#i drew this with a new pen that’s much thicker than my usual one so she looks a bit odd

[kewpiekills]

Can we get a fat transfem butch betta fish? 👉👈 /Pos eee I love ur art sm!!

here you are! my sparklebetta is also trans, but she isn’t as fat

[garablacktail]

“Ugly art”

  I’m not sure how to label this, originally intended for it be a mark exercise, It has aquired some emotional significance to me, to the point of naming it, it’s kind of emotionally charged, but it’s not really vent art, I wasn’t trying to express anything with it.

I have absolutely not clue wat to call this thing.   Anyhow, I have been struggling with feeling like a faillure, just in everything, Didn’t actually graduate this year my art was getting worse the more effort I was putting and in general putting effort in life was either doing nothing or making living more painful.

Art wise this meant that drawing with the stylus was simply painful, I drew with a mouse and keyboard for about a year, I reached a fairly high high, I got to a point where what I want to draw and improve at was getting stunted by the keyboard and mouse, I was basically transitioning from Paint to Krita again.

  So I fished out a stylus I was given out of a closet that I forgot about and set to try and do that transition again, this time mouse to stylus. I’m putting a lot into it, to the point of gripping the stylu’s pen in a “propper” way rather than how I usually hold pens and whatnot (my normal grip would put too much pressure on it, I have snapped a bunch of cheap pencils in half over the years simply by using them), looked up what sort of exercises would I need to do with it in order to get the muscle coordination, how tf you actually draw using your fingers, hands, wrists, elbows, arms and shoulders.

I basically set myself to learn how to run upsidedown in order to be a marathon runner. (granted I did procrastinate a bit with deciding to actually do that)

And that’s all fine, I know it’ll take a lot of time and effort in order to get there, I knew the quality of what I’ve made would decrease, same thing happened when I first moved from Paint and I’d be able to use less of what I’ve accrued with mouse and keyboard with the stylus compared to it (I was essentially making quasi drawing layers on paint by the point I decided to move on).

  The issue came when I came to be patient and kind to myself over this, it became specially painful as I was making the linework for a piece of my sona, 2/3 of the time was spent ctrl Z’ing every new mark I drew so it fit the sketch better and meshed nicer with the other marks already there.

I broke  when 2 things happened, requring to have a straight line at the sole of one my feet that meshes with the toes (so a straight line that connects well with not only one curved line from one side of the foot, but another one in a different direction making the toes), and a bit less importantly that the backside of one of my knee’s wasn’t working when I lined it, it looked fine on the sketch, but it was because it was thicker than the lineart, so I’d have to prob redjig the sketch since it was a fairly large rework.

And that’s the keyword that made drawing so painful, *rework*, all I was doing was making a mark, undo and repeat, I honestly should’ve scrapped that piece sooner, because it made me too anxious to draw at all, so I stopped drawing which made me anxious to start drawing again, and then when I set myself to start drawing again, even if it’s almost nothing, just a mark exercise, I didn’t because all I was doing was worrying about starting to draw (thanks ADHD)

Doing anything with the stylus was pain, and setting up my workspace to use it takes a bit of effort which is basically poison at this point, so I basically stopped using it, I didn’t want to give up on improving, so I didn’t go back to drawing with mouse and keyboard (it’s not pixel art, it’s legit cartoon/manga ish stuff made with the straight line tool lol), so I stopped drawing and just kept constantly comparing to myself.

  All this rambling is to give context to why this specific mark exercise became significant for me. at this point drawing has been a obligation I set myself that I procrastinated.

I actually enjoyed making this thing, which is why the quotations in the name of it are also a part of the name, I don’t give a shit, I don’t care if I draw “good art”, I’ll draw shit, I’ll draw stuff that looks worse, I don’t care if I draw stuff that makes me look like I’m getting worse, stuff that’s ugly.

Whilst I initially did undo some of the marks in order to make them again but I tried to only  undo whatever I did if it was a random squiggle the stylus drew because I accidentally hit the pen on it, I also used it for my signature so it’d be legible

A given line is squigly? it stays. The lines are fraying? they stay. Stuff is not allgined? they stay. The marks aren’t close enough and it’s becoming less of a line and more noisy rectangle? it stays. Straight lines are curves? they stay.

It looks far worse than another mark exercise I made last week, but this one the hard part was stopping rather than continuing.

  Really hope I do the same thing for a full piece next year, It’s gonna be hard but I’m gonna try to stick with making “bad/ugly/crap art”

[xiaomoxu]

MLQC CN Lucien (Xu Mo) Long Day Date Part 3 & 4

SPOILERS AHEAD!!

It's Xu Mo Birthday which has released on CN server. I'm doing translation for personal reason, so I'm sorry if there's some mistranslation. Kindly tell me if you found some :) feel free for read it~ ^^

Read Part 1 & 2 here

PART 3

I poured the white tea-scented batter into the mold Xu Mo handed over, and couldn't help sighing.

MC: So you knew it from the beginning, including the gifts I prepared...

Xu Mo: Knowing what you want me to do is not the same as seeing you doing these things for me.

MC: But this is not a surprise!

Xu Mo: Is it important to you to surprise me? Then I can be more surprised next time.

Xu Mo smiled, unscrewed the faucet, reached out to test the temperature, and rinsed my battered hand under the warm water.

I watched the water flow down, and he wrapped my palms, tacitly obeyed.

MC: Forget it, I just want you to be a little more happy on your birthday, and I don't really have to surprise you.

Xu Mo: Your presence is the biggest surprise to me.

His lowered voice fell on my ears, and the heat spread to my heart. I couldn't help giving him a chin on the top of my head to cover up the fluctuations in my heart.

Xu Mo closed the water, pulled the plain cotton cloth on one side, and drew it dry.

My heart is beating between fingers and fingers. Xu Mo was very calm, his palms were dry and warm.

Xu Mo: Having been busy for so long, wanna take a break now?

MC: It's okay, I'm not very tired.

Xu Mo's voice seemed to have a magical power, and people couldn't help but relax after hearing it. Although I said that I was not tired, I yawned naturally.

Xu Mo: Take a break.

When I came to the living room, the autumn sunshine outside the window filled the room, and it seemed warm. I looked at the soft sofa, really tired.

Xu Mo : Are you going to bed?

MC: No, no need! I'll just lie down here.

Xu Mo: Alright then, I'll get a blanket.

I quickly found a place to lie down on the sofa, and there was a text book and Xu Mo's coffee on the coffee table.

I picked up a book at random, and when I opened it, it was full of some difficult proper nouns, which completely exceeded my vocabulary, which made me feel sleepy.

Xu Mo: Are you interested in quantum mechanics?

MC: What?

I raised my neck and looked at Xu Mo who was walking over with the blanket in hand. His smile was very reserved, and I suddenly had the urge to not admit defeat.

MC: Hmm! But the words in this book are too small. It makes my eyes dizzy.

Xu Mo: Then, I read it for you?

Xu Mo sat beside me, covering me with the blanket.

The heat on his body attracted me inexplicably, and when he approached, I could smell the white tea scent left by the cake.

Xu Mo: Lie down, you will sleep better.

Xu Mo pointed to his leg. I hesitated for three seconds, still unable to hold back my greedy heart, blushing and lying down curled up.

MC: It's... really warm.

I raised my head and looked at the superior line of Xu Mo's jaw. He lowered his head and smiled at me, picking up his glasses and the original book on one side

Xu Mo: Then I started?

MC: Ah? Ah! Okay.

Xu Mo began to read the difficult original book. His voice is elegant and gentle, and every turn is like a sprout that has just broken through the soil, touching my heart softly.

I can't understand most of the words in his mouth, but the soft voice is like a flowing waltz. Just listening to it makes me happy.

Before I knew it, I slowly closed my eyes, and gradually stepped into the dark and sweet...

MC: Ah.. what time is it?

When I opened my eyes again, there was a faint warmth in front of my eyes, and a light smile sounded in my ears.

Xu Mo: Woke up?

The darkness in front of me exposed layers of crevices, and bright sunlight came in. I sat up slowly and saw Xu Mo sitting beside me smiling at me.

Xu Mo: I thought... you could sleep a little longer.

He took off his glasses in one hand and still held the original book of quantum mechanics in the other.

I rubbed my eyes, still a little sleepy. The sunlight came over from behind him, and for a while, I was almost uncertain whether I was still in a dream.

His shirt looked a little messy for some reason, and a few buttons were loosened, revealing the usual hidden lines.

My eyes circled back and forth, still a little startled, swallowing water involuntarily.

Xu Mo looked down at my sight and smiled slightly.

Xu Mo: You untied this.

MC: What?!

Xu Mo: You don't seem to be very honest when you fall asleep.

MC: What

I finally woke up, and this time I was so sober, I almost jumped off the sofa.

Xu Mo: What's wrong, don't you want to be responsible?

The smile on Xu Mo's lips grew thicker. I stared at him with widened eyes for a long time, and finally felt wrong with the sense of smell that I had cultivated through the past two years with him.

MC: You are teasing me again

I grabbed the pillow at hand and threw it over, Xu Mo caught it with a smile, and sighed regretfully.

Xu Mo: I thought you were a very responsible person.

MC: What kind of sense of responsibility is this? Childish! Cunning!

I held the pillow and launched a series of attacks, Xu Mo just parried, and did not fight back.

When I was tired, I realized that our distance had become much closer at some point

Xu Mo: Do you want to be responsible to me in this way?

He gently pulled my arm and I almost reached his chest.

I could clearly hear his steady heartbeat, and there was still the faint white tea aroma under his nose.

MC: Ah! My cake!

Xu Mo: It has been taken out and is cooling.

Xu Mo calmly supported me who almost jumped up. I looked in the direction of the kitchen, and only then did I see the closed oven.

MC: what time is it now?

Xu Mo: It's noon. I ordered food for delivery, should we have lunch first?

MC: I touched my stomach and quickly agreed.

The lunch Xu Mo ordered was Chinese food, which tasted very authentic. I asked him where the takeaway order was, but he said there was no takeaway order.

MC: How do you know the phone number?

Xu Mo: ....I remember that.

Looking at Xu Mo's plain expression, I marveled at his genius memory, and once again felt subtle.

After eating, I went back to the sofa and wanted to help him organize his books

I picked up the original book on the coffee table and went to the bookshelf in the corner.

Looking at the books in hand, I suddenly found that the title pages of these books are signed by a small pen: L.X.

MC: Strange... how does it resemble Xu Mo's English name?

When I came to the bookshelf, I couldn't help but admire again, and ran my fingers across the neatly arranged spine of the book.

The bookshelves in this hotel are amazing, they are more like the residents' personal collection, rather than the popular books that other hotels will put.

I looked at the rows of unreadable English letters, and quickly noticed a brown book on the top.

MC: What is this? No name?

I climbed the small ladder to retrieve the book and took down the book without a title. The cover is made of antique leather, and when you open it, you can even see the floating dust.

Xu Mo: What are you doing?

MC: Woah!

Xu Mo's voice suddenly rang from behind me, I turned around abruptly, shaking my hand, and the brown book fell to the ground.

Xu Mo: Be careful!

I fell back from the ladder and was in a warm and firm embrace. And the man was frowning, looking at me intently and nervously.

Xu Mo: Did I scare you?

MC: No! I am always in a panic. Ah, I just dropped a notebook, let's see if there is anything wrong.

Xu Mo: It's you who should confirm that there is nothing wrong.

MC: I'm fine! When setting up the shooting scene, I often climb up and down like this, hahahaha

Xu Mo's eyes remained on me, faintly showing the inexplicable gloominess gradually turned into helplessness. I dare not look deeply and pick up the notebook that has fallen on the ground.

MC: This is...

When I saw what was falling out of the notebook, I was stunned for a while.

MC: Xu Mo..

Xu Mo gave a hum, then suddenly thought of something, and smiled softly.

Xu Mo: Did you still find out

I held the yellowed photo with two fingers, turned my head, and looked at the man in front of me.

MC: Why are there photos of you when you were a kid here?

PART 4

MC: Hahahahahaha! You were so cute when you were young!

Xu Mo: Is it cute? I don't seem to be described that way.

I don’t know how long it took, and Xu Mo and I were still looking through this old photo album on the sofa. I pressed against his warm body, and gradually forgot the time.

After uncovering this treasure, I almost opened the door to a new world about Xu Mo, and I had many questions about every photo.

Xu Mo patiently answered me one by one. For some reason, he always seemed to have a self-sustaining calmness about his past, not excited, nor missed.

MC: So why didn't you tell me this in the beginning this your apartment?

Xu Mo: It's just a residence, it's not very different from a hotel.

MC: How come?! You have been living here when you were studying in the UK, this is your home, right?

Xu Mo's face seemed to be slightly moved, but he quickly returned to his calm and faint smile.

Xu Mo: From the perspective of property ownership, it can be understood this way.

After learning that this is the place where Xu Mo once lived, all the subtle feelings this apartment gave me can be explained.

The X on the doorplate is too homey and familiar, the white rice and tea in the kitchen, and the special bookshelf and the signature on the book...

I didn't expect this person to be so cunning that he would bring me to his home again without knowing it.

MC: Wow, how old were you? There is cake cream on your face, not that you don’t eat sweets is it?

Xu Mo: It was when I was 6 years old. I didn't eat that time either.

MC: Eh?

Turning back a few pages, I gradually discovered that all Xu Mo's photos seemed to be 7 years old.

Thinking of the scenes I saw in my dream before, I couldn't help but squeeze.

I looked up at Xu Mo beside me. In the setting sun, his eyebrows were covered with a faint blood red, and I couldn't help but clenched his hand

MC: Xu Mo...

Xu Mo: What happened?

MC: Nothing, just, suddenly.....

Perhaps it was my palm that conveyed some uneasy emotions. Xu Mo looked at me and quickly showed a soothing smile, touching the back of my hand.

Xu Mo: it's already over. Now, I am by your side.

MC: ..... I am a little unhappy because there is no me in your past!

MC: In the future, we should read our memories book on this day.

Xu Mo stared at me for a long time. After a long silence, his eyebrows finally opened with a long-lost relaxed smile.

Xu Mo: Well, it's like the memories book you prepared for me last year.

MC: We will have many memories books.

I shook my head vigorously, trying to get rid of the anxiety and worries that had just surged in my heart. A light from outside the window came in. I was shocked by the passing of time.

MC: Ah! It's already this time, the cake is not finished yet!

Xu Mo: Don't worry, there is still a while before dinner is ordered.

I hurriedly stood up and looked at Xu Mo's appearance in his spare time. He always seems to anticipate all my flaws and make all arrangements.

I looked at his eyebrows and pulled his hand.

MC: Let's do it together!

Xu Mo's face was slightly blank, and he quickly recovered.

Xu Mo: I haven't done it. Wouldn't it matter if you accidentally spoil your gift?

MC: But you are the most important part of the gift! Doing this with you will make it more meaningful!

Xu Mo stared at me in depth and light for a few rounds. It seemed more mysterious in the twilight, but it made me feel at ease.

He nodded slightly and said yes.

Xu Mo: Then you should teach me carefully

I cheered and pulled him to the counter to take out the cake then start to make the cream.

Xu Mo watched me cut through the cake base skillfully, pour the cream and fruit layer by layer, and his face seemed to be in a trance.

MC: Come, put cream in.

I handed him the decorating tool unceremoniously, and he was shocked for a few seconds, and began to use a rigorous method of experimentation.

I looked at him cautiously and couldn't help but laughed.

Xu Mo: ....Is the way I am now, funny?

MC: No! Wait a minute!

Before Xu Mo could react, I rushed to the suitcase and fetched a Polaroid. I took a photo of Xu Mo holding the cream bag from a distance.

Xu Mo's face was caught off guard, and he laughed again soon.

Xu Mo: Are you going to leave me here alone, teacher?

MC: Don't panic, I am coming!

I put the Polaroid on the edge of the table and began to teach Xu Mo how to squeeze the cream into various decorative shapes.

MC: It’s not that difficult, you see, it’s like drawing...

As expected to be a genius who mastered a scalpel, Xu Mo quickly learned the trick and squeezed a gardenia shape on the cake.

MC: Wow, that's amazing! I have been studying for so long, but I still can't do this level.

Xu Mo: It's more interesting than imagined.

With the help of Xu Mo, the cake gradually took shape. Every line is beautiful and smooth.

After finishing decorating, there is some cream left in the bag. Xu Mo's gaze swept around and suddenly fell on my finger.

Xu Mo: Let me do another exercise.

MC: What?

I haven't reacted yet, Xu Mo has already pulled my left hand and skillfully squeezed a snow-white gardenia on my ring finger.

Xu Mo: Do you like it?

I looked at the delicate white flowers like sculptures on my fingers, and couldn't help but blush.

MC: .... this is a waste.

Xu Mo: It won't be wasted.

My heart jumped, only to see Xu Mo lowered his head and leaned close to my finger, the back of the finger was warm and warm, and that white gardenia had been accepted by him.

MC: Xu Mo! What....

Xu Mo: Well, it seems to be sweeter than the one on the cake.

Xu Mo's long and narrow eyes showed a bright light, and my heart was beating like a drum. It took a long time to react and hurriedly withdrew my hand.

MC: No, don't challenge the teacher thinking that you have learned it! Now you have to learn to write!

I hurriedly took out the jam and the one-size French flower, but because I was too panic, I couldn't find a suitable filter.

Xu Mo's hand stretched out from behind, and accurately inserted the metal filter into the cut piping bag

Xu Mo: can we start?

MC: ....Okay, thank you.

His arms are warm and strong, and the mood that has just been disrupted finally stabilizes a little bit. I installed the jam and cleared my throat.

MC: The next sentence I wrote is a demonstration for you.

While I was talking, I moved my wrist and wrote this line solemnly in front of his eyes.

Happy Birthday to Mr. X

MC: Did you see it clearly?

Xu Mo: Yes, clearly.

The voice seemed to stop for a while before it sounded deep, and when it fell to my ears, it shocked my heart with countless gentle ripples.

It seems that this day's rush, or everything that has been done for this person in the past, hundreds of days and nights of company, have a place to stay.

The dusk outside the window gradually deepened, and the street lights on the street came on. The warm lights in the house surround us, and the sweet creamy aroma persists.

Xu Mo: Thank you.

MC: .... It's your turn.

Xu Mo took the piping bag in my hand, and suddenly wrapped my waist with his other hand, pulling me over.

His magnified face caught in my eyes, my chest was full, but I couldn't bear to look away.

MC: Write well..

Xu Mo: Okay, I'm writing.

His other hand walked skillfully on the cake behind me, but his eyes were tightly locked on my face, gentle and relaxed, with ease.

MC: What are you writing?

I wanted to look back, but he was firmly clamped on. His approaching face made me unable to escape, I could only hit his forehead and listen to him whispering.

Xu Mo: It doesn't matter what I wrote. More importantly, thank you that you're here with me.

I also remembered that when I met Xu Mo at the airport, he was confident that there was always a certainty in his eyes that I couldn't see through.

MC: So what is your third basis?

Xu Mo paused, smiling slowly.

Xu Mo: it's you.

MC: What do you mean?

Xu Mo: Because it is you, I know you will come.

I blinked, a little unconvinced.

MC: Anyway, Professor Xu has always known everything.

Xu Mo chuckled lightly, his warm lips pressed against me, his breath with the aftertaste of buttery gardenia.

Before closing my eyes, I had already peeked from the corner of the light that he had written on the chocolate card.

Maybe I have long been used to letting go of everything in front of this omniscient person.

Just like everything he put down to me

Xu Mo: starting today, here is...

The second half of his sentence was hidden between his lips, and it became the eternal secret of this day.

And the small letters on the row of chocolate cards still appeared in front of my eyes.

1115 with you, at home.

-END-

Thank you for reading ><

[theimpossiblescheme]

Olympia

(This one’s been in my drafts for a while... we all talk about Bi Disasters Cyrano and Christian, but the world needs more Bi Disaster Roxanne to balance them out.)

“Do my eyes deceive me, or have we at last seen the end of that eternal tapestry?”

Roxanne looked up at the familiar voice and smiled.  She wasn’t in her usual chair with her embroidery in front of her today; instead she sat beneath a tree in the orchard on a thin blanket, a small wicker basket beside her and papers upon papers strewn about her.  “No such luck, I’m afraid.  It’s been too cold for needlework, so I’ve left it waiting in my cell for warmer weather.”

“Then you’ve taken up your poems again, have you?”  Ducking under one of the branches and settling carefully on the ground next to her, Cyrano picked up one of the papers—her personal stationery, stained with a vaguely lavender shade and the lingering scent of old perfume, still folded neatly so the words were hidden—and couldn’t help a small half-smile of his own.  “I remember before you left for Paris, you used to slip these under my plate for me to read over dinner.”

“And you would make all sorts of annotations and corrections in the margins,” Roxanne retorted with a gently chiding look, but a twinkle in her eyes.  “By the time you were done, I could hardly make out my own writing.”

“You asked for my brutal honesty, and so I gave it.  Anything less would have been an insult to your talent—I noticed its kindling and tried to help you stoke a greater flame.”  What else could he have possibly done—leave a perfectly good bit of verse unfinished and fling her to the mercy of Paris’s intellectuals?  The very thought was almost criminal.  And Roxanne had a much thicker skin than most of the preciuses, he’d found; he could give her honest criticism, and she would take it.  Oh, she might pout a bit, but she would still take it, at least from him.  Such was their understanding.

The gleam in her eyes faded, and she suddenly looked very tired.  “For all the good it’s done me recently.  I haven’t written anything new in so long.”  She took the paper from him, unfolded it, and stared down at the words, but she didn’t seem to truly read or even see them.  There was something immaterial and so far away in her usually expressive face, and all at once the evening seemed that much colder.  “These past few years, I… I wanted to hear nothing but elegies, mourning for some great men and women, for my own sins.  And so that was all I wanted to write.  It was as though I opened a vein every time I refilled the ink.  But filling so much parchment with my own blood only turned me weak and cold… any more, and my heart would burst.  So I stopped.  I thought I would… look over some of my old things for inspiration. Stir some new life into myself.”

All Cyrano could do was nod. In truth, it was more than he’d managed for so many years.  Now, his own quill only scratched viciously across the page, denouncing the frauds, the sycophants, the false prophets of some counterfeit muse leering over Paris. His daily bread was funded by the vitriol he spat from the columns of the Gazette.  No more pretty words, no more beautiful metaphors singing up to their reader like a symphony of hand-picked stars, no more odes to those he loved instead of hated… who was left that he loved?  Roxanne was a widow forever in cloistered mourning, and Christian…

How could he possibly say? How could he possibly tell her when he’d so pointedly avoided breathing a word to either of them for so long?  It was too much… even if he waited another decade, he might never find the words.  And even if he did, he could never say them—not now.

Instead, he plucked at the edge of the paper she held with two fingers, his touch light and his voice lighter.  “Will you permit me?”

Rousing from her trance, Roxanne looked up again and gave a tinkling little laugh before loosening her grip.  “Of course.  Peruse the contents of my heart freely.  You alone know it best these days.”  Cyrano hoped he’d concealed the small hitch in his breath as he accepted it and read.

It was more list than poem, as though Roxanne had seen or thought of something exquisite and hastened to write it down before she forgot.  Flowing by in a breathless stream of consciousness, her words were simple, but so evocative.  Everything was so deeply felt—the orange guttering of streetlamps, the sudden heady rush of a lady’s sandalwood fan, the soaring crescendo of the Confiteor’s final verses, the inevitable streaks of cream and frosting punctuating Ragueneau’s handwriting—that each paper he read felt like a brief glimpse into her world, teased out through these seemingly trivial details.  Not exactly Shakespeare, but so… Roxanne, Cyrano concluded.  How like her, to transform the mundane into the sublime.

He reached for another paper, the title Olympia lovingly etched across the top in rose-red ink, but this time her hand darted out and snatched it away.  “Not that one.  Please don’t read that one.”

Cyrano’s hand drew back. “Does it embarrass you?”

“No.  Yes.  I don’t know.”  Roxanne had gone a deep, blotchy red and her chin tucked tightly against her collar, attempting to hide as she clutched her poem.  “Perhaps it should.  I don’t know what… what you would think of me if you read it.”

“I could never think any less of you, Roxanne.”  When she refused to relent, Cyrano switched tack.  “If you will not let me read it, perhaps you might describe it to me?”

For a long moment, she said nothing.  The blush across her face darkened, and she worried at her lower lip, no doubt pondering if she could dare betray her secret.  And still she clutched the poem under her ribs as though hoping she could absorb the words into her own body.  Cyrano was about to tell her not to mind, that he shouldn’t have asked and she should not have to reveal anything that caused her such discomfort, when her eyes darted back and forth across the orchard and she leaned toward him, like she was afraid someone else might be watching.  “You must promise never to tell anyone,” she urged him, voice dangerously low.  “Not even the Sisters—especially not the Sisters.”

“My dear lady, nothing could be further from my mind.”  And he meant every word.

Satisfied, Roxanne drew closer and squeezed Cyrano’s hand, just as she had all those years ago in the bakery as she told him about Christian.  Her face was still red, but she no longer looked ill and afraid, even as she worked up the courage to speak.  “When I first debuted among the preciuses… there was a girl by that name.  The name from the poem.”  She raised the hand clutching the paper against her by a few inches.  “I never knew her well, but… I admired her so.  She was—she was breathtakingly beautiful.  She had the blackest hair, so dark it seemed to swallow the light, but in the evenings under the lamplight… it took on such a dazzling silvery glow, like a net of stars.  As though the heavens themselves had been spun into her skin.” Roxanne’s eyes shone as she spoke, a sheen of tears or memories descending upon her before the spell was broken and she looked back down to earth.  “I felt as though I—I had to commit the sight to memory and write it down in case I ever forgot.”

“But you never did forget.” Cyrano’s voice was soft, understanding.

“No… I could never have. It’s been almost twenty years… and I can’t recall ever having spoken more than five words to her.  Isn’t that silly?”

“Not at all.  This is in the same tradition of the knights of old, clinging to some token from a fair maiden who happened to smile upon them after a tournament.  Lancelot to Guinevere, Don Quixote to Dulcinea, Petrarch to Laura… all adoring from afar and never breathing a word.” If she only knew… and if she only knew how often, drafting his letters to her from Christian’s heart channeled into his pen, he found himself thinking of them both.  Every mention of her red-gold hair became a meditation on Christian’s golden curls, every gesture of hers a reminder of Christian’s easy smile, the stubborn set of his jaw, the softness of his hands that slowly lessened as he developed more callouses, the confidence in his gait contrasted with the quick-stop hesitation in how he moved his hands, the self-deprecation that would settle over him like a dark fog… all burned into his mind like the memory of the sun.  They were so closely entwined that they melted into one.

Sometimes Cyrano wondered how Christian would react if one of these letters arrived for him, a signatureless sigh of things he could never say out loud, not in front of him. Sometimes he wondered if it truly meant betraying Roxanne… could he not love them both?  God, whoever He was, crafted a man’s heart with the capability to hold so many people… could it not do the same with romantic love as it could with the love of friends and family?  Could a heart not rest as a word within parentheses, bracketed, sheltered, and safe between two gentle embraces?  Was there room for that in God’s plan, for two men to love the same woman and each other at the same time?

He didn’t suppose he would ever know the answers to any of those questions.  But listening to Roxanne now, Cyrano knew he hadn’t been the only person asking them once upon a time.  And he felt a slight pressure in his chest lighten at the thought.

Presently, Roxanne stroked a strand of hair back from her forehead, and Cyrano could have traced the path of her hand across her skin from memory.  “Perhaps I would have been happier that way.  Forever pining for Olympia, never turning my gaze elsewhere.  Perhaps… perhaps I would not be here now.”

Cyrano’s hand tightened around hers, and he could only pray she didn’t feel it shaking.  “You are here now because you have dared to love closer and dearer than that.  You have loved eyes that looked back in your direction and hands that warmed your own.  These are dearer than any net of stars.  You have been a mortal grasping at godhood only to find a sweeter mortality waiting… and I would never begrudge you either of them.”

Another long, silent moment passed between them.  Roxanne looked down at the paper in her hand and carefully unfolded it, smoothing out the well-worn creases between her fingers.  Then, still without saying a word, she handed it to him to read, and Cyrano accepted with a reverent nod.  Every detail was there as she’d said, listed like a map of stars—the stars in Olympia’s hair, the stars in her midnight-dark eyes, dancing across the fabric of her dress and the freckles across her arms and the back of her neck.  A diagram of heaven as she’d glimpsed it years and years ago.

He passed it back to her, pressing it into her free hand.  “Beautiful. Faultless, even, I would say.”

The roses in her cheeks returned as she smiled and dropped her head onto his shoulder.  “I am glad you think so.”

[clansayeed]

The Favor ― a Bound by Destiny drabble

⥼ Summary ⥽ 

When Adrian calls on the services of Katherine for a second time she asks for a favor rather than her usual pay. Adrian takes a brief trip to New Orleans and meets a stranger on a mission to recover his lost memories.

note: This piece takes place during Bound by Destiny, and is a brief answer to the question “Where is Adrian?” during Chapter 8. The events of this short also play out later in the book.

This piece takes place after the events of Bound by Circumstance.

word count: 1,127 rating: teen+ content warnings: none find out more: HERE

⥼ MASTERLIST ⥽

[READ IT ON AO3]

He registers the knock on the door solely out of habit; mumbles “Come in…” half-consciously while continuing to scribble down his notes on the scroll clamped underneath the desk lamp’s soft glow.

He’s forgotten about guests altogether until someone clears their throat behind him and Cadence’s pen leaves a line across the paper instead of his word.

“I’d say you need to get out more, Cade, but daylight and all.”

Cadence looks up into Katherine’s shining smirk. His eyes flash red with brief annoyance but the Nighthunter couldn’t be less disturbed by the sight of it. “Oh don’t gimme that,” she nags, “you said we could come in!”

We. That’s when he takes stock of the man lingering in the doorway. Dark hair, crisp suit — thicker material made for staving off the colder weather the South isn’t accustomed to, or at the very least made to appear that way — and a firm jaw set in a look of disinterest that’s practiced but untrue. Everyone’s interested in Cadence’s room of collected works. They can’t help themselves.

Immortals especially.

“Pardon the mess,” says Cadence in a way that’s clear he couldn’t care less about it; who stands and pushes his glasses up from where they’re ready to fall off his nose, “I get so absorbed in my work.”

The man still finds his trinkets more fascinating than Cadence himself. “Personal, or professional?”

“Both.”

Only when he extends a hand does Katherine’s guest find it upon himself to look Cadence in the eyes. There’s a mutual greeting there. Businessmen first, vampires second. He doesn’t know what he should be doing — should they flash fangs? Bite one another as a form of greeting? But the man just shakes his hand like any mortal would and that’s good enough.

Katherine gestures between them. Leans her hips back against Cadence’s worktop casually.

“Cadence, this is Adrian Raines. Adrian, this is Cadence Smith.”

Adrian appraises Cadence for a long moment before turning sharply to Katherine. “I agreed to do you a favor. It’s not something you can just pass on like a ticket.”

“Oh I know. And I’m not, I promise.”

Cadence looks between them with confusion brewing like a storm behind his eyes.

“I’m lost, Kathy.”

She nods; keeps talking to Adrian. “See, Cade here’s got me on retainer. When I’m not doing other jobs I’m working him on the down-low.”

“Working him… how exactly?”

Cadence gestures for Adrian to sit — has to move in a blur to clear off a space on his loveseat and deposit the large record player to its new semi-permanent home on top of his space heater — and stiffly returns to his worktop desk.

“I think it would be best for me to explain.”

Adrian, to his credit, is a polite guest. So he’s already world better than the last person Kathy brought to see him to help. And he seems genuinely interested in what Cadence has to say — when he’s not giving Katherine calculating glances.

Maybe this one might actually give them a lead.

“I’ve been hiring Nighthunters on retainer since I came to New Orleans in 1918,” he explains, and learns much about Adrian in that moment from the way his face lights up with recognition, “as a soldier shipped back from France. I believe I was misidentified.”

“You believe?” Adrian takes on the same curious tone they all do. Cadence nods.

“The doctors believed my amnesia to be a part of Shell Shock — said my memories would return as the war was put behind me. But they didn’t. I may very well be ‘Cadence LaPointe’ but I have a very strong inclination that I’m not. Originally I hired ordinary detectives, private investigators; anyone who I thought could help me but it was as if I had simply appeared on the earth with naught but my body. I didn’t even have the luxury of saying I had my mind.

“I started hiring Nighthunters both as a precaution to my condition and when it seemed I would have to search through the centuries for my answers. Kathy’s the fifth such Hunter to…” He looks to her with a wry, if pained, smile. “What’s the phrase you lot use?”

“It’s not some obscure thing, Cadence,” then to Adrian; “I drew the short straw when the last guy bet his retainer status in a game of Blackjack. He got off free and I ended up with this lunk.”

Adrian frowns. “Well you get paid, don’t you?”

“A hefty sum.” answers the other vampire. “But I think they enjoy complaining.”

“It’s a pointless task and no one has even come close to sniffing out a lead.”

There’s an acceptance in the way she says it that makes Cadence’s heart fall into his stomach. She’s a hard worker, Kathy, and a good Nighthunter. But at least the last guy wasn’t so blunt about his circumstances.

Drumming his fingers on his pressed trousers, Adrian’s silent for a long moment. Trying to think of what to say — what questions to ask, maybe. Or searching through his memories. There’s an air about him that Cadence can feel even from a distance. This is no ordinary vampire. Maybe Katherine’s finally brought him something that could spur the investigation forward.

Before he can speak, though, Katherine does. “So that favor I’m asking for instead of payment? It’s for Cadence. Hoped maybe with your Council of Crazy one of you might have heard of him, recognized him, or… whatever, you know? Knew something or someone who could get him back on the right track.”

Cadence looks to Adrian in surprise.

“‘Council?’ You’re… one of those New York Clan vampires, then?”

“Has his own Clan and a seat at the Council table.”

“I — yes,” Adrian doesn’t deny it, “but that doesn’t mean…”

Cadence finishes for him; “It doesn’t mean you can help.” He doesn’t mean to sound so resigned when he says it. Not that he got his hopes up for the presence of a complete stranger anyway. That’s simply the way his life is going it seems.

The man runs his hand over his face. His expensive watch glints in the dim light of Cadence’s desk lamp. He’s warring with himself over something. As a man familiar with the struggle he doesn’t ask out of courtesy. No matter how much he wants to.

Then Adrian surprises him.

“I’ll speak to my associates. See what we can do. I can’t make any promises but if that’s not enough, then —”

“It’s more than enough,” the Nighthunter knocks her boot against Cadence’s thigh, “right Cade?”

The smile he gives isn’t full of hope. He’s lived too long and suffered too many disappointments for that. But it is genuine.

“Any help is more than enough, Adrian. Thank you.”

[nom-the-skel]

Sans Tutorial?

Last year someone sent an ask for a tutorial about how I draw Sans, but I have been pretty busy and not gotten around to making it! I don’t know how helpful this will be, because it turns out my technique is basically:

1. draw a circle

2. draw the rest of the skeleton

But anyway, I’ll post the steps for this picture here :3

I have picked up some good tips from tutorials but I don’t use them very much because some are too basic, some are too advanced, some are written too proscriptively, and usually the example art looks way better than what I’m doing if I follow along. So my tips may be a mix of too-obvious and not-adequately-explained, but perhaps a few beginner or intermediate level artists will find something useful here :3 I will assume you know what layers are and have software that can do layers. I use Paint Tool SAI, which is pretty affordable, and there are other programs that are free.

First I draw a circle where I want the skull to be. I don’t necessarily stick with this circle as I continue sketching. And one of the advantages of drawing digitally is that I can move parts around if it’s not working. If I’m planning out a complex picture, Sans will be a circle with two more circles for eyes and a vague cylinder/blob as a body, at first.

Then sketch in more detail. Fingers are important, and I often have to go back and refine the sketch of the hands in the middle of doing the lineart.

There are many different and valid styles for drawing Sans. I always draw his eyes as this sort of arch-like shape, like a half circle that’s stretched out vertically. Even if they’re half-lidded, I start with the whole eye shape (and if they’re half closed they tend to end up pretty rectangular).

In this picture, I made his legs too short, then too long, and you can see some artifacts of how they got moved around and adjusted. (I pretty much never draw him just standing there in full-body, I guess owo) It’s much easier to adjust things in a sketch than after it’s been lined, so take your time. If I wasn’t feeling confident, or if I wanted to make the linework easier, or if I wanted someone to approve the picture before I did lines, I would do another, more-refined sketch on top of this one. But I’ve been drawing a lot of Sanses over the past few years so I didn’t :3 I do have a brush for sketches that is not totally opaque.

(Beginner tip: If you’re using a serious art program, you can reduce the opacity of the sketch layer and draw the next sketch in a new layer on top. This is how you’ll do the linework too. I also put Sans’s legs on a separate layer when I was adjusting them in this pic. This is also a good time to adjust the framing of the picture; I usually drew it too small and off-center. This pic is a bit off-center because I thought I might add text on the right side about the steps. But then I didn’t.)

Next is lines. In Paint Tool SAI, I can have multiple layers in a folder and select the whole folder as “selection source” (so I can fill in the colors later). This makes it easy to use a Lineart layer for the smooth curve of Sans’s skull, and a regular Raster layer for the rest of the lines. Of course, make sure the line width is similar. (Being able to choose a selection source other than “current layer” or “whole image” is one of the advantages of SAI in my experience.)

I used thin lines here. I don’t always, but sometimes I try to use thin lines and add plenty of detail and I’m pretty pleased with it. (Often if I want to save some energy I use thicker, rough-textured lines, so that you won’t be able to tell so much where I got the curve of the skull wrong and then adjusted it.) When I first started drawing Sans, I gave him too many teeth. Then I overcompensated and gave him too few teeth. Now I’ve settled on about this many teeth. I like to draw bony, skeletal hands. For any bones, Google image search is your friend. You don’t need to know the proper name of the bone; just search for the body area + bones. I usually draw the nose hole a bit more simplified. I don’t always bother with the drawstring. Sometimes I give him a turtleneck sweater so I don’t have to draw a glimpse of collarbone, ribs, spine inside his shirt. Idk why his tibiae are so thick today owo

Flat colors and cel shading. I like to put a bright color that contrasts with the colors I’m using in the background, so I can easily see corners that got missed by the fill tool. Usually, I do multiple layers of the base colors, so that I won’t have to worry about the edges when shading. (All the color layers are collected in a folder. Not the bg though; if it’s complex it will have its own folder.) Here, I used a shading layer for each base color layer (the shading layer is a clipping layer, so the shade color won’t be visible unless it’s overlapping its correct base color). I don’t like to be organized and label my layers, so I do the shading right after the base color, while I still remember what layer it’s on :3 You can also do the flat colors on one layer (or just in one folder) and then put a multiply or shading layer as a clipping layer over that for the shading (many fewer layers to deal with but you must pay more attention to the staying inside the lines). Aside from the sketches, I still haven’t used any brush other than the default pen. You can of course use more layers and more colors for fancier cel shading. I have used a few extra darker shades on Sans’s neck.

More shading. I usually choose between cel-shading and more shading, but I tried adding a little bit more here since it’s a tutorial. It doesn’t make a huge difference though; if I hadn’t done cel-shading, I would have made the blendy shading stand out more. You can do each color individually (here’s a tutorial about that), but you can also make a clipping layer over all the colors (flat colors on one layer or all the color layers in a folder) and make it a multiply or shade layer, and shading for all the colors there. I like to fill in this shading layer with white so it blends more between the light and dark. This is also a great technique for adding shading to something that has a pattern on its surface (e.g. you can add fur texture to your rainbow cat without painting the texture in every color of the rainbow). This is where I use brushes I adapted myself or stole from other artists :3 and another place where SAI has an advantage because it’s specifically designed to be good at painting. I lightened the background and added a little shadow (blurred with the watercolor brush).

Extra cross-hatchy lines. When I do thin lines, I like to add these lines as a little extra shading/detail. I usually do them before color, and on a separate layer so I can keep them out of the “selection source” when filling in flat colors. This time I did them at the end. They add a little texture to everything and I think they work well on the hand bones.

[im-a-writer--im-in-distress]

Salt (Insert-version)

Writer: im-a-writer—im-in-distress.tumblr.com

Fandom: Teen Wolf

Insert with: Theo Raeken

Others: McCall pack

Rating: #NewGirl, #GhostOfDepressiveHolePast

Words: 1800+

Warning(s): new girl; mention of deceased relative.

A/N: 1) This idea of Theo smelling salt started weeks ago, but I couldn’t figure out how to move with it. Then yesterday, I worked out in a little during a 10-hour car-ride to my grandparents’ place. I finished it today, just a little while ago. The initial “salt” concept is the same – (I wanted to portray that no matter what) – but the comic and the pack and all that, that was just stuff that popped up as I wrote. I kind of really like this for a couple reasons, so I’m just going ahead and posting it as is. 2) (I get the feeling there may be a series based off this coming someday.) 3) As always, I tend to write things as an OC-version first and then edit to a reader-insert. But if you’d like to read the OC-insert version, you can find that here.

It was a Tuesday after third period when Theo first smelled salt. On particularly stormy days, an edge of saltiness did hang on the breeze as it rolled in from the sea, but that was miles away. On any normal day, even a chimera like Theo Raeken couldn’t smell it. But that day, a new saltiness appeared.

It clung to the walls of his lungs as he paced through the halls of Beacon Hills High School, stealing his focus. This new scent bothered him. There were plenty of weird things in this town; a new anything never meant something good.

The chimera found himself on edge, a place he never wanted to be. He couldn’t bring himself to care about anything important. Certainly not school, but that didn’t often make his priority list. Not his pack and their constant need for supervision. Not even the newest toy of the McCall pack.

Though at least she peeked his interest.

She was a transfer student from abroad. She’d spent the last few years in Cyprus where her mother worked. Her father was in the military there, but was killed in action last month. That’s when they moved back to the town where her mother grew up. She was friendly and enjoyed playing the piano and couldn’t wait to make a fresh start in California.

Or that’s what she’d said in her introduction speech when she’d first walked into Theo’s class. Then she took the spare seat next to him in the back even though the teacher had directed her to the open desk on the other side of the classroom. She smiled at him, helping herself to his textbook, and then waved the instructor on when she noticed everyone was still staring at her. The balding man straightened his Bill Nye tie and cleared his throat, adding to the uncomfortable aura that tainted the room, and then turned to the chalkboard.

She then turned to Theo and reached a hand across her body towards him. “I’m Y/N.”

He took it, pushing a breath out of his lungs. The scent of salt was back and distracting him. “Theo.”

Y/N smiled and turned back to the lesson. Theo watched her for the rest of the period. She didn’t seem like someone who had just lost her dad. He got the impression perhaps they hadn’t been very close, she and her father. She was bright and friendly and really, really talented with a pen soaked in boredom. Her color-coded notebook that she pulled from her bag had every page covered in many, boxed pictures.

They were more than doodles. Comics, he realized. Over-exaggerated expressions and assets with unfortunate proportions detailed people in her life and moments floating around her. She’d tried to take notes, but her pen had started marking down the balding professor in his fifties with pinched features and a Bill Nye the Science Guy tie that was so long it dragged on the floor. A series of three boxes illustrated how he would trip over it every time he went to move.

Theo snorted to himself at the accuracy of the representation, and Y/N glanced at him. He was sure she would slam the notebook shut and blush or tell him off, but she gave him a simple smile before a new look crossed her face. He went stiff, blinking at her. She tilted her head and gazed at him, not saying anything. She wasn’t quite seeing him; she was just looking at him. He didn’t know what to make of that. Then she returned to her comic and started another box below the previous.

Theo watched her pen trace the lines of a new person on the right side of that new box. It was a male in a tight t-shirt and a cheeky smirk. His proportions were complimentary; someone the artist rather liked, he guessed. He was looking at the empty space beside him with a smug pleasure. Her pen sketched something behind him, peeking up from behind the desk like a fat lightning strike. Motion lines were drawn around it like it was waving back-and-forth. Theo’s brow crinkled at it. Then she drew two fluffy ears atop his head, and she leaned back, pleased, a giant grin aimed his way. Theo’s jaw dropped.

She muffled her laughter in her hand, trying hard not to draw attention to herself. Theo’s eyes bugged out of his head as he grabbed her notebook and held it up to his face, staring at the little figure. He’d been drawn into her comic as a smirking, wolf-eared cartoon!

She was still laughing when he looked at her. She shrugged at him, and took her notebook back from him. He resisted her; having caught her attention, he took a single finger and pointed at her. You next.

A look crossed her eyes, and she laid the notebook back out to fill in the blank space. The girl she drew next to the wolf-boy was different that he thought she’d draw her. Different than he’d draw her. This figure was young, very young, with pigtails and bows and a Sunday School dress. She had paint smudges on her face and tainted fingers holding up a finger-painting in celebration. A wide grin took up half her face, but it didn’t mess up the proportions; it was just a happy kid.

Y/N stared at the comic, clicking her pen on the table for a moment. Then she rocked her head like, Eh, good enough, and handed it to him.

Theo wasn’t sure what he made of this representation. It was her, sure, but so young. Like she was only happy when she was little. Simple kid joy. Theo didn’t know why that bothered him. He traced the lines with his eyes: the pigtails held with bows, the paint on her cheek and fingers, the painting being waved in the air with a giant smile plastered on her face. It was almost comedic, like Y/N was making fun of the situation. Then he realized what the little painting was of.

It was Cyprus.

The island was smudged and shaded in different concentrations as though in different colors, like it was an afterthought. Like an adult brain found a shape in their child’s mess.

But it was there. And it was intentional.

And something sad rose up in Theo’s gut. It had been bugging him all day. The bell had rung not long after that, and Y/N had skittered away with her notebook in hand.

As it turned out, he and Y/N didn’t have fifth period together, but seeing her come into the room for sixth surrounded by the McCall pack had something boiling. She hadn’t noticed him yet. But then Lydia did. And the sudden stop in her friend and a crinkle on her nose made Y/N search for the cause. She caught sight of Theo and waved, returning to her search. Lydia yanked her hand down and whispered something to her in a harsh voice, something that Y/N shot her a shocked look for and glanced at Theo with a confused expression.

Theo turned away in his seat. He didn’t need to see any more.

Halfway through class and Theo had found his gaze once again on the new girl. She sat across the room with the McCall pack, Lydia and Stiles sitting in front and beside her respectively, and the kitsune glaring at him from the corner desk. He snarled at her.

Y/N looked uncomfortable. Like she couldn’t breathe. She was stiff and awkward, and Theo could smell the panic from all the way across the room. The McCall pack was oblivious, per usual. Not a clue one they’d claimed as their own was trying not to freak out.

And on top of that, the salt scent was back and stronger than ever. That was worrying him more than it had reason to, and it was all because of this incessant need of his to be close to that girl. It made him crazy that they hadn’t noticed something was wrong; he couldn’t even go investigate the scent and trust they’d watch out for her. His leg was shaking, and he knew all three of that pack could sense his frustration. They kept shooting looks at him.

It was when Y/N shot out of the classroom at the sound of the first bell that Theo realized she hadn’t unpacked anything. She had been sitting on the very edge of her chair, bag in her lap, body made small and tense, eyes glazed over as she focused on staying calm. She hadn’t even taken out a pen to fiddle with.

And that realization made Theo shoot out the classroom door through the McCall pack without even a second glance back when Stiles started cursing at him.

They didn’t try to follow him. They didn’t try to follow Y/N. It irritated him that that annoyed him. He was chasing after some human girl. He had bigger fish to fry.

Theo shook his head and cleared his mind. Students making their last stop at their lockers crowded the halls, but thankfully, that salt scent was much more potent than any human stench. He picked it up passing an adjacent hallway aimed away from the main entrance, and he started after it. It was stronger then, and that wasn’t because there only a few stragglers around him. There was more of it in the air, a thicker stream rushing up his nose. He narrowed his eyes as it got stronger and stronger, his steps faster as he followed it deeper into the emptying halls. He followed it around another corner and then—

It was gone.

Theo sniffed the air; the salt was dimmer now. It was behind him. He turned around and found the stream again. It was dispersing, its source gone now, but there was still a concentration of it near him. He could smell it. And he could… hear it?

The chimera shook himself clear of his tracking instincts. He needed to focus. Then he heard it.

He shoved the door to the empty music room open, and Y/N leapt out of her skin. She whirled around from her place on the piano bench, her hair flying around her and bright, shimmery streaks painting her cheeks.

Theo stared at her as she stared at him, both at a loss of what to do. Her bright eyes sparkled with water, her pale skin tinted with red. The grand black piano casting a large shadow behind her made her look small. And Theo remembered the pigtails in the comic.

Y/N turned away from him, somehow trying to hide the fact that he’d seen her crying. But it didn’t matter. He could smell it clearly. It was her. The salt was from her tears.

He closed the door and came to stand behind her. The saltiness of her scent brought a sadness that chased away the fear of the unknown. It didn’t mean there was a monster. It just meant there was a human girl who was utterly heartbroken.

And he wanted to be around the day she drew a comic of herself that smiled as an adult…

[keithbyrneart]

Da, da, da, daaaaaaaa...... that’s a little more dramatic than I had intended. I love all these wonderful Sai tutorials that get posted on here but I haven’t seen much attention payed to Sai’s Lineart tool which I can’t get enough of. I’m sure there probably are Lineart Layer tutorials out there - I just haven’t come across one so I’m just adding to the pile. The Lineart tool is so awesome it deserves any number of tutorials anyway. It’s so easy to use, it saves me so much time, and it offers so much control which I really love. Honestly, the tool is so easy to use that this is less of a tutorial and more of just a general encouragement to just whip it out and start playing with it. Yeah. So say we start with a simple line like this swirly-wirly thingy that I drew with the marker tool. Well, the first step would be to create a linework layer by clicking the linework layer button.

There we go. Now, a lineart layer in Sai is different from any other regular layer in Sai and it will bring up a completely new range of tools. I’m gonna briefly go through them but the best way to understand exactly what each does is to just try them out for yourself. There’s no substitute for experience or however the saying goes.

Pen - This is your freehand lineart tool and to best honest I don’t really use it that often. That’s just me personally. I have an expensive gaming rig that has all sorts of magic running under the hood but we all know that Sai’s memory management is pretty crappy and I don’t need the lag or crashes that come with this tool when working at a high DPI. You may have a different, entirely pleasant experience with this particular tool but for me, if I’m doing freehand inking, I’d much rather just use the regular Pencil tool.

Eraser - Kinda speaks for itself.

Weight - This one I do love. Say you’ve drawn a line - or a path as Sai calls it. With this tool you can adjust the thickness of the particular line by simply selecting the brush size and then clicking on the line.

Color - Same as Weight. Simply select your desired colour and then select the desired line you’d like to change. Very useful. For the aesthetic.

Edit - This one comes with its own subset of mini-tools that I’ll get into in a moment. But this is definitely a useful tool - for me it’s probably the most useful.

Pressure - This is the one that adds the character to your linework. I’ll explain further below.

SelPen - A selection tool. Pretty standard. Since the Lineart layer works in ‘Anchor’ points (which again, I’ll get in to further down below) I don’t really use this one.

SelErs - Selection Erase. Goes hand in hand with the SelPen. I can’t say that I personally use this one  much.

Curve & Line - The Curve and the Line tools are the cornerstones of the Linework layer. I’m explain both further down.

The Edit tool, as I mentioned, brings up its own list of sub-tools. And they definitely have their uses. Again, it’s best to play around with them to truly get a grasp of what they do but I’ll just run through them quickly before I get on with the main tutorial.

Select - For selecting anchor points of paths. Honestly, I don’t really use this one too much simply because hovering over a point or path and clicking will select it.

Move/Add - Now this one I use a lot. Moving an anchor will affect the curvature of your line if you’ve used the ‘Curve’ tool, or you can add curves to a straight line by clicking and dragging in between anchor points.

Delete CP/Curve - Kinda speaks for itself. It will delete an achor point in your line. Sometimes this can be useful for making your curves rounder if you’ve added too many points to it.

Deform Path - Again, kinda self explanatory. It will warp your line. I don’t really use this one myself but that’s not to say that it couldn’t have its uses.

Deform Anchor - See above.

Move Path - Instead of moving just an anchor or adjusting the curvature of your line you can move the entire line at once. Can be useful.

Duplicate Path - Does exactly what it says - creates a copy of your line. Haven’t found much use for this simply because I don’t particularly like copy/paste stuff in linework. Faults or differences add character.

Delete Path - deletes a line you’ve drawn independently of other lines on your linework layer. Can be useful as well.

Connect CPs - This is difficult to explain the benefits of. It’s one that should be experimented with. It basically joins lines together. I use it quite often. Just pick this option and drag from one anchor point to another to join them.

Pointed/Rounded - See the diagram below for this one. I find it very useful.

As you can see I used the Curve tool to draw a simple curve (left) and then I used the Pointed/Rounded tool to convert the curve into a point (right) by selecting the tool and then clicking on the anchor point at the height of the curve. I find it very useful. Anyway, back to our swirly-wirly thingy.

Because our swirly-wirly thingy is basically one long curve, I simply select the curve tool and start clicking. Starting at the centre point on one end, I click to add anchor points as I trace the shape of the object. Each point adjusts the curvature from the last point. It’s kinda hard to explain verbally or even visually but try it out and you’ll quickly see how it works.

Once I have a line over whatever I’m inking done I like to adjust the weight to suit my preferences. I like to work with thicker lines because they give more room to play around with weight. So to adjust the weight you click on the Weight tool, select a brush size and then click on your line. If only it were that simple in life.

Once I have a good weight selected I move on to the Pressure tool. The pressure tool gives you two options. Pressure for width and pressure for density. Width is like controlling the weight of the line at individual points and density controls the transparency. I don’t usually use the density option. As with traditional inking I prefer to denote depth, shadow, etc. with weight as you can see in the image above. To adjust the pressure, simply select the pressure tool and then select an anchor point. Click, hold and drag to the left to make the line thinner of more transparent and to the right to make the line thicker and more dense. As you drag, a percentage will appear over the anchor point you’ve selected. This can be useful for keeping things consistent.

That’s all well and good for curved lines but what about straight lines? That’s where the line tool comes in. It works exactly the same way except it won’t add a curvature to your anchor pints. Still very useful though. Especially when combined with the Weight and Pressure tools.

Here’s an example of one my drawings. It’s Dark Empress Kitana from Mortal Kombat. The one in red is the pencils which if converted to black would probably make a pretty good linework layer. I’m a firm believer in taking the time to clean up your sketch/pencils layer because it will dictate your entire drawing. The one below in black was done using Sai’s linework layer feature. Although not entirely. As much as I love Sai’s linework layer, it can look a little too clean which is not great when you're drawing people. Although, it's all art so it's all up to personal preferences and personal style. There's no wrong way to do it. For me though, I prefer to do skin, facial features, hair, etc. by hand using Sai's Pencil tool on a normal layer and reserve the Linework Layer for architecture, clothing or any non-organic substances. I inked Kitana's eyes and eyebrows freehand ( or as freehand as you can be with Sai's amazing stabilisers) but everything else such as her armour or her fan weapon thingy was done using the Curve and Line tools on the Linework Layer. I hope this tutorial has been useful. Or if not useful - then at least encouring to try out Sai's linework layer. It's such a robust feature that I don't see get much attention and I can't even begin to describe how much time it saves me or how much I adore it. If you have any questions (because I'm well aware how unsuited I am to writing tutorials - this is so damn rambly - sorry!) then feel free to drop me an ask here at keithbyrneart. P.S, sorry about my handwriting in the stills. It's gotten a lot messier these days.

[unit7designmethodsgeorgesmith]

YCA Asset Creation:                   Queen Elizabeth Illustration + Cover Design

20.03.19

Today I started working on my illustration of Queen Elizabeth for this project. I wanted to have her on the front cover of a graphic novel that I would be designing. The background would have Big Ben, which you can see in the previous post below. 

Rough Linework 

So, to start with, I sketched out a rough drawing of the Queen in a drawing program called Clip Studio Paint. Out of Paint Tool Sai, Photoshop and this, I find this to be my favourite program to draw and paint in. For this rough sketch, I used a thin watercolour brush like I usually do. I used various different reference images from Google. I decided to draw her like how she looks most of the time. I think that the hat and the curly hair are kind of her defining parts. The hair was really challenging to get right—I’m not very good at drawing curly hair/hair in general. The hat looks pretty good too I think. I tried to get it to look like her as best I could, as far as this particular style will let me, and I think I kind of pulled it off, but I still need to improve on my faces in general. 

Polished Linework

After finishing the rough sketch of the Queen, I thought it time to go over the lines. To do this, I created a new layer, and then lowered the opacity of the sketch layer, so that I could go just make out what I was drawing over. I don’t really like how the lines turned out once I compare it to the original sketch work, because it kind of lost the sketchy and rough charm, but I thought that I could probably make up for that when it comes to painting it. In this screenshot, you can see her outfit now—it is her usual outfit that she appears in public wearing. I went with this one because it was simple, and I would prefer to keep the focus on her face if possible. Overall, I’m not a big fan of how it looks right now, but I’m confident that I can improve this soon. 

Colouring

The next thing to do after finishing the linework was to colour in the Queen’s main parts, so I’d decided that I wanted her outfit to be coloured red, since I was adhering to the colour palette of the Union Jack; red, white, and blue (the blue will be the sky, white for clouds). I chose a regular not-too-saturated but not-too- desaturated red shade for her clothing and her hat. For the moment, I want to have the rose thing on her hat red, but maybe it will look good if I am to make it white instead. I chose a middle shade of grey for the hair, because I would need highlights for it as well as, obviously, darker tones. A regular white skin tone and plain white for the eyes and mouth for now. The mouth is white at the moment as I plan to show teeth, but later on I change this. 

So, to colour this in, what I do is I create two layers—one where I will colour whatever I want, so the hat and torso for example. And how I colour is I use a pen to draw around the outside using the red, and then I just fill in the rest because it is much more easy and efficient than colouring in the hat, and then doing the outlines. Anyway, after I’ve coloured the parts, I use the second layer above the coloured one, and apply a clipping mask of sorts. This enables me to paint on this layer, only on the colour that I’ve filled in, an extremely useful feature. 

Painting Face I

Now it was time to paint the face that I’d coloured in with the skin tone. I added the necessary shades first, like with her face lines, which I’ve exaggerated in her favour, the shade under her nose and shadows being cast by her hair, look to the left and right of her face. Also, you may have noticed that I completely forgot to draw the eyebrows from the second screenshot onward, so i corrected that below. I painted in the inside of the ear using dark shades also. It was fun to paint underneath the head, where a shadow is being cast. The shadow being cast from her hat makes her look almost evil and scheming right now, I think it may be because the eyes aren’t painted yet. There must be a relatively harsh lighting right now with how dark I’ve made the shadows—probably midday sunlight or something. There are all sorts of shades among the shadows, underneath the hat are a mix of greys, oranges and also a bit of red and pink nearer the top, where the colours from the hat bounce off. The shadow below the head has multiple shades too, mainly the same as the shadow from the hat, except from reds. There is a slight pinkish shade on the left side of the of the shade, bouncing off of the clothing, and an orange shade just under the chin.

Painting Face II

Next I decided to work on the face some more to try and finish it. I started with the eyes. The eyes were under the hat’s shade, therefore, I needed to paint them accordingly. This meant that the main white in the eye would be a darker shade; grey. I painted her eyes a greyish blue, like her real eyes, and kept the shading quite minimal. After I finished the iris, I went over the outside using the blur tool to give it a soft look. Then I went back to the brush tool and did one white stroke on each of the eyes, and airbrushed a slight white over the middles of them. I think that it really adds to the painting and makes her eyes look less dead, which is something that often unintentionally happens when I’m drawing eyes. After finishing the eyes up, I moved to the mouth. After a bit of experimenting, I realised that making her grin was a bad idea, mainly because I just couldn’t get it to look right, but also because, once I drew her with her mouth open, presumably in joy, it looked a lot better.

I also tidied up the face shading, using the blend tool to blend parts that looked like they were too harsh and intruding. Next I continued on with the mouth area, and painted her red lips. Right now they don’t look very good, like they’re too thin or something, I fix this somewhat later on. I painted a small white dot on her lips to look like a highlight, which I think really goes far. Finally, I worked on the hair—easily my least favorite part of the illustration. For starters, even the sketches don’t look good to me, so adding depth to the hair via color wasn’t sounding too thrilling. But alas, I continued on, and painted them in a way that is acceptable, not great but I’m okay with it, so I continued with the shade from the hat, and painted a dark shadow coming from one edge of the hat to the other. It kind of dips, down and then up at the edges, which corresponds to how close the hair is to the sides of the hat. There aren’t many different shades among the hair, but I did decide to make it get lighter as it went down, no particular reason really, I just thought it would look nice and kind of a little less boring.

Painting Outfit I

Next I worked on her outfit, which wasn’t too difficult to come up with something I was pleased with. I looked at references of her wearing this kind of stiff outfit when I was sketching, and the reason I call it stiff is because there are minimal wrinkles on the outfit, not really any lines to introduce any shading to, and the lighting that I went with doesn’t really help me there either. Instead I used some of my usual tricks to add some kind of nice depth to something that is really flat otherwise. I painted a gradient from a desaturated purple-ish red from the bottom of the composition, to the red that I started with nearer the top. Although, this isn’t to say there’s no shading whatsoever, there is a nice shadow that continues on from the neck from the one that is being cast by the head. This shadow has a nice variety of shades in it, some greys, some purples and reds, and a slight desaturated orange as a bounce light from the skin tone that is very close by. There’s also some other shading as you can see in the illustration. Also a dark shade where the button is sewn through.

Painting Outfit II

I am nearing the end of the illustration, and next is to do the hat, which I thought would be difficult. Luckily so, I got kind of distracted by my linework—it was really messy still, therefore, I needed to clean it up, which took quite a while to be honest, though I think it was worth it. Essentially, I went over the hat lines with a thicker brush and then erased the thicker parts to correspond with the rest of the lines throughout the drawing. Now, it was a hat, not much I can think to shade really. I did the same gradient trick that I used with the outfit, and then also did a slight darker shade down the right hand side of the hat, to give it a slight beveled effect—make it look as though it was rounding off towards the edges, as a hat would do. I may still work on the hat some more later. I made the strip across the bottom of the hat a darker shade so that it didn’t look too boring. Now, for the white flower thing, I’m not sure what to call it, it was a challenge at first. I started by trying to make each of the points join together at the center where it would be darker, but as that looked terrible to me, I decided on a much more appealing way of painting it. As you can see, it looks quite soft and pastel-themed almost. I used a slightly large brush size to paint these blobs everywhere to create the effect of something that was puffed out. I’m really pleased with how it turned out, and I love the colours that I used in it. Again, looking at it now, the hat will probably need some more doing to it, but right now, I was roughly done with the painting.

Finished Queen Elizabeth Illustration with Cover

[eventlawyer77-blog]

5 Eyeliner Hacks That Helped Me Nail a Perfect Cat-Eye

It’s no secret that I tend to have a little bit of trouble when it comes to crafting a cat-eye look. Usually I can manage to keep my hand still enough to draw a straight line across my eyelid, but when it comes to getting that end flick just right, it’s pretty much impossible. Despite my best efforts, my flicks either end up way too far from my lash line, or way thicker than intended (a la Amy Winehouse).

Thankfully, since we live in the Internet age, I had no trouble finding online hacks that promised to help me perfect the flick once and for all. Many of the winged liner hacks I found were a little bizarre, but I found five that are definitely worth testing for yourself.

1. I used a business card for the perfect wing.

Cristina Cianci

As I definitely don’t hand out business cards as frequently as I should, there’s a stack that sits on my desk just waiting to be used. With their straight edges and sturdy construction, business cards make for a great assist on the journey to an expert-level wing. After trying this hack out, I realized that keeping business cards at the ready serve a dual purpose: an easy way to network with new people and a quick tool for drawing a super precise wing in a hurry.

The technique:

I freehanded a line across my top lid, then lined up a card next to the end of my lash line at angle where I’d want my actual cat-eye to be drawn. Next, I drew an upward stroke against the card that connected to the end of the line on my lid and voila!

2. Scotch tape was fast and effective.

Cristina Cianci

Cristina Cianci

I’ve seen this eyeliner hack a bunch of times while scrolling through beauty sites on the internet, but never attempted to try it until now. To be honest, I was always a little nervous to use tape near my eye area, but also a little curious about how precise my makeup would look if I did.

The technique:

I used two small pieces of tape—one on each eye—and lined each up at an angle next to my lash line. After drawing a line across my eyelids, I used the tape as an excuse to be as messy with my wings as needed (the tape acts as a barrier against any mistakes). Midway through I decided to use two pieces of tape per eye, one near the top lid and one angled at the bottom, filling in the space in between to make my cat-eye. And it worked. After (carefully) peeling off the tape, I have to say my cat-eye look was definitely fire.

3. Starting with dots near my eyelid helped to line up my wings just right.

Cristina Cianci

There have been countless times where I’ve successfully drawn a smooth flick just to look in the mirror and realize one side of my winged liner is higher than the other. With this hack, you start by drawing a dot next to each eye where you want the flick to end. That way you can make sure they look even before you draw the actual wing. It may seem super basic, but drawing these guideline marks really helped me to even out the height of each wing to ensure they were level.

The technique:

Before starting my normal eyeliner routine, I used the tip of my liner pen to draw one dot next to each eye where I wanted the end of each wing to go. I drew up from my lash line to each of the dots. Then, I drew a line across the top of my lid that also connected to each the dots, forming a sort of hollow triangle outline of the wings. Lastly, I filled in my outline to finish off the look.

4. Using a spoon was surprisingly helpful.

Cristina Cianci

I had never thought of using a spoon for winged liner, but after I watched a YouTube video where someone demonstrated the technique, I knew I had to try it. PSA: Using a spoon—I used a plastic one—is a total liquid eyeliner application game-changer. I wouldn’t quite say the process is easy, but it’s certainly effective.

The technique:

I lined up the spoon’s handle at the edge of my lashline and drew an outline of the bottom half of my wing. Next, I placed the spoon scoop side down on the top of my lid, and drew a line across my eye. It definitely felt awkward holding a spoon against my lid and applying liner, but after a while I got the hang of it. Since the section between the beginning of the spoon’s handle and the end of its bowl has a slight curve, it’s easy to follow it to a successful cat-eye. After drawing a line on the top of my lid, the spoon basically did the hard part for me by connecting it with the first line I drew next to my lashes. To finish the look I filled in my wing. The whole thing took all of three minutes.

5. The Vampstamp made achieving a cat-eye fast and simple.

Cristina Cianci

Created by the inventor of my beloved Beautyblender, the Vampstamp is a handy tool made specifically for winged eyeliner styles. All you need is a pot of liquid eyeliner to dip the tool in and a steady hand, and in five minutes or less you’ll have cat-eyes so good actual cats will probably be jealous.

The technique:

After drawing a line across the top of my eyelid I dipped the wing stamp in my eyeliner pot, then hovered near the edge of my lash line to line the tool up properly. Once I decided I liked where it was positioned, I stamped the tool near my eye, which created the curve of a flick. Lastly, I connected my initial line across my eye with the flick and repeated on the opposite side.

Source: https://www.self.com/story/eyeliner-hacks

[davidpires578]

A Sketchy Situation

Draw first, then build – seems simple enough in theory. Drawing is best informed, I would suggest, by how the item is to be made, and this is where a person who makes as well as builds has a inherent advantage over those who only design. That said, one caveat is that sometimes new and original designs come about from those who do not labor under preconceptions and strictures imposed by best practices in a given field’s fabrication practices. It is all too easy though to design things which are impractical or even impossible to build, and these sorts of designs generally emanate from those who do not get their hands busy with actually making.

Division of labor of course has it’s benefits, but it is not without drawbacks.

The means by which one draws is itself a controlling factor in regards to design. I thought it might be relevant to some readers if I recapped my own approach to drawing over the years, providing some explanation for how/why the process has evolved in the direction in which it has, and why I have made some recent changes.

A long time ago I drew on sheets of paper or door skin, either to a scale or 1:1, using the conventional tools of ruler, compass, pencil, etc.. Those methods remain valuable to this day, as sometimes the most straightforward approach, especially in regards to larger architectural items, is to produce full-size templates on door skin and use those to transfer lines directly to the wood.

With furniture-scale pieces though, I’ve found in recent years that I save a chunk of time by having relevant portions of my CAD work exported to a large plotter which makes full size paper templates, which are then cut out, applied to door skin or thicker substrates, and used for layout or as a cutting template.

And my switch to using the computer to draw was prompted by a study I did a long while back in how to manually draw an item in perspective, using station points, and so forth. I found that the sheer number of traces required was leading to problems on the paper with lines which were really close together and thus in pencil or pen resulting in a big fat mess by the time one was halfway along.

These problems have been solved in the past by folks of course, yet one cannot deny the astounding amount of time it takes to prepare complete perspective views, especially of more complex objects. It’s time measured in hours and even days.

Drawing in perspective though is more or less essential when it comes to communicating with clients about what you propose to make for them. I’ve had experiences where I have presented the usual plan and elevation drawings to a client and had them nod and look like they were comprehending what they were seeing, but later found, through client comments when the work was well along, “oh, now I see what you had shown in the drawing”. A lot of people, it turns out, do not relate especially well to standard plan and elevation drawings, let alone more involved stuff.

And even from the point of view of being the designer, the standard views connote a limited amount of information. It’s hard to really get a sense of what the piece will look like when you are standing there next to it, or looking at it from across the room, say, without some sort of perspective rendering.

Also, drawing on paper or other physical surfaces tends to engender a ‘one-shot’ approach, especially for those sketches which take a while to complete. While lines can be erased and redrawn, if one has to do too much of this then things get messy. The more invested one gets into a sketch on paper, the more one tends to cling to progress realized and to loathe making significant changes. And of course this severely limits exploration on the design front.

Funny enough, a similar kind of thing happens with drawing software too, as hours spent invested in learning one type tend to disincline one from starting the process over with another software.

After encountering problems with drawing in perspective on paper, I decided to give Computer Aided Drawing (CAD) a try. The first one I opted for was called MacDraft by Microspot, a 2D drafting program. It is still on the market in fact. One of the first things I tackled was to employ the traditional means of station points to produce a perspective view of a heptagonal splayed stool. Here’s the finished product, with all the drawing traces removed from the view:

I don’t think I could have accurately drawn that piece like that were it not for the formal method, and CAD in 2D made it happen for me. It was immediately apparent that 2D CAD helped me do things that were difficult to realize with pencil and paper. It’s easy to modify digital drawings in most cases, Still, it took a long time to put all of the traces in there so as to be able to produce a perspective sketch.

A few years later after taking an introductory class in French Carpentry drawing from Boris Noel, I was engaged in a detailed study-draw-build for the 19th century Mazerolle treteau. That piece was rather complex, and my study was hampered by having neither a teacher nor a physical example of the completed piece which I could examine and learn from, and oh yeah, no fluency in 19th century French. Most of the traces required to draw all the parts are absent from the sketch, by necessity, in the Mazerolle book Traité Théorique Et Pratique De Charpente. The backside of the drawing of the piece in perspective was not visible, so I was left unsure of how the connections between parts looked when brought together on that side. I went as far as I could go in 2D before the doubts and uncertainties about what I was drawing, in other words how well I was understanding the method and whether it would actually produce the required parts correctly. It seemed like folly to try and construct the piece until I was sure that I had a handle on whether  things were working out correctly in the drawing.

This is about as far as I got with 2D in MacDraft:

This drawing work took place around 2008. The nagging questions about whether the drawing method in the book which I was trying to emulate was producing the right parts or not led me to my first 3D drawing program, SketchUp (by Google). The program was free, and users could submit their drawn models to a warehouse where others could make us of the files. Things in the warehouse like appliances, fasteners, etc, which otherwise would soak up crazy amounts of drawing time, were most valuable to me at times.

SketchUp was fairly intuitive to learn, pushing and pulling shapes around for the most part. I’d looked at a few other programs, including Autocad Lite, but as far as dipping my toes into the pool, Sketchup was easy to go with, and free does help make the move risk-free.

And the program allowed me to construct the traditional sort of 2D sketch on the virtual floor, and then erect the parts directly above, using plumb lines off of the developed views – hopefully this sketch gives the idea:

I remember a rush of excitement the first time I drew in the scissor braces in 3D and found that the 2D geometry was producing the correct parts so that I knew I was on the right path. Later I was able to identify more than a dozen errors of various sorts in the original illustration, and I’m not sure I would have caught those otherwise. The shift to 3D allowed me to leverage uncertain 2D developed drawing work into something that I was sure worked, and this lead later to actually constructing the piece.

SketchUp came out later with a paid version called Sketchup Pro. While I continued on with the free version for several years, I eventually opted to obtain SketchUp Pro, for $500, for a job in which construction blueprints were required. SketchUp Pro includes ‘Layout’ which enables the production of various size formal construction documents, like this page out of a blueprint set I produced for another contractor for some standard kitchen cabinetry.

In order to communicate with the architects upon whose drawing the above work is based, I had to get SketchUp Pro. Since then I have barely used Layout, and for most users I would not have recommended they pay for the Pro version since you really don’t get much more than Layout for your money.

I found that even with my new paid-for SketchUp Pro, all was not ideal. For one thing, it is supposed to provide the ability to both upload and export drawing files in AutoCad format, the standard by which most other programs on the market are measured. File formats that autoCad works with are .dwg and .dxf.

I found that if I import an item into SketchUp which is in an AutoCad format, it will import and look fine, except it will often not be defined into different planes and discrete parts. What I mean is, if you click on the drawing, click the containing box open, and the ‘select all’, the entire part is highlighted:

This means that, unlike separate parts in the real world, like the fixing bolt and handle casting in the above sketch, are not separate but form a continuous surface with each other. It’s not exactly easy or quick to extract out the parts from one another in the drawing either. So if you have to modify one of these type of sketches in SketchUp, well, you learn it is best to avoid such tasks if at all possible.

That’s an issue with importing in SketchUp from AutoCad files. I’ve also had to export .dwg and/or .dxf files from SketchUp to a cnc fabrication place in the past, and they found that while the files I sent out of Sketchup (in the .dwg/.dxf file formats) could be uploaded, they also required hours of work to make usable for their machines.

It seems to me that SketchUp’s capabilities in terms of handling AutoCad format material is at best imperfect.

SketchUp’s less than scintillating performance continued with how it deals with files that grow in size to the point where there is a high count of polygons. I’ve encountered this a few times with different drawings. When a given sketch gets to a certain level of complexity, then SketchUp gets sluggish and even crashes. Crashes where I need to restart my computer. Later they introduced ‘Bugsplat Report’ to deal with sending info about the crash to the company – SketchUp now acquired by Trimble. It seems the company anticipates that program crashes are going to be sufficiently frequent to merit a special reporting application.

Trimble initially continued with the set up of there being a free version of SketchUp and a Pro One. However, when new versions were released, they charged for the update. Then they came up with the wondrous ‘Maintenance and Support Subscription’, and every year there would now be an annual fee to keep current. If your account was current, then you were eligible to receive any new versions of the software. if you let things lapse for a few years and then found yourself needing the current version, you would have to pay for all the updates that had occurred in the interim, if I am not mistaken.

If you didn’t keep up with the new versions, saving your cash – and why would you since the upgrades between versions,

[garkomedia1]

5 Eyeliner Hacks That Helped Me Nail a Perfect Cat-Eye

It’s no secret that I tend to have a little bit of trouble when it comes to crafting a cat-eye look. Usually I can manage to keep my hand still enough to draw a straight line across my eyelid, but when it comes to getting that end flick just right, it’s pretty much impossible. Despite my best efforts, my flicks either end up way too far from my lash line, or way thicker than intended (a la Amy Winehouse).

Thankfully, since we live in the internet age, I had no trouble finding online hacks that promised to help me perfect the flick once and for all. Many of the winged liner hacks I found were a little bizarre, but I found five that are definitely worth testing for yourself.

1. I used a business card for the perfect wing.

Cristina Cianci

As I definitely don’t hand out business cards as frequently as I should, there’s a stack that sits on my desk just waiting to be used. With their straight edges and sturdy construction, business cards make for a great assist on the journey to an expert-level wing. After trying this hack out, I realized that keeping business cards at the ready serve a dual purpose: 1. An easy way to network with new people, 2. A quick tool for drawing a super precise wing in a hurry.

The technique:

I freehanded a line across my top lid, then lined up a card next to the end of my lash line at angle where I’d want my actual cat-eye to be drawn. Next, I drew an upward stroke against the card that connected to the end of the line on my lid and voila!

2. Scotch tape was fast and effective.

Cristina Cianci

Cristina Cianci

I’ve seen this eyeliner hack a bunch of times while scrolling through beauty sites on the internet, but never attempted to try it until now. To be honest, I was always a little nervous to use tape near my eye area, but also a little curious about how precise my makeup would look if I did.

The technique:

I used two small pieces of tape—one on each eye—and lined each up at an angle next to my lash line. After drawing a line across my eyelids, I used the tape as an excuse to be as messy with my wings as needed (the tape acts as a barrier against any mistakes). Midway through I decided to use two pieces of tape per eye, one near the top lid and one angled at the bottom, filling in the space in between to make my cat-eye. And it worked. After (carefully) peeling off the tape, I have to say my cat-eye look was definitely fire.

3. Starting with dots near my eyelid helped to line up my wings just right.

Cristina Cianci

There have been countless times where I’ve successfully drawn a smooth flick just to look in the mirror and realize one side of my winged liner is higher than the other. With this hack, you start by drawing a dot next to each eye where you want the flick to end. That way you can make sure they look even before you draw the actual wing. It may seem super basic, but drawing these guideline marks really helped me to even out the height of each wing to ensure they were level.

The technique:

Before starting my normal eyeliner routine, I used the tip of my liner pen to draw one dot next to each eye where I wanted the end of each wing to go. I drew up from my lash line to each of the dots. Then, I drew a line across the top of my lid that also connected to each the dots, forming a sort of hollow triangle outline of the wings. Lastly, I filled in my outline to finish off the look.

4. Using a spoon was surprisingly helpful.

Cristina Cianci

I had never thought of using a spoon for winged liner, but after I watched a YouTube video where someone demonstrated the technique, I knew I had to try it. PSA: Using a spoon—I used a plastic one—is a total liquid eyeliner application game-changer. I wouldn’t quite say the process is easy, but it’s certainly effective.

The technique:

I lined up the spoon’s handle at the edge of my lashline and drew an outline of the bottom half of my wing. Next, I placed the spoon scoop side down on the top of my lid, and drew a line across my eye. It definitely felt awkward holding a spoon against my lid and applying liner, but after a while I got the hang of it. Since the section between the beginning of the spoon’s handle and the end of its bowl has a slight curve, it’s easy to follow it to a successful cat-eye. After drawing a line on the top of my lid, the spoon basically did the hard part for me by connecting it with the first line I drew next to my lashes. To finish the look I filled in my wing. The whole thing took all of three minutes.

5. The Vampstamp made achieving a cat-eye fast and simple.

Cristina Cianci

Created by the inventor of my beloved Beautyblender, the Vampstamp is a handy tool made specifically for winged eyeliner styles. All you need is a pot of liquid eyeliner to dip the tool in and a steady hand, and in five minutes or less you’ll have cat-eyes so good actual cats will probably be jealous.

The technique:

After drawing a line across the top of my eyelid I dipped the wing stamp in my eyeliner pot, then hovered near the edge of my lash line to line the tool up properly. Once I decided I liked where it was positioned, I stamped the tool near my eye, which created the curve of a flick. Lastly, I connected my initial line across my eye with the flick and repeated on the opposite side.

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