#maybe not combining all suggestions cuz depending on what pops up that might just be an impossible mess

[shevr]

ey i VERY badly need to make myself draw or doodle stuff again because 1/ i'm literally collapsing in on myself 2/ whenever i try to weakly give it a half-assed attempt it feels like i'm worse & more out of practice every time and i just don't think this is magically going to feel better one day

so like feel free to drop a suggestion or an element of a suggestion or anything to go off of and i'll hopefully try to make a very rough thing with it idk

[bubble-tea-bunny]

non-times and non-places

a miami vice au

[poe dameron x reader]

author’s note: one of the shows i’m working my way through atm is miami vice and i love everything about it. the vaporwave aesthetic is reeaalll haha. i might end up writing more of this cuz it was fun, we’ll see! 

word count: 2,868

Crime never sleeps, and neither, so it seems, do you.

The mug of coffee resting on the island before you has long gone cold when you hear the alarm clock in the bedroom going off, only to be shut off a few moments later with what you know is a tired and heavy hand, accompanied by grumbling as your husband hoists himself out of bed. Your day starts when it’s still dark out, for you’re both due at the department at 9 AM on the dot and rush hour traffic in a city like this is a force to be reckoned with.

You hear creaking as the bedroom door slowly opens, and the quiet patters of Poe’s bare feet along the cold tiles. He’s rubbing at his eyes in an attempt to wake up some more and running a hand through his hair which, at this hour, is more like a lion’s mane after all his moving around while he slept. One brush of his fingers through the strands does little to tame it, but he’s not bothered as he drops his hand back down to his side. He sighs heavily and glances at you upon entering the kitchen.

“Couldn’t sleep again?” he asks, rifling through the cupboards for the necessary items to make a fresh pot of coffee. You’d only made enough for yourself because it would be cold if left to sit around until he woke up—that’s always a good indicator as to how long you’d been awake. His voice is rough and gravely and he clears his throat.

“No,” you respond softly, fingers curling around the mug handle and pulling it closer to you as if you’re going to bring it up to your mouth to take a sip, but you won’t because if there’s anything you hate more than room temperature coffee, it’s cold coffee, and your movements now are nothing but habit.

“If this keeps up, you should see a doctor.” The suggestion is gentle, and maybe it’s because he’s tired and has no energy for anything firmer or maybe it’s just because he cares so much or maybe it’s a mixture of both.

“I think it’s just the stress,” you reason, and the quiet gurgling of the coffee machine accompanies your words. “The strain of the last bust kept my mind on high alert and even though the case is closed, my body’s still trying to adjust to actually having time to rest.” You chuckle quietly.

Poe turns around and leans against the counter, elbows braced on the surface. There are dark circles under your eyes that have only grown worse as the days continue on. Getting more than five hours of sleep would be considered a stroke of luck on your end, and not only that, but five hours of uninterrupted shut-eye. What rest you’ve managed to get was far from peaceful, punctuated by bouts of laying face-up, staring at the ceiling and watching the reflection of headlights from the occasional passing car flashing across the expanse. And he hates seeing you like this, to see you fatigued to the point that the thought of you passing out right there at your work desk is perfectly plausible.

He does what he can—he figures it’s discomfort at first that prevents you from falling asleep, and every night he pulls you close and nuzzles your hair and runs his fingers up and down your arm, soft and light like the sun peeking over the horizon the next morning. And he wakes up to find you already in the kitchen, not quite able to get through the whole night but you smile softly and he knows you’re saying thanks for trying. He just smiles back and leans forward on the island to set a hand over yours and there’s a look in his eyes that tells you he would never stop trying. He’s a detective watching out for his partner and he’s a husband watching out for his wife. Taking care of you goes without saying.

“Well, at least the weekend’s almost here.” The coffee is done so Poe grabs a mug—it’s one you’d gotten for him as a souvenir when you went to New York to visit family. “You’ll have time to catch up on some much needed sleep.”

“Yes, very much needed…” you murmur.

———

The department is already bustling by the time you get there. Miami is a city with a thriving criminal underworld. People tell you that you should go out to see the Keys when you have the time, because it’s odd that you’ve never been even though you’ve lived here for some time now, and you say that you will as soon as your schedule allows. But crime doesn’t exactly abide by the conventional 9 to 5, and so you suppose you’ll just have to make do with the keys you see while on the clock, in the form of white blocks sniffed out by the K-9 units.

Today you’re in a gray pantsuit with a white button-up underneath and a pair of close-toed shoes to complete the ensemble. You have skirts but haven’t worn them in a while—they aren’t exactly the best article of clothing to be wearing out on the field. Pants grant you the mobility to pursue anyone trying to run. The skirts and dresses and open-toed heels are from your days when you did exclusively desk work.

You open your locker to store your purse inside and catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror hanging on the inside of the door. The lack of sleep is apparent in your eyes, not that you couldn’t already feel it with the heaviness in your lids. You’d eaten breakfast which served to help perk you up, but you’re itching for a bust or a chase just to get the adrenaline going. With a sigh, you grab your police badge before shutting the locker.

The morning briefings begin at 9:30 and last, at the most, until 10, depending on how many open cases there are. Today it lasts no more than fifteen minutes. After the last bust, things have been quiet. There’s only one outstanding investigation being handled by another team, so all you and Poe are assigned to is scouting the usual hang-outs and popular spots for drug-dealing. You know something is bound to pop up as you talk with informants working in these areas. Someone’s always looking to buy, and there’s always someone prepared to sell.

South Beach is the place to be if one knows anything about living in a place like this. The city is always warm, the go-to destination for those looking to hide away from the chill farther north during the winter months, but the beach always feels just a bit warmer. Poe’s black Daytona Spyder looks right at home along Ocean Drive, the top down to allow a breeze to pass over you both, and it ruffles your hair and blows it back so that when he’s found a spot to park, you’re combing it through with your fingers to undo what knots might have formed.

Sunglasses hide your wandering eyes as you scope out the people milling about on the sidewalk in search of anyone suspicious. They seem to part for you like the Red Sea as you and Poe walk along. Even before noon, the heat is almost palpable, so the two of you have shed your blazers, leaving you in your button-up with the sleeves rolled up to your elbows and Poe in his powder blue tee, the shoulder holster he wears pulled taut across broad shoulders, rough brown leather brushing against the soft fabric of his shirt.

Palm tree fronds sway gently in the slight wind, casting shadows on the concrete. You’re surrounded by white art deco buildings accented in teals and soft pinks and walk past the occasional outdoor café with canvas overhangs and canvas umbrellas. If you were to poise index and thumb on one arm of your sunglasses and pull them down just a little, enough to peek over the top, you’d see the haze of the Miami heat make itself known in the distance, distorting the farthest point of the road visible from where you stand and the cars farther away still, like a mirage except there’s no desert for miles in any direction. All of it combined serves to form a kind of fever dream, the most colorful and exotic one you’ve ever had.

Poe dips into a bar and you follow close behind. It’s dark in here, and your eyes begin to adjust to the sudden change in lighting as you set your sunglasses on top of your head. Your informant here is the bartender, who grins in greeting as you approach the counter and take a seat on the stools.

“What’ll it be today, detectives?” he asks.

“No drinks this time, Finn.” Poe shakes his head. “Just wanted to know if there’s been any suspicious activity.”

Finn’s bar is one of the more popular joints on Ocean Drive, a hub for locals and tourists alike. You and Poe even find yourselves coming here whenever time allows. There’s always the potential of drug dealers finding their way to this spot, talking in quieted tones about their product to anyone interested, so hushed they can’t be heard over the music floating from the jukebox. Sometimes you don’t always get a hit when you stop by. Following any busts, dealers tend to drop off the radar for a while. That’s what you’re expecting today, but you turn out to be wrong. Finn’s learned of someone new.

He describes the man and you nod intermittently as you store the information away. You’ll be repeating it to other business owners along this street and a pedestrian or two to see if anyone recognizes him, and you need to be as accurate as possible. You rest your head on your propped up hand and watch as another patron walks over to the jukebox and slides in a quarter. It works its way through the machine with a series of clinks, and he spends a few moments flipping through the tracks until a lively and upbeat tune fills the bar.

“If I get to know your name…”

You turn your attention back to Finn and Poe, and just as you do, Finn spots movement in his peripherals. His eyes slide up and over to the front doors to glance at the newcomer.

“Well if I could trace your private number, baby…”

Your brows furrow and you follow his line of sight. The man has barely entered the establishment when he sees you and Poe, and it prompts him to come to an abrupt stop in the doorway. Though cast in shadow due to the sunlight pouring in behind him, he’s easy to identify. He matches the description Finn gives. That’s him! said man exclaims, and your now suspect’s eyes widen as he twists around and high-tails it out of the bar.

“All I know is that to me you look like you’re havin’ fun…”

You and Poe jump out of your seats so fast the stools screech against the floor, but you pay it no mind as you set off in a run. The hot Miami sun washes over you once you’re outside, the music fading until there’s just the wind whistling in your ears as you sprint down the sidewalk, eyes focused on your target.

“Open up your lovin’ arms. Watch out, here I come…”

People jump to the side with yelps of surprise as your suspect runs past, and stay parted as you and Poe trail behind. Neither of you is properly dressed to be running, but this is far from the first time you’ve had a chase. These are your favorite—they get your blood running and excitement pulses in your veins every time you close the gap between you and your perp, pushing you to widen your strides more and more until they are within your grasp. You’ve worked behind a desk full-time before, but after experiences such as these, there’s no way you’d be able to do it again.

When he’s near enough, Poe catches the suspect in a tackle and they tumble to the ground. His breathing is labored as he maneuvers the man’s hands behind his back. “You’re under arrest,” he says simply between the deep breaths he takes to slow his heart rate. He grabs his handcuffs and slides them on with a click. Poe pulls the perp up to stand, and he grins at you. “Piece of cake.”

You smile and shake your head while taking deep breaths of your own, eyes roving over the bystanders that have stopped to see what was going on. This is one of the easier arrests you’ve made, and that’s owed in part to your suspect’s impeccable timing. You love when they make your job easy. Piece of cake indeed.

———

The sun is fully set behind the horizon when you return to the department. The rest of the day had gone on without event, which allowed you to fully feel the effects of your lack of rest. Usually you don’t have time to feel tired when you’re so preoccupied with drug busts and other investigations.

Poe smiles sympathetically when you emerge from the locker room with your purse slung over your shoulder and eyes half-lidded, threatening to slide closed any second. It didn’t really help that the day passed by so slowly. You’re in dire need of sleep, but he knows you’d only be twisting and turning if you laid down in a dark bedroom, desperately searching for that rest but not quite attaining it. No, he needs another plan of action.

As you exit the building after waving goodbye to your colleagues, he wraps an arm around your shoulder to bring you close. “Let’s go for a drive.”

You nod and say okay because that Spyder is Poe’s pride and joy. There have been many instances he would take it for a spin, not really driving anywhere in particular, just enjoying the purr of the engine and the way the steering wheel felt in his hands. You like to tag along, sliding into the passenger seat which might as well have your name written on it, and on these drives, neither of you says anything. Each other’s presence is enough, more than enough. The city speaks for you both, full of life as it is.

Poe slides the key into the ignition and twists, and you can’t help smiling a little to yourself at the way his eyes light up so brightly at the roar of the engine. You surmise that if the sun were to suddenly go out, you wouldn’t mind. In fact, you’re not sure you’d notice.  

It’s neon lights all the way down.

The storefront signs paint the world in purples and blues against a black canvas. You love to take in the sights on these long drives with Poe, and you love doing so at nighttime even more. Miami at night is different from how it is in the day. It wakes up when the sun goes down to sleep, and you will never get tired of the silhouettes of palm trees against brightly lit hotels and bars or the sidewalks abuzz with people taking up their place in the night scene like it’s a painting. Through the haze of these late hours, they seem all at once to be front and center, the subjects in a Kirchner masterpiece.

You watch the world fly by in a flurry of colors from your very own front row spot, in the tan leather seats of the Spyder, and think that if you should randomly come to a stop and take a snapshot of whatever you see once you do, you can frame it and stick it in a museum.

This city is wonderful and it’s alive, vibrating with an energy the likes of which you’ve never seen. If you set a hand on the concrete, your palm would be warm, and maybe it’s from the sun beating down for hours before finally setting or maybe it’s a sign of something real, of something beyond yourself. And while Poe continues cruising down the road, singing along quietly to the song on the radio, you feel your eyelids droop. Everything is shifting out of focus, neon signs and stoplights nothing but a blur, and you see them flashing still, dazzling and brilliant in your mind’s eye as you drift off to sleep, and as Poe’s singing sounds farther and farther.

At a red light, Poe spares a glance towards you and smiles softly when he sees you’ve fallen asleep. Your face is illuminated by pinks and blues from the lights of nearby buildings and he watches them dance across your skin and understands you to be not just someone living in this city, but someone that’s part of it. And he’s no different. The very essence of the sprawling metropolis you call home is in your veins, and there’s truly nothing like it.  

[dreadlock-detective]

How hard is it to choose colours for your (and my favourite) art style?

Eheh, well I canonly speak for myself, not for whoever you’re flattering by callingyour favorite, so I’ll stick to that! ;)

I suppose theliteral answer is “Usually not too hard?” but that’s boring solets see what I can ramble about color choice and such! Also I’ll put some links to James Gurney’s stuff because he is amazing and I cannot recommend his books enough!

(This’ll be in 3 sections - Color schemes, Contrast and leading the eye, and picking colors for shadows~ from longest to shortest too)

Part 1: COLOR SCHEMES

So I used to bereally bad at this until I got really into pixel art where I learneda few important lessons. First, the entire color palette workingtogether is what’s most important, not any single color, and second,colors work together in surprising ways COMPLETELY dependent on what’s around them!

For example, this isthe color palette for the Commedore 64 from back in the day. All whopping 16 colors the system could possibly display:

Individually thosecolors look pretty muddy, muted, and dull. But when you put them alltogether in an image they actually work pretty well together, because none of them completely break from the others. Usingmy own stuff as an example, I used the C64 palette to challengemyself with remaking a very colorful, very saturated screenshot from the Nintendo 64game Mischief Makers (because I love that game and both systems have“64” in the name so why not~)

So I turned this: (Nintendo 64 version, with waaay more colors available)

Into this:

Now, there’s clearly a BIG difference in the colors used, but I feel like everything still looks fine on its own. The muddy colors look a lot more harmonious when seen in an image than individually, with the brighter colors, such as the gems, even popping quite a bit.

For that second point I mentioned about colors working differently based on the colors around them, look at the character’s green hair, the green gem, and the green on the top of the blocks. They are all the exact same color. The green gem and hair, though, are shaded with a deeper, more saturated green and contrasted with a bright white, making it appear more saturated than the exact same green on the platforms, because the platforms’ green is surrounded by duller colors.

So it’s important to keep in mind that not only is each color important in the context of the whole, but also that what’s immediately around a color will massively impact how they appear, even when they are the exact same!

Important things to consider when picking colors is how close/far they are to each other in hue (the color itself, represented by the outer wheel in the image below), the saturation (how much gray is in the color, which effects how vibrant it is, which is the left->right in the box) and value (how much black is in the color, which is the top->bottom in the box).

Essentially the further away two colors are from the each other in any of these 3 directions the more they will stand out from each other. I’m not much of a teacher for color theory in general, so the best advice I can give is just to practice and to check out limited palettes other people have made and see how they handle it. In general, though, I try to keep most of the colors relatively close to each other in saturation and warm/cool colors, and then use one accent color that stands out in small amounts to make certain bits pop~

Links time!

Gurney’s post/video on Color Gamut, or manually limiting colors and how surrounding colors alters our perception of them (check out what appears as yellow in the cool colored image as opposed to the warm)

Gurney’s post on color in context and how many colors still register as bright yellow

Fun little tidbit about old cartoons made with limited palettes

Part 2: Contrast, and leading the eye!

Okay, so these other two might be a bit shorter. Basically, when you’re picking colors you want some to stand out and some to fall back. If everything is competing for attention it can be really hard to look at and the eye doesn’t know what’s important! One of the main things to look out for with this is contrast, as the eye is easily drawn to areas that are different than their surroundings.

Let me use two designs I’d had for my character Caelia - the left is her old color scheme and outfit and the right the new one:

Now, aside from minor differences in saturation, they’re actually pretty similar, but the one on the right I think works a lot better. In both of them the yellow acts as a strong accent color that can pull the eye, but on the old design on the left it pulls your eye in two directions - towards the headband and the coat trim, neither of which are actually important. Almost the entire rest of the design lacks that yellow so your eyes are actually drawn -away- from the character’s face and body. Imagine the coat being blown behind her as she’s doing an action pose and, yeah, the accent color doesn’t actually help anything.

The new design, I think, fixes that. Even though it remains an accent color the yellow now appears throughout the design. Her hair is now a lighter shade of yellow which is distinguished from the yellow on the clothing while also framing her face. Her torso now has a yellow accent on it so it draws the eye and, combined with the hair, has a strong distinction between her upper half (which is more yellow) and her lower half (which is mostly red). And finally what was the coat now wraps around her with an additional little strip on a waist sash. Now the yellow trim can easily allow the eye to figure out how her legs are positioned by how they wrap around them, instead of just hanging behind them.

It’s also important to point out that the hair is less saturated along with being lighter than the rest of the yellow - it both looks a bit more natural, blends with her skin color more, and also doesn’t compete with the high saturation in the clothing.

None of this is to say the left one is necessarily a bad design or conveys information poorly, just that the right one is a more unified design that is easier to understand at a glance. It’s something to keep in mind, but not a hard rule or anything. But remember that if EVERYTHING tries to stand out you’ll just end up with a mess.

LINKS!

Gurney on leading the eye with contrast and why what everything I just said might be bunk but might not be and also I think what I said applies better to simplified, cartoon forms as opposed to realism, since lines and blocks of color read differently than natural forms and lighting.

Spokewheeling - a composition technique that can be applied to character design as well.

Shapewhelding - another composition technique to think about, and can be important to AVOID at times (happens a lot in pixel art - dont want things melding together accidentally)

Gurney on why all of that might be bunk for general art composition anyway but might not be, but again I believe is still important for more stylized art

Part 3: SHADOWS!

Okay, so it’s nearing 1am as I write this and I’ll be honest I have the absolute least technical knowledge on this part, so I’ll tell you how I go about it but I STRONGLY suggest reading Gurney’s information on it (Again, seriously, I love his books, and “Color and Light” in particular is amazing and contains many of these posts and more)

When it comes to shading I have a pretty quick and dirty way to figure out what to do:

in case the text isn’t legible:

Choose a color for all shadows to move towards (usually a purple or blue)

Grab the base color for the thing I’m adding shadow to

Shift the color towards the direction of the shadow color I chose, and then make it darker and more saturated

And I do the exact opposite for highlights - I move away from the shadow color and then make it lighter and less saturated

Usually, anyway. And this method works best on the kind of color wheel I have there, but it can be adapted to most anything. And how far you move towards the shadow color and how dark/saturated you make the shadows will change the mood of the piece a lot. The colors in the screenshots are for a pretty light colored, low contrast piece.

I would go on more about it but I don’t actually have solid reasoning behind it other than it tends to look alright and I don’t want to spread incorrect thinking. Just… for the love of all that is colorful, DONT just shift the color towards black or white. It looks muddy and gross. Please. I beg you~

ON THE PLUS SIDE, Here’s a slew of awesome links!

Gurney and Chromatic Shadows Part 1!

Chromatic Shadows Part 2!

Relative color on skin tones!

Complementary shadows!

Induced colors! (or how our eyes can make highlights appear as different colors)

And I cant stress enough how great Gurney’s Color and Light book is for this stuff. I just can’t explain much ‘cuz I’m bad at actually studying this stuff well enough to talk about it!

Anyway, that about does it for my waaay longer than I thought and hella reply to a single sentence question! Hope that helped you, or SOMEONE at least! It was fun to ramble on about regardless~ (oh geeze yeah maybe rambling after midnight was a bad plan? Hopefuly this actually makes sense lol. If anyone needs any clarification just let me know!)

Cheers! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧