#honestly fun to just move pngs around... even the figure a in the photo is from a previous piece : ) turned out nicely.

[humanmorph]

a happy Twilight Mirage 63: Guaranteed Events, Or: An Accounting of the Time When We Built the Machine day to all who celebrate

[joie-university-rp]

Dear, BRADLEY ST. JAMES,

It is with great pleasure we invite you admission to Joie University! Welcome to the Thunderclap family!

–

Congratulations, MICHAEL! Please be sure to check the New Members’ Checklistand send in your character’s account within 24 hours from now. We cannot wait to see all that you will bring to this roleplay! We love you already!

OOC INFORMATION:

Name/Alias; preferred pronouns: Michael, He/Him

Age, Timezone: 23

Activity, short explanation: 7/10, I have a full time job and family obligations but I should be on pretty often!

Ships: Bradley/Chemistry, Bradley/Men

Anti-Ships: Bradley/No Chemistry, Bradley/Women

Triggers: RFP

Preferred photo for Character’s ID (please give a link): https://66.media.tumblr.com/9f7d16f8cc74398c037f96df9bf40a6c/tumblr_p9o2z0HmRJ1t34umfo4_250.png

Anything else: Nope

IC INFORMATION:

Full Name (First, Middle, Last): Bradley Joseph St. James

FC: Nick Robinson

Age/Year at University (Freshman [1st Year], Sophomore, Junior, Senior, or Graduate Student): 20, Junior

Birth date: January 8th

Hometown (please be sure to check the hometowns listed for characters your muse is related to!): Springfield, Illinois

Gender/Pronouns: Cismale, He/Him

Sexuality: Gay

Major(s): English Literature

Minor(s) [optional]:  Music

Housing request (remember, only the president of a Greek Organization is required to live at a Greek House to be in it!): Schuester Dormitory 205

Extracurriculars (Click here for the list. Be sure to specify any executive board positions [i.e. president, secretary, etc.] If something isn’t listed, please put it here and we will add it to the masterlist!): Drama Club

Greek Life Affiliation [optional] (Please be sure to specify any executive board positions [i.e. president, pledge educator, etc.] or if your character is not yet a member, but plans to rush): N/A

CHARACTER PROFILE:

[At least] 3 Headcanons for your character:

It took a bit for Bradley to realize that he’s gay, but once he knew after little things kept adding up, he tried hiding it as much as possible. His plan was to be as out and proud as he wanted to be once he graduated and went on to college, but things took a turn for the worst during his junior year. He had met a boy on an online forum and talked to him for months, getting on his phone or computer any chance he had, even if he never knew the boys real name, he felt himself falling in love with him. But one day, he didn’t log off of a school computer because he was in a rush and another student saw his messages, took a few screenshots, and by first period the next day, everyone in the school knew he was gay. There was quite a bit of harassment, but soon enough, Bradley learned to face it head on and accepted that everyone knew, even if he still wants to scream his head off at the person that outed him, and even if he never learned who the boy he was falling in love with was.

English was one of his favorite subjects in high school, he loved writing and analyzing different parts of books, he even annotated in his own books for fun. So it was obvious once he left that English Literature was going to be his major, and he loved every moment of it from the minute he entered Joie. Drama was another thing he enjoyed, even if he usually only got the smaller parts in the plays they put on, so picking music as his minor wasn’t a hard decision either, same with joining the drama club at Joie. It was a good release and pretending to be someone else for a few hours can be fun and a good way for him to escape whatever stress he has.

Bradley came out to his family after the public outing at school, he couldn’t hide it from them when he was sure they’d find out soon enough anyway. Luckily, the pressure he felt to be the best at whatever career he wanted to pursue wasn’t applied to him being gay, his parents accepted him anyways. Though they are still getting used to him talking about it and being open about it, he likes that much better than the alternatives. And his parents have tried their best attempts at setting him up with friends’ sons or nephews, whatever boy that was remotely interested in boys they knew was tried to be pushed in his direction, with little success.

STUDENT CENSUS SURVEY:

(Please answer the following questions IN CHARACTER. Responses can be as long or short as you see fit!)

What made you want to attend Joie University?

The English Lit program, 100%. Even if Ohio isn’t as far away from home as I originally wanted, I can’t deny that being here is great, and it’s surprisingly way more accepting than Springfield teenagers were.

What are at least 3 positive or neutral and at least 3 negative traits that you believe you possess?

I’m super forgiving, and though that can definitely be a bad thing, there are some exceptions so I’m not a total forgiveness monster or anything. I’m also really observant, “people-watching” was a hobby of mine almost, I’d see things about people that no one else could see, though most of the time I kept whatever I saw to myself. Finally for the positives, I think I’m pretty understanding, everyone has a reason for why they do things and I’m pretty good at getting that. Negatives, I’d say I’m a bit anxious, always a little nervous to talk about being gay since the whole “public outing” didn’t go well for me. I can also be kinda fanciful, though maybe you consider that a good thing, my imagination is pretty much always going and it can get a little out of hand. But my worst trait is probably my procrastination, I get things done, for sure, but I can take a bit to do it and if I have a deadline, it’s almost always going to be done last second.

Which of your traits do you value most?

I think my forgiveness, people make mistakes and we need to learn to forgive them and move on. Although you do need limits, some people are just unforgivable and you can’t try to forgive them or make them better.

How can that trait benefit the University (or its student body) as a whole?

I won’t go around fighting anybody because they said sorry and I didn’t forgive them, that has to be a plus here. Really, I can avoid a lot of conflicts here with my forgiving nature.

What do you hope to gain from your experience at JU?

A little more acceptance of myself, honestly. I faced the high school assholes fine enough after the first week or so and was almost like a trendsetter of people facing whatever they or others didn’t like about themselves for a bit but being an out and proud gay guy is a lot harder than it looks. And to be 100% honest, I also want to figure out how not to be such a mess when guys compliment me, it can be a problem.

What is a quote or song lyric that describes you?

“Always be a first rate version of yourself and not a second rate version of someone else.” - Judy Garland

[the-space-case]

Hello, yes, hi, I recently found your art and account and I love what you do. I'm turning 14 in April and I've asked for a drawing pad, but I have no idea how to use one as of yet. Have you got any tips or anything? Because I've wanted to try digital art for a while and your art makes me want to even more lmao. Thanks! - B.A.

BOI OH BOI DO I GOT SOME TIPS FOR U

(I’m not sure what kind of comp you’re going to be using, so I’ll list for both.)

FIRST: Drawing Programs; the free and the great.

-Firealpaca: Lightweight drawing program. I draw Recovery using this! It’s easy on the RAM if you have a weak comp/are paranoid about yours like I am, it is mainly for basic comic making, and has all the basic brushes you need (pen/pencil/airbrush/symmetry/etc). You can add your own brushes as well but they’re p basic settings. Has basic Animation/Gif making as well using Onion Mode! Layout is a piece of cake. Please note that If you leave it open for a week it’ll crash on you, even if you haven’t anything on it at the moment, and sometimes the brush sensitivity just stops working so you just have to close and then open it again. (Also I have no idea how to update it aside from deleting it completely and just downloading the new version from scratch, so thats a thing.) Mac/Windows

-MedibangPaint: This is basically FireAlpaca But Better. Has tons of screen tones, brush patterns, and tools. I don’t use it much because I’m used to FA’s layout and get confused with the the placement of tools in here, so if you can I highly suggest just going with this first. Also has basic animation/gif making! Has storage for the website as well, and you can upload more preset brushes. It’s v anime. This program has waaay more in terms of basically everything, so it just takes more RAM. NBD, you don’t have to have every brush downloaded from the storage ^u^. Mac/Windows

-Clip Studio Paint: Okay this one isn’t free, it’s a pricey one, HOWEVER once a year they take the price way fuckin down by at least 75%. Sign up for the email list and it’ll let you know when that precious day comes. It’s how I got it @u@, around christmastime? This program is basically MedibangPaint On Steroids. I do all of my digital-yet-tradition-style-painting on here! The brushes all have some neat af settings to play with, you can make your own brushes, has tons of screen tones, pre-made panels, and settings. You can save projects as basically anything you need, is a hardy program that almost never crashes, and It’ll take a nice chunk of space on your comp depending on how much memory you have but hey, its worth it. It’s much more complex layout-wise than the other two here, but you get used to it after playing around and watching tutorials haha.

-Mischief: It’s a 25$ app, has like four brushes and five layers only but is vector-based with an endless canvas. Not really worth having unless you like the vector thing. UP TO YOU. I spent forever with this one doing all that homestuck stuff, so it’s not really bad so much as it is a basic bitch. Mac

-MyPaint: I used this a bunch when I still did digital art on my windows laptop before I upgraded to a Mac. It’s easy on the comp and has plenty of brushes and settings. You can also get brush packages if you don’t feel like you have enough that comes with the program! Also has endless canvas; pretty sure you can just select an area and then export as is. I barely remember the rest but It’s pretty great. Windows/MacPorts(which I hate)

-GIMP: I hate this thing. I cannot figure it out for the life of me. It’s got loads of shit though, can handle layers, has plenty of brushes, and can do basic animation/gifs if you ever figure it out. Windows/mac

I’ve heard good things from paint tool SAI and Krita as well, but have never used them myself.

***You can always pay through the nose/use a student discount for the photoshop series and pay that shit monthly, those fuckers have literally everything, but I am a cheap college kid making minimum wage with a car payment; I’d rather just pay once/not at all.

TABLETS: treat that shit like a newborn babe 24/7

-I have literally only ever owned a Wacom Intuos4. It has lasted me six years, and at least five moves across many miles. I broke one of the cord ports the day I opened it by holding it wrong, have one left, and now treat it like it’s going to die if the cord moves badly. Please be aware that if you break both ports, you better either sodder it back together yourself or upgrade to smth else because it costs about as much as the tablet itself was bought at to be fixed. Good news, though, it comes with at least six extra pen nibs, has programable buttons on the side (that I have never bothered to use) and a scroll bar in case you’re too lazy to use the keyboard (…I don’t really use that either unless I’m just scrolling through tumblr LMFAO).

-I would die for a Cintiq.

HOT TIPS: its useful.

-most of the programs listed use the same keyboard shortcuts. MEMORIZE THEM. It’s pretty easy, since you’ll use em a lot. [cntrl/cmmd+T] lets you resize what you just drew on that layer, and [cntrl/cmmd+z] is undo. I use those the most, for obvious reasons.

-vector-based programs are pretty great because when you resize an image it looks prefect. You can’t do that with a program that isn’t, so I just resize the base roughdraft and draw the lineart again on the layer above so I don’t get weird JPEG quality lines.

-You can use a ruler with your tablet, just slap it on and go, but honestly most programs have settings for that. just use those.

-You can also trace stuff on your tablet, so long as the paper isn’t too thick. I just scan/take a photo and then open it up in the program, though. much easier.

-SAVE CONSTANTLY. Art programs like to crash on you, even when they’re hardy and you have a good comp. make it a habit to quick save your work.

-Use a desk and have good posture. You’ll be able to draw a hell of a lot longer if you do. I personally keep fucking up my knees by sitting on my legs as I work out of habit, and don’t actually have a desk chair. Keep your screen at eye level and at a fair distance to prevent eyestrain and also neck-strain haha

-Chances are you won’t be used to the tablet right away. Most places you buy from say it’ll take a couple of months to get used to how weird it is to draw while not looking at your own hand, so don’t be frustrated If your drawings look a bit off at first.

-if you draw at least one thing every day, by the end of the year you’ll have improved exponentially. I literally made this blog to make myself draw once a day.

-don’t be afraid to check out speedpaints and tutorials. It’s always good to get more familiar with the program you’re using and new techniques previously unconsidered.

-get familiar with clipping layers. They are insanely useful; you clip one layer to the one below and then when you draw it only shows up on the drawing of that layer below. Shit is a godsend if you’re bad at coloring in the lines/lazy. The bucket tool is also really useful, and you can adjust the expansion by pixel so you don’t miss anything between the lines.

-experiment with your brushes, shit be fun af

-warmup your wrists before and after drawing. prevent swollen veins and such. dont want hand pain/numbness, its reaaaaally bad.

—basically if your hands hurt stop for the day.

-PNGS are for internet, JPEGS are for printing/fucking with quality (cough hack homestuck)

-resolution doesn’t have to be much more than 350 dpi if its just going to be on a webpage. Maximize that shit if you’re going to be printing, though. Especially if you put stuff on redbubble.

-DeviantArt has this thing called Sta.sh where you can dump art, keep it in perfect quality and just share it with certain people with a link instead of all of the website. Great for storing commission pieces, its the only reason I have DA in the first place.

-you get a different audience depending on what site you use for posting art, so keep that in mind for the kind of feedback you want.

-after awhile of drawing using a tablet, you may lose patience/forget that in traditional art there isn’t an undo button lmfao It’s cool; you don’t have to choose one over the other or anything.

-Honestly you can work around almost anything. You just invent new ways and techniques for yourself and you’ll do just fine.

Aaaaand that’s all I got for today! Thanks for sticking around