#i actually have so many more doodles ive been obsessed for weeks

[unichurro]

I recently got back into ninjago after like, 4 years, so here's some eye and skintone hc's for the ninja!

[the-stray-liger]

when your current art looks shitty compared to what you used to do that's when you know your getting better at it

ive got an old sketch on my wall from middle school of Typical Not Self-Insert Character In Cool Armor With Giant Sword. It's incredible. How did I do that. I can't draw like that now.

but I can SEE this old picture, despite the embarrassment around it's actual subject, is actually good. When I first hung it up way back when it was just because I wished I had a sword. Now I look at the confident lines, the shading, the grasp of depth perception on so many angular objects, the way the cloth of the cape falls in folds that have weight to them. I can recognize what makes it a nice drawing. I couldn't do that before.

there's this thing i read about once where people who are getting better at a skill go through this cycle of This Is Impossible to WOW I'M SO GREAT AT THIS to I Have Lost The Ability To Preform Even The Most Basic Part Of This And Should Fire Myself Forever

and then slowly they realize they can kinda do it again. Hey, they can even do that one thing they've never been able to do before!

rinse, recycle, repeat. Every year I go through it. Depression doesn't help. For a few years I didn't draw anything at all and almost burned all my old sketches. Now I'm doodling ducktale characters and making fat circular birds with twig legs.

I aged out of school and have never had a job (thank you family for not letting me starve) and my whole damn life people have been asking me why I don't sell my drawings.

because I can't draw, I tell them, staring at the things I made two years ago and couldn't replicate now if someone put gun to my head.

but sometimes, for a few months, I can. I can sit down and have an idea and make it happen. Sometimes the idea is a favorite character. Sometimes its just a random pattern of flowers. Every time it happens I'm scared it'll be the last time.

Then I remind myself of all the other people who go though some version of this stupid cycle. If you like drawing, you'll probably draw again someday- maybe not in the same style as you used to- but if it makes you happy you'll do it for the happy feelings, and if you draw you'll get better at it, and as you get better you'll learn to see all the flaws, and you'll get discouraged, and that's normal.

I also remind myself of how other people always seem to like the drawings I'm least happy with, and pass over the ones I'm actually proud of. People have different taste. Everyone else's sucks compared to mine, for example, which a completely true and unbiased fact (lol).

Right now I can draw because I never show any of my drawings to anyone. They're for me. Mine. And the voice in the back of my head chattering about wasting time and being a useless burden can go stuff itself.

Yesterday I drew a cartoon duck. It sucks. I had a lot of fun WHILE making it though. And the duck looks a lot better than it did when I first drew one a week ago. Practice makes progress. Talent is bullshit. Skills are learned and maintained.

so my advice is draw something badly and giggle while you do.

Hey anon! You're absolutely right. I remember back when I was drawing fulll time going thru a couple art blocks where everything I made looked awful bc I was learning to look at it with more critical eyes and my hands hadn't caught up yet. I feel like that's a big part of my burnout too-I suddenly learned a lot of theory and I had come to a point where I hadn't developped the skills to match and it destroyed a lot of my confidence and self esteem

It's also that at the end of the day I forgot who I was drawing for bc I was so obsessed with social media recognition and with algorithms and stuff the harder I worked the less notifications I got

And I generally have a HUGE problem with guilt and feeling like a burden too like I feel you 600% on that lol I always felt terrible bc I couldn't make a living out of my art

I think Im gonna work again on making art that's only for me and drawing things I enjoy even if it's not like the best quality or quantity. I'm gonna take it slow (even if it drives me up the wall) and have fun again!

Thank you so much for the kind word and advice!!

[littlemonstersau-blog]

The Feels Awaken, Part 3: A New Hope (for Friendship)

Written by @jkl-fff, illustrated by me

PART I - PART II [Interlude] - PART III - PART IV [Interlude] - PART V [FINAL] (you are here)

——————————————————————————————–

A new day dawned then waxed then began to wane, but Ford and Bill hardly noticed. A manic, obsessive energy (plus an unhealthy amount of coffee and sugar) kept them focused throughout their self-appointed task. Such is often the case for the kind of people who feel the need to write to right a wrong in the world. Not all heroes wear capes, after all; some wear turtlenecks and trenchcoats, some wear paper-based clones of teenage boys produced through unholy abominations of SCIENCE!.

… For that matter, not all heroes are particularly heroic; some are morally ambiguous straddlers of the line between antihero and antivillain, some are demonic chaos gods who (quite frankly) still wonder how in the 79 Hells they found themselves in this position.

In the end, though it did take more than the one night, they still finished in just over 16 hours. The plot outline came in at just over 18 pages, which they tidily stacked together on the table and declared to be more than adequate … before passing out on the carpet. Facefirst.

When Bill next regained consciousness, he was in his attic bed and morning light was streaming through the window. His mouth tasted like an abandoned prison for criminally insane chalk and his head felt like the internal turmoil of a buzzsaw having an existential crisis. It was a pain that was anything but hilarious; it was the sugared caffeine hangover equivalent of nuclear fallout … Mouthwash fixed the first problem. The second took an adult dosage of aspirin, a lot of water, and deliberate manipulation of many of the clonesuit’s normally automatic processes for a full eight minutes. And even then, not completely.

“Guess I can’t pilot one of these things through 36+ hours of no sleep on a gallon of coffee … Not if I wanna be able to still maneuver it the next day without crashing every ten feet into a wall or the floor, at least,” he grumbled to himself. “Major design flaw … Can’t believe they got evolutionarily approved for mass production with such weak durability …”

Downstairs in the kitchen, Stan greeted him jovially enough. “Stancakes are up, and so are you, it seems. How you feelin’ today?”

“Honestly, confused,” Bill graveled, his clonesuit throat still raw. “I can get longterm possession of a meatbag leading to me—y’know, the real me—developing emotions and physical cravings and other … gross, brain-mush junk like that. Neurochemistry is basically just an addictive habit, like how people respond to hearing the question ‘What is love?’—”

“Baby, don’t hurt me. Don’t hurt me no more,” Stan mumbled automatically.

“Exactly. But what I don’t get is why the real me is also feeling this coffee and sugar hangover. No joke: I tried leaving my clonesuit to get away from it, but it followed me. How is that fair? And, yeah, existence isn’t fair,” Bill interjected before Stan automatically could. “But still …”

Like the benevolent and experienced sage he was (more or less), Stan chuckled to himself. Then, laying a companionable arm around Bill’s shoulders, he leaned in and whispered the truth as grimly as Death itself, “You can outrun your sins, but you can never outrun a hangover.”

“W-wha?”

“Some say if you never stop drinkin’, it’ll never catch up with you. But they are fools. Sooner or later, all things must sleep—sooner or later, all who drink must suffer.”

“Uh … K-kinda freakin’ me out here.” Bill tried to lean away, but Stan’s hold was inescapable. “And, just sayin’, I’m kinda responsible for making most of the 79 Hells as freaky as they are.”

“Heed my warning, child.”

“I’m heeding! I’m heeding! Elder Gods, Stan, the only one who’s supposed to give people nightmares around here is me …”

Straightening up, Stan went back to the stove to continue what passed for cooking with him. “Once you’re done eatin’, by the way, I gotta plate for you to take down to Ford. He prob’ly needs some food and water more ‘n you do.”

Between mouthfuls of food, Bill said, “Yeah, sure … You seen what we wrote, by the way?”

“Yeah. It’s not bad at all. I’d def’nitely go see movies like that. Might even pay my own money for it, too. Heh … Even Soos admitted the storylines are better. Haven’t seen him that downcast ‘bout anything in a while, either. Looked as painful for him as cutting out his own kidney. Might have to do something nice for him soon just to make up for it,” Stan added to himself.

“Huh … Yeah, maybe …” Bill chewed on his breakfast, almost starting to maybe feel guilty. Then, when he finished, he put his dishes in the sink, picked up what was meant for Ford, and took it down to the lab.

Ford, as usual, was at his desk. He was hunched over with a pen, which was also fairly usual. However, and this was very unusual, all his notes and Journals had been pushed into a corner—neatly stacked, but well out of the way. Close to hand, as if for quick reference, was actually their Cosmos Conflicts storyline.

Bill cleared his throat. “Brought some breakfast for ya from Stan.” He set it on the desk, but away from any of the papers (just in case). “How you feeling? I woke up with a caffeine hangover I couldn’t escape even when I left my body. Er, clonsuit. Whatever. Same dif.”

“… I didn’t really sleep very deeply,” Ford eventually replied, his voice as hoarse as Bill’s. “Ergo, I can’t really say I woke up with such a hangover, but I’m suffering one all the same.”

“Yeesh, that sucks. Taken anything? Had some water and some food? That helped me.”

“Some water and aspirin, yes, though I’m not sure I could keep much food down … I suppose I ought to try, anyway.”

“If you feel more rotten than a two-week-old apple core, why are you working?” Bill asked, sliding the plate closer.

“I’m not really working, per se,” Ford answered guiltily. “Just … sketching. Some stuff. For what we came up with.”

Bill’s eyes lit up with interest. “Ooo! Really? Can I see? Please?”

For a moment, Ford’s jaw worked. As though trying to control himself.

“It’s okay,” Bill said hurriedly, though unable to fully contain his disappointment. “I get it. I’ll leave you al—”

A couple pages’ worth of images (some rough sketches, some little more than absent doodles, and some rather intricate and detailed) were thrust at the Demon. “Here. Can’t see any harm in you looking at them, anyway, so …” Ford mumbled. Without looking up, he cut in to his food. “Was just doing this since I’m too awake and restless to just not do anything, but too … wooly in the head, I suppose you could say, to do any productive work.”

Bill poured over them, delighting in the imaginative whimsy of them. Most were of characters from the prequels, though with distinctive touches—touches reflecting their own collaboration (such as Otherkin in a stained pilot’s attire, Imdolledupa aiming ruthlessly with a blaster, and Jelived Knights wearing a different style of clothing from Jelived Sentinels or Jelived Healers). But some were very different, especially among the doodles. “Ha! You made a Soos Wookie!”

Ford couldn’t resist smiling. “Soosbacca. Co-pilot to Stan Solo.”

“In their spaceship, the Mystery Falcon, right? Is Melody a Wookie, too?”

“Huh … That’s not a bad idea, actually. I was having a hard time seeing how to fit her in, since she isn’t really the Princess Leia type.”

“But Mabel and—pff!—Dipper are?” Bill snorted, pointing to where they were both sketched with the iconic braids wrapping around their ears. “Both of them together?”

“Well, they’re also both Luke, since I couldn’t really pick who fit which roll better.”

“Two sets of the twins running around, huh?” Bill murmured, though he was really thinking about two Dippers (and they weren’t running around, either—they were very much not running). “… And Wendy’s Lando, I see. Am I Yoda, since I’m the most triangular or everybody, and the right size?”

“Uh …” Ford hesitated.

“Pff, it’s alright, I can already see 3PO and R2 are both me.”

Lamely, the Weirdologist explained, “Because you’re shiny. That’s the extent of the logic.”

“You gonna do any more sketches?”

“Assuming I can keep breakfast down, probably,” Ford said around a mouthful. “It’s … distracting. And fun. And relaxing, too. Helps to pass the time on a down day like this.”

“Um … M-mind if I stay and watch? Please?” Bill almost begged. “Y’know how much I love watching you meatbags make art.”

“… Oh, fine,” Ford relented. Because what was the harm in being nice to the Demon? Ford didn’t have to trust him for that. “Just don’t make any noise. My head aches enough as it is.”

Bill mimed zipping his lips and throwing away the key before pulling up a chair and settling himself comfortably beside Ford. The only time he broke his silence after that was to ask Ford if he wanted more water, and to assert that the others would get a kick out of seeing these sketches (“especially Soos … the Twins, too, though we’d have to text ‘em a photo of ‘em, or mail the whole project to ‘em to see …”).

All in all, it turned out to be a rather nice day for both of them together.

[burningalight]

my binders/locker in grade school were stuffed with so much shit i couldnt find anything...always crumpled up papers, trash etc

chewed pencils/pens, broke them taking them apart in class, lost them, often didn’t have one, frequently borrowing them and forgetting to give them back to the point that certain people wouldn’t give me pencils

could comprehend reading i liked very well, but when we’d have reading groups with boring books id always be lost,  or when the teachers would have one on ones and have u read something short and ask questions after to assess ur reading level, they’d often have to tell me to read it again bc they knew how much i remembered didnt add up to my intelligence and reading speed 

moms college friend gave me an unoffical iq test and i did much worse than i know i shouldve on the reading portion bc she’d play a story and then ask me after to list every detail i could remember and i couldn’t remember anything. but when she played 10 numbers and asked me to say them out loud backwards i scored extremely high ?

couldnt do projects, would be in tears, last minute every time, parents mad bc i need a poster board RIGHT NOW ITS DUE TOMORROW . hated assigned reading, horrible at essays even when they helped us plan them. 

i remember my 7th grade social studies teacher assigning a paper, i wrote extremely detailed and well in the first paragraph or 2, and the following ones got shorter and shorter and were completely bullshit bc i got bored. she told me ‘really strong first paragraph.’ and gave me a B  

talk too got damn fast. customers constantly telling me to slow down bc they cant understand me

my mom always says she had to challenge me as a kid bc i would get bored and get in trouble. i was acting out bc i was understimulated, i happened to like learning (esp numbers and puzzles) bc smart so that’s what i could fixate on and felt stimulated by

lunch detention frequently in 8th grade in my first highschool class, algebra, bc i wouldnt do my homework, at one point he just stopped giving lunch detention for that bc i wouldnt do it. i hated that class bc the math was boring and i never paid attention but would somehow pull off a’s and b’s on tests so i ended up with a B. my first B, and i had brought that up from a D (told my mom it was almost a C, he gave a really hard test and we all did bad etc, when she had to sign a paper about my low grade) at the end of the year, during the exam i was so confused the whole time, it was my first highschool exam and i didn’t know ANYTHING. i ended up with a 92 from guessing, and a curve, and every one of my friends got at least a 93 or better and i felt so stupid bc i was supposed to be the best at math

i would take every highschool class in honors but not one english class bc it required more essays and summer reading and i knew i wouldnt do the reading and would cry over the essays

the only other class i didnt take honors was chemistry bc i knew the honors teacher had a lot of projects and i would be stressing over them. i ended up with an A in the standard chem class even tho i never finished any work in class and didnt do homework, but i was still the smartest in the class and did the best overall

lunch detention for forgetting to get papers signed like report cards. they weren’t even bad grades i just couldnt remember. one time i got actual detention for forging my moms signature bc i got lunch detention for several days straight bc i kept forgetting to get the paper signed 

often had permission slips waiting to be signed the day before the field trip, or told my mom it was picture day the day before or morning of. one time i totally forgot it was picture day and didnt dress up

acting out and not thinking ab the consequences, many referrals.. many more times that my teachers let me get away with acting out when someone else doing the same thing would’ve been punished. one time anna and i left in the middle of class to go with emma to the library, only emma had permission, and my teacher had anna and i do wall sits instead of going to the office. in gym in middle school i would never dress out. i hated the clothes and hated gym bc i was awkward and if we didnt dress out we had to copy pages out of the health textbook the entire time and i would barely write 2 paragraphs bc i was so bored and my hand hurt and he never did anything ab it. i wouldnt dress out at least twice per week if not more. told my mom I had a C bc he had it out for me but i was the problem

in elementary school if we didn’t come to gym day wearing the right shoes we had to go into the back and pick out a pair of sneakers that fit out of a box of shoes, and also borrow socks if necessary. i had to do this frequently bc i never remembered to wear the right shoes

i would extremely often forget my library books and have to sit on the couch waiting for everyone to pick out their books for half an hour

when we were even younger we’d have story time and you had to sit in the middle of the floor inside a big circle of chairs where everyone else was if you forgot your library books. i lost one at one point for months and my parents didnt just pay for it so i had to sit in the middle every time. we found the book on a shelf somewhere in the house 

my chorus teacher never liked me bc i talked too much and i always felt like the worst singer, not bc of my singing but bc she wasn’t ever nice to me

in 7th grade science we learned latin root words and every day we’d play a game where we all stood up and one by one he’d ask for a root and we’d give it. if you got it wrong on the first round you’d have to write it on a piece of paper x amount of times and turn it in. if you were the last person left you were allowed to sit on your desk for the rest of the year, during these games while everyone else had to stand up. i wanted so badly to sit on my desk, esp bc i was fidgety and couldnt stand still, but i would never study them bc i’d forget or not want to if i did remember, even tho i really wanted to know them and sit on my desk. that teacher had a huge soft spot for me and one day i just started sitting on my desk during those. everyone knew i was smart, and it was all the smart kids who got to sit on their desks, so no one questioned it. im not sure if he knew i wasnt supposed to and just let me, or didnt realize i hadnt won bc i was smart. 

hyperlexia? mom said i could practically read before i was taught. i’ve always obsessively air written, ie writing words out w my finger in the air, on my leg etc. 

esp during lectures i doodle excessively to the point that my papers margins have always been covered with random scribbly overlapped words, or song lyrics. the words are usually something someone in the class said. ive started keeping an extra sheet of paper just for scribbling when im taking notes or listening in class. when we finished end of year tests in school i would write down full lyrics to songs on my scrap paper so i wouldnt be so bored. my hand cramps up so much but it was better than staring or trying to sleep with the lights on 

doing things and forgetting to turn them in

hyperfixating on books to cope w boredom and social anxiety, at one point read one per day, i was definitely one of the most frequent people in the library 

‘ The way I see it is if I can get information into my mind, I can do a lot with it but getting it in there in the first place is the really difficult part.’ - not mine

none of my teachers ever told my mom any of this i dont think, bc i was the smartest and i always got good grades, most had a soft spot for me BUT COULDNT SEE I HAD ADHD like damn. one time my fourth grade teacher whom i liked a lot was mad at us and indirectly calling people out, and referred to the fact that some of us never stopped talking , then made direct eye contact with me and i felt rly embarrassed bc i didnt realize i did that until she mentioned it

i often had to move seats if i was near friends bc i wouldnt stop instigating talking

at big lots when i had to run the register i was so painfully bored , fidgety, had to sneak my phone soo much bc i was so bored. when i was on the floor i would put away the go backs very quickly and then take upon myself a project like going through the entire wall of individual drinks and pulling out all the expired ones, it was like 5 carts full. my manager put me in charge of organizing the entire makeup section and all the gross clearance makeup bc she knew id do it the best and fastest 

when bosses have me do inventory i can count the products super fast and efficiently, but then when they have me put them into a spreadsheet i stare at it for hours getting nothing done bc distracted and its boring. ammar told me if i’d just get off my phone i could get it done bc he’d been asking for it for weeks, i wasnt trying to ignore it 

when im trying to do something at work that needs more concentration, i want to cry with frustration whenever i hear the door chime and have to get up and help customers and break my focus