#it's very... impressionist lol

[runawayfuture]

my first time using clip studio paint

[ezrazone]

it is very funny when people are given the material resources to become filmmakers before they fully understand how to watch movies. so they mimic what they think is good about movies they enjoy but those qualities are like “nonsense” and “surprise” so the films they make are ridiculous and shallow but when you read the list of references and inspirations they are all completely coherent films that happen to be old or foreign or impressionistic. the new filmmaker just did not think they needed time to understand them. i am talking about many many filmmakers lol

[lemon-wedges]

Hello!!! I love your art and your style. I'd love to hear your inspirations behind how you draw and, in addition, hear a bit about your painting process (I love the impressionistic look your paintings have)

ahh!!! thank you so much ;u;

Ill tried my best to break down my thought process behind my drawing, so i hope this all makes sense aahaha

undercut cause it came out real long

SO Karl Gnass is an instructor that i took an anatomy class with. and who broke down anatomy in a way that really helped me grasp space. like space a figure occupies. and from that i think my characters feel a bit more...grounded? im not sure what the right word would be but tangible is something people sometimes say about my art.

And i do think when youre able to make a figure look like its really wrapping its hands around something it makes character interactions a lot more intimate.

heres a few under sketches i do when i start a drawing (i am trying REALLY hard not to use my nsfw ones tho those are pretty perfect when it comes to showing u anatomy RIP)

after i got the poses done ill turn down the opacity and rough sketch out details on top of these. and once THATS done i move onto lineart. and the most important aspect of this step is NOT TO TRACE YOUR UNDER DRAWING!!!! thats what sucks the life out of your work!!!!

instead you use your undersketch as a guide. ilI actually redraw the simple anatomy underneath very lightly, erase where they over lap and then add line weight variety + darken up the details.

examples of this are gonna look a little messy but. Left is the original pose i drew out with rough details. right is the drawing i do on top of it. you'll see theyre not one to one and theres some lines i didnt fully erase out when redoing the anatomy. i find my clean up has a lot more energy when i do this.

the thing about my style is that you'll notice i never actually do actual clean smooth lineart. and thats because i HATE DOING THAT SHIT. like i did learn how to do it and consistently forced myself to do it for over a year. and while i do think i learned a lot about line weight and drawing clearer. i realized? its just not for me. I like a textured brush and i like being able to see those small lines i didnt get to fully erase out because i think they look cool lol and thats ok!! do what you want forever man!!! its your art!!!

Also before i move onto painting ill show you this neat little trick. you know those more "loose" drawings of mine that feel more gestural? the begining process is exactly the same. the difference is i use a chunkier pen and try to see how much i can simplify details + just feel out the energy of lines

NOW PAINTING.

man. where to even start.

the thing about painting is that its an entire different set of skills that need to each be honed on their own and will slowly build up together. ill break it down like this.

VALUE, COLOR, and TECHNIQUE

I've said this on another ask before but you'll notice ill do a lot of black and white sketches. and i do that to practice choosing how to group values.

like this example. how light is laios' wolf coat compared to his skin? or kabrus skin color compard to laios coat. when do you want to really push the contrast of light and dark and when do you let values be closer to each other when you DONT want attention

the next step from this is adding a light source.

and when you're working in black and white its a lot easier to pay more attention where you want your light/how its gonna look like hitting youre characters and how far youre gonna push your shadows.

and you know if you get good at this you can play with limited color palletes

this is literally just be picking out blues and hitting the bottom with the gradient tool to light it up

NOW COLOR

is a lot harder and also very subjective. I do a ton of impressionist studies where i just color pick the fuck out of a piece to see what colors masters used + knowing the history of paint and what colors were available during that time period. +knowing what colors = what mood + knowing what colors to use when you want to be more realistic vs when you want to lean into more stylized+ what colors YOU specially incline towards + AHHHHHHHHHHHHH

its a lot and im actually still learning myself

But when i do a painting i collect a LOT of refrences of the kind of mood i want my own painting to feeling like. I've show the first example in another ask before but heres one from my latest labru too

WHen i actually start a painting tho they look like this. The top drawings are just flat colors with a simple outline of where i want the light to be hitting. like in my value studies im just trying to get the idea down, seeing what values need to be darker vs what is lighter. and how the light source covers the character.

figuring this out in the begining makes the rest of the painting so much easier because youve essentially made all the big compostion decisions NOW. from here you can start playing with colors.

my second stage, youll see with drawings at the bottom, is when i start using my texture brush to lay in extra shadows and just play with variety.

and then? i start rendering

that would be TECHNIQUE

And well....thats also something thats gonna be very subjective.

With my own style im not interested in rendering everything to perfection. Im trying to figure out how to texture hair/skin/clothes in ways that make them feel like the materials they are while also showing the energy of my brushstrokes.

I dont zoom in while i paint btw. everything i do is zoomed out so i can see the entire drawing. it helps me not tight up my strokes while also letting me build up all areas of the painting equally. the only time i zoom in is when im lining out the eyes/mouth of a character. and yeah. it drives me insane doing this because ITS SOOOOO Tempting to obsess over paint 1 area forever then zoom out and see that nothing matches lol

The other thing about my style of painting. Is that im not gonna use the exact same formula for every piece. like this isnt cell shading. you can have an idea of how to texture skin/clothes/hair and sometimes it looks great and beautiful in one painting and then it looks like shit in another. ive overhauled a lot of paintings multiple times because what i thought would work doesnt and ive had to force myself to explore and play with my brushstrokes. and you know? i wouldnt have it any other way. it means none of my paintings are gonna look alike! and i think thats pretty cool :D

ill leave you with this in the end. a painting im in the middle of doing and debating to overhaul cause im just not feeling the strokes. who knows what ill look like in the end

anyways i hope this helped a little? even if you look at all this and go. IM NEVER GONNA DRAW LIKE THIS BOZO ahahah

BUT I WISH YOU LUCK ON YOUR OWN ARTS :DDDD

[heartstringsduet]

Happy Wednesday <3 This time I won't forget to use the new and ridiculous to tag lol. thanks @cold-blooded-jelly-doughnut for kicking us off. Have some of the next First Aid chapter.

Until TK asked him about his favorites, Carlos hadn’t thought much about his preferences in animals or colors or flowers. It hadn’t mattered beyond when he was a small child. So, when he paced in a shop with lights that burned his eyes, he’d felt like a fish in a field of flowers. 

Eventually, he lingered by the sunflowers again. Too boring for someone like TK, and yet Carlos kept on coming back to the bright yellow big heads over the orchids he’d initially had thought TK might like. But these were the flowers Carlos was drawn to because they looked like the Texan sun, like the way he felt when TK’s smile lit him up. He’d exited the shop adding two different kinds of flowers to make an arrangement. Blue bonnets for the patch growing in his mother’s little backyard and lavender because TK smelled of it in the morning. The woman in the flower shop had clipped and tied and arranged it into what looked like an impressionist painting and told him he’d make the giftee very happy.

“For me?” TK asks, seeing the flowers, hands hesitating mid-air.

“For you,” Carlos says. “Otherwise, this would have been a little awkward.”

Carlos discovers his favorite things as an adult and one of them is the way TK visibly melts and buzzes with excitement, at once honey and bee.

He cups Carlos’ hand on the stems in both of his and brings his face to the petals. “They’re beautiful. Thank you.”

OPEN TAG &

@welcometololaland @rmd-writes @carlos-tk @carlos-in-glasses

@birdclowns @thisbuildinghasfeelings @whatsintheboxmh @fitzherbertssmolder

@inkweedandlizards @alrightbuckaroo @reyesstrand @strandnreyes

@orchidscript @lightningboltreader @thebumblecee

@never-blooms @theghostofashton @bonheur-cafe

@decafdino @lemonlyman-dotcom @ladytessa74

@paperstorm @kiwichaeng @freneticfloetry

@sznofthesticks @im-overstimulated-and-im-sad @sanjuwrites

@safeaswrites @chicgeekgirl89 @liminalmemories21

[green-alien-turdz]

Do you have any advice for drawing backgrounds? I want to start drawing them more but they intimate me and perspective seems really difficult

I can try! I kinda suck at givin advice, but here we go

When drawin backgrounds, you almost wanna think of them as their own characters with the details you add n put into them. Rooms n homes are the best ways to express this bcuz you can add details like decor that represents those who live there n shit. You can draw the wear n tear on things, the aging, etc. Of course, a lot homes aren't gonna be as maximalist as I like to draw lol but that doesn't mean they don't have their own charm. Even when it comes to drawin the outside, there's so many little details that make the whole piece. Even a vast open desert has rocks, cracks, heat waves n alla that. Now that's just talkin about details, if perspective is what you need to work on, there's a few exersizes for that I guess.

You wanna focus on depth. Now not every scene has to have a lot bcuz sometimes that's just not the perspective or location, but depth is kinda important. Think of what's in the foreground (closest), middle ground, and the WAY way background. The two best ways to really capture this depth can be 1) Forest/nature scenes, and 2) Lookin through a window.

Practice by drawin the things you see. Like wherever you're sittin, draw your perspective from right there (includin things close to you in the foreground). This can help gain a better understanding of shots n scenes in different locations n understandin the perspective. These drawings don't have to be the most beautiful thing, just take in the depth n perspective. Take a very impressionistic style if you wanna.

I think the best advice I can give ya is to REALLY take in your surroundings. Every now n then, just take a moment to take in all of the little details in a room, in public, outside, on transit, etc. Look for the things that everyone sees but it's such commonplace that no one really notices. The beauty of backgrounds is that they can say a lot about a character, a places history, etc. Backgrounds tell their own mfin story.

But yeah, perspective can be kinda tricky, so imma go back to those two depth practices I recommended. Gonna do some quick lil shitty sketches to show you what I mean on like gettin that shit in. (Sorry for the crumply paper, my cat sat his wet ass on it). These are just to get an idea of what the practices can look like! They're not te end all be all. Spend as much or as little time as you want. It's all about learnin, man

I don't know how helpful this was. Sorry about that, dude. The best advice I can give is to just keep practicin. Everythin seems intimidating at first. Ya just gotta take the stride forward and keep tryin. It doesn't matter where you are with backgrounds now, bcuz with an effort made you'll see improvement each n every time. I've seen some of your stuff, man, I know you got this shit. Good luck!

[artistotel]

tips for traditional artists (mostly painters)

so while i primarily post doodles and such on this blog, my true passion is traditional art. :) i see a lot of tips for digital artists but rarely for traditional ones, so this is just my own experience (before anyone goes like "oP tHaT iS nOt UnIvErSaL eXpErIenCe" (i know this site well enough lol) if the advice doesnt sit well with you feel free to ignore it because i am def not an end it know it all. and nobody is because art is so broad and there is no right way to do it.

EQUIPMENT

so, first of all, in my language we have a saying "the tools dont make a master", meaning a true master could create with anything. i mean, sure, to a point, tools wont replace your ability to conceptualize art, but cmon.

equipment matters, especially when painting. i mostly work with acryllics and markers. lets talk about acryllics.

paints

its important to get at least okay quality paints. the stuff i use is not insanely expensive - croatia has limited offers, and i am poor. however, i tried paints for like 1€ from tedi and they are far inferior to goya's paints i use (3-4€ cca per 100ml. and those 100ml are going to last you a very looong time if you work on small scale paintings, and i even managed to fit in large ones).

ESPECIALLY THE WHITE PAINT. i cannot stress this enough. if youre gonna buy cheaply, buy everything cheap except for the white. make sure the white is good. it will serve as a thickener for other colours and good white can even do a good job of covering up the black paint.

brushes: get good brushes. if you paint frequently with bad brushes (like the ones i get from muller; they seem fine but ehhh im constantly changing them) you will be spending more in longer run than you would if you invested in something better. im not talking about 100€ packs made of donkey tail strands or whatever, i mean normal brushes, but look at reviews a bit. i once ordered like 10€ pack of brushes from amazon and they performed muller ones by far (and were cheaper); they left thicker paint and didnt get ruined after five uses.

markers

now see, i dont have any advice here, but i wanted to contrast it with my previous talk about how i purposefully buy good paint. well, i purposefully buy bad markers. really bad ones. because equipment often depends on what style you are after. i use flomasters, and they do what i want: and thats a cheap and trashy look.

canvases and papers

if youre gonna invest into something, invest into paints rather than canvases. you can trick a bad canvas by putting on multiple colour layers, you cant trick bad paints. but there are differences to bad and good canvases, of course. however, if youre just starting out, just go get a bad one; i take most of mine from tedi, or order online. you dont gotta spend billion of euros on them.

paper is also important. i am a painter and i bought a Leuchtturm1917 though unfit one, and was annoyed as to why everyone thought it was great. then i bought the one with specific sketchbook paper and it works fantastic. if youre painting, you need appropriate paper.

learn colour theory and some art history

yes i know this sounds boring. but its not. draw inspiration from your predecessors. there are people making oil paintings of modern things. you heard "dont shade with black" (and thats my personal mantra too) but chiaroscuro was a valid art movement. if you take a look at my own art you will most likely say: oh, thats pop art! and you would be right. i am inspired by roy lichtenstein, andy warhol, and other pop artists. but thats just the surface. my use of colour is inspired by the impressionist takes on it; i dont shade with darker colours, i shade with different ones. i shade red with blue, yellow with purple or red, and so on. if you look at the topics and subjects of my art, you will find surrealism. if you look at my approach to art itself, you might find influences of croatian naive. learn about actual philosophies behind art movements you like; you might find something for you.

ok these are just some general thoughts i had, id probably have more lol but thats it for now

[phoebehalliwell]

how'd you come up with the prandy girlies names?

ooh okay so the first names are kind of simple i really believe that prue would follow the p naming tradition and then giving her love / the impact her mother had on her i def think her first born would get the name patricia and then bc of her love for her grams penelope would be the name for her secondborn. and then i actually have the headcanon that the name phillipa actually comes from andy's side of the family, he just happened to have a great aunt or something with a p name so that's where phillipa came from

as for the middle names grace is the name of a warren witch which we learn in the source vanquishing spell (prudence, penelope, patricia / astrid, helena, and grace) so that's where that comes from and i just thought patricia grace has a very nice elegance to it it's a very classy sounding name. penelope's middle name is eva after the witch who taught them the old ways on all hallow's eve, i felt like she deserved a shout out for reconnecting the halliwell's with their magic roots also she was a girlboss. and then phillipa's middle name of cassatt actually comes from the american artist mary cassatt (1844-1926) who is one of the most signifcant women in the impressionist movement and also was a major feminist so i personally think she would be a favorite artist of prue's, so i decided to use her last name as phillipa's middle name because i think it's just a little more fun to have a quirky middle name than just "mary" lol

[pixilator]

Background art style test + dialogue bubble test

Transcription:

Hestia: I'm perfectly capable of crossing the road by myself, thank you very much!

Flavius: Remember the money, Flavius. You wouldn't do very well in prison.

Narrator: Mayhem was seriously considering pushing them both into oncoming traffic. Unfortunately, they have continuously proven far too valuable to her alive than they would be as flattened assēs.

[Sorry, caught the grammatical issues only when it was far too late so I'm taking some liberties with the transcription. Take the narrator with a grain of salt. Mayhem isn't that evil...

Cool note: assēs is one of the plurals of the roman as, a type of coin! The other plural is assarii. I chose it because it looks similar to the word describing what they are behaving like xD]

---

Trying out a more impressionistic style of backgrounds. Lately I've been in a Skyward Sword kick and was wondering if maybe I should take a card out of that deck and apply it here. So here's the result... yay or nay?

I've been trying out different bubbles for dialogue, especially for thoughts. I first tried transparent bubbles, and even though it gets the point across it was... really hard to read. OTL

So instead I decided to colour the line art for the narration box with a character's colour signature and change the text to a light grey. In this case, it's Flavius' colour signature, which is why the line art is yellow. I changed a few colours from Mayhem's design, I feel she's almost too pink/purple overall so I added some gold for the 60/30/10 rule to make her more balanced.

Reference under keep reading [thanx google street view lol]

[moookar]

Can you talk about your painting process?

Thank you so much for asking!!

I start with painting under my sketch with some soft brush. I use something different every time. It's mostly just blocking out rough light and shadow shapes at this point

Once I'm done with that I color the sketch layer to some fairly saturated mid- or dark tone, and merge it with the rough colors. What I change the sketch layer to will depend on what it's around (lighter skin will get hypersaturated dark red or yellow, a white shirt would get some desaturated yellow or blue depending on the ambient light). I make duplicates of the un-merged layers at this stage and put them in a new category (which I then make invisible) because I'm anxious about it lol, but I've never had to go back and use them

At this point I go in with a harder brush over the top (usually Veljet Ink from Tuhis 2021) and start cleaning it up. Filling in the shadows, adding highlights, smoothing things out, etc. Rendering is the most time consuming part for me and also my favorite :)

I typically jump back and forth between those previous two steps. If I get an idea for a certain highlight to add while blocking in colors I might add it then instead of waiting, or I might have to redo certain sections while in the middle of rendering.

While both putting in the rough colors and rendering, I'll sometimes go in with the smudge tool (I've set it to some highly textured brush) and add some lost edges. (Recently I've been using a lot of lost edges and while I still don't have them down it's a lot of fun for me :) it's another one of my favorite parts of drawing)

I like Veljet Ink so much because it's very crisp and is basically made of 5 lines--depending on how I hold my apple pencil, it'll either look like that or one slightly thicker line. This is fun for me because it lets me sort of mix colors without actually smudging them, because of the gaps in it if that makes sense? It also gives this fun blocky look that I like. Also, if it's small, you can't really notice it, but if I set it to something larger I get to do these big swipes of it in the background and it looks vaguely impressionistic in a way that I think is fun. It's also easy to do magicy effects with it too

Here's a speedpaint too :)

[rosequart]

really enjoyed the new spiderverse :) the kind of movie that makes me go "damn i love movies"

my initial non-spoilery thoughts

loooved everything about the opening sequence. gwen's watercolor world is so responsive to her state of mind, transitioning from pastels to darker shades to more water-drippy and impressionistic

the web-slinging/swinging sequences are so fucking cool. just watching miles move through the city is beautiful—the effortless way in which their bodies move along with the camera, the way the web looks; spiderman has never looked better. you just cannot do this shit in live action.

i never got tired or exhausted by the visuals (maybe except until the fight sequence on the rocket/vertical train thing, but that's more action scene fatigue) which shows how well the movie is visually paced

in clumsier hands the self-referential humor ("villain of the week") and multiverse explaining ("canon events") would've been such a pain, but it's implemented really well. they clearly know when to be comedic vs. serious. no "that happened"s here!

i think the first half of the movie is much better paced and themed—i really enjoyed the family drama and miles and gwen just hanging out. once they reach the spiderpeople HQ it starts to feel bloated

more plot/spoilery stuff under the cut

it's hard to discuss the themes because it's half of a movie—luckily i went in knowing that, i would've been upset if i didn't know beforehand lol

the vulture at the beginning was very cool. i want to see his leonardo da vinci world

fucking love the spot. a villain who desperately wants to be taken seriously paired with a hero who quips and doesn't give him the time of day, driving him further down the villain path. great stuff

the only live action bit i liked was with the convenience store lady from the venom movies...otherwise it was pretty jarring. i do not need to see crying andrew garfield in my animated spiderman movie

i was happy to see peni :) her characterization and design was one of the more disappointing things about the first movie so i'm hoping her larger role in the third installment will be more in the vein of edgy mech anime/NGE

the slow realization that miles ended up in the wrong universe was soooo good i felt so smart and shocked when it happened. "what's comicscon" indeed

this movie had like 5 different endings lol

the actual ending rubbed me the wrong way in the implication that a world without spiderman (read: law enforcement) devolves into Crime and Anarchy and i get that it's an easy way to mark the universe as The Bad Timeline but it still sucks imo.

...which is a weird contrast to the spider society where they're clearly doing a "miguel's strict law enforcement is harming him and everyone around him" thing but i guess the movie is just going along with the age-old good cop myth. also hated the direct comparison between the spider mask and a cop badge. overall i think the movie's stance on cops and law enforcement is a clear attempt at having their cake and eating it too (especially noticeable with spiderpunk's existence). unfortunately that's probably par for the course for spiderman stories and superhero narratives at large

so interested in what they'll do with prowler-miles. i'm hoping he has an important role in the next one

for me this movie really disproves the idea of superhero/multiverse fatigue

hope all the artists who worked on this get a nice and long vacation. because my god.

[duncebento]

you have such wonderful taste in so many things and i'm so appreciative that you cultivate this space and share it ❤️ could you please recommend another lovely piece of orchestral music?

oh LOL i'm glad you liked it, thank you!!! i was just giving it as an example of a piece that's a bit more technically advanced.

orchestral hmm? well the piece i recommended before was a concerto, which is a solo-ish piece with accompaniment written in-- in that case, a violin concerto accompanied by an orchestra. i find that most of my favored orchestral pieces are concertos rather than pieces written just for orchestras, perhaps because you get the best of both worlds?

first i'll recommend this DOUBLE concerto by brahms; we're in vienna in 1887. i had actually only heard the third and final movement of this piece but the recording is of all three movements and it's fucking incredible. quite long, of course, since most concerto mvmts are between 7-15 minutes i'd say, but so very worth it.

like, just listen to the very first solo, when the cello takes the stage-- how much character development there is in the first minute. this cellist (who is "acting" in the same way that actors are given a written script but decide what to DO with it) makes it easy to imagine a whole narrative-- vengeful, sexy, the cheeky switch to pizzicato (plucking as opposed to bowing.) crazed.

next is a piece from cinderella. it should begin at 37:55. now we're more modern, the bolshoi theatre in 1945, and this orchestra would not be on the stage but in a pit at the foot of the stage, providing a backdrop for cinderella to waltz with the prince before running away. i adore the (very russian) character of this piece because prokofiev paints a whimsical, scary ball rather than choosing to focus on the sweeter romantic aspects of cinderella's meeting with the prince. (and i do think she would've been scared and completely out of her element!) the piece gets more and more frantic until the movement right afterwards, "midnight," where the waltz ends and all we hear is the doom of the foreboding clock.....

now back in time again to 1905! ravel, another impressionist, lived in paris but many of his pieces have obvious spanish influence. he wrote this as part of a 5-movement piece with each movement dedicated to a different member of his artist's collective, which i think is really cute. you can definitely hear that this is a more modern orchestral piece due to its rulebreaking-- this era definitely influenced the compositions for BOTW if you happen to be a fan of that soundtrack as many are.

i'm also gonna link the spotify playlist where i compile the vaguely classical pieces i like-- sorry; it's not curated in any sense, i just add them as i like them. i'd say they're mostly in minor keys because i'm edgy and like musical angst (even the major key ones i like often manage to be angsty...) furthermore there's a focus on cello because i'm a cellist, so pieces that i've played or would like to play (in my dreams...) make their way in often. maybe same with ballet cos i spent a decade and a half in a ballet troupe. otherwise i'd say it's well-rounded enough!

here u go!! and like with any music, if you find something you like, the easiest way to get more of it it by looking at the other movements of the piece/other works by that composer or their contemporaries.

[illarian-rambling]

Questions from this ask game!!!

I want to know more about Mashal!!! (I understand if you don't want to answer them all, haha, feel free to just pick a few!)

1, 4, 9, 10, 24, 31, 35, 40, 41, 47

Oh boy, you get to hear about my boy! For context, Mashal was a knight who was kidnapped and had his mind transplanted into a robotic body as a test run for a mad mage's try at immortality. He doesn't remember much of his life before, except for the fact that he was human and that he'll kill whoever did this to him. That said, let's do these asks!

What is your character's reaction to a minor inconvenience? Such as getting their jumper caught on a door handle?

Mashal is remarkably patient, so he probably wouldn't let it ruin a good day. However, if he's already having a bad day, something is probably getting broken. Not necessarily out of anger, but if we're talking about the example of getting his coat caught on a doorhandle, he's just gonna keep walking until the coat or the doorknob goes. Then he would feel bad and try to guiltily fix it.

What do they consider to be an unforgivable action? Why?

Being lied to. Mashal is very honest, mostly because he himself can't stand it when people conceal the truth. Betrayals also cut deep since he trusts people so completely. Also, if you're hurting innocent people, prepare for the full Terminator experience. He always stands up for people who are trapped in awful situations like he was.

What is your character's trigger point? What makes them angry, sad or makes them go off?

Oh boy. When Mashal gets angry, it's a zero to sixty flip, full transformation. Being around the mage who basically murdered him will cause him to lose his shit, focused on nothing but trying to kill her. Magic, in general, can also flip that trauma trigger. He gets very paranoid and twitchy around large rituals, though he gets better about this as the series goes on.

What kind of jokes make them laugh?

Anything unexpected or out-of-pocket will get a shocked gasp, then a laugh. He thinks Astra's wacky metaphors and Ivander’s snide sarcasm are hilarious.

What are your character's special skills?

Killing? That's only mostly a joke - Mashal is a very skilled swordsman who is only made better by the fact that he's made of metal. But he wouldn't include that in his talents. He would tell you first that he's a decent artist. Landscapes are his specialty, but he's been getting more into portraits lately. He also likes to cook. Yes, he has no sense of taste, but the process itself is enjoyable and he likes feeding his friends.

Your character has been invited to a masquerade ball. What mask do they wear?

He would be so indecisive lol. I imagine he'd just ask Astra what she's doing and match her. However, if forced to pick, he'd choose something that looks like an impressionist painting of a human face. Then he'd chicken out and go with a sun motif instead.

What attracts your character to another person? What kind of person do they go for?

Confident, good at telling stories, adventurous enough to drag him out for shenanigans, not afraid to be brash, passionate about something. Actually, Astra's intro is linked to my pinned post if you want any more descriptiors for what Mashal is into ;)

Your character's friend has just been mugged. What's their reaction?

First things first, he'd make sure the friend is ok. He'd walk them home, make dinner, and stay with them through the night. Once they're in a better state of mind, he'd ask them what they want him to do, be that go to the cops or go after the mugger himself. He probably wouldn't want to kill some random mugger, but depending on if his friend was badly hurt or not, he might put the fucker in the hospital. If not, he'd just intimidate the hell out of them while dragging them into a jail cell.

Your character has been punched into the face. What's their reaction?

"Oh gods, is your fist alright? I mean, why the hell did you do that, but gods beyond, all your fingers are broken!"

Punching a robot is a bad idea lol, even if he's an apologetic one

What is your character's reaction when someone does something nice for them?

Mashal has a bit of a stutter in moments of high emotion, so he'd probably just be doing that for a while. Then, because he's a knight at heart, he'd give them a proper courtly bow and probably a very awkwardly formal thank you. He carries every kind turn in his heart for ages, so he'll remember the gesture forever, no matter how small.

Also, I know you didn't ask, but here's some Mashal art!

He's my sweet, killer robot boy and I adore him. Thanks so much for the asks!

[tedlebred]

if youre comfortable sharing, whats your rendering process? what are some ways you learned? your art is very yummy

HSHSHHSHS hello!!!!!!!!!! first off omg,,,, thank you so much,,,,🤭🤭

secondly!!!! heres my attempt at a rendering process explanation. uhm. warning ive never really been asked to explain it before please bare with me

BUT. here goes. this'll probably be ungodly long apologies

so when i render my biggest rule is basically Do Not Blend Ever. what i do is do my sketch, then flats, then basic placement of blush/shadows+darkest parts/etc and then i go in and just colourpick the inbetweens+place them between colours in small strokes until the changes in colour don't look too sharp/jarring

here's some examples of the process;;;

(still a wip but HSHSHHS) so i work on 3 layers primarily (sometimes i do the hair+items that cover the face on another layer, too, though they might end up getting merged):

^ with just the sketch layer n flats / and then with the render layer added

i go in with a bigger brush to block in colour variation on the face on the flats layer and then paint over that, as well as over the sketch, with smaller strokes on a render layer- i never do lineart lol, and any "lineart" thats visible is just the sketch peeking through. I try to rely on colour and shadow to create shapes and boundaries instead of lines though this isn’t a hard and fast rule.

i also try to stick to the same pallette the entire drawing- once the flats and shadows are first roughly blocked in all the other tones/midshades/colours are basically just inbetweens picked directly from the drawing. Just me zooming in real close till I can see the pixels and colour picking where they sort of mix. (any smaller shifts in hue/tones are just colours with saturation slightly turned up or down, usually) im also not sure if this helps but i use the Sol brush from the clip studio assets store for literally everything from sketch to render, which is basically just a slightly soft opacity brush which ive deluded myself into thinking helps give my art a softer look. idfk if it does or not.:)

I like to use really saturated blush and for shadows I usually use two base colours; a warmer one and a colder one- a warmer one for smaller shadows and shadows near light and then colder ones for planes more in darkness. Also, usually, at the very end of the drawing I’ll add a layer that’s just fully yellow with colour burn or linear burn or multiply turned on and the opacity turned low just to make everything warmer. (a little thing I like doing for shadows sometimes is never making them reach the edge of the plane; the actual edge is usually a slightly lighter shade and it sort of looks like stylised bounce light that would probably not be there but anyhoo)

but yeah,,,, Never Blend But Make It Look Almost Blended. I’ve been doing it forever,,,,,, and I really like the almost shiny feeling it gives things:)))

And where did I learn. Ough. A lot of what I do I figured out through trial and error and just drawing a bunch (IM SORRY THATS REALLY NOT HELPFUL) but some sources I looked towards were sinix design and bluebiscuits on YouTube!!!!! Sinix has a really good video on rendering skin which is where I sort of took my principles from and ran. And bluebiscuits was a huge inspiration for me when I started trying to render things beyond flats!!!!!!! They’re also where I found the sol brush, lol. Also just,,, the impressionist movement as a whole is a massive inspiration. The use of light and shapes to create form is just,,, omg. Especially Claude Monet in particular. (and for the basics of drawing I learnt from my aunt!)

and honestly, just observing people. A lot of the time when I’m watching a movie or on a walk or even just talking with someone I tend to start looking at their face, and the different planes, how light hits it and how shadow interacts with it, where the shadows are harsher/softer……….people are wild man

I really hope that made sense!!!!!! I’ve never tried explaining it before and honestly, I’m not even really sure how I do it. I just sorta. Switch off and start drawing, yk? BUT I HOPE IT HELPED!!!!🫶🫶💞💖

in case that was all utter nonsense here’s a speedpaint that’ll hopefully demonstrate my process;;

I also have straight up screen recordings of me drawing but. I don’t think anyone wants to sit though that

thank you for the ask!!!!!have a nice day/night and SORRY THAT ENDED UP THAT LONG

[thecolorblockcurator]

10, 19, 22

10 Share a photo of your favorite post impressionist artwork

Idk there is something about this one- It's very queer coded to me, idk I could just be making it up bc of her fashion. lmk if you see it too. Anyway I usually love how colorful and vibrant post impressionism tends to be. But yet this one in particular is pretty muted color palette. but it's such a strong portrait.

Portrait of Elizabeth van Rysselberghe, Seated, Her Hands on the Table, Theo van Rysselberghe

19 What is your favorite book - no fiction of fiction - about art? Oof I should have proof read that question. lol I always have the habit of splitting up a sentence to add hyphens. It's just how my ADHD brain works!! Don't kiss me: The art of Claude Cahun & Marcel Moore.

If you ever want to read a book, about two queer, most likely non-binary, jewish, surrealists multimedia artists who were political activists & created a resistance that was so wide spread that the nazi occupation on island of jersey thought it was a mass revolt & not just two little old ladies with blue and purple hair who walked their cats at night. Read this biography.

(but try to check it out from your library because it's expensive)

22 What is your advice for creative block Give yourself time. It seems so simple- yet it's really hard to do. Try not to pressure yourself. Creativity is like a tide, it comes & goes. Trying to force it will only make you feel like you're not good enough.

If you absolutely need to be creative for work or something- try a completely different medium. Don't think about being productive & just let yourself play.

make ugly art!!

[whipplefilter]

Indy 500 2024

The Indy 500 is an entirely different beast than any race I've ever been to. There are 300,000 in the audience; the bleachers all around the track and all the infield mounds are absolutely full to bursting.

I'm not usually a big crowds person, but I do actually really like being around a bunch of race fans, because amidst some people being racist/sexist, there is overall a strong shared love of something, and a lot of fanatical joy, and I love fanatical joy. But--and I'll preface this by saying that I'm admittedly not an Indycar fan, either, so I don't have the strongest leg to stand on here--there were a lot of Girlfriends indulging their partners at this race. Which is very polite of them, but they talked so much and it was all so insipid. And as much as I love participating in shared fanatical joy, I really don't like engaging in fannish activity if the people around me aren't equally interested. So these extremely chatty Girlfriends were a downer for me. That sounds gatekeepy, but I mean it in a way like, GURL, if you're going to do something for someone else, and you're not actually interested in it, you need to be genuinely open to the idea of being interested in it for a few hours!!! Be curious and thoughtful about a new experience!!!! Don't just say "they have to run 200 laps? Don't they get bored? I'd get bored."

Anyway, that aside, the big thing I noticed that is also going to sound self-evident and insipid is that they are going so fast. That video above will not do the live experience justice.

Like, if you watch a bunch of racing in a weekend, you can absolutely tell that there's a major speed difference between, say, ARCA, vs. trucks, vs. Xfinity/Cup. But even without direct basis for comparison, the Indy 500 is so fast. The difference between a 185ish NASCAR average and 220 is so fast. The difference between an Indycar's average speed on a road course and on an oval is so fast. I've been to a number of Indycar's road course races at IMS, and speed-wise, there's no comparison to Indy on the oval.

It's the point at which form and design become only blurs of color, and you know the car you're rooting for only through math (running order) and instinct. What you can see is only the impression of a car; it is sound and wind pressure and the ghost form of something moving toward and past you.

I will always be a stock car person, in terms of sound and shape, and they, too, feel like this when you're down at the bottom of the stands, by the catchfence, but it is very special to see these svelte arrows at a wider magnification, still just these impressionistic entities racing under the colors of the Brickyard. It's beautiful.

I was rooting for:

Kyle Larson (because I am me)

Roman Grosjean (for his wet cat energy)

Sting Ray Robb (because his name is Sting Ray Robb)

And for the win, was rooting for either Scott Dixon (because CGR) or Pato O'Ward (because of Arrow McLaren teammate solidarity). Which didn't come to pass--I am so sorry, Pato--but they certainly made Newgarden/Rossi work for it, and it was a great finish.

I'm really pleased with how well Kyle Larson did in his first Indy 500, and first Indy race. He mentioned before the race that he wasn't sure that he wanted to attack off the bat, because he'd never been through a start or restart in an Indycar, and he definitely got a lot of experience on that front in this race, LOL.

Starting 5th, he got dropped back to P14ish at the start, and spent some time there before working his way back into the T10 and ultimately back to P6, where he spent most of the race. A speeding penalty in the latter third of the race put him a lap down, though Will Power's caution allowed him the wave-around and he got a chance to lead laps of the Indy 500 for a while due to long-pitting, which I feel like was primarily for the fun and experience of it, and a little for the hope that maybe there'd be a lucky caution and he could pit under yellow and steal some of that track position. That wasn't to be, so the finish is more reflective of his one mistake than how he ran in the race overall. I think he did really well and I'd love to see him and Hendrick and Arrow-McLaren attempt the H1100 again, without the weather stress. <3

[otrtbs]

Hello this is probably a very vague question but I figured ur the best person to ask, you just came into my head as I was thinking about it! Long story short, I kind of really wish I’d picked Art History as one of my A-Levels (I picked Psychology instead and will regret it till the day I die lol) and I just wondered if you had any recommendations of how to get into the subject?

Artists to look up or just anywhere that has cool resources for someone who knows *nothing* about it but rlly wants to 😭 sorry this is probably hard to answer but thank you anyway!! <33 I hope ur doing well!

omg ahh hello!! i am going to ramble

so, if you want to start with artists, it's probably best you pick a time period or movement that you really enjoy and then you can read about the artists who pioneered those movements. BUT i will give you some of my favorite artists to read about!

Caravaggio- anything about him! if you want to look him up peruse his works! he's quite a character. he's a murderer for starters. he also gets arrested for throwing artichokes at waiters, writing slanderous poems, hiring assassins to kill his rival painters, throwing rocks at cops, and for falling on his own sword (that he had illegally). also the pope literally orders his death so he has to run away. if you like drama and absurdity and baroque art he's your guy!

Artemisia Gentileschi- if you want to see baroque art of women made by a woman she is your girl! the way she paints women naturalistically instead of highly stylized is so progressive and in a time when women weren't allowed to do anything, her achievements as arguably the greatest baroque painter ever are really impressive. her backstory is a pretty tragic and upsetting one, but she's amazing!

Van Gogh- if you like post-impressionist art, which tends to be a lot of people's favorite movement then Van Gogh is a good one! highly recommend reading the letters vincent van gogh wrote to his brother, and art dealer, Theo. they make me cry and i love them!

If you like more modern art, Marcel Duchamp is a fun one to read about. He had an alter ego named Rosé Selavy (sounds like eros, c'est la vie play on words! very cool!) and he kinda kicked off the modern art movement! Andy Warhol of course (notably his time working with Basquiat, homie also gets shot by the woman who wrote the Scum manifesto) Martha Rosler did some amazing things in the 70s (semiotics in the kitchen is a personal favorite of mine) and The guerrilla girls!!!!! (if you like the 90s feminist movement) you can find some books and podcasts and other resources i like here! and here! for just looking at art, exploring different artists and movements and even virtually touring museums, google arts and culture!!!! you can sort paintings by color, artist, movement, time period, location, etc. and they have several museums that you can do a virtual walk through of. also just reading the descriptions of things gives you a feel for how people talk and write about art! if you're looking for good art criticism i recommend looking into Jerry Saltz, Kenny Schachter, Roberta Smith, John Berger, Lucy Lippard! Khan Academy is the best free resource and has entire free course dedicated to art history that you can go through here! they break down how to look at art, different approaches to it, teach you about chronological periods etc. (literally everything you could want to know!)