#i did put a filter over the colors bc it looked a lil too dark on my phone even tho i color picked from a bright scene for them

[spacenintendogs]

hiccup & astrid screenshot redraw for @rowanthefierce!

[mikeshanlon]

psst share your outer banks coloring secrets

ah, yes, one of the worst shows to color lmaoooo. i'll try to give some tips but im sure as anyone who has tried to color this show knows each scene is diff and has it's own flavor of awful yellow/green/red shading.

some tips on how to go from this to this......

............under the cut! (warning v long and idk if i'm the best at explaining things lmao)

so firstly, i use this psd i made ages ago for everything (alecbaenes was my url many moons ago i just am too lazy to change and reupload). usually i will go into each individual layer of that psd and see how they work with the scene, and will change the opacity or turn off the layer depending on what looks best. generally for obx, i will lower the opacity on the gradient map layer, as well as certain vibrancy/curves/levels layers, ones that make the gif brighter and more vibrant. i will usually bring back some vibrancy and brightness later but when im first getting the base coloring, some layers just heighten the yellow/red and we need to kinda bring that down before we make adjustments to get aspects like skin color more accurate.

so, just with my psd/adjustments made to the psd layers, the gif may looks something like this: (going to use this gif bc i made it more recently so i remember some of the stuff i did better, and is the most accurate to my current process--plus it sucks to color lmao)

ususally still way to red/yellow for my liking, both for the skin tones and to be able to manipulate the colors for a vibrant coloring! so the next step is to get colors as close to how they are normally. warning, you will have to make 345435354 adjustment layers and just keep tweaking and tweaking... and tweaking. sometimes i will have like 20+ adjustment layers at the end of the process. i usually put all my adjustments under my psd--i also always add a vibrance and brightness layer above. sometimes it helps to do final tweaks above the psd if you just cant get anything right bc of course the psd will change how colors normally look.

anyways, usually my base fixes will be some sort of combination of curves, levels, color balance, and selective color. so like, if the gif needs more depth/darkness, or is way too bright, i will bring the curve down or up respectively. levels, and also increasing the black selective color layer will also add depth. i will also use auto curve sometimes! the first image i have below i circled some of the extra tools i may use--auto for auto curves, the top black eyedropper you select the darker points in your gif and it will adjust based on that, the bottom one for the lightest--if i use those i will either use the black one only, or the black and then the white. the other three are examples of how my curve layers may look--i already have S curves in my psd, so when i do extra curve adjustments, it's just one single point, and i don't move it that much. same with levels, i dont make a super dramatic change, when it's under the psd it's enough to just move a bit to make a big difference. sometimes i'll also bring these layers to a lower opacity.

generally my first step is color balance though, especially if the gif seems mostly fine lighting wise. for obx, i usually shift it towards cyan and blue to cancel out the red tones. magenta and green depends, if its more green i may move towards magenta and vice versa, but usually i dont shift it that dramatically and often leave it alone. i will usually move the bottom bar towards blue, to soften the yellow tones. color balance helps shift the overall colors of the gif. notice that it's on mid tones in these pictures:

as you can see, i shift the cyan/red one more dramatically than the yellow/blue, and with magenta and green i usually just move it 1-3 points over. in the last one, i actually shifted towards red above my psd layer, because after all my adjustments i lost some of the red/warmth, so i brought back in red.

with color balance/curves, the gif may looks something like this

less of a completely red/yellow filter over everything! but still not great, their skin is too red, and overall still not the best base to try colorings. so next up is selective color, which can really help you fine tune things, but because of that.... SUUUUPER tedious. i will have 3495874 selective color layers and sometimes like 5 of them will be half canceling each other out just to get something okay. but this is a hobby i've chosen so we must suffer LKRGJRG. generally, my realm revolves around red, yellow, and at times magenta or neutral. if you think back to how we fixed some of the colors with color balance, kind of a similar principle, just with the individual colors. and lots of experimenting. so with color balance i would cancel out reds by making them more cyan--on the red selective color, im also gonna turn up the cyan. for yellow, i'm gonna make it more magenta, to make the yellow tones warmer. i will tweak the other tones too, just kinda experiment to see how changing it affects the gif, and then soon you will kind of intuitively know how to change the values based on whats going on in the gif lighting. magenta selective color helps for red values that are more pink, so make them more red or yellow based on what you need--i don't use this as much, hence i didnt have an example in the crop of psds i opened, but it's helpful sometimes. with neutral selective color, it usually affects the whole gif, so again, only minimal changes--usually i will bring the black levels down if it got to bright, or add just a tinge or yellow or cyan or whatever i need. here's some pics to show examples of what mine looked like for this gif:

there were many more, but i just chose a few. the '1' and '2' i wrote to demonstrate that these layers were sequential, how they balance each other, and how selective color can be a tedious balancing act-- the second example it's like basically the opposite but it balances it out. also, if you have two characters with different skin tones, or the lighting is different for them, etc, you can use layer masks to erase certain adjustments so it only affects one of the subjects. some of these tweaks will be inbetween me transforming the gif to be colorful, and noticing how the colors interact, etc. so between this i was also making it colorful and it's not exactly the finished product at this stage: but this is kind of what the gif would look like after all the adjustments just to get it looking... normalish:

not totally perfect but MUCH better, and also will look a little different when surrounded by the colors i want to turn it into. i have some stuff about how i color in this tag, i can do a lil other tutorial or smth if needed but bc i have limited photo space on the ask and already wrote so much i wont get super into it here. but for shows like obx, it helps to work with a group of colors that will work with the show--yellows/oranges are easier bc of all the yellow already found in the show. pinks can be harder because there is so much yellow in the show, but doable. greens are good because of all the green in the show, and thus blues are good because its easy to go from green to blue with selective color and stuff. thus, purples are good too because its easy to go from blue to purple! stuff like that makes it easier. some work with selective color, hue and saturation, gradients, and voila!

you can see how maybe some of the issues like it being still a little too yellow/greeny toned balances out with the surrounding colors.

also, a big part of it is just practice! i've been giffing for yeaaaaaars and with media that has just the most god awful lighting so i've gotten good at understanding what to do and sometimes i'm just on auto pilot.

hopefully that helped, i know it was long winded and it can be hard to explain/understand photoshop. if y'all want some more in depth explanation about a part of the process i can try, or with other examples!

[mucdonald]

Hey y’all!! I’m Jinx, I’m always tired and I use caps lock too much & ramble like it’s no one’s business. I’ll be playing Mary MacDonald and she’s truly one of my favorite characters I’ve been writing for years -- so I’m so so excited to bring her here to this wonderful RP! Most of what’s under the cut are just some fun rambles, trying to give you a proper look at Mary but I’ve also included a stat sheet and biography for further insight! 

AESTHETIC: Double winged black & gold eyeliner, graphic nerdy tees, tight fitting jeans, staying up all night, being the best friend you can be, giving the best presents,  perfectly manicured hands, always biting back, dark purple lipstick, scattered newspapers, marijuana smoke, Queen on vinyl, horned rimmed glasses, faded denim, quiet optimism, open cynicism, being messy with the words you speak but not write.

CHARACTER INSPO: Margo Hanson ( The Magicians ), Gina Linetti ( B99 ), Spencer Hastings ( PLL ), Cristina Yang ( Grey’s Anatomy ), Rachel Green ( FRIENDS ), Ben Wyatt ( Parks & Rec ), Ella Lopez ( Lucifer )

INFO: → biography • stat sheet • pinterest 

TRIGGERS: racism, prejudice, ptsd, drugs 

so mary is a libra/virgo cusp, which fits her p well tbh. september 23th, hoes, so she’s a lil older than the rest of her classmates though she definitely doesn’t act it.

her parents are sucky to her tbh but her brother and her are partners in crime. unfortunately he’s in his last year of uni before med school rn and he’s totally focused on that and not around as much.

coming to hogwarts was a dream and she met these people who are undoubtedly family.

in her fifth year mary had made a newspaper of her own for the school, only to find it all RUINED bc some ppl had fucked it up the day before she was gonna hand them out ( if u wanna be that person hmu ). it really upset her but it made her even more want to be a journalist and hasn’t stopped writing since. it’s not really a thing she talks about often, tbh? she used to a lot but she’s v scared deep down that something’ll happen again so she’s kept it to herself and in the future will get an offer from the prophet to write for them ( she’ll be treated p shitty due to being a muggleborn woman of color BUT ). at the moment though she really doesn’t know what to do with her life and feels particularly aimless despite her being super intelligent and having p good grades. really really aimless.

did i mention she loves her friends more than she loves herself????? BC SHE REALLY DOES. i imagine when she was in the hospital after her attack ( bc of mental reasons ) they came to visit her and it just made her love them more. regarding the incident though, while we don’t have a mulciber ( this is also very much open ended until we have one ) i imagine that mary, while she didn’t ask to be attacked, definitely instigated it to a degree. i imagine she could’ve easily egged on mulciber, as she usually does not know how to have a filter, and honestly i could’ve seen her doing it for a long time. in my opinion, this is why mulciber didn’t get kicked out from school -- because i could imagine the administration bringing up some BS like ‘well she instigated it’ also just being prejudiced bc she’s a muggleborn and a woc! but again, all of this is really open to changing as i don’t want to godmod! 

if you can handle her personality and shit, she’ll most likely love you. 

loves the bad guys with the sad eyes and the mouth full of white lies TBH it’s such a mess. not even because she thinks she can change them or make them better … it’s just her type it seems like … it’s REALLY FRUSTRATING. don’t ask her about her ex. she also love dorks tho. mary is definitely not interested in any kind of love or relationships though.

but she’s also BI BI BI she really thinks girls are a gift to the universe. she’s really figuring it out more so NOW, is probably out to her friends but not AT ALL to her parents, yikes

in the future she WILL have a chewbacca costume, too bad star wars hasn’t come out yet

is pretty rich and would buy her friends all chewbaca costumes if they wanted ( in the future )

is one of those stoners who are also perfectionistic and hardworking

WILL FIGHT BIGOTS ALL DAY EVERYDAY, will NEVER compromise who she is bc they hate her for her BLOOD. NEVER EVER. will ALWAYS PUNCH ASSHOLES AND BIGOTS IN THE FACE

she does suffer from ptsd, but she’s had a lot of therapy over the past summer that have helped her deal with it. she does still sometimes have random angry misplaced outbursts and still have nightmares but they’ve gotten a lot better thanks to the miracle that is Marijuana. she’s definitely still in the messy ass healing place though

would probably share her pot with you too she’s p nice about that

OH SHE WEARS GLASSES AND SHES GOT FRECKLES ACROSS HER NOSE AND CHEEKS!!!!!!

she really loves her friends, btw, idk if i mentioned that. i wanted to put peter quill as one of her character parallels bc she really acts like him sometimes and can be that reckless and stupid but it felt really random along side everyone ELSE so like THERE’S THAT FUN FACT

 CONNECTIONS ( though i’m doing badly at thinking of these rn ): 

FRIENDSHIPS: i need every sort of friendship! i need mary’s best friends! friends who bond over having a fucking hard time right now! stoner friends! friends mary stays up with all night to study with!

PURISTS AND ASSHOLES SHE’S PUNCHED IN THE FACE: self explanatory! 

FLINGS: mary is v much the type to casually hook up with people so i’m open to all these sorts of connections!! 

ANTAGONISTIC: these two butt heads whether it’s because they’re so alike or because they both just have a different set of ideals but do like challenging each other!!

TUTORS: mary is great with her school subjects in theory but in practice she’s definitely not the strongest witch and needs help from other people much more talented at magic!

BAD INFLUENCE: especially this year, mary is giving into her vices, into her complicated feelings, up all hours of the night, maybe someone who indulges this, someone she doesn’t realize is really trying to get her to give into this negative shit!

GOOD INFLUENCE: someone who helps mary see the good still, who pushes her to push through her pain or at least accept it. just a good human you know! 

MOM FRIEND: i mean y’all see she’s a mess someone give her a mom friend. pls. 

PAST RELATIONSHIPS/ROMANTIC TENSION: i’m open to maybe one or two lil cutesy relationships?? mary’s first love/everything broke her heart the summer before her fifth year so anytime before that. even if it was just something cute and innocent and it just didn’t work out or maybe they had something, it was there, but when she went home and fell in love w/ the dude who then broke her heart, she was TOTALLY closed off and it just never progressed from there. 

PARTY FRIEND: they always have a great time partying together, some of mary and them best times! tbh this could work for anyone as long as they’d be able to put up with mary and have a fun time

ANYTHING ELSE: i personally love talking about ideas etc so! anything else is great too!