#I changed the opacity of the green on the guy on the right's eye

[kohakut0u]

Oughhhhh

[syn4k]

oh ok this is going to be an entire essay. Oh fuck. Okay yall buckle up i have a lot of thoughts on this topic let's go

Inventory Headcanons in the MCYT Universe, specifically relating to Fanworks and Common Interperetations of the Minecraft Inventory in art and writing

+ my personal ideas for how it works because yippee autism

Part 1: How the Minecraft Inventory Works Inside the Game

Okay, starting off simple here. If you are reading this, then you probably know how the Minecraft inventory system works. I do not care. I am covering all of the bases here.

This is a screenshot of the Minecraft inventory! (I am aware that it was taken before the update that added the offhand slot, but bear with me here.)

All of the slots that are shown here except for the armor slots can hold any 64 items or blocks, with exceptions for containers of liquids, tools, armor, and weapons (nonstackable). Exceptions are also made for snowballs, eyes of ender, ender pearls, and buckets, which stack up to 16. The crafting grid can contain any 64 items as well, but these don't stay in place after you exit the inventory screen.

All of these slots are carried physically on the player itself, which has caused a LOT of discussion amongst the Minecraft community on how the fuck this 6-foot-tall square man is able to hold uhhhh [checks notes] 4 billion pounds of gold. Damn.

The answer, naturally, is that this is a very simplistic video game not meant to be realistic at all (it's cubes, goddamnit) and Steve can just do that. Moving on.

For the purposes of this essay, we are going to be completely ignoring the physical feats of this inventory and focus specifically on the mechanics of it.

1a: The Boring Stuff (Mechanics of How it Actually Works)

The inventory can be accessed by pressing a button on your keyboard, Switch joycon, phone, Samsung Smart Fridge, VR controller, or whatever the fuck you guys are playing Minecraft on these days. Here's a list of the default settings used to open the Minecraft inventory.

PC or anything with a keyboard: E

Xbox 360, Xbox One controller: Y

PlayStation 3, 4, and Vita controllers: The green triangle

Nintendo Switch and Wii U (wait WHAT): X

Mobile Devices: The … on the right hand side of the hotbar

Items go into the hotbar first when picked up and into the top-right corner of the inventory first if the inventory is empty and the hotbar is full.

You can close the inventory by pressing more buttons on the keyboard which I won't include here. Just look it up.

1b: Shulker Boxes and +NBT Chests

The shulker box is a placeable item in game that is obtained by visiting the End. It has 27 item slots, which is 9 less than the full player inventory, and unlike chests and barrels it does not drop all of its contents onto the floor upon being broken. You cannot access the contents of shulker boxes while they are inside of your inventory.

If you placed 27 stacks of gold blocks into 36 shulker boxes and placed all of those inside of your inventory, that would be a fuck ton of gold in there. This is a well-known fact.

Also in Creative mode you can middle-click a filled chest and get the entire chest plus its contents right in your inventory which will be there which I wanted to mention. Oh right. Creative mode. I should pr

1c: The Creative Mode Inventory

You can access the entirety of the game's materials in Creative mode except for a select few of them, which players have naturally figured out how to get anyways.

1d: INFORGOT TO MENTION THIS BUT YOU CAN MAKE ACTUAL MODIFICATIONS TO THE IN-GAME INVENTORY.

With resource and data packs, you can change the color and opacity of your inventory. You can also hover over shulker boxes to view their contents without having to actually place them on the ground and open them.

Modifications to the game (colloquially shortened to "mods") can also increase the inventory size. I will not be focusing on these because the possibilities are literally endless here and I am tired.

Part 2: A Slightly Unhinged Analysis on Fanworks and Fanart on General that I have Pulled Straight Out my Ass.

Okay. So we have an inventory. How the hell does this translate to fanart, fanfiction, etc?

For the answer to this, we are going to have to take a look at how people actually take the universe of Minecraft and translate it to a semi-realistic or realistic style. You thought it was going to be a straightforward post about interperetations of inventory in Minecraft but it was me, Dio! I should really turn this post into a video essay.

2a: Canon Compliance, Canon Complicity, and This Is Only Technically Minecraft but I Have To Add It Here Anyways for the Sake Of My Autism

Generally in fanworks, there is a scale on how strict the work keeps to the actual canon interperetation of the universe. This also applies to the stories being told within the universe but don't worry about it I'm not poking that lion today.

The points I have labeled on the scale (really oversimplified) are:

Type 1 (Hold very strict to the game mechanics and how the inventory works within the game.)

Type 2 (Still within the universe of Minecraft, or in a setting that at least resembles Minecraft, but with some creative liberties taken with how game mechanics and inventories work- sometimes completely ignoring them for the sake of whatever the creator chooses.)

Type 3 (Not even in Minecraft at all. I'm only including this here for the amount of characters from roleplays that are placed in other video game settings or just fuckin' into real life.)

I think those explain themselves and if they don't then I have failed as a writer.

Part 3: The Part People Actually Clicked On The Readmore For (Types of Inventory Descriptions and Depictions in Fanworks)

3a: Text-Based Works (Fanfiction and Meta-Posting)

Generally in Minecraft-based or Minecraft-adjacent settings (type 1 and 2 works), authors either do not mention the inventory at all, bring it up in passing but do not explain how it works, forego the inventory entirely in favor of real-world storage solutions like pockets, bags, and boxes (almost entirely restricted to Type 2 works), or come up with creative in-universe ways to explain the inventory, some of which use the Minecraft enchantment system.

Authors who do not mention the inventory or mention it but don't explain how it works in the universe can't really be expanded on due to its meaning meant to be interpreted by the reader.

Of the authors who do elaborate on their inventory systems, there are a couple ways I have seen this done:

Real-world solutions (pockets, bags, etc), sometimes used in conjunction with fantasy solutions.

Edited real-world solutions, such as infinite pockets or small bags always on the player's person.

Sigils, magical objects, enchantments, and things of that sort that allow the player to access their inventory via gestures or tactile movements. This also includes the use of holographic displays and in-game commands.

Straight-up summoning or storing the relevant items at will.

This gets an honorable mention because it's fucking hilarious but there was this one tumblr post like "the player says e and teleports into a pure white room"

I KNOW there's more out there but these are the examples I've seen around Tumblr and ao3.

3b: Visuals-Based Works (Fanart, including comics, animatics, and posters)

Most visual interperetations of the Minecraft inventory are type 1 or just use the "real-world solutions" option. You don't see a lot of these in the wild in my experience, but from the things I've seen, some popular visualizations of the Minecraft inventory include:

Holograms and command screens, often used in conjunction with the in-game chat as a multitool

Straight-up summoning at will

Backpacks! People draw them to look SO COOL on a character-by character basis.

all of these designs fucking slap so hard by the way i dont make the rules. mcyt artists are out here doing the work of renaissance painters for zero dollars and next to zero credit

3c: Other Forms of Media (Live-Action Adaptions and Plays, I Guess?)

I have ZERO idea how someone would translate the Minecraft inventory to a real-life setting but I assume the result would be a Type 3 real-world solution, due to real life not having magic and also not being in the Minecraft universe.

If anyone ever figures out how to carry 162 million pounds of gold on their person without instantly eating shit and dying, firstly I respect and fear you secondly hit me up my back fucking sucks and I have too many books in my backpack at any given time.

3d: Customization Within Universes and Cross-World Universal Items

Many artists in the MCYT fandom, whether their wheelhouse be writing or visual art, have been in several subsections of the fandom or are actively in several at once. Due to the overlap in creator circles and the fact that Minecraft is over ten years old at this point, this is quite normal and the same creator behind a character may be on several different servers or have several different characters currently being played at the same time.

Due to this, many artists and writers have developed different designs for several iterations of the same character, for lack of a better way to explain it. This can be expressed in clothing changes, nonhuman characteristics, and, a common one that popped up alongside the rise of the DSMP, universal communicators.

Communicators are not in the game as a physical object. Rather, they are an entire fan-made concept that allows the characters to chat universally across a server they're in, no matter how far away. (Hermitcraft is an interesting case here. I'm looking at you, Solar. I saw that radio range comment in DATD.)

Since inventories do not share their contents across multiple worlds, the same is also true for most fanworks including them. Nevertheless, there are some exclusions and more permanent items on some characters, varying between artist and character. Some of these include:

Emotionally significant items (i.e ones that remind them of friends, family, lovers, etc)

Little trinkets hung from belts or keychains

Items that aren't really affixed to the character but are either shown in the character's Minecraft skin or are prominent in fanon (i.e, Slimecicle's glasses, Xisuma's helmet having admin-y properties, Pixlriffs' Empires SMP Season 2's character having glasses and sometimes a knee brace)

These items and how they may apply across some servers but not all could be an entire post of their own. Fanon is huge and I'd love to document that but that is Not the point of this essay. Maybe later.

On the subject of different designs for different characters, I'd like to bring up:

Sort of relevant to section 3d: different inventories depending on characters

Basically, some characters could have bags. Some have holograms. Some have magical tattoos or sigils that let them access it. Some defy all known laws of God or man and do some crazy shit with their inventories just because they can. It all depends on the artist or author's preferences, baby!

This often is related to headcanons and character designs. It can also vary for server, universe, etc.

Which NOW brings me to,

Section 4: Thoughts? You have thoughts on this? Share your thoughts maybe?

yeah i have no consistent anything for anything. really it just depends on the setting and what i'm in the mood for.

for example, in our Type Two fics like Ashes AU and Twice, generally the characters use real-world solutions with modifications (enchanted bags, etc). But for quicker oneshots and crackfics, we tend to elaborate on inventory space and let the game mechanics do all the work.

The Summary:

Fandom is huge and theres so much layers to this shit its legitimately unreal. I could write an entire thesis paper on the MCYTblr side of things alone and I might just do that when I hit college, if I ever do. For now, though, I'm just gonna sit here wondering why the fuck I dedicated an entire section to how the minecraft inventory works like what the fuck dude. why did i do that.

thanks for reading. i write words. follow perhaps if you would like to see more?

[fangirlstorycreator]

Hey Bestie 🖤 I am back with a Valek request. I thought about a scenario where he saves us one night from some bad guys asks if we're okay but then realizes that we're blind and can't see how he looks or especially what he is. He visits us more often after that and we're slowly falling in love with each other and one day he tells us the truth about him and offers to heal us with his abilities even if he is scared that we might not want to be with him anymore. With a sweet romantic ending 🥺I had this in my mind for a while. I hope everything makes sense. Take all the time you need Bestie 🙏 I love you ☺️

I am more than exited to write this one for you bestie, we all need a little Valek 😃 I hope you enjoy, I love you too bestie 💚💚💚

Everyday was pretty much the same, well it had to be in a routine when you had your little health problem. From the age of 17, you devoped a condition called corneal opacity, it was a very serious case, so serious that you had unfortunately now suffered from complete blindness. You used to have beautiful emerald green eyes, but now according to others that had seen your eyes, they were all clouded and white, a bit like having misty white eyes instead. You didn't have either your mum or dad in your life, and no siblings, but you did have some friends growing up who helped you when they could. It did seem however, that having a blind friend wasn't very cool, so eventually it ended up being just you on your own. Luckily by that time, you had learned how to read braille, could remember your surroundings of your local town and had a stick to help navigate you through the places you had to go. You were now in your mid 20's, and everything was pretty simple for you to do, and it seemed that rumour about your other senses improving when you go blind, was actually true. You could smell things in the air and identify anything you wanted to, your sence of touch was incredible, and your tastes had actually improved too. It was like every new food was a pleasant suprise. But to your suprise, even though you were completely blind and everything was black, there were times where you has some kind of vision, almost like magic.

If you were out in the rain, the sound vibrations of the rain falling on the floor, or on someone, gave them a bit of an outline, it was like seeing things in a dark blue and misty white colour. You remember seeing many people through your rain vision, a woman feeling the rain on her face too a man walking past you in a storm who had forgotten his umbrella.

It was like feeling freedom again, being blind makes you feel trapped. No way to see the world around you, see the stars in the sky or look apon a laughing baby, it was like you were stuck. But you tried your best to get through life, however, one night, everything you knew was about to change.... You had been working in an office for a number of years, your main job was to answer calls and send them through to your correct colleagues. And the other things you used to do was write up any orders that the company needed on your desk computer. You had a little earpiece to talk to people, and when you weren't talking to people on the phone, you used it to listen back from the computer to make sure you had typed the words correctly through your braille keyboard. One night you had worked a little late at the office, so when you were getting ready to leave, one of your colleagues spoke to you. "Hey Y/N, do you need a lift home?" "No thank you Otis that's ok, it's only a short walk home for me" "Are you sure? It is quite dark outside" "Its always dark outside for me" You both share a little chuckle at what you said.

"I guess your right. Ok, give me a call if you change your mind" "Ok Otis I'll see you tomorow" And with that, you got your stick out and started making your way out of the building. You knew you were outside because you could feel the cool breeze whip around your neck and hair. You start to walk down the street, using your stick to guide your way. You recognised the noises and sounds when you walked past certain areas, there was always a restaurant to the left of you that had curry and spiced smells in the air as you walked past. And when you got to the bend before the next street, there was always a little dog that barked happily at you, you would put your hand out to the gate he was behind and he would happily receive pets from you before you went on your way. However...something was diffrent tonight. You walked to the area where the little dog was, but he didnt bark. In fact, he was very quiet until he started growling, in what sounds like a warning. You also notice that the street has gone suspiciously quiet, too quite... Feeling uncomfortable with the feeling you had, you hastily tried to get back home, it was another 5 minutes away, but all of a sudden, someone stands infront of you and pushes you to the ground with an extremely rough and strong push. "Look what we have hear Dan, a poor, defenseless little lady" "Your right Aidan, what the hell is she holding a stick for-Ohhh! Aidan, it seems we are very lucky tonight..." Your very scared as you sence both these men towering over you as you try to keep the stick inbetween you and them. Your frightened to tears, so worried about what was going to happen to you.

"Well little lady, it seems that you were quite simply in the wrong place at the wrong time..." "Please! Just take my money and leave me alone" "What makes you think its your money we want?" Dan? Grab her!" One of the men grabs your arms from behind your back, yanking you up to your feet. You try to scream but he covers your mouth with his hand, while his other arm is pinning your arms behind you. "Keep her quiet Dan! I'll make a start on her..." You can hear the other man pull out a switch blade and he punches you in the stomach with his free hand. Over and over he punches you, until you feel him press the blade to your throat, he isn't cutting you, but it feel like he's about to. "I think she'll do just fine Dan, why don't we take her back? I can think of many uses for her!" "Hell yeh Aide-....what the f#ck? Did you see that?" "See what?!" "It-it looked like something just flew above us, it was really big and dark" "So what?! I don't care about that, let's just get her in the van!" They both start pulling you across the street, you desperately trying to free yourself or scream through his hand. "Get the door Aide-f#ck man I saw it again! What is that?!" "Just get her in the god damn!- Aaarrrgghhh!!!"

You hear the man infront of you scream for his life, and you can sence that he is far away from you now, how did he get that far away from you? This man is terrified as he stands back up, shaking as he looks around everywhere for whoever's or whatever threw him away from you. "Who the f#ck did that?! Show yourself! I'll f#ck you u........Oh sh#t!" All you hear is an enormous thud as what sounds like the man being thrown against the wall.

The guy holding you pushes you onto the floor as he backs away from you. "Hey-hey look man! It was just a joke! Please don't hurt me-please!-" But just like the other time, the same sound happens again, this time with a crunching sound, almost like a bone being crushed or snapped. "RUN DAN RUN!" You hear both the men scramble to their feet and try to run away as fast as they could, leaving you on your own and shaking, or so you think your on your own. You suddenly sence someone getting close to you, you manage to sit up, and that's when you feel a large hand delicately hold yours and they start stroking their thumb over your skin. "Are you alright?" This man asked you, his voice was so smooth, and yet so calm and soothing, who was he? Was he the man who beat up those men? "I...I'm not sure...did...did you?-" "Its alright your safe now, I've taken care of them. They won't hurt you anymore. Let me help you up" Both his hands are now holding yours and he helps you to your feet, your still shaking and a little unsteady, and yet he feels incredibly strong, it's like strength is vibrating from him in waves.

Once your able to stand, you can sence how tall he is when he talks to you again. "I saw them attack you, I couldn't let them do that to an innocent young woman like you. Did you try to beat them off with this stick?" "I-I tried, but it was a little difficult" "Why? What's-" Its then that you face him and he can see your eyes, its then he realises why you needed the stick, and why you struggled to defend yourself. "Oh...oh I'm so sorry, I didn't know you couldn't see" "Its alright, I'm used to it. Did you? Did you beat those guys up?" "I did, I threw them against the wall. It's no less than they deserve for what the did to you" "Thank you for helping me, if you weren't hear...god knows what would have happened. You saved me" "Like I said before, i couldn't let an innocent woman get assulted. Might I...know your name?" "Oh, my name is Y/N. Its nice to meet you" You held your hand back out to him, he didn't shake it, instead he gently held your fingers against his hand and brought it to his lips. Kissing it so gently, like a feather, it was so sweet. You could sence again how tall he was when he kisses your hand and fingers, he had to be at least 6 ft 4, 6 ft 5 maybe? "So are you completely blind?" "Unfortunately, yes. It happened when I was 17 and I've not been able to see anything since. Oh I'm sorry, what was your name sir?"

"Trust me I'm far from a sir....My name is Valek, it's a pleasure to meet you Y/N" "How can I repay you for helping me tonight?" "Well I would like to escort you home, I do not wish to see you go home by yourself" "Escort me? I haven't heard that term in ages. Yes, I'd like it if you could take me home, I wont lie, I'm still feeling scared from what happened" "Its understandable that you are. Hears your stick Y/N, would you also like to hold onto my arm as we walk together?" "That's very kind of you, thank you Valek" Your arm interlocked with his as he walked you back home, this man was very kind and gentle with you and yet he was able to save you from 2 men who so easily overpowered you, was he a fighter? Or did he do professional boxing? Whatever it was, you were glad for it. He walked you up to your front door and you thank him as you get your keys out of your bag. "I won't lie Valek, I'm a little suprised you offered to walk me home tonight" "Why is that?" "Isnt it obvious? There are so many people who have avoided me because I'm blind. It's very rare that someone sticks around and talks to me like a normal person" "If I'm being honest with you, I'm in a very similar position to you. You cant see me but when other huma-I mean person looks at me, they either run or just plain avoid me. Lets just say that I don't look like everyone else, how can I describe my look? Kind of goth ish?" "I don't think there's anything wrong with that? Your just being who you are, you shouldn't feel ashamed about how you look or dress, if that's who you are, you shouldn't care what people think or say"

"That is incredibly wise of you Y/N, not only are you brave and beautiful but your also so full of positivity and wisdom" "That's so kind-wait? Did you say beautiful, your just trying to be nice. I have no idea if I'm stylish and I've been told my eyes look like bowls of milk, I'm not beautiful" "You have been lied to then. Who ever said this to you was just trying to upset you, which you dont deserve at all. Your eyes, they're...they remind me of pearl's. They have a vibrant shine and a unique sparkle to them, it's like looking at rare treasure" Did he really just say this to you? You have known this man for an hour and not only had he saved you, but he has complimented you more than anyone ever has. "Valek...that's...thank you...that's the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me" "You deserve to hear things like that every day Y/N. If you'd like, I would very much like to see you again. I uhh, I work till late at my job, so I won't be able to see you until night time, that is, if you would like to see eachother again?" "I would love to Valek, getting to know you would be wonderful" After that night, you and Valek would see eachother every night and spend so much time together, that a strong friendship blossomed between you. He was so thoughtful and kind, and he always listened to you when you had an issue or just needed someone to listen. He told you more about himself and how he only hangs out with a few select people during the evening, he apparently wasn't a fan of the day time, but that wasn't weird to you, you worked with many people in your job who preferred doing night shifts instead of normal hours. Over the next few weeks, Valek had been around your place, helped you cook diners for you both, and was just an absolute gentleman, and he never stopped complimenting you any chance he got. You weren't suprised that your feelings of friendship started to grow into something else, but was the feeling reciprocated? You didn't want to risk it, so you kept it to yourself.

One night, you and Valek head up to the roof of your flats building, you had been up their before when you wanted to try and view the city during the rain. But tonight, you wanted to view something else. Valek was confused as you both stood on the roof, but he trusted you. "Y/N? Why are we up hear?" "Its a suprise Valek...all we have to do is wait for the rain. I can smell it in the air, it's on its way" "You can smell the rain?" "Yes, my other senses are heightened, but....when it rains, something magical happens. I wanted to tell you before, but it wasnt raining at any point. When the raindrops fall onto a surface, my vision changes from pitch black, to a murky dark blue. And its white and mist like when it splashes against someone's face, so I'm able to make out the outline of someone's face, and even see the basics of someone facial features. Everything but the colours, and I was really hoping....to see you..." "Wow...Y/N....I would love nothing more for you to see me...but...I do have to warn you, that I'm not the best looking man you may know" "Why don't you let me be the judge of that? Its coming, are you ready? Hear it is" Small little droplets start to fall from the sky, and as it gets heavier, your able to make out things around you....including him. He really was very tall, he's all dark blue and white, his outline is huge. He let's the water splash against his face, and oh my god, you never expected this. He had a sharp chiseled jaw line, smooth and full lips, long wavy hair, and his eyes...wow his eyes were shining bright against the water droplets, he looked incredible.

"I...I didn't want to scare you Y/N, I-I should go-" "Valek" You take him by the wrist before he has a chance to walk away, and you rest a hand against his wet face. "Valek....your beautiful...."

You could see his beauty and his smile in the water, his smile was hypnotic. His teeth were perfectly straight and his smile made him look like a model. There was so much wonder between you two, it made the whole moment feel magical, it seems that Valek wasn't used to being called beautiful. He rested his hand against your cheek as he looked down at you, and you could see and sence him leaning in close to your face, and that's when you could feel his soft wet lips press against yours and a slow and romantic embrace. You had no idea how long you've wanted this to happen, so when he did finaly kiss you, you couldn't hold back. Your hands wrap around his shoulders as you pull him in closer and he deepens the kiss between you, holding you against his wet body. It all happened so fast, but within a few tence moments, he managed to get you back into your bedroom and lie you down on your back as he kissed you more and more. You helped eachother pull clothes from your bodies, even letting out a little giggle of excitement through this, then he holds you in his arms again as he lies you back down on the bed, completely naked. This was a whole new experience for you, you hadn't slept with anyone since your blindness, and you had no idea what to expect. All you knew was that the feeling of his bare body, his skin against yours and his lips kissing every inch of your lips and neck was electrifying. His hand stroked up and down your leg as the kisses got more passionate and demanding, and you cant help but reach into his glorious lions mane sized silky hair. He starts moving down your body, leaving a trail of kisses as he slowly makes his way to your stolen and sensitive clit.

He wasn't gentle now, he dived in between your legs as he devoured you like there was no tomorow. "Huh! Oh f#ck!" His tounge was already making you feel more s#xually charged than you ever had before, and as he ate and kissed everywhere you wanted him too inbetween your legs, it was the best experience you had ever had. "Oh god Valek-please don't stop! Oh god! Valek I- (screams!)"

He doesn't stop as you shake against his grip and mouth, he just loves what he is able to do to your body. Within an instant, he is inbetween your legs as he slides his thick girthy cock right inside of you, and his captures your lips in his as you gasp that the sensation. He f#cks you, over and over again, making you feel so good that a few tears fun down your cheeks. Throughout the entire night, Valek has you in every position possible to ensure nothing but pleasure, and ending with the lotus position. Where he is sat cross legged with you on his lap and he moves your hips against his groin over and over again. You had never experience this many orgasms before and you were feeling exhausted, but still so desperate for one more. He could sence that you were feeling weak, but you kept begging for him not to stop, so he held you close as he continued to trust up into you. And within the next couple of hard deep thrusts, both you and Valek finaly reach the highest peak you could get too, and your entire body is shaking in his arms as he holds you, you cant help but go limp in his arms as you finaly have a moment to stop, and he is kissing your shoulder and stroking down your back. "Your so beautiful Y/N, I've dreamed of making you feel this way for so long" "Me too Valek...that was amazing...I....I'm so...." Your so tired that you can barely speak or keep your eyes open. "Lie down my treasure, you need to sleep"

He carefully lies you down on your back and places your quilt over both you and him as he holds you in his arms. "That was amazing Valek....you were amazing...." "You were incredible too my treasure, now just close your eyes" He starts stroking your hair as you start to fall asleep on his chest. You don't know if it's because your exhausted, but you can't seem to hear or feel his heartbeat? But before you could think about it anymore, you fell asleep in his arms.

The next morning, you wake up in your bed and feel the braille clock beside your bed, it said it was 11.30 in the morning, you slept in that late? Well you did have a long night, speaking of, you couldn't feel Valek in the bed with you. "Valek? Are you hear?" No answer, but when your hand glided over your bedside desk, you feel a piece of paper. You run your fingers over it and discover that he had written you a note on your braille computer and printed it out for you. It read "Good morning my beautiful treasure. Last night was the best night of my life and you were everything I had ever wished for. I'm so sorry I couldn't be there with you, I'm afraid i couldn't stay, but I promise to explain everything when I see you tonight. I hope the day brings as much beauty and wonder as I feel whenever I'm in your presence. I'll see you tonight, love Valek x" That was so sweet of him to leave you a note, and his kind words brought a smile to your face as you sat up in bed. This did get you thinking though, how come he couldn't stay until the morning? Since you've known him you've never been with him during the day, and he never ate anything you prepared with garlic. Also? Didn't he say people got scared when they saw him? He did have an enormous amount of inhuman strength when he saved you from the two men, and you remember the time he nearly said humans instead of people, noone talks like that. And that's when it hits you, last night! You couldn't feel or hear his heartbeat! Were you really thinking this? Was it true? Could it be?.... Later that night when you were up on the roof, you were waiting for Valek to arrive, there was so many things running through your mind about what Valek could want to explain to you, was it what you thought it was? A few minutes later, you hear him arrive and walk up to you. "Hello Y/N, you look even more beautiful than the day I first saw you.....Y/N? Are you ok?" "Yes, yes I'm fine Valek. Thank you that's very sweet of you to say"

You feel him stand infront of you and take your hands in his. "Y/N, I wished that I could have stayed with you this morning, and it breaks my heart that I couldn't be with you when you woke up. Y/N when I'm around you, I feel more wanted and cared for than I ever have before, you have truly changed my life. You have trusted me and been completely honest with me since the start, and I need to be honest with you too.....Y/N.....I....I need to tell you the truth....I'm really a...." "Your a vampire" Valek's eyes go wide with shock, how is this possible? "You...you know I'm a vampire? But...how?" "I didnt think it was true at first, but my suspicions were confirmed when we were in bed last night. I...I couldn't hear your heartbeat as you held me...it was the last piece of the puzzle" "But you haven't run away? Or left? Or asked me to leave? Why?" "Valek, I cant deny that knowing vampires exist is something that has completely stunned me, but just because you are one, doesn't change how I feel. It doesn't change how you have protected me, been there for me when I needed you and made me feel more loved and wanted than anyone ever has. Its something I want to learn more about, but you being a vampire isn't something that's going to frighten me away. I know what it's like to feel like noone wants to be around you because your diffrent. But that's not the case with you Valek, your my dark angel..." "And you are my treasure Y/N..." You feel his hand on your cheek as he gives you a sweet kiss, this kiss was so tender and full of emotion, you can tell how relaxed and releaved he was that you weren't frightened of him, and accepted him for who he was. "Y/N, I want to do something to show you how much you mean to me" "You don't have to Valek" "No Y/N, I do...now that you know the truth about me, I can tell you about the abilities I have"

"What do you mean abilities?" "I suppose you've already guessed that I have super human strength after what happened with the two guys that attacked you. But on top of that, I also have hypnosis, flight...and something else...but I'd rather show you..." He holds your face in his hands and gently presses against the skin of your temples, very close to the edge of your eyes. "Valek? What are you doing?" "Just trust me my treasure...close your eyes for me" You do as he says, and all of a sudden you feel this fuzzy and warm feeling wash over your eyes, it's strange but not uncomfortable. About a minute later, he moves his hands away, and your eyes are still closed. "Now my treasure....I want you to open your eyes....very slowly..." Doing as he said, you start to open your eyes, your confused as to why he wants you to do this. But that's when you realise what he's done...you can see! The first thing you see is the stars above you, finally you were able to see what you had dreamed of for so long. "Oh my god! I-I can see! This is incredible! I can see the stars! Oh wow they're beautiful! And I can see the lights of the street lamps! And the view! And-" You spin around in your excitement and thats when you face Valek properly for the first time.

You knew he was beautiful, but it seems that the water was only showing you a little of his beauty. You smile at him as you see his soft pink lips, his impressive physique, but it's his eyes that really get you. They are absolutely gorgeous, it looks like his eyes are made of diamonds and sapphires and they are glistening brighter than any star. "Valek your...Your more beautiful than the first moment I saw you in the rain" "And I never knew your natural eye colour was bright green, it's like your eyes are made of emeralds. I never knew you could get more beautiful, clearly I was wrong" "Valek, how were you able to let me see again?" "Its another one of my abilities, I have healing hands, as well as healing saliva. I wanted to give you back your freedom, you deserve it, and I hope that I can see you smile every night as you start to experience the world again. Starting with the stars tonight, and I think we're in luck. Look up"

You look into the sky, you can see all the millions of beautiful stars, but you see something else too, it's a shooting star.

"Oh Valek this is amazing, you've given me my life back. I...I love you" "I love you too Y/N, your my beautiful treasure" "And your my perfect dark angel" He gives you another sweet and tender kiss before he holds you in his arms, as he pulls you into his chest as you rest your head against his heart. You both look up at the stars, and enjoy the pure bliss of the moment together. You finaly had what you've always wanted, your freedom, your eyesight back and the love of the most wondeful man you could ever wish for.

[etheralisi]

ᵀᴼ ᶠᴼᴿᴳᴵᵛᴱ ᴬᴺᴰ ᶠᴼᴿ��ᴱᵀ

In which Bakugou Katsuki gets hit with an amnesia quirk and has some regrets. Namely getting hit in the first place.  

𝙲𝙷𝙰𝙿𝚃𝙴𝚁 𝟸: 𝙳𝚎𝚔𝚞 𝚅𝚂 𝙺𝚊𝚌𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚗 𝙿𝚊𝚛𝚝 𝙸 𝙳𝚘𝚗’𝚝 𝚁𝚎𝚖𝚎𝚖𝚋𝚎𝚛

 Ao3

𝟷 ᴅᴀʏ sɪɴᴄᴇ ɪɴᴄɪᴅᴇɴᴛ

 Beep. Beep. Beep.

 There’s nothing more ironic than forgetting you’ve forgotten, but in this moment, Katsuki operates on autopilot, flinging out an arm to grab for his phone on the shelf above. A groan as he blinks his eyes open, bleary vision trying to focus on the bright light hovering near an inch from his face.

 As the screen sets in, so do his memories, or rather, the distinct lack of their presence, empty if not for the fleeting few he’s made from the day prior. Recovery Girl, Kirishima, the study group, it all comes back as his dreams slip away, sand through his fingers, entering the waking world with the slightest residue dissatisfaction from whatever his brain whipped up as a concoction.

 He silences the phone alarm, labelled as something about a morning run for a certain amount of time or whatever, and stares at the numbers on display. New dose of information, normal him’s an early bird, early rising, early sleeping (early sleep according to Kirishima, anyhow).

 This then begs the question, does he go through with his regular schedule or wait things out by killing time with introspection? The latter sounds downright foolhardy, even boring, so it’s a no brainer that he finds himself prepping for the morning run, flinging on clothes that look vaguely work out related (maybe), and heading out. There’s no reason to stick a pin in a regular routine, besides, his inner optimist hopes that if he tries going back to his old lifestyle, he may actually reclaim some of those memories lost.

 (That part of him is pummeled into oblivion, shamed by his inner realist with a glare.  The jog does nothing in that respect.)

 What it does accomplish is the will of his past self. That guy’s right. Run. Running is good. He’s got the barest bones of a mental map for the area, merely skeletal, but better than what he had, discovering that it’s a large site and a pretty one at that. He’s even gotten a glimpse of sakura trees far out, and though he never ran through them, the pink hues looked beautiful on the horizon, the flurry of petals tinted orange through the morning glow. 

 When he arrives back at the dorms, he may go as far as saying that that run had been, well for lack of a better term, relaxing. The soothing ambience of a morning just does that to a person. Katsuki’s worries can be almost discounted as nonexistent, a pure oblivious bliss that shatters the very second he steps back into the common room, all sweaty and smelling for all the world like a caramelised apple. Is sweat even meant to smell like this?

 There’s a couple of faces he recognises, accompanying those that he doesn’t, all busy going about their morning rituals (some of which involving excessive caffeine intake) as they trickle in, states ranging from bedraggled zombie to chipper morning person. Amongst those is a face he’s been acquainted with the most — for better or for worse — shark teeth sporting his trademark grin when he notices Katsuki from over the counter.

 With those faint bruise-like circles shadowing Kirishima’s eyebags, it occurs to Katsuki that maybe he’s woken up specifically this time just for him and this is by no means a regular occurance. Like he’s become some kind of self-proclaimed guide to him for all things Katsuki Bakugou. He’ll roll with it.

 “Coffee?” Kirishima asks as he raises up a kettle. Katsuki’s never tried the beverage before, but there’s no time like the present so he accepts the offer with a nod, sidling up next to him and pulling up a mug for himself.

 As Kirishima pours the boiling liquid, Katsuki deems in appropriate to bite the bullet and start asking questions he’d rather be asking now than later, and if this guy really is his self-dubbed guide, gluing himself to his side like a permanent fixture, there’s no better person to ask. 

 Beating around the bush just sounds pointless.

 “Hey, how’s today looking?” He’s yet to receive a schedule and, like with the run, there’s got to be other things to fill the day. One such thing being school, because they’re not rooming at Yuuei just for the sake of it. Things to learn, places to be.

 “Okay, so you’ve got Tsu over there.” Kirishima waves over at a girl bearing a lot of resemblance to a frog, overseeing a frying pan with a keen eye on the sizzling yolk within. “And Satou both making natto and fried egg on rice for breakfast. Satou’s been under the tutelage of Lunch Rush-Sensei lately, think he’s been trying out new ground? Speaking of, Sensei’s food’ll be delivered over soon, so you’re free to have that instead.” Upon realising Katsuki was asking about the wider picture, Kirishima adds, “Of course you’ve got classes after this, lunch, more classes and then our day’s free from there!”

 So they are going to lessons today. Nice to know.

 “So it’s true, ribbit,” Tsuyu says, coming away from the pan as Satou takes ahold of it. Speaking of. “You’ve lost your memories.”

 “Yeah, don’t remember you. Sorry.” He’s said this before, hasn’t he?

 Kirishima ruffles Katsuki’s hair with a laugh. “S’got nothing up there now — what the, your hair’s so soft. I assumed it’d be all covered in hair gel? How?” 

 “Thanks? I think?” Katsuki’s eyes roam to the top of his peripheral where Kirishima’s hand runs through his hair, longer than the average hair ruffle should be in his book (again, he’s not in any position to say from experience). “Is this normal?”

 “Nah, but you’ve gotta tell me what you use. My hair takes work, y’know. These spikes come from blood, sweat and tears.”

 “And red dye, ribbit ribbit,” Tsuyu adds on, to Kirishima’s horror. He deflates, and Katsuki swears even his hair sags with him, just as disheartened as his face.

 “Wha— who told you my trade secret? Who else knows?” 

 Tsuyu blinks, slow. The kind of gaze she used on the eggs. “It’s a secret?”

 “Yes!”

 “Tsu!” Calls a classmate — presumably this Satou character — just when things may get messy for both the food and the conversation, “A little help please? I’m more suited to baking.”

 “Coming!” Tsuyu hops on back to her work station whilst the pair of them get set up with their coffee. Katsuki swats away the need to get in there and do things himself. Cooking is a foreign jungle he’s yet to explore.

 This atmosphere. It’s… nice.

 ————-

 After showering and changing with minimal unintentional hand explosions — because he doesn’t care what Kirishima says he smells like, he’s still sweaty — he’s heading back down again to enjoy the first meal of the day, only spending five or so minutes looking for a tie that may or may not exist and deeming the search a waste of time.

 He’s not eaten since, well, he doesn’t know.

 It tastes as good as it smells, which is pretty damn good (though Satou insists it’s mainly Tsuyu’s work) and it’s just as he’s finishing up polishing off his plate that he meets him, late down having received a case of faulty wake up alarm. 

 So far, re-meeting his classmates has been going alright. Sure, there’s been looks ranging from giggles and snickers, to concerned and downright confused, or the near impassive look of the infamous Todoroki along the way. But for the most part, he’s taking this in stride. They’re being nice to him, making him as welcome as possible in their efforts, and doing their best to keep things normal in a way he’s thankful for.

 “Oh that?” Kirishima starts when he asks, “That’s Midoriya Izuku, you’re childhood friends.” Then this look crosses his friend’s face as he adds, “I mean, you and I are close, man. But you and him? You’ve got history.” 

 It explains the inexplicable tugging force at work towards him. What the mind forgets, the heart remembers.

 Kirishima pats Katsuki on the back and pulls him over to the boy, all green eyes and a smattering of freckles, cherubic features surrounded by forestfulls of hair. This Izuku’s looking over at them quizzically, and by the rate his mouth is moving at, Katsuki will hazard a guess that he’s mumbling very, very quickly. You think the speed of light’s fast? Got nothing on this kid right here.

 (Nobody notices how the tips of Katsuki’s ears dust themselves in the faintest of pinks, layer opacity five percent at best. Something inside of him flutters. He dismisses it immediately.)

 “Yo Midoriya, what’s up?” Kirishima startles the boy from his spewing of thoughts, the mumbling ceasing as Kirishima makes for conversation. 

 “Oh, hi Kirishima, Kacchan… you’re uh, in a good mood?” He’s a little hesitant, curious, eyes flitting across his face in a calculating manner. It’s nothing of the malicious sort, merely discombobulated, as if he’s being presented with an alien situation and doesn’t know quite how to react, keeping on guard until he can discern an appropriate course of action.

 Katsuki startles as the word ‘Kacchan’ passes his lips, riding sky high on a rollercoaster to cloud nine and simply not coming back down. Kirishima really wasn’t kidding about the childhood friends thing, and, even in this day and age, the cutesy nicknames stay.

 Huh.

 “Kacchan?” Katsuki repeats, his words sounding distant, like he’s underwater. The green boy stills. “You call me Kacchan?”

 There’s a pause. “Whaa- uh...Yes?” Izuku blinks before whirling to face Kirishima, eyes swimming with unanswered questions which absolutely no one can answer until he voices them. Despite this confusion, his next words come out surprisingly firm, commanding even. “What’s going on?”

 As Kirishima gives him a rundown on the situation, something he’s been saved from when it came to the majority of classmates (gossip spreads far, so Katsuki’s learned), Izuku pales considerably, skin subtly turning a sickly pallor, his freckles only becoming ever more prominent like the seeds of an unripe strawberry. A ghost may as well be choosing this moment to walk on in and announce its presence, Izuku sure looks as if he’s seen one.

 But perhaps the only ghost here is Katsuki. Isn’t he but a hollow shell of who he once was? Who is he, really, without those memories? Without his core identity?

 Who is he?

 The boy chokes, mouth opening and closing, catching flies as an accusatory finger is raised at a wobbly snail’s pace. He’s stuck like that before he starts running his mouth with questions, topping at the list of ‘most dramatic reactions yet’ with a grand whopping total of a thousand points. That’s got to be a record. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” He hisses, and hasn’t Yaoyorozu said something along those lines? “You can’t just- this is a bad idea. Okay? And I mean a bad one.”

 Katsuki’s lost, probably somewhere in between bad and idea, but Kirishima remains at ease, laid back from attitude to posture and spewing stuff like “relax” and “everything’ll be fine”. Yeah, he’s missing something big here, stepping on into a conversation part way through like he’s intruding and not meant to actually be present. 

 But he’s got to try saying something. He’s got this growing feeling he’s being ignored. 

 “So childhood friends, yeah?” And that catches Izuku’s attention, like a moth to a flame, caught somewhere in the middle of freaking out in front of Kirishima and trying to give a justifiable conclusion for it. “Great that someone here’s known me for so long, there’s gotta be a load of stories stored up there! ‘Cuz that’ll help with getting my memories back.” Then he adds on, “I’m glad you’re here Izuchan!”

 The word weighs heavy on his tongue, bitter, tangy, like something he is unpracticed in saying. It feels off... somehow, but when he tries to pull up something to justify it, he’s hit with the empty feeling of blank memory banks, a canvas of white when there ought to be colour. He moves on nothing but emotion and muscle memory, the only things keeping him going when there’s little else to guide him.

 And apparently that emotional drive is not helpful in the slightest.

 Somehow — and he doesn’t know how — this only succeeds in making things worse. If this guy’s lucky, he’ll live until he’s fifty because he’s pretty sure he’s shaved exactly that amount of years off his life.

 Oops?

 (“He’s.... smiling…. at me,” Izuku says slowly once Katsuki is out of earshot, straining to push the words out, the subject hard to grasp. The few left to witness the whole conversation send him some sympathetic looks.)

 (Just. What?)

 _____

 Excluding the odd encounter with the green boy, the morning’s smooth sailing, with a few road bumps along the way (read: Izuchan and other stories). Lessons? Not so much. 

 Just like the dorms, the label for their classroom can’t possibly be bigger. And even if he, for some unfathomable reason, found himself unable to follow the flow of his classmates as they meander their collective way to lessons, locating the room would be childsplay, you know, after finding the correct floor. 

 Yuuei sure likes its flashy titles.

 He finds his seat (thanks Kirishima) and instinctually slings his feet up on the desk like a sack of potatoes, a natural reaction that refuses to leave even during memory loss’ hold. He doesn’t even realise he’s doing it either until that glasses guy — what’s his name again? Begins with ‘I’ and ends with ‘don’t remember’ — comes up, hands chopping at the air with a mind of their own like he’s cutting invisible vegetables, and calls him out on it, using examples of property damage to fuel his point. Katsuki hastily backpedals, sinking into his seat as he returns his feet right back to where they should be. On the ground. The traitors.

 Katsuki doesn’t know what came over him, he swears. Can testify this in court. But he settles with apologising which gets the glasses guy to halt, then nod in approval, like the class’ proud parent.

 (Or class rep, as it dawns on him later. Funny how these things come to you late.)

 Then chatter tapers off into muttering as in walks a guy who looks like he’s stared death in the face and remains wholly unimpressed. Their homeroom teacher in all his glory, one of the many pro heroes here because right, that’s what they’re training to be.

 Apparently, even pro heroes need to learn the mandatory normal school stuff.

 Katsuki, more often than not, finds himself staring at the board rather than his notes, the creeping unease rising about jumping in mid topic, the deep end of the pool when he’s only dipped his toes in the shallow end. He doesn’t remember what he’s being told he should know, and when he flicks back to his notes, everything his past self has written feels foreign. This whole experience, it’s like he’s being shoved into the life of someone else, someone who looks so much like him, but he can’t even begin to recall. It’s all so... foreign. Someone else’s shoes he can’t possibly fill, not for lack of trying.

 Katsuki wants to push himself to do better, but he’s tailing the others. He’s floundering when they’re already so far ahead, and try as he might, despite wanting to resist this metaphorical speed bump and not let it get the better of him, it inevitably does.

 It must show because he can feel the concerned eyes of Izuku prickling on his neck. It realligns him with reality and he gets back to note taking.

 For now, it’s all he can do.

 He won’t let himself fall behind. He won’t.

 ----------------

 There are many peculiarities at Yuuei.

 And this is one of them.

 One minute Aizawa-Sensei is there, doing that thing teachers do, standing in front of the class and talking about something that is undoubtedly important in their studies. The next, he’s out cold and dead to the world (in a manner of speaking, their teacher hasn’t just kicked the bucket from the stress of teaching them, afterall). Was that teacher seriously just taking a nap in class? Looking, for all his worth, like a human caterpillar, lying flat and ready for metamorphosis. Katsuki idly wonders about the entry requirements for working as a teacher at Yuuei, or if this sleeping correlates with his quirk in any way shape or form.

 The classmates are all unperturbed by the development, seemingly a common occurrence they’d grown used to, as normal as a blue sky, or Iida reminding him to take his feet off the desk. If it doesn’t bother them, then it shouldn’t bother old him either. He keeps his trap shut as they finish up with his lesson plan.

 They’re training to be heroes. They’ve known weirder.

 ------------

 By the time lunch swings around, he’s only filled up about half as many book pages as he would on a regular day. But. Katsuki’s trying. It may not mean much, but it’s all he can say, and for the meantime, before all his memories come back and shit makes sense, it will just have to do. 

 Whilst he may be stumped when it comes to his education, his taste buds aren’t having the same problem.

 “Aaand you’re still eating that.” Kirishima grimaces with his eyes locked on Katsuki’s lunch. He really doesn’t understand where that look’s coming from, this spicy stuff is great. “Your taste buds really haven’t changed.”

 “It’s a memory quirk,” Katsuki points out, as if this information isn’t obvious at this point. Apparently he holds more brain cells than them, and he’s the one with memory troubles. Talk about the irony.

 “True, true,” Ashido nods along from where her head rests propped up by her elbows, “Soooo, what do you think of- whaa- Sero! My drink’s spilling.”

 “Maybe if you stopped using my elbow as a cupholder,” Sero insists from his seat next to her, said drink only spilling more until Ashido scoops it up, “There’s a table. Right there. Instead of my elbows.”

 “Just using my resources!” She says like the innocent flower she’s not, then looks down disappointedly at her cup “Aww, I’m going to have to get a refill.”

 “Or you can have some of mine? I don’t mind,” Katsuki offers, but at her slightly taken aback look, he almost considers retracting the offer. Then the smile’s back in place like it never left, though a little softer.

 Another thing he’s releasing. Smiles aren’t exclusive to Kirishima. They’re all chronic grinners here, one way or another, like it’s something contagious. 

 His other self sure must be something if this lot’s hanging out with him. They’re nice. Chaotic, but nice.

 “Oooh,” Ashido continues, reaching out wiggling fingers across the table, “Don’t mind if I do…”

 “You...may want to... reconsider,” A voice chokes from beside him, in between wheezes as he struggles for breaths. They jolt at Kaminari’s appearance, all red in the face like he’s run a marathon with no breaks, and then some. “This stuff’s just as spicy as his food. What is this stuff? Eugh, hot.”

 Ashido backs away, slumping back in her seat. When she speaks, it doesn’t do the faintest thing to mask her amusement. “Maybe that’ll teach you not to steal other people’s drinks, then.”

 “He offered!”

 “To me. Ooo, speaking of drinks, you’re probably gonna need one before you die of spice.”

 When the pair arrive back, drinks in hand and Kaminari looking significantly less red in the face and not impersonating a dog panting after a long run, Ashido wastes no seconds in starting where she left off.

 “Anyway, as I was saying. What do you think of us Blasty? Come onn, admit it. We’re pretty great, right?”

 “Fishing for compliments?” Kirishima asks, “Unmanly, dude.”

 “No, no!” Kaminari protests, like if he doesn’t jump in now, he will forever be mournful of a lost opportunity, “This is good material. Let’s hear it.”

 Put on the spot like this with all eyes on him, Katsuki sees no other option than to comply. “I mean, I know it doesn’t seem like it, but I just met you yesterday.” His eyes fall on Sero, who apparently chose yesterday of all nights to pack in up early with his study group session. “Today. Whatever. But if you’re asking then... yeah.” He meets their eyes with the utmost sincerity, a smile tugging at his lips, a hint of something small, honest. “You’re ‘pretty great’.”

 Katsuki doesn’t know what to say to the silence, wonders if he’s misspoken even if he can’t fathom how. He opens his mouth, makes a move to correct whatever muck up he’s got involved in, when it’s broken by Ashido’s squeal.

 “Oh get in here, you!” And suddenly there’s a blur of pink in his face, wrapping her arms around like a clingy limpet doing — oh, is this a hug? He goes ramrod rigid initially, but finds himself leaning in, a steadily rising of something warm and odd in his chest, fizzling and mushy and sending back up in that rollercoaster to the clouds once more.

 “Knew you always liked us!” Someone says from amongst the bundle, and that’s got to be Kirishima, he’s sure of it.

 “We’re doing a cuddle pile?” That’s distinctly Kaminari’s voice, though it sounds so, so far away, “Whilst eating? My food!”

 But he’s in on the pile in seconds, in favour of his lunch, adding to the tangly mess of limbs that’s surprisingly comfortable, even with all these odd angles they’re coming in at. They make a pretzel look simple, tangled wool look neat. Yet he’s content.

 “Wish I could remember you lot,” Katsuki says quiet enough to nearly go unnoticed, heck, he’s only half aware of saying it aloud. It’s true, he does. He’s a tourist in his own skin. He wants to remember all moments like this, the laughs, them.

 Their grip tightens before Ashido bails out, like a diver gasping for breath. “If it’s memories you want, then it’s memories you’ll receive. Let’s make some!”

  Sero looks as if this is the best idea he’s ever heard in the history of ideas, pumping his arm with a beat of enthusiasm as they untangle, “Yeah! Sure sounds like fun.”

 Kaminari wrinkles his nose. “Ehhh? But how? Didn’t they say it’ll be a week?”

 “At the most,” Kirishima adds, then returns to the topic at hand by shooting Ashido a confused stare, “What do you mean by that?”

 “Boys, boys,” She drawls, and you can see her eyes taking a roll on the dark abyss of her sclera, “I mean let’s do something fun as a squad. Make some memories! You in?”

 “Oh that?” Kaminari nods, then again with a tad more conviction, entertaining a thought that is steadily growing on him the more he mulls it over, “I mean we had to cut the last trip short, so why not head back? I’ve still got stuff to get.”

 Kirishima puts his foot down at that, not in the literal sense, but rather the ‘absolutely hecking not kind,’ wincing as if Kaminari’s words cause him physical pain with a whole bucket load of flashbacks to boot. “Dude, you saw what happened to Bakugou. Really? So soon?”

 Kaminari may not have, but he’s looking at Katsuki now, then Kirishima, brow creasing slightly but otherwise absolutely unphased. “There’s got to be a rule against villains not hitting the same place twice, right?”

 “That’s lightning. Lightning.”

 “Okay but, hear me out,” Kaminari continues like his words are spiritually enlightening and not the complete opposite, “We’re not that unlucky.”

 His words seem to register after a moment, gauging their looks, tense and silent, and his face falls, crestfallen. “Nah, you’re right. We are.”

 “We’re villain magnets.” Sero nods sagely.

 “Cursed,” Ashido agrees, then not two seconds later, “So, a film then?”

 “Yeah.”

 (Not for the first time does Katsuki find himself wondering just what he’s been through with this group of individuals. But it is a first when it comes to wanting to know how they’ve gone through the wringer too.)

 --------------

 Just as there is normal schooling of the academic kind, to get people’s brain cells in gear, there’s the hero part of their training for — as it so clearly states in the title — the hero course.

 And, being the heroes they are, they have the matching suits to go with. He picks his out and then frowns at the pieces as if they’ve done something to offend him by purely existing. It’s not like he’s unhappy with it — because he is, really well and truly is — but there’s something to be said for assembly. Once the flashy costume is on, you have gauntlets that weigh heavier than they look (which look heavy on their own, but these sure are something), and all those other fiddly attachments which are as good as useless when there’s no instruction manual to go with them. What’s he meant to do in the emergency case of amnesia then, huh? What then?

 With a sheepish look, he’s turning for Kirishima once more, only to find the place he once inhabited utterly devoid of any spiky redheads. Already out and on the field then, having beaten him to it. What he does see, however, is someone less on the red side and more on the green spectrum.

 Midoriya Izuku stands in the doorway, half awkwardly, with his nervous twitch and round uneasy eyes, the gentle breeze ruffling his hair like a sighing forest. He looks conflicted, caught in some internal debate of ‘should I or shouldn’t I.’ If he’s going to do anything other than pose by the door, Katsuki really hopes it’ll be sooner rather than later.

 Or not.

 Katsuki takes the leap, startling Izuku from all thoughts.

 “You don’t happen to know what’s going on with this costume, huh?” He doesn’t know how aware his classmate is of his costume, but unlike Katsuki he’s seen this thing in action. That’s a better start than he has.

 “Oh, of course!” And he’s not expecting that, he blinks, stupefied. This will save him some hassle for sure. 

 Then Izuku’s mumbling something about gauntlets, sweat, pins all the while pointing at each part individually, making this look like a rehearsed speech. He starts tinkering, picking up the parts and attaching them on all before Katsuki really knows what’s going on.

 “Oh, sorry!” Izuku startles, getting a hold of himself. He rips his hands away like someone upped the temperature of Katsuki’s suit to level five: fiery inferno. But there’s nothing wrong with the fabric and Izuku’s hands are yet to blister. “You don’t mind me helping you out like this, do you Kacchan?” 

 Izuku drops this like he’s thus far not finished already, way too late to the party to be asking a question such as that. Try a few moments earlier, perhaps? Still, help is help.

 “Nah, you’re good. Thanks Izuchan.”

 Izuku pulls a face, something caught between a wince and a flush at the reiteration of the name as he pulls away completely, hastily changing the subject, be it an equally important one.

 “Aizawa-Sensei paired us up for practice today,” Izuku explains, and now his awkward shuffle waiting is a whole lot clearer, or else he’s be in the field like Kirishima “I think it’s because of my notebooks I’ve got on using your quirk. He’s noticed that you may need…” He frowns. “Pointers?”

 Today’s task is simple training, or at least, it should be for those with actual experience doing this thing. Him? He’s got nada. Could’ve been born yesterday for all it matters. 

 There’s something to be said for muscle memory, so it isn’t as if he’s working from scratch, but it can only get you so far before lack of technique becomes a hindrance. Ever since last night, he’s been setting off sparks, occasionally and not all intentional, coming to grips with his quirk as it comes back to him like a well oiled bike. He’s far off where he probably was only a mere few days ago, hasn’t even had time yet to practice full attacks, but he can’t afford to be useless for when a real threat comes. 

 If he slacks off, even for just a day, there’s no way he can rise to the top. To be the best hero he can possibly be.

 He’s done this before, and maybe, with the assistance of Izuku’s olive branch, he can do this again.

 (Izuku pays attention to his quirk, his mind screams. There’s a notebook out there on… you.

 He doesn’t know how he feels about this.)

 “Sure,” Katsuki finds himself answering, tightening up those gauntlets and ready to give it his all, “I’d like that.”

 -------

 Izuku’s not going easy on him. Which is good. He doesn’t want that. His limits are there to be tested and tried, and if anyone thinks babying him just because of a slight case of memory loss is the way to go, then they can suck it.

 Besides, he’s not going to go easy on anyone either.

 In fact, he’ll be as bold as to say he’s getting the hang of this.

 “Of course you are!” Is Izuku’s response, like he never expected any less of him. Good.

 Along with encouragement straight from the heart, Izuku never giving praise he doesn’t think is due, Izuku dishes out suggestions and techniques as the pair of them spar, one on one, locked in a battle of minds and fists. Izuku’s observations start with weaker, fiddly bits of information, as if almost nervous to suggest anything major. 

 With Katsuki’s shout of “Come at me with everything you have!” that smirk on his face just so right, Izuku progresses in internal drive to demonstrate entire moves, with Izuku admitting once Katsuki sees some of these tactics in action, that some of his own moves are inspired by Katsuki himself.

 Huh.

 Izuku is a force to be reckoned with, alive with a stunning energy about him, but Katsuki’s no slacker either. And he’s a fast learner to boot. Katsuki puts in his all, the thrill of adrenaline coursing through his veins, heightening the power of each blow in this back and forth dance of blows. Now this is his element, his quirk, his extension of his body. This is where he belongs and it will take more than a villain’s quirk to take it away from him.    

 Katsuki detonates his palms once more and throws a fist back to counter and-

 <A bitter rage swells, simmering beneath the surface, his blood boiling to the hundredth degree. It Ripples through him in leaps and bounds, a wild hound that can’t be tamed, ragged at the edges, fierce to its prey. Like a second skin, like it’s always been there, an underlying current that’s washed him into an ocean of scorching rage. Like an old friend. 

 But it encases something more, buried deep down in his core, closed off and held tight. The caged hound is wounded, fearful and guilty, and he pushes this down because he refuses to be weak. Refuses to be less than strong. He won't. But in this moment they begin to spill over the crumbling edges, and the lines blur to what once and what is.

 And he needs to know. To lay things down clear.

 The truth.

 He’s shouting and the words are tumbling and “FIGHT ME!! WHAT THE HELL IS YOUR PROBLEM?!”

 And so, the first blows are thrown. They fight with fists and words and>

 And he’s gasping for air, momentarily thrown by the dizzying feeling of whatever that was, the tumbling and loss of focus just enough time it’s enough to give Izuku the leverage he needs for his attack.

 “Kacchan?” Izuku asks, breathy and panting as sweat crawls from his brow. Izuku’s concerned, those eyes glistening like sparkling beacons, calling out to him through whatever ocean he plunged through.

 He takes a moment, no movement between the two except for the rise and fall of Katsuki’s chest, taking heavy breaths. He’s not sure how much of it is from the battle or the vision. Katsuki blinks it back, and shrugs it off, back on his feet in seconds like an ordinary day at the office. 

 “Yeah,” Katsuki assures, “I’m fine. C’mon, go again.”

 He won’t let Izuku take him down so easily.

 ----------

 They go again.

 And again.

 And again.

 (He pushes the vision to the back of his mind. He can’t explain what he’s feeling, what it means.)

 (But it sounds important.)

[argetnallison]

the long awaited updated icon tutorial in which i will show you how i make all of the different icons that i make. (it’s a bit long so... you have been warned)

for this icon tutorial you will need:

a screencap

an icon psd

doodles / textures / templates

i. BASICS

okay, so you open your image on photoshop, here's Mera (the love of my life)

next, what i do is i duplicate the layer by right clicking on Mera and selecting duplicate

and i do this until i have three copied layers and my original

then i select the first layer and add auto tone

for the second layer i add auto contrast

and for the third layer i add auto color

and i select those three layers and lower the opacity to 25% - i do this because it balance's the picture's look.

sometimes if the picture is too blue, the auto color will bring it back to its original color. in those cases, i use the fixed image as the "base" and set the blue image to 25% opacity. 

andf finally, i like to crop my picture. (you can crop it again later if you don't like the results, i simply like getting an idea of what my icon will look like)

finally, i merge my layers together

ii. COLORING

the first thing i do for coloring is add my icon psd. you can color your icon any way you like, but if you want to use my psd i will show you the basics of how to edit it so it looks good on any icon.

the first thing you need to do is open the folder. and take the visibility off all of the layers it contains, like so

now, i do my editing in pieces, so first i look at brightness layers

most likely, your picture will be too bright like mine. what you need to do is add another brightness / contrast layer and lower the brightness a bit

then i look at the saturation layers. and what i want to check is if my image is too yellow, or too red, or too much of a color.

and if so, i fix it with a color balance layer. 

next i add all the selective color and the color fill.

the selective color should work for all fandoms (it has for me), but the color fill will need to be modified depending on the brightness of your image.

you can now add all the layers up to the gradient map.

you will need to lower the opacity of the gradient map depending on what you think looks best in your image

at the end, i have two vibrance layers. you will not need both, so check each one to see which one looks better and delete the other one

we are pretty much done with the icon psd

i like to edit the skin a bit, to make it look smoother. this is optional so you can skip this part if you don't wanna do it.

anyway, i add a new layer and chose a skin tone. (i used #ebcdc9)

i set the layer to COLOR and i paint over Mera's skin

then all you do is adjust the opacity. somewhere between 10 and 50% should be okay.

i add another layer, and i paint over her skin with pink (#ce2c64), i set it to SOFT LIGHT and lower the opacity to somewhere between 10 and 50%

i am all done with her skin

then i add another layer, set to SOFT LIGHT and paint over Mera's cheeks and lips with a pink or red color. (i used #ce2c64). 

i lowered the opacity to 26% but this is optional

next i edit the eyes

i add a new layer set to COLOR and use a small brush to color over her eyes with white.

then i duplicate the layer and set it to SOFT LIGHT

in that same layer, i color over her iris with green (´cause her eyes are green, but you could use any color you wanted)

then i use a very small brush to paint around her eyes (sort of like eye-liner) with black or dark brown

i think it looks bad, so i add some gaussian blur

with these settings:

i zoom out

i add a new layer set to COLOR and i use an orange color (#d96932) to paint over Mera's hair. after, i lower the opacity to whatever i think looks good.

i duplicate the layer, set it to SOFT LIGHT and change the opacity again.

this step is also optional

when i color over her clothes i usually chose whatever color i want, paint over her clothes, set the layer to COLOR or SOFT LIGHT

but, i will show you a trick i use, so instead, paint over her clothes with white and set the layer to COLOR

when you are done, duplicate the layer and hide it from view for now.

merge your image again, but make sure you merge the visible layers so your clothes layer doesn't get deleted!

  iii. CUTTING OUT

at this point i like to add my background. i use pre-made gradients made by me (you can learn how to make them here). but you can use a normal color fill background or you can find gradient packs to use.

that layer goes behind Mera

now we have to cut out our icon. if you guys have a preffered method, you can go ahead and use that. i have some methods here. but i will show you what i like to do

we're going to add a layer mask on our image

i select the eraser tool, with a small brush, and 90% hardness

i zoom in and i paint an outline around Mera. 

when you are done, you should have something like this:

note: the outline's thickness doesn't matter much, but the thicker it is, the easier it will be to do the next step

we change the size of the brush

and paint over the rest of the image

we will duplicate the Mera layer

and drag the layer mask to our clothes layer

now we add a color fill layer

set to black (#000000)

then we merge the black color fill layer with the clothes layer

(you select both of them, right click and select merge)

next, click on CHANNELS and then click on the dotted circle at the bottom, this will select the white in your image (but it only works if the image is black and white).

then go back to layers and clik on the layer mask

finally, i duplicate my background drag it on top of Mera and add the layer mask we just created, like so:

note: you can set that layer to SOFT LIGHT or COLOR depending on what you think looks best, and you can adjust the opacity as well.

now back to our Mera layer.

i like to convert it to smart filter

and i duplicate the Mera layer

then, i add vibrance to the duplicated layer

i add all of the vibrance

next, i add gaussian blur

you should chose the settings

i usually go for 15px, but it depends on your image.

and i adjust the opacity

at this point, the icon is pretty much done.

i like adding a few final touches. first, i add a gradient map layer

then, i add a new layer set to SOFT LIGHT

then, add a gradient

next, you will get a pop up.

you can select the same color as your background if you like

but, i like for my gradient to be black and white, so...

then, once you chose your color, you can change the angle here

and the last step is adjusting the opacity

we are done! the last step is to merge your layers.

  iv. SAVING

to have the best quality, you need to save your icons for web.

these are the settings i use:

v. CHANGING COLORS

now you might be thinking. "Michell,  why the hell did you make me do all that stuff for her clothes? Like, what's the point?" well... having that layer mask makes it so easy to change the colors

all you have to do is add a new background, duplicate it, and drag the clothes layer mask to the duplicated background layer

vi. TEXTURES

there are two ways to add textures

the first one is if the texture is the same color as your background. all you do is set it to SOFT LIGHT or SCREEN or whatever else you want and you are done! like this:

and the second one is if you want to use a texture that is a different color than your icon, like this:

what i do is, i select that layer and go IMAGE > ADJUSTMENTS > VIBRANCE

and i get rid off all the vibrance

and now i can set it to SOFT LIGHT (or anything else i want) and it will look awesome!

note: here are some of my favorite textures and here are some of my textures

vii. DOODLES

adding doodles is super easy. all you need to do is drag them over your icon, change the size and maybe rotate them a bit

you can leave them as they are, or set them to SOFT LIGHT or SCREEN

note: i don't use doodles much, but you can find some here

viii. TEXT TEXTURES

for text/lyrics textures are very easy to use. i mostly set them to SCREEN. and as you can see above there's a bunch of different styles you can do, which i really like

for these, the most important thing is the size. remember you can make the textures smaller or larger to fit your image

ix. SHAPE ICONS

these icons are really easy to make. all you need to do is add a layer mask

you add your template over the icon

you click SELECT > ALL and once the image is selected press  CTRL+C to copy the layer

then press ALT and click the white square on the layer mask

press CTRL+V to paste your template

finally, convert your image for smart filters

note: here's a template psd i made 

p.s. here's a full tutorial in case you need more help

x. CIRCLE OUTLINE ICONS

these icons are really easy as well! first, you need to make a circle icon (with the tutorial above) and you will need some circle outlines or flower crowns. (i googled them to find the ones i used)

anyway, you place it on top of your icon like so

then we go to CHANNELS and click the dotted circle

go back to LAYERS

next add a color fill layer, with whichever color you want (i use white always)

and then you get this.

(you might need to re-size your circle icon a bit, just press CTRL + T and change it in the squares at the top)

that's all!

if you have any more questions my askbox is open! 

[shortcakemonster]

Go-Away Green pt. 6

Summary: You finally open up to Peter.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 7

You snuck in through the back door of the chemistry room as most of your classmates filed in, doing your best to remain unnoticed. On any other day, this would have been a fairly easy feat, but today was your first day out wearing the ring that Tony Stark had given you in order to neutralize your powers. That meant you couldn’t even divert anyone’s attention from you.

Fortunately, you weren’t very noticeable as it was. Sure, you got the odd glance here and there from your fellow students, but nobody really paid you any mind. Everyone gave you about as much consideration as they’d give a chair or a locker.

Everyone except for Peter Parker.

Happy had driven you and Peter home yesterday, and while there was a lot less stress regarding your lack of control over your powers, there was still the lingering tension from all the hand-holding you and Peter had shared back in the lab. You were both fairly content to look at anything but each other for the duration of the ride. Once you’d arrived home, you’d tried to ignore Happy’s smirk as Peter insisted on walking you to the front door of your apartment building.

So there you were, at the front of your complex as the sun began to set over the taller buildings of Queens. You stole a glimpse at Peter, who had shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans and was now looking up at you with all the hope and affection in the world contained in his warm brown eyes.

“I-I’ll see you tomorrow, right?” he stammered.

Great. One more expectation you had to fulfill, and it seemed more daunting than keeping up your 4.4 GPA or fighting crime around the city.

Being there for someone who wanted you there. Being wanted. You fought to control your breathing as you twisted your ring around on your finger.  Regardless, you’d nodded before entering your building without a word.

Your daydreams ground to a halt as Peter strolled into class, and your heart sped up at the sight of him. Not because you were nervous (though you were always nervous), this didn’t feel quite like that. This was like being on a swing set, and getting that tickle in your throat or your stomach when you started to go higher than you expected.

However, it was entirely panic-inducing when he looked up from talking with Ned to make eye contact with you.

You looked away, of course, but not immediately. For one moment, which felt like forever but was probably only half a second, you stared fully at him, his soft brown eyes, his strong jawline, his curly hair that you wouldn’t mind threading your hands through...

You cleared your throat and stared downward, though you had nothing to stare at- no notebook or anything- because you never took notes. This didn’t prevent Peter from beelining for you, as you witnessed from his sneakers bouncing across the floor of the classroom towards you.

“Hey,” he greeted, leaning against your lab table. You could see his arms out of the corner of your eye- the arms that helped him swing across the city and take out bad guys, and you realized that all the long sleeved shirts and sweaters didn’t do that good of a job at concealing his muscles. No one, you supposed, bothered to take notice of him for very long. In a way, you envied him for that.

You followed the path of his arms up to his shoulders and his face and- honest to goodness, he was smiling at you. You could feel your heart melting.

“Hi,” you squeaked. Hadn’t you just cleared your throat? Why did you sound like this?

His smile widened at your greeting. “So, uh, how are you doing?” he asked, cocking his head to the side. “I mean, how do you feel? After everything at the compound, yesterday. I’m sorry if it was overwhelming.”

“I’m good,” you assured him.

“Okay...” He came around the table to stand at your side, ducking his head down to meet your eyes. “Listen, you were telling me something yesterday, and you never got around to finishing it up.”

Forget about it forget about me forget my name forget you’ve ever seen me.

It wouldn’t work, you realized after a second or two, even if you weren’t wearing your ring and your powers were in full effect. Your strongest efforts would likely make Peter groggy, if anything. Still, you’d practiced mental chanting for so long that it was basically instinct, at this point.

You shook your head, partly to clear your thoughts and partly to deny Peter what he was asking. “It’s not important.”

“Yes, it is,” he insisted, furrowing his eyebrows.

How did he have any way of knowing that? You didn’t blame him for being curious, but it wasn’t like you had anything important to say.

He opened his mouth to say something, but he was blissfully interrupted by the bell, signifying the beginning of class.

He walked back around to the other side of the table, and you thought for a moment that he had given up on his efforts. You were painfully wrong in assuming that Peter Parker would ever give up on anything. “Can we talk at lunch?”

You twisted the ring around on your finger, which didn’t go unnoticed by Peter. “You don’t have to.”

“I know, but I’d like to,” he countered. “If you’re cool with that.”

You looked down and hid your hands in your lap, underneath the table. You shrugged your shoulders in response. Of course you wanted to spend time with him, but at the same time, you didn’t. You’d give anything to hear him ramble on about his crime-fighting stories, his friends, or even Star Wars, but he didn’t seem to want that. He wanted you to talk, and there was no way that was going to happen.

You thought of his smile as you heard his footsteps retreating to his own table. You fought the urge to look up at him again, as you didn’t want to see the look of disappointment on his face. 

Imagine the disappointment he’d feel if he actually got to know you.

You swallowed, the mental image of his smile being replaced by the memory of him flickering yesterday as he’d taken your hand. He’d willingly held on despite this, and that didn’t bode well for you or him. You didn’t like the thought of him doing anything for you that would affect him like that. It was safe to assume that Peter didn’t think about it that way, but it was also a safe assumption that Peter never really thought about anything before going ahead and doing it. He was a superhero, after all, and he had to trust his instincts.

This time around, his instincts were wrong, and you knew it. His instincts were telling him that you were worth paying attention to and keeping company with.

But... weren’t your instincts telling you the same thing, at least some of them? You doubted that you were wrong to think that Peter was kind, trustworthy, and just an all-around good person. But that didn’t give you the right to make his life any more difficult than it already was, and it was probably all kinds of difficult.

Chemistry passed without any notable events, save for Peter sneaking an occasional look at you from a few rows ahead. You didn’t look back at him, but you felt his eyes on you, and the more it occurred, the less it exhilarated you and the more it made your skin crawl.

He’s going to ask you about Liz and he’s going to hate you he’ll hate you he’ll hate you he’ll hate you no matter what there’s nothing you can do to change it.

You practically leapt out of your seat and bolted out the door when the bell rang, eager to lose Peter before he caught up to you. Instead of going to the cafeteria to sit in your usual seat at your usual table, you headed straight for the bathroom across the hall.

You occasionally spent lunch in the library if, by chance, you wanted to get some actual reading done. But that wasn’t an option, because even if Peter didn’t show up, you couldn’t be around anyone, right now.

You slipped into the handicapped stall and sat on the toilet, burying your head into your hands. The events of the last few days had completely exhausted you, and you couldn’t seem to catch a break from any of it. And you hadn’t even done any “hero work,” yet.

You’re not a hero and you know it. What kind of hero can’t talk to other people without freaking out? You can’t even control your own powers. You’re never actually going to help Peter, he just feels bad for you, and you don’t even deserve that from him. 

It took about ten or fifteen minutes for the restroom to empty out, though it took a while for you to register it, completely lost in your own thoughts. You looked up from your hands and stood up, pacing back and forth in the stall. 

Making sure that there was absolutely no one else in the restroom, you slowly inched the grey ring off of your finger. You immediately became invisible and dropped the ring in surprise. You reached down to pick it up off of the tiled floor, and grew slightly irritated at the plight of trying to grasp it when you couldn’t see your own hand. 

At this thought, your arm flickered into sight, and you blinked with satisfaction. You scooped up the ring and held it in your palm. While the rest of you faltered in your attempt to remain visible, the ring in your hand remained completely opaque in spite of keeping physical contact with you. You supposed it made sense, since it was made to neutralize your powers.

With a sigh, you shoved the ring into your pocket and looked down at your hands again. It would make sense to practice your opacity in front of the mirror, but you didn’t want to risk anyone walking in on you. Besides, you didn’t like looking at yourself in the mirror.

You decided to try something you’d never considered doing, before.

See me look at me let me be seen let me be noticed remember my name.

This had virtually no effect on your state. In any case, it was completely foreign to you to want to be noticed. That was probably why you didn’t become any more opaque than you’d already been. It was like yesterday, when you’d tried to make Peter slap himself. Of course, that also didn’t work because you didn’t have any real mind control abilities, but whatever.

The fact of the matter was, when it really, truly mattered- such as when somebody else needed help- you felt confident enough in your abilities to maintain invisibility. The real problem was staying visible- you hadn’t managed to do it since Saturday night. You could only chalk that up to not wanting to be seen by others. But honestly, when had you ever wanted to be seen, in your life?

That suddenly gave you an idea. You weren’t sure if it was going to work, but for now, it was only an experiment. You let your head fall back against the stall, closing your eyes.

No one is here I’m completely alone everything is fine if someone comes in I can disappear but for now I’m completely by myself there’s no one to see this no one to see me nobody else nobody else nobody else but me.

You kept chanting thoughts like this in your mind, pairing them up with slow, relaxed breaths. Eventually you mellowed out so much that you nearly fell asleep standing up. You jolted yourself back into consciousness, and as your eyes crept open, they fell upon your hands hanging by your side.

You didn’t realize it, at first, you’d forgotten to look for it- but you were completely opaque.

You nearly screamed with delight, but with the little amount that you talked, you doubted that you’d ever actually muster up the power for something like that. Still, you couldn’t help the thrill of triumph that went through you. Finally, finally, you had a semblance of control over your powers! You hopped around the stall, squealing slightly.

Wait until Peter sees!

You stopped bouncing immediately. You needed to give yourself a stern talking-to, the romantic hero side of yourself, at least. Peter was not going to see anything because you were not going to show him. Your newfound control probably wouldn’t even work around him because he made you so nervous and half the time you don’t want to be seen by him but hey that’s only half the time as opposed to all the time which is how it is with everyone else...

You looked down again and groaned. Your worries were confirmed by your once again flickering form. So much for your supposed victory over your powers.

Stupid Peter Parker. Stupid handsome, sweet, intelligent Peter Parker.

You bitterly jammed the ring over your finger and practically stormed out of the bathroom. You were unsure of what you were meant to do, now. It was almost free period, and you never had anywhere to go during free period. You resolved to go to the library and get some studying done, as you’d been too distracted during chemistry to focus on the lecture. At the very least, you knew that Peter had decathlon practice and wouldn’t be anywhere near you.

What an ironic thought to have as you ran into the exact person who you were set on avoiding.

You really should have known better, you should have been watching where you were going. It was like in the movies, when, rather than getting out of the way, some idiotic character simply freezes in place when a giant, dangerous object is headed straight for them. When you saw Peter approaching you, you found that you couldn’t move from your spot, as if your feet had sunken into the floor itself.

Peter was obviously feeling differently about the situation, practically lighting up at the sight of you.

“(Y/N)!” he called, jogging over to you. “I didn’t see you at lunch.”

“I was practicing my powers,” you explained. “With the ring off.” It was mostly true, you just left out the fact that you’d also been actively avoiding him.

“Oh.” He seemed surprised, yet satisfied by your answer. “How’d you do? Did you get a handle on it?”

Not really, considering my visibility only matters when I’m with other people and it seems that I can only become completely opaque when I’m by myself.

You shrugged. “Kinda.”

“Well, I was hoping to see you at lunch. Not that it’s more important than you dealing with your powers, or anything! But, I just... I wanted to continue our conversation from yesterday, back in the lab.”

You leaned against one of the lockers, staring down at the floor. “It’s not worth sharing.”

Peter ran a hand through his hair, clearly annoyed. “Do you keep saying stuff like that because you’re legitimately not ready to talk about it, or you think I don’t wanna hear it? Because I’m telling you right now, you’re wrong if you’re thinking the latter.” He stood beside you, also against the lockers.

You were stunned, to say the least. You had no idea how you were getting yourself out of this. He was probably going to hate you by the end of it, wanting nothing to do with you. But wasn’t that exactly what you wanted? And would it really be so bad to get it off your chest, even if it meant he wouldn’t want to talk to you again?

You kept your eyes on the floor, because if there was one thing you absolutely weren’t doing while you got into this, it was making eye contact with Peter.

“Well... it’s about Liz.” You didn’t hear him indicate any sort of protest to hearing about it, so you took a deep breath and continued. “I know that while she was here, she was broke the stereotype of popular girls being super mean and all, but... Back in middle school, she... she wasn’t as nice as she was when you knew her. Not to me, at least.”

You could hear Peter swallow, but you didn’t dare look up at him. “What do you mean?”

“She, um...” Your lower lip started to tremble, and you cursed your own sensitivity over something that had taken place years ago. “I dunno, she just... didn’t like me, and she made her opinions very clear. There was a lot of calling me stupid and ugly and... just all sorts of things. And she kind of set our whole class against me. The one class we had together, I mean. Different grades, and all.” You tried to clear your throat, but you couldn’t collect enough strength for it. Your voice was wavering, and you briefly wondered if anything about you would ever be stable.

The memories had started flooding back- an actual flood, and you were drowning. You didn’t make it sound nearly as bad as it was- how worthless you’d felt throughout middle school, how you’d go home and cry yourself to sleep and then cry yourself awake and wish you had never been born. The name-calling, the rumors, the alienation... It was all in the past, but it still felt so in the present. It was still affecting you, and the lump welling up in your throat definitely proved that.

Peter blinked in disbelief. It was pretty obvious that you weren’t lying to him- this was the most emotion he’d ever gotten out of you. But he still couldn’t believe it. Liz, who watched TED talks on how to be a good leader? Who kept the peace between all the different warring personalities on the decathlon team? Who threw awesome parties at her awesome house and somehow managed to never let anyone get hurt on her watch? Who headed the homecoming committee and chose to attend the actual dance with Peter Parker, of all people?

Liz had bullied you?

“I don’t get it,” he said softly. “Why would she do that?”

You shrugged, finally looking up at him. “Why does Flash harass you all the time? There’s no reason for it, it just happens.”

You neglected to mention your theory that Flash was such a jerk all the time because he was jealous of Peter’s good looks and intelligence. Besides, your theory didn’t apply to you and Liz, who had no reason whatsoever to envy you.

“Yeah, but still. Liz? She never said anything about you.” His eyes suddenly widened as he appeared to put all the pieces together. Here it came, the moment you’d been dreading, the questioning: “She doesn’t remember, does she? You made her forget about you.”

You looked across the hall to the lockers on the other side. “It... it got to be too much,” you murmured, your word almost inaudible. You did your best to get a handle on your emotions, but you could feel the tears starting to form in your eyes. “I didn’t realize I was doing it. Every day I went to school, I wished and prayed that everyone would just... look through me. Forget my name, what I looked like, that I even existed. And little by little, everybody did.”

At the time, you’d considered it a miracle. Hell, you still did. God only knows what would have happened to you if the bullying had continued for even another day. Coming to school one day and having nobody at all pay attention to you... At first, you thought everyone was doing it to be mean, to make you feel more isolated than you already felt, but you soon realized that everyone who spared you a glance- including Liz, who had been the catalyst for all of this- instantly looked away from you as if you were another object lying around the classroom.

Still, this wasn’t the end to the story. After all, middle school was a long time ago.

You swallowed, trying to get rid of the memories along with the lump in your throat. “And, uh... after Liz had completely forgotten, it was almost like she forgot how to be mean altogether. So maybe I was the problem. I was a pretty easy target, to be fair.”

Peter could practically feel his heart shrivel up inside of him. He had no idea- why had he pushed you so much? Sure, he was curious because Liz was involved, but did he really prioritize hearing about his crush over your comfort? 

Previously, he thought that one of your worst traits was your lack of communication- which he knew wasn’t your fault, but that didn’t mean he liked it. But now, the one thing that he absolutely hated was the way you talked about yourself.

From the looks of it, you hadn’t told anyone about this, and it had been years. You’d been keeping everything locked up inside for this long, and suddenly he couldn’t regret ever making you talk about it. You obviously needed to, whether you knew it or not. He could only hope that you would eventually trust him with anything else in your life that you couldn’t handle alone.

For now, he needed to find some way to get your mind off of this. He had no idea how to comfort you, though. He was ill-equipped for this, he didn’t know what to say, even after all of his own firsthand experiences with bullying. His first instinct was to hug you, but you were barely okay with hand-holding.

Hand-holding.

Without another thought, Peter reached over and scooped one of your hands into his. He took notice of the ring on your finger, and was slightly annoyed by the lack of access that it granted to your skin, but he warded those thoughts away. You needed his stability right now, not his desperation.

If there was one thing he was absolutely sure of, it was that he wasn’t letting you spend any time by yourself after what you’d just told him.

“(Y/N)?” he said softly.

Dale Carnegie once said something along the lines of, “Everyone’s favorite word is their own name being said aloud.” You’d never bought that- your name being said by someone else only triggered panic with you, but Peter’s voice blending with it seemed to prove Carnegie’s words somewhat true.

You looked up to him to indicate that you were listening.

“The decathlon team is meeting soon. I was wondering if you wanted to sit in on one of our practices.”

You shook your head. “I doubt anyone would want me there.”

Peter had to clench his teeth to keep from yelling in protest. “I want you there,” he argued. “And look, I get it if you don’t want to, but we all really think you’d make a great addition to the team. Honestly.”

“Peter, I can barely talk to other people. How am I supposed to answer questions in front of an audience during a high-pressure academic event?”

“I used to think the same thing about myself,” Peter replied, squeezing your hand. “Sometimes I still do, but it all comes with practice.”

Peter tugged you forward and led you to the practice room. He explained some of the decathlon rules, the tips and tricks he used to keep calm and collected, but everything he said went in one ear and out the other.

You weren’t sure if this was something you could practice. You couldn’t remember the last time you’d given an oral presentation- you always somehow managed to get out of them- and you’d certainly never debated with anyone or competed in anything, before. You were sure that everyone on the team had to have some sort of knack for competition, otherwise they wouldn’t be doing what they did. Then again, they could just be after scholarship money or something like that, which sounded pretty appealing to you, as well.

You snapped yourself back into present time, just as Peter began to say, “By the way, what Liz and everyone else did, it wasn’t because of you. Trust me, it couldn’t have been.”

The corners of your mouth upturned slightly at his effort. “Thanks, but you have no way of knowing that,” you mumbled, avoiding eye contact.

You felt him give your hand a squeeze, and you looked back up at him. “Sure I do,” he retorted, sending you a wink.

Oh, dear Heaven above, he did not just wink at me. He did. He definitely did.

Right at that moment, the bell for free period rang and some of the other decathlon members eventually filed in, one of them being Ned, who immediately headed straight over to you and Peter.

“Hey, what’re you doing here?” he asked you as he exchanged a secret handshake with Peter.

“She’s trying out for the team.” You detected something... strange in Peter’s voice, the way he held himself, the look on his face. Was he... proud? Of you? You hadn’t even done anything, yet.

“Oh, so that’s why you were gone for so long,” Ned mused.

“No, Ned, I had some other things to attend to,” Peter whispered.

“Somebody accidentally shoplifted from a tech store because their two-year-old grabbed a set of headphones and walked out the door with them. Something like that doesn’t exactly take twenty minutes to deal with.”

“Ned!” Peter whisper-shouted.

“What? You told me she knew already!” Ned turned to you, his eyes wide with anticipation. “Also, speaking of, can you really turn invisible?”

You nodded, looking around the room to make sure nobody had heard.

Ned clearly had different concerns. “That’s so cool! And Peter told me you helped save everyone at Delmar’s! And something about an alley, yesterday? I dunno, he talks too fast, sometimes.”

“Some guy in the chair you are,” Peter mocked.

“Well, you do!” Ned defended.

“Hey! Penis Parker!"

Peter closed his eyes and groaned. He braced himself and turned around to face Flash Thompson, who was sauntering right over to your little trio.

"Hey, who’s this?” Flash questioned, his eyes coming to rest on you.

Peter drew his hand behind his back, tugging you so you stood slightly behind him. You looked up at his face- his jaw was taut and his eyes were... intense, to say the least.

“This is (Y/N). She’s sitting in on the meeting,” Peter told him.

Flash seemed amused, more than anything else. “Oh, really? You’re thinking of joining the team?”

“Flash, we tried to recruit her last week,” Peter reminded him. “Remember, you made it all of three steps before you turned right back around and-”

“Yeah, whatever, Parker,” Flash scoffed, crossing his arms. You felt heat rushing up to your ears as you remembered the incident from last week. It probably wasn’t a good idea for Peter to be reminding people of stuff like that, but you didn’t blame him for getting defensive.

Although exactly why he was getting defensive over you was an entirely different question.

“Okay, guys!” MJ’s voice came out over the room as she approached the group. “Harrington went home early, so let’s get this party started.” Her gaze swept over the other team members before landing on you. “And you are?”

“(Y/N),” you replied softly.

“She’s thinking of joining the team,” Ned explained.

“Okay, did you wanna try out?” MJ asked. “You’d have to go up against one of the other members to qualify.”

Your heart sped up. You weren’t ready for that, not now. Didn’t you get any time beforehand to practice, get the lay of the land? “I, uh, I was actually just gonna watch and-”

“I’ll take her,” Flash offered.

Peter’s grip on your hand tightened. “Yeah, I don’t think so.”

“What, were you planning to let her win against you so you could kick me off the team? Yeah, that’s right. I know more than you think.” He directed his attention toward you. “If you want a spot on this team- if you wanna replace me- you’re gonna have to earn it.” He then turned back to MJ, his face set in defiance. “And if we don’t do this right here, right now, I’m telling Harrington.”

You swore that the entire room could hear your heart pounding. Peter was giving Flash some sort of death glare, likely because of the talk you two had just had. After reopening those wounds from so long ago, you most assuredly didn’t need this, right now.

“Alright, let’s get this over with,” MJ huffed.

“Wha- MJ!” Peter protested.

“You heard the lady, Parker,” Flash taunted.

“Look, you’re gonna do great,” Peter assured you gently. “You’re easily the smartest person in this room.”

You furrowed your eyebrows at him. Where had he gotten that idea? Had you ever done anything even remotely intelligent in front of him? You didn’t have time to contemplate this as MJ directed you and Flash to sit on the stage at the front of the room. Every step forward felt like your feet were made of cement.

You made it onto the stage, where there were some chairs and a table, on top of which was a bell. Flash darted into one chair as you carefully pulled out your own, trying not to make any noise, before sitting down.

As MJ prepared the questions, Flash leaned over to whisper to you. “You know, knowledge isn’t enough. You have to be quick and confident, as well.”

Oh, perfect. The two things you definitely weren’t. You felt your dread down in the very pit of your stomach, and for a moment you thought that never in your life had you ever wanted to be invisible more than you did right now. That wasn’t actually true, though, now that you thought about it.

You looked to Ned, who gave you a thumbs-up, and Peter, who smiled in an attempt to reassure you, but even he looked nervous about the situation.

Here was an expectation, and you knew you weren’t going to be able to fulfill it.

MJ jolted you from your thoughts by asking the first question, which you didn’t even hear over the blood pounding in your ears. You opened your mouth to ask for a repeat of the question, but you were interrupted by the ring of the bell.

“Flash?” said MJ.

“Trihydrogen phosphate,” Flash announced with a grin.

You felt yourself die a little inside. A question about the elements? You could have gotten that, easily. This was probably one of the easiest practice questions they had, and here you were, failing it. You slouched in your chair.

Question after question after question came and went, and by the end of it you felt so flustered that you thought you might explode. You had sunken almost completely into your seat, unlike Flash, who was perched on his chair, elbows on the table, confident as ever.

The worst part of it was, you knew all these answers, you knew them. But having to blurt them out with Flash right next to you and a bunch of other people sitting expectantly in front of you... what if you were actually wrong? Surely that was worse than not saying anything at all, wasn’t it? At least this way, you could keep a shred of your dignity instead of saying the wrong thing and becoming a laughing stock of the entire team.

Before you knew it, the worst of it was over. MJ had run out of questions, and the rest of the team looked either bored or irritated by the colossal waste of time that was your “tryout.” Even Peter was stressed, you could tell by the way he messed with his own hair.

“Okay, uh, I’m gonna discuss with the other teammates,” MJ announced.

Peter almost felt sick to his stomach. You hadn’t said a word throughout the entire debacle. You knew all of that stuff, didn’t you? If you didn’t, then Mr. Harrington wouldn’t have sought you out in the first place. This was probably just your social anxiety, and Flash wasn’t making it any better.

As if on cue from Peter’s thoughts, Flash tossed a cocky grin at him from across the room, clearly satisfied by your failure. Peter immediately moved to go and comfort you, but MJ stopped him with a hand to his shoulder.

“Your girlfriend’s kinda blowing it, Parker,” MJ informed him, letting her hand down.

Peter instantly felt his face and neck heat up. “She-she’s not my- why does everyone keep thinking we’re together?” 

“Well, you do hold her hand a lot,” Ned reasoned.

“And obsessively worry about her well-being,” MJ chipped in.

“And talk about her constantly.” 

“You can’t go five seconds without staring at her.”

“And did you see the way you got when Flash went anywhere near her?”

“Alright, guys, I get it, thanks,” Peter grumbled, slouching in his seat.

“(Y/N)!” MJ called out. Your back straightened at the sound of your own name. “Come here for a sec, will you?”

You stood and stepped out from around the table before making your way onto the floor and approaching MJ and the others. You heard a noise from behind you and turned around to see Flash propping up his feet on the table, his hands clasped behind his head.

“Sorry about that,” you mumbled.

“Don’t apologize,” Peter argued.

“Yeah, it’s not your fault you completely tanked,” MJ said, shrugging.

“MJ!”

“It’s okay,” you murmured. “I’m not sure I would’ve had time for the team, anyway.”

“Alright, well...” MJ waved her hand at you in a brushing motion. “So long, farewell, yada yada.”

You stared downward and began your walk to the door. What you didn’t see was Peter nearly jumping out of his seat in protest and MJ holding up a finger to stop him. The gears were turning in her head, probably because she wanted you on the team (or rather, Flash off of the team), as much as anyone else.

You, on the other hand, couldn’t believe how badly you’d done. Well, you could, because you had a tendency to mess everything up. What you couldn’t come to terms with was the fact that everyone in that room would be able to remember your failure perfectly, without any interference from you.

Maybe tomorrow, you could make them forget. If you strategized, you could probably find a way to make their memories of you disappear. Perhaps if you practiced, or if you had a plan of attack that didn’t jeopardize your visibility.

One thing you did know, Peter probably never wanted to talk to you again after you’d let him down so hard, and you were fine with that. Weren’t you?

Once you were nearly out the door, you heard footsteps approaching you from behind.

“Hey, (Y/N)!” You turned and saw MJ catching up with you.

You swallowed. “Y-yeah?”

“Sorry you didn’t make the team,” she said. “But hey, real quick, this is something that’s been bugging me all day and you know the Wi-Fi here sucks. By chance, do you remember who thought that electrons move in specific patterns around the nucleus?”

You thought for a moment before coming up with the answer, not even considering how strange it was that she’d decided to ask you this kind of question completely out of the blue, especially after you’d bombed the decathlon tryout. “Niels Bohr. I think.”

“Right, right,” MJ agreed. “You know when he proposed that?”

“1913.”

“Cool. Hey, didn’t they name an element after him, or something?”

“Yeah, Bohrium. It’s man-made. Synthetic, I mean.” Your heartbeat had started to pick up, though not in an entirely bad way. You knew exactly what MJ was doing, but you couldn’t find it in yourself to be upset about it. Nervous, sure, but she had eased you into it. Was she giving you a second chance? This was more of a quiz than a legitimate tryout, but you were willing to take what you could get.

“Hey, just for fun, name me some other synthetic elements,” she suggested casually.

“How many?” you asked.

She shrugged. “As many as you can.”

Instantly, a slew of names and facts entered your mind, and you struggled to keep track of them all. “Uh... Einsteinium, curium, mendelevium, lawrencium, rutherfordium, seaborgium, fermium... Those are some of the ones named after scientists, that is. I didn’t say them in order, though.”

“Do you know all of the elements in order?” MJ asked.

Oh, this is too easy.

You didn’t even realize that you were rattling off the entire periodic table of elements until you were about halfway through. You’d memorized the chart back in elementary school, and it had stuck with you ever since. Sometimes you recited in your mind when a class was going by slowly and you needed something to keep yourself awake.

After a minute or two, you finished your recitation, breathing a little quickly. MJ kept a pretty good poker face, but you could tell that she wanted to smile.

“Lemme get back to you later.” With that, she turned on her heel and walked back over to the other members, many of whom, you noticed, appeared to be quite pleased with how well you had done. Except for Flash, who was stewing in his seat on the stage, his arms crossed.

But Ned was giving you two thumbs-up, and some of the other teammates looked somewhat impressed with your answers. And Peter...

Peter had the biggest, proudest grin on his face.

Suddenly it didn’t feel quite so bad to have all those eyes on you, especially when they were looking at you with so much approval. Your instinct was still to avoid eye contact by looking at the ground, and you followed this instinct, but you fought a smile as you did.

"By the way," MJ said, breaking you out of your thoughts. "What's your GPA?"

"Four-point-four," you responded immediately.

MJ's eyebrows shot up, and she glanced back at the other team members, who nodded their approval. (Peter, of course, was the most enthusiastic in his nodding.)

"Tell you what, how about you sit in on our practice, and you write down your own answers while the others compete? We'll see how you do after every question."

Flash jumped out of his seat. "That's not how this works!"

"It is, now!" MJ announced, throwing an arm over your shoulder. You wanted to shrink a little at the contact- even Peter hadn't attempted so much as a side hug on you- but you resisted the urge.

"Don't make me tell Harrington," Flash growled.

"See if I care, Eugene," MJ sneered. "I'm the freaking captain." With that, Flash plopped back down into his seat, dejected.

You couldn't believe this chance that she was giving you. For once in your life, were you about to redeem a mistake that you'd made, rather than just make everyone forget about it?

You didn’t know it, but to everyone else, it looked like the decathlon team could potentially have a new member.

A/N: Sorry this took so damn long. I don’t have an excuse, besides work and all that.

Tag list:

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[hvitserkk]

TUT 06: Vibrancy

Photoshop Timeline or Frame Animation Lots and lots of selective color

In this tutorial, I'm going to show you how I make my vibrant gifs. Now I know these aren't the most vibrant (color porn-ish) gifs ever, but compared to the originals, there's a huge difference.

The majority of these gifs will be from the show, Vikings, but this technique will work with any gifs. I'm mostly using Vikings because the scenes are always dull grays, greens and blues, so this will show you the 180* change!

To start off I use a .psd I made, the download and tutorial on how to use it is here. Like I mention on that post, I use that on 99% if not all of my gifs. So Here are a few before gifs, with no other editing besides sharpening:

And here's the afters with the mentioned .psd and edits made with the .psd tutorial:

So, if you use that to start off, you can hop into the tutorial after the basic editing. I'm going to basically re-create the .psd so all you lazies don't have to download anything (I'm a fellow lazy so I gotcha). So to start off, I'll use this gif. It has one main color (green) plus their clothing and skin colors so that's the easiest:

I'll start with a curves layer, a brightness/contrast layer:

And a levels layer set to 50% opacity:

Here's my gif now:

It's pretty washed out, so I want to add a selective color layer, adjusting only the blacks:

And the gif:

Now is the funner part. So, I mean, you could just add a vibrance layer set to 100, but that will add a lot of tiny pixels of colors you don't really need (ie random magenta 1x1 pixels in the trees), which would be this:

And you don't really get individual colors, you just get a mess of one overall hue, so in my opinion, it's better to add color gradually. So to do that, you'll want to start by balancing the overall color. Since my gif is mostly green, changes are there's too much green, almost to the point where it bleeds into all the other colors. So for this specific gif, here are my color balance settings:

And my gif now:

Now that there's more of a separation of the colors, I can add a selective color layer to tweak individual colors. Here are my settings for this gif, but every gif will be different:

Now I know some of my settings are extreme, but since there's barely any of those specific colors (cyan, blue, magenta) showing, I wanted to really bring them out. My gif:

Now to brighten the gif up so we can really edit the colors and make a vibrant gif. I use a same vibrance, levels and brightness/contrast layer with varying opacity's based on the gif. Here are my settings for this gif:

The vibrance was set to 100%, the levels was 50% and the brightness/contrast layer was set to 55%. Here's my gif now:

Now to make the colors more saturated. Basically I just use a selective color layer and make the specific color setting 100 to get the purest color, then duplicate that layer until I'm happy (still remembering gradually add onto colors). Here's my settings for the greens, since that's my main color:

Now, add more brightness if you're gif needs it. I'll add another brightness/contrast layer, so here's my gif now:

Now to fine tweak. I want to start with the blacks since they're washed out and starting to turn a noticeable color. Which the blacks here are more towards the green side, I want to add magenta with a selective color layer. I also want to darken them. I want to do it before I start messing with the colors because the black can get muddied and be harder to isolate layer on. Here's my settings:

And here's my gif, the before is on the left, and the after is on the right. You can see a pretty big difference with such a small edit:

Now to fine tweak my colors. This will vary gif to gif, but here are my settings for this gif, really focusing on skin colors. I'm going to get pretty dramatic, cos I can play with the opacity, but here are my settings:

And my gif:

Pretty good, eh? There's a few little issues I want to fix, and you might have the same issues if your gif has more than one person or a lot of colors. So the guy on the far left has a bit of a darker skintone then the two on the right, so he came out more orange that I would like. To fix that, I just add a selective coloring layer and remove some red and yellow. It will mess up the entire gif, but I'll utilize the layer masks next to fix that. Settings:

And the “messed up” gif:

Now, when you add an edit layer, it automatically adds a layer mask like this:

If it's white, that means the opacity is 100% over the whole canvas. Black means it's at a 0% transparency. By default, they're all always white. I only want this selective color layer to be over the first guy's face, so I use the fill tool (paint bucket) to fill the layer in black with the alpha slider by clicking on the mask on the layers:

Now the layer is basically hidden, but still enabled. So now, using one of the default soft brushes (hardness set to 0), I want to use the white to paint over just his face.

Here's where I colored for example, but I did this while the alpha mask was clicked: 

 Now the rest of my gif is back to the original, but his skin is more balanced out! You can do this for all the bits you want to adjust. For example, in this gif, I can make the outfits more blue, the cart in the background more red, and even the greens more green by "coloring in" the trees.

Now the final steps would be more brightening if you need it, and another low opacity vibrance layer. I follow the same rule every time, for every +10 vibrance I make the saturation -1. So if the vibrance is 60%, the saturation is -6. That just keeps a balance while still saturating the gif. Here's my before gif:

And the after:

And keeping in tradition of my other tutorials, I will show you again, but a quick tutorial. So here is the before of the next gif:

Now here's the gif with the same editing as above, levels, brightness/contrast and a color balance with these settings:

Here's my gif now:

This gif is super dull, but the colors are pretty separate already unlike the last gif, so I really want to edit the foggy mist and the plants. I'm going to go right in with a selective color layer with the cyan and blue settings as these:

Then I'm going to duplicate that layer a few times until the blues are super saturated. Here's my gif now:

Now I want to fix the blacks. Adding so much blue made the darker colors have a blue tint, so to fix that, I want to remove the blues from the black like this:

Here's my gif now:

Now to fix the overall colors of the red and yellows (plants and skin tones mostly). Here are my settings of a selective color layer:

Now here's my gif:

The blacks washed out again, so I fix that with a selective color layer removing reds from the black. Here's my gif after that:

So, like before, I want to use the layer masks on the edit layers to isolate edits to where I want. Here's how I painted them (with the colors I edited) for tutorial purposes. All these were painted on the layer mask using a selective color layer:

And here's my gif:

Now the colors are pretty isolated, but it's still pretty dark, so I added another brightness/contrast layer. Here's my gif after that:

Now the last steps would be a vibrance layer (if you need it) and one final selective color layer to fine tweak the colors. Here's the before gif:

And the after:

And for one more quick tut using a non-Vikings gif. The show is "Black Sails" and most of the time they're on a sunny beach, on the bright blue ocean or in a tropical vibrant landscape, so this is for gifs that are already 1000 steps ahead of the Vikings or Game of Thrones scenes!

Here's the before:

And after the brightness/contrast, levels and curves layer. I didn't mention this before cos there's no POC on this tutorial, but if after you do this step on a gif featuring a POC (even lighter POC shades), you might wash them out. The easiest way to avoid the "white wash", is to add a selective color layer and on the white color settings, turn the white slider all the way to -100. It will look crazy! Just play with the opacity until you balance the color out. Anyways, here's my gif now:

Now, add a color balance layer if you need it. I don't really need it here, so I'll go into the main selective color layer. I want to boost all the colors like I did in the very first gif on this tutorial. Since the color is pretty balance already, I also added more blacks to the black color option right away. Here's my gif after that:

Now to make the gif super vibrant, add a vibrance layer (remembering the -1 saturation for every +10 vibrancy rule I mention in all my tuts). You might also need to add another brightness/contrast layer. Here's my gif now:

Now you can use the layer masks with selective coloring layers to really isolate certain colors. For all of my Vikings gifs with characters with brighter blue eyes (Bjorn, Ubbe, Ragnar, Floki, Harald for you fellow fans) I literally add like 10 duplicates of +100 cyan/blue selective color layers over the eyes so they really pop. In this gif, Eleanor (Hannah) has greenish blue eyes, so I'll do the same. I'll also go over her lips and skin with a masked selective color layer as well. Here's my gif:

Now the final vibrance and brightness/contrast layers IF you need them. Some gifs will, some won't. Here's the before gif:

And after:

Sorry for such a long tutorial, but I really wanted to get thorough with three common gifs (mostly one color you want to bring out from dull scenes, an overall colorful gif from dull scenes, and a brighter scene you want to color). Hope this helps!

[fessel-vox]

*throws some word vomit at you*

“... So anyways I started blasting-”

“Woah, woah, wait, I’m sorry, but” someone nearby put up their hands to stop the diminutive lad and asked, “Why did you ignore my question-?”

The diminutive man in question just continued leaning on the countertop of the empty bar and said, “It was a stupid question, so I figured you should figure it out yourself.”

“But--”

Rats, what if this short guy had a point? But Robert really did want to know what this guy’s occupation was. There are many jobs that could include using ludicrous amounts of explosives… In the end, Robert decided to just keep his mouth shut.

“‘But’ nothing. Now, /as I said/, I started blasting because everyone else had burnt out all the options.”

The man idly peered into an empty glass that had been left long ago. God, if only he was able to savour whatever could’ve been inside

“They tried drilling and just moving the damn boulders, but those weren’t working. Of course, they were hesitant over the use of explosives, but at that point they just didn’t know what to do next, so, they called me in.”

Robert listened close to the man and concluded that, alright, so he was a miner of some sort? He heard some miners used explosives on rocks.

“So I went in with my explosives, set it all up--with the help of some folk, of course--and pulled the lever to blow it all up.”

The man paused a little and looked past the glass in his hand.

“... And that’s what caused the rockslide.”

Oh.

Robert floated in silence for a little bit, not quite sure what to say, until he managed to try and comfort him with, “Oh, Gods, I’m sorry, Mac-”

“Don’t use that name.”

The man had hovered up from his seat and put his two wispy hands on the countertop as he looked Robert dead in the eyes.

“That man died the moment he set up the dynamite that’d end his own damn life.”

“Ah, sorry-”

Once again, Robert was unsure of what to say. He was assigned a job to comfort the dead, but-- gosh, he screwed up again, he knew that. He felt terrible about it, too, but what else could a will-o-the-wisp like him do?! He floated and crackled there in the air, not saying anything both from blanking and being afraid of further upsetting ‘Not-Mack-Any-More’.

I have writer’s block I have writer’s block

But oh gosh, yeah Will-O’-The-Wisps are basically beings dedicated to helping ghosts and other ethereal beings out, whether the trouble might be some sort of job, coming to terms with stuff, or just some nice company or companionship. They tend to just be floating balls of ethereal flame, but they may be able to change shape, opacity, and form depending on certain things or rituals. I know Will-O’-The’Wisps already exist but the word just came to me, cod-yammit.

W.O.T.W.’s can also range from being more like pets to actual people; personalities also vary a ton, but in the end, most of them have felt drawn to helping other ethereal beings out. Of course, some are harder to work with than others, like Mack, but either way, the W.O.T.W. will try to persist.

Robert has been a W.O.T.W. for a long time, and hasn’t really found that much success in helping others. He tries, don’t get him wrong, but for some reason it’s just hard to do or say that thing that’s /just right/. Sometimes he considers just,, giving the self-given job up, but if he did, then what else would there be for him to do? Just drift around aimlessly?

Actually, he may spend a long period of time just drifting between worlds. Just seeing different cultures and new places, and watching over people as they overcome their problems/help others and making mental notes. That would actually probably give him quite a bit of experience in know how to help others out, if he spends a lot of time learning from others. Still, he’d be nervous and unsure over whether or not he’d be able to competently use what he learned to help other ethereal beings out. 

W.O.T.W.s do tend to be generally helpful for ethereal beings, and no, I’m not entirely sure what that encompasses. I know that includes ghosts and presences that are at least mainly comprises of magic, but I think it’d be interesting to also include more eldritch beings, like,

“ARE YOU AWARE OF YOUR LACK OF IMPORTANCE IN THE UNIVERSE? DO YOU KNOW OF THE COSMIC HORRORS I’VE CREATED?”

And the little Will-O’-The’Wisp in the great terrible thing’s clutches just purrs a little and leans into one of the thousands of this thing’s limbs, and that just makes them really calm down because holy peck, this tiny little flame is completely unaware, and may never know, and yet it continues to exist for this tiny, microscopic moment in time as if it had an eternity at its disposal.

GIVE ELDRITCH HORRORS EMOTIONAL SUPPORT WILL-O’-THE-WISPS 3p4uhsd-

Great now I just think that’s actually pretty adorable

Uh, what else… Well, even though W.O.T.W.s can last for a long time, they can indeed cease to exist. I’m not sure how, but it’s there, because the eldritch abomination that just spoke earlier said so and I don’t want to tell that thing no. Actually you know what, I’m gonna name them. Their name is Thlumin now, and they love their Will-O’-The-Wisp with all five-hundred-thousand-eight-hundred-and-seventy-six of their internal organs and ninety-two-thousand-three-hundred-and-eleven of their external organs, give or take some hundreds depending on the current nature of five universes. They even named the W.O.T.W., and it’s Kitty because this one in particular acts a lot like a cat, and gosh you better be really lucky if you mess with Kitty because if Thlumin catches you you’re pecking wrecked, mate.

Um, but anyways, oh man castles are fun, I wanna focus on those a bit; especially abandoned castles. Like, just imagine an abandoned castle that’s on a cliff by the seaside. Just ~~~imagine~~~ this lonely, behemoth structure lying underneath a thick, weighted blanket of slate-gray clouds. No one has lived in it for centuries, save for the wildlife, and vines and plants have seeped into this shell to call their home once more. A traveller enters; a curious, cloaked woman. It was rather hard to make it in at first, since a lot of vegetation was blocking the front entrance and she sort of didn’t want to mess with it, so she walked about the perimeter, looking for a spot that she’d be able to enter without disturbing too much. At some point, she finds a window that had been left open years upon years ago, with a cascade of vines from rich, dark green to aged, light brown pouring out of it.

This, she thought, seemed like it should be a pretty good ladder! After a moment of gathering herself, she tentatively put one hand on a particular vine that stuck out from the vinefall, and then put another hand on a different vine. One more deep breath, and she hoisted herself off the ground, now fully at the very of this ladder of vines.

So far, so good.

With some time and an effort of suppressing the nerves in her stomach, along with keeping from looking down, she made it to the window, that rested up high, nestled in the cracked, mossy walls. 

She was in.

And she was not alone.

[purvitatiya]

September: 3rd Week

Poster making

Edit

We are supposed to make a poster for our movie on Photoshop. Our teacher taught us how to use photoshop last year itself. To have more ideas and to be more clear, I watched another Youtube video which showed a guy making a poster for a film in photoshop. Below is the link for the same 

I made several different drafts for the poster, which all emphasized on our characters and I majorly used blue and red colour schemes for all my drafts. However, for the one that I finalized, a mixed colour scheme is used. I got inspired for this particular poster through the poster of the film Moonlight. 

Another reference for poster.

The poster which I have designed is a Pentaptych, showing sections of faces of all 5 of our characters and each strip has a different colour grading. The overall feel of the poster is very dark relating to the dark psychological thriller genre of our film. In the center, Adi’s photo (with eyes scooped out) can be seen with a red colour grading. The red colour connotes danger and murder, becuase of its association with blood.

In the left most corner, Darsh’s (actual murderer) character can be seen in a bright and dark pink colour shade. It connotes heightened emotions and represents emotional claustrophobia - that is exactly how we have portrayed this character.

The character between Darsh and Adi is Yash. I have kept the colour grading on his photo as a subtle hint of yellow, suggesting obsession. Though the character himself in the movie doesn’t show much sign of this trait, I have used this here to create enigma. So that the audience are confused about who is the darkest character amongst all and who is the murderer. 

The character at the right most corner is Bhuvan (Seema Didi’s son, who is thought to be the killer but is not), his shade is more of a Yellow-green which suggests that he is a materialistic and possessive person. Portraying his possessiveness was important as we wanted to incorporate some foreshadowing in our poster, suggesting that the reason why he could have killed Adi was because of his mother’s love for him - Bhuvan’s Possessiveness.

The character to the left of Bhuvan is Seema Didi, she is in a dark blue colour grading. This connotes cold hearted nature and is again a facet of foreshadowing - Seema kills her own son out of guilt at the end of the movie, because she thinks he killed Adi. Some may perceive this as a cold/stone hearted gesture.

I have used the Cannibal font style for writing DANAV. It goes well with our relationship with folktales. We were inspired to use this font by looking at the poster of a similar film - Pari.

Edit

I continued editing this week as well, but I have started going to school and working on school’s HP PC. I have finished my placement of shots, adding of transitions and I have also put background score and SFX at required places. I have used audio transitions at the starting and ending of almost all the background scores and sound effects. I have also used the pen tool to mix different audio tracks together in a harmonious way. 

My teammates were present on zoom while I was sharing my screen and editing. We have put a lot of effort into selection of background scores as it sets the pace and mood of the whole trailer.

The basic structure of both the trailers is ready with background score well in place. Charvi (seema didi) has also recorded the narration and given it to us. I have already placed it in the sequence, and organized the animated shots accordingly. There were a few shots like the honey one, which I could increase in duration without the audience realizing it. I had to increase the duration of the whole animated section because of the length of the voice over. I have tried to reduce speed at places where possible, or repeat a few sections, and also leave a few sections for text. This way I aligned the duration of the narration and the duration of the animation.

I also worked a lot to make the dialogues seem clear and not get lost with the background score. I used the auto-ducking function in premiere pro to automatically reduce the sound of bg score and SFX while a dialogue or a narration is going on. I  also reduced the background noise in the dialogues by using the denoise effect. Furthermore, I used parametric equalizer on the dialogues and set its attributes from default to vocal enhancer, which gave more high points and low points to my audio. 

This week I also worked upon different types of title ideas for the text in between our trailers. While researching, I came across a tutorial which taught how to make a graphic or a video run inside text. I tried that out.

I downloaded a stock footage of black and red ink moving around in water, added a graphic layer on top of it and then applied the track matt key onto the ink video. Then I went to the effects control panel and replaced an option from none to the number of the video layer on which my text was written. This  way I could only see the video from inside the letters. It was really aesthetic. This was our idea number 1. I watched a youtube tutorial to learn this.

After watching this, my director suggested why don’t we do something which makes the text reveal behind smoke. I downloaded a stock footage of smoke moving from left to right of the screen. But again, I didn't know how to do it so I watched a youtube tutorial. I couldn’t find any tutorial for this effect in English or hindi. So I had to watch this video (I don’t even know what language it is in)

I followed the instructions it gave on screen. First of all I placed the smoke stock footage on top of the text layer (that I produced previously). Then I went to the effects control panel and changed the opacity type to screen and reduced the opacity even more. Now I could see the smoke and the text both. Then I made a mask around my text and toggle animation in the position section. I added my first keyframe at the starting of the smoke and made the text disappear completely with the help of the mask. And towards the end, where smoke ends, I have put another key frame and made the complete text appear. To give a more enhanced look, I increased the feather of the mask to a 100. This way I achieved the effect of smoke moving and revealing text.

Something still felt missing, so I added a bokeh effect of ashes rising on top of the text plate. My teacher, teammates and I really liked this final draft for our texts and I have placed them at major places. 

[nicolecadet]

Digital Walkthrough – Dragon Thrall

From April 2007.  Nowadays I tend to completely work in Photoshop CS, but many of the techniques are the same no matter the software. This is a fairly rambly post as it's taken from notes I made while painting. This is NOT the way I work for client work!!!!! This was a personal face study that I built a painting around. I now plan things!

This painting was completely unplanned. It started out as a gothic vampire piece… ended up something completely different! These are some of the notes I posted to LiveJournal while painting, and subsequently featured in February 2008’s EMG-Zine.

Normally it’s a good idea to plan a painting. You should work out your composition details, color schemes, lighting sources and other technical details, but sometimes it’s more fun just to get in there and paint! Some of my best paintings have been the result spontaneity, experimentation and sheer desperation to fix a mistake! It started out as an exercise in skin tones, turned into a modern vampire piece and ended up having dragons! Hopefully you’ll learn a few things about why planning can be useful, as well as why it can also be fun to follow the rambling path your muse sets you on!

A few thoughts on digital art and painting software:

There is a plethora of information on digital art available online. This article isn’t a basic A+B=C tutorial. It’s more a discussion on the creative process I employ while painting digitally. For this article you will need a basic understanding of Adobe Photoshop or similar software and have access to a digital graphics tablet (or be really good with a mouse!). Access to Corel Painter would be handy too, however you can get similar effects in Photoshop with a bit of experimentation and practice.

I use Photoshop and Painter together. I’m not going to argue about which one’s better – because frankly it’s like comparing a banana with a pineapple! They’re both graphic software programs, however they’re designed for completely different purposes. Photoshop is an editing tool which you can paint with. Painter is purely designed for painting, with a few editing tools thrown in. With each new incarnation the blurring of these definitions decreases. I’m sure that if you experimented enough, you could probably get the result you want in either software.

Setting up the canvas

I started the painting as an exercise in skin tones. I hadn’t worked in Painter for a while and thought it was time to flex those painting muscles again. Unfortunately some versions of Painter can cause files to corrupt in native Painter file format (pre-version 5), so I recommend that you either create your file in Photoshop first, or save the files in Photoshop format (*.PSD extension)

Just like painting on paper or canvas, a blank canvas can be very intimidating. I always lay down a color of some type on the background layer just because it’s something to start with. When you plan a painting it’s a good idea to think about the lighting in regards to the background. If you are painting a scene which is sunny, then a warm yellow or warm blue might be a good choice. If you’re thinking about a night scene then start with a dark indigo or a cool blue. If it’s in a forest you may want to think about a green, while a snow-filled landscape may require a pale lavender-blue color.

As I said, this was a practice for skin tones so I decided on a dark maroon to pick up the dark tones in the hair (I’d planned on painting a redhead). Most of the time I apply a lighting filter, or a gradient to make it more interesting – kind of give it a focal point.

The first character I sketch on a separate layer to the background/ canvas. When painting directly onto the computer with a graphics tablet I generally start with a few lines to work out the placement of the head, eyes, mouth, nose and ears. I then work out a few ‘base’ colors that I will use for the skin. I place ‘dabs’ of the color I use regularly somewhere on the canvas:

A mid pinky-brown color – the base color

A pale yellow/ pink color for highlights

A redder tone of the base color used for cheeks and nose area

A purple version of the base color for shadowing

A darker brown-pink for the deep shadows

A light pink-purple (not shown) for blending in areas where the skin is fine and the veins show through.

In later versions of Painter you get a tool called a ‘mixer’ where you can place dabs of colour and create variants using the mixing tools. If you are having difficulties with colours try using the colour picker on real photographs and see what ‘real’ skin colours look like. You’ll probably be quite surprised!

Once I have the colours and some lines down I begin to paint. For this face I used Painter’s digital Airbrush set at about set at about 10% opacity, 100% Resat, 0% bleed and 0% jitter. I vary the brush size from about 150, right down to 2 or 3. I spent about 2 hours to get to this stage.

 A few notes on skin tones:

Every person has a different skin tone and texture – we’re not all a standard ‘flesh tone’, straight from the tube

Men and women also have slight variations in colouring

Different nationalities have different skin tones. Some have ruddy complexions, others a yellow undertone, while some have dark skin. Study photographs, place them next to each other and note the differences

Skin tones reflect the colours around them. If you are wearing a purple shirt, you will get some reflection under your chin depending on the lighting. If you are standing next to a yellow wall, the side facing the wall will reflect the yellow.

The colour of the lighting impacts on skin highlights and shadows. If you use a yellow light, the shadows of the skin are generally the complementary colour (in this case purple).

 One thing I remember reading (Don Seegmiller in his book Digital Character Design and Painting) was the fact that the strip across the nose section of the face is pinker than the rest, while under the eyes should be purplish-blue as the skin is so delicate here. I recommend his book for color theory, regardless of the painting medium! In fantasy art, the ability to create convincing skin tones in important, particularly if painting something like a Drow, or even an alien with blue skin

Adding the hair

Hair is basically made from 4 colours which I vary the opacity and size of the bush. The illustration below shows the four colours and the way I build up the hair.

A mid tone

A light tone

A dark tone

A very light tone for the highlights

Why having no ‘theme’ for a painting can be a problem!

Like most sketches where I don’t think about anything much except picking up the ‘paintbrush’, I get to a point where I start wondering about things like ‘does she want straight or wavy hair’, ‘does she wear modern or old fashioned clothes?’, ‘what the heck do I do with the background?’.

At this point I was listening to rock music and it was about midnight so I decided it should be a vampire/ gothic piece. Originally it was just going to be a strapless dress but it ‘felt’ wrong. I added a leather jacket and a cameo choker. I planned on having a night sky, maybe the silhouette of a building. This means that dark blue is going to have to replace the maroon canvas colour. A guy is going to be behind her, all ‘vampy’ and hopefully pretty good looking! I took a break and came back to the painting after some food. I’d been working for about two or three hours and realised that I’d changed the angle of her torso mid painting which is why it is looking odd. This is why it’s a good idea to plan your painting before you begin! You can waste a lot of time working on something, only to realise there is an inherent flaw in the drawing. So I really had a think about where the painting was going… which was feeling like the great digital dustbin in the sky!

Unfortunately I only had a clear picture of the character’s faces so I was basically very aimless when painting. I get bored with details so I moved onto the male character. I knew I’d have to revisit the female character but something was really bothering me about her and I didn’t want to think about it too deeply. I spent about 2 hours working on the guy. Notice that his skin base is slightly more yellow. Guys’ faces are also more angular than females (generally) so I painted in a more aggressive manner, not blending as smoothly as for the female. I also added in some texturing with a ‘captured bristle’ brush.

A note on photo-references:

When I work from photo references I try to avoid working directly from one reference for copyright reasons. Each painting I’ll often work from at least half a dozen images (which I normally collect AFTER I’ve made the initial sketch). I also have a huge collection of images that I’ve harvested from the net, reference books/ CDs, personal photo references. 

I also like working with greyscale images and using small images so I can’t rely upon them too heavily. This way I can make the colour up on the fly. I also find that it helps to practice sketching in greyscale. You focus on rendering the form rather than colours, which teaches you a lot about volume, lighting and texture.

Back to the painting

I spent another 2 hours on this (up to about 10-12 hours now). I kind of became obsessed with finishing his face. I put him in a leather jacket and white shirt and played around with where his arm should go, ultimately deleting it. I changed the background colour to a near black colour while I was playing with things. I’m still not convinced about what’s going on in the painting. But I’m happy to let my mood decide what’s going to happen. I enjoy these kinds of paintings because I just let the paintbrush take me where it wills. However it’s getting to the stage where I will need to decide if I’m going to do something with this painting, or just file it as an experiment.

 I’ve got more details to do… tidying up his eyebrows, giving his skin some texture around the jaw line, finalising his nose and lips, and one of his eyes is slightly off (shadowing and shape’s wrong… but I’ll fix that up later.)

Vampire goes Renaissance?

I’m heavily influenced by music. When I paint I listen to a variety of music, and often it can influence what I paint. I stopped listening to my Dishwalla album and put on Medieaval Baebes… at which time I thought to myself ‘this is just two people standing together, there’s no fantasy here’. So the painting went Venetian 16th century!

I’ve obsessed over historical costume for as long as I can remember and one of my favourite paintings is Rafael’s La Donna Velata. I deleted the leather jacket and replaced it with a front-laced bodice over a creamy chemise. This costume was popular with working classes as it was comfortable and didn’t get caught up while working. I think it is important to think about the clothes you put your characters in… it is part of their story. It can suggest what they do and their status in society, it can also indicate if they’re light and fluffy, or rigidly straight-laced.

A few hours work went into the dress. It’s not finished yet. This is only the basic form. I’m debating about patterns and colours. The more elaborate fabrics tended to be used a few decades after this dress style was popular, and only by the wealthy, but it’s fantasy so I guess I can do what I like!

Working out the background:

I have decided a night sky doesn’t suit the lighting of the characters, so I’ll do a dawn/ dusk sky. I flicked through some reference shots of skies and started laying down some colours in Photoshop with a large airbrush tool. Not much I can say about skies except for the light will reflect on the characters, which is why it’s not a strong sunlit scene. In this low light there won’t be much reflection or shadow.

I’m still playing around with the idea of having a column behind the male character. The sky’s getting close to being completed. I’ll start looking at the lighting in the painting later on… normally that’s something I do in the planning stages for a *proper* painting. It’s up to about 200MB… time to save a new copy and collapse a few layers I think.

On a side note, I’m not happy with the poses or placement of the characters. They’re too rigid. There’s no connection between them, I need to bring them together somehow. I’ve started to realise the girl’s body looks too small and much too straight on for her head. I’m going to have to repaint whole chunks which will be a lot of extra work. You can do this with digital, however if I’d planned the painting I wouldn’t have to be ‘fixing mistakes’ at this late stage!

I added some columns and moved the characters closer together. Each character is on a separate layer and I often take a copy of a layer to do the modifications (in case I muck it up!) I also do iterative saves… I have 7 versions of this file from various ‘major’ points from within the painting.

I like the placement better than the previous version, but I know that I’m going to have difficulties with his arm placement. I also don’t like her headpiece. I haven’t spent much time on it, but it just looks wrong – far too elaborate. I’ve got a feeling that she’s not the kind of girl to wear masses of jewellery! The pose is still disjointed. Why is she moving away from him? It doesn’t exactly look like a comfortable pose. Is he trying to put on her cloak, take it off, or strangle her? When you paint, you have to think about how the painting could be interpreted.

The home stretch

Unfortunately I sat down and painted in one marathon session (without taking saves part ways through). Inspiration struck and all at once I knew exactly how the painting had to look. All the missing elements fell into place. I had the narrative that went with the painting, I knew why they were standing together. The pose was vital to the scene. I think it is important to know ‘why’ things are the way they are. Sometimes it can be as simple as ‘because it looked right’ or ‘because I want the viewer to feel scared’, but with more narrative pieces, the ones that work best tend to make every piece of the painting into something vital to understanding the whole piece… like clues in a mystery novel.

I ended up moving her directly under his chin and slightly curved into his body and moved his arm so he’s supporting her, rather than embracing her. The sky remained unchanged however the bottom needed a focal point – it was too empty. The forest and cliffs are a scene I’ve used in numerous paintings… they are like an old friend – something quick and easy.The lake came next, and the glow lights (which have no real meaning, but they ‘fit’ with the mood of ‘magic in the air’). It still was looking empty. In the story in my head the character’s connection is through dragons. I’d already planned on giving the female character a dragon necklace and the male character golden eyes, however I think a more ‘literal’ representation of the dragon was needed. The placement was deliberate in that I wanted the viewer to follow the motion from the dragon to the characters and back around.

Often when I’m working without reference (like I did for their poses, I try to work out their bodies in their entirety. Even though it still looks a little ‘wrong’, because of the angle of his body, his shoulder is right behind her hair. I tried extending his shoulder but it didn’t look right either.

I added an Overlay layer to do some lighting along the side of the girl’s head and the columns. There are 13 layers in the final version (after I collapsed the multiple character layers from the previous version).

I thought I was finished. I posted it online, added it to a few galleries, but something was still a little unrefined. So I stepped away from it for a week or two (see further down for the revised version).

Some notes on Composition

I like working with the Golden Mean (also called the Golden Section/ ratio/ proportion/ The Divine Proportion). It’s a way of dividing up a painting so that the image is artistically and geometrically pleasing. It’s based on mathematical principles and can be seen in nature in such shapes as nautilus shells. Below I’ve added guidelines in pale blue that divides the painting into thirds. Notice how the parts of the painting that your eyes are drawn to tend to fall along the lines, with the light in the forest being at a ‘focal point’, where the lines intersect.

The painting’s composition loosely fits into what is called the ‘L’ Composition

It could also fit in with ‘V’ or ‘triangular composition.

The trick is to try and get the viewer’s eye to follow the movement from one point of the painting to the next

Final Piece:

I went back and refined it a little… just added a few more details to the hair, fixed the column and tidied up the tree-line. There are still aspects I’m not entirely happy with, but I’ve spent enough time on this painting… I don’t want to overwork it.

So 20 or so hours later, here’s the final piece and the story that goes along with it:

Text I wrote to go with the painting

The dragon-thrall caught her, its silken threads binding her mind to the golden dragon completely. Kara and the great beast launched upwards as one, pushed from powerful back legs. Muscles flexed as the wings extended fully, capturing the wind and propelling them higher still. Freedom! She threw back her head and laughed, the rumble echoing from the surrounding cliffs. The sun and sky called to her, daring her to fly higher and faster than she could ever dream.

She wheeled to the right as she caught movement in the valley below. Ruby eyes fixed on the deer. Tucking her wings to her side, she dove towards the earth, pulling up just above the forest, the trees bending then snapping back in her wake. Kara could taste the hot, sweetness of the blood. She wanted it, lusted for it, she had to have it. It was a burning pain that drove her.

Something yanked at her. Whipping her head around in annoyance she couldn’t see a rider. Focusing on the deer again she snarled as the strong will commanded her to stop. The hunger tore at her, but still he cajoled her, coaxed her, and compelled her. Snarling and baring her teeth she snapped at the unseen force. Finally he dominated, wrestling control from her. Emotions flitted across her mind – fury, hatred, pain, desire. And then she was in her own body again.

Rhys caught Kara as the dragon-thrall released her. He’d been with her throughout the flight, his golden eyes seeing just as the dragon had.

“Now do you understand?” he murmured, his breathing still ragged from the clash of wills. She shuddered, glad to still be in his steadying embrace.

“It helped, but I don’t think I’ll ever understand them, not the way you do.”

Prints and products are available here from RedBubble , painting can be found in the Dragon Fae Oracle as the Lovers card.

[jirdan-does-art]

DR Sprite Edit Tutorial!

So this has been in the making for a couple of months due to a lot of art blocks and stuff, but!! I think this will help some people who have asked for some advice on how to draw your ocs dr ocs in the DR style (or at least close to it)! I’m gonna try and make this as simple as possible without all the complicated steps!

Just to say it now, I use Paint Tool SAI and I have the download file as well for anyone who would like it as well. The download link will be at the bottom as well. This is gonna be long so bear with me!

Let’s get to it!

Okay so first off!! You wanna have a ref of your oc! I usually use dreamselfy cause it gives you a lot of options (I used the japanese version and the simulator to put it all together. If you guys want those links, I’ll put them down at the bottom for you guys.)

This is an old character of mine named Kagami that I’m gonna use, they needed a redesign and to be re-written so I thought this would be the best opportunity for them! They are non-binary and so I think the best base sprite to use is Ibuki’s! It fits their body type. 

What I’m gonna do first in sai is load the sprite into it and lower the opacity and add another layer on top of it. (I also load the ref in there next to the base sprite so that I have something to look off and draw it how I want it.)

This is the brush I will be using for all the lineart:

(I tend to keep my stabilizer on 3 so that it gives me a little more steady lines when i draw)

The first thing I do is trace one side of the sprite on the new layer. It’s important to remember to make sure the lines are clean and it’s okay to redo the line as many times as you need until you get it to how you want it!

After this I’ll take the layer, copy, paste it and then flip the layer and line it up to the other side like so:

Now before I do anything, I start on the face so that I won’t forget it later or that it doesn’t look too unproportional to the face when I draw the hair. I’ll repeat the same thing I did for the bust in the previous image and go from there.

If you see off to the left, I’ve made separate layers for the eyes, mouth and eyebrows. This is really important that you do this if you want to make expressions for your oc to use in posts and such! Plus it’s just nice to have it all separated. You’re going to now start drawing the hair! Now Kagami’s hair is really simple, I’m going to draw it as I see it until I get it to what I want it to look like! Make sure the hair is on a separate layer so that you can erase what you don’t need of the head.

Now that I have their hair done, I’m going to make sure that the hair is on another layer before making it invisible so that I can start on the clothing. You’ll add another layer and begin drawing on that. It’s important to note that clothing folds, it moves, and makes the character look a little bigger. It happens often that you can draw too many folds and wrinkles or too little. Points where limbs can move tend to have more wrinkles placed near them on clothing. 

So i’ve drawn half the jacket, and to make it so much easier on myself, I’m going to copy, paste and flip it to put it on the other side, and then add the scarf and some other details to make it a little less like I copied and pasted it. (I ended up changing a few things because I am indecisive, but overall you should have a complete outfit on your oc.

What you’re going to have to do next is get rid of the excess lines from the bust layer and make it to where lines aren’t going through each other. You’re gonna wanna do that with the hair layer as well, erasing things that don’t need to be there. After some time of cleaning up lines and erasing, I now have the lineart of my sprite!

Now the next step is very important, it’s how you make your sprite transparent. Circled in Green is what you want to click on and you're gonna click on the outside of the sprite so that it looks like this:

Circled in green on the sprite is spaces where you want to use the select tool (that’s in the brushes) to fill in the empty spaces. After you get it filled in, you want to go to the top where it says ‘Selection’ next to the ‘Layer’ dropdown and click invert. Your sprite should look something like this:

The next thing you want to do is create another layer. Take the color white and use the bucket tool ON THE NEW LAYER. The sprite should be completely whited out. On that layer, you’re going to want to set the layer to multiply so that you can see the sprite again. That layer with the white on it, merge it with the lineart layer. Create another layer and set that layer to a clipping layer (circled in red). The layer should be set to ‘Multiply’ as well. Now what you can do is color on the sprite without having to erase! Like so:

This is what your layers should look like!

The clipped layer should be the layer you color on! I personally only use 1 or 2 layers to color so I’m just gonna do ahead and use 2 layers to make it easy. You want to use the first layer for the base color:

Make another clipped layer and met it to multiply so that you can start shading. You want to use colors that are a little bit darker so that the shading looks a little more natural. Rule number 1: NEVER shade with black, unless the base color you’re shading is black itself. It causes the shaded part to look muddy and you don’t want that. It’s hard to explain shading and how you do it because it depends on where your light source is. The light source on this sprite is coming in from the right, so most of the darker areas will be on the left. 

Now when you color the eyes, you want to create another layer under the eye layer and color the inside of the eye white. Merge the eye layer and that layer you colored and create another layer on top of it and set it to ‘Multiply’. I would look up a ref of another dr character and see how the eye is colored and shaded there because I tend to do it a bit differently. After you’ve colored it, merge the two layers again and then you’re all set! You should now have a sprite!

When you go to save, save it as a .png file. It will prompt you with this:

Click the second one so that it turns out like this: (If you drag it around you can see that there’s no white background, making it transparent!)

Congrats!! You did it! Sprite editing takes time to get used to and it's not always eyes, but all I can do is urge you to practice. It’s the only way you learn and get better. You don’t have to take everything that I said seriously, either. If there’s something that works better for you that you’ve found a lot easier, then do it! It’s all about doing it how you want to and what makes it fun for you! Art should be fun to draw, isn’t that the whole point?

I hope you guys found this really helpful!! I’m actually really impressed with this sprite it came out better than I thought. 

Thank you for reading!!

Here are the links from the top!

SAI Download: [Link]

Dreamselfy Simulator: [Link]

Dreamselfy @Trade: [Link]

[yuki-d-raizel-blog]

Hero

Chapter 3/??

Relationship: Todoroki Shouto x Reader (Your/Name), (Full/Name)

Summit: It all begin at the Sports Festival when Shouto’s other half met Endevour by mistake. The student never thought to see his partner fight against his father just to show him that he is wrong. It started from that instant, Shouto’s new path started exactly from that moment thanks to his friends and his beloved one.

---

The most important day for the U.A. is finally here. The first years are so excited to participate at such huge event like that, and their future is on the line. They will be merciless, no matter who's the opponent, they will get the attention of the strongest heroes and start their own career. The Class A get on a bus and everyone is focusing on the future contests, but what they fear the most are their own classmates: Katsuki Bakugou, Todoroki Shouto and (F/N), they're a huge obstacle in their path. The light of victory is opacities by those three prodigy students. Midoriya and Iida are sit next to each other, and the class representative asks something whispering.

<<Midoriya-kun, do you think that (Y/N)-kun and Todoroki-kun will be fine? There's a heavy air around them.>>

<<...>> both are listening to music, Shouto rests the head on your shoulder while you rest yours on his fluffy hair, <<I think we need to worry more about ourselves.>> he avoids the topic with a forced smile, "This morning Todoroki-kun was always behind (Y/N)-chan, but they didn't talk even to say hello to each other. I assume that the pressure on Todoroki-kun's shoulders is heavier. How can I help him? He seems so different, like he's not himself anymore..."

---

When the bus stops, all students get off, ready to start that new challenge. The other classes are there too and they're leaded inside the arena when after a few minutes, they'll introduces themselves to their future sponsors, instructors and the people who they will protect someday.

Once all the Sections are in line, the heroine Midnight calls the representative of the first years, Bakugou Katsuki, to vow. His classmates are worried, make him speak? The others hate them already, if Bakugou speaks now- No, they don't want to think of what's gonna happen, just... make this fast and painless, thank you very much.

The stadium is silent, everyone is waiting the vow of the number one of the Class A. He climbs the stairs and stands in front of the microphone. Another few seconds of silence, everyone's eyes are glued on him.

<<I vow...>> the Class A is thinking the same thing: "there we go, Bakugou don't fuck this up, ple-" <<I'll be the number one.>> "I knew it!"

The others are cursing on each one of you, even Midnight is facepalming herself, how a student can be so... They are dead, why that stupid walking bomb said that? He's gonna take the first place? How about Todoroki, (Y/N) and many other students... He is too reckless, someone helps these poor adolescents!

To settle everyone down, Midnight announces the first competition: an obstacle race. She explains the game very quickly and everyone stands in front the gate and stares at the three green lights on top.

<<START!>> when they starts moving, the heroes Present Mic and Eraser Head take the lead.

The first problem is the gate itself. The students are in trouble, nobody can move an inch...

"So, at the first obstacle already there is a selection." Shouto freezes all the way and escapes from the tunnel, <<Sorry guys.>> he keeps running, leaving behind his back thousands of frozen students, but not all of them are so stupid to fall in that kid trick.

In fact, Bakugou, Aoyama, Momo, Kirishima and (Y/N) are the fastest one who avoided the ice and chase after the half-cold half-hot hero.

"Well, my classmates have dodge it easier than I thought." Todoroki looks over his shoulder to see how many enemies he has, "I was prepared to see (Y/N) to run next to me, why she is holding back? She has a plan? "

An annoying voice reach his ears. Only one person has that voice so annoying. Mineta is about to attack Shouto, but a mechanic arm hits him and throws him away. The group suddenly stops in front the new obstacle.

(All right! Those are quite unexpected obstacles! Let's get started with the first barrier, roboinferno!)

While Mic is entertaining the arena, the students are panicking about those huge robots. Only a few of them are thinking rationally about bring those pile of iron down. The first who doesn't stop, is the son of the number two hero.

<<So those are the virtual villain that they used in the exams, eh?>> a huge ice slab rises under Todoroki's foot.

(Woah, woah what's happening? Someone is running against Todoroki's attack!?)

<<Bring something powerful, my shitty old man is watching.>> he whispered before freezing the robots and in that moment, a shadow jumps on and overcomes them. "So you were waiting for this (Y/N)? You understood that I was about to freeze them in an instable position, and you accelerate their fall, pushing them down... Nice one." the red-white haired boy starts running to catch you up.

When the icy mist is gone, the robots fall like domino pieces and block the way.

(Todoroki and (Y/N) of the Class A had attack and block the other participants with just one hit! What an elegant combo! That was awesome! They're the first to pass the robo-barrier! In some way, they were sly!) Mic's voice is replaced with the colleague's one.

(Both of them act in a logic way and with a strategy behind, especially (Y/N).)

(They are recommended students after all! That was their first time against them but the roboinferno could not do anything against their elite moves!)

"So noisy, I can't concentrate." <<Sorry sweetheart, I'm not inclined to go easy on you.>>

"I need to impress him." <<Don't worry about it.>>

The two students lead the race and even they're talking, they don't stop to stare the path; the new obstacle can appear at any moment. The girl accelerates her pace and the partner thinks that maybe he offended her.

"Basing on what he told me, Endevour will make Shouto marry someone with a powerful quirk. Keep your eyes on me sir, you're gonna see something cool." <<You better hurry up, honey.>>

<<Mh? Why?>>

<<Our classmates are coming. They're gonna catch us up soon.>>

Loud explosions are getting near and the hero Mic are yelling enthusiastic that the Class A of the hero course is surpassing the first barrier. The virtual villains are getting down one after one like skittles.

(Hey, hey, if the first barrier is easy, what about the second one? You fall, you're out! If you don't wanna it, then overcome it with something! This is the second barrier, The Fall!)

Shouto keeps moving forward freezing the rope and skating on it, while you're running and jumping around with balance and a precise scheme in your head. Both of you are focused on your objective: show to a person that he is wrong. There's no space and time to get family friendly, this is a place when the future is on the line, so both of you fully understand when one of you use a little bit of strength just to pass to the next challenge. They reach the end and now are moving to the next obstacle.

(The first place is the same without hitches! The awesome combo is still there, BUT Bakugou of the Class A is catching them up!!)

<<You bastards!>> his yelling is his label, he will get famous has "the yelling angry hero".

<<Told you.>> you remark your prediction to Shouto who did not believe at it, <<You kidding me, right?>> you can see the last obstacle. The students stop for a second to study the field better.

(The first places are distancing themselves from the participants and they are at the minefield barrier! It was prepared like that so you can see where the mines are, obviously if you pay attention! Eyes and legs must be in synchrony with each other! And by the way, these mines are made for demonstration purposes only, so they aren't powerful, but their sound and light are strong enough to scare you to death!)

While Mic is talking, you and Shouto go through the field and you're about to get a little advantage on him. The space between you, Todoroki and the mines are so tiny that almost a foot fits by a miracle. Your eyes and legs are working in synchrony and your body responds perfectly at your orders while the sound of the other students that probably hit a mine is increasing more and more.

<<So this is for slowing down the first places. In this way, the public is amused by it.>> a loud explosion attracts your and Shouto attention. That wasn't from the mine, it was from....

<<This is useless against me!>> with another big explosion, Bakugou reaches Shouto, <<You bastards!>> with a hand, Katsuki grabs you and pulls to break your balance and make you step on a mine, <<You motherfuckers! You declared your war declaration to the wrong person!>> while with other hand he attacks Todoroki to make him step back.

(Ooh the first places changed! Celebrate, mass media! This is the plot twist you love, the top 3 of the Class A are fighting for victory! Who will win?)

The students don't want to slow down their pace and they're fighting with attention, strategy and power. First, Bakugou attacks Shouto who responds freezing his forearm, then both attack you, who dodge it at the last time. Moving around with these mines is hard already, but doing it while fighting against strong adolescents it's on another level!

(Well, well, well! Now even pursuers are regaining too! However, even slowing each other down, the three on top will keep leading the race?)

Meanwhile, your fight with Bakugou and Shouto is getting serious, you are exactly like a machine, if one moves, the other two do the same. Kicks and punches are getting faster second after second.

<<Just fucking die!>> Katsuki shouts trying to hit you with an explosion, <<Stop dodge it!>>

<<I'm not gonna let you win so easy. You wanna be the number one?>> moving backwards with just one leg, you dodge another attack and charge almost immediately with a high kick, it is faster than before so, the speed change caught Bakugou off guard, <<Let's see if that is true or not.>>

[BOOM!]

A very huge explosion stops you, Todoroki and Katsuki first for the sound and then with the strong shock wave, which invests everything on the field.

(An enormous explosion in the back?! What's with that power?!)

<<What?!>> you exclaim sincerely shocked to see who did that, even if you should know it.

(It's done on purpose or not?! It's Midoriya from the Class A who is riding the explosion! AND HE SURPASS THE THREE ON TOP!!!)

Without spending one more second, the students that were fighting, begin to run again.

"He used too much power, I bet that he didn't think about a way to lay down again without wasting time! " you decide just to run for it, even if you hit a mine you are able to dodge the most amount of the blow.

<<Oi Deku! Don't you dare to get ahead of me!!>> Katsuki flies with his explosions and Shouto freezes the field to run and at least catch up with his girlfriend.

(Another plot twist! The three who were get in each other's way, now are chasing Midoriya! Now that they have the same target, they've stop the fight! However, the battle isn't over yet! Who is the first who will reach the end? Come on, guys!)

Like you predicted, Izuku is falling down and you have reached him already, there's no way he can surpass you again. The woman, Todoroki and Bakugou are surpassing All Might's pupil, but a shadow goes down towards them and hits the ground.

"I knew it! Izuku you son of gun!" the blow stops the three students and pushes the greenish boy forwards, "I couldn't even dodge it, I was between Shouto and the walking bomb! "

(Midoriya stops his pursuers without problems, in addition, he successfully leaves the minefield! But the prodigies are chasing him like predators!! They are damn fast too! Eraser Head, your class is amazing! What do you teach to them?)

(I did absolutely nothing. They've found their motivation by themselves.)

No matter how fast you run, Izuku is too far to be reached in time. You see his figure going towards the light at the end of the last tunnel, but moved by pride and Shouto by rage, both of you go faster and faster, leaving Bakugou behind.

(This is the stage of the first years of the Yuuei Sports Festival! Who could have predicted that everything would have developed and ended like this?! The first who arrives at the stadium is him... Midoriya Izuku!!) while people is cheering for the boy, Mic continues, (After him there is... The awesome combo! Todoroki Shouto and (F/N)! Bakugou Katsuki and we keep going!! Let's wait for the classifications, for now, good job everyone!)

<<...Again... Fuck!>> while Katsuki catches his breath, he is so frustrated to lose against Deku and you for the second time.

---Continue....

Chapter 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 21.5, 22, 22.5, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, Last Chapter

[penup]

[SketchBook] Draw a mystical forest

TUTORIAL by @aristina.z Draw a mystical forest with SketchBook Hi all this is @aristina.z and it feels so good to be back to present another set of drawing tips! First I really want to thank you All for the wonderful response to my previous drawing tips (saw so many beautiful galaxies popping up!). Everyone on PENUP is a creative artist in their own right and when most of you wonderful Pen.ple took some time to appreciate, read or try out some tips given by a fellow artist it meant alot to me! Let’s get started without further delay!

Step 1: Whoever follows my drawing tips knows the first step is choosing a colour. So as autumn fades into winter and we all miss summer lets choose green! Jade green... emerald...moss... Brings to mind greenery and enchanted forests. So let’s draw a mystical forest! Tip alert: Whenever drawing forests try to use more shades of sap green or jade green instead of using very bright green shades for the backdrop.

Step 2: Let’s use our search engine to see images and photographs of beautiful forests or better still close your eyes and imagine yourself taking a walk in the woods! Tip alert: I almost always read a little about the colour I am going to use most in the drawing(in this case green)Believe me it helps! Green stands for life, renewal, harmony and positive energy.

Step 3: Use the paint brush feature on sketchbook to pen some shades of jade green with lighter shades in the centre and darker towards the edges. Smudge them using short strokes without mixing them. Tip alert: Before we start the next step a quick tip ,as we are making a forest its good to practice making trees beforehand with-tree trunk thick-branches long and slender-twigs thin and short.

Step 4: Add layer no.2 (this will be our layer number 4 in the final artwork )and using the acrylic paint brush start drawing the trees in the foreground framing the picture. Tip alert: It is important to keep in mind the near and far concept. Trees in front/nearer/in the foreground will be more saturated in colour/more opaque and the ones far/in the background will have less pigment /less opaque.

Step 5: Add another layer but this layer will come between the two previous layers (this will be our layer number 3 in the final artwork)The trees will be drawn in this layer using the same acrylic paint brush feature and a lighter shade of jade green, and then we will reduce the opacity of this layer (I made it 57%)to make them look far and add depth to the artwork. Tip alert: The beauty of digital drawing is you can use different layers and change the opacity of the layers to add depth and definition to your artwork.

Step 6: Duplicate the previous layer that is layer number 3 and you can place it before or after layer no.3.Now use the “transform image “icon to reduce the size of the trees in this layer and then change the opacity of the layer to lesser than the previous ones (I made it 27%)as the trees in this layer are made to appear farthest. Tip alert: The best part is you don’t have to draw this layer at all!!!..just duplicate previous layer-transform image(to reduce size)-change opacity (to appear far)

Step 7: Draw a light source in this case a moon in our layer number 4 (the layer with maximum opacity )Shade it using the air brush option. Tip alert: As we are drawing and duplicating the trees its important to use the smudge brushes from time to time to give a smooth finish and continuity to the trees, its branches and roots.

Step 8: Draw a figure(a girl or even a deer )in the midst of the forest using the pen and then smudge brush. Tip alert: Figures and their posture need attention to detail so once I decide the figure I want I almost always practice it twice or more to get the flow before drawing it in my final artwork.

Step 9: Now we will add our final layer that is layer number 5 and use it to draw the light effects. The halo around the moon using the airbrush in shades of lime and light green. Give some texture to the trees using the pencil and smudge options. The highlights on the girl and the ground as well as the shadow of the girl on the ground. Tip alert: The direction of light as well as the way it illuminates the things in its path is important to note. Also light of different intensities bounces off different objects.

Step 10: Now we add some finishing touches to our artwork...draw some foliage (optional )and upload it on PENUP. (essential)!!! Tip alert: It is definitely much easier to actually draw the artwork than to read about it or write about it. So please start drawing and uploading. Can’t wait to see your beautiful artworks!!! Hope you all have a great time doing digital painting ...until we meet again with a next set of drawing tips ...thank you! The secrets to creating a beautiful and mysterious forest are the colors and perspective. Moreover, controlling transparency based on perspective is very important. As colors hold the key of making the entire vibe of an artwork,carefully selecting colors that are fitting to the atmosphere of the picture you want to draw is critical. Our artist @aristina.z not only has amazing drawing skills but also is a good communicator. We could feel the joy and happiness of drawing a picture while reading the drawing tips from @aristina.z. Unfortunately, however, the drawing tip series from @aristina.z is now ended. But we really hope that we could have another opportunity to get more of precious drawing tips from @aristina.z in the near future.

Artwork Sharing Social Network, PENUP! http://www.penup.com - The PENUP Team

[lelegambit]

Hey yo, a little drawing tutorial!! ✍️🥳

So, that's how I'm doing in my currently drawings, this was my last digital art and I'm so happy with the result.

Sketch!!!

1-2 Sketching process: I used difrerent colors to separate parts that I would work. Red: Body / Blue: Clothes / Soft Green: Plus like accessories, tatoos. Since everything is just a sketch, I did everything on the same layer. I just wanted to give a contrast so I wouldn't miss any details

3-5: Study of shadows and light before the coloring layer: I used this to comprehend the light position in the draw so I would know where to use shadow and light.

6-7: First colouring process where I choose the final colors that I will use ass my base.

8-9: Some of my shadow process bcs I couldn't put all of them here, but first of all, I do different layers for skin, hair, clothes and accessories.

Colouring Process!!!!

Skin: I wanted to do this drawing with out the line so to give the right feeling of volume I just separate the parts that are on top and the others that was behind, so on the skin I put the head layer on top of the rest of the skin. After that I could shadow the neck and also the face in the right way with out merge the colors.*I made the eye and mouth on different layers and when they were all colored I just merge the layers in the head part. The nose I did on the head layer.

Hair: In the hair process I just made the same thing, the front of the hair was on top of the one that was behind and I could also do the shadow thing in the right way. The difference is that between the two layers I put the "plus" where I made the accessories (I decided to use just the tissue). The front of the hair is on top of all skins while the back of the hair was behind everything else in the drawing.

Clothes: To do this beautiful shirt I used 3 layers, one to do the flowers, other to do the transparent part (I will explain how I made it have the transparent texture here). So first of all, I made the bulge and structure, which are the completely white parts. On top of this layer I just paint the other part completely in white, even over the layer I used before. So here is the secret that is soooo easy to do: I just let the opacity in 40%-45% so it wasn’t as transparent or too dark, so I got the effect I wanted to. After that I just shadow and merge the 3 layers.

As you can see, I prefer to do the shadows with hot colors because I think it gives more life to the drawing. In the future I hope to work with other colors in the shadow process like led effects idk exactly, so I will just keep on practicing everytime time that I can.

Also I'm in the journey to find my style because even if I liked this one soooo much, I don't feel like this is what I wanted it to be. I'll just keep on searching and discovering things that I want to change and I'm okay with that. So don't be alarmed if you ever visit my Instagram because my drawings are constantly changing, nothing is fixed for now. Everyday I'm making different things on them.

Finally........

So that's It! I'm not a professional artist, as everyone else I just keep on growing in my own way and time but I made this with all my heart and I really hope that you guys really like it.

Kiss on the back of the neck!

Leleillu🖤

[rebeccacclarke-blog]

Week 11: Progression Session and De-Brief

Feedback Broken down into sections:

Visual Design:

We really like the colour combination, the app looks so realistic. Every icon and colours are matched well and they catched our eyes well.

Nice colour scheme!

The colour scheme is awesome, the use of gradients on buttons are nice.

Nice colour scheme, very aesthetic - feels like a real app.

I love the colors!!

Really nice and clean visual design

The app overall is very consistent and feels professional.

Some icons don’t match the overall style of the app such as the bell, but that is us nitpicking

Colour and font choices compliment each other nicely and allow for a clean and refined overall flow to the app.

Flow:

This app is really working well in terms of the flow and simplicity!

I REALLY LIKE IT and it’s EASY to use for me!!

The app seems feature rich and well thought out

allowed for a clean and refined overall flow to the app.

Information on screens:

There are enough useful information in the app. Well done guys!!

You guys have included all important info needed for your app.

The feature of nearby prices for parking on the map is very nice. Keeping track of time remaining is nice. We like how it included lots of additional features which were easy to navigate

Really like the depth you’ve gone into with the FAQ and Need Help pages

content is organised within pages well.

User Issues:

Just curious about the card number in confirm payment, when you press pay it goes back to ‘pay with’ on a loop, but it works for paypal.

The only problem we found was the ASB pay button loops back to the saved cards part, we couldn’t get out of that, but the paypal and new card option worked.

In the payment option, once you’ve paid with the ASB card and confirm, it brings you back to the payment page, although both other options worked fine and the transition when you click the menu button looks unnatural.

You seem to have a navigational loop when you try to pay with the saved card?

Possibilities:

Under the ‘having trouble?’ Page it might be better to have the ‘phone’ (right hand side of the buttons) clickable to go to the phone filed instead of vice versa.

Different prices could have different colour schemes on the map, lower prices can be green and higher prices can be red.

Add a more obvious option to log out

I think maybe the circles design is too much? Like maybe less circles? Idk I like simple things.

De-Brief:

Based on this weeks progression session feedback, we noted that a lot of people really liked our visual design in terms of colour scheme and font choices. We didn’t have any negative points on the sizes of our font and icons. However there was a group who thought the style of the notification bell wasn’t as cohesive with the rest of the design. Overall, the majority of people thought it was very consistent and feels quite professional like a realistic app.

In terms of flow, many people thought that our app was easy to use and navigate. It was very simple and refined and someone noted it was feature rich. Since there wasn’t many comments about the flow, we assumed there wasn’t much of an issue in this field.

Regarding the screen information, a lot of people noted that we had covered all the useful and important information beneficial for the target users and what they expect to get out of our parking app. People commented on how the additional features made the navigation easy to understand for first time users, such as the extensive ‘FAQ’ and ‘Need Help’ sections. In summary, we feel like people had a good impression of the way that our content was organised within our screens.

One main issue that was re-occurring in our critique, was how we had an incorrect feedback loop. Once users tapped on the ASB card button, instead of taking them to a successful payment screen, it took them back to the confirm payment page again. This would have caused the users confusion which we are trying to eliminate in our parking app. Some users brought our attention to the side menu bar looking ‘unnatural’ as we had the home screen on a lower opacity behind it, but when they opened the sidebar from a different page it was the wrong background. Therefore, we will fix this issue for a more seamless experience.

One person had an issue with the visual design of a button in the ‘Forgot password page’. They couldn’t comprehend the other visual queues of the clickable button. Taking this one feedback into account, we will not be making any changes to this button as it would disrupt the overall visual language and cause further confusion on navigation.

A very helpful point the users said was that they thought we could use colour to represent different information such as the prices of the parking spaces located on the map i.e. red, yellow and green. One person mentioned we needed to make our logout button more visible, however we didn’t even have a logout button so we now know we need to add this in. Another person also mentioned that they didn’t like how many circles or rounded shapes we had used, but since this was only a personal preference, we’ll consider this opinion lightly. On the other hand, this also raised a point where some of our typing fields had rounded corners but others were more squared. If we go back to our prototype, we can re-edit this so that the typing fields are all rectangular to make it more distinguishable.

Overall, this session was very beneficial to our group’s progression as we could understand how users felt about it, what they liked and what we can do to improve.

[doodlewash]

Today I present a six half pan Limited Edition Summer Nights set and a French Mineral dot card from Letter Sparrow handmade watercolors.  A dot card sample of Indigo was also included. I’ll present some simple swatches and examples, and a couple of short videos that highlight the paints. Should you fancy these paints, their’s a little something for you at the end.

Handmade watercolors are all the rage these days!  So that there is hopefully no confusion, I preface what I’m about to present with this – especially for you Stan if you are reading this.  Handmade watercolors handle a bit differently than commercial brands.  I like handmade watercolors, so of course my writing is going to reflect that view.  Some people do not like how handmade watercolors handle/look. They are often more semi-transparent when used concentrated, especially mineral and Mayan pigments. Those down there on the dot card, look transparent to me.  They typically lift easily. Some handmade brands or pigments have a finer consistency than others.  In my opinion, the Letter Sparrow set has a fine consistency. Handmade watercolor is not inexpensive.  Half pans for this brand start at $9. Just like commercial brands, each maker has their own formula and process, and price range. They are all a little different. I consider handmades a creative investment, but I realize they aren’t for everyone.  The good thing is, there are plenty of watercolor options out there for wide variety of preferences and budgets.  Let’s move on to the exploration!

First a little bit about the owner of Letter Sparrow- Kelly Hollstrom.  Kelly is delightful and enthusiastic- a woman with a vision for her business who has had the foresight to change with the market, and region she relocated to.  In her career, she’s taught hand lettering and workshops.  When we were interacting, she had an air of buoyancy and excitement about her.

“I love watercolor, lettering, calligraphy, nature, food, gardening, traveling, and being with my family & besties. I’ve lived and traveled all over the U.S. I’m married to an amazing guy. He’s a pastor on staff at a great church right outside of St. Louis, MO. I homeschool my fun & imaginative son during the day and run my business for 2 hours in the afternoon and after my son goes to bed. I’ve never run my business full time, even when I was doing hand lettering & workshops. We got 2 puppies in January so we’ve been busy with them.

My inspiration for making paints is mostly nature and art. I just naturally grab colors from things I see and love putting them together to make my limited edition sets. My sets are usually only available for the month they are sold in. This is because I have SO many sets planned.

About my paints:

I started making watercolor paint in August 2016 and started selling them the very end of November 2016.  Most of my paints are single pigment and non-toxic. I plan on putting complete pigment info, lightfastness, opacity, etc. on each listing this summer.  My binder is all natural and includes pure ingredients.” 

What exactly are handmade watercolors you may ask? This is general info, and not brand specific. They are usually pigment and a binder- gum Arabic. Sometimes other ingredients are added, like honey, clove oil or other preservatives or moldicides. Gum Arabic is the hardened sap from the Acacia tree, and is the same binder used by commercial brands. The ingredients are mixed and hand mulled with a muller and mulling slab- those are usually made out of glass. Then they are poured into pans and left to cure for a period of time. It is a time consuming process. Pans may need to be filled more than once due to shrinkage during the curing process. This process can often take weeks. Good raw pigments to make paints with can be expensive. There are plenty of books and info to be had about pigments and paint mixtures in general. I’ve enjoyed the pigment stories and info in this one- Urban Watercolor Sketching by Felix Schienberger. It’s enough info to be interesting, but not too much to be overwhelming.  Plus you get some painting techniques and lessons too.  His style is unique, loose and fun.  I recommend using the “Look Inside” option before you buy, or check it out from the library to see how you like it.

Back to the paints.

All the reviews in the Letter Sparrow Etsy shop are 5 stars. One set that originally caught my eye was the LOVE-ly set– French Red, Super Sparkle Gold, Ultramarine Rose, Sterling Silver. The gold really is super sparkly.

The word that came to mind when I opened the Summer Nights palette- enchanting. It brought to mind the feeling of deep enchanted and magical forests.  “And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul” – John Muir.

This little set is richly pigmented.  Aubergine Violet, Gray Ochre, Sterling Silver, Veronese Green, Nitroso Green, Sparkling Gold.  The Silver and Gold are very shimmery.  All rewet easily.

This video features two colors- Aubergine Violet and Sterling Silver in a Midori Kraft Paper Spiral Ring Notebook.  I was able to get a lot of depth and variation with just the Aubergine Violet.  It has amazing tinting strength and I found it interesting to work with.  It’s a lovely color, and can look almost black when used very concentrated.  I’m fond of painting on non-traditional papers, this post features a few.

The swatch card that the tin came with is hand lettered and painted, and has magnets on the back so it stays in the lid for storage- I like that it came with it’s own swatch card.  The half pans have magnets on the bottoms and the colors are written on the sides. Below, I put a black line under the Sterling Silver and Sparkle Gold swatches, they cover really well. Dry swatches on the left, and wet in wet on the right. I used all the colors but the gold in the little mountain sample.  Swatches and sample done on Arches 90lb cold press watercolor paper.

I took a video of the swatch above to show the sparkle.   For some reason I couldn’t get it to show up clear and crisp in this post.  Technologies!  Anywho, if you want to check it out, I posted it yesterday on my Instagram account.

One thing that I’d like to mention for the Hobonichi enthusiasts- this brand worked well on the fabulously thin Tomoe River Paper← that’s a link to fountain pen inks being written on the paper- mesmerizing.  This is the paper used in the Hobonichi line up.  In my experience, not all handmade watercolors are satisfactory on this paper. If you are curious about the Hobonichi, here’s the link to the Japanese site. Because I use an A6 size Hobonichi Techo as an art journal, there are a boat load of examples on my Instagram account- @jessicaseacrest.   If you are curious, check out my feed and/or ask me questions in the comments below.

It’s apparent from my examples lately, that I’m presently stuck on trees. I’m also into Yupo right now- both sample paintings are on that.  If your not familiar with Yupo, it is “a synthetic (polypropylene) substrate…with a non-porous surface that repels water.”  It is super fun and feels like an adventure every time I use it.  Click either of those Yupo links for more info.  This version here is the white, but it also comes in translucent.

Magical Mushroom Forest

Usually I’m all about the gold, but I was so fond of the Sterling Silver I had a hard time moving on to the gold.  But you can see some of it here in the 15 second video.

Because I have trouble not going full tilt with the pigments, sometimes my best service in showing them is with odd swatches.  Arches 90lb cold press watercolor paper was used- dry paper on the left, wet in wet on the right.  This helps with spotting similarities in colors too.  Mostly those seem to be the two greens and the two darker reds.  I ran out of room on my first attempt, so I did it again on a larger piece.  I especially fancy the Apricot.

I love how these colors look together.  Used- Apricot, Turquoise, Sky Blue, Lavender Blue, Plum, and some of the gold from the Summer Nights set.  The Plum was really fun on Yupo, it has a depth to it.

I’ve enjoyed this brand, it’s beautiful, and they offer interesting curated sets. I like featuring and supporting small businesses and makers. There is one thing that seems to run through all handmade watercolor makers that I’ve interacted with or purchased from- a passion and enthusiasm for their products. The Summer Nights set featured here will be available next Saturday on the July 15th restock. The half pan set is $59 and the full pan set is $107. Check out Instagram- @lettersparrow for photos of previously released sets and swatches, or Facebook.com/lettersparrow.  A link to the shop in case you want to check it out and ♥ it. Questions about the paints- email Kelly at lettersparrow@gmail.com. Here is the restock schedule:

“Limited Edition Summer Schedule:

July 15th – The “SUMMER NIGHTS” set and the “BLUES SET”

August 5th – The “LETTER SPARROW 12” and the “GREENS SET” 

September – The “LETTER SPARROW 24” (perfect for Christmas gifts!) and The “EARTH SET”

Kelly offered this 10% off coupon to Doodlewash readers- use coupon code: LETTERSPARROW.  It’s valid until August 31, 2017.  Yay- thanks Kelly!  And thank for the opportunity to enjoy, and review your paints.

There are several other reviews on Doodlewash of handmade watercolors- Greenleaf & Blueberry, Pfeiffer Art Supply & Redwood Willow, and Anthesis Arts.

As always, thank you for taking the time to read this review.  I’ll be back soon with another one 🙂

Happy painting and sketching!

Celebrate World Watercolor Month with us during the month of July! Click here for more info.

DOODLEWASH REVIEW: Letter Sparrow Handmade Watercolors Today I present a six half pan Limited Edition Summer Nights set and a French Mineral dot card from…