#simplify website forms

[guyrcook]

Boost My Conversions Today: 7 Proven Strategies That Work

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[insurance-brokers-india]

What are the next steps after obtaining an insurance broker license, and how can you generate potential leads using Mzapp CRM software?

Congratulations on securing your insurance broker license! The journey doesn’t end here; it’s just the beginning of building a successful insurance brokerage. Here’s how you can proceed and leverage Mzapp CRM software to find potential leads:

Steps After Getting Your Insurance Broker License

Understand Your Market: Research your target audience (individuals, businesses, or specific sectors).

Develop a Business Plan: Set goals for client acquisition, revenue, and operational processes.

Build a Network: Partner with insurance providers and attend industry events to establish your presence.

Create an Online Presence: Build a professional website and maintain active profiles on social platforms.

Offer Value-Added Services: Educate customers on policies, claims management, and risk assessments.

Using Mzapp CRM Software to Generate Leads

Lead Capture: Utilize Mzapp’s integrated forms and web tracking tools to capture inquiries from your website or social media.

Automated Follow-Ups: Set up personalized email and SMS follow-ups to nurture leads effectively.

Lead Scoring: Prioritize leads based on their interaction history, ensuring you focus on high-potential prospects.

Data-Driven Campaigns: Use analytics to identify what works and launch targeted campaigns.

Seamless Policy Management: Impress leads by showcasing how smoothly you manage policies and claims through Mzapp.

Why Choose Mzapp CRM?

Mzapp CRM simplifies lead management, streamlines operations, and provides insights into customer behavior, making it easier to convert prospects into loyal clients.

Learn more about how Mzapp can transform your insurance business here.

[pukicho]

hey @pukicho i saw your art and i thought it was super cool! you improved so quickly (really impressive btw), and i was wondering what resources used to study art? and what app/website you digitally draw on? and your brushes if your okay with sharing them? and literally ANY other information you had because i would love to learn how to draw?

i feel like a victorian street rat asking for more bread

I use an XP-Pen Pen Tablet and Clip Studio Paint as my program of choice, but any pencil and notebook will suffice for learning, and may even be better. As for learning, I use books, baby!!! BOOKS! I'll even be nice and tell u which ones, because I am a lover of shared knowledge:

How To Draw by Scott Robtertson - deceptively complex book on perspective. It tells you how to draw a box, I then suggest you draw a fuck-load of boxes in correct perspective before moving forward. Having a strong grasp on planes and perspective allows you to properly grasp the volumes and shape of almost anything. It's the baseline principle to visualizing what u wanna draw. Without simple forms understood in perspective, you merely lack the skills necessary to draw from imagination.

Carlson's guide to landscape Painting - A good book, even if u don't intend to draw landscapes. Tons of clever explanations on lighting and value. Tons of useful relational shortcuts to understand complex scenery in smarter ways. I like the way he explains things, it makes me go ohhhh.

TACO point character drawing 1 & 2 - Two NEAT anatomy reference books. It's mostly just a collection of simplified, anime-esque proportional figure drawings. They're a great reference, but I absolutely wouldn't use it as my only set of books on anatomy. It's still useful to use and learn, but in a more general way - and I can't currently apply everything the book tells me yet, because I haven't learned the forms in more detail first.

The Human Figure by Jon H Vanderpoel - this is a short, but VERY useful anatomy reference book. The Author is from the early 1900s - real oldschool, which is good. He has a very useful, matter-of-fact writing style. This is the better starter book to use in order to remember the proportional relationships of the human body (even then, it's still not enough)

The Practice of Oil Painting & Drawing by Solomon J. Solomon - I'll be honest, this one makes sense to me conceptually, but I cannot fucking execute some of his practices. This dude is from the victorian era, his paintings are in museums and they're too good. It only makes sense that his views and approach to art are headier than some of the other suggestions on this list. The book is still useful, and I presume will only grow in usefulness as I learn. It does still have some cool ideas in the first-half of the book that you can easily apply to your art studies! But the second half is a series of master-derived schools of learning that I have yet to dare touch.

(also check out loomis books. I hear they are good)

ENJOY

[reasonsforhope]

"As the world grows “smarter” through the adoption of smartphones, smart fridges, and entire smart houses, the carbon cost of that technology grows, too. 

In the last decade, electronic waste has become one of the fastest-growing waste streams in the world. 

According to The World Counts, the globe generates about 50 million tons of e-waste every year. That’s the equivalent of 1,000 laptops being trashed every second. 

After they’re shipped off to landfills and incinerated, the trash releases toxic chemicals including lead, cadmium, arsenic, mercury, and so much more, which can cause disastrous health effects on the populations that live near those trash sites. 

Fortunately, Franziska Kerber — a university student at ​​FH Joanneum in Graz, Austria — has dreamed up a solution that helps carve away at that behemoth problem: electronics made out of recyclable, dissolvable paper. 

On September 11, Kerber’s invention “Pape” — or Paper Electronics — earned global recognition when it was named a national winner of the 2024 James Dyson Awards. 

When she entered the scientific competition, Kerber demonstrated her invention with the creation of several small electronics made out of paper materials, including a fully-functional WiFi router and smoke detector. 

“Small electronic devices are especially prone to ending up in household waste due to unclear disposal systems and their small size, so there is significant potential to develop a more user-friendly end-of-life system,” Kerber wrote on the James Dyson Award website. 

“With this in mind, I aimed to move beyond a simple recycling solution to a circular one, ensuring long-term sustainability.” 

Kerber’s invention hinges on crafting a dissolvable and recyclable PCB board out of compressed “paper pulp.” 

A printed circuit board (PCB) is a board that can be found in nearly all modern electronic devices, like phones, tablets, and smartwatches.

But even companies that have started incorporating a “dissolution” step into the end life of their products require deconstruction to break down and recover the PCB board before it can be recycled. 

With Kerber’s PAPE products, users don’t need to take the device apart to recycle it.

“By implementing a user-friendly return option, manufacturers can efficiently dissolve all returned items, potentially reusing electronic components,” Kerber explained. 

“Rapidly advancing technology, which forms the core of many devices, becomes obsolete much faster than the structural elements, which are often made from plastics that can last thousands of years,” Kerber poses. 

PAPE, Kerber says, has a “designed end-of-life system” which anticipates obsolescence. 

“Does anyone want to use a thousand-year-old computer?” Kerber asks. “Of course not. … This ensures a sustainable and reliable system without hindering technological advancement.”"

-via GoodGoodGood, September 13, 2024

[deerspherestudios]

I’m super curious about Atom!!!! Firstly, they’re so cute :(((( I would be so nice to them right off the bat. I could match that energy (maybe not the…liquefying people part, but I can Definitely meet the upbeat “get to know you” energy!!!!)

But I’m also curious about their little “worm transform-y” ability. There are a TON of implications to what they said about it, and I’m very interested to know which of those implications are true

So maybe I’m taking Atom too literally, but I’m pretty sure at one point they said “I can make your air.” Which, they WOULD need to make MC air, if they were to keep you in space forever. Air is limited.

But you can’t breathe in worms. So that means Atom’s worm (body?) transformation legitimately BECOMES whatever they will it to. Not just imitates. That dog food wasn’t worms, it was dog food. And the air isn’t worms, it’s air!!

And then that stretches into other questions. Could Atom take any form they wish? What would happen if they transformed all their worms? Can they feel when their worms (body??) are being transformed?

You don’t have to answer that slew of questions at the end lmao—maybe I’m reading too much into it. But!! I LOVE Atom and all the implications that their existence holds. I had a lot of fun playing the game :DD

Aaa I'm really glad you like Atom as much as you do!! I don't know if it's just new blorbo energy but I get excited to talk about them, especially in detail like this haha! I'll try to explain below the cut about their ability to create things (tw// it's long!!) but to keep it short, you're actually correct!

TLDR: Atom reconstructs their worms into different forms of matter (whether solid/liquid/gas) to produce whatever you need to survive. Because, uh,,, science. <3

Here's the lengthy explanation of what Atom can do. I'm not smart enough to explain it but I'm stealing this from another website:

Transmutation or nuclear transmutation is a process that involves a change in the nucleus of an atom. When the number of protons in the nucleus of an atom changes, the identity of that atom changes as it is turned into another element or isotope.[1] This transmutation process can be either natural or artificial.

Simplifying it further for my character, when Atom talks about being better than a planet, they kinda are! They can make anything as long as they know what it is (I've yet to come up with 'how' they discover new elements,,, it's implied in-game but I wanna flesh it out more; ask me again later keheh), and the worms that make them up is an unlimited resource/material for those exact transmutations. And if something turns into waste, like the rejected dog food, they just crunch them up to be re-used all over again.

Remember what they said about being your 'angel'? Not to be too on the nose but in a way they turned the Bidadari into your own personal terrarium, with it being the ecosystem keeping you alive in space. Which, in my personal opinion, makes the ending much more terrifying.

Here's a lightning round to answer your questions because I don't know when I'll get these kinds of questions again!!

Could Atom take any form they wish?

Nope! They're still just worms! When they 'make' something it's no longer a part of them.

2. What would happen if they transformed all their worms?

Highly unlikely to happen, but let's say for experimentation's sake Atom is forced to use up all their worms and the end result is separated from it so they can't absorb it back into themselves like the dog food. It has to leave one single organism behind, but it can't really do anything. That single organism eventually will multiply all the way back to its former (mass wriggling) glory.

3. Can they feel when their worms (body??) are being transformed?

Nope! They don't really feel anything, at the most they feel pressure and temperature changes but that's it.

THANK YOU FOR COMING TO MY TEDTALK HAVE A NICE DAY! HERE'S YOUR REWARD <3

[transgenderer]

The origins of The Game are uncertain. The most common hypothesis as is that The Game derives from another mental game, Finchley Central. While the original version of Finchley Central involves taking turns to name stations, in 1976 some members of the Cambridge University Science Fiction Society (CUSFS) developed a variant where the first person to think of the titular station loses. The game in this form demonstrates ironic processing, in which attempts to suppress or avoid certain thoughts make those thoughts more common or persistent than they would be at random.

How this became simplified into The Game is unknown; one hypothesis is that once it spread outside the Greater London area, among people who are less familiar with London stations, it morphed into its self-referential form. The creators of "LoseTheGame.net", a website which aims to catalogue information relating to the phenomenon, have received messages from multiple former members of the CUSFS commenting on the similarity between the Finchley Central variant and the modern Game. The first known reference to The Game is a blog post from 2002 – the author states that they "found out about it online about 6 months ago".

Finchley Central is a mind game in which two players take turns naming stations in the London Underground. The first person to name Finchley Central is the winner. Of course, the first player could say "Finchley Central" straight away, but as mathematics professor Jonathan Partington notes,

An opening move of "Finchley Central" is too much of a cheat, and you might wish to start with, say, Liverpool Street, when, assuming that your opponent isn't rude enough to reply with Finchley Central, leaves you with a mate on your second move (though you probably would prefer to stall by playing, say, Bank, in the hopes of a more spectacular win later).

It is clear that the ‘best’ time to say Finchley Central is exactly before your opponent does. Failing that it is good that he should be considering it. You could, of course, say ‘Finchley Central’ on your second turn. In that case, your opponent puffs on his cigarette and says, ‘Well… Shame on you.’

I think the American mind cannot comprehend the nature of finchley central

[tesscourtes]

WAITER WAITER! more yapping about human bill please!!

seriously, i love fall-from-grace stories, especially if the involve a super powerful entity being forced to rely on people that HATE them (they deserve it), so i am eagerly waiting to hear ANYTHING about your bill, yap away i am listening intently

HHHHHH THANKS FOR THE PERMISSION TO YAP ... You hit the nail on the head that a heavy plot point really is Bill being at the mercy of the Pines Family here, and as much as they hate this burden be thrown at them, after finally leaving all of this behind them, they will always choose what feels right. And everyone loves a good "doomed to be soulmates" narrative.

With TBOB and thisisnotawebsitedotcom throwing new stuff at us everyday right now, I'm especially going nuts with concepts, throwing shit out and adding new things, stuff about the characters and how Bill talks about them I wanna keep in mind ... yet I also try to just simplify things and focus ... at the moment I am throwing anything that comes to mind on discord/my notes app and so far there are concepts for 6 chapters in total and I jus ... wish I could astral project them onto paper and throw them at you guys HAHAH. The cult chapter remains to be the one I'm most excited to work on, it's just gonna be very ... Billford heavy. Like, that's when the "Oh Shit I care about him" moment hits.

Also I want Bill to interact with so many characters???? but then again I really need to focus and simplify??? It's gonna be a trashy, ridiculous love story. Whatever other character interaction I come up with I can probably throw randomly on paper, detached form the overall plot line. Like mini chapters. Can someone pay me to do this so I can throw my life at this project???

Anyways, I spent my morning collecting all the new info from the website we got last night, I'm gonna get back to writing now. Maybe later there will be time for art ...

Until then, here's a sketch of them after their night out at Bill's old cult. I just like him in his widdle suit. :)

[saturnianoracle]

How to learn real astrology: what it is and is not

As above, so below, as within, so without, as the universe, so the soul.

It is VITAL that if you want to understand astrology properly, you come in with an open mind and forget everything you think you know. Especially, remove yoruself from the belief that astrology is some occultic mystical spiritual practice, and/or that it is solely some psychological tool.

I used to be quite the hater of astrology. None of it 'resonated', and it seemed like wishy washy hippie shit. In lockdown, astrology stuff kept coming onto my feed, and some of it made sense, but most still did not. I then initially wanted to debunk astrology. But when I properly stated looking into it, the deeper I went the more accurate it started to become. Equally, parts still remained highly inaccurate. But this was due to a mismatch of how 'influencers' out there synthesised and understood the traditional foundations of astrology and modern information. Thus, I committed myself to truly understanding astrology, and my life has significantly improved for it and I've only just started.

As an introductory post to what astrology really is, I have formatted it into the following sections: i. the problem with pop culture astrology, ii, the history of astrology, iii. how astrology works, and iv. where meaning in astrology comes from.

The problem with pop culture astrology

This is the type of astrology we see in newspaper horoscopes, online articles, tiktok viral posts, instagram horoscopes, etc.

This is borne out of the allure astrology holds for desperate individuals seeking an easy and quick answer to their life problems, and using it as a form of confirmation bias for hating their ex (for example). But this misuse of astrology will undoubtedly hit for most people, due to the barnum effect, but is ultimately inaccurate and those who think it true have now misleadingly correlated the pop culture reasons for why X happened to what astrology is.

The new moon in your 7th house is not a sign that your crush will leave his partner for you. Being a gemini sun does not mean you are a two faced, loyal-less individual. Having your sun sign the same as their venus sign does not mean you two are compatible. And so on and so forth.

Here are some key things to understand about astrology:

✎ Stop using co-star, and those websites which give you your astrology information like this:

-> This does not tell you anything remotely significant aside from standard archetypal and superifical meanings of having a sun in Sagittarius or whatever (which you might not even 'relate' to, because of a multitude of other factors this does not show). Your chart instead, should, at the very least look like this:

-> Even better, make a chart and add in decans, asteroids, and considers more aspects. Viewing your birth chart like this is essential for gaining a better understanding. Aspects are what brings everything in your chart together to give it more significant and individualised meaning, the houses and the angles are also explicitly identifiable this way. Also, always make sure your chart is in whole sign houses, I will make a post on this later on why, but you will have to go to settings for this as popculture astrology has made placidus the default (as well as other inaccurate takes).

✎ Sun sign is astrology is fake, no matter how much you think it resonates with you it is the wrong footing to base your understanding of astrology off of. Astrology is extremely complex, one thing might resonate for one person and not for another, because of house placements, condition of the planet, aspects to the planet, etc. Consequently, all basic and simplified delineations of a chart are unhelpful and will put you on the wrong footing for future proper readings you might wish to do. This is how astrology can be so inaccurate.

✎ Astrology is not about resonating. Although, this is a part of how we can test astrology, it is linked far too much with resonating with personality. Your birth chart is not a map of who you are specifically, we evolve all the time (as the universe, so the soul), it is a map of your entire life. It is a map of the sky and its energies the minute you were born. Some things you think you do not resonate with is because those energies have not yet played out in your life.

✎ Astrology is not a psychological tool, although it can give us insight into psychology when used and understood properly. Again, it is the blueprint of our life.

✎ Astrology is not spiritual. It is not a belief system, either. Although, one can use astrology to advance their spiritual practices.

✎ Free will exists. I will likely go into this in another post but the energies of our bith chart, solar return chart, profection year, progressed charts, transits etc, are merely indications of how things are likely to unfold. The energies are malleable within their themes' ambit, and it is up to us to decide how we choose to interpret what is/will happen and what to do with that information. A transit might indicate difficulty in a law suit, ok, how can I mitigate that then? What other charts, energies, and transits can I use? If I did not know of this then I would not know how to alter my behaviour to yield a better results, even if it might not mean a completely opposite result.

✎ Your natal chart will not show you everything. There are relocated charts, progressed charts, solar return charts, profection years, etc. All this goes into a holistic assessment. Your natal chart, however, will always remain the anchor of it all.

A brief history

Astrology is not some woo-woo, spiritual, new age, belief system. Astrology's history and use goes back to the Babylonians. It used to be intertwined with astronomy; Galielo and Kepler, for example, were simultaneously astrologers and practised it widely (even as court astrologers). People in positions of power have always consulted astrologers to time events, in the modern era many Royal families, celebrities, and politicans still consult astrologers. Carl Jung, JP Morgan, Nancy Reagan, and Roosevelt are examples of this. Of course, it might be argued that just because famous people have used/use astrology does not give it any more credit to which I say: ok please read my post below pls and ty xo.

Astrology's history has been relatively tumultuous, however. I have condensed this timeline from an article I found below:

- Astrology was a widely accepted practice but, in Europe, after the fall of the Roman empire and much of Europe, it fell into decline along with other disicplines. - The middle ages saw a renaissance of intellectualism with a particular focus on science and thus the astronomy part of it. This was largely due to the Church who viewed astrology as divination and going against free will. - However, in other parts of the world astrology was still a crucial element of daily life, and those in power would use astrologers to time events. - Astrology did re-enter the curriculum, though, in the 14th century, with a focus on being used for medical astrology in part due to the recently available Hippocratic Corpus. These texts were crucial to advancing our understanding of medicine, but Hippocrates emphasised that "a physician without knowledge of astrology has no right to call himself a physician". Astrologer still had a healthy dose of criticism back then, though. - Astrology was a major field of study in universities in Europe, well ingrained in daily life. - It died out in the 17th century, mostly due to the increasing emphasis on science being increasingly and misleadingly viewed as separate from astrology, the church, and astrologers falling into disrepute due to political involvement. - Its resurgence in the 19th century saw an oversimplified, and largely 'spiritualised' version of astrologer. This is because this period also saw an increased interest in the occult and mystic. - Since becoming conflated, astrology has become even further diluted, but this is not to say that every new discovery has been wrong; modern interpretation is crucial to informing the bigger picture of astrology and how we can utilise it. But it is vital to be critical and separate it from pop culture nonsense, aimed at lost and desperate people looking for quick answers and confirmation bias, and have some media literacy.

So, how does astrology work?

: ̗̀➛ Astrology has NOTHING to do with the physical constellations. Astrology is based on the signs on the ecliptic (the path of the sun amongst the constellations, which is the plane of the earth's orbit).

: ̗̀➛ The equator has 15 constellations, and the ecliptic has 13. So why do we have 12 zodiac signs? This is because babylonians divided the ecliptic into 12 equal segments of 30 degrees each thousands of years ago. The ecliptic was divided into SIGNS. 12 constellations were just used to identify where in the sky each sign would be, at the time for ease of astronomical mapping/calculation - it is merely symbolic. This is why Opphiuchus is not the 13th Zodiac SIGN, although it is a constellation (and has always been known).

: ̗̀➛ Another reason why they are not based off the physical constellations is because the actual size of the constellations vary massively in size. Below is a representation of this:

: ̗̀➛ As you can see, Virgo, for instance is huge, and on a literal view overlaps into the next segment because the constellations do not all equally fit a 30 degree division. Yet, we do not give scorpio like 5 days for its season, because the physical constellation does not dictate anything meaningful.

This gives us the tropical zodiac, which is to do with the earth's seasons:

: ̗̀➛ The solstices are therefore reference points for Capricorn and Cancer (tropic of capricorn and tropic of cancer), not the constellations themselves. Accordingly, the spring equinox is marked by Aries (with the sun entering the segment of Aries at 0 degrees until 29), and the autumn equinox by Libra.

: ̗̀➛ The precession of the equinoxes, are therefore irrelevant to astrology (and this is why vedic/sidereal is, in my opinion inaccurate). The slow change of the direction of the earth's axial tilt, over around 26000 years, cause a precession of the equinoxes. This means, the segment of the sky that used to be identified by the Aries constellation from the earth's position at the time, is now looking at Pisces. But as we know, astrology has nothing to do with the physical location of the constellations. Vedic astrologers use sidereal positioning, aka taking into account the precession of the equinoxes, yet they still divide the ecliptic in the same way. This causes problems, leading to many branches in vedic because few agree on where aries actually even starts. But, I will write an extension of this segment in a future post on tropical vs vedic/sidereal astrology.

Where does astrological meaning come from?

As explained above, constellations do not give us meaning, the planets in the signs do (of which the signs' names just derive from where the constellations were at the time, i.e. are merely symbolic).

Astrology operates in a heliocentric context, in that its setting is derived from the solstices (as the sun is what gives us life) and the ecliptic etc, but is geocentric in function in that the meaning comes from how the celestial bodies going through the signs affect us on earth; it is all about OUR relation to the planets, not constellations.

Returning to the quote above (as above so below...), what happens up up there reflects its energies down on us below. For thousands of millenia, astrologers have developed an accurate pattern recognition framework which aligns with the maths and astronomy. This was done using the ephemeris, which tracked the trajectory of celestial bodies against the context of worldly (mundane), or natal events. Eventually, this knowledge could be used for predictions, (to understand transits, or for electional and horary astrology), by utilising the knowledge of how the trajectories of the planets and their interactions with eachother in what sign and house affected what.

Why does it affect us? Well, all the things that happen above us radiate energies. But when I talk about energies, I do not mean it in some spiritual sense, it is quite literal. Everything has frequencies. As mentioned above, astrologers, since the Bablyonian times, have studied these patterns and created an objective framework to align with it. Physical energies or not there is direct causation. The moon for instance, affects the tides on the planet because of its gravitational pull. We are 70% water, there is little reason to deny that the moon cannot affect us either (it does). Perhaps you might understand your broken leg as because of being hit by a car. But astrology can assess the chart of the event, and transits to your own chart to provide further explanation of why you got hit by a car in the first place, and why it caused a broken leg etc. Subsequently, the energies of what happens above relate to the themes found in planets, signs, houses, aspects, asteroids etc - but these energies are not set in stone as explained above.

Ultimately, it is disappointingly small-minded to think that there is nothing 'greater' than the physical reality we tether ourselves to. We are in fact part of something bigger; and again I do not mean this in some culty spiritual hippy sense. It is literally a fact, the world and cosmos at large is so vast, mysterious, and beautiful, how could anyone deny the interconnected web we are all collectively a part of. We might never fully understand the mechanisms of the universe, but what we can do is use the information we do have to make use of it and help inform us on how to live better lives. The fact there is something 'greater' inherent in our lives, connecting everything, which is objectively difficult to truly grasp, is not a reason to reject it. A lot of people who are averse to astrology (which used to be me) are those who pride themselves on rationality and objectivity, yet are restricting themselves to a very particular interpretation of what rationality and objectivity means.

With all this said, I hope it has helped someone understand and appreciate astrology better. There is such a fascinating rich and deep history to it, spanning various cultures and eras, making it difficult to at least not enjoy learning about even if one still chooses to not practise it. I would like to reiterate, however, that to truly embrace astrology and its millenia of knowledge, evidence, and practice behind it, one must divorce its concept from pop culture astrology.

[substellaris]

i read your bio that says just trying to learn how to draw and was like dude same and then i scrolled and saw your drawings and was like oh shit!! not same!! your art is phenomenal! i’m newer to digital art— i’m good at adding color/shade/dimension once i have my initial starting sketch but the starting sketch is the hardest part for me! how do you start out when drawing people? do you use specific shapes to help map it out? how do you do proportions 😭

Well, actually it's a lot to explain. I'm new to digital art too—I only started doing it in the middle of last year, so I totally understand! But I'll explain how I do it: first, before starting any drawing, I do gesture drawing to warm up (websites like Quickposes and Line of Action really help). I recommend studying artists like Vipplu and watching videos that explain what gesture drawing is, but in short, it's what helps capture movement. I still struggle with that.

For proportions, it's a bit tricky because all humans have different proportions! But the standard is 7/8 heads, and if you're just starting out, it's best to stick to that standard. Usually, the more human bodies you draw, the better you'll get at proportions. It becomes intuitive.

After that, I start structuring the body with geometric shapes. Right now I'm reading this book and copying every drawing from it; it helps me understand how to structure the body into simplified forms, as well as start visualizing the human body in 3D. I think this is the most important step before diving deep into anatomy studies.

But this is what I usually do.

You also have to practice perspective a lot and draw from real life. I feel lost most of the time too, so I recommend following the Radiorruners curriculum for the solo artist, but modifying it however suits you best—at least that's what I do. I'm not an art student and I don't have a teacher guiding me, just me, so I don't know how well I'm doing it! But I hope this helps. Drawing this certainly helped me practice some things that I still need to study 😭😭

[hoodedjelly]

i look up to your art so much! i have a few questions if ur comfortable answering!!!

1. what app do u use to draw ? and what brush do u use?

2. were there any tutorials or videos in general you watched to be able to draw like that? im very curious on this question in general bc i love the way u draw poses. im very jealous of how well you do that! 😫 (if you have any vids you recommend, pls send it i begggggg)

3. how long have u been drawing? i got back into drawing last year and have been practicing since but i still struggle a bit 😣

HELLO! thank you so much for liking my work and for the questions!

Q1: I use Clip Studio Paint Pro, the brushes i use is a mix between free downloaded ones my friend gave me and paid ones. Main one i use is Cat Scratch but my other 2 options that i use are the fine pencil and mechanical pencil. i download so many brushes all the time that im not even sure they are default csp brushes or not, and i wouldn't even be able to find the original links anyway. The brush i used while working on the Sleep Walk animatic was "tantan"

(examples of my fine pencil and mechanical pencil if you want to try and find something similar)

Q2: wow thank you that is a very nice complement (i personally think i still need some work on my posing). I watched a LOT of gesture drawing videos, i honestly don't remember all of them too well, i will send over this one and this one. Also the book MORPHO anatomy for artists: Simplified forms by Michel Lauricella is on my desk at all times. I also recommend Line of Action, its a free website that imitates figure drawing studies. it's helped me a lot since where i am right now, i don't have the resources to actually GO to figure drawing classes. But for videos in general there's this fav animatics playlist i have that i go back to whenever im in an artistic slump.

also heres a list of my fav artists atm (literally didn't ask but im putting it here anyway): TheBrujoAri, fourleafisland, jam_etc, abyssalzones, Mayuko Watson, Megan Lloyd, Stephen Silver and satoshi kon (also just a bunch of moots of mine <3)

Q3: now thats a hard question. short answer: since i knew how to pick up a crayon. long answer: i've always loved cartoons and comics, animated youtube in the 2010s was what i was watching on the family computer 24/7. but that's normal for a kid tbh, the difference is i just never grew out of it! i'd say it was around 5th grade (11 years old) when i stopped and realized "wait i want to like do this whole drawing thing seriously", then i never stopped.

[mkanuhea]

Hello 👋

You might have the prettiest Lamb and Goat I've ever seen, they're absolutely stunningly beautiful. They're so beautiful it hurts me because they aren't real and I can't hold their hand.

Thank you, that is all :D

Oh gosh oh gosh THANK YOU!!! Seriously, whenever I see you in my activity feed and tags on my art my heart lights UP. I really wanted to say thank you for all the unwavering support you give to me and my art - you have no idea how much that means to me, let alone what it does for my motivation to keep drawing my silly little characters and sharing them. I’m so grateful for you, and I’m sure there are so many others on this website in the COTL fandom that appreciate all the support you give the community. I’m so serious, people like you are so important to us artists - especially the smaller ones - and everything that you say and do doesn’t go unnoticed. Thank you, thank you, thank you SO much, text can’t translate no where near how much I appreciate you. THANK YOU!!

Okay, I’ve gushed enough - but one more thing!! Your message inspired me to share some juicy trivia about my lamb. I’ll add it under a ReadMore:

There’s a lot of backstory and tid bits I haven’t shared about Miel since I’ve gotten myself deep into flushing out their character, and thinking more about the COTL universe in general. NOTE: this is gonna be LONG, so bear with me!

Some trivia about Miel: As I’m sure you’ve noticed, she’s gone through a couple redesigns. From the post you commented on in this ask, this was my first EVER drawing of her:

I named them after I finished this drawing, which I think I mentioned on here at some point I picked her name from running through translations of “lamb” through different languages on Google Translate. Lol. I liked the Romanian word of lamb, so I stuck with that. THEN I got comments on how “miel” translates to honey in Spanish - which honestly became the catalyst of shaping her story (more on that later). The name for my goat, Kozel, also came from the Russian translation of “goat” (I know, very original lol)

Anyways, her design. Although I’ve drawn many anthros and furries, I was still very new to drawing bovidaes (or just sheep and goats in general) and her design at this time was… sort of uncomfortable to draw. I REALLY strugged with headshape and hooves. Her first designs she had basically flat feet with hooves as toes.

The above is her first reference. I got rid of the dangly bells (too annoying to draw) and simplified her facial markings. Oh my god. Look at those feet. (sobs)

Even though I tweaked somethings, she was still uncomfortable to draw. That’s alright. I’ll get the hang of it, I’d tell myself over and over - but the design still wasn’t satisfying. Something needed to change, especially that awkward headshape. ASAP!

I took a lot of inspiration from how @kyoukorpse draw’s his lamb’s facial structure - flattening out the snout and having the facial markings work as a guide, rather than just slapped on there. This image really helped me understand how to draw a sheep’s head:

Okay, now I'm sort of getting the hang of head and shoulders, now it's just those damn knees and toes. I really digged how @tingrasta drew legs on their lamb; the legs and knees and ankles all look very well balanced and I sorta mimicked their style to figure out mine, especially since my "accurate" lamb legs looked like chicken legs with stumps.

After a few concentrated observing sessions of other's styles and scrolling through pages of lambs and goats on Google Images, I think I got it. Whew. Thank you COTL artists who figured this out.

Another thing was outfit. At the time, I really did not know how to design Miel’s fit, at all. I referenced mostly on canon lamb’s fit and just added a dress underneath. I still wasn’t feeling it, obviously, lol. But, scouring through Pinterest gave me some pointers, and thus her final design - along with her other forms - was accomplished.

See, I really wanted her to have some braids after seeing a new Fortnite skin that came out a couple months ago. I actually sort of incorporated some design aspects from the skin Cassidy Quinn (Chpt 6 S2) and a cool cape blazer I saw on Pinterest (can’t find it, curses for never pinning)

The braids I use for Miel’s design is from the Procreate Braid Brush Pack by EggisPrintShop on Etsy. I just simply use the #19 braid brush then draw over it.

If you want to hear about Miel's backstory, I have a TON of stuff written up. But since this ask is already super long, I'll leave it like it is. I haven't thought indepth about a character, let alone a fan character for so long since the good ol' Homestuck days back in '15. The big difference between then and now is I just wanted my fan characters to look cool, but now I want my oc's to look cool and make sense, developmental-wise and not totally unclipped from canon (my fantrolls could've been their own species, to be honest with you). Still, I like to toy around with canon lore and concepts and poke the boundaries once in a while. I almost scratched the idea of Established Miel eating the crown because I haven't seen anybody else in my perimeters really come up with the same or similar idea, but then I thought... well... when you kill the bishops and take their hearts in canon, their crowns are just gone. I kind of assumed the lamb just absorbs them or something, so the idea of my lamb having the crown as an afternoon snack isn't too far fetched.

Anyways, thanks for reading if you managed to get this far!!! Again, thank you Joffy for all the support and love and encouragement, you are truly blessing for this fandom <3 Cheers!

[andmaybegayer]

Anyway should mention this here:

I fell in with the Website League, an island of federated social media websites that's mainly spun off old cohosters, run partially by consensus committee of various stakeholders and intended to be a relatively sustainable form of non-commercial social media.

If you like what you see, you can sign up to one of the open-access nodes.

Official launch is today, since it's the last day of cohost, but this has been in the works for a few weeks.

The Website League is based on ActivityPub software, mainly GoToSocial and Akkoma, running in allowlist mode, so we only federate with other League members. This keeps moderation load lower and simplifies management.

We're explicitly not federating with the broader fediverse, which among other things should allow us to experiment with patched versions of the software to support more advanced and interesting post formats, e.g. actual interleaved text and images as a first class citizen, cohost-style CSS fuckery.

If you're interested you can join the (ugh) discord or just try and join an instance. I'm hosting weague.awful.cloud.

It's early days so things are likely to change fast, but hey.

[satoshi-mochida]

ENDER LILIES: Quietus of the Knights sequel ENDER MAGNOLIA: Bloom in the Mist announced for Switch

From Gematsu

Publisher Binary Haze Interactive and developers Live Wire and Adglobe have announced ENDER LILIES: Quietus of the Knights sequel ENDER MAGNOLIA: Bloom in the Mist for Switch. It will launch in 2024. It will support English, Japanese French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, and Korean language options.

“We teased a sequel to ENDER LILIES: Quietus of the Knights nearly two years ago, and we have received countless requests from our online community for a second adventure,” said Binary Haze Interactive CEO Hiroyuki Kobayashi in a press release. “It is an honor and a pleasure to announce our next title with the help of Nintendo during such a prestigious event. We have much much to share in the very near future, stay tuned!”

Here is an overview of the game, via Binary Haze Interactive:

Decades after the Rain of Death, a new journey begins in the Land of Fumes, where mystical powers lie beneath the earth. The kingdom’s desire for conquest led to the creation of the Homunculi, machine-like artificial life forms prepared to execute the king’s will. A recent resource-harvesting mission gone awry caused toxic vapors to emerge from underground, driving both man and machine to feral madness. As the Homonculi devolve into dangerous creatures, guide Lilac—an “Attuner” with the power to purify those infected by the fumes—on a quest to save the kingdom. With the help of friendly machines and spirits who fight in Lilac’s stead, fend off mechanized legions of lunging carcasses, cannonball-firing corpses and chainsaw-wielding goblins terrorizing the land. Turn foes into friends by exorcizing corruption from enemy bosses. Wield their powers to add 30 different abilities to Lilac‘s combat repertoire in an enhanced battle system where she can equip up to four special abilities at once. Improve Lilac’s odds of surviving this hunt for lost memories by leveling up attack strength, HP, and armor. Explore the depths, heights and far corners of the kingdom for lore-filled relics. Collect and trade gold for upgraded items at the Blacksmith’s storefront. Combine story fragments from the kingdom’s fleeing inhabitants with Lilac’s forgotten memories. Seek the truth in an atmospheric hand-drawn setting set to the soothing serenades of returning musical group Mili (Ghost in the Shell, Goblin Slayer) with a brand new original soundtrack available for purchase at launch.

More information will be announced on February 26 at 7:00 a.m. PT / 10:00 a.m. ET via the game’s official website.

Watch the announcement trailer below. View the first screenshots at the gallery.

Announce Trailer

Japanese

[wes-breaks-your-kneecaps]

How I learned to read in my target languages (Part 2)

I will mention multiple others sources I used to improve my reading. Basically I would read for as long as I need to get 15 or 20 words daily.

I can't recommend WordSwing as much as I recommend DuChinese, but it's still worth using if you want to read more.

I don't remember using DuHanZi, but apparently I finished all free stories on it, there probably weren't a lot of them.

Once I had enough vocab and I was bored of DuChinese, I used a website, that I found on Reddit — www.mylingua.world.

It forms your recommendations on what news you can understand, based on your vocab knowledge. Once you see a word you've learned, you just mark it as learned. Gradually after marking more and more words, you see how much progress you've made and it's really motivating.

Would I recommend reading news to improve your vocab? Unless it's an article on your interests, I would say no. There's no need to force yourself to consume what you're not interested in to improve your language skills.

Another useful feature from this website is being able to add your own texts in chinese. Which significantly improved my reading skills in just a few months of reading fanfiction.

The main con of this resource is inaccuracy. While in most cases you won't notice it, some words on there have innaccurate translation. But don't worry, just use Pleco or an online dicitionary.

I have a dictionary I want to recommend to those of you who know Russian, it's name is PocketChinese. The app may be a bit laggy, but in a lot of cases where Pleco failed to explain a word or a phrase to me, PocketChinese succeeded. So as long as you switch between these two and mylingua.world, you'll probably be fine.

A few months ago they've set a limit on how many articles you can fully read weekly and on how many you can upload. But i assure you that even with the limit you still have a lot of possibilities to learn.

Just remember to bookmark articles you've found interesting, since finding them later is hard.

When I played games in chinese and had difficulties with writing down words to search for them I would use Deepl. It has a scan feature that allowes you to make photos of chinese texts. It automatically translates that, but you can also copy it and work with it.

My top resource is mylingua.world. Genuinely simplifies my life so much when I want to figure out new vocab in a new text.

[ferns-shenanigans]

Electrolyte Products for POTS

Intro-

All these electrolyte mixes/capsules below have at least 300 mg of sodium in them, this is the threshold I have made for myself for this blog posts purposes. I will be discussing the following criteria:

Salt content

Price (including ways you can save on certain brands)

Sugar content (including if there is a sugar-free option)

Flavor variety

Brands I will be covering-

Liquid IV

LMNT

Venture pal

Trioral

Normalyte

SALTT

Salt Stick/vitassium

Skratch labs

Buoy

Klaralyte

I would also like to thank everyone who filled out my google form for this blog posts purpose.

Simplified tables of electrolytes:

Breakdown:

Liquid IV- 

Salt content of regular flavors (per servings): 510 mg

Cost: 

$1.56 per serving/stick, $1.09 if using subscribe and save 

$49.98 for 32 sticks, $34.98 if using subscribe and save

Sugar content: 11g per serving/stick

Flavor variety: 17 regular flavors

Sugar free option?: Yes- 

Salt content of sugar free options: 500 mg

Cost: 

$1.86 per serving/stick, $1.30 if using subscribe and save

$51.98 for 28 sticks, $36.38 if using subscribe and save

Flavor variety: 8 sugar free flavors

LMNT- 

Salt content (per serving): 1000 mg

Cost: 

$1.50 per serving/stick, $1.30 if using subscribe and save

$45 for 30 sticks, $39 if using subscribe and save

Sugar content: 0g

Flavor variety: 9 flavors, including 2 flavors you can put in a hot drink

Venture Pal-

Salt content (per serving), endurance electrolytes: 1000 mg

Cost: 

$0.66 per serving/stick on their website, $0.56 per serving/stick on Amazon, $0.50 if using subscribe and save on Amazon

$19.99 for 30 sticks on their website, $16.99 for 30 sticks on Amazon, $15.29 for 30 sticks ($0.50 per serving)  if using subscribe and save on Amazon 

Can buy in 60 ($37.98) and 90 packs ($53.97, $0.59 per serving) on their website

Sugar content: 0g

Flavor variety: 8 flavors

Trioral-

Salt content (per serving): 1695 mg

Cost:

$0.68 per serving/packet on Amazon, $0.64 if using subscribe and save

$10.20 for 15 packets on Amazon, $9.69 if using subscribe and save

Can buy 50 ($29.99) and 100 ($45.99, $43.69 if using subscribe and save) on Amazon ($0.43 per serving when subscribed to buying 100 packets)

Sugar content: 13.5g

Flavor variety: 2 flavors (lemon flavor costs $0.87 per serving/packet, or $21.99 for 25 packets)

Normalyte (hydration bags and PURE electrolyte capsules)-

Hydration bags:

Salt content (per serving): 862 mg

Cost:

$1.33 per serving/stick on their website, $1.19 if using subscribe and save

$39.99 for 30 sticks, $35.99 if using subscribe and save

Can use FSA/HSA card

Sugar content: 6.75g

Flavor variety: 4 flavors

PURE electrolyte capsules:

Salt content (per serving): 500mg

Cost:

$21.99 for 50 servings on their website ($0.43 per serving), or $19.79 if using subscribe and save ($0.39 per serving)

$55.47 for 150 servings on their website ($0.36 per serving), or $49.92 if using subscribe and save (0.33 per serving)

$95.94 for 300 servings on their website ($0.31), or $86.35 if using subscribe and save ($0.28 per serving)

Sugar content: 0g

Saltt-

Salt content (per serving): 969 mg

Cost: 

$1.10 per serving/stick on their website, $0.99 per serving/stick if using subscribe and save

Sugar content: 0g

Flavor variety: 15 flavors

Salt stick/vitassium-

Buffered electrolyte salts:

Salt content (per serving): 500 mg

Cost: 

$23.99 for 50 servings on their website ($0.47 per serving)

$39.99 for 100 servings on their website ($0.39 per serving)

$21.59 for 50 servings on Amazon ($0.43 per serving) if using subscribe and save

$35.99 for 100 servings on Amazon ($0.35 per serving) if using subscribe and save

Sugar content: 0g

Extra strength buffered electrolyte salts:

Salt content (per serving): 750 mg

Cost:

$29.99 for 50 servings on their website ($0.59 per serving)

$26.99 for 50 servings on Amazon ($0.53 per serving) if using subscribe and save

Sugar content: 0g

Skratch labs-

Sodium content (per serving): 400mg

Cost:

$21.95 for 20 servings on their website ($1.09 per serving)

$54.95 for 60 servings on their website ($0.91 per serving)

$20.85 for 20 servings on Amazon ($1.04 per serving) if using subscribe and save

$52.20 for 60 servings on Amazon ($0.87 per serving) if using subscribe and save

Sugar content: 17-19g

Flavor variety: 6 flavors

Buoy (rescue drops and rescue salt)-

Rescue drops:

Salt content (per serving):  300mg (I personally double up the servings and put 4 drops- or 2 servings/600mg of sodium- in a 32oz water bottle)

Cost:

$58.50 for 6 bottles (120 servings) on their website when subscribed and using the chronic illness discount ($0.48 per servings)

Rescue salt:

Salt content (per serving): 460 mg

Cost:

$23.40 for 3 jars (135 servings) on their website when subscribed and using the chronic illness discount ($0.17 per serving)

$70.20 for 9 jars (405 servings) on their website when subscribed and using the chronic illness discount ($0.17 per serving)

Klaralyte-

Salt content (per serving): 250 mg (I’d double up and take 2 capsules to get to 500 mg)

Cost:

$39.95 for 300 servings/capsules ($0.13 per serving) on their website and Amazon (subscribe and save does not have a different price)

$99.95 for 1,000 servings/capsules ($0.09 per serving) on their website

Cost per double serving (500mg):

$39.95 for 150 servings when doubled ($0.26 per serving) on their website and Amazon subscribe and save does not have a different price)

$99.95 for 500 servings when doubled ($0.19 per serving) on their website 

Sugar content: 0g

[luka-labrathor]

Czech verbs in English fanfiction

This is a part 2 of my Language-in-Arcane-fanfics series.

Part 1 (nominative X vocative case) Part 3 (a guide to Czech dictionaries and other tools) – TBA

Verbs aren't as commonly used by Viktor in English fics but I've come across some problem grammar and contextual groups so here's a quick guide into some of the issues:

Infinitive vs. imperative

Politeness in the second person (tykání/vykání)

Gender in the adjectival predicate

WARNING this is targeted at people that want to use Czech without learning it. This is very simplified!

1. Infinitive vs. imperative

In English the infinitive and the imperative moods look (mostly) the same.

To do (smth) = infinitive

Do (smth)! = imperative

In Czech they aren't the same.

Dělat (něco) = infinitive

Dělej (něco)! = imperative

If you want to use a sentence in the imperative mood without any object, online translators (in some cases) automatically use infinitive or a noun even when you include an exclamation mark:

(úsměv = a smile, noun)

I recommend finding the verb you want to use in a dictionary (not a translator!!!) and then looking it up on Wiktionary or some other website (that you can find in part 3).

A good dictionary you can use: WORD REFERENCE

You can just google "[czech-word] Wiktionary" and something will come up (tho you might need to automatically translate it like I did in the screenshots above). Or you can use any of the dictionaries that I'll be mentioning in the next part.

2. Misplaced politeness

Czech singular uses something called "tykání" and "vykání" in second-person verbs to indicate politeness. Tykání could be the equivalent of using thou/thee in older forms of English or being on a first-name basis with the one you're talking to. Vykání is reserved for interactions with people you don't know (usually not online though) or people of a higher status than you.

Arcane example:

Viktor would use tykání when talking to: friends, students (while also being a student), family, children

And he would use vykání when talking to: Heimerdinger and other professors, students (while being a lecturer or a TA), strangers, colleagues (that he's not friends with), anyone he calls Mr./Ms./Mrs./Mx.

But why am I talking about all this:

Google Translator uses tykání and vykání as it pleases. So if you want to translate a sentence using the second person, you need to pay attention. Because I can't show you a good example using Google as its translations aren't really consistent, I'll be using Deepl in the examples. But first:

What tykání and vykání look like in Czech?

There's one more thing you need to know about tykání and vykání. While both refer to a singular individual, vykání (the polite one) looks almost exactly like the second person plural.

So finally here's the difference:

You are Jayce.

– Ty jsi Jayce. = tykání, singular

– Vy jste Jayce. = vykání, singular

You (y'all) are Jayces.

– Vy jste Jaycové. = plural

As you can see, both plural and vykání end with -te. That's the biggest clue for you.

I'll give you one more example, this one should sum up what I've told you so far:

When Viktor says this sentence, he's talking to a student he's just met so he would probably use vykání when talking to him. Deepl gave us 4 options, so which one can we choose?

"Trochu egoistické, nemyslíte?" This one can be both vykání and plural.

"Trochu egoistické, nemyslíš?“ This one is tykání. Viktor would say that to a friend or a family member but not a person he's just met.

"Není to trochu egoistické?" The literal translation of this one is "Isn't it a bit egotistical?" so we're avoiding the second person entirely. He could say this to anyone.

"Trochu sobecké, nemyslíte?" Same as no. 1.

Now a nerdy addition for the bravest of you:

I said vykání and second person plural are ALMOST the same. The difference is for example in the past tense indicative that uses an L-participle – nemysleL(i) – and an auxiliary verb "to be / být" in the present tense.

Did you stabilize it?

– Stabilizoval jsi to? = tykání, singular

– Stabilizoval jste to? = vykání, singular

– Stabilizovali jste to? = plural

Also as some of you may know, most participles are gendered. The examples I gave you are masculine, the feminine participles would be stabilizovala/stabilizovaly and the neuter ones would be stabilizovalo/stabilizovala. The rest is the same.

If you want to make sure you're using the correct second person, you can translate your sentence using Deepl and choose the option that uses / doesnt use the -te suffix. That applies for all the moods and tenses that recognise the 2nd person. If you want to make sure your vykání in past tense isn't accidentally in plural, you can add a name at the end/beginning of the sentence and then copy it without the name. For the opposite effect you can add for example a plural demonym (Did you stabilize it, Czechs?) or just use "y'all" instead of "you".

3. Gender in the adjectival predicate

Czech adjectives are gendered (as well as all nouns). Masculine adjectives (in nominative singular) usually have the final suffix -ý, feminine -á and neutral -é:

They can also end with í, that means it can be any of those three grammatical genders:

Plus some foreign adjectives aren't any of those:

But there's one sentence that could give you trouble. It was the first sentence I thought of when I was trying to find examples for this post:

As you can see, Deepl doesn't accept mpreg as it uses only the -á suffix for the adjective "pregnant". Don't get confused, you can just slap -ý on it (Jsem těhotný...) and you'll be fine!

That's all I have for you rn. If you need help, just send an Ask or DM me, I can answer any Czech and Czechia related questions or beta read your fic. If you know anyone that could benefit from this, send them my profile or smth, idk.

It'll take a while for me to make the third part of this, posts like these take a longer time than I thought lol