#i added the still image of this as a print

[isbergillustration]

It’s Just Waking Up

[kirby-the-gorb]

[oatbugs]

solutions to problems

[juubli]

Here are some of process snapshots of this piece of Astarion in Baldur's Gate.

I am a messy painter and I often adjust and change the designs as I paint. (Mostly because I don't have the patience to do proper line art haha)

I start out with a rough sketch, I usually sketch ideas out on my ipad and move to my cintiq to work with colors.

Next I block in rough color thumbnail. I keep this part messy as I just want to figure out the value structure and the overall mood.

At this point, I have collected a myriad of screenshots and reference images from the game, pinterest, and also from artists work that inspires me.

With the references on one screen, I start to paint the details, I work from foreground to midground to background. (Sometimes I'll bounce between the depth when I get bored from painting one thing for too long)

Sometimes after I block in the colors I'll make adjustments. I didn't like how warped the perspective was getting on the building on the screen right side, so I adjusted the vanishing point and added more tiers to the design. I went back into the game and looked at more how the stairs were designed and figured it out more thoroughly with a sketch on on top.

I think sitting down and doing the details is the most time consuming part. I still want the focus to be on the character despite all the detail going on the background. At this point I'm toggling on black & white filters constantly to check the value, grouping everything in the background together, making sure the lighting frames the subject in focus. At this point I realized, I forgot to paint Astarion's hair LOL, and that the bg was getting a bit too detailed, so I used a more textured brush and painted away some of the edge details of bg buildings.

Last, I make final adjustments, and I make a overall lighting/fx adjustment folder. Adding in some noise, adjusting the contrast, color balance, and lighting over all and call it done!

Link to Print shop!

[u3pxx]

eat or be eaten. there is no hierarchy involved. eating is simply the privilege of the living.

1 | 2 | 3 | one out of three dungeon meshi illustrations i did for a class! 🪽🥩

id in alt text | like this art? it's a print, here! | like what i do? support me on ko-fi!

unfortunately, i forgot to hit record during the beginning orz but this still hopefully managed to catch a good bit of the painting process

as you may or may not have noticed, i've gotten into disco elysium, and around the time i made this, i've been making a lot of portraits imitating the style of the beautiful beautiful portraits in the game and i wanted to use the techniques i learned from doing that for here!

here's also the version with text! brief said to include the title and author. the objective of this lil thing i had to do for class was to design three book covers in different styles and i hope my professor thought this was a different enough style compared to the others bc i am a lil nervous that it's not pfttt

originally it was going to be laios there bc he's like the "main" character but then i thought about the image of falin holding like, the kingdom in her hands and so i had to stop everything that i was doing and draw that immediately (the text is flipped bc my prof told me to flip the whole thing bc they were originally facing the left, i just didn't bother to correct the text lmao)

of course, had to include the gang, so there they are very tiny on the foreground DFGHD i am so glad that i thought of adding thistle too bc i just really thought that lil detail of him walking away from everybody else was pretty neat

i also wanted her hands to be covered in blood but i wasn't skilled enough to make it look good in the short timeframe i had, it looked a little too busy, whoops!

(i should also mention that this piece was a huge inspiration for this! it's so striking that it never leaves my mind oughh <333)

[flamingpudding]

Cassiopea and Orion #2

Previous Part

A/N: I probably shouldn't be thinking up so many different story lines. But my mind won't let me focuse on something else in peace unless I write these snippets and parts out. So here have another part XD I still have a whole Danny and Bruce backstory conversation in my head that I will probably write out at some point too.

"Really B, another one?" A red helmet wearing guy huffed the moment he spotted her, the little black haired blue eyed girl, sitting on a railing by a huge computer set up Ellie was sure Uncle Tuck would have drooled over.

She blinked at the new arrival before her eyes went over to the man. The one she had told that Phantom lost his haunt. When she had spoken these words the air around the man had changed. Before Ellie even really knew what was happening, the man had turned away from her, talking to the still tense boy before whisking the both of them away to a cave. The place she was now, and one after another more and more of the weirdly dressed people showed up. Each of them appeared to feel the need to comment on something, Ellie heavily believed to be an inside joke.

She let her eyes wander over all the arrivals, her fingers nervously drumming on the metal of the railing she was sitting on. Watching them carefully, despite what Danny had told her, she would bold at the first sight of danger from them. They didn't appear to have any ecto-weapons but that could be false impression. Like the GIW. They had appeared so incompetent only to do a 180 decades later.

"So what is going on? Is B printing adoption papers already?" The red and black one appeared to joke and Ellie tilted her head. There definitely was a insider joke she was not aware of. It would be weird to ask them about it wouldn't it? It would also be rude and tactless. Danny and Aunt Jazz had tried to teach her to not always blurt out every question that pops up in her head. Key words, not always.

"Why would the furry need adoption papers?"

She blinked at how a couple of the people broke out laughing while the kid, who had been watching her like a hawk, was now full on shooting daggers at her. She was pretty sure the kid would have thrown a literal one at her, but something as keeping them from doing so. She heard a grunt, and her eyes went back to the man that had brought her here.

"Not necessary." The man muttered as he turned to face them, clicking a key on the keyboard of the computer, and Ellie blinked as an image of Phantom popped up on screen. The people laughing appeared to quiet down now. "She already has a father."

"Mom." Ellie automatically corrected, shrugging when they looked at her. Before everything had gone to shits and Danny's capture, he had become quiet the mother hen, especially with Dan's and her de-aging. The constant mothering and worry about their well-being had caused Dan to joke that Danny was acting like a mother and she had continued to run with that joke. Even after they had to put Dan into a frozen state under Frostbites care in Far Frozen. The two had silently agreed on that Danny was their mom. The past didn't matter and she would honour their silent sibling agreement.

She didn't elaborate any further and they seemed to get that as they turned back to the man by the computer, putting their attention on that. Though she did noticed that the other kids eyes lingered on her longer.

"This is Phantom. A ghost hero stationed at Amity Park. Code: Rho, one of Cassiopea's dying stars." The man paused, and Ellie swore he had looked at her under his cowl. "And this girl's, Elliza Danielle Phantom Nightingale's, mother. Code: Jupiter, the wandering star."

"How do you know my full name?! Plus, my only recently added ones! They are like only a month old! And what about these weird Codes?" She blurred out wide-eyed, staring at the man in bat costume.

"Even if sparse Phantom and I stayed in contact using these codes." And Ellie narrowed her eyes at him. "Doesn't answer my question."

"Actually, B we would also like to know more." One of the onlookers, that's what Ellie decided they were for now, piped up.

Bat guy grunted, staring them down but not answering. The onlooker in blue sighed but Ellie wasn't giving in. She crossed her arms, keeping her balance by floating slightly on the railing.

"Look, you big bad bee, if you can't tell me that, then how am I supposed to trust you to help me, let alone the rescue of Da- Phantom!"

The onlookers snickered as she held her little staring contest with the big bad bee. Jokes on that guy she had held staring contests with Frighty before and he doesn't even remember how to blink at times.

"Phantom and I correspond about various topics since our teen years." The bat guy finally admitted. "One of which was about... our children."

Ellie blinked several times. Until her eyes widened in realization and she pointed an accusing finger at bat guy. "You're the one that kept calling Danny about parent advice! Like how he got me to go to online school and prevented me from sneaking out or how he handled Dan's anger tantrums!"

"Wait... B went to someone other than Agent A for parent advice?" The red and black onlooker questioned and Ellie shrugged. Danny had always been sort of parenting her since he was 16 and Dan once they learned he was aging lower and then the de-aging happened. She did remember that Danny got his first phone call about parent advice when he was around 24.

Now that Ellie thought about it. That was also around the time he took her aside to tell her about the emergency code.

"Which one of us do you guys think was the cause?"

"Wing."

"Hood."

"Demon Brat."

Ellie blinked once more, her attention turning back to the onlookers as thet started to argue among themselves. She tilted her head, watching them. Looks like she accidentally got them off topic. Though now she really wanted to get the story out of Danny once they rescued him. For years she had caught snippets of Danny's phone calls, to think that the guy on the other end was a armored spandex wearing furry. She couldn't wait to tell Dan about that.

Well, once their mom was saved and her brother stabilized again.

[dduane]

The Young Wizards series turns 40!

...And yes, we're having a sale to celebrate. But that can wait. :)

I'm sitting here looking at the date and considering how amazing it is that, despite the changes in the publishing world, anything can stay in print nonstop for forty years.

But this book has. Here's how it started:

...Well, not how it started. It started with three things:

A newbie YA writer being deeply annoyed with a non-newbie one for (as she thought) stripping their teenage characters of their agency without good reason.

A suddenly-appearing joke involving two terms or concepts that wouldn't normally appear together: the 1950s young-readers' series of careers books with titles that always began So You Want To Be A..., and the word "wizard."

And the idea immediately springing from that juxtaposition. What if there was such a book? Not a careers book, but a book that told you how to be a wizard—maybe some kind of manual? One that would tell you the truth about the magic underlying the universe, and how to get your hands on it... assuming you felt you could promise the things that power would demand of you, and survive the Ordeal that would follow?

Six or seven months after that confluence of events, there was a novel with that joke-line as its title. A month or so after that, the novel was bought. So You Want To Be A Wizard came out as a Fall 1983 book, as you can see from the Locus Magazine ad above (from back when Locus was only a paper zine). The first reviews were encouraging.

And by the middle of 1984, the publishers were asking, "So, what's next?" A question I'm still busy answering.

There's been a lot of water under the wizardly bridge since. In SYWTBAW's case, this involved a couple/few publishers, a surprising number of covers, a fair number of awards here and there; and lots more books. (I always knew there'd be more, but how many more continues to surprise me. Which is a bit funny, considering how much stuff that universe has going on in it.)

So here we are at forty, and looking ahead to The Big Five-Oh with some interest. More books? Absolutely. Young Wizards #11 is in progress at the moment, and YW #12 is in the late concept stages. More covers for So You Want To Be A Wizard? Seems inevitable. A TV series, perhaps? (shrug) Stranger things have happened: we'll keep our fingers (or other manipulatory instrumentalities) crossed. The New Millennium Editions in translation? and in international paperback? Working on that right now. The sky's the limit.*

And meanwhile, to celebrate, just for today we'll have a sale. (Except in the UK. To our British friends, the usual sad apology: the expensive bureaucracy of Brexit has made it impossible for us to sell directly to you any more. Details here, with our apologies.)

As has been mentioned before, changes are afoot at Ebooks Direct, so this kind of sale won't be happening again for the foreseeable future. (In fact I thought we were all done with them already. But the number 40 suggested one last opportunity that wouldn't be recurring, so I thought, "Aah, what the heck? Let's.")

New things first! Today, to mark this occasion, we're introducing the "All The Wizardry" Bundle. This is Ebook Direct's entire inventory of Young Wizards works; the contents of the bundle are listed on its product page. The $29.99 price listed there is for today only, to celebrate SYWTBAW's birthday, and will go up as of 23:59 Hawai'ian time tonight. As always, should you ever lose your ebooks or need to change reading platforms, we'll change your formats as necessary, or replace the books, for free.

Just click here, or on the image below, for the "All The Wizardry" Bundle. (Please ignore the category listings under the "Pay Using..." icons on the product page: they plainly think they're in a different universe. Kind of an occupational hazard around here...)

The other, older kind of sale folks will have seen here is on the "I Want Everything You've Got" Bundle, which is the whole Ebooks Direct store—obviously including all the Young Wizards books as well: more than 2.5 million words in 36 DRM-free ebooks. Just for today, in honor of the birthday book, we're dropping the whole-store price to USD $40.00. This, too, will go away just before midnight Hawai'ian time tonight... and it will never be lower. So if you want everything we've got at that price, don't wait around.

Make sure you use this link or the one associated with the image to get the baked-in discount at checkout. (If it fails to display correctly, use the discount code "40FOR40" in the checkout's "discount code or gift code" field.)

Meanwhile? Onward into the next decade. The new A Day at the Crossings novel unfortunately won't make it out before the end of 2023; other work in-house currently has taken priority. But as for early 2024... stay tuned.

And for those of you who're Young Wizards readers, and have kept this book, and its sequels, alive for pushing half a century?

Thank you, again and always!

*Though actually, it's not, is it? As the proverb has it, "Wizardry doesn't stop at atmosphere's edge..."

[dmitriene]

𝗧𝗛𝗢𝗨𝗚𝗛𝗧𝗦 𝗔𝗕𝗢𝗨𝗧 𝗟𝗘𝗢𝗡 𝗪𝗜𝗧𝗛 𝗣𝗜𝗡𝗞 𝗚𝗙.

❝𝗖𝗢𝗡𝗧𝗘𝗡𝗧❞ 𝘣𝘧 𝘪𝘥 𝘭𝘦𝘰𝘯 𝘬𝘦𝘯𝘯𝘦𝘥𝘺 𝘹 𝘨𝘧 𝘧𝘦𝘮 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳 ❝𝗧𝗔𝗚𝗦❞ 𝘛𝘖𝘖𝘛𝘏 𝘙𝘖𝘛𝘛𝘐𝘕𝘎 𝘍𝘓𝘜𝘍𝘍, 𝘊𝘖𝘔𝘍𝘖𝘙𝘛, 𝘕𝘚𝘍𝘞, 𝘚𝘜𝘎𝘎𝘌𝘚𝘛𝘐𝘝𝘌 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘵 𝘯𝘰 𝘩𝘶𝘳𝘵, 𝘰𝘭𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘭𝘦𝘰𝘯, 𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘦𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘧𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘴, 𝘧𝘢𝘤𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘦, 𝘴𝘵𝘶𝘧𝘧𝘪𝘦𝘴, 𝘥𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘤 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘴, 𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘩𝘦𝘥 𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘱, 𝘯𝘪𝘱𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘺, 𝘵𝘰𝘶𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘢𝘤𝘺, 𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘧𝘦𝘮𝘢𝘭𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘰𝘮𝘺, 𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘮𝘢𝘺𝘣𝘦?

 ✎ 𝘮𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘮𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘵. 𝘳𝘦𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘢𝘴𝘬𝘴. 𝘢𝘰3. ˑ༄

leon's life, let's say, is devoid of all pink shades and carefreeness is almost complete,wherever he is, he is haunted by grayness, and the tones of his usual clothes are also not selective in brightness but rather lean toward black and blue, not to mention the fact that the events in his life as such are also not rosy, not at all.

but all the missing pink shades were added to him by you, and he damnably adored you, your pink clothes, cosmetic accessories, elements of home comfort, you instantly colored his life with your presence, starting with the image and ending with the details that gradually formed in his apartment — pink pillows, plush toys, sheets, brushes, shower gel with some incredibly sweet scent? everything he didn't have.

leon himself did not notice how the gentle shade began to attract him, although to be more precise, he was attracted to you, and the color was just a pleasant coloring of his everyday life, he treated you as he saw you, with a funny insistence that because of all this you reminded him of a princess, that’s why he behaved appropriately with you, gentle kisses, gentle touches, carrying you in his arms and trying to keep you from any danger, like a porcelain doll, afraid that an extra word, action or movement — would break you.

he looked with adoration when you bought some new clothes with him, a bunch of frills on blouses and skirts, some charming stockings and shoes, and not necessarily something open, sometimes it could be long sleeve shirts, jeans, with some particularly cute print and pink color, showing him things and trying them on yourself, listening to the approving hums, looking into his burning blue eyes and listening to how he continually, unable to restrain himself, showered you with compliments, asking you to twirl — «have a best girlfriend in the world, hmm? such a pretty dollie, such a gorgeous girl, twirl for me darling, would you?»

there were times when you both sat in the living room on the weekend, you on a soft sofa with your legs apart and with some kind of cosmetic mask on your face, while leon sat on the carpet between your spaced plush thighs, his dark strands collected with a soft bandana as you carefully placed the same mask you wore on his face, despite the fact that his skin was usually incredibly clear, you wanted him to relax with you, even if it meant listening to his mumbled complaints — «sweetheart, i don't think it's.. uh.. for me»

but you just frown in response, pouting a little and muttering with feigned resentment in your voice — «want you to be pretty with me» and how can he say no to that? a slightly rough laugh immediately sounds under your ear and he waves his head slightly, still allowing you to carefully and evenly place the fabric mask on his face to get into the cutouts, when he looks into your eyes and slightly stretches out his lips like a tube, beckoning you to kiss him, to which you immediately smile and softly peck him on the lips, fidgeting with your nose against his with a pleased look, carefully holding the mask on your own face.

leon also loved to take warm baths with you, he never thought that bathing in aromatic oils and pink foam with the scent of cherry could relax so much, and how wrong he was, because as soon as he settled into a ceramic bath and your warm body pressed against his, settling between his legs, he immediately wearily buries his nose in the back of your neck, causing you to giggle lightly from the tickling as he squeezes you like a plush toy, feeling how the tension in his muscles gradually seems to dissolve.

he allows you to rub fragrant oils into his shoulders, massaging in circular motions and watching as his eyelashes flutter, closing his blue eyes that practically roll back when you move along his arms, sitting to face him and allowing him to soon hide in your damp shoulder, going limp and making relieved moans every time you massaged the knots in his muscles, devoting all your time to caring for your beloved man, wash his dark mop of hair for him, scratching and massaging, knowing that he will definitely return everything, as soon as he'd regain a little from complete relaxation.

leon will feel guilty if he doesn’t return the favor, so don’t expect that you will leave the bathroom until he washes you in return, his warm calloused palms covered with pinkish foam gently fidget over your soft body, gently massaging your shoulders and shamelessly going down to your tender breasts, squeezing and not hesitating to tease, running over your slightly erect and hard nipples, lightly squeezing them and rubbing them with his pads, making you let out a slight whine and jerk your legs, murmuring — «l-lee! mmh, n-not fair, i wanted you to relax!»

he just laughs, finding your words and desire to take care of him charming, as if it seems to you that he will fall apart if he overexerts himself, and how can he restrain himself when you are sitting between his legs so beautiful, with wet shiny skin, he can’t restrain himself while being next to you, always touching, kissing, and in the end it all ends in slow sex, but your desire is the law and he doesn’t want to upset you, so with a short kiss on the curve of your neck, he removes his hands from your body so that instead wash your hair, he can do at least something, right?

he knew that after the bath you would definitely go to bed where dusty pinkish bed linens, fluffy blankets and a couple of your plush toys would be waiting for him, a wide contrast to how his bedroom used to look, two pillows and some gray or blue sheets, but now everything smelled of comfort, as well as the soft notes of floral laundry conditioner, he loved what his life had become, he loved falling asleep and waking up in this bed with you, holding you close to him every night, like hugging a plush toy.

usually he sleeps buried in your chest or neck, the closer the better, happy when you lay in his arms as if curled up and he could snuggle closer to your warmth and scent, and be that as it may, his sleep next to you is like a baby’s, he wakes up much more relaxed and cheerful, he’s really damn grateful to you for embellishing his life, and, well, he can afford a little whim in honor of gratitude, right?

especially when you're lying there in one of your adorable nighties, the soft fabric flowing over your body, and underneath there's definitely an adorable pair of panties just for him, so you won't mind too much if he settles between your soft legs and pulls them down, maybe just pushes them away to the side, making sure to find the wet folds and twitching clit bud, letting your fingers bury themselves in his fluffy strands, as baby blues eyes look at you with a slight smile on his handsome face and he whispers softly, making you clench and gush around nothing — «let me take care of you, pretty girl? wanna thank you properly for all your care»

of course you agree, spreading your legs wider and letting him wrap his arms around them for comfort, briefly lifting up to kiss your lips and rosy cheeks, before delve in ‹𝟹

[pascalcampion]

Bernie Fuchs. 1932/2009

Not really sure what to say about him that would be different from anybody else’s point of view. The man was THE man. The legend AND the stuff legends are made of. The enfant terrible of illustration in the late 50’s, all throughout the 60’s and till the slow death of print illustration in the 70’s. I know, Illustration is not dead, far from it, but THIS format of magazine art, the way it was done, commissioned, paid for, the world that went with it is a piece of history now. For better or for worse.

When I discovered the first image in this post I was blown away. I was instantly charmed. The longer I looked at it the longer I was mesmerized. Fuchs had started in the 50’s, working in car ads in Detroit. The job was very specific. There were strict rules. Someone usually did the car and another artist would do the characters. The poses were clear, clean, behind the car. It was all very staged, all very efficient. Fuchs was probably drinking beer or something at the time and asked someone to hold It for him while he went about to completely dismantle this system, going into the streets to capture everyday life, placing people in Front of the cars, overall stepping all over the established codes of the time. He was both admired for it and called a prima Dona for it. He didn’t last in Detroit. Moved to New York and started getting jobs for Mc Call and other well known magazines at the time. The bigger leagues. He was the kid who started taking jobs away from the older, more established artists, and he did it with a smile from what I read.

His work was new, different. It felt alive. The characters weren’t as stiff as they used to be in previous illustrations, there was a looseness to the brush work. Everybody wanted to have him work on their campaigns and every illustrator wanted to be him.

I look at his work. Not as often as I used to when I was younger. I look at it to remind myself that people can draw and paint like this, can tell such strong stories in one images and can push themselves constantly to come up with new ideas, new themes, new compositions Toward the later part of his career, after being incredibly well established, Bernie started experimenting with new techniques, new approaches. This body of work is not often the one that people remember the most but I love seeing his brain at work. Having the courage to leave behind what is a sure success to try something new, untested, unproven, knowing that it could very well be rejected is inspiring. That is the other thing about Bernie Fuchs. He was inspiring. He still is.

[heavenlyraindrops]

Father Forgive Me (For I have Sinned) ~ Teaser ♱

Lucifer Morningstar x Angel!Reader Fandom: Hazbin Hotel Song: Eve by Precious Pepala Warnings: Swearing, Violence, Mature Content (its Hazbin, come on guys) Smut (probably idk yet, I will of course warn before it shows up- if it does)

♱♱♱ You, the most virtuous of angels, the kindest soul that had ever graced the ground of Heaven. The Seraphim adored you, the First Man wanted you- you were everything.

You remembered the way the Seraphim had offered to create a third wife for Adam- you were there. He had stared into your eyes as he spoke, addressing the Seraphim.

“I don’t need you to make a third wife.”

You knew how highly the angels thought of you. Sera had told you repeatedly how you were completely Pure in her Judgement, her eyes sparkling with adoration for your virtue. You just smiled sheepishly and did you best to remain humble, which only made them love you more.

Which is what made your fall from grace so shocking.

♱♱♱

[Sneak Peek]

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” you muttered, the words feeling alien in your mouth as you paced your living room. Your mind ran through your earlier interaction with Emily. ♱♱♱

“Emily, what do I do if I want to… repent for something?”

Emily’s eyes flashed with concern. “Why, what did you do?”

You knew what she was thinking. Sweet [name] would never commit a sin. Sweet [name] would never have to repent.

“It was just a little thing, I just felt bad about it, and I want to- to clear my conscience.”

Emily tilted her head, her face relaxing as you assured her it wasn’t a big deal. “Sure then. Sera tells me that there’s a confessional on this street-“

You winced, visibly, and her frown reappeared again. “Or,” she continued more slowly, “you could just say a quick prayer at home. ‘Father forgive me, for I have sinned… and then say what you did. Please forgive me.’ Sound good enough for you?”

You nodded. “Thank you, Emily.” And watched her as she turned and walked away, eyes fixated unseeingly onto her back as it disappeared.

♱♱♱ You dropped to your knees as the world lurched around you. You felt like you were going to be sick.

Just say it. Just say the words.

“Father…” Your voice cracked and you trailed off. You glanced out the window, before sitting up properly and tracing the shapes of the clouds againts the glass. How could you say the prayer when you knew, that whatever had happened, you didn’t regret it?

The hollowing pit of despair in your gut only grew deeper as you thought. What would the Seraphim say? You gulped.

You closed your eyes. You couldn’t keep them closed for long- the image of Lucifer was seared across the back of your eyelids. It didn’t matter. The feel of his hand was printed on your wrist. On your waist. The warmth of his lips on yours still lingered. His eyes. Why did he have to be so beautiful? You shuddered.

You knew that you could just forget this, bury it, never visit Lucifer during the exterminations again and continue your life as an angel. But you knew, at the same time, that he was too unforgettable, and it would only be a matter of time before someone found out if you continued- because you could never, ever stop.

“Father forgive me, for I have sinned,” you forced the words out, voice shaking. “I have fallen in love with the Devil.”

♱♱♱

A/N: Stay tuned guys!

Note: if u want to be added to the taglist then just lmk!

Update: Chapter One is now up!

[rookiesbookies]

Gaz and his Loser as the next part of my Sex Doll AU. This was much asked for and edited by my lovely mutual @shotmrmiller

Gaz’s story of getting bought goes much like all the others. His loser saw an ad on a social media app. She clicked it accidentally and it took her to the sleazy website. He cost a pretty penny but she had the extra cash to spare, so she figured why not. As the girl's cursor hovered over his image on the screen she went ahead and clicked buy.

His arrival was clunky. Getting him through the door was annoying, but he definitely could have been more difficult. She had waited to open him until a special day when she felt she could use the companionship. She did her best to understand the instructions of the manual, which was in some unknown or gargled print of a language she couldn’t recognize.

Gaz awoke with a start, the memories of his previous owner fading away as if it had never happened. Just a flash.

He looked around the unfamiliar room, taking in his new surroundings. It was dimly lit, with plush furniture and expensive decor. He could hear soft music playing in the background.

And then he saw her.

She was standing by the door, looking at him with a curious expression on her face. She was beautiful, everything he could have craved.

His eyes roamed over the silky fabric that hugged her curves, a delicate lingerie in a seductive shade of pink-red. The sight made his breath hitch, and he found himself struggling to keep it steady as he took in every inch of her exposed skin. He could feel his pulse quicken at the mere sight of her, and all he could do was let out a heavy exhale as desire coursed through him.

She seemed nervous under his gaze, his eyes didn't hold scrutiny but she didn't know what to expect... He finally registered how exposed she was. Crotchless panties and a heart shape. Valentine's Day. His poor loser is single on Valentine's Day.

"All ready for me, love?" He teased breathlessly. "Come on, don't be embarrassed."

There was something about him that felt more human, more empathetic. He felt like more than just a sex toy, definitely more than whatever he was marketed as. She could tell he was probably worth more than whatever she paid for him.

"Well, I may not be your ideal Valentine's date but I promise to make it special for you."

She almost couldn't form words as he grew closer, speaking into her lips, "Tell me what you want."

She responded eagerly, leaning to kiss him.

Their lips met in a fervent dance of desire, a tangle of tongues and teeth as they each sought to consume the other. Her hands roamed his body, feeling the firm muscles beneath his shirt, while he cupped her face gently as if she were the most delicate thing in the world. The air between them crackled with anticipation, charged with an undeniable electricity that sent shivers down her spine.

As their kiss deepened, he slowly began to trail kisses down her neck, his warm breath sending tingles across her skin. She tilted her head back in silent invitation, giving him better access to the curve of her throat. With each feather-light touch of his lips, she let out a soft sigh of pleasure, her body responding instinctively to his every move.

He moved lower still, his lips leaving a trail of fire along her collarbone and down to the swell of her breasts. He continued to move down her body and to her crotchless panties, smiling greedily as he dove in.

She was now completely at his mercy, and she relished in the feeling, knowing that he would take her to heights of pleasure she had only dreamed of.

Finally, he reached her crotchless panties and smiled greedily as he dove in. His tongue flicked against her clit, sending waves of electric pleasure through her body. She let out a moan as his skilled tongue continued its exploration, teasing and taunting her until she was writhing beneath him.

His fingers were long and slender, gliding in and out of her with ease. They glistened with her arousal, moving in a steady rhythm that mirrored the rise and fall of her chest.

Her body writhed beneath him, her skin flushed and glistening in the dim light of the room, growing slicker as it went on. His fingers disappeared between her thighs, moving in a quick and skilled rhythm. Pleasure flooded her senses, her mouth watering with the taste of him on her lips.

Her skin flushed pink as he stroked her clit, his fingers moving in a skilled dance. She arched her back and her breasts rose and fell with each desperate breath. His focused gaze on her body showed a burning desire, mirroring her own.

Her mouth went dry as he found her sweet spot, dragging his tongue along her folds and tasting her arousal as his fingers wiggled within. She could taste the salt of her skin on his lips, making her crave more of his touch.

The scent of sex filled the air, a heady mixture of sweat and desire that made her pulse race even faster. As she grew closer to climax, the scent intensified, making his desire for her nearly uncontrollable.

Her moans filled the room, growing louder and more desperate with each moment. The sound of their breathing and the slick movements of his fingers echoed off the walls, heightening the intensity of their passionate encounter.

Just as she was about to reach the peak of pleasure, he suddenly removed himself from between her legs. She let out a whimper of protest, her body craving his touch.

But he had something else in mind. He stripped off his clothes completely, revealing his toned and muscular body to her hungry gaze.

She caught her breath at the sight of him, feeling a rush of desire pulse through her veins. Without any hesitation, he dove back in between her thighs, his mouth hungrily finding hers as he inserted himself between her slick folds.

She let out a gasp at the sudden feeling of fullness, pleasure shooting through every nerve in her body. His spit added an extra layer of slickness and heat as he thrust into her with a steady rhythm. He folded one of her legs up over his shoulder, wrapping around his waist as he began to move after her breathing leveled out.

Their bodies moved together in perfect synchronization, their breathing growing ragged and heavy as they both chased after their own release.

Her mind couldn't wrap around the sex. It felt like he was fitted perfectly to serve the master that is her body. He fit perfectly, like the missing piece to her puzzle.

Her nails dug into his shoulders as she arched into him, lost in the intense pleasure coursing through her veins. The only sounds that filled the room were their moans and gasps for air, mingling together in a symphony of passion.

As they both reached the peak of ecstasy together, their bodies tensed and shuddered in sort of unison. Like his was triggered by her body's release at a deeper level beyond just good sex. An intense wave of pleasure washed over them both, leaving them both breathless and satisfied.

They collapsed onto the floor in a tangle of limbs and sweaty skin, their hearts still racing from the intensity of their encounter.

He pulled her close to him, kissing away any lingering doubts or fears that may have been within her mind.

Masterlist is pinned on profile as always, check out my AU list for more like this. Don’t forget to leave me a comment (i always try to respond) or a request in my inbox (i also try to respond to these when I can), a reblog, or even just a like to let me know what yall want to see!

[monstermonger]

Your dragon art brings me so much joy. Would you ever consider adding larger prints to your shop? The red dragon on the bridge you recently posted and the dragon painting on the cave entrance are some of my favorites but I struggle to find ways to display smaller prints that make sense

:""") This is so amazing to read, thank you for the kind words! Really...

And aaa I'm sorry, I'd love to add bigger prints, several people have asked this too :""""D sadly I just draw very small, my favorite sketchbook is this purse-sized moleskin. it's comfy but I do regret it for these situations...

I suppose i could try forcibly up-scaling the size, the quality would suffer though... T^T

... I'm curious now, anyone know if you can scan images so that they're bigger than the original (but still good quality)? I would definitely do that for my future images.

[shelandsorcery]

Etching and Acid Baths and Surrender

(this is another classic from my personal site I'm belatedly resharing on tumblr, ftr)

Friends, I just finished teaching the last third of a course on print production, and between that and the whole thing with twitter's crop changing (somewhere? not for me but somewhere?) I've found myself thinking a lot about copper etching and my relationship with the acid bath.

So, first up, copper etching is an art form where you engrave (through various means) thin grooves into a copper plate, then squeeze thick ink into those grooves, then wipe off the ink on the face of the plate, then soak paper so it's very soft, then push it all through a press.The pressure forces the paper into the ink-lined grooves of the plate, pushing the ink onto the paper, and you thus transfer the image from your copper plate to your paper. It's a magnificent art form you've certainly seen examples of, even if you didn't know! Here, a Rembrandt:

There's a lot of ways to create these grooves in the plate; Rembrandt used a steel point and scratched them in, a technique called drypoint. Later, artists used a technique where a waxy resist would coat the plate, then drew lines in the resist, then soaked the plate in acid.

This is the acid bath of which I speak.

There's a few ways to apply resist to a plate, and they give you different effects when you etch with them. First is a hard resist, which is a thick, firm wax that coats the plate and is removed by using that steel drypoint tool to create thin line work, like this Doré hatching:

You can also use soft resist, a malleable wax that allows you to press textures into it, like Barbara Smith has in her piece "Textures" here:

(my terminology might be a bit off, I'm noticing as I google, but hopefully the metaphor will still stand) 

And the third method, my fav, is aquatint; a process where you add a resist that is .. spotty. Something like a light spray, or a dusting of wax, so that the plate is covered with a rough, dithered dot pattern of resist, with exposed copper in between. Example via Wikipedia:

I decided to try out copper plate etching, also called intaglio print making, after seeing David Blackwood's work, where he works with aquatint extensively:

Aquatint lets you lay down fields of tone, which he uses in great contrast and collaboration with the linework he etches into the plate as well. It's magnificent work, but it's made all the more miraculous when you understand the whole thing with the acid bath. So, when you put a copper plate into the acid bath, anywhere on the plate that isn't protected by hard, soft or aquatint resist (also called ground) is slowly dissolved into the acid, creating little grooves. The longer it's in the bath, the deeper the grooves - kind of.

The acid is fickle, and the more copper already dissolved into it, the slower it will dissolve new copper. And that's a problem because you want to control exactly how deep those grooves go; the deeper the groove, the more ink it will hold, the darker the line will be on paper. Under-etch your plate, and your lines will be faint, hold very little ink, and be extremely hard to get ink INTO when you apply it before making a print.

But you can't know this until you take all that resist off the plate, wash it, and ink it up and print it.

OVERetch your plate, and the acid will start to eat the copper away from under your resist, widening your lines or flattening out your aquatint, so it's easy to get ink into the lines, but hard not to wipe it back out when you try and wipe ink off the un-etched face of the plate.

Again, not obvious until you go and try printing your plate.

And with intaglio, by which I mean copper plate etching, you might want lines of varying darknesses - you might want aquatint of varying darknesses - and so you will be adding and removing resists of various kinds, and etching and re-etching your plate over and over again.

And you can do various things to get the feel for the acid bath's ... acidity ... on the day you go to etch something in it, but depending on the size of your bath, you etching a large plate for a while might change the bath's acidity. Worst is if it's fresh and you didn't know.

So this whole art form, whereby people produce some of the most precise and exquisite pieces in the north western historical canon IMO, is actually an absurd collaboration with a rogue chemical that may or may not do what you want at any point in time.

And by my third year of making work like this, I had concluded that you simply had to think of the acid bath as a rogue collaborator who you handed your plate off to over and over again throughout your process. You had to just take a deep breath and accept chaos as an element.

Yes, you did your best to prepare your plate, get the right resist on it, draw the right lines where you wanted them; and yes you set a timer and kept an eye on your plate and checked the etch over and over again - but in the end you were teaming up with chaos chemistry.

And I loved it! I loved the surprises you got from acid bath, even if they went against what I had planned. I loved improvising around its unpredictability! Once I accepted that it was part of the practice, I found it exhilirating.

And for me, that's the appeal of all traditional media - I can't predict every little thing, I'm not 100% in control at all times, and artwork has to happen despite all that.

And so I expanded this concept for myself out to my larger practice. When I send a file to print? I'm collaborating with a printer; both the person, who I can maybe talk to, and the machine, that will have its own peccadillos. I prepare as best I can and still I may be surprised.I'm not saying I never threw out plates that got way out of hand, and I'm not saying I never had a print run of my work I had to send back or reprint - I'm just saying that my thought process around them has changed, so I allow for a wider range of surprises than I used to.

So when everyone was going on about the twitter crop finally changing, and I realized I didn't really care, I noticed that I had expanded this concept to publishing online as well. I prep a nice jpg and then I take a deep breath and accept twitter's chaos in collaboration.

And that's how I discovered that, to me, twitter is just another acid bath.

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[yostresswritinggirl]

4 𝑆𝑡𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑐𝑎𝑛'𝑡 𝑘𝑒𝑒𝑝 ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝐻𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑡 𝑆𝑡𝑖𝑙𝑙

; this is my submission for fluffvember by @maehemthemisfit!

; Tighnari x Reader, fluff, romantic

; When Tighnari was gifted a Kamera by the Traveler, after taking a photo of you by accident, decided how he'd put it to good use.

"Hey, you haven't touched your food!"

"I will in a second."

Already at your wit's end to keep your hunger at bay, you finally bit into the delicious pita pocket Collei had packed for your patrol today.

While Tighnari continued to tinker away at the device in his hand as the cuisine next to him sat neglected. It was a gift from the Traveler from their recent trip to Fontaine, an enhanced(?) version of the Kamera that has the ability to both print the captured photo immediately as well as store the image in data form.

Naturally, scholar that he is, the forest watcher had been poking and pinching the device to fully understand it.

He even brought it with you during your patrol together, it capturing his attention even as you sat on one of the picnic tables scattered around the forest to eat your lunch.

... heh, capturing, captured, Kamera. Oh no, Cyno's infected you -

CLICK. And a flash after almost made you drop your food on the table.

"What the heck?" Desperately rubbing the white spots in your vision, you briefly saw a surprised expression pass by Tighnari's face as his attention still stayed on the device.

"My bad, I guess that's what that button does." He seemed content, you can tell just by looking at his tail that wagged enthusiastically behind him so openly. You were about to groan a complaint at him when the sound of gears and grinding caught you both off-guard.

Leaning close, you both watched as the Kamera began sliding out a piece of white paper. And there in all its glory is your face:

Pita pocket held near your chewing mouth as your cheeks were stuffed, your gaze off to the left signifying your preoccupied thoughts beforehand as a breeze gently swept your strands. Despite the impromptu shoot, somehow it turned out really well.

"Ohhh, that's some high quality print." But before you could take the photograph, his deft hands picked and pocketed the thing. Tighnari was already pulling away from the table as he cleaned up the place.

"The film for this is expensive and exported, every print is precious." He watched as you huffed to yourself, gathering your items into your bag as he reminded you that break time is over. Perfectly oblivious to the cheeky smile he dons as he decides how he would use his new toy.

The patrol continued as usual with the occasional small talk, but it relatively stayed in peaceful silence without much to say. His mind was elsewhere, you can tell by how his brows furrowed and his attention fleeting here and there.

His fingers twitched again when you spoke up. "Sooo, why did you bring the Kamera with you?"

"I was thinking of updating the field guide, perhaps a less comprehensive version, a digest with accompanying images."

Tighnari bit back a smile at the sight of you perking up at the idea, watching you copy his movement earlier to inspect the forest floor for any interesting floras to add into the digest. Flowers, flowers is a good start, can't go wrong with them.

You were always so eager to help, your companion shook his head endearingly as you started mumbling local flowers under your breath, completely enamored by the new task.

Patrol soon became a foraging trip as you lead the way with Tighnari following behind, Kamera already in his hand but not yet taking a photo of anything. Instead, he would point at a flower that looked to be the healthiest in the bunch which you would carefully pluck to join the bundle growing in your arms.

Lotuses, Viparyas, Sumeru Rose, Mint, Padisarahs, huh there's not really a lot of flower variations in the Avidya Forest actually.

"I think I got all of the flowers? Well, I added the mint despite not being a flower." Tighnari looked up from the mushroom he was inspecting to see you grinning at him, flowers overflowing in your arms. "You think we should add mushrooms into this -"

"Can you hold that pose for a second?" His eagerness seeped through his request as he raised the device. Even his ears twitched with excitement.

Nodding, you made sure that all the flowers (and mint) could be viewed in the shot. CLICK!

"Nice, did the flowers look good? I thought it would have been better to lay it out instead." You don't see the printed photograph this time as you focused on bunching up the flowers for an easier hold.

"Yeah, the flowers..." Yet when you looked at him, his attention was on the photo again with a soft and satisfied smile.

The patrol was thankfully uneventful after that. Something as engaging as a spinocrocodile or rishboland tiger encounter wouldn't really be good for a fragile Kamera in hand. You wouldn't be much help to Tighnari if you want to maintain the quality of the flowers you gathered either.

Some of the forest rangers already went back to Ghandarva Ville after their respective patrols well into the early evening, making the place livelier than it was that morning.

Stepping up to the platform, you were pleasantly surprised to see a familiar figure sitting under a lantern outside.

"Ah, Master Tighnari, (Y/N)! Welcome back from your patrol!"

"Why are you out here?" Placing your haul on the table, you took a seat next to Collei while the Forest Watcher sat across. "Studying?"

"Yeah, I can't quite grasp some of the concepts still so I thought a change of scenery would help." Leaning over as Collei tapped her pencil on her notes, Tighnari leaned his cheek to his palm, watching the two of you talk animatedly about the topic at hand.

"Oh, I remember this! Tighnari LOVES to make this topic difficult in his tests," the man in question scoffs and rolls his eyes. "But if you look at it this way -"

Eager to get some help, Collei passed the pencil to your awaiting hand as you started writing a new section in her notes. The way the trainee forest ranger presses against your side to get a closer look, how you make eye contact when emphasizing an important note to which Collei earnestly nods to, when you smile when you sense her progress -

CLICK. The both of you looked up from the study session with wide eyes, just in time to see Tighnari lower the Kamera with a smile.

Shaking your head, you kicked his foot under the table gently. "Precious print, my ass."

"A section highlighting the forest ranger's mentoring capabilities could be good." Was his immediate response, which you scoffed at with an easygoing smile.

"Don't worry about it, Collei." Your attention shifts to the younger female to ease her confusion on the matter. "He's just being a goof. Where were we? Right, so..."

The next day started beautifully for the Chief Officer, happier than when he finished his research, happier than when he ate his favorite mushroom.

How could he not be extra enthusiastic of the day when it started with him looking at the pictures he had taken, now tucked neatly on his table for later perusal. It looked better seeing it under the natural lighting of the morning, almost as if the image sparkles.

And when he saw you waving at him first thing in the morning, the day just got significantly better.

"Good morning, Master Tighnari." His eyes followed the hand that cards through your nicely dried hair. "Oh, you're taking more pictures today?"

"Yes." Eyes flickering between your form and the Kamera in his hand, a bright idea popped in his head. "Actually, can you stand there for a second?"

Confused but compliant, you watched as Tighnari placed the Kamera on a tree stump nearby, adjusting the angle and distance as he looked at you through the lens.

And when he was seemingly satisfied, he left the device there to join you where he left you.

Before you could ask, his lean arm snakes around your waist securely. "I found out that there was a timer option." That wasn't the question in your mind anymore tho!!

It wasn't until he started leaning forward did you finally realize his intention, hand grasping at his sleeves as the feeling of his warm breathe tickles your waiting lips. Your eyes closed with the distance, the gentleness reminiscent of a good morning kiss.

Just as soft as the flower petals you plucked yesterday, as filling as an afternoon meal, as sweet as the happiness of being with him —

CLICK! Your eyes flew open at the sudden flash.

Oh, that sneaky fox! But before you could comment on it, Tighnari leaned over to chase another kiss, his triumphant smirk melding with your lips.

@maehemthemisfit @sonder-paradise @96jnie @komiyaa @scaramouchenumber1fan @linn-a-a @wisteriaflowersss @ineriris @yesntforno @serramii @shadowmist0706 @jmgrule @imeanwatever @c00kie-cat @xtodorokismistressx @ieathairs @endlessmari @strawberryclumsy @serenity-ren-bliss @scarasbaby @1eaf-me-alone @ireallylikehamsters

[sanctus-ingenium]

I was wondering how achieve such a wonderful textured finish on your pieces? They are wonderful and I love their resemblance to aged photographs and the speckles of colors in the backgrounds. Your art is mesmerizing :)

you can see some of the texture brush sets i use in my #info_asks tag but i have some more (procreate) tips aside from just brushes

also hi i made this whole thing and then stupidly hit ctrl z to erase ONE word and i lost the entire bottom half of the post and all my image descriptions so fuck you tumblr i had to make this twice

to get a faded photo or old digital screen look, consider duplicating the canvas (once all the layers are merged) and using a gaussian blur tool on the new duplicated layer. then set that to low opacity to add a misty sort of look. looks nice in combination with some chromatic abberation and a small bloom effect. then a subtle noise filter on top:

for faded print effects, it's really worthwhile to learn how to use layer masks. you can use a layer mask to non-destructively 'weather' blocks of colour or lineart, without erasing the layer itself. the weathered ink/block print effect here was made using layer masks which means that if i just hide the mask, the lineart becomes solid black again and easy to alter or colour in:

for old paper effects you can just set a paper texture on multiply over the art sure, but you can also combine it with the blur & bloom thing, a really subtle drop shadow and canvas tilt, and highlights to make it look like an aged photograph of a card. this originally had a transparent bg but i'll post it here with a white bg so that the drop shadow is more obvious. the scuffed edges of the card (left) were hand drawn, simple white stucco brush. the bigger patch of scuffed ink (top right) was a texture stamp.

for block print looks you can move the colour layer out of alignment by a few pixels - but only after you're absolutely sure you're done with it, otherwise you'll get something like this -

i forgot to erase out her eye before i moved the red layer so now her eye defeats the 'look' of a misaligned print. the black lineart and red layer were also given the same layer mask treatment as described above to make them look faded or like the ink didn't stick down right to the paper

you can do this with multiple colour layers too. if the colour layers are separated and set to multiply (as in this cmyk example), it'll leave halos and edges around each shape which mimic old comic book print

just to show what you can do WITHOUT any special brushes, here's a piece of one of my mez tarot cards from before i got any extra brushsets at all. for this one, i added a green tint over everything to mimic a sun-bleached or faded print (my actual goal wasn't 'medieval illustration' but actually 'trading card from the 60s that got left on someone's windowsill for decades'). the background texture is the procreate noise brush. the texture under the green lion drawing is the procreate concrete brush (to make it look painted onto a wall). the lettering and lineart is procreate's 6B pencil. but to properly aim for The Look of it being a printed physical object, i also used a perspective blur so that the edges are out of focus, and metallic gold highlights which don't match the lighting of the actual illustration and appear to be catching some other external light. that texture was made from the procreate noise brush

it's pretty simple compared to my later stuff but i still really like the effect

in terms of colours, you need to keep them unified so that they all appear to be acting under the same external light source, like if someone is holding up a torch to a painting then the painting colours will be glazed with firelight even if there's no painted fire. a really easy way to do this is to slap a multiply layer over everything in one shade - grey-yellow for a weathered paper look, or greenish blue for sunbleached photos. this unifies all the colours of the drawing. or you can apply a gradient map at a low opacity so that there's only a subtle change. or just do it by hand - if you want everything to be slightly tinted yellow, just pick the colours you normally would, but move the colour wheel towards yellow to get a yellowfied version of the base colour. easy

it's really important to consider how fading and weathering can affect printed colour. white paper yellows, black fades. you will rarely see pure black or pure white. which means you can use pure black or pure white to add external effects like the white scuff marks on the hierophant card. if the whole drawing is yellowed from age but there's some white somewhere, it's an easy shorthand to show that the scuff mark or whatever was not originally part of the drawing (great way to add some nasty stains lol)

[tpeakphotos]

This is one of several images I have from a very chilly and moody morning at Antelope Lake in Plumas County, California. The annual “Junuary” cold front we always seem to get after Memorial Day was on its way out but the clouds were still battling with the sun for dominance. The warming lake surface meeting the cold air made conditions foggy, adding more to the mood. As this scene was fairly “monochromatic” already, I felt a black and white treatment was in order. I also added just a bit of deliberate blur in post production to enhance the overall dreamy and moody feel I had while observing the scene.

In my Etsy shop: https://buff.ly/48JjJuI Prints and merch on demand: https://buff.ly/3GP7PDD