#keep forgetting to post my doodles. will be uploading a handful

[oozeandgoo-art]

friend of mine showed me these shirts ("no matter where i go, trouble always finds me" and "trouble", couples thing) and until i play it i am choosing to believe this is what Alan Wake's American Nightmare is like

[clarktooncrossing]

HELLO THERE PEOPLE OF TODAY AND ROBOTS OF TOMORROW! IT'S ME, CLARK!

Happy National Cartoonists Day, everyone! What, you didn't think my current computer crisis would stop me from celebrating the Holiday, did ya? Actually, it almost did. Y'see, despite this piece being drawn by hand, my computer's scanner wouldn't save the file onto my craptop. My computer's going through a processing error, meaning it's set to stop working any day now. Fortunately this hunk'a junk managed to work just long enough for me to upload the newest Sketch BOOM! Yes my friends, the Sketch BOOM is back! I figured if I could only post one thing for NCD it might as well be something covered head to toe with cartoons. Some pretty well drawn cartoons too, if you pardon me tootin' my own horn. It just feels so good to have drawn something, have it come out looking as good as it does, and to be able to upload it here on tumblr for you all to see. For the record though, screw tumblr's stupid@$$ upload size limit, I freak'n hate websites that do that! It makes me as mad as a blood-cursed Croczilla fighting a sentient mobile home, but we'll get to that in a bit. For now though, let's see what silly sketches managed to make their way onto the page, starting from the top left corner and making our way down.

Don't forget to be on the lookout for the Snow Conies, the tiny sentient species of snow cones that have invaded almost every part of the page! Can you spot all 8?

[1] DID SOMEONE SAY PIZZA? You wanna know what the downside is of drawing at the bottom of the page and working your way up is? You have tiny pockets of blank space that you're unsure what to do with. Such was the case was this corner, having been left blank after drawing #2. For a while I thought of filling the void with a cosmically charged Snow Conie in the same vein at Rosie, but the Cosmic Cutie was already part of the BOOM due to Discord shenanigans. Instead I opted for a Clarktoon that sadly hasn't been drawn in a while, that being the ever-goofy Pizza Monster. No doubt he was lured here by the scent of all the pretzel pizzas I've been eating lately. While he was here I decided to experiment with his expressions, adding more cheek to his smile. Honestly I think he looked better without them. Still, I'm happy to see him here as I hope all of you are. Now if only he'd stop hogging all the grub!

[2] EYE OF THE THERIAN Rosie isn't the only character here due to Discord shenanigans. At the beginning of every month my friend @Foxhatart opens herself up to sketch suggestions on her Kofi page. For the record, those of you wanting to help out another artist keep food in their bellies can click here. With a few of these Kofi slots still left open, Fox came to her friends asking if they had any ideas for pics involving her characters. Not knowing a ton about her characters, I joked that she ott'a draw her half-lemur girl Cath bench press a bus, her freakish strength having become a reoccurring gag via game nights. Funny as the idea was, I didn't expect Fox to actually do it. You can imagine my surprise when this popped up in my inbox a few days later. Consider this doodle a long overdue 'thank you'. Here we see the crazy Cath lifting weights with, of all peeps, Bumper! No doubt the little marshmallow's here for moral support since he can't actually build up any muscle mass. Ghost problems, am I right? Hope you enjoy this silly little sketch, Fox. Next time I'll have Cath bench-pressing your mortal nemesis; a train.

[3] TOOK ME LONG ENOUGH Despite what I said about Pizza Monster, he actually wasn't the last sketch to be included. No, that honor goes to the metal mercenary, the bodacious bot bounty hunter, the anarchistic anti-hero herself; Candy Banger! Much like the aforementioned monster I figured it had been too long since I drew Candy or really any of the robotic cast of 3K. Atop of that, Candy represented a good chance for me to use the stockpile of poses I've saved up from a thumb drive. Using one from a tumblr site called @posereference turned out to be surprisingly easier than anticipated, the only real flaw in the end being how I colored her. This is one of many coloring errors I made on this piece, Candy's hair looking more bluish purple than I had intended. Still, considering I drew her at all, I doubt Candy's complaining. Here's hoping I can draw more of her in the future, otherwise I might be riddled with bullet holes like that wall behind her. 

[4] AN AVERAGE DAY AT WHIMSYLAND And thus we've arrived to the first sketch of this compilation given to me by a friend, this one coming from @jackieariane. She and I both suffered during the Chapek administration of Disney, Jart regaling me with tales of when she dealt with rude customers at Animal Kingdom. It reminded me of when my friends AnimatedTigerGirl and RigbyH00ves worked at the Floridan Park too, all three of my companions having a surprisingly miserable experience. All these stories started melting together in my brain until I asked the question; what would happen if Brooklyn Nine Nine was set at Disneyland? Thus Whimsyland was born, albeit originally out of spite towards Chapek. I already detailed all this back in the DUDELZ from the Dumpster I posted earlier this year, but I failed to mention the human protagonist of this story, Wendy. Having been to Whimsyland once in her life at a young age, the young Vietnamese gal with OCD was immediately smitten by the place, vowing she'd someday work there. Spending the rest of her life researching the park and watching Matt Whimsy documentaries on uView, you can imagine Wendy's disappointment when she returned to the Perkiest Place on the Planet to find nothing was as perky. Whimsyland had lost its whimsy. It's here where she met Freddy Fox, the cartoon mascot of the company living in exile over how the house Matt built is being run today. In other words, what I'd imagine Mickey would be doing if he were real. Together these two kindred spirits are set to bring magic back to this wonderland! Overall I'm pleased with how the sketch turned out, though Wendy's face reminds me of my character Sue the Game Genie more than I'd prefer. Also, Fred Fox is way bigger than intended, no doubt I'll be changing that for future depictions of these two. For now though, this drawing has just enough Whimsy for my liking. 

[5] CROCZILLA: BLOOD CURSE More Discord Shenanigans! This time it's the result of a Dungeons & Dragons campaign that @burningthrucelluloid somehow roped me into yet again. Instead of robots and dragons set in a medieval fantasy however, this time it's elves and crocodiles in an approximation of the American south. One ruled by Jerimiah Strahd, a ruthless blood-sucking bastard that Alec based off Leonardo DiCaprio's character from Django Unchained. If that wasn't a sign of how crazy this campaign has become, here's an actual moment from the game. The heroic but hesitant human Jason (YoungSamurai18), the loud-mouthed scaredy cat Toby (Mr-Herp-Derp), and the silent but deadly Ed (void-android), and the equally hungry and adventurous Crocie (me, of course) were hunting for a witch named Bubba Lysiga when all of a sudden the witch brought her mobile home to life in order to attack our heroes. Worse still, she put Ed under mind control to attack his comrades. Croc got the worst of it, his HP dropping to 0 due to him falling from the house and getting stomped on by its gigantic set of wooden chicken legs. Did I mention this campaign gets strange? Well it got even crazier when a dark, shadowy entity housed in Croc's body suddenly gave him a recharge, the reptile taking the chance to mix a Heat and Growth potion he obtained earlier to become CROCZILLA! It was a moment Alec was hoping would happen in game and I didn't intend on disappointing. Same goes for this sketch, it mostly going just as envisioned in my head. The pissed off look on my green friend's face, the damage done to the rusty trailer that is the witch's house, the tiny silhouettes of Croc's teammates in said home, the heavy fog, the Earth-shattering roar in the background, it all came out great. Save for one detail. You'll notice that Croc's eyes are black with red irises in this pic. That detail's due to Croc having blood curse abilities, hence the dark entity sharing rental space in his body. As such, you'd think Croc's fire breath would be just as vibrantly red, but sadly that idea didn't occur to me until after I made the fire blue as well as the shine off every surface. Spam it! Still, coloring hiccup aside, I'm mighty proud of this pic! Hopefully so are the rest of the Barovian Bozos that make up my team. 

[6] WONDER ZIGGY, CINEPHILE FROM THE PLANET GARBONZA EVEN MORE DISCORD SHENANIGANS! Cut to a few months back and I was restructuring my Discord server, cutting down the multiple move threads it had before merging them all into one. Being the story-driven bozo I am, I quickly wrote a backstory for this thread involving an alien named Ziggy falling in love with the Earth B-Movies he was picking up on his deep space probe. So much so that he came down to our planet only to discover there were even MORE types of movies for him to enjoy! It overwhelmed him so much that he blacked out, awakening the next day having purchased a since abandoned drive-in theater on the outskirts of Clarksburg. Faced with this new impulse purchase, Ziggy followed the oldest piece of wisdom known to man or alien; Screw it. After a refurb Ziggy reopened the drive-in, screening B Movies and cinematic shlock to an appreciative public. And if you can believe it, I typed all of that out after thinking about it for five minutes. My brain is weird like that. All that said, it'd take a couple of RP sessions before I got his personality down, that being an MST3K character if the show were written by Joe-Bob Briggs. In other words, a surprisingly well educated weirdo with a deep love of Hollywood history. It'd take me a while longer before finally sketching him, basing him off the titular villain from Robot Monster, an appropriate design for someone who loves old, cheesy movies. All he was missing was a pink Hawaiian shirt and a cowboy hat. If you think he's strange, you should meet his wife Wanda, though let's save that for a future BOOM...

[7] LOOKIN' SPAM GOOD! What better way to show my friends I care than drawing them in ridiculous outfits? This sketch, the first to be included in this BOOM, is a merging of two repurposed ideas I had for other pictures. The first would've involved the Swedish menace Finjix with a fish bowl on his head much to the confusion of Alec, the recipient of a kawaii make over. I can't remember where the fishbowl idea spawned from but Sir Alec the Adorable came from him scoffing at the idea that I could make anything cute, himself included. Just you wait Alec, I'll get you someday! For now though I swapped out making him uber-adorable in favor of dressing him up like the Wasp from Earth's Mightiest Heroes, the awesome animated show he finally binge-watched on my behalf. Granted I could've drawn him as Maria Hill, the character on the show he deemed the sexiest, but it wouldn't have been as funny. After all, all Maria's outfit is a blue jumpsuit. Far less interesting than Jart's leather jacket, an image that popped into my noggin following her telling me she's learning to ride a bike. That and me desperately clinging onto the back as she gave me a ride, but that would've been harder to draw. Instead I went for the jacket, a fashion statement that would be stupid in real life since she lives in the infamously hot country of Vietnam. Yet even in the face of logic, Jart not only humored me but encouraged me to include this in the final sketch. Thank goodness she did cuz I love how it turned out, minus the green stripes that were accidentally colored black like the rest. DRATS! Not only that but she informed me that she was no longer using her fursona, instead opting to draw herself as a human from now on. DOUBLE DRATS! Ah well, I have more ideas involving 'Trang the Tyrant' as I've nicknamed her, so chances are I'll get the chance to correct both mistakes in the future. It might also give me another chance to draw myself as Super Giraffe, which was what I originally intended to do with my own fursona. Sadly the costume still needs work so instead I opted for my classic Pagonian Wizard robes. Even in the face of all these snafus, I think we all look spam good!

[8] ROSIE STARDUST, SPACE WIZARD Turns out I'm always right even when I'm spewing nonsense. Don't believe me? Plenty of peeps have made that mistake before. Take my friend Alec for example. In the midst of him running the current Strahd campaign I mentioned earlier, I jokingly tossed out the idea of Rosie transporting our heroes out of Barovia and into another universe. A cute 'What If' scenario the Dungeon Master wasted no time in shooting down. Mistaking my silly suggestion as a legit one, Alec explained how unfair it'd be for a god to play a game with a bunch of mortal meatbags. Let the record show that I never declared the sentient Einstein-Rosen Bridge to be a deity. Some alien cultures have mistaken her from one, but Rosie herself would be the first to tell you she's no holy being. Not that any of that mattered. Alec held firm to his statement, Rosie was denied access to any dungeons. For about six seconds before my buddy realized how a depowered Rosie would make a wonderful wizard for a Spelljammers campaign. Fueling this fire was his recent watching of The Owl House, imagining Rosie rocking wizard robes similar to those worn by The Good Witch Azura. Before I could say, "NOW EAT THIS SUCKA," he was leading the charge on my server of peeps demanding I draw Rosie as a space wizard. At first I was floored at the audacity! You shoot down an idea that wasn't meant to be taken seriously only for you to turn around and do so anyway? MAKE UP YOUR SPAM MIND! Then I followed Alec's example and got over it, the idea of Rosie in wizards robes too tempting a sketch not to capitalize on. In the end the only aspect of Azura that made it into the final product was the hat, minus the cute lil' crown. Everything else took cues from the fashion of @cherrysdesigns along with a style @girlofhearts101 turned me towards called whimsigoth. All of which resulting in an costume that gave Alec 'David Bowie Ziggy Stardust vibes'. It's thanks to that comment that Rosie now has a last name. Everyone, say hello to Rosie Stardust, universal explorer and space wizard!

[9] DIREKTOR AND 3D1T0-R Is there a Hollywood equivalent in the Star Wars universe? Some sort of glamorous planet where overpaid alien celebrities are shamelessly rebooting beloved classics for a profit? All while amazing writers are getting screwed out of the earnings they deserve? This was what I asked Alec during his binge watching of The Clone Wars. Surprising me once more, the Masked Maniac revealed that he had asked SIM-N the same question before, the two creating a character called The Direktor for their Monova comics. Her whole gimmick was producing hypnotic propaganda for the tyrannical Twin Emperors, a cool concept that never went anywhere due to the robotroll cutting From Destiny's Ashes short. Being the character man that I am, I decided The Direktor couldn't go to waste. Especially when she'd make such a good villain in the world of 3K and a good addition to this BOOM. After asking SIM-N for the character's original reference sheet I set out to give her a Clarktoon makeover while watching cutscenes of The Second Sister from Jedi: Fallen Order. No doubt Elizabeth Grullon's intimidating vocal performance effected my outcome, the alien movie maker now sporting a streamlined outfit along with a smugly sinister smile on her face. As apposed to her boss, the Direktor's little droid 3D1T0-R hardly changed in the transition. He was a little creepy ball to start and he's still a little creepy ball now. One that was cooked up by Alec according to SIM-N, which makes sense given our pal's passion for film editing. Once the two were fully drawn I decided to test out my shading and lighting techniques in an attempt to make her look more menacing. If the response I got from the others on Discord is any indication, I succeeded. Indeed, this fem fatale filmmaker will fit in phenomenally as a 3K villain. Now the question is to who? 

[10] JURAKISS Finally we conclude things with a sketch somewhat prompted by @zernna. Way back in August of last year she was commissioned to draw my cretaceous crusader Saura and her girlfriend Patricia enjoying a delightful day at the pool, a pic as charming as that description would imply. In my comment thanking Ze I couldn't help but laugh at how the two had already been declared a cute couple despite how I hadn't drawn the two together in my own artwork yet. The Alien Artist than demanded I draw 'moar art of them then', prompting me to ask if that was a challenge. She said yes. Though not from a lack of trying, it took me nine freak'n months to meet that challenge. Blame that on me being a picky artist since I have been meaning to draw references of these characters in the meantime. After all, Zerna got asked to draw Saura in other pics without having any color references for the Blue Beast of Fosslin. Fortunately Saura's shown up in a number of previous Sketch BOOMs, now getting to share the spotlight with Patricia here. A Patricia that would've been notably paler were it not for Alec asking if I had any markers that matched Patricia's skin tone. I didn't, but the local hobby store did! Who knew Sharpie made skintone markers? It not only helped me color in the cute Muslim girl here, but also Cath and Wendy later on. Talk about a perfect purchase! Now if only the colors of Patricia's outfit were as satisfactory. Ah well, there's always next time, since I'm pretty sure Zerna's challenge still stands. XP For now though, I hope you all enjoy this compilations of crazy scribblings fresh from my mind. If you didn't, worry not, chances are I'll be making another one soon....

MAY THE GLASSES BE WITH YOU ALL!

[enden-k]

trying to keep my pixiv updated kills me but at least it looks nice and busy lmfao

[cheri-translates]

[CN] Fireworks Event - Lucien

🍒 Warning: This post contains detailed spoilers for an event which has not been released in English servers! 🍒

Contains heavy references to Whimsical Date!

Previous section: here

3rd Anniversary Masterlist: here 

Prior to the Carnival, there were questions posed in the Go See You feature which affects which scenario the player sees during the Fireworks Event:

Question 1: Do you still remember when we went to the amusement park previously? Could you let me know which part left the deepest impression on you?

Option A: Because it’s Professor Lucien, I pick the souvenir store.

Option B: The spinning tea cups of course~

Option C: I liked the fantasy castle.

-

Question 2: Although this is a little sudden, what do you want on a “perfect day”?

Option A: Give me as pleasant surprise.

Option B: I want to return to our most innocent selves together.

[ PART ONE PROLOGUE ]

A familiar ringtone suddenly sounds. I take out my phone, cancelling the alarm I had set early on.

MC: The fireworks display will start in 15 minutes, so let’s head to the plaza now!

I take Lucien’s hand, about to walk forward. However, he pulls me back.

MC: What’s wrong?

Lucien: Even though time is a little tight, there should still be enough time.

Seeing my puzzled expression, Lucien chuckles lightly and pinches my hand. 

Lucien: We’ll go to the place you want to go most.

[ Option A: Because it’s Professor Lucien, I pick the souvenir store. ]

Following the crisp sound of a wind chime, Lucien and I step into a souvenir store.

I didn’t expect that he’d still remember my answer from before. A wave of warmth surfaces from my heart.

When I curiously scan through the merchandise on the shelves, a few unusual keychains attract my attention.

The keychains have doodles on them, and are in the shape of alphabets. With a stirring in my heart, I select two keychains featuring the first letter of our names.

MC: The last time we came to the amusement park, we bought two dolls. This time, let’s also bring souvenirs back!

Looking at my expectant gaze, Lucien smiles in understanding, then takes the keychains from my hand.

Lucien: Keychains are very practical. They can be brought around everywhere, and...

He dangles the keychains in his hand.

The pictures on these two alphabets are the same. When I look at it next time, I’ll subconsciously think of you.

Seeing through my thoughts, my cheeks turn red.

MC: ...but this is the one I want!

I take the keychain with the letter ‘L’ from his hand.

Recollecting the experience of selecting the dolls, I deliberately mimic his words, tilting my head and smiling at him.

MC: If these two keychains represent the both of us… keeping this one with me would be more meaningful, right?

Hearing my cheeky tone, Lucien can’t help but chuckle.

Lucien: Looks like MC always learns quickly when it comes to “teasing” me. In that case, the keychain representing you will be in my care.

He pauses, the smile in his eyes receding, replaced with an insuppressible warmth.

Lucien: MC, you...

-

[ Option B: The spinning cups of course~ ]

Sorry, I couldn’t find uploads of this option T-T

-

[ Option C: I liked the fantasy castle. ]

On top of the colourful castle which has a spire, Lucien and I look down at the park’s scenery.

I didn’t expect that he’d still remember my answer from before. A wave of warmth surfaces from my heart.

Gazing at the gorgeous night scenery, I’m just about to say something, but feel an insuppressible itch climbing up the tip of my nose.

MC: Achoo--

Lucien is stunned for a moment, then furrows his brows.

Lucien: Is the wind too strong here? We should head down first to prevent you from catching a cold.

I shake my head in embarrassment.

MC: I’m fine, I’m fine. My immunity is very strong.

Despite what I said, Lucien walks behind me, pulling his coat open and encasing me in warmth.

Lucien: Feeling slightly better now?

The familiar scent surrounds me, and my heart rate subconsciously speeds up slightly. I nod.

MC: [blushing] ...mm. The last time we visited the amusement park, we didn’t get to climb the castle. This time, my wish has been fulfilled.

Perhaps noticing my nervousness, Lucien chuckles softly from behind..

Lucien: Mm. I have to congratulate this little warrior for bravely sending those monsters running.

MC: Hm? You remember that too...

A little surprised, I lift my head and look at Lucien. That was a dream I had in my childhood which I once told Lucien about.

Lucien: Of course. That dream left such a deep impression - how could I forget it?

Staring into his eyes, which are crinkled slightly, the corners of my lips involuntarily curve into a smile, and I continue from where he left off.

MC: That’s right. It was indeed an arduous and long battle.

Then, I pull his coat even tighter over myself.

MC: But in order to see my “little prince”, it’s very worth it~

From behind me, a place I can’t see, the light in Lucien’s eyes flashes slightly.

He suddenly lowers his head, leaning close to my ear, and says softly--

Lucien: MC, you...

[ PART ONE ENDING ]

“Dong-- dong--”

The melodious bell from the plaza drifts over.

Lucien and I look towards the direction of the plaza, which is already filled with people.  

Lucien: Looks like the time is just right.

His tone is unhurried, as though everything was within his expectations.

Lucien takes my hand, his action elegant, akin to an invitation. 

Lucien: MC, let’s see the fireworks together. 

-

Beams of fireworks rise rapidly into the sky, blossoming in the endless night sky.

The colour I had selected is especially bright in the night. 

Among the crowd, Lucien and I are standing towards the back, yet we’re able to take in the entire scene.

Suddenly, I tug on Lucien’s hand.

Lucien: What is it?

MC: Lucien, I just made a wish. I wish that on this day next year, we can also spend it like this.

Another firework blooms in the sky. Lucien watches me, blinking gently.

Lucien: That’s all?

MC: That’s all.

Seeing me nod ignorantly, Lucien chuckles. 

Lucien: To me, however, that’s far from enough.

MC: Oh? In that case, what’s Professor Lucien’s wish?

I deliberately show that I'm listening with all ears.

Lucien: As compared to a wish, I’m more willing to call it something that will definitely be fulfilled. On this day, whether it’s next year, or the following year, or the year after that--

Lucien: We’ll be like this, spending it together. 

Lucien takes my hand, bringing it to his lips and giving it a light kiss.

Lucien: It’s an agreement.

In the next second, a warm sensation descends on my lips.

[ VIDEO OF FIREWORKS ]

[ PART TWO PROLOGUE ]

As the final firework dissipates in the sky, the amusement park starts playing its main theme song.

Although I had heard this melody so many times today, a different emotion surges from my heart this time - it’s a reminder that the amusement park is about to close.

As though he can sense my reluctance to leave, Lucien gently rubs the back of my hand.

Lucien: Come to think of it, I wanted to tell you something earlier, but was interrupted by the bell.

MC: Mm? What is it?

Lucien chuckles lightly.

Lucien: Do you still remember my question from before? Regarding what you’d want most on a “perfect day”...

[ Option A: Give me as pleasant surprise. ]

I nod.

MC: I said that I wanted you to give me a pleasant surprise.

Lucien: This requirement was a little difficult, but I still prepared something, and I hope you’ll be satisfied.

With this, Lucien takes out a gift box wrapped with a ribbon, beckoning me to open it.

Doing as he says, my eyes widen in surprise.

MC: ...it’s so beautiful!

A plant which somewhat resembles a flower rests in the box - on a dried branch, there are countless flickering and dazzling small crystals.

Lucien: This is a flower which has specially undergone chemical immersion. Because it’s been made into an artwork, there’s no need to worry about it becoming dull with time. MC, have you heard of “The Branch of Salzburg”? It was originally a normal tree branch, but as it was buried in a salt mine for a period of time, it was filled with little crystals glistening like diamonds.

Without waiting for my response, Lucien chuckles and continues.

Lucien: To me, this carnival event is like that. Before this, it was just an ordinary event, and wasn’t anything special. But having participated and experienced it with you, it has become precious along with our memories. However, I want to tell you that this isn't all.

He pauses, his voice becoming slightly more tender.

Lucien: Many details in life have become glistening diamonds because of you. Just like the beautiful crystals on The Branch of Salzburg - fine and small, yet resplendent and dazzling. This is a pleasant surprise that you’ve given me. And right now, I wish to convey this feeling to you.

Lucien encases the hand that I’m holding onto the box with into his palm, a pair of deep eyes watching me.

Lucien: I hope that as you compliment the beauty of this gift, you’re able to know...

Lucien: That this is how you’ve enabled me to see the world.

-

[ OPTION B: I want to return to our most innocent selves together. ]

MC: Of course I remember. I said I wanted us to return to our innocent selves.

Lucien: In that case, I wonder if today has satisfied your expectations?

MC: It didn’t just satisfy them - it far exceeded my expectations!

The corners of Lucien’s lips curl slightly, and he scratches the tip of my nose gently.

Lucien: But I don't think this is enough.

After saying this, he takes out a gift box wrapped with a bow.

MC: What’s this? I didn’t expect Professor Lucien to have such a feminine heart.

Faced with my teasing, Lucien chuckles wordlessly, beckoning me to open the gift box.

After opening it, I realise that there’s an antique, hand cranked music box in it.

MC: Is this for me?

Lucien: Mm. Music can regulate the cerebral cortex, and can even awaken a person’s memories, carrying the weight of people’s emotions. That is why I prepared a music box. The melody in it is the main theme song of this amusement park. In the future, as long as you play this melody, you can relive this memory, and feel the state of mind that we have right now.

I turn the handle, and the smooth music flows out slowly. The corners of my lips involuntarily curl upwards.

Lucien: Actually, I found your question very unexpected before, wondering why you’d want us to return to our innocent selves.

Lucien pauses, then continues.

Lucien: Although people often say that innocence will vanish along with the passage of time, that a day would come when we have to bid it farewell, and walk towards maturity...

Lucien: I don't think innocence and maturity are necessarily mutually exclusive. After all, I can always sense it from you.

My heart softens in an instant, but I can’t help but want to tease him for a while. I shoot him a smile.

MC: Professor Lucien is flattering me again. Also, maybe I just wanted to see your innocent side?

Lucien is stunned for a moment, then chuckles. He reaches out to pat my head.

Lucien: That won’t be necessary. Because to me, you're a part of my most innocent side. If you’re willing, I hope to accompany you through “the most perfect day”, each and every day.

Lucien: So, remember to stay by my side always.

[ PART TWO ENDING ]

My heart is brimming with emotions which are unable to be put into words. I subconsciously take a step forward, hugging the person in front of me tightly.

He seems to freeze for an instant. But very quickly, his slender arms wrap themselves around me with the same strength.

I inhale his scent greedily and deeply, my voice trembling slightly.

MC: Thank you, Lucien. For letting me have this most perfect day.

Lucien doesn’t say anything, but he rests his chin on the top of my head.

The lights in the amusement park dim one by one. The surrounding crowd heads towards the entrance in succession. But I no longer feel reluctant to leave.

I know that even though the amusement park may be over, this memory will continue being preserved, remaining in our hearts.

Amongst the clamour of the crowd, we hug each other quietly. When the final warm yellow streetlight is left, I part with Lucien’s hug, offering him my hand happily.

MC: Let’s go too!

Lucien: Mm, let’s go home.

Our palms are pressed together tightly, as though wanting to embed every moment we’ve experienced into the lines.

The light from the path ahead is very dim. But in our hearts, we seem to own the light of the entire world.

[elenatria]

Chris in Sakaarland - Chapter 5

https://archiveofourown.org/works/13839114/chapters/33042135

Taika didn’t like getting phone calls. He preferred text messages, especially when he was stressed while filming, that’s why he always told his people to text him first so that he’d call them back. He couldn’t stand the ringing, not even the buzzing when he put it on silent, that continuous nagging sound in his pocket. Buzzing and ringing was always accompanied by ominous things, things and words and feelings he’d rather forget. There was a time when he was forced to call every week, every day, “because that’s what good sons do”, and as the years passed he started feeling relieved when there was no answer.

At first not getting an answer was hurtful. He was a little boy, he was told to call, “daddy would love that”. Sometimes he would wait and wait as the waiting signal was beating like a drum in his ear but daddy wouldn’t answer and the boy at the other end of the line would hang up with a crumpled and sweaty list of things to say in his hand, and a dull hurtful choke in his throat.

When he was very little, before he started writing down lists and making those phone calls, he had no reason to feel the emptiness of not having his father around. His parents separated when he was still a baby, besides they were never married. Then he went to school and although most students lived with their moms, some of them would have both parents waiting for them at home. That’s when Taika realized what it meant to not get hugs from both his mom and his dad after school.

He always made lists of things to talk about as far back as he could remember himself, ever since he was able to write whole sentences. From age seven to ten he’d write down what he wanted to tell his father in case he forgot because he knew most times he wouldn’t find him on the phone, dad was busy as grandma would say. For a whole week he would keep that list folded in his drawer, the only space in nanny’s small house that was his alone whenever he stayed with her, so as not to forget the things he wanted to share with dad until he could finally reach him.

Then the list’s function changed. From age eleven to fourteen it existed only to help him fill the long pauses of awkwardness with some sort of blabbering, “Topics To Talk About With Dad”, because he just couldn’t bear the silence and it was hard to improvise a happy casual chat when his father was not in a talkative mood, or when he was distracted by his painting which was the case most of the times. It was around that period that Taika wished no one would pick up the phone, and he would sigh with relief whenever his father didn’t answer. Soon “Topics To Talk About With Dad” was replaced by the title “Shits I’m Supposed To Say To Taika To Make Him Feel Good About Himself” until, at age fifteen, there was no list at all. Because he decided there would be no more phone calls, no more failed attempts to be a “good son”, no more awkward silence, no more waiting.

It was around that time that his father, Taika Waititi Senior, started catching up with the fact that he had a son in puberty and he would always return the phone calls when he was done painting, probably urged by nanny’s nagging and sometimes, only sometimes, by Taika Junior’s mother.

Teenage Taika wondered why he didn’t like the fact that his father was finally returning his rare phone calls. He couldn’t put his finger on it. The ringing in the hall would always stress him out, he’d rather be sketching or writing stories up in his tiny room than standing in front of the TV and pretending to be interested in what Taika Senior had to say while trying to avoid his mother’s eyes. What a waste of time that was for a busy and creative teenager.

 And what a waste of time it was now. He rubbed his grizzly beard as the waiting tone bleeped monotonously. While he was wondering what got into him, why he felt compelled now and then to contact his father for no particular reason, he kept scratching nervously a piece of paper with his pen, doodling hammers with sunglasses, giants made of rock and women with antlers. He looked at himself in the mirror, suddenly feeling very old.

“Oh hi, Viv, is that you? Yes, hi,” he blurted out looking down at his shoes as he played idly with his back pocket. “Yes. I know, I know. It’s been a while, look, is Taika there, can I talk to him? Yes, great.”

He added some more antlers to the woman until she looked like Medusa on crack and quickly smudged her face when he heard that old husky voice.

“Hey Taika, how are you doing,” he murmured. “Nothing, just to see how you’re doing. Is Viv ok? Great, that’s great. No, I just thought to call you, is everything ok with your tooth now? Good, good.”

Most times he would hang up within five minutes, there was never much to say, after all Taika Junior was busier now than his father ever was. But sometimes the old hurtful choke would settle back in his throat, and no matter how much he tried to be a good son the choke would remain even after the phone call had ended. To make matters worse, this was one of those times when his father would choose to be more of a pain in the ass than an elusive distracted painter. Sometimes Taika thought this was his way of being a “good father” but the truth was that he’d rather have the elusive distracted painter anytime.

“Yes, da-… Yes, Taika, still filming in Australia,” Taika repeated his father’s words, licking and biting his lips nervously. “No, well, I can’t really catch a plane right now, can I? You know how that is… No, I didn’t forget your birthday, didn’t you get the package I sent you? Well, I’m sorry you didn’t pick it up, it must be still at the post office or something,” he said brushing his fingers through his messy hair. “Wait, what, what do you mean I’m absent, what do you mean by that? I’m-I’m busy, dad, okay? Listen, just listen-…Yes, I know you never really asked for anything and you never pushed me to do anything and you never pushed me to be anything else than what I wanted to be and I’m  grateful for that, I’m fucking grateful, but the truth is… THE TRUTH IS, DAD- … Ok, SHUT UP! Just shut up for a bit, will ya? The truth is, Taika, that you never pushed me at all because you were never there to push me!... You were never there!” he paused listening to his father complaining and he moved the phone to his other ear, resting his hand on his waist as he drummed his fingers.

He grunted impatiently rolling his eyes. “Oh is that how it is now?” he nodded with a sarcastic smile, eyes wide open with surprise. “Is that how it is? Oh go ahead, yeh go ahead, yes I’m ‘searching the world’, go ahead, call it that, I call it fucking WORKING. Yes, it’s more than you ever did whether you like it or not. Oh yeah you got that right, you know me so well, don’t you, yes ‘I’m still looking for myself at age forty one’, well how about that, maybe I’ll never find me, who knows, what do you care, WHAT DO YOU CARE? You never cared, dad, you never cared, so why do you care now? Why do you- FUCK!” he yelled and hung up staring at the phone’s orange menu. “Yes, go on, hang up on me, you dickhead, I should have hung up on you years ago,” he spat tossing the phone on the bed.

He stood there for a long painful minute, rubbing his closed eyelids, wincing hard as he tried to hold back the tears. He took a deep shaky breath reminding himself he had a vid to make for the audience attending the screening of “What we do in the shadows” later that day somewhere in Tulsa, Oklahoma, wherever that was...

He dragged a chair in front of the mirror and started filming himself for his fans. He wished he could come up with a happier message but there was no time to find his secret stash of Emergency Happy Smiles, he had to upload the vid right away.

He looked at his tired reflection. There were times when he pictured two lions fighting in his head tearing at each other with their claws, keeping him awake, others when he’d wake up in cold sweat in the middle of the night wondering what he was doing with his life, and others when he’d drunk tweet about Leonard Cohen’s death, admitting bitterly that his music was there for him more than his father ever was.

This time he just regretted making that damn phone call and wished he could finally fight the urge to do it after all these years of trying and failing. His birthday was approaching, he’d blow the candles and who knows, he might get his wish this time: to not have to dial that fucking number ever again.

“I’m sorry, nanny…” he said with a soft whimper and squeezed the bridge of his nose, pursing his lips in a futile attempt to hold back the tears.

Maybe he wasn’t a ‘good son’ to her son after all.

Maybe he didn’t want to be a ‘good son’.  

Maybe no one cared.

 He heard the jingling of keys, quickly wiped his nose and sprung to his feet as the door opened.

“Hey Chris,” he said cheerfully pushing away his chair, “you were quick, bro.”

“Not so quick, bro, I got stuck in the traffic. I was worried the food would get cold, I brought you some Chin-… Hey.” Chris paused staring at Taika’s wet eyes. “Are you ok?”

“Yes, yes I’m fine,” Taika tried to reassure him and rubbed his nose with the heel of his palm.

“You don’t look so fine to me,” Chris said, alarmed at Taika’s state. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, uuuh…” Taika hesitated shoving his hands in his back pockets. “I’m good! Really! I am!” he said grinning from ear to ear.

“Taika?” Chris insisted leaving the bags of food on the bed. “Look at me,” he said grasping his shoulders. “What is it?”

Taika blinked slowly, his heavy eyelids still wet with tears. “Nothing. I was just talking to my father. He’s… He and I… Well we’re not on such good terms, we don’t really talk. And when we do…” He gave a weak shrug, unable to form any more words, gulping down hard; tears were welling up in his eyes again. “When we do it’s just… It’s just…” He wiped his nose furrowing his brows and stared down avoiding Chris’ eyes. His lips were quivering. He felt bad for letting Chris see him in such a sorrowful state.

“Come here…” Chris whispered softly and hugged him, enveloping him in his strong arms as he clasped the back of his head. While he was caressing his hair he felt Taika’s warm tears run down his cheek.  But Taika made no sound, as if he was too proud to sob in front of him.

“Chris?”

“Yes?”

“Do you think I’m a bad person?” Taika murmured in his shoulder. The last word came out in a weak broken whimper.

“Of course not!” Chris replied running a hand down his back.

“Sometimes I think I am…” Taika said regretfully.

“You’re not bad, Taika,” Chris said squeezing him tighter. “You’re the nicest, kindest human being I’ve ever met.”

“Do you really mean that?” Taika said, his voice trembling with doubt.

“Of course I mean that.”

“But nice persons sometimes do bad things… Things that hurt others…”

“Why, did you kill anyone?”

“No,” Taika shook his head. He couldn’t laugh, not yet. “But… you know… I mean you don’t know what dark secrets I may have.”

“You? Dark secrets?”

“I do have some…” Taika replied, his voice betraying a hint of guilt.

“Well, no one is perfect,” Chris muttered planting soft kisses on his forehead, ignoring his sudden unwillingness to look at him. “I’m not perfect. You’re not perfect.”

“What do you mean I’m not perfect?” Taika jerked in his arms feigning offense. The shadow of guilt and fear in his face was now gone. “Have you ever seen big brown eyes like mine?” he said as the last of his tears ran down his cheeks.

“No,” Chris chuckled.

“Chiseled cheekbones like mine?”

“No.”

“Rich silver hair like mine?”

“No.”

“Biceps like mine? – no wait, those are your biceps,” Taika corrected himself squeezing Chris’ arm.

Chris roared with laughter and wrapped his arms around him even tighter than before. “Are you feeling better?”

“Yes.”

“Great,” he whispered as he palmed Taika’s cheeks and caught his mouth in a kiss, tongue slicking slowly, attentively over his lips. “Let’s go eat.”

                                                           ***

 “Hey Taika, happy birthday, mate.”

Chris was leaning on the bar of the most expensive restaurant in Benowa with his phone in one hand, the menu in the other. He was wearing sunglasses and a wide-brimmed hat but that didn’t prevent some curious customers from sneaking glances at the tall stranger with the familiar face and the deep voice. It was early in the morning but Chris thought he’d be the first to wish his director happy birthday.

“Hey Chris…” Taika’s sleepy voice was heard from the other end of the line. He yawned. “Wait, what day is it?”

“August the 16th, did you forget it’s your birthday, bro?” Chris teased him.

“No I didn’t,” Taika snapped with fake annoyance. “Thanks for waking me up to remind me I’m a year older.”

“Older but wiser,” Chris soothed him. “Do you want to guess what I’m wearing?”

“Nothing, I hope…?” Taika said lowering his voice. “Look, Chris, if we’re going to have phone sex again this is not the right time, ok? You may have taken the day off today but I’ll be working my ass off.”

“No, genius,” Chris responded, “I’m wearing the baby blue shirt, the one you bought me for my birthday. And I was thinking, since I suck at choosing gifts, to take you out to dinner tonight. I just made a reservation at the Videre, it has a panoramic view of the coast and specializes in French cuisine, it’s really beautiful.”

“You’re not gonna have me eat frog legs, are ye?”

“No, Taika,” Chris said removing his sunglasses to read the menu, “we’ll have… let’s see… pork belly with chargrilled apple puree and poached salmon ballantine or steamed kingfish fillet. No frog legs, I promise.”

“No frog legs, got it,” Taika chuckled. “It all sounds mouth-watering, Chris… But I’m afraid I have to nope out. I can’t make it tonight.”

Chris frowned. “You have other plans for your birthday?” he mumbled hesitantly, bewildered by his lover’s unexpected refusal.

“Yeh, no, look, it’s gonna be a long day today on set and the truth is I can’t even get out of bed right now, it will be a miracle if I get through today. Just tired. Exceedingly, outrageously tired.”

“You ok, mate?”

“Yeh, I’m cool, I just had a phone call yesterday and it kept me up all night.”

“Your father again?...” Chris said, worried.

Taika didn’t answer right away. “Well let’s just say it was a long night and it took its toll on me. Sometimes you’re trying to forget but people just won’t leave you alone, you know?...” He took a deep breath. “But I promise I’ll make it up to you. I promise. Pinky swear.”

“I know all about your pinky swears, Taika,” Chris laughed shaking his head.

“No. This time it’s for real, I promise. I’ll call you, ok? Love ya.”

“…Love you too…” Chris mumbled reluctantly. “I guess.”

But Taika had already hung up.

Chris left the menu on the bar, cancelled the reservation trying hard not to pout and put his glasses back on.

Not spending the evening of Taika’s birthday with him was a huge bummer for Chris. He had been day dreaming about them having dinner at some fancy restaurant (with some fancy toilets) for a whole week, and that was the reason he had woken up early that day, to walk through all the best restaurants in the area and pick the one with the best atmosphere, the best menu, the best view and the best toilets.  Visiting the men’s room after dinner would certainly be on that evening’s menu, and it would all be for Taika.

If Taika was there.

As Chris walked out of the building he took an aimless look around, frustrated at this new turn of events. He kicked a pebble in the street, disappointed and concerned. Somehow Taika’s response didn’t satisfy him. He wondered what to do with the rest of his day now that his plans were ruined. He decided that after he was done shopping he could just spend the day surfing. That would at least keep his mind busy for a good chunk of the day.

Without thinking he took out the phone to scroll down his contacts. It was a habit he had acquired back in 2009, a habit he could never kick, not even after the fall out two years ago. “The Fall Out”. He could never say “the break up”’, he hated that word and everything it meant. If he said “break up” it would mean they had a relationship. But they didn’t, not really, did they?...

He scrolled down past “H” and wondered for a split second why the name wasn’t there. Had he deleted it? No, of course not. He just hadn’t added the surname all those years ago, he didn’t need to.

Just the first name. It was enough.

He kept scrolling until he reached “T”.

His thumb hovered over the three-letter word for a whole tormenting minute. It made tiny circles in the air as he wondered if it was advisable to call someone who was probably spending his time right now with the most annoying brat in the music industry, bathing with her in their penthouse’s jacuzzi or planning to have threesomes or foursomes or n-somes with her slutty empty-headed friends later that evening. And some hunks probably.

Maybe none of that was happening of course. Maybe Tom was just sitting in the balcony of his Pepper residence overlooking the ocean, adjusting his glasses on his aquiline nose, sipping tea, reading a book or a newspaper. Maybe Taylor was out shopping with her brainless friends and Tom was alone. It was now or never, Chris thought taking a deep breath.

His thumb touched the phone icon without realizing that at the same time he was having an incoming call from that same name. He was too distracted to notice as he was crossing the street, looking at both sides, careful not to be ran over by a passing jeep that made enough noise to cover the phone’s momentary melodic ringing. He changed his mind right away and pressed down on the icon without realizing he had just rejected a call.

He didn’t give it further thought, Tom was the last person who would want to hear his whining.

Chris was sure he could find someone else.

                                                         ***

 The waves were singularly large and gratifying that day. Chris was enjoying the violent slapping of spray in his face and the sun in the sky and the adrenaline in his veins. There was nothing like surfing, he thought, it always washed his troubles away, and he never missed a chance to thank his father for teaching him that way of life. Sure his problems and concerns would be waiting for him back home as soon as he unlocked that door but for those happy three hours he was easy as a Sunday morning. He was free.

When he finally decided he had drunk enough sea water for one day he took his surfboard out to the beach and sat on the sand next to Idris. His colleague was nice enough to accept his invitation on a very short notice.

“You didn’t surf, you coward,” Chris said pushing Idris’ elbow.

“Next time I will,” Idris promised, “and then we’ll have a kickboxing workout. You and me.”

“Deal,” Chris agreed cheerfully, blowing out salty water with a snort.

“You know, me and Sabrina went out with Tom and Taylor the other day,” Idris said. “He was asking how you were doing. That was odd. Don’t you guys talk on set?”

Chris huffed and wrapped an arm around his knee. “Well we do. When it’s necessary. I mean we usually talk about our scenes together or watch the day’s footage when we’re done but that’s it, we don’t really talk about things outside work.”

“That’s strange…” Idris muttered. “Tom said he wanted to tell you something but you weren’t answering his calls. Something about the Nine Roads.”

“The Nine Roads? What Nine Roads? You mean the Nine Realms?”

“No!...” Idris said absent-mindedly. His voice was now deeper and he was staring at the ocean with an eerie pensive look on his face as if he had just spotted a mermaid in the waves but for some strange reason the sight was too commonplace for him to mention it. “At first I thought he said ‘nine rabbit holes’, I swear that’s how it sounded, something about the Bifrost being a rabbit hole, and then he changed that, he said ‘nine roads’. Or was it ‘nine yellow brick roads’? Ok I’m quite sure now he talked about a yellow crossroad, on your way to Lockyer Valley. Somewhere on the Warrego Highway. He said you’d see a flickering light there. You’d stop. A lamp or something.”

“Driis, you’re not making any sense, mate,” Chris said. “You sure he wasn’t high?”

“Tom never gets high,” Idris said in a severe tone. “Taylor does. She was in the ladies’ room when Tom told me all that, and he stopped abruptly as soon as she came back to our table, as if he didn’t want her to hear. Man, she was so high, I could see her pupils, and she was giggly and rubbing her nostrils all the time.”

“This talk is crazy…”

“I know. I thought it was weird too. But… Ok now I remember. Tom wanted to talk to you urgently. He said he was afraid of something. He said that… He said that Sakaar is real. Yes, that’s exactly what he wanted me to tell you. ‘Sakaar is real.’I have no idea what he meant though.”

“Ok this is surreal. I think you drank a bit too much sea water, mate, and it went into your brain. C’mon, it’s getting cold,” Chris said and got up.

“Nah, I’m staying a bit longer. The sunset is going to be magnificent, can’t miss that.”

“Suit yourself,” Chris shrugged and lifted his surfboard from the sand. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“See you tomorrow!” Idris said lifting his hand to wave goodbye, not taking his eyes off the sea.

Chris hadn’t taken more than five steps when he heard Idris’ voice again.

“Hey Chris! You dropped something.”

He turned and walked back to Idris, bending over his outstretched hand. “That’s yours, isn’t it?” Idris said.

Chris furrowed his brow as he felt the water trapped in his wetsuit chilling him to the bone. He couldn’t believe he was looking at that tiny thing. He hadn’t seen it since 2014. He hadn’t seen it since the fall out.

This cannot be happening.

In Idris’ dark-skinned palm, in the middle of a handful of sand, lay a key and its shiny key ring.

The silver surfboard key ring.

“Thanks, mate,” he told Idris as the cool afternoon air was sending shivers down his spine and he took the key in his hand, staring at it as if he had just found a tiny bottle with the words “Drink me” on the label. “Didn’t realize I had lost it.”

“No,” Idris nodded slowly. “I guess you didn’t.”

"But... Ok this is so weird. I had lost it for two whole years. How did it end up here?"

"Well, you know what they say," Idris said as he played with the sand, "sometimes the things we lost come back to us. Or we go back to them.”

 Going back home Chris stored his surfboard in the garage and had a quick hot bath to wash away the salt and the dryness. When he was done he looked at the watch. It was still early, still 7 p.m. He took out his phone again and went straight for his “favourite contacts”. Taika’s name was first, those five familiar letters giving out a bright, tempting light that was warming his heart and filling his head with raunchy fantasies.

He glanced at the silver surfboard key ring that was left on a shelf, then looked back at the name on the screen. The sudden reappearance of the key ring after two whole years was creeping him out. How could that tiny thing be lost for so long and then reappear at the beach out of nowhere?

He shook his head, he didn’t want to think about it that evening, and put the phone back in his pocket.

He decided there was no reason to call Taika, if he was staying in for the night because he was tired Chris might as well pay him a visit, maybe even buy Chinese on his way there. He took the keys of the car with him and went out.

 There was no traffic this time so he arrived at Taika’s seaside home in less than an hour. He got out of the car taking the bags of food with him and walked across the lawn and through the gate with the white pediment, peering through the dark, searching for some light in the house. There was a weak solitary light coming from the kitchen window on the first floor.

Chris smiled. So Taika was home and awake.

Awesome.

Even if he didn’t want company that night and was busy planning next day’s filming he’d surely appreciate the food, because Chris knew he sometimes forgot to eat for a whole day, especially when he was stressed and busy. Chris knew he’d be happy to just leave the Chinese on the table, make out maybe and piss off if he had to, if Taika didn’t want company after all. He just wanted to see him, see if he was ok and stop worrying for no reason.

He walked up the steps of the front door and lifted his clenched fist to knock, still not sure if Taika would be pleased by his unexpected visit. Taika could be moody like that, one minute hugging everyone at the party and jumping from table to table, greeting and talking to every single soul in the room, the other minute spending the rest of the evening at the balcony away from everyone, smoking sometimes, craving silence and privacy and making you feel like a piece of shit if you dared intrude his precious solitude.

Chris just wasn’t sure if he’d get a kiss or a scolding. He wasn’t prepared, and surely didn’t deserve a scolding on Taika’s birthday. However some devilish coincidence was about to release him from his dilemma.

He heard footsteps behind him as someone walked through the gate; he turned and tried to discern the man’s face in the dark.

The visitor certainly looked familiar. He was tall, maybe not as tall as Chris, and he was wearing thick black rimmed glasses and a snap-button T-shirt. His dark hair ended in long sideburns. In a single frightful second Chris remembered everything Taika had told him the past few days, the bad person speech, the dark secrets, the unexplained guilt in his voice, the mysterious phone call that had kept him awake the previous night. It wasn’t his father, he thought numbly, it was this man, and Chris knew him. He fucking knew him. He knew him because they had met before.

He suddenly wished he had never left home that evening, he wished he had never bought Chinese, he wished he had never come out of his car. But it was too late, the man was already standing in front of him, giving him a broad gap-toothed smile.

Chris tried hard to not crush the paper bags in his hands.

He should have known. The yellow-haired brat had warned him. He was such an idiot.

He didn’t scream. He wanted it so bad, but he didn’t. He took a deep breath instead and smiled graciously in the moonlight.

 “Oh hi, Jemaine.”

[zanytimetravelenthusiast-blog]

Sketch Maker PRO Review

Sketch Maker PRO Review - Are you searching for even more expertise concerning Sketch Maker PRO? Please review my straightforward evaluation regarding it before selecting, to review the weak points as well as toughness of it. Can it be worth your effort and time and also cash?

Introducing Sketch Maker PRO

The 5 Finest Explainer Videos (& & How to Make Your Own) (Component 3)

Step 2: Recording the Voiceovers

Once you have a manuscript, you'll require a voiceover. Some options are:

Voices.com: This site has a huge network of specialist voice stars to choose from.

Craigslist: Ah of course, old reputable. You can find just about anything on crazy Craigslist, consisting of voiceovers.

Fiverr: Yup, you can obtain a good voiceover for your explainer video clip for simply $5 on Fiverr! You'll possibly have to pay a little bit more than that ($5 is generally the starting price-- some fee by the second, others by the word. Chances are you won't be in the most affordable Sketch Maker PRO price bracket). Still, you aren't most likely to locate a voiceover anywhere for cheaper.

Action 3: Explainer Video Production

There are a number of various paths you can take when it comes down to the actual creation and manufacturing of your explainer video clip. Alternatives include ...

Highlight the Pros: There are some extremely skilled specialist video clip manufacturing business out there that can aid you make an awesome marketing video clip. You'll have some high explainer video clip prices if you go this path-- be prepared to pay out anywhere from $5,000 - $20,000 for a solution similar to this. The advantage is that you'll have video professionals aiding you every action of the means, and you're video clip is assured to look excellent. Trial Duck, Wyzowl, LessFilms, Flikli and also Studio Pigeon are a couple of explainer video business to think about.

Pow Toon: if you're making computer animated explainer videos, have no computer animation experience, yet want to do it on your own on a budget, Pow Toon is the method to go. Any individual with some basic computer skills can utilize this animated explainer video software. It likely won't be a masterpiece, but it's easy to create and free (to begin at the very least). They also have a guide collection to stroll you with building your development.

Do It Yourself Explainer Video with iPhone: That's right, you can movie your very own explainer video clip on your iPhone! This incredible article from Wistia will reveal you exactly how. Do It Yourself recording is a wonderful means to develop cheap explainer videos. For the editing, iMovie or Camtasia are good choices. If you intend to take on a Do It Yourself computer animated explainer video clip, this computer animation toolkit from Salsify can offer you with a lots of terrific animation devices and also sources.

Employ a Freelancer: Experienced freelancers can provide high-quality explainer video clip manufacturing aid at a much lower cost than a huge production firm. You need to be able to find one easily enough on craigslist or various other freelance sites.

Crowd Sourcing: One alternative you may give a go is the video crowd-sourcing business Video clip Brewery. Submit a general job review and also obtain a bunch of propositions from Video Brewery's network of relied on freelancers. Pick one you like and you get on your method! Sketch Maker PRO notes that these explainer video clip expenses normally run someplace between $3,000 - $5,000.

Step 4: Songs & & Noise Impacts

Chances are your animated explainer video and even your online action explainer video requires some wonderful sound impacts as well as music. Some locations to rack up tracks include ...

MusOpen: Supplying totally free songs sources such as recordings, sheet music, etc.

. Free Sound: A data source of Creative Commons accredited audio examples and recordings. YouTube: The king of video clip itself provides some complimentary background songs to make use of in video clip creations.

Audio Forest: Nobility cost-free audio documents consisting of loopholes, sound effects, and a lot more.

Audacity: This free device isn't a source of audio data, yet instead aids you create your own.

Keep in mind to check out the small print carefully on these websites with regards to what is or is not allowed under the audio documents's licensing arrangement. Some are an economical one-time purchase and also aristocracy free, others require attribution, etc .

Sketch Maker PRO Evaluation & Introduction

Maker: Jimmy Mancini

Product: Sketch Maker PRO

Launch Date: 2019-Apr-18

Release Time: 10:00 EDT

Front-End Rate: $18

Sales Web page: https://www.socialleadfreak.com/sketch-maker-pro-review-from-a-real-user/

Particular niche: Video

What Is Sketch Maker PRO?

Sketch Maker PRO is a brand-new Whiteboard Video clip Manufacturer that deals with any type of Internet browser connected to the Internet (Chrome, Firefox, Safari ...) enabling you to develop amazing Explainer Videos in Minutes and all is done on the Cloud!

Sketch Maker PRO Features & Conveniences

Advantages

Use it when you are online

Forget about downloading significant data, installing bulky software program, obtaining intallation mistakes or absence of space. Currently with the brand-new Sketch Maker PRO you just open your Browser (Chrome, Firefox ...) login as well as done; after that you can start creating outstanding Explainer Doodle Videos!

Produce Videos With Different Formats as well as Dimensions

We understand that you may want to produce video clips with differente sizes/dimensions, that's why we developed Sketch Maker PRO in such a way that will permit you to choose your preferred video clip layout 16:9 or 1:1 * (for social networks) or your preferred measurements, 1920x1080 *, 1280x720 *, 640x360 - * PRO PLUS Accounts Only).

Easy to make use of!

Yes, it is so easy to use! You simply select or drag and drop your preferred photos or include some message to the canvas preview and then preview it before developing your video. That's it!

Maintain a couple of Videos Online or Download them

When you crate a video clip, your video is stored on the cloud, after that you will certainly have the alternative to download it, maintain it saved online (restricted area) or delete it. So you can constantly monitor your 'Master Pieces':-RRB-.

Export it in Minutes (Making)

Some 'other' devices on the marketplace make you wait a long, long, time to produce a video clip. Sketch Maker PRO making engine is among one of the most effective as well as fastest on the market, so you obtain Impressive Whiteboard Videos done very quick! (* if your video clip is as well large it will certainly take longer that common, it wil depend exactly how busy the server in fact is, but generally is quick).

Produce Fantastic White Boards Videos in Minutes (Save Time & Cash)

There is no need to pay a designer or a company to do it for you, you simply spend a few minutes and you will certainly get it done! Map out maker PRO will certainly allow you to create fantastic explainer videos, that look professional as well as are done quick! Saving you Money And Time!

Functions

FUNCTION 1: Add the consisted of Images or your OWN photos

We have actually consisted of a number of photos for you to select from, beginning with animated SVG pictures to wonderful looking personalities from various particular niches. You simply need to browse the consisted of classifications and choose the one that fits your specific niche.

And also, we have actually added the alternative to upload your very own pictures or logo designs (Just on PRO accounts), so you can individualize your video clips even more. You just click on the upload switch, post your photos and then they will stay saved on the server (restricted MEGABYTES per account).

FEATURE 2: Include Text

Adding message to your explainer video clips is much more easy then ever before, you just compose your text, click the include switch and also the message will certainly be added to the sneak peek (and also in the future your explainer video clip). As Easy as that!

You can individualize your text by changing the font kind, typeface size and font style shade! Plus the message is integrated with the audio of your video clips so if we include the hand composing impact (consisted of) your video clips will certainly look impressive!

ATTRIBUTE 3: Include the consisted of backgrounds or add your OWN Backgrounds

We have actually included some wonderful backgrounds for you to choose from, there are some great histories however certainly you will have the option to get even a lot more histories (optional).

You just require to go to the background's tab as well as scroll down to have the ability to see all the readily available histories!

ATTRIBUTE 4: Add History Songs Tracks (Included or your own)

Sketch Maker PRO features a few music tracks to contribute to your videos (around 3 minutes each), yet you might have the option to upload your own songs as well.

You'll have the alternative to get monthly songs tracks (optional).

ATTRIBUTE 5: Add Text To Speech * (optional), Add Your Own Audio File or Record Your Voice

Sketch Maker PRO comes with several Human-like Text To Speech voices to add to your video clips (optional).

You'll have the alternative to tape your very own voice using your OWN microphone * or simply publish SHORT audio data * to develop your video clips. * PRO PLUS Accounts Just).

FUNCTION 6: Preview an Slide or All your Animation (Adjustment hands also!)

You can sneak peek your video prior to rendering it. You can preview each slide or all your computer animation on the preview canvas.

Plus you can change the hands made use of, also the pens/pencils the hand utilizes to simulated the composing message could be changed!

FUNCTION 7: Slide Consequences, Allocation, Download Your Video clips!

We've included the option to use some slides effects, even an arbitrary impact is consisted of to enable you to provide your video clips a much more professional appearance!

Inside your account's web page you will have the ability to see your individual information as well as your Allocation per day! We've included a distinct web page to enable you to access all the videos you have actually produced, you can simply download them by clicking the download switch.

Rate & Evaluation

Front-End $17.95: Sketch Maker PRO (PRO Variation).

Produce 48 Video clips per day (2 video clips per hour)

Shop 10 Sketch Videos (Cloud)

Up to 10 slides per task

10 Songs Tracks

20 Backgrounds

144 SVG Characters

199 SVG Path animation images

Publish very own Images/Music/Backgrounds (5mb)

OTO 1 (Month-to-month) $12.95

Develop 96 Videos per day (4 videos per hr)

Shop 20 Lay Out Video Clips (Cloud)

As much as 30 slides per job

10 Songs Tracks Monthly

10 Backgrounds Monthly

50 SVG Personalities Monthly

100 SVG Path computer animation photos Monthly

Submit very own Images/Music/Backgrounds (50mb)

Text To Speech Voices

TTS Summary: 28 Voices/ 11 Languages

OTO 2 $19.95: Commercial Certificate.

Extra coming quickly

Conclusion

" It's A Good deal. Should I Spend Today?"

Not just are you getting accessibility to Sketch Maker PRO for the very best cost ever before supplied, however additionally You're spending entirely without danger. Sketch Maker PRO include a 30-day Money Back Assurance Policy. When you select Sketch Maker PRO, your contentment is guaranteed. If you are not totally pleased with it for any type of factor within the very first 1 month, you're qualified to a full refund - no question asked. You have actually got absolutely nothing to shed! What Are You Waiting on? Attempt It today and get The Complying with Bonus offer Now!

[elleleh]

Hello! I absolutely adore all your Qrow and Summer comics, and everyday I'm always super excited to check and see what you've posted! I was just curious, how do you manage to post so consistently? I'm wanting to start uploading my own stuff on a more consistent schedule, and was just interested in seeing how you go about it. Anyway, please keep up the amazing work, its much appreciated during this RWBY haitus especially! ☺️❤️

Okay, I’m not going to add a drawing to this just because I want to answer you PRONTO.

Thank you so much, by the way! I’ll give you all the information and knowledge my professors handed down to me and what I’ve learned since being a committed artist to Tumblr.

Basically, you have to commit at least 100%. You may laugh, but I’m being serious. View this time you spend as an investment for something better in the future. It is not ‘messing around on the computer’ or ‘just having fun’, it’s your job (that hopefully leads to a paying job at some point). Don’t just say that to yourself, either. Tell other people that if they ask. Own it. It’ll make the commitment that more gratifying. 

Ask yourself, “Are you ready to commit yourself to your followers and your art? Are you in, or are you out?” because there is no ‘half-assing’, for lack of a better term, this type of work. 

My routine: I get up in the morning, make tea and breakfast, and if I don’t have work (I have a job besides doing this), I hop on the computer, eat, and just start drawing or writing depending on the day and mood. Sometimes I split the day between the two so that I don’t get too anxious or bored with what I’m working on. My butt, however, is glued to my chair unless I need to stretch, use the bathroom, eat, or do any chores. 

I’ve mentioned this a couple times before, but I’m obsessive. I live and breathe this kind of work and this amount of output. It gets me up in the morning just to know I can get a sooner start on my art for all of you! I am in a committed relationship, and I make myself give him my time on the weekends and at least an hour out of each day. Sometimes I can’t sacrifice more than that, because to build a career in the art field, it takes energy, time, blood, sweat, and tears. If you’re not trying to make a career, then you have more leeway.

TIPS AND TRICKS OF THE TRADE

Make it a point to post at least once a day. You do not gain a following, fans, or exposure by posting once a week or once a month. If you have a following, then it’s a bit more easy to manage and draw out your time in between submissions. Fans love seeing any of your work! Doesn’t have to be a whole script or masterpiece. Can be a snippet or a doodle. They’ll just be happy you updated.

Engage with your followers/fans. Let them know they’re welcome and safe on your blog to express ideas and just to talk with you. Be friendly and open minded when you do this, but don’t allow yourself to be a doormat if someone wants to push you around. Be firm, be civil, and move on.

Keep negativity from your blog as much as possible. Make coming to your page a positive experience. No one likes to see pages and pages of drama.

No Politics. No Religion. You are here to create, not to debate.

Take requests. You don’t have to always do it, but do it in the beginning. This allows you to also engage with the people who follow you and love your art/writing/work. Plus, you meet some cool, wonderful people in the process!

Don’t be too greedy with ideas. This is a creative world, and while credit should be dished out where it is due, don’t get too possessive of small details. I welcome people to use ‘petal’, ‘short-stack’, and ‘hummingbird’ in the fndm. I could be a mean, scrooge about it and tell everyone to keep their hands off, but I don’t want to do that. If someone wants some of my work or ideas in their headcanon, then great!

Don’t let people plagiarize or blatantly copy off of your work, though, either. You all know what art theft is. I don’t need to explain.

Take a break when needed. This is very important. Don’t push yourself too hard where you make yourself sick. I often forget to feed myself when working and then wonder why i’m anxious, dizzy, and feel sick to my stomach. Usually, I keep trail mix at my desk and a glass of water in between meals, but if you need it, get up, walk around outside, enjoy the day, lay in bed, do what you need to do to feel better. Your followers will understand. 

Collaborate! This is one of the strongest tools we have as artists! We can join forces and create with one another! This not only exposes you to a whole OTHER group of people, but you make friends through this process, too!

When in doubt, nothing wrong with looking at references. Every single artist, no matter the skill level, needs references. I use references and images because the human body is HAAAARD. I also need them for inspiration on architecture, animals, landscapes, ect.

Do. Not. Start. Fights. I can’t stress that enough. If you get hate mail in some form or another, read it once then walk away from it. Delete it if you have to. You do yourself no favors responding to that. Be the adult in the scenario. Also, do not look at someone’s opinion online and then reblog it, only to argue and say that person is wrong. They’re called opinion’s for a reason. Just do yourself the biggest favor and avoid that kind of media. I know I have to. There are bloggers on here who are so aggressive and mean about what I like, but I do not approach them because I’m not a moron. No good comes of it.

Push your comfort zone. You do not get better by staying with what you know or with what is easy. Challenge yourself to do something different. Do that every single day. I work on human poses and interactions that make me struggle because after I nail it once, it is so much easier the next time around. I also know I need to push myself with my color theory as well, but that’s another matter entirely.

Color does not make it better! If you don’t understand color theory, study it before you color anything. Watch youtube videos if you must. I try to stay away from color because I feel it is a distraction sometimes. You don’t always need it. Line is hard enough. Get that down first.

If you need to get better at drawing human form, draw naked people. I don’t mean images, I mean take a class (if you can) and go draw ‘from life’. I improved greatly from doing that for just a year in school! You learn through drawing the real deal, not by copying photos. This applies to everything, by the way. Not just nekid people.

Lastly, draw what you love. You will not enjoy this if you don’t adhere to that rule. I’m not talking about commissions, or anything where you get to be paid to draw a certain thing/subject. There will be time for that. No, draw in the style you want that is most fun for you, and draw the subjects you want. Jump around with style. Want to do simplistic cartoon AND anime style?! Do both! No need to limit yourself.

OH ONE MORE THING. Develop your style. You want to be noticeable. When someone sees your art, they know its you. This will take you a while. I JUST found my style after over 10 years of drawing and 4 years of school. Be patient, be true to yourself, and take inspiration from others. It’ll come.

I hope this has been helpful and informative! If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask or message me! I am always open to talk to you wonderful people!

Stay Lovely~

[swooncraft]

Thoughts Into a Void-Art & Depression

This is me... organizing things for myself to get back into the swing of things. It’s a little disjointed, but it.. writing things out like this, reflecting, always helps me. It’s not sad and woe is me like.

Taking any time to share a thought and having the power of the internet to spread that to numerous people is amazing.

There’s a disconnect for me somewhere along the line. The platforms I use, while some are made for stories and comics and others aren’t, there’s just something inherently frustrating about spooling out one large cohesive sum. Not just as a reader, I assure you it’s frustrating as a creator too.

When I first learned people make and share their own comics online I was floored. I’d been writing stories and making doodles with them all my life. Ten years ago I shared my first page to the internet. Here it is.

I love realism with a hint of magic or sci-fi, and maybe you can blame Temix for that, but I realized something about that single page; “Why was it only one?” I asked on the forums how people on that site go about posting to make sure people were keeping up and remembering what was happening between posts. My art was crude (for being a young self taught teen artist), but very well intended; and it took me twelve goddamn hours to complete over the course of a week.

A lot of what people said was to have a schedule, people who like your story/art will stick around and remember. I heard a few people agree that webcomics had more dedicated fans, because you posted once or twice a week they would spend a little more time looking at the available pages.

That didn’t seem.. Right to me. I did the same with real comics and manga. If I liked it, once I was done I’d look back through the art... And how could posting a page at a time be beneficial to anyone? One could show consistency and integrity in a schedule with a several page post once a month or one full chapter every several weeks. It boggled me.

I kept drawing though, because I didn’t have several pages to share at a time. I tried my best to post once a week. I worked 50 hours as a manager at the time, so the ten hours I was spending on these pages was a huge investment. After a year I burned myself out...

Part of it was that I didn’t have the artistic skill to depict the things I wanted to do in that old project. Part of it was that it was gaining steam and had something like 30 people following and anticipating it. Part of it was my lack of planning, and still being a little new to storytelling on the scale the project needed...

So, I didn’t draw for months after I hit that wall. It.. was rough. We’ve all got issues, and mine and my inability to get back on my feet back then made me very volatile to myself.

Temix had just gotten out of art school and tried convincing me to draw a bit. I doodled, because she knew how to approach me about it and make it something I couldn’t back down from.

Sooner than later I dreamt about a zombie apocalypse and Deadgirl & Sue were born. With a lot of help and shaping by Temix.

The mission was ‘fuck art, tell the story.’ And that worked fine for a few months and several pages. I didn’t set deadlines for myself, and I didn’t care when I drew two right hands...

Even though this one haunts me to this day.. Anyway, fall of 2010 became summer 2011 and I was reeling internally about this non-schedule and art and story. So I stopped again. But I didn’t kick myself too hard about it because unlike my first comic, no one was paying attention to DG&Sue.

I’d been writing a lot anyway, and was feeling really good about the growth I was making there. I’m ‘good’ at art, I’m ‘okay’ at singing, but since I floundered on story years prior I learned and felt that that was were I shined. Just putting words on a page. I still mostly agree with those sentiments. Maybe now I’m a ‘little better’ at art, and ‘decent’ at singing, but I’m still a star at storycraft.

It was 2013 when I got back on track to finish that single first chapter of DG&Sue. I’d spent the previous 8 months writing a novel. I had the premise for the story in my mind for a few years so I wrote. I learned a lot and crafted something that.. Is really rough and raw, but it’s something I’m still very proud of..

So that fall I finished the second draft, Edited it all myself (though it still probly has plenty of grammatical and spelling errors) and reread it a hundred times to make sure it was only what it needed to be... And submitted it to several agencies. While waiting for replies I finished the last handful of pages for the first chapter of DG&Sue.

it was done. Not only did I write a 65k novel, I finished a comic. It wasn’t completely over, I left it a little open in case I wanted to bring the characters back. For a while though, Juliet and Sue got to rest in peace.

Meanwhile.. Let me be honest. The agents... Who the fuck am I? I’m a hack that flails against a keyboard screaming endlessly into the void; “NOTICE ME, BUT PLEASE DONT LET ME NOTICE THAT YOU NOTICE ME SO I DONT GET OVERWHELMED.”

All of the agents rejected me.

I wasn’t expecting to wow all of them.. I thought one might want to see the whole novel and tell me it could work if I changed something major about it. But none of them-Some of them in their emails back were offended that I submitted my query to them.

That really fucked me up. See, earlier THAT year I hit rock bottom as an alcoholic. Writing that novel helped me stop drinking. And after all of the months and long nights I spent refining that story the best I could to be rejected... I couldn’t kid myself though. None of my friends would even read it. So, I reiterate; screaming endlessly into the void; “NOTICE ME, BUT PLEASE DONT LET ME NOTI-” And I felt really dry. I couldn’t just not do anything about those feeling, but I couldn’t resort to liquor and video games weren’t taking the edge off...

So, to quote a great book, “I felt like destroying something beautiful.” Created a nice new little OC... And sent her through some good old fashioned Lovecraftian horror to fucking break her the way I felt broken inside. It beats being a no life drunkard, and it’s better then shooting up a school or suicide.. The first draft was a short story outline. And I thought, ‘It might be nice to do this as a comic.. to try using.. photoshop like Temix keeps suggesting. I’ll practice colors while I destroy this poor girl. I’ll become intimate with yellows like I became intimate with tones while drawing DG&Sue. And I’ll make Lovecraft my own like I made Priest, and Way, and Palahnuik my own.’

And this release of my feelings...

I decided to do it right. It was scheduled. And made sure it had an ending I could reach. It was a shining yellow light in deep blotchy darkness, Ink was more well received then I ever imagined it would be.

So, I toyed with expanding it while it was being finished. Picked up the threads I left for DG&Sue hoping.. Thinking that if I were working on a rotating schedule, that I wouldn’t get bored, that a new thing to work on every few months would keep me challenged... That I wouldn’t get overwhelmed... and stop.

I wasn’t wrong.

I haven’t missed an update in close to three years now. Sometimes I forget to post at one place or another, but the pages are available somewhere.

Over those years I expanded to several internet mediums... Swoonsphere of course, The Duck where I first started at, DeviantArt, Imgur, Pixiv, Tapastic, and I was directed to upload on Tumblr too, even though it doesn’t lend itself to webcomics...

Between Imgur, Pixiv, and Tapastic, being the only places I do bulk page uploads, I see terrible, but consistent growth every time I post on Tapastic (the other two there’s views, but not a lot of following). Which brings me back to something someone asked me recently, and what I started this and my webcomic career with.

Why don’t I post batches on Tumblr? On most sites?

I considered it. But everything is generally bite sized and easily consumable on these types of sites. That’s why I’ve been more stressed out lately. I’m not hoping that people will follow my Tumblr, because it’s not my... place. It’s not the right platform for what I do. I can only hope that people will see a fragment of a story, or decent art, or decent colors, or interesting tags and click the links to my website where it’s easier to read. I don’t make money off of Swoonsphere, the ads on it are usually blocked or disabled anyway because there’s no traffic. So.. Is it bad practice to hope someone will open a new tab to take a closer look while they’re scrolling through their Tumblr feed?

You know? Like I said.. screaming endlessly into the void; “NOTICE ME BUT PLE-” I don’t know how to market my comics. I dont expect people to come around for my art streams, and I dont expect people to be wowed by my ‘finished’ art. I just want people to read my stories and want to know what the next step is for the characters, or tell me what they think, or ask me why things went the way they did.

Personally I think my stories are a little cheesy and tropey, but have some unique things, and if nothing else, have characters that you can root for.

But I’m tired.. And feel myself after 30 months burning out. Because like my novel no one’s actually read what I’ve done even though it’s readily available for simple viewing. If it’s something wrong with Swoonsphere, I could direct people to the Duck or Tapastic. I post everywhere, and the sum of readers after all this time is hilariously low.

I’m not stopping yet. But I am frustrated, and disheartened.

[ds4design]

An E-Commerce Success Story: Lark + Raven on Squarespace

The following post is brought to you by Squarespace. Our partners are hand picked by the Design Milk team because they represent the best in design.

This is the point in the winter where it’s hard to believe that the days will ever be longer and warmer. It’s dark, cold and dreary. No matter where you live, the morning commute in February is not a joy. (Understatement!) If every time you close the door behind you, you’re thinking of how to transition to a working-in-pajamas situation, this post is for you. In fact it was a moment just like that, which inspired LARK+RAVEN founder Ali Macdonald to transition out of the daily grind and into a job as a full-time designer.

After a few years at Jonathan Adler and then a stint at C Wonder, Ali was at a creative crossroads. She had made it as an in-house designer for big New York City-based firms, but she recognized that she was on a career path that would only lead to more managerial positions and she didn’t want to leave her passion for illustration behind. She also had dreams of spending the whole day drawing with her pooch, Dusky, by her side. (There’s nothing quite like sad doggy eyes to make you want to stay home.) So in 2014, Ali founded LARK+RAVEN as a way to give herself an opportunity to do more of what she loved.

When Ali was daydreaming about starting the business, she started doodling her ideas in Sharpie and sharing the designs via social media. Initially, she thought that she’d move to a more serious medium (like oils or water colors), but the happy casualness of the Sharpie stuck and today she uses the marker for everything from her wrapping paper designs to her stationery. Once she had the product design down, it was time to focus on the day-to-day challenges of running a business. From learning the ins-and-outs of sales tax to the best way of shipping products, managing a business was more complicated than Sharpie color choice (that Ali has nailed). Now she’s done everything from illustrating couples for save-the-dates and wedding invites to creating custom pet portraits, and she’s offered to share some her tips and tricks for making an online creative business work.

Let’s start with the product! Can you tell us a little about your design process?

Whenever it’s time to create a new collection of cards, I sit down with a marker and doodle. I keep a growing list of concepts as they develop. The idea is always the hardest part. Once I have one that is solid, illustrating is easy. Creating wrapping paper seems to come to me more naturally because I’m always thinking of composing stories through patterns. Sometimes an element I create for one of my cards may inspire a pattern and vice versa.

How has having a Squarespace website changed or impacted your business?

Having a site has really forced me to step up my presentation and to think about the importance of a cohesive narrative. When I first started, I didn’t give enough consideration to product imagery. My site was full of weak, inconsistent photography that didn’t sell my products well. Once I began utilizing this platform to tell an enticing story through color and styling, I noticed an increase in sales and in business opportunities. I also gained a clearer sense of my brand’s direction in the process.

What are your plans/goals for the upcoming year?

My main goal for this year is to get LARK+RAVEN in more stores. Finding time to do more outreach with all of the custom jobs and orders on my plate has been my biggest challenge. With each new Wholesale account gained, I feel more confident about contacting agencies in the coming months with the hope that one might have interest in representing my line. I also plan to find more opportunities for licensing and collaborations. I just recently updated my personal portfolio of illustrations, patterns and animations (alimacdoodle.com) in an effort to make this happen. Managing two separate online entities has its challenges but I’m finding it much easier to operate in this realm as an artist as opposed to a brand. It’s more work but has allowed me to experiment since I’m not worried about creating content that fits perfectly with my company’s aesthetic.

In terms of my online presence, I’d really like to be more planned in my approach to my shop’s homepage as a brick and mortar storefront. Instead of scrambling last minute to make thematic banners and tiles for holidays and events, my hope is to map out the year with ideas for site updates to keep things fresh.

What have you found to have the most impact when designing your site?

The sliding banners on the homepage have been really effective in directing traffic to specific areas of my site. They serve as a visual navigation and they give me the chance to tell an exciting story about a new product or collection that I want visitors to see.

What template do you use and did you experiment with others?

I started with Bedford but switched to Supply because I preferred the look of the left bar navigation. The rotating banner feature on the home page and the option to add product tiles below were probably the biggest factors in persuading me to make the change.

How does the e-commerce portion of the site interface with what you do in person/physically?

I’m always uploading artwork and retouching photos on my computer so when an order comes in, it’s really a seamless transition to printing out shipping labels and packing slips.

If you were starting the business today, what would you do differently/the same?

I would start smaller than I did in terms of product assortment and quantities. In the beginning, I was so focused on creating a large collection. I wanted to make my shop look full, and I was trying to produce enough content for my first trade show. I would have preferred to take the time to create a modest collection that made me proud. Though I’m happy with what I’m creating now, I didn’t have this same confidence at the start because I didn’t love everything I was making.

And speaking to an earlier point, I would have used my name for my company. It just makes certain aspects of custom work, such as collaborations and licensing, so much easier. Every time I’m hired to do a portrait through LARK+RAVEN, I’m faced with the dilemma of not knowing how to sign it. While I do like that I have a separate outlet for experimenting creatively, I’d prefer to work under one name that can be used as a signature on a product and also on an illustration.

What advice would you give someone who wants to start an online shop?

You’re going to be doing a lot of shipping! Using web-based software like ShipStation will make fulfilling orders much easier. Also, familiarize yourself with your responsibility to charge and collect sales tax. You will to want to set that up on your site when you are ready to open shop.

Did you have any failures that you’d like to share that you think people might be able to learn from?

Not insuring a box of over 300 handmade greeting cards with lined envelopes that got lost in the mail. I learned my lesson!

Any other advice for starting a business/ecommerce site that you’d like to pass on?

Don’t forget to copyright your work. I do it every season before I add new products to my site.

Make your next move. Make your next website using Squarespace. Squarespace offers online store templates and domains to help you get your business off-the-ground! And when you use coupon code DESIGNMILK at checkout you’ll get 10% off your first purchase.