#I needed it to exist so now it exists lol

[dreemurr-skelememer]

Hello :D

I have been following you for the last year or so (a few days after I got my Tumblr lmao) and I absolutely love your art!

I have been wanting to study your art style for a while but don't really know where to start,,,

Could you please show me a small portion of your art process, if it isn't too much trouble of course. Thank you and have a nice day!

hello. oh my god. this took forever to find. im sorry it took 2 WHOLE FUCKING MONTHS for me to respond to this but i wanted to put it off until i felt happy with my art process again, so here it is

my fall 2024 rendering tutorial! (this will be very very long)

FLATS AND WHATEVER YOU WANNA DO WITH LINES GIRL. then make sure to recolor the lineart to better match your base. trust me it helps, bold dark lines are Not your best friend when rendering. wait for that post-rendering

i start off with a doodle or a sketch, and then filling it in with flats and other details such as blush

FIGURE OUT YOUR LIGHT SOURCE. FIGURE IT OUT GIRL YOU CAN DO IT you can make it as simple as possible, make it as big as possible, dont even THINK about the details.........just make it really fucking big so you at least know where the shadows and the light goes THEN add smaller shading details LISTEN TO ME. LISTEN TO ME OKAY!!!!!!!!

my key point with this is for you to learn lighting fundamentals. it's SOOO ANNOYING but alas......they are all correct. it helps a lot.

one thing i also really want to point out is that i like creating a big shadow shape first before fixing up the little details (such as folds and whatever) because it helps me focus on the way the lighting actually works instead of tunnel vision-ing into making the shading make sense on the clothing.

contact shadows (i dont remember if thats what theyre called okay) theyre fucking ugly because im not actually thinking sorry 💔

okay so basically: contact shadows (if that's what they're called) are the spots in shading and lighting where light will NEVER hit.

shadows are still influenced by the colors and lights around it (it's why a blue shadow and a yellow shadow feel completely different, despite both being shadows) so it's not always COMPLETELY dark. BUT! there are small points in shadows where light never hits, and they're almost always super dark or pitch black.

it's hard to explain shadow and light so briefly for a tutorial, but you'll notice it when watching fundamental studies and when trying it out for yourself

YES i unclipped the multiply layer YES its ugly and terrifying but it makes coloring the multiply layer easier okay the colors merged w multiply so now it looks cool and has depth overlaying colors that actually make sense

so basically what i did was color the multiply layer that i used to shade the overall drawing

adding a band of red/orange/yellow around where the light hits, and blue where the shadows get big and wide, gives it a fake ambient occlusion effect in the way that a person would get if they stood under the sun with a clear blue sky

the colors don't have to make sense, especially because i never draw backgrounds, but coloring the shadows really help it give a sense of depth and extra subtle detail and effect that just helps make the painting look nicer

around the end, i also put in colors (in an overlay layer with a low opacity brush) that actually make sense in context of the drawing, which is the lit cigarette and the yellow eyelights mostly because none of the colors were making sense and i needed to actually make use of the lighting that DOES exist in the drawing lol

adding a muddy golden yellow pin light layer (opacity turned down to like 40-50%) to make the light colors less ugly lol

i SWEAR by the fucking pin light layer style. it's so useful and so so underrated.

i used an almost brown-ish gold color on stop of all the layers, and with the pin light layer, it helped make the bright (almost blue-ish) white colors more warm and more yellow. it just helps make things more warm (something i prefer)

i could probably show what it looks like without adjusting the layer opacity to truly show off what i mean (like in the coming section) but i sadly forgot to do that lol

make a layer on top of your drawing with this color in these ranges YES the drawing is fully merged NO don't be afraid, the base was fucking ugly anyway 💔 make this layer into an exclude/exclusion layer style TRUST turn down your exclusion layer opacity from a range of 10% to 40% literally until you're happy with the contrast and the way the color over the drawing. use your eyeballs. i know you can do it im so proud of you

this is pretty self-explanatory instruction-wise, so i'll go into why i do this instead

i really like art that seems like it has low contrast, with almost mid-gray shading and lines. i don't personally use dark and bold lines and shading, unless i find it necessary for the tone of the piece, so using this method helps lower the contrast of the art and make it look "pleasantly muddy" in the way that it's easier and softer on the eyes.

the inverted blue color also helps makes things warmer! the exclusion layer style is still a bit of a mystery to me but i really like the effect it gives, even if i don't completely get how it works lol

if you want an alternative method to this, and if you have access to it (because i primarily use sai and sai only), i absolutely encourage you to play around and experiment with gradient maps. there are so many out there you can make yourself or even get from others that just give the painting an extra amount of depth and color variation. they're SO fun.

personally, if sai2 gets a gradient map update, it's over for y'all it will literally be so over no one will be able to stop me

then i merged everything and actually adjusted the contrast back up because it was looking too muddy for me 💔 but the color adjustments are still there so all hope is not lost here's a comparison of the adjusted contrast in black and white (adjusted on the left) (newly merged layer without adjusting the contrast on the right)

as you can see, i actually turned the contrast back up (despite talking all about how i liked things with less contrast lol)

i wanted to demonstrate that doing adjustments should be done in moderation, and is why i adjust layer opacity often when making color effects you are free to play around with colors to help your style, but don't lose your initial idea and colors along the way. you still need to trust your own colors and intuition!

along with that, i just want to say that it's completely okay to change your mind mid-painting, and it's okay to make somewhat drastic changes. don't be afraid to change things you don't like or change your mind about certain aspects way later on that's basically the whole thing of this!!! don't be scared!!!

now im gonna hold your hand when i say this..........but you need to learn how to render by yourself. it seems like i can teach you but i literally can't, because rendering is different on every piece and depending on how clean your base is. i have to render A LOT because of how fucking ugly my sketches are LMAO to simplify it, think of it as obsessively cleaning up every detail you can see, but with a color picker and a clean, hard edged brush. if you have shit lineart, you don't have to redraw it cleanly over and over, just paint over it. that's basically what rendering is

THIS especially is where you need to be brave and stop being scared. like i said, i can't teach you how to render, and it's something you have to discover yourself because rendering is something that will always be personal to every single piece you make. the way you render on every piece is different. on one piece, you will barely need to render, and on another, rendering is more than half of your ENTIRE process.

don't be afraid to paint over your old art. rendering is a process that's both very perfectionist yet also very careless. find your balance and just go for it.

and then that's it……..u did it………..now yuo know how to paint and render. it's literally just layering shading and lighting knowledge until you think it makes sense and looks okay lol additional note: since i render in only one layer (you don't HAVE to do this, but it'll be harder for you…), i also made slight adjustments with the transform (and liquify, if you have it) tool to make things more proportionate. (i drew the head too big lol)

if you compare the finished piece to the final unrendered base, you can see that a LOT changed, including a bit of subtle proportion adjustment. particularly, the sleeves changed A LOT (because i really didn't like them) but it's also over all cleaner and more coherent, instead of having haphazard colors and shading just thrown about.

rendering is when you finally use all 100% of your brain to finalize and figure out where the shading should go, where to clean up your lines, where to ERASE or ADD BACK in lines, and make sure all your colors look coherent.

it's not as intimidating as it seems, i only use a hard edged brush with a little bit of color mixing and my color picker. it's like dragging and dropping colors to cover up mistakes, it's really quite fun when you get used to it i wish i could explain it clearer but it's hard to describe without visuals!

i hope this helped, and i hope all my yapping isn't annoying (art as a special interest beloved)

have fun studying and trying to render in my art style!

[squalchinglobotomy]

Recent doodles of my old au :,D

Old drawing of the characters :))

|

V

Been needing to work on the lore and a comic 4 this ! But school has been such a draagggg I don’t think I’ll ever finish either 💔💔

Belhhh this au was originally made bc I was obsessed with American horror stories freak show season. And honestly, I hate it with every might of me now! Killed off all the disabled people !!! They were the only thing that kept me interested,,,,,

I wish it had a different outcome like idk, the performers didn’t have to stay in the circus!! Though I guess the series is entirely based off horror and I’m assuming they never have a happy ending. But whatbeerrrr!!! Didn’t like it!!!! Wasn’t scary!!!! Only horny!!!!! And sad!! I wish the bearded lady didn’t have to die 💔💔!!

Butt rant aside that got nothing to do with my au! I only liked the fact it had a circus and that was it lol,,,

I changed the way Roy got around from a wagon to a cane bc the wagon seemed a little inconvenient…

Also the au is meant to take place in the 1930’s :,D so I got limits to what I can and can’t add! Tis the reason why Rad doesn’t have his 3D glasses, I don’t think those existed back then!

I’ll dedicate my rambling to another post bc this one is getting a little long….!!!!

…But so is literally every other post I make. I honestly prefer tumblr bc I get to say whatever I want no matter how much it is! Now all we need is for boobs 2 be allowed again and it’ll be perfect!

[moniquill]

Saving this because the thread is probably going to be deleted. Mild rearranging done to show the actual flow of conversation rather than tumblr's befuckened threading

The players are @balearicbitch , @ollieoneill, and myself - @moniquill

On the question of 'Should I donate to ao3'

balearicbitch: no also stop reading fanfics and grow up

moniquill: I'm sorry that your life is so lacking in joy.

balearicbitch: it isnt tho i just read normal books instead

moniquill: "other people are reading and enjoying independently published fiction and I have very strong opinions about that, driving me to declare those people immature" is some seriously joyless behavior. Are you ok?

ollieoneill: People can do both. You’re really gross and the one who needs to grow up.

ollieoneill: Lol they are definitely not okay. I want to feel bad for people like @balearicbitch but they’re so hateful and pathetic all I can do is shake my head

balearicbitch: i dont know what to tell you but if youre older than 16 and still play pretend with fictional characters try to have experiences in the real world?!

ollieoneill: Babe I’m a married 36yo and travel the world pretty much constantly and have a wonderful, full life. I also read fan fiction. You seriously need to grow up and get a life and stop telling other people how to enjoy theirs you utterly pathetic gremlin.

moniquill: I'm 41, I play pretend with fictional characters, and I've won a Nebula and a Hugo about it. Who do you think authors the 'normal books'?

balearicbitch: "other people are reading and enjoying independently published fiction" when the fiction in question is just creating scenarios based on other people work to fulfill your need of Media Consumer

balearicbitch: looks like anyone is getting awarded these days ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

moniquill: You're the one who wanted to make a delineation between fanfiction and Normal Books.

balearicbitch: and i still stand by it. fanfiction isn't literature nor should be treated like it.

moniquill: Ok. I hear you. You're objectively incorrect, and welcome to be wrong in your wrongness. I'd say 'have fun with that' but it's clear that you're not having fun and that you don't want anyone else to have fun either. It must be a miserable way to exist, and I sincerely hope that you're able to move past it someday.

balearicbitch: have fun with your little blorbos, im sure what the literary world needs right now is another ali hazelwood

[glass--beach]

hi do you like ok computer (1997)

because i really just don't get it (especially as the second-best album of all time) but i reeeally want to & i respect your opinion on that a lot

yea that album kinda changed the course of my life lol. wall of text incoming

first - don’t let rym or aoty or whatever tell you what’s good and what isn’t, everybody’s got their own taste & criticisms that go against the grain are very important!! i will say anything that’s that consistently highly rated across different websites & publications is probably undeniably significant and worth listening to. whether listening feels like discovering a new favorite or sitting through a history lesson is where taste comes in. it’s important to interrogate the canon too as there is an enormous amount of implicit bias in what even gets in front of critics and in the metrics they grade music by. review aggregate sites have democratized this process a bit & all the good and bad of democracy has come with that lol.

so, the album gets praised for a couple of reasons - its innovative production, its commentary on the historical zeitgeist, and the pop appeal of much of the songwriting.

production - the album makes heavy use of cutting edge effects units, digital editing, computer trackers, sampling, and even features little bits of voice synthesis. most of it is stuff that had existed in music before radiohead, artists like aphex twin (and much of the rest of warp records’ 90s catalog) and bjork were ahead of the curve in a lot of the aesthetic aspects of okc and had influenced radiohead a lot, which is even more evident on their followup kid a. radiohead was not breaking new ground in using these sounds, but they were among the first to put it all in a rock context, taking cues from the weirder cuts on the beatles’ white album, the experimental “krautrock” band can, and miles davis’ classic jazz fusion album bitches brew.

context - radiohead had grown up during the decline of much of the social democratic programs that had helped to facilitate the education and performing careers of much of their early influences such as joy division and the smiths. by the time okc was being written they had lived through the austerity of the thatcher era, the fall of the soviet union, and now were watching the labour party turn increasingly neoliberal under tony blair. there was a general sentiment in the west that the progress of history had slowed or even stopped in favor of the neoliberal order. at the same time, tech was booming and computers were starting to find their way into more aspects of daily life. the album imagines a boring dystopia, where machines are rabidly advancing but humans are stuck in stasis. a major connecting theme is infrastructure - the airbag through which thom yorke is “born again,” the “cracks in the pavement,” the family politics that separate romeo and juliet in exit music, the mechanical voice of fitter happier giving contradictory directions for maintaining the status quo. even the escapist fantasy of no surprises comes in the form of carbon monoxide. and then, the record ends with the “ding” of an appliance that has completed its task.

songwriting - the band’s previous album the bends really is a pop masterpiece. i recommend it to anybody who wants to get into radiohead but doesn’t vibe with their later work. okc expands that compositional style through, for one thing, the more apparent influence of classical music on tracks like paranoid android or the Chopin homage exit music; let down even features polymetric layering characteristic of Steve Reich. it also features some songs that are too good to even need to push the envelope much, like karma police or one of my favorites, no surprises, which seems to reference the beach boys’ wouldn’t it be nice or the velvet underground’s sunday morning.

to be honest, i like okc mostly because it really spoke to me at a formative time in my life, when i was like 15 and felt heavily disconnected from the world around me. the album deals with those feelings in a very different context but it’s a feeling many people can relate to for many different reasons - i was closeted in a conservative culture, not a depressed british rock star lol. it also was an excellent gateway into many of the bands’ influences, who are also favorites of mine now. most people who love the album don’t really go as deep as i like to with understanding it, but maybe what i said here will give you something else to listen for, idk. maybe you just gave me an excuse to infodump about an album i love lol :)

[happylittleshrub]

Rocket Plushie Review

My thoughts on Rocket plushies! I only own some of these so for those I'll go into a little more detail, but most of this is just based on vibes lol

This isn't in any sort of ranking or order

I love this one! His fur feels so soft and he sits on my desk and keeps me company. Reminds me of Pokemon's "Sitting Cuties" line of plushes. Sometimes he'll fall over a little but that's really only if he's sitting on a more uneven surface like a bed or sofa, on my desk he sits fine

This one looks like one of those Littlest Pet Shop toys. So many of the other Rocket plushies look good I don't know what happened here.

Sweet, sleepy boy I love to cuddle him ❤️ Both huggable and snuggable. My sleep has improved 120% since getting him 10/10 would recommend

This is my son my precious little child I love him I want the world for him he is the greatest thing in all of existence. He is so very soft and the perfect size to hug and to hold. ❤️

This is the first Rocket plush I ever got he is very special to me 🥹 I like the chibified design, very adorable! He does have a hard time sitting up on his own because of his disproportionately sized head, I usually have to lean him against something. His ears are velvety soft!

Tiny gremlin, an actual creature. He is full of bad ideas. I like that he comes with a tiny gun

This one looks kind of like a dog more so than a raccoon. Maybe it's just this picture. Idk he still cute tho

This one is good but something about his eyes feels a little off. I don't know if I trust him

Absolutely adorable! He has Animal Crossing vibes. I would buy him but he's over forty dollars 🙃

This one is cute but uh... this is legally distinct off-brand Rocket Wolf not Rocket Raccoon

He is 100% friend shaped I love him I want to give him a hug

"I can't believe I'm taking orders from a hamster." -Some Nova Corps Guy. I like this little dude, he's smol and squishy like a marshmallow!

This one is cute, but I do kinda wish his face wasn't so flat, otherwise no notes

This is so adorable wth you can carry Rocket around on your back like he's a sleepy little child I love it

Bro's lookin' like a finger puppet. He's very small and cute!

This Rocket looks like he needs some love. Well, that's all Rockets but especially this one. Looks like he'd be standing alone a street corner somewhere. Someone needs to bring him home and make him soup

I feel like this one should be the reference image next to the word Blorbo in a dictionary. This is the embodiment of blorbo and all other blorbos should bow to him

Shadow the Hedgehog wannabe. Gritty 90s reboot edgelord

This Rocket is smiling but I feel like he's screaming on the inside while this rando pulls on his ears

Football Head here stares into my soul. He can and will beat me up

Cute but not the best. I'd probably put him in a B-Tier (Shrub, you said you weren't going to do rankings!)

Adorable little guy! He has tiny magnets in his hands with which to hold batteries and other stolen items. You can also buy little outfits for these types of plushies so 20/10! During the colder months I let him ride around in my hoodie ^-^

This one is up to no good I love the mischief in his expression lol

I love Disney Tsum Tsum so this little peanut is an absolute winner in my book

"Until a second ago I thought you were a build-a-bear."

"MAYBE I AM"

He's so sweet and adorable would absolutely bring him home and love him forever (would be even better if he came with sound like some build-a-bears do)

WHO PUT HIM IN THE DRYER???

The way they did his eyes reminds me of Spiderman

He's a sweet boy he just needs someone looking out for him and to be his conscience and stop him from stealing batteries 💛

FERAL

Bro's got them sparkly anime eyes. Also sideburns

Alright I've reached the photo limit so that's all for now. If you read all the way down here thanks for checking out my silly ramblings!

[chalkeater]

Relatable

[kaidatheghostdragon]

Dani x Jason Prompt

(Because i dont see enough of these two together. Also, this is another prompt i found in my fic files that i never did anything with.)

While Danny is in Amity Park protecting the ghost portal, Dani explores the world. Danny might be powerful enough to put down any threat, even Ancients, but she isn't as lucky. Her best defense against Vlad or the GIW is to never be in the same place two days in a row. Not to say she isn't powerful in her own right - she's yet to meet a ghost in her travels that she couldn't utterly crush, and even if she had, she's got the most loyal dog in both this world and the next to have her six.

Dani has discovered a great deal of beauty throughout the world in her few short years of life, but also unfathomable evil and undescribable corruption. She does what she can in every place she passes through, her ghost powers the ultimate cheat code for investigation and subterfuge, bringing to light the things that once hid in the dark.

But while scoping out yet another child trafficking ring, she crosses paths with a spirit of vengeance. At least, that's the only explanation she can come up with for how he's able to turn his shock and horror into pure rage at the flip of a dime.

Until she realizes that he's a baby halfa. If he doesn't learn how to mediate his emotions, he's going to burn out one of his halves.

Maybe she can help him stabilize into a proper spirit of justice and keep him from following the path that Vlad went down - oh shit, he doesn't even know that he's undead. Well, this is going to be a project and a half. But Dani is nothing if not resourceful - she's more than willing to put in the work if it means making an ally of the fourth known halfa.

Featuring:

Dani and jason are about the same age (16-17ish)

They run into each other during jason's LoA-sponsored world tour, investigating the same trafficking ring

Cujo is there too

Dani totally helps with the crime lord grand plan, but also wrestles jason down from the more messed up family drama stuff he did, like attacking tim, and knocks some sense into him and finds a better solution for dealing with the joker

[buglaur]

this is kit, please commission some art from them on social bunny 🙏

[wonder-worker]

Wild how we know that Elizabeth Woodville was officially appointed to royal councils in her own right during her husband’s reign and fortified the Tower of London in preparation of a siege while 8-months pregnant and had forces gathering at Westminster “in the queen’s name” in 1483 – only for NONE of these things to be even included, let alone explored, in the vast majority of scholarship and historical novels involving her.

[sysig]

Family ♥ (Patreon)

[dazais-guardian-angel]

With today's entry, I was rather surprised and confused that Johnathan seemed to turn around so quickly from the absolute pit of despair he was in yesterday, having newfound determination and energy when he's seemingly been completely hopeless and inactive for weeks now (and for good reason). Not that I ever thought he'd completely given up, but there's definitely been a slow decline in how descriptive his journal entries have been to reflect his declining mental state (more robotic, less of his actual feelings about things), and today was a sharp contrast; it feels more like the early entries again. I thought, well, his mind is probably just so cracked at this point that he's looped all the way back around to being bold and energetic again, because by now he's desperate enough to throw caution to the wind: he either succeeds doing something extremely reckless to escape, or he fails and meets his end in a far better way than if he just waits for his fate by Dracula's hands.

...But having thought about it and reading other posts, I realized (probably stupidly obvious as it is) that his sudden change in mood probably has to do with what happened to the baby. Despite how scared he's been all this time, yesterday he didn't hesitate for a single second to try to save the baby once he realized from the previous incident what was happening, not thinking about his own life at all. And then he despaired when he couldn't save the child, the first time he's mentioned crying in the book at all, and then he had to witness the mother blaming him for her baby's death, and being killed herself for trying to rescue it. Now, the day after that horrific and heartbreaking failure, he's suddenly more determined than he's been in ages to escape. Maybe that was a turning point for Johnathan, and lit a fire under him... maybe he's clinging to the need to escape not just for himself and the people he loves anymore, but for the vain hope that he can put a stop to Dracula's schemes somehow once he gets out, because he doesn't want to let any more children die :' )

[carygrantsbeard]

It’ll always piss me off to see people say they can’t relate to a character bc it’s set in certain time periods or bc of their outside characteristics. One of the best things about of fiction to me is that you get to realize that certain things transcend those « barriers ». Don Draper has touched me the most out of any tv character ever and I’m a black gen z Muslim French girl lol just bc it looks like it won’t be relatable to you does mean it’s not something worth discovering and watching. And even if you can’t relate to something that does not mean the humanity and soul behind the creation isn’t worth the try. Always Looking for something you relate to is a boring way to experience media and will only reduce your horizons

[crescentfool]

having the hc that minato is ace is incredibly funny sometimes when you think about how ryoji is oh so very bi because it's like. "ah. death stole my ability to be attracted to people," in the same way that ryoji stole minato's eye color and energy level. like wow, thanks ryoji, you just keep finding things to steal from minato!

[skylinebeemine]

Can Blood on the Clocktower become the new thing with Dropout fans? We have both Sam talking about BOTC on Adventuring Party and now playing a live game with some of the No Rolls Barred peep, and a Chris Grace, aka host of the wonderful Noobs on the Gooftower youtube channel (which has also featured some friends of Dropout on it), comedy special coming out

There is so much more overlap and I’m super happy about it because I love BOTC and need more people to like it so I could maybe one day actually play it

[lover-of-mine]

I'm right here, when you gonna realise...