#focused more on rendering them than the background LOL

[girlhell9999]

its not septemeber 15th YET but ramiro dont care. chara and asriel upon you !!! now!!!!

[kozachenko]

And now we are finally getting to the most recent stuff I've worked on, starting off with my 2025 Marisa redraw! This time I'll actually have some more stuff to say since I can remember my thought process while drawing this yipeeee- (click image for better quality)

Artist's Notes;

So ever since doing these redraws, I've always kinda mourned the loss of the second redraw's dramatic lighting, so I decided to finally bring it back for this one! This one is kind of the melding of a bunch of my favourite aspects of the precious redraws, plus some of the newer stuff I've learned ever sine making them. I also tried out a new style of rendering hair for this piece and I'm really happy with how it looks! Also if you guys are wondering, yes that it s the same lantern from the previous Marisa drawing I did, I copy and pasted it because I was lazy and I just needed it to look consistent, work smarter not harder folks.

So I've been returning to my old favourite brush, the Clip Studio Paint Default Oil Paint brush for this one, and I did a bunch of the rendering for this piece with minimal blending. For the clothing, I wanted to incorperate a technique I did a few years ago, where I added some subsurface scattering to make the lighting feel more dynamic, and I love the effect it gave the white parts of the clothes. For the hair rendering, I did one base layer of shadows on top of my base colour for the hair, then a sort of mid-tone underneath it to add some variety in colour, and then did my highlights underneath all of that. I focused less on rendering every single strand of hair and moreso focused on getting the general shapes down, since I got inspired by some art I saw on Pinterest with a similar rendering style.

Once I finished with the base rendering, I used a multiply layer to create some more prominent shadows and also to give the lighting more direction. I did this with another piece as well and I think it gives me some pretty good results. It helps make the shadows a lot clearer and also gives me some better lighting while also allowing me to do some rendering to flesh it out even further, it's the best of both worlds and I have a lot of fun doing it. Also, what helped me a lot in the compositional stage was making a shitty little stick figure version of the character in the pose that I wanted and then painting in the base pose like a mannequin. I find that just painting in the figure immediately instead of forcing myself to stick to a rigid sketch has helped me out a lot, and here's an example of how the process went below. Later on in the drawing I did flip my canvas and after fixing it, realized that I liked it better flipped so that's why the orientation is slightly different. It also helps to just to some quick linework distinguishing the body parts to it's easier for me to draw the clothes. I do often keep major features of the silhouette in tact during this phase though so I don't forget to include them.

The background was actually pretty fun since it's just a nice outdoors scene. I didn't want there to be too much detail since I am all for creating the illusion of detail than rendering everything in immaculate detail, though I do think I could do just a little bit better, but hey that's why I've mainly been drawing backgrounds nowadays lol.

Overall, I'm really proud of this piece and I had a lot of fun making it. I want to continue experimenting with backgrounds and how to incorporate characters into them, so after my hibernation period you guys can expect to see some more of that.

[redslug]

Helping Neuroslug help me

Admittedly it took me an embarrassing amount of time to figure out and start using inpainting, but now that I've had a taste of it my head is spinning with possibilities. And so I'm making this post to show the process and maybe encourage more artists to try their hand at generating stuff. It really can can be an amazing teammate when you know how to apply it. For those who didn't see my first post on this, I've trained an AI on my artworks, because base Stable Diffusion doesn't understand what anthropomorphic insects are. That out of the way, here we go:

I noticed that a primarily character focused LoRA often botches backgrounds (probably because few images of the dataset have them) so I went with generating a background separately and roughly blocking out a character over it in Procreate. Since it was a first experiment I got really generous with proper shading and even textures. Unsurprisingly, SD did it's job quite well without much struggle.

Basically masked out separate parts such as fluff, skirt, watering can, etc. and changed the prompt to focus on that specific object to add detail. There were some bloopers too. She's projecting her inner spider.

Of course it ate the hands. Not inpainting those, it's the one thing I'll render correctly faster than the AI does. Some manual touchups to finish it off and voila:

The detail that would have taken me hours is done in 10-20 minutes of iterating through various generations. And nothing significant got lost in translation from the block out, much recommend. But that was easy mode, my rough sketch could be passed off as finished on one of my lazier days, not hard to complete something like that. Lets' try rough rough.

I got way fewer chuckles out of this than I expected, it took only 4-5 iterations for the bot to offer me something close to the sketch.

>:C It ate the belly. I demand the belly back. Scribble it in...

Much better. Can do that with any bit actually, very nice for iterating a character design.

Opal eyes maybe?

Lol

Okay, no, it's kind of unsettling. Back to red ones. Now, let's give her thigh highs because why not?

It should be fancier. Give me a lace trim.

Now we're talking. Since we've started playing dress-up anyway, why not try a dress too. Please don't render my scribble like a trash bag. I know you want to.

Phew

I crave more details.

Cute. Perhaps I'll clean it up later. ... .. . SHRIMP DRESS

[kashuan]

I just wanted to say that your character work is so brilliant and inspiring to me right now. Your Darksouls work is such a delight!

I struggle to commit to loose sketching and tend to only produce fully rendered works with backgrounds, which stops me from being able to create the raw amount of character work you produce in a single post. It’s very inspirational, keep it up!

Thanks so much! 😊 I used to be the same myself, but I eventually figured out that personally, I get the most enjoyment from focusing more on ideas, whether they be character design or interactions between characters, than making one drawing in particular look really polished (altho make no mistake, I'm a huge perfectionist, lol. Most of my sketch dumps are like 20-30 hours worth of finagling with really tiny details I know no one will notice [but I do!!], not to mention the mountain of stuff I end up throwing away). For me, one of the most enjoyable parts of making art is the experience of studying a character throughout the course of many drawings until I really feel like I've gotten to know them, which looser drawings allow me to do, whereas whenever I was doing fully rendered works, I'd end up a lot more focused on the technical side of things than the ideas behind the piece. Which can be fun too, but isn't ultimately what I personally want to devote my time and growth to. I think there is also a kind of a pressure on artists for fully rendered works to be the 'end goal'/what you should aim to regularly produce, and more power to you if that's what you enjoy! But, IMO, a sketch can be just as much a 'finished piece' as something inked and colored, if that is the intent you go into it with. That is, at least, the state that I try to bring mine to before I post them. If you think you might enjoy working a little more loosely yourself, I highly encourage it; if nothing else, it's fun to experiment outside your comfort zone now and then :)

[grandaddy-of-all-liars]

Y'know what? Imma say somethig positive about the reboot... The title cards look incredible. I really love that they made some of them animated this time around! Renhattan, Bad Stimpy, 2 Slow 2 Furious, A Stimpy is Born, and Plane and Simple are my favorites based on visuals alone lol

thanks for pointing this out, what a great takeaway! and good on you for finding light in the darkness 😊 I did NOT notice some were animated so ty for that too!

sadly I couldn't find any info about the artist(s), which fits one of the major conception issues with the reboot. I think there may be more than one as there are some stylistic differences amongst them, don't ya think?

yes! I'm with ya on 'Bad Stimpy' and '2 Slow.' the rendering and composition of 'Aw Hell No' is pretty nice too. some, (only some) of these cards do a great job of enticing the viewer without giving away too much.

I've got an apple custard in the oven and a few mins to kill, so feel free to stop reading here, because I'm going to actually purge the peeves I've got with the rb title cards, in general. now, I am fully aware I am nooowhere near the best at drawing these guys. and no, not every tc from TRASS is cutting edge graphic design either. that said, I think the 'less is more' rationale applies to some very noticeable layout deficits. simplicity is the heart of a good illustration, which by design, should give a little appetizer of what's to come, or at least, a thematic glimpse to make you want to consume more.

just a couple comparisons for ref, chosen for somewhat similar color schemes.

I could absolutely get in the scrutiny weeds here, but I'll try for brevity; just focusing on artists' font choices respective of the content, and proportions and placement of figures within the frame. are the rb pieces nice drawings on their own? yeah, sure. do they function well as tc's? ehhh. I mean, look at ALL that negative space around the central images. too many tiny details in the background that become busy rather than contributory. plus, they are basically a fully rendered cel from the episode itself, offering nothing unique or compelling on their own. but really, just look how those images on the right pop off the screen! look at those pallettes! the use of space!

separately, some of the actual titles are just so...lame. like come on guys, this isn't even clever word play, it's just lazy homophones that make no contextual sense, re: 'Now Sea Here', 'Plane and Simple.' really, there were no other puns or phrases to choose from? limited to dated language like 'Aw Hell No' bc <HeLl iS iN ePiSoDe>! also, why is "Ren & Stimpy in" shown in each of these? are they seperate properties from their own show? I'm thinking the creators wanted to maybe harken back to older cartoons of yore, but it just feels even more awkward on top of the bad titling here, imo.

finally, wtf is this:

it irks me they didn't even bend the letters to the creases in the page, or maybe hey, use like a stamp font on a piece of paper that looks like a deed? smth topical? idk, wtfdik, right?

my custard is about done and this was probably way more than anon bargained for. I'm really hung up on the devolution of art in this show and many others over the decades overall, so, as my friend would say, this topic is one of my sleeper agent ignition switches.

thanks for the ask! and again for finding things to enjoy in life! now I'm curious about which tc's are fan favs 🤔

[canaloved]

You have any advice on how to color your work, your art is amazing!

After two years I finally reply to you hi anon hi <3 <3 now I think that this was sent when I was more active with using Rebelle (still love it, but don't use it as much these days!) - back then it was a lot of pure colour theory and eyeballing which I've honestly since forgotten a lot of lol but bear with me here. I'll throw down a step by step as to how I do my stuff nowadays in the latter half of this post.

first off this video is a super helpful watch.

also read james gurney's colour and light, even if just skimming through it.

also also get familiar with the different colour zones of the face lol

also also also get familiar with the planes of the face, they'll help a lot when it comes to rendering out shadows and light. Love using this reference tool here.

now, for the things I keep an eye out for...

knowing your basic colour theory, complimentary colours, etc etc

playing around with colour, not being scared to make mistakes because hey I can just start a new layer lol not the end of the world if some colours end up looking ugly. Don't be afraid to copy/paste your sketch and play around with different rough colours to get a good idea of what you're looking for.

going into it with a few colours in mind that I'd blend everything from to make it all cohesive. choosing 4 or 5 specific shades and blending everything from that, typically avoiding pure black or white. In rebelle I'd typically blend those colours myself to get all the other hues and tones I needed just using the palette mixer, just like real paints

lots of flipping between grayscale and full colour to get a good sense of values, not being scared to darken or lighten areas as needed

I have a tendency to only focus on rendering one side or the other, so to speak -- leaving the shadowed parts fairly detail-less and focusing all of my rendering in the light side, or vice versa

I tend to designate one colour to be 'the dark' or 'the light'-- typically a dark teal or light yellow with most of my stuff lol -- and use that base colour in all of the shadows/highlights on a piece

keeping in mind the way different colours and lights will reflect off of surfaces and hit other surfaces? not the best with this one admittedly but never be afraid to take some colours from the hair and brush it onto the face, colours from the face and brush it into the hair, colours from the background and brush it onto everything, etc etc

I'm still using a lot of saturated colours even in the shadows ; I'm typically not introducing a lot of grays or blacks into a piece, even in the shadows. While of course my shadows are darker than the lights, I mostly distinguish them by colours -- once again, one colour being the 'dark!'

remember that the areas of highest contrast are where your eyes will be drawn to. i tend to tone down the contrast away from parts that aren't quite as vital to the drawing

most people seem to like to add shadows selectively over the piece, but I instead like to carve out the light. Cover the whole image in shadow using a multiply layer, and then erasing where the light is hitting.

layering layering layering, playing with undertones! colour in large swaths of the face with a colour that you want to have show through, building up layers of colour on top of that.

whenever I mix a new colour for something -- i.e to darken part of the eyes -- I try not to only use it in only one spot. I add a hint of it into some strands of hair, a subtle touch of it into some of the shadows. Otherwise I feel like the colour stands out too much and looks disjointed, like it doesn't belong.

don't feel like everything has to be fully smoothed out! Feel free to keep parts of it rough! Keep raw texture showing through!

When I'm adding in undertones, I go for yellow around the nose, forehead, and corner of mouth ; blues around the jaw and under the eyes ; reds over the cheeks, nose, and ears. your character is gonna look like a clown but i promise just trust the process lol

I also like adding in darker or more saturated colours around the edges of hard transitions between light and shadow to help really distinguish the values.

NOW FOR THE ACTUAL STEP-BY-STEP... GUIDE? PART OF IT.

In CSP I've got it down to more of a formula than anything. I start off with a real rough sketch, chunky brush, just trying to figure out where everything is going ; I refine any facial details but I'm not too worried about having the likeness spot on exact at this point. Lots of lasso tooling things around. Typically I do this all on one layer, but sometimes I'll let myself have a second layer with a more refined sketch that I work from instead. At this point I do one of two things

I make a layer below the sketch layer and fill it with local colours - the 'pure' colours of the objects. I set the sketch layer to multiply, lower the opacity a tad, and merge it down; or

I make a layer above the sketch layer, fill it with local colours covering the sketch, lower the opacity of the layer, and use a colour that's a shade or two darker than the local colours to roughly refine the outlines of the sketch. Bring the opacity back up to normal, merge down.

I've added in the undertones of the face at this point -- those yellows, reds, and blues -- and I'm working with only one layer. I'm still tweaking the features, lasso tooling things around, carving out edges that don't sit right, filling in any gaps in the painting with colour to hide the holes.

and then, once everything's roughly where I want it, I'll start playing around with multiply & overlay layers. Sometimes I use soft light instead of overlay, I just go by feel. I mess around with colour schemes to see what I like best, and sometimes I'll completely erase the lighting and shadows and try different lighting angles.

I make a new multiply layer, mess with the opacity to my liking, clip/mask it to the layer below, and go to town. I'll typically fill the whole layer with a colour I want for the shadows, carve out the lights, and then come in with an overlay layer that I selectively fill in where the light hits the character's face. Don't be scared if it overlaps the multiply shadows, it adds more colour variety to work with.

Merge the multiply layer down into the base layer. Merge the overlay layer down as well. And then I just... start going to town.

I ended up using a light blue multiply layer and pink overlay layer. I take the colour I used on the multiply layer, and directly apply it to different parts of the shadows to help the colours pop ; same with taking the colour I used on the overlay layer and the highlights. I like to put special focus around the eyes when I'm bringing in said colours.

99% of the time at this point I'm just colour picking from different parts of the painting, not bothering to select new colours from the colour wheel unless I've gotta start pushing my values a bit should details get muddy ; typically done by colour-picking an outline colour and dropping it in value a little bit. I take colours from the highlights and mix them into the shadows and vice versa, help harmonize the colours a bit. I'll colour pick from the face and add those colours into the hair even.

After that it's sort of just... rendering it all out. Paint the rest of the owl?

Sometimes I'll hit the highlights or shadows with another correction layer to try and push the value contrast further if I feel like it isn't quite enough.

I use the same brush throughout the whole thing -- I'm using CSP's default thick oil paint brush, that's had the dual brush mode enabled and the colour jitter toned right down because I found it lagged my computer ✌️

------

p.s don't be afraid to reference the methods that traditional artists use! Look at how they do brush-strokes, lighting, colours, layer things all together!

p.s.s also don't be afraid to fuck up lol. experiment with new colours and lighting schemes. play with colours that you don't like playing with. push yourself even if you think it's gonna suck. sometimes pieces need you to take multiple passes to it before you get something that sticks

also this is not the be all end of all advice do whatever your heart desires lol this is just how I do things ✌️🐛

[emcscared-whumps]

we gettin on the sweat tonight lads

i'm sick without really feeling sick (test results pending lol), so tonight, we're gonna see just how fast i can bust out a finished piece >:)

there will be no consequences! because i wont be infecting my client at work tomorrow!! :D

im talking a bust portrait of a character with a simple face angle, simple expression, simple lighting, that otherwise fully rendered and polished

and im going to log-- (OH GOD I SPELT LOG WRONG WHAT THE FUCK)-- the *actual* time i spend on the piece because i found out that clip studio can tell me how long ive had the canvas open, but i'm sure that i leave canvases open for entire days without touching them, so... that is not accurate enough for me

anyways; the reason? a friend and i were talking about art commission pricing and the habits we've noticed in the art community, and i got curious: what would *i* price my stuff if i were to hypothetically sell it?

through some basic maths and reasoning between us, i have discovered that the key to making a good rate is skill at speed

(it's not as bad as it looks, my american friends, i am using aud :) currently, 1usd = 1.50aud, 50aud = 33.28usd)

we talked about how much is a fair price for the product vs how long it takes to make, and i discovered that if you're quick at making a character bust lineart of moderate quality for $15, and can do one in 30 minutes, accounting for *only* time spent drawing, you'd be making $30 an hour, which is pretty cool considering it'd only be bust lineart. ($20 for bust lineart would yield $40/hr, but i'd only charge that of my skills and precision were reliable and en pointe. it could even be pushed to $25, but i wouldnt go more than $30 unless some super complex shit was happening and i happened to be very very good. at which point you still want to be as fast as physically possible)

there was a plot twist though: rendering times.

hypothetically, if i charged $20 for bust lineart, extra $10 for flats, extra $10 for shadibg, and extra ($5 to) $10 for extra finishing details (little backgrounds etc), that would be $50 total for a fully rendered bust. if i took 4 hours to do it (which i think is reasonable time (for me) to do most things by hand), all of a sudden, that's made my $30-40/hr into $12.50/hr.... which is kinda (very) shit lmao

with this in mind, i have one question: just how fast can i make stuff, and what quality will it be? what would i theoretically be paid for my fully rendered bust pieces?

i usually an very VERY slow partly coz i cannot stay focused on a piece for long enough chunks at a time, or, if i can, i will stop halfway through and leave it for several weeks or months, leading to a turnaround that is at such a leisurely pace even *snails* would be envious

ALTHOUGH. last year, my friend (same as above) alerted me to a built-in time-lapse feature in clip studio. i was intensely curious. for whumptober that year, i had a very clear vision of a piece i wanted to do for one of the prompts, so i used that to test the feature. i sat down at about 1700, stopped only for dinner, and had the whole thing exported and posted to tumblr at around 0100, about 7 hours. i have a sneaking suspicion that was the fabled beast called hyperfocus lmao. the [piece] was a roughly rendered full-body shot with a dynamic pose, both hands exposed, and a more complex expression, not bad considering that my pride piece took 10 months :)

bust portraits are my most comfortable style of piece, so i will experiment with those, especially since my character profiles need them, and also i want them all to look cohesive, which means i will re-draw all of my current ones (rip pete, timmy, and kate lol)

(hm, if i took 3 hours instead of 4, that'd be $16.70, if i took 2, it'd be $25... still not even close to that tasty tasty $30-$40/hr... so the solution would be to up the price of rendering since flats are easy. extra $20 (instead of $10) for rendering, since it's as complex as anatomy with lineart, bumping the total price to $60 (which is starting to *really* push the envelope of what i think people would pay for my art). so if i took 4 hours at that price, that'd be $15/hr, 3 hours would be $20/hr, which is better but still kinda shit for all that extra work, and any faster might reduce the quality to a point where it isnt worth that extra $10...)

......... i'll let u guys know the results lol

[mochiwei]

how many wips do you have going at any given time? i work full time, and i only get weekends to do fan art.. so i told myself that no matter how many idea sketches i had, i would only work on one piece of art at a time and not start another until its done! this means i don't put out work too regularly lol.. so just curious as to how other artists that do art full time work! :D

Hi Anon!

Thank you so much for your question, I’m more than happy to share my experiences with WIPs!

First I organize my sketches and WIPs into folders based on what they’re for: zines, personal work, commissions, etc

Some of these canvases are just sketches that *may* turn into full illustrations but most of them are WIPs. I didn’t include my commission or other zine folders, which brings the number up a lil’ more!

I tend to bounce around WIPs based on when they’re due. First I’d warm up with a limited palette challenge, then I’d work on some line art, followed by adding flats to another piece. Then I’d sketch out some more ideas and add on to the ever-growing WIP pile.

During Linktober, or when it’s close to a certain deadline, that’s when I’ll focus on one piece until it’s finished. Like I said before, usually I’d bounce around and take breaks in between stages. That helps me take a step back and see the piece with fresh eyes at a later time.

One piece took me a whole year to complete! Thankfully it was a personal, original illustration so I was my own client 🫣 During that long break I learned a lot more about color, painting techniques, etc, so I was pretty happy with how it turned out even though it took a while!

That being said, this is how I approach full illustrations with background, lighting, rendering, the whole pie. If you notice painting is taking a while, then try including some shortcuts in your process! For example, using the lasso tool to color wider spaces, coloring in grayscale, and then using Gradient map on top help loads with digital art. With traditional art, blocking in colors and focusing on values help bring a piece to life quickly!

Also if you’re interested in posting more frequently, feel free to share your sketches and WIPs along the way! Please don’t feel pressured to meet a certain metric, your art making process should reflect what you want to get out of it - are you studying certain techniques? Or vibing and going with the flow?

However you go about it, don’t sweat over the number of WIPs you have. When you feel like going back to a certain WIP then that’s the perfect time to work on it!

I hope this helps and happy art making!

[space-blue]

1, 2, 3, 8, 9, 11

Great selection, this took me a long while to hunt down the answers! From the Fandom end of year ask.

favourite fandom you joined this year

Bit of a cheat because it's a 'sub' fandom, but I'll say Andor (star wars). Avatar is right there, yes, but it doesn't have the oomph of Andor. Avatar has a ton of missing character development, and if the world were more approchable, I'd see myself doing a lot of fix its and missing scenes. Andor is difficult on the other hand because it's so perfect. Hard to feel like I have anything to add to the fandom. But it's the one show I've been rewatching to death and having so much respect for.

favourite fic of the year 

This is basically impossible to piiiiick.

I'll mention Fathers & Daughters, even though it's my own, because you have to goddamn love a fic to spend more than a year slaving over it. And I dooo, and yes I AM working on the final chapter still, soz lol

The hottest smut I've read was Boundaries by Spiced, and well, I did nag about it when we discussed the idea, and it's a gift, but that doesn't change the fact it's the best :3 Very happy with it. It's hot by my ace standards. Basically very mindfuck focused. Fandom is Andor!

And then for multi chapter, I'm going to mention this absolutely insane and amazing FE3H complete fic To Those Who Are Never Going Home by MadameHyde. It's set after the game in an Empire win, where a lot of the Blue Lions find themselves teaching at Garrech Mach. I didn't read the tags so some reveals blew my little brain out of the water, it was amazing. Super prose, very character driven, really enjoyed it.

favourite fanart of the year

I thought this would be hard to answer, and then I realised it wouldn't be, actually, even if I'm cheating. BOTH these Maliketh fanarts have been my screen backgrounds for MONTHS. This one is on my phone and on my better Discord :

And this one is my laptop background :

They're dope and Maliketh is top pubber and I'm still obsessed with him. He's peak design and radiates blorbo energies. He's broken and I wanna fix him and pet him and--

favourite author of the year

@spicedrobot That one isn't too hard. I've read a LOT of their work this year, by vertue of doing a lot of beta swaps, and because they write some very delicious ships. They are responsible for 99% of my smut intake in 2022. Also I think it says a lot about an author that you can beta them every other day and never get tired of their unhinged content. They're just that good. (They are in a constant state of wrangling me over my terrible comma game, so they're also very patient and could have strangled me a long time ago, yet they didn't!)

favourite creator of the year

Very hard choice, especially when it's so broad and I've already struggled with the fanart one… But I'm going to go with :

@aromansoul. I just really love their art, and finding them through a shared Silco obsession was delightful. They have a very unique style, with colours that seem to float and come in and out of focus. You'll be staring at a super rendered area and it's perfect, and then you look elsewhere and realise half the drawing is just broad strokes… Absolutely tricks my mind, it's delightful. Also they have some fantastic unique designs of their own content that I think are dope.

favourite OC you met this year

Ah, finally an easy one! Meet Rain Drenched Mountain. He's @scuttlebuttin's Predator OC and he's very sweet. I love his design, his lore, and I think he has great taste. Very handsome lad and each time I see more art of him I feel like a little kid. I mean, Scuttlebuttin is a big favourite artist, and where they're not in a very very distressing blood-gore-clown period, I'm always thrilled to see what they post. Just check out their Odin fanart for the new God Of War, it's out of this world!!

[gladlypants]

Hello again! Person always asking WoW questions here! :P This is a super random question but I'm having such a hard time using my reshade on WoW. Well not the reshade itself, I just can't for the life of me make my DOF focus where I want it to! I use Cinematic DOF and everything is always in focus or out of focus! :( If you have any tips regarding that I would be forever grateful! Feel free to message me privately if you'd like. :D

Hi! Yes, I've noticed that sometimes DOF can be much more difficult to use in WoW than it is in TS4. (Especially in WoW Classic!!) I think the biggest part of that is we can't pause the game and make everything be still like we can in Sims lol, but there may be more to it than that. I've never read up on adjusting settings specifically for Wow, but here are my tips and a couple of links below the cut.

I wrote a big paragraph here and then decided it might be better if I made a list, so here goes:

Turn off the game UI with Alt+Z (sorry if you knew that already! ♥)

Pick an area without a lot of movement in the frame/background so DOF isn't constantly trying to refocus on something nearby. Patting NPCs, floating books, other players clumped up nearby, etc. If you have armor pieces on your character with animation or special effects, this could also cause some issues. For example, this shot I took of my Yumyum in front of the inscription work table took me ages to get perfect because of all the scrolls and feather pens and things magically moving around in the background. And in the end I just had to be quick on the draw snapping the shot before it started refocusing.

But this shot I took of this statue was much less of a hassle because there wasn't a lot of movement on the screen. The NPCs at the base were mostly just standing there chatting and not causing me any grief. (Hope that makes sense!) Also first person zoom screenshots for landscapes etc are just much easier.

Use mouse-driven focus for DOF instead of auto focus. For example, even with this waterfall moving around in the background of this shot, focusing on the plants to the left with my mouse did the trick. (I've always personally found Cinematic DOF to be a bit more fussy with mouse focus than other DOFs, even in Sims.)

Experiment with different angles and zooms

Try other DOFs and see if one of them works better for your location (MartyMcFly, ADOF, etc)

The addon Narcissus also has something like a free camera mode that can be really helpful! I think I used it for the first shot above. Or also their other modes that will render the model of your character so you can drag it around and change the background, etc, might help you get the shot that you want. That's what I used for this shot:

Check that your Reshade preset has effects in the correct order (amoebae's post here is a good reference) -- I doubt that is your issue, but you never know!

Try adjusting settings underneath Cinematic DOF. I don't have any suggestions for this because I never mess with mine, but I did find this forum post that might be helpful for you.

It may be more complicated than all that and have something to do with the way the game renders depth vs Sims that I don't understand, I've just never taken the time to research it. There are some folks who have shared presets made specifically for WoW as well, so you may could take at look at some of theirs and see what they have done with their individual settings.

I hope something here helped, and of course I never mind talking WoW or answering questions if I can ♥♥♥

[lumilasi]

A character designed together with my friend/mostly by my friend @mad-hatter-rici, though unlike Chiyuri who I consider “joint-custody” character, she fully belongs to her! I just wanted to post her ref after finishing it, given she’s part of my Telepaths story. Also I’ll have access to it then even when I’m not on my laptop, in case I want to draw her traditionally for example. 

Her bio below (also based on what my friend told me)

Name: Rouna

Nicknames: Oneechama (Youko)

Age: Unknown, somewhere around 200

Height: 184 cm

A Chimera with a mission to extract revenge on those who betrayed her clan & find a way to potentially resurrect them

Role: Member of Amalia’s sect

Family: Niece Youko, sister Shika

Love interest: She has a “friends with benefits” type of thing going on with Angus Jaeger, a doctor/Reverence Demon working under Amalia’s GF Belladonna

Friends: She’s fairly polite and cordial with everyone she works with, but doesn’t particularly consider anyone a close friend.

Rival(s): She also has a friendly, playful rivalry with Angus, given they’re both pretty much among the most intelligent people in the group, the two mad scientists with plenty of knowledge about poisons due to their powers.

Powers:

She is very skilled in necromancy, specifically resurrecting beastly creatures she’s killed as zombie servants. She does know other spells and curses too.

Rouna can excrete poison from her nails, lips, and her snake tail’s bite. She can also exhale this poison in gaseous form.

Rouna is very agile fighter, and good with different sort of blades; she’s also fairly stealthy given her background as an assassin.

She can use her tail to see behind her and sense danger

Weaknesses:

She is naturally weak to light magic, which can render her spells useless, and even damage her zombie warriors. As a Chimera, her blood is her major power source, so if she loses too much of it she’ll become powerless, even if physically she’d still be perfectly fine. (so basically no, it is not just case of anemia, anyone with blood would suffer from losing too much of it lol)

Personality:

Rouna is very calm and collected person most of the time, not showing her emotions openly. This often makes her seem distant and cold to others, although she does remain polite and cordial with everyone, sometimes even teasing them lightheartedly. She is very protective over her niece, and would do anything for her sake. She can be a bit touchy about the subject of her sister, Shika, not liking her being mentioned randomly. 

While Rouna isn’t searching for a relationship, too focused on her own goals, she doesn’t mind satisfying her physical needs with someone she finds attractive/intriguing enough. This works with Angus, given he’s not expecting it to be a relationship either, as he in turn is more focused on his own research.

While Rouna seems mostly fearless, she is probably the most cautious/fearful towards their Master, Hanzoku, having a far better understanding of what he is and what he is capable of than anyone else. She also sometimes ends up in his cross-hairs, with her experiments not always matching with his twisted-but-existing moral code. (she doesn’t show her fear openly of course, but it is there)

BG Story

Rouna was one of the 12 children of their village’s chief. One of her sisters, Shika was banished from the village due to being against their father’s experiments on their other siblings (giving them a lot of blood and different beings to devour, as Chimera’s abilities base on the blood they drink), which had led to the deaths of 5 of them already. 

The village had a pact with other nearby human/other spirit & mythical folk ones to protect their secret home from threats, but the Chimeras end up being betrayed due to bias and fear towards their kind, the clan getting wiped out apart from Rouna and his niece, Youko. (and the banished Shika) 

Rouna spends the next years providing for her niece as an assassin, until a woman named Amalia Marek approaches her, offering her a chance to take revenge on the traitors, and perhaps find a way to resurrect her clan. Rouna agrees to it, mainly to have a safe place for Youko to live in.

Fun Facts:

Rouna is a good cook, and often aids their actual chefs despite not being part of the sect (Taiga’s) who are usually responsible for day-to-day things such as meals.

To relax, she likes to polish her weapons and is often seen doing it sunken in thought, typically spooking most onlookers.

Despite being her aunt, Youko prefers referring to her as a big sister.

She’s really good at yoga and can do even the most difficult of poses.

While she seems very in control of her emotion usually, her tail tends to give away what she’s feeling if its more intense (such as fear and anger)

While Youko’s friendship with the corrupted Moth spirit Chouma is a bit peculiar to her, she does not mind it given he doesn’t seem like a threat to her niece. She also isn’t bothered by the fact Angus also has a bit of a physical thing going on with him. (It’s different in nature from theirs, though)

While he seems pretty cold and uncaring outside his sister, Angus tends to be among the first to defend Rouna, whenever she ends up on Hanzoku’s bad side. Not out of any sort of emotional attachment however, but simply because he finds punishing her over her antics a waste of time, given they don’t typically hindrance the group’s goals. (Also Youko’s crying is tiring)

She keeps getting called “scary” by Yoruga, another moth spirit within the group. Rouna can tell however, that peculiarly this one is not actually scared of her at all, despite not even being corrupted. 

[martuzzio]

Love your drawings how do you make them?

Thank you for the compliment! I haven't done a digital drawing tech/process update in a while so this is going to be so long, sorry in advance! HUGE disclaimer: I have a steady income and like buying art supplies so my setup is NOT broke art kid friendly. However, I do have worthwhile and sometimes free suggestions!

Software: Adobe fresco and photoshop (I get them for free through my job as a graphic designer, don't come for me). More affordable options I like are CSP (one time purchase), Procreate (I've never used it, but I can't leave it out), and Krita (free!). All of these are awesome and let you do a LOT, including animation!

Hardware: Huion Kamvas 24in on an articulated monitor arm (college graduation gift to myself). In the past I've used a Wacom 13in (bought secondhand from a friend for super cheap), a surface book laptop/tablet (very generous Christmas gift from parents), and my iphone. Finding affordable options for hardware is more difficult than software, but if you have the money for it, looking for a drawing tablet on a secondhand site like ebay or facebook marketplace is worth your time.

Other drawing supplies: a random drawing stylus for my phone, a scanner, a sketchbook, pinterest, colorhunt, unsplash, dafont, and my gigantic 4gb folder of textures on my laptop. I also signed up for this freebie thing from creativemarket (and haven't been charged any money yet so that's cool) which will send me stuff like new digital brushes and cool textures to download. It's definitely more graphic design focused than illustration, but I'd still check it out if you're interested. :D

My art process in bullet points, for pieces I actually spend time on:

Sketch my idea in my sketchbook or phone, sleep on it, then actually start drawing the idea the next day

Make a tighter sketch from the loose sketch I drew the night before while using a million references from pinterest (for really funky poses) or unsplash (for scenery and background ideas) so I'm not drawing completely from my mind/memory (this is important because your mind is prone to remembering things wrong. Always always always use references)

Completely skip over actually lining my art and instead clean up my tight sketch until it looks okay enough

Fill in flat colors using a textured brush (gasp) while sometimes using color palettes as inspiration

Render colors with more textured brushes (plain hard edge circle brush users fight me /j)

Shade in a cel style on top of the rendered colors with a bright mid tone purple/blue/pink set on multiply at 50%

Clip a layer on top of my "lineart," color all of it a dark blue or brown, then start coloring different parts of it with various colors (ex: for a diamond sword, I'd color the edge hitting the light with a bright blue/green/pink. For the edge in shadow, a purple/dark blue/brown)

Forget to sign my name, close the drawing program, then have to reopen it

This is SO LONG, but I hope this gives some insight! If anyone has more questions, let me know. :)

P.S: I have so many art resources saved in my browser that I kind of want to make a whole separate post for it. Let me know if that's something you'd like to see! I might just make it lol

[whoiskt]

Evolution of my art. Made this for myself because I wanted to see my own progress but I accidentally just made myself sad with how much of my art I've lost and the years when I hardly drew anything.

2011- One of my first digital art pieces. Redraw of a photo I found on Google. Eyebrow and mouth are immediately off-portion, but as a fully colored piece I think it is pretty good for a beginner. It was really small tho, I didn't understand resolutions yet!

2012- Homestuck phase. A year full of art to choose from, this was one of the last drawings I made that year, and honestly I still think it looks really good. The way I drew eyes back then was totally different.

2013- Supernatural phase. I was doodling a lot on homework and notebooks, but actual finished pieces are hard to find now. I've lost sketchbooks from this era. Perhaps even burned them, haha. This was done on whiteboard.

2014- This self-portrait was my magnum opus at the time, done for art class. There was a level of detailing textures here that I'd never care to revisit and this piece easily could have taken me 50 hours or more to complete. The nose/mouth feels so off to me, now, although I clearly broke my bad habit of drawing small pointed chins with this one. Each year I look at it hanging in my parent's house it makes me cringe more. Charcoal.

2015- Mostly MIA. I have some pen drawings from this time but I thought they were skippable and I only had room for 10 years here. I went to film school so I was focused on that creatively.

2016- Got into watercolor this year. Wasn't done on watercolor paper so it warped a lot. I don't really mind. End of my vanity era. I was in an art class, animation class, and character design class this year. Maybe got a little burnt out on art.

2017- Height of my pen drawing obsession, although most of the drawings I did were at work, and were hung up at work, and may still be there even though I am long gone now? Sorry about the weird crop it was a horizontal piece.

2018- Yes, similar to the previous year, but I see improvement in pen technique. I rarely took time to just sit down and draw other than in-class doodles.

2019- Wedding gift for my sister of her and her husband (although I cropped her out lol). Large watercolor piece where I was rushed and had to finish the background as an abstract fall leaves. I'm still on the fence about it overall.

2020- My digital art renaissance. This was the year I started to really realize I was utterly incompetent at backgrounds.

2021- I was really focused on photography this year, although I did do some sketching here and there. My laptop became mostly unusable for digital rendering so that cut down on my motivation.

2022- I discovered watercolor brushes, my beloved. I closed the door on many of my other creative outlets which seemed to bring back my love, passion, and motivation for drawing again.

Hopefully I can share a 2023 piece with you soon to show my improvements 🤗 I've been sketching a lot like I did back when I was 13 and it feels good!

[bang-tan-bitches]

Soul Meitu has become something of a comfort fic to me. There's a lovely soft focus to it that I really enjoy and it's a feel that you often don't showcase in your collected works, so I think it should be pointed out. This fic has that sort of loving feel that your favorite blanket has, or your tee shirt that's been washed so many times that it has achieved peak softness, but in written form.

Even the angst has a soft feel to it. It's not the hard and rushed feel of devastation, more like the feel of being in water over your head. You're floating, you're fine... but are you really? It's an ache, not a ripping or rendering of flesh.

Having said that I want to teleport into this fic to do a run by head smacking of each and every boy while screaming: "SHE HAS NO FUCKING IDEA SHE'S SOULMATES WITH YOU! PUT YOUR BIG BOY PANTS ON AND HAVE A CLEAR CONVERSATION, OH MY G-D!"

Two things that really stick out for me:

1. Once again I enjoy that Seokjin doesn't vanish in this as he does in so many 0T7 fics. He is my eternal favorite and he often gets left squarely in the background in these sorts of stories and as per the usual, you guys don't do that.

2. Often times the female Y/N in OT7 content exists is this bizarre male only world where she has zero close female connections. You know, the "I'm not like other girls and I only get along with guys!" toxic, internalized misogyny feel? I love her interactions with her best friend, they make me so happy! They give Y/N a real feel, like she actually has a life and motivations of her own besides being a passive receptacle for the boys.

I hope someday you come back to it, but even if you don't I will still enjoy my frequent rereads. It really does make me happy whenever I do.

🌹

I saw this last night and couldn’t do more than cry 😭 so I’m sorry it took so long to answer but, dear heart, thank you so so so much for sending this. I love everything about this ask and it makes my heart happy to know that you love Soul Meitu as much as we do.

I do plan to come back to this fic, it’s one of my favorites and every time I re-read it… well… I just love it more lol. And I’m so happy you love it too!!

I also want to shake them sometimes!!! I swear they are all dense. I’m convinced they share one brain cell and it’s so focused on Y/N that they forget to use ACTUAL words!!!!!!

We both love Seokjin and also hate when he disappears in OT7 fics. If you’re writing OT7, you gotta have all 7 or it doesn’t count IMO.

It’s weird because … when I started writing this I couldn’t imagine Y/N without her bestie. The Best Friend is based off of us… and we would never leave our girl hanging 😉

Thank you again so much for both reading and sending this ask. It honestly made my week and has reminded me that these stories are still worth writing and reading

Thank you

-A💜💜💜

[komahinasecretexchange]

Title: A Royal Screw Up

Author: @emmakoneko

For: @keisethsattic

Pairings/Characters: Hajime Hinata/Nagito Komaeda, A few background + mentioned SDR2 characters

Ratings/Warnings: G, None

Prompt: “They want to join the rest of the group but their vehicle breaks down, they’re stuck under the rain, by the road, in the middle of the night, bad day overall.”

Author’s Notes: This was actually a really challenging prompt, lol. I hope it turned out okay.

It was a bad day which meant good things were coming.

Nagito tumbled out of bed that morning, jarred into motion by a fading nightmare that settled into the shadows of his mind. He stood and rubbed his back. Beside him, Hajime snored obliviously, his rough features softened by sleep. The sight calmed Nagito’s stiff limbs with fondness. He fell back asleep as the sun rose.

At breakfast, he spilled Hajime’s coffee, burned his hand, and broke the handle off his favourite mug. He meandered towards the sink and sluggishly screwed on the faucet.

“Tired?” Hajime knelt on the floor with a rag.

“How perceptive of you, Hajime.” Nagito said. “I had a nightmare last night. I’m afraid my luck is in a downswing. Maybe you should go alone to the gathering.”

“They’re your old classmates.” Hajime said. “I’d feel awkward.”

“You were closer with them than I was.” Nagito turned off the sink. “They’re probably looking forward to seeing you more than me.”

The coffee mishap left Nagito’s cereal a gloopy mess. He studied it, played with it, but didn’t lift it to his lips.

Hajime, meanwhile, swore at his phone. “My battery didn’t charge last night.”

Nagito raised an eyebrow at him as if to say ‘what did I tell you’.

Hajime glared back, determined. “We’ll have to use yours.”

Nagito’s brand new iPhone was already in a sorry state. A massive crack ran through it and each corner was smashed to varying degrees, rendering almost all text unreadable. Hajime persistently nagged Nagito to replace it, but Nagito couldn’t be bothered. He hardly used the thing anyway.

He handed Hajime the sad device and shoved a soupy spoonful of cereal into his mouth.

-

Hajime’s car was old, beat-up, and ugly, but it was his. Early in their relationship, Nagito had offered to buy him a new one, but Hajime emphatically declined.

Nagito himself, of course, didn’t drive, afraid that the world would end in chaos if he so much as touched a steering wheel.

The door to the driver’s seat was jammed. Hajime clambered over the passenger seat, Nagito waiting dutifully behind him, gracious enough not to make fun of him for how poorly he climbed.

Heat hung heavy in the air, clinging to Hajime’s skin and making him sweat through his shirt. Nagito, meanwhile, wore his favourite ratty jacket, as if he was immune to heat.

The car started with a rumble and Hajime’s fingers flexed on the steering wheel. He turned them onto the road.

Nagito produced a container of crisps from the bag at his feet. “Want one?”

“You’re already digging through that?” Hajime said. It would be a long trip to Sonia’s place in the countryside.

“I didn’t exactly have a wonderful breakfast.” Nagito crunched on a crisp. “And you didn’t have anything but coffee.”

Hajime wordlessly stretched his palm out, intending to only have a few.

He ended up eating half the bag.

-

The downpour started as they exited a gas station an hour from home, but it continued well after that, thunder roaring in the distance.

Nagito despised storms. They were an example of how a singular event could bring a lifetime’s worth of disaster. He smiled as a flash of lightning struck in the distance. “Looks like it’s coming down pretty hard.”

Hajime was quiet for a moment, seemingly focused on the road ahead. Nagito assumed he wasn’t going to respond, and didn’t mind it, content to listen to the raindrops pelting the car and ignore his own rapid heartbeat.

“Are you okay?” Hajime finally said. He shot him a concerned glance. “You’ve got that smile on your face.”

“I’m fine.” Nagito reached for the radio. “What do you want to listen to?”

“I don’t really have a… hey!” Hajime whipped his head around. “You really are bothered, aren’t you?”

Nagito folded his arms together. “It’s nothing. Focus on the road.”

Hajime switched on the radio and said nothing more. Giving him space, Nagito supposed, or avoiding an argument. It was something he never used to do, but he’d learnt and adapted. Nagito found it dreadful at times like this.

-

Their car broke down an hour from their destination. The storm had worsened, or maybe they were just closer to it, and the sun was setting.

Hajime swore and slammed his hand on the steering wheel.

“It’s okay.” Nagito reached for his battered phone. “I’ll call Sonia. We’re not too far off, right?”

Nagito dialled Sonia’s number with another of his smiles, nerves frayed from the storm and the car breaking down. He held the phone up to his ear and waited. His hands trembled. He knew something would go wrong.

The dial tone sounded. There was a rumble nearby. And then the world was flashing white and Nagito’s breath was stopping and the phone was falling out of his shaking hand, right into the space between the seat and the glove compartment.

Nagito froze, then wedged his thin fingers into the crevice, but to no avail. “We have to move the seat.” he said.

Hajime shook his head. “That seat doesn’t move anymore.”

Nagito wondered if anything in Hajime’s car actually worked, but didn’t say a word about it.

“Well,” he said instead. “It could be worse.”

Hajime shot him a deadpan look.

-

The effort to retrieve Nagito’s phone was quickly abandoned, as Hajime suggested they wait for someone to find them. He turned the hazard lights on.

“I don’t think anyone is coming.” Nagito said. “The road seems dead at the moment.”

Hajime sighed and retrieved a map from the glove compartment.

“There are a few places nearby where we could ask to use a phone.” Hajime said. “Including a gas station - once the rain clears up, we could go there. It’d be nice to get some food, too.”

Nagito frowned. “With my luck and this weather, I don’t know if I trust what could happen to you out there.”

“We don’t have a choice. There’s nowhere else we can go.” Hajime opened the door. “You can stay here. I’ll bring something back to you.”

“You’ll be soaked and you might get hit by lightning.” Nagito said. “I’ll go.”

Hajime opened his mouth as if to protest, but something stopped him from doing it. He slumped back in his seat and closed the door.

“Okay.” he said. “I trust your luck.”

Nagito beamed at him, warmth blooming in his chest, and left.

-

Hajime drummed his fingers along the dashboard in time to the rain. With his phone dead and the car broken, he was alone with his thoughts and nothing to do.

The sun had set fully, starlight winking overhead, blurred by the raindrops dappled across the window. Nagito had been gone for too long, although Hajime didn’t have a clock to tell him. Perhaps the gas station had been closed, or Nagito was lost. Perhaps he’d been struck by lightning.

Hajime was contemplating running after him when he heard a knock at his side.

Nagito’s jacket was pulled over his head to cover from the rain and he looked rather silly, and there was a bowl in his hand. Hajime opened the door.

“Kazuichi is going to take a look at our car.” Nagito said, passing Hajime the bowl. “We’re lucky - he just passed us.”

“Is this… shaved ice?” Hajime said incredulously.

“It’s hot, despite the rain.” Nagito shrugged.

Hajime laughed.

-

When they made it to Sonia’s mansion, Mahiru scolded them for being late. Mikan regarded Nagito’s damp jacket with concern in her eyes. Sonia welcomed them politely.

Everything was as it should be, but Nagito caught Hajime as he walked in and murmured - “I’m buying you a new car.”

[ghost-town-story]

chazzawrites challenge 12

Day 12. Have you ever abandoned a WIP? What do you think of it now?

*stares at the 210 documents in my “side stories and randomness” folder, of which less than 20 are finished and/or fit into the randomness category* *nervous laughter*

So we’re not here all night, I’ll keep it simple and stick with the 4 stories set in my og universe. The first book, [TITLE REDACTED], is the only one that was ever finished, so we’ll ignore that for now. 

The sequel, The Legend of the Shadow, is stuck at a point where I could never figure out how to bridge the gap between where I was and the point where I could easily finish it. On one hand, the concept isn’t.... bad, per se. At the very least, there’s far less of the deus-ex-machina bullshit compared to the first book lol. On the other hand, there’s still some of that cringe factor that young-teenager me seemed fond of. I will give it points tho for Jared’s half-a-nervous-breakdown about being unable to fully cope with dreams of the future, and all the sibling sassery going on. 

Book 3, When You Wish on a Star, is a kinda dumb title, but not dumb enough to need redacting unlike the first book lol. While [TITLE REDACTED] and The Legend of the Shadow focused on my first gen characters (Mel, Finn, Will Hayden, Jared), Book 3 is the adventure story of my second gen, mostly Jazz, Alex, Hayden, and halfheartedly Jason. First off, considering I changed Celia’s (Alex’s mom) background, that therefore renders this entire story moot. Ignoring that point tho, honestly it’s about on the same par at Book 2, which makes sense considering they were being written at the same time lol. 

Book 4 never got to the point of being able to post it, and therefore never got a proper (and potentially bad) title other than “Summer and Will”. This was gonna be the third gen story, focusing mostly on Summer and Will Daniel’s relationship. Therefore, there was really never much of a plot, and since Summer was the main POV, the magic took one hell of a backseat. It was also my attempt at writing one of those “typical high school romance” books that I kept reading on Figment. In terms of how I feel about it..... Honestly I can’t be super fond of it because Will’s characterization was..... very bad back then. So was James’s tbh, but Will’s was worse. The only redeeming factors are 1, for chapter intros, I had these cute little interactions between James and Malai, and 2, this text convo for Will being an absolute shit about James’s sweet tooth: 

Will: Gpa wants me now, so I gotta go. 

James: Tell him I say hi, and if Gma makes cookies bring me like, ten! 

W: Fine, I’ll bring you half of one. 

J: Fucking tease

W: :) bye. 

J: [Stupid teasing related to aforementioned bad character designs]

W: A crumb. 

J: NEVER MIND 

W: :)

There’s also technically a Book 5 that I just remembered exists, but we’re not even gonna go there considering how terrible and unfinished Book 4 is lmao

So yeah! In general, I can mostly look fondly back on my old og stories, with the exception of whatever the fuck James and Will Daniel were going through. Like, I cringe reading them all regardless, but I also recognize I was a kid just starting out, so of course my writing was going to be blatantly tropey and deus-ex-machina-y. Would I ever go back and rewrite them? *stares at the og story rewrite I’ve been toying with* ....... I’ll get back to you on that one lol (though honestly? Band AU is basically a rewrite of what I was aiming for with Book 4, just with bands added and shifting the focus more onto James and Aiden, so *shrugs* make of that what you will)