aria-benedetto

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Hello tumblr I heard you like changeling stories

Edit: If you want a physical copy of this comic!

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Love this so much

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yknow AI art has ruined an entire genre of painting to me, i saw one of those smooth anime-realism pieces and immidiately thought ''ugh, AI art'' until i noticed it was posted by an established deviantart user 6 years ago. like ive never been a huge fan of that genre but it looks like a pretty difficult style to master and i feel bad for the artists who specialized in anime-realism only to have their entire market jacked by people typing keywords into midjourney.

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As the princess and heir apparent of the kingdom you are the most sought after woman in the whole kingdom, with suitors lining up every day to ask for your hand in marriage. Today you finally accept the proposal of a suitor, causing a massive scandal.

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a short comic about witches and wishes and wanting things.

(all my comics are here!)

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Music Tag

I was tagged by @mundanemoongirl <3

Rules: List what songs remind you of your OCs, or even a song you think they would love.

And I am gonna tag, if you feel like doing it, @winterandwords @aria-benedetto and an open tag

Well, for most of my WIPs, there is a playlist linked in the WIP intro. So that feels kind of redundant :D

For some stories, I have That One Song that I connect more than others with the couple, for example Glass Shards with Arion - You're My Melody, and Till Death with Fivefold - Till Death.

For Sweet Little Lies, that song is Dance Forever Tonight by Peter Hollens feat. Evynne Hollens. I wrote like the last third to that song on repeat, lol.

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[ID: Cropped screenshot of grammarly suggesting to change the wording "cooking still wasn't" to "cooking was stilln't" for clarity. End ID]

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"He wouldn't say that" in a 'fic author trying to use terms of endearment in a language they clearly do not understand' kind of way

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hot artists don't gatekeep

I've been resource gathering for YEARS so now I am going to share my dragons hoard

Floorplanner. Design and furnish a house for you to use for having a consistent background in your comic or anything! Free, you need an account, easy to use, and you can save multiple houses.

Comparing Heights. Input the heights of characters to see what the different is between them. Great for keeping consistency. Free.

Magma. Draw online with friends in real time. Great for practice or hanging out. Free, paid plan available, account preferred.

Smithsonian Open Access. Loads of free images. Free.

SketchDaily. Lots of pose references, massive library, is set on a timer so you can practice quick figure drawing. Free.

SculptGL. A sculpting tool which I am yet to master, but you should be able to make whatever 3d object you like with it. free.

Pexels. Free stock images. And the search engine is actually pretty good at pulling up what you want.

Figurosity. Great pose references, diverse body types, lots of "how to draw" videos directly on the site, the models are 3d and you can rotate the angle, but you can't make custom poses or edit body proportions. Free, account option, paid plans available.

Line of Action. More drawing references, this one also has a focus on expressions, hands/feet, animals, landscapes. Free.

Animal Photo. You pose a 3d skull model and select an animal species, and they give you a bunch of photo references for that animal at that angle. Super handy. Free.

Height Weight Chart. You ever see an OC listed as having a certain weight but then they look Wildly different than the number suggests? Well here's a site to avoid that! It shows real people at different weights and heights to give you a better idea of what these abstract numbers all look like. Free to use.

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reblog if you are ASEXUAL, support ASEXUAL PEOPLE, or SECRETLY A DRAGON IN HUMAN FORM

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Happy STS, Elli!

(Hopefully) easy question this week: what is ypur favourite part of writing and storytelling?

Happy STS!

I had a very similar one here last week, so I waited a bit with answering this, which has absolutely nothing to do with my brain being full of bees and a fractal event going on in gw2 😂

The other one focused on writing, so this one is going more in the storytelling direction.

Those two are not exactly the same for me. For as long as I can remember, I have enjoyed daydreams, roleplaying, or creating backstories for characters I play in video games, but most of it has been lost to time. Writing takes some of it and makes sure it will last :D

On the one hand, there's obviously the whump. I enjoy it. I want to see the blood and the angst and the despair and the hope and especially the happy end, and there is little I can find out there that checks all my boxes (canon-inspired daydreams notwithstanding) so I want to make it myself.

On the other hand, there's the characters. There are little things I am delighted to see in a character (yes yes, my beloved sad ace mages, we've all seen that post), and I like to think that I also create characters someone out there will be delighted to see. Some of it is hard to talk about - for example, I always feel like I have "no right" to be proud of i.e. a blind char I made.

The thing that makes me love writing is that it can take a shape it couldn't in my brain alone. I remember one or two extensive daydream scenarios, but compared to a book, they would be like 30-50% only. After that, it all falls apart, I can't remember shit, I can't keep it all together, I keep moving in circles, it doesn't make sense. For some things, that is enough, fueling my bedtime for a couple of weeks before I move on. For others, it isn't.

When I am writing, what's on paper is done. I do not have to fear that I will forget what came before and can focus on what comes next. Which brings me to the second story telling part I enjoy:

The moment when it all starts making sense. When a character comes out of nowhere to fill a role I need, when I think of a scene or a line that matches what I set up before, when the end is in sight and I know that's gonna be the last scene, when a thing I had floating around in my mind for months finally settles. When I walk home and stop dead in my tracks to make a note on my phone, or when I word-vomit into my friends' DMs what's basically an outline but also not. The moment the idea I started out with becomes something I can imagine fully, from begining to end. Magical :D

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Happy Storyteller Saturday, Ari!

When you finish a first draft, how does it look? Is it readable or does it have more holes than a swiss cheese? What are your next steps, and how much changes?

(If you haven't finished one yet, what do you think how it'll look when you get there?)

Happy STS and thanks for the ask!

Fairly readable, I would say. I sometimes have things like [villain] in place of a name, but that's about it, I don't like skipping scenes.

For the second draft, I start over from the beginning. For stuff I'm fairly certain I want to keep, I reread and rewrite only the parts I want to change. For things I already know I need to rework, I tend to just rewrite them from scratch, especially with scenes that I want to go in a different direction or that were underwritten. In my current second draft, quite a lot is changing, which is part of the reason I'm stuck right now x'D

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Watching the “you will excel at what you measure” trap devour basic moral practice in real time is fascinating in a terrible kind of way

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OC in Three

Thank you @kaylinalexanderbooks for the tag! Post here.

Rule: Introduce a character with three images.

Gently tagging (no pressure): @keeper-of-all-the-random-things, @aria-benedetto

Geoffrey Marks

Made using Canva Pro and Adobe Photoshop

Meet Geoff in The Prince of Thieves, The Queen of Lies, and sometime in the next year, The Court of Rogues.

Other OC in Three Tags: Breanna | Colette

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Word Find Tag

I was tagged by @kaylinalexanderbooks <3

My words: accept, appreciate, access, advice

Your words: bleed, breathe, behave, bargain

And I am tagging, if you want to do it, @sarandipitywrites @aria-benedetto @pleasestaywithmedarling @winterandwords and as always an open tag

Those are wonderful words. They all appear in Sweet Little Lies (WIP Intro), and only 1-3 times each 😅

Accept

“Oh Laurent, do you think I’m that naive? Do you think I believed for one second you were just taking a nice evening stroll when…” She didn’t finish her sentence. She didn’t think he’d be talking to her about this if there were people in earshot, but she wasn’t going to risk it. “I have long accepted that you treat the truth as an option rather than a necessity.” “And yet you’re here with me,” he mumbled. “And yet I am here with you.”

Appreciate

“How are the Fiery Wastrels selling?” he asked. “Not at all. I don’t have many customers I would inflict that upon.” “But you do have customers you would inflict that upon?” Aurelia laughed again. With him around, she found herself laughing and smiling more than ever. “Two or three,” she admitted. “Don’t worry, you’re safe. No ginger, and no chili.” “I appreciate it.”

Access

“I’ve been thinking,” he said. He was sitting on the stairs. “Some of those old buildings have direct access to the sewers. Do you know if this one has?” “I don’t think so?” “Hm.” His breathing turned strained as he pulled himself up. “You mentioned a backdoor. I didn’t see one?” “It’s in the storage room. I never use it.” “Mind if I check?”

Advice

Was it too early to call it love? Every time he visited, with every teasing word, every stolen touch, and every thoughtful gesture, she fell a bit more for him. He seemed earnest in his intentions but moved slowly, and Aurelia had the feeling that if she wanted more, she would have to take the next step. A few times, she had gotten close. When he said farewell in that tone that promised he would come back and took her hand with fingers that were so warm and gentle. She opened the window and let the nightly breeze cool her glowing cheeks. Some of the others had seeing partners. Perhaps she could ask them for advice.

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Six Sentence Sunday

I was tagged by @mysticstarlightduck and @kaylinalexanderbooks <3

Uhhhh, dinner's ready, @little-peril-stories if you want to aaand @aria-benedetto if you want to and open tag if you want to.

Let's pretend I can't count. Or that "Mhm" isn't a sentence.

“Well, if he thought you were me, he wasn’t expecting fire.” “But he would have expected earth,” Laurent pointed out. “Which, as we both know, can be just as deadly. Doesn’t make sense.” “Mhm.” Cedric rolled his cane between his hands. “I take it we’re not questioning him anymore?” A disgruntled noise was all the reply Cedric got.

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Happy STS, Elli!

What are the most and least important aspects to you when it comes to character-creation? Are there any that don't matter to you at all? Is this different when it comes to reading about other people's characters?

How easy is it for you to change things about your characters when they don't work for whatever reason? Do you tend to change the story to fit the characters or the characters to fit the story?

Happy STS, let's not talk about the time this ask spent in my drafts.

I think there is only one absolutely important aspect: They gotta be fun. They can be fun for lots of different reasons (which are highly subjective and situational, who knows which char clicks), and being self-loathing tormented sad ace mages is only one of them 😅

Least is probably how they look. Hair color/style is probably the only thing I actually think about for most - I still have to look at Cedric's portrait every few weeks because I keep forgetting his eye color, and I forgot Merry's when I wrote GS as well XD I can't picture shit. It's not relevant to me. I could write a whole book without any character described and would barely miss something.

This is even more so when reading, I definitely have completely forgotten how characters look before, and I will again, and I have read stuff I really am not a fan of because I liked a character.

Consciously changing, once the story is done, don't even know if I could. While writing, things keep changing, because I start with a bag of vibes instead of a filled out character sheet.

Occasionally, some things come up while I write more (backstories, side stories, stuff like that) which is hard if the main story has already been posted/shared and I am torn between changing stuff or having stuff that doesn't match.

Usually, that's small things; for example, in the first version of GS, Damien wasn't forced to stay with the rebels, did paperwork instead of using his magic to hurt people, and he consciously used his brothers name (thinking it wouldn't matter). After writing Undeserved and the flashback pieces, I could no longer do that, he would never have put Valadan in danger, and the whole Ed thing was too fun—but the character is still the same.