#it was fun drawing those sketches thinking about how important all of those costumes can be to people

[wszczebrzyszynie]

Its so cute and funny how everybody is fixing Jimmy's clothes for him, I imagine if he didn't have hooves he'd be wearing velcro shoes

Hm... i didnt really make it with "jimmy is clumsy and needs help with complex clothing" kind of fixing in mind. Its more the case of being unfamiliar with his loved ones costumes and letting them help; a lot of those costumes are very specific, and it isnt uncommon for people to need help putting parts of them on, at least when it comes to slavs, even if theyre familiar with how they work. That and its just a nice thing to do, i think. Culture sharing with people you love

[atlafan]

My Everything - Part Six

A Take it Slow Sequel

What happens with Harry and Y/N after he proposes? How will the two navigate the engaged life while also continuing to juggle their jobs, friends, and families? Let’s find out.

Warnings: Fluff and smut.

a/n: not proofread fam, I didn’t have the strength.

Masterpost

“What do you think you’re gonna be for Halloween this year? I hope you step up your costume from last year.” You giggle with Niall at lunch.

“I know, Netflix and Chill wasn’t exactly original. We have somethin’ in mind, but we’re not tellin’ anyone. What about you guys?”

“We’re also keeping it a secret. I’m really excited El’s gonna stay with me while Louis and Harry are in Wisconsin.”

“Yeah, it’ll be good for you guys to get to know each other a bit more. Is it awkward at all that you and Sarah are in her wedding party, but Rachel isn’t?”

“Not really.” You shrug. “Mariah’s taking their photos and Rachel’s actually doing the videography, so she’ll still be there.”

“Oh good! I still can’t believe Harry’s finally gonna see a Packer’s game, he must be so excited.”

“He is! I’m sorry I couldn’t get a third ticket, it would’ve been nice for the three of you to go.”

“Nah, we don’t need to do everything together. It’ll be good for them to have a little trip just the two of ‘em, but I appreciate you thinkin’ of me.”

//

You get home from work, grab the packages waiting for you, and head up.

“Babe! The fabric for our costumes got here, I can start putting it together tonight!” You say as you come in. Buster trots over to greet you. “Hi baby boy, where’s daddy?”

“Daddy’s right here, pumpkin.” He comes over and kisses your cheek.

“Pumpkin?” You giggle. “That’s a new one.”

“I got a little inspired. I bought a couple today for us to carve, thought we could roast the seeds.”

“Oh that sounds like so much fun! We could put them out on the balcony for decoration too.”

“I was thinkin’ the same thing, baby.”

You and Harry eat a quick cauliflower crust pizza for dinner, and you get to work on the costumes. You were so excited to be making them, just like when you were a kid. Once you get a good chunk done, you both sit down to carve your pumpkins.

“What kind of face are you gonna make?” You ask him.

“I don’t really make faces, I like doin’ designs.” He says, concentrating with his sharpie.

“Alright, then what design are you going for?”

“Have you ever seen The Nightmare Before Christmas?”

“Of course I have.” He turns the pumpkin around to show you his sketch.

“It’s the dog.”

“Harry…I didn’t know you could draw.”

“A little here and there.”

“That’s gonna look really cool.” You look down at the triangles you’ve drawn on your own pumpkin. “I guess mine will look pretty sad compared to yours.” You laugh.

“Nah, yours will be a classic.”

You both cut holes in the tops of the pumpkins and take all the guts out. You separate the seeds into a different bowl so you can roast them later. You finish your pumpkin much sooner than Harry’s, so you go in the kitchen to work on the seeds.

“It’s all done, come look, I put some fake candles inside them. They look pretty cool on the balcony.” He says to you as he washes his hands.

“Oh wow!” You gasp. “You’re so talented, babe.”

“Not my best work actually.” He shrugs. “So I’m still comin’ to your office tomorrow to take those pictures?”

“Mhm. Apparently I’ll be in the winter edition of the magazine…I’m really excited! Zach put a really cool video interview together.” You both plop down on the couch while you wait for the pumpkin seeds to finish up in the oven.

“What did you talk about?”

“Why knowing your alumni network is important, why getting involved with clubs on campus is so important, getting out of your comfort zone to make friends, stuff like that. Then I talked about how I fell into the work I did, if it was my dream job, stuff like that. I talked about my hobbies. Even Buster was in the video for a bit. I talked about you too, of course, and how having a supportive partner can make a huge difference.”

“Aw, you didn’t need to mention me.”

“Well, you could see the pictures of us on my desk in the frame, so he just asked quick. I didn’t talk much about my personal life since that wasn’t the point of the interview. I also talked about why checking your benefits when job searching was a really big deal, and how I’m getting my master’s for free.”

“Yeah, that’s one of the reasons why I stayed with Plant Geo for so long, they had great benefits.”

“Speaking of benefits, when we get married did you want to come onto my insurance plan and all that? Or do you wanna keep the state’s?”

“It depends on how cost effective it is. More will be taken out of your paycheck, and it could just end up equaling the same as what I pay now…”

“True, I could talk to someone at HR and they could go over the plans with me. My copay is only like $10, not too bad.”

“Yeah, that’s really good actually. Man, that’s the one thing I miss about home, health insurance and medical bills are way less fucked up.”

“Yup, it’s all just big business here.” You sigh. “At least I work at a company that actually provides what I need.”

“Mhm, like your maternity leave? I still can’t get over that.”

“I think it helps that the CEO is a woman…she gets it, you know?” He hums his response.

“When exactly were you planning to get off the pill?”

“Oh god, I have no idea. We have so much time, I was thinking maybe a year before the wedding? I read that it can take like three months before you have a regular period again if you were irregular before you started the pill, and I was very irregular. Why?”

“Just wondering. I’m trying to mentally prepare myself for havin’ to use condoms all the time.”

“I guess we’ll just have to make sure we’re stocked up. Plus…it’s not like you’ll never be able to stick it in raw, you can, you’ll just need to pull out and come on me.” You shrug.

“You would be way too paranoid.” He laughs.

“Well, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, okay? Not something we even need to think about right now.” You hear the oven go off. “Seeds are done!” You kiss Harry’s forehead and go into the kitchen.

While the two of you were crafting he couldn’t help but think a few years down the line, having a toddler, and carving pumpkins with them. You’d probably put them in a cute costume for trick or treating as well. With how well you took care of him and Buster, Harry knew you were going to be an amazing mum someday. You come back out and sit down.

“Where are the seeds?”

“We can’t eat them yet, we have to wait for them to cool. They’ll burn your mouth.” He throws an arm around you and kisses you. “What?” You giggle.

“Nothin’, just love yeh.”

//

“Hi, Mr. Styles.” Trish beams at Harry when he comes up with his camera equipment.

“Trish, uh, you know you can just call me Harry, right?”

“I do, but you’re here for a professional purpose today. I thought we’d keep things formal.” She gets up and leads him down the hall to your office. “The CEO was thrilled that Y/N was being featured in her college magazine.”

“She was?”

“Oh yes, what a great way to plug Mark It. Maybe more young people will want to work here.”

“Right.”

She knocks on your door and opens it.

“Y/N?”

“Hi, Trish.” You say without looking at her, finishing up an email. It was nearly the end of the day.

“Mr. Styles from Styles Photography is here to see you.” She giggles.

“Ah, okay, send him in, thank you.” You smile and stand up from your desk.

“Did you tell her to be so professional?” He smirks. “They know me around here.”

“I didn’t say a thing.” You go over to him and give him a kiss on the cheek while Buster trots over to say hello to his daddy. “But…” You move to whisper in his ear. “It does create a new fantasy, doesn’t it?” You step back and blush.

“Don’t you start.” He shakes his head. “If I get my wheels turning on that…”

“I could really see it. A hot photographer coming to take my picture, you do that thing where you brush some hair from my face, suddenly we’re making eye contact…”

“Y/N.” Harry says sternly. “Enough.” You fake pout at him while he gets his equipment set up.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to rile you up.”

“M’not.” His face was flushed and his pants were growing tighter.

“Okay.” You scoff. He side eyes you for a moment and then gets back to his things. “So…how do you want me?” You ask in a genuine tone.

“Alright.” He stands up straight and walks over to you. He takes your cheeks between his thumb and index finger. “You’re not bein’ a very good girl right now.”

“I just asked a question.”

“Well, I-“

“Oi!” Niall says walking into your office. “You know the door’s open right?” Harry lets go of you and turns to look at Niall. “Probably shouldn’t be doin’ all that.” He smirks.

“Just gettin’ her how I want her for the pictures.”

“I hope that magazine is gonna give you credit.”

“They will.” You say. “I wouldn’t have let Harry do this if they weren’t going to put his name in. They’re even giving him free ad space at the back of it.”

“Oh, that’s great! Well, I’m headed out for the day. See you tomorrow.”

“Night.” You smile. Him and Harry wave each other off.

“Okay, can we be professional now?”

“Yes, I’m so sorry Mr. Styles of Styles Photography.”

“You’re a little bit goofy at the end of the, huh?”

“Just a little bit.”

Harry gets some good shots of you in your office, and a really nice one of you and Buster. He has you pack up your things, and takes you outside the building to get some nice outdoor shots before the sun sets.

“Thank you so much for coming to do all of this.” You kiss him. “I’ll see you at home.”

“Be ready for me when we get in.” He says, loading his car up.

“Be ready for what?” He walks closer to you and presses you up against your car, his hips pressing into yours. “Oh.” You blush.

“Yeah.” He kisses you and lets you go.

//

When you get home, you get Buster fed and some fresh water before going into your bedroom. You wanted to freshen up for your man. You were just putting on some fresh lace panties when Harry walks in.

“I appreciate the sentiment, but you can just leave those off.” He smirks.

You slide them back down your legs and kick them away as he approaches you. He grabs you by the back of your neck and tilts your chin up.

“What I don’t appreciate is you purposefully trying to get my hard when you’ve told me over and over that you don’t want to fuck in your office.”

“I wasn’t trying to make you hard, I was just playing around.”

“Just playing around, hm.” He nods his head and lets you go. He undoes his pants and sits down on the bed. “How about you play around with this?” He points to his crotch and you get on your knees in front of him. “Wait, let me grab you a pillow, honey.” He reaches behind him and hands it to you.

“Thank you.”

You get his hard cock out of his boxers and lick your lips before licking up and down his length. You suckle on his tip while your hand pumps him slowly. You look up at him, and he’s already looking down at you. It’s intense it makes you groan against him. You sink down further on him, and his hips buck up, trying to fit as much of himself in you as he can. You think of something, and you pop off him.

“Harry, I need you stand up.”

“Wh, why?”

“So it’s easier for you.”

“Easier for me to do what?”

“You know…fuck my face.” You mumble. His eyebrows shoot up, and he doesn’t hesitate to stand.

“You really want me to do this?” His hands cup your cheeks to get a better grip on you.

“Mhm.”

“You’re gonna gag a lot.”

“I’ll work through it.”

“Just tap my legs if it gets to be too much, okay?”

“Okay.”

You grip his hips and open your mouth wide for him. His slides back in and moans softly from how good your mouth feels on him. He thrusts in and out slowly, going a little deeper each time. He had hit the back of your throat before, numerous time, but usually you were the one in control of that. Your eyes start to water as his pace quickens, and you try to focus on just breathing through your nose. When he hears you gag he slows down to give you a second, and then he jumps back in to what he was doing before.

“Fuck, Y/N.” He groans. “I’m gonna come.” He pulls out, and you leave your mouth open. His comes onto your open mouth, neck, and chest. He helps you up before he sits down on the bed. “Jesus, I think I’m light headed.” He chuckles and runs a hand through his hair. He looks at you, and you’re not saying much as you stand there naked in front of him. You had an odd look in your eyes. “Shit, let me go get a rag to clean you up, baby.” He stands back up, kisses your forehead, and rushes into the bathroom. He comes back out with a warm rag and wipes up your chest. “You did really well, took it all down that pretty throat of yours. Felt so good.” He steps back and looks at you. “There, all clean.” You blink at him. “Are you alright?”

You tap your throat and try to speak but it comes out really scratchy and hoarse. You try to clear your throat but it doesn’t help much.

“Lemme get you some water…maybe I was a bit too aggressive.” You grab his wrist. “What?”

You tug at the hem of his shirt, and he gets the idea. You wanted him, the water could wait. He gets you on the bed, and hovers over you. His lips find yours, and he sucks on your bottom lip. He plants gentle, wet kisses down your body, stopping to suck on one of your nipples. He twists your piercing between his teeth, making your head roll back. His hand slides between your legs while he continues to work your breasts. His middle finger runs up and down your slit before entering you. You gasp when he starts to curl it up.

“You’re so wet f’me baby.” He mumbles, switching to suck on your breast. He slides a second finger in and pumps in and out of you.

You grind against his hand, and he lets go of your breast with a pop. He retracts his fingers, and slides them up to your clit. Your mouth falls open and you moan out his name when his tongue enters you. You hear him groan as he moves his tongue in and out of you, and you tug on his hair.

“Harry.” You moan again, throat dry and hoarse.

He head your legs shaking. Your voice cracks as you cry out from your release. He continues to rub your clit as you come down. He grabs your hips and flips you over gently, spreading you apart and entering you. You loved how quickly he could get hard again. His chest was flush with your back as he rocks in and out of you. His hand snakes underneath you to rub your clit and you feel like you just wanted to melt. It still amazed you how much he paid attention to your body. It was never about him getting his, it was about this mutual pleasure that only you two shared.

Everything felt really good, and you were overstimulated.

“Oh my god, don’t stop.” You say in a raspy voice. “Fuck, Harry, that’s so good.” You clutch at your blankets and pillows. He bits down on the back of your shoulder as he feels you come around his cock.

His thrusts get sloppy and quicken, and a few moments later he’s filling you up. He pulls out of you slowly and rests on the bed to look at you. He smooths some hair out of your face and you smile at him.

“My throat really hurts.” You giggle.

“I know, I’m sorry.” He kisses your nose and gets off the bed. He wiggles his boxers up his legs, and watches you walk into the bathroom. “M’gonna get dinner started.” You give him a thumbs up and he leaves you to clean yourself up.

You come into the kitchen in a pair of light sweatpants and a t-shirt. Buster comes over to you and you pat him on the head. You guzzle down a nice glass of water and try to clear your throat. Harry was working on a stir fry.

“Why’d you want me to do that to you, I feel bad…”

“I don’t know.” You cough, and clear your throat again. “Just thought of it. I like when we take turns being more in control of those things.”

“But I hurt you.” He frowns.

“No! It was fine, it was just different. See, I’m all better now.” You smile. “My throat just got dry.”

“Okay.” He kisses the top of your head and puts his attention back to dinner. “Just veggies and rice, that okay?”

“It’s perfect, thank you.”

You sit down at the island and wait for him to finish preparing everything. He makes a plate up for you and he sits down next to you. He tells you about his day at the studio, and how cute some of the little kids in their costumes looked.

“I still can’t believe parents pay to have Halloween cards sent out.” You laugh.

“I choose not to question it. If these rich people wanna pay me for these little things, I’m all for it.”

“Oh, definitely! I think it’s great you’re doing all these little sessions.”

“The Thanksgiving sessions are all booked, and there’s only a few Santa sessions left open.”

“I’m so proud of you.”

“All that social media stuff you do makes such a big difference, that’s why so many people are signing up.”

“It’s nice getting to work together in this capacity.” He stands up and takes both of your plates.

“My sweet girl.” He says as he kisses your head before putting the dishes in the dishwasher. “Wanna watch TV for a bit? I’m beat.”

“Mhm.”

Harry lays down on the sofa and you lay in front of him so he can spoon you. You were nearing the end of the third season of Glee.

“God, the show got so hard to watch after these last few episodes.”

“Why, baby?”

“Just everything with Rachel and Finn, you’ll see.”

You get to the last episode of the third season. You both sit up so you can watch intently. You were sobbing already, and Harry was getting to that point himself.

“Wait…he’s not goin’ with her?!” He looks at you. “I mean, I wasn’t in favor of them gettin’ married right away, but…he’s sendin’ her off to New York alone?”

You couldn’t even speak you were so upset.

“Finn, no, what the fuck?!” He looks at you again. “That’s how they ended it?”

“Yes.”

“And you had to wait an entire summer to know what happened next…Jesus.” He wipes his eyes. “This show is fucked up.”

“You said it.” You wipe your own eyes. “Come on, we need to go to sleep.”

“You can’t be serious, we need to-“

“Harry, it’s already after ten, come on. We can watch more tomorrow.”

“Okay, but only because I wanna cuddle some more.”

//

“Morning, Harry.” Isaac says as Harry walks in.

“Mornin’.” He takes his coffee from him. “Ah, thank you.”

“So your day is going to be interesting.”

“Define interesting…”

“Lot of single moms and their kids…”

“Oh, why is that interesting?”

“Look at the reviews of you on Facebook.” Harry comes around to Isaac’s computer to look. “See, this one says, both Harry and Mariah are extremely professional, I’m very happy with their work.”

“That’s…I’m very confused.”

“Look at all of the comments. Harry was amazing with my son, I can’t wait to bring my kids to see him, I wouldn’t mind him taking my photos…and they sort of escalated from there. You know how wine moms can be. I made it so some of them weren’t visible.”

“These people do know we do any type of portrait, they don’t just need to have their kids involved.”

“You’re missing the point. They’re thirsty for you.”

“Thirsty?” He scoffs.

“I notice them flirting with you from time to time.”

“A lot of people flirt with me.” He shrugs. “I just don’t flirt back.”

Just then a young woman and he toddler walk in. Her daughter was already dressed like Bat Man.

“Woah, looks like the Dark Knight has arrived, Isaac.” The little girl giggles.

“I had hoped she’d want to be a princess, but she insisted on Bat Man.” The mother sighs.

“Nothin’ wrong with that, is there?” He smiles. “I just need a few minutes to get settled and set up. Isaac can get you anything you need.” He turns and goes upstairs to his office.

“So, how’d you hear about us?” Isaac asks.

“Word of mouth. One of the other moms at Janey’s preschool raved about someone named Mariah, but she was all booked up today. Then someone else mentioned Harry might have more open spots since he owns the place.” Isaac nods. “I heard he’s very talented.”

“He is.” Isaac smiles.

Harry comes down shortly and gets his spot set up the way he likes. Mariah was in her office editing photos.

“Okay, Janey, I mean, uh, Bat Man, come on over.”

The little girl runs over to Harry.

“Janey, don’t run! I’m so sorry, she never listen to me.” The woman huffs.

“No worries.” Harry smiles and looks down at the girl. “Is it okay if I lift yeh up and what not?”

“Mhm.”

“Thank you.”

Harry picks her up and puts her on a chair decorated for Halloween. There were pumpkins and other Halloween things around her.

“Smile, Janey. Grandma’s gonna want to see that pretty face.”

“No.” She pouts. “Bat Man doesn’t smile, mumma.”

“She’s right.” Harry says. “But sometimes he does.”

“He does?” Janey asks.

“Oh sure. Right after he gets a bad guy, like when he sends the joker to jail, that makes him really happy.”

“Okay.” She giggles and Harry snaps a shot.

He’s able to get a lot of great shots of her, and wraps everything up. He hands Isaac the SD card from the camera. Lately, Harry had let Isaac touch up these simpler photoshoots.

“Isaac should have these to you in a couple of days with the design you chose.”

“Thank you so much, Harry. I haven’t seen her have so much fun since…well, I won’t bore you with my problems.”

Isaac has to refrain from making a gagging noises. He knew exactly where this was headed.

“You’re a single mum?” Harry asks.

“Mhm, it was all for the best, but she misses her daddy.”

“Yeah, that’s, uh, gotta be tough.” Harry and Isaac make knowing eye contact. “Well, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go give my fiancé a ring before my next appointment. It was nice meeting the both of you.”

Harry slips away and almost runs up to his office.

“Oh, he’s, um, not single?”

“Nope, very taken.” Isaac smiles. “Will that be cash or credit?”

[lavalampelfchild]

Lava’s Art Masterpost

Hey, all!  Welcome to my art masterpost!  I have no idea if this is a thing that is done typically for art, but oh well, I like organizing things, so here we are!  What you’ll find here is mostly Dragon Age, with a few non-DA pieces in there, and there’s a range of styles I like to use, depending on my mood.  But a lot of what you’ll see will most likely combine lineart with some other form of coloring/shading.

Feel free to browse at your leisure, and I hope anyone who stumbles upon this enjoys what they find! :D And thank you to anyone who sees this and likes, or reblogs, or even just stops by to peruse a bit!  

All that said, away we go!

Digital Portraits:

1. Portrait of Nameless Woman, 2020 - This one is just an experiment with a watercolor brush that I did.  It’s not anatomically perfect, but I enjoyed playing around with shading.

2. Sketch of Aja Amell, 2020 - This one is basically sketch practice with my Amell~  Not really the most expressive pictures, but it’s a start toward drawing her more expressively.  Full disclosure: Aja is one of those OCs of mine that I have had trouble with deciding on a definitive appearance for several pictures, and I really want to work on upping my level of consistency when drawing her.

3. Long-Haired Fenris, 2020 - Exactly what it sounds like; this was for practice drawing Fenris’s features (I love how distinct they are), but with long hair because I am weak for it.  This one was a fun piece to shade, and mixing the stylized lineart that I normally use with a greyscale shading spectrum was really enjoyable.

4. Portrait of Ilorin Lavellan, 2016 - This is an oldie.  Basically practicing expressions, and it is technically a WIP, but I’m still very happy with how the shading turned out, especially because this is actually (aside from the unfinished hair) one of the more minimal pieces I’ve done in terms of lineart  It’s still there, and it still shapes the flow of the picture in some ways, but it also ends up flowing with the shading instead of standing out next to it, which I like.  (Both styles are good, though, and I love seeing other artists try both too.)

5. Old Portrait of Aja Amell, 2016 - Much older picture I did of Aja; she... honestly looks very little like the newer one, I think, and that consistency is something I’m still working on, but this one was the first picture of Aja with that particular hairstyle I drew.  What I like about this picture is how young she looks; it fits with her image as a fresh and sheltered Circle mage who’s only about 20 years old at the time of DAO.

6. Old Portrait of Trilyn, 2016 - They very first piece of art I posted to tumblr~ It’s not exactly how I envision Trilyn anymore, but it was still very fun to draw, and helped me get a feel for drawing him in the future. 

Dynamic Movement Pictures/”Moment’s in Time”:

1. Tabris in Arl’s Estate, 2020 - TW: blood.  I am super proud of this one.  My ultimate goal is to draw all of my Warden DAO OCs, and I could not believe I’ve never drawn my Tabris, and so here she is.  This was, in large part, practicing expressions because I absolutely love art that depicts characters in motion, or capturing some kind of expression.

2. Velyn in the Rain, 2017 - This one was actually based on some art that I saw in a Teen Wolf fic!  It was an experiment with a more expressive style (and one of the first pieces I did without lineart left in the finished version) and it was a huge step out of my comfort zone.  But overall, I am extremely happy with how it turned out.

3. Jem Nocking an Arrow, 2016 - And here is the lineart version.  This was entirely an excuse to draw my DAI baby, Jem, and to do a cool archer pose because archers are my fav, and I love characters in motion.

4. Solas Teaching Trilyn Fade Magic, 2016 - This one was a painterly picture that was also (like the Velyn picture) something which I tried to keep lineart out of.  Overall, I am proud of a lot of parts of the pic, but I think I would definitely go back over it and change a few things now if I had the patience.

5. Trilyn Closeup WIP, 2016 - TW: injury, blood, mention of abuse in the author’s note.  A lot of early pictures I have are of my OC, Trilyn, and this is one of my absolute favorites.  His entire upper body is technically in the picture, but I hadn’t finished rendering it yet, so this was what I posted.  And it was an experiment with a cross-hatching style with the pencil tool for some texture, with air brush shading and a blurring tool.  It’s a style I had fun playing around with!

6. Trilyn Blood Ritual, 2016 - TW: blood, injury (the slight cut used to supply the ritual with blood).  This one was definitely a sort of “captured moment” from a backstory I gave Trilyn, and I think what I was really going for was an atmospheric piece that could fit with any potential fic I wanted to write for Trilyn.  And then it ended up being practice for extreme lighting/shading techniques, and drawing the blood and the gross mass of demon ichor (or whatever the heck that is) turned out to be highlights of making the piece for me.

Art + Text:

1. Freedom and Control, 2020 - TW: scars, but very difficult to see.  This one was ambitious for me!  It started originally just as Solas and my Tal-Vashoth OC, Saara, facing each other, because I love the dynamic I’ve built for them in my head, but then it turned into an attempt at a tarot-esque background, and just sorta grew from there... Overall, I’m happy with how it turned out, especially with how Solas and Saara themselves turned out.  The version you can actually see a larger view is here.  

2. Marianna and Delia Codex and Art, Pt. 1, 2020 - I love writing my own codex entries, first off, and I love combining art with text to create a (hopefully) seamless work.  This work was an attempt to flesh out these OCs of mine with both art (because unique facial structures are hard for me to get down, but so important regardless) and text (because writing~).  I think it turned out well overall, but there are elements of the portraits that I might at some point touch up a bit.

3. Marianna and Delia Codex and Art, Pt. 2, 2020 - Part 2, with what I refer to as a “DAI Outfit Change” because I have always loved seeing fans show their own OCs as they look in DAO, DA2, and then finally DAI.  So I absolutely wanted to jump on that bandwagon myself.  The skin tones are a little off (and I’m sorry about that!) because I was playing with the watercolor brush at that point, and it dilutes the colors I use.  Still working to figure that out, but I was very happy with the overall lineart and structures of the faces.

4. Alistair/Aja Amell Picture with a Blurb, 2017 - Ooooold, old, old, old, OLD!  I still love the art, and I’m soooo happy with how the interaction between Alistair and Aja turned out (drawing kisses is extremely difficult for me; I always end up creating a distorted weird lip-creature, instead of realistically puckered lips...).  I’m not as happy with the blurb that went with it?  At that point, I was still very much figuring out my own DAO worldstate, and the characterization for everyone, so, eh.  Take it with a grain of salt!

Unfinished Costume Designs:

1. Ancient Elvhen Armor with Dwarven Influence, 2018 - People who do costume design work are amazing and mystical beings, and I wish I could do what they do.  This was an attempt at merging the Keeper robes from DAI with a more dwarven armor aesthetic, solely because I created an ancient elvhen character, Ceda, who was taken in by the Cad’halash dwarves mentioned in the Witch Hunt dlc, and I wanted this character to have a mix of the elven style of armor and the dwarven style.  I’m overall decently happy with it, but there’s still that persistent level of self-criticism present.

2. Herald of Andraste Outfit WIP, 2016 - This was a very old picture, not one I showed around a lot, but the idea for this was entirely born of my intense interest in how fashion and outfit designs could be used to create a symbolic image for the Herald of Andraste.  In general, I love the combination of ceremonial armor with long and flowing cloth, so that was what I went for here.  I’m still actually very proud of how this came out, and headcanon something similar for my Herald in my canon DAI worldstate.

Pencil Sketches:

1. Quick Saara Sketch, 2019 - TW: saarebas mouth scars.  Exactly what it says; very quick sketch of Saara I did in a small notebook I carry around with me.  This was basically a test for myself to see if I could manage to draw Saara with the features and facial structure I envisioned for her without needing to use a lot of references.

2. Mass Effect Character Sketch; Jesse, 2018 - Similar reason for drawing this one as the above Saara sketch!  With these characters, I love sometimes the way they can turn out with the specific character creator used for them, and when I draw them, I enjoy trying to create a definitive look for them using what I get from the CC, and my own knowledge of Hooman Faces.

3. Saara Sketch, 2017 - TW: saarebas mouth scars.  A more detailed sketch of Saara than the one above, and one I definitely put more time into overall.  It’s currently the profile picture I’m using for ao3, and is the definitive go-to reference picture I use whenever imagining Saara in a fic, or for other Saara pics I make.  I am extremely proud of this picture, and feel like I should work in graphite more often.  It’s such fun, and the texture is so nice to look at.

4. Sketch of Nameless Alamarri Woman, 2017 - This was a sketch I did of what I envisioned some Alamarri tribes to look like; I used artistic depictions of Gaul tribes and hairstyles for inspiration, and have used this as a go-to reference for my version of Alamarri tribes.  Nothing super notable about this one, but I really liked the way the shape of her face turned out.

Events and Gifts:

1. Another Scar, 2020 - TW: blood, injuries, gore.  The most recent piece of art on the list, and a gift for @cartadwarfwithaheartofgold; featuring sisterly love between Rica and fem!Brosca, which was her requested prompt.  This was a tough piece for me because of the difficulty with the lighting I dealt with.  For some reason, that one particular element of it gave me so much trouble.  Overall, I’m very happy with how it turned out, though, especially the skin tones of the sisters; Brosca I always sort of like as having this greyish, more gaunt look to her, while Rica I like seeing with a darker, richer, and warmer tone to her.  

2. A Very Cousland Christmas!, 2019 - This was for a holiday exchange for a server, and I drew a friend’s Cousland (Elissa, the girl on the left) with my Cousland (Gazza, the girl on the right).  I love kid-fic, and I love kid-art, and so I decided... baby Cousland art!  Drawing kid proportions was the toughest part, I recall, and I thiiiink it turned out well, and I’m still quite proud of it overall.  Elissa’s design came entirely from my friend, but I added the holly~

3. Exchange Gift with Dis Brosca and Mabari, 2018 - This was an exchange gift for @fanfoolishness, using her lovely Dis Brosca, and was my first real attempt at backgrounds... I struggled with the coherence of the foreground and background a bit, but I’m still very proud of how it turned out, especially with the colors I had to work with.  What I also really enjoyed working with was the lighting and the expression on Dis’s face.  Backlit subjects are always fun to play around with!

4. Inktober Picture, “Deep”, 2017 - TW: scars, injury, mentions of abuse in the author’s note/attached dialogue snippets.  This was for an Inktober prompt (the only one I’ve ever done, sadly... because I am bad with deadlines...), and again features Trilyn.  Trilyn’s backstory has him a former slave in Tevinter, and a lot of the early works I do for him are sort of deep-dives into his life there.  It’s all meant to be an exploration of the things he endures, and then those moments when he overcomes it all and takes back his own autonomy and self.  This art is definitely provocative, and I can understand if not everyone likes it, but to me, I just wanted to show just what he faces (without glorifying it) before showing the moment of his own triumph.

5. Christmas Holiday Picture with my Brosca and a Friend’s Amell, 2017 - This was a piece of art drawn first by a friend of mine, @nanahuatli~  She drew the Amell, the background, the mistletoe, etc.  All I did was add my Brosca to the mix to finish the image.  It was a lot of fun to do, 1) because it was fun trying to match her style so that the picture looked cohesive, 2) because I love doing collabs with friends, and 3) because it was just such a fun thing to imagine my surly short Brosca, looking at this weird plant/fungus/thing dangling over some puckering human!  It was an absolute joy to do this collab with her!  

6. OC Kiss Week Pic of Jem and Saara, 2017 - TW: saarebas mouth scars.  A spur-of-the-moment thing meant to demonstrate just what kind of dynamic my OC, Jem, has with my other OC, Saara (both of whom are members of Leliana’s network in DAI).  This was a very quick picture (deadlines...) and was mostly just to have fun drawing these two characters interacting, and to see if I could make them look like themselves.  I think I did a decent job with it overall, especially with Jem’s kissy-face!  (Again... drawing kisses are the bane of my existence, although hands and feet take a close second.)

[the-final-sif]

could ya tell me more about Kat drawing? like one of favorite headcanons ever and mainly because of you. bruh Katsuki hakamata au really made uwu with his sketchbook i would love to know more headcanons on that

Okay! Katsuki drawing is one of my favorite smaller headcanons for him!

He draws almost exclusively realistic stuff. If he’s drawing for fun, then he’s drawing memories and moments from his life, sometimes scenery, and sometimes on his worst days scenes from his nightmares, but all things that he’s seen somewhere else. He also draws out designs for costumes/weapons, but they tend to be pretty realistic/technical drawings.

That’s because art is a form of processing for him. Katsuki has a lot of trouble with processing and understanding his own emotions. He wasn’t taught any self-reflective skills or emotional control skills when he was younger, and as a result he often experiences intense emotions that he doesn’t even understand let alone know how to handle.

Art is one of the few methods of dealing with those emotions that he has. It lets him reflect on the day, thinking over how things went and deciding how he feels about something as he sketches it out. It also lets him thing about his own actions and what he might want to change about them.

When he’s designing stuff, it’s still a form of processing, but it’s more of him processing his ideas and figuring out what he wants the design to be/do. A lot of it tends to reflect how he wants himself or others to change in the future.

That can mean redesigning his costume to be better for rescue work, but sometimes it means drawing up a redesigned version of Izuku’s costume which has better protective features on it, because Katsuki doesn’t know how to express his concern to Izuku in anything even approaching a healthy way, but he knows how to design better arm and leg guards. That’s much easier.

The only thing he never draws is himself. No part of him is included in his sketches, only ever the world around him. Even when he designs new upgrades and versions of his costume, there’s no Katsuki inside the costume.

He doesn’t like to think about why he doesn’t draw himself. It’s a line he doesn’t cross. Deviling too deep into feelings and ideas he isn’t ready for.

Drawing is a quiet period for him, time when he lets himself be alone with his thoughts and his feelings. And those are not thoughts and feelings he wants to deal with.

In the Katsuki Hakamata AU, that starts out being times when he’s truly alone and knows nobody else can come in and see him drawing. It’s one of the few times he’ll actually feel safe and let himself experience his emotions properly. So much of his life is spent shoving his emotions down and pretending that he doesn’t have them, that having a bit of time to himself to feel those emotions again is vital for him. Only ever when he’s sure he’s alone though, and nobody else will know he has feelings. It’s too dangerous otherwise.

But slowly that changes. As he learns other methods of emotional processing, and as he learns to open up and trust others again, he starts drawing around other people. Art is still a very important moment of reflection for him, but it’s a form of reflection that he can share with other people too.

With enough time, his class adjusts to Katsuki drawing around them. People learn quickly that if he’s drawing, he’ll be fairly quiet and focused on it. They can ask him questions about the artwork if they want, he may or may not feel up to telling them, but often times he will. They always try not to bother him with questions about other stuff though, otherwise he might lose focus.

It takes until well into their second year before Katsuki feels comfortable enough with his classmates and his artwork to start giving it to people.

Obviously it starts with the designs. He knows he’s good at designing shit, and he’s got god knows how many different designs for various people tucked away. Hell he’s made designs for heroes he’s never met before just because the idea struck him. The support department loves and hates him for all the designs he’s got for his own stuff. And some things about his classmates’ costumes or items were bothering him too much to stay quiet about.

So he gets proper blueprint paper, double checks all the support department’s regulations and design rules even though he knows them all by heart, and he draws up a few improvements and new items. New padding and bracing for Izuku because holy shit he needs it. A better electricity regulator for Denki because he’s been zapping himself more lately and Katsuki might be a bit worried about that. Some hidden weapons for Ochako, because she’s got those so many damn places to hide them and Katsuki knows she’d put those weapons to good use.

Once he’s got the first round of designs done, he’s not quite sure how to give them to the others. He doesn’t want to have to explain shit, and he’s already feeling kinda embarrassed about it.

So he.... doesn’t. Kinda. Katsuki slips the drawings under their doors when he knows they’re out instead. Each tucked into a nice envelope and address to them. They’ll still know it’s from him, because of course it is, but this way he doesn’t have to figure out what to say.

That becomes his new routine, slipping drawings under his classmates’ doors with upgrade ideas for them. They always thank him, with big smiles and hugs and excited chattering. He’ll huff at them and look away, but he still loves seeing them using the new stuff. It makes a warm feeling bubble up in his chest when he’s out on the field and sees something he designed come in handy.

It’s not always just his classmates either. He may’ve designed better eye guards for Aizawa-sensei, ones with built in eye drops to make it easier on him. Just maybe. Hawks finds designs for a jacket that’s easier on his wings on his desk.

All-Might’s not a hero anymore, so he doesn’t need any support weapons or costume changes. But when winter comes around, and cold starts to burrow it’s way into his old bones, he finds a thick homemade scarf on his desk in the teacher’s lounge. It’s extremely warm, and he knows who made it, even if there’s no note. He wears it all winter and well into spring, and doesn’t miss how young Katsuki’s face seems to soften a bit when he sees it.

It’s not until their third year that Katsuki works up the courage to give away some of his art that isn’t a design. To anyone other then Auntie Inko that is.

The very first gift to is to Aizawa, at the start of the school year, when Katsuki can already see the nostalgia creeping into his teacher’s gaze, his preemptive worry over his kids heading out into the ‘real world’ even though he knows they’ve been there for a long time. 

He goes through his sketchbook and he picks out the very best of his pieces, those of his classmates and his teacher. Sure, he’s got more of some people then others, but he tries to keep it an even amount of each person. Some of the pieces need little touch ups or fixing before he’s happy with them, but once he is, he makes copies of each piece for his own collection, and the originals are bound together into a careful book.

This time he doesn’t leave it on Aizawa’s desk like he might a design. This is too important for that. He can’t quite look Aizawa in the eye when he hands it to him after class, but he does manage to mutter out a “Happy last year with this hell class.”

He doesn’t stay to see Aizawa’s reaction, but his teacher finds him afterwards and hugs him anyways. He tells Katsuki that he loves it, but comments very lightly that there’s someone missing from it. Katsuki knows, but he doesn’t have an answer for that yet.

Other people start getting artwork from Katsuki after that. They usually get copies rather then the originals, and it’s usually artwork of them. Izuku is the exception, he always gets the original copies because Katsuki knows he likes those. Most of it is just memories that he thinks they’ll want to hold onto.

Tsunagu gets drawings, of course he does. It’s less then Katsuki gives to other people, because if he’s giving artwork to his dad then he wants it to be good, but he still gets some. Tsunagu treasures each piece, but he notices the same pattern Aizawa does.

There’s pieces of Tsunagu in battle, pieces of him on his own, or with Kugo, or Hawks, and even one of him sitting beside Aizawa. Pieces of him rescuing civilians, or holding various children he’s met. But none of him and Katsuki. None of Katsuki at all.

He doesn’t press at it, but he mentions it offhand every so often. Gentle as he can be.

Katsuki knows, and it’s not until he’s almost graduated that he finally works up the courage to do what he hasn’t managed since he was a child.

He’s been working on the piece all year. His very first piece that isn’t a memory, isn’t a scene from real life or a future design. Something created from his own mind. It’s a big one. It’s got all his classmates in it. Aizawa-sensei. Mic-sensei. All-Might. Eri. His dad. Auntie Inko. Kugo. Hawks. Everyone’s there. Most of it is done, most of it but not the center, the focal point of the piece.

Drawing himself into the piece, one in which everyone is smiling and happy, had felt wrong each time he picked up his pencil. Felt like a lie, felt like he was sullying something perfect with something that didn’t belong.

Even now as he sketches himself into the picture, the last person missing from it, it still feels wrong. But he does it anyways. He pushes past the clench of his chest and reminds himself that he belongs here. He belongs in the picture too, smiling like everyone else is.

It takes longer then he would’ve liked, but he finishes the piece. When he puts down his brushes, done with the coloring at long last, and he takes it all in, that’s when it feels right. To see himself smiling with his family all around him.

Each person in the photo gets their own copy of it, each person but Tsunagu, who gets the original which he gets framed and is hung up in his living room. Katsuki doesn’t keep a copy of it for himself, he doesn’t need to. If he ever feels like seeing it, then all he needs to do is go visit any member of his weird, giant, amazing family.

[soyouareandrewdobson]

What is the joke?

The title of this post is a common question some people have asked in regard of “So You’re a Cartoonist?” and certain other comics quite a bit over the years, seeing how some strips tend to be often times centered around a very confusing meme or inside jokes Dobson heard about. Then there are also those that were never meant to be funny to begin with, as they are focused on Dobson soapboxing about criticism or what he considers is an issue in nerd culture you should be outraged about, cause otherwise you are a nazi.

 And then there are “strips” like this one, published in early April 2014.

 And I just have to ask: Why does that even exist? Cause honestly, it is not even a joke. It is a butchered reference.

For those not aware what it references, here the short explanation:

In 1961 DC comic writer Gardner Fox, who among other things created Jay Gardner, the Golden Age DC comic Flash, wrote the comic “Flash of Two Worlds”. In this book, then current Silver Age Flash Barry Allen manages to vibrate his molecules at such a frequency, that he breaks through a dimensional barrier into a parallel earth called “Earth-2”. An alternate reality in which Jay Gardner, whose only a fictional comic book hero in Barry’s world, actually exists. But his days as the Flash have been over for years, having retired and married his girlfriend. However, with three of his old villains on the loose and Barry trying to find a way home, Jay decides to help The Flash, taking up the old costume again, leading to a team up between the heroes of two major time periods in comic history.

This comic marks a major point in the development of DC comics in general. Not only was it a meta celebration/tribute of the Golden Age Flash who had been long replaced in the public eye by Barry Allen, its success led to DC eventually revitalizing a lot of their major but at that point retired Golden Age characters, by making them all part of the Earth-2 reality.

The concept of a parallel-earth next to the main heroes reality introduced in this story would also become the very foundation for the concept of the DC multiverse, starting with the JLA story “Crisis on Earth-One” in 1963, over time eventually leading up to the most defining DC crossover that ever came and one of the most important comic events in the history of superhero comics: Crisis of Infinite Earths from 1985.

As of 2020, Flash of Two Worlds has been referenced in nerd culture a lot. Particularly the iconic cover has been referenced and parodied by many, including DC itself.

And yes, that cover is iconic. And why shouldn’t it be? Two Flashes, unaware of the other because of the “wall” (aka the dimensional barriere) trying to save someone, creating a certain suspense for the reader if the guy calling for help can be saved by either of the two speedsters before he is hit by the steel beam? Begging the question, how either of the two heroes may react when exposed to the other one? It is a genuinely suspenseful scene within just one pic, featuring the heroes of two generations of readers.

A pic that does however also lend itself for easy referential humor. All you need to do is just look for a franchise where something like alternate versions of main characters exist and replace them accordingly with the characters on the cover.

Here, have some fanart someone drew based on it of Sonic e.g.

And now imagine what others could do by doing something like that with characters from Rick and Morty, the Marvel multiverse, Star vs., Super Sentai, Paper and Regular Mario… different possibilities are given. You can either make it just a “straight” alternate take of the cover with other characters, or you can poke fun of it by changing something in the pic up significantly (e.g. I could imagine a Rick and Morty parody simply having Rick on the left being too drunk to save him, while on the right he is just mumbling something about Morty not having to worry cause he can just revive him in a clone body).

 But the “joke” also only works if a certain context is still given.

 People need to be aware of what the pic is referencing overall (the Flash of two Worlds cover) but also of the fact that such alternate versions of characters on the pic exist within the franchise that replaces the Flashes. The Sonic pic e.g. works, because it shows both classic and modern Sonic as the heroes. Something we had seen able to coexist within Sonic Generations and Sonic Forces.

In Dobson’s take however, the joke falls flat because Dobson uses something that up until ONE sketch prior has not even existed before: Black Pam.

For the record, this pic was released in late March 2014. You would now think that this picture existing was related to something like Dobson mocking critics of him for turning his self insert from a human into alternate universe Augustus Gummi all of sudden, by exaggerating changes in the designs of his other characters. But that can’t really be it, cause Dobson had turned himself into a furball of failure already for a year. He had also mocked the change in comics prior, as seen e.g. here.

So, why does “Affirmative Traction” as the one with Pink Dobson and Disco Pam is titled, exist? And by the way, I don’t like to call Black Pam racist, cause she could be way more stereotypical, but you really didn’t need to go Cola Light Disco blacksploitation with her design, Dobson.

But back to “Pam of Two Worlds”; As said, the joke with “two Pams” doesn’t really work, cause one of them is essentially a non entity and could also just be replaced with any other race or gender swapped version Dobson could have thought off. Furthermore, why is Dobbear calling for help exactly? Because a copy pasted tradepaperback of X-Force, likely drawn by Liefeld, is going to hit him on the head? I know it is just meant to be a joke and not something to think of too much, but the thing about jokes is, they too need to make a certain amount of sense and have a certain logic to them in order to work. This doesn’t really work because the “danger” is 150 pages of distillated 90s Marvel trash going to hit him on the noggin.

As long as it is not thrown from the Empire State Building, I doubt it can be any danger to Dobson. In fact, if he really wanted to draw something from which the Pams of two strips could save him, it should have been a spray water bottle. At least then the majority of people on the internet would get the joke.    

[griffinsandpeacocks]

GET UP & WRITE! Section 1: “I love you, but I don’t even think I know who you really are.”

“The lunar fall festival is coming swiftly. I would like you to play as the Lunar Queen.” Elrond says looking at Erestor who promptly snaps his quill and destroys the parchment he’d been working on in the resulting splatter of black ink. He sets the now destroyed work and quill aside wipes clean his hand on the rag near by for it and calmly looks up at his old friend and now his trusted Lord.

“Excuse me?” Erestor asks calmly certain he’d misheard as his views of the festivals were clear. He would over see them to be sure they were set up properly and all was in order but he would only stay at them so long as he was required. Which was thankfully a small window of time. 

“I want you to be the Lunar Queen.” Elrond says and Erestor can feel the tick in his brow. He sighs and rubs at his forehead.

“Elrond... You know full well I don’t like being at the center of attention.” Erestor says strained.

“I know. However, I long to hear you sing again, it’s been dark as of late and I feel we should remind everyone here that every last one of us is capable of many things a scribe might know how to play an instrument or perhaps a warrior is a talented poet, the dower chief Councilor is in fact a song bird.” Elrond explains and Erestor sighs and nods. It was a good reason he supposed but to have come now of all times right after Glorfindel had returned to Arda, to serve Elrond and his line. 

“Alright.” He sighs and Elrond beams.

“Good! I’ll tell Linder he’s in charge this year.” Also you’ll manage your parts correct?” Elrond asks and the dark haired elf nods and watches Elrond smile and skip off. He groans and throws the destroyed work in his trash before standing and stalking off to gather what he’ll need. Better it be handled now so he can focus as much as possible on his work leading up to the dammed event. Glorfindel is sheepishly talking with the seamstress when he arrives.

“Elrond cast you as the Sun King?” He asks and Glorfindel jumps and looks at the dark cloud of an elf and nods. Erestor growls and looks at the seamstress.

“I’ll be playing the Lunar Queen have you two settled on designs yet? I’ll help if not. I need this all sorted so I can go back to work.” She pursed her lips.

“Elrond’s doing his thing again?” She asks and Erestor nods and she winced.

“Well so far we know he’ll need blues as not only will they compliment Lord Glorfindel well, they’ll match the sky. Other than that we haven’t discussed quite yet.” She says and Erestor nods. He looks at the other then the seamstress and they go into a flurry of chatter as Erestor helps her design the outfit and soon the design is drawn up, with bits in put from Glorfindel here and there. 

“Now you’ll just need the glittering jewelry to go with it. There’s a few props stored away you can look through or we can find something unique, I’ll show you if you don’t know where those are but first I’ll need to create my costume.” He is agitated still and Glorfindel nods gesturing him to continue as he moves back and gives a nervous grin.

“I’ll help if you’d like, but this is not my strong suit.” Glorfindel says and Erestor gives him a flat look his silver eyes cuttingly cold.

“I would have never guessed.” The darkling says and looks at the seamstress.

“We’ll need dark colors, highlighted with pale silver possibly weave gems in to make stars and their patterns over the outer robes... Hmm... Or I can do that with my hair... I know of a pretty little circlet that should work well enough... It’s been used before but it should serve well. Can you do an outfit based around it? I can either fetch it or draw it for you?” Erestor says and She describes it Erestor smiles and nods.

“Aye that one.” He says and She smiles and sketches a few ideas and shows him and he picks them apart combining them into one out fit she sketches out again and he nods. He leads Glorfindel to the closet that holds all the supplies for those playing the parts for festivals and finds his circlet and smiles at it, swirls reminiscent of water cupping a crescent moon a small gem drop dangling down  imbued to glow like a little star. Glorfindel is looking through the ones made of gold and sighs. He can’t think of any of these with the elegant outfit they had made for him.

“None of these seem to do the costume you helped design justice...” Glorfindel sighs and Erestor looks over.

“They’re rather tacky. I can admit. I can see if any smith has the availability to make something that won’t be as bad.” He offers and Glorfindel smiles.

“It be best someone else... Everyone seems to throw other important matters to the fire when they see me... Why I’ve no clue... I did what any warrior would have to protect his people... Duilin died on his wall with his men to try and stem the tide betrayed like so many... Yet somehow I’m special?” Glorfindel asks sneering and Erestor shrugs.

“They are young, you are a reborn legend. Your sacrifice is not diminished by you’re return nor was it any less than what the others who died gave. You were merely returned to serve Turgon’s line.” Erestor states and the golden elda smiles at him.

“Thank you for the normalcy. it is rare and I hate it that so few can behave as you have.” Glorfindel says and Erestor scoffs.

“An elf’s measure is in their heart I know nothing of yours save tales. Words are cheap actions are not. Prove to me you are those legends and perhaps I may change, other wise you’re a clueless new comer like most fools that come to Imladris.” Erestor states and Glorfindel grins sheepishly as they leave. The smiths happened to be free at least the one Erestor goes to he mostly deals in elf stones but he does make trinkets and looks at the drawing Erestor does of Glorfindel’s costume and agrees to help make a sun styled trinket smiling as he sees the one Erestor’s chosen.

“I’ve an idea for it.” He says and retreats to his workshop and Erestor nods at Glorfindel.

“Have fun with your work. I’ve gotten my costume handled at this point. I’ll talk with Lindir about some minor details for my part and I’ll be done.” He states. Glorfindel thanks him and they part ways. It’s several days till the festival and Erestor is prepared and already done with the fan fare everyone whispering who’s who and no one knows. Except they’re all fully aware Glorfindel is to play the Sun King. Erestor goes and picks up his costume and smiles at it. The robes are trimmed in silver with glittering beads sown on like little stars and the dark almost black blue shimmers faintly showing like moonlight over water. 

He thanks her and takes the pale silver under robes and shirt and the leggings and retreats to his rooms with his costume and tries it all on. He looks like a night related queen or lord of some sort. His hair he pulls back braiding in little beads and smiles a bit snickering as now he sees why Elrond had wanted him to play in this years festival. He had flair for things when called for. Lindir peeks in and whistles and asks him a last few questions as he get’s last minute details in order. 

Erestor goes and waits for the festival to start and has small finger tip claw like silver embellishments he’ll use to pluck the harp he’ll be playing. Glorfindel is hiding elsewhere and Soon the hall fills up and Erestor waits until the silver lights are raised and he steps out and walks to the harp set on the stage and silence falls over the hall. He sits and plucks out a tune as he starts to sing.

“Fear not this night, you will not go astray...” Erestor sings and the bards scattered in shadows play along and he sings softly on voice steadily raising as the song grows and he looks up as he fades and the lights fade as stronger light fills the room and Glorfindel steps onto stage and Erestor can admit a king he looks like his own circlet  the golden one lookes like curling vines and flowers bloom across it to cup a sun that glows with an elf stone. The blue and gold robes are magnificent and regal on the warrior.

“I hear a voice so sweet on too few occasions...” He says it’s his opening line and Erestor folds his hands in his lap and watches him calmly.

“I have sang many times, ray of Arnor. You are astray from her to dally here in twilight.” Erestor responds.

“Too long I ignored the songs I have heard and asked leave to seek out the source for I’ve never heard a fairer voice.” Glorfindel answers and Erestor then stands and walks closer.

“Fair words from a fair face.” Erestor answers back and walks around the warrior appraising and smiling secretive as the elda blushed and looks down before looking up.

“I love you, but I don’t even think I know who you really are.” The golden one says and the silver one laughs and twirls his robes flaring as he offers a hand.

“Then learn, and decide then if it my voice or me you are infatuated with.” He says and Glorfindel reaches out and takes his hand and they turn to the audience and bow. 

The festivities now underway they mingle and talk and Elrond congratulates them both on a masterful performance. The party went on and Erestor found a corner to hide in glowering at those who came to gossip until they left he’s holding a half full glass and sighs as he takes another sip of the dark red wine.

“Can I hide with you here? I have more fans then before and I want to strangle Elrond for it.” Glorfindel asks and Erestor nods to the wall he’s leaning on.

“Think we can hide his body without anyone finding out?” Erestor asks and Glorfindel chuckles.

“Probably not.” He says and Erestor groans and let’s his head thunk back against the wall.

“You... Forgive me if I offend I really don’t mean to... You remind me a lot of Ecthelion.” Glorfindel says and Erestor glanced to the blond and looks down.

“He was my brother. I worked within the castle as a scribe and recorded the histories. So I was largely in the shadows. No one noticed me much, I liked it that way. So I’m not offended. I’m glad to hear I look like him.” Erestor says and Glorfindel goes pale.

“So you...” He fades off and Erestor looks over and smiles softly and places a hand on the elda’s shoulder.

“I know how often you screwed up while training, yes, and don’t, painful memories serve no one when they fester. I blame no one but those who allowed the city to be destroyed. You fought to defend it and died. Even if he didn’t come back, I’m glad his dear friend did. It is nice to get to know you as he often talked about you.” Erestor says and the elda nods and shivers slightly. Erestor frowns and leads them to the gardens and away from everyone to a small terrace that looked over the valley and was well lit by the moon.

“You’ve nothing to fear here Lord Glorfindel. Elrond holds this valley’s safety above even his own heath at times. He would let us know should anything foul come this way.” Erestor says and the golden elf nods taking a deep breath. He stops shivering and Erestor stares out over the silver falls and he sits on the banister and begins to sing softly again. Glorfindel listens with a soft smile as the night slowly fades to dawn.

[thegirlisuedtobe]

AH YEAH REBECCA FILO AU! WOOP!!

I’m so happy with how it all turned out lmao I really only meant them to be a sketch but spent a good five hours on em. Rebecca and Ich both have different patterns on the panuelo and sayas so please click to check em out and for that high resolution yo!

I just realised that Rebecca’s supposed to be older lksdflkajdlkdj I kept thinking yes Rebecca died like ten years ago rather than it literally being last year kfjkjfh but also asians dont age so,,,,, take what you will

Some notes under the cut!

UGH THIS IS WHAT I DESERVE CAN SOMEONE PLEASE GIVE ME THE FUNDING TO MAKE A FILO REBECCA ADAPTION BLEASE

Anyways,,,, Notes!

Despite being based off of the same De Winter portrait I decided to make them two different styles. They’re both the Maria Clara design however depending on which century of the Spanish colonisation you get wildly different styles. Ich’s dress is based on the older more conservative silhoutte’s of the dress. It has a hiked up panuelo that covers her shoulders completely. That would be the standard style even up until after Phil’s independance from Spain. (The panuelo was a piece of garment that was integrated into the fashion bc Spaniards were like if you show shoulders ur a wh*re now) Fun fact! The see through bell sleeves were imposed by Spaniards so that as slaves they couldn’t hide weapons in them!

Rebecca’s panuelo is,,,,, basically falling off of her shoulders, this woman knows no imodesty. And frankly the very idea of a panuelo is so stupid?? LMAO like the climate is unbelievably hot and ur adding another piece of clothing on top of your four layer dress okay. AND in pre colonial era no one cared about if you showed your boobs they were not considered sexual. But the main thing that the panuelo represents is the Spanish influence of what it means to be a “woman” and linking that with purity and modesty of which those notions did not exist in filo culture until after colonisation. Another difference is their saya (skirt), it’s actually semi-transparent but I literally could not be bothered drawing a whole other layer underneath. However, I imagine that she’s wearing an American evening gown under it instead of just a baro (shirt). So after the “costume” part of the party she can change. And if I this adaption was real I would write a thousand essays about the symbolism beneath the costume design but it’s not so ://

Traditional dresses all look basically the same because it’s meant for special occasions only and there’s really little variance in colour (that’s the main thing). The red and black skirt would be everywhere, it is everywhere and still used to this day. That would make their shock to her dress at the party not really make sense because again different styles, monogamous colours, so you’d still have to bend over backwards to call her Rebecca BUT because of my previous notes on this filo adaption that I should get because give it to me, Maxim’s house is a symbol of the American influence on Phils, and so her coming to a party dressed up in traditional filo clothing in a house that’s trying to divorce itself so hard from it’s culture and given Maxim’s new characterisation, the shock does make sense. Even if it’s not the exact same dress.

One last note! Ich is lighter in skin colour than Rebecca. That’s super important because that’s the big thing in Phils culture nowadays so I wanted to make it clear even here because it was a big thing back then too. Rebecca should technically be the lighter one, she’s a “lady” and not a companion, but the story mentions that she sailed often. Under said hot climate you’re going to tan even if the culture dictactes that it’s not good for a “lady” to be dark. Colourism aha. So not only is she breaking barriers in expressing her sexuality freely, she’s also not adheering to the status quo of what a “lady” should look like, and again challenging that colourist beauty standards that even until today is still a big thing.

They also both have dimples, ich has two because I love her.

[3195c]

The Dark Knight: How Heath Ledger's Joker Was Born

2020.7

On the occasion of The Dark Knight’s 10th anniversary, we spoke with make-up artist John Caglione, Jr., who was nominated for an Academy Award for his work on The Dark Knight along with Conor O'Sullivan. Caglione had previously won an Oscar for his makeup on Dick Tracy back in 1991, so he came into The Dark Knight with some very relevant experience in the realm of creating grotesqueries. But when it came to birthing a new version of the Joker, the makeup artist quickly realized that he would be crossing into some new and uncomfortable terrain.

“So I read the script for The Dark Knight, and having seen the first one of Chris Nolan’s trilogy, I got the feeling it was going to be more of kind of an organic-looking thing,” Caglione explains. “It was going to be kind of real, not so comic book-y. Going in, and then talking to Chris, meeting him, it became a more realistic approach to the makeup. … What would it be if this guy slept in this makeup? You know, this psychopath. If he didn’t spruce up his makeup for two or three weeks. And, you know, he never changes his clothes in the film. … It was those kinds of organic details that really helps.” When Caglione joined the production, Ledger was already signed on to play the iconic villain. The makeup designer’s earliest meetings were with the actor, director, and costume designer Lindy Hemming, followed by Caglione creating five or six color sketches as overlays of headshots of Ledger complete with green hair, different kinds of clown makeup, scars, and so on. This was followed with some makeup tests with Ledger in London, but as the process continued, it became clear that Caglione had to abandon his artist’s instinct to get everything just right. “You know, you go into it, and you’re trying, as a makeup artist, I’m always trained to do every little detail,” he says. “And you think of a clown makeup, and for the most part they’re pretty detailed with sharp lines, but this had to be the opposite of that. It had to look very broken down, very… very lived in. So, yeah, my first few times were too perfect, so I had to kind of let my hand go. And it was hard, it was really hard to do that. And I remember the first week, the first few days on set, I would look at the makeup, and you don’t know the context of the film and the overall vision, and you’re looking at it as a makeup artist. And I’m saying, this is the worst makeup in the world here! You know? And, it was like, oh, am I doing the right thing?

“And you’re looking at all the great makeups in history,” he continues. “Not just the Joker, but Clarabell and so many other greats -- you know, Emmett Kelly. And they’re always just very accurate, very precise makeups, and then here comes this. Ahhh! But, thank God it all worked out, right?” It’s easy to forget now, but before The Dark Knight was released, the standard bearer of Joker makeups was the Jack Nicholson version from Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman. But Caglione says that as far as he can recall, that design was never really discussed when creating the Ledger Joker. In fact, even the idea of the Joker’s white face being the result of an accident -- which is clearly the case in the Burton film -- just didn’t fit in the Nolan world of Batman. “The first Batman was amazing,” says Caglione. “I love Nicholson’s makeup. And I love the whole approach that Tim Burton [took] … the comic book style of the film, it worked. Everything about that film was great. So, in the back of my mind, maybe subconsciously it was there, but no, it never came up in meetings or discussions. It was, let’s roll up our sleeves and make this thing look like a real person could have done this to themselves. … I think it was always discussed, that this was a possible -- you know, just a psychopath. A real person that just gets into this whole thing. It’s almost like a split personality. And so, yeah, it’s a madman in makeup. It’s that concept.”

Part of the “doing this to themselves” aspect of the character includes the question of those scars on either side of this Joker’s face. Of course, the film itself leaves the question of where the scars came from open to interpretation, as unknowable as the Joker’s ever-changing origin. “I always got the impression that it was self-inflicted,” says Caglione. “But it’s up to you to decide. Was he punished, was it abuse? Was it an abusive situation? It could have been [and] that just tipped him over the edge. Mutilation, self-mutilation. We never really know for sure.” Not surprisingly, Ledger himself was very involved in creating the makeup with Nolan and Caglione. Indeed, he was essential to getting the worn and cracked look of his Joker just right. “It was great with Heath, it was just a great experience,” says Caglione. “He was a great person to work with every day. It was like a dance, because certain parts of the makeup, to get those cracks and all the drippy stuff, you really need the cooperation of the actor’s facial gestures when laying down the makeup and the paint. So we had a lot of fun together on that movie.”

Achieving the desired effect essentially involved Ledger acting in the makeup chair. “He would contort his face or raise his eyebrows,” recalls Caglione. “Or I would even take one hand and kind of scrunch the corner of his eyes to create crows’ feet, you know, draw those wrinkles, and brush grays and white colors over it, and he would relax and you would get all these expressive lines and details that just come naturally. Listen, it’s an old theater trick. They were doing it in the turn of the century, the 1920s in theater. Actors would put white makeup on and scrunch their face and let it go, and then paint little brown lines. So it’s nothing that we really invented. It was a throwback to old makeup techniques.” Another throwback in the design process came in the famous interrogation scene, where things get real rough between the Caped Crusader and the Clown Prince of Crime. “So, Heath and I would always be like, gee, what could we do a little different toward the end of the sequence?” recalls Caglione. “And I remember one time we’re talking about the scene where he gets beat up by Batman. He’s in the jail cell. And at the end of the scene, he wanted to have a different look, Heath. And I was thinking about what we can do with the eyes, the black and stuff. And I went, you know, there was this great villain in the Chaplin films, he was played -- the actor was Eric Campbell, and he always played the big heavy in all the Chaplin movies. And he always had these big, black eyes that kind of had these black eyebrows. And Heath was like, well, let me see a picture. So I pulled it up, and we kind of went for that kind of look. It was a throwback to an old Chaplin villain from the silent screen days.”

According to Caglione, Christopher Nolan wasn’t the kind of director who said “I want you to do exactly this.” Instead, he would offer inspiration and guidance. Take, for example, the paintings of Francis Bacon that he brought to Ledger and Caglione early in the design process. “I think it was his way of saying, let’s blur this, let’s loosen this up,” says Caglione. “Here’s a book, look at it, and maybe you’ll find some inspiration. And it really helped, you know, we turned a corner. He didn’t have to say much, but that was the way it kind of went. And then Heath helped me to relax. The great actors help you relax so you can really bring it, and you can just try different things and feel free to do it. But that Francis Bacon painting, that day that Chris came in and plopped that down and we went through some pages… He said, yeah, maybe look at this picture, look at that picture. I think he actually had some of the pictures tagged with Post-its that he likes. Just for inspiration.” Funny enough, it was a Francis Bacon painting in the 1989 Batman that the Jack Nicholson Joker spared during his gang’s rampage in the Gotham City museum. Coincidence? Who can say? Of course, sadly Heath Ledger passed away before The Dark Knight was released. He went on to receive a posthumous Oscar for the role, but had he not died, the actor could’ve returned as the Joker. Caglione recalls Ledger talking about his ideas for the character beyond The Dark Knight.

“Yes, he did, he actually did talk to me about it,” he says. “He wanted to… start at the Arkham Asylum. And his idea -- I don’t know if he ever talked to Chris. This is just private moments in the chair with Heath, and conversations like, wouldn’t it be great to go back and see what really happened to this guy, how he became what he became? And why he just, you know, flipped out and became maniacal? And he always thought it would be great to go back to the asylum, or even before that. So it was just chit-chat in the chair. … Because I’m sure as an actor, he needs to know the origins of the character; it’s really important to him. “He was excited about the idea of going back in time, and seeing how he became the Joker. You know, the evolution of the character,” says Caglione. “It would have been cool. It would have been cool.”

Indeed, it would’ve been cool. But at least we’ll always have Heath Ledger’s amazing performance from The Dark Knight, and the unforgettable look of the character created by Christopher Nolan, John Caglione, Jr., Conor O'Sullivan, Lindy Hemming and, of course, Ledger himself.

[YouTube]

[redsunsetxiii]

**Please do not repost without credit** [TRANS] 2019.10.31 SONE NOTE LIVE vol. 24 with Hyoyeon

Staff: You tried making wood burned clocks this time! Do you usually wear a favorite wristwatch, or do you have any memories related to clocks, like being given one?

Hyoyeon: I like wristwatches as a fashion item, but I never imagined that I would make a clock myself (laughs). A clock is something that tells time and schedules. I do have a memorable incident; I don’t use my phone’s alarm and instead I use an alarm clock. However, the battery died and didn’t ring on a day that I had work of all days! At that time, I realized once again how important clocks are. Clocks need to run 24 hours a day! (laughs)

Staff: Why don’t you use your phone’s alarm?

Hyoyeon: I like the classic feel of an alarm clock. Instead of a phone alarm that everyone uses recently, I think it’s kind of nice to set an alarm clock before going to bed! Also, that alarm clock would get louder and louder the longer I didn’t get up (laughs). Ever since that incident I set three alarm clocks. (laughs)

Staff: Is there a clock that you want?

Hyoyeon: I want a really big clock. There are people who hang large pictures in their homes. So I would like to hang a large clock as interior decoration like that! Of course it has actual use of telling time, but I think it would be wonderful visually as well. I wonder if it will also suggest that I be on time, too? (laughs) Antique designs are nice for table clocks. I think a vintage birdcage design is also nice.

Staff: Did you know about the art of wood burning? How was trying it out?

Hyoyeon: The phrase ‘wood burning’ is new to me. Once this project was set, I searched on the web, etc., but today is the first time I’ve seen the actual art!

As I thought, this work is for someone who has nimble hands. I like these kinds of activities, but I’m not dexterous at all (laughs). So this kind of activity is always a repetition of trial and error! That’s why I usually practice a lot before actually attempting it, so I was really worried about failing as I was trying it out on camera (laughs).

Staff: Do you think this is an activity that suits your personality?

Hyoyeon: This might seem surprising to everyone, but my hobbies to relieve stress are opposite of my personality, like doing puzzles or writing in my diary! I also color. It’s nice to quietly concentrate by myself and really get absorbed in one thing without thinking of anything else. I also play simple games!

I believe wood burning would be a hobby like that. It seems fun if I was alone at home and can concentrate a lot of time on it! However, after actually trying it out, I found that it needs a lot of strength. Also, since I don’t have the know-how, I also don’t know the degree of strength to use… The color gets darker or lighter depending on the level of strength, but since I continuously put in a lot of power my hands are trembling a little now (laughs).

Staff: You started with drawing the design, so what kind of image or concept did you draw?

Hyoyeon: The design that I actually liked the most out of the ones provided by the instructor was the gradient forest image. I personally love nature like flowers and forests, but no matter how I thought about it, it was an impossible design with my ability (laughs). I was drawn to the flower and tree designs as well, but I thought that I definitely could not express those details. So that’s why I thought to do a simple, easy to do design that I could not fail at, and chose a design with letters and simple lines! There were circle and oval boards for the clock base, but I went with a square board that is said to be best for beginners (laughs). If I went with what I liked then it would probably be a catastrophe (laughs). So today I went with a modest design like a beginner! 

Staff: Is there a reason why you didn’t add color after doing the wood burning?

Hyoyeon: I thought that there was enough of a vintage feel without adding colors. I’m glad I was able to express the natural feel of wood! 

Staff: If you were to do this again, what would you make?

Hyoyeon: I would like to make a half circle stand. I would add letters to the bottom part, add pictures, and stick photos to complete it simply and stylishly. 

Staff: Please share what you were particular about with the design and your favorite part.

Hyoyeon: The instructor said that it is better to draw the rough sketch without hesitation, but that is really difficult for a beginner, so the lines are a little off on the board surface. However, that surprisingly has a charm to it and it’s wonderful how it naturally expresses the wood pattern!

Staff: How was burning pictures onto wood, which is the true charm of wood burning? Was it difficult to draw lines and add shading using the hot iron? Please share what was fun about wood burning.

Hyoyeon: At first because I was nervous, I tried with my whole body (laughs). As I did it more, I was able to control my fingers a little and could add shading. If I relaxed my fingers, it got softer and it was easier to do the work. I concentrated so much that those around me asked, “you’re not breathing, right?”, and I realized that I was holding my breath while doing it (laughs). 

The funnest part was the burning part. It might be a little different, but when I was a student, I liked the wood printing class the most and I recalled those prints with today’s wood burning. The way to do it may be different, but there are some parts that are similar!

Also the scent was nice. I like camping and open fires, so while working on the wood burning, I felt that the scents were similar and somehow calmed down (laughs).

Staff: Which member do you think would be the best at wood burning?

Hyoyeon: I guess Sunny? She seems to be attending a leather workshop and she’s really dexterous. I believe that she definitely would have talent with wood burning!

Staff: How was your workmanship? How many points would you give it out of 5?

Hyoyeon: It’s too vintage and surely would not suit everyone, so I’ll take it home (laughs). I guess I’ll give it 2-3 points (laughs). But it was the first thing I made, and it is pretty cute when seen from afar, so I’ll raise it to 3.5 points (laughs).

If I had more ability I would have liked to have drawn pictures, but I couldn’t so I thought instead of a poor drawing, I would write a message and wrote “I LOVE SONE”. A clock is something that is always seen throughout daily life, so I wrote it to always feel SONE everytime I see it. I couldn’t draw a pretty picture, but I properly put my feelings into the message!!

Staff: If you were to decorate your home with that clock, where would you put it? Please share why as well.

Hyoyeon: I’d put it in my own room (laughs). Today’s experience was really enjoyable and I want to take that feeling back home with me. I want to try wood burning again and make something that’s even better!

Staff: If you were to give a wood burned clock that you designed and made to a member as a present, who would you give it to?

Hyoyeon: I would like to give a clock with a special meaning to Yoona. It would be a special clock with my art on it (laughs). Write a letter...ah, that seems to be very difficult. I would have to burn the contents of that letter in one by one… How much time would that take? (laughs) But I would like give a clock with a letter on it for a birthday or something! A tabletop clock might be nice, too. Ah, but that would be even harder (laughs).

Staff: Besides wood burning, is there an art or craft that you would like to try? Or what would you like to make if wood craft is next?

Hyoyeon: I want to try making a cutting board! I have a great interest in kitchen supplies and if given the chance, I would like to try making them. Ceramics like plates would definitely be difficult, so I would like to try making them with wood. Something like a cutting board or wooden ladle. Wooden kitchen supplies are cute♪

Staff: You released your 3rd digital single, “Badster” in July. You participated in making the song, but how would you like SONE JAPAN to listen to it?

Hyoyeon: I wanted to try releasing a song with an even deeper style as a DJ. The song’s genre, trance, is my recent favorite genre and I personally have the most confidence in. It might be quite a maniac genre, but I believe that the song can properly show me as a DJ. It’s a song that expresses the professional DJ Hyoyeon, and I would like them to hear it from that side. Also, it has gotten a better response than I thought from around the world and I’m very happy and having fun with it.

Staff: You’ve been visiting a lot of different countries recently, so please tell us if you have a favorite country or place! Also, how do you spend your time abroad?

Hyoyeon: I visited Southeast Asia after releasing “Badster” and I’m thankful that the reaction was very good and that everyone was giving me a lot of support. Because of that, I’m really in high spirits now! I’m going to have more and more fun like this! And I’m generally busy abroad and don’t really have the feeling of spending time on anything. I’ve gone to many countries and just moving between them takes a lot of time. That’s why I fervently listen to music. This year has especially been like this! 

Staff: This SONE NOTE LIVE will be released in October. In Japan in recent years, people have been dressing up and getting excited for Halloween, but how do you spend your Halloween?

Hyoyeon: Last year and the year before last, I had a Halloween party with my company. It’s really hard because everyone competes to see who has the best and most interesting costume… They all dress up to the point where you don’t know who’s who (laughs). But I think this year I probably have a schedule as a DJ. It would also be nice to have fun in costume with all the fans! 

Staff: Please let us know if there’s something you would like to try for the next SONE NOTE LIVE.

Hyoyeon: I’d like to try making something like a lamp. Something like an illumination lamp? A lamp for the outdoors like camping would be nice too. It’s because I’m a romantic (laughs). Ah, that’s it! I want to try minimal camping. I want to camp in Hangang Park that’s nearby. I can’t go far (laughs). I would camp modestly at a nearby place. Flower viewing with everyone would be nice, too. That would absolutely be fun ^^

Staff: Finally, a message for SONE JAPAN please!

Hyoyeon: Hello everyone~ I’m really thankful for all the support from the many fans in Japan for DJ HYO. I receive new power from everyone’s support and I will be able to make more songs with that energy so please continue to give your support! I’ll try my hardest to show everyone my best self. Please look forward to it <3

Translation by RedSunsetXIII source: SONE JAPAN website **Please do not repost without credit**

[lackadaisycats]

I don't know if this a bit of an inappropriate question, but how do you deal with procrastination in terms of art. I'm an artist myself but I often draw things months apart and I wanna make myself draw more. Any advice?

It’s not inappropriate. It’s a good question.  Different things work for different people, and I’m not sure my thoughts about it will be helpful, but here they are. (Pardon the excessive verbiage. I didn’t edit…because I should be working >_>)-Break the work into pieces.  Staring down a sizable comic chapter or complex illustration like you have to charge at it wholesale can be daunting. Even if you’re excited about it initially, reality eventually sets in and whatever reservations and anxieties you have stored at the back of your mind quickly become tactics for negotiating yourself out of doing the work. Sometimes even a smaller project can have that effect if you’re thinking of it in terms of how many total hours you’re bound to spend poking at it.  So, parcel it into whatever bits make it manageable, whether it’s looking at the writing, layout, penciling, color flats and final polish as separate tasks or deconstructing it into time segments like ‘however much painting I can get done during the 2 hour duration of this podcast I’m listening to’, then break and strategize your next move.

-Take breaks and reward yourself.  Sometimes I’m really in the zone and I’ll happily work a 10-14 hour shift on something without distraction. More commonly, though distractions do arise, the cat keeps trying to sit on me, my neck hurts, I’m not firing on all cylinders on a given day or I’m not feeling too enthused about the work.  That’s when it helps to use breaks like mini-rewards for each completed task. Stop and watch a half hour of Netflix, play a game, take a walk, stretch, have a snack.  Reward progress. 

-Do stuff you love and are interested in.  Mix as much of the “want to” into the “have to” and “ought to” work as you can. Granted, if you’re doing art for a living, it’s not always an option to focus on your personal interests, but if you’re trying to do your own creative projects, working on a school assignment in which you have some license to choose your subject matter, or if you’re able to be a bit selective with your freelance gigs, pick things that genuinely interest you, or add some of your pet topics to the mix - whatever will heighten your emotional/intellectual investment. I find I’m far more eager to do the work when there’s something about it that I can really glom onto, be it a favorite character, an animal I like to draw, a certain mood I want to translate, a historical setting or costume, a color palette or motif I want to toy around with, etc.

-Step away if it’s not coming together.  Struggling with a frustrating piece of art can be a lot like having a heated argument with someone.  Eventually it devolves into irrational appeals, antagonism and hurt feelings and any chance of productive discourse leaves the scene. Instead of sticking around and making it worse, turning the project into miserable drudgery, set it aside and come back to it later with your composure and sense of perspective intact. That’s not to say all projects must be or should be followed through on, and not all projects will be a continuous bowl of cherries to bring to completion, but it might not be as hopeless or unappealing as it seemed upon returning to it.

-Mindspace and workspace matter.  Find things that help you get into the rhythm of your work. Listening to podcasts, audiobooks and music helps keep me focused when I’m in the midst of the long-haul on comic pages - doing all of the value and toning work that takes hours.  Being in the right place with a comfortable seat, in a comfortable (but not so comfortable you fall asleep) position, with minimal distractions, tools within reach and good lighting is important too.

-Collect inspirations.  Keep things on hand that you can look at for ideas or simply for that motivation to keep on trucking. Personally, I have a lot of art books around, a lot of historical material like 20th century fashion books, books about old cars, books about flappers, comics with great art, funny collections of syndicated strips, character sketches hanging on my walls, and many gigabytes of inspirational and reference images collected off the internet. Sometimes just browsing through one of those folders sparks ideas and makes me want to pick up my stylus.

-Sleep right and eat right.  I have had a deep seated, lifelong terrible relationship with sleep. I’m still working on that part. If you’ve got a pretty consistent sleep schedule, though, you’re probably off to a good start.As for food - it seems perfunctory to say that it matters what you eat. On some level, we all know that, but, yeah, it really truly absolutely does matter..a lot.  When I was 20, I could live on ramen noodles, goldfish crackers, microwave ravioli and energy drinks. I could pull all-nighters on top of that and still keep chugging merrily along.  Boy, the years run like rabbits, though, and eating like a deranged dumpster goat catches up to you sooner than you might think.  I eventually found myself struggling with perpetual malaise, brain fog and a sour mood that made it hard to do anything or to enjoy doing anything. I’m ashamed to admit to how long it took me to realize - after blaming it alternatingly on allergies, anemia, depression - that my apathetic diet was not conducive to basic life functions, let alone fueling creative fires. I started putting some effort into food selections and it has made the difference between fumbling through life in a semi-conscious state and feeling bright and motivated and - in spite of myself - even happy.(And, contrary to the way society romanticizes connections between depression and artistic impulse, most people work better when they feel better.)

-Practice self-discipline.  Here’s the thing no one likes to hear.  Sometimes, no matter how many devices you have in place to make work fun and comfy and something you look forward to, you just won’t feel like it. You will have to be an adult about it. You will have to simply muster the willpower. You can be that “creative” person who has lots of ideas but never anything to show for them because a million vectors for instant gratification circle around you constantly like distracting little red-devil imps. Or you can be a self-starter building toward something, playing the long game with goals in mind; you can dig your heels in, grit your teeth, take a swig of coffee and get down to work, dammit.

[draco-omega]

10 months ago, I decided to make a game.

10 months later, I have a bunch of art and a bunch of interface code and a whole pile of design notes, and not much game.

This is my story.

(Now in bullet point form so that I can stop redrafting it >.>)

I have a treatment-resistant anxiety disorder which significantly interferes with my ability to work - both on my own projects and other things that might be called 'gainful employment'. (I still feel some shame at admitting this so bluntly, even though I feel ideologically that there should be no more shame in this than any physical impairment that resulted in the same. Fuck mental health stigma, defining self-worth by employment is toxic capitalist dogma, etc, etc.)

In part because of this, I had been effectively unemployed and living with my mother for a number of years. (I still did my best to hammer out projects, but nothing, y'know, actually PAID anything... >.>)

Then in late 2017, my mother died (somewhat unexpectedly) of cancer, which left me with no home (we'd been sharing an apartment that she had been covering most of the rent on) and literally zero income. Obviously grief and upheaval did not help with any of my prior difficulties managing employment, either.

After some debate, I decided to combine the savings I had left over from my last stint as a network administrator with a (modest) inheritance from my mother and try to actually make a living at making games. This is something I had always theoretically wanted to do, but never put actual money on the line for. (Okay, in a perfect world, I'd happily give all my work away for free and live on some minimum guaranteed income, but we do not yet live in such a world).

One of my historically biggest gamedev weaknesses was a lack of artistic ability, so this seemed a perfect thing to put money towards. I could hire an artist, which would not only allow me to make a more commercially appealing product, but would also free me up to focus on the mechanical and writing aspects of gamedev, which are the areas I most wanted to be working on and also consider myself best at. (Any followers that remember my work on ToK may recall me complaining there about how it seemed I spent my time on nothing but graphics? >.>

This was shortly after Touhou fangames had been given the official blessing to be sold on Steam, and some had already achieved great success there, so this seemed like a good way to create some instant appeal and interest in my game, while working with a franchise that I already loved to death and had written hundreds of thousands of words of fanfiction for (eg: This or that or this other thing)

And so Chronicle of False History was born!

...and yet I somehow still spent most of my time working on art. You see, having never worked with an actual artist before, I underestimated a number of things:

1) I underestimated how much work it would be to find a suitable artist in the first place (though at least this part is done)

2) I gravely underestimated how much of my time would be spent on 'art direction' or 'project management' or whatever you want to call it.

Every sprite that is created, even for canonical character designs, requires making a large number of decisions regarding:

What attack and spell poses it will have (and how to cover the broadest range of signature abilities with just two 'frames', for budget reasons)

Which of enumerable (and sometimes mutually-exclusive) costume details from canon (and fanon) should be selected (and do you have any idea just how many variations there are on things as straightforward as 'the hilt of Miko's sword'?)

Gathering a pile of reference images that clearly detail every element of the character (and action poses) to be drawn (which is also harder than you might think; a lot of art is sufficiently suggestive of details to view without actually being a good reference to reproduce and anything that isn't exactly what I'm looking for risks my artist misunderstanding my request entirely)

Designing alternate-history variants of this character in a way that can be clearly conveyed with minimal costume and color changes alone (as any significant redrawing would cost far more and the cast of the game is so large already) and doing so before the part of the game they would appear in is even written.

Gathering reference images for all of those things

Writing up a detailed description of all the decisions listed above (and often drawing actual diagrams of action poses and projectile overlays that are ambiguous to express with just words) and handing it over to my artist

Waiting a while, then getting sketches back and finding out that there is inevitably a whole pile of things that need changing (either because the artist misunderstood my request entirely - despite all that previous effort - or because an idea of mine looked far better in my own head than it does, or just the usual 'incremental improvements' to something that is on the right track but not quite there - like a sort of collaborative redrafting.)

Spending hours poking at these sketches in an image editor, testing how well individual details resolve at in-game size, how well the action frames snap together, and how I feel about each questionable element. This often extends to (crudely) adjusting and readjusting the position and angle of individual limbs and eyebrows and projectiles that feel 'off' so that I can figure out what I would like her to do with them (and whether it's even worth making her take the effort to do anything with them at all)

Finally, summarizing that feedback into a detailed list of change requests (often with new diagrams to clarify my words) and repeating the last two steps over and over and over again.

Like, she does great work - don't get me wrong. I'm very pleased with the end results and this is just an inevitable part of the process of making something professional. But it does also mean that my original idea that paying an artist would free me up to work on things other than art has been... laughable in retrospect, to say the very least. In fact, it's very possible that a greater percentage of my dev time is spent on art-related tasks than on previous projects where I was doing all the art myself - I just get better art for my trouble (and money....)

This is especially true given that:

3) I underestimated just how much art work I would still need to do completely independently of her

Raven is doing character sprites. These are arguably the most individually important art content in the game, and certainly the ones that give it the most screenshot appeal, but that has left me to do everything else. Which has included:

Figuring out how to make battle backgrounds that passably match the art style of the game (since commissioning enough of these to fill all the locations needed would absolutely blow my budget)

Designing the entire look and feel of the combat screen to mesh well with Raven's sprites while also being something I am personally capable of making (using only cheap/free resources)

Creating all tweened animations and particle effects

Designing every single little UI element that exists in the game:

Elemental symbols

Dialogue boxes

Spellcard icons (and the entire menu design that requires them in the first place)

Combat action menus

Icons to indicate spellcard usability

Spellcard tooltips

Targeting overlays

A turn order bar

Spellcard availability reminders

Font choice for damage/healing numbers, spellcard names,

More cursors that you can shake a stick at

Lots more stuff, I'm sure

And even the completed sprites I get from Raven still need multiple hours of processing each to split them into component parts with sufficient information to re-composite and animate in-game. (If you've ever wondered why my screenshots seem to only involve Nazrin while I've already shown sprites for multiple other characters, this is why)

It never ends!!

...which is a fact that has been extremely draining. Like, it is probably difficult to overstate just how demoralizing it has been to pay this much money and work this hard and long and still somehow be mostly doing art (or visual-related coding) when I naively thought this project would offer some freedom from this after the endless, endless hours I spent doing this for ToK.

And it has also revealed a very tangible (and extremely stressful and troubling) fact about this game's development:

I am going to run out of money before I am remotely close to having a saleable product

When I first laid out plans for this project, I ballparked a modest but realistic budget for the artwork. I chose an art style that could provide pleasing visuals for a very large cast of characters at a cost-effective rate (for a game, at least). I deliberately limited my cast size based upon the agreed-upon cost per character with my artist (and have repeatedly held myself back from various fun ideas because I felt I simply could not afford to make a habit of such things). I studied sales figures for comparable games to aim for a target that had a reasonable probability of sufficient return (or at least breaking even). Game development is always a gamble, of course, but I felt (and still feel) that I made a sensible budget call and it was an amount I was fully able to pay.

But in all this, I neglected to factor in what has been, by far, my most costly development expense: remaining alive.

You see, at the rate my artist is able to produce work, the cost of retaining her is utterly dwarfed by such banal things as food and rent and not freezing to death in the winter. I live about as modest a lifestyle as possible - a one-room apartment, no car, no eating out, nothing in the way of luxuries (I don't even own a cell phone) - but that is still awfully expensive when you have no income and no prospect of it in the immediate future either.

It's a vicious cycle. The less work I get done, the more I feel future financial pressures breathing down my neck, the less work I'm able to get done (due to stress and general demoralization), the more I feel future financial pressures, etc, etc, etc.

And there's a logistical problem even outside of my own stress and anxiety and being damnably human in my need for actual rest: I've spent nearly 10 months working together with my artist and thus have a pretty good sense of how fast she's able to get character art done. And unless something changes dramatically, the time required for her to finish the art assets for the game will be several years longer than I will have any savings left to pay for them - because, as it turns out, hiring an artist is actually a tiny expense compared to merely continuing to exist.

I... don't really have a good answer for this problem and I've spent a lot of time consumed by it at this point. I have faith that Chronicle of False History can be a great game... eventually. But that does no one any good if I can't stay afloat long enough to make it. I've considered pivoting to another smaller-scope game project in the meantime, in the hopes of generating some modest influx of cash that could be used to fund the rest of CoFH's development, but there are a whole slew of reasons this is dicey (not least of which is that small-scope projects have a tendency to not be nearly as small as one anticipates...)

I've also thought about exploring Patreon, but like... I'm fully aware that I don't currently produce nearly enough interesting content for people to just want to throw money at. Tantalizing glimpses of it, perhaps. The promise that in the future I might. But what do I really have to show for this at the moment?

And so, here I am, exhausted by a marathon of work I did not properly anticipate and without the tangible reward I'd expected to have by this point (not a finished game, by any means, but like... much more of one than I actually have). And every month that passes by in which I get less done on my game than anticipated is yet more cash bleeding out of my bank account, like I'm trapped on a badly leaking boat with no shore in sight. I need a rest from all these stressors (and some more personal ones not described here), but when time spent not working has itself become a stressor these days, where can I even find it?

...wow, this sure sounded upbeat, huh?

In any case, I still care a lot about CoFH and have no intention of stopping work on it. I just... need to figure out some way to allow myself to continue to do so without this enormous capitalist behemoth crushing me beneath it.

(I had originally intended to provide more of an overview of the useful work accomplished over these past 10 months here, with mockups showing the evolution of the game's visual design, but clearly that goes into a future post at this point).

[acehotel]

A Conversation with TURN Gallery Artist Mason Saltarrelli

TURN Gallery’s Mason Saltarrelli is an abstract artist, illustrator and painter born and bred in the city of New Orleans. His work is imbued by the improvisation of jazz, abstract animal silhouettes and color, the last being what Mason calls a “co-author” in his work. Mason will be Ace Hotel New York’s gallery artist for November and has a series of curtain paintings hanging in the lobby of Ace Hotel New Orleans. Here he chats with artist and friend, Joseph Hart of Deep Color, about to-do lists, Black Jaw the alligator and how abstraction can be a “beginning of seeing.”

Joseph Hart: Bridging in and out of painting and jazz music is the notion of improvisation. Can you talk a little bit about how improvising and intuition act as creative tools in here while you're working? When I say “in here,” we're sitting in your studio.

Mason Saltarrelli: I seldom arrive with a plan. More, I have a cast of characters. I'll call on one of the characters to come into the scene, but I don't know what their lines are and I’m not sure what costume they are wearing. Often the plan or story is only fully clear to me after the work is done. A work’s construction is realized through calling on a player and seeing where it wants to go in order to explore. Chance of shape and colors’ influence assist in determining the voyage.

JH: I see a figure here that almost looks like a doll. The image of an alligator pops up quite a bit. Is there anything else in your memory bank that you pull from?

MS: Yes. There’s a dog and a hairdo.

JH: What's the hairdo?

MS: It's a way of making a portrait without being literal. That's where there is a crossover with jazz and my work. In traditional jazz, there is a melody for each song and then the band members improvise solos. My characters offer me the function of melody and adjusting their forms and colors is my solo allowing me to create.

When a musician plays “Sweet Lorraine” or “Tiger Rag,” they know which melody to play. But when it’s time for the solo, they are free to forge a new idea based off of a set construct. The improvisation is where the real fun comes in.

JH: Yeah, that's where the surprise happens during those solos perhaps. When do surprises happen in your studio? When you collide these characters together, or put down a color or a gesture in relation to them and something happens that you didn't expect —what type of surprises happen?

MS: Color definitely plays a big role in surprises. The paper and canvas piece that will be in the show at the Ace New York has gone through many adjustments. By changing the green from blue next to the gray, it starts to push and pull and layers begin to appear. Structures move to the surface and in turn other colors recede based on placement. This creates layers within the piece. Color is a co-author in my work. The importance of the parts that make up the whole of the figures is greatly determined by coloring.

JH: You get a little depth in there. One thing that I've always observed about your work is an extraordinary flatness in how you're applying the paint and you're getting a nice graphic shape often that's opaque. Some of your paint is washed out, but at the same time with some of the tinted canvases and overlapping you really achieve a sense of depth.

MS: Depth is important to me. Each layer, whether it's a work on wood, paper or canvas, is like writing a sentence and those sentences stack on top of one another. Eventually as the sentences build up they create a paragraph. The paintings are paragraphs that are building up to relay a story.

JH: Another consistency in your work as I've known it over the years is a love for drawing. There's a lot of drawing in your painting. I know you have a history with works on paper and making drawings on hand tinted paper. Can you talk about how drawing is important in your studio practice and in your art making?

MS: I often paint through drawing. It’s a method of placing ideas. The ideas then pose questions. Without trying to fully render a figure and utilizing the idea of what something is I define what it becomes.

JH: The stakes are often lower with drawing too. I mean it's historically a preliminary action. I know you don't do sketches for these, but when we think of drawing, we think of small sketches. We think of a preparatory drawing for something larger. When your drawing is part of how you move your arm through the canvas and with a brush with paint on it, I think we carry that low pressure, emotional, psychological space with us. For me, I'll argue that it makes painting more fun, more interesting, more engaging.

MS: Yeah, I do try and keep things fun and then I start working and then I start taking it very seriously. Problem solving becomes important. Using drawing to open things up to see where they can go poses many questions with an infinite number of answers. If I start creating a form that is part of the alligator, for instance, the back of the head, and then all of I sudden decide, okay, it's time to switch into a hairdo or a doll or a dog, I have initiated a story that should be resolved if I want to share it.

Things just open up through drawing, there's no forced intention.

JH: As an exercise, I like to ask myself, if my paintings were to make a to do list, what would be on it. So I want to pose the question to you. If these paintings were to make a to-do list for the viewer, for yourself, what are a few things that would be on that list?

MS: The three paintings that hang in the Ace Hotel in New Orleans for Doc Cheatham, Lionel Ferbos and Percy Humphrey are on hemp. They're curtain paintings in that they're not stretched, but hang freely. The to-do list for the New Orleans paintings was to reflect both personal and musical aspects of each of the three traditional jazz trumpet players through abstraction.

My show at Ace New York this November will include two pieces. In the New York hemp painting, my goal was to successfully combine separate aspects of how I depicted Doc, Lionel and Percy. My intention was simple, revisit three paintings two years later in one new piece.

In the other work, my goal was to fuse my paper and canvas practices and see if I could get them to function uniformly. This piece includes canvas that has gone through a similar patina process as my paper. For this work the to-do list was basically to get the canvas and paper to have a cohesive conversation, to get them to enhance each other simultaneously.

JH: Yeah, it's working. It's a nice little installation. It reminds me of a gift. Maybe this was the wrap for the painting on top of it unfolded. There are all sorts of surprises in there.

MS: I think that paper could actually fold over and hide it.

JH: Yeah, the aspect ratio. It looks like you could wrap it right up. Let's talk about audience. When we're in our studios, there's an audience of one unless you have a friend or visitor over. But when the work leaves the studio, then there's an audience. I'm curious if you feel differently about your work when it's in front of an audience? Is your relationship to it here in your studio different than when these paintings are going to be in the Ace Hotel?

MS: I definitely consider audience. At the same time I don't have control over how they're going to perceive my work. Especially when viewing abstraction, people put their own life experiences into what they see.

JH: Yeah, that's their job.

MS: It is. Deborah Buck, an artist, came over the other day and pointed out that in the smaller canvas piece she sees a person hugging another person. I keep seeing it now because I never noticed that and I've never visualized that idea in my work before. She said it looks like a male figure protecting a child.

To me it's a doll inside of a woman's hairdo. That's one of the amazing things about abstraction, it's not over when the last mark is made. When somebody else starts looking at it it's just beginning for them, and sometimes can actually be a beginning of seeing for me.

JH: Yeah, it's great. I think the audience, when it's in a public space, like you said, brings their own experience and finds their own meaning. It's nice to hear when a viewer shares that meaning with the artist. When you describe Deborah coming in and seeing something that you didn't see, that's a new layer for you and compounds whatever you had going for it on your own. I think that's a great thing. It's a dialogue. That's the dialogue you're looking for with a viewer.

MS: Right. It becomes a type of gift in a way if you allow it to be. When you let someone else take the reins and tell you what you’ve done, and you get to hear their vision. It's nice. It's a way of sharing, it's very personal.

JH: I want to talk a little bit more about the alligator motif that pops up a lot in your work. At first glance when I came in here, looking at this long horizontal painting that's going to be here in New York, I saw architecture, I saw landscape, I saw a street scene, I saw buildings. But then I quickly shed that as soon as I recognized the contours of this alligator head. Am I seeing the same thing?

MS: Yes.

JH: Is this the profile of one of your alligators?

MS: This time it’s the profile of multiple alligators, possibly the same particular one in different incarnations.

JH: It's abstracted, it's not overt, but that sort of elongated alligator. I know you’ve talked about alligators being outside of New Orleans in the swamps. It seems like an important character from your image bank. I imagine it's a fun shape to draw too.

MS: Yeah, that's part of the reason why I use it over and over. It can be a way of loosening up. I remember when I saw a specific alligator in Honey Island Swamp in Louisiana. Its name is Black Jaw. It’s obviously in the present but also you see and feel another time. Certain areas of New Orleans are the same way. It touches on looking and experiencing a different era, a different life, but within this one.

In this particular painting, I started layering alligators and maybe it became not just Black Jaw. Or if it is Black Jaw, it's him being reincarnated a few times and going through a few different swamps rather than just Honey Island.

JH: Right. It's abbreviated too. I mean I think your forms are rounded off and simplified in a way typically. It's not like a rendered alligator head, it's an elongated rectangle with a bulbous end. Then the tell, the show, is usually the teeth, which are triangles throughout.

You're using these geometric shapes to describe this head often. Again, it's going back to the flatness, you're painting in a flat way.

MS: Yes. By simplifying the forms I’m giving color more influence in the work.  

JH: The alligator is a starting point, as a form, as a shape, as an idea and you just unfold it from there. It turns into a few other things, sort of holds on to its identity as an alligator. I love that. Is this an alligator too? This one is a front view maybe.

MS: That's a doll with a hairdo above a profiled alligator whose teeth have left its mouth and even become a little hat. The paper behind it is space. There’s a foot behind the canvas drawn on the paper. It’s a hidden self-portrait.

JH: Do you remember the last piece of culture that you experienced? Maybe it was a book you read or a film you saw or an artwork or a piece of music that shook your bones?

MS: Definitely. This past August I was in residency at the Macedonia Institute in upstate New York. That’s where I painted the hemp painting for the Ace New York show. During that time I read Chief of Chiefs: Robert Nathaniel Lee and the Mardi Gras Indians of New Orleans, 1915-2001 by Al Kennedy. Chief Robbe was the first and only person to be named "chief of chiefs" by the Mardi Gras Indian Council. I would read and then paint. I enjoyed the book so much I read it in small increments so it would take longer to finish.

MS: I remember being a kid and seeing Mardi Gras Indians for the first time. I was in the car with my dad. We were leaving the St. Charles Mardi Gras parades driving back through neighborhoods to get home, and then all of a sudden we saw Mardi Gras Indians masking. They resembled human fireworks. It was amazing. Reading Al’s book was inspiring because it’s such a wonderful story of being called to an art form and how tough yet rewarding it is to be dedicated to a practice that you love. Chief Robbe’s story reminded me of how fortunate I am to have grown up in New Orleans and experienced such a unique culture.

[merigreenleaf]

World Building June 2018 - Day 21, Fun

Now this is a prompt relevant to my main culture! A good portion of Concordians (enough that they have a voice on the government council) are carnival performers who regularly entertain the population. People enjoy arts and crafts, gardening, plays and concerts, cooking, parties and hanging out with family and friends... the only thing I can't see them doing much of is sports because they tend to be more into the arts than physical exertion. (The Protectorates do spar and practice-fight with each other, but I think this is as close as these people get to a sport.) The best way to answer this is with my characters because they have a wide range of interests that show a good cross section of Concordia. I’ll put most of them under the read more link, so if you’re curious what my dorks do in their spare time, read on!

Adair: His occupation is cartographer and even in his spare time you can usually find him with a pen or pencil. He's an Artisan with master painters as parents and he’s known how to draw and paint his entire life. This is tied for “favorite hobby” status with cooking and baking (and eating). One of his master's spouses is a master chef, so Adair's really good at cooking-- but even without that influence he'd cook anyway because Concordians like food. Part of why he loves being a cartographer and traveling so much is because he gets to try new food and learn new recipes. I've thought about giving him the hobby of playing with knots and string, like cat's cradle type things, because this is something he would be able to do to keep his hands busy while traveling when he can't necessarily sketch. I bet this also means that he's good with a yo-yo... and I think I have a random canon thing for him now lol.

Blythe: She's a Protectorate and her biggest love is gardening, which tends to be true of all Protectorates, especially the ones like her who have healing magic. She spends a lot of her free time creating new healing patterns or memorizing old ones so that she doesn't have to refer to a book-- she always wants to be as best as possible at everything she does. She's a blade performer with a carnival troupe (where she's their healer) so she'll practice sword dances and tossing/juggling knives, as well as the more practical exercises, stretches, and sparring she does as a Protectorate. Blythe likes to stay busy all the time, so when she's not doing something related to work, she's still doing something with her hands. She enjoys knitting, crochet, embroidery, and sewing.

Firedrake: Dray's the most performer-y of my carny characters and spends most of their time dancing and practicing with their performance props. When given the chance, Dray enjoys going to concerts because they love music. They can often be found reading and while this is frequently romance novels, they'll read just about anything. Dray enjoys mischief and playing pranks on strangers and friends alike, and will play with fire and matches if there's nothing else to do, so it's for the best to keep Dray from getting bored. Like Blythe, Dray sews, but this isn't a hobby so much as a practical skill because they embellish and/or make a lot of their own clothing and costumes.

Etri: He loves reading even more than Dray does and can frequently be found in libraries or bookstores. He'll read anything, but tends towards nonfiction and history. Since becoming Adair's sentinel, he's started studying up on art history. He's very into astronomy and poetry, although the writing poetry thing he keeps a secret. He's also a performer so he'll spend some of his time practicing a knife-throwing act with Blythe and a fire act with Sol.

Sol: He's a fire performer, but his real love is inventing things. He has a strange hobby of dumpster diving and collecting odd bits of trash because most of what he creates is made from trash. He focuses so much on invention and tinkering that he doesn't really have any other hobbies. That said, he won't ever say no to hanging out with friends or going to parties/get-togethers-- it makes him a little mopey that his friends are all such introverts!

Rosalie: (One of my other main characters.) She's relatively new to Concordia and prior to coming here she had no idea that hobbies and fun were even possibilities. She enjoys going to plays and concerts, and she likes trying new foods almost as much as Adair does because these are things she couldn't get back home. Otherwise she's teaching herself how to read Concordian through children's books and fairy tales, which she reads to her "pet" shadow. This is the shadow's favorite pastime, too.

Feren: (Adair's ex-boyfriend.) He doesn't like to do anything that's potentially work or effort, but he does enjoy learning things. He's especially fond of languages, which is rare for an Artisan because they generally don't learn them. He can be found in a library almost as often as Etri. Feren loves parties and social gatherings although not for the fun of being around people like how Sol is. Feren's more into it for the networking and weaseling his way into conversations so he feels important.

Nina: (Adair's ex-girlfriend and still close friend.) She's an arcane cook so she's often experimenting with recipes. She loves collecting rocks and seashells, so she also loves the beach and exploring and being outdoors.

I’m not sure what the other cultures do for fun since I haven’t written much about them yet, but I’ll figure that out once the stories take place in those locations. I do know that the carnival performers travel around the continent, so that’s at least some sort of entertainment.

Tagging my world building peoples. Let me know if you want on or off the list. :) If we’re mutuals, please please feel free to tag me in any of your writing posts. And if we’re not mutuals and you write, then tag me anyway so we can become mutuals lol. I really love reading about what people are working on. <3 @ageekyreader @lynnafred @worldbuildingwren @theguildedtypewriter @toboldlywrite @wchwriter @ghostsmooches @lady-redshield-writes @bluemartlet @reeseweston @dreameronthewind @forlornraven @pen-for-sword @homesteadhorner @shadow-maker @loopyhoopydrabbles @emptymanuscript @madmooninc

Day 1 (Intro to my writing/series) / Day 2 (Geography) / Day 3 (People) / Day 4 (History)/ Day 5 (Civilization & Architecture) / Bonus: Art Theft  / Day 6 (Gender & Sexuality) / Day 7 (Economy) / Day 8 (Government) / Day 9 (Religion) / Day 10 (Holidays) / Day 12 (Elementals) / Day 11, 13, 14 (Language, Plants, Food) / Day 15 (Technology) / Day 16 (Magic)  / Day 17 (Medicine) / Day 18 (Fashion) / Day 19 & 20 (War & Weapons)

[rebelwheels-blog]

Little Sparrow Freed From Its Cage

September 24, 2018

Per aspera ad astra - Through adversity to the stars

Hello there everyone! I have quite a bit of news to share with all of you lovely readers, as it has been quite a while since my last update. Hopefully my writing habits will be a bit more consistent now, due to the main reason I am writing this update. So grab a cup of tea, or coffee for you Americans, and be prepared for a lengthy blog entry.

Commencement to Independence

For the longest time, it was my belief that graduation was just another event where I would only witness others experience the joy of being released from the dictatorship of homework and the school setting.

Much of my student experience has been infringed upon due to various circumstances; whether illness was to blame, being placed in classes my superiors wrongly believed I belonged, or unwillingly leaving the only place I called home, as well as exiting the lives of many I held and hold close in my heart.

Not everyone experienced the same scenario as I did, which is wonderful. Even so, for much of my life there was a common denominator.

Adversity.

Due to my disability, my experiences and memories of the school setting are extremely unconventional.

Which leads to the less self-pitying part of my screed. If it weren’t for all those obstacles, and more, throughout my existence as a student, graduation would not grant me the same satisfaction and pride as it does now to declare to you all that I am no longer a high school student. September 21, 2018 was the day I was set free.

Although there are plenty of memories I have to look back on that made my school days less dreary, so I shall not admit that every second of my years at school were terrible, as I had the good fortune of making a few friends along the way as well as learning some lessons that allowed me to grow as a person.

So I thank all of you who have stuck with me through the good times and the not so good times, because I couldn’t have made it here without you.

I’d especially like to thank my first teacher who set me on the right path to homeschooling. You know who you are, with your huge green duffel bag full of wonderful toys each day as we sat in the garden room. Thank you for always being there for me academically and as a friend. You mean the universe to me.

Every experience and every person that one encounters affects the future, individually and worldly, good or bad, long or short. Because, who knows? Maybe one day someone who experienced something they perceived as awful will change the life of another so someone else will never experience what was already lived through by another.

Celebration?

To celebrate this momentous occasion, my grandmother and I designed what would normally have been the top of my cap to go along with my gown.

Then we made a message in a bottle, with the message being the poem The Road Not Taken as it is our favorite poem.

But the most important component to all of this is the timing of everything that has unfolded over the past few weeks.

Enjoy the first ever gif I have ever created, of course it’s to do with Stephen

I managed to finish the last of my exams the day directly before my grandmother’s birthday, which was coincidentally purposefully happened to be on my cousin’s birthday. Then, on Friday, I was officially set free from my classes on the birthday of my great grandfather. Everything took place over the course of three days, and three birthdays of three people that mean the world to me.

Funnily enough, exactly one week to the day, another event unfolded spontaneously. I was granted the most amazing graduation gift. A friend, a very old friend, of tremendous significance and value to me. We had not seen each other in almost nine years, but we always kept in touch. Last Wednesday, we broke our hiatus and had lunch together with our grandparents. I felt like I was in a dream. I couldn’t believe we were even in the same room. He has seen my old self, my pathetic self, and my happy self, and he never left. He’s one of a kind and I don’t know what I would do without him. Making him laugh after taking a nervous drink of water while we were at lunch and burping due to my liquid consumption was one of the highlights of our visit together. Hopefully we won’t have such a lengthy hiatus between seeing each other again, which neither of us believe will happen. I already can’t wait to see him again.

Then on the Saturday following that Wednesday, I swam with my other best friend who happened to come home from college that weekend. I honestly don’t remember the last time we just chilled out in the pool, or anywhere, and hung out like two normal teenage girls. Granted I did complain quite a bit about school work after we got out and had lunch, but that wasn’t the entire visit. It felt so normal to just hang out with my best friend, and I can’t thank you enough (you know who you are if you’re reading this). I couldn’t have asked for a better way to finish my classes.

But graduation is supposed to be a big deal, right? A huge celebration is supposed to take place, right? Well, I honestly have no idea how else to celebrate my accomplishment. I would love to have a party and do something the way everyone else does, but many of my friends and family live far, far away. So out goes that idea... Nevertheless, if no other celebration takes place, I am forever grateful for being able to visit with my friend from New Jersey thanks to his and my grandparents.

Moving Forward

Now that I have soooo much time on my hands, I don’t know what to do with it! Well, I do, but it’s only been almost a week since I finished my classes and it’s still rather odd. I spent the weekend creating and improving a sort of sketch that puts together my Halloween costume. Yes, I’ll be 19 by then and many will say I’m too old to do Halloween, but you know what? Adults are allowed to dress up and have fun too. Halloween is not just about the candy, well not to me anyway. To me, it’s about letting yourself be free to be whatever you want to be for one day of the year. As it seems that it is only socially acceptable to dress up when one is an adult around Halloween, if one were to dress up any other day of the year you end up being labeled as a psychopath.

Okay, maybe not a psychopath, but anyone dressed up as a character or dramatic makeup is worn outside a concert, theatre club, comic convention, or Halloween, etc., side glances and glares will be made.

I decided that I will be dressing up as my own version of Sherlock, as long coats are as much of a pain to get on as a dress. I have a few components of my costume together, but I still need the hat, scarf, and maybe shoes? I may just go with a pair of short boots that I have as finding shoes in my size is an entirely different story.

I wasn’t sure if the coat I had would look Sherlockian enough, so I decided that I would put together a sketch of my outfit to see how it would look. So I put this together.

Originally, as you can see, there was no face. But I worked on it and worked on it over the past few days and this the outcome. In the beginning I did trace the undershirt, but that’s it. I figured out the rest. I’m very proud of it, as it is the first drawing I’ve done in quite a while that I haven’t gotten angry with.

Having this freedom has made me realize that after a few days of numbly looking at social media, I am suddenly craving to learn new information and I miss my math and science classes. I think that within the next week I will unconsciously start to read books again just from the slight need I’ve had to expand my knowledge again. Maybe I’ll even start writing stories again due to new knowledge, as I have written down a few ideas for short stories the past few days. In the words of a good friend, the possibilities are endless.

Spinraza News

Luckily I have school finished to get through my next injection. I was reminded that I have to go through re-approval from the insurance, making my injection date is a week later than I wanted. This week I have to get blood drawn again as well as other tests.

Speaking of tests, I had to do a strength test last week, my first one after having Spinraza. My results have to either stay the same or improve in order for the insurance company to say I can keep having Spinraza. Needless to say, I was terrified that I wasn’t going to improve due to their standards. I’ve noticed more strength in my legs than my arms, granted my right arm is noticeably stronger, but I did not anticipate the evidence the strength test would grant me.

The first test was to tear a sheet of paper. No big deal, right? Wrong. I had to try to tear a piece of paper that was folded four times. I tried and it didn’t happen. So my physical therapist unfolded it so it was in half. I believed that I was trying to tear it wrong as I was using my nail to start the tear. But I was wrong. That’s how you physically tear a sheet of paper when you pinch it. So when it cooperated and I split the paper down the middle, I was like “okay, I could totally do that before Spinraza.” Again, I was wrong. When I did the baseline test, I was able to rip the paper but only if:

it was started for me

it was a single sheet unfolded

it only ripped sideways not straight down

My physical therapist kept my old paper and showed it to me to prove that I had improved. After I saw the paper, I felt like Captain America

Go ahead, enjoy that gif because Tumblr doesn’t allow more than 10 images so that’s the last one guys

Once I completed that question of the test, the test was gravy. I was actually able to do other things as well such as:

lifting a weight I couldn’t before

completing a short maze test without stopping my pen

pressing a stupid light button and making it stay on

opening a container that was entirely too difficult when I tried six months ago

I gained 5 points in the scoring system, from 11 to 16 points. I still can’t get over it. So much has been going on the past... Well, year, honestly. Between myself and my family members, it’s been nonstop.

Well, I think I’ve written enough for this update, probably too much... But whatever, if you guys enjoy these updates you don’t mind. If you don’t enjoy them... Well... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[cottonbook]

How to Decide What to Draw

(This is part 2/2 of a question @aliceopal asked about my process!)

About how I decide what to draw, or if I do multiple projects at once, deciding how to do these has been a work in progress for me for years. I always liked having multiple projects, so if I didn’t feel like working on one, I could switch to the other. However, it takes a LOT longer to finish each project working this way. It’s nice to have something to cross off your list and post online and be like, “I DID IT! IT’S DONE!” and it gives you the motivation to keep going. Sometimes, having multiple projects can be like moving the goalpost all the time, and you never feel like you achieve anything. This may or may not be a problem depending on your mood! If you’re happy to just keep working, it’s no problem at all. I still have multiple projects going at once, but they are long-term, such as my zine, my shop, etc. I usually don’t like working on a single painting over a long period of time - once I put it down the first time, I don’t want to pick it up again, so I try to finish same day.

Deciding what to draw can be really hard, because when you’re in the middle of doing something else, you can think of a million things you want to draw, but when you sit down with paper and pencil, you can’t decide. I have a couple of methods if something doesn’t come to mind right away:

1. Check tumblr or Instagram to see if anything inspires you. Maybe someone is having a contest or there’s a fun prompt like Mermay going on and you want to participate - I usually see these when I’m already in the middle of something, so if you’re ready to draw, that’s the best time to find these things. I basically only follow blogs that are visually inspiring (or I’d spend my whole life on here!), so I can also just check through my “liked” posts to find things I want to draw from.

2. Check your sketchbook for ideas that could be expanded upon.

3. I have a Pinterest board of “Illustration Inspiration.” It’s everything from like an idea (”must. draw. tiny. houses.”) to a pose and costume in a photo to a technique/composition/style another illustrator used that I’d like to try.

4. All of those are good “if all else fails” methods. The first things I usually do are the following two: put on a podcast or tv show and get out your sketchbook or paper and just draw. Once your brain is focused on the sound, it will stop criticizing your ideas, and you can just draw freely. If you’re REALLY stuck, this will take a little time, too, but after a few tries, it should work.

5. Think of what’s important to you right now. What have you been thinking about a lot? What are you really excited about? For me, I’ve been thinking about how hard it can be for girls growing up, so I like to draw a lot of images that feature women supporting each other, engaging in joyful activities together, and making things together. And I like magic, so I add magic. This is the same way I decide what kind of story to tell in my minicomics - what am I thinking about, and what do I want to spend more time drawing?

6. Pro Level: Think of what you’re really bad at drawing, and draw that all the time, with and without reference, again and again! I could stand to do some more of this, but I mostly just incorporate it into what I draw all the time (”This time, try to include a background in it!” “Let’s make it about horses!” “It’s going to be a crowded city scene!”).

Last question/answer: If you’ve stuck through this whole thing, yes, I absolutely do sketch - it’s very important to have a no-pressure place to make mistakes and get loose and try new and crazy things you would never do otherwise. Hope that helps! <3

[mst3kproject]

524: Twelve to the Moon

There are 50's sci-fi movies with wonderful titles like The Monster that Challenged the World and IT! The Terror from Beyond Space. I poke fun at how irrelevant or misleading some of them are, but I actually love them: there's nothing better to entice me to see a silly movie than a deliriously hyperbolic title!  Then there's this film, Twelve to the Moon, which is about twelve people going to the moon.  No points for the title guy.

Despite that, I rather like Twelve to the Moon.  It's not my favourite of the MST3K Moon movies – that would be Moon Zero Two – but it's a hell of a lot less annoying than either Rocketship XM or Project Moon Base.  There's some earnest effort that seems to have gone into this film, even when the effects budget was not equal to the filmmakers' ambitions.  The result is not a good movie but it is a functional one, and in the land of MST3K fodder that ain't half bad.

So let's start with the stuff that works.  There's a few places where Twelve to the Moon really did get something right, or at least, where its heart was clearly in the right place even if the follow-through didn't work out.  For one thing, they don't spend half the movie hanging around in space talking about stuff.  They have to dodge a meteor shower, but I'm pretty sure that was mandated by the Space Movie Union rules in the 50's.  Other than that, there is some flight time with dialogue, but unlike the pointless bullshit that consumed significant parts of Fire Maidens of Outer Space and almost all of Rocketship XM, in Twelve to the Moon this actually sets up some honest-to-gosh plot points.

We get a brief sketch of some of the characters, of their attitude towards the trip and their area of expertise.  We meet the animals they're bringing with them, and see the technology that makes the trip possible – some of this, like the sonic shower and the invention of the screenshot, is filler, but some, like the mentions of nuclear power and foreshadowing of Heinrich's heart attack, is important.  It's actually kind of neat that they included some irrelevancies, since it means we don't know which parts will turn out to be vital later.  And we get a setup of the film's main human conflict, Heinrich's distancing from his father's war crimes and what it means for his relationship with his protege David.

The movie also makes quite an earnest attempt to portray people who are different getting along for the sake of the common good.  The characters clearly disagree about a lot of things but when fights break out they're usually quieted pretty quickly.  Somebody put at least a little thought into where each member of the crew came from and how that would be reflected in their personalities, though the results are not especially nuanced.  Furthermore, even when they argue the characters mostly treat each other with respect. The women are allowed to be useful instead of just being there so the men will have girls to kiss.  The black guy is not treated badly on account of either his race or his faith.  Twelve to the Moon really, really wants to be progressive and whatever you think of the result there's certainly less of the Unfortunate Implications that plagued Women of the Prehistoric Planet.

The surface of the Moon as presented in this movie is actually pretty cool.  The backdrops are suitably craggy and desolate, and the black and white film actually adds to the effectiveness of it.  Even when we get stuff like the geysers, the quicksand, and the corals, that enrage Tom Servo by clearly not belonging on the moon, they look pretty neat.  This is obviously where the production spent most of its money and I have to say, good call.  If you’re only going to show us one really cool thing in your trip-to-the-moon movie, best make sure that’s the moon itself!

A related good decision was how the movie never actually shows us the Moon People.  Anything they could have put together on their budget would have been disappointing at best and laughable at worst. By keeping the Moon People off-camera, they are made an ominous presence in the movie, unknowable, unpredictable, and with powers we cannot comprehend.  This is far scarier than people in silly 'moon men' costumes would have been!

Finally, to my grateful astonishment, the movie does not have a love triangle in it!  With ten men and two women on the Lunar Eagle, they could easily have gone that way, but they didn't! Hideko has no love interest at all, and so little time is spent on the romance between the two physicians that when they pull off their helmets and kiss it comes as a complete surprise.  Instead, the movie derives its human drama from the differing political views of the characters.  It's still kind of beside the point of the main 'moon adventure' plot but it's not nearly so tired and cliché as the romantic angle would have been.

Of course, a lot went wrong in this movie, too.  For starters, there are far too many characters.  We simply don't have time to get to know the entire cast: there are too many names and faces to remember, and while we do get an outline of each person, we get no more than that.  Some of the irrelevant stuff that added colour to the first half of the film could have been cut to make room for setting up Dr. Martel's dislike of Americans, or at least to give a brief setup to the romance.  The cast could have been cut down by half, while the film told the same story in a much tighter and more engaging fashion.

Then there are the effects.  I mentioned that the movie spent most of its effects budget on the moonscapes. This means there was not much left for anything else and... yeah. You can tell.  Whether we're watching model spacecraft on sticks, or the cast getting bombarded by cartoon meteors, or the kleig lights intruding into the top of a shot, you can certainly see the cheapness on the screen. The worst moment of all is when we see two men who are supposed to be flying a smaller rocket ship, sitting in front of a blank wall with the shot framed to crop out an instrument panel that does not actually exist.

Perhaps the lack of budget is why they went with the 'invisible force field helmet' thing... maybe they couldn't afford twelve custom-made glass or plastic face plates, plus extras in case of breakage.  Or maybe they worried that reflections on the material would make it hard to see the actors' faces and tell who was who. Either way, they probably would have done better to just pretend there were helmets there, rather than draw attention to their absence – though actor Richard Weber delivers the line with admirable conviction.

A lack of budget is the studio's fault, not the film-makers', but where the movie really stops making sense is when the Moon People decide to make actual contact with the human crew.  They do this by transmitting a series of symbols that pop up on the Lunar Eagle's computer, and which more than anything else remind me of the 'hieroglyphics' supposedly found on the Roswell UFO wreckage.  I don't know if this was intentional on the part of the film-makers... Roswell was mostly forgotten after it happened and didn't become big news until conspiracy types started looking into it in 1978.  What's really weird about the symbols is not what might have inspired them, but the fact that Hideko can translate them.

What?  The picture-writing we're shown doesn't look anything like Japanese, or any other logographic language I can think of.  Just because Hideko can read one type of pictogram doesn't mean she can necessarily read others – I can read the Roman and Greek alphabets, but that sure as hell wouldn’t help me with Sanskrit or Inuktitut!  Is this one of those things where the aliens came to Earth thousands of years ago and left their language behind, and Hideko just happens to have studied it? Because that would be awfully convenient.

The other possibility that occurs is that the aliens deliberately chose to communicate in a language they knew their guests would understand... but if that's the case, it seems more likely that they would have just done it in one of the languages spoken by their two captives, which would give them a choice of Turkish, Swedish, or English.  The Moon People clearly understand at least one of those languages, since they mention that the hostages “say they are in love”, so why bother with the pictograms at all?

The later actions of the Moon People don't really make any sense, either.  'Leave the cats and go home' seems like a fairly reasonable request (given the option of two cats or twelve humans, I know which I would choose to keep), but then they freeze the Earth so that the Lunar Eagle cannot land.  A later communication makes it sound like this was a test of the crew's willingness to support each other and sacrifice themselves to the greater good of humanity, but was it really necessary to freeze the planet in order to do that?  They'd surely already seen that these squabbling primates worked together well enough to get themselves to the moon, and tried to save their colleagues who were in danger.  It really just seems like the Moon People want to make the point that they can snuff humanity's candle out any time they like... which doesn't make them seem that much more peaceful or enlightened than us, honestly.

So yeah, there's a lot of stuff that sucks here, too, and between that and the good bits the movie balances out somewhere in the vicinity of 'tragically mediocre'.  Despite all that, I really do kind of like this one.  Twelve to the Moon wants to be not just an entertaining movie but an important one, one with an optimistic vision of the future and a message for all mankind.  It fails, but it fails in such ways that I really would like to give it points for trying.

Except for the title guy.  He didn't try at all.