#I just wanted to draw that ear pose tbh

[one-bunny-a-day]

16/11/2023

shh, you're today's bunny

[girlscience]

been drawing more and I get so frustrated, not with my skill level, but with my style. it's such a mishmash of so many things and it doesn't go well together at all and it makes everything look wonkier than I think anything else. My anatomy and posing and line weight and coloring and everything is not super high quality, but has significantly improved over the past couple years (imo at least and that's all that matters lol) and I know it will continue to improve the more I draw and practice!! but I have seen zero change in my style. It's this super unfortunate middle ground between realistic and anime and kind of cartoony and it doesn't work at all. And I cannot figure out how to change it

[bellswlw]

˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚ it’s cold here without you ⇨ e. williams

ellie williams x afab!reader

wc: 6k

part 1.5 | part two | masterlist

summary: after Ellie manages to finally get you to pose for her after arriving in Jackson months ago, you two attend the winter dance and it’s then that you realize you might like ellie as more than just a friend…

cw: bff!ellie, mutual pining, jealousy, drug use (weed), alcohol consumption, inexperienced reader, artist!ellie, some fluff, edging (r!receiving kinda), love confessions, making out in semi public space (???) basically grumpy x sunshine, gardener!reader —lmk if there are more tags to add pls—

a/n: this was going to be angsty and sad but then this just happened so enjoy! (please be nice this is my first public wlw post and first fic i’ve been proud of in a minute so pls, pls just don’t be mean. i’ve been so nervous to post this all week help) proofread but there’s probably still some mistakes tbh

From the moment you walked into Jacksons gates, Ellie knew something. Something so small rang in her ears. So much so it almost hurt, it made her want to wince at the sight of you like you were a walking orb of fire and you had just exploded right in front of her.

She knew when you met Shimmer for the first time, she knew in the dining hall, and at the library and the school and the church. Especially at the church. She knew she would never be able to let you go. But she knew she would have to, eventually.

|

You spun slowly around in Ellie’s desk chair, your head resting back as the smoke filled your lungs more and more with each rotation.

“Please. I don’t want to go alone, I won’t know anyone else there.” you say up into the ceiling while you wait for a response. You hear the crackle of weed burning straight through Ellie’s chest before anything else.

Her voice drops a little low when she finally speaks, the smoke falling from her lips like fog rolling over a still lake. “I’m sure Dina will be there. And Jesse. And literally everyone else.” Ellie was stretched out on the futon from across the room, caring less about the stupid winter dance.

You look at her then, a little dizzy and absolutely appalled that she wouldn’t want to go and watch people get drunk and dance to No Scrubs while high out of your minds.

She was never the type for large happy gatherings, but you figured she would go if she got to sit and watch for entertainment.

“Not everyone.” you whispered to yourself with a quick raise of your eyebrow before glancing at your hands quick enough to avoid Ellie's eyes that were suddenly boring into you.

Ellie sat up; the joint now glued to her lips.

“It’s a fuckin’ winter dance. In the Church. C’mon, how fun could it really be?”

You look up. Seeing how her eyes never left your face. Like you were meeting her there, through a dirty window with the reflection of her hazily standing beside you. A window that hasn't been buffed out yet, just a little foggy. Just a little.

“Well, it would be more fun if you went with me. Please. Just for an hour? Then we can come back here and do whatever you wanna do. Even if it's just sitting around. And you can draw me… if you want to.” you added the last part in a hushed tone, like the words were timid to come out.

But you had been secretly hoping she would since you got here.

You loved watching her draw, her fingers tracing over the paper so gently, like it was skin. Almost like it was yours. You wished it was… sometimes.

She looked away from you, drawing in another drag before she rested her elbows on her knees, legs spread wide.

Ellie had been wanting to draw you since the day you got here. The shape of your hips and the slope of your neck had haunted her pages for months. Erasing and sketching them again and again from memory. She wouldn’t let the opportunity pass her up and spit her out.

She sighed, trying to gauge if you had really meant it. Your tell wasn’t working since you were already beat red from just offering yourself up.

“Fine. Let’s just do it now, while we have time to spare.” was what she said instead, swallowing back her excitement and clearing her throat.

Ellie reaches over to you, handing you the joint and gently flexes her hand in your direction to tell you to finish it.

There wasn’t much left, maybe a little more than a roach. You took it from her a little eagerly, wanting the smoke to smooth your lungs and the quickend beat in your chest caused by Ellie’s hand grazing yours.

It didn’t take very long or much for you to feel it. You were such a lightweight.

Ellie of course found it hilarious when she realized. Catching on and laughing at you from across the room when you started giggling at the word “Infectious.”

Maria had said your laugh was “infectious” in the stables and considering the circumstances, it was true. Only, this time Ellie wasn’t immune to it. She had followed suit and ducked her head over her shoulder away from you to collect herself while shimmer groaned in relief.

“It’s just so—“ you cut yourself off, burying your face in your knees while sitting on the floor against the side of Ellie’s bed frame.

The distance was necessary since you had only met a few days prior.

Ellie looked up at you, with her brows pulled together in confusion before she put two and two together.

“Wait. Are you high?” she asked with a chuckle.

The room was clouded with a thin layer of smoke, barely enough to be able to see to the naked eye.

Your eyes had shot open wide, terrified.

“You are! Holy shit, this is good.” her voice carved the words into you then, the goosebumps running through your legs until they reached your core and exploded there with millions of needles with nowhere to go. You were soaked.

Ellie hadn’t laughed that hard in a minute, with her hand flat on her stomach to try and help the coiling feeling deep in her stomach.

“That’s fucking hilarious.” she murmured, her head falling back against the futon before taking a hit so big her cheeks had funneled in.

“Shut up.”

You were bright red with embarrassment and Ellie couldn’t look you in the eye without the image burning into her mind for the next week.

You think back on it now and what took place only a few hours before, letting a dry chuckle fall from your lips and echo into the quiet of the room.

Ellie’s still for a moment, but then joins in and laughs hard enough for her body to jolt with each exhale.

“What?” her tell floats to the surface immediately as she wipes the bow above her lip nervously.

“Do… do you remember that one time–” You stifle back a small laugh with your hand, slightly doubled over in the chair and your other flat against the coffee table for support.

“What?” she asks again, an unsteady smile creeping its way in.

“When… when we were– I can’t!” you confess, letting out a burst of laughter and slowly sliding down onto the floor.

“What?!” Ellie exclaims, a laugh finally falling from her lips while her hands tense out in front of her.

“When we were in the stab… stables. And I met Shimmer? And then I was petting her ears and all of this sudden, she rips absolute ass! Do you remember that?!” you let out a laugh, deeper from within your stomach causing you to hold onto it with both hands as the giggles ate you alive.

Ellie lets the smile on her face break, and then after hearing you kick your feet against the floor she erupts too, leaning over a bit to join in.

“You got so scared!” she exclaims, which only sends you further into a fit of laughter, breathing heavily for a few seconds and then starting right back up again.

“It was… It was so loud! An– and long?!?”

Ellie eventually joins you on the floor, laughing hard enough to where a vein is popping from her neck, just noticeable enough to where if you reached your hand out to touch it, you could even feel her pulse.

She looks over at you, seeing your eyes pinched shut and your smile wider than she’s ever seen it before. It was incredible.

As your laughter subsides, your eyes find their way to Ellie’s. Watching you, of course.

“Oh,” you say with the smallest giggle attached, then letting it fall away to join the burning embers that lifted the hair off your skin.

She smiled at you, fully now with no hesitation. “Can I draw you?” she asked, not looking away once. Her voice became a little rusted, and it chipped on its way out of her throat like a stone on pavement.

You fought the urge to crack. “Sure.” you said instead, and looked away from her quickly just to pull your eyes back to her slightly parted lips.

Ellie’s smile faltered a moment, resting on her side next to you. She didn't want to get up. She wanted to keep this image of you alive inside her head for the rest of her life. She wanted to keep you forever. Obviously she knew she couldn’t. She’d fuck it up sooner or later.

“What?” you ask, gaping at her with so much love plastered on your cheeks it almost looked fake. Too saturated. Too real. Ellie had the urge to swipe the pad of her thumb across it just to see if it would smudge. She knew it wouldn’t. She just wanted an excuse.

Instead, Ellie glanced away –finally– and lifted a hand to the right side of your face, tucking a single strand of hair behind your ear gently. You froze.

“Just um, put this right here.” she whispered.

Her eyes were glued on yours. The beautiful emerald that made your heart freeze in time just jumped into a millions beats per minute with the touch of her hand alone.

Ellie’s hand was still hovering over your jaw, like she was afraid you would fade away if she let you go.

But she had to. She knew that, some part of her had to know that.

Her hand fell back at her side, and Ellie cleared her throat one more time.

“Um, stay just stay how you are. I’ll draw you just like this, yeah?” you were too stunned to speak, so you nodded once and swallowed back the butterflies that had just burst in your stomach.

“Okay.” you could hear the smile in her voice as she got up on her feet in one quick motion, leaving you to stare mindlessly at the door.

You felt like you were posing naked for her somehow, like she had stripped you clean and she would be basing her art off of you. You hated how self conscious you suddenly felt, but selfishly you loved how excited she got.

And just like that, you're burning up again, your cheeks catch the flint and light is bursting from beneath your skin.

You smother it. You act calm, and cool, and not like you are the horniest you've ever been around someone you could never have.

You don’t move a muscle when Ellie sets down pads of paper, jars of brushes, ink, parchment paper, water color, and charcoal all within a minute or two and is sitting down next to you again.

She put her hands to her mouth, unable to keep her excitement hidden. “Okay. Um. Just, uh, yeah just stay exactly how you are. Try not to move. Or laugh.” you can’t help but let the smirk sink into your face before playfully scoffing under your breath.

You followed her instructions word for word. You didn’t move. No matter how badly you had to pee. You wouldn’t move until she was done.

And so far, it felt like you had been posing for what felt like 2 hours based on how many pieces of paper Ellie had already used, and the fact that the water was completely dark with no more room for ink. Or that her fingers were coated in charcoal and it had smudged on her face as she tried relentlessly to keep the stray hair behind her ear.

But you watched her. You watched her hands dance across the paper like skin. Your skin. –on paper anyway– You noticed her tongue dipping in and out of her mouth as she concentrated on capturing the curve of your arm and the texture of your jeans that made you want to crawl out of them.

Ellie couldn't get the images of you on paper fast enough. There were so many. She had to get it absolutely perfect: the slope of your nose, your crooked hairline caused from laying on your side, the delicacy of your fingers as they rested on the curve of your hip. She had to get all of them out right now or else she would have to keep memorizing and sketching and staring.

Secretly, she wanted to keep a few for herself too. To remind herself that you were real, and that she had you at one point. Ellie only had so much ink and charcoal left, but she didn’t care, she would use it all. She would draw you a million times if it meant you would look at her like this just one more time. She would do anything… anything for you. If she just had the chance, she’d take it. Instead of running away to catch the lungs that were sprinting away from her.

But she would try, with all the power and love she's ever had. She would give it all to you, and you wouldn’t even have to ask. Ellie would give it up willingly, she would beg you to take it from her and say “I don't know what to do with it.”

“Hm?” you ask from your position on the floor. “Do with what?” and her eyes flickered towards you.

She forgot you were really there. That you weren’t another dream. That you could see her.

Ellie cleared her throat and her voice broke when she spoke again.

“Um, the drawing. It’s done. I don’t know what to do with it.” she looked at you one last time before you shot up from the floor and sat next to her.

“Can I see it?!” you said, cheery like a child who had just had their picture taken in a cardboard cutout stand.

“Yeah.”

Ellie turned the pad over to you, and just when she thought she hated it you covered your mouth with both hands and let in a sharp inhale.

You were quiet for a moment, and Ellie was still a little worried you saw right through her until you turned to look at her with tears pooling in your eyes.

“Oh, Ellie. Holy shit. This is the best one yet.”

She let herself feel a little proud then, a smile fighting its way onto her face once again. She never knew why she was always fighting it, it would happen nearly every single time.

“That’s just because I made you look so good.” and she nudged you a little.

“Shut the fuck up, I’m serious. It’s beautiful Els.” and you turned away to look back at the drawing before blinking away the tears in your eyes.

There’s a moment there, where the two of you are staring at… you. “No one’s ever drawn me before. It's weird looking at myself like this.” and you then felt Ellie’s eyes burn the side of your face, begging for you to look at her.

You tilt your head slightly, not stripping your eyes away from the page until the very last second.

Ellie was blushing. She was fucking blushing.

She looked away the second your eyes had found hers.

“Here, you can have it.” and she folded the page into your hand and held it there for a beat.

A beat too long.

The glass was clearing up, the fog dissipating into thin air at lightning speed.

You cleared your throat in hopes to silently slice the tension that was building around the two of you.

“Thanks.” you let your eyes fall to your lap. “We should uh, probably get ready.”

Ellie looks away again, patting her thighs as she exhales swiftly. “Yeah. Yeah, let's do it.”

|

“Come on, I don’t wanna be the last one there! It’s already started.”

You leaned against the doorframe of the bathroom, actually watching Ellie fix her hair. It was pulled back into a low bun, and the layered pieces kept falling forward, not wanting to swoop back with the rest of it.

“I just, I can’t get this fucking— oh, god dammit!” she exclaimed, letting her hands fly out at her sides and grip the edge of the bathroom counter to take a breath.

“Here, let me help you.”

You took a step off the frame, pulling a pin from your hair and gently stepping up to Ellie to slide the pin into place. You must have accidentally got her scalp because she squeezed one eye shut and let a small wince escape her lips.

“Sorry.” you said, and tapped the pin to make sure it was snug.

You felt Ellie’s eyes on you from the reflection of the mirror. Of course. They were burning into you like the reflection of a magnifying glass.

Ellie’s hands grip harder on the countertop, watching your delicate fingers play with the pin. Collecting strands of her hair and then gently sweeping them behind it as gently as she can so as not to poke you again.

“Thanks.” she says instead, and lets go of the counter with a gentle push. Her hands have a red mark from her grip that when she flexes her hands, she feels her skin pull with resistance.

“Yeah.” you look away, even though you feel the warmth radiating off of her. Sending something through you.

“Okay. Let's go before we’re stuck outside. I heard they are checking for ID." There's a joke somewhere in her voice, but it gets buried by the sudden feeling of your hand twisted in yours.

“Ellie, your hand is freezing.” you say, entirely missing the joke she was trying to make and placing your other hand around hers.

She looked down to see her hand barely covered by both of yours, and she lets the feeling of your skin melt into hers like molten lava.

She was always lighting you on fire. Now, you were warming her up, meeting her halfway.

|

The dance was better than Ellie had expected. The room was full of people in cowboy boots and actually square dancing. Not just in the movies like she thought.

And you were smiling from ear to ear, happy to see so many people laughing and having fun while they still could. So of course Ellie was happy to be there. She fucking lived to see you smile like you were right now.

“I’m gonna get a drink, do you want anything?” Ellie said against your neck, yelling over the music.

“No! I’m gonna dance.” and she nodded, eager to let go of your hand. She didn’t want to lose you in the crowd. She didn’t want to lose you, period. But of course, she would eventually.

Your hand fell from hers as you made your way into the line dance, knocking your feet back and forth on its heel and toe while clapping your hands along to the music that was actually ‘not that bad’.

Ellie’s standing at the bar, a drink in her hand with no intention of actually drinking it. She wasn’t that big a drinker, but she wanted to keep herself busy while trying so hard not to stare at you from across the room.

It wasn't working, obviously.

She was actually glad she came, because she had never seen you this… bright. You were floating across the dancefloor like some kind of angel. She couldn’t place you. Not here anyway. You looked so out of place, with your smile wide and cheeks completely beet red from dancing, it's like you were more saturated than everyone else, like you were literally glowing.

She snaps out of it when she sees you heading over to her, a smile plastered on your face and sweat beading just above your top lip.

“Oh jeez, they weren’t kidding.” you say to her, out of breath and laughing a little.

“Who?” she asks.

“Tommy and Maria. When we were all putting the flyers up they said it would definitely be an owl here.” and you couldn’t keep it together, laughing into your hand and leaning forward into Ellie’s shoulder.

“That… was terrible.” she smirks.

She loved it.

You pull back, flexing your hands out wide at your sides before letting out a short exhale. “No, but seriously. You guys might not party very often, but when you do it gets crazy. I was drowning out there!”

“You seemed to be doing fine to me.” Ellie offered up. She was flushed.

“Oh yeah? You try going out there. It’s not as easy as it looks.” and you tilted your head playfully, emphasizing your point.

She looked down at her glass then, breaking away quick enough to avoid your eyes.

“That’s what I thought. Now, where is the bathroom?”

And Ellie took the smallest sip from her glass just before pointing to her right and bending her wrist the same direction. “Through the doors and on the right.”

You smiled at her, touching her arm with clammy hands. “Hey, dance with me when I come back?” your grasp on her was slipping away, waiting for her answer before letting go completely.

“Yeah. Sure.”

You beamed, completely unable to hide it this time. You thought you maybe didn’t have to, that you would maybe… finally… be able to clean this goddamn window for good.

You call out to her before disappearing, “Oh hey, you were right! Dina’s here!”

The second Ellie registers what you said, suddenly Dina has appeared into thin air and is dancing with someone a few feet away.

And again, a few moments later, Jesse appears from your left, a matching glass in his hand.

“She’s uh… putting on quite the show.” he says, and it's then that she looks up at her, watching as she gets dipped and the music fades out.

“I give you guys two weeks until you're back together.” and she chuckles.

“Not gonna happen.”

She looks away from him briefly, glancing into her drink that’s gone warm.

“She uh, say something to you?” Jesse asks before looking at her again.

“Make it one week.”

While Ellie’s attention is turned towards Jesse, just then Dina comes over and draws it back toward her.

“Ellie, hey!”

Jesse adjusts his posture, standing taller. It’s so obvious he wants her back.

Dina takes the drink from your hand, shooting it back and placing it on the bar behind you with a thud.

“Dina.” he says, lifting his glass, almost like he was offering it up to her.

“Jesse.” is all she says instead, eyeing him slowly.

“C’mon,” she says, and grabs Ellie’s hand.

“Wait, I was gonna–” but it's no use, because Jesse is talking over you from the bar.

“Hey! Don’t forget we're headin’ out early, so get some rest!” and before Ellie can even look back at him all the way, Dina is already talking again.

“Yes sir.”

Ellie is looking down at her feet, trying not to trip over them as Dina continues to pull her farther into the crowd of people.

“You're such a dick.” she murmured.

Dina’s hands fell easily on her shoulders moments after she placed Ellie’s on her waist.

Just then, you came out from the bathroom trying to pick through the crowd to find her, seeing the empty glass and missing spot from the bar.

You make your way over to Jesse, who you were kind of surprised to see there since he wasn’t much of a partier.

You go to ask where Ellie went, if she had somehow missed her walking into the bathroom… but the words die in your throat when you see her smack dead in the middle of the floor, with Dina rubbing her cheek against Ellie’s and a sly smile on her face.

“I hate these things.” Jesse said.

You glance over at him, noticing he was watching Ellie and Dina too.

“Tell me about it.” you say, looking back at Dina.

She has her arm wrapped around Ellie’s neck, a single hand pulling the same strand of hair that has been falling out of place all day.

The same one you pinned. The same girl who had drawn you just 2 hours ago.

The same girl… that was kissing Dina.

She… she kissed her.

Your windows shattered, shards falling to the floor like needles and with the heartbeat that had been run over and sliced clean in half.

You feel yourself wince at the sight, and before you think twice, you're up from the bar and leave through the back.

You fucking blew it.

|

Ellie’s hands were stuffed deep inside her pockets, walking around Jackson like a lost puppy.

She hadn’t seen you since the dance. Which to you both felt like a lot longer.

She looked for you afterward, apologizing to Dina before pulling away from her to ask if anyone had seen where you went, if anyone saw you leave with Jesse and wondering what the fuck just happened.

When you got home, the second you closed the door behind you you couldn't help but let the hot tears stream down your frosted cheeks.

You had tried so hard, so hard to let Ellie see how much of her you liked, and completely obvious you made it seem.

You posed for her. Not naked, but the act still made you think it was worth something. So much so that when you pulled her drawing from your backpocket, slightly smudged from dancing all night and when you had pulled it out on your way home contemplating throwing it away.

You shoved it under your pillow instead, climbing in bed shortly after and rocking yourself to sleep and trying to get the image of Ellie’s lips out of your mind.

Ellie showed up the next morning, knocking on your locked bedroom door.

It had scared her, how raw her voice sounded, and how at the same time it had never sounded softer than when she said “Hey, you in there?”

And when you didn’t reply, you could hear her let out a small sigh before stepping away from the door.

You pulled your covers tight over your head and shut your eyes tight with regret.

Eventually, you realized you had to get up to go to work. It was cold out, but luckily you had gotten to work in the greenhouse since it was a low leveled job and you enjoyed it. Plus the warmth helped too.

The greenhouse door was cracked open by a hair, a dead giveaway you were inside. You still never figured out how to latch it all the way closed, and it seemed to get heavier each time you went to move it.

Ellie pulled her lip to the side, nibbling nervously on the inside of her cheek. She felt so fucking stupid, letting Dina kiss her like that. Letting her dance with her. She was such a fuck up, as per usual.

She was walking around aimlessly, bored, and confused.

She didn't know what to do without you. It was so routine with the two of you.

You would meet Ellie at the stables after her patrol shift was over (which was usually in the mornings) and then you would hang out together at hers. And she would usually find you in the dining hall or the library if you were scheduled there.

But since the dance, she hadn’t known where you were, and it's like she had never been to this version of Jackson without you in it.

She had, years ago, but she could never remember what it was really like. Almost as if it didn’t really exist without you.

And just as she was about to head home, with the sun barely peeking out from behind the clouds, she spotted the multiple greenhouses. With one in particular that had a light striking a clear view of you inside.

Ellie pulled her hands from her pockets, a close lipped smile breaking on her face instantly.

She nudged the door with her body and her head barely visible to you from the other side.

But you felt her there. You didn’t know how, but you could tell she was standing outside the door before you saw her.

“Holy shit it's warm in here. Now I see why you always pick this over patrol.” and she watched as you plucked leaves from the tarragon plant.

“What are you doing?” you asked, not looking at her.

Your hands started to shake mildly, and you tried not to give into her eyes that burned a hole in your heart.

“Looking for you. I Thought I’d find you here.” she said, closing the door all the way (of course she'd be able to) and fumbled with her hands, a little nervous.

“I’m almost done here. I just need to take these clippings and a few other things.” your hands carry a tremble now, and Ellie can see it.

She takes a step closer to you, and it's unavoidable not to look at her now.

“Can we talk about last night?” Ellie asks with her hand flat against the workbench and her brows are pulled together in a frown.

“There's nothing to talk about. I just… I wanted to go home. I didn’t wanna bother you and Dina. you seemed like you were having fun.” as you tied the twine around the clippings, Ellie's hand covered yours on an exploded scale.

You turn your head, looking at her and seeing right through her.

“C’mon. Don’t be like that. Dina… was just being Dina. She didn’t mean anything by it.” Ellie's thumb started to form small circles on your skin, drawing you in, inch by inch.

Ellie took a small step toward you, her other hand reaching up and cooling the burning of your neck.

She leaned in toward you, and her lips grazed yours before kissing you softly. It was wrong, it was so so wrong.

You closed your eyes and a single tear rolled down your cheek fast enough to transfer to Ellie’s.

You pull your hand back from hers, taking a complete step backward and trying to conceal the tears that wanted to run down your cheeks freely.

“Do you like me, Ellie?”

The words had shocked the look off her face, only for her to reposition her brows into a confused glare.

“What?”

“Do you like me.” and there is a quiver in your voice. Her figure becomes blurry, but before she disappears completely you tilt your head and wipe your tears on the sleeve of your shirt.

“I– Yeah. Yeah, I like you. Why would I kiss you if I didn’t like you?”

“Why would Dina?”

Her head drops down between her shoulders as she sighed. She didn’t know. She didn’t. But she knew that she would rather freeze to death than lose you, she knew that much.

She pulled her lips between her teeth “I– I don’t know. I- She- Dina kissed me, okay? And she asked me to dance. I didnt– I wanted to dance with you, I wanted to…” she couldn’t say it.

“What?”

“I wanted to kiss you, alright. I wanted to even before then. Before the dance or before the stables. From the moment you got here I knew. I just didn’t know. I do now, I swear.”

You didn’t know what to say. You wanted to say everything, anything. Your lips were sealed with hot tears streaming down your face.

“Can you say something?” Her voice is merely a whisper like a jagged piece of ice dragging across your skin just light enough to form goosebumps.

You pinch your eyes shut and let your hands shakily wipe the salt water from your face.

“I– I… Ellie. I don’t know what I’m supposed to say, this…”

She takes a small step toward you, grabbing a hold of your wrists gently enough for your back to meet the opposite wall of the greenhouse and boxing you in around the floor to ceiling plants that were on either side of you.

“Just, say something, please.” Ellie gave your wrists a little shake, freeing them from your face.

She looked worried now, and the thought of her thinking you didn’t like her sent a strike of sadness through you.

You move your hands fully away from your face and let them fall at your sides, lacing your fingers with Ellie’s slowly. She’s looking down at them, and swinging them softly from side to side.

“I… I liked you too. From the beginning I mean. In the dining hall when you sat next to me. I liked you then, I still do.” you confessed.

You felt the fire in your cheeks and you couldn’t meet Ellie’s eyes and you made way with her chest.

She leaned down an inch to place her forehead together with yours. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

You let out a breath, a scoff even. “I tried! I was trying this entire time. And plus, you just said you realized you liked me. I wasn’t sure.”

Her words rang through you. You shook with anticipation.

“Is that why you left last night? Because you were jealous?” and Ellie’s voice rose to a mocking tone, tugging on your hands in a playful manner.

“Shut up. I was not.” and you look away, the smile bolted across your face proudly.

“You were! Say it, say it please! Tell me how jealous you were. C’mon, tell me tell me tell me!”

And it's then that you smash your lips against Ellie’s to meet her halfway with just the very tip of your toes.

Her lips were warm with lust, her hands breaking from yours to find the soft spots behind your ears with a swipe. Ellie exhaled into your mouth immediately and your head met the back wall of the greenhouse with a soft thud.

Her tongue swiped against your bottom lip, begging for entrance that was obviously unnecessary by how quickly you parted your lips for her. She rubbed slow circles over your jaw, and soon enough her hand was traveling down the curve of your hip and squeezing there. Just enough to express a moan from you.

Ellie smirked against your lips, drawing back for a breath before kissing you harder now, not hesitating or double checking for dominance. You were absolutely floored.

Your shirt had ridden up just mere inches, and her hand was met with the small piece of bare flesh there, causing you to let in a sharp inhale through your nose.

Both of Ellie’s hands are playing with the button of your jeans, fighting to get them undone and pulled down just below your pulsing cunt.

Once her hand finally finds the band of your underwear, it's over. You were already completely unfolding right in front of her.

Your mouth falls open, and a moan slips from your lips, a little louder now as you arch your back to be flush with Ellie. She bends back the band of elastic, traveling down to reach the very top of your pussy she can already feel how wet you are for her.

Just then, both of your hands fly to grip her inked forearm. A silent warning.

“Your hand… ‘s cold.” is all you can make out.

Ellie pulls back to take a look at you. You're absolutely flushed. “D’you want me to stop?” It was genuine. She wanted this to be perfect for you. She wanted to get it right.

“I– I want to keep going, but I-” and Ellie uncoiled her hand from beneath your pants to rest it on your hip.

“I don’t want you to do anything you aren’t ready for.” she let her arms straighten against you, waiting for you to reply.

“I’m ready. Really. I just don’t really wanna… do it here. It’s kinda dirty. And also probably illegal. And I really do have to take that stuff in.”

Ellie smiled. “You’re cute. Why don’t we take them together, and then, if you want, we can go hang out at mine?”

You looked at her with a tight lipped grin. “Yeah. I’d like that.”

[yyokkki]

Asking to Sketch Them

SAVANACLAW

Leona Kingscholar

“No lol”

Can be bribed with peaceful silence and ear scritches

Has experience with posing for portraits but won’t bother

So you can only draw him sleeping but it’s actually not that bad

I can’t see anything eventful happening tbh Leona is a master of ignoring the bullshit that goes on in his vicinity

Once you’re finished he acts all smug and he actually is

8/10 pretty good unless you want him in a pose that isn’t horizontal

Ruggie Bucchi

“Sure! In return for what?”

Can be bribed with food or money

Probably won’t be too stiff about it and takes it as another quick gig

Will even do insane poses for you if you pay up

Can’t stay in one position for too long though if it’s an especially busy day you might have to sketch him while he’s doing chores for the dorm

Multitasking king will be able to do both trust him

9/10 what can I say he’s just good

Jack Howl

“no” pt.2

If you give him good enough reasoning like wanting to improve your art and his muscles are so defined they’ll be really helpful for anatomy studies he might say yes

Ignore his wagging tail

If you wanna draw his wolf form however

Very VERY reluctantly says yes if you give similar reasoning

Now take this chance to brush his fur the good boy deserves it

Very supportive of your efforts he thinks highly of those who seek self improvement

Again do NOT point out how fast his tail is wagging when you’re done and you show him the finished product

9/10 a good boy and a good model

-----

Heartslabyul | Savanaclaw | Octavinelle | Scarabia | Pomefiore | Ignihyde | Diasomnia

[immortalarizona]

“They say looks can kill, and I might try.” — Taylor Swift, “Vigilante Shit”

an outfit for my beloved Wanda if she ends up going to the 2024 Hellfire Gala (if there is one at all tbh)!! I wasn't personally a fan of her 2023 look, so I decided to try my hand at designing a look of my own despite knowing jack shit about fashion. design breakdown, inspiration photos, and just general rambling under the cut :)

main inspo:

top row: left by REEM ACRA, right by unknown

middle row: sketches by Kevin Wada

bottom row: garments by Zita Moldovan (website)

--

hehe, this is the part where I ramble about my design process!! I will confess, it took me four full sketches before I finally managed to purge the "high fantasy fairy queen dress" brainrot from my mind and arrive at a concept that actually felt like Wanda. given that as of her 2023 solo run, she's a self-employed business owner, a twist on a suit felt appropriate!! it's elegant, it's dramatic, it's sexy, it's powerful, and it's also a garment that, like, real people could wear?? which, I know this is a comic book and she also has magic, but, like. girl deserves a fit that's also reasonably comfortable. girl deserves pockets (I didn't showcase them, but the pants absolutely have humongous magic pockets.) talking fabric, I will confess that I really don't know much, but I picture the red fabric being pretty thick silk and the black fabric possibly being velvet? the shoes are beaded pretty much all over with the same crystal material as the crown.

as I continued to refine my concept, I looked to Kevin Wada's 2015 redesign for Wanda's last solo run for more inspiration. that's how I arrived at concepts such as the use of beaded accessories, floral embroidery, and especially the plunging neckline. I also knew I wanted to pay homage to Wanda's heritage without being stereotypical, so I decided to look to Zita Moldovan, a Romani designer whose site is linked above, to see how she incorporated her culture into her work. (as an aside, there's this other dress from her Romany Dreams collection that I would LOVE to draw Wanda in at some point, but that was not this project. maybe soon.) the dress I included in my (very, very trimmed down) inspo board was my primary reference as I drew the pattern for the pant part of the pantsuit. (I attempted multiple versions where the pattern was in color, but it wound up looking really muddy, so I opted for the slightly more subtle version you see here.) the pose for the final piece doesn't showcase the epaulette well (or the crown pin, which was another reference to the Kevin Wada design), so here's a bonus sketch that came out of the "design" part of this whole project that shows them both better:

anyone who has followed my art knows that I generally draw my Wanda with a high ponytail, but I decided to spice things up and draw her with a half-up like she has circa Uncanny Avengers #27 (this is when she and Jericho are being so very sweet together). the golden hoop earrings are another thing I carried over from my general Wanda design, and the makeup is just a quick thing I came up with on the fly. it's not the spiciest, I know, but I decided there was enough going on elsewhere that she didn't need a crazy makeup look as well. the full-finger ring is specifically a reference to her very first appearance in X-Men #4, where she calls upon her power by pointing her right index finger. I thought it would be cool to accentuate that finger as a result!!

and there you have it--a tribute to Kevin Wada and Zita Moldovan from an artist who knows nothing about fashion but does have severe enough blorbo brainrot to attempt to design an outfit regardless :D

shoutout to @jookpubstock for once again enabling my shenanigans :)

[dom1re]

Hi 👋🏽 I so admire your arts too!! If it’s ok, I’d love to know more about your approach to shading and rendering. I always find your use of colour so calming and complementary. 💖💖

Whereas I tend to be over saturated and why I often draw in greyscale

When I read that you liked my arts too I died. I was down on the floor. Crying tears of joy. Then I realized I have a response to draft so I got up.

So here ya go!! I hope you find something interesting here. I organized it into 3 parts for easier reading:

Rendering Overview

Picking Colors

Shading (or winging it and hoping for the best)

Also if anyone has any tips I'm all ears!! I’m always trying to optimize my process, make it quicker + cleaner

Rendering Overview

My current rendering process on Procreate (click and swipe):

1. Rough sketches

This is where I try to get the anatomy and pose right. I can get up to 3 reps in here depending on how refined I want it to be. Yep I care a lot about my lines...

2. Clean line

... coz it's my favorite part!! I get such a dopamine rush seeing the sketches come together into a clean line lol. Here I use the Selection Tool and Liquify to resize and adjust the forms (gotta move away from doing this too much tho)

3. Color

First I create a flat base layer and color over it using Clipping Mask (pretty standard I think). Then I divvy my drawing into as many layers as possible - one each for skin, hair, shirt, waistcoat, trousers, etc - as I color them all. More on this below.

4. Shade

ewww shading... my least favorite part. I use Multiply layers and gray colors, again pretty standard. I usually have 1-3 layers here, stacked on one another, depending on the desired depth. More on this below.

5. Finishing touches

This stage involves a lot of small (but important imo) things, which vary depending on the drawing:

Tinting lines (Because shading makes the colors darker, lines need to get darker too)

Highlights on hair, face, clothes, eyes, etc. I can never make up my mind between Overlay/Hard Light/Soft Light layers for this

Little wisps of hair or lighting effects 

and voila I have something to share with the world. wooo

Picking Colors

Ok about my colors… I wish I had some fancy technique to show but tbh I just eyeball them and try them out a bunch. Now if I’m using a reference I could use the color picker, but I don't like to coz the results are way off for whatever reasons (ex. lighting in the img). Anyways it doesn’t have to be the same color as the reference; as long as the colors “make sense” to me I'm happy.

But what if the colors I chose are too saturated or too dark? I use the Adjustment Tools for this. I can just select the layer (or an area using the Selection Tool) and edit its darkness and saturation. I found this way easier than painting over or color-dropping repeatedly.

This is why I leverage as many layers as possible. It allows a modular control on my rendering - I can change the color of my character’s skin, eyes, or waistcoat patterns and keep all other components unaffected and clean. Sometimes I have like 100+ layers and it drives me batshit crazy but the pros still outweigh the cons. Or so I tell myself

( + I would love to understand grayscale and use it as freely as u do. I watched bunch of vids on it but something about it just hasn’t stuck with me yet 😔)

Shading I guess

Similar to coloring, I create several Multiply layers and stack them together for depth. For example:

This is again for that modular control but honestly I wouldn't be doing this if I was good at shading... I feel so lost every time, I just don't know how it works. But one ‘hack’ I’ve come up with is shading skins and clothes differently. I use reddish gray for skin (and brown/red hair), and just gray for everything else.

The character feels more lively and natural with a bit of red undertones in their skin. I don't think this is the best way to render skins though. Just a little shortcut til I get to study the topic more.

Something else I do to get over my fear of shading is using good references. I’m always lurking on Pinterest for them but alas, I can’t always find that perfect image with perfect lighting and poses. It’s kinda sad funny how the quality of my rendering depends so much on the reference:

(it's not a 'bad' reference per se - I chose it really for the pose, not for shading)

At the end of the day tho I’m just a learning artist so I try not to be too harsh on myself. Someday I'll render shiny shoes and shirt creases without refs. I yearn for that day 

Well on that cheerful note thanks for coming to my Ted Talk your interest in my rendering approach! I’ve been wanting to document it for my own records so this was great.

I picked up digital illustration just last year and self-learning it has been a fun but lonely process. If you have any tips or more questions talk to me ANYONE PLEASE I’m dying to talk about it if you can't tell by the sheer length of this post. For which I'm sorry but hopefully it wasn’t too dense a read ok I’m really done now bye!! 

[justaguylukas]

ART DUMP³

BUDLEY EXOTIC ESCAPADEEE!! I LOVE HIMM!! He's doing the zesty hand pose because he's zesty as fuck!! Also, I decided to stick to the actual style of the show, so I drew his jawline and hat as it is in the original design as opposed to how I would normally draw them.

MONTEZ!!! Not much to say about this one tbh, except that I still HATE drawing faces!!

ZEMMA!!! Definitely not one of my strongest pieces when it comes to the anatomy, but I still kinda love it. Plus, I got to experiment with Emma's hair and casual clothing. Also I just love how I switched Emma's scrunchie for Zee's hair tie and vice versa.

Here's Juliaaa!! This is probably the only drawing where I didn't hate drawing the backgrounds. Also this is my first time drawing Julia, and I gave her some earrings. Not much to say tbh.

MORE ZEE!!!! This drawing was originally just going to be a sketch for a friend of mine, but I eventually decided to turn it into a drawing and I'm very happy with it. And I know the heart hands aren't exactly "heart-shaped", but I tried my best.

Oooh, yikes... this drawing... I don't think it's necessarily horrible but I don't think it's great either. Drawing MK was a fucking nightmare, I did not have fun with this one. Originally I didn't want to draw the backgrounds but instead copy and paste the bg from the og show, but it looked horrible. I'm not sure if I'll draw her again...

ZEE AS A HOCKEY BRO!!! Aside from some small issues I have with it, I really liked how this one turned out!!! Now normally before I draw them digitally, I make a sketch first and trace over it on my drawing tablet. That wasn't the case with the raccoon logo, I designed it right out of my ass and I just love how it looks. I tried to make the jersey look baggy and I hope it translated well. Also the colours I used were from a bitmoji.

And here's Brad... Oh... I don't think this drawing is b(r)ad but... I just don't like the face. Also I really do not know if the anatomy is good with the neck connecting to the head. That's something that always confuses me, but I think I'm improving with my arm/hand anatomy, I think?

And finally, my YouTooz designs. As of now, I've only drawn 7 characters, Wayne, Raj, Zee (With Olivia von trashpanda), Millie, Ripper, Emma, and Caleb (With 2 additional variants of Ripper & Millie). I won't go over my descriptions for each of them, but I really do want to continue with these, it's been a long time. Maybe Bowie or MK are next? Those two seem like they'd be hard to make, so I'd rather finish them now than later.

That's a lot of tags, uh... hasta luego!!

[miss-bvnny]

And what if none of their souls were saved? They went to their maker impeccably shaved

My own little spooky challenge for the month!! Two of my favorite things: Sweeney Todd 07, and giving fictional characters government assigned fursonas!!

Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett - Dalmatian and Red fox

When I started this, I KNEW I wanted Todd to be an animal that was black and white. The monochromatic theme in Depp's version of Sweeney is SO Tim Burton that I wanted to preserve it. ALMOST settled on a skunk, but the thought of dalmatian spots mixing with blood spots was TOO cool of a concept in my eyes. TBH there WAS a time when I was tempted to make him a fox, because Sweeney TODD. Get it? But I held off because I didn't want to reuse specific animals TOO much. Speaking of which-

Mrs Lovett was always a fox from the first second. It fits her entire character (Seductive, trickster, lots of red, not to be trusted) FAR too well. The way her ears are posed are also supposed to bring a pair of horns to mind. Something DEEPLY wrong with this woman <3333

Lucy Barker/Miserable Woman - Afghan hound

PROBABLY a very uninspired and obvious choice, but...I wanted to draw ''hair ears'' lmao. Sweeney describes her blonde hair as one of the only things he remembers about her, so I wanted a dog breed that naturally had long blonde hair about it. I de-saturated her colors for her ''Miserable Woman'' look to make her look sadder and dirtier.

Anthony and Johanna - Mutt and Golden dalmatian

Yes I KNOW they look like Scamp and Angel okay. The inspiration was intentional but I might've accidentally strayed...TOO close to the source.

Johanna was one of two characters that took me on a bit of a trip. First she was an Afghan just like Lucy, then she was a doe, but I decided to have a little more fun with her. I made her a golden dalmatian, with the ''dalmatian'' coming from her father and the ''Golden'' coming from her mother. I imagined she's a bit like Oddball from 102 Dalmatians, where she's actually ''blank'' aside from the spots on her face and the two on her shoulder (she gets these ones from Todd) The black on her ear is also from Todd. I could have chosen the easy way out and made her look like her mother, but in my own silly way I thought it'd be fucked up if she looked like her father, considering the scene they share near the end of the movie.

Anthony is a sailor, so I gave him a very ''Sea dog'' mutt look. I just kind of...combined a bunch of traits and characteristics that I thought would work for him. You can see a LITTLE of Toughy from LATT in him, only because I liked the eye patch and all the scruff.

Tobias Ragg (aka Toby) - Bat

Toby was a fun one!! Oh, look how adorable he is!!! Since Toby has the final kill of the movie, and he kills Todd at that, I wanted him something small and cute but...potentially very dangerous. I settled on a bat, because they're very cute and they can carry rabies!!

And yes, that's his wig he's carrying. Didn't know how to portray him holding a pie, and I wasn't about to draw him drinking a bottle of gin, so I thought his little wig might be cute. He was honestly one of my favorites to draw <3

Adolfo Pirelli - Ring-tailed lemur

Pirelli is a ring-tailed lemur for two reasons. The first reason, is because since all the other animals are quadrupeds, having a bipedal animal felt more ''exotic'' to go with how he's seen as very special and from out of town. It makes him stick out naturally as someone of note.

The second reason he's a lemur.......is because he's played by Sacha Baron Cohen in 07.

Beadle Bamford and Judge Turpin - Hyena and Vulture

Yeah I'm just gonna come out and say it - Beadle Bamford is one of my fav characters in this movie so I made him a Hyena out of pure favoritism. Having Timothy Spall play him the same year he was Nathaniel in Enchanted was just for me, I think.

Originally, Turpin was a lion. Because...Bamford's a hyena...and they're the villains...sooooooo....yeah. And I WOULD have stuck with that, but....he's described as a vulture in No Place Like London. And while I knew my designs didn't have to adhere to that...I felt like ignoring it would have been stupid on my part. Glad I stuck with it, since...I gotta admit it works REALLY well for him. I've never drawn a vulture before, and it was fun to try something new anyway <3

[ikoarts]

December 2022 Art

back to form a bit this month, i really love a lot of the stuff i drew here x

vvv dates + info under the cut vvv

1 - 01/12/2022 : a young Ru! about 14 i think, i was having thoughts about her childhood and how she'd be in school etc

2-5 - 04/12/2022 : vampires.. hehe... thats all x ,, also more little ru, thought she would have a friend, she doesn't keep up with her into adulthood though, but i think Ru thinks of her a lot. also one of her in another outfit, i think she'd constantly have those claires rave ball earrings in like i did LOL

6, 7, 8 - 05/12/2022 : was thinking of what she'd wear to her school disco, somethin trendy, this would have been 2002, i was alive but not old enough to remember how teens were dressing lmfao, but anyhow i love this outfit, something she'd never wear otherwise, but she tries to fit in a bit.. also another little Toni, shes not emo enough here tho

9, 10 - 07/12/2022 : no idea whats going on here x ,, toni suspects homosexual activity, also was playing around with my Rouxls design again (i still dont know how i should be drawing him)

11, 12 - 08/09/12/2022 : TOLD U, we are at last at my current MTT design :D i love how he looks, so funky...

13, 14 - 10/12/2022 : more MTT, wanted to solidify the design, so drew him in a fun pose, still to this day this is one of my fave drawings. since Toni is, or was, like a genderbent human AU version of MTT, i was thinking of playing with her design to reflect that, i didn't go with it tho, still, it was fun to play around with

15, 16 - 18/12/2022 : idk why i lied like that in my last post LOL, i didnt draw the full digital lammy piece for awhile, but this one is definitely closer to the design i went with for her, think i based the digital one on this drawing too. More teen Toni too! i love this drawing its like the quintessential Her, esp her eye design, im glad i went and revised that, bc i know she had raccoon eyes

17, 18 - 21/12/2022 : another fiddle with my Rouxls design, i don't hate this one tbh.. also tism creature Ru

19-22 - 27/12/2022 : i think i found some random pencils and felt like inking and colouring a drawing, not my fave thing but heres a Ru in colour, the rest of the stuff i did this day i like a lot more. Next is an updated version of my gijinka of Rusty from Little Robots, idk if i ever even posted any of the old art i did for this, but heres her again <3 then just a Ru in the festive spirit, cosy jumper and a mug of somethin, i like this one bc shes just so squinkie......

23 - 31/12/2022 : last of 2022! this was done midnight before NYE itself, idk whats going on but i like it, i was thinking about what designs i could make for acrylic keyrings, and the rest is just random x

now onto 2023..... girl im so tired

[drawthething]

Really wanna say that I love drawing all of them burger muppets an equal amount but damn, such an lousy lie when you see me draw some of them like, all the time 😔 So uhhhh, made this list of my fav bb characters to draw (just for fun :D)

• Jimmy Jr: his stupid face, his little hair puff, his lisp, his outfits, I love him I love him I love him-

(quick, guys, pretend to be surprised)

• Andy & Ollie: 🥺🥺🥺 t-their baby faces! And- and tiny chubby baby body shapes! And I looove thinking of ways to let them mirror each other

• Louise: her design is too fricking fun, especially her bunny ears and hair and also that glorious chaotic face

• Tina: precious nerdy baby! Her head used to be so hard for me for some reasons but now it's just bam! boom! whoosh! Done!

• Zeke: I know what I keep saying about drawing his hair but like, I love his expressions and body languages so much (bean mouth bean mouth bean mouth-)

• Bob & Linda: been rolling around with boblin week pieces and genuinely having a blast (especially Linda)

• Gene: I'm always reluctant to draw his hair tbh but aside from that? Baby boy 😭

• Tammy: she's slowly becoming one of my favourites to draw :D Thinking of sassy expressions and sassy hand poses is so fun

• Jocelyn: cute and precious! Her hair 😭 And aesthetic iconic outfits

On a side note favourites to draw and favourite characters don't 100% necessarily overlap so I guess there's a reason why I don't draw my other favourite weirdos as much as I want to :/ (I failed you, Mr. Branca 😔)

[apompkwrites]

Frick I’m so bad at recognizing and remembering faces and appearances and I’m trying to put together who is who in your drawings and it’s painful for me. It’s not your art that’s making me confused, it’s my own brain :( Sometimes I have to wait to hear my brother’s voice to know who he is. Sometimes I have to see how my brother’s girlfriend acts when she puts on makeup to know if I recognize her. I kinda have to rely on same hair styles or accessories like jewelry in order to recognize things/people sometimes.

It’s also okay if this is too much to ask, but could the black sheep maybe have accessories that could help keep track of who is who? Maybe the accessories could be the only thing of color besides the text? Ex. Lil lion having a hair band or hair clip that is dark yellow. Lil Al Asim having some kind of body tattoo/ink that’s dark red around their neck area. Things that’ll fit into their character but also the colors being that of their brothers’ dorms? Again, it’s totally okay if this is too much! It’s just hard for me to keep track of things >.<

- Heartbeat Anon

waaa dont worry i get it!! tbh the designs for the black sheep were just kinda on the fly? but now i have an excuse to make proper refs :D

++ giving them lil accessories would def help with differentiating them, esp when im drawing their sibs :O

fun fact, this ref sheet actually has 8 designs! one lil black sheep has an extra design that i won't be showing until much later ;))

so here’s the og 7 plus my little design notes for them utc ;) gonna use these designs from now on for drawings only, so not in fics and stuff <33 so stuff, esp skin tone, are not canon to the fics

rosehearts (lil rose):

gotta go with the obvious of giving them a rose :D the placement could change but for now its in their hair :)

and i wanted to lean more into a hearts aesthetic without making them blend in with heartslabyul students like ace so i put it on their neck! thinking like albedo's design but its a lil heart instead of a star <3

kingscholar (lil lion/cub):

so i already had markings on their face since their first appearance in the comic just bc i liked the look of it? but i did add the marks closer to their nose in this new design.

thinking about adding a lil feather behind their ear/in their hair. mainly them post mwezi miji because i can see nuru giving them one of his feathers :)

also i made their hair short! i liked the idea of how leona and (probably) falena have longer hair that (name) cuts it after running away.

ashengrotto (lil octo):

so obv they have the same lil beauty mark as azul <33 i also wanna make it clear that they don't all have the same body shape? just used a pose that i use to get a full look at a character's design. so, yes yes, lil octo is on the heavier side.

also their accessory is the shell from the movie! got inspired by the anon that talked about it keeping their human form :)

asim (lil scarab):

I GAVE THEM HENNA-LIKE MARKINGS LIKE ASIM AND NO ONE CAN STOP ME >:))

so they have very intricate design on their neck/collarbone area but bc it wouldn't be visible a lot, i gave them lil dots under their eyes :) i did steal lil bits of kalim's design because i thought it would be fitting :D

schoenheit (lil gala/galaling):

so they have the unqiue eye shape where i gave them lashes :) ofc because they would have 11/10 lashes like vil :D ++ eye shadow but that's only in colored drawings.

i gave them the hair clip with a lil mirror design to hold back their bangs :DD and a ring because i like to think they would wanna wear lil rings :)

shroud (lil flame):

so gonna address their skin color first. i made their skin a bit more gray to mimic how the overblot characters look? i mean, they live on the same floor as the overblot monsters so i feel like it makes sense for their appearance to also be affected by them?

also!! their flame hair is dimmer than idia and ortho's! i thought it'd make sense for it to be like that to mimic a sort of dimmer light? like how they're slowly deteriorating or smth. ++they have an ahoge that i wanna draw in diff poses depending on their emotions >:)

gave them a mask that kinda mimic ink/blot? wanna stick with that motif for them :)

draconia (lil dragon):

so i wanted to keep a close resemblance to malleus? bc i feel like the idea a lot of people have come with where lil draconia doesn't entirely understand that their related despite their very obvious similar appearances.

the main factor i wanted to tell them apart from the others was lil scale like things on their face? idk i just liked the idea while browsing for refs. it was that or!! more branch-like horns?? idk we'll see :)

[tansypaws]

hello idk if this is too prying but where/do you use references? i love your art style and it’s consistently driving me to keep making art. And also, any tips?

otherwise, how are you doing? what’s going on with the rps recently? i’m not in them.

howdy! i so totally forgot about this message LOL. thank you for the very kind comments—so much of my art making in my youth was due to inspiration from wc artists, so it means the world to me to hear that mine is doing the same!

as for references, i'm a big fan of just googling until you find something right, at least in terms of poses. other than that, here are some sites/things i use:

this website/tool is great for references for face/head angles, which is something i often struggle with, esp w/ ears

this guide from @slugswarriorsdesigns has been very helpful for me when looking up color/pattern references, especially when i have an idea in my head already

more on the googling end of things for like poses, i find it helpful to click on poses that are close to what i'm looking for and then going through the related content until i find something right. mentally stitching together references is also something i do often

aaaas for general tips, a realization that's been helpful for me is that i only have to take a piece (or any part of a piece) as far as i want to. i have had (and still sometimes have) a habit of pushing a piece to the point of frustration, which is never very productive, lol. as an example, super clean lineart is something that i don't usually bother with anymore because i find the process of that annoying as hell. accepting that i'm gonna do sketchy lineart has made it a lot easier for me to create, bc i'm not holding myself to a standard that just is not realistic for me. let yourself just draw as much as you want to, even if that means putting a piece down for a few hours or days or even for forever, tbh

in general i am truly vibing even though every roleplay im in is having MEAN THINGS happen to VERY NICE CATS (i will not name names but You Know Who You(se) Are)

[noxiatoxia]

Ummm first of all can I just say how much I fucking love your blog??? Ur brand of ouran themed bullshittery is ✨✨ immaculate ✨✨ and it's harboring empty space in my brain like a stolen jewel stg. also it is so fucking cool to see a fellow hikakao shipper out there in their morning glory like I just fucking shdudjdenkskaanhsuehdbn.. i've recently gotten back into my old ouran obsession and looking around the hikakao portion of the fandom all I see are a couple of tumbleweeds out of my peripheral rolling across a long since vacated dirt road like what the fuck its so hard to find people as in love with these characters as I am and I NEED to talk to any person ever about it or I will go insane. I just??? Have so many thoughts and feelings??? And I have a shit ton of aus and theories and monologues if you're interested :)

sidenote, but I also wanted to say that I LOVE your art style!! I love how simplistic but recognizable it is? It's hard to explain but it's just so visually appealing because it's detailed in all the right ways like seriously it's great :)) I need art tips so bad rn and ur stuff is straight BITCHIN like you can anatomy?? Hoowwww?? :'''))))

Anyway ur blog is basically the musical doodle ear worm to me except instead all I can hear is the shissou beginning guitar riff

THIS IS SO FUCKING NICE....THANK YOU!!!!!!

It's actually really interesting how many people have come to me about this, about being one of the Only active ouran posters esp hikakao. and like. im honored. hikakao is like the grandfather of twincest and i am so honored to carry the torch forward. yes i am 2 decades late to the party but hey i am with every fandom. and i like it that way tbh, i like being in a small fandom and just making connections with other people who share the same intense passion as i do with a goofy series. so ur message means a lot!!

ALSO YES I'D LOVE TO HEAR YOUR HIKAKAO THOUGHTS OR GENERAL OURAN THOUGHTS THEY OCCUPY MY BRAIN 24/7 PLEASE......PLEEEEASE.....

LIKE. there are SO little hikakao content and tbh theres barely ouran content IN GENERAL and when there is its tamaharu which FAIR I UNDERSTAND WHY i love those funky dudes but....gimmie our roots. i wanna see hikakao and hanimori. TAMAHIKAKAO??? everyone sleeps on that ship. i know most people wont do the two former bc #incest and its not 2007 deviantart anymore but i will not back down. i am in the yaoi war fighting on the side of unhealthy codependency.

also i'm siper thrilled you like my art!!! that's very flattering you find my art style recognizable! anatomy is hard that is for fuckin sure and tbh ive been drawing my whole life, so a lot of it just comes with time. i can give you some tips if you'd like, but really, everyone is different. every artist learns differently, draws differently, and there's no one correct way to draw a picture.

something that really helped me get better at art is to make an "art inspo" folder on your phone, laptop, or a discord channel in a priv server. when you come accross art you really like or find useful to study, save it. maybe you like the style, or how the colors blend, or how an expression was drawn. maybe the artist drew a really good arm or a difficult pose. save the art and study it and learn from it. this helps me immensely personally as i am a very visual person. i learn best by doing, second best by seeing stuff visually laid out in front of me. im sure youll nail it one day!!!!

[stepswowdsen]

【Magi】 Judar 🖤❤️🐈‍⬛

2022

2024

2nd version has eyes that are slightly bigger (similar to the OG one in 2022)

Inspiration

Based on this black and red (Judar colours) hanfu I got~

Photos of my hanfu 🖤❤️

Pictures of me trying on my hanfu~

(EDIT: Removed cuz I made this blog non-priv now)

I need to learn how to tie the qun (wrap around skirt) cuz I am literally so bad at tying ties... These are mirror photos but I flipped them so it'd be shown correctly~

With the hanfu jacket this time~ I'm so happy I'm matching with my fave AHHHH

This was my old desktop setup btw (since these are photos I took in May 2023 when I first got my hanfu). Thankfully I got a new laptop and a huge monitor to look at (as my main screen). It's SOOO much better than just looking at a tiny laptop screen, I highly recommend it for ergonomics (if people can afford it)

Alt Versions I drew before

Judar rambles

I originally drew Judar wearing hanfu in 2022! Still one of my personal fave doodles ❤️ Judar is my fave (no one is surprised, I have the most obvious predictable tastes in the world LMAO). A meow meow mf perfect for my tastes.

Judar fits perfectly into the highly specific Sen-core niche that my top faves all tend to fall under - Meow meow mf. C*nty sen-core bastard cat who's violent, threatens people, and ok with murder. Bloodthirsty. Monochrome aesthetic colour palette.

Manga Judar has red eyeliner (?) and anime Judar has purple eyeshadow? Both are good, but I like Judar with red eyeliner since black and red are his theme colours! 🖤❤️ I like how the colours pop, the contrast against his design, and how it matches his red eyes.

In my HCs, Judar wears a type of hanfu called 襦裙 (ruqun). 襦 (ru) is the top of a hanfu, and the wrap-around skirt is called 裙 (qun).

I want him to wear black, white, red, gold, hanfu & hanfu earrings, with red eyeliner and black painted nails 🤗

I still need to pick my headcanon hanfu earrings for Judar... I imagine they'd be gold with red accessories.

I just have to refine the eyes, redraw the hair and hanfu, and then start doing the lineart for it! I love the expression tbh

Magi: Ch. 110 - Ch. 196/197 - Ch. 239

I love how Ohtaka stylizes and draws the shape of Judar's hair and braids. It's so clever how she simplifies the shapes. It just looks so good. It looks galaxy/tornado shaped… I love how the hatched lines above his eyes in Ohtaka's inking represents his eyeliner... ❤️

I just have to redraw the hair and hanfu and then start doing the lineart for it! Love the expression

I miss my sons, I wanna draw my HC designs of JuAli (with Judar wearing hanfu and Alibaba with tanner skin, wearing traditional Arabic clothes), as a fix-it for the obvious colourism & racial stereotyping going on in Magi's designs of SWANA and South Asian inspired charas...

I bought black and red hanfu back in 2023. I based my Judar hanfu doodles on it 🥺❤️ It's in Judar colours. Black red and white 🖤❤️🤍 I'm so HAPPY to get something that reminds me of my fave 🥰🤭❤️✨ I got it from the Hanfu Story~ They have such a large selection of hanfu and they're all so gorgeous~

Basically Judar themed hanfu~ I love traditional clothes, so it's my dream to collect them! Now I can use it as refs to draw him with the poses and lighting I want teehee. Hanfu & huafu look GORGEOUS to me. I also have Việt Phục like áo dài and áo tấc~

The colours are amazing!! I love black and red combo 😭💖 It's way too easy to fall into the fashion hole and collecting traditional clothes but I definitely want more in the future!

Art rambles

When I sketch, I draw out the expressions and decide which ones looks best (I either do it once or a few ~ several times) depending on whether I'm satisfied with it. I like the two most recent 2024 versions I showed~ The old one is still nice... But I prefer the recent versions, because I think it shows how my art style and proportions improved.

The sketch is super messy right now so when I get the time I'll refine them more! It's just to make it consistent with my current style. I'm a little insecure about my sketches, so I prefer posting them on priv for mutuals only.

Since I'm not really a fan of the idea of my sketches/WIPs getting posted around when I'm bound to fix/refine/improve on them later when I get the chance to refine them. Though thankfully with my 2022+ lining style, my sketches look more "aesthetically nice" or "post worthy" to me...

My friends told me that I could just post them on main with no tags and a caption like "Please don't reblog!" and people would probably respect that, but ahh I'm still hesitant about my sketches getting reblogged around...

Perhaps in the future... I do genuinely like my art style and I'm very happy with my art improvement, but I want to keep growing as an artist first. I want to reach the point where I manage to become more technically skilled and confident about my works (even my sketches)

This time I attached IRL photos since I thought these pics turned out pretty~ So I'd prefer to keep these on priv just for mutuals.

You can read more under the cut!

Re: My thoughts on the issues with the portrayals of certain cultures in Magi

This is how I feel with my faves. Not just my Magi faves, but in general.

I have my HC designs with Xanxus (KHR), Idate (WATGBS AU), Judar (Magi), etc. So many of my faves.

I wanted to project Judar's ethnicity on his design more since Judar is CN-inspired. Also he'd look gorgeous wearing hanfu.

And also cuz I fucking hate his outfit in canon. It's so ugly imo cuz it's a bastardized/racially stereotyped take on what Indian/South Asian clothes look like.

Doing cultural exchanges/wearing other cultures' clothes' is fine, but I think a lot of the racially stereotyped clothing designs is definitely something to criticize.

As someone Viet/SEAsian, I really despise how EA and SEA media, such as animanga + games, often feed into SWANA and South Asian orientalism and racial stereotyping, disrespectful takes, etc. We don't need these ugly ass "dancer-esque" outfits!!!

SWANA and South Asian traditional clothes have such beautiful patterns, and colours... People are really missing out... I wish popular media would depict that instead!!!

[themeanpea]

2023 Art Reso

So it’s already 2nd of Jan where I am, but fuck it I wanted to make a new year’s resolution post anyway :D

I’ve always identified as a pragmatic optimist - I want to believe that good things can happen, but if they are to happen they must happen while being grounded in reality. I kinda want to…change it up this year though. I want to be a bit of a dreamer and embrace that side of me. Life’s too short to stay in the doldrums of reality all the time, and it’s kinda limiting to do that too! You don’t really know what’s possible or “realistic” unless you take a chance.

So going to be a bit bold and daring on my art resolutions, stretch goals abound:

Character Drawing

Goal: Cover weak spots in drawing characters; issues that consistently appear in all my pieces.

P0 list is below:

- Fabric studies: EDGE CONTROL, 3D volume and rendering of fabric folds; not too fussed about the material itself as long as the basic fold volume is captured with good 3D form and shape language)

- Head studies: structure of head from multiple angles; facial proportions (distance between eyes, forehead height, etc.); facial features (3D volume of eyes, mouth, nose, ears, etc. how to simplify and stylise to my aesthetic tastes)

- Hair studies: 3D volume of hair, how to simplify and stylise using good shape language/capturing the silhouette effectively

P1 (these are lower priority because I can do passable versions of them in my art, i.e. they do not stick out as a weak point)

- Expressions, Hands

Style Studies

Goal: Improve and finetune my personal art style and aesthetic.

P0 focus will be on drawing and lineart; P1 is rendering.

- Master studies on drawing style; the goal is 1:1 copy, no need to extrapolate or personalise when doing master studies, just focus on achieving similarity.

- Not too sure if I should aim for quantity or quality. My experience has shown that higher quantity with a “passable” quality will get you to good quality eventually, whereas low quantity with high quality feels more like a one-time effort with less organic learning. So…focus on quantity with passable quality (it can’t be shit quality otherwise you’re just practicing the wrong thing repeatedly).

Dynamic Art

Goal: Make art look more dynamic, better “flow”, characters look alive and in motion.

Tbh the path to achieving this feels a bit more abstract to me, but I’ve distilled some practice areas based on some features that I’ve noticed in “dynamic” looking art.

- Gesture drawing: I never really practiced this, so my gesture drawing is weak. I mostly just referenced static poses, e.g. standing, sitting, from Pinterest. There are lots of courses on gesture drawing online, so will take a look to try to absorb some of the main principles (which are honestly unknown to me lmao) and do some timed gesture drawing as well. The goal will be to draw characters in movement in a natural and “flowy” way - exaggeration is needed in body movement.

- Linework: I’ve noticed that a lot of dynamic looking art has really good linework. This is especially obvious in lineart-only pieces, but even in partial/fully rendered works I notice that the line strokes and brushstrokes just look so dynamic and good. Line weight and direction contribute…wondering how to get better in them though. This is a bit of an unknown to me - so will need to do research.

- Lighting: This is more on the rendering side of things. Dramatic lighting schemes, strong separation of “light” and “dark” areas with daring emphasis on the protrusions of 3D shapes helps to create a very dramatic and dynamic look. Studying the structure of the face and dynamic lighting photography on the face could help (since the facial volume is the easiest to get “wrong”, you’ll need a strong understanding of the face structure to use dynamic lighting effectively instead of carving the face into an unappealing or inaccurate mass of shapes).

- Composition: I tend to pose characters very statically in the middle of the canvas, so I think a first-step improvement would just be to make them take up more of the canvas, to crop away some edges if needed, e.g. hair bits, shoulder (I get precious about keeping the entire character in, which makes the piece look a bit stiff at times). I think some style study is needed to supplement portrait studies for this, as I noticed most real portraits do not carry the full dynamic quality of drawn portraits since you can indicate movement in drawn portraits. I can focus on effective single-person composition first, with a stretch goal of handling multiple people in a frame.

- Perspective and camera angles: Related to composition. A dynamic pose can only go so far if the perspective is from a regular eye-level and we’re staring at the character straight on. Will need to work on drawing the human body in perspective and studying how different camera angles can convey different moods. The human body in perspective part might be a bit of a stretch goal tbh but let’s see how far I can go with it. Perspective is challenging enough when it’s not the human body lol.

[baxndaid]

saw ur requests open and ran,,,, smol venti and itto headcannnons :) like ur already in a relationship, maybe the hc is abt their love language

#L♡VELANGUAGE

characters — VENTI, ITTO, ALBEDO, THOMA, XIAO, CHILDE, AYATO

prompt — their love languages x

notes/warnings — hope u dont mind bu i want clout so i added more characters LMFAO xoxo ty for requesting

i . itto — gift giving

this guy has NO money btw !! ZERO coin !! but that doesnt mean he wontl try and win you a few things such as some winning beetles, candy, miss hina plushies (which he wanted for himself tbh) and a statue of her excellency, the almighty narukami oshogo, god of thunder, (which he stole from kujou sara while his friends distracted the tenryou soldiers who were on duty.)

♡

ii . albedo — quality time

he pretty much always works, spending most of his time in the snowy, sheer cold of dragonspine, researching and painting different monsters he would encounter. he enjoys it when you tag alone, though. sometimes he would make you pose and would draw you, chuckle at your imitation a hillicurl he was painting, and overall just walk around the deserted mountains with you.

♡

iii . xiao — gift giving

he doesnt talk very much, yknow, bc hes emo, so instead, he leaves you small, hand-made gifts and trinkets that he tries his best to make the night before, hoping you would like it. he would be a massive bastard about it to, like, he just shoves it into your chest and vanishes and when you ask him about it, all he does is blush and change the subject 🙄

♡

iv . childe — gift giving

are u surprised tho⁉⁉ hes STACKED ofc hes going to spoil your ass, even if you look at a piece of clothing for 2 seconds in a shop window, you'll probably have it in your wardrobe the same day. he enjoys seeing you happy, and if material goods will make you happy, then whatever you want, he'd buy it

♡

v . venti — physical touch

clingy mf 💍 he does not let go of you, your both attached to the hip at this point. whether your walking around mondstat, going around windrise, or just drinking at the tavern, hes always seen holding your hand or hugging you. he likes it, it makes him feel closer to you, it comforts him and he wouldnt trade those moments for anything

♡

vi . thoma — acts of service

malewife moment‼‼ 😩 if you have any left over chores that needs to be done, hes probably already done it. when you come home from work/your studies, he would already have your favourite meal on the counter ready for you, spending time with you, just tidying up your shared room, chilling together afterwards, and just helping you in general is his favourite pass time

♡

vii . ayato — words of affirmation

hes a smooth man, with elegant and smooth words. he would always whisper subtle praise into your ear if he sees you stressed with your work, he would always compliment you every morning as you did the same, and he would always run his annoying mouth as he tells thoma embarrassing stories of himself and you, in return, you would do the same but with ayaka x

NAVIGATION ♡