#trying to do some fancy background work and have fun with it but mostly. this is because she's so fucking cute.

[tbcanary]

i just love the way they draw harley in the current poison ivy run....

[cookiescribble]

Interrupted

A/N: this is just a short little thing i’ve had in my head for a while, and the writer’s block is finally clearing up a little so i’ve been able to write more again :) hope you like it! - mod angel

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Fem!Reader

Summary: You and Spencer finally have an evening off, and are happy to spend it together. But nights off are never a guarantee when you work at the BAU. (based on 9x23)

CW: suggestive but not explicit behavior, reader gets a little wine drunk, mild discussion of sex lives.

~~~

You were enjoying a nice, quiet dinner at home, soft music playing in the background. You were a little dressed up, wearing a casual dress and some jewelry to match, trying to pretend it was a date night and not just spaghetti and wine you got from the grocery store. Making the best out of the little time you had to plan this.

Spencer was sitting across from you, smiling as he held his glass of water out to you. “To finally having a night off?”

You smiled back at him, clinking his cup with your wine glass. “To finally having you all to myself tonight.” You winked at him as you took a sip of wine. It wasn’t anything fancy, but it made the night a little more special.

He took a sip of his water, gesturing to your wine glass. “Be careful with that, you turn into trouble when you have too much wine.” His words sounded like a warning, but his tone was teasing, a grin on his face.

At that, you smiled mischievously, taking a bigger sip of wine. “I think I’m allowed to cause a little trouble on our day off.” You put your glass down, picking up your fork to start eating your dinner. “We deserve to have a little fun tonight.”

Dinner wasn’t much different than it usually was when you two were home together, but it felt nice to be able to sit at the dinner table across from each other after dealing with so much work lately. There was light flirting back and forth between you and Spencer through your meal, setting the mood for the evening. Every sip of wine you took made you feel a little more flushed and bubbly, making the flirting start escalating a bit. You could feel yourself noticing more things about Spencer as he ate across from you: the way his fingers moved around his fork as he twirled it in his plate, the bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallowed his food, the way his lips parted when he took a sip of water…

“That’s a dangerous look you’re giving me, you know.”

You were snapped out of your thoughts when Spencer spoke, a smirk on his face as he set his fork down. You met his eyes, matching his smirk, reaching out to grab his hand from across the table. “Is it?” You asked innocently, starting to trace patterns in the palm of his hand, making him shudder softly.

“It is,” he replied, his voice soft and deep. “I think you know what you’re doing when you look at me like that.” He slowly stood up, walking over to you and tilting your chin up with his finger. “You better be ready to take responsibility for this.”

You stood up, reaching up to tangle your fingers in his hair, bringing your faces close, your lips stopping just short of touching his. “Oh, I’m definitely planning on taking responsibility…” One of your fingers started to trail down his face, slowly tracing over his bottom lip. You could see his face start to heat up a bit at your touch, his breath hitching. “If you’re ready, that is,” you said in a quiet, breathy tone.

That little touch seemed to set him off, as he grabbed your face and crashed his lips with yours, bumping you into the table with the abrupt force.

Suddenly, you both were stumbling through the living room, hands all over each other as you made your way to the bedroom, closing the door behind you. You fell back onto the bed, Spencer taking you into his arms after shrugging off the shirt you mostly unbuttoned on your way here.

His lips were on yours again, the weight of his body starting to push down on you as he settled on top of you. He started pushing down the straps of your dress, his lips moving down to your neck. He started peppering kisses there, quickly at first, before they started getting slower and deeper.

“You look really good in this dress, you know that?” His voice was husky as his tongue met your skin, earning a lustful sigh from you in response. “So pretty…” he whispered between kisses, starting to gently bite down on your neck.

“Spence…” you moaned out, already turning into a mess underneath him, even though you were still fully dressed. The wine mixed with his sweet words and lustful bedroom eyes, you could hardly stand to wait anymore. Your hands tangled in his hair as his teeth grazed your skin, his eyes closed in concentration as he felt your body react underneath him. His lips started slowly trailing downward from your neck, starting to move under your collar…

Suddenly, you were startled by the sound of your phone going off, making you both groan.

“Please tell me it’s not what I think it is,” you pleaded as Spencer stood up to look at your phone. He held it out to you, showing you a text indicating that you had to go into work for a case. You grumbled as you sat up, readjusting your dress. “I swear to god, I am quitting this job. I mean it.”

Spencer laughed, opening the closet to start putting on a purple button-down shirt. “Relax, we’ll get some time to ourselves at the hotel later.” He took out a tie, putting it around his neck as he reached out his hand to help you up out of bed. He placed a quick kiss on your forehead. “Maybe we can continue this then?”

You sigh, starting to rifle through drawers to throw on a sweater over your dress. There wasn’t really time to find a whole new outfit. “I hope so, but I don’t know if I realistically see that happening.”

The two of you rushed to get dressed and ready, knowing you needed to be out the door as soon as possible. You skipped brushing your hair, tying it up for now and just throwing your hairbrush in your go-bag with everything else you needed. Spencer was pulling on a cardigan as he reached out to hug you from the side, kissing your temple before grabbing his messenger bag and throwing it over his shoulder. “Ready?” He asked as you started walking through the door.

“I guess,” you replied, rolling your eyes. Spencer reached down to kiss your cheek as he locked the apartment door behind you, making you smile. “The hotel rooms better be nice,” you added, grabbing his hand as you walked to your car.

“Agreed,” he replied, laughing lightly as you both entered the car, pulling out of the parking lot and heading for the office.

…

You were walking fast after getting off the elevator, rushing to meet up with everyone, when you heard some of the team members talking.

“So…” You heard JJ’s voice down the hall. “We get Henry to bed, and, y’know, we’re about to finally have some alone time with mommy and daddy, and…” She trailed off, and as you entered the room, you saw her roll her eyes from afar. “You guys know the rest,” she finished, sounding annoyed.

“Ah, trying to dust off the ol’ cobwebs,” Derek joked, laughing.

Penelope hit him on the shoulder. “Inappropriate!” She exclaimed, before turning back to JJ. “Seriously, though, how long has it been?”

You laughed, seeing her intense face as you walked closer to joining everyone. Always so curious. Or nosy, you could say. But it was a part of her that was endearing.

“Too long,” JJ replied flatly.

You finally reached the group, putting your stuff down and greeting everyone.

JJ looked over at you and Spencer, a slight smirk on her face. “Well, looks like I wasn’t the only one interrupted,” she remarked, noticing how you both still looked a little disheveled after rushing to get here.

You groaned, rolling your eyes. “Bite me,” you replied sarcastically.

She gestured over to you, pointing at your neck. “Looks like someone already did,” she snickered.

You looked down to see a small bruise starting to form on your neck. You didn’t really look in the mirror while you were getting ready, so you didn’t notice the mark there.

You looked pointedly at Spencer as your hand went to your neck. He gave you an apologetic look. “Sorry,” he mouthed silently, looking a little guilty.

You quickly took your hair down, grabbing the brush from your bag and starting to smooth your hair down. You could see Penelope open her mouth to ask probing questions. Everyone seemed to be too curious about your relationship, asking way too many questions when you finally told everyone you and Spencer were dating. Especially Penelope. Thankfully, she was cut off before she could say anything.

“Do we know what the case is?” Alex asked, letting you drop the subject of your evening activities and shift the focus to work. You snuck one last glance at Spencer, who smiled at you and reached out for your hand, giving it a gentle squeeze as you settled into your new evening plans.

[animeomegas]

Ideal Valentines Day - Omega! Aizawa, Mic, Toshinori, Dabi

A/N: For the anon who asked <3 I wasn't vibing with Shiggy today, so I left him off. I feel like these all ended up being home dates, but I think being a hero or villain makes those easier lol. There are hints of n-sfw, but it's non-descriptive and very tame.

Aizawa

Actions speak louder than words for Aizawa, and I think his preferred love language for receiving affection is Acts of Service.

He has no need for material items, and that goes doubly for anything covered in hearts. I don't think he's a massive fan of chocolate. And flowers are just another thing that he has to sort out and try to keep alive as long as he can. No, he much prefers practical care on Valentine's day.

He wants you to pick him up from UA after work so he doesn't have to drive, a warm cup of his favourite coffee, far sweeter than his image would suggest, ready for him.

He wants to go straight home of course. When he walks through the door, he would love to see the house sparkling clean and tidy. It lifts a burden off him that he didn't even know was there.

There's no fancy outfits with him. He wants to immediately get changed into the comfiest clothes he has, and he would love if you did the same.

Dinner should 100% be his favourite takeaway, eaten on the couch, of course.

I don't know why, but I don't get the vibe that Aizawa is that interested in sex on Valentines Day. I think he'd prefer the intimacy to come from a shared bath or a massage.

And ideally the night ends early, so he can face tomorrow well rested, for once in his life.

Mic

Hizashi loves cheesy romance, he lives for cheesy romance! He eats, sleeps, and breathes it!

I think receiving gifts is something he loves, so get him a pink teddy bear, get him a comically oversized chocolate bar, get him a sappy card filled with cheesy love poems (bonus if you write them yourself.) He loves it all.

He also wants to be at home, because he's worried about people recognising him and interrupting the date.

He would love, love, love if he came home to a trail of rose petals to follow, he's always wanted to do that!

I think he'd enjoy cooking dinner together, just making a mess, playing around, listening to music.

Please pull him to dance with you, he will melt.

Once the food is eaten and the mess left for tomorrow, I think he'd want to do some sort of activity. A board game, a video game, painting together, anything! He's having fun as long as he's with you.

And then... well he's certainly not going to complain if one of your gifts to him was lingerie or a new 'toy'. And it would be rude to not try them out 😏

Toshinori

His idea of romance is old school. He developed his taste mostly from films, rather than experience, after all.

He wants roses so badly. He can't decide if it's more romantic to get a dozen roses, or just one, so he'll let you decide.

I think something private would be more meaningful to him because he's spent his life in the spotlight.

He wants you to meet him at the door with a rose/bouquet of roses, and then lead him into the living room of your home, where you've laid out a fancy dinner.

He wants the fancy dinner table to be set to the nines, he wants candles, champagne, and some food that he can eat. He wants classical music playing in the background.

And then he wants you to pull out his chair for him and wine and dine him until he's completely smitten, not that that's hard.

He doesn't mind if you order the food, but he'd prefer if you either made it by hand, or had it ordered from a special place as opposed to just off a food delivery app. He wants everything to feel special.

The best way to finish the night after dinner is with a movie. One of his favourite films, probably a ridiculous American action film or terrible romcom.

He needs some good old fashioned cuddling at the same time of course.

And because he's getting old, he wants to spend the final moments of the day tucked up in bed, talking about feelings and the future, and all the fuzzy things you're both looking forward to in your relationship.

Dabi

Dabi is softer than he will admit, which means Valentines Day with him involved tricking him into feeling loved.

You can't do things that are too typical, because he'll get spooked. If he comes home and sees heart shaped balloons or dozens of roses, he will flee the scene.

Luckily, he is utterly weak for pizza, so if he comes home and you've ordered his favourite pizza and got a video game/film set up, he can't resist.

"This isn't some weird Valentine's shit, is it?"

"It's just pizza, Dabi, but if you don't want any, I'll eat it all."

"What? In your dreams, knothead."

Once you've lulled him in with pizza and games, you can start putting the moves on him.

He's almost always down for sex, so that part is easy. The hard part is stopping him from escalating it into something rougher, and keeping it gentle.

He gets frustrated at first that you're being too soft on him, and it's at this point that you start lavishing him in praise and body worship. His frustration turns into bashfulness and Dabi gets kind of shy.

Let him know how much you love him.

And then, right when you're both about to drift off, wish him a Happy Valentine's Day.

[13thdoodle]

[ ECTOBERHAUNT 2023 BANNER ]

I'm doing the banner for this year's @ectoberhaunt event~ The theme is Science vs Magic

I had so much fun making this~ Sam get the fantasy AU fit while Tucker gets Cyber/futuristic style

Sketch Progress

I like the idea of Sam being a druid bc nature connection tm

And Tucker would vibe very well with fancy future stuffs. i was gonna draw him with a bigger puffer but I couldn't figured it out. I like the one we got here too so yay

Okay so I was a bit pressed on time while working on this so I couldn't do as much research and references as I should.

On Sam's part, the somewhat floating book was inspired on how genshin impact's catalysts have their books/weapon just floats and it looks fancy n magical n Sam deserve that honestly

Her glowing tattoo are highkey inspired of this beautiful Sam with tattoos art by @the-stove-is-on-fire Mine is nowhere close to that but that's my main inspiration for this

I was gonna give Tucker his usual orange sweater but I noticed a lot of neon or cyberpunk outfit relies on dark backdrop to pop.

And since the background color is gonna be bright yellow, I gotta put the dark color somewhere else. And his sweater would be the perfect spot to balance out all the brightness with a bit of darkness

And it matches with Sam too so it works out great uwu

The magic circles on their back were mostly there to balance out the composition bc it looks too empty as is, gotta spice it up a lil bit uwu But a direct halo would look.. too out there? I mean I can but like.. Sam is magic/fantasy based, why not lean on that n go for magic circles :D

Tucker's random bits on the background took the most out of me bc like.. its hard qwq I literally try to look up aesthetic bg to figure out how to work with his?? Eventually I just settle on less is more and added shadow under the bits to make em pops out against the orange

source

And for the color choices, I wanted the two of them to have purple, yellow, and green on them. The green color on to symbolize Danny bc I'm an Everlasting Trio shipper lmao

I wanted Sam to have some yellow and green on her magic, which kinda.. got covered with the whites honestly. But the greens stays with the vines so we'll go with that Tucker was harder to figure out, so I settle with him with blue and greens instead of purple qwq

In the end, only the green end up staying lmao It ends up unifying both sides so hell yea it all works out lol

[swashbucklery]

I have been thinking about the costuming in Willow a lot, and yes this is for fanfiction reasons but it's also just for fun. As background, my non-fandom hobbies are mostly textile based: I sew garments and teach sewing classes, I'm an experienced knitter and handspinner and I've started to dabble in wool processing from fleece and four-shaft weaving.

So once I get into a Textile Puzzle Hole I can go pretty deep, and this is a fun and important part of understanding the worldbuilding for me.

Because they're doing a thing with Willow that - I actually really enjoy. It's not "classic fantasy" in the sense that it's not period-appropriate or of a specific era that we'd recognize. They're also clearly trying to call back to the 80s roots of the original film with some of the design choices; mostly the elements of armor and clothing that they're pulling from traditional martial arts clothing and the existence of Fun Fantasy Denim.

A lot of my thoughts aren't necessarily about critique, but more about trying to put together a cohesive rubric for myself as to what the costuming aesthetic is. Because it's not "anything goes," it's got a specific vibe and a clear voice and I want to "get it" more for my own writing and for my own understanding.

I think the two rules that I've drilled down so far are:

Textiles As Artisan Material (all-handmade, no fantasy spandex)

Function Over Form

1. Textiles As Artisan Material So to get into this a little, I want to get into the idea of how textiles are made because for me I'm In Deep and know a lot about the raw material to cloth to garment process but the average person does not. (I will say, I'm excepting the Cuirass from all of this - we know metatextually that it's a 3d printed stretch fabric bodysuit; it's also magic so it doesn't count.)

So, the average person is used to textile production that is predicated on post-industrial-revolution technology. Meaning:

power-driven machines for weaving and spinning

computer technology available in spinning and weaving machinery to allow for easy production of highly complex cloth structures and patterning

overabundance and artificially low costs of raw materials

When you are thinking of fabric (and I'd include cloth and leather here but not metal armor) as a skilled artisan material, understanding the reasoning for, for instance, Jade having one shirt for the entire series involves understanding what steps are involved. Then, we can understand how many human beings are involved in fabric and therefore garment production and also how many people need to get paid along the way. A piece of cloth entirely handmade for a garment would involve:

a producer to grow the textile fiber (cotton, flax, wool, hide for leather)

skilled artisans to process the fiber (washing, preparing for spinning which could include combing/carding wool, retting flax, etc, leather tanning)

skilled artisans to add dye. This can be done at the stage of prepared fiber, finished thread/yarn, or finished cloth. In a real-world/modern context, this would have significant impact on the cost of cloth. Certain colours (reds, purples) are much harder to dye true than others or require more expensive dyestuff.

skilled spinners to turn the fiber into fine threads for weaving - depending on the fineness needed for the specific weave of the cloth this could be weeks to months of work. Thinner threads will take more time but have more drape and be less stiff as a cloth, so you'd need thin threads for next-to-skin garments like undershirts, and for fine fabrics in things like dresses or fancy formalware

weavers to weave the threads into cloth. Again, the timing here would depend on the type of thread being used but it would also depend on whether or not there are any woven-in embellishments as components of the cloth. Basic cloth in plain weave would take time but not a lot of extra skill; twills or patterning require more time and weaving skill.

embroiderers to add any embellishments either to the base cloth or to the finished garment

tailors and seamstresses to make garments to measure, which would involve cutting any pieces out of the finished cloth and turning it into a garment the correct size for the wearer. If we are assuming that the mechanical sewing machine has not been invented, then garments would be sewn by hand.

handsewing a correctly finished garment involves more than just tacking the pieces together; seam finishes so that the cloth doesn't unravel often require going over the same seam line one or more times. The labour hours in this step cannot be overstated.

metalworkers or other craftspeople to make fastenings and finishings: buttons, toggles, grommets on lacing that weren't handsewn, etc.

leather garments would be made by a separate type of textile worker, since leatherwork requires different tools and a different skillset to successfully construct garments.

So for a basic garment we're looking at needing to pay six separate types of skilled artisans for their work, up to six or seven if it's a garment with elaborate fittings and/or finishing such as buttons or metal fasteners.

The textile economy is relevant here because it is going to translate directly into style. Cutting fabric into patterned shapes leaves waste; this is fine if you're using mass-produced fabric that you can easily afford to replace but if cloth is the 10/10 most precious thing in your garment, you're going to try to cut it into as low-waste a design as possible. It might also lead to less fussy fitting, so that garments are adjustable and can be used by a person for much longer.

It also translates into textile types. Prior to the advent of mechanical knitting machines, any knit (stretch) fabrics would be hand knit. If you have ever tried knitting yourself, you understand that knitting with thin thread takes more time, and therefore more labour hours.

What this means for clothing in-universe on Willow is:

almost entirely woven fabrics, with the exception of handknitting (see: Elora’s scarf-shawl)

this likely does translate into undergarments; I've been looking at regency and late-Victorian era examples to get my head around. The modern bra and panty set is heavily heavily dependent on not just machine knit fabric but also a TON of petroleum-based synthetic textiles that cannot be produced without modern post-industrial means.

fastened using items that can be handmade! Buttons, toggles, clasps, ties or belts for the most part, with the occasional Fantasy Rivet or Fantasy Grommet.

precious! so precious! Expensive to produce and also worth caring for; we see some examples of visible mending in-show and that would have been the standard for everyone with the exception of Kit and Airk.

2. Function Over Form So this is maybe something that I only think about because I sew, but the modern eye is really used to equating and understanding "woven" fabrics and "stretch woven" fabrics as equivalent. Jeans are the easiest example to think about: they're made with denim, but in things like skinny jeans that denim is usually blended with some kind of spandex. Typical woven fabric doesn't stretch in either direction in a meaningful way; stretch-woven fabrics do so because of the synthetic textile content.

So a lot of the design choices that we see in the show really have to take into account that those textiles won't stretch with movement, and that the wearers need to be able to swordfight:

larger, baggier shirts with cuffs or vests rather than more fitted shirts, to allow for full movement at the elbow and shoulder

trousers that have a bit of extra wearing ease at the hip and thigh, so that when the wearer sits or squats there is room for the change in their body shape with these positions

there are a couple of GREAT leather jackets (Kit's in the early season especially), but if you look closely there's actually a grommet-and-lacing system to attach the sleeve head to the body, so that the shoulder still moves. So clever!

Anyway I have been having a lot of fun thinking about this and deconstructing the garments further. Thinking more about the costuming helps me find the worldbuilding details that make it easy for me to write, and I’d love to chat about this lots and lots! I do have some screenshot receipts for this; I didn’t include them because I mostly just wanted to write and not do ~graphic design today.

[burntheedges]

Congrats on your follower milestone, you deserve it!! 🩷🎉 You have been nothing but so welcoming and sweet in this space, and I’m so happy we connected ☺️

❓For the ask, what is your writing process? Is there something that motivates you or helps you to write?

Jamie!! Thank you!! 🧡 I feel the same way 🫶🏻

this is a fun question! I had a lot to say apparently lol

So in terms of actually sitting down to write, I do a lot of it on my couch, tbh. I like to write in coffee shops so I try to do that sometimes, I like the vibe. I like background noise. Mild deadlines (without like a ton of pressure) motivate me which is why I like challenges, probably. They’re friendly but still something to work towards. I try to take breaks and let myself come back to things if it’s feeling like a slog. (Breaks are good for your brain!!)

I definitely prefer writing on my computer, not on my phone. When I wrote Maintenance Request I tried out Scrivener (since it was for NaNo) and I do like it, but the way Google docs sync across my devices is helpful for when I need to make quick changes or edits. Or write down a sudden thought.

I try to always have an outline before I start. For a oneshot that might be like… 3-5 bullet points. Basic plot outline and anything I know I want to include. Longer, depending on the length of the fic. Sometimes I’ll have specific scenes that I know I want to happen so I’ll list those.

I like to have a full outline, especially for a fic I know will be long, so I don’t lose sight of where it’s going. And so I can tell if all of the beats are there. But I’m also an almost-or-fully-finish-before-I-post person (MR was mostly done when I started posting, other than a couple of chapters near the end and the epilogue. But also thank god for @katareyoudrilling because without her as my beta it would not be what it is now). The outline doesn’t have to be fancy, it’s usually bullet points and incomplete sentences.

I think part of the reason I like to write this way is because I like to empty my brain of all of my ideas for a fic to help me brainstorm, and that becomes the outline. It also helps me not worry if I’m forgetting any ideas. And seeing it all laid out helps me find gaps or like places where I need to add things. I also skip around when actually writing within the outline — I don’t just go in order.

Mild spoilers for Maintenance Request under the cut (but not past where you’ve read, just for anyone else reading this).

For Maintenance Request I had an extensive outline — almost everything that is still in it up to chapter 16ish was in the outline, just not necessarily in the original order. (I just went back and looked, the outline is 6 pages 👀.) I knew I wanted the beginning scenes where they’re at odds, and the scene outside the building when she kisses Joel was actually the first scene I thought of for the fic. Some of it developed as I was writing (like the date and what’s coming this Friday 👀) and a lot of the outline was vague, so there’s still the element of surprise lol. And Joel likes to do what he wants. 🤷🏻‍♀️

was this too much information? 😂 thank you for asking!! 🧡

followers celebration

[golby-moon]

got some art for a round in the @destielomegaversebigbang. got to draw lots of new things with this fic which is always fun and partly why I started doing bangs at all

with the banner, I was actually given a color scheme by the author to try out, which is why everything is so...green and tan. I wanted to represent the uh weird chastity belt thing without actually showing it, so I designed a belt with fancy Celtic designs on both the belt buckle and the belt itself (which were made to look like 's's for Supernatural). the keys mirror the belt as Cas is the key to unlocking it in the fic, and the background with its dangerously off centered dots and wooden board sort of title are because Cas owns a hardware store in the fic. I definitely didn't overdo it on the symbolic silver color I continuously reused

I originally chose the fic due to this scene being described in the claims, where Dean and Cas bump into each other in a hardware store and all kinds of stuff spills around them on the ground. admittedly I didn't know Cas worked in the hardware store from the claims, but this did give me a great opportunity to draw all kinds of stuff I never have before (mostly in the background with all the tools and idk plates and stuff everywhere). I wanted to imply that Cas knows about hunting and monsters and such, so I not only have iron, silver, and salt bullets on display on the counter, but also added a devil's trap sticker on the cash register next to the cat one and the 'save <3 (bee) bees' one. everything is charged by the dollar instead of any of the $x.99 stuff due to a thought I had about Cas being too blunt to bother with making things seem cheaper (and if any of the prices are way off, that's because I have no clue how much any of this stuff would be ignore that)

I did originally have their faces turned a little less and Cas looking more...well, like Cas, but I like the vibe of the later version better since they seem more friendly instead of like strangers having their first ever mutually gay awakening moment. this one just looks kind of awkward. thank goodness I used references for the kneeling positions for once though 🎉 (I think Cas' was some lady gardening lol)

the art limit for the bang was actually brought down, but I did two pieces for the minibang fic anyway and added the scene of Dean lying on the couch and Cas with his weirdly long right arm (oops) cupping his face. when I read the scene, I just immediately pictured Cas owning an ugly floral grandma couch, which turns out to be the kind of disaster couch the author kind of pictured Cas as having as well. it's such an ugly couch I love it

(not that anyone probably noticed but I did draw this a while ago which is why Dean's hair isn't consistent with the new way I draw it. Cas' is about as messy as always though 👌)

the fic this is made for is called "An Intervention of Silver" by @hannahctwk for the destiel omegaverse big bang

(09/29/23)

[bogkeep]

Do you have any advice or resources on pricing commissions/commissions in general? I've been thinking of starting comms

I hope this is an okay thing to ask lol

PS: luv ur art!

for resources, there's this video (subtitled but not transcribed sorry) which lays it out really well! there used to be a really good twitter thread by yoshi yoshitani, but it seems to be deleted.

here's some general experience/advice:

- IN A PERFECT WORLD we would all price our commissions well and fairly and comparable to industry standard, buuuuuut i get why most of us don't. compared to industry standard my $130 character portraits are also underpriced, and while i AM steadily upping my prices (my first comms were $40 for a fully colored and shaded fullbody. oof) 1) i need to consider what audience i have and who will be able to commission me, and 2) i mostly do commissions for some extra pocket money, not to make a living. i think my prices are comparable to many fellow internet artists in the same sphere.

- the way i price my commissions are that the MINIMUM amount needs to be the amount i have to be paid to feel like a commission is worth doing (taking into account my limited amount of time and energy to work on art, if i take paid $50 but then spend several days to complete it i will grow resentful and stretch myself too thin for too little), and the MAXIMUM is "at what point will the price paralyze me because i feel like I don't feel like i can make something worth that amount."

- working on a commission WILL take longer than just working on a Fun Piece For Yourself, both because you're putting in extra effort trying to make it worth the money you're given, and because you will spend time communicating with your client. you will get a better grip on your timeframe after you have more experience doing commissions.

- you're not just taking paid for the art itself, but client communications, your experience and expertise which has taken years to build, revisions, tools, etc.

- something they JUST told us in clock school: sometimes you get clock repairs that cost less than your quote and you might feel bad about this, but you will definitely do clock repairs that cost a lot more than your quote. THIS IS HOW IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE, THIS IS HOW YOU BREAK EVEN. when you give a quote at the beginning you don't know how much the work is going to take and estimates are always rough, but you're using your time and expertise to offer a service and you need money to live.

- your prices/quote can have wriggle room like "will cost X amount but Y for Extra Detailed Stuff Like Wings/Fancy Outfit/Background Detail"

- don't offer commissions you don't wanna do! i used to offer a wide range of styles and price categories, including some really cheap sketch options, and i don't Regret doing those per se but nowadays i only offer a narrowed down selection. I don't have time to do fullbodies with full backgrounds, so even if it's something i CAN do and people WOULD pay me for, I don't HAVE to do that.

- its okay, encouraged even, to adjust your prices as you go along and get more experienced at doing commissions. it's pretty normal to start out with low prices to get the hang of it (tattoo apprentices do tattoos for lower prices unil they're done with their training, and doing commissions is its own skill)

- if someone thinks your prices are too high, you don't want them as your clients to begin with. dealing with shitty commissioners is rarely worth the pay, and higher prices tend to result in better and more respectful clients.

i hope im not forgetting something hope this helps

[capcavan]

do you have any allison hcs? with ref to your recent allison posts, id love to know your thoughts!

I don't go deep into any other character than Riko but I love idea of Mtf Allison. Exy is co ed sport and considering her background she would have the resources for transition as well as the big deal of family drama that would go with this. I'm very attached to the idea of Allison leaving her family and choosing to play exy as a woman especially since testosterone is seen as extra benefit for most sports. I have some headcannons I suppose but nobody going to like them as they mostly connect to hear eating disorders - she has some fake teeth as she did loose few due to purging - she has stretch marks possibly got them lasered - she does exercise purgers still when foxes indulge into too much alcohol or fun food. - her weight fluctuates - personally I think she enjoys wearing sport clothes and layering to hide her body a bit, its a bit of a struggle for her, on some days she needs to be covered to feel comfortable but on others her gender dysphoria wins and she feels the need to indulge in hyper feminine fashion to feel more passing It would mean for me personally a lot if if ideas as such were read as they are intended - me trying to normalize the less glamorous parts of ed/recovery on top of the dysphoria train its hard for her to balance trying to look feminine and playing sports- testosterone or estrogen she still gains bit of muscle mass playing exy and i can see this being another part of her struggles with body image so far not good considering everything i write just runs around her looks and her body image but it's angle i don't see presented too often at leats not form those specific angles. if we go with the idea of allison being non white then 100% she would have the most fancy blonde wig money can buy I used to be very displeased with the idea of allison not ending as pro exy athlete but in the end she is not neil just because the book is about sport does not mean this is how all characters gotta end up, sports carry a lot of strain on body and mind i can see exy causing as much damage to ones health as football does. I like the idea of her and renee experimenting together a lot but not ending in established relationship for renee is exploration of sexuality outside of male attraction only and for allison its a tiny bit of gender envy about renee's body, she wouldn't want to grow resentful of a friend form the time and so they decide to cut it short but yeah I'm not interested in character work that is just "she is pretty and rich"

[petalpierrot]

We had a very low-key D&D session yesterday. The party mostly got some food and talked as they ate.

After their dance, Eidys invited Rahadin to have brunch with them and he agreed.

Eidys trying to gently socialize Rahadin with the party like he's a feral cat was kind of funny.

Rahadin asked the party how they liked the festival and warned them that the rest weren't as fun.

Eidys replied that they liked it well enough

He also asked what Eidys planning to do next and that to not hesitate to ask if there was anything he could help with in terms of information.

The party opts not to divulge that they will get involved with the Vallaki church, partially because they don't know where his allegiance lies but also in case Strahd would get that information out of him, one way or another.

Veshen replied that it was a much-needed mental break

Rahadin was curious about the Shadar-kai and asked how he ended up in Barovia

Veshen doesn't see any harm in it to tell him (he was retrieving a memory and then the mists prevented him from leaving)

Rahadin mentions Strahd likes to corrupt religious folks and if he does not submit he will be killed

Ireena pipes in that Veshen will *not* be corruptible.

Veshen agrees. He tells Rahadin that his faith is strong (partially because he works directly with the raven queen as an advisor - his background is Courtier) and he will know if he stops receiving portents that it will be Strahd's doing and not the raven queen abandoning him. As to if he dies, he is not afraid of death (as a grave cleric and shadar-kai) he says if a Shadar-kai dies they are simply reborn, so he doesn't fear death.

Rahadin says that Strahd will hate all that veshen stands for

Eidys asked about what these types of festivals are like for everyone else

Veshen said that there weren't any festivals in the Shadowfell

Dris compared something like this to Founders Day (where drow have to be nice to each other and how uncanny that was)

Eidys found that very amusing

Eidys mentions that Rahadin told her he used to work in an apothecary and how that is similar to what Dris did

Dris and Rahadin proceed to talk about poison, drow sleeping poison, and its uses in drow society and medicine

the party just silently and awkwardly listens to these men discuss unsavory topics.

Rahadin and Dris find a newfound respect for each other (it's doubly funny because the first time we played he was very much vanilla Rahadin, thinking everyone to be stupid for not submitting to Strahd, ESPECIALLY Dris(the drow) )

Rahadin then prompts the rest to tell him what date they will be coming to the dinner

Eidys days there are still some preparations to be made

Rahadin understands and tells them that Strahd will probably be less angry if he does tell him that they have purchased some fancy attire.

Then Rahadin felt some bad vibes (coming from """Sergei""") and had to leave.

We ended there but next session we were asked to say hello to the head of the church in Vallaki.

[secretgamergirl]

Console Design- Can I have my cake and eat it too?

Recently I spilled the beans that I have a little hobby project slowly brewing away where I am designing a new game console. I'm still not ready to really properly pitch the whole thing, but between sharing that, explaining computer architecture, and seeing people's feedback, it keeps pushing itself towards the front burners over more practical projects I SHOULD be giving my focus to, and while people are paying attention, I might as well try to crowdsource answers to some questions I'm getting hung up on.

So... a lot of what I'm doing here is, I'll be honest, rooted in nostalgia for 16-bit consoles. There's a certain retro appeal to the look, speed, and general immediacy of 8-bit games, and more than plenty of support for making games that evoke that feel, and even recently made free dev tools for people to just make new games for older systems, and as I'm writing this, there is this massive renaissance going on with indie devs restricting them to the constraints of early polygonal-graphics-focused consoles, but we mostly skipped right past that 16-bit period, and all its hallmarks:

2D graphics with more color-depth than people really knew what to do with. All sorts of hardware-level flashy effects like transparency, resolution changes, neat little raster effects. A soundscape of crunchy FM synth and sparingly used sampling with distortion effects. Just a little taste of support for polygonal graphics. Not enough to go all-in, but enough to make a nice spice here and there. A general push to show off with fancy jointed paper doll sprites, 3D effects from sprite-scaling, just... clear ambitions all over to make low res 2D eye candy. Plus everything was cartridge based, allowing people to add extra custom chips for things they really wanted that they didn't quite have the power for.

So that's basically what I want to deliver here. A platform where you have more toys and tricks than you know what to do with if you're coming from 8-bit style stuff, but a real tricky set of restrictions to work around from a more modern approach, hopefully with its own look and sound. To that end I've been doing a ton of research into how some of those work... and a lot of it involves fun little tricks between scanlines. In particular, if you look at that mode 7 video above, right around 7:50, we've got this real eye-popping barrel distortion background. What's going on here, on a hardware level, is we have the ability to, essentially, apply one single image as a texture to a single parallelogram, which in this case is just taking a rectangular background and squishing it in towards the center then out towards its regular dimensions... but where doing that squishing and stretching between individual scan lines as we send the video out to the screen. Several changes to the shape before we've even finished rendering out one frame of the video, and tada, weird barrel.

Being able to support tricks like THAT, specifically, is a must-have feature for what I'm working on, and I'm pretty confident I can design the hardware with that exact capability... but the original hardware doing that was, to my understanding, very much working with the peculiarities of how a CRT worked and the exact number of operations it could get done while the beam was swiping back to the left to draw the next line, and I legitimately have no idea if tricks like this are even really possible if I slap together a similar chipset and send video out an HDMI cord to a modern display.

Like, I know I can fake that. I've got a Retron 5 hooked to a cheap flat panel TV with Castlevania 4 plugged in, but my understanding is that's actually emulating an SNES in software on some very-much-overkill for this sort of thing modern processor. What I would LIKE to do is build this with a chipset you really can push to its limits, hooked to modern display, and get this sort of effect. Because while I realize a big chunk of the audience for this sort of thing totally have nice well-maintained CRTs, I don't want to be married to hardware people no longer manufacture. And I'd rather not have some way more capable sub-processor wedged in here just to get the video output of whatever cheap fast legit 16-bit chipset I use otherwise to play nice with HDMI standards.

I'm still sort of in the dark about HDMI and modern display options, to be clear. And you know in a perfect world I'd like to have support built into this if you want to hook it to a CRT, but at the end of the day I need to pick an aspect ratio, and it's probably gonna be 16:9.

A similar fork in the road I may need to pick a lane for before I can really get going is looking at ASIC chips. What I'd really love is to be able to just point people at a design files for the casing and PCBs, and a warehouse of old mass-produced chips that sell for pennies, make the whole thing a neat little home electronics kit where the total price of everything is like, maybe $10 or $20 or something, you get out a soldering iron, and assemble it all yourself. But, I might need to custom design a chip or two in the end, and there's a chance it ends up being cheaper to just build literally the whole system on one chip. Simpler, easier to make a portable version of the whole thing, but it loses that DIY feel.

And of course there's also the risk that the overall architecture and chipset I'm looking at isn't going to have the oomph to do what I want it to do at a nice steady 60 FPS (maybe 120?) I'm just kind of assuming once I commit to a path I'll be able to find a dirt cheap chipset covering all the bases I need it to that'll hold up at a faster clock speed than consoles really ran at in the mid-90s. I want people to be able to do things smoothly that historically really had some slowdown, and you know, I AM planning to have a higher base resolution than the systems I'm taking inspiration from (maybe the same height but clearly more width).

And of course the real pain is going to be prototyping all this since none of it's going to work without hooking display AND something popped into a cartridge slot. I'm at least saving myself some headache starting with a controller I can at least test in other things, but wow there's gonna be so many different potential failure points to worry about at one step in here.

[unfathomableanomaly]

Forbidden Ecstasy

Forbidden Ecstasy is my upcoming nsfw webpage based game. The exact timeline is unknown, but it takes place in some historical Chinese dynasty. You are the servant of a noble family and are trying to better your life. Behind their backs, you must gather items to turn an abandoned shop into a bustling empire. You eventually enter the palace and seemingly find your claim to a life of wealth and luxury until you capture the eye of an obsessive emperor. From there on, you find yourself back into the pits of despair. In the future, you will be able to travel to different places around the world. For what I have planned so far is a desert kingdom and a western kingdom. Characters: You will have multiple love interests, in which some I have planned are: Qiang: The noble daughter/son of the lord you work for. Following the path of their parents who run multiple successful and shady businesses, you can push them towards the path that their parents took or show them the value in human life and love. Silkva : The immortal half-human, half-spider long left alone by their previous deceased lover. After so long living in the dirty, abandoned shop, they mistake you for their lost lover. Wu: A brothel worker forced to pay back an impossible debt. They dream of a simple life out at sea, selling fish and traveling with the one they love. Push them towards a path of merciless or forgiveness? Unnamed: The emperor (can be male or female as the rest, but will be addressed as emperor regardless.) ruthless and heartless. Not even the kindest person can sway them; not even you can change their heart. Even if you can't change them, can you simply survive them? Yes, this is LGBTQ+ friendly. Just because you're a degenerate doesn't mean you have to be a bigot. You can pick genders/pronouns (pronouns maybe at a later date I will have to see how hard it is to implement, but it will definitely be an option.)

Gameplay: Majority of it will be text-based with your character on one side and the character you are interacting with on the other (a portrait nothing as fancy as your sprite) Health, hunger (no thirst absolutely NOT), intelligence, suspicion/affection stats (this will be used by different npcs on how likely they think you are to betray or be loyal, ect...) Shop building! Go around town and meet people! Gather items to build your shop! For the first part of the game, this will be the main focus in terms of gameplay! This will include a large shopping district with unique npcs, quests, friendship story lines, and more. Cooking! Yes, you can cook. Buy goods from the shop and cook meals to give as gifts. The higher quality the food, the longer it will keep you full. Certain NPCS will have favorite foods! Updates: None yet, BUT... I have (mostly) completed the first page of the website. Now all to do is code some game! Maybe mess with it a little more... make it look a little nicer. :) TO-DO: Mess with the PC avatars and backgrounds. I don't like how the pc model looks right now. Implement the first three love interests. Code options Implement the shopping district/town Implement NPC character portraits (I do the art myself, so... will be a minute.) Hunger/cooking system Add.... secret ;) FUTURE: Add more love interests Add palace Add multiple destinations Customization (main game first sorry y'all)

Game inspired by: DOL (I had this idea for a while but coding seemed too intimidating to learn. Then I found DOL and I was like wow that looks fun and not like it will make me want to cha cha slide into an early grave so bless you.) AND... a few bigger more popular companies but I don't want to get sued by them for dare mentioning them with this filth, so they will just be in my heart I love you mami <3 Lawwrrddd I'm bouutht to bhsussttttt

If you read to the end hi ily ask questions talk to me do whatever you want!!

I plan to post an update in how things are going in 1-3 weeks so stay tuned!

[aromantic-character-showdown]

Regarding pitches for media involved in the tournament... I have one for Drawtectives! Strap in, it's a long one.

It's a series on Youtube from the Drawfee channel, and it's like. It's roleplaying + drawing. The plot and the NPCs were all done (and most voiced) by one member, Julia Lepetit, and the other three are player characters who must solve the mystery by talking to NPCs and doing drawing challenges. It's mostly goofy and fun bcs. Well. It's Drawfee, that's what they do.

So. The player characters! One, part of this tournament, is Gyorik Rogdul aka York, an arospec ace half-orc prince who loves arm wrestling and can't read and got turned into a model by chance; then, there's Grendan Highforge, aka Grenda/Gma/Grandma, the chill dog-walking dwarf druid who has a realization halfway in S1 and is officially genderfluid in S2 (any pronouns); and finally, Rosé the cool human rogue who can fit so many things in her pockets, (also she is unlabeled but has flirted with men and women). By the start of S2 they all have bonded much more closely and have a sort of ambiguous found family/queerplatonic polycule vibe and I love that for them!!

The NPCs! They are all so varied, and most have punny or silly Ace Attorney-esque names. A paladin named Sorin Justice and his wife Lotta Justice. A director named Anne Daction. A conductor named Conrad Uctor. S2 even has justification for the punny names! Which I am not going to spoil. Julia does a wonderful job with designing all of them and voicing most of them! And a few in S2 are voiced by fun guests like Elyse Willems, ProZD/SungWon Cho, and Caldwell Tanner (the OG Drawfather himself)!

The settings! Oh the settings, the background art! So lovingly created, so detailed and beautiful and fun. In S1, they were all parts of a fancy mansion-- a dining room, a library, a parlor lined with paintings and animal masks! S2 allows for more variety like a circus, a bar, even a jousting arena, and some of these have gorgeous posters made into IRL merch (currently sold out tho)!!

The drawing challenges! They're a staple part of Drawfee as a whole and hence they're a main feature here. Some are fun prompts like "draw a food creature" or "draw a steed to joust with", some are actual challenges like drawing (fantasy, knock off) celebrities based on description and drawing blindfolded guided by spoken directions. Since it's all in character, the usual Drawfee banter turns into nonsense lore and character interactions, and it's so, so much fun!!

Of course, the episodes average at about 50 minutes long, so... I get that it's tough to even start. But it's recommended (iirc by the crew themselves) that if you want a taste tester, go to S2 (Celestial Spear) episode 7. It's the one with SungWon in it, it can generally stand alone, and it's absolutely hilarious. (But it's also a dating sim parody plot, so your mileage might vary. I think it's fun tho)

So yeah. Try out Drawtectives (S3 in the works)! Thanks for being my captive audience, and I'm sorry! (for the long ramble, and also it's a Drawfee thing to end with sorry)

!!!!

[arithecreatorsstuff]

Midnight Snacks and Little Chats

Background: It's late, you're a student at the White Lotus, craving a taste of home. One of your instructors catches you in the act. Warning: long fluff.

You've been here for weeks, mostly trying to keep up with everyone and everything. You're doing fine, except for a persistent craving gnawing in the back of your brain. It hit you. It was your mom's birthday soon, and even years after her passing, you longed for her pierogi. They weren't fancy, but somehow when you made them, they weren't hers. They were edible enough, but... just not the same. You still tried making them, hoping someday to find what was off.

Which is exactly what you were doing when Kung Lao walked in, half asleep. He blinked. And did a double take.

"Am I still asleep, or are you really cooking?" He looked confused.

"Cooking, Master Lao. Trying to make a recipe my mom used to make me."

"Hmm. Some kind of dumpling, right?" He pointed to the bowl filled with filling. "Potato, cheese, what's the green stuff?"

"Spring onion, Master. I'm making pierogi. I'm almost to the last steps, if I finish and split the proceeds, as it were... once I tidy up who has to know?"

"You're trying to bribe me? I'm a monk."

"And fond of dumplings, Master Liu says. Besides, bribery requires money. A monk must eat, no?" You floured a board, placed the dough on, began rolling it out.

"You do have a point. And if we eat the evidence, was there really a violation? I think not. Need a hand?"

"There's a pierogi cutter on the counter next to you, may I have it please?" You pointed to a metal circle with a wavy edge on the bottom. It had a handle bolted to the midsection. He handed it over, watching. The motion of you cutting the pierogi shells was kind of therapy. It felt good to create something, and cooking always made you happy. Before long, the first batch was done.

"Okay, now the fun part. Would you like to fill them?" You turned to Kung Lao, who was strangely reddish.

"Did... did you just ask me to stuff your pierogi?" It hit you both at the same time, the giggles. You had to cover your mouth to stifle them.

"I kinda did, but I meant the eating kind. About two tablespoons each, and more toward one side. Idea is they look a bit like a half-moon when sealed."

He rubbed his hands together. "Okay. Spoons, filling. To one edge. Got it." He set to work on filling, while you prepared the egg wash for the edges. Before long, he was done. "Next step?"

"Egg wash the edge, seal closed, fry with onions in melted butter."

"I think I'm in love... with the pierogi."

"You haven't even had one yet!"

"So, what are we waiting on?" He took out a cutting board, and grabbed a small onion. "Small, but long pieces, right? Like a stir fry." He began chopping. Meanwhile you started sealing the pierogi. Once done, grabbing a frying pan, you melted the butter. A pinch of salt and black pepper, then the onion. Once the onion cooked down, in went the pierogi.

"You make these a lot, don't you?"

"Yeah. My mom made these all the time. They're cheap, tasty, and quick. Perfect working mom food, as they can sit in cold storage too. She'd sit me in the kitchen, until I was older, and sing as she made them. Once I could see over the counter, I got to help. It wound up being our time, just me and my mom."

"You miss her a lot."

"Yeah. She died when I was a teenager. Cancer."

"That's rough." He paused, then spoke. "I didn't get to know my mom. Somehow I think it's not as hard to miss someone you didn't know, but I still do."

"Yeah. I get it." You checked the stove. "First batch is done. You ready?" You plated up the snack, being sure to add the onions over them. Lao held up a pair of chopsticks, making you laugh. You handed over the plate, and waited. He bit into the first one, and the huge grin on the monk's face was all you needed to know. The happy "mmm, mmms" were the second clue. He inhaled his helping in short order.

"I can see why you're fond of these, they're delicious." He looked up at you, sheepishly. "Please, may I have some more?"

This, for some reason, had you laughing out loud. So loud, Liu Kang stumbled into the kitchen.

"And why are you two laughing?" He looked at the plates, the frying pan. "Oh. Nevermind. I will forget about this, if I can try some."

Wordlessly Kung Lao handed him a plateful. And waited.

[superfamiblog]

How I Make My Gifs: A 2,000 Follower Special

Earlier today, I finally hit 2,000 followers on this tumblr. Hooray! I’m glad there are that many of you who are interested in my blog.

To commemorate reaching the big 2K follower milestone, I thought I’d celebrate by letting you guys get a peek behind the scenes of this blog. Specifically, how I make those fancy animated gifs I post every so often. Let’s get started, shall we?

1) First things first: whenever I play through an SNES game, I always keep an eye out for moments/setpieces/animations that I think look interesting, be they particularly atmospheric, or impressive, or beautiful, or funny, or what have you. I don’t have access to a photo editor that can convert movies to gifs directly (more on that later), so I used to just focus on short, simple loops: flickering torches, brief idle animations, stuff like that. But as I kept making these gifs I picked up some tricks that made it easier to capture more complicated animations (like, say, this one). Again, more on that later.

2) I capture the screenshots that make up the gif on SNES9x, my emulator of choice. Sometimes, if it’s simple 4 frame loop, I only take about as many screenshots as the loop lasts for. Other times, if I’m capturing something more complicated (such as, say, something moving on the screen), I can take upwards of one hundred screenshots or more. Again, it depends on the situation. For example, here’s a look at the screenshots that make up a gif I posted a while ago:

Now, for fairly complicated gifs like that one, I used to just crank down my emulator speed way low and wing it, rhythmically timing the F12 presses to hopefully get something useable, and to an extent I still do that, but for more action-based games like Zelda or platformers, I make an SNES movie (basically a replay file), record myself playing for a bit, then replay that on the emulator and take screenshots then. It’s still rather fiddly, but it makes capturing complicated scenes where everything, including the player, is moving around on the screen (like this gif) possible.

3) Once all the screenshots have been captured, I open up my photo editor of choice for animated gifs, a browser-based Photoshop clone named photopea (note: website contains ads), and plop the screenshots down in sequential order, on separate layers. Then, once all the screenshots have been placed into layers, I start converting them into animation layers, which is what photopea uses to make animated frames. This can get pretty repetitive, especially once there gets to be more than about 30 or so layers/frames to work with, so I usually do these gifs in batches and listen to something in the background.

(Above: an animated gif in the making.)

4) Oh boy, now for the fun part: Timing! Since making these gifs screencap-by-screencap can get pretty fiddly (to put it mildly), timing issues are almost always going to crop up. It’s not helped by photopea’s gif timing thingy being pretty much a slider. I usually try to compare with actual gameplay to make sure everything’s moving at the right speed, but eyeballing the timing is hardly foolproof. Sometimes I just say “screw it” and wing it, as well. If you’ve ever noticed some of the gifs looking fast or slow or just wonky in general, this is most of the reason why.

4.5) After finishing and downloading the gif, I let it fallow for a while in a folder I keep specifically for this blog. Sometimes I save a post (or series of posts) for a particular holiday or special event, but mostly I just try to build up a backlog. Here’s a look at it from a while back:

I upload these posts in batches, usually about a week or so worth’s at a time, and chuck the pics in a special folder once I’ve used them. There’s more to it than that, sometimes, but that’s more or less the process I use.

[omaano]

I guess you've already got a dozen of these BUT

💕 self-love time! talk about which ones of YOUR creations (edits, artworks, fanfics) you like the most then send to other creators to do the same 💕

That is a rather flattering assumption, my dear, but I believe I've proven to have a horrible track record in answering asks, and where is the fun in sending such nice asks to someone who will just hoard them and then feel too ashamed to answer months late? ^^; Anyway, thank you very much for this askl! ❤️ And while it is a bit mean to make me pick favourite(s) from my children, I'm only gonna pick one here (not even my biggest recent fave), because I want to talk about it and show off some details.

I thought about picking my recent cowboys DTIYS redraw, because that would illustrate pretty well the direction where my art inevitably seems to be going (and the one time where Cobb's face didn't fight me like it was his job - and returned to the old normal of Din giving me grief lol) BUT, then I remembered that I filled my (so far) last Desert Witch!Cobb AU drawing with quite a few details, and I want to show them off and talk about them a little. So here we go:

I wanted to showcase the colour palette I predominantly used in all my pieces for the Monster Mash drawings - I'll admit that I'm not very confident in my colours, so Procreate's feature of generating colour palettes for me from already existing photos is an absolute godsend, otherwise I'd be stuck with my purples and pink-oranges for eternity. I had to add the blue for a bit of contrast though, but by the third drawing I really enjoyed the warmth of these bright oranges and reddish browns. They added to a nice and cozy feeling while I was freezing and huddling close to my little electric heater.

Plus this is a good shot to point out all the shinies dangling from Cobb (he's now got a mythosaur pendant with dangling beads for the teeth(?)), and the tattoo on his arm I had an awful lot of fun with! Something's clicked in my brain and now it's permanently stuck on pairing Cobb with suns and moons imagery (mostly the moons, because A) Din is the one who is shiny and blinding and hurtful to look at when he's fully decked out in his armour, and B) I find the dichotomy of the deadly sharp points and curve of a crescent moon vs the gentle face of a full moon very fitting for our Marshal here). So he's got two crescent moons on the underside of his forearm and elbow, and a third one on the right side of his neck. And there is also a sun on the curve of his shoulder, behind the sharp-toothed skull (because I gave in and finally put a sun on him after you all somehow kept seeing it on him - although it still eludes me how you managed that ^^;). He had another one on his right shoulder as well, but well. Glass doesn't take all that well to tattooing, does it? He's also got a lot of swooping cloud and smoke shapes to match his eternally billowing robes and the sand-storms that hide in his pockets.

And now to the fun part of the chaos that the background was:

I really wanted to put an absolute mess of a workbench behind Cobb, and I tried my best to deliver it - then forgot to take into consideration how much of it he'd block out with his shoulders XD and so I filled it with books, datapads and candles, little notes and jars and vials and a real fancy scale that I tried to model after the krayt dragon. And then once I realized how many of those details got covered up, in my infinite wisdom I erased everything instead of just masking them out so that I wouldn't even be tempted to somehow work them back into the picture... so I had to take these snapshots from my process video (hence the poor screenshot quality, sorry ^^;) but this way you can also see how I used those box shapes to try and keep even the otherwise circular/organic shapes of the flowers and pots (and cauldrons omg, were those a struggle!) in perspective. I think that was a neat little trick.

It was really challenging, and I cursed myself a lot for the angle I picked for this picture, but in the end it was very rewarding to see that while I never thought I'd ever be able to pull off a detailed background, I still managed to do this here!