#me and my digital charcoal pencil vs the world

[extravagantwolf]

A snow-covered grief. Story beneath the cut. TW for animal death, grief, and murder.

The soft exhale creates a puff of white. It fades gently into the white abyss as if it never was there to begin with. Closing her eyes does not part the image of white from her eyes. A lingering constant, ebbing at her, and refusing to leave even when her voice cracks to plead, “Please go.”

So many cats seem to come and go, flickering in and out brutally and cruelly. No matter how many times she screams, begs, or yowls, there’s never a budge in the sky nor a miracle. Her worn and callused paws can only carry her across barren ground, picking up burrs as walks, to the graves she built to take their place.

Crude is the only word she can think of whenever her eyes lay on the snow-covered mound of rocks with the roots of a mangy tree sprawling across its surface. A family grave should be more dignified, but she found herself wallowing in despair. The only sign that this can be considered a “proper” grave is the broken pillar sitting in front of it. Each day, she tells herself to wake up with conviction. Pride, maybe, too. It’s all she can do for them now.

Belief is not something she can give anymore. Uttering prayers never helped ease the agony of loss. Perhaps they are frolicking in the sky above and watching her with their myriad of emotions. It isn’t that she hopes they aren’t in a beautiful world of full bellies and warm pelts. She wants to believe death is as wondrous as the nursery tales told; where stars fleck their pelts and they are honored warriors serving the Moon.

“But why? Why let everything be taken from us?” she asks, to which she receives no answer. She never expects one. StarClan does not follow her pawsteps, and she has come to accept such realities. Aspenstar often rambled that her warrior name was a gift from the stars. Hence why suddenly she took an interest in her doings. When the mural of the left behind was discovered, it only furthered Aspenstar’s silly rhetoric.

Another breath touches the frigid air and becomes another lost sight. Sitting down, her paws whine about the sting of the cold. How ironic it complains when they can’t anymore. Her head tilts to the side, lingering on another grave made only a year ago on a starless night. But tonight, the stars gleam and watch the living from their haven. If she could ask them to come down and answer one thing, it would be a simple question on the surface.

“Did I do enough?” she murmurs as she outstretches a paw and brushes away the snow from where a nameplate should sit. Every time she attempts, she throws it off of the cliff and storms back to camp. No cat asks her what happened now. They all know of her self-made graveyard below. Some attempt to comfort her, but it feels hollow. She knows – well, for most cats here – they do mean what they say. Yet the ostracizing will always linger.

Perhaps that is why she got along with Chikoritabreak. Cats often whispered about his past too, and they were not secretive about their distaste. Jokes about kittypets, twolegs, and all that comes with them was nothing but normalcy too. Even though he was Aspenstar’s apprentice, that did not silence the meowing. Specklefire, while careful, still spread such rhetoric on occasion. She thinks she did too unknowingly. Those words were bred into her.

It’s far too easy to turn someone into an outcast. Easier yet is when no cat realizes they are. Now… It’s too late to ask any cat about the whys. Bleakchest might be shunned, but she cannot bring herself to turn her back to her. Revenge wasn’t the answer, she knows that, but what if she was there that night? What if she was staring down Chikoritabreak, her dear friend, and heard him confess to the crime of killing Specklefire? To the crime of killing…

“Stars, I wonder if you enjoy my misery,” she bitterly chuckles. Her shoulders crash in, leaving her head to fall and linger on the pathetic and wilted plant trying to grow. Doesn’t it know that few ground-dwelling plants can survive on cold and wretched nights? Is it a fool too? “You want something you can’t have, you miserable thing.”

Unsheathing her claws, her paw wraps around the pitiful sprout. It would be so easy to pluck it from the ground and toss the weed away. Whisk its legacy into nothing more than a forgotten memory. Yet her heart knows better, and it sheathes her claws for her. “You’ll be forgotten if I keep waiting and dawdling and failing and…” The rambling trails away as her eyes steady onto the brilliant moon hanging above. White clouds her vision, but even then she can see Silverpelt gleams brilliantly without cease.

No cat can lose their way whenever Silverpelt stands above them, or so Specklefire said. Perhaps a few nights of work will forge passion. Seoli said not to stay up too late, to get some sleep for once in her life, but apparently she’ll be able to sleep endlessly when death comes for her. For now, if only to appease her heart, she’ll ponder a mural again. Think from the angles of these cats only she knew and saw. Imagine a beauty that can carry their legacy far into the future.

“And maybe…” She chuckles with a lop-sided smile. “Maybe it’ll be something so wonderful you’ll descend from the stars.”

[queenangst]

Hey! Any advice for someone that wants to get into art as a hobby of sort? I like to draw sometimes, and I’d like to get better at it. I know a lot of the time advice boils down to simply practicing with the skill and gradually getting better, so if that’s what you’d recommend I’d understand completely. Anything else you could add to that concept would be welcomed, though! Hope you’re having a nice day.

hi nonnie! ur right—the best thing to do is practice, but it’s also important to know how and what to practice too.

tips for improving your art skills

study! study people, objects, and the environment around you. start noticing the way things are shaped, or how things look different from different angles. draw from life if you can, and draw from reference so you have a strong foundation.

learn the basics of art theory. there are lots of books and videos out there for you to learn from—take a gander at the elements of art and principles of design, and color theory! no need to be extremely studious, but even knowing these basic things can help you create works that are more complex and interesting. 

draw things you like. i like girls and flowers and swords. i draw lots of girls and flowers and swords. draw things even if they’re weird. in the end the work is for you, so what’s the point if you don’t enjoy it?

try different mediums. i can’t stress this enough. you don’t have to spend a lot of money to get your hands on some art supplies - there’s plenty of cheap student-grade brands for your needs. better yet, borrow a set from friends or family or school. charcoal, colored pencils, crayons, markers, acrylic, watercolor, digital art, you name it! this sets you free to do so much, and different mediums offer different things. together you learn techniques and have multiple perspectives of the process of an artwork.* 

set goals! i draw a lot of characters, so every now and then i’ll sit down and find one thing i need to get better at. for example, feet. i’ll watch some videos, look up references, draw feet, and then make my own poses and ideas to understand. 

don’t be discouraged. as creators, it is so, so, so easy to be discouraged. you don’t feel like you’re improving fast enough. the art cycle (aka, your perception vs your skill not lining up). you’re not making enough art. try not to think about those things in a negative way, because there is always growing to do. it’s really really hard to just… make things. make bad art. and then, like neil gaiman says, make good art. 

take on challenges. there are plenty of art challenges out there. inktober is a popular challenge every year. you can make prompt lists. you can join a weekly challenge. draw this in your style, popular on instagram. challenges push you out of your comfort zone and sometimes makes you draw in a way you hadn’t tried before. 

use your resources. the internet has made so much art and art resources accessible. to make good art you must consume good art. follow your favorite artists (and support them). tutorials. art book pdfs. videos. courses. in ten or fifteen minutes you can enrich your knowledge. 

art friends and supporters! art friends and supporters are the best. finding someone to draw with or finding someone who will happily look at your art will make you happy, motivated, and it’s just fun. i’ll be your friend!

i hope this is what you were looking for! there’s loads of things you can do to improve, but in the end… just make art. the world’s a better place with it. 

*i’m not encouraging you to go out and buy a ton of art supplies, bc sometimes you end up not liking them and then they sit in your drawers. but maybe a couple things you’re interested in!

come back and talk to me if you have any other questions. or if you wanna know artists. or if you want to hear me gush about, say, james turrell or gustav klimt or something. 

and share your art with me!

[md3artjournal]

Here i was feeling bad, and realizing that i was doing the thing with social media that everyone warns will give you depression: envy, feeling like crap by contrast, seeing how wonderful everyone else seems and making your own life seem more lacking. I just didn’t recognize i was doing it before, because the experts give this warning about following people who travel, have picture perfect families, and extravagant lifestyles. I’m not interested in any of that. I’m so disinterested in people-centric accounts that i didn’t understand others’ complaints about the deluge of selfies on Instagram, because i don’t follow any Instagrams that even take selfies.  I follow mostly other artists. Artists who are so much better than me that a split second after enjoying how wonderfully full of awe their work is, i feel terrible about how I’ll never be that good. I don’t understand lighting, fabric draping, how hair flows, anatomy, 3D volume, perspective…and i never will because studying all those things is so excruciating for me that it just makes me hate art, learn nothing, and become horrible towards anyone nearby me in real life. ;_; Then i have to accept the fact that I only feel good about making illustration when i draw in my horribly lazy style. Therefore, it will never look good. ;__; Its like how a while ago i determined that maybe my illustrations would look better with thin lines and softer, color ink linework. But what happens? I just cant get myself to draw without a copic gasenfude.  Brush pens are the only thing that feel good to draw in, for me (these days). And I’ve watched too many of my old pencil drawings fade with time, to feel un-anxious with anything besides the permanence of ink anymore (even though charcoal used to feel soooo good). I keep researching color inks and brushes or aqua brushes that i could use… or I tell myself to practice more with digital drawing on a graphics tablet… But I can’t help but recognize that im backed into a corner. I could get all the art supplies and mediums in the world, but my art will still be horrible because I don’t understand the fundamentals and I don’t want to do all that excruciating study. Because even when I did, it just went in 1 ear and out the other. There are digital illustrators I follow who have bemoaned times away from their tablets, unable to draw, but eventually give in and draw with paper, and it becomes clear that their drawings aren’t good because of their mediums. So what will it matter if I change mine?  Especially when I can’t get myself to study AND retain the fundamentals? I’m just a lazy idiot who can only copy what I see and can’t draw without models and reference for everything. And even then, my interpretations are still lifeless or non aesthetically pleasing. ;_; I used to be happy with my drawing on the basic level that i was concretely expressing the stories and characters from in my head. But now, even when I work really hard on an illustration, doing more focus and linework inking that is easy, it’s still only good vs past me, but junk compared to everyone else. Now i know that comparisons vs my old skill levels should be good enough and is in fact a great measure of progress. I ate those philosophies up from martial arts anime. But I make my living in artist alley now, where competition counts. I tell myself that I don’t need to compare myself to illustrators because i’m a “sculptor”, a “jeweler”, but am I? The other day I was watching a vid of a working ceramics studio, and I remembered how little I know to do there. And can I call myself a jeweler when I haven’t touched a blowtorch. Or set a bezel in years? I’m just a crafter. Maybe i should relegate it to a hobby. But besides the thought of that making me miserable, there is 1 person I care about who desperately wants me to hang onto an art profession. I don’t want to disappoint them. Plus i remember how suicidal I was when my job wasn’t about art (or crafting). But I spend so many of my days unable to get myself to produce art/crafts and unable to deal with the stress of my own business. Maybe I’m not cut out for the art life. Which sounds dangerously close to my epiphany that im just not cut out for life. Jeez, no wonder I was suicidal in my non-art job.

But then I looked at the illustration tag on Instagram and realized that outside of the anime fanart community, standards are MUCH lower. I could fit in there. My drawings are still crap and i have no grasp on the fundamentals. But at least on this level, the fact that i’m better than past me, is enough. Wait. I was wrong. I forgot about the Realism illustrators. My drawings are still crap and doodles by anime fanartists are still incomprehensibly more amazing.

[script-a-world]

Hi guys, I’m glad I came upon your blog. If you could give me some help in the right direction I’d really appreciate it. My idea is to have a planet [not our earth nor solar system, I need to create new ones to fit my story] devastated after a genocidal war and the end result is the bad guys completely defeated and the ones left over fled the planet. Now, the planet is pretty much ruined and sort of back in the Bronze Age with random bits and pieces left over of more modern stuff but anyone who can create more is basically gone so everything will have to be rediscovered and reinvented. But most importantly, the people that are left are from all over the world, hundreds of little tribes with as little as 1 to 2000 survivors with a total of a million population. They did get off world help to finally defeat the bad guys so there’s a further extra quarter million aliens staying behind to help rebuild the world. You’d think with aliens, they’d have technology? Nope. Everything is magic for them. So here’s a dilemma, use magic to rebuild the world or stay in the Bronze Age and rebuild with their own technology, that would take another thousands of years. People are divided or mixed. So we got a world that looks like a magical realm one town and the Bronze Age the next town over, and everything in between. End result is like I’m writing a fantasy story set in the Bronze Age but people have modern ideas and knowledge with no way to actually use them. They know what democracy is, the minority know they deserve rights and freedom. They can drive a car, they can use a computer, but those things are basically all destroyed and no one knows how to make them. So, any ideas on where I should do my research or problems the people will face, or perhaps similar stories I could draw inspiration/ideas from? Thank you!

Synth:  For any computers they had, look into the worst-case projections from back in the 1990s when Y2K was becoming a looming concern, and for electric stuff in general check out what mega huge solar flares have the potential to do right now.

Saphira:  The best thing about this scenario is that though the people are decimated and scattered, they have not lost their memories. This means anyone who had any training whatsoever still has it. Even better, literacy is still strong. They can still teach these things to their children and that is their greatest asset. What you have is not so much a race to resources, but a race to a Communal Knowledge, a Library of Letters.

What tradesman still live? How much do they understand the craft? How can one tradesman get help from another? How do we preserve what knowledge we still have before it fades? Sure we know what a pencil looks like, how it works. I can figure out a wood barrel, but I have no idea where to get graphite, or how to make rubber for an eraser. Maybe someone in the next tribe over might know. We can substitute graphite for charcoal for now, and send out a letter to every town nearby...

Most will not be tradesmen, I'm guessing. They can still read. They can still run. They might go about the destroyed world and look for scraps. Maybe a snapped motherboard. Maybe an entire gundam: who knows? Whatever they bring back, if it can jog the memory or provide insight, it has value. Look at how much we humans learn about our history and technology just by looking at old common tools and of all things the jars and plates.

Now not everyone will be so dedicated. Some will see the Arcane way of doing things that the Aliens provide, and think Well, why not? What if we simply cannot figure out some piece of advanced tech? Really hard to rebuild computers when you don't have a way to make silicon. Well, until we figure that out... Why not... Cheat? We'll uh, make it genuine later but for now we just need it to work...

I suggest try recreating something you have with household items. How would you recreate a doorknob? Yes, seemingly simple. Deceptively so. Take down what problems you face. Consider asking Google the same as asking the Arcane Aliens for help. What problems, what thoughts, what sort of experience is it?

Good luck.

Feral:  The first thing that comes to mind is what's left?

People remember how to drive cars? Are there still cars hanging around? People who not only know how to drive but how to maintain and/or hotwire the left over vehicles may very well do so.

The same goes for any and all technology that people can get their hands on. For all of human history, we have re-purposed the cultural artifacts left by previous societies; why wouldn't your people?

In terms of why people might choose to go with the aliens or try it on their own  is going to depend heavily on their access to clean water and food sources. A clean water source is paramount. And after a planet wide war, there might not be many water sources left that do not require filtration. Do the people have access to filtration technology? Or are their options alien magitech, war with a tribe that has filtration, or die from dehydration?

Constablewrites:  From the related works to study angle, the Schizo Tech trope is probably a good place to start, since the order in which they revive given technologies is probably not going to be the same order in which they were originally developed.

Like a lot of After the End stories, a lot is going to depend on how long they've had to recover from all of this. Consider that if it's been more than a generation or two, a lot of the knowledge of how to use this stuff will die out just because there's not much point in passing it down anymore. Are parents going to teach their kids to drive once they can no longer make the cars function? There will still likely be records of this stuff and people who choose to study it, but the widespread practical knowledge and experience will die out as soon as the technology is no longer viable. Just look at how many people these days don't know how to sew their own clothes, which was considered an absolutely critical life skill less than 100 years ago.

Synth:  The pro-alien-tech people clashing with the pro-DIY people seem like another potential source of conflict to help drive your story. Do the pro-tech people think the anti-tech people are stubborn and stupid for not wanting such easily accessed assistance? Do the anti folks think the pros are lazy for just accepting these handouts instead of working hard to do things themselves? Are there conspiracy theorists asking "But what are their real motives and goals?" about these aliens? Have people split themselves off into different groups/factions/entire separate settlements based on whether they embrace or shun the alien magitech? Which side do your main characters fall on, and what happens when they meet someone from or have to travel through an area populated by people from the opposing side? Hell, do all the members of your main gang of characters even share the same views regarding magic vs. going it (very) old school? What kinds of experiences might someone have that could change their mind about the alien magic? (e.g. someone against magic comes down with some horrible disease for which medications no longer exist, but can be cured pretty easily with magic. Does magic suddenly seem acceptable now that it's their life at stake, or will they go down with their principles? What about someone gung-ho about magic? What might make them decide "Actually how about No," and turn away from it?)

Tex:  I wonder if those survivors communicated with each other - the survivors of zombie-style apocalypse/ELE (Extinction Level Event) in movies such as I Am Legend and Zombieland utilized ham radios and sent out distress signals and messages containing news about holdout locations where other survivors could travel to and be safe. Radios don't require a ton of materials or knowledge to build from scratch (Boy Scouts of America has kits for building a crystal radio), and they're relatively easy to learn how to use. If there's manuals around to build something, and someone deems it important, it's probably going to get built.

That being said, the first generation of survivors is integral for the rebuilding of society. If there was enough tech left over for survivors to leave the planet, did they do so without contacting those left behind? Was any technology repaired or retrofitted for other purposes? Does this planet have any sort of internet, or even libraries? What about fleeing survivors that pledged to come back after X amount of time or Y reason? Settling on a new planet is awfully similar to restructuring society after a devastating event, so the skill sets between the two activities have a lot of overlap.

Being able to flee the planet and presumably settle somewhere else implies that the people are capable of interplanetary travel, if not interstellar. If there's FTL drives, could these be used to power city grids, so as to take advantage of electricity, LANs, and digital information repositories? What about power supplies or engines in transportation vehicles? These can be retrofitted for use as generators, and if you're crafty enough, to boost the range of telecommunications equipment.

You only need less than a thousand people to start up a society, so having a million people, even disparate, means that the aggregate knowledge is much higher than would even be needed for colonizing a new planet from scratch. The fact that these aliens use magic isn't necessarily an issue - can they be convinced to move heavy objects, can their skills in magic be used to repair power lines or other things? What about using them to help find ore and mineral deposits to make the raw material for tech again? Are these aliens capable of scrying or telepathy, and would they be willing to create a pseudo-telecommunications net (think magic phone network where the aliens are the phone booths) across the planet to allow the different tribes to talk with each other and come up with some sort of plan? A division of labour to complete a task according to skill set can be complementary instead of contradictory, and would allow the planet to recuperate to its antebellum technological peak much faster, even if some people decide to go without it.

[hwadonis]

ultimate tag

thank you for tagging me, @seongsangi​ (sorry if it’s suuuuper late asdfdfsf)

anywaaaaay, i’m tagging anyone who wants to do this!

:: personal ::

name: pauline

nickname: pau

birthday: 12th august

zodiac: leo

nationality: Filipino

languages: english, filipino, basic spanish

gender: female

height: 154cm (SHHHH i’m short,, i know ajdhdjkfh)

:: blog ::

inspiration: my parents and my faves

meaning behind my url: ateez is my ult and i’m an atiny but the urls i wanted were unavailable sooo yeah, i settled with ( 80 + ny ) bc it’s short

blog established: i’ve been here for so long that i can’t even remember,,, but i think it was around the year 2011???

followers: 1.5k

:: favorite stuff ::

fave animal: i have a thing for tigers and pandas

fave books: looking for alaska by john green, violets are blue by james patterson, and the lorien legacies series by pittacus lore

fave color: purple and black

fave fictional characters: tokyo and nairobi from money heist, kaneki ken from tokyo ghoul, erza scarlet from fairy tail, misaki and usui from maid-sama, suho from true beauty, eli jang from lookism, sam goode from i am number four, ramona flowers from scott pilgrim vs. the world, and a loooot more but i had to keep the list short sdfdfsfg

fave flower: peonies and carnations!

fave season: spring

:: random :: 

average hours of sleep: before quarantine, 3-4hrs, but recently around 8-10hrs

cats or dogs: dogs (i have nothing against cats, i just really love dogs so much)

coffee, tea, or hot chocolate: tea! (esp. green tea or chamomile tea)

current time: 8:56 pm

dream trip: to travel around the world, but europe is top priority

dream job: basically a job that pays well haha, but if i had to choose, an artist,, you know, the one wearing berets, paint splattered clothes with paint brushes and palettes in their hands BUT i also wouldn’t mind being a music producer.

hobbies: drawing (pen, pencil and charcoal), painting (my main medium is watercolor), doing digital arts (Photoshop, Illustrator),  listening to music, watching series on netflix and watching kpop crack videos on youtube

hogwarts house: i’m a slytherin

last song listened to: meaningless - woodz (pls give him a listen, he can sing rap and dance plus his songs are reaaaaally good and he’s just an amazing person overall)

no. of blankets you sleep with: one

random fact(s):

i’m an architecture major and i just “supposedly” graduated this june but it got postponed to january of next year bc of the corona virus,, but yAAAAY i’m finally done with uni

i have a shih tzu and she’s literally the love of my life,,, along side seonghwa and jungkook sHHH

i was born in 1998

my mbti is intp-t