, demon or lesser spirit, or something else unimaginable, he was ready for it.

The candles flickered. Stanford Gleeful held his breath. A wind wrapped around him, tossing his hair as the world distorted into grayscale. Behind his arms he watched with wide eyes as a hole ripped itself open in reality. A triangle through which he could see the whole cosmos watching back.

He blinked.

The eye within the hole blinked back.

Reality turned solid again. The triangle seemed to smile, looking around the room.

“I'm back,” he said.

Stanford lowered his arms, and stared. He was a strange thing, dark arms and legs with a top hat and tie. All blue, an almost photo negative shade, with a single eye that looked at him with cheerful curiosity. Intelligence burned within it. So did power.

He couldn't look away.

“So!” The little thing floated closer. “You're Stanford Gleeful!” He circled around, as if examining Stanford. “Yknow, I didn't think you'd actually do it. Summon me. I'm glad you did though! It's nice to talk to a human again.”

“How-” Stanford swallowed. “How do you know my name?”

The triangle laughed. “What don't I know!” He said. “I'm practically a god of knowledge!” He rubbed his face with his little hand. “But uh. I've actually been hoping someone would summon me for a long time. The last guys didn't like me. They thought I was annoying. I saw you find that old stuff-” He gestured to the desk across the room. “- and I thought, maybe this time it'll happen! And go better, too! I shouldn't hope, it's gotten me in trouble before. But for once, it worked out!”

He reached out and brushed a few strands of hair out of Stanford's face, before flicking him on the nose.

“Name's Will Cipher! Great to finally meet you. Hope I don't let you down!”

Stanford felt something odd wrapping around inside him. Like… intrigue. Interest. Attraction? He couldn't say. This whole situation caught him off guard. He'd expected a demon like his grandfather spoke of so often in his sermons, in personality, if nothing else.

But Will, he seemed… Nice. Innocent, even.

“So!” Will crossed his legs and looked at Stanford with clear eagerness. “What would you like to do first?”

Right. He'd wanted to test the demon with questions. See how powerful, how dangerous, he truly was. But he couldn't remember them anymore. Damn it.

“Hold on,” Stanford said, raising his hand. “What was it you just said about being a god?”

“Compared to humans, yeah!” Will said. “I'll show you! You want to see something fun?”

“... Yes?” Stanford said.

Will took off his hat and tossed it in the air. He spun around in a blur of blue and black, moving so quickly Stanford could not see him anymore. The hat shot up, almost hitting the ceiling, and drifted back down.

The hand that caught the hat was human, in black fingerless gloves. The head that the hand put the hat back onto, covered in blonde hair, was also human. Dark blue eyes winked at him, human eyes, a human face. A human body dressed in a blue vest over a black sleeveless turtleneck and dark pants, lean and youthful and grinning wide. Will adjusted his tie.

“What do you think?” Will said.

Something about Stanford's face must've caught Will’s attention. He wilted.

“... I didn't make you uncomfortable did I?” He said. “I can change back if you-”

“No!”

Stanford lowered his hand. He exhaled. Forced himself to smile through his disbelief.

“I… I like it.”

But Will must have known that. How, he would need to figure out. Stanford never told a soul about his true desire in a partner. He would never let anyone know he was gay. But this form that this bright-eyed demon took…

He must have known. How else could he have chosen a body that captured everything he'd ever fantasized about?

“Thanks!” Will said.

Or maybe he didn't. Maybe it was an accident. Maybe it was fate.

Maybe they were meant for each other.

Stanford grinned. This was the best decision he ever made in his life.

[babyrdie]

Achilles if he was the Champion on Olympus instead of Theseus and Asterius, inspired by a fic (by @baejax-the-great) I read recently.

I ended up drawing Achilles because I wanted to train more metal and Patroclus in this fic doesn't have much metal in his design. Maybe I'll try to do Patroclus too, but I can't promise anything because trying to imitate Hades has already taken me a long time for a train.

I tried to use Hades' style as a kind of observation study. Honestly, I already knew it was going to be difficult all along because I don't have stylization as my strong point, and also the style of this game seemed so unique that it gave me the impression that it would be difficult to replicate. All said and done, it really is. Even if I cheated by establishing a firmer pose on Achilles to avoid the need to draw a good gesture, it doesn't change that the rest is still outside my comfort area.

My conclusion was: the head is the hardest part for me, which I didn't expect. My facial style is very different from Hades' style, so it complicates my life. Plus, using just one brush for the whole thing is surprisingly good. I should practice gesturing instead of avoiding it.

And here I'm going to put some notes about Hades' style that helped me try to replicate it, but that's it: in Jen Zee's case, perceiving characteristic X is more complicated than doing characteristic X! I still think I need to train a lot to really be able to replicate it, especially in the head area. I don't know if this counts as a tutorial of sorts? But that's it, expect lots of images and explanations from here on in this post.

SHAPES

You can easily see "geometric" aspects of the drawing. It's easy to "disassemble" characters into shapes, which is a kind of basic concept often used in drawings.

I think that trying to be "sharp" is a good thing, as most of the shapes I saw on the characters were more sharp than rounded.

I got the impression that Jen Zee focuses on the macro and then goes to the micro, not micro for macro. In other words, she first establishes a visible and well-made shape and then cares about details.

This is very good in terms of anatomy, because a common mistake artists make, for example, is to care too much about detailing things like the face and muscles instead of creating a well-done silhouette. It turns out that the detailed parts are realistic, but the character as a whole has questionable anatomy. Typical case of a perfect face, but too big or small for the body.

I think the most obvious example of Hades' style is its hair. There is no separation of hair strand by strand, but rather making a large, recognizable shape that will later be further molded.

LINEART

The line is always black. Don't paint!

Lineweight: the outer line is thick but the inner lines are thin. There isn't much more line weight variation other than that.

It's mostly consistent but, in some parts, it's purposely interrupted or less polished. It's nothing so noticeable that if you do it completely polished it will greatly affect the result, but if you intend to get as close as possible I would advise you to purposefully "fail" in some parts.

Even with these "flaws", it's a CONFIDENT lineart. This means that you will have more luck copying the style of making your drawings in firm, quick strokes at once rather than slowly retouching stroke by stroke. Draw a line and if it looks bad, just do it again. I don't recommend drawing over it to fix it.

I don't know if this fits in line, but I'll put it here. There are some random lines of striking colors here and there. At first glance, you don't even notice them, although they actually help the drawing stand out, but they are there.

COLORING

Color blocking is your friend.

Don't use blending tools, and use a hard brush and hard eraser. I used one of CSP's default brushes for the entire drawing. It's a style that doesn't require fancy brushes.

From what I saw, Jen Zee doesn't paint this style in grayscale but directly in color. If your fear is getting the color wrong, using layers is a faithful companion because it's easy to change a specific part.

It's IMPOSSIBLE to do the Hades style without inking, which is that part where in the traditional drawing you would apply the ink. In Hades, this is visible in the parts that are shaded black.

Inking is MAINLY used in areas where there is less light, such as the neck, but it's also widely used on metal surfaces.

Don't insist on gradients and blurring the drawing! The shadows here are more solid, quite easy to point out where they start and where they end. In some parts, the transition is made by putting an "edge" on the shadow in a tone that is between the shadow tone and the base tone, not by blending. In others, there is no transition at all. Faces, in particular, seemingly have no transitions.

In the illuminated parts, I particularly found it easier to use rubber to shape them. First paint straight and then start erasing and making the shapes.

Highlights are very important in this style, and they are generally in a more saturated tone.

It seemed easier to follow the order of base color > lighting than base color > shading. That is, first paint in the darkest tone and then add lighter tones instead of painting light and then making it dark.

-Use of complementary colors and analogous colors in certain palettes.

Color picking can make you a little insecure about the base colors, but trust the process because color theory is crazy. The base skin tone of Achilles in Hades is a yellow that is strange at first glance, but together with the other added tones it simply looks like a normal tan. Believe me, I was surprised at first! But, sure, it doesn't all have to be color-picking.

SOME EXAMPLES IN IMAGES

And now trying to explain what I already said, but visually. If you look at the images, I recommend zooming in. Very simple images because some of them were actually loose studies and not something made with the intention of posting so don't expect anything beautiful lol

[heyclickadee]

Because I have a tendency to get stuck in art blocks and s t r u g g l e badly with composition, and because I think The Bad Batch is a beautifully shot show, I’ve started doing rough grayscale studies of bad batch to unpack how line and value can be used to direct a viewer’s eye to where people want the audience to look. (I’m doing it with other movies and shows, but I do really like TBB, so….) That way, if I’m sitting in a period where I can’t draw, then maybe I can at least learn something. It’s not fan art, it’s just trying to break the composition down and make it make sense to me, but I think it’s interesting so I figured I’d throw them all here.

So! Potentially very boring things under the cut:

The thing that started this off was getting sent a gifset of the scene in “The Return” where Wrecker gives Crosshair his armor back. It’s a great scene, and one of the things that allows for the show to pull that moment off is the way that most everything in many of the shots is designed to draw the viewer’s attention to Crosshair’s face so that we’re paying attention to his reaction. For example:

It’s not a very high contrast shot, but if we block out the basics, most of the lines in the scene are directing us towards Crosshair. Both Wrecker and Omega make movements towards him in this shot, and then this movement is sort of carried over to Crosshair via the various lines in the background/Wrecker’s arm/even the crate. Additionally, our eyes tend to be drawn towards points of highest contract, which, in this shot, include the lamps in the far background against the pillars (forming a line from Wrecker to Crosshair) and the light hitting Crosshair’s face against the much darker background. Between all of this most people in the audience are going to end up automatically looking right at Crosshair who is, of course, the main person we’re supposed to paying attention to here.

This isn’t actually a full frame. I sort of grabbed a screenshot over the interwebs for this one, but The Bad Batch actually has a very wide aspect ratio. From what I understand it’s shot and aired in a CinemaScope ratio (2:39:1 or 2:35:1, though TBB is 2:39:1). It’s basically super ultra widescreen, an aspect ratio used when a filmmaker wants to make something feel more epic or cinematic, and as far as I know it’s the same aspect ratio used for the original trilogy before any cropping happened. (For reference, The Clone Wars was also shot in a CinemaScope ratio, 2:35:1, but was cropped to 16:9 for airing on Cartoon Network, and Rebels was shot and aired in 1:78/more or less 16:9.) So an uncropped screenshot of TBB would look more like this:

This is from “The Outpost.” It’s actually a fairly dark shot with Crosshair faced away from the camera and the value of his figure blending right into the rest of the foreground, which actually comes communicate a sense of someone who isn’t trying to draw attention to themselves (to me, anyway), but our eyes are drawn to Crosshair anyway by every major line in the shot as well as the highest point of contrast converging right over Crosshair’s shoulder. That, and the line of his rifle/shoulder and the support pole forming a big, well, cross-hair right in that same spot. Otherwise, he would blend right into the foreground and be easier to miss.

Unlike Hunter in this shot from “Plan 99”

Where basically you’ve got the exact same thing happening, every line in the shot converges on Hunter’s location, but instead of using just high contrast to draw our attention, we’ve got a fairly middle-gray scene with our eyes being drawn to the focal point by having one bright spotlight.

The orange cross mark I’ve drawn here is just to mark the center of the frame, which I wanted to point out since, at least as far as I’ve noticed, TBB has a tendency to save center and slightly off-center shots for really specific moments. I’d have to check on that and what the pattern is, though, since a few of the remaining shots in this post are center shot. (Filmmakers area generally taught shoot in thirds or, alternatively, on a phi grid or other away from center set of focal points, though you do get some center shot movies and shows. I think Raiders of the Lost Arc has a lot of center shots.)

In fact, a pretty good example of shooting in thirds (or on a phi grid—I laid it out and I think it fits the phi grid slightly better) is this shot from “Faster”

Where you’ve got Tech and Tay-0 placed on slightly close thirds on either side of the frame. If we’re just looking at line and value, with this shot we actually get this sort of interesting back and forth between where our eye is being drawn. A lot of the lines in the shot are directing us to look at Tech, but then you’ve got one of the lines going through, and the sweep of Tech’s arm and datapad pointing towards, Tay-0, whose face and body are outlined with a much higher contrast in value. And then we have that one very bold arc connecting the two. The result of this is that our eyes sort of bounce back and forth between these two characters as they get into their conversation.

Most of these shots have had just one or two (at most three) characters, and there are many scenes of TBB with everyone where our gaze is sort of directed to the group collectively, but sometimes you’ll have group scene where our attention is directed more towards one individual than others, like with this shot from “Battle Scars”

Once again, you’ve got most of the lines in the shot converging towards Rex as well as Rex’s person serving as the point of highest contrast while everyone else sort of melds into the background in terms of value. He’s also the first (and maybe only) figure who breaks fully above objects in the background to be shot directly against the sky. Line and value aren’t the only things directing the audience’s gaze towards Rex in this shot—there’s actually a lot of desaturation happening as we move from Rex, to the other characters, to the far background that helps as well, buuuuut this is a grayscale breakdown so that unfortunately doesn’t show up...here. (This is a center shot scene if we’re going horizontally, but Rex’s head, which is really the focal point, is right around the top third of the frame; it’s not exactly a low angle shot, but we are still looking up at him.)

Anyway, the reason any of this is important is because when you’re shooting with an incredibly wide aspect ratio like this, there’s a LOT of information being conveyed with every frame. You can fit a lot of stuff on screen at once. And while people generally going to rewatch and pay attention to background details (if nothing else, TBB is a goldmine for those background details), you do want to draw your audience’s attention to the most important parts of the frame—especially when an individual shot typically lasts only a few seconds. Or less. Like with this:

So this shot from "Faster" is up for less than a second before the camera turns to follow the speeders and then changes to another shot, and I had a devil of a time even getting screengrab of it. (Mostly because I was trying to grab it on my phone, but that's not really the point.) In less than a second the people making this have to communicate where Tech's speeder is, what's happening, what we're even looking at, while the objects in the scene are all moving incredibly fast. .

So, to communicate that, you've got multiple speeders moving in the shot, but only one (Tech's) standing out in terms of value against a fairly dark ceiling, as well as a combination of some real direct one-point linear perspective and the more or less arrow shape of the ramp pointing directly at the point Tech's speeder is going to be when it reaches the peak of its crest over the ramp. That way we're already looking at where Tech is going to be before he gets there and end up following his speeder as he zooms by.

[lynxgriffin]

Sorry to bother you again but do you have any tips on improving my art?

I always imagine stories that I can't animate or draw because I'm not skilled enough and I always feel discouraged.

Thanks!

There's a couple of different things you can do, depending on what angle you think suits you best! Although the truth behind all of them is that the way to improve your art is to do it, and just to keep doing it. Time and practice will always get you closer to where you want to be!

If there's something specific that you feel needs improving, spend a few weeks focusing just on that. Whether it's something like faces, hands, expressions, backgrounds, values/grayscale, or what have you, actually buckling down and studying just that thing for awhile can help you take a big step forward with it. The downside is that it can become tedious, and requires a lot of actual study and focus, which can be hard to maintain on your own.

If there's not anything in particular you want to improve, honestly just doing a completed comic or animation project (especially a short one) from beginning to end will help a lot. Doing any kind of sequential art forces you to tackle a lot of different things at once, but also teaches you how to handle them all, and to do so coherently. Even finishing a five-page comic or a 10-second animation can do wonders for the next thing you do!

If what you're worried about is how people will perceive your art, especially online or with social media, remove that aspect from it and just make something you don't plan on sharing. It can be very freeing to make something for just yourself, and can help lessen any discouragement you may feel.

When in doubt, you can always go back to the well...see comics or animation that inspire you, since for me that's often a good kick in the pants to want to try and create myself. Instead of comparing yourself, see it as a sort of thing where you go, "That looks really fun! I want to have fun, too!"

Hope that helps, and good luck!

[xshinina]

How and where did you learn to do art like the actual game cause it looks awesome!?

First of all, sorry for the late response!! I was waiting to finish the piece I was working on to use as an example, as my method is a bit messy

Explanation below the cut!

I mostly just kinda studied the way the splash art is rendered via staring at it a lot lol and figured out the general Danganronpa character proportions for the sketch (like that giant forehead, small torso, large legs, you get it)

The method I follow is coloring on grayscale over the sketch, adding colors with a color layer, and then just keep stacking overlay, multiplying and soft light layers until it gets to where I like it

I use only a watercolor brush at different opacities (mostly under 20% opacity) for the grayscale part and an airbrush for shadows and lights

As a tip, remember that dr cg art has hard strokes all over and mostly black shadows, so I kept going back on dark spots to make them darker and highlighted others to create more of a contrast

Here are exports from the different stages of the last one I did to hopefully make myself clearer (I recommend having a design already established to not keep changing it mid render like I did lol)

Thank's for the ask!

[acti-veg]

Do you believe it’s helpful to compare non-human animal intelligence to human intelligence?

I think that it can be helpful as a way of trying to understand the cognitive capacities of non-human animals, so long as we recognise the limits of any such comparison. Intelligence is an inherently human concept; we base intelligence on what we can do. That isn’t necessarily bad, we need a reference point after all, but we’ve made the mistake of judging our own kind of intelligence as the only kind there is.

We are really just scratching the surface when it comes to animal intelligence and perception. We can measure how they perform tasks that we invented to measure intelligence as we define it, but we can never really know what it is ‘like’ to be a dog, or a bat, or a fish. Many behaviours we think of as ‘intelligent’ have no benefit for many animals, so how ‘intelligent’ would it be for them to develop it?

Likewise, there are realms of perception that we just can’t touch. We consistently underestimate how radically different every creature’s inner and outer world is to our own. It is what the biologist Jakob von Uexküll calls an animal’s ‘Umwelt,’ their own unique sensory world. We can’t even do this with animals we know well, never mind with animals radically different to us.

Just look at dogs. Most of the intelligence experiments involve getting dogs to perform a specific task, and most of it is based on sighted intelligence, because that is at the centre of our Umwelt. But the primary sensory modality of a dog is not sight, it is smell. How often do we think a dog isn’t performing a set task because they can’t remember that the first button produces food and the second button doesn’t, when they’re actually responding to perceptual clues we can’t even perceive?

There is just so much about animal behaviour that we don’t understand. Why do cephalopods like octopus, squid, and cuttlefish put on elaborate colour shows when alone, when their eyes appear to only see in grayscale? What are they perceiving and what are they responding to? How do we measure animal intelligence for an animal that has sonar? Or an animal that can see ultraviolet light? Or can sense minor vibrations from miles away?

Intelligence is just such a distinctly human concept that it is hard to apply to minds that are so different to our own. We sort of assume intelligence is a scale with us at the top, and we measure how close other animals are to us on that same scale. But non-humans need a different scale entirely. That is the biggest problem with the study of animal intelligence in general, we too often assume we’re studying lesser minds, rather than just other minds.

[gattnk]

Only Dolce's saccharine nature could counter Kabalè's acrid attitude.

Probably one of my best pairs in terms of contrast, hands down! I'm really proud of how they came out :D Let's go over them design notes:

While Kabalè gave me a lot of room for exploration between her two canon designs, Dolce was pretty straightforward in terms of source material, since she's a series-exclusive character.

I wanted to keep Dolce as part of the main cast because I noticed some animosity from the fandom towards her back in the day, particularly over how "dumb" and stereotypically girly she was. There should be room for ultra-feminine characters in girl-focused media, because I know a lot of girls and women love them and look up to them, and who am I to deny them their fun?

My position regarding Dolce pretty much defined what I would do with Kabalè. If Dolce got to be unapologetically feminine in the traditional sense, why, Kabale HAD to be feminine in a transgressive sense! Those familiar with Ever After High know what I'm talking about: the "opposite" figure to the pink goodie-goodie princess is the purple rebellious evil witch.

My decision to make Kabalè more tanned than her canon counterparts stemmed from the same place as Mefisto and Gabi's changes: it matched her new design much better in terms of color contrast, and adding a bit more variety to the devils wouldn't hurt. I also wanted to pay homage to her hair in both iterations by making her blonde with a high ponytail and a streak.

I studied Dolce's key traits and focused on them for her new design: hearts, pink contrasted with blue and white, and puffy hair. I actually increased the amount of pink but used less saturated hues so they wouldn't clash or feel like too much, and used cyan and off-white accessories to visually segment her body by her joints, similar to an articulated doll.

For Kabalè I chose to mix her "spooky-chic" colors from the series with her comic design, and then I focused on modernizing said design! Not gonna lie, I had a lot of fun looking at current urban fashion and playing around with Kabalè's purple palette, it's not too common apparently (outside of Gengar apparel, lol).

Dolce's mascot, a blushing phantom butterfly, is right atop her hairband to represent how Dolce is the most emotionally mature of the group, since she's also naturally open-minded and focused on positive self-growth. Meanwhile, Kabalè's badger bat perches inside her jacket's inner pocket, symbolizing how Kabalè's polarizing nature often isolates her from the world around her.

Honestly I'm glad these two came out as well as they did, for the longest time I was stuck with them until some good friends of mine gave me a crucial helping hand. To put it bluntly, I wanted them to look grand but my sense of fashion is a bit too practical... all my pants are denim and I only wear grayscale t-shirts :V

I'll Fly With You (rewrite fic) Art masterpost

[valkyriellis]

Your art is super satisfying to look at. The way you simplify form into shape and chisel details into life (especially the face and folds) is very 'crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside.' I especially admire the different values—The almost black graphite lines and shadows are my favorite haha.

How long have you been studying art? What do you think of and prioritize when drawing a picture? Is there anything you find especially challenging to draw?

(Sorry for the rant your art is just like super cool to me.)

Wow, thank you so much!! I love the way you described it haha, and I love these questions! They're some real thinkers... Sorry in advance for my response-rant because you really got me reflecting on some things lol

I've been drawing since I could pick up a pencil, but taking art seriously through classes and commissions and all that started at about 11/12 years old. (I'm 23) I honestly don't know what anybody saw in my art at that age but I can certainly say the few that encouraged me that early are the reason I'm still at it today!

I mean this in the least pretentious way possible, but I've noticed that when I draw I kind of enter like a "trance" state and barely even realize what I'm doing until it's over. I can't say that I'm thinking, focusing, or prioritizing anything, really! When I do start a piece with the explicit goal of *practicing* however, the focus/priorities change depending on what I'm trying to improve. It's probably obvious looking at my art, but I love the look of sharp angles and heavy contrast. My fav part of drawing is the delicate balancing of values. If that's helpful at all

For what I find to be challenging in art- two things. Inorganic shapes, and color. Starting with color, it's not enjoyable for me to use color in art and I therefore find it difficult to use effectively. It goes beyond just my art actually! I don't hate ALL color by any means, but I just truly do not identify with it. Clothes, accessories, home decor, the personalization of my phone case and the home screens of all my devices are all in grayscale, but I'm totally into it my partner wears the rainbow, for example. I could dig into why I think this is, but it'd all be theory. I am well aware of the power color holds in the perception and final product when it comes to art and sometimes wish I could harness that, but it's like it causes me psychic damage to use it lmao. And with inorganic shapes idk it's like a whole different ballpark to me. Buildings and cars are hell lol but flowers trees animals and people rock! You probably won't ever see me draw the former it's genuinely embarrassing haha.

Oh, and backgrounds. Fuck backgrounds all my homies hate backgrounds.

That was a LOT of yapping... Thanks for the questions and I hope I didn't bore you!!

[the-nation-of-today]

50 Follower Special Surprise

Hihi besties, so I've officially hit 50 followers which may not seem like much but the fact that there's 50 of you that listen to my insanity is wild so first off, thank you all!!

Second, I promised a surprise, and I am following through. So for those of you who don't know, hi I am currently studying fashion. I have been for the past four years, and in my studies, one thing we've learned is how to do flat sketches. I found that I loved doing these, so sometimes I do them on my own for various ideas I have. One of these ideas that had come to me was to make gown concepts based on all of the BVB albums and eventually the EPs, so, that's what this is. You can view the full collection below, and under the cut are close ups of each gown and some insight into my thought process for each, enjoy!

First up is We Stitch/Re-Stitch These Wounds. Since these albums are companions to each other, I wanted to make one gown that combined aspects of both. Fun fact this was actually one of the last gowns I conceived because oh boy did I struggle with the silhouette on it. Anyway, to the gown itself, the most obvious motif is the lacing calling back to the idea of stitches, featured on the side panels, the neck, and on the corset belt. Then, on the detachable cape and matching choker are embellishments made to look like eyes, which relates to the eye motif found on the original We Stitch cover. The colors are then picked from the Re-Stitch cover, since by the point I did this gown I had already done quite a bit of black and wanted to go in a different direction.

Next is Set The World On Fire, or as I have lovingly dubbed this gown, Set My Computer On Fire because Adobe Illustrator crashed a grand total of three times while figuring out this gradient. Now my ORIGINAL plan for this one was to have the entire gown be one gradient from black at the top to fire colors at the bottom (think Katniss' Mockingjay dress but like mid-transformation). Illustrator uh... did not like that because each of those wing shapes is separate and complicated, hence the crashing. Instead, each wing shape has the fire-colored gradient which I ended up liking better. Obviously the wings are a reference to both Fallen Angels (obviously) and The Legacy ("on leather wings"). Then, the sort of tattered belt and choker are there to be callbacks to the acrylic paint the band wore on their bodies during this era.

Next is my beloved Wretched And Divine. For this one, I didn't take inspiration from the album cover so much as I did the Wild Ones' outfits, particularly the Prophet (to the surprise of no one). In those outfits you obviously see use of mainly black with a lot of asymmetrical elements. The collar of the gown, for example, references the collar of the Prophet vest in the In The End MV. The armpiece, on the other hand, is a twofold reference. It references both the strips hanging off of his belt in the In The End MV but it also references the feather armband Andy wore during I believe it was Download 2012 if I'm not mistaken. This one was very fun to play with the various elements and just kinda go nuts.

Next is Black Veil Brides from 2014. I will be the first to admit I struggled heavily with this one. I feel like this album is one of their most stripped back, so I was struggling on how to represent the different aspects. I eventually turned to the album cover again for inspiration. The tired skirt is a reference to the rubble pile that the gargoyle stands on, while the mesh sleeves and chest are reminiscent of the skyscraper ruins in the background, using a large, square mesh to evoke that building skeleton look. Finally, the silver belt with the circle clasp is a reference to the eclipse happening on the cover, and the color scheme is evoking the album's grayscale.

Next we have bestie beloved Vale. Now stick with me, this is the most conceptual of all the gowns. So with Vale, whenever I listen to it, I always get two kinda ideas from it: the idea of feeling like a ghost and the imagery of being chained down to something. It’s hard to translate into 2D but if it were real, it would be made of some really light and flowy fabric (something like a semi-sheer chiffon for anyone else who knows fabric) and each layer of fabric is a different color from the album cover (you can see it at the bottom there as well as on the open sleeves). This is where that "ghost" idea comes in, that weightlessness. Then, being weighed down is represented by the chain belt, with the sleeves are connected in the back to that top chain detail on the collar and I imagine there would be chains back there too. Essentially, I wanted to play with those dualities of feeling like you're floating away while still being chained down by something.

Finally for the full albums is The Phantom Tomorrow. This was actually the first gown that I made in this mini collection because I had such a clear idea of what I wanted since TPT has some of the most obvious visual motifs in the form of the scarlet cross. This gown is actually two parts, the gown itself and the cape/collar. The silhouette is based off of both the girl's dress in the TPT music videos and of Andy's jacket in the Scarlet Cross MV. You then obviously have the motif of the cross cutting through the center of the gown. The cape is then a result of me wanting to allude to the idea of wings (because of the Blackbird) without wanting to do something obvious like feathers. Then, of course, I needed to incorporate Andy's slutty priest collar as a crucial element. Finally, the rosary belt was added to both break up the red and to add a little extra blasphemy because we can always do with more (sweet) blasphemy (Get it??? Wrong album I know but I had to)

Now, onto the EPs. So I actually did not do these at the same time as the albums. I did the albums in October 2022, before The Mourning came out. Once I finished those, I didn't really have any ideas for the EPs so I just let them be. Then in March of this year, I had basically an epiphany about them, like I got out of bed specifically to do a janky sketch so I wouldn't forget my ideas. So, here they are.

First off is, of course, Rebels. Since this is Rebels, I wanted it to look different from every other gown so far, hence the silhouette. The asymmetrical skirt and sleeve allude to going against the grain and not being perfect (y’know, rebelling). The damask pattern on the top of the skirt and sleeve comes from the Coffin video, the women with the candles wear veils that look like they have a sort of damask (tbh, couldn’t tell exactly but they’re Ornate). The center panel of the bodice also has a distinct coffin shape, while the slashed stripes across the bodice reference the chest paint they all wear in that video, it’s sorta striped and almost looks like a ribcage. Hard to tell on here, but it would be almost sliced open with like a peekaboo black fabric beneath it. The colors of the rest of the bodice are then color picked from the jacket on the EP cover. Finally, the chain details come from the chains on the EP cover, and the upside down cross allude to both the crosses in the Coffin video and the fact that Unholy is a song on there, y’know the upside down cross being the opposite of a right side up one.

Next up is The Night, aka the first one I had an epiphany on in regards to this set. The purple comes from the EP cover and the videos, obviously. The chains are a part of Andy’s outfits in both MVs, which is also where the crosses on the hem come from, both are on his jacket in both videos. The neck piece is a callback to the streaky paint/makeup Andy has on, and then the X on the bodice is a reference to Lonny’s makeup since it was his first record with the band, I wanted to ensure there was a reference to him. I wanted the X to be a little sharp and almost look painted on. This whole EP has always sounded very sharp to me, so I wanted to channel that in this gown. Kinda just went with the vibes on this one, ended up with this gothic armor sort of look for the neck piece, but it slaps so we're sticking with it.

And last but certainly not least, The Mourning. I wanted this to be a very big and ornate gown, almost looking heavy. The color scheme, obviously, adheres to the grayscale of both the cover and music videos. The skirt is made to look like panels or pieces of a stained glass window, referencing the rose window in the Saviour II video. The neckline is a modified sweetheart, with the two extrusions made to look like devil horns (cause, Devil, get it). Then the sleeves are twofold- they are reminiscent of angel wings (both Better Angels and the angel on the EP cover) and they represent Saviour II because they’re meant to be big and sweeping, like the song is. Finally, the studs are taken directly from Andy’s jacket in the Saviour II video

And that's it! I hope you guys enjoyed these. I am very proud of how these all came out, definitely one of my biggest projects to date but one that I'll always love!

[vaultsixtynine]

read my character study that's actually just set dressing for a lizard and an elf to have nat20 makeouts 🤙

--

parasympathetic –

Everything had been going so well. Zari had a nagging feeling of having missed something from her earlier conversations with Skalazar - the night before and then again this morning - but his transition from panic at her proposition to open desire had given her all the invitation she needed, and enough of a diversion to avoid thinking too hard about it.

Zari had shut the door - throwing them both into the grayscale of near-complete darkness, color drained away in their mutual darkvision - peeled his sleep shirt from him as she slid into his lap, and realized that Skalazar had no idea what he was doing. There was something charming - thrilling, even - about that, though, and she had decided not to think about it as she took his tea from him, placed her hand over one of his, and started to guide him through the basic motions. 

She helped him pull off her over-robe, then unwind her sash, then release the ties holding her loose pants over her sharp hips and lifted herself just enough so he could wiggle them off her the rest of the way. That left her with her shirt and smallclothes, still, but she wasn’t quite ready to part with those yet.

Skalazar had been fairly quiet the whole time, fixing her with an intensity and rapt attention that belied the depth of his interest and only asking one or two questions about what was and wasn’t acceptable - ground rules. She was happy to supply them, but it was… a bit strange, to her, and different from the other kinds of amorous intention she’d seen on ample display in the brothels she’d drifted between in her years amongst the people of the Stormborn. Zari wasn’t sure yet what it meant, and wasn’t sure how she felt about it, but as she moved from his lap to the bed beside him and started to pull him sideways and over her for further education, she decided it didn’t matter right now.

Then, of course, her tides changed.

As she reclined back against the single pillow on his bed for support, her good arm outstretched, hand in his and using her movement to carry him along with her, some base pattern recognition living deep in her mind understood the true size of Skalazar as compared to herself - it understood. And it reacted. She felt it happen before he noticed - a tremor starting from the base of her skull, passing in waves down her spine, shaking out along her limbs in an initial shudder, followed by a softer but persistent tremble. Skalazar did see it, then, and froze in place with a flash of alarm, holding himself off of her with elbows locked and eyes wide. Damn it. 

“It’s - “ she paused to pull her hand from his and place it against her other shoulder, willing the tremble to stop and failing. Her blood and organs quaked with involuntary physical response to a form - any form - bending over her that was baked so deep into her psyche that even her anticipation of things to come couldn’t hold it at bay. Under her arm, she felt her heart stutter.

“Should I stop?” Skalazar’s voice had gone thin with worry, and Zari shook her head, hair bunching up under her head and spilling out on bed behind her in frazzled waves as she did.

“No. I’d tell you if we needed to stop.” Yet again, her body acted outside of her own control - shaking like a leaf despite how bad that must look, despite any desire of her own. Please. Please. Obey her for once in your miserable existence -

“Are you…” 

Hesitation hung around his words, such a far cry from the decisive intensity he’d had just a few minutes ago. Was he thinking better of it? Realizing he didn’t actually want her, or this? The burgeoning heat in her gut curdled a bit into something bitter, though when she’d first tried to leave him after propositioning she hadn’t taken it personally at all - she knew she was not a commonly desired format of woman, and was happy to leave it as yet another of her many misunderstandings.

That said - while she hadn’t necessarily enjoyed any of her past encounters with others more than what she could do for herself - through all of the conflicting messaging she’d read from Skalazar over the past few days, the one common trait seemed to be that he wanted something from her - she just couldn’t tell what. And if it wasn’t sex, then she was out of ideas.

He’d found his tongue in the time it took her to feel a sourness she wasn’t familiar with take root in her chest, and started again.

“Are you afraid of me?” 

Oh, no.

She shook her head again, more vehemently this time. “It’s autonomic. It happens sometimes when I - when there’s - “ she paused, considering her phrasing against the tense draw of his brow ridges. “My sympathetic nerves go into overdrive when it feels like someone is… over me.”

The memory of salt and astringency and blood in her mouth, a tired ache overcoming her ability to move her own limbs - never enough to be unconscious, just enough to be pliant - Zari licked her lips against the intrusion. None of that was happening, now, and moreover she knew her own genuine fear enough to know she was not afraid, just that her body hadn’t gotten the message that she was the one very much in control of this situation.

Skalazar moved to sit up, but she found herself placing her hand against his chest to stop him, flattened palm skimming the smaller, softer scales over his pectorals. How much of the rest of him was soft like this? She supposed she’d find out.

“I’m alright. Just - wait here, a minute?” She removed her hand from him and patted her own chest, beckoning him closer. If he rested his weight on her, if she had a moment for her body to accept that it wasn’t in any danger, they could continue without issue - she hoped. They just might need to slow down a little bit.

“I don’t want to crush you.”

“Here - “ Zari’s arm moved down between their bodies to touch the outside of his thigh, continuing to position him and show him where to touch her until he was comfortable enough to do it on his own. “ - tuck your thigh between mine.” His neck feathers flared slightly, their vibrancy lost in the dark but the familiarity of his own unique form of blushing apparent. “It’ll keep you from putting all your weight on me, but I’m sturdier than that.”

Skalazar made a noise with a little too much doubt in it for her liking but ultimately acquiesced, his much thicker and still-clothed thigh slotting between her own. Zari wiggled down a few inches to press herself down onto it, watching in muted and alien satisfaction as he looked away from her and coughed quietly to avoid making an altogether different noise. 

She wasn’t sure why it mattered so much to her now as opposed to any other time, but something about Skalazar’s obvious interest in her - despite everything - made the heat between her legs flare pleasantly in a manner she couldn’t honestly say she’d felt before. It was something to be explored, of course, but - for once in her life - she had time. It was a several-day journey to Ödland, after all.

“Good. And if you come down here - “ Zari utilized the interesting reaction she’d observed earlier while she’d been settling into his lap and reached up to run her fingers along the underside of the bony crest that crowned the back of Skalazar’s skull. He shuddered under her touch for a moment before following her down and letting his chest rest against hers, a bulk of his weight settling over her. He seemed unsure what to do with his head, but eventually tucked his long skull in between the space between her head and her neck. He inhaled deeply a few times, and she wondered briefly if that was nerves or if he was specifically smelling her.

It wouldn’t be so bad if he was, she thought.

Silence fell for the moment, and through the comfortable blanket of darkness she realized how cold Skalazar was against her. Zari ran hot regardless, so most people did feel much cooler to the touch, but the large reptilian man on top of her was several degrees colder than your standard human or elf - not as frigid as a corpse, she noted, but easily surpassing the threshold that would kill other species. Their night swims the previous evening had given her a bit more perspective, but she realized in muted wonderment that she - with all her waste heat, which others interpreted as an indication of feverish illness - must feel wonderful just to be near, for him.

Despite her distraction, the alien nature of the situation seized her without warning as she tried to get herself to relax - how hard did she typically avoid being touched? How long had she avoided this kind of contact with only a few disappointing forays, finding no value in the gropings of idiots? She had no need for her magic, here, but what if she got overwhelmed and it lashed out without warning? 

Anxiety spiked through her chest, and Skalazar’s mass on top of her seemed, for a moment, to trigger another set of feelings she knew were misplaced - but her limbs were not restrained, and weight was… nice, in a realm she didn’t fully have language for. The side of him that was pressed against her had even begun to fully absorb the heat she generated and seemed to be acting like a thermal battery, keeping her heat close to her body, where she normally was left cold as it immediately dissipated into the environment around her.

Despite that, her heartbeat worsened, thudding high and fast like a rabbit’s. She inhaled deeply, annoyed and trying not to show it. Calm down, she thought at her organs, you’ve copulated like this before. This negative reaction had happened before as well, of course, but this was the first time anyone had slowed or paid enough attention to her to realize it wasn’t the aroused trembling and fluttering heartbeat of an overly-engaged lover. 

All the better, if she was honest - her indulging in passive curiosity with the fumbling grip of a stranger (sometimes a very inebriated one, as was often the case in brothels) was no stage for exposing her own vulnerabilities. This wasn’t, either, but Skalazar was already aware of some of her idiosyncrasies and seemed unaffected by them - in some cases, seemed to like them.

“You don’t seem to be calming down.” he whispered. Pressed against her as he was, his voice felt deeper and fuller as she felt the vibrations pass between their chests, despite how quietly they were talking to one another. It was more pleasant than it had any right to be. She wondered if he had realized just from his proximity that her organs were in the wrong places, that her heart thudded in the same place his did, a mirror image - knowledge he would have, with his experience. She wondered if he cared. 

Zari sniffed. “We can continue regardless. We’re both aroused, and it’s not the first time I - “

Skalazar shifted his head slightly, and she felt something cool against her neck for a moment before the sensation of wetness followed behind it in a wide stripe parallel to her carotid artery. She gasped at the suddenness of it, and then found herself laughing, a short, sharp noise that seemed to surprise both of them.

“Did you just lick me?”

“I apologize. I have a specialized vomeronasal organ for specific scents - I’ve been curious and I haven’t been able to taste you.” He instantly seemed to regret what he was saying, adding an additional qualifier before she could respond. “I mean - we haven’t… kissed.”

Oh.

Zari had been avoiding that, actually. Other kisses she’d been subjected to had ranged from pointlessly chaste (relatively speaking) to what felt like a vast overcompensation for other lacking sexual attributes, a process that she neither craved nor enjoyed. 

One human - an alchemist, if the reek of sulfur and reagent on him informed her of his profession accurately - had even grabbed her tongue afterwards, commenting on its unusual color and variegation as one would an interesting houseplant. She left him with a pile of ashes in place of his clothes, after that, and she’d decided that kissing was often a request for something that she had no interest in giving.

After slightly too long of a beat, Zari realized that the unbidden heat in her face was a blush, and wriggled underneath him to better position herself to look him in the eyes, a bit of a feat with the length of his skull. He’d lifted his head to do the same, it seemed, and she processed for the first time just how close he was. Obviously, he was half laying on top of her, so yes he was close, but this was the longest she’d spent in bodily contact with someone who wasn’t inevitably splattered with her own blood - possibly ever.

Skalazar shifted, then, and she moved back against the wall of his berth to allow him the space he needed to put himself to the side of her, both of them turning simultaneously to face each other. He was certainly too tall for this bed, though it was wide enough to accommodate his need to curl himself up to fit, and Zari carefully re-entangled her legs with his as they settled, bringing their bodies unbearably close again - which he didn’t seem to mind in the least. 

For a moment, they said nothing, simply staring at one another as they both tried to resolve their own inner thoughts. There was an expression on his face that she couldn’t quite parse, the keratinized ridges that protected his eyes and vaguely suggested ‘eyebrows’ to her drawn together and mouth set in a thin, thoughtful line as he seemed to study her very seriously. 

She wasn’t worried about waning interest - her thigh rubbing intermittently between his own in a reversal of their earlier positioning had confirmed a few other questions she had about lizardfolk physiology as well as what she’d be dealing with soon enough, and even the way he occasionally let his mouth part to facilitate the aforementioned scenting meant he had not, in any way, lost interest. 

Still, there was something unsaid - possibly entirely unrelated to her, though she doubted it was entirely unrelated - hanging in the air between them. She almost asked, left the unspoken question linger in the back of her mouth for a moment before her own mind interrupted her with something altogether less pleasant - an unhinged desire to ask for something that she knew that she neither truly wanted nor should he actually give her crawled from a long-ignored corner of her brain. 

Could you open me up, put your hands in my ribs, play around until there’s enough gore, until you’re satisfied? - and she recoiled from that line of thinking immediately, finding her face a mirror of Skalazar’s own mild frown. Zari wanted him to have nothing to do with any of that, instinctually (never know of it, even; never know she was ever so at someone’s mercy) - but she had no other context, felt the lack. Being naked and being bare were not the same things - she wanted him to put his hands on her and in her, but not - it could not originate from the same place. 

Her newfound pleasure could not live in the same house as that, the chained up thing she kept away from guests and prying eyes alike, that still bled over into everything in her life regardless, no matter what she did. For her own sanity, she had to make sure they stayed firmly separated. A sliver of acute frustration at her inability to understand the true shape of her desire lodged in the back of her brain - something to examine later, or never. 

Instead, perhaps simply letting him have what he wanted was a better idea, a panacea to the burned-in fear response that lived in her arousal’s basement, as well as whatever currently ailed him. The rest might matter enough to discuss someday, but she wanted so badly to push through it as if it had no sway over her, as if believing that would make it true. A little kissing wouldn’t hurt her; with the way things had been going, she might even like it.

She leaned forward to chastely press her lips against the end of Skalazar’s snout.

It was a ridiculous move on her part, but the smooth, lightly bumped texture of his less-fatty lip structures was novel enough and the warm puff of air that exhaled from his slitted nostrils right into her face in surprise was distracting enough that she found another small chuckle tumbling out before she could stop it.

“I’ve never kissed lizardfolk before; I’m open to improvements.”

“May I - “ Skalazar’s hands flexed somewhere out of sight - she could feel it more than anything else, see his tail flicking in muted agitation in her peripheral vision - and nodded in response, reaching down to put her hand back over his, bring it up to rest on her hip - a relatively safe, neutral area, at least to start. 

His fingers curled into her immediately, testing his grip against her own realization that he’d kept his hands off of her that entire long, long moment, and seemed to return to her like a moth to flame. There was impatience there, alongside the fact that he had clearly worried he’d fucked something up. The blush from earlier, though it hadn’t truly gone away, flushed her face again, slowly spreading down her chest and shoulders underneath the fabric of her shirt - that’d have to go, soon. Then he’d really see it all.

Maybe that, too, was alright.

“You can touch me however you want. I told you I’d let you know if anything wasn’t comfortable, and vice versa.”

With that additional reassurance, something in his face seemed to resolve, and he reached forward to wrap a hand around the back of her head, bringing her face to his with the same raw desire he’d done such a bad job at disguising earlier. As he did, she moved his hand gripping her hip down under the admittedly small curve of her ass, giving him leverage to pull her entire body up to him.

She parted her lips and pressed forward to make it easier for him to meet her, then reached up to reposition his jaw at an angle - he resisted no touch she offered, and a pleased rush of blood ran through her face and started making its way south as he - at first cautiously, but then with rapidly-increasing confidence - licked across her lips and paused for a moment before deciding that the most efficient way to do this - devise a compatible method between their differing physiologies - was going to inherently involve a lot of tongue.

A lot of tongue, and a not-insignificant amount of teeth.

Somewhere in Zari’s mind, a barrier fell apart. She didn’t notice it, or didn’t understand its meaning. All of her attention was focused on the present - the feeling, the heat between them, the need. She felt, for the first time, like she wanted her fill of another living being, and ‘greedy’ didn’t even begin to cover the tidal wave building under her breastbone. She rolled her pelvis into him under his grasp, curling her legs tight around his larger ones, and ate every near-silent utterance he rewarded her with.

Some time later, catching her breath while he continued to run his tongue along her neck and jaw and his hands along her naked legs, Zari realized she was no longer trembling like a prey animal against her will, and the cadence of her heart and heaving chest had everything to do with the brave new world of lizardfolk-elven relations and absolutely nothing to do with fight or flight.

She pushed Skalazar’s shoulder lightly, rolling him so that she could instead sit on top of his cool, scaled belly and continue their endeavors from there. Once fully in place, his clawed hands digging pleasantly into what scant hip and thigh meat she had, she leaned back, leveraging against his grip, and tapped her chin with a finger as if deep in thought.

“Let me know if you’re about ready to be done,” she offered in as sweet a tone as she could muster, dangling the bait just to see if he’d take it. It was surprisingly easy to tease him like this, no awkwardness or tension of uncertain social rules obstructing the basic fact that it would take an act of possibly several Goddesses to separate them from one another at this point.

“We are nowhere close to finished,” he bit out, nearly as breathless as she was and with pupils blown so wide they nearly blacked out his iris. His voice was rougher, composure out the window, and his tone verging on the edge of command. Hook, line, sinker.

Zari leaned back over Skalazar, a very small smile tucked into the corners of her mouth, and he instantly craned his neck to meet her lips and tongue with his own while he hooked his fingers under the hem of her shirt and started to pull upwards - without her guidance.

[tigerlyla-of-metinna]

Weird specific ask game

7, 16, 19 please

Hiya Minty!

7. A medium of art you don’t work in but appreciate.

Before going digital, I tried a lot of mediums (fave is still charcoal). But one medium I gave up and never worked with again is watercolor. I looked up tutorials and I still cannot control the dilution needed with colors and I wanted a nice, smooth work. I end up making a mess and decided it's not for me. I do love looking at paintings of those who master it well!

16. Something you are good at but don’t really have fun doing.

Drawing fur and hair. I know I get lots of compliments when I render hair in digital airbrush but honestly it stresses me out. Too many details (shadows, highlights, and lots of stray strands). My lil OCD to details harangues me when it comes to hair or fur.

19. Favorite inanimate objects to draw (food, nature, etc.).

I love drawing trees. Hate grass ( again, fur/hair conundrum). But there is one inanimate object I love drawing. It is my favorite trad art piece. This antique arabic coffee pot my mom owned when she was still working as a nurse in Saudi Arabia:

Hers was stainless steel and I polished the heck out of it until it gleamed. And It became my go-to object for grayscale study, pen and charcoal drawing. If I can get my phone working again, I might take a pic of the actual drawing in my sketchbook!

Thanks for the ask!

[moki-dokie]

I wish I had the same tools and resources as other artists my age did in their formative years. I wish I had some of the tools I have now back then. I wish my brain worked like most people's and that I could visualize light sources and how it interacts with a subject. I wish I had the time and money to go take some real university art classes. I wish a severe years long battle with depression didn't rob me of creativity so badly that I lost what little skill I had. I wish I hadn't developed a bad tremor and twitch thanks to medication meant to fight that depression. I wish I had enough time in the day to actually do art how I want.

There's a ton of things I wish I could change, have, or do in regards to art. I'll never not be extremely envious of artists decades younger than me that are already so insanely skilled that they can pitch a portfolio to studios. I'll never not be jealous of peers my age that continue to grow and get even better at something they're already so good at.

But, at the same time, I've learned to be gentler on myself. I've forgiven myself for the things out of my control. And instead of staying stuck in an endless negative spiral and lamenting all the what-ifs and could-bes, I choose to go forward and make art anyway. I choose to have fun with it again, to doodle and experiment. I allow myself the freedom to start over and learn. I still don't have all the resources available to me that I wish I did but I won't let that stop me. It can still be extremely frustrating when I want to draw something and simply can't figure out how or when nothing turns out how it looks in my head, but it isn't the end of the world. I'll make something else, learn something new, and continue.

It's hard to start over in your mid 30s, but I'd rather do this than bang my head against a wall forever and hate everything I do to the point of not doing it at all. Finding the joy in creating again has been key. And sometimes that means sketching studies of cats for weeks on end because their anatomy is pleasing to work with and I can find myself learning while I'm at it, to the point that soon I won't need endless refs and I'll be able to draw them mostly from memory. Sometimes that means turning a funny meme into a full comic page just to challenge myself with expressions and panel layouts or to play around with color or grayscale. Sometimes it means leaving something I was working on for weeks or months and then coming back to it with a fresh perspective, new knowledge, and rekindled joy that made me start it in the first place. And, sometimes it's merely finding a bunch of tutorials and trying them out to see what happens.

It's crazy how much this ipad has really boosted my creativity. Not being tied to my PC is a huge bonus, as is the feeling of drawing on paper (bless paper like screen protectors!) And drawing directly on the surface. A stylus that behaves like an actual pencil (or pen, or brush, or whatever) has been tremendously rewarding and fun. I think a lot of my frustrations before were purely because I just didn't have the right tools. My Wacom was a piece of shit that only worked with sai which wasn't ideal. This is miles better, I really can't even describe it.

Anyway all this to say that if you're struggling with your art, it's ok. Be kinder to yourself, cut yourself some slack, and maybe just doodle pages and pages of silly looking cats for the hell of it. Whatever brings some measure of joy.

[murmew]

Hi!

Nice to meet you! I’m the one who friended ya on the global server (the one with the username NoNa)!

I wanna thank you again for helping me by giving me those tips and suggestions!

And seeing that you’re also an artist like me (Sort of, been too tired to draw much lately lol), I thought I should share a top that helps me with colors! ^w^

So the tip is that a good way to color, is to make sure the image have a good color contrast (of course this would differ depending on your art style).

And a good way to see this contrast is to have the very top layer be white, and then change that layer blending mode into “Color” mode. What this does is change is so you can see the drawing in an achromatic way (basically make it grayscale), so you can see the contrast clearer and adjust the colors accordingly~ =v=

I hope this helps! And I wish you the best on your art journey! ^w^/

I think you’re doing really good tho! Ya art is already great!

NoNa! I was wondering who you were actually! I'm glad you were able to beat hard mode (I helped minimally on that front lol).

Thank you for the art tip! I've actually been doing value studies to learn shading and shapes! I've never heard of the color layer until now, so I'll definitely put it to use on my next piece! I've been practicing a lot and trying to make my art 'pop' if you know what I mean...

To be honest, I haven't done digital art nor coloring until just a few months ago, so every tip is a godsend (I literally just recently started using clipping TAT)! I struggle a lot with speed and composition, so we'll see how long it takes for me to get better on those fronts haha

Urgh, that reminds me that my sudden passion for art made me miss my self-imposed deadline for a fic of mine... I'm sure it'll be fine, right? (cope)

[cxtoonzzz]

I've been looking at other art on Pinterest, studied how other ppl rendered their art, watched sm different tuts, nd cried bc I am SOOOO QUICK to hate everything I draw??? This is what happens when u force a child to draw nd give her lowkey abusive trainers (they taught me how to compare myself to other artists nd that my art sucks)

I've been staring at my computer trying to understand how to actually render colors in realism?? Bc I can only ever do well at it when it's black nd white nd I don't know how to grayscale color things bc I'm a little stupid😭

Like if u look at this drawing, it's rlly clear idk wtf I'm doing😭 Like I'm js not good at coloring realism?? Also I drew this at school so it looks rlly bad bc it was rushed?? Yelena’s facial features are not proportionate nd C doesn't look right (idk maybe that's my dysmorphia) UGHHH Yelena’s hair isn't even SHADED nd the clothing shading is so bad

But I'm rendering smth rn nd I think?? I actually like it?? After taking tips, I hope I won't hate it