#all tutorials
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potatokoko · 3 months ago
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bbb-bbbbbbb · 3 months ago
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reveal of my gordon hlvrai costume project, now that about half of it is done! this is cardstock and glue and tape and more glue and paint and velcro. and 2 gloves (one hand-sewn)
i got started sometime in early-mid fall, but i committed to making it work with cardstock in january- it was originally meant to be a sizing test before construction with eva foam over the summer. then i realized how expensive thatd be, too much pressure for a form of craft ive never practiced. im pretty amazed with how its come together, even with the large seams! during that whole time when it was unpainted (started painting two weeks ago) there was no way to tell
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aysrin · 2 months ago
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Needle Felt Siffrin Build Log: (oct 6 - nov 20, 2024)
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Credits goes wholely to @insertdisc5 for creating ISAT and siffrin's design! I am just here to attempt to make cool fanart (and get more people to play isat.. my devious plans are going great so far :3) As always, this isn't a tutorial- it is just a log about how i go about approaching a sculpture and I hope this collection of resources can help others make their own sifs!!
PSA: this has some spoilers for endgame CGs/sprites on my references image board ( also might see it in the backgrounds of my process pics). And bc this is needle felting, you will see some sharp needles! beware!
my inspiration was the intro cutscene where Sif eats the star, so my main goal was to adhere to the style of ISAT as closely as possible while transfering it to 3D space. And I knew i also wanted to try making the cloak for stopmotion purposes, so my process was tailored towards having control over the fabric with wire inlaid within the cloak (more on that later).
I ended up not sticking eyebrows on top of siffrin's bangs lol but anyways, first order of business is Gather Reference! v important. pureref is free and an awesome program. I also do some sketches to visualize the pose and important details i wanted to include in the sculpt.
behold the isat wiki gallery page! tawnysoup wrote an awesome ISAT style guide that absolutely rings true in 3d space too!! adrienne made a sif hair guide here!! (sorry i couldnt find the original link, but it's on the wiki). It says ref komaeda hair so that's what i looked at, along with other adjacent hairstyles! I also like doing drawovers on in progress photos to previs shapes n stuff to get a better idea of the end result.
Also if you're like me and struggle with translating stuff into 3D space, take a look at how people make 3d models and figurines! sketchfab is also a great resource! I looked at the link botw model by Christoph Schoch here for hair ref. (I used Maya, but there's a blender version too ! you can pose characters too if your model has been rigged!)
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Face:
Started off blocking out the main shapes of eyelids and iris, and then filling in the colour details in the iris and the star highlights before moving onto adding thin black outlines and eyelashes. I didn't take many in-progress photos cause i kept ripping stuff out to redo them many many times, sorry!! This eye took about 3 hrs bc i just wasn't happy with it!! Sometimes it do be the vibe to give up, go to bed and see how it looks in the morning (more often than naught, it looks fine and it was the "dont trust yourself after 9pm" speaking)
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The Mouth:
Couldn't decide if i even wanted to add a mouth as per usual with all my humanoid sculptures.. but i did some drawover tests first to see what expression i liked and to try to visualize it from multiple angles. (I was also testing the placement of stars on the hat brim here)
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And then I redid the mouth like 3 times cause the angle just wasn't right (this went on for about the course of a week yay!)
Hair: woe baldfrin be upon ye
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I made the hair strands individually first, and then since Sif has some of the hair at the back dyed black, i covered some of the tips with black wool (manually) (I think it would go much faster if i just took a marker to it, but hahaha i love pain and detailing!! )
And then the rest of it was positioning strands with sewing pins layer by layer, always looking at it from different multiple angles- sometimes tailoring the angle or swoop of individual hair flippies. At one point I thought the back looked too cluttered, but the hat covers a lot of it anyways!! yay for hiding mistakes! (imo this is a similar process to how cosplayers style wigs, but on a smaller scale and the same level of time consuming)
As always, look to your reference for guides, and I always do a whole bunch of drawovers over in progress photos to ascertain what was working and what wasn't.
Hat:
A trick to get a super pointy tip, make another tip seperately while keeping the connection point unfelted, and then combine the two to make super pointy hat!! (this also helps if you made the hat too short and need it to be taller. ask me how i know)
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The embroidery on the hat brim was done in a hoop and then invisible stitched to the felted top portion. Technically you don't need a hoop but it helps keep the fabric tension, so you avoid puckers in your embroidery. You can also use iron-on stabilizer if your fabric is loose weave or particularly thin. this is the tutorial i used for the stars embroidery! particularly the fly stitch one, french knots, and the criss-cross stitches. highly recommend needlenthread for embroidery stitches and techniques! i learned all my embroidery from this single site alone.
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For fabric, I think I used a polycotton i had in my stash,, unsure of the actual fiber content bc i bought it a long time ago. I used DMC Satin floss which was nice and subtle shiny but frayed a lot so it was kind of a pain to stitch with... but keep a short thread length and perservere through it!! After the embroidery was done, I folded up the raw edges and invisible sewed it to the top portion of the hat.
General shape:
Ok general structure of the body is this: wire armature body covered with black wool -> cloak lining & wire cage -> edge of lining is invisibly sewn to the main cloak at the hem -> head
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Don't be afraid to mess around with the pattern, it's essentially a pizza with a slice taken out of it to form a steep cone shape!! Use draft paper before cutting into felt to save material! (i think i made like 3 cloaks before i was happy with the shape lol).
You can also hide the seam of the cloak and collars by gently messing up the fibers of the felt with your fingers or a felting needle btw! you can also sandpaper the seams according to Sarah Spaceman in this vid (highly recommend them for their in depth cosplay/crafting builds holy smokes), though since sif cloak is at such a smol scale, I just blended the seam with my felting needle.
For the lining wire cage section, I sewed in wire around the cloak, so the main rotation point is at the top neck area under the collar. These paddles are used to keep whatever pose I need the cloak to be in for stopmotion purposes. Then after the wire is done, I invisibly sewed the lining to the cloak at the hem (same technique as the hat brim to the lining there).
In hindsight, I should've used a thinner fabric for the lining, but i only had sheer white in my stash so had to go with double felt, thus resulting in a really bulky lining but oh well!
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Heels:
started with the general boot shape, then tacking on the diamond shape heel stack and also diamond shape sole bc we're committed to the bit here. I skewer the boot onto the armature which also conveniently hides the connection point into the base to keep the whole thing upright and also I can rotate the boot to tweak the angle if needed.
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Pins:
I kinda just trial and error'd jewellery wire with pliers into the pin shapes. They're itty bitty!! had a whole bunch of fails before i got two nice ones. A hot tip is to use needle nose pliers and wrap the wire around the tip to get a smooth circle shape!
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Base:
I smoothed out the edge of a circular wood base with a dremel, and then used wood stainer to get the black colour. It ended up kinda looking like I took a sharpie to it, but whatever.... now i have a whole ass can of black wood stainer........ I then made a rough mountain of black wool and stuck the feet armature in. And now he's standing!!
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Normally at this point when I'm done felting everything, to get a smooth finish, I'd take a small pair of scissors and carefully snip away any flyaway fibers, but this time, I just left them fluffy cause i think that's what sif would do :3c
Photoshoot:
Normally I do shoots using daylight but it was winter so the sun was nonexistent. So I broke out the home lighting setup aka dollarstore posterboard for a nice smooth background, and then hit it with the overhead Fill, side Fill 2, and Rim light, and use white paper/posterboard for bounce light if one side feels too dark. But if things are overexposed, you can move the light sources away until the harshness dims down. I'm using a Olympus mirrorless camera (handed down to me by my sibling so i dont remember the model exactly), which can connect to my phone as a remote so I can avoid shaking the camera when i take photos. Pretty nifty for stopmotion purposes! (yes my camera stand is a stack of notebooks, a tissuebox and some eva foam under the lens, don't judge me)
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Stopmotion animation:
I'm still figuring stopmo out on my part, but my process was straight ahead animation ... move the cloak a cm, take a pic.... move another cm, click.... and repeat until i get a version I was happy with. My ref was the cloak animation from Gris (beautiful game btw). The 2d star animation was also done straight ahead using procreate, exported in png with a transparent background, and finally stitched together with the stopmotion footage in photoshop.
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My turnarounds are also stopmotion! also secret hack, the turntable is a fidget spinner sticky tacked to a cake platter.
And i think that's all! i mainly wanted to share how I go about thinking about taking a 2d concept and moving it to 3D. I also didn't go in depth into how to actually do the needle felting bc I don't think I''d be very helpful I'm a very good teacher by telling yall to just keep stabbing until it looks right (i'm self taught for this hobby),,, if anyone wants it though, i can share a bunch of tutorials and other felters' process that helped me learn more needle felting!
Hopefully this was helpful to someone! Feel free to send asks if ya got any questions or if anything needs clarification! Or show me your works! I love seeing other people's crafts :3
here have a cookie for making it this far 🥐
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devotion-disorder · 3 months ago
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Question! How do you draw ur characters 👀 like tips tricks
hihi i hope i didn't misunderstand you meant this like, in generally and not specifically about each of my chara's!! sorry this is so messy LOL n please take everything i say with a grain of salt ive never learnt art professionally_(´ཀ`」 ∠)_
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remxedmoon · 10 months ago
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i got it!
(og panels below!!)
HAPPY BIRTHDAY SIFFRIN!!! <- i say, scheduling this to post at midnight september 2nd. it’s his birthday somewhere!! and also loops birthday but look i had a deadline here. don’t ask why This of all things is their birthday art. i make normal choices!!!
also. somehow this entire thing only took 4 and a half hours??? insanity. i literally started this Today. thats how it Gets Me i suppose. anyways!!!! here’s the og panels!! no colored version this time, i didn’t think it’d fit the scene. also i didn’t want to render 3 colored panels.
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meow286 · 1 month ago
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notes on how i go about stylizing cats from reference.
ive observed when drawing a cat with extra fat, its easy to lose the form and have it look like a balloon animal. if you keep bony landmarks and silhouette in mind as you caricature this can be avoided. these landmarks are places like joints, the spine, some points of the ribcage, and certain bones in the face.
the joints are where you "break" the silhouette of the figure. these are essential to a strong drawing and selling the volume of your character. interpreting the contrast of straights and curves around the figure will give a visual rhythm and prevent your drawing from appearing stiff and lifeless. some inner descriptive lines in places where muscle, fur, skin and fat are more obvious create a more defined shape that can really add something extra if you find your drawing is appearing too flat.
selling the markings by having them follow the contours of the body will also really help in making sure your drawings come across as volumetric. its easy to slap them on as an afterthought, but copy pasted looking markings can totally ruin the illusion of your characters dimension!
this of course is all relative to your own goals when drawing a piece, if you want your art to be flat and graphic, go for it! i will say it always helps my design sense to understand how things work in a 3d space before i get really abstract with them. the more you can understand your subject the easier it is to find success with the end goal of your piece.
this also geared towards animation. when you can "see" clearly how the character is structured from every level, drawing them in sequential motion becomes just that much easier. thanks for reading!
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blabberoo · 1 year ago
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You've done this before...
Countless of times...
Why now?
Bonus :)
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tatck · 2 years ago
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SONIC POSING NOTES!!!!! !!
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Just gonna repost this image because it is relevent. Once you got your stick man pose you can add those shapes on top.
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Anyways, more notes, this time on the base shapes.
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And that's all that came to mind. I'm working on an expession one too, they've been pretty fun to make.
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cinnamon-bunni · 4 months ago
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WE ARE SO FUCKING BACK
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hattiestgal · 2 years ago
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If you don't mind my asking, how do you go about drawing fat? :3
JUST THE EXCUSE I WAS LOOKING FOR
So, for me personally, a lot of the time when I draw fat characters, I'm not looking to specifically capture the specifics of fat as much as the feel of fat. Bulkier, rounder shapes in the right places that has a feeling of weight to em! A lot of that is intuition and simplification at this point, but it all works on the same frame as just any ol' person. Like take this-
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For example. This is the basis for any body shape, not just the more average one that it may imply. Sure- it can be that average body shape:
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But also a fat one too!
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And a big part of that is knowing where fat usually tends to bunch up on the body, so lets take a look piece by piece! (Please keep in mind this is very simplified, and not completely precise in some parts)
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THE FACE: Cheeks (in purple) and especially the chin (in light blue) are the places where a lot of the fat is gonna wanna gather and round out on your face! Additionally, theres a small pocket of fat beneath the cranium on the backside of your head. It's small, but it is there. I believe fat can build up elsewhere like the bridge of your nose and forehead, but generally speaking, you're gonna have a whole lot more buildup in other places first.
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THE TORSO: A lot of the fat built up on the torso is gonna be sent to your tummy. More cushioning for vital organs, mostly out of the way, it just makes sense. Additionally, the lower backs fat builds up and joins with a patch of fat on your sides that forms what is typically referred to as the love handles to make that double belly look. Along with this, the immediate next target for the torso is the breasts, followed by the upper back!
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THE ARMS: For this limb, a VERY notable amount of the fat present builds up on the tricep and bicep areas, lessening once you get towards the flexor and extensor areas. You can almost think of the arm as a sort of triangular shape, wide side starting from the shoulder and tapering towards the hand, which itself mostly builds up fat around the back of the hand and the fingers. The shoulders themselves don't build up too much fat unless you got a lot
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THE LEGS: And finally, you can think of the legs having pretty similar curves to what you're probably already used to thinking. The front of the thighs getting a big buildup, along with the back of the calves, the other parts being flatter in turn. As far as the feet go- similarly to the hands, the top of the feet, along with the heels get most of the buildup, as fat on your soles would impede mobility. The glute, hip and crotch area will also especially build up fat, lending to the same triangular shape that you can see in the arm!
A big thing to note with fat is that it tends to taper off towards joints. Your knees, elbows, shoulders, hips, and all the other places are gonna have significantly less fat so that you remain mobile and flexible, as that's important!
Now that we have an idea of where fat builds up on the body, you might have something that looks kinda like this
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Which yes, does demonstrate a solid understanding of the places fat builds up, lacks the weight you're probably trying to convey, which brings us to out next point! Fat is well... heavy! Gravity is what gives fat much of it's shape, especially as you tread towards larger and larger bodies.
This is demonstrated really well on the arms especially-
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Those big ol' bits of fat'll really start to sag when left hanging, and they will squish like hell if they run into something. I like to think of these bits of fat as big ol' ovals that squash and stretch depending on if there's an obstacle in their way or not
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These are the important shapes to remember when it comes to the weightiness of fat! If you take all of this into mind, you should be getting something a lot closer to that shape you've been after!
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Oh, and always remember that fat bodies come in all variety of shapes and sizes! Play around with a whole lot, and seek out all the resources you can! it'll really lend to your knowledge when it comes to this kinda stuff!
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And as I always recommend when it comes to learning art- look at what your favorite artists do with fat bodies. See what you really like about the fat bodies they draw and try to replicate it in your own work, I promise you it's one of the most helpful things ever.
This is like the most basic of basics when it comes to drawing fat bodies though. If there's any additional thing about fat bodies, or maybe you want clarification on something, don't be afraid to ask! If there's enough to cover, I'll make an addition to this post!
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julianavalds · 4 months ago
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"On first meeting, Michaela presents as a devilish charmer: quick-witted, fast talking, always with a joke. But beneath that exterior is a perceptive, kind, loyal soul. She'll very rarely let you in that deep though, because Michaela knows she doesn't fit into what's expected of young ladies and is afraid of being scrutinized too closely. Crack her exterior even deeper and you'll find a well-concealed sadness about the fact that she hasn't been able to find the right romantic partner with whom to share her loyalty and love." – Michaela's character description // insp. x x x x
MASALI BADUZA as MICHAELA STIRLING BRIDGERTON (2020 - ) 3.08 | "Into the Light"
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demadogs · 8 months ago
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Don't Call Us Dead / Yellowjackets for @jackienatist
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buzzingroyalty · 5 months ago
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how to grub your karkat
or you can use this for any other plush or if you wanna make a whole new plush entirely or whatever
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disclaimer im not a professional in any sense of the word and theres anything technical im doing wrong or you think you can do it better by all means dont hold back
Things you’ll need
sewing machine unless youre really dedicated but doing it by hand is gonna be an agonizing feat i promise. I just used a straight stitch for everything
Fabrics: for the main body i suggest a minky or something soft, for the inner lining something in the same color as the main body and ideally with some stretch, and anything black for the legs. Less than a yard of each will do
if youre using minky or anything furry get a lint roller. Trust me
stuffing, i used polyfil
threads that match your fabrics
good fabric scissors
sewing needle for hand sewing/fixes
karkat plush (optional)
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Heres the pattern i came up with! They are numbered for your convenience and pieces with the same numbers are going to be part of the same row of segments. cut everything out on the black lines (Make sure when you’re printing to fit the image to the page size.) on the left we have the belly pieces, the right is the main body, and we have the foot in between
Im using a relatively thin minky fabric, im sure you can use whatever but something with some fluffiness kinda helps to mask any imperfections in the sewing. When drawing out your patterns keep in mind what direction your fibers settle in and try to keep it consistent
On the wrong side of the fabric measure out at least a half inch seam allowance around each piece of the pattern, i used a centimeter and that worked but had me sweatin a bit.
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For the main body pieces fold your fabric in half before you cut so you can have 2 of each segment that are mirrored to each other, i also extended all of the #1 pieces an additional centimeter/half inch at the top so we can fold them over at the very end. I highly suggest numbering the insides of all the cut pieces, especially in a way where you will remember what direction they are each meant to sit
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After you’ve numbered all your pieces, set them aside and start making your feet!
Each of the 6 legs is made of two pieces, but i because i only had a swatch of the black minky i made up for the rest with some random black scrap fabric from an old project. Try to keep your fabric consistent if you can lol
I didnt give these pieces any more seam allowance on the fabric but i recommend adding a centimeter or half inch to the base of it to extend the length and have some more wiggle room
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like so
Instead of cutting out 12 individual pieces and struggling to stitch them all together i started with 6, then pinning each piece real tight with the right/furry side down onto my secondary fabric, and slowly stitching around the shape real close to the edges- DO NOT CLOSE THE FLAT SIDE as we are going to stuff the feet through here
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Now cut the shape out of the fabric and repeat till you have 6 feet
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Now flip those bad boys inside out, stuff up, and if you wanna you can match them to their best pairs
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now grab a pair of feeties and your #1 pieces and line them up, in this picture my belly #1 piece is shorter bc i forgot to add the extra centimeter and i recut that once i realized. Line those sides up with the right/furry parts touching and with the feet in between, flip it around to make sure everything's sitting the way you want it
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Note. i didnt realize until later but i sewed my feet in upside down. save yourself the time it takes to fix it and dont make the same mistake
Straight stitch these layers together and repeat with the next two segments our good friends #2 & #3
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Repeat this for the #2 and #3 sections but NOT THE #4, that part doesnt need feet! just line those edges up right/furry sides together and sew
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the secret to the squish of the suit is making this inner lining from another fabric and stuffing it! I used what i had leftover from a stretchy red fabric for a kanaya skirt. For this we need to make a new pattern for each section, making sure it follows the curve of the round edge but the piece itself is shorter, almost like youre removing the seam allowance you added. Mine is a centimeter shorter on the top and on the bottom and reaches to the middle
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Make one of these for each numbered segment,you only need to make half the pattern and you can fold your fabric in half on a crease and you end up with one symmetrical piece (bars)
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Now you need to pin these pieces right on top of the wrong side of your numbered furry sections and line up the straight edges like so (disclaimer for LOTS OF SCARY NEEDLES !!)
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Admittedly i didnt estimate how long these pieces needed to be very accurately and overshot it a bit, if you start pinning it from the middle and continue outwards on either side thatll ensure its not too lose and you can cut off any excess after
The only exception is piece #1, if you recall we gave this #1 section extra seam allowance. This is so we can sew down that excess at the neck later and hide any of the inside that might show once its all put together. Do not connect the top edge to the inner lining! Since i added an extra centimeter earlier im gonna leave that hanging and pin + sew down the inner lining a centimeter lower than the top edge. LEAVE THE CURVED EDGES OPEN! DONT SEW THEM TOGETHER! those stay open to stuff
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Straight stitch the lined up edges together
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Now you have all these skinned pieces of little freak and we need to connect all these segments together making sure to sew UNDER the existing stitches so we dont see those on the outside when its all put together
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Inside looks like a bit of a mess but thats fine bc its not the part that matters
Now stuff it! you might need a stick or pencil or something long and thin to get stuffing into the middle bits
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Now thats its stuffed you can finally close those curved edges. Try not to sew over a thick mound of stuffing, push it in a little further to give yourself some space and you can fluff it back out after everythings closed. I cut off that excess lining fabric after sewing
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Ough… they filleted my boy…
Finally, match up all the edges and lines and HAND SEW them right sides together. You will destroy your machine trying to work around that stuffing i promise. You also have an excuse to get up from your work desk and sew on a couch or smth. I used a standard backstitch for a tight finish and again, make sure you sew under any existing stitches so they arent visible on the outside!
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Speaking of the outside, once you stitch everything together you can very gently flip this sucker inside out
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This is @hatamonu’s cat Cocaina, aka Coco. Her perfectly square figure made it into my grub files somehow so shes essential to the tutorial
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Check the fit and all thats left to do is roughly baste stitch down that excess neck fabric onto the stuffed lining and youre set! I gave the thread slight tugs as i went to tighten the opening a bit put dont tighten it too much
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tadaaaaa
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It fits pretty snug but starts to slip a bit with motion. Heres a bounce test
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 If you do shake your baby make sure to safety pin the plush to the suit so he doesnt prematurely shed his exosekeleton
Now spread that baby fever and show your baby to the world
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pics from the ALA 2025 homestuck meetup and supplied by para.dox.cos
Tysm for coming along this ride with me especially if you followed the prototype journey on twitter, much thanks to my more sewing savvy friend for the solution to my grub dilemma and for helping me design and build my dolorosa cosplay <3 much love and hopefully many more homestuck cosplays and meetups to come in the future!
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dearlybelovedterra · 21 days ago
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-Winning the spar-
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-Losing the spar-
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damienns · 9 months ago
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My GIF Making process: Screen capturing using MPV player, Organizing files, 3 Sharpening settings, Basic Coloring PSD + Actions set
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This is a very long post so heads up.
I’ll try to be as thorough and true as much as possible to the way I make my gifs (I already use Photoshop Actions which I’ve long since set up but now for this tutorial I’m reviewing them to show you the exact steps I’ve learned to create my gifs 😃) and present them to you in a semi-coherent way. Also, please bear with me since English is my second language.
First things first. Below are the things and tools we need to do this:
Downloaded 4K or 1080p quality videos (let’s all assume we know where to get these—especially for high definition movies and tv series—so this post doesn’t get removed, okay? 😛)
Adobe Photoshop CC or the CS versions can work as well, but full disclosure I haven’t created gifs using the CS versions since 2020. I’m currently using Adobe Photoshop 2024.
mpv player. Use mpv player to get those frames/screenshots or any other video player that has a screen grabber feature. I’ve used adapter for the longest time but I’ve switched to mpv because the press to screenshot feature while the video is playing has been a game changer not to mention ultimate time saver for me. For adapter you need to play it in another video player (like VLC player), to get the start and end timestamps of the scene you want to gif which takes me ages before I can even open Photoshop.
Anyway! Please stop reading this post for a moment and head over to this amazing tutorial by kylos. She perfectly tells you how to install and use mpv player, both for Mac and Windows users.
One thing I have to share though, I had a tough time when I updated my MacOS to Sonoma since MPV is suddenly either duplicating frames or when I delete the duplicates the player seems to be skipping frames :/ I searched and found a solution here, though it didn’t work for me lol. My workaround for this in the meantime is decreasing the speed down to 0.70 then start screenshotting—it’s not the same pre Sonoma update but it works so I’ll have to accept it rather than have jumpy looking gifs.
Now, after this part of kylos’ tutorial:
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you can continue reading the following sections of my gif tutorial below.
I want to share this little tip (sorry, this will only cater to Mac users) that I hope will be helpful for organizing the screenshots that MPV saved to the folder you have selected. Because believe me you don’t want to go through 1k+ of screenshots to select just 42-50 frames for your gif.
The Control + Command + N shortcut
This shortcut allows you to create a new folder from files you have pre-selected. As you can see below I have already created a couple of folders, and inside each folder I have selected screenshots that I want to include in one single gif. It's up to you how you want to divide yours, assuming you intend to create and post a Tumblr gifset rather than just one gif.
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Another tip is making use of tags. Most of, if not all the time, I make supercorp gifs so I tag blue for Kara and red (or green) for Lena—just being ridiculously on brand and all that.
Before we finally open Photoshop, there's one more thing I want to say—I know, please bear with me for the third? fourth? time 😅
It's helpful to organize everything into their respective folders so you know the total number of items/frames you have. This way, you can add or delete excess or unnecessary shots before uploading them in Photoshop.
For example below there are 80 screenshots of Kara inside this folder and for a 1:1 (540 x 540 px) Tumblr gif, Photoshop can just work around with 42-50 max number of frames with color adjustments applied before it exceeds the 10 MB file size limit of Tumblr.
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Sometimes I skip this step because it can be exhausting (haha) and include everything so I can decide visually which frames to keep later on. You'll understand what I mean later on. But it's important to keep the Tumblr 10 MB file size limit in mind. Fewer frames, or just the right amount of frames, is better.
So, with the screenshot organization out of the way, let's finally head over to Photoshop.
Giffing in Photoshop, yay!
Let’s begin by navigating to File > Scripts > Load Files into Stack…
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The Load Layers window will appear. Click the Browse button next.
Find your chosen screenshots folder, press Command + A to select all files from that folder then click Open. Then click OK.
After importing and stacking your files, Photoshop should display the following view:
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By the way, I'll be providing the clip I've used in this tutorial so if want to use them to follow along be my guest :)
If you haven't already opened your Timeline panel, navigate to Windows > Timeline.
Now, let's focus on the Timeline panel for the next couple of steps.
Click Create Video Timeline, then you’ll have this:
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Now click the menu icon on the top right corner then go to Convert Frames > Make Frames from Clips
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Still working on the Timeline panel, click the bottom left icon this time—the icon with the three tiny boxes—to Convert to Frame Animation
Select Make Frames From Layers from the top right corner menu button.
So now you have this:
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Go and click the top right menu icon again to Select All Frames
Then click the small dropdown icon to set another value for Frame Delay. Select Other…
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The best for me and for most is 0.05 but you can always play around and see what you think works for you.
Click the top right menu icon again to Reverse Frames.
I think Photoshop has long since fixed this issue but usually the first animation frame is empty so I just delete it but now going through all these steps there seems to be none of that but anyways, the delete icon is the last one among the line of feature buttons at the bottom part of the Timeline panel.
Yay, now we can have our first proper GIF preview of a thirsty Lena 😜
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Press spacebar to watch your gif play for the very first time! After an hour and half of selecting and cutting off screenshots! 😛 Play it some more. No really, I’m serious. I do this so even as early (lol) as this part in the gif making process, I can see which frames I can/should delete to be within the 10 MB file size limit. You can also do it at the end of course 🙂
Now, let’s go to the next important steps of this tutorial post which I’ve numbered below.
Crop and resize to meet Tumblr's required dimensions. The width value should be either 540px, 268px, or 177px.
Convert the gif to a Smart Object for sharpening.
Apply lighting and basic color adjustments before the heavy coloring. I will be sharing the base adjustments layers I use for my gifs 😃.
1. Crop and Resize
Click on the Crop tool (shortcut: the C key)
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I like my GIFs big so I always set this to 1:1 ratio if the scene allows it. Press the Enter key after selecting the area of the frame that you want to keep.
Side note: If you find that after cropping, you want to adjust the image to the left or another direction, simply unselect the Delete Cropped Pixels option. This way, you will still have the whole frame area available to crop again as needed and as you prefer.
Now we need to resize our gif and the shortcut for that is Command + Opt + I. Type in 540 as the width measurement, then the height will automatically change to follow the ratio you’ve set while cropping.
540 x 540 px for 1:1
540 x 405 px for 4:3
540 x 304 px for 16:9
For the Resample value I prefer Bilinear—but you can always select the other options to see what you like best.
Click OK. Then Command + 0 and Command + - to properly view the those 540 pixels.
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Now we get to the exciting part :) the sharpen settings!
2. Sharpen
First we need to have all these layers “compressed” intro a single smart object from which we can apply filters to.
Select this little button on the the bottom left corner of the Timeline panel.
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Select > All Layers
Then go to Filter > Convert for Smart Filters
Just click OK when a pop-up shows up.
Now you should have this view on the Layers panel:
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Now I have 3 sharpen settings to share but I’ll have download links to the Action packs at the end of this long ass tutorial so if you want to skip ahead, feel free to do so.
Sharpen v1
Go to Filter > Sharpen > Smart Sharpen…
Below are my settings. I don’t adjust anything under Shadows/Highlights.
Amount: 500
Radius: 0.4
Click OK then do another Smart Sharpen but this time with the below adjustments.
Amount: 12
Radius: 10.0
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As you can see Lena’s beautiful eyes are “popping out” now with these filters applied. Click OK.
Now we need to Convert to Frame Animation. Follow the steps below.
Click on the menu icon at the top right corner of the Timeline panel, then click Convert Frames > Flatten Frames into Clips
Then Convert Frames > Convert to Frame Animation
One more click to Make Frames From Layers
Delete the first frame then Select All then Set Frame Delay to 0.05
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and there you have it! Play your GIF and make sure it’s just around 42-50 frames. This is the time to select and delete.
To preview and save your GIF go to File > Export > Save for Web (Legacy)…
Below are my Export settings. Make sure to have the file size around 9.2 MB to 9.4 MB max and not exactly 10 MB.
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This time I got away with 55 frames but this is because I haven’t applied lighting and color adjustments yet and not to mention the smart sharpen settings aren't to heavy so let’s take that into consideration.
Sharpen v1 preview:
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Sharpen v2
Go back to this part of the tutorial and apply the v2 settings.
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Smart Sharpen 1:
Amount: 500
Radius: 0.3
Smart Sharpen 2:
Amount: 20
Radius: 0.5
We’re adding a new type of Filter which is Reduce Noise (Filter > Noise > Reduce Noise...) with the below settings.
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Then one last Smart Sharpen:
Amount: 500
Radius: 0.3
Your Layers panel should look like this:
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Then do the Convert to Frames Animation section again and see below preview.
Sharpen v2 preview:
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Sharpen v3:
Smart Sharpen 1:
Amount: 500
Radius: 0.4
Smart Sharpen 2:
Amount: 12
Radius: 10.0
Reduce Noise:
Strength: 5
Preserve Details: 50%
Reduce Color Noise: 0%
Sharpen Details: 50%
Sharpen v3 preview:
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And here they are next to each other with coloring applied:
v1
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v2
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v3
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Congratulations, you've made it to the end of the post 😂
As promised, here is the download link to all the files I used in this tutorial which include:
supercorp 2.05 Crossfire clip
3 PSD files with sharpen settings and basic coloring PSD
Actions set
As always, if you're feeling generous here's my Ko-fi link :) Thank you guys and I hope this tutorial will help you and make you love gif making.
P.S. In the next post I'll be sharing more references I found helpful especially with coloring. I just have to search and gather them all.
-Jill
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