#the first one is kinda a redraw of the first pic i made of them

[enden-agolor]

oh god its those freaks again

[icedmetaltea]

(tw: scissors, needles)

Pov: you get your friendship bracelet from Moon cut off :( (no literally that's the plot I'm not even joking)

Reblogs greatly appreciated!

Not his official outfit! I've since then made an actual design I like for him and will post that once I finish Moon's :> BUT I liked this pic and didn't feel like redrawing so gonna just have to deal

Details abt this one bc I feel like oversharing and have nothing better to do

. Y/n is a socially anxious nighttime security guard. They have no friends + are mega depressed + self-conscious and hide their face behind a pair of sunglasses even at night + chubby bc I SAY SO. Started a fic with them a long while ago but deleted it cause depression, they liiiiive

. Sun has access to a sewing machine (terrible idea on staff's part btw) in the crafting room and is obsessed with sewing costumes, needles, sewing scissors, that kinda thing bc of course he is. His outfit has degraded over the years so he tries to put it back together with random scraps of red fabric. He has a bunch of needles on his lil waist thing for easy access

. The daycare is actually shut down and has been for a long time, but y/n doesn't know that since they only see it at night. Sun has gone stir crazy without kids to take care of and spends his day making costumes and other crafts, preparing for children to arrive... even though they never will.

. Moon is dormant most of the time bc Sun keeps the lights whenever possible; he's very passive and sweet, and will tell bedtime stories to plushies as a way to cope with the loneliness. He's kind of aware Sun's gone batshit but can't really be bothered to do anything about it, at least not till he gets to know y/n better

I'm not sure if they're separate animatronics and Moon just goes offline when the lights are off cause like I'm prolly gonna give him a different outfit so

. Basic story idea: Y/n is doing one of their night shifts and gets a noise notification coming from the daycare. Since they never got the memo about it being closed down, they assume there's a break in and goes to check it out. Sun is nervous as shit when the two encounter each other, way out of practice with socializing, but quickly warms up and decides he must become their best friend at any cost. Y/n on the other hand is awkward as hell and doesn't know how to act around him. Sun makes as many efforts to lure them into the daycare as possible, and slowly becomes more and more obsessive, going so far as to hack into the webcam of their laptop, the security cams to see what they can see, watching them at the start and ends of shifts to make sure they don't interact with anyone else

Just as y/n begrudgingly starts to warm up to him, the power goes out and they meet Moon for the first time. They have this rlly wholesome plushie bedtime story scene but Moon soon lets slip about the daycare being closed-

Y/n starts to realize some shit is going on and confronts Sun about it but at this point he's way too cheery around them and is always dancing around them and showing them his latest sewing creations... so instead they begin turning off the lights manually every night at set times, telling Sun it's for "routine maintenance" or something but really it's to get more info out of Moon

Perhaps Moon starts to become a lil protective of them too~ They are after all a lot better of a listener than any plushie...

At this point they're both fiercely protective/possessive of y/n and don't want them being friends with anyone else. Cue jealousy and the two fighting for their attention~

At some point or another Moon makes them a friendship bracelet since he knows that'll get to Sun since he likes them so much, and also to mark Y/n as his

Sun finds it the next day, grabs a pair of sewing scissors and cuts it off in his first display of outright anger

Beyond that?? No clue 🥲

I feel compelled to refer to this ver of him as Pincushion...

[troloyunu]

Sorry if you've answered this somewhere before, but do you have any advice for improving/practicing art?

I am not sure if I am the best person to be giving advice on this matter as there are a lot of aspects of my art that are lacking, but here are some tips that have worked for me personally that I think worth are trying!

This got kinda long so. Under the cut!

First, this is always important, and I know people are sick of hearing this but it's true: practice, practice, practice! Observing things is very important for art but you actually have to try your hand again and again in order to have a result that is to your liking when it comes to art. Please just try to draw as much as you can. You have a pen in your hand? Scribble something. This will also improve your linework.

Do NOT be afraid to use references. It is highly unlikely that you will just happen to be able to draw something you have never drawn before without a reference. If you can't find any refs, take your own pictures. (I do this a lot when it comes to drawing hands)

Most of the time we have these conceptions of how things look especially when it comes to anatomy but humans are all sooo vastly different so I believe it is important to broaden your vision by using diverse references

Don't be afraid to draw bad. Seriously. If a piece you just made sucks, don't beat yourself up about it. It is geniunely not that serious. Take a break and come back to it, if it is still not to your liking and you cannot improve it; it is okay to delete that drawing and try something else. You'll get it, I promise. Just keep practicing.

Most of the time I find that it helps A LOT to draw something I am obsessed with. When I am learning anatomy, I don't just always draw some random people's pics I found on the internet, I will sometimes make that drawing into a character/ship I love

Do redraws from your old art! It is so motivating and fun to see how you have improved and changed as an artist :3

I know it is not healthy to rely solely on validation, but it does help a lot! If you are part of a community, esp one with a lot of artists, don't hesitate to show them your work! You can also draw your friends' ocs and such if you want to, it really is a win win situation because you will be drawing something you want to draw and your friend will be so happy that you took the time to draw their character. I loved gifting people little doodles when I was part of an oc centred fandom :D

Also, since we are talking about validation, validate YOURSELF please. Imagine yourself 2 years, 5 years, 10 years whatever ago. How would you have felt if you saw your drawings today? You would have been so impressed! So take the time to appreciate your own work.

If there are any artists you adore, don't hesitate to try to redraw their drawings, or maybe just some aspects of their style that you love. If you do a redraw, it is advised that you do not post it as your own idea, but if the artist is ok with you posting it with credit, then you can do that too! :D

That being said, keep in mind that you don't have to post EVERYTHING you draw! I used to do that which put a lot of pressure onto me since I would get so upset whenever a drawing turned out bad, but when you realize that you can just not post it, that lifts a lot of tension.

Take care of yourselfff!!! Take care of your arm, your wrist, your back. I think there is this program that makes you take breaks every x minute which is called EyeLeo, you can install that or something similar. But please do take care of your health.

Sometimes breaks are needed. If nothing you draw looks right and you don't feel any joy in drawing, do take up another hobby for some time. Let yourself miss drawing.

Play around with styles and colors and lineweights, see what you like the best. I used to always get so upset that I didnt have a set style, my drawings vary a lot throughout each piece. But now I just keep it cool and don't think about it too much. Don't force yourself!

Also for me a part of drawing I ALWAYS look forward to when drawing canon characters is giving them alternate outfits I save on pinterest. I enjoy so much searching which outfits a character might wear. Maybe you can try this? I know drawing the same outfit over and over again for a character gets old.

Honestly being obsessed with something helps a lot with improving. Like a character or a pairing or whatever. Because you will just REALLY want to draw something for this thing you love, and you will just keep on doing and doing it. Really helpful

But 99.9% of the time, the thing you imagine will not translate completely identical to the canvas/paper. And that's OKAY! That means that you have a great imagination and you will try to get a satisfactory result. It just means more practicing. When you get an idea that you want to draw but don't feel like your skills are enough for, draw them anyway! That way you can see a lot more clearly what you need to work on. And do work on those things.

I think for reference images just find nude reference pictures of real life people. The drawing pose references we see on here or on pinterest with simple shapes ARE very convenient when you just wanna quickly draw something, but if your goal is to learn anatomy, then using a pic of an actual human is ideal.

Remember that art is supposed to be FUN. So do have fun. Experiment!!!

Also I would say like, when I was more of a beginner and tried to do fullbody drawings and such, it never looked good and I was quite discouraged but things started improving when I started to individually focus on things like eyes, noses, lips etc and then trying a more general approach with fullbodies. Might not be the same for everyone though!

I think that's all I can think about for now. Sorry if this is not that useful, but yeah! I would say the most important thing is to just practice honestly :D Go ahead, have fun, draw something! I wish you the best <3

[amalasdraws]

Hello Amalas! I love your artworks coz they're so detailed and you can even make clutter look beautiful. I'd like to ask: what reference do you use for the background? Do you go outside and take pictures or sketch here and there? Do you use photo books? Internet? Coz everytime i look at your artworks in a bigger screen, it makes me feel like i'm transported to the place-- like i'm a passer-by or a fellow diner watching your character a few steps or tables away from where i am.

Awww thank you!! Okay This is gonna be a bit longer It’s a mix of a lot of things and a lot of the things around me. I not only love to draw cluttered places, but I also always kinda lived in lovely cluttered places. So a lot of inspiration is just taken from the things around me, my own memories, and the things I like.

My latest pic for example is something that is created by just an idea I have of a kitchen, based on things I know and things I’ve seen. I didn’t have a specific reference here.

I mostly always start with my characters and then very roughly sketch the room I have in mind around them.

And based on this I create my perspective lines and map out the space a bit clearer. Measure my distance with the perspective lines and create my surfaces. 

And then I go into lineart. First for the surface only.

And when I have all my surfaces I only then go into my detailed clutter and add it all over time.

As said, this kitchen was fully made up and only really got shaped into form on my canvas.But I for example have a gas stove and one of those espresso cans at home, so just a quick walk into my kitchen allows me to look up certain items if I’m unsure how they look.

But there are also a couple of items by now that I have stored in my own personal mental library. When you look at my pieces closely there are a bunch of items that I have in several of them. Poles, electric cables, a certain type of window, stacked bowls and cups, soda cans, etc And those are all items that I can draw by now without any reference. And then there are some new items that I have to look up, so I mostly just do a quick google search to get an idea on how they look. For example this bedroom piece was created like the kitchen above and just based on an idea I had in mind, rooms I knew or saw somewhere and then just created out of my head. I started with a rough sketch

And then continued the same way as with the kitchen piece. But here I had some very typical late 90s items in mind, and as I could draw the bed, room, window, and some small details just out of my head, there were a couple of items I looked up on google to get the right look for them!

So I created a small library from pics I found on google and just put them on the side of my pic to have them as a ref.It doesn’t have to be a perfect ref. Just a good enough pic to give me an idea of how an item looks like.

Sometimes I have an idea of a room but want something specific and it should look more or less authentic so I go on a google search for similar places.I still like to create my own version but I look at certain structures and items that those places have and try to incorporate them into my piece

Like with this one for example. I just used some photos from google that gave me a good idea of a place like this.

Many of those items are still chosen from my mental library, but I also have some things I look up and some loose references. 

Keep in mind that I’m doing this for some time now! And I build up my mental library and how I want to draw things over time! This is not something that comes over night. It takes time! And it comes by repeating things and drawing them over and over.

I also love to take photos and when I visit new places or see something I like I take photos. One because I love to take photos, but also as a future ref. And some of those photos I use as loose refs as in the examples above. And sometimes I even pretty much just redraw them. Because I really like the structure, or want that specific look or even specific place!

For example I took this photo when I was in New York and as the Aran and Tao story takes place in New York I really wanted to create a place like this! A structure and street similar to the photo.

And as you can see especially the train structure and street look is something I used for this drawing here

So long answer short

It’s a mix of things!I have a good mental library by now, I like to draw the things I know and the things around me, and when I go for a certain city, or street look I like to work based on photos I took by myself and use them as refs.

And taking photos also helped me a lot with my background drawings. It gave me an idea of how my irl 3d street view looks on a 2d photo, an idea for lines and angles, what works and what not, and what to look for in backgrounds, what I like in city scenes, and what I want to create. Google photos can be helpful refs, but I like to use them more loosely to only give my brain a reminder again on how a certain item or space looks like. When I really redraw something or stay close to my ref I like to take my own ref photo, so all is my work.

[skettibun]

Here's a redraw thingy of two of the three Afton kiddos!! I made these on June 7th[?] and I'm not as proud of them as when I first doodled them, but man they're a hell of a lot better compared to their older counterparts! Kinda made me thrilled to see progress.

Unfortunately, I can't find a decent-quality pic of either of the old drawings I made back in February 9th, 2021 [I literally almost shit myself seeing that date] but they're in the top left corner of the current drawings!

Also, for some reason, I was wanting to be edgier or something by making a """spooky""" version or whatever, so I redrew that one too for the fun of it ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯ I'm not too great with gorey or scary art though, so that's something I'll have to get better at with time.

[especdreamy]

My personal favorite Daily c!Ranboos, in order of posting!

Now that it's finally over, I feel like its appropriate to share all the daily c!Ranboos I'm the most proud of, and the reasons why I like them so much.

I'll probably redraw some of these in the future!

Under the readmore bc its long and has lots of pics!

Day 5 - Brain Fried

Looking back to it, this one isn't all that great compared to other Daily c!Ranboos I have done, but it's the first one I did in which I tried to make an actual composition rather than just. Drawing c!Ranboo. So it's kind of an important one!

Day 13 - Allium

Kind of similarly as Brain Fried, this one is kinda rough in the edges when looking back on it, but I loved the eerie vibe of it, and the effort of using a more limited palette!

Day 21 - Bouquet

It's just cute. He looks so squishy! Not much more to add tbh :)

Day 22 - Under the Weather

I personally love how I made the effect of them "disintegrating" due to contact with water look! I like how the particles flow :) I love how I made the effect of the water dripping, how it could kinda look like tears running down their face. I used "Under the Weather" in both a literal and metaphorical sense!

Day 28 - Tears

I like the expression and colors :) tbh the tears could be better but otherwise I like it.

Day 32 - Awake

It's soft, comforting, bright, warm, I love the way I did the colors SO MUCH! The expression is everything to me, I like how their hair looks. Also you might notice that I have 100% used the same colors for Revival and Freedom.

Day 34 - Arrival

I just like their goofy expression and how much of a twig they look. Silly lad

Day 38 - Butcher Army

I LOVE the expression and the limited color palette! While theres bits that could be improved upon this is one of my best compositions here.

Day 39 - Apprentice

Technoblade.

Day 41 - Memory Book

I like how the anatomy looks here! Looks very sleek and natural I guess? I love how the tail lies on the ground. I just can feel the weight here a bit.

Day 44 - Doomsday

The blue sky with the bright red flames, the lighting, c! Ranboo's silhouette, idk this is just very pleasing to look at!

Day 64 - Revival

I can't even elaborate on how much I love this one, it's probably The Best drawing (drawings?) of Daily c!Ranboo! I used the same color palette as Awake bc I wanted to give it the same comforting and soft vibe, I love how fuzzy it all looks, how quiet it seems...Also its a comic too! I speedran that in 3 or so hours and im so damn happy with it.

Day 67 - Light

The colors are very nice, I like the lighting!

Day 76 - Dance

I like the poses! I tend to struggle to draw c!Tubbo but he looks very cute here. I think I made c!Ranboo a bit too short but tbh it was a challenge to make the pose work!

Day 82 - Windy

I like the colors, the expression, AND THE HANDS!! Its fuckign wimdy!

Day 89 - Void

HORROR VIBES! I wanted to do at least one creepy-looking drawing for this challenge that I liked and this is the one for sure!

Day 90 - Stars

I like the colors a lot here! The way he looks up to the sky with the big ol' eyes and his pose feels so natural.

Day 91 - Birthday

I may have speedran this in like an hour and a half but GOD I just LOVE the symbolism in this drawing! The balloon because birthday! But its black because death! Ghostboo is the one holding it because they're the one in the overworld after all. How c!Ranboo looks down while Ghostboo stares at them!

Day 92 - Freedom

I used the same palette as Awake and Revival, it just felt right! I tried my best to do a piece that'd be forth of being the "sendoff" for the daily c!Ranboo series, and I do think it holds up!

[neonsomatic]

Please info dump to me about your favourite OC or your favourite aspect of your world Within 👀

aaaaaaaaaaaa Okay okay it's hard to pick one of seven... Eight? Nine, technically? (Two of which belong to very close friends of mine.)

I'm putting it under a cut because it looks pretty lengthy on my phone, plus there's some... Negative implications regarding gender? It's not bad and it has a happy ending, it's just a description of my personal experience with it back when I was in a pretty dark place.

I think the most important one(s) to me overall would be Rhys and Ilvenath; they're grouped together because they're a package deal. Rhys - the small, idiotic, loud-mouthed arsonist gremlin of a man with absolutely ZERO sense of self preservation - was the first OC that sparked the whole thing, but the story was way different back then. It actually took me about a year to actually name him; I kept calling him "Bastard Man Dumpster Fire" and every combination of those words rearranged, and I'm pretty sure I still have art files with those names too, including one called, "I finally named him Rhys." I know the art folder itself is definitely named something like "Bastard Fire Dumpster Man and Friends" or something like that as well, I never bothered changing it and I probably never will.

I was kinda in a really dark place mentally at the time I made him, and both he and Ilvenath (or just Nath,) were basically how I saw myself cranked up to 11. I had used them as a coping mechanism and a way to vent through both art and writing since I wasn't comfortable talking to anyone about it, and at the time I was still very much questioning my relationship with gender and the (very true) possibility of me being trans. It was very unhealthy at first, but the characters grew as I did and eventually they became a very positive thing for me.

But anyway, Rhys had started as this trans man who had this monster inside of him trying to violently take over his mind and body (the monster was actually himself to no one's surprise,) and he had to constantly take this drug called Neon to kinda keep the monster at bay; it's actually where the name "Neonsomatic" came from, it was what I originally called the story. Eventually this "monster" character evolved into a separate being, and I had given the two of them this (very toxic in hindsight,) love/hate relationship.

After this phase in Rhys' evolution, I had given him a redesign (thanks Sims 4 mods!) and I ended up falling in love with it, and eventually that "monster" became a demon that got trapped inside of him, keeping him alive; it was here that the demon became Ilvenath. I had then wanted them both to have a more positive relationship with each other. At this point I had already made another OC for Rhys to have a romantic relationship with - Emmerich and his Eldritch companion Ez - and I kept tweaking their stories to still keep that Cyberpunk-esque "no one has a happy beginning or ending" feel I had from the beginning, but they had each other and that's all that mattered. I had also kept changing their heights because I couldn't get enough of that delicious height difference; as of the most current change, Rhys is 5'4" and Emmerich is 6'8". But yeah, then the rest of the crew came in (the ones that are my own are all aspects of me cranked up to 11; that still hasn't changed,) and the story evolved into what it is now; a story about found family and overcoming trauma at its core.

But my personal connection with Rhys has always remained the same, he just grew with me as I got more and more comfortable with myself and eventually, accepting who I am. This pic of them is an older one and I definitely need to redraw it sometime; there's SO much wrong with it. But it's still one of my favorites.

[julymarte]

Friendship

(you can find this pic without the walltext in the #meme redraw tag in my blog)

So the other day i made THIS post so i thought i'd share more information about their relationship

Taru might end up a lil in the shadow of her more popular friends but she really is the glue that keeps them together somehow, starting from the beginning...Taru and the twins pretty much grew up together they are more than just childhood friends they are almost relatives you know when you call the parents of your childhood friends uncle and aunt even if you are no way related? That thing. they are pretty much cousins- when they were children they were almost inseparable they almost spent more time together than with their siblings ( both the twins and taru have younger sisters, they also have a close bond). growing up the friendship with Nakir grew more than the one with Uri, they are still very good friends but other than gossiping and having some walks and chit chat around the market they don't do much else, with nakir instead they share the same 1 braincell if there's something dumb or risky be sure that they will team together and do it anyway for the thrill of it. Both Nakir and Taru did feel pretty sad when they had to be separated for 8 long years when she enrolled the Red Moon Academy(might do a post about the whole merc system one day let me know if you'd like to see it) and they most likely made other friends Nakir out and Taru inside of it but none as meaningful as what they have so upon their reunion it was an immediate decision to become teammates and work on missions and assignments together.

As for Pravaal...Him and Taru met for a very short time before she entered the academy but we need a little context here, mercenaries in the kingdom of moon are actually a lil bit different from what one may imagine while thinking about a regular merc, some of them have gathered quite the fortune and gained a title on par as nobility ... some are more on the fancy snob side others more on the military side...Taru's family on the part of her mother is one of them(on the military side), Pravaal is a noble sure but he has technically no ties with mercenaries aside from his runaway father most likely being one BUT a couple of merc nobility with ties with the academy offered to give him shelter after he reached out for help from the academy after fleeing from home when just a kid so, for a couple of years, they were eachother's only friendly face at those booooring adult meetings.Taru's sister seemed to enjoy them while both Taru and Pravaal used to spend their time making fun of the snobby rich elders and finding ways to prank them, he would be pretty shy about it back then but she wouldn't hesitate to take the lead on the mischief... they met again when she graduated and to her surprise he and Nakir knew eachother too cause they had been training together for the purple class, she did not expect them to have developped a rivalry tho XD (and of course she had no idea to what happened with Uri) It's just thanks to her that the three became a trio, one day Nakir and Pravaal were arguing on who would take a specific mission and she just proposed " why don't we go together" they reluctanctly accepted but it ended up being a big success, the chemisty of the party was a bit unstable at first but even tho Nakir and Pravaal deny it, they are a pretty good team. And after a good mission what's best than a niiiice celebration at the Twiin moons, they sure have become regulars at that (shady) pub and it's not rare to see them hand around there- but yeah good things don't always last, have you ever had that one friend that disappears after they get a special other? well this is kinda what happens here except their drifting away is not much cause they don't hang outtogether anymore but cause they LITTERALLY MOVE TO OTHER WORLDS, she of course has the means and will go see them but it's always kinda bittersweet

[yayforocs]

OLD ART PART 2!!!

picking back up in october 2013!!!

random headphone girl? random headphone girl

ok i can't find this one (or its later successor) anywhere so i'm. assuming i never posted it? even tho i could've sworn i did.

it's the noxcrew gameshow hosts, johnny smooth and scotty love :VVV

kinda wanna redraw them again tbh tbh

a link :V

WOW OK i was going to send martyn inthelittlewood a fan letter ages ago when he was doing the uhh!! the um!!! the videos where he opened stuff from fans!!! he had a po box u could send stuff to and i drew some fanart of him and characters he liked and wrote out a letter!! but i! never sent it OTL i think i just was never satisfied with what i wrote bc i remember trying to write it multiple times dslkfj

also i found teen ib au doodles! :V i did draw something after all

doodle of homestuck troll oc, terian oneira :V (the name did actually like. mean something. but i don't remember what)

a redraw of like the second aqua pic i drew ever bc Actual Player AquaUmbreon had changed his minecraft skin :V (so i'm not gonna tag this as the character sdlkj)

speakin of the CM server crew, tis me and razor :V

there's also a vaughn from harvest moon island of happiness!! this was also a july doodle, hm.

there's also some crystal chronicles crew doodles :VVV from when mogi and i were planning out the caravan!!

november 2013 :VV

oh man oh man oh man ok i never posted this one bc i started coloring it w colored pencils n then i never finished so it was just unfinished to me bUT i played fire emblem awakening and was wrecked by a nuzlocke playthrough where i got gaius and maribelle s supported and then maribelle. died. so i drew a lyric comic thing (but i was going to add in the lyrics digitally, so. rip.) set to.... a song that i cannot find???? i have the recording on my ipod of it but it's a rip from youtube that. i guess isn't there anymore. here's the poem based on it though: (and straight googling the entirety of the poem led me nowhere also so i'm just. where is this from who originally wrote it what.)

Sun sets low beneath the sky Leaves all in golden state Stars glow at edge of twilight And here I stay, your words await Goodnight, Goodnight

Sky a shade of midnight blue Moon in its glowing fate The world at peace is a calming view And here I stay, your words await Goodnight, Goodnight

Distance leaves us far apart So at midnight if I may Wish upon the brightest star And hear your voice so softly say Goodnight, Goodnight

also ib oc, adam! :V he's from a fic i wrote abt garry getting stuck in the gallery and inadvertently getting out with the help of another kid pulled in years later

skip to april 2014!

it's a redraw of my first post on yayforstuffs, the CM crew! :V man look at how tiny i drew sdlkfj

moving to february 2015 :V

i have the ENTIRETY of the original original ib sprites i made!!!!!

this is so many why did i do All Of Those sdklfjs

-ah heck ran out of images again, holdon

[genericpuff]

always wanted to make one of those 'day in the life' posts so here u go!

TW/CW: Tattoo needles, mild blood/mentioning of blood

ima be honest with you, sometimes those 'day in the life' reels on tiktok n junk annoy the piss out of me because they seem so disingenuous, but that's honest to god probably just my executive dysfunction being salty because there's no way in HELL i'm gonna be on some 'grind' where i'm getting up at 6 am to make smoothies and do a workout before i have to go to actual work, i can't with that and i struggle to fathom anyone else doing that consistently LMAO (but i know there are and y'all are a different breed, i wouldn't be able to do it LOL)

like i literally get up anywhere between 30-10 minutes before i gotta catch the bus to go to work-

(understand that i can only get away with doing this because the bus stop is LITERALLY RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET FROM MY HOUSE LMAOOO i could also just as easily walk , work is about 15-20 minutes away, but like... i don't wanna when i could just sleep in for another 15-20 minutes LOL)

most of my mornings consist of battling with myself to get out of bed until the last possible minute and then hoping the bus isn't early so i don't miss it on account of my own executive dysfunction, paired with timmy's because i'm a canadian hoser, buds.

i'm actually pretty hyped though for that apartment move at the start of april because as soon as we've moved, we'll be even CLOSER to my work to the point i won't even have to catch the bus anymore, you can literally see the new place out my work window. watch me find ways to still be late for work LMAO

anyways. i got off kinda easy today because NORMALLY i have to get up earlier as most of the time my appointments start at 1 PM, but I only had one appointment today and we had booked it for 3 so I got to sleep in a bit longer <3 This was the design I had made up for them (a sternum piece):

but then it turned out i had completely neglected the one change they wanted, which was to make the middle flower a lotus flower. thank god for my ipad, having the ability to change up designs on the go was half the reason I bought it ~

easy fix uwu

as for the setup, my tattoo setup is pretty simple, the machine isn't actually ready to go yet but i usually set that up after the stencil is applied to give the stencil time to sit and dry (and i don't like having nothing to do while i wait):

(the actual machine once it's wrapped):

it was a full kitchen in the shop today meaning me, my boss, and my two other coworkers who work in the open area were all working and having a good time. one of my other coworkers wasn't in today but they work in a separate private room so the main area itself was full. sometimes i'll come in and i can tell who was in first based on what's playing on the TV. if it's documentaries or reruns of old comedy shows (like the Office) I know it's my boss, if it's reality TV then I know it's L, and if it's music from Spotify then it's usually my other coworker S.

It was S today :' )

here's the actual stencil on the skin! my client is an old pal who i've tattooed a couple times and was thankfully okay with me taking pics and posting these ~ (haha, no female presenting nipples here, tumblr!)

as you can probably see I had to take a marker to the tail and redraw it so it would go around the belly button, originally the stencil went right thru it and wouldn't have looked good

but guess what? didn't matter anyways because the fucking stencil wouLDN'T FUCKING STICK. like, as soon as I started working on it, I realized it was gonna be one of those stencils, the kind that wipe away INSTANTLY. I think it was a combination of just the placement (backs and sternums don't tend to hold as well) as well as her skin type (not all skin types hold onto stencils and ink equally) and the fact that it was hotter in the shop than it usually is which amounted to a bit of sweat (esp in the belly area where things tend to be a lot warmer) which resulted in the stencil not holding in the slightest. y'all it was STRESSFUL and even after I tried to re-apply the stencil again as best as I could (with the tattoo already in progress and the old stencil pretty much gone) it STILL wouldn't hold, so I essentially had to bloodline the whole thing (i.e. line it in so lightly and quickly just to get SOMETHING visible in there after the stencil disappeared. half the lines weren't even genuine lines, just the tiniest faintest impressions that mostly consisted of blood, but still better than nothing).

eventually my coworkers had all clocked out for the day so i was the last one standing, meaning I got control over the Spotify >:D

(and played pretty much the exact same music my coworker would have because we have the exact same tastes in music lmao)

so this is where i had to re-stencil because the original stencil i had put on was wiping away like crazy, but then the second stencil ended up being just as shitty. like you can see where i had to put the lines in 'good enough' near the top because even the shoddy stencil redo was GONE as i was working on it, and it created this sort of cyclical problem where i couldn't just not wipe while i worked because that would result in there being ink anywhere so i couldn't see what i was doing... but then i would wipe to clean it up and poof stencil gone. it was a nightmare and stressed me out but big thanks to my client for understanding and trusting the process <3

because even tattoos are allowed to have an ugly stage before they look good ~

all in all i'm pretty happy with how it came out in the end, the process definitely didn't go as smoothly as i had initially hoped and i would have liked to spend more time on the actual lining process in the beginning, but i had to rush that shit. thankfully as soon as that foundation was laid, it gave me time to just go in and tighten up those lines, a lot of this ended up being freehand compared to what i had planned on doing :' )

(the best part is this client has two lil' dermals just an inch or so above the tattoo that the snake's face and tongue line up perfectly with, it's adorable haha)

either way, that was my day at the shop, i was the last one there so it was on me to settle the debit/credit machine, set the alarms and have everything ready for another day tomorrow!

very appropriate music for the last track of the day lmao and our shop pet, Smaug, poked his head out to say hello!

for the most part, a good day! aside from that stupid stencil giving me a hard time, it was still pretty chill, came out to be a 3 hour day, I showed up around 2:30, my appointment started at 3 and we were all done by 5:30, left just in time to go pick up some sushi takeout and catch the next bus home <3

(have I ever shown my face on my Tumblr before??? if not, here's me!)

My job's pretty cool. Still have to deal with a lot of "typical bullshit" esp when it comes to communicating with clients and setting up appointments as well as tattoo-unique bullshit like dealing with squirmers or crappy stencils or not being able to have a social life without people pestering me for free work, but it's the best job I could ever ask for especially in this particular location. The husband and wife duo who run the place are super sweet but have their shit together well, they run a tight ship and it means I don't have anything to worry about besides setting up my appointments and tattooing. It took a lot of fighting over the course of years to finally end up in a comfortable place, and many times I almost gave up, but it was worth it because now I'm in a great place that pays well and I get to do what I love.

But I'm still pretty eager to get home most days lol So I grabbed my sushi, caught the bus, and made it home.

It was about 6:25 when I landed and because of Daylight Savings, it's still very light out. It does so much for my mental health to leave work and have it still be sunny, the ✨ seasonal depression ✨ is gone and all I have to worry about now is ✨ regular depression ✨ And it's gonna be even better once we move to the new place because it's on a ground floor and has windows aplenty, loads of natural light (compared to the gross basement we live in rn).

But until then, this is what I come home to (～￣▽￣)～

I will now spend the next 6-8 hours playing FF XIV, watching my shows, and working on Rekindled and Time Gate, pretty much all at the same time or at least jumping between. Usually I'll have something playing on rerun on the TV in the background (so something I don't have to pay attention to, like reruns of the Office or Bob's Burgers or w/e I'm feeling that day) and then I'll be listening to music in my headphones or - if I want to engage with something that isn't a rerun - I'll put on a Youtube video that's easy to listen to and absorb without having to look directly at. Sometimes it's speedrun documentaries, sometimes it's GameGrumps compilations, just depends on what I'm feeling and what shows up in my recommended that day LOL Yes , it might seem 'pointless' to have a show playing in the background while also listening to music, but it's sorta just there as a presence and idk, it brings my ADHD brain comfort lol

If you don't believe me that this is the level of multitasking that I'm at, the other day I made a call to Nintendo Support to help my husband get back into his account and I did it while running dungeons in FF XIV, yaaaaay ADHD! My brain needs constant stimulation to function! ╰（‵□′）╯

(and yes, I'm usually joined by Psuwis - it's Maliseet for 'cat' - who's very needy for my attention as soon as I get home lol)

This is how I spend most of my evenings, and even entire days if I'm not in the shop (and my schedule's pretty flexible, sometimes I'm at the shop 5 days a week, other times I might only work 2 or 3 days, it just depends on how busy my bookings are). My husband is actually probably just getting off work rn so he'll likely be home by the time I'm wrapping up this post lmao

Supper!

I actually worked on Rekindled pretty much all day yesterday, so now the episode's almost done already, it's coming along nicely! I'm hoping to have it done tonight or tomorrow so that I can have it ready for Saturday when I'm away on my trip (and maybe get a headstart on Ep 12 so that we can have a new episode next weekend as well during my apartment move!)

Anyone in my follows play FF XIV? Currently working on my Astrologian, it's pretty fun! You can find me (Pym Thras'rala) in Hyperion if you ever wanna party up sometime!

That's pretty much it! Not really anything super crazy or exciting to show, my life's pretty routine and that's how I like it. A lot of my social life is online nowadays but I do make time to go out and hang out with IRL pals as well. If this were done on a Friday most of what I'd be doing is hanging out down at the bar with pals LMAO

So yeah! hope you enjoyed this lil' self-indulgent "talk about myself for 20 minutes" post （￣︶￣）↗　If anything I hope it offers some kind of solidarity to the other pals out there who need 27390572309 forms of stimulation to get through the day LMAO

(also not recommending anyone live the way i do, my back hurts, my sleep schedule is fucked and my brain is fried（*゜ー゜*）let's all hold each other accountable and remember to check our postures, stand up and stretch every hour, and stay hydrated <3 ).

[paperweight-jellyfish]

going to tryand do a weekly journal type thing for 2024. i forget a lot of stuff so this is my new years resolution ok here we go

1/7/24

been cleaning out my bedroom at my parents house over break. lots of old stuff there i’d forgotten about. found a bunch of old sketchbooks (which i sorted by year and put away) and it really put in perspective how long i’ve been drawing. i’ve got sketchbooks from before i had a tumblr in that pile (making them impossible to get an exact year on) kinda want to go back and redraw some realllly old stuff of mine. maybe something of eggs since i’ve been working on her story lately.

also in the Cleaning i have found a crochet project i completely forgot about. i made like 60% of a sweater two years ago (i hand dyed the wool and everything). luckily i still had the pattern downloaded so i just yesterday finished the arms. now all i gotta do is block it and add the ribbing and i’m done. its a nice wool, one that is actually cozy rather than being itchy so i’m excited.

done some mending also. fixed some rips in my dad’s pants with some sashiko. not my cleanest work but it holds it together and fixes the problem. he was really excited about it :)

got in the case for a keyboard i’m building. my first custom keyboard!! the switches are pre-lubed so i’m debating if i want to get some and re-do it or if i’m satisfied as is.

i’ve started recording cassettes!!! its super easy to do right from my laptop and i’ve been having lots of fun making the j cards. very happy that i bought that recorder its so cool. so far i’ve done some The Unicorns stuff and i plan on doing Burnout Beautiful next. probably the demos on the a side and the one live performance recording on youtube on the b side (maybe after that i should do mook?)

in that vein, i’ve also been editing lyrics on genius. i needed lyrics to put on the little insert i made but some lyrics are wrong and now i’ve made it a mission to transcribe. made it to 300 IQ this week. transcribing is fun if hard.

started a stardew valley co-op farm with gort. we played for like 5 hours straight yesterday and got almost all the way through spring. sal is making our farm so cute and its so nice to hang out and just work together. need to make this a regular thing. overall not a super eventful week but a nice one. very chill.

some goals for next weekish

block the sweater

try on all the clothes in my bedroom and decide what can stay and what can be donated

start the drawing my boyfriends commissioning me for

set up my capture card so i can stream ghost trick to gort

pick out an eggs drawing from my old sketchbooks to redraw

record burnout beautiful to cassette

start crossposting things from twitter. i refuse to abandon this blog even if my brain is awful at remembering to post

songofthe week

pics below cut because this is long enough as it is

>eggs (from one of said sketchbooks)

> sweater (pre-finishing off the arms)

> mending on my dads jeans (ft. the INCREDIBLE scissors he got me for christmas. holy shit these things feels so good to cut with)

> bespoke the unicorns cassette (it says volume 1 because i put multiple albums on there so i dont waste tape)

> stardew valley fun (i’m the one in the straw hat)

> the keyboardddddd (i'm typing on it right now and WOW i love this thing already)

[wintercosmicskye]

Random redraw things! Wanted to make some doodly funny things as a sort of mini break. Two versions of the first one cuz I couldn’t decide which i liked better. Changed the poses in the one with Little Jack a little cuz i had some trouble with them. Sorry that Astremi probably looks really bad, I’m not good at drawing him yet and kinda gave up at one point.

Here’s the original pics, idk what the source of the first one is but i know the other two come from spiderverse and teen titans

I made a few other meme things but I might put those in another post

[mutant-xweetok]

^^pic of me talking to myself for the last few days about the uc stuff

SO atm theres only 2-4 UCs that i think im actually going to try for. probably just the first 2 at first just to figure out how the new UC item works and stocks and stuff. BIGGEST worry is that i dont think the mutant xwee actually counts as UC which is one i dreamed of having

so im going to have to see how much UCs are going to cover.

EXAMPLE: if i have a blue or ghost ixi will i be able to get the old art if i use the UC item on it? or will that not count because thats OLD ART not a UC design like the grey ixi?

i think thats whats going to determine how much i put into getting the UC items because i know FOR SURE if the UC item allows for ANY PET/COLOR to become the old art then i might get alot, i also know FOR SURE i dont want to start buying NC just for UCs cause im never going to be as active as the old days, the pet slots i buy just comes from the free NC that gets handed out onsite here and there so thats all im gonna use it for, maybe once i hit the max pet slots i'll use whatever NC left for UCs in the future or just faerie cookies, dont know yet

i know back in the early days i loved some pets MORE because of the old art (xwees, ixis, peophins, and unis especially) i dont dislike the new converted versions of those pets but i cant find myself making many characters/designs in my head for the converted versions, like old ixis were just FULL of character in all of their poses even in basic colors and now even just finding good customs is hard for me let alone making characters for them (i think is cuase of their big heads rip) also uni outfits are so TRAGIC i just cant do it

i personally have no gripe about the redraws (YET?) like i /can/ see the idea of a "downgrade" when looking at parts of the redraw (faerie wings KINDA) but thats it for me, i would have to see more to actually /feel/ anything about them. i do love the oldstyle thin lines but i the big gag here is i never cared about UCs when playing as a kid. i was definitely there BEFORE the 1st conversion but i think i stopped for a while when the conversion ACTUALLY happened, but me and squiddy loved customization so we kinda lost our minds with it at first anyway

i adore the oldstyle art for sure and there were so many pets i wanted BECAUSE i wanted the OLDSTYLE version of them (big example is the faerie ixi, i dreamed of having one cause she was so pretty but the conversion just made me not care) (also peophins in general, i had an old oc i pounded just because i just couldnt enjoy any customs or crosspaints i was going for, rip nini i miss you)

SO OVERALL: im really only interested in the old art, the value i guess is where i dont feel anything because my pets are ocs so theyre designs onsite can be whatever and i'll be fine

if these NCUC items allow for ANY PET COMBO to get oldstyle art then i could see myself getting a handful just to feel like i have one, dont really care about whatever identifier theyre going to attach to say "this is a NEW UC not an OLD UC" that doesnt mean anything to me i just want my pngs <3

if these NCUC items DONT work universally with the oldstyle art and it only works with the pets that are catalogued/officially coded as UC (grey pets, the darigan pets, some faeries, etc) then i may only get 1-2 and leave it at that. not really disappointed/upset or anything i just dont care about UCs that much to get multiple, i'll leave it to those users who care about them and hope its fun for them!

also i still have my neoclone accounts (that i need to get back to rofl) where i can get ahold of oldart pets which will work just as well! more ocs babey!!!!!!

[KINDA UNRELATED GRIPE MOMENCE]

i actually am still so sad i didnt get a SAP back in december that was gonna fund the rest of my outfits im so sad (the rest of the AC was great even though i dont collect much of that stuff so no complaints there) but SOME OF THESE CLOTHES cost everything in my bank im so sad but i'll be fine but im so SAD

[zackmartin]

Animated Moodboard Tutorial

Okay, so @piracyisavictimlesscrime​ asked me how I animated my latest moodboard, but it’s kinda hard to explain without showing examples of the steps, so I decided to make a quick tutorial!

I tend to overexplain because I like for it to be as simple as possible for those that are absolute beginners, so I apologize if any part of this feels tedious.

For reference, I’m using Photoshop CC for this but I’d assume older versions would work too, as long as it can make gifs it should work lmao.

The tutorial is kinda image-heavy, I apologize, so everything is under the cut!

So, first I make my moodboard in photoshop. I think you were more asking about the animated part so I’ll keep this brief, but basically I opened a new project that’s 540x540 pixels like so:

Then, I’d open the individual pics I wanted to use, crop them to 1:1 if necessary, add my psd, merge all the layers, resize them to 177 px wide (178 for the ones in the middle, but I kept the length as 177) and then I’d drag them over to the blank project and arrange them the way I want. Once the moodboard was the way I wanted it, I exported it as a jpg. (You could also just merge all the layers of your moodboard and skip this step, it’s really up to you.) (If you need any further explanation or screenshots of any of these steps, just let me know!)

So, I open the jpg in photoshop so the whole moodboard becomes my base layer. 

You’re going to need the timeline feature for this, so if isn’t already opened, go to Window > Timeline and click it so it pops up like this: 

Then you create a video timeline, and make frames out of the timeline.  To do this, you just click the button that says Create Video Timeline: 

And then click the three little squares in the lower left corner to create the frames: 

Now you need to decide how many frames you want your moodboard to be. I wanted enough frames to be able to spell out money on the text conversation in the middle right image of my moodboard with one frame that has nothing on it, so I created one frame for each letter along with one for the “blank” frame, totaling six, like so: 

Also, for the final product, I wanted the frames to be 0.3 sec, so typically I would change the speed at this step (most of the screenshots are wrong, the ones that show 0.02. For some reason I just, got confused and used the wrong time and I didn’t really realize until close to the end but it’s supposed to be set at 0.3. Ofc, you can decide the speed for yourself, my way isn’t the only way alskjdf) If you need an explanation on how to do that, just send me quick ask/DM and I’ll be happy to explain :)

Now comes the doodling/animating part. I created a new layer for each little doodle that I did. For example, as I said, I wanted to spell out “money” on the right middle image, so I created five new layers for each of the letters. 

(as I sidenote, make sure all the layers you create are above your moodboard layer to make sure they’re visible on the moodboard itself). 

Now, I select just the first layer I created, then I go to the moodboard and doodle the letter ‘m’ over the m in the image using the pencil tool (the size set to 1 px, hardness at 100% and the color white selected for it; although obvs you can use any color you like). 

My laptop is one of those ones that you can turn around and turn it into a tablet and it comes with a little tablet pen that made it much simpler to do the actual drawing. If you have a touchscreen or tablet mode or a tablet for digital art, I would suggest utilizing it here because it comes in handy with the actual drawing. (If all you have is the mouse and you aren’t feeling what you’re drawing, you could always use a resource blog like chaoticresources or itsphotoshop to download doodle packs. ofc just be ethical if you’re using other peoples’ drawings 💕) But, if you’re artistically challenged like me (or even if you aren’t honestly) it does take a bit of practice and a bit of erasing and redrawing to get it how you want it to look. (for reference, just the question marks above the masks took me a full hour cause I’m a perfectionist 😭)

anyway, here’s a little demonstration of that. Keep in mind that again, I’m artistically challenged, so the actual process took a lot more finagling and erasing and redrawing, and I know the doodles I did for this tutorial are kinda crude so I apologize for that 😅 (also, idk why the gif is so slow. I set it to have no delay but I think since the image is so large, it’s kinda lagging. Sorry about that). 

Now, I select the second layer I created, and do the same thing just with the letter ‘o’: 

Then, I just keep going with each of the letters, using one layer for each letter. 

Now, comes the actual animating part. I wanted each letter doodle to show up on a different frame on the moodboard, starting with none of the letters showing on the first frame, so in order to do that, I selected the first frame in the timeline in the lower left hand corner, and then you go over to the layers, and click the little button that looks like an eye “hiding” all the layers that contain the letters I drew. Then, I wanted just the letter ‘m’ to show up on the second frame, so I select the second frame in the timeline in the lower left corner, and then I “unhid” the layer that contains the ‘m’ (by clicking the little box where the eye button is) making sure that only that layer is showing. I just kept doing this, showing more letters in each frame until all of them are showing in the final frame:

So, then when you play the gif back, it looks like this: 

I’ll show you how I did the “arches” over the shoes too, just to reiterate, but that’s basically how it’s done. 

So, I literally just did the same thing as above, creating three new layers for each of the little arches I wanted to draw, and then I selected the first layer, drew my first arch, selected my second layer, drew my second arch, and then repeated for the third (again, I apologize for my abysmal art skills, this was quick for tutorial purposes lmao): 

Also, you can see in this gif above I “grouped” the layers that contain the letters I drew in the beginning, but that’s just my way of keeping things organized so I know which layer goes with which sketch. I get kinda persnickety about that kinda stuff but that’s obvs an optional step. 

And then, you do the same thing as above to select which doodle shows on which frame. For this one, I made it so that just the first arch shows on the first frame, then the first and middle showing on the second, with all three showing on the third frame, and I started back at the beginning with the fourth frame, repeating that pattern until I got to the last frame, like so: 

So, then it looks like this when played back: 

And, that’s basically it! You do the same thing for each of the images and then you just save it as a gif. 

To do that, just go to File > Export > Save for Web (Legacy). (I play it a few times like so because that’ll be the final project, so I can see if I missed anything in the editing process):

I’ll show you a screenshot of the settings I use, just make sure you have the loop in the lower right corner set to forever (circled below), otherwise the doodles will only play once and then stop lmao. Also, when making gifs, you have to make sure the number in the lower left corner (circled below) stays below, I think 6mb, (but it might be 7 I can’t quite remember), otherwise the gif(s) won’t move.

 I don’t think any moodboard you make will ever get even close to that number, but that’s just a little extra tip if you ever make gifs in the future. 

Anyway, that’s it! Save it to your location of choice, name it whatever, and you’re all set! You have an animated moodboard! 

If any of these steps were confusing or you need further explanation or you just want to see another tutorial for any of my other edits, please don’t hesitate to reach out! I’ll be happy to help in any way I can! 

Also, feel free to tag your creations using #usernicolette because I love seeing what people do using my tutorials! 🥺💗

Happy creating!

[gamebunny-advance]

Grab-Bag Doodle Dump

Just some stuff~

Notes under the cut as per usual.

1) The Heart Melter Boys (Dear Daniel + Cinnamoroll): I just saw an image that melted my heart, so I wanted to draw some of the Sanrio Boys. Maybe I’ll get around to drawing all of em from that pic.

2) Ice Cream, Original Sketch. I didn’t originally imagine that pic with them as chibis, but that’s how it turned out. I really wanted Tatiana at the end of the row so the joke would have landed better, but when I redid this with the chibis, it looked really weird if Zuke was behind anyone else, so I had to rearrange them in a way where Zuke would be on the right end, so Tatiana ended up sandwiched inbetween Kliff and Mayday. If you’re wondering why I didn’t just add her to the opposite end, it’s because by the time I’d realized the Zuke thing, I had already completely drawn/colored everyone. Since this was just a stress-relief doodle, I didn’t want to waste time redrawing Kliff’s eyes to look the other way. It’s still cute, but not having to move across the line for the joke does kill the impact just a smidge.

3) Childhood Friends relationship chart. Dunno. Just felt compelled to make this one day. It’s not comprehensive. And I don’t know why i made them into mochi. Since I couldn’t make NJ mochi, I gave him lil’legs.

Anyway some stuff I wanted to explain: I like Ne/onNo/va aesthetically, but I personally have a hard time writing for it because frankly, I think DJSS would have a hard time having healthy relationships with anyone. I think it could work out if he works on himself a bit more, but that’s not a story I’m interested in writing. Everything else I think speaks for itself, but do feel free to ask about it if you feel so inclined.

4) “Disco Balloon” - I really wanna finish this, so I’m not going to say much else about it. I just really need to get off my ass and learn how to draw hands so this can be what I want it to be.

5-6) Just something I was thinking about a few days ago. I don’t think it’s ever been said on record that Kliff’s design is inspired by Dio, but I’m pretty sure that’s true. There are a bunch of other Jojo references in the game, so I don’t think another one is that far-fetched. Not that I know anything about Jojo anyway.

7) Beginning of a redraw of that “soft” R.O.B. & Watch doodle I did forever ago. It’s somehow less cute than the original (GW isn’t small enough), but I’ll probs redo it again.

8) Human!Flats. From left to right: Juggler, Mr. Game & Watch, Tabuu.

9) A Tabuu doodle. I’ve been experimenting with giving Tabuu locs, but in doing so he kinda loses that butterfly motif I had. But I don’t think it read that clear in the first place, so it’s not a huge loss if I ditch it. Hm... he might look good with a fade now that I think about it more...

10) A humanized!Smash gender chart that I never finished. I ummed and ahhed a lot about posting this. I’m not very explicit about my gender/sexuality headcanons, because I feel a little weird being a (probably) cis/hetero woman talking about those kinds of things in depth, but I think it’d be more honest if I’m a little more up front about it. From left to right, top to bottom:

Pac-Man: Transmale

Mr. G&W: Genderfluid

R.O.B.: Nonbinary

Ms. Pac-Man: Transfemale

Tabuu: Genderfluid

Pinky: Transfemale

Inky: Nonbinary

[toastedbuckwheat]

Hello! May I ask how you draw? I'm currently learning how to myself and would be highly interested into a step to step process by you! Like from sketch to the done thing (no color necessary)

Hello there!

I dunno how I feel about showing how I work/giving advice to someone who’s learning (and I say it as a pro artist who went through years of traditional art education) because when I do the illustrations you see here on my tumblr I BREAK THE RULES you’d learn though life drawing routine, and give in to bad habits, and my methods are rather unplanned and chaotic which makes it difficult to pinpoint significant stages. But I used my portable potato to take some photos during working on my last piece, so I’ll throw it here with a bit of an explanation of what’s going on.

Before I begin - and because you’re about to look at a mess of a WIP - I’d like to give you some general advice that generally makes life easier when you draw (again, things that I learned in traditional arts education - another artist might advise you the complete opposite, dunno!)

Work holistically. Forget them satisfying-to-look-at clips on instagram showing someone produce a hyperrealistic portrait starting from an eye, with each and every element emerging being finished before they proceed to another part. It takes a lot of talent, yes, but these are ppl redrawing a photo in a kind of a mechanical manner. Most artists don’t work this way. Especially if you’re working without a reference, or if you’re doing a life drawing - your process will be layering and changing and finding what works best to give an impression of what you’re drawing rather than reproduce the exact image, and your artwork is likely to look messy most of the time.That said: don’t start with the details. Don’t spend too much time on a particular part while neglecting others. Your goal is to keep the whole piece at the same level of ‘finished’ (even though it’s unfinished - do I make sense?) before you’re confident that everything is where it should be and proceed to the details. So sketch out the composition first. See how things fit, what’s the dynamics. You’ll save yourself from limbs sticking out from the frame, odd proportions etc etc.

Because it’s a game of relationships between different parts of the picture/scene. I ask you not to worry about finishing a single element before laying out the rest because you’ll find that said element will look different once the other part appears! For instance - you might think that the colour you picked for a character’s hair is already very dark. But once you’re done with the night sky background, you’ll find that it’s in fact too light, and doesn’t work well with the cold palette. You’ll have to revisit different parts of the image as you go to balance these relationships and make the picture work as a whole.

Give an impression of something being there without actually drawing it ‘properly’- because details are hard, mate. You’ll see that my lineart usually has hardly any, and my colouring is large unrefined stains, but the finished thing looks convincing. Like, fuck, I can never focus on how Crowley’s eyes are really shaped. So I just turn them into large glowing yellow ellipses crossed by a line, and heard no protests so far.

Don’t panic if you messed up (you probably didn’t anyway). It might turn out to be a completely unnoticeable mistake - because, remember, things work together to balance each other, so another finished off prominent element will probably drown that badly placed line that looked so visible and out of place a second ago. 

It might not look good before it’s finished. I’m mostly immune to it after years of drawing, and my recent illustrations all follow a specific method (ykno, my sunset glow effects and all that) so I can kinda predict the next stage. But I do my linearts on a specially picked crap paper, I don’t bother erasing the smudged graphite, and it looks messy af until I make the background white in Photoshop. Conclusion: you might have a moment of doubt as you work through a piece, but try to break through it - I often suddenly start to like what I cursed a minute before! - and try to finish it even if it’s meant to be bad. This way, looking through your past pieces, you’ll see the progress. And trust me, I can’t even look at my art from literally three months ago. It’s normal.

Now, pics! The sketches are paler in real life, but I increased the contrast a little so you can see something.

1. Laying out the composition! 

I wanted to just show them kissing, but I got carried away due to some Art Nouveau inspiration. As you might have noticed, most of my illustrations are quite self-contained (ykno - they look like a sticker on a plain background). So I wanted a tight swirl bordered by Aziraphale’s wings creating a sort of rounded, yin-yang like bubble around them. Consequently I made the whole composition revolve around their heads. 

2. Adding more details to the sketch. It’s messy af. It will be messy until I’m done. It’s fine.

3. These are the fineliners I use for the linearts! They are made by Uni-ball and come in light and dark grey. I also sometimes use the guy on the left - ‘Touch’ sign pen by Pentel, when I want more brush-like, wider strokes. I work in grey because when I scan it and do my usual boring trick with sunlight highlights - which is an Overlay mode layer in Photoshop - the highlights ‘burn out’ the lines too and make them vanish a little, and the lighting effect gets more striking. I also like to use the light grey ones to make something look pencil-y without actually using pencil, because pencil fucking smudges.

4. It smudges! So because I am right handed, I start inking from the right hand side, no matter how tempted I am to do their faces first.

5. You can see the composition directions here. I made it intuitively, but ofc some ppl actually use grids etc to lay out their drawings.

6. See how pale ans thin the lineart was at first? I kept adjusting it as new inked parts were appearing. It starts to look nice and consistent now! 

7. Finished lineart? There are some mistakes which I later corrected in PS. Notice that Aziraphale’s face has hardly any details on it - I tried to make the drawing suggest his expression rather than risk overdoing it. 

8. Photoshop time!! You can totally do what I did here even if you don’t have a graphic tablet. I used Curves tool to enhance the lineart, then Quick Selection Tool to select the background around around my sticker-like piece and filled it white (on a new layer ofc). I keep this white layer on top of the layer order so it works as a mask as I colour. I decided I did not like the hatching shading underneath Aziraphale’s halo, so I erased it with a Stamp tool (because I wanna keep the textured grey fill my crap paper naturally gives me!). It’s done roughly but won’t be visible once the thing is coloured. 

9. And the reason why I keep the grey shade instead of easily getting rid of it by using Curves/Levels is because when I set this layer to Multiply mode and colour underneath, it gives me this nice desaturated look like from an old cheap paper comic page. It works as a natural filter! But of course I can’t do bright colours this way, so all my glowing highlights happen ABOVE the lineart layer - on a separate layer in Overlay mode! 

Finished thing here!

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