#I'm also too impatient for tutorials

[batsyl]

Yes hello, have an Obi-Wan with a pinch of ObiMaul

Don't know which version I like best, so there ya go

[ch1zzie]

I need to remind myself that I have ALL the time in the world so that I don't work on millions of things at the same time😭

[deerspherestudios]

Small Spoilers of Astronought!

Hey Cheea! I just played Astronought and I LOVED IT. I'm from Spain so when I read how Atom called us "Luna Nova" I basically combusted. AND THE LYRICS OF MOON WALTZ IN THE END? Beautiful. I love the way you write your Visual Novels too, they really inspire me to write more about my own stories, so thank you a lot!

Also, a tiny question, when beggining to work on your own Visual Novels, did you follow any kind of tutorial on the internet? If so, what did you do to begin learning how to... code, and everything? It seems so weird to me and I wanted to work on one myself!

Thank you lots and sorry if my english is a little off... still learning!

Ahh thank you so much!! It's always an honor to know I've inspired someone out there with my silly little games 😭! I hate to say that I didn't really follow tutorials when I started Mushroom Oasis, but there's plenty out there for you to get started!

Channels I'd always go back to and recommend are Zeil Learnings and Visual Novel Design. Perfect for beginners!

If you really wanna know my own personal anecdote as to how I started, I genuinely yappa yappa about it below:

I've mentioned before that when working on Lift Your Spirits back in 2022, I wasn't alone just yet. My roles were only as the writer and artist while two others worked on the coding as you can see in the credits!

For context, arrnubs is my alternate online moniker.

At some point during the project, the others got busy with assignments (while I was on semester break) and I got too impatient to wait for them to update the script and sounds in Ren'Py. I didn't wanna pester them so I got nosy and took a peek in the script.rpy file and added them in myself haha, so I got to see how they did the base coding, in a way.

From there I started working on Mushroom Oasis on my own a year or so later, referencing the LYS script.rpy more than a few times. I just started on a whim because the YanGameJam was happening around the time I had another semester break in 2023, and finished the first half of Day 1 in two weeks.

People liked it a lot, so I kept working on it!

That's why if you look in the code, it's actually very basic!! compared to how other devs code their games. It's just me looking at someone else's first attempt at Ren'Py and just assumed it's the only way to do it haha.

I'll probably want to re-work how I do my games in the future, but for now I'll keep to the same format.

If you really wanna see something positive from me yapping away about this, don't let inexperience and lack of skill stop you.

I absolutely winged it and here I am haha. As long as you have the passion to commit, it'll work out in the end, plus you keep picking up more Ren'Py tricks along the way!

[andrevasims]

I've been doing lots of random other stuff besides playing TS2 lately, and last night since I didn't feel like doing the random other stuff either I pirated Inzoi - mainly expecting to only be interested in the character creator

and wouldn't you believe it, I quit playing immediately after I finished character creation lol

it was reminding me of the first time I played The Sims 4 in 2014 (after I paid $40 for it a day after release because I was too impatient to wait it out), because I also did the exact same thing with TS4 :P

there's just too many things on the screen from the UI/menus, and the information the UI/menus is trying to convey is not intuitive.

the tutorial cat or whatever kept popping up promising me paragraph after paragraph of exposition & mechanic explanations, but I want to learn how to play the game by playing the fucking game lol

if the game is so obtuse about how to get from point A to point B that it's not possible to figure it out without reading a Wiki, then I'm not going to play it for very long (or at all)

idk like although life simulators can be complex in that they're simulating all facets of human life & socialization, that doesn't mean the ways you engage with those facets has to be complex.

take TS2 for example! lol

(also I don't mean complex as in hard or simple as in easy, I mean the role that game design itself plays in conveying information can make the experience of understanding how to play the game more intuitive or less intuitive)

[thereigning-lorelai]

Please oh please share with us how you did the effect in your latest Nancy drew set, it is truly so gorgeous I cannot stop looking at it!

hi nonny, sorry this took a while. so you're looking for the effect from this post:

i made it fairly easy on myself for this one because i am lazy and impatient as hell, so hopefully this is a rather short tutorial.

there's a neater and tidier way to do this that would require frames instead of timeline but for the effect i was aiming for, the slightly sloppier and faster way actually worked fine.

preparation: you'll need a gif with the overlay effect that you like and want to use. i'm giving you the one i used for all the gifs in this set (just slightly altered for each individual gif):

then, of course, you need two gifs — one that'll be your base gif (the coloured one in my example) and one that'll "bleed into" the other one (the black and white one here).

base gif: i just did my regular preparation and colouring, added some yellow and red brush strokes here and there to add some colour and that was it.

i also added some text at this point and i positioned it on top of my base gif but underneath the overlay layers (because i wanted the text to vanish with the overlay):

second gif: i did a quick and very basic black and white colouring for this one.

for the overlay effect to work properly, i set the blending mode of this gif to multiply.

overlay: now the fun part. i added my overlay effect gif and changed its size and position to my liking and so that the important parts of my base gif were visible long enough (aka the kiss).

i set this layer to screen and clipped the b/w gif and the adjustment layers to it.

the thing is, as you can see, the overlay part is way too transparent to be efficient. you might get away with this if your base gif is dark enough but for the scene i wanted to use as a base it just didn't look right.

so i duplicated the overlay effect layer, dragged it underneath my original one, inverted it and set it to darken. et voilà, this worked wonders:

before saving, have a look at your timeline and whether everything lines up. you can change the starting point of your overlay effect (having it come in later or earlier) or your other gifs. whatever looks right to you and also fits into the size limitation.

and that's it. if something didn't make sense or you want to know anything else, just let me know. hope this helped, nonny. ♥️

[quibble-auk]

Yk what no one asked for? My art process.

At least when it comes to drawing transformers... I don't put a lot of my other stuff up here haha. This guide probably won’t help with drawing TFP stuff tho. I like sticking to my cubes.

Who knows. Maybe this can help someone. Or provide amusement cause I have no idea what I'm doing. Just thought l'd share some stuff lol. And an unpopular art opinion.

So yeah, my secrets. Which like.... my art isn’t incredibly impressive or anything but... you get the point.

If you ever really wanted to try out whatever my style is called, here’s your guide. Along with a tutorial on how I draw Sunstreaker, but it’s like 5 steps lol.

I apologize in advance for the sheer amount of yapping I’m about to do. I’m just trying to makes sense

~~~~~~~~~~~

This is the part where I share my tips and tricks yippee! Small disclaimer, I just kinda do half of this stuff as a go. There is no real order to this. I’m basically just explaining how my style works (despite how much my style varies tbh)

There’s a general build for the body that I’m pretty sure most people have figured out. The head, chest, torso, and weird hip thingy. Then the legs are broken into two main segments, the arms are broken into three, shoulder, upper arm, lower arm.

Here we go, unpopular art opinion rant.

When I make my base I usually work from the head down. Don’t be afraid to use the lasso tool to readjust the sizes of different components. If the head you started with has the right angle but is too small, lasso it and make it bigger. If ur doing traditional, sorry, you’re just gonna have to redraw it.

I’ll usually try and clean up overlapping lines, but I wanted yall to see the shapes before I did that.

Then we can start adding details. I look at other artist’s designs and the source material and pick out reoccurring traits that will help make the character easily identifiable.

I tend to add the most detail to the head simply because that’s what is commonly used to identify characters. Usually when designing my version of a character I allow myself to kinda make up details for this part.

But do feel free to add your own details to make sure people can tell it’s “your” design!

These are still very simple shapes and not detailed whatsoever. We are keeping it basic on purpose.

Very loose shapes, extremely vague idea. Just putting down the most identifiable parts that are important in building it, if that makes sense. I put down the bare minimum for this.

You really don't want to over complicate things. It makes it difficult for the viewer to figure out what's going on. A crowded design is distracting and unappealing. The simpler the better.

So now we have our sketch layer done. Because I'm impatient, it's line art time baby!

I end up just kind of feeling it out with line art. There will be some changes between the sketch and the line art. I’ll also use line weight to just general shading stuff sometimes. In this one it’s not very consistent but I was kinda losing motivation cause… adhd my beloved.

This is pretty self explanatory. Use your sketch to outline what you want, adding details as you go. I'll still leave my lines pretty loose and messy for most of these, just because it adds a bit more... character? Makes it feel more authentic? But feel free to clean it up as much as your little heart desires.

Smth im really passionate about is not overcomplicating the designs and crowding it. I know I already mentioned it once but… yeah.

While adding a bunch of detail can be cool, if not executed right, it can become overwhelming and difficult to understand visually. Keep it simple, you don't need to add every crease or seam. Just the important ones that can help a character stand out or fill in an awkward large space.

Usually after that l'll just put flat color down. Nothing fancy. I like to just do greyscale but you can go crazy. I'm not stopping you.

But adding a flat color under your line art helps pull together the sketch. It makes it easier for people to understand what is and isn't a character and makes it simpler to understand the character’s shape.

If I have several characters in one picture l'll usually make them separate colors to help make sure you can easily identify them as different people. I usually try to keep in mind the characters actual color when doing this. People with darker colors get a darker gray.

I’ll also try and give a different color to an object they are interacting with so it doesn’t get confused with the character themselves.

The entire reason I gave Sunstreaker a gun was to show this. I hate drawing guns.

These are also rarely perfect. As long as it's not extremely obvious that you're out of the lines, no one will notice. At least that’s been my experience.

I usually do this on separate layers

There's a lot of personalization when it comes to drawing and I don't know if I explained all of this very well. Ironically I don't really think much about how I'm doing it, I just... do it.

If you need any further explaining, I'll try my best to help. And if you made it this far ive got mad respect for you. I’m pretty sure I’m just rambling for half of this lol.

Have fun creating!!!!

[salemssimblr]

Hello there! I'm Eden :D I LOVE your renders! I've been rendering for well over a year at this point, however I only stuck to the super basic stuff since it took me a year before that to even know how to do it at all. I've wanted to up my game and get to where you are now. I'm SO SORRY if this question was asked already (I haven't gotten too far in your posts yet), but;

How do you personally edit your renders? I understand you use photoshop, but how do you do it exactly? Your renders have that kind of digital art style, like you drew them yourself. Feel free to be as descriptive or brief as you'd like!

Hi Eden!!! Thank you so much! 🥹😍♥️

I've followed you back and glad we're moots! I'd love to see some of your work!

I'm not sure if I've answered this before but I'm happy to answer it again! Also I haven't advertised it in a while (and I really need to try to get up a new tut, maybe soon), but my alt account is a Render School where I post tutorials, with plans to post editing tutorials in the future!

But honestly as far as my editing, I really don't do much.

Actions are my secret weapon, and I have a few favorites/go-tos I'll link! A few are by simmers and a few are just action sets. I'm in a family of photographers, so I have access to a wealth of resources for my editing.

Sonder set by @intramoon

Cold Water set by @intramoon

Retro Prime photoshop actions

Indie camera photoshop actions

But my "secret weapon," as it were, and the set of actions that I think most helps me accomplish that digital art style is a set of actions that are sadly expensive and hard to find now.

My favorite set is by Totally Rad! and I think in recent years it's been folded in to this Pixel Sugar product on their website. I know that's a steep price point but it's possible you can find it around the corners of the Internet for less, or if you can't, you might be able to find "dupes" of the better ones, which imo are:

Technicolor dream world

Super Fun Happy

Bullet Tooth

Grandma's Tap Shoes

As for my method, I know a lot of simmers paint over their renders, and I've done that a few times but find I'm too impatient tbh. My goal is always to have to do only minor touchups over my renders and some color/vibe adjustments before the finished product. My "raw" files are always exactly what blender spits out for me, unaltered in any way except to resize them for Tumblr.

To get that digital art style, I'd recommend rendering with alpha details if you don't already. If your computer can't handle alpha cc in the game, DM me and I can give you some pointers (sneak peek info for a future tut lmao) on how to accomplish it without bogging down your game.

When I go into photoshop I adjust the brightness and contrast, as I tend to personally prefer high contrast pieces that contain dark subject matter but you can still see the details. Then I'll paint/blur/clone/adjust anything that needs it, then I'll "stack" and adjust a handful of actions before applying edge blur and vignette and any other color adjustments (levels, curves, etc).

That's a very oversimplified rundown of what I do, but really overall my editing process is simple. The bulk of my work happens in blender itself. I find that the more time I take to perfect the lighting and shadows and angles in blender, the less frustrating the editing process and the happier I am with the end result. So, that said, be sure you're spending a lot of time in blender getting the light and shadows to be exactly where you need/want them to be before running it.

I know this is a bit long I'm sorry! If any of it is super confusing or you'd like a more in-depth look at any of it please let me know! I do plan to do editing tutorials for my side blog, but the latter half of this year has kind of run over me like a train, and for now I'm just trying to get by day by day. But I'm happy to help if you have more specific questions!

& thank you again!! ♥️

[my-name-is-markus-with-a-k]

prime numbers for the gif-maker asks? 👀

2. Least favourite set? Oh, I'm sorry but I don't want to answer that 😅 I've deleted any I really don't like, but I will say there's a set that keeps popping up in my notifs where I'm like 'really, that one again???' But that's all I will say. People like what they like.

3. The set with the most notes? This one with 1559 notes. I'm happy with that, it's a good set. The ones with Connor in them tend to do well.

5. Favourite movie/tv show to gif? dbh is my main fandom so yeah, dbh but more specifically, Markus. I just love giffing him, it's almost therapeutic at this stage.

7. Who are my top 3 gifmakers? @thirium @aghostinmyownmachine @mijchi for dbh gifs and also shout out to @babyjapril who is not a dbh giffer but her gifs are always incredible (sorry for the random tag ana).

11. One set I made that just won't die? I legitimately don't know what this means lol

13. Where and/or from whom did you learn to gif? I'm mostly self-taught but I have relied on a few tutorials here and there.

17. How many gifs do you prefer in a set? I guess 2? That's how many I usually make in a set, so that must be my preference. I do like a 4 set too though.

19. What I'd my giffing process like? Very on the fly, lol. I check to see if I have the footage I want, if I don't I screen record the scene I need. I upload that into ps, trim the clip to what I need, change the speed and crop. Then I brighten and colour them to whatever I'm feeling at the time. I always sharpen last. It's what takes the longest and I sometimes have to finick with the settings a bit until it looks nice on tumblr.

23. What's the thing you gif when you don't have anything else to gif? Take a wild guess. It's my boy ofc

29. Have you ever posted a set, realised you made a mistake later but realised it was too late? Oh yes many a time. Usually on sets with text and I made a typo. That's happens pretty often 😅 I usually go back and fix them anyway but then the old versions still get reblogged lol

31. Do you schedule/queue posts or do you post as soon as you're done? I usually post when I'm done. If I'm not really happy with a set, I'll save them to drafts and look at them later. If I decide they're actually OK, I'll post them, if not, I redo them. But I don't schedule posts, I'm too impatient.

37. What sets do you have planned to make in the future? There are a few sets I'm waiting to do when my skills catch up to my visions. But right now? There's a quote gifset I want to make with Markus but it will require time I just don't have right now.

41. Least favourite part of the gifmaking process? Oh my god, uploading to tumblr. I never really know what gifs are going to look good. Sometimes I'll spend ages on a set, upload to tumblr and it look like ass, so I have to redo the whole thing. It's infuriating.

43. Do you keep videos or delete them once you're done giffing? I keep them unless I need the space. I'm pretty lazy like that hahaha

47. Any advice for novice gif makers/people who want to start making gifs? Gif tutorials are your friend. I'm mostly self-taught but whenever I get really stuck, I search for gif tutorials. They are incredibly helpful.

That... was a lot of questions and I had to google prime numbers like a chump because I could only remember prime numbers up to 20 lmao

[mar64ds]

i know this isn't exactly a friendship-test question but it's semi-related, how did you find the ability, passion capability, to make your own rpg-style game? Its so well put together and functional (for presumably your first game? That you made on your own? If I'm correct, I may not be) I just think it oozes love for the genre sorry if this sounds rambly and strange, I just think you've made an excellent game and I just wanna know a little about the process, sorry again

- a weirdo that is obsessed with the idea of making a game

I’ve always wanted to make a game in rpg maker, it was the most accessible and easy to use game engine, at least for me. But don’t get me wrong it took me years to find the inspiration and motivation to do anything. You have no idea how many times I have downloaded rpg maker, watched 1 tutorial and then never opening it again for years. I just never had any idea for a game, I had ideas for stories, but none that would work well in an rpg maker game

Last year I spent so much time PLAYING games (toontown) that I felt a bit guilty I was being ‘unproductive’, but at the same time I was also filled with inspiration, and I was very hyperfixated on robots too, so combining all of that I had a small idea to test out rpg maker: friendship test. It started small, I was planning for the game to just be 4 hours, it was quite literally just a test game

I have ADHD, which means if I’m not motivated enough it takes me a lot to do things, but there is also the opposite, if I’m very focused on something it’s ALL I do, for better or worse. The more I worked and thought about the game, the more it started becoming something bigger and something I really really I cared about.

It is my first game and I worked on it all by myself yeah! A friend of mine playtested it, the music is all free-to-use songs I found online, but other than that I did everything myself. Youtube tutorials saved my life, I’m still not really an expert on RPG maker, there are plenty of things I have no idea how to do, but I understood the basics to make this game and I’m okay with that.

Taking the step of deciding to make a videogame wasn’t easy, I was worried it was going to suck every step of the way, I was so worried I was wasting my time. That feeling never really went away, I genuinely thought my game sucked so bad while I was working on it. The jokes felt unfunny, the dialogue felt unnatural, the drama felt forced, the pacing felt terrible, the story felt childish... But there were those few moments were I playtested it and thought ‘maybe its actually kind of good?’. My friend’s feedback also made me feel so much better, she really liked the game and I was happy at least one person liked it.

I also hate working on things but not showing all the work I’ve done to people, my friend was the only one I could truly talk about the story/she could play the game and she made me felt better cause it KILLS me to have to wait, I’m an impatient person on many things

My ADHD can also make me overwork myself too much, I had weeks where I worked too much and felt very alone and useless. Imagine spending all week working on something you think it’s terrible, and that you’re not even going to get any money from it. Add to the fact that I suffer from derealization and depersonalization, it’s not great. I went through a really bad depression in November and I’m sure all of this didn’t help.

Making this game wasn’t easy and I had no idea what I was doing. It’s a miracle that is playable and that people actually like it, I don’t know how it happened either. But thanks for this ask!

[saltysupercomputer]

So... I did it! I actually bought to the moon for myself! Watching a Let's Play is good and all, but playing the game yourself is just a whole new experience.

Also, I started playing the game together with my best friend! Here are some of my highlights form our playthrough so far:

-Him jokingly calling Niel 'Dr. Watson' because his last name is Watts and also he's really just Eva's sidekick. This was IMMEDIATELY before we reached the dialoug where Niel mentions that he once played Sherlock Homles in a school play and Eva insists that he was just Dr. Watson. Cue a five-minute laughing fit

-Niel has actually just been Dr. Watson from then on. Dr. Kevin Watson. I do not know where the Kevin came from but I'm rolling with it

-"From the introduction, I though this was going to be a sad game. I guess I was wrong." - My friend, immediately after the squirrel RPG battle

-From the moment on where it was mentioned that John just liked to be called 'Johnny', I started humming 'Johnny B. Goode' to myself whenever his name was mentioned

-Us yelling 'Kamehame-HAAAA!' in unison at each of the last memory links to shoot at the memento

-Him needing 35 tries to solve a memento because he was too impatient to actually look at the tutorial and just started pressing buttons at random, which completely scrambled the memento

-Me insisting on the fact that the game is actually a horror game. He knows it's not, but I still keep claiming it is, just for the fun of it

[heavyfreaked]

Gonna be dumping some 3D stuff I did earlier this year, because I don't JUST draw, I'm also learning how to use Blender. I'm not totally new to 3D stuff, when I was a kid I played around with a program called Swift 3D a lot. It was kinda crappy, there wasn't much you could do with it besides put textures on basic geometric shapes like spheres and cylinders, eventually getting tired of the limitations and upgrading, only to find Blender so much more complicated to use and it didn't help that the first tutorial I watched showed me how to do it in the worst most unintuitive way possible and being like 14 or 15 at the time I was too stupid and impatient to just try other tutorials to see if I'm really supposed to do it like that or if that guy was just some kind of masochist. So for years I only really used Blender to block out backgrounds and props to use as reference when drawing, until I got a 3D printer as a Christmas gift a couple years back. That gave me a reason to look into it again, find out how I'm actually supposed to do it, have a much easier time doing it that way, but not learning much more than what I'd need for printing. I'd given up on my animation dream years prior so there wasn't much reason to learn how to make character rigs, until Digital Circus came out. The simple art style and character designs, the aesthetic that made said art style and character designs look good, and the show premise that made said aesthetic look natural had a validating effect on me. I'll probably never have the skill or knowhow to make something that looks like Pixar or Dreamworks or even Jimmy Neutron, and I'll also probably never afford a computer that wouldn't catch fire trying to render it, let alone a thousand of them considering even with those powerful computers it still takes Pixar movies days to render a single frame, but I might be able to make something that looks like Digital Circus. Sure without the budget to hire a team of animators like they have it probably won't look as polished, probably won't be animated as fluidly, but if I work smarter instead of harder, maybe I can find a way to make that look good

[zhalfirin]

Hello there!

Every time i see one of your bound books, i just sit there with my jaw on the floor in awe. They look so stunning, everything is so cohesive, and your creativity amazes me every time 🥺💕

I'm about to fanbind my first work and I wanted to ask if you've got any tips or things you wish you'd have known earlier? Like, I know it's gonna be far from perfect and the process will probably be rather stressful for me (perpetually impatient perfectionist), but maybe you had a moment of "oh man this is so obvious, how could i go wrong there"?

I hope you're having a fantastic day, and I'm gonna admire your work a little more rn ✨😊

Hello and thank you so much. Reading your message definitely made my day <3

I'm very flattered you like my bindings and glad they feel cohesive. I'd love to say 'that's because I plan them so meticulously', but to be honest, I rarely know every detail of what I'll be doing for a bind when I start XD

Congratulations on the decision to jump down that rabbit hole!

Sadly, I can't really give hints on the purely self-taught approach, because I have indeed formal training and never had to find it all out by myself. There are great tutorials though and while some are really good and in depth from a professional perspective, they might be also difficult to follow for beginners when you still learn the terms for everything. Don't feel bad for starting with a tutorial you find easier to follow.

But still I can say, accept that you will make mistakes and there will be flaws. There will always be flaws or things you find you could improve on (at least in your eyes and even if no one else sees or cares for them). Don't be too hard on yourself when you make them. Take it as a lesson learned and a chance to improve.

Be as tidy and accurate in your work as you can. Your skill will improve and it will get easier to get the hinges right and corners neatly covered and all that.

Keep your work place clean (and a wet cloth and towel nearby to wipe your hands from glue frequently, that will help a lot with not getting stains on your book).

Don't be afraid to mark later covered parts of the book. Like, mark what side is front and what is up on the spine and on the case. Neither will be visible in the end and it really helps a lot. Still it happens that you case in upside down. So even with marking, double and triple check when you're about to do something that will be harder to correct later on. (Especially, make sure you gathered your sections correctly and all the pages are in the correct order and orientation before you sew!). Casing in upside down is annoying, but to be honest, it's not the end of the world and often an easier fix than the wrong order of pages or worse, a forgotten section!

I know its easy to want it all at once, high end materials, perfect typesets, immaculate bindings (I know I do), but give yourself the time to develop the skills needed, otherwise it can be very frustrating and might not give the joy one hoped for.

And finally, don't be afraid to ask questions! I find that most people (myself included) are open and willing to help if they can. I find the Renegade discord server to be a great community for that. A lot of people of all levels of skill and experience share their resources and knowledge and try to help each other there. (Be warned though, the server has grown intimidatingly huge, but still people try to help you from typesetting questions to fix printer issues to explain grain direction and how to build a case at pretty much every time of the day and night.)

They are also just generally nice and fun people and it's up to you if you prefer to lurk and learn or want to chat too.

I hope this helps a bit. Have a wonderful day yourself ^^

[photon-ephemera]

I have never been an Apple iDevice person but imma be honest, since Procreate put out the statement on anti-AI generated images and stuff, I have been looking into buying an iPad purely so I can start learning how to use Procreate (gdi for only being on iOS)

I have 3 pays until my birthday so HOPEFULLY I will be able to have enough saved to get it as a bday present to myself lol. I also have a con in a couple weeks so. Who knows how that will turn out. Artist Alleys make me wanna spend all of my money...I need to be careful :') I'm going both days so I need to be even more responsible LOL

Still umming and ahhing between the 11" and the 13" iPad Air M2 (I cannot justify the Pro, oof, I ain't made of money), and I definitely want the 256GB one. Obviously need the Apple Pencil too (Pro? Maybe?). Then there's the stuff like the case, need nib protectors too bc I want a paperlike screen protector bc I have a Samsung tablet atm and it's a glossy screen and it kinda sucks for drawing on. My Cintiq is a more matte screen which is SO MUCH NICER to draw on.

I have ideas and I want a portable option so I don't have to just sit at my desk, I can sit anywhere in the house or even bring it when I go out places, etc, etc...also Procreate has some really neat features (I love you CSP but I am not paying for 2 subscriptions) I was trying it out on my sister's iPad and it's pretty nice indeed, I could get used to this. Also the amount of user-made assets and tutorials for Procreate is so cool, I know I can definitely find something that's in the realm of what I'm wanting to do :3

Also I am one of those people who loves customising their devices and it's so much easier to do on an Apple device over an Android. I use a Samsung phone and I do have it to a point where I really like how I've customised it, but my tablet is another story - it's okay but ehhhh, I want it different. Yes I am going to change my icons when I get my iPad, this thing is gonna be so fun when I am done with it. Still thinking about if I should get a clear back folio case so I can stick prints and stuff in the back or if I should just go for a regular folio case, but that's a problem for idk, a few weeks from now.

Oh god my birthday is in just over a month-

Anyway yeah. Hoping to get the iPad and stuff around my birthday but knowing me it'll prooooobably be closer to Christmas but also I hate waiting so we'll see if my impatience is stronger than my impulsively spending on other stuff I don't need - place your bets now /hj

[cynicjovial]

I started dipping into watercolors recently and I think its really important to show this image

The one on the left is me trying to swatch my watercolors that I got for my time at art school (2016-2020), so that was the grade of skill with them I had back them too. I just didnt understand them. I couldnt really apply what the teacher told me, I just couldnt figure it out. I always played with watercolors but It's basically the medium I suck at the most, one of the resons also being I work fast and impatiently, and watercolors are one of the slowest mediums (ironically, i specialized in oil painting, but the fact that the school hours kinda forced me to short sessions and to wait between them, it went way better lol).

The paper on the right is me swatching the same set. Barely two days later.

Only thing that changed was that I watched a couple of video tutorials on youtube.

So yeah. Maybe the only thing that's stopping you from getting better at something is because you never found the right teacher for you, or that it wasnt explained in a way that worked for your style of painting. But theres always time to improve. I'm finally understanding watercolors 3 years after finishing art school. It feels nice.

[catnatch]

HII hello i love your products <3 Especially the phone chams and the pins,,, I'm unable to buy them myself but i would absolutely love to

How do you make em btw? do you have someone else do em for you? Do you do em yourself? I'd love to sell stuff like that too, but i'm unsure of how to start >_<"

you should totally do it!! it's nice to have something especially catered to ur tastes haha

for most of my stuff i (and many others lol) use vograce! they have a bunch of different kinds of merch, have sales pretty frequently, and very low minimum buy requirements. i've also had good customer service experiences and even though it can take a while for overseas shipping they are generally good about getting it in the mailing system quickly

for enamel pins, i've used vivipins. i've only used them twice, but no problems so far. enamel pins are probably the most you have to invest upfront since the minimum amount you have to buy is usually quite high

for stickers i often use sticker ninja, they give you extra on what you order, are very high quality, and the sample option is great if you don't want a huge bulk (and they still give you extras here too!!)

for prints i honestly just use my local walgreens! and for my test doujinshi i used my local staples! buttons and small postcards/prints and booklets (like the doujinshi) can also be fairly easy to find a local printer for as well ^^ (and it can be fairly cheap- for souyo zine i needed 200 of 2 postcard designs and got both for ~$50 from a local printer)

sidenote: one time i did try to diy my own shrink charms and they went very poorly LMAO but it was still fun to try- this was the tutorial i used and it probably works fine i am just v impatient sometimes

good luck to you on making things \o/

[humorisstoredinthetits]

Heathers x I'm In Love With the Villainess

I'm a fan of both properties, and I've noticed that Claire and Heather Chandler are basically the same person, so I've thought of an AU where instead of becoming obsessed with Revolution, Rae/Rei becomes obsessed with Heathers the Musical and Heather Chandler and gets isekai-ed into it

So instead of her friend giving her a copy of Revolution, she gives Rei a link to a slime tutorial of Heathers the Musical, and she similarly becomes obsessed with it, watching it over and over again until she could recite it from memory

And similarly to canon, she ignores the male love interest in JD and obsesses over Heather Chandler

In either universe, Rei still has a type, spoiled bossy rich blonde girls who wear red

She reads Y/N fanfiction about Chandler, and when she runs out of that she starts to write her own

She would watch the musical every night when she got home from work, over and over again

That is until one night when she falls asleep after an exhausting day at work, and wakes up and sees Heather Chandler speaking to her, saying 'This is an excellent forgery, who are you?'

She is super confused until she looks at the mirror next to her and sees that she is not herself, she is Veronica

Chandler gets impatient and asks again

Rei/Veronica panics before quickly deciding on her response

"I'm Veronica Sawyer and I love you!"

All 3 Heathers are completely stunned at her declaration and it takes a minute before they get their wits together

Chandler says she was going to invite her to their clique, but they don't want lesbians and to go back to playing dolls with Martha Dumptruck

Rei thinks about just leaving the bathroom, but a plan was starting to from in her mind and to fulfill the plan she needed to be in the Heathers, so she throws out Veronica's line about permission slips and absence notes and that grabs the Heather's attention

Chandler does agree to let her into the group, but she lets Rei know that if she pulls the lesbian shit again, she'd become a social pariah

Rei says "I'm perfectly okay with that, as long as I get to be around my Chan-Chan"

So over the next two weeks before JD arrives, Rei attempts to get settled into her new life as Veronica

Of course, there are a few problems with that

For one, Heathers the Musical has a very limited canon, especially compared to say, an otome game and as such the amount of information she has access to is also very limited

Like, for example, she doesn't know where Veronica lives or what the name of her parents are

And since Heathers was in 1989, she doesn't have a cell phone to find her house or call her 'parents' to come pick her up and she doesn't know their phone numbers

She has to go find a phone book, find her 'parent's' numbers, and find a phone to call them on to come pick her up

Another issue, Veronica is very intelligent and takes upper level classes like Physics and shit, and Rei is not very good in those subjects, so her grades start to dip and she had to explain it to her 'parents'

But back to her plan, she plans to follow canon up until the point where JD hands her the drain cleaner and right before she gives it to Chandler and 'notice' it before yelling at JD while also saving Chandler's life and making her grateful and hopefully she begins to develop feelings for her

As you may expect, things do not exactly go as planned

Rei flirts with Chandler at every given opportunity, turning her harsh words against her into compliments which only enrage her more

Chandler can't get rid of her though, as (who she believes to be) Veronica's talent for forgery is too convenient to let go, as well as the possibility this could be used against her

Rei learned how to forge handwriting in her old life because she obsessed over any thing that was apart of Heathers, forgery included

Thank god she learned how to do it, because if she didn't then she would have no leverage to stay in the Heathers, which is vital to her plan

If she's not in the Heathers, she can't be kicked out later, and if she isn't kicked out then she has no reason to show up to Chandler's house to apologize then save her

Another problem, Martha knows something is up

She tries to question 'Veronica' about it but she always deflects

Martha keeps quiet, for now, but eventually she says to herself that she'll confront Veronica about it, because the Veronica that came out of the bathroom with the Heathers is not the same Veronica that went into it

Two weeks pass and Rei gets settled into her role as Veronica

She goes to lunch that day and the Heathers goad her into writing the fake note from Ram, which Rae remembers from the show the Heathers don't actually look at

Much to her dismay, they don't get up and start singing Candy Store, which is a shame

So instead of writing what Chandler wants her to, she writes "Martha, the Heathers are trying to trick you, after you finish reading pretend like you've heard the greatest news in the world and you're just so excited that you had to tell me, I promise that I'll explain everything later"

Thankfully like she predicted, the Heathers don't read the note and they hand it to Martha, who reads it and while she is confused, she does as Rei explained and the Heathers are none the wiser

Rei decided to change this because she planned to get kicked out of the Heathers when they discover that Martha didn't show to the party, when she would reveal that she faked the note

While this didn't boost her chances of getting with Chandler in any way, this saves Martha from going through much of the emotional turmoil

JD approaches her and with her knowledge from seeing the show over and over she is able to copy the conversation they had during the musical

JD then starts the fight during lunch

She later meets up with him at 7/11 while he talks about his dead mom and thats when Rei comes to a realization

She's a lesbian, how is she supposed to do the deed with JD

She has to go to JD's house to make sure that he tries to give the drain cleaner to Chandler, but she can't stomach the thought of doing it with a man

That thought stays with her all night because she doesn't have a good answer to it

She goes to the party, avoids drinking or smoking as to not cloud her judgment and loosen her lips so nothing gets revealed prematurely

Eventually Kurt and Ram bring out the pig pinyattah (i'm spelling it like this on purpose) and Chandler tries to get Martha to come hit it, but to her shock Martha is no where to be found

Of course she blames 'Veronica' and Rei confirms that she faked the note and warned Martha about the plan

She then gets kicked out of the Heathers, before vomiting on Chandler's shoes instead of her, the need to vomit coming from stress instead of whatever she drank or smoked

She then leaves the party before freaking out bc holy shit what is she gonna do

She can go to JD's house and just not do it, but that introduces unknown variables, like what if his reaction isn't the same when she comes into his house and they don't immediately do the deed

And again, she doesn't know where his house is, which this lack of knowledge on where people's houses are is becoming a problem, so there's no guarantee that she even finds his house anyway

She decides to screw it and just find JD's house and hope for the best, but while walking around looking for it she passes by Chandler's house (which she knowns where it is bc she's been there before) and sees that her car is in the driveway, meaning that she is home

Rei takes this as a sign and climbs up into Chandler's window

She, of course, freaks out seeing 'Veronica' climb into her room

She tries to apologize and get forgiveness but Chandler just laughs her off, telling her to enjoy her last few hours of freedom before Monday comes around and she's dead meat

At this point Rei is desperate, she doesn't know what else to do besides pull out her secret weapon

**Line break bc tumblr is dumblr**

Her favorite song had always been The Me Inside of Me because she assumed not everything Veronica and JD made up was false so she decided to shout in fake anger "Why are you like is, why do you feel the need to be such a bitch? Do you parents not love you? Is your bitchiness some kind of mask? Just what the hell is your problem?"

She said some more than that, including lines from the song like "looks being just like prison bars"

It hurt Rei to speak to her crush like that but if it worked out like she hoped then it would be amazing

Chandler looks pissed, but quickly drops her scowl and slumps down onto her bed saying "Is it really that obvious?"

From there Chandler begins to vent about her problems, the impossible standards her parents held her to, her need to always be the best so that people have a reason to keep her around and wanting to be in charge so she feels like she has some control over her life

Rei reassures her that she does like her regardless and that if no one else, she wants her around

Chandler says that she's just saying that, but Rei asserts that she does and that she loves her

She questions those feelings, to which Rei confirms they are genuine to which she can only ask why

Rei then goes into this long, fangirly speech about how amazing Chandler is which caused Chandler to blush

Chandler then sighs before telling 'Veronica' that this conversation never happened, but she's back in the Heathers as long as she keeps the secret

Rei agrees gleefully before leaving the house

At this point in her plan, she questions what she's gonna do, before saying 'I don't know, I didn't think I would get this far"

She comes to the conclusion that there are two main goals

She needs to placate JD's homicidal urges, and she needs to keep up her friendship with Chandler, which will hopefully blossom into a relationship

She decides the best way to deal with the former is to introduce JD and Martha so they will have a friend outside of 'Veronica', which works out well, they get along and have someone to spend time with when she's busy with Heather stuff

She also decides to make time to spend with them and talk to them about their problems, during which she hopes to get to the root of why JD wants to kill and put a stop to it

However, she thinks that she's already sort of done that, as during their talks she revealed that she's a lesbian, making dating JD an impossibility

She hopes by doing that, it wont make JD so desperate for her, as he knows that no matter what he does, it wouldn't work out between them, and she knows that their relationship was one of the main factors that led to him wanting to kill

She also makes time for Chandler, pulling her aside sometimes to ask how she's doing

Chandler finds this annoying at first and brushes her off, but eventually she breaks and starts talking to 'Veronica' about her struggles, which Rei always comforts her over

Rei starts to notice a change in Chandler during these times

Chandler has less outbursts where she yells at freshmen over things, she doesn't bully people as much, and she's even nicer to Duke

By giving Chandler another outlet to vent her struggles to, she felt less of a need to let out her struggles in other ways

She still flirts with her whenever the opportunity arises, and sometimes she sees her blush

Eventually one day Chandler asks her to stay behind while the other two head to class, after which she pulls Rei into a bathroom and before she can say anything she pulls her into a long, deep kiss before blushing deeply and running out of the bathroom

Rei pretty much cannot function normally for the rest of the day after that

Of course, something had to ruin it, and surprisingly it wasn't JD

JD had been doing really well, he had two stable friends who were willing to listen to his issues and actually wanted him around and even if he couldn't date 'Veronica', he still appreciated her friendship

Martha was the one who ruined everything

She'd been suspicious ever since Veronica joined the Heathers, her personality seemingly shifted overnight and she went from detesting Chandler to being in love with her, and when she happened to see her and Chandler making out in the bathroom, she felt enraged and betrayed and decided to spread the rumor around school

By lunchtime the whole school knew that Heather Chandler was a lesbian, and Chandler didn't even know until she entered the lunchroom and everyone started laughing at her before Duke explained everything

She fled the room, with Rei in pursuit

When they got to an isolated place Chandler starting bawling, saying that her world was falling apart and that she blamed 'Veronica' for making her fall in love with her

She then told her that she hated her and wanted nothing to do with her

Rei's heart shattered at this point and she sank to her knees while Chandler bolted out the front doors

After crying for a bit her sadness turned to rage

She assumed Duke was the one who saw them, because who else would have been around and had enough social status to be believed

And given what happened after Chandler's death in canon, she was sure it was her

Her hands curled into fists and she marched into the lunchroom and launched herself at Duke, sending the both of them flying across the table

She fucked up Duke pretty badly, broke her nose

She got suspended and her 'parents' had to come pick her up

She got grounded but she ignored them and immediately went to Chandler's

Chandler was sobbing into her pillow when Rei came in through the window again

She cried harder and tried forcing her out but Rei wouldn't leave so eventually she calmed down

Rei told her about what happened between her and Duke to which Chandler said that she got what was coming to her, but she also is gonna make their lives a living hell after that

Rei says something sappy like "I'd go through hell as long as we're together" which makes Chandler giggle a little and then they kiss

Rei tries to tell her that its not gonna be so bad, they'll hang out with Martha and JD and sure it won't be like she's used to but difference isn't always a bad thing

Chandler seems unconvinced but she agrees to at least try

Chandler skips school until Rei's suspension is over because she's too afraid of what's gonna happen

The day comes when Rei returns to school and Chandler is basically hiding behind her

Rei walks into school with her head held high, but its all for naught because people stay away from her and by extension, Chandler, probably because they are too afraid of getting their asses beat like Duke did

At lunchtime they go straight to the loser table with Martha and JD

Everyone has their eyes on them, including Duke, who has a large bandage covering her nose

Martha tries to hold in her disdain for Chandler while JD actually gets along with her

Eventually it gets to be too much and Martha launches into a triade, accusing Chandler of doing something to change Veronica and of bullying her and all sorts of shit

(Martha is sort of in the right here bc Chandler did bully her, but she also outed Chandler and by extension her best friend to the entire school which is also pretty fucked up)

Rei quickly comes to the realization that it wasn't Duke who found them

It was Martha

The only thing that stops her from attacking her like she did with Duke is that she had sympathy for Martha because of everything that happened in canon, while she never really cared for Duke

Rei launches into her own triade, asking Martha just what the hell her problem was

Martha realizes at this point that she fucked up but is still pissed that her best friend, her only friend for literal years took her bully's side over hers

**Line break 2 electric boogaloo I hate word count limits**

Rei argues that yeah, what Chandler did was really fucked up and that she needs to apologize, but that didn't give Martha the right to fuck up Chandler's whole life

She isn't exactly thrilled over Chandler's actions but she's also pissed that Martha outed Chandler, also outing herself, which is when she gets really mad

She starts getting flashbacks to when she got outed in her old life and that only fuels her rage

Martha didn't think it through fully and she begins to apologize but Rei doesn't want to hear it and walks away

Chandler and JD also get up and walk away

JD is in the same boat as 'Veronica', he agrees what Chandler did was shitty but Martha did something that was almost worse

Surprisingly Mac also gets up and follows them, telling them that she's so tired of the popularity bullshit and she just wants her best friend back

Things stay the same for a few weeks

The 4 of them hang out and just try to live and have fun outside of the popularity bullshit

They all kind of feel bad for Martha though, even Rei once she calms down a little and when she comes to their table a few days later to apologize, Chandler surprises everyone by apologizing first

Throughout all of this Rei and Chandler continue dating

They go on dates and don't really have to hide because the news spread around like wildfire, in addition to the news that the tall blue one would beat the crap out of you if said anything

Eventually high school ends and Chandler and Mac take a bunch of their parent's money and they all leave Ohio for good

Rei never ends up telling anyone about her true origins, she decides that coming from the future and an alternate reality would be too much to explain and it provides little to no benefit

I find the idea of Rei being isekai-ed into Heathers interesting bc unlike in canon where all she needed to do was ensure that Claire survived the revolution, something that she could not prevent, in Heathers she would have to prevent JD's murder spree and then figure out how to keep going after that which because of the butterfly effect could have been a number of any different scenarios, while on top of all of that getting together with Chandler