#these are a little more sketchy than my usual lineart but i'm kind of a fan

[sincerely-sofie]

The finishing of this fanfic has left me with some pretty mixed emotions. On the one hand, I dont want it to end. It's such an incredible piece of work and even though I finally committed to reading it a few weeks ago, it already feels like such a significant part of my life. On the other hand, I'm a little glad that it's over. FAR from the sense it was bad (I'll steal your liver if thats how you interpret it) but moreso in the sense that it was like a good crying session. It's something that a lot of us (or I assume a lot of us) typically want to avoid even though we know its good for us, and satisfying after the fact. It's like catharsis in a way. Endings aren't always a great feeling in the moment, but it's something that we can look back on with a fondness.

I'm so glad I found this work. I'm being completely serious when I say that this fanfic, and the other content you make, has changed my life for the better. Its helped me reconnect with that love I have for creativity after nearly a decade of not making anything even though I wanted to. It's helped pulled me out of a few ruts of depression. It's helped me realize that I'm not actually emotionally stunted (per my own conclusions) and be more willing to cry instead of burying those feelings. In the past I would just, kill these kinda thoughts before they got far because of how much I wanted to avoid crying. Much less actually writing them down, or express them to someone else. But now, I've been crying the whole time I write this, and for the first time in, I think ever, I'm okay with that. I know we don't actually know each other, but you've genuinely helped me become a better person with the things you make. Thank you so much for everything you've done Sofie. hey look! I got your name right!

But enough about me. I feel like it's getting indulgent at this point. (I've gotten dehydrated with how much ive cried writing this and from what I can tell, you cry a lot more than I do. So go drink some water first, and then) I wanna hear your thoughts. What are your thoughts and feelings about your work being finished? Do you have plans to take a break from creative endevors for a while, or are you gonna keep going? Are you going to be expanding more on this and other au's, different fanworks or move into something completely your own? Whatever the case may be, I'm excited to see what more you are going to come up with!

From the bottom of my heart, and on behalf of everyone else, Thank you for everything.

It's so surreal to have posted that final chapter. I finished the first draft almost 100 days ago exactly, and I spent a number of days after completing it kind of adrift. I'd go to my computer every morning like I had during the month prior and sit down, ready to write, only to remember that I was actually supposed to be taking a break before I made the final edits.  It didn't click in my head that I had actually done it… until a couple weeks later when it hit me like a truck that I had an entire completed manuscript sitting in my Google Docs. I think I was making myself lunch at that moment, and I had to bolt to lie down on the floor and put my legs up against the wall because I was ready to pass out at the realization. 

This feels pretty similar. For me, The Present is a Gift— the main fanfic, at least— was finished in mid-January. But the process of uploading it and agonizing over what people thought of every passing update wouldn't be formally done until about 3 months later. It still hasn't clicked in my head that I won't be posting a new update once Tuesday rolls around. 

On the subject of taking a break— I've actually been taking a break, at least partway! I've barely written anything after I finished TPiaG's first draft, and I haven't drawn much “serious” art, for lack of a better word, since I started my blog. I've still been making things, yes, but scattered oneshots and sketchy pieces without solid lineart are not my typical fare. I'm usually a lot more “exact” with what I make— words fail me here— I hope I'm not being too vague! I might take a brief break as I finish up the winter semester, but that would be less a break from creating and more of an “OH MY WORD I NEED TO FOCUS ON NOTHING BUT PASSING THESE COURSES” kinda thing. 

TPiaG (along with its derivative AUs) is still very much a living project to me— there's a lot more stories the characters have in them, even if I struggle to envision a full-on sequel. I'm absolutely going to answer the asks relating to it that I've received over the months along with any I continue to receive, and if I get any ideas for comics or oneshots here and there, I'll make them. As for what's officially next up on the Sincerely Sofie menu, I'm planning to make a visual novel that's a lot more meaty than the last one I made. I'm not sure if it will be original or based on TPiaG— but a visual novel is the medium I'm planning on! 

I'm so overwhelmed by your kindness. I truly don't have any words. This project started off as something private to help distract me from a depressive episode and to process trauma, and it's become so much more. I'm so glad it was able to help you. Catharsis was the keyword for TPiaG— I wanted it to uproot difficult emotions and help people start to heal from them, but I never dreamed it would really help anyone but myself. So to hear it was able to provide you with that is unbelievably meaningful to me. 

I gave myself the goal somewhat recently to let myself cry whenever the urge strikes me. I used to go months without crying, and whenever I did shed tears, it was alone in my room while muffling the few sounds I accidentally let slip. I'm a natural crybaby, but I had schooled myself into thinking for a number of reasons that it was bad to cry— that it was selfish, or attention-seeking, or weak— so I've been trying to reclaim my teary-eyed identity. It's been difficult, but it's so freeing to let myself feel things fully. All of this is to say: let the tears fall. I've helped more people by crying than my stoicism ever did. 

Thanks again. I can't properly word my gratitude, but know that it's overwhelming :,>

[kirbydaily]

any tips on lineart or coloring? I adore your art style!!!!!

thank you! this post might be a little rambley because i'm not the best at explaining things

ok for starters, i don't want to go into my own personal preferences for choosing colors too much. when i started drawing i really stuck with what other artists said was the "correct" way to do things and that can really hinder your art a lot, so i'm going to give general descriptions of colors and color schemes and let you decide which ones you find the most appealing or enjoyable to use. i think choosing colors comes down to personal preference most of all. don't take anything i (or any other artist) say as law, drawing is a lot more fun when you make your own decisions about it. if you want to use a lot of super bright/dull colors, or no colors at all, go for it! your art should be what you want it to. this post is more for people who want to know more about color schemes than for people who want to draw exactly how i do lol

also you can use solid black and white in your art its not illegal and it doesn't always look bad idk why this is such a common thing people say in tutorials/tips about colors

color schemes can be monochromatic or polychromatic, with my art i usually use different colors but i like to use monochromatic schemes sometimes too, art can look very nice with both of them. characters with multiple colors (like kirby) can be drawn with monochromatic palettes as long as you have varying values of the color.

with polychromatic color schemes, remember that less is more! limit your colors and try not to use way too many, it makes things less confusing. reuse colors for different things instead of adding new ones

value is how light or dark a color is. i like to use color schemes with a lot of tints (or pastel colors), usually with a few darker colors in order to define shapes a little better. value is Very important to make the thing you're trying to draw clear to see and separate details from each other, so i'd study this before learning about picking colors individually.

saturation is how "intense" a color is. it's different from value, and it works alongside it (saturated/desaturated colors have tints and shades.) i don't use many very saturated or destaturated colors, and a lot of my art kind of lies in the middle. when i do use them, i try not to put very saturated and very desaturated colors together in the same color scheme, as using all of one or the other can make things more cohesive. (also, don't make dark skintones too desaturated. they should be in the middle)

the most important thing to remember about color schemes is that colors don't work independently, they look best when they're cohesive with other colors. think about how you want something to look before you color it, consider if it's supposed to look cute or have a gloomy/dark feel, if its daytime or night, etc. try not to follow a character's reference sheet colors too strictly, and change them as needed given what you want your finished art to look like.

lineart is a lot more simple (at least to me). i usually use a dark blue or whatever color i associate with the character for it, and i like to keep the stablization setting very low, as that helps it make look more sketchy/painterly. (i use clip studio paint, so if anyone wants these brushes let me know and i'll put them in a different post)

hopefully this was a little helpful and not too much of a pain to read! i've gotten a Lot of asks about this so i felt like i should make this post as detailed as i can. do look for other resources if you want to learn more about this stuff, there's people way better at explaining things than i am lol

[monstroustea]

a friend was talking about style influences earlier and it reminded me of this old meme and i wanted to do one!!!!! i'll talk more about each one under the read more, but if you want to do one, here's the link: https://www.deviantart.com/foxorian/art/Influence-Map-Template-174550753

Sailor Moon (particularly the 90s anime) - this is a big one! i remember drawing sailor moon in elementary school and playing pretend/LARPing sailor moon on the playground... the good old 90s anime style with the exaggerated expressions! cute girls! friendship! this general kind of soft, roundness to the style of the 90s anime? it has everything

Honey and Clover - this manga/anime means the world to me. i love the style, the way the mangaka draws emotions, but also the protagonist's story of finding himself? resonant. the manga especially is precious to me bc of the art tho, it has a sketchy quality that i love

Hey Arnold! - another childhood favorite... this one doesn't reflect on my actual style so much, but it's a big influence on the stories and characters i like and create. if i could make everyone watch only one cartoon, it would be hey arnold

this is a triple threat... Persona 5, sketchbooks, @meruz - if you look at more than one page of this blog, you can probably guess i like p5(r)!! a lot!! i love all the characters, even if you mostly see me drawing the protag and akechi bc i'm a shipper at heart lol... i'm always inspired by sketchbooks of other artists! especially proper sketchbooks, where they're messy and worked in and aren't curated to be "good looking" for people to look at. that said, this is a page meruz posted from one of their sketchbooks (go buy them) and i adore meruz's work! i got into their work a while back and their lineart really drew me in, the lineweight and use of spot blacks is delicious. i need to work more on those in my own art and meruz's work always makes me want to do just that

Dolls - and here we take a little detour from the obvious? i sadly don't own this doll :( she's a rune naito fashion doll and i want one so badly. i collect dolls, especially fashion dolls!! i love their designs!! i usually just leave them in their stock outfits bc those are part of the charm to me. i wanna draw my dolls more, but for now they're just a big influence on design and outfits for characters

Amanda Lafrenais - i've been following amanda for so many years i can't keep count anymore!! her style blends "western" and "anime" so well to me and also she just draws lots of pretty women?? also we love queens who draw different body types

Roleplaying (pixelated image from wiki-how) - i've been roleplaying, mostly just with my bestie erin, since i was like 14? i draw stuff inspired by our roleplays soooo much, whether it's from a scene or just "what if"s we threw around. erin is a brilliant writer, has great ideas, and she's basically the GM even tho it's collaborative writing-based rping lmao... im just like "erin come up with a plot and we can shoot ideas back and forth" lol

Drawfee - no idea anymore how i came across drawfee but it's a really fun and funny channel and i'll do some of their challenges on my own sometimes!! (my favorite is the 30s character from memory challenge, i'll have erin give me characters and time me) also they have a ttrpg-style series called Drawtectives that has great characters!!! also every time julia draws a scene im like "ah i want that to be me..."

The Golden Age of Illustration - i'm such a junkie for cartoons and anime and comics and such, i don't really know the classics OOPS... but in the past year or two i've gotten really into what's apparently known as the "golden age of illustration"!! roughly the 1880's to 1920s, there's a lot of fairy/folk tale art from this era and i'm obsessed with all of it. standout mentions that i love to look at the work of are kay nielsen and edmund dulac

honorable mentions are just... every manga i've ever loved. every artist i've ever obsessed over the art of. and HONORABLE honorable mention to drawingwiffwaffles who sadly hasn't updated in a few months... she got me back into traditional media tho and is a general delight to watch work

[stormclawponyrises]

"What's your drawing process? Care to show a tutorial of how you colour, shade and render?"

I don't really have the energy to go into detail (visually at least) but I'm happy to show my general process and explain what I do for each step.

1) I draw the rough page with "prelim" sketches, using a 10px ink tool in red. These are usually just stickfigures with ears, eyes and a few features that differentiate them, in the rough poses I need them to be in. The simplicity means I can move things around easily. I also add prelim text-boxes to get an idea of how much space I need for dialogue.

2) I draw over the prelims with the actual sketch, using a 1px sketch tool in black. When drawing over sketches of any kind, I put the sketch at 9-11% opacity so it's just visible. It's harder to make mistakes that way and forces me to be more careful with my lines. Here I also add the other panel lines and keep the prelim text boxes.

3) I line over the final sketch using the same sketch opacity rule, for the character illustrations. The lines start out rough initially as I use a mouse and thus can't draw with pen pressure, so once the lining is done I erase and add to the lines to simulate line weight and make it look cleaner.

4) I begin colouring by first using the selection tool on the areas outside of the character lineart, then inverting it so it contains all of the character. This is easier than directly selecting each section of the character.

5) The selected section is filled out with the character's base/main colour. I usually do this with accessories turned off, as they are on a different layer (ie Miltei's blade and Ash's necklace). Then I make a hair layer, eye/mouth/scars layer, and 1-2 marking layers, in that order of dominance. These are set as clipping layers to the base colour layer so I don't have to worry too much about going beyond the lineart. I just use the pencil tool at whatever size needed for colouring, and at 5 px for lineart.

6) I finish the accessory layers and colour the inner lineart to simulate depth and connection between certain body parts. Eyes receive "eye lights" (white dots of varying sizes at a low opacity) to simulate eye reflectiveness.

7) I then line the background using the same lineart rules/process established earlier. (Ignore that it's been coloured already idc)

8) The base colours are added for the background. Some sections get rendering before others.

9) Final colouring and extra details added. I usually add some shading or details to suggest depth and texture.

10) Final tweaks; ambience! Skyrays like the ones shown are done by drawing a large beam of yellow light and blurring it a ton. Then I do it again. On the second layer I add thin yellow lines using the spread tool. Then on luminous layers I add little dust particles like in the sunbeams you'd see in real life (though usually you can only see the dust up close).

11) I import the page into CSP and rewrite the dialogue using the prelim text boxes as a guide. I get them in the shape I want, then draw the speech bubbles using CSP's bubble tool. It's set to a sketchy outline to make the bubbles look a bit rough. These are coloured to match the character speaking, as are the text. The text and bubble layers are then reimported to SAI and the watermark is added. And we're done!

extra notes: 1) Eyes are generally drawn on a separate layer to the rest of the lineart, and pupil lines on yet another layer. This makes it easier to edit them and colour them without accidentally interfering with the other lineart.

2) There are rules I follow with how I do eyes and eye lights, but it's hard to explain. If I make an eye tutorial I'll make sure to go into plenty of detail about it.

3) I don't usually merge layers unless I know there's no reason to keep them separate. Those eye lineart layers always stay separate from other lineart.

4) The panel/page outlines are never on the lineart layer. When selecting the lineart so I can colour, I just draw small lines to connect the lineart that goes into the panel outlines. This is in case I need to edit the lineart position or something like that.

5) How I actually approach lineart changes on a case-to-case basis. Sometimes I'll do hair first, or body first, or ears first, sometimes I draw them all on different layers because of a complex pose, etc. I almost always draw eyes and accessories last though.

6) Preferred font is comic sans (thought I use both upper and lowercase as purely uppercase is irritating to me as a writer) for readability. I use a mix of other fonts for varying purposes.

[numinousnic]

[IMAGE ID] Four digital portraits of Phoebe Hesperia-Fairbriar, the artist’s Dungeons and Dragons character. All four are busts set against a pale purple background, and are labeled “a,” “b,” “c,” and “d.” Except for the hairstyles, the portraits are identical.

Phoebe is a young half-elf woman with fair skin, long light blonde hair, and brown eyes. She has an oval face and a snub nose, and her smile shows a gap between her front teeth. She wears a dark pink dress with a square neckline.

In “a,” Phoebe’s hair is parted slightly to the right and is loose and wavy. In “b,” Phoebe’s hair is parted in the center and braided away from her face, with two strands arranged in front of her ears. In “c,” Phoebe’s hair is straight and she has bangs. In “d,” Phoebe’s hair is straight and parted in the center, with loose strands tucked behind her right ear and looping over her right shoulder. [END ID]

More Phoebe portraits: hairstyle experimentation edition! I wasn’t entirely happy with the way I drew her hair the first time around, and I had a tentative idea of how I wanted to draw her hair for her outfit breakdown, but I wanted to test a few ideas out before I settled on a final idea. (Drawing all these out made me realize pretty fast I liked the original “a” hairstyle the best, but it was still good practice!)