#i had already had some experience color-matching from a reference

[friendly-neighborhood-furry]

@yurki-posts AAA THANK YOUUU 😭😭 this is incredibly special to me <3

and now that i’ve gotten some sleep i’d love to talk about how i made this!! i don't have any progress photos, so i'll do my best to describe each step of the process

i started out by painting the background colors so that they could also also double as primer. the Undertale background was simple enough because it was just plain black, but to distinguish the two (and to emulate the standard episode title card), i decided to paint the TAWOG background this dark magenta-purple color. i didn’t have any of that shade on hand, so i spent a lot of time mixing pink, dark purple, and black paint in order to get the color i needed.

after they finished drying, i used a white colored pencil to sketch out both designs, eyeballing most of the measurements and making sure to continuously check my references. for the Rainbow, i traced around a small round cup and then using that as a baseline, widened the aperture into the right shape. for the Red Soul, i sketched out a rough grid, counting the number of pixels and the space between them. after that i marked out which parts would be negative space and which would get filled in.

i painted the Red Soul first because i knew it would be the more labor-intensive design out of the two. after all, i was hand-painting individual pixels and aiming for some sense of symmetry, so you know my perfectionist ass was agonizing over every little intricacy lol.

i hadn’t tried painting pixels before and so this was a good learning opportunity. note to self, don’t eyeball measurements when painting pixels! for the love of god just use a ruler 💀 woulda saved me so much time lol

with a flat brush, i painted over my original colored pencil lines in the signature red color. i went over the edges a lot so that i could go back in with plain black and clean up/sharpen everything.

this whole process took a very long time, i was able to watch all of 1997's Cats Don't Dance (excellent movie btw you should absolutely go watch it if you haven't seen it before) and still not be close to being finished.

the Rainbow was also difficult and challenging in its own way. i had to color-match each specific hue in the Rainbow to the one in my reference, but since i was working with acrylic paint (which can dry very quickly) i was only really able to mix and paint two rows at a time.

but obviously this did not stop me >:3c earlier i had roughed out the borders for each color in the arch, so as long as i followed that, i would be golden. speaking of which!

pretty much every color on that rainbow was hand-mixed with various acrylic paints to get as close as possible to the hues i was referencing. the real issue was the fact that i had to do a couple layers of each color for the rows to become fully opaque. so if i ran out of a color prematurely, i ran the risk of accidentally darkening, lightening, or shifting the hue of the previous color. since i'd sometimes go over lines unintentionally or paint some curves crooked, which necessitated more paint to fix, this ended up being the more time-consuming part of the project.

but once i mixed up that magenta-purple color and cleaned up all the edges, it was finished! i'm still really happy with how it came out and i'm definitely gonna hang it up somewhere in my room once graduations over and done with :3

I FINALLY FINISHED PAINTING MY GRADUATION CAP!!

decided to dedicate it to the pieces of media/fandoms that got me through these past couple years

took me all afternoon and well past midnight, but it’s finally done! not a minute too soon either, graduation is happening tomorrow!

here are some closer photos so you can appreciate the effort i put into them.

both designs were painstakingly hand-painted and torturous in their own way, but all that hard work really paid off!

now if you’ll excuse me, i am falling asleep as i type this, so im heading off to bed o7

[qin-qin16]

Finally I'm done :D thanks to my moots who answered me here, now time to reveal my experiment: I wanted to test this new art style a little more and expand my creativity better, so… why not draw sans sonas for my mutuals? Here are the results!

note: no I dont know how to draw hands and no, I dont know why I put so much purple in the last three...

@toffeebrew as dream

First one to answer me, so it was the first one I drew! I took a lot of reference from your fursona, so that's why the scarf and the glasses. I put a furry keychain to remind your fursona :3

@taxavoider as dream

Since you already had a skeleton sona, I decided to take some inspiration from them. Dream already has an angelic air about him, so I added wings, left some of his colors (yellow and pink) to remind it a little of Dream. This one was fun, I already had to add more folds to the clothes.

@twinribbonz as cross (it was obvious)

I decided to play a little with the scar and FORKED TONGUE!! I think I made them… too cute?? I don't know, I just know it was fun to draw them in a position other than standing up.

@what-have-i-unleashed as nightmare

I don't know if it was because of the clothes, the expression, I just know that this was my favorite to do.I was inspired by a picrew you made my liege, so that's why the flower :3 Why the baseball bat? Who knows...

@howlsofbloodhounds as color

Why a black skeleton? I ended up remembering this drawing that Toffee did of you being a shadow wolf and I couldn't help it. I really liked the result of this one (even because it was the last one I did) I don't know why, but I imagine you wearing lilac or red (why isn't there red? Because I don't think it matches, end of story). And a little mole on the face for the sparkle.

[machveil]

Beautiful, cute, dulzura, A quick question, do you have any advice for drawing? I see your drawings and I just fell in love with them, I just started drawing again but it's difficult...

I don't know, sorry, English is not my first language, using translator jiji 🤎🍁

(note: this post is long, grab a snack lol) ah! no problem, don’t worry about the translator haha (pinterest link - this is my masterboard for human references! I’ll talk about it more below)

I think my best advice for anyone wanting to draw is to break down your piece into shapes! (also, depending on your style, using different line weights)

from my experience, while looking at the whole reference is good, it’s easier to break down individual parts! while some parts can look complicated, a lot of things can be broken down into triangles, squares, and circles (or half circles)

I focus on character art, so I’ll be speaking about that - but it can applied to scenery and objects too. a lot of characters clothes are broken up into colored articles already - in the top reference, Ghost has a red bandanna on his arm! that bandanna helps break up his arm: the top near his shoulder is triangular, the bandanna itself is overall rectangular, and the bottom of his sleeve is a square

of course, depending on how you’re posing the character it can change the angle of what we’re seeing - there’s also an accommodation that your art probably won’t be a 1-to-1 copy with your reference. Ghost’s right arm (bandanna) has a white rolled up sleeve - while the model’s sleeve is square, I prefer to draw rolled sleeves more triangular

I think line weight is also important depending on your style! I prefer thicker lines around the entire character, and defining qualities also get thicker lines

I like thinner lines inside the character to help define dimensional shape and form. I use thicker lines on the inside of the body if there’s a shape/area that’s more in the foreground - example: König’s chest and midsection have thick line art to help differentiate from his left arm (behind his body)

I know a common piece of advice is to use real life references, and I agree… but, I never hear people talk about how to use references in a way that actually helps (“just draw from real life”, or “drawing with a reference is good practice”). I experienced that and wasn’t able to take anything away for years!

within the past year or so I seriously took a look at how using references can help me, so I want to try and talk about that - if I had trouble learning from references I’d wager someone else has

here’s my best example of using a reference because I actually remembered to! I labeled the figure to make it a little easier to follow

(1) my first tip is using a reference to figure out how the body ‘flows’. the human body has a lot of soft, rounded lines when you look at a picture - very few things are legitimately straight and sharp. I used the reference specifically to figure out how men’s pecs are shaped (of course, this is just one reference… because this is my headcanon for König’s body type haha)

(1) looking at references can help you understand how muscles move. in the reference with the woman, you notice how her right arm (down) muscles are layered - the shape portrayed by the reference lets you see how an arm’s muscles might be laid out in that position

(2) my second tip from the König reference is to look at negative space! the highlighted red portion between the arm and midsection is roughly the same negative space as the reference. if you’re using a reference and something feels off with the placement of what you’ve drawn I’d recommend looking at the space your reference takes up

(2) the negative space trick helps me line up where proportions should meet up - the distance between her arms lets me gauge how the rest of her body should be proportioned

(2) while it doesn’t match up 1-to-1 with the reference when layered overtop, it doesn’t have to! the negative space between the arms was enough for the sketch to mimic what the reference looks like. art doesn’t have to be a 1-to-1, but negative space can help you figure out ‘why does that arm look funny?’, “that arm looks funny because, compared to the negative space of your reference, it’s too (far away/close) to the body.”

(3) my last tip is the simplest, so I’ll just be referring to the König figure! when using references I look to gauge the distance between different body parts - it helps me get more realistic proportions. the bit I specifically compared to was the man’s stomach placement compared to his waist. I didn’t copy it 1-to-1 because I like the idea König has more of a tummy, but the reference allowed me to figure out an anatomical placement for where König’s stomach would be compared to his waist

I hope my advice wasn’t terrible haha everyone’s art journey is different, but these are tips I would have liked to know a few years ago (specifically the reference material ones lol). I wanted to focus more on the reference material because when people say ‘just use a reference, it’ll help’ it didn’t do it for me

I personally needed a more in depth explanation on why I would use a reference, what should I be looking at - because just drawing a person doesn’t necessarily help, and how should I be learning from it - I accidentally taught myself negative space before I knew what it was

but uhm… yeah, I hope this wasn’t awful! good luck on everyone’s art journeys, just remember that you’re allowed to take your time and try different things

if you guys have any other questions about my art feel free to jump into my inbox; process wise, inspiration, etc - I’ll answer anything I can<3

[pakhnokh]

Today, House of Gentians is one year old 🥳🎊🎉

You won’t believe the story of how it began….

I was 7 months pregnant, and have been suffering from intense itching in my lower legs for a month. I googled it and saw that it’s a warning sign during pregnancy and can have dangerous consequences so I went to my obgyn and he referred me to take a blood test to check it.

Fortunately it was clear from that problem, but we didn’t know the reason for the itching. He did say that some women suffered from an allergic reaction like this but he suggested that I go to a dermatologist to be sure.

So finding an appointment to a dermatologist in my country right away is a nightmare, and by some miracle I found someone who had a place for me in a few days but in another city. So I took the buss and went there and the doctor was there with a student who was working with him. Anyways he was extremely nice to me and that’s something completely odd with the doctors here, that make you feel as if you’re annoying them. He was really nice, checked me thoroughly, looked at my scratching wounds with a magnifying glass and all the while was talking with great enthusiasm to that student. Later at my second appointment I realized that the reason for this was that he treated me like a case study to show how pro he is to that student cause when he was alone in the second time, he was a complete jerk to me.

Anyways, at that first appointment he decided with great certainty that what causes my itch is scabies. And as someone who considered this possibility and checked for signs of a bug infestation, especially since I have experience with other bugs, this seemed unlikely. And I’m like, telling him of all the reasons that don’t match, like the fact that my husband sleeps in the same bed and he doesn’t suffer from it and for me it’s been an experience of a month now. Surely a thing such as bug bites would affect him too, no? But he was so determined and told me “your husband gonna get it soon probably” so he gave me a prescription for creams and told me to wash all textiles in my house at a high degree, and everything that can’t be washed, to close in plastic bags and leave the house for 3 days. And like I said, as someone who already had experience with another bug infestation this was something that I already knew how to do even if at first it sounds like a pain in the ass.

So I got home, told my husband, who really opposed this idea, but I insisted on it, especially cause if the doctor was right and there IS an infestation, then we have to treat it immediately before baby is due. So I did everything the doctor said, we packed some clean stuff and moved to live with his parents for 3 days. Like I said, later we discovered that the doctor was wrong, because nothing helped and the itching continued till the moment I gave birth, proving my obgyn was right and it was, what’s called “pruritus of pregnancy”, a severe itch that is not dangerous, but can appear in some cases. I still carry those itching scars on my legs btw, even though they’re faint now 🤣🤣

Anyways what the hell does this embarrassing story have to do with House of Gentians? It was on the first day we lived with his parents and I was working on the exclusive art I make for my patrons. I was in the coloring and rendering stage and it’s really a work that makes you be really focused on details and etc… I was already so tired, but when evening came and I was done with the piece, which is still one of my favs btw:

I still wanted to draw, something quick and sketchy to “free my hand”. I just opened a new canvas and started sketching. At first I wanted to draw yllz seducing lwj, as if he was taken to cr after all and things got hot 👀🔥 But then I changed his teasing, smug expression to a sad one, and decided that it’s gonna be a Yiling Laozu who came back to Gusu with lwj and was put in LWJ’s mother’s house as his waifu 👀👀👀 and this idea had a dark side at first, with my horny mind thinking of yllz performing the duties of a spouse with lwj 👀👀👀👀 and it’s gonna be love/hate between them both.

I was really hurrying this sketch too, because my husband was calling me to our evening quality time of having toasts while watching a series on Netflix so I posted it quickly on Twitter and left. When I opened the app again that night I was really surprised to see all the excited comments on this simple sketch I did, but they really inspired me to go on, just like your comments inspire me till this very day ❤️

And just look at it now, each week I’m working on more 4 pages, it turned to be the longest comic I did in my entire 25 years of drawing (160 pages till this day and counting) and I already have the entire plot written with like 9-10 arcs planned overall 🤣 Drawing this consistently also helped improve my art, as I look at the first drawings compared to the most recent ones I can see the progress I made and hope to continue making!

So thank you all for the love and support and the wonderful comments that inspire me to give you more parts each week!

And as a b-day gift, I give you a sneak peek to a panel from page 110 that I kinda like how it turned out

[puffins-studio]

Jason Grace ⚡️

I think the reason am so excited now for the Percy Jack and the Chalice of the gods, is I think it seems like it a chance to experience Percy Jackson in the moment. I been in the fandom for a bit, even tho it seems like it just me in my little corner when the books come out. But I got into them when the Apollo trials were being released. And this is the first time for me me a book is going to come out that has Percy as a main character. So my brain is just making it randomly special. Last minute I decided I wanted to post something, and I have the 7 made plus two mystery people, so I decided to post one of them and I thought what better why to celebrate then with a joke. As aren’t you wondering ’where’s percy?’

I do love Jason, he deserved to have lived. It why he lives in my headcannons

Hazel

Percy & Annabeth

Nico & Will (tsats spoilers)

Leo

Many Jason headcannons below as I love headcannons and love sharing them.

[ID: The picture is a felt doll that is the shape of a gingerbread men with a big circle head he is Jason Grace from Percy Jackson. He have light skin felt, blond short hair, Gold rim glass, and a little scar where a mouth would’ve be. He have on a yellow shirt, tan jacket, that have a purple, orange, and yellow bead for pins. He in light blue jeans that are cuffed, and a chain hanging on his right side. He in black converse like shoes. He have a bracelet on this right that is a braid of purple,blue, and black. And another that is an asexual color one, black,grey,white,purple. He have a camp half blood necklace with a purple and a yellow bead. And he have a white round bead that is supposed to be a stand in for a moon theme necklace.:ID]

Jason headcannons

Surviving

Either Hera was watching and was mad that Zeus’s punishment for Apollo would get her champion killed and give Apollo some of his healing powers or saved Jason from the killing blow. Kinda to also show the gods can be cruel but also kind. Or Artemis save him as she save Apollo and Jason is also like a brother as Thalia convince her. It also as he had plans to build the temples so maybe one of the minor god healed him as he maybe for Storm to fall, Jason just need to let go and fall a get high. Lol like god level trust fall.

Pants

Jason had a hard time trying to find pants that would fit and when he finally found pant that fit his waist they were too long in the leg. He was going to hem them but he keep forgetting so he just cuff them and Will sees and ask Nico about it and Nico is like should I tell him- no this is funny. And it just Jason doing a ton of bi things without knowing

the chain, Nico and Jason do activities together as they both have memories parts, and Nico take it upon himself as a favor for Thaila, to show him the way of being a punk. Just imagine the first day of this, Nico just clip the chain to his pants and he just “look at you, already looking the part” and the black shoes are a part of this. Thinking he may try to paint lights bolts on them or something.

Jacket

power wise with Jason’s flight a aviator jacket is better for him when flighting but he doesn’t want to copy Nico’s look in case it upset him (it won’t, Nico would just tease him about it) but so he gets this coat and Nico end up teasing him as it an old man jacket and Jason tease back saying if course Nico knows this as he is an old man. (When trying to find a reference picture i didn’t know what this jacket was calls and so typed old man jackets and it popped up

Pins I kinda can’t remember as I forgot to note it down, but I think it the two camps, and some random lighting pin Nico, or Leo found, or they can just be pins the 7 found that made them think of Jason so he have something that reminds him that he is someone.

Bracelets

Going with Nico’s adventure with the Apollo bracelet making. He makes Jason and Percy matching bug 3 bl as they always joke they are brothers and just Nico leaving them in their cabins as he doesn’t want to make a scene, but Jason and Percy find one of them in cabin 1 when Percy was hanging out together and they are like wait and run to cabin 3 to find Percy’s and they put them on and go run over to find Nico and they make a big fus about Nico does love them and Nico is like no thr purl for heazl, black is for him and he likes the color blue but they just ruffles his hair.

And he have a ace bracelet from Nico too. He the first to get a pride bracelet from Nico and he help Nico put on his as he helped him get to this place where he could be proud so Nico wanted him to tie it as like a sign of trust.

Asexual

I feel like a headcannon a lot of Percy Jackson characters as ace but we deserve it. As also like sex repulsedace son of Jupiter/ Zeus kinda funny in my book. Like Dad is basically known for hooking up and Jason is like nope. Him and Nico being two confused aces together as like Nico trying to explain it to him and Jason like isn’t that how everyone feels? And once Nico knows what he feeling has a name, he runs to Jason to tell him too.

I headcannon Artemis lets any gender join the hunter they just have to sworn off sex and be loyal to her (if you like that took then look up the myth of hippolytus by Overly Sarcastic Productions. I love that channel too!). And each time the hunters visit campus they ask if anyone want to join. One time when they come around when Nico and Will got together, before Nico tells Thalia about them, she ask if he wants to join as she thought he still didn’t feel like he has a place and he like no I think if found a place with the help of Will, Jason, and everyone here. and then she also asked Jason if he want to join them. and he thought about it for a moment and realized he already been through a lot, does he really want an immoral life of it, and what sold him on not joining is he happens to looked over to where Nico was watching him and he saw Nico’s worry eyes, a look basically pleading him not to go. And that night Jason and Nico have a sleepover in the hades cabin, with Nico may or may not having saying that he wants Jason to be his brother and he will be his brother in return.

The necklace is also like a thing for Artemis/Diana (for if she the one who save him), the hunt/his sister, and ace pride. I feel in his look for his identity, finally realizing one part of himself that makes him him, he would just be happy about it, and full embrace it.

Random

Him and Percy dare each other to do stupid things like when Jason meet a new camp just hit himself with lightning and act as if nothing happens

Am going to add another headcannon here as I like it and I need it.

Being hit in the head

Jason with actual brain damage from all his concussion . I want him with a TBI, him having memory problems, having a harder time spelling and reading. As someone with a TBI I want a character with a brain injury that isn’t a vegetable, who just get angered every 10 minutes or just walks it off. Him talking with Will/Chiron about concussions and stuff and him being a bit worried about hitting his head again, him and Nico talking about memory issues. Give him a bit of a speech impediment or sensitive to lights and sounds. Jason and Nico hanging out in the dark hades cabin when they have migraine days. Jason asking Will for help for a talk to the camp about being cautious about any type of brain injury. As the brain is important and weird and it can behave differently for everyone, and healing magic can’t heal it completely, so they need to be careful.

[jungle-angel]

A Journey In The Desert (Bob Floyd x Reader)

Summary: You, Bob, The Daggers and your kids get to experience a journey unlike any other

Warnings: Some biblical and religious references

You and Bob were excited beyond words that you had gotten the travel opportunities that you had. Everyone was having the time of their lives, most of all Bob who had gotten the opportunity to unleash his inner Indiana Jones.

"Daddy, can I feed him?" Auggie said, looking at the rather friendly camel who was already laden with the beautifully woven saddle blankets and saddles to match.

"Wait for Youssef to come back and we'll ask," Bob told him.

"Ah let him Bob," Youssef said, coming back with a bucket full of grasses, grain and oats for the funny looking beasts. "Fatima and I let the kids do it all the time."

Bob let Auggie go with Youssef to feed the camels while you and him watched the others and how they interacted with them. It seemed as though the entire herd had taken to the Daggers, save for Jake who hadn't a single clue about what to do with them.

"You think she likes you Phoenix?" Bob asked, noticing Natasha.

"Well, she tried eating my hair an hour ago so I'd say that's a promising sign," she chuckled.

You and Bob laughed when you noticed Mickey and another member of the camp moving their hands back and forth, the camel moving his head and neck with their motions.

"I wanna take him home so bad dude," Mickey remarked.

"Well, unfortunately we can't," Bob told him. "I don't think TSA would want us bringing an entire camel herd back to the states."

"Yeah plus the fleas," Rooster added, brushing a bug off the camel that one of the guides had affectionately referred to as "Old Fart".

It was barely a half hour before the head guide had to tell everyone to cut the shenanigans and saddle in to begin the trek. Youssef's wife, Fatima, helped tie the baby wrap that kept Deidre strapped to your back, tightening it enough so that she would stay put.

"Here," she said, placing Deidre's little pink Red Sox hat on her head. "Keep that on her head. I don't want her to burn once we're out of the shade."

"Thank you Fatima," you told her. "Are you going ahead?"

"I'll be in the back with Youssef," she answered. "Gotta go wrangle the brats first."

You laughed a little as she disappeared. You looked around as Bob saddled in with great ease, his dark brown Stetson cowboy hat on his head and his khaki shirt and jeans covered in dustings of red dirt from the desert. He fixed his gaze on you, smiling as he gave you a cheeky little wink which made you blush, filling your cheeks with heat.

Bob was the first one up and then you after you had given your camel the command to do so. The bellowing of the animals filled the camp as they rose up from the ground, jerking their riders back a little and then forward.

"Woah, slow down there big guy," Coyote laughed as he jerked forward and back a little in his saddle.

Phoenix, ever the lady, kept herself straight, fixing the loose, charcoal colored scarf on her already sunburned scalp once her camel had stood up. A loud yelp next to her had caught her attention, turning her gaze to Jake who grimmaced as he grabbed at a rather sensitive area between his legs.

"S'matter Bagman?" she chuckled. "Ever been in the saddle of a camel before?"

"No," he squeaked.

Natasha snorted a little.

"Horses," Jake squeaked again. "Why couldn't we have taken horses? They're at least easier to get on."

"Hangman we've got almost a twelve mile journey ahead of us in the middle of a scorching desert," Rooster explained. "I don't know if a horse would make it that far."

"You'd be surprised!" Youssef called from a bit further back.

Jake rubbed his rather sensitive junk to get some of the feeling back in, ignoring Coyote and Payback's snickering.

Penny wiped some of the dust from her face when she noticed the smile on Maverick's face, his eyes hidden behind his aviators.

"Don't gimme that look Pete," she told him.

"It's the only look I've got sweetheart," he said.

He took Penny's hand, kissing her close to where her wedding band was, engraved on the inside with their names. "Ready my lady?" he joked.

"As ever," Penny told him.

The caravan began moving forward, out of the sheltering shade of the red rock cliffs and into the open desert. The sun scorched land held a beauty of its own, the swirling sands twisting and coiling into dunes like orange snakes while close by, the dried up wadis lay cracked and sticky where water had once flown.

Hot winds blew across their path with clouds of dust flying into the air, yet the herd still kept going. You and Bob walked side by side with Auggie hanging fast to him and Patrick safely being held by his Uncle Rooster. Over the dunes and far away you had all gone, never once losing sight of one another and sticking as close together as possible.

The afternoon had begun to turn to evening when at last they had crossed one of the rivers, wading up to their knees in the cool water. "Wish we could stop for a swim," you said to Bob.

"We've gotta keep going (y/n)," Bob said. "The guides said we've gotta make it there by nightfall so we can set up camp."

The caravan pressed on into the sandy nothingness as the afternoon turned to early evening, the sun showing obvious signs of waning soon. "Look Daddy! Look!" Auggie chirped. "It's the cliffs from Indiana Jones!"

You nearly gasped when you saw the canyons coming into view, looming like a huge, red gate that guarded a place that you and Bob had only ever dreamed about. The further you went, the more you could feel that there was something else here altogether, something ancient and old, older than you could ever hope to comprehend. Your mind had begun to fill with images of the ancient days when trading caravans had come through here, when rivers of gold had flown through the deserts and stories of kings that could have only been found in the pages of The Bible. You had even begun to wonder if these too had been the very same roads that Jesus, his disciples and his family had traveled when they preached in the desert or if it had popped straight off the pages of The Arabian Nights.

Your jaws dropped when at last you saw it, that familiar structure you had first seen in Indiana Jones. Petra loomed high in the desert canyon, carved into the cliff face and standing tall and proud against the burning sunset. It was so beautiful and eerie to look at, a place with legends as old as time.

Everyone set up camp and made themselves comfortable for the night while you had made Auggie, Patrick and Deidre's beds. Everyone else had their own tents and could do as they would, but soon, you knew it would be bedtime for your three little ghouls.

Dinner smelled amazing as it cooked with chicken and lamb being cooked at least a hundred different ways in big pits while big pots of rice simmered over the open fires. All the smells, the herby and the smoky, the savory and the spicy, made everyone hungrier than they had realized. Auggie had practically eaten his weight in the chicken and saffron rice before he wanted to go back to the tent. Once they had settled into their little bed mats, Bob pulled a book from his pack and had begun to read them a story.

"And so it was, that Sinbad the Sailor had returned home to his family, retelling his adventures for his wives, his children, his children's children and their children too and soon the world would know the great things he had done," Bob read, finishing the tale of the wily sailor and his adventures.

Auggie, Patrick and Deidre were all fast asleep when Bob finally tucked them in, letting them snore away. "Bob," you whispered, poking your head into the tent. "Bob you've gotta see this."

Bob hurried out with you into the chilly night when he gasped at the magnificent sight before him. The flickerings of hundreds of tiny candles and lamps lit up the night. Somewhere, you could both hear voices of people singing, drums and ouds being played, the words so otherworldly and beautiful that you didn't care if you could understand them or not.

You and Bob joined the others as one of the people in the camps had given everyone one or two tiny little votives to light. On each one had been scrawled a name, each a loved one for the Daggers. Maverick of course had one for Goose while Rooster placed another one for both his father and mother in the red dust. Mickey lit one for his uncle, Diego, hoping that it would light the way for his journey to the states. Natasha lit one for her Grandpa Earl, hoping too that he would be able to get back on his feet after having been sick for so long. Jake tried to hide his tears when he placed one close by for Grammy Seresin, his father's grandmother who he had been particularly close with until she had passed at the age of a hundred and one. Coyote placed his for his brother, a police officer for the city of New Orleans and another for a family member who was trying to leave Brazil for the states. Payback's was the next, lighting his for his Aunt Nina who still lived in The Bahamas, hoping that no matter how far from home they were, that they would always be able to hear from each other.

You and Bob were the last, one for his parents and one for his Meemaw and Papa. In the quiet peace of the desert, you two had grown closer than ever, your bond unbreakable and your love for each other burning like the sun.

[the-nosy-neighbor]

Update to my tv theories and framework

Spoilers ahead

About a year ago, when I started following Welcome Home, they had barely mentioned the Question Answerer, but did say they were a big time archivist and museum professional.

With the Homewarming update, we learn from W that the Question Answerer was very ill.

I had taken a photo and listened to dialogue that I believed to be from the show itself. I felt like an idiot, I hadn’t recorded anything, I was so entranced by what I was seeing.

On reflection, could this be referring to the Julierella still on the TV? Is there another image on the original website that could be described this way? I don’t think so, and it was a question I had always had about the photo.

If it were playing an animation on the TV, why did we not have any animation from the still? There was no audio from this, so this must be the one (unless you guys can think of another photo of an animation or show). I had assumed before that this shot was from the QA because of the placement of the phone and red binder.

This changes some of my recent theorizing about the televisions, which also clarifies some of the boundaries between different voices or frame work. So, in this image we have a tv, and in the next picture we have the tv static.

Is the TV where W has seen the show, only gotten a picture, and didn’t record the information? This establishes the red notebook as for sure belonging to W. I pulled a pic from the video of eovwxy, to compare and see if this video is the same TV, and it’s hard to tell. The darkness around the frame means it might be the same TV, but it isn’t conclusive. The TV in the staff-only room:

I really can’t say whether or not that is the same tv. In the original, it could be fit into a recess that makes those extra side bits. The picture above is a lightened version, so this is probably the best pic we can have of it. The second picture is too cropped to be able to tell.

That means the odd phone that doesn’t match anything is there with W as well as later being with the QA. In the information from W on awayfrompryingeyes.net, W describes a phone call coming from a toy phone and gets a recording of it. W calls it Wally’s toy phone.

I keep tinkering with the Welcome Home toy phone, or rather I have been playing with it. It plays everything as it should. The only button that consistently changes is Wally’s, which either doesn’t play at all or warbles out something incorrectly.

Today it rang for me. Sometimes it will do this, I assume a button must be jammed to consistently play that noise. Instinctively I answer it but nothing will come out. I have caught myself saying hello into the receiver in the past, but I’ve stopped now.

There is a toy phone that we see in the Playfellow exhibition that has listed that the clip is broken, so I would assume, given that information, that this phone is the one that W is referring to.  I need to review the QA’s information to confirm they are also hearing this phone.  Given that the wooden phone is featured so prominently, I have assumed that this is the phone that is ringing, but the red phone is much more likely, because of the broken audio and the coloring of the phone.

So, they both have had these experiences, and W describes the QA as being very ill:

Nothing from our curator who has since recovered. I don’t know what happened to them to become so unwell, to create that page.

So, this verification that the QA created staff-only, and that W considers them to have either gone mad, or potentially they were physically unwell.  There is no indication yet whether it is one or the other, or both. 

This is already way too long. But it does seem to strengthen the boundaries of each portion of the site. W is in charge of the main site. Wally has his doodles and hidden sound clips, ans the QA has staff-only. It does lead me to wondering who this contributor is (as mentioned by W on the secret page, that they are unwilling to upset, lest the contributor stop sending things). As always, i have a theory. . .

[shirefantasies]

If mashups are still available, I'd love love love if you could write one for me (never done this before)! The Hobbit is my favourite so preferably a (male) character from there if that would be ok!

I'm from Scandinavia and I love anything to do with Norse Mythology and going on hikes in the woods to act out adventures of my own creation. I am naturally very curious and love to go in-depth to study different topics, such as the natural sciences and different mythologies. I am quite short at 164 cm with blue eyes and blonde hair. Slightly on the curvier side. Thank you so so much I'd really appreciate it! <3 <3 <3

That is ok indeed as I match you with…

Óin!

(Warning: minor injury/blood mentions, hints at misogyny from unseen characters, minor alcohol/drinking references)

Maybe he isn’t the most conventional of the dwarves, but hear a silly old narrator out…

Your search for new species of plant has led you deep into the woods, deeper than they have yet undertaken. Success, though, has colored your journey, your prior experiment with the fertilizers of your crafting proving quite telling. Ducking past a very low-hanging branch that almost cuts a scar across your cheek, you press on, spurred by victory. The pursuit of science, after all, is the noble calling that moves you to painless battle with the forces set forth so many years before by the Valar, or in the eyes of your people quite possibly a different pantheon altogether. Even if none of it was true, they had been your favorite stories for years.

A world crafted from a corpse, now home to such life. Earth as flesh, seas blood, clouds brains of all things- dark, perhaps, but infinitely captivating. Or perhaps a song as the people in this land say, discordant notes sowing the very nature of sin and chaos as if as invisible waves in the air.

Such are your thoughts when your foot is roughly yanked, momentum pitching your body forward as a nasty loop of tree branch holds your lower appendage in place. More roots await when you fall, cutting and scraping various exposed areas of your skin. Pain arcs up your leg when you rise and try to return weight to the foot that got caught. Your ankle is sprained. You barely know where you are. Blood trickles from several smaller wounds, this blood no great sea, only drops upon dirt shed in solitude.

A long walk lies ahead of you. Sighing and biting back pained tears, you limp as best you can in the direction you’d come. You aren't certain how long you even have been walking for when you hear the voice, a bit gruff in nature but soft in tone and volume, pleasantly accented and reassuring despite its strangeness. "You're hurt," it says simply, and as you turn around- no, swivel at the hips, more like, your weight fighting a shift without a thought- it reveals a dwarf. His beard is pleasantly symmetrical, satisfying your eyes with its gravity-defying braids. Not a hint of malice shines in his dark brown eyes, only concern. "I come out this way to collect herbs, but I'll confess it isn't often I see another soul. Please, let a healer do his job." Exhaustion deep in your bones already, you simply nod.

Oin, as you find the dwarf's name is, is more than just a healer, at least in your eyes; his knowledge of nature and its properties are fascinating even if he is just rambling a bit about each thing he applies to your ankle, touch gentle as a feather despite the strength and girth of his hands. He knows exactly what everything he applies to you does and why. “‘N what were you doin’ out here anyway? I can see it- you’ve a good head on your shoulders. A lass like you has got a reason.”

He sees you. At least moreso than plenty of others you have run across, the ones who dub you too fair for your pursuits or reduce the way you track the stars to a pretty fancy of lights. Dwarves, you forget, prize women with a depth and respect that has yet to shine upon some of these lands. Your savior sees you as an equal even in your infirm, and thus you have no qualms explaining your experiment with the soil and the other which required the accursed herbs you twisted up your ankle over. You have tracked the world's revolutions and he has learned how to save mothers and babies from dangerous deliveries. Written many a medical record that piques your love of delving into knowledge enough that you don't just allow Oin to walk you back to society, you come home with him and spend the night in a lovely drown of parchment...and maybe a stiff drink, too! "It'll help with your pain, after all," he adds with a wink.

Perhaps you prefer the company of dwarves, or perhaps drink and offers of knowledge are far too seductive to pass up, but as you make for Oin's doorstep you feel an aching in your heart that your meeting was fate, and certainly not your last. Oin, you suspect, feels the same, shyly fiddling with his fingers as his gaze darts between the threshold and you. "'m glad I found you." "As am I," you reply, "for how else would I have learned someone so special was tucked away so close to my own home? Are you certain you want to listen to me drone on about old myths for hours?" "If it'll get you to come back here," Oin says, "Aye. Again and again." The warmth of your imbibing, and quite definitely something else, rushes through your veins as you lean to close the gap between you two, inhibitions burned down. Perhaps a part of you was tired of being so methodical, relying on long processes and choreographed steps. And judging by the wide, spellbound smile on Oin's face, your rescuer is taken by the same instant connection you thought only happened in old stories.

By the time his hearth is yours, your shelves of healing and botany and the mischief of old gods alike a complete blend of you both, the same way strands of your golden hair are united in the braid Oin gave you. Your healer husband dotes on you more than you ever imagined, dubbing you more beautiful than Freyja and worshiping your curves every chance he gets. Beyond your body, the way the sky shines in the blue of your eyes, he loves your understanding, having another soul move in perfect tandem with his and sit with him in the haze of fascination. A companion at his side for even the smallest tasks of watering the garden or washing one's hair and yet someone who poses the most difficult questions and waits with such patience if her words are not heard the first time. Perhaps he healed you long ago setting your ankle back right, but you, dear, healed him just as much.

Taglist: @lokilover476 @fuckyoumakeart @mossthebogwitch @ibabblealot @kilibaggins @stormchaser819 @pirate-lord-of-narnia @datglutengoblin @letmelickyoureyeballs | Reply/Ask/Message to join 🥰

[maaarine]

My Brain Doesn’t Picture Things (Marco Giancotti, Nautilus, Oct 04 2023)

"My whole life, I’ve been aware—sometimes painfully so—of my own peculiarities, strengths, and weaknesses: A terrible memory, a good sense of direction, and what I felt was a lack of “visual creativity,” among others.

I always thought these were just random, disconnected traits, and didn’t think much about them. Who doesn’t have their quirks?

Then, some time in 2021 (not coincidentally, I forget exactly where or when) I read about aphantasia for the first time, and it hit me hard: When people say “picture this scene in your head,” they aren’t speaking metaphorically!

People can actually invoke shapes and colors in their minds.

The shock of this realization was followed by a piecing together of many of those little idiosyncrasies of mine into a single, coherent phenomenon that fit with the scientific description of the condition.

By the time my formal diagnosis came, I was already quite sure I was aphantasic. (…)

The biggest source of confusion with aphantasia comes from the assumption that “imagination” and “forming mental images” are one and the same thing.

This is, of course, incorrect.

I’m able to imagine anything, except it is all devoid of sensory representations.

The imagined objects exist in my mind as interconnected concepts, like bullet lists of facts about things. (…)

Past episodes of my life—when I can recall them at all—feel distant and non-sensory.

SDAM is a new discovery, still unknown to most practicing psychiatrists, so people like me have to rely on self-diagnosis for the time being.

But the symptoms described by the researchers match with what I’ve always taken for granted.

I would describe my recollections as summaries of key facts rather than first-person “mind movies.”

When asked, out of the blue, about an experience I’ve surely had—say, any childhood birthday party—my mind first responds by drawing a blank.

It feels as if my episodic memories were filed into a “mental cabinet” without an index.

Many memories are in there, somewhere, but retrieving them is a daunting task unless I’m provided with very specific prompts.

With some groping work of deduction (where did I live at the time? Who did I hang out with?) I can gather enough hints to bring out some locations and non-visual facts: I had a big party in our countryside garden when I was 11 or 12; there was cake; a lot of kids running around and … that’s about it. (…)

Suddenly, your performance in every other aspect of life comes under scrutiny, and blaming your congenital aphantasia for it is almost irresistible.

Is drawing without a reference so difficult because of my aphantasia? Could SDAM be why I’m so bad at keeping in touch with people? Would I be less socially awkward without it?

Very few of these supposed connections have been tested yet, let alone confirmed by solid scientific studies.

Yet almost every aphantasic I’ve talked to does this. But everyone seems to focus their self-doubt on whatever they don’t like about themselves, scapegoating different shortcomings."

[cisthehuman]

CisLunar Devlog #5--Hoshi*ga*Hoshii

Welcome to another devlog! Today is a special day!!! The first collection of tunes is released!!!

(Technically it is the 4th, but this is the 1st with all of the goodies attached)

To broaden the world of CisLunar, I wanted to create different musicians within the solar system that are played on Cosmic Canary, Lunar and BonBon's radio station.

While there are other videos posted on the youtube, Hoshi*ga*Hoshii was the first collection of tunes where I really found my footing in creating a specific sound for a character. So let's delve into how she was made!

First things first let's start with her name.

I am off and on teaching myself Japanese as a hobby. I quite like the language and I've always wanted to learn it. You've probably noticed that I've named some characters after different Japanese words. In Hoshi's case, her full stage name is a sentence: I want stars/Hoshi ga Hoshii. I liked how it rolled off the tongue and it felt the space-hop vibes I was going for.

Let's talk music next!

The main inspiration for her sound actually comes from the anime Carole & Tuesday! I admittedly didn't a lot of it despite it being right up my alley. From what I remember, two girls are trying to make it musically and there's like a competition where musicians from other planets compete. I remember watching videos of the different performers and one stood out to me--GGK

(I don't think she won the show, but she won my heart)

With this as the main inspiration, I wanted to make music that had this same chill, spacey vibe. As you can tell, if you listened to the album that is, I got a bit experimental with some of the songs in terms of some of the songs going a bit darker in tone. All in all I think I matched the vibe I was going for! One thing I liked doing was adding in jazzier elements such as pianos and saxophones and pairing them with strings. I think it turned into a very unique listening experience!

With the music done, next was settling her design. Here are some of her inspiration pics from pinterest:

The main idea I wanted for her was to weave as many infinity-esque symbols as I could.

This was her first pass. I wanted to get the hair correct as I was especially fond of the reference I found. Another key thing I wanted was to make her plus sized. I don't do it often due to my own lack of skill, and I wanted to get better at drawing different sized people. Plus in my mind I never pictured her as a thin person. Either way, I know this is something I gotta keep working on!

Here I wanted to see which eye shape best fit as well. Just like with body shapes, I tend to do the same eyes. I wanted to push myself more on creating diverse characters so I took out some time to really think about my choices. (I worry it still looks like my usual though lol)

Then came the sketch of Hoshi's full design! It took a while to get to this point. I thought of several different dress shapes to go with the top portion of the dress. I wanted her in a gown this time as I wanted to go for a very elegant feel. One of the most elegant characters I can think of is Morticia Addams. There's something about how she slithers around the house in her dress to me. So I decided to emulate that for the skirt portion of the gown.

I really like the top. Like it really makes me happy. I find it very elegant!

For the album cover, I did end up with a bust photo. It always happens to me--I choose the pose before I think of the outfit and the cooler part is always cut off lol

It was actually at this point that I decided to give Hoshi galaxy gradient arms. When I was planning colors, I wanted to add a sparkly element, and I thought to myself: wouldn't be cool her name implies what she already has? She wants stars, so she's getting them.

And this is the final picture!! I am EXTREMELY happy with how this turned out! I haven't really done dramatic lighting before and I was scared to bits, but it really turned out!!! T^T I'm just really happy. I have no words.

And to give my own criticism, she can be chubbier. With more practice I'll be able to draw her to what I truly see in my minds eye. For now though, this is a very good start! Below is a quick timelapse! (I forgot to do it when I was sketching and doing lineart, but we got the coloring!)

And to complete the post, I'll add the complete album art~

Yaaaay Hoshi!!

Thank you for reading this devlog! There will be more of these as I continue pumping out tunes~

Seeeee youuuuuu next timmeee

[aller-geez]

I love your OC art and I was wondering how you're able to make them. Is there a website you use or a template you follow? I'd love to make my own OC's but don't know how/where to start

Hey there Anon! So sorry for the lag in the response, I wanted to be sure I could give you an in depth answer! It’s gonna be long, so I’ll put a Read More here~ if you have any questions, feel free to dm me!

Lemme start by saying, Thank you so much! You’re so sweet! 😭😭 it seriously makes my day to hear that, you don’t even know 😭🖤

Secondly, as for Remi and Levi, both characters started out as roleplay characters that @thekinkyleopard and I came up with about 10 years ago! The characters themselves have evolved over the years as we’ve done a hundred different storylines and bounced ideas off of each other. Draeko, on the other hand, was created less than 6 months ago, so he’s not as in depth of a character.

Now, I’ve been doing art for as long as I can remember, and creating characters has always been something I love doing. But everyone creates an OC differently. Personally, I always start with the visualization of a new character, first.

Like for instance, for Draeko, I started with just a color pallet, (ie, pastel pink, white, pastel mint green, and pink plaid). And because I’m a furry, most of my OC’s usually have an attachment of some kind to an animal (shifters, or my Hellhound), plus I wanted more of a complex character since Remi was so plain.

I started drawing a reference sheet for him, which is pretty much a large, informational sheet with your OC in a bunch of different angles, along with key information, accessories, or whatever you want people to know about your character. Here’s some examples of reference sheets I’ve done for our OCs:

I usually start with the full body view first, coming up with details to add as I go.

(Most of my OC’s started out as fursonas, so they already had their animal form, I just would need to design a human form that matched it.)

I then come up with their personality as I’m adding details, and accessories, and naming them. And very last, I come up the details for their backstory, as well as any lore I can come up with.

HOWEVER

Everyone creates differently, and if you’re someone without much art experience or just don’t have a want to create art, OR if that just seems backwards to you,

An easy, pain free way to create your own in depth character that can just always live in your head, or one that you commission another artist to bring to life for you, they have these AMAZING character development type sheets that you can fill out, essentially making a written Reference Sheet so someone else can imagine (or bring to life) your character accurately. Here’s just a few I found in Pinterest by looking up “character development sheet”

As for how I create my art, I use an iPad and Apple Pencil, along with the program Procreate to freehand draw (or I also use bases or pose references from Pinterest!) all of my art from scratch!

Sorry if this is way longer of an answer than you were hoping for/expecting, but I wanted to cover as many points as I possibly could!

Like I said at the top of the post though, if this doesn’t make sense or if you have any other questions about it, shoot me a dm! I promise I don’t bite, I just suck at replying to messages (:

[umitscomplicated]

Legoland

So I got back on the dating apps. I tried Hinge and Bumble, at the suggestion of Giraffe, and hated them. I had them for a few hours, got a few matches, and deleted them. Too monogamous for me. So I opened up my old OKCupid account. I had already removed the link saying I was dating Raven, but did have a bunch of profile updates to make to my prompts and put up all new pictures. One thing was kind of cool though. My old profile had a prompt asking about a goal I was currently working on, and it said something about finding a career I was actually passionate about. So I got to delete that one :)

There was one guy that I matched with on Bumble that I then also matched with on OKC. We’ll call him Hamster. His profile suggested a date of going to the Lego store and picking out a small set to build together, which sounded like an amazing idea for a date. So we did that!

We did lunch, went to the Lego store, then went back to his apartment and talked and built Lego. It was super fun and interesting. I apparently came across a bit intense, but that’s me so whatever. I asked him a bunch of questions about like what he’s looking for and his dating history and whatnot, seems like totally normal first date conversation to me?? 

Anyway. So he somewhat recently got out of a relationship, which ended basically because distance was too hard. Before that he was married for about a year, and divorced. His experience with polyamory is that he wanted to have an open relationship, his wife said no, so they didn’t. Then a while into the marriage, his wife asked to open up, and he said yes. She started dating someone else, then ended their relationship, and is now still with that other person in a monogamous relationship. He says he’s open to poly, but basically just until he finds “the one” or some basically monogamous bullshit. So major red flags there. 

This was all during lunch. I also learned he’s pretty nerdy, pretty introverted, and is currently dating several people - so green flag there I think? Off to the Lego store where we nerded out over basically everything. We ended up deciding on two sets and swapping some of the pieces, because Lego is doing their equivalent of pop figures now, and they had some Harry Potter sets we liked but wanted different pieces from. So we each bought one then traded. I ended up with Bellatrix, Voldemort, and Hermione. He ended up with Harry, Ron, Hagrid, and Nagini. While building Lego he asked me about a line on my profile where I say that I am looking for more pieces to my jigsaw. I explained that it’s a fairly obscure reference to a Daniel Sloss comedy routine - and he actually knew what I was talking about! He said that someone else made him watch it and he thought it was good. So we put those two comedy specials on in the background while we were building Lego. 

So he identifies as bi. And I had noticed at lunch that he wears this really cool bi colored metal ring bracelet thing, and also a bi striped ring. I didn’t mention it at lunch because I was trying to tone down my intensity (at which I apparently failed), but at this point we had spent like 5 hours together and I had to know. So I asked why he was wearing that ring on his ring finger. His response was, “I guess I just miss the feeling of having a ring on that finger.”

To which I made quite a face. Because how the hell am I supposed to take that, on a first date, when I am polyamorous as fuck? I said something along those lines, and he kind of made a face like he had never really thought about that before. He did take the ring off though.

Overall impressions: Super cool date idea that I will 1000% be stealing and using again (he agreed to this), but he’s way too monogamous for me. I also did not get any vibes from him at all. We were together for like 6.5 hours on a first date, and he didn’t even try to touch me at all, even when we were sitting next to each other on the couch. I think we could probably be friends because we obviously have enough to talk about, and I actually think he would get along really well with Raven. 

He did invite me on a second date. I brought up that I wasn’t really sure about feels, and he agreed. I asked what to do next, because my thoughts were either 1) ghost 2) friends 3) idk try again and see if there are feels?? 

We landed on try again, and planned actually 2 more dates because we had so many things we wanted to do.

[juniper-sunny]

The Art in the Heart - Chapter 10

It’s time to tell Silco the whole truth of your history. Who knows if it might scare him off for good…

Everybody Lives AU | Pre-Act I | Silco x Reader | Female!Reader | Slow Burn | Fluff | Mild Angst || SFW | TW: Mentions of Bullying, Mugging, Offscreen Death | WC: 2.27k

ao3 || Masterlist || Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 3.5 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9

taglist: @sherwood-forests @deny-the-issue @let-the-monster-out @ariaud @joscelyn02 @crunchlite @sheacrowley

───────────────── ●◉◎◈◎◉● ─────────────────

This might be the last time you ever get to enjoy Silco’s company, and yet you’re staring at the ground. But maybe it’s better that way; if you look into his seafoam teal eyes, you’re liable to drown. They contain the same passion and intensity as the ocean itself, a force of nature that is at times beautifully tranquil, but can never be tamed or controlled. 

You wonder if you’ve studied his face enough by now to be able to depict him accurately in a painting. The soulfulness of his eyes alone would take hours to capture, not to mention mixing countless different paints to get that precise color that’s not quite a true blue or green, but something in between. The complexity of the color matched only by the hidden depths of the man himself. 

Will your memories be enough of a reference? If he refuses to pose for a portrait?

You should meet his eyes when you talk to him. It’s the least he deserves. But your neck won’t obey you and your head won’t turn either.

(You don’t deserve to look at him.) 

Well, no use in putting this off any longer. Clearing your throat hurts, but you finally begin.

“Do you remember how I started working for Pilties?” You had told him that morning a long time ago, the day after the burglary. 

“You were selling paintings at a Progress Day fair, when you were 17 years old,” Silco recalls. “When you were about to be arrested for vending without a permit, a philanthropic Topside merchant came to your rescue. He was so impressed by your skill he declared himself your patron on the spot.”

Despite yourself, you feel a beaming pride at the memory. “He wanted portraits for him and his entire family. He had a wife and four kids, so it was a literal jackpot. It was a pain in the ass getting them to pose, though.” 

The lump in your throat returns with a vengeance, a harsh, choking pain. Along with memories and old wounds resurfacing that you normally try to keep at bay. It’s been a long time since you actively recalled them. The act of confession seems to worsen your agony.

“At that time I was still living here, at Janna’s Hearth. Kharon, Teema, and Cuny were happy for me, but the other kids… weren’t,” you say slowly. “They’d say stuff like I was a Piltie bitch, or that I was turning my back on the Undercity. Some said that my real mom was a prostitute and that my dad was a Topsider, so I should just leave the orphanage and go ‘home’.” That one gets a chuckle out of you. 

Silco grimaces. “That’s not funny at all.”

You shrug. “It’s just kids talking shit, you know? But then… it started getting worse.” 

Telling Silco about the bullying is easier than you thought. It’s been so long now, you suppose it’s a blessing that there are some memories you’re emotionally detached from at all: your paints getting stolen, paintbrushes destroyed, sketchbooks torn up. Some of your already completed canvases had even been burned, forcing you to request a delay in commission deadlines. 

(And you deserved every minute of it.) 

It doesn’t seem to be easy listening for Silco, though. For all his experience as a revolutionary, you’d think he’d be made of tougher stuff. His face turns stiff as stone, his grave demeanor betrayed only by the trembling of his clenched fists.

“My friends really pulled through for me,” you continue. “Gita and Kai would take turns watching my stuff when I wasn’t around. Nyle beat some of the bullies up too. They were great… and then they started asking for money.

“I was happy to give it to them at first. But Gita and Kai kept asking for more and more, and they didn’t want to hang out unless I had money for them. That’s when I told them to piss off,” you admit. You hope that Silco won’t ask you to go into more detail; part of your ego never healed from the fact that your “friends” wanted you to pay for the pleasure of their company.

You can’t help the way you sound: spoiled by your good luck. Complaining about having more than enough money to help your friends. 

(You really do sound like a Piltie bitch right now.)

“What about Nyle?” Silco asks grimly. 

“Oh, she was great,” you say with a watery smile. “Never asked for a single coin. We moved in together. She even insisted on splitting all the bills.

“Then one night… I was walking home,” you hunch in on yourself, resting your chin on your knees. Fisting the cuff of your pants until your knuckles turn white. “I had just gotten paid… and someone was following me. I tried to get away, but they caught up to me. I ended up losing all my money that night.” 

Silco’s eyebrows shoot up in shock. “What did they do to you??”

“Oh, nothing,” you cringe at the misunderstanding. (Don’t make Silco pity you for something that never happened. Stop trying to make a martyr of yourself.) “They never touched me. I just threw my money at them to get away. But that was my half of rent for the month. 

“Nyle lost her shit at me that night. It turned out that Gita and Kai were sharing the money they got from me with her. That way Nyle could play both sides,” Even after all this time, a bitter part of you is still impressed by your former best friend’s duplicity. Part of the guilt in your chest dissolves into an acidic, burning anger. “Apparently she had been making me pay the entirety of the rent without telling me. I don’t know why she didn’t just ask me when we first moved in, I would’ve been fine with it.

“Anyways… She kicked me out that night. I— I didn’t have anywhere else to go. If Kharon hadn’t found me—“ The tightness in your throat intensifies. Your jaw locks and it hurts to swallow.

That night inflicted scars that never quite healed yet. It hurt to be treated so badly.

(But they needed you. You were a bad friend. And you’re a bad person. Does Silco know what a failure you are?) 

“I owe Kharon, Teema, and Cuny everything. I actually live and work here when I’m not on a job. I only stay at the Promenade when I have to meet with Topside clients… apparently people who live in the Undercity for too long smell bad,” you roll your eyes. 

“Where are they now? Your ‘friends’,” Silco’s voice is hard and cold. 

It’s been a long battle, but you finally give up: your vision swims with tears that start pooling in your eyes. With a wobbling voice, you answer mournfully, “Kai died in the mines. Gita’s missing… no one’s been able to track her down for years. I think Nyle’s a tattoo artist in the Lanes.” 

You still need to pull yourself together. If Silco hasn’t figured it out by now, there’s still one more thing you need to spell out for him. 

It’s the hardest, but most important thing to say. The heartbreak can come later. 

“It was all my fault… If I were a better person… I could’ve saved them. I should have saved them. But I was too greedy… I wanted to keep my friends and my money. And now I have money and no friends,” the mirthless sound that escapes you is more of a cough than a laugh. “Do you still want a spoiled, selfish brat like me in the Children?”

 Silco pulls you in for a hug before you finish your question. His arms wrap tight around you as you finally succumb to great, heaving sobs. 

It’s not just the shame and remorse from past demons that’s tearing your heart apart right now. 

Now that Silco knows everything, he’s going to leave you. And that terrifies you. 

You’ll never see him again. 

As if he can read your thoughts, Silco starts wiping your tears. Pulling you in closer, forcing you to lower your legs so you’re pressed into his torso.

“You are none of those things,” he says softly. “You did no wrong in those terrible circumstances. Listen to me,” he places his hands on the side of your head. Firmly but gently tilting your head up to look him in the eyes. “You must understand this: the ones who dared call themselves your ‘friends’ betrayed you. All they did was take advantage of your generosity.”

“But—”

“You didn’t fail them,” he cuts you off, correctly anticipating your counterargument. “Their well-being was not your responsibility. Even if it were, that would have been too much for any one individual to handle alone.

“You did nothing wrong,” he repeats. 

With his hands still holding your face, you can’t turn away. It’s almost disorienting, the effect his words have on you. Warmth and relief are twin arms around your heart. They’re not quite enough to save you from drowning, but they pull a great deal of weight off your shoulders, making it easier for you to swim to the surface. 

One of Silco’s hands wraps around the back of your head. The other holds your chin. Directing your gaze upwards as he presses his forehead against yours.

“I will say it as many times as you need to hear it… You’re perfect,” he whispers.

It’s not enough to pull you out of the waters you’ve been treading for years. But in between your sobs, you take a deep, gasping inhale, filling your lungs and body with a renewed vitality. 

Your hands rise to touch him. The action is involuntary, but feels perfectly natural. One of your hands falls on the side of his neck. The other rests on his shoulder. 

“You’re cute, too,” Silco’s nose touches yours. You hear the smile in his voice more than you see it. He’s so close to you now. 

You sniffle and laugh. “I’m surprised you remembered last night.”

(“And I meant it when I said you were cute. You are cute. Feel free to ask me when I’m sober. I’ll tell you again and again, as many times as you need to hear it.”)

“Don’t you know? I always keep my promises,” he says under his breath. 

His lips part. The perfect space to fit yours against him. 

All you need to do is lean in closer…

And closer…

And—

“Auntie?” Vi’s voice shatters the moment. The little girl stands in the doorway.

You pull back with a gasp. Breaking free from Silco’s hands. 

“Hi sweetie!” You squeak out. Jumping to your feet. Almost stepping on Silco in your haste to run to Vi. Silco’s words and the intimate moment have you wound up, your heart hammering erratically and palms sweating.

He scoots backwards. Eyes following your progress across the room. 

You crouch down next to the little girl, determinedly fixing your gaze on her. “What’s up?”

“Is my rabbit here?” The little girl asks. 

Silco notices the toy. It’s still next to the bed that Powder was hiding under. He picks it up and hands it to you, looking you in the eyes when he does so. 

You take it from him without returning his gaze. 

“Here you go, Vi,” you tell her. “Have you finished breakfast yet?”

“No.”

“Tell Kharon I said it’s okay for you to have seconds,” you pat her head. “You have to eat a lot so you grow big and strong!” Hopefully the manic energy in your voice comes off as enthusiastic and not panicky. 

After receiving another smooch on her forehead, Vi dashes off. 

You’re tempted to run after her. But you can't leave Silco behind. You stand and take a deep breath, turning to face him. 

“Thank you,” you whisper. 

“Whatever on earth for?” Silco asks, getting to his feet. Stepping closer to you.

It’s hard to find the right words. To describe how much Silco means to you. His friendship, his support, his countless kindnesses…

It means everything. So much more than you can say. 

Instead of speaking, you hug him. Standing on tiptoe to wrap your arms around his neck. 

He reciprocates immediately. Lean but corded arms wrapping around your waist. Nuzzling his cheek against your hair. 

He keeps you warm. Not just with how comforting his arms are around you, but also melting the painful frost that’s trapped your heart for so long. 

You don’t know how long you both hold each other in silence. It’s nice enough that you want it to last forever. Two moons orbiting each other, unable and unwilling to break free to rejoin the greater galaxy. You press your face into his chest while he strokes your hair.

Silco’s stomach gurgles. Rumbling the moment like shattering glassware. 

You wince when you pull away from him. “I’m so sorry, I forgot you haven’t eaten. Why don’t you go and get some—”

“I’m fine,” Silco insists. He looks as chagrined as you feel. “Besides, we have many more rooms to finish.”

“I can take care of it—”

“Please, allow me to help you,” Silco says. “Then perhaps you’d like to join me for brunch?”

You take a moment to ponder his offer. Even if you weren’t starting to get hungry yourself, good food is always more enjoyable in good company.

And Silco is the best company you could ever hope to ask for.

When you tell Silco yes, he beams at you. 

Gods, what a beautiful smile. You hope you’ll get the chance to paint it one day. 

Chapter 11

[harethere-is-art]

Process post for [An Evening Walk in Cyber City]

Hi! ^ ^ Someone had asked me to elaborate on my art process for a recent piece and honestly I have wanted to share it so this is a good excuse!

So first of all references I had set up my laptop at the general angle I knew I wanted, got up on a chair and took a few photos adusting a bit here and there to get the clearest pose. (Yes I may or may not had fallen once or twice) Unfortunately since I didn’t have an umbrella I ended up using a reference from pintererest adjusting the arm to match.

Then after I had finished the sketch I gathered up colors from both swatch’s sprite as well as the sprites used in the cyber city pixel art and did a loose painting of what I wanted the color composition to be like.

Then,,,, the perspective this,, took me a long time. this is all of the attempts combined but I originally tried out a fishbowl perspective using an image from online but it did NOT work out. The mistake I had made here is not taking the perspective of the reference in mind, which was utilizing 3-point perspective. Once I used the 3-point perspective it all fell into place and I could use the vector layers on Clip Studio to efficiently draw in and erase stray lines.

(After this point the screenshots are less consistent) Once I had gotten the grid down I took a screenshot and returned it to the original canvas and put it underneath Swatch’s layer and drew in the outlines of the buildings as well as did some shading.

The windows were also a challenge, I had heard of plenty of resources and brushes to help with windows in digital art but when I tried again and again to download said brushes, it just wouldn’t work. So out of frustration I created my Assets of Spite so I could line it up to the perspective and use the enclose and fill tool to create the windows. Granted I had to tweak and manually draw much of it since it would get to small to fill at times.

But then the buildings were too flat so I returned to the perspecive lines I had drawn and took inspiration from art pieces as well as real buildings to build more interest. I also used the clipping layer (which I had already been using for the windows) and add color.

Then I heavily referenced the ads used in ch2 to modify alternative ads and going so far as to trace the individual dots of the borders for accuracy sake. For the lighting effects I used Add and Add(glow) layers for much of the luminescent bits of the city. I also used custom rain brushes to add the rain and a bit of grain/texture to the buildings.

 Then once it was finally down to Swatch I had taken a big pause until I gained back motivation. I referenced ms.paint for the little window tab swatch is drawing on. There isn’t much to say here other than I use the round mixing brush religiously and used multiple layer settings and experimented to get the effect I wanted.

But overall this has been such a great challenge! I had felt I had been restricting myself and tackling something like this has been great. The overall takeaways I’ld grab from this is use multiple references as well as shooting some yourself, and experiment, experiment, experiment. Use new methods, explore your drawing program, mess around with different values and colors. Go nuts!

I hope this was helpful in anyway it is now 12:40am (I am not a very smart person) so I apologize if this is a bit rambly.

[my-plastic-life]

Creating Sango 2.0

WARNING: VERY LONG POST AHEAD!

I said I wouldn’t do it. I said I’d only have one version of Sango - her kimono version. But I had an extra pair of black pants and matching black shirt just like what my first Sango has under her kimono, so the base was there. Plus, the first time we see Sango, she’s wearing her slayer uniform. And most of the figures made of her depict her in that outfit. It’s iconic. It had to be done.

I asked several people on Etsy who make doll clothes if they could make Sango’s armor, but was always met with a resounding no due to difficulty. So I knew if I wanted this, I’d have to do it myself.

Talk about breaking out of my comfort zone! I’m one of those people who commissions clothes to be made and pays someone else to do a reroot because I just can’t do either of those things myself. But I was determined to try to make the armor. I already had a spare head, and it was already rerooted into the ponytail style because I was sure this could be pulled off somehow, and making the Hiraikotsu is the easiest weapon of anyone so far thanks to my husband’s Glow Forge, so I knew it had to be done.

The first thing I did was make the arm wraps that we see on her hands. I used the same method as I did the first time - after painting, I strung bias tape through the sleeves and then strung them back through once they wrapped around the doll’s hand.

So, the first step was the armor itself. I began watching YouTube videos and looking up tutorials on the best way to make doll armor. There are several methods out there from EVA cosplay foam to hot glue to layered fabric sewn with fluff inside it.

I finally settled on EVA foam. I’d never used it before, but it was highly recommended by other doll creators. So I did some research, got the thinnest option I could find (2mm I believe), and got to work making a template. Hubby was able to cut the pattern out on his Glow Forge, so yay for not having to worry about perfect line cutting! I designed the pattern in Photoshop, so that helped give it crisp, clean lines.

After the foam was cut, we used hubby’s heat gun to shape the foam to the doll’s body. That worked great! I’d sealed it with Mod Podge before (most cosplay people say to use another product, but considering this was meant for a doll and not a real cosplay event, and I had Mod Podge on hand, that’s what I used), so then it was time to paint.

Getting the right color was a challenge. Sango’s armor is often times depicted as being pink, but my figures all show it as more of a coral/salmon shade. In certain shots, I did see that shade. It looked more pink in the nighttime scenes. I tried a few shades of pink, and even experimented with mixing some together, but the shades just seemed off. It was more of a Barbie pink than a Sango pink. So then I bought some coral acrylic paint. It was a bit dark, so I added some white to the mix, and BOOM! I got the color I wanted! Or so I thought... I continued to second guess myself after looking at the doll’s eyeshadow, because it seems to kind of clash with the armor. I didn’t really want to repaint it because the doll had been rerooted already (this time around, I did the face painting first so I didn’t have to worry about messing up the hair like I did with the kimono version)... but then again, they’d be less noticeable then the armor.

I asked several people what they thought, and shared several source pictures, until someone commented that A) Sango’s name means “coral” and B) this picture (below) that I shared is an official character design which had not been adjusted for gradients and surrounding tones (these would affect the armor’s appearance). Plus, Inuyasha had two phases of animation - the first was the traditional one, and the second was digital. The former required colors to change. Seeing as I wanted to stay true to the original version, I found myself looking at this picture the most for reference:

Even in this shot, the armor looks less pink than the kimono. So then the painting process began. To get the gray outlines of the armor, I just sketched out the design using a ruler and pencil and filled that in with gray. I then sealed the pieces with Mod Podge again.

After all that, I began assembling the armor. I’m a big fan of not making anything permanent because you just never know. Five years from now, I could have better armor than I do now. But if it’s all glued together, I can’t take it apart and just replace it. I’d have to start over.

So my initial idea was to use Velcro to secure the padding. I also used it to secure the red straps to the black suit in places where the padding would cover it.

Well, at that point, I was really second-guessing the foam. The elbow and shoulder pads had lost their shape, and when trying to bend them over their respective parts of the doll, the paint began to crack. Probably because I used Mod Podge and not a higher end item. Then, when trying to position the padding properly, I had to remove the armor from the sticky side of the Velcro a few times, which caused the paint and sealer to come off entirely. But most concerning was that the shoulder pads were too small, seemingly smaller than they’d been before. Perhaps the heat gun and/or paint/sealer caused them to shrink. Same thing with the elbow pads, and I didn’t even look at the others because at this point I was thinking I should try a different method.

So many of my things have been made with bias tape and cardstock. So I thought, why not print my pattern out on cardstock, stack and glue several layers together to make it thicker, and then wrap it with bias tape fabric (it doesn’t fray like fat quarters)? That way, if I made a mistake, it would be an easy fix. Sure, the lines may not be quite as straight and clean as the EVA foam being cut with the Glow Forge (I don’t have a Cricut), but I can round out the edges with sandpaper or a nail file. So I got to work doing that, printing out various size options for each armor piece in draft form and holding them all up next to the doll to see which ones would fit the best. After making a decision, I put multiples of each on one file, printed it out on a piece of cardstock paper, and began cutting and gluing them all together.

Once the cardstock was dry, I sanded down any rough edges to make them as uniform as possible, then wrapped and glued bias tape (somehow I found some that was almost 4″ wide, but haven’t been able to find any more since) around the pieces. When that was done, I painted the fabric in the coral shade I’d chosen, then used the same method as I’d used with the foam for the gray edges. I was super happy with how it looked!

Please pardon my mess of a table in the progress photos LOL:

It was then time to apply the armor to the black pants and shirt. I used velcro with a sticky back to accomplish that, and it worked great. I used the thinnest velcro I could find to reduce bulk, and in this case, it was perfect. But then came the shoulder and elbow pads, plus all the red wraps that hold all the pieces in place. My velcro is circular, but it was wider than even the shoulder pads, which made it visible. That’s no good. Plus, I was using velcro to help hold all the red wraps in place as well, which created more bulk. So I had to rethink that.

I tried to sew snap buttons and hooks and eyes on the red bias tape wrap, but the bulk was still there and it was much more difficult than just sticking velcro in place. So then I tried something else - I cut the velcro into smaller pieces, then used one piece of it to stick the red bias tape to the shirt in the appropriate place, which allowed one velcro side to be facing up while the sticky part held the bias tape against the shirt. I put the opposite side of the velcro (also cut into a smaller shape) on the underside of the elbow/shoulder pads, then stuck it in place. And that did it! The bulk was gone... for the most part.

All the armor pieces were a great size, and I was able to secure them without permanently gluing them. But they weren’t conformed to the shape of the doll’s body. I’d noticed while gluing the layers together the pieces could be shaped pretty easily. But with the fabric on them, I couldn’t do that again. So I took a chance and used my husband’s heat gun on these armor pieces. I started with a small piece first in the event the method failed so it would be easy to remake. But alas, it worked perfectly! The heat gun allowed me to bend and shape the armor pieces against the doll’s body just like I did with the EVA foam, and the shape is still holding! Plus, shaping it around the various joints reduces the bulk. I was so happy this method worked! I have a feeling I’ll be using the heat gun quite a bit in the future!

I then took a wider piece of red bias tape in the same shade and wrapped it around the waist to be the sash that holds her sword (it’s technically a wakizashi, which is a shorter/smaller katana). I didn’t tie it in a bow/knot because that made it too thick and it didn’t look right. So for now it stays like this!

Next up was the boots. There are several tall Barbie boots available, bust most of them are high heeled, and that’s not what Sango wears. Who can slay demons in heels? LOL I’d set aside a pair of Barbie boots a while back, but I wasn’t a big fan of them. They were one of the farmer sets, so they had the mud traction bottoms and a weird buckle/texture on the side:

I thought once I painted them, they’d grow on me. But before I could do that, I found a post showcasing this fashion pack on Instagram, and my jaw dropped open. I knew I had to get this pack JUST for the boots:

Absolute perfection! There are buckles on the sides, but when they arrived, I tried them on the doll and was able to put the buckles on the inside, not the outside, of the foot, so you can’t even notice them. And they slid right on the feet/legs over the pants! It was meant to be!

With the boots in place, it was time to begin shaping the knee pads. I’d already cut them out, but I couldn’t put them in place until I had the boots. So the boots got painted black, then I put the knee pads above them. I wanted them to simply wrap around the leg and secure with velcro in the back. I had to trim them down a bit since the wrap was a bit too long, but I was still stuck with how to fasten the ends without overlapping them, which would cause bulk. So I wound up taking a scrap piece of fabric and sticking it between the two ends, and the ends are held to that piece with velcro. It doesn’t look the cleanest, but it’s on the back side, so I can live with it!

The red straps on the bottoms of the boots were next. That was surprisingly easier than I thought it would be - I just took some small strips of the same red bias tape I’d used for the armor, sewed the ends together with elastic, and slipped them right over the boots. DONE! The elastic is on the bottom and not visible, at least not to me.

Then I began with the wraps on the knee pads, which cover the top of the wrapped part and meet in front of the knee in a bow. I used embroidery floss to pull that off - I glued the floss to the tops of the knee pad wraps, then tied a bow in the front. When I was completely done, only then did I trim the ends of the bows in case they came undone and I still needed to retie them. I also covered them in fabric Mod Podge to give them the proper shape and keep them from becoming loose on their own.

You’d think the armor would be done right about now, right? Nope. There was still a collar to make, a button/bead to put on it, and the yellow design.

First was the collar. I wasn’t sure how I was going to pull that off considering the shirt itself had no collar. And no way was I going to attempt to sew one. So then I looked at my black bias tape, which is the same size as the red I was using. I held it around the neck and formed the shape, and it didn’t look bad! So I then took one of my tiny paintbrushes and painted the edge red (the closest shade I could find to match the red bias tape), then wrapped it around the doll accordingly and secured it with velcro. The back piece is tucked under the red crisscross bias tape, so it will help keep the collar in place but is still hidden.

The collar should technically be taller, but I’m afraid that will mess up the effect on the front of the shirt considering it’s supposed to be secured with that button. This is why I want nothing permanent - maybe I’ll think of something in the future for that, and it’ll be a simple fix. If not, hey, I’m still happy with it!

I wasn’t sure how to do the button that’s meant to hold the armor together, but I took a chance with a bead I’d found that looked close to the shape, and I think it turned out great!

Then came the ultimate challenge... that yellow design. I can’t draw, and no way was I going to do so on that shirt. If I messed that up, there was no way to fix it. So I looked up pictures of it, thinking maybe there was a printable version of it for cosplay or something. Well, that proved insanely difficult - no two designs were alike. So I’d have to do what I did with Kagome’s books - use patterns taken from the show and make it myself.

Of course, different shots show the design differently. Sometimes it’s bigger than others. Then trying to find just a straight, forward-facing shot of it in its entirety, in decent quality, is no picnic. So finally I found a picture of the Toynami figure facing forward. I cropped the yellow design in Photoshop, created a large file, copied and pasted that design in there, and began using various tools to trace over the pattern. Why did I do that? Because if I’d just used the copy/pasted image, the quality would be terrible. It was so blurry it was a challenge even to trace. I had to refer to other pictures as I went just to make sure I had the shape right.

But finally I was finished. Then I did the same thing with it as I did for the armor - I printed it out in a variety of sizes and held it onto the doll to determine the best option. But how to put it on the outfit? I decided sticker paper would be the best option. And I actually found some clear sticker paper, so that would be perfect!

Or so I thought... unfortunately, because the sticker paper was clear, the printed design was way too dark once it was actually on the shirt. Putting it on a light color was fine, but a dark color? Nope. So I had to get a second batch of sticker paper, this time with a white background. I put a black box behind each design in Photoshop and printed it on the sticker paper. The black box allowed me to cut as close as I could to the design with an Xacto-knife, but didn’t require me to get so close that I cut something off. The final result was great! Not perfect, and closeup you can see the imperfections, but I’ll take it!

For the last phase, it was time to put the head back on the body (I didn’t want to risk messing the hair up while I was trying to make the armor). I used an extra piece of the red bias tape for her hair wrap - coincidentally, it was a discarded attempt for one of the elbow pads that had snap buttons sewn on it. It fit around the ponytail perfectly!

At last the armor was finished! That was definitely the most complicated outfit I’d ever done. But I’m very proud of myself for doing it all by myself (except the black pants and shirt) from scratch. Hopefully I don’t get the idea to make more complicated pieces like this LOL!

Back of the armor:

And that’s just the armor... there’s still her weapons and mask to do!

The Hiraikotsu was easy. I used the same method as before - hubby printed out Hiraikotsu, I sanded the black burnt edges down, painted it, and then wrapped it with bias tape I’d painted in the desired color. I then used the same bows as before, cut them down, painted them, and glued them to the bias tape. Then I made tassels out of embroidery floss and glued them onto the bows (one had a red bead attached). This time, however, no black strap is needed, since we only see that when Sango is wearing her kimono and walking with the weapon as opposed to carrying/wielding it. This also resulted in the bows being placed differently. With the black strap, the bead is on the bottom. With her armor, it’s on the top. But not having the black strap did make it a little easier.

However, there was still the question of how the doll can hold the weapon. Sango holds Hiraikotsu at the bow under the beaded bow. But if I ever want it to lay flat, it wouldn’t be able to because it would be sticking out. Plus, getting the doll’s hand around the bias tape AND the bow, with a tassel in the way, definitely sounded difficult. So I had to think of something else.

I settled for taking a spare piece of bias tape, painting it, and wrapping it around the bias tape already on Hiraikotsu, securing it behind it with velcro. Then, I pinched that piece to allow it to fit inside the doll’s hand. So now it looks like she’s holding the weapon, but the bow is still flat against it.

If I had another bow, I’d probably add one to that spare piece. Maybe when more Christmas stuff comes out at Hobby Lobby, I’ll pick up some more.

Next was the sword. You wouldn’t believe how many swords I ordered trying to find the right one. First, it had to have a sheath. Second, it had to be the right size. And third, it couldn’t be so heavy that it would A) pull the waist sash down and not be supported by it, or B) be unable to be held by the doll. I ordered SO many swords... and a vast majority of them, despite being advertised as 1/6 scale, were way too big. One of them was actually taller than she is! Others were also a bit too long, but more than that, they were too heavy. I was thinking I may have to wind up making a sword somehow out of more cardboard or something.

But then I remembered - I had Katana’s sword from DC Super Hero Girls. I’d ordered her specifically for her hands - to be given to Kagome LOL. I knew it would work because it was the right size and it wasn’t heavy - it was designed for those hands. But it didn’t have a sheath, and the guard is a rectangle instead of a circle. But then I did some digging and almost fell over when I found an actual Katana doll with a sword that had a sheath! Plus lots of other ninja weapons, and who can say no to that. It was a 2016 Comic Con exclusive doll, but I found one secondhand on eBay with all her accessories for a significantly cheaper price. So I grabbed that and was determined to make it work, even with the rectangular sword guard.

I didn’t use that actual sword - it had a more realistic metal look to the blade, and the gold diamonds were painted. The first sword I had has a blade that looks more like the Inuyasha doll’s Tetsusaiga blade (and that’s the doll I made all these to go with), plus it was all a solid color on the top to allow for easier painting.

Sango’s sword doesn’t have the diamond pattern etching, but it’ll have to do. Once painted, you can’t really see it. I painted the handle of the sword, and used my Kotobukiya figure as reference for the purple pattern wrap around it. For the guard, my original plan was to make two identical sword pieces out of cardstock, put holes in the center, slide one over the blade and one over the handle, and sandwich the original guard between them. I couldn’t remove the original, and I didn’t want to try to Dremel/shape it because that probably would have resulted in the whole thing breaking. The sandwich method didn’t work, but when I slid the cardboard guard onto the blade and hooked it to the original guard, I thought it looked pretty good! At the right angle, you can’t even tell the rectangle is still there. VICTORY!

For the sheath, I painted it a solid red color to start, and considered attaching purple craft foam to the bottom and using two small heart hole punches for the design. The wrapping created too much bulk and I couldn’t get the shape right. So I decided to paint it by hand. Then I painted the same red color onto a blank spot on the white sticker paper I’d used before, cut out the hearts with the hole punches, and stuck them to the sword. YES!

And that was the end of the sword!

Finally, the mask. I knew what I wanted to do with that - I have several Barbie masks from various fashion and accessory packs, and I’d tried one on the doll head, and it fit great! Since this doll has ears that actually stick out more than Barbie’s, the hooks hold it in place nicely.

(Wow, that mask looks huge on that Barbie - it looks better on the anime head LOL)

So then it was time to paint it. I used the same gray as I used on the armor, and used a red that was as close to the armor’s red bias tape as possible for the strap. The really fun part was painting the little details... I’d printed out some pictures of the mask (the exhibition one since it was the highest quality image), but I couldn’t just stick that onto the mask with sticker paper because it jus didn’t fit or look right. So I did it all by hand... I sketched out my design with a pencil first (actually works great on acrylic paint, even if you use an eraser!), then used another one of my tiny brushes to go over the design in a darker gray. For the final touch, I cut out tiny flower shapes out of cardstock, painted them to match the mask, and then took a needle and thread and strung red thread through them to make the tassels of the mask, and give the flowers kind of a 3D effect as shown in the anime:

My tassels may be a bit thin, but I didn’t want to string too much through and risk tearing the paper (it’s only one layer). I wasn’t even sure if it would work to be honest, but it did! Yay!!!

(The imperfections are much more noticeable in such a zoomed in photo lol)

And that is IT! That is the entire process of Sango the demon slayer in her armor. Definitely the most intense and challenging project I’ve done to date, but I’m very pleased with the overall result.

[twistedmusings]

Doing Anything for Heat

“Do you always refer to yourself in third person when writing these up?” 

“Legalities, Prefect, although I do not expect you to know anything about that.” 

Guess who can’t write as much anymore because she got a nasty bite at work! So yes, I was working on requests so diligently and then bam--this happens. 

As an apology for my late ass writings, please take this mini scenario for the Octavinelle Trio! Azul’s SSR card got translated and I just...god I love these boys so much q wq  Reader: [G/N]  Warnings: Casual flirting, possessive thoughts from all the boys and just MC striking up a contract with Azul and taking a very creative approach towards it~ 

“[Y/N]!!!!” Grimm pulls at your arm as you sit down across from Azul, the man holding out a contract to you as he tilts his head with a smile. “What will it be, Prefect?” 

Your hands sweat as you rub them on your legs. “Hehe~ Little Shrimp looks so scared~” 

The contract is placed in front of you slowly, Azul taking care of minding his manners as you lean back and go over the simple specifications. Made simpler, of course, since Azul had ‘such’ a kind heart. 

What a con artist. 

Winter was hitting Night Raven College hard but was hitting Ramshackle even harder. 

How many blankets had you bought from Sam’s shop? Ten? Twenty? You honestly didn’t know but you and Grimm were close to freezing some night and you had just about enough of living in an ice cube for a dorm. 

You were acting out of desperation. 

And, ever the businessman, Azul had stretched out his hand for your unfortunate soul. 

“Bring sixty customers during our lunch rush tomorrow and Azul Ashengrotto will personally see that a heater is installed in Ramshackle the same day.” 

You put the contract down and look him in the eye. “Do you always refer to yourself in third person when writing these up?” 

“Legalities, Prefect, although I do not expect you to know anything about that.” 

Great, more insults towards your intelligence. 

Sixty customers. If you were to break that down it would be ten from each dorm not counting Octavinelle. You could rope Ace and Deuce to come, guilt trip Jack for not helping you with that assignment due last night, kindly ask Epel to make his way over here and maybe if you promised Sebek that you would listen to him rant about his dorm leader he would reluctantly agree. 

But that wouldn’t be near enough. 

Azul clicks his tongue while Jade speaks up, “We will have to take that answer today, [Y/N]-san. If not, I guess maybe we could let you take some blankets from Octavinelle--” 

“Fine! Fine.” you sign your name on the dotted line and hand the contract back to Azul, the other grinning as he handed it towards his right-hand man. “How wonderful! I’ll be waiting with baited breath to see what you bring us tomorrow~” 

You give Azul the fakest smile you can muster, waving goodbye to the twins as you make your way out of the lounge with Grimm by your side. “Fgnaaa~! We are screwed! [Y/N] how could you! We are going to be stuck waiting tables for ETERNITY now!” 

“Not if we bring them what they asked for.” you bite your bottom lip as you look at the Monstro Lounge, your eyes falling on the small stage. 

Oh right. Some students played here. Well, students deemed worthy enough to play. You remember the Music Club trying to do a gig here but failing miserably the moment Lilia opened his mouth. Despite the failure, it did bring some people in to get Azul over the red. 

A floorshow. 

That’s right! A floorshow! 

“Grimm!” you grab the cat and bring him close as he freaks out. 

“What--what!” 

“I got it!” you hold him out in front of you, “We are going to have to let go of our pride a bit and this experience might humble us but...we will have heat!’ 

“[Y/N] you are scaring me--” 

Grimm barely gets to say what he wants as he is dragged back into your arms, your feet running as fast as you can into Mr.S’s shop for the stuff that you will need.

--------

“Ah! Little Shrimp!” 

Jade looks up from the numbers he was crunching, smiling as he sees you approaching the table. You wave at Floyd and nod politely towards Jade, sitting down and tapping your fingers against the bar. 

“You are here rather late, [Y/N]-san. We have two hours until closing time.” 

“I’m just…putting my plan into action. Azul said he wanted sixty by tomorrow, after all.” Floyd grins as he finishes cleaning up the remaining glasses. 

“Eh? You are doing something tonight, little Shrimp?” 

“...yes.” 

He leans close, smiling wider as he sees a certain change in your appearance. The Monstro Lounge was always dark in order to provide a more atmospheric mood at night but with the little light he had to work with he could clearly see traces of makeup all over your face. “Little Shrimp looks so shiny...just like a pearl.” You pull away as he tries to get closer, putting your hand out to stop him and turn your attention towards Jade. “Right. Do you have a backroom next to the stage? I just need to get some things ready--” 

“Go into the kitchen, farthest door to the back. There should be a door that leads you towards the back of the stage.” “Do you guys have a light booth--” “Next to the stage.” Jade’s eyes shine, interested in what you are about to pull off, “Do you need our help--” 

“Nope that is alright I can take care of this myself thank you.” 

Both twins watch you trot towards the kitchen, Grimm following close behind and about three ghosts ‘matching’ his step. 

“...Floyd.” 

“Yes?” 

“Call Azul. I think he’ll be interested to see what is going on.”

--------

“For heat. For heat. For heat!” 

You were doing this because of your situation. The situation was desperate so you had to take desperate measures. 

Grimm clears his throat as you finish fixing his bowtie, the transparent fabric looking beautiful with the stitched shells all over it. 

“Are the ghosts ready?” you ask. 

“Just waiting for the curtains to close.” 

The crowd goes quiet as you press a few buttons and close them, hushing the late night crowd as you step onto the stage. You try to step softly so that the click of your heels won’t be heard while Grimm opens up the rather large shell in the middle of the stage. This was usually used as a promotional device, customers taking pictures inside it to promote their visits to the lounge. It had a soft cushiony seat inside and could fit a whole student. 

You give a thumbs up to your other roommates, the ghosts smiling as their instruments manifested in front of them. 

Spectral instruments really came in handy in these situations. “Breathe...Breathe…” you sit down inside the shell and pull your legs up with you, fixing the train of your dress and touching the small shell tiara on your head. It was fashioned after King Triton after all, maybe Azul would get the reference?

Or rather, you hoped Azul wasn’t watching at all. “Okay...close it, Grimm.” He nods and brings the top of the shell down slowly, trapping you both inside as he gave the cue to start up the lights. This was all for a heater...and maybe some tuna. 

-----

-At first he wanted to laugh as he saw the curtain slowly being drawn back, when was the last time they used this stage? Student players just weren’t ‘in’ as much anymore and he had to keep up with the trends. What were you planning to do with this? 

-Yet his mouth clicked shut as the lights landed right on the shell, the music starting as your voice rang out softly from inside. 

-He barely paid attention to the band as the shell slowly opened, Grimm flying out elegantly as he opened it while your frame was slowly being revealed to him as every student’s jaw almost hit the floor. 

-Azul clutched his cane as he watched you cradle your legs close to yourself, the lyrics completely blowing past him as you stretch yourself out to show off the outfit you had on. It seemed to shine like a pearl under the lights, your chest being accentuated by how snug it fit against your frame. 

-He licked his lips when his eyes landed on your undecorated neck. It was as if you were begging for it to be decorated with bites. Surely he could make a nice necklace for you. 

-Dammit he should have sat closer, students were actually getting up from their booths and moving to any tables that were closer to the stage as you start getting up, the train of fabric in your outfit resembling the top of a shell as it brushes across the ground as you make your way to the floor. 

-He bites his bottom lip as he sees you making your way around the tables, your voice soft and melodic as the students watch the performance flabbergasted. You are letting your fingers glide against the tables, winking at some of the more bold students who put out their hands so they could touch yours.

-If you were to look at his face you would see no trace of emotion but inside his head he was screaming at you to pass by his table already don’t you know anything about customer service? 

-You finally make eye contact with the table he was sitting at, Azul feeling a shiver go up his spine at how your flirtatious eyes suddenly turned nervous. Nobody else had gotten that look.

-Again, he needed to see you looking at him like that again. 

 -So this is what you were planning. How interesting~ 

-He watched from behind Azul, taking off his coat and laying it on the back of the plush booth as he took in your form. Where had you gotten such a cute outfit, he wondered. The color made you shine like the rarest pearl and every time the light hit you just right he could see the glitter in your eyelids as you started to approach their table. 

-You made eye contact with him, clearly trying to keep up the act of ‘mysterious’ floor show guest but failing as his eyes took you in the closer you got. 

-The students groan when they see you sit right next to Azul, pressing close to him as he dares to put an arm around your waist and squeeze. Oh he could bet Azul was happy with how jealous all the students looked. 

-Jade couldn’t help the chuckle that escaped him when you took Azul’s hat and shoved it in his face before pulling away as quickly as possible. 

-He follows your movements as you walk behind him, the sudden hand on his back making him hum in thought as the idea of pinning you right to the back of the booth so you would sing only to him suddenly seeming like the only thing to do in this situation. 

-You really had no idea what you could awaken in him if you kept playing around. 

-His eyes meet yours as you start walking away but his hand catches your wrist as he tugs you back to him--!

-But Jade, ever the unpredictable man, only presses his lips to your hand before letting you go.

-You were doing a floor show for the customers after all. Didn’t mean that he wouldn’t be talking to you later~ 

-Floyd had moved himself to the table closest to the stage, tie undone and smile wider than anyone had ever seen as he watched you pay attention to almost every table. The table he was sitting at had been filled with students who deemed themselves rather lucky to get so close only for them to scram when they saw who was approaching it.  

-He waves at you when you finally make eye contact with him, licking his lips and smiling as he sees your reluctance to get near him. 

-Which he didn’t mind, the fact that you were so wary of him made you all the more adorable. 

-You try your best to be as flirty as you had before, merely touching his hand as he holds it out to you but for Floyd that is not enough. The moment your fingers pressed against his palm, he snatched your wrist and brought you to his lap, students gasping as his hands landed on your sides. 

-Oh the material was so soft! He ran his fingers up and down as you press hand to his chest while you sang the last few notes of the song. 

-Floyd couldn’t help the little giggle as he saw the embarrassment on your face, your hand clearly pushing on his chest but his hands clearly weren’t letting you go. What were you going to do, little Shrimp? 

-His eyes widen at your sudden improvisation, your hands taking his and pressing them to your face so he could cup your cheeks. Instinctively he pulled you closer as the song suddenly stopped---

”Floyd-senpai, I have to go.” 

-The whisper is only for him to hear as you catch him off guard with that soft look and pull away, you holding out the last note of the song as if you had planned to be caught by him all along. 

-He clicks his tongue and leans back, eyes watching you go back up the stage and sitting inside the shell as you pull your legs closer to you before blowing a kiss to the now applauding crowd as Grimm closed the shell. 

-Surely the kiss had been for him, right? If it had been for any of these other bottom feeders...well no matter. Even if it hadn’t been for him, Floyd would make sure to squeeze you real tight the moment you got off stage. 

-----

You lay down on the cushion as you put your arms over your eyes, groaning as you tried to get your thoughts together. 

If this worked out the way you thought it would, word of mouth would get around and you would bring around sixty customers so that they could partake in what they had missed tonight. 

Has it cost you your dignity? Yes. 

Was the outfit embarrassing? Yes. 

Did you have to flirt with all three Octavinelle members so they would see that you were serious about finally going to sleep without shivering? Yes and yes. 

At least it was over. 

“Yo Grimm. Can you open this? I want to change!” 

Your hands tap the top of the shell, sighing in relief as it slowly opened. 

Only for you to yelp as hands pin you down to the cushion, a very familiar face grinning down at you as Floyd laughs merrily. 

“Ahaha~! Nee, that kiss was for me, right Little Shrimpy? You blew that my way, right?” 

Jade sighs and steps behind his brother, pulling him up by the collar so that you could get your bearings. 

“It was at the customers, Floyd. I believe [Y/N]-san wanted this to be spoken about tomorrow, correct?” 

You nod as he lets go of Floyd and holds out his hand for you to take. 

“What an interesting plan...right Azul?” 

The Octavinelle dorm leader isn’t really looking at you, he is still staring at everything that you had on taking it as much as he could before your voice brought him back. “So...how did I do?” 

Azul blinks before smiling as he steps close and holds out his arm for you to take. 

“I have yet to see the terms of the contract be met but...we can discuss how you did in my office. Mind telling me how you came up with this plan? ” 

“Y--Yeah! Sure!” 

You take Azul’s arm and speak about your thought process, not noticing the grins on the eel’s faces as they hold themselves back until they reach Azul’s office. 

How nice, it would be the first time you would be staying over at Octavinelle, even if you didn’t know it yet.