#i think lighting is the most important part of taking good photos of your stuff. taking photos of my art is the bane of my existence until

[pipskippy]

sorry idk if you’ve answered this before but! how/what do you use to scan your art and what’s the process like if you don’t mind sharing … i love all your work, it’s so charming and makes me smile <3

help i didnt see the notification for this so sry if this was sent forever ago. also thank you so so much im really glad to hear that!!!<3

what i usually do is take a photo with my phone in a well lit spot, preferably in sunlight, and then edit it to look more accurate and also better (usually lowering contrast, upping brightness, saturation, cropping, etc) in the photos app. or sometimes the genius scan app for cropping or for lineart-only drawings. because that app has a black-and-white filter that works well. if i’m removing the background i do it in procreate which like.has not the best selection tool but i am the pretender. and then i erase anywhere the selection missed 🫡 also, if i can be bothered to get my laptop and for commissioned work i use photoshop to remove the background. it has a better selection tool…

[creedslove]

I was thinking about Joel working hard to buy a small gift for you until he finds a heart-shaped locket but he's embarrassed because he thinks you deserve something much better, he smuggles what he can and comes home tired but a little excited to give you the detail.

He cried the day you showed him that you put a photo of him in the locket, he hugged you very tightly, burying his face between your neck and shoulder while he tried not to make his crying sound so loud

while you petted his wavy grey hair.

Post outbreak!Joel Miller x f!reader

A/N: omg baby, I am screaming and crying and throwing up at this wonderful idea, it's beautiful, lovely and sooo accurate because I'm sure this is how Joel would act underneath his rough exterior 😭

• it took Joel so long to admit how important you were to him, his true feelings for you, instead of just shrugging off and pretending he didn't care about you at all, he battled himself really hard in order to come clean with his own feelings

• but from the moment he finally admitted and allowed his old broken heart to beat faster for you, suddenly, you were the only thing that mattered to him, even if life was shit and neither of you had any perspective of future, he would die and kill for you and you knew it

• he often orbited from thinking he didn't deserve you and that you could find something better, but at the same time he was selfish and he didn't care about anything other than having you all for himself, as you were the only good thing he still had

• even if you two lived in a shitty, old, disgusting and moldy apartment, the times you spent fucking, holding and cuddling each other were the only good part of his life

• it was because of you he managed to slow down with his drinking and pills, he hadn't stopped it yet, you knew sometimes he needed it to cope with reality, but you were his favorite drug nonetheless

• he wanted to get you something nice, even if it was pretty hard to find something decent, he felt like you deserved a small treat for being his, and even if most of stuff he found was still shit, being a smuggler had it's advantages

• so when he saw the locket in the shape of a heart, he needed to have it for you, you deserved something pretty and gorgeous like you were, so he traded stuff here and there and managed to smuggle it back into the QZ so he could surprise you

• the day he gifted you the locket, you had squealed in happiness like a child and wrapped your arms around him, jumping into his embrace and kissing all over his lips and face, it was such a gorgeous gift, so thoughtful and you didn't hesitate in showing him gratitude for it

• he was so glad to see your reaction, knowing you deserved that and much more, it brought some light into his heart, to see you so glad because of a small gesture, which wasn't a small gesture to you at all

• if anything, it was a real big gesture and you knew you had to do something meaningful, there was only one thing you could place inside of it

• going to your safe box where you kept your personal objects and other significant things, you went through your polaroids; since you and Joel had snuck out of the QZ once to find stuff and you came across an old polaroid camera and some expired films at what seemed to have been a convenience store, you simply couldn't leave it behind

• yes, the lenses were a little cracked and the film was old but you managed to snap a few pictures of you and Joel - mostly against his will - and you didn't hesitate in taking one of them, cutting in the shape of your locket and placing inside of it

• when he came home from his shift that day, you flew to his lap as soon as he sat down on the couch, and wrapped yourself around him, he noticed the locked hadn't left your neck since he got you it and you smiled big

"open it!"

• you cheered pointing at it, which Joel chuckled and did as told, he didn't know exactly what he was expecting, but he knew he wasn't expecting to see his picture inside

"now I keep you next to my heart all the time Joel"

• you whispered to him, smiling at him with hopeful, loving eyes, while he felt tears springing through his own, not sure where that emotion was coming from, but it was there nonetheless

• his strong arms wrapped around your smaller frame as tight as he could and he buried his face between the crook of your neck, your hair falling all over it, as he tries muffling his sounds so you wouldn't notice he was actually crying

• Joel Miller wasn't a man to cry very often, but his old heart couldn't take that much love, kindness and innocence you had within, he didn't know why you had settled for him, a man with such an ugly past but he was never giving up that feeling for you

• of course you knew he was crying, but you decided not to say anything about it, it'd be better not to embarrass him, so instead you just clung to him, your hands caressing his graying curls, petting him so gently as you shared that embrace

• you loved Joel and he loved you, even if he didn't admit it out loud, there was no denying it

____

[psychelis-new]

pick a pile: "What do you need to learn now?"

take a breath and choose the photo/number that calls you the most to read on a probable lesson you should learn about at this moment. thanks Anon for suggesting this

don’t take the reading too seriously. only take what resonates with you and leave the rest. if you're not called by any pile, let this reading slid as it may not hold messages for you. if you're called by more than one, there may be messages in each of those piles.remember that is a general reading and some things may not resonate with you. energies can change and readings are based on present ones (as you read); you're always in charge of your life.

(photos found on unsplash)

- ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ -

1 2 3

- ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ -

pile 1

You need to learn to let go, and be more carefree and "childish", as in enjoying more. You tend to block yourself maybe? Or you aren't much in contact with your inner child despite they really want to talk with you. I think, similarly to pile 3 but in a different way, you need to take a pause and totally unwind. Refocus on what's important (you)... and just enjoy. Think about the present too, and again, be more carefree and don't always be so serious or overthinking that much. Be also kind with yourself. I think you need a vacation, maybe going somewhere new, where you can be yourself (?). You may be feeling judged too much by others, so you try to act/pretend to be more serious/adult, but you don't have to. You can keep playing with your inner child, you can dance under the sun and enjoy your days and breaks too. Actually, you have to. When you are on a break you cannot think about what you have to do once you're done: you need to really unwind and focus on your break. Try doing something you enjoyed as a child, be it painting or dancing or cooking or anything you're passionate about. You don't have to become amazing at it, you only need to like that and to let it help you distress.

song: love me tender | elvis presley

- ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ -

pile 2

You need to learn to see behind. "And beyond" too, I heard. You may need to do some shadow work or you're doing that now. I think you're being hit with how harsh it all is for you. But not all that is harsh and painful is there to hurt you or to "punish" you. You're not Universe's favorite target, don't ever think this. It's just that there's a need for some darkness too in life, there cannot only be all light. And don't say "as if I had ever experienced light..." try to focus and remember: our minds want us to concentrate on what's bad, they want us to remember that alone (also to keep us on alert: in the past, remembering what was wrong may have saved your life, but these days... not that much, right?), so we keep memory of that side much more than what's good in our life. Think about your everyday life, how a small negative little thing can make your day so bad, even if before that happened, everything seemed so cool and bright. I think you need to balance more yourself and how you see darkness and light. How you react to the dark part of life (which yes, it's part of life as the bright side). Don't let negative stuff (especially the ones you have not much control over or that aren't so important) get the best of you.

song: desperate | ashlynn malia

- ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ -

pile 3

You need to learn to relax, to let go things, especially those that don't serve you anymore and that you can't control. You need to take time for yourself. And to give time to yourself, especially if you're healing something: probably you've been working for a lot on a matter but you see no huge difference with the past (still, I'd suggest you to be more objective about this and realize even the smallest difference), don't be impatient, give yourself a break. Healing is coming to you, you don't have to rush to "an end", cause healing won't totally end. You will learn how to deal with your triggers so that they won't hurt you and be more in control of yourself and your emotions. This is what healing is about for the most part. You totally need to be more patient and to communicate more with yourself and about yourself to others. You also need time to dream, or to let yourself dream a little more. Be more positive and light. Take a breath and slow down, especially your mind, cause I think at times it may run 1000 miles for hours (if that's even possible).

song: got it in you | banners (please check this song lyrics cause I'm sure it holds messages for you, especially if you feel very down or judged or anything)

[wombywoo]

Maybe you've been asked this before, so I'm so sorry if you've answered this already but😭 do you have any tips for like, the sorta realism you do? (Like, realistic but still very clearly hand drawn, if that makes sense...)

I've been wanting to try out that kinda style ever since I started seeing your work, bc it's been SUCH a huge inspiration (and I love adding how I stylize stuff to other things lol) but I cannot for the LIFFE of me figure out realism kinda stuff after so many years of drawing very stylized characters sobs 😭 no pressure to answer!!!!!! I just thought I'd ask:]

No worries! I don't know if anyone's asked this specifically, but tbh, I struggle with answering this kinda thing 😅 I think for me, the most important element of realistic art is to have really good references; I always use multiple references when drawing, and I wholeheartedly believe this is the best way to really capture something in a hyperrealistic way. That being said, I strongly encourage you not to copy a photo exactly as you see it, but rather use it to guide your interpretation. I always think of using a photo reference as more of an act of translation--use them to find the shape of a form, features, coloring, lighting, etc, but don't just draw everything exactly as you see it. There are certain discrepancies in photographs (faces tend to protrude more in the middle, feet and hands get smaller; because of the lens shape, probably) so it's a good idea to keep those things in mind when you're studying a photo reference.

Tbh, what I did starting out was a lot of super detailed pencil portraits, and that taught me a lot-- the shape of features, blending and shading, how to interpret a photo, etc. So I might recommend that you do some intensive studies like that. Pay attention to why something is shaped the way it is, how the shadows fall on each facial feature, the darkest parts vs the lightest parts, and most importantly--all those delicate mid-tones that help give depth to the form. It can be tricky if you're not used to that level of interpretation, but these things take time, and I promise you, you'll start to see improvement bit by bit.

Truthfully, I suck at art advice, lol, but I hope this helps <3

[blueskittlesart]

hi, correct me if i'm wrong but i seem to remember you saying that you're majoring in illustration! i'm currently in the process of applying to colleges and i plan on majoring in illustration as well, so i was wondering if you had any advice for portfolios. I could really use some tips on the presentation aspect specifically, bc I'm a little lost when it comes to stuff like the arrangement/organization of pieces, how I should crop my pictures, etc. any advice you can give me is greatly appreciated!!

hi yes i can totally help you out with this! i like to think my college portfolio was pretty good bc i got accepted to every school i sent it to lol :) the main pieces of advice that i was given when building it were this:

studies and pieces that show off your technical skill are great, but limit them to around a third of your portfolio at most. art schools DO want to see that you're technically skilled and can like, draw a charcoal still life or a self-portrait, because those ARE important skills to have, but ESPECIALLY if you're applying to a school that's more known for contemporary fields like animation or illustration, it's much more likely that they want to see your creative mind at work. the single best thing you can put in your portfolio is a BODY OF WORK, and specifically a body of work that shows off your own ideas and your own take on whatever you're producing. this means 3+ pieces that are interconnected or related to the same central theme. my portfoilo, for example, consisted of 2 or 3ish traditional, technical pieces which showed that I had a certain level of technical skill, and the ENTIRE rest of it was devoted to a series of original interconnected narrative comics I'd written and drawn. Every reviewer I met with told me that this was what made my portfolio stand out to them--it showed that I was not only technically skilled, but that i had something i wanted to DO with that skill, that I had direction and drive with my art and was able to produce work that reflected that. If you're maybe (definitely) not quite as ambitious as me, something like a series of 3-5 interconnected illustrations or a short comic if you're into that might do the same thing.

as a side note, if you DO have a body of work as the central focus of your portfolio, a lot of colleges will be interested in your process as well! for example with my comic portfolio, i used one slot to demonstrate my process, because I penciled every page traditionally before digitalizing it and i had extensive character and worldbuilding sketches. I wouldn't devote more than one slot to it, but if you have a body of work where the process is important to you it could be worth throwing in!

arrangement is tricky, but the advice I generally heard was "put your best stuff first." whatever you're most excited about, whatever is going to grab someone's attention the fastest, that's what you want to have in your first slot. (I actually don't think I followed this advice on my applications LOL but it's what i was TOLD to do and i think it's solid advice.)

in terms of editing, assuming we're talking about traditional pieces being photographed, you want to make sure your pieces are 1. well-lit, (DO NOT TAKE YOUR PHOTOS WITH OVERHEAD LIGHTING. wait for an overcast day and take them outside trust me) 2. legible, (no weird shadows obscuring parts of the piece, high-quality enough that no details are lost due to digital pixelation, etc) and 3. as color-accurate to real life as you can make them. most of this is just about getting a decent-quality camera (a newer iphone should be fine) and a good location. (outside and overcast, as previously mentioned) you may want to throw your pics into photoshop and play with the balance slightly, but I wouldn't do anything too drastic, try to get the most accurate photo possible without any editing. (if your pieces are small and flat, scanning them in may work better. most public and school libraries have scanners you can use for free.)

finally, cropping. the general rule that I was taught is to crop the piece, not the photograph. if you've got a piece on paper and you're not sure you like how the actual drawing is oriented on the paper, crop the PAPER down to size, and THEN photograph it. your photos should aim to show the ENTIRE piece from edge to edge (unless it's a detail shot obv) and I even like to include a little bit of extra "breathing room" around the piece so that it's clear exactly where the dimensions of it end. here's a piece I used for my college portfolios for reference:

i lowkey do not like this piece now but that's not the point. this is what i mean by breathing room--a few extra inches of space around the actual canvas so it's clear that this isn't a closeup and you can see where the canvas actually ends. the same is true for digital pieces. if it's a full bleed illustration (something with full color all the way to the edges of the canvas) just make sure you like the composition cropped the way it is and submit the full piece as-is. if it's a floating spot or something similar without hard edges, leave a bit of white or transparent breathing room around the edge of your image.

hope this helps! if you have any more specific questions lmk :)

[always-andromeda]

White Chocolate Truffle for Mr. Johnny Wilcox heheheee … what would your Valentine’s Day look like with him? (What kinds of gifts would he give you, where would you go to celebrate, all that good stuff) -🌟 ;)

– 𝐄𝐥𝐞𝐩𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐝𝐞

𝐉𝐨𝐡𝐧𝐧𝐲 𝐖𝐢𝐥𝐜𝐨𝐱 𝐱 𝐆𝐍!𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞: star. I need you to know that I love you so very much for allowing this to happen. I know with absolute certainty that I am the only person who will thoroughly enjoy this thing, but I am so glad you gave me an excuse to write it nonetheless. this was one of my favorite things to come up with. and lmao ignore the fact that this is in headcanon formatting even though the prompt says I'll write a blurb; I thought this one suited headcanon formatting so much better lol.

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: this is absolute self indulgence because I adore this man, 100% fluff, one singular suggestive mention, nothing else I can think of!

To be fair, our dearest Dr. Jonathan is typically very self-centered. He would, for the most part, probably expect his partner to be romancing him. It truly wouldn't strike him to put much consideration into doing something for Valentine's Day unless his partner stressed the importance of his participation.

If you're willing to feed into his ego, by all means, spoil him. He loves it when all eyes are on him and he'll definitely make watching him worth your while. He doesn't do simple thank yous. No, he is an eyes wide open, jaw dropped, screeches of excitement kind of guy. 

You could honestly probably get him anything. He just likes being thought about. And he'd cherish having someone who feels so strongly for him that they'd want to give him something physical to represent all of that love.

He'd open up your present and say, "For little old me?" as if he hadn't seen the gift coming from a million miles away. Probably because he didn't. He's not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed.

But if you need the romancing, make it completely clear to him. Because the man can't take a hint. Passive aggression does nothing but make him feel guilty. He needs it spelled out in bold letters that he's expected to reciprocate with his own efforts.

And that would be a real challenge for him.

Mostly because he's never...he's never had to do that. He doesn't know how to do much if he isn't being told how to do it.

He is the first person to consult Google for Valentine's Day ideas.

Write your partner a letter or a poem. Who does Google think he is? A wordsmith? No. He had scriptwriters for that.

Take them on a picnic. Oh yeah, because sweating beneath the burning sun, eating shoddily made deli sandwiches, while getting chewed up by flies and mosquitos sounds so romantic! Try again, magical algorithm of answers!

Surprise them with flirty photos. Now...that...that could always be an option. Until he realizes how ridiculous he'd look if his singular offering to you for Valentine's Day was a collection of tasteful nudes. Besides, he'd need costumes and lights and cameras for the whole production. And he's long since outgrown his Animal Magic days.

Then the idea hits him. Animals.

The majority of the effort Johnny puts into figuring out an activity from there goes into finding a contact from his celebrity days that won't immediately hang up on him as soon as he says hello. Even when he puts on his serious television voice, as soon as someone hears that the disgraced Dr. Johnny Wilcox is inquiring about– click, there goes another contact.

He goes down the list of zoos and aquariums and other organizations that once provided his production with animals for him to interact with. Over and over and over again he feels the sting of rejection. And part of him knows that he deserves it. But...he's trying. He's doing better. 

It isn't until he gets to one of the last contacts that he gets a hit. Someone who is – against their own best interests – willing to take a chance with him again. And he couldn't be more excited to finally give you something too.

Now, Johnny is terrible at keeping surprises on the down low. So when he says that he has a surprise for Valentine's Day and not so subtly hints that you should pack away that one outdoorsy set you have in the back of your closet for Valentine's Day, you know he has something big planned.

You're just not sure how big it is. Not even when said Valentine's Day present requires a weekend trip to Africa. With Johnny being in the animal business, it's normal for travel to take him from place to place.

But you couldn't have guessed how big it was really going to be until you're faced with an elephant that weighs over ten thousand pounds.

"What...is...this...?" you say, the shock in your expression is clear.

"It's an African bush elephant!" Johnny replies excitedly, still managing to carefully approach the creature with a handful of grass. The gentle giant takes the food from him and brings it to its mouth to begin chewing away.

"I can see that..." you trail off. "We're allowed to hang out with it?"

Johnny sends you a pompous look. "Yes. We're allowed to hang out with her. This is Lucille and she's going to be taking us on an adventure around the grasslands."

You raise an eyebrow.

"...and we'll have the conservation team following in the car just in case we get into any trouble. I promise you, we'll be safe. I wouldn't make you do anything that I wasn't willing to do myself," he says.

You roll your eyes and steadily approach Lucille. "This is coming from the man who was almost eaten by a bear on television."

"Oh, that was nothing," he whines dramatically. "That bear was trained and he knew exactly what he was doing: showing off for the cameras. Everybody has to get their five minutes of fame."

You laugh before letting the conservation team help both you and Johnny onto Lucille. Almost immediately, you wrap your arms around Johnny's torso, trying to keep balance. And he doesn't even try to hide his pride at having you depend on him just that little bit.

Sure, he likes that you're independent. He's so much of a mess sometimes that he doesn't know what he'd do if you were more codependent on him. But in little doses, he adores knowing that he's the one you lean on when you need it.

He loves being able to talk about everything he knows as you both ride along. Because he might not be the most intelligent man. But he loves animals. He's a bit wild too, just like them. And for that reason, he's always been more interested in learning about them than connecting with people.

So the fact that he can connect that love to you fills him with absolute joy. He talks for hours and hours about elephants and the grasslands and the times he got to work with both things on Animal Magic. 

For hours, you both ride along until the sun starts to set. And when Johnny feels like he's run out of things to say, he says aimlessly, "Thank you for entertaining me today. For all days, really. I know it's not easy being with–"

"Being with one of the only men on this earth who would take me to another country in order to watch the sunset? I don't know, I think that's pretty easy. It's actually fun."

Johnny laughs before swallowing the lump in his throat, "You know what I mean. I know I'm not the easiest person to deal with and somehow...you deal. I'm grateful for it."

"Jonathan Wilcox, I do not deal with you. I love you." You say it once more, firmer this time, "I love you." Then, taking his chin and turning his face slightly, you press a kiss onto his cheek, making him scrunch his nose.

And Johnny might not be great with words and hints or any of those things. But this is the biggest, boldest, in his face sign ever. He feels your grip around him tighten as you lay your cheek against his back and sigh contentedly.

He whispers back, "I love you too."

[anyroads]

I just saw your post about the Singer sewing machine restoration and it looks amazing! What did you use to clean the crud from the presser bar (in the second-to-last photo)? I recently got an old manual typewriter and it has a lot of similar stuff that I need to clean but I'm afraid of damaging it. Do you have any resources you used for how to clean the sewing machine?

That was a complex and intricate process, the most important first step of which was taking the time to curse the person who left this gorgeous machine to gather dust in a garden shed for 30 years. Once I packed up my candles and pentagram, I got my completely unprofessional tools out and got to work.

The most important thing is light - you need to see what you're doing and have a good, bright light trained on your work at all times. I started by carefully gathering and lifting out all the bits of fluff you can see:

The fluff is the easiest, because it's light, and it'll stick together, so if you kind of gently scrape it in one direction it'll all become one collective ball of gross that you can coax out. I used a plastic stick with one pointy and one flat end for this, that some guy at the Apple Store gave me once to lift keys off my keyboard when I needed to replace them. I can't find any on ebay but it's definitely not the only tool you can use (and actually, I think this was the only unprofessional one I used, now I think about it, everything else was pretty legit and easy/cheap to find on ebay). Anything thin, light, that you wield carefully, will gather and remove this stuff - just make sure it's wood or plastic (metal could cause scratches, and a Q tip will leave fluff and is a surprise tool that will come in handy later, not now). A lot of people use brushes, and Bob Fowler has a trick where he gets a regular paintbrush and cuts the bristles short so they're more precise and trap fluff better. That's definitely the method I'm going with on my current repair.

Once all that fluff is out, if you're doing a vintage sewing machine repair, it's best to remove all the parts (WD-40 is your new best friend, cherish her, and don't strip your screws). If there are some that won't budge/someone already stripped the screws when you got there (*heavy sigh as the pentagram and candles come back out*), then dip a q-tip in some high potency rubbing alcohol (90%) and very gently clean the caked on old oil etc. off (when I say "a q-tip" I mean "a thousand q-tips," you'll have to use a ton, they take on dirt fast). After that, get some metal polish (preferably anti-rust, the linked one is the best in my opinion) and use that to clean everything, (with a microfiber cloth if you can remove things, otherwise with a q-tip to get into the tight spaces).

I'm not sure how that translates to a typewriter since I haven't repaired one of those (yet?), but if you know how to remove the keys then my guess is it's a similar process -- the more parts you can remove and clean, the more thorough a job you can do, and the more likely you'll spot any hidden bits of rust that need getting rid of. If you have a lot of rusted bits, soak them in white vinegar for a couple of hours, scrub them off with a small wire brush under running water, and dry them thoroughly and immediately. Then clean them with the metal polish, which will prevent rusting.

And most importantly: keep thorough records of your work. Take pictures as you go, keep all removed parts organized and labeled where possible, etc. It's easy to take something apart, but putting it back together is a whole other thing.

[microfinanseer]

This is the week. Butterflies in my stomach as we head off in a few days back to Seattle. We'll be there for a short visit running some errands, catching up with friends, and exchanging some stuff in storage so we can go on the next leg of our pushing-our-boundaries tour.

So much growth to discuss, and still so much to process after this adventure. This is the longest I and we (as a couple) have been on the road away from home. We made our first trip together backpacking in several countries in Europe in 1994. Since then, we have regularly traveled to many other places in the world--usually not for more than a few weeks at a time, however. I've also done some solo travel over the years, which I highly recommend. In the U.K. when I considered graduate school there in 1997, I made my way for a month through parts of England and Scotland I had only read about in literature and seen in the movies. And then for two months in 2007, I went across New Zealand, Tahiti, with a few days in Sydney, Australia while my partner made his way through law school. I felt one of us being tortured in that experience [law school] was enough [half joking]. I wanted to see more of the world.

On this trip, too, I know I've changed. I just am not sure yet I recognize all the ways that's true for me. Often I realize my growth after traveling months later in the course of everyday things in a more everyday routine I develop again. Travel changes you. Period. You can't help it. You appreciate locations, yes. But more deeply you appreciate people, cultures, and how little separates us and how much unites us in our life's experiences and dreams. As I've said for years, rush hour is ultimately the same everywhere you go. By that I mean, that while the look of it differs, what it represents for everyone in the world is the same. We're all just trying to survive, make a living, and find happiness for ourselves and our families everyday we can.

My first thoughts after this trip are that in some ways, my travel has reinforced and more strongly encouraged me to live the values I've had all along. I'm reminded of what is actually most important for my happiness and well-being. No matter our age and life experience, it's good to keep track of what is our soul's fuel--of what motivates and diminishes our spirit.

I've also paid a lot more attention to what I find important in a place to live--not just the city or country, but the actual physical space we are lucky to call home. Whether a house, duplex, or apartment, with outdoor gardens, city views, or patios in either the scorching, humid heat or arid, cool mountainous desert, I've been in all kinds of spaces during these past six months. So many that I think I have a solid idea of what makes me happy to be in a home.

The photos I'm sharing in this post are of some designs that caught my eye in Mexico. When I spotted these shots before taking them, I noticed something I'm calling "space moods"--though they have more scientific theories and nomenclature grounded in psychology and design. When I noticed how the design elements of color, texture, light, form, and function made me feel in these places, I snapped a picture to help me recall. The one aspect that photographs can't capture is the delicious scent you notice in your favorite home spaces--from the material of the furniture, the covers of the books on shelves, the plants and flowers around, the ambience set by incense and candles inside, and the outside air wafting in through open windows, etc. And if you know me well, then you know how much "smell" matters to me. It's actually a very important sense for all of us for a lot of reasons.

I haven't decided yet how much I will keep blogging after I get back. I'll have different adventures, to be sure, but my focus day-to-day will shift and I don't know how much I will have to share. It's time to finish up the book, find interest to publish it, and get into a new routine back home. I'll keep my blog, and when inspiration hits I will follow it and post. Until then, thanks for accompanying me on this book writing journey and stay tuned.

Best wishes...

[hiddennotions]

Usually, when people are asked what they think the most important things in the world are they answer in general, personal sentiments; for example love, or friendship, or family. Sometimes people say “the little things”, but I’ve noticed people don’t really mention the little things - they just say the phrase for it. With me, I’ve always said stuff a little different, acted different, thought differently. I’ve always had unique perspective and a way I express myself. For example, if I was asked what I think are the most important things in the world, I would mention the feeling and smell of night air on an autumn evening while sitting in an empty field with a lover, just staring into the abyss. I would mention the crisp air of winter at an abandoned stop, dingy old clubs with orange lights in obscure areas, run down buildings with tiny little rooms, trains that go forever with their small little sections - their tracks leading to god knows where with nostalgic scenery around you as you gaze out the window with your old coat and jam packed suitcase. I would mention diners in the early morning or late night, separated from big cities. I would mention a collection of your favourite games and films, that you keep on the floor next to your bed and your film camera. I would mention mountains and hills, trees and fields, old bleachers on empty soccer fields, the air and wind and breeze at night, the crisp smell, the soft feeling, the cool taste. Sunset and midnight, farms and houses built by two lovers in a place for only them. Wooden floors and dim lit ceilings, empty streets in the middle of the city. Places you’ve never been before, going anywhere with no specific aim. Drifting from town to town with yourself and your bags, never knowing what’s out there. A guy with a cigarette and an old tattoo, eyebrow piercings and a worn down leather jacket. Plane trips out of the country for the first time, exploring new destinations and learning them instantly. Writing in a book, taking your photos, sitting at a bar for no specific use. Sneaking off into an area together, leaving all these people behind us. Being at a social camp, but only connecting with one person. Concerts at the deep night time with the smell of cigarettes and musk wafting through the desolate air. Photos that capture your true and deep most inner expression, what you see and what you want to be, what you imagine. All these clothes, tattoos, naked backs of random men, nature from unknown destinations, empty places, empty eyes, photos lost in time. Old media, new ways to see it all. The simple purr of a cat as your rub its tail and stroke its chin. Photos you didn’t experience, but feel like home to you. The rush you get inside when you see a lover, or a potential lover, or someone you will never know. Your hair side parted in a way you never had known you wanted before. Messy clothes, messy makeup. Spotting people from across the road, across the room, across the paths of an old shop. Collecting things and making your house something that is truly expressive of all the things you imagined as a teen. Curly little gates with scrappy little walls, inside buildings in small towns. Music that captures the ambience or moments of the world. A persons personal musk and smell, with a faint scent of good cigarettes and cologne or perfume. Complex people, complex situations. Everything is multifaceted. If we were perfect, we wouldn’t be real. We wouldn’t be human. Underground secret rooms that nobody knows about except you and one other, sitting outside with another as you snuck off from the camp. The thump in your heart. The fire in your veins. Blood, bruises, sweat and tears, hair, skin, backs and ears. Light blue eyes that pierce your soul, brunette dark or medium, or black hair soft and smooth. Eyes of any shade or any size. Sharing souls, secrets and fears, overcoming it all together. Leading yourself through anywhere new, figuring it out all in one night. Festivals that you take yourself to and meet a whole array of people. Temples with the smell of incense and musk.

Ambience and music that captures your soul - films that capture your soul, loneliness, your longing, what you see and want to feel and know. Bones and All made me feel a similar way, not fully, but the music and the locations, the way that they loved, the nostalgia, it all made my heart palpitate with my already known loneliness and longing for experiences not just of love but locations of love and surroundings of love, sounds and sights and tastes and smells of love. But it’s not just that, nothing can ever be that simple. Nothing will ever be that simple. My needs are scattered through everything, I express myself through imagery. I express what my life would be like if I had the chance, if I could, if I could just do it. If I could leave. All that I see, all that I want, all that I need. I don’t like daydreaming. I want to be there. I want to do it all, see it all, feel all the sensations. I want to love and I want to make it real. I want to be real. I want reality, not some foolish little dream. Despite my active and extremely vivid imagination, it’s not like I want to use it. I only use it to know all these little things that are important and that I want my life to be like. Not because they’re ideals, but because they feel nostalgic. Like I’ve done it before. Been there before. Seen it before. Even if I haven’t. And also, because they’re just beautiful, they’re just cool, they’re just exciting. It’s all new and old at the same time. These are all important to me. As well as my many many interests I haven’t mentioned, but would probably already be known. The clothes that I just know when I see them. The food that fills up my mouth and warms my insides. Bruises that cover my skin, that I study and prod at. Nostalgic music that fills my ears and makes every feel more alive. I want to be alive. I love living. I love life. I love the endless possibilities, the places I could go, the things I could experience, the feeling of wind in my hair on a car ride at night. The many men I could love and all the little aspects I find attractive or deeply loveable qualities. The taste of my favourite drink, a large grapefruit green tea with rainbow jelly, specifically from gong cha. I get it daily. The taste of nostalgic foods, the sight of nostalgic places, the smell of nostalgic smells. Cold air with warm and gorgeous clothes. The snow, the mountains, rural fields or small city apartments. All this media I love; 90s-2000s games, 80s films, unconventional romance, survival horror, dark wave music, everything I repost on tumblr and so much more. All of the men I like, random men I see online with their bare backs and warm muscles, or with their military gear, clad with weapons. Light blue eyes with dark hair, a singular phrase tattoo, or barbed wire wrist tattoos. Eyebrow piercings or leather jackets. I also like fictional men, which many of you may already know (Chris Redfield). Bright coloured tights with furry little boots, side parts, dark eye makeup, fur trimmed coats. Jeans, skirts, turtlenecks, tank tops, weapons, rosary beads, boots and ballet flats. Pink, purple, red and blue, stars in glitter or stars in the sky, I want so much to be real. So much that is already real that I’ve already seen, that I will go anywhere or see anything or seek anything to make it a part of me. And even then, with these long paragraphs, it’s hell far away from all of it. I could never name all of it. It would take forever. And that’s what I like, complexity is human. I am human. You’re all human. You’re all yourselves, you all know what’s important to you.

[mi6014emiliamcgee]

What briefs I am considering

When looking through the variety of different briefs offered on the D&AD New Blood Awards 2023 website (https://www.dandad.org/en/d-ad-new-blood-awards/) I was able to imagine using 3 of them so I noted them down before thinking about what I could potentially do for each of them.

Briefs I have taken interest in:

Duolingo - Demystify math They want to help motivate people to use their app Duolingo math to improve their maths skills. What I could do: - Describe math as a language that can be used universally no matter where you are in the world. - Point out various times in your day where math can be seen around us and how we use it unintentionally, it could also be shown in more humorous scenarios. 

Penguin - In search of merch Penguin wants to create new merchandise to appeal to a Gen Z audience. What I could do: - Create merchandise that would help with peoples online reading experience such as phone cases, headphones, phone stands, other products related to phones. - Relate the process of photo taking to the concept of storytelling e.g. you are the one depicting a story. The merch for this idea would be stuff that would help the process like selfie sticks and ring lights.

Heinz - Gaming - changing food They want to advertise their product as the top choice of food for gamers to use to recharge after gaming or while watching streamers. What I could do: - Make a silly advertising campaign where Heinz products invade your game/server. - Create parodies of existing videogame posters and covers to help draw in a gaming audience to discuss it. By adding humour it would help to reduce any annoyance it could cause. - A series of adverts that encourage gamers to take breaks and refuel so they can go back to gaming feeling more refreshed then before so they can play better. - Depicting various Heinz products as gamers and streamers and using a catchy slogan to help people remember it, this could also be viewed in a humorous light.

What I shall go forward with

Out of the 3 brief I had interest in I believe that there is a single one I would be most willing to go forward with and that is the Heinz one. I would choose this brief as it is the one I can relate more to the work I would want to do in the future and the ideas I managed to come up with were more varied and interesting to me. My next step is to work on my research around the topic and build up a good supply of reference and inspiration that would help improve my work.

Preferred ideas Out of the starting ideas I had I believe that some of them could have been combined together to make some ideas more expansive but my personal favourite is the parodies on existing videogame media. The parodies would help to give the company a more positive and funny image to gamers instead of a more negative one which they could get if they tried to be too preachy and out of touch. The subjects that would need to be chosen to parody would have to be something that most would recognise so looking at trends would be an important part of the research process as you wouldn't want to accidently pick something that no longer has relevancy. 

[violethazephotography]

WINTERFEST - ALAN, MARGARET AND JAY

Alan mcfetridge

Before notes

- photographer near Lake Rotorua, Aotearoa, now based in London. He has 11 years of experience with advertising photography, he changed his path to landscape to find another way to be connected with the Earth.

- His focus turned abruptly to human geography in 2012, by 2016 Landscape fire came into the frame and has since been the major focus.

-

Notes during

- Centre of ecological philosophy, landscape fire. Born in New Zealand, land of the long white cloud - Aotearoa. Understanding the landscape means and how he could interpret it through photography was the first initial interest in landscape photography. Admire Brian ino and how he makes music and how he could use different creatives as inspiration other than just photographers. Interested in how the humans impacted the landscape and what happened to the forests.

Impact

- I don’t need to know exactly what I want to do and where I want to be. Change is good

Aspect

- even if you have one thing, don’t be scared to change your mind and your path and try something else, do more than one area of photography, experiment or completely change direction.

Q’s

If you didn’t go into landscape are you interested in any other area?

What was it specifically that made you change from advertisement to landscape?

Where do you find the most inspiration for themes or areas of interest?

Do you think zines, prints and magazines are an important part of our stage of study to get ourselves known, rather than or as well as social media?

Jay brooks

Before

Portrait photographer studied Film & TV Set Design at Wimbledon School of Art.

graphic, cinematic style and atmospheric lighting. film, tv and theatre producing promotional photos for Netflix, Amazon, Sky, HBO, Discovery and The BBC. Also currently has four portraits in the permanent collection of The National Portrait Gallery. based in North London.

Questions

Do you design as well as photograph or primarily photograph?

Is it a shoot and go situation or do you get to interact with the people? And if so are you still in contact with any?

Aspect

Do more personal work other than just stuff set for you by briefs

Impact

Make things to be used even if you don’t, you’ve gone through the process and prepared for the shoot. You have a safety net and tools that can be used.

Have a sketchbook of ideas and even if you don’t end up using it for the intended shoot, you end up with library of ideas to use for other projects

Don’t be scared to direct people and to tell them how to pose and stand to get what you need

Notes

- Shooting for 25 years. Didn’t study photography at college. Always loved photography but first love as a kid was music and covers and vinyls. Posters and designs. College foundation of art. Went into set and stage design 3D design. Used the photography lab to use as inspo for set designs. Not much freedom, working from a brief to take the photos as recreations. Uses digital for the work he does, but was late on changing (around 2006).

Margaret Mitchell

Before notes

Based in Glasgow and explores communities and childrens worlds, long term projects. Focuses on disadvantages and inequality. Intricacies and complexities of peoples lives with emphasis on place and belonging. ‘An ordinary Eden’ - project on home and housing, and connection, plus she’s doing a project with Glasgow uni, research project called ‘dying in the margins’. Her clients include shelter, guardian and new statesman among others

During talk

Photographs family, health, employment etc. the project she talked about was shot in an area of Stirling. Her early work was about about reconnecting with family while studying photography, and it just happened naturally, it wasn’t supposed to be a project and it ended up evolving. It looks at loved realities and inside the mind and process of individuals. She took inspiration from observational and busy images. Another area of her work is childhood and personal stories, working in an involved way and giving and taking equally. The project ‘in this place’ started from an article on the stigma of single mothers.

Resonate

Courage and her way of delicately photographing her subject, children and deprivation

Impact

Inspiring to try more personal imagery and backstories. To be aware of others and their different situations and to have empathy. Interviewing gives a personal perspective.

Q’s

Do you ever suffer with creativity block and how do you overcome it?

Where do you find the most inspo?

Something you’ve learnt from someone or a group of people you were given?

[summerslobstersposts]

7 Rules for Creating Gorgeous UI

The Rules

1. Light comes from the sky

2. Black and white first

3. Double your whitespace

4. Learn the methods of overlaying text on images

5. Make text pop — and un-pop

6. Use only good fonts

7. Steal like an artist

Rule 1: Light Comes From the Sky

Our screens are flat, but we’ve invested a great amount of art into making just about everything on them appear be 3-D.

Shadows are invaluable cues in telling the human brain what user interface elements we’re looking at so the light illuminates the tops of things and casts shadows below them. The tops of stuff are lighter, the bottoms are darker.

This is perhaps the most important non-obvious thing to learn about UI design: light comes from the sky so in case the light comes from below sometimes looks rather freaky.

Well, the same is true for UI. Just as we have little shadows on all the undersides of all our facial features, there are shadows on the undersides of just about every UI element you can find.

Rule 2: Black and White First

Designing in grayscale before adding colour simplifies the most complex element of visual design– and forces you to focus on spacing and laying out elements.

UX designers are really into designing “mobile-first” these days. That means you think about how pages and interactions work on a phone before imagining them on your monitor.

It clarifies thinking. You start with the harder problem (usable app on a teeny-weeny screen) -> adopt the solution to the easier problem (usable app on a large screen).

Well here’s another similar constraint: design black and white first. Start with the harder problem of making the app beautiful and usable in every way, but without the aid of colour. Add colour last, and even then, only with purpose.

How to add colour

The simplest colour to add is one colour.

Adding one colour to a grayscale site draws the eye simply and effectively.

By modifying the saturation and brightness of a single hue, you can generate multiple colours— darks, lights, backgrounds, accents, eye-catchers— but it’s not overwhelming on the eye.

Rule 3: Double your whitespace

If you want to make UI that looks designed, you need to add in a lot of breathing room.

Sometimes a ridiculous amount.

Whitespace, HTML, and CSS

If you are used to formatting with CSS, where the default is no whitespace, it’s time to un-train yourself of those bad habits. Start thinking of whitespace as the default— everything starts as whitespace, until you take it away by adding a page element.

Rule 4: Learn the methods of overlaying text on images

There are only a few ways of reliably and beautifully overlaying text on images.

Method 0: Apply text directly to image

I hesitate to even include this, but it is technically possible to put text directly on an image and have it look OK.

Method 1: Overlay the whole image

Perhaps the easiest method to put text on an image is to overlay the image. If the original image isn’t dark or bright enough, you can overlay the whole image with translucent black or white.

Here’s a trendy splash image with a dark overlay.

Method 2: Text-in-a-box

This is very simple and reliable. Whip up a mildly-transparent black rectangle and lather on some white text. If the overlay is opaque enough, you can have just about any image underneath and the text will still be totally legible.

Method 3: Blur the image

A surprisingly good way for making overlaid text legible is to blur part of the underlying image.

You can also use the out-of-focus area of a photo as the blur. But beware— this method is not as dynamic. If your image ever changes, make sure the text is always over the blurry bits.

Method 4: Floor fade

The floor fade is when you have an image that subtly fades towards black at the bottom, and then there’s white text written over it. This is an ingenious method. To the casual observer, it appears that these Medium collections are displayed by plastering some white text over an image— but in response to that, I say false! There’s ever-so-subtle a gradient from the middle (black at 0% opacity) to the bottom (black at, maybe ‘bout 20% opacity).

Difficult to see, but definitely there, and definitely improving legibility.

Also notice that the Medium collection thumbnails use a slight text shadow to further increase legibility.

— why does the image fade black at the bottom? For the answer to that the light always comes from the top. To look most natural to our eye, the image has to be slightly darker at the bottom, just like everything else we ever see.

Bonus Method: Scrim

A scrim is a piece of photography equipment that makes light softer. Now it’s also a visual design technique for softening an image so overlaid text is more legible.

Rule 5: Make text pop — and un-pop

Styling text to look beautiful and appropriate is often a matter of styling it in contrasting ways— for instance, larger but lighter.

In my opinion, one of the hardest parts of creating a beautiful UI is styling text— and it’s certainly not for unfamiliarity with the options.

Size (bigger or smaller)

Colour (greater contrast or lesser; bright colours draw the eye)

Font weight (bolder or thinner)

Capitalisation (lowercase, UPPERCASE, and Title Case)

Italicisation

Letter spacing (or tracking)

Margins (technically not a property of the text itself, but can be used to draw attention, so it makes the list)

There are a few other options that are possible for drawing your attention, but not particularly used or recommended:

Underline. Underline means links nowadays, and it’s not worth trying to force it to mean anything else.

Text background colour. Perhaps interesting as a hover effect, I wouldn’t use this for any common styles.

Up-pop and down-pop

You can divide all the ways of styling text into two groups:

Styles that increase visibility of the text. Big, bold, capitalised, etc.

Styles that decrease visibility of the text. Small, less contrast, less margin, etc.

We’ll call those “up-pop” and “down-pop” styles. We won’t call it “visual weight”.

Selected and hovered styles

Styling selected elements and hover effects are another round in the same game— but more difficult.

Usually, changing font-size, case, or font-weight will change how large of an area the text takes up, which can lead to seizing hover effects.

What does that leave you with?

Text colour

Background colour

Shadows

Underlining

Slight animations— raising, lowering, etc.

One solid option: try turning white elements coloured, or turning coloured elements white, but darkening the background behind them.

Rule 6: Use Only Good Fonts

There are no strategies or things to study in this section.

Sites with a very distinct personality can use very distinct fonts. But for most UI design, you just want something clean and simple.

That’s right, buddy, put down the Wisdom Script.

There’s more than enough out there at the zero-dollar price point.

Rule 7: Steal like an artist

The first time I sat down to try and design some app element— a button, a table, a chart, a popup, whatever— was the first time I realised how little I knew about how to make that element look good.

But as luck would have it, I haven’t had to invent any new UI elements yet. That means I can always see how others have done it and cherry-pick from the best.

But where should one cherry pick? Here are the resources I have found absolutely the most useful while designing for clients. Listed in descending order:

1. Dribbble

This invite-only “show and tell for designers” site has bar-none the highest quality of UI work online. You can find great examples of almost anything here.

2. Flat UI Pinboard

I haven’t the slightest idea who “warmarc” is, but his pinboard of phone UI had been ridiculously useful to me trying to find disparate examples of beautiful UI.

3. Pttrns

A directory of mobile app screenshots. The nice thing about Pttrns is the whole site is organised by— wait for it— UX patterns. This makes it very nice to quickly research whatever piece of interface you’re currently working on, be it a login page, a user profile, search results, etc.

I’m a firm believer that every artist should be a parrot until they’re good at mimicking the best. Then go find your own style; invent the new trends.

In the meanwhile, let’s make like thieves.

And, in the spirit of this section, the title “Steal Like an Artist” was lifted from an eponymous book that I have not read, mostly because the title seems to sum up anything that the pages might contain.

[e-dubbc11]

Happy Birthday

Photos are not mine. They are courtesy of Pinterest/Google

Pairing: Billy Russo x F! Reader

Warnings: Handful of swear words, some tears, and a tiny bit of angst

Word Count: 4220-ish (I didn’t mean for it to be this long, I’m sorry)

Summary: You’re having a formal masquerade birthday party. Everyone is invited, family, friends, co workers, even your very handsome boss said he would come

A/N: I will do another author’s note at the end because, well…you’ll see. Again, this is MY Billy Russo. Oh! And Frank Castle shows up in this one!

As always, thank you for reading!  I appreciate it so much and comments are welcome and encouraged. Don’t be shy to tell me your favorite part. 💕💕💕

The date was rapidly approaching and you were pretty sure everything was coming together. The venue, the food, music, decorations, and the most important part of any birthday party, the cake.

Your dress would be ready in a week, the party is the weekend after and you couldn’t be more excited and grateful to your parents for helping to pay for this event because that’s exactly what it had turned into, an event.

You’ve never had an extravagant birthday party like this before, not even when you turned 21, they had all been very low-key—16, 18, and 21. 30 seemed like a good age to really go over the top and why shouldn’t you? It’s your birthday!

The entire office at Anvil RSVP’d, even your boss, Billy Russo, sent in his reply. You honestly didn’t think he would come but you couldn’t invite the entire office and not invite him. You made sure to only take care of party stuff on your breaks or your lunch break, Mr. Russo was a great boss but you didn’t want to take advantage of his kindness.

He hired you even though you didn’t have that much experience working in that type of environment or with veterans but the past year has been very educational for you and you were very thankful to him for giving you a chance. So even though he was your boss, you wanted to invite him, and you had a little bit of a crush on him too.

The theme of the party was formal Masquerade with a darker flair to it. Your favorite holiday was Halloween and you’re a Fall baby so Halloween decorations were just decorations at your apartment, skull decorations mostly.

The decorations for the party are a lot of fairy lights, drip candles inside of black candelabras, red roses, black obsidian hand carved skulls at every table. The table at the entrance will be covered with different shaped vases filled with all red candies, skull and mask cookies with royal icing and next to those was going to be your birthday cake. It was multi-tiered strawberries and cream inside a vanilla cake, covered in black icing with gold drip icing cascading from the top, small gold skulls and red roses on top.

One day during your lunch break and in between phone calls to finalize details for the party, Frank Castle walked through on his way to talk to Billy in his office. Frank and Billy were best friends, after their time in the service, Billy started Anvil, and he recruited Frank to come work for him. Frank stopped at your desk.

“How ya doin’, kid?”

You looked up from your lunch. “Hi Frank! Things are good! Maria and the kids doin’ well?”

Frank beamed at the mention of his wife and kids. “Oh you know it. They’re good, everyone’s good. How’s that party planning comin’ along? Getting that last minute stuff taken care of?”

You let out a big exhale. “Oh yeah, all those small details I’m taking care of today and I’m picking up my dress after I get out of here.”

He started walking towards Billy’s office. “Alright kid, well I know you’ll get shit done and I can’t wait for next weekend, I’m excited to see what you put together. I’ll see ya around, gotta go talk to the boss.” He pointed at Billy’s office.

When you looked up towards Billy’s office, he was standing in the doorway waiting for Frank and all you heard was Billy say “Close the door, Frankie.” Oh to be a fly on the wall in that room right now.

Inside Billy’s Office

Frank sat down in the chair across from Billy’s desk. “Y/N—she’s a good kid, yeah?”

Billy was staring off into space and he didn’t hear a word Frank just said “Huh? What’d ya say, Frankie?”

Frank had a smirk on his face. “I said, Y/N—she’s a good kid.” He chuckled.

Billy looked slightly annoyed, frowned and squinted his eyes at Frank. “What’s so funny?”

Frank laughed again. “I can tell you like her, Bill. You goin’ to her birthday party, yeah? She invited everyone, should be a good time. You’re gonna tell her?”

Billy sat at the edge of his desk with a slightly confused look on his face. “Tell her what, Frankie?”

Frank genuinely wanted to help his friend out, he wanted to see him happy. “Look Bill, I’ve known you a long time and I’ve never seen you look at a woman the way you look at her and I know there have been more than a few women. Tell her, before someone else snatches her up.”

Billy brushed his beard with his fingers then rubbed the back of his neck, he knew Frank was right. There were a few guys around the office he could tell they had a thing for you so he had a decision to make.

He managed a smile and said to Frank “Well, whatever will I wear?”

They both started cracking up.

*************************************************

After work, you went to the dress shop to try your dress on to make sure all the alterations were done, it was perfect and you could not wait to show it off at the party. Then you took an Uber over to one of your favorite places to walk around…Fifth Avenue.

Walking along 5th Avenue was always an adventure, you never knew what you were going to see. People from all over came to walk up and down that street, it was indeed a special place.

The luxury stores were planted one right after the other, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Saks, Cartier, Armani, Tiffany & Co., and Dior. Looking in all the windows of these stores was one of your favorite things to do from a very young age.

After talking to the caterer and giving them the final head count, you stopped at one of your favorite sets of windows, Harry Winston. All of the gemstones and diamonds reflecting off of the lights were really quite beautiful, you’d never know what it’s like to actually wear something so glamorous but it was fun to imagine.

You felt someone stop and stand next to you, and then you heard his voice, that soft, soothing voice of Mr. Russo’s drew you in, his slight New York accent made everything he said sound incredibly sexy even though you were sure he didn’t mean for it to be.

“Well, good afternoon Miss Y/L/N. Are you browsing or buying on Fifth Avenue today?”

You let out a nervous laugh. “I think if I was buying anything, I’d say you’re paying me too much money, Mr. Russo.” He let out a little chuckle. You looked in the window at the diamond earrings that were shining so bright, they were burning a hole into your retinas. “They’re so beautiful aren’t they?” He wasn’t looking at the diamonds when he replied “Yes, yes they are.” And he quickly looked away from you when you turned to face him.

Noticing he had a bag in his hand from Bergdorf Goodman, you excitedly asked him “Oooh Bergdorf’s! And what did YOU buy on Fifth Avenue today, Mr. Russo?”

He held up the small bag at eye level and answered with “Oh this?” He shook his head. “Ah, well it’s something to wear to your party, so I can’t show you yet. And please y/n, call me Billy.”

Billy really was the most handsome man you’d ever met. You remembered walking in for your interview at Anvil, locking eyes with him, and immediately felt the heat rush to your cheeks and you were hoping he didn’t notice. And the same thing happened just now when he asked you to call him by his first name, again hoping he wouldn’t notice. You tried to play it off though.

“Oh a surprise? I love surprises! Well I can’t wait to see it. I’ll see you tomorrow Mr. Russo, Billy, I gotta get my dress home.”

He gave you the biggest smile before he walked away. “Have a nice night, y/n.”

That smile, oh that smile made you weak in the knees and stumble over your words. “Umm, yeah. You too.” You bit your bottom lip as you watched him walk away.

The final head count for the party was about 75 between family, friends, and co-workers and the week leading up to that day very busy. You were busy before work, during work, during work breaks, and after work just making sure everything would run like clockwork the day of the party. In the midst of all the chaos, you had forgotten to ask Billy for the day before your party, off.

It made you nervous every time you had to go see him in his office for anything. Could he tell you had a crush on him? Could anyone else tell? Right before your lunch break, you knocked on his office door.

He looked up from his papers and waved you inside. “Please y/n, come in.”

Billy was probably going to say no but you asked anyway. “Mr. Russo, I know it’s last minute, I completely forgot to ask for the day off tomorrow to get some errands done before Saturday. You have every right to say no, it just completely slipped my mind and—“

He interrupted you. “Of course, absolutely.”

You weren’t sure you heard him correctly, you’ve heard other people ask for last minute days off and it didn’t go well…for them. “I’m sorry, did you say ok?”

“Yes y/n. Please, take the day. I’m sure you have a lot to do before Saturday.”

Stunned, you replied “Oh wow, thank you Mr. Russo, sorry—Billy, thank you so much. I’m so sorry it’s last minute, I promise it will never happen again I just—“

Messing with you a little, Billy put his serious voice on. “Y/n, I have a lot of work to do as do you, I’m sure.” He noticed your mouth drop a little and Frank walked up behind you.

“Yes sir, I’m sorry…I’m sorry.” You couldn’t stop apologizing.

His voice became playful. “Y/n?”

“Yes Mr. Russo?”

He cracked a smile. “I’m kidding.”

Breathing a sigh of relief and letting out a nervous laugh, you responded “Oh!! Ok then!” You handed him some papers he had to sign. “I’m going to leave these for you to sign and I’ll see you before I leave today—Hey Frank!!!!”

Frank gave you a sly smirk. “Hey kid, you kickin’ ass today?”

“And takin’ names!” You stated as you walked away. “I’ll see you guys later.”

Before Frank closed the office door, he heard Billy say “Yes, you will.”

Inside Billy’s Office

Frank was grinning at Billy. “You really got it bad for her, don’t you Bill!”

Billy got up from his chair and started pacing back and forth, wide eyed and nervous, he watched you walk away from his office and waited until you got far enough away so you wouldn’t hear him.

“Keep your voice down, Frankie!”

Amused, Frank sat down in one of the office chairs. “Ah, she can’t hear us and you know that.”

Billy sat back down behind his desk with his elbows resting on top of the desk and then he ran his fingers through his hair. “Alright, she’s gone.”

Frank enjoyed seeing Billy squirm like this because he’s never seen him act this way before.

“Ok, now what did you call me in here for that was ‘so important?’ I got shit to do.”

Billy took out the Bergdorf Goodman bag from his desk drawer. “I bought something to wear to her party and I wanted to run it by you, make sure it’s not, ya know…stupid.”

Frank looked at Billy a little confused. “You’re askin me for fashion advice, Bill? Maria tells me what to wear and I just do what she tells me, you must be really in love with her if you’re asking me for my opinion.”

From the bag, Billy took out something wrapped in tissue paper. He unfolded the tissue paper to reveal a black and burgundy red tie designed with skulls and delicate foliage detailing all over it.

Frank stared at it, felt the fabric and traced one of the skulls with his thick calloused fingers. He was impressed. “I tell ya what, Bill. I’m not into this stuff but this is badass and she is going to love this on you.”

These words seem to put Billy at ease. “Yeah? You think so? I noticed the party invitations had skulls and roses all over them in addition to the masks so, I took a guess.”

Frank stood up and was getting ready to leave Billy’s office. “Ya know Bill, you are the toughest son of a bitch I’ve ever known, but I think you’ve found the woman that turns you into a pile of mush. Maria does the same thing to me.”

Before he walked out of the office, Frank stopped and pointed at Billy and uttered two words “Tell…her.”

*************************************************

Friday you had gone to get your nails done with your mother, your aunt and your best friend, Ginger. “So is this smoke show, that you call your boss, showing up?”

“Yes Ginger, he said he was coming.” You told her.

Your mother, your aunt and Ginger couldn’t wait to get a look at Billy, she asked about Frank also.

“What about that other guy from your office you like to talk about, what’s his name? Fred?”

You started cracking up. “Frank, Ginger! His name is Frank and he’s married, he’s just super nice and he’s Mr. Russo’s best friend.”

Her eyes were smiling and she had her finger up to her lips like she was thinking.

“I know that look, Ginger. He’s my boss.”

She shrugged her shoulders. “Hey, just come work with me. The Navy just gave us a new contract, they’ll be hiring like crazy.”

The smile from your face slowly disappeared. “He doesn’t like me like that anyway—besides, he can have anyone he wants. What would he want with me?”

Ginger pressed her lips together in a straight line before she blurted out “Listen up, miss. You are more beautiful than Cinderella! You smell like pine needles and your face is like sunshine!”

The laughter that escaped your mouth was so loud, it scared half the people in the nail salon. “Did you seriously just Bridesmaids me?!!” You could always count on Ginger to make you feel better about anything.

The day had finally arrived, after a few months of planning, your masquerade birthday party was about to kick off and you hoped everything was going to run smoothly.

The venue was decorated so beautifully, just how you imagined it would look in your head. Everything from the flowers, the drip candles in the candelabras, the black hand carved skulls, and the tables that held all the candy, cookies and your birthday cake—they all looked exquisite.

Guests started to arrive and made their way to get drinks and appetizers and of course made sure they came over to you to wish you a happy birthday.

Everyone complimented your dress. It was black and burgundy, floor length, strapless with a sweetheart neckline. It was fitted through the hips, the skirt had a slight flare and it made you feel confident and beautiful. Your mask was black lace that tied in the back.

Your family was always late for everything so they were almost the last to arrive—almost. Where was he? All of your co-workers and your friends were there—you saw your mother talking to Frank and Maria, hoping she wasn’t saying anything to embarrass you.

“Happy Birthday, sweetheart.” Frank smiled at you. “This is a great party, well done, kid!”

You blushed a little but only because you were proud of the hard work you put into this. “Well I couldn’t have done it without my parents.” You smiled at your mom. “They did help pay for a lot of it.” You nervously looked around the party, scanning the crowd for Billy.

You excused yourself and went over to the bar to get a drink when you felt someone crash into you from behind. It was Ginger and she was pointing straight ahead over your shoulder. “Is that HIM? It’s him isn’t it?!!!”

The bartender handed you your drink. “First of all Ginger, RELAX! And second of all, oh my god that is him.”

Billy walked into the room wearing a crisp black suit, his tie looked black and burgundy from a distance, and he had a black mask on.

Ginger started pushing you to go talk to him. “Girrrrllllll. Get your beautiful ass on over there before I do.”

You took a sip of your drink, Billy’s beautiful dark brown eyes met yours and you started walking towards him. Because of his long legs, his strides were twice as long as yours.

He looked confident and in charge just like he does at the office but slightly nervous as he adjusted his tie mid stride.

“Happy Birthday y/n. You look—wow. You look beautiful.” He was holding a small gift bag.

“Thank you, Mr. Russo! Welcome to my party!” When you were nervous, you talked a little bit louder.

“Everything looks amazing, you put a lot of work into this didn’t you.” He wasn’t surprised, you always kept everything at the office running smoothly, why would this be any different?

Then you saw it, his neck tie. Black and burgundy with skulls all over it and the details covering the tie were beautiful. This is what he wanted to surprise you with.

“Mr. Rus—um, Billy—your tie! That’s what you didn’t want to show me last week, huh? And it matches my dress.” You ran your fingers from the knot to the bottom even though you probably shouldn’t have. He inhaled sharply and you felt heat rise to your cheeks. “It’s beautiful.” You paused, then added “and very rockstar! How did you know the color of my dress?”

Billy adjusted his mask, the cuffs on his shirt, and his watch. “Oh I didn’t, the colors on the invitation were similar so I think I just had that in mind.” It was quite the coincidence that your dress matched his tie exactly. Now he seemed really nervous, but Billy doesn’t get nervous. He was always so confident during meetings, walking around the office, giving people their jobs for the week—but you made him nervous. Why?

Out of the corner of your eye, you noticed your grandmother waving at you to come over but you didn’t want to walk away from Billy quite yet. You knew if you didn’t go see her at that moment, you’d never hear the end of it. “Oh, I’m sorry Mr. Russo, my grandmother is waving me over, I’ll be right back. The bar is right there and Frank and Maria are…” you looked around to see if they were in the same place and they were still talking to your mother, so you pointed in their direction. “right over there. They’re talking to my mother and I really hope she’s not embarrassing me right now. I swear I’ll be right back.” And you hustled away to greet more guests.

During the course of the night, every time you tried to break free to try and talk to Billy, more and more people wanted to talk to you and tell you what a great party it was—you were the birthday girl after all so everyone wanted to talk to the guest of honor.

Sometimes you’d catch him looking at you, he’d quickly look away or start talking to Frank or someone else and it really did make you wonder if he had feelings for you. He was holding onto that small gift bag for dear life also, he brought it with him everywhere he went. What was in it?

After dinner was cleared, the lights went down and the DJ started playing all the music that you requested him to play. Your surprise to everyone at the party was there were karaoke battles between anyone and everyone who wanted to make fools of themselves in the name of fun.

You had managed to talk to Billy a little more while you were around Frank, Maria, and some of your coworkers from Anvil but you didn’t get to talk to him alone which is what you really wanted.

After a couple of group dances with some of your friends, a slower song started playing, Silver Springs by Fleetwood Mac. It’s one of your favorite songs and a guy that you work close with on projects asked you to dance, his name was Lucas and he’s incredibly sweet so you just couldn’t say no.

While you were dancing with him, you happened to have a direct view of Billy and Frank. It looked like they were having a serious conversation and it seemed Billy was getting more and more agitated.

Lucas was talking to you but you were barely paying attention when Billy handed Frank the gift bag and walked away. The song wasn’t over yet and you didn’t want to be rude and just leave in the middle so after the song was over, you thanked him for the dance and ran over to Frank.

“Hey Frank, where did Billy go?”

Frank gave you a concerned look. “Ah, yeah hey sweetheart—Bill, uh he left.”

“WHAT?!!” Your voice was louder than you intended it to be. “Frank, what do you mean he left? Why?”

Frank didn’t elaborate on why, he just said “I don’t wanna speak for him kid, but all I know is he wanted me to give you this.”

He slowly handed you the bag and with your hand shaking slightly, you took it from him. There was a little card inside so you reached inside to take it out, unfolded it and read it out loud.

I know this is going to sound cheesy but these don’t shine as brightly as you do. Happy Birthday. –Billy

You removed small black velvet box from the bag and saw the HW printed on the top—Harry Winston. A gasp escaped your lips at the very sight of the logo and your eyes immediately welled up with tears when you opened the box and saw a beautiful pair of round diamond studs inside.

Looking at Frank, you asked him sternly “Did you know about this, Frank?”

Frank pressed his lips together in a straight line, then smiled and answered you. “Look sweetheart, I knew about Bill having feelings for you but I didn’t know about this. I’m just gonna tell you one thing, I’ve never seen him look at any woman the way he looks at you. You do what you want with that.”

A tear fell out from the bottom of your mask, Frank took a cocktail napkin and dabbed your cheek and said “You like him too, don’t ya.” You nodded as you took the napkin from him and wiped your other cheek where the other tear fell. “Well go get him, kid—I’ll find Ginger and we’ll stall the cake, yeah?”

As soon as he said that, Ginger walked up behind you. “Find Ginger for what?”

Your eyes were still wet with tears when you told her “I gotta go find Billy.” And you started off towards the entrance to the ballroom when you heard her call out behind you.

“You’re gonna be unemployed after tonight!! I’ll be expecting you to put your application in on Monday!!!! And hurry up and smooch him or you’re gonna miss my rendition of I Wanna Dance with Somebody!!”

You didn’t even turn around, just smiled a little, waved, and exited the venue. Pulling the bottom of your dress up so you didn’t trip, you looked around in the long hallway but didn’t see him. Could he have really gotten that far?

Still holding the gift bag, you stepped out into the cool autumn air and looked to your left, he wasn’t there. You looked to the right and among the few people that were walking, you spotted him slowly walking and about to get into a town car. You called out after him and frantically waving your hands in the air.

“Mr. Russo!!! Mr. Russo!”

He didn’t hear you, so you tried again.

“BILLY!!!! WAIT!!!”

When he finally heard your voice, he stopped and looked in the direction of where your voice was coming from. Considering you were running in heels, you moved pretty quickly and when you finally caught up to him, there was only one word you managed to get out.

“Hi…” More than anything you wanted to say how much you loved the gift, you wanted to tell him you have feelings for him also but you were frozen.

Billy smiled warmly at you, his dark eyes reminded you of the way the ocean looked at night, deep and bottomless but alive at the same time.

His response was just like the greeting you gave him, short but sweet sounding. “Hi back…”

As the sounds of traffic and New York night life passed by, the two of you stood underneath a street lamp in silence for a moment, affectionately staring at each other, desperately trying to figure out what to say next.

A/N: I’d really like to do a part 2, let me know if you’d like a part 2, let’s get these two together!( I may do it anyway, we’ll see though)

Tag list: @mindidjarin @saintmurd0ck

If you’d like to be added to (or removed from) my tag list for the ever so handsome Billy Russo, just let me know and thank you again for reading! 💕

[psychelis-new]

pick a pile: "In the fall"

take a breathe and choose the photo/number that calls you the most to read about what the upcoming autumn season may have in store for you.

don’t take the reading too seriously. only take what resonates with you and leave the rest. remember that is a general reading and some things may not resonate with you. Also, you're in charge of your life.

(photos found on unsplash)

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1 - 2

3 - 4

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pile 1

Pile 1 you may have a tendency to look at the small details, at the little thing that doesn't go well and worry about it, instead of seeing the whole picture and trying to just go with the flow and enjoy all the good that is going on around. Could be a sign of perfectionism that might have been instilled in you in your childhood (you needed to do all perfectly to be acknowledged - that's a very painful trauma, sorry). Or maybe there's some sort of difficult realtionship you need to find a way to end.

This autumn you're learning to talk about your feelings, to let it all out. To be acknowledged no matter what. You're ending this painful cycle with the past. Things are gonna change for you: I only see abundance, freedom and happiness. You'll learn to show love to yourself, to take care of yourself and your needs, both emotionally and physically (you may gain financial independence too, or be more wise with how you spend your money). You're going to value the importance of healthy relationships, made of equal giving and receiving.

You may embark on a new journey (I guess you'll start a completely new cycle, after having learnt all the lessons you needed to), I also see travel for many of you - so you may end up starting a job or new study course in a different place. You won't be alone though, so you don't have to be scared. Let your Guides help you (I don't feel it's gonna be just your Guides: you may find your soul family somewhere, or anyway meet new people that will be part of your life - for some, it can also be a new romantic interest). Stand strong through your battles (especially inside yourself): you're being prepared for what's to come; and remember to focus on your goals and what you really want to get. Find your yin/yang balance.

songs: home is far away | epik high ft ohhyuk; the worst | jhené aiko

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pile 2

I'm channeling a song about "break" (can't really remember the band performing it and it's driving me nuts) so you may find a break into something (maybe some betrayal coming to light) or some annoying stuff. Or, for some, could be a painful break up/goodbye (doesn't have to be romantic, it could be family, friends, colleagues, school mates...).

Whatever I'm channeling 3000 other songs. I mean, guys...

You may be in a kind of stressful period and this may block a bit the blessings/new starts that are due to come to you. I think there's some closure with the past that needs to be done (for real: some of you may think it's already closed, but probably the other party, or a trigger, may make you see things differently). For others it could be about finding out something from the past, in particular: some people judging you or trying to block you or just having done something behind your back. For as much as it may hurt to find these things out, don't let this get to you too much. You're not responsible for others' feelings/doings (and in general: if you're doing a good job, chances are haters and sabotaging people will come to you very easily). Just be clear about where you stand, about your feelings and boundaries. And stop this inner battling you're being self-inflicting: it's not worthy. Remember poison only affects those who drink it. Don't drink that, let others do ;). Don't stress over things that won't help you grow anymore. Ofc, feel all the pain you need to feel cause it's not good to sweep stuff under the rug and pretend to be okay when you're actually hurting; but then let it go. Let the past stay in the past. Find your emotional stability: do not turn into someone you're not, don't let the pain change you. You're strong, you can control your mind and heart and don't let things get to your core and change you. Manifest a new start, manifest peace, manifest control. You can have it all. Again, just beware of people that may be willing to hurt you again (learn fast your lesson about it so it won't happen again, and you'll be able to receive your new blessings) during your journey, or random traps of your mind (in particular).

(if you feel called to check pile 3, do that)

songs: a drop in the ocean | ron pope; it was bliss | settlefish

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pile 3

You may be coming out of a tough period of shadow work/healing (or a tough period in general). I see a huge bright smile and lot of light. A message may arrive out of nowhere for some (it'll bring a good news, something that will make you "estatic").

I see this autumn you'll keep working and learning, practicing a lot of self care but also learning new skills for what you want to manifest in your life. And you're also have more strenght and will to manifest (I mean, you deserve accolades, even more than before. Keep going!) You're being more open and confident, especially about your ideas and feelings. You won't hide yourself much anymore. You're be more into yourself, your beautiful amazing special self. You'll totally be in your power, and won't shy away from it, no matter what. You'll be in the light. You'll put down to work and get whatever you want. And you know you will, cause you are in charge of your life, you are the architect of your life, so keep building!

Self sabotaging, self inflicted pain, or having others hurt you or control you, won't be a thing anymore. Things will completely change for the better, you'll reap the fruits of all your hard job. Your Guides will always be by your side guiding you, also along your spiritual journey - may mean you're being spiritually awakened/enlightened during this season, and be more balanced between your material and spiritual light. For some, it can be that you're going to finally accept your mission here as a lightworker/tarot reader/astrologer/... and learn more about it/how to do it at your best. You may have struggled in the past to fully accept and welcome that, maybe you didn't fully believe you were good enough/were not ready to take on that journey, but it seems that now it's time.

For some, you might meet someone that will guide you through this spiritual awakening (or maybe you will meet your destined person/especially if you had drems about them - btw, some of you may have had dreams about your mission here too. Either way dreams may be relevant, you may be getting lot of important downlods there or foresee future events).

(if you feel called to check pile 2, do that)

songs: dreaming of you | selena; i love you | frank sinatra

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pile 4

Pile 4, let's immediately start with an angel number: 222. For what I am getting, you'll be more organized, and you'll prioritize yourself and your needs much more than in the past, You may start a new diet, exercise more often, meditate, or just be more in tune with your body as well. You will be looking at things differently, giving them the importance they actually have. Also, you will try to live with less stress, to let things go with the flow, control them a little less and enjoy more. I am getting a very funny/lighter energy: no matter what happens, you'll try to find the bright side even in the darkest times (not in a way that doesn't validate your feelings or that you won't be sad/hurt: more in a way that show you understand the real worth of what is going on. You've grown/will grow emotionally).

Some may receive an important message, especially through social media.

You'll indeed learn to look at the bright side (tarots confirmed). You'll learn more about yourself too, and to trust your inner guidance with determination. You won't doubt your inner feelings anymore. You will be ready to work towards your dreams, and find ways to make them come true. If you dream about starting a relationship (could also be about bettering the one with yourself tbh)/finding new friends, or reinforcing the one/s (could be friends/family too) you're in, evrrything will arrive/happen, so don't worry much about it: keep working on you and get ready for it/them (it's gonna be amazing). Everything will start so suddenly that you'll be surprised: maybe you'll still be doing some inner work, when things will start to shift in so many ways. Don't worry, keep giving to yourself (even your inner child, give them attention), and keep being balanced and focused. It all will pay off in ways you cannot even imagine now. Remember to keep the lessons you learnt from the past always with you and don't let yourself be easily fooled by things (be mindful and objective).

songs: and i | ciara; girl's not gray | afi

[virtualpeople]

Your Sims look amazing! Can tou share some resources for skins, face masks, sliders, etc. you are using? Do you have any advice for making Sims?

Thank you so much :D and sure, always happy to share resources!

Sliders: I download every single slider I see because I love messing around with them (even if it does the same thing as another one I already have, chances are it does that thing in a slightly different way that could be useful), so that’s basically everything from here or here

Skins: All the ones I currently use are in this reply here, though every sim I create gets a ton of face shaders, nosemasks and the like so half the time the skins end up looking notably different

Face masks: I've hoarded a ton of stuff over the years, so I'll only include stuff like face shaders here so I actually get to sleep tonight, but here's a few of my favourites (or at least, the ones which I can find, some are proving to be a bit illusive):

simplelife's face shadow, highlights, wrinkles and face kit

rensim’s Old Facekit & Circonflex Anti-Shine

rensim’s Curved and Triple Threat Blush

sleepytabby’s unbeauty parlour

nopke’s subtle wrinkles

mina’s chin masks

mistyblue’s bits ‘n’ bobs part 1

mistyblue’s bits ‘n’ bobs part 2

amaryll’s miranda facemasks

alfredaskew’s advent 2012 shaders

alfredaskew’s CiJ 2020 shaders

alfredaskew’s 28 shaders

digi’s CiJ face shaders + more

pooklet’s collection of face things

(and likely a lot more I’m forgetting at the moment)

and as for advice? I’ve no idea what’s generally common knowledge when it comes to sim making, so hopefully something here will be actual advice and not blindingly obvious :D

Well, kinda obvious one first though: ingame CAS is... not great. Bodyshop is a million times easier to create in, especially once it's modded to brighten the lighting. Maxis why did you make it so gloomy by default :(

The default sims 2 face sculpt has some interesting anatomy, shall we say. It makes it a bit tricky to get proportions right, and if you're going for realistic faces, proportion is the most important thing. It can really help having a photo up on screen at the same time of someone who looks like what you're going for with the sim you're making (that might be obvious too though haha)

Saying that though, thanks to the strange mesh anatomy and the fact that the poor sims 2 sims have <1000 polygons to their faces, sticking 100% to a photo and trying to replicate it exactly never seems to work very well (in my experience anyway). If using a photo I usually get the basic proportions and general feature shapes looking good, so maybe about 60% of the sculpt? going on the photo, then freehand the last 40% or so just shunting around sliders until I'm happy with the sim

I usually try and get as much face sculpting done as possible with the sliders before adding any makeup or face effects. It tends to be a bit easier to see what bits are going to play nicely with the sim's face shape that way. (not a definite rule though, I have been known to completely re-do a nose because I wanted to use a particular nosemask haha)

Adding the makeup/shaders/etc is basically 70% a really long-winded game of trial and error, throwing a ton of things at a sim's face and seeing what metaphorically sticks until you stumble on something that looks good, 30% knowing what you have in your CC collection that might do the trick. It's also fun using things in unintended ways, like using a shader designed for pale skintones as highlights on a darker skintone, or layering nosemasks.

Wish I had some advice for speeding up making sims though, it can take me forever trying different stuff haha

I'll add more stuff if I think of it later since damn am I sleepy right now, but hopefully something was useful in all of this!

[floraltypes]

lots of innocent and not so innocent touches

With Dwayne Pride if you wright for him if you don't just Gibbs please <3

who - leroy jethro gibbs x reader

an - i’m sorry! i haven’t seen ncis new orleans, so i probably couldn’t write dwayne very well … hope this is okay, for some reason i had trouble writing it :/

please continue to send in asks !!

unedited :/

Blankets surrounded your body, your leg ontop of another while light snores left your mouth. Hair was messed up and a hand was slowly moving to stroke your cheek. The curtains allowed peaks of the sunlight to peak through in your bedroom. A man lying beside you in his sweatpants and old tee.

The grey haired, older, man kept his eyes on your peacefully sleeping face, truly enjoying whatever dream you were imagining. He made no move to remove your leg from the top of his, but did make a move to place his fingers above your face, lightly pushing some stray baby hairs away.

A part of him silently cursed to himself, wishing that he had learned how to work his phone better, then being able to snap a photo of this calming moment for his own purposes.

Gibbs wouldn’t admit it to you, but these moments were more important to him than working on a boat, or the thrill after finally catching a bastard. There was something so domestic, so calming, with these times spent together. Time for him to think to himself, and also have the one he loves so much be so close.

Time to think about the past, and wonder how he got lucky enough for it to land here. Though, he may have lost a lot, and they would never be forgotten, he was grateful for another opportunity at pure happiness.

But his time to enjoy the peacefulness soon ended with a ring of a cellphone, causing you to stir a bit in your sleep. You eventually opened your eyes, staring up at the man who now had the hand that was formally on your face, resting on your chest.

“What’s that?” You questioned, trying to sit up and rub your eyes. “Can you get it?”

“It’s your cellphone,” He answered, missing the warmth of your leg, now having it be moved to lay on the mattress itself.

“Mmk,” You mumbled, reaching over to your side table and grabbing it. Flipping the screen up, you moved it to your ear. “L/n,” You tried to make your morning voice sound more as your own.

“If it isn’t little Y/n!” A cheerful voice spoke loudly on the other line. “Ya miss me?”

“No. What do you need?” You rolled your eyes, getting off of the bed, Gibbs eyes traveling your body as you walked to your dresser, picking out a outfit. “Mhm, okay,” You nodded to yourself. “I’ll be there, text me the address. Oh. Never mind then. Bye.”

Gibbs got out of the bed, going to stand beside you. He silently observed as you rolled your eyes once again, opening another drawer, he snaked his arms around your waist and pulled you into his chest, a small kiss on the inside of your neck.

“Who’s that?”

“A old coworker.” You opened your underwear drawer, picking a pair for the day.

“Purple,” Gibbs commented, as you dropped the blue pair back into the others, reaching for the one he chose.

“Gosh, it’s like we really are married,” You laughed to yourself, looking back at his straight face. “Sorry, you would know too much about that. But that’s not my point, there is a dead marine there and that means we’ve got work.”

“You didn’t seem to happy to hear from him,” Gibbs unwrapped his arms as you moved to your closet, picking out a dress shirt.

“I wasn’t. He’s annoying and almost cost me my job at the time. But, it’s our job, we have to go, so grab your clothes in the bottom drawers,” You turned around and pointed at the dresser that held some of his items, now finding what you needed and beginning to change.

———————-

“If you are all interested to know… I spent the morning watching a old TV show airing about a classic comedic couple who travels the world with their adopted son,” Tony announced to no one in particular, sitting at his desk as the others sat at theirs.

Ziva had her arms crossed, leaning back in her chair a bit. McGee sat in his, rubbing his eyes and looking down at his phone.

“What did you do this morning, McGee?” Ziva looked over to McGee, watching as his eyebrows furrowed.

“Trying to work on my new writing.. but for my character, uh, Miranda, I need a good backstory for her, people are really grasping onto her character from the former story. I’ve read some things saying they think she’ll get with Gibbs, I mean Libbs!”

“Interesting,” Ziva tsked. “I read the story and your Miranda character, who is obviously Y/n, and I don’t see it.”

“You know nothing about romance, Ziva,” Tony waltzed over, his own coffee in hand and his face near hers. “I think no one expects you to think about who would get together. But, no, I don’t see Gibbs getting with someone like L/n who is very, you know-”

“I’m what, DiNozzo?” You walked in, moving straight to your desk as you placed your bag down.

“Amazing! I meant, you’re so great that someone like Gib-” Tony looked at Ziva’s eyes widen. “He’s right behind me, isn’t he?”

“Someone like me, now what’s that, DiNozzo?” Gibbs questioned.

“Uh-” Gibbs smacked the back of DiNozzos head, moving over to his own desk.

“Dead sailor, body is already getting examined by Ducky and some visitors are coming to drop off some of the evidence.” Gibbs informed everyone.

“They think this sailor had something to do with a past robbery and murder, a cold case,” You clarified.

“L/n!” A guy smiled widely, another girl following in pursuit behind him as he walked to you with his arms wide open. “It’s been too long,” He quickly hugged you, tightening his grip around your shoulders and moving his hands to cup your face. “You still look as beautiful as ever!”

“Y/n, is that your boyfriend?” Ziva inquired.

“He looks a little out of her leagu-” You shot DiNozzo a look. “Or not?”

“Ah no,” The man laughed. “Old coworkers, that is Lila and I’m Carson, nice to meet you guys.”

“If your old coworkers, you must have a ton of embarrassing stories about Y/n!” DiNozzo beamed, moving closer to Carson.

“Uh, a few,” He responded. “We only worked together for a year or two, some, but not a ton.”

“Some will do.”

“DiNozzo, we aren’t here to make friends we are here to solve a murder,” Gibbs shot him a look and hit the back of his head.

“Right, sorry, boss.” DiNozzo put his head down like a sad puppy dog and made his way back to his desk. The two visitors looked at the scene that had just happened oddly.

“We brought all of our evidence, not much, but something,” Lila announced, placing the box on the table now and taking some of it out. “Should we get started?”

“I’ll show you to Abby, she is our forensic analysts and will probably want to take a look at this stuff for herself,” McGee told Lila, putting the evidence back in the box and letting her grab it, soon walking towards the elevator.

“You think I could check out the body?” Carson asked you. “It might be good to see what he looked like more and talk with your doctor.”

“That makes sense, I’ll show you to him,” You smiled at your old coworker and took another way to Ducky’s area.

The both of you chatted on the way down, catching up with how things differ since you worked there and a bit about your new workplace here.

“I really thought you would be Jeremy, the one who called me. I was a bit worried,” You laughed, walking into Autopsy with Carson as Ducky moved near you.

“Hello, dear, who’s this?” Ducky questioned, Jimmy moved near his boss.

“Hey, Ducky, this is Carson. Carson, this is Doctor Mallard. He is a old coworker of mine, Ducky,” You told the older man. “That’s Jimmy, he is Ducky’s assistant.”

Ducky began to explain how the man had died, pointing out various things on the body and even putting in a few past experiences of his own into the conversation.

Soon the four of you had heard the doors open, turning around to catch the view of your boyfriend entering into the room and moving to stand right in between you and Carson.

“I just want to hear some of the explanation myself, you can continue, Ducky,” Gibbs commented, all of your eyes turning back onto Ducky who was back to talking.

You felt a warm, larger hand travel to the middle of your back, a thumb softly pressing into the fabric that covered your skin. You turned your head slightly to make eye contact with Gibbs, but he just continued to stare forward ignoring it.

It was like a goosebump went up your spine, yet it wasn’t not encouraged. It was a bit of a energetic feeling, so you rejoiced in the innocent touch, a sign he was there.

Eventually, Ducky was done with his long explanation and you were back to heading upstairs with Carson and Gibbs to do more research regarding the deadman and cold case.

“So, Y/n, I was thinking we could go out to lunch or something soon to really catch up, outside of work,” Carson mentioned while you three were on the elevator ride up.

You were surprised at his somewhat boldness to announce this in front of your boss (and boyfriend), but he was always a very open person, kind and open.

“That doesn’t sound too bad,” You replied.

“We are busy most afternoons.” Gibbs added. “So, if you plan it at some ridiculous time don’t expect my agent to be able to make it.”

The doors soon chimed open and Carson quickly left, making a bee line straight to Lila. Gibbs let you leave first, placing another palm against your back to secretly lead you back to where the desks were, even though you knew where you were going.

———————

The rest of the day was spent with much more working diligently. You all had made some progress but not enough, and you could tell it was really getting to Gibbs. He dismissed everyone and told them to come back in the early hours in the morning.

Gibbs had told you that he was going to stay and work on this some more, so you told him you would stay as well and order some food. Once Carson had heard that, he decided that he would do the same.

A hour later, three burgers arrive and you hand them out to the two other men, soon taking a bite into yours. A bit of the condiment had spewed onto the corners of your mouth, but your hunger caught up with you, continuing to avoid the feeling for a moment and just eat.

Carson caught the look of your messiness, breaking off into a small laugh, and you joining, him then making a joke about how this used to be a regular for you. Gibbs got up from his seat with a napkin and bent over a bit to wipe it away from your mouth.

It was certainly a small gesture, but had caught you and Carson off guard, the both of you quieting. You just stared back at him while he continued to eat with a pride grin on his lips, looking over the papers.

It seemed like a blessing from the sky when Gibbs had finally connected the pieces. Everyone was called back in to look over what he found and to excite a plan on how to continue. You all were able to get the murderer into custody and with old evidence and Ducky’s help you were able to identify he was the killer. With Abby’s help you were able to put him at the scene where your old coworkers cold case took place.

It was a relieving feeling that the case was solved and over. It was easy to tell that your current coworkers were also happy with the fact that your old ones were leaving for good. Having unfamiliar people in a familiar place is always a weird feeling for everyone.

You watched as everyone packed up their things to head home from the tiring few days of work. Standing up, you grabbed your bag and moved to Gibbs desk, chatting with him until Carson came over.

“It was nice working with you again,” He commented, you turned around to face him.

“It was. We make a good team.”

“We really do. I was wondering about that, uh, date?”

“Hm,” That had slipped your mind, and almost did once more when you felt a brush of a hand against your bottom, turning around to make eyes at your boyfriend. “Sorry, I actually have a boyfriend. But if you mean the lunch date to catch up, then I’d love to.”

“The second one,” He nodded, his cheeks brightening a bit at the dejection but also confirmation.

“Great,” You grinned, writing down your phone number and handing it to him. “Talk soon, bye.”

“Goodbye.”

You watched as Carson entered the elevator and soon disappeared, the office area looking very empty with the lights darkened a bit and only you and Gibbs being in the area.

“Glad he’s gone,” Gibbs laughed.

“I figured,” You laughed alongside with him. “I could tell by your touchiness at work, are you trying to let everyone know?”

“If I was, I would do something bolder. Didn’t Ducky ever tell you I used to be like DiNozzo?”

“Yeah, that would be a interesting time to see.”

“I think if I was that same man, we might’ve had sex right o-”

“Let’s get home, now,” You both soon left the workplace, hand in hand, laughing along at stories of the younger Gibbs and his flirty persona.