#i had so much fun with overlay layers. maybe too much fun

[kozachenko]

(Click the image for better quality)

Yipeeee that Keiki and Mayumi fanart I posted the WIP of is finally done woooo- This piece was a very experimental one that I'm kind of OK on. Maybe because I've just gone insane looking at it for so long and I'm my own worst critic lol.

Artist's Notes;

So I've once again been playing around with my rendering style, mainly because I have been wanting to improve my lighting for a while now and as I was just scrolling through Tumblr, I saw some of the official art for that one webcomic-turned-animated-TV-Show Lackadaisy and was immediately inspired. I also have seen a technique a few times in the past where the lineart and shading are merged together, so I've been meaning to try that for a little while.

I did some experimentation on this one sketch of Keiki I posted in my sketch dump and I really liked the results of it, so I carried those over to this piece.

I ended up scaling up Keiki and Mayumi from the original WIP because I felt like they were both getting lost in the composition, and I'm glad for that because I think it works a lot better. I'm not a fan of how Mayumi's sword turned out at all, but it's not really meant to be the focus of the piece so eh. Overall, I think I could do better with my colours, probably because with Keiki and Mayumi's colours, I did them flat in greyscale and then used a brush on the overlay blend mode to colour all of them over, after which I changed the base layer for their colours from white to yellow and then lowered the opacity so it all went together better. I also decided to use gradient maps for a lot of the background elements, mainly to experiment with getting in my values first to make them pop out more. I ended up finding a really nice sky gradient on Clip Studio Paint that I really liked, and that kinda helped to establish the colour scheme of the background a lot. I think the whole "start in greyscale then colour" thing really works better with painterly styles rather than more illustrative ones, and while it is good at making sure your values are more readable, I honestly don't think I have the skill level to pull that off yet. Honestly, I think I've been looking at this drawing too long or maybe I added too much to it, but I wish I could've made the colours less monochromatic, but I'll just save that for the next piece I do.

I do love how the flame (...well it's more of a weird space rift than anything in this piece) and the lighting turned out, those were fun to do. I was initially struggling with the flame and how Mayumi is positioned in front of it before realizing "Oh wait! This is a weird abstraction of a weird creature! I don't have to follow the laws of anatomy!" and just dislocated it's flamey bottom jaw from the main body. I also changed the colours of it since I was really not liking how incredibly bright it was when it had lighter colours. Again, the gradient maps served the more painterly style of the flames well.

I also love how Mayumi turned out. I could do her sleeves better but that's more of just me needing to study how those types of sleeves fold in that position more. I'm also very happy with the posing, the technique I used for that was taking photos of myself in the positions I wanted, blocking in the silhouette and then modifying that by adjusting it to my lines of action that I drew on top of the original photos, and then sketching over the silhouettes and drawing in the shapes of the hands overtop of the photo if I needed to get the fine details right. As for what I do to take the pictures myself, I use a tall chair I have, prop up my phone with a phone stand, put on a ten second timer and scramble to get in position. Yes, I did have to use a bunch of thin markers I had to try and get the hand positioning on Keiki's pose right, yes I do have a fake sword that I used to get the positioning of Mayumi's arms and hand right, the sword was for an old Halloween costume from several years ago. I really like how both Keiki and Mayumi turned out in this drawing, I'll have to play around with these designs for them more in future drawings.

Also, if you wanna know why I draw buildings like that, when I watched Fantasia 2000 as a kid (One of the Disney movies where they make really beautiful animations to classical music) the way they drew the buildings in the first few sections Rhapsody in Blue segment (the jazz one with the cities) changed my brain chemistry and now whenever I need to draw buildings really quickly, I refer back to that. Since the buildings aren't really the main subject, I didn't put much thought into them.

As you can tell I am very tired of this piece, mainly because I made things harder for myself by overcomplicating the process compared to what I usually do, mainly with the whole "starting in grayscale then adding colour." I'd honestly just prefer having a black layer set to colour that I can just toggle on and off when I need to see the values, but it was good to experiment. And that was mainly the point of this whole drawing, to experiment. I'm definitely going to have to play around with this new style I'm going for, mainly because I liked how it turned out a lot in the augmented Keiki sketch, and also because I want to find ways of making it suit my style more. I also really want to keep experimenting with my lighting like this, it's very fun. Last but not least I am never starting in greyscale again because dear god I do not like the workflow it forced me into. I don't have a problem with the method itself it's mainly just a skill issue lol.

If you wanna read my headcanons for these two, I put them in my WIP post, so you can read them there if you want to. The more I look at this the more I prefer the simplicity of my WIP. I might go back to this and just take away the fancy colours and effects to see what it looks like without all of that stuff and reblog this post with that drawing, but for now, I don't think I can look at this drawing again for a while.

[heatwa-ves]

jellywitch!! design notes and other things under the cut 💖

okay this one kinda ran away with me 😭 I think I included elements of all the emojis but I planned to have more... I just saw jellyfish and suddenly I couldn't think of anything else

her name is leah! i chose it because of the scientific name for moon jellyfish, aurelia

🌌 - this one I planned to include more of... I was intending to do a kinda galaxy space pattern on the skirt but forgot about it until the end and when I remembered I liked what I already had and didn't want to change it... I did include the starfish and the design is based on moon jellyfish soooo I guess that counts if you squint lol

🪻- uhhh it's there on the top of her little swimsuit type thing and there's a bit in her belt, broom and earrings, but tbh the flower vibe wasn't matching with my ocean vibe so I didn't really do much with it lol. the whole thing is very purple tho so theres that

🪼 - she's a jellywitch! I knew as soon as I saw this that I needed to do a translucent jellyfish skirt and that eventually led to a jelly witch hat too. like I said the design is mostly based on moon jellies.. love them

🍭 - this one is Very Very loosely included... I mostly just used the swirl shape, it's most obvious with the swirly shells and also on the big pearl, and a bit on her sleeves and shoes. this was kinda just shoved in there tho lol

her main outfit is likee a kinda bathing suit maybe? I figured she's an ocean witch so she should be able to easily have swimwear idk idk I just thought it looked neat

potions! what do they do? idk I just slapped them on there. one is in a shell shaped bottle

I added a water surface overlay over the whole thing, it's mostly noticeable on the legs

anyway I love her 💖 this was a ton of fun to work on, I used around 100 layers and it's on a big canvas so it's a pretty damn big file 😭 and took HOURS. I worked on this for three or four days for a few hours each day but I'm so happy with the end result! in typical tia fashion it's a super detailed design on a person just standing on a blank background but that's ok since this was mostly a character design exercise.

[judithan-xing]

It's kinda wild seeing the way I used to color vs now. To an outsider it probably all looks like vague anime slop but I can see the finer nuance in differences. My lines used to be way thicker, always black, and my colors were always saturated as much as they could be before it became hard to look at. Compared to now where I usually use colored + thin lines (and I rarely properly line stuff anymore, usually I just color the sketch and call it good enough. Idk if ppl can tell) and I use a very distinct color palette that is pretty pastel and a lot cooler on tones where as before I used a lot of warm tones. There's a lot of bad habits in my art I've had to unlearn (uneven proportions in the face cuz I don't line things up,, even now I still struggle often,, using multiply layers instead of actually learning color theory for so long,, also using way too many overlays) now I feel like my art has a better leg to stand on

I think my long term goals are to finish the novelization of lordless as well as to make an art book. I feel like I have too much to say and too many pieces I wouldn't even know where to start,, maybe some like By The Year type thing would be fun but truthfully going through my highschool shit would bring up a lot of bad memories so idk. Much to think about

[strawberry-seal77]

9. whats something you always come back to when drawing?

12. describe your process while drawing! <3

21. what do you think your artstyle would taste like? (I think it tastes like a strawberry banana smoothie :3 tasty and refreshing)

22. do you have a favorite color palette to work with?

<33333

9 - cats!!! always cats. I started drawing with cats and I think I'll keep drawing them forever and ever sbdfhjdshf. Otherwise, I feel like I always end up having characters put a hand on their hip sbdhjfb

(though not as much recently it seems?)

21 - Oooooh.... I think my artstyle would taste like starbursts!!!! Maybe lemon, since thats my favorite. smoothies are AWESOME though so I'm HONORED . !!!

22 - Hmmm... Not off the top of my head, though whenever I'm applying overlay layers I usually end up making everything pinker BFHDBFH. My most recent shaded drawings have all been in nighttime/dark environments (which is cool to work with!) so maybe that? :O

I do love sketching in red though >:3cc

12 - Gonna talk about the MAP part bgs here 'cos I remember them most clearly. Talking is long so it is UNER the cut :3

First and foremost, new file !!

Then, especially in the case of MAP-related things, I gather alllll my references and stick em above the canvas. For these bgs, I also put in the characters that gamzee had drawn so I could check how everything flowed.

(they weren't colored at the time so I just blocked it in sbdhfbhdf)

then, SKETCH !!! I'm still not too good at picking a perspective, so I just winged it. Turned out okay!!! Though I'm going to actually try to learn this stuff sometime fbhsdbfh.

You can see it's pretty rough, because my sketches are just doing as little work as possible to help me figure out space & such. The next step is to block out the colors, and while I don't have any actually saved, I'll make a dramatic reenactment.

(usually the bg colors would probbably be in there? but I didnt think about that fbdhsfb)

Then I went through area-by-area, shading it as I thought would make sense. First with the rock, which if you look has a lot of blurring! This was after shading with just rough lines, and you can see I went in and added more lines after that for texture. The bush was fun (though I was mostly guessing, even with reference) Looks like a cake... ehehe

the grass you can see has horizontal patches of light & dark, and thats something I thinkkk I got from a northflowo video!! It does indeed make the grass look better.

the background was a little funky since, again, I did it at the very end. BUT! Look at that tasty water!!!

The leaves in the foreground (for as little camera sense as they made) were fun!! and like a mini version of the whole process. Sketch, block out colors, shade em, begone

I'd say a lot of my doing art is drawing whatever I want to draw, and then going "ok how do I make this look finished-", which is usually basic colors or something in the background. For example- I did the bg last here, so it's on another layer, and you can see how much more finished it looks!!

even though everyyyything else is just as shaded :33

Also, this was another reminder of how useful it'd be if I actually recorded speedpaints HSBDHBFHF

If I'm drawing characters, I start with either the head or most defining (/important to get) part of the pose, and I do my silly little boxes then build out from there. Recently ive been drawing legs like this in the first sketch which I think is kinda funny, but effective! FBDHFB

[dkniade]

Sadbedo sitting at a camp in Dragonspine

Stress relief piece that I finished the next day.

Drafted on 08-08-2022. 2:22 AM. I’m calmer now.

art and writing process utc.

Drawing Albedo in full took some time BECAUSE OF ALL THE DETAILS ON THIS MAN but it’s fine. I’m slowly getting used to his design! His boots are kind of funky…

Drawing Albedo in full took some time BECAUSE OF ALL THE DETAILS ON THIS MAN but it’s fine. I’m slowly getting used to his design! His boots are kind of funky…

Anyway my process here was basically pose sketch > cleaner sketch > base colours (all on top of a screen layer because the screenshot was too dark to see things clearly)

And then the fun part. AMBIENCE.

I made the glow of the fire to be warmer and brighter since I wanted more warm colours (and for Albedo to stare into a fire, whatever underlying message that might imply, haha…)

My layers look like this

But I think for this first one the airbrushed orange colour on the “haze” screen layer was too strong so the light on the boots ended up too hazy for my preference (not shiny enough). Must’ve added shading to bring out the form instead of just the overlay lighting with airbrush… The highlights on colour dodge make the gloves and boots look more shiny which is nice. I also added some teal behind Albedo so the background isn’t too dark and has a softer look.

By now I’ve also added a snow layer. Originally I tried using motion blur on the snow but then it looked like Albedo was stranded in a snowstorm instead of just sitting there, reflecting and being sad. It’s… a Contemplation in Snow you could say lmao

And finally, the dialogue, because I love writing dialogues. Let’s see… Technical stuff aside, I went to Dragonspine for comfort, a change of scenery, and for some nice music (I know the region’s OSTs so well I can almost name each over world track by ear lmao)

“Although a dangerous place, this mountain provides me an odd sense of comfort.”

“I suppose you can call it an escape from life’s… complexities.”

“How does it feel to be sleeping beneath the snow like this, Durin?”

Since this was meant for stress relief due to personal reasons, the first two lines reflect my feelings directly for Dragonspine. Now, the line about Durin was meant to show a sort of emotional (?) connection Albedo has with Durin, and hinting at him worrying that he might die on the mountain under maybe the Traveler’s blade. (“If one day I lose control…” Y’know how it goes.)

Out of the three lines, I came up with this line first, actually... Metaphorically speaking, it’s about my… loneliness? It’s rare for me to find people in my friend circle that enjoy media and/or literary analysis on this stuff, so sometimes I feel this way. (But not to such a dark extent, of course!)

Other lines I had considered were something along the lines of a physical report (something I do when I’m nervous, for example checking my pulse) like,

“Breathing: Difficult. Heartbeat: Escalating.”

“How should I return these vital signs to normal, exactly?”

But since it was originally just meant to be a self-indulgent “project onto Albedo because I’m sad” thing, I decided to go the usual way of feelings and metaphors… Me talking about my art process does sound rather analytical but trust me when I say my poetry is filled with extended metaphors. (You can find more of them on IG under the same handle.)

Thank you for reading this! I enjoy talking about my thought process for my artworks and written works just as much as I do for translation, if not more. With that said, please take care.

[spearxwind]

How do you go about drawing backgrounds for Extinction? I wanna go about pushing myself to make more but I don’t know how to approach it.

Well, if you look at my first pages I didnt put as much effort into them, but many pages later I've slowly and progressively gotten better at them! I started by just like, hinting at shapes mostly and not worrying too much about details. i also have BARELY colored my backgrounds, like, AT ALL. nearly all of them save for a couple instances have all been blocked in with different shades of grey and later colored with 'overlay' layers or other similar lighting layers

the very first panel of my comic has very obvious coloring, line, and shading mistakes but its fine! also at first i looked at references too to see how things should vaguely look like (honestly i should look at references more in general but i keep being strapped for time already x)

it also helps that uh. i set the stabilizer to 100 and most of my bgs consist of sharp lines so i do those first and then do the smaller details

I wish i had more to say but genuinely i have just learned to freehand most of them. my sketches are ultra bare

These arent from extinction but here's what i mean. there's nothing under the lineart but that super fast gesture

(btw this is a comic im doing for class and will be up on patreon when it's finished)

the biggest advice i can give though: if you do backgrounds do them for YOU and keep details as vague as you are comfortable with because 1. getting obsessed with them will eventually bog down your drawing time (and that's not fun) 2. readers read fast and comics, in the end, are just a reading format. they will most likely not look at the bg for longer than maybe a minute, at best

[eleonorpiteira]

Can you share some tips about how you painted those galaxy paintings?

I know your galaxy paintings are digital, but I don't do digital art, but I DO paint galaxies with paint and canvas and I'm wondering if some of the brushes you use, or maybe the specific order you apply paint, direction of painting, etc. might be informative in refining a galaxy panting specifically.

any advice or tips would be greatly appreciated.

Hello! Great question! I’m not sure how much I can help, but I’ll try to shed some light on the process as best as I can.

All the illustrations I did were very experimental, so I didn’t really have a set process for how I made them. It was a lot of experimenting with brushes I had (cloud brushes!) and then finding certain shapes I liked in them, and pushing those shapes until I thought they looked like something decent.

As for textures, it was a combination of textured digital brushes (mostly one I’ve been using a lot, from this pack), and good ol’ textures (photos of textures that you can use with different layer modes) on top of everything (or in the middle, doesn’t matter, whatever gets results). Star lights and bright colours were typically applied on color dodge/overlay/etc layer modes, sometimes two on top of each other so it could really pop. As I mentioned before, I also used cloud brushes, but those are typically very soft, so I painted on top of them with one textured brush (very softly so it could pick up the gritty texture best). Whenever I needed to soften things up, I mostly used the smudge tool.

Sometimes I had a composition in mind from the start (the last ones, especially), other times I found it in the process of putting something on the canvas and then messing with it (had at least 3 or 4 failed experiments too!).

It’s a very digital explanation, but hopefully you can pick on something that can inform your traditional work! You’re braver than me for doing space art traditionally - I wouldn’t even know where to begin 😅 Have fun! ❤

[franeridart]

Anon said: Do you have any more of the comics where Kiri's cat gets into Bakugo's apartment?? B being a dumbass is adorable hrnfjf

I don’t, sorry!! But the very amazing extremely skilled chonideno wrote a whole wonderful fic on it, so you can read that if you want more!! I still can’t believe she did that for me ily mag ;;;

Anon said: kirishima with......... a braid

Honestly the best thought horikoshi should get on that already 🙏

Anon said: i think... that bakugo should give kirishima a sleeby nose smooch..... as a treat.........

Anon said: hello it is i, sleeby nose kiss anon, and i want to say that kiri should also get to wear bakugo's sweatshirt. as a treat. i think he deserves it.

I think kirishima deserves anything and everything in the world and then some so honestly yes, bakugou should absolutely do that! It’d be very soft and it’d make me very happy

Anon said: your blog is a kirishima fucking goldmine thank you for your service in these dark ass times

I’m very glad you enjoy my indulging myself for the past 4+ years hahahaha the more kirishima there is in the world the better, that’s for sure 💕

Anon said: WHAT is your drawing process please reveal your secrets I am b e g g i n g you

It’s nothing complicated, honestly! I sketch out a very rough idea of what I want to draw, then line it as loosely and smoothly as I can manage, add flat colors on another layer, shadows on a multiply layer clipped on the flats one, and then adjust the light/intesity of the colors with a airbrush tool on an overlay layer - it’s really the simplest process known to human artist hahaha I posted a step by step on my patreon at some point, but maybe one day I’ll find a way to make a process video and show you guys how I do it.................... maybe if I’ll ever get to buy an ipad, that’d make my life easier

Anon said: OH MY GODYOUR VIGILANTE AU JUST-- HSJXJDJDJS THESE IDIOTS

So very glad people are still finding and liking that one! I had fun for the little it lasted, it was a very self-indulgent au haha

Anon said: Your art is honeslty the only thing keeping me going atm cause I'm going through a tough time rn and your kiribaku art just 🥰🥰🥰 also what program do you use?? I've cycled through so many and I cannot for the life of me find a good one

Thank you so much! I use easy pain tool sai, which is the easiest, most simple program I could find since I’m easily overwhelmed by too complicated things lol it’s got its shortcomings but it works perfectly for the little I have to do :D

Anon said: so i, like, keep going back and reading and re-reading that really long kiribaku comic (the one where kiri won't let baku kiss him) and everything about it makes me happy!! like, your art is already such a delight to look at but you also write them so well and it makes my heart feel all bright and happy and that comic feels like a culmination of all of that and i just feel like '!!!!!!!' everytime

Oh god I nearly forgot about that one, I loved that comic! Had so much fun making it and it was so satisfying to post it 😭😭 I’m happy you still like it and go look at it!! feels very very good to know, thank you! ;;; <3

Anon said: you draw touches, like hugs and stuff, and remind me that i'm a bit touch-starved and i honestly can't say i regret it

Sorry I hope this means that you don’t regret looking at my art even if it reminds you of being touch-starved because I’m!!!! glad to hear that??? though I really hope you’ll get to be hugged soon, anon! ;;;;

Anon said:For some of your black/white art (lineart), do you mind if people color it with proper credit?I like to color manga panels, and I really like your art, so, along with crediting you, is it okay if I color your peices?

I’m not a hundred per cent opposed to it, but I’d prefer it if you could ask before doing so telling me specifically which piece we’re talking about! Cause there’s a couple I’d prefer didn’t get reposted in any form or way, after all ;;

Anon said: I was looking through the jujutsu kaisen tag and found you and looked through some of your recent art and I was about to follow you and then I realized I already followed you for your bnha stuff

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! glad to hear I could make you want to follow me twice over, then!!! 😁

Anon said: Reminder to drink water and relax, overworking yourself isn’t healthy and we all need time to wind down!

Anon thank you!!!!!!!! The same goes to you, take care of yourself!! <3

Anon said: you are the light by nine lashes has me feeling kiribaku feelings and i have not a single person around me who i can tell ;n;

OHHHHHHHHHHHHH I absolutely do know the feel, please feel free to come cry about them in my inbox whenever you’d like anon ( TT^TT)9

Anon said: Could you do a tutorial on lineart? Yours is so clean I’m jealous

It’s not like I don’t want to, it’s just that there’s very little to it I could actually make a tutorial about? I try to keep my sketches vague and simple to not trap myself in the need to make the line look exactly identical to the sketch, and I try to keep my lines as long and uninterrupted as possible, let my hand kind of go the way it feels most comfortable to it if that makes sense, and I use ctrl+z A Lot to be sure the line flows the way I want it to in the direction I want it to go, and that’s honestly all there is to it! It’s not really about technique as much as it is about letting yourself keep as loose and fast as possible while putting down the lines, I really have no idea how else to explain it I’m sorry m(._.)m

Anon said: Sorry if this is an overasked question, but... what are your pronouns? I don’t wanna misgender you -.-

she/her! and don’t worry, you asking is no bother :D

Anon said: can ppl send, like, random hcs or thoughts to you? not like, drawing requests, you don't take those i know, but just because?

Hell yeah, please do!! I love to hear thoughts and headcanons, it makes my own creativity itch to get to work!! 

[connordavidscamera]

Living, Learning, and Filming Ch. 10 | Connor Brashier

A/n: Sorry for the delay, work and classes have been hell the past couple weeks! But here is the second to last chapter and I hope you guys enjoy it!

Summary: it’s the first time you’re seeing each other since your date. It’s… well, it’s something. 

Word count: 1.8k

***

Week 10

Filming is only easy when you and the subject are comfortable with one another. Neither of us are comfortable now. I can't look at Connor without seeing those lipstick stains on his jaw and down his chest, the way his hair was fucked from her fingers. He would have been the most beautiful I've ever seen had those stains been from me and if his hair was messed up by my fingers. But they weren't it, it wasn't, but he’s still so beautiful, and I hate him for it. 

And since this is the first time we’ve seen each other since that night, I don’t think it makes things any easier. He’s tried so many times to get me to talk to him. He’s texted, called, he even showed up at the dorms once, but I didn’t let him in. He knocked and asked for me for a good fifteen minutes before he finally caved, realizing that I wasn’t going to let him in now, or ever if my heart would stop trying to control my being. 

And now he's looking at me in a way that says "I'm sorry." But I don't know if he's sorry he did it or because he got caught, and I don't really want to know the answer. Because knowing would mean that he would have to explain and I can't let him explain. I can't get hurt again. Especially not by him when he holds my entire heart in his hands and just one misstep from him and it'll be completely shattered. 

"So, we uh… we still have to do the interview." Connor says, picking at his fingernails.

I sigh, "I know. That's the last thing, right?"

"Yeah," he nods. "Then we just have to put them in and add a few overlays and the background music."

"I can put the clips in if you want to do the overlays. You're better at layering."

"We could do it together. I think we should both be okay with the ending before we turn it in."

"Fine," I nod. "Should we do the interview now?"

"Oh, um. Yeah, I guess. Outside would probably be better. It's kind of loud in here," he says, fiddling now with the napkin under his cup.

I nod, "Lighting isn’t great here either. Let's go."

The wind is cold, hitting us hard when we walk out of the cafe and I immediately regret leaving my jacket in my car. I wrap my arms around my middle, curing into myself as we walk down the street to the small cluster of trees that I don't really consider a park, but the city does. I don’t realize I’m shivering, curling even more into myself until I feel something heavy covering my shoulders. 

“You look cold,” he mutters.

“No, Connor,” I start to protest, but he stops me.

“It’s okay. I’m fine. Promise.”

I sigh, “Thank you,” I mumble before slipping my arms through the sleeves.

It’s difficult to get the camera set up with the uneven ground, but we find a rock that gives us just enough height to keep the tripod from moving too dramatically with the wind.  “You ready?” I ask after fixing the settings to accommodate the harsh light the clouds are casting over Connor’s perfect facial features. It’s rude that he can be my whole life - the only thing occupying my thoughts on any given day - and I want so badly to hate him. I want to hate him and I want to be mad at him. But I can’t. I can’t do it. Because he’s sitting there under the tree and even in this light he’s beautiful and I want to kiss him over and over and never stop. 

“Y/n? You okay?” he asks.

I blink, bringing myself back to reality. “Yeah. Sorry. Um… we’re recording. Full name?”

“Connor David Brashier. I’m twenty-one, and a junior here at UCLA.”

“What are some of your hobbies?”

“Surfing, filming, playing video games, and... hanging out with you.”

I clear my throat, shaking my head. That answer wasn’t necessary. 

“Where do you see yourself in ten years?”

“Ten years?” He nods. “In ten years I see myself still filming. Maybe having actually directed a movie or music video or two. Married, hopefully. Maybe even have a kid or two, or three. Depending of course on who I’m with, if she wants kids or not. You want kids?”

“Connor,”  I scold. 

“What?” he smiles and my heart flutters. “It’s a general question. You want kids?”

I sigh, “Yeah, someday I might want a couple… Next question. I asked this when we started this project. You said you could see yourself falling in love,” I look down, not wanting to look him in the eyes as he answers. “So, have you ever been in love?”

“I have,” he answers instantly. “I am right now actually, and I’m looking at her right now. And she’s beautiful.”

---

“Is the lighting okay?” I ask, tugging on the sleeves of the jacket he gave me earlier. 

“Lighting’s perfect. You’re perfect. Just,” he steps forward and brushes his thumb across my cheekbone. “You had an eyelash.”

I feel myself turning red, and I shiver at the contact. I want to keep him there. I want to grab his hand and keep him against me, but I don’t. 

“Ready?”

I nod, “Yeah.”

“Full name?”

“Y/n y/m/n y/l/n.”

We go through the same standard questions I asked him and I know what question is next. I dread answering it.

“Last question.”

“Okay,” I look down at my hands, covered by the long sleeves of his jacket. I’m surrounded by his scent and I want to drown in it, which is how I know what my answer is going to be.

“Have you ever been in love?”

“Yes,” I nod. “I am now. It’s consuming. It drives you. But it stops you too.”

He tilts his head at me. “What do you mean?”

“Suddenly things you used to do alone don’t feel as good as when you do them with that person. And when you’re not with them? It’s tourture. You want to spend every moment with them and you can’t and it sucks. It sucks because they’re not yours.”

He stops recording, I know because when he’s kneeling down in front of me, I don’t see the blinking red light behind his head. “Not yours? Y/n, I’m yours. Utterly and completely.”

“That girl from the other night said otherwise.”

He sighs, “I was hurt. You went out with Shawn. You said no and then you said yes and that hurt, baby. It hurt so much.”

“He told you?” I shake my head, “I didn’t kiss him. We had dinner and I couldn’t stop talking about you. That’s how my date went. That’s why I ended up at your place.”

“But how was I supposed to know that? You wouldn’t talk to me the same after I told you I loved you. You didn’t even tell me about your date. Shawn did.”

“Yes. He called me after he asked. He wanted to know if I was okay with it. And I wasn’t, y/n. I wasn’t but you weren’t mine and I couldn’t make that decision for you. But we’re here now. We’re on the same page. I want you, you want me. What’s the problem here?”

“The problem is that neither of us are relationship material.”

“What do you mean we’re not relationship material? You’ve read more books about relationships than anyone I know.”

“That doesn’t mean anything, Connor!”

“Y/n! I want to be with you. Why are you pushing me away?”

“Because I can’t ever believe this is real if it started as a joke. Or if you’re gonna go out and fuck any girl with boobs at the first sign of trouble. I like,” I stop myself. “I love you, Connor. But this relationship would be built on lies and that’s not what I want.”

“So you’re never going to believe me? No matter how many times I say it? No matter how many nights I spend outside your door, begging you to talk to me? No matter how many times I promise you that it’s only you? That it’ll only ever be you. No matter how many times I tell you that you deserve that romance you read about? No matter how many times I promise to try and give that to you? To be the cheesiest boyfriend known to man. It’s not gonna be enough.”

“I want to believe you, Con. I do. But it’s hard right now. Maybe now just isn’t our time.”

“Then I’ll wait.”

“That’s what you said last time.”

“Y/n. Please. Just… give me one more chance.” His hands find the sides of my face and I hate that I melt into his warm touch. 

I sigh, pulling his hands away reluctantly. “I’ll have to think about it.”

He nods, “Take your time. But I can tell you this, I’m not going for anyone else. That night? Nothing else happened. She was kissing me-”

“Connor, don’t.”

“No, I have to make sure you know. You told me that nothing happened with Shawn. I believe you. And I need you to believe me when I tell you that nothing happened. I had her leave after you left. I didn’t want to have sex with her. Brian thought I needed a rebound, just someone to take my mind off you. But it didn’t work. It wasn’t fun being with her. It didn’t help. Baby, you’re the only one I want. I haven’t gotten over the feeling of your lips on mine since it first happened.”

I shake my head, “You have to stop.”

“What?”

“Stop saying things that make me want to kiss you. I can’t kiss you.”

“I give you permission,” he shrugs with a sheepish smile.

I laugh, really laugh. “You’re an idiot. 

“But I got you to laugh. That’s a good sign, right?”

I sigh and run my fingers through his hair. “I need time, bub.”

“You called me bub. Is that a good sign?” he asks, hopefully.

I rest my forehead on his. “Connor, please.”

“I want to kiss you,” he mumbles, his lips inching closer to mine. 

“I want you to kiss me.” I confirm, closing the distance. I sigh in content, and his tongue roams my mouth. It’s perfect. He’s perfect. And I don’t need the time. But that’s my heart talking. My brain still needs it, which is why I pull back. “A week.”

“A week?”

“That’s what I need. I’ll have an answer for you then.”

He nods, “C’mere.” He kisses me again and I let him, feeling warm, feeling safe in his arms once again.

***

I hope you enjoyed! Please like, reblog, and leave feedback!!

Permanent tag: @soyalimoncada-blog @magcon7280 @homeofpoetry @fallinallincurls @goldenflickerx  @myyohmyuohmyy @harry-hollands @enchantingbrowneyedgirl @baroness-alison @lostinmendess @linanilssonfurberg @luvluvxx @mariamuses @shawnieeboyy @divinginfearlessly @mendesficsxbombay @shawnsthighs @zaahidahhh @lordescomeback @shawnandconnor @shawnsblue @turtoix @honestlyimstilllivinginthe90s @gangofhoes @verlaneswiftie13

[lifedrake]

I was recently reminded of how much fun my mermaid au was to draw. It may not be my most popular au but boy if I don’t have fun doing really overcomplicated and brightly coloured designs.

Downside, my program decided it had had enough with me after one too many overlay layers and chose to crash every time I opened this picture so I couldn’t edit it any further, hence the horrible lines over it. I still have the picture itself but all the layers in it have been essentially lost to endless crashing.

I thought about redrawing but, looking at it, maybe it’s not that bad? I was close to the end, after all, it’s close enough to what the final product would have looked like. I could just pretend all those weird lines are a stylistic choice and it’s faded like that because it’s underwater.

At least I had fun drawing it.

[imanativeofswlondondahling]

Becoming A Stark (21)- Peter Parker x Stark!femReader

Word Count: 3067

Warnings: swearing maybe

Author’s Note: Should this have gone up Sunday? Yes. Did it? No. But it’s up now so let’s just pretend I remember what days I’m supposed to upload on lol

Chapter One || Previous Chapter || Master List

“So what kind of shopping are we doing?” Pepper has a feeling that this is something more specific than just you wanting to go shopping, but she’s trying to let you broach the topic. She’s hoping that Peter finally got the nerve up to ask you to the dance.

“Um I need a dress.”

“Like go to Buffalo Exchange dress?”

“Something a little nicer than that.” You avoid her gaze as you mutter the next sentence. “I got asked to Homecoming.”

“Ah.” Pepper smiles to herself. “Who’s the lucky person who gets to be your date?”

“Peter.” 

“And have you told your dad yet.” You shake your head. “You worried about his reaction.” 

“That and I’m technically grounded.”

“Well, I give you the official pardon to go to the dance. But you do need to tell him you’re going.”

“Really?” Your eyes pop up to meet hers.

“Really. So what kind of dress are you wanting? Cocktail length? Floor length? Any particular color?”

“I think cocktail length and something with pockets so I don’t have to worry about Queenie.” Pepper turns to Happy and tells him to take her to her normal dress store. 

“We’ll find you a couple nice dresses.”

“I only need one.”

“But there’s a couple SI events coming up in the next six months or so that I think Tony would like you to be at so having a few nice dresses would be a good thing.”

“Ok.” You’ve grown more open to spending money in the past few months of living with Tony, but you don’t love doing it. “How many events are coming up that I have to go to?”

“There’s three that I can think of that your dad will probably want you to be at attendance at.”

“So can we set the bar at three dresses?” Pepper looks at you in confusion. “I can wear the same dress for Homecoming and one of the events so then I just need two more.”

“Always more practical. If your dad was here, you’d walk out with half a dozen.”

“And that’s why we didn’t invite him.” You shake your head imagining buying six dresses at once. Happy pulls into a parking spot outside of the fanciest dress shop you’ve ever seen. Pepper sees the hesitation marking your face. She takes one of your hands in hers.

“It’s ok. This place is great at doing alterations which is one of the reasons I love them. Which means we can make sure that if your dress doesn’t have pockets we can add it.” You nod as you try to swallow the lump in your throat. “Now let’s have some fun.” You follow Pepper towards the front door, feeling too shabby in your jeans and Pink Floyd Carnegie Hall T-shirt. Part of you also wishes you had chosen shoes other than your red high tops, but at least your feet will be comfortable. 

“Pepper Potts! We’ve missed seeing you here.”

“Hello Jeffrey.” Pepper is enveloped in a hug by a tall, dark skinned man. “I’d like you to meet Tony’s daughter Y/N. She needs some dresses for some events coming up.”

“Aren’t you a stunner? I see Tony in your eyes and your smile. And I definitely can think of some wonderful pieces we could put you in.” He ushers the two of you towards a couple racks of dresses. “But I would love to see what you’re drawn towards before I just pick up anything that I think you would look killer in.” Pepper smiles at you. You look towards the racks of dresses in front of you to see what you can find. This is a different experience than any other time you’ve been shopping for dresses. Usually it’s whatever you can find that you like in your size at a thrift store. But this time, there’s so many different sizes of the same dress and signs saying if they don’t have your size they can order one for you. You let your hands run along the fabric in front of you, feeling the different dresses. The first one your hand falls on that you can’t take your eyes off of is a navy blue dress that is cocktail length, with a v-neck and spaghetti straps.

“That one is beautiful.”

“We also have that one in red on that rack over there.” Jeffrey points to the other rack. You’re pulled towards the blue color, but red could be a good option. 

“Can I try them both on?”

“Of course.” Jeffrey glances at the tag for the size and pulls a matching red dress off the rack a moment later. He offers to take the blue one from your hand. “Keep looking. I’ll hold on to these.” You push through some of the dresses until your hand falls upon another navy dress. This one is a high/low dress, at least in terms of the over layer which is a gauzy material. It also has spaghetti straps, but this time it has a sweetheart neckline and is accented with sequins.

“That one would be a great one for homecoming.” Pepper comments.

“One more.” You say thinking back to the comment about three dresses.

“You can try more than three styles, honey.” Pepper replies with a smile. “Even if you say we’re only buying three.”

“I don’t want to be greedy.” You say as you look through the dresses in front of you. There are two that are calling to you. The first is a lilac one. It has cap sleeves, a higher neckline that the other two you’ve pulled already, and will probably hit at about knee length with it’s lacey overlay. Plus it has a sash to it that you like the look of. The other is white, which you normally wouldn’t be drawn towards but you are. It’s fairly simple, mostly tule with some blue flower accents sewn into the overlay. You pull both off the rack.

“That one is stunning.” Pepper says looking at the white one. It doesn’t have sleeves, but you kind of like that it doesn’t. “And lavender would be a great color on you.” Jeffrey takes both from you. “Do you want to try on some longer dresses as well?” Pepper asks.

“Do I need longer ones?”

“Not necessarily, but you could have a long dress for some of the events your dad may suggest going to as a backup.”

“Uh, ok then.”

“How about you try on the ones you pulled and I’ll pull some longer ones based on what it seems like you like?” Jeffrey suggests, noticing you seem a little overwhelmed.

“That sounds like a plan.” Jeffrey leads you to a dressing room where you strip out of your clothing and put on the first of the dresses, the navy dress. It’s fairly low cut, but you don’t hate it. Plus it already has pockets so that’s an added bonus. You step out of the dressing room to show Pepper.

“How do you feel about it?” She asks.

“Well it has pockets which I like. But I feel like with how low cut it is Dad will never let me out of the house.”

“It’s not that low cut. Plus it comes up higher here to make it classy still.” Pepper points out. “Can I take a picture of it?”

“Sure. I should probably send it to Astrid and Betty since I told them I was going to go dress shopping with you instead.”

“You should have invited them to come along.”

“I don’t think they could have afforded this place.” You say honestly. You had already seen the triple digits on the price tag on this dress and now feel guilty about agreeing to even three dresses.

“Your dad-”

“Don’t say Dad could have bought them dresses too. That’s too much. Even buying one of these dresses seems like too much. I could have gotten a dress at Macy’s for like sixty bucks.”

“Your dad doesn’t mind.”

“I know he doesn’t but I do.” The words burst out of you before you can stop them. “I’m sorry Pepper.”

“It’s still new, I get it.” Pepper reaches her arms out to you and pulls you in for a hug. “It’s overwhelming isn’t it.”

“Yeah.” You mumble into her shirt. “It just doesn’t feel like I should be the one to receive all of this.”

“Well you deserve this. Your dad wants you to have anything and everything you want. But more importantly, he wants you to know you’re loved.” 

“I know I am. You two tell me a lot.”

“Well you are.”

“I shouldn’t be freaking out over a dress. It’s stupid.”

“It’s not stupid.”

“You don’t freak out over him buying you clothing.”

“That’s because I worked for him before I dated him. Him buying stuff for me wasn’t unusual. You got thrown into having him be your dad out of the blue. It’s a different situation. And if it takes more time to handle it then that’s what we do. If we just walk out of here with one dress, or no dresses, then that’s what we do.”

“That would be a waste of today though.”

“Not if it makes you more comfortable.” Pepper’s hand runs through your hair. “We’re doing what makes you comfortable.”

“I think…. we should keep on trying on the dresses and then make decisions.”

“Sounds like a plan to me.” She looks at the dress you’re wearing. “So a picture of it to send to friends and then which one next?” 

“I think maybe the red one. I know I like the dress so see what it looks like in another color.” You make your way through the dresses, cutting the sequin dress, the red one since you like the navy version better, and the lilac one since there was just something about how it sat that both you and Pepper didn’t like. The white one might be the winner so far, but there was something about the blue one that you still loved. Pepper took pictures of both so you could send them to Astrid and Betty. 

“I have a few long dresses that I think would look good on you Y/N.” Jeffrey says. “What did we think about the short ones?”

“I think right now only these two are still in the running.” You say pointing at the two that you’re waiting to hear from Betty and Astrid about.

“Perfect. I’ll take the others off your hands. So I have three dresses for you to try. There are probably a million more I could find that would look amazing on you. But I thought I’d limit it for right now.” He hangs three more dresses in your dressing room before taking the dresses you decided against.

You take the first one off the hanger. It’s a pale baby blue color with a neckline that matches the navy dress you like. However all over the tulle skirt and body, it’s covered with little flower details. You slip into it and look at yourself in the mirror. It’s a little long, seeing how you’re not that tall, but you like it. As you walk outside, Pepper smiles at you. “That’s a gorgeous dress.”

“It’s too long though. I’d spend all night tripping over it.”

“That’s an easy alteration.” Jeffrey points out. “And Pepper was saying about how you want your dresses to have pockets. I know the other two for sure adding pockets would be easy and I don’t think it would be that hard to add it on this one either.”

“But more importantly what do you think about it?” Pepper asks.

“I like the dress, but I’m not sure if I like it on me?” Your answer comes out like a question since you’re not sure if that even makes sense. “I think it’s the color. I think it’s too pale for me right now.”

“Ok, well how about you try on one of the other ones?” Pepper suggests, not trying to change your mind. You make your way back into the dressing room, lifting the skirt so you don’t fall and unzip the dress. You slide it off, making sure to not let it catch on Queenie. The next dress is a dark emerald green color and you kind of already love the color. It rests off your shoulder and it has pockets already so no alteration is needed there, you think to yourself as you clip Queenie on. The only thing you’re hesitant about is the huge slit up the left side of the dress. Is it too mature in your dad’s mind? 

“You look stunning.” Pepper says as you walk out of the dressing room. “What do you think?”

“I think Dad might have a heart attack over this.” You point to the slit. 

“He let you waltz in and out of the house in shorts. I don’t think the slit is going to be that big of a deal. Can I take a picture of it?”

“The slit?”

“The dress, honey. You look so pretty in it.”

“Oh sure.” You smile as Pepper snaps the photo on her phone. She sends it to you, thinking you’ll probably want to send it to your best friends. “I’m going to try on the last dress.”

The last dress is gorgeous too. Even just on the hanger you can tell that. But as you slip it on you think you might be torn between this one and the green one. This one also rests off your shoulders, but unlike the last one that went straight across, this one dips into a little bit of a sweetheart neckline. The bottom of the dress is entirely tulle. You clip Queenie to the back of the dress for now. That’s the only thing this dress needs- pockets. You walk out of the dressing room and can tell just from her face that Pepper likes it too.

“That one would be perfect for the SI Christmas Gala if you like it.”

“It’s really pretty, but I also really like the green one.”

“There’s nothing saying you can’t get both.” Pepper says.

“But then I need to choose between the other dresses.” You bite the inside of your lip. “Can you take a picture of this one so I can send it to Astrid and Betty? If I don’t send them all the options, I might get murdered.” Pepper takes the picture for you and after you send it, you start to turn around to go get changed. 

“If you’re torn between the other two but you’re going to get this one, we can get the alterations done while we wait for your friends to reply. We can put the other three behind the counter while you make up your mind.” Jeffrey suggests. 

“Sure.” Pepper is glad to hear that you’ve at least made up your mind on at least two of the dresses. If it is up to Pepper, she would buy you all the dresses. But she doesn’t want to overwhelm you so she’ll let you make a decision. As the alterations go on with the red dress, your phone blows up with Astrid and Betty making comments about your dresses. You glance at the screen and read over their messages. “Pepper we have a problem.”

“What’s the problem? I’m a pretty good problem solver.”

“Astrid voted for the blue dress and Betty voted for the white one.” You run a hand through your hair. “So we’re at an impasse. I don’t know which one to get.”

“You know who could give you their vote?” Pepper says.

“Who?”

“Your dad.”

“Won’t he just freak out on the why I’m buying dresses?”

“He knows there’s functions coming up. He doesn’t have to know they’re for Homecoming.” Pepper offers. “I can even send him the pictures if you want.” 

“Ok. I guess we can get his vote.” Pepper sends the text off to Tony with the two dresses it’s between. 

P: Pick one of these.

T: Buy her both.

P: That doesn’t help. She wants to make a decision between the two.

T: They both look good on her. She can save them for a later date if she doesn’t wear them to whichever one. But don’t we have like three events coming up? 

P: I didn’t say these were the only dresses she’s looking at.

T: Show me all of them. 

T: Please

“Your dad votes to buy both. He also wants to see the other dresses. Can I send them to him?”

“I should have known he would be no help in the situation.” You roll your eyes. “Send him the pictures if you want. He’ll see them eventually anyway.” Pepper shoots off the other pictures.

T: You’re getting those two right?

P: If she let’s me, yes.

T: She should get all of them, she looks amazing.

T: Tell me where you are and I’ll come buy all of them. 

P: Buying them isn’t the issue.

“Your dad is just saying get them all.” 

“We said three though.”

“Technically you said there. I have no problem with getting all of them if you want to. And Tony is clearly ok with the idea of getting them all too.” Pepper says as you two walk towards the front counter to make a final decision.

“But I have no need for four dresses.” You say looking to where the four dresses are hanging.

“If you’re worried about that, your dad gets a million invites a year. He just chooses not to go to a lot of them. You and I can always go for him so we can use the dresses he buys. It’s more do you want them or not.”

“Wanting them isn’t the issue. I can want a million different things. I shouldn’t spend that much money on just dresses.” You say with a shrug.

“How about we get them and when you’re done with them we can find a place that utilizes dresses for girls who aren’t as fortunate?” Your eyebrows come together as you think about what Pepper’s offering. “Plus I have some that I can probably already get rid of. We can take a look when we get home.”

“Really?”

“Really. Now let’s buy your dresses and get home. I think I hear an afternoon of movies calling our names.”

Becoming A Stark Tag list: @persephonehemingway​  @iamaunicorn4704​  @furiouspockettoad​  @daughter-of-stark​  @eternalharry​  @huntective-kyeo​ @riiis-stuff​ @sunnyoongles @cosmicqueenieb​ @sovereignparker​ @bbarnestan​ @teenwishes08​ @iamthescarlettwitch​ @skyfallstilinski @cutie1365​ @a-mnd​ @youarethereasonimsmiling​ @thefemalestorywriter​

Permanent tag list: @wormonastringonastick​

[dragonheart-swtor]

5 Works Meme

RULES: It’s time to love yourselves! choose your 5 (ish) favorite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought  into the world in 2020. Tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want  (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works.

I was tagged by @sleepswithvillains; thank you!! I’ll tag: @elaphaemourra, @sith-shenanigans, @opalxempress, @sunsetofdoom, @swtorpadawan, and anyone else who wants to do this!

In no particular order:

Scars

This one I actually liked enough to make my avatar - it’ll probably eventually get replaced, but for now I still really like it. The lighting came out well, I got practice with back muscles and butts which are both things I’m bad at, I still really like her expression, and I got to learn a new technique for doing scars. 

Leave It Up To Me

And this one ended up as my blog header. I’m sensing a theme here. I’m super proud of this art; I’m terrible at backgrounds and I don’t usually bother with them, so doing a background-focused piece was a real challenge for me. And then I did it mostly lineless, for some reason, because I thought trying to do all the details in linework would kill me. I’m not sure if that choice made it easier or harder, but it sure did turn out well considering. And then the rim lighting/backlighting on Garen turned out super well too, and just... the whole feeling of the piece came through, I think. (And then it got zero notes, because I had no followers when I posted it and there was an external link so it didn’t show up in the tags. Sigh.) Fun fact about this one: usually there’s one overlay layer with a gradient on it to help pull my digital pieces together color-wise, but on this one there’s three - one for the background only, one over Garen only, and one over the whole thing.

Duserra in a suit

I spent too much damn time on this for it not to be on this list. The gold filigree detailing. The texturing on the tailcoat. The vest pattern. The colors I struggled with, and I went through I think five or six different test palettes before I found one I really liked, but I think I pulled it together well. My one regret is that I forgot to give her tie the same texturing as her tailcoat.

Of Blood And Ghosts

A one-shot that ended up almost twice as long as most of my others. Honestly, it might not be my best writing ever, but I’m proud of myself just for finishing it - usually I write/draw something in one or two sittings or I never finish it. This piece took me weeks of work because I kept getting stuck. I’m proud of myself for pushing through and finishing it. ...and then it got almost no attention on AO3, probably because of the awkward length and the sort-of-self-harm content. Sigh. Oh well. I really enjoyed getting to explore what Force rituals might look like (and feel like), as well as looking at the Force from two different characters’ perspectives and getting to throw my poor Zabrak sisters at each other again.

And my crowning pride and joy,

The Sith Lullaby

(Click the link if you haven’t heard it yet. Do it. /e)

I almost never write music because it’s time-intensive, labor-intensive, and a skill I haven’t spent that much time honing. Making up music isn’t difficult for me. Making it good, and putting it on paper, is difficult. Or tedious, at least, and my dumb ADHD brain doesn’t do well with tedious tasks. But something possessed me to write this, based on one off-handed comment I made about a scene idea for a fic I don’t even talk about here. I spent three days pretty much doing nothing besides writing English lyrics, translating them into Sith, writing the melody, making the Sith lyrics fit the melody, and then finally putting it all together on paper. And I have zero regrets. The result is my pride and joy of the last year of Star Wars content, my crowning achievement thus far in this fandom: a lullaby written by me and then played and sung by me in the Sith language, an absolute bastard of a conlang that’s just filled-out enough to be difficult without being complete enough to not force me to make up probably 90% of the words in that song.

And who knows? Maybe I’ll do it again someday...

[thanksjro]

Dark Cybertron Chapter 2: Going from Zero to Antichrist Real Quick

Bumblebee and his camp buddies are trying to figure out what to do with the Titan who just popped out of the ground like a prairie dog, as the sky looks like a Lisa Frank notebook thanks to the portal to the Dead Universe. It’s honestly very nice, we should should get more pretty apocalypses like this.

Bumblebee starts throwing out orders at everyone, much to Slag’s chagrin. When Slag brings up the point that they probably can’t do much of anything to a guy roughly a hundred times bigger than they are, Bumblebee tells him to shut up and do as he’s told.

Yeah, I had about the same reaction, Slag.

So the Dinobots do their thing. Swoop, who I think is the only guy here who can fly, goes up to see what the Titan’s doing. It’s not much, other than looking really upset. Oh no, what if he’s afraid of heights? Poor guy.

Even if the Titan isn’t moving, the mere presence of the thing is jamming signals, which is kind of an issue. Ironhide’s ready to shoot it in the foot, and Arcee will help, because she’s a team player now. Bumblebee has a minor crisis over whether this is the same Titan that told Starscream he was a prophesied son of a gun, but Prowl doesn’t seem to think that it is.

Prowl, who has been suffering from short-term memory lapses over the last several months or so because a bug-man was controlling his mind.

Yeah, let’s maybe take his opinion on the matter with a grain of salt, even if he is right.

Over at the Lost Light, Orion Pax is visiting Brainstorm’s workshop, where everyone’s favorite science man is admitting to having studied the Dead Universe’s effects on the living and interviewing people who had been to the area.

Man, I sure hope that guy signed a waiver, otherwise Brainstorm’s going to be in a spot of trouble.

Then we get a quick rundown of what the Dead Universe is: an omnicognizant parallel universe that functions on fundamental principles that differ from our own and wants you to die. So, obviously not a place you would want to go to. Still, we gotta, because that’s where the plot is the Dead Universe is gonna vore Cybertron if we don’t.

Brainstorm agrees to cook something up to make the trip through the Gorlam Prime portal easier.

Back on Cybertron, the Titan looms in the distance as we check in on an oddly pristine-looking Iacon. Rattrap tells Starscream to come out of the closet, because the Titan still hasn’t moved and doesn’t seem like it’s going to anytime soon. Starscream does come out, but it’s with his arms full of weapons of Autobot design that he appropriated from the ruins of Kimia, because he doesn’t trust that Titan to not start some shit. Rattrap suggests that they maybe get a second opinion before they start murdering people for standing in a barren field.

Back on the Lost Light, there’s a little shindig going down at Swerve’s, everyone staring down the table where Optimus, Rodimus, and Ultra Magnus are seated. Swerve takes the opportunity to do what everyone else is probably really wanting to, and snaps a few photos of them for his scrapbook. As soon as he’s done, we get to the Emotions portion of our issue.

Rodimus is letting himself be vulnerable in front of the man he idolizes, and I think that’s very brave of him.

Nobody’s feeling super great about the situation they’ve been presented with, but there isn’t a lot that can be done about it now. Just gotta work with what they got. Rodimus asks Optimus how he feels about Starscream being elected leader of Cybertron.

But I thought that freedom was the right of all sentient beings? You know, like the freedom of choice in our government officials, even if they aren’t the best option we could possibly have, because at least they’re better than the guy who had bombs planted in people’s heads for crowd control purposes? Are you saying that it only counted when the concept of freedom could be manipulated so you could go kick Megatron’s ass, and that actual freedom of choice doesn’t jive with your personal sensibilities as much as you’d like everyone to think it does? No wonder you’re going to try to overthrow the entire Earth’s government system to get humanity annexed into Cybertron’s bullshit in a few years’ time.

But perhaps this Starscream thing is actually the work of Megatron! What will Orion do then?

…I mean, do I even have to say it?

ORION, THAT’S GAY.

And I thought we’d already figured out what to do with Megatron back in “Chaos Theory”, where you spent three issues waffling on the subject until the man himself told you to execute him, because even he was sick of your crisis of self. The only reason you didn’t get to act on it was because Megatron disappeared after Vector Sigma blew up and then you fucked off into space without even bothering to check if he was actually dead.

But enough of Orion promising to kill/kiss Megatron, it’s time to see what Brainstorm’s cooked up. It’s not much, but to be fair, he’s only had a few hours to pull something together- our ship’s genius has made a few forcefield generators, using nothing more than some forcefield generators and juice he squeezed out of a bug. Science truly is amazing.

And I bet Trailcutter hates this invention too, for multiple reasons this time!

Cyclonus, who is looking especially purple today, agrees to join the excursion to the Dead Universe, even though it’s pretty clear he really, really doesn’t want to. Hardhead seems in better spirits than our resident space jet, though maybe that’s just bravado macho-man bullshitting on his part.

With our team put together, it’s time to jump out of the spaceship and into a place that quite literally wants them dead. But first Rodimus has a little chat with Ultra Magnus about his feelings. A lot of sharing this issue.

Magnus doesn’t feel fit to be in charge while Rodimus goes off to save the day and maybe die, because he doesn’t have that special something that makes a leader a leader. Charisma? The ability to think on your feet? The ability to see people as people and not numbers? Not having people know you’re actually a much smaller man running around in an Ultra Magnus suit? Whatever it is, Rodimus seems to think that it’s trumped by a mysterious something in his hand, and that Magnus will do just fine.

While Team -Imus goes into the murder reality, Magnus and the Lost Light will be going off to find Jhiaxus, because they need something to do while our protagonist and his absentee father go on their own adventure.

Back on Cybertron, Starscream’s visiting prison, and wants to talk to a very good boy without the guards overhearing. Jazz makes a very vague threat about what will happen if any harm comes to the prisoner, then steps away.

Let’s talk about how to sell toys for a second.

This issue of “Dark Cybertron” had a cover featuring Scoop, the very good boy I’ve mentioned before, because it was paired off with his Generations toy. We know from reading RID that Scoop is the leader of a group called the Construction Patrol, and he likes to help simply for the sake of helping. Sounds like a nice, if generic, character. How is this issue going to introduce people to him? Will he bust out of prison to save the day? Fight evil through heroic sacrifice? Do anything besides talk?

No, he’s going to tell Starscream he’s a herald of death that was foretold in the robot bible.

Yeah, that’ll move some fucking product!

This isn’t even the most batshit thing Scoop’s going to pull in this event, but it is what they decided to put in the issue that “features” him.

Over with Shockwave, we’re treated to some renewed friendships, as Nova Prime and Galvatron reveal that they don’t hate each other after all, but have a mutual respect based in subjugating those weaker than them.

I’m guessing this is a contrast to their previous relationship dynamic in older publications, but I’m not going back to comb through the likes of Heart of Darkness to check, because it really doesn’t matter.

There’s a bit of a snag in Shockwave’s plan to bring Galvatron and Nova Prime back to the Not-Dead Universe, as the space bridge in the Titan burnt up when it got there. Gee, that sucks. I guess all those “Prelude” issues about getting the Titan from Gorlam Prime were sort of a waste of time, weren’t they? Love it when I’m told I wasted my time reading motherfucking Ramondelli issues.

Speaking of Ramondelli, it’s Dead Universe time.

Sigh. Hello, public domain pictures of space on the overlay layer option in Photoshop. It’s nice to see you.

No, it isn’t. I lied.

I’m sorry, public domain pictures of space on the overlay layer option in Photoshop, this isn’t your fault.

So we’re here in the Dead Universe, and it’s looking pretty wild and crazy, though the characters are likely thinking this for a completely different reason than we are as readers. It turns out, the Dead Universe… is dying.

…MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM THAT’S SOME GOOD WRITIN’ RIGHT THERE

Also, Cyclonus has disappeared, not that anyone actually gives a shit, because they’re too busy dealing with the giant space leeches that just showed the hell up. Dang, why’s that happening?

…That only happens as a form of population control, or if the young in question are sickly and have a low chance of survival, not just because the mama rabbit got a bit peckish between lunch and dinner, you stupid fucking robot.

Half of this writing team won awards a couple years after this was published, I want you to remember that.

They fight the cyberwraiths for a bit, things look like they’re getting dicey, then suddenly they fuck off as Cyclonus shows up, probably fresh off the end of a goddamned panic attack because he’s back in the Dead Universe. Then he proceeds to vomit up some black energon. That’s a fun thing, glad you made me look at that.

Rodimus is concerned that one of their team members has got the Hollywood Tuberculosis cough, but Cyclonus doesn’t want his fucking pity. The fellas decide it’s time to get a move on, seeing as they’ve been here a grand total of 20 seconds and been attacked, so they need to get this over with ASAP.

As Team -Imus flies off in a ship I don’t remember them bringing along, someone decides that they’re going to stick their finger in that puddle of vomit.

Nightbeat you fucking idiot, there aren’t any sinks in the Dead Universe! Now your hand’s gonna be all gross for the entirety of this event! He’s not even analyzing it, it’s just on his hand! Why is Nightbeat having zero concept of personal hygiene a running theme in the things I read? Fuck!

You may be wondering what Nightbeat’s doing in the Dead Universe, or even where he’s been for a good chunk of IDW. We’ve seen him in flashbacks from before the war, but not during or after, least not within anything I’ve covered. So, what’s be been up to?

Fuck you, you’ll have to wait for a later issue to be told what Phase One bullshit you’ll have had to read to understand why this dumbass is here.

Back on Cybertron, Prowl is telling Bumblebee that he sucks because he’s not acting. I’m not exactly sure what he expects Bumblebee to do about the Titan who’s just standing there. It’s not like issuing a loitering ticket is going to do anything. Then the Decepticons attack them, among their ranks being the scariest fucking Ravage I’ve ever seen.

Why do you look like that? Rojo’s supposed to have the cutesy style on this team, why the fuck did he turn the kitty cat into one of the terror dogs from Ghostbusters? 

Anyway, that’s the end of the issue. Sure hope you’re invested enough in trying to figure out what the fuck Nightbeat’s deal is to snag Robots in Disguise #23.

[ankhisms]

the always wonderful shelley @shanheling tagged me to do this thank u so much!! i think that everyone i wanted to tag has already been tagged to do this but if you feel like doing this feel free to consider urself tagged by me!! im putting this under a readmore bc its long and i ramble a lot

the piece i was tagged to explain my process on is this oc piece! unfortunately i have a habit of deleting my original clip studio file once ive finished my art and saved it as a new png file, so i dont have the file to show the sketch and different stages of this piece. but I still can go through my general process and talk about how i did that piece!

1. planning

honestly i think about the art that i want to do a lot, and in this last year or so ive thought about the art i want to do more than ive been able to actually create and finish that art that i want to do. for my planning i tend to do a lot of different thumbnail sketches for the art im thinking of

these are some examples of thumbnails, a lot of times ill do thumbnails just on pencil and paper and with some of these theyre done quickly with my fingers on my phone note function on a day where i was feeling too bad to get up and draw on paper but still wanted to get the thumbnail ideas down. two of these are for the same songxiao piece that i still havent finished and i have more thumbnails digitally on clip studio for the same piece, i do a lot more thumbnails when a piece isnt working the way i want it to and theres times where ill completely scratch a thumbnail or a sketch and start over in order to do more thumbnails because i dont feel happy with some aspect of it.

two of these are small gouche painting thumbnails for two pieces i did maybe a month or so ago, i did the thumbnails and then tried to expand on them digitally and im wanting to do more thumbnail paintings like this in the future because it was fun

for the piece of my oc trio it was based off a series of ask prompts i got for a few different outfit prompt memes i had reblogged, so i based their outfits on the ones in the meme. when im drawing figures i tend to try and get the movement down in the poses when im sketching, i do several rough sketches of the pose before beginning to start setting down lines (if im doing lineart at all because sometimes i dont like doing lineart and do a more lineless painting kind of style). i really try to get my art to convey some kind of emotion, in the oc piece i wanted it to feel fun and like youre seeing three best friends while theyre out on the town having a fun night

2. creating

this is the only real example i have of a piece in the middle of being filled in and created, this piece is one that im really not very happy with & have had lying around for a while and ill probably scrap it and try to come at it from a different perspective at some point. but anyway it still shows what i do, i lay down a kind of neutral gray color underneath my final sketch/lineart if im doing lineart in that piece and then i start picking out the colors that i want for the piece and kind of setting out a pallette for myself. i dont do this color pallette thing 100% of the time but i do it really often, especially if im working on a commission or a larger piece where i know theres going to be a lot of colors or if its a piece where im not sure exactly what color scheme i want so laying out the colors together helps me kind of decide what kind of scheme i want. i am sooooo picky about my colors in my art i am genuinely obsessed with colors in art and there are times where i really have to stop myself from working on something forever just constantly adding more colors or putting little tiny changes and gradients in the colors.

after ive got the colors i want down i tend to try and block out parts of the piece with the base color for that section, and then i start to paint with the colors that i want to go on top of that base color from there.

once im satisfied with the colors/shading/rendering and everything ill go back and look over things and will fix things that look off or sometimes completely redo segments if they dont look right to me. when i was younger and mainly doing digital art using my phone and my fingers i would use a lot of filters and overlays on top of my art once i was done, and honestly im glad to not be doing that anymore because i dont think it made my art look any better. i do color adjustments and sometimes will put on a color overlay or a layer to emphasize the shadows and the light in the piece, but i try to keep those layers to a minimum and like i said before i have a tendency to obsess over the colors and ill spend a good amount of time in the color adjustment tool of clip studio and then ill just decide "actually it looks fine as it is" so yeah!

3. posting

i feel like i dont have a lot to say here gbfm i mean i honestly have a lot of thoughts about the relationship between artists and social media and how social media changes our views on art including our own art and how we can feel like we constantly need to be posting new art and just become content machines churning out new stuff. but ill save that rant for another time. i used to be really concerned about how many notes my art would get when i was younger, and i dont at all blame anyone who still is very concerned about that bc it sucks when u work hard on something youve created and then you dont get a lot of recognition for it, but honestly within the last two years or so i feel like ive begun to have a lot healthier relationship with posting my art. i really just post my art on my art blog, reblog it to my main blog, and then thats that yknow! i do really appreciate any and all support people give me, it means the world to me, but for me having the mentality where i dont need to post all the art i make and i dont need to be posting every day or every week or every month even has been a lot healthier for me because then im not constantly asking myself why didnt this get notes is my art awful??? and yeah i just kind of post it and my brain goes okay were done with that art we gotta make more

ive honestly been struggling a lot with art thru the pandemic and if youre reading this and have been struggling with creating in any way recently or even before the pandemic, please know theres no shame in having trouble creating and it doesnt make you bad at whatever it is u create!

thank you for reading this, feel free to consider urself tagged by me again if u want to do this!! love u all

[404fmdminjung]

creative claims — weekend

summary: for @fmdjiah full composition / partial production. minjung’s friends with some bc A&R rep, and does a favor by sending in a few tracks made by her. warnings: none wc: 1059

don’t cross enemy boundaries, or that’s what the public wants you to think.

in hindsight, she’d raise the concession to that one. an exception when a phonecall with one of her friends, prop open in the middle of the night. “seo minjung~” the voice sing-songs against the quiet white noise of daybreak, and minjung can tell by the slur — her friend’s had one too many drinks.

“what are you calling me for? to be your dd?” minjung responds quietly.

“no~ i have a question… do you have any songs you want to throw my way?” 

“and give a song to bc? you forgot, i’m tied to gold star. sealed and kissed in a ribbon.”

“come on~ help a friend out.”

“get home safely, and take a certification shot. then, i’ll see what i can do.”

minjung hangs up the phone, settling aside in the nook beneath her desk. she goes back to the files stored on her harddrive, buried deep into the graveyard of songs once constructed never touched again. she takes a few listens, skims through the seconds of beats that leave her at a standstill — before she turns away to another file.

the first few rough beats, an attempt at city pop — she figures, it’s perfect for the weather. perfect for the year all year-round, any time of day.

(nobody tells you how to deal when your friend’s a bc a&r rep, and working on enemy lines).

-

the song starts itself when she drives through too many downhill rabbit holes of the internet. one youtube video to another, all following suit with the japanese city pop that drums through her speakers. it’s one of those heartwarming, feel-good genres — the kind that leaves you bumping on your toes, yanking the smile upwards on your face as you bop your head from one side to another.

and when inspiration strikes, she makes her own attempt at it.

she pulls the synth out, and figures — any type of music, it’s not made for her. it’s pure fun, just as music is supposed to be.

the first few notes of the electric guitar synth, play the base. a few chords in, drifting in an out in a continuous staccato — she marks that down, whatever lyrics used might be fun to ruffle with the tap tap tap of the staccatos here. because the basis of city pop, is the simpleness of complexities — the simple rhythm that follows a cohesiveness the full way through, mixed and funked by the synth and the over electro-sounds.

she tries to mimic it, but it doesn’t fit. instead, the pieces remain wayward and jagged, so by the time she draws a blank — she falls back into the percussion. the bass line comes as easy as palm slaps against the table, a steady metronome of a snare kick taking precedence as the bottom line of the song. now, the lines remain less jagged — somewhat obfuscated by the juxtaposition of electric lines and guitar. it lacks the softness, too much rigidity before she falls back to square one, palm in cheek staring at the busy screen.

it deals with the editing — or that’s what she thinks by the time her keyboard stows away, and she’s relieved those with the mouse clicks fishing from one filter to the next. the smoothness of city pop, and easy flow through of disco all crash down to the basics: one simple filter, overlaid by another until the emergence building up to what she perceives as the chorus.

so, by the time she hums along — incoherent words to no lyrics written, she goes with the hms and light fall of the verse into the chorus. the simple melody, carried from one to another — the guide vocals, void of any words. 

yet, there comes a standstill in the bleak wall after the first chorus. 

palms pressed to her face, it’s scrutinizing and imagining each piece not knowing the outcome of what the picture’s supposed to present. amorphous, the song becomes stagnated by the simple melody that graces through — until, she comes full-circle, decides a minuscule slice of a rap might hone in the missing edges.

no words written once more, she carries herself with the doo-dooo-doos of a rap, playing vocal metronome as her hands click away to remove the filter — leaving the raw electric guitar and the percussion at bay.

at this point, the song’s a half-mess. half-her own project coming to light. if given to gold star, she knows it’s a red flash of a no — impending. or maybe, it’s just the late night pessimism leaving the track on repeat as she closes her eyes and listens from start to finish. 

whatever it is, she realizes, it doesn’t hurt to add anymore. thinks, perhaps, creating a calamity of sounds, all brought together by the synths and the disco up-beat funk centralized in the song, wouldn’t hurt. but before her mind pieces it, her hands already move from the keyboard to the mouse. then back and vice versa — an ode to the retro oldies, there’s an addition of another layer added in the beginning. the sounds of an old-school cassette tape, cutting in then cutting out, the 32 bit filter, blurring out the hums of her voice to something scratchier.

it’s a resolution to bring her creation back to what it began as. an ode to the old city pop, added disco funk — something she colors pink.

the track has her on the edge of her seat, nodding her head to each beat of the percussion base and the overlay of the subtle backing vocals. the synth clocking right in the middle of the first verse, to the build up of the chorus. it’s ethereal, a dazed dream of cotton candy — lighting up her midnight blues with a grin across her face. 

yet, it’s not a song for her. just a prelude bite of her imagination, before she closes up her computer labeling the track “pink.” 

-

when she scans her files through songs, she goes one after another — flitting from one to the next. still, it’s the track titled “pink” that she turns back to. 

one drag of the file, and she sends it to her friend. one quick smirk before she types away “present. if this does well, you owe me.”

[gamefaq]

your gifs are amazing oh my gosh!! do you have a tutorial or anything on how you make them??? <3

thank you so much!! i don't have a tutorial per say but i can go through my process which is kind of like a tutorial? i'll be going through how to make this:

RECORDING:

for recording i use NVIDIA GeForce which came with my pc i'm not sure if it's something you can just download? otherwise i use OBS but it's rare that i do, it's only really for when i have a game that isn't supported by NVIDIA but it's not bad to use by all means. i just personally think NVIDIA is a bit easier to get to grips with and if i'm using a youtube video then i use y2mate.com

for my more recent gifsets i've been using a lot of console commands to get rid of the HUD and also to no clip for example to get closer to something you wouldn't normally be able to in game or just to have some more fun camera angles. pretty much every game to my knowledge has console commands and the commands stay very consistent. i won't go into it too much since it's not really the main focus of the ask but there's a lot of information online about it and it's very simple to set up

(i’d say if you’re going to use console commands then wait until you’ve beaten the game if possible because console commands negate getting achievements)

MAKING:

to actually get started i use a perfectly legal version of photoshop that i'd be happy to provide so that you don't waste money on the rip off subscription adobe has

and the very first step is to go to file > import > video frames to layers to load up your recording. a window will pop up with your video and here you can crop to a specific section by using the sliders highlighted or put the entire thing into a file (though it's noted theres a 500 frame limit, you'll never need that many frames)

once you've imported your video it should look like this. if you don't have the timeline bar at the bottom then not to worry! go to window > timeline and make sure it's a timeline animation

here is where you'll size down your gif to suit tumblr's post sizing. i think everyone does this part a little different but what i do first if necessary to your project is cropping. cropping is entirely up to you and how you want your gif to look. for this particular example i won't do too much aside from crop some of the floor out but sometimes i adjust the canvas size (image > canvas size) so that the cropping's more even because it's hard to judge by eye

(edit while i’m going through this: sometimes i make a new file in the size i want my gif to be and overlay that white default layer onto my gif so i can get a good look at where exactly my gif will be cropped. i hope that makes sense? but it’s just a visual aid rather than a requirement so don’t worry if it doesn’t omg)

now to actually resize it with image > image size and here's probably my biggest advice. so i'm going to resize it so that the height is 300 and then crop the sides to 540 afterwards. but what i'm actually going to type is 302 and hit ok

due to the fact photoshop works with pixels, resizing leaves this weird transparent border that just doesn't really look that nice as a gif (or in general for that matter)

so to get rid of this and also change our width to 540 (tumblr's post dimension) i'm using canvas size

so great! now your gif is cropped, resized and ready to be edited! to prep it for editing, go to what looks like a stack of lines on top of each other on the timeline bar and convert to video timeline

EDITING:

your timeline now looks like a bit of a mess, but it's okay we're going to fix that. select all of your frames in the layers on the right hand size and go to filter > convert to smart filter. this will flatten out your frames into one singular layer which both neatens up the place and makes it so that anything you do to these frames now will happen across all of them instead of just one! if that makes sense? if not hopefully it will as we continue on

the next step is sharpening, to do this go to filter > sharpen > smart sharpen and these are my settings. sometimes i switch in between 0.3 and 0.4 depending on what i'm giffing so experiment with both and see what looks better!

i then duplicate the frames (right click, duplicate layer) and going to filter > blur > gaussian blur. this isn't necessary by all means and not everybody likes to do this, i just personally do and these are my settings

by double clicking on what looks like two lines with two triangles next to where it says "gaussian blur" on the layer, i change the blur opacity to 60 and the overall opacity of the layer to 40%. this is something you can also experiment with for example i used to use 85 and 60%

COLOURING:

the final step is colouring and there's two ways of going about this really, you can either use psds where there's plenty to find on tumblr which imo is perfectly fine to use and have done it myself, sometimes i'm not in the mood to colour. or you can colour from scratch which for the sake of this explanation i will

all of these adjustments are now your best friend. what i'd say really is go a bit hog wild and experiment and see what all these different things do but i would recommend at least using curves and levels.

i don't really know how to explain this other than "move the sliders around like wheee until you think it looks nice"

i'm not going to do too many adjustments just to save some time but here's what i've ended up with (i also would just suggest putting all your layers into a folder to declutter your layers a little). i usually use a lot more layers but there’s also nothing wrong with only having 4 adjustment layers either, sometimes simple is better

(another edit: that layer 501 is just some brush tool to erase some of the ground because it looked weird, it’s not an actual adjustment layer. just in case that caused some confusion!)

and i'll just show the difference between no colouring and with colouring and why it's an important step:

(without colouring)

(with colouring)

an optional final step before we go onto exporting, if you didn't trim the clip you wanted when you first loaded in your frames you can do that step now with the video timeline. just simply drag the work area bar to where you want it (and you can zoom into your timeline bar by using the slider in the bottom left for more accurate cropping) you might also need to use this regardless if your gif ends up being too beefy in mb which we'll get into in a second

so it's time to export after the more realistic hours of recording, cropping, colouring and what have you! go to file > save for web (NOT save as or export) and a big boy window will come up. it might look a little daunting but we're really only paying attention to a few things.

it's been a bit iffy on what the actual gif limit is on tumblr at the minute but the safest bet is to aim around 3mb (but it's okay to go over, i think the max i've done is 6mb) and if it's incredibly large such as 20mb it could be your colouring or your frame count. maybe adjust a couple of things. i think white and blue can make gifs particularly beefy? but i'm not sure. and black makes gifs less beefy which is why my example is only 1mb.

then you want to click save instead of done and save it to wherever you like it to be, and you're basically done! if you want to do an extra step however which is something i've only recently started to do myself, is load up the gif file you just saved by simply going to file > open

you'll notice it's automatically switched back to a frame timeline which is fine for us, select all the frames with selecting those stack of lines again > select all frames. without accidentally clicking off the selecting click on any of the triangles in the frames in the bottom right and then other to manually change the delay of which the frames will play

for whatever reason gifs will save a little slower than what the original video was so sometimes it just makes things look a little smoother. don't change it too much though, just going from 0.3 to 0.2 is enough!

just to show, here’s the difference between 0.03 and 0.02

(0.03)

(0.02)

export just like you had before by saving for web and that’s it! you’re done! you’ve made a gif! i hope this was a good enough run through of the process because i feel like i definitely didn’t explain some things the best or i maybe skipped over some things, so if there’s any confusion please don’t hesitate to message me! i hoped you enjoyed reading either way :)