#i'm glad i asked

[celestialtrolls]

this is genuinely very enlightening

[fox-mulder-gets-pegged]

I just wanna say bc I KNOW you're somewhere on tumblr, to the teenage girl who attended Take Your Kid To Work Day at an office building in Ontario, Canada circa 2013 and had a conversation with a middle aged woman in which you showed her your Black Veil Brides fanart and fanfics and ship content and told her about different fanfic tropes including a/b/o verse bc she happened to know who Panic! at The Disco and Fallout Boy were and thus you felt the need to show her your bandblr ship art, that was my fucking mother and I had to clarify all that to her including looking my mother in the eye and trying to explain a/b/o verse without sounding like a lunatic.

It's been 10 years and I still regularly sent evil energies in your direction. Since you'd be probably two years younger than me and thus legally an adult now, please know if this post reaches you it's on sight.

[a-rabbit-obsessed-queer]

Aspec men deserve much more respect and recognition in the aspec community than they receive. They often face a different form of aphobia specific to them ("men are naturally sexual they can't be ace" "all men are unromantic that's not unique") this rhetoric is spouted by many, even members of our own community and I hope for a day where that is no longer the case. As an ace and demiro woman (demigirl but that's beside the point) I want to encourage folks to take the time to give the aspec men in their lives support and to the aspec men reading, you are who you say you are no matter what people say and you deserve the world. I'm sorry for the ways in which toxic masculinity has harmed you. You are a valued member of the aspec community and the queer community as a whole. No ace or aro person is broken and neither are you. I'm sorry if anyone has ever told you otherwise.

[keferon]

The tac net crash chapter is one of my favorites so far~

Ah and. Guess what. I just discovered that including this post, I made 50 pieces of fanart for Mistakes on mistakes until.. I’m so sane and normal about this story can you tell👍

[thebigolbee]

why do you draw Mr.House kinda… 😳

The amount of hours I've spent thinking about this fool is genuinely bananas

[technically-human]

Can you draw something with Doom Patrol!Edwin and Netflix!Edwin?

Maybe something about Dp!Edwin talking about his feelings for Charles with N!Edwin?

It's just something I've been thinking of, make it a little angsty?<3

Glad you asked

ko-fi

[anonymous-harpy]

This has been on my mind all fuckin day for some reason...

[pokimoko]

If you're still doing the pride flag animal things..

Could you do an aroace Jaguar or Raven?

I just thought they might look cool.

An aroace raven is very cool, I agree. Here ya go!

[lazylittledragon]

the thing that i love so much about my relationship is that i feel absolutely zero pressure for us to be in eachother's pockets constantly. not just in the way that we like to have our own space sometimes but that i don't feel guilty for getting fixated on a project and not texting him or leaving him on read for a few hours. we have a system where i just say "i'm so sorry, i fell down the Art Hole again" and he says "that's ok, was the art hole fun, can i see what you did in there?". or if i have a feeling i'm going to draw until late at night i'll be like "pre warning, i might be in the art hole this evening" and when i'm done he's texted me goodnight anyway.

tldr: find someone who doesn't get mad at you for crawling into a hole and instead helps you out of the hole and asks what you saw down there

[gummi-ships]

Kingdom Hearts 3 - The Caribbean

[alenkosx]

Then & Now. 

“She likes you.”

“She didn’t at first.”

[nouverx]

how ya draw alastor is so cute!

Thank you Angie!! 💖 I always notice your reblogs you're so sweet 😭

Here's a quick little Angel Dust I made the other day when I was getting back on CSP!

[heretherebeturtles-comic]

Hello! Many people have said this but ill say it too, I LOVE YOUR COMIC SO MUCH ( ´ ▽ ` ).｡ｏ♡

I really wanted to ask you about how you do the backgrounds? (Something i struggle with) whats the process? Like from start to finish, also, to do the rise backgrounds do you use reference from the show and generally real photo of ny? Or do you come up with them? And last question- The shadow and light on the background- Like HOW

i know it’s a lot of questions but i’m just so curious qwq and wanna learn to be better, thank you again in case you read this and respond, in case you don’t, i hope you have a nice day and a wonderful life uwu keep up the great work! (≧◡≦) ♡

Backgrounds are a really broad subject and I'm always a little overwhelmed when asked this question. Just like drawing the human body, backgrounds take time, repetition, and practice!

My answer got a bit long, so it's going under a read more :) but if you digest info better in video format I found this on youtube

It pretty much goes over everything I wanted to say, but in a much better way. I wish I had found it before writing all this out lol

ok, first of all, I'm not a teacher nor was I built to be one of those cool helpful art tutorial people who do a full coloured tutorial filled with illustrations. This is just going to be a messy "how I do backgrounds / environment layouts from start to finish." kinda thing.

... lets start with a sight tangent.

Sketch from Life!!!

If you want to get better at backgrounds I recommend doing some sketching out in the real world!

When I was first getting into doing backgrounds I went to cafes and parks to just sketch the buildings and objects. Sketch rocks, flowers, clumps of grass, garbage cans, bottles, tables, street signs, etc. If you are drawing a tree observe how the trunks twist, how the bark flows, or how the leaves are bunched.

If you can't leave the house the same still applies! Sketch the interiors of your house, the walls, or common objects like chairs and bookshelves. How are objects stacked? items on the floor?

If you aren't comfortable with drawing outside or in public you can take some photos to draw from! They are good for practice and you can use them again as references later. Alternatively you can find pictures online of buildings and objects to sketch as practice.

All spaces have objects in them, it becomes easier to draw those kinds of spaces when you already have spent time observing and sketching them.

ALSO! They don't have to be good sketches! It's just to build out your mental catalogue and strengthen your perception of perspective.

now the actual thing...

BACKGROUNDS

(the pictures used for this are my own. I dug them out of my 2022 folder)

Backgrounds have slightly different rules based on what you are making them for. Videogame Environment Concept Art vs Animation Layouts vs Comic Backgrounds vs Illustration backgrounds.

They all follow the same basics, which I will go over here, but the intention and function of those designs are going to be different. It's all about how you set up the scene and what it's purpose is!

Brainstorming and Thumbnailing

I like to think about a location as though it is a character. An abandoned old house with creaky sagging floorboards is very different from a futuristic space ship with sharp metal floor panels. A gas station has a very different feeling from a library.

I usually start by asking what is this location's story? Why was it built and for what purpose? What kinds of things does this room need to fulfill that purpose? You don’t need solid answers, but its good to be thinking about it while you are working.

Next, sketch some ideas for how this place is going to look. For me, this usually involves drawing the idea from multiple angles and then making lists & small sketches of the objects I think should be filling the space.

Example: The main character of my original work is a Wanderer. They collect a lot of things on their travels, but those items have to be small enough to be easily carried in a backpack. I wanted his room to be in the corner of an attic, walled off by curtains, and filled with trinkets. You can see some of my brainstorming above.

References

I only look for references after I've done some sketching and planning; this is to solidify my idea first so that I don't accidentally copy anyone else's work. I will make a moodboard with pictures of lighting, colours, items, rooms with specific ceiling beams, old chairs, etc. basically whatever I feel fits the vibe.

Honestly, I don't use references as much as I should. For ROTTMNT fanart I look at backgrounds and screenshots from the series to study the style. I also reference actual photos of NYC to get a feel for how Rise condenses the visual information.

In general, it's good to have references of real life objects/locations, because there are so many details like cracks in pavement, stickers on polls, crowning on buildings, fancy fencing, weird chair legs, etc. that you might not think of. It's the imperfect details that can make a location feel more alive.

Perspective

Once you have your chosen sketch we move to.... the infamous perspective boxes. Doing backgrounds is just learning to be comfortable drawing So Many boxes and carving items out of them.

Many better artists than myself have made videos on perspective, vanishing points, and all the technical bits. Videos like THIS ONE and THIS ONE are helpful (this post is great too!!). There are probably a lot of classes to be found on Skillshare or Schoolism. I learned a lot of this in my college art course, so I can't give you a specific video which helped me.

You can get by and be a good artist without learning this stuff. There are quite a few successful artists who have admitted they never bothered to learn perspective (one of these people even made a whole graphic novel series).

I personally avoided properly learning this stuff until I was in my 20s because I thought it would be boring and difficult to do. tbh I really wish I had learned it earlier because it's so much fun to make those silly little boxes imo. It looks scary and complicated but, just like drawing humans, it just takes time, repetition, and practice to develop the knowledge and skills.

Cleanup

You have your boxes and lines! Cool! Now to make a scene out of it. Fill in the details, get everything placed were you want it! Generally, the lines of each item will point back towards the horizon line, but they can have different perspective points.

Generally you would want to clean it up and get your room completely sketched before doing the lineart. I tend to combine the steps (not recommended)

Lineart

I've mentioned how I do this before. Closer objects have thicker lines and more detailed inside. Further objects have thinner lines and less detail. I didn't quite achieve that balance with the image below, but it's close enough.

Colours and Shading will have to be a separate post. In the meantime, I highly recommend the book "Color and Light" by James Gurney. I used to borrow it from my local library and a good chunk of my knowledge was learned from it :)

[indolentjellyfish]

Added all remaining and forgotten sea slugs to my shop here!

(If anyone ever wants to link others please use this url, thanks! https://indolentjellyfish.etsy.com )

[deoidesign]

"what do hands mean about a character?"

Their hands mean they love eachother

(webcomic)

[hedgehog-moss]

do you have recommendations for introspective fiction? :) i've been craving for something for my brain to much on that will also cause me pain, but i honestly have no clue where to get that. any advice?

Hello! I had trouble finding ideas at first because all the introspective & thought-provoking books that came to mind were nonfiction (diaries, etc—especially when it comes to women writers) but here are 10 suggestions, with excerpts :) Note that I took your "cause me pain" request seriously; these are not exactly feel-good reads.

Steppenwolf, Herman Hesse Man is not capable of thought in any high degree, and even the most spiritual and highly cultivated of men habitually sees the world and himself through the lenses of delusive formulas and artless simplifications—and most of all himself. For it appears to be an inborn ... need of all men to regard the self as a unit. In reality, however, every ego ... is in the highest degree a manifold world, a constellated heaven, a chaos of forms, of states and stages, of inheritances and potentialities. It appears to be a necessity as imperative as ... breathing for everyone to be forced to regard this chaos as a unity and to speak of his ego as though it were a one-fold and clearly detached and fixed phenomenon. Even the best of us shares the delusion.

Notes From Underground, Fyodor Dostoevsky Why, suffering is the sole origin of consciousness. Though I did lay it down at the beginning that consciousness is the greatest misfortune for man, yet I know man prizes it and would not give it up for any satisfaction. Consciousness, for instance, is infinitely superior to twice two makes four. Once you have mathematical certainty there is nothing left to do or to understand. There will be nothing left but to bottle up your five senses and plunge into contemplation.

The Book of Disquiet, Fernando Pessoa I asked for very little from life, and even this little was denied me. A nearby field, a ray of sunlight, a little bit of calm along with a bit of bread, not to feel oppressed by the knowledge that I exist, not to demand anything from others, and not to have others demand anything from me — this was denied me, like the spare change we might deny a beggar not because we're mean-hearted but because we don't feel like unbuttoning our coat.

Ishmael, Daniel Quinn All sorts of creatures on this planet appear to be on the verge of attaining self-awareness and intelligence. We were never meant to be the only players on that stage. [But] man is the first of all these. He is the trailblazer, the pathfinder. [….] Man’s place in the world is to be the first without being the last. Man’s place is to figure out how it’s possible to do that—and then to make room for all the rest who are capable of becoming what he’s become.

The Lady and the Little Fox Fur, Violette Leduc Her hope was stored in a safe place. On tiptoe, avidly, she gazed through the windows. ... She was filled with a fixed determination to pay the next month’s rent, to sally forth once more to the pawnbroker’s, to offer him the clothes off her back, to sell her teeth, ... but at all costs to go on living against the panes of strangers’ windows. She bumped into women hurriedly buying food for their dinners; she was breathing the oxygen meant for people who had spent their day working. To cry out that it was impossible for her to begin her life all over again would be useless.

The Last Summer of Reason, Tahar Djaout The city with the many forms of iridescence that once danced on the foam ... is now a field of merciless thorns. Love is a recumbent effigy, a dead tree. Song flees into exile. ... Books—the closeness of them, their contact, their smell, and their contents—constitute the safest refuge against this world of horror. They are the most pleasant and the most subtle means of traveling to a more compassionate planet.

The Royal Game, Stefan Zweig They did nothing—other than subjecting us to complete nothingness. For, as is well known, nothing on earth puts more pressure on the human mind than nothing. ... There was nothing here that could release me from my thoughts, from my obsession with them, from my pathological reiteration of them. And that was exactly what they intended: I was to choke and choke on my thoughts until they asphyxiated me.

Dawn, Elie Wiesel [Words] serve only to give meaning to our actions. And our actions, seen in their true and primitive light, have the odor and color of blood. This is war, we say; we must kill. ... And what else can we do? War has a code, and if you deny this you deny its whole purpose and hand the enemy victory on a silver platter. That we can’t afford. We need victory, victory in war, in order to survive, in order to remain afloat on the surface of time.

Darkness at Noon, Arthur Koestler All our principles were right, but our results were wrong. This is a diseased century. We diagnosed the disease and its causes with microscopic exactness, but wherever we applied the healing knife a new sore appeared. Our will was hard and pure, we should have been loved by the people. But they hate us. Why are we so odious and detested? ... Whenever had a good cause been worse represented? When and where in history had there ever been such defective saints?

All the Lovers in the Night, Mieko Kawakami The job that I was doing, the place where I was living, the fact that I was all alone and had no one to talk to. Could these have been the result of some decision that I’d made? I heard a crow crying somewhere in the distance and turned to the window. It occurred to me that maybe I was where I was today because I hadn’t chosen anything. I had faked it the whole way. ... I was so scared of failing, of being hurt, that I chose nothing. I did nothing.