#I’ve never done shading like that without doing grayscale first

[losts-art-shit]

A couple secret Santa things- the first one is finished, the other a wip

[zulivaris]

Art Block tips that helped me

 I’ve recently experienced art block after 3 or so months of overcoming my last one. Thankfully this block only lasted a few days thanks to some things I’ve observed and noted down from the previous time. So I’m sharing these few tips in hopes that it might help someone get unstuck :D!

First and foremost if you’re tired, sad or anxious don’t be surprised that you can’t make art, go and take care of yourself by treating yourself with kindness and patience, the sketchbooks and canvases will wait for you :)

The tips are under here:

Separate art studies from the creative time:  When you do art studies you’re there to focus on specific things, learn and understand how things work so you can apply them later in your art. Studies take a lot of energy and focus and are the opposite of the creative "flow” of making your own pieces. If you combine the two the results are either unfocused studies or stiff drawings. When you sit down at your desk ask yourself “Do I want to learn something new or do I want to create something of my own?”

When you have an idea don’t be afraid of being messy: Let’s say you want to make a picture of several cats kolo dancing in the moonlight. How do you go about doing this? Well since you came up with the idea you already have a vague image in your mind, sketch it out with simple shapes, stick figures, circle and spheres etc Don’t worry about cat anatomy, or the dancer’s moves, sketch out the essence of it. This method removes the need to be perfect or accurate. 

Ok after the messy sketch then what? Well now that you have sketched out the essence of your idea (and hopefully had fun doing so) now you go on to look for references! You put the creative process on pause and you can do a few brief studies if you need to: anatomy, color schemes, values, poses. Pick out a few of your favorites but don't obsess over them, they are a guide, a tool.

You know much more than you think. You’ve probably been drawing for a few years now. You’ve probably done some studies and drawn more than one type of subject. Then you have already internalized some of that information. I used to be obsessed with capturing the minute detail of the subject, and not be able to draw ANYTHING without reference. Instead of a useful tool, references became another obstacle to my creativity. That’s perfectionism my friend, and that’s no good. Here is an exercise a good friend of mine offered: Draw a few characters, animals and objects from imagination. Make sure that the subjects have no personal value to you (no ocs for example) so that if you make a mistake you won’t feel bad about it. Make the process relaxed and comfortable, pour a nice cup of joe, listen to your favorite music ... You will notice that you do indeed know how to draw some things without reference, and it’ll help with your confidence. 

The more you do studies the more you understand This seems evident but the more you understand your subject the freer you can be and the easier it’ll be to draw it from imagination in the future. If you really struggle with something to the point of frustration (as in you can’t get it right even with reference) It means you have to study it. Have a study list, for example: hands, perspective, color theory etc. And one of those days you want to study pick something from the list, and look for videos on youtube or useful sites like line of action etc. Only study one thing at the time. You can go from studying hands to studying arms since they’re more immediately connected, but you can’t study hands and then jump to learning perspective right after. Trust me you can learn perfectly fine with the resources online, and I’m sure you’re clever enough to do it :D

Mistakes don’t mean you “suck”  I’ve noticed that the two most common causes for art block are perfectionism and lack of self-confidence.  The two can often go in tandem which is worse :’D But let me remind you of something, you can fix your piece along the whole process. Use erasers, lasso tools, liquify , select, paint it all over etc If something looks off to you then you also know deep inside how to fix it. Useful ways to see what clunks: flip canvas horizontally (helps with placement, proportions), turn the image to grayscale (helps to check values and where your eye tends to look), look at your image in thumbnail size and ask yourself if it’s clear, see the pose’s silhouette and ask yourself if you can tell what the character is doing etc. Don’t fret, everything can always be fixed :)

Perfectionism, sometimes it stops you before you begin Perfectionism causes you to overwork a piece, it makes you draw less, it makes art stressful, it brings insecurity. Let’s remove it with a simple exercise. It can be combined with the “draw things from imagination” once you’ve drawn something you like: dont do line art, don’t shade it, keep it as simple and crude as possible and then...post it. Yes, post it. You’re not at your best? You’re only human, this will help you embrace that very human side of you. You make mistakes. So what? The more mistakes you make the more you know what you need to study and the better at art you become. Mistakes are there to show us what we need to learn. See them as another tool and not a sign of failure.

Make the process as enjoyable as possible: You like art. You love drawing. Never forget this. Otherwise why are you drawing if you don’t enjoy it? It’s easy to fall prey to the mentality of those relatable memes that “art= suffering” or “I can’t even draw the other eye”. No no no my friends, these messages are fueling your insecurities instead of overcoming them. Let me tell you what, art is fun. It is. Art is fun, because I decided to make it fun again. And you should decide on that too. Personally I adore lineart but my hand-eye coordination is lacking to do it digitally, so....I just skipped it. Yes. I skipped it. I do the sketch, I clean it up a bit and then jump onto color which I adore. It allowed me to draw more and more freely. When I draw I listen to music, make strokes with the rhythm, I take breaks often and I drink my favorite iced teas. If you don’t like coloring do it in grayscale, if you love lineart then do that etc It doesn’t mean you won’t learn your weak points in the future with studies and practice, but you won’t let your weaknesses prevent you from drawing at all. No no, you won’t let them. You draw because you want to, despite of them.

Don’t wait for inspiration, provoke it  Inspiration is not a divine and capricious muse. You make inspiration. It’s easy just collect all the things you like, music, artists, objects, characters, animals, patterns, plants etc Make boards on pinterest or similar sites, combine things you like. You like suits? You like birds? You can draw a bird in a suit, or a bird-inspired suit design, there is frankly a lot of ideas that can spring up from little things like these.

When a project stops being enjoyable either pause it for now or move on to the next thing. Pieces aren’t precious. They’re not “the one time I got x right” they are one of many. This advice goes mainly to hobbyists who can afford the luxury of passing to a new project. I have a WIP of a character who is overly complicated (I enjoy a challenge from time to time) sitting for half a month. I sometimes come back to it and add something... but as soon as it starts to create discomfort and insecurity instead of enjoyment I move onto something else. In the meantime I created 3 or 4 new pieces. If I had waited on finishing that piece I would have been severely creatively and physically exhausted. The art comes from you, not inspiration. The more art you make the better you become.

That’s about it :D I know it’s long but I prefer to be thorough and cover all the possibilities. If you have read of this: Thank you so much I hope this helps you at least a bit, if it helps only 1 other person I’d still be very happy. Have a nice one, and kick art block’s butt!

[maximelebled]

My quick review of the ASUS XG27UQ monitor (4K, HDR, 120Hz)

I originally wanted to tweet this series of bullet points out but it was getting way too long, so here goes! I got this to replace a PG278Q, which was starting to develop odd white stains, and never had good color reproduction in the first place (TN film drawbacks, very low gamma resulting in excessively bright shadows, under-saturated shadows, etc.)

The hardware aesthetic is alright! The bezels may feel a bit large to some people, but I don’t mind them at all. If you’re a fan of the no-bezel look, you’ll probably hate it. There is a glowing logo on the back that you can customize (Static Cyan is my recommendation), but it isn’t bright enough to be used as bias lighting, which would’ve been nice.

The built-in stand is decent; it comes with a tacky and distracting light projection feature at the bottom. It felt quite stable, though I don’t care about it because it got instantly replaced by an Ergotron LX arm. (I have two now, I really recommend them in spite of their price.) 

The coating is a little grainy and this is noticeable on pure colors! You can kinda see the texture come through, a bit more than I’d like. Not a huge deal though.

The rest of the review will be under the cut.

The default color preset (”racing mode”), which the monitor is calibrated against, is very vivid and saturated. It looks great! But it’s inherently inaccurate, which bothers me, so I don’t like it. It looks like as if sRGB got stretched into the expanded gamut of the monitor.

sRGB “emulation” looks very similar to my Dell U2717D, whose sRGB mode is factory-calibrated. However, the XG27UQ’s sRGB mode has lower gamma (brighter shadows), so while the colors are accurate, the gamma is not. It feels 1.8-ish. Unless you were in a bright room, it would be inappropriate for work that needs to have accurate shadows. This mode also locks other controls, so it’s not the most useful, but the brightness is set well on it, so it is usable!

The “User Mode” settings use the calibrated racing mode as a starting point, which is a big relief. So it’s possible to tweak the color temperature and the saturation from there! I checked pure white against my Dell monitor and my smartphone (S9+) and tried to reach a reasonable 3-way compromise between them, knowing that the Dell is most likely the most accurate, and that Samsung also allegedly calibrates their high-end smartphones well. My configuration ended up being R:90/G:95/B:100 + SAT:42. This matches the saturation of the U2717D sRGB mode fairly closely. You also get to choose between 1.8, 2.2, and 2.5 gamma too, which is not too granular, but great to have. It kinda feels like my ideal match is between 2.2 and 2.5, but 2.2 is fine.

The color gamma according to lagom.nl looked fine, but I had to open the picture in Paint, otherwise it was DPI-scaled in the browser, and that messed with the way it works!! (That website is an amazing resource for quick monitor checks.)

Colors are however somewhat inaccurate in this mode. It’s easy to see by comparing the tweaked User Mode vs. sRGB emulation. There are some rather sizeable hue shifts in certain cases. I believe part of this is caused by the saturation tweak not operating properly.

Here’s a photo of what the Photoshop color picker looks like when Saturation is set to 0 on the monitor, vs. what a proper grayscale conversion should be. It’s definitely not using the right coefficients. 

So in practice, when using the Racing & User modes, compared to the U2717D sRGB, here’s a few examples of what I see:

Reds are colder (towards the purple side) & oversaturated

Bright yellow (255,215,90) is undersaturated

Bright green (120,200,130) is undersaturated

Dark green (0,105,60) is fine

Magenta (220,13,128) is oversaturated

Dark reds & brown (150,20,20 to 90,15,10) is oversaturated

Cyan (0,180,240) is fine 

Pink (230,115,170) is fine

Some shades of bright saturated blue (58,48,220) have the biggest shifts.

The TF2 skin tone becomes slightly desaturated and a bit colder

It’s not inaccurate to the point of being distracting, and you always have the  sRGB mode (with flawed gamma?) to check things with, but it’s definitely not ideal, and some of these shifts go far enough that I wouldn’t recommend this monitor for color work that needs to be very accurate.

I’ve went back and forth, User vs sRGB, several times, on my most recent work (True Sight 2019 sequences). I’ve found the differences were acceptable for the most part; they bothered me the most during the Chronosphere sequence, in which the hazy sunset atmosphere turned a bit into to a rose gold tint, which wasn’t unpleasant at all — and looked quite pretty! — but it wasn’t what I did.

I’m coming from the point of view of a “prosumer” who cares about color accuracy, but who ultimately recognizes that this quest is impossible in the face of so many devices out there being inaccurate or misconfigured one way or the other. In the end, my position is more pragmatic, and I feel that you gotta be able to see how your stuff’s gonna look on the devices where it’ll actually be watched. So while I’ve done color grading on a decent-enough sRGB-calibrated monitor, I’ve always checked it against the inaccurate PG278Q, and I’ve done a little bit of compromising to keep my color work looking alright even once gamma shifted. And so, now, I’ll also be getting to see what my colors look like on a monitor that doesn’t quite restrain itself to sRGB gamut properly.

Well, at least, all of that stuff is out of the box, but...

TFTCentral (one of the most trustworthy monitor review websites, in my opinion) has found suspiciously similar shifts. But after calbration, their unit passed with flying colors (pun intended), so if you really care about this sort of stuff and happen to have a colorimeter... you should give it a try!

I hope one day we’ll be able to load and apply an ICC/ICM profile computer-wide, instead of only being able to load a simple gamma curve on the GPU with third-party tools like DisplayCAL. Even if it had to squeeze the gamut a bit...

Also, there are dynamic dimming / auto contrast ratio features which could potentially be useful in limited scenarios if you don’t care about color accuracy and want to maximize brightness. I believe they are forced on for HDR. But you will probably not care at all.

IPS glow is not very present on my unit; less than on my U2717D. However, when it starts to show up (more than a 30°-ish angle away), it shows up more. UPDATED: after some more time with the monitor, I wanna say that, in fact, IPS glow isit's slightly stronger, and shows up sooner (as in, from broader angles). It requires me to sit a greater distance from the monitor in order to not have it show up and impede dark scenes. It is worse than on my U2717D.

Backlight bleed, on the other hand, is there, and a little bit noticeable. On my unit, there’s a little bit of blue-ish bleed on the lower left corner, and some dark-grey-orange bleed for a good third of the upper-left. However, in practice, and to my eyes, it doesn’t bother me, even when I look for it. It ain’t perfect, but I’ve definitely seen worse, especially from ASUS. The photo above was taken at 100% brightness, and I’ve tried to make it just a tad brighter than what my eyes see, so hopefully it’s a decent sample.

Dead pixels: on my unit, I have 5 stuck dead green subpixels overall. There are 4 in a diamond pattern somewhat down and right to the center of the screen, and another one, a bit to the right of that spot. All of them kinda “shimmer” a little bit, in the sense that they become stronger or weaker based on my angle of view. They’re a bummer but I haven’t found them to be a hindrance. Took me a few days to even notice them for the first time, after all.

HDR is just about meaningless and uses some global dimming techniques, as well as stuff that feels like... you know that Intel HD driver feature that brightens the content on the screen, while lowering the panel backlight power in tandem, to save power, but it kinda flattens (and sometimes clips) highlights? It kinda looks like that sometimes. Without local dimming, HDR is just about meaningless.

Unfortunately, the really nice HDR support in computer monitors is still looking like it’s going to be at the very least a year out, and even longer for sub-1000 price ranges. (I was holding out for the PG27UQX at first, but it still has no word on availability, a whole year after being announced, and will probably cost over two grand, so no thanks.)

G-Sync (variable refresh rate) support is... not there yet?! The latest driver does not recognize the monitor as being compatible with the feature. And it turns out that the product page says that G-Sync support is currently being applied for. Huh. I thought they had special chips in those monitors solely for the feature, but it’s possible this one does it another way? (The same way that Freesync monitors do it?)

DSC (Display Stream Compression) enables 4K 120Hz to work through a single DisplayPort cable, without chroma subsampling. And it’s working for me, which came as a surprise, as I was under the impression this feature required a 2000-series Turing GPUs. (I have a 1080 Ti.) I was wrong about this, it’s 144 Hz that requires DSC. And I don’t have it on this Pascal card. But I don’t really care since I prefer to run this monitor at 120 Hz, as it’s a multiple of the 60 Hz monitor next to it.

Windows DPI scaling support is okay now. Apps that are DPI-aware, and the vast majority of them are now, scale back and forth between 150% and 100% really well as they get dragged between the monitors! The only program I’ve had issues with is good old Winamp, which acted as if it was 100% on the XG27UQ... and shrinked down on another monitor. So I asked it to override DPI scaling behaviour (”scaling performed by: application”), which keeps the player skin at 100% on every monitor, but any call to system fonts and UI (Bento skin’s playlist + Settings panel) are still at 150%. So I had to set the playlist font size to 7 for it to look OK on the non-scaled monitor!

A few apps misbehave in interesting ways; TeamSpeak, for example, seen above, scales everything back from 150% to 100%, and there is no blurriness, but the “larger layout” (spacing, etc.) sticks.

Games look great with 4K in 27 inches. Well, I’ve only really tried Dota 2 so far, but man does it get sharp, especially with the game’s FXAA disabled. It was already a toss-up at 1440p, but at 4K I would argue you might as well keep it disabled. However, going from 2560x1440 to 3840x2160 requires some serious horsepower. It may look like a +50% upgrade in pixels, but it’s actually a +125% increase! (3.68 to 8.29 million pixels.) For a 1080 Ti, maxed-out Dota 2 at 1440p 120hz is really trivial, but once you go to 4K, not anymore...  you could always lower resolution scale though! (Not an elegant solution if you like to use sharpening filters though, looking at you RDR2.)

Overall, the XG27UQ is a good monitor, and I’m satisfied with my purchase, although slightly disappointed by the strong IPS glow and the few dead subpixels. 7/10

[chasholidays]

Bellarke Soulmates au where all your life, you see black & white, and then when you touch your soulmate, you see colors. Please and thanks!

To Bellamy, not having a soulmate sometimes feels like knowing the setup for a joke and never hearing the punchline.

Not, admittedly, that he knows he doesn’t have a soulmate. He’s only thirty, and plenty of people find their soulmates at that age or later. It’s just that it seems easier, at this point in his life, to assume that no one is coming along, that he’s going to be one of those people who never gets that.

In some ways, it’s not hard to fake it. He knows that leaves are supposed to be green, and the sky is supposed to be blue. The rug in his apartment is brown, which is the same color as dirt and tree bark and his eyes. Apples are red or sometimes green, and traffic light colors are always in the same order: red at the top, then yellow, then green.

But he’s getting to the age where a lot of people he knows have soulmates, where a world without color is becoming the exception, rather than the norm. He has to fake it now, because if strangers find out he can’t see colors, it changes things. People will feel sorry for him, and that’s even worse than not having a soulmate.

It’s not as if he isn’t happy, honestly. It’s not as if not having a soulmate is this great blight on his life. But he’ll be out with his coworkers, and someone will ask which color was most surprising, when they first saw it, or they’ll try to describe what fall leaves look like, and he just has to nod and smile and hope no one asks him too many specific questions.

His favorite color is blue, and if he never sees it, he still thinks it’s a pretty good favorite color. From what he’s heard.

It’s three weeks after his birthday when Miller finds his soulmate, a cute, geeky kid named Monty, and Bellamy tries not to be too bitter.

“Is it as awesome as everyone says?” he asks.

Miller takes a sip of beer. “Which part, love or color?”

“Color. I’ve been in love before.”

Miller doesn’t call him out on that one; soulmate love is supposed to be unlike anything else, but Miller is still new to it. He and Monty haven’t really had time to do much more than meet each other.

“It’s kind of like looking up the answers at the end of the book,” he decides, his tone thoughtful. “Except you never did any work for the class and the whole thing is basically a mindfuck. Like, you didn’t know enough to have any idea what the answers would even look like.”

That actually does make some sense to him, even if he doesn’t entirely get it. But, like Miller said, he doesn’t really have the full picture. He doesn’t feel as if he has the capacity to know what he’s missing.

“So, it’s cool?” he asks.

“Yeah. But if I never got it—“ He shrugs. “You’re still good.”

“I am,” he agrees, and can’t help a teasing smirk. “So, what, you think it’s never going to happen for me? Already giving up?”

Miller rolls his eyes. “Who the fuck wants to put up with you their whole life?”

It’s a joke, and he knows it, but it still feels a little like it’s not. Which isn’t Miller’s fault; this is his insecurity.

“That’s the question,” he says, making sure it sounds like a joke too. “Guess we’ll find out.”

*

Two weeks later, his sister’s soulmate has a show that seems custom-designed to make him feel shittier.

Of course he knows that’s not actually what happened; the world does not revolve around him. The decision had nothing to do with him at all. And it’s honestly a cool idea: Lincoln collaborated with a friend of his who doesn’t have her soulmate yet, and they both produced paintings with the same colors and themes, something like a before-and-after game. Even without being able to see the “real” colors, Bellamy will be able to appreciate the differences in shade and design. It won’t be entirely lost on him.

It’s still tempting to just skip out, but he likes Lincoln, and Octavia will definitely notice if he isn’t there, and will guess why and have opinions about it.

So he’d better just go.

“This is actually going to be cool,” Octavia says, way too brightly. Lincoln is busy with setup, so she’s having dinner with him, Miller, and Monty before they go to the opening event at the gallery.

“As opposed to all Lincoln’s other, shitty art?” Bellamy teases.

She rolls her eyes. “Not that. But it’ll be cool to see what it’s like for you. Everyone else can see the colors, but you have the other perspective.”

“Lucky me.”

“You’re going to find them,” O says, like this is a certainty. “But for now, it’s cool. We’ll get the full experience.”

And Bellamy has to admit, it is cool. The paintings are side-by-side, with detailed breakdowns of what the instructions were and what colors were used next to them, and it’s interesting to see how much better the shades of gray on Clarke Griffin’s paintings look to him than the ones on Lincoln’s do. He’s seen art done by people without soulmates before, but they tend to work in actual grayscale, avoiding colors which they can’t actually distinguish for just this reason.

“Does it work?” he asks his sister. “Clarke Griffin’s stuff.”

“Kind of. It’s not–it feels like what you’d do if you didn’t have enough colors to pick from, I guess? Like, the sky is blue, but it doesn’t really look like the right blue.”

“It looks like the right blue to me,” he says. “I like it.”

“Thanks,” says a voice, and Bellamy turns and bumps his shoulder against this unfamiliar girl who’s standing too close, and all at once the world is bursting into what he knows must be color.

It’s as hard to explain as everyone’s always said it was, because he’s trying to put together references he didn’t even entirely know he was missing. The woman’s hair is light, probably blonde, and her skin is pale too, but he has no idea what color her eyes are, or what color her scarf is. Her shirt is gray, which is familiar, but even that shade has these nuances he didn’t know about, these other colors he can’t identify yet.

He looks down, remembering that his shirt is blue, and he does like the shade. That’s a relief.

Then he looks back at the woman, who’s not looking at him anymore either.

“Oh my god, it looks so different.”

He follows her gaze to the paintings on the wall, and she’s right, of course; the pleasing patterns of gray have been replaced by other, unknown colors that are, for reasons he can’t even begin to articulate, less appealing together than the colors he saw before were.

“You’re the artist?” he asks, although he already knows.

“And you’re my soulmate,” she says.

“She’s your what?” asks Octavia. “Bell, you can–”

“You’re losing your alternate perspective on the show, yeah,” he says. “This is my soulmate.”

*

Meeting Clarke is almost more surreal than being able to see colors, but the colors make for a much easier topic of conversation. And it’s a good way to get to know her, too, since they’re walking around her art show, looking at her paintings, and she’s regretting everything about her choices.

It’s kind of adorable, honestly.

“Seriously, that’s what green looks like?” she laments, signing at her painting of a flower next to Lincoln’s. “That’s not what I pictured.”

“Could you actually picture them?” he asks, curious. “Like–did you know how to imagine it?”

“Not like this. I guess I kind of–” She laughs, this soft, almost shy sound that makes his heart twist. “I thought a lot about it, I guess? And people try to tell me, other artists, but–I had no idea there would be so many.”

He smiles. “Yeah, I know what you mean. At least we’re in the right place for it.”

“Right place?”

He takes the excuse to move a little closer to her, leaning in so he can point to the card by the pieces. “They’re all labeled so we know what colors they are.”

That makes her laugh again. “Yeah, we’ve got a cheat sheet. And it does help. I can see how this green Lincoln used is in the same color family as mine, but his has more yellow in it.” She shakes her head. “God, it’s so weird. Finally seeing–I’ve studied color theory, I know exactly how it’s supposed to work, that you can mix blue and red to make purple, and I know how it works with black and white and shades of gray, but–this is so much more.”

“So, you want to leave the gallery and go play around with paint mixing, right?” he teases.

“I didn’t say that.”

“Yeah, but you do.”

“Can you tell that because you’re my soulmate?” she asks.

“Or it’s really obvious.” He wets his lips. “I don’t mind, if you want to go. I assume we’re going to see more of each other.”

“Yeah.” It’s her turn to pause, deliberate, lip caught in her teeth. He’s looking forward to learning all of her little quirks. “Or you could come with me.”

“If I leave with you, my little sister is definitely going to think I’m going to get laid,” he says.

“She’s Lincoln’s soulmate, right? He said she was–” She tries to find the right word. “Opinionated.”

“She’s a pain in my ass,” he grumbles, but he knows how fond it sounds.

“Is it bad?” she asks. “If she thinks you’re getting laid. I wasn’t ruling that out.”

His mouth tugs up. “No, neither was I. Let me get my coat.”

Clarke’s studio isn’t far, and she slides her hand into his as they walk, small and warm, and he squeezes her fingers. “Demographic stuff?” he asks.

“Hmm?”

“Where are you from?”

“California. I came up here for school and never left. You?”

“Here. I just never left. How old are you?”

“Twenty-seven. You?”

“I turned thirty last month. I had a kind of minor I’m never going to find my soulmate crisis going on.”

“Yeah?”

“Miller and Monty just met, and O and Lincoln haven’t been together that long either, just about six months. It was starting to feel like I was the last one left who didn’t have mine.”

“But now you do.”

He still can’t quite believe it. He’s walking down the street with a beautiful woman who was meant to be his, and even in the dark, at night, the world is full of so many colors. He can’t believe there are this many. It doesn’t seem possible.

“Now I do.”

She unlocks the door to the studio, gives him a quick tour, but the main event is the rows of paints, all bright colors in a row. They pull them down and examine them, getting the feeling of pink and turquoise, these things he understood as theory, as words, but not as reality.

“Can you believe every single shade has a name?” she asks, running her fingers over the labels with awe. “And you can mix them all, and they’ll all be different?”

He laughs. “It’s pretty unbelievable, yeah.” And then, he can’t help adding, “You really must be my soulmate.”

“That’s how it works, yeah.”

“No, I meant–don’t get me wrong, you’re awesome, so far. But I always kind of wondered about the colors more. Even if I never found my soulmate, I figured I could fall in love. But I’d never know what this stuff was like, not really. So I’m glad that’s the big draw for you.”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” she says. “You seem pretty great too. But I’m glad you wanted to bail and come play with paint with me.”

Tentatively, he puts his arm around her, and when she leans back into him, he tugs her closer, kisses her hair. She smells light and fresh and a little like the chill of the air, and she’s his, somehow.

The world is new and bright and beautiful, in a way he didn’t even know how to imagine.

“Yeah,” he says. “I wouldn’t be anywhere else.”

[magma-paint]

Introducing COMMISSIONS!

After mulling it over, talking with a friend of mine who spurred on the idea, and pulling together my pricings, I hereby declare commissions OPEN!

I offer four major categories with many options and packages to choose from, all at reasonable prices but negotiations can be arranged if needed (note these prices are in US dollars). So, without further ado, here’s what I’m offering:

SIMPLE DRAWINGS (Starting at $3)

Simple Drawings are as Plain Jane as you can get, a simple traditional sketch with or without ink final lines. For these I can do a normal line drawing, a “sketchbook” look, and some basic dark area definition.

Price Board

Bust: $3         Full Body: $5           Background Only: $8

Add a character to each drawing for $1

Deluxe add-ons (for when you want a single drawing but with more than just a character)

Shading: $2       Backgrounds: Starting at $1, based on complexity

Packages (Includes multiple drawings or bundles a base drawing with a deluxe add-on to make for a better deal)

Brotime: 2 Full Body Drawings each with a background, $10

Exhibit: 1 shaded Full Body Drawing, $6

The Whole Enchilada: 3 Full body drawings, each with Shading and a background, $16

REGULAR DRAWINGS (Starting at $8)

Regular Drawings are like Simple Drawings, but with a splash of color added (I use colored pencils). Final ink lines and flat color come standard to the package.

Price Board

Bust: $8        Full Body: $10            Background Only: $12

Add a character to each drawing for $2

Deluxe Add-ons

Full Color: Includes shading and highlights, $5

Soft Shading: Subtle shadows, gives it a storybook look, $2

Backgrounds: Starting at $3 based on complexity

Packages

Valor: 1 Bust with full color, $12

Those Two Guys: 2 Full body drawings each with a background and soft shading, $20

Big Banana Split: 3 Full body drawings each with a background and full color, $28

SUPER DRAWINGS (Starts at $13)

Super Drawings are exclusively digital, but you can get features offered for Regular and Simple drawings. At base can be in black and white or with flat color. The program I use for this is MediBang Paint Pro.

Price Board

Bust: $13   Full Body: $15    Background Only: $16   Sheet of 16 stickers: $16*

Add a character to each drawing for $3

Base Options:                   Black and White              Color

Deluxe Add-ons

Grayscale Shading (black and white only): $3     Full Color: $4

Backgrounds: Starting at $5 based on complexity         Soft Shading: $3

Packages

Kids Love Stickers!*: Sheet of 20 stickers with full color, $20

Storybook Illustration: 2 Full Body drawings each with a background and soft shading, $35

Cornicopia: 3 Full Body Drawings each with full color and a background, $48

*Until I get a better printer and sticker paper, no physical copies available :<

PREMIUM DRAWINGS (Starting at $35 plus $11.50 per hour)

Digital artwork and acrylic paintings offered only for very special occasions (Wedding, graduation, etc.). Includes all the shading, all the grandeur, and is aimed to be the highest quality you can get, but will also take the longest to complete. Prices include the package price (the item you want) as well as the hourly rate (I will time each session of work on the piece and total up the hours on the receipt to calculate the grand total.)

Choose your package:      Digital-$35           Acrylic-$40

Please send commission sheet with HIGHLY DETAILED list of what you want (references, costume elements, etc.)

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

All artwork will be done in styles I've worked with a lot (anime, cartoon, chibi, rubber hose as of late) and it's taken me years to master my signature style. If you want a style I'm not familiar with or a more realistic style, be prepared to negotiate for a small fee to be added to the total price if you MUST have it in that style. Otherwise, maybe I'm not the artist you're looking for. My first client is the reason this policy is in place, which I refer to as “Never send rubber hose animation to do the job of DC comics”.

Requests/free art are limited to friends and followers. Gift art is limited to this group, too. If you don't want a commission, your only options for free art if you're not a friend or follower are either collaborations or art trades. Don't beg, don't be an ass about it.

No, I will not draw Rule 34 (explanation of this internet rule is summarized as “No exceptions”). Fanservice is negotiable, but R34 is not. Don't ask. On a similar note, no fetish art. None. Unless the character itself is your fetish, go find someone else.

Similarly, no hate art commissions or dark web material. Where oh where do I begin? I will not take commissions that involve, including, but not limited to: sensitive topics such as politics, religion, and the like; excessive violence, gore, rape, genocide, unjustified bigotry toward certain groups whether they're majority or minority; anything that South Park can get a free pass on but I can't for some reason because double standards (I enjoy watching South Park, but I find it hypocritical for people to denounce others for bringing these topics up but have no problem with South Park doing so); targeting shows, movies, games, and so forth you dislike. Pretty much summed up by this quote: “Promote what you love instead of bashing what you hate.”

I will actually negotiate prices with you if you ask. I get it that while the commission is in progress something might come up that may require you to shell out for the issue and leave you short for your commission. Contact me when the situation arises and I'll work with you to adjust the price or push back completion date so you can get what you paid for. Don't worry about making up the few extra bucks, do what you need to take care of your stuff. I'll understand.

Total is due in full when piece is complete unless you want to pay me up front. Mailing costs will apply for all physical copies (no fee if you want your art through email), and total should be paid before I ship it out to ensure the client doesn't welch out.

My signature/watermark is on there for a reason, so you know who drew it, who to recommend people to if they want commissions, and who to come back to for future business. If you remove my signature/watermark for whatever reason, then fuck you. Fuck you to hell and back you ungrateful prick.

Please be clear with what you want in your piece (send a reference sheet if you have to with high detail). I can't read minds and I may not know what character or place you're describing if I haven't seen source material. Also, if I ask what a character's personality is, it's most likely so I can capture it into the piece and bring it to life. (Another thing my first client had me enforce.)

Likes are appreciated, but reblogs are even better. Those let others know where to go if they want some art since more people can see it. Likes are only seen by me. Also please get my permission to repost, otherwise, reposts as a whole are

So, with that out of the way, spread this around and let people know I’m available for commissions.

PM me or you can reach me by email at analyticeruption@gmail.com

PayPal: paypal.me/AlainiP

[ms-maj]

whatever tomorrow brings

So, @weheartscorose is an absolute gem. Which I’m sure most of you already know, but, she’s been nudging me to get back to writing and today she gave me a prompt, and this is what came out. 

Cara, thank you for being you. <3

Prompt: “I’ve been driving for hours and wound up at your door.”

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jughead Jones picked up and looked at the black screen of his too quiet phone for the tenth time in as many minutes. Gently sitting it back on the coffee table, he let out a heavy sigh, letting his head fall into his hands. He sat like that for a minute, heels of his hands pressing against his eyes, hoping against hope that he’d be able to relieve the pressure building inside his head.

It didn’t work.

It had been seven hours, eight minutes and eleven seconds since they’d hung up. Her voice hung heavy in his ears even now. The catch in her throat when she pushed the words through her lips, as if she couldn’t believe she had to say them. The tremble of tears he could practically feel spilling down her cheeks, as she hiccupped through.

With an audible groan and fistfuls of his own hair, he stood from the couch, no longer content to sit and wait for the shrill ring to pierce the air. He paced the small space, surely wearing tracks in the already threadbare carpeting.

He’d known, for the last week or so, that this was a possibility. That at the exact moment when everything was coming together, in ways Jughead had never even dared let himself dream, it would all crumble spectacularly at his feet.

Pain shot down his neck and he swallowed thickly, forcing the muscles of his jaw to relax even if the rest of him couldn’t. His jaw unclenched as a familiar sting moved its way up his face, taking root in his eyes.

He’d willed himself not to cry too many times in his life; he’d thought this night would be no different, but he fought against the instinct and let the tears fall.

 “Hey, Betty, what’s going on?”

“Juggie…” her voice was hoarser than it had been when they spoke the day before. “I—I’m so scared.”

In all the years they’d known each other—been together—she’d never sounded so pitiful. His heart constricted at the thought. Until that very moment, he’d have never imagined those two thoughts would ever intersect in his mind. “What’s happening, Betts?”

He waited through her tears, and the half-garbled quasi-sentences until her breathing evened out and the words took shape. And weight.

“It doesn’t look good, Jug,” is all she’d said before she promised to call him back and was hurried off by a cacophony of voices he didn’t recognize.

 Sighing again, he picked the phone off the table.

No new notifications, it mocked. It sat like a brick in his hand. The urge to throw the device against the wall rippled through him. With what barely could pass for a chuckle, he clutched it tighter in his hand instead and pulled it against his chest.

He knew he was getting ahead of himself, that he had no reason to be in panic mode. But aside from a few dalliances in separation through their nearly ten-year tenure, they didn’t go this long without speaking. It had been a good ten years. They struggled and fought and almost—almost—gave up, but neither could let go. And since that fateful week their senior year of college, they’d plowed a steady path through adulthood.

But that didn’t stop the thoughts from echoing through his skull. He was worried. Not about them; about her. But the thing about worry, no matter how righteously placed, was that it bred anxiety. It’s needle-like talons pierced his lungs, filling him with a chill he couldn’t escape. He felt it in his bones, the despair. Her voice had been riddled with it. Knowing he had to get in control of his faculties if Betty called…

When, he reminded himself. When she calls. Betty would call. He pulled the chair out from the dining room table, its heavy legs scraping the pocked hardwood.

Jughead looked around the room. It was sparse, old and not a little decrepit, but it was home. The walls were white but not bright. It was dull and worn, absorbing more of the light than reflecting it. It felt like him.

The grayscale between two values.

Heaving a sigh, he sat, throwing his phone on the table before his head collapsed onto his crossed arms. He wasn’t sure how long he stayed there before soft rapping at his door roused him.

Jughead rose slowly, taking only a few cautious steps before the knocking started again. This time with more urgency.

He crossed the room in three large steps, throwing the door open without checking who may be on the other side.

She stood haloed by the porch light, her hair haphazardly pulled back, smudges of black under her impossibly red eyes. “Betts? What are you doing?”

“I’ve been driving for hours and wound up at your door,” her lips turned to the ghost of a smile before dropping again.

“You know I don’t mean what are you doing here,” his voiced trailed as he followed the path to keys she held in her shaking hands.

“There’s so many keys on here,” she muttered lowly. “I couldn’t find the right one. Juggie, I can’t remember which key opens the front door of our house.” And there she broke, his arms reaching to catch her before she could collapse. He held her close while her tears soaked through the cotton of his shirt, pressing kisses in to her hair that seemed to glow under the artificial incandescence.

Betty shivered against him, the brisk night and fragile state taking its toll. Without thinking, he swept her legs from under her, and carried her through the door bridal style. Jughead kicked the door closed behind them before turning toward the living room.

“You know,” her muffled voice came from where her face was nestled against his chest, “we skipped a pretty big step for that antiquated tradition, Mr. Jones.”

He smiled for the first time that day. “All in good time, beautiful.”

Jughead went to set her on the couch but felt her head shake against him as the arms that encircled his neck gripped tighter. He sat down carefully, settling her into his lap as he collapsed against the cushions.

When she started to cry again he rubbed her back, and tried to keep the hair from sticking to her eyes with clumsy hands. They seemed to shake more with every passing second she didn’t speak.

“Baby, please tell me what’s going on,” he pleaded when she’d stopped crying the second time.

She sniffled and sat up, turning so she could face him fully. “It’s Avery.”

Polly’s daughter. He could feel his brows knit together. Betty reached up, the sleeve of his flannel shirt that she was wearing practically covered her whole hand, but her thumb stretched out to try and rub away the lines from his forehead. His face relaxed but his eyes never left hers. Jughead had seen so many emotions flicker through them in the course of the twenty minutes since she’d gotten back. He felt her fingers slide over his cheek and trace his jaw. He grabbed her hand before she could pull it away, pressed kisses to each of her fingertips and held their laced hands between them.

“She’s sick, Juggie.”

Jughead pressed his lips together quickly before choosing his words. “Av’s been sick before, she got through it once. She’ll do it again. She is a Cooper after all.”

Betty tried to smile, but the tears were faster. Her eyes looked positively painful, yet still the most mesmerizing shade of green he knew he’d ever see.

“She’s also a Blossom. Which, unfortunately, means not but bad luck,” she paused and squeezed his hand tighter. “It’s back. Worse than before, and not likely to respond to treatment. Cheryl has insisted on the best care, on her dime, but Avery isn’t sure she wants to do it.”

That was the exact moment his heart shattered. The broken woman crying in his arms; her tough-as-nails niece who’d already endured way more than anyone should; the realization that he could do absolutely nothing to help any of it.

“What do you mean she doesn’t want to do it? She’s ten, Betty. Does anybody know what they want at ten?”

“She said to the doctor: ‘I don’t think that course of action suits me. I will fight with all I have, but I don’t think I can go through that again.’ Of course he looked at her like she had three heads, he looked at Polly and asked her: who talks like that?” She smirked up at him. “Avery laughed, and she may have mentioned her too-cool Uncle Jughead being a writer and teaching her how to use her words when she was sick the first time. She might physically be ten, Jug, but not in here,” she tapped his temple with her free hand and smiled. “Avery could have a couple of good months before she…before, but with the treatment her chance of survival increases, just not enough for her to condemn her last few months of life to waste away in a hospice, away from all the things that make life worth living.”

He could feel the tears threatening again and this time, he didn’t even try to stop them, letting them cascade down his face and catching on their still tightly entwined hand. “Jesus, Betty. How’s Polly handling that? And Alice? Oh fuck, how’s Caleb taking it?”

“No one is coping well. Except Avery. She’s not resigned, she seems at peace. I don’t know. Polly and Mom aren’t going to accept it. And most of me is totally okay with that, you know? She’s a baby; she has a chance! Make her fight! But then I look at her, and though I never, ever, ever want to let her go…I just want what’s best.”

He brushed his thumb under her eye gently, careful not to irritate the delicate skin more than tears and tissues have already done.

“Of course you want what’s best; you’re Betty Cooper. No matter what happens—now, in the future, whenever—I will be right beside you. We’ll get through this, together. Always.”

“I don’t know what I’d do without you, Jug. I’m sorry I didn’t call you earlier, but it was a lot to process and I knew I didn’t just need to hear your voice. I had to see you, feel your arms around me.” Without preamble, he leaned into her space and pressed his lips to hers. It wasn’t a particularly passionate kiss, but the kind of steady pressure meant to reassure and convey things that words always seem to fail.

Betty pulled away abruptly, a yawn escaping her past her lips. “Let’s get you to bed. We can talk in the morning.” He kissed her quickly before securing her against him, and this time as he carried her through the house, he felt a semblance of peace.

“I can’t believe we closed on this house a week ago and this is the first night I get to sleep here,” Betty mumbled after she’d shucked her clothes and curled up under the covers with Jughead.

“The first night of many, baby,” he pressed a soft kiss to her forehead. He felt, rather than heard, the contended sigh against his chest. “Every tomorrow is a new day, and we’ll take them all on together. No matter what they may hold.”

Betty was quickly snoring softly, wrapped in the safe cocoon of his arms and their faux-down comforter. Even though she was here, now, in his arms, he couldn’t help the litany of self-destructive thoughts from earlier that came rushing back. But he could finally breathe through it as long as the air carried her scent. Yes, everything was collapsing, but it was around their feet, not just his. And they would have each other to pick up the pieces.

[bthenoise]

Here’s The Best of 2019 As Picked By Members Of The Used, Periphery, Counterparts, Killswitch Engage, Grayscale & More

Well everyone, we did it. Somehow someway we all survived yet another 365 gloriously trying days on this place we call earth. In about two more weeks, we will officially begin a brand new decade with hopes of starting something beautiful and life-changing for the human race. Until then, we’d like to take a second to look back on some of the finer things that came out of 2019 – you know, like the best album, best song, best movie, etc.

Like we’ve done in years past, we’ve completely turned our year-end best-of list over to the artists we cover on a daily basis because let’s face it, their opinions are the ones we all really care about, right?

Right.

To check out what bands like The Used, Counterparts, Periphery, Killswitch Engage, Fit For A King, Grayscale, Atreyu, Wage War, Boston Manor and more have all been obsessing over for the past year or so, be sure to see below. We hope you enjoy this final list as much as we do and wish you all the most peaceful and positive holiday season ever.

Enjoy!

Jeph Howard and Dan Whitesides - The Used

JEPH HOWARD

Best Album of 2019: Sampa the Great - The Return And Knocked Loose - A Different Shade Of Blue

Best Song of 2019: “Blow Me” - from The Used and yes I’m biased.

Best Music Video of 2019: Wendall - “The Power of Wings”

Most Underrated Album of 2019: Sampa the Great - The Return. Her vibe reminds me of my favorite era of hip hop.

Best Movie of 2019: Dr. Sleep, great book too. Must have been tough rewriting the story just enough to mix both the book The Shining and the film adaptation Kubrick made and then making a movie based on both origins.

Most Binge-Worthy Show of 2019: The OA season 3. So unfair that never happened.

Favorite Internet Moment of 2019 (Viral Video, GIF, Meme, etc.): Epstein was an inside job and also the cat playing the cell phone ring tone 😂

Best Concert You Attended/Played in 2019: HodgePodge Superfest 2019 Indonesia, mostly because I got to hang with a couple family friends I haven’t seen in years.  

2020 New Year's Resolution: For 2020 I want to worry less about things I have no control over.

DAN WHITESIDES

Best Album: The Knocked Loose album A Different Shade Of Blue is great and so fuckin heavy! On the other side of things, the Billie Eilish album is really good front to back. Saw her live in Salt Lake and it was pretty sick.

Best Song: Honestly, it’s “Blow Me” by my band The Used. I’m not just saying that because it’s my band. It’s a great fucking song and it has all of my favorite elements in it.

Best Music Video: Blink 182’s “Darkside.�� Love the stick tricks and the dancing kids.

Most Underrated Album: All the albums I liked in 2019, I rated them pretty high.

Best Movie: Dumb and Dumber has been the best movie every year since it came out. All the kids movies that came out in 2019 were good. I see them all. I didn’t really like The Addams Family though.  

Most Binge-Worthy Show of 2019: Atypical and Fuller House and I’m not fucking with you. I laugh out loud at Fernando every time!

Favorite Internet Moment of 2019 (Viral Video, GIF, Meme, etc.): When the deaf baby hears for the first time. I almost cried but I couldn’t because I’m a man and men don’t cry. Just playin! I did tear up a weeee bit.

Best Concert You Attended/Played in 2019: Saw Rob Zombie and damn he puts on a great show. Back To The Beach was my favorite show I played in 2019. We did a cover of Linkin Park’s “Shadow Of The Day” at that show and it started raining. People were crying. It was nuts!

2020 New Year's Resolution:  I don’t really do resolutions but I wish people could just get along despite their beliefs. Life is too short.

Misha Mansoor - Periphery

Best Album of 2019: Mordial by Carbomb Best Song of 2019: “F it Up” by Louis Cole Best Music Video of 2019: “Genesis” by Devin Townsend Most Underrated Album of 2019: Forever, A Fast Life by Infinity Shred Best Movie of 2019: Jojo Rabbit Most Binge-Worthy Show of 2019: Barry Favorite Internet Moment of 2019 (Viral Video, GIF, Meme, etc.): Gamer Girl Bath Water Best Concert You Attended/Played in 2019:  Attended - Deadmau5 Cube V3.  Played - Sold Out London headliner at O2 Kentish Town 2020 New Year's Resolution: Drive more cars

Brendan Murphy - Counterparts

Best Album of 2019: Better Off - Reap What You Sow. Luke is probably the best songwriter I know personally. The album is an absolute fucking hit. I literally begged him to send me the masters before the album came out and I’ve listened to it non-stop since. Was hard to keep that album a secret. 

Best Song of 2019: Gotta go with what my Spotify wrapped tells me and aside from the 1975’s discography, my most listened to song of 2019 was “Slingshot” by Better Off. The song is amazing, the lyrics rock, chorus is fucking huge. Like I said, Luke can’t write a bad song. 

Best Music Video of 2019: I’ll be honest, it’s rare for me to watch any music video that doesn’t have the 1975 in it so I’m gonna go ahead and pick their video for “Frail State of Mind” because... I mean look at him, he’s so cool. If we could get away with making videos like that I might actually not dread shooting them haha. 

Most Underrated Album of 2019: BETTER OFF, YET AGAIN. ARE YOU SURPRISED? I don’t understand how they aren’t the biggest band on earth. 

Best Movie of 2019: Midsommar. I’m a total A24/Ari Aster fanboy and I love movies about freaky cults and this movie ticks all the boxes. It’s not as much of a “deep dive” as Hereditary, very surface level, but I mean it’s creepy and it’s shot beautifully and there’s flowers everywhere and in case you forgot I sing for Counterparts so it’s right up my fuckin alley haha. 

Most Binge-Worthy Show of 2019: Barry without question. Blake made me watch an episode when we were recording NLTL and I binged watched the show so hard I’d be up all night watching when I was supposed to be writing lyrics. Last time I was physically unable to stop watching a show was Lost, so that should say something. 

Favorite Internet Moment of 2019 (Viral Video, GIF, Meme, etc.): My own twitter hun xox 😘

Best Concert You Attended/Played in 2019: I mean it’s hard to remember our shows because not only are they all fun, I’ve usually had a few chardonnays by the time we go on stage BUT one that stands out is the last day of Private Room 2.0 in Worcester... simply because for all of “Love Me” I didn’t have to say a fucking word, the crowd did the whole damn thing. I think there’s a video where I get so stoked I start screaming “YOU’RE GOD DAMN RIGHT” and jumping. It’s fun and honestly, it’s 10 fucking words don’t make me do it by myself. 

2020 New Year's Resolution: Stop accidentally calling my teacher “mom.”

Mike D'Antonio - Killswitch Engage

Best Album of 2019: He Is Legend - White Bat Best Song of 2019: He Is Legend - “Resister Resist Her” Best Music Video of 2019: Death Ray Vision “Just Let It Die” Most Underrated Album of 2019: He Is Legend - White Bat Best Movie of 2019: Joker Most Binge-Worthy Show of 2019: The Mandalorian Favorite Internet Moment of 2019 (Viral Video, GIF, Meme, etc.): Yoda/Toyota meme Best Concert You Attended/Played in 2019: Field Day played in Connecticut a few months back. 2020 New Year's Resolution: Refuse the new world order

Porter McKnight - Atreyu

Best Album of 2019: Angel Du$t - Pretty Buff Best Song of 2019: “The Dead Don’t Die” - Sturgill Simpson Best Music Video of 2019: Rammstein - “Deutschland” Most Underrated Album of 2019: The Act - The Devil Wears Prada Best Movie of 2019: Midsommar Most Binge-Worthy Show of 2019: Watchmen Favorite Internet Moment of 2019 (Viral Video, GIF, Meme, etc.): Paul Rudd “Look at us” on Hot Ones Best Concert You Attended/Played in 2019:  Attended - Nothing More - New Orleans March 2019 Played - Mr’s Smalls Theatre - Millvale, PA  2020 New Year's Resolution: Establish a consistent physical art practice

Ryan Kirby - Fit For A King

Best Album of 2019: Just for the purpose of nostalgia, I am going to go with Shaped by Fire by As I Lay Dying. It doesn't re-invent the wheel but it's just some good ole metalcore that brings me back. 

Best Song of 2019: I absolutely cannot stop listening to "Masochist" by Polaris. This band is going to be huge!

Best Music Video of 2019: I feel like I have to say our own video for "When Everything Means Nothing" is the best strictly because we all almost died of hypothermia while getting sprayed by a fire hose.  

Most Underrated Album of 2019: I think The Valley by Whitechapel doesn't get talked about near as much as it should. Phil's cleans are fantastic and they keep bringing the heavy. 

Best Movie of 2019: I feel like this will be a lot of people's favorite movie but The Joker was an absolute masterpiece.

Most Binge-Worthy Show of 2019: This one is EASILY The Boys. It might be the most well-done superhero show OR movie ever made. Once you watch the first episode, you are sucked in.

Favorite Internet Moment of 2019 (Viral Video, GIF, Meme, etc.): This one is really tough because at this point, I don't even know which meme is from what year. I guess I'll go with Baby Yoda since I know that’s 2019 but with a disclaimer: There are a lot of NOT funny Baby Yoda memes out there.

Best Concert You Attended/Played in 2019: The show in Cologne, Germany with As I Lay Dying was the biggest club show we had ever played, and at the same time, probably one of the best live performances I've ever seen. Amazing night.

2020 New Year's Resolution: I want to be able to run a half marathon with my dad. It’s pretty simple but he is out here running full marathons all the time and is double my age. I feel like I need to step it up.

Valentino Arteaga - Of Mice & Men

Best Album of 2019: Gideon - Out Of Control Best Song of 2019: Kublai Khan TX - “Self Destruct” Best Music Video of 2019: Ghostemane - “Bonesaw” Most Underrated Album of 2019: Ithaca - The Language of Injury Best Movie of 2019: Yesterday Most Binge-Worthy Show of 2019: Cold Case Files Favorite Internet Moment of 2019 (Viral Video, GIF, Meme, etc.): Spotify Wrapped 2019 Best Concert You Attended/Played in 2019: Wacken Open Air Festival 2020 New Year's Resolution: Eat less meat & make more music

Matty Mullins - Memphis May Fire

Best Album of 2019: Dermot Kennedy - Without Fear Best Song of 2019: Papa Roach - “Feel Like Home” Best Music Video of 2019: Asking Alexandria - “The Violence” Most Underrated Album of 2019: He Is Legend - White Bat Best Movie of 2019: Yesterday Most Binge-Worthy Show of 2019: This Is Us Favorite Internet Moment of 2019 (Viral Video, GIF, Meme, etc.): @catatonicyouths IG Best Concert You Attended/Played in 2019: Warped Tour in Atlantic City was LEGENDARY! 2020 New Year's Resolution: Write the best MMF record of our career

Nick Ventimiglia - Grayscale

Best Album of 2019: tryhard by The Band Camino and Fear Inoculum by Tool Best Song of 2019: "No Age" by Rich People Best Music Video of 2019: "Mantra" by Bring Me the Horizon was pretty wild Most Underrated Album of 2019: Third Eye Blind - Screamer Best Movie of 2019: Big fans of Us and The Irishman Most Binge-Worthy Show of 2019: Peaky Blinders and Mindhunter Favorite Internet Moment of 2019 (Viral Video, GIF, Meme, etc.): Big fan of the Kawhi Leonard “Hey, hey, hey” memes. Really anything but that lady yelling at that fucking cat. Best Concert You Attended/Played in 2019: Our headliner in Philly this past October at The TLA.  2020 New Year's Resolution: Rock harder than we did in 2019.

Cody Quistad - Wage War

Best Album of 2019: tryhard by The Band Camino Best Song of 2019: “See Through” by The Band Camino Best Music Video of 2019: “Resentment” by A Day To Remember Most Underrated Album of 2019: In Darkness by Varials Best Movie of 2019: Peanut Butter Falcon The Most Binge-Worthy Show of 2019: The Office, duh Favorite Internet Moment of 2019: The Epstein memes kill me Best Concert You Attended/Played in 2019: Can’t Say I Ain’t Country Tour: Florida Georgia Line, Dan + Shay, Morgan Wallen 2020 New Year’s Resolution: Write the best songs I’ve ever written, love on more people, and be healthier 

Boston Manor

Best Album of 2019: Death Is A Warm Blanket by Microwave. This record is the best guitar music to come out in years. As our contemporaries, Microwave is constantly challenging and inspiring us to make better art.

Best Song of 2019: “The Brakeman Has Resigned” by Microwave. This song could not be more relevant to us, both instrumentally and lyrically. It’s just fuckin’ perfect.

Best Music Video of 2019: “DIAWB” by Microwave. You get the point.

Most Underrated Album of 2019: Foreign Language EP by Can’t Swim. Always love to see friends changing up their riff game.

Best Movie of 2019: The Irishmen. I’ve watched it like three times in the van now and can’t choose which Tony is my favourite.

Most Binge-Worthy Show of 2019: Rick and Morty. You son of a bitch, I’m in.

Favorite Internet Moment of 2019 (Viral Video, GIF, Meme, etc.): Eric Egan from Heart Attack Man.

Best Concert You Attended/Played in 2019: Best concert we played would have to be Download Madrid. Right off the heels of ADTR in America, the airline lost our gear so we had to cobble together a backline and ended up playing after Tool to an insane amount of people.

2020 New Year's Resolution: Continue our world domination.

Mike Foley - Varials

Best Album of 2019: Feels Like You by Whirr Best Song of 2019: "Nothing Left To Love" by Counterparts Best Music Video of 2019: Tie between "Lips Like Lemonade" by Nick Prosper & "Mistakes Like Fractures" by Knocked Loose. Most Underrated Album of 2019: Deceiver by Diiv Best Movie of 2019: Joker Most Binge-Worthy Show of 2019: I Think You Should Leave Favorite Internet Moment of 2019 (Viral Video, GIF, Meme, etc.): Kombucha girl Best Concert You Attended/Played in 2019: The best show I attended was definitely the Balance & Composure farewell show in NYC. RIP. Best played was definitely the Atlantic City Warped Tour date. Also RIP. 2020 New Year's Resolution: Tour more internationally / spend as much time traveling as possible. Really hoping we make it to 3 different continents this year.

Kory Gregory - Prince Daddy & The Hyena

Best Album of 2019: Remembering The Rockets - Strange Ranger Best Song of 2019: “Mono No Aware” - Great Grandpa Best Music Video of 2019: “Must Be Wrong” - White Reaper Most Underrated Album of 2019: Super Enthusiast - Macseal Best Movie of 2019: Parasite Most Binge-Worthy Show of 2019: Been really enjoying Mandalorian Favorite Internet Moment of 2019 (Viral Video, GIF, Meme, etc.): Baby Yoda forever and always. No questions asked. Best Concert You Attended/Played in 2019: Our record release show in NYC was really special! That’s my favorite one I played. As far as the ones I attended, this Culture Abuse/Tony Molina show I went to in Boston was pretty legendary. 2020 New Year's Resolution: I just wanna keep writing songs that are better than the last!

Yvette Young - Covet

Best Album of 2019: The Japanese House - Good At Falling Best Song of 2019: “Shrugging Match” - Bobbing Best Music Video of 2019: Don Broco - “Action” Most Underrated Album of 2019: Town Portal - Of Violence Best Movie of 2019: Midsommar Most Binge-Worthy Show of 2019: I Think You Should Leave Favorite Internet Moment of 2019 (Viral Video, GIF, Meme, etc.): Discovering bandmemes666, Chibson, catatonicyouths and allgasnobrakes on IG Best Concert You Attended/Played in 2019: Orlando summer headliner show at The Soundbar 2020 New Year's Resolution: Make a dope full-length album

Carter Hardin - Chapel 

Best Album of 2019: Album of the year for me is KIN by Electric Guest. Every song is a bop and the production is so clean.

Best Song of 2019: I would have to say “Friends” by CHAPEL. The band is pretty cool and the song is a slapper.

Best Music Video of 2019: “Panini” by Lil Nas X is mine. It’s the most memorable one I’ve seen this year.

Most Underrated Album of 2019: Pep Talks - Judah & The Lion. Not enough people are talking about that record.

Best Movie of 2019: MARRIAGE STORY. This movie broke me & I can’t stop thinking about it.

Most Binge-Worthy Show of 2019: Fleabag is amazing. you need to watch it.

Favorite Internet Moment of 2019 (Viral Video, GIF, Meme, etc.): Baby Yoda memes are the best memes in the world.

Best Concert You Attended/Played in 2019: I saw Cherub recently and they always put on the best show. This recent one was super inspiring.

2020 New Year's Resolution: Release more music

Alex Biro - Selfish Things

Best Album: The Act by The Devil Wears Prada. Genre-defying and innovative, this was one of my favourite albums of the last decade. I’ve been a TDWP fan since Zombie EP but the growth they’ve shown on their latest release while still staying true to their roots was sonically refreshing.  

Best Song: “Old Town Road” by Lil Nas X. This speaks for itself. I’ve never been one to shy away from popular music, but it’s Lil Nas X’s “love everyone but fuck everyone” attitude that kind of impresses me most? He’s punk as hell. He breaks stereotypes. He pissed off 90% of the country music industry. I hope he continues to succeed.

Best Music Video: “bury a friend” by Billie Eilish. I mean, it’s been Billie’s year. We all know that. But the whole “monster under your bed” motif coupled with her wanting to not shy away from the dark side of things in a genre filled to the brim with bubblegum songs and visuals speaks to her innovation as a creative and an artist.

Most Underrated Album of 2019: Everyone I’ve Ever Loved by Valleyheart. This came out a week and a half before 2019 but I’m including it here. “Agnosia” is one of the best songs I’ve heard in years. This band is fucking amazing. Don’t sleep on them. They deserve better than they’ve been given.

Best Movie of 2019: Peanut Butter Falcon. Shia LaBeouf is a true artist, and he’s at the peak of his game here. If you’re a fan of Garden State, The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Rocket Science or any other emotionally devastating indie films, this is a movie for you.

Most Binge-Worthy Show of 2019: The Simpsons. God bless you Disney+. I can’t even put into words how nice it is to watch all of my old favourites with my daughter. Treehouse of Horror forever.

Favorite Internet Moment of 2019 (Viral Video, GIF, Meme, etc.): Colton jumping the fence during The Bachelor. We admittedly got snowed in during the “snow cyclone” in Wyoming and binged this whole season. I’ve never been more disappointed. Still impressed by his agility, though.

Best Concert You Attended/Played in 2019: Atlanta, GA w/ Microwave, Boston Manor and Heart Attack Man. We’ve never had that many kids over the barricade. It was one of those “wow, maybe our band isn’t totally shit” moments. We all got off stage and knew it was one to remember. I’ll never forget it. 

2020 New Year's Resolution: Learn to be happy with who I am without letting the toxicity of social media cloud my self-perception.

Ryan Donovan - Red City Radio

Best Album of 2019: Mannequin Pussy - Patience. "Who You Are" & "Drunk II" are some standout tracks on that record for me! It's just filled with melodic anthems that have killer soft harmonies and is kind of a technically ambitious record compared to their older stuff, which I also love!

Best Song of 2019: The Menzingers - "America (You're Freaking Me Out)." They fucking NAILED it with this track and our current climate in the US, socially/politically/economically etc. They seamlessly always write some killer tunes!

Best Music Video of 2019: PUP - "Free At Last." No one had heard the song yet. They posted the lyrics and chord chart to the song and took all submissions of everyone's interpretation of the song and edited that down. You just gotta watch it for yourself, IT FUCKING RULES. Most Underrated Album of 2019: Decent Criminal - BLISS. I love this band and their tunes/sound. Small indy label release and I hope they take some more strides forward and keep growing. They rip.

Best Movie of 2019: Favorite movie I have personally seen so far this year is Once Upon A Time In Hollywood. I heard it was a lot of either "love it" or "hated it" kind of reviews but I personally thought it was a killer film.

Most Binge-Worthy Show of 2019: Ah man, with so much time on the road touring this year for RCR binge-watching older shows was a lot of my downtime when I got back home so here are some favs: Admittedly I had never seen Breaking Bad, that has now been binged and completed. Game Of Thrones (hadn't seen it until this Summer, I know, I know whatever). Animal Kingdom, Succession, Punisher, Jessica Jones and I Think You Should Leave.  

Favorite Internet Moment of 2019 (Viral Video, GIF, Meme, etc.): I LOVE THIS MEME and I do love pizza.

Best Concert You Attended/Played in 2019: Probably the last show of our short tour with Hot Water Music over in Cologne, Germany. It was the largest capacity venue show we have ever played as a band - that wasn't a festival - at 4k humans, sold out! It was also extra special because Rockpalast had a 10+ human camera crew on hand and filmed the whole thing with live edits as it was streamed for anyone to tune in and watch. The edits and camera/audio/streaming quality was A+!!!

2020 New Year's Resolution: Better self-care.

Brett Boland - Astronoid

Best Album of 2019: HEALTH - VOL. 4 :: SLAVES OF FEAR Best Song of 2019: Dinosaur Pile-Up - Thrash Metal Cassette Best Music Video of 2019: Billie Eilish - “bury a friend” Most Underrated Album of 2019: Nightmare Scenario - Beyond What is Real Best Movie of 2019: Midsommar Most Binge-Worthy Show of 2019: Succession Favorite Internet Moment of 2019 (Viral Video, GIF, Meme, etc.): Sonic The Hedgehog Movie debacle. Best Concert You Attended: Final Slayer show in MA Best Concert You Played in 2019: Exit 111 2020 New Year's Resolution: PUT OUT MORE MUSIC

Conversation

Best Album of 2019: Copeland - Blushing. I’ve been a huge fan of this band for years and years and years; to say that they shaped my songwriting is an understatement. I was lucky enough to catch Copeland for the first time on this tour and it was a truly tectonic moment for me. Blushing was a perfect step for this band in terms of tone, emotional maturity and instrumental creativity. I was just so happy to hear every single song.

Best Song of 2019: “Make It Better” by Anderson Paak. This track just puts you in a good mood!!

Best Music Video of 2019: Our music video for “You’ve Made Yourself Perfectly Clear” where we accurately and tastefully re-created the opening scene of Wayne’s World to perfection. I know it seems like a bit of a brag to say you had the best video of the year, but truth be told, nothing else even came close.

Best Movie of 2019: Joker - I’m sure this will be a pretty common response but IT WAS INCREDIBLE!!

Most Binge-Worthy Show of 2019: Letterkenny - A hilarious show about small-town Canada. If you don’t know, now you know.

Favorite Internet Moment of 2019 (Viral Video, GIF, Meme, etc.): Jonathan Frakes Asking Questions.

Best Concert You Attended/Played in 2019:  A close tie between Arkells at Scotiabank Arena and Barr Brothers at Mod Club

2020 New Year's Resolution: To tour all of the USA and Europe for our new record. We are all so excited for the new music that we’re about to put out into the world and our undying dream is to show our live show to the entire world. SO THAT’S WHAT WE’RE DOING!!!

[artoftakogami-blog]

Please click the “Read More” for the full explanation! <3

For months (or a year now), I've been having difficulties with the grayscale to color technique. I've only recently started to get the process after several tutorials and frustrations. I mainly watch youtube for the processes and watch speedpaints to soak in the process. I once gave up with this technique when after several tries the colors came out muddy. I've been used to the color first technique. I'll be listing the pro's and con's of starting out with a greyscale technique. Do keep in mind that these are all subject to my opinion/observations and I am in no way teaching this as the only way to deal with it. I am just merely sharing my own way of dealing with it xD The example above is made with a hooman head but this can be done with any subject as well as a subject with a background C: Pro's:    - Your values are always in check.    - You do not get stuck with what colors to use only to re-do them again. With greyscale, the values are set and separate from the color layers. You can redo the colors without re-doing everything.    - You limit yourself to only using the grey palette providing you focus on the values first instead of details (e.g . Con's:    - Depending on the way it is dealt, it adds another couple of hours to the process in finishing a piece. Sketch > Base > Greyscale > Color > Color corrections > Details > Refining    - Colors can get muddy with the finished product so you have to to always keep your values in check. Below are the steps with the explanations of each steps. I did my very best to explain each and I have also included the palette I used. This can be applied in any art program (as long as they have layer adjustments like color/soft light and overlay to name a few). Steps:    HOLD ON! First and foremost let's go ahead and check my brush setting. I use a slightly tweaked round hard brush with a 10% spacing and transfer turned on (both in pen pressure option). I have my brush in either 80% or 100% opacity. I rely mostly with how hard I press my pen than with the flow and opacity settings. However if you would rather do the opposite, you can tweak with the flow and opacity options to have the effect you want when painting.  - Palette I used. I only used a grey as my neutral color and a slightly darker purple as my shade. I never use black or white when I shade. I always have the shadows, even when very very dark, to at least have a little bit of colorf in them. It prevents the muddy look. Same with the highlight.  - Layers I have. I almost always only have less than 5 layers when I paint. This is different with larger and full illustrations with complex bgs. Sketch: This is where everything starts. Depending on how big the piece will be, it will be a plain sketch or a sketch from a thumbnail. Either way, this is where you will start. You don't have to make it very very clean. It's just the "skeleton" to your piece. You do not need to fuss on details in this stage, be free and do not be afraid of mistakes at this point. Just let your hand draw what your mind wants it to draw. I have my sketch as a normal layer. Tako, I have finished my sketch! Base + Shadow:Good job! The next path you will take is laying the base. Choose a very neutral gray for it. After that, it's time for you to take that dark color (not black) and lay it where light does not hit your subject. This will be your shadow. I have the layer locked so I won't be able to paint outside of the base color. Always remember to take not of how hard you press with your pen (pen pressure) when laying in the shadows and highlights and when blending the shadow to the base. In this stage it is best to paint like a sculptor like  this. You will need knowledge with how 3d objects work. Color: You are done with the greyscale yay! Now time to lay in the colors. This is somewhat hard for those attempting this technique for the first time. I have experienced muddy colors afterwards but I will explain to you how to avoid that. First, set your brush at 80% opacity and create a new layer above the base layer and set it in Color mode. I found this mode to be the best as it does not affect your values too much. Lay in a base color (a reddish brown tone) to set in the final colors. Next carefully lay in the proper colors of your subject. At this stage, I took in mind the rule of Color zones of the face. He will look like an alien for a time but do not fret we are just beginning C: What about the highlights, where are they?? Highlights: It is now time for it, do not worry! You have to have confidence and merge the color layer with the base. Then create a new layer on top and set it to Soft light and choose a light shade of your light source. Then lightly brush it along the planes where light will touch your subject. I  made sure to be careful in this stage to avoid a very overly exposed subject because this is not the final stage. Refining: Next step I do is I merge the highlights layer with my original layer. Once that is done, it is time for me to paint and refine the shadows and highlights as well as  to fix the colors of the subject. This is the stage where you would also want to correct any mistakes you want to change such as anatomy or additional stuff you want to add in. Details: Once I am satisfied with the overall look of my subject: the colors, shadows and highlights. I start to lay in the details starting with the eyes. Viewers will most usually focus on faces first so this is the part where I lay in the details first. Any color that seems to be dominant which are not supposed to be, I paint it over lightly. I slowly build up the look and paint over everything to refine it. Finalizing: I am now overly satisfied with everything with my piece and if you are too it is time for us to finalize stuff. I put in more reflective lights and create a new layer and set it to overlay. I then choose a nice shade of any saturated warm color and lightly brush it wherever the light touches my subject. It is also the stage where I finally go and paint the freckles and his scars. I then create a new layer adjustment called Levels and Curves to adjust the final overall values and color of the subject. IT IS DONE! Yay! It is a very long process and you will need patience and of course the passion for it. Your art will look "shitty" at the start as all creations look in the beginning but once you push through and be patient with it will become what you want. Usually xD It is also helpful to study how the old masters paint! Anyways, thank you for reading and I hope that this is helpful in any way! Feel free to ask in the comments below and I will do my best to answer. Some helpful videos: - How to paint like the old masters - Grayscale to Color Tutorial - Sara Tepes - Grayscale to Color Tutorial - Artgerm - Grayscale to Color Tutorial search results youtube/a> and James Gurney xD gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/