#any tips? or idek what im doing here tbh

[shadesofnavy]

holy shit Pico looks so freaking nice there! Though I have to say that I had a friggin double-take when I saw you mention that he's like in his 20s there. I'm just "wtf I thought he was a bit older here, not friggin younger" lmao

That life-style stress doesn't do him favors, but he's in his maybe late twenties there. I'll admit my art style's in a weird phase right now where I'm struggling with how I want my faces to look (realistic shaped, simple eyes? The rounded cartoony cheeks? Which one?? How do I make it look good???) I'm still in "art puberty" as you can see lmfao, so that's probably why he looked older augh

[sungbeam]

any tips for writers losing theyre motivation? I feel like I'm only (and toxic-ly) only thinking about followers.

when did you start writing? plz keep writing!

hellohello! let me first start off by saying that you are not alone in feeling this, anon :')) i understand on some level what ur feeling; i cared a lot abt followers too.

when i first opened this blog, i really only wrote for nct and i felt really let down bc i didn't get as many notes or attention as some of my peers. in a way, i basically used that as motivation to keep on writing? i mean, i was trying to figure out what people here liked, and in the beginning i really did just continue to write for me and the small group of people who found me and supported me. but eventually, it got to the point where i was really just hungry for followers and validation and chasing milestone after milestone,,,

idek what i was trying to get at w this lol but tbh i was kind of lucky in finding mutuals here. so ig that's one of my tips: try and reach out to people so u can lean on one another and boost each other! it's a great way to improve on writing and maintain some form of motivation 🤧 and it doesn't work for everyone, but i would say to write what u want, and keep practicing that (also im kind of stubborn lol so sometimes i just keep going until it gives? which in retrospect, prob isn't the greatest...). there r quite a handful of works of mine that don't get /anywhere/ in regards to notes, but i loved them a lot, and so i wanted to share them for those who /do/ appreciate them. and finally, every once in awhile, i step away from tumblr!! when i find my outlook becoming more toxic, that's when ik i need to remove myself lol giving myself a few days break gives me room to breathe mentally and emotionally, and i feel less pressure to appease people (and that's usually when i get some of my best/favorite pieces done)

but whether u just started or you've been here for awhile, i really would encourage u to keep writing and practicing. ik that advice literally sucks ass, but it really does just come with time and practice. and to answer ur other question, i started writing recreationally in middle school to cope w something personal in my life and then i fell in love and have been filling my free time w it since. (but i didn't start writing ff until a little over a year and half ago...?) sometimes when i do feel myself falling into the "interactions/followers" rabbit hole, i do just have to step away until i can find my bearings and remember why i started this in the first place. cuz it would feel awful to ruin that goodness for yourself, right?

know there r always people willing to support u. if u need anything, im here for u <3

[inyoursheets]

2, 16, 18, 23!

Tell us about what you’re most looking forward to writing – in your current project, or a future project

wow ok this is surprisingly hard to answer! confronting! im not even sure, there isn’t anything specific ive got planned out that im excited to write. i don’t have any future projects planned out yet. or. i mean.....there are some things at the tips of my writing fingers but i can’t allow myself to think about them properly yet bc i need to focus on and commit to finishing warm water. and my thesis (ugh).

there are some things from warm water that ive already written that im excited to share, but right now im in a place where writing just isn’t going smoothly, so whenever i have an idea (like the eloquent “sweatpants dick” note i took recently) (my only contribution that day) im not all that confident or excited about it bc im afraid the actual writing itself will be a pain? that i’ll drag my feet for days and it won’t come easy and i’ll hate every second of it -- until things click and the words start flowing, not unlike this post describes. idk i keep really wanting to write and sitting down for it and then it just--won’t happen. or if i do actually try putting pen to paper i just start hating it all, which i don’t want.

so! this is a sad note to end on! here’s some vague things i am looking forward to: i’m looking forward to being excited about writing in general! i’m looking forward to writing something i’m proud of, either in terms of plot or theme or characterization or dialogue or whatever! i’m also looking forward to having that oh-my-god-the-words-are-flowing-from-me moment, regardless of the result tbh, bc i just love that feeling of loving writing and having it come easily. that’s what im excited about -- being excited about writing again.  

Tried anything new with your writing lately? (style, POV, genre, fandom?)

ok so i have this terrible writing tendency to not know how to not describe every single action characters make -- every movement, every gesture. particularly on first drafts i feel the urge to describe it all, otherwise i can’t continue. i know that it’s not always necessary to write what happens every single second of a scene, but i can’t seem to stop?

idk if im explaining what i mean correctly -- there’s probably terms for this that i dont know -- but someone who i think manages to do the opposite of what i do very well is @fairhairedkings, who is really good at time jumps and not going overboard w the minute-to-minute descriptions, the way i tend to.

i know it can be pretty tiresome and it’s one of the things that annoys me a lot about my own writing, both in terms of reading it (it can be plain boring?) and for the writing itself. it blocks me! but i can’t seem to stop doing it, feel like i’m glazing over things otherwise or lose track of where im going. i have to keep reminding myself that leaving out certain things doesn’t mean that nothing happens or that people assume nothing happens.

so, to answer the question, ive tried to be a bit more concise with it’s hidden in heartbeats, exhales and in the hope of open hands when i started writing it. that fic is a product of being fed up with my other WIPs and it didn’t take more than a week from its initial idea to the finished product, so i really wanted it to be a quickie, and i thought something tight and concise could work for the plot. i didn’t actually manage to succeed though, still ended up describing just about every action there, too. i don’t think i’ll ever manage to write something concise tbh. i do bad with time jumps, i do bad with less is more, which is unfortunate, bc less can truly, truly be more. so! im gonna try this again some time!

Do any of your stories have alternative versions? (plotlines that you abandoned, AUs of your own work, different characterisations?) Tell us about them.

mmm well, warm water originally didn’t include mutual pining -- beth wasn’t supposed to be in love with rio yet, we were gonna watch her fall in love slowly, while he already felt things. but then i ended up almost turning that entirely on its head and now we’ve got the mess that is that this fic in its current state lol. there’s also an AU to warm water that i briefly considered bc of you which i won’t go into now bc of possible spoilers -- but ive considered things!!! 

also for it’s hidden in heartbeats, it was supposed to be more about petty!rio and haha, look, exes trying to get “revenge”, and to be light and funny, but i realized that idk how relationships work, let alone how exes work, so i couldn’t really find any good reasons for them splitting up, at least nothing that could generate comedy, so it ended up getting fairly angsty? idk why this keeps happening -- me planning to do something rom com-esque and it developing into something wayyyyy angstier, but it did!

What’s the story idea you’ve had in your head for the longest?

oh wow idek! ive definitely been working on warm water the longest, so i guess technically that one, but there are some other ideas that have been drifting near the surface that have been there longer and are very underdeveloped and need time and nourishment and attention and love, all of which i can’t give them yet bc im trying to stay focused on warm water and thesis writing. maybe the beth/stan friendship snippet ive got hidden in somewhere in my docs!

thank youuuu for indulging me!!! meta writing asks!!!!

[dramaticalcorgi]

do you have any tips on drawing humans, particularly faces? im a furry artist and punished myself through life by rarely drawing stylized humans and idek where to start lmao

  OOF im ..probably one of the worst people to ask because i suCK at explaining things but .. I’ll try…

so FIRSt..i would definitely look at references so you have an idea where everything goes. thats probbaly the first step.

neXT, what i do is i always start off with a circle.

next, from either side of the circle, i go down and make the bottom part of the head. human heads are mostly just shapes, so its up to you how you draw the bottom part of the head. it can be completely rounded or sharp/angular.

i also ad a line in the new “middle” of the face. i usually just… eyeball it as you can probably tell here lol.

next i draw the nose ! tbh you can draw in any order you want. this is just my preference and drawing hte nose first helps me figure out where everything else goes.

then i fill in everything else! i also draw in the hairline because i found that it helps me when i draw the hair. the eyes go in the middle of the face, where the nose curves in and the ears are basically in the same area. ALSO at this point i define the face a little bit more by adding a cheek.

and then, final touches and boom! you have a face! h…hopefully..that was Good Enough askdakjdas….s.dsdjjs…

[i-bounced-byeeee]

Okay everyone buckle up because in gonna share a wild dream I had last night.

In this dream is myself and a friend of mine from HS.

So it starts off as me visiting my friend, who has a bunch or cat-sizes Dinosaurs living in their house. They live with someone but idk who, and they live in squalor. My friends bed is on the floor and moldy. They have fungus and mold all over their walls, there's dinosaur shit everywhere and they have an Infection in their hand so bad the tips of their fingers were necrose. And I was like "I gotta get them out of here."

So we start looking for places and managed to find a place that'd allow us to move in ASAP all we needed ro do is get the deposit. So they went off and did idek what and managed to get a shit ton of money. Enough for the deposit and like 3 or 4 months worth of rent. But the place isn't vacant yet, so what they do is drive up and leave a note and drive away.

Now for some fuck off reason I'm on foot now and I'm walking around and this guy comes out, and he's pissed. He's got these crazy swords on him and he's plotting to kill someone and I'm walking like fucking 10 feet away from him so I'm like "I gotta get away from this dude" and start flapping my arms like a damn bird and start flying. Well he sees me and starts throwing those swords at me, I freak out and dodge them and come down. Then he forces me to help him with something, and If I don't help, he'll kill me. He's dragging me around and he's killing people as he goes and I'm freaking out because I don't want to go to jail for being an accomplice. We go through a laundry room and he kills two dudes in a separate room and tries to drag me away, but I was panicking because we needed to clean the fingerprints. Ao he let me do that and I locked the door because we couldn't hide the bodies and there were people in the other room. He drags me to this place where he kills this old lady and then he's gone and im panicking.

I locked the door webcame in and put a punch of flowers and stuff around her because I felt horrible, awful. Then I am making my way home and trying to avoid people because of course the police are on it and there's 4 suspects. The guy ibwas with, 2 other dudes, and myself. I didn't want anyone to question me because I was scared if I said anything I'd Go to jail or get murdered by the dude.

I got home and my dad who was a crow for some reason told me via telepathy that he knew what I did and he forgave me. Then it jumps and the police know I know something and they're trying to get me to help them find the killer and bring them to justice. They're talking about how there were flowers where all the bodies were (i guess I had flowers and dropped them with the bodies as I was dragged away) and bc of that they figured there was likely more than one person. Idk if they knew i was the other one or if they just thought I was a witness. Anyway they brought some guys in to identify but I didn't identify any of them even though one was the killer because i was too scared.

They mentioned doing it again but to hook me up to a machine to see if one of the guys was the killer but I was too afraid to say which one it was, which scared me more. I went to visit the old lady he killed with one of the cops and lots of people left her flowers and stuff and the killer was there sweeping because I guess some DNA evidence could have been found a d he didn't want that to happen and then I woke up. The majority of the dream was pretty much me being scared and not knowing what the fuck to do. If I should find someone to help and protect me or if I should keep terrible traumatic secrets with me for the rest of my life and tbh I can't stop thinking about it and trying to figure out wtf my unconscious was trying to work out

[kaisdesk-blog]

I want to get into bujos and I was wondering what notebook and stationary I need/would be nice to have starting out, and also if you have any tips on faux hand lettering (I think that's what it's called??) it would be very appreciated

“How To: Calligraphy & Hand Lettering for Beginners! Tutorial + Tips!good brands/notebooks:

moleskine grid/dotted (or u can use the moleskine planner as a bujo thats what i do)

muji dotted/grid notebook

leuchtturm1917 dotted/grid journal or the original leuchtturm1917 bullet journal

(u can also use lined notebooks but idk personally i h8 lined notebooks so) if ur not so sure about the bujo system and u dont wanna waste ur money just get a muji notebook since they’re cheap, thin, and are of good quality

stationery i’ll be listing down good brands but u dont have to buy the exact same

gel pens (muji/ zebra sarasas/ pilot)

markers (crayola supertips/ faber castell)

fineliners (uni pin/ staedtler/ stabilo)

ruler (((((u need this)))))

brush pens idk i dont use these a lot but almost everyone does so (tombow/ faber castel/ zig/brushables idek the difference but tbh tombow’s the best)

im on mindblock rn so just look at this video if im missing anything LOL: “Stationery Haul! (w/ Demos) | Bullet Journal Supplies” by AmandaRachLee

tips on faux hand lettering ?? i’m not really the best at hand lettering but here are some good yt videos bc idk how 2 give tips lol 

"how i calligraphy (tips and tricks)” by MY FREND @jhonstudies legit this actually taught me how 2 calligraphy lol i didnt know how to use a brush pen before this vid ! super helpful lol

“How To: Calligraphy & Hand Lettering for Beginners! Tutorial + Tips!“ by AmandaRachLee

hope this helps dis better help bc this is a long post !!LOL