#i was going to colour this but I don't know how so here's the greyscale while I figure it out

[ruinstt]

venus in my eyes..

[iwrite-sinsandtragedies]

Day 1 — Soulmates ₊˚✧ ﾟ

Submission for @goldengroovy's @olnfweek2024

MC: Micha

Long ass ramble under the cut 😂

Okayokayokay SO-

I love soulmate au's. I cannot tell you how many fics I've read or how many prompts I've played with or media I've consumed or how many bullshit ideas I've come up with in my own head for them, I CANNOT.

It's just - hhhhhhhhhhhh- Soulmate au's and Time Travel au's are just the shit that gets me out of bed some days 😩💖my world weary soul drinks that shit like medicine, okay?

That all being said, it's probably a little ambiguous which au I picked to some, so let me explain: There are two au's I'm mashing up here really, both are from fics I've read back in the day. One being a Clack fic and the other a Thilbo one 🤷‍♂️kind of calling myself out here but w/e, they were good fics.

The Thilbo one is easier to explain - the concept is "Heartsong" which is, literally what it says on the tin. You find out who your soulmate is the first time you hear them sing (and no, that does not mean everyone is just a naturally good singer - they can be ass at music but, the point is, when you hear them their song is the perfect song for you and your heart knows that). There's a lot of little nuances to this one - things like you hearing your heartsong when you dream so you always know the moment you find them. Also people who have quiet dreams because their heartsong died, sometimes before ever even meeting them. etc etc. The heartsong also seems to expand, in some respect, to instruments (as Thorin plays his harp one night and Bilbo starts to hum without thinking about it because it sounds wonderful to him and that's how Thorin finds out).

Overall, it's a very soft and sweet concept to me and as someone who has a deep love of music, it's also one of my very favourites.

The Clack one is a little less easy to explain? I think. Maybe because it's nuances are so round about but I'll do my best. The concept for this one is "I Only See Colour When I'm With You" - anyone who knows how Clack fics usually go knows where this is probably headed 😂 and I am sorry to have hurt you but, overall, the idea is: You live in a noir-esqu world where everything is black and white. This only changes when you find your soulmate, of course, who brings the world into full saturation and lets you see colour for - possibly - the first time in your life (I say possibly because I genuinely can't remember if you start out colourblind or if it's an age cap thing).

Unfortunately, for as much as I adore this concept, it's been a long damn time since I read the fic and I don't even know if it still exists somewhere. So I can't actually recall if it was a 'you have to touch them' or 'you have to hear them' thing but the fic takes place with Zack on the cliff right before Midgar where he holds Cloud and looks at the sky - so I'm willing to bet it's a touch thing.

I also really loved this fic because it was the first one I'd read that brought in the concept of multiple soulmates to me - As Cloud later sits with Aerith and sees the colour he couldn't see with Zack, meanwhile Aerith only sees black and white, because she was only able to see colour with Zack (who was never able to see colour with her, because he needed Cloud for that).

Essentially, they all needed each other to see the world in colour. As a polyam person who didn't quite realise I was poly back then, it was a very comforting (and now dearly cherished) fic.

Anyways! Now that you have the background on the two concepts, you can kind of get what I'm going for with this piece.

Tamarack, Micha and Qiu are all soulmates in a fuzzy, desaturated world (I'm sorry, I'm not cruel enough to but them in complete greyscale LOL) and the way you find your soulmate is by hearing them sing and, when they do, your world is suddenly vivid and bright and beautiful. Suddenly, you can see things as they were meant to be seen and it's a permanent change (unlike the Clack fic) but things are always clearest and brightest when your soulmate speaks or sings 💖

I get a real kick out of the idea that Micha's known for fucking months that Tamarack is his soulmate (if not years) because he's always listening to her play but never says jack shit about it because he's emotionally constipated that way 😂Though genuinely, it's probably because he just doesn't think he's her soulmate and he's a bit against finding out he's right honestly.

Joke is on him, he's Qiu's and Tamaracks soulmate! And he couldn't have picked a better moment to grow a pair an take the risk 🥰

[jeleynai]

Hey there, I adore your art, thank you for sharing it and joining us on tumblr. Your Ghoap art makes me feel so soft.

I am curious about your rendering process. I like how your pieces are textured and coloured and the 3 dimensionality of it, is there a chance you'd be open to sharing some of the steps you take to get from sketch to the finished product? For example what methods (if greyscale, selection tool, etc.) and brushes you use? How you pick your colours?

No pressure in answering this of course, I am just glad to see what you'll be up to in the future.

Hellooooo thank you so much for your kind words!! I've actually been getting so many nice notes from people, I'm so sorry that I haven't responded to them much, I promise I read every single one and shed a little tear of joy at how nice you all are!

Now to the question!!

I made a little step by step image of one of the portraits I posted here for you with a bit of commentary underneath! I'm sorry if it's the ramblings of a mad-woman I'm a bit all over the place sometimes haha (I'm so sorry if there's typos, please ignore them)

I'll also answer the direct questions here since I don't think I addressed them TOO directly in the image.

Methods: I work with soft brushes and the lasso tool for 90% of my process! I introduce textures as well obviously but I try to let my soft brushes do most of the work. A lot of that 'soft' look people tell me my art has just comes from subtle colour shifts and general softness achieved that way over working with harsher textures. I generally like to limit my layers somewhat, especially with simple pieces like the one above. That image is actually just a single layer after step 2! It helps me not get too stuck on one area but I also just... draw on the wrong layer very frequently even if I name them so I don't use them unless I'm working on pieces with different layers of depth (fore-/mid-/background etc.) I do check my values *constantly* (I use the colour-proof setup in photoshop) but I don't work directly from greyscale. I go straight into colours from the sketch.

How I pick colours: I do try to keep my colour palette cohesive and a bit more neutral to start with. I try to avoid extremes at the start so I'm not locked into that too early since it makes that 'subtlety' harder to achieve otherwise. For those colour shifts I talk about I just pick whatever base colour I put down and then shift the colours accordingly! Brush modes/layer modes can also help but I definitely recommend looking a bit into colour theory before relying on them TOO much! Otherwise using them will also end in strange results. There's no direct 'formula' I use when choosing colours since every light scenario is unique and will affect colours differently. I would definitely recommend James Gurney's book on Colour and Light!

Last but not least! If you're more of a visual learner and my rambling is a bit much in written form (I'm so sorry, I'm very chatty I know) I also have a few painting processes up on YouTube c: So if you want me to shut up and just watch me struggle instead then here's a link to the painting that started it all, the OG ghost soap piece I did over a year and a half ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D76X0MT4W5U

I hope that all makes sense!! I'm still super new to Tumblr but I'm always happy to ramble on about art so! Thanks for reading my rant haha

[itsnotmourn]

Not ship chart related but I think your art is so pretty!! Do you have any tips? Especially with coloring if it’s okay <] (/nf)

waah thank you very much! i'll try and explain but here’s my colouring-specific tips, or at least how i choose my colours !! <3

unless for stylistic reasons (e.g. greyscale drawing), i personally avoid pure black, greys and white for colouring. go and choose off-colours instead! for lineart, black is okay but i always go for an actual colour anyways heheh. for the background colour of your canvas, sometimes an actual colour (rather than white or grey) may help you pick your palette to be more harmonised!

following this, i also don't like using pure/neon for colours, unless it's for a certain aesthetic or artstyle (e.g. the character has a "toxic/radioactive" aesthetic; the character is a scenedog (or similiar); or highlights). see below for examples! they may be subtle but sometimes the subtly can make the difference you are looking for... if you're looking for a natural look. if you're aiming for the bright/old 2000's artstyle, then pure/neons may be your friend!

when i'm casually drawing characters (oc or not), i rarely colour-pick from the reference image. i find that when you're "forced to make the palette", it can come out more pleasing to your style/atmosphere of the drawing! it’s more personalised that way... like yea, that’s my favourite versions of those colours! i'm not saying that my colours are better though, only that "hey that's me! in those colours!!" you can have the reference image on the side or go by memory. here’s me doing this with pride flags:

nowadays, when drawing the spooky month characters—who have simple designs god bless—i can just imagine their reference and adjust the colours in my head lol example: if i know that Lila's colour palette is purple, and that her winter sweater is coloured lighter than her hair, then i can just go ahead and pick whatever shade i want following that rule!

(of course, always double check with the actual reference for physical design inaccuracies and skin tone if it applies. my advice above is just for general hair/clothing colours! …because yknow you don't want to accidentally whitewash a character's skin in the name of aesthetics lol. if you’re unsure and want to be on the careful side, please do colour pick the skin at least !!)

moving on... gradient maps and certain blending modes (like exclusion, luminosity and darken) can be a game changer too. for normal drawings (e.g. drawings with no environment), i use darken the most because it changes a few colours rather than the entire piece... (the percentages are opacity levels!)

oh and as a really basic shading tip without using blending modes: sometimes, you just gotta go for grey. shading a warmer colour? use grey to make a cool tone. shading a cool colour? use grey to make a warm tone. not all the time (because you don’t wanna make your shading seem muddy), just sometimes…

and that's that! there's always exceptions to rules and often times, your headshot doodle ends up as one big experimental mess (in a fun way, hopefully)!

this is how i choose my colours though most of the time, it is just me going “good enough”

i think we're pretty similar on how we like warm colours! i enjoy going the simple/lazy route and avoid blend modes but then again, shading is a whole different thing…

hope this helps in any way !! <:3 !!! <3

[dom1re]

Hi 👋🏽 I so admire your arts too!! If it’s ok, I’d love to know more about your approach to shading and rendering. I always find your use of colour so calming and complementary. 💖💖

Whereas I tend to be over saturated and why I often draw in greyscale

When I read that you liked my arts too I died. I was down on the floor. Crying tears of joy. Then I realized I have a response to draft so I got up.

So here ya go!! I hope you find something interesting here. I organized it into 3 parts for easier reading:

Rendering Overview

Picking Colors

Shading (or winging it and hoping for the best)

Also if anyone has any tips I'm all ears!! I’m always trying to optimize my process, make it quicker + cleaner

Rendering Overview

My current rendering process on Procreate (click and swipe):

1. Rough sketches

This is where I try to get the anatomy and pose right. I can get up to 3 reps in here depending on how refined I want it to be. Yep I care a lot about my lines...

2. Clean line

... coz it's my favorite part!! I get such a dopamine rush seeing the sketches come together into a clean line lol. Here I use the Selection Tool and Liquify to resize and adjust the forms (gotta move away from doing this too much tho)

3. Color

First I create a flat base layer and color over it using Clipping Mask (pretty standard I think). Then I divvy my drawing into as many layers as possible - one each for skin, hair, shirt, waistcoat, trousers, etc - as I color them all. More on this below.

4. Shade

ewww shading... my least favorite part. I use Multiply layers and gray colors, again pretty standard. I usually have 1-3 layers here, stacked on one another, depending on the desired depth. More on this below.

5. Finishing touches

This stage involves a lot of small (but important imo) things, which vary depending on the drawing:

Tinting lines (Because shading makes the colors darker, lines need to get darker too)

Highlights on hair, face, clothes, eyes, etc. I can never make up my mind between Overlay/Hard Light/Soft Light layers for this

Little wisps of hair or lighting effects 

and voila I have something to share with the world. wooo

Picking Colors

Ok about my colors… I wish I had some fancy technique to show but tbh I just eyeball them and try them out a bunch. Now if I’m using a reference I could use the color picker, but I don't like to coz the results are way off for whatever reasons (ex. lighting in the img). Anyways it doesn’t have to be the same color as the reference; as long as the colors “make sense” to me I'm happy.

But what if the colors I chose are too saturated or too dark? I use the Adjustment Tools for this. I can just select the layer (or an area using the Selection Tool) and edit its darkness and saturation. I found this way easier than painting over or color-dropping repeatedly.

This is why I leverage as many layers as possible. It allows a modular control on my rendering - I can change the color of my character’s skin, eyes, or waistcoat patterns and keep all other components unaffected and clean. Sometimes I have like 100+ layers and it drives me batshit crazy but the pros still outweigh the cons. Or so I tell myself

( + I would love to understand grayscale and use it as freely as u do. I watched bunch of vids on it but something about it just hasn’t stuck with me yet 😔)

Shading I guess

Similar to coloring, I create several Multiply layers and stack them together for depth. For example:

This is again for that modular control but honestly I wouldn't be doing this if I was good at shading... I feel so lost every time, I just don't know how it works. But one ‘hack’ I’ve come up with is shading skins and clothes differently. I use reddish gray for skin (and brown/red hair), and just gray for everything else.

The character feels more lively and natural with a bit of red undertones in their skin. I don't think this is the best way to render skins though. Just a little shortcut til I get to study the topic more.

Something else I do to get over my fear of shading is using good references. I’m always lurking on Pinterest for them but alas, I can’t always find that perfect image with perfect lighting and poses. It’s kinda sad funny how the quality of my rendering depends so much on the reference:

(it's not a 'bad' reference per se - I chose it really for the pose, not for shading)

At the end of the day tho I’m just a learning artist so I try not to be too harsh on myself. Someday I'll render shiny shoes and shirt creases without refs. I yearn for that day 

Well on that cheerful note thanks for coming to my Ted Talk your interest in my rendering approach! I’ve been wanting to document it for my own records so this was great.

I picked up digital illustration just last year and self-learning it has been a fun but lonely process. If you have any tips or more questions talk to me ANYONE PLEASE I’m dying to talk about it if you can't tell by the sheer length of this post. For which I'm sorry but hopefully it wasn’t too dense a read ok I’m really done now bye!! 

[cookieeks-art]

I don't really go here (don't have a computer or console to play the game on), but I got curious about this man after seeing him on my dash, and now I can't stop thinking about him. So here's some art I've made of him in-between scrambling to find gameplay videos featuring him and reading everything I can find about him online. (Feat what I imagine my builder would look like if I had the game. Her name is Frida and she's so far only wearing the basic clothes, bcs I'm not sure if I can properly figure out how she would dress unless I played the game. Also, I projected a little of my own trepidations with marriage on her, mostly because I imagine that even with Pen not wanting to be married it might hurt his ego a little for someone to be so happy that marriage with him isn’t on the table.) The text in the first panel in the comic is taken directly from the wiki, (apparently it’s his response when accepting a romantic confession?), but I apologise if he’s ooc in the rest of the comic, I'm still getting a feel for him.

(ID in alt and under cut!)

[ID:

A digital drawing of Pen from My time at Sandrock. It’s shows him shoulder up, from a profile view, a serious expression of his face. He’d shaded in a warm orange with light blue highlights. The background is a greyish green. In the lower right corner is a doodle of a person with long hair, grasping the air infront of them with a comically feral expression and text reading “I’m so normal about him” ending with a smiley face above her head. In the corner is aslo a signature reading “Cookieek”.

The second image is a digitally coloured sketch of Pen from My time at Sandrock. He’s vivible from the hips and up, and from a 3/4 perspective, standing against a gradient background, and smiling at something off screen. He has one hand on his hip and his cape is flowing beside him. He’s cast in warm orange light, with blue shadows. In the bottom of the picture is a signature reading “Cookieek”.

A comic in greyscale, featuring Pen and my builder Frida, a skinny woman with a round face, a scar on the left side of her chin, and light hair pulled up into a messy high ponytail. She’s dressed in the default builder outfit.

The first panel shows Pen looking down at Frida, smiling smugly with his hand under his chin, two stars around his head, and saying: “Very well! I promise you I will not only be the Protector of Sandrock, but the protector of you. Though you must know, I am in strong opposition to this strange concept called "marriage."”. Frida is looking up at him, her back to the viewer.

The second panel shows Frida beaming up at Pen who’s now the one with his back towards the viewer, she’s giving him a thumbs up, while exclaiming: “Then we are on the same page!” with a smiley face at the end. Beside her head is a small “yay!” written above another smiley, but with an open mouth smile. Pen appears to almost freeze up.

The third panel shows Frida walking away from pen with a pep in her step, a big happy smile on her face alongside a blush. “Terrified of marriage” is written above her head, with an arrow pointing to her. Pen is still standing in the same pose as before, but with a baffled expression on his face, and question marks around his head.

The fourth panel focuses in on Pens face, as he lowers his hand, appearing now to be both confused and slightly miffed, question marks still around his head.

The final panel shows Pen striking another confident pose, looking to the side with his fingers grazing his forehead, sparkles around his head. He smiles, and says “Ha! Poor Skinny! So upset, but trying to have good humor about it! I can see through it easily! But good play, good play.” He’s sweating slightly.

In the right lower corner is a signature reading “Cookieek”.

End of ID]

[isolaradiale]

"You know, there's more to this than I thought. I was just thinking about the psychological applications of colour, but there's a real science to all this, too." "They used to teach it in art class, when it still existed." "Hm!" "Actually, go back a page? I have a new idea. They have all these wonderful hues on them now, I think that's enough for phase two." "I absolutely agree~ I'll meet you back at the lab."

And as the two Stars continue to make life difficult for the island residents pursue their creativity, Tageta continued to wheel alongside the museum curator.

. . . . .

It's hard enough to navigate a grey city with all your feelings (and even your core beings) all scrambled and assigned to all these different colours.

Let's make it harder!

In an effort to test the limit of how people see themselves in these wonderful new hues, Mimosa and Solaris have decided to duplicate some of you in a different colour palette. So you may find a duplicate of yourself walking around the city, leaving paint splatters just like you! But there's something different about your new double...

...It's entirely made of paint!

Unlike your current selves, these doubles aren't greyscaled or monochromatic. They follow a specific property, both visually and fundamentally, as listed below:

Tint

A tint of a colour means white was added to it to make it lighter. If your double is a Tint of you, it retains your personality, albeit in a lighter tone that isn't as intense as you are. (Pink is a tint of Red)

Shade

A shade of a colour means black was added to make it darker. If your double is a Shade of you, it retains your personality, albeit in a darker tone that makes your double more moody. (Maroon is a shade of Red)

Analogue

Analogous colours are next to each other on the colour wheel. If your double is an Analogue, it will act mostly like you, but as if something in your story changed and you took a bit of a different path. Maybe your Analogue succeeded in a crucial part of your story where you failed, and act a little different for it. Typically, analogous colours create harmony with one another--how you interpret that is up to you. (Orange and Yellow are analogous colours to Red)

Compliment

Complimentary colours are on opposite sides of the colour wheel. If your double is a Compliment, it will act completely different from you in every aspect it can. Complimentary colours typically clash with one another, and your Compliment will oppose you--how you interpret that is up to you. (Green is a complimentary colour to Red)

Here are some guidelines to this new colour challenge:

It is not mandatory to have a double. This is just a fun little extra--you don't have to have one if you don't want to!

Each muse gets only one double, and it cannot be changed once you make a decision. So you won't be able to use a compliment AND a shade in different threads--you'll have to be consistent!

Every double is made entirely of paint, including their clothes and weapons. They are semi-solid and keep their shape, but are fluid enough to stretch and melt into different areas. They cannot outright transform, but can fit into tight spaces or containers if need be.

Your muse is still under the effect of the Colour Theory, meaning if your double splashes a certain colour paint on you, your personality will change accordingly! You might want to bring an umbrella.

Your double cannot actually use your powers and abilities. Any powers or abilities that have a visual or physical effect will instead be... made of paint. So if you can throw a fireball, your double will also throw a paintball that looks like your fireball. It's very messy, but harmless. If your muse has an ability that has no physical component, like mind control, your double cannot use it--it simply won't have any effect.

If you feel that it's necessary, you can destroy your double by using any technique that would get rid of paint--soap, water, turpentine, etc. You could also burn or freeze them, or find something to absorb them with. Needless to say, stabbing a paint blob wouldn't be very effective... but a garden hose would.

Your double might think it's the real thing. Or it might be aware it's a fake. It depends on how you want to play.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask the Masterlist!

[pocket-gems]

Question, how are you so good at art? I mean, it’s all subjective really but your specific art and colour combinations really tickle that itch in my autistic brain.

I've been drawing since I have memory. One of my earliest memory was at maybe 5, drawing Spyro. I started drawing gems at 15 maybe? A lot of the gemsonas from that era are lost to time, but I do remember they were requests (wow, me doing free art? Unheard of!).

Started taking art more seriously when I started this blog, at 2019. I have no job and by the time I was dealing with some serious depresssion shit so when I was sad I took drawing as a therapy. I drew a lot. So I still draw a lot since it's what I'm used to do or else it feels weird haha. I can guarantee your skills will improve on a speed demon level if you have no job and aren't the type of person that likes going outside.

Now more seriously, between 2019 and 2024 a lot of time happens. Art takes a while and one can get mentally burn, so while my hands rest, I can take my time to improve and get stronger. Mindlessly drawing can make lineart and coloring faster but designing can get weirder in the sense of not knowing what to do and just overcomplicating things. Here's my favourite example, good 'ol Blizzard! And I'm still not happy with the damn thing! Art can be personal, art can be a challenge, art can be fun, depends on how you take it. All you have to do is not to give up.

Art feels like a beast to dominate, you need to understand it to break it (I say this as a self-taught artist). No one, and I repeat, NO ONE, starts drawing good. If you don't draw good at the first time, don't give up. You don't like it? Too bad! Art is subjective and just because you don't like it, it doesn't mean someone else won't either. You don't like it because you saw the full progress, of course it doesn't surprise you. But it can surprise someone else!

This drawing right here is the FIRST digital drawing I made (I already drew a lot of paper, I'm sure you can tell haha). I used no layers because I had no idea they existed. Same gang ages later. And they still need to be updated!

Art is constant practice. A commission? Oops, it's actually practice regardless of how serious it is because in the future you will get better, you just have to not give up.

About the whole colouring part, I usually don't overthink it much. If it fits, it sits. BUT I do put it to a test. Does it have a lot of neon colours? Does it look cool? Then I have a problem because if I put that to greyscale and I can't see any difference because it all becomes a grey mass that's an issue. That and limiting the palette, depending on the character's complexity.

Per example when I draw on my art-style (hiii new followers who don't know my art style), I have to play with greyscales a lot to make sure all details can be seen.

I'm sure you get the point by now. I really want to do a video someday reacting to my pile of sketchbooks full of old drawings and do more lessons and all that stuff haha. It's not just about "drawing a lot since old age", that's boogus. It's more about "drawing a lot, having patience, learning from mistakes, research about art and keep drawing".

I'm sure I missed a bunch of things to say, hope that helps anyway! ^^

[rhythmmortis]

gif tutorial: selective colouring

turning this gif

into this gif

(requested by @oogelyboogely)

quick disclaimer: i'm mostly self taught, so a lot of the methods i use might not be the most efficient or the ones that other people use, so apologies about that!!

with this tutorial, i'm assuming you know the basics of how to make a gif (loading in frames, turning them into animation frames, etc), but if need be, i would be more than happy to make a tutorial on that too

i use photopea, a browser-based photoshop replica that's free to use and i highly recommend it!

first step is loading in all the frames, which should look like this:

the main thing i want to be in colour is his hair (and the petals that fly around him when he unhoods, same colour so it shouldn't be too much of an issue to deal with). however! for this particular gif, i want his eyes to also be the same/similar shade of pink so they're also in colour.

for this i'm gonna go to the top bar and go to layer > new adjustment layer > hue/saturation > blue, which should give you an adjustment layer that looks like this

if i move this around, this is also gonna change the background very slightly, which we don't want, and it won't change the colour of his eyes very much.

in order to change just the blue of his eyes, i need to adjust the slider at the very bottom. this shows the spectrum of the colours selected and the colours it's changing. if you're testing this, i would say change the hue to 180, then mess around with the adjustments until you've found a setting that only changes the selected hue

this seems to work well for this, so im gonna keep this adjustment layer specifically for changing the eye colour and move onto another

everything i want to be in a specific colour is now in that colour, so i'm gonna move onto working on making everything else in greyscale. it's exactly the same process (using a hue/saturation adjustment layer), but you're altering saturation to -100 (making other colours grey), and changing lightness (which colours you want to be a lighter shade of grey in the greyscale)

this gif in particular shows a specific problem i have with doing this: red and red-adjacent tones with selective colouring. many skintones fall under red hues when altering them, so when trying to isolate a red colour, it can get a bit finnicky. the spectrum slider tends to get very precise with the hue/saturation adjustment layer.

shown here, i'm using a new adjustment layer and going for the red to try and desaturate the skin tone, and you can see it's desaturated the hair too, so i need to adjust the spectrum so it only gets the skin tone (while i'm doing this, i'm also going back to check on the first frames where the petals are to make sure they're not affected by this since i want them in colour too!)

next up is the back wall which is a blue tint (as exampled with changing the blue setting with the first adjustment layer, we can now use the blue adjustment on the second adjustment layer freely since it won't affect the eye colour anymore)

while doing this, it's important to go over all the frames occassionally, especially with scenes that have a lot of varied colours, because a lot of the time, some layers may have stray areas of colour that fit into what is still allowed to be in colour, in which case a 'replace colour' adjustment layer (layer > new adjustment layer > replace colour) should be used to try and get out specific shades you don't want to be in colour. it's not an issue in this gif, but in cases where it is, those adjustment layers can pile up, but that's natural! (it can also be used in cases where you're close to greyscale but not quite there, just eyedrop the colour and set saturation all the way down)

after this, i'm just gonna do some adjustment layers to alter lighting to make sure the colours are balanced well (curves, levels, brightness/contrast, etc), and it should be done from there!

remember to save psd files regularly so you have backups of your work in case anything happens! hope this was helpful and if you'd like me to elaborate on anything, please ask!

examples of some of my gifs with this effect include: this, this, and this

[meandmyechoes]

Kingohger ep15

starting this one early coz ritamoru ig live after this

eh we still don't get a film preview yet

i'm so nervous lol

from the preview images it looks like the team will split in two with the Colours rescuing Suzume and the Greyscales on negotiations

even their fortune stick is bee theme

woah the expressions change!!

guess i shouldn't be surprised by Kuroda dropping in to hand him his phone but this does nothing to clear up that fanart of Kaguragi making a "old man squint at phone" face when Yanma tried to teach him how to use a smartphone

Kaguragi ringtone !

you kings like to talk hand free so much lol

WAIT that's a video call Racles can't use smartphones booooooo

ehh throne shot?! (bet it's before they got dragged into whatever the colours are up to)

lol Jeremy in takuan land

Shutup prima you know how hard your sausages are to find

Soy rice ah soy rice ah Kagu 😏

"his only sister"… so no more dybowskii siblings :(((((

he overthrew the last king because he was taking all the food for himself?????! 🤩

YOOOOOOO practically going as everyone thought

is Rita a screenshot again

sickling! I was right... or am I?

(waiting for "2m Suzume" if even tv asahi made fun of it)

alright i get it Gira is basically living with Yanma for now huh

Jeremy outright told them!! Good boy!!

BETROTHED BETHROTHED BETROTHED!!

Yanma 'translating' Gira's evil plans 👌 one of us Himeno

"let's steal the bride!!!" Gira… (tired kogane voice)

Rita's here to provide illegal advice 👌

I feel like Rita would gladly ignore their illegal activities if they hadn't heard anything but they DID and it's WRONG to lie so now they have to be there to hold the brain cell

i'm so here for Suzume outplotting those two

one second makeup on

omg

(sound of Tools and Farming Tools shattering)

okay 16 rita is rising if Suzume is not leaving

PLS give us more political intrigue 🙏

ah Her Majesty's new earrings

Gorokke nei dou yau gum yat lah 😏

(rewind) hmm Suzume's performance really has that naivete… makes speculating her age even harder

I'm so here for Kaugracles fic after this developlment

or see how canon goes if Racles was 竹馬 with Betaria

Kaguragi's speech and determined look… So-san's acting 🙇

Gira making sentai history again transforming fetal position

yeah 16 is definitely Rita + team esp. director changes at 17

King Kong reference?

Moffun Ep 2 TODAY??!??

ugh heartbreaks at Kaguragia's face

YES HIMESAMA PLEASE KICK RACLES' ASS thank you for sticking to the Suzume hachi motif of taking over others' territory!

禍國殃民嘅女人…ありがたい…

<LIVEBLOG SIGNAL LOST>

production notes: Director purposefully look for designs from students + wait five weeks for Gokkan lah (more later)

cast blog: ahh a wild yuzuki appears! Team Wings... my team wings...

+ Morphonia is a pro in helping me close the zipper before filming. Somehow that's not easy so thank you for always helping!

Ritamoru real

SPOILER

Gokkan had a royal family???!!? Everything Rita is RITA and not GOKKAN KING??!!（😍😍）Morphonia is the last princess!! Rita as Morphonia's Knight😭😭 Ritahime next ep Himeno bringing Rita a Moffun gift😭😭 Ritamoru Ritahime can be so real

---

tangent: seeing the Tools actually broke Toei's servers trying to order Racles's acrylic stand, very admirable

[ren-from-mars]

I’ve been doing some reflecting on this past year, and I really truly think it is the most artistic improvement I have made in any span of time. Of course, I’m going to be completely insufferable about it and have collected my best piece from each month with a few personal notes, so why don’t we go on a sprint down memory highway together?

January

At the start of the year, I was both adrift between fandoms and art styles. I was mostly aiming to find which style I could keep using, finish pieces quickly yet still feel proud of. It certainly worked in the moment, but as I pushed my boundaries more it didn't stick. Still, I look back on this style fondly! also proper throwback to my old username that i had for far too long

February

This was the start of me working on colour palettes. I lay down my main colour in the background and fit the rest of my colours around that. It was a good way to start experimenting!

March

Then the shift back to finding my style- I particularly like how the hair turned out in this piece! I also started trying more interesting poses here, and actually properly attempting hands.

April

I didn't finish any pieces in april as I had started working more hours and didn't quite know how to balance myself creatively at that point. I did lean into this style of sketch much more, which was good fun while it stuck around but ive leant away from it in more recent times.

May

Not much to say about may in particular, lots of the same things as the past few months with improvements here and there! just some steady progress :)

June

Cue the crunch of getting character refs done before artfight, and then only actually finishing one (which isn't actually complete, even to this day). But hey, more solid reference for My Guy ! I also leaned into drawing furries a lot more and have improved heaps in the difference of proportions!

July

artfight baybee!! no artistic differences, but it was a lot of fun scouting out other peoples character designs! I do hope to participate more this year :3

August

back to colours, though this month felt like a bit of a backtrack. Don't get me wrong, I do quite like this piece, but contrast-wise it doesn't have as much visual clarity as I would like. Regardless, a good learning opportunity!

September

Fun fact, I rendered this one entirely in greyscale! This was the start of me getting back into hatchetfield after being reminded of NPMDs release, and lets be real this part of black friday was chilling so I had to do something about it! I consider this piece a landmark in terms of my art journey.

October

Once again no real finished pieces, I was too busy watching nightmare time while waiting for the group watch of npmd. I did do a lot of studies of star wars characters from their live-action shows though, which was a fun learning experience!

November

This was the piece where I applied pretty much everything I had learnt throughout the year. contrast, colour themes, interactive environments and poses, the lot! and also. its them. how could i not

December

A perfect piece to wrap up the year with! Another step up from november, this applied lots of what I had learnt and pushed my boundaries even more. I have been aiming for more realism to actor's faces and body types, not out of it-has-to-be-canon-sake, but rather learning how to accurately depict someone's likeness from a few photo references. good practice for both live-action and animated characters!

Overall last year was absolutely wild. I can't wait to share my journey with you all as we go into 2024 strong!

[lonita]

Creative Idea of the Day - June 2024

Every day on my Idealog account on Bluesky, I share a quick creative idea - unlike the more lengthy ones I share here. And because I like to archive things all in one place, here's June 2024's collection.

30 - Turn old fabric scraps into stuffed animals, pillows, or patchwork quilts. If you can't, put the scraps into frames to make some wall art, or to use as backgrounds for framed photographs.

29 - Create a map of your neighbourhood.

28 - Make a list of rainy day ideas.

27 - Find a way to gamify your movie-watching experience to help you choose a new movie to watch each week. If it's a foreign (to you) film, try a food from that country for your movie snack.

26 - Make a list (and find or create the images if you want) of things that would be great album/book covers.

25 - Try a sensory experience.

24 - Get a stack of books, any books you have, and stack them such that the titles on the spines create a verse from the top down. Any kind of verse you like.

Here's one from my comfy chair-side TBR pile:

23 - Each Saturday I post a longer or more detailed creative idea on my blog - most under the tag inkspiration, some under adventures, and some under per diem.

22 - Write song lyrics or poems based on a set of randomly generated words. Any LLM or AI can do that, or you could ask some folks to pitch in words, or you could hit up random pages in a dictionary or other book.

21 - Create a portrait using only words and text.

20 - Make an apocalist (or bucket list).

19 - Monochrome study - black and white, greyscale, sepia, or any monochrome you like, in any medium you like. Even text.

18 - Make a list of words to look up in other languages.

17 - Draw a continuous line without lifting your pen.

16 - Using any means you like - still life, words, photographic, music - illustrate something from a dream.

15 - Go outside and photograph the first thing you see that's your favourite colour. If you can't go out, try to spot something from your window that's that colour. If you can't spot anything, write the silliest thing involving that colour that you know.

14 - Create some puppets or paper dolls.

13 - Create a photo essay or photo scavenger hunt.

12 - Write a short story exactly as many words long as how old you are in years.

11 - Create a piece using only primary colours. RGB or CMY.

10 - Fill a page with small circles and colour them in. You could even use dice, or another counting method, to gamify how - and with what colours - you colour them.

09 - Sculpt a small object using clay, play dough, or plasticine. There are multiple recipes online to make your own, which means you get to decide your own colours. My grandmother used to make me pastel colours.

08 - Experiment with calligraphy or hand lettering.

07 - Watch the first TED talk you find on ted.com that starts with the first letter of your first name. Apparently, mine's going to be "Let your garden grow wild". I note that I don't have a garden.

06 - Lists are the easiest thing there is, so get you a new (or old) notebook or do it digitally, and make a list (and keep it going) of things to be happy about - things, people, movies, quotations, a moment of peace, a good sneeze. All of it!

Here's mine:

[elitheaceofalltrades]

Crime O'clock - Demo Review

After a lovely day, I was having a terrible evening thanks to a letter from my local city council. I decided to sit down and play the Crime O'clock demo cause it seemed like it would lift my spirits. I think this game was a recommendation from Payton's Corner?? I'd have to go through my youtube and check. I'm pretty sure it was a rec though, as this is not the kind of game I would usually demo. It's marked as a hidden object and time travel game and I would not have looked twice at it if it wasn't recommended. But oh my goodness, I had so much fun and I absolutely adored it.

So the premise of the game is that there exist a True Timeline and occasionally, people try to disrupt this timeline through crime. As a time detective, your job is to solve these crimes in order to preserve the True Timeline. In the game, some mysterious force seems to be trying to disrupt the timeline by doing a lot of little crimes over a spread of time as opposed to one big crime. You have to figure out who they are, foil their plans and save the time as we know it. The demo only scratched the surface of the plot but it explained it very well in the short time and leaves you excited for more. Now, onto my thoughts.

First of all, I want to point out that this is a genuinely unique premise, like I've heard of nothing else like it. I feel like sometimes in gaming (in everything really), things are starting to feel more and more like a rift off an existing idea as opposed to something new and fresh. Crime O'clock is a true one of a kind story that feels like it's breathing a breath of fresh air into my gaming catalogue(or more realistically, my wishlist).

On the technical side, the music was fun and upbeat and matched the mood of the game well. The graphics were very pretty, despite being mostly in greyscale, and the points that used colour were so distinct that it almost feels like each colour palette is distinctly for a certain part of the game. Mechanically, it was a point and click game, so not much there to mess up I don't think.

The actual game is excellent. In the game, you work with your AI, EVE, who helps you, provides guidance, tools, and if you ask, hints. The dialogue from EVE is funny (in my opinion at least) and is a perfect balance of informative and entertaining. The plot is fun and makes you think but it isn't overwhelming. The setting is so out there, and combined with the cute art, animal characters, and combination of past & present with outrageous technology like teleportation portals (yes it sounds wild, but it fits so well), it all makes it just silly enough that you don't take it too serious and use too many braincells.

The puzzles aren't easy but they aren't overly complex. I only had to use the hint system once and there's no punishment for using a hint. Despite it technically being a hidden object game, it didn't feel like one as I was playing, mostly because it's so unlike any hidden object game I've played before.

I feel like, the length of this review tells you how much I loved this game and this was only the demo.  I will definitely get this game once my employment status has been sorted. I feel like the last couple of demo reviews I posted have been "will buy when I have money" like Another Code and Wylde Flowers but that's mainly cause they've been the ones that excite me enough that I have the energy to write a review. I am working on a post called "Games I demoed and did not like" that's currently 6 games and counting, so it's not all 5 stars over here, that's just what excited me right now.

Overall, I definitely recommend this game to anyone who likes puzzle-ly or detective cosy games and is looking for something new.

Final Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

~Eli

Ace of All Trades, Pro at None😆

[ganen-cheese]

Hello! I hope you're having a great day! If its not too much trouble to ask you, would you be able to explain how you choose your colours? I always choose too vibrant colours or the tones don't mix well, I'm not too great at picking colours and was hoping you could explain how you usually do it so I could take inspiration if that's alright? :) <3

Thank you for your time

Here's an easy way you can choose colors! All have the same base color as #1.

You can clip layers on top of your base colors and adjust colors there based on the scenery you're going for with layer properties (Multiply, Overlay, Addition, Difference, etc.)

You can color pick from above the layers and get your color palette from there~ When I'm painting 1 picture I flatten the base or group them as above, then put the "editing"/adjustment layers as clipping layer to adjust the colors then paint over the top in 1 layer (for me it's easier than having to look for what layer is what). I paint below the line art first then later I'll paint above the layer to adjust some things than editing the line art haha (^^;;; ). I don't know if it's the best way but that's how I do it for single arts.

(More under the cut with pictures)

The "N" layer is just the layer with the base color of the person and the Pokemon and the Pokemon's line art.

I was looking for 19 Days arts to use as an example but a lot of them have already been flattened so I can't show you anymore so forgive me for the old Pokemon art m(_ _)m I wanna adjust some colors here but o<-< it’s just an example please forgive me o<-<

This way the color palette is already made so you can go ham on the shading via color picking in the layer above all the adjustment layers.

If you’re having troubles with choosing “too vibrant” colors, it is helpful to look at your picture in greyscale so you can adjust the level accordingly. If it’s in greyscale, you’ll be able to see which areas are too bright, too dark, too dull etc.

You can easily do it in Photoshop, but if you’re using Clip Studio like me, you can try to do this in Layer Properties to turn the base color greyscale. Then you can easily select if off after you’re done checking. I don’t really do it (I should and I might in the future - I just saw the effects recently), but you can try to see if it helps!! (If you have Photoshop then it’s way easier to check)

Clip Studio Paint:

Photoshop:

I hope I made sense Anon (;-; )

When you observe the colors you pick with this, you’ll be able to pick the colors yourself once you decide the background. Once you let go of the general idea of what certain parts should look like, like for example the one with the blue hue. You generally don’t use that blue color on human skin unless you’re going for an alien sort of aesthetic; but if you use it with other colors relative to that hue then it will look natural as a skin color, based on how the other colors translate with that same lighting.

I did it for this one because I did the background first.

[gentlespace]

every time I see your art on my dash it makes me :D because it's so colourful and joyful and expressive!!! Do you happen to have any tips on how to choose funkier colour palettes and arrange them in an illustration?

Ahh thank you! I absolutely adore your work so much!! :) I love any chance to talk about colours so I present..

⭐️ eliott’s guide to colourful illustrations! ⭐️

I genuinely know very little about colour theory so this method can be super easy to pick up, and the trick is using gradient maps! I find it pretty hard to visualise what colours I want to use and to start picking them out, so I usually start off by colouring my sketch very loosely in greyscale and getting the values right.

Then it’s time to apply some gradient maps! I use procreate but I’m pretty sure you can do this in other programs such as photoshop and clip studio too! I always duplicate the black and white version so I can go back and make lots of different versions.

Look at all these fun colour combinations! As you can see, I have a bunch of gradient maps that I just scroll between and some will really work, and some won’t, but it’s fun to try them out and play around with the sliders just to give you some ideas!

The next step is using the colour balance tool to adjust the colours a bit more to get something you’re really happy with. At this stage, I also like to separate the background colour to make sure that it doesn’t blend in too much, and also adjust anything that has to be a certain colour (sometimes skin shades might change too much or the coloured markings on Ashoka’s Lekku which I made more blue in the final illustration) This part can either be really fun or get super frustrating because (at least for me and my lack of colour knowledge) there’s no science behind it and I have to keep trying new things until I think it looks right.

Before and after of some colour balancing

If I don't want something with too much of a wacky colour scheme, I'll colour it in the real-life/accurate colours (rather than greyscale), and then just use the colour balance tool to nudge the colours to something a little more interesting!

So that’s kind of my main process when colouring an illustration, a lot of trying stuff out and seeing what I like the look of! Gradient maps have honestly been so beneficial to me for giving me a jumping-off point when trying to decide on colours!

I’ve got some other random bits of colour advice too if anyones interested, so I’ll add them under here! I hope you find this useful though!

For pieces with complex backgrounds I like to separate the characters from the rest of the scene and apply different gradient maps to each one. This way the characters stand out a lot more and you can easily tell which are the more important details to look at. I’ve noticed when looking back at some of my illustrations that I tend to use close-to complimentary colours schemes when doing this (it would be red/green in this example but I made it more of an orange than red) and have done the same with blue/orange (or pink) as well. It’s not something I ever did on purpose but the fact it’s happened a few times maybe means it’s a good tip?!

Picking warm or cool colours to match the mood and feel of a scene can be really important! Purples can be great for a night-time piece, but someplace with artificial light might use a much cooler/blue shade than a scene lit by a campfire which would be much warmer/red.

A lot of my colour choices are down to exaggeration too, brown and beige robes aren't too colourful, but pushing them to be pink/orange is a bit more exciting!! As long as the contrast between the different colours is okay, you can pretty much get away with anything!

A lot of my colour choices are down to exaggeration too, brown and beige robes aren't too colourful, but pushing them to be pink/orange is a bit more exciting!! As long as the contrast between the different colours is okay, you can pretty much get away with anything!

And lastly, overlay layers can be so much fun to play with too! I just chuck a random fill colour on top and then try out loads of different effects to see what it does- sometimes it will create something completely unexpected! Oooo and they can be good for special lighting effects too! Put a darker overlay layer on top, then erase sections that the light would be hitting and now you have some dramatic lighting! Or the opposite way, draw on just the highlights and turn that into the overlay!

Okay, so there we go! If you couldn’t tell, most of my technique is just throwing stuff together, hoping for the best, and adjusting things until I’m happy - but it works! I’ve never written an advice post like this before so I hope it all makes sense and that it might be even a little bit valuable!

[deathtale0-0]

Mother's Day

TW // police brutality, police murder, racism

It was 19:35 on Mother's Day and I was going home. Well, more like I was rushing home. I was doing that weird thing where you run a bit and then walk a bit so that people don't look at you funny, but it was dark out, so I don't know why I was even doing it. You see, I spent Mother's Day at a friend's house because ma was working a long shift at the hospital today and didn't want me to be alone, but she was meant to be home soon, and I was meant to be home already. See my problem?

Flickering lights from streetlamps chased me, happy to be of use to someone in the night, as I noticed the foolishness of what I was doing and decided to run the last stretch home. My trainers thumped dully each time they connected with the dying pavement, with each crack and break it smugly showed a naïve attempt to catch at someone's feet and drag them to its depth of humiliation and neglect. Silence encompassed the night air, only broken by my shallow pants as I checked the phone held in my nimble mocha hand to see the time - 19:37 - I would make it home before her. But that happiness was short-lived as I rounded the corner and was hit with a gut-wrenching dread. Not dread that one feels as they go to their first school dance, or when they speak in public, but the type of dread that creeps into your flesh from the cruelty of the world and seeps into your bloodstream, filling your body with the distinct sense that something is not right. This dread gripped my mind with talons in its dark prowess, and came in the form of white and blue…

I slowed to a halt as the police officer came into sight, the rules that turned my melanin into a curse in this country flashing across my mind in a panic, but it was too late, he had seen me running. Without thinking, I tucked my phone into my sleeve. He stared at me, his brown eyes pierced my brown skin as I failed to see the softness that usually came with those colour eyes and as he failed to see me as anything other than my blackness. Flustered, I scanned him, saw the dirty blond hair poking out from underneath the hat that sat proudly on his head and the mouth that was set in a hard line. I saw the tension in his muscles and the wariness of his stance as he eyed me up and down, scrutinising me. I saw him take in the Adidas joggers, the Jordan's, the black hoodie, the black baseball cap, and most of all the black skin. Today was a bad day to wear all black as well as be all black. His harsh eyes stopped at my shaking fingers clutching my duffel bag tight. My own eyes flicked down to my bag before looking back up and with shaky legs, I decided to keep walking and pretend as if nothing had happened – because nothing had, I didn't do anything wrong so there was no need for me to be nervous. Yet as I took steps forwards, I realised there was a need for me to be nervous because things happen, I just never thought that they would happen to me, but my feet walked all of one metre before the officer stepped in my path.

He stood directly under a streetlamp, "Where you heading, kid?" A question that was so simple, so easy, and yet so loaded. I was paused in the middle of the pavement, about two and a half metres away from him, stood in the spot where the light from the lamp had begun to fade – the outskirts. Growing up I knew my favourite Bible verse was 'all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God' but why was it that when he looked at me I felt like I had fallen farther than others? When he looked at me and asked that question, I felt like the biggest sinner of them all. After being silent for a moment too long he took a step forward and asked again.

"Home, sir," the words tumbled out, raw and messy, but oh so true, "I'm just heading home, sir."

"Home? Let's not pretend I didn't see you running a minute ago, where are you really heading?" His voice had a weight to it that made me sick. A quiet conviction that made me feel guilty.

"Sir, I swear I'm just going home-" the words tumbled out again, raw and messy, but oh so desperate.

"Then why were you running?" He took a step closer and I took a step back, the light surrounding me became dimmer.

"I was, it was because-" my hands were sweaty as they balled into fists but then straightened out again because I didn't want to seem angry, didn't want to seem like one of those drug-dealing thugs that the media paints us as, "-I'm, I'm late home, sir, and my ma she-"

"What's in the bag?" he demanded, his gruff voice taking on a menacing tone that sent chills up my spine.

"Sir it's nothing, it's just-"

"You just said it was nothing so how is it suddenly something, huh? Tell me where you're really coming from," he walked straight up to me and stared me in the eyes, "what you got in there kid? Who'd you rob the store for? You one of those thugs?" and the condemnation in his words almost made me believe it. I stared into his eyes and saw nothing but coldness, I thought that if we had no resemblance then it'd be over for me, so as pitiful as it sounded I hoped and prayed that he would see that I wasn't doing anything wrong if only because we both had brown eyes – he could relate to me because we both had brown eyes. Pathetic right? My body shook as his malice grew in front of me, "What, you think you guys can keep getting away with things like this? Open your bag!" and I felt tears prick at the back of my eyes as I willed myself not to cry in front of this man. I guess my silence assured him of his twisted righteousness as he shoved me to the ground with such force that I heard a sickening crack and when I touched the back of my head, it came away wet, slick with blood. My phone, although still in my sleeve had landed awkwardly on my wrist as he loomed over me like a demon, his pale skin stark against the night. "Are you not gonna answer me, boy?" the question, so casual, as he crouched beside me, baring his teeth and cruelty.

I didn't know why he was so angry. But I did. I was a criminal in his eyes. A criminal for having my skin two shades too dark, I missed the mark for acceptance in his eyes – the eyes of this country, this society. I was painted with a blackness that came from richness and royalty, but today ordained me as a target for those filled with a lust for hatred to take out their bigotry on. A blackness that was not a choice for me and yet shackled me to the fate of every other black man in this country – to die because of my blackness or live constantly reminded of it. Looking at him now, with the streetlamp behind him, I bet this scene was right to him, he was standing in the light, and here I was, sprawled out on the floor, afraid, alone, and in the dark. He shone his torch at me, and I put my hand out to block it, but as my hands went out to protect, his hands went out to his gun. I froze. As I lay there, vulnerable and with my melanin pooled around me – the dark in his city of light, of white - he kicked my bag, "Open it."

"Yes, sir," came my shaky reply as I slowly pulled myself up off the floor, my head lit up with agony. With his hands firmly plastered on his gun and his gun aimed at me, I reached for the zipper with my coffee hands and began to unzip my bag slowly. But, through some cruel twist of fate, someone called me. The call surprised me, so I let go of my sleeve and out fell the phone, but to him it was a gun…to them it's always a gun.

I felt them before I heard them, before I saw them, and I wish I could tell you how it felt, but I can't, because it hurt too much. He shot me six times in the chest before I could even say "Please," before I could even look at him and plead my case of life in this monochrome world. After the ringing in my ears stopped, I became weightless – just for one lovely moment – before my body, mind and soul dropped as one to the ground, feeling like the burden of the world that Atlas carried on his shoulders. I'd never felt so heavy, so conscious of my humanity and mortality as I did when I lay there dying. Tears streamed, desperate to fall as evidence of my life, to leave the mark that I was here, because there was no one else around to see me fall. As I felt vibrations in the earth, I looked to my side to see my phone screen lit up and ringing once more. After cringing at the brightness, I noticed that it was 19:45 and that the caller, it was ma. I was too tired to move. I lay there, in the darkness, with naught but my wheezing breaths, my inky blood seeping from my body, and my tragic story seeping from my soul to keep me company. A flash of pink caught my eyes as they started to close, pink of all things, pink that seemed so out of place in my greyscale experience. It was from my roses. I gathered my remaining strength to tilt my head to look through the half-zipped top of my bag and there were the roses I had bought for ma resting in the bottom. More tears streamed. Oh, the irony of it all. Looking up, I see the moon and decide that I want to die looking at it, simply because I have nothing else to look at. It has a sharp contrast to the darkness of the night sky, one's attention is drawn to it as it overlooks the Earth, taking over from the sun as the overseer and the one who must witness all the horrors this world has to offer. How sad it must be to be the moon. Grey, white, and black begin to swirl into each other and blend as I keep looking, the grey overtaking the white, and finally the black overtakes the grey as I close my eyes to rest.

At 19:49, ma called me again, but I was dead.