#Oh maybe redrawing an old fanart I did could help?

[meliohy]

Manifesting becoming obsessed again with tog because the webtoon is coming back and I miss this fandom 🙏😔

[bakugouisabitch]

nono, i care about your very specific highschool au. rant about it please.

dgslsjs omg youu 🥺

well if you insist.... ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

okay, i once had a discord group which i miss sm rip where i shared some ideas from that AU so i’m basically gonna repeat them here now shsjs under the read more 👇

this AU includes both Maliks as siblings (+ Isis and Rishid ofc) and both Bakuras as siblings too. The two Yamis are the elder brothers of the non-Yamis so they also have their own name ofc. 

For Yami Malik I’d go with Amir cause the name is beautiful and fits him somehow (it means ‘prince’ or ‘chief’). This AU is literally so self-indulgent where I can finally write Amir just how I picture him in my head as the funny himbo he is, who makes some creepy jokes at times but is generally a nice guy and is just constantly stoned sdfgskh

For Yami Bakura i haven’t thought of a name yet 🙃 He’s low key the protag and I still don’t have a name for him 👏 good work, Ziggy 👏 I was thinking about something that makes his initials still be YB so a name with Y actually (Yamato maybe ?) Everyone calls him Bakura/Bakura-kun anway and they mostly call Ryou “the little Bakura”/Bakura-chan (affectionately) since he is the little brother ahsksfsj

In this AU Amir and YB are like really close friends. They are classmates in their last year together and they are known for being trouble makers. But not just like Honda and Jounouchi in the anime - they are worse than that. They have risked being expelled many times and smoke on the school’s rooftops and even hang out with older guys who sell illegal shit and such (it’d be tw for drugs ofc). OH and lots of spray painting on public places 👊 They are really best buds and bonded over same interests and music taste and same hate for the society and family and such. This fanart was a major inspiration to write these two as high school best buddies.

Also, I did a quick redraw of the typical anime boys sleeping in the classroom pose with these two. That’s them:

 (might finish it one day and post it seperately idk my motivation is swinging lately 🤷)

All their “criminal” behaviour ofc stems from a sad background/past because i’m just a sucker for angst and i keep making my boys suffer 😔 i’m sorry. Every guy in this AU has daddy issues or just family issues in general

YB is VERY overprotective over his little brother Ryou (who’s just two years younger than him, and just like Malik, starts his first high school year in Domino High School). He is literally responsible for raising him up because ever since they lost their mother and Amane (Ryou’s twin sister) at a very young age their father fell into a very deep depression and he’s constantly away “for work” and just generally neglects his two remaining sons. YB hates their father because of that so he has taken it as his own responsibility to make sure Ryou is always safe and protected and acts like the parent in their home (where there is usually just the two of them). Also, another self indulgent thing here: YB being an ass with everyone except for being an overprotective good big brother for Ryou 🥺 please! so cute!! (They ride a bike together on their way to school like this fanart)

The Ishtar’s parents are both dead. Their mother died when giving birth to the youngest one (Malik) and their father died under very tragic circumstances (still gotta think how 🤔 it definitely wasn’t Amir tho’) and they used to have a very abusive household thus why Amir HATES their dad. Contrary to Malik, who keeps saying he deserved a second chance and was a good father and wishes he could have made him proud ~ this always makes Amir and Malik fight amongst other things and this is what also bonds Amir and YB so much: the hate for their old man.

It would be a very psychological AU that deals with a lot of issues and shit and traumas the boys have to live with + adding all the typical teenage angst at that age so it’s CHAOS. and I’d also have the perfect soundtrack/playlist for it 💆‍♀️ (it would be set in the 90s)

Ofc it’d be bakumali because I can’t help myself (and maybe also Ryou x Amir as a side pairing 👀)

Since it’s Malik’s first year in domino high school he wants to be recognised as one of the “cool kids” and befriend the older boys from the class. he just hates it that his big brother (Amir) is always there as well. Compared to the Bakuras these two have much more of a turbulent kind of relationship going on as siblings, where they constantly fight and Amir says Malik “ruined” the family whenever their fights get harsher and Malik says father never loved him anyway. Isis and Rishid try to keep the family and the boys under control as young adults but it’s hard 😔

YB visits the Ishtars sometimes to hang out with Amir in his room where they listen to music, smoke weed, and play PS and such and this is when Malik “spies” on YB. he thinks his big brother’s friend looks so cool with his ripped jeans and eyeliner and black nail polish. One night YB and Amir are smoking weed in Amir’s room and playing PS when Malik would use the chance. He’d piss Amir off and tell him it’s his turn to take the trash out on purpose to make him leave his room. Ofc Amir says no but then Malik “threatens” him with “I will tell sister you smoke weed if you don’t take the trash out”. And so Amir leaves (slamming the door behind him like an unruly teenager and saying he’s gonna kill Malik) and leaves a stoned YB alone in his room. And this is when Malik uses the chance to be alone with a very confused and very stoned YB who wonders why Amir’s little brother seems to be so interested in him sdfghjkl and yea this is basically their first encounter.

Malik has basically a kind of obvious “fangirl crush” for YB but the latter is so confused why and what he even sees in him. Because for him there’s nothing “cool” in skipping school and breaking the rules, it’s just the only thing he knows. But for Malik this is the coolest shit he’s ever seen.

this little sketch i made kinda shows my idea for their relationship in this AU better sdfghjk:

Malik befriends Ryou (who is in his same class and school year) out of convenience ofc cause he wants to get closer to YB. Yes Malik is a lil bitch in this AU. And Ryou is like extremely nice and polite, he’s the weird silent kid who doesn’t have a lot of friends and lives in his own world. He falls victim to bullies a lot and YB also keeps that rough facade to make sure no one messes with him. Ryou befriends Malik and tries to answer all of the weird, intimate questions he has of his big brother...

One night I, like, imagined a scenario where Amir and YB are out spray-painting a wall behind the station with some other thugs and Malik and Ryou followed them secretly (it was all Malik’s plan) even if Ryou was totally contrary to the idea. Once they see the guys have drugs and alcohol Ryou wants to leave, but Malik says this is exactly what makes it exciting and joins them without warning. When Amir and YB see Malik they panic, wondering what he is doing here. Amir gets particularly pissed off and wants to just leave. ofc YB tells him he can’t just leave his young brother alone in a place like this with people like that. But Amir ignores him (and this will lead to one of the first big fights between the two best buddies 😔 they will punch each other. I told you it will have a lot of angst)

Anyway at the end Amir leaves and YB is decent enough to bring both Ryou and Malik home but then Malik insits on wanting to crash at their place. So YB is like “i guess??” And they spend the night together at the Bakura’s place :) YB takes the couch and leaves his bed for Malik to sleep in but Malik will have none of that ofc sgksksj

Okay sorry for boring you, I could go on forever with so many scenarios of this AU or like actually sit down and write it... and yea.. that’s it.... just angsty and misunderstood boys in a shitty society with shitty parents trying to find a sense with their lives 🥺

[espytalks]

ive been drawing for quite a while. and looking through my old art, i found ive been drawing online for a whole flippin decade. wow.

so here’s 10 drawings ive done over the last 10 years, with commentary. it’s a long one, though, so be careful.

2010:

I had to dig through my deviantart for these first two. This pikachu is the first thing i ever posted online! i remember drawing this in ms paint with a mouse. i remember being very proud of this, and in a way, i still think it’s cute. it has a “drawing my kid done that i hung on a fridge’ vibe. 

i didn’t do much around this time. i barely knew how the internet worked, and i mainly read instead of drawing. i did some pokemon sprite edits though, for some reason. i remember really liking doing that.

2011:

i’m pretty sure i drew this mew in gimp. also with a mouse, because i had no idea tablets existed. ive always been super into pokemon, and around this time i think i was watching a lot of mickey mouse cartoons? it’d explain the weird style. 

i’m impressed with the shading, though. i did the best with what i knew, and what i could figure out on my own. not pictured is the hundreds of mickey sketches i did around this time, or the self insert oc i made lol.

2012: oh no it’s pony time. i spent about 5 years drawing primarily these things. kinda wish i hadn’t in hindsight, but ah well.

i had this program on my ds that i could draw and post my art on, and i was using it a lot around this time. a lot of my art has this sketchy look to it, because of that. i remember i had quite a few followers on it, or at least i think i did. i dunno if that website still exists, or if anyone even uses it anymore.

but anyways, this drawing is super cute. ya can’t go wrong with a sleeping pone. i forgot the cutie mark, tho. i always forget minor important details like that. either that or i drew her as a filly. can’t remember.

2013: yeah, i think this as vent art? can’t remember, but i drew it on that same program. i put a lot of effort into the perspective. this was based on my room at the time, btw.

2014: i believe this was for a new artist’s training grounds on eqd. i must’ve had a tablet by now, cause i can see tapering in the lineart. it was a big deal for me, and it sucks that i can’t remember what the first ting i drew with it was. i think it was some sketches.

but you can definitely see some improvement by now. i was really getting used to drawing this one thing. but a lot of people following me seemed to like my art back then. it was called cute, and expressive and cartoony. 

i think this was around the time i was at my best, as far as notes and interaction goes. 

2015: *megalovania intensifies*

i was super into undertale at the time. and 2014-15 was when i started to try and draw other things aside from ponies. you cal tell my poses and anatomy is mega awkward and kinda bad here, but this was a major improvement for me. 

2016: i was a fan of steven universe since it first aired, but i very rarely drew fanart for it. but as i was getting more comfortable with drawing peole, i got more ambitious with the characters i tried to draw.

i also from around this point on tried to get better at traditional art. and i think this was the first inktober i tried, but i don’t think it was the first i finished.

i really liked this drawing. and i may or may not have a wip redraw of this going on right now. wish me luck!

2017: KNOOOOOXXXXX I LOVE YOU, YOU PRECIOUS BOI

this is my favorite drawing. i peaked here and i will never be as good and pure as this single icon i did. it’s purple, he’s happy, it’s PASTEL AND SPARKES!!!!

i also got super into bendy and the ink machine this year, which sparked a renewed interest in trying to improve in drawing, and also led me to create my favorite oc ever.

i think i improved a lot around this time. my shapes and anatomy became cleaner and more consistent. on a technical level, i think this is where i started getting really good as an artist.

2018: i don’t think i improved a lot this year. i honestly feel like ive stagnated since then, and depression hasn’t helped. 

it’s a tough choice between this and the hollow knight drawing for best drawing of the year, but this is my personal favorite. sorry, mm, but mickey will always win out in my opinion. i know ya liked the other one though, and it’s also really good. 

i like how this turned out, and i’m so glad it’s got the most notes of anything else ive drawn. it’s pretty, and i love the style. this is how i wish i drew all the time.

2019: and finally we have this.

i don’t care how poorly this did. i was proud of myself for doing this. it’s cute and pretty and i like it. I created a vague story where she’s a little astronomer who’s like, caged for some reason, but now she’s free.

in hindsight, i think i coulda done a lot better, but i still like it. it’s one of my favorites that ive done this year. i wish i drew more this year, but the last few months ive been super depressed. it’s been hard to want to draw anything, and i feel so uncreative and mediocre. 

i’m hoping next year i’ll be better, and i’ll have stuff in my personal life more sorted out, and i won’t feel as bad.

this was nice, though. i’m glad i looked through my old art. maybe i’ll figure out what i’m missing, and get back on track. and maybe i’ll finish these wips i have going on lol. we’ll see.

happy new year, everyone. and may this next decade be even better for us all as creators, and as people.

[sleepymarmot]

A couple of months ago, after finishing COUNTER/Weight, I spent about a week in a total hangover, relistening to scenes and having feelings. I took some notes, but procrastinated posting them, and then finally got distracted. But, a) I hate leaving things I intended for tumblr unposted, even if they have value only for me, and b) I also hate posting things out of order, and there's a big TM liveblog incoming. So, here's a bunch of really random thoughts about C/w from past me.

The gnosis virus did go nowhere huh. I was hopeful for a minute when one of the finale intros mentioned it, but that was it. What was the purpose of that arc even. [Note from present me: Lol. At least I feel better about this one!]

Oh, and the patch AuDy left never reappeared either. And the idea from the faction game that Aria's images owned by EarthHome/Petrichor transmit Rigour code… That's the flip side of the coin. On the one hand, it's really cool to see the creative process – on the other, it sometimes feels like you're listening to people write a script for the tv show, but only get to see a half of the finished product. It's fascinating to see the universe grow organically and the players to come up with new ideas and get excited about them – but that means numerous retcons, some of them not even presented as such, because the creators forgot what the previous revision was or didn't thought it was important. It's a unique feature of the medium that player choice directs the narrative and it's not bound by railroading – but that means some roads lead nowhere, and some branches dry and fall off.

It's a bit harder to make peace with something that could have easily been developed more within the existing plot of the show. How come there's a player character whose consciousness consists of three different people in various combinations, but nobody seems to be curious how that works? No PC or NPC ever asked “Which one of you is speaking right now?” or something. The final episodes made a lot of things clearer, but it still felt too little, too late. Hard not to be reminded of that gripe about certain two characters sharing one character sheet one of whom was left underdeveloped and half-forgotten… Both are very ambitious concepts that require a double amount of work from the player, so I feel bad complaining they weren't realized to full potential, but…

Speaking of L&D… I still want to know how the hell did that one engineer all by herself design 4 gods, one of which became a basis for technology that was advanced even for the civilizations 80,000 years later? This woman singlehandedly surpassed any technological achievement of humanity before and after. Who Is She

I saw a “Wake me up: before you go go / when september ends / wake me up inside” meme and thought “heh, this sounds relevant, which member of the Chime is which?” and it already made me sad, but then I realized that I'd never actually heard the september song and looked it up and. The lyrics fit so well. What the fuck. It's an old song everyone keeps joking about. Why is it appropriate for a legitimate fanmix. What. I guess the word “September” will never be the same again for me.

I looked up the rules for Firebrands, the game used for the finale. Oh my, challenges for the dance minigame are so overtly romantic when you see them in a list together! Imagine this cast of characters having to answer to “do you place your hand upon my elbow, shoulder, waist, or hip?” lmao. Also I didn't realize “May I?” was part of the rules for “stealing time together”. (And I found out there's a party version of that minigame with bug-themed challenges. I might have dug too deep…) "Tactical skirmish" is a really fascinating concept, I've never seen such a masochistic combat system! Really faces the player with the violence they're inflicting: sure, you can always fight on, but are you ready to live with what you'll have to do? But for it to work fully, you need a lot of non-expendable NPCs on both sides. The one with the most likeable team wins! (Like Mako did.)

I'm relistening to Three Conversations and it's pretty interesting that Ibex has a bunch perfectly lifelike android bodies, right? There is no such technology seen anywhere else. Did Righteousness develop and privatize that? Are they so complex that only a Divine would have enough computing power to successfully mimic organic life? Can Aria convince Righteousness to help her perform on stage without leaving her duties? Also, like with AuDy, I wonder how Ibex & Righteousness' consciousness works. Is it a single mind, spread across every body he has, or even anything Righteousness is running on, having a bunch of different conversations at once if he needs to? Or is the original Ibex just gone, and what's left is a personality imprint hanging on to the connection to his still living body, imitating his former self like the automated recording Cass saw wore his face? In other words, has Ibex completely fused with Righteousness, or assimilated and destroyed by it? Does he not exist anymore as an independent singular being, or does he not exist at all? Most info indicates the former, but there was also “You’re not in there anymore” “No”.

If Orth and Jace are anime fans with their Kingdom Come and Panther, then Ibex is the guy who's way too into dinosaurs or paleontology. It's as if the heads of various confessions were called Triceratops, Stegosaurus etc. and only one of them knows wtf that means, and also he compares his Divine to… Were there scavenging dinosaurs? I'm looking at an article that suggests T. Rex might have been a scavenger, so yeah he would compare Righteousness to a goddamn T. Rex.

Hey what do you think is the most thematically aproppriate part of the Hieron anime for Orth to watch alone at night during the Kingdom game. What's the best thematic parallel for when he turns off the episode and thinks he made a mistake. Do you think that he once, after a long day and a long month and maybe a long year of feeling helpless and doomed, sits down for a distraction but ends up sobbing “How could they let this happen to Mother Glory”

On Joypark, there are definitely statues of Eidolons, ancient and holy, that were repainted and repurposed as Hieron deities. Imagine a giant Greek or Roman style marble statue of Apote – and it’s painted over as Samot, with an anime face and in really bright plain colors like these “reconstructions of original coloring” that actually only use base colors so they look like cheap action figures.

I was reading Austin's top ten games of 2016 list on Waypoint and he gave first place to The Sprawl! Aww!

The Downloads folder in my phone gallery is funny bc it mostly consists of every freely available f@tt map and also that one photo of Tristan Walker (because I tried to redraw it, very unsuccessfully). I go check a map and every time am met by Ibex just. staring at me. It's unsettling

Some of the many options for how Apostolosian gender could have been presented:

Apostolosians prefer to be addressed by the most neutral available human pronoun, represented as "they" in English, because the human languages don't have anything close enough

Apostolosian pronouns are represented in English by a set of real-life common pronouns and neopronouns

There's a list of Apostolosian pronouns and they're just used in English verbatim (Really impractical because the players need a cheat sheet, but the most fair)

Humans apply human genders to Apostolosians. Apostolosians may be offended, may find it convenient, or something else

As Austin said in the post-mortem, the Eidolon system is not gender. It's represented in English by titles/honorifics/etc

Any of the above, and the creators are aware of the difference between personal pronouns, grammatical gender, and social gender

And that’s not even touching the core problem of what the concept of gender in a futuristic, techonologically advanced society would look like. Yes, I'm complaining about this for the third time but I'm just. So tired of native English speakers' takes on gendered language. They could have made Apostolosian gender look like anything and they made it look like that fucking mess... God, I really hope TM is good enough to make me forget and forgive the experience of listening to “he... sorry, they” for 100 hours. [Note from present me: Well… mostly]

Here’s my take on this: eidolons in Apostolosian language are absurdly broad noun classes with associated classifiers (which fits both the idea that they’re gender but not actually, and that each of them is a patron to several unrelated aspects of life) Apostolosian: the word “(Apo)thesa” is used to refer to people who follow the corresponding eidolon, as well as for counting buildings, heavy machinery, military units, specific strategies and tactics, log entries, historical documents and chronicles, history textbooks and monographs, and eras :) Human: what the fuck

Very critical, imaginative worldbuilding in which 80,000+ years into the future humanity somehow has 21st century gender and 21st century capitalism! TBH, I find any sci-fi set in the far future inherently silly – we can’t really imagine the future technogy and its effect on society. But it feels like C/w barely even tried, and to hear it boast about “critical worldbuilding” is kinda strange. I assumed that meant they build the world critically, not that they recreate modern society or some aspect of it and criticize that! It’s just another Star Trek then! And it was already clear right during the setup when they said “We don’t want Star Trek aliens” and immediately created Apostolosians.

I haven't seen a single piece of fanart with Taako and Mako. Come on, does nobody want to see these two next to each other! Especially considering the outfits artists like to put Taako in!

I really don't understand how and why people do fandom activities on Twitter and Discord where the creators also have accounts. It gives me so much secondhand embarrassment. I can barely peek at Twitter posts before running away. Old-fashioned opinion apparently but I strongly believe the main fandom space and the interaction-with-original-creators space should be separate. I need a space where I can voice my opinions, especially negative ones, with complete freedom. I need to be able to say exactly what's on my mind. But I wouldn't want any of the people on the podcast to read something unfiltered like my complaints above. Being in the same space as the source content creators obliges any decent person to be diplomatic and constructive. And the creators, in turn, need a space where they don't come across complete randos yelling at them about something they said in a podcast three years ago. I'm already feeling uncomfortable because hearing to strangers pour their hearts out for hundreds of hours gives me way too much insight on who they are as people. Of course, nothing’s stopping them from lurking on Tumblr or AO3 and even reading this very post, but a platform where they have official accounts is still a different thing! I even feel uncomfortable talking about the podcast creators using their first names so much. To my ear, referring to a total stranger by first name, especially if it's a shortened form, sounds so rude! I'm not their friend, I don't have that right! But, of course, writing something like “Mr Walker” in my liveblogs would have been even weirder, nobody does that...

Is it a common experience to not even think about fanfiction after listening to Hieron, but going straight to AO3 after C/w? I feel like since Hieron is still a work in progress, writing/reading about it is stepping on the GM&players' toes, and C/w is finished so it's like they gave us the keys to the playground, it's the fandom's turn now. This story has so much blanks and they must be filled! In one of the early episodes they joked that something cute they said would encourage people to ship Mako/Cass and I was like "Bold of you to assume they aren't already" and, indeed, I was right and it's the most popular C/w ship on AO3. Too bad I’m so indifferent to it…

It’s a shame we never had a full scene with Ariadne or even learned what they were up to during the finale.

I still don't understand how Ibex went from “evil CEO” to “leader of a proletarian revolution”, these sound like completely opposite concepts to me

I probably have talked about this too much and have pretty much given up on ever getting a clear picture due to all of these reimaginings but… Righteousness and Voice… Ibex takes Righteousness out of Mako but he still has Voice, that was pretty much openly stated, correct? So how does that work? I’m guessing Righteousness is hidden somewhere in Voice’s code. But if so:

Did Maryland know? On the one hand, she’s too competent not to. On the other, why would she ever allow or accept that?

How did Righteousness not get corrupted by Rigour too? Maybe it did, but broke off the connection with the rest of itself to contain the damage? Or maybe, on the contrary, it kept in contact and was sending intel to Ibex the whole time? But in that case he would have provided more help in the finale.

[incaseyouart]

Time for another batch-answer!! Sorry if this is impersonal but I didn’t want to spam people’s dashes!!

1. Yes I like to try and avoid white backgrounds when I can! Even if it’s just a simple block of colour.

2. This is a FAQ - I use Fire Alpaca, which is amazing and free for the PC and Mac. I’m not sure if it works on a Chromebook but I assume it does? You could also try Medibang Paint which is very similar and also free!

3. Congrats!!

4. My animation professors have told me that if you’re doing it properly you actually should lose track of time - something about using the right brain. References are ESSENTIAL to creating accurate art, so yes, they are extremely helpful and I’m glad you’re using them!!!  DAPGO is a treasure trove :D

5. Yes I think you should post your art!! People will give both negative AND positive feedback - I believe you have to receive constructive criticism to grow as an artist. That’s literally all that working in a studio or for clients is - creating your stuff and then getting revisions (but it has to be constructive, not just empty feedback like “that sucks” or “that’s great”). Please read these posts on self-esteem!

6. Haha I love that phanime, and I’m so grateful @arctoids let me collaborate with her for the third episode!!

7. Hello! Thanks :D There are some ideas on this art challenge list I made here: http://incaseyouart.tumblr.com/post/155100106331/31-art-challenges

8. See answer 5! And don’t focus on notes/likes/social currency so much as creating stuff for YOU and your friends - if you genuinely are happy about the stuff you share, then people will enjoy it more, seeing you’re happy.

9. Thank you!! I have had a lot of practice drawing Phil hahah~

10. My favourite thing about being an artist is creating my own content - like, not original characters because mostly I draw fanart - but seeing inspirational things (like Dan and Phil), having a vision in my head, and being able to translate that vision into something visual.

11. HAHA DID YOU JUST ASK ME FOR EDITING TIPS?! Basically just practice with timing I guess? I’ve been editing videos for like, 10 years now, with various software (Adobe Premier, iSkysoft, Windows Movie Maker, and recently iMovie which is the best ever omg) and each time I learn more about how to cut clips and time them to music, how to add in sound effects, change opacity of the clips etc.. I’ve kind of just been learning it all on my own slowly - I’m sure there are tutorials on Youtube!!

12. It’s okay to take a break! Here’s my advice about getting over art block.

13. http://incaseyouart.tumblr.com/tagged/watercolour%20tips I’ll try to make a video soon!

14. I’m glad you’re feeling better and that I could contribute to that :D Thank you! Have a good one ^_^

15. Try some of my art challenges!!

16. Can you go out to a cafe or maybe a library or some other public venue with table space?

17. Wacom Intuos Draw (Small) is what I use (see my tags about drawing tablets here)

18. Being able to critique your own work is an essentially critical skill to growing as an artist. But you have to balance self-critique with positive feedback - try to find two things good and one thing you need to work on. For example maybe the head and eyes are really well drawn, but you can work on the hands? Seeing your mistakes and then knowing how to correct them is a REALLY really good skill, NOT a bad habit. For tutorials on shading, Google has some good ones - the most important thing is figuring out your light source(s), and knowing the physics (plane changes) of whatever you’re drawing.

19. Yup pretty sure! If you scroll through all my palette challenges here you’ll see them~

20. Just drag & drop the image file directly into the software and it becomes a layer, and then lower its opacity - BUT I WOULD HIGHLY DISCOURAGE TRACING DIRECTLY FROM IMAGE. INSTEAD YOU SHOULD REALLY TRY TO REFER TO/COPY FROM AND MAKE IT YOUR OWN.

21. I would just use a mouse, personally!

22. So, with realism, it’s more difficult because there’s the expectation that all the details and proportions have to be EXACTLY accurate - as realistic as possible - and that takes a more time and patience than a caricature of a human figure/face. But, to accurate caricature something you need to be able to draw it realistically first. So in my opinion cartoon-style is both easier (you can communicate the same body language/emotions with less lines/detail) but also harder because you need to have everything be SIMPLE but also ACCURATE.

23. I often think a sketch looks better than the lineart because with a sketch you are more free as you draw - it is messy but also all the lines flow well and it just looks more organic. When you focus on making the lines perfect or cleaner you lose some of that organic flow. My suggestion would be to do an extra step in between the sketch and finished lineart - so draw your image 3 times - sketch, rough lineart, clean lineart. It might help transition your cleaned version a bit better!

24. Break down the figures into LINES OF ACTION and basic shapes before adding ANY detail at all. Check out my life drawing gestures here!

25. Aaaah sorry I hope I answered in time - regardless of medium you have to break down the face into basic shapes and guidelines before adding any details. Charcoal can blend really well to shade easily!  

26. When I have time, yes!

27. Just a simple “hello” would do, I think! That way the person on the other end can greet you back, and then you’ve established a connection without the pressure of thinking of any topics of conversation - you could put the ball in their court, so to speak. Also you could just like and reblog a bunch of content you like, and leave nice comments!

28. Haha I don’t know if any of it is natural talent - it took me 14.5 years of almost constant practicing to get to where I am now!

29. Yay, more fanart!! ALL THE ART!

30. Oh my God thank you that’s so sweet (this makes me think of what people say about Phil Lester because he’s such a ray of sunshine <3)

31. It’s okay to take breaks! Step away from drawing for a while and just write a story, or read, or play outside, or do a sport, or anything else you like! Don’t force yourself to draw!

32. Watch my video on self-esteem for artists and hopefully it’ll motivate you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5AjCbYrPlk&t=95s You’ll only get better at a skill if you practice it :D

33. I would just get the better drawing tablet first if you can afford it - unless the cheaper one is a good brand like Huion or Wacom!

34. You are improving if you use references, trust me. An easy way to see improvement is looking back at your old art, and maybe redrawing it?

35. Yay! Yeah tools can be common amongst artists - it’s just the level of practice and time put in :D

36. It can take a while to gain a strong following, but keep doing what you’re doing and people will come!!! Keep creating and sharing with the world :D

Thanks for all the asks guys~