#really wanted to draw one specific character and i spent so long trying to make it work and now A Fucking Hand is killing meeeeeeee

[pika-blur]

fighting for my life (actually joined artfight early this year and still only did one drawing this month)

[melonseed11art]

At least I'm trying.

~

Soooo since I've had time off work since I've been sick, I spent like 1 1/2 days drawing this because I wanted to get this finished before I had to go back to work (and not have time lmao) XD Sooooo here we go! Some fan art for a scene from @king-candybug-backup 's fic, Killswitch! I would HIGHLY recommend reading it if you're into Wreck it Ralph because it's really really good :'3

But anyway, this one is based on chapter 14 and omg. I almost cried like HUGH THE ANGSTTTTT which I then made worse for myself because I listened to "This is me Trying" by Taylor Swift (specifically the Long Pond Studio version because I like how much more organic it is to the album version). It feels like that song really fits the current vibe of the story (for the most part. And I'd also recommend listening to it even if you're not a Taylor fan! It's different from her popular songs). Like, how KCB is struggling a lot with everything he's going through... but he IS trying. He lets Vanellope sleep like, RIGHT ON TOP OF HIM despite the fact that he's somewhat uncomfortable about the whole thing. But he lets her. If not to make HIMSELF feel better (even though it totally is, not that he would admit that lol), then for HER. Not to mention all the other things he was doing literally just for her in the chapter.

And omg I just love the idea of these two being friends so much you have no idea ;-;

I'll try to make more uh, lighthearted fan art later I promise XD

Also, forgive me if it looks kinda dodge. I uh.... don't know how to....... draw, lmao.

Never drawn KCB before so it was a challenge. And you can probably tell that I gave up on the background but ANYWAY I GIVE UP JUST TAKE IT-

(If you read all this BS then thank you, I hope you all like my silly fan art lol)

***Click for better quality!!!***

DO NOT REPOST MY ART HERE OR ON ANY OTHER SITE!! Reblogs are awesome though! <3

Art by me.

Characters: Disney

Story concept: @king-candybug-backup

[towriteloveontheirarms]

Cat got your tongue (Percival de Rollo x Half Tabaxi!Reader)

synopsis: Percy liked to believe he wasn´t territorial or easily jealous, but something about seeing you with Vax makes his blood boil.

warnings: jealousy, marking, smut, afab reader

word count: 0.9k

taglist: @hopelesswritergall

A/N: Thank you @kawaiiangel906 for this request and I am so so sorry it took me so long to get to it. I hope you still enjoy. <3

(If you want to be tagged for a specific character/fandom or in general let me know in my asks, comments or DMs)

Dividers by @saradika

Laughter sounded over the grounds of the keep from outside all the way into Percy's workshop. Not even concealed by the sounds of the white-haired man tinkering with a weapon. It wasn't like he had much concentration left for it at the moment anyway, but what little was left of it before fled faster than it had come to him. This had been going on for far too long in his more or less humble opinion. This thing between you and Vax’ildan. Not a thing, as you had reminded him countless times, fur covered ears twitching at the idea of it alone. Worries temporarily stifled with a sweet kiss to the forehead and a deep hug. Filled with whispered confessions of love.

Grumbling under his breath Percy makes his way out of the keep.

“Percy!” You immediately jump up and run towards him, a wide grin on your face.

Percy’s eyes lay on Vax for a moment longer, who sits left behind on the grass where you had just trained with him, looking right back at the two of you. When Percy's eyes snap back to you he can see your mouth moving. Had he really not heard you talking this entire time?

“I'm sorry, my love. Could you repeat yourself?” He asks  the back of his neck.

“I just told you about my training with Vax… Are you not feeling well?” Your eyebrows draw together tightly.

“N-No, it's nothing. I am quite alright. Thank you.” Percy takes a hasty step back to avoid your hand coming up to feel his temperature. “Perhaps too much time in the workshop. I am happy that the progress you and Vax’ildan are making is to your liking.”

“Come sit with us then. We were about to be finished for the day anyway.” Your hand caresses his cheek, the other taking him to pull him along.

Night has never been particularly calm amongst the group either. Most certainly not since you had obtained the keep. Laughter and the sounds of people drinking into the early morning hours traveled easily. But this night's rest was particularly hard to come by. It could. Your bones hurt from the extensive exercise each day and the fights in between. Just not with a certain someone distracting you from the sweet release of slipping off to slumberland by needy lips grazing over the skin of your shoulder blades and teeth nipping at the column of your neck.

“Percival…” You groan. “It is late.”

The words come out mumbled and somewhat unintelligible. Still you turn your head until you can see the white head of hair from the corners of your eyes. One heavy hand finding its way into the light tresses to play with them.

“You have barely spent any time with me or anyone that isn't Vax’ildan lately.” Comes the equally mumbled response against your back.

He doesn't stop what he is doing until you are awake again and turn around fully.

“Love…” You begin a sentence but are quickly shut up by the possessive grip pulling your waist impossibly close to his.

“Shhh. This will just serve as a reminder to the others that you are mine.” Percy's teeth nip right below your jawline. Sucking on the tender flesh until deep purple bruises bloom all over.

Pressed into the mattress by his lean hips, you writhe and mewl helplessly. Subconsciously, your own hips begin to grind up against his after a while. Unable to just take it anymore.

“More.” You plead in high pitched tones. No matter how much you try, your voice just won't stay down.

“Nuh uh uh. What's the magic word, dear?” Percy reprimands you with a smile on his face.

He can feel the movement of your hips as well and it is a game to him. He is fully in charge of you and your pleasure in this moment and he knows it just as well as you do.

“Please, Percy. I need more.” You try again with your tail wrapping tightly around Percy's middle to prevent him from possibly pulling away.

“See, that wasn't so hard. When you ask nicely people will be far more inclined to give you what you are asking for.” He slides down almost unnoticeably, pushing up your nightdress, until his chin rests against your sternum, just underneath the valley of your breasts. Scattering more purple spots over them and then wandering further down. A puff of warm breath bringing your legs together around his shoulders. With a chuckle and two fingers, Percy opens them up again.

“Now, let everyone hear who you belong to.” The words echo in your ear as only moments after, his length impaled you in one rough thrust.

A groan in unison fills the room, on one side from the sudden stretch and on the other, because in response your claws shot out and dug into his shoulders. The rhythm with which he starts thrusting into you as soon as he recovers, has you near screaming. Moans of his name and desperate pleas string together to a sort of prayer. The sweetest prayer Percy had ever heard in his life. Until he has driven you over the edge so often that your throat is sore and your body is a twitching mess. Brain so clouded in fog that you can barely concentrate on anything beside his body against yours.

As you lay beside each other, entirely spent, Percy's hand trailing over your side, a satisfied purring fills the room from your lungs. Not even strong enough to keep your eyes open any longer, you are finally granted the relief of sleep. Dreaming of only one man. The one right beside you, who at that moment felt you were his completely. Pressing one last kiss against the back of your neck as he drifted off to sleep as well.

[pluralthey]

what steps do you go through to draw in your current style? do you have any pointers about it? its absolutely one of my favorites

i'm not sure if i think of my process in steps. in my head, i'm just straightforwardly drawing the shapes the characters are made of at angles that look right and building on that... luckily, i stream when i draw every day, so i have a ton of videos of myself drawing. example:

i haven't bothered to upload a lot of the modern streams to youtube because my video editor can't handle editing 4-8 hour files even if i'm speeding them up and technically making them shorter because of the way video editors interact with files, and the freeware i use isn't able to make proxy files. the act of downloading and editing and combing through all the footage is a ton of time and memory space and it's just not what people are usually looking for from me, so it's not where i wanna put my time.

but that's neither here nor there. what i mean to say is these vods are really long. so you don't want to rawdog those. but you can just download a video speed controller extension to your browser and it's extremely easy to cruise through the backlog of vods at ~15x speed.

i've gone ahead and highlighted some of the recent videos to separate the chaff from the wheat. i tend to take long breaks to eat or walk my dog so there are big periods of Nothing Happening. i'll try to skim some more and do the same. unfortunately, i don't have any good videos of me coloring, since twitch deletes vods after like a month, and i've just been focusing on sketching.

but yeah, in general, it really depends on how good i'm feeling on a given day -- sometimes i will sketch multiple times for just one panel and sometimes i won't sketch at all. i use paint tool sai 2 and a pixel brush usually 2 pixels wide with no pen pressure. for comics, i have 1 layer for the panel borders, 1 layer for the sketch, 1 layer for the lines, 1 layer for the colors, 1 layer for the text, and 1 layer speech bubbles. sometimes there are special effects that overlap borders and need their own special layers. when i start sketching a new panel, i will usually put it on its own new layer, and sometimes for multiple characters i will put them on another new layer at a different opacity. this is mostly to move them around without constant cleanup. once i've gotten a sketch pretty finished, i merge all of the layers into the sketch layer. the line layer is usually just the sketch layer cleaned up and paint bucket tooled black. but basically, the vast majority of my time working on art is spent trying to fix small things like tangents, fitting speech bubbles into panels, thinking about how to lay out a page, checking continuity interaction with other pages, that kind of stuff. the complex technical parts of the process are to save time on those in ways i can without compromising quality. the other portion of working on the art is like "step 1: draw head circle (or jessie head diamond). step 2: draw the rest of the owl." i don't know if this was helpful at all y_y if you want more pointers i might be able to offer clarity on more specific questions!

[t-yari-d]

Hii!! I've had this idea in mind for a long time, but I never really dared to bring it to life—until I just went for it in an old notebook I had since high school. I spent hours scribbling incomprehensible doodles, and later, I wanted it to look better, which led me to start the current project.

At first, I didn’t have a set "style" for each character, so I just went with the flow (since it was originally meant just for my own indulgence). Fortunately, the more I kept drawing, I like to believe I improved(?

I also had no idea what title to give it at first, since it's a cutscene between Michael and Trevor that doesn’t have a specific name.

I recorded the audio with my phone from "Trevor and Michael (Trikey) Scene Pack", and I might, maybe, take a few more from it.

Anyway! If anyone wants to know more about this weird connection between GTA and LMK, feel free to ask, and I’ll try to explain it as clearly as possible. :))

I don’t want to consider it an AU just yet since I haven’t fully structured it properly, but little by little, I hope to develop it a bit more. In the meantime, I suggest looking into the dynamic between Trevor and Michael throughout the game. And if, by any chance, you're currently playing it, I highly recommend spending as much time as possible with the trio—and as a bonus, Trevor with Lamar. =)))

⬇⬇ Some of the scenes ⬇⬇ (PREV/FIRST/Later!!)

Thank you so much for supporting me!! 💕 I’ll be posting more scenes later!!

(I'm also planning to make another one, but this time with She-Ra!)

[chibishortdeath]

Goodness, these doodles were all staggered in a way on the pages that made it really hard to take pictures of them and get everyone in there (>< ).

Explanations for all of it under here ⤵️ :3

I drew my Ratchet!!! My little guy!!! I’ve looked him up and he’s a little like “authentics” line one. He’s got really loose joints and his knees don’t bend hahahahsjdksjsjk, but yeahg. Tbh the big outer shells kind of design goes hard. Ratchet could benefit greatly from having shields on him, second doodle is a demonstration of those being used lol.

Hehehehehe he’s so fucking cute oh my god how did they make this one robot design to appeal to me specifically I’m gonna die— he’s sitting there so pleasant and polite :3.

This is an attempt at a Ratchet design that combines a bunch of other ones! I was trying to pick out stuff that I liked (big collar looking part, massive tiddie window with the ECG display, G1 as a base because G1 Ratchet is so aaaoiugauaugoihghgghhgh), but eh idk. I’m gonna go through a couple revisions of this design before I decide on one. Cause I did like uh start writing a fan continuity 💀💀💀. Like deadass I binged two seasons of G1 and was already so hooked and hyped that I started making OCs and plot lines and shit LMAO. The transformers hyperfixation got hands fr. Also, next to him is Starscream and a little very not finished Drift for size comparison :).

The largest Ratchet here was my first attempt at drawing him! I spent an unreasonably long amount of time trying to get his legs correct 💀💀💀. Directly next to him on the top is a little doodle that says “usagi ringo” and it’s comparing his forehead chevron to the style of cutting apples to look like rabbits of the same name hehe. And next to that is a bishoujo figure design because oh my god it would be so easy to make one of him and so peak— more on that later cause I’m proud of the design so it’s on here twice XD. Below those two: doodles of Starscream getting shot! 💀 There’s a lot of context behind these, but shortened version is Megatron got mad and shot him 💀💀💀. Any other explanation would be getting into continuity ideas I have not finished nor finalized yet lol.

Guys hear me out it would be so easy— he’s already got a boob window— and the red section of him looks like a bodysuit— it would be so so easy and so so peak please bishoujo line figure company— I would pay an unwise amount of money for silly anime girl pinup hahahajdkskkdksjskdkdahsj. Also smaller not skirt version as well if they wanted to go full “the red section looks like a bodysuit” lmao

Megatron!!! I tried to incorporate a lot of details that the original toy had like the chest decals and the gun elements :3c. The g1 toy is so funny holy shit dude, he’s so top heavy and has like teeny pencil legs it’s so dumb I want one 😭😭😭. Next to the ref image of him, there’s one doodle that’s like a shitpost of this stock photo of a guy drinking while watching TV, an unfinished doodle based on a pose ref from Pinterest, and an even smaller shitpost with him and Starscream and their shirts say “I’m high as fuck and have a gun in my backpack” and “cunt era” hahskdjkssj (X X).

Another Starscream practice and some other characters that require a lot of explanation— So, this big combiner guy that’s in this and the next photo is a combiner named Modulus and I found out about him in a very goofy way. A friend of mine saw a figure of a little known character (Medix) at Walgreens, didn’t get him, looked him up later, and went down a rabbit hole on the wiki, finding out this guy is part of Modulus, a combiner who… doesn’t exist??? 💀💀💀 Modulus only exists as a concept that was included in the instructions of one of his components and NOTHING ELSE HAHSJDKSHSJK. It is the most batshit insane thing, tiny wiki article and everything X,,,,,,D. But what’s really WEIRD about him is that— HE KINDA FUCKING FITS WITH AND TIES TOGETHER A BUNCH OF LOOSE IDEAS I HAD FOR CONTINUITY STUFF 💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀?????????????? Idk it’s so scarily close it’s like as if I willed this guy into existence LMAOOO. Anyway, members of Modulus include: Scattershot, Medix, Ratchet, Starscream, and Rook. Two of these characters are like replacement members for other combiners that were basically created just so random games could function. One is the leader of another gestalt, BUT he’s also been in a TON of other ones. And then suddenly Ratchet and Starscream??? And in the original incarnation of the character, it was SG Starscream too????????? It’s not gonna be in my continuity (I have ideas—), but lol they just dropped the guy from another universe in there what 💀. Insane, deranged, maybe peak even. Why the hell did I end up latching onto the combiner that isn’t real help me (ToT ).

Above Modulus, there’s some doodles of Ratchet, Cliffjumper, Mirage, and Bumblebee, BUT these aren’t just those guys, oh no, it’s something worse hahahahahhasjsksk. My raised on undertale dumbass got plagued with the cursed idea of “huh, if Shattered Glass is like the Hasbro official swap au— F e l l A U” and uh… this exists now 💀. Fell AU (name pending) is basically just “the thing but edgier”, so in this universe the Autobots are still like The Good Guys™️, but they’re stuck in bad conditions. For that to happen, they’d have to not have access to renewable energy, meaning either humanity did not welcome them with open arms, there’s some kind of general crisis happening on Earth, or some mixture of both. So Fell (name pending) Ratchet is basically G1 Ratchet, but wayyy more stressed out cause they’re always short on things and barely scraping by. He’s visibly missing parts and damaged and he just does whatever quick temporary fix about it because his focus is on everyone else over himself; he lost an optic, a hand (that he’s replaced with his main tools), he’s got a crack in his screen, etc etc. Procedures are always messy and painful cause he’s just using what he has and the whole time he’s apologizing and trying his damndest to do the best he can— He’s a sweetie still, but man he could use a break (he will not get one alas). Cliffjumper is even more high strung and tempered than usual, he’s also got a nose ring and sharper horns for the edge lol. Mirage has his darker mask like coloring from the toy and typically is invisible far more often. They used to really fight a lot, but they’ve since gotten to a point where they’re the two each other trust the most. Cliffjumper does a lot of reckless shit and gets injured a lot (_ _ ). Then there’s Bumblebee. His colorscheme is still yellow and black, but they’re reversed. The reason for this is Edgy™️ but the in universe is that darker paints is just what they have. He’s also not the plucky rookie at all, he’s already gotten pretty jaded and hardened by everything, which makes Optimus really sad— he does get some rare moments of lighthearted antics because of Spike though. Idk it’s a funny AU concept and I might do more about it simply cause I think the Ratchet design goes hard lol XD.

[loremaster]

happy birthday to the guy i've been drawing nonstop for the past several months - here's proof!!! he's a lot of fun to draw!

vivia is also a very important character to me for very personal reasons... (cw: family death)

it didn't take long for me to realize he was gonna be my favorite character in the game - seeing him lounging in places he shouldn't be cracked me up, and so did his morbid catchphrase... i totally related to his autistic tendencies, and his eagerness to dwell on depressing philosophical thoughts. i especially love and relate to his love for literature and literary analysis, especially because my eighth grade english teacher was my dad, who introduced me to so many of what are now my favorite books, and showed me how to look closer into what makes them so good. his story structure classes were unforgettable.

my dad passed away in 2020 and i've been going through fluctuating stages of grief since. it ebbs and flows but never really leaves. a lot of my art and stories from the past 3+ years have been ways to process and try to heal from that trauma (especially my pokemon sword nuzlocke comic, which i'm hoping to finish this summer)

so seeing the strange way vivia deals with death - in general, and the death of a loved one - fascinated me and destroyed me. i've spent many nights curled up in bed sobbing myself to sleep thinking about the heartbreak he goes through in the story, the regrets, the destructive cycle of grief, the depths of the emotions he feels in such a unique way (he's so desensitized he never cries once in the whole game!) and the ways he is able to start to grow and heal from it afterwards.

exploring the queer romantic angle of vivia's character arc is also so so so important to me, not only because i'm a queer person who's wanted to tell queer stories since i was a teen, but because my dad was also a queer person, who didn't get to come out as bisexual until the tail end of his too-short life. i know he connected to a lot of the same Boys In Love stories that I did, and i wish we'd had the opportunity to explore that common ground further. but since i can't, all i can do is the next best thing - making art about it and inspired by it. i think my dad would really like vivia and the stories i've been trying to tell about him. (harold and maude was one of his favorite movies - and if you're a vivia fan and you've never seen it GO WATCH IT RIGHT NOW. suicidal teen forms an unlikely friendship with a cheerful old lady. you will cry your eyes out. you will want to LIVE)

so, i guess... thanks kodaka for making this specific character that spoke so deeply to me at this specific time in my life and letting me use him as a vehicle to process my own grief in the gayest ways possible. and happy birthday veeva <3

[marciaillust]

How long does it take for you to finish drawing?

I'm an artist (beginner) and i unconsciously set unrealistic goals for myself and need a reminder of how long it takes to complete a drawing, Thanks.

Hi! In the context you presented it in, that is a really interesting question, so I'll try to approach it thoroughly. I hope I won't make you roll your eyes too much.

Where to start, where to start... I guess the first thing I should say is that there is a difference between time I spend preforming the action of <drawing>, and the time I spent <working> on a particular piece. The first would be counted in hours, the second one - days. I'm a big believer in slowing things down, and giving things time - going through options, gathering research and references, taking breaks every 1h of sitting and drawing - and seeing things through until I achieve the goal I set at the beginning of the process.

The goals are usually different each time: "quick design", "character exploration", "analysis of an artist's linework and experimenting with the knowledge gained", "creating an aesthetically pleasing image", and so on and so forth. Of course I don't write these down like it's a school assignment, but knowing in the back of my head what I'm actually doing helps me manage my expectations. I also enjoy being conscious of why I create - when I was younger regardless of what I was doing I had the thought "AND IT MUST LOOK GOOD AND PRESENTABLE! BECAUSE PEOPLE WILL LOOK!" ...and I think that obsession is the cancer of creative process.

Since the goals for each picture are different, the time I'll spent on achieving each one will be different as well, because the "satisfactory results" lay in different places. For example, the Marcile sketchpage was created in one afternoon, and took approximately 3 hours. The goal was to play around with a brush that has no opacity forcing my lines to be more decisive. I did that and so it is "finished". There's nothing else I want from it.

On the other hand, the cover of Asterism took about 10 days to create, the goal of which was to make "an aesthetically pleasing cover picture taking colour inspiration from the works of (specific list of artists)". I took my time designing it so that it looks aesthetically pleasing, made sure the anatomy is "correct" (a nebulous statement when it comes to stylised humans), took my time masking, and picking colours, and shading. I wanted it to "look good" to my own eyes so if something was not working I would go back, change it, alter it, move it around... that's the wonderful thing about personal art, you can take as long as you like making something satisfactory.

The funny thing is, with what the Asterism cover actually is (a cellshaded image), it could have been done probably in 4 days by the me 4 years ago. But that person was willing to sit 8-10 hours a day to draw with no breaks, she had little social life, and treated herself as a little circus seal performing tricks so that people clap around her, and the clapping was soooo nice because it meant that people remembered her and she mattered. And it worked for her! For long 10 years! Until her arm gave out, and the reality of never being able to draw again became more tangible than ever, and it's been following her like a fog ever since for the past 4 years. The me today works about 4 hours a day and every hour I take about a 30 minute break. I also don't post half the stuff I draw. There is also another aspect that dictates the speed of creating and that is familiarity with the subject matter. The less you know something, the fast you'll draw it! But as you get to know the intricacies of the process, and see all the building blocks, it will start taking *longer* because you will start accounting for every block. But then you'll eventually get familiar with the blocks and so the time spent on a picture will go down again! The cool yet overwhelming thing about art is that, there are always hundreds of building blocks. Form, composition, ambient occlusion, saturation, hue, light balance, line form...... and those are just the *some* of the generalised *categories*. And each category will have it's own subsection of building blocks! And then those blocks will interact with each other to create completely new area of expertise! This is crazy! Marcille sketch page took me only 3 hours to create because I am already quite familiar with linework - I have drawn 3-4 comicbooks worth of linework. This also means I am familiar with believable anatomy, more or less, which got utilised in the Asterism cover - the main bulk of linework got created during a 3h livestream. So.... what's the answer.... "It's all relative" is so unsatisfactory and probably not what you looked for. But you can draw something in 3 days and kill your body over it. Or you can become an expert in a field and dish the same picture out effortlessly in 8 hours. You can also split that 8h block over multiple days bringing you back up to 3 days. You could even add a whole day of visual research which might make your picture only marginally better. And even if we calculate it in terms of raw working time, pen-to-paper, like a self-inflicted capitalist tumor, that time can fluctuate still due to personal visual library and knowledge base. If I asked Tom Fox how long it takes for him to create his sketch pages his answer would probably be downward of 30 minutes. Yet I need whole 3 hours to create something *less* anatomically correct than him. And so here we are at the end of this perhaps unnecessary essay. And all we learned is this: it depends. Dry, not nuanced tl;dr, my personal timings: single sketch - 30mins; single linework pic 1-2h; Cellshaded illust - 16h; Rendered illust: 20-25h.

[incaseofart]

Wendy's Plush Making Starter Pack

Hello! I'm far from an expert at plushie making, but it's been a super fun journey for me and I've seen some folks express interest in learning to do this themselves. Now, that said, this is not actually really a guide to how to make plushies. This is a starter pack of resources that I found helpful to get me started! The most important thing is being willing to go look for resources, but it is intimidating at first because...where do you even start? That's the question I aim to answer!

This was one the first videos I watched - this will help you understand what it takes to get started. There's also an entire playlist with even more details associated! I only watched the intro vid because I was raring to go. Because of this video, I decided to work with anti-pilled fleece initially, due to the fact that minky is stretchy and that complicates matters. Fleece is also cheaper and in my experience easier to find in a store.

Next up, I thought it was best to start with a simple, free pattern for a few reasons.

if you start too complex, you're likely to be hit with catastrophic failure, and that can be really disheartening! Simple patterns can be completed relatively quickly, so if you mess up and it isn't how you want, it's a lot less painful than failure after two weeks of work or more. And trust me, you will fail and learn a LOT from those failures at the start! Do not expect perfection at first.

Free is a good place to start because if you try this out and find out you hate it, it's nice to not have spent a lot of money. That said, patterns are also often pretty cheap, so it's probably not unreasonable to go buy a pattern if you can't find a free one you like. It's up to you and your budget.

The pattern I first started with was this Poke'mon tsum tsum one!

It even comes with a free download of the pattern. This is a great one because it's very simple to start with. I had to make adjustments to the patterns due to using fleece (pikachu's ears wouldn't stay up straight the way the felt would), and ultimately I made large edits to the pattern to make my favorite characters. I also added embroidery because that was also something I wanted to learn.

My only other comment about this vid is that while the stitch they use is fine, I've since switched to using a straight stitch or a back stitch which I think are a bit more standard and useful long term. You can find out how to do those by searching for them on youtube! They're very standard and simple so I'm not including any specifics videos on them. My understanding is the back stitch is better when you need something to be a little extra sturdy, but again the internet can guide you better than I can there.

One other stitch that I wish I had known sooner is the ladder stitch, or invisible stitch.

This is a great tutorial that I found easily by googling. it includes a video (REALLY HELPFUL) as well as written instructions with pictures. This is great for closing up your plushies at the end, or for attaching pieces like hair or maybe accessories to the main plushie without using glue or having an ugly seam. That said, I did use glue for many of my tsum tsums because of how small they were, and in some cases I personally feel like that's still the correct choice, but this is REALLY good to have in your arsenal.

Once you're satisfied with a simpler pattern, you can make it more complex by adding details or modifying the pattern, or by moving on to a new pattern!

Okay, phew, so that's sewing! Let's talk about embroidery. You CAN make plushies without embroidery - you can glue on bits like in the Poke'mon tsum video, or depending on your fabric you can draw a face on, or maybe something else I haven't thought of, but I'm me and I like a challenge and detail oriented work so I opted for embroidery.

The most important of these for plushies in my experience has been what is called "stem" here, but I've also seen it referred to as "outline". Secondly, there's "satin" and "long and short" for filling, but I actually have another video with even more details on filling.

Satin stitch is what I used for all the fills on my tsum plushies. Thread saver is great because it really does save a ton of thread, and guess what? We don't care how the back looks because it's, you know, going to be inside a plushie. I'm currently learning the long and short methods, both blend and brick, and there's a bunch of other neat ones here.

What I'd really like to do next is link the amazing 20cm plushie embroidery video I learned from - but unfortunately, it's gone because yt terminated the account. So a quick summary of the points I recall:

Do an outline stitch for each part, in the color you are going to fill with. To fill it, go from the outside of the outline stitch, across, and to the outside again. Repeat.

Instead of filling by going directly next to the previous stitch, it can be easier to go halfway through the unfilled space. Then, go halfway again. Then, halfway again. Eventually your stitches will be directly next to each other, and it will be filled. This is less thread efficient but this is mostly what I do because it's easier for me to understand.

Use 1, 2, or 3 strands of embroidery thread depending on your fabric and what you're doing. If you don't know, embroidery floss comes in 6 threads that are all wrapped together, and you are able to separate them. For my fleece, if I'm doing an outline that isn't part of a fill, so for example the mouth which is just a curve for a smile, I tend to do 3 strands. For my outlines and fills, I tend to do 2 strands. You can then use single strands to cover in gaps in your fill, though I'm usually too lazy do this and just use 2 strands the entire time.

That'll about cover it. If you go on youtube, you can search "20 cm doll" or "cotton doll" if that's the specific type of doll you want to make. You can also experiment and try things out! I think that's pretty key to learning myself.

As for my own tips, in general:

Embroidery paper is the best thing ever. It's sticky, but water soluble, and you can write or print on it. So basically, put your pattern on the embroidery paper, stick it on your fabric, and them embroider over it. This helps stabilize the fabric in the hoop, and also helps you make nice neat lines. Life saver.

There are cheaper alternatives to embroidery paper, like water or air soluble pens and pencils, or like transfer sheets (you draw on top of them over the fabric, and the ink transfers to the fabric, and then can be washed off). Lots of options for different budgets! I've only used embroidery paper so I can't speak to the effectiveness.

Embroidery hoops - big ones look cool and tempting but will be hard on your hands and wrists. A friend told me you don't want the hoop to have a radius longer than your fingers if you can avoid it.

THIMBLES! Sometimes it is hard to push the needle through, and thimbles help prevent you from stabbing yourself or in some cases make it possible at all. For my fleece + embroidery paper, I need a thimble or the back of the pin will pierce my skin. I use some cheap rubber thimbles because they feel better to me than metal, but I might invest in some less cheap ones soon.

If you can draw on the back of your fabric, trace the patterns on that way and then cut them. While you can cut by pinning the pattern to the fabric, I've definitely found that harder and my impression from watching vids is that most plush artists draw the pattern on the back and cut it out.

PROTOTYPE, PROTOTYPE, PROTOTYPE! When trying something new, use scrap or other cheap/plentiful fabric to try it out first. You don't want to do all your embroidery only to realize once you've sewn everything up that your pattern needed modifications. Yikes! (I've been there and it sucks) It may feel like a waste of time, but you'll thank yourself when you didn't waste time and potentially more expensive materials only to find you did it wrong.

Embroidery floss - I use DMC, but you can use any brand really! I've heard satin can be a bit harder to use, but haven't had that experience myself.

Lastly: LOOK STUFF UP!!! There's so many resources out there. Find a cool video but you don't need it yet? Save it somewhere so you can watch it when you do! Example, I nabbed a resource on making plushie clothes during a sale from a small artist late last year. I haven't used it yet, but I will be, so I keep it in a resources folder for when I need it! Similarly, I'm about to start embroidering on minky, so I plan to go on youtube and look for tips on how to do that since it's a bit different than fleece

secretly lastly, GO FOLLOW PLUSH MAKERS YOU ADMIRE! It will be inspirational and a lot of them time they sell patterns or how-to guides and then you can support an artist while also getting something super valuable for yourself!!!

Have fun! Make stuff! I'm not an expert but I'm living my best life! Feel free to add your own tips if you want!

[runawaymun]

Hey! Any advice on writing multi chaptered fics or just longer stories?

I feel like I'm okay for like snippets but have no idea how to write the middle of a story or move a character or story from point a to point b.

And asking you because you're writing is phenomenal and I'd love some advice.

(But if no brain space for advice I totally get that too and feel free to hide this ask or something)

(Anyway great updates on boundless and the one shot Brimbrond)

Sorry for taking so long to respond to this! I just wanted to take some good time to gather my thoughts because oh man oh boy I am a bit of a nerd about plot structure, even if I pants it a lot of the time -- because middles and structure absolutely plagued me when I was a beginner and so I spent a long, long time studying it and breaking it down.

I'm going to start with some very, very basic advice and then get into some more specific stuff. So let's talk first about how to structure a long-form plot first.

DISCLAIMER: this is how I personally structure plots. More often than not I veer off my own track. And this is a very western way of structuring a plot. It's well worth looking into how storytellers from around the world structure their work because it can vary wildly (Miyazaki is a great example of this). Take this with a grain of salt. It's a guideline which I find helpful. This is going to get very, very long. Bear with me:

When I'm first thinking about how to create a plot around a story I want to tell, this is the process I walk myself through, and it tends to work about 75% of the time for the stories I like to tell (I'm not much of a thriller or mystery writer and those tend to have different kinds of structure). Main recipe is as follows:

Status quo - establish the setting and the character. Do this by the middle-to-end of chapter one, preferably. You can get away with drawing it out a bit in sci-fi or fantasy works that require more worldbuilding, but try not to.

Inciting incident - I won't tell you to start in media res, as that varies from writer to writer and story to story. Generally you want to have this somewhere in chapters 1-3. Say we're talking about LOTR - I'd say the inciting incident is when Bilbo goes invisible at his birthday party and leaves for retirement. Everything sort of snowballs from there (Gandalf confirming this is The One Ring, the Ring being passed to Frodo, the adventure beginning, etc. etc). This is where your character can lose something, or be confronted with a huge problem, or gain some new information. This is the point where your story really picks up.

Point of no return - your character has been presented with a problem or is put in a situation and now they have to decide what to do about it. Sometimes characters choose to run away, or choose inaction. It's up to you and your character as to what they do next.

The annoying part - the most helpful way I've ever found to think about middles is in terms of a series of decisions and consequences. Your character must decide what to do (or try to get what they want), and this will then come with consequences to those decisions. I ignore a lot of writing advice because writers seem to be very cagey about how they compose middles and plots for some reason, but the one piece I heard that helped me was: "What does my character want, and what stops them from getting it?" -- and this can be anything, right? Frodo wants (has to) take the Ring to Mordor. Luke wants to learn to be a Jedi like his father. Inspector Poirot needs to catch the murderer. Odysseus wants to return home. Each of these characters are going to make a series of decisions toward their goal, and they may be working from incomplete information, or bad paradigms, or racing against the clock, or against impossible odds. They're going to make mistakes. Over and over and over again. The middle is a series of decisions, consequences for those decisions, and obstacles (more on that later).

Point of no return 2, electric boogaloo (i.e. the actual midpoint to the story) - the part right before the climax -- the climax IS NOT the midpoint of your story, nor is it the end. This is your midpoint where Everything Fucking Sucks. Your character's back is against the wall. They have to change, or fail.

Paradigm shift: your character learns something new, or develops in some crucial way that leads to:

The climax/confrontation: 3/4 - 7/8th of the way through your plot. Frodo decides to keep the ring. Luke uses the force to blow up the death star. Anakin's fear and the manipulation from Palpatine overtakes him and he turns to the dark side. Inspector Poirot gets his last crucial piece of information and gathers everybody together for the Big Reveal. Odysseus gets home and chases the suitors out of his house. Etc. Etc. This is that Big Point in the story we all think as the most important or crucial point (but it's not. That's the key here. THE most important point is the whole middle of how we got here).

Consequences and paradigm shift 2 electric boogaloo: varies from story to story, but this is the fallout of the last decision or confrontation. Your character may reflect on what they've learned. The killer goes to jail. Frodo returns to the Shire and it's saved, but not for him. The journey your character has been on has irreparably altered them, or the world around them -- for better or for worse.

Resolution: the place where you land the story ;) what is the final impression you want your readers to have of your character, or this world?

Alright so that's all kind of nebulous. Let me give you a slightly more specific form of this plot structure that I use pretty often, because I almost exclusively write character and relationship-driven stories since that's what interests me most:

So most of this looks much the same (the inciting incident is some kind of meetcute. The characters then have to decide if they want to have some kind of relationship -- I like to name this part the callback). Then we have a whole weird squishy section of building interest and tension, before once again we have The Big Fight (darkest before the dawn or what have you), before one or both characters have some kind of paradigm shift, they confess their feelings (or resolve the fight or whatever), and the security of the relationship is established -- happy go lucky times, everything is beautiful and nothing hurts.

So the middle here is of course still squishy and nebulous, but the focus here is still on "What decisions are the characters making? What are the consequences of those decisions? What are they learning, and how do they respond to it?" Maybe the tension is in one character being more reticent, while the other is more open. Maybe the tension is a sexual tension (will they, won't they?). Maybe a character is working off of incomplete information, or a misunderstanding, and that needs to be cleared up before the relationship (or even their own personal growth) can progress (both Elrian and Thalionel in Stars and Boundless Sky follow this pattern). The middle is a push-pull between your character's desires and outside forces that are stopping them from getting what they want, or achieving what they want to achieve.

So okay, that's all well and good. That's basic plot structure. Let me get into my thought process about middles specifically:

Begin with your ending in mind. I do not mean that you need to have like the whole resolution to your story fleshed out. If you're that kind of writer, great! But if you're more of a pantser like me, then that can be a big ask. Instead, ask yourself: what do I want my character to have learned by the end of the story? How do I want them to have changed, or grown? Do I want it to be for better, or for worse? Is there a specific plot goal you have in mind? (saving the world, or catching the murderer, solving the mystery, exorcizing the ghost, the couple getting together at the end, the found family finally gelling with each other, or whatever).

Once you have that thought in mind, now start to think about what your character might need to get from their starting point to their ending point. If it's a murder mystery, this is your information gathering section. You can lead your character to wrong or right conclusions. Have them make mistakes. Etc. etc. If it's a romance, this is where you create a string of scenes where the characters have opportunities to interact and learn more about each other (works for platonic slowburns, too). If this is a traditional hero's journey, this is where you plop in your actual journey.

Not to repeat this ad nauseum, but your middle is all about getting your character to your end goal, but in the most difficult way possible lmao. Let them make mistakes. Let them make bad decisions -- and then follow through with the consequences of those bad decisions. Give them bad information. This is where understanding your character's fundamental flaws becomes extremely important. Your entire plot, imo, stems from your character's fundamental flaws -- because ultimately that is what is going to slow them down the most from reaching their goal. Sure, you may have the big bad evil guy (bbeg), but we're not worried about him. That's an external factor and that's easy to drop in when you need a quick problem to place in front of your protagonist -- but that problem needs to be in service to your character or your worldbuilding. Teach them something. Give them an opportunity for growth. Aragorn needs to lead at Helm's Deep so he can inhabit his leadership role. The mountain pass of Caradhras needs to force the Fellowship through the mines so that Gandalf falls fighting the Balrog and comes back leveled up and ready to fight, and other characters in the fellowship have a chance to grow into their roles without relying on Gandalf for leadership. Your middle is all about crafting little opportunities for character growth, always while moving toward your end goal -- whatever that may be.

The paradigm shifts are crucial, and they can shift for better or for worse. It's up to you and your characters and the story you want to tell as to which it'll be.

If you're bored, your reader is bored. Only write what excites you, skip all the rest, and make it make sense at the end -- I'm so serious. Yes you need to add in breaks for pacing (like the whole Rivendell section in LOTR), but in those breaks still make sure that you're either expanding your worldbuilding, or giving your characters and opportunity for growth.

If you want to tell a really long (novel length) type of story, sideplots and alternate POVs are your best friend. They are structured exactly the same as a regular plot, they're just simpler or smaller and generally work in service to the main plot. Maybe there are side characters or side relationships you'd like to develop. Maybe there's a smaller mystery or a part of your worldbuilding you'd like to explore. Action plots can be side plots to romantic or platonic slowburn plots, just as much as it can be the other way around. And this is not something you need to structure out the gate. Just be curious and playful. Find points in your story that interest you, and explore them a bit. You'll find that they expand the story.

Biggest and best tip I can give you, when all is said and done, is to decide what kind of story you want to tell and then examine how other people are doing it. If you want to write a superhero story, pick out your favorites and look at how they're structured. If you want to write a mystery, same thing. If you're writing a romance or a drama, again -- same thing. Look at the pieces of fiction that you like, figure out what you like about it, and then apply it to your own work.

That's all the general advice off the top of my head. IDK how helpful this was lol. If you want more tips on middles I can try to look at it a bit more in depth, but to be quite honest middles are really what defines a genre. Romances have different middles to thrillers. Thrillers have different middles to mysteries. Mysteries have different middles to dystopian sci-fis. Etc. Etc. So take the general advice with a grain of salt and look more specifically at the genre of story that you're looking to tell.

Thanks for coming to my tedtalk <3

[gryphrex]

Before my enthusiasm fades, I decided to try something. I don't know if I'll be able to make posts like this regularly.

This post will be dedicated to MLP and JJBA again, or more precisely to one specific character - Jotaro Kujo.

I remember I hesitated for a long time to draw Jotaro because I couldn't decide which pony race to classify him as. When I drew Dio, I decided that the Joestar family would be pegasi. And here is the very first design of Jotaro. Here I tried to redraw a moment from the OVA (I really love OVAs, they are especially warm), but I quickly lost the desire to draw the background, so I left it like this. I decided not to draw Jotaro's cap because I spent a long time drawing his mane and did not want to cover it. By the way, this was winter 2021.

And this I drew in the spring of 2021. Oh, I was REALLY tired of drawing cherry fruits on trees. Somewhere in the middle of the process, I realized that I could just copy and paste, but that was also tedious. Ahaha, just now I noticed that Jotaro has some kind of tattered tail. Let's assume that other stallions skinned it in fights.

I'll be honest, I still haven't gotten around to watching/reading Part 6, I just like Jotaro's colorful cap. Apparently, I suddenly wanted to change Jotaro from a pegasus to a kirin. I left his wings, but changed the color. I tried to depict the shimmer on his wings, like black birds like starlings.

Later I abandoned the wings (and the cap) because it looked too busy. I just forget about the cap and remember only when the work is completely finished. There is also Noriaki in the form of a dragon (I will write about him separately), as well as my original character Alice Gryphrex.

I think I will change the design of Jotaro more than once, but for now I am quite happy with the last one.

[thistlecatfics]

regulus for therapy asks

Regulus is so much a blank slate and I love so many versions of him. I'm going to draw upon my version of him in Duty (2k, M, Regulus character study fic).

[This got very long and involved. I have spent way too long this morning answering this.]

Last year when I was answering these I talked about having zero experience working with young cis men experiencing right wing radicalization but now I have some experience with that population and it's fascinating tbh. never thought it would be a population I'd work well with but here we are.

The thing with Regulus in therapy is that this boy is Extremely Not Okay, and there is very little time to do something about it.

Eating disorder, depression, suicidality, incest, family crisis, no sense of self/grandiose sense of self, experiencing radicalization - !!

I'm trying to think under what circumstances this boy would be willing to go to therapy, and I think it's possible that after Sirius runs away he is visibly sad about it (because obviously), and his parents are like "sad?? this is a problem. go to therapy. get fixed. stop being sad. you need to be a good heir. no more of these pesky feelings."

So the first step would be really emphasizing the confidentiality of the space - even though your parents are sending you here, I will protect your confidentiality except in these specific circumstances - and even in those circumstances I'd want to work with you to emphasize your autonomy at every step. In general, I'll tell parents who ask about their child's experience in therapy "client is showing up each week, participating, and working towards identified goals" and that's it. (but also lol this is why I don't really work with teenagers because I hate working with parents.)

IF (big if) there can be a modicum of trust built, I think starting with Quidditch would be a safe place to start because it's part of his visible identity and something he seems to love and is important but not nearly as vulnerable as talking about family (or the war). What does he like about Quidditch? How does flying make him feel? (though lol starting not with feelings but something safer like strategy and tactics.)

If (again if), more trust is built, then we can get into his disordered eating and feeling like he needs to be light to be a good Seeker -- and also getting into how restriction offers him a sense of control. Here, we'd want to do some psychoed about nutrition and fueling for sport and longevity in sport. and also fueling for academics - how hard is it to concentrate on hw when you have barely eaten all day? see if there's room for motivation for (small) behavior change. practice noticing what happens before he "feels fat" - was it actually something within his body, or was it some other emotional trigger? was it actually what he ate for lunch or was it seeing his brother across the Great Hall?

A lot of therapists I respect do focus heavily on behavioral changes especially around food/eating/restriction because starvation hurts the brain so much and makes it so hard to make reasonable decisions. I totally respect that approach but it's not where I land as a therapist -- especially when clients so clearly feel like complex trauma survivors even if they don't identify any specific trauma. (and Regulus is absolutely one of those clients who is so clearly a complex trauma survivor and is so obviously resistant to getting close to anything that smells of traumatic experiences.) For me, I find emphasizing agency and autonomy the most important thing - even with behaviors that are clearly hurting the client. The behaviors are there for a reason, and we can respect that reason.

This is where I'd want to introduce parts work (IFS informed but not official IFS because that costs $1000s to get trained in officially lol) and the concept of protective parts. For whatever reason, I think Regulus would initially think it's hooky but actually do well pretty quickly with parts work and in understanding his disordered eating behaviors as a protective part. And once we get that level of cognitive/emotional understanding, then we can get into some of the deeper work and maybe maybe maybe get into family dynamics at least in a surface level.

So the problem with all this and Regulus is this is going to take a while, and he joins the DEs at 16.

I think Regulus would be clever enough (and also experiences enough structural dissociation) to really separate his experience in therapy from his experience being recruited/groomed into the DEs, and he would never even drop a hint in therapy that was a consideration. (This is where some people pleasing defenses would come up -- he knows I would not approve of him joining the DEs and so he keeps that separate.) (even if I try to be nonjudgmental and am disinclined to utilize self disclosure that often I think that it would be obvious.)

As he gets closer to taking the Dark Mark, I think he would quit therapy. He wouldn't entirely ghost. (That letter in the locket does not give me the vibes of someone who ghosts haha.) He would write a very formal thank you letter full of partial truths (thank you for the work, I feel much better about eating etc), and he would decline having a final session to process the ending.

Depending on what my knowledge is of the war and the Death Eaters and their recruitment practices, and assuming DE recruitment is pretty secret and the idea that Voldemort is branding young pureblood men is not common knowledge, I'd assume I pushed him too much to talk about family, and he felt pressured to do so and wanted to end it for that reason.

(I'd need to process this in supervision lol.)

BUT -- and now we're in pure fantasy territory --

(unlike the rest of this which is not fantasy lol)

What if he comes back to therapy??

In my hc, Regulus does start to fall apart pretty quickly once he joins the DEs ("soft enough to believe them" does not imply a lot of sadistic joy in torturing and killing muggles and muggleborns tbh).

After years spent restricting his eating and flying and training intensely, he quits Quidditch his seventh year (loses that outlet and positive sense of identity and positive community) and begins binge eating and binge drinking and using potions instead to cope. (I hc that there's a lot of substance abuse among the young DEs because it's a way of coping with doing very bad things and numbing any part of your conscious that wants you to stop doing those bad things.) He's very quickly disillusioned about what it means to join this noble cause. He's drowning in shame over how he's coping. He's very clearly not doing well -- it's obvious to himself and to those around him.

I love the idea of Evan Rosier (who I hc as actually really enjoying the violence and brutality of being a young DE) (but who actually cares about Regulus) being like... dude go back to therapy. You need help. (and Regulus is then super resistant! because he WANTS to be cut out for this! he doesn't want to be soft!)

But lets say, by some miracle, Regulus returns to therapy.

I think he'd be one of those clients who has done his research about exactly what limits are there to confidentiality around harm to self and harm to others, but he also spends that first session back interrogating me about my policies around confidentiality. and that makes me pretty nervous - especially now in this escalating war. (I have no idea what the wizarding world would have around confidentiality but thinking from an american context.)

but like - I don't think therapy could really *work.* Too much would go unsaid. It would be a lot of sitting in silence. But maybe he would still come back. and I'd just have to try to trust the therapeutic container and keep tolerating all the uncertainty and distress.

But maybe -- maybe!!! -- instead of deciding to kill himself in a grand way he comes to therapy about it? and maybe there's space to safety plan and identify a safe adult who might be able to help -- his brother, Dumbledore, someone. (the clinical ethical dilemmas would be huge tbh.)

idk - I do really doubt it. but one can hope!

going to cut this off here because it's already horrifically long. but in the unlikely case he lives through the first war and goes back to therapy, then maybe we could finally unpack some of the childhood trauma stuff. it would take a long time though. I think parts work would be the way to go with him.

totally projecting here, but I think it would be YEARS in therapy before the incest stuff comes up more explicitly -- but once it does we're able to start making real progress.

ok that was long and messy as hell, but I hope you appreciate it <3

[asksammylawrence]

PINNED POST!!!

Good Evening!!

Hello, hello, hello, Tumblr! Yes! Once again, I have made yet ANOTHER roleplay blog! However, THIS TIME it's... A lot more serious because I know this character inside and out! Yes, this is an Ask blog for our favorite, albeit insane musical director, Samuel Lawrence!

Some quick notes!

This is MY personal AU! Taking place before the game, however, after both Henry and Susie quit/left the studio! This blog will HEAVILY feature my personal head canons! So please, please, PLEASEEE try and keep all negative comments to yourself! You know how the saying goes; "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all!"

Main blog;

@sammysprivatecorner

AFFILIATED BLOGS:

OFFICIAL CHARACTERS IN GAME:

- @im-outa-here - Wally Franks

- @ask-thelyricist - Jack Fain

- @asknorman-polk - Norman Polk

ORIGINAL CHARACTERS:

- @yourfavouriteboyrider - Rider Hoffman

- @the-g0lden-boy - Alex Pikeman

- @unnoticedunawarestillhere - Hudson

- @art-by-stella - Stella Henderson

IF I MISSED ANYONE I APOLOGIZE!!!

A sort of Character Sheet for our boi Lawrence, and an OC of the blog, Alexander Pikeman

Full Name:

Samuel Jedidiah Lawrence Nickname/preferred name: Sammy

Sex:

Male

Gender:

Male

Height:

6foot 2inches

Sexuality:

Severely Closeted Bisexual

Type of AroAce (Ace & Demiromantic specifically)

Personality:

Usually very abrasive and introverted to an unhealthy degree, when forced to be outside out in pubic, Mr. Lawrence doesn't bother to hide how uncomfortable and not happy he is, and will shoot down any attempt at conversation made, unless it is his assistant Alexander / Alex!

Artist rendition of Sammy

My own Personal Cosplay of Sammy:

EXTRA / FUNFACTS!

Sammy has a black kitten as a pet. He and Alex found when Al took him out to lunch one day, and Alex named him Midnight, Middy for short

Sammy doodles sometimes, and has that like... TBH Autism creature type art, IDK How to describe it, I get some references for what I mean:

Both of these taken from Pintrest!!

(These are references and are legit ways Sammy will draw cats)

Besides cats, sheep are his favorite animals, just because they fuzzy and soft looking and he had a lot of sheep adjacent stuff as a child

If he had lived for that long, Sammy's favorite band would've been Oingo Boingo

Similarly, had he lived that long, or in an escape au, Sammy's favorite musical would be Cabaret!!

Sammy may like his coffee black and bitter, but he cannot STAND a bitter tea. He prefers his teas to be nice and sweet.

Sammy barely ever eats lunch, most his break is spent doing work, or, in this universe, answering the ask blog!!

Sammy wears gloves to hide the visible traces of ink infection on his body from consuming the ink, which, right now, are only on his hands, that being the tips of his fingers

Sammy is in a romantic relationship with the MOD's OC Alexander Pikeman

_____________________________________________________________

Full Name:

Alexander O'Connell Pikeman Nickname/Preferred name: Alex

Sex: Male

Gender: Male

Height: 5foot 6inches

Sexuality: Gay Transgender :3

Personality:

Between Sammy's grumpy attitude, Alex takes on the mantel of being the sweetest lil guy ever, he's kind, polite, and, can be a bit protective.

Art drawn by me!! Not the best and I'll probably be redrawing him but this what we got lol

EXTRA / FUNFACTS!

Alex is the personal delivery boy for Sammy, Joey mainly didn't want Sammy away from his desk, the music for the toons was very important after all!

A longggg time ago when I first made Alex, I got his last name from Edward Pikeman from Camp Camp!

Alex ADORES French vanilla coffee, but, will take tea more often, as so much caffeine makes his very eepy

You will never hear Alex refer to Sammy by his first name. He always calls him "sir", or "Mr. Lawrence" even when Sammy insisted on Alex just call him by his first name.

Alex's favorite musical if he were around that long, would be Little Shop of Horrors!

Alex is wary of Thomas Connor, he doesn't really try to socialize with him, but will if he has to.

Alex is fully aware of the fact Sammy is drinking the ink, and on multiple occasions had tried to get him to stop, thought it ended with the worst fight the duo had causing Alex to simply drop the subject.

[flickersofart]

2024 art summary !! template is by Papakkapao

2023 art summary, for comparison

For the masterpiece of the year, I never actually posted it (and don't intend to at the moment) but it was my best work of the year by a long shot. The amount of time and detail I put into really stands out for me personally.

The rest of them will be named, talked about and linked under the cut :)

January - Evil art style challenge - I honestly did not draw much at all that month so that is pretty much all I had for January! It is still a work I like, especially for having been on one layer.

February - personal project concept work - Another one I spent a lot of time and detail on and is one of my favourites personally!! I think it was after this though that I made the decision to stop posting these ones (the personal project work, anyway - that's art for me!)

March - Mailcat Ibex Mast fanart - DUDE I REMEMBER THIS ONE. I was struck with such a vivid vision I had to do this and it remains my best work of that month, even with all the iterator drawings I did. Like I love those pieces yes but they do Not match up to this one.

April - Far Shore and Moss Fields - This was another slow month for me in terms of art, and this isn't my favorite piece ever, but I learned some things from it still... so we good with it.

May - Phoenix Iterator drawing - Art that didn't get posted for a while but one of my favorites out of that bunch of drawings. It probably was a debate between the Chasing Wind art and the Phoenix piece but idk I started working on the art summary a while ago and I can't remember lol

June - Pearlcat Ibex fanart - surprise ! An Ibexcord exclusive piece! There was a moment in Ibex's video where he did a jump over a cyan lizard and idk I was taken over by a vision (how does this keep happening)

July - Eden mass attack - This took the most stress out of every piece on here surely. Mostly due to tech issues. But yeah I was fighting for my life trying to get this piece done and posted because of said tech issues. Like I don't think I said it at the time but I had only minutes to get this one off of a permanently dying laptop or else I would have lost the file. ENOUGH ABOUT TECH ISSUES THO what about the actual art. Okay I LOVED HOW THIS TURNED OUT ACTUALLY. The scale and the detail and getting to include so many characters aaaa it's just. probably the best of my mass attacks for the year anyway this has been a paragraph, ONTO THE NEXT ONE

August - Milk - HOW DID THIS BLOW UP SO MUCH ???? It is not only my best work out of August aside from the masterpiece of the year but also my best performing work ever ?? That's so insane to me. But anyway yeah this is another case of being possessed by visions or smtn I don't know, but I was kinda speedrunning it after getting sick lol

September - Loop strawpage art - Oh here it comes. This is the month where the many ISAT arts start loll. I mean I wasn't particularly happy with most of it in this month bc well. I was only starting out. but I COOKED with this one specifically. The concept and execution I lovee this one it's just. YEAH.

October - It's going to be okay - oh man I already said that there's a lot of ISAT arts and man I was doing so well this month, it was so hard to pick one specific piece for this one. Imagine they are all here in spirit PLEASEE there are so many good ones this month -> Around the clock, at the end of everything, Websiffrin, the road of trials, Sweater Forever

November - Hourglass - okay I had my high with the ISAT art, now it slows down a lot. This is probably the best piece for a while, or at least in my head it is. I know I did a lot of Moons and there is other art but this is where I started feeling less satisfied with my art again.

December - Where we started - Yeahhh the art block was strong this month. I had projects I wanted to do but just. could not. It took me a while to get back to a point where I could draw again and be okay with what I was making. I'm still not as satisfied as I'd like to be, but I'm at a point where I can do things, and this piece was one of the better ones.

ANYWAY!! I'd say it's been a good year, art-wise. FIXATION GAINED. and that has resulted in a LOTTT of art lol. Also I worked on my projects a bit (would like to make more progress on them next year though !!)

[prismatoxic]

talking about my art journey as of late, or more specifically how relying on 3d models actually worked out in my favor

so back in 2023, i started relying on 3d models for poses and proportions. i hated how my art looked and i was frustrated with trying to put something together, taking forever on it, and having it just turn out like ass in the end. the 3d models removed a ton of guesswork from the process and helped me focus on the things i was good at while gently training skills i was less capable of. i'd already been using 3d models sporadically before then, but it was around when i started drawing nate and ken together that i switched to using them all the time.

it's hard to find comparisons around the right timeframe... but here's a nate drawing (with a friend's oc) i did just before i made the switch, when art was so frustrating for me that i wasn't fully lining or rendering anymore, and then the first nateken i ever did, which was when i started using the models in earnest.

it gave me my confidence back. i drew nateken CONSTANTLY, and they overtook my present fandom interest (mgs) before too long.

i did lose some things, though... fluidity, namely. and i've spent a lot of time trying to make my art feel dynamic, make it flow even with the models underneath, but even when other people can't tell, i can. it's been bothering me for a long time. my art is better now, yes, but cursory attempts to not use 3d models were all the more devastating for it. i was scared. i'd grown too reliant.

i tried a handful of times to sketch simple things without models and every time i hated it so bad that i didn't finish it. the past year, time and time again, i've found the prospect of drawing freehand far too daunting to attempt.

some jokey sketches of animal characters came out recently-ish that read fine, and that was good, but... i knew the humans and humanoids i draw all the time were still beyond me.

this anniversary drawing for me and devot back in the summer made me think... maybe... just maybe... i might actually have some skill in conveying what i want in simple shapes while freehanding. not what i'd like to do in full, but i love these little doodles. it was a start. (the main part was in fact based on models.)

more recently, this joke comic i did based on something max said gave me a similar feeling. like yeah it's a sketchy mess, but it does the job. it's silly. you know what you're looking at.

a few weeks ago, i had a silly malix idea that i didn't want to bust out the models for. so i made a loose freehand sketch. and... it seemed okay. so i refined it. and honestly? i really like how it came out.

it has that fluid charm i always wanted my doodles to have. i started to wonder... has this year+ of using the models actually helped me improve my sense of anatomy and proportions? did i actually get something out of this?

the answer might be yes. here's all the things i freehanded recently:

aside from the lineless one, these were all just quick silly things, and ultimately i still intend to use the 3d models for "serious" work or things i just want to make sure have a certain refined quality to them.

idk, i'm just... excited? happy? i thought my skill to just sketch something and refine it all by myself had surely atrophied. i thought my reliance on 3d models had ruined my art potential. turns out it's just been training wheels and i'm actually doing kind of okay taking them off sometimes.

i'll keep making silly simple things this way for a while. the lineless damien one was me having a bad night and needing a major distraction, and it served its purpose alright. i'm just happy i was able to actually finish it. i don't even hate it!

i guess this is me saying, yeah, it's fine to use tools and shortcuts. i know the fear of "cheating" but here i am, having done this for ages, and i'm doing better for it. i will say i think a lot of my ability to learn has been my willingness to compensate for what the 3d models can't do (like joints and muscles) and tweak things once those layers are hidden, but i've still been relying heavily on these shortcuts. it's just nice to realize it wasn't all a waste, in a skill sense.