#this is pretty short + i dont make tutorials often so i hope this is comphrensible

[ohheyitsgray]

can you do a tut about how you draw eyes?? i love love love how they look in your style and they’re the hardest thing for me to draw

oh boy well do i have good news for you- my eye style is pretty simple! Hopefully this is helpful for ya, happy creating!

[pandemique]

hI!! i love your art and was wondering if you could make a tutorial showing how you paint stuff? only if you can! it's just really pretty !!

hi nonnie! thats very flattering !! i’m sorry i dont think i’ll be very helpful bc i’m a mega noob as well :D but i’ll try my very best <3

my process is very tailored for speed instead of quality (oops soz LOL) so i do suggest this for if u have short doodle breaks ⬇️⬇️⬇️

thumbnailing (for comics) -> lines (sketch who?) -> bucket tool/color drop in the base color -> color in the lines -> one multiply layer for a “base” shadow (in the vid below its purple!) -> one (1) render/paint layer a.k.a lawless no man’s land

full rendering process & more general painting tips below the cut‼️

NOTE: i’ll be focusing more on traditional/fundamental tips for stylized art because i’m sure there’s a much more effective way in digital. I truly do only use one normal layer for render... i think this is bc before i made this blog, my only prior experience in drawing is middle school art class, so all i know is traditional painting on one layer.... pray i can answer this again in the future with something smarter lmao

🌺 MY PAINT PROCESS

1. Choose a color scheme!

It doesn’t have to be set in stone like below, but i at least keep in mind the color range i’d like to use depending on what i want to convey (ex. soft pastels for soft fluff, or warm colors for happy vibes). I try to be as limited as possible for base colors because I tend to go ham when painting, you’ll see later AHAHA

2. Base coloring + Base shadow

Base -> bucket tool in the color scheme (I know other artists are against this but when i discovered the bucket tool in digital art I immediately divorced manual coloring i’m sorry i loved you tho bae) (this is why my style and lines are simplistic as they are, so the color drop works!)

Base shadow -> in theory, warm-colored light creates cool-colored shadows and vice versa. because i’m a fluff addict i mainly use warmer light, so i like using blue/purple as the shadow. generally u can’t go wrong with complementary colors!! (yellow light & purple shadows / orange light & blue shadows).

I make a new multiply layer (decreased opacity just bc i like things soft okay) and clip it on the base layer, then block in the areas i think would get blocked from the light.

3. Color in the lines!

for simplistic styles i swear this works wonders. i just clip a layer to the lineart and manually color the lines with a darker but more saturated version of the base color. it just tends to look more dead i guess with low saturation lol (ex. u can see above i use both peach and red or pink for lines of skin, i guess it implies the blood under the skin too. or something :D)

4. RENDERRRR

when i’m not in a rush i just paint things completely (and mindlessly), but here are the things i almost always do:

line the shadows with a saturated color! i’m not sure this is common but i love it lol, in almost all my doodles just check the shadows—on the edges, there’s bound to be a wild color :D (usually its the light color, shadow color or a color scheme color but sometimes i’m just like boY do i loVe piNk)

my art major friend told me about saturated colors on desaturated bases and my life was changed forever lol. u can see below even when my base is very grayyy, my rendering is very gay :D ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜

make the shadows darker where i think they should be darker. usually i can just colorpick from that darker, saturated lineart color!

if it’s a more realistic piece i usually make the highlights lighter, but in simple doodles i find it unnecessary, and i dont like how light/white it looks :( i tend to just make the areas exposed to light more saturated

color in the rebound light~ in reality there’s usually not only one primary light source, at least there’d be secondary light from where light bounces off objects. in art we just emphasize that! so in large shadow areas, or in areas close to other objects/colors, i like to ‘splash’ other colors on

yeah this part is less intuitive for beginners and u have to learn a grasp on the concepts over time, like for lighting and structure. values can be more important than color, so i do suggest learning shading first before coloring, but only if u like (u can always be like me and just pull up references when u dont get how the light would fall on some materials :>). i have more general paint tips below! don’t give up okay, i believe in u nons, we’re all still in the eternal learning process together ( •̀ᄇ• ́)ﻭ✧

5. OOOOHHH SHINY ✨🤩

this step is just me being mesmerized by how easy it is to play with lighting in digital. i play around with the layer settings (multiply for shadow, overlay for light, and often try out the other settings too!). my favorite effect is the highlight glow thing, where u just make a copy layer of the highlights below the original layer, and blur it slightly so it looks like glow ✨✨🤩 overpriced acrylic could never

6. COLOR ADJUST / EDIT

Truthfully i usually skip this step, but my more pro friends really vouch for it!! i think definitely an incredible thing with digital is that u can edit proportions and even color after you’re done. i think they usually use like the curves adjustment layer in photoshop until they get colors they like, but for me, well, in a reaally diligent day i like to slap on the “auto” fliter in the iphone’s photos edit button lmaoooo

🌺 GENERAL PAINTING TIPS

learn basic theory: i think theres free courses everywhere online, but heres a few things u might like to have a basic understanding of: color, perspective, shape language, lighting, composition. don’t sweat it too much tho, it should be fun to explore the concepts!

and for drawing hoomans: proportion, gesture, expression, and veery basic anatomy. i find that overall forms are so much more important to learn than like detailed anatomy bc u can always look it up lol

but remember, u mostly want to learn the rules so u know better ways to break them :)

uuuuse manyyyyy referencessss every time u draww!

^this includes other people’s art — when u see good stuff, figure out why u like it and apply it to ur own art

get feedback!!!!

draw tons!!! brainrot helps !! ;D

aaand thank u for coming to my ted talk! sorry for the ramble nonnie, i hope u got something out of this lol

[neopuff]

hello, i hope you're having a good day!! i was wondering, do you have any tips for making amvs? like, what programmes you use, how you handle the timing, etc. thank you for all the fun edits you make!!

hi!! sorry for the delay in answering this, i just wanted to take the time to answer it thoroughly and i kept forgetting lol & thank you! i already typed this once and tumblr made it disappear so i apologize if anything i say comes out short ‘cause i’m just trying to remember all that i typed before lol

ok so ill just go through my general editing process in Vegas, i dont know any other program well enough to talk about it at length:

(disclaimer: this is just how i do it, i dont watch tutorials and my editing friends and i don’t watch each other edit often so i would assume that my way is very different from other ways you’ve probably seen! i might even do something in a very stupidly hard way, please feel free to tell me if theres an easier way to do anything lol)

1. Song: So skipping past the “choosing song and ship/character/show” theme, I’ll dive straight into CUTTING THE SONG! I’m not about that Editing The Entire Song life, and neither is most of the editing community anymore, so I cut it up into a shorter thing that I’m better equipped to edit to. I’m just using a random example but here I’ve taken this long ass song and turned it into this:

(the next step just kind of depends on my mood, or ill do both, doesnt matter)

2-A. Subclips: if im making a shorter video or a video where i’m not 100% super familiar with the footage, i will immediately start making subclips using the episodes ive already pulled into the project. if it’s a ship/character that i’ve edited before, i’ll just go to Import->Media from Project and import the subclips i made previously. either way, subclips are there! 

2-B. Sheets: for ships that i know very well/have a lot of footage/im concerned about potentially repeating something, i will go to Google Sheets/Excel and take the lyrics im editing to and put them in column A, separating by pauses in the singing. then i put corresponding footage i think will go well in column B! im often not super specific because i know the beats are gonna be different than i remember, so i usually stick to referencing whole scenes instead of specifics moments. here’s an example:

3. Clip placement: Then I start placing clips down! Below is how I organize my timeline tho I know a lot of editors who put the music on top, this is just how I like it. I also keep a single muted audio layer in between for the video footage’s audio and then I’ll delete that layer when I’m done (or sometimes I don’t, it doesn’t really matter)

I think it’s good to hit the beats as much as possible, it makes for a more dynamic audio-visual experience! In general I try to make my videos so that, if I didn’t add any zooms or typography or coloring, it would still be a good amv. And don’t limit yourself to just one layer, you can have as many layers as you’d like and put clips on top of each other (cookie cutter/changing the layer to dodge or add or screen or whatever) is a good way to mix things up

when I zoom in you can see I’ve got some variety already in my transitions, I know I use that motion-blur-zoom a lot these days but I still try to mix it up and keep my brain invested

4. Typography: After all the clips have been placed (or most of the clips, ofc sometimes I’ll want to add more later) I move on to typography! I’m lazy so the first thing I’ll do it just put down unedited text where I think I’ll want it to go. It just helps me organize myself. Then I’ll pretty up the text afterwards.

Typography isn’t necessary for a good AMV, but really nice typography can really spruce things up. I’ve only very recently gotten confident in my text editing skills, and I just kept watching typography done by editors I really like until I figured out what they were doing. My recommendation is to just KEEP ADDING EFFECTS! Convolution kernel, gaussian blur, mask the text so it appears from angles that the transitions wouldn’t be able to do - of course there’s gotta be a limit for taste, but just add stuff until you like how it looks. Also changing the blending style of the text layer is good, dodge and difference are my go-tos for typography layers.

5. Transitions: I don’t go crazy with transitions, but it’s fun to mess around with them. You don’t want too many crazy/different transitions, you want them to match the mood of the song and the type of beat you’re hitting. I usually ensure that all similar beats in the song have the same transition type on them, bbbbbbut that’s cuz I’m overly obsessed with parallel structure. There’s plenty of fantastic AMVs where they just go ham and do whatever types of transitions they want to in each part of the song and they make it work just fine

(next step, once again, kind of depends on my mood lol)

6-A. Zooms: Time for zooms! I usually just use the pan/crop for zooming, but often I’ll incorporate Sapphire FX BlurMoCurves or NewBlue AutoPan, especially if I’m trying to zoom typography with the footage at the same rate. I try to keep my zooms short and slower, I mean obv it just depends on the song but yeah. There’s a lot of different ways to do zooms so I recommend experimenting and just playing around with different effects

6-B. Zooms...but different: Another way that I’ll do zooms which is definitely pretty different (but this is what I do for crossovers like 95% of the time because I am laaaaaaaaaaazy) is I’ll drag the project into a new project timeline and start editing it there. It’s similar to how After Effects works and it makes it easier to put effects overtop of multiple layers without having to pre-render anything.

So you can see I’ve just pulled in the .VEG file and popped it in the timeline! So this way I can add zooms and transitions without worrying about layers. And if I see a mistake I need to fix, I can just go back into the original .VEG file and edit it, and it’ll be edited when I come back here. So it’s much easier than pre-rendering or trying to do zooms on a lot of layers. To be clear tho, this doesn’t work well if you have a lot of fade transitions, it’s best for sharp transitions and it’s great when you’re using Sapphire FX BlurMoCurves a lot.

7. Overlays: After that I’ll add more typography (or if you didn’t add any earlier, you can add some here overtop of the new project file) that kind of goes on top of everything. And then I’ll add any overlays or objects or whatever else I wanna add! I’m not someone who uses a lot of backgrounds cuz I don’t have a background-creative-brain so I stick to simple overlays at the most.

8. Coloring!!! This is very sad but I only JUST learned a few weeks ago that you can add coloring/effects to your entire video with this button here, so in case anyone else hates watching tutorials as much as I do here’s where I’m talking about:

This shit would’ve made my life so much easier throughout the years lol But alas. Anyway so for coloring there are some effects that are popular for any colorings you’ll find on YT (but you can certainly just download some, Riverdale editors in particular share a lot of really great colorings but you’ll find them anywhere in the live action editing community):

Channel Blend, Color Curves, Color Blend, Color Balance, Convolution Kernel (best for live action footage or footage that isnt very crisp), Color Corrector Secondary

These are all just fun to mess with. Channel Blend in particular is something of a mystery for me, I haven’t studied it fully to understand what I’m doing so I mostly just mess with it randomly until I like what I see lol

9. Render time! First render, anyway. Usually there’ll be some random problem in the footage or something and I’ll have to either go back into the project and fix it OR if I’m feeling particularly sour (or maybe if I’ve rendered like 3-4 times already) I will just take the finished render and manually remove any errors, stretching out the good footage to cover my tracks. You’d be surprised how often I end up doing that lol

And then it’s good to post! I primarily render as .WMV but I also go for .MP4s every once in a while. If I want to upload it to Twitter I’ll do an .MP4 but it’s a new thing for me so I’m still stuck on .WMV mostly.

Anyway I hope this answered your question at least a little bit, I can go into more detail about certain parts of this if you’d like!

[flying-elliska]

Hi Ellie!! I hope u dont mind this ask ❤Do u have any advice on how to do stuff on your checklist and not get overwhelmed? I can hardly do one thing out of my to do list and then i get severely depressed for not being able to do anything. i dont think i can function like a human being sometimes. anyway youre so cool ellie!!! i admire you loads!!! - help asked from one adhd struggling teen

HI anon ! I’m sorry for not answering sooner i had a beautiful answer ready and then Tumblr just ate it T_T anyway i don’t mind at all i think it’s awesome that you’re asking me ! this is honestly still something I’ve struggled a lot with. here are a few things that helped me (keep in mind i’m not a professional and this is only my personal, limited point of view) :

- ofc the first thing is to get as much help as you can, there are lots of people out there who can help. Generally talk to people around you about your problems ; often they want to help and just don’t know how : i know the tendency to feel ashamed and keep it in but that’s not good. Some people might be a bit ignorant so maybe keep a few ressources on hand you can send to people to educate them if that’s an issue ; and educate yourself so you feel more secure and legitimate in your opinions. 

- one thing that’s helped me lots is to go on #ADHDtwitter and #Neurodiversesquad because a lot of people on there are actual adults who are sharing both their struggles but also tips on how to actually manage the symptoms and have full and happy, if messy, lives. It’s very inspiring. It helped me a lot to feel understood, less alone and gave me a ton of ideas. Some accounts to start with : @ danidonovan - @ blkgrllostkeys @ ADHD_Alien (her comics are so cute) @ dustyexner plus lots of others

- regarding having trouble doing things, this is definitely a Big Damn Problem for adhd folks. the concept of the emotional Wall of Awful really helped me with this, you can find more about it in this Youtube video by the awesome How To ADHD channel (all her videos are so helpful !! have a look!) basically the idea is that we accumulate emotions linked to certain tasks based on unhappy past emotions that make it a lot harder for us to do things and that building it down takes a lot of time and effort but there are ways to work with/around that. learning to process, connect to and be more mindful of our emotions is a huge task, but it’s often a central one. 

- don’t try too hard to be neurotypical aka ‘normal’. find the solutions that work for YOU. If they’re a bit weird ? Whatever. The point is that it works. You will probably end up having weird routines that make no sense to others but it doesn’t matter as long as it helps you. Be creative and don’t be afraid to think outside the box. I’ll give you an example :  one of the reasons i hate going to bed early is because late at night is when i feel the most free of outside obligations and therefore i don’t want to give that up. So instead what i’ve been trying to do from time to time is a ‘clown hour’ where i basically give myself permission to do whatever the fuck i want (within reason lmao) but in an active way ; basically indulge my rebellious inner 8 yr old. Last time I ended up watching martial arts videos on youtube and practicing kickboxing kicks on the Mulan soundtrack and then put on funeral music and improvised my own eulogy by thinking about what i would like people to say about me after my death. Lmao that sounds completely wack when explained to other people but the point is - stuff like that really helped me reconnect to the idea that my time is mine to do with as i please, not just late at night. Anyway my point is : make it fun, make it a game, try things, experiment. Our brains crave novelty and if they don’t have it and feel burdened by shame, pressure and expectations of course they get depressed and stuck. Give your brain the fuel it needs to work. 

- just accept that sometimes you’re going to be a mess. it’s okay. you can be a bit of a mess and also live a fully, happy, joyous life. our society puts so much pressure on us to have this Perfect Instagram Life where everything is polished to unrealistic standards and gives us the idea that your morals are linked to productivity and if you are not constantly striving to be a Model Consumer Pretty Picture you are a Bad Person and a slob/lazy/unworthy/etc and all of that is...toxic garbage of the highest order that everyone should unlearn but especially us. related to that i would be careful with use of social media, tailor it to only give you content that makes you feel good/intellectually engaged/creative because it’s so easy for us to go into bad comparative spirals.

- tied to that be careful of your own perfectionist drives. it’s veeeeery common for adhd people to want to overcompensate their perceived shortcomings by wanting to be perfect. aka you haven’t done anything in weeks and all of a sudden you have this insane to do list where you expect yourself to turn your entire life around in a week. well, not going to happen. i’ve found it so important to limit myself. for instance what i do now is i forbid myself to put more than 5 items on any todo list. once i’ve cleared items i can add more, but not before. it’s a lot less scary that way. also prioritizing is very important so you don’t get bogged down in details.

- try to be mindful of your own energy. a big tendency of adhd people is to overpromise and underdeliver because we are enthusiastic and we want to please people but we are bad at estimating time/energy it will need. learn more about your own boundaries, what things are hard for you to do (for me, it’s socializing in groups) and what gives you energy (for me it’s writing, reading and walking in the woods) and try to balance that. learn to say no, it’s tough but necessary. So that you have enough left for the tasks you need to do. 

- create an environment that is benevolent and helpful for you in which to work/do things and that generates positive emotions. Get yourself a cute notebook. Put on happy music. Don’t forget to feed yourself. Don’t give into the urge of punishing yourself. You deserve happy good things - not overindulgence as escape - but our brains thrive on short term rewards. Bundle the unpleasant tasks with more stimulating stuff (for instance i always listen to podcasts while cleaning/grocery shopping etc). Create pleasant little routines for yourself (for instance one of the first things i try to do in the morning is do a little drawing of my emotions, it makes me happy, then i have tea and i plan my day.). Put on alarms constantly so you don’t lose track of time, but with a cool song. Find yourself cheerleaders who can encourage you in a positive way. Stuff like the pomodoro technique, timing yourself while doing a task, etc, can really help. Or telling yourself you will do a thing for ten minutes and stop when it’s unbearable, etc. Prioritize joy, pride, affection, desire to help, altruism, love, curiosity, interest and passion as motivators, instead of anxiety, guilt and shame. 

- find ways to build self esteem and confidence in your own skills. it’s often a lack of that that can block you from doing what you need to because you might be afraid of screwing it up. what I did for a while, for instance, is to keep a record of the stuff i did everyday and then extrapolated the skills i displayed from that. another thing you can do is make a list of simple skills you want to learn and find ways to do that, like youtube tutorials, etc. especially when it’s practical stuff and quick to learn, it can really feel so good, and make you more familiar with a sensation of success (and if you fail it can be a fun experiment gone wrong, and self discovery, you don’t have to be good at everything.)

- find ways to challenge yourself. depression happens for adhd people when we let ourself stagnate, isolate ourselves because of shame, and get into this idea that we are subhuman and we don’t deserve good things. that is false. you deserve a happy life. and our brains crave novelty. find your passion and indulge in it, find the things that make your brain come alive (as long as they’re healthy ofc). if you’re not sure what that is, just keep trying. you will find it. but resist the temptation to make your life smaller and smaller. you might mess up but that’s okay. it’s human and it will make for interesting stories later. instead of trying too hard to ‘fix’ yourself, focus on developping your positive sides. it will give you energy, self-respect and draw you forwards like a rocketship. we thrive on passion, not reprimand. 

- anyways : i know how tough it can be. depression is really something i struggle with, too. and doing things remains Hard. but my point is, you are not alone, and you are not broken. chances are you too, like most adhd people i know, are a fun, creative, compassionate person with a heart of gold and so much to give. our main enemy is most often the shame that comes with living in a world that is not adapted to us. but the truth is we are just playing the game of life on a much harder setting than a lot of people, and we don’t even have the manual. of course it’s going to create struggle ! so i think the best thing to do for yourself is cultivate a sense of compassion towards yourself, self acceptance, and humor. 

- as a teen you probably have a limited margin of autonomy to make your lifestyle fit your needs but - there is so much potential for it to get better ! as you grow in self knowledge and ability to make your own choices, you will find the right solutions and your life will get so much better. i have heard so many stories like this. since i got diagnosed, too, my life got a lot better. i won’t lie, it’s a lifelong process. but there is so much possible. give yourself time. you are so young, and you are definitely a human being. being human is struggling with being flawed and vulnerable and imperfect. i know the world can be shit sometimes, you probably got some negative messages - especially from your own brain bc depression definitely lies to you ! but don’t let yourself be guided by ignorance and fear. you deserve better. i bet you’re also super cool. the happier you are, the better off the world will be. so invest in yourself. educate yourself, develop your self knowledge, be kind to yourself, and keep making little steps. you’ll get there. <3

[jawnjendes]

shawn meets... | bella

SUMMARY: in the life of a rockstar, shawn mendes comes across some unique people. sometimes, things stray from the norm. (AU, shawn x every one of my oc’s)

AN: hiiii this is somewhat of a continuation of my last series, goth gf. you dont HAVE to read it to know what's happening here, but there will be references to it every so often. if you've been here since the goth gf days then, hi. i appreciate you. enjoy this shit. let me know ur thots.

****let me know if you want to be added to the taglist!

bella's origin story | bella's playlist | masterlist

It felt awfully strange to be in Annalise's hometown, knowing she wouldn't be going home right away. The residential part of North Hollywood where her parents lived still felt like it was a million miles away. The glamorous Lyft Lux was going through the equally glamorous parts of the city, and it was almost mundane despite the fact that she had been away for over a year.

Shawn and his younger sister, Aaliyah, were frequently pointing out the exciting things they had only seen in photos and movies: the Chinese Theater, the Walk of Fame, the Hollywood sign. They were bundles of energy and excitement. Annalise was only jittery because she never fully processed that she lives in the same city as her favorite YouTuber, Bella Santiago.

Over a month ago, Bella discovered the Shawn Mendes profile on Spotify, causing her to give him a shoutout on Twitter. Then, just after the release of his newest EP, In My Blood, Bella messaged Shawn, offering to fly him out to LA, put him in a hotel and make a video with her. Shawn immediately jumped at the chance, but he couldn't go without bringing two of the biggest Bella stans he knew, Annalise and Aaliyah. The only reason why it took until the New Year for this to happen was simple: exams and Christmas.

When the semester ended, Annalise spent the holidays and her 22nd birthday with Shawn's family in Pickering, much to her own family's disdain. It was different, celebrating Christmas on the morning of the 25th, rather than the 24th. It was also different not eating tamales or pozole like she did with her family. It totally wasn't annoying when Shawn blasted that god awful Taylor Swift song on the morning of Annalise's birthday. She totally didn't miss her family either.

She had to promise her parents that she would stay in LA for the duration of the holiday break in return for missing all the important holidays. It wasn't a hard decision to make, but it was going to be hard letting Shawn go. Annalise only hoped that there would be time for him to meet her extended family during this trip. From what she understood, as soon as Bella was done with him, Shawn and Aaliyah were getting on a plane straight back to Toronto.

As it turns out, Bella Santiago is insanely generous. She reserved the three of them a deluxe suite at the Marriott. They had a view of the city, a massive king size bed, and a pull out sofa bed. Everything was spotless, and luxurious.

"She didn't have to go this hard," Aaliyah pointed out as she tossed her suitcase to the side.

"What, would you rather sleep on the floor?" Shawn teased. "And pick that up and move it so it's out of the way!"

She rolled her eyes as she did what he said.

Annalise made herself comfortable on top of the white sheets. While all of this was exciting, she was fucking exhausted. It felt like it was much later in the day, having gotten up at seven. The time change made it feel like it was well in the afternoon, but it was barely eleven.

"How's your tummy?" Shawn asked from the window. He had his phone out and was taking photos of the view.

"Much better," she replied.

Against her better judgment, Annalise had a coffee during the five hour flight, and it did not agree with her. She made good friends with a barf bag… or three. All the caffeine must have left her system if she was feeling better now.

"What time do we meet Bella?" asked Aaliyah, padding over to stand by her brother.

"Three o'clock," Shawn replied. "In the ballroom downstairs."

That prompted all three of them to take a death nap for the time being. It only lasted about three hours, and when their alarms went off, none of them felt any more rested.

Annalise was the first one to actually get up and get ready. For once, she was intimidated by who she was going to be standing in front of today. She had to look her best, even if it was in all black.

It didn't take long for Aaliyah to follow suit. Soon enough, both girls were sitting in front of the window, using the California sun for their light as they did their makeup.

The funny thing is, as much as they cared about looking their best, neither of them were going to be in Bella's video. She only wanted Shawn, who was still lying in bed half an hour before the scheduled meet up.

"What are you gonna wear?" Annalise asked her boyfriend.

"I don't know," he replied, his voice muffled by the pillow. "Will she even care about what I'm wearing?"

"You're gonna be on her channel," Aaliyah said, looking up from her handheld mirror, "which has millions of viewers, including some of my friends who will never let me hear the end of it if they see my brother looking like a clown in front of the queen!"

Shawn grinned and got up. "I'll go like this, what do you think?" He held his arms out, showcasing his plaid pajama bottoms and a Nike hoodie. He also only had one sock on.

"You'll be dead before you step out of the room like that," Ann darkly added.

“Thanks Satan.” He chuckled.

Shawn was only pretending to be calm. Inside, he was shaking and his insides were heavy. He didn't even think about Bella's subscriber count until Aaliyah pointed it out. He really wanted Bella to like him too. She seemed like such a sweetheart from her videos, Shawn hoped that wasn't just a persona.

He had spent most of the flight watching her videos (when Ann wasn’t puking up her caffeine, of course.) He made it through a few tutorials, learning a lot about not only makeup, but Bella herself. She suffers from several anxiety disorders and constantly works to better herself. She left her parents when she came out to them as bisexual, and she hasn't spoke to them or her extended family in years. She recently got out of a relationship with another YouTuber named Ethan Nestor, which was part of the reason why she spent half of 2019 in her hometown of Palm Springs. This woman has some thick skin, there was no denying that.

One of the best things that Shawn learned about Bella was that she had a butterfly tattoo on her left arm. In another video, she talked about how her viewers drew butterflies on their arms in support of her when she was down. She got it tattooed for them, and the colors of the wings were the same as the bisexual pride flag. Shawn looked at his own butterfly tattoo differently now.

The other best thing he learned was how talented of a singer Bella was. She had covers on her channel, and Shawn watched every single one. Bella had such a rich, beautiful voice, and it looked so easy for her to hit any high note. She sang Love on the Brain without any strain on her face. She sang a gayer version of You Belong with Me, and played guitar with it. She sang with Markiplier as the opening act when they were on a comedy show tour in 2018.

Shawn couldn't wait to sing with her, though he was intimidated. He thought he was a good singer, but put him next to someone with Ariana Grande levels of talent? The nerves were never ending.

It was ten til three when everyone was ready. Their only predicament was to go down to the ballroom early or not.

“Did she text you?” Aaliyah asked, clearly antsy. “Is she on her way or anything?”

Shawn shook his head. He had changed into a white tee, black jeans and a denim jacket, which the two girls approved of. “Should I message her? Or… her manager? She’s the one who made all these arrangements.”

“Hey, she might not even be here on time,” Ann said. “YouTubers are like celebrities. They run on their own schedules just because they can.”

“Bella wouldn’t do that, would she?” Aaliyah said in disbelief.

“Only one way to find out.”

And to the ballroom they went. The space was huge, clearly meant for a party. There were sheer white curtains hanging from the huge windows, and a chandelier hanging from the ceiling. In the far corner of the room, tables and chairs were folded and leaning against the wall. Shawn, Aaliyah, and Ann looked around the room, all silently nervous and excited. Only a few minutes into it, they heard female voices just outside the room.

“But we’re always early! I knew I should have driven myself!”

“It’s two fifty-nine! Relax, they’re probably not even here yet!”

“Huh, I’ll be damned,” Ann mumbled, looking at her phone to verify the time.

The owners of the other two voices entered the room, carrying expensive-looking camera equipment and studio lights. They were followed by a bellhop, who was carrying a keyboard in a case. One woman was short and curvy, brown and freckled. Her short black hair was curly and glossed down, and she was wearing a bright red pantsuit.

The other woman was long and lean, decked out in a white long sleeve crop top, a black skirt, and knee high boots. Her iconic bright pink hair made a comeback, that wasn’t in her latest video. Her kind face looked airbrushed and flawless, although her brown eyes looked alarmed, like she was caught in headlights.

The first person to break the silence was the woman in red, already establishing her power. “Hello!” She held her hand out to Shawn. “I’m Sonji, I’m Bella’s manager. I believe we spoke on the phone. And on Twitter.”

“Yeah, yeah we did,” he said as they shook hands. “Uh, this Aaliyah and Ann, my sister and my girlfriend.”

“Hi, ladies!” Sonji greeted, shaking their hands as well. “So lovely to meet you! God, you’re all so pretty!”

Both girls mumbled shy thank you’s.

“Okay, so my handsome friend here and myself are going to set things up for the video,” Sonji explained. “In the meantime-” She looked at her silent client. “-Baller, come talk to your little protégé.”

Then, Sonji led the bellhop further into the room, over by the windows.

Bella still had a bag slung over her shoulder and a massive studio light stand in her hands. She was clutching it to her chest, a very performative and awkward smile etched on her bright pink lips.

“Hi!” she said after one very long second. “Uh - lemme -” She set down the giant lights and removed the bag from her shoulder. Then she stood up straight and smoothed out her hair. “Hi! Uh, I said that already!”

“I’ll say it again! Hi!” Shawn greeted, smiling politely.

Bella looked at him and opened her arms for a hug. “It’s nice to finally meet you!”

It might be weird to put it this way, but she smelled pretty. Whatever perfume she was wearing was probably more expensive than the flight over here. Shawn hugged her around her shoulders, inadvertently touching her surprisingly soft hair. You could just tell that she didn’t spare a single penny when it came to caring for herself.

“Wow, I wasn’t expecting you to be so tall!” she said, looking up at Shawn. “For once, I’m not the tallest person in the room!”

She couldn’t have been taller than Ann, who was five foot five inches and felt very short most of the time.

“And this is the sister and the girlfriend?” Bella said, turning to the other two girls. She went to hug Aaliyah, who was more than delighted by the gesture.

Bella leaned back and took her hand. “I love your nails! Love the shape and color!” She ran her thumb over the white acrylics. “So cute!”

“Aw, thank you!” Aaliyah was beaming.

Then, Bella turned to hug Ann. It’s important to point out that in most situations, Annalise Flores is stone faced, calm, and collected. Today, however, Ann had wide eyes, like she was face the good Lord herself… like she was going to drop down on one knee and propose to Bella.

Shawn wouldn’t blame her.

“Me encanta su delineador!” Bella told her, gently cupping her face.

“En serio?” Ann softly asked.

“Yes, que linda! Those inner wings are to die for! What do you use?”

“Um.. uh, I think it’s NYX? I don’t know the exact one, but it’s definitely NYX!” Ann chuckled nervously.

“Well, it looks amazing!”

Ann looked like she was going to faint with that euphoric dazed look on her face. Thankfully, she stayed on both feet because Sonji grabbed their attention. She managed to sneak by Bella, take the lights and bag, and set them all up by the window. She also set up the keyboard, camera and two chairs. There were three other chairs behind the camera as well. Sonji was incredibly fast.

“We are all ready to go!” she said to the others.

“Shall we?” Bella gestured for the other three to go first.

Shawn, Ann, and Aaliyah went over to the set up, excitement only increasing from here.

"Were you two going to be in the video too?" Sonji asked the two girls.

They both shook their heads.

"Nervous? Don't blame you, the Internet is brutal."

That didn't help Shawn's bundle of nerves. He took a silent deep breath as he went for his guitar case while Bella sat in front of her keyboard. The Internet is brutal, and Shawn's own minuscule corner of it was safe solely because of the size. The fans he tweeted every so often were seemingly normal, and no one was overly critical about him or his music. More exposure means more space for criticism and plain old hate.

Bella had over five million subscribers, and at least forty thousand of them took an interest in Shawn over the last month and a half. It was a lot of new people to make a good impression to. He took another deep breath and removed the guitar from its case. There's no going back now.

"So, I don't want this to be a structured, planned out video," Bella explained when Shawn took the empty chair next to her. "I just want us to talk so my viewers can get to know you, and we'll sing whatever comes to mind."

"Sounds good," Shawn said, not really hearing himself.

"Now everybody - and I mean everybody - take in a deep breath."

The room was silent except for the sounds of everyone inhaling through their noses. Aaliyah and Ann still looked excited as they followed Bella's instruction. Sonji followed as well, like she had done this a thousand times.

"And exhale," Bella breathed out, and the others repeated. "Good. Get those nerves out, breathe away the anxiety. This is fun, we're having fun."

Shawn felt a little better, knowing she was just as nervous, if not more. Throughout all of Bella's mental health videos that he watched on the plane, none of them seemed to touch on how severe her own case was.

Finally, Bella addressed the camera, her soft voice suddenly projected. "Hey, it's Bella! Welcome back to my channel! Today, I'm here with a very special guest! Some of you saw me tweet a while ago…"

Oh god, what the fuck was Shawn going to say? He looked over at Ann, who smiled reassuringly and silently did the motions for deep breathing. Stay calm. You're a strong guy.

"So how long have you been making music?" Bella asked him as she mindlessly pressed keys on her keyboard.

Shawn recalled as best he could. "Uh, I sang covers when I was fifteen. Didn't make my own music until a few years later."

"Nice! Are you in school, or work or something?"

"Yeah, I'm in college. I'm majoring in music and botany."

"Oh, you like plants?"

Shawn was mildly impressed. Most people had to ask what botany is, and he would have to explain for the thousandth time. Then, he would be told to drop the music major because it's easier to find a job in plant science.

"Flowers," he clarified. "I work in a flower shop."

"That's so cool!"

The conversation got easier as time went on. Sometimes Aaliyah or Ann would chime in if they felt that Shawn was getting too confident. Bella giggled every so often, which made everyone in the room adore her even more.

Shawn was about ready to propose when Bella started playing Mercy on her keyboard and humming the beginning. He stared at her in shock for a few seconds before he played along on guitar. Hopefully that didn't look too embarrassing on camera. He listened to her voice for a moment before singing with her in the chorus.

He had plenty of questions for Bella after they went through that song. "Where did you get a voice like that?"

"I could carry a tune as a kid," she explained, "so I was put into singing classes to hone it. Then I did church choir, school choir… I just never really stopped singing." She paused and then chuckled nervously. "This is gonna sound pretentious, but I think I got this voice for a reason. Meaning, I have this platform and all these followers. I think I'm meant to use my voice for good. Help people in whatever way I can."

Shawn smiled. "That's beautiful. I see that in your videos. I kinda went on a binge on the plane."

Bella grinned.

"One thing that stood out to me…" Shawn hesitated, minding the camera and the future viewers of this video. "You are so unapologetically bisexual. You always make the point to the person you needed as a kid, because there is still so little bi representation in the media. And you decided, if no one's going to do it, then you'll do it yourself, and I think that's incredible."

"Yeah, I didn't have anyone telling me it's okay to feel what I feel, and I don't want anyone to go through what I went through as a teen."

Shawn nodded, glancing over at Ann once. He had talked about touching on this particular topic with her, and he was starting to have his own shred of doubt.

But, he learned from his girlfriend. Fuck it.

"I wish I had someone like you as a teenager," he said to Bella, strumming his guitar. "I mean, when I came out to my family, I was lucky. They were loving and accepting, but I still couldn't find anyone out there who was like me, in real life or in the media. I really wish I had found your videos sooner."

Bella was beaming. "I knew I liked you."

The two of them went back and forth between talking and singing. They compared butterfly tattoos, and then Bella was asking him about his other tats. Shawn learned a couple of Little Mix songs too, which led him to discover where his girlfriend got that fixation from. He was mostly amazed at how Bella was able to belt out song after song like it was nothing. Like she was meant for this. Why did she choose to be a makeup artist?

"Have you ever been offered a record deal?" Shawn asked. "Or thought about making your own music?"

"Mm, yes and yes," she said. "But singing is more of a hobby. I can't see myself delving into the music industry at all. Makeup is where it's at for me. Makeup got me through some of the hardest times in my life."

Shawn wouldn't say no to a record deal. He'd move to Los Angeles tomorrow if he could. He would do just about anything to play music full time. He glanced over at Ann again, who winked with a smile.

next chapter

_______

taglist: @normalcyisoverrated-beyou @justordinaryjen @chillingbythesea @iloveshawnieboi @shawnsunflower @someoneunimportantxx

[mobpsycho100]

a semi thorough coloring gif tutorial cause i get asked this often enough

Anon asked me to cover what I think are the best adjustments to use for making anime gifs. Short answer: Levels and Selective Colors are the only adjustments you need. In that order. I wont be going over Selective Colors in this tutorial because its very easy to use.

I went over this briefly in my first tutorial when I brought up Levels but now I will go more in depth into how to use it as I think it’s pretty much the only adjustment you need and you can make do with just levels alone a lot of the time. Its the only adjustment I’ll be covering today because its the most important one and if you take away anything from this tutorial I hope its the knowledge that you can achieve great colors through levels alone. I want to be thorough so this is going to be kind of long so... get relaxed.

Before the tutorial begins, I encourage everyone to get 3 different anime screencaps or at the very least, 3 anime screencaps with very different lighting to follow along because the last example will make more sense if you do so.

Theres no easy way to explain what the R/G/B in Levels does without opening up like 50 images and editting them yourself to see what each one does. It would require me going into color theory and I dont think thats something that can’t be easily explained, and really you just need to get a feel for it yourself. You click the ‘auto’ button at the right corner to achieve almost similar results, but I think doing it manually is better because it lets you have more of a feel for how each Red / Green / Blue levels works on its own and gives you more control.

Before I get into it, what does auto or R/G/B levels do? Well, it allows you to remove the filters anime usually have on their scenes to pull out the natural colors from underneath the filters. It sounds confusing at first but it’s easy to understand once you see an example and do it yourself.

Here’s the original image I’m working with for my first example. As you can see theres a slightly blue filter all over the entire image, the dirt on the ground is brown but theres still a faint blue color fill all over it. Our aim when using Levels this way to color it is to remove that filter.

First you go to ‘Red’ and see these two levers at the right and left? You pull those two in until they hit the edge of where the graph starts.

Repeat this process for ‘Green’ and ‘Blue’ as well.

And thats it.

End result:

The dirt is much clearer now, theres no blue filter on it so we can finally see the red and purple undertones that werent clear before. The sky is a lot more dynamic as well now that the blue filter is gone. Here’s a side by side comparison to make it clear just how much the image has changed

It might seem like it only has contrast to the untrained eye, but you cant achieve the same result with just contrast. It added contrast by taking away the blue filter on top of the image, but if you used the normal RGB levels instead of going in manually changing the Red, Green and Blue

this is the result you get.

While theres contrast, the blue filter is still there. Here’s another side by side comparison with the method I showed here vs. the ordinary way to use levels.

If you’ve been following along using your own screen caps you’ll notice the levers on the very right change the whites / brights / highlights of the image, while the levers on the very left change the darks / blacks of the image.

Thats the jist of it, it’s main purpose is to bring out the natural colors in the image. When you do this method and all the colors come out and theres decent amount of brightness and contrast as a result, it makes it much easier to work with the gif because now you can tweak the colors more easily when you use selective colours.

Recap: Using Red/Green/Blue individually gives you the control you need to bring back the natural colors of an image and remove the filters anime tend to usually add everywhere which tend to make scenes look very dull.

Here’s another example but with a tweak.

Original image before neutralising the scene using Red/Green/Blue individually instead of the basic RGB. Notice the yellow filter on top of the boys to help them blend with the background more.

Add Levels. Change the Red/Green/Blue.

Result:

It looks pretty great all on its own and gives you a lot more to work with when you get to selective colors since all the colors are popping now from the pinks in the background to the blues and even yellows.

For example if you tweak the yellows in selective colors in the original image, it would have affected almost the entire image as it’s almost fully yellow. Here’s how the image looks when you brighten it using RGB.

Say if I wanted to boost the yellows here and make them more vibrant and a little more orange-ish. I opened up selective colors and tweaked the yellows like so.

and this is what happened to my coloring.

It’s not great. Because the filter on this entire image is yellow, when I tweaked the yellow in selective colors, it changed the characters skin tones, hoodie, hair quite drastically. Theres no control over the image because theres not many colors to work with. So when you go to change individual colors through selective colors, half the image ends up being changed like this.

Now this is how the exact same selective colors looks on top of my edit of this image using Red/Green/Blue.

Heres a before and after of the selective colors.

The yellows are vibrant without drowing out the entire image now. This is what I mean by having greater control for when you go to edit individual colours. Levelling your image out this way allows you to have greater control over the image because the natural colors pop so much.

However as great as using Levels to make your image more neutral and remove all filters is, it doesnt mean you have to stick with neutral look 100%. What I mean by this is, as you can notice when you remove the filters, all the natural colors in the images become more vibrant and pop, which looks fantastic but when your making gifs is not that great because more colors means more noise and grain for when you save for web. But keeping the natural filters on doesnt look good either so what I like to do is strike a balance of sorts.

This might be a little confusing if you havnt been following along with the tutorial editting your own images.

Example:

Mostly neutral, just a very slight warm yellow tone to it, his uniform is a little yellow as are the whites of his eyes.

And here’s the image after I add Levels and to the magic

It’s a little blue-ish now. The image was mostly neutral to begin with so not much has changed but it’s fully neutral now with no filters. Theres a nice contrast but I want it to be look even more dynamic and I want to bring the colors together without removing the Levels we added to the image.

I decided I wanted to add a bit of a purple tinge on top for two reasons. Firstly, because the image already had a yellow brown tone to the background, I dont want to add more yellows to it, I want it to stand out. Secondly, the aura around the character is pink and I think purple will make those colors look more intense so thats why I decided on purple.

This is where the middle lever that we hadn’t touched before comes in. Changing the middle changes the neutrals / middle balance of the image. I went to ‘Green’ and move the lever a little bit to the right from 1.00 to .95

Result:

Everything is slightly more purple, but image is still mostly neutral from removing the yellow filter. It looks clean and the colors pop but by adding a bit of purple the entire image comes together as well.

There’s no tips or tricks when it comes to figuring out what lever does what color change unfortunately but theres only 9 levers in total meaning 9 colors so trust me when I say you get the hang of it really fast if you do it often. My advice is save about 25 images from various different anime and open them up and turn them neutral using Red/Green/Blue, and then try to bring the colors back together again a bit using the middle lever for every single image. Once its ingrained into your memory, your coloring experience will be so much easier. I hope that wasnt too tricky to follow and you learned something here.

[drew-winchester]

Your art is honestly such an inspiration to me. Every time I see something you've done, it makes me want to improve ^^ Your faces are great, and you've just somehow managed to capture what is absolutely adorable about love. Do you have any tips you could give to a big fan of yours? ^^" Thanks for your time, hope you have a lovely day

Aww, first of all, thank you SO much for your sweet message. I am so touched to inspire TwT 

I’m always very happy to help, and I want to do my best when I am given the chance. I’m often asked for tips on “how to draw” in general, but then I’m not sure where to start. If you ask me how to draw a certain thing I can tell you how I do, but… tips in general? *scratches head*

I never took art lessons of any kind, which means I don’t know the “bases”. I started to draw because I wanted to give life to characters and stories in my mind (the first one being a Lion King story about a lion cub named Fedora and I was like… a baby or something lol. I insisted on sending my story and drawings to Disney and my mom did it, they answered me and encouraged me to keep creating… that was 100% unrelated but now you’ve got a story about my childhood x’D) and what made me progress is: time, practice, passion, observation. (And when I say practice, I insist on the fact that I draw pretty much every single day since 18 years… which doesn’t mean it will take you that long, we all learn at our own pace)

Friends and older people would tell me “your character’s waist is not supposed to be the size of her wrist” and I was like “I DONT CARE I like it that way”

So… tipstips… to avoid “flat” faces, to make more expressive faces I guess?Keep in mind the depth and the dimensions. Think of the bumps. Visualize what you’re drawing, how it works, touch your own face, look at pictures. See in 3D! (Not only for faces tho)

When you draw the eyes, remember how it goes deeper below the eyebrows, how round the eye is, how it curves down the cheek. Play with that, turn around it. 

Not drawing details doesn’t mean you should ignore that they exist. If you don’t want to line the lips, don’t, but don’t forget that it’s there and is part of the shape of the mouth. Same for the nostrils and the nose, etc. (Google it, you’ll see there a LOT of different noses, mouths, lips, teeth, eyes, shapes, etc. Check them out, that’s a good way to avoid the “same face syndrome”)

A face isn’t flat and round, it’s full of bumps and curves and it’s beautiful.

Practice all the angles too! 

Look around you, look at references, gosh yes, don’t be afraid to use a model. Don’t artists in school use models to learn? I’ve never been there but very educative tv shows such as Malcolm in the Middle told me so. It’s okay to use a reference, to learn how things work together, the arms, the legs, the face, the muscles, etc. Don’t just redraw, think about what you’re doing.

Annnnd look at tutorials xD It’s a lazy tip but there’s a LOT of good art tutorials on tumblr, check them out, you’ll learn a LOT! 

Use geometric forms. Get rid of clothes and hair! 

Draw what is unseen. That arm that is hidden, draw it, see where it starts, where it goes. It works especially for group pictures. If your characters are hugging, draw each one separately at least quickly like I did up there, just to be sure everything works. Or you could end up with super long or short arms, necks that make no sense, etc.

Like I often said, don’t give up. It takes time, it’s normal! Don’t compare yourself to others, be yourself. Draw with passion, with heart, with love. And love what you draw. Each piece is a step, each step makes you a better artist. 

I’m far from the artist I would like to be, I admire a lot of people and I am aware my art is full of mistakes, so I can only tell you about how I got here, but I know I have a lot to learn as well! As I see it, an artist’s journey never ends, you can always learn more. But it’s what makes it so fantastic. Because what matters is the journey and not the destination, right?

So yeah, sorry, super long post, random tips, I hope it helps a bit?? x3

[acuppellarp]

We’re excited to announce that Leigh has decided to level up Lola Alvarez from a mumu minor character to a main character! Please go through the checklist to make sure you’re ready to go and send in your account within the next 24 hours. 

OOC INFO

Name + pronouns: Leigh, she/her Age: 26 Timezone: EST Ships: Lola/Chemistry Anti-Ships: Lola/No Chemistry

IC INFO

Full Name: Louisa Cristina “Lola” Alvarez Face Claim: Lauren Jauregui Age/Birthday: April 11th (Aries mood), 24 Occupation: Model/make-up artist/burlesque dancer/photographer Personality: enigmatic, magnetic, confident, lonely, passionate Hometown: Brooklyn, NY Bio:

[DEATH TW]

Louisa doesn’t talk about her birth parents, simply because there’s nothing to talk about. Her father, she can assume, was never really in the picture, and her mother left her on the stoop of a fire department in the 99th precinct of New York City, so it’s not as if she cared. Louisa rarely thinks about her birth parents, if at all. The truth was, Consuelo Migdas was sixteen when she gave birth to Louisa, and wasn’t ready to have a family. She had hoped that by putting her daughter up for adoption, she’d be put into a good home.

It took twelve years for Louisa to be adopted. Twelve years for the world to show Louisa its cold nature. By the time she turned ten, Louisa had been carted to four different foster homes. Every time it looked like there was a promise of someone wanting to take her home, she ended up being returned like a blouse that didn’t fit quite right. Louisa quickly began losing hope that anybody would keep her for good. She’d be stuck in the foster system until she was eighteen years old, and then she’d become a ward of the state. She’d have to fend for herself in the extremely cruel city of New York.

If you asked her now, she’d tell you that it could have been much worse, but that’s very much in line with Louisa’s character. She’s not dramatic in that way. She’ll downplay anything to make you think she hasn’t suffered, she’s perfectly fine. But truthfully? Not having the unconditional love of a family had more of an impact on her than she’d ever care to admit. Louisa was awful in school– on the days she came in and wasn’t starving, she found that it was tough for her to concentrate. Numbers and words didn’t make sense. Once, as a Christmas gift, she was given a book from one of her teachers: Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott. Louisa loved that they had the same name, and she loved the idea of growing up with four sisters who loved her and a mother who would do anything for her. All she wanted was a stable, consistent life.

Louisa found that she loved art from the very beginning, and would lose herself in drawings. She loved to play dress up.  She liked to take things, too. It started small, like a pack of gum or a candy bar. Nobody was any the wiser, and Louisa would never steal from the same place twice. She would steal art supplies from her school and only got caught once. Crying, she explained to her teacher that she only wanted to be able to draw at home. Three days later, she was gifted a beautiful set of over a hundred colored pencils. Every hue and shade Louisa could possibly imagine was in that set. She saved the nubs of those pencils and strung them together to make a necklace. It serves as a reminder for her– how far she’s come, and how much farther she has to go.

Things changed rapidly for the better when Mimi adopted her. At least, that’s how she introduced herself to Louisa: “I’m going to be your Mimi and we’re going to be very happy together.” It took Louisa a solid three months to believe her. If she could last longer than three months, that would be all. But Mimi showed her a home that was full of love, and a place where she was accepted. She had dinner every night, she had a quiet, cozy place to read her favorite book, and Mimi made sure she did all of her homework instead of roaming the streets.

It was when she was thirteen that she started going by Lola, if only because that’s what Mimi called her. When she asked why, Mimi would start singing the song from Damn Yankees– whatever Lola wants, Lola gets. And honestly, Lola wasn’t used to being spoiled. She wasn’t used to someone loving her. She wasn’t used to a real home.

When she applied to FIT, she put the design on the side and instead chose to focus on the modeling aspect. She got her degree, fine, but found herself loving the idea of being someone’s muse. Someone’s obsession. Someone’s love. Lola began to become heavily involved in making her own clothing, with the sewing machine that had been passed down from Mimi’s dressmaking mother right into Lola’s greedy little hands. It cost them a fortune to send her to college, but Mimi swore Lola was going to be on the cover every fashion magazine someday. Lola assured Mimi that she was too short, and focused on building a following via social media, something that she keeps up with today.

Lola’s life couldn’t be without one more tragedy, though. Mimi was cleaning the floor of their apartment in Brooklyn when she slipped on a puddle and hit her head. The injury resulted in dementia-like symptoms, not uncommon in Mimi’s age. After calling emergency services, Lola was told that there was nothing more that the doctors could do. Mimi was transferred to a care facility in Queens, and Lola visits her as faithfully as she can. Mimi is lucid sometimes, but often has no idea who Lola is other than the nice girl who visits her and sketches her.

Mimi’s current state has broken Lola’s heart. She’s picked up a few random jobs trying to make some extra cash– including dancing at a burlesque club (she insists it’s for the glamor of it all, but it’s mostly because she likes the attention), modeling for a series of painting classes (again, Lola likes attention), and working as a make-up artist. All the money she makes goes to pay for Mimi’s care, and to keep her room full of fresh flowers. Lola feels lost, understandably so, which is why she’s been so happy to join April’s Growers. It’s given her a new sense of purpose, even if sometimes she’s still kind of sad. Lola is doing the best that she can to juggle her odd jobs, her newfound roommates, her beloved mother, and pursuing what she loves.

Pets:  Lola recently rescued a French bulldog puppy named Donatella, who she loves more than life itself. Relationships:

[WANTED CONNECTIONS: Roommate for Nicola & Kitty, April’s Grower]

Santana Lopez

All things considered, they should be rivals– they’re both Latinas who can sing, they’re both drop dead gorgeous, and they usually go for the same modeling gigs– but Lola and Santana have somehow managed to become friends. It also doesn’t hurt that they’re now prone to admire each other’s beauty as often as they can in someone’s bedroom.

Reggie Clifton

Ah, how does Lola even begin to describe Reggie Clifton? They met at a rally in the city more than a year ago, which is only too fitting for the both of them.  Lola fell for Reggie and she fell very hard. They flirted, they messed around a lot, and when they admitted that they had feelings for each other, it was peppered with the worst thing Lola’s ever heard: I like you, but I don’t want to be in a relationship with you. Reggie, apparently, wasn’t ready, and Lola took her broken heart all the way back to Brooklyn and away from Acup. She’s come back around, though, and Lola is wasting no time in showing Reggie what she passed up.

X Scott

X and Lola have a really beautiful relationship, based on a mutual love of art. Lola has become something of a muse to X, and she’s always willing to pose for a photo or painting. They’re very much kindred spirits and Lola would go to the ends of the earth for X.

Nicola De Rocha & Kitty Wilde

Her roommates, but also her best friends. She’s only moved in with them recently, after Mimi’s death. Her Brooklyn home got to be too quiet, and Lola loves their chatter. Lola thinks of them as three larger-than-life personalities who could gossip until the sun comes up. She’s not so subtly hinting to Kitty that she wants to shoot at Vogue, and always dropping her wishlist to Nicola. She loves her roommates and would do anything for them.

EXTRA INFO

lola/lolalvarez/description: some women fear the fire. some women simply become it.

Five latest tweets:

@lolalvarez: @PamelaLansbury if y'all decide that the internal dating becomes to be too much and you need a new member, my door is open #justsaying @lolalvarez: I posted a makeup tutorial from my latest photoshoot on Instagram, please continue to @ me and tell me how pretty I am. @lolalvarez: DO YOU WANT TO SEE A PICTURE OF MY DOG? @donatellanotversace @lolalvarez: I could go to Central Park, or I could binge ANTM. Or, I could order Insomnia cookies #3amthoughtswithLola @lolalvarez: @nicoladerocha @awildecard Tell me I’m pretty.

[ladymaysworld]

Ok coming into your inbox for 2 things: 1) yes your gifs are beautiful & gorgeous & god-tier quality don't sell yourself short! (but at the same time I think I know where you're coming from because you get used to your own methods after a while so it doesn't seem *~special~* anymore, or at least that's how I've felt in the past) & 2) I am curious about your topaz settings please teach me your ways orz. And unrelated but another Sailor Moon fan! I started making gifs with that anime ngl

omoo awww >///

aww id be happy to try to share what i know with you …..

..mmm now i suck at tutorials so ill give this my best shot >///

so here are the links i was talking about all thru the video ^^ :

( now you may not need some of these, but just in case you may want some i added them ^^)

1. convert timeline action 

2. convert to smart filters action 1

3. convert to smart filters action 2.

4. convert to frame animation ( topazzing process action ) (credit to :ceohan♥)

5. action to delete 1st part and set frame timing/delay +select all action

Smart sharpen/Gaussian blur actions : i use a often:

1. ( i use this one the most lately) 

2. ( i switch up between this one and the 1st one a lot)

3. ( i used to use this one a lot too) 

here are the topaz filters i use :

1. ( i use this one the most lately ♥)

2. ( i switch up between this one and the 1st one a lot)

3. ( i used to use this one a lot too)

and here is a mega list of topaz denoise settings that are really nice  if you dont already have it :)  

topaz settings 

I also  here are some really good  sharpen actions and tutorials for topaz that  i use a lot  as well (bless the gif makers for sharing theyre knowledge  they are awesome :) )  :

1

2

3

4

5

for coloring ive been using this curves action a lot before i do my psds and it seems to be helping here it is if you want it :) 

curves action

for psds, i use a lot here is where i found them and bless the awesome people who shared them : ♥♥

1.

2

3

4.

5.

also for more coloring tips  i love from some pretty awesome giffers are here:

1

2

3

4

5

also here are some really cool wonderful blogs that update and share awesome  psds and Photoshop info that i love to check out often :

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

also if you want avisynth info this tutorial is really good :

1

2

3

4

[gghero]

🔥 pokemon and SU

OKAY THIS IS LONG. WAY LONGER THAN I EXPECTED. MORE THAN AN UNPOPULAR OPINION POST, IT TURNED INTO AN ALL-OUT OPINION POST

putting it under a cut; the pkm one is way longer and more detailed, SU is a plain ol unpopular opinion post and shorter so im putting it first.

SU:

honestly, i’ll be the first to say that the show is not perfect, that the characters cant stay on model (its still not enough to bother me or ruin everything because, cmon, im getting to watch the show for free) that the crew have made mistakes, that certain characters deserve better/worse, that certain lessons felt out of place, and all that jazz.

but hey, its not the worst thing to ever happen. i found SU while it was at its peak (late season 1 - early season 2, the best SU has ever been IMO) and even though im trying to not interact with the fandom anymore because of some toxic stuff that happened, i find myself enjoying the storyline, the worldbuilding is great and everything about the art style that is not proportions (backgrounds, palettes, character design) is arguably some of the best in current animation.

my beef with the fandom and most critical blogs is that the discourse sounds like the same stuff over and over and the general attitude is very snarky and condescending. my rule of thumb is that if youre going to critique something, you have to also give your ideas on what you would do in their place. i also felt talked down to everytime i interacted with them, and most people dont even know how to discuss things so any valid points they might bring up didnt phase me after rolling my eyes at their behavior. they also tend to treat their opinions as the objective truth - or only reblog from their fellow critic blog friends.

pokémon:

oh, pokémon. one of my most beloved video game franchises of all times. yet theyre not exempt from criticism. of course, none of what im about to say ruins the experience for me (otherwise, i wouldnt still play the games and making fanarts, DUH) 

the games. first of all i have to say that theyre incredibly engaging. i find myself caught up in the hype before a big reveal, preordering and picking up the new game as soon as it comes out, and then playing non-stop until im satisfied with it... and usually thats it. yeah. one of my biggest complaints about pokemon is how replayable the games COULD be, if only gamefreak did the simplest thing of just adding more save slots. of course, ive ended up deleting old save files in order to replay a game, and thanks to pokebank i can keep my babies, but cmon. all the items you collected, the complete pokedex, how far you went in the battle chateau/battle tree/etc... its all lost forever. the game would also be infinitely more replayable if the post game were more extensive (rather than being like “here, go to the battle building of this generation and battle”). i think implementing side quests or achievement unlocking that gives you in-game perks would add so much.

ALSO GAMEFREAK please stop adding and changing and removing features that we like every single generation!!!! i was not bothered by character customization being removed in ORAS because i understand its a remake and they wanted to keep something similar to the original designs of may/brendan but!!!!! The PSS was GREAT, but you replace it with festival plaza that was... not great!!! you take away pokemon amie, which allowed more experienced players to farm hearts very fast via the minigames!!! you took away the super training!!!!! it makes it look like they dont know what theyre doing, and i understand that they want to shake things up, but i stg if we dont get ride pokemon in gen 8 and instead we are back to HMs, im gonna scream.

my next complaint is how... small the games feel. im not asking for an open world yet (short answer; yes i believe its doable) but the amount of hand holding and tutorials in the last games bothers me, not to mention how limited the exploring feels when compared with older games? dont get me wrong, the gym/trials system is not bad per se - its mostly the map, its soo so so tiny and easy to navigate. i feel like they could look at earlier zelda and mario games and do something similar; an exploration mechanic like twilight princess’s would work so well. you have huge areas to explore while keeping it closed-world, and i never found myself getting tired of roaming around hyrule. in comparison, routes in pokemon feel very small, towns especially are SO tiny, and pokemon is a franchise that would REALLY benefit from the sense of adventure that non-linear larger maps offer.

next is the art direction. im definitely not a genwunner; i think some pokémon designs are good, others are not as good, but i dont have a huge bias towards, say, kanto (kanto’s good designs are good, but kanto’s bad designs are the worst, if it makes sense?) if i had to choose, i’d say gen 2, 3 and 4 are the ones that better represent what i want pokemon to look like in general, but that might be because i love monster-like pokemon like ampharos, swampert, garchomp - huge and bulky-looking pokemon - rather than pokemon that look too much like regular animals or inanimate objects. 

human character design is also good. they have been doing great in terms of racial diversity lately, but i do wish there were more “not-paper-thin skinny” characters (especially women) (and the ones that are fat/obese dont look suspiciously more cartoony/comic relief-y than the main characters); and older characters as well, specially women. 

i think my fave art direction is from black/white (1 and 2), the stylisation, clothes design and especially color palettes were gorgeous. i like a lot how the eyes and highlights/shading looked in black/white (1 and 2) - i think it was Take who did most of the art, instead of Sugimori and Ohmura.

(im sorry but im feeling the top image squad look much more)

my biggest complaint about pokemon’s art direction is that the 3D simply doesnt look its best as of now. im not a fan of the pixel-y black outline all models have, the colors of most pokemon in their 3D models look so washed down in general, and the backgrounds really suffer from this. i must say that changing the angle from a zenit POV to a third person camera in sun/moon was a step in the good direction, you get to see further in the distance and feel like the world is immersive. 

the color palettes for backgrounds could be better too, they have definitely taken a step in the wrong direction and went from this:

(pretty, muted but not extremely pastel or washed down; nice colors, those greens and browns are gorgeous - and yeah sorry about the bottom pic having a slight filter on, but cmon, its not like base game looks much different, remember?)

to this:

(aggressive colors, dont give me a sense of harmony, that extremely orange dirt and sky and almost neon green grass make my head hurt)

i have to say i preferred how the pixel-y, half 2d half 3d style of gen 4 and 5 looked, imo its the best pokemon has ever looked, but they clearly dont have the technology to make breathtaking, fully 3D games yet. i’d say its a necessary evil though so im hopeful for the future. and no, i dont want hyperrealistic textures or pokemon designs either (pokken style is so detailed it feels a little uncanny valley at times, specially with less realistic pokemon like gengar or gardevoir). ideally, pokemon will look like breath of the wild’s 3D character models, with that watercolor-ish style, the cell shading and the vibrant vivid colors. AND NO OUTLINES PLEASE.

finally the last point about the games is the storylines. I generally like pokémon storylines. they’re very good when you are caught up in the action, specially as of late, theyre adding cutscenes and dialogue-heavy scenes that dont feel out of place. but i cant bring myself to LOVE THEM as much as i love other videogame storylines. they still feel a little basic (this is not a problem because of the game’s formulaic nature, mind you) and while they havent shied away from more mature elements in the past, the overall tone is a little immature at times with a big huge plot heavy climax thrown in, and thats it. (and before you tell me pokemon is for kids: i know, but other shows and games for kids dont fall in the same plain secondary characters rut as pokemon does.) i would love for the Main character to have some sort of agency too because i feel like im following what other characters decide for me (at least give me dialogue options that, you know, DONT YIELD THE SAME DIALOGUE NO MATTER WHICH YOU CHOOSE).

thats about all i have to say about the games themselves. not gonna talk about anime or manga bc im not really into those

as for the fandom... its generally chill. its huge, but its divided in so many sub-groups that you never feel overwhelmed. the competitive community might be more toxic ive heard, but im more into the plot and characters anyways.

i do have to call out the huge p///edophilia problem there is. being a franchise most people grew up with, characters like idk, misty, may, dawn (its girls more often than not) were older or the same age as most of the older fans were back in the day. as a result, they have obsessed with their image since they were kids, and this obsession has continued now that theyre grown ass people, and they have no problem consuming and producing huuuge amounts of porn for these characters. as for the latest games, these disgusting people have even less excuse (not that they ever had) there’s tons of CP and adult x minor ships out there, and its allowed to thrive more often than not because of the sheer size of the fandom, too.

PHEW.

[ghiblicottage]

so i spent the afternoon collecting links to help out people who want to watch skam but do not know how or where :) don't hesitate to tell me if some of these links do not work or if i made a mistake or if you are mentioned want to be removed from this post for some reasons ^^ hope some of you will find this useful! ♥

this post will be organized in 6 categories :

the basics of skam

tags to check for updates

how to watch skam outside norway

where to check for translations

where to watch previous seasons

extra links

first a few basics

official website : skam.p3.no

episodes come out through short clips through the week

this way we follow the lives of the characters "in real time"

the clips are complemented with "extras" : texts or instagram posts

most characters have official social media accounts

you do not need those extras to follow the series

full episodes are broadcasted on norwegian tv every friday evening

each season has a new main character :

S1 - Eva

S2 - Noora

S3 - Isak

S4 - Sana

the main squads are the following :

The Girl Squad [Chris, Eva, Noora, Sana, Vilde]

The Boy Squad [Isak, Jonas, Magnus, Mahdi, +Even]

The Balloon Squad [Adam, Elias, Mikael, Mutasim, Yousef]

The Kollektivet [Eskild, Linn, Noora, +Isak]

The Penetrators [Boy Chris, William, etc.]

a few of my tags to check for updates

skam

skam timeline

skam translated

skam texts

skam instagram

skam youtube

how to watch skam outside of norway

without a vpn

tuto for mozilla by @skamenglish

uses the extension x-forwarded-for header

pros and cons : works fine for me,check that your flash player is up to date

note : this tutorial also explains to you how to download episodes directly from the website as well, if you wish you can then add soft subs which can be downloaded here (this can be pretty useful if you want to make gifs for example). [+ here is a tuto on how to add soft subs]

tuto for chrome by @evenetisak

uses the extension modheader

pros and cons : easy to use but doesnt work for everybody

with a vpn

Tunnelbear (checked by me and @isakvaltersern)

Cyberghost (checked by @rainmeansteatime)

how does it work : download and then select norway, the vpn will then move you to a Norwegian server and you will be able to watch skam from your own country

pros and cons : they are safe and free and easy to use however there are some limitations such as limited amount of data or advertising

where to check for translations

tumblr :

@skamenglish posts and reblog transcripts and subbed clips usually in the few hours following the update [info]

@stayinherewithyou posts transcripts under the tag #skam for almost every update as far as i know

@skamedits posts transcripts under the tag #translation for all the updates i think

@skamtranslated posts translation of all the text conversations

@skamforfaen has been posting and reblogging transcripts under the tag #translation since season 3

@stormbox has been posting transcripts of every updates since season 3 under the tag #skam translation

@shametv is the famous google drive owner who subbed every episodes and allowed us to watch the clips during season 3 and even though they dont translate anymore i think they deserve to be here

aaaand thats about it, there are probably many others but these are the one i check more often

else

google drive : SKAM S4 (ENG SUB) / tumblr @isaksaltereven

google drive : SKAM S4 / tumblr @skamenglish

mega drive : SKAM S4 [access key] / tumblr @skamenglish

youtube : @feudly usually posts the clip first without and then with subtitles, but be quick as the video tend to be taken down rather quickly

dailymotion : @Skam TV has many skam related videos, and posts the new clips with subs

where to watch previous seasons

Now these links are the one i used but some of them may have been taken down im not sure

google drive :

season 1

season 2 [part 1]

season 2 [part 2]

season 3 [5,6,7,10 + texts & interviews]

season 3 [full]

season 1, 2, 3 by @skinsplaces

else :

season 3 masterpost by @shametv

all seasons masterpost by @skaam

note : you may experience issues using google drive, if you cannot watch it directly on the drive try downloading it and it has exceded download quota, right click on it, add to your own drive and then download it from there

extra links

update notification : you can use this to get notified by email when the website is updated

skam playlist : spotify | apple music | youtube | tidal

the balloon squad youtube channel : @Hei Briskeby

characters instagrams :

Sana Bakkoush : @therealsanabakkoush

Noora Sætre : @loglady99

Eva Mohn@evamohn2

Vilde Hellerud@ellevillevillde

Chris Berg : stas_a_vaere_chris

Elias Bakkoush : @eliasfraoslo

Yousef Acar : @yousefacar

Isak Valtersen : @isakyaki

Jonas Vasquez : @jonas9000

Mahdi Disi : @mahahahadi

Magnus Fossbaken : @reggismeggis

Eskild Tryggvasson : @eazy_eskild

Sara Nørrstelien : @saranors

Ingrid Theis Gaupseth : @ingrid_tgif

Christoffer Schistad : @chrisschistad

William Magnusson : @magnussonwilliam

actors social media [source] :

quick parenthesis to say that this is not hollywood and the actors are very young and have real lives / real jobs and are not used to creepy stalkers and obesessive fans and all that so lets be decent people and respect their private lives

instagram

Iman Meskini : @imanmeskini

Josefine Pettersen : @josefinpettersen

Ulrikke Falch : @ulrikkefalch

Ina Svenningdal : @inasven

Henrik Holm : @henkeholm

Marlon Langeland : @marlonlangeland

Sacha Kléber : @sachakleber

David Alexander : @davidsjoholt

Carl Martin Eggesbø : @carlmartinegg

Herman Tømmeraas : @hermantommeraas

Simo El : @cengizal

Yousef Hjelde Elmofty : @yousefhjelde

Mutasim Billah : @muttaa97

Adam Ezzari : @adamezzari

snapchat

Ulrikke Falch : @ulrikkefalch

Ina Svenningdal : @inasvenningdal

Sacha Kléber : @sachakleber

Marlon Langeland : @marlonlangeland

Herman Tømmeraas : @hermantommeraas

Simo El : @simoeljr

Cengiz Al : @cengizl

Yousef Hjelde Elmofty : @yousefkc

Mutasim Billah : @motta05

Adam Ezzari : @ezzarius

▻ detailed masterpost by @skaam