#Things w actual texture and layer

[amerasdreams]

the best art for a home is the art the people in the home made themselves.

[iknowwhereyousleepatnight]

[iraprince]

oh before i hop off for the night, wanna mention a csp sketch process that is really fun for me rn: get a kinda textured pencil brush that's not 100% opaque, do your first pass in a dark-ish grey w the blending mode (in brush settings, not the layer) on "normal," then go back and punch in details w the mode on "multiply"

^ this thing

extra points for doing it all with a sexy gradient map layer on top. i'm just finding that it quickly makes little warmup sketches etc feel more fun and dynamic without me actually having to slow down to consciously switch colors a bunch etc

like these were all done w one brush with mostly just 2-3 different shades of grey, it's just all under a gradient map at like 40% opacity

if u don't like making ur own gradient maps or just wanna quickly try w some premade ones, i have been rly enjoying the entire "cb gradients" line from this person on the csp assets store, i use them all the time!

[spacecolonie]

i adore your paintings so muchhh would you happen to have any other tips or tutorials for your process? anything from thumbnailing all the way to final render

Thank you 😭♥ I appreciate that a lot!! To start with I've got my advice tag (both new and veeery old stuff lol), & my youtube has a couple of speedpaints on it, one with commentary including process, brushes etc

In terms of general stuff about how I approach painting, I tend to tailor the method to the desired outcome. I talk about it more in depth on this post here, I also link to some references & tutorials that I really enjoy/recommend!

Besides that though, I guess I can do a little walkthrough of the Whisper & Tangle painting I uploaded a few months ago, since I tried something new with it that I pseudo integrated into my workflow & could be fun to talk about? 🤔

SO yes, I do always thumbnail when I'm doing a bigger painting, and they're definitely not pretty LOL. I usually use the colour fill lasso just to block in basic shapes and values with a gradient map slapped on the top -- I ended up swapping the values around in the end because it let me use the fireflies as the sole light source, making it more character focused! Then it's the usual process of resketching it all & flatting in the base colours (I also added Whisper's wisps hehe), then adding shading:

This is how I usually approach it, w/ all the shading layers clipped to the original flats to preserve editing. Multiply, screen & overlay are the most common layer modes I use while doing this, and if I'm ever struggling I'll sometimes add a gradient map too in order to unify awkward colours etc. The new thing I tried for this painting was doing what's often nicknamed as a 'clown pass' -- which is using hard edged shapes to create an easily-accessible selection mask for each part:

It looks Super funny but I actually found it very helpful, and I ended up using it to select & cut out all of their body parts onto seperate layers, which were then alpha locked. It meant I could go ham w/ large or textured brushes, smudges etc without worrying about losing those edges, or accidentally over-rendering and screwing up the anatomy in the process!!

I've kept doing something similar since, though it's a bit more dialed back; mainly using the lasso select to chop it up directly and preserve specific/necessary edges, grouping up similar body parts on a single layer etc.

After doing all that, I sat down and started rendering. The background was all blocked in & detailed with a hard round brush and these amazing brushes from Devin Elle Kurtz. There isn't anything super insightful that I think I could type on how I render, but I do have that speedpaint I mentioned earlier that'll probably shed more light. It's just a lot of eyedropping & painting, rinse and repeat

When rendering is done I usually add a concoction of adjustment layers, as well as an overlay w/ a noise texture on it. I also sharpen it all after doing so! These are the ones that I ended up adding for this painting:

The dupe & blur is a fun thing that doesn't always work, but it looks super neat when the painting itself calls for it, especially when paired w/ that noise texture. It can make stuff look like an old/low quality photograph or recording -- here's another example w/ a shadow and amy doodle I posted a few months ago:

That's about it for this painting, the majority of the time spent on it was honestly me rendering those damn leaves 🥲 Very tedious but worth it & it was a really good learning experience. I'm not sure if any of this will prove useful but thank you so much for sending in the ask, & if you (or anyone else reading this) wants a similar breakdown for a different painting of mine, please do let me know and I'll try my best to do one!! 🥺💞

[moony-ghoul]

ghoul hair hcs

dew: his hair was naturally a cool almost white blonde when he was a water ghoul, after his transformation his hair become auburn. he bleaches it still to a platinum blonde, he doesn’t feel like himself when he’s ginger. despite the bleaching he keeps his hair very healthy having a whole ass weekly schedule just dedicated to his hair, it’s long and just reaches his waist. for body hair he’s not very hairy as is but he still shaves everything for sensory reasons, sometimes he’ll let his pubes/ happy trail grow but even then it’s very light and grows very slow

rain: rains hair is thick and dark, there’s a slight curl to it, he has a shaggy kinda wolfcut that just reaches his collarbones. he likes to keep a bit of stubble on his face (mainly cause dew likes it). he cannot grow leg hair (water ghoul thing), he keeps the rest of himself trimmed and proper but even then it doesn’t make much of a difference because of how thick all his hair is, he’s got a perfect line down the middle of his torso reaching a nice splatter of hair on his chest, he keeps a nice bush going

phantom: PHANTOM FUZZYYY. cause of their vitiligo their hair grows black and white depending on the colour of the skin underneath. they have very shaggy hair it’s short but has no particular style to it, it’s so thick that it just kinda stands up on its own and ant has learnt to not fight it, most of the hair of their head is black except for a large streak near their face that’s white. that white streak from their face goes down across their eye leaving them with a white eyebrow. they cannot grow facial hair. because the colour of their hair matches the colour of their skin they look like they’re pretty hairless especially when wet but when you get up close you can see this ghoul has a pretty solider layer of fuzz all over their body, it gets thicker in the winter but also means they shed in the summer, they never shave it’s too much of a hassle which means they have a thick bush

swiss: swiss is fuckin HAIRY. dense dark curly hair from his collar bones to his dick, a well trimmed but thick beard, long dreads reaching midway down his back. if he had his way he’d let it all grow forever without a care in the world but he has a small fire ghoul wife who has built him a perfect routine for caring for his intense hair, making sure his beard is trimmed and neat and his body hair is still soft and clean. after about a month of dew bullying him into a self care routine he actually really started to enjoy it, he loves feeling good and knowing he looks and smells good for his partners

mount: he has very thin hair and it’s very light. he’s ginger. the only hair that isn’t thin is the hair on his head which is long w a slight wave, resembles a lions mane when he wakes up. he does not shave at all so he has full bush leading up to a pretty lil happy trail, he’s got a lil chest hair (it kinda looks like a big heart in the centre of his chest) but his legs are hella hairy it’s almost fur, he also has the same on his arms. it’s all a lot of hair but very thin hair so you don’t get the full picture until it’s wet and sticking to him (when he sweaty). in summer when he’s tan it’s less visible but he’s the same as ant where he’ll grow a winter coat in a way

cirrus: my girl is the hairiest out of everyone. she doesn’t shave at all and is covered in thick dark hair. she has like a long mullet, she takes great care of all her hair so it’s beautiful silky shiny. she doesn’t have a whole lot of chest hair but her tummy and bush are hella fuzzy. she has a double slit in her eyebrow that came from a scar (thanks dew). the hair on her arms and legs contour her muscles so perfectly and it makes everyone fuckin drool

cumulus: cumulus is so particular about her hair, her and dew write out their hair care schedules together, they have completely different hair textures but they just like having someone to talk to about it. her hair is white and big and curly (3b to be specific) it looks like a cloud. she only shaves her pits but the rest of her hair is so light she doesn’t see a point in shaving it, sometimes she’ll shave her legs just cause she likes the feeling of being all smooth and on occasion she’ll trim up her pubes. much like some ppl say “don’t talk to me before i’ve had my coffee” lus will say “don’t talk to me until i’ve done my hair”

aurora: rory is a hair dye girly, her natural colour is a pastel pink but she loves changing it up every few weeks, dew taught her how to bleach her hair and take care of it after and she hasn’t looked back since. her favourites are pastel colours. she has a ramona flowers type cut with a bob but longer in the front, sometimes she’ll let it grow out for a few months but she doesn’t like the feeling of hair on her shoulders. she likes to keep the rest of her body fairly hairless, she keeps her lil happy trail tho and shaves her pubes into a heart.

[frootloopsl]

Hai hai! can you plz show how you shade skin and hair?

helloo okay sorry if i took too long to answer this but i wanted to actually show how and i didn't have a lot of time last week!! so for rendering i use a very soft textured brush (2dN_Flat of this brush set) and well, i just drew a very quick weird looking L to act as the base for this since i didnt have any drawing that i could use for this so please ignore that ToT

i usually just start w the base and w a multiplying layer of orange for the blush

then i blend add a layer on top to render on top of everything just getting the blush across the face and start with the most prominent highlights (i use a lot of blush all the time but ik some people dont like that so just skip this stage if u want)

then i add some shade w a more brownish orange in these zones (i gotta say just using photo reference helps but if youre not too familiar w identifying these zones you can just grab an arcane screenshot and study it a bit lol (im no professional so sorry if something looks weird)

then keep on adding to these shadows and highlights til it looks okay, harden or soften these to get a softer or harder vibe i guess

correcting some stuff since working on the top layer its messy sometimes

it looks kinda weird but it was a quick example lol

... now for hair ill actually change to another drawing bc L's dark hair maybe its not the best to explain it

the same thing, start w the base and work on top of a new layer, i add the highlight first

then add a darker color above the highlight and then blend those in w the base color, add dark parts according the light and blend them w the base color again

add some more shadows and lighting to the general shape and then add details and strands of hair

its a bit of a rushed rendering but i hope it helps a bit!

[museofthepyre]

Did a fun Q&A thing on insta about my ocs, here are the highlights, lore and shit! For context I am writing this into a horror-ish book as we speak. Brewing my dastardly schemes (gay tragedy).

Q: Is Eden also a cannibal?

A: Eden isn't a cannibal in the way Harlow is. I mean he eats people but only because Harlow's cooking is too good to turn down /hj. Eden's thing is... kinda the opposite.

He's slowly being consumed by the rot that's festering within him, a manifestation of hatred and shame. To him love is consumption, and he is inedible. Insert vulture metaphor here w Harlow. For every rotting corpse there is a very greatful vulture who will look past the decay, and see your worth. Eden is ultimately finished off by something that loves him, a consumptive love, unconditional and indiscriminate.

Q: ABOUT THE ROT, HOW DOES IT WORK? HOW IS IT AFFECTING HIM??

A: This rot is really the only story element that isn't totally grounded in reality. It's an illness that's a manifestation of his self hatred/ repression/ internalized shame- not an actual condition.

It appears at first like it just affects his chest- but it’s been slowly burrowing deep into his body. Its spreading like roots/ mycillium through his flesh and will finish him off in one foul swoop once it's finished spreading.

In the meantime, it manifests like a chronic illness- his muscles are all atrophied and he feels constantly drained of life. It's taking small pieces of flesh to sustain itself while it spreads (the chest cavity is the result of that-though the REAL damage is invisible. It's the ticking time bomb roots beneath the seemingly unaffected surface). It functions like a slow acting Chronic Wasting Disease (aka zombie deer disease, humans can't get it in reality, but it was the inspiration)

Q: What happened when Harlow discovered Eden was a guy

A: Eden is trans, and closeted in his life. Harlow is the first person he ever discusses his truth with.

At first, Harlow was just kinda... confused? Transness is not a concept he was familiar with. At ALL. The idea alone was completely unheard of to him. Again this is the Bible Belt in the 8os, the area so rarely encountered visible transness- trans people existed of course, but so many stayed hidden to survive. The roaring tre of bigotry did not have much tuel in that regard... no trans people to propagandize against. It was not on the public's vitriolic radar. In that way, Harlow hadn't developed the knee-jerk reaction of hatred... he was more fascinated than anything, but it did challenge him to understand at first.

Unlike his journey with accepting homosexuality this was not so much a task of unlearning as it was just... learning.

Also Eden's whole rotting thing adds another layer to this Harlow is stupid and takes everything VERY literally- he thought Eden's condition must be divinely brought.

Harlow saw a gift from God, a rare flower planted in inhospitable soil, wilting before it ever got the chance to bloom. Like the angels sent to Sodom and Gamorrah in human disguises, to test the townspeople's virtue. To present them with something foreign yet beautiful, to judge their inherent goodness based on how they treat it. Like in the biblical story, the townspeople were so vile and inhospitable that it endangered the angels and forced them to leave, burning down the town behind them. Harlow saw this as prophecy. He was eager to get to the “burning down the town” part.

Part of my motivation for incorporating that specific biblical story is SPITE btw since so many people use it to justify homophobia. Reverse uno idiots. I'm putting you in my GAY BOOK as a metaphor for hateful queerphobic societies.HA!

Q: Describe the rot in Eden's chest in sensory detail (texture smell “cause" etc) I want rot details!!

A: I used CWD and necrotizing fasciitis as building blocks for this thing... starts in the brain, spreads like roots through the body, eating away at muscle and skin as it does. Once it's fully spread, it'd rapidly worsten and bring death within a matter of hours.

In the meantime it sustains itself off of non-fatal bits of flesh (his chest here, since it's a manifestation of self hatred and all, and dysphoria is a bitch). It is an open wound so it'd feel scabby and it is perpetually weeping... which is how Harlow finds out about it so quickly (seeps through white nightgown after being left unbandaged for a few nights). He would also have to take care to hide the smell of decay

It advances throughout the story and by the end there's barely any soft tissue left on his chest, nothing alive anyways. The final overtake begins, and his organs enter the early stages of consumption (which happens very rapidly in one foul swoop). That's when they decide it's time for boy dinner!

Q: How smart are they

A: GREAT QUESTION! HARLOW IS FUCKING STUPID. LIKE not only does he lack emotional intelligence entirely, but he's also very impulsive and reckless. The ONLY reason he's getting away with his murders is because the society around him has shot itself in the foot with its homophobia. Noooobody is suspicious of him for the string of missing attractive dudes. They're looking for a "vengeful woman" profile, or possibly a "debt collector with many social connections" or something. Not some solitary redneck who barely shows his face in town and is very polite and quiet when he does. He appears, in all respects, like a normal guy in public.

Once they have mutual blackmail (and also start caring about each other)... Eden realizes that if Harlow gets caught, he's fucked too. So partially for the sake of self-preservation, and... partially out of pity for this stupid stupid man... Eden starts to help him cover up.

Harlow is pretty disillusioned as to how society functions as a whole, since he grew up pretty far from it. Eden is the opposite, he was suffocated by it and learned how to be sneaky as a result. Eden is very good at getting people to trust him, he's good at lying, he's good at acting. Thing is, he's overly trusting to his own detriment. He's desperate for genuine connection and easily deceived himself. He's bad at reading people.

Q: What happened to Harlow's mom?

A: Harlow's mother died due to complications during childbirth. He never had a maternal figure in his life, he was raised as an only child by his father, who had become calloused and would never remarry. Harlow dropped out of high school and kept to himself at his house/ in nature after that very isolated from society. Considering all this... he not only lacked a maternal figure, but any female influence... at all. Which manifested as this warped and idolized understanding of women as a whole

He thought of women in a very high and almost mystified regard- like how a child would imagine a mythical creature. One massive blank filled in by a clueless imagination. He respected them greatly, he feared them like gods, and he felt a need to repent to them as such. He never properly processed the guilt he felt over his mothers death-largely thanks to his father's handling of it. This guilt left him feeling indebted, like he owed the world for what he “took", like if he ever so much as inconvenienced another woman it would be an irredeemable sin.

This all sounds like it comes from a good place, but it's really all just deluded naivety this is not a positive trait of Harlow's. It contributed a lot to his toxic masculinity, the pressure he put on himself to "be a man", etc.

He's not a white knight, he's a cowardly dog.

This is why he didn't just kill Eden on the spot after being caught, he needed to make sure...)

MORE TO COME IM SURE I LOVE GETTING QUESTIONS ABOUT THESE FREAKS IF ANYONE HERE HAS ANY

[allsketchesnononsense]

I SAW YOUR POST ABOUT THE PSYCHOPOMP HELMET AND I HAVE TO ASK HOW’D YOU MAKE IT??

i wanted to cosplay her at some point in the future but i’ve never tried my hand at prop making or anything of that matter really so i can’t wrap my head around any like basic concepts to make the psychopomp itself 😭😭

sorry for taking abit to answer, wanted to make sure I was at my PC to answer so I can give Exact Images n stuff of what I got/used

warning: you're gonna need some serious power tools for this. alotta bits I had to get help from my dad bc he has SO MANY hobbies that involve power tools lol

SO

For the base:

you need a good helmet. n finding one of those ain't easy, so you're probs gonna haveta Make Do with something you can cut parts off of.

I used something like this, but cut off the parts that jut out at the ears and the lip at the front. The internal bit that keeps your Actual Head from touching the Actual Helmet is VERY helpful bc (atleast w/ mine) it wasnt a layer of foam or anything that'd be finnicky, it was just straps.

theoretically could also use a cheap-y baseball helmet though obvi you still gotta Mutilate it

For the accessories™:

The antannae are actual extendable radio antannae I harvested from an old boombox n another thing, but you can buy JUST the antannae online

the megaphone/satellite dish bit my dad helped me cut n gut a car alarm type thing and attatch it w/ this silicone stuff he had on hand

And the headphone pieces on the sides are a set of vintage radio headphones I found at a thrift store. these to be exact (they're not v rare n go for 10-30 bucks on ebay)

Though any old, chunky headphones could easily work. These were just what I had on hand. And, as a useful thing, the metal prongs connecting to the headband were perfect to easily bolt in place on the helmet and keep them flexible for easy putting on and taking off. The little radio speaker-y bits on the outside I added my dad had laying around though obvi not 1000% Necessary

And that's all really for the easily bought supplies

The front plate is Literally just a chunk of sheet metal he happened to have on hand, and added the bolts to. The fifth bolt in the middle is the only Functional one that actually attatches to the helmet

And the bit keeping the wires in place is a piece of plastic we melted to shape, painted accordingly, then hot glued in place. Added the screws to make it look abit more Cohesive with the rest of it.

The staples specifically on mine are holes drilled then w/ v thin wire fed through and twisted and trimmed.

Some smaller seams n details I added with super glue since it gave a v subtle raised effect, and bc it cracked in shipping I had to super glue some of the cracks back together Anyways lmao

also had to do alot of spraypainting to get it the right color. Make sure to paint the "accessories" seperate before assembly bc trying to tape off everything could end up Annoying and that way the metal bolts and the plate can retain their orig metal color to add contrast.

Also make sure you get Matte paint, bc it'll look goofy shiny. Preferably something meant for outdoor use bc those will have the more gritty textures you're looking for n its easy to find.

For any extra scuffing n details I did some dry brushing w/ grey and black acrylic to add depth. Best way to do it imo is add some drybrush with a scrappy old paintbrush then wipe away some with a paper towel

or just use a paper towel with a v tiny, thinly spread bit of paint

Hopefully this helps atleast some!! If you need more detailed shots of my helmet for better reference just lemme know, I just dont feel like going to grab her rn for a photo shoot lmao

Good luck w/ your helmet!! n be sure to post it lots when you're done!!

It'll be sick as hell to see how your interpretation turns out!

just be careful bout wearing it too long

start seeing things you're not supposed to

knowing things you're not supposed to

[kirk-goes-to-gallifrey]

I love your art! (I clicked on your art tag and started scrolling.) What is your process for creating a piece? Do you usually look at a single reference photo which you draw from? Do you somehow incorporate photos into your drawings by drawing over them? (I did that once on a tablet.) Or do you use another method? Thanks!

omg hiiiii thanks so much!!!!!!!!

my process is a bit all over the place (I've tried to describe it before with not much success, maybe now I can do a better job hahaha) but yes I always need reference photos, I can't draw anything from my imagination :( sometimes I use more than one picture, but most times I think I use just one photo that I really like and want to reproduce.

when I'm feeling super inspired and I have a lot of free time, I draw from observation only. And then if I get stuck on a particular spot that I feel I can't get right, I overlay the reference picture and make the necessary adjustments. I've been replicating images for such a long time that nowadays I can usually overlay the original over my drawing and 90% of lines match 😅 And when I draw on paper I do the same thing, I place the paper over my screen to check if the lines are where they should be, but always retroactively, first I draw then I check.

I actually started out drawing everything upside down! I learned that technique with another artist (I took a course when I was in high school 15 years ago), cause apparently if you flip your reference upside down, a house stops being a house, eyes stop being eyes, a mouth stops being a mouth, so you can focus on distances between points, lines, areas and proportions only, without thinking "oh a mouth looks like a little cartoon bird on top of a minimalist boat" or whatever, but rather "this shape is about the same size as that one, and is positioned in relation to that other one and that other line..." So that's sort of how I learned to draw/replicate I what I see (if that made any sense). And replicating a photo is much easier than drawing reality cause a picture is already 2D, when I'm drawing something real I have to convert the 3 dimensions to 2 in my head and I often get a headache by the end of the process lmao

Sometimes I don't have the time or energy (it takes a lot of effort from the brain to do the observation thing) and in those cases I do some lines over the reference pic just to get key areas, then I delete the reference layer (of course I keep a copy in another corner of the screen so I can keep looking at it) and paint over the sketched lines till they mostly disappear.

I think painting is the most fun - either in color or b&w - getting the shades to blend and the painting to look realistic is the part that I like most.

I usually paint on photoshop but I recently got a tablet and I've been trying out new software on it. I mostly require a soft brush with opacity varying with pressure. I start out by doing blocks of color and then I blend blend blend.

I often think that my art is not very good (sometimes I question whether it's art in the first place), cause the only thing I'm good at is copying what I see, and because of that I've been trying to play more with colors and textures, trying to make my paintings a bit more different than their reference photos, a bit more "artistic" idk. I wish I could do more stylized stuff. But the realism can be fun too, it relaxes my brain after a whole day of PhDying.

Thank you so much for the ask!!! And for telling me that you like my stuff (ಥ _ ಥ) means a lot <3

[cfrog]

for the art questions thing: what’s your process for shading? how do you come up with drawing / animation ideas? how do you sketch / how does a sketch differ from a complete piece for you?

Oh boy thank u for the questions! Uhh i ended up writing a lot w these so I'll throw this under a cut. I added pictures too. We'll call this a first draft for whatever I end up doing for my class assignment.

My process for shading changes pretty dramatically between if I'm doing my easy cel shading or my fancy soft shading. Lately, if I'm doing cel shading, I'll just come up with colors straight off the color wheel (colorpick and move it darker, more saturated, cooler/warmer depending on the material). OR, one trick I like, I'll draw where I want the shadows all on their own layer, THEN copy my color layer, mask n merge it on top the shading, and multiply that onto the actual layer. So it's the same colors for each exact section multiplied on top of itself? If that makes sense? Does nothing for the Atmosphere but it is Darker, and if I'm drawing them in a void anyways, it works fine. Sometimes I like to just slap a random tilted rectangle on it like its a garfield background. My soft shading is much more trial and error; for those fancy Xiph pin-ups I've been doing, I'll have like 30 different layers going, all doing different shit. Multiply mostly for shading, then for highlights I'll just try overlay/screen/soft light/hard light until something Works. A fun thing I do on these too: To get that "painted" look without adding a bunch of random texture, I use my default lining pen sized WAY up with the opacity WAY down and just go ham. Close up of robot ass for reference.

For ideas: I'd say the majority of the art I put out is "inspired" from something else, like memes or songs or tiktok audios. Honestly, I'd say every piece of information I receive has to pass through a "could this be about my ocs" filter in my brain, and if the answer is even kind of yes, I Will Make It So. Everything is ocs to me <3 and sometimes I inflict those oc thoughts on everyone else :3 For actual Original stuff though? Most of my ideas come about as a natural result of trying to figure something out with my characters. How would they respond to this, how would they do that, how does that work? The whole reason I started doing art is cause I have such a hard time with words, and sometimes drawing it out is just the only way I can communicate a thought. Expressions, camera angles, visual gags, subtle details, timing, those are things I could never figure out in writing. So I make comics and animations!

Sketching, what can I say about sketching. My sketches are very messy because I try for a Zero Erasing method like I do in real life (<- enjoys drawing in pen). If I sit there overthinking every line of a sketch, I get too caught up in the details before I've figured out the full picture. Sketching is for blocking/framing/posing ONLY, clean up is for lineart. I do sketch in only black/grays if that's a thing people care about, but that's because I have very strong thoughts on color, again it's too distracting. The main difference to me (that im sure no one else notices) is I let my sketches get fuzzy from resizing. I'm very particular about my art having NO anti-aliasing/transparent pixels. Crisp and clean, and VERY easy to color. Sketches I have on hand for example. Lil preview of smthin im working on :3c

Actually, sometimes I don't do sketches at all ? Like I go straight to clean lines. Only for certain characters, like LEDD and the lab rats, and if it's not a crazy angle or something. I can just draw them on command at this point. Very handy.

Thank you again for questions ^^ I am. slowly figuring this assignment out.

[swolesanctum]

(I am combining two work sessions into one log) Learning a lot of substance on the way. It helps having a bit of art experience before starting, this is closer to learning CSP/Photoshop than it is w any 3D program thankfully.

I based the first pass off of some stylized crystals I found online. However the result was a lot more stylized than I wanted to go for. I basically used on of the concrete materials as the base texture, and gave it a similar saturated dark purple from the actual sol sanctum. I layered some gradients for the top color. I used the 3D linear generator with invert set to true to mask off the lower area of the column.

For this 2nd one, I did p much the same thing, except I used blur slope to give it a more painterly texture, and it worked out to make the column look more worn than my first pass did. For curvature I used the curvature map + levels, instead of a generator. I finished it with AO and one last color dodge gradient to give it a sort of unifying light.

A friend suggested to try making a kitbash instead of the idea I had where I would try to procedurally create the base mesh of the columns.

[vyva-melinkolya]

hi im fucking obsessed with orbweaving and your other album & EP.

im so curious about your creative process- is there anything you can share about how u go about songwriting, finding your style, collaborating vs working independently? do u produce any of your own stuff? sorry too many questions ok ily bye

Hi thank you sm for listening 🥹

1. As far as songwriting goes, I can go a few ways. The thing that happens most often is phrases or lines or choruses, etc. come to me independently, randomly throughout the day. I write them down all in one place. Later on, this could be days after, or a year after, I take all of the phrases and lines that work well, with each other, thematically and string them all together into a song. Kind of like picking berries from a bunch of different plants, and then afterwards, putting all of the different berries in their own buckets. Does that make sense? Sometimes I can write a song in one day, sometimes it takes me two years to write a song. Regardless, whether not, I have actual lyrics or something, I tend to think of concepts for songs way before anything is on paper, when I’m developing an album, especially. Like, I know that X album is going to have a song about XY and Zand I keep that in mind when things come to me.

Finding my style has been predicated on years and years of obsessive listening. Music, particularly the kind of music I listen to, is my autism special interest. I tend to have two different kinds of influences, textural influences: Slowdive, my bloody valentine, Godspeed You black Emperor, grouper, duster. And then I also have a influences that “teach”me more about lyrics and general songwriting. Carissas’s Wierd, Giles, Corey, Lisa Germano, Songs Ohia/ Jason Molina, Low. Some of these artists can fit into both camps. It sounds really cliché, but I tend to think of the artists that help me develop my sound less as influencers and more as “teachers”,as much as listening to bands and artists I love is just a part of daily life, catharsis, and such, I am also learning, even if it doesn’t feel like it. As far as finding my style goes, Knowing what to do with everything I’ve learned, it’s been a lot of years of sitting up in my room and fucking around on my guitar. Knowing what sounds good, doing what doesn’t work well. I don’t consider myself a technically proficient guitarist, but I consider myself very emotionally proficient. When it comes to instrumentals, I’d much rather engender feelings of loss or heartbreak or nostalgia or devotion, rather than composing something “impressive”. Though the common denominator in all the music I’ve made is an ethereal type of sound, it continues to evolve. The self titled, and the violet EP were very classic shoegaze, the releases, before that, many of which I’ve taken off the Internet, are much more arcane, sometimes “folky” form of that. The material for Orbweaving, and the material for the solo LP I’m releasing this year still have moments of a heavy layers and lots of ambience— but there’s also some more sparse moments, more of a “slowcore” kind of deal. I really want to move towards having my vocals more so front and center, as I become more confident in both my singing, and my songwriting.  I was born into a family where everyone was naturally impressive singers, and it just so happened that I was the only one that wasn’t, so a lot of my older music was subconsciously, built around, hiding my voice. As I continue to develop it, it feels good that I can remove a veil of two if that makes sense.

Working with others, is relatively new to me, when I was in high school and college, I never really joined anyone else’s band (aside from an industrial band I was in for about a month) and though I had a live band playing for me much of the time, all of the compositions we’re done by me. I honestly used to tell people that Vyva was “a band” because it seems like people respected me a little bit more versus if I promoted it as a solo project. I was a band Kind of a control freak and that way, so working with Madeline opened up my mind a lot.  I’m much more in love with the idea of collaboration now. Since working with her in summer of 2021, i have done live guitars for a couple SRSQ tours, and have been working on some of the guitars for Ethel Cain’s records—so working on Orbweaving opened up a lot for me mentally. For me, collaboration is a lot about relinquishing, having faith in the other person or other people you’re working with. It can be really hard, but I’m glad I’ve started moving towards that because it feels wonderful.

Everything up until “Orbweaving” I produced at home, the only thing I needed someone else’s help with was mastering. Me and Madeline did a lot of mixing together when I was in New Mexico, but in the following year, she finalized all of the mixes on her own. The upcoming solo LP, l enlisted the help of a producer to record me in a studio and mix the record. Also to record drums (the instrument I feel the least confident with, used to do all of it digitally) and some of the bass. The process, pandemic obstacles included, took about two years. I’m only just getting it remastered, because I wasn’t happy with the first round. Some of the guitars I recorded on my own at home, and there are three features on the record (teehee) that for recorded by the vocalists at their respective houses and places of living. In general, though, very much my first foray into having someone else take the reins on my own record. For the next album, which, because the solo LP has taken so long, I have almost completely written, I want to do a mix of a studio work with a producer, but also try to get as much recording done at home as I can. I have a lot to relearn when it comes to mixing my own music.

[pivsketch]

today's 45 minute work warmup was this pleasant architecture photo from gord.cook on instagram. it was nice working off something besides a fisheye landscape from mapcrunch. missed a few spots that needed that darker floor colors on it, but im ok w/ where we stopped here. with more time i think i would just start painting over everything, polishing out the lines, and gettin all the texture in. all the fun time-intensive stuff

i actually enjoyed working on this one a lot more than the previous ones, maybe its because i incorporated more "tools and techniques"? discussion about that and a timelapse video under the cut:

i started using a thirds grid "out of laziness" recently but honestly? i think i dig it a lot. the grids i used on many of the previous environment studies were really dense (csp has a max grid size of 1000 pixels... wtf) and i think that mightve actually made it harder to place things in the space. i definitely get much less distracted with the comparatively looser rule-of-thirds grid, and i dont get too stressed out/obsessed about placing everything EXACTLY correct (this was a huge problem and i couldnt figure out how to stop). things actually end up matching pretty close to the source photo in the end, anyway, so its a win-win kind of result

oh yeah, unfortunately CSP doesn't have a percentage setting for the grid like photoshop does (it really really bothers me because i used that a lot, idk, maybe i should send in a feature request or something). i looked into this a while back and found the best you can do to get a 33.33% division grid is to set up an auto-action that'll generate a 3x3 comic page panel layout with no gutters on your canvas. its not dynamic so youd have to reapply it if you crop your canvas differently, and its a layer so you have to deal with that, but hey! better than nothing. and it works pretty dang well despite that.

to get all those straight lines i maxed out post correction on my brush, which reduces every brush stroke to a flat line that goes from the start of the stroke to the end. i think it feels cozier than using a line tool or the shift line-snap thing, because you get a liiiiittle bit of pen pressure out of it. plus, removes the temptation to hold shift and snap it 90 degrees. those funky little off-kilter angles add character, or whatever. this was one of those things that i knew you could do but i never actually used it-- now that i have, i understand its utility. i'll definitely be using it anytime i need to draw a lot of hard surfaces now

[coccoart]

How did you develop your watercolor art style? It's so cool I love the shapes and colors and how it all fits together and ahhhhhHhHhHhhshdhdhdhdjdn

Ooh Thank you!!! ;;w;;

It's honestly something I developed through the years inspired by other people's works and experimentation. I've always loved colorful decorative art and patterns and everything kinda started from taking my own crack at it with markers (i actually hated watercolors a lot as a kid xD;;).

In college, I added colored pencils to the mix and also, at some point picked up watercolors again.

Then I started to use them more and more exclusively. Mainly used them for washes and more standard stuff like that, tho that was also when I started use them in my pattern work as well. They kinda became my easier go to for coloring things.

I tried merging the two styles (my drawing style and my patterning) and then got into layering the patterns over washes.

Then I somehow got to my more recent swirly style that doesn't have that white 'border' around the pattern-y bits? I can't really remember how that initially came about but I do remember thinking "well i could put these pieces next to each over w/out the white in between, i just need to let the first piece dry" (which is kinda a basic thing i knew from learning/working with watercolors, tho sometimes things become so intuitive that when you're told it again, you're like "oh yeahh..."). That and I was never really good at doing the smooth, texture-less washes I've seen other watercolor artists achieve so this was kind of my work around of sorts;;;

There were also just times where I was like, "well, what if I just colored a thing with just dots of color?" or "what if I went back to layering gouache over an abstract watercolor wash background?" or "hey, I loved doing that style/pattern/piece, let's revisit it!"

That being said, I also took a lot of art classes over the years that gave me a good base of color theory, shape, composition/flow, and what not, which is always good to have as well! Also, as I mentioned at the top of this post, there's a lot of works from other artists/art movements that also influenced and inspired the twists and turns of what I wanted to experiment with (some you can probably guess, others probably not.. also, i'm not sure i can remember some of their names u_u;;;), but this post is already long enough ^_^;;;;;

[spicyvampire]

hello I hope you don't mind me asking but how do you sharpen your gifs so that they have the skin texture as well?

Hey, nope I don't mind

I’m not sure if the skin texture actually shows or not honestly and I don't do anything fancy really, but the basic is to have a video file that’s at least 1080p

Here is an example from one of my recent gifs, so here is the gif without anything

You go to smart sharpen in filter

Lens Blur - Amount: 500%, Radius:0,2px or 0,3px depending on the scene but most scene I use 0,2px - More Accurate checked

And then you add another smart filter layer but this time it’s Gaussian Blur - Amount: anything between 15 to 20% again depending on the scene, Radius 10,0 px - More Accurate checked

So it looks like that in Photoshop

And your gif looks like this

and then coloring

See this ask for more links to tutorials on sharpening [ASK], I really advise you to play with sharpening until you find what you like, some people even add noise to theirs and it looks pretty (personally I prefer to add noise when the gif is B&W), others do thing that I cannot even begin to understand because a girl be lazy sometimes so again experiment!

And don’t forget coloring also play a part of this

[holygraund]

can i ask how you made this amazing graphic, especially the bw grainy bits with taylor? post/710070448654827520/i-can-still-make-the-whole-place-shimmer-da

Thank you for the nice words, I'm glad you like it!

I don't think I could explain it step by step in details because I always feel like collage art skills cannot be taught. It's literally just make up your mind about the logic and layout you want for it, and google for the pictures you need (like for this one I needed jewels and diamonds and that's what I googled, you can google whatyouneed + png stocks, it'll save you a lot of time to cut them out) and put all the stocks and pictures you need on a blank canvas and make the whole thing look well-structured and balanced. I mean it's up to whoever is making it to decide what it's going to be like, not to anyone else.

If this is of any help, here's some of the steps I make a collage as a suggestion to you: Think of a layout in your head for your work - Cut & process the main figures (Taylors in this one) - Using png stocks to finish the collage (just put them wherever you want them to be & wherever you think it'll look good) - Using brushes to decorate the background and the figures (like those black splashes and dots and white scribblings) - Coloring - Sharpening.

About the b&w grainy Taylor: It's actually very easy. Just cut it out first, I cut it straight from the screencaps of the video using pen tool.

Then I make it b&w (Alt+Shift+Ctrl+B) and adjust the numbers to my satisfaction, sometimes maybe you need some more adjustment like Curve (Ctrl+M) to make it look better.

Then: Filter - Noise - Add Noise, make sure the distribution is set to Gaussian, my usual setting of amount is 2.5-5, you can adjust it to your own preference.

There you have it! If you want some colors on it like red on her lips or blue on her eyes, just set a new layer and use paint brush to fill where you want the colors to be, and change the blend mode settings you find nice. I usually use Darken or Overlay. It's totally up to you, experiment!

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Last but not least, I have linked my dA page in the original post of mine, and I credit in the description box a bunch of amazing collage artists who provide almost all of png stocks I use for my collage. You can click their icons to look at their pages, get inspired, and maybe download some amazing png stock packs & brushes & textures & other amazing stuff!