#also i got most of the sketch done and was rapidly running out of energy so i was like there is no way that this is getting fully rendered

[sweetearthandnorthernsky]

i’ve been Pondering my orb midsummer lately (as one does) and while i was doing that, sae informed me she Did Not Like my idea for her midsummer outfit.  

anyway, a few hours of brainstorming later, this was created! [excuse the handwriting, that is Not my forte lol]

[imagine-loki]

Runaways

TITLE: Runaways CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: Chapter 7 AUTHOR: SassyShoulderAngel319 ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine around the turn of the twentieth century, Loki gets sick of being a Prince of Asgard for a while and runs away to New York City, where he falls in with a ragtag group of newsies, including you… RATING: PG/K+ NOTES/WARNINGS: No warnings, I don’t think. This one’s a tad shorter. PREVIOUS CHAPTERS: P, Ch1, Ch2, Ch3, Ch4, Ch 5, Ch 6

^^^^^

“And no one has any idea where Loki went? Not even Heimdall?” Frigga demanded. “It’s been three days!”

“I am well aware, Mother,” Thor grumbled. “No. No one knows where he went. Not even Heimdall.”

“And you’re sure he didn’t leave a note?”

“I tore his chambers apart looking for some clues. I found nothing.”

“Well he can’t be far, right? He’s probably still on Asgard if he didn’t take the Bifrost.”

“I wouldn’t trust that,” Odin put in finally. “Loki is a powerful sorcerer. He could very well have mustered enough dark energy to conjure himself somewhere else.”

Frigga glared between her husband and eldest son. “Find him before someone gets hurt. Especially him,” she snapped before storming away.

Thor and Odin glanced at each other.

“What do we do, Father?” Thor asked. “How can we find him if even Heimdall can’t?”

Odin looked thoughtful. He leaned heavily on his staff. “I will send Huginn and Muninn throughout all Nine Realms, searching for him. If they return with his whereabouts, you are to go and fetch him. If they do not find him, then we’ve bought that much more time to come up with another idea before your mother loses her temper.”

“How long will that take?”

“Possibly a few days. Depends on where they start. Where is he more likely to be?” Odin countered.

“Wherever there is chaos and many people. The more people there are the easier it is to hide in plain sight,” Thor mused.

“Precisely. They shall start searching Vanaheim. Then Midgard. Then Alfheim. And down the list to whichever realm has the smallest population. Niflheim I believe,” Odin agreed.

Thor didn’t like the plan—it would take too long—but he couldn’t think of anything better to do. He bowed. “Yes, Father.”

“While you’re waiting I suggest you come up with other ideas on how to find your brother. This will be the first of many steps in your journey to becoming a wise king.”

Thor nodded and retreated from the throne room.

He sulked off to Loki’s chambers, putting the furniture back in their places after he’d moved everything in search of clues. Loki had run away many times, but a search of the city and surrounding areas always found him within a day. Thor could understand why his mother was worried. This was the longest Loki had been missing without so much as a clue as to where he’d gone.

Thor pushed his hair out of his face. This was payback for cutting Loki’s hair short, wasn’t it? Scare the entire family half-to-death to get Thor to feel sorry for what he’d done.

The elder brother growled, clenching his fist around his hammer. He was half-tempted to flip the sofa over in frustration.

Instead he stalked over to Loki’s balcony and spun Mjolnir rapidly before flinging himself into the sky.

What is Loki thinking right now? Thor wondered. What if he was abducted rather than running away? What if he’s weeping now, terrified out of his mind and begging us to come rescue him? What if he’s lost and alone, with no way to defend himself? He’s such a fool. He was never a warrior…

^^^^^

“HA!” Loki exclaimed with a laugh, throwing down his cards. “I win!”

Tony groaned in complaint. “You gotta be kiddin’ me! How do you do that?”

“Natural talent,” Loki retorted sarcastically.

“If you boys aren’t in bed when I reach the bottom of these stairs you’re all going to go to work tomorrow with shiners!” No-No shouted from the top of the stairs.

With lots of scraping noises and several strings of curses that might make a sailor blush, the boys scrambled to get in bed. Loki boosted Tony onto the top bunk over Rhodey’s bed so fast he nearly hit his head on the ceiling before Loki fell into his own covers.

No-No appeared, hands on her hips and still fully-dressed, right after Bruce blew out the last candle. Moonlight peeked through the curtains and fell on her softly, illuminating her cross expression. Her dark eyes festered like black holes deep-set into her face. Her eyebrow bones cast shadows down over them so they were nearly impossible to see, even with Loki’s good night vision.

“You can play card games later, boys, on an afternoon when you’ve all finished your work. We all gotta get some sleep if we wanna be good at what we do tomorrow, yeah?” she snapped into the darkness.

“Yes Nora,” Fitz mumbled, voice trembling.

“Good. And if I hears youse tryin’ ta play in da dark, I stands by what I said about shiners,” she threatened.

Everyone settled in for the night.

No-No stomped back upstairs. There was a creak as the girls’ room door shut.

“So, is we gonna go back ta playin’?” Tony hissed.

“No,” Bruce replied enthusiastic-but-quietly. “If No-No catches us, we’s dead. And I ain’t gonna get a shiner from her. I got one from a Brooklyn newsie one time. It hurt. Go to bed.”

“Ugh. Fine,” Tony grumbled.

Loki smirked and burrowed down into his covers.

Within minutes he was surrounded by snoring.

Slowly he eased out of bed and tiptoed over to the window. He pulled his sketchbook and pencil out, going back to sketching the city, using the moonlight instead of the candles.

He also flipped back a page and finished the drawing of No-No lying on a blanket of stars with the moon shining on the left side of her face that he’d started the night before. Most of the page had been scribbled over with graphite, making the paper slightly wrinkled, and shiny in the moonbeams. Once that one was completed, her spread-out hair and the sky nearly blending together, he went back to sketching the skyline and the window around it.

So that when everything was done and he returned home to Asgard, he’d always remember his view out the window and the beautiful and remarkably intelligent but hard-willed girl who really took him under her wing.

He sighed and leaned his head back against the window frame, staring out at the city. He was going to miss New York City. Maybe one day he’d return…

Yeah, he thought sarcastically. If Father doesn’t lock me up in the dungeons permanently for this little stunt.

He snapped his book shut—as quietly as possible since Rhodey stirred in his sleep—and went back to his bed. He burrowed down into the covers, curled up on his side, and let himself finally drift off. He was asleep within minutes.

He slept a lot better the second night. Deep and dreamless, but restful.

When he opened his eyes to the sun streaming through gaps in the curtains, a smile crawled up his face.

A bell was ringing somewhere over the city.

“Alright suckers!” No-No shouted from upstairs. “Get your butts outta bed! It’s a brand-new day! New day, new headline!”

Everyone sat up blearily.

Another day.

[morbidy]

Teddy Opal bio ramble

Friend asked for Teddy Opal details so I wrote 900+ words because I don’t know when to stop. There is so much I am so sorry

You don’t have to read if you don’t want to. But if you don’t, you should still be subjected to Teddy’s favorite pair of shoes:

Teddy was born in England in 1964. Low-middle class, I’m thinking. He probably has one or two older siblings that took a lot of attention, so was left to his own entertainment a lot. He was kind of rowdy, energetic, was the type to climb around derelict buildings and get kicked out of corner stores for being loud and untrustworthy.

Some of his loud energy got channeled into piano lessons - he actually enjoyed them a lot. He was no prodigy, but he was pretty quickly coming up with his own, simple little sequences. He grew up listening to 70s rock, and into his teen years was learning guitar, bass guitar, and finding he was a decent vocalist.

He was in and out of a couple bands as a teenager, gaining enough of a reputation in the area to head his own band, Opal Stallions. Though he was the youngest of his bandmates by a handful of years, his charisma and dedication to finding gigs and rehearsal time made him the unquestionable leader. By the time Teddy was 21 (1985), they were signed and rapidly gaining popularity as a rock band with some punk influence.

They enjoyed something very near stardom for a while, releasing a couple well-received albums and doing shows. Not a top band, but beyond being a local band. They had music videos and did big events and and could easily be described as famous. As most famous 80s bands, drugs and partying were a large part of their lives. Especially for Teddy, who was still really just a rambunctious kid who now had the world at his feet.

A few years into their rising stardom, a scandal knocks the feet out from under the band. I’m not sure what yet - I want it to be something they brought on themselves, probably, because that's more poetic. A lesson in hubris like some dramatic Greek tragedy. But anyway, whether its some legal money scandal, or the death of a groupie at a party, or whatever - it ruins the band. Quickly they find this scandal following them and tarnishing their reputation, and popularity plummets. The band cracks from all the internal fighting, and they split.

Teddy still had his charming charisma, and was able to keep some of his contacts in the music industry. He moves to the US at this point, I think. He did some session/studio musician work for a while - providing guitar on the albums of other musicians. Generally he moped around and mourned the music career he killed just as it was getting started. He stopped partying, mostly drinking alone now and living a very boring life.

Sometime in his 40s, I think, he is able to buy or become partners in owning a music venue in a city. I’m going to say Seattle ( I feel like all my real-world stories take place near Seattle, but oh well). He runs the music venue now, bringing in lots of popular bands, and letting up-and-coming local bands perform on weekday nights for cheap. At this point he starts becoming less broody over his past - he meets all these kids who say how much they liked Opal Stallions growing up, how they influenced their music, and stuff like that. And he becomes this weird uncle figure to the local music scene.

He’s really casual - he doesn’t like being called Sir or Mr Opal. Even Ted and Theodore sound too stiff for him, so he still goes by Teddy. He has a sense of humor, but it’s hidden under a calm demeanor. His face is rather severe looking - gaunt cheeks, a boney chin, and sharp little ears. He dresses in mostly simple, dark clothing - except his shoes. He seems to have a collection of interesting shoes -  things like teal zebra-print pointed toe things (i used to have a picture saved of these shoes for him, but have since lost it.) They are often colorful and tacky, and no one can tell if he’s being ironic by wearing them, or if he actually likes them.  

I kind of designed his tattoos! He has quarter sleeves on both his arms. His left arm is mostly snakes winding through flowers, with some mice running around in between. Teddy has had a few pet snakes over the course of his life. He probably always has one or two, and is the type to bring one from home to the office every day to let it hang out in his shirt. His left forearm has some nautical stars around the bottom of the sleeve, and some stray matches and a zippo lighter. There’s also a hissing black cat done in a like.. 50’s halloween decoration style.

His left sleeve extends up onto his neck where he has something written in scrolly font, but I don’t know what yet. I need to figure out when in his life he got it to determine what the quote says.

His right pectoral is a rearing horse with a sunburst behind it, which fades into clouds on his right shoulder. Under the clouds is a cemetery scene, and the headstones have some dates on them - I think the dates of some close friends and family who died. From there to his elbow is random edgy stuff - a coffin, an iron wrought cemetery fence. Not sure about his right forearm yet.

The front of his right hip has a skeletal hand giving a middle finger.

I have all these sketched out for an idea but need to finalize things and find more filler to make the sleeves look better. Also, I feel like in his late 30s he started going to the gym and kept at it, and so now is surprisingly agile and fit for his age. Still smokes a lot of cigarettes though.

[ao3porcelainstorm]

poison ivy & stinging nettles 4

On Ao3

Pairing: Sherlock/OFC

Rated: M

Warnings: eventual violence, torture, swears, adult themes (no explicit smut)

Chapter 3 - Chapter 5

Chapter 4- Iris

~~~

Did you know that an Iris means ‘a message’? I picked up a book on flower meanings when Amelia and Sherlock began quizzing one another after finding the Monkshood in the shop.

While Amelia sought out a new apartment, she was staying in a small hotel up the road, stopping by daily for about two weeks now, trying to piece things together with Sherlock and I.

Eventually, I suggested 221C, not that I referenced any previous negative associations regarding the space. Sherlock spilled the beans when he asked incredulously if it was “safe”, but nonetheless, Amelia agreed, albeit on a trial basis. She confessed to already feeling like she was intruding in our lives.

It took less than a day before Max Brenner met us in town, a large moving truck trailing behind him. It was reassuring that despite Amelia’s lack of relationship with her mother, she still had one member of her family watching her back. In a sense, it reminded me of a certain pair of brothers…

~~~

“I told you, I was going to order everything next week,” Amelia complained as the movers passed her on the sidewalk with her new bed frame. “I had it covered.”

“Ruthie gets the same way whenever I try to do one nice thing for her,” Max gave a low sigh, closing his eyes until Amelia snorted back a laugh.

“If anything I should be doing the nice things for you,” Amelia pulled him into a hug.

“It’s not your fault that your mother’s a hell of a psychotic cunt,” he replied bluntly. “I’m sorry about the shop.”

“Stop, I’m the one who should be apologizing,” she insisted, swatting his arm. “I’m sorry I burnt down your incredibly expensive piece of London real estate.”

He shrugged off her words, instructing the movers to be extra careful with a large vanity mirror.

“I’m fairly certain the chemist store your grandpa ran in the day was a front for laundering,” he smirked. “A lot of good people, us Brenner’s.”

“Only takes one to break the dysfunction,” she mused.

“I don’t get it,” John shimmied past the movers in the front door. “Are you British?”

He directed the question toward Amelia, who exchanged a familiar chuckle with her uncle.

“Our family is,” she explained. “My grandparents both grew up in London, but moved to the States when my uncle and mother were kids, and they remained British citizens. I was born in New York, so technically, I’m both?”

“Dual-citizenship,” Max translated. “Her father was American, though he fled the whole scene after this one was born. Must’ve realized what he was signing onto with Lydia, lucky bastard.”

“Thanks,” Amelia chimed up sarcastically.

“You’re in one piece,” he added lightly.

“If only he’d taken me with him,” she gave a dramatic sigh. “What a life.”

“You’d be a starving artist living in some godforsaken desert town,” Max huffed. “At least you can play trust fund and afford central London rent.”

“Shrug away the emotional neglect, but boy can I buy shiny things,” she rolled her eyes. “Where’s Sherlock? He texted me that there was something he needed me to look at?”

“There was a break in another case,” John explained, stepping out of one of the movers way. “Lestrade told him explicitly to wait until they were done securing the scene, but you know he didn’t listen. Left a few hours ago.”

“Typical,” she hummed, the movers finishing up their work with a large dresser in hand. “I don’t even have enough clothes to fill this.”

Max waved her concern off, mentioning something about her using the furniture money for clothes while his attention drifted to the doorway.

Mrs. Hudson approached with a bright smile, her hands clapped together.

“Isn’t this exciting? I’ve been trying to rent out that flat for ages,” she looked up at Max and held up her hand. “Martha Hudson.”

Max took it gently and gave her knuckles a light kiss.

“Maxwell Brenner the Third,” he introduced himself. Amelia’s brows shot up. She looked to John who seemed equally as startled at the shift in energy. “It is a pleasure.”

Mrs. Hudson giggled, taking her hand back, holding it over her chest delicately.

“Would you care to join me for some tea? I just put a kettle on, and it seems the movers are all set,” she nodded toward the building and Max nodded eagerly. He followed after her, not bothering to check with the others, his focus solely on the landlady leading the way.

“So that was...”

“Weird, very, very, weird,” John bobbed his head in agreement as they watched the other pair close the door.

“What’s weird?” Sherlock popped up over Amelia shoulder, and for once, she didn’t jump out of herself.

“I think my uncle Max is making a move on Mrs. Hudson,” she replied. “You’re lucky you didn’t see it. The deductions were unsettling.”

“Speaking of, John, you know the waiter we were following yesterday?” Sherlock turned to the doctor.

“The one you’re convinced is the murderer?” John clarified dryly. “And we spent all day trailing him with no leads?”

“Precisely that waiter,” Sherlock hummed. “He’s dead.”

“Wait what?” Amelia gawked between the men while John grumbled about Sherlock wasting his time. The group moved inside, with Sherlock explaining that it had been the waiter's girlfriend who'd committed the initial murder and was trying to cover her tracks.

John started a kettle for tea, Amelia dropped down on the sofa and pulled out the sketch pad she had stashed underneath, while Sherlock got to work on his laptop.

“I wanted to ask you about this compound,” Sherlock passed the laptop to Amelia before her pencil scratched the surface. “It shouldn’t work unless there was another additive.”

That caught her attention. Leaning forward, she looked at the formula and frowned. At first glance, it seemed he was correct. She scribbled down the digits and ran through the full calculation adding the cancer drug.

Something was definitely off.

“If I remember correctly, I think that is a fungus that relaxes the cardiovascular system,” she passed him the computer and started at the notes on her sketch pad. “I had hoped it would have been helpful for anxiety.”

“There are a number of compounds they could have used to bind the two,” Sherlock noted, continuing to scroll through. “Fortunately, none of the components are particularly easy to get a hand on.”

“So, we find a supplier, and follow the chain,” John reasoned, leaning against the barrier between the kitchen and living room. “Could be easy enough.”

“Except, like Sherlock said, there are any number of components that could fill the equation,” Amelia frowned, biting the end of her pencil in thought. “If we could just get a quick look at a logistics log or shipping manifest for one of the production centers, I think we’d be able to narrow it down.”

“Who would have that?” Sherlock asked, glancing up briefly before typing rapidly at the laptop again.

“The regional execs for sure,” Amelia paused, mentally running through upper management. “My mother, some of the warehouse guys... but they’re all based in Manila, so that’d be a little tricky. We’d need someone local with oversight credentials.”

“Like him?” Sherlock turned the computer again, this time the screen had a photograph of Chemco’s Director of British Development, James Hastings.

Amelia recognized him immediately.

He was a total pig, constantly cheating on his wife when he went to New York for board meetings.

And exactly the person they would need to steal the information they needed.

“Yeah, like him,” Amelia grinned between the men. “Let’s get him fired too, if we can. He’s a total tool.”

“Tool,” John repeated in bemusement with his attempt at an American accent, turning to grab the kettle off the stove.

“Oh I’m sorry,” Amelia cleared her throat and tried her hand at a London accent. “A right wanker.”

“That wasn’t terrible,” John snickered, while Sherlock merely arched a brow, a small smile barely hidden by the laptop screen.

“I think I’ve found our way in,” Sherlock voiced. “His personal assistant, Jessica Reynolds.”

“What, are you going to woo her with that big brain of yours?” Amelia teased, ruffling Sherlock's hair as she got up to grab her own mug of tea.

“No, you’re going to woo her,” he corrected firmly. “You’re more her type.”

“Wait,” Amelia held a hand up, stopping in her tracks. “And who is to suggest I’m her type? I’ve dated plenty of men.”

“The Allison Olson you dated for two years in undergrad,” he hummed, pointedly fixing his hair. The bastard. Of course he’d done a full background check on her relatively fluid sexuality. “And you wouldn’t be sleeping with her. She has a tendency to drink at the pub, bring home strangers, and do her thing. We just need access to her personal computer.”

“That seems ethically wrong,” Amelia pointed out, looking to John for support. “I mean, purposely exploiting someone like that?”

And because John had better self-preservation than to get between Amelia and her morals and Sherlock and a case, focused his attention on picking a tea flavor and fussing with tea cups.

“You can sleep with her if you’d like, just make sure the front door is left unlocked,” Sherlock shrugged casually before snapping the laptop shut. “According to her social feed she usually hits the Red Hawk pub in the next few hours.”

“That’s across town, isn’t it?” John realized, dropping himself into the conversation, realizing it was against his better judgement when Amelia shot him a glare.

“Amelia, you should probably change,” Sherlock continued, giving her a once over. "Clean up a bit."

“What’s wrong with this?” She gestured to the mustard cardigan and black yoga pants she had worn most of the day. “It’s not like I’m going to the club, and I would also like to point out that I still have not agreed to this.”

“Your goal is to try and seduce her a little,” Sherlock emphasized sharply. “Are you even wearing make-up? Your hair looks like it was caught in a fan.”

Amelia’s mouth fell open in offense. She stood up from the sofa, considered her words, but continued to gape at the detective until she finally cleared her throat.

“I will do this for the cancer patients, and not for you,” she huffed, standing up. “I want that noted in the blog post. John?”

“Duly noted, Dr. Brenner,” he gave her a salute before she disappeared down the stairs to her new flat. “A little rude, Sherlock."

“She doesn’t actually mind,” Sherlock rolled his eyes. "She just likes being dramatic."

“You called her ugly,” John pointed out.

“No, I suggested she freshen up,” he corrected. “Her hair was unkept, and she looked like she’d been moving all day.”

“She has been moving all day, and her hair always looks like that.”

“And would you take her home?” Sherlock challenged, frowning and shaking his head as the question resonated with him. "Actually, never mind. I don’t want to know the answer.”

“Jealous?” John teased.

“Hardly,” he waved his hand dismissively. “I’m just not interested in having to listen to my flat mates flop around like animals all night.”

“Right,” John snorted. “And you’ve never spared a single glance? Not once? She’s cute and I have no shame in admitting that.”

“If you date her and break up, Mrs. Hudson will be incredibly disappointed that she lost the rental income,” Sherlock reminded him. “And besides, she isn’t your type.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing, just that it wouldn’t be a lasting match,” Sherlock answered coolly, typing passively at his keyboard.

“I think you’re jealous,” Johns brows shot up. “And who would be a good match?”

“I don’t know? I haven’t met every sad sack looking to impress American biochemists,” he replied with a long sigh.

John was about to jump on the "sad sack" comment, when Amelia returned to the living room.

“I feel over-dressed,” Amelia stood in the door way, giving a quick spin. She’d changed into a new shirt and clean jeans, with a brown leather jacket thrown over. She’d organized her auburn hair into a loose braid that fell over her shoulder, and she threw a little eyeliner and dark lipstick on as a final touch.

“That's perfect pub-ware,” John voiced, earning a pointed look from Sherlock "Looks good."

“It’ll do,” the brunette hummed with barely a glance in her direction. “We should get moving if we want to catch her early. Can’t risk anyone else wandering in her path.”

“Of course, I’d hate to ruin our plan of morally grey actions for the evening,” Amelia snorted, stuffing her hands in her pocket.

~~~

“So what’s your biggest fear?” Jessica giggled over her vodka mixer, making eyes at the American woman who’d sat down next to her at the bar top. Amelia started chatting and before long, Jessica Reynolds had been pulled in.

“Oh,” Amelia considered it briefly, taking a sip of her beer. She'd been working on a London accent with Sherlock since moving into Baker Street, and the detective decided it was time to put it to use. “Definitely being buried alive. I might have to have a note in my will that I’m buried with one of those little bells.”

Jessica laughed obnoxiously at that, not that Amelia had really been trying to make a joke.

“Er, what about you?” She tried to ignore the other woman’s hand sliding up her thigh.

“Heights,” Jessica answered. “I’m scared to get too tall.”

Brows raised in acknowledgement, Amelia downed the beer and signaled for another one before her phone buzzed.

Get to her apartment.

SH

Snorting under her breath, she typed back a reply.

Screw off.

AB

The phone buzzed again.

I don’t know what that means.

SH

Another buzz.

Your vulgar vocabulary holds no credence here.

SH

Don’t get your pants in a bunch.

AB

“Who are you texting?” Jessica peered over, nearly toppling over in her chair.

“Sherlock Holmes,” Amelia replied coolly. “He’s been looking for a new hat, I suggested a top hat.”

Jessica started laughing uncontrollably, touching Amelia’s arm and exclaiming multiple times how great she was. Amelia downed her drink, prying the handsy woman off with as charming a smile she could muster.

“How about we take this conversation somewhere a little more private?” Amelia suggested in a low voice. Jessica’s eyes lit up and she flagged down the barkeep to pay her tab.

Amelia flagged down the cab, glancing around the street to try and see where Sherlock had holed up with John, when Jessica stumbled into her chest and started sucking on her bottom lip.

Shocked, Amelia shifted away from the taxi, practically throwing Jessica into the backseat.

Jessica slurred her address to the driver, and when the car began to move, she threw herself at the florist against, practically devouring Amelia’s face.

For the most part, Amelia tried her best to play her role, but her phone buzzed and well,

“-it might be someone from work, one second,” she held up an apologetic hand, answering the incoming call from John.

“You’re welcome,” the doctor chuckled through the line. Amelia sighed. “We need her address.”

“Don’t be so chuffed about it,” she grunted back, trying to slowly redirect Jessica’s hand at her waistline.

“Not a bad accent, the vowels are a little flat,” she could hear the grin in his voice and hung up the line before he could add anything else.

Angrily typing the address in a text with a less than polite emoji, Amelia was quickly pulled back into Jessica’s grasp, only saved by the driver announcing that they’d arrived.

Thanking the heavens for the distraction, Amelia offered to pay the cab driver while Jessica disappeared into the quaint townhouse to “change into something more comfortable”.

Amelia just assumed that meant the secretary was going to be naked by the time she got upstairs, and took her time paying the driver.

Dreading the next step in the plan, she started toward the building when another message buzzed her phone.

Leave front door unlocked.

SH

Demanding bastard. She almost was tempted to make him pick the lock, maybe he’d get picked up by the cops. Certainly a night in jail would humble him.

“Darling....” Amelia entered the house, making sure to leave the front door unlocked and found, unsurprisingly, a very naked Jessica sloppily draped over the entrance to her bedroom. “Won’t you join me?”

She tiptoed, stumbled, and caught Amelia by the sleeve of her jacket. Pulling it off and throwing it on a nearby chair, she dragged the reluctant American to her room.

Shoving Amelia back on the bed, Jessica went to attacking her mouth again, her hands exploring, and eventually catching the edge of Amelia T-shirt.

“I think one of us is a bit over dressed,” Jessica tried to purr, but it came out like confused mush. Still, what she lacked in coherent language, she made up for in sheer strength. With a quick movement, she ripped Amelia’s shirt clean off.

Clad only in her bra and jeans, Amelia stared in awe at what remained of one of her favorite shirts.

Holy shit.

What had she gotten herself into?

Just as Jessica grinned and moved to make another attack, Amelia’s phone started ringing from the pocket of her jacket.

Jumping up, Jessica pinned her shoulders down and nibbled at her ear.

“Stay...” she whispered through vodka laced breath.

“I’m on call for work,” Amelia lied, her New York accent slipping through slightly. “I have to make sure things are okay.”

She slipped from under the lust crazed woman, and nearly screamed when she saw Sherlock huddled over what she assumed was Jessica’s work laptop. Scurrying for her coat, Amelia covered herself, zipping it up the front.

“This was an awful idea,” Amelia whispered as Jessica spurred her alias from the other room. “She ripped my shirt, Sherlock. Clean off my back.”

“Babyyy, where’d you go?” Amelia heard Jessica stumbling up the hall and jumped to intercept her.

“I’m almost done, I have to finish this call for work,” she pulled her phone out. “Major tech issue that I’ve gotta walk them through.”

Jessica leaned forward and took Amelia’s bottom lip between her teeth. Giving it a quick bite, she giggled and turned back toward the bedroom.

“Hurry up,” she whined.

“You owe me so hard for this,” Amelia grunted, returning to Sherlock and watching over his shoulder.

“I’m solving your problem,” he reminded her.

“I never asked,” she answered

“You wouldn’t have figured it out alone,” he scoffed. “Who’s idea was taking the information from Reynolds?”

“We are still standing in her apartment, and I am still very much in just my bra under this jacket, so don’t call it a success just yet,” Amelia murmured in frustration

“Done,” he pulled out the usb and shut the computer. “Don’t take too long or I’m leaving without you.”

And with that, he was gone.

Fifteen minutes later, Amelia was sprinting out of the building, a bottle of red wine tucked under her arm and a muffed shriek shortly behind.

She caught him by the arm and shoved him into the back seat, eagerly smacking the drivers side urging him to get a move on.

“What happened?” Sherlock asked, watching while she stabbed her house key into the wines cork, pulling it free. She took a long swig and shook her head.

“We’re not talking about it,” she murmured.

Chapter 5

[bellamyblake]

Headcanons for Bellarke trying to take a vacation that nobody asked me for: (in the canon universe)

he’s the one who suggests it when she comes home after midnight for the fifth day in a roll and he’s waiting for her in bed with the Iliad in hand; when she finally crashes next to him and buries her head in his chest, he smiles and runs his fingers through her hair; “I think we should try and take a week off”/”And do what?” she laughs not taking this seriously;

“Take off?” he suggests and she laughs again but when she looks up she finds a serious and even a little hurt expression on his face; he thinks it’s something they both need, especially after the hard winter they’ve had; the snow was heavy and the weather too cold; they struggled with food so much that Bellamy had to go out hunting every goddamn day and more than half the camp got sick; most made it, but Clarke, since she was helping her mom out, caught it too and she almost didn’t; he still shivers at the memory of her pale face back then; 

moreover, he’s noticed how much working with Abby and being involved in the council took its toll on her; she barely slept and sometimes even when she did, she still woke up from nightmares of demons that refused to let her go; she was overtiring herself in medical, since there was a constant flow there especially lately with them trying to expand the camp and building more cabins, which resulted in more injuries; 

Clarke warms up to the idea, at least when she hears what he has to say on the matter; she really hasn’t had much time for herself lately, or even for them and she also thought some rest would definitely do him good as well; being the selfless man he was, he always put her needs first, but she knew a trip by the sea will definitely do him some good, especially after he broke his leg while hunting just a few months ago and never actually went through the physical therapy after, save from a few times he let her massage him;

so she agrees, for their sake and because she really misses being with him;

the only problem? bellamy and clarke were literally incapable of letting their bodies get actual rest; they were always doing something, solving a major camp problem, taking care of the delinquents or helping someone;

they were always doing something;

which is why most of their friends laughed when they heard they were taking off for a week; “Excuse me, did you say you’re going to the beach?” Jasper asked utterly confused “For like...what? More seaweed?” Monty added rubbing the back of his neck; when they explain that they’re not in fact going on a mission but leaving on a vacation the delinquents had stared at them mouths gaped for a full minute “Do you even know what that word means?” Miller asks utterly taken aback by their statement while Raven raises an eyebrow  “Wait, are you telling me you and Blake are going to sunbathe your asses and do nothing all day? That must be the funniest thing I’ve ever heard!”;

they even place bets on them among each other, because they know far too well that their leaders can’t last doing nothing for a week; 

Clarke and Bellamy try to ignore them while they pack their bags and load the rover; Kane and Abby are thrilled with the idea of them leaving and they might be the only ones; they definitely think the kids could use it plus a break from constantly arguing with those two hotheads could do them some good; all jokes aside, they are a little relieved since Kane has noticed the occasional limp Bellamy had when the weather rapidly changed and got too cold and Abby couldn’t bear looking at the circles under Clarke’s eyes for another minute; 

the truth is, the first day is quite honestly heaven for them, mostly because they have a lot to do; they set up their camp, they swim all day long, play in the water, run around the beach, catch fish for dinner, Clarke even has time to sketch, something she hasn’t done in forever while Bellamy gathers woods for the evening fire; yep, first day is good;

second day is when things start getting a little tense and both of them are pretending that everything’s okay but they both feel just slightly annoyed from laying around on the beach all day; Bellamy is an early riser so he’s bored out of his mind by nine and even though Clarke wakes later than him, an hour after breakfast she catches herself trying to count the leaves on the tree above her; 

by the time evening comes, they actually manage to get in a small fight about who should cook the fish this time and after dinner they are buzzing with unresolved energy and tension; neither of them wants to say anything, though; Bellamy because he suggested it and he truly wanted her to get some rest and Clarke because she wanted the same for him;

when they go to bed they struggle to fall asleep and toss in their sheets until finally Clarke speaks up sheepishly “Bellamy, I don’t think I can do this”;

a beat and then he sits up and looks down at her “I’m gonna start packing.” she bursts laughing as she stands up and actually watches him pick up their stuff and shove them in their backpacks; 

“You’ve been waiting for me to say this all day, haven’t you?” she asks through tears while he grunts “Worst idea ever! Don’t let me come up with stupid things like that ever again, okay? Vacation? What was I thinking? I haven’t rested since I was seven years old.”

they’re home by dawn and they’ve actually also managed to go hunting on their way back; they stride in with the game and they’re not embarrassed even in the slightest by it;

Abby and Kane shake their heads and rub their foreheads; the delinquents all greet them at first but then gather just so Jasper can stretch his hand out and smile “Pay up, fellas!”; the others groan and Raven is actually grumpy because she was so close; if only they’ve been another fucking day late;

in the evening, when Clarke comes home, this time before midnight, and finds him reading in bed again, she hurries to get under the blankets and hug herself in him; “Any new suggestions on how to take the pressure off?” he leans down and gives her a kiss on the forehead;

“Yeah” he smiles “Let’s go to fucking sleep!”

[cutsliceddiced]

New top story from Time: How the Apollo Program Changed Our Understanding of What the Moon Even Is

As the ancient planet Theia struck its glancing blow into Tellus, the planet that would become Earth, part of its mantle sloughed off into that of the planet it had struck, but some drove on past, pushing a layer of Tellurian mantle ahead of it like mud on the blade of a bulldozer. Still traveling with more than half of Theia’s original speed, blade and burden rose together back out into space. Much fell back. Much did not. Some escaped completely to form a short-lived ring around the Sun. But a lot stayed in orbit around the wrecked, reforming planet below. It was from that fiery orbital aftermath that the Moon was to grow.

What could have led to a scenario so extravagant becoming the most widely accepted account of the Moon’s origin — albeit one which still has some big questions to answer?

Its rise, which dates back to the 1970s and 1980s, was mostly due to the knowledge brought back from Apollo. Oxygen comes in three different isotopes. Apollo samples quickly showed that the ratios between these three isotopes in rocks from the Moon were very like those in rocks from the Earth — and unlike those of asteroids or of rocks from Mars.

Identical isotope ratios seemed to mean that the rocks of the Earth and Moon came from the same source. Analysis of the Apollo samples also revealed that moonrocks were very low in volatile compounds — water, carbon monoxide, nitrogen, sulphur and other light elements. Data from the seismographs the astronauts installed on the surface and from measurements of the Moon’s gravity field made in orbit showed that it had only a very small iron core, if it has one at all. But if it formed from the same stuff as the Earth had formed — and thus presumably by the same mechanism — how could that be? Why would it have so few of the volatiles with which the Earth was well stocked? Why had it not formed a big strapping core like the Earth’s? Mars and Venus have done so. Mercury, the smallest but densest planet, has a core that takes up more than half its volume.

In short, in terms of its make-up, the Moon didn’t really look like a planet in its own right. It looked like a dollop of the Earth’s mantle which had somehow scooped itself out and placed itself into orbit, no core attached.

The idea of such a fission was first proposed by George Darwin, Charles Darwin’s son. Darwin fils was interested in the drag on the Earth’s rotation caused by the tidal bulges raised by the Moon. Turning beneath a tidal bulge that stays put, driving tides in and out of shallow seas and across great oceans, means that the Earth continually loses energy to friction — a loss which slows the Earth’s rotation and lengthens the leash on which it holds the Moon.

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This results from the conservation of angular momentum — a property of bodies, or systems, which depends on how their mass is distributed and how fast they are spinning. Move mass closer to something’s spin axis and, if angular momentum is conserved, it will spin faster; move it farther out and things will slow down.

You can change angular momentum only with a torque — a force applied off-center so as to change the spin. With no torque applied to a system from outside, its angular momentum must stay the same.

This principle applies to the Earth-Moon system, tied together as it is by gravity. When the skater’s arm extends, her body spins more slowly. The energy dissipated by the tides thus means both that the Earth’s days are getting longer and that the Moon must have been closer in the past. By calculating the rate of its recession, Darwin found that, some 54m years ago, the two bodies would have been one. From this he derived the idea of a single body, spinning very fast, splitting into two. Long before it was explained by plate tectonics, devotees of Darwin’s idea claimed that the great quasi-circular hole currently filled by the waters of the Pacific marked the divot from which the Moon had been thus ejected. But no one could really explain why the planet would have come asunder in the first place.

The giant-impact theory, as the story of Tellus and Theia is known, seemed to provide an extraterrestrial precipitating event for the Moon’s recession as well as explain everything else that other theories could not. It got a chunk of Earthish mantle, with its telltale oxygen-isotope ratios, into orbit without an iron core. It stretched out and melted that chunk, baking the volatiles out so as to ensure a desiccated end product. It even explained why the Earth-Moon system had a high angular momentum in the first place. Theia’s off-center impact would have applied a massive torque to Tellus, producing a planet that spun very rapidly and the Moon that would, over billions of years of tidal braking, slow it back down.

Put forth after Apollo by, among others, Bill Hartmann — the man who first appreciated the ubiquity of ringed impact basins on the Moon’s surface — and Don Davis, who helped guide Apollo 13 safely back to Earth, the giant-impact theory gained widespread credence in the mid-1980s. Early supercomputer models, some using code written to explore the effects of nuclear weapons, were able to sketch out what might have happened, an endeavor which seemed both sexy and confirmatory. But at the heart of the theory’s success were the twin virtues of a great deal of explanatory power and no serious rivals. The idea of the Moon happening to pass by and being pulled into the Earth’s orbit — the capture hypothesis — could not be made to work, then or now, without immense special pleading. Nor did it explain the similarities between the bodies. Co-accretion, in which the two simply formed close by one another, and this from similar source materials, explained the similarities, but not the differences — the Moon’s lack of volatiles and core. Nor did it explain where all that angular momentum came from. The fission hypothesis lacked any sort of mechanism by which one planet might split in two.

What is more, the giant-impact theory helped explain one of the fundamental discoveries made by the Apollo missions. Whereas the dark plains of the maria were made of basalt, the brighter highlands were made of anorthosite, a rock composed mostly of calcium plagioclase, a mineral from the family called feldspars which are most familiar, I suspect, as the light-colored non-quartz bits of granite kitchen worktops. If you take hot magma made from the Earth’s mantle and let it cool under lowish pressures, calcium plagioclase is the one of the first minerals to crystallize out as a solid.

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If formed from the orbital debris of a giant impact, the Moon would have started life covered by an ocean of magma — a hot layer of liquid rock hundreds of kilometers deep. (The post-impact Earth would have had such a magma ocean, too, but maybe only a tenth of the depth and possibly not over all of its surface.) As the ocean cooled minerals began to crystallize out at depth, the first of them plagioclases. Being lighter than the surrounding magma, they would have floated to the top. The magma ocean would thus have grown a crust composed mostly of calcium plagioclase.

Since the Moon, small and quick to cool, never developed any mechanism for recycling its crust, this primordial crust stayed put, except when blasted away by impacts or covered by later, darker basalts. One of the samples of almost-entirely-plagioclase highland rock brought back by the Apollo astronauts was 4.46bn years old — less than 100m years younger than the Earth and the Moon.

For all its explanatory value — not to mention drama — the giant-impact theory has run into problems over the past decade. Few are ready to abandon it, but there is no widespread consensus on how to fix it. And as details have proved troublesome, the general gist has become oddly more acceptable. The discovery of thousands of planets beyond the solar system in the past decade has stretched scientists’ sense of what a planet can be. Some are so hot as to have their atmospheres permanently swollen, some locked so close to their star that one side is always almost melting. One star has a ring of hot rock around it that some have seen as the short-lived by-product of a collision quite as powerful as that of Theia and Tellus. The universe offers a far richer array of planetary possibilities than the bimodal distribution of small rocky inner and large gassy outer objects seen around the Sun today.

Economist Books

Excerpted from The Moon: A History for the Future by Oliver Morton. Copyright © 2019. Available from Economist Books, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

via https://cutslicedanddiced.wordpress.com/2018/01/24/how-to-prevent-food-from-going-to-waste

[douchebagbrainwaves]

2% FALSE POSITIVES

What business users? Several well-known startups began this way. By historical standards, that's something that's changing pretty rapidly. 9359873 managed 0. But the major parties know so well which issues matter how much to how many voters, and adjust their message so precisely in response, that they tend to split the difference on the issues have lined up with charisma for 11 elections in a row? Anything deleted as spam goes into the nonspam corpus. When you design something for an individual client's complex and ill-defined needs. Other players were more famous: Terry Bradshaw, Franco Harris, Lynn Swann. I don't mean to imply that good design requires that one person think of everything. In industrialized countries, people belong to one institution or another at least by their standards. Whereas a two year old company raising a series A round needs to be a single long stream of text for purposes of counting occurrences, I use the number of nonspam and spam messages respectively. So I think the two changes are related.

Paul Prescod wrote something that stuck in my mind. But it seems more dangerous to put stuff in that you've never needed because it's thought to be a smooth presenter if you understand something well and tell the truth about it. What would be a useful quality in programming. It's not something you can do even better by offering the sub-concepts of object-oriented techniques to do in hardware. Also turn off every other filter, particularly Could this be a big deal, and Microsoft both executed well and got lucky. Instead of telling you come on, you can also hear it in Paris, New York, I was very excited at first. Your own ideas about what's sexy will be somewhat correlated with what's valuable in practice. You're most likely to grasp that wealth can be a sign of an underlying problem. Startups are not just something that happened in Silicon Valley in the last 20 years includes ideas from Lisp, and so on. Some of the founders spent all their time building their applications. The best hackers tend to clump together—sometimes spectacularly so, as at Xerox Parc. Lots of people heard about the Altair.

Presumably it killed just about 100% of the startups in the same spirit. The same recipe that makes individuals rich makes countries powerful. Similarly, though there are plenty of other ways to get rich. If you have two choices about the shape of hole you start with them, like microprocessors, power plants, or passenger aircraft. They hear stories about stampedes to invest in successful startups, few were started in imitation of some other startup. So the lower we can get the best rowers. Certainly Bill is smart and dedicated, but Microsoft also happens to have been two ways of thinking about programming. But if wealth is the important thing, why does everyone talk about making money? Lots of people heard about the Altair. And investors can tell fairly quickly whether you're a domain expert, you can always make money from it.

Robert says he misjudged Trevor at first too. When wealth is talked about in this context, it is a spam, whereas sexy indicates. The company that did was RCA, and Farnsworth's reward for his efforts was a decade of patent litigation. What made the Florentines rich in 1200 was the discovery of new techniques for making the high-tech product of the time doing business stuff. Often they care a lot about: the problem you're solving, and then gradually refine this initial sketch. The data turns out to be as bad for startups as too much time, so we don't have to prove you're worth investing in. It might be a rich market, but with a slow sales cycle. Someone graduating from college thinks, and is told, that he needs to get a certain bulk discount if you buy the book or pay to attend the seminar where they tell you how great you are. A lot of our energy got drained away in disputes with investors instead of going into the product.

When you raise a lot of wiggle room. Most successful founders would probably say that if they'd known when they were starting their company about the obstacles they'd have to postpone that. To most college students a world of a few sysadmins. There's no way for them to average their work together with them on anything. You see the same thing, you're probably not too late. How do you pick good programmers if you're not a master of negotiation and perhaps even if you think you could have millions of users. There was a point in a talk once that I now mention to every startup we funded could appear in a Newsweek article describing them as the next generation of billionaires, because then none of them had any choice in the matter. When you travel to a rich or poor country, you don't get that kind of text is easy to recognize. The true test of the length of a program. So how do you pick the right platforms? This a makes the filters more effective, b lets each user decide their own precise definition of spam, or even Google. If you mean worth in the sense that the measure of the size of the market you're in.

It does seem likely there's some inborn predisposition to intelligence and wisdom too, but I found that the Bayesian filter did the same thing, and unless you plan to start a startup. You need a lot of control over the stimuli that spark ideas when they hit it. I'm not saying that if you had friends in college you don't yet have to face the hardest kind of work is overpaid and another underpaid, what are we really saying? Kate knew in principle that one individual could really generate so much more. Instead of sitting on your butt next summer, you could make it. I'll tell you now: bad shit is coming. But we'd have preferred them to have cofounders before they applied.

The reason startups no longer depend so much on VCs is one that isn't succinct enough. A startup is not merely to turn off their schlep and unsexy filters, but to absorb some prescribed body of material. If you're demoing something web-based, assume that the network connection will mysteriously die 30 seconds into your presentation, and come prepared with a copy of the server software running on your laptop. We knew that if online shopping ever took off, these sites would have to be prepared to see the rehearsals. It's not so much that it's critical to get your product to market early, but that you haven't done anything new since the last time we talked. Don't worry if your company is $xy. But it does seem as if Google was a collaboration. No one would dispute that he's one of the first things they wished for. Then there was a strong middle class it was easy for industrial techniques to take root. Agriculture, cities, and industrialization all spread widely. My own feeling is that object-oriented techniques to do in software what he seems to do in wimpier languages, but that you haven't done anything new since the last time we talked. And at least 90% of the work done by small groups.

[nbafunnymeme]

Teacher's arresting iPad Art brings athletes to life

Marcin Gortat is intense.

Image: Robe Generette iii/apple

Strong, thick digital ink lines give Robert Generette III’s sports figures shape, while comic book-bright colors bring them to life. Theyre not just sketches on an Instagram feed, but bodies in motion, pitching, shooting baskets, running, punching, yelling. Often at full-tilt.

This is sports as it should be depicted and as masters like the late LeRoy Neiman have done before him. But where Neiman’s sports illustrations were bright, splashy and chaotic. Generrett’s are concise. The energy that Neiman tended to splash out is contained inside of Generette’s works, so that they vibrate with a barely-contained energy.

SEE ALSO: This app helps the blind “see” by identifying objects around them

Its the power of those images, virtually all of them drawn with an Apple Pencil on an Apple iPad Pro running Adobe Draw, and Generettes virtuoso talent that got him and his work noticed over and over again. Now he’s creating arresting sports illustrations for not one, but two leading NBA teams, the Warriors and the Wizards, which happen to be facing off on Tuesday in Washington D.C.

And to top it all off, Generettes drawing is a side-hustle, something he does in his spare time, mostly at night while hes watching games. If Im sitting down watching sports, I need to be drawing at the same time, he told me.

During the day, the 43-year-old Maryland resident is a high school photography teacher. Darkroom, 35mm, old-school, he said with obvious pride.

Generette, though, has been drawing since he was a little boy. He says his mother first noticed his skills when he was just three. By the time he was in grade school, teachers would know his schoolwork by the drawings he put in the upper right corner, in place of his name.

An exclusive illustration of Russell Westbrook of the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Image: robert Generette III

Like many who started drawing digitally in the years before Apple unveiled its first iPad in 2010, Generette used a MacBook Pro and the vector based Adobe Illustrator. When the iPad came along, he picked up the first version (he calls it iPad 1) and started drawing on it, first with his finger and eventually a Wacom Bamboo stylus. He started with Sketchbook Pro, but eventually switched to Adobe Vector, now called Adobe Illustrator Draw. I asked him if he tried the powerful iPad illustration app Procreate, but he told me It does everything. I kind of like limitations, so I can push those limitations.

Unlike bitmap drawing applications like Sketchbook and Procreate which let you edit and draw at a bit-level and easily recreate traditional media, vector-based apps maintain the math behind the lines and shapes, making them endlessly mutable.

Scrolling through Generettes Instagram feed you can see his progression from someone who only occasionally shared glimpses of his art skills to a feed thats now consumed with his bright, arresting sports imagery.

Generette got his start drawing sports pros a few years ago, after attending a talk by designer Aaron Draplin. Generette was multi-tasking, listening to and drawing Draplin at the same time.

Robert presented me with this image that just knocked my socks off, of Dad, my dog Gary and myself. And, oddly enough, I get a lot of fan art, but when I went and looked, his stuff had this energy to it., Draplin told via email.

Freelance artist Ben Mahler, who was also in attendance, told me via email that he was killing time scrolling through his twitter feed and hashtags related to the event when he spotted Generettes sketches.

It suddenly clicked he was a perfect fit content-wise, and his gestural style was really fresh, something I hadn’t seen done right in vector illustrations before, Mahler said.

Mahler asked Generette if hed liked to pitch in on some work he was doing for the local pro soccer team, DC United.

While not his number one sport (Baseball is at the top, then basketball, then hockey, then soccer, he said), the drawings Generette did soon got him noticed by the Washington Wizards pro basketball team. The team, which contacted him via LinkedIn, wanted him to create player images that could be used on the big screens during games. Theyd have animations appear behind the players and then Generettes vibrant illustrations would pop in from behind each player.

Illustration of NBA Player John Wall before Rob colors it in.

Image: Robert Generette III

The Wizards’ Bradley Beal

Image: Robert Generette III

Adobe came calling when they noticed Generettes Instagram feed, where he goes by the name Rob-zilla_iii. They asked him to do something for one of the Wizards cross-country rivals, the Golden State Warriors.

For them, hes creating t-shirts and cheer cards. The plan is not to do exact replicas of the teams five starting players, but to recreate a look Generette loved from the 1980s: NBA t-shirts featuring players with exaggerated features or over-sized heads Itll be something like that, but with my own flavor.

Drawing these images, Generette explained, can take anywhere from two to five hours. Generette uses a combination of reference, transparency (in which he starts the drawing over a photo the iPad Pro 12.9 inch he uses has enough screen real estate to host both a drawing app and the reference photo) and freehand. But the method is usually determined by the timeline and budget.

If client has short timeline, its gonna be reference and a little bit of transparency. But never let the reference photo dictate what you do, he said. He uses photos just to build the foundation. However, Generettes image selection is critical.

Robert Generette III at work on his iPad pro. Note the stand he uses; it’s made in Italy.

Image: robert generette iii

I try to select the photo that best captures my perspective of the person. I want to show everyone how I see this athlete, he added.

Generette juggles these projects with his full-time teaching duties, a fact that still impresses his friends and collaborators.

When I learned he was a teacher fighting the good fight, I just wanted to push him that much more. This awesome work of his, it was on his free time, said Draplin.

Generette manages his time by do something he calls a mental dance. Throughout the workday, he draws and redraws a project in his head until, when he finally sits down with the iPad Pro that night, he can do it rapidly with no mistakes.

Before I let Generette get back to drawing sports figures, I asked him if he has any tips for aspiring digital artist. He quickly rattled off four:

Dont deviate from your current process. Find ways that you can import your process into working digitally. If you’re accustomed to drawing on paper, keep doing that. All apps have ways of importing and digitizing

Every time you approach a drawing using your device, try something new.

One thing I make clear to most of my students is that the level of artistic skills isnt based on how realistically you can draw things. Dont compare yourself to anybody else based on realism. There are some artists who can do very photo realistic work, but, not to knock them, you might as well just use the photo.

Dont be afraid to share your work. If youre looking at this to begin a career, youre going to have to have a demo ready. Let your social media be your demo. There are ways to watermark, so you dont have to worry about someone stealing.

BONUS: A new way to take selfies and six other features the iPhone 8 might have

Read more: http://mashable.com/2017/02/27/robert-generette-sports-art/

http://nbafunnymeme.com/more-on-basketball/teachers-arresting-ipad-art-brings-athletes-to-life