#i need to get back to drawing full pieces

[jack-kellys]

so we all know life is a circle. thus fandom is a circle. we see things come back around like the de/twinkification of racetrack higgins. or cowboy versus artist jack kelly. or "mom" friend david jacobs and the perpetual need to make the newsies some kind of heteronormative family. and yet again we've found our way back to the anti katherine pulitzer arc of her "getting in the way" of jack and davey's popular subtextual/fanon relationship. (yes im late nevermind that.)

now, not being a katherine fan is different than being anti-katherine. not being a katherine fan means you might have criticisms like "i'm not sure how she serves the newsies narrative better than, say, sarah jacobs, as sarah is more aligned with the newsies contextually/societally and katherine is very distant and rich lol", or even "i'm not a big fan of how katherine seems to be tired of jack's shit for most of the play and then 'suddenly' finds romantic interest in him within one song".

but being anti-singular-young-woman-character because of a ship between the main two boys is. a tired take is it not? again with the circle, we've had this discourse already and its been cut out. since 2012 and 2017 we been talking about this girl and her value, but not in the context we should be.

(because the context we should be talking about it in is a newsies 1992 versus newsies broadway context, not an anti-katherine context, but i digress.)

katherine's value. what is there to mine from? she is an extremely young woman reporter, 17-18 years old, whose article makes the front page of the new york sun. since she writes under a pseudonym, i'm presuming she writes with skill well above her age to be published at all (yes, even writing vaudeville reviews). in past productions she either finds the newsies at jacobi's because she saw the walk-out (TWWK) from inside The World (UK), or jack kelly simply interests her enough for her to seek him out again (Broadway/Tour/Live). she is unsure about herself as a writer despite her skill which is made clear in her song. she is rich. she did not need to have a career and was encouraged not to. pulitzer is her father and she does not get along with him. she matches jack word for word, often with davey at her side. she mills comfortably about the newsies through the second act and has a friendship of some kind with specs specifically. she also literally says "that's a face [jack's] that could save us all from sinking in the ocean/like someone said 'power tends to corrupt'" essentially prophesying the act 2 betrayal. which is crazy.

you can draw your own conclusions from the above, but all of it is essentially canon? right? so maybe you don't have to be a fan of all of it, but you're really going to tell me absolutely none of this is compelling. that none of this is something you can interpret for yourself as complex. that albert is more complex.

this is not me saying you have to include katherine in everything, because that isn't what this post is about. this is about individuals choosing to dislike or devalue katherine by only viewing her in relation to her as a romantic interest, instead of a complex character in a period piece with a full arc. yes a full arc. it's the musical that's rushed not katherine.

@we-are-inevitable speaks on this extremely well in the comments of this post as well, more in connection to katherine as being a compelling romantic interest in the context of newsies speaking in the defense of love interests/often women characters. in this post i speak on how i would navigate jack/katherine as a director, and in this post i speak on how to direct something to believe in to make it, well, believable, aside from its awful writing for both kath and jack. because again, fandom is a circle, and i literally talked about how to "fix" jatherine in august 2024. at length

[marinettesaltprompts]

The Perfect Partner (Part 2)

Prompt by @ironicreality

“What?” Adrien was confused, he thought he was supposed to look like Ladybug’s old sidekick, but instead he was in this weird restrictive mix of a skintight supersuit and a vaugely ‘royal prince’ uniform..

Cat themed of course, complete with silly pawprints for the buttons. If they weren’t in a literal life or death situation he’d probably find it kind of fun in a childish way.

“You- I…” Ladybug shakes her her and scowls. “Of course it was one big trick- I’m going to-”

There is another crack a stone wall behind them shudders with a superpowered blow.

“Ladybug, whatever it is we have a job to do.” Adrien sharply reminded her.

Ladybug’s scowl didn’t let up, but her attention returned to the present. Wordlessly she grabs his arm and practically drags him closer to the enemy.

“Uh, Ladybug- what’s the *plan?*” Superpowered or not, Adrien wasn’t looking forwards to seeing the Akuma he’d suicidally upset for some reason.

Abruptly they passed a piece of rubble and they were suddenly in view of the thing. A bunch of other heroes were desperately dancing around it with no other apparent goal than drawing attention and hoping to avoid immediate death.

“Distract it and keep it in the school.” Ladybug *growled* and literally *threw him* at the stone monster. Adrien found himself slamming into the thing, rebounding off the hard body with a sharp gasp (some part of his brain confirms that the collision would have been lethal normally, so superpowers were confirmed) and landed on his backside before the thing.

“Oh hey, who’s the new guy?” The turtle themed-one asked.

“Carapace, back before you change back!” Ladybug interrupts. “Everyone else, leave this to *Cat Walker*.”

Wait, what?

Adrien stares in shock as the rest of the team wordlessly abandons him. 'Cat Walker’ stares up at the Akuma, and somehow dodges to the side in time to avoid being crushed.

What follows is a full ten minutes of Cat Walker continuing that trend. The super-agility, strength and speed help but the monster still knocks him through a few walls. Surprisingly he doesn’t immediately die but instead just feels bruised and winded.

At some point he notices that he has a metal stick attached to his back and finds that it snaps wide to become a staff of some kind. It’s kind of neat.

It also does nothing what-so-ever to the giant rock monster-

Oh, never mind. The Akuma *laughs* like it’s being tickled.

By the end of the ten minutes Cat Walker is tried, sore and quite sure that he’s going to need to be “brought back” by Ladybug. But luckily for him, that’s when the rest of the team comes back, this time with a stripey wasp-themed hero and within moments the Akuma is contained and then paralyzed before Ladybug comes over with some a bottle of spray (red and black spotted of course) that reveals a choker around the Akuma’s neck.

And so Cat Walker witnesses his first (?, it feels familiar… did he see it on TV before?) purification and the Miraculous Cure.

Honestly it’s kind of awe-inspiring up close to see the school rebuilt in a second around him but, the wonder is quickly cut off as Carapace turns to him again. “So hey newbie, not bad-”

“He’s a temp!” Ladybug interrupted again, sharply with that same sour tone, “*just a temp.*”

“Hunh, oh.” Carapace shrugs, “shame Dude, you did pretty good there for first time.”

Cat Walker finds his voice. “… I nearly died six times.”

Ladybug *snorts*, and the Dragon-themed hero calmly- but *snidely* in a way that reminded him of Kagami when she was feeling smug- speaks up; “we noticed.”

“Thanks for your help!” The wasp quickly distracts from that, “sorry about taking so long. I had a thing and-”

She was giving a polite and possibly true excuse. Which was more than he’d probably get from anyone else here- did they *really* need to leave him alone to fight the monster?

Oh well. Adrien knew when to cut his losses, so he drops into the appropriate script.

“That’s alright, I’m sure you had a good reason.” Cat Walker slides into the polite etiquette with a disturbing ease, almost like he *meant it*. “But I’m sure we all have our lives to return to.”

“That’s right!” Ladybug chirps, clearly in a good mood now, “so everyone get to your rendezvous points and-”

Cat Walker pulled off the ring.

“ADRIEN!” Carapace’s eyes bulge. “You-” he turns to Ladybug. “You picked *him*?”

From the sound of things, Carapace’s good opinion of him had disappeared like Cat Walker’s confining suit. Come to think of it the same seemed to apply to the Wasp Heroine, and the Dragon’s eyes had become hard.

Adrien, for his part, couldn’t say exactly why he’d suddenly tugged off the magic ring. Well, no: of course he could. The form felt powerful for sure, but it was also confining, and the fact that he’d been thrown to the giant rock monster without warning didn’t make it more appealing. But somehow being Cat Walker also felt like…

Embarrassment? *Anger*?

No. Not just that, there was resentment burning under his skin but also…

Submission?

Whatever it was, some part of him utterly *loathed* being Cat Walker even before Ladybug threw him at the giant monster and wouldn’t stand for wearing the ring a second longer.

“You wanted this back right after, right?” Adrien found the box from before -where had it gone when changed?- in his hand, and spied the little black cat-thing from before in the corner for his eye for a second before he popped the ring in and snapped it closed. “Here.”

He pointedly pushed it to her, and Ladybug reflexively took it even while apparently still in shock.

“Right, so was that it?” He put on a winning smile, just like the creepy cameramen at his job loved. The rest of the team still seemed lost for words, and Adrien- still feeling his skin crawl with *whatever* from the ring and the phantom pains of being beaten- decided to escape the little clan of Superfurries before that changed. “Great, thanks for all your hard work- say, is she all right?”

He pointed to the Akuma victim, currently dazed and slowly coming to. She looked like a girl a little past four.

“Uh-yeah…” Carapace looked over to her, “hey so-”

“One of you should probably get her out of here, bye!” Adrien shot another smile and promptly *left*.

—

If you asked him, he couldn’t say for sure *why* he so jerkily left the team like that. Even more than the shock and frustration of being made into an impromptu mouse for an Akuma to play with, it was something *else* like what he felt from the ring.

If Father had seen him act in that way, he was sure the uptight man would have shoved him straight back into etiquette lessons again. But Adrien was quite sure that if he’d stayed he would have said something worse.

Either way, the whole thing was behind him as he found his class restored, so he promptly put the surreal experience out of his mind.

And things mostly went back to normal after that. There were some odd looks from his classmates, especially from Chloe and the Class President’s clique, he just paid attention to the lessons and moved on.

Father actually spoke to him at dinner, which was kind of a novelty. Somehow he’d found out about his little ‘heroics’ in saving Chloe (not about the superhero part, just the suicidal part) and gave him a lecture about basic common sense and not running into danger.

It was… actually kind of fair. The man was a complete jerk most of the time but Adrien had to admit that he’d been a bit of lemming, so he just took his medicine without complain: and that satisfied Gabriel enough to leave him be after that.

What *was* surprising though was finding Ladybug waiting for him in his room.

The pleasantries are short (nonexistent).

“Today was a one-time thing. Don’t expect to touch the ring again.” Ladybug is professional, but there’s an undercurrent there that he doesn’t care for.

“I wasn’t planning to,” Adrien keeps his tone airy, like he’s not bothered that she’s there.

(Something in the back fof his skull crawls)

“Good. Then we’re done here.” Ladybug turns to leave.

But Adrien, whoever he was in the past, was just a *little* too ‘imperfect’ now, just a little petty now to just let his all-too-long career of spontaneous Akuma hackysack slide without at least one jab in of his own;

“Do you usually leave people to fight the enemy on their own? Or is that just for temps?”

Ladybug ignored him as she left.

—

Adrien, having not enjoyed his brief time as a hero/punchingbag as much as you might think, was quite happy to ignore *her* and the entire war once more. Which he did for a full day, a full week, and very nearly a full month.

But there always whispers about Ladybug having to use different ‘cats’ now, rumours that even he couldn’t close his ears to. And it turned he also couldn’t close his life to either.

It was a dour afternoon while Adrien was practising his piano (there was something kind of nice about the ‘click’ of muscle memory guiding him to the notes before his mind realised). The wind was blowing quite heavily, so he’d shut his window-

So imagine his surprise when suddenly the thing opened from the *outside*, and a miserably wet Superheroine dropped in- no wait.

She was also just flat out miserable to be there, judging from her expression.

“Why hello Ladybug, come in, come in,” Adrien hid his surprise as best he could with , but some inner barb poked through his good sense again (why am I antagonising a superhero?). “Don’t mind the water damage I’m sure I can pay for it.”

Ladybug stared as him like she was facing a needle to the eye.

She said nothing as she pulled out a box like the one from last time.

Something bitter twisted in him.

“I thought we agreed last time-”

“I need Ryuko *and* a black cat.” Ladybug’s words were sharp and to the point, like they hurt her to say.

Adrien looked at the box. “And you want me to be the cat?”

“*No.*” The re was venom there before she composed herself, “But you’re… good with the ring.”

Adrien wasn’t stupid.

This Ryuko was the Dragon Hero, and from the way Ladybug was speaking- she was also Ladybug’s first pick for Black Cat when she didn’t need both seperately.

But there was no way that he was so ‘good with the ring’ after one try spent running from one beating after another. He knew she had other backups as well, but maybe it was the same thing and she needed them with other Miraculouses…

“*Chloe* is out there,” Ladybug seemed to have picked up on his hesitation, and she growled the name. “I know you care about *her*, so just take the ring and get going.”

Adrien opened his mouth to refuse- But again, something in him twisted. Maybe it was some left over feelings for an old friendship he couldn’t remember? Whatever it was, it enough to overpower the feelings of *wrongness* as he stood up to take the box.

“Follow my path out of the garden,” Ladybug’s words were clipped again as she turned, “the cameras won’t see us.”

—

As expected, Ladybug more or less dropped him on the Akuma and left him to absorb the heat.

“Aww, poor little kitty left out in the cold?” The weather-themed Akuma mocked him, “better hold on tight if you don’t want to be blown away!”

No sign of Chloe anywhere, but maybe she’d had the good sense to run while Ladybug left. Unlike some other poor souls.

A supernatural gust of hail struck one of said souls with full force, almost throwing him over a bridge railing before some instinct pushed him to extend his staff for support.

He looked up at the Akuma. A dark dress, purple hair in two large pigtails and an umbrella; something clicked in his head;

“Stormy Weather was it?” Cat Walker looked up at the floating Akuma.

“The one and only,” Stormy confirmed with sadistic glee. “Now, why don’t we see if this little kitty swims like the old one-”

Okay no, Cat Walker had better things to do that to just take beatings today- or any day. There were better ways to waste time; why not try ‘diplomacy’?

“That seems unnecessary,” a perfect model smile crossed Cat Walker’s face.

“Oh, and why’s *that*?” Stormy smirked.

“Because clearly you’re going to win,” Cat Walker sighed with apparently sincere resignation.

The Akuma’s face dropped in surprise, and the model continued on; “anyone can tell where this battle is heading.” He put a hand to his chest, “I’m but a poor novice to this war, and then there’s *you*, well… don’t you think this is a bit unfair?”

Stormy giggled like an idiot; “yes, yes it is!” Fine lines of Lightning flickered into existience around her as she circled in closer to him. They licked the ground and left scorch marks, but Cat Walker’s eyes focused on the umbrella instead while Stormy’s attention was elsewhere. “You’re helpless before me!”

“I have to agree,” Cat Walker mournfully concurred, and as if in deep fear; he flinched away from Stormy Weather, drwaing closer to a stone Pillar like she was a predator he was retreating from. “This is, is, is…”

Stormy’s eyes gleamed with a sense of power over the hero and she advanced closer, “*go on*….”

“A cataclysmic disaster!” Cat Walker threw up his clawed hand in emphasis.

In a second, Stormy realised the ruse and hissed; her eyes darted to his right hand.

And left herself vulnerable to his left. Having floated in close, she barely had time to blink as he lunged forwards with his ringless hand and ripped the umbrella from her grip.

“Wait-”

Chat Noir’s power hadn’t activated, but Cat Walker only took a second to break the umbrella in two under foot. To his pleasure, not only did Stormy’s power vanish, but a butterfly suddenly flew out of the broken implement and the Akuma victim reappeared in human form from a weave of dark magic.

“Where… where am?” The girl blinked in shock as Cat Walker nimbly plucked the Akuma butterfly from the air, “Are you a hero? Where’s Ladybug?”

“Oh don’t worry, I’m just a temp” Cat Walker gave her the same smile that had charmed her a moment ago. “The real heroes should be here any minute.”

—

And I’m just going to leave it here for now. With the core dynamic established and parts of the mystery of Chat Noir’s end implied: the next parts will be covering just how a Black Cat who 'takes things seriously’ would clash with Marinette’s approach.

[ravenmccookies]

Please draw freaktrap

Y/N gets hired as a mechanic for the attraction, and springtrap refuses to be normal about it. More at 11

[salamispots]

posting a gift wip since I know my siblings aren't on here haha

[kit-screams-into-the-future]

yeehaw

transcript:

JENNIFER: Don't get me wrong, this dress is nice and all, but- JENNIFER: ...it'll be real hard running around and stuff in it, don't you think? JENNIFER: Especially with. Whatever this is. (ass cage??) MARTY: I, uh... MARTY: Yeah, huh. MARTY: How- JENNIFER: (noticing the pants Marty's holding) Bingo. JENNIFER: Sorry, Marty, gonna hafta borrow this- MARTY: Wha- Hey!

everyone was making such good jennifer in 1885 posts so i nicked a couple for the gist of this one

[poniko-w]

look at my zombie adukin doodle

10000 gela for the first person who can get adukin to admit she has issues & go to therapy. or like any of the numas really

[bones-n-bookles]

Cave Bean for @losech 💜

[achilleslyre]

i need to draw my ocs in finished drawings more and not just have them standing there all the time

[inkedhorror]

oh when did that happen...

[rindomness]

i think the thing that makes me most powerful as an artist is the fact that i have kept copies in some form or another of almost everything i have made since i started and thus whenever the imposter syndrome is hitting i can look at the literal piles of sketchbooks and notebooks and binders i keep the physical copies of my work in and go oh yeah. ive been working at this for like ten years. and then it just goes away.

anyway i absolutely recommend this as a strategy no matter how cringey it might seem keeping visual evidence of skill progression is an incredible tool against imposter syndrome. voice in your head can't tell you you're faking your skills if you can pull out a literal record of your skill growth against it

[oatshow]

“haha oh yeah ill draw a quick post-scarif au comic” says local man who will proceed to spend the rest of his night drawing ideas for a cybernetic hip implant

[autistic-shaiapouf]

Also with so little time before the con and so much Outfit left for me to make, I'm starting to enter hyperfocus when I'm working on it 👁👁

[iceeh]

now that i've put to rest (for now) even the vague inclinations toward art as a career... i'm feeling independently inspired to draw for like the first time this year...

[websitesdotcom]

Ughhhhh i need to fully finish more art rather than just sketching and getting halfway for everything but it’s Scary ! ! !

[iraprince]

gonna show u guys a little opalescent highlight hack i threw together today

rainbow gradient above your main figure (i usually have all my main figure folders/layers in one big folder, so i can clip gradient maps + adjustments to it!). liquify tool to push the colors around a bit. STAY WITH ME I KNOW IT LOOKS STUPID RN I'M GOING SOMEWHERE WITH THIS

THEN: set it to add/glow (or the equivalent in ur drawing program), lower the opacity a bit, and apply a layer mask. then u can edit the mask with whatever tools you like to create rainbow highlights!!

in this case i'm mostly using the lasso fill tool to chip out little facets, but i've also done some soft airbrushing to bring in larger rainbow swirls in some areas. it's pretty subtle here, but you can see it better when i remove the gradient map that's above everything, since below i'm working in greyscale:

more granular rambling beneath the cut!

u could also just do this with a brush that has color jitter, but what i like about using layer masks for highlight/shading layers is how simple and reversible it makes everything. i can use whatever brushes i want, and erasing/redoing things is super low stakes, which is great when i often approach this stuff with a super trial-and-error approach.

example: have u ever thrown a gradient w multiple colors over an entire piece, set it to multiply etc, and then tried to erase it away to carve out shadows/highlights? it's super frustrating, bc it looks really good, but if u erase something and then change ur mind later, u basically would have to like. recreate the gradient in the area u want to cover up again. that's how i used to do things before figuring out layer masks!! but masking basically creates a version of this with INFINITE undo bc u can erase/re-place the base layer whenever u want.

anyway, back to rambling about this specific method:

i actually have TWO of these layers on this piece (one with the liquified swirls shown above, and another that's just a normal concentric circle gradient with much broader stripes) so i can vary the highlights easily as needed.

since i've basically hidden the rainbow pattern from myself, the colors in each brushstroke i make will kind of be a surprise, which isn't always great -- but easily fixable! for example, if i carve out a highlight and it turns out the rainbow pattern in that area is way too stripey, i can just switch from editing the mask to editing the main layer and blur that spot a bit.

also, this isn't a full explanation of the overall transparency effect in these screencaps! there's other layer stuff happening below the rainbow highlights, but the short version is i have all this character's body parts in different folders, each with their own lineart and background fill, and then the fill opacity is lowered and there's multiply layers clipped to that -- blah blah it's a whole thing. maybe i'll have a whole rundown on this on patreon later. uhhh i think that's it tho! i hope u get something useful out of this extremely specific thing i did lmao

[maikaartwork]

Artists, let’s talk about Instagram commission scammers

There’s been a huge rise in commission scammers recently, mostly on Instagram. A lot of new artists don’t know what to look out for, so I figured this might help people.

How they begin

Usually the scammer will write to you asking about a commission. Something deceptively cute - mostly I encounter asks about pet portraits, with one or two photos sent. They’ll probably try to sell you a sweet little story, like “It’s for my son’s birthday”. They will insist that they love your artwork and style, even though they don’t follow you or never liked a single piece of your art.

What to look out for:

Their profiles will either be private, empty, or filled with very generic stuff, dating at most a few years back.

Their language will be very simple, rushed or downright bad. They might use weird emojis that nobody ever uses. They will probably send impatient “??” when you don’t answer immediately. They’re in a crunch - lots of people to scam, you know. 

They’ll give you absolutely no guidelines. No hints on style, contents aside from (usually) the pet and often a name written on the artwork, no theme. Anything you draw will be perfect. Full artistic freedom. In reality they don’t really care for this part.

They’ll offer you a ridiculous amount of money. Usually 100 or 300 USD (EDIT: I know it might not be a lot for some work. What I mean here - way higher than your asking price, 100 and 300 are standard rates they give). They’ll often put in a phrase like “I am willing to compensate you financially” and “I want the best you can draw”, peppered with vague praise. It will most likely sound way too good to be true. That’s because it is.

Where the scam actually happens

If you agree, they will ask you for a payment method. They’ll try to get to this part as soon as possible. 

Usually, they’ll insist on PayPal. And not just any PayPal. They’ll always insist on sending you a transfer immediately. None of that PayPal Invoice stuff (although some do have methods for that, too). They’ll really, REALLY want to get your PayPal email address and name for the transfer - that’s what they’re after. If you insist on any other method, they’ll just circle back to the transfer “for easiest method”. If you do provide them with the info, most likely you’ll soon get a scam email. It most likely be a message with a link that will ultimately lead to bleeding you dry. Never, and I mean NEVER click on any emails or links you get from them. It’s like with any other scam emails you can ever get.

A few things can happen here:

They overpay you and ask for the difference to be wired back. Usually it will go to a different account and you’ll never see that money again. 

They’ll overpay you “for shipping costs” and ask you to forward the difference to their shipping company. Just like before, you’ll never see that money again.

The actual owner of the account (yes, they most likely use stolen accounts to wire from) will realize there’s been something sketchy going on and request a refund via official channels. Your account will be charged with fees and/or you get in trouble for fraudulent transactions. 

You will transfer the money from your PayPal credit to your bank account and they will make a shitstorm when they want their money back, making your life a living hell. They will call you a scammer, a thief, make wild claims, wearing you down and forcing you into wiring money “back” - aka to their final destination account. 

Never, EVER wire money to anyone. This is not how it’s supposed to go. Use PayPal Invoice for secure exchanges where the client needs to provide you with their email, not the other way around.

You can find more info on that method HERE.

What to do when you encounter a scammer:

Ask the right questions: inquire about the style, which artwork of yours they like, as much details as you can. They won’t supply you with any good answers.

Don’t let the rush of the exchange, their praise and the promise of insanely good money to get to you. That’s how they operate, that’s how they make you lose vigilance. 

Don’t engage them. As soon as you realize it might be a scam, block them. The sense of urgency they create with their rushed exchange, and pressure they put on you will sooner or later get to you and you might do something that you’ll regret later.

Never wire money to anyone. Never give out your personal data. Never provide your email, name, address or credit card info. 

Don’t be deceived by receiving a payment, if you somehow agree to go along with it. Just because it’s there now doesn’t mean it can’t be withdrawn. 

Here is a very standard example of such an exchange. I realized it’s a scam pretty fast and went along with it, because I wanted good screenshots for you guys, so I tried going very “by the book” with it. 

Please share this post, make it reach as many artists as possible. Let young or inexperienced artists know that this is going on. So many people have no idea that this is a thing. Let’s help each other out. If you think I missed any relevant info, do add it as an rb!

Also, if you know other scam methods that you think should be shared, consider rb-ing this post with them below. Having a master post of scam protection would AWESOME to have in the art community.