#an example to help teach

[uncanny-tranny]

Another bonus to learning a fiber art is being able to speak to others in a Lovecraftian language that nobody else understands...

...and also being able to read things like THIS:

[starssoblue]

i need more episodes about adrien just trying new things and gradually figuring out what he wants to spend his time doing, what classes and hobbies he genuinely enjoys, and then eventually, what he'd like to pursue professionally. i never really thought about running before sublimation and while i still don't think that's actually his passion, i love that he connected the act of running to the freedom and joy he gets when he's being chat noir, running around paris saving people. one of my favorite things about adrien that a lot of people in fandom especially in fics miss is that just because he's decent or even great at several things doesn't mean he has a personal connection to that thing. in early ml he was acting in his friends' student films, playing sports to different results, fencing with his friends, participating in band, even modeling for fun. in climatiqueen, he discovered he was decent at drawing, a mess with labwork, quick with languages (no surprise there), and v new to baking—all things he could improve upon but nothing that made him feel passion. but he specified the reason he had fun trying those things wasn't the things themselves but because he was doing them with marinette, same as before when he took skills he was forced to acquire by his father and re-utilized them to hang out with his friends despite not feeling a personal connection to any of those hobbies or talents. i don't know if the show plans on him discovering this soon (they're sooooo young, i hate that he is even stressing about this just because his friends are not normal and because the french school system has most people declare their course of study in lycée) but i'm just excited to see him branch out and try new things and get the life experience he was denied when he was younger. 

and running away from the agreste manor (where he was confined and forced to be a perfect mold) as his first step toward self discovery? brilliant imagery.

[dontbelasagnax]

Ok fine! You’ve convinced me! I’ll learn how to draw specifically so I can draw codywan kissing, you’ve spread your gospel successfully

…

How do you draw tho fr cuz I can doodle like, funky lookin birds but people is fully out of my depth send help

AAAA HELL YEAHHHH!!!!! LET'S GOOOO!!!!!

You've opened a can of worms asking me for art advice so *cracks knuckles* buckle up.

I sort of (only a little bit) use the Loomis method for easy head drawing. Here is a playlist of YouTube videos by Proko. Highly, highly recommend that channel for your art tutorial needs!

I start with a circle. For side profiles, I draw a line down the side of the circle to determine where the features will sit upon. I draw a triangular shape to mark where the orbital socket is. Around the middle point of the circle is where the jawline ends and the ear begins so draw a line there. There are proportion rules which are good guidelines when starting out in art but since I've been doing this my entire life, I have a feel for things and just wing it. That's to say, I put in a line implying the jaw based on vibes.

Next, I draw the eyebrows and brow ridge. Then the nose. I find I majorly base my proportions on this area so if anything is off, it throws the rest of the face off.

Then I draw the lips and chin... or in Obi-Wan's case, his beard. I will mark in his sideburns and hairline as well. Now, about ears: generally the top of the ear begins right around the top of the eyebrow and stops at the base of the nose. At this point I like to draw his eye, define the cheekbone, and refine the eyebrow. I'll finish scribbling in hair and that's it!

(Cody is much the same but I forgot to take useful progress pics 😂)

Extended Art Advice 👇

Tip #1: Draw lightly. Do not ever grip your pencil tight. This only leads to pain. You will notice I didn't erase at all. This is partly because I know what marks to make because I've done it a million times before and also because my lines are soft enough I can make lots of them and choose to deepen the ones that work.

Tip #2: Practice, practice, practice. Artistic skill is just loads and loads of accumulated knowledge and muscle memory from practice. This sounds boring but, in reality, you should make it fun.

Tip #3: Draw from observation/USE REFERENCE! The only reason I can get away without using reference when I'm feeling lazy is because I've drawn the same things over and over enough times it stuck. Aka I did lots of practice.

Now, to combine all these tips together, let's talk about how to use reference and how to make practice fun.

Reference is a huge aid when drawing at any point in your art journey. But I've found that in order to learn from what you're looking at, you need to think critically.

You obviously have something you want to draw. Reference helps you with that. You'll start out trying to draw what you see. Eventually you will run into an obstacle where you've messed up and things aren't looking good. This is to be expected. Every time this happens, think about what isn't working and find solutions with your reference. Analyze your subject to find your answers. Draw it again. Do not be afraid of failure. Each time you fail, you must look for a solution and this will lead you closer to your goal. This is how you grow as an artist.

I know, it sounds dreadfully boring and like a shit ton of work. It is a lot of work but you can make it fun! You love Obi-Wan and Cody so make Pinterest boards of Ewan McGregor and Temuera Morrison. Whatever you want to practice (may that be eyes, mouths, hands, hair, the face as a whole, etc) draw them. Ever hear tracing is bad? Fuck that. It's a perfectly valid tool to help you learn. If you're drawing digitally, pull up your reference in the art program of your choice, lower the opacity a little, make a new layer and trace what you see. I honestly find tracing to be very hard so when I've done this, I prefer to try to find shapes that will aid me when I'm actually drawing. If you're drawing traditionally, you can print out the photo and trace over it with a tracing paper or use a lightbox. You can also up the brightness on your computer screen and tape a piece of paper and trace that way.

Photos aren't the only references you can use! You can always look to your favorite artists' work and try to figure out how they do it. Often artists will break things down into more easily digestible shapes that will help you better understand how things work. Remember, if you ever copy or trace someone's art, it is for learning purposes only and you shouldn't post it. Feel free to take elements of people's art that you like and put your own spin on it though. For instance: I really love how this one artist draws men's tits so I studied a bunch of their art and now I'm much better at drawing them.

Oh and did you think you only get practice in while studying? Wrong! There's no reason you should shy away from trying to make the art you really want just because your skills aren't the most refined. Spoiler alert: you will grow the most when you push yourself out of your comfort zone. Draw codywan kissing. Draw it really enthusiastically and through profuse swearing and gritted teeth... but never a clenched hand. Don't hold back from the fun stuff just because it's hard. Aim high, land low, and shoot even higher next time.

In the beginning it will be especially frustrating. You'll feel like everything you make is a failure and nothing works out. You'll feel like you're not making any progress. Trust me, you are making progress and I believe in you.

If something really isn't working out and you find yourself growing distressed, take a break. It might last an hour or a week. Just take the break. Don't push it. Come back with fresh eyes and less stress. We all have days where nothing comes out right. Sometimes I can't even draw anything resembling a human face. It's okay. Whisper-yell expletives at your artwork and take the break. It will be okay.

With all that said, happy drawing and even happier codywan kissing!! 🧡💋🩵

[puppppppppy]

i feel like im not making any sense but does anyone else feel like there are stories that let u run with them and ones that spell everything out for you

[starflungwaddledee]

I couldn't help but notice you color your line art sometimes. Do you have any tips on colored line art?

hiii there! thank you for asking!!

just a heads up that i'm notoriously bad at "teaching", and i'm assuming an amount of general knowledge of art programs + layer modes!

i actually don't often "colour" my lineart, at least not in the way a lot of other folks do! i'm used to working as streamlined as possible and developed quick-fire workarounds for most steps during my time in webcomics!

i also have multiple lineart styles! a more textured one with thin lines which i typically use for more polished pieces, and a soft-brush sketch style (inspired by my pal @moonverc3x's lovely lines) that i generally use for less detailed works, though i sometimes get carried away 😅💦

my textured lines don't lend themselves well to those nice and thoughtful coloured lines most folks do. but here's a quick breakdown of my techniques using the soft-brush style!

lines and flats 1) make lineart + flat colour it. my lines are never at 100% opacity, so already some of the colour shows through them anyway! 2) set the lines to multiply mode. because my lines are typically in a colour and not black, this usually works well enough for me, as you can see in the second image! i frequently just call it done here!

hand coloured lines a) if i do want to take the time to colour the lines individually- often things like metals, especially warm golds, require this added detail to really help them pop- i'd just lock the layer opacity and pick a colour that suited and apply where needed. this is fairly standard! b) a second version of the same technique, with higher contrast/more saturation to suit my tastes and a little extra finessing (especially around the eyes). this is very much a "to taste and time/energy" thing! sometimes at this stage i'll add high contrast slaps of colour such as bright purple or blue

my overlay-lines technique a) the second technique that i use is actually very fast and usually gives an okay-enough look. it's what i use for high-speed professional webcomic work (with my textured lines) to give the illusion of individually coloured lines for basically zero effort. so starting with the base lines set to multiply, as seen in (2), then, b) duplicate both the lines and the colours (with shading, if you have it). clip the colours to the duplicated lineart layer, ostensibly "colouring" the copied lines the exact same colour as the colours. set this duplicated layer to overlay, and adjust opacity as needed

you can kinda see that the overlay lines method is not as specific in colour as the hand-picked ones above, and it will suffer from overlap based on where your flats come to underneath the lines. but i find it helps especially when you have high contrast light colours in the work (ie starstruck's face mask) as the lighter colours brighten up the linework in those places significantly.

for highly polished works i would come back and still pick out areas to finesse individually. there's ultimately no quick substitute for spending more time on your work!

there's about a thousand and one other combinations of these effects you can do, such as using the duplicated lines on multiply instead, or further painting over the top, etc etc. but duplicating the colour layer and clipping it to the lineart is one of the techniques i developed that sped up my work process most significantly over the years!

[assblastergaster]

just wanted to point out something i only noticed from a comment section, but the fact that etho probably figured out where exactly grian was hiding and didn't let on at all? chef's kiss. near the end where etho suggests bringing the warden to the button he takes a pretty long glance at the tower and, just personally, I'm pretty sure he connected the dots! plus, obviously, the whole saving Cleo's life from impulse and not telling the other zombies he'd seen them! he's a team player!!

[monstermoviedean]

at the end of my fucking rope with "conversations" about k12 chronic absenteeism.

[uncanny-tranny]

Honestly, the craziest part of accessibility is that there aren't many abled people (and disabled people who aren't disabled in Every Way Possible) who wouldn't benefit from any of the accessibility options out there

ALT text has made it so much better to navigate image-based pages! I'm not visually-impared, but tumblr is terrible at loading images, and I'm not always connected to WiFi. People who add ALT text make it easy to satiate my curiosity when images don't load! This, coupled with actually learning how blind and visually-impared people navigate the online world, has inspired me to do my best to emulate the things I find helpful, even if the way it helps me is very different than theirs. Having a sense of scale in how it helps me versus how it actually makes the internet usable to the blind and visually-impared is something I do try to keep in mind.

Navigating a world with accessible options is primarily going to help the disabled, and it's imperative to keep this in mind. I do think, though, that illustrating just how much accessibility impacts even abled people's lives can help inspire people to think, "wow, I can't imagine a world without [accessibility option] and I don't need it, but it makes life so much easier." The more I interact with accessibility options I don't need, I still find it so helpful. I can't even imagine how amazing it is when you do need that accessibility and it's actually provided to you.

I don't think that abled people should only be in it for themselves. Again, accessibility should put disabled needs first and foremost. But I can't help but wonder how many people you can get to understand this by first saying how it impacts them, too.

[hulloitsdani]

The ways in which I can make book 4 a bad time for Kiran Fire Emblem

[that-was-anticlimactic]

guys help what are good creative project ideas kids can do for a short story (i'm writing a list of examples and need more lol)

here's what i have so far:

Screenplay/script for a play

Write a song/musical (trailer)

Record a video of yourselves reenacting a part

A Youtube apology video from one of the characters

Movie trailer

Puppet

Mukbang “Youtube” story discussion

Write a “what happens next” continuation

i feel like i'm missing some other areas of expertise like those who really like drawing and stuff iuygfgyhuijko

[galaxywhale]

we’re all planning writing together and I’m trying SO hard to balance supporting them and not being critical of what they’re doing but both of them have planned writing that actually completely missed the point of what we said we were going to plan and I’m like hmmmm I don’t want to be an asshole and be like no that’s wrong but 🥲

[not-poignant]

Hey there. Do you have any tips on how to stay consistent with writing, and how to stay focused on the task at hand?

Hi anon!

So firstly, I've answered versions of this question quite a few times so you might want to go into the 'Pia on Writing' tag because they'll be there.

A quick look has found:

How to write more words regularly - This one is good for just...straight up practical advice.

But I wanted to speak frankly which is - what works for me might not work for you! We all have different strengths and weaknesses and depending on how we orient towards writing depends on what those weaknesses are. For example, I need to learn how to take more breaks and rest more, and not write as much. The 'writing a lot and sometimes too much' comes pretty easily to me these days.

Not all writers are meant to be consistent writers. I don't have a daily habit and I haven't written anything at all in a week and a half. I have my monthly wordcount and that's it. Someone else might need to write or edit every day, in order to not lose sight of their projects. Someone else might need five intensive days a month. It will depend on their nature, their personality.

Not all writers have the same reasons behind why they can't stay focused on a task. I have ADHD, but I can also hyperfocus on characters and a storyline. Others have ADHD, and cannot hyperfocus on their characters or storyline long enough to finish a story. That's a problem I don't know how to remedy, because I don't have that kind of ADHD, so I've never had to 'solve' it before. Some writers are perfectionists which hamper them, I am not a perfectionist and I'd rather the thing be out in the world with some flaws, than on my computer talking to no one. I need the dopamine more than I need something to be perfect. So you see anon, sometimes the things that impact us just aren't universal, which means you need more specific advice. There will be perfectionist writers who will have lots of great advice, there will be ADHD writers who get bored of a story who have great advice. :D

What I will say is that pretty universally, writing consistently and staying focused are both like muscles in the body. I'm where I'm at today because I've had 9-10 years of practice doing this, and when you start out (which the above link addresses) you will need to aim more realistically and reasonably, and start there.

It's also worth having a really grounded sense of why you want to write more consistently / focus more on your writing. Is it for fun? Is it because you want to finish a project? Is that project something you'll feel good if you finish or are you over it? Is it because you want to make an income? (Have you considered there are approximately 40 billion easier ways to make an income?) Is it because you just want to see if you can do it?

Sitting down and thinking about your motivations here will help motivate you if you can keep your goals in mind. And it will also help clarify what you get out of writing in the first place.

Re: Staying focused. It depends on your distractions. I use music, that helps me. That might be terrible for you. I make sure I'm eating well - the brain needs carbs and fats, and my whole body needs protein and fibre - so I'll have a decent breakfast before starting out. Sleep is important. Drinking regularly is important. There's very basic things here which seem obvious that help a ton with concentration, but if you're not doing them, they're a good place to start. You'd be surprised how much just 'eating balanced meals, drinking regularly and sleeping enough hours' helps with concentration. Like, so much.

A friend of mine uses the Pomodoro method (that would drive me nuts), there's using write-ins like Twitch streams to basically 'body double' with other people who are writing at the same time (I find this very motivational). There's gamification like 4TheWords (love this site). There's 'I get to have a cookie if I write another 200 words.' There's 'actually I've lost focus because this part of the story might be broken and if I just do this the river will start to flow again' as a writing technique.

Mostly, you'll need the time and space to just amass the number of techniques you need to help with both focus and writing regularly. But in all of this, it's vital to be patient with yourself. You can't expect yourself to take a week to end up somewhere that someone else took 3 or 4 years to get to. And it won't be...consistent. Don't side-eye me or anything, but like, we're not meant to be machines, even people who write relatively consistently (like me) need breaks, get burnt out, get tired, are over it, and sometimes need brand new techniques to start working again. Knowing that it's not a linear upward curve of ever-increasing focus lets you also just...be compassionate and patient with yourself.

Oh yeah, because you'll have to get good at both of these too anon. :D Learning discipline and being firm with yourself can't work successfully if you also then mentally punish yourself for not doing it 'well enough' to the point where you don't want to do it anymore. Cultivating the 'I'll try again tomorrow' or 'I did great today!' parts of your brain help a ton with consistency. If you know you're going to be kind to yourself for doing well, and firm but compassionate with yourself when you don't, all of this gets way, way easier.

[loyaltyforged]

ooc. wanted to do one of those "are you lan fan's type?" bingo cards for lan fan but... not even she knows what she wants and i'd likely just put 'ling yao' in every spot cause he's the only guy in her life that isn't her grandfather--

[plugnuts]

I love ur art style a lot, do u have any specific inspirations?

My art style?

Well, I guess my inspirations would come from the fandoms I've been in, if anything! I've picked up something new from each fandom I've been in, getting myself to try out new things as I'm drawing new characters and getting myself to do more thought out drawing projects ^^

[lconoclasts]

Can't add the exact timestamp (it's at the end) but they just??? Jump off screen???? Do they not die???

My general consensus with this fight is that it's just extra content and... in-between canonicity. They don't show up in the credits (in a scene) regardless if you kill them or not, and the pupils are alive(?) or possibly some other ones are alive as they could just look similar/be reused sprites

long speculation under the cut

Fitzroy is lore for sure which contradicts some of the implications about trancending that we get but like. Royal is kind of a dumbass AND is being told all of this from mother/one concern. There's multiple implications of the "ancestors" (both isi and Him followers) coming from somewhere else/resetting the planet and leaving instructions/tech for their respective people to use. Fitzroy seems to fit in the between stage before the concern has studied the tech, but AFTER the Ancestors arrived/reset the planet. In The Tower and the Bastion there are images of famous earth landmarks (taj mahal, new York, pyramids I think) implying that some sort of Earth was destroyed/minerals drained (more connections to the themes about environmentalism) and that humanity was "reset". RIGHT BUT CANONICITY. Fitzroy is more lore... If u want him to be. The true past of humanity is still foggy ESPECIALLY with conflicting views from Him followers and the Isi. The concern claims to have longer records of history, and has aforementioned images, but they shape it to their beliefs and leave out certain parts intentionally as well as only educate people deemed more faithful (concern staff) and censor/mysticize parts for the common folk and ESPECIALLY city one residents. Cough cough 'merica haha but not really I doubt he was thinking about Americans specifically. This is more likely a commentary on religion specifically they larger ones and how they shape societies views and history! (Remember when we used B.C?) I'm not going to say this is an effective commentary or a scathing remark on Christianity (I believe that Christianity is used as a reference as it's the poster child to westerners for what "religion" is. He probably intended for this to be about religion as a whole but like. Come on. It's definitely Christianity with a few changes to make it a "generic religion" especially with the focus on punishment and ascension to a "good place". They also use sin/sinners a few times but that may be for familiarity especially since he had a whole npc for explaining terminology) that aside. Canonicity. Again. The history behind the Starworm followers vs the Isi is intentionally left a mystery! Fitzroy and Leticia are real as fuck (if u think they're canon) and provide some ideas for what actually happened in history but who knows! I should get back to my conversation I got distracted haha.

[emmaspolaroid]

if i show up like “hey ya’ll i got married over the weekend 🥰” don’t be surprised lol