#native american painting tutorial

[monriatitans]

Monria Titans

Let's Read Some $#!7 by Howard Zinn, The Brothers Grimm, & 3dtotalPublishing

Welcome to another installment of Let’s Read Some $#!7 (LRSS)! In sum, the purpose of these videos is to introduce educational resources regarding the creation of video games, to promote literacy, to provide world-building tools for creatives, to provide books for escapism, and/or to get banned books into people’s view and whatever I feel like reading aloud at the time.

They go as follows: 1. Read the summary on the back of the book (if applicable). 2. Read the “Forward”, “Preface”, and “Acknowledgments” (if applicable). 3. If there is no “Introduction”, read [part of] the first chapter.

If this is something you’re interested in, don’t forget to hit the “Subscribe” and/or “Follow” button!

Even though the purpose is education/book introduction, I only read PORTIONS because of DMCA and Copyright.

Today, I read PORTIONS of 3 books from my TBR Stack:

A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn With a new introduction by Anthony Arnove, this edition of the classic national bestseller chronicles American history from the bottom up, throwing out the official narrative taught in schools—with its emphasis on great men in high places—to focus on the street, the home, and the workplace. Known for its lively, clear prose as well as its scholarly research, A People’s History of the United States is the only volume to tell America’s story from the point of—and in the words of—America’s women, factory workers, African-Americans, Native Americans, the working poor, and immigrant laborers. As historian Howard Zinn shows, many of our country’s greatest battles—fights for fair wages, eight-hour workdays, child-labor laws, health and safety standards, universal suffrage, women’s rights, racial equality—were carried out at the grassroots level, against bloody resistance. Covering Christopher Columbus’s arrival through President Clinton’s first term, A People’s History of the United States, which was nominated for the American Book Award of 1981, features insightful analysis of the most important events in our history.

The Complete Grimm’s Fairy Tales by The Brothers Grimm THE BROTHERS GRIMM, JACOB (1785-1863) AND WILHELM (1786-1859), were German academics, linguists, and cultural researchers, though they were legendary, of course, for their storytelling. They collected and recorded stories from the wide wealth of European folk tales, and their aim was to retell the tales exactly as they heard them. The work of the Brothers Grimm popularized such classics as Cinderella, The Frog Prince, Hansel and Gretel, Rapunzel, Rumpelstiltskin, and Snow White. Originally titled Children’s and Household Tales, The Complete Grimm’s Fairy Tales contains the essential bedtime stories for children worldwide for the better part of two centuries. Accompanied by 40 color plates and 60 black and white illustrations from award-winning English illustrator Arthur Rackham, The Complete Grimm’s Fairy Tales is the perfect classic edition for your family’s bookshelf.

Artists’ Master Series: Color and Light by 3dtotalPublishing The Artists’ Master Series features experts from both the traditional and digital worlds. Drawing from a wealth of experience, in this book they fully dissect the theory and practice of using color and light to advance your art. Expert Charlie Pickard goes beyond the basics to explore color theory. Advanced topics include color hierarchy, value keying, color constancy, and exposure. Discover how hue, value, and chroma enable you to create, mix, and control color. Next, he moves on to the vast subject of light. Using highly illustrated examples, complex concepts of shading, form, depth, and texture are decoded. Three essential material types – matte, specular, and transparent – are analyzed, instilling confidence to paint any object you encounter. Respected artists Djamila Knopf, Guweiz, and Nathan Fowkes then guide you through extensive tutorials, specially commissioned to explore their use of color and light. Each artist breaks down their process, discussing the decisions made at every stage to achieve striking colors, believable lighting, immersive atmospheres, and realistic surfaces. All three artists work in contrasting ways, resulting in a wide range of approaches to putting theory into practice. Further insight is provided by the gallery artists, also experts in their fields, representing a range of styles, skills, and mediums. This unique opportunity to study color and light so extensively offers a deeper mastery of the subject, and a single, comprehensive reference at your fingertips. WARNING: CONTAINS NUDITY

All book links above are affiliate links.

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The Monday, April 29th, and 574th, Artist Shout-Out goes to Yerim Lee! Check it out here!

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TIMESTAMPS 0:00 – Welcome Gamers and Readers! 1:38 – Artist Shout-Out 4:48 – Read Aloud Prelude 5:58 – A People’s History of the United States 47:28 – The Complete Grimm’s Fairy Tales 1:23:02 – Artists’ Master Series: Color and Light 1:39:05 – Artist Shout-Out 1:39:55 – Closing 1:40:56 – MonriaTitans’ Bookshop 1:42:36 – Farewell

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TO SUPPORT – Buy Me a Coffee: 15% of the proceeds go to Kids Need to Read! – “Let’s Read Some $#!7” About Page – MonriaTitans’ Summary & Links – MonriaTitans’ Bookshop – YouTube Channel – Throne Wishlist

[theguidinglightartcompany]

ATTRACT ABUNDANCE - WORK IN PROGRESS AT THE GLAC STUDIO we are #attracting #abundance I just finished the 5th and final layer on Vijaya lakshmi painting. So, she's ready for the pooja next Friday! Here's a short summary on what is evolving: (1) This is going to be series of 8 small paintings (40 x 50 cm oil on canvas) depicting the 8 Lakshmis or the #AshtaLakshmi (2) The twist here is that these 8 Lakshmis are going to be small little girls coming from 8 different countries 😄 (3) So, the coming months are going to be filled with product launches and celebrations. I have tried to create an unique series using the images of 8 small girls coming from 8 different countries to celebrate diversity and empower girl children while we celebrate all forms of the Goddess * Adi lakshmi (the first form) comes from Germany * Dhanya lakshmi (Goddess of crops) comes from Denmark * Dhairya lakshmi (Goddess of courage and bravery) comes from Africa * Gaja lakshmi (Goddess of positivity) comes from China * Santhana lakshmi (Goddess of children or progeny) comes from Australia and the child is from multi culture * Vijaya lakshmi (Goddess of success) comes from America * Vidya lakshmi (Goddess of knowledge) comes from the Middle East * Dhana lakshmi (Goddess of wealth) comes from India. #originaloilpaintings , #artprints, #NFTs, and #tutorials.🤗 Furthermore, we have also planned some interesting #infotainment for all age groups 😃 Here's today’s update video (1 min) showing the update on Vijaya lakshmi in a American little girl form adorning native American traditional jewellery. Keep watching this space to know more about #attract #abundance #positivity #goodhealth #happiness #wealth #goodness #boldness #strength #mythologicalart #positiveart #diversity #girlchild #empowerment #creativebusiness #creativejourney #smallbusiness #inspiringartwork #dansk #denmark #america #nativeamericanjewelry (her: Sønderborg, Denmark) https://www.instagram.com/p/CmmX0xtMAz4/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[amanda-keay]

Next Level Painting Skills To Improve Portrait Painting Techniques in Oil

This year I’ve taken a step back to explore some of the techniques that I learned when I first started taking lessons. I noticed that I started to pick up some bad habits in the last few years when I was rushing a lot of the paintings and getting ready for exhibitions etc. So this year I got in touch with my art teacher and I’m trying to focus on quality rather than quantity. One major change in how I’m painting now is that I’m using a physica  reference photo so I can color match and prove my colors. I find this a lot better to improve my color mixing abilities compared to looking at a monitor for reference. A screen monitor always makes a photo look more vibrant than it really is and it’s hard to understand the true colors of the picture, and you can’t put paint on your screen to color watch. So here I’m actually holding the photo in my hand (I’m displaying the model in the video so you can follow along with what I’m painting).

Shapes and planes

I love the photo that I’m working with because I can see so many different shapes and planes on the model’s face. And that gives me more to work with. I have to keep in mind that no matter what part of the face I’m painting, everything is three dimensional. Nothing is flat like a piece of paper, and this is a real person. It’s more intuitive if you imagine that you are painting a ball, the shape is obviously a circle, but the planes curve in all directions. Each latitude and longitude is different in color which makes it look three dimensional.

 Similarly to portraits, every part of the face, essentially anything that has a round surface gets cooler as it recedes away from the camera, and that it’s not just cut off like a piece of paper, this is really important in painting anything that has a curved shape. In this painting, the colors become more cool as it’s further away from the light source. So the plane change on the forehead is not only going from left to right, but it’s also curving up and back. This means that whatever color you use for the forehead, it doesn’t just meet the hairline all of a sudden, there’s actually another color there, a cooler tone that makes it look like it’s receding back before it reaches the hair. 

Color Strings

Knowing how the planes change on your subject will help you understand the colors that you should be looking for. Sometimes we have to know the subject first before we mix the color. I won’t be showing the color mixing palette in this video because I want the focus to be on brush handling, and this particular technique that I’m demonstrating is applying color strings. Imagine a curved surface with light shining on it from one side. The color on the surface changes as the planse changes, and each plane is a different color string. Going back to painting a ball; imagine a globe, we all know that it has latitudes and longitudes. If you were to paint the globe, each row of latitude is a color string, and so is every vertical line of longitude. Each one of those is a color string, and I am mixing and applying each string individually. 

Choosing the right reference photo and model

So it’s kinda like sculpting with oil paint. Instead of doing what I usually do, which is applying paint on the whole area and then mixing additional paint on it while it’s wet, here I’m treating each plane change as a different color. Now this works particularly well under the circumstance that the lighting and angle of the model creates very dynamic colors. You don’t want to choose a photo that’s over exposed, like with a flash cam, which flattens out a lot of colors and you lose the beautiful natural facial structures and features. You want the model’s pose to be anything put straight up front facing, like a passport photo. It can even just be a slightly tiled face. This will create a dominant side of the model's face and the photo to have one dominant light source. You also want to be able to see everything in the photo without it being over exposed, or too dark that you can’t see what's going on in the shadows. That way you will be able to see the model's face like a 3D structure with different colors on each plane.

Edges

The way that each area of the face fuses with each one another creates edges. These are the boundaries between two areas. This can be the area where a shadow meets light or when an object meets a different object. I want to focus on areas where dark meets light because this is easily missed, usually there’s a warm color string in between the dark and the light. Shadows never just go from dark to light, there’s always a warm and more neutral color there. It’s very small, and ignored by a lot of people because you can usually get away with leaving it out. But if you try to paint it in, your subject will look that much more three dimensional. That’s the difference between a face that just looks like a face and a face that is really coming alive. You can see this example where I painted the hair that’s casting a shadow on the side of the cheek. there’s a warm shadow before the flesh tone begins. Same thing with the crease on the cheek beside the mouth, there’s a warm tone beside the crease before it transitions into a highlight color on the face. And this happens in creases and wrinkles in all sizes. Now I know this can be a challenging addition to what you’re used to painting, but what you can do is start looking for those colors. Train your eyes to start seeing them first then it’ll be more intuitive to paint.

Order of operation:

Another technique that I’m demonstrating here is how I’m painting outside in. Meaning I’m painting around the face and working my way into the focal point of the painting. Sometimes I do like to start on other areas like the eyes or whatever pops out at me the most. But for this particular technique, one of the reasons for painting around the focal point is because of the emphasis on edges. The area around the edge that you’re painting needs to be wet in order to blend and fuse together. You should never lay wet paint on a dried surface of a different color. So for the first part of the painting, I am working on the hair, the hairline, and the edge of the cheek together. Another reason why I’m working outside, going from big to small is because typically the closer to the center of the painting, the more fine details there are. Because that’s where the focal point usually is. And therefore you waste less time if you have to change or redo something along the way that has less detail, than to render a lot of fine details for a long time and then having to change it after.

Brush Handing:

You’ll notice I’m applying paint with a very small brush, essentially painting each plane, and then softening the edges with a dry nylon brush. You’ll notice I Labeled Dry Brushing in all the areas where I’m doing this blending technique. The most important thing about this is always keeping the nylon brush dry. After every softening touch, wipe the brush on a paper towel to make sure there’s no paint on it, and then keep blending and softening the painting. When it’s over softened, you come back to apply more paint, to make certain parts stand out more. Dry brushing is not only to blend but you can also move the paint around to change the shapes on your painting. This technique is amazing, and it’s basically my get out of jail free card that I picked up on since I started painting. Because sometimes the brush that I’m painting with is hard to get it right from get go. And having a dry brush will allow me to move the paint around, or blend without adding more paint or making it more messy. This dry brush will allow you to carve your subjects with more precision especially when you’re painting small and detailed areas of the face like the eyes and the mouth.  

In summary these are the main techniques that I’m demonstrating throughout this painting. Always analyze the subject you are painting whether it’s a face, fruit, landscape, or florals. Think about how the subject bends and how all the planes are changing, and work in sections so you can really understand the structure of that area. Whenever a dark and light color converge, look closely and apply the warm mid tone that’s in between the light and shadow. Working outside in, apply each color string separately and then soften the whole area with a dry nylon brush. And last but not least, keep practicing. Because that’s how you will continuously evolve and rediscover yourself as an artist.

[kaceyandtoby]

Newest piece! This one took a while, which is why I haven't posted since like.. January? Oh Lord I'm so bad at blogs. Anyway, this is a bit of a newish style, so of course I used my sweet child Toby to experiment. Enjoy!

[reanimatedcourier]

How to Write Indigenous Characters Without Looking like a Jackass:

Update as of December 26th, 2020: I have added a couple new sections about naming and legal terms, as well as a bit of reading on the Cherokee Princess phenomenon.

Boozhoo (hello) Fallout fandom! I'm a card-carrying Anishinaabe delivering this rough guide about writing Indigenous characters because wow, do I see a lot of shit.

Let's get something out of the way first: Fallout's portrayal of Indigenous people is racist. From a vague definition of "tribal" to the claims of them being "savage" and "uncivilized" mirror real-world stereotypes used to dehumanize us. Fallout New Vegas' narrated intro has Ron Perlman saying Mr. House "rehabilitated" tribals to create New Vegas' Three Families. You know. Rehabilitate. As if we are animals. Top it off with an erasure of Indigenous people in the American Southwest and no real tribe names, and you've got some pretty shitty representation. The absence of Native American as a race option in the GECK isn't too great, given that two Native characters are marked "Caucasian" despite being brown. Butch Deloria is a pretty well-known example of this effect. (Addendum: Indigenous people can have any mix of dominant and recessive traits, as well as present different phenotypes. What bothers me is it doesn't accommodate us or mixed people, which is another post entirely.)

As a precautionary warning: this post and the sources linked will discuss racism and genocide. There will also be discussion of multiple kinds of abuse.

Now, your best approach will be to pick a nation or tribe and research them. However, what follows will be general references.

Terms that may come up in your research include Aboriginal/Native Canadian, American Indian/Native American, Inuit, Métis, and Mestizo. The latter two refer to cultural groups created after the discovery of the so-called New World. (Addendum made September 5th, 2020: Mestizo has negative connotations and originally meant "half breed" so stick with referring to your mixed Latine and Indigenous characters as mixed Indigenous or simply by the name of their people [Maya, Nahua].)

As a note, not every mixed person is Métis or Mestizo. If you are, say, Serbian and Anishinaabe, you would be mixed, but not Métis (the big M is important here, as it refers to a specific culture). Even the most liberal definition caps off at French and British ancestry alongside Indigenous (some say Scottish and English). Mestizo works the same, since it refers to descendants of Spanish conquistadors/settlers and Indigenous people.

Trouble figuring out whose land is where? No problem, check out this map.

Drawing

Don't draw us with red skin. It's offensive and stereotypical.

Tutorial for Native Skintones

Tutorial for Mixed Native Skintones

Why Many Natives Have Long Hair (this would technically fit better under another category, but give your Native men long hair!)

If You're Including Traditional Wear, Research! It's Out There

Languages

Remember, there are a variety of languages spoken by Indigenous people today. No two tribes will speak the same language, though there are some that are close and may have loan words from each other (Cree and Anishinaabemowin come to mind). Make sure your Diné (you may know them as Navajo) character doesn't start dropping Cree words.

Here's a Site With a Map and Voice Clips

Here's an Extensive List of Amerindian Languages

Keep in mind there are some sounds that have no direct English equivalents. But while we're at it, remember a lot of us speak English, French, Spanish, or Portuguese. The languages of the countries that colonized us.

Words in Amerindian languages tend to be longer than English ones and are in the format of prefix + verb + suffix to get concepts across. Gaawiin miskwaasinoon is a complete sentence in Anishinaabemowin, for example (it is not red).

Names

Surprisingly, we don't have names like Passing Dawn or Two-Bears-High-Fiving in real life. A lot of us have, for lack of better phrasing, white people names. We may have family traditions of passing a name down from generation to generation (I am the fourth person in my maternal line to have my middle name), but not everyone is going to do that. If you do opt for a name from a specific tribe, make sure you haven't chosen a last name from another tribe.

Baby name sites aren't reliable, because most of the names on there will be made up by people who aren't Indigenous. That site does list some notable exceptions and debunks misconceptions.

Here's a list of last names from the American census.

Indian Names

You may also hear "spirit names" because that's what they are for. You know the sort of mystical nature-related name getting slapped on an Indigenous character? Let's dive into that for a moment.

The concept of a spirit name seems to have gotten mistranslated at some point in time. It is the name Creator calls you throughout all your time both here and in the spirit world. These names are given (note the word usage) to you in a ceremony performed by an elder. This is not done lightly.

A lot of imitations of this end up sounding strange because they don't follow traditional guidelines. (I realize this has spread out of the original circle, but Fallout fans may recall other characters in Honest Hearts and mods that do this. They have really weird and racist results.)

If you're not Indigenous: don't try this. You will be wrong.

Legal Terms

Now, sometimes the legal term (or terms) for a tribe may not be what they refer to themselves as. A really great example of this would be the Oceti Sakowin and "Sioux". How did that happen, you might be wondering. Smoky Mountain News has an article about this word and others, including the history of these terms.

For the most accurate information, you are best off having your character refer to themselves by the name their nation uses outside of legislation. A band name would be pretty good for this (Oglala Lakota, for example). I personally refer to myself by my band.

Cowboys

And something the Fallout New Vegas fans might be interested in, cowboys! Here's a link to a post with several books about Black and Indigenous cowboys in the Wild West.

Representation: Stereotypes and Critical Thought

Now, you'll need to think critically about why you want to write your Indigenous character a certain way. Here is a comprehensive post about stereotypes versus nuance.

Familiarize yourself with tropes. The Magical Indian is a pretty prominent one, with lots of shaman-type characters in movies and television shows. This post touches on its sister tropes (The Magical Asian and The Magical Negro), but is primarily about the latter.

Say you want to write an Indigenous woman. Awesome! Characters I love to see. Just make sure you're aware of the stereotypes surrounding her and other Women of Color.

Word to the wise: do not make your Indigenous character an alcoholic. "What, so they can't even drink?" You might be asking. That is not what I'm saying. There is a pervasive stereotype about Drunk Indians, painting a reaction to trauma as an inherent genetic failing, as stated in this piece about Indigenous social worker Jessica Elm's research. The same goes for drugs. Ellen Deloria is an example of this stereotype.

Familiarize yourself with and avoid the Noble Savage trope. This was used to dehumanize us and paint us as "childlike" for the sake of a plot device. It unfortunately persists today.

Casinos are one of the few ways for tribes to make money so they can build homes and maintain roads. However, some are planning on diversifying into other business ventures.

There's a stereotype where we all live off government handouts. Buddy, some of these long-term boil water advisories have been in place for over twenty years. The funding allocated to us as a percentage is 0.39%: less than half a percent to fight the coronavirus. They don't give us money.

"But what about people claiming to be descended from a Cherokee princess?" Cherokee don't and never had anything resembling princesses. White southerners made that up prior to the Civil War. As the article mentions, they fancied themselves "defending their lands as the Indians did".

Also, don't make your Indigenous character a cannibal. Cannibalism is a serious taboo in a lot of our cultures, particularly northern ones.

Our lands are not cursed. We don't have a litany of curses to cast on white people in found footage films. Seriously. We have better things to be doing. Why on earth would our ancestors be haunting you when they could be with their families? Very egotistical assumption.

Indigenous Ties and Blood Quantum

Blood quantum is a colonial system that was initially designed to "breed out the Indian" in people. To dilute our bloodlines until we assimilated properly into white society. NPR has an article on it here.

However, this isn't how a vast majority of us define our identities. What makes us Indigenous is our connections (or reconnection) to our families, tribes, bands, clans, and communities.

Blood quantum has also historically been used to exclude Black Natives from tribal enrollment, given that it was first based on appearance. So, if you looked Black and not the image of "Indian" the white census taker had in his brain, you were excluded and so were your descendants.

Here are two tumblrs that talk about Black Indigenous issues and their perspectives. They also talk about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people of Australia.

However, if you aren't Indigenous, don't bring up blood quantum. Don't. This is an issue you should not be speaking about.

Cherokee Princess Myth

"Princess" was not a real position in any tribe. The European idea of monarchy did not suddenly manifest somewhere else. The closest probable approximation may have been the daughter of a chief or other politically prominent person. But princess? No.

Here is an article talking about possible origins of this myth. Several things are of note here: women from other tribes may have bee shoved under this label and the idea of a "Cherokee Princess" had been brought up to explain the sudden appearance of a brown-skinned (read: half Black) family member.

For a somewhat more in depth discussion of why, specifically, this myth gets touted around so often, Timeline has this piece.

Religion

Our religions are closed. We are not going to tell you how we worship. Mostly because every little bit we choose to share gets appropriated. Smudging is the most recent example. If you aren't Indigenous, that's smoke cleansing. Smudging is done in a specific way with ceremonies and prayers.

Now, a lot of us were forcibly converted. Every residential school was run by Christians. So plenty of us are Catholic, Baptist, Anglican, Lutheran, etc. Catholicism in Latin America also has influence from the Indigenous religions in that region.

Having your Indigenous character pray or carry rosaries wouldn't be a bad thing, if that religion was important to them. Even if they are atheist, if they lived outside of a reserve or other Indigenous communities, they might have Christian influences due to its domination of the Western world.

Settler Colonialism and the White Savior Trope

Now we've come to our most painful section yet. Fallout unintentionally has an excellent agent of settler-colonialism, in particular the Western Christian European variety, in Caesar's Legion and Joshua Graham.

(Addendum: Honest Hearts is extremely offensive in its portrayal of Indigenous people, and egregiously shows a white man needing to "civilize" tribals and having to teach them basic skills. These skills include cooking, finding safe water, and defending themselves from other tribes.)

Before we dive in, here is a post explaining the concept of cultural Christianity, if you are unfamiliar with it.

We also need to familiarize ourselves with The White Man's Burden. While the poem was written regarding the American-Philippine war, it still captures the attitudes toward Indigenous folks all over the world at the time.

As this article in Teen Vogue points out, white people like to believe they need to save People of Color. You don't need to. People of Color can save themselves.

Now, cultural Christianity isn't alone on this side of the pond. Writer Teju Cole authored a piece on the White Savior Industrial Complex to describe mission trips undertaken by white missionaries to Africa to feed their egos.

Colonialism has always been about the acquisition of wealth. To share a quote from this paper about the ongoing genocide of Indigenous peoples: "Negatively, [settler colonialism] strives for the dissolution of native societies. Positively, it erects a new colonial society on the expropriated land base—as I put it, settler colonizers come to stay: invasion is a structure not an event. In its positive aspect, elimination is an organizing principal of settler-colonial society rather than a one-off (and superseded) occurrence. The positive outcomes of the logic of elimination can include officially encouraged miscegenation, the breaking-down of native title into alienable individual freeholds, native citizenship, child abduction, religious conversion, resocialization in total institutions such as missions or boarding schools, and a whole range of cognate biocultural assimilations. All these strategies, including frontier homicide, are characteristic of settler colonialism. Some of them are more controversial in genocide studies than others." (Positive, here, is referring to "benefits" for the colonizers. Indigenous people don't consider colonization beneficial.)

An example of a non-benefit, the Church Rock disaster had Diné children playing in radioactive water so the company involved could avoid bad publicity.

Moving on, don't sterilize your Indigenous people. Sterilization, particularly when it is done without consent, has long been used as a tool by the white system to prevent "undesirables" (read, People of Color and disabled people) from having children. Somehow, as of 2018, it wasn't officially considered a crime.

The goal of colonization was to eliminate us entirely. Millions died because of exposure to European diseases. Settlers used to and still do separate our children from us for reasons so small as having a dirty dish in the sink. You read that right, a single dirty dish in your kitchen sink was enough to get your children taken and adopted out to white families. This information was told to me by an Indigenous social work student whose name I will keep anonymous.

It wasn't until recently they made amendments to the Indian Act that wouldn't automatically render Indigenous women non-status if they married someone not Indigenous. It also took much too long for Indigenous families to take priority in child placement over white ones. Canada used to adopt Indigenous out to white American families. The source for that statement is further down, but adoption has been used as a tool to destroy cultures.

I am also begging you to cast aside whatever colonialist systems have told you about us. We are alive. People with a past, not people of the past, which was wonderfully said here by Frank Waln.

Topics to Avoid if You Aren't Indigenous

Child Separation. Just don't. We deserve to remain with our families and our communities. Let us stay together and be happy that way.

Assimilation schools. Do not bring up a tool for cultural genocide that has left lasting trauma in our communities.

W/ndigos. I don't care that they're in Fallout 76. They shouldn't be. Besides, you never get them right anyway.

Sk/nwalkers. Absolutely do not. Diné stories are not your playthings either.

I've already talked about drugs and alcohol. Do your research with compassion and empathy in mind. Indigenous people have a lot of pain and generational trauma. You will need to be extremely careful having your Indigenous characters use drugs and alcohol. If your character can be reduced to their (possible) substance abuse issues, you need to step back and rework it. As mentioned in Jessica Elm's research, remember that it isn't inherent to us.

For our final note: remember that we're complex, autonomous human beings. Don't use our deaths to further the stories of your white characters. Don't reduce us to some childlike thing that needs to be raised and civilized by white characters. We interact with society a little differently than you do, but we interact nonetheless.

Meegwetch (thank you) for reading! Remember to do your research and portray us well, but also back off when you are told by an Indigenous person.

This may be updated in the future, it depends on what information I come across or, if other Indigenous people are so inclined, what is added to this post.

[calliecat93]

If all the Disney Princesses had YouTube channels what do you think each Princesses channels would be about. Please include the Frozen sisters, Moana, Merida and any of the new ones I might be forgetting

Ugh… that’s a lot, but I’ll try.

Snow White , Cinderella, and Tiana: They’d all be cooking channels. I think Snow would be baking specifically while Cindy and Tiana’s are more varied, but still. I think Tiana would also have videos about New Orleans as a whole and help give the Black community there a voice via cooking.

Aurora: Maybe a make-up tutorial? IDK, there’s not much to go on for Aurora unfortunately.

Ariel: It would be about all the discoveries that she makes about the surface world. Sure it’s common knowledge to humans, but it’s exciting for her. Though she may need help learning to operate a camera…

Belle: Books. Need I say more? Also I could so see Belle being an audiobook narrator.

Jasmine and Anna: Maybe just a vlog channel. Jasmine goes into the hininks that she, Aladdin, Abu, and the others frequently get inti. Anna’s in about life since the gates opened. It’s less frequent once she’s queen but she still tries.

Pocahontas: Probably a nature channel and one to detail/celebrate Native American history/culture. It would be ironic consideing the film’s inaccuracies, but still.

Mulan and Elsa: TBH I can’t see either one running a Youtube channel. Mulan’s not really the type and Elsa is reserved and the type who likes to keep herself. They’d probably appear in the other princesses and Elsa in Anna’s but that’s it.

Rapunzel: Some kind of crafts channel where she makes paintings and other types of crafts stuff. Eugene likes to drop in unexpectedly.

Merida: I vould so see her running one about weaponry. Also about the Scotland wildlife.

Moana: About voyaging beyond the refied and her tribe’s culture/traditions both old and new.

And that’s all I’ve got. I considered using Raya and Mirabel… but they’re not official (Frozen isn’t either but Disney still incldjes them in stuff hence why I let that be an exception) and this is already long so sorry about that. But I hope that this was good~

[mythgirlimagines]

Talentswap Tuesday is today! Please keep your eyes peeled, or she just might jump out from the shadows to give you an impromptu makeover! It’s Myth, the Former Ultimate Makeup Artist!

————————-——————————

BACKSTORY AND TALENT

When you first of her talent, you would assume Myth to be some kind of Marylin Monroe-esque social media influencer. But despite Myth’s skill in standard makeup application, Myth’s speciality lies in horror and special effects. Able to turn a person from a beauty to a beast, Myth’s makeup skills are praised by both the horror fanatic crowd and the beautician crowd. As the third daughter to an American horror movie actor and a Ukrainian beautician, Myth’s talent manages to consist of the best of both worlds. Starting out as a humble assistant at some of her father‘s movie shoots, eventually Myth garnered internet fame for her tutorials on how to give yourself extra eyes or how to turn into a vampire. She still hasn’t lost any of her spooky and impish charm, even as an adult and chaperone of Hope’s Peak’s annual Kibo-Con field trip.

——————————————————-

RELATIONSHIP

Wyre Anon, Former Ultimate Storyteller

Folks come far and wide to hear Wyre’s macabre tales that can leave even the strongest of bodyguards shaking in their boots. Myth and Wyre knew each other ever since they were little, having bonded over their shared love of horror and the macabre. And you can bet your bottom dollar that their relationship is still going strong to this very day. Myth regularly helps Wyre with their makeup to up the horror factor, usually making Wyre resemble an oni or a dragon. This fearsome duo just love teaming up to scare the other Anons. 

Outfit: White face paint with black circles around their eyes and cracks painted into their face, a large purple cape held together with a skull design, a black vest and red ascot over a white dress shirt, brown pants, black heeled boots.

Anon Scar, Ultimate Jazz Singer

With her proficient skill at both vocals and instruments, Anon Scar, also known by her stage name “Guardian of Soul”, managed to revitalize the jazz genre. You’d think that with her whole demon motif along with her cool and calm behavior on stage, Scar would be able to handle Myth’s horror. But all of that talk of demons and curses is merely a facade, concealing an easily-frazzled and heavily concerned mom friend. Myth loves drawing wounds on herself and pretending to be hurt around Scar, just to see Scar’s facade break.

Outfit: A black vest with a white music note design on the back over a white tank top, black pants, black fingerless gloves, a microphone around her right ear, the scarf and boots from her original design.

Fusion Anon, Ultimate Forensic Sociologist

An expert on human behaviors, body language and social interactions, Fusion possesses an uncanny intuition and can read people like a book, making him a tough nut to crack for the more deceptive and manipulative students. Despite his creepy intuition, Fusion remains a kind-hearted, almost paternal, young man. Myth was thinking that if Fusion wasn’t so kind-hearted and she touched up on his makeup, his freakish intuition and his freakishly thin and tall body would make him the perfect horror movie monster. 

Outfit: An oversized dark blue trench coat, an equally large red scarf that covers his mouth, the pants, shoes and glasses from his original design. 

Fusion Anon II, Ultimate Beatboxer

Conquering rap battles after rap battles, Fusion II is famous for both her epic beatboxing skills and the equally epic roasts of her opponents. But similar to Scar, Fusion II‘s sarcastic and flippant demeanour is merely a facade. Deep down, Fusion II is a massive nerd, particularly for literature and poetry. This love for the written word can be found in many lyrics of her rap songs. Myth finds Fusion II to be a fun person to scare, especially when the beatboxer is in the middle of one of her breakdancing sessions. 

Outfit: A white jumpsuit that is undone at her waist revealing her red tanktop and fake gold heart necklace underneath, blue and white sneakers, black fingerless gloves, a couple of piercings in her ears, a red cap worn backwards, sunglasses from her original design.

Just Anon, Ultimate Seer

Ever since he was little, Janon has been having weird prophetic dreams and Janon felt the urge to draw them in his dream journal. Sleeping and drawing are about the only two things that Janon really puts effort into. Janon sleeps a lot to maximize the number of prophecies he can see, and he can get really grouchy if someone wakes him up in the middle of his dreams. As much as Janon tries to put up the image of a stoic emo, his ridiculous fashion sense and adorable appearance makes Janon Myth‘s number one teasing target.

Outfit: Back-length hair that he didn’t bother to cut with a couples of pencils stuck in, a pink ski cap with bunny ears, a white mask with a cat mouth and whiskers on them, a yellow raincoat, galaxy leggings, nothing on his feet.

Sparkle Anon, Former Ultimate Linguist

Coming from an influential family known for their international branches, Sparkle has a penchant for traveling and managed to pick up languages left and right. Currently speaking 14 languages at a native level, Sparkle has a loud, bombastic and dramatic personality. And that loud, bombastic and dramatic personality makes really great reactions to Myth’s jumpscares, along with the added bonus of hearing Sparkle curse in different languages. Sparkle would let Myth touch up on her makeup as long as Myth promises not to put gory details on the linguist’s face.

Outfit: A brown vest over a long-sleeved blue dress shirt, a brown skirt, grey nylons, black heels, a large cape with a map of the word on it, blue pauldrons. 

Egg Anon, Former Ultimate Barista, and Wet Sock Anon, Former Ultimate Perfumer

With the twin’s love for the cursed and macabre, Myth got along with them like a house on fire. Myth regularly hangs out with Egg at their coffee house and exchange their regular cursed inside jokes over a nice cup of joe. Wet Sock, despite their bitter personality, produces some of the best-smelling and luxurious perfume in the known world. Wet Sock’s and Myth’s shared love of cosmetics makes them quite the cursed duo. Both of them may have growing feelings for Myth and they usually fight over her, much to Myth’s amusement.

Egg’s Outfit: A white polo shirt, a green apron, black pants and brown loafers.

Wet Sock’s Outfit: A white polo shirt, a black vest, black pants and brown loafers.

Curious Anon, Jr. Ultimate Fencer

Being raised by a prestigious family of fencers, Curious managed to dominate fencing tournaments despite their height and age. Curious is loyal, stalwart and above all else, chivalrous. Said chivalry earned them tons of admirers in their old private school. Similar to Fusion, Curious is also a tough nut to crack, for Curious just has this constant poker face, no matter what horrifying imagery Myth throws at them. But Myth is a determined little lass and will find a way to scare Curious, or she will die trying.

Outfit: Hair in a small ponytail, red and white jacket over a red vest and green tie over a white dress shirt, cream pants, black boots and gloves, always has their trusty rapier on their person.

Anon Nerd, Former Ultimate Lucky Student

Having been admitted to Hope’s Peak via a mere lottery, Anon Nerd has a foul mouth and an equally foul temper, which very clearly came from the poor hand in life that his bad luck gave him. Nerd doesn’t really have anything to his name apart from being part of his school‘s debate club and getting into screaming matches against 13 year olds online. Because of Nerd’s easily-enraged and overreacting personality, Myth finds Nerd in particular to be a fascinating subject to scare. Nerd’s blushy face is just so darn adorable!

Outfit: A black hoodie hood-up, black sweatpants, white socks, grey flip flops.

Eldritch Anon, Ultimate Crime Novelist

Famous for both his graphic and suspenseful novels and his general evasiveness about his personal information, it truly was a wonder that Myth‘s favorite crime novels were written by not only a Hope’s Peak student, but also someone who is 5 years her junior. Myth regularly tries to socialize with her hero in literature, but despite writing graphic crime novels, Eldritch is cowardly and runs away screaming at the slightest chance of danger. Myth’s generally creepy behavior and interests doesn’t really help matters.

Outfit: Longer hair in a ponytail, a dark purple vest with an orange question mark on the lapel over a long white dress shirt, an orange cravat, grey pants, black socks, black slip-on shoes.

Dream Anon, Ultimate Lighting Designer

Dream has become famous for catapulting her school’s theater club to stardom with her amazing light displays. Dream and Myth both have careers centered around show business, they both admire Eldritch Anon and his novels, and they both have outgoing and childish personalities. But a certain quality about Dream prevents Myth from putting her on her list of friends: Dream is a fashion disaster! Myth always tries to give Dream a makeover and a tirade about how crocs are evil, but everything goes in one ear and comes out the other. 

Outfit: A blue headband, part of her hair is put into a small sidetail with a green scrunchie, her hair is dyed a rainbow of colors, a black tanktop, a black, white, and pink jacket draped over her shoulders, various fake gold jewelry, orange headphones, white jorts, a blue and purple stocking on her left leg and a green and yellow stocking on her right leg, red crocs.

Iris Anon, Ultimate Jack-Of-All-Trades

Unlike other Ultimates with a clear-cut talent, Iris has mastered a ton of talents but not to the point of Ultimate status. Iris’s unorthodox Ultimate makes her an enigma amongst the other Ultimates. Despite not knowing what her plans are for the future, Iris is determined to make the most of the vast array of skills she mastered. Iris is very optimistic, able to see the good in even the worst and cursed of monsters. Myth admires Iris’s determination and Myth regularly uses Iris as her pranking accomplice. 

Outfit: A grey beanie cap with a dark blue star design, a green flannel jacket over a white t-shirt, a gold coin necklace, light blue jorts, white socks and green loafers with white soles, glasses and bandages from her original design. 

Purple Anon, Ultimate Toxicologist

As the scion of an influential family in the science field, Purple Anon is hailed as a prodigy in the field of toxicology. Because of Purple’s upbringing, her vocabulary is both old-fashioned and heavily uses scientific jargon, which makes her speech very hard to decipher by the Anons, with a couple of exceptions. Purple has a timid and easy-to-startle personality, usually hiding behind her good friend, Fusion. Myth regularly consults Purple on any new makeup products, to make sure that the makeup isn’t toxic or an allergen.

This series centers around the gremlin make-up artist trying her best to scare her conmates, but eventually, she opens up to others and proves to be a bit of a cinnamon roll. 

——————————————————-

PERSONALITY

Having been surrounded by horror for the majority of her life, MakeupArtist!Myth is unfazed at the prospect of horror and revels in the macabre and unnerving. Despite regularly getting kicks from scaring her fellow Anons, MakeupArtist!Myth has a surprisingly kind-hearted personality despite her impish and devious first impression, and can dial back her horror for people like Eldritch and Purple. MakeupArtist!Myth is a massive fashion police towards the other Anons, particularly towards LightingDesigner!Dream.  ——————————————————-

APPEARANCE

MakeupArtist!Myth wears her dyed purple hair in two space buns that she keeps up with blue scrunchies with yellow stars on them. She also wears an oversized grey and black sweater, dark blue short overalls, white gyaru-style socks, and black Mary Janes. Holding up her shorts is a belt that holds a bunch of makeup supplies. MakeupArtist!Myth has the same glasses from her original design, which frame her adorable dot eyes with elaborately designed eyeshadow.  ——————���———————————-

I hope you like this Tuesday’s Talentswap! I can’t wait to hear what you think of it! By the way, I’d totally recommend “Danganronpa: The Wolf’s Game”, if you want to see another Killing Game with an Ultimate Linguist as the protagonist! I wonder how Wolf Game’s Ultimate Linguist would interact with your Ultimate Linguist!

-Fusion Anon

—

Dang I would so like to be this good at makeup XD Wyre and I actually have a friend who’s super good with horror makeup

[may-shepard]

Supernatural and Me, Painting With What I Hope Will Be Gradually Increasing Skill 1x02: Wendigo

I feel like I didn’t apologise sufficiently in my previous post to anyone associated with petrykivka as an art form. I am but a humble aspirer to painting cute flowers on my cupboards, and may creep back off into the cowardly stencil option if this proves fruitless, har har, that’s a joke because a lot of petrykivka features fruit:

via Unknown Ukraine

2m: Hey there’s Cory Monteith! I didn’t know he was in this episode!

Oh.

Also I have to admit, at this time of posting this I’ve watched ahead to Dead in the Water (1x03) and I know that there is a Bathtub Incident in that episode, and here we have Dude Peeing and Things Not Going Well, I seriously think there’s a theme here.

It’s either Basic Bodily Functions and Self-Care Are Potentially Deadly or Don’t Read Joseph Campbell in the Woods:

Because

I know myself well enough to know that I’m going to end up finding Sam and Dean’s relationship endearing, so I’m giving myself full permission to be all in because Dean asks Sam if he wants to drive the car which means he’s really worried about him. Believe me when I say I’m fully prepared to believe that these are the facial expressions of two dudes who really care about each other:

After last time, I decided to ditch the chalk paint and go direct to the acrylics, because yikes. Tonight’s palette is purple, blue, and pink, with a skootch of yellow, which hahaha I am howling because when I chose them I did not take in the fact that these are the colours of bi pride (plus yellow, idk man, sunshine?). I’m so bi it just leaches out through my aesthetics 24/7, hey, that’s what Dean said amirite?

I’m practicing putting together the techniques I was practicing last time into some kind of vague flower shape which is maybe supposed to look like this, ish (also LOL even this tutorial is bi af, what the hell):

15m Ayyyyy Callum Keith Rennie is in this episode! Nvm Battlestar Galactica have you seen Hard Core Logo?

There are some good thoughts about Callum Keith Rennie here. 

28m okay but I love it as a horror trope when the Thing that’s Out There emulates the voice of a human who’s scared or in pain or is screaming for help, so this is awesome. (If you’re into that trope too, there’s a very good version of it in Annihilation, one of the best horror movies of the past decade, which pairs beautifully with Midsommar for being pastel-coloured but still dreadful in all the best ways.) 

This flower is turning out better than any of my others so far:

How do we feel about native monsters being used in mainstream, non-Native-made horror? It gives me a yikes-y feeling, especially when the interpretation of the monster is essentially a nosferatu crossed with a grizzly bear, but wendigo’s interesting if you dig a bit. The most terrifying read on it I’m aware of is Columbus and Other Cannibals: The Wetiko Disease of Exploitation, Imperialism, and Terrorism by Jack D. Forbes, who wrote:

CANNIBALS is focused upon my use of the Native American concept of the “Wetiko” psychosis, the disease of cannibalism. I believe that the exploitative consumption of the earth, the living creatures of the earth, and, above all, other human beings and their homelands, constitute actual, real, unmitigated cannibalism. Tragically, the cannibalism of which I write has become more and more an acceptable part of modern economic and personal exploitation, with those who do the consuming giving little or no thought to the diminishing or even elimination of the lives of those at the receiving end of their quest for profit and super-sustenance.

More here if you’re interested. 

33m Dean as damsel in distress, I like it! Does this happen a lot?

34m:

Extremely toxic material much like life under imperialist capitalism, yeah? “Do Not Enter” I mean, if only we could exit!

37m “Check it out: flareguns.” 

“Those will work.”

Use the flaregun of your passion for justice and / or literal flareguns, either will do against the cannibalistic impulse that drives capitalism, I guess.

All of a sudden I’m liking this episode. Also make your own joke here about failing to hydrate or w/e.

Potential deep veins for later on: the idea that Sam and Dean’s family is totally screwed, but they can help these orphans have a happy ending, so sweet? I like it as a motivation. Also do all the guest star women kiss Dean on the lips at the end of each episode? Hm.

I didn’t go much further with this flower, since I felt as though some of the detail work was beyond me and the potential to fuck it up was high, but I did use the last of my rapidly drying paint to do a pic of the monster from this episode. I didn’t want to blow him up all over and I wasn’t sure the colours I had to work with would make a good splosion, so I gave him a weird flower instead that magically made him super happy. (Picture him exploding with joy in a moment, if you’d still like him blown up, or idk gleefully embracing a better standard of behaviour than compulsive people-eating.)

For good or for ill this post is part of a series:

1x01

[marcmaccoy]

”LA DIVERSIÓN EN IDIOMAS”

The title above is translated as, “The fun in languages”, something that I never really felt and had at the beginning. Ever since the quarantine started, I really did not plan to do anything nor to improve myself in any of my hobbies at all. Maybe it’s because I expected that all these crisis will be over in a week or two, which obviously and sadly, did not happen. Before, I just like to play my musical instruments, paint, and I got into Korean Dramas as well because of my friends. Sometimes, I bond with my pets and do cooking experiments too. All of these are done in order for me to avoid boredom. However, as time goes by, those things became a bit dull to me and I felt the need to discover something new.

Let me share a bit of my journey first.

As I watch Korean Dramas, I got this tendency to copy what they say and it became a habit of mine whenever I want to express something. So instead of saying, “Salamat” or “Thank you”, I often say, “감사”(gam-sa) which is an informal way of saying “Thank you” in Korean. Also, “안녕”(an-nyeong) which means “Hi”, “네”(ne) which means “Yes”, “아니”(ah-ni) which means “No” and many more. At that time, I didn’t know how to read their alphabet yet but because of my curiosity, I’ve thought of studying it. Surprisingly, I learned “한글”(han-geul) or the Korean Alphabet in just a day! Nine total hours to be exact. I was dumbfounded by how I was able to understand that in just a short manner of time. This inspired me to continue moving forward until I decided to finally learn the Korean language.

In the middle of my journey learning the said language, I began to encounter a lot of interesting facts about it. Such as it wasn’t the writing system of Korea before and how it only existed at about 578 years ago during King Sejong’s reign. It is said that “한글”(han-geul) was created in order for people with little to no education could learn how to read and write. Because before, many Koreans are illiterate due to their very complex Chinese-based writing system called Hanja (漢字) which is difficult to understand. Meaning to say, it was created by the King for the purpose of literacy. Also, the shapes of the letters in 한글 was based on the surroundings and how you say it. These are among the facts that I knew while I became deeply interested in Korea’s traditions, history, and cultures. I was so excited to be fluent that time. I even made flashcards to enhance my vocabularies, watched a lot of tutorials on YouTube, surfed many websites on the Internet, and proceeds to watch Korean series. Little did I know, I was going to unexpectedly give up studying this language. Why? Well, when I got into its grammar, I was surprised by how complicated it is. I also saw videos on YouTube about Filipino learners of the Korean Language that aren’t still fluent after years of studying. So I got a bit down and frankly, I lost my motivation.

Even so, my language learning journey did not stop there. I still want to learn a foreign language that interests me other than the ones I already know which is Filipino, my native mother-tongue and English, my second language. I tried Japanese because of Animes but it was a bit complicated too. They have three kinds of writing systems and the grammar is similar to Korean. French because I have a French uncle and a Filipino cousin and aunt which speaks fluent French but when I knew how it sounded and how the words were pronounced, I already lost hope. French pronunciation is too complicated for me. I also dig up about German because my main to-go-to country in the future is Switzerland and of course, I would want to communicate with people there. However, German is laborious too! The words, the combinations of letters, and the grammar is too confusing. Until I finally encountered the language that’s spoken by the first colonizer of my motherland and it is no other than Spanish.

I started by memorizing basic phrases such as, “Gracias”, “De nada”, “Hola”, and a lot more. I was, once again, amazed by how easy this language is spoken. It is because Spanish is a phonetic language. Meaning, the words are pronounced exactly the way they are spelled. Also since Spain colonized my country for about 333 years, we adopted a lot of words from them which are now considered as loan words. It is estimated that about 4,000+ Tagalog and 6,000 Visayan words came from Spain. Some of the examples include baso(vaso), lamesa(la mesa), tinidor(tenidor), kutsara(cuchara), bumbilya(bombilla), and banyo(baño). As well as the number system, the names of the months, days, expressions, greetings, and many more. For this reason, I was determined to continue learning it because unlike in the other languages, there is no need for me to struggle in memorizing new vocabularies.

I did the same things I did to Korean and just added some new tactics. While my school is on a term break after the first semester, I enrolled at a Spanish Beginner course online where we are taught by a Filipino teacher who is fluent in 5 languages: English, Tagalog, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian. My cousin from France, who’s also fluent in Spanish, gave me books like Spanish dictionaries and grammar textbooks for writing and reading purposes. I was also able to use my Netflix binge-watching skills and started to watch a lot of Spanish series for listening purposes. And on YouTube, I began to discover facts about Spain. Their rich culture, history, and traditions, and how their language was influenced by Arabic as well. Additionally, Spanish is the 2nd most spoken language in the world, surpassing the English language, having over 460 million native speakers located in Spain and in Latin American countries. It is also the 3rd most used language on the internet. That’s a lot of people to talk to!

Furthermore, did you know that being multilingual gives your brain several remarkable advantages? Some of it can be seen such as higher density of the grey matter that contains most your brain’s neurons and synapses. It also helps our brain engage in more activities in certain regions where that language is spoken. And although not yet definitively proven, learning many languages decreases the rate of having dementia by 5 years! In addition, more businesses nowadays are seeking applicants who can navigate the modern global economy. It can be seen that in the 21st Century, knowing a second language is not only beneficial, but necessary for success in life. The continual globalization of the world’s economy is bringing diverse cultures and communities into more frequent contact with each other.

Looking back in time, I was nothing like this way before the quarantine started. Learning languages was never really included in my interests. But now, it is! In fact, I am even determined to shift my college course to something related to languages and pursue a master’s degree about linguistics. Indeed, it changed my life. It changed how I see things from a monolingual perspective and it opened a new horizon for me. Gladly, I was even able to have Spanish speaking friends! I have this one friend from Peru who speaks fluent Spanish and I happily encountered Spanish native people here in Facebook who are trying to learn a different language as well.

Overall, my experience was a blast! There are times that I became tired and almost lose my motivation because of how slow my progress is. But even so, I will not give up. I am not fluent yet and I still have a lot to know but I will keep on practicing until I become one. I believe that in the near future, it will open new opportunities that will be helpful for me too. Moreover, It has always been my dream to travel and I truly think that language learning will be an aid to that. Hoping that I’ll be able to talk to that nearing 500 million people soon!

Before I end my blog, I just want to share this quote from Charlemagne, also known as Karl and Charles the Great, a medieval emperor who ruled much of Western Europe during 768-814, “To have another language is to possess a second soul.”

Bueno. Eso es todo. Gracias por su tiempo leyendo mi blog. Espero que encuentres algo interesante. Además, a aquellos que están aprendiendo otro idioma, nunca perder la esperanza! Pronto seremos fluidos.

Truly, there is fun in languages.

[nativeskins]

Just found your blog and so happy I did! ❤ I'm native american and I have been really wanting to get a tattoo of a native american woman for a few years now. The only problem I have is finding info/actual images of native american face paint, specfically women. Mostly all I get when I try to find examples is just a bunch of non native people doing "native/tribal" halloween tutorials and what not. I was wondering if you know of any authentic resources or have any examples. Thank you!!

Please don’t do this.

[nermallion]

I absolutely adore your assassin's creed art. I especially like the way you draw eyes which unfortunately is something I struggle with -H

THANKS!!!

This is not a tutorial (because I suck at doing tutorials) but it’s something that works for me.

Everytime I draw eyes I imagine those toys with movable eyelids….(lol what?) ….kind of weird but the reason is because they have the basic shapes of an eye anatomy so it helps me to imagine a tridimensional way to draw  eyes. 

YES, eyes are not flat. 

If I consider the basic  3d shape then I know where I can paint the shadows in my sketch. There’s no need to mark them all, just add some fine strokes around the eye. 

Remember that eyes shapes may vary and that’s why I love to draw assassins because I’ve noticed different features.

For example:

Connor Kenway: The lid fold covers the upper eyelid (common feature in Native Americans) 

Ezio: dreamy eyes, slighty tilted. 

Alexios: suspicious eyes…. always half-closed (I don’t know why).

[llosel]

Could you please give me tips for painting african american/native American skin without making it look gray or ashy as fuck?

thi s is something i used to struggle with a lot and you can see it in my old art. i think that @peachdeluxe ‘s tutorial on colouring dark skin really helped so check it out! 

in short, the main thing is that when you pick a skin tone for a character who’s got darker skin, don’t just shift your colour closer to black, instead use undertones like red, yellow (i didn’t draw an example of this but for native americans typically you’d lean towards a yellow-redish undertone), or you could even use blues and purples for a cool toned look. i’ll put a quick example with what i just posted:

Dallas’ skin is actually more red than anything else. by using a saturated, but still dark toned colour, you get a more accurate and visually appealing look. hope this helps, but definitely check out that tutorial! i know it helped me a bunch!

[critrateup]

Run It Back: Kingdom Hearts 1.5 -- The Introduction and Destiny Islands

The title screen of Kingdom Hearts remains to be my favorite intros in all of games. Dearly Beloved is a theme which by now has been arranged, reprised, and remixed into about a dozen official versions. It’s a theme so iconic that rather than start fresh with an entirely new track for each new series entry, it’s been repurposed as an overture of sorts -- every reimagining of the track can tell you something about tone, beats, and themes present in the game ahead. In this instance, the theme has a somewhat melancholy bass line married to a flittering melody. The rhythm goes in an unhurried circle arriving back unto itself, accompanied by the sounds of waves gently crashing onto the shore. Sora stands in a beautiful watercolor illustration, alone and looking out at the sea. Like most of the other parts of the game that I remember fondly, the elements come together in a way that just feels right. Sora is alone, and though his expression is relaxed you get the feeling that he isn’t quite happy either. There’s a touch of mourning to the scene, which stands as a somewhat abrupt contrast to the expectations one would bring to a licensed Disney game in the early 2000’s -- something was different this time, and it was exciting!

The menu options are unfussy. You can start a new game or load a save (and in the case of the ReMIX versions, back out to the game select screen), and upon starting a new file you’re greeted with an intro cinematic. The cinematic starts with a beautifully rendered cloudscape that flashes the title in an unstylized, spartan, and serif’d font, and fades into a scene with Sora voiced by Haley Joel Osmant narrating his thoughts. It feels a little surreal, with him floating in space eyes half closed, wondering aloud to himself if he can trust his grasp of reality anymore. It sets the tone for the series, and places its production values front and center with a flashy cinematic delivering visuals well beyond what the hardware could deliver and professional Hollywood voice acting on par with what we’d expect from a Disney production yet surpassing performances we’d heard from up to that point. It also captures a certain angst that just resonated really well with 14 year old me. My stresses were piled high though I wouldn’t know to call them that at the time. I was just beginning to process some intense personal trauma that had occured very recently; national tragedy had struck the year before, with 9/11 and the G.W Bush Administration altering the course of American politics; and of course I was just entering high school, and all the baggage that brings along. Something about the way Sora saw himself falling from the sky, eyes closed and unable or unwilling to take control of his descent, resonated close and hard with me.

This is also the first time we hear the iconic Simple and Clean track, here as the -PlanitB Mix- with clubby vibe that marks the dramatic sweeps of the chorus have just a little more flair. The soundtrack to Kingdom Hearts was so good that it led to me hunting down a copy of the soundtrack at Tower Records. The craziest thing to me was that it had a domestic release (!) complete with the english (!!) versions of the Utada tracks and an unabridged, two-disc version of the soundtrack. Yoko Shimomura has since become a favorite composer of mine, to the point where I’d instantly recognized her work when I saw the first Final Fantasy XV trailer.

As a somewhat technical aside, The PS4 remaster runs at 60 frames per second, while the original ran at about 30. While the gameplay with look and act much smoother as a result, it is worth noting that the animation in the cutscenes has been keyed to 30fps resulting in a visual discontinuity when moving to and from cutscenes to live gameplay. It’s understandable, but it also shows the beginnings of what will be a recurring question with the remastered version of the game running on modern hardware: should the game be presented as the original was in 2002, and what should be modernized to make the game more akin to something of a remaster (or ReMIX in KH parlance) in 2013 then again in 2017. Although I recognize the sheer amount of work hours it would have taken to go back and essentially reanimate every cutscene in the game would border on absurd, it does give the impression that there was some work the developers and management at Square Enix were seemingly willing and unwilling to do in a re-presentation of the game -- this is not a no-holds-barred recreation of the original, nor is it quick and dirty supplanting of the original. Rather, it’s something that lands in the world between, and I’ll be noting such seems as they occur to me.

The opening with the stained glass figures is still striking as ever, and the constant moody, cryptic narration sets the mysterious vibe well. There’s a short sequence of actual gameplay that gives a brief tutorial of basic movement and attacking controls, then asks you with somewhat cryptic messages to essentially choose a build for your playthrough. I chose defense as my boosted stat in my original playthrough because of the way it’s worded. “The power of the guardian. Kindness to aid friends. A shield to repel all.” Of course these were values that I was All About™ but to be frank in later years when I discovered speedrunners and disgustingly destructive magic builds I became all about them, and would probably have never chosen Defense as a buffed stat in any of my playthroughs to begin with. It’s telling how effective the copy is when I still feel a pang of shame in sacrificing the shield as my default stat nerf.

The opening moments of gameplay on the Destiny Islands are totally unremarkable, and serve to highlight a coming weakness in the game -- namely, the clunky as hell platforming, with something of an identity crisis to come. It attempts to make stages interesting and fun by including varied elements of traversal and platforming, but the game’s unforgiving movement and jumping mechanics make it a difficult sell. With small ledges, an obtuse camera, finicky movement and facing requirements, a seeming lack of jump buffering and ledge forgiveness (more on that here https://www.patreon.com/posts/gamemaker-tips-14531948), getting precise movement out of Sora takes a whole lot of patience. Some of this will later be alleviated with Metroidvania-esque upgrades like a glide and a high jump, but running through the game’s platforming challenges with a vanilla Sora is tedious. Punishment for missing jumps can be harsh, reminiscent of Ratchet and Clank’s Planet Novalis Waterworks where a single misstep would send you to the back of the line to redo an entire sequence.

There’s something kind of cool and again telling in the way the tides are rendered on the beach. They’re GIF-y, cycling between a few frames of canned sea foam animation. Out of place as they may look running natively on a Playstation 4 in 2018, the way the gentle ebb and flow are rendered serve as a quaint reminder of the hardware that served the original entry -- it’s something of a momento mori for the videogame age.

The cave/secluded room on Destiny Islands has a bunch of really cool chalk drawings that I recommend you check out. Some of them seem to be of elements to come in the series, like the royal castle, starry adventures, and what even appears to be a Donald and Goofy. Weather intentional markers of the series’ now apparent time traveling and mysticism shenanigans or just fun little easter eggs for attentive players using the first person view function, it’s still a nice touch.

After some tedious gathering missions meant to familiarize you with the controls, Sora’s weighty movement, and some minor characters, the meat of the story begins to reveal itself. The introduction of the trio of Kairi, Sora, and Riku is mostly to the point -- Sora is excitable, smiley, and kind of a bag of rocks; Riku is intent on accompishing his goal of leaving the islands, seemingly in spite of the costs; and Kairi is kind if somewhat mischievous. There’s something of a love triangle painted between the three which serves to further drive their division in the coming cataclysm.

This is (to my knowledge) the only time the parents of Sora, Kairi, and Riku are even briefly acknowledged in the series. There’s a quick and disembodied line about dinner being ready at Sora’s house, and Kairi only briefly mentions family as the island is being torn apart from within. It’s kind of weird and maybe telling that Nomura and company weren’t sure how the game was going to do and what kind of future it may or may not have had coming. It’s a weird appendage to the series that seems impossible not to acknowledge.

And with that, the trio are sucked into the abyss, we get a glimpse of King Mickey’s castle, Riku in what we’ll later discover is Hollow Bastion, and Donald and Goofy are introduced. The story is told from and omniscient, cross-cutting point of view and I think it works for the most part. There are a lot of threads to keep track of, with characters we’re given lots of reasons to care about. In a game where the player character is one of a group of protagonists, each thematically and literally lost and in search of something, it creates a bigger payoff in dramatic tension to see them criss cross and near miss in pursuit of one another.

Next time, we’ll visit Traverse Town and discuss it’s soothing, soft-porn sax track at the crossroads of every world.

[captainsaku]

I give you a hamburger

Chicken nugger

Blaming nightblogging on the Aussies

“go to sleep” memes regarding said nightblogging

listen here cumslut

tumblr user pizza and other tumblr famous blogs being uncovered and/or deactivated/deleted because it turned out they were monetizing their blogs via ads for some sort of shady medication

that one time some chick convinced all of tumblr that she was the original author of My Immortal and also a native American (I think???) as a sort of stunt to get people to buy her books (it was, of course, not true)

grave robbing

breast milk jewelry

that one tumblr chick that everyone hated, who had like... the worst takes in history. God I don’t remember her handle, but it’s on the tip of my tongue

In re homestuck: upd8, the stupid amount of bucket jokes, all the tutorials on how to apply body paint without it rubbing off on everything

weird old forgotten tumblr things that I never see included in this sort of list:

ah, the scalene triangle

loving Cole Sprouse

hating Cole Sprouse 

the tons of “social experiment” memes that followed

the first wave of Actual Cannibal Shia LaBaeuf memes from before there was even a video for it

trying to trick “hipster” blogs into reblogging fandom content 

the whole strict dichotomy between fandom and hipster blogs as a whole tbh

“I was here here before MTV!”

12.9 year olds

“what is air” and “my ovaries” 

non-tumblr people were peasants

nice legs daisy dukes

slideshows with comic sans and sometimes making your mom or sibling comment on some cringey show they’d never seen

homestuck

tumblr user pizza (what ever happened to them???)

tumblr user the-vashta-nerada 

Nine In The Afternoon jokes/references all the time??

imagine how is touch the sky

“you tried” stars and all the variations thereupon

do she got the booty?

“can you give me directions to the olive garden?”

night bloggers 

add more help me relive the past 6 years i’ve wasted on this garbage website

[trailsandturbulations]

Making sense (if you can) of racism in children’s literature

The recent uproar about Dr Seuss’s racism and the subsequent withdrawal of some of his books from the market has left few Americans unshaken. The last couple of generations of Americans grew up on Dr Seuss’s books. Even though I don’t consider myself a 100% American, I, too, have reacted. Two of my three kids cut their reading teeth on “Green Eggs and Ham” and “One Fish Two Fish”. My late husband, Bob, used “Horton Hatches the Egg” as a springboard for his last public address, a terrific commencement speech at the Ursuline High School (of Youngstown, Ohio) graduation in 2007.

And now this.

I made a few half-serious, half-tongue-in-cheek Facebook posts and comments on the topic, but instead of arguing some finer points all over cyberspace (and ending up in the Facebook dungeon), I thought I should make my position on racism (or its lack, where applicable) in children’s literature clear. Having worked face-to-face with children from around the world as well as in the area of children’s literature for young African readers, I have been sensitive to elements that may hurt the reader’s sense of self or negatively influence their views of other people.

Thus I most emphatically object to depictions or descriptions of groups of people meant to portray them deprecatingly as inferior to others. During my lifetime as a consumer of literature, as well my career as a teacher and children’s story writer, I’ve seen and read books that would today legitimately qualify as racist as well as many that are being unfairly accused of racism. I believe that before deciding what’s racist and what’s not, it’s important to distinguish between inaccuracy stemming from the author’s ignorance but with no intent to hurt, and deliberate malice. In examining illustrations, we also need to pay attention to the styles of visual representation, which can vary from realism to cartoon to caricature, the last being the least forgiving, and, in my opinion, not suitable for children’s books.

One of the first pieces of children’s literature I had been exposed to that is now considered racist is “Murzynek Bambo” (Little Negro Bambo), a poem for children written by one of the beloved Polish poets, Julian Tuwim, in 1935. 

In the poem, which was included in the post-war “Elementarz” (beginning reader), Tuwim attempts to introduce to the Polish children their African peer in a kind, warm, caring way. There are many inaccuracies in the text, some actually showing the life of Little Bambo much more positively compared to the real lives of kids on the African continent in the 1930s. Tuwim’s intention was to convince his readers that the dark-skinned children in remote Africa were just like the Polish kids, and the two could easily be friends. Introduced to “Murzynek Bambo” by my mother before I started school, I loved both the poem and the child behind its lines, and I still remember the whole text word by word. It was in “Murzynek Bambo” that I first heard of Africa and its inhabitants, who happened to have black skin, but were otherwise just like us. Throughout my childhood, I always had at least one black doll that represented my imaginary African friend Bambo. And now Tuwim’s poem has been cancelled because the adults, whose souls had lost their open and loving inner child and replaced it with suspicion and meanness and hate, deemed it inappropriate. Shame.

Few readers and viewers of “The Wizard of Oz” are familiar with L. Frank Baum’s children’s book entitled “The Master Key: An Electrical Fairy Tale”, which contains some definitely racist elements. He wrote the book in 1901, when average people in Europe and America didn’t have reliable sources of information about the lives of the “savages” (as Bronisław Malinowski, father of cultural anthropology, called the pre-industrial peoples). At the time Europeans believed in the existence of cannibalistic tribes who would capture and eat strangers (cannibalism did exist, primarily for ritual purposes; invaders, if captured, may have been subject to such customs).

The reason I bring this up is that in the mid-1990s, my late husband, Bob, and I worked on adapting some existing children’s books for young African readers in South Africa. “The Master Key” was one of the candidates for such an adaptation: it dealt with electricity, and we needed stories that would stimulate the young readers’ interest in science and technology. The story, in which the protagonist travels around the world propelled by electricity, includes a visit to The Cannibal Island, which is not near Africa, but somewhere in the Caribbean. The natives are dark-skinned and don’t look at all like Arawaks, the original Caribbean peoples, but something between Africans and Papuans. 

Since the island is fictional, the inaccuracies are irrelevant; what matters is the intentional presentation, both verbal and pictorial, of the islanders as inferior to Europeans. It’s this intention that makes that part of the book and accompanying illustrations blatantly and irredeemably racist. Bob and I unanimously agreed that the content was truly offensive and thus unsuitable to be included in our adaptation.

Now on to Dr Seuss:  was he a racist? Not a racist? Again, we need to take a closer look at his intentions and attitudes as they reveal themselves both in the text and in the illustrations since the two are inseparable in his art.

First of all, Dr Seuss, whose real name was Theodor Seuss Geisel, was a political propaganda cartoonist during WWII. His biting caricatures didn’t spare anyone, whether Asian or European (and let’s not forget that the Americans were not particularly well-disposed towards the Japanese during that time). 

Thus I have absolutely no problem with Geisel’s war-time anti-Japanese caricatures; the intention to show them in a negative light was intentional, but justified, in the same way as the European art at the time depicted the Germans. All is fair in love and war, and we were legitimately at a war that we had not started (and let’s not split the hairs of “not all the Japanese” or “not all the Germans”). For the record, there was no love lost between the Japanese and other Asian ethnicities, either; ask any older Taiwanese or Shanghainese, and they’ll tell you why. However, some of Geisel’s depictions of the Blacks in his political cartoons were extremely racist (I'm not going to reproduce them here, but you can easily find them on the internet). Africans were not our enemy and so there was no reason for deliberately portraying them that way. 

Dr Seuss’s children’s books are, racism-wise, a mixed bag. I do find the drawing of two black figures in “If I Ran a Zoo” racist. 

These individuals are caricatures of inaccurate stereotypes of Black “savages” that had been in circulation for a long time before Dr Seuss drew them: something between African and Papuan, who cares, it doesn’t matter as long as they look black and uncivilized.The artist’s attitude towards his subjects here is clearly supremacist: they’re part of the zoo for the onlookers to be entertained by. That’s not cool. Let’s get rid of it. 

However, I do not have the same problem with the drawing in “And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street” that has been described as a “jarring racial stereotype of a Chinese man who is depicted with chopsticks, a pointed hat and slanted slit eyes” [https://www.denverpost.com/2017/10/06/dr-seuss-museum-to-replace-mural-after-complaints-it-depicted-jarring-racial-stereotype]. 

It is indeed a stereotype, but is it jarring and offensive? What precisely is offensive about it? The Chinese do eat with chopsticks; a conical hat is a strong element of the Chinese culture (still used today for working outdoors), and the epicanthic fold does give the Asian eyes the impression of a slant, which is widely represented in Chinese art. (Would it be preferable to draw Chinese people with round eyes? Wouldn’t that be considered even more racist?) 

Anyway, I keep wondering in what way Dr Seuss’s depiction (which, let’s not forget, is a cartoon), makes the Chinese people appear inferior to other groups of people. Yes, they look different than his European characters, but isn’t difference the very essence of diversity? Is diversity already passé? I must have missed its exit.

I challenge those who disagree with me to present, both verbally and pictorially, an Asian person that would communicate to a young White or Black child the biological and cultural difference between him/herself and that person. Your audience is a preschooler, so use as few words in your description and as few lines in your image as possible. Go!

Someone said that the offensive image of the Chinaman was being removed at the request of Chinese American parents who consider it racist. Knowing quite a few Chinese parents, I sincerely doubt it. Those I know would not allow such trivialities to interfere with their child-rearing: they’re much too busy supervising their kids’ violin and piano lessons, their Mandarin classes, and their math tutorials, to worry about the meaning behind pictures of chopsticks and conical hats. They have beaten all the other races in the only race that matters–the race to success–which they’re winning in all the relevant categories: educational, professional, and financial.  Are Dr Seuss’s books going to stop them? Think again.

While I’m on this topic, I should mention a highly inaccurate children’s book committed by Maya Angelou entitled “My Painted House, My Friendly Chicken, and Me”, which describes a day in the life of an African girl of the Ndebele tribe. 

When the book was presented to a group of Black teachers in Africa, they nearly died laughing. It’s worse than a “jarring stereotype”: it’s both ignorant and arrogant, full of factual errors, written without an ounce of understanding of the rural African lifestyle. But then who would dare criticize Maya Angelou?

What’s missing in all the furor about “jarring racial stereotypes” are any mentions of stereotypical depictions of white ethnic groups. As an East European woman of a certain age, I may choose to object to East European grandmothers appearing in illustrations with babushkas on their heads; neither I, nor anyone I know of my generation or my mother’s generation have ever worn a babushka (just like my Chinese husband or his parents never wore conical hats). Thus I may find many illustrations in Patricia Polacco’s children books, like the one below, stereotypical, racist, and hurtful. 

But of course I won’t. And I would be more than willing to explain to my grandchildren that this is how grandmothers in my country used to dress, but they no longer do. Just like I would explain to them that people in China used to wear pointed hats, but the Chinese people in America don’t. How hard is that?

And how about this picture of a Jewish couple? 

Isn’t a large nose a stereotypical attribute of a Jewish male? Do all Jewish men have large noses? Isn’t this as racist as slanted eyes on a picture of a Chinese person? In the best interest of human uniformity, I suggest that from now on, pictures of all people in children’s books be drawn with small noses and round eyes. Then finally we'll all be equal. 

[gregmatheny11]

Shopping Ultimately Vibrant City Of Shanghai

When Stanley Davis was 12 he got hooked on comic strips. He especially loved the western comics like Gene Autrey, Roy Rogers and Red Motorcycle rider. One day while enjoying a western comic, his mom came into his room and saw the cover that depicted an Indian chasing a cowboy. She snatched it from Stanley and tore it up telling him hints too violent for him to read. Stanley never forgot that incident.

Purchase or paint a wall mural of a western sight. Frame it with rough boards to depict a "window" around the view. Create a western feel through the utilization of western, southwestern, Native American, or Navaho area location. Use western blankets and throws actually chair or bed. Use two western blankets or throws, and convert them into draperies.

Linens: Be a plethora of colors and patterns. Answer to linens is to think about out for unmatched sets, as they are the best bargains. When really wish to hit the funky trail find a plan of patterns and colors and position the together, be used up on a limb and be creative.

You furthermore try warehouse sales. Sometimes, big furnishing stores lower the prices of items when they're about to phase out a particular model. For people who have a Best vintage furniture store store, place even find good deals in showcases that are oldies but goodies.

Check out eBay's Site Map. This may aid you in tutorials on understanding how to bid, listing items, building a store, and address and shipment challenges. Plus, this page lists the various categories of buyers and sellers that come involved already in the market.

The best interiors have always been those have got evolved period. By being patient when decorating discover fill your home with things you truly love, and dollars by replacing things less often due to dissatisfaction. Taking your time also means that you can wait for pieces to go on sale prior to buying them (see rule #4).

Besides these places, town has many other shopping areas. The cheapest airline connecting to this city implies that people purchase bronze ware, paintings, porcelain items and antiques at Dongtai Right track. This is also the perfect place to accummulate vintage items, ceramics, wood carvings and furniture. It is treasure trove of goods waiting end up being discovered.