#finally got myself a new photoshop yay

[pixelatedbugs]

just completed neutral route! big huge spoilery ramble below summary: definitely recommend playing neutral route because holy shit wow. plus you get some new dialogue and stuff from other characters which is cool

I thought Martlet picking up the determination syringe was an aborted genocide only thing but she had it and i was only level 7...she throws it away of course but it still kinda shocked me. She was already ready to kill Clover if they did anymore violence, even if she changed her mind in the end. And then Flowey just kills her-

Really interesting to me that when Flowey doesn't intervene clover just stays with Toriel. I feel like Clover had a hard life on the surface (based off of Star's couch bringing "unpleasant memories", mainly) I feel like deep down, they wanted comfort. They came down the mountain to find the 5 missing humans but they forgot about that in exchange for Toriel's comfort. A home. They're just a kid. man..

The boss..fuck. I knew it got scary because I accidentally spoiled myself on a few things but wow I was not ready. it really emphasizes the fact that Flowey has complete (not counting the player) control over what happens to clover. Speaking of that, that one scene at the end where Flowey looks directly at the screen..wonder if he realized that him and clover aren't the only ones here. T- DON'T DO THAT CREEPY LAUGH sorry was typing this while watching the credits anyway..

The fight itself was AWESOME. Super creative, the sections where you have to avoid Flowey's vines like Undyne's spears was amazing. The attacks were...creepy as hell Flowey with Humanoid Eyes will stay in my mind for a while. And that's a compliment, the horror factor was nailed here. The battle box lines too. "Clover wants to cry but they don't have eyes" wow! fun! jesus christ. The intermission(?) between the phases. All the other final bosses showed memories of the characters, so it makes sense Flowey would also get those! I'm...not entirely sure what most of it was about besides the part where Asriel first awakens as Flowey ("mom..? dad..?") but holy shit the mountain of dead Floweys was horrifying. Every single reset...damn. Its more likely that Flowey was created a bit before frisk fell, not clover, at least in undertale canon. But still, it really puts into perspective just how many times he died, over and over and over. Plus I'm inserting UTY into my headcanon anyway at this point lmao. oh yeah and then we're in Snowdin! yay it's Martlet! she's speaking slightly weird but I'm sure nothing bad will happen Uh Oh

The second phase is just, really, really good. I didn't expect anything to match Photoshop Flowey but this? Pretty much does it perfectly. i love the different artstyles for every different phase rather than theming around the different souls too. The clay one got me very close to becoming the joker fuck that one

I'm wondering what would've happened if i exited the game at some point, maybe ill redo it later. But yeah, awesome boss, awesome route, definitely go play it yourself. You can just kill like 1 monster and you'll get it i think. ignore the fact that i killed way more than one monster i needed the health ok

[beckysgomez]

✨ basic gif tutorial pt. 1 by vvondergifs !!

so i’ve been looking for a way to show people how i make my gifs but couldn’t find any way better than making a tutorial myself so here it is ! as the title refers this will be the first part of a few tutorials, they will be broken up so they are easy bite size so everyone can start making the gifs of their dreams ! 

in this part i’ll be showing you how i make my gifs from screen caps for a gif set ( i use a different method for gif packs that i’ll be covering in a later tutorial ). keep on reading if you’d like to know how i get to this !!

what you’ll need:

photoshop ( i’ll be using cc but i believe anyone you have would be fine! )

KMPlayer

your video/show/movie of choice downloaded into your computer

1. the first thing you want to do when you have your video downloaded is open up your KMPlayer, once you have it open you need your frame extraction window, you get there pressing  ctrl + g ( i believe for mac would be command + g ). this will pop up for you:

now you will want to replace the destination of your caps where i put a red rectangle, you do that by clicking on the little folder next to the box and choosing the folder on your computer. tip: i suggest making a folder for each gif you will want to make for your gifset so your caps are sorted for you, you do that by changing the destination every gif you cap.

make sure the settings are exactly like in the picture above specially the ones in blue !

2. now it’s time to open your video on the player, i just use ctrl + o but you can also go here:

3. once the video starts to play it’s when the fun part starts ! firstly you have to find the time frame that you would like to gif, just scroll by the timeline or just have a watch make a activity out of it, it’s up to you. but once you find were you’d like to gif go a few frames before and hit play, as you hit play you should also start to screen cap the video by hitting this handy button on the frame extraction window:

and that button will become a stop button that you will click once the scene you want to gif is over: 

now you have your screen caps ! yay. if you want to do multiple gifs i’d suggest capping them all now so you can get over with using KMPlayer, just repeat the same process for every gif and you’re golden.

tip: after i do all of that i like to go into the folder i put my caps in and delete the unnecessary ones, like the leftovers from another scene before or after. but you can also do it on photoshop and i’ll show you how, i just think it’s easier to do before hand.

4. now it’s the part we’ve all been waiting for.. photoshop ! open yours and let’s get cracking.

once you have it open what you’ll want to do is go in file > scripts > load files into stack...

5. a new window will pop up and in there you want to click on browse...

when you click browse your file explorer will pop up and there you’ll need to find where you put your screen caps on. once you’re there select all of them and click ok

once your photoshop loads your caps the ok in the top right corner of that pop up will turn white and when it does you click it,

photoshop will now get all your screen cap and put it in a file for you, for that step all you have to do is watch and have patience with it. it normally doesn’t take long but if you are doing a gif with many frames it will take a while.

6. now we going to start to gif, once photoshop finishes with your caps your workspace will be something similar to this

if it doesn’t go into window > timeline, on the top bar.

now on the bottom part of your screen there’s a button that says create video timeline, click it

when you do the bottom part will be turned into this:

and you’ll be able to see in the bottom left corner a button with three squares, click that

now you should have this:

7. now look for the little list icon on the top right of this area and click it:

it will open up a menu, in there you have to find the make frames into layers, select it

now you have all your layers as frames in your timeline, however they are reverse from what you want, to fix that go in the little list icon once again and select reverse frames

we are almost there !!

8. ok if you left your leftover frames to be deleted in photoshop now it’s when we are going to fix that. go over your timeline and look for the frames that don’t belong in this gif, select them by clicking on the first you don’t want holding shift you click on the last one you don’t want: 

and then hit delete or the little trash icon

photoshop will ask you if you’re sure just hit yes.

9. now we are going to crop the gif whichever dimensions you’d like ( here is a good reference for you ) in this case i’ll be making my 268px x 150px. for cropping gifs you’ll want to find the cropping tool that is located in the tools bar on the far left of your screen and it looks like this: 

once you click it your top bar will change to cropping settings, which you will change to these settings ( disregard the numbers, put your own dimensions there )

now we have to decide where to crop the gif, 

just play around with your grid by dragging and resizing from the corners, until you are satisfied with where you want to crop and hit enter

photoshop will crop it and resize it for you.

10. you’re on the finish line, now all we have to do is fix the time stamp and maybe sharpen it. let’s start by selecting all frames in that same place we made the frames and reversed them:

and now on the bottom of your frame preview there’s a “0 sec.” and an arrow

click it and you will get a menu, select other:

once you do it a pop up window will appear for you, there’s were you set the time your frames will go from one to the next. i find it that the delay 0.07 is the perfect one for a gif, so type that in the box of the pop up and hit ok.

once you hit ok you’re basically done, if you hit play on your timeline you’ll see your gif. but we like to go the extra mile, right ? 

( this next part will be totally optional, it makes your gif cleaner but you are free to choose not to do it, just jump ahead on this tutorial to see how to save your gif on step 13 ! )

11. let’s see how to simply sharpen your gif now ! select all your frames once again the same way we did it before and this time make sure you select all your layers too ( click on the first one and shift + click on the last ). now that you have everything selected we are going back to the video time line, on the same place there was three squares now there’s this icon:

click it and now we once again have this: 

now what we want to do it is go to the top bar and look for filter > convert for smart filters, select it and say ok when photoshop asks you if you’re sure.

your workspace should be looking like this now 

next thing you do is go back to filter > sharpen > smart sharpen

the smart sharpen window will show up to you and here is were you fix your settings, this next picture is how i like to sharpen my gifs and you’re more then welcome to just copy every setting, but if you feel like playing with the settings a little that’s also ok, it’s your gif make it how you like it !

click ok and you have a sharpened gif !

12. now we are done ! if you like to color your gif, this is the step that you would do it ( if you’re familiar with psd and coloring feel free to drop them in now ) but i’ll make a separate tutorial on how i make a base coloring for my gifs soon so i’ll skip this step for now and go directly to saving.

13. to save it is a little different than a picture, you need to go to file > export > save for web 

tip: if you’re a windows user you can use the shortcut alt + shift +crtl + s it will make your life so much easier, trust me ! ( i’m not sure what the shortcut is for mac but i’m sure there is one )

now your final pop up ! you will see the preview of your gif and a bunch of information on the side, the most important one lays on the looping options that if it isn’t set to forever already you have to change to it, if not your gif will only loop once and stop.

now click save and choose the folder destination of your file and TA DA you make yourself a gif !!

if you still have any questions about this process my inbox is always open and i’ll gladly help you understand how to do it !

i know this is a lot of information to take in at once, and i know it seems daunting at first, i’ve been where you are and this is going to be cheesy but practice makes perfect. once you got the hang of this whole process it’s like second nature and you’ll be making gifs in no time. ( also in a next tutorial i’ll teach you how to make an action in your photoshop that will cut this process in half, but you need all the steps to learn ! )

stay tuned for that though, my next tutorials will be how to make a gif from video frames to layer, how to color a gif, how to make an action and/or load them, how i screen cap for packs and how i make gif icons, if you are interested in anything else leave me a ask and i’ll help you out ! 

[tatstudies]

long story short i had to make a new blog because of some issues with my email. so this is a fresh new start with a proper introduction ❀ 



— tat, 22, infj — a gentle potato who just wants to meet nice people and have a good time — as a bilingual i speak polish + russian, am fluent in english + more or less so in spanish. currently i’m learning french + german — i’m doing two majors: french + philosophy. if you’re curious about my classes i have them listed on my tumblr ♡ — i’ve been on tumblr on and off for many years creating pretty successful original content for a couple of large fandoms, but that environment got a tad toxic, which is why i would leave every time as i’m all about that wholesomeness baby. but yay, photoshop experience! 



— philosophy, linguistics, sociology, poetry, modernist literature, film, baking, buying tons of stationery because ””it helps”” — my aesthetic: pastels, the sea, plants, warm baked goods 



— holding myself accountable and getting more motivation — creating aesthetically pleasing original content™ that i’m happy with — keeping my anxiety in check by focusing on what matters and connecting with people with similar experiences — my most important goal here is to make friends, as it will help me with all the aforementioned ones, so never hesitate to send me a message! ♡ i love meeting new people so so much 



original: — notes | bullet journal | study space | stationery | tips | gifsets (?) (i loved making those but i’m not sure whether they’d take off here; guess i’ll just try) — sometimes: travel photos | bento 


reblogged: — general studyblr content as listed above | language learning tips | masterposts | music for studying



finally here’s the list of all the studyblrs that inspire me the most:


@adelinestudiess | @academiix | @akydemics | @areistotle | @athenastudying | @blackgrad | @coffeeandpies | @cyclicstudies | @eintsein | @etudaire | @gloomstudy | @hannybstudies | @hannistudies | @hayley-studies | @hollstudies | @joyeuxstudies | @legallychic | @pltuo | @sonderstudy | @sprouht-studies | @stillstudies | @studypetals | @studyplants | @studyquill | @therobotstudies 

thanks for being here and inspiring as all (☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞

[throwmyheartawayagain]

Craft Day!

Alright, I have been BEGGING my friend for months to let me post her Winter Soldier Red Code Book/Journal. She finally caved and sent me the following. I am absolutely amazed at the work she put into this, and continues to put into what she loving calls her “Winter Soldier Project That's Either Going to Make Me Lose My Fucking Mind or Go Broke.” After the pictures, I’ve included what she typed up to go with the pictures. She is bananas, but in the best way possible.

Here you go, asshole. Just so you know, I am nowhere near done with this Winter Soldier project. It honestly got a mind of its own and I’ve become a slave to it. The pictures I sent you are everything I’ve done to the journal itself. Someday if I ever finish the rest of the project, I’ll share more pictures.

The first group of nine pictures are what was already in the journal from Casey at Shield Labs, it’s who I bought the journal from at Wizard World a couple years ago now. I did add one picture to it, the larger picture of the US Capitol building with the HYDRA seal over it.

The second group (five photos) are all things that I recreated from looking at pictures of old World War II documents. The photo id at the top is missing the wavy background that was on official War Department ids. The lapel pin attached to the telegram at the bottom is the Distinctive unit insignia for the 107th out of New York. Don’t even get me started on the MCU vs. the real world- if Bucky would have served in the “107th” during WWII, it would have been the 207th. 1940 the 107th was reorganized to the 7th Regiment and NY State Guard was formed; 1943-1946 the 7th was broken up and reorged to HHB as HHB 207th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Group H207th, 1st Battalion as 771st Anti-Aircraft Artillery Gun Battalion, 2nd Battalion as 7th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Automatic Weapons Battalion, 3rd Battalion as 247th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Searchlight Battalion; 1946-1957 it was reorged back into the 107th until 1957 when it was then relieved from the 107th and assigned to the 42d Infantry Division. But I digress.

Next group of eight pictures: These are all mock newspapers I designed from scratch. I found various newspapers from the time periods I wanted to create to get the correct column sizing. The two articles I wrote myself were on the Rogers Disappears and Senator Harold Baxtor Found Dead In Pool. The rest of the articles were from the newspapers I found for the dates I needed, and the original authors were listed with their articles. I had to retype EVERYTHING you see because I wasn’t able to copy and paste it.

Next group of 10 pictures: Yay! Medical stuff! We also get into my terrible attempt at writing the Cyrillic script to write in Russian. The first row are images of various broken bones in the arms and left shoulder that Google so kindly provided me with. The last one in that row is my sad attempt at photoshopping to show the metal parts that were added to Bucky’s left shoulder. The last six photos are of brain scans starting in 1946, 1956, 1966, 1976, 1986, 1996, 2006, and ending with 2013. It was interesting to see and learn how doctors were able to image the brain back in the 40s through the early 60s. In the late 1910s an American neurosurgeon, Walter Dandy, introduced the technique of ventriculography where images of the ventricular system within the brain were obtained by injection of filtered air directly into one or both lateral ventricles of the brain via one or more small trephine holes drilled in the skull under local anaesthesia. Let’s be real, HYDRA would not put Bucky under for this unless he was already anaesthetized for something else.

Next group of 10 pictures: This is originally what I made the mock newspapers for, but then I kinda got carried away with them. These pictures are of missions reports from the Winter Soldier that he would have given after a mission was completed. These are in Russian, but I also have English versions with them. First row is JFK, and that was a hard one for me personally to write. Second row is Harold Baxtor. Third row is the Stark mission.

Next group of nine: Various pictures I printed to put in the journal. That first picture in the first row, has a little coin envelope. Yeah, instead of buying an obscene amount when I only needed one, I found the dimensions of that size online, took a clasp from the envelope I cut apart and made it myself. The tags I got for my Bucky costume. I also had fun distressing the picture on that page too.

Group of 14: Oh my god, these were horrible. Let me start this out with I DID NOT DRAW MOST OF THOSE PICTURES! I can’t draw worth a fucking damn. The only two pictures I did draw myself are of the vest or straight jacket looking thing, and the cryo tube that’s hiding behind a picture of Bucky. The rest were transferred in, then gone over again with pencil- with the exception of the mechanical hand in blue, I used blue transfer paper and left it as it was after the initial transfer. I did find most of those drawings on other Winter Soldier journals that are or were on Etsy at the time I was looking for stuff. I’ll admit, I did not give credit where credit is due for the people that did the original drawings. I’m a truly horrible person for that and I do feel really bad about it. :-(

Last group of three pictures of the journal: The front and back of the journal that Casey distressed. The other picture is my little cheat sheet for the Russian I wrote by hand in the journal. 

[autoplaysdigimon]

Hey y'all, just wanted to post a quick update about what's happening.

So I've mentioned before the logistical problems I'm having with writing updates, but the individual games that I'm doing themselves have their own damn problems:

Dawn and Dusk are just so damn awkward to do both at once! There's no easy way to set up the two folders of images to be visible at the same time, the text is too small to read even on the largest folder size and I didn't necessarily do the same things at the same time for each game, making it extra difficult to sync up. (At least it's the only time I have to do two games at once NO WAIT IT ISN'T I get to do this twice more! One time with THREE GAMES AT ONCE!!! why do I do this to myself lmao)

Digimon World 2 has that weird mix up with the video order, and I can't figure out if the ones I need are missing or just in the wrong order or what the heck. Being that it's a game that I'm far less familiar with than, say, Digimon World 1 was, I'm having a lot of trouble figuring out exactly what is missing.

It doesn't help that both Digimon World 2 and Dawn/Dusk were games that dragged out for SO LONG near the end of my actually playing them (both my fault to be fair, DW2 I didn't get the hang of efficient DNA Digivolving and Dawn/Dusk I got carried away in leaving them to grind on the Farm Islands), so in my brain I've already spent far too long on them already. They're pretty sparse on actual content in the videos, a staple of the RPG genre, to be fair.

Even the anime is giving me trouble! The setup it requires disrupts my usual workspace - I have to change the TV away from the usual podcasts and let's plays that I usually have in the background of my working, which mucks up my layout with all the folders and everything, and I need to switch frequently between actively watching it and having background music on while I caption and write. Hell, having to go back and forth between the show and photoshop when I have to caption a long line is an ordeal in itself. Plus... and this is entirely an opinion based problem, but I get the same arc fatigue from the Dark Masters arc that I did from the two games. It's a great arc, I enjoy a lot of it, but I'm also sitting there going "okay that's great but be over soon! It's time for 02! It's so clooooose!!" I'm aware that this is very much a Me Problem. Also, if I don't go back to it at all, then Piximon will be fine forever! :(

Even the games I'm currently playing are being bastards! The one that I've already talked about in the previous post, which I referred to as Adventuring with Giant Lizards, is giving me serious end game fatigue also of my own doing as I finish up sidequests and the like. This isn't entirely arbitrary, I ended up having to do some major grinding anyway. I'm actually very close to being able to fight the final boss I think, so hopefully I can get that finished soon. I recently finished the game that will come after Monster Racers, lets call it Super Mafia Bros, but the sequel is giving me a hard time right now. Soooooo all of that to say that video games are making me sad.

Monster Racers is being good... for now. Once I get to the part where I had to grind a lot it'll be hell, but for now it's a dream. The fact that it's the only one that isn't giving me problems kinda sucks though. Like, one day out of seven the blog doesn't feel like a burden! Hooray?

I really can't keep leaving the games I'm posting for so long between updates, it means I spend half of the time I'm updating trying to figure out what has happened already and then not making any progress. But it's also very difficult to actually get into the headspace for it at the moment, as well. So I'm thinking two possible solutions, both of which I can use at once. One, I remove the obligation to post every day and the schedule from the header - I'm not posting daily anyway and the header looks terrible. Two, I shelve one of the two Digimon games, probably DW2, and come back to it later. When I finish the game that was meant to replace whichever of these two games finished first, I start posting that, and come back to the shelved game later. Part of me is wondering if I've just started to get sick of Digimon all the time! Maybe it'd be nice to have a detox of it for a while.

I did even wonder about doing a different show for a bit, even maybe one or two episodes of something not on the list. Contenders include the original 1965 series Get Smart, and that one episode of The Simpsons that I harvested screenshots from for that one post about Tim that I have on hand anyway. Get Smart would be kinda fun for a bit maybe, it's very repetitive so it'd get old after a while but it might be fun and it's very ripe for mockery, as well as being a huge shift away from Digimon. Plus I could turn on the subtitles and harvest those too, so I wouldn't have to caption it manually!

I mean.... I should probably talk about the elephant in the room, which is that the anime posts are the ones that people generally like more. I get a few new followers after the weekend posts, and maybe one or two occasionally during the week. If I were desperate for followers, I'd switch to mainly anime posts and have the games be a side thing... but the games are the fun part for me, so I'm not gonna do that. Sorry to anyone who followed for the anime posts! (ALSO I recently passed 300 followers so yay! Thanks! Sorry there's been no fucking content!)

Oh, as long as I'm talking schedules and future games, I should mention another game on the list. I've already told at least one person this anyway, so might as well. Wayyyy down on the list is Undertale. Of course I would. But not for a long-ass time, so hey. There's another (indie) game that I have on the list that is supposed to get a major update later this year, so I've recorded a whole bunch of what it looks like now so that I can do some comparisons when I get to that one, but that thing is even further down the list than Undertale is, so uh. Don't wait up for that one for a while.

Alright, so that was good to get off my chest. Don't get me wrong, I still love doing this and I love you all and I'm not planning on quitting this dumbass hobby of mine any time soon. You all must suffer with me. But it's a lot of effort at the best of times and it's nice to vent sometimes, especially if I think I'm gonna change some things. Thanks guys! :D

[fancyfairywings]

Here's my obligatory very late new year post 😄 Where to start? 2018, I'm just glad you're over. It was one of the roughest years in a while. From spring to late summer, there was a string of unfortunate events. Dealing with a loved ones' crisis, followed by losing a friendship in the fantasy community I dearly valued in a way that took the wind out of me, and then unexpectedly my boyfriend lost his mom, with us at her hospital bed, soon after celebrating her surviving a risky heart surgery. Witnessing any death is hard, losing a parent is a life changing experience and being there to say goodbye to someone who was lucid enough to make the decision to let go... I keep typing these sentences over because I can't find the right words. The awfulness caused by this Trump administration plus a couple weeks of being trapped indoors because of the CA fire smoke, it all took a toll and the year ended with more of a whimper, us with colds on the couch. I got a new nephew near Christmas, a bright spot for 2018, & the Dems taking the House was SUCH a relief. I protested, did phone banking for this first time, because if we had lost... 😶 Metal leaf on wings & mini intricate metal vein wing frames happened finally, yay for that. I sincerely hope this year is different. Since I got a little xmas money I bought the new low end iPad & Apple pencil to encourage myself to draw and paint more, & it's actually working! Seriously, and I'm NOT sponsored (I wish) it's the most realistic digital drawing experience ever, & I just learned I can use it like a Cintique, painting in Photoshop or Painter from my desktop Mac!!! Something I've always wanted, for a fraction of the cost. This means I don't have to worry about wasting materials, or needing it to be perfect 😃 I'm actually having FUN drawing again. This was an exercise in keeping it loose & colorful. Inspired by a sunset we saw with planes from the OAK airport looking like fairy lights in the sky. Painted in Procreate. No reference, it's not as perfect as I'd like but is anything ever? I just enjoyed playing with color and I hope this art streak stays around 🌟 #procreate #digitalpainting #sunset https://www.instagram.com/p/BseG3vbDASw/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=613rvbdu5t6t

[vinku-iikku]

Yay I finally finished 2018 inktober! If you want to just scroll through them all please go here, and if you want to see some comments on each please look under the cut.

Day 01 Flowey and Overgrown Ruins This prompt I picked as is because as far as I remember Flowey stayed behind when the monsters left. If you can’t find him, he’s near the big root on the left. All other days the second prompt got randomised by a die (except when I reached the last two).

Day 02 Grillby and Exotic Flora Grillby’s on a journey to look at all the flowers that aren’t living in a wet environment. Maybe he’ll make some wine from the non-poisonous ones.

Day 03 Chara and Cave Entrance They are still curious about morbid things and places that could be portentially dangerous, practically running at danger.

Day 04 Undyne and Astral Plains/Dreamland Welp I’d rather have had her with some other prompt, but now she has an anime showdown/faceoff with a mean monster that harasses a moldsmal.

Day 05 Asgore and Rocky Ruins Asgore had a trip down memory lane and visited the place where their castle used to be, before the war. Not much is left any more.

Day 06 Frisk and Ancient Tree They are still precariously looking for adventure. I saw this article about a 800 year-old Finnish tree, as soon as I saw that top I wanted to climb that, looks like a perfect spot to see everything around you and chill for a bit.

Day 07 Temmie and Nature Untouched I did some research in a nearby forest for this one, the sales-Temmie has made a nest in a tree that has fallen down in a storm. The soil is shallow before solid rock so trees have their roots mostly close to the surface, when they fall the roots go up as well. Temmie on the left is sitting on an ant nest lol. There are seven Temmies in total.

Day 08 Muffet and Crystal Coves Crystal Coves is either a place where crystal business is the main employer, a cove that has crystals, or a cove with crystal clear water, I think. I tried to implement them all just to make sure. Muffet has now made a business in making spider-products with glass expertise.

Day 09 Fuku Fire and Freezing Fjord Finally back to the ‘monsters travelling’ theme, Fuku is taking a longer trip and is currently on a boat by Norway.

Day 10 Gaster Blasters and Townsquare The blasters are on their own for whatever convenient reason, Pap’s one is figuring how things work by destroying them, Sans’ is... playing with local children. :D The fountain is loosely based on Havis Amanda.

Day 11 Nice Cream Guy & Shanty Town He’s travelling the world and selling nice cream! Definitely inspired by Beadle in BotW.

Day 12 Mettaton EX & Cemetery This combination took me a moment, Mettaton is a bit loud and showy for a cemetery. Then I remembered that Napstablook said they’re already dead when you try to kill them, so here Mettaton’s visiting haunted places and telling everyone about this wonderful body he got and where to get one if you’re interested in becoming physical again. I worked in a cemetery for one summer years ago, felt weird pulling those visual memories to this...

Day 13 Toriel & Hall of Deities In order to become a teacher I’d imagine she’d have to brush up her knowledge on lots of things that’ve happened on the surface, and here she’s in a secret underground place with some sacred scriptures or something, she reads them and writes down notes and then returns the scrolls.

Day 14 Annoying Dog & Volcanic Terrain Another weird combination, but eh, it’s the dog. It’s feeding bones to the vulkins and admiring danger up close.

Day 15 Monster Kid & Path Along the Water I made a huge area with different textures so I could try learn something new by scribbling around, and I’m really happy how the boulders on top of the waterfall and the water itself look like.

Day 16 Doggo & Ancient Altar Room Took a moment to come up with an idea, then I read Doggo likes squirrels. So now he’s travelling the world too, and he always has time and seeds for any squirrel population he discovers.

Day 17 Alphys & Summoning Altar I thought I’d not be drawing Mew Mew, but here was a perfect opportunity for that! Alphys isn’t travelling, but discovering new things in her home, humans have such interesting books! All of the Japanese text mean something; the bowl has the kanji for ’love’, books under it are Mew Mew manga, there’s two yury books, a reference to Free!, Digimon, Pokémon, Rose of Versailles, Natsume Book of Friends... and it’s fine if you don’t get the one that says ‘corn’.

Day 18 Photoshop Flowey & Windmills and Grasslands I think the modern wind generators look super cool. I tried to make Flowey as cute as possible so he’d be more fun to draw there, this is some dream stuff or alternate universe since Flowey did stay behind.

Day 19 Papyrus & Desserted Drylands I’m pretty sure that’s an accidental typo, but since it was Papyrus I wanted to roll with the new pun meaning. First thought was Papyrus somehow being in the drylands and dropping a huge cake, thus ’desserting’ it, but that would’ve been a bit mean. This cake is made with 100% organic sand (some of which he ground himself when grooming Rocky), the tiny cow ornaments are modified mouse skeletons. :) The chef hat would be straight but there wasn’t enough room on the page of the notebook I draw these on... I remembered he had a triangle on the battle armor, but didn’t remember what way it points so avoided it by replacing it with a heart. :D

Day 20 Sans & By the Beach Sans is getting some more sand for Papyrus with his shortcut, then he took a nap unfortunately close to the tide..? The shore felt a bit bare so I added some animals to keep him company. I h/c that animals don’t mind having monsters around unlike how they usually try to run away when a human is near.

Day 21 Shyren & Buried Statue(s) She’s doing that Disney princess thing where you sit down and start singing and all small animals within hearing range come to listen.

Day 22 Asriel & Underwater Temple Another dream thing since Flowey stayed behind, this is how he imagines the oceans look like outside.

Day 23 Lesser Dog & Market Place Some people have to learn the hard way to not trust a dog that has opposable thumbs.

Day 24 Box Mettaton & Merchant’s Store Any website run by a popular monster must get an insane amount of curious folk, which leads to ad revenue being a good way to fund the next tour. There’s some.. insider jokes there if you’re in any kind of website business.

Day 25 Rocky the pet rock & Eldritch Forest I don’t actually know what the latter means, looking at Google images it’s probably just a forest that’s very dark or something. Wanted to try a different perspective for a change. Rocky has a bowl of food there but I can’t really think of any non-sad reason for why it’s in this forest.

Day 26 Froggit & Inn in th Middle of Nowhere Had to take a break for one day, regardless I’m proud of myself on being consistent this far despite everything going on. I first only had the top Froggit and the bg in the sketch, and didn’t like how it looked. Somehow adding more Froggits made it look a lot better to me...

Day 27 Burgerpants & By the Docs Birsd with human arms and birds sitting like humans will never not be hilarious to me.

Day 28 Bratty and Catty & Deep in the Woods Tried to play with perspective with this one, it’s kind of the opposite of the Rocky drawing.

Day 29 God of Hyperdeath & Idle Portal I had a hard time coming up with anything for this, so now poor goat is somewhere in a completely white dimention and the only way out is not active, though he’s quite chill about it.

Day 30 Amalgamate & Abnormal Formations This and last one’s world I didn’t leave for the die to decide, I really wanted to do Tetris with Napstablook and out of the two still left this prompt suits Endogeny more anyway. There’s a forest in Poland where several of the trees bend to north like this.

Day 31 Napstablook & Puzzling Platforms Only one I did during morning, my hands shake more then so all the lines are more or less wobbly. Every Tetris piece has it’s own signature design except the L-shape which is just blank to keep it interesting. Napstablook is enjoying game music while inside the game, maybe ghosts can possess videogames..? This also shows the notebook I drew all of these in and the tools I used most of the time.

It’s hard to tell if I’ve improved at all when comparing these to 2017 inktober, I haven’t draw regularly through the year and the main focus point this time was on backgrounds and not so much on lines and characters. I did learn new things and that’s always exiting, I think my trees, glass and rocks look way better than before I started, and I did some progress in shading metal too. All of these took 3 hours or less to finish, some only took an hour. I didn’t need to erase pencils like last year because I used a trick where I placed the sketch under the notebook page and my tablet with 100% brightness and a white bg under them, and traced that with ink. The notebook paper is pretty thin, you can see the Amalgamate drawing’s clouds showing through in the Napstablook photo. Anyway, this was fun, and I think I’ll try do it next year too!

[saucynewf]

I Reached 4K Followers Today!

Yay! Merry Christmas to me! I was hoping to reach the milestone by New Year’s, but my jensen thigh porn spam last night got me there a week earlier, lol. 

And it took me only 5 years to do it, haha.

I made my very first Tumblr post on December 29, 2012, and it got 19 notes. (It says 21, but it’s actually 19 if you look at it.) It’s an unedited collection of J2 pics from Season 1′s promotional photoshoot. Back then I knew absolutely nothing about Photoshop or how to edit pictures, let alone make gifs, so I was thrilled that I got any notes at all with practically no followers.

Since then, I have learned so much about editing and making gifs, thanks to the tutorials provided by more experienced artists than myself, as well as much trial and error on my part, lol. There are so many talented people on this site whom I admire, who inspire me constantly to improve to make my edits and gifs better than the last ones I made.

More importantly than that, I found a community that loves the television show Supernatural as much as I do and let me know that I wasn’t a freak for loving a TV show, its characters, and its actors as much as I did. I wasn’t alone in my fangirling anymore and finally felt like there was a place where I belonged.

Even more importantly than that, I’ve made several very dear friends over the years whom I love and treasure very much. I know that even after the show ends, our friendships will continue, and that means more to me than anything.

Thank you all so very much for following me, whether you’ve been with me from the very beginning or started following me today. I value each and every one of you, and I hope that you all have a wonderful holiday and an amazing 2018!

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[therewasabrowncrow]

New Year Update! Lockdown #2:

Last July we moved to a new place in Leith-- this is literally the second place we saw, the first we couldn’t visit- it had a virtual tour option only. We stood outside that building and speculated about our lives inside, our future room facing a freshly excavated burial site nearby where the tram line would go, and thus, we bounced.

This second place faced the tram line too- the main road and shops (now almost all shut) but we were at least indoors looking out.

This north facing room is my home studio for now. I have imagined this to be a working studio for at least two people so consider this an open invite

I am very happy with it, I came here in January with a motherboard, power supply, a fan and a flatbed scanner --Don’t buy an expensive laptop they said, assemble a desktop--it’s so much fun, they said-- I don’t regret the decision to not get a laptop now

Since the entire room was built during lockdown a lot of it depended on delivery and it took more or less 6 months. I still need to add an overhead rig to attach a camera so I can make more Earthsea fan art! Unfortunately my cheapo tripod broke and my Earthsea feed is stalled. Now that we enter proper lock down 2 I’ll wait and see until March what happens. 

I was not able to pay towards any rent this year and my partner had to manage from his first full time job at the university but I was able to save and pay towards internet and utilities for all of next year (still not enough to half the rent yet) I also have enough to pay off a debt finally.

I got my first paid project before I moved here, from a classmate-- a short animation! I remember sitting in Calcutta with no equipment trying to figure how to put it together but I had a self initiated project from summer 2019 that I pitched to them and it worked! I could buy enough time for me to travel end of the year to the UK. My partner had already managed to find a place for us to house sit while the owners were away on sabbatical.

Luckily one of the owners of the house is a professional sculptor so I had access to art materials but I already had a portable mono print kit with me and I was able to put together at least two frames per scene in loop.  By now I had the CPU case  and Monitor in place (thanks to the owners who let me use it).

The film was done! It also made it to a few selections this year, thanks Helmie!

During this time I was working with Nia Thandapani on a STEM facilitator manual for Quest Alliance. She was making a workbook designed for girl students that look into representation, goals, dreams, and coding basics. She approached me after seeing the icon work for A Cloud Called Bhura and another illustrator on this project.

Pages from the book:

During this time Amphan was raging in Bengal and Assam. The little veranda garden I made for ma before I left was washed away.

Now it was summer. I had the opportunity to work with Numbi Arts on a more or less retainer until end of the year. I knew about Numbi before I left UK three years ago when I volunteered to document some of their live events. The Numbi projects were a blessing

This year Numbi were working to build a Somali Museum and they were able to successfully raise the funds. I am excited to see how it shapes up. I made visual comms (posters, insta ads etc) for their events-- mainly for Your Mother tongue is Gold. Thanks to Numbi I got referred to another community project which will start shortly.

I had a few projects with Storyweaver. One was in the works since 2019.

Written by Yamini Vijayan Your Body is Yours has been a really interesting project -- in the middle I was fully giving up because I didn’t think I had enough maturity and knowledge to visually interpret consent and boundaries. But reading up and questioning oneself during lockdown helped. I am actually looking forward to seeing more books on consent and personal boundaries by others.  When I made my zine about periods I was told that there were more than enough projects on periods. I see literature and art about periods that I failed to address in the zine-- so it’s never enough!

The other was also based on body and anatomy art directed by Snigdha Rao who is my NID animation classmate. I really enjoyed our brainstorming and I am quite happy with the way we interpreted the texts

Towards the end of the year I got to work on a very simple book about anatomy again..this time a chilli plant written by Radha Rangarajan

I had a few quick editorial projects with Current Conservation:

The first one of the year was made with Clip Studio. As you can see I used every brush in the arsenal to show off -- this was me saying fuck you to Photoshop forever so I spent a lot of energy to perfect this. Rookie mistake.

Later in the year, I use another technique where I locate a theme in the text and try and find organic materials that best compliment it. I then scan or mono print the objects/material and use them as a digital collage. This direction works very well when timelines are tight and usually foreground the main theme of the story quite well.

I have been building a library of these textures and scans. They are free to download and remix from my Gumroad account.

I used this technique for Moo Dunnit by C.G. Salamander

The story is a case of missing vegetables so the mono print of corn, peas, strawberries, dhaniya, as base of the illustrations really helped.

By this time I was going in and out of it with the pandemic and the Lockdown both here and in India. So there were lots of apology emails to the editor and finally I just sat down and finished in one go. I don’t think I have been able to relocate myself fully from the anti CAA-NRC protests in Calcutta. Some scenes will remain.

I worked on two documentaries. One was Crutch and the other was Moving Upstream: Ganga.

Crutch had been in process for the last seventeen years! I met the directors Chandler and Sachi when I was in CA back in 2017-- the time I dropped next door to borrow a lighter from Chandler :P and told him that I do animations that “explain complex stuff” which fit the bill on what they were looking for: Someone to animate the insides of a pelvic joint.

I had a small tester project with them before I got signed up on this project. We had a sit down with the team and I had the chance to meet the artist Bill Shannon on whom the film is based. I will share more scenes from the film shortly. A large chunk of my studio costs came from this project, so yay

The other documentary was with Veditum about their river walk. This film also took some time to happen and I was approached when the team were already finishing up with their edit. I met Siddharth when I was in Calcutta-- we had been in touch via Insta for years. It is always exciting to meet your social friends IRL and I was thrilled to be part of this project.  They were very clear about the direction so it was easy to put my bits into the film--Mostly animated overlays. I will share the trailer shortly!

We contributed my bit from the project to Association SNAP for Ramzan Ration Kits and the WB Emergency Relief Fund.

End of Autumn I got approached for a few projects-- one was for Story Museum with my classmate again. They were making small online storytelling sessions on popular fairy tales. I made a few illustrations for them that my classmate animated. It wasn’t extensive animation work, as the budget was quite small but I had a lot of fun exploring different styles for each fairy tale

The first one dropped on Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXTL6tkQRzk&feature=youtu.be

She also gave birth towards the end of the project--this meant that our project needed to be planned thoroughly ahead of the deadline.. and we did it!

The other project running parallel right now is due to end in February. This is another collaborative project with Falana Films based in Bangalore. We have a bunch of deliverables -- a series of films on STEM awareness for girls and I am doing the animation direction.

It took a while for me to come up with a specific look but by the time the script was written, it helped massively with the visual direction. Initially I found it quite hard to build a visual language that would explain STEM thinking without us explicitly pointing an arrow at things. So we decided to focus on the assembling and dissembling of objects, compositions etc. I am quite happy with the direction now:

I appreciate the commitment Quest took to be inclusive and get as many different participants on board, thanks to Falana

---

I wanted to make animations for a while and this year I had quite a few. I hope to make games next year. I made a bunch of fan art and WIPs and protest art and sketch notes this year, a lot of it made through bouts of different kinds of mental states.

I also joined local mutual aid and volunteer networks even though our socialisation was all online.

Ohhh did I mention the experience of applying for a visa in Brexit UK with an ongoing pandemic!

I wanted to make a living wreath for a family member and many who couldn’t make it during this pandemic -- out of all the projects, this took the longest and went through many iterations. This was in December and by now I felt tired and worn out.

[resbang-bookclub]

AMA Transcript: In the Colors of a Photograph

Last week, @victoriandancer and @guacamoletrash dropped in for an AMA about their 2016 Resbang, In the Colors of a Photograph! Check out some of the fun:

Q: How much research on marine biology did you do for this?

victoriandancer: UMM not much, lol. I was a biotechnology major in college (which was only a few years ago) and I'm an immunology research technician now. I mostly pulled from my head. Some of the boat questions I looked up, and a few obscure marine bio things. I didn't want to go into too much detail and lose people who weren't bio nerds like me lol.

Q: Favorite part to write?

victoriandancer: My favorite part was the very first day they were out on the water and Soul was photographing Maka's explorations. It was so serene and sweet and fun at the same time!

Q: For guac: You said it was your first time using Photoshop for your piece! Did you learn a lot?

guac: All I had ever used it for was a photography class I took in high school, and boy oh boy. I don't think I'd ever used the brush tool until September? I learned so so so much, and I'm so ready to learn so much more!!!!!!

Q: Did anything inspire/motivate you to write this particular story/setting? And how did you think of it?

victoriandancer: I was trying to stick with biology because it's a comfort zone for me, but I didn't want to do the normal "college lab class." Tried that before and didn't work. I honestly can't remember how I decided on the marine biology idea, but when I did think of it, I just ran with it and never looked back haha.

Q: Did you listen to any music while writing this or did any music inspire any scenes?

victoriandancer: No music involved lol. If I do listen to music it's Two Steps from Hell because there are no words and it puts me in the writing/study zone. But music itself doesn't usually find its way into my writing. That may change if I ever write one focused on music. And since I love writing Soul so much, that may happen one day. Two Steps from Hell would then be a good place to start lol. Yay for brainstorming future fics! 

guac: Here is a playlist I made while thinking about this story and trying to make art for it. I'm just gonna toss it here: https://open.spotify.com/user/gmenapacheco/playlist/6IIFWmmG7rIb7uYIkshanT

Q: Was there a scene in particular that you found it challenging to write?

victoriandancer: Hmmmmm, I get stuck with writer's block A LOT. I have no attention span lol. I got stuck right before the final climax scene. I think I knew the fic was going to end after that and I didn't want it to end, but time was running out and I was panicking and just AHHHH. I'm usually good writing the middle of a scene, never the beginning or end lol.

Q: How much of the story is personal experience and how much is research?

victoriandancer: I looked up a few boating questions (especially diving terminology and boat parts terminology). Photography I wanted to keep general enough to not confuse myself lol. For marine bio stuff, 99% came out of my head from previous classes lol.

Q: What was your writing process like? Once you had the idea for the fic, did you tend to write linearly or did any scenes from later on come earlier in your writing?

victoriandancer: I write very linearly. One day I want to experiment with writing different scenes at different times, but I'm afraid I'll never get them to connect. I'm definitely an analytical person over creativity, so writing the story linearly helps me keep it all straight lol.

Q: Did you have a writing goal for yourself, i.e. 'work on pacing' or 'better flow' for this resbang, and if so, what was it?

victoriandancer: Completion was my goal lol. I did the FMA Big Bang challenge and that was my first completed multi-chapter fic ever. I was very comfortable with my plot and story line in that one, and not so comfortable with this one, so I just wanted to finish it and have it be a cohesive unit.

Q: For guac: How did you choose which scenes to illustrate???

guac: So I actually wanted to do multiple scenes and there is a draft for a second one and a concept doodle for a third WHICH I AM STILL CONSIDERING DOING BECAUSE THIS FIC IS NEAR AND DEAR TO MY HEART AND I WANT TO EVENTUALLY DO ALL MY IDEAS. I basically was just doing my favorite scenes from what I had read. Which were A LOT. 

victoriandancer: DO THEM!!!!!! 

guac: I WILL. TRUST ME. It's on my "list of things to do before 2018."

Q: Was there a scene that went in a different direction than you had originally planned?

victoriandancer: So I expected Tsubaki and Black Star to come back in at some point, then I got carried away with silly friendship and it just never happened lol.

Q: Was there anyone who was hard to characterize or write for you?

victoriandancer: Black Star, definitely. I didn't want to get carried away with his antics, but I still wanted him to be funny. And I also didn't want to just copy him from the show either. Not sure how well I succeeded with that, but I sure tried lol. 

guac: You write a good Black Star.

Q: When did you start writing? Was this something you had a lil prepared before Resbang or was it a sprint to the finish or...?

victoriandancer: Both? So I started with a good goal (a few hundred words a day) but I don't remember when I started. But then I had a very sudden job change and big move and time got away from me so it was definitely a sprint to the finish lol. It must have been at least August that I started.

Q: Was there a particular location you were thinking of while writing?

victoriandancer: I was thinking of California, but I've never actually been to California? More a place where sunset happens over the water.

Q: Guac, was there something that you found super fun/easy or conversely gave you lots of trouble art-wise?

Q: guac: So this was my first time using Photoshop to make illustrations. Before, I had only used it when I took a high school digital photo class. I had to look up so many tutorials and things so that I could get things to look how I wanted them to.

Q: VD, did anything about the ending change as you went along or did your idea about how everything would pan out stay about the same?

victoriandancer: So I wrote at least 3/4 of the fic without knowing how to end it. I was forced to end it when deadlines came to hunt me down. So no, there was no plan to begin with lol.

Q: Did Tsubaki have a separate project?

victoriandancer: LOL yeah I wanted her to have a full fledged project and it just didn't pan out. I totally plan on writing a sequel (which would include more art shows and galleries than science journals) but don't know how to start.

Q: Do you have a favorite scene in general?

victoriandancer: Hmmmmmmm I don't know. Probably the scene where they’re snapping each other with towels. It's just ADORABLE (or should I say adorkable) and AWWWWWWW. And it was fun to write.

Q: So victoriandancer are you plannin’ on doing Resbang again this year? /nudge nudge

victoriandancer: YES I AM. I have no ideas yet but they will come lol. I think I want to get away from biology this time. My FMA fic was medical-related so that's why I'm going to try to get away from it. There would be too much overlap and it would stop being fun if I don't expand. (Shameless promo for my FMA fic: http://archiveofourown.org/works/7853809/chapters/17932963)

Q: What do you think you learned from this Resbang about yourself, or about your writing?

victoriandancer: So I learned that I can perform under some pressure. I was actually worried about taking this new job because I would be under some pressure from my bosses for good data, but this fic was kind of like a warm up for adjusting to my new job. When deadlines came for Resbang, I just buckled down and got it done, which gives me faith I can also perform my duties in my job under some pressure.

Q: Do you have a favorite fiction author?

victoriandancer: Ohhhh definitely Anne Bishop! She is AMAZING PHENOMENAL INSPIRATIONAL AND PERFECT.

Q: Oh, Dark Jewels trilogy?

victoriandancer: YES. But also her Novels of the Others series. Go read Written in Red NOW.

Q: Gonna follow that up with what was the most influential book or fic youve read?

victoriandancer: Ohhhhhhhh that's a tough one. I've always loved tsarodat's Dragon fic. You can see her writing morph and grow and expand throughout the chapters and I just always go reread it when I need a boost in confidence. There are probably others but that's the main one that comes to mind.

Q: Do you have any favourite writing spots or rituals?

victoriandancer: Nope. Just me and my laptop chugging away. I have an apartment so there's really no space for variation. I don't like writing in public. I would much prefer to be in the comfort of my home, even if my dog gives me strange looks once in a while.

Thanks again to victoriandancer and guac for a great AMA! Look out for more transcripts in the coming week!!