#when initially creating what I wanted my brain version of Audrey to be like I actually used Penny as a starting point

[department-of-landing-strategies]

Charaters I want to see in Harry's place in "[insert name here] was the [insert characters gender or just use person here] who lived instead" AUs but don't have the energy to make myself:

Oliver Wood: Shares Harry's spot of dorming with a Weasley and being on a Quidditch team with the twins, while being more of a jock than Harry was at Hogwarts. All I know for certain about this option is that Quidditch would most likely have a bigger presence in the series.

Audrey: Gives Audrey development and a character. This is probably the one I gravitate towards most because of how much you have to work with Audrey.

Penelope Clearwater: It's a similar situation that makes me gravitate towards Audrey, minor background charater that is one of the five remaining Harry Potter characters I'm attached to that I would love to have an au centered around them. While Penny has a character unlike Audrey, it also gives her page time and potential development

Percy Weasley: Honestly, I just want to see what it would look like if someone was accidentally made to fill the role. Like Percy becoming a werewolf, I see him becoming the boy who lived by trying to protect the initial target. In the case of this, by trying to protect either Harry or Neville, who were the canon possibilities.

[nczaversnick]

Writerly Questionnaire

Thanks to @willtheweaver for the tag!

How long have you had you’re writing tumblr/writblr? A fast and loose estimate is fine!

I’ve been here only, like, two months I think? Which is kinda crazy honestly.

What led you to create it?

I find it’s so much easier to get excited about my writing when other people are excited too. Besides I’m the face of this operation for Project Gemini and after years of failure on Instagram I gave up for several years until my roommate pointed out that I might actually like being on tumblr and I figured it deserved a fair try.

What’s your favorite thing about the community?

I love how excited everyone is about everyone else’s projects. It kinda blows my mind

What’s one thing you’d like your mutuals to know about you?

I will answer literally any question to the best of my ability.

Also, to those of you who are big fans of specific characters (I’m talking about you @honeybewrites and @the-letterbox-archives ), I fucking love that you have a favorite. Mine and Rachelle’s favorite is Adrian, her second favorite is Iris and my second favorite is the guards talking about chili cheese fries in the middle of the big climax of Book 1. They don’t have names but they’re in every draft

Is there anything you’d like to see more of on your dash?

Nothing comes to mind

WIP

Which WIP are you noodling about lately?

Well, I’ve only got the one, Project Gemini. We’re working on detailing the outline to break down what happens in each chapter. But while that’s been happening, while I’m at work I’ve been pondering what Adrian would be like in the Arc of a Scythe universe

How long have you been working on them?

I had the initial idea roughly.. 15 years ago I think? The first draft was written 10 years ago. I’m currently on draft 5 or, really, draft 1 of version 3

Do you remember what inspired them/ what got you started?

When I was 8 years old a friend of mine on the playground offhandedly made a comment some kind of magical being that was half ice and half fire. And it just stuck.

When someone asks “what do you write about?” What do you say?

Queer people overthrowing the government what else would I write about?

What do you want to say (if it’s different from what you do say)?

I think I was pretty clear the first time lol

Let’s rotate Blorbos

Name any character you’ve created, and I mean any:

Listen I’ve been writing for over a decade. There’s no way I’ll get everyone. So here’s several:

Caspian, Adrian, Aurelia, Iris, Mason, Quinn, Athena, Lucia, Resin, Filick, Nic, Weston, Atlas, Flynn, Jacob, Lily, Audrey, Micah, Ikaris, Faldris, Helvar, Mara, Flynn, Atlas’s, Dimitri, Cyrus, Jaron, Abraxis

Who’s the most unhinged:

Good lord who even knows?

Who comes most naturally to write:

Definitely Nic or Adrian, as they’re both the oldest

Do you ever cringe at them:

Sometimes, especially those early versions of Adrian

How much control do you feel you have over them? Aka do they ever “write themselves” or refuse to cooperate or do thing you don’t expect? To what degree? Are some less cooperative than others?

Oh I don’t have any. Rachelle doesn’t understand when I say things like “I won’t know the answer to that until the little Iris in my brain bother to tell me”

Some are more cooperative than others, I feel like Aurelia is always around sometimes. Mason is impossible. He’s uncooperative both in my head and in the story, which unfortunately is very on brand for him. But it also means I know basically nothing about him right now.

To get around this I tend to write snippets that sort of circle around the actual question I want answered until I manage to get it

Do you enjoy people asking about your characters? And do you have a preferred method of receiving said questions?

Do I enjoy what is probably my favorite kind of interaction of all time?

And no I don’t have a preference.

On Writblr Engagement

What makes you want to follow another writeblr account?

Good vibes. I usually check out anyone who follows me anyway

What makes you decide against following?

Besides the obvious answer of discrimination and bigotry, the answer is also vibes. If you fail the vibe check, I won’t follow.

Do you interact with non-mutuals often?

Oh yeah all the time. I keep forgetting that some people are mutuals and some aren’t lol

Tagsss:

@honeybewrites @wyked-ao3 @kittrrrr @zackprincebooks @fractured-shield @theverumproject @the-letterbox-archives @the-golden-comet @poppycat-writes @davycoquette @moltenwrites @finickyfelix @kuebiko-writing @illarian-rambling @yourpenpaldee

[shaemeful]

Week Eight

Today's session was our opportunity to showcase our Illustrator skills across two separate drawings - one silhouette and one that includes both colour and shading.

To start off I found a cute tooth drawing on Noun Project that I thought would be a great warm up and a chance for me to really practice keeping my handles straight as the fingers are made up of several curves very close together.

After tracing my chosen image I scanned it and loaded it up into Illustrator as reference so I could trace over top of it:

I decided to start with the hands as I thought this would be the hardest part to finesse and get right. Initially I just went through and placed my points roughly where I wanted them, making sure to keep my bottom handles straight, and then I went back in and tweaked. Each 'knuckle' join was made using broken points.

As I was playing around I decided I really liked the look of having loops in between each finger as it tied in with the loop at the top of the tooth's body, so I strayed from my original drawing to include this. Using the stroke palette I changed the corner join to round to take away the sharpness that the loops created.

Once I was happy with where my hand was at, I duplicated it and mirrored it so I could use it for the other side.

Using layers to keep my work tidy, I went ahead and drew the rest of my image - again keeping handles straight where possible.

To create the stars I drew one and then duplicated it twice more and readjusted them to where I wanted them.

For the face I drew one eye and then duplicated and mirrored to match the other side. The nose is made from a hybrid point so I could have a flat bottom while still having a nice curve for the bridge. And for the mouth I went into the stroke palette to both increase the stroke weight and change the stroke profile so it would be thicker in the middle.

I then just added a white fill to the tooth elements and changed the floss fill and outline to grey to finish the first image off and voila:

Although I am slowly getting more comfortable with Illustrator, it is definitely the Adobe program I struggle the most with. While my drawing may not be perfect, I am super happy with how it turned out and it served as a great warm up for my next image.

I admittedly really struggled to get started on my second image because I just kept getting myself confused, and it wasn't until I was taking a break did I have a brain wave. The reason I was struggling, was because I was trying to use Illustrator how I would use Photoshop when they are completely different and need to be used differently.

After much frustration I did what I should have done in the beginning and revisited our penguin from week three to try and refresh the ole' noggin, I also picked a less complicated image. Initially I set off wanting to create my own version of Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors to challenge myself - but it was just a little beyond my current skill set.

Instead I chose to do a dinosaur sitting on a laptop, mainly so I can tell my boss it's him.

I wanted to start with creating my dinosaurs head and body, so used a series of circles to make up the shape of the head and then used the Pathfinder 'Merge' to make them all one shape.

I then traced the outline of his body, and merged this shape with his head to create one shape.

I traced both his arms and his foot out in separate layers, and then moved to the laptop which I created using rectangles, the Direct Selection tool and the Curvature tool. I followed the same process as I did for the body and created the lid and the base as two shapes and then used pathfinder to merge.

Once I had my base shapes established it was time to add some colour. I went through and added my base colour and then dropped the opacity down so I could see my reference underneath. I traced where I wanted my shadows and highlights, you only need to be tidy on the inner edge because the rest will get cut away. I then duplicated my base layer, selected both the copy and the shape I just traced and using Pathfinder 'Intersect' to leave behind my desired shape.

I then repeated this process until I had all my shadows and highlights placed where I wanted them.

Instead of having to copy the body layer a million times, we can select multiple shapes, right click and "create compound path" (which essentially joins the items together), and then select this "new shape" and the body layer and use Pathfinder to cut out.

I used this process to cut out the toes of my dinosaur. I created multiple ovals with a white fill and green outline, placed them where I wanted them, make a compound path with them, and then cut them out with Pathfinder.

At this stage old Greg was looking like this:

He was lacking some facial details, so using a combination of the Pen tool and the Ellipse tool I went in and added/coloured my details.

At this point I was starting to feel a lot more confident as it all started to come together. I was already pretty happy with it but knew the eyes needed a little more attention to make him interesting and feel complete.

I added some red gradient eyes, some extra circles as highlight, and also went in with the Pen tool by the foot/tail to add a couple of extra lines. At this point I was very happy to call him complete and I'm very proud I continued to persevere because it finally feels like I've made that missing connection with this program.

Now that I've made that missing link I feel confident moving forward as a designer using Illustrator and I am excited to one day revisit my Audrey II drawing and give it another go once I have developed my skills a little further.

And just for funsies, here is what Dino Greg looks like when all his handles are exposed: