#it took a long time to figure out the color palettes for these two

[starays13]

Another couple of designs for the G!L AU

These guys basically guard Eclipse’s little tower prison (after making some form of amends for the little incident where the twins provoked him and they attacked each other)

I wouldn’t say they’re 100% redeemed or anything, they’re just more morally grey and don’t kill people anymore. They still cause trouble on a regular basis though

[life-take]

Making a Gamut Mask in CSP

Strap in folks! I'm going to show you how to make a "gamut mask" and palette using nothing but a color wheel and Clip Studio Paint!

*I made this tutorial using CSP Pro 1, but the same principles should apply for any version.

Introduction

First, what's a gamut mask? The term comes from physical painting and printing, where artists only have so many pigments to work with. A 'gamut' is the set of all colors that can be mixed from a certain set of pigments. Painters and printers have been looking for 'wide' gamuts for a long time -- so they can make the widest variety of colors from the fewest number of base pigments or dyes. Some base-color sets you may have heard of are CMYK, RGB, or RYB.

One of the easiest ways of making a painting harmonious is to use color theory to limit the number of colors of your palette. The technique of covering up, or 'masking' your reference color wheel also lets the artist see what intermediate colors can be mixed and still remain part of the cohesive palette. And in the physical world, where more pigments means more tubes of paint you have to spend money on, it's important to know exactly how few pigments you can get away with.

In digital art, painters have access to every possible RGB color right out of the gate, which can sometimes feel overwhelming or make it harder to see relationships between colors. So let's try gamut masking! Using this tutorial, you'll make a general-purpose file you can change and adapt to your liking for future projects!

Part I: The Setup

In this tutorial, I'm using a color wheel image obtained from Björn Ottosson's blog, showcasing the OKHSL color space. I like it because the OKHSL space has perceptually constant lightness and saturation per hue. Try out his comparative color picker here. (I also like this image bc it has a transparent background)

You can use whatever color wheel you like! Just one thing is important-- it should gradually become more unsaturated toward the center of the wheel. This saves you some manual color mixing down the road.

Here's our basic layer template. To get started, follow this:

Open your color wheel in Clip Studio Paint. It will be the only layer.

Select the "Frame Border" tool (U), pick the shape or subtool you think is best. I've picked 'polyline' since I'm making a triangle. (HINT: if you want an elliptical/circle shape, click the wrench in the tool properties window, then the "Figure" submenu, then you should see the option to choose an ellipse shape.)

Create the frame shape on the canvas over any section of the wheel. If it's not quite right, choose the "Operation" tool (O) and adjust the rotation, corners, or size of the frame!

You'll now see your frame border shape over the color wheel. Drag the color wheel layer into the Frame folder and it'll be masked!

That's the very basics! Here's some extra steps I took to make it extra helpful:

*In the Frame folder, I added two correction layers: a Hue/Luminosity/Saturation and a Color Balance. The first is in case I want to work with darker/lighter tones. The second is if I want to apply a tint to my gamut while preserving the color relationships of the mask! eg: if I want to make a painting that's overall blue, but still want colors that 'feel' red, yellow, etc compared to the strongest blue.

*I've created a uniform neutral grey layer at the very bottom, so I can judge tones and colors without bias.

*("Folder 1" was unused, just some layers not relevant to this tutorial)

With that mask, you technically have everything you need! For each new painting you want to make a palette for, just edit the shape of the Frame Border layer and change the adjustment layers to your liking. Then you can save it as your favorite image type to use for reference!

But let's talk about how you can further use the mask...to be continued!

[in1-nutshell]

Hi, and so for the request, in TFA Silver Aid …

Do you remember in the Nutshell summaries, where Silver Aid get turn into a Human or genderswap version? Can we see where Silver aid got turn into?

Lets do the human version!

Hope you enjoy!

Silver Aid turns into a human

SFW, Platonic, Romance, Cybertronian (techno organic) reader

TFA

The incident happened while Silver was looking after Sari.

Bumblebee had been called on a mission and someone needed to look after Sari.

The techno organic was ‘grounded’ after a little stunt she pulled on a couple missions ago.

Optimus hated to call in Silver, but it was either her or leave Sari to her own devices.

Quite frankly, he’d rather face Megatron than deal with any disaster the child would cause on their return.

Silver was glad to help her friend.

She was a little bit late though.

Blame it on Megatron and the others not wanting her to leave the base.

After she came it was a smooth afternoon… until the sudden ray beam started flying around.

Sari flying around with her jet pack trying to avoid the beam. Silver seeing the beam head straight towards her: “SARI!” Quickly, Silver Aid grabs Sari to her chassis and feels the sting of the beam on her back. POOF! Two figures fall to the floor. Sari groans standing up, quickly taking notice of the missing spider bot. Sari: “Silver? Silver Aid! Where are you?” Another groan beside her appears as the smoke clears. It was a woman in her underwear swatting the smoke from her face. Underwear with a familiar color palette. Sari goes closer to the woman as she opens her eyes. Sari: “Silver?” Silver Aid: “Sari? Are you okay?” Silver goes to stand up but notices her new hands and freezes. Her hands and eyes quickly travel her arms and legs before looking at the reflection of a puddle to see her VERY human face. Sari carefully coming closer to her: “Silver, everything is going to be—” Silver Aid: “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!” Just in time for the rest of the bots to show up. Optimus is the first to transform and looks around. Optimus: “Sari where is Silver Aid? We just heard her screaming!” Silver looking up at the bots. Silver: “Oppy?” Optimus freezes and looks down at the human woman. Silver tries to stand but has trouble with her legs. Sari is by her side helping her walk to the Prime’s lowered servo. Sari: “We don’t know what happened. There was this weird ray beam thing, and she got hit and POOF!” Silver stumbles onto his servo clutching hie digits like a lifeline. Silver: “Prime?” Optimus: “yeah?” Silver squeezing his digit and looking at him with slight teary eyes: “Don’t let me go.” Optimus pulls her closer to his chassis. Optimus: “I got you… I got you…”

It was later found out that the Professor had been working on his latest invention and the beam had flown out of his lab.

Sari provides Silver with some clothing after coaxing her to let go of Optimus.

It took long with Sari making her try on different outfits she had.

Eventually Silver had on some blue jeans and grey shirt.

The new human still had trouble walking around and mainly stays with Optimus.

Not that she doesn’t trust the other members of the team… but it was more out of a preference thing.

Refused to have anyone else carry her.

Silver on Optimus’s shoulder: “Optimus, what did you tell Megatron once… this happened?” Optimus: “Umm…” Silver raises and eyebrow: “You did tell him about this right? Or at least told him that I wasn’t going to be coming back to the base for a while.” Optimus: “…” Silver looks at the rest of the team: “Did ANYONE tell any of the cons I wasn’t going to be back!?” Prowl: “To be fair, we were more concern with your predicament.” Silver ran her hands throw her hair stressed: “By the Allspark… Someone get me on the line with him now!” Bumblebee: “I’m sure he’s fine. You haven’t been gone the whole day.” Silver looks at him with a deadpan glare: “I left for two days on a steel run and when I came back, he looked like he was going to tear someone’s helm off and shove it back in its frame. So, if you’d be so kind as TO CALL HIM that would be greatly appreciated.” Meanwhile at the Decepticon Base… Megatron drumming his digits on the table trying to mask his anxiousness. Blitzwing: “Shy should have called by now.” Lugnut: “Maybe she just forgot. I forget to report sometimes when I am with Strika.” Starscream: “Yes, but she isn’t with her Conjunx is she.” BEEP BEEP! BEEP BEEP! Megatron quickly answers the com line: “Prime.” Silver over Optimus com line: “Hey Megatron…” Megatron’s posture slightly relaxes: “Silver—I mean Silver Aid; you best have an explanation to why you have not comm in back. And why are you using Prime’s line?” Silver Aid: “Well… about that… because of some… unfortunate circumstances that have recently happened, I won’t be coming back to base until everything is sorted out.” Megatron raises an optic: “And circumstance is?” Silver Aid: “Some having to do with my… physical appearance. But don’t worry! I will be back to the base as soon as it is fixed.” Megatron: “… I want to see.” Silver Aid: “What?” Megatron: “At the park in a couple of nanoclicks.” Silver Aid: “Wait—” The line ended. Silver Aid: “…great…”

Both Autobots and Decepticons arrive at the park at the same time.

Megatron is looking around for any sign of his Conjunx but doesn’t see her.

The only new thing was the new human female in Prime’s servo—Oh…Oh…

Optimus walks forward to the war lord with the human in his servos.

The woman waves shyly at him.

He knows it’s her.

Megatron tries to hold her, but almost quickly let’s go when he hears her yelp in surprise.

The rest of the Cons swarm around to get a better look at their medic’s smaller stature.

It is agreed for Silver Aid’s safety and health that she stay with the Autobots until she returned to normal.

It takes a while before the effects of the ray beam to wear off.

POOF! Silver Aid turns back to normal. Silver Aid with a bright smile looks at her servos: “I’m back! Guys! I’m—oh…” Optimus is groaning from the sudden weight on the back of his helm. Later… Silver Aid swinging into the Decepticon base. Silver Aid: “Hello? Any bot here? I’m back—ACK!”

Silver Aid gets ambushed by a giant bear hug from Lugnut.

When he lets go, Blitzwing’s faces welcome her back with a side hug.

Starscream gives her a pat on the back while mumbling about never pulling a stunt like that again.

Megatron just wordlessly throws Silver Aid over his shoulder and heads straight to their room.

The war lord is quite attentive to Silver for the next few days and private affection increases to a tenfold under the simple statement of ‘catching up on time loss’.

[i-am-hungry-24-7]

Palette - Simon "Ghost" Riley*Fem!Reader

word count: 750

The memory with you was black. You’re just a stranger, nothing special, he promised he would never let anyone get close to him anymore. He watched you with observing eyes, but you greeted him with a dazzling smile and a nod.

The memory with you was maroon. He saw your figure standing alone in the barrack’s kitchen, he lurked in the shadow, contemplating if he should just turn and leave, but you spotted him, pearl-like eyes glinted with surprise. He had no option but to stay when you asked him if he wanted a cup of tea too. He stared at the teabag floating in the mug, while he showered in a comfortable silence with you. It was the first time he felt a weird relief in a long time. The earl grey tasted just like he wanted, his eyes widened, looking at you after he took a sip, and met with a big grin of yours.

The memory with you was yellow. You two become close friends, sharing dark jokes along the mission, shoulders touched when you sat side by side with him on the helo and fell asleep on him during the flight to base, the morning tea you greeted him with a joyful “good morning” every day, was a daily he hadn’t realized he loved yet. You invited him to your hometown when you heard him not going home for Christmas. You dragged him to a Christmas market and showed him the Christmas tree towering in the center of the market. You were excited like a child when you pointed at the star shining on the top. Fishing out a camera, you begged him to take a picture with you as a memento. Reluctantly obliged, you handed him the polaroid, and he saw the corner of his eyes crinkled in the photo.

The memory with you was pink. Your hometown snowed a lot during the vacation, so he went out to your yard to help you clean a road for walking. He shoveled the snow aside, and suddenly a thud landed on his back. He turned around, only to find you laughing, bending down and throwing him another snowball. The morning ended with you two breathlessly lying on the snow after a snowball fight, while he covered his mouth to hide his smile when your pleasant giggles flowed into his ear like a melody. Sitting up from the ground, he asked you what you wanted for dinner, the rosy pink on your cheeks when you yelled out a whole menu was prettier than all the scenes he had seen before in his life. He just sighed at your answer, but he didn’t say no.

The memory with you was white. He watched you walk down the aisle dressing in a stainless white wedding gown, the lace veil covering a part of your face, but he still caught a glimpse of your beam of happiness under the veil. You two didn’t invite many people, only Price, Soap, Gaz, Nikolai, Laswell and her wife, and a few of your friends, you said you didn’t need a thumping wedding, as long as he and the people you cherished were here, then it was the best for you. He thought the same when he lifted your veil and gave you a promised kiss.

The color you left behind for him is like rainbow, he experienced many things with you, he thought he couldn’t love or be loved for the rest of his life, his life is black and white without any ray of sunlight, but you squeezed yourself through the crack on the wall he built, bringing the sun inside with you. So many ‘first times’ he assumed he would never have a chance to enjoy, engraved in his mind as the most important memories with your company in them.

Simon takes out the polaroid, it’s a bit wrinkled and faded, but your smile is still as bright as he remembered in the photo. His thumb grazed through your face. You’re not here anymore, but the hope you left for him still burns in his heart, as vivid as the color of every memory with you. “Good morning, love. I’ll be back soon.” He presses a kiss on it just like he does every day, and he carefully places it back on the desk. He picks up his key, stepping out the door of the house you two used to live together. A new day started.

Reader just dies in 80% of my work I'm sorry

[red-water-dragon]

Raren demonstrating a suspicious spell in front of the royal court.

visual storytelling notes:

The bg was left blank until I started painting and the elements added to the bg were designed around the character. I didn't go into this with a little synopsis of what I wanted to convey. Only an abstract idea that Raren was going to be talking to someone, figure it out later. I decided he'd be presenting a new spell in front of a political chamber because he wears a crown and a blue crystal. So he has to be of some form of nobility and magical prowess. He also has blue eyes meaning he is an ice dragon and thus its a blue spell wow. The monarchs he's addressing are left dark and disapproving in the corner while Raren powers a statue beneath them. He could be demonstrating how the spell effects the world around them, maybe it freezes the stone? maybe it brings the statue to life? Either way its primed to eat Raren's opposition. Two of the bg guys are red one is blue maybe he's an arch nemesis who knows.

Art process and wips under the cut

I'm trying and failing to get better at visual story telling while keeping things simple. My long term goal is to have a frequent and consistent posting schedule. Most of the art would be stylized and simple like this and the rest could be fully rendered.

Art has been more of a "draw what's in you head and make it look pretty/ cool to hang up later" thing to me w/ the benefit of being a good source of self reflection as I create. Writing has more so been my go to for expressing that meditation. Writing I don't share because im unnecessarily cagy abt my emotions and my harshest critic lol. I want to tell stories with my art , convey tone, feeling, etc. and right now my paintings don't do that. I don't have the technical skill yet. This painting is the first of many to come that will hopefully change this.

The texture in this is chaotic and the line work is rough. Raren is the only part of this with a full sketch. All other line art was added to create the illusion of detail. There is less attention on rendering each section and more being put into the placement of characters and props. I had hoped this would make the painting go faster and...it has the potential to do so in the future. Sooo a piece that could have taken a couple hours took a whole day.

While im not overly thrilled with the final image im still happy about the process. Normally the dragon would be the only real focal point in my painting with the bg being a gradient, or a simple theme added last second. Conveying a message is more work but it gives more cool things for the eye to look at and the mind to ponder. So in theory even if the final result is aesthetically unappealing the theme can still salvage the work a bit.

what this taught me:

sketchy line work is passable in the final image

it can even add character to the art

plants are a great way of filling space without actually doing so

(hence the wip of the room looking empty af with out them)

the more clothing and eye candy you put on your character the more clutter you have to add to the bg to balance it out

the main oc was sketched the bg was painted on the fly

doing so saved time but harmed the natural flow of the piece

all of the storytelling is happening in quarters and it is almost abrasive to look at

what ill try in the next piece:

perspective guides

less shading and rendering

find a color palette to stick to

or work in greyscale first

write a little picture synopsis

or pick a theme

just find something that acts as a story guide

sketch out bg elements

toy around with the sketch more before moving to painting

[void-writing]

"Leaving so soon...?"

"Queen of the Mountain" Chapter 8

My interpretation of what it looked like for Shanzha--queen of our hearts, though not the mountain--hunted down a yellow-bellied chicken for sport :)

@centuryberry

(a few little details:

The design I made for Shanzha's fancy fit includes a pink sheer sash that's draped over her arms. Here, she's used it to tie back the long sleeves of her outfit so they didn't get in the way of her draw :) I took archery classes when I was younger, and one of the principles they drilled into us was that if you have long hair, you either tie it back or resign yourself to the likelihood of getting a chunk of your hair yanked out by the bowstring. I figured this principle would also apply to fancy clothes with elegant, flowing sleeves (Shanzha's hair is pulled back enough that she decided it was worth the risk to take the singular shot she needed without binding it further).

You can't really see it, sadly, but on the little seals at the ends of Shanzha's bow, I wrote out the (simplified) Chinese character for "ice". It's a small detail that sadly didn't render well, but it's there.

The flowers in Shanzha's hair are hellebore (the pink one on the viewer's right)--representing peace, serenity, and tranquility, though also anxiety, stress and scandal, which I think encapsulates Shanzha's otome game route AND her present life pretty well--and glory of the snow (the two blue ones on the viewer's left)--meaning hop, renewal, and resilience in the face of adversity, which I think also fits Shanzha's character pretty well, with the added bonus of it being a winter flower as a nod to the frigid climate she lived in before.

She also has archery bracers on her arms! For that detail, I also was calling upon my experience in archery class with this because these guards are meant to protect the archer's forearm from getting smacked by the bowstring. I had put one on Shanzha's left arm because it was more central and easier to see before tricking myself into thinking it wouldn't make sense for her to have an arm guard on the arm holding the bow (which was a whoops on my part because that's where you're supposed to put it. I guess I was mixing it up with the finger guard tab that you have on your draw hand) and so Shanzha has one on both.

This has the fun implication that Shanzha is an ambidextrous archer (say that five times fast), meaning she can draw on either side (another fun archery fact is that the arm you hold the bow with is determined by what your dominant hand and eye is. In my case, it was my left eye, so despite me being right handed, I used a left-handed bow. However, it's possible to use any bow, especially if it doesn't have an arrow shelf--the little hook an arrow can rest in as you line up your shot, which is frequently what determines if a bow is right or left handed (the arrow shelf being on the opposite side of what the name would imply, meaning a left-handed bow is held in your left and drawn with your right and vise-versa). Shanzha's doesn't, so it's an ambidextrous bow! It just happens that in the case of this image, she's firing left-handed because her quiver--and thus her draw hand--is on her right.

Art process notes:

I ended up only using like...2/3 of the canvas lol and didn't realize until I had already done up my line art. So that's why there's a big empty blue space in the bottom 1/3.

Rim lighting, my beloved.

I used two of the color palettes from @fantasy-angelo 's Yue reference in coloring Shanzha (Dreamscape and Heather House). I mostly tried to stick with a cooler color palette which I think helped make those gold accents pop.

I did a little concept sketch on a sticky note before actually buckling down to do it, but when I started with the line art, I decided to push the perspective and line of action more, which led to the wonderful little detail of Shanzha having her foot planted on Peng's back and her resting her right hand on her quiver.

(The sketch in question)

I kind of phoned it in a little with the ice and the metal armor highlights and used an airbrush to give it the glow effect, but I'm actually really happy with how it turned out regardless! Work smarter not harder lmao.

The waterfall behind Shanzha (aka, the entrance to Water Curtain Cave) was done with a watercolor brush. This was actually my first time painting a waterfall and I'm very pleased with how it looks! The foam at the base of the waterfall was, once again, an air brush (specifically a droplet one, which gave it that nice splattery particle effect). I liked how the waterfall looked spilling over the boarders, so I didn't erase it :3

And now, I leave you with a meme:

(I was originally going to have her hold her bow, but I didn't like how it looked so I changed it to the big ass knife Shanzha cut the lion's head meatball with)

[telephonicsonnyboy]

I’ve been itching to do a character lineup!! Here’s one from my favorite movie :-)

(Design ramblings under the cut)

Okay. Putting on my costume designer hat for a second…

For Woodward & Bernstein, I combined a couple different looks from the movie to settle on two outfits that would contrast each other yet fit together perfectly. (The costume design in this movie is already incredible!!! I noticed they’d both wear stripes/grid checks when they were on the same page about something, particularly when they were approaching Bradlee with the story for the first time. So I incorporated patterns for both of them.) The color dynamic was already somewhat present, but I enhanced it slightly to be a quasi red/blue trope. The silhouettes are true to the movie, but also to their characters (Bernstein is more tailored because he’s more experienced & Bob less so. But also, Bob’s ill-fitting suit was just something I really liked from the movie.)

With Woodward and Bernstein’s suit pieces themselves, I wanted it to look like they belonged to the same ensemble (they share a byline, they share sources, they operate as a unit, but they do it differently!!) So Bob gets the tan suede jacket (it’s big, he’s swimming in it) and Bernstein gets the tan suede pants (tight and flattering) so it’s the same set just worn differently. Different effects. But they go together. Two parts of a whole. Blah blah you get it. I could talk about the costume/production design of ATPM for a VERYYY long time.

Also just for fun character design purposes (cause this is really more more of a general reference sheet compared to how I usually approach costume design renderings) I gave Carl a blue coffee cup to tie into Bob’s color palette, and then Bob is holding the red flag to tie into Carl’s color palette. These objects are also both super important to their approaches to getting information (Carl weaseling his way into getting coffee with the sources in their homes…Bob setting the red flag out to plan his clandestine meetings…)

Every other character’s outfit is just a replica from the movie. The only one I took liberty with was Felt. In the book, he’s always described as looking exhausted physically, so I figured his costume should match to a certain degree. His distinction shows in his demeanor and the substance of his words; he can still be uniquely powerful even if his top button is undone and his tie is missing. I did however put him in a double breasted herringbone suit and I kept the teal tint in the garments to keep that underground lighting feel, even though we’re seeing him out of the parking garage in this illustration.

Anyways, costuming real people is my favorite because you get such solid references and LIFE to go from!!! And these Woodward and Bernstein were very fun cause their personalities are Very Apparent in the book. And the film is such a good extension of it.

(This was originally supposed to be more cartoony, almost as if ATPM was animated. But I just ended up drawing everybody in my normal style, whatever that is!)

Thanks for reading if you got through that!!!!! I love this story a lot :-)

[ophernelia]

can you give any tips for writing scripts? do you do it before or after you film the scenes? i’m having trouble figuring out dialogue and and how to space things out..

Ofc! This might be long though so sorry in advance!

I always write my scripts before I film a scene. If the script isn’t done, then I can’t film. It’s where I map out everything. Sometimes I’ll deviate from the script, because what’s in my head when I write isn’t always easily replicable in game. I still use it as a guideline for filming though. Here’s a rough sketch of what a detailed script looks like for me:

As far as pacing, I usually try to fantasize about how the scenes would go in my head. I try to be mindful of how long it takes everyone to read too. I read pretty fast, but I know the scenes and I know the script so it’s not the same for me as it is for my audience. I like to let the dialogue hang for a bit so people have time to read what’s written, but to also observe the scene visually.

Also, I use the script to show pacing too. Since I have a larger cast it’s a bit easier to do now, but I don’t like for a character to appear in two consecutive scenes. Especially if they’re in different places and a portion of the scene didn’t include them traveling. So, if Lou appears in scene 1 then he probably won’t appear again until scene 3 or later. In my head I see it as giving the character enough time to move from place to place.

When it comes to story pacing, I don’t want too much to happen too soon. It depends on how long your story is, of course, but I try to have a slow lead up to major things. For season 2, it took all season for Lou to meet his dad. Along the way I built it up by sprinkling in a few scenes here and there. Adding in a few crumbs to conversations. With other things you don’t wanna draw it out too long. Like Kaila, Rory, and Sav’s love triangle. Kaila and Rory were meant to get together quickly to show how much pull Rory has. It also shows how much Savannah was unwilling to fight for her because she knew Kaila wasn’t her person. A lot of this stuff is just personal preference though and depends on what fits your characters.

The best thing I can recommend to do is to watch your favorite shows. See how they block out scenes. See how long each scene lasts. See how the characters move through a scene. Think about the whole season and see when major turning points occurred. Take a little inspiration from that and then tailor it to fit your story. I try not to emulate shows too much because I like for Lykaia to stand on its own (and I have certain views about copying v. inspiration), but it is very helpful to at least observe how other shows are filmed. I try to think if my show was on like Netflix or Hulu- how would it look? How would it flow? I did that a lot more this season though and not the first two. Which is why I’m really not fond of season 1 of Lykaia. At least the first half. Twilight is one of those movies that has such a distinct look that whenever the style is emulated it looks like a copy. Which was completely unnecessary, because that sickly green aesthetic isn’t the only way to show solemn and moody weather. If I wanted that vibe, I needed to tailor it to fit Lykaia. I do that now by using a lot of rain, cooler tones, and a dry color palette. So, it’s stuff like that. It’s just been a learning process for me.

[roomsofangel]

CHAPTER TWENTY — IS THIS WHAT THE POETS MEANT?

previous | masterlist | next

warnings not really any i think of right off the bat

WRITING BELOW .ᐟ

you were nervous.

you attempted to rub your hands that were a tad bit damp from your sweat onto your clothes, face cringing before checking your phone for the hundredth time to check the clock. it was only two minutes ago that san sent his last message yet you were checking constantly as if he was running late to an important meeting.

‘maybe its not too late to back out..’ you thought to yourself, sinking in your seat as you messed with the strings of your hoodie, staring at the half drunk boba tea yeosang got you before walking you here. maybe you could ask zane for help, maybe even his soulmate felix could sprinkle in some baker wisdom. frowning, you pushed the thoughts aside and have to reluctantly commit to the cards you’ve been dealt

“you’ll get wrinkles if you keep frowning like that,” an amused voice spoke, it was airy as if he was out of breath but still had enough to laugh and tease, your head lifted to see san who slid off the hood from his jacket from his head, taking the seat in front of you.

“you’ll give an unlucky someone a heart attack just popping up like that,” you repeated in a similar fashion, lightly mumbling with a slight head shake which san replied to with another amused laugh, adjusting himself in his seat

you noticed how san was a lot more buffer than you remembered, but to be fair the only glimpses you caught of him were of him in distress or moving as if his life depended on it — now that you actually sat in front of him, you took in all his features and it made your stomach churn. why was your heart nearly falling out if your chest? is this was poets meant when they wrote about these metaphors?

taking note of his features, your eyes scanned his clothes and they nearly popped out their sockets at the notice of familiar color scheme, the both of you wearing a similar outfit with a similar palette, is this that soulmate telepathy or were you reading into it too much?

meanwhile, san wanted to make this fast. he had to. maybe it was the fact he knew exactly what could have been in your mind, it was only expected when he had the same thoughts. he knew this build up, he knew the steps that would be taken and it did not help that you were his soulmate at all. it was as if he’s seen this film before, but he didnt want to stick around long enough to even figure out if he would like the ending

“so.. baking,” your voice rung in his ears and filled his head, his face scrunching as he got back into reality and he looked at you, your face mirroring his own while your fingers messed with the straw of your cup.

he nodded, “baking,” he repeated as if he was some sort of parrot and looked around the spot on campus you two agreed on meeting at. the interior was nice, the amount of fake plants there were made him feel as if he was a sim and the player just needed to fill in some empty spaces but he didnt care too much for it.

“i was thinking we could do strawberry? with maybe a cream cheese sort of frosting?” you thought outloud, mentioning to san who looked as if he understood nothing while you continued going on, humming here and there while sipping your drink. “jongho and i were originally going to do different flavors and make some sort of art through it,” you snorted

and san hated how he found it endearing, and he hated how he found himself straightening his posture and not being able to stop the next words from flowing, “then lets do that!”

you looked at him, eyes blinking to process what he had just said before smiling a little. “oh.. okay! i could show you the ideas and what me and jongho took inspo from?” you offered and he couldnt stop himself from nodding, especially when your own happiness seemed to fill his entire body as well.

taglist (open) @puppyminnnie @atinytinaa @mingis-mizu @littlestarwoo @itstheghostofmypast

[gattnk]

As long as we insist on forgetting the past, we'll need teachers like Omnia and Gnosis to remind us of our history.

Would you look at that, I'm done with all the canon teachers from the cartoon! I'm only missing those from the comics now, and then the humans and locations. I really liked how season 2 dedicated time to expanding the Golden School and included more staff, Omnia and Gnosis were fun characters to redesign.

Omnia and Gnosis had pretty solid character designs: the contrast between them in terms of shape and colors was especially good, and I wanted to retain and expand on these traits to the best of my abilities.

I started by simplifying their original shapes as much as possible, and then I exaggerated them further. I took some inspiration from mountains to further define their designs (I'm currently reading a nice book on world geography and it seeped in).

After making Omnia taller and lankier in her design, she reminded me of China's Tianzi mountains; they inspired me to make Omia's hair cloud-shaped, since these famous pillar-like mountains often touch the clouds.

Meanwhile, Gnosis' flat and bulky body reminded me of the mesa formations found in Colorado's Grand Valley (USA). His horns and wing claws start with a flat shape and then curve upwards almost vertically, like the butte formations often found around plateaus and mesas.

Their original color palettes were honestly among my favorites in the series, so I kept them for the most part, though I sought to simplify them even further. Omnia's key colors (pastel green, soft pink and white) were easy enough to figure out, but Gnosis took a lot of testing; at one point I considered switching him to purples and oranges, but I'm glad I stuck to earthy browns, yellow and orange, and added a washed black to the roster for contrast.

Like Arkan and Temptel, Omnia and Gnosis are much older than they seem: Omnia sports two sets of wings and a carved halo (I was inspired by the Ohm symbol because... OHM-nia, :B), and Gnosis has clawed wings and a tail. These traits mark them as older Eternals.

Just like Terence and Scarlett, these two professors got assigned as Academic Deans to their very own Universal Law and History faculty! their clothes are a bit more old-fashioned in a way to reflect this. They are definitely my most normal-looking pair of teachers.

With this I think we're halfway through with the Golden School staff, since we're only missing two more faculties. They're sketched out and everything, I just need to figure out the colors next.

I'll Fly With You (rewrite fic) Art masterpost

[themushroomgoesyeet]

I apologize for breaking schedule already; this took me a while to figure out and I guess I accidentally forgot to actually write this up yesterday (Sunday is going to be the day that I post these, unless I decide otherwise btw)

Anyway!

Arcana characters as cryptids

(see I told you it wouldn't all be Disney)

Asra - the Loch Ness Monster

Water theme? Check

Mysterious to a mind boggling degree? Check

Is it a dinosaur that the asteroid missed? Is it an ancient Celtic creature with nebulous shape-shifting magic? Is it just a hoax? Who knows! Certainly not us, and I feel like this fits Asra's "no gender only magic and adventure" vibes

Both of them have an increasingly frustrating ability to disappear at random and only be seen when they want to

Julian - Mothman

Big, blanket shaped, black and red color palette, sexy for some people

Did I just describe Mothman or Julian?

Both also have a bad habit of materializing from/melting into the shadows

I think if Julian were to find this post likening him to such an edgy, mysterious creature he'd be thrilled

Muriel - Bigfoot

I mean is there really even a question about this one

Literally all you have to do is make Muriel hairier and have bigger feet and you're all set

Both of them live out in the middle of the woods & don't seem to care for company

Bro basically is a cryptid to some Vesuvians

Lucio - Goatman

I feel this needs even less explanation than Muriel's tbh

Especially since a nice chunk of this fandom double as BuzzFeed Unsolved fans

Fuck you goatman

Nadia - sphinx

Ok so I'll admit this is where I started running out of ideas

Hear me out tho

I know that some of you will say that sphinxes are mythological creatures and not cryptids, and personally I disagree; I bet in a thousand years archaeologists and the like will look back on our cryptid studies and be like "man, these guys had a weird mythology"

So long story short sphinxes are just ancient cryptids

There are two flavors of sphinx, both of which I think fit Nadia well

Greek sphinxes were usually portrayed as guardians - usually of cities, gates, and doorways - and (in the case of Oedipus) challenged people with riddles. As ruler/protector of Vesuvia, I think it's safe to say that Nadia slots into the guardian role quite nicely

I'm not as familiar with Nadia's route but I imagine she'd also enjoy riddle games

Then there's the Egyptian flavor of sphinx; while these are also guardians (of tombs and temples specifically), they are also representations of Pharos and their closeness to the gods, as well as symbols of their strength and ferocity

And of course we love the strong & independent queen that is Nadia

Portia - Tonttus/Nisse/Gnomes

For those who don't know, Tonttus are creatures from Scandinavian folklore; they look like tiny men with white beards and colorful, conical hats

While their description doesn't fit Portia (aside from being incredibly small in stature), their actions and temperament certainly do

If treated well, Tonttus will become guardians of homesteads and farms, helping with chores, caring for livestock, and warding off danger and misfortune.

If treated poorly or insulted, Tonttus will instead cause mischief in the place that they live, playing tricks, stealing from the family, and sometimes even killing livestock

Now Portia may not go as far as killing animals, but she's definitely got a short temper at times and is a wild prankster

I almost forgot about these homely little creatures but I'm glad I found something that fits Portia's cottage core vibes so well

[unofskylanderspages]

I'm interested if there is any Sproket lore , she's one of my favorites :]

of course! there's a little bit :3

like all goldlings (apparently; we have to take their word for it since they're never mentioned or seen in canon besides her bio), sprocket was raised in an incredibly wealthy family, but she honestly couldn't care less. rather, she was more a tinkerer, seemingly much like her uncle. we don't know much about him, but he and his niece seemed to be very similar in their preference for technology over wealth, as he had a workshop full of various mechanical inventions. it was here where sprocket spent almost all of her pre-skylander time, working possibly alongside her uncle or perhaps self-guided in learning about making and fixing his creations. it's likely that the two were the odd-ones-out in their family for this and thus were very close even beyond their mechanical skills.

it's also likely that mechanical intellect was what prompted Kaos to kidnap him. it's unclear how long it took her to figure out that there was foul play in his disappearance, but given that she not only figured that out but seemingly immediately identified Kaos's hand in it, it likely didn't take sprocket long to figure it out. she hand-crafted her battle suit solely for the purpose of bringing her uncle home, forsaking all of the luxury and comforts of her family's wealth behind for his sake. unfortunately, her uncle meets the same fate as every major influential character in a skylander's backstory: she has yet to find him and there's no other canon mention of him again.

she also appears in the Terrafin Battles the Boom Brothers story, but unfortunately that part of her wiki is incomplete and i haven't read any of the novels myself, sorry :(

also unfortunately, that's just about as much canon backstory/lore we have on her so far (barring her skylanders academy appearance but that's technically a separate continuity anyways), but since we're here, we can talk out my favorite little technically non-lore-related facts of hers!

her turrets will attempt to automatically fire at the oracle if you set them up in his hub

she had two different placeholder names in the alpha version of giants: "engineer" and "spark"

she was pretty much an entirely different character in the alpha altogether: she was an elf and thus looked pretty much like stealth elf and had more of an iron man-like color palette for her battle armor, her catchphrase was originally "fear the gear!" and a good majority of her upgrades had different names or were shuffled around compared to their final lineup

she was the first female tech skylander in the series, followed only by gearshift

she's defo hella underrated. i'm attempting to stay as strict to canon info as possible and thus poorly hiding every headcanon/personal interpretation of canon behind every "likely" and it's possible" lmao but oh well. which is kind of lame because she doesn't really have much beyond her backstory which is sad :( she's just unfortunately one of those skylanders who's part of a one-off out-of-canon culture that's never touched again in the main series, but i guess filling in the gaps is half the fun. i think so, anyway.

anyway anon i hope this was good for you! i love seeing everyone's personal favorites, like that whole "every pokemon is someone's favorite" thing it just makes me happy to see which blorbos just make someone happy :)

[pixies-and-poets]

No one knew exactly how long these mangled corpses were stuck there rotting.

They were discovered after many of Paletteville's villagers complained of a unbearable stench that leaked from underneath the bridge. The authorities arrived to investigate with almost everyone crowding around the scene. Some watched from afar, others dared to venture closer only to be stopped and turned back. A few discreetly took pictures on their phones. This morbid spectacle aroused such disturbing tension all throughout the area. It was bad enough already that Palette Prime was infamous for its bad luck, thanks to their poet for a warden, but now...

Words could not describe the sheer horror that was found once the authorities realized that the bodies were stitched together and hung up right underneath the wooden planks of the bridge. Such a sight made the squeamish sick, resulting in many cases of vomiting and fainting spells.

It was later revealed that four victims were identified, despite them being partially skinned, dismembered, and disemboweled. The victims were widely known to Paletteville to the point of adoration. One was a football player, two were beloved socialites, and the last was a judge. Not a single person could figure out why someone would go after such wonderful citizens. The investigation continued. Bloodstained golden cords pierced their flesh and fat and muscle, tying them into this grotesque, meaty banner that stretched from one end to another. Right below this display was a gathering of rocks, all colored in a deep red and positioned into a small circle that was just big enough for one to sit inside.

---

Woodrow woke up in his bathtub, his naked body motionlessly floating in filthy water. His eyes adjusted; his ears rang as his head throbbed. His senses slowly came to him as he lifted his arms up to pull himself up.

Then he froze.

...

It's just a hallucination. It has to be. There's no way any of this is real. He has done this before. They're only temporary. That's it.

Just temporary.

The poet closed his eyes and held in a deep breath. His chest felt like it was about to burst. Chills ran up his spine, intensified by the coolness of the bathwater, and he let out a exhale. Another deep breath in, and another long exhale...

Nothing changed.

Woodrow choked and gasped, finally crawling out of the bathtub and crashing down onto the cold hard tile floor. His breathing was now sporadic with a terror unimaginable, leaving him panicking like a newborn lost in the woods. Tears streamed down his face as he silently wailed in terrible realization. His body curled in a futile attempt to make itself warm.

There was silence.

...

And then the light flickered.

The fur on his back stood straight up. Woodrow shut his eyes.

He suddenly melted as a gentle, loving caress presses against his cheek.

"Please... no more tears. You did exceptionally well, my dearest poet. Soon all shall know what art truly is."

I know it's gonna be good when I open my notifications and see "No one knows how long these mangled corpses..." from you lol

Actually I read this last night and woke up still thinking about it. Your writing gives me chills and sticks in my brain as usual!

This is a less wholesome take on Phantom-possession, I take it? I like how Phandrow can be too extremely corny romantic art-dorks waxing poetic about each other and frolicking gaily through the woods forever, OR it could be a literally tortured artist pushed to his limits, and his supernatural boyfriend who is no stranger to lusting for revenge and could entice him to embrace his darker side and innate capacity for destruction. This ship is everything, mmhmm mhhhmmmmmmm

One thing is true regardless of AU, and the relative horror thereof: that when Phantom touches Woodrow he will forget all his suffering and figuratively turn into a puddle. Doesn't matter how many times it's happened or how long they have been together.

[aibloomie]

albedo painting/drawing for you <3 headcanons + imagine

I need to work on actually adding dialogue help me

━ he keeps a small notebook with him at all times when he hangs out with you, just in case he feels like sketching you because you're literally an artwork just by existing. sometimes you'll just be doing something random and he'll pull the notebook out and start studying you carefully before making his outline. sometimes he's a little greedy and he keeps it for himself

━ albedo LOVES when you ask him to paint something for you. it can literally be anything, you can grab an apple and go up to him and ask him to paint that specific one and he'll do it with a small smile on his face. what makes him even more happy is when you truly cherish them, like if you hang the paintings up on your walls, or fold a paper up and keep it with you during your travels

"you actually kept this?" albedo asked, picking up the drawing you accidentally dropped when you pulled something out of your pockets.

you smiled at him and nodded, "of course! I literally go everywhere with it, it's one of my favorite drawings like ever."

━ klee definitely has a painting of all three of you guys together because you and albedo are like her parental figures it's so cute. also, drawing sessions with klee? yeah it happens very often and she makes a mess but she's adorable so it's okay. when you're off on a mission or something and klee misses you, she asks albedo to share his collections of portraits he's made of you <3

━ albedo would find it a little amusing if you weren't very artistic. if you draw him and you accidentally make him look all deformed or something he'll still keep it

━ in the modern world, he'd definitely enjoy those relaxing dates where the two of you sit out on a field and have a picnic, and then make paintings for each other

albedo pushed his bangs out of the way, a movement that was becoming repetitive. strands of his hair would fall and cover his eyes whenever he looked down to dip his brush into the color palette. it wasn't an annoyance in the slightest though, after all, he was painting something just for you. a week prior he had casually brought up the topic of locations in mondstadt, and he succeeded in getting you to say what your favorite scenery was. so of course, he took it upon himself to paint a landscape of it for you. 

the product was nearly finished. despite his strong work ethic, he so desperately wanted to gift you something for sticking with him even though he didn't often get the opportunity to show you his devotion. he wanted to make something that you could hang up and remember him by whenever he was away for a long period of time. it also served as a stress reliever for him. he was using his hobby to make something for the lovely person he held so dearly to his heart. 

he took a step back to inspect his handiwork. albedo still felt as if he wasn't the best at picking up cues on things people liked, or the type of affection they preferred. he often asked himself if being more touchy with you would make you uncomfortable. or if you enjoyed your time alone rather than spending it with him. 

buying you things would be quicker and he knows you would appreciate the sentiment, but it simply isn't enough in his eyes. to create something for you with his own two hands is much more meaningful. words aren't his strong suit when it comes to something not related to academics or alchemy, so how can he possibly let you know how he feels using them?

you would never know, but he was putting his entire feelings into each stroke. thoughts of you blossomed across his mind, almost as if he could feel your presence next to him

[shu-bullshit]

hi!! what watercolors do you use? your paintings are always so vibrant and have such a mystical vibe to them and I’m curious lol

super sorry if you’ve already answered this, tumblrs search function fights me whenever I try using it 😭

Hi! No worries I haven't and I'd love to talk about watercolor :) I use several, in transparent > opaque order:

Schmincke > Holbein cake colors > Nicker poster colors

(family pic)

Some notes:

Schmincke: Expensive but really good, vibrant, if on a budget maybe you can get a couple blocks of colors you really like. If you're committed to watercolor I definitely recommend getting a palette. I made my own custom set. Loooove the blues.

Holbein: this is a Japanese brand, so it was actually easier to get in China than the US, I got on Ali Express. It's slightly more opaque but not exactly gouache. It looks like the really cheap kind of cake watercolor palette but a lot more vibrant. It sets on paper with a kinda of sandy texture and I really love it. It's also a bit more dense than traditional transparent watercolor, so you can also layer with it easily.

I think the 24 color set is a lot more worth it than the 12 color set. Problem is I don't think they sell blocks individually, or at least hard to find.

These recent ones I posted are the combination of these two paints above.

Nicker: Again Japanese brand. I heard this is what Ghibli studio use? But it's affordable. I could get individual jars (jars are much better value than the tubes) in China, but in the US I've only found sets on Amazon so far.

It's smooth, and still remains a good saturation when diluted compared to other gouache/poster colors I've used. I don't use this alone as much now, but this is something solely done with Nicker I made a couple years ago 👇 as you can see it has good coverage. So when I did this I didn't layer up I just painted inch by inch.

But I have to say, how a watercolor painting turns out is really up to the paper! In my opinion paper is even more important than the paint, it influences vibrancy and textures more than you would think. So I always encourage my friends to get good paper rather than expensive paint. I use Arches hot press for formal works most often, but for a cheaper option I also love Fabriano (the two lil ones above are on their postcard papers, really good enough). Both are great for layering up.

And last, you can Photoshop them :D

These stuff sure cost a lot in total, but it took me a long time to figure out and collect all these, they don't really run out that fast if you don't do very large paintings. You can definitely try it out bit by bit, and enjoy the excitement of using a new paint on the way!

[mollysunder]

Everytime it Wasn't Swain

After rewatching Arcane, I decided to make a list for everytime Swain was almost there. You thought he was being alluded to, but he wasn't, it was actually something else. Or was it?

1. The Crows

Swain has ravens, not crows, there just happen to be a suspiciously large quantity of crows, for a port city, instead of seagulls. As the show went on, the arrival of crows became synonymous with Jinx's presence and vice versa. It's not hard to see why, crows are intelligent and naturally social birds that do well in urban ecosystems, they just have a mixed reputation as good and bad omens. On a narrative level, the presence of crows does have interesting implications. Crows and ravens are easily confused for the other if you don't know what to look for. And the more I read about Swain, the more I notice that he and Jinx (in Arcane) are similar in some regards. Not just the fact they killed and maimed their family members, that's not uncommon for League backstories for some reason. From a storytelling standpoint, they both serve as living embodiment of their respective nations, good and bad, that other characters have to react to. And it was their actions that changed the trajectory of their nations.

What's even more interesting is that crows and raven in real life don't get along, they're incredibly territorial and avoid one another. If they do cross paths, crows are more likely to pick a fight with ravens. Despite the raven being bigger, crows band together in large groups to fend off ravens from their nesting areas, sort of like they harass them away. Food for thought.

2. The Man Named Jericho but not Swain

This one was cute. It took me a while to realize that they both had the same first name, except Swain has a last name, which is Swain. The first time his name was mentioned was when Vi and Caitlyn were on the search for Silco, but Vi was really on the search for Jinx. Funny enough, Jericho's apron and pants looks like the Jinx's outfit. I know plenty of people wear pinstripes in Zaun, but the black triangle with the 'X' in the center was pretty on the nose. On one hand this shot could foreshadow the way Jinx's actions come between Caitlyn and Vi. On the other, that's not as fun, and I want to know if this makes Jericho a Jinx stan! Seriously, maybe it's another hint at the way Zaun and Noxus are similar threats to Piltover, just in different clothes. Or Swain's a Jinx stan too!

3. The Palette Portrait

I've watched Arcane more than once and never managed to see it before, and wasn't too sure it was Swain until I outlined the figure myself. There he is long white hair, red magic hand, widow's peak, and sharp profile. In context, this is part of the scene where Mel is aggressively painting while Jayce apologizes for leaving her alone in bed the night Viktor collapsed. It's the first time Jayce and the audience sees her paint, and is essentially one of the first moments we get to see a part of her inner life. In this exact shot she says, "There's a lot you don't know about me". I'd say pretty on the nose to say this is foreshadowing her past connections to Noxus. But there's small things that are off, for example, Swain is draped in red rather than a severe black. And his face is dark while he's a white man, the color choices actually fit Ambessa more than Swain. Another fake out? Or maybe it means that there's no difference between people like Swain and Ambessa in the grand scheme of Noxus' war machine.

All in all I found three times Swain's presence was almost confirmed, but instead was something or someone else. There was always one or two details off to make it so. Each time there was an "almost Swain" connection, it was usually in association with Jinx or Mel, a cast member actually from Noxus. Swain, or at least the concept of Swain, seems to haunt the Mel's past and Jinx's future.