#and colour differences are from the colour filter the show adds

[dribs-and-drabbles]

The Thai Communal Wardrobe item #7

Dark Blue Kiss ep 2:

You're My Sky ep 12:

Vice Versa ep 1:

UMG ep 1:

for @twig-tea 💙

[sorenphelps]

All the artwork I made for the fanfic Crazy Ex-Boyfriend by @amethystheart2421 for this year's @rsbigbang!

It was a wild run, we got paired up quite late due to our original pairs dropping out of the Bang, and even though it was already December and time was running thin, I decided to make this whole deal a way bigger challenge than it supposed to be... So I ended up drawing all 7 fantasy sequences, trying to mimic a different style for all of them, and finishing both versions of the banners I had in mind. I know, I know, but I swear even I wasn't aware that I am such an overachiever either!

Also, I usually like to hide little details as easter eggs on all of my artwork, so naturally this was the case with these too. I'm gonna list them one by one, also share a little story about each piece, sort of like a "directors cut werk", just so we stick to the screenplay motif. The numbers in brackets lists the order in which I drew the pictures.

The banners (1.,9.): I haven't watched Crazy Ex-Girlfriend the show, so I really had no idea about this whole thing, hence my initial idea of re-drawing one of the official promo posters of the show as the banner. But then Nicole shared the first scene with me when we got paired up, and also told me that her original artist wanted to draw the stargazing scene, which I also really liked. I sketched out both versions to see which one would look better, and also to warm up a bit for this version of the characters. (Nicole also shared some faceclaims, so except Sirius' and Lily's design, I tried to stick to her vision as much as I could.) The Netflix poster was considered the final one for quite a while. The stargazing banner was the last piece of artwork I finished, which I also edited to be used as Chapter dividers. I liked the idea so much I actually referenced the starry sky on the other pictures too. On the Netflix banner, Remus' socks and Sirius' suit handkerchief (how do you call those things in English, gahh) both have the starry pattern.

The western (3.): By this time it was decided that I'd do all fantasy sequences in a different art style, but I couldn't really come up with any specific style which could have fit the western vibes, so the characters are drawn in my own usual style, only the colouring is different. I tried to go for a sepia effect, without using a filter, I think I could pull it off well enough. I was considering to draw Sirius as a Native American for this, because I just don't see him as Caucasian in general, and also, Black Dog sounds like a badly translated indigenous name... But I discarded this idea for the sake of "historical accuracy" (and to save time, haha), as I think they wouldn't visit a saloon this way. I added the starry sky pattern to Sirius' handkerchief and... scarf? (I really should learn how certain textil items are called in English...) There is a wanted poster in the background with Voldy. And I swear I didn't mean to draw Remus looking this horny, it just kinda happened by accident! He is sure VERY fascinated by Sirius'... pistol.😜

The Star Trek (6.): My original idea was to draw like usual and just add so many lensflares to the picture that it's not visible if I copied another style or not. But in the meantime I started to watch Star Trek: Strange New Worlds with my bf and also found out that there is a new cartoon too, so it was then settled. This style is very different from my own, but it was so much fun! It was weird not to draw every single strand of hair in excruciating detail, actually that was the hardest part, haha! I struggled a bit with the placement of the lensflares too, the first version had too many and too bright, it had a disco vibe rather than a spaceship. I wanted to add easter eggs to the background screen, but I was running out of time, so there's only one light blue star similar on the screen! Also now I know that the uniform colors are not really consistent in Star Trek, and Remus’ might have had to be gold as Captain…🤷🏻‍♀️

The Disney (2.): This one sparked the first idea in my head after I read all fantasy scenes Nicole kindly shared with me. When I first sketched this, I still had no idea that I will end up drawing for every chapter and the style copying was not settled either. It started with this piece, I had the vision of the wolf chasing scene from Beauty and the Beast, and we were discussing whether it's plausible to collect berries during the winter or not... I've tried to make the final piece look as classic Disney as I can, and since I could pull it off, it was not a question anymore whether I'd try to do this with other styles for the other scenes. Retrospectively, this one was the easiest to make, apparently my usual style is not that far from Disney (I grew up watching those movies, so it's not a surprise), but I had to really focus on drawing the animals, it's been ages since I last drew any! (The trick is to give them eyebrows, and bam, it's Disney style!) Sirius' armour, clothes and sword has the star, and I also designed his own "crest" with the black dog and a star on his shoulder plate. The whole concept of the picture is Sirius' side being very bright coloured, while Remus' with the scary wolves in the background being very dark. This might have worked better if it was not set in the winter, but I wanted to stick to the Beauty and the Beast vision I had.

The Comicbook (4.): I was very excited for this one, I really like the looks of the old Batman the animated series, and the way some of his comics are drawn. It's such a unique style, I really like the simple shapes and bold contrasts. Well, it turned out I am very bad at this! I struggled quite a bit trying to capture what I had in mind, but I couldn't even come close to it... So I kinda cheated a bit because I just traced the lineart directly from the reference pictures of Batman comic books I found online. I tried to make Remus less buff, but it looked very weird, so I let him keep his muscular Batman body instead. I drew the wolf mask and the whole Sirius panel, and the coloring went smoothly after I finalized the lineart, even though I only realized that I switched the colour schemes of Remus' superhero outfit when I looked up the quotes for the comic panels, oops. Overall I like how it looks, but I am not that proud of it as I had to "cheat".

The Hobbit (5.): I've probably spent the most time with this one! I actually really like Martin Freeman as an older Remus FC, so I was quite excited to do this piece. My original idea was to mimic John Howe's style, as he is the Tolkien illustrator god, but his level of skill and mine are very very far from each other... and as I struggled a lot with the Batman piece, I felt like going for a smaller challenge. That's why I decided to have a go at Alphonse Mucha's art nouveau style. Turned out it was the worst possible idea! 🤣 The whole point of art nouveau is depicting attractive ladies in an ethereal way... But if you switch the ladies with a fat hobbit, the vibe def won't be the same! The first version just looks so extremely absurd, it's both awful and hilarious. By the time I could fix the pose so it wouldn't look as ridiculous, the final style looked nothing like art nouveau... I still have no idea what style it is now, not my own or any of the ones I tried to capture, that's for sure. I considered adding the star pattern to that tablecloth, but I decided that the lupin flowers in the foreground and the whomping willow-like tree are enough reference for this pic! I like how it turned out in the end tho, I think I could do justice for the watercolor-looking coloring technique, and the end result looks a bit like a fancier version of old children's book illustrations... Which is essentially what The Hobbit is, so it all sorted itself out by the end.

The Anime (7.): I like anime (I'm a little picky about them tho), so it was not a question that I would give this style a try! I am a huge fan of cyberpunk (the genre), so initially wanted to do that, I'm such a slut for Ghost in the Shell and I really like the aesthetics of the Akira posters, but after reading the actual scene, it was not really fitting. So I saved the cyberpunk AU for later, and went for the post-apocalyptic vibe instead. Obviously anime had a great influence on my art style, so similar to the Disney one, it was not that much of a challenge to mimic it. However I'm not that good at drawing backgrounds, and oh boy, I really made myself get over this obstacle with this series of pictures! Also as I was more comfortable with this piece, I actually added the starry sky pattern from the beginning to the scarf/blanket Remus has on this picture!

The Sitcom (8.): The original idea was to copy Hanna Barbera's old family cartoons' style, but as my deadline was very close and after reading the scene I realized that it will have a shitton of characters, I quickly abandoned my original plan. So this one is drawn in my own style, sort of, the designs of the characters are more aligned with Nicole's vision (sans Sirius, Lily, and partly Peter). The hardest part was definitely to figure out how I could fit 10 characters into one picture, let alone sitting in a living room! Also, I had to actually draw the living room too, considering perspective and scaling... Something I am not that good at. In the end the coffee table is maybe a little too big, but I needed that to hide the legs of the characters sitting on the sofa, haha! Also, the sofa is the Millennial Dark Green Velvet Sofa, because I also want to have one and it really emphasizes the general existential dread! (Just kidding.) Also also, I just realized that I have no idea how to eat tacos without making a mess (they are not that popular where I live). I added the starry sky pattern to Sirius' shirt, and gave a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles T-shirt to Peter, as he is talking about that in the scene. I wanted to squeeze in further references to the newspaper Remus is holding, but it was too tiny. The star from Knight Sirius' armour is in the background on the bookshelf. Also that globe just makes no sense but I had no better idea how to fill the empty space 😅. Molly is holding a mug with "BEST MOM" written on it, and I intentionally made Marlene's eye colour the same as Remus', who btw should have worn a bathrobe according to the original scene, but it was too late to fix that by the time I realized it. All in all, I am quite satisfied with how it turned out, it has the necessary sitcom vibes. And it is kinda a record for me in terms of number of characters drawn (the most was 12, but that one has no background, so I'd call it a tie!)!! I am very proud of myself for pulling this piece off, it really is the achievement of the year!

TLDR; (I mean really, my rambling is just too long!) I am happy that I was paired up with Nicole, working with her was such a creative process! My absolute favourite thing to do is work on AUs, and she has provided me with the opportunity to do so, I am grateful! It was truly a pleasure to participate in this (even if it's not that clear from all the complaining I just had above, haha)! If you ask me nicely I might show you the cursed first version of the hobbit picture!

[oftenlyshitposting]

wouldn't it be funny if shin somehow was given a jetpack from one of the mandalorians while her and sabine were visiting mandalore

sabine, ahsoka, and bo-katan would be conversing together over tea and uj'alayi, as they do; while shin was at the great forge with the armorer, as she does

there was this young apprentice of the armorer's who is crafting the jetpacks, right, and they need someone to test it out because their test-person is currently out testing another jetpack; they saw shin just sitting around reading, so they called her

"you want me to what?" shin repeated, not quite understanding what the apprentice told her to do

"try out the jetpack," the apprentice persists, like it's the most obvious thing ever, "my friend is out testing, and i need this jetpack finished today. i can't concur if it's ready or not without testing."

"i do not even know how to use this thing."

"it's easier than you'd think. the controls are in the vambraces." the apprentice quickly shoves shin a pair of vambraces, and began instructing a guide. "this tells it to go up, this is to land. it's intuitive, so it will follow your movement."

shin tuts, despite understanding the jetpack's controls. "this does not feel correct. i am not the armorer's apprentice."

the apprentice groans, desperate. "wolf, please. i don't want to work overtime today! it's my sister's birthday and i want to celebrate."

shin stares at the young apprentice in front of her, yellow helmet seems to echo the pleading eyes underneath it. she sighed, snatching the vambraces. "fine. but if the armorer, or worse ahsoka, finds out, you are responsible for this."

the apprentice cheered, victorious. "yes, yes, okay. try it on, wolf!"

shin rolled her eyes as she strips off her vambraces to put on the pair the apprentice gave her. she puts on the back piece of beskar that connects the jetpack, and the apprentice returns with a breastplate and a helmet to complete the look, which further confuses shin

"why are you handing me a helmet?"

"if you fly around without one, you'll lose your head."

shin grumbles, but the apprentice does have a point. after she puts on the breastplate and the helmet, it took her a while to adjust to feeling of beskar and the helmet. looking through the visor, she realises it adds more depth to her vision and it's programmed to fly

"okay," shin spoke, mildly entertained by her filtered voice through the helmet, "where do i fly to?"

"make a round trip from here to the center square. that should be enough to test it out."

shin nodded. she breathes in, trying out the controls in her vambrace, and slowly began to lift off the ground higher. the apprentice cheered, encouraging her to take off, so shin did

she immediately takes off from the great forge, and fly out some great height that made her blood rush in ways she's never did before, maneuvering through buildings and up to the sky above her

shin began to make her way to the center square; flying this freely feels so unfamiliar to her, yet it's also so natural. like she was born fly this freely. it's so different than flying a starfighter, shin thinks

just as shin sees the center square ahead of her, she hears someone else flying on her right, and another one shows not far behind her left. shin's helmet notifies an incoming transmission, and when she looks to the right, there sabine was with her identifiable brightly coloured beskar

"alright, apprentice. you're not cleared for a testing schedule today, so we're gonna have to escort your landing," comes in bo-katan's voice through the transmission in her helmet

sabine's voice chimes in, "i really hope for your sake, the armorer is in a good mood today, kid."

shin sighs, nodding as she began to descend, followed closely by bo-katan and sabine on her sides. but, just as she was closing in for a landing, the jetpack stutters, engines hacking away and making her unstable, before completely shutting off and threw her in a freefall

luckily, both sabine and bo-katan came to her aid and grabs her arms as they slowed down her eventful landing at the center square. when they're all on steady ground, shin watch as the mand'alor and sabine takes off their helmets, and she takes it as her cue to remove hers

sabine's eyes are wide in disbelief as she exclaims, "shin?! what the hell were you doing with a jetpack?"

shin had to contain her amusement, shrugging instead. "one of the armorer's apprentice needed someone to test this out. i was free, so i did it."

"well, that explains the unscheduled flying," bo-katan points out with a laugh, shaking her head. "alright, let's go back to the forge and return the jetpack. clearly, the apprentice still needs to do some fixing with the engine."

"ah, about that," shin hesitantly began, earning a curious look from the two mandalorian women, "the apprentice told me they wanted to go home quickly. their sister is celebrating a birthday. i do not wish to keep them at their workshop for too long."

bo-katan shared looks with sabine, conversing in silence as shin remains waiting for their decisions. the mand'alor sighs, nodding her head at shin to follow her as they make their way to a workshop

shin eventually returns to the great forge on flight, landing clumsily beside the apprentice's workshop. the apprentice waits expectantly, watching closely as shin takes off her helmet and unclasps the beskar

"well? how was it?" the apprentice asks as they help shin takes off the jetpack

"bo-katan and sabine escorted me to land on the center square. they told me i was flying on an unscheduled testing," shin replies, putting heavy emphasis on the last part

the apprentice shifts, guilty. "i'm sorry. i'll clear that with the mand'alor."

shin's lips quirk to a small smile, patting the apprentice's helmet. "worry not. i explained to bo-katan, and the mand'alor understands your situation. sabine also already fixed the engine, it had a little issue earlier."

"what?!" the apprentice squealed, panic in their voice. "what happened?"

"it ran fine, had some trouble with the landing sequence, i suppose," shin explains factually, and when the apprentice frets, she knocks on their helmet, "worry not, i told you. sabine already fixed it. she left an instruction guide for you to learn from the mistake in the helmet, so you do not need to be staying here for your sister's birthday."

the apprentice looks up at shin, and the blonde padawan can only guess their eyes are glimmering underneath the helmet. "thank you so much, wolf. i'll be sure to pass my thanks to the mand'alor and commander wren as well."

shin then contemplates on something for a little, before replying in mando'a, "ba'gedet'ye, ad'ika." the language was still foreign on her tongue, but she feels that it's appropriate

when the apprentice left, shin made her way back to the armorer's station, picking up her book. the armorer was there, in the middle of writing something on her desk

"did one of my apprentice trouble you?" the armorer asks, but her tone indicated that she knew the answer already

shin shook her head. "no. they only required some help. i happen to be free to help them."

the armorer made a humming noise. "who was it?"

"i did not ask their name," shin asnwers, "they had a yellow helmet, with blue line on their visor."

"ah," the armorer recognises, "yes, i know them. a little feisty troublemaker that one, atin ferro. very exceptionally skilled in assembling sen'tra."

"they are," shin agrees

"you tried flying it?"

"yes."

"how was it?" the armorer asks, curious of shin's opinion on the device

shin contemplates for a little. "it was... like i've never imagined before. i felt so free. it is different from flying a ship or a starfighter."

the armorer nodded. "it is. we take pride in it."

shin smiles, soft snd small. "i know."

the armorer stands, walking towards shin as she places a gentle gloved hand on her back. "come along now. i believe the mand'alor is looking for us. and your jedi master, too."

shin nodded as the two made their way to the grand palace, arriving to the grand throne welcomed by bo-katan sitting at the head of the table, followed by an empty seat to her right, din and grogu by her left, ahsoka across of din, and sabine next to din. the armorer made a beeline to the empty seat next to bo-katan as shin made her way to sit across sabine

sabine grins at shin the moment she sat down. "you're growing more mandalorian the more time we spend here, flying around in a sen'tra."

to that ahsoka turns to sabine, looks at shin, and shoots a questioningly amused look at sabine. "what did you mean shin is flying around in a jetpack?"

"i told you, i was helping an apprentice of the armorer's," shin sighed at sabine as she repeats the reason why she was in a jetpack, "you are acting as if i stole their device and took a joyride."

"hey, i wouldn't blame you. it'd be fun."

"yes, of course you'd find stealing the armorer's devices fun, ad'ika. you, are a little menace." bo-katan laughs from across the table, as if the idea of sabine sneaking around the armorer's inventory isn't surprising to her at all, as the rest of the table echoes the mand'alor's laugh

bo-katan had thrown a small gathering to celebrate; she didn't exactly specify the occasion or the reason for said gathering, but no one is surprised. if anyone asks, the mand'alor is either celebrating sabine becoming the first mandalorian jedi in their current lifetime after tarre vizsla, or celebrating mandalore's new liberation day

shin initially felt a little out of place; everyone in this table had known each other prior, and she doesn't. the only two people she knows are sabine and ahsoka, so she mostly listens to them exchanging war stories to fill both ahsoka and sabine in, or any news that they might have missed during their time stranded on the other galaxy

sabine had included shin into the conversations as best, whenever she could. the mandalorian padawan would excitedly tell the table how incredibly skilled shin is as a warrior, even went so far to claim she would make a fine mandalorian apprentice, something that made shin's ears flush red under her curtains of bone-white blonde

(it doesn't help that ahsoka and bo-katan had knowing smiles on their face as sabine says so)

the armorer, in response to sabine's claims, voices out, "i agree with commander wren. i'd be highly honoured to have her as mine own apprentice."

sabine grins widely as shin had a disbelieving look on her face as if she couldn't believe her ears. her eyes dances around the table, meeting ahsoka's agreeing expression on her face, echoed by bo-katan's approving smile

"though," ahsoka began with her usual cheeky smile, raising her cup for a sip, "i believe you would have to battle general syndulla to the death for shin."

shin had a questioning look on her face, while sabine laughs across of her. "i love hera, but my bets are on the armorer. i think shin looks dashing in beskar."

the armorer laughs, a rare expression from her, evidently amused by the prospect. "as much as i agree with commander wren," she nods at shin's direction, "i believe any choices that are to be made comes back to her own decision."

shin feels a lot of proud and welcoming eyes on her, her insides suddenly feels so warm. she recalls the last time someone held her so highly in pride and she had felt so wanted; her previous master, baylan. and now, she was deemed worthy enough to be considered to become the armorer's apprentice

"i..." shin began, but truly unsure on what to say. her eyes dart towards ahsoka, and the jedi master nods understandingly, calming her through the force. shin breathes, before continuing, "i am beyond honoured to be considered with such offer. i am still unsure if that is the path for me currently, and if it is acceptable by you, mand'alor, and the armorer, perhaps i could think on it for the moment before i come to any decisions."

bo-katan shares a glance with the armorer, silently conversing with each other, before they both nod. the armorer spoke, "that is acceptable. you are welcomed anytime you feel ready."

shin's face lights up, beaming, almost matching sabine's grin and ahsoka's proud smile. the mand'alor raises her cup for a toast as the whole table cheers

later on that night, in the shared quarters with sabine within the palace, shin is polishing her new pauldrons made from an alloy of her old pauldrons mixed with beskar, marvelling at the silver-ish beauty of the raw and unpainted pieces. her lightsaber is sat perfectly next to sabine's and her pile of beskar pieces

sabine exits the refresher with a pair of loose sleep pants and her black fitting tanktop, a trail of steam followed her close behind. shin can sense sabine leaning against the wall and watching her from her periphery, trying to ignore sabine's thoughts

"cyar'ika," sabine calls softly, and shin had to pretend as if the mando'a petname isn't sending shivers down her spine. the mandalorian walks towards the bed, sitting on the edge, eyes never leaving shin

shin simply hummed in response. sabine tuts. the blonde padawan sighs, putting down her pauldrons. "what is it?"

sabine smiles when their eyes met. there's something swimming behind those honeyed brown eyes, shin can sense it. "nothing. you're just..."

shin watches as sabine gets up from the bed to strut towards her, looping her arms around shin's neck as she sat herself on her lap. sabine tucks her curtains behind one ear, a ghost of a smirk on her lips as shin's reddish earlobe is visible. sabine's eyes are wild as they dart from shin's eyes to her lips

sabine leans down to kiss shin, instinctively making the blonde padawan wrap her arms around sabine's torso to pull her closer towards herself. the mandalorian grabs the side of shin's face to tilt her up so sabine can deepen the kiss, hungry for more

"gar mesh'la," sabine rasped out in between gasps over shin's lips

shin groans softly against sabine. "bed?"

sabine nods, eyes hazy and lidded. "gedet'ye."

shin smirks, kissing sabine as she picks her mandalorian up and pins her down to the bed, kissing down sabine's neck

shin thinks she'll be learning something else tonight

[marlinspirkhall]

The star trek food cubes are haunting me again. I want to put them in my mouth.

So here are the theories on how to make them.

[ID] Screencap from The Conscience Of The King shows Lt. Riley uncovering a plate of food cubes [end ID]

Tofu, diced.

Marinate in liquid(s) of choice (e.g, lemon juice). Cover with cornstarch. Add red, green or yellow food colouring to blocks as required. Roast and serve.

Suggestion: marinate the cubes in different flavours to correspond to their colours.

Prototype recipe

Melon, diced.

This one is low effort: Red cubes= watermelon, other cubes= melon. Allegedly, the original on-set props *were* dyed melon (but I don't have a solid source), so this may be the best fit.

Royal icing/icing sugar.

This one is just candy: make 3 batches of royal icing, one red, one yellow, one green, dice when half-set and leave to fully set.

Cake, fondant.

Possible, if we assume Lt. Riley was drinking milk in that scene from The Conscience Of The King (Pictured above). This one is also easy to make, assuming you don't object to fondant.

Jelly, cubed.

(Jell-O). Dishonourable mention; this one is too see-through for my liking.

[ID] Screencap from Where No Man shows Kirk eating a green food cube, which looks blue here. [End ID]

Potatoes, Diced.

Roast Potatoes, Diced

This idea comes from CoolPete.com, and my first thought was "please don't put food colouring on the potatoes".

Cool Pete provided a photo of the finished results, and the natural colour of the potato offsets most of the food colouring to make them all look greener than intended. The red food colouring comes out the best. I suppose colour theory dictates that you should use blue food colouring on the potatoes in order to get green cubes, but don't quote me on that.

With this in mind, I'm going to tentatively suggest a horrible idea:

Roast Sweet Potatoes (Yams), Diced

In theory, the redness of the yams might allow the Yellow Food Dye to look more yellow, and make the red more vibrant. There's a greater chance that you will be able to use the green food colouring without it looking blue here, but use at your own caution, because the finished product may look oversaturated. Perfectly edible, but potentially unappetizing (the first bite is with the eye).

Closing Comments:

For uniformity of texture, tofu or melon seems to be the best way to go. If we are to believe that the "food cubes" in-universe are supposed to be fruit (according to that same trekbbs thread, they're placed in glasses in Journey To Babel), then watermelon and cantaloupe are begging for our attention, but we must ignore them, for melon alone does not a meal make!

“I wonder if they were actually supposed to be some kind of fruit in-universe, too? IIRC, in "Journey to Babel" the copper aliens put them in their drinks, which seems a strange thing to do if they were supposed to be the 23rd century equivalent of tofu cubes or something.”

-Avro Arrow

This isn't the end, merely the beginning. I will test out a couple of variations of these meals and report back on which one I think is best.

My current hypothesis is that the tofu will allow for the most variation, as you can marinate it in naturally-colourful liquids of various colours. If it's colourful enough you could forgo the food colouring altogether, or marinate it in something colourless (like salted water) and then add seasonings and food colouring if you wish.

I intend to start by using tofu with diced potatoes as a side, though if I test out too many cube-shaped meals at once, my household will get suspicious, so I need to space this out over the course of a few months. I'm going to use the tag #Food Cube Trek, so filter it if that's not something you'd like to see.

[bullet-prooflove]

Shibari: Nero Padilla x Reader (NSFW)

Tagging: @babaohhhriley @lexondeck @redpoodlern @littleone65 @mortal--soul @buddinglinguist @yourwinchesterbros @oureternalbond @beccabarba @poppyrose33

I did so much research for this fic which is why it has taken so long. A massive thanks to @the-hinky-panda who has read multiple versions of this fic and listened to my character insights.

You’ve been working with Diosa for a couple of months when you approach Nero for a favour. He’s seated on the couch in his apartment, surveying the latest set of procurement requests when you rap your knuckles on the door and peek your head around it.

“I wanted to make sure I wasn’t interrupting anything.” You tell him when he gestures for you to enter the room with a smile that tells you he’s more than happy to see you.

His gaze lowers to the non-descript shopping bag in your hand and he wonders if you’ve been doing a little procurement of your own. He doesn’t know what you use in your shows, he just knows he gets a good cut of it each and every month so whatever you’re doing it’s lucrative. He’s caught a flash of you in between sets, that midnight blue silk robe with a hint of lingerie underneath. From what he’s seen you play to your assets because those breasts in wine coloured lace… It’s unprofessional to think about it.

“Inventory.” He explains, setting the paperwork down on the surface of the coffee table. You sit down alongside side of him, your floral scent flooding his nostrils. It’s subtle and inviting, it makes him want to bury his face into the curve of your throat as he drinks you in.

“That is a lot of lube.” You tell him, raising your eyebrows as your eyes skim over the inventory list.

“We run eight rooms excluding yours, seven days a week.” He informs you, as he picks up his pen. “If you want, I could add you to the procurement list, we get a good discount.”

You shake your head, your hand coming to rest upon his. Your thumb ghosts over the hollow of his wrist and it feels intimate. That’s the problem with you, everything feels intimate. From the light graze of your fingertips to the sultry sound of your voice.

Nero knows he’s falling; he’s known for a few weeks.

He knows he seeks out your company, that he lives for those small breaks in between your shows where the two of you share a coffee and laugh about something ridiculous a client has requested. There’s a warmth in you that filters into his psyche, it feels like sunshine caressing his skin. He’s never felt anything quite like it and it resonates with something deep down inside of him.

“I use a different brand.” You tell him, disrupting Nero from his thoughts. “My skin’s a little sensitive so I need something a bit gentler.”

“Noted.” He says setting down his pen. “What do you need Mami?”

“I have a favour to ask you.” You tell him, withdrawing your phone from your purse, your fingertip scrolling over the screen. It takes you a second to find what you’re looking for, before you hand the phone over to him. He frowns for a second as he studies the request made through your website.

“Shibari is becoming more popular these days.” He remarks with the shrug of his shoulders as he returns your phone. “And for that price, he could tie me up anyway he wants me.”

You laugh and it’s a rich, lively noise that he finds absolutely captivating. He thinks he could spend the rest of his life just listening to that sound.

“My question is will you help me?”

He should have seen it coming. He doesn’t know why he didn’t

“I’m not a boy scout.” He says frankly. Health and Safety is a huge concern in the sex industry and something as specific as this has it’s own caveats, there’s additional shit to think about. He tries to go over what he knows about Shibari, the risk factors he has to look out for. Nerve compression is always an issue when you work with bondage, he makes sure his girls knows what their doing with ropes and ties, the last thing he wants is to get sued by one of his johns. He thinks he has that covered because he also undertook the training from a domantrix in San Bernardino.

“We’d have to practice.” He tells you, his palm rubbing over the back of his neck as he speaks. “I don’t want to do anything that hurts you or causes any damage. If we do do it, it needs to be safely with open communication and EMT scissors nearby just in case.”

“This is why I’m asking you to do it.” You inform him softly. “You’re the only one I trust when it comes to something like that.”

It feels like a confession. There’s vulnerability to what you’re asking him to do, you’ll be at his mercy after he’s bound you and he knows you don’t take that lightly. It’s an exchange of power even if he isn’t actually participating in the act.  

“O.K.” He agrees, clasping his hands together. “When do want to start?”

You tip out the contents of the shopping bag onto the coffee table. A jumble of items tumble out, two lengths of high quality silk rope, EMT scissors, that specialist brand of lube you must have been talking about earlier…

“I have everything we need right here.”

***

It takes hours of practice. Nero uses Youtube to learn the knots as you research the intricacies of the act, the risk factors, the shit you need to look out for so that there’s no temporary or permanent damage caused. It isn’t until Nero has successfully trussed up his pillow for the eighteenth time in a row that he deems himself ready to try it out on the real thing.

He’s careful as he restrains you. You start with your clothes on at first, testing out the restriction of the rope before you eventually strip down to your underwear. A black sports bra and matching black panties. You want to test how it makes you feel, the relentlessness of the binds on your skin, you want to see if it’s something to endure or something you may enjoy.

When Nero steps back to survey his handiwork, he knows he’s done a good job. You look pretty as picture, seated in the centre of his bed, bound. The rope curls around each one of your thighs, securing your calves to them, your legs splayed open. Your wrists are cinched behind your back with a double column knot, thrusting your breasts forward and keeping you locked in place. There’s no way that you can move in this position, it’s completely submissive.

“How does it feel?” He asks you curiously, his hand coming to rest on the EMT scissors, just in case you need a quick release.

“Like I’m at your mercy.” You tell him, telling the strength of the restraints. Every movement is hindered by the restriction of the rope, your client knew exactly what he was doing when he selected this position.

“That’s what he wants.” Nero says with an understanding he isn’t sure he likes, because he knows there’s another step to the request, one that you won’t be practicing with him. “The beautiful girl bound up, under his complete control, no say in her pleasure.”

It leaves a sour taste in his mouth, not because of the fantasy itself but because of the way it was phrased, the words he used.

Control – not submission.

It isn’t about a distribution of power; it’s about owning you.

Nero’s surprised he didn’t ask for a fucking collar.

“Do you know why I cam?” You ask him as kneels on the bed behind you and begins to undo the ropes that bind your wrists. “Why I don’t do porn or escort?”

“I’ve wondered.” He admits as he tugs gently at the binds, unthreading them.

He knows you would make fucking bank in the niche areas, especially if you were doing shit like this.

“The distance,” You tell him, flexing your wrists as the rope falls away, there are no markings in your skin, just the imprint of the rope pattern upon your forearms. “I like the distance. I like knowing that I’m in control, that I am doing what I want to do. They may pay me, but they don’t own me. It’s one of the reasons I don’t come for them, not really. They don’t get to have that.”

You’re not the only one that fakes it. Most of his girls do too. It’s the nature of the job. He thinks the reality of a woman actually enjoying themselves is too much for some men. He thinks it’s too much for the asshole that sent this request in.

“I think that’s a healthy view to have.” He agrees as he unties the binding on your thighs. His gaze slips up to your face because he wants you to see the honesty in his expression when he tells you. “Pleasure should be given, not taken.”

Something passes between the who of you, it feels like a current underneath the surface of his skin.

“Think you can do this for real later on?” You ask him, breaking the spell. His looks at the silken rope in his hands, feeling the weight of it across his palms.

“Yea.” He tells you. “Just let me know when you’re ready.”

***

The underwear that was sent to you via you PO box is a bra and panties selection in cornflower blue silk. It’s a specification of the scene that you wear it. Everything about the video has been dictated to you, even the type of toy you should use. The only thing the viewer has no control over is the length of time. Five minutes is what you tell everyone. If they want you to make a video, it’s five minutes long and after that the price hikes astronomically. With Shibari the timing is even more crucial.

When you strip off the dusky pink robe Nero can’t help but think you look like a vision. He understands how easy it is for a man to want you, to need to claim you for himself. It’s not just your beauty, it’s something that simmers just underneath the surface. He knows that you’re emotionally intelligent, you wouldn’t have gotten this far without it but at the core of your being, you know who you are and you’re unapologetic about it. He thinks this is why your subscribers fall in love with you, he thinks that’s why he’s fallen in love with you.

He treats the scene the way he would with any of his girls, with a cool professionalism because after all this isn’t you and him exploring a new kink together in bed, this is work. He doesn’t need to remind himself of that, not when there’s a camera set up over his shoulder attached to a laptop.

He starts the same way he did last time, with your thighs. His palms are gentle as loops the rope around your calf, pulling it taut. His fingers trace along the indentation of the silken bind, testing the security of the bind before he moves onto your other leg.

“OK?” He asks you, his dark eyes searching yours for any sign of discomfort.

“Perfect.” You tell him, your lips accentuating the syllables before you gesture to the purple vibrator with the remote lying on the sheets next to you. “I just need to…”

“Oh yea, of course.” He turns his back, crossing his arms over his chest and raising his eyes to the ceiling. He hears the rustle of silk, and he tries to think of anything else other than you lubing up that dildo before you slip it inside you, the base flush against those panties when you slip them back on.

“Done.” You tell him and he turns back around to see you holding out the remote to him. “Well, someone has to turn it on, and I can’t do it if my hands are tied.”

Fuck, you are going to wreck him with this shit, he just knows it. If he ever doubted how much trust you have him, it’s eradicated the moment you put that tiny device into his hand. You are literally giving him control of your pleasure.

“Yea.” He says, his voice a little rough. “Of course.”

You put your hands behind your back dutifully and he kneels behind you on the bed before he wraps the rope around your wrists and begins to tie a double column. He’s well practised by now, oddly he enjoys the thoroughness of the task, the fact he has to concentrate on what he’s doing so his attention doesn’t wander to thoughts such as how did you get that scar just under the hinge of your jaw? Or how graceful the slope of your shoulders look in this position. When he’s finished he studies his handiwork, the binding is neat and precise, cinching your wrists just above your silk clad ass of yours. He’s starting to get good at this he realises.

“Remember.” He says as he climbs off the bed and comes to stand in front of you, making a snipping motion with his fingers. “You just say the word and I am there with the scissors.”

“The next thing you’re going to tell me is that we need a safe word.” You remark as you tug at your restraints, testing them.

“That’s not a bad idea.” He considers, his palm rubbing over his jawline. “Pick one.”

You’re silent for a moment, he sees something flicker across your features, something he doesn’t understand before you say softly “Roses.”

“O.K.” He agrees. “We’ll use roses. Now are you sure about this?”

He holds up the remote once more. You give him a look and he throws up his hands with a good natured smile.

“I’ve never been part of a cam show before!”

You smile back and he senses what ever happened just a minute ago has passed.

“Now you can cross it off you’re bucket list.”

He rolls his eyes before hovering alongside the camera, adjusting the angle just slightly so that you are entirely in focus. This is how you’ll look to your client, erotically exposed. Legs bound open so that he can see that sliver of silk, Nero thinks you must have smeared lube across the material already because he can see that moistness already clinging to the silk. Your breasts are thrust forward, your cleavage almost spilling out of the push up bra. It’s tantalising, he thinks, this image alone would make your subscribership increase tenfold.

“Ready?” He asks, his finger hovering over the button.

You nod and he presses the record button before retreating to the seat you’ve set up for him in the corner, the remote in one hand and the EMT scissors in the other. He holds up the remote to indicate he’s about to start the vibrator before he hits the rubber button once.

The moment he does the whole scene comes to life.

Its sensual, the way you move. You tug at the restrains as your hips push downwards, like you’re trying to fuck the thing inside of you even harder. He sees how people can get off on this, there’s a neediness in the act, a desperation in the way you choreograph your movements. You’re good at putting on a show, he understands why people pay you so much money. Fuck if this was private thing between the two of you, he would have gotten off already. That damp patch between your legs grows, the fabric soaking, and he feels himself beginning to stir. It’s a normal response to what he’s seeing, he knows that but he still crosses one leg over the other in an attempt to hide it. His eyes stray to the clock you’ve set on the end table alongside of him. Not long to go now.

There’s a flush creeping across your cheeks, it stains your skin with an apricot hue. Your movements become more erratic, muscles straining against the bindings as you whimper. Your head tips back as you arch, hips thrusting down as if you’re truly desperate for cock. It’s like you can’t control yourself. The pitch of your cries builds. The scent of your arousal is in the air, he can taste it on his tongue as your eyes meet his. He sees the heat there, the desire, the sheer desperation to get fucked and he realises you can’t actually control yourself. His thumb fumbles with the button but it’s too late. That brief moment of intimacy between the two of you sends you hurtling over the edge.

It’s beautiful, the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. You ruined amongst those sheets, eyes closed, chest straining. You whine in the aftermath, the vibrations drawing out your ecstasy before he shuts the damn thing off. He’s already on his feet, stopping the recording before he’s kneeling on the bed by your side.

“I’m going to untie you.” He says softly, waiting for your nod before he reaches out to touch you.

You tilt your face away from him as he undoes the knots as quickly as he can. You’re uncharacteristically silent and Nero wonders if he has just taken something from you. He remembers the conversation you had regarding your own pleasure, about owning it and he curses himself for not seeing the signs earlier.

He backs off once you’ve been released from the bindings, he steps away from the bed to retrieve your robe whilst you remove the vibrator. He waits for you to wrap it around yourself before he asks.

“Do you need space?”

He isn’t sure of the protocol for this, and he feels unequipped to deal with it. He decides he’s going to take your lead because in the aftermath of something like that it’s about fulfilling your needs.

“I didn’t expect to come.” You tell him, running your hands through your hair. “I was nowhere near close and then I looked at you and…”

“Oh.” He says before he sits down on the edge of the bed.

It puts the two of you on a level playing field. There’s no power dynamics here, just honesty.

“Having you in the room, it excited me. I didn’t realise…” You trail off because honestly you don’t need to say it.

There’s a chemistry between the two of you, one that extends beyond the realms of physicality. You know he feels it, it’s in the way he looks at you, the way he smiles. You think the both of you could have something great together but at the end of the day you’re a cam girl, who ‘gets off’ on camera for money. There’s not a lot of people who can handle that shit.

“It excited me too. You’re an attractive woman and this...” He says as his fingertips trail across the silken rope. “…may have tapped into something that even I wasn’t aware of.”

“Is this your way of telling me you like your women tied up and helpless?” You ask him with a teasing lilt and he sees those walls of yours have gone back up, that the moment of vulnerability you have just exhibited has passed. He concedes to it. You need to process what just happened.

“Only when there’s a safe word involved.” He responds light heartedly before he raises to his feet. “I’m gonna give you some time, when you’re ready come find me and I’ll drop you off home.”

Love Nero? Get added to his tag list!

Like My Work? - Why Not Buy Me A Coffee

[codgod]

ok im silly and obsessed with your art so i wanted to ask you about it!

i really love your shading on art, the layering and different colors is very well done! do you have any feedback on how to do rendering and shading? cause i know nothing about it

im also curious about your anatomy, its accurate but also very unique between characters! do you mind doodling like... how your format it? u know what i mean???

NEXT I WANT TO ASK! ABOUT YOUR OUTFIT IDEAS!! where do you get your inspiration for those beautiful fucking designs?

on the drawing you made of shrimp mariana being held by charlie, im curious about how you did the filtering to make it like. fuzzy but still clear???

last but not least, what application do you use for drawing, and which pens do you use?

sorry for all the questions but your art is a very big inspiration for me and i want to be as talented as u ^^💦

this got really fucking long and i don’t even know if it’s particularly helpful but LETS GO

—

OKAY SO. shading, thing i am apparently accidentally really good at. it’s probably the thing i’ve gotten compliments on the most over the years which is funny because it’s probably the thing i’m Least confident that i can do well. therefore i can’t really give a tutorial but i can give a bunch of disjointed notes

(shown above is my Default Shading, further examples of different lighting below)

everything else under the cut or this is gonna be a mile long

i like using blue for shading, yellow/orange for lighting but generally you can just make them opposite/complimentary colours to each other and that’ll work. cool shadows, warm light or warm shadows, cool light. you get it. that’s a general rule there’s probably exceptions. i will say i hate using purple for shadows but that’s a personal preference (as is every colour i use being so saturated lol)

the orange around the edges is supposed to be subsurface scattering on skin but i put it on all the edges because i like how it looks 👍

yes there’s two different bounce lights. idk why i do this. i also just think it looks nice. i guess the one on the shading layer is more for form and the one on the lighting layer is more for the yk. lighting? anyways the first one is just a lighter version of the shading colour the second one is darker and slightly hue shifted (depending on the lighting scenario — it can be brighter if the situation calls for it)

the reason i don’t just shade around the edges is because it can make things look very flat which is the opposite of what you want when shading. sometimes it can just go on the edges in some specific scenarios but i like my shadows Chunky. basically having it go over the form instead of just along it can help show that form more

top left - night time | top right - bisexual? | bottom left - spotlight i guess? | bottom right - default/daylight again, just wanted to show a shape example

something i’ll also do a lot is have a separate multiply layer that’s just one colour and i’ll throw that over the whole thing to get the base colours correct for the lighting scenario. some people do it by eye but i am lazy so i cheat 👍 often it’ll be the same as the more detailed shadow colour but as with the top right example sometimes it’s different

shadows are either on multiply or linear burn, lights are either on add (glow) or glow dodge. depends on what looks best. same with opacity, i don’t have any real rules there

i also LOVE harsh lighting but that’s just a me thing. UMMM i can’t think of anything else to say

—

so next is ANATOMY okay this is also something i’m not super confident with lol but i can give some more disjointed notes by just redlining my own sketches lol

the uuuh “bottom of boobs is 2/3 down the ribs” isn’t technically correct? if ur drawing someone with big boobs and no bra on they’re probably gonna go lower but that’s kinda. where they come out from i guess. i also don’t think the “ribs” i draw are technically accurate but it works for a reference point

arms are a diamond (the shoulder.. muscle.. thing… idk what it’s called) and then some Tapered Tubes idk they’re not super complicated. if you wanna get more into it go google buff people and trace/redline their arms that’s how i learnt orz and uuuh i kinda also have the taking up 2/3 of the ribs but a bit Above. the way i’ve worded that makes no goddamn sense i’m bad at explaining this

ANYWAYS yeah bodies are just shapes if you want ppl to look unique just squash or stretch out the shapes 👍 and also learn actual anatomy stuff that always helps. my final message: learn to draw fat people it is no more difficult than drawing thin people

—

OUTFITS i love outfits. i have a pinterest board where a lot of my inspo comes from and it’s a section within a bigger board so ig i’m just giving you my whole inspo board. here (it’s the one called character fashion) (i do not condone art being reposted on pinterest without artists permission just ignore how much i have saved)

pinterest in general is good for outfit design stuff as long as you know where/how to look. u could also try fashion blogs and stuff

ummm a lot of stuff does just come from my own head tho, like based on clothes i like or vaguely inspired by stuff i’ve seen before. if you look through the board you can also see that like i rarely ever copy stuff directly i kinda just use whatever stuff i find as a base to work from. just find stuff you like and go from there i guess, i sometimes like picking a specific subculture or fashion style for a character and seeing what i can make from that (like missa is emo/scene, slime is like some kinda ravecore thing?? idk)

—

OKAY i’m assuming you mean like the glowy effect? makes everything look Soft?

(idk if u can even see the difference here orz also ignore how many fuckin layers i use i’m a mess) (the top layer is that catboy missa doodle i did ignore that too)

this is something i do on Most drawings to the point i have an auto action set up for it. duplicate the entire drawing (on csp the easiest way is to just merge visible to new layer), gaussian blur to like ? idk i think it’s 40% or something? i don’t remember, set that layer to soft light and lower the opacity

if that’s NOT what you meant feel free to send a follow up question LOL

OH actually if u mean the colour jitter stuff on the . colours. that’s not a filter i was just using a brush with slight hue jitter on i was Experimenting

—

AND FINALLY i use clip studio paint on my ipad and most of the brushes i use on the reg can be found here

favourites are the ones i made (i actually have more of those i need to upload—) and the raz sketch ones 👍 namely raz sketch (thick) with the density turned up a bit from the default, been using that a lot for lineart

[princemick]

hi kyle, please explain your process of making graphics! <3

hi anon! I definetely will, I'll walk you though how I get to a graphic like this:

(warning, half of my process is just 'throw it at the wall, see what happens' so like, idk how easily explainable it is.)

first off, I get all my inspiration from pintrest, instagram graphics artist and random stuff I find. inspiration is everywhere and I always keep a notebook with me where I draw/write what I come up with.

all my photo's are from pinterest and google, I dont sell these, if you're going to please make sure the photo's you're using are free use.

all my fonts come from dafont.

the program I use is photoshop.

now, I'm going to break up my editing process into 7 parts.

inspo

images

editing

colouring

font

colour blocking

textures

hopefully it's clear enough

gather inspiration.

so I really like this and this edit I made before and they're pretty easy so I wanted to make a new one.

but normally if I wanna make an edit I scroll through my poster/edit inspo pintrest board which you can find here.

normally if I dont have such a clear way I want to go I'd make some sketches to see what works and how to get the idea out of my brain.

2. gather images.

I wanted to make a Danny one so its not to hard to find stuff as I have a specific search for this edit but I also have a growing archive of folders of drivers full of pictures ive found over time that I'd normally go through to find good stuff.

when you use google please remember to click on 'tools' and select 'size' and big otherwise you'll cry because of the bad quality

this is the picture I wanted to use for the danny edit.

I thought this would work well because it has depth and so will show the colour blocking well, it also has the flag and the shoe which is clearly recognizable.

3. trow it into photoshop baybee.

this is going to be hard to explain but I basically jsut fuck around. most of the time I kind of know what I want to do and the way I want to go but one of the first steps is always to raserize the layer.

I also make sure to copy the original picture for later so you have the same picture twice

I do this so i can be lazy and go to quick actions and remove the background because then, I get this.

without basically any work. (it's almost never perfect so after I let photoshop do it's work I fix up the parts that need it.)

this is what your layers should look like fter.

that lil black and white thingy is really useful and if you select that and go over it w the erase tool it doesnt permenantly change anything.

next thing I do is smart sharpen to spice it up, here is the sharpening settings I use.

a small problem with this picture is that it's to small for an A4 size (which is what I'm making it on) so I need to extend the background a little. which I do in the laziest way.

I select the most of the top of the picture I can and copy paste + extend it out. like this:

then, for this edit, I'm gonna add a black and white filter to the background so everything behind daniel is in black and white with an adjustment layer. I do this to keep the focus on our subject and remove any and all focus from the bg.

I also add a guassian blur to the bg to once again, keep the focus on daniel.

this is the before and after of that.

now, kinda boring right? yeaaah so now onto

4. colouring

first off CLIPPING MASK IS YOUR BESTIE!!!. if you right click on the adjustment layer and click on clipping mask it will ONLY grab the picture right below it, this way it wont affect everything else you've added to your edit.

anwyay. this is the fun part, and the only way I can explain it, is fuck around, see what you wanna do and what works.

I always add, levels, curves etc to just deepen the blacks and add some contrast. heres the before and after of that.

for this edit I kind of wanna focus on the contrast of blue and orange, kinda like the seb one but a lil different so what I'm gonna do is add hue/saturation and remove the yellow and blue from the picture.

you use this adjustment layer by grabbing the little hand and selecting the colour you want to change.

so I'm gonna play around and remove the blue and yellow from this picture. here's the before and after of that.

now I'm going to add selective colour, i wanna up to an extreme the reds in the suit. this is kinda hard as you'll obviously grab his skin with that too so I'm gonna use that black little mask on this too, it already exists when you add an adjustment layer

it's that little white box, if you select that and ue the erase tool you can basically remove that adjustment layer in places you want to, this is what it looks like on my layers and on the picture.

I want to upp the red even more then this so I'm gonna copy paste that layer two more times and THEN add a non erased selective colour and play around with the depth of the skintone until I'm happy with it.

now I'm almost happy with the colour, I want it to be a bit more blue so I'm gonna go to 'colour balance' and play around with that a little more.

this is the before and after of all that

then I'm done with the colouring on the picture itself. I'm also gonna put all my adjustment layers into a folder to make my layers less busy

I'm also going to add noise to both the BG and front picture. it just gives a bit more texture and grain that I like

5. typography!

now the stressful part lol.

I know what I'm gonna add so that makes it easy. the name of the race, place and year. this is hard to explain, I know where I'm gonna put everything because off the other edits so it's just about finding a good font.

for this I'm not gonna fuck around with shapes and text layers and adjustments etc. if you want me to explain that please ask away that's just a whole other 5k worded essay.

I know what kinda font I wanna use at first already these choices have to do with a few things which is basically one questions I ask myself:

is there a vibe that already exists around the race and/or win and how do I translate that into the font? (is it fancy, cool, magical, incredible, bold etc etc)

here's an example of how a font can change the vibe

so the vibe I want to go with for this edit is fancy smansy n stuff so I'm thinking of flowly maybe 1930s vibes this is the font I ended up with

I'm still gonna move the place around but the idea if there.

(I change and play around with my text a lot so, again, ask if you want me to go deeper into this)

6. colour blocking

now for this edit I'm going to add a box of colour, I do this if I want to add a bit of an oomph and contrast to it, I like what I have now but I want to add some contrast to make the colour and him pop even more.

this is petty easy I'm basically just going to add a colour box behind him, I'm gonna do blue as well, thats the opposite of red on the colour wheel AND its the other colour red bull is associated with, also colour theory and all that etc.

I'm also going to add gaussian blur and noise to add some texture and use and overlay. heres the diff in with and without that to show the use of it.

at this point I'm also going to move the text around (as you can see) to make it fit better with the added box

7. texture

the moment where it starts feeling like its finished.

for this edit I kinda want to add some photo texture and more grain. here are the textures I used:

I added these and put it on a screen overlay layer and added some adjustement layers to tweek the last few things.

you can find different textures on google, pinstrest and some awesome artists have texture packs you can pay for w just a few bucks. for these, again, if you're going to sell your work MAKE SURE ITS FREE FOR USE!!!

THATS it!

I add my watermark and maybe fix a few little things but thats all and then I'm done, I reccommend playing around and seeing what works for you.

enjoy and have fun <33

[melon-milku]

Yooo, that picture with Donnie and Leo hugging is awesome and heartwarming :0 But I've a question. How did you do that sparkly scale texture on their skin? It looks so pretty!

Aww thank you!! :D

A lot of the time, its a mixture of trying different brushes for textures, flipping through layer filters and colours. I'll try and show my process, but apologies if its not so clear! (Also just so u know, I use CSP! :])

I try to find a speckle-like brush! This one is called "Wall Tzu SP hard" which is from a brush pack i bought from PharanBrush, but you can use any sort of speckle brush, i just like this one especially (good for freckles, too!)

I used a really bright blue and dappled in the areas that I wanted the sparkles to show.

Set the layer to glow dodge (sometimes colour dodge is good too!) and lower the opacity (I put it to 48% but again, you can play about with this at any stage)

Next, I pretty much do the same in a new layer below the last, but used the darker colour of the base skin and faintly go in similar spots as before. I set that layer to multiply and lower the opacity to anything between 20% and 40%.

I just think it kinda defines the shinies a bit more!

In a similar colour to the blue I used for the sparkles, I lightly use airbrush on a new layer. Kinda helps with the form and make him more shiny. (I keep this on 100% opacity because I am very light-handed with it, but you can lower it if need be)

And lastly, if you want more texture and you have a dot grid tone brush, make a new layer and colour pick random parts of the shiny areas. I don't really know how to explain this, I just do whatever til it looks good PFF! (Might be a less is more scenario)

annnd yeah! :D This is just how I did these specific textures, its lots of layering and tbh you can add even more with different opacity. You also don't need to use the exact same colours as me, I usually try different hues to figure out what looks best, literally go ham!

HOPE THAT MAYBE HELPED? I do not know how to do these little tutorial ask things BWHAHAHA but if theres anything else you want to know, feel free and I'll try my best to answer!

[woundlingus]

can i ask why you hate wayward sisters?

First and foremost, because I know a lot of people feel this way about wayward sisters, it’s got nothing to do with a general disinterest in seeing a woman led cast in the supernatural universe, believing that there cannot be a Supernatural without Sam&Dean, and nothing to do with not wanting success for the girls and the pilot.

I was really excited when they first announced it because I was a huge fan of Jody and Donna and their gaggle of hunter girls, personally my favourite was Alex- maybe because she’s a little Sam coded with wanting to go to medical school and be normal and I’m just really captivated by her origin story as vampire bait. The bitterness came later when it was all for nothing because it never got picked up, behind closed doors it was likely already slammed down by The CW because we know from interviews the president has said he doesn’t think people would care about a show without Sam and Dean, and then to add insult to injury they aired one more wayward sisters relevant episode after the fact.

Most people think of wayward sisters as that one episode, the true pilot episode but that’s not really the case,

You have Patience; where they kill off a very beloved season one character, Missouri, for the character development of a character who would never be relevant again which is both a waste and lazy writing because why should I care about Patience grieving when I don’t even know her? There’s nothing driving a connection here between me and this character other than a one hit wonder from the early days and then they just kill the only interesting thing about the girl before it has time to blossom into something better and tragic.

Then it’s The Bad Place; which is the introduction to Kaia- because every girl we don’t know need their own episode apparently. We didn’t know Sam and Dean and yet they made a perfectly captivating pilot episode where it explored them enough as characters to make them interesting right then and there… but I digress. This is Episode NINE, and Jack only now makes his return to the screen because he’s relevant to move the plot of a different show along. And again, like Patience I just don’t care about Kaia’s struggles because I do not know her as a character, they’ve just thrown her at the audience already laid bare as if that’s meant to make her interesting when it’s made her so flat with no intrigue.

THEN, it’s Wayward Sisters. I just hate the premise of this being an AU thing, like the girls have to go away lest whatever insane bullshit the writers want to throw at them is going to conflict with the world ending drama of the Winchesters. There is nothing particularly interesting about the bad place, it’s an empty forest and sometimes there’s spooky noises in the background, it’s just purgatory with a different colour filter.

Then it fails, and then it’s ANOTHER WAYWARD SISTERS EPISODE! It’s Donna and her niece who never became plot relevant enough for anyone to remember she’s supposed to be in the gang! At least this one is fun because Sam is going to get sold on the black market I guess?

This was the mid season finale in a show that is very clearly entering its last stages of life. They used nearly the entire front half of season 13 to pitch a show that never happened. Could you imagine the kinds of interesting things that could’ve happened in all that time? Maybe something relevant to Jack, or Mary, since those are two characters I want to like very badly and I just can’t sometimes because they weren’t very interesting in season 13. Because they didn’t get a chance to be before they were thrown away. Jack is the big plot, he’s there, then they throw him away, then they bring him back for another show and use that show to throw him away again.

Also, honestly? I don’t really like the girls, but not how you think. It’s nothing to do with being a woman hater, I know it sounds like that when there’s absolutely nothing interesting about some of the male characters I like (*cough* Asmodeus and Loki *cough*) and yet I’ll make huge elaborate headcanons and adore them, but it’s the being a woman myself that makes them harder to stand. A guy being a loser? Whatever. Those women being characterised as motherly angel saints who have a gentle and tender blooming WLW relationships and they’ll coyly hold hands and be chaste lovers, but don’t forget they’re GirlBosses, and they all dress in flannel because they’re just so super tough! But also they all have to wear a full face of makeup to fight vampires! It’s different, because I’m watching that and I know there’s not a hint of irony in it and the writers have written them like that not because they’re being lazy or they’re hacks, but because that’s how they actually see women, that’s what they think women want to see. When a guy character sucks he just sucks, when a woman sucks I can see the misogyny that went into writing her and I don’t want to look. Jody and Donna are Sam and Dean’s peers and I think maybe even younger than them and yet they’re motherly and tender through the horrors. Claire hasn’t had a moment of peace since she was like five years old where she was possessed by an angel who knew her mind couldn’t comprehend consent and used her to kill people, then took her father again and tore her family apart, and then they just take all the teeth out of her bite and make her snappy and quick witted instead because there always needs to be plausible deniability about whether or not a character might dislike the Winchesters because they’re just the specialist little boys ever! It’s the potential that upsets me, it’s that we could’ve really had a female led hunting show and it failed from the jump because they were not writing interesting and complex characters, it’s the same grief I have with Mary that they’ve taken all the complexities about being a hunter and the horrors of what you have to do to survive and they’ve taken the teeth out of these women to make them flatter and more placid characters out of I guess fear of upsetting the male characters? Fear of letting a woman take up space and be loud? It’s not like they can’t be those things and also interesting, Jo and Ellen were interesting, the writers here just don’t care for the women and their relationships they’re writing, they’re just throwing shit at paper and hoping to make bank off women.

It wasn’t one episode and I’m kinda just bitter, it was four episodes about people we never really see again in a season filled with a LOT of things that were insanely interesting to me if my entire blog doesn’t give that away, I’m a little crazed about s13. It was just a massive waste to think about the characterisation time and plot development and relationship building that could’ve been done for characters that actually mattered this season, especially when this is the one where they’re actually going to have Michael V Lucifer. You’d think that would be a bigger deal than it was.

In a season filled with so much already, they dedicated four episodes to a show that doesn’t exist, and the vast majority of plots in the main storyline suffered for it by being incomplete, jarring, or lacklustre.

At least Jensen had the balls to make The Winchesters stand on its own two feet, I guess I have to give him respect for that. Could you imagine if the finale to the show was his back door pilot?

[inklessletter]

I absolutely love following along with your art and the process behind it! I'm curious about more behind the scenes stuff, as I have picked up digital art after not having drawn regularly in 10+ years.

When you do your drawings, what steps do you take? Do you use real references? Skeleton sketches? I'd love to know more about how you approach things digitally!

Oooh, first of all, thank you so much @emeraldzephyr! It is such a lovely thing that you decided to pick it up again!

As for how do I organize myself for drawing, every person works with a different procedures and it is important to know what works for you. For me is organization and inspiration.

For me, the most important thing is having references. It is more important than experience, more important than skill and even than inspiration. When you start messing with a blank canvas you need to know first hand where you want to go, or at least, have an idea. I won't likely start drawing without some references pictures. I learnt this when I took classes last year and this is probably the only thing that actually fully stuck.

My main resource for them is Pinterest, and I navigate through it with intent. I also have multiple packs of pictures of models and references that I have purchased in Artstation. Either way, references, to me, are essential and necessary. In Pint for example I have different boards, some for poses or compositions, some other for finishing, some other for colors palettes, or effects, or styles. I may have (and it is likely to be that way) multiple references for a single illustration ("I like the composition of this one, but the color palette of this other one, but the light works incredible in here, and wait, how was exactly the curvature of the nose of Joe Quinn in this perspective...? Shit! Keery's moles!! How were them distributed in the right side of his face? asdfadfs").

So you see, this is the first and the main thing I do. And I am also fattening with pins all my boards anytime I've got the chance (on my way to work, in public transport, waiting in lines, etc.), so I don't run out of ideas.

When it comes to actually drawing, I always make my canvas extra large and fit the main reference there so I don't get it out of sight (probably the one I'm using for composition) and make a first sketch than I later proceed to fix because it is often that I get wrong the proportions or the perspective, and that's okay. I can do five or six layers of sketches and then I do a first lineart that is messy, but it compiles everything that I have from different references. I spend a lot of time with this. Before shit gets serious and you start with colors, it is important for me to be happy with the sketch, or I may work a lot of hours on this particular illustration and you will end up hating it because "fucking shit, that ear is too small, how didn't I see it before!!!! [yes, I have no shame in showing what I think I failed miserably, the next piece was better, and so on. I keep learning everytime. I trust the process in broader aspects of art, not only in piece by piece]).

I create folders for the color process and try to organize the layers in it, first painting them with plain colors in separate layers and then adding layers once the whole illustration is fully coloured, first starting with shading, and then to light.

For me it is really important to play with the different effects of layers, play with opacity, gradients, brushes, tools, etc etc. I always find some effects that I wasn't expecting and the quality of my work will rise up just because I just found something interesting that weren't expecting at all, so, yeah. I play a lot with my software. All the time.

And finally when I am happy with it as a whole, I add a few filters (noise, blurs, etc.) If I want a very specific effect and I don't know how to do it, I have no doubt in stopping for a minute and finding a tutorial that teaches me how to do it (like the flare in this illustration, or the video effect moving color channels in this one). I always keep in mind that I should not get frustrated when I don't know how to do anything because I can always google it and it is a great opportunity to learn something new.

I am so so so sorry if this was too long, and probably it wasn't interesting enough, but that's what I do. And again, I want to make myself clear when I say that there is not a correct way to do things when it comes to art, this is just what works for me. I am no expert, I had to try and fail many many times to find the right approach for me without getting sad or frustrated. I, myself, have reconnected with art not that long ago after a decade, too.

I wish you the best of luck with your reunion with digital art!! Looking forward to seeing your pieces <3

[c-rowlesdraws]

Hello! Do you have any tutorials on how you colour, and brushes you use? Your art is absolutely amazing!

hi anon, I'm so glad you like my art! Honestly, I feel like I don't have any earth-shattering coloring advice to share, and I experiment a lot with different coloring styles, but I'll try to lay out how I usually work. Also, if I keep sitting on thought-provoking asks like this until I "have something really insightful to share", I'll never answer them and they'll just keep piling up; so I hope this is useful, or at least interesting!

for brushes, I usually draw and color with the default hard-edged round brush in Photoshop:

but for inking, I have a few other faves too, mostly from Kyle Webster (@kyletwebster here and on twitter)'s brush packs:

as for coloring... sometimes I'll add things like saturated, glowing light or deeper shadows using blending modes like Overlay or Multiply, but lately I've been trying to develop my color sense by painting on just one layer, usually with the lineart set to Multiply so that the colors show through from underneath. That process looks like this:

the last step to any of my drawings is coloring in the lineart to complement the painting, which I do by creating a clipping mask above the lineart layer:

then the last-last step (usually) is throwing a Sharpen and Noise filter over the whole thing, for the ✨👌aesthetic 👀✨

...and that's how I do it!

[rhan-hastur]

Hi! @velvetcloak asked me to do some kind of lineart tutorial/step-by-step, I'm by no means an expert so don't hesitate to ask if you need some things clarified! Always glad to help.

I use three different methods that are pretty much trial and error, depending on what works best for the artwork but I'll do my best to explain with screenshots - these were taken on photoshop, I draw with procreate, but I'm guessing the layer modes are similar on other softwares. (Also mine are set in french, sorry in advance for the confusion.)

If you're already familiar with digital lineart and softwares, this probably won't be of much use, it's very basic stuff.

Otherwise, more below the cut! (It got a bit long.)

I. Solid black lineart, with this illustration used as reference.

I used the basic gesinski ink brush in procreate, 100% opacity in normal mode to get pure black. Very basic, it's set on top of the colour layers, everything above that is just additional effects and filters + textures. Note that I always draw separate elements on different layers and fuse them later, it's easier to deal with details this way. The isolated layer looks like this (I changed the colour of a disappearing hair lock, more on this later):

And the colours without it, like this (my style relies heavily on lineart, lol):

Both:

Good! It's a bit harsh though, I like to add a second layer to soften things up, set in 45% opacity multiply mode right under that. I duplicate the main lineart, and add a gaussian blur to the copied layer (between 3 and 5px, values vary from one artwork to another, same with the layer modes.)

Not done yet! I use the blured lineart as a colour filter by locking it to pixels only and filling it with the tone I want. In this case, red. Isolated layer:

And the end result:

The second method, I tend to use more on sketches and loose drawings to get a better blend of lineart and colours:

II. Semi-transparent lineart, with one of these sketches.

Basic 6B brush in procreate (my fav), quite thin here but you can get great results with a larger brush. It's not really obvious looking at this scale, so here's a comparison between a black solid lineart (1 layer, normal 100% - the scars are on a separate layer because of the colour, otherwise it's the same setting) and a semi-transparent one (2 layers), especially visible in lighter areas, note how the second one lets hues show through. I find this to look a bit less stiff.

Now for the method! Since this relies on the layers underneath, you want your colours to a bit more precise than the previous example. Without lineart:

TBH it's also a two layers solution, super easy. Once you're statisfied with your basic lineart, set the layer to overlay 100%. You'll get something like this:

Then duplicate this layer, put the copied layer above the overlay one and set it to normal 70% (or whatever looks best, this is 67%) and you'll get the final result as previously shown! In this particuliar case, I erased the black circle around the iris in the normal mode layer to keep the blue of the overlay one. You could also skip step two depending on the desired rendering.

The third method is a blend of the other two result-wise:

III. Coloured lineart, with this illustration. (tw: a bit of gore and blood in the full artwork, I'll crop it out of the screenshots. Poor guy can't get a break. It's the only file in this style with a semblant of organization, don't be like me, rename your layers and use folders.)

Fountain pen toothy brush, from the MaxPack watercolor set. It has a bit of a texture to it, and isn't entirely opaque so it blends nicely with the layers below. The lineart is set to normal 100%, for this method it's preferable to have separate layers for each elements, since you'll be recolouring them individually. Here, the hands, skull and additional details are all on individual layers.

Just like the blurred layer in the first method, you need to lock your pixels (the little grid to the left on photoshop):

And either fill you layer with colour, or paint on it with an opaque round brush/a soft one depending on the desired outcome. (Some zones might need a gradient, or various colours.) You can also use another normal layer on top of a black lineart and set it as a clipping mask, same result, different method. But I prefer to keep the layers count to a minimum when possible. With the layers below, it will look like this:

You can notice a bit of lineart transparency over the skull colour layer, cool stuff. (The shading of the skin is set on top for some reason, I don't remember why but surely there was a reason.) However! In this illustration, I need a yellow glow for the fire so let's create yet another layer, shall we? This affects the whole rendering. I painted a diffuse light source using a soft gradient brush, and set the layer to hard light. Isolated layer:

End result:

All done!

Now go create!

[berriesandjunnie]

hey lia! congrats on 500, u deserve all ur followers :>>>>>> for the prompt sleepover event, can i request 38 and 39 (if u do two prompts) with a svt member of ur choice?

w.c: 1,064 words

prompt: “not today satan” & “maybe today satan”

a/n: thank you so much!! the second i read which prompts it was i had such a cute shua idea that i just simply had to write it out<33

“Josh,” you breathed, exhaling when you figured you didn’t know what to do with your boyfriend’s stubbornness, “we’re not doing pottery class.”

The look on his face said everything; you would get silence for maybe two days, three days at a push before he’d spew the question to you again. He was relentless about pottery class for some odd reason - he stated it was for the cute date aesthetic but you were convinced he was solely in it for the pots. It was just odd to you because in the seven years you’d been together he’d never shown this much interest into something before, especially to the point where he never stopped asking.

“Why not baby?” He pouted, drawing his lips into the cutest heart shape as he puffed his cheeks a little - perhaps you were dating a child, “I thought you said you were tired of coffee sh-“ You interjected him rather quickly.

“I never said I was tired of coffee shop dates stop twisting the story!” You exclaimed, folding your arms across your chest as you let out a tiny huff for added emphasis, “I said we should take a break because it was too much coffee to be healthy.”

“No such thing as too much coffee.” Joshua argued and the two of you sat in a momentary silence as you both sat on the lounge floor in the summer heat, sifting through numerous films you owned on disc. It was your idea, it was beginning to clutter and half of them the two of you didn’t even watch anyway now you’d got netflix! Joshua on the other hand was a little more reluctant to clean through them thanks to odd attachments to certain ones.

“I knew you would say that.” The sigh escaped your lips as you broke the silence. For his age - the rip old age of 26 I may add - he was certainly a child at heart and around you, he wasn’t afraid to show it. You definitely appeared more childish in front of anybody else thanks to the way your boyfriend just seemed to shapeshift his personality.

“Pretty please.” Joshua mumbled, slowly losing the will to keep up his argument at this time. He’d recharge his confidence and return in two to three working days ready to blast you with it again.

“No, Josh,” you laughed, shaking your head as you read the blurb for a film you’d just picked up and didn’t recognise, “not today, Satan. Go by yourself.”

Joshua groaned, throwing his head back. You watched the strands of his lightly coloured hair fall back with the action. You admired his many piercings that glittered in the sunlight that filtered through the window, the way his Adam’s apple was so prominent at this angle and his jawline sharpened.

“One day.” The words left his mouth in a whisper as if a reassurance to himself. You quirked a brow but didn’t engage on it as he continued to sort through films.

-

You wasn’t stupid or perhaps you were but you noticed the sudden peculiar collection of clay you’d been finding around the house, all shades of different colours and kept tight in packaging. Maybe you was going insane, you certainly didn’t do anything involving clay and as far as you were aware, neither did Joshua. You’d been with him every time he went shopping and he had most definitely not brought clay in your presence. Was there such a thing as a clay fairy?

For all you knew, it could be leaving signs. You shook the silly thought from your head. You were forgetful after all but it still made no sense. Joshua would have said if he had to do some weird little art project for work, right? Surely. Sipping your morning coffee, you gazed at how pinks and oranges painted the beige walls of your lounge as you pried open the fabric curtains to admire the sunrise. Maybe you should suggest those colours actually being painted on the wall to Joshua. He probably wouldn’t be amused.

You took one more sip of coffee, letting it tingle on your tongue before the silence was interrupted by Joshua emerging down the stairs of your house, holding something close to his chest. A smile cracked on your face.

“Morning handsome,” you mused as he leaned down to peck your lips, his hair tussled, “sleep well?”

“Slept better when you were still in bed.” He teased and you swallowed the tight knot in your throat as your cheeks heated up and you went through the shades of red. Your curious eyes fell back to whatever he was holding in his large hands.

“What do you have there?” You tilted your head almost like a confused puppy, watching Joshua shuffle the weight on his feet under the pressure you’d created in the early morning’s glow.

“Something I’ve been working on,” Joshua went to explain, opening his hands to reveal what looked like a jewellery tray made out of baked clay, painted in your favourite colours, “it’s for your rings, I made sure it matches the bedroom - I got to do this cool technique called coil construction…”

You zoned out as Joshua rambled on about coil construction and somehow even the history behind the technique, your eyes fixated on the jewellery tray in his hands. He’d truly matched your shared bedroom’s aesthetic while pairing it with your favourite colours and not only that, he’d created something you’d been searching for for ages. His eyes twinkled in the sunrise as he babbled on excitedly, his soft lips in an indescribable smile of happiness as he talked so passionately. He even went over the process of him making the tray.

“That’s where all the clay came from,” you breathed softly, speaking almost under your breath as you didn’t want to rudely interrupt your boyfriend, “I love it.” Your words silenced him though, his smile growing into a shining beam that showed off his glittering teeth as he held the tray towards you.

“Does this change your mind on the whole pottery class thing?” Joshua murmured as you took the tray ever so gently from him, “I’ll make more things for the house-“

“Maybe,” you couldn’t help the smile your lips curled into as you looked up at the bright look on your boyfriend’s face, “maybe today, Satan.”

[branzinos]

I really love your colouring on the ww and m& Gary gifset… what did you do?

Nothing special! Abbott sometimes has some fairly harsh colour grading but different colours and levelsfor each scene so I don't have a one size fits all psd for it. so first off I use selective colour to try and reduce that - usually scenes are too yellow or too blue, so I slide around to whatever is opposite on the colour wheel to reduce it. when skintones and stuff look more normal I then can change it to look more how I like it, which typically means I use another selective colour layer to noodle around with the red and yellow channels to warm it back up. often I go by Melissa's hair as a yardstick, which I tend to push more into a slightly pinker/purpler auburn tone instead of orange. and I also futz with the black and white levels in selective colour which sharpens the overall contrast. I then add a curves layer and increase the exposure to lighten.

with this being a black centric show it's important to be mindful of not whitewashing or making black characters appear too pink - there are some tutorials and premade actions on Tumblr for how to avoid this if you Google search - bare in mind most premade psds and tutorials on here, especially pastelly ones, are designed almost exclusively for white/pale skintones and you see a lot of Abbott gifs where unfortunately the black cast members' skin is grey or pink toned as a result, because people use presets not designed for dark skin. If you want to use premade colouring layers you can look for packs that specify being dark skintone friendly or designed by poc creators - most PSD archive blogs now have tags for this - but I don't use any premade psds I just go by eye. For gifs with Ava, who's skintone is cooler, I manage blue levels because that's complimentary for her, but for gifs with Barbara I manage the red and yellows and try to keep her from looking too pink - the black slider on all the colour channels in selective colour is your friend here, don't be afraid of it - it increases the vibrancy and contrast without being overly saturated. exposure is important for this too.

if necessary I also might up the vibrancy in the saturation levels but selective colour usually manages that. finally I go through the various channels in the hue/saturation slider to reduce some colours that arent really needed (often magenta, green, cyan) which cuts down on the gif filesize and makes the overall rendered gif clearer when you're trying to get under 10mb - you can see what colours are artifacting and increasing the colours unnecessarily by temporarily setting saturation to full and reducing the levels accordingly (like one area will have a bunch of green spots for no reason). and of course I also sharpen, usually two smart sharpens and sometimes a high pass filter. I do have an action for this and don't know my settings off the top of my head but there are downloadable actions people have shared on here similar to mine. but that's about it!

[pandorasboxoftreasures]

I BRINGETH!

Hate to admit it, don’t wanna name names. 

But the level of structural accuracy of canon Na’vi character fanart MUST improve.

It’s been 6 months now. And I still keep seeing some very high quality art in amazing styles, however, the characters themselves are severely lacking in their accuracy.

I’ve been pointing out what I can about the worst victim of this, Recom “Ritch” Quaritch, and I’ve noticed people have been paying more attention and noticing these little things on their own. It’s great seeing artists working hard and perfecting their skills.

I hate as an artist to have to say that it’s not been enough for quite a lot of artists I’ve seen so far. I know everybody is improving and working hard. Including myself. And everyone has to start drawing Na’vi somewhere.

But I think I need to nudge things along a bit more. And I recently discovered a new way that may help.

Using a painting filter to basically give each character human-ish skin and eyeballs. (Unfortunately only in one light tone which is very frustrating but I guess it’s consistent and the lighter shade will make details harder to miss in different lighting situations) Clearing up the beautiful to observe but visually cluttering to study and paint details and colour palettes. Some of you may find this horrifying, I dunno. A warning anyway.

For months whenever people tell me “He’s ugly in the movie!” I’d rebuke with “He’s classically beautiful. Like works from the Italian and Dutch masters. Like the ancient sculptures of Rome. Slap him down on a couch in front of Da Vinci or Michelangelo and they’d piss themselves with sheer awe.”

Well, here’s the proof... kinda... using screenshots I’ve collected and made myself in as many angles as I could fit together for now with different levels of quality until I can get my 4K inputs sorted :

STOP JUST PAINTING HIM BELOW THE NECK!  YOU HAVE NO EXCUSES NOW!

Try rendering him similar to this in your target or individual style, and THEN put the Na’vi detailing on top. See if it makes a difference.

Granted, the filter only worked on some angles (I have more images to add later too) and it did make some very minor alterations, I did my best to mimise them, regardless take note. And it couldn’t get every little crease. But with how much missing the mark there’s been anyway, I guess aiming for this is still better than the status quo (again not naming names except for maybe myself).

I’m gonna be doing this with other characters, too. I simply figured starting with him would both be the best test as to whether this would help as well as fight the tide of “this artwork is amazing but who the hell is that guy” disease.

It might also be worth my while to morph these together and see what I get. 1 uniform face for each character. Guess I’ll see what happens with the others.

Note the other posts I’ve made about the finer details like moles and freckles past and future as companions to this one. 

I’ve also got another post coming up about the consistencies and differences of the patterns in the bioluminescent freckles each Na’vi subspecies has so watch out for that if you’re interested.

(SO GLAD TO BE ABLE TO SHOW HOW VISUALLY DISTINCT HE IS FROM HIS HUMAN DONOR, TOO! LIKE DAMN. THEY HAVE THEIR SIMILARITIES OF COURSE BUT I SHOULD PROBABLY DO THE SAME TO HUMAN QUARITCH SEE WHAT SHOWS UP)

UPDATE HOLD UP I THINK I FIGURED OUT A BETTER WAY OF DOING THIS BY USING THE PAINTING FILTER AS A BRIGHTNESS LAYER WITH THE ORIGINAL IMAGE COLOURS UNDERNEATH BEHOLD MUCH BETTER RESULTS AND NOT HUMANWASHING I’LL TRY AND REDO THE ORIGINAL IMAGES THIS WAY:

[thirea]

“Moon Dance” Art Process

I figured it would be a fun thing to show the steps of the illustration of my OC Myliah and give a little comment to it as well! From sketch to lineart, base colours and finish! I follow these steps through all the illustrations I do~

First we’ve got the sketch! I usually draw the whole body first and then dress it up! Which does consume more time than it’s necessary tbf... I also tend to detail hands first before everything!

Then next step is lineart! I try to make everything pretty clean and easy to recognize in the sketch phase so lining is just kind of an automatic thing without much of thinking in it. Once I lined everything I like to add some volume into corners/places where lines connect for a better line weight~

After lining I fill everything in with a uniform colour by going all around the inside of the lineart. I usually do it with a very saturated colour to make sure there are no gaps inside and then I just fill it all in and change the colour into the skin colour of the character.

Next I add new layers and clip them onto the skin colour one which I like to call the base. I add each different coloured bit of the character as a different layer and clip them all onto the base one (which, if character has a lot of different things going on isn’t very good practice but it works for me!). After that there is just gradients / rendering / sparkles etc that I add, some filters on but that’s a whole other topic! I just wanted to touch on these steps of my process.

I have posted the finished piece previously but I figured I’d put it here again just to finish off this post~

Thank you for reading and I wish you a wonderful day!