#it was really fun playing around with colors (^_^)

[bravehyde]

Love your Tenna anatomy posts! If you could, could you explain what kind of circumstance would cause the classic 'bars of bright colors' sort of malfunction in a TV vs a screen full of static?

Of course! The easy answer is that neither of these are malfunctions, although we tend to think of them as such, and instead kind of like the "default" states of television. I'll do their purpose in general and then how we see them with Tenna.

Static (aka digital snow or white noise) is the shortest and easiest to explain. Your television gives this to you because whatever channel you picked doesn't have anything on it, but there is *something* being transmitted anyway that it can't make sense of. After all, not just television uses electromagnetic waves. So since there's no station playing something on the specific signal you tuned to, it's taking random signals from background radiation and trying its best to show it. This won't make a logical picture, though, so we get this random pattern of pixels and electronic noise.

Next, we have SMPTE Color Bars, or...just color bars. We don't need to say that it's the pattern standardized by the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers every time, after all. This was developed as a form of calibration for analog screens like Tenna, and nowadays is used to calibrate external monitors that we connect to cameras so multiple people can look at what's being recorded (such as the director and producers) without crowding around the camera operator. Every bar is a main color at 100% intensity, ordered in a specific way that makes sense if you go through every way to calibrate a screen and that is a lot to go over which I don't think is needed info, but you want it, looking for SMPTE calibration will get you where you're going. It also plays a really annoying sound that you may know as the censor noise, because you'll KNOW if it's too loud and adjust accordingly.

Also quick fun fact, the "technical difficulties" screen that Tenna flashes by is based on the old, black-and-white version of that. When we say technical difficulties with the color bars now, it's probably because your television is fine, but there's something wrong on the end of the people transmitting. If you're not calibrating the television and the colors pop up, it's an issue with the source signal.

Now, let's look at when this happens with Tenna. I found one major place where he has static, and one major place he has color bars.

In Tenna's final boss fight, he gets the static every time you select a minigame and he's using his own head as a transition to it. You could say that he's initially getting static because he's between channels, since that happens sometimes as little "blips" as you're changing them. It could also be that the signal he's turning to doesn't have anything broadcasted on it until he decides so by teleporting the gang into that area. I'm more of a fan of the latter, since that means that he has direct control over electronic signals, not just the ones he listens to, and that better explains how he transports the gang into the minigames: he transforms them into information that he decodes on his screen.

And of course, we have the prime example of him using the color bars...when he dies. I'd like to note that the stuff coming out of his arms looks a lot like static, although I don't have any reason for saying it other than I think it looks cool. So, this is often used as a modern "technical difficulties" screen, and it can easily just be that. It can also be Tenna trying to recalibrate himself. He realizes there's a problem and is running diagnostics instinctively. Obviously, there is nothing that checking color values can do for losing your arms, so this doesn't do anything to help him.

If he is theoretically both the receiver and transmitter of his own signal, this could also be him showing that he lost his source. Maybe his source signal is whatever keeps him alive as a Darkner, analogous to how we are kept alive by our hearts beating and electric activity in our brains? If he is making his own signal, that can also be how he physically moves the gang to the channel he broadcasts the minigames in, and him experiencing a large amount of pain/damage would be reason to conserve energy and not do it anymore.

[jellicle-chants]

Casa Mañana CATS Show Notes

I am seriously so glad I got to see this amazing show in person! I have all of my detailed song-by-song recollections under the cut, but up top I just want to shout out @miasiegert's AMAZING costume and wig work, it was such a pleasure to see the bright colors for myself (and the wigs are just so poofy y'all wouldn't believe). Congrats to the whole cast and crew for making this show come to life, it was really something special.

Before I start, I feel like I need to preface this whole thing by saying that this was my first time seeing Cats live, period, and I also only saw this show once, so if I remember something wrong it's because half the time I was desperately trying to get any actor to make eye contact with me lmao. Also if I don't mention something you're curious about, feel free to drop me an ask or just reply with whatever your question is and I'll try to answer as best as I can! I also still haven't seen all the show footage online, so IDK what's common knowledge or not. I'll put a heading for each section so you can skip around if you want.

Jellicle Songs through Invitation

Sadly, the overture had nothing special going on :(

Jellicle Songs opened with a human worker at the stockyards being watched by the cats as they came onstage one by one, before she "turned off" the lights and left

The singing only started once she left and the lights turned back on after "can you see in the dark," which I thought was a really novel and fun interpretation of the lyrics

Since the cast was limited, Jellylorum sang all of Cassandra's lines, and Jerrie and Teazer picked up the twins' as expected. (They have Jelly listed as "Jellylorum/Cassandra" in the program but it's not a split track or anything, she's just normal Jelly singing Cass' lines)

The "flying trapeze" was replaced by some sort of leather harness(?) on a rope that the actors would stick one foot in and swing on (I have no clue what it actually is but Misto uses it during his song as well. Maybe a stirrup to cat-scale?)

The boot drop was replaced with the railroad crossing light going off, which I was hoping for ever since I saw it before the show

They made the "mystical divinity" section a bit of a national anthem analog, with the actors putting hand over heart and the two big US and Texas flags coming out

Naming went pretty much as expected. I'm not really a fan of when productions overemphasize pointing out who is who and I didn't notice it here, so that was appreciated (although I did think Skimble was Plato for most of the show, so maybe I need it more than I think lol)

Jelly and Gus had a cute moment during "some for the gentlemen, some for the dames" where they did a little bow/curtsy to each other

Victoria's solo was split up among all the girls one by one, starting with her doing an abridged White Cat with a pink cowboy hat

The hat was quickly stolen by Teazer, and they had a little fight over it which Jenny had to break up (loved the bratty vibes of this moment, which was their only big interaction I noticed)

Eventually it got passed along to Demeter, who seemed hesitant to take it, but was urged on by the other girls.

Going into the invitation/Munk's monologue, Raphe played him as serious and dramatic as ever (minus the accent), which was a departure from the other actors who tended to play a bit looser and more relaxed. (Not a slight against anyone of course, it was just interesting to observe.)

Gumbie Cat

Before the song started, Munk got a little distracted with a big spool of rope he was playing with 🥺

The same thing happened with Jenny and one of the hanging string lights on the walkway at the back of the stage during his first verse, which got a big audience laugh

As the trio were getting set up, there was a little (staged) moment where Deme fell over and had to quickly sit back up, which added to the idea that she was supposed to be a new member of the tribe and a little unsure of herself

Jenny's tap costume was SO cute, and she kept the US boots on for the rest of the show, which is a good way to identify her

I was definitely surprised that the cast soft-shoeing in their boots (instead of using tap shoes) was audible from the audience, but it worked like a charm!

Munk and Jenny had a little duet at the end (not quite a tap-off like it used to be, but from what I've seen of the recent Oasis prods Munk doesn't get to tap at all :( so it was nice to have him involved)

The song ended with Jenny going "thanks, y'all!" which I am formally requesting become the button for all non-British versions of the show from now on

The Rum Tum Tugger

The staging and setup of this song was pretty much as normal, but as with all good Tugger stagings, the real gems are from the rest of the cast's reactions

Demeter was very into it and leaned over to tease Misto a couple of times, who was very flustered and kept throwing his hands over his eyes — he delivered the "terrible bore" line like he had something to prove. (I didn't know about the cast headcanon until after the show, but from what I saw, you could read his actions as romantic or "ew Dad, gross" equally easily depending on your preferences.)

Deme almost got a moment with Tugger before Bomba cut in on her

At some point Jenny snuck back onstage to "nap" through the rest of the song

Surprisingly, they didn't go with the overexcited kitten gag — I thought it would've fit great with the setting, but I'm sure they had a good reason to cut it out

Grizabella

Rumpleteazer was the last one of the kittens to approach Grizabella (she was a little more timid, I think she was meant to be one of the youngest) and Griz delivered the first verse of her song directly to her as she was shivering in fear on the ground in front of her. Afterwards, she ran over to hide with her brother — I also saw Jenny huddled over Misto and Victoria

Old Deut made a surprise appearance to lead Griz out with a handkerchief over his hand (which I thought was about the "no touching" thing but he also did it at the end, so I'm a little puzzled about that)

Bomba put her hand on Deme's shoulder for comfort as she was leaving

Bustopher Jones

This song was literally so funny, y'all. They made up for the lack of lyric changes (none of the place names were changed) with a bunch of physical humor and gags that were pitch-perfect to the Texas vibe

Everybody was split up into little groups that each wanted to give Bustopher their food (or at least Jerrie and Teazer, who had the corn dogs, really did)

The first thing he picked up was a Whataburger cup from Munkustrap — for those not in the know, Whataburger has basically the same cultural relevance in Texas as In-n-Out has in California, except you can only get it in-state

I'm so sad I got spoiled about the Real Corn Dogs, because watching him take a bite out of them onstage(!!!) was a thrilling experience

Mungojerrie & Rumpleteazer

The song started started with them coming out from behind the cat wanted posters on either side of the stage and sneaking towards the middle (including a moment where Jerrie stuck only his leg out from behind a post which was a great image)

Their solo costumes (raggedy overalls with a bunch of mismatched patches) were so cute

Behind the low wall at about mid-stage were a couple of trampolines which the actors used to do fun tricks and bounce in time to the music. I get the feeling the actors weren't as acrobatic (or the cowboy costumes/boots didn't allow that) so this was a great way to introduce some big energy to the number in a different way

After getting off the trampoline, they did a bit sitting on the edge of the wall where they stacked their legs threaded over each other (I'm bad at describing it but it's like when you and a friend try to stack your fists/hands alternating between each other)

At the end they pulled out a barrel and laid it on its side — both my sister and I thought they were going to walk around on top of it, but instead they made a seesaw with it which was also fun

The barrel ended up having some kind of illusion from which they pulled two big foam cowboy hats (in Texas colors of course). Honestly I'm still not sure how they pulled it off

Surprisingly, there were no loot bags (I think they were supposed to be more like rascals or kids goofing off and trespassing than actual thieves), so they skipped the playoff entirely

I think this was one of my favorite songs of the whole show. I really like this song when the actors are doing something every beat, and I honestly don't mind big props/gimmicks like these as long as they don't take up the whole song. This version threaded that needle really well and it was a great time!

Old Deuteronomy through the Jellicle Ball

Not much to say about Old Deut's song. I did notice a lyric change to "married nine wives" but I think that seems to be par for new shows post-2019?

After the pre-ball Macavity scare, Misto and Vic were huddled together downstage right and Sillabub downstage left to segue into the Song of the Jellicles

Tugger got the line "Jellicle cats are rather small" because there was no Alonzo, but otherwise I didn't make notes on who got which line

The ball had a lot more partner dancing than usual (no lifts unfortunately), which fit the theme really well! I don't know much square dancing lingo but I definitely saw them do a grand left and right at one point, I'm sure there was a lot more but I was too awed to really be picking things apart lol

They did pantomime tipping cowboy hats (which I hate a lot less than the weird crown pantomime Andy came up with, mostly because it's already a thing in Western dancing)

I think at one brief pause there was a small Skimble/Victoria moment? (This may have contributed a lot to the Plato mixup lmao)

There was a whole section where Old D stepped down and everyone was trying to reach for his handkerchief as he waved it around (and yeah, still don't know what was happening with that whole thing, sorry y'all 😅)

At the end of the ball (I think at the "Ecstasy" cue if you're familiar with Gillian's choreo names) the lights swept up over the audience like a field of stars and it was honestly the most magical moment ever

Memory (first time) through Moments of Happiness

For some reason in my program they have "Grizabella: The Glamour Cat" listed as "Entry of Grizabella" and Glamour Cat moved down to where this first Memory iteration goes, which gave me false hope that they were going to do the Jelly reprise. Very mean >:(

Before Griz came out, Old Deut almost presented Victoria with the pink cowboy hat from the white cat solo (which I think means she was about to be the Choice), but then she saw Griz coming and everyone got scared away

I feel like there was an extra 8 or 16 counts of dancing music for Griz before the song started, during which she did part of the partner dance choreo from the ball by herself :(

They used "silence" instead of "midnight" which I'm so mad about (ALW I'm gonna get my revenge one day just you wait old man)

Korie is such a beautiful singer, like he really fits the role to a T. Very old-school brassy bari/bass voice, a lot like Ken Page

Since there were no twins, Sillabub just got up and sang on her own, but it wasn't that jarring

At the end of the song, Rumpleteazer got a little sad and slid over to snuggle up at Old D's feet

Gus the Theatre Cat

Before you ask, yes, I did cry a little at this song (knowing that Michael had played Gus before back during the first Broadway run made me tear up, ok?)

Before the song started, Jelly gathered all of the kittens in front of her (unfortunately with the way the blocking ended up Gus was right between us and her for a lot of the song, but he had a much bigger stage presence than replica Guses so it wasn't a big loss)

As Jelly was beginning the first verse, Gus came onstage with a guitar, which he fake-played throughout his verses

Munk got to be Gus' friend at the pub, and they had real beer bottle props which was literally the cutest thing ever

During Gus' verses Michael sang with a much more lyrical tone than normal (as in he was really singing, not talk-singing), and the country accent really fit well with his song

At the Firefrorefiddle part Munk came back and handed Gus an actual fiddle, and how has NOBODY done this before??? It was literally so perfect y'all (I don't think the instrumentation was even changed but it just felt like the exact right thing)

I remembered to check back in on the kittens during their little moment, Rumpleteazer was aptly offended/embarrassed

One of the best lyric changes was definitely "in the days when Hank Williams reigned," I have a feeling if they could have changed more they would but alas

Between the end of the normal song and the lead-in to P&P, Gus ate up the applause (there was a lot!) and sang the next verse like it was an encore

Pekes and Pollicles

Not sure if this is as expected, but Gus sang "the awesome battle" instead of awful (and there was the "heathen" to "foreign" change that I've discussed elsewhere)

Before getting into full Rumpus Cat gear, Gus was dressed as a football referee (complete with real working whistle that he used a couple of times). He also did a coin flip during one of the early verses to decide which cornhole team would throw first

Yes, the actors were really playing cornhole onstage, and they were quite good at it too! I assume a lot of practice was involved lol

During the first barking sequence, Rumpleteazer was on her hands and knees playing one of the dogs and literally jumping off the ground barking, it was so silly-looking

Jenny played the police dog, complete with beer bottle. I think she was off to one corner fake-drinking for most of the song

I think the whole Little Tom Pollicle section was cut, including the bagpipes section

When the Rumpus Cat came out, the "dogs" flipped up the cornhole boards to hide behind. I also spotted Jenny as the police dog with a white-knuckle grip on her beer lmao

All in all, it was a very fun version of the song and I didn't even mind so much that it was moved out of its original spot in the show because it was SO goofy silly

Skimbleshanks the Railway Cat

This staging was a little less dynamic than the normal, they made the fake train very early on in the song and then just basically stayed there the whole time. Skimble was bouncing around as normal though

The train's "smokestack" spouted real steam at one point, which was really cool

Misto and Jelly were the card-players, complete with real oversized cards. At one point Skimble stopped to look at both of their hands and swapped some of their cards to complete the game, which I think is just *chef's kiss* perfect characterization for him

Instead of the fake train falling apart at "Skimbleshanks would help them to get out," there was a gag where Jelly was almost falling over and Skimble had to rush over and help her catch her balance

Macavity (scare, song, and fight)

Macavity used a literal lasso to kidnap Old D

This was totally just a personal thing, but I was definitely thrown off at first by the hard-T American pronunciation of Macavity

I can't remember if this happened here or somewhere else, but I feel like I should mention that at one point Bomba slid into a split so smoothly that I didn't even process it was happening until she was all the way down in it 😅

The fight was much different than normal — everyone got in on fighting Mac. I remember Bomba got a big moment getting him in the stomach before he got away

Instead of the jumper cables, Mac swiped at the "Cattlemen" sign and took out all of the lights except the ones that said "Cat"

After the fight, Deme and Bomba took a beat to clean each other off with some casual acrobatics

Magical Mister Mistoffelees

One change I thought was really sweet was at the beginning of the song, the rest of the cast were really disbelieving of Tugger and rolling their eyes at his claims, which I think pairs well with the cast headcanon

For our performance, Misto was not wearing the brown jacket he had in the promo videos — he may have had a black vest on or just his normal chorus outfit, but he still had his sheriff star :)

They had a couple of cans for Misto to knock over as part of his sharpshooting bit, but no squibs or anything onstage

During the "curled up" line, Misto went and cuddled with Vic for a second

There was a moment post-conjuring turns where the actor did a one-handed cartwheel with the toy gun still in his hand and I was just the tiniest bit afraid for his life (he pulled it off though!!!)

Instead of having a volunteer, they just had two people hold an old blanket that they used to cover Old D from one of the wings back to center stage

Misto looked away like he does sometimes after the Old D trick, but sadly they didn't get to hug after :(

During the final chorus Rumpleteazer got back on the trampoline and was bouncing along to the music

Rather than slowly making the spotlight disappear like in some productions, Misto shot it out before making his exit which was a cute touch

Memory (Reprise)

After Munk's monologue, Old D was ready to make Gus the choice, which this time was represented by a spotlight casting a circle on the ground. I was ready to be disappointed about the whole "wrong cat died" situation, but I was pleasantly surprised when Gus stepped back and invited Griz into the spotlight to make her case, it felt like a really good resolution to the issue some people have with that point

Right after Gus gave up the spotlight, he and Jenny had a little mimed conversation where she seemed a little upset/confused at what he did

Jackie did great as Grizabella — you could definitely tell she had played Elphaba in the past too lol

Interestingly, there were a couple of moments where it almost seemed like Skimble would be the first cat to touch Griz after her song, but he ended up backing off so that Vic could give her the pink cowboy hat :)

Journey through Ad-dressing

My sister and I were speculating before the show started where Griz was going to leave the stage (there wasn't a lot of infrastructure up above the stage itself so we were curious), and it ended up being the piece of scaffolding with "Mule Alley" written on it! Totally unexpected

I wish I had caught more of the cast interactions during this song, but I did definitely notice Bomba and Gus arm in arm

Old D was much more lively and light-hearted during The Addressing of Cats than normal (again, really reminding me of Ken Page's Deuteronomy, but even more jovial. I think there's footage of this so if you haven't gone to check it out definitely do!)

Not quite a lyric change, but the address in question was changed to something pronounced more like "aw, cat"

And that's about it for the show! Like I said at the top, feel free to send me asks if there's any part of the show you'd like to know more about! I tried not to assign romantic/platonic designations to any of the pairs throughout the show because it went by much too fast to tell one from the other (which is basically my way of saying go wild with it, y'all — the cast certainly sure have!).

[not-mr-durden]

Fight Club bathing/showering headcanons

Cw for gross stuff, and also kinda kinky (?) stuff but in a humorous way.

Tyler

• Before Project Mayhem he used to shower once a day or, sometimes, once every two days. After it, he just showers... Um... When he can ❤️ (He smells.)

• He prefers showers because they're quick and he doesn't really see the point in wasting time in the bath if he's alone.

• If Narrator is there, though, he doesn't mind bathing and relaxing for a while.

• One time, he managed to find some rubber ducks and boat toys, so he started bringing them into the bath with him. When the water overflows a little, and one falls out, he chuckles and pretends it's dead, and he won't pick it up, because "no one is going to save it".

• He uses really dry/hard sponges because he thinks they scrub better, but Narrator tried to used them once and hasn't felt such pain since.

• When there's a liposuction fat shortage, he's a bit hesitant to use his own soap, but always ends up doing it anyway.

• Brushes his teeth while he's showering ???

• When bathing, he likes to go underwater and hold his breath to see how long he can last. When he isn't doing that, he likes to whistle.

• After showers, he just walks around butt naked.

• One time, after doing it with Marla, he gave her a new sample of soap that he was testing, and told her to go home and wash herself with it. She asked if she smelled or something, and he just laughed while shaking his head, so she began thinking that it was a kinky power play situation. After learning that he made it, some time later, she started thinking of it as a gift and a way to show affection... Tyler just really wanted an external review, because he knew that Narrator would praise it anyway.

Marla

• She showers once a day, unless she's feeling depressed and doesn't want to go out. In that case, she showers once a week at best.

• Prefers baths because she can lay there as long as she wants, and kind of hates the water pressure of showers. However, a lot of the time, she decides to take showers because she's afraid that the water bill will go up too much if she bathes too often.

• She likes to sit on the toilet and read magazines while she waits for the tub to fill up. She used to do it while bathing too, but one time she dropped one in the water and never tried again.

• She likes to sing and listen to music while she's bathing. She also likes to pretend that she's dead and lays there for hours, and she imagines the reaction of people finding her after days.

• While she's in the water, she shaves with a razor. She doesn't use shaving cream and doesn't even want it near her, because as a kid she heard horror stories about people confusing it with shampoo, and now has this irrational fear.

• Before and after bathing, she has fun by posing and making silly faces in the mirror. Then the random sadness hits her and she quits immediately.

• Likes to inspect her body in the mirror to find zits and pop them (which is rare, because her skin is really dry), or new bruises (which she randomly wakes up with).

• Loves to steal bath bombs and products that smell good and create bubbles. Most of the time she doesn't care enough to use them, but sometimes they're perfect to feel better at the end of a bad day.

• As a result of her shoplifting, all her products are super colorful and pretty.

• She wraps herself in a towel, paints her nails and toenails right after bathing.

Narrator

• Before meeting Tyler, he used to shower 2 or 3 times a day (one in the morning, one after work/in the evening, one when he can't sleep at night). After meeting Tyler, he started skipping it a few times due to being too tired from Fight Club. When Tyler left him, he started taking baths that lasted hours, but only twice a week, and that's it.

• He prefers showering as a quick way to clean himself before or after work, but he hates everything about them, especially the fact that the water pressure and the water temperature are too hard to regulate. He will never admit, not even to himself, that baths may be better for him, because that's FOR GIRLS!!!

• After moving in with Tyler, despite hating the awful dirty water, he started taking baths more often, because it can't really be too feminine if Tyler's doing it.

• If it was for him, he'd spend hourssss in the bath/shower. When he had his condo, the bills weren't even a problem, but long showers make him faint. Long baths, instead, make his butt cheeks hurt. He also hates, sensory wise, sitting down on wet ceramic.

• In the bath, when he's sad, he sits with his knees up and his arms wrapped around them.

• He HAS to use extremely soft sponges, otherwise his skin gets irritated.

• After showers, he wears a bathrobe.

• One time, shampoo went in his eyes, and they started to burn. While trying to clean them, he slipped and fell, all while trying to save himself by holding onto... The stream of water? Also the curtain broke. The next day, he bought a rubber mat at IKEA, and baby shampoo (because that one doesn't burn). The cashier, all giddy, asked him if his wife was pregnant, and he responded with a dry "yes."

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 6/24/2025

really homophobic for june to be such a slog so far

listening

i watched this movie once and the soundtrack made very little impression on me, but this came up in one of my spotify recommended playlists and fucks??? slow start, very Black Sails hurdy gurdy adjacent thing happening at 02:20

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reading

three books enter, two books leave:

After Hours by Bowen McCurdy, a charming little one-shot comic courtesy of @sybilius ! real black cat/golden retriever lesbian energy where the black cat is completely shielding the golden retriever from some spooky shit. these woman are experiencing completely different genres lol

Queen of the Damned, by Anne Rice: tragically i have discovered i am not an anne rice girlie. what the FUCK are you on about anne

i don’t respect this one enough to properly capitalize it: mammoth book of dieselpunk, edited by sean wallace: sort of comforting to know this 2015 cover was lovingly hand-made by someone fucking around with photoshop and not AI. forgot that dieselpunk is mostly jerking off about WWII. unfortunately a lot of these short stories were not good on a technical OR story level and were incredibly racist. i don’t think this book cracked the code on the appropriate time to call a young white woman exiting a factory “she looked like a little old Asian man”. and this wasn’t even the worst racism in the book!!! there was exactly one i liked: “This Evening’s Performance” by Genevieve Valentine was about the last human actors where all others have been replaced by automatons, and the character work was lovely. plus it had a defined beginning middle and end and a fun ending. literally everything else in this book was not very good. and for that reason it will go back to the used bookstore.

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watching

four episodes into true blood bc i liked charlaine harris’ other gunnie rose series so much. i would not say ms harris’ strong suit is names, however i am having a fun time with it so far. excited to find out if the “one extremely bad bdsm practice per episode is not actually the thing that kills someone” holds true for the rest of the season

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playing

genshin has added (checks notes) a pair of mini games for this event. one is collecting some fruit. one is a full roguelike with a weapons and upgrading system.

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making

going through some sort of brain time as evidenced by the fact i cranked out the part of the cross stitch that has previously taken me months in two days. the buildings on this incarnation of the Bless This Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy sampler (for me this time) are not quite done, so who’s to say if this will actually take me several months to finish.

the berries and cream is a pi day Numerals of the World pattern from @mathysphere , not sure if I love this color combo on black and i feel that the color runs are perhaps not quite long enough in this specific flavor variegated floss, but we’ll see. it was the closest available colorway to the bi flag but it’s coming off more 80s than i want. perhaps i will do each line of numerals in a different pink or purple or blue? this will eventually be turned into a patch for my jacket so i want to really nail this lol

[goosterbold]

Hi, I love seeing your art! Do you have a typical process when it comes to using your colors/shading?

Howdy! That's very kind of you to say! I'm pretty unsatisfied with my own color work, so I'd like to point you to someone I admire's work before I start talking here- please eyeball GGDG's work (largely posting as pallisia on here (please play SoulSov)). The way they paint mood, their grasp of texture is fuckin' unbeatable. I know this is cliche, but I also highly recommend looking at Mary Blair's work. It's the gold standard for color for a reason. When I color, I try to think about mood too. I usually use a brush with a flexible opacity for 'building up' color and shading. If (for fanart) a character has official colors, I like to eyeball those (though I think eyedropping is very viable and is a wonderful way to teach working with strong contrasting colors), then flex them towards whatever mood I'm aiming for. Warmer, cooler, sadder, happier... Sometimes a green metal looks more metallic than a grey metal (this is not universal advice just a hypothetical finding), you find strange things playing around like that.

After a while you draw a character so much you 'know' the colors, and they start to mutate a little. You find fun moods you like to play with. You learn that drawing this character with black hair with deep blue hair sells an approach you like when making art of this character. Not that you should lock in colors or nothin', but a lot of like, color stuff like that comes with time and fiddling around.

I'm a student of 2011 tumblr, so I shade with a hard light layer usually. The shadows hold strong vividity of color + it's a very flexible method for like. Cleanup on the fly. Plus you can do a lot of mood adjustment by playing with hue and saturation- I also like hitting lighting as a hard light layer, but please be advised this can end up looking a bit muddy if you're not careful (I run into this problem a lot)

If I run into contrast issues, I often find playing with gradient maps on a duplicate layer can help me figure out what my troubles are. Though be warned this CAN really muddy the colors, so try to be thoughtful using this.

Here's what I mean about colors tilted warm (this is not general advice but the mood I wanted to pursue in this drawing)- I then used a hard light overlay with a strongly saturated red, a purple on the cloak (it's fun to play around with this, sometimes you want all the same shadow color, sometimes you want to keep in mind each part's individual tone. It depends on the mood you're pursuing). The lighting here is a light green for contrast.

Hope this is what you were looking for! My advice is to play with every layer setting you possibly can. Try also to think about the material (I don't have this in my drawing at all but think about this- how does light pass over fur? How does light pass through clothing, based on different thicknesses? If light travels easier through a thin coat vs a thick scarf, how would this look different when you're painting color onto it?) and what mood you want your piece to carry.

Good luck out there !

[hotdogmchiggin]

Company Mandated Fancy Fits on the Tulpar 😏

Also had to include the REAL star of the show (and a bonus)

Based off of this and this. Thank you very much joetastic for being inspirational 👍

The REAL reason this is late

[terracottakore]

railroad rush! ⛏️💥(•_+)

[johnnyshrine]

★ 104 // “Well? Why aren’t you scrolling?”

Inspo:

[eggtomatosoup]

ready or not here i come... happy anniversary to 1000xresist!!!

[lisondraws]

All the time in the world -

Newmann Secret Santa for @pomeplanetary with some married and happy lovers!!! I really hope you will like it :'D

[taxinealkaloids]

kill your darling, it's just that easy!

[pineappical]

HI how did you add those textures to mspaint?!?!?

using this as an excuse to draw ted on mspaint again LOL

TL;DR, you click file on the top left, open properties, then under "Colors" you switch color to black and white

and you get halftones instead of colors :-]

(if you want some more tips and a little bit of process, click this 👇)

basically i start by drawing in color mode, mainly because i get "layers" in a way by using a different color for the sketch and using the eraser tool and holding right click to only erase the color i set in "Color 2" "COLOR 1"* (which in this case, the color i used for the sketch) to clean it up (WOOPS)

and then i switch to B&W mode and go crazy with the halftones :-]

i also use the eraser tool to color under the lineart in the same way just by switching up the colors

oh also you can change the size of the brushes, even the eraser by doing this ^_^ (only works if you have a numpad, unless there's another shortcut for it that i dont know??)

hope this made sense! 💛 PS. turn on transparent selection under the selection options (dotted square)

[kingofmyborrowedheart]

The Eras Tour | 2023-2024

[amogus-real-not-clickbait]

oopsie forgor to post this!!

part 4 of my little debut to carrot soup :] !!

| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | ..? |

this is all i've got for now! ive been low on motivation recently so im just kinda. trying to find something that sparks anything in me,, but i may draw more panels for this, who knows! my carrot soup appreciation days certainly aren't done soooooooo

(pssst. in case u forgor or didn't know. carrot soup is this really nice really sweet good nice fic series on ao3. by @crowned-ladybug. here it is pls check it out if u liked my little visual interpretation !! )

oh yea btw i hid an amogus in this one heheee ඞ

[rottenlaertes]

[sketchmre]

april 21st 2025 landscapes