#is fandom knitting a tag?

[she-posts-nerdy-stuff]

Grishaverse knitting update

I FINISHED THE SIX OF CROWS BLANKET

Okay maybe ‘finished’ is a strong word; all the ends need weaving in (there are so many of them 😭) and I haven’t bought anything to back it with yet but I CAST IT OFF THIS EVENING I’m calling it finished I’m taking the win

The lighting in the photo really isn’t great but here she is in all her glory:

I’m so freaking happy with it

I know a few people asked about the pattern but I don’t have a written one as I just drew up a chart myself and went for it (my second fair isle project ever, and the first was a bauble. I was not ready for this but man I’m glad I just decided to jump I to the deep end because I am obsessed with the result), however I did put up a screenshot of the drawing I used to make my chart a little while ago and if anyone would like me to repost that with my grid superimposed over it and to explain how I did it and what size yarn and needles and everything I used then let me know and I will try to create an explanatory post

I AM SO EXCITED

In other grishaverse knitting news: I haven’t worked on the Kefta in ages tbh but I think I have one sleeve to go before the embroidery I just hate sleeves lol so I’ve been procrastinating and also just generally busy to be fair, and also did I tell y’all I knitted Wylan’s toy crow? I can’t remember, but yeah in my collection of toy crows of the Crows I now have Jesper and Wylan and they sit on my shelf together looking so damn cute. Jesper has a lil hat that he wears at a fun angle and Wylan has lil goggles on his head and a bomb tucked under his wing hehe

[eyrieofsynapses]

why Aurora's art is genius

It's break for me, and I've been meaning to sit down and read the Aurora webcomic (https://comicaurora.com/, @comicaurora on Tumblr) for quite a bit. So I did that over the last few days.

And… y'know. I can't actually say "I should've read this earlier," because otherwise I would've been up at 2:30-3am when I had responsibilities in the morning and I couldn't have properly enjoyed it, but. Holy shit guys THIS COMIC.

I intended to just do a generalized "hello this is all the things I love about this story," and I wrote a paragraph or two about art style. …and then another. And another. And I realized I needed to actually reference things so I would stop being too vague. I was reading the comic on my tablet or phone, because I wanted to stay curled up in my chair, but I type at a big monitor and so I saw more details… aaaaaand it turned into its own giant-ass post.

SO. Enjoy a few thousand words of me nerding out about this insanely cool art style and how fucking gorgeous this comic is? (There are screenshots, I promise it isn't just a wall of text.) In my defense, I just spent two semesters in graphic design classes focusing on the Adobe Suite, so… I get to be a nerd about pretty things…???

All positive feedback btw! No downers here. <3

---

I cannot emphasize enough how much I love the beautiful, simple stylistic method of drawing characters and figures. It is absolutely stunning and effortless and utterly graceful—it is so hard to capture the sheer beauty and fluidity of the human form in such a fashion. Even a simple outline of a character feels dynamic! It's gorgeous!

Though I do have a love-hate relationship with this, because my artistic side looks at that lovely simplicity, goes "I CAN DO THAT!" and then I sit down and go to the paper and realize that no, in fact, I cannot do that yet, because that simplicity is born of a hell of a lot of practice and understanding of bodies and actually is really hard to do. It's a very developed style that only looks simple because the artist knows what they're doing. The human body is hard to pull off, and this comic does so beautifully and makes it look effortless.

Also: line weight line weight line weight. It's especially important in simplified shapes and figures like this, and hoo boy is it used excellently. It's especially apparent the newer the pages get—I love watching that improvement over time—but with simpler figures and lines, you get nice light lines to emphasize both smaller details, like in the draping of clothing and the curls of hair—which, hello, yes—and thicker lines to emphasize bigger and more important details and silhouettes. It's the sort of thing that's essential to most illustrations, but I wanted to make a note of it because it's so vital to this art style.

THE USE OF LAYER BLENDING MODES OH MY GODS. (...uhhh, apologies to the people who don't know what that means, it's a digital art program thing? This article explains it for beginners.)

Bear with me, I just finished my second Photoshop course, I spent months and months working on projects with this shit so I see the genius use of Screen and/or its siblings (of which there are many—if I say "Screen" here, assume I mean the entire umbrella of Screen blending modes and possibly Overlay) and go nuts, but seriously it's so clever and also fucking gorgeous:

Firstly: the use of screened-on sound effect words over an action? A "CRACK" written over a branch and then put on Screen in glowy green so that it's subtle enough that it doesn't disrupt the visual flow, but still sticks out enough to make itself heard? Little "scritches" that are transparent where they're laid on without outlines to emphasize the sound without disrupting the underlying image? FUCK YES. I haven't seen this done literally anywhere else—granted, I haven't read a massive amount of comics, but I've read enough—and it is so clever and I adore it. Examples:

Secondly: The beautiful lighting effects. The curling leaves, all the magic, the various glowing eyes, the fog, the way it's all so vividly colored but doesn't burn your eyeballs out—a balance that's way harder to achieve than you'd think—and the soft glows around them, eeeee it's so pretty so pretty SO PRETTY. Not sure if some of these are Outer/Inner Glow/Shadow layer effects or if it's entirely hand-drawn, but major kudos either way; I can see the beautiful use of blending modes and I SALUTE YOUR GENIUS.

I keep looking at some of this stuff and go "is that a layer effect or is it done by hand?" Because you can make some similar things with the Satin layer effect in Photoshop (I don't know if other programs have this? I'm gonna have to find out since I won't have access to PS for much longer ;-;) that resembles some of the swirly inner bits on some of the lit effects, but I'm not sure if it is that or not. Or you could mask over textures? There's... many ways to do it.

If done by hand: oh my gods the patience, how. If done with layer effects: really clever work that knows how to stop said effects from looking wonky, because ugh those things get temperamental. If done with a layer of texture that's been masked over: very, very good masking work. No matter the method, pretty shimmers and swirly bits inside the bigger pretty swirls!

Next: The way color contrast is used! I will never be over the glowy green-on-black Primordial Life vibes when Alinua gets dropped into that… unconscious space?? with Life, for example, and the sharp contrast of vines and crack and branches and leaves against pitch black is just visually stunning. The way the roots sink into the ground and the three-dimensional sensation of it is particularly badass here:

Friggin. How does this imply depth like that. HOW. IT'S SO FREAKING COOL.

A huge point here is also color language and use! Everybody has their own particular shade, generally matching their eyes, magic, and personality, and I adore how this is used to make it clear who's talking or who's doing an action. That was especially apparent to me with Dainix and Falst in the caves—their colors are both fairly warm, but quite distinct, and I love how this clarifies who's doing what in panels with a lot of action from both of them. There is a particular bit that stuck out to me, so I dug up the panels (see this page and the following one https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-20-30/):

(Gods it looks even prettier now that I put it against a plain background. Also, appreciation to Falst for managing a bridal-carry midair, damn.)

The way that their colors MERGE here! And the immense attention to detail in doing so—Dainix is higher up than Falst is in the first panel, so Dainix's orange fades into Falst's orange at the base. The next panel has gold up top and orange on bottom; we can't really tell in that panel where each of them are, but that's carried over to the next panel—

—where we now see that Falst's position is raised above Dainix's due to the way he's carrying him. (Points for continuity!) And, of course, we see the little "huffs" flowing from orange to yellow over their heads (where Dainix's head is higher than Falst's) to merge the sound of their breathing, which is absurdly clever because it emphasizes to the viewer how we hear two sets of huffing overlaying each other, not one. Absolutely brilliant.

(A few other notes of appreciation to that panel: beautiful glows around them, the sparks, the jagged silhouette of the spider legs, the lovely colors that have no right to make the area around a spider corpse that pretty, the excellent texturing on the cave walls plus perspective, the way Falst's movements imply Dainix's hefty weight, the natural posing of the characters, their on-point expressions that convey exactly how fuckin terrifying everything is right now, the slight glows to their eyes, and also they're just handsome boys <3)

Next up: Rain!!!! So well done! It's subtle enough that it never ever disrupts the impact of the focal point, but evident enough you can tell! And more importantly: THE MIST OFF THE CHARACTERS. Rain does this irl, it has that little vapor that comes off you and makes that little misty effect that plays with lighting, it's so cool-looking and here it's used to such pretty effect!

One of the panel captions says something about it blurring out all the injuries on the characters but like THAT AIN'T TOO BIG OF A PROBLEM when it gets across the environmental vibes, and also that'd be how it would look in real life too so like… outside viewer's angle is the same as the characters', mostly? my point is: that's the environment!!! that's the vibes, that's the feel! It gets it across and it does so in the most pretty way possible!

And another thing re: rain, the use of it to establish perspective, particularly in panels like this—

—where we can tell we're looking down at Tynan due to the perspective on the rain and where it's pointing. Excellent. (Also, kudos for looking down and emphasizing how Tynan's losing his advantage—lovely use of visual storytelling.)

Additionally, the misting here:

We see it most heavily in the leftmost panel, where it's quite foggy as you would expect in a rainstorm, especially in an environment with a lot of heat, but it's also lightly powdered on in the following two panels and tends to follow light sources, which makes complete sense given how light bounces off particles in the air.

A major point of strength in these too is a thorough understanding of lighting, like rim lighting, the various hues and shades, and an intricate understanding of how light bounces off surfaces even when they're in shadow (we'll see a faint glow in spots where characters are half in shadow, but that's how it would work in real life, because of how light bounces around).

Bringing some of these points together: the fluidity of the lines in magic, and the way simple glowing lines are used to emphasize motion and the magic itself, is deeply clever. I'm basically pulling at random from panels and there's definitely even better examples, but here's one (see this page https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-16-33/):

First panel, listed in numbers because these build on each other:

The tension of the lines in Tess's magic here. This works on a couple levels: first, the way she's holding her fists, as if she's pulling a rope taut.

The way there's one primary line, emphasizing the rope feeling, accompanied by smaller ones.

The additional lines starbursting around her hands, to indicate the energy crackling in her hands and how she's doing a good bit more than just holding it. (That combined with the fists suggests some tension to the magic, too.) Also the variations in brightness, a feature you'll find in actual lightning. :D Additional kudos for how the lightning sparks and breaks off the metal of the sword.

A handful of miscellaneous notes on the second panel:

The reflection of the flames in Erin's typically dark blue eyes (which bears a remarkable resemblance to Dainix, incidentally—almost a thematic sort of parallel given Erin's using the same magic Dainix specializes in?)

The flowing of fabric in the wind and associated variation in the lineart

The way Erin's tattoos interact with the fire he's pulling to his hand

The way the rain overlays some of the fainter areas of fire (attention! to! detail! hell yeah!)

I could go on. I won't because this is a lot of writing already.

Third panel gets paragraphs, not bullets:

Erin's giant-ass "FWOOM" of fire there, and the way the outline of the word is puffy-edged and gradated to feel almost three-dimensional, plus once again using Screen or a variation on it so that the stars show up in the background. All this against that stunning plume of fire, which ripples and sparks so gorgeously, and the ending "om" of the onomatopoeia is emphasized incredibly brightly against that, adding to the punch of it and making the plume feel even brighter.

Also, once again, rain helping establish perspective, especially in how it's very angular in the left side of the panel and then slowly becomes more like a point to the right to indicate it's falling directly down on the viewer. Add in the bright, beautiful glow effects, fainter but no less important black lines beneath them to emphasize the sky and smoke and the like, and the stunningly beautiful lighting and gradated glows surrounding Erin plus the lightning jagging up at him from below, and you get one hell of an impactful panel right there. (And there is definitely more in there I could break down, this is just a lot already.)

And in general: The colors in this? Incredible. The blues and purples and oranges and golds compliment so well, and it's all so rich.

Like, seriously, just throughout the whole comic, the use of gradients, blending modes, color balance and hues, all the things, all the things, it makes for the most beautiful effects and glows and such a rich environment. There's a very distinct style to this comic in its simplified backgrounds (which I recognize are done partly because it's way easier and also backgrounds are so time-consuming dear gods but lemme say this) and vivid, smoothly drawn characters; the simplicity lets them come to the front and gives room for those beautiful, richly saturated focal points, letting the stylized designs of the magic and characters shine. The use of distinct silhouettes is insanely good. Honestly, complex backgrounds might run the risk of making everything too visually busy in this case. It's just, augh, so GORGEOUS.

Another bit, take a look at this page (https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-15-28/):

It's not quite as evident here as it is in the next page, but this one does some other fun things so I'm grabbing it. Points:

Once again, using different colors to represent different character actions. The "WHAM" of Kendal hitting the ground is caused by Dainix's force, so it's orange (and kudos for doubling the word over to add a shake effect). But we see blue layered underneath, which could be an environmental choice, but might also be because it's Kendal, whose color is blue.

And speaking off, take a look at the right-most panel on top, where Kendal grabs the spear: his motion is, again, illustrated in bright blue, versus the atmospheric screened-on orange lines that point toward him around the whole panel (I'm sure these have a name, I think they might be more of a manga thing though and the only experience I have in manga is reading a bit of Fullmetal Alchemist). Those lines emphasize the weight of the spear being shoved at him, and their color tells us Dainix is responsible for it.

One of my all-time favorite effects in this comic is the way cracks manifest across Dainix's body to represent when he starts to lose control; it is utterly gorgeous and wonderfully thematic. These are more evident in the page before and after this one, but you get a decent idea here. I love the way they glow softly, the way the fire juuuust flickers through at the start and then becomes more evident over time, and the cracks feel so realistic, like his skin is made of pottery. Additional points for how fire begins to creep into his hair.

A small detail that's generally consistent across the comic, but which I want to make note of here because you can see it pretty well: Kendal's eyes glow about the same as the jewel in his sword, mirroring his connection to said sword and calling back to how the jewel became Vash's eye temporarily and thus was once Kendal's eye. You can always see this connection (though there might be some spots where this also changes in a symbolic manner; I went through it quickly on the first time around, so I'll pay more attention when I inevitably reread this), where Kendal's always got that little shine of blue in his eyes the same as the jewel. It's a beautiful visual parallel that encourages the reader to subconsciously link them together, especially since the lines used to illustrate character movements typically mirror their eye color. It's an extension of Kendal.

Did I mention how ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL the colors in this are?

Also, the mythological/legend-type scenes are illustrated in familiar style often used for that type of story, a simple and heavily symbolic two-dimensional cave-painting-like look. They are absolutely beautiful on many levels, employing simple, lovely gradients, slightly rougher and thicker lineart that is nonetheless smoothly beautiful, and working with clear silhouettes (a major strength of this art style, but also a strength in the comic overall). But in particular, I wanted to call attention to a particular thing (see this page https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-12-4/):

The flowing symbolic lineart surrounding each character. This is actually quite consistent across characters—see also Life's typical lines and how they curl:

What's particularly interesting here is how these symbols are often similar, but not the same. Vash's lines are always smooth, clean curls, often playing off each other and echoing one another like ripples in a pond. You'd think they'd look too similar to Life's—but they don't. Life's curl like vines, and they remain connected; where one curve might echo another but exist entirely detached from each other in Vash's, Life's lines still remain wound together, because vines are continuous and don't float around. :P

Tahraim's are less continuous, often breaking up with significantly smaller bits and pieces floating around like—of course—sparks, and come to sharper points. These are also constants: we see the vines repeated over and over in Alinua's dreams of Life, and the echoing ripples of Vash are consistent wherever we encounter him. Kendal's dream of the ghost citizens of the city of Vash in the last few chapters is filled with these rippling, echoing patterns, to beautiful effect (https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-20-14/):

They ripple and spiral, often in long, sinuous curves, with smooth elegance. It reminds me a great deal of images of space and sine waves and the like. This establishes a definite feel to these different characters and their magic. And the thing is, that's not something that had to be done—the colors are good at emphasizing who's who. But it was done, and it adds a whole other dimension to the story. Whenever you're in a deity's domain, you know whose it is no matter the color.

Regarding that shape language, I wanted to make another note, too—Vash is sometimes described as chaotic and doing what he likes, which is interesting to me, because smooth, elegant curves and the color blue aren't generally associated with chaos. So while Vash might behave like that on the surface, I'm guessing he's got a lot more going on underneath; he's probably much more intentional in his actions than you'd think at a glance, and he is certainly quite caring with his city. The other thing is that this suits Kendal perfectly. He's a paragon character; he is kind, virtuous, and self-sacrificing, and often we see him aiming to calm others and keep them safe. Blue is such a good color for him. There is… probably more to this, but I'm not deep enough in yet to say.

And here's the thing: I'm only scratching the surface. There is so much more here I'm not covering (color palettes! outfits! character design! environment! the deities! so much more!) and a lot more I can't cover, because I don't have the experience; this is me as a hobbyist artist who happened to take a couple design classes because I wanted to. The art style to this comic is so clever and creative and beautiful, though, I just had to go off about it. <3

...brownie points for getting all the way down here? Have a cookie.

[pixiecactus]

they really love to forget about jeyne poole and beth cassel existence in winterfell when talking about how sansa was the loneliest child to ever be lonely in winterfell.

[xviruserrorx]

(Explanations of what each event is is under the cut along with some of my ramblings)

This is for the main thing. In the theoretical Discord I'm currently making I feel like a lot of things can be done as little mini events along the way if anyone would want to do that. That way, aside from whatever the main event is, we can still do other stuff throughout the year. A lot of this is just ideas I'm throwing out into the wild so to speak and to see what interests everyone.

I also kinda want there to be something laid back too because I know that fandom, the craft community, and the disabled community all intersect big time so yeah. Feel free to yell at me from the tags I want to see everyone's input/ideas!

A week long event: I feel like this is too quick because these things takes a lot of time, but in the theoretical Discord I'm currently making we can do little weekly prompts/challenges if it interests anybody.

Nanowrimo: This is a month long thing where everyone has a 50k novel to work on and you work on it everyday for a month. Similarly can be done with crafts/fiber arts/textiles where everyone picks a project and we each have a goal to meet each day

A select few months: Ex. June-August,

Gift exchange: Again another one of my theoretical ideas, might be difficult, sounds pretty fun, maybe could be used for a holiday event thing?

Draw/Write in your own style: This is when everyone creates someone off of the same prompt/image, but I'm this case it's probably be the same Base pattern.

Bang Event: Two or more people of different or the same mediums (a crocheter, a pattern maker, a knitter etc) pair up and make whatever based off of each other's work.

Round Robin/Telephone: For those who don't know, a Round Robin is when you pass along a fanfic from one person to another and you all start where the last person left off. Telephone is very similar but like in telephone only the first person who starts the project has and knows the pattern while everyone else doesn't. Again with this it may be hard and require a lot of planning but it's worth the mention.

Teams/Game type event: So teams event if when people are put into teams (team blue or team [specific fandom name]) and you just create as much as possible for whatever theme the group picks. Now Game type events (I actually haven't seen any of these in recent year) is when you do the same thing but each round everyone votes and gives points to each other and who ever has the most at the end wins.

Bingo: A bingo card filled usually with different prompts/challenges that can be customized or just picked at random

Masquerade/Guess The Maker: Everyone has a concealed Identity and everyone else has to guess who made what.

[puppyeared]

i wanna post my skip to loafer art but i cant do it knowing ppl are gonna put it on tiktok and pinterest bc itd be like. bringing an invasive species ykwim

[slightlyrebelliouswriter23]

thing is, i'm too much of a gossip to just put down a book i'm not vibing with. i'll continue reading a book/series that i actively hate just because i want to know the tea with a character and her neighbour's boyfriend's best friend. i am too susceptible to the latticework of plot and character to be trusted with my own spare time

[meyerlansky]

i do get really discouraged by the numbers game when it comes to writing, both my own numbers [word count, speed, etc] and by interaction numbers [hits, kudos, comments]. it does bug me that my fic/snippet posts on here don't get as many reblogs as other people's writing, because i'd like to find more people who are interested in what i'm interested in and to hear people's thoughts in tags and stuff

but comparison is the theft of joy etc etc and i'm also aware i tend to gravitate towards less popular ships/characters or less common reads on main characters, and i try to write things i'd want to read, and usually imo they come out pretty good! i put in a lot of research and a lot of effort into the actual writing, and it slows me down but nine times out of ten i'm pleased with the result of things i put that time and care into

and i'm also very, VERY grateful that the people that do interact with my stuff are enthusiastic about it! that's really the most important thing, and i would rather make three fandom friends from writing a fic than get 300 kudos on it

it's tough to not get bogged down in the numbers game, but i do really value the interaction and friendships that come out of the things i put time and effort into creating, and that's what ultimately matters

[yourlocalpossum]

TMNT:Cyberspace

This took SO long to finish PLEASE don't flop i worked really hard on these. My last post abt my iteration already flopped :( the turtles are gay this time

also if u noticed they have scars now >:) mwahahaha can't wait to make the fanfic/comic once i do that, which I am totally not procrastinating

[autism-swagger]

Born to be boring forced to be really good at murder 😔

[eldritch-muppetshow]

recordkeep-ler 2: this time it’s personal

[bug4932]

tagged by @artbyblastweave !

favorite color: ourple

currently reading: twig! im on arc 12. WHERE are the twiggettes on here

last song: i wanna die by harley poe. big violent femmes vibe 👀

last movie: honestly i havent watched anything in a while but ive been thinking abt dead poets society lately, maybe a rewatch soon?

last series: chainsaw man good 👍

sweet savory or spicy: sweet!

craving: chicken tikka marsala… white borscht……

tea or coffee: not particularly big on either but tea came thru for me when i had covid!!

tagging: @skitter-queen @wormgirlswag @tattleneedsbraces @askmannequin @simurghreal @official-prt-ene-pr @chitter-queen and uhhh anyone who wants to

[robinsnest2111]

CAT EAR BEANIE 😸💖

[fullmoonfireball]

ngl it's a little terrifying seeing just how many people have started following me recently. i have to start making actually good posts now or something

[oncillaphoenix]

i keep showing up a decade late to formerly huge fandoms, and on one hand it's great because i miss all the toxic fandom stuff but on the other hand i also miss all the fun art and theory posts.

[vapormage]

you can make fandom posts for a niche game, but Watch Out

[jessmalia]

Just went through my bbc merlin tag and oh boy, nothing will make me feel more in my heart than doing that. It's a show with a lot of flaws, but that's ultimately its biggest strength. Every character is so wonderful and every single dynamic is so beautiful and tragic. If I could only recommend one show for people to watch for the rest of my life I think I would pick that one.