#like its explaining how my brain got there

[bluecapsicum]

hi Blue! I am absolutely IN LOVE with the "Reports From Unknown Places" series. If you don't mind me asking, how did you learn to draw the clouds and the sky so well? I've always found the prospect very daunting, but you draw them in a way that simply amazing! Do you have any tips for brushes/practice?

Hello!

Thank you so much for the message, and your kind words! I'm so glad you enjoy Reports.

I completely understand how one might find drawing the sky daunting. I still regularly give myself headaches when working on reports. Everyone has their own issues when it comes to drawing, though.

For instance, this might sound a bit absurd, but one of my main issues as an illustrator is that I don't think well in 3D, and I ended up realising that I was unconsciously thinking about the sky as a flat image. When I started drawing clouds as objects moving in space, everything became a little easier.

(This is the kind of epiphany that I had. Truly a revolution in my mind. Now I can totally rotate clouds in my brain.)

This all came about as I kept on drawing more and more, sure, but the most important part really was watching clouds for myself, as much as possible, and to try and notice things every time. It's mostly silly stuff, especially at first, like oh yeah, I guess clouds produce shadows on other clouds too. Wow! Or, huh, this cloud doesn't have the same density throughout, so the light scatters differently inside of it.

Because it's all fundamentally physics, it ended up sounding incredibly simple once I had noticed it. Of course! It's all logical! I had just never connected the dots before I saw it in person.

So I also bought some books, and watched videos (all those airplane videos are fantastic), read websites, looked at pictures. Everything was helpful in one way or another. Listen, I knew about cirrus and cumulonimbus and that was pretty much it, at first. So looking at diagrams about how high cirrus are in comparison to stratocumulus, for instance, was a revelation. Looking at the life cycle of cumulonimbus explained so much for me.

These are studies I did on the side of Reports, in November 2020, then April 2021, and the third one in September 2023:

I think I'm able to look at these and tell that I got progressively more confident because I understood what I was drawing a lot better.

If I had to say, a few concrete things I learned that work for me is being bold, not to be afraid of contrast and sharp edges, and to treat light as an actor of its own. I can't find it right now, but I once read a quote by (I think!) Cezanne that went something like "I'm not painting the mountain, I'm painting the air between me and the mountain". I think it's the most helpful thing I've ever heard for painting and drawing. It's obviously especially relevant here. The air changes everything.

Anyway, I could go for ages more, I'm totally rambling, so I'll just leave a few references I find helpful:

The International Cloud Atlas

The Cloud Appreciation Society

What's This Cloud

In the end it's just fun, and good for the soul, to spend quality time with clouds, so nothing is ever lost!

[secriden]

THK Episode 1 thoughts in no particular order or level of coherency:

I didn't see Fadel as Lawful Good coming, but at the same time it makes perfect sense now that I've seen the episode

Somehow, I now kinda ship First with both Joong and Dunk and I cannot explain it even to myself but damn.

Khaotung's ability to not just sound and act but nearly exude the presence of a naive innocent young man, head still in the clouds and dreaming of true love, is Truly Impressive. I actually believe, not only that he's younger than Fadel, but that he genuinely lacks the emotional maturity too even process the risk that Fadel sees.

I now appreciate so much what people said about First's almost understated detailed acting because those rapid shifts in his expressions said so much in tiny increments of time, I'm blown away.

Dunk is so pretty, Dunk is so pretty, DUNK IS SO FUCKING PRETTY!?!?!

But also please I adore everything Dunk did as Style he gave absolutely everything for that character and held nothing back. The way he just... went for it?? In all the scenes, every single one? I'm trying not to be too spoiler-y but damn, I get it when First said that Dunk really embodied Style because he really really DID!!!

That ending was genius my brain immediately lit up with all the ways this could go and I'm SO EXCITED

The way the sex wasn't even remotely the most insanity-inducing thing in this episode really goes to show how well this was made but also ITS HILARIOUS

Having said that, damn it was hot!!

Joong's eyebrows eyebrowing so hard <3

I don't think JoongDunk were meant to have sexual tension at all in this episode but they still felt very sexy to me. Maybe its just me, but it felt like tension even when Fadel is mostly just pissed off there's that... okay, you know how the opposite of love is not hate, but apathy? Guess what, zero apathy right here!!

I'm genuinely so happy with what we got though. It really is as light and silly and camp and gorgeous as they promised and I'm so so grateful for that. There's potential for devastation (I see you, Kant, hiding backstory hints inside your soft serve!), but also how lucky are we to get silly romantic shenanigans with the murder brother duo and their (future) flirty boyfriends???

Also the music!? Can we talk about THE MUSIC?? it was so... idk, like it was almost its own character in this episode. It was like audience direction with how much it would abruptly change the tone of the scene. I wonder if this will continue throughout the show or if they're doing it because it's the first episode and they're really really laying those comedy foundations down, but its fascinating.

I can't believe we get "Good Morning, krub" and "love at first sight" in the same episode omg ;A; <3

Style should've learned from the expert:

[why-is-thinking-so-hard]

okay so au time prologue actually

this gets really long

⚠️spoilers for mean girls, both of them⚠️

fuck okay, I have to remember how this all started hang on...

and the context IS important TO ME

anyway, I think this started with the bus actually. holy shit, this started yesterday? oh my god... I feel like this has been plaguing my brain for weeks.

so my friend and I had just watched both mean girls movies because he had never seen either one before and that needed to be fixed. after he left my place, I saw a post joking about making a legal case for the bus driver speeding through the school zone and my adhd brain took that and ran and I mean RAN. before I knew it I was thinking about how that crash was intentional.

we had just watched both movies so the scene was fresh in my mind, I mean, they had to see regina in the road well before they hit her, but there's no attempt to warn her and get her out of the road or stop the bus until after she's been hit. in both movies the road is clear, not a single car or person-- hell, not even a single piece of trash--, regina's in the road for a minute or so, there are no visible crossroads or corners around the crossings where she's hit so the driver didn't whip around a corner and plausibly not see her, and you don't hear the brakes on the bus until after regina's been hit and buses are big so takes time for the brakes to engage, if they were trying to stop before they hit her, you would've heard the screech and swerving during that scene but there's nothing and the bus is heading straight on.

anybody who follows @butchregina (love their art, literally gave me gender envy and now im shopping for binders) knows they often ask what people are thinking about and so I sent the whole above analysis in and they answered "I think someone put a hit out on her"

what does this have to do with a superhero/spider-man cadina au? im getting there, but wow this is getting long. why is it I can write an essay like its nothing when im no longer in school?

the answer was funny so I sent it to my friend and he said "there is no driver cady just manifests them[...] its why she was homeschooled in the African savannah her prents had to be somewhere with no cheeselog busses for her to teleport to her location within a fifty mile radius or smth," which I also sent in as an ask with the caption "another option," to which the answer was "she is a superhero. She does control the buses."

so this is where we actually get into the how the superhero/spider-man au thoughts came to be. that response got me thinking about superhero cady, not cady summoning buses because that made me lose my mind, but superhero cady. part of me was endeared to the idea of a cadina where cady had powers but regina didn't but how can regina not have powers? when I started thinking about it it truly was just a vague superpower au, like, cady somehow got powers and had to hide them- maybe janis and Damian know and are her Man In The Van TM- and then there's regina who kinda looks down on her but thinks her hero alter ego is the shit it was a whole thing but I feel like I should wrap this essay up.

point being, there are more details, but I will get into them in another post because this was the prologue, the context of why this has been plaguing my mind for... less than 24 hours at last check. I will be posting more about this under superhero cadina or spider-man cadina, it depends on how vague I am about their story and powers.

if you read to the end of this, thank you for indulging my rambling about whatever the hell this was/is going to end up being, best of love and luck to you

[nouverx]

*proceeds to drink the whole bottle*

Yeah Alastor you're gonna be loved and appreciated wether you want it or not :)

[chirpsythismorning]

“Mike said his life started the day he found El in the woods, which was technically the following night. What he said had nothing to do with offending Will because he went missing the day before.”

[deoidesign]

Someone killed my boss last night and he sent me this I'm so fired

god I can't wait to make this comic.

[triglycercule]

why is horror almost ALWAYS sweating bro this man must be a straight up water faucet with how much sweat he has in every horrortale panel. however it is for this reason that i think he has hyperhidrosis. hello my name is triglycercule and in this essay i will explain

[red-eft]

the fact that i immediately landed an awesome job right out from graduation but then got covid in august and now my brain doesn't work right and i might lose my job because of it . there's a funny joke in here somewhere maybe

[asclexe]

hhey guys. i think i mayy be experiencing a hyperfixation 4 the first time. not sure. sorry

[savetheghost]

wanna be put in a room with craft stuff for 10 years

[pezpenser205]

the main reason i know im not femme in the slightest is bc i cant comprehend why anyone would Ever want to be feminine. i can understand neutral leaning fem, but the idea that people are born wanting to be feminine is appalling to me personally because femininity always felt like imprisonment and torture. it was and still is a restraint. a training weight i was forced to bear. i cant fully empathize or understand anyone who wants to be more feminine because i have never and will never want to be more feminine out of anything other than pressure or insecurity. im most comfortable being gender neutral, hairy and disgusting in old gym shorts and stained tshirts no matter how much insecurity it causes me. i dont care. im never dressing up all pretty for anyone elses benefit ever again. and i assume this is how people who want to be feminine feel about masculinity to some extent. if thats the case im super glad we could trade because holy moly

[mashmouths]

skipping class but staying on campus to do work for. another class. bc i said i'd have it done before friday bc i'm scared of telling profs no so now i have to read all of robinson crusoe this weekend and watch the nbc pilot of the crusoe series on top of finishing the 2 late essays bc i deluded myself into believing i have a chance of finishing this annotated bibliography in 2 hours. without half the books i'm citing. tee hee <3

[trash-bin-ary]

:( both of my phone chargers hardly work, please charger how do i need to hold you to start the charging up

[funkle420]

*takes my last adderall so i can finish all my work in one day*

*finishes one (1) assignment*

*gets distracted and spends the rest of the day hyperfocusing on delicious in dungeon again*

[malewifehenrycooldown]

yeah yeah i got recommended that Henry Cooldown analysis video whatever. i am still not over people comparing Henry to a medieval knight, NOT even taking the time to unpack that said mental image of a knight is 'mostly' associated with the British Monarchy*, an extension of its Empire that *checks notes* did a long list of atrocities like imperialism and colonialism, and also (multiple) genocides.

Henry is NOT British, he is Irish. Although considering the history of Ireland and how poorly the British Empire has treated them (amongst SO MANY OTHER COUNTRIES AND DIASPORAS), yeah it's NOT surprising that an Irish man like Henry is essentially forced to adopt quote on quote 'British sensibilities' to 'survive'. <- intentional imagery or not, the implications are not lost on me.

Like okay, calling out the comparison is cool but it sure would be nice if people went further to unpack what that means and implies in the long term. you know, like ACTUAL CRITICAL ANALYSIS?!

[dungeons-and-dragon-age]

Assortment of sketches n doodles of my most recent brainworm inducers