#Mostly just screencaps haha

[kelbunny]

Go update Triangle Strategy right now asdfghjkl

New Golden Route Scene! Wedding Scene :D

He's telling Frederica :0. And the fact he turned to his brother and made sure Roland was okay with it aaah these siblings

Anna, Geela, and Erador trying to have a nice conversation only to be intrupted by Lionel smh

Archibald trying to tell these two greedy merchants to stop being greedy lol

Anna also telling them to stop being greedy merchants

Milo being her cheeky nosy self trying to tell Lyla to go hug her son, he's literally been having visions of hugging his mom at the wedding

Asdfghjkl aaaaahhhhhh h u g

Quahaug hug

This one was really sweet. Two parents who lost their children realizing they need to carry the ardent dreams of the youth in their stead.

Roland finally accepting Avlora who's being an angsty butt bc she doesn't want to ruin the happy wedding

Serenoa wedding sprite?

FREDERICA WEDDING SPRITE!?

And I forgot up until this moment that you can check characters profiles when they're speaking and just... new art! In their wedding clothes!

I also want to rewatch just to see what everyone's profiles look like haha

Credits for the extra chapter had some art not shown in the Anniversary Livestream :0

You can now replay all story battles you've done as mock battles haha now you can get trounced by ng+ Trish and Travis whenever lol

You can also rewatch any Character Stories you've seen can't rewatch story cutscenes however

[zarla-s]

Do/for you have to make references for any other characters in Handplates? Like the mouse or pterofractal? The same goes for the characters that have canon designs in Undertale. Did you ever need a ref for them?

Honestly I like never make reference sheets until something forces me, haha. With the mouse I just go back to the first comic he appeared in and just ref off of those. I might have mentioned this before, I forget, but originally that mouse was supposed to be the mole in the MTT comedy club but then I looked up their speech pattern and it didn't fit, so instead I made them a Rathbone cameo from The Lost Mind of Dr. Brain. :B

I had to improvise his lower body so I just gave him big wading pants lol.

As for Pterofractal, Jaz gave me this!

I do have a folder for canon refs, mostly screenshots I've taken to get colors and layouts for certain areas in the Underground, haha. And some sprite sheets if I need them.

Nothing really official or purposeful though, just screencaps and snips from other files I end up reusing.

[baraturts]

Hi, everything’s been good. Out of curiosity how did you learn to draw the turtles, especially when it comes to their facial expressions and bodies ? Do u have any tips or references that could be helpful ?

Hi, things are going relatively good. Hmm, I'm probably not the best person to ask this, heh. My drawing progression and process has been (and is) a bit all over the place.

For anatomy, I'd recommend searching for terms like "comic book anatomy" and "simplified male anatomy for artists". Some pretty good free resources out there, especially on YouTube. Then you look at those recourses and simplify even more! I don't draw a lot of muscle detail, just focus on making the main muscle groups visible and ignore the rest. As long as that's in place and you have alright proportions (another thing to study, hooray), things tend to look passable.

I also have a little folder of screencaps from the movies (mostly OOTS), always handy! Some taken my self, some "stolen" from here on Tumblr. I've never really used refs for expressions, but I also don't draw a lot of very exaggerated/cartoony expressions. I keep it subtle and often find my self subconsciously making the faces I'm trying to draw, heh. And I guess that's my final tip: Draw! One can't JUST look at YouTube videos and tutorials, you gotta draw a lot too. But never be afraid to use references, that's how you learn and drawing is how you hammer that knowledge in to your hand!

Don't be afraid to ask if there's something more specific you're wondering about or if you want me to red-line something. I find that easier to be helpful with. I'm not a very good teacher on broader subjects, my answers to those tends to boil down to: JuSt GoOgLe It, sorry, haha.

[for-a-longlongtime]

On Dieter, Goya's Black Paintings, and Pedro on Talk Art 

Alright y'all, it's Saturday evening, I have nothing better to do (I actually do but I don't feel like it), so welcome to my mini TED Talk about 'how to pay too much fucking attention to the Pedro cinematic universe'. None of this is new, and maybe everybody already knew about this, but I didn't... so here's a nerdy tangent courtesy of googling/wikipedia-ing.

I was reading a Dieter!fic (this one right here by @chaoticgeminate - go read her writing!) earlier today, which refers to the 'Saturn Devouring His Son' painting - that giant mural Dieter is working on in The Bubble:

(his brush isn't even touching the wall tho, ha)

The original 'Saturn' by Goya

The fic mentioned its part of 'The Black Paintings', so I got curious and started googling. I'm no art major or expert, so please allow me to just paraphraze the Wikipedia page. 'Saturn' is part of a group of 14 Goya paintings that are called Pinturas Negras/The Black Paintings. They "portray intense, haunting themes, reflective of both his fear of insanity and his bleak outlook on humanity" --this was late in Goya's life, and was connected to several illnesses he had experienced (and the fear of relapsing) and political turmoil in Spain at the time (post-Napolean war, changing Spanish government, etc.

Trivia fact 1: Goya actually made these paintings right on the walls of the Quinta del Sordo (so-called Deaf Man's villa) where he was staying -- so I love that Apatow had Dieter also paint right on the walls.

Trivia fact 2: while Goya was living in this villa, he actually became gravely ill (again) - not by a pandemic obviously, but it's hard to not link that loosely to the COVID period. He had never intended for these 'Black Paintings' to become public; "these paintings are as close to being hermetically private as any that have ever been produced in the history of Western art" (the murals were eventually transfered to canvas by other folks once he had moved out of the villa). Switching back to The Bubble -- I love how the tragic influence of Goya's illness(es) and art/things 'made at home away from the world, not intended for an audience' (so obviously, in a bubble) has that connection to the COVID experience and how many folks were suddenly homebound, along with the burden of illness in many ways (lord knows this all did a serious number on our mental health). In the movie, Dieter and the others do not want to go into isolation again, but that solitude is what eventually led him to painting on the walls in his room. This is not a 'grand discovery' of any kind, but I got a kick out of the parellels once I read up on it - and honestly makes me appreciate the movie a bit more, haha.

Not happy about another quarantine period.

Alright, more hyperfocusing after the cut:

Some googling led me to a post from last year by @nicolethered (gifs in this post are hers), and she included screencaps of the walls of Dieter's room (during that drug scene), which I hadn't even noticed while watching the movie. Upon taking a closer look, I noticed they're outtakes from other pieces of Goya's Black Paintings! I thought that was really cool, they sure worked on the details with that set (there's one more that's shown in a different shot but I can't exactly figure out which outtake that is):

First one is a mirror image from Two Old Men Eating Soup and the second one is basically Satan aka 'The Great He-Goat' from the Witches' Sabbath painting. Which IMO makes for fucking hilarious perfection a.k.a. trivia fact 3 -- because we all know about Dieter and his little emotional support goat, LOL. Excellent connection.

*insert sound bit from Hot Ones interview* : "Just let me love you!"

Anywaaay there's more. The Bubble was shot during Feb 22, 2021 to April 16, 2021, right? Pedro has spoken about how his input in shaping Dieter was mostly regarding his outfits (the Crocs, the robe, etc). But then I suddenly remember the Talk Art interview he had done in 2018, and how he namechecks 'The Dog' by Goya - and lo, guess which painting is actually part of the 14 Black Paintings? Yeap - the dog! So I checked the podcast and he was asked, 'if you could be any painting, what painting would you be?' by Russell. Here is the painting, and below it is what he said on Talk Art:

'The Drowning Dog' by Goya

"I think… it's a Goya. Yeah, old school. I think it's called 'Dog Buried in Sand' or something like that. It's so… I remember feeling it was such a visual representation of helplessness, in such a… come on, let's all admit that helplessness is a very recurring feeling for many of us, you know what I mean? When it comes to so many things. I guess… I was in Spain, in Madrid, and I was 20. And I went to the Goya museum. What's interesting about it is that the head of the dog is really quite small and sort of adorable, it looks like a stray mutt, and the painting - if I can remember it correctly - is very rectangular. There's so much above him, like the world just seems so big. It's quite incredible, isn't it? I know it's really sad, and sort of dark, and maybe I really like enjoy perceiving myself like..." (He gets interrupted by Russell, and then continues;) "Yeah, he's certainly not dying, it's sort of - it's a moment", (then interrupts himself with;) "Maybe he's totally dying, there's no way that dog is getting out of that. That dog is SO fucked. Anyway, that's the painting that represents my life". (All three of them burst out into laughing.)

If you're still reading this - I am impressed with your dedication to my silly little post, haha. Anyway, I just thought it was so striking that there basically is a straight line from the painting he mentioned in Talk Art to what Dieter is painting in the Bubble. Makes me wonder if perhaps he - or even Russell/Robert - had any input in that part of Dieter's backstory.

Thank you for attending my TED Talk on artistic analysis of Dieter Bravo during COVID, we now resume your regularly scheduled program for Saturday night. 🤪

(Have I been smoking because a local dispensary actually had 'Mando' bud? I sure as fuck have and I blame that for this post.)

[yayakoishii]

Masterlist

@yayakoishii's organized post for fanfiction, subbing and other things!

【 main: @scribble-bunnie 】

You can call me Yaya or Gyunmi! ♡ I post mostly about Idaten Jump (which I'm currently translating) and One Piece & Mairimashita! Iruma-kun (which I write fics for occasionally). Sometimes I talk about my other interests like Black Clover, Fairy Tail, Haikyuu, etc. too, this is mostly just a whatever goes acc, haha~

my ao3

Requests are CLOSED ♡

Feel free to send in asks about anything if you have any questions, or something you want to say or if you just wanna get to know me. I would love to make friends ♡

• Taglist •

❦ Subbing:

✦ Idaten Jump

— Masterlist of All Episodes

— Episode Screencaps (1-10)

— Episode Screencaps (11-20)

— Episode Screencaps (21-30)

❦ Fanfiction:

✦ Fairy Tail Masterlist

✦ One Piece Masterlist

✦ Black Clover Masterlist

°•♡•°

✦ Mairimashita! Iruma-kun Masterlist

✦ Idaten Jump Masterlist

All likes, comments and reblogs are very very appreciated! ♡

[fereldanwench]

I saw someone recently ask why their shots weren't turning out how they wanted them to despite being able to support the highest graphical settings, so I thought I could share a little behind-the-scenes tidbit re: my approach to lighting and post-editing in VP in case it's useful.

And for my money, lighting is one of the most important factors in getting a shot that I'm happy with. Yes, a high-end graphics card can absolutely help, but that's just one tool of many that can make a difference.

(This info is probably most relevant to folks who can mod their game, but the overall principle can also be applied to vanilla photomode, too. You'll just have to find good in-game light sources since you won't be able to spawn your own, and it might require a little more finagling with the vanilla photomode exposure and contrast settings. Here are some 100% vanilla shots I took recently that I think turned out pretty decent even with those limitations, just to give you some ideas if that's what you're working with.)

Lighting & Exposure

So referencing the photos above, from left to right:

A purely vanilla shot with ray-trace enabled but no lighting tools

The same shot with lighting tools on Valerie

The same shot with lighting tools + some Lightroom editing

Beefy graphics cards can certainly make a difference here since they'll be able to render more nuanced light and shadows, but as you can see in the purely vanilla shot, that ray tracing on its own ain't doing much when it comes to lighting Valerie. The neon lights in the background are pretty, but she's barely even visible in that dark ass street.

In the second shot, Valerie is in the exact same location but has multiple light sources on her. I mostly use CharLi lights these days, which is a free suite of lighting tools available on Nexus, and the customizable ambient lights in AMM, also free on Nexus.

I didn't think to screencap my exact lighting setup, but I'm pretty sure it was something like this:

CharLi spotlight on the left and right of Valerie, tinted pink/magenta

CharLi spotlight on the upper right, tinted teal

(I think I might have had an orange CharLi spotlight too, but it wasn't visible from this angle)

2 CharLi white spotlights directly on Valerie

Probably 1 or 2 AMM customizable point lights on her face (I like using the point lights at very low brightness to accentuate faces and give them a nice glow)

Now putting all these lights on a character could end up way too bright at the default vanilla exposure, especially if you aren't using any kind of major Reshade overhaul (which I do not).

Instead, I just use the vanilla photomode exposure settings to make a scene really dark and then light it back up with my own tools. (This is also a great way to shoot in areas that might have weird lighting effects, and it can be done indoors or outdoors and at all hours of the day.)

Just a simple example of that in these shots:

On the left, Valerie has a spotlight on her face and chest--It's pretty bright, too bright for my tastes. On the right, she has the same spotlight, but the overall exposure has been dropped down to -90 and the highlights have been dropped to -60 (now it's a little too dark for my taste--If this was gonna be a real shot, I'd build up more lights, but just wanted to show how much altering the exposure can affect a shot).

Post-Editing

As for making further adjustments to colors, shadow levels, sharpness, etc. of a shot, I know a lot of folks prefer to do that with Reshade presets, but... I don't, haha. I did make a basic shader to reduce the green tint of the game, and I use the Cinematic DOF and Real Long Exposure shaders to get a nice depth of field and reduce hair pixelating. Otherwise, all other adjustments I make are in Adobe Lightroom (or Photoshop if I need to make more precise adjustments).

And it's just a personal preference here. I just don't like having to mess with too many mods and menus in-game--I feel like it increases the chance of something freezing or crashing or me accidentally closing out of photomode. It also helps to give me a new perspective to see the shot outside of the game, especially if it's a portrait-oriented shot. Plus, I just like the process. Gives me one more reason to stare at the blorbos for a little while. :3

I adjust each Lightroom preset as needed depending on the color and exposure of the shots I'm working with, but these are some of the more common settings I modify:

I almost always finetune the exposure and shadows/highlights.

I like to do a global increase for saturation and vibrance.

A lot of my presets increase the saturation of reds and blues and decrease the saturation of yellows and greens, but this can vary; e.g. i like the greens to be vibrant if it's a nature shot.

I also usually make the white balance a little cooler.

I love tinkering with the global curves settings to "flatten" the shadow levels.

And I like really crispy shots, so I always increase the sharpness, and I'll usually bump the texture and add some noise, too.

These are all things that can be done in other similar programs/apps or even with Reshade. If you're just starting out, I think using pre-made presets and filters is a great way to go, and as you get more comfortable with the tools, you can start to make little tweaks and edits to personalize the style.

So anyway, there's some of my process! Everyone's got their own, and what works for me might not work for you--Don't feel like you have to take any of this as gospel or work exactly the way I do. But maybe this will... shed some light (ha ha, I'll see myself out) on how to get started with some VP tools. <3

[takawbelle]

Now that you've exposed your multishipping side, I request to know all of your kny pairs. Including the ones you only sorta kinda ship, still counts!

"Exposed." Hehe.

Here ya go (with explanations you didn't ask for but will still get hahaha)...

InoAoi - Tarzan and Jane vibes. Competent, no nonsense girl taming an uncouth boy having only the barest iota of social niceties. The concept is cute though it felt like an asspull when they ended up together. (I'm salty Gotogue made them canon but not Giyushino.)

Shinobu/Rengoku - I like the sun and moon parallels but while both of them are extroverted, Rengoku is more candid. Shinobu has more layers. Still, to me they won't have as much delicious friction and spice as Giyushino.

The ones I "sorta kinda ship" are mostly rarepairs and there is a dearth of fics for them (or maybe I just haven't been looking hard enough because I'm currently focusing on writing and not reading):

Sanekana - Not a rarepair. Though I find Sanemi to be an irritating and unreasonable asshole, I "sorta kinda ship" this only because of how Kanae has unfolded so far in "The 'One' in 'One-Night Stand.'" Generally I like ships that have opposites, friction, and the rough, angry boy falling for the kind girl trope is dear to my black heart. I'm challenging myself to write Sanemi into a character I can sympathize with but who's not too OOC.

Muzan/Tamayo - Only because of the Hashira Training arc finale (which I only saw screencaps of). Judging from a single screencap of a sweaty Tamayo smirking and baring her fangs right next to a shirtless Muzan, the hate sex must be off the charts.

Senjuro/Nezuko - There's something so fluffy about them. Plus Senjuro wouldn't screech and be over the top.

Shinjuro/Ruka - How badly must Shinjuro love his wife to ruin his life and his relationship with his sons after her passing? I'd like to read about the early stages of their relationship, see the cotton candy fluff turn to angst.

Doma/Nakime - Again with the opposites attract trope. Lol. Extraverted, annoying marketing management major + reclusive emo bassist chick. I can probably read one well-done modern AU of this and my itch will be scratched.

Crackpairs - but I suppose it's inaccurate to call them that. They're more of characters which I wish will interact, short of anything overtly romantic.

Shinobu/Kaigaku and Shinobu/Gyutaro. - i was surprised that the Shinobu/Kaigaku mention in "The 'One'" garnered a few reactions, haha. I'm thinking of inserting a Kaigaku cameo in "That Thing With Kocho Shinobu" but nothing's set in stone yet.

Thanks for this ask. Apart from Giyushino, I was not fully aware of my KNY ships until you asked me.

[iraprince]

Heyo! Any advice on struggling to get your art seen in the world? I feel like no matter how much I post, or what I post, people never see it or seem to like it. I love art and am pursuing it as a career (hence why Im getting a degree in it currently lmao) but its kind of disheartening to work really hard on something, post it, and no one sees it.

oh, man. i'm afraid for this one i don't feel like i have a lot of solid advice. having a large-ish following online feels like something that kind of just, like, Happened to me, mostly on accident/in ways outside of my control, and even if i had some ideas on how to potentially replicate those gains i don't think they'd work consistently. (also, a lot of my large jumps in follower count came from mental health related work going viral bc it's #relatable; this is something i have complicated feelings about and it's absolutely not a viable, like, "strategy" or something that i would recommend, in the way that ppl can say like, "fanart gets attention!" or stuff like that.)

so, i don't have advice for how to actually GET those eyes on your art; i can maybe help with making ppl more likely to STAY once they do find you, and how to build a following that will actually help you maintain a living from your work -- bc i have TONS of peers w a following a fraction of the size of mine who get more jobs than me, are doing cooler/more "professional" stuff than me, etc! (heads up that most of my experience is on twitter; i know less than nothing about places like instagram + tiktok, and while tumblr functions very differently from twitter i feel like i handle things mostly the same here, aside from doing less personal posting/being less talkative and not 'networking' or following many people).

SCROLLING BACK UP TO ADD A SPOILER ALERT: AS ALWAYS I HAVE SAID "HAHA IDK I DON'T REALLY HAVE ANY ADVICE" AND THEN PROCEEDED TO TYPE A FULL ESSAY. IF YOU ARE ON DESKTOP YOU CAN HIT THE 'J' KEY TO SKIP THIS POST. IF YOU'RE ON MOBILE, I'M SORRY

a very important thing, especially professionally: it HAS to be easy to see what you do. (this is easier here on tumblr, where u can have a designated art tag etc, than on twitter, which is an awful website that sucks. <- guy who makes all his money on twitter) this means, like -- if i see something from you and get curious and click your profile, it should only take one more click to quickly see at least SOME of your art. on a professional account, it's probably best for your icon to be your own work, something snappy and memorable and eye-catching that reads well at a small size; people shouldn't have to dig for 20 minutes before they can start browsing your art. on twitter, this means TRY not to gunk up your media tab with a ton of reaction images/screencaps of your gacha pulls/etc; on here, it means make your art tag easy to find; on any website, a portfolio link, prominently displayed, is the best bet. (i am still working on that one myself lmao and i've been working professionally full time for a few years now so like, there are outliers and wiggle room on all of this).

next! it's great when your audience finds you, but you have to find them, too. find artists who do similar stuff to you and get into their stuff -- sincerely, not just as "networking." (like only do this with ppl whose stuff you actually think is cool, not just trying to get in mutuals with everyone you see in hopes of a bump, obviously.) get interested in other indie artists, find the people who are working/publishing in the spaces that are exciting and aspirational for you, and support them! i don't want it to sound cynical when i say there's a kind of give-and-take built into this; the point is not "well, if i reblog/retweet a bunch of YOUR stuff, maybe you'll feel obligated to boost mine in return," but that when you find other artists/creatives who are on the same wavelength as you, you will naturally stumble into pools of people who want to support art like yours, and you and your newfound peers will help each other when you hype each other's stuff up and direct followers to each other! (again re: things going differently on dif websites: this is twitter-specific for me, bc i use my tumblr as a gallery/portfolio. that doesn't mean it doesn't happen here tho! it can and does happen everywhere!)

it is really not a competition. i know that SOMETIMES it is in like, a really nitty-gritty numbers sense; people only have so much money to spare, they will make choices about whose patreon they can afford/what comic to buy/etc, that's true. but to me that's not competition. people who are sincerely into your stuff will hang on until they can afford it; maybe that means someone follows you for two whole years before the planets align and they have the budget/opportunity to commission you. by hanging out in similar circles you are not taking potential business or opportunities away from anyone else, nor are you risking leading your own audience to Someone They'll Like Better; you're just offering more options, and the internet is VAST and endless, and EVENTUALLY people will show up who are into YOUR STUFF, SPECIFICALLY. helping each other is never going to stifle or delay that!!

and my final chunk of advice is the one i give constantly that everyone is probably super sick of hearing but i just seriously seriously believe in it, even tho i know it's slow to pay off and hard to follow: keep doing exactly what you want to. keep doing it!!! you have to!!! yes, i mean the stuff that's getting like, 2 likes and 0 reblogs! the stuff that 'nobody likes!'

earlier i mentioned i have gotten big follower bumps from like adhd comics and stuff like that going viral. the thing is that, from a professional standpoint: my follower count has like, more than quintupled from where it was at a few years ago; my patreon income has absolutely NOT quintupled lmfao. it has less than doubled, over that same period of like... i wanna say over 4 years. that's still good, i'm grateful for it, and i owe a lot of it to the sheer numbers game (the more ppl see ur work, the more likely it is you'll reach someone who decides to support you), but there is absolutely not an actual direct correlation between numbers and career success/stability.

where there IS a direct correlation is between "people who give a shit about the art i really truly love making" and "people who like my art enough to support me professionally." HUGE chunks of the followers i get any time something goes viral slough off over time; there's nothing wrong with that, they just follow me bc something was funny/interesting and end up realizing my work's not actually their thing. but the ppl who follow me bc they're into all the stuff i post most consistently, the stuff i care about and am passionate about, stick around. and i would not have found them if i wasn't posting the shit i care about!

out there there are people who will be 100% crazy about the stuff that is 100% what you want to make. it's like actually statistically impossible for there not to be. the more niche your thing is, the longer it will take to find them, but they absolutely exist. but if you give up before you find them -- if you start saying, "well, i'll put in 50% of this idea that i love, but the other 50% is too weird and nobody's gonna like it and it'll flop" -- well, in that case, you can only ever find the ppl who are 50% into what you do. don't fuck yourself like that!! you cannot deny yourself the possibility (the INEVITABILITY!!! IMO!!!!!) of finding the people who will 100% get what you're doing.

so: on a pragmatic level, i'm sure there will be ppl who disagree with me on this, and who think it's absolutely mandatory to do fanart as a crowd draw or learn about algorithms and posting times and get on tiktok and do the visibility grind and everything and that it's stupid and irresponsible to tell people not to. i'm sure it's also easy to point out that i'm speaking from a place where i now have more eyes on my stuff than i know what to fucking do with so maybe i'm just totally out of touch and being naive or something. but for me the most important part of doing art now, ESPECIALLY as a career, is to keep loving it and to believe in what i'm doing and to build an audience that cares about the same things i do. and i think it is really really vital to make that your top priority. bc if you don't, then even if you DO crack the code to suddenly getting tons of notes on everything etc -- will you even keep wanting to do it?

this job is hard. it's lonely, in my experience; i spend so much time sitting in front of my computer alone. it's unstable, which is stressful and can be frightening. it's emotionally taxing, for me, because art is so important to me that it's hard to set boundaries and separate my identity from it and actually treat it like a job. it has taken me a long time to find success doing this; maybe i could have gotten there faster if i had tried to find ways to draw an audience specifically, but i think if i had somehow managed to get a big patreon following/tons of commissioners/etc by doing something formulaic or doing stuff that specifically gets tons of attention, but isn't what's natural for me -- i don't think i would have lasted very long that way. this is already hard and complicated enough; i don't think it's sustainable to give up any unnecessary ground on doing exactly what you're passionate about, bc at least in my case, that's mandatory for this even being a livable career for me. i would burn out and decide to do something else very quickly if the only way to succeed was to chase numbers/engagement.

doing it this way is very slow. if i hadn't been able to lean on family/my wife while starting up, i would have had to have a day job for much longer (like, years, probably) while saving up and preparing to go full time; for as long as you struggle to get traction, it may mean going full time has to be on the backburner. but the thing is that there's nothing wrong with that, it's the reality for the vast majority of us (from what i've seen) -- and you'll eventually build a career that can last way longer, i think.

okay oh my god i'm done. sorry about that. like i said this job is pretty lonely and i sit here all day and think about this stuff and then generally do not talk about it with anyone until somebody asks me about it and then i repeat myself at length again. like i did here. anyway have a good night sincerely and i hope some part of this was helpful!!!

[andthebubbles]

allrightey, i have edited things (a/b fic), and i'm still very tired after having to watch bridgerton s3 pt2, no idea why it was such a struggle, though i did enjoy screencapping (mostly) anthony's face and talking about it

i would actually really like to write something inspired by s3. but i'm not sure what. i'm not getting any ideas for anthony particularly (i think)... The most i can think of for a&b is benedict (lmao) talking about his time with paul and tilley, but he wouldn't do that (unless anthony tries to drink him under the table (and anthony would fail))...

for cressida, mostly what i want for her is to be less alone. and for uh, something that makes a bit more sense re eloise's decisions

alternatively, perhaps we could have an AU where cressida is already stuck in wales and s1 anthony ends up in wales after running away from duelling with the duke (i.e. perhaps killing him skfjgnkfg) and cressida is eager to get back to london, and anthony just desperately wants to run away (from society, from his guilt). and things Happen. (no, not That (yet? hahaha))

idk, i just like the idea of two people with completely different values/mindsets/etc forced to work together, and they peel back the layers on each other as they go from barely tolerating each other to having respect for each other to-- (??? haha)

but THAT is a lot of work. and i still have a/b fic to write, and then i wanna write the simon/anthony idea i have (hopefully that's a shorter fic haha)

(no, but just think of cressida just completely desperately trying to get back to london (and she's 18 here), and trying to blackmail anthony, and anthony just laughs, because he's been doing real adulting/real business deals--was forced to--since he was 18, and here's cress just trying. and cress is all Offended and anthony seriously Does Not Have Time For Her, and he goes and drinks and hides and cress calls him Useless)

[milktearosethorn]

Like another example in dtblr is passing around that clip of Captain Puffy talking about being friends with Dream (Which was really sweet! I liked that moment a lot!) but then it was crickets on any other clip from that stream of hers (Or future streams).

I agree with basically everything you said in your post! as someone who's posted popular clips of puffy talking about dream before haha I will say that the reason I have those clips is cause I watch the streams! and I think a lot of us in this community do actually watch other streamers like puffy but only post about dteam mostly cause that's what people follow us for? you know? but you're right I think there is an important line to draw between just appreciating that someone talked about your fav (in the same way we might post clips of illumina or shadoune talking about dream) and using female streamers as a weapon to say omg see these women like my fav and then not actually watch them

-xomoosexo

Wahhh I appreciate you coming in to talk more about this!

And I agree, it's almost never malicious, just something to be cognizant of so it doesn't bleed into being problematic.

I need to learn how to take screencaps/clips myself 🥲 (it's a little hypocritical of me to 'call out' people's clipping habits when they're the ones actually doing the work and contributing to the fandom economy haha)

[binarystargames]

Machinations of Court and Frame pre-production notes: Noble Houses and their Agents

I don't have an actual cover for this one yet so for now you get a screencap from the SRD title. This one's still at pretty high level. But I did some of that high level work and I wanna talk about it!

Speaking of the SRD, this is the third Total//Effect game I initially proposed/outlined/etc on the Total//Effect SRD. My general (self)-pitch was:

Mecha, But Politics

This Time, This One's About The People, Not The Mechs TM

(But it's also about feudalism and how internecine struggles between people in power completely do not care about the average person)

Political maneuvering and such. Heavy Faction emphasis in the form of noble Houses. Think Battletech or Game of Thrones or Dune.

Heavy emphasis on Relationships/Bonds/etc. They're big in Valiant Horizon but they're supposed to be even bigger here.

No "traditional" group tactical TTRPG combat. But there are mecha duels, because that's very important to me.

So first off, I think to give this the proper "space" (haha) to breathe, this one also needs to be a space game. This lets me be pretty vague on certain points without it being weird, especially I'm purposely relaxing "hard"-ness because the specifics aren't the point - everyone has FTL shit and can travel easy, planets are just habitable or terraformable and have atmospheres, it's fine. Get those good Dune/Battletech vibes going more so than like, Front Mission.

Given that, I think the proper order of operations is: Factions/Allegiances contain Houses which contain Planets. Factions/Allegiances are something that I think mostly gets hashed out in play but I'll focus on Houses/Planets.

Planets

The main resource I'm tracking is the number of planets they control, which is the only "resource" I'm tracking as such. More planets, more power in general: certain things can add "virtual" planets to this tally, like prominent (extra-population/resource/etc, counts as two) or independent (counts as half at most, is split X ways between any House with a trade agreement with them) planets. What do more planets get you? Each House gets X actions per Faction Turn: reinforce X planet, infiltrate Y planet, do some digging on Z, etc. I'm thinking the big benefit is that they get 2/3/4/5 actions if they have 1/3/6/10 planets: meaning a handful of lower Houses can overwhelm a higher one if they're isolated.

Houses

So off the bat, my first inclination was to do some kind of complicated 4X resource thing with Houses. But I realized very quickly that I didn't want that. The thing is that the interplay between Houses is not so much a game in and of itself as it is a backdrop to the personal action between agents of said Houses. Your points of view aren't the machine, they're also cogs in it, even if they are very important cogs. So what do we do for Houses?

To define a House, we start by defining the House's Distinction. This is kind of like a character class or playbook for the House. The ones I have down are Legacy (they're very old and storied), Money (they have a lot of it), Connections (they're got to where they are through intel and favor arbitrage), and Industry (they have control of some major supply of something, like food or ore). This is basically why they matter.

When you define this, the player making the House (this is a full-group effort, ideally, with each player making probably 2) is asked 3 Distinction-based questions to define something in particular about how the House got to where they are, who they're allied with, and who they're unfriendly with. Distinction also defines holdings, i.e. how many planets they start with, but it's based on a roll and each kind has various downsides: Money-Houses have High Die (average 5ish) but many are independent, while Connections-Houses have Low Die (average 2ish) but their capital is always Prominent. Because this isn't really a game about winning or losing, I'm perfectly fine with Houses starting on the front or back foot. For example, I rolled up 1 House of each kind to test this, and the Legacy and Money houses started with 4 each while the other two rolled very poorly ended up with 1 each. That instantly creates an asymmetric dynamic: maybe those first two are the major two powers, with the other two splitting one way or another (or combining forces to act as one...for now, anyway). That's workable!

The chosen Distinction also defines the Frames the House picks as its "core three" types (light, medium, heavy). I've defined 3 "lines" of mechs by name/manufacturer: the first is intended for old-money, focuses on melee capabilities, and labels theirs like TYPE-WEAPON; the second has more of a PMC vibe and labels theirs like 0X-ABC where ABC is a "character class" like KGT = Knight, RGR = Ranger, etc; and the third is full manufacturing and labels them XMYAZ (for instance MM10A4, like how the US military labels things as M16A4/etc). Legacy Houses have to pick 2/3 from the first (they're the oldest one, prior contracts, etc), Money houses have to pick 2/3 from the second (they have a expensive-but-practical vibe), Industry has to pick 2/3 from the last (more of an emphasis on no-frills craftsmanship), and Connections have to pick 1 of each.

Distinction does another thing with Relationships too but I'll get to it when writing about...

Agents

So the focus of the game is characters who are Agents. This is a very broad term that more or less comes down to "representative of a House, sponsored by them to get The Overwhelmingly Good Shit from their Frame manufacturer, sent to problem areas to fix or create problems or as liasons/representatives". Each player makes two and play shifts around various sides of a conflict on a per-session basis - when Agents clash, it could be with an NPC, or depending on what House moves have been taken, it could be another PC Agent! (And since direct conflicts are 1v1, you can just have this play out as PvP, unless both duelists were made by the same player.)

I'm taking a similar approach re: playbook/broad "class"-like distinctions to Agents. Specifically, I'm envisioning 6 kinds of Agents on a sliding scale of privilege/status/position from Heir/Scion at the high end (literally in line to be House leadership, or could be if enough people die) to Officer/Mercenary at the low end (not even nobles, just professionals who are good at mech fighting). The more important you are, the more Status you have: Status means that other characters with more/less relate to you differently. (One big one, for example, is that is no big deal for someone of higher Status to actually kill someone of lower in a battlefield duel, but someone of lower status is expected to find a way to disable rather than kill whatever inbred heir in their sight who has a death wish.) It does mean you've got more of a target on your back, however, and less ability to pivot around: I'm thinking a meta-currency equal to X - Status (probably 4 - Status, with Status being 1-3).

Playbooks/whatever I end up calling them also define a few things. I'm envisioning a passive ability relating to Relationships (like counting them as doubled for the purposes of Influence or unlocks), as well as starting packages: starting Relationships with the House and with people, and starting Moves picked from a big list split between Court Intrigues and Frame Maneuvers (like the Mercenary is Maneuvers-only at first, but it gets 4 instead of 3 Moves and can gain more of an appreciation for intrigue over time - think someone like Bronn from Game of Thrones).

Finally, back to Distinctions to talk about Relationships. When characters gain Relationships, they can take those out with other people (which gives advantages to influence them in particular) or with Houses. In addition to making it easier to influence them and various set benefits like extra Frame access or Tells on all that House's Frames or that person's Maneuvers, When they take a Bond (which is 1 of 6 points you can put into a Relationship, crystallized by a specific thing), they gain a token, which they can spend anytime to answer questions about a House: the questions in particular are defined by that Distinction/Playbook, and there's one good-connotated/one bad-connotated. For example, Legacy has a) What hidden secret in their past could propel this House to greatness? b) What dark event in their history or lineage is this House trying to hide? (Keep in mind these aren't just for good bonds, these can be for enemies too - a character can create a Relationship with a House they've sworn to bring to ruin, for example, and cash them in to create some horrid rift they can exploit, or a friendly Relationship can turn sour after a betrayal and lead to awful things being revealed on both sides.)

Hell Yeah

This game's gonna be cool as shit whenever I make it for real, folks. I mean I say this about literally every significant-sized game I make but this one's definitely also my baby.

[manasurge]

These screencaps are mostly just my personal fun interactions I've had with some people and are my special little keepsakes <3 first 3 - Vespaura cat puns (these were adorable and made me smile! ;v; <3). Quinn whomstever you are, you are precious and I send you a virtual hug from afar. Also I didn't get screencaps for these other interactions, but whoever Andromeda is, you were also precious <3 4 - I discovered that if I use Jaunt or blink while walking, I hold my greatsword over behind my shoulders and it looks really cool?? I never knew I could do that before (the more you know! /rainbow). The strut comment made me giggle and feel cool uwu <3 5 - Mai Trin speaking my language and wished me a happy pride, teehee <3 (and who also an amazing cosplayer) and the answer to that is: absolutely yes. Also slublings! 6 - LARANITY!! I didn't expect to see her so it made me really happy (she's basically the only GW2 content creator that I follow and have been for a long time, so it felt like meeting a celebrity laskjf. She's always been so wholesome and funny so it made my day to see her phase into the NA realm for a bit, haha) 7 - WEH

[alicentive]

hi ☺️👋 love chu💕 ❤️ I'm really new to gif making too for my favorite shows so I hoped to ask how you make the backgrounds look so smooth in your gifs?I'd appreciate any advice, it's just for practice. thank you if you answer in advance ❤️💕

Hello hello, and big love right back at ya! 💕😊

How exciting that you’re new to gifmaking – it’s so much fun to get to experiment with that and try all sorts of things. I learned a lot from following tutorials or talking with other gifmakers back when I first started out, and I’m definitely still learning new things now.

I think it’s a combination of factors that makes the background in my gifs so smooth? So I’m going to talk about some of those factors and show you a few things and hopefully that’ll help! I use Photoshop CS6 for gifmaking, but I think the majority of this advice also holds up in other versions haha.

First off, I always try to use video files of the 1080p variety. You can gif with videos that have 720p, too, but 1080p will provide a smoother and clearer image because there are more pixels in 1080p. (There’s also 2160p, which is even higher resolution, but I’ve personally found that unwieldy to screencap and 1080p looks very good already!) This is the technical reason why the gifs look smooth: work with a high resolution video and get better results, that’s just how it is.

Another technical thing is the type of scene you pick to gif. When the scene is very busy with a lot of people and objects coming into focus at once (group shots, shots in heavily decorated rooms, etc), there’s very little in the scene that actually fades into the background focus-wise. With close-ups of a single face, the focus is entirely on the face and the background will fade to some degree. This really has to do with how the show’s made, like how the director and camera people and everyone else chose to portray/film the scenes. As a gifmaker, you can always choose to crop some things out of the scene when you want the focus to be on a specific thing – you’re essentially choosing a new focus for the viewer in that case. But yeah, overall, the way it’s filmed affects everything else about the gif.

Now, onward to the actual Photoshop things…

When I gif, I also sharpen the gif itself. This will make some details pop more and help move the focus to where I want it to be most, which is usually either a face or something important happening in the scene. I do think it might affect how you see the background as well – when everything in the foreground is sharpened, the background will naturally have a bit of blurriness to it. I have a sharpening action I use for every gif, but I believe its settings are as follows.

This is Filter -> Smart Sharpen by the way.

First Smart Sharpen:

And the second Smart Sharpen (yes we do it twice!):

Most importantly, I think the way you choose to brighten and color the gif will affect how the background will look. A show like House of the Dragon unfortunately can be very dark, so the urge to brighten it and fix the filters they put on these scenes is immense. 😂 But it’s also really easy to brighten it too much with that urge to see what’s going on, lol, and that’s when the background’s going to look grainy or pixelated! So it’s always a fine balancing act and a lot of trial and error (seriously, the undo-button is my best friend) when working with scenes like these.

There are a few ways you can brighten a gif. My preferred method is with the Curves layer, but I also use Exposure and Gradient Map as additions to that sometimes. Mostly when a scene is so dark that I have to take care not to render it too pixelated by adjusting the Curves, really. When a gif gets too tricky, I use all three. 😂 Below are some basics of each layer, but it’s really about trying and clicking and trying and clicking and trying and… you get the picture, lol.

Curves

The little eye dropper tools I marked with white – grey – black in the picture below are the most important. Select the white eye dropper and click on the section of the gif that’s closest to white (but not fully white). Then, select the grey eye dropper and click on the gif section that’s either beige or grey or at least in that neutral color zone. Finally, select the black eye dropper tool and click on the darkest part of your gif. You should see immediate results, but it tends to take me a few tries to get the best version! It’s not uncommon for me to zoom in on an image to, like, 600% just to see which pixels I should be clicking. This takes patience, haha!

Exposure

Use it sparingly, cos it’s going to be an asshole about how bright it makes some things. My settings typically are:

Exposure: between 0,13 and 0,22 (this brightens certain areas)

Offset: -0,0009 or -0,0019 (please don't forget to add the - to the numbers, this will deepen the black areas a bit)

Gamma Correction: 1,04 (I’ve found it ‘marries’ the light and dark parts a tad more and makes it look more natural)

Gradient Map

Gradient map my beloveddd. It doesn’t always do the thing, but sometimes it really helps me add a bit of color correction or helps me lighten a certain part of a scene a bit more. Be careful with it, though, as using it too much might make the gif a bit grainy/pixelated (and we don’t want that). There are a few different ways you can use it, but my favorite way is the only good thing TikTok ever taught me (I’m old as dirt, y’all) and that’s this in a nutshell…

Add the layer and click on the gradient itself.

Now, this is going to make the gif look scary as heck but bear with me? Select Noise, uncheck Restrict Colors. Click OK. Don’t cry.

Go to the Opacity of your Gradient Map layer and set it to a percentage between 2% and 5%. Dry your tears.

If it’s not to your taste, go back into the gradient map itself by clicking on it again and selecting the nifty Randomize button you see on the screencap. Click and click and click until you find something that makes the gif sing.

Soooo. Very long story short, all of the above is going to contribute to how a gif looks and to how smooth the background is. I hope some of it is helpful to you! 💕 (And if anything’s unclear, please ask!! I know I get a little wordy and technical about some of the giffing sometimes, haha.)

[pink-strawberry-kissess]

Rambling anon: Should've including that in the original comment but hindsight and all, anyways, the interviews were in CFC CAP! #6 (pages 12 and 13) which is archived on the internet archive (archive dot org) so it should show up in a google search. It's in Japanese, I'm not sure if you understand it, but it's been translated into English by the Umbrella Project and also somewhere else if you don't and I think those should also show up in the search results. Or you could run it through a translator app but those things are iffy.

P.S. Don't let the name fool you, this was Capcom's official newsletter magazine up until like 2002. The current official magazine is called Cap-Bon, they're fun to read because they usually have little backstory tidbits like this one. Also, the interview with Leon (in #6) discusses him being an orphan so I'm glad that's getting recognized.

I'd love to read your thoughts on Leon's and Claire's interviews after you read them. I like all the little things that flesh their characters out, makes them seem more like real people.

hi rambling anon! no worries haha you didn't expect me to wanna see it lol

but i did find it here!

i couldn't find the translations but i found it easy to just screencap the text and then copy it into google translate and it can translate it for you. the translations are a bit sus at times, but it's mostly readable.

i'm glad that more canon is being recognized! i read through them (at least the best I could!) i think it's funny how leon doesn't like expensive alcohol but i kinda didn't expect him to lmao.

also laughing at the fact that claire doesn't even like "the type of guy" leon is 😭😭😭 but another thing is that leon calls claire a kid again dsjfbskjfs

nyways i love finding these little tidbits about all of them!

[theadventurerslog]

King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella | Part 2

The Adventurer's Log

King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella Part 2

Oh boy. Ohhh boy. This session is one of the highlights of the several ways you can dead-end yourself! Let's get to it, shall we?

I left off last time with my goal being to bring Lolotte the unicorn. I (mostly) knew what to do or this would have been more of a mess and probably would have had me running to hints.

First, while unrelated, I did want to have a quick look around for the minstrel to give him that Shakespeare book. I didn't find him, but the RNG (sooo much RNG in this game) was kind and I encountered Cupid at the pool who dropped his bow. At least I assume it was RNG; it could be a kinder situation have him always show up there after you're sent on the unicorn mission. That bow is one of the things we'll need for the unicorn.

After that I decided to just get on with things. First step: go back to the beach and start swimming. Now, there is a hint about this--at the beginning, when Genesta says it's time for her fly back while she still can she does fly out to the ocean. Still, I doubt I would have thought of that myself. But, since I did know, it was time to go swimming!

And get eaten by a shark.

I got eaten a few times before I made it. Gotta love that RNG. Hovering near the top or bottom edge helps, so you can switch screens quickly to hopefully get rid of it, but even that isn't a surefire way to be safe.

I did eventually make it to land--Genesta's island itself.

Pardon the tiny point discrepancy you may notice in the upcoming screencaps. I took this after wandering the island.

Look at that fairy-tale castle. It's actually quite a nice island. With peacocks!

But maybe I do need the peacock.

Further along the beach is a peacock feather lying on the ground. Unlike the peacock I apparently don't need, the feather is needed as will be shown soon.

More exploration. It's pretty! And I feel a good highlight in the update in graphics from the previous three games. Putting that SCI engine to work!

Then I entered Genesta's castle and was proven she's good. Look at these stairs having railings. I didn't fall off even once.

The most leisurely stairs ever.

At the top is Genesta's room.

I couldn't talk to her snow leopard :(. Rosella needs some dough in her ears.

Other than looking around and of course visiting that glorious snow leopard, there's no point in coming up here yet. If you look at Genesta the game reminds you she's fading. If you try to talk to her, her fairy companions get mad and furiously shoo you away. Still, seeing the snow leopard seems like reason enough to me to come up here.

Now that that's done, it's time to swim back to the main land. Start swimming back, hope you don't get eaten by a shark again (haha, that sure happened again) and then see a whale! Isn't that neat? Until a whirlpool sucks you in.

Here it is. We begin the chain of potential dead-ends and why was this a good idea again?

But first I was gross.

I love it when the game get emphatic at my crap.

Anyway, there's a bottle with a note in it. The note has a bunch of random messages pleading for various help with puzzles from Sierra's other games. Just a cute easter egg.

The skeleton is a skeleton of "an unlucky man (let's call him James)..." This feels like a possible reference I don't know.

And now the why. The first step to get out of this predicament is to climb that big ol' tongue. There is a set path. There is no way to identify that set path except to just keep trial and error-ing it. Even having a rough idea of where the path is from seeing it done, I still fell several times. You don't die from falling...which I shouldn't have to clarify, but this is King's Quest. But, it is still annoying to nearly make it only to fall. Also, you can die if you take too long because you succumb to noxious fumes. I did at least manage to avoid that.

Once you make it up you need to get close to the uvula, also without falling, and if you look at it the game tells you that it is an uvula and that it looks like a big punching bag, which is completely useless information. You can punch it, which is mean, but it doesn't do anything except to tell you it doesn't do anything.

Nope, you better hope you got that peacock feather on the island because you need to tickle the uvula with it.

If you miss the feather you're stuck here forever. Better hope you have a recent save.

The whale sneezes you out into the ocean near a small island where there are a couple more possible dead-ends.

A Monkey Island joke pardon me.

Okay, as said a couple dead-end possibilities here.

First: there's a mandatory item here. If you look at the boats it tells you there are wrecked boats and a glint though it doesn't specify which boat. Still, the one of the sand is the only one you can get to. If you keep looking you get the same message. You have to get close and Look in the boat to find a golden bridle. This is, as far as I can tell, your one and only chance. Once you get off the island you can't return and you can't get the unicorn so you can't progress. If you miss it you'd have no idea and there's 0 reason to even expect to find a golden bridle here. Not great!

Second: To get off the island you need to feed the pelican a fish. If you didn't fish up a fish, you're trapped here. Now it might be possible to fish up a fish here, but only if you found the worm! And that's assuming you've even gotten the fishing rod yet. I did try swimming away a few times and always drowned.

So, you feed the pelican the fish and it spits out a whistle. You use the whistle to summon a dolphin which you can ride back to shore. All is well.

So yeah, to sum up three rapid dead-ends. Miss feather: you're doomed. Miss fishing pole and/or worm or possibly fish: you're doomed. Miss golden bridle you're hooped without even knowing it until it's time to deal with the unicorn.

Thankfully, these were all things I knew aside from forgetting to feed the pelican and trying to swim away a few times before cluing in.

Safely back on shore and not in a dead-end state I wandered around until the unicorn appeared. Gotta love more of that RNG. And I kind of hate this.

First you have to shoot the unicorn with Cupid's bow to make it trust you. And then you can talk to it and it whinnies softly at you. You can pet its velvety nose. You can kiss its velvety nose. All these nice things before you put the bridle on it and have to ride it back to Lolotte's mountain where it makes a point of telling you it gets fearful.

I'm SORRY. The game is cruel in many ways, but I'll save you...

Once that wretched task was done, Lolotte decided she still doesn't quiiite trust Rosella, because of course she doesn't, not while she can still make us do things for her. Now she wants a golden hen.

This time in my wandering I found the minstrel. He very happily accepted my book of Shakespeare and gave me his lute, for he shall "become a famous ACTOR!". With lute in hand I quickly ran into Pan again and we had our own little jam session.

For Rosella's good playing or maybe just the fun had, Pan gave her his flute in return for the lute then off he went cheerfully playing at the end of this little trade chain.

I wasn't quite sure what to do next. I knew I'd have to deal with the ogres and after running into one of them a few times--yay more deaths--I was able to enter their house only to die to their big dog.

I wound up wending my way back to the manor. I did discover I'd forgotten to grab the shovel again after reloading away from the dreaded stairs last time. I also tackled the dreaded stairs again which went much better. At the top is a pipe organ you can play but it doesn't do anything at this point. At least I mended my wounded stair ego by making it up the stairs this time.

I mean, I accidentally stepped into the hole and died anyway but I did make it up!

None of this was helpful at this point and I wandered around more before succumbing to looking up a hint, not a walkthrough, just hints. I got bone. Yes, of course, that would be good for distracting the dog, and I was also reminded of the waterfall. Right. I knew I had to do something at the waterfall, but I hadn't been able to figure out how to get behind it because the water pushes you away. After staring at my inventory I realized I'd been forgetting that small crown from the frog.

The crown turns you into a frog and then you can hop into a cave behind the waterfall which leads to the other awful part of this game that I mostly avoided for now.

Most useless lamp ever. I got my bone from that pile there and skedaddled for now, but I will have to go there. The lamp at best lights up wall edges a little as you can see there. A troll will also randomly appear and is hard to get away from. I did make one attempt but ultimately got killed by the troll. So that whole bit will be stumbling through the dark while hoping the RNG gods are kind and won't keep spawning the troll...

I'm going to focus on getting the golden hen first, but then that'll be my next step. Getting the talisman back from Lolotte isn't the only goal after all; I still need the fruit.

Next time should be...interesting?

--

Points: 83/230

Deaths: 22

Time: 2:40

[lightasthesun]

hi! i'm a different anon from the one who complimented your gif making skills, but I a 100% agree with that anon. i was wondering if you could ever go over your process while making gifs? you said to ask people who's gif making skills I admire, so I'm asking you rn

Omg hi I'm honored! I'll do my best to give you a quick rundown but let me know if there's anything specific you'd like to know! (just pls keep in mind that I'm really still a beginner too + I've never done a tutorial or the like before haha)

(I use photopea but this works for Photoshop just as well.)

First, make sure you get a 1080p, 2k or 4k quality download to gif with— it'll make the process and especially the sharpening way easier. I've seen some people say it's possible to do with certain 720p files but I personally haven't done it yet so no comment on that. (I mostly use mega files (sometimes google doc files) as download source.

SET UP

1. I use KMplayer to screencap the scene I want to gif and then import the frames to photopea. (after screencapping I open photopea and go to file >open>then select the first frame of the scene and import it then go to file>open and place>then select the rest of my frames from first to last and import them all at once)

2. Next I select all of the frames in the workbar and rasterize (shift + right click) them then I go to Layer>Animation>make frames. After that I click shift + G to group my frames.

3. Now depending on if I gif bbc merlin or star wars I sharpen or color first. For sharpening, once again select all your frames and then go to Filter>Sharpen>Smart Sharpen and pick your preferred sharpening settings.

COLORING

The amount of adjustment layers I use here widely depends on the gif and og coloring of it but—

I always start with a Brightness/Contrast layer and set the blending mode to Screen, then I adjust the opacity to fit the lighting to my liking.

Then a Curves layer followed by a levels layer and last but not least a selective Color layer.

Depending on if the media I'm working on is tinted blue, green, yellow or grey I apply a Hue/Saturation layer and amp it up to 100% to get an idea of what colors are hiding underneath. Once I did I delete it again and add a Color Balance layer.

That's it.