#and then when i'm done with all of that... i will finally get in blender and start making poses again thank god

[minwonsgirl]

cupcakes and kisses.

— mingyu x gn!reader

— fluff without plot and soooo self indulgent it's crazy

— contents : established relationship, kissing, sexual tension, kissing, suggestive content, kissing, baking, did I mention kissing

"Thank you for your purchase I hope you have a good night!" the cashier wishes while giving you your pack of rainbow sprinkles.

you smiled at her and walked out into the streets so that you could make yourself back home. the sun was just setting in, and people every where were rushing back. you were in no hurry though, your apartment was just down the block and your boyfriend was still busy whipping up some vanilla frosting.

thats why you came out in the first place, he was making cupcakes for movie night, but ran out of sprinkles for the funfetti frosting. and you, being his little minion helper, volunteered to get him some.

you were an amazing cook when it came to breakfast or brunch, but baking on the other hand, hah. baking was completely out of your expertise.

you once tried to make cookies, but they neither spread nor softened and came out as rocks. they were so inedible that even the ants wouldn't touch them. you remember getting rid of them by chucking them at your brother whenever he annoyed you.

when you finally reach your apartment, your boyfriend calls put your name, and you quickly change into your home slippers and run towards him.

"I'm here I'm here" you said, sprinting towards him with a large smile on your face. mingyu smiles back at you but doesn’t stop his mixer-blender-thing from working, "did you get the sprinkles?" he asked, his head tilting to the side in a very cute manner.

you raise the pack of sprinkles and wiggle it a little to show off your excitement. mingyu lifts one of his hands up, like a gate, and you immediately step inbetween them, successfully trapping yourself in his arms.

he turns the mixer-blender-thing off and plops his head on your shoulder, watching you tear off the packet with your teeth and pour a generous amount of sprinkles in the bowl.

mingyu had a habit. his friends would always tease him about it, but honestly he found it quite cute. It was not his fault he found everything you did so endearing that he just had to stare at you as if you were hanging the stars on the sky.

it was not his fault you were so pretty to look at, with your perfect lips and perfect eyes. or the way you looked the best when you were busy. it wasn't his fault.

you found that staring habit of his cute too. but that's probably because you did the exact same thing. but were you really to blame when everything mingyu did was absolutely perfect. especially when he baked, his concentration and attention to detail always made you proud. so it most definitely wasn't you fault either.

when you were done pouring out your sprinkles, you hummed contently and waited for him to start the blender again. but he doesn't move. you look up at him with a raised eyebrow, "something wrong, babe?" you asked, worry flashing in your eyes.

you expected him to come out of his trance, but he just shakes his head side to side, with the same look in his eyes. then he thinks for a moment before his lips moved into a tiny smile and he nods his head, "yes" he said, and you could practically see the gears turning in his head.

mingyu let's go of the hand blender and grabs your waist to turn you around to face him. you give him a curious look and he just winks at you. then he turns you both around and picks you up on the kitchen island behind him.

he buries his head in your neck and trails sweet kisses all the way up to your ear. you wrap one hand around his waist and the other around his neck, your fingers playing with his hair, and you giggled whenever his kisses would tickle you.

this was normal, mingyu always kissed you every chance he got. but he always bothered to make up a stupid excuse before it, which is exactly what lead you to ask, "why so touchy, baby?"

"need to kiss my pretty baby" he said casually, as if he did this every day (he did). you laughed and let him place strategic kisses in all the right places. your forehead, the space between eyebrows, both your cheeks, and every single mole on your face.

when he finally reached your lips, you cup his cheeks. he leaned in to ever so slightly brush your lips, he releases a breath and pulls away kissing the corner of you mouth instead, you feel your heart grip itself.

he pulls away and smirks when he sees the shiver, he caused, go down your spine. "so needy for my kisses, yeah?" he asked, a smug grin taking over his smile.

you hadn't realised that the tension had caused your hands to slips down to his chest and hold his favorite jumper in a fist. you pulled him closer towards you, "need you to kiss me gyu, please" you begged.

mingyu could never deny you, and he knew that you knew that and used it against him very often, but he still chuckles at your tactics and leans in you press his lips against your in a big fat kiss.

you wrap your legs around his waist and pull yourself closer towards the edge of the counter so that you could feel him better. you wouldn't let his pulls away from you that easily again.

mingyu smiles into the kiss when he feel your clutch on his jumper. he loved teasing you, but he loved this more. the way your possessiveness would peek out and you would be less reluctant to let him go.

mingyu lays his hands flats against the counter so that he could kiss you better, and feel you closer. you hands were crossed around his neck.

his mouth moved in perfect sync with yours and you were sure you could die like this, with him kissing you absolutely senseless.

he pulls away from you for a second and look down at your eyes, you were both panting. he tucks a piece of hair behind your ear and leans back in— DING.

both of your heads turn towards the little potato shaped timer kept above the oven. "aw the cupcakes are done" mingyu said sadly, his lips forming a small pout. you rolled you eyes and pushed his hands off you. you cupped his cheeks and turned his head to look at you. "so why are you pouting?" you asked, laughing softly at his cute little sad face.

"wanna kiss you a little longer" he said, speaking in pout while trying to tuck himself back in between your legs. you made sure to keep them shut.

you press a small kiss on his cheek, "we'll kiss later I promise. for now lets finish those cupcakes, yeah? " you said while jumping off the counter and walking towards the oven to take out the cupcakes. you make sure to grab mingyu's hand on the way so that he would follow you.

mingyu takes the opportunity hug you from behind and follow you like a dumb puppy. he breaths in your hair and smiles againt your neck, "I love the way you smell" he said.

you snorted, "that's not creepy at all."

"hey I'm not creepy I just liked the way the love of my life smells okay?" he pouts again, this time angrily.

you laughed again and turned around in his arms to face him. "thank you baby" you said sincerely, then got on your tippy toes to kiss him, "I love you too" you said.

mingyu felt the butterflies in his stomach go crazy. he was pretty sure the cupcakes would burn if he didn't turn off the oven soon, but who cares? he was kissing the smartest, the most beautiful person alive. for him, it really was you who hung the stars in the sky.

[queenperri]

Happy 2 Year Anniversary!!!

This lovely little guy stems from @angelpuns Kid-Leo au! This illustration was made in Blender 3d and it was a lot of fun modeling Kid-Leo into 3d glory!

Behind the scenes under the cut:

Everything starts with a sketch and for me I had two options;

It was hard choosing which one; but I ultimately went with the one on the right as I felt like the posing would be a lot more fun to play around with in 3d!

Speaking of 3d; check the viewport view!

Yup; this is what it looks like before I add all the fun textures and what not. For my fellow blender nerds the final image was rendered in cycles at a sample of 500 with denoise OFF. I wanted the final vibe to feel like a game magazine so I like to render with the intention of having that dithering effect prepacked in there.

Tasty right? Well; you can't have Kid Leo without some stars to fill the void! After making my initial model I used particle systems to add floating stars and cookies that I modeled into the background. I especially love how the stars distort within the glass texture of Leo's tears :3

The blue background is simply a giant cube with a volumetric scatter shader to simulate fog; This part is what gave me the most trouble as I'm so indecisive that I didn't know what blues to go with! Eventually I settled for a darker blue as it really helped Leo's green skin POP. When it comes to art I always pay close attention to values.

Finally I pulled this baby into clip studio paint for the final touches; aka chromatic aberration and giving it a viewfinder border and then WABAM!

You've got yourself a Kid Leo.

This was a lot of fun. I've been making illustrations in Blender for a hot minute now but haven't shared or posted them due to wanting to make posts like this one explaining everything I did. That May 20th deadline really kicked my butt into high gear. In total I'd say I put about 10 hours of worktime into this; starting the day this dtiys was announced. Getting this done was all I could think about for a hot minute lol.

Final thoughts? This comic has been a real joy to follow and I can't wait to see what happens next. It's been so cool seeing how much the comics art has improved since the beginning and I really admire the dedication to giving us a Leo-centric story to enjoy. Here's to the next chapter!

[largeonions]

eat to live

thoughts and wips under the cut

phew! the most ambitious piece ive done in a while. unsurprisingly employment reduces the time i have to draw for not-work things by a lot. unfortunately i have one weird trick to create more time to draw called stop playing guild wars 2 in the evening.

as is usual now i started with a quick blender mockup to sketch over because i dont want to think about perspective anymore... once i'm happy with the composition i quickly lay down colors and do my lighting to get a sense of what the final piece should look like

from there it's all rendering.. which historically i have struggled to lock in to do. though this time i didn't feel pressured to finish it within 5-7 days i was able to take my time rendering the food. as it turns out when i have good references rendering is quite pleasant. then after some final polish i called the piece done!

[simsinlowspace]

Sunny Shades - 4t2 Base Game Conversion

Happy Friday! Today I'm sharing another curtain conversion! Details and download below. ☀️

I finally got the meshes for the TS4 base game Sunny Shades extracted (did you know you can have multiple versions of Blender installed simultaneously? I did not, or else these would have been done weeks ago 😅). They come in all 20 original colors (with recolors in the pipeline). I'm reusing the swatch from the Popped Color Curtains because they're the same colors:

Once again, I separated the rod and curtains into subsets so I could recolor the hardware (they’re attached to the mesh and recolors 10-13). The right curtain is slaved to the left, and the shine has been removed. A numbered version of the swatch is included.

DOWNLOAD (SFS) Curtains are ~2.8MB

I'll be responding to messages when I get home tonight (sorry for the delay, it's been a crazy week!) and I'll have more goodies to share over the weekend (including a couple of fixes because Spacey spaced XD).

Lots of love, Spacey

@sims4t2bb

[poolverine-holiday-big-bang]

Poolverine Holiday Big Bang Sign Ups

Hello friends, the interest in this has been off the charts, which makes me unbelievably happy! The fact people are interested in an event I want to run literally is such a good feeling. So, allow me to open sign-ups officially! Keep in mind, this will be my first time running an event, so if you have questions or concerns, message this blog or my main blog. Click the title of this post to sign-up now!

Current Stage: Sign-ups open~

The (tentative) timeline:

Sign-ups begin: June 13th Sign-ups close: July 18th Fic ideas submitted by: August 1st Claims begin: August 5th Claims close: August 20th Teams decided: August 25th Check-ins: September 15th, October 13th, November 10th Posting date range: November 21st through December 31st All pieces should be posted before the start of 2026~!

FAQ, rules, and other info below the cut! It got long, but it should have all the answers you need. If anything isn't answered, once again, message me on this account or on any other social media!

People on this blog are: Noa (event runner): @ufohoaxes Rowan (event helper): @k1ng-r0wan Zai (event helper): @jabberpool Garnish (event helper): @that-final-garnish

FAQ

Q: What is a big bang? A: A big bang is a collaborative event between artists and writers! Wristers submit a fic idea and then artists get the chance to pick ideas they want to work on. See the rules for more specifics on how that works.

Q: Who can partake in this event? A: Anyone! Beginner artists or newbie writers to veteran creators who've done this before. Any and all talents are welcome to join, the more the merrier!

Q: How do I join? A: Once sign-ups officially close, I will reach out to everyone who filled out the form personally with a link to the Discord server created specifically for this event. Be sure you've allowed messages from people who don't follow you when that time comes so you don't miss the invite~!

Q: What happens after I join the server? A: You'll be assigned accordingly, as either a writer, artist, or beta. You'll be free to chat amongst each other in the server until pairings are created! Once you have your partner, you're free to work on your piece. You'll have your own channel in the server to communicate, that only you and your partner will have access to. Please do not discuss your pieces outside of the server!

Q: Is NSFW stuff allowed? A: Yes! You have the choice to draw NSFW pieces or write NSFW fics, there will be a question about if you're 18+ when the sign-ups do open. All ages are allowed, but everyone will be sorted accordingly when we get to that point. If you're worried something you might write might not be allowed, just send me a message!

Q: Can I be both an artist and a writer? A: Truthfully, I wouldn't mind if you were both! But it will depend on the answers in the sign-up form for me to determine this.

Q: What's the theme? A: Of course! The theme! The theme is holidays. Any holiday, any celebration, even the most obscure ones. National donut day? Sure! Talk like a pirate day? Absolutely. Put Barbie in a blender day? If that's what you choose, so be it! Just make it's a concept you're happy with.

Rules

1.) First and foremost, no AI allowed. None. Zip. Zilch. Zero. If you're caught using AI, you will be banned from the event.

2.) Writers have a 5,000 word minimum. Please include the holiday you chose in the fic idea submission! You can go above that, that's just the very least amount of words. If this doesn't work for you, or if your fic is 4,620 words, send me a message and we'll work it out! I'm here to help you out, so don't be afraid to message me on any social media!

3.) Artists have a one fully finished art piece minimum. If you're willing to do more than one piece, you might be tasked with more. Just fill out the form accordingly.

4.) Poolverine is the main focus here, however, Spideypoolverine, Cablepoolverine, etc are allowed! As long as Poolverine is in there somewhere, it's totally good to go!

5.) You will be asked to include tags when your fic submission is, well, submitted! If you're worried something might not be okay to write about (such as a specific kink or theme), the most likely answer is yes. I will let you know if what you submit to write crosses a line, but I sincerely doubt that will happen. Just message me if you're concerned.

6.) For claims, how it will work is artists will be given all the summaries of the fic submissions, they will pick their top 5, and from there, it will be randomized which one you get. This way, it's not first come first serve, and it's fair to people in other timezones.

7.) Platonic works are okay as well, it doesn't have to be romantic if you don't want it to be! Just be sure to have fun.

Miscellaneous Stuff!

This is my first time running an event, and if this goes well, I'm open to running more events. I will listen to all concerns, questions, and comments intently. Please feel free to reach out to me on ANY social media, they're all listed on shinycelebi.carrd.co, I will answer everything accordingly. This event is run with fun as the main goal, and any feelings I have towards things have ZERO impact or influence on how I will run it. Thank you for your interest, and thank you for allowing me to do this

Noa ˗ˏˋ ♡ ˎˊ˗

[athenamikaelson]

Complaints and Harriet Styles Pt. 2

Klaus Mikaelson x reader

Warnings- strong language, innuendos, mentions of blood and death.

Word count- 2.5k 

 “Would it make me a bad person if I said he was hot?’ I asked Caroline as I sat in front of her vanity mirror as she curled my hair.  

“Y/n,” Caroline frowned at me as she looked at me through the mirror, “he either killed or is trying to kill our friends. He’s a bad guy, so don’t even think about it.” 

“I’m not saying I want to bang the guy or anything,” As I say that the the thought crosses my mind and it’s clear Caroline knows that as well as her frown deepens, “Care don’t get your Barbie hair in a twist. Even though his accent is dreamy and his blue eyes make my knees shake. I’m not going to try anything, obviously.” I say mockingly as Caroline watches me as if she’s somehow aged 100 years since our conversation began. Which you know isn’t possible because she’s literally immortal. 

“Sometimes I don’t know what to do with you. You’re either arguing with someone or hitting on them. Or even both!” She says as she throws her hands up in emphasis, the curler unplugging itself during her action. 

We both sit there in silence for a moment looking at the curler’s wire. I look up at her with a sly smile, “Does this mean we’re finally done? My ass hurts from sitting here and being your personal doll.” Caroline puts her hand on her hip with a displeased look on her face. 

“I haven’t finished curling the other half of your head, so turn around and shut it. And didn’t you just say I was the Barbie doll?” She says matter-of-factly as she replugs in the curler and waits for it to heat back up. 

“Ok well you are a Barbie doll, I’m more like that doll that Angelica had in Rugrats, y’know the one with fucked up hair and looks like she just got thrown into a blender.” I laugh at my own joke as Caroline rolls her eyes, a smile trying to make its way onto her face. 

I glance at my dark eyeshadow that makes my y/e/c eyes bright. 

“Why do I even have to go to this stupid dance, our school has like 14 a year. How does our town even have the budget for that? And why do we have to do weird decade dances?” 

“Y/N you’re going to homecoming, end of story. It’s our senior year. This past year has been so crazy that we deserve a little normalcy.” She says as she finishes my last section of hair. 

“Normalcy? You do realize that every dance we’ve had since last year has ended with someone dead or impaled right? It isn’t a Mystic Falls high school dance if it doesn’t end in blood!” Caroline just watches me in annoyance as she sprays my hair with hairspray, “accidentally” spraying some into my face.

“Bitch!” I cough out.

“Go get dressed!” She uses her strength to lift me up and push me over to her closet where my y/f/c dress is hanging.

I look over my shoulder, “I hate you.” 

Caroline smiles, “Love you too brat.”

-------------

I listen to the live band as I sip on the disgusting drink in my hand. Caroline who was supposed to chaperone tonight left me to go yell at Tyler for his wolfy crush or whatever on Klaus. I’m seriously debating on just walking myself home, since Caroline was my ride, as I watch on in disgust as teenagers grind against each other to the fast song the band is playing in the backyard of Tyler’s house. Somehow Tyler was able to put together a huge party since the gym was flooded last minute. Caroline didn’t seem suspicious but I on the other hand always think the worst is going to happen at any time, and with my friend group's history with dances I wouldn’t be surprised if something was going to go down tonight. I'm about to grab my bag and leave before shit goes down when I hear a British accent come from behind me. 

“Welcome everyone tonight,” I turn around, and low and behold that British fuck from Senior prank night is standing up on the stage in front of all of us, yapping about something. 

“This is a long time coming,” He says as he watches someone from the crowd with a smirk on his face. I follow his eye line to see Stefan staring back at him. Yikes. I look back to the Brit but find his eyes staring in my direction. I don’t think he’s looking at me until I send a look of disgust at him which makes the smirk on his face deepen. Fuck me. Wait. No. I quickly turn around and start to make my way to the edge of the party hoping to make my escape before I get sucked into whatever bullshit the Scooby gang is going to try to drag me into. I smile to myself as I’m about to be successful in my escape as my vision is blocked by something. Said something bumps me backwards throwing me off balance and I wait to hit the ground as I start falling, but nothing comes. I look up to see Klaus grabbing ahold of the top of my arm, keeping me from falling down.  

“What a fucking cliche,” I say to myself angrily. Klaus looks at me inquisitively. 

“What’s a cliche?” He asks me with that stupidly hot accent as I rip my arm away from his hold and put another foot's distance between us.

“You catching me,” I tell him but he only looks confused, “Y’know in romcoms when the girl trips and falls but doesn’t actually fall because the random hot main guy catches her. It’s a big fucking cliche.” I say huffing as Klaus watches me with that stupid fucking smirk on his face.

“And I’m the main hot guy?” He asks, clearly trying to get me to go along with his current ego trip.

“No, you’re not. Ryan Gosling is the hot main guy or Paul Rudd,” I let out a satisfactory sigh at Paul Rudd, “You’re more of the evil boos villain in video games.” 

“And what’s so wrong with being the villain?” He asks me as he takes a step towards me. 

I look at him with what I can only guess looks like a “are you fucking kidding me” look. 

“Literally everything. That’s literally the whole point of being the villain.” I put my hand out stopping him from stepping closer. Klaus watches me closely for a second too long. His gaze makes me quite uncomfortable because I can’t tell if he wants to kill me for speaking to him like I just did or applaud me for having the balls to. God, sometimes I just need to learn to shut the fuck up. 

“Dance with me.” He states as he puts his hand out waiting for me to give him my hand in return. My gaze goes from his face to his hand multiple times before I shake my head in annoyance. 

“No way dude,” I say as I start to book it back towards the house away from him. I don’t get far though because he’s in front of me again with a determined look on his stupidly hot face. God why does it always have to be the bad guys that are hot? 

“Either you dance with me, or I start killing your friends off one by one. I wonder where that blond friend of yours is, Tyler’s little girlfriend.” He says with a dark glint in his eyes. 

“Why?” I try to hold my ground even though I’m pretty sure I’m about to start pissing myself any second now. 

“Why what?” he asks me as he watches me.

“Why do you want to dance with me? Theirs like 200 other girls here that I’m sure would just jump at the chance to dance with some British guy.”

Klaus just shrugs his shoulder as if he himself doesn’t even have an answer to the question. 

“Because none of them have had the displeasure of catching my eye.” 

“And let me guess, I have?” I ask him. He doesn’t give me an answer though, only reaches out his hand once again waiting for me to take it. Annoyed I slap my hand in his and drag him to the dance floor. Once I push us into the middle of a big group, I turn to him.

“Don’t be pissy if I step on your toes.” Klaus just lets out a huff of a laugh as he drags my body closer to him so my chest is touching his. A shudder goes through my body at the contact and I mentally curse myself for the reaction. Fuck he smells good. Jesus Y/N get a grip, he’s just a guy. A thousand-year-old hot guy, but still just a guy. I look up to find Klaus already staring at me, with a knowing smirk on his face. I just roll my eyes as I try to play it off cool as he sways me to the now slow song.

“So tell me, how did you become friends with my doppelganger and her little group of followers?” A weird feeling of sadness flows through me at his question as I realize he only asked me to dance for information on my friends. 

“We grew up together. Small town like this everyone knows each other, sadly.” I say looking off to the distance and watching the other couples converse lovingly with one another. 

“Why sadly?” He asks me, and for a second I could’ve sworn I heard actual curiosity. I glance back at him and shrug. 

“I just hate this town. I never liked people knowing my business, and everyone here is so complacent with their normal lives. They never question anything or want to know more about anything other than what happens in our weird ass town.” I blush as I realize I just rambled on to a complete psycho about my feelings. But, the look on Klaus’s face isn’t one of annoyance or humor like the other people I’ve vented to usually have on their faces. His face turns from contemplation to understanding. 

“I know what you mean,” He says as he expertly twirls me around, “when I was a boy I grew up in a small village where the wasn’t much chance for prospering. I loved the arts and knew I would never be able to do anything with it. It made me angry. So I can understand your resentment.” He tells me and for a second I forget that he’s the blood-thirsty monster ruining my friend’s lives. 

“You like art?” He looks down at me with a soft smile as if the subject brings out a different side of him. 

“I’ve loved it for over a thousand years. The way emotions can be shown through a canvas and bring out emotion so foreign is unlike anything else I found over a millennium of living,” His eyes trail down to mine, “What do you think?” 

I nod softly in agreement, “I love art. Not really painting because I’m kind of shit at it, but sketching and just looking at art. Although I’m not a fan of this new-age art where someone can splash a canvas with a line of color and sell it for a million dollars. I like art that means something to someone. Art that when you look at it you can feel the emotions that the artist was feeling, every move of the brush stroke made with heart and emotion.” Klaus nods along to my rambling again with a soft look on his face. A look that I can’t quite decipher since it’s on the face of one of the scariest men in the world. 

As the song comes to an end I reluctantly let go of Klaus’s hands. He stares at me for a moment and I think he’s just going to turn around and walk off realizing he didn’t get the information he wanted but then a small laugh escapes his lips and he shakes his head. I watch on in slight confusion wondering if he’s having some kind of stroke or something. 

“You’re not like them you know,” he must notice my confusion because he continues, “like your friends. You’re nothing like them.” I pang of hurt pierces my chest as I turn away and start to walk off, “Well screw you too.” 

“I didn’t mean that as an insult,” He says hastily as he grabs my arm turning me back towards him, “You’re friends they’re small-minded. They think of only themselves and not the world around them, or how amazing it can be.” I go to interrupt him and tell him not to insult my friends but he cuts me off. 

“You need something bigger than this little town. Something that brings you life. When I originally saw you that night in the gym I thought you were just going to be like the rest of them. But you surprised me Y/n, and not many people can say that.” 

I just stare at him in amazement for what seems like forever as I try to piece together everything he just told me. In my stupor though a woman approaches Klaus and whispers something to him which makes his originally light demeanor change to something dark. The woman walks away as Klaus looks at me once more.

“Whenever you decide you want to be a part of something bigger, see something other than this little town I’d be happy to show you. All you need to do is ask.” He tells me as he grabs my hand and places a chaste kiss upon it. I still can't get the balls to say anything as he gives me one last glance before he follows behind the woman. 

What the actual fuck.

-------------

I walked up to my front porch after getting dropped off by Matt because I guess Tyler drugged Caroline with vervain to save her from a pack of mind-controlled hybrids so that’s why she couldn’t bring me home. Sometimes I really hate my friend group. Why can’t for once we deal with normal people's problems like pop quizzes or acne? Like why does not one person in that entire group have a pimple on their skin? That’s the most supernatural thing going on here.

I’m about to open my front door when a small envelope catches my eye at the bottom of my feet. I look over my shoulder and only see Matt as he waits for me to enter my house. I wave to him with the envelope in hand and walk inside my house. I hastily open the envelope and pull out a piece of thick canvas paper. The paper is covered with a beautiful sketch of what appears to be an open field covered in flowers with grazing horses in the distance. Being so engrossed in the sketch I didn't notice the small note on the back. 

“There’s a whole world out there just waiting for you to experience, love. When you’re ready to experience it, I’ll be waiting.” – Klaus

Taglist-

@grac3aph3lion @megmcc2003 @kollover24 @nameunknownsthings

[mikelogan]

hey!! would you mind doing a tutorial on how you blend your gifs? they're so perfect! if not, then that's fine but thanks anyway :)

hi there! first of all, thank you for the kind words, i appreciate it so much! and i'm always more than happy to make tutorials! below the cut i'll do my best to explain my process when it comes to creating blended gifs like these:

original gifset

original gifset

original gifset

original gifset

disclaimer that i in no way consider myself an expert when it comes to blending. i actually struggle with it quite a bit sometimes and there are tons of gifmakers far more talented than myself. here's a link to all the blending tutorials i've come across for my other blog @gifmakerresource just in case!

when it comes to blending two or more scenes/shots together, i cannot overstate how important the scenes you choose are. i'll go more in depth on this in a moment, but there have been so many times when i'm making gifs like the ones above where i spend ages testing out different scenes together to see if they'll actually work and give me the desired effect.

so, what should you be looking for when selecting your scenes? in my opinion, what's most important (and can therefore cause you the most trouble) is lighting and contrast. dark on dark is what blends best. now, you can obviously tweak these things using adjustment layers, but i think it's best to set yourself up for success right from the very start.

if we look at my first and last examples above the cut (luke in hill house and pruitt in midnight mass), these are the two that show this the best. the scene of adult luke is high in contrast to begin with; we've got areas of bright highlights and dark shadows and the latter are the areas where the blending shows through the most clearly. luke's hair and shirt are darker as is young luke's shirt and hat. the same can be seen in the midnight mass example. both scenes are on the darker side to begin with, but the shot of pruitt praying is silhouetted and makes for very stark contrast, allowing the shot of the angel's blood to be seen most easily in the darkest parts.

now, a lot of this does and can come down to trial and error and i want to make a point of saying that before i get into the actual process. there have been numerous times when i'm working on gifs like these where i have to try out multiple different shots and scenes until i find something that works. sometimes, i just save what i've done so far as a psd and go work on something else for a while, and then i can come back and look at everything with fresh eyes at a later time -- never underestimate the power of doing this, btw. some of my most popular and most favorite sets have happened as a direct result of taking a break!

now it's finally time for what you came here for! how do you do this? i'll walk you through this step by step and for now, i'm just going to be walking through 2 gifs blended into one. i've done 3 and even 4 blended into one, but they are outliers adn should not be counted. blenders georg, who created photoshop and blends over 10,000 gifs a day -- [gunshots]

step 1: make your base gifs. i'm assuming basic gifmaking knowledge, but if you need some help there, here's a tag on my resource blog with all beginner gifmaking tutorials (and i'm willing to make one of my own, personal process if anyone shows interest).

i'm mostly talking converting them to timeline and into a smart object. each person's process varies a little, but i personally use an action i made that converts from frames to timeline and applies the sharpening settings i use all in one. it's entirely up to you if you want to color your gifs before or after you have them on one canvas. in this case, i colored mine after, so this is what i have right now. two separate sharpened but un-colored gifs.

as an added note, when i'm blending gifs, i almost always keep them at their original dimensions until i bring them to the new canvas. i find it easier to position them where i want them and then crop to my desired dimensions. that way i don't have to worry that i accidentally cut something off. but for the purposes of this tutorial, i'm using my psd from this gif, which has been cropped to 540px x 500px.

step 2: bring both gifs onto a new canvas. as i just stated, the dimensions of this particular gif are 540px x 500px. if you're unfamiliar with tumblr's dimensions, i whipped this up. what matters is the width, whereas the height can be whatever you want. i saw something recently (though i can't find it now, of course) that said the middle gif in the row of 3 was no longer 178px and is now also 177px, but take that with a grain of salt! the gutters (the automatic spaces between gifs that tumblr puts in) are 4px.

so, since this is a single gif in a row, the width must be 540. bear in mind that the larger your dimensions, the larger the gif file will be and tumblr's upload limit is 10mb per gif. with blended gifs typically being on the larger end, i try to keep mine somewhere between 35-50 frames. this particular one is 35, which along with 40 frames is what i most commonly use.

create a new canvas with your desired dimensions and either copy your gifs to it or drag them onto it. you should have something like this now:

for now, ignore the other layers. as i said, using my psd of the completed gif.

step 3: add a black fill layer. this step is personal preference and therefore completely optional, but when blending, i always add an all black layer at the very bottom of all my layers. i find it helps when using layer masks (more on that soon) to make the blends appear more seamless. play around and see if you like it or not!

to create this layer, i use the keyboard shortcut (i'm on pc) ctrl+shift+N and then press G to call up the paint fill tool. once you have the color selected, just click anywhere on the canvas and it fills it. then drag this layer to the very bottom, beneath all other layers.

alternatively, you can go to layer -> new fill layer -> solid color -> choose your color but i heart keyboard shortcuts.

step 4: set the blending mode of each gif layer to SCREEN. right now, we can only see the layer that's on top. when you switch the blending modes from normal to screen, the blending begins! this is also where you can move your gifs around until you find the best placement for each one.

brb, crying about baby luke for the 800th time.

step 5: color! if i haven't already colored my gifs, i would likely do it now. that way, when i go to apply the layer masks, i'll know i'm working with a mostly-finished product coloring-wise. this is what i have now:

you can see just how important the contrast of lights and darks becomes. look at the difference between how visible the right side of young luke's face/hat is before coloring compared to after. when we lighten the highlights and darken the shadows, the blending becomes much more apparent.

step 6: layer masks! before i even tell you how to use them, we need to know how to apply them. you'll do this a layer/gif at a time. with one gif selected, press this button:

and you'll now have this:

that selected white box is our layer mask. now do the same to the other gif layer. you should see this:

now that we've applied our layer masks, what are they for and how do we utilize them? layer masks allow you to, at their most basic, adjust specific parts of a single layer without permanently deleting them. the beauty of layer masks is that you can get rid of a certain area on a gif and if you realize later you want to bring some of it back, you can! all by using the colors black and white and, in this case, a soft round brush.

the most important part of working with layer masks is that you make sure the mask itself is what's selected. in the last image, the layer masks are NOT selected. in the one before, the layer mask IS selected. you can always tell because of the little borders around the corners of the mask. if you find something isn't working quite right, chances are that's your issue (speaking from personal experience).

as i said, we're only working with black and white here. using your brush tool (press B on your keyboard), select a soft, round brush. i personally set the hardness to 0 for the most gentle fade possible. i don't want hard edges in my blends. the size of the brush depends on how large of an area you're working with. sometimes i'll go all the way up to 150px+ and other times, i'll be well below 50px. the smaller the better for more detailed work. black (#000000) erases and white (#ffffff) brings your image back.

for a visual example, with a black brush, i'm going to mask an area of adult luke:

pretty obvious, right? because both layers are set to screen, masking an area of adult luke's gif reveals young luke's gif. because that area of the gif is no longer blending with anything, we see it purely with its coloring. now i'm going to take a smaller brush and switch the color to white (to do this quickly, pressing X on your keyboard will switch between the two colors [foreground and background] on your color picker).

you can see the lines/cuts where i ran the brush through the mask and it brought back the parts of adult luke we'd erased. if we did this same thing on young luke's gif, black would erase young luke and reveal adult luke and white would bring back young luke. i know this might sound a little confusing, and even though i knew a fair bit about layer masks before i started giffing again last year, there was still a learning curve for me.

now that we have our layer masks, we need to identify which parts of which gif we want to mask/erase. for this one in particular, i didn't like that adult luke's ear was smack dab in the middle of young luke's face. to remedy this, i selected the layer mask on adult luke's layer and, using a fairly sizeable black brush, i colored over young luke's face and up into the top-right corner. i wanted to see more of his hat and because that area was so light, i covered that whole part. this is what my gif and layer mask looked like after:

the black on the little layer mask corresponds to where i colored on the gif. now that corner only shows young luke's gif and his face is much clearer without an ear in the middle of it.

step 7: that's it! maybe.

in theory, this could be a completed gif. from here on out, nothing changes as far as blending or layer masks. you could save and export this and upload it and be done. but in this case, i just didn't like the coloring. because mike flanagan wants to see me suffer, his shit is almost impossible to color and i just didn't like the difference in coloring between present day adult luke and 90s young luke. this is also part of a larger gifset with a color scheme.

regardless of that though, i have to confess that i do this almost every. single. time. i make gifs like these. i slap a big fat gradient map on those puppies and somehow they look 10x better to me. i scrolled back through a shit load of my gifs and i only found 2 examples of blended gifs that weren't under a gradient map. oops. maybe this is the easy way out or maybe i just love colors, but idk i think it helps them look more cohesive! if you're interested, read on. if not, that's pretty much it!

if you still have questions or encounter any problems after following this tutorial, PLEASE let me know! i'm more than happy to clarify things or help out if i can! otherwise, check out some of the other blending tutorials i linked at the beginning! if you'd like me to make tutorials for anything else, feel free to send an ask, anon or not! i'm quite literally always happy to help as i don't believe in gatekeeping resources or knowledge!

step 8: i ended up applying two gradient maps on this gif. it's important that these go on top of all your other layers (namely, the gif layers). if you're unfamiliar, you click this to apply a gradient map:

then you'll see this:

photoshop automatically applies a gradient map using your current foreground and background colors. to edit the colors, click on the map itself (my arrow). unless you're going for an inverted x-ray sort of look, your darker color needs to be on the left and the lighter one needs to be on the right. click on the bottom color points to change their colors:

normally, the right one will be all the way to the end, but moving it in will let more white show through and brighten the image, which i wanted in this case.

my second gradient is the green one, which looks like this and goes from #211f20 to #88a188.

i encourage you to play around with gradient maps. as you adjust the colors, you'll see the changes live as long as you pull the window to the side a little bit. i think they're super fun and can completely change the vibe and aesthetic of a gifset.

from here, i added my typography (lyrics, naturally) and then exported and saved the gif! and here we have this gif that literally made me cry while i made it because HE WAS SUCH A BABY

again, i hope this helps and if you have any further or other questions, don't hesitate to ask!

[fluffy0mallows]

Chapter 2

The Strawberry Series

<Previous. .Next>

Jinx x Fem! Reader

Warnings: Violence, suggestive but no sexual activity. Cursing. Death. Men and Minors dni

Sypnosis: When you get tangled up in a messy political mess. Best you stay quiet right?

Sat, but not compliant

"You seem out of it lately"

Ekko snapped his fingers in front of her face, making her wince and back away. It was true, she had been distracted for the past few days

The same girl was still in her mind. And the calling card she was given days ago, sat in her trash bin back at home. She wasn't gonna call, why would she?, to get killed?

It's a lose-lose situation, she'd die either way. Perhaps dying earlier would favor her more. After all, she'd do anything to die, it's way too tiring to stay here smh

"Sorry.....I've been thinking, that's all"

"That's a lot of thinking for one day"

Humming absentmindedly, Y/n wrote down the customer's name on the cup, before she went away to make the drink they ordered

As she turned around, a new customer opened the door, ringing the bell hanging above it. But Y/n paid it no mind, and Ekko was the one who welcomed them

"What are you doing here?"

"I'm here to see a little runaway bunny from days ago, ya' seen her anywhere?"

That made Y/n's heart stop. Quite literally. It was her, she was here. Why was she here?. Obviously because you ignored her stupid!

Shakily continuing to make her customer's order, Y/n tuned out everything around her. Nope, she wasn't here, and nope you can't see her

By her hopes were crushed when she felt a hand on her shoulder, and a voice spoke up. It wasn't the girl, it was Ekko, and he kind of sounded like he was scared for you. Well, here's to our early death, girly

"She's looking for you. Something about debt?" And after giving that warning or whatever the hell it was, Ekko walked away, and you heard another pair approaching

Y/n didn’t have to turn around to know the footsteps weren’t Ekko’s this time. These were lighter, cockier. Like whoever owned them already thought the room belonged to them.

"Well, well," a familiar voice lilted behind her, a melody laced with something sharp underneath. "Look who didn’t call."

Y/n froze. The blender still whirred behind her, but her hands stopped moving. She stared at the half-finished drink, mind blank, heart thundering in her ears. She had rehearsed this moment a thousand times—in her nightmares, in the shower, staring at the ceiling at 3AM. None of those scenarios had ended well.

Jinx leaned lazily on the counter beside her, eyes glittering with amusement—or madness—it was hard to tell the difference.

"You ghosted me," she said sweetly, fingers tapping a rhythm on the countertop. "After everything we shared." Her lips curled into a grin that didn’t reach her eyes. "Now that hurts, bun-bun."

Y/n swallowed, finally daring to glance at her. The sight made her stomach twist—Jinx looked exactly the same as she had that night. Hair wild, smile wilder. And the blood that had once stained her fingers might as well still be there.

"You told me to call if I wanted to live," Y/n said, voice barely above a whisper.

"And you didn’t," Jinx pointed out cheerfully. "So, by our very flexible arrangement, I should technically paint this place red with you, right?"

Ekko took a step closer, tense. But Jinx shot him a look, sharp and warning, and he froze.

"Relax," she said, waving him off. "If I was gonna kill her, I’d have done it before the morning rush. I’m here to talk, aren’t I, sweetheart?"

Y/n didn’t answer. She couldn’t. Her throat was dry and her knees wanted to give out.

Jinx leaned in, her voice softer now. Almost mockingly tender. "But… you’re lucky I’m feeling generous today. Maybe even forgiving. So here’s what we’ll do."

She plucked a marker from the side of the register and uncapped it with her teeth, before dragging it across the chalkboard menu in a sloppy scrawl

"Strawberry Wednesdays – For Special Guests Only"

"You’re gonna make me and the boys strawberry drinks. Every Wednesday. No excuses, no forgetting. Smoothies, slushies, milkshakes—I don’t care, surprise me."

Y/n blinked. "*What?*"

"That’s the new deal, bun-bun," Jinx said, twirling the marker like a knife. "I keep your cute little head on your shoulders, and in exchange, you keep mine cool and fruity once a week. Think of it as… penance. Keeps you alive, keeps me entertained. Win-win."

"...You’re insane."

Jinx laughed, loud and unfiltered, throwing her head back. "Oh darling, you’re just now figuring that out?"

Then she leaned in close, her breath brushing Y/n’s cheek, and whispered, “But skip another Wednesday… and I will show you what a real lose-lose looks like.”

She winked, pulled away, and strutted out the door like she hadn't just threatened someone in a coffee shop.

The bell above the door chimed again. Y/n stood frozen, marker still in hand, trying to remember how to breathe.

"...You okay?" Ekko asked cautiously.

She didn’t look at him. Just stared at the words Jinx had left behind, feeling them burn into her skull.

Strawberry Wednesdays...

What a joke...

But hey—beats dying, right?

Right?...

Mallow is back!!!. I was so happy that I decided to leave this chapter here. I finished my first ever book on Wattpad!!!!!!

So congratulations to me, and I hope you enjoy it even though it's hella short

[themusicintrovert]

Siffrin Close Up

I'VE FINISHED THE GAME! FINISHED IT THIS PREVIOUS FRIDAY! IT WAS AMAZING! I WON'T GIVE ANY SPOILERS, THOUGH. BUT NOW, I'M REPLAYING THE GAME BECAUSE BECAUSE BECAUSE - THERE'S A SECRET ENDING! When I finished the game, I immediately began watching animatics/animations that I had saved up. But then I saw a spoiler warning about the secret ending. Since I really want to get this ending, I immediately began the game again not even a hour after I finished it. I'm already back in Act 3, but I forgot how long Act 3 is. Though, I'm realizing there's a lot of things I missed in my first playthrough, so I'm still having fun.

Anyhow, onto the drawing. As you can probably tell, I'm better at drawing characters from the shoulder up (honestly, I draw characters from their shoulders up way too much). In this drawing, I was able to do more experimentation with Siffrin's design. I was able to practice drawing faces/head structures. With my previous drawings, the head was too small for me to really do a lot with it. I better at drawing things at a bigger scale at the moment.

I think I'm finally getting a hang of drawing Siffrin's hair. I really love how it looks! It's so fluffy! I think the hair in my other drawings feels too stiff, but the hair in this one feels more free.

I decided I wanted to give Siffrin an eye bag. Considering how exhausted he is, I decided it fit. I mean, Frin has been told they look as though they haven't slept in weeks. So, yeah.

My art app has a colorless blender marker, so I used that for the eye bag. I decided I wanted to experiment a bit more with blending, so I did that for a few of the shadows.

With the angle I was drawing from, I figured we would be able to see the sides of Siffrin's pins. I tried to make them look three-dimensional. I might've made them have too much depth, though. They should probably be thinner. I considered adding a shine to them, but it didn't look right considering how much white is surrounding them.

With all that in mind, I think this is my favorite drawing of Siffrin that I've done. I feel as though this one does the best job at capturing Siffrin's personality. I'm getting closer to a design for them in my art style. It's more stylized and feels more natural. My other drawings of Siffrin feel a bit forced. All in all, I think that I'm getting better at drawing them!

[ameyasims]

Why hello there

I don't think anyone remembers me, but that's okay! Life has done a 180* turn for me in every possible way in the last few years and I didn't have time for Sims, other than watching a few things when new expansions drop.

But things are finally settling down enough that I have some free time and I've been starting to play again. (I'm now living on my own in a coastal city in South Korea, where I teach English at a great school (and get a free, lovely apartment!), and have a group of great other teacher friends that I get to explore with on days off. All of this thanks to, in part, my POTS going into remission and allowing me to re-join the world, which I can't overstate how grateful I am for that!* Anyway, what's up? What's new? How on earth will I be able to catch up with all the good mods and CC i've missed! Ahhhh! Also, I desperately want to update my stuff... but I have a mac now and my photoshop that I had from college (when you could actually PURCHASE software instead of subscribe to it) doesn't work on mac. T_T. And somehow, I utterly forget how to use blender. One of those "use it or lose it skills", I guess. :( *(As an aside: have any health issues? Get your ferritin checked, ignore the lab's reference ranges, which are all criminally wrong, and make sure your levels are above 50!!! Though, over 100 seems to be the ideal! I was only mildly anemic according to hemoglobin levels, my iron levels themselves were fine, but my ferritin (long term iron stores) had been 9 throughout my tenure with POTS, and finally hit 3, where even the low reference ranges caught me. Still had to get a second opinion after my GP just offered me iron pills (nearly useless for significant deficiency). After 7 (!) iron infusions from a hematologist, I was literally an ENTIRELY NEW WOMAN. I am now a teacher on my feet all day without even getting tired, when before my heart rate would spike to 135 just walking to the bathroom, causing me to get out of breath.)

[zosonils-art]

rewatched the sonic ova a few months ago. since then i've thought a bit too hard about the only loosely explained way that hyper metal sonic was created, been irreversibly changed by the idea of a sonic who wakes up in a body that isn't his and discovers that all his memories and friendships and adventures belong to someone else now, rekindled my obsession with the various metal sonics of pre-reboot archie, and finally learned how to care about sonic heroes

photon is basically every version of metal sonic ever, a few of the charmingly edgy aus i wrote when i was 11, and a few sonic cd fan theories all thrown in a blender and kicked down a flight of stairs, and i'm kind of obsessed with him. really, REALLY long infodump and some supplementary scribbles under the cut

WELCOME TO THE PHOTON ZONE

a little after sa2, eggman lures sonic into some trap that pins him down long enough for an electronic copy to be made of his brain. sonic trashes the place and escapes with only a mild headache and a bruised ego, but all the data eggman scraped is intact. as he's creating neo metal sonic, eggman uploads this digital ghost of sonic into him, with the intention to upgrade from having a fancy bootleg to a truly 'perfect' answer to sonic, who can simulate his entire psyche in real time and know everything he's going to do before he does it

[eggman would love to steal a hedgehog, actually]

unfortunately for eggman, his latest copy is too perfect, and sonic's indomitable will and sense of self easily overpowers any feeble attempts the rest of neo metal sonic's programming makes to keep him in line. pretty much the moment he's booted up, he books it outta there as fast as possible to go find his friends and fix things. with all of sonic's memories embedded in him, the thought that he isn't the real thing doesn't even cross metal's mind - as far as he knows, he made an embarrassing blunder in a dingy old egg base, had something done to his brain, and then woke up miles away in a robot body that eggman must have stuffed him into somehow. he just has to find tails and amy and knuckles and the rest, make sure he didn't hurt any of them during that mysterious gap in his memory, and slap together a plan to get his body back and shove eggman into a puddle. no sweat!

so naturally, it's a bit hurtful when none of his friends believe for a second that he's who he says he is. and it's a LOT hurtful when the real sonic shows up, in the body that's SUPPOSED to be his, and metal suddenly has no idea who or what he is

even though it's not enough to override the sonic personality, eggman's programming is still twisting metal's thoughts. an angry killer robot is an effective killer robot, so any negative emotion or violent impulse is forced to the front of his mind. metal is angry at eggman for doing this to him, and at his friends for not trusting him, and at sonic for existing in the body and life that belong to him, and all of this gets mixed in with the existential despair and knee-jerk denial of what's happening to him and then magnified tenfold. a version of the sonic heroes storyline takes place as metal's mental state worsens exponentially, and he begins to lash out more and more violently at everyone and everything around him in increasingly desperate attempts to prove [mostly to himself] that this other sonic is a fake.

this culminates in the metal overlord battle, where metal [who's escalated from 'prove himself superior to sonic' to 'defeat sonic and force him to admit the truth' to 'literally just kill him, since he's obviously a hyper realistic android sent by eggman or whatever and not a real thing that can feel pain and die'] harnesses the chaos emeralds in a last-ditch effort to prove his strength and reduce the 'fake' sonic to ashes - only for his body to twist and mutate into something so utterly, viscerally Wrong that the fear and confusion cause what's left of sonic in him to just shut down from distress, finally leaving only the mindless killing machine eggman set out to make in the first place and forcing super sonic to step in and kick metal overlord's ass. defeated by the power of friendship, depowered, and severely damaged, metal finally accepts and admits that he isn't the real sonic and probably never was, and doesn't fight it when his systems fail and he loses consciousness

contrary to what his anger had him believe, though, metal's [former?] friends did see that he was suffering and needed answers, and so sonic and tails take him back to the workshop in mystic ruins to shed some light on the whole situation. when tails finds a disturbingly perfect resemblance to an organic brain in the program map, everything finally clicks - what that weird Beam Of Give You Headache sonic got hit by a couple months ago was, how eggman made a metal sonic that knew so much about the real thing's life, why this metal seemed less mechanically violent and more genuinely emotionally distressed. with eggman's loyalty programming scrubbed from his system, metal wakes back up confused and upset but much more 'himself', and even manages a few natural-feeling responses as tails explains what he found and apologises over and over for not being able to help sooner.

he still doesn't like sonic.

metal leaves pretty much as soon as he's in working condition. even when sonic isn't there reminding him that he isn't himself anymore, he can't stand being around a tails who isn't his brother. he takes to wandering the world directionlessly, trying to figure out who he is now and find a place in a world that doesn't remember him. he's not sonic anymore, and it'd be easier to list the things he doesn't hate about being called 'metal sonic' or just metal, so after a while he settles on introducing himself as 'photon' - another intangible fast thing, like sound, but comfortably distant from his old name. [it's also a stupendously petty means of one-upping sonic, light being faster than sound and everything. drama queen.]

the timeline gets way fuzzier after all this overdetailed nonsense, but things do get better for photon. he has an identity now, and it's fragile and cobbled together and still missing pieces, but it belongs to him and nobody else. he strikes up a few odd but sincere friendships - he hangs out with big when he needs a calm and comforting presence, and has a fierce friendly rivalry with shadow underpinned by their quietly shared experience of not knowing whether to trust their own memory, and much later down the line he bonds with belle over the mundane frustrations of being a robot [and, privately, because she's the best fit so far for the tails-shaped hole in his heart]. he keeps up the drifter lifestyle, making new memories to replace painful old ones, finding ways to use his robot abilities for fun or to help people rather than purely as tools of destruction. it's not perfect for photon, he's still deeply bitter and existentially lonely and missing a sense of purpose, but it's Better, and that counts for something

photon is like some of the earlier [western] depictions of sonic in personality - rougher around the edges, more sarcastic and much less sincere, often brushing up against the line between playfully teasing and just being a bully. whereas sonic has grown into the generally kinder and more patient person he is these days thanks to the friends he's made and the adventures he's had, photon split off from him when that character development was just barely starting, and the trauma from his loss of identity made him regress instead of moving forward. he's still a kind person at heart, but that period of artificially inflated anger and despair has left its mark on how he handles his emotions, even if the programming that first caused it is long gone.

powers-wise, photon is pretty much identical to neo metal sonic, albeit with some limitations. he's as fast and strong as the real thing, can shapeshift or use chaos control if he's got an emerald with him, and with all 7 can take on a super form - though since the metal overlord incident, he's refused to try. [i'm leaving it open whether metal overlord is his innate super transformation now or if it was caused by him tapping into the negative energy of the chaos emeralds rather than sonic's usual positive, since both are really fun ideas. either way, becoming metal overlord was way too traumatic for photon to have any interest in trying again for now.]

he can still copy the biodata of living beings that he comes into contact with, but most of his storage space is taken up by the entire organic brain being simulated in realtime, which he's definitely not willing to modify or delete, so he's effectively limited to only the most recent two or three powers he's copied. he shapeshifts a little to reflect the data he's pulling from, mostly because it's fun to imagine what it'd look like. also because i'm a mega man guy. once again it all comes back to worlds collide being peak fiction

this concludes THE PHOTON ZONE, if only because this has been in my drafts for 3 days and i just want to make my damn post already. if the 1400 word infodump didn't make it clear i am VERY obsessed with my sad little metal sonic amalgam lmao. all this and i still had to cut a ton of details to prevent this infodump from being do you love the colour of the photon, so if my unhinged ramblings have convinced you to care about him even a fraction as much as i do i'd be thrilled to answer any followup questions here or on my main!!!!

[carniekisses]

Here's a long post that I really hope Tumblr will not flag as NSFW (please don't flag this), I remember back when I showed off the needlefelt Gomer sculpture I had made, someone asked if I had like a work process to show off for it. And I did not, because I had kept it all confined to a private account. I thought it'd be fun to have something to show for it for this one.

So I've been wanting to make a BJD for at least the past 15 years, back when I was a kid with no money to buy supplies with and also with a worry for symmetry, and also also I wasn't very skilled. It's 2024, and I vaguely know how to use Blender now

I've started this project on April 6th, as I've been documenting this on the above mentioned private account.

Of said model I (much) later ended up only being able to salvage the physical sculpts of the chest and torso parts as I messed up somewhat badly, see down below. I also ended up dropping the 'magnets in hands & feet' concept as it was just redundant, one can simply unhook them off the elastic if they are to swap them out.

At any rate, I 3D printed it all and got to sanding, and painting.

So far so good I guess, really not a fan of how the knee and elbow bean slots were just holes (I fixed that later don't worry)

So This was Not looking good lmao. I used acrylic paint, which was not necessarily the problem, the problem was that I'd applied it with a sponge brush which caused the surface to feel really sandpapery once dry. So don't do that I suppose, bad idea

On top of this, I realized that given the thickness of this doll I absolutely needed double joints in the legs, in order to have decent articulation. You can see in the above pics I *had* sculpted those, but I later fused the knee beans with the shins with apoxy resin, for some reason? I think it was because as I posed the legs the knee beans kept falling *into* the hollowed out shins/thighs, and I got tired of it.

The final blows for this model were me applying some 3D finish resin in a last ditch effort to smooth out the horrible texture, which rendered the pieces extremely shiny and smooth (disgusting), WHICH then prompted me to apply matte varnish to fix that bullshit. It absolutely did not work lmfao, and I have no pictures of that disaster because I became pretty discouraged about having to go back to like square two or three.

Some time passed (months really because I kept getting distracted for many a reason [sanding is so fucking boring, Blender was a mistake, I was feeling overwhelmed, I was too sad/tired to work that day, etc.]), I buckled down and finally retooled the pieces that needed it: everything But the chest and torso parts, off of which I managed to sand the varnish and smooth resin. I had fixed all the double joints too to actually be decently functional this time. The head was completely resculpted to better reflect the character's latest design iteration.

bean slots: Fixed

So after sanding (which was the part I was dreading the entire time, because it's so tedious and also it hurts after a while), I caved and got myself an airbrush to, hopefully, lay paint down good this time.

Very glad I did because the difference is kinda crazy. Please ignore my dirty ass desk, it's what happens when you craft. These pictures are from last week btw.

The blue base and the blush were airsprayed, the finer details like the dark shading and the pinker parts were done with both chalk and just acrylic paint. I miiight remake the eyeballs, or at least add more of a smooth finish. The shine to them is really nice

Here's she with lashes, wearing a shitty little scrap of fabric I cut in 10 minutes for fun (please DON'T flag th), and posing to test out the double joints too, they definitely could be better but they work Fine and I'm okay with that.

As of today I'm waiting for the fibres to deliver, for the wig, I already have the cap done. I guess I can update this when it happens, thanks for reading so far, I hope it was interesting, see you next time.......

[bryce-bucher]

500 CALIBER CONTRACTZ Post #15

WISHLIST IT PLZ!

Water Ripplez:

I've been playing DMC3 lately, and I noticed some of the enemies in that game pop out of the ground with this warble effect that makes it look as though the ground beneath them in distorting. I asked some fellow devs about how that might've been done and eventually landed on a specific method.

The first step was to go into blender and create this little waves/ripple model and bake it onto a flat plane to get the normal map. If you don't know what a normal map is, it is a 2d texture that tells light what direction it should bounce off it in order to give the illusion of depth. Look them up they are cool.

The next thing I did was make a circular model and align the UVs so that scrolling it downwards would make it look as though the waves were traveling outwards from the center.

Then I brought that model and the normal map into unity and set up this refraction shader. dw about it.

And finally it all came together to become a little ground distortion. Wow, i'm so proud of it. Not proud as in im proud of making it, but proud of it as if it were my son.

Bubblez:

I decided to add in lil bubbles(z) that you can jump into and they pop which launches you up. They've turned out to be really helpful for bridging gaps in level design, and they were easy af to make. Not much to say about them besides I hope they r fun and I'll be adding cool pop particles to them later.

Doctor Spider:

The first thing I did when getting back on this project after my big October break was finish up Doctor Spider.

He is the second target in the desert nightclub area, and he lives up this big ass dome. You gotta bring him some blood wine to draw him out and then shoot him with ur gun. He sucks.

Conclusion:

Uhhhh.. idk. Ima be posting more about this again, so look forward to that or don't if u don't wanna. Wishlist the game if u think it looks cool and hope u have good day tyty

[astralynx]

I figured out how to rip DOTDD Models and now I'm teaching you! (plus uploading mine)

^ download these things onto your computer devices anytime!

Last summer I spiraled into insanity trying to figure out and eventually gave up so now that I know I'm saving you the trouble! I've also put all of my rips into a drive folder here that contains most of the notable npcs + playable characters but I'm planning on submitting them to modeler's resource when I have the time.

Final disclaimer: i also don't know much about ripping / romhacking / blender / computers in general but I thought it would be nice to put up what I've figured out anyway. I've also never actually written a guide to anything before so uh. i hope this is clear enough. Now finally onto the tutorial itself!

You'll need: tinke / apicula / a dotdd rom (not important if its in english or not but if you want like some of the translated ui elements / fonts you might wanna use a ver w the fantranslation patch) / and (optionally) blender or whatever other 3d modeling software that can read .dae files so you can actually do stuff with these.

First is to launch Tinke and load in your dotdd rom, you'll then be met with this menu. the models are contained under the "mdl" tab

each of these have different things but you'll probably care about mb (major npcs) and pc (player characters) and also mn (familiars). also using this to say that tinke is a. very finnicky program so sometimes stuff will just Not Work. sorry about that. anyway.

Once you're in you can start looking for whatever model (.n3d file) you want, unfortunately the models aren't named clearly so you'll have to open them to see what they are. You can do this by selecting the .n3d file and clicking "unpack" which will open a .bmd0 file with a yellow box icon, you'll need to unpack that file one more time to actually be able to open the file it gives you after that in the viewer / export it

When you get the second unpacking (which should be a .bmd0 file with a mostly green drawing for the icon), you can open it in the viewer and it'll look like this!

sorry any file you open that has a skeleton will look like that. I have been informed that sometimes ds games just store their models like this and it has no affect on the model when its exported so. lets just move on. Also sometimes tinke will give you an error that will stop you from opening the viewer properly but it will (most of the time) let you see the textures fine so you can double check (and even if it doesn't we have a workaround coming up soon)

Next big step is to set up apicula! When you download it, the program can't run by itself. You will need to create two text files, one named "apicula view nsbxx_files" and "apicula convert nsbxx_files -o dae_files" (no quotation marks) to put in the same folder as the apicula exe. You will then rename these .txt files into .bat files and you'll use these to actually "run" the program. You'll also make a folder alongisde those called nsbxx_files. It should look like this at the end

Back to tinke, you'll take the viewable .bmd0 model you want to export and click "extract" and I usually put mine directly into the nsbxx folder in my apicula folder for convenience sake. double clicking the "view" .bat will put the models into a viewer that I like to use as a final double check (and also what you can use if tinke's preview is giving you trouble). Its WASD to move and Q and E to lower / raise the camera

to actually convert the file, double click the "convert" .bat file and it will create a new folder named "dae_files" and inside will be your model and its textures in a .dae folder that you can read in blender and contains its skeleton!

PLEASE NOTE!!!! that apicula can only read / convert one file at a time! this means that it will just use the topmost file in the nsbxx folder and if you'll have to delete the dae folder every time once your done with it so it can run properly again. so just make sure you move your converted files somewhere else before you do. but now you'll have a model to put into blender!

the tutorial is technically "done" now but I'm gonna share how to set up these models in blender (which for the sake of explaining i'm gonna assume you don't know much about). When you first load in the models you'll have to "turn on" their textures using the drop down arrow in the menu on the top right corner of the 3d viewport and turn on these settings (while still selecting the solid circle tab)

Secondly, Many of them use transparent elements in their textures that blender doesn't like to load without some help

you can fix this by expanding the menu on the bottom of the screen and clicking the clock icon to turn it into the "shader editor" tab

Then, you'll select your model and go to the "base color" node in the shader editor, go down to the "alpha" tab and set it to "pre-mutliply" and it should remove the white lines around the transparent elements!

That's all from me! if you have any questions you can reply to this post / send me an ask or dm or whatever and I'll try my best to help! happy ripping!

[katsigian]

⁺⊹𑁍˚𖥸 𝙒𝙄𝙋 𝙒𝙃𝙀𝙉𝙀𝙑𝙀𝙍 𖥸˚𑁍⊹⁺────────

Hiiii everyone, we are so back.

First up, Valen baby. I recoloured his cyberware! All of that golden hardware he has - his forearms, his neural wiring on his face, his piercings, his wedding ring - finally match. I recoloured them to be the same gold as his eyes and he matches so nicely that I've ascended into heaven. I love matching and symmetry in OC designs 🫠

I also made Valen more freckle-y. I love freckles, so Valen's got even more on his shoulders and chest. Lastly, lore-accurate love marks; Valen's normally covered in both bitemarks and hickies. Why? Because Valen and his husband are (healthily) possessive of each other + leaving marks is a way for them to bond (they're also just extremely horny for each other). That bond with his husband is essential to his character, so I figured I'd add them in

More ongoing projects under here ♡

Second up, Vesper baby. Yes, my rarely seen second son is getting an awful lot of upgrades and will be reappearing soon because I missed him. He's back to being pink like his OG version! It'll be a little while yet before I've got him done, as I'm making him a new hair from almost scratch in Blender + giving him brand new tattoos. I'm very happy with how he's coming along so far, though.

Lastly, I'm recolouring cyberware for public release on Nexus! I really needed more variety when it comes to OC creation + I haven't seen recolours of these before. So I figured If Not Me, Then Who. There's two ready to go and I'll likely do more if everything goes well.

And that's everything for now!

Taglist ♡ if you'd like to opt in/opt out, please feel free! As always, there's no pressure to do these if you'd rather not. And if you've been tagged already/have done this already, then feel free to ignore! 🖤

@rindemption @noirapocalypto @westealtoys @quickhacked @cloudofbutterflies92 @opaleyedprince @mercymaker @nightbloodbix @sunites @vvanessaives @skelior @peaches-n-screem @spicyraeman @feykiller @florbelles @aceghosts @riikugan @devilbrakers @dani-the-goblin @elvenbeard @dickytwister @hibernationsuit @hiddenbeks @jerichoes @cybersteal @kharonion @aggravateddurian @hummingbirdsage @archonfurina @vanoefucks @seluned @gothimp @onehornedbeast @carlosoliveiraa @baldurians @thefrostyshepard @balverine2077 @magicmissiled @ancunine @ronqueesha @wormskul @vivanightcity @cyberholic77 @lilacmox @strafethesesinners @vincentmatthews @jaydenborn @sh00kspeared @crookedvultures @saintemarvel

[nonwal]

writing updates? writing updates.

so as we know, the sea, the stars, the dreamers got put on hold because I needed to finish the final third, and then said hold ended up longer than anticipated because I wrote 100000 words of an entirely different fic. I've since spent the latter half of 2024/2025 working on it again. unfortunately, when I was writing the original (super) rough draft there were a bunch of parts where I went "ehh that's problem for future me" and I am now future me. chapters 36 and 37 nearly doubled in size. I hit a pivotal scene in chapter 39 that was so fucking boring and unappealing that I stalled out for two months and ended up having to re-write it as a 1200-word play, which also took a while because iambic pentameter is tricky. (I am now very excited about that chapter instead of wanting to light it on fire, though, which is ultimately what's important.) there were two scenes in chapter 40 and 41 that I hadn't even completed the rough draft on, and I'm neeeaarly done with ch40 but ch41 is still. daunting. I need to finish that scene before I can shift gears back to final edits/publishing again, but the end is within sight and I've finally built up some good momentum again

I've written a ton of smallish fics set post-a body in absentia (as well as some prequel snippets and alternate POV during the main fic) but a) I've yet to actually finish any of them and b) many of them reference each other, so even though they don't form a single thematically-coherent sequel per se, I'd need to publish a lot of the sequel fics in order. currently on the backburner while I'm working on tStStD/daydreaming about putting my favorite scourgers in a blender

a wolf is a ghost with teeth is the blender in question (this is both the Astrid/Beau/Yasha and Eadwulf/Fjord/Jester fic.) I've still barely written anything for either half and idk when I'll actually have time to really work on it, but boy do I have a lot of Thoughts. truly just kicking my feet and giggling while imagining wizards in acute mental distress over here. Eadwulf gets a religious crisis and lot of people asking about his feelings but I think all he really needs is some unethical BDSM. (seriously. if he just got drowned and resuscitated a few times I knowwww it would hit the reset button in his brain. unfortunately(?) for him, Jester and Fjord are more fuzzy handcuffs and pirate RP people.) meanwhile, Astrid is actively suicidal and really should talk about her feelings, but instead she gets unsafe and insane BDSM <3 #girlboss #feminism

(I also really want to do CR Summer Wildflowers this year, but whether I sign up for the main event or just do treats depends on how far I get on tStStD in the next couple weeks, because I know I cannot juggle more than one active project at a time. we shall see.)