#i will abuse my free work photoshop

[full---ofstarlight]

ok so. how DOES one make gifs.

[themyscirah]

But look at us Luke, we're the ones left alone, holding some rich monster's pain. All of existence, built on his violence. All of space-time, humming to life with a single inviolate rule. Give the hero something to punch.

[for-those-who-wait]

Oh hey you use medibang? That's awesome! I miss using it, had to buy clip studio since it refused to work on my pc after my laptop died

Amazing art, I adore how skrunkly you draw everyone!

I used to use Photoshop before I realized/got fed up with just how insanely abusive their subscription service is. I used MediBang before it and I now use MediBang after it! (The blending brushes on Photoshop were so nice but I never should have left.) It sucks your computer didn't want to run it anymore :( But any one-time purchase of software sounds like a good deal to me! FireAlpaca is a good substitute for MediBang but with rudimentary 2D animation capabilities on top of it. I actually downloaded it recently for the animation part but IDK if I'll ever get back to it haha

Funnily enough, MediBang is currently selling a different version on Steam for like 70 bucks and the onion skin/animation stuff looks like the main attraction for purchasing it (also gradient map but ignore that), which is just wild to me when FireAlpaca exists and does the same thing for free

Anywho this doodle was made in my notes app hahaha. He is eepy! Skrunkly and eepy! I hope Clip Studio works well for you :)

[wyervan]

hiiii just wanna start off by saying I love your art style and general vibes ✨️ I'm a stay-at-home partner always in search of fun things to do, and I've recently gotten back into art after not engaging with it since I was a kid (largely because your sun n moon fixation rubbed off on me 😭). I've never tried digital art and it looks cool! Do you have any advice for a beginner like me?

Oh it makes me so happy when people say I inspired them to start creating again 😭 The DCA and the fandom brought me out of my own years-long artistic funk last spring. Clown power, yeehonk 🤠 🤡

I’m planning a significantly longer post in response to an ask I got ages ago all how I learned to draw the way I do, so lookout for that.

But in the meantime, here’s a couple things I can think of off the top of my head:

Specific tools don’t matter much. I currently use Procreate and would recommend it if you have an IPad. It’s an extremely simple but effective program.

On desktop, I use Clip Studio Pro, but Krita is another program I’ve used and liked AND it’s completely free.

I do also have loads of experience with Photoshop and other Adobe products but can’t recommend them at the price, not to mention they’re not super beginner friendly.

Hardware-wise, I almost exclusively use my IPad to draw because it’s so portable. I also have a Huion Kamvas pen tablet monitor that hooks up to my desktop. But I started doing digital art with a dinky lil Wacom tablet that was less than $100. There’s definitely a bit of a disconnect at first, not looking at where you’re drawing but rather on a screen, but you get used to it.

Bottom line is to use whatever tools are convenient and comfortable for you! I even know of a great artist that exclusively draws with their mouse. I realized I hated sitting at a desk and that stopped me from practicing digitally. I got an IPad and now it’s much easier for me to work comfortably on what I love.

Point two I’d like to make is take advantage of the capabilities of working digitally. This means using the godsent undo button to your heart’s content. Download fun brushes to play with and add texture. Use perspective grids. Turn on line stabilization so your strokes are extra smooth. Like what you’ve sketched so far but want to try something different? Duplicate the layer and work from there so you can go back to the old version if you change your mind. Radically change the colors or values with adjustment layers. Use clipping masks. Abuse the liquify tool.

A lot of this might sound like gobbledygook to a digital art beginner but just googling any of this terminology will get you loads of tutorials and information for your specific setup. Also I’m happy to go into details about specific digital art techniques I’ve picked up with over a decade and a half of experience.

Finally, and most importantly—make what you want to see in the world AND what feels good to make. This ofc is not exclusive to digital art, but I always want to stress this to new artists. I realized after I got into the DCA fandom that I had been letting shame, fear, and perfectionism keep me from creating the content I was really interested in making. But then man, idk. Frickin’ robot clowns amirite ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ it’s like there was a secret agent sent into my brain and he uploaded a DCA virus into my mainframe or smth idk hacker style. tktktktkt. they’re in.

Anyway. Hope this helps! Feel free to send another message if u have more questions :3

[mayimkjs]

FOOL's MATE Update Post #2

Master Post　　Last Update

Before I start this post, I would like to bring up something that I saw on the cancer that it Twitter. DO NOT HARASS THE STAFF OVER THE T2 SUMMERY AND T3 COMMENCEMENT. Sucks that that needs to be said.

People Suck Man + Delays

I was planning on filming the interview and I emailed probably about 50 people. Not a single positive response. At least this got me to buy a small light kit.

I was also planning on listening to a Jekyll & Hyde audio book while on a plane and work on that section of the doc. My volume was at 100% and it was too quiet. So that's been delayed.

I Made an Anonymous Feedback Form

Made this so that people who don't wanna publicly give feedback for whatever reason feel comfortable doing so. However, if ANYONE abuses this, I will have to enable email collection. You can't see others responses, so you will still be anonymous. The email collection would just be in case I have to block someone.

https://forms.gle/Wv5S5744asszjmGf7

Finally got to do Audio Related Things

I can't really do that stuff at school because there is constant noise. So since I've been home, I was able to do this stuff. I didn't get through it all so I'll try to do Double if I don't have noisy neighbors this year.

Poster Update

I held a poll over a month ago to decide between 4 drafts for the poster/key art/thumbnail. Option 3 won so here's the sketch of John. I haven't been actively working on this and mainly have been working on this when I want to draw. If you have any critiques, feel free to share.

Illustrations and Assets

So, Adobe fucked up Photoshop a few months ago and recently Illustrator. So I've had to downgrade to Photoshop 25.4 which was released in January so I can use it for more then 1 minute. Then Illustrator was just really fucking laggy. Other from that, I'm about half way done with vector graphics. I still have to go through a bunch of pictures and get rid of the backgrounds.

I also decided to try to make some 3D graphics so I've finally decided to learn Blender. Me and a friend are also probably going to work together to make a prop since he has a 3D printer. I also bought Paintstorm Studio which is more of a digital painting software then drawing, but I've found that it's really good for design. I just wish I bought it during 2020 when it was $10.

I've also been working on adding image credits to the research doc. There are a bunch of images that I don't know who made them. I have a list on the beginning of the doc if you want to help with that.

Since I'm expanding on the DID section, I would like to make a request.

Since I've seen some systems floating around here, can you fact check me? I really DO NOT want to get important information wrong. I don't think I've gotten much wrong if at all, but I just wanna be 100% sure.

Changes

Expanded

Foils

DID Terms

Extra info here & there

Modified

Prisoner Genres

Got rid of “(Tentative)” on title page

Moved

Theories about who Es is into Ch8 

“The Kayano System and Es are more connected than we think.” into “MILGRAM Theories” 

Added

Special Thanks

More theories 

Images

Other

Cleaned slides

Links

Research Doc (Comments on like always)

Milanote

Reddit Post

[batsplat]

btw at le mans 2013 some vale fans had a huge (cringey ofc) banner which went like

yzr-m1: someday my prince will come

vale badly photoshoped as a prince: sorry babe

here’s how we can tie this to rgu and the whole prince&princess theme

also remember how in rgu the movie utena turns into a car and all? well what if valentino had some weird (vaguely erotic) dreams in that vein…….

(x, x) kermit at that poster not at the ask, to be clear!! weird ass sport

anyway, let's talk more about how to apply surrealist anime rgu to motogp! and yes, again, we are kinda stripping rgu from a lot of the stuff it was Actually About, but y'know on the other hand it'd also be flattening that particular artwork if your stance is that the 'only' things the story is relevant to is like. cycles of abuse. structural patriarchy. on-screen depictions of sibling relationships designed to make you extremely uncomfortable. all that stuff. so we are taking it as read for the rest of this post that rgu deals with more serious stuff than competitive sports and work from there

the car stuff!! anthy's prince literally turns into a vehicle to allow her to escape! it ends with both of them like... intertwined on the remaining husk of that vehicle, riding off into freedom. also the car looks cool

this isn't super relevant, I was just thinking about how much fun they made that car. like they made sidepod-wings into horsies. eat your heart out, ducati

now, in the film this is basically a metaphor for growing up, right. anthy is finally breaking out of the school and embracing her revolution by quite literally freeing herself from the prison she had both been entrapped in and had continued to entrap herself in. and isn't that... isn't that basically what valentino is doing when he's leaving honda for yamaha. well, no, obviously it's nothing like that. but say that it was like that, and that essentially this is the process of growing up, coming of age, growing into his own or whatever you want to call it. self-actualisation. a spiritual journey to a different bike manufacturer. valentino does think he's like... imprisoned in honda, it's his whole theme that year, he does a cute callback when he's won the title. brno 2003 is both the prisoner celebration and where he signs for yamaha, like he's not really being subtle about this. and the only way he can fully become himself is standing on his own two feet, thrive or fail, at yamaha. because now he's no longer following the path that's been set out for him. honda was comfortable in many ways, it was a very pretty prison - even if he felt underappreciated, he was still the golden boy at The Most Successful Manufacturer, he'd inherited doohan's team, he was building up a dynasty of his own. he was leaving behind basically... a completely guaranteed title for 2004 and most likely years beyond that for something far less secure

there is a kinda. obvious point here. and it's that according to this framing, valentino is implicitly being cast in the role of the princess. and the bike is the prince, who is being ridden to safety. which fits into the idea that there's like,, a deeply possessive element, of the bike towards the rider, and that's basically the key prince trait beyond lip service commitment to 'nobility'. I think that does kinda... work, not just because the contrast with the expected gender roles makes it more interesting, but also because 'seeing a vehicle as a symbol of liberation' inherently feels like a very valentino thing. the thing about anthy is that it's always a bit unclear how much power she has over what's happening, but when you rewatch the show enough times you do increasingly go 'huh has she been psychologically tormenting all of these characters for over thirty episodes as a diversion from the horrors of existence'. and the film very much then becomes... her version of events, if you will, where her brother the devil (that guy sure keeps cropping up in these asks) has become this defanged parody of himself,, and it really becomes more about her using utena to make the final step. or something!! obviously this is only one interpretation etc etc. but idk I think there's a fun element of this dual role of 'princess' and 'witch' where you've got a character who increasingly exerts autonomy over their own narrative and plays god a little bit and can also force other characters into slightly sadistic mini-arcs where they get turned into cows and who eventually brute forces their own vision on the world. because they do have power, and they are the instigator of the entire plot

so. so. I think one of my favourite things about valentino is... okay, so I don't actually really like when athletes are that good. with both valentino and marc, I have a very begrudging attitude towards just how successful they are, because that level of dominance is extremely 'meh' to me as a sports fan. they're really the exception here as far as I'm concerned, I'm very tenuously okay with their title count but it is also A Bit Much. but the thing about valentino, right, is that he mostly gets around that bit of my brain by also seemingly have a bit of an issue with dominance. the way he progressed through the ranks to the premier class is like,, nowadays, doesn't even stand out as notable because that's Just How Feeder Series Work, but back then it wasn't as guaranteed because they weren't feeder series!! it's not necessarily like clearing a level... you can just stick around to win more than one of these titles, and valentino was seriously considering doing as much but decided to move up anyway. I think there's something fun about how he kinda needs a certain difficulty level to get his brain into it. he's flirting with depression after 2002, writing in his autobiography about how AWFUL it is that winning isn't FUN any more, does his insane little yamaha switch which somehow worked out for him, got really into his f1 flirtations until quite literally when he starts losing again... he needs a bit of drama, he needs enemies, he needs MEANING!! I think inherently he's very suited to any role that casts him as a quasi-malicious storyteller, especially one that's searching for like,, some kind of Growth and progression. and also playthings. which then regularly feeds into a set of callous behaviours towards The Competition when it's seen as necessary. or just satisfying

the way this works when you. y'know. personify the bike into the prince,, is that inherently the prince's pov on this is also quite selfish, right, like it's a saviour complex and thinking you are The One who can claim the princess as your own. the prince can keep the princess safe... who can be used by the princess/witch as a tool to bring about world revolution, and so on. the prince attempts to control the princess, and the princess is devoted to the prince. and also, they can make each other worse!! it's kind of... eventually as a duo they can become so dedicated to this sick game they're playing that basically any act is excusable as long as it helps them win. anyway crucially I do think if you did a surrealism on valentino's brain, some blue haired girl personification of the m1 rocking up to save him from his shackles and allow him to finally attain revolution by turning into a vehicle and literally carrying him to safety... does sound about right, yeah. weird erotic bike fantasies and all

[borderline-culture-is]

Bpd culture is I’m having a sever episode rn because I finally realised I got abandoned after avoiding it for 2,5 months ( I’m not planning to do any of this I just want to write it down and let it go )

*TW : abuse, manipulation, self-harm*

Enjoy

Bpd culture is my favourite person used to be a fan of mine here on tumblr he also found out I live in the same area as him and started actively stalking me

He used to text me and I didn’t even know he existed

We randomly started talking he became my fp on the spot only to get up and abandon me right after the date and tell me I didn’t give him that “click” he needed and that “ I wasn’t the one”

All of this while in our date I was reading his expressions and body language “ I’ve been studying those for years and he was showing that he’s basically found everything he was looking for

He said he’s “emotionally unavailable “ and that he was scared that I would be an abuser just like his ex that had all the symptoms of Npd but didn’t actually have the disorder that abused him both physically and mentally

I told him since the beginning I have bpd and that I’ve taken medication and got therapy for 3 years straight I’ve worked my ass off to be better and I’ve actually managed to get better

He still abandoned me

I’ve been fighting demons to not actively stalk him in person because that’s not me anymore

The fact that he compared me to an abuser

The fact that I made myself vulnerable for him and opened up about my feelings 100% something I’ve never done in my life with a man

And all I get is abandonment

It was my mistake for not putting cocaine in my gums when we met

I let him have free will a mistake that I will NEVER DO AGAIN

But I hope he does come back I love him to death

But one thing will be for sure

he will find out what being abused by a person with more than two brain cells is like. Ohhhh his pathetic ass got abused by a person I know from first hand is stupid asf

Was he that fucking retarded?

But oh well I do want him to come back

I want to make that man cut himself for me I want to make him get an eating disorder I want to make him look at me in the eye while crying and go “ please don’t make me cut deeper this hurts really bad”

That dumb bitch was stupid enough to hit him in public but I’m better than that

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD imagine getting abused by a bitch that has embarrassed herself where we live because of photos with photoshop that had walls in the back looking like the waves of the ocean everyone till this day mock her

Worst part is I loved this man to death and I do I wanted to give him everything he ever asked for

But oh well

He’ll come back

And I’ll be here waiting.

.

[aikoiya]

Aikoiya's Writing Tips Masterlist

Important:

Everyone Who Makes NSFW Content (And Those Who Are Uncomfortable With NSFW)

Dadvice - Yo, if any young dude sees this & they don't have a dad or father figure in their lives to explain stuff, go here. I hope it helps.

Club To Teach Fatherless Boys To Be Men

Reporting A Suicide on Tumblr!!

Remember To Download Fave Fics On Ao3

Google Alternatives

Photopea Is Photoshop For Free

You Can Give People 2nd Kudos On Ao3!!

How Get Sleep

Scaling Pain, Fatigue, & Happiness - Helps pinpoint how you're doing.

Tumblr Chrono Mode

Google's "Track My Device" Tracking

Media Wellness

AI-FREE GOOGLE

Bikers Against Child Abuse

"Dangerous Rhetoric" vs Legit Dangerous Rhetoric

Is Your Car Spying On You? How To Check!

A New Sex-Trafficking Method!! (PROTECT YOURSELVES, EACH OTHER, & ESPECIALLY KIDS!!!!)

Smithsonian Open Access (free to use reference material):

Also, keep in mind that I'll be updating this whenever I find decent writing tips. So, check back with the version on my blog whenever, even if you've reblogged already.

My Stuff:

Tips For New Writers

The Importance of Establishing the Rules of Your Fic - Warning: This one's a bit of a rant.

Proper Characterization In Ships - Just my personal 2 cents.

Realistic Resurrection Mechanics - From a storytelling standpoint. (League of Legends)

Portrayal of Deities in Fanfics

Portrayals of War Gods & Other Such Nonesense

Haunted Jukebox

You Will Always Be You - Motivational

Blessed Be The Creative

How I Define Shipping

Fear the Man Who Fears No God

Female Fighting Styles

This Hatred Is Unreasonable

What If You're Wrong?

Also, OneLook is a Godsend. If you're looking for a word, but all you have is the definition, then OneLook might help. Now, it isn't 100%, but it's definitely useful.

Other People's Stuff: (If anyone doesn't want their stuff on this list, please tell me & I'll remove it)

How To Tag & Properly Tagging Ships On Ao3 - / is for romance, & is for non-romance! DO NOT USE BOTH UNLESS BOTH ARE APPROPRIATE!!!

Guide To Naming Settlements

Realistic Way To Write More Consistently - Evidently works with Autism?

Motivation for Writing

Tips For Writing Dialogue

Canon Isn't Gospel, But It's Useful & Fun

Fight Scenes Advice - @illarian-rambling

Advice For Writing Deaf/Mute/Blind Characters

Things That May Be Causing Your Writer's Block & How To Fix It

How To Give Your Characters Chemistry - @tanaor

Fighting Scene Vocab

Writer's Block Cure Ideas

Types of Writer's Block

Why You Might Be Procrastinating & How To Fix It

Ways To Solve The 'Why Not Use Magic To Fix Everything' Question

Snappy Responses To "We're Soldiers; I'm Doing My Job"

Foreshadowing

Motivation Debugging

Long-Fic Help

When Characters First Learn Swordfighting

Writing Blacksmiths

Fantasy Guide To Royal Households & How They Work

Computer Shortcuts

Writing Liars Believably

Love vs Lust

Love Isn't A Feeling <- Everything here is correct!

How to Depict Heartbroken Body Language in a Man

Levels of Headcanon

Evil Is Boring

How To Write Non-Linearly

Subtle Familial Mannerisms

20 Compelling Positive-Negative Trait Pairs

Pain Has A Purpose!!

Giving Your Story A Message - @artist-issues

50 Alternatives For "Said"

Accurately Portraying Pro-Lifers

Magical Crimes

Medical: (Sponsored By @skyloftian-nutcase)

Ways You Can Pass Out

Dealing With Stab & Arrow Wounds

Time To Die of Organ Ruptures

Bluntforce Abdominal Injury

Writing Bloodloss

Seizure First Aide

Writing A Character In Pain

Other Stuff:

DnD Subclass & Profession Ideas

Urban Neurosis - Carl Jung

Keeping Character Sexualities In-Character

Twin Protagonists

Master Masterlist <- Go here to see every other Masterlist. Mostly fandoms.

[simlicious]

Use of AI in my patterns

I've got a comment on my latest post that I want to address properly:

"Please dont use image generators. They use a lot of water and power and just. Its disrespectful to us artists who had our works scraped and thrown into the sludge maker."

Thank you @cats-n-witchcraft for voicing your concerns in a friendly and respectful way.

I've thought about this a lot and also had a long talk with a friend to dive into the topic a bit more and mull everything over. Since it is a long answer, it's under the cut! There is also a poll at the end of the text.

The use of AI-generated images is a very divisive topic with extreme opinions on both ends, some pleading against and some for the use of AI. I do not have an extreme opinion but I am somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. Maybe it has to do something with my age or my personality type in that I always try to see things from different perspectives and like to find a middle ground in a lot of things. I understand both sides and think that both sides have some valid arguments pro and contra AI.

I definitely think AI use should be regulated and artist's work should be protected. But I also see merit in AI as a tool and in a way to enable creativity in people who aren't artists in the traditional sense with talent, years of practice, or formal training.

What I find horrible is people abusing AI to make fast money, image resource sites getting flooded with the stuff, people not disclosing the use of AI and just showing general scammy behavior. That's just not acceptable. I also think that AI companies have a huge responsibility to reinvest money in environmental projects to make up for the large use of resources. If this is not viable, then the whole business model should definitely be thought over.

Governments should step in and make clear rules regarding AI.

I will happily lend my signature to any ongoing petitions regarding this (feel free to link some in the comments if you have some).

I have always been a curious person and I like to try out new technologies. But I will now stop more often and think "do I need to use AI for this?" I might occasionally use it but I am by no means a power user. AI images are bad quality-wise and it takes work to make them usable or presentable and it does clash with my sense of perfectionism anyway. I only use two different AI image generators, the free Chatgpt with Dall-E 3 that comes integrated into Bing Copilot, and Photoshop's Firefly AI which Adobe claims was not trained on copyrighted materials (hopefully it's true). So far there are only a few occasions I've used them for. They include generating an avatar for a website, a few plumbob images, and a few bizarre Sims 4 caricatures because I was surprised that the AI knew the concept of Sims. I also thought that experiencing that and knowing how such images tend to look helps to spot them "in the wild" so you know what's AI and what isn't.

When I first tried AI, I was enticed by the novelty of making these unique images that I had not seen before anywhere else and was enveloped by the "wonder" of it (that has since worn off).

TBH it is super frustrating to have ideas but not to be able to execute them. I love making patterns for the Sims 3 but I really suck at making them from scratch, I tried a lot but I dislike the outcome of the majority of them and I do not seem to have the skills nor the patience to get to the level of surface pattern design skill required that would be acceptable quality for my perfectionistic brain. So figuring out this way of creating patterns without having to fear copyright strikes because I modified some assets (which is a really big thing in Germany where I live and people get made to pay a shitton of money for copyright infringement) was like a drug for my brain. It is hard to resist its satisfying pull.

I will try harder to find other ways that do not involve AI before considering AI as an option.

I'm sure lots of people try out something they are curious about and that is not really good for you, and we do not make good choices in our lives all the time. Maybe your personal questionable choice is in another department, but there are and will always be people who have different opinions and condemn our way of life in favor of another. I try to make choices that benefit the planet and environment and do not hurt people, but I am not 100% consistent, just like 99,9% of people on this planet, but I try and I care. Generally, I feel sad that we tend to accuse individuals of their behavior instead of accusing the big corporations and governments that are the real cause of the problems.

It can lower our self-esteem and make us feel inadequate because We can see so many areas in which we are not living up to someone else's standard. We have to choose our battles. Generally, I think we should not shame others for picking different battles or having different opinions. We never know the whole picture or reasons for other's opinions and behavior, especially of people we interact with online. We can engage in dialogue to foster understanding though and this is the way to go, and it is why I wrote this long wall of text. Thank you for reading my wall of text!

I want to close with a poll about what you think about the use of AI-generated images in my patterns.

Whenever I may use AI-generated assets/images in my patterns or other CCI will disclose this in the pattern download (if I know they are made by AI). In any case, I would only sporadically make use of AI!

[amurr-reha]

For anyone curious with my screens, since I’m not here to ‘compete’ and I think sharing (even a small bit) is what makes us humble and able to grow. Also to kinda debunk that I have any actual talent lol

I don’t use photoshop or CSP. I actually just use SAI cuz I’m lame lol. I hand edit in there.

Clarity is generally due to the preset which is LeoLights (I adore these and abuse them a lot). Since A’murr is darker toned, it can be a challenge since presets are generally not kind to such, so I have to find very specific lighting for her shots - so lighter tones might have an easier time. I know of people who temporarily set their resolution to 4K for ss only so can try that as well.

I have no clue how lighting works or how to abuse it amazingly (I rarely use the gpose lighting to its fullest FML). I utilize in game lighting more than anything.

I have a really good sense of where mods can be found across all sites (both free and paid) and play in Glamourer constantly (my friends can attest to this addiction lmao) until I make one I like and then I go find a setting (or vice versa).

WCIF discord is great help as well- I will never not promote it, I’m also WCIF friendly. 

A’murr is really pretty so she carries my gposes :3c

Mods aren’t everything - Vanilla can be just as striking and beautiful, never feel like one is greater than the other. I look up to a ton of vanilla users who have 20x more talent and produce screens better than anything I’ll EVER do.

Otherwise I really don’t do anything special, I have aphantasia so it takes me 500 days to pose & that’s why I can’t do in-person/in real time collabs. 

[honeyjars-sims]

I have the first 8 posts of my story Safe Harbor queued up! I wanted to give a little more info before it starts. (No one asked for this, but I have a pathological need to be thorough)

The posting schedule will be on Tuesdays (Messer family) and Wednesdays (Owens-Haim family) at 12:00 PM Eastern (both EDT and EST) starting on March 28th.

This story will cover difficult topics including physical and emotional abuse (including children), mental illness, homophobia, poverty, drug use/addiction, alcohol use/dependency, and death (something I usually avoid but no one is immortal in this story), plus potentially upsetting topics like smoking, adoption, and pregnancy. I will try to tag things, but these topics will be prevalent in the story. I will use the tag stk safe harbor for my story posts if you want to keep following but don't want to read the story.

You don't have to read both of the stories for them to make sense (for now at least), though I of course hope you do! The storylines will intersect at some points in some minor and some major ways, however, so keep that in mind.

I will be writing about topics I'm unfamiliar with. Thus, I may get some details wrong about how certain jobs functions or different processes work. Please feel free to reach out if I misrepresent something.

I have a reason for posting 2 different families that will be revealed in Chapter 2. I have a lot of the major storylines planned out so I have definite ideas of where things are heading (with some wiggle room for new ideas as they come along).

This is my first time writing dialogue and editing photos in this context, plus learning to use poses, T.O.O.L, Photoshop, etc. so I'm still learning. I've already noticed some clipped poses, typos, inconsistency with skin details/facial hair, etc. but that is to be expected.

(related to above) This is more personal, but I wanted to share that I am on a waiting list to be evaluated for ADHD (finally). I struggle with things that require attention to detail, following specific steps, keeping track of things, I could go on. It has made this process difficult, but I will hopefully see improvements if I'm able to be diagnosed/treated for my symptoms.

Anyways, I'm looking forward to sharing this story with you all and I really hope you enjoy it! I am always open to constructive feedback and interaction.

[jennkenobionline]

OBS CAMERA TUTORIAL

Wondered how you can go from THIS?

TO THIS?!

with literally two lamps, some trial and error and OBS? I got you!

For the record I am using the Logitech Brio in both photos, I've made adjustments with my lighting set up and while it's still not PERFECT it's a lot nicer to look at (in my opinion)

Now for this you will need:

-A webcam -two-three light sources (lamp, ringlight, softbox, etc) -OBS -Splitcam (optional, but I find it give me better control of my colour correction needs) -LUTs (once again, optional!)

Onward to the tutorial!!

When I say lighting is important, I MEAN IT. I learned a lot from lighting when a friend who was in photography taught me the 3 point lighting system. Basically to avoid "dorito shadows" as I like to call them on your face you need to have at least two light sources pointing on you at once. My set up looks like this:

I know, what on earth am I doing streaming when I should be making ART.

Anyways, I have two main source lights (three would be ideal) I have a soft box that is placed slightly to my left and pointing DOWN at me and a ringlight that is directly in front of me with my webcam pointed slightly angled at me (does that make sense?!) behind me are my 'mood' lighting, the fancy coloured lights that give my room the neon-spacey-retrowave kinda vibe I like. You can use whatever lights you want depending on your own personal style! I literally use a $10 ringlight, a soft box lamp, some LED colour changing bulbs in random lamps and some fairy lights I got off amazon. NOTHING FANCY!

Option 1. OBS These are settings that I ALWAYS deselect and play with as leaving it to the webcam software to auto-adjust leads to yellowy, dull or over exposed visuals.

After adding your webcam source select it, right click and select PROPERTIES

then select "Configure Video"

you will get a pop up that looks like this. Now to avoid your camera looking super WARM or COLD or risking a blow out from high exposure DESELECT the following: - White Balance - Exposure (found in 'Camera Control' Tab) - Focus - Low Light Compensation

Then adjust accordingly to how you'd like your camera to look. Don't forget to play with brightness, contrast & saturation!

Next up are LUTs

Luts stand for Look Up Tables and are meant for colour correcting photos/video. You can find a lot for FREE however, I make my own based on the specific colour correcting I require. To use LUTs in OBS right click your camera source and select FILTERS

Here you will see a section for audio/video filters and one for effect filters. We are using effect filters!

Hit the '+' at the bottom and select "Apply Lut"

Now you need to locate your file folder you keep your Luts you've either made or downloaded in, you can also adjust the amount on your lut filter to appear nicer and not so harsh.

For further adjusting hit the '+' again in the effect filter area and select "colour correction" here you can adjust brightness or contrast further as well as Gamma and Hue!

Option 2. Splitcam Video Driver

Download Splitcam! https://splitcam.com/ Splitcam offers dual streaming but with how I run my stream (alerts, graphics, scene switching) I use it as a webcam source.

Splitcam offers a LOT of adjustments that can make your webcam feel more like a DSLR (if your computer is capable of handling it)

Once you've added your webcam via Media Layers +

Click the three dots '...' next to your camera source and select Driver Properties and deselect the same settings I listed in the OBS tutorial

Now Splitcam offers SO MUCH so I will only tell you the settings I mostly use.

Quick adjust, essentially adjusts the colours of your entire "canvas" it also offers a skin smoothing tool (however you need a stronger PC for this to work otherwise it will look all stuttery)

In before a viewer sees this and goes all "OMG FAKE!! U USE FILTERS OMG!!!!111" shut the FUCK UP, no one ASKED YOU, and you are probably the same lame ass who drools over someone who ABUSED the liquify tool in photoshop to the point their background is warped because she looks like a cartoon mom from the 90s. PUH-LEEZE (no offence to those ladies, you do you boo, just poking fun at the people who actually think it's real lmao)

Next up are EFFECTS! Click the three dots next to your camera source

Here you will see where you can adjust colour and light, LUTs, backgrounds, frames, masks (I DO NOT recommend using any of these, some adjust eye colour/slim your face and look WEIRD AF)

Go around and play with what is there and see what you like! I personally use LUTs in here as well as the Highlight/Shadow effect to adjust for what looks best for me. As well as in 'Background' I use Blur to give my webcam that depth that DSLRs have!

Now from here I then go into OBS to select my finished colour corrected source and select "Splitcam Video Driver" as a 'Video Capture Device' then add all my cool overlays as I'd like!

I hope this tutorial is alright, and my bad if it's kinda rushed!

[kellygreenphotography]

New digital art for you today. The piece is titled "The Morrigan." As an Irish pagan myself, I find this goddess fascinating. She is a goddess of sovereignty which means she protects people and the land. The Morrigan also confronts those who abuse power, this is drawn from the mythology. Considering the times we live in, in the US, I find learning about her and from her very helpful. The Morrigan is also a shapeshifter and this piece references that aspect of her. If you are interested in learning more about The Morrigan I would recommend https://irishpaganschool.com/ to learn from native Irish people. And if you enjoy my work visit patreon.com/KellyPaalArtist to support my work, purchase wallpaper for your PC or cell phone, and get benefits like early access to videos and more. I will be editing a video showing the creation of this piece and my 2$ tier will get early access to that. This digital piece was drawn on my Xp-pen graphics tablet in Photoshop. No AI was used. I did use free for commercial use animal photos for reference and an artist's model for pose references for The Morrigan.

[finalprojectgroup20]

Women's Expectations and Beauty Standards in Sports and Athletics: Unit 1

Something that has always stayed in the back of my mind while growing up as an athlete myself is watching sports and major sporting events like the Olympics. Women are constantly being viewed not only for their performance but also for the way they look and how they are portrayed to the eye of the public. I am not saying that this is only a problem for women in this particular professional world but that they have it much harder. The standards are through the roof for how they should look, act, sound, and behave to make the public and media happy. This does affect all athletes, but you dont typically see men photoshopping themselves to appear extremely skinny or changing their body shape while they are on the field or jumping from bar to bar like Livvy Dunne did to appease her audience. 

Dunne photoshopped her shoulders and torso to be smaller in comparison to the original picture. Later dealt with a huge amount of backlash for this performance on social media and took down the photo since so many people were shaming her. Not ever considering why she felt the need to edit her photos since she is already an amazing gymnast. Female athletes aren't just competing for a spot in the top ranking, they are also competing with each other for fame and camera time, something only gifted to athletes if they meet all the criteria that the media wants to see - skinny, beautiful, blemish-free, flawless, and overall the “perfect” body that women are brainwashed into striving to be. It's such a dangerous world to be thrown into and if not taken with a grain of salt. You might end up in the firing range like Dunne. 

This isn't new either since women have been allowed to participate in sporting events and teams they have been criticized for how they look and less on how they perform. This appearance-obsessed culture is something that has been riddling with dance and gymnastics since the start of it all. Women all over the world have come forward to speak out about USA coaches who have starved and even forced them into extreme diets while shaming young girls who could not shed weight due to their genetics or body shape. Garber writes “ However, dictating female athletes’ bodies is unfortunately commonplace in virtually every sport”. This isn't just coaches and managers who are trying to force eating habits and dictate the weight of women. Just this last February, track star Mary Cain also known as “The fastest woman in America” set a lawsuit against her personal Nike coach for forcing her into an abusive diet, starving her into submission that later resulted in a deep and overwhelming depression episode that lasted for months. 

Another case in 2016 with the tennis star Eugenie Bouchard came out where she spoke out about her battle with an eating disorder due to the pressure and expectations from the outside world and herself. Women are more than what they look like and how the media is portraying them to be and if the whole world can't see that then the harm will continue to follow suit for these amazing athletes that dont get to truly shine without someone or something trying to bring them down for not being what they want them to be. With my lasting words on the subject, I would like to inform you that through the National Eating Disorder Association, 62% of female athletes in weight class or aesthetic sport suffer from some type of eating disorder. I hope you let that information sit with you before you try to judge an athlete for more than how they perform in their sport.

Work Cited:

Savage, M. (2012). Body image in sports. Character Education - Santa Clara University. https://www.scu.edu/character/resources/body-image-in-sports/ 

Majumder, A. (2023, November 6). Olivia Dunne Sparks internet backlash over “photoshop” controversy in latest post. EssentiallySports. https://www.essentiallysports.com/us-sports-news-gymnastics-news-olivia-dunne-sparks-internet-backlash-over-photoshop-controversy-in-latest-post/ Garber, E. (2020, March 10).

Female athletes are worth more than their appearance. Massachusetts Daily Collegian. https://dailycollegian.com/2020/03/female-athletes-are-worth-more-than-their-appearance/

[palidoozy-art]

Sorry if you’ve answered this before, but what website do you use to play DND? The map layouts and character tokens look really good and I’m hoping to have something similar for the online game I’m running with my friends.

No worries! I fuckin' love talking about D&D and my campaign, thank you for giving me the opportunity.

So for tools we use to play D&D -- we currently run D&D in Foundry. It has an up-front cost ($40, no subscription), but only requires a single license and then the DM can host it on their machine while everyone else connects. It has a TON of modules that allow you to customize it, including a DND beyond importer.

That said, it does cost, y'know, money. We switched to foundry for the post-Curse of Strahd campaign. Originally for Curse of Strahd we actually used roll20. Roll20 is free, but there were minor things that I didn't like about it that caused me to switch.

But if cost is your concern or you're just doing a oneshot and don't want to invest, go for roll20 imo. If you do, HIGHLY recommend you install the VTT enhancement suite and Beyond20 (if you use D&D Beyond) which improve the site immensely.

For the maps -- I vary what I use. I use the following tools and programs:

Azgaar's Fantasy Map Generator

Watabou's City Generator

Inkarnate

DungeonDraft

My own hands

Azgaar's Fantasy Map Generator is what I usually use to create a baseline for a world map, including a first draft of town and country names. I'll treat it like a rough draft before taking it into photoshop, drawing over it, and adjusting it to my liking. I generated the base of my game's world map in Azgaar's before I drew over it and adjusted it to fit my needs.

Watabou's City Generator is actually built into Azgaar's to some extent (click on any town name and it'll give you a link), but you can generate it manually, too! I used to use it to generate the city maps I'd give to my players. Here's an example of Thatking, the capital of Zarova (formerly Treteria). For reference -- the party fought the Queen here, and Kjosev died in the Citadel.

Nowadays, when I build cities, I actually use the next website on the list -- Inkarnate. I'll might use Watabou's for a base, but I use Inkarnate for polish.

Inkarnate is extremely good at two things: cities, and open-world battlemaps. Here's the lizardfolk capital of Savegoria, Paign! It's where Yolihuali is from. I built it solely through Inkarnate.

One of the things I like about Inkarnate is that it lets you adjust the hue/saturation of the little tokens you can put down, which I abused the HELL out of when I made battlemaps for Twilight Woods. Here's one of the random forest battle maps I made:

Now that said: Inkarnate sucks ass at making rooms. There's allegedly something in the works to address this... but currently you have to place every wall manually, and it sucks. That's actually where Dungeondraft comes in.

Dungeondraft is a little more cartoony, but it's great at building interiors and rooms. Unlike Inkarnate, it's not through the internet -- it's just a program you buy. But I've found decent use out of it. I built the entire map for the University of Temir in it (note: this is a snippet, the map is enormous)

And here's an example of the players' early bunkhouse, back when their town was underdeveloped! Both built using Dungeondraft.

VERY VERY RARELY I'll hand-draw a battlemap. Usually this is done because I've already tried to build the map in other tools and I wasn't happy with it, or I couldn't get it to look like the vision in my head. For example, I drew the map to Tephelt's lair by hand (snippet below: it's too big to post)

(Note: if it looks light, that's actually because I set up the lighting in Foundry. This is the equivalent of looking at a horror movie set with the lights on. Below is what it looks like in-game to my players, with Rahadin and Tephelt for size)

i also drew this little sleepy town for some reason. i don't know why. i think literally for fun.

For the tokens -- most of the ones you guys see I draw by hand. It's a decent amount of work, but my players love it. Plus I think they're cute. They are available for free and anyone can use them, as long as you don't claim credit or anything. The PSDs are included as well, so if you want to edit one or dig around in there, you can! Some of my favorites:

Now that said I'll be totally honest: I do not hand-draw every token for my players. I can't. I already put a lot of work into the campaign, and I can't feasibly draw every token when it comes to random encounters. For those, I use Token Stamp 2 to create a token from an image!

Anyway, sorry this was long. I hope it's helpful. It gave me an opportunity at least to post some of the maps I make -- I usually don't post them.

[that-gay-jedi]

I've been saying "Not everything is that deep" to myself for like 10+ years but it actually is ALL that deep.

I like to sit in the woods because they're beautiful. I like the relative quiet, the ancientness and bigger-than-me-ness and aliveness of it all, but maybe I also grew to like the woods bc my parents were afraid of them and kiddie me was afraid of my parents. It's okay if the reason I associate the dark and monsters with safety is that they kept the people and things I had reason to fear away. It's okay if I celebrate this now by wearing all black and embracing various edgy and/or unsettling aesthetics and make it a big part of my personality. It's okay to become more and more of a faggot specifically because it upsets the kind of people who want me tamed and neatly put in a box. Like. Actually it's okay for responses to my living environment to be part of my identity. I can be a creature that lives in a place and has experiences.

I'm gradually figuring out the small things are allowed to be big things. It's okay if the only reason I don't like certain fictional characters is that past abusers liked them. I'm allowed (as long as I don't unfairly take it out on anyone) to get so viscerally angry every time my face itches bc my body remembers that one time a family member who noticed me scratching nose invaded my personal space and startled the fuck out of me based on some dumb superstition. It's okay if shallow things like liking Halloween or hating Christmas come from a collection of small, only moderately impactful personal experiences that gradually congealed into preferences over time and now I feel strongly about them because they span so many things at once.

Like maybe shit is allowed to all come back to one thing and maybe that one thing is my trauma and maybe that's okay and when people talk about not letting your trauma define you sometimes I think there's a fundamental disconnect bc all that stuff was inflicted on me with the intent of turning me into a particular kind of person, the whole reason it was trauma was BECAUSE it defined me, and maybe I should stop thinking it's negative or stupid (or self-centered or short-sighted or whatever other adjective of Do Not Want is applied) to acknowledge that and being told I'm never going to live a full, happy life unless I act in a specific way is probably just replicating my traumas and if acting in a way that's nost natural and freeing also involves a lifelong dialogue with my traumatized wounded animal self that probably just means I'm a living being with a biological brain that I can't alter by just deleting a few lines of code.

I really do feel like a lot of the messages we get about recovering and developing an identity outside of trauma have this unrealistic expectation that you should summon a concept of who you want to be out of thin air and embody it completely unbound from any prior experiences or states of being and that's just no more realistic or healthy than the idea that a physical body needs to have a thigh gap and perfectly flat photoshop stomach. They're both about shrinking yourself to achieve an impossible ideal that for most people is actively harmful if you do achieve it, and all just for the sake of being able to say you Did It Right and/or that anyone else is Doing It Wrong.

Yes, I do get to choose who I'm going to be, but I don't get to make that choice in a vacuum and neither do you and I don't think we should have to make it look like we did.

There were kids in my classes in high school who always got good grades and would vocally claim on a semi-regular basis that they never studied, that all they did was play video games and/or basketball/hockey, and that they never did anything intellectual for fun either. And it was never true. I always wondered why it was so important to them that people think they just magically knew all the material. Why would doing the work be shameful?

And I think I get it now. Nobody wants to be seen as real people who have to either do nerdy shit for fun or actively try in school in order to know stuff. Socially, we're rewarded for making everything seem so effortless and perfect and powerful and individualist that it it's actively unrealistic, you're supposed to be a cloud of mist. It applies as much as having a good relationship or a fulfilling life or a healthy lifestyle etc as it does to getting good grades. It's gouche to be a mere mortal.